Do Talk To Strangers

In November 2014, two children belonging to Alexander and Danielle Meltiv were picked up by police officers while walking home from a park a third of a mile from their home at 5 p.m. The authorities did not contact the parents about the whereabouts of their kids until three hours later and would only release the children into their custody after they had signed a "temporary safety plan" promising not to leave their children unattended.[1]

There is a big problem with perception vs reality in the United States today. I'm talking now, specifically, about the misinformed and idiotic trend toward reporting, arresting, and charging parents with child endangerment for allowing their kids to play outside unsupervised. Given the reality of the risks involved, this embarrassing state of affairs constitutes a true tyranny of ignoramuses in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

In the US, a child aged 14 or younger is more likely to die of a sudden, unexpected heart attack than to be abducted by a stranger. We have 60 million kids in this age group[2] and, in the latest year of compiled statistics, 115 of them were abducted by strangers.[3] That works out to a 0.00019% chance that, in a given year, a child aged 14 or younger will be abducted by a stranger. In fact, you are more likely to find a child dead of accidental drowning in a bathtub than you are to have him or her abducted by a stranger in any given year.

The most laughable (and tragic) misunderstanding of these odds is that many people feel that exposure to society is more dangerous for kids today than it was 20, 30, or 40 years ago. But this is not the case. From 1990 to 2007, for instance, "substantiated cases of child sexual abuse have declined 53% and physical abuse substantiations have declined 52%."[4] Rape, attempted or completed, against children fell a further 43% from 2003 to 2011.[5]

I could launch here into an exposition about why more people today are more likely to imagine that American society is more dangerous than it was in previous decades. But I'm not going to do that. It would only give a false air of legitimacy to the perpetrators of this trend. In the end, it is an uninteresting mystery to solve -- in the face of the active curtailment of liberty that is going on due to the breathless intervention of uninformed busy-bodies.

It really just comes down to this for parents: are you going to be influenced more by the true facts of the world or by fear of looking bad to people who are going to judge you regardless of how well you take care of your children? And to law enforcement, the courts, and the various child protective services agencies out there we need to say, "Enough is enough." What happened to the Meltiv family in Maryland should never happen to any family.

[1] Slate.com story about the Maltivs
[2] 2013 US population numbers by age range, US Census Bureau
[3] May 2013 Washington Post opinion piece by the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hamshire
[4] Trends in Childhood Victimization, Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hamshire
[5] Free Range Kids.com crime statistics page

Why Does A Higher Minimum Wage Lead To Higher Prices?

The main reason why prices tend to rise with wages is that public corporation stock prices are tied to their quarterly/annual earnings. Corporations that desire their stock prices to rise are always looking for ways to increase their profits and show earnings growth.
Increased wages raise expenses for a corporation by a factor of its total workforce affected by the wage increase. This lowers earnings/profits, and causes a chain reaction (via analyst downgrades) that results in their stock price declining. An obvious candidate for making up for the lost profits is to raise prices and/or find cheaper labor (Asia/Mexico) and cheaper materials/ingredients.

One complicating factor is that a general workforce with higher wages has higher purchasing power. Yet, as the workforce exercises this power in the market place, it signals higher demand which tends to trigger both higher prices from current suppliers and the entry into the market of alternative suppliers who try to compete on price and volume.

Not saying any of this is good or bad. Just pointing out the general mechanism. Perhaps someday we can return our society back to a 1950s/1960s business mentality when "maximizing shareholder value" wasn't the A#1 priority of corporate CEOs.

Announcing My Name Change

On this day, January 13, 2014, the day before I achieve 46 years on the earth since my birth -- I discard all names previously given to me or taken by myself and I choose and embrace a new name, Mark Donohue Valor.

tldr; Because I can; because the new name pleases me.  All the world's a stage, and I have changed my stage name.

To the more interested:  One year ago, I journaled that, on the way to embracing Transcendentalism (the affirmation that everything is eternal spirit, with the physical world as a transient illusion), I discovered that Materialism (the affirmation that everything is physical, with the spiritual world as a transient illusion) was the underlying reality of the universe.  I've had 12 months to try out this mental 'suit of clothes'.  Each passing day since has served only to strengthen this conviction.  In the English summary of the ancient words of the Roman poet Lucretius: "There are atoms, and the void, and nothing else".  Far from bringing any sense of depression or despair, this understanding has opened up a new and exciting life of wonder, joy, and personal growth for me.  I wholeheartedly embrace it and already inject it into every expression of what I say, do, and create.  I am such a different person today than I have been in the preceding two decades that it would rather be a fraud NOT to express myself by changing my name.

Honestly, I never was a "Buddy", a "Bernard" or a "Bernie" in my own mind.  Loving, wonderful people hung these monikers on me to give me a good start in life.  Each of these names has served to identify a particular epoch of my life through the years as I worked through important transitions -- from the meek child, to the scrappy young man elbowing his place at life's table, to the hopeful seeker of profound meaning.  I freely confess that each of these past phases of my life has taken longer, far longer, than it has for some of my contemporaries.  Yet, at each transition, I wrung more and more traces of magical thinking from the fabric that is my life.

And further:  When I was young, my family used to travel to Indiana in a motor home to watch auto races.  The very first 'idol' I ever had in my life was a thrilling race car driver named Mark Donohue.  He dominated every racing circuit he drove in.  He fundamentally changed the rules of racing with his knowledge of physics and his willingness to tinker and experiment with the mechanics of his racing cars.  The title of his autobiography is "Unfair Advantage".  He died as he lived while practicing for the Austrian Grand Prix in 1975, immortalized at the top of his game like Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, and Buddy Holly  To this day I am moved and inspired by his life.

If you insist on calling me by the name you knew when you first met me, I'm probably not going to knock myself out correcting you.  Those who matter most to me understand that this is just as big an event for me as someone else's christening or marriage.

Celebrating My Mother's Life, 26 Years After Her Death

26 years ago on a Friday the 13th, I was at a rehearsal for a Christmas play at Jimmy Swaggart Bible College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana when the Dean of Male Students interrupted us to escort me back to his office. Nothing could have prepared me for that call from my sister, informing me that our mother, Norma Jean "Stormy" Falor, had died.

She was a fighter. She was a crier, She waited tables to put herself through secretary school after dropping out of high school to elope with her sweetheart in the Air Force and then facing the disappointment of divorce It was as a waitress that she met my father. After getting a break to join the steno pool at Toledo Edison, she worked her way up all the way to Executive Secretary to the President. (All while helping my dad produce his Masters thesis.) When John Williamson would fret and fume over corporate difficulties, she would take him by the arm and lead him to the glass walls of his 15th-story office, point to the streets of downtown Toledo below, and say, "Look at all those people walking around down there, Mr. Williamson, just as if the world weren't coming to an end!"

When I was born, the doctor had to inform her of my heart defect, warning her that I might not make it to infancy when surgery would be possible. She looked him in the eye and said, "Bet me!" She made many mistakes, some of which (drinking and smoking) drove me from her home and put her in an early grave. But none of that can ever blot out my admiration of her, my gratitude for all she was and did for me, or the sweet sorrow I feel that she did not live to see me come into my own and lead an extraordinary life.

I've lived more years, now, without her in this world than with her. Yet the memories and the love remain strong. I know she would be proud of me. The occasion of today's anniversary gives me the opportunity to express publicly, "I'm proud of you, Mom and I celebrate the brief, dazzling spark that was your life."

On Obamacare and the Free Market

Many of my contemporaries are posting and blogging about the PPACA, also known as "Obamacare", which rolled out its public health insurance marketplace in October. The most consistent complaint I read about the program is that it sets a new precedent of governmental intrusion on private citizens by requiring us all to purchase a product, namely: a health insurance policy. The law is set up this way so that the economics of heath insurance underwriting will work -- healthy individuals' premiums today cover sick individuals' costs today and provided a reserve for the costs of tomorrow.

It is worth considering how we as a county find ourselves crossing this precedent of intrusion. You would think (wouldn't you?) that industries operating in a free market would police themselves from a standpoint of enlightened self-interest so as to not require regulatory intervention. But in case after case, industries have failed to do so.

Take the revelations about the US meat-packing industry in 1905 that led to the founding of the (precursor to) the FDA. Or the 1910 phosphorus match industry study that produced high taxes, forcing the industry to innovate a safer technology for their workers. When the harm done by an industry flying the free market banner outweighs the benefits of waiting for the unseen hand to remedy the situation, governments have acted and always will act.

You may not be of the opinion that there was a crisis in healthcare access (via premium inflation or underwriting restrictions). However, a sober survey of business articles from 2003 until the housing crisis shows that US health care costs were consistently cited as one of the top problems threatening the US economy.

When you consider the trend of US demographics going forward toward the next 30+ years, it becomes less surprising that the PPACA is the new FDA or SEC of our time.

Fall 2013 US Economic Prediction

I am beginning to convince myself that the US economy is headed for a 3-5 year window of high sustained growth. Here are a few reasons why:

Recall that 2008 was the last year that people with terrible credit could obtain easy housing credit. 2008 + 5 is 2013, which means that this is the last year that banks have to deal with uncertainty about large numbers of borrowers with cheaper 5-year Adjustable Rate mortgages going through foreclosure. The orderly winding down of these toxic assets will enable local and national banks to open up their reserves for legitimate business lending more freely.

Also, competition for high-tech workers is really heating up in the job market. I'm getting the kinds of unsolicited phone calls and emails I got back in 1998 and 2005. Yes, this portends a future bubble-burst, but one that is several years out, with the actual, you know, bubble, in the meantime.

Finally, the stock market has shown uncanny resilience in the face of multiple fiscal crises from Washington over the past 10 months. The right kind of stocks are heading in the right direction: temporary worker companies like Manpower and for-profit education companies like DeVry.

(disclaimer: I don't have any financial interest in either of the stocks mentioned except perhaps accidentally via my employer's 401(k) benefit)

Wrapping Your Head Around the National Debt, Deficits, Surpluses, and the Debt Ceiling

The following is not a perfect explanation of the concepts of our national debt, deficits, surpluses, and the debt ceiling. But hopefully my readers will find it helpful in understanding what these terms mean and how they differ from one another.

Lets say we start a country and we have zero debt. In the first year, we collect $10,000 in taxes and spend $10,000. So we had no deficit, because all the bills were covered. We had nothing left over, so no surplus either. And we did not borrow any money, so no debt.

Year 2, we still collect $10,000 in taxes on $10,000 in expenses but we also decide to light a new national Christmas tree. This will cost $300 extra for tree, lights and electricity. We print 10 pieces of paper with the words "IOU $30.00" printed on them and tell people we will pay back $30 plus some interest on them in 5 years. 10 people buy our bonds, so we now have the $300 to cover the Christmas tree. Result: no deficit, no surplus, but now we have a $330 debt (including a flat 10% interest rate on the $300).

In year 3, we will need to set aside a little more than $10,000 (around $66 more) to make sure we will have the $330 ready to pay back the people who bought our bonds when they come due. However, if we still only bring in $10,000 in taxes, we will incur a $66 deficit for the year. The way we cover that is to print more IOUs and sell them so the money is set aside and our creditors believe we are taking our responsibilities seriously. So we see that the deficit incurred this year causes the debt to grow.

Skip ahead 230 years... We now have a military, a department of social services, tons of federal employees in each, etc, etc. All of these programs were approved over time by the people's representatives -- including the financing schemes to pay for them over time with future tax receipts. The amount of all the bonds we've permitted ourselves to print and sell (to cover our past and future spending commitments above the taxes that have come in) is our "debt ceiling".

Let's say the total amount we've agreed to pay above all of the combined tax income so far is now $17 Trillion. That's the debt. If, in this year, we incur more expenses (including payments on the debt) than we bring in from taxes, we have a deficit for the year. If we had a deficit last year and we have a deficit this year, but the amount we went "over" this year is half of what we went over last year, we have cut our deficit in half. If we bring in more tax revenues this year than this year's expenses, it is a surplus - but that doesn't help us pay down the debt unless we agree to apply some or all of this year's surplus toward paying off the total debt.