The American Pundit Class has been crying in their beer since Tuesday night. They didn't want The Donald to win, and they had predicted that he wouldn't. Now, they are upset to find The Donald will be President of the US in a couple of months, and they are scrabbling around for an excuse for their failed predictions.
They talk about the Hispanic vote, the black vote, the LGBT vote, the college educated vote, the White Working Class (now sporting a new acronym, the WWC) vote, the millennium vote (was that the name of a Star Wars spaceship?), and every other minority group they can invent. Or they are blaming the pollsters.
Little to no talk about the women's vote. Women are half the population, vastly larger than all the "minority groups" put together. A couple of internet postings mention in passing that Hillary got 54% of the women's vote. They didn't give The Donald's share of the women's vote, but let's just assume any women who didn't vote Hillary voted Trump, which would give Trump 46%. And a difference of 8%. From a women voting population of 123 million, 8% is 9.84 million more women's votes for Hillary than for Trump. Are there that many Hispanics or blacks in the whole country? Given The Donald's crude remarks about women that came out in the campaign, that 8% margin for Hillary is understandable. The Donald can be very offensive when he sets his mind to it.
The real question about the election results is how The Donald managed to squeak out his victory over that 9.84 million women's votes against him. He did, somehow, and that's impressive.
Next time, the Republicans need to think about doing something about that ginormous number of women who didn't/won't vote Trump. Next time the Democrats will have stronger candidate, nearly anyone with a pulse would be a stronger candidate than Hillary was.
I wonder why the pundits aren't talking about the women's vote?
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Trump ought to do Income Tax Reform ASAP
The income tax, both personal and corporate, is killing the economy. Taxes are too high, highest in the world for corporations. No wonder American corporations are leaving for overseas, the taxes are lower overseas. And too damn complicated. Ever since income tax was invented way back in 1913, every special interest has been adding little loopholes to the tax code to let them skate free. Big companies and rich people who can afford enough lawyers can figure out ways to avoid taxes. Ordinary people just get soaked.
Carly Fiorina had the right idea. "Close every loophole, lower every rate." Gaping loopholes needing closure: Mortgage interest deductions, depreciation of real estate, capital gains, loss carry forward, carried interest, electric car subsidies. And lots more. I only know the income tax code well enough to do my own taxes, with an assist from Excel. The real tax dodger lawyers, and for that matter The Donald himself, know of plenty more. Loopholes favor the big and the wealthy, finding them or making new ones gives big money to the lawyer class, and it makes people and companies pour money into things that don't produce wealth, they just dodge taxes. We would be better off without loopholes. I'd trade my loopholes for a couple of percent lower tax rate any day ( or any tax year).
We ought to have just three tax rates, one for the very wealthy, one for ordinary citizens, and one for the truly poor. I do believe the truly poor ought to pay a little something, just so they feel some hurt every time a new handout is voted in. The "breakpoints" between truly poor, ordinary citizen and very wealthy ought to be indexed for inflation. Otherwise Uncle Sam gets an automatic tax hike every year as inflation pushes everyone up into the next higher tax bracket.
Ignore the Democrats who will claim that tax cuts are "for the rich". Right now half the population pays no income tax. Tax cuts only help those who pay taxes. The way Democrats say it, if you pay taxes you are a member of the evil rich. Ignore this malarkey.
Carly Fiorina had the right idea. "Close every loophole, lower every rate." Gaping loopholes needing closure: Mortgage interest deductions, depreciation of real estate, capital gains, loss carry forward, carried interest, electric car subsidies. And lots more. I only know the income tax code well enough to do my own taxes, with an assist from Excel. The real tax dodger lawyers, and for that matter The Donald himself, know of plenty more. Loopholes favor the big and the wealthy, finding them or making new ones gives big money to the lawyer class, and it makes people and companies pour money into things that don't produce wealth, they just dodge taxes. We would be better off without loopholes. I'd trade my loopholes for a couple of percent lower tax rate any day ( or any tax year).
We ought to have just three tax rates, one for the very wealthy, one for ordinary citizens, and one for the truly poor. I do believe the truly poor ought to pay a little something, just so they feel some hurt every time a new handout is voted in. The "breakpoints" between truly poor, ordinary citizen and very wealthy ought to be indexed for inflation. Otherwise Uncle Sam gets an automatic tax hike every year as inflation pushes everyone up into the next higher tax bracket.
Ignore the Democrats who will claim that tax cuts are "for the rich". Right now half the population pays no income tax. Tax cuts only help those who pay taxes. The way Democrats say it, if you pay taxes you are a member of the evil rich. Ignore this malarkey.
Friday, November 11, 2016
Facebook and Fake News
Facebook has been running a series of fake news articles. Each one announces the death of a celebrity (Clint Eastwood, Angelina Joli, and the like). In actual fact, all these "victims" as still alive and well. Facebook really ought to shut this down. It ruins the Facebook reputation.
Right now, I don't believe any news posted on Facebook. If in doubt, I go to good old reliable InstaPundit or Drudge. If it ain't on either of those, then it didn't really happen.
Right now, I don't believe any news posted on Facebook. If in doubt, I go to good old reliable InstaPundit or Drudge. If it ain't on either of those, then it didn't really happen.
Does the Pentagon Need an Acquisition Chief??
Title of an article in Aviation Week. They have one now. The incumbent, Frank Kendall, claims that cost overruns were 51% before his time and he has reduced them to 5%. His job is on the line, latest Senate defense authorization bill would remove it and replace it with two lower ranking slots, one for R&D and one for "management and support" what ever that might be. Pure paperwork perhaps?
Acquisition is a serious problem at the Pentagon. Look at the F35 program, a decade late and zillions over budget. There was a new Marine One helicopter program that got so far out of line that Obama had it canceled. The KC-46 tanker is years late and under attack by nit pickers. I don't follow the new programs as closely as I used to back when I was a serving Air Force officer. So there has got to be more grief out there.
Success or failure (cost overruns and delays) rest with program management. Take F-35 for example. It's problems can be laid at the feet of F35 program management. Extra layers of Pentagon paper pushers have nothing to do with it.
Every military officer in program management needs to know that his Officer Efficiency Report (his future promotion chances) rest upon program success. Bring the program in on time and under budget and you get ranked at the top. If the program is late or overbudget, you get ranked at the bottom.
Program management needs to have input to the specification writing. Many program disasters result from ridiculous specifications, spec that called for unobtainium, or faster than light, or other things impossible to actually make. Or, gold plating the project with nice-to-have but not really necessary expensive gadgets. I'm thinking of the Tactical Situation Display in the old F106. It never worked, and the plane flew and fought successfully without it. Or the C-5 program which sank under the weight of impossible to make requirements. Or the F35 burdened with an airborne digital networking system, and Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) systems neither of which are needed in a fighter. Fighter planes are expensive and should concentrate on air superiority, shooting down enemy aircraft and attacking enemy ground troops. We have recon aircraft, drones, and satellites for ISR.
Then program management has to iron out the myriad boggles and whoopsies that come up during the program. Specifications almost but not quite met. Subsystems that just don't work. Program management must be prepared to accept small shortcomings when the cost of fixing them is high. And be prepared to just dump subsystems that aren't working. And accept cost reduction suggestions from the contractor.
Trump needs a good, intelligent defense secretary to sort this stuff out. The current secdef, Ash Carter isn't bad. John McCain would be good, he at least knows the issues and knows which end is up.
Acquisition is a serious problem at the Pentagon. Look at the F35 program, a decade late and zillions over budget. There was a new Marine One helicopter program that got so far out of line that Obama had it canceled. The KC-46 tanker is years late and under attack by nit pickers. I don't follow the new programs as closely as I used to back when I was a serving Air Force officer. So there has got to be more grief out there.
Success or failure (cost overruns and delays) rest with program management. Take F-35 for example. It's problems can be laid at the feet of F35 program management. Extra layers of Pentagon paper pushers have nothing to do with it.
Every military officer in program management needs to know that his Officer Efficiency Report (his future promotion chances) rest upon program success. Bring the program in on time and under budget and you get ranked at the top. If the program is late or overbudget, you get ranked at the bottom.
Program management needs to have input to the specification writing. Many program disasters result from ridiculous specifications, spec that called for unobtainium, or faster than light, or other things impossible to actually make. Or, gold plating the project with nice-to-have but not really necessary expensive gadgets. I'm thinking of the Tactical Situation Display in the old F106. It never worked, and the plane flew and fought successfully without it. Or the C-5 program which sank under the weight of impossible to make requirements. Or the F35 burdened with an airborne digital networking system, and Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) systems neither of which are needed in a fighter. Fighter planes are expensive and should concentrate on air superiority, shooting down enemy aircraft and attacking enemy ground troops. We have recon aircraft, drones, and satellites for ISR.
Then program management has to iron out the myriad boggles and whoopsies that come up during the program. Specifications almost but not quite met. Subsystems that just don't work. Program management must be prepared to accept small shortcomings when the cost of fixing them is high. And be prepared to just dump subsystems that aren't working. And accept cost reduction suggestions from the contractor.
Trump needs a good, intelligent defense secretary to sort this stuff out. The current secdef, Ash Carter isn't bad. John McCain would be good, he at least knows the issues and knows which end is up.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Trump ought to cancel Obamacare ASAP
Obamacare is going broke, insurers are bailing out, and it is a terrific drag on the economy, plus most of the voters don't like it. First we need to get a simple one page bill thru Congress that completely puts away the present 5000 page law. Democrats in the Senate will try to block it, but we ought to be able to stir up public opinion to undermine them.
After the present law is scrapped pass a few things to help out. Most (75%) Americans get very decent health insurance thru their jobs. Obamacare only effected the self employed, and the unemployed. The big companies have lawyers and experts and they drive a hard bargain with the insurance companies. Any insurance company will bend over backward for a customer like GM or Walmart. This makes the company insurance policies the best and cheapest it is possible to write. All that is necessary is to pass a law requiring insurance companies to sell their best policy to the general public at the same price their big company customers pay for it. This will let the self employed get insurance at a reasonable rate.
Then a little competition is good for pricing. Pass a law that allows any American insurance company to sell insurance in all fifty states of the Union. Right now, to sell insurance in a state, the insurance company has to go to the various state insurance commissions, do a thousand pounds of paperwork, kneel on the floor and bang there heads against the bureaucrat's desk. This is such a drag, that for small or thinly populated states, they just don't bother. And so, the citizen's of such states (like New Hampshire!) only have one insurance company to buy from. And ripped off they get. We could fix that easily. The insurance companies won't like it, but they don't vote.
Then we could cut drug prices with a law that allows duty free import of medicine to the US from reasonable first world countries (Canada, Britain, Japan and so forth). Whether or not said medicine has FDA approval. If the authorities in reasonable first world countries have OKed the drug for their citizens, then it's good enough for American citizens. The drug companies and the FDA will hate this idea, but again, they don't vote.
After the present law is scrapped pass a few things to help out. Most (75%) Americans get very decent health insurance thru their jobs. Obamacare only effected the self employed, and the unemployed. The big companies have lawyers and experts and they drive a hard bargain with the insurance companies. Any insurance company will bend over backward for a customer like GM or Walmart. This makes the company insurance policies the best and cheapest it is possible to write. All that is necessary is to pass a law requiring insurance companies to sell their best policy to the general public at the same price their big company customers pay for it. This will let the self employed get insurance at a reasonable rate.
Then a little competition is good for pricing. Pass a law that allows any American insurance company to sell insurance in all fifty states of the Union. Right now, to sell insurance in a state, the insurance company has to go to the various state insurance commissions, do a thousand pounds of paperwork, kneel on the floor and bang there heads against the bureaucrat's desk. This is such a drag, that for small or thinly populated states, they just don't bother. And so, the citizen's of such states (like New Hampshire!) only have one insurance company to buy from. And ripped off they get. We could fix that easily. The insurance companies won't like it, but they don't vote.
Then we could cut drug prices with a law that allows duty free import of medicine to the US from reasonable first world countries (Canada, Britain, Japan and so forth). Whether or not said medicine has FDA approval. If the authorities in reasonable first world countries have OKed the drug for their citizens, then it's good enough for American citizens. The drug companies and the FDA will hate this idea, but again, they don't vote.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Stock Futures? Investment or Gambling?
First I have heard that we even had a stock futures market. During the long election night Fox mentioned that US stock futures had taken a serious dive, hundreds of points, as Trump's election victory became clearer and clearer as the night wore on. But, in the morning when the real stock market opened, everything was hunky dory, the Dow went up a couple a hundred points over the day.
Why do we have a futures market in stocks. Futures markets were invented for agricultural commodities, crops, which are in oversupply right after harvest, and become scarcer and scarcer as the once a year harvest gets used up. Used to be, if you were a farmer, you could get much better prices for your crop if you waited til well after harvest to sell it. Which takes money for the farmer to do. He has bills that have to be paid, and he needs the money from selling the crop. If said farmer has some cash in his checking account, he can wait, but few farmets have that much money in their checking accounts.
So, they invented futures markets. The producer makes a contract with the consumer to deliver a big load of crop, sometime in the future, at an agreed on price. And these contracts can be traded or sold, along with the crops. This smooths out crop prices over the year, which is a good thing for the producers. And as crop prices move up and down, futures contracts offer a way to bet on price movements. In fact the gambling angle proved so popular that futures markets in things that are not seasonal, like gasoline and jet fuel, were created. Southwest airlines was very good at playing the futures market in jet fuel and saved themselves a ton of money.
And, so, we now have a futures market in stocks. They are not seasonal, and the real stock market is open five days a week every week. Far as I can see, stock futures are just pure gambling. We ought to tax the hell out it.
Why do we have a futures market in stocks. Futures markets were invented for agricultural commodities, crops, which are in oversupply right after harvest, and become scarcer and scarcer as the once a year harvest gets used up. Used to be, if you were a farmer, you could get much better prices for your crop if you waited til well after harvest to sell it. Which takes money for the farmer to do. He has bills that have to be paid, and he needs the money from selling the crop. If said farmer has some cash in his checking account, he can wait, but few farmets have that much money in their checking accounts.
So, they invented futures markets. The producer makes a contract with the consumer to deliver a big load of crop, sometime in the future, at an agreed on price. And these contracts can be traded or sold, along with the crops. This smooths out crop prices over the year, which is a good thing for the producers. And as crop prices move up and down, futures contracts offer a way to bet on price movements. In fact the gambling angle proved so popular that futures markets in things that are not seasonal, like gasoline and jet fuel, were created. Southwest airlines was very good at playing the futures market in jet fuel and saved themselves a ton of money.
And, so, we now have a futures market in stocks. They are not seasonal, and the real stock market is open five days a week every week. Far as I can see, stock futures are just pure gambling. We ought to tax the hell out it.
Healing the wounds of the election. Let Hillary off.
I'm gonna offer advice to the incoming Trump Administration, while it is still incoming. My first advice is to drop prosecution of Hillary Clinton over the emails or any other matter. She lost the election. She doesn't hold public office, she will be too old to run again in 2020. She's harmless now. Let her go. You could probably gin up your Justice Dept to prosecute and even win a court case against her. Don't. She cannot do you any harm now. And prosecuting her will really piss off all her friends and supporters. Of which there are a lot. People you want to win over to your side, not kick in the head. Don't be divisive when you don't need to be.
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