Those of us who read…and generally read well…have a hard time understanding why so many can’t read all that well or can’t read at all. We also don’t comprehend why so many can’t comprehend what they read. After all, it isn’t all that difficult. Is it? Well, actually it is.

Part of the reason is due to the way reading is taught in what passes for schools these days. For example, there’s see-say, which is essentially word recognition/memorization. The disadvantage to that one? If you’ve never seen the word, you don’t have a clue what it is and can’t say (or pronounce) it. You also don’t have a clue as to what it means or how to use it in its proper context.

Even phonics, which is making a comeback in some areas, isn’t taught the way it should be. Take a look on the internet and you’ll find page after page of phonics programs for sale that purport to help the child learn to read. But every one of them, at least the sites I’ve looked at, overcomplicate the process. When you look at the price of the programs that they’re so anxious to sell you, it’s apparent why the overcomplication exists.

What people forget is that reading has always existed, whether pictographs or words and somehow they learned to read without the ‘benefits’ of an entire industry claiming to teach you to read but whose primary focus was your money. Illiteracy has never been as widespread as most think, nor has the lack of school attendance stood as proof positive that one cannot read or read well. And let’s not forget that books were among the most prized of trade goods in America’s old west.

Whiskey & Gunpowder’s own beloved Linda Brady Traynham has written an in-depth discussion of reading that I’m assuming has appeared before my own comments. If you haven’t read it yet, go back and do so before you go any farther in this one.

Simply put, and as Linda has so expertly explained it, teaching someone to read is not difficult, nor does it require multi-hundred dollar programs broken into multiple parts that keep you on the hook for ever more material. You simply learn the sounds of the letters, how they’re put together, certain basic rules and you’re done. But that’s the problem. It’s too easy. If there isn’t some way to develop a self-perpetuating industry on the subject that keeps the cash register ringing, it isn’t worth bothering with. What people can’t get thru their heads is that everything doesn’t have to take that approach.

Another part of the problem lands squarely at the feet of the parents. You’ve heard that before in relation to many different subjects, probably to the point of nausea, but it’s as true today as it has always been. For example, when I was growing up, my mother had a friend who did absolutely nothing to help her son prepare for first grade. Her attitude was that it was the school’s responsibility to teach him to read, learn to tell time, etc. Frankly, I’m surprised that he could tie his shoes before starting school! It got so bad that she would go on to work at the telephone company, leaving a six year old kid to wake up, dress himself, get his own breakfast and then to school on time. What was the end result of all this? He was in a lousy marriage and the last I heard of him he was in his 30s when he told my mother, “I hate my mother.”

On the flip side of the coin are those parents, mothers primarily but many fathers as well, who make every effort to encourage their children, help them succeed and supplement what they learn in school. And they don’t wait until they’re school age to begin teaching them.

Linda Brady Traynham and my own mother are excellent examples of what I’m talking about in different ways. Linda, as those of you who read her regularly know, has multiple college degrees and would generally be regarded as highly educated. My mother was a high school graduate in 1922 and spent 31 years working for AT&T as an operator. Retiring from AT&T because of my bad health during childhood, she spent the next 33 years working PBX boards at newspapers, hospitals and department stores. But she was ahead of her time in a lot of ways.

I literally have no knowledge of learning to read. In some respects I suppose I taught myself, but I’d suggest my mother laid the groundwork. She read to me constantly, encouraging me to read along and even read to her myself. I had alphabet blocks from infancy and she also taught me the alphabet using flash cards. What’s interesting is that she always argued that phonics didn’t teach children to read, not realizing that she was teaching me phonics! As she put it, “You don’t need phonics. All you need to do is teach them their A B C’s.” To the day she died, at the age of 97, I doubt she ever realized how smart she really was.

According to my mother, I was just short of three years old and we were living in Vallejo, California. One day I was lying on the living room floor looking at the front page of the paper. She glanced at me and thought I was just looking at the pictures. Then she looked a little closer and it became obvious to her that I was actually reading line by line. And I wasn’t using my finger as a pointer so that I could tell what word I was reading, either. From that point on, she kept buying books, each being a little more challenging than the preceding one while I read everything she handed me.

By the time I entered the first grade in Ft. Worth, Texas, as I mentioned in a previous post, I was reading officially on a sixth grade level and in reality reading anything you put in front of me. I also belonged to a children’s book club and not too much later would join a science-fiction book club. I’d already outgrown the Ft. Worth Public Library’s children’s section and was prevented from using the adult section because “…it was too advanced for me.” That problem was quickly solved by my selecting the books I wanted when my mother took me with her to the library, then she would check them out on her card.

Reading, today, is the key to knowledge. If you can’t read…or if your reading ability is limited to the words you can recognize or have memorized… you will have limited yourself to a very narrow world.

Illiteracy, whether total or functional, is a prison of the mind. Not only does it limit what the individual can do in life, it is all that is needed for a nation’s leaders…whether elected officials or dictators…to control every aspect of your life.

Remember this: Knowledge is power…but without the ability to read there is no knowledge.

Regards,
Richard Marmo

September 18, 2009

Some Read, Some Memorize Words was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

When I went to school from the late ‘40s thru the early ‘60s (I know. I’m dating myself.), the object was to learn. And learn we did. Instead of kindergarten and pre-kindergarten …which is now preceded by various forms of child care when the kid presumably learns to relate to his or her peers and be part of a group… we started school in the first grade.

If a child didn’t know how to read before he got to school, he started learning right away. Not just reading but spelling, the multiplication tables, arithmetic and how to tell time. They were even taught penmanship. You know, how to hold your pen or pencil and write clearly? How many people today do you know whose scrawl rivals that of doctors? And when it comes to the way they hold their pens….

As for learning to get along with their peers, that was a natural progression of teacher influence and playground interaction. It also didn’t hurt that most parents were exactly that. Parents. They taught their children to behave, have respect for authority and not talk back to their teachers.

Way back when, report cards were totally different from what they are today. First of all, you had to earn your grade. There was no such thing as social promotion. Even more shocking was that at least half the report card was devoted to…Shock! Amazement!.. something called Citizenship. You were actually graded on citizenship. Areas of concern included Courtesy, Cooperation, Obedience, Industry, Effort, Thrift, Dependability, Health, Neatness, Orderliness and Self-reliance.

If a child was frequently sick or severely underweight, it wasn’t reported to the Child Protective Service. The teacher or principal talked to the parents and/or accepted a note from the doctor and the word of the parent.

Good thing, too. I was the sickly kid in the crowd, due to major chest surgery when I was five. I was in school barely more than I was out and couldn’t gain weight if you handed me an anvil. Despite the fact I was blessed with good parents, CPS would’ve put me in protective custody and investigated my parents for child abuse. To give you an idea of just how scrawny, when I graduated from the 8th grade, I was 5’4” and weighed 78 pounds. Today I’m
6’1” and weigh about 189.

Being absent so much wasn’t a detriment to me. Thanks to my parents and, I suppose, a fairly decent level of intelligence, I had no problem keeping up with my classes. I was using a telephone and reading before I was three, knew the multiplication tables and how to tell time before starting school. I also had a full-blown set of adult encyclopedias that I used to satisfy my curiosity. It didn’t hurt that my mother, when I asked a question, didn’t say “go look it up.” Instead she said “Let’s go look it up.”

According to the teacher, I was reading on a 6th grade level when I started 1st grade, but the truth was that I could pretty well read anything you put in front of me by that time.

For practical purposes, I was partially home schooled before home schooling existed as an industry. Between that and an insatiable curiosity that drives self-education, I’ve wound up with an education substantially beyond the GED that I can claim on a formal level.

But it isn’t that way for a lot of kids today. Education has been dumbed down and many schools are little more than prisons with the teachers acting as wardens. If you doubt that, spend some time on the internet to find out how many schools have metal detectors and the number of weapons they’ve confiscated. School security guards routinely patrol student parking lots to spot weapons that the students forgot they had or didn’t hide sufficiently.

High School graduates can barely read on an 8th grade level. In Texas there’s a test called TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) that students must pass at specific points. Since teachers are evaluated in part on how many of their students pass the TAKS …or more accurately, how many fail it… they wind up teaching to the test and not bothering to teach anything not directly related to it. Other problems that teachers have to deal with are students who cannot speak English and are still required to take the TAKS, even though they will most likely fail it. Finally, special ed students are now being mainstreamed into classes, even though they are not capable of performing at grade level.

But the problems go even deeper. For example, a member of my family is a history teacher in what are called AP classes…and no, that doesn’t stand for Associated Press. It is a very rigorous international program called Advanced Placement. While all students have to pass the TAKS to graduate from high school, those who complete the AP class and make a certain score or higher on the AP test qualify for college credit.

This year, they wound up 40 books short, but not according to the administration. Their logic is that the teachers somehow lost 40 books when the truth is that 40 additional students enrolled. So, you have the same number of books as last year but 40 more students. But will 40 more books be ordered to replace the ones the teachers ‘lost’? Your guess is as good as mine.

Public education today is a lost cause in many parts of the country. Teachers and the better educators are fighting a valiant rear guard action, but it’s essentially a losing proposition. Federal regulation, federal funding, fantasyland promises of free college education for every child, escalating costs and a general dumbing down of the curriculum offered is destroying what’s left of quality education and preventing its revival in most instances.

What’s left? Self-education, home schooling, Christian schools, private schools and internet-based schools. None of these answers are perfect, but they do work and work well.

No matter how you slice it, all of the choices just listed are far and away better than the public option.

Regards,
Richard Marmo

September 14, 2009

Education Then and Now was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Did that phrase have any effect–other than to help elect a presidential challenger–on our doing financial business as usual?  Nope.  Sure, we were on a bull run with a roaring (we thought) economy.  Everyone who wanted a house could get one, even if they couldn’t afford it.  Never mind if that six-figure mortgage, secured frequently by a four-figure (or less) income meant that you were upside down from the get go.  Option ARMs let you have your cake and eat it, too.  One of the more creative approaches was the Stated Income Stated Assets Loan, also known as a SISA (Liar’s) loan. Yep, it was and is exactly what it sounds like.  The income listed on the mortgage loan application was accepted as exactly what you said it was without any verification whatsoever.  This particular loan is now about as rare as the passenger pigeon due to the mortgage collapse.

Property values were always going to increase from here to eternity, so all you had to do was wait a while, refinance after your salary had increased (as it always had) and your home’s market value had multiplied.  Then you would have a standard 30-year mortgage, low interest rate, high income, money in the bank, stock investments and a 401K.  Life was good and you could concentrate on your golf game every weekend.

What everyone forgot, or ignored due to the good life blinders they were wearing, was a rather trite phrase that happens to be truth in a nutshell: What goes up must come down.

Fifteen years later came the mortgage meltdown and a global financial collapse.  A year after that, we managed to infect Washington, D.C. with an administration that seems determined to reduce the U.S. to the status of a third world country, complete with nationalization of its remaining industries, tax increases that would break the back of Atlas and an infantile belief that we’re on the road to recovery.

Y’all know that that Government Motors…ahem, General Motors…has been bailed out to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, with virtually no chance that any of it will ever be recovered.  Healthcare is the latest target in the crosshairs.  Opposed by darn near every person with a brain and the ability to read even a few pages of the proposed legislation, there is still a very real chance that it will be rammed down our throats by our erstwhile elected officials who are not only supposed to act in our best interests but actually listen to our comments during town hall meetings, by reading our emails, snail mail and paying attention to phone calls.

Do we need healthcare reform in some respects?  Of course we do.  No system, public or private, is perfect.  But the word is ‘reform’ or ‘improvement’, not ‘nationalization.’

Tax increases ain’t hit us yet, at least not in any widespread manner.  But they’re coming.  In fact, they’re already here in the form of increased fees that are being instituted by everyone from utility companies to towns and cities.  And just wait till the cap & tax…sorry, I meant cap & trade… bill is passed, signed and forwarded to your checking account.  What was a relatively healthy account, or at least surviving, will shortly wind up on life support.

So how is cap & trade going to be a tax increase on every person?  Simple.  That legislation, if enacted, will focus energy production on the so-called ‘green energy.’  Any method that produces carbon will be heavily taxed.  The result will be dramatic increases in the cost of electricity and since we all use electricity in some way, shape or form…including ways that most of us don’t even think about…every person in this country will be paying an increased tax as the result of rising prices on virtually everything.

Conservation, energy efficiency and reduction of your carbon footprint will become watchwords, possibly even additions to your local ordinances.

As for trying to jawbone this country onto the road to economic recovery, President Obama wandered several miles into fantasyland with his recent speech before Congress.  While his focus was the embattled healthcare legislation, he did manage to address the economic conditions with a two paragraph opening statement in which he said:

“When I spoke here last winter, this nation was facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. Credit was frozen. And our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

“But thanks to the bold and decisive action we have taken since January, I can stand here with confidence and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink.”

Does this correlate with a 9.7% – 16% (depending on whose statistics you use) unemployment, ongoing foreclosures with many more to come, businesses closing, many States dealing with multi-billion dollar budget deficits, some perilously close to default, deflation in a few areas, etc, ad infinitum?

Of course, when this country only loses 216,000 jobs in August compared to 700,000 last January, I suppose you could argue that we’re moving in the right direction.  And let’s not forget that our financial problems were over when we discovered that printing presses actually functioned 24/7, enabling us to print fiat money…or Monopoly money if you prefer…whenever we needed it.  As long as we don’t run out of ink.  Happy days are here again!

Maybe it’s not the economy, stupid.

What do you think?

Regards,
Richard Marmo

September 11, 2009

Once Again, Stupid, It’s The Economy was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

During the 1970s, I did quite a bit of business with an aerospace company that, for obvious reasons, will not be named. But you would recognize it if I mentioned it. Anyway, I built models for them and also painted quite a lot of manufactured models when they needed a custom color scheme or markings for a sales proposal.

The reason they did business with me (and several other model-builders) was that they did not have an in-house model shop. They still don’t. It happened one day that they needed a model built yesterday and no one was available to do the job. So, they talked an employee…who built models as a hobby, did an excellent job but didn’t want to build for pay…into building this desperately needed model. They set him up with a bench along with all the necessary equipment and our modeler went to work.

A few days later, one of the company employees was giving the cook’s tour to a pair of efficiency experts, otherwise known as bean counters. As they passed the modeler’s bench, with the modeler happily working away, one of them inquired as to what he was doing. Should’ve been obvious, of course, but some people are just a little dense. After it was explained to him, the next question was “How long is it going to take?”

“About a hundred hours” was the response.

At that, the bean counters looked at each other, looked back at the model-builder, turned to the company tour guide and said “You know, it you put 25 men on that, it will only take four hours.”

To them it made perfect sense because it was strictly a numbers game. One man takes a hundred hours. But if you put 25 men on it, 100 divided by 25 equals 4. It’s obvious. Isn’t it?

What they failed to understand was that first you required a model-builder, someone who understood how to build a model. Secondly, it was basically a one-man job and there was no practical way to cut the amount of time involved. By putting 25 men on the job, 24 would’ve set around watching one man build it, thereby turning a 100-hour project into a 2500-hour project.

If you’re wondering where I’m going with this, you won’t much longer. A local talk show was dealing with that wonderful ObamaCare bill currently being fought over in the halls of Congress and various Town Halls. Raucous doesn’t begin to describe the debate, which has reached the level of shouting matches and invitation-only Town Halls. I just read that one Congressman is now resorting to a telephone Town Hall. How that one works, I haven’t a clue.

Along the way, the talk show host, in an effort to show the potential for reducing the level of benefits after this elephant (For those who don’t know, an elephant is a mouse built to government specs.) is enacted said “Think about this. Someone gets the bright idea that if we make people wait 8 weeks to get their cancer treatment instead of two weeks, we can knock another $8 Billion out of this package.”

Think it can’t happen? Think again. Then ask any doctor how much his reimbursements from Medicare have shrunk. Ask any Senior Citizen (what a horrible phrase) how much their co-pays have increased over the years, especially the annual deductible they have to cough up before they receive any benefits at all. And let’s not overlook the number of doctors who no longer accept Medicare at all, leaving their patients looking for a new doctor. Maybe they’ll find a new doctor and maybe not, because many doctors who still accept Medicare are no longer accepting new patients.

“But,” you say, “they all say that you won’t notice any changes in your health coverage, especially if you’re happy with what you have. We have to do something to contain costs.” Uh-huh. Sure. And pigs fly, too. If you believe that, then be sure you get a video of the pig that just flew past my window doing Immelman loops and wingovers. That definitely needs to be the lead story on the ten o’clock news!

There are only two ways to contain costs. Reduce the amount of money paid out to doctors, hospitals, etc., or reduce the number of people seeking health care.

Cutting payouts to providers of all stripes will not be the obvious and first step. The mere threat of some form of health care legislation being passed is already having an effect. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Texas recently announced the termination of 183 employees and the combining of some job responsibilities. The reason for this little move? Because of the need to contain costs in view of pending health care legislation. Spend a quick ten seconds on Google and you will discover that BC/BS operations in many states are eliminating employees as well.

“Hey! That’s a good thing,” you say, “those nasty old insurance companies are just in it for the money.” True enough, but the alternative, as it stands now, is cradle-to-the-grave government-run health care ala Canada and Great Britain. Of course there is a third choice. Eliminate the insurance companies, let the costs drop back to where they should be and pay cash.

That third choice ain’t gonna happen anytime soon, so we’re stuck with the disaster that ObamaCare will be if Congress manages to ram it down our throats.

There are already problems with physician shortages, particularly where primary care physicians are concerned. You can go to both here and here for informative articles on current and projected shortages.

The sites listed belong to the Atlanta Metro News and Examiner/Dallas. One particularly alarming statistic was a projection in May that primary care income will decline some 15%-20% under the ObamaCare proposal. Who knows how much worse it will be by the time a final bill is written. And don’t forget to Google JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) for even more supporting statistics.

If the nationalization of the American healthcare system is carried to fruition, you can bet your Justin Boots that a substantial percentage of doctors will opt to retire rather than be told how little money they will be permitted to earn. If that isn’t enough, would anyone care to project how many more doctors will throw in the towel after panels of bureaucrats begin controlling what kind of treatment they’re allowed to extend to any given patient?

And just how will these panels determine who gets what care? By determining the cost effectiveness of the treatment when balanced against the age of the patient, overall medical condition, medical history and whether or not they’re a contributing member of society. In other words, the numbers will determine your treatment. Incidentally, that also has the effect of reducing the number of people receiving health care. If you go back to the top of this missive and refresh your memory, it won’t take long to understand that those cold, impersonal numbers are the purview of efficiency experts. Those logical bean counters, in other words.

When it comes to the medical care that you receive, this entire argument boils down to one very simple question: Do you want bean counters controlling your life by reducing your medical care to a set of numbers?

I don’t.

Regards,
Richard Marmo

August 31, 2009

Logic of the Bean Counters was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

SPECIES: Chicken.

SUB-SPECIES: Rhode Island Red.

LOCATION: Golden Books in literature. Small towns, farms and ranches in real life.

Linda Brady Traynham’s recent missive on the chicken mess and the coming dismantling of chicken farming, if a Federal lawsuit is successful, will also lead to the demise of a staple in legend and fact. The Little Red Hen.

You disagree? Then follow me down a long and winding path that leads to an inescapable conclusion. In the beginning, at least in America, the Little Red Hen was used in reading primers as a means of teaching a clear morality. For all the details, take a look at this Wikipedia entry that can be found here.

The same article will describe how a delightful, educational, entertaining and moralistic story has been corrupted by the big O’s administration into evil resistance. Now instead of illustrating how those who refuse to work should not share the bounty of those who do, morality has flipped 180 degrees.

Today, the Little Red Hen is demonized as being unfair because she doesn’t share her bounty. The new morality is that everyone receives an equal share, whether they earned it or not. Removes any incentive to work, doesn’t it? And why should you work since everyone will be equally poor.

What does all of the above have to do with the lawsuit over chicken mess…excrement if you prefer, as well as other colorful, descriptive terms that are best not used in this space…that Linda discussed? Plenty, particularly where the live action Little Red Hen is concerned.

Rhode Island Red chickens, which is what the Little Red Hen is, have been common sights in small towns, farms and ranches all over this country. If you’ve never seen a Rhode Island Red rooster perched on a fence, flapping his wings and crowing for all he’s worth to announce the dawn of a new day, it’s a sight to behold. He crows for other reasons too, but that’s a whole other story.

But back to the Hen. She struts around, scratching in the ground, exposing all sorts of disgusting little things that she eats. Through various biological processes and the attention of a passing rooster, she eventually produces eggs which, when warmed, hatch into fuzzy little baby chicks that she then protects until they grow up.

One of the cutest sights you’ll ever see, at least on a farm or ranch, is a mother hen followed by her brood of baby chicks. Wherever she goes, they follow, just as surely as if they were tied to her by the feathered version of apron strings. The Hen cares about her chicks, too, to the point of sacrificing her life if a fox or skunk raids the hen house. It might not stop the raiders from including those chicks on their dinner menu, but the Hen will darn sure die trying to prevent it.

It’s not just varmints that inspires such fatal protection. Storms are another threat. In that case, you’ll hear the Hen calling to her chicks while spreading her wings wide. The chicks run to her for protection, snuggling close to her body under those sheltering wings. In the event of an ordinary storm or even a severe thunderstorm, the Hen endures nothing more than a bath and the chicks emerge warm, fluffy and dry. But if those storms carry hail with it, the Hen may yet again make the supreme sacrifice to protect her chicks.

There are times, though, when that sacrifice occurs thru ignorance or accident. Back around 1912 or 1913, on a farm in Mississippi, my mother –- who was seven or eight at the time — was told to put a chicken under a washtub to protect it from developing storms. While she did as she was instructed, what she didn’t do was to place a stick, rock or piece of wood under the edge of the washtub so the chicken could breathe. No one told her that was necessary.

When the storm was over and the washtub raised, the Hen was — as you have already guessed — dead, the innocent victim of a dastardly fowl deed.

My Grandmother did the only practical thing. After plucking and cleaning the recently deceased Hen, she fried it for dinner whereupon it was enjoyed by all. Except my mother. Since she had named the bird and basically made it into a pet, there was no way she was gonna eat it. That’d be like eating family!

Eventually, at the end of her egglaying/breeding days, the Hen winds up as the basis of that delectable Southern Fried Chicken…or Chicken Cacciatorre…or any of dozens of other ways to turn chicken into a mouthwatering meal.

Unfortunately, all of those epicurean delights that frequently come courtesy of the Little Red Hen and her feathered relatives may soon become a rare addition to the dinner table. The main cause of this will be the scarcity of chickens in the grocery store. If Pilgrim’s Pride and others aren’t put out of business entirely, I shudder to think how high the prices may eventually go. All because of a lawsuit over chicken mess that is, literally, nothing to crow about.

May the Little Red Hen rest in peace. My dining table will miss her.

Regards,
Richard Marmo

August 12, 2009

Where Has the Little Red Hen Gone? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

What our Keystone Kops Kongress (The KKK of the 21st Century.) has done is to forget history and simple economics.

Historically, Americans have a preference for large cars.  Granted, you can always find a group of people who drive nothing but small cars, like Ferrari, Maseratti and Volkswagen, though they have always been in the minority, like those who wear Birkenstocks.  But most of us prefer big and bigger.  Keep in mind that it’s not just because they’re bigger.  There’s far more to it than that.  Consider.  Big cars ride smoother on rough roads and over railroad crossings.  Engines are more powerful and the trunks are generally large enough to hold two weeks worth of luggage or a couple of dead bodies.  And in case you think I’m exaggerating, why do you think gangsters like big cars?

Taking a road trip?  Nothing like a big car for comfort while traveling in luxury for 600 – 800 miles.  Then there’s safety.  Big cars from the good old days, and even the current poor imitations of big cars, are simply safer.  Hit another vehicle…or have one hit you…and you stand a very real chance of walking out of the mess with nothing more than a few strained muscles. I should know.  I’ve both seen it and done it. Try the same stunt in a small car and you have a better than even chance of residing in the nearest hospital for a few weeks and then scheduling your life around physical therapy for the next six months or better.  That’s if you’re lucky.  If you’re unlucky?  Your surviving loved ones will become intimately acquainted with funeral home procedures.  Simple cremation can still run some $3,500, while a very modest traditional funeral will range from four to over ten grand, and that doesn’t include a monument or gravesite.

Our brilliant Kongress has also managed to either forget or totally ignore economics, which is apparently what they do professionally.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you’re not saving money by buying a new car to replace your old one in order to save money on gas.  Don’t believe me?  Then let’s run a few figures based on automotive ads, along with an actual experience that I had.

All the automotive ads tell you that by trading in your old comfortable, roomy gas-guzzler that gets a paltry 15mpg in town for a nice, shiny econobox that gets a spectacular 32mpg on the highway and a very reasonable 20mpg in town, you will save thousands of dollars every year.

Sure you will.

First of all, that sipmobile is going to run you $19,995.00 with nothing down and a very affordable 5-year note.  Then you will need to pay $3,457.00 to cover tax, title and license.  But there is still no down payment.  Of course, that means the little critter’s price has just escalated to $23,452.00.  Even after making the down payment that isn’t a down payment, you’re still on the hook for $333.25 per month for the next 60 months…and that’s at 0% interest.  At today’s (June 19, 2009) price of $2.59 a gallon for regular, that’ll pay for 128 gallons.  Per month. At 20mpg, you’d be able to travel 2,560 miles for the price of that monthly payment.  Your gas-guzzler that gives you 15mpg?  You’d only be able to go 1,920 miles on the same amount of money.  However, throw in the monthly payment and your fuel efficient economy car is costing you $666.50 a month, making your effective fuel cost $5.18 a gallon to travel those same 2,560 miles per month or 26 cents a mile.  Since you have no monthly payment on the gas guzzler, you’re still spending $333.25 to travel 1,920 miles or 17 cents a mile.

“But I can drive a lot farther for the money,” you say, “so I’m still saving money.”  Well, it’s true that you’re driving 33.3% farther on the same amount of gas…or using 25% less gas if you prefer to think of it that way… but your cost per mile tells a different story.  Project the cost of fuel for that gas-guzzler by 33.3% and the resulting price of fuel is $444.22.  Still 1/3 less than the combined monthly payment/fuel cost of your sipmobile to travel the same number of miles.  Now what’s the fuel cost per gallon for the gas guzzler?  $3.45.  And the fuel cost per mile to drive 2,560 miles at 15mpg?  The same 17 cents per mile that it cost to drive 1,920 miles.  As long as you’re making a monthly payment, the cost per mile for your econobox will always be at least 9 cents more than the gas-guzzler.  Why do I say ‘at least’?  Because if you pay any interest at all, your monthly payment will, obviously, go up.  As will your fuel cost per mile.

Odds are that your old gas-guzzler has been paid off for some time, so your only expense is maintenance, insurance and the cost of gas.  Unless you drive 5,000 miles a month AND rebuild the entire car from the front bumper to the rear bumper with new parts, there’s no way you will spend as much money on your gas-guzzler in the next five years as you will that nice, shiny sipmobile.  Additionally, Our beloved old beasts are built to last as well as to survive crashes. Incidentally, insurance on your environmentally friendly economy car will be substantially more than your gas-guzzler.

To give you an idea of how little knowledge exists on this level, you might find an experience I had in the 1970s to be instructive.  One day, a man knocked on my door.  He was looking for scrap cars that he could buy and then sell them to the junkyard to make a few bucks.  He saw my old car in the driveway and wanted to know if I wanted to sell it.  Of course I didn’t.  But in the course of the conversation, he mentioned that a few days earlier he had gotten a car from an elderly couple.  It was a virtually new Buick station wagon, less than a year old.  Garaged at all times and with less than a 100 miles or so on the odometer each month.  According to him, it still had the new car smell.

Believe it or not, the old couple had told him to come and get it…they GAVE it to him…because it used too much gas and they were going to buy an economy car to save money!  If that wasn’t bad enough, he spent the next several days trying to sell that car for $100…and no one was interested.  In the end he sold it, the day before he visited my house, to a scrapyard for $75, whereupon the scrapyard crushed it for scrap metal. I could’ve cried!

What’s the moral of all this?  Just because that nice, new economy car gets 30mpg on the highway, that doesn’t necessarily make it an economy car.  As you’ve read, there are many more factors involved.

Me? I’d rather have a big, old, comfortable, safe car (such as my ’93 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon) than one made from tin foil that they’ll have to cut me out of with a pair of scissors if I have a minor accident.

What about you?

Regards,
Richard Marmo

June 24, 2009

Buy an Economy Car and Save Money on Gas? Not Hardly. was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

We all are familiar with the mandatory use of infant seats, car seats and booster seats. Booster seats, until just recently, were only required for children under the age of 5 and/or less than 3′ 6” tall. But things they are a changin’ and older children ain’t gonna like what’s headed their way…never mind adults who are vertically challenged.

In case you hadn’t figured out what’s going on, either by not living in Texas (And if you don’t, why not?) or being isolated from all television and radio broadcasts, let me bring you up to speed. Hang on to your steering wheels because the ride’s fixin’ to get rough.

In case you think the Nanny State has made few inroads in Texas, you might like to know about Senate Bill SB61 that will expand the mandated use of booster seats to anyone under the age of 8 and/or less than 4′ 8” in height. Yep, you read it right. This leads to more than a few very interesting scenarios.

Any kids over 5 and under 8, having just escaped the stigma of being treated like babies by no longer having to ride strapped into a booster seats, have suddenly been returned to babyhood. Trust me, they will not go gently or quietly into that booster seat. Kicking and screaming will be more like it, hanging desperately onto the nearest doorpost, window or any other handy anchor while their parent tries to shove them back into that dreaded seat with all the gentility of an offensive tackle. It could well be easier to convince a convicted criminal to walk meekly into the death chamber in Huntsville. Quieter, anyway.

One other thing to consider is that while the parent is involved in trying to convince, coerce or just flat out force the child to submit to the gentle ministrations of that hated booster seat while ignoring the brat’s (sorry…I meant to say “child’s”) stentorian screams, the parent could easily be reported for child abuse by any passing disinterested party. If that happens, it will be no more than a few minutes before a police cruiser (AKA a prowl car) will arrive, followed shortly thereafter by Child Protective Services. That event opens a can of worms so nasty that we don’t even want to go into here.

Lest you think otherwise, children under the age of 8 may not be the only ones affected by this ‘improvement’ to the booster seat law. Remember, it specifies that the law applies to those under the age of 8 and/or less than 4′ 8” in height. The operative phrase here is and/or. The law as written can easily be interpreted to mean that anyone shorter than 4′ 8” ride in a booster seat. It takes very little imagination to see where that can go. There are plenty of people in Texas, particularly petite women, who are less than 4′ 8” but who are also definitely older than 8. Imagine, if you will, seeing a beautiful, blonde, petite woman who is 4′ 7 1/2”, 35 years young and driving a GMC SUV while strapped in a booster seat. If that isn’t bad enough, consider what you can’t see: booster blocks bolted to the accelerator and brake pedal so that our vertically challenged blonde beauty can reach them. This also causes another unintended effect. Anyone, such as our lady’s husband, boyfriend or significant other wanting to drive the same SUV will not be able to without taking the time (along with a socket wrench or two) to remove the booster blocks from the pedals.

There are always well-intended laws that cause more problems than they solve. You can ignore them, but that’s only practical if you can afford to pay the fines (though this time the fine is a paltry $25 per violation) resulting from tickets that you will definitely accumulate or don’t have any objection to potential jail time. Vertically challenged people can always try different ways to look taller, such as sitting on a Houston telephone book or wearing an expensive pair of cowboy boots (Justin or Nocona are preferred.) Ladies can try reviving the beehive hair-do. A large hat works for both men and women. Since this is Texas, men can legitimately wear a ten-gallon hat (Remember Hoss Cartwright in Bonanza?) Then, there is always the ultimate option: HGH, otherwise known as Human Growth Hormone.

If, as a loving, doting parent and law abiding citizen (regardless of what you think of the law in question) you want to rescue your child from the embarrassment of minimal vertical acquisition, check with your physician about putting your child on a regimen of Human Growth Hormone. When he/she begins Driver’s Ed at the age of 15 without the need of a booster seat, your child will thank you.

Right about now you’re probably wondering what the heck this has to do with economics and/or investing. The answer is more than you think. Our erstwhile government is already trying to tell investors in the stock market that they can’t sell short. Another recent proposal has government controlling exactly how much compensation executives in the financial services can receive. General Motors is already being referred to derisively as Government Motors and now the State of Texas is expanding their control over citizens’ lives with the booster seat improvement law. Of course, if you own stock in a booster seat manufacturer…

Incidentally, SB61 will never make it to the Governor’s desk for signature. It doesn’t have to. Governor Perry said that he had some concerns about the bill but that it didn’t rise to the level of a veto. As a result, he let it become law without his signature. But on the bright side, you do get a one year warning period (I thought that used to be called a grace period.) before the new law begins impacting your wallet.

No good law can ever be left alone when you can “improve” it. The improved booster seat law in a prime example.

Regards,
Richard Marmo

June 16, 2009

“Give Me a Boost” Now Has a Whole New Meaning was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

By the time you finish wading thru all the contradictory comments, jawboning and visits to Fantasy Island, your head has a very good chance of suffering mental whiplash, if not actual severe hernia of the mind. Let’s see if there’s any way to make sense of the mess.

June 1, 2009, General Motors finally drank the hemlock and filed for bankruptcy at the behest, encouragement, dictation or coercion (pick one; your choice) of President Obama and the U.S. Government.  GM’s bankruptcy filing is one of only two things that has been consistently reported or agreed upon.  The second?  Insistence that bankruptcy court will allow GM to emerge within a short period of time as “a leaner, meaner and smaller company that will be able to respond quickly to market forces, producing cars that Americans want and that are also environmentally responsible.”  What “environmentally responsible” means I don’t know, other than you will likely see a parade of petite cars you pull on like a pair of jeans.

From this point on, you pays your money and takes your chances.  Some things are obvious, such as President Obama saying there will be additional pain, more dealerships will close and some parts suppliers will go out of business.  That’s a masterpiece of understatement, particularly when you consider another statement appearing on MSNBC.  David Cole—who just happens to be the Chairman of the Center For Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan—essentially said that critical suppliers were on the edge of failure.  If they go down, they could trigger a cascading failure, causing the collapse of the entire automotive industry, then moving on to affect the rest of the economy.

Even the number of plants to be closed is a moving target.  According to the bankruptcy filing, nine plants will be closed and three idled.  Other reports have indicated sixteen, still others claiming either more or fewer.  You feel like you’re in the middle of a shell game, trying to figure out which shell has the correct number of plant closings under it.  Regardless, 21,000 will be fired, but 1200 “new jobs” will be “created.”

From the perspective of the loyal, dedicated worker who suddenly finds himself (or herself) out in the cold, it doesn’t matter if a plant is closed or idled.  They still don’t have a job all of a sudden, which means they have to go find one…assuming they even know how to go about the process.  Keep in mind that many of them have never worked anywhere except for GM and they don’t have a clue how to start a job search or create a resume.

When an idled plant is finally restarted, if it ever is, a new problem rears its head.  Where do you find the skilled workers to get the assembly lines rolling again?  The ones who knew how are no longer around.  Either they’ve found new jobs in the area, moved to another state or taken forced retirement.

In spite of his “cascading failure” comment, David Cole does a 180-degree pirouette with his statement that a more focused product offering from GM could generate a profit of around $10 Billion dollars.  Taking it a step farther, he claims that the auto industry is on the threshold of a dramatic increase in profitability.  Of course, that does assume a rebounding economy and the creation of one million new households per year, resulting in growing demand.

The demand may be growing, particularly as cars wear out and a family or individual either replaces them or does without, instead falling back on public transportation and shank’s mare, but there is the little problem of being able to qualify for a loan.  Granted, money is available for those with good credit, but the number of Americans with good credit is definitely going down.  Beyond that, how many of us want to be saddled with a five to seven year car loan when many don’t know if they’ll even have a job five to seven months from now?

Cascading failure or rebounding economy: does anyone know for sure which it will be?  Even those of us who are charter members of the Doom & Gloom Society don’t know for sure which direction it will finally go or how bad it will truly be if things do go south. Especially way south.  Still, there seems to be no dearth of analysts, positive thinkers or Pollyannas who insist that we’re just having a difficult period at the moment, but things will soon return to business as usual.

Another positive thinker, as reported on the June 1 MSNBC, is George Magliano.  Mr. Magliano is Director of automotive industry research for the Americas at the consulting firm IHS Global Insight.  He is projecting sales of 9.5 – 11 million vehicles annually for the next couple of years, gradually returning to 15 million per year after that.  He also said that we’re beginning to feel pretty good about the economy, but the recovery will be anemic.  If that ain’t an oxymoron, what is?  Correct me if I’m wrong, but an anemic recovery darn sure doesn’t qualify as a recovery from where I’m sitting.  Nor would it make me feel pretty good about the economy.  But this is what you get when you make a habit of wearing either rose-colored glasses or blinders.

Another comment that has been made…sorry, I can’t remember where.  The reports, comments, contradictions and information floating around is coming so fast and furious that it doesn’t take long to begin suffering from sensory or informational overload.

Some experts suggest that GM will become a publicly traded company again by the middle of next year, at which time the Government will begin to slowly sell its stake in the company.  Depending on your perspective, reaction to that statement will range all the way from stunned silence to hysterical laughter.  Few people believe it will happen and a local conservative talk show host stated that when the government gets into something, they never get out of it.  The chances of Government Motors ever becoming General Motors again are somewhere between slim and none…and slim just left town.

Let’s take a quick look at the kinds of cars you won’t have versus the ones they (meaning the government) think you want.  All I can say is read it and weep.

So-called muscle and emotional cars, meaning the Corvette, Camaro, anything with a large V-8, comfortable and sufficiently large enough to provide decent protection in a crash, are either going to vanish or become few and far between.  Makes you wonder what’s going to happen to large SUVs and full-size pick’emup trucks, doesn’t it?

What will take their place?  Trot on over to Chevrolet’s Future Vehicles page and take a look.

There are four vehicles listed and none of them are as large as the current Chevy Impala. The Cruze is the largest of the bunch, but you can’t get a sense of its size because it’s described as having comfortable seating for five, ample interior space and surprising cargo capacity.  Then there’s the Volt, a plug-in electric car with a 40-mile range without a drop of gas being used.  A perfect commute car, it says?  No way, I say.  Especially in Texas.  You can easily rack up more than 40 miles by the time you make a single combined run to the grocery store, office supply, Radio Shack and the mall before coming home.

But the real jewel is the Chevy Spark, which will be imported from…where else but… China.  It’s a true 4-4-4, meaning it has a 4-banger engine, 4 doors and 4 seats.  This thing is so small that it can be parked in the back of my ’93 Buick Roadmaster Station Wagon with room to spare!  Forty years ago, I saw a 1967 Ford Mustang Hardtop tooling down the road with a Great Dane in the back seat.  Poor dog had to stand on the seat with his head out one window and his tail out the other.

The Spark appears to be even smaller, which means that even if I could shoehorn myself behind the wheel …which I doubt since I have trouble squeezing into a Dodge Stratus, even though I’m only six-foot-one and weigh about 185 pounds… my dog, Magnum, would be emulating that Great Dane.  And Magnum is a Dudley Yellow Lab weighing a mere 65 pounds.

The bankruptcy of General Motors, its transformation into Government Motors and the myriad questions swirling around the entire episode, leaves one with the feeling that we are occupying a real live episode of Perils of Pauline, with no assurance that there will be a hero coming to her rescue.

Would I buy another General Motors car right now?  Maybe.  Would I buy a future minicar, electric car or any other car produced by Government Motors?  Not a chance.

If a substantial percentage of car buyers reach the same conclusion, the anemic economic recovery they’re obsessed with spending into existence may very well turn into a robust depression.

Regards,
Richard Marmo

June 10, 2009

Round and Round GM Goes was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.