Communism never works, but progressive liberals keep trying!

Bill Neinast

IN PERSPECTIVE It would be wise to read and heed History!

Twenty years ago my wife and I visited Poland.  Our focus was the area that was Prussia until after WWI.

The first night, we rented a room in a new motel near the village of Liebenau from which my ancestors migrated to Texas in 1856.  That night, someone tried to steal our rental vehicle and left it inoperable. 

While trying to navigate the antiquated telephone system the next day to get a replacement car, we met Stanley.  

Stanley was reared in the area but had migrated to California and was back home for his annual visit.  We met him through his cousin, Wanda, who was the cook in the motel and who had called him to tell him that we, the first Americans to stay in the motel, were there.

Stanely became our guide for the next three days and we got to see and learn things and meet Poles rarely enjoyed by individual visitors to a foreign country.

Our visit was just a few year after communism had fallen under its own weight in Poland and throughout Eastern Europe and new forms of government and private enterprise were emerging.  Stanley, for example, was highly critical of what communism had done to his homeland and his people.

He believed that, among other things, living under a government offering to be responsible for everyone from the cradle to the grave had destroyed the work ethic of the country.  There was no pride of workmanship and even the simplest of jobs required four or more workers when one could have done the job adequately.

In discussing the loss of the work ethic and the pride of workmanship, he pointed to several things in our motel room.  The baseboards in the bathroom did not meet in the corners.  One or more had been cut an inch or two short.

Then, pull an extension cord out of a wall socket.  The entire socket comes out of the wall, as junction boxes were either unavailable or forgotten.  We saw further evidence of that in a fairly new home in which we were visiting.  The chandelier in the living room hung from the ceiling on its electric wires.  There was no junction box or connection cover.

Stanley also introduced us to a spry octogenarian who was reared in Poland before communism and who had worked for the Germans during the WWII occupation.  He had learned to be responsible for his life and had begun a savings plan for his retirement when he began working.  He now had a comfortable retirement based on his savings and a government pension.

Later in the evening, we joined some younger men around their Stamntisch (reserved regulars table) in a local eatery.  They were commiserating about their circumstances under communism and now without it.  They relied on the government’s utopian promise of taking care of them from the cradle to the grave.  They had lived from day to day with no thought or plans for the future and were now left to exist on meager pensions. 

Finally, we visited the ruins or remnants of the Liebenau brick factory.  The unique clays in the Liebenau area when the factory was built under a free enterprise system in the 19th century made Liebenau bricks premier building materials.  That clay was depleted by the time the communist government assumed ownership, but the anti-capitalist bureaucrats kept the plant open by importing inferior clays from other regions.  As soon as the plant reverted to private ownership with the fall of communism, it could not compete with plants in areas where clay did not have to be imported and ceased operation.

So here’s the perspective.

Hold the picture painted above in front of a mirror.  What do you see?  The image reflected back could be one of Detroit.  The one looming dimly in the background could be Washington, D.C., and the whole nation.

Detroit, once the fourth largest city in the U.S. and the one with the highest per capita income in the nation, is now in bankruptcy with debts it cannot pay.  The city was brought to its begging knees by a half century of inefficient, corrupt, and illegal administration and union contracts that promised cradle to grave care.

Remember the Liebenau brick factory?  Could it be reflected in Detroit?  Although the city is broke, it still maintains a bloated city work force with twice as many municipal employees per capita as comparable cities.  It even maintains a farrier or horse shoer on the water and sewer department pay roll even though it keeps no horses.

The city’s debt of 18.5 billion dollars is tottering on a rapidly deteriorating tax base.  That sounds like the 16 trillion dollar federal debt tottering on tax payers’ pocket books that are becoming very frayed.

Do you now see the images of Detroit and the U.S. reflected in the images of Poland from 20 years ago?    

This makes me Laugh!

 From a major university of higher learning web site! 

"Graduating with student loans? In addition to mandatory online exit counseling, Scholarships & Financial Aid is offering student loan repayment workshops to help you better understand the repayment process." 

The part I laughed about was the "mandatory online exit counseling".  Just strikes me as funny that only the intellectually superior nincompoops that fill the hallowed halls of academia would connect online counseling in the same sentence!  I mean really what could go wrong with that!  

The second part that caused a smile was the, " . . . understanding the repayment process" comment.  Is there really a person who graduates with a four your degree from a major university that doesn't understand you have to repay your student loans?  Well sadly I fear the answer is yes!

Remember these are the folks who shape the thinking of our brilliant American students every day!

You just have to laugh at his stupidity!

The Stupidity Continues!

Please send a copy to all taxing authorities of the "Goose that laid the Golden Eggs".  Phil Michelson wins a bit over $2,000,000 for his work in the UK at the Scottish and British Opens in the last few weeks.  After being taken to the cleaners by the UK, California, and US Phil nets a little less than $900,000.  The taxing authorities confiscated over 61% of his earnings.  Phil has options, much like John Galt, he can move or simply leave the profession.  Who could blame him!

Terrorism is not New to the World!

From Bill Neinast, a brilliant perspective on a tough issue facing the world!

IN PERSPECTIVE
On May 2, 1995, the late COL Jack Norton (originally Nussbaum) wrote this to his god-son, my son Bill Neinast, Jr.:

“I remember so well my experiences in my hometown, Bautzen near Dresden, on Krystallnackt, November 9, 1938.  After all sorts of indignities from mobs of ordinary burgers, my family, an aunt’s family and a third family were hiding out in a 5th floor apartment at the Post Platz.  Two of the fathers had escaped based on my warnings early in the morning.  The third father was already taken away by the Gestapo.

“When some of the more despicable German/Bautzner citizens learned of our location, hundreds streamed into the Post Platz.  They screamed death to the Jews and yelled for us to jump out of the window.  Finally, Nazis in uniform came storming up the stairs to do the job.  My mother threw the window open and showed at the window sill our group ready to jump.  Three women, one of whom had already become insane, and five children.  The people screaming for us to jump never stopped.  And yet, for some reason I still cannot phantom, the advance of the Nazis on the stairs stopped.  The rest of the story is too long.  We escaped during the night, hid in a cave, nearly starved, etc.”

Norton and one of his brothers managed to get out of Germany and to the U.S.  His mother, father, sister, and another brother died in Nazis concentration camps.

Near the end of WWII, Norton was in the U.S. Army unit that liberated the Nazis’ Hadamar Death Camp.  He captured one of the nurses in the camp who had administered many of the lethal injections to the mentally disabled and severely wounded or disabled German soldiers .  As an Infantry lieutenant Platoon Leader in Korea, he earned the Silver Star, which he would describe only as “Doing what I had to do to save my men.”

The Norton family comes to mind every time a rant against Muslims appears in the news.  The correlation is religion.

A safe assumption is that more than 90% of the mob gathered on the Post Platz in Bautzen and at many other localities throughout Germany on Krystallknact, the 9/11 for German Jews, were Christians.

Consider those Christian terrorists on the backdrop of the two centuries of the Crusades during the middle ages.  From 1095 to 1291 marauding bands of Christian knights murdered, pillaged, and burned through much of the Middle East that had become inhabited by Muslims.

Body counts of enemy casualties were not common in those days.  Records indicate, however, that several hundred thousand soldiers under the Papacy roamed Asia Minor all the way to Jerusalem. So it is not unreasonable to assume that at least an equal number of  innocent men, women, and children died at their  hands.

The Church, in fostering these Crusades, promised religious and secular benefits to those who took part in them. For example, a warrior of the Cross was to enjoy forgiveness of all his past sins.

Sound familiar?  Consider, in this regard, the six promises for Muslim jihadists who become “shahids” or martyrs. 

A shahid who dies fighting for the faith, is assured an immediate entrance to the joys of Paradise. He sees his place in Paradise where he will live in the highest Heaven and in the world of angels, eating, drinking, walking and enjoying himself. A crown of honor will be placed on his head and he will have 72 Dark-Eyed wives.

So here’s the perspective.

The only hope of a peaceful solution to the long, protracted war in which we are engaged requires a precise definition of the enemy. Contrary to the belief of some, Muslims are not the enemy.

This brief history of the Crusades, the Nazis genocide, and the Muslim Jihads must be remembered in defining the enemy.  By any measure of that history, there is as much blood on the hands of Christian terrorists as on the hands of Muslim jihadists or terrorists.

The key word is terrorist.

Today, 32% of the world population is Christian.  A minuscule portion of that population may be terrorists.  A similar portion of the 2.1 billion Muslims making up 23% of the population may be jihadists or terrorists.

Only a tiny fraction of Christians were the terrorists of the Crusades and Nazi genocide.  Similarly, only tiny cells of Muslims are jihadists interested in martyring themselves in order to enter Paradise.

Remember, those promises of immediate entrance to Paradise and 72 virgins are for jihadist martyrs only.  They do not apply to the more than two billion other Muslims among us who are as peace loving as the Christians among them.

Obviously, terrorists come in many forms.  Currently, however, there is a tendency to think of terrorists only as “Muslim terrorists.”  That dangerously and unnecessarily limits the search for terrorists to individuals with Arab appearance.

You might live in a Country run by idiots if . . .

If the only school curriculum allowed to explain how we got here is evolution, but the government stops a $15 million construction project to keep a rare spider from evolving to extinction . . . you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots!

Why Medical Bills are Killing Americans!

Bill Neinast

IN PERSPECTIVE

Steven Brill’s “Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us” may be the longest article ever to appear in Time Magazine.  The 39 page article in the March 4 issue is not cluttered with distractions.  There are 11 full page pictures and a few scattered reproductions of parts of hospital bills.  That leaves 56 long, wide columns of detailed reading.

Brill concentrates most of his attention on hospitals.  He includes for profit institutions and the not-for-profit conglomerates, including MD Anderson headquartered in Houston.

Until the last few pages, he seems to be applying sound business principles to his analyses.  In the end, however, his cover is broken. His suggestions for possible corrective action indicate that he may never have been in a management position in any business and that he believes the government is the answer to every problem.

Then, after some calm reflection on the entire article, clearly the major cause of escalating medical costs is understated or ignored completely.  Instead of the government being a solution for the problem, it is the principle cause of the problem.

Throughout the article, Brill lays blame on chargemasters.  Chargemasters are the computer billing programs for hospitals with an amount listed for thousands of individual procedures, medications, supplies, etc.  Each hospital and hospital system has a unique chargemaster developed for and by the institution.  In nearly every instance, the amount listed has no basis in reality.  Each of those amounts could be called obscenely high.

Analyzing why those amounts are so grossly exaggerated leads to one conclusion.  The primary reason is the government’s intrusion.

There were many huzzahs and hurrays when Uncle Sam announced that it was going to help seniors pay for their medical care.  Then the reality of Medicare set in.

The government was going to pay 80% of the charges it deemed reasonable.  Reasonable charges would be discounts of the average of charges for a procedure or bill within specific regions. 

Hospitals wanting a reasonable return on their investments, therefore, had to do whatever possible to raise the “average” in their region.  That meant everyone pegging their chargemaster prices as high as possible and then negotiating with the government and insurance companies to obtain that discounted rate.

Bills churned out by chargemasters, however, are rarely paid in full.  Patients who normally pay in full are wealthy foreigners and unknowing or uncaring Americans. 

The government and insurance companies know those chargemaster bills are mere starting points for negotiations and rarely, if ever, pay as much as one half of the bill.  

The system has also spawned a new cottage industry.  

Knowledgeable and experienced individuals are now becoming representatives for uninsured patients presented with massive hospital bills in six figures.  The representatives take the bills apart line by line and frequently end up with the patient paying no more than the government or insurance companies would pay under their negotiated fees.

The escalating fees will be exacerbated by Obamacare.  The new law is already bringing more Americans under the government’s or insurance umbrella.  When complete, every American will be covered by Medicare, Medicaid, or insurance.

Everyone will be lulled into thinking that medical care is now free or almost free and do what many people do when they think something is free.  They will use it, without regard to whether they really need it.

Two other factors that Brill discusses in relation to exorbitant hospital bills are the million dollar salaries for the non medical administrators of hospital system and run amok personal injury lawyers.

Some of the million dollar salaries are mind boggling.  Consider, for example, MD Anderson in Houston.  According to Brill, “Ronald DePinho’s [President of MD Anderson] total compensation last year was $1,845,000.  That does not count outside earnings derived from a much publicized waiver he received from the university that, according to the Houston Chronicle, allows him to maintain unspecified ‘financial ties with his three principal pharmaceutical companies.’

“DePinho’s salary is nearly triple the $674,350 paid to William Powers Jr., the president of the entire University of Texas system, of which MD Anderson is a part.”

The nauseating nightly TV ads for law firms urging anyone who has not been made completely whole by any medical procedure to contact them “for the compensation you deserve” has been discussed here too often to require repeating.  Just to talk with any physician about what that constant threat of malpractice law suits requires them to do above and beyond what they think is reasonably required.  Each Xray, MRI, and Cat Scan they require “just to be sure”  does nothing in most cases but add to the patient’s bill.

So here’s the perspective.

Brill’s article is a good read on how and why American medical bills are so much higher than the rest of the industrialized world.  He also has some ideas on how some of those bills might be reduced.

One of his suggestions, however, goes too far.   He would have the government cap the salaries for hospital administrators.  

Whenever the government starts stepping into office buildings and telling businesses what they may pay their executives, we are in deep trouble.

Is President Obama an Economic Illiterate or is Economic Disaster his plan for America?

Bill Neinast


IN PERSPECTIVE
Several weeks ago, a radio commentator mentioned that he thought President Obama was a very smart man but that he was economically illiterate.  That seemed harsh at the time.

Shortly thereafter, however, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced that he could no longer negotiate on the budget with the President.  His reason was that Obama stated and believed that there was not a spending problem.

As if reading from the President’s script, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, in that inimical smile, announced February 10 on Fox News Sunday that America does not have a spending problem. “It is almost a false argument to say that we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem,” Pelosi insisted.

Still on the same script on the same day on NBC’s Meet the Press, Senator Dick Durbin,a democrat from Illinois, claimed that the sequester was “designed as a budget threat, not as a budget strategy.” He stated that the only approach to solving the budget problem was to raise taxes again.

That commentator was right.  All three of these leaders of the left are economic idiots.

Their clique includes at least one more.  The other is the exuberant woman interviewed on TV just after Obama’s election in 2008.  While gushing about all the goodies that were now going to come her way, she was asked where the money would come from for all that mana.  Her answer was, “From Obama’s stash.”

Even people who are not rocket scientists know where to find Obama’s stash.
That cache is the pockets of American tax payers.  More specifically, it is the pockets of productive citizens who are not paying their fair share of taxes.

Anyone with a check book knows that there has to be a balance between income and outgo.  If they take more out of their bank account than they put in, they are in debt and have to pay a penalty.

They have two choices to avoid another penalty.  They can spend less or earn more.  If there is no practical way to earn more, their choices are cut in half.  They will just have to quit spending so much.  Conversely, if another source of income can be tapped, the spending can proliferate.

This simplistic lesson in personal economics applies equally to the government.

Currently, our Congress and President have spent over 16 trillion dollars more than they have “earned.”  The red ink continues to darken by each passing moment.

 The President says, however, “Don’t worry, we’ll staunch the flowing red ink, pay off the debt, and balance future budgets with revenue enhancements.”

The revenue enhancements he talks about is “newspeak” for taxes. 

The term newspeak comes from George Orwell’s 1984.  As noted in that book, the purpose of newspeak is to intentionally confuse and mislead a population so they will willingly accept ideas which,  if fully understood, they would oppose.  It is a form of propaganda.

With this newspeak, Obama can claim he is not going back on his words of just a few weeks ago while maneuvering the extension of the nation’s debt limit.  Back then, it was, “Just let me increase the taxes on the wealthy now. Then we can talk about reducing spending to avoid sequestration.”

So here’s the prospective.

The President is about as honest as can be expected from a Chicago politician.

His revenue was enhanced by letting the taxes go back up on the middle class workers and by getting an increase of income tax rates on individuals with annual incomes of more than $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples.

Another revenue enhancement is rarely mentioned in the press.  On Jan 1, a new tax kicked in under Obama Care.  Now sales of medical devices are subject to a 2.5% tax.  That revenue enhancement seems to be at odds with another promise of the President that Obama Care would reduce the cost of Medicare.

If the President adds more revenue enhancements to these two, and continues to insist there is no spending problem, he will prove the commentator’s point that he is economically illiterate.

The Unintended Consequences of Charity!

My friend, Bill Neinast, always writes thought provoking articles.  He asks some tough questions in the following piece.  Sounds like Toxic Charity is a book that should be required reading for all of America's elected and appointed officials and every citizen.

Bill Neinast


IN PERSPECTIVEToxic Charity is an excellent primer for anyone interested in charity.  Whether interested in giving, planning, or participating, this short book is a must read.

Robert D. Lupton, the author, has been involved with charitable works in Atlanta for 30 years.  As founder and president of FCS urban Ministries (Focused Community Strategies), he knows whereof he speaks when he discusses how churches and charities hurt those they help.

Upton is not anti charity.  He is, however, concerned about how most charities in this country are planned and executed.  In his opinion, charities bear responsibility with the federal government for creating a society of dependency.

Concomitant with that culture of dependency is a loss of the work ethic.  Without that work ethic, the effective charities in third world countries that involve buy ins by the communities being helped have little chance of success in the U.S.

Several examples of the need for involving targeted communities in the help project that involves water wells in Africa.

In one area, women were walking several miles to get their daily supplies of water.   A group of Americans decided to help.  They had a well dug and fitted with a pump in the center of the village.  When they returned to admire their gift a year later, they found the villagers trudging back to the old spring for water.  The pump on the well had broken and no one knew or bothered to learn how to fix it.

Another group learning of a need for water in a village undertook their assistance differently.  They involved the village in the project from the beginning.  Villagers decided where to dig the well and who would be served by it.  They developed a community system with water piped to homes, where it is paid for.  That village is now piping and selling water to other villages in the area.

Upton also considers mission trips to be religious tourism.  He illustrates this belief with examples of trips, usually by church affiliated groups, that provide no real or lasting benefit for the community being “served.”

The money spent on transporting and supporting the mission participants could be used more effectively.   Money instead of bodies to help the target community accomplish a task internally like the water system mentioned above would be much better gifts.

A local pastor who has participated in some missions agrees.  He believes, however, that the real benefit of such trips is the spiritual lift the trips give the participating parishioners.

Is that a valid trade off?  Upton probably would answer, “No.”

He would cite in response the mission group that went to a third world country to tile the floor of a new church.  None of the participants had tiling experience. When the mission left, local tile setters had to redo the whole floor at more expense than if they had done the job initially.

Was the spiritual lift for a small group of inexperienced tile setters worth the cost, regardless of the source of the money?

Locally, the Upton technique could have profound effects.

Take the Goodfellows give aways for the Christmas season.  A new approach would be to buy the same toys and food with the donated funds, but not to be given away.  The items would still be available for the identified families, but not as gifts.  Instead, they would have to buy them at substantially reduced prices.

This should restore in the heads of households an appreciation of being able to provide for their own families.

So here’s the perspective.

Upton believes the best charity is the microlending described in the development of the community water system.  Unfortunately, he believes that microlending and a buy in of Goodfellows discussed above will not work in the United States.

In his own words, “Experienced microlending organizations have identified three essential elements for successful microloans:  The borrower must have (1) an ingrained work ethic, (2) a demonstrated entrepreneurial instinct, and (3) a stable support system.  Like legs on a three-legged stool, all three must undergird the borrower or the transaction will not stand.

“In developing countries where people must constantly hustle simply to survive, a work ethic is almost a given.  Not so in a culture like the United States, where the welfare system has fostered generations of dependency and has severely eroded the work ethic.  Where a people assume that their subsistence is guaranteed, hard work becomes neither a necessity for survival nor a means to escape poverty. “ (pages 120-121)

When and how can we restore the work ethic in our homeland?