Waste Not – Want Not

I wish I could count the number of times I heard this growing up. According to Dictionary.com, “This proverbial saying was first recorded in 1772 but had an earlier, even more alliterative version, willful waste makes woeful want (1576).”

All I know is that it is easy to not waste much when you don’t have much. Were we poor? Probably. I know we didn’t eat a lot and what little we had was not very nutritious (is there any nutrition in Spam?). We also made do with what we had and repaired everything. We washed old clothes and handed them down. A pair of jeans would make the neighborhood or family circuit until they could no longer be patched and even then, they would be used as cleaning rags.

I guess that is why I cringe when I see people throwing out useful items. My biggest peeve is when someone throws out food simply because they have too much – not because it has spoiled, merely because they bought too many of an item. Food seldom gets a chance to go bad in our house because we eat all of what we buy.

The waste at food businesses is appalling. Grocery stores toss perfectly good fruit and vegetables that have been on the shelf too long. And by toss, I mean they fill dumpsters that then go to the landfill.

Restaurants serve portions they know will not all be consumed. Some of the meal may go in a “doggie bag” but much heads directly to the dumpster. Bakeries sell only fresh products. You never see day-old-bread anymore. So what doesn’t sell is trashed. Is it any wonder that homeless people flock around these dumpsters?

But it doesn’t stop there. In fact, the waste begins at the farm. Misshapen and blemished fruits and veggies never even make it to the grocery stores. Farmers know they can’t get top dollar for these goods, so they trash them even before consumers get a chance to reject them.

Is this a big deal? Well, yes it is, a very big deal. According to a recent report by UNEP and the World Resources Institute (WRI), about one-third of all food produced worldwide, worth around $1 trillion, gets lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems. And here are a couple more UNEP “fun facts”:

In the USA, organic waste is the second highest component of landfills.

In the USA, 30-40% of the food supply is wasted, equaling more than 20 pounds of food per person per month.

And speaking of landfills, well, I guess you could say the waste stops here. But we are not alone in this waste. Actually, at an average of 1,014 pounds of waste per person per year, we came in at number four in 2000. Denmark got the number one spot that year with 1,234 pounds per person, followed by the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Yes, that’s a lot of trash. Trash that we pay for twice, once to buy, then again to dispose of. Have you ever thought about what is making up your trash? Probably not. If it fits in the trash container, it’s out of sight and out of mind. But consider this. How much of your trash is merely packaging of something else?

When we buy a collection of things like fruit or vegetables it goes into those handy plastic bags the stores provide on a roll. Then again, at the checkout counter, that bag of goodies goes into yet another bag to carry home. Everything else is pre-packaged in some sort of plastic container, and often packaged again in another container, then thrown into another bag to carry out the store.

And it doesn’t end at the supermarket. Virtually everything else you buy comes in a bubble pack, plastic bag, or cardboard box – sometimes in all of these for a single item.

And what of broken or old “well used” items? We don’t repair or refurbish anything these days. And manufacturers are feeding off this fact. Nearly everything we buy, from the smallest appliance to major items are made to be disposable. In the ‘60s, televisions had vacuum tubes and cost upwards of $500. It was cost-effective to repair them. Then came semiconductors and printed circuits for televisions. It was much more difficult to repair and would become cheaper to simply dispose of and get a new one. Today, landfills are bulging with old CRT type televisions, many still functioning perfectly.

So, what’s my point? It’s simple folks. Look at your trash container and think about how much money you have paid for every single piece of trash in there. If you happen to be rich, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Most of us aren’t in the One-percenter Club, though. That trash container is full of money – money you paid for items in there originally and money you will pay for its disposal. If you can’t use it, sell it to the recycler. Waste not; want not, and save money. What a concept!

The Choice of a Lifetime?

We may be living in one of the most historically important times this country has seen since the American Revolution. Will our ancestors look back on this time and thank us for making a wise decision or curse us for negligence?

In 2008, Barrack Obama was elected president not because he was the most qualified person for the job; not because he had the experience and education to handle foreign and domestic issues; not because he had a clear plan to advance the country’s economy; not even because he had a firm grasp of the issues of the times. Obama was elected on a single issue, to be the first Black President.

He was reelected in 2012 not because he had done such a wonderful job as President – Obama and the Democrats in Congress saddled us with the worst healthcare program in the history of the world – his reelection happened merely because those who voted for him the first time couldn’t bear the thought of admitting their mistake.

So, what did we learn in the last eight years? For one, we learned that hope and change meant we could hope we have change left after the government fleeces our wallets. We should have learned you couldn’t borrow and spend your way to economic recovery. With over 19 Trillion dollars of debt and economy growing at a snail’s pace, that is a costly lesson.

During the Obama reign, we also heard that the US Constitution is “an outdated and flawed document”, one that he repeatedly tried to circumvent. We also added a new word to our vocabulary, the “One-percenter.” You know, that term referring to the greedy one percent of Americans that hold 99 percent of the wealth – the ones whose wealth Mr. Obama wants to “spread around.”

Yeah, that’s right folks; I’m no fan of our current President. I don’t like his policies. I deplore his staff choices, cabinet choices, and all of his advisors and czars. I also detest his socialist bent and unwillingness to take the blame for his shortcomings – “it’s the fault of the previous administration.” Yes, I believe Mr. Obama has secured the prize of “worst president” easily from the hands of the previous holder, Jimmy Carter.

Can we say, “good riddance” next January? Well, maybe.

Hillary Clinton is running for election on the promise to continue and advance the policies of Obama. That could easily mean more socialist programs. It, of necessity, will mean higher taxes or deeper debt – or both. Our borders will be completely open and there will be no control on immigration. She has told us she will “fix” healthcare, but we know what kind of fixes she will make. She started this whole healthcare boondoggle during Bill Clinton’s Presidency. No one thought it was a good idea then. I doubt it will be an improvement this time.

The most horrifying prospect of the second Clinton Presidency is the certainty that she will be appointing at least one Supreme Court Justice and possibly as many as four more. Can there be any doubt about the caliber of candidates she will submit to Congress for nominees?

If Obama viewed the Constitution as a flawed and outdated document, he had no recourse but to work around what he felt was obstructing his desires. As the arbiter and definer of constitutional meaning, the Supreme Court has, for many decades, followed the strict intent and language of the document. There was no way Obama could subvert the strict meaning of the Constitution for his own agenda. A second Clinton administration could radically change that.

The appointment of just the next Supreme Court justice could completely reverse the decisions of the past decades and give Clinton the ability to entirely circumvent the will of Congress. She has already taken aim at weakening or repealing the Second Amendment.

Jimmy Carter couldn’t get the Equal Rights Amendment to pass ratification. A sympathetic Supreme Court Justice could make that Amendment a de-facto law with a mere 5 to 4 opinion. Look for the return of racial and gender quotas in everything. The National minimum wage will start at 15 dollars and likely climb to staggering heights as inflation goes through the roof.

As for foreign policy, well, look how nicely she handled the Benghazi affair. And didn’t she do a reset with Russia… just before they took the Crimea and invaded the Ukraine? When one of her staunchest supporters was asked to name just one accomplishment Clinton had as Secretary of State, the answer was, “um.”

It’s not looking good, folks. The choices we are presented for leading our country and defining its future are not ideal. Both sides have staunch supporters and vocal opponents. We need to look beyond the rhetoric and bombast, past the effect either candidate would have on the next four years. Look to the effect either candidate could have on the future of our country. I cannot imagine a more defining moment in time than this election. Please choose wisely.

The Final Before The Final

The battle lines have been drawn for the 2016 Presidential election, and once again, California is irrelevant. Donald Trump won all of Indiana’s delegates and caused Ted Cruz and John Kasich to quit the race. On the Democratic side, well, Bernie Sanders did win Indiana, but with the Super Delegate jokers in the deck, the game is clearly rigged against him – maybe it always was.

It is ironic that California, with the most delegates at stake for both parties, is one of the last states to get to vote in the presidential primaries. Our June 4^th primary election will provide 341 Republican and 548 Democrat delegates to the respective conventions in our winner-take-all election. But does it make a difference?

A Democrat candidate needs 2,383 delegate votes to win the nomination outright on the first ballot at their convention. Hillary Clinton now has 2,205 delegates committed to her, while Sanders has only mustered 1,401. Looking at the numbers one could easily believe it’s lights out for the Sanders campaign. But wait! Take away those 498 Super Delegates mysteriously awarded to Clinton even before the first state held an election, and the score looks a little closer, 1,707 for Clinton to Sanders 1,401. Now throw in California’s 548 delegates and we have a horse race, folks – an honest election! Nah, that would not be Democrat-like.

On the Republican side, put a fork in it, it’s done. Donald trump is the nominee in all but the final coronation. To date, he has amassed 1,053 of the 1,237 delegates to win on the first ballot. California, had it gone for another candidate in the winner-take-all primary, might have been able to prevent Trump from hitting that top number and the convention would have been opened to deciding on another person for the nominee. Unfortunately, the only other two candidates left, Ted Cruz and John Kasich both dropped out. So, our block of 341 Republican delegates now become completely irrelevant.

So, what is wrong with this picture? Everything!

With the appointment of at least one Supreme Court justice, and possibly as many as five on the line, this may be the most important Presidential election in our lifetime. And here we wind up with two nominees that are deemed unfavorable by the majority of the country!

An average of polls, as reported by the Huffington Post shows Donald Trump is viewed unfavorably by 60.6% of the country, and Hillary Clinton’s unfavorable rating is at 52.4% (only 37% view her trustworthy and honorable).

So, why are we electing someone we don’t like or trust to the highest office in the land? Are we that suicidal? Or are we merely too apathetic for our own good?

If ever we needed a none-of-the-above choice on our ballot, it is now.

The Sad Demise of Literacy

We have all experienced it. The songs these days, especially Rap lyrics, are full of it. Tweets almost require it. I am talking about the blatant display of illiteracy plaguing our media and our lives.

Here is an actual text message from a facebook post someone sent. It is from a young, presumably pregnant, woman. I have transcribed the message verbatim with only a single change for the profanity:

When you pregnant everybody wanna be auntie and god mama everybody promise to come to the baby shower…

Lol wait till yo baby shower see how many come.. They gone say "can I bring yo gift another day honey" promise you all kind of [****]. they not gone bring no gift baby! And once the baby born they gone disappear and comment on yo pics like "aww look at my baby"

If you can understand the message she is trying to convey, please translate it to English and send it to me.

This appears to be from a person old enough to be, or a contemporary of someone old enough to be, pregnant. Maybe she dropped out of school at an early age – like maybe 10 years old! I would certainly like to think that was the case, and not that our schools could be turning out students with such atrocious language skill.

Language is believed to have originated in the early Neolithic period as societies emerged. It was necessary to convey ideas and concepts to others in the tribe, or band of people. It is also thought that the first utterances were merely a limited set of guttural sounds. Over time, and out of necessity, those sounds were refined into a coherent language capable of communicating concepts and commands to everyone familiar with the language.

It didn’t happen overnight and it was very likely a struggle to get everyone in the community in harmony with the subtleties of the language. As it evolved and people began to meet with those of other communities with a different language, the languages became refined into more broadly accepted vocabulary, grammar, and style.

Eventually, the language took a more permanent form and writing was born. Even here, great care was taken to standardize in order to gain a wide understanding of what was being communicated.

The United States of America was founded using the English language for all legal matters. The Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, and every amendment was written in the plain English language of that time. This, in itself, was nothing short of a minor miracle, since most Americans at the time were only partially literate and many were totally illiterate. Also, notice that these founding documents are all written in what today is called cursive – sadly, a form disappearing from our schools.

Okay, I will spare you the full lesson on the history of language and writing. It should suffice to know that humanity struggled for a very long time to attain the grammatical standards and lexicon of the English language in order to communicate precise and concise ideas with others who understand that language.

When this form is not used, the originator might just as well be speaking Swahili or some South American tribal language. You will not get many who will understand what you are trying to say or the concept you would like to convey. And this is a shame since the originator may be struggling to say something important.

If you can read and understand this column, thank my English teachers. If you are grateful I have not written it in Twitter gibberish, you can thank me for never learning how to text.

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.