Our Government, is it Honest?

Well an admitted liar has resigned as the press secretary for the administration that easily holds the record for most lies.

I have no idea what the future holds for her and in some respects she simply carried out the orders of the main liar, but don't think that is going to be much of an excuse, although she probably will end up with the so called news channel that host the most liars.

We seem to accept that lying is commonplace and we see so much of it we don't register much shock anymore.

There is of course a history of how lying became something we expected from the Government and which now has eroded some basic aspects of society.

There were probably always some misinformation but the revelations in the Pentagon Papers had a significant impact on the American psyche.  Followed up shortly thereafter with Iran-Contra and we were off to the races.

As the Internet grew we got Wiki-Leaks where secrets were revealed some of which contradicted public positions.

We have evolved to the point where everybody is either lying or accusing other of lying.

We need to restore trust in our Government, that they aren't covering up things that we need to know, like contaminates in our water supply or other dangers to our health and safety.

This is supposed to be our Government and it should have our interests as its primary concern.

Unfortunately too often it seems that large companies that can make large donations get the consideration.

That needs to change.

Checks and Balances

We are currently in the midst of a constitutional crisis concerning the roles of the legislature and the executive branches.

Most Americans don't seem to care very much.

Our Government is a series of checks and balances.

The Executive branch was recognized as the one with the greatest opportunity for abuse of power so congress was given two significant checks on that power.

First it has the power of the purse meaning that its the only branch that can authorize funds.

Second it has the power of oversight,

While there have been some abuses of the first check we are seeing an outright refusal of the current administration to allow the oversight to proceed.

This is a challenge to the very nature of our Government and shouldn't be tolerated.

Are Americans Entitled to Know?

During the Watergate crisis, President Nixon went on the air and said Americans needed to know if the President was a crook, and that he wasn't one.

Of course that wasn't completely true and as the investigation and hearings proceeded he eventually resigned from office.

We now have an administration that is effectively saying the same thing (no collusion, no obstruction) although the report he cites doesn't actually support either statement.

There was plenty of collusion, which by the way isn't the actual crime and clear evidence of obstruction.  Not all of it was by the current President, although a simple reading of the report is that if he wasn't the President he would have been charged.

Congress is conducting hearings to try to get to the truth, but the administration is unprecedented fashion is both refusing to testify and claiming executive privilege.

Whether the hearings would indicate that there were actual crimes committed or not would of course require the hearings to be conducted.

This is one of Congress' responsibilities to oversee the Executive branch and make sure they are acting in accordance with the law.

Americans do have the right to know and the Congress has the obligation to find our.

If the administration has nothing to hide, the question is what are they worried about?

Wrong Question

You see a lot of talk about whether we can afford things like universal health care, or secure retirements for all,

I think that is the wrong question.  Providing every member of our society with needed health care or a comfortable retirement after years of service isn't a matter of cost, its an obligation.

The idea that some members of our society will be forced to go without treatment is simply not an option.

Also, our seniors shouldn't be choosing between necessities because they can't afford to live comfortably.

Even primitive societies provided these things to their members and it is morally reprehensible not to.

Will the solutions cost money?  It may require some changes in how the money is flowed but generally it won't necessarily cost more than our current systems.  If you consider the amount countries that provide universal health care spend to us, we spend more.

Is our care better?  Perhaps in some cases, but on the whole it isn't.

So the question shouldn't be "Can we afford it?", it should be "How do we fund it?".

Efficient Production

There is a fundamental economic principle which is that production will migrate to the most efficient method.

This is simply because the most efficient method will be able to compete better than all the other methods.  This is not an instantaneous change, although it can happen rapidly at times.

You also have to consider what is the discriminating factor.

Certainly coffee made at home is more efficient in price than coffee bought outside, but the second may actually be more efficient from a time perspective, especially considering the range of choices provided.

Still certainly for commodities and manufactured items, price is usually the deciding factor.

This has led to the decline in American manufacturing as advances in trade and transportation have allowed other countries to compete effectively in our markets.

The more significant labor is as a cost, the more competitive cheap labor countries become.  Of course we are also replacing expensive labor with robots and automation leaving us with our current situation, which is to some extent a real crisis.

Communities that were thriving with a local manufacturing plant are in many cases faced with real economic hardship as those plants have closed.  Those that have stayed open have oftentimes survived by automating and eliminating jobs.

Labor is obviously people and our economy is consumer driven, once again people.  People who make less spend less.  Sometimes not at first, they dip into savings, home equity, and incur credit card debt, but eventually those sources dry up.

Eventually some new equilibrium is reached, but to get there a lot of pain is required.

Reality Show?

The "crisis" with Mexico is now resolved, at least for the time being.

Of course last week we didn't have a crisis, than we did, now we don't.

It might depend on any number of factors, indigestion, insomnia, slow Taco delivery.

I've been trying to see what was gained from the ruckus and I can't figure it out, so I'll wait for someone else to.

I would suspect the best way to tell would be to see if the number of undocumented immigrants seeking asylum goes down.

Still if you ever watched the show Apprentice, you know the winners and losers sometimes were measured by very subjective criteria.

Think they wanted to keep everyone is suspense as long as possible for the reveal at the end when he would declare your fired after reciting some convoluted rationale.

Sometimes it made almost no sense at all but it was real, although it was called a reality show.

Much like this presidency.

Incels

The internet has turned some things that used to be simply gripe sessions into causes.

Take for example Incels (Involuntarily celibate).  We used to call that a bad weekend or a losing streak.

Now it is apparently a societal plot by the secret women societies to exclude any men who don't exhibit the right set of feature to be worthy of selection.

Of course in today's world there actually is a method of selection, swipe right or swipe left.

We had to depend on less certain signs, like did she return your smile?

This required people to leave their house and be in close proximity to the opposite sex, say at high school dances.

I think they still have those but I would be surprised if they aren't going silent as everyone listens to their own music via headphones.

The fact that this sort of negates the social concept of a dance.

It certainly limits conversation.

Of course one would think that the problem exists in both sexes.  Maybe its the involuntary part that's different, its always been generally believed that it was the women who decided that question.

Still using the odd definitions of today, I suppose if they reject less than perfect partners and the most desirable partners reject less than desirable partners, there should be large groups on both sides.

Seems like a story as old as time.