Rider blog moved to new provider

Because this blog service does not handle well bloggers' HTML postings, I've decided to move my budding blog efforts to a largely LIBERAL blog service. I can copy and paste my Word articles on the new blog, and have only minor problems with the formatting.

Go to www.open.salon.com/blog/Richard_Rider for my more recent postings. Maybe some day I'll post up all my previous "Richard Rider Rant" distributions. Every one a gem, of course.

Again: www.open.salon.com/blog/Richard_Rider

Latest California "Breaking Bad" article

The live link above will take you to my 21 August update of my constantly updating article "Breaking Bad: CA vs. the Other States," posted as an editorial on the online East [San Diego] County Magazine. I recommend this version of my article because it has "live" links to all the reference URL's in the article -- something very difficult to achieve in this blog.

The latest version update includes the depressing update figures on CA unemployment. For the Month of July we moved back up to the 4th worst unemployment rank (from 6th). We've gone up from 11.6% to 11.9% unemployment. Even more depressing (when comparing CA with the rest of the country), the national unemployment rate went DOWN slightly to 9.4% from 9.5%.

Fun online debate on library outsourcing

RIDER COMMENT: Every so often you just gotta have fun in a debate. I sure did here -- I suspect you will enjoy this.

Someone infatuated with government-run libraries wrote back to take issue with my PR on LSSI running the Riverside County libraries. Initially they wrote me to complain about my one-sided piece. Things got funner and funner after that.

ONE

----- Original Message -----

From: CHRIS
TO: Richard Rider
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: PR: Time to Think Outside the Library Box


Richard,

Kinda one-sided review in your opinion piece. I looked at your link and dug further at both county web sites. Perhaps you also tried and found Riversides line item budget less than transparent, no metrics on circulation of materials, hours of operation or customer feedback for the past decade?

Being a frequent flier at my local branch library, and occassional user of the city's libraries, I find them worlds apart. Staff at the county sites are very engaging with the public and coordinated learing activities are plentiful.

Yes, I'm interested in the almighty cost to the taxpayer, but that is only one factor worthy of our consideration. The educational and entertainment value of libraries can be measured too, it's just not reported as often.

When did you last visit the Riverside and San Diego libraries?

Christopher

---

TWO

From: Richard Rider
To: "Chris
Subject: Fw: PR: Time to Think Outside the Library Box

Date: Thursday, August 13, 2009, 3:50 PM


Gosh, Christopher, imagine that -- I wrote a one-sided opinion piece!

Remember, I'm not a reporter. Reporters are trained professional journalists who diligently compose objective one-sided pro-Big Government articles -- mindlessly regurgitating government press releases without seeking contrary opinions -- and they get paid for their work.

I've never visited the Riverside County libraries, but have spoken with several people up there over the years who are regular users. They are VERY happy with their libraries. (I've followed this issue for at least 8 years.) I was last in a San Diego city library on Saturday a week ago.

You seem to be assuming that somehow the Riverside system is substandard. What makes you think that? Because it's not run by the government? I've been able to find no discontent with their operation (tried Google too!). Do you have ANY evidence that such is the case.? Even hearsay?

BTW, how does one measure "the educational and entertainment value of libraries", something you assert can be done?

Oh, BTW, you might want to speak to Nancy Johnson, the the Riverside County head librarian -- the ONLY government employee involved in the Riverside County system -- she is the boss. A 30 year professional librarian, she speaks VERY highly of LSSI. She doesn't equivocate in her praise.

She'll tell you that after LSSI took over, the County Supervisors were delighted because they stopped getting calls from citizens complaining about the libraries. The one Supervisor who voted against the contract (with all the usual concerns) is now one of LSSI's biggest boosters -- his name is Bob Buster, if you wish to contact him.

Ms. Johnson goes on to praise the fact that their library employees are not under the civil service system. LSSI can reward good employees with better pay increases, while withholding same from mediocre performers -- and firing the slothful. Just the potential for firing precludes the need for having to use that tool very often.

---

THREE

----- Original Message -----
From: CHRIS
To: Richard Rider
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 5:17 PM
Subject: Something about that library you've put on a pedestal


So your a closet advocate for added taxes to support public services as long as public employess have been eliminated!!! (see commentary below)

Remarks by Judith Auth, Riverside Library Director

Presented to CAL-TAC Workshop, March 11, 2006

NOTE: RIDER SUMMARY -- THIS IS HOW WE CONNED VOTERS INTO RAISING TAXES FOR OUR LIBRARY EMPIRE (NO NEED TO READ FURTHER ON THIS REPORT -- SKIP TO "LAST"]

Twenty years ago when the LA author Carolyn See came to the Riverside Library to speak, she called us (Riverside and

San Bernardino Counties) the "goat counties." Today we are the fastest growing region in the United States. In 1991 the

Riverside Library participated in a Project for Public Spaces, exploring how a downtown library could be a catalyst for

social and economic change. Today I am gong to tell briefly how we became that catalyst. We presented the library not as

being in the book warehouse business, but in the people development business. We raised the expectations of our public.

And you can too.

Our 2002 ballot measure To Renew the Library was the first successful ballot measure for municipal services in Riverside

in 40 years. The success for measure C belongs entirely to the Library Board and the campaign committee. In spite of the

skepticism of our elected officials, the Library Trustees and the library constituency carried the day.

In 1998 the Library Board authorized a public opinion survey by Godbe Research. The survey results indicated modest

support for a library tax. But before the board could act on the results, several events occurred in Riverside that sidelined

the effort. You may recall the October 1998 City Hall shooting in which the mayor and two city council members were

injured. Then two months later, a nervous policeman shot to death a young black woman. These tragic events put the

City of Riverside under a Summary Judgment by the State's Attorney General.

In 2000, the library trustees met with the mayor to consider a ballot measure for the spring. But this time, it was the

School District that was determined to go out for a major bond issue and the mayor asked the library to step aside.

Undaunted, the Library Board asked for a survey update by Godbe. The results were not promising. At best, it looked as

if an $11 parcel fee could pass with the 66 2/3 approval. Eleven dollars wouldn't accomplish what the survey results said

the public wanted so an education campaign was in order.

The Library hired a local public relations firm to educate the voters and to raise their expectations. Three mailers were

designed to go to each household in the City's Public Utilities bill. The first identified what the needs were. The second

outlined the results of several community meetings identifying what improvements were most desired. The third was

delivered after the successful vote and urged residents to write in support of the library's application for Proposition 14

funds.

The campaign committee's first meeting was September 11, 2001. On that fateful day, all 13 of the invited guests showed

up and began strategizing for a successful vote in 2002. The committee chair was a retired judge, the recent recipient of

Riverside's Sunshine Award for the successful remodel of the historic 1909 county courthouse. Other members of the

committee were trustees, members of the library foundation, the county law librarian, a lawyer, a CPA, Friends of the

Library and our consultant who had prepared the educational materials.

Between September 11 and March 2, we raised more than $80,000 in cash and in-kind services for one general mailing

and ads in the local newspapers. One of our first meetings was with the Editor and Publisher of The Press Enterprise.

Together with the committee chair and a trustee, I met this formidable person who grilled us thoroughly as to our likely

prospects for success. I was later to find out that she was favorably impressed by our presentation and she gave us the

support we requested.

An even more intimidating meeting was with the City Council who had to vote to put this item on the ballot. It was a

library trustee who made the pitch, who laid on the rail between the speaker's podium and the dais for the elected officials,

a quarter, a dime and two pennies. "For 37 cents a week," he said, "We can improve our library service delivery by 12

million dollars over the next ten years. That's just a nickel a day."

For promotion we enlisted teams of community leaders, business people, and educators to pose for ads and the direct mail

piece. For the argument in favor we asked the popular president of the community college and the executive director of

Fair Housing. There was no argument against. To get out the vote, we secured a telephone bank in the lawyer's office

and called several thousand persons from the Registrar of Voter's list. We concentrated on those who had voted in the

recent successful school bond election. We crossed off any who were opposed. We sent out absentee ballots registrations.

We printed endorsements in the newspaper. We used automated calling the day of the election. We did not walk

precincts nor did we make yard signs. We did not have media advertisements other than the newspaper.

On election day we received 69% approval for the $19 a year parcel tax with a ten year sunset. In our annual report to the

community published January 14, 2006, we headlined,

Measure C Keeps Its Promises. With a 20% augmentation in funding, we have accomplished a 40% increase in hours

open and public access computers. We have increased programs and programming attendance by 66% for adults, 200%

for children.

We have a new automated circulation system, one new branch library and two more expanded facilities on the horizon.

And now it is time to plan for the renewal of Measure C. The current measure sunsets in 2012. We aim to put a new

measure on the ballot in 2007. If it does not pass, we have a couple more years to try. Our first goal is the formation of a

new committee and then the accumulation of private funds to mount the campaign. Already the survey research folks are

at work assessing the public's satisfaction with the Library's performance to date. The results due this summer should help

us frame our proposal.

In closing I would like to reflect on the power of a successful election. The Library Trustees charged with the

administration of the public library have a renewed sense of their critical role as interpreters of the public will and

defenders of the public library tradition. They recognize that libraries have been notoriously passive about funding,

accepting whatever is left over after public safety and development appropriations are made.

By capturing 69% approval, the Riverside Library is looked at with new respect by the elected officials, and the other city

departments. Two years after our successful vote, the Fire Department went to the ballot box. With help from the

catastrophic fires in the mountains that fall, they got 69% to build five new fire stations. Next year, the Parks, Recreation

and Community Services Department plans to go out for a special tax. Their success or failure will be something we will

study before mounting our next effort.

And finally, library staff understand that their performance on the job makes a difference in the public's support for

libraries.

I am confident that Riverside's residents will continue to be willing to pay for the enhanced library services they now

enjoy. Measure C has indeed kept its promises, providing more materials, more computers and more open hours.

Borrower registration and attendance are up, programming audiences have doubled. The Eastside Library and Cybrary is

open, demolition has begun for the expanded Arlington Library, and the Orange Terrace Library is on the horizon.

2007 is a year for making more promises to Riverside for its libraries, promises we are just as certain to keep as those we

made in 2002.

FOUR -- LAST BUT NOT LEAST

RIDER RESPONSE:

Chris, now THAT's a quality response. Seldom do my debaters seek out hard facts on the Internet to refute my case. My sincere congratulations!!!

Of course, you DO understand that the person giving the talk is not a private sector person, but rather a public employee -- the director of the library system. Notice how unfair it was for proponents to use the customer utility bills to send propaganda supporting a library tax increase. THREE TIMES! And note that nowhere do they mention any support or pro-tax activity by LSSI.

Naturally, I oppose such tax increases. I believe in the last decade or so I've written the ballot arguments against two county sales tax increases for libraries. I worked the media and handled the debates, and we ultimately defeated each tax. It's not unusual for government library systems to seek to raise taxes. And it's not often people accuse me of being a tax increase advocate.

Still, great job! Wonderful research! Biting zinger about the "closet advocate for added taxes"!!!!! Swell effort!!!!!!

(Can ya feel it coming yet?)

Only one teeny tiny little problem.

(Your sense of unease should be growing . . .)

The devil's in the details.

(Uh oh. . . . )

Seems one word changes it all around.

(Here it comes!)

Still, great try on your part. And I mean it!

(Okay, okay -- out with it!)

scroll down . . .

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Your librarian's article on the parcel tax is about the Riverside CITY library system!!

MY opinion piece is about LSSI running the Riverside COUNTY library system.

Okay, I admit it -- it's not fair they both have "Riverside" in their names. An honest mistake on your part. But since you had fun with your zinger, I thought I'd have my fun as well.

Hell, for all I know, maybe the COUNTY raised taxes for their library as well. Remember, the facilities are still owned by the county. Maybe you could research that for us both. Remember -- that's COUNTY, not city.

And just to state the obvious -- the Riverside CITY library system is run by (and for) city government employees.

P.S. Nothing further was heard from "Chris."

Time to Think Outside the Library Box

by Richard Rider
12 August, 2009


San Diego County has a number of public library systems open to the general public. Two operations are quite large – the San Diego County and San Diego City libraries. In addition, the cities of Carlsbad, Chula Vista, Oceanside, Coronado, Escondido and National City each have their own library systems.

Without exception, each jurisdiction’s library department has become a swelling financial drain on taxpayers. A byproduct has been the reduction of the hours of operation. This expanding cost – reflecting primarily the mushrooming compensation packages for public library employees – has been a growing problem in good times. During this recession, it’s become a much bigger problem.

It’s time to consider an alternative way of delivering library services. There is a company – LSSI – that operates public and private libraries. They improve the service, hours of operation and customer satisfaction. And they do it for less cost.

I’m not talking about selling off the libraries. Normally the government contracting with LSSI still owns the buildings and materials. But LSSI takes over the operation of the library, meeting the criteria set by the government.

One does not have to go far to see how well this alternative works. In 1996 Riverside County was facing operational difficulties, and so it contracted with LSSI to run their 33 branch libraries and two bookmobiles. Coincidentally, that’s the EXACT number of branch libraries and bookmobiles now operated by the San Diego County library system.

The results have been well received in Riverside County – by both patrons and politicians. Read the summary of this success story below.

But first, go to the LSSI website http://www.lssi.com/approach.html. In particular, watch their seven minute video. Click on the button “View Video.” Yes, it’s a promotion piece, but is has interviews with city managers, mayors and county supervisors who laud their services. It’s really quite illuminating.



The Riverside County Example



With 33 library branches, Riverside County, CA is easily the largest government library customer for LSSI. LSSI has operated the Riverside County libraries since 1996, and apparently is highly regarded in that county. The following is on their website:

http://www.lssi.com/riverside.html

Riverside County, California, operates 33 branch libraries and two bookmobiles serving a high growth population approaching 1 million residents in 13 cities across an area approximately the size of Massachusetts.

For more than 80 years, Riverside County contracted with the City of Riverside for library services. The library system was administered by a city-appointed Board of Library Trustees, all City of Riverside residents.

When a state mandated shift of property taxes resulted in funding reductions affecting the county libraries in the mid ‘90s, the individual cities and Riverside County Board of Supervisors sought more direct control. As a result, in 1996 the City of Riverside did not renew its contract to operate the County Library System and the County had only six months to develop an alternative plan.

The County issued an innovative and ground-breaking RFP seeking optimal library services within an established budget. After a comprehensive selection process, LSSI was selected to operate the County Library System. Riverside became the first library system in the nation to outsource its library operations to a private firm.

Through careful monitoring and control of the contract process, LSSI and the County have been able to increase library services without changing funding sources, increased taxes or additional fees. All former library system employees found positions for the same base pay rate and retained vacation time and accruals.

Key operational benefits in Riverside County of the LSSI managed system include:



· Expansion of the library system from 24 to 33 library sites

· Expansion of local employment opportunities from 119 local employees to 193

· More than doubling of total weekly hours of operation from 618 hrs/wk to 1380 hrs/wk

· Increase of book budget allocation from $180K to $1.95M$5M in additional grant funding

· Automation partnership with San Bernardino County, greatly increasing circulation access

· Development of early literacy program

· Establishment of ESL classes to meet community requirement

· Development of Latino outreach program, "Leer es triunfar" (Reading is succeeding)

· Winner of a 2005 John Cotton Dana Library Award


-----


If our politicians ever decide that our cities and counties are supposed to be run for the public rather than for the public EMPLOYEES, we can start pursuing alternative methods of delivering government services – such as LSSI. Since our local governments are running out of financial alternatives, perhaps that time is close upon us. We certainly hope that such is the case.


– 30 –

RICHARD RIDER RANT - 8/11/09

The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism, but under the name of Liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program until one day America will be a Socialist nation without knowing how it happened.
Norman Thomas – 6-time Socialist Party Presidential candidate

1. Letters to editor in response to my U-T trash fee op-ed are informative in several ways
2. Government productivity often is internally frowned upon – the opposite of the private sector 3. “Time to Pull the Plug on the Library”
4. Damned planet refuses to heat up – environmentalists distraught
5. Environmental madness still rules in Congress
6. Generic political cartoon, but seems to apply to CA best
7. Massachusetts is our health care canary in the coal mine
8. British patients with stiff upper lips forced to live in agony
9. Textbooks doomed – about time!
10. Nevada produces funny, biting ads at California’s expense – California Big Government disciples, beware
11. SD Airport board members abusing expense accounts big-time
12. Sales tax on CA laptop computers can exceed 13%
13. Cash for clunkers: Trade in American, buy foreign
14. San Diego press folks finally figuring it out – they’re switching to work for government
15. Fair share? Top 1% paid more federal income tax than 95% of the rest

1. Letters to editor about my U-T trash fee op-ed are informative in several ways
RIDER COMMENT: As you doubtless recall from my last Rant, I had an op-ed published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, opposing charging a trash fee for San Diego city residential refuse pickup. My piece was printed in conjunction with another op-ed in favor of the fees.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/26/lz1e26rider225053-we-pay-more-spending-must-be-con/?&zIndex=138070

The online comments afterwards under my op-ed were lively and informative – well, MY comments and the comments from those who agreed with me were informative. You might want to check ’em out. Or not. It was good to see that only a couple of diligent city workers bothered to make comments – I thought I’d be inundated with their propaganda.

Then the following Sunday the paper ran letters to the editor about the issue. The results were optimistic from my standpoint. Six letters were on my side, only one against.

When the letters editor picks the letters to publish, he tries to pick them to roughly represent the total letters submitted. That 6-1 ratio probably roughly represented the ratio of the total letters submitted. That means that, if this thing comes to the ballot, we have a good chance of winning, even with the labor unions spending millions to raise the fees (by repealing the city’s “People’s Ordinance”).

Moreover, I didn’t plant any of the letters. I knew three of the respondents on my side – two libertarians and a LIBERAL – but they wrote on their own (and did fine jobs, I might add).
Here are the U-T letters:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/02/mz1e2letters20368-two-sides-san-diego-trash-issue/?&zIndex=142544
Letters to the Editor
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Two sides of the San Diego trash issue
Re: “Trash talk / Paying for a service many San Diegans don't get” by Leonard Martin and “Before we pay more, spending must be controlled” by Richard Rider (Dialog, August 2):

Another tax? Another fee? How about a “sidewalk tax” for people who want to walk on the sidewalk? How about a “wheelchair tax” to help pay for installing wheelchair curb-cuts? How about a “sidewalk tax” for people who have the Union-Tribune thrown on their sidewalk every morning? How about a “breathing tax”?

Or, how about cutting city expenses? That's what I have to do if things get too expensive and get out of hand.

JOHN DEL SANTO
San Diego

Expecting us to just forget about the fact that we are already paying for this service is criminal. Why not try reducing the employees' benefits and automatic annual raises. And why are we paying people to spy into garbage to see if it complies with recycling laws. I think people can follow a few rules without a snitch watching over their debris, much less paying the snitch, too.

AMY DEL NAGRO
San Diego

If the People's Ordinance of 1919 is rescinded, you can be assured of only one thing: The City Council will find creative ways to use the money for anything but trash collection.

Our city does not have a good record when it comes to spending our money. So, if you don't give it to them, they won't spend it.

ALFRED C. STROHLEIN
San Diego

Individuals who elect to live in multiple complexes that do not qualify for “free” waste services should not complain. It's a question of free choice. Fairness has little impact when a question of choice enters the mix.

Most multi-unit dwellers choose to enjoy the amenities of free laundry rooms, computer rooms, play rooms, health spas, swimming pools, Jacuzzis, barbeques, landscaping, etc. If one opts not to enjoy some of these amenities they should consider a single-family dwelling. These units continue to be in the majority.

VIC TALLARIDA
San Diego

“Tax fighter” Richard Rider offers nothing substantive regarding trash collection besides his usual diatribe against taxes, fees, city employees and unions. His opinion piece could apply, virtually unchanged, about almost any issue facing the city. In his stead, I offer a solution that remedies the inequity Leonard Marin addresses in his companion piece.

The City Council and mayor should remove trash collection from the menu of city services, just like closing library branches, removing fire rings, etc. The roughly 50 percent of households, like mine, paying for private trash collection would be unaffected. Those now receiving trash collection as a city service would be charged no fee nor would their taxes be diverted to collect my trash, presumably satisfying “one-issue” zealots like Rider. Instead, people currently receiving city trash collection would face choices and personal choice is what America is about. There would be no tax increase, no redirection of tax monies, no fees to the city, no city employee pensions involved, just plain old personal responsibility and free enterprise allowing equal treatment of all households.

DAVID COHEN
Hillcrest

Leonard Martin writes that the repeal of the People's Ordinance “will free up nearly $60 million annually, the first year and every subsequent year . . . ” How can anyone in his right mind believe that repeal of the ordinance will provide the city with an extra $60 million to spend on maintenance and other city obligations. If the ordinance is in fact repealed, which can only happen by a vote of the people, that $60 million or whatever amount is currently used to fund trash removal from city resident homes should be credited back to each and every homeowner paying taxes in the city of San Diego. In effect lowering taxes, which will be offset by a fee that is paid to a private trash hauler. Any other treatment of these funds is in fact an increase in local taxes.

GREGG LAWLESS
San Diego

George Orwell would have found a place for Leonard Martin and the Union-Tribune's vision of “free city trash service” if he were writing “1984” today. The idea that residential property owners are getting services “free” from the city is laughable. The lack of a bill with the heading “trash pickup charge” does not make the service free. So let us be honest, this isn't about apartment dwellers in City Heights being raked over the coals for the benefit of Rancho Bernardo or Point Loma. It's about finding ways to generate more city revenue without being constrained by honesty.

GERALD HOSENKAMP
San Diego

2. Government productivity often is internally frowned upon – the opposite of the private sector

RIDER COMMENT: In a comment on Chris Reed blog article about state worker compensation, BobSp raised a GREAT point about worker productivity. It's common -- even mandatory -- in the private sector that productivity should improve. In the public sector, in many instances, increased productivity is actually frowned upon.

The public employee labor unions make sure that better performance is not rewarded with higher pay. Work twice as hard (or half as hard) as your government co-worker, get the same pay. Showing up your government co-workers by "working too hard" can result in harsh words, shunning, or worse.

Perhaps more important, government managers are paid more the larger their "responsibility." And the number one criterion is how many people the managers supervise. The last thing a government manager wants is a smaller work force.

I remember my younger days as a LT in the Navy Supply Corps where I learned this lesson first hand. I suggested that by reworking my 32nd St Naval Station galley (cafeteria, to you land lubbers) work schedules and using private minimum wage food service personnel (we already used a private contractor for low level galley "mess cook" work), we could get rid of 75% of my civil service employees who were being paid for eight hours while only needing to work for three hours at most.

No one challenged the feasibility or accuracy of my proposal. But my superior (rank-wise) and his superiors were aghast at the idea.

Their thinking was that we should keep the deadwood because sometime in the future the Department of Defense might send out a "RIF" (Reduction in Force) mandate, and we'd want to have the unneeded employees to cut at that time.

Hence my civil service drones continued droning. Such is the nature of government.

Here’s the Chris Reed blog item and comments:
http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/afb/archives/034823.html

3. “Time to Pull the Plug on the Library”

RIDER COMMENT: Below is an excellent commentary opposing the proposed downtown San Diego library -- written by SD County Taxpayers Association President Lani Lutar. The title of the piece says it all.

The online reader comments are lively, with library lovers having a hissy fit. I missed out on putting in my own comments in a timely fashion – a loss to posterity.

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2009/06/09/opinion/lutar060909.txt#info


VOICE OF SAN DIEGO
Time to Pull the Plug on the Library

By Lani Lutar

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 The proposed downtown library currently remains on life-support after receiving a temporary extension from the State Librarian. Councilmember Carl DeMaio, a vocal critic of the project, recently pointed out that significant funding shortfalls for construction continue to plague the project. Beyond the cost of construction, the city would have to find almost $6 million every year to cover increased annual operating costs.

Equally troublesome, the latest proposal includes the highly questionable use of school bond dollars to make up for a lack of private funds. Given the city's dire financial situation for the foreseeable future, pulling the plug on boondoggles like this project has never been more important.

In 2005, construction of the library was estimated to cost $185 million, more than double the 1996 estimate of $63 million. Funding for construction of the project was slated to come from $80 million in CCDC redevelopment funds, $20 million from a State grant and $85 million in private donations. When private fundraising failed to meet the December 2008 state grant deadline, project proponents suggested the inclusion of a school on the two top floors of the proposed library to make up for funding shortfalls and extend the viability of the grant.

In order to maintain the $20 million grant from the state, the city and school district are required to conduct a "feasibility study" to update construction costs and determine any redesign needs to accommodate a school as part of the building. This $169,000 study will update cost estimates and analyze any changes in design necessary to accommodate the inclusion of a school.

The city and San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) have yet to reach an agreement on the proportionate funding of the feasibility study, but before $169,000 of taxpayer money is spent to investigate whether the hybrid project is actually viable, the complete inability of the proposal to pencil out must be considered.

A recent report released by the Office of Councilmember Carl DeMaio highlighted the following:

* Adjusting the 2005 proposal for construction cost inflation only (i.e. ignoring the school component) suggests that costs have increased from $185 million to $208 million today.
* Additional construction costs associated with Field Act compliance are likely to increase construction costs by at least another 3-4 percent. This yields an estimate of $214 million today.
* Using the most conservative of these inflation adjustments ($208 million construction cost), the project is underfunded by $55 million, even after taking the additional $20 million of school bond dollars in account.
* According to the city's Independent Budget Analyst, the new main library will require $5.7 million more per year to operate than the current downtown library.


This means that the new library will add to the city's annual operating costs at a time when budget deficits abound, branch library closures have been threatened and hours have been reduced.

Private fundraisers have also promised to cover the first five years of operating cost increases, which amounts to more than $28 million. In total, private fundraisers have promised to raise $85 million for construction of the library, plus $28 million for operating costs. To date, only $33 million has been acknowledged, and far less confirmed.

Furthermore, excess space in the library was originally designed to help mitigate cost by generating revenues. Adding the school to the proposal eliminates anywhere from $950,000 to $1.5 million of estimated annual revenue that would help to offset the annual operating cost increases.

The red balance sheet outlined above tells the real story of the downtown library proposal: taxpayers are left holding the bag. Under the funding proposal in 2005, public funds (from CCDC and the State) accounted for 55 percent of the project cost. Today, assuming construction cost inflation to $208 million, taxpayer funds (via CCDC, Proposition S, the State, plus the shortfall of $57 million) would make up more than 80 percent of project funding.

Furthermore, the proposed use of Proposition S school bond dollars for the project is a desperate attempt to save this ill-advised project and a classic case of bait-and-switch. Prior to the election last November, SDUSD sought endorsements from a variety of stakeholder groups, and provided lists of projects it planned to pursue with the bond dollars. During this campaign, SDUSD clearly outlined the need for a new elementary school downtown. However, law requires elementary schools to be housed on the lower floors of buildings and the available space in the proposed library is on top floors.

Within moments of this discovery, the need for the new elementary school downtown was conveniently tossed aside by the school district in favor of a high school which could save the project.

Every aspect of the library proposal depicts a financial disaster in the making. Construction is underfunded, the city cannot afford the increased operation and maintenance expenses and library boosters want taxpayers to pick up a greater portion of the total bill. In no uncertain terms, the time has come to pull the plug on this proposal once and for all.

Lutar is president and chief executive officer of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes accountable, cost-effective and efficient government. You can reach her at lani@sdcta.org .

4. Damned planet refuses to heat up – environmentalists distraught

RIDER COMMENT: There’s been considerable consternation by the environmentalists about the insufficient level of urgent concern about global warming, even among the young. After all, we’ve been warned! But perhaps our reality trumps the highly questionable “sky is falling” predictions.

The following excerpt from a recent Mark Steyn column summarizes the widespread skepticism well. BTW, Steyn – an acerbic, witty conservative columnist – is always a fun read – except for his opponents.

http://tinyurl.com/nkcukl

Behind the Times
by Mark Steyn

. . .

If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade. There has been no global warming this century. None. Admittedly the 21st century is only one century out of the many centuries of planetary existence, but it happens to be the one you’re stuck living in. Alan Carlin, in a report for the Environmental Protection Racket — whoops, Environmental Protection Agency — that they attempted to suppress, says:

Fossil fuel and cement emissions increased by 3.3 percent per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.3 percent per year in the 1990s. Similarly, atmospheric C02 concentrations increased by 1.93 parts per million per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.58 ppm in the 1990s. And yet, despite accelerating emission rates and concentrations, there’s been no net warming in the 21st century, and more accurately, a decline.

. . .

5. Environmental madness still rules in Congress

RIDER COMMENT: Ya know, we are just getting jaded. Bill after feel good bill works their way through Congress, costs us TRILLIONS, and does nothing for us or the environment. The article below details one of the worst ones in process.

http://www.ncpa.org/commentaries/waxman-markey-deserves-to-die


Waxman-Markey Deserves to Die
Commentary by Pete du Pont
July 26, 2009

The economy-destroying measure ekes out a House victory.
Source: Wall Street Journal online

The fresh news about Washington--the White House and Congress--is that things are not going very well. A new president in full command of public-policy matters is having problems, from health care to taxes to massive federal spending and now to the Waxman-Markey bill, one of the oddest and most far-reaching pieces of legislation advocated by the new administration.

It passed the House a few weeks ago by a 219-212 vote--not much of a margin. Most interesting was the fact that of America's 50 state delegations in the House, 28 voted no and 22 aye, and one quarter of the 219 majority votes came from New York and California. Most of America's states and communities didn't much like the bill.

No wonder, for it would regulate many things--energy, wages, imported goods, corporations, states, cities, buildings and houses, snowmobiles, lawn mowers, light fixtures, candelabra base lamps and many others--while containing broad exemptions for regulation of agribusiness, ethanol and biofuels. The Waxman-Markey bill would be without question the biggest expansion of federal government control over our economy since the 1930s.

The Heritage Foundation concludes it would reduce America's real gross domestic product by $400 billion each year--a cumulative loss of $9.4 trillion by 2035--leading to almost 2.5 million job losses, and raise inflation-adjusted electricity rates by 90%. For a household of four, it would cost on average $2,979 annually and in 2035 the total family cost would be over $4,600 for everything, including power, food, supplies, gasoline and transportation.

Our federal government would have full control over global-warming matters. States would not be permitted to create their own cap-and-trade programs, but could be given emission allowances by the federal government which they could sell to generate funds for clean energy programs.

The federal government would also have control over the carbon permit process. It would give away 85% of the permits to utility companies, refineries and other politically connected businesses, and these no-cost permits could be used by companies to continue to crank out historically high CO2 emission levels, or be sold to other companies for real money.

Next would come the expansion of American protectionism. China and India have declined to participate in global-warming control, so under Waxman-Markey we would be able to impose tariffs on their goods coming into America, something India's environmental minister pointed out to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a few days ago. The other side of that coin is of course that they could impose tariffs on our exports too. That would hurt American businesses and expand government control of our economy, products and businesses, all in the name of fighting global warming.

Of course we have seen the predecessor of the Waxman-Markey bill in the European Union's cap-and-trade regulation, a political failure as well as an economic one. As Heritage's Ben Lieberman has pointed out, it has not worked in various countries, and is now being opposed by nations that need to burn coal for their electricity generation. As the Washington Post wrote last February, European "emission targets were set too high. Too many pollution allowances were given away to industry. . . . Companies made windfall profits by charging customers more for energy while selling allowances they didn't need. And the Europeans have not had much success in reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

As Lieberman observes, "To the limited extent European nations have reduced emissions below business-as-usual levels it has hurt their economies. . . . Far from seeing evidence of the bright new green economy some are now promising, we are seeing that cap and trade has contributed to the harm." Waxman-Markey would operate much the same way with many of the same results in America, and that means central government planning would pull America down to European levels.

So who is in favor of this massive expansion of governmental authority in America? Labor unions of course, for tucked away is the requirement that any project receiving grants from the billions of giveaways in the Waxman-Markey bill would be required to apply Davis-Bacon union wage rules.

Environmentalists like it too, but as climate researcher Chip Knappenberger pointed out in May, neither Henry Waxman nor Ed Markey nor anyone else in Congress is arguing that "the bill is going to save the earth from human-caused climate apocalypse." It won't, and it "will have virtually no impact on the future course of the earth's climate." The Waxman-Markey reduction of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, Mr. Knappenberger concludes, would reduce temperatures by less than one-tenth of a degree Fahrenheit by 2050.

The real purpose of Waxman-Markey is to vastly expand the scope, power and authority of the federal government. Washington would permanently regulate and dictate the performance of the U.S. economy, reward constituencies it favors and punish those it doesn't, and make more and more Americans dependent upon federal largesse.

6. Generic political cartoon, but seems to apply to CA best

http://www.bostonherald.com/galleries/index.php?gallery_id=791&p=7

7. Massachusetts is our health care canary in the coal mine

RIDER COMMENT: Unwittingly, Massachusetts signed on in 2005 to show us how the currently proposed national health insurance would actually work in America. Would that we could learn from the results.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba667


Three Lessons from Massachusetts
Brief Analysis Health
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
by Greg Scandlen

The Massachusetts experiment in health care reform offers many lessons that are applicable to the current debate in Congress. The goals of the Massachusetts plan are similar to proposals supported by Democratic congressional leaders and the Obama administration: universal health insurance coverage through greater access to health insurance.

The Obama proposals would use similar means to achieve these goals: requiring individuals to purchase insurance and creating an "insurance exchange" where they can buy heavily regulated, heavily subsidized health insurance.

Some of the lessons to be learned from the Massachusetts experience have been well-chronicled elsewhere, but there are three lessons that remain to be explored.

Lesson 1: Reform has raised costs, not lowered them. The state has indeed lowered the number of uninsured dramatically - down to 2.6 percent of the population by some estimates. But it has done so in a very expensive way that does nothing to control costs. Massachusetts has relied primarily on two factors to fund its plan: 1) state premium subsidies for almost everyone who has gained coverage and 2) the requirement that individuals enroll. This is a huge burden on taxpayers and on anyone who pays directly for health care:

* The state was able to get the federal government to pay for much of these new costs, but even with that help, state government spending has increased 42 percent since 2006.
* The Massachusetts program has cost about one-third more than projected when the law was passed.
* Before the Massachusetts health insurance reform plan was implemented in 2005, total per capita health care spending in the state was 33 percent above the national average.
* In just two years under the Massachusetts reforms, from 2005 to 2007, health care spending per capita rose an additional 23 percent.

Lesson 2: The people reform was intended to help say they are being hurt. That level of spending might be justified if it was clear that large numbers of previously uninsured people were being helped. But a survey conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health found just the opposite.

* Slightly more than half (51 percent) of those required to purchase coverage say their health care costs have gone up and only 14 percent say they have gone down.
* Some 22 percent say the law is helping them personally, but 60 percent say it is hurting them.

Although the survey found that most residents of Massachusetts support the law, the level of support is greatest among those least affected - the people who are more likely to have insurance or be able to afford coverage because of their education and income:

* Some 69 percent of those with college degrees or incomes of more than $75,000 a year support the law.
* Just 49 percent of those making $25,000 to $50,000 and only 45 percent of those with a high school or lower education, support it.

Lesson 3: Everyone else is being hurt, too. It isn't only those directly affected by the mandate who are being hurt in Massachusetts. Due to the sudden increase in demand for physicians, every resident who would like to see a doctor is being harmed. Massachusetts has by far the largest number of physicians per capita of any state. Despite this, patients in Massachusetts now have the longest waiting times to see a doctor, according to a recent survey of physician waiting times in 15 major U.S. cities. For example, in Boston the average waiting time to get an appointment for any of five types of specialists is almost double the wait in the next highest area, Philadelphia. [See the table.]

Long waiting times to see a physician have caused the use of hospital emergency rooms to soar by 17 percent to 2.5 million visits in 2007. Half of these ER visits were for nonurgent conditions. Although one of the state's goals was to increase access to private physicians for the previously uninsured, Massachusetts payments to community health centers for free care to the indigent have increased from $52.2 million in 2005 to $58.6 million in 2007.

Lessons for America. Of all these developments, the most sobering one is the soaring waiting times to see a doctor. Previously, Massachusetts enjoyed the highest number of physicians per capita of any state, and it had one of the lowest rates of noninsured in the country. If any jurisdiction could have accommodated a surge of newly insured people it should have been Massachusetts. By contrast, California has half as many physicians per capita and twice the level of uninsured. Imagine what will happen to waiting times in California if all the uninsured suddenly become insured. As in Massachusetts, if they can't see a doctor on a timely basis, patients may seek treatment at hospital emergency rooms. But California doesn't have any excess capacity there, either. Waiting times in ERs will soar. Other big states like Texas and Florida are even less able than California to serve the newly insured.

What kind of health care reform requires working people to pay for coverage, but then deprives them of the ability to see a doctor? It is the kind that will generate an enormous backlash of outraged patients. Members of Congress need to think twice before embarking on the same journey as Massachusetts.

Greg Scandlen is director of Consumers for Health Care Choices at the Heartland Institute.

8. British patients with stiff upper lips forced to live in agony

RIDER COMMENT: No, a stiff upper lip is not an English medical malady. It’s just that the wise central planning souls in charge of the UK’s national health insurance now eschew adequate pain relief for folks with lower back problems. Acupuncture is being recommended instead (cheaper – even when it doesn’t work!).

Rationing health treatment is SOP in dear old Britain – for those who cannot afford private health care.
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18282

BRITISH PATIENTS FORCED TO LIVE IN AGONY

In England, the government's drug rationing watchdog says "therapeutic" injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known. Instead the National Institute of Health (NHW) and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy, says the Telegraph.

Every year, one-in-three people are estimated to suffer from lower back pain, while one in 15 consult their general practitioner (GP) about it. Specialists say therapeutic injections using steroids can deaden nerve endings, can provide months or even years of respite from pain. Others fear that if funding, tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 (about U.S. $847) each for private treatment, says the Telegraph:

* The NHS currently issues more than 60,000 treatments of steroid injections every year.
* NICE said in its guidance it wants to cut this to just 3,000 treatments a year, a move which would save the NHS £33 million (about U.S. $56 million).
* But the British Pain Society, which represents specialists in the field, has written to NICE calling for the guidelines to be withdrawn after its members warned that they would lead to many patients having to undergo unnecessary and high-risk spinal surgery.

While the NICE guidelines admit that evidence was limited for many back pain treatments, where scientific proof was lacking, advice was instead taken from its expert group.

But specialists are furious that while the group included practitioners of alternative therapies, there was no one with expertise in conventional pain relief medicine to argue against a decision to significantly restrict its use, says the Telegraph.

Source: Laura Donnelly, "Patients forced to live in agony after NHS refuses to pay for painkilling injections," Telegraph, August 2, 2009.

For text:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5955840/Patients-forced-to-live-in-agony-after-NHS-refuses-to-pay-for-painkilling-injections.html

9. Textbooks doomed – about time!

RIDER COMMENT: While the level of education in the U.S. has deteriorated, one area of learning has shown remarkable growth – textbooks. They’ve grown in a number of ways.

Certainly modern textbooks have grown in entertainment value compared to the drab textbooks of yore. They’ve grown in the sheer quantity of material offered (much of which is never covered by classroom teachers). Then there is all that growth in PC coverage. Robust growth can be observed in the price of textbooks. And all of this adds together – leading to the oppressive growth in the massive size and weight of textbooks – today’s textbook tomes lugged around by kids without school lockers.

It’s time to put an end to this madness – at least the madness of hard copy textbooks. The day of the personal/laptop computer has arrived. And the price for such has plummeted.

***

SIDEBAR: One ongoing canard is that the “digital divide” leaves behind the poor without computers. Nonsense! There are many inexpensive ways to buy a computer. Go on Craigslist and buy a used basic desktop computer for $125 or less. Sometimes MUCH less. Furthermore, there are charities that provide computers for poor kids for free!

Yes, the poor have fewer computers at home – but that’s a decision they make. Anyone with the slightest initiative can solve that problem for little cost. Instead most poor folks spend far too much on TV’s, cell phones and video console games. No one likes to point out that such bad decision-making is one big reason the poor are poor!

***

Let’s go back to taxpayer-paid education. It appears that some educators are figuring out that digital textbooks can be read and studied on a portable computer. Some mavens are predicting that hard copy textbooks will all but disappear within five years.

Meanwhile notebook laptops are down under $300 retail. Simple full-size laptops can be found under $350 retail. Given the cost of hard copy textbooks, it would seem that the districts can save money (and students’ posture) by buying cheap, no frills notebooks or laptops for students (the notebooks weigh under 3 pounds) and then acquire textbooks electronically. I suspect the savings on software textbooks could pay for the notebooks in a year.

School districts in Arizona have already figured out the benefits of providing laptops and avoiding costly textbooks. As we all know from our online experiences, there’s a wealth of FREE material on the Internet available for dissemination – including educational material. Furthermore, the Arizona districts are encouraging teachers to disseminate good lesson plans prepared for the computer.

Here’s a link to a May, 2009 LA TIMES editorial encouraging the digital textbook option:

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/23/opinion/ed-textbooks23

And here’s a link to an encouraging (and more detailed) article in the 9 August, 2009 NY TIMES – referencing the Arizona district experience:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/education/09textbook.html

10. Nevada produces funny, biting ads at California’s expense – California Big Government disciples, beware

RIDER COMMENT: The zany folks in the Nevada Development Authority keep putting out outrageous ads pounding on how business-UNfriendly CA is. The ads – both print and video – are slick, funny and irritating – as they should be. And the gonzo nature of the ads is getting Nevada a good bit of free media coverage as well. Here’s a couple newspaper ads that I particularly liked:

To look over what the Nevada Development Authority has to say about leaving CA for the Las Vegas area, go to:
http://www.nevadadevelopment.org/

11. SD Airport board members abusing expense accounts big-time

RIDER COMMENT: A couple years ago the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE did a fine exposé on the extravagant spending by the appointed members of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. Currently the agency has a $121 million budget, which it derives from public money – primarily from airport fees and rents.

As a result of that exposé, new spending guidelines were put in place. Guidelines, smidelines. Our airport officials don’t need no stinkin’ guidelines. Must be so, since they imperiously ignore said guidelines.

We know that such is still the case, thanks to a follow-up investigation by the intrepid Voice of San Diego. Here’s the link to their just-released article:

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2009/08/09/economics/846airport080909.txt

You might be wise not to read it – if you pay the fees for flying in and out of San Diego’s Lindberg Airport. Don’t want you going postal in the airport.

Perhaps the most egregious incident was when two board members flew to England for a Charger exhibition game (I’ll leave it to you to conjure up the rationale for that trip). No taxpayer expense was spared – from the $5,500 first class airline tickets to the $350 Charger reception to the $1,200 for seats (a board member and a guest -- $600 each) at the game. And just to be clear, that’s the price for EACH board member’s football two tickets, reception and airfare.

Ya gotta’ love authority Chairman Bob Watkins’ response to the Voice story – it’s just lowly-paid reporter envy. Great stuff – his elitism is insufferable.

Just in case you think the above expenses are a one-time aberration – consider this: San Diego Airport staff fly to Los Angeles for as much as $820 a ticket. And yes, that is Los Angeles, California.

Now, let’s see if these political appointees avoid being fired.

Assuming that they are not fired, surely they will be denied reappointment by the politicians who first put them there. Yeah, when pigs land on the Lindberg runway.

12. Sales tax on CA laptop computers can exceed 13%

RIDER COMMENT: Currently our total sales tax on goods in San Diego County ranges from 8.75% to 9.75%, depending on where the purchase is made. But what few people realize is that California now levies a second DE FACTO sales tax on laptops, computer monitors and TV’s. The Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 was passed to levy an E-waste “fee” on items with a screen (anything larger than 4”). Supposedly this fee is imposed to somehow help recycle such items.

BTW, included in this law are provisions to make tossing such items in the trash a criminal offense. And that aspect of the law covers other items as well (such as computer cases with the innards included), though few know just what those items are.

The E-waste tax is crudely figured based on the size of the screen.

4” up to (under) 15” is an $8 fee

15” up to 35” is a $16 fee

35” and above is a $25 fee

This is not like some bottle or can deposit you can get back when you properly recycle your screen device. It’s money that’s disappears into state government.

I ran into one particularly nefarious aspect of this tax when this spring I purchased a laptop at Costco. I got a great deal for $450. But like most laptops sold today, my screen was a tad bigger than 15”. 15.1”, to be exact. Currently this is probably the single most popular size for a laptop screen. For that tiny incremental increase, the state doubles my E-waste fee from $8 to $16.

So what’s my total “sales tax” on that $450 purchase? 8.75% (“normal” sales tax) + 3.55% (E-waste fee) = 12.3%. If I had purchased my laptop from the El Cajon Costco, it would have cost me 13.3% sales tax.

Most people realize that they can break the law by avoiding the sales tax – buying their computers from out-of-state vendors via the Internet. But few think about the fact that such a purchase also avoids the E-waste tax – doubtless violating another law.

As this knowledge spreads, it surely will not help our California vendors sell our uber-taxable computer laptop, monitor and TV’s. Too bad.

And BTW, CA is looking at banning plasma TV sales in CA (for energy savings) – making out-of-state purchase the only alternative (yeah, and making that choice will surely break yet another law).

13. Cash for clunkers: Trade in American, buy foreign

RIDER COMMENT: The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes the “Cash for Clunkers” trade-in program. Once again, our central planners have screwed up. American taxpayers subsidize foreign car industry. Read on.

http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2009/08/10/cash-for-clunkers-trade-in-american-buy-foreign/

CASH FOR CLUNKERS: TRADE IN AMERICAN; BUY FOREIGN

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

Published on DickMorris.com on August 10, 2009

The only part of the stimulus program that is working, the cash-for-clunkers program is, in reality, a subsidy to foreign car companies, proving that Barack Obama is the best president Japan ever had.

The Department of Transportation reports that the ten leading trade-ins are all American branded cars while six of the top ten new cars purchased - and four of the top five - are foreign. So the United States Senate is about to pass additional funds to subsidize the trade-in of American cars and the purchase of foreign cars.

DOT reports that the following are the ten top trade-ins, all American:

Ten Top Trade-Ins Under Cash for Clunkers

1. Ford Explorer
2. Ford F150 Pickup 2WD
3. Jeep Grand Cherokee 4 WD
4. Jeep Cherokee 4 WD
5. Dodge Caravan/Grand Caravan
6. Chevrolet Blazer 4 WD
7. Ford Explorer 2 WD
8. Ford F150 Pickup 4 WD
9. Chevrolet C1500 Pickup 2 WD
10. Ford Windstar FWD Van


And the top ten new car purchases, subsidized by the American taxpayer, are mainly foreign vehicles:

Top Ten New Car Purchases: Cash for Clunkers

1. Toyota Corolla
2. Ford Focus FWD
3. Honda Civic
4. Toyota Prius
5. Toyota Camry
6. Ford Escape FWD
7. Hyundai Elantra
8. Dodge Caliber
9. Honda Fit
10. Chevrolet Cobalt

It is a violation of the World Trade Organization rules to enact a public subsidy program and skew it toward only domestically produced products, so the Congress has no choice but to extend the program to all comers. No choice, that is, but to not spend the money in the first place.

Cash for Clunkers will do wonders for the Japanese economy, but its impact on the US job situation is problematic. This unintended consequence is a great illustration of what happens when the blunt tool of government subsidy is applied to the fine tuning of a free market economy. Government planners keep getting it wrong. That's why socialism is such a bad idea.

So Obama can boast of a great success in taking American cars off the road and replacing them with foreign cars. Great going!

14. San Diego press folks finally figuring it out – they’re switching to work for government

RIDER COMMENT: Normally when I conclude a speech on local politics, I ask the audience what’s the ONE thing that they should take with them out of the lecture – what ONE piece of advice could turn their lives around.

Someone eventually comes up with the right answer – “get a government job.” More specifically, get a San Diego CITY government job.

I give the same advice to media folks at the conclusion of an interview or press conference. Given the tenuous nature of their occupational job security, coupled with their stagnated compensation, such advice fits them particularly well.

As the article below demonstrates, it looks like many media pundits have indeed heeded my advice and become government employees at an accelerating rate – even more than I realized. After years of covering stories that show the stark contrast between public and private sector employment, many reporters have fled to (or been laid off and gone to) government jobs.

I’m worried that such a career pattern might give reporter cause to hesitate in doing investigative journalism, delving into our politicians’ antics. I doubt such a potential conflict is a major factor, but the number of press folks switching to public “service” is unsettling.

It also means that when the press wants info from government, it’s often their former co-workers that they deal with – which is a little too chummy for objective media coverage.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local-beat/Trend-Reporters-Turned-Pols-52687452.html

Another S.D. Journalist Goes Into Politics

San Diego has experienced a noticeable shift of journalists entering the world of politics
By RON DONOHO

Updated 3:45 PM PDT, Fri, Aug 7, 2009

Next time you read a byline in a local newspaper or magazine, or watch an anchor on a nightly TV newscast, take note: Those people may soon be your public servants. Over the past few years, there’s been a steady march from the field of journalism into politics.

On Monday, Tim McClain is expected to begin working as a legislative assistant/press secretary for San Diego County District 4 Supervisor Ron Roberts. For the previous dozen years, McClain was the editor of "Metropolitan" magazine and appeared on "Editors Roundtable” on KPBS.

What’s it like to go from asking the questions to answering and/or avoiding them?

"I love journalists and writers -- I've always been a big defender of what they try to do," McClain said. "And I'll help them do their jobs from this side of the fence."

Last month, San Diego City Councilwoman Marti Emerald (District 7) hired former KGTV weather reporter Geni Cavitt to be her director of communications. You might recall Emerald was the "Troubleshooter” consumer reporter for 10News.

Within the last year, San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders snatched up San Diego Union-Tribune writers Gerry Braun and Rachel Laing to be director of special projects and deputy press secretary, respectively.

District 6 City Councilwoman Donna Frye has also double-dipped at the Union-Tribune. Former reporters Mark Sauer and Chet Barfield are now her district representatives.

Former U-T reporter Tony Manolatos was grabbed to be the director of communications for District 2 City Councilman Kevin Faulconer. District 1 County Supervisor Greg Cox has the U-T's Luis Monteagado as his spokesman. And the director of communications for the past couple years for District 5 County Supervisor Bill Horn is former KFMB-TV anchor John Culea.

And now, I'd like to announce I'm running for president ... not.

Ron Donoho is a regular contributor to NBCSandiego.com and a contributing editor to sandiego.com. His Web site (sandiegoDTOWN.com) is dedicated to news, sports, culture, happy hours and all things downtown.

15. Fair share? Top 1% paid more federal income tax than 95% of the rest

RIDER COMMENT (well, actually, mostly Bill Leonard’s comment): The Tax Foundation has crunched the IRS numbers for the most recent data available, 2007. It found the top one percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. What is remarkable about this is the share of the tax burden by the top one percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid 20 years ago.

The top one percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined. Given that we are no longer a republic, but rather simply a “majority rules” democracy, that fact does not bode well for the wealthy – as more voters feeling little pain from the income tax seek to increasingly soak the rich to benefit themselves.

The substantiating income tax data tables on the foundation’s website (links below) are illuminating. One aspect that the report did not discuss is that we had tax cuts in rates during this decade, and now the wealthy pay more taxes (a higher percent of their income), and a higher percent of the total income taxes paid. The Laffer Curve lives!

I may dig deeper into this data at another time.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23408.html

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/24944.html

RICHARD RIDER RANT 7/31/09

There are severe limits to the good that the government can do for the economy, but there are almost no limits to the harm it can do.
Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate

1. Rider trash fee opposition op-ed in SD UNION-TRIBUNE.

2. One area of employment grew in the county – you’ll never guess. Well, actually you probably WILL guess.

3. SD County firing volunteer firefighters like crazy – and crazy is the word for it.

4. Read about Rider’s heroes – volunteer firefighters.

5. Media blacks out story predicting 1.1 million California jobs lost from AB 32’s Draconian environmental regs

6. For a great daily dose of free market economics, go to . . .

7. Fools! You could have made a fortune (like me) investing in greedy health care companies. Or not.

8. California “only” the 6th worst state? We wish!

9. Feds’ stimulus often “much ado about nothing.” Their PR departments are working overtime. Naturally at our expense.

10. If Obama disappoints his fans, they will have only themselves to blame.

1. Rider trash fee opposition op-ed in SD UNION-TRIBUNE
In the Sunday, 26 July edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune "Dialog -- Insight and Opinion" section there is a full page "Trash Talk" two-opinion debate. I wrote the pro-taxpayer column – you’ll see the details below.
The issue is whether to repeal the San Diego city "People's Ordinance" which includes single unit residential trash pickup as a city service. Proponents of the repeal want to start charging fees for this city service, while opponents (such as I) see this as a slippery slope -- a way to start raising DE FACTO taxes without the required 2/3 vote of the electorate (or any vote at all, actually). See my column for more thoughts on this.
BTW, the U-T (hopefully inadvertently) summarized the issue with a pro-fee, anti-taxpayer explanation published with each column -- omitting any reason for NOT imposing the fee.
Here's the U-T summary. See what you think.
---
The city of San Diego is mandated, under the People's Ordinance of 1919, to use tax money, rather than a fee for service, to pay for trash pickup at most single-family residences. Over the years, many have called for the repeal of the ordinance on the grounds that it is unfair to those who live in multifamily units and that by charging for trash pickup, as many municipalities do, the city could ease its financial problems.
---
BACKGROUND: The San Diego County Grand Jury did an "investigation" and concluded that we should start charging fees. But their investigation is by law secret, and they won't tell you who they talked to. Their foreman wrote the "raise fees" column.
Well, I have a good idea who they talked to -- and, more important, I know who they DIDN'T talk to. They went to city bureaucrats and politicians who favor charging the fee, and probably some Big Government professor at a local government college. Apparently the (not so) Grand Jury spoke with NO ONE who disagreed. Not me, not Carl DeMaio, not the San Diego County Taxpayers Association (which actually has not yet taken a position on the matter) -- not anyone I can find who is familiar with city government and opposes the new fees.
IF this change would result in REBATES to all San Diego taxpayers of the current taxes being spent on trash pick-up, I could support such a measure. But this is about one thing – getting more revenue for the city so the politicians don’t have to face down the city workers over excessive compensation issues.
You can read the two columns online. Of course, you can read the comments by readers – and my devastating retorts. There is a lively give-and-take between yours truly and the fee fanciers.

Here are the two SD U-T columns:
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
Trash talk
Before we pay more, spending must be controlled
By Richard Rider
July 26, 2009
To now start charging “fees” – in reality taxes levied without a vote of the citizens – for city services previously paid for by taxes is a dangerous idea, and shear madness in a recession.

For generations, the city of San Diego has provided for single-unit residential trash pickup, paid out of city revenues. Now we are told that this historical service is a budget problem, contributing to the city budget deficit. A recent grand jury report calls for new fees for residential trash pick-up. What has changed?
Granted, this recession is dramatic. But city revenue has dropped only modestly. Indeed, property tax revenue is still going up. The city's 2009-2010 general fund revenue is projected to be only 3.7 percent lower than 2008-2009.
What is different is San Diego's municipal expenses. They have soared. And clearly the driving force is our runaway city salaries, pensions and health care costs.
A recent grand jury report claimed that these compensation excesses have largely been brought under control – an embarrassingly silly assertion. In this stock market, the city pension fund deficit is approaching $2 billion. Unfunded retiree health care costs exceed $1 billion. Three years after the citizens mandated that the city begin competitive bidding of municipal services, there has been zero progress. The vaunted two-tier pension plan for new non-safety employees saves only a tiny amount for taxpayers, and is still far too generous. This past calendar year, city payroll costs – not counting benefits – rose by $43 million.
To now start charging “fees” – in reality taxes levied without a vote of the citizens – for city services previously paid for by taxes is a dangerous idea, and shear madness in a recession. It's a slippery slope, leading to city labor unions insisting on fees for all sorts of municipal functions in order to maintain the employees' opulent compensation packages.
How bad can it get? Some towns in other states have been charging fees exceeding $500 to have police or firefighters to come to a traffic accident – even a minor one.
Trash fee proponents want us to pay more, but refuse to control costs. Before such fees are even considered, we should first make every effort to improve efficiency.
Most important, we should put city trash collection out to aggressive competitive bid for substantial savings. We are the only city in the county to use government workers to pick up refuse.
Just because city taxpayers pay for a service does not mean that overpriced city employees have to provide the service. Given our incredible overcompensation of city workers, taxpayer savings could easily exceed 30 percent. Similar savings can be achieved by putting other city functions out to bid – libraries, printing, street light maintenance, landscaping, etc.
The majority of the San Diego City Council is beholden to the labor unions that put them in office. But these politicians are not fools. They know they can't keep spending what they don't have.
It comes down to this: If our politicians run out of revenue options, they will control spending: seeking ways to deliver city services at lower cost. If they can talk us into paying more taxes and fees, they won't control spending.
Our job as voters and taxpayers is to provide the adult supervision needed to get our elected officials to do the job we pay them for – making citizens' welfare a higher priority than the prosperity of city workers. (Find this article on line here)

Rider is chairman of San Diego Tax Fighters.
--------------------
RAISE FEES OP-ED by Rider’s opponent
Trash talk
Paying for a service many San Diegans don't get

By Leonard D. Martin
July 26, 2009
Yada, yada, yada (I thoughtfully summarized it for you, but you can read it here).

2. One area of employment grew in the county – you’ll never guess. Well, actually you probably WILL guess.
RIDER COMMENT: For me, two items stood out from a 20 July Rick Toscano blog/column in the Voice of San Diego concerning the San Diego County job market for the fiscal year just ended 30 June, 2009:
A. Of the 9 categories of employment in the county, the largest was “government.” An amazing 18% of working folks in the county are employed by some government – federal, state or local. Of course, this does not count people employed under government contracts. Nor does it count those employed by government regulations, or the government-created legal morass we find ourselves in.
B. Of these 9 categories of employment, only one category actually grew. Need I tell you which one? HINT FOR DULLARDS: I don’t even need to bother telling you what the other categories are. Click here

3. County “firing” volunteer firefighters like crazy – and crazy is the word for it
RIDER COMMENT: As you probably recall, I headed up the opposition to last November’s San Diego countywide parcel tax (the perennial Prop A) to pay for a regional fire fighting agency. Everything I said in our opposition argument seems to have been proven true.
Except one thing.
My “official” published opposition SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE op ed was titled “No: County already has funds to improve firefighting.” Of course, that assertion proved correct.
What I got wrong was the timing. On election night when it became apparent that we opponents would indeed win, I predicted in a Channel 10 TV interview/debate that “within six months the county will come up with the funding for the fire district.” Actually it took less than three weeks after election night.
We saw this “found money” turnaround before when a few years ago the county pushed a ¼% sales tax proposition for libraries. Their actual semi-official campaign slogan was “There is no Plan B” – claiming that there was no source available to fund new and renovated branch libraries. We won that election handily. As it turned out, they started coming up with the needed funding less than 48 hours after they lost the election. Essentially everything was built that they wanted without the “critical” sales tax increase.
But back to the county’s new regional fire agency. Here’s the ironic postscript. As I’ve said before, government can screw up anything. Now they’ve screwed up our county volunteer firefighting.
The meddling of the County Supervisors has been disqualifying or driving away many of the volunteer firefighters that used to work for free, but are now essentially being banned from volunteering and forced to quit. In particular, this includes our grizzled veterans who know more about back country firefighting than those labor union city slicker firefighters who assist in the big brushfires.
It's apparent that the politicians and others who are so anxious to raise the standards for volunteer firefighters miss one important point -- supply and demand.

PAID fire departments have oodles of applicants -- as many as 100 applicants per opening. Most of today's newly hired urban paid firefighters are, if anything, overqualified. Paid fire departments can be picky.

On the other hand, VOLUNTEER fire departments have a constant battle getting volunteers. Along with the lack of pay, volunteers are required to take the same fire fighting (and often EMT) training of our paid firefighters -- sometimes at their own expense. This involves hundreds of hours of training and studying. And has been pointed out, the volunteers often must pay for most of their own gear.

Raising the standards shrinks the pool of volunteers. And it looks like that shrinkage is going to hit us hard this fall just when we may be facing major back country fires. Given our drought situation, that seems to be a likely event.

The irony is we can expect the labor union firefighters and politicians to place substantial blame on the county-forced understaffed volunteer fire departments for the property damage and lost lives from such fires. 'Vat a country!
How this mass disqualification of firefighter volunteers saves lives and property is an absolute mystery. But it’s a tale worth telling. Or, in this case, reading. And I strongly encourage you to read my next item as well – an excellent ode to volunteer firefighters.

SAN DIEGO READER
Big Agency Burns Little Volunteers
By Joe Deegan Published Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The history of wildfires in San Diego’s backcountry has yielded a vigorous volunteer firefighting subculture. Its foundations are self-reliance, strong community involvement, ingenuity, independence, and thrift. Today, those who embody the tradition feel threatened. They perceive the enemy to be the new San Diego County Fire Authority.
A plan to consolidate fire departments, both professional and volunteer, has been the pet project of county supervisor Dianne Jacob since the mid-1990s. But after the 2003 Cedar fire, according to the Los Angeles Times on October 31, 2003, Jacob conceded that “even with [consolidation], there is a dark cloud over all of us called lack of adequate resources.” Click here to continue

4. Read about Rider’s heroes – volunteer firefighters
RIDER COMMENT: PARADE MAGAZINE (that color supplement in many of the big papers’ Sunday edition) is one of my LEAST favorite publications. Their cover stories seem to alternate between self-indulgent articles about narcissistic celebrities who overcame adversity (truly pathetic stuff, sometimes), and stories about “The Crisis in ______________” (a different crisis every time – but always a crisis).
Last Sunday’s crisis was day care/preschool for tykes. The INEVITABLE conclusion of every such crisis story is that we need massive new government spending to cure the problem of the week.
But something went VERY wrong in their 5 July issue. Their cover story was a truly inspirational article lauding the nation’s volunteer firefighters.
VOLUNEER firefighters! Not our government often-overcompensated labor union firefighters. VOLUNTEERS! I was stunned to read about my REAL firefighter heroes in PARADE.
This was a GREAT piece! I’m suspect heads later rolled in PARADE’s pinko home office.
Here are some salient factoids in the article that few Americans are aware of:
A. 72% of all our nation’s firefighters are volunteers.

B. By most states’ laws, these volunteers have to receive the same training as the full time paid firefighters. Plus EMT training often is included.

C. More than 20,000 of the nation’s 30,200 fire departments are all-volunteer (and thousands more fire departments are a mix of paid and volunteer firefighters).

D. Of the 118 firefighters who died in the line of duty in 2007, 68 were volunteers.

You can read it here

5. Media blacks out story predicting 1.1 million California jobs lost from AB 32’s Draconian environmental regs
RIDER COMMENT: My maven Chris Reed succinctly says it all here.

6. For a great daily dose of free market economics, go to . . .
RICHARD RIDER COMMENT: Below are (probably too many) examples of a terrific free blogging service you might want to sign up for. You can receive updates as a daily email with links (the sample below). Or for you Internet sophisticates, receive an RSS feed to your computer or Blackberry. You can click on the "Google" icon below will post the “CARPE DIEM” RSS feed on your "igoogle.com" home page, if you have one (like me!). Or to your "Google Reader" service if you use that option.
The blogger, a rather libertarian free market college professor, is big on the fact that the economy has already turned around, and that few have noticed it (until this week!). He’s been saying so for months.
More important, the author has LOTS of interesting insights on economic and political issues, with data. Excellent stuff.
If the graphics aren't there to see, go to his website -- See here.
CARPE DIEM

Bidding Wars Break Out On Low-Priced FL Homes
Posted: 21 Jul 2009 04:48 PM PDT
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – July 21, 2009 – Bidding wars are returning to South Florida’s housing market, as investors and first-time buyers compete for homes and condominiums listed at $200,000 or less. The race for properties is reminiscent of the boom years from 2000 to 2005, when multiple offers on all types of dwellings helped push prices to record highs.

Back then, a dearth of properties for sale had buyers rushing to scoop up anything they could find, for fear that prices would keep rising. Now, frustrated with a bloated inventory of foreclosed homes in disrepair, buyers go to great lengths when they spot a house or condo in pristine condition.

“When they find a good listing, people are pouncing,” said Terry Story, a real estate agent for Coldwell Banker in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Agents say the heated competition has been building in recent months, a result of low mortgage rates and the $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers that expires Nov. 30. Steady sales increases during the past year gradually have worked off the inventory of available homes. Real estate agents are convinced that the overall market has hit bottom or is close to one. Click here

Median Home Prices in Houston Hit Record High
Posted: 21 Jul 2009 01:49 PM PDT
HOUSTON — (July 21, 2009) — Sales of single-family homes for the greater Houston area continued to improve in June, with the highest volume recorded since August 2008 and the highest median price in history. This comes despite a year-over-year decline in overall property sales of 15.0 percent and 13.5 percent for single-family homes, according to new monthly data compiled by the Houston Association of REALTORS® (HAR).

At $164,500, the June single-family home median price – the figure at which half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less – rose 2.8% from one year earlier to reach an all-time high. The average price of a single-family home in Houston dipped 2.4% last month to $221,783 compared to June 2008. That represents the highest average price since August 2008. Continued here

Houston Chronicle story here, "Houston's median home price hit an all-time high last month, as the market was boosted by seasonal buying, low interest rates and a tax incentive to spur sales."

Why America Shouldn't Buy "Buy American"
Posted: 21 Jul 2009 01:06 PM PDT

Is your iPod unpatriotic?

Its 451 parts are made in dozens of nations, and creating the little doodads employs thousands of foreigners. Final assembly is done in China—a country that right-wingers and left-wingers alike fear is an economic threat to the U.S.

As the recession worsens, maybe patriotic Americans should be smashing foreign-made iPods in protest. Or at least hiring bikini-clad American women to do the job, which is exactly what Reason.tv did. Our patriotic, sledgehammer-wielding bikini bandits headed to California’s Venice Beach to smash some foreign-made iPods to make a political statement about saving American jobs. Watch the Video Here.
Watch another version of the video and find out more here at Reason.tv.


See related CD post "iPod Teardown: Who Really Makes It?" from June 2007.


Posted: 21 Jul 2009 08:08 AM PDT
Despite Troubles In the U.S., GM Thrives Abroad; Sales in China Increase by 38%

National Public Radio -- General Motors, once the world's largest automaker, has had a rough few months. In June, the company filed for bankruptcy. Last week, as part of a massive restructuring plan, 60 percent of the company's ownership shifted to U.S. taxpayers.

However, the news isn't all doom and gloom for the U.S. auto giant. Many of the company's international operations are posting strong gains. In China, GM's second-largest market, sales jumped to 814,442 units in the first half of 2009 from 590,132 during the same period in 2008 — an increase of 38% (see chart above). And in Latin America, seven countries set GM sales records in 2008.

MP: In the first half of 2008, GM sold almost three times (2.7X) as many cars in the U.S. (1,589,000) as in China (590,132), and this year vehicle sales are almost the same in both countries: 947,518 in the U.S. (data here for U.S.) compared to 814,442 in China.

For GM's sake, let's hope they don't start a "Buy China" campaign, or start erecting signs saying "Parking of U.S. vehicles strictly prohibited and will be towed at owner's expense." (Click here to read and listen to the story)

SD Airport board members abusing expense accounts big time

RICHARD RIDER COMMENT: A couple years ago the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE did a fine exposé on the extravagant spending by the appointed members of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. Currently the agency has a $121 million budget, which it derives from public money – primarily from airport fees and rents.
As a result, new spending guidelines were put in place. Guidelines, smidelines. Our airport officials don’t need no stinkin’ guidelines. Must be so, since they imperiously ignore said guidelines.
We know that such is still the case, thanks to a follow-up investigation by the intrepid Voice of San Diego. Click here to link to their just-released article.
You might be wise not to read it – if you pay the fees for flying in and out of San Diego’s Lindberg Airport. Don’t want you going postal in the airport.
Perhaps the most egregious incident was when two board members flew to England for a Charger exhibition game (I’ll leave it to you to conjure up the rationale for that trip). No expense was spared – from the $5,500 first class tickets to the $350 Charger reception to the $1,200 for seats (a board member and a guest -- $600 each) at the game. BTW, that’s the price for EACH board member’s football two tickets, reception and airfare.
Ya gotta’ love authority Chairman Bob Watkins’ response to the Voice story – it’s just lowly paid reporter envy. Great stuff – his elitism is insufferable.
Just in case you think the above expenses are a one-time aberration – consider this: San Diego Airport staff fly to Los Angeles for as much as $820 a ticket. And yes, that is Los Angeles, California.
Now, let’s see if these political appointees avoid being fired. Assuming that they are not fired, surely they will be denied reappointment by the politicians who first put them there.
Yeah, when pigs land on the Lindberg runway.

RICHARD RIDER RANT 7/31/09

There are severe limits to the good that the government can do for the economy, but there are almost no limits to the harm it can do.
Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate



1. Rider trash fee opposition op-ed in SD UNION-TRIBUNE.

2. One area of employment grew in the county – you’ll never guess. Well, actually you probably WILL guess.

3. County dismissing volunteer firefighters like crazy – and crazy is the word for it.

4. Read about Rider’s heroes – volunteer firefighters.

5. Media blacks out story predicting 1.1 million California jobs lost from AB 32’s Draconian environmental regs

6. For a great daily dose of free market economics, go to . . .

7. Fools! You could have made a fortune (like me) investing in greedy health care companies. Or not.

8. California “only” the 6th worst state? We wish!

9. Feds’ stimulus often “much ado about nothing.” Their PR departments are working overtime. Naturally at our expense.

10. If Obama disappoints his fans, they will have only themselves to blame.





1. Rider trash fee opposition op-ed in SD UNION-TRIBUNE

In the Sunday, 26 July edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune "Dialog -- Insight and Opinion" section there is a full page "Trash Talk" two-opinion debate. I wrote the pro-taxpayer column – you’ll see the details below.

The issue is whether to repeal the San Diego city "People's Ordinance" which includes single unit residential trash pickup as a city service. Proponents of the repeal want to start charging fees for this city service, while opponents (such as I) see this as a slippery slope -- a way to start raising DE FACTO taxes without the required 2/3 vote of the electorate (or any vote at all, actually). See my column for more thoughts on this.

BTW, the U-T (hopefully inadvertently) summarized the issue with a pro-fee, anti-taxpayer explanation published with each column -- omitting any reason for NOT imposing the fee.

Here's the U-T summary. See what you think.

---

The city of San Diego is mandated, under the People's Ordinance of 1919, to use tax money, rather than a fee for service, to pay for trash pickup at most single-family residences. Over the years, many have called for the repeal of the ordinance on the grounds that it is unfair to those who live in multifamily units and that by charging for trash pickup, as many municipalities do, the city could ease its financial problems.

---

BACKGROUND: The San Diego County Grand Jury did an "investigation" and concluded that we should start charging fees. But their investigation is by law secret, and they won't tell you who they talked to. Their foreman wrote the "raise fees" column.

Well, I have a good idea who they talked to -- and, more important, I know who they DIDN'T talk to. They went to city bureaucrats and politicians who favor charging the fee, and probably some Big Government professor at a local government college. Apparently the (not so) Grand Jury spoke with NO ONE who disagreed. Not me, not Carl DeMaio, not the San Diego County Taxpayers Association (which actually has not yet taken a position on the matter) -- not anyone I can find who is familiar with city government and opposes the new fees.

IF this change would result in REBATES to all San Diego taxpayers of the current taxes being spent on trash pick-up, I could support such a measure. But this is about one thing – getting more revenue for the city so the politicians don’t have to face down the city workers over excessive compensation issues.

You can read the two columns online. Of course, you can read the comments by readers – and my devastating retorts. There a lively give-and-take between yours truly and the fee fanciers.

Here are the two SD U-T columns, each preceded by the URL.

http://tinyurl.com/ngetul

SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

Trash talk
Before we pay more, spending must be controlled
By Richard Rider

July 26, 2009

To now start charging “fees” – in reality taxes levied without a vote of the citizens – for city services previously paid for by taxes is a dangerous idea, and shear madness in a recession.



For generations, the city of San Diego has provided for single-unit residential trash pickup, paid out of city revenues. Now we are told that this historical service is a budget problem, contributing to the city budget deficit. A recent grand jury report calls for new fees for residential trash pick-up. What has changed?

Granted, this recession is dramatic. But city revenue has dropped only modestly. Indeed, property tax revenue is still going up. The city's 2009-2010 general fund revenue is projected to be only 3.7 percent lower than 2008-2009.

What is different is San Diego's municipal expenses. They have soared. And clearly the driving force is our runaway city salaries, pensions and health care costs.

A recent grand jury report claimed that these compensation excesses have largely been brought under control – an embarrassingly silly assertion. In this stock market, the city pension fund deficit is approaching $2 billion. Unfunded retiree health care costs exceed $1 billion. Three years after the citizens mandated that the city begin competitive bidding of municipal services, there has been zero progress. The vaunted two-tier pension plan for new non-safety employees saves only a tiny amount for taxpayers, and is still far too generous. This past calendar year, city payroll costs – not counting benefits – rose by $43 million.

To now start charging “fees” – in reality taxes levied without a vote of the citizens – for city services previously paid for by taxes is a dangerous idea, and shear madness in a recession. It's a slippery slope, leading to city labor unions insisting on fees for all sorts of municipal functions in order to maintain the employees' opulent compensation packages.

How bad can it get? Some towns in other states have been charging fees exceeding $500 to have police or firefighters to come to a traffic accident – even a minor one.

Trash fee proponents want us to pay more, but refuse to control costs. Before such fees are even considered, we should first make every effort to improve efficiency.

Most important, we should put city trash collection out to aggressive competitive bid for substantial savings. We are the only city in the county to use government workers to pick up refuse.

Just because city taxpayers pay for a service does not mean that overpriced city employees have to provide the service. Given our incredible overcompensation of city workers, taxpayer savings could easily exceed 30 percent. Similar savings can be achieved by putting other city functions out to bid – libraries, printing, street light maintenance, landscaping, etc.

The majority of the San Diego City Council is beholden to the labor unions that put them in office. But these politicians are not fools. They know they can't keep spending what they don't have.

It comes down to this: If our politicians run out of revenue options, they will control spending: seeking ways to deliver city services at lower cost. If they can talk us into paying more taxes and fees, they won't control spending.

Our job as voters and taxpayers is to provide the adult supervision needed to get our elected officials to do the job we pay them for – making citizens' welfare a higher priority than the prosperity of city workers.

Rider is chairman of San Diego Tax Fighters.

--------------------

RAISE FEES OP-ED by Rider’s opponent



http://tinyurl.com/ko3h7u

Trash talk
Paying for a service many San Diegans don't get


By Leonard D. Martin

July 26, 2009

Yada, yada, yada (I thoughtfully summarized it for you, but the link IS above for you to read).







2. One area of employment grew in the county – you’ll never guess. Well, actually you probably WILL guess.

RIDER COMMENT: For me, two items stood out from a 20 July Rick Toscano blog/column in the Voice of San Diego concerning the San Diego County job market for the fiscal year just ended 30 June, 2009:

A. Of the 9 categories of employment in the county, the largest was “government.” An amazing 18% of working folks in the county are employed by some government – federal, state or local. Of course, this does not count people employed under government contracts. Nor does it count those employed by government regulations, or the government-created legal morass we find ourselves in.



B. Of these 9 categories of employment, only one category actually grew. Need I tell you which one? HINT FOR DULLARDS: I don’t even need to bother telling you what the other 8 categories are.

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/toscano/





3. County “firing” volunteer firefighters like crazy – and crazy is the word for it

RIDER COMMENT: As you probably recall, I headed up the opposition to last November’s San Diego countywide parcel tax (the perennial Prop A) to pay for a regional fire fighting agency. Everything I said in our opposition argument seems to have been proven true.

Except one thing.

My “official” published opposition SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE op ed was titled “No: County already has funds to improve firefighting.” Of course, that assertion proved correct.

What I got wrong was the timing. On election night when it became apparent that we opponents would indeed win, I predicted in a Channel 10 TV interview/debate that “within six months the county will come up with the funding for the fire district.” Actually it took less than three weeks after election night.

We saw this “found money” turnaround before when a few years ago the county pushed a ¼% sales tax proposition for libraries. Their actual semi-official campaign slogan was “There is no Plan B” – claiming that there was no source available to fund new and renovated branch libraries. We won that election handily. As it turned out, they started coming up with the needed funding less than 48 hours after they lost the election. Essentially everything was built that they wanted without the “critical” sales tax increase.

But back to the county’s new regional fire agency. Here’s the ironic postscript. As I’ve said before, government can screw up anything. Now they’ve screwed up our county volunteer firefighting.

The meddling of the County Supervisors has been disqualifying or driving away many of the volunteer firefighters that used to work for free, but are now essentially being banned from volunteering and forced to quit. In particular, this includes our grizzled veterans who know more about back country firefighting than those labor union city slicker firefighters who assist in the big brushfires.

It's apparent that the politicians and others who are so anxious to raise the standards for volunteer firefighters miss one important point -- supply and demand.

PAID fire departments have oodles of applicants -- as many as 100 applicants per opening. Most of today's newly hired urban paid firefighters are, if anything, overqualified. Paid fire departments can be picky.

On the other hand, VOLUNTEER fire departments have a constant battle getting volunteers. Along with the lack of pay, volunteers are required to take the same fire fighting (and often EMT) training of our paid firefighters -- sometimes at their own expense. This involves hundreds of hours of training and studying. And has been pointed out, the volunteers often must pay for most of their own gear.

Raising the standards shrinks the pool of volunteers. And it looks like that shrinkage is going to hit us hard this fall just when we may be facing major back country fires. Given our drought situation, that seems to be a likely event.

The irony is we can expect the labor union firefighters and politicians to place substantial blame on the county-forced understaffed volunteer fire departments for the property damage and lost lives from such fires. 'Vat a country!

How this mass disqualification of firefighter volunteers saves lives and property is an absolute mystery. But it’s a tale worth telling. Or, in this case, reading. And I strongly encourage you to read my next item as well – an excellent ode to volunteer firefighters.

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/jul/22/big-agency-burns-little-volunteers/



SAN DIEGO READER

Big Agency Burns Little Volunteers
By Joe Deegan | Published Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The history of wildfires in San Diego’s backcountry has yielded a vigorous volunteer firefighting subculture. Its foundations are self-reliance, strong community involvement, ingenuity, independence, and thrift. Today, those who embody the tradition feel threatened. They perceive the enemy to be the new San Diego County Fire Authority.

A plan to consolidate fire departments, both professional and volunteer, has been the pet project of county supervisor Dianne Jacob since the mid-1990s. But after the 2003 Cedar fire, according to the Los Angeles Times on October 31, 2003, Jacob conceded that “even with [consolidation], there is a dark cloud over all of us called lack of adequate resources.”

On May 29, 2008, the County Grand Jury pinned the blame for wildfire damage on too much trust in backcountry volunteer fire departments. The report suggested that people were acting as if it was still “the ‘Old West,’ when people banded together and formed groups to protect themselves.” What is needed, according to the report, is what most large counties use, a regional firefighting agency.

So the County asked citizens to fund it. But at the polls last fall, voters narrowly defeated a $52-a-year parcel-tax initiative to consolidate all fire departments in the region. The plan had wider support than the outcome indicates, as a two-thirds vote was required for passage. In the wake of defeat and anticipation of more big wildfires, a familiar rant went up that San Diegans are too cheap to pay for government services.

But Jacob had Plan B ready to go, a $15.5 million agency with the power to coordinate firefighting efforts in San Diego’s backcountry. “County officials said the authority [could] be formed although voters rejected the tax,” according to a November 23, 2008 California Fire news release. The new agency has responsibility to watch over “about a third of the county,” more than 920,000 acres. Within that area, “The authority will cover about 50,000 people…now served by six volunteer agencies and Cal Fire.… The volunteer agencies will remain but will be better-funded and administered by a fire warden, a new position.”

“The fire authority is one of the first steps in the process of creating a countywide agency,” the news release continued. “Jacob said she hopes to expand the regional authority within the next two years to include other parts of the unincorporated county now served by rural fire districts. After that, urban areas served by fire departments would be included.”

The good news for the volunteer firefighters seemed to be the $95 to $110 per 24-hour shift they’re set to receive under the new plan. But as paid employees, they had to qualify for workers’ compensation. And that meant passing a physical exam, as well as background and credit check, conditions of the contract the County offered them. A number of volunteers are in their 70s and/or out of shape. So many resisted signing the contract, saying they were thinking over their decision until the last minute of an initial July 1 deadline the County gave them. But on June 24, the County told the volunteers they had until the next day to sign or lose the opportunity to fight future backcountry fires.

During the period of mid- to late June, the Ramona Sentinel and North County Times aired out volunteer firefighters’ grievances about having to take the physical exam. One fire chief stated that some volunteers feared an exam failure would mean they wouldn’t be able to qualify for health insurance in the future. The newspaper accounts focused mainly on the volunteer departments surrounding Ramona.

To get a different perspective, I speak with three volunteers from the Shelter Valley Volunteer Fire Department. Shelter Valley lies 16 miles east and downhill from Julian. All three of the volunteers concurred that the physical exam constitutes a serious issue for many firefighters who still have much to contribute. Fire operations chief Tony Mayors, who is 53, tells me he knows he can’t pass the exam due to his high blood pressure. But he has been a volunteer in Shelter Valley for 12 years and the operations chief for 5. He believes his experience of fighting fires in the area is still a valuable resource.

Mayors eventually did fail the physical, but, the County has not rejected him outright. Instead, he’s been placed on hold while officials try to figure out how he might be used. “I think I should still be able to go out on calls,” Mayors says. “Call it quality control or whatever you want, but I’ve been doing this so long I can correct less experienced firefighters’ mistakes when I see them. That’s why I became a chief. I know I can’t carry a hundred-pound fire hose up a steep hill. But I can hardly be useful in my own way if I’m not allowed to go out on calls.”

I speak about the issue with Gig Conaughton, a spokesman for the County’s Department of Planning and Land Use, the administrative home for the new fire authority. Conaughton tells me the County cannot even allow volunteers to perform field supervision if they can’t pass the physical. “Think about it,” he says. “Somebody who goes out on a call might suddenly face a dangerous situation where they’re needed to help. It wouldn’t be safe. We [do] have one to three administrative positions that experienced chiefs could be offered.”

Gerald Sanders is currently the administrative chief at the Shelter Valley department. He has worked as a local volunteer for 30 years. He is 78 years old. “I know I could pass the physical,” he tells me, “because I walk eight miles every other day.” But these days, he confines himself to the “technical issues and paperwork.”

For years, Sanders has written grants for the Shelter Valley department. He thinks the money he has brought in totals somewhere near $800,000. With some of it, the department bought several of its own trucks, including one brush clearer and a small fire engine, and converted a station wagon into a medical emergency response vehicle. The department also built the Shelter Valley fire station.

The County gave Shelter Valley another truck. But it’s a bulky gas guzzler, says Sanders, and his colleagues agree. “The ladder is so high on the truck,” says Tony Mayors, “that you’d have to be seven feet tall to pull it out.”

Does the County prefer, I ask, that you use that truck?

“Yes, it’s got their name real big on the door,” says Mayors, laughing. “Our trucks have a small Shelter Valley logo.”

What would have happened if the volunteer departments did not sign the county contracts? “They would have taken our equipment and buildings,” Gerald Sanders tells me, “and replaced our volunteers with Cal Fire firefighters. Of course, the professionals would fight the fires as well as we have. But we have a record of having never missed a call out here and never having anyone get hurt. The Shelter Valley department covers a 582-square-mile area, so that’s not too bad. And one thing we do know better than outsiders is the terrain, all the little canyons. We’ve been to every one of them.

“But only 10 percent of our calls are fire related,” Sanders continues. “The rest are emergency rescues. For stopping fire, the biggest need in the backcountry is brush control around people’s properties. If the County wanted to help us, they would do more of that. But they don’t have the personnel to do it.”

I ask the County’s Gig Conaughton how brush management is handled. “The County has an ongoing relationship with Cal Fire regarding brush and weed control,” he writes me by email. “We loan budgeted equipment (trucks) to Cal Fire, which provides manpower to do inspections. Our County Code Enforcement follows up if abatement is called for.”

Ron Thornhill used to drive Shelter Valley’s fire engine. Not anymore. He decided not to take the physical even though he’s 50 and believes he would pass it. Thornhill is the angriest of the men I speak with. His biggest concern is the money the County is spending on its new fire authority.

“The volunteers were doing a very good job,” says Thornhill, “and doing it for nothing. I can’t tell you the number of small fires we stopped before they got going. If they reach the top of the hill and there’s a Santa Ana wind, you’re going to get the next Cedar fire. But that never happened on our watch.

“Now the County comes along and is going to spend $15 million and not do any better than we’ve been doing. And we did it free.

“I heard the County is renting a house for Cal Fire firefighters who will come in here from the outside and work out of our station. That’s new salaries they’ll pay and new benefits packages and new workmen’s comp payments they’ll make with taxpayer dollars. Today, I went down and turned in my equipment. No more firefighting for me.” Thornhill is not the only one. Of 12 original volunteers, 6 decided to take the physical. Among those 6, 2 passed to become County-approved firefighters.

I confirm with the County’s Conaughton that two Cal Fire firefighters, one an officer, will live in a rented building at Shelter Valley. He wants to emphasize, however, that the new guys will become members of the Shelter Valley community.

It’s a touchy point for operations chief Tony Mayors. “Yeah,” he says, “they say the County can generate money better than our barbecue fund-raisers. But we care about this community, and the community cares about us. I’m going to feel terrible if I have to let them down. And it won’t be the same not making the hamburgers.”

Meanwhile, Cal Fire firefighters have been rotating in and out of Shelter Valley, making it difficult for local volunteers to help them learn locations. And fiscal reality may be setting in. In talks with their new supervisors, chiefs Sanders and Mayors have learned that the County probably can’t afford to keep two Cal Fire firefighters permanently stationed in Shelter Valley. Since the local volunteer force has been “decimated,” in the words of Sanders, new volunteers will have to come from outside the area, and none will be officers. The Mount Laguna Volunteer Fire Department is already sending down new volunteers.

There may be hope that some of the lost Shelter Valley volunteers might still contribute. There has been a tiny bit of progress, Sanders tells me. “The County agreed to allow us mediation on points of dispute. But they’ve reserved the right to walk away from talks after ten days. Which means that if they don’t like something we want, they can wait ten days."





4. Read about Rider’s heroes – volunteer firefighters

RIDER COMMENT: PARADE MAGAZINE (that color supplement in many of the big papers’ Sunday edition) is one of my LEAST favorite publications. Their cover stories seem to alternate between self-indulgent articles about narcissistic celebrities who overcame adversity (truly pathetic stuff, sometimes), and stories about “The Crisis in ______________” (a different crisis every time – but always a crisis).

Last Sunday’s crisis was day care/preschool for tykes. The INEVITABLE conclusion of every such crisis story is that we need massive new government spending to cure the problem of the week.

But something went VERY wrong in their 5 July issue. Their cover story was a truly inspirational article lauding the nation’s volunteer firefighters.

VOLUNEER firefighters! Not our government often-overcompensated labor union firefighters. VOLUNTEERS! I was stunned to read about my REAL firefighter heroes in PARADE.

This was a GREAT piece! I’m suspect heads later rolled in PARADE’s pinko home office.

Here are some salient factoids in the article that few Americans are aware of:

A. 72% of all our nation’s firefighters are volunteers.

B. By most states’ laws, these volunteers have to receive the same training as the full time paid firefighters. Plus EMT training often is included.

C. More than 20,000 of the nation’s 30,200 fire departments are all-volunteer (and thousands more fire departments are a mix of paid and volunteer firefighters).



D. Of the 118 firefighters who died in the line of duty in 2007, 68 were volunteers.

http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2009/edition_07-05-2009/Why-They-Serve.html


PARADE MAGAZINE

72% of America's firefighters are volunteers

Why They Serve
by Peter Greenberg

published: 07/05/2009

When the fire alarm sounds, across America, grocers immediately leave their checkout lanes, architects put down their pencils, plumbers drop their wrenches, chefs hand over their cooking chores, and telephone repairmen leave the lines cut. Our nation’s volunteer firefighters are always prepared to serve.

Of the estimated 1.15 million firefighters in the U.S., 72% are volunteers. Their departments can be found in small towns and large cities, in isolated areas of Alaska and New Mexico, on Indian reservations, even abroad. Since March 2008, 10 volunteer firefighters from New York State have helped to lead the fire department at Camp Phoenix in Afghanistan. More than 20,000 of the nation’s 30,200 fire departments are all-volunteer. In Massachusetts alone, there are about 120 fire departments made up entirely of volunteers. In fact, most small and midsize communities in the U.S. rely primarily on volunteer firefighters.

There are departments located completely underground, their stations mined out of the side of a mountain (Creede, Colo.), others staffed by high school students (Aniak, Alaska), and others, such as the department in Dover, Del., that work solely to protect state capitals. Yet all share one thing in common: They are central to the American community, and in many towns, they are the community.

The volunteer fire department is often the first line of defense in times of emergency. When Continental Flight 3407 crashed short of the runway near Buffalo, N.Y., in February, killing 50, the first responders were the 64 members of the Clarence Center Volunteer Fire Company.

These days, volunteer fire service can sometimes mean making do with a barely equipped firehouse on a limited budget or having the local car dealer pitch in to fix broken equipment. But it doesn’t mean using untrained staff. Most volunteer fire departments require the same standards of their members as paid municipal firefighters. The volunteers train in CPR, hazardous materials, communications, and advanced firefighting techniques. The work also is no less dangerous: Of the 118 firefighters who died in the line of duty in 2007, 68 were volunteers.

On Fire Island National Seashore, a 32-mile-long strip of beach 50 miles east of New York City, most of the fire trucks are specially converted four-wheel-drive vehicles. “Out here, when you turn 18, you join the volunteer department,” says Ed Horton, 52, a building contractor who has been a member of the Ocean Bay Park Fire Department for more than 30 years and currently serves as fire commissioner. “It’s just the way it is.”

For Horton, the fire department is all about community and family. His grandfather helped found it in 1950, his father was a chief, his mom served as fire commissioner, his brother Michael is the current chief, and his youngest daughter just joined. “There’s this feeling that because we’re on an island and we’re volunteers, that we’re untrained,” Horton says. “But it’s not true. We’re subject to the same rules and regulations as mainland departments. You do this job because it’s part of your family, part of your community.”

The Ocean Bay Park Fire Department consists of a 1957 Willys Jeep fire truck and three other vehicles. Two are 1000-gallons-per-minute pumpers, which carry more than 1000 feet of hose—nearly enough to reach across Fire Island, from bay to ocean. With limited water on the island, it’s not unusual for the firefighters to pump seawater from the south bay to fight a blaze. In winter, there are few fires. But in the summer, when the population on Fire Island explodes from several hundred year-round residents to more than 50,000 people, the department can be extremely busy.

In fact, at many resort and vacation destinations, volunteer fire departments are nothing less than lifelines. Take the small Alaskan community of Skagway. In the high summer season, the population doubles to about 1600. That would be tough enough on the small department, which was created during the Gold Rush of 1898. But on most days, there can be as many as six cruise ships that pull into Skagway’s tiny harbor, instantly expanding the population to around 16,000 and making the Skagway volunteers stay on duty for at least eight hours a day. Fighting fires? No—mostly providing EMT services and racing sick cruise-ship passengers to hospitals 200 miles away.

And then there are the “Dragon Slayers,” volunteer firefighters in the remote town of Aniak, Alaska. The entire department: four adults, including a schoolteacher and bush pilot, and nine high school students. Their equipment: one ambulance and an aging 1976 pumper truck in need of repair. Aniak is isolated. There are no roads to any other village in Alaska, and Anchorage is 350 miles away. “We struggle a lot, but somehow we make it work,” says Fire Chief Pete Brown, 64, a retired fishing guide. This year, the Aniak fire department expects to handle at least 300 alarms—a huge number for a town of 600 residents.

No matter where NBC News anchor Brian Williams goes on assignment, the first place he stops is the local volunteer firehouse. “If you want to know what’s going on in town, that’s where you need to be,” says Williams, who joined the Middletown Township, N.J., fire department as a volunteer at 18. “The volunteers know their town, because they are their town. It’s all about community.”

“I never had any thoughts of becoming a firefighter,” says Mary Hauprich, 45, a writer and mother of two from New York. But three years after moving to Islesboro, a small enclave (pop. 600) off the coast of Lincolnville Beach, Maine, she was approached by its volunteer firefighters. “They heard I was a writer, and they said they just needed someone to take notes at their meetings,” she recalls. “I said I would. And the next thing I knew, I had signed on. As it developed, I never took a single note!

“It uncovered a passion I didn’t know was there,” she says. Before long, Hauprich was learning about all the pumps, how to attack an interior fire, and how to fix a fire truck. Currently, there are 21 members in the department (her husband Brian, a former chef, also volunteers as an EMT) and only four vehicles. “For six years, I was the only woman in the department, but I recruited another,” she says proudly. “She manages a nearby farm.” Hauprich’s 15-year-old son is now a captain of Islesboro’s junior firefighters program.

Recruiting is a worrisome issue for many volunteer fire departments. “It’s a real problem,” Brian Williams says. “We need to find more people willing to serve.”

In some departments, membership levels are dropping to—pun intended—alarming levels. “We need folks to support their volunteer fire departments,” Williams adds. “They’re the guys who come when you call, and they truly are the backbone of America.”

Author and travel expert Peter Greenberg has been a volunteer firefighter since he was 18.





5. Media blacks out story predicting 1.1 million California jobs lost from AB 32’s Draconian environmental regs

RIDER COMMENT: My maven Chris Reed succinctly says it all below.

http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/afb/archives/035106.html



CHRIS REED BLOG

July 24, 2009
Yet another media greenout: Report predicting 1.1 million job loss from AB 32 is ignored

A study commissioned by the California Small Business Roundtable -- see the PDF here -- suggests California may someday look back on the current 11.6% state unemployment rate as a golden era.

Sanjay Varshney, dean of the college of business administration at Sacramento State, and Dennis Tootelian, director of the university's center for small business, predict that AB 32 will cut the state's economic output by 10 percent and lead to the loss of 1.1 million jobs.

That's right. 1.1 million jobs. More than the 904,300 jobs California has lost since the recession officially began in December 2007.

Now, of course, the fact that a business group sponsored the study raises questions about it. But the study's warnings about the dire effects of forcing state businesses to switch to cleaner but much costlier forms of energy -- unlike their rivals in other states and nations -- track precisely with the high-profile economists who trashed the California air board "scoping plan," which ridiculously asserted AB 32 would have no economic downside.

Here's the kicker: The California media eagerly report the claims coming from a handful of zealot UC Berkeley professors that their "research" shows AB 32 will be an economic bonanza. But how many California newspapers detailed Varshney's and Tootelian's findings?

None.

According to Nexis, the only coverage it got was from Investor's Business Daily.

This is pathetic. And typical. Remember, the high-profile economists who trashed the AB 32 "scoping plan" were ignored by almost everyone -- until after the plan was adopted by the air board.

Arnold thinks AB 32 will be his lasting legacy. It sure will. Just not remotely in the way he thinks. Abetted by the media, the Schwarzenegger depression is just around the corner.

Posted by Chris Reed at July 24, 2009 11:44 AM





6. For a great daily dose of free market economics, go to . . .

RICHARD RIDER COMMENT: Below are (probably too many) examples of a terrific free blogging service you might want to sign up for. You can receive updates as a daily email with links (the sample below). Or for you Internet sophisticates, receive an RSS feed to your computer or Blackberry. You can click on the "Google" icon below will post the “CARPE DIEM” RSS feed on your "igoogle.com" home page, if you have one (like me!). Or to your "Google Reader" service if you use that option.

The blogger, a rather libertarian free market college professor, is big on the fact that the economy has already turned around, and that few have noticed it (until this week!). He’s been saying so for months.

More important, the author has LOTS of interesting insights on economic and political issues, with data. Excellent stuff. See below.

If the graphics aren't there to see, go to his website -- http://mjperry.blogspot.com



CARPE DIEM



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bidding Wars Break Out On Low-Priced FL Homes
Median Home Prices in Houston Hit Record High
Why America Shouldn't Buy "Buy American"
Despite Troubles In the U.S., GM Thrives Abroad; Sales in China Increase by 38%
Markets in Everything: EKGs, MRIs on a Blackberry
Chicago Fed Index Increases for 5th Straight Month
Now Here Is a Real Housing Crisis; And It Probably Won't Be Getting Better Anytime Soon
Bidding Wars Break Out On Low-Priced FL Homes

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 04:48 PM PDT

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – July 21, 2009 – Bidding wars are returning to South Florida’s housing market, as investors and first-time buyers compete for homes and condominiums listed at $200,000 or less. The race for properties is reminiscent of the boom years from 2000 to 2005, when multiple offers on all types of dwellings helped push prices to record highs.

Back then, a dearth of properties for sale had buyers rushing to scoop up anything they could find, for fear that prices would keep rising. Now, frustrated with a bloated inventory of foreclosed homes in disrepair, buyers go to great lengths when they spot a house or condo in pristine condition.

“When they find a good listing, people are pouncing,” said Terry Story, a real estate agent for Coldwell Banker in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Agents say the heated competition has been building in recent months, a result of low mortgage rates and the $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers that expires Nov. 30. Steady sales increases during the past year gradually have worked off the inventory of available homes. Real estate agents are convinced that the overall market has hit bottom or is close to one.





Median Home Prices in Houston Hit Record High

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 01:49 PM PDT

HOUSTON — (July 21, 2009) — Sales of single-family homes for the greater Houston area continued to improve in June, with the highest volume recorded since August 2008 and the highest median price in history. This comes despite a year-over-year decline in overall property sales of 15.0 percent and 13.5 percent for single-family homes, according to new monthly data compiled by the Houston Association of REALTORS® (HAR).

At $164,500, the June single-family home median price – the figure at which half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less – rose 2.8% from one year earlier to reach an all-time high. The average price of a single-family home in Houston dipped 2.4% last month to $221,783 compared to June 2008. That represents the highest average price since August 2008.

Foreclosure property sales showed further decline, as they have each month this year, making up 16.8% of all single-family home sales in the Houston area in June. That compares to 34% percent in January, 28% in February, 24.5% in March, 23.6% in April and 19.9% in May. The median price of June foreclosure sales reported in the Multiple Listing Service fell 3% from $90,000 to $87,000 on a year-over-year basis.

Houston Chronicle story here, "Houston's median home price hit an all-time high last month, as the market was boosted by seasonal buying, low interest rates and a tax incentive to spur sales."





Why America Shouldn't Buy "Buy American"

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 01:06 PM PDT


Is your iPod unpatriotic?

Its 451 parts are made in dozens of nations, and creating the little doodads employs thousands of foreigners. Final assembly is done in China—a country that right-wingers and left-wingers alike fear is an economic threat to the U.S.

As the recession worsens, maybe patriotic Americans should be smashing foreign-made iPods in protest. Or at least hiring bikini-clad American women to do the job, which is exactly what Reason.tv did. Our patriotic, sledgehammer-wielding bikini bandits headed to California’s Venice Beach to smash some foreign-made iPods to make a political statement about saving American jobs.

Watch the video and find out more here at Reason.tv.

See related CD post "iPod Teardown: Who Really Makes It?" from June 2007.





Despite Troubles In the U.S., GM Thrives Abroad; Sales in China Increase by 38%

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 08:08 AM PDT



National Public Radio -- General Motors, once the world's largest automaker, has had a rough few months. In June, the company filed for bankruptcy. Last week, as part of a massive restructuring plan, 60 percent of the company's ownership shifted to U.S. taxpayers.

However, the news isn't all doom and gloom for the U.S. auto giant. Many of the company's international operations are posting strong gains. In China, GM's second-largest market, sales jumped to 814,442 units in the first half of 2009 from 590,132 during the same period in 2008 — an increase of 38% (see chart above). And in Latin America, seven countries set GM sales records in 2008.

MP: In the first half of 2008, GM sold almost three times (2.7X) as many cars in the U.S. (1,589,000) as in China (590,132), and this year vehicle sales are almost the same in both countries: 947,518 in the U.S. (data here for U.S.) compared to 814,442 in China.

For GM's sake, let's hope they don't start a "Buy China" campaign, or start erecting signs saying "Parking of U.S. vehicles strictly prohibited and will be towed at owner's expense."





Markets in Everything: EKGs, MRIs on a Blackberry

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 07:42 AM PDT

Medical data delivered to the Palm of your hand, Anytime... Anywhere....


The mVisum Medical Communication System is a communication tool that allows medical professionals to securely receive, review and respond to patient data recorded at the point of care. Information is transmitted via secure HIPAA compliant internet servers then transmitted through mobile technology to the required physicians’ handheld smartphone.


Sent data can include: EKGs, DICOM Images, Cine Loops, X-Rays, CT Scans, and MRIs.

Traditional information such as vital signs and other textual information can also be included in the delivered message thus providing a complete picture of patient condition.





Chicago Fed Index Increases for 5th Straight Month

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 07:25 AM PDT





CHICAGO FED -- The Chicago Fed National Activity Index shows that economic activity improved in June - the index was –1.80 in June, up from –2.30 in May. The three-month moving average, CFNAI-MA3, was –2.12 in June, up from –2.65 in the previous month (see top chart above).


June’s CFNAI-MA3 suggests that growth in national economic activity was well below its historical trend. The increase in the index was primarily due to the production and income category of indicators. This category made a smaller negative contribution to the index in June, –0.32, compared with its contribution in May, –0.70. The smaller negative contribution was driven by the fact that total industrial production decreased 0.4 percent in June after declining 1.2 percent in May.


MP: The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI-MA3) has increased in each of the last five months, the first five consecutive monthly increase since the end of the 2001 recession, see bottom chart above.





Now Here Is a Real Housing Crisis; And It Probably Won't Be Getting Better Anytime Soon

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 06:10 AM PDT

Forbidden to buy and sell houses, Cubans rely on informal exchange to look for a better location or something in a better condition. The bureaucratic machinery to manage these bartered trades is complicated, so many pay a "stimulus" to the bureaucrats at the Housing Institute to help the process move more quickly. There are specialists in finding each family what they need, called "exchangers," and it's an occupation at the edges of the law.

The illusion that Raul Castro would allow a real estate market has been vanishing after a year of the mandate. The Cuban leaders know that if they authorize it, citizens will redistribute themselves in a short time. Those who have convertible money will move to the best neighborhoods and those who earn only Cuban pesos will live on the periphery. The fact that there are not rich areas and poor areas is not because, as some believe, we've achieved social justice, but rather the inability to buy and sell houses. What they haven't been able to face is the people's creativity, which disguises the frequent acts of buying and selling as simple exchanges.

~Yoani Sanchez, Cuban blogger

Update: See related NY Times article "With a Whisper, Cuba’s Housing Market Booms" (January 28, 2008), thanks to Colin for the pointer









Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610






http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/06/women-dominate-higher-education-at.html



Women Now Dominate Higher Education at Every Degree Level; The Female-Male Degree Gap Grows


It's college graduation season, and according to data available from the U.S. Department of Education, an estimated 3,092,800 degrees will be granted this academic year (2008-2009) for Associate's degrees (714,000), Bachelor's degrees (1,585,000), Master's degrees (647,000), Professional degrees for MD, DDS and JD (91,000) and Doctor's degrees for Ph.D and Ed.D (55,800).

Of the more than 3 million college degrees for the Class of 2009, women will earn close to 60% of those degrees (1,849,200), or almost 149 degrees for every 100 degrees earned by men.

And it's now official: Women dominate men at every level of higher education, in terms of degrees conferred. Here's the breakdown for graduates of the class of 2009:

Associate's Degrees: 167 for women for every 100 for men.

Bachelor's Degrees: 142 for women for every 100 for men.

Master's Degrees: 159 for women for every 100 for men.

Professional Degrees: 104 for women for every 100 for men.

Doctoral Degrees: 107 for women for every 100 for men.

In fact, the last time men had more degrees than women at any level was the Class of 2006, which had slightly more men than women for both Professional and Doctoral degrees. For the other levels, it hasn't been even close for decades. The last year that men earned more Master's degrees than women was 1984-1985, for Bachelor's degrees it was the Class of 1981, and for Associates degrees it was 1976-1977 when men earned more degrees than women.

For all levels of higher education, women have earned more college degrees than men in every year since the Class of 1982, and the degree gap has widened in every year since then, and is expected to widen in the future through the 2016-2017 year (see chart above).





7. Fools! You could have made a fortune (like me) investing in greedy health care companies. Or not.

RIDER COMMENT: Certain businesses engender reflexive hate from the public – doubtless even from most of my enlightened readers. Oil companies. Loan companies. Banks. Used car dealers.

And insurance companies. Especially health care companies.

Instinctively, we all know that these firms make their living by systematically ripping us gullible consumers off, reaping HUGE windfall profits as a result. But if you can’t beat ‘em, shouldn’t you join ‘em. Better yet, OWN ‘em!

Here’s my response to the usual online commenters denigrating those evil health care companies:

Oh stop whining. Get on the capitalist bandwagon. Surely you were aware years ago that insurance companies are ripping us all off. It's common knowledge. Ask anyone.

Why weren't you bright enough to BUY stock in an insurance company? You'd be fabulously rich from their banditry. Right?

Take my example. I bought Aetna Insurance the first market day of 1982. I paid $5.59 a share. Today the stock is selling (adjusted for splits) at $25.44. I made a killing!

Or did I? Over that timeframe, my annual compounded appreciation comes to 5.65%. Acceptable, but not what one would hope for from a common stock holding.

But wait -- I'm raking in the big dividends too. Eat your heart out!

Let's see -- how much is my annual dividend per share? 4 cents a share. That a 0.17% annual return.

I suspect one would find that similar mediocre returns are the historical norm for health insurance companies. Whatever other problems we have with health insurance and health care (and there are many), the companies "ripping us off" under some supposed conspiracy or cartel action doesn't stand scrutiny.





8. California “only” the 6th worst state? We wish!

RIDER COMMENT: Good news! A new study by the National Journal says that California “only” the 6th worst run state. I feel SO much better. I should have quite reading after the first paragraph or so.

Turns out the bozos putting together this “study” came up with four criteria that they counted equally. Three were tangential, at best – having to do with nebulous state “leadership,” “criminality” of state leaders, and “media circus” surrounding the state capitol.

The only criteria they rated that mattered is this:

“The severity of the state's policy challenges.”

Guess where CA ranked in that category? Numero uno worsto!

http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/afb/archives/034965.html







9. Feds’ stimulus often “much ado about nothing.” Their PR departments are working overtime. Naturally at our expense.

RIDER COMMENT: It seems that every federal department is desperately spinning their local activities as part of the stimulus package. Sometimes the fanfare is simply laughable.

Doubtless the following editorial “outing” this nonsense was written by Chris Reed. It has his fingerprints all over it.



http://tinyurl.com/mupe64

Union-Tribune Editorial
Your stimulus dollars at work
July 25, 2009

SAN DIEGO — The announcement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was downright breathless: “San Diego Unified (is) nation's first to use federal stimulus funding to clean up school buses.”

Of the nearly $1 trillion in stimulus funds (all borrowed money) lavished on the economy by the Obama administration, a few shekels have trickled down to the local level. The result is a case study in how to waste enormous sums of tax dollars while scoring political points for such fashionable causes as greener energy. It certainly has nothing to do with spurring the sputtering economy.

It turns out that Congress added $88 million to the boundless stimulus measure for states to use in cleaning up diesel engines. (The hyperbolic EPA announcement gives full credit for this to the Obama administration, ignoring Congress altogether.) The San Diego Unified School District is getting a minuscule chunk of these dollars to retrofit its diesel buses with a pollution control device.

Now, the school district has 519 buses. Guess how many will be retrofitted with your tax dollars from Washington? A grand total of 10. That's right, 10 vehicles – or 1.9 percent of the fleet. Geez, it's pretty hard to see how that is going to stop global warming or even cleanse San Diego's air of diesel pollution. As it turns out, the school district already has retrofitted, without Washington help, all but 17 of its buses.

No matter. A grand press conference was staged at the school district's fleet maintenance yard with a bevy of federal, state and local officials. The highlight was a touted “white hankie test” demonstrating the “cleanliness of new technology.”

The officials no doubt patted themselves on the back for this popular display of forward thinking with your tax dollars. Never mind about the monstrously profligate nature of the stimulus package. Never mind that the money spent to retrofit 10 school buses will do nothing to stimulate San Diego's economy. Never mind that our children and grandchildren will be hit with higher taxes to repay the borrowed money given to the school district with great fanfare.





10. If Obama disappoints his fans, they will have only themselves to blame.

RIDER COMMENT: While most of my stuff has to do with state and local matters, we must remember that we still have a few niggling problems remaining on the federal level. Even our new messiah President is having a tad trouble solving all these matter. The following article nails our foolish expectations – and why what got Obama elected may ultimately lead to his downfall.



The Obama cult

Jul 23rd 2009
From The Economist print edition



If Barack Obama disappoints his supporters, they will have only themselves to blame

IN JANUARY 2007 Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, said he was running for president to revive “our national soul”. He was not alone in taking an expansive view of presidential responsibilities. With the exception of Ron Paul, all the serious candidates waxed grandiloquent about their aims. John McCain said he modeled himself on Teddy Roosevelt, a man who “nourished the soul of a great nation”. Hillary Clinton lamented that America had no goals, and offered to supply some. And let us not forget the man they all sought to replace, George Bush, who promised, among other things, to “rid the world of evil”. Appalled by such hubris, a libertarian scholar called Gene Healy wrote “The Cult of the Presidency”, a book decrying the unrealistic expectations Americans have of their presidents. The book was written while Barack Obama’s career was still on the launch pad, yet it describes with uncanny prescience the atmosphere that allowed him to soar.

Mr. Obama has inspired more passionate devotion than any modern American politician. People scream and faint at his rallies. Some wear T-shirts proclaiming him “The One” and noting that “Jesus was a community organiser”. An editor at Newsweek described him as “above the country, above the world; he’s sort of God.” He sets foreign hearts fluttering, too. A Pew poll published this week finds that 93% of Germans expect him to do the right thing in world affairs. Only 14% thought that about Mr. Bush.

Perhaps Mr. Obama inwardly cringes at the personality cult that surrounds him. But he has hardly discouraged it. As a campaigner, he promised to “change the world”, to “transform this country” and even (in front of a church full of evangelicals) to “create a Kingdom right here on earth”. As president, he keeps adding details to this ambitious wish-list. He vows to create millions of jobs, to cure cancer and to seek a world without nuclear weapons. On July 20th he promised something big (a complete overhaul of the health-care system), something improbable (to make America’s college-graduation rate the highest in the world by 2020) and something no politician could plausibly accomplish (to make maths and science “cool again”).

The Founding Fathers intended a more modest role for the president: to defend the country when attacked, to enforce the law, to uphold the constitution—and that was about it. But over time, the office has grown. In 1956 Clinton Rossiter, a political scientist, wrote that Americans wanted their president to make the country rich, to take the lead on domestic policy, to respond to floods, tornadoes and rail strikes, to act as the nation’s moral spokesman and to lead the free world. The occupant of the Oval Office had to be “a combination of scoutmaster, Delphic oracle, hero of the silver screen and father of the multitudes,” he said.

The public mood has grown more cynical since then; Watergate showed that presidents can be villains. But Americans still want their commander-in-chief to take command. It is pointless for a modern president to plead that some things, such as the business cycle, are beyond his control. So several have sought dubious powers to meet the public’s unreasonable expectations. Sometimes people notice, as when Mr. Bush claimed limitless leeway to tap phones and detain suspected terrorists. But sometimes they don’t. For example, Mr. Bush was blamed for the debacle of Hurricane Katrina, although responding to natural disasters is largely a local responsibility. So he pushed Congress to pass a law allowing the president to use the army to restore order after a future natural disaster, an epidemic, or under “other condition[s]”, a startling expansion of federal power.

Mr. Obama promised to roll back Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency. But has he? Having slammed his predecessor for issuing “signing statements” dismissing parts of laws he had just signed, he is now doing the same thing. He vowed to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, but this week put off for another six months any decision as to what to do with the inmates. Meanwhile, he has embraced Mrs. Clinton’s curious notion that the president should be “commander-in-chief of our economy”, by propping up banks, firing executives, backing car warranties and so forth. Mr. Healy reckons that Mr. Obama is “as dedicated to enhancing federal power as any president in 50 years.”



The perils of over-promising



Nonsense, say his supporters. Taking over banks and car companies was a temporary measure to tackle a crisis. When the danger recedes, Mr. Obama will pull back. The restructuring of General Motors, for example, is comfortably ahead of schedule. And far from lording it over Congress, the president has if anything abdicated too much responsibility to it.

These are all fair points. But Mr. Healy’s warnings are still worth heeding. Mr. Obama is clearly not the socialist of Republican demonology, but he is trying to extend federal control over two huge chunks of the economy—energy and health care—so fast that lawmakers do not have time to read the bills before voting on them. Perhaps he is hurrying to get the job done before his polls weaken any further. In six months, his approval rating has fallen from 63% to 56% while his disapproval rating has nearly doubled, from 20% to 39%. Independent voters are having second thoughts. And his policies are less popular than he is. Support for his health-care reforms has slipped from 57% to 49% since April.

All presidential candidates promise more than they can possibly deliver. This sets them up for failure. But because the Obama cult has stoked expectations among its devotees to such unprecedented heights, he is especially likely to disappoint. Mr. Healy predicts that he will end up as a failed president, and “possibly the least popular of the modern era”. It is up to Mr. Obama to prove him wrong.