The year must have been around 1953. I had two younger brothers and one younger sister. My father made it a tradition to have a large box of fireworks for the July 4th holiday and celebration. Since he was a local businessman I think he got some of the leftovers from one of the local fireworks vendors. Most years there was a family picnic in the back yard with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins attending the festivities. At twilight the sparklers started sputtering, followed by the fountains, pinwheels, and small star shells. Anything bigger was illegal in Illinois. At some point the big municipal display started going off several block away so our local display was punctuated by the big stuff being supervised and set off courtesy of the local American Legion post.
Twilight brought out the sparklers and a few fusees (a flare on a stick) that were in box of fireworks Dad had brought home. My six-year old sister was bored with the sparklers and wanted to hold a fusee. How she got the fusee I don't know, but it was not a master stroke of parenting to give a six-year old kid a hot, sputtering fusee. What could go wrong? Fusees burn with a bright light (this one happened to be green) and molten combustion products fly off the burning end. They are something you want to be careful with. In any case, my sister was holding a burning fusee and getting dangerously close to the box of fireworks Dad would soon be lighting. Big brother that I was (about age 12) I told little Sis to move away from the box of fireworks. Of course little Sis refused to move. Once or twice more I tried to get her to move away from the fireworks box with her sputtering fusee. At some point she swung the hand holding the fusee away from me and toward the fireworks box. As she swung her hand a glob of molten stuff came off the fusee and arced toward the open fireworks box. I watched, literally in horror, as the molten stuff dropped into the box and landed squarely on the fuse of one of the fireworks. The fuse lit immediately; my only reaction was to run like hell.
In a few seconds the ignited firework began doing its thing; that set off a chain reaction and seconds after that the whole box of fireworks was going off all at once. Everyone, young and old, was trying to clear out of the back yard and get as far away from the fiery shower that was coming out of the fireworks box. There were red and green fireballs flying; a pinwheel went sailing into the air; sparks were flying everywhere; a neighborhood friend who was stand next to me watching the spectacle was hit by a fireball.
After watching for a few stunning seconds, I decided to try to put the fire out. Being twelve I grabbed a pan of water and tried to approach the now fiercely burning box from behind. Fortunately for me, our neighbor was a member of the local fire department and he had a much better plan than I did. He grabbed a garden hose that was still connected to the outdoor tap; even better, the hose had a circular lawn sprinkler attached to it. The fireman turned on the water full force and approached the flaming box from behind the lawn sprinkler's water spray. The fireworks were beginning to burn themselves out, but still burned brightly. The fireman put a quick end to that bit of excitement and doused the box thoroughly until the whole thing was a black sodden mess and no smoke could be seen.
The remainder of the evening was spent recovering from that bit of unplanned excitement, including personal accounts of what people did to save themselves. Little Sis took the brunt of the recriminations for ruining the entire day (at least that's what we kids thought). Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, although a few people were singed by sparks and fireballs. We all were lucky.
For years afterward a July 4th celebration couldn't pass without someone recounting at least once how little Sis had blown up the backyard fireworks box. As best I recall, after that year there were no more backyard fireworks displays at our house.
UPDATE:
A brother remembers.
"I will never forget that evening. I remember being behind the bushes where our yard was separated from Arendt's (where the garage stood) I was on the ground and watching the fireballs flying everywhere. I think the pin wheel you mentioned landed on Tilden's roof down the street, or at least one of them did. Our back yard reminded me of scenes from the Three Stooges movies, I saw later in life. The whole event seemed like it lasted an eternity, but it was probably a couple of minutes in total time. I remember Marvin Steege getting hit with a fireball going horizontal over the ground. Years after that event, I asked Dad where he use to get the fireworks. He told me he bought them at Reid's Sporting Goods there in downtown Bloomington. Dad went in the day before the 4th, and Mr. Reid would give him a deal on them because he did not want to carry them over, for obvious reasons."
...And a cousin remembers too.
"Ahhh yes I remember that day. I was about 5 at the time. I think I was standing there watching Martha having fun with the flare, wishing I had one too. If I recall the only thing that didn't get torched was a few spinners that had been set up earlier in the back yard. I watched them as I recall and that was it.
I made the mistake of mentioning this story to Martha at my Mothers funeral. The look she gave me was, well, intense."
04 July 2009
01 July 2009
The Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme
The Evil Bernie Madoff got 150 years in prison for running the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time. Actually, it's the second greatest Ponzi scheme of all time. The greatest Ponzi scheme is the Social Security System.
Like all Ponzi schemes Social Security worked pretty well as long as there were a lot of people putting money into the system. All those "contributors," i.e., workers, from CEOs to packing plant employees -- that's 95% of the work force -- have put a Congress-decreed part of their earnings into the system. Most of the money collected goes right back out again in payments to "earlier investors," i.e., people who managed to live until age 65, along with permanently disabled workers, and the survivors of workers who had died. Along the way, politicians promoted the illusion that workers had a pension fund building up in the system, but that was never true.
Fortunately for the politicians the proportion of workers to Social Security recipients was large -- around 40 workers per recipient at the end of WW II. In 2006 that ratio had dropped to 3.3 workers per recipient. Two things happened: advancing medical technology gradually extended life spans, and after the post-war baby boom faded people began having smaller families. The net result is that many fewer workers are having to pay into a system that immediately redistributes their tax payments to a growing number of recipients. Uh-oh.
Of course, Lyndon Johnson wanted to have his shot at a presidential legacy so in 1965 he persuaded Congress to exacerbate the problem by adding Medicare into the Social Security System. Bad idea. Medicare is simply adding to the funding problem. The Ponzi scheme is getting nearer to collapse because the number of people putting money into the system can't keep up with the number of people getting money out of the system. Now that's a legacy.
Some politicians actually have a conscience and have tried to fix -- or propose a fix to -- the funding problem our government-sponsored Ponzi scheme faces: adequate funding. Former Senator Bob Kerrey (D) Nebraska was one. It has been about twelve years ago now, that Kerrey and his RINO compatriot, Chuck Hagel, periodically would come back to Nebraska to pitch his fix for Social Security. Of course, he was only talking about "fixing" the old age benefits, but at least he was on the right track. He wanted to privatize at least a part of Social Security so that workers would have more control over the amount of cash they would have at retirement. It was pretty clear that Kerrey and his aides had at least looked at the problem in proposing partial privatization. Hagel clearly didn't have a clue and was just mouthing politi-speak as a warm up act to Kerrey's ideas. Of course, the idea never took off among Democrats, and when Republicans started proposing privatizing Social Security the Democrats fell on them like a mob of screeching seagulls.
So the problem remains and the Obama administration wants to do more of what Social Security already does: spread the wealth. We already are getting a preview of how well an expanded income redistribution system works: it's running out of funds. Taxation is a dead weight on the economy and smothers economic growth so adding more taxes to pay for more income redistribution is going to be a killer for growth and the jobs growth creates. Most of the "green jobs" we hear about don't really exist, and when they do they are in some other country where specialized knowledge and lower labor costs already exist. Most of the "green jobs" I've heard about are in the administrative bureaucracy, i.e., the unproductive overhead, that will monitor, regulate, and ultimately stifle whatever innovation comes from this move toward a "green economy."
So. Who will take the fall when this, the biggest of all Ponzi schemes collapses? It won't be the politicians, unless voters finally learn the truth about this long-running scam. In truth, the generation now growing up will be taking the fall because, as Margaret Thatcher once said, "The problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other peoples' money."
Like all Ponzi schemes Social Security worked pretty well as long as there were a lot of people putting money into the system. All those "contributors," i.e., workers, from CEOs to packing plant employees -- that's 95% of the work force -- have put a Congress-decreed part of their earnings into the system. Most of the money collected goes right back out again in payments to "earlier investors," i.e., people who managed to live until age 65, along with permanently disabled workers, and the survivors of workers who had died. Along the way, politicians promoted the illusion that workers had a pension fund building up in the system, but that was never true.
Fortunately for the politicians the proportion of workers to Social Security recipients was large -- around 40 workers per recipient at the end of WW II. In 2006 that ratio had dropped to 3.3 workers per recipient. Two things happened: advancing medical technology gradually extended life spans, and after the post-war baby boom faded people began having smaller families. The net result is that many fewer workers are having to pay into a system that immediately redistributes their tax payments to a growing number of recipients. Uh-oh.
Of course, Lyndon Johnson wanted to have his shot at a presidential legacy so in 1965 he persuaded Congress to exacerbate the problem by adding Medicare into the Social Security System. Bad idea. Medicare is simply adding to the funding problem. The Ponzi scheme is getting nearer to collapse because the number of people putting money into the system can't keep up with the number of people getting money out of the system. Now that's a legacy.
Some politicians actually have a conscience and have tried to fix -- or propose a fix to -- the funding problem our government-sponsored Ponzi scheme faces: adequate funding. Former Senator Bob Kerrey (D) Nebraska was one. It has been about twelve years ago now, that Kerrey and his RINO compatriot, Chuck Hagel, periodically would come back to Nebraska to pitch his fix for Social Security. Of course, he was only talking about "fixing" the old age benefits, but at least he was on the right track. He wanted to privatize at least a part of Social Security so that workers would have more control over the amount of cash they would have at retirement. It was pretty clear that Kerrey and his aides had at least looked at the problem in proposing partial privatization. Hagel clearly didn't have a clue and was just mouthing politi-speak as a warm up act to Kerrey's ideas. Of course, the idea never took off among Democrats, and when Republicans started proposing privatizing Social Security the Democrats fell on them like a mob of screeching seagulls.
So the problem remains and the Obama administration wants to do more of what Social Security already does: spread the wealth. We already are getting a preview of how well an expanded income redistribution system works: it's running out of funds. Taxation is a dead weight on the economy and smothers economic growth so adding more taxes to pay for more income redistribution is going to be a killer for growth and the jobs growth creates. Most of the "green jobs" we hear about don't really exist, and when they do they are in some other country where specialized knowledge and lower labor costs already exist. Most of the "green jobs" I've heard about are in the administrative bureaucracy, i.e., the unproductive overhead, that will monitor, regulate, and ultimately stifle whatever innovation comes from this move toward a "green economy."
So. Who will take the fall when this, the biggest of all Ponzi schemes collapses? It won't be the politicians, unless voters finally learn the truth about this long-running scam. In truth, the generation now growing up will be taking the fall because, as Margaret Thatcher once said, "The problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other peoples' money."
The Distinguished Senator from Minnesota
Caligula sent his horse to the Roman Senate. Minnesota sends Al Franken to the US Senate. A horse's ass or a profane clown, take your pick.
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds
30 May 2009
The Walk of Life
About a month ago I spotted the beginnings of a mourning dove nest atop a corner post on the fence that surrounds our backyard. "Typical doves," I thought. Always making nests in really risky places and vulnerable to attack by predators, other birds, and the weather. I went on about my business and a few days later I saw a dove sitting on the nest. She (I assume it was a she) sat tight, even when I came up close to look. Although I didn't keep a close eye on the nest it seemed like she was always there and almost always in the same position on the nest. I wondered whether she ever flew off to find something to eat. One day I got my answer t
o the eating question. Another dove was there, presumably her mate. He was bringing her food. He also brought additional nesting materials and poked them into the nest structure even as she sat on it.
Over the next couple of weeks she sat there through fair weather and foul, heat and cold, sunshine and rain. I did notice that even though the nesting spot was out in the open, these doves had placed in it such a say that it and their own coloration formed a very good camouflage against the background of the gray fence post and surround slates. Grackles, those thugs, came and went past the nest, but none of them seemed to take notice. Grackles will destroy a nest and eggs and kill nestlings if they get a chance. So will blue jays and squirrels. I saw some squirrels skittering along the fence top, but papa dove (I guess) always placed himself between the squirrel and the nest but never attacked the squirrel like jays and grackles do. And then there are the feral cats in the neighborhood; sewer cats, we call them because they hang out in the sto
rm drains.
I suppose that a couple of weeks into the project the two eggs hatched because the dove seemed to be riding higher in the nest. If you look closely you can see some pinfeathers sticking out from under the nesting dove. Life went on for us. Since the grass was growing like crazy I had to mow weekly. I deliberately tried to stay away from the nest as much as possible, mowing the area around the fence post only after everything else was mowed. The first couple of times the dove left the nest but quickly returned when I finished mowing around the fence post. Then she seemed to get used to it because I could mow right up to the post and she would sit tight. I guess she decided I was just a noisy nuisance and not a mortal danger.More time passed and it was clear that there were a couple of nestlings being tended to. Papa dove would come and go while mama dove just sat on the chicks. We wondered how the chicks were being fed. One afternoon I looked over at the fence
post and saw that one of the adult doves was on the nest and one of the chicks had its head in the adult's throat. It looks like the adults bring food in their crops and pass it to the chicks by regurgitation. Pretty safe way to protect your young. An adult is always on the nest protecting the kids while the other is off foraging.
Mama dove was a good parent. The wave of warm weather we were experiencing suddenly changed: it became cool, almost cold, and rainy. But she sat there with the rain showers rolling off her back making sure that her brood stayed covered.
Another week passed. The weather warmed again and the chicks were noticeably larger. Sometimes they would peek out from under mama dove but most of the time she made a determined effort to keep them out of sight. One of our dogs started nosing around the base of the fence post, but I couldn't see any signs of bird droppings on the ground. Maybe she smelled the doves but couldn't locate them.
As we checked in on the doves, now on a daily basis, the size of the chicks changed dramatically. They seemed to get bigger by the hour. They were getting so big that mama dove couldn't keep them covered. Sometimes she would offset herself on the nest and the two chicks would peek out and look around. Both doves were almost always close by now. Still, other birds and predators seemed to be unaware that they were there. It was clear that the chicks had more than just pinfeathers.
o the eating question. Another dove was there, presumably her mate. He was bringing her food. He also brought additional nesting materials and poked them into the nest structure even as she sat on it.Over the next couple of weeks she sat there through fair weather and foul, heat and cold, sunshine and rain. I did notice that even though the nesting spot was out in the open, these doves had placed in it such a say that it and their own coloration formed a very good camouflage against the background of the gray fence post and surround slates. Grackles, those thugs, came and went past the nest, but none of them seemed to take notice. Grackles will destroy a nest and eggs and kill nestlings if they get a chance. So will blue jays and squirrels. I saw some squirrels skittering along the fence top, but papa dove (I guess) always placed himself between the squirrel and the nest but never attacked the squirrel like jays and grackles do. And then there are the feral cats in the neighborhood; sewer cats, we call them because they hang out in the sto
rm drains.I suppose that a couple of weeks into the project the two eggs hatched because the dove seemed to be riding higher in the nest. If you look closely you can see some pinfeathers sticking out from under the nesting dove. Life went on for us. Since the grass was growing like crazy I had to mow weekly. I deliberately tried to stay away from the nest as much as possible, mowing the area around the fence post only after everything else was mowed. The first couple of times the dove left the nest but quickly returned when I finished mowing around the fence post. Then she seemed to get used to it because I could mow right up to the post and she would sit tight. I guess she decided I was just a noisy nuisance and not a mortal danger.More time passed and it was clear that there were a couple of nestlings being tended to. Papa dove would come and go while mama dove just sat on the chicks. We wondered how the chicks were being fed. One afternoon I looked over at the fence
post and saw that one of the adult doves was on the nest and one of the chicks had its head in the adult's throat. It looks like the adults bring food in their crops and pass it to the chicks by regurgitation. Pretty safe way to protect your young. An adult is always on the nest protecting the kids while the other is off foraging.Mama dove was a good parent. The wave of warm weather we were experiencing suddenly changed: it became cool, almost cold, and rainy. But she sat there with the rain showers rolling off her back making sure that her brood stayed covered.
Another week passed. The weather warmed again and the chicks were noticeably larger. Sometimes they would peek out from under mama dove but most of the time she made a determined effort to keep them out of sight. One of our dogs started nosing around the base of the fence post, but I couldn't see any signs of bird droppings on the ground. Maybe she smelled the doves but couldn't locate them.
As we checked in on the doves, now on a daily basis, the size of the chicks changed dramatically. They seemed to get bigger by the hour. They were getting so big that mama dove couldn't keep them covered. Sometimes she would offset herself on the nest and the two chicks would peek out and look around. Both doves were almost always close by now. Still, other birds and predators seemed to be unaware that they were there. It was clear that the chicks had more than just pinfeathers.
As the days passed the chicks were more and more allowed to look around and remain uncovered. They seems as unalarmed by our presence as the adult birds, although there was at least one adult bird around at all times. Then yesterday the more adventuro
us of the two, I guess, started perching on top of the fence slats with one of the adults. It was clear that it was almost time for them to go out into the world. I looked like they had most of their flight feathers, but they still lacked the long pointed tail of the adults. They were also noticeably smaller than the adults and their feathers didn't have the smooth coloration of the adults.
us of the two, I guess, started perching on top of the fence slats with one of the adults. It was clear that it was almost time for them to go out into the world. I looked like they had most of their flight feathers, but they still lacked the long pointed tail of the adults. They were also noticeably smaller than the adults and their feathers didn't have the smooth coloration of the adults.This morning, when I
let the dogs out around 6:30 I looked over at the nesting post. It was empty, except for the nest. The doves clearly are pretty neat about the droppings their young leave. I looks like everything just stayed in the bottom of the nest. Those filthy grackles take every poop sac their young produce and scatter it all over the neighborhood -- mainly on our back deck.
That was the first time I've seen doves successfully raise young. In the past storms or predators have always destroyed the nest, the eggs, or the chicks. This time they managed to get the job done.
let the dogs out around 6:30 I looked over at the nesting post. It was empty, except for the nest. The doves clearly are pretty neat about the droppings their young leave. I looks like everything just stayed in the bottom of the nest. Those filthy grackles take every poop sac their young produce and scatter it all over the neighborhood -- mainly on our back deck.That was the first time I've seen doves successfully raise young. In the past storms or predators have always destroyed the nest, the eggs, or the chicks. This time they managed to get the job done.
UPDATE: Now I have a clue as to where the chicks went. They headed to the deep cover of the shrubbery. The parents are still taking care of them for a while.
03 March 2009
The Global New Deal
I heard a discussion on Fox News Channel a while ago in which British PM Gordon Brown was quoted as calling for a "global New Deal."
I can well understand why Brown would call for such a thing, and it is epitomized in a quote by Margaret Thatcher: "The problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." Clearly, the British government is running out of money and it is looking for other pockets to pick. The USA is still relatively productive so that is the direction Brown is looking.
People like Brown, and the people who administer the United Nations, are the best argument there is against a "global governing body."
I can well understand why Brown would call for such a thing, and it is epitomized in a quote by Margaret Thatcher: "The problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." Clearly, the British government is running out of money and it is looking for other pockets to pick. The USA is still relatively productive so that is the direction Brown is looking.
People like Brown, and the people who administer the United Nations, are the best argument there is against a "global governing body."
02 March 2009
Formulas for Success
A blogger at Puffington Host (hat tip: Glenn Reynolds) has finally come right out and admitted that he wanted the US-led war in Iraq to fail -- and it was/is a US-led effort despite the claims from the Left about the war being a unilateral effort. What a surprise! His reason for rooting for the bad guys? Well, the way the Bush administration proceeded is the direct opposite of how he feels that the US should exercise its power. Fancy that. He would have preferred that we had talked Saddam to death rather than doing it the old fashioned way. Ditto for Uday and Qusay and their ilk.
But George Bush chose the direct approach and earned the ire of everyone Left. You know the resultant response: protests and efforts to undermine the war effort. Who can forget Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claiming in April 2007 that the war was lost? The war might well have been lost, had not the Bush administration finally taken serious steps to root out opposition and destroy it. So much for politics and diplomacy. Now, however, it looks like the war in Iraq is won. It would look very bad for the Obama administration, now, to take actions that would alter the expected outcome for Iraq.
On the other hand, the lefty blogger is upset with Rush Limbaugh because Limbaugh is quoted as saying that he wants Obama's economic policies to fail. Well, that's not what Limbaugh said, actually. You can read the transcript of his speech at Fox News.com. Limbaugh didn't so much say he wanted Obama's economic policies to fail, rather, he said he wanted Obama's over arching plans for changing the culture of the United States of America to fail. He wants Obama's social policies to fail because they are, in a word, Socialism. Socialism has been an ongoing failure wherever it has been put in place. Socialism is virtual assurance that almost all citizens will be reduced to the same level of misery. The ruling elite, of course, are excluded from that economic prison sentence.
It's not so much a matter of wishing that Obama's economic policies fail as it is the fact that they are doomed to failure. As a matter of economic fact, the New Deal policies that promoted huge rounds of deficit spending in order to stimulate the economy did little to improve the economic lot of American citizens. FDR, and now Barak Obama, are listening to John Maynard Keynes for economic advice. In defense of the FDR administration, they were listening to the then current thinking of Keynes. A much much wiser and older Keynes admitted after WW II that deficit spending was not the way to go. Rather, tax cuts do more to stimulate an economy than deficits. So, an Obama administration has the benefit of history and the words of an early hero and advocate of Socialism to go on. Rather than read all the way to the last chapter to learn what Keynes had learned from experience, the Obama administration prefers to try a redux the part of Keynsianism that failed.
Keynsianism reloaded is going to fail just as surely as it did the first time around. Karl Marx is quoted as saying: "History repeats itself; the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce." There have been some farcial moment lately, but it remains to be seen how this all plays out.
But George Bush chose the direct approach and earned the ire of everyone Left. You know the resultant response: protests and efforts to undermine the war effort. Who can forget Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claiming in April 2007 that the war was lost? The war might well have been lost, had not the Bush administration finally taken serious steps to root out opposition and destroy it. So much for politics and diplomacy. Now, however, it looks like the war in Iraq is won. It would look very bad for the Obama administration, now, to take actions that would alter the expected outcome for Iraq.
On the other hand, the lefty blogger is upset with Rush Limbaugh because Limbaugh is quoted as saying that he wants Obama's economic policies to fail. Well, that's not what Limbaugh said, actually. You can read the transcript of his speech at Fox News.com. Limbaugh didn't so much say he wanted Obama's economic policies to fail, rather, he said he wanted Obama's over arching plans for changing the culture of the United States of America to fail. He wants Obama's social policies to fail because they are, in a word, Socialism. Socialism has been an ongoing failure wherever it has been put in place. Socialism is virtual assurance that almost all citizens will be reduced to the same level of misery. The ruling elite, of course, are excluded from that economic prison sentence.
It's not so much a matter of wishing that Obama's economic policies fail as it is the fact that they are doomed to failure. As a matter of economic fact, the New Deal policies that promoted huge rounds of deficit spending in order to stimulate the economy did little to improve the economic lot of American citizens. FDR, and now Barak Obama, are listening to John Maynard Keynes for economic advice. In defense of the FDR administration, they were listening to the then current thinking of Keynes. A much much wiser and older Keynes admitted after WW II that deficit spending was not the way to go. Rather, tax cuts do more to stimulate an economy than deficits. So, an Obama administration has the benefit of history and the words of an early hero and advocate of Socialism to go on. Rather than read all the way to the last chapter to learn what Keynes had learned from experience, the Obama administration prefers to try a redux the part of Keynsianism that failed.
Keynsianism reloaded is going to fail just as surely as it did the first time around. Karl Marx is quoted as saying: "History repeats itself; the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce." There have been some farcial moment lately, but it remains to be seen how this all plays out.
07 December 2008
The Law of Unforeseen Consequences
Ahn "Joseph" Cao, a naturalized US citizen, beat out William "Freezer Cash" Jefferson for Louisiana's Second Congressional seat. Yesterday all the talking heads from Fox News Channel to the more left-leaning cable news channels were predicting that Jefferson would retain his seat despite being under indictment on bribery charges. Well, surprise, surprise! The pundits were wrong.
Thinking about this for a little bit, it occurs to me that we won the war in Southeast Asia after all. People like Ahn Cao and his family fled South Vietnam when the communist North overran their country. They were among the lucky ones, but there was also a large measure of intelligence, determination, and inspiration involved in their escape. They got out of Vietnam around 1975; they were among the Boat People. They came to the United States of America and prospered. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese left behind, for whatever reason, continue to languish under some altered brand of communism.
We know a local family who also made it out of South Vietnam. The parents run a Vietnamese restaurant they call "Saigon." What else? We have been dining at that restaurant for many years now; it's the only restaurant we return to time after time. We watched the children of that family grow up. The kids worked in the restaurant and did their school homework in one of the booths in their slack moments. One of the sons is a very successful computer whiz who was taken under Bill Gates' wing. He set up a computerized ordering system for the restaurant that allows orders to be sent back to the kitchen and be translated into Vietnamese. Why? Because Mom is the head chef and she still doesn't speak much English. The kids do though and speak English well. They are all intelligent and industrious. They will succeed.
We as a country are lucky to have people like these and all of the others who have immigrated to America. They are the most valuable asset a country can have: human capital. All of the other things that count as capital, e.g., cash, real estate, equipment, credit, are nothing without innovated people with new ideas to bring them into productive use. The late Julian Simon maintained that human capital is the only real resource. I think he was right.
The recent political victories in Louisiana strike me as a significant change in the way the political game is played in that state. Cao offers change just as surely as Obama did; Bobby Jindal, Louisiana's Republican governor, offered the same thing when he was elected. Jindal, Cao, and all the rest of the Asians who have come to the United States have been an injection of new blood, ideas, and hope for this country. Places like Louisiana need that for sure. Change is in the air and it's not just the liberal-left change Obama was preaching when he was running for President of the United States. Change is also, finally, getting rid of the corruption that has riddled Louisiana politics for decades.
Change is good.
Thinking about this for a little bit, it occurs to me that we won the war in Southeast Asia after all. People like Ahn Cao and his family fled South Vietnam when the communist North overran their country. They were among the lucky ones, but there was also a large measure of intelligence, determination, and inspiration involved in their escape. They got out of Vietnam around 1975; they were among the Boat People. They came to the United States of America and prospered. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese left behind, for whatever reason, continue to languish under some altered brand of communism.
We know a local family who also made it out of South Vietnam. The parents run a Vietnamese restaurant they call "Saigon." What else? We have been dining at that restaurant for many years now; it's the only restaurant we return to time after time. We watched the children of that family grow up. The kids worked in the restaurant and did their school homework in one of the booths in their slack moments. One of the sons is a very successful computer whiz who was taken under Bill Gates' wing. He set up a computerized ordering system for the restaurant that allows orders to be sent back to the kitchen and be translated into Vietnamese. Why? Because Mom is the head chef and she still doesn't speak much English. The kids do though and speak English well. They are all intelligent and industrious. They will succeed.
We as a country are lucky to have people like these and all of the others who have immigrated to America. They are the most valuable asset a country can have: human capital. All of the other things that count as capital, e.g., cash, real estate, equipment, credit, are nothing without innovated people with new ideas to bring them into productive use. The late Julian Simon maintained that human capital is the only real resource. I think he was right.
The recent political victories in Louisiana strike me as a significant change in the way the political game is played in that state. Cao offers change just as surely as Obama did; Bobby Jindal, Louisiana's Republican governor, offered the same thing when he was elected. Jindal, Cao, and all the rest of the Asians who have come to the United States have been an injection of new blood, ideas, and hope for this country. Places like Louisiana need that for sure. Change is in the air and it's not just the liberal-left change Obama was preaching when he was running for President of the United States. Change is also, finally, getting rid of the corruption that has riddled Louisiana politics for decades.
Change is good.
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