Free College

Free College

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Free College for Everyone!!! If there is one soundbite from this election season that is sure to turn the heads of young people, it would be that one. Over the years, the country has shifted from a manufacturing-oriented to a service-oriented economy. One could argue whether this is for better or for worse. One thing, however, is clear: the importance now placed on going to college and getting a degree is higher than ever, yet there is no mention of the options of learning a trade or entering military service.

President Obama stated he wants to make community college free for everyone, allowing people to further their education and earn higher wages. While in a utopian environment, where people use unicorns as transportation, it would be great; back in the real world, it is impractical. Evidently these politicians never took economics 101 and never learned the meaning of supply and demand. As it stands now, high school diplomas have lost their value because the rate of high school graduates has gone up dramatically, and everyone has one. No longer can they be used as a signaling device to prospective employers. Today, in order to remotely stand out, one must obtain at least an associate’s degree, but a bachelor degree is preferred. The problem is, traditional schooling is not for everyone.

There are people out there who are not suited for success in a classroom but are well suited to learning a trade useful within the “blue collar” world; the current rhetoric when talking about college, however, makes it appear the only way to become successful is to attend college. I had this same thought back in 2000 when I was in my senior year of high school. I did not know for sure what I wanted to be when I “grew up,” part of me wanted to be a doctor, but the sheer thought of the schooling required made my brain shut down. Instead of beginning college right out of high school, I decided on a different option.

I joined the military knowing I would start getting paid right away, I would learn a skill, and in the end, my college tuition would be paid. Military service should be offered as an option more often than it is. Not only does it only take four years of service to get your bachelor’s degree paid for, during that four years you get to grow up, learn how to deal with people from all over the country, visit places people only dream about going to, and become a productive member of society. While I do not advocate forcing military service upon anyone, I also do not believe in telling all kids they need to attend college while we, the taxpayers, will have pay for it.

What is wrong with going to trade school? You will learn a job that can make you money, which is much more than I can say for the taxpayers paying for some 18-year-old’s college education so they can major in Gender Studies and then complain that they cannot find a job upon graduation. Learning to be a mechanic, carpenter, or a vocational nurse is a great opportunity to make good money while not having to attend college. Those are also jobs that will always be in demand because the need for them will never go away. As cars get more and more complex in their operations, fewer “shade-tree mechanics” are going to be able to fix them, forcing them to be taken to an actual auto shop. The baby boomer generation is aging and will need the assistance of care givers, opening the door for anyone who would like to work as a vocational nurse in a nursing home, retirement home, or private home care.

With these other options available, why then does it seem the only “path” the majority is focused on is the college degree path? Would we, as a society, not be better off if we looked at each child as an individual and helped guide them down a path giving them the greatest benefit at the lowest opportunity cost? The current rhetoric of making college free for anyone wanting to go fails to examine both the upfront economic costs to the country but also the sunk costs in cases where the student doesn’t complete college.

It is time to get off the unicorn and face the reality of adulthood. It may be nice to have a degree from a prestigious university, and people might be thought of as “better” if it’s from one of those fancy “Ivy” schools, but what happened to the ideals of the 1950’s when those who worked in factories for 30+ years were thought of as role models for having the tenacity to stick with a physically demanding job for so long? Many tasks are becoming automated everyday, but at the core the possibility of automating everything is impossible. Robots are not going to be better at taking care of the elderly or fixing older cars they haven’t been “taught” about.

It’s time we stop lying to our kids about future careers and instead set them up for success. Let’s not force them into the college pipeline and instead allow them to decide (with guidance) what is best for them. One thing I can guarantee: giving a free college education to everyone is not good for our kids or our country.

Media Scare Tactics

On Monday, ISIS supporters claiming to be a “Cyber Caliphate” hacked US Central Command’s (CENTCOM) Twitter and YouTube accounts.  As soon as it happened, media outlets went crazy with headlines like “CENTCOM Hacked” and various other wordings that portrayed the same image.  The problem with this is that CENTCOM, as in the DOD organization, did not get hacked.  The attackers never got into an actual DOD system; they attacked the CENTCOM accounts on YouTube and Twitter.  This differentiation needs to be made.  The terrorists want us to be scared, they want us to retreat and live in fear of everything.  By leading with these headlines, the mainstream media is doing a disservice to the American people; they are essentially saying that now nothing is safe, not even DOD networks. 

These ISIS supporters also published documents that contained phone numbers and names of personnel at the command, yet these documents were made out to seem like they contained nuclear launch codes or something; these documents were unclassified but marked as For Official Use Only (FOUO).  All personal data is protected under what is known as Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and is supposed to be treated as sensitive.  In theory that’s a good idea, but in reality it does not work like that.  Having been in a leadership position in the military, and even working within the Cyberwarfare realm, I know how hard it is to keep information from falling into the wrong hands, but there is certain information that you “protect” more than others.  The recall bill (or recall roster, depending on which branch you’re talking about) is one of those documents that floats around freely.  I remember always having a copy of the list for every individual in my division on my personal computer and my phone, so if something came up and I wasn’t at work I could make contact with my people and let them know what was going on.  Why do I bring this up?  The point is that the document with names and phone numbers is floating around in various people’s personal emails and probably even freely accessible with a few simple Google searches.  Just because this document happens to belong to CENTCOM does not mean that all of a sudden the DOD and the Global Information Grid (GIG) is under attack anymore than it already is on a daily basis. 

Unlike private companies, the DOD has multiple safeguards in place to help protect their information systems, and those safeguards have increased substantially in recent years to keep up with the changing cyber landscape.  I won’t delve into the safeguards because the majority of them are classified, but I assure you they are in place.  This does not mean, however, that it would be impossible to penetrate the systems, it just makes it harder. 

In the end, we all need to be reminded that everyone and every organization is vulnerable to a cyber attack, and in my opinion, that will the next big attack that occurs.  It could occur within the electric grid, the financial system, or any other infrastructure system that we use daily and do not even think about.  That does not mean that we must live in fear day in and day out. The mainstream media needs to take responsibility for that by ensuring they are not using fear mongering headlines just to get clicks on their stories and increase their ratings. 

Winning Back the Country

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

     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

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.)