Current Events

To even imagine that we should abolish public education is very controversial and almost unthinkable, as compulsory public education in America has been around in one form or another since the 1600s and has acquired an almost religious and untouchable aura. But we need to consider the following vignettes as a context for a discussion of public schools. What is happening here? What is going wrong with public education? What is Public Education? By “public” education we mean “government” education for those adjectives are one and the same. And to carry these terms to their logical conclusion, we could use the word “political” because requiring school attendance, deciding what is …

Read more

From a Facebook reply to me about a living wage … “You really hate waitresses, fast food workers, janitors, and minimum wage workers if you don’t want them to be able to pay their rent and eat. The people serving you also need sufficient food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and whatever else you have. They should have vacations, paid days off, sufficient and affordable healthcare. … Jobs are supposed to cover living expenses and give the worker the ability to save and live. An employer is supposed to care about their employees.” In summary, an employer is supposed to pay a living wage, whatever that is. I replied, “Some jobs are …

Read more

Many factors go into how to best determine employee pay for doing a particular job. Some of these are system factors that result in identifying a range of pay of how much a job is worth to that company, and some are individual factors that result in the actual pay of a person within that range. The material in this blog is extracted from Davis, John H., Statistics for Compensation: A Practical Guide to Compensation Analysis. These factors all influence an organization’s ability to attract, retain, motivate, and align the kinds and numbers of employees needed to achieve the organization’s goals. These are shown here. System factors affecting employee pay …

Read more

How to fight racism was a topic we were discussing. But then all at once, she insisted, “If you don’t actively fight racism, you are a racist.” “WHAT!” I exclaimed. “What do you mean by racism? And who is to decide what ‘actively fight’ means? Are you trying to instill a guilt trip on me?” I think her idea came from Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to be an Antiracist, which book is full of circular definitions, which are logical fallacies. How would you respond to her statement? What is racism? It is important when discussing racism to be explicit about what you mean by the term. Words are important. …

Read more

“DEFUND THE POLICE! ABOLISH THE POLICE!” From one end of the country to the other we hear mobs screaming these slogans. This is obviously not the way to support and fix the police. Defunding and abolishing the police is one of the worst things we can do for a civilized society. Police protection against criminals is one of the three primary functions of a proper government1,2. Without the police, we do not have a government that protects our precious rights against criminals. These slogans are straight out of a Marxist playbook, and lead to anarchy and rule by mob violence, making society ripe for a dictator to take over and …

Read more

I was a victim of the War on Drugs The War on Drugs and the consequences of its immorality had come home to me. One afternoon in 1993 I came home from work and discovered the back door had been kicked in. It was very scary. The police came and fortunately there was no one hiding in the house. I took an inventory of what was taken – some stereo equipment, a portable computer, a steam iron, and my jacket – items that were easily fenced. What I was most upset about was my jacket. It used to be against my skin when I wore it, and I felt so …

Read more