The Skeptical Entrepreneur's companion blog, Well, Duh! has a new post on Sen. Richard Burr's (R-NC) effort to have the Senate Veterans's Affairs Committee assume some of the management functions of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
This is another sad example of how America's fighting men and women, once the battle is won and Johnny has come marching home, become a political football for partisan posturing. Supposedly, the United States sends its fighting men and women overseas for the sole purpose of upholding freedom, liberty and constitutional principles - never for territorial aggrandizement, or for regime change, or anything tawdry like that (except for, you know, that one-off aberration from 2003-2012).
Now comes Richard Burr, who never passes an opportunity to salute the troops, saluting the troops once again. Only this time, he's only extended one finger, a gesture so commonplace among Republicans that it might be termed the "GOP Salute to the Troops." Burr honors the sacrifices of America's fighting men and women who have come home with health issues requiring the services of the Department of Veterans Affairs, by betraying that very sacrifice.
By repudiating the constitutional principles for which American fighting men and women went overseas, Burr reveals himself, not as the champion of American warriors, but as their enemy. The full details can be seen at the Well Duh! post, and from the links therein; they need not be rehearsed here.
The Skeptical Entrepreneur wishes to go on record that Sen. Burr needs to return his policy to constitutional principles, or his constituents need to hold him accountable in 2016.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Of POTUS and Professional Road Warriors
From CNN.com comes notice that POTUS was potentially immobilized during his State visit to Israel, when the driver of his limousine refueled the diesel-powered vehicle with gasoline. President Barack Obama had not yet arrived in Israel when the maintenance issue became apparent (the presidential Nova, or whatever the Hebrew version of Nova would be, failed to go), and a backup limousine was transported to Tel Aviv to await Obama's arrival.
Call The Skeptical Entrepreneur charmingly (or otherwise) naive, but he always thought that the security detail responsible for transporting the President of the United States was composed of professionals, equipped with procedural manuals and tough, realistic, real-world training designed to ensure that the prescribed procedure for any conceivable contingency would be followed spontaneously, and executed expeditiously. Now we find that the "professional" security driver was so out of it that s/he couldn't even double-check to ensure that the fuel that he was about to put into the presidential limousine was the correct fuel for the engine, and vice-versa.
TSE is left to wonder whether this incident is not an argument for a privatized solution.
Call The Skeptical Entrepreneur charmingly (or otherwise) naive, but he always thought that the security detail responsible for transporting the President of the United States was composed of professionals, equipped with procedural manuals and tough, realistic, real-world training designed to ensure that the prescribed procedure for any conceivable contingency would be followed spontaneously, and executed expeditiously. Now we find that the "professional" security driver was so out of it that s/he couldn't even double-check to ensure that the fuel that he was about to put into the presidential limousine was the correct fuel for the engine, and vice-versa.
TSE is left to wonder whether this incident is not an argument for a privatized solution.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Of High Growth and Low Wages
The Skeptical Entrepreneur is thunderstruck - yes, thunderstruck! - ladies and gentlemen, to read in Money's online edition that robust job growth in one career field is accompanied, hand-in-hand, by less-robust wage growth in that career field. Strike TSE down with a feather!
It seems that demand for home-healthcare aides is booming. Given that perennial demand for jobs has been exacerbated lately by a shortage of supply, folks are flocking to home-healthcare like carrion birds to . . . well . . . never mind, but suffice to say that demand for jobs has produced an abundant supply of workers, once the supply of jobs perked up to meet the demand. Clear as mud, right?
And, surprise, surprise, surprise, as the supply of workers has spiked in the home-healthcare-aide market, what has happened to the value of that commodity? Well, whatta ya know - the labor market behaves just like any other commodity market! The Skeptical Entrepreneur hardly knows for whom to weep first.
Shall The Skeptical Entrepreneur weep for Money's writer, who appears to have discovered laissez-faire, or at least free-market economics? Probably better to weep for the editor(s), who considered this a reasonable slant for the article, assigned it, edited it, and posted it, all with a straight face and the comfort of knowing they were providing a service for the infotainment-starved masses.
The Skeptical Entrepreneur declines to weep for the capitalists, who having planned their work (or, at least, having arranged economic conditions in such a way that consumers will stampede to any job, no matter how distasteful, for however small a pittance), are now working their plan.
Perhaps The Skeptical Entrepreneur should weep for his fellow Americans, who are so economically-illiterate that they need to be fed this sort of non-information, and will lap it up with scarcely an ironical gulp.
Perhaps The Skeptical Entrepreneur should weep for the academic economists, who, if they are as clueless as academic historians, could stand to hear "the circular flow of goods and services," and "commodity prices and supplies vary inversely with each other" just one more time, for old times's sake.
No, The Skeptical Entrepreneur reserves his tears for the poor dumb bastards who have flocked into home-healthcare aide work, especially those with shiny, new student-loan debt. It reminds TSE of the heady days of the MCSE boom in the mid-1990s, when TSE managed to avoid the stampede to second-class techno-geekery, being content to continue to flip hamburgers
As it turns out, Mark Twain was right: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
It seems that demand for home-healthcare aides is booming. Given that perennial demand for jobs has been exacerbated lately by a shortage of supply, folks are flocking to home-healthcare like carrion birds to . . . well . . . never mind, but suffice to say that demand for jobs has produced an abundant supply of workers, once the supply of jobs perked up to meet the demand. Clear as mud, right?
And, surprise, surprise, surprise, as the supply of workers has spiked in the home-healthcare-aide market, what has happened to the value of that commodity? Well, whatta ya know - the labor market behaves just like any other commodity market! The Skeptical Entrepreneur hardly knows for whom to weep first.
Shall The Skeptical Entrepreneur weep for Money's writer, who appears to have discovered laissez-faire, or at least free-market economics? Probably better to weep for the editor(s), who considered this a reasonable slant for the article, assigned it, edited it, and posted it, all with a straight face and the comfort of knowing they were providing a service for the infotainment-starved masses.
The Skeptical Entrepreneur declines to weep for the capitalists, who having planned their work (or, at least, having arranged economic conditions in such a way that consumers will stampede to any job, no matter how distasteful, for however small a pittance), are now working their plan.
Perhaps The Skeptical Entrepreneur should weep for his fellow Americans, who are so economically-illiterate that they need to be fed this sort of non-information, and will lap it up with scarcely an ironical gulp.
Perhaps The Skeptical Entrepreneur should weep for the academic economists, who, if they are as clueless as academic historians, could stand to hear "the circular flow of goods and services," and "commodity prices and supplies vary inversely with each other" just one more time, for old times's sake.
No, The Skeptical Entrepreneur reserves his tears for the poor dumb bastards who have flocked into home-healthcare aide work, especially those with shiny, new student-loan debt. It reminds TSE of the heady days of the MCSE boom in the mid-1990s, when TSE managed to avoid the stampede to second-class techno-geekery, being content to continue to flip hamburgers
As it turns out, Mark Twain was right: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
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