Can RivCo Manage Your Money?

Well, it’s not their money! The county doesn’t produce or sell anything. Every dollar they spend comes from our pockets. So the question is can they manage our money?

The answer, sadly, is apparently not, at least not by themselves. The five good men of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors are finding that the numbers simply don’t add up. They are spending millions more than they take in and find themselves digging into the piggy bank to make up the difference. So they relinquished their responsibility and capitulated to an outside consulting firm to make the budget numbers add up.

Do you feel their pain? No? Well, how about this: The consultant they hired to save money cost us $761,600. And that was merely for a report. We paid them $15.7 million to implement their own recommendations. Maybe county management couldn’t read or understand the report so they could take action on their own.

Feel the pain yet? Here’s the other shoe: The first report only covered the Sheriff’s Department, District Attorney’s Office, Probation Department, and Public Defender’s Office. Now our consultant is getting another $2.7 million to study other departments. Hold on to your wallets, folks, this is only for a report. If the first “study” was any indication, implementation for their “recommendations” could cost $60 million (about 20 times the cost of the report).

You know, I checked the records, and for a mere $387,642.45 (in 2014), we pay a Chief Executive Officer to actually manage the business of the county. Have we wasted that money? While Riverside County doesn’t actually have a Chief Financial Officer, it does have an Auditor, who receives $189,353.92 (again, in 2014). It appears that the Board of Supervisors doesn’t believe the county bean counters and managers can solve the budget problem. So, what exactly are we paying them to do?

In a county where the median family income is around $60,000 a year, we find that we are ponying up for 3,285 county employees that earn over $100,000. Even the dog catcher makes $298,856.18 a year! Whoa, am I in the wrong business! And I’m not even into the pension mess, but that’s a whole other story.

Okay, let me just zoom in on one department, say, the county Information Technology Department. I know it has taken a beating in the past years for doing stupid stuff, but let’s just take a fresh look.

The IT department has 461 employees, and most are making well over $100,000 a year. That alone is a hefty chunk of change, but when you look at the cost of IT facilities and buying and maintaining all the hi-tech gadgets the county seems to need we are looking at an astronomical chunk of change.

I get it. The lifespan of a hi-tech device these days in measured in portions of a year if not months. Then there are updates and new software. It all costs money… lots of money, as any of us owning these devilish devices, can attest to. But is it always necessary to have the latest-and-greatest? My cell phone is an old flip-phone – well over 10 years old – that, unbelievably, lets me communicate with anyone quite nicely. I’ve looked at those new smart phones, but it seems there is always a newer, better, one coming out and all you need to do is open your wallet. But all I really need is a phone. I have cameras and computers to do that other stuff.

Okay, yes, there are ways the county could save money. But If I can point out just a few ways, why would the county need a high-priced consulting firm to point out the obvious? Even still, why can’t those we pay enormous salaries figure this out by themselves? I guess maybe I should be in the consulting business.

The Likeability Factor

Some have it and some don’t. Often it is the sure sign of a leader. Ronald Reagan had it, as did Colin Powell. The very first time you see these people, you like them. From that time on, it doesn’t matter what they do, you still like them.

There were great female leaders, some likeable some not so much. Golda Meir was everyone’s grandmother. One look at her and you began to have visions of cookies and milk. When she said something, it was your grandmother talking.

 Indira Gandhi, well she had that gray streak in her hair, but even so, she couldn’t quite pull off that grandmotherly feel. Yes, she was beloved and well liked, but not universally. Obviously, someone didn’t like her. Her Sikh bodyguards assassinated her in 1984 a few months after she ordered the storming of the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar to counter the Punjab insurgency.

And who doesn’t know the story of Eva Perón? Yes, the subject of the play Evita; that Eva Perón. The First Lady of Argentina from 1946 to 1952, when she died of cancer. The people of Argentina loved her even as they reviled her husband Juan Perón. As a strong defender of labor rights, she became powerful within the pro-Perónist trade unions. She also ran the Ministries of Labor and Health, founded and ran the charitable Eva Perón Foundation, championed women's suffrage in Argentina, and founded and ran the nation's first large-scale female political party, the Female Perónist Party. She may not have run the Argentina, but she wielded great power mostly because of her likeability.

Can Hillary Clinton measure up? It’s doubtful. Yes, she has her supporters, but even they don’t all like or most importantly, trust her. While some great women in history can be and have been deceitful, Mrs. Clinton has taken deception and lying to new lows. Most importantly, she is not liked. Could she become President? Anything is possible, but without being universally liked or trusted, she will not be able to achieve what she has promised. And she will never go down in history alongside the likes of Golda Meir or Eva Perón.

Ronald Reagan was so popular he easily slid past scandals that would have brought down the likes of Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter. Yes, there were a few who didn’t like him. John Hinkley even shot him. Although the assassination attempt was spawned merely from deranged delusions of trying to impress a woman who didn’t even know he existed and not out of any political dislike.

So, what is the likeability factor for Donald Trump? That’s a tough question. Those who like him, love him, those that don’t hate him. But do they really like Trump the man? For certain, he is no Ronald Reagan. I think it would be a safe bet that most of his “supporters” love the way he is giving the bird to the Washington politicians and the Washington lobbyists. Then too, there are those that believe he will not be doing favors for supporters simply because he is funding his own campaign.

It’s a shallow pool Mr. Trump is wading in. The test will be if he is elected. How will he fare in the deep water? Will his likeability factor be enough to carry him through the failures of congressional rejection or any scandals that are sure to follow when he begins throwing people out of the country?

Such a choice we have in this election! We can elect a little liked deceitful Democrat merely because she would be the “first” female President. Or we can elect a bombastic, narcissistic Republican many seem to like for all the wrong reasons.

Well, the primaries aren’t over, and there is no sure thing in this race yet. Who knows, maybe God will intervene and we will elect the Pope. He has a high likeability factor, doesn’t he?

Recession Recovery?

Has California recovered from the recession? Good question. If you listen to federal and state politicians, you would believe it has. Look a little deeper, though, and you will begin to question their veracity.

Let’s look at the issue from various levels, beginning with the personal outlook:

Just ask my neighbors and friends if they have recovered from the burdens and deprivation of the recession. I’m certain the answer would be a distinct no. Some are still without jobs, others have far lower paying jobs, a few lost their homes and businesses, and others lost everything and have moved out of the area. Many in my neighborhood are merely waiting for the housing prices to reach parity with their mortgage so they can sell out and leave the state.

Then we have the county level. The recent county budget reveals a deficit of $376.2 million (FY 15/16 Adopted Budget page 1, table 1). The Press-Enterprise recently reported the county supervisors struggling to make up a $100 million shortfall. They hired outside consultants from KPMG to advise ways to fix this gap.

Regardless of the discrepancy in math, does this sound like a recession recovery? The county spending far exceeds its revenue. Am I mistaken to think that when county revenues exceed the spending, we could call that a recovery? This hasn’t happened for the last two budgets either.

Now comes the state level. Halleluiah, we have a budget surplus – nearly a billion dollar surplus! Does that indicate a recovery? Well, probably not. See, the voters approved prop 30 in 2012, which increased taxes on the “rich.” This additional tax finally puts the state in the black for this budget. Does the surplus mean the end of the prop 30 taxes? Dream on. Once a politician gets hold of a dime, you can be assured you will never see it again – and before long, he will want more.

Certainly, there has been recovery at the federal level, right? Well, if you can call a $19,211,342,727,725 debt (as of February 2016) a recovered economy, then yeah. But I doubt our creditors see it that way. The measure of a country’s productivity is the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). If you look at a chart of US GDP from 1969 to mid-2010, you will see a distinct decline. And the trend is not going up even after that. Why? Manufacturers are leaving the country in droves.

And where are the jobs we all lost in the recession? China, Vietnam, Mexico? Yes to all of the above and even other countries. Now we see living wage manufacturing jobs being replaced by low wage, entry level, service industry jobs feeding off the government job creation programs funded by the national debt.

So, what is the government answer to those low wage jobs? Raise the minimum wage. It’s obvious these people can’t survive on the low wages and part-time jobs that replaced their well paying manufacturing jobs. In typical government fashion, their solution has nothing to do with recovering the lost jobs, merely require employers to pay more for the menial level jobs they now have. Problem solved.

But does that solve the problem? Suddenly McDonalds’ happy meal doesn’t look so jovial when you have to pay 200 percent more for it. And the workers are they better off? For a short while they may find a few extra bucks in the pay envelope, but eventually even that job will go away. To hold the costs to something manageable, employers will need to find ways to keep their prices appealing without going in the red. That will mean fewer employees and possibly even automation. Bye-bye service jobs. Now what?

We’re not recovering. We are digging the hole deeper! But then, isn’t that what government does? As a great man, Ronald Reagan, once said, “government isn’t the solution to the problem, government is the problem.”

And California government is the very worst. According to a report by Joseph Vranich of Spectrum Location Solutions in Irvine, California, from 2008 to 2015 the state lost 1687 business due to the hostile business environment in this state. And those are only the ones reported publicly. Some experts put the figure at 10, 000 for that period.

Why the exodus? The reasons most sighted were taxes and regulations. Where did they go? Many went off shore others went to Texas and other states with a more business friendly environment.

So, I ask you, do you really see an improvement in your life due to recovery from the recession? If you can honestly answer yes to that question, I suggest you hide. The government is sure to find out. And when they do, you will be paying the bill for the rest of us who have not felt the recovery.

Security v/s Privacy

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Those words, reportedly written by Benjamin Franklin in a 1755 letter on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor during the French and Indian War, have taken many interpretations through the ages. They are even inscribed on our Statue of Liberty to instill a sense of our never-ending desire for liberty.

Well, old Ben was a revered founder oft noted for his sage advice. Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac gave the nation timely and wise words to live by for many generations.

But what did he really mean by this particular phrase? Did he look far into the future and mean that our smartphones should contain private information that the government should not be able to obtain in the name of national security?

No. Ben’s letter was written in an entirely different context. He was concerned over the Pennsylvania legislature’s effort to tax the Penn family to pay for the French and Indian war. Privacy was not even remotely an issue in his letter.

Today’s FBI v/s Apple issue is a matter of security over privacy and has nothing to do with liberty. The freedom to have privacy is assumed implicit in our Constitution, but nowhere does that noble document state precisely that issue. The closest the Constitution comes to guaranteeing privacy is in the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

We are guaranteed to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects until the government issues a warrant to examine them. In the case of private information contained on the iPhone owned by a particular terrorist, a warrant was issued. End of argument!

Well, no, it is not the end of this argument. The information is encrypted and locked within the device. The government wants to order Apple to develop software to decrypt that information or provide a means to obtain the password for the device.

The FBI argues that they are only concerned with that one particular iPhone. Apple fears that by allowing the government to require the development of software to peek into this one device, they will open the door to hackers and no iPhone information will be truly secure.

Hillary Clinton was so concerned that her “private” email information would be available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act that she used a private email server during her term as Secretary of State. The government subpoenaed her email server but she had wiped it clean of any data after printing out selected emails she deemed relevant to her government dealings. Unfortunately, there were emails that contained some highly classified information. By using a private email server, she opened the State Department to intrusion of that server and theft of classified information by hackers.

How is this a different situation than the FBI-Apple case? As I see it, there is no difference. There may, or may not, be vital information that our government needs to guarantee national security, and it is on a privately owned device. A warrant has been issued for that information, and no matter who owns the device, that information must be divulged.

In this case, Apple has patents on the iPhone that can’t be violated. Therefore, it is incumbent upon Apple to lawfully provide the means to obtain the information contained within that iPhone.

This has nothing to do with liberty versus security any more than it has to do with the Pennsylvania legislature’s right to tax the Penn family for the French and Indian war. The issue is whether our government can issue a legal warrant to obtain information it deems necessary to provide the security to all of us that we expect from our government. I am sure old Ben would not object.

Just Say NO!

Our late, great First Lady, Nancy Reagan, made the saying famous. It was advice to first-time drug users to simply say no to drugs. I have conscripted the saying for an entirely different purpose, voting for Donald Trump.

I am fully aware that I may have to eat those words if Trump becomes the Republican Nominee. There is absolutely no way I would ever vote for either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. So, if by some perverse happenstance, Mr. Trump becomes the Republican Presidential nominee, I suppose I will just have to hold my nose and cast my vote for him. I won’t like it, but I will do it.

I don’t like Trump. That’s a given. He has the personality of a spoiled seventh grade bully on an unsupervised schoolyard, complete with all the warmth and charm of a scorpion.

No, I don’t like his personality, but that is not the reason I say you should not vote for him. Actually, there are a great number of reasons beyond his failing personality.

For beginners, I doubt he can win against the presumptive Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton. For decades, the Democrats have – what’s the word? Rigged? Yeah, that’s it – elections. It’s no secret. John Kennedy beat out Richard Nixon with the help of thousands of voters residing in Chicago cemeteries. In a close election – which this is certain to be – the democrats can always pull out some trick to give them the advantage. If not hanging chads or non-citizen voters, they will find a way.

Next, close your eyes and imagine, if you can, President Trump across the table from Vladimir Putin negotiating anything. “Well, Mr. Putin if you don’t take my offer, we will point a few more ballistic missiles at your house, and by the way, my chest has more hair than yours, you short pipsqueak.” Right, that should go well.

The understatement of the year would be to say that Trump has no tact. The word simply doesn’t exist for him.

Finally, consider how our constitutionally mandated, three-branch government works. The President has no authority to create legislation. That job is the exclusive domain of the elected representatives from each of the 50 states. Both the Senate and House of Representatives have a distinct line dividing Republicans from Democrats. Their political philosophy is usually as fractured as the two Parties. Today the Republicans hold the majority vote in both houses.

If Hillary Clinton becomes elected, you can bet we will have the same situation we have had since the Republicans became the majority. Not much of Obama’s agenda gets by Congress. Clinton would fare no better.

On the other hand, neither party likes Donald Trump. I am all but certain neither negotiation or coercion would work for Trump to pass much if any of his promised agenda. And that is a shame because there are many good points to Trump’s stated objectives. He just is not going to be able to bully his way with Congress, and I haven’t seen where he knows any other way to get things done.

Well, yes, he would have the option to use executive orders. Those work for most presidents, but we have seen with Obama that there is a distinct point you can’t cross when you use those executive actions. And that is where the third branch of government comes in play, the Supreme Court, where at least two of Obama’s executive orders languish today.

If you are hoping that someone outside of the Washington insider politics can finally “Make America Great Again”, don’t look to Trump. There are many things that need to be done to divert out country’s downward spiral. Donald Trump has clearly articulated the many things that indeed need be done. Unfortunately, he is not the man to get them done.

We still have a choice even though Californians only get to vote in the primaries long after most of the delegates have been chosen. Trump has to get to a magic number to ensure his nomination in the Republican Party. There is a good chance that by June, he may not have that number of delegates, and we Californians could change what now looks like a certain victory for Trump and certain disaster for our country.

In June, just say no – no to Donald Trump, and no to schoolyard bully tactics.

Of Geese and Gold Eggs

I received a facebook post the other day from a friend (aren’t they all “friends?). It had a picture of that other Democratic Party darling Elizabeth Warren with text, presumably a quote from her, parroting Barrack Obama’s now-infamous “you didn’t make that” line about businesses. I didn’t hit the like button.

To begin with, it is asinine to attempt to tell the founder of a business that he or she did not create that business. The also not so subtle implication is that they didn’t create the jobs that follow any business.

Try telling that to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Did Henry Ford not create Ford Motors? I seriously doubt he would accept that denunciation if he were alive today. And what about the over 7 million patents issued by the US Patent office. Did those listed as inventors not conceive the idea that became the patent?

Well, who did create those businesses then? I believe Obama, Warren, and the socialist left would like us to believe that the government did this all by itself. What hubris! What arrogance! What stupidity!

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak saw the vanguard of microprocessor development and decided to risk their meager fortunes on creating a computer for use by everyone. That idea became Apple Computers, which is arguably worth over 1.4 trillion dollars today and employs some 110,000 people in well-paying jobs. This, incidentally, was a new twist on the same idea Henry Ford had when he created the automobile everyone could afford.

So how much money did the government put into developing these companies? That would be none! How much assistance did the government lend to get these companies off the drawing board? Again, none! All right, did the government give tax incentives to get the companies started? Nope! Did the government loan the businesses money to build their plants? You have to be kidding!

Warren and Obama can only offer the lame argument that the government provided roads to transport goods and a safe secure country for the business to thrive in. Well, sure, the goods these businesses use may come in through government run ports and over government built roads; the same roads and ports their products need for distribution. And yes, this is a great country in which to have a business. But these things are not exclusive for businesses. We all use them. It is part of what a country does.

What the government doesn’t do, and frankly can’t do, is provide the spark of creativity that spawns a new business. Government doesn’t fuel the drive that makes a business grow. Government doesn’t create companies and doesn’t create private sector jobs. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not a measure of government productivity. It is purely a factor of private business output!

Many countries have found that the way to kill productivity and subsequently productive jobs is by nationalizing what used to be private businesses. When a government gets involved in business in any form, it results in reduced productivity, fewer meaningful and productive jobs, and ultimately a lower GDP.

Although there are millions of people working directly for the government, we need to keep in mind that the government produces nothing. You can’t buy government made cars, government made food, or anything made exclusively made by the government. The government has no products and therefore, is not even a factor in our GDP. And as communist China, Vietnam and even Cuba are finding out, private businesses and free trade are the lifeblood of any country.

Kill businesses through government takeover, excessive regulation, high taxes, and dictated wages, and you will kill the geese that lay the golden eggs.

The Unreality Show

You can’t make this stuff up, folks. Our political process – if process could actually describe this fiasco – is so unreal that it resembles something presented by some insane Hollywood reality show producer.

When the year started, we had four Democrat candidates and some seventeen Republicans running for their party’s nomination. We are now at a point where the field has been narrowed down to two Democrats and six Republicans. The rest have been voted off the island!

While mud slinging seems to have been the national sport of most elections for quite a few years, this bunch has taken it to new lows. Donald Trump wants to sue Ted Cruz. Jeb Bush and Trump are tossing insults that would put any schoolyard fracas to shame. Jeb and Marco Rubio, two Floridians, are denouncing each other’s accomplishments – or rather perhaps lack of accomplishments.

Poor Doctor Carson is desperately trying to get someone, anyone, to notice that he is still in the race. And then there is John Kasich, Governor of Ohio, who essentially could be labeled on the ballot as ‘none of the above.’

Well, if you don’t like that channel, you could always change to the other unreality show, the Democrat ticket. Here we have A Socialist and a long-standing Washington insider beating each other up with their left wings. The main attraction seems to be free stuff all around! Bernie wants to give everyone free college, totally free healthcare, free daycare, free minimum income, free cell phones. No, wait a minute. Obama beat him to that one. But Bernie is also guaranteeing free huge tax increases to pay for all the other free stuff he intends to dole out.

Then there is Hillary. Yes, the woman who has lied about, top secret emails… sorry, the publisher won’t take a column long enough to list all of her lies. But then, don’t all politicians lie? Our current President sure does. Hillary’s husband was impeached for it when he was President. Hillary likes to point to her accomplishments as Secretary of State. Uh, were there any? Sorry, I’m drawing a blank on that one. Benghazi? No. Russian reset button? No. Maybe you can name one.

Well, Hillary is big on women’s issues… as long as that woman isn’t a fetus all the way up to the time of birth. She has no problem supporting the notion of killing our children at any stage of pregnancy. A strange stance coming from a woman who professes to be a proud grandmother. I have to wonder what her stand would be if her daughter had decided to have an abortion of convenience.

Oh, that’s right there were some other Democrats who were voted off the island. Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb went in the first round. Poor Webb couldn’t seem to get the support of the Democratic Party, probably because he went through the first debate talking sense. Chafee, well, he wasn’t sure what party he belonged to. Martin O’Malley finally saw the light at the Iowa caucus and bid adieu to the fray.

A check of the Internet shows that there are actually some fifteen other Democrats running for President, but at this point, who even knows their name. Besides, remember when Hillary told the congressional committee investigating the Benghazi incident, “What, at this point, does it matter?” Yes indeed, at this point, what does it matter how many delegates Sanders can win? Hillary started this rigged election with enough “super delegates” to ensure her nomination. After only two primary elections, (Iowa and New Hampshire) she has 481 while Sanders has a mere 55 even though he won by a landslide in New Hampshire and nearly tied Clinton in Iowa.

And just to add a plot twist to this ‘unreality’ show, let’s kill off a major player that no one has even realized is in the show, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Actually, no one killed Scalia. He died of a heart attack. But the plot twist effect is the same.

Just how important is this? Well, it just puts your decision right in your face. We live in times where nearly everything seems to be deeply polarized. Democrats and Republicans are, for the large part, completely divided on issues. The Supreme Court is no exception. Many if not most of their decisions are decided by a 5 to 4 vote. One could even say it is a liberal/conservative divide and not be far off the mark. Justice Scalia could always be relied upon to take the side of the actual constitutional wording, rather than try legislating from the bench.

There is a strong likelihood that the next President will be the one to appoint Scalia’s replacement. This could very well have huge consequences both in judicial decisions and in our very lives.

As much as this election process might resemble a bizarre reality sow, folks, it is not. It is time for we the people and those running for office to get serious about this election. The candidates need to show respect for each other and for the office to which they all aspire. Even more, the candidates need to show respect for the electorate, we the people, and show that they are serious about running the country with the largest economy, strongest military, and free world leader. This unreality show needs to end before the electorate turns it completely off.