As expected, the JCSD bond referendum passed yesterday by a relatively narrow margin on its second try - needed 60%, got 66%.
Also as expected, today I haven't heard a single satisfied supporter profess that they will no longer complain about unnecessary government spending and taxing.
Hypocrites.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Getting School-ed
On June 25th, for the second time in nine months, voters in my school district, the Johnston Community School District (JCSD), will be voting on a $41 million bond referendum to primarily build a new $81 million high school. Unlike the last time, it'll probably pass, and if not this time, then there will be another time.
That's still no reason to vote yes.
As with virtually all such tax increase proposals that require voter approval, I heartily oppose this one. I'm not denying that there may be a current / future overcrowding issue in some school buildings, but I am denying that it should take $112 million of taxpayer money to solve that.
(There's one of the many head-fakes that voters get on deals like this - the bonding covers $41 million, but other taxpayer funds / levies will cover the other $71 million. That equals $112 million of our money, and I tabulated that without needing a new school facility to help me do it.)
If you want to know all about the referendum, and how the money will purportedly be spent, and the estimated cost to property owners, there's plenty of electronic or print information available, of course paid for by us JCSD taxpayers. But if you simply want to know about how ironic-to-borderline-dumb it would be for Johnston school district taxpayers to support it, just read this:
1) After failing to pass the referendum nine months ago, JCSD changed the bonding amount from $51 million to $41 million - but not by cutting anything, only by deferring the $10 million to other taxpayer funded pools. In other words, they cut absolutely nothing. They apparently take us taxpayers for fools.
2) The $112 million doesn't include some very large ancillary future expenditures that are admittedly part of the long-term plan, such as a new football stadium. You know, for educational purposes. Are we just supposed to forget about that little item?
3) Voting to increase your own taxes is never a good idea. Let's face it, it's a little bit crazy. It's a lot crazy when you consider.....
4) School districts are often poor stewards of our money.
5) Given the current and future age of technology, what sense does it make to build expensive, huge, new brick-and-mortar schools? Shouldn't we be planning on ways to bring classrooms to students via on-line and digital means?
6) More than a decade ago, with the support of JCSD, our own Polk County passed a local option sales tax (LOST) to increase sales taxes from 5% to 6% for a 10-year period to fund new school infrastructure. That was the deal, ten years only. Liars! Less than ten years later, they and every other school district were already lobbying to extend the time, and ultimately in 2008, the state of Iowa simply went to a permanent 6% sales tax. Why should we believe anything the JCSD tells us now about taxes, when they had no problem lying to us taxpayers a few years ago?
7) Did I mention that school districts are often poor stewards of our money?
Here's a final thing that gets to me about this goofy referendum - it's being largely supported by a very Republican-leaning district. These folks want to tax others to benefit them and or their school children, regardless of whether those taxpayers will receive any direct benefit from the school. In other words, thousands of folks who claim to hate the so-called socialistic ideology of the Obama administration, seem perfectly willing to support this socialistic measure. It's another example of how some people only oppose taxes and government spending unless it's good for them, and they ought to be required to forfeit their Obama-bashing cards.
Fellow citizens of the JCSD - don't be duped! A 'no' vote doesn't mean you oppose education, it means you support not letting others unnecessarily spend your money. The tax-and-spend monster that is JCSD doesn't need to be fed, it needs to be starved. We can do far better with far less than over $100 million.
That's still no reason to vote yes.
As with virtually all such tax increase proposals that require voter approval, I heartily oppose this one. I'm not denying that there may be a current / future overcrowding issue in some school buildings, but I am denying that it should take $112 million of taxpayer money to solve that.
(There's one of the many head-fakes that voters get on deals like this - the bonding covers $41 million, but other taxpayer funds / levies will cover the other $71 million. That equals $112 million of our money, and I tabulated that without needing a new school facility to help me do it.)
If you want to know all about the referendum, and how the money will purportedly be spent, and the estimated cost to property owners, there's plenty of electronic or print information available, of course paid for by us JCSD taxpayers. But if you simply want to know about how ironic-to-borderline-dumb it would be for Johnston school district taxpayers to support it, just read this:
1) After failing to pass the referendum nine months ago, JCSD changed the bonding amount from $51 million to $41 million - but not by cutting anything, only by deferring the $10 million to other taxpayer funded pools. In other words, they cut absolutely nothing. They apparently take us taxpayers for fools.
2) The $112 million doesn't include some very large ancillary future expenditures that are admittedly part of the long-term plan, such as a new football stadium. You know, for educational purposes. Are we just supposed to forget about that little item?
3) Voting to increase your own taxes is never a good idea. Let's face it, it's a little bit crazy. It's a lot crazy when you consider.....
4) School districts are often poor stewards of our money.
5) Given the current and future age of technology, what sense does it make to build expensive, huge, new brick-and-mortar schools? Shouldn't we be planning on ways to bring classrooms to students via on-line and digital means?
6) More than a decade ago, with the support of JCSD, our own Polk County passed a local option sales tax (LOST) to increase sales taxes from 5% to 6% for a 10-year period to fund new school infrastructure. That was the deal, ten years only. Liars! Less than ten years later, they and every other school district were already lobbying to extend the time, and ultimately in 2008, the state of Iowa simply went to a permanent 6% sales tax. Why should we believe anything the JCSD tells us now about taxes, when they had no problem lying to us taxpayers a few years ago?
7) Did I mention that school districts are often poor stewards of our money?
Here's a final thing that gets to me about this goofy referendum - it's being largely supported by a very Republican-leaning district. These folks want to tax others to benefit them and or their school children, regardless of whether those taxpayers will receive any direct benefit from the school. In other words, thousands of folks who claim to hate the so-called socialistic ideology of the Obama administration, seem perfectly willing to support this socialistic measure. It's another example of how some people only oppose taxes and government spending unless it's good for them, and they ought to be required to forfeit their Obama-bashing cards.
Fellow citizens of the JCSD - don't be duped! A 'no' vote doesn't mean you oppose education, it means you support not letting others unnecessarily spend your money. The tax-and-spend monster that is JCSD doesn't need to be fed, it needs to be starved. We can do far better with far less than over $100 million.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
The Lazy Days Of Summer, And Every Other Season
For many years, (at least as far back as the movie Trading Places), I've been a believer that the #1 influence on success in life is social environment. Being born in America, to nurturing parents, middle-class, white - these are all things that matter a lot to success for my generation, whether we want to admit it or not.
Warren Buffett goes a step further, and simply calls it luck. After all, our environment is the product of luck, since people have no control as to when or where or how they were born and raised.
It follows then, that if a healthy person was born with these favorable and/or lucky environmental characteristics, but is still an underachiever, there must be another reason why. And after still more years, I've become a believer that much of it just boils down to laziness.
There are two types of lazy. The first is just your plain, dumb, do-nothing lazy. The second is more prevalent, yet harder to see. It's the lazy person who only acts like and wants everyone to believe they're working.
Yet here again, it took many years for me to realize how many fake-working-lazy-people there are. And here again, there are subsets. One is the kind that does one small thing in a day, but takes that to mean they worked all day. Another is the kind that does nothing but personal matters all day (e.g. personal email or Facebook posting), but assumes that's a day of work. Still another is the kind that gets to work late, takes an extra long lunch, and then leaves early.
This laziness is only magnified by summertime, when our society collectively decides we should slow down our pace of work. It's certainly a lot easier for the truly lazy to hide their work ethic in the summer.
Regardless of the manner and timing, it's basic laziness that determines the underachieving destiny of those born into a fortunate social environment.
Warren Buffett goes a step further, and simply calls it luck. After all, our environment is the product of luck, since people have no control as to when or where or how they were born and raised.
It follows then, that if a healthy person was born with these favorable and/or lucky environmental characteristics, but is still an underachiever, there must be another reason why. And after still more years, I've become a believer that much of it just boils down to laziness.
There are two types of lazy. The first is just your plain, dumb, do-nothing lazy. The second is more prevalent, yet harder to see. It's the lazy person who only acts like and wants everyone to believe they're working.
Yet here again, it took many years for me to realize how many fake-working-lazy-people there are. And here again, there are subsets. One is the kind that does one small thing in a day, but takes that to mean they worked all day. Another is the kind that does nothing but personal matters all day (e.g. personal email or Facebook posting), but assumes that's a day of work. Still another is the kind that gets to work late, takes an extra long lunch, and then leaves early.
This laziness is only magnified by summertime, when our society collectively decides we should slow down our pace of work. It's certainly a lot easier for the truly lazy to hide their work ethic in the summer.
Regardless of the manner and timing, it's basic laziness that determines the underachieving destiny of those born into a fortunate social environment.
Friday, May 31, 2013
All That Lying Got You Nowhere
I can't let this week pass without a tribute to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, an always reliable member of the WOITH club. This week, she released a web video announcement about how she isn't going to run for re-election.
Mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it's good to get people with extremist views out of government. On the other hand, I'm going to miss how much her dumb comments damaged others who shared her views.
This article from PolitiFact pretty well sums up her fundamental intellectual dishonesty. In the larger sense, it reflects how the so-called Tea Party has devolved from a grassroots taxpayer watchdog group, into an extreme right-wing group with no chance of gaining a serious mainstream following.
But at least for a while, she won't go away yet in Iowa, where her pitiful 2012 presidential campaign and campaign manager have serious legal problems, related to how they handled their funds and their affairs.
Plus, it's only a matter of time before she becomes a Fox News commentator and/or lobbyist. That's sure to keep us entertained for a while.
In the meantime, to U.S. Rep. Steve King, you're up!
Mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it's good to get people with extremist views out of government. On the other hand, I'm going to miss how much her dumb comments damaged others who shared her views.
This article from PolitiFact pretty well sums up her fundamental intellectual dishonesty. In the larger sense, it reflects how the so-called Tea Party has devolved from a grassroots taxpayer watchdog group, into an extreme right-wing group with no chance of gaining a serious mainstream following.
But at least for a while, she won't go away yet in Iowa, where her pitiful 2012 presidential campaign and campaign manager have serious legal problems, related to how they handled their funds and their affairs.
Plus, it's only a matter of time before she becomes a Fox News commentator and/or lobbyist. That's sure to keep us entertained for a while.
In the meantime, to U.S. Rep. Steve King, you're up!
Monday, May 27, 2013
Dear Graduating Class of 2013
I enjoyed writing last year's entry so much, it's now time for an updated version of my advice to this year's graduating class. I'm going to stick with just college graduates this year, not only because one of my kids was one, but also since I don't think I can improve on my 2012 commencement message to high school graduates.
To make this year's message more universal, and in keeping with the educational theme, I'm going to make it multiple choice:
To the College Graduates of 2013:
Congratulations - [you / your parents / your banker] did it. After [ 4 / 5 / 5+] years of [matriculation / partying / sleepwalking] , not to mention tens of thousands of [dollars / beers / hours of sleep] you have a degree.
You probably feel [good / great / overjoyed] about this accomplishment, and if you have a full-time job or have been accepted to graduate school, you should feel good. But not too good, because now you still have to prove yourself to the [corporate / non-profit / academic] world.
On the other hand, if you have neither job prospects nor grad school plans, what the hell are you feeling good about? You're over 22 years old, and you're likely going to be living with your [sibling / parents / 5 other unemployed friends]. Your life isn't getting better, it's getting [much / tons / overwhelmingly] worse.
Graduates, no matter what your plans are, it's time to take control of your own [life / bank account / destiny]. For some of you, this mean's you'll get to enjoy all of the [spoils / money / success] that capitalism has to offer. Unfortunately for the rest of you, this means a [low paying / hard labor / service industry] job, because you waited until now to take the controls.
Good luck, and above all, remember this: You can't depend on [parents / government / wealthy friends] to get by forever.
To make this year's message more universal, and in keeping with the educational theme, I'm going to make it multiple choice:
To the College Graduates of 2013:
Congratulations - [you / your parents / your banker] did it. After [ 4 / 5 / 5+] years of [matriculation / partying / sleepwalking] , not to mention tens of thousands of [dollars / beers / hours of sleep] you have a degree.
You probably feel [good / great / overjoyed] about this accomplishment, and if you have a full-time job or have been accepted to graduate school, you should feel good. But not too good, because now you still have to prove yourself to the [corporate / non-profit / academic] world.
On the other hand, if you have neither job prospects nor grad school plans, what the hell are you feeling good about? You're over 22 years old, and you're likely going to be living with your [sibling / parents / 5 other unemployed friends]. Your life isn't getting better, it's getting [much / tons / overwhelmingly] worse.
Graduates, no matter what your plans are, it's time to take control of your own [life / bank account / destiny]. For some of you, this mean's you'll get to enjoy all of the [spoils / money / success] that capitalism has to offer. Unfortunately for the rest of you, this means a [low paying / hard labor / service industry] job, because you waited until now to take the controls.
Good luck, and above all, remember this: You can't depend on [parents / government / wealthy friends] to get by forever.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Berky Meeting Nuggets 2013
Here's this year's summary of the best business meeting you'll ever attend, the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting, held this year on May 4th and presided over by Chairman Warren Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger. (Go here for 2011, and here for 2012.)
On the Federal Reserve’s moves to keep lending flowing by pushing rates low:
On the Federal Reserve’s moves to keep lending flowing by pushing rates low:
Buffett said that he backs the Fed’s chairman, Ben Bernanke, and notes that the policy hasn’t led to inflation. But still, interest rates will rise, and it
will be a “shot heard around the world.”
On the trillions of dollars in debt in the past few years:
Buffett said he was glad the response to the economic downturn hasn’t been
austerity, which would have hindered any sort of recovery. Munger, who’s
more conservative than his friend, agreed. Buffett did praise the prior
president, pointing out in particular 10 words of wisdom from the financial
crisis: “if money doesn’t loosen up, this sucker could go down.” While the national debt remains
troublingly high, Buffett said, “this isn’t the country’s toughest hour by
a large margin.”
On beating an index fund by buying shares in the 20 best
companies in the United States:
Buffett said the results would probably be
similar, then launched into a bigger point that there are professional
investors, and then there are amateurs who invest. Being the former requires a
lot of work and research, which many, many amateurs don’t have the time or
inclination to do. The main problem for
most people, he said, is “trying to behave like a professional when you aren’t
spending the time in the game needed to be a professional.”
On climate change:
Buffett believes that climate change is
real, and he said that it’s a difficult thing for Berkshire’s insurance operations
to account for. Munger then added
that what actually seemed to work was the high taxes that European governments
have levied on motor fuel. “I think
they’ve stumbled into the right policy,” he said. “I think the United States
should have way higher taxes on motor fuel.”
Monday, May 6, 2013
Let's Give Each Other An Award
Their is nothing wrong with being wealthy, and there's certainly nothing wrong with being philanthropically wealthy. However, do super-wealthy people understand the subtle arrogance of their often public philanthropy?
I thought about this last week, while browsing a local quarterly magazine that markets to the affluent of central Iowa. Among the advertisements for custom home builders, art stores, fine dining, and spas, there are socialite pictures of the Des Moines hoi-polloi attending various charity galas and award ceremonies.
It's undoubtedly true that many of these folks have donated big amounts of time and money to charities and other civic causes. They are to be commended for that. Apparently, they feel the same way, because the pictures in the magazine show many of the same folks at every one of the these formal affairs.
The circle goes something like this: An very wealthy executive is named to a charitable or civic board, and after a while they are honored for their service (read: money), for which they get an award at a formal ceremony, at which another wealthy executive there rotates up to replace them on the board, and the cycle begins anew.
Over a long enough period of time, these wealthy civic socialites end up giving awards to each other for their meritorious service. It must be tough giving an acceptance speech when you've heard them all before.
I admire wealthy people who are genuinely philanthropic, and I suppose there's no reason to begrudge someone willing to be an award-winning figurehead from which more money can be raised. For some, however, there is clearly an attention-seeking aspect to it all.
It's a little bit like adults seeking to be the king or the queen of the prom. Isn't it enough just to be a part of it?
I thought about this last week, while browsing a local quarterly magazine that markets to the affluent of central Iowa. Among the advertisements for custom home builders, art stores, fine dining, and spas, there are socialite pictures of the Des Moines hoi-polloi attending various charity galas and award ceremonies.
It's undoubtedly true that many of these folks have donated big amounts of time and money to charities and other civic causes. They are to be commended for that. Apparently, they feel the same way, because the pictures in the magazine show many of the same folks at every one of the these formal affairs.
The circle goes something like this: An very wealthy executive is named to a charitable or civic board, and after a while they are honored for their service (read: money), for which they get an award at a formal ceremony, at which another wealthy executive there rotates up to replace them on the board, and the cycle begins anew.
Over a long enough period of time, these wealthy civic socialites end up giving awards to each other for their meritorious service. It must be tough giving an acceptance speech when you've heard them all before.
I admire wealthy people who are genuinely philanthropic, and I suppose there's no reason to begrudge someone willing to be an award-winning figurehead from which more money can be raised. For some, however, there is clearly an attention-seeking aspect to it all.
It's a little bit like adults seeking to be the king or the queen of the prom. Isn't it enough just to be a part of it?
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