Politics and Economics with a Twist

Winning Back the Country

2014-04-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

There is a chance for the Republican Party to win back the country in the upcoming mid-term elections and the 2016 Presidential election. A Gallup poll released in January 2014, showed that 42% of Americans identify themselves as Independents, 31% as Democrats and 25% as Republicans. (http://www.gallup.com/video/166814/americans-likely-identify-independents-democrats-republicans.aspx)

According to those numbers, 42% of the voting public can be swayed to go either way; this is the break the GOP and the Libertarian parties need. However, they must tread lightly and ruin this opportunity.

In order to get the Republican Party back in control, or even get the Libertarian Party off the ground, a few things need to happen. These same items need to be applied to both parties:

Figure out the core principles the party stands for and then stand behind those principles as a united front.

Stop making grand statements and trying to make too great of a change. People do not like change. While wanting to make big changes is a noble goal, it is not going to happen. Instead of wasting time, energy, and money on these “big” things, why not slow down and start with smaller changes. Many strong tea party supporters want to impeach Obama; that will not happen so why is it still being brought up? Change must start small, and generally there needs to be someone already in office who can help lobby for change. Here’s a message for the extreme/radical libertarians out there: Just because one might get elected does not mean the IRS or the FED will go away right away. That will take years, if not decades, to complete.

There is no way possible for this country’s tax system to be overhauled in a year, or even 4. No one is going to have the ability to immediately to drop the tax rate to 10% for everyone as soon as they get into office. Since this is the case why then, are people still campaigning on this idea trying instill false hope in the American people?

Guidelines for winning:

Receiving the minority vote is a requirement

The GOP will never win over the extremist minorities who believe that the GOP is evil. You cannot change their minds, so focus on the moderate minorities, the ones who can be swayed in a certain direction, especially the higher income minorities. Minority conservatives need to make their voice heard. People in general want to feel like they have something in common with other people. If conservative minorities come out, more people will feel like they can relate with them, which increases the chance of winning more of the vote.

Drop the extreme and radical ideology

The parties need middle of the road conservatives. Being liberal socially on the ideas of gay marriage, and immigration, yet remaining conservative when it comes to welfare reform, spending on extraneous government programs that haven’t proven to help, and tax reform, will engender a strong middle ground.

Must be able to talk to the millennial’s and receive the young vote

The question is, how does a party that’s known for being “old” obtain votes from the “young”? The GOP and Libertarian parties could focus on being “cool and hip” like the 2008 Obama campaign was, but that is almost placating to them.

I would suggest the following in addition to the previous things mentioned; these are almost required in order to attract the attention of youth:

You must talk on their level but not down to them. Many in the GOP, when they talk, have a condescending tone. Now, while it is true most Americans are not acutely aware of the inner workings of politics, you must find a way to discuss your points without making your audience feel like they are 12.

Make politics interesting. Sadly, most high school kids are not exposed to politics as often as they should be. Start using younger people within the GOP to hold press conferences. By doing this, you will be putting a younger face to the party and showing college age kids that they actually do have something in common with politics and that it is not just a bunch of old people.

Republicans already have the older vote, and for the most part the older people in country are not going to change their voting styles because they are set in their ways. Stop wasting so much energy with the AARP and other senior organizations, and start focusing on the other demographics, such as 18-29 year olds and the minorities.

Want a Libertarian in Office?

Before the general public will take the Libertarian Party seriously, it will require a politician that is running as a Republican or Democrat, but has many libertarian views to win. It appears that many local Libertarians are against that, and do not want to back away from what could almost be considered extreme ideology of the Libertarian party. It’s a “Fresh New Party” trying to elicit change throughout the political process. Remember what happened the last time the country wanted “Change”? We got Obama. The tactics the Libertarians running for office use, that I have seen, are truly no different than the tactics that Obama used when he ran for office. While the libertarian party has been around since 1978, the majority of Americans have not even hear of it. While Rand Paul has done a good job of bringing up the word in many of his speeches, America doesn’t believe that the party can truly win, and therefore will continue to vote for the “lesser of two evils”.

In my opinion, the number one item on the libertarian agenda should be to focus heavily on the swing states. Building the libertarian party in California is great, but California is not an immediate need, and lets face, it will never go to any other color than blue. Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Georgia, Virginia, these are the states that will do the greatest good in building the movement.

Truth of Unemployment Numbers

2014-01-05T10:25:00.001-08:00

Many statistics come out of Washington D.C. on a regular basis that determine the health of the countries economy and are a driving force for Wall Street. The Unemployment numbers that come out every month is one of the biggest since it is an index that is released every month vice every quarter like GDP estimates. This is also the index that many politicians especially the president use to make a claim that their policies are or are not working when it comes to job creation and growth. Many in the general public get excited and feel at ease when they hear that the unemployment rate has dropped; the issue with this is that for the most part the general public does not understand how the unemployment numbers are actually calculated and how easy it is to skew the numbers. Granted any numbers can be skewed, statisticians can make any number say what they want it to say, and lets face it economists are nothing more than statisticians that use a little bit of sociology and deal with money (and yes I realize that while I’m not a true economist yet, I do the same thing).

Unemployment numbers are calculated via surveys that are conducted by the Census Bureau. These surveys are supposed to be non-partisan but sometimes (most of the time), they aren’t. Every month the Census Bureau contacts 60,000 households and asks them a series of questions regarding various factors, such as how many people over the age of 16 live in the house (any individual over the age of 16 is considered “Working Age Population”); how many have worked in the past week, how many have looked for a job in the last 4 weeks, and so on. They also ask questions pertaining to consumer confidence and the consumer price index. On the surface to many people, this seems like it could be an accurate representation of the country as a whole, and while that could be true it’s not necessarily very accurate. The Census Bureau falls under the Department of Commerce, which is in the Executive Branch of government, headed by the President. This is where partisan politics comes into play. Lets say that the President is in a hard spot, maybe a scandal, maybe an upcoming reelection. In order to make the numbers look better, the census bureau can decide to call households that live in suburban America, places where historically unemployment hasn’t been as high and not call as many households located in the inner city where unemployment is a larger issue. This would result in a “lower” unemployment number than the previous month and the mainstream media would praise the government for doing something amazing; when in actuality nothing was really accomplished. Once the survey’s are conducted the numbers are handed over to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS); the BLS is responsible for breaking down the numbers and making the calculation, but remember they do not truly know how accurate the numbers are because the numbers were gathered by another agency.

Looking at how the numbers are actually calculated can cause some to raise their eyebrows and ask the question, how does this even make sense? There are several sets of numbers that have to be broken out in order to come up with the calculations:

Category	Definition
Working-Age Civilian Population	Anyone in a household over the age of 16 not in the military.
In The Labor Force	Either currently working or has looked for work in the past 4 weeks.
Employed	Worked at least 1 hour in the last week
Unemployed	Not working but has looked for a job in the past 4 weeks.
Not in the Labor Force	Has not looked for a job in the last 4 weeks.

While the categories seem to be straightforward, they tend to understate statistics, there are 3 groups that are vastly misrepresented within the survey:

Part-Time workers are classified as “working” but most are not working enough to support themselves or families and thus are still relying on government assistance, yes they’re working and the unemployment number goes down because of it, since they’re still relying on the government for help with housing and food, how exactly has that helped improve the economy?

Under Employed, those that have an advanced degree say in engineering, yet are working as an office assistant because that is the only job they could find. In Economics, we talk about “Full Potential” when it comes to things such as the economy, GDP, and unemployment. Full Potential means that everyone is employed in a position that is commensurate with his or her education and/or experience. In the case of the under employed worker they are not at their full potential and therefore should not be classified as truly employed.

Discouraged Workers, are those that are unemployed and more than likely have been for an extended period and have just given up on looking for employment, because they feel there is nothing out there for them. Given the BLS definition of “In the Labor Force” vs “Not in the Labor Force”, they are not in the labor force thus causing the unemployment number to drop, all because they haven’t looked for a job in the past 4 weeks. This could be caused by any number of reasons, they were too sick to work or maybe their spouse works and the family decided to go on a vacation. No matter the reason, this group of people should still be counted as in the labor force in order to show a truer unemployment number. I could go on and on about unemployment benefits and changes in the numbers but I will leave that for another post probably in February when I can prove a theory that I have.

Here is a graphic that illustrates how the percentages are calculated (I figured it would be easier to use picture than try to explain in words):

I hope this helps to illustrate the formulas used for the unemployment numbers, but more than that I’m hoping that people will take the numbers that come out of D.C. with a grain of salt. It is not hard to make the numbers say whatever will help the current administration gain approval rankings.

Also remember that in order to claim unemployment benefits you must be actively looking for a job, with the recent cut in unemployment benefits I’m almost willing to be that all of a sudden the unemployment numbers will drop and the government and mainstream media will praise the president for doing wonderful things to spur job growth, when in all reality all that has happened is people have moved from one category to the other, thus lowering the percentage.

Ideology vs Free Thinking

2013-12-24T13:33:00.000-08:00

Why is it necessary for everyone to fit into a certain ideological “box”? Aren’t we supposed to be the country of free thinkers? Ideology is involved in everything, which is not a bad thing; you do need a certain amount of ideology when it comes to life. After all these are the ideas that you believe to be true and essentially the “code” that one lives by. The problem with ideology is that if you identify with a certain group then everyone expects you to have the exact same ideas as they do, and if you don’t then to a certain extent then you get shunned. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of politics and religion, especially because the line between the two tends to get very fuzzy.

If people, especially politicians, would look at things from a logical or fact-based standpoint instead of a principles of party or fanatical standpoint maybe a greater good could be created for the country. It is seen all the time with issues such as gun control or gay rights. If you are a Democrat then by default you have to be for gun control and gay rights, if you’re not then a big deal is made of it and your name gets blasted all over the internet for going against what your party believes. The opposite is true of Republicans. Why is it so wrong for a person to have a differing view on one or two issues within their political party? Are we not allowed to be free thinkers anymore? It boils down to the need for everyone to feel like they have an identity and in this case it is a political identity. This is seen all over society. Supposed someone is a member of the NRA but a Democrat then they are scoffed at because they are then viewed as going against the democrat philosophies. Inversely someone that identifies as Republican and for gay rights then they are considered to be a RINO (Republican In Name Only). Republicans do tend to be a little more tolerant of differing views within their party than the Democrats. You have the Log Cabin Republicans who are for gay rights and equality yet still have the republican values of smaller government and lower taxes. The Democrats and Social Progressives preach for human rights, equal protection and freedom of speech, that is until someone says something that they do not agree with or believe then that person gets labeled a bigot and all of the social progressive groups will come after them and attempt to smear them through the left leaning media and across social media.

It is so contradictory, and that is why I believe it is so hard to get the younger people in America to actually have a passion for politics. Because of the issues with the current two party system I am a firm believer in the Libertarian Party. The “hard stances” of the libertarian party is smaller government in all facets of life and free market capitalism. Granted there is a lot more to the parties beliefs than just those facets, but that is a pretty good overview.

If you are interested in learning more about the libertarian party check out some of the following resources:

National Libertarian Party Web-Site www.lp.org

Smallest Political Quiz: www.theadvocates.org/quiz/quiz.php

Watch The Independents on Fox Business Network (I’m pretty sure it is the first Libertarian News Show on mainstream cable.)

Divorce Court???

2013-10-05T17:23:00.001-07:00

The government shutdown has resulted in a lot of finger pointing as to which side is truly at fault. The truth of the matter is that both sides are at fault, however, it is truly a rhetorical analysis with no definite answer. It all depends on the beliefs of the individual and when you're dealing with beliefs it will never result in a true right or wrong answer. The other part of the equation is that most people don't follow politics in depth which results in believing the basic ideological notion of the party they feel they are a part of. With all of this being said the government shutdown is the fault of both sides.

President Obama can not negotiate on the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare), because that is his dream child and after loosing the Syria fight to Russia he must stand his ground on this issue in order to be taken seriously through 2016. On the other side, the republicans in the house were voted in to fight against the plans of President Obama. In order for the republicans to stay relevant and maintain control in the house and hopefully gain control in the senate they have to maintain their ground.

I am predicting that the current shutdown will stay in effect until the debt ceiling must be increased in order to allow more bargaining power for both sides.
Unfortunately this is going to result in a decrease in the US's credit rating and will ultimately hurt all citizens. In all reality the House and Senate need to meet with a high school guidance counselor who can teach them how to actually mediate and work out their problems, or maybe they need to see a marriage counselor, because if they don't this divorce is going to get super ugly and all of us, their children, or going to suffer.

MMMM Meat...Except on Monday

2013-09-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

This year the San Diego Unified School District has decided to implement “Meatless Mondays” in the elementary schools. I know many people that do “Meatless Mondays”. Essentially you don’t eat meat on Mondays and instead replace it with vegetable substitutes. The reasoning behind this is that by getting kids to do this at a young age will help to teach them better nutrition habits. And in a world where childhood obesity is on a sharp rise I have to applaud them in the effort. However, replacing one meal at school a week with no meat doesn’t do much for the actual diets of kids. These diets need to be enforced at home as well. It seems as though the city has taken on a position of raising the kids vice letting the parents do it. On the news it was reported that the schools had veggie burgers, and various other wonderful vegetable dishes (I can’t believe I just said wonderful vegetables), but they also had cheese pizza. So now you’ve taken an idea that is supposed to be healthier and thrown pizza into the mix. News Flash!!!! Just because you take the pepperoni off of a pizza does not all of a sudden make it healthy. I am all for children learning proper nutrition. I, for one, subscribe to the Paleo, or caveman, diet. In this diet you cut out all the processed foods that are commonplace in this day and age and only eat things that you can grow or kill. Since I’ve been doing it, I have felt a lot better and managed to lose weight rather quickly, but children won’t be rushing to their parents saying that they can’t eat the various things from fast food restaurants. Education about nutrition needs to be given to the parents to ensure that their child eats what is right, and at the same time it is up to the parents and their beliefs about what is healthy and what isn’t. On the other hand you have the overly strict parents that won’t let their children eat any of the “tasty” stuff so when they go to school they look forward to a little bit of “junk” at lunch.

I applaud San Diego Unified for trying to help curb a problem that is taking the country by storm, but a lot more needs to be done than just not serving meat on Mondays to get kids to like veggies and other healthy options. Maybe tailor nutrition education to the youngsters. I think Dr. Oz should do a children version and make it super gross. Kids love the gross stuff, just look at the slime on Nickelodeon. Do they even have that anymore? I live with a 3-year old so haven’t watched Nickelodeon in many, many years.

Trophies for Everyone

2013-09-06T17:10:00.002-07:00

The Ontario Soccer Association has decided to do away with scorekeeping and standings in youth soccer. To take things even further in this “political correctness” and “every kid is a winner,” the Midlake, Ontario Soccer Association has decided to completely remove the ball from youth soccer games and practices. According to Helen Dabney-Coyle, a spokesperson for the Association, “By removing the ball, it’s absolutely impossible to say ‘this team won’ and ‘this team lost’ or ‘this child is better at soccer than that child.’” They want children to learn that sports is not about competition, rather about using your imagination. If you imagine that you’re good at soccer, then you are.

This has taken the “everyone that competes will get a trophy” to the next level. When I was growing up, I was not good at sports, so I stuck with things that I was good at, academics and music. My brother, on the other hand, has always been very athletic. The fact that I lost at every athletic event I tried to compete in didn’t harm me, or make me fragile. Instead, it taught me to work towards the things I am good at and to realize that not everyone is good at everything.

Society as a whole is already falling into a trap I like to refer to as the spoiled brat syndrome. I see it in college right now. These new incoming freshman feel entitled, they think that they’re owed something. We saw it with the Occupy Wall Street crowd; the people in big corporations should give their money to people who don’t make as much. Why? Because they think that’s the right thing to do. In reality, the right thing to do is get up, get an education and a degree in something that matters, like Science, Engineering, or Math, versus a degree in something that really doesn’t have a use like Women’s Studies or LGBT Studies. I'm not saying that these degrees don’t have a use, but they should be a second degree not a first degree. What are you actually going to be able to do with one of those obscure degrees if you haven’t established credibility in the workplace yet?

Kids need to realize that they will succeed at some things and fail at others. Parents need to quit protecting and sheltering their children so much that they develop a false sense of entitlement; instead they should teach them how the real world actually works. What this group in Canada is essentially saying is that if I dream that I’m good at math then I really am, when in reality I have a 65%. What’s going to happen next? Someone believes that they’re a good doctor, so therefore they start practicing medicine? What are they going to tell the medical board? You should give me my medical license because I believe I’m a good doctor and disregard the fact that I failed medical school?

Society needs to wake up and look at what is going on around it. It’s already infecting our college systems, and the entry-level job positions post college. Just wait until it moves its way on up in to management.

No Score Soccer for Kids

Let Every Child Win

Do Electric Cars = Zero Emissions? Part 1

2013-09-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

Preface: The initial thought for this post and topic was for it to be much longer, but I have decided to break it down to multiple parts to better analyze different aspects of electric vehicles.

Electric Cars are not truly Zero Emissions, like the manufactures, and the government would have you believe. A 2012 analysis in the Journal of Industrial Ecology showed that almost half the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an electric car comes from the energy used to produce the car, especially the batteries; conversely a gas-powered car accounts for only 17% of its lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from manufacturing. This equates to 30,000 pounds for an electric car and 14,000 pounds for a gas car at the completion of manufacturing.

Currently, the Nissan Leaf has an estimated range of 73 miles per charge, and Nissan estimates that after five years the batteries will degrade down to approximately 55 miles per charge. Assuming that the car is driven a very conservative 10,000 miles per year, and most people will then trade in the vehicle at the 5 year mark due to the degradation in battery life, then the very large initial emissions from its manufacture will cause it to put more carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere than a gas powered car of similar size driven the same number of miles. A similar sized gas powered car puts out 12 ounces of carbon-dioxide for every mile driven. Assuming that the electric car is charged from an electric grid that is still using fossil fueled power plants (which most are and probably won’t be changing over to nuclear anytime soon, due to the fear of nuclear energy, but that’s for a different post) the electric car will be responsible for the emission of close to 15 ounces of CO2 for every mile driven.

Doing a little math we can break it down this way:

	Electric Car	Gas Car
Carbon Output at Manufacture in Pounds	30,000	14,000
Ounces per Mile Driven	15	12
Miles Driven	50000	50000

Total Carbon Output in Pounds	76,875	51,500

The electric vehicle will not have a lower carbon footprint until the gas vehicle has traveled at least 84,000 miles. Given the current average lifespan of a car at 200,000 miles, by driving an electric car you would reduce carbon dioxide output by 46.8%, but that is only if you drive one electric car and then stop driving all together. Over the life span of a gasoline car of comparable size to that of the current electric cars, such as the Nissan Leaf or Ford Focus, the carbon output is 164,000 pounds. Let us assume that once the batteries in your “Zero Emissions” vehicle start to decline at 50,000 miles, and you trade in your car and buy a new one, you have just added 30,000 pounds of carbon without even driving a mile. In fact, in order to go the same distance in an electric vehicle as a gas vehicle, you would have to go through four electric vehicles resulting in a total carbon output of 307,500 pounds. That equals 143,500 more pounds of carbon than would have been produced by only driving a gasoline car. Of course, all of the figures assume that you never drive a gasoline car at all, which most people are unable to do at this time because of the limited range of current electric vehicles.

Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Electric Vehicles

Nissan Leaf Specs

This is only part 1, in later posts we will look at the day to day costs of driving electric vs conventional. I'm interested to hear your thoughts below.

A Whole New Outlook on Things

2013-09-03T22:55:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Politics and Economics with a twist. My hope is that you will find this blog informative, insightful, and get you thinking in a different mind set. I have created this out of a sort of necessity, for you see I can be very opinioned just like anyone who writes about political issues, but at the same time, I try to use some truth in making my opinions. Numbers are one of the best ways to show facts and make a point. Granted I know that you can make statistics say anything you want them to and there might even be instances where the stats that I find might play more to my line of thinking, but I try to find information from the true source of the topic at hand.

Now I know you’re probably wondering who I am and why have I decided to start yet another blog about politics. Well I’m an 11-year Navy veteran, a small business owner, a full time college student, a libertarian, and I’m gay. There is a reason that I put those items in that order, because that’s what makes me, me. There are way too many people out there that believe that if you fit into a subset of a community then you need to subscribe to that communities views. I’m hoping to dispel that myth.

I spent 11 years in the Navy working in IT with a specialty in Information Assurance and Security. I come from a military upbringing as well, mom and dad are both retired from the USAF and my brother is currently a pilot in the Air Force, so you could say I’m the black sheep of the family by choosing to go Navy, but I wouldn’t have changed that decision for anyone. After leaving the Navy I worked for a government contractor for 2 years, then decided to break off and start my own IT Consulting firm. While running my own company I’m also a full time student getting a dual major in Management Information Systems & Finance with a minor in quantitative economics.

This brings us to the next two topics, libertarian and gay. The majority of gay people are democrats because they’re allegedly the ones that support gay rights. You then have the gays that are republicans that are called “Log Cabin Republicans”. I have always been more on the republican side of politics, but once I learned about the libertarian party they’re the ones that just seemed to make sense to me. I’m not going to break down all the views of the libertarian party, but I will place a link to their main site if you’re interested in learning more. The overall Libertarian belief system is live and let live. Your freedom stops at the very point another person’s freedom begins. Don’t harm, or defraud anyone, defend yourself, but don’t initiate force. Under the libertarian philosophy you can be gay, you can have a committed relationship with whomever you choose. We also believe that governments that govern best govern least. Essentially it boils down to do your actions and/or beliefs affect someone else? If not then it’s not a big deal. There are some issues that differ between the libertarians and the gay rights movement. One of those being hate crimes. A libertarian believes there is no differentiation of crime. Libertarians don’t care the motivation, harm someone and you’re going to pay the price. Criminal activity is criminal activity.

I won’t just be covering politics on here; we’ll also take a look at various things that are affecting the economy as well, such as raising the minimum wage. Politics and Economics truly do go hand in hand. That must be why you the economics and political science majors have a lot of the same general courses.

I hope you enjoy this exciting journey that I'm going to take you all on. My goal is to release at least one blog a week on differing issues. Some of them may not be as current as others but all of them will be things that I do feel very strongly about and think that everyone should take a closer look at and examine in maybe a different way than they thought of before.

~J~