Pecunia opus Dei facit aliorum

AF Patch Controversy

The past week saw a medium size controversy when someone discovered an Air Force Unit had a latin phrase that said to the effect "Doing God's Work, with Other Peoples Money."  Atheists were offended, and when the AF senior leaders decided to amend the patch to remove the reference to God, some Republican Congressmen got involved.


In today's world, as controversy goes, this is hardly a big deal.  It's not that the patch has some great historic significance, and the heritage of the AF was at stake.  This should have been handled quietly, but people with political agendas, on both sides, wouldn't have gotten the attention they crave.


Maybe I am alone, but what bothered me most about that latin saying was the last half, not the first.  The creator shows a callousness with regard to my tax dollars.  This is an expression I hear more and more in acquisition, "So what, it's other peoples money!"  Maybe that is what is wrong with our government, for the Representatives and Senators, the President, his Cabinet Secretaries, down to a lowly Contracting Officer, it's not "our money" it's "other peoples money" so why worry how much something costs.

Styx -- The Angry Young Man

We hear a lot about the schism in our society and how we need to help those who have not had the fortunate breaks in their life, and provide a safety net for them.  I think this song from 1978 summarizes my feelings on the subject.

A Story of Government Contracting (A Parable)

Once upon a time when the world was young I was indoctrinated into the magical world of military flight.  It was a wondrous time when men were men, and women weren’t.  A time where those in power thought, foolishly I will add, that women were too fragile for military flight.  These grand old men of aviation had put aside the fact that in a time of need women had flown every type of airplane the Army Air Corps had as they shuttled them around the world to deliver them to combat units or depots.

As we were introduced into this brotherhood we were issued brand new nomex flight suits, nomex gloves, nomex underwear for cold weather and shinny new boots, all courtesy of the American Tax Payer.  As we said in the flying club, "If God had intended man to fly he would have been born with green baggy skin."  Along with all the outward accouterments we were given a shinny orange survival knife.  It is this little item that is the focus of this story.

As knives go this little gem was unique in the knife world.  It had two blades, one normal, and one curved one with the sharp edge on the inside.  The shinny new flight suits even had a pocket especially designed to carry it.  The pocket was on the upper thigh where it would not be blocked by the G-suit and a pilot could reach it if he was forced to eject from his aircraft.

The curved blade was designed to cut your risers on the parachute, should they become tangled during the ejection, or should you be hung up in a tree.  With the curved blade it was unlikely you would cut something you didn’t intend to.  So to be a practical tool the manly-men flyers asked that the curved blade be spring loaded so you could open it with one hand.  What the acquisition community delivered was the world’s most wimpy switchblade with an untempered steel blade and a curved hook that took two hands to open.

In all the years I’ve been in government service this is how the process works, you define your requirements and someone who doesn’t have a clue as to why you ask for something goes out and buys you what they think you need.

My Hometown

Over the past several days I’ve watched acquaintances discuss the fiscal difficulties of my hometown in upstate New York.  This is an area rich in history, and strong in its Liberal traditions of promising great changes in society, then funding them with other peoples money.  When the area had a strong industrial base, corporate taxes probably made up the lion’s share of income for the townships, county and perhaps the state.

Val Kill

At one point in time, during the 1970’s, International Business Machines (IBM) accounted for over 60 percent of the employment in Dutchess County, those incomes trickled down to fund the car dealerships, shopping centers, grocery stores and pizza shops.  There are two mid-size cities, but the majority of the county is divided into large townships, each with a corresponding town center.  The rural areas have, or had, a healthy farming basis with corn and dairy being what I remember.  The towns are, for all practical purposes, small bedroom communities with native residents being augmented with middle class and upper middle class workers from NYC who have migrated north because the cost of a home in this area was significantly less then it was closer to the city.  As they moved north they brought home prices up, because they increased demand and had the income to pay the higher prices.  With the higher property prices, assessed values continued to climb.  With the rapid escalation of home values I have to believe speculation began to work its way into the homeowner mindset.  Buy this house, stay in it a few years, and sell for a big profit, buying an even more expensive home, until one day the bubble burst.

Vanderbilt Estate

Hudson River State Hospital

Hyde Park was one of those bedroom communities, but for a small township it has an incredible amount of land that cannot be developed, or has been removed from its taxable base.  There are three National Park locations, a world renown cooking school on property that was once a seminary, a second seminary that is now some kind of new-age retreat, not to mention the churches, church camps, and state properties like, the portions of Hudson River State Hospital (now shuddered).  Other townships have similar situations with the several colleges, like Vassar, or Marist, and a number of smaller schools like Bard taking property off the tax rolls.

So this community moves along, struggling to find the dollars necessary to provide a viable infrastructure.   In the 1950’s and 60’s it was a pretty thriving little town.  There were new school buildings going up, new infrastructure being built, and the town board and school board running merrily along.  

But things are not always as they seem.  I can remember my first experience with failed urban planning when the City of Poughkeepsie, in an effort to compete with those new strip malls being build in the townships, closed its main street and turned it into a pedestrian only “mall” so shoppers could move freely from store to store.  Only all the shoppers had moved to the new stores in the strip malls and then the covered mall.  What was left became a haven for the homeless and drug addicts.

Culinary Institute of America

But year after year there was state and federal money, and of course IBM to pay the bills for the promises the politician’s made to get elected.  Then one day everyone woke up and IBM was not there.  Its leadership had failed to see the change brought by Apple and Microsoft and it went from being the dominant force to something akin to a Packard automobile.  The best of breed in its day, but now just a memory.  I would note that as I write this IBM appears again on the verge of another bankruptcy because its leadership cannot keep up with the speed of business.

So, where does this leave us?  The school board, in an effort to save funding to pay their teachers and I assume keep the school district solvent is looking to close some of the older schools.  Those affected by this are, of course, distraught and can’t imagine why this should be allowed.  Others are less than sympathetic as they consider the amount of taxes they pay on their property each year.  For example, look at these two moderately priced homes (for the area) 4 Dana Place and 261 S Quaker Lane and you will see property taxes range from $6,000 to $10,000.  Perhaps I am spoiled but I live in an area where my property tax is a fraction of that, but then teacher salaries here don’t average $57, 354 per year either.

The town infrastructure appears to be in a state of decay, as they can no longer afford improvements, as the bills come due from the promises they have made in years past.  There is no industry to provide jobs for the young, or to fuel an aging economy.  The expectations remain and I would guess the politicians will continue to promise a bright future where other peoples money will make everything okay, because no one wants to elect someone who tells them the truth, they will elect someone who says what they want to hear.  

I am saddened as I watch this unfold, but as long as we believe larger government is the answer to our problems towns like Hyde Park will continue to decline.  As the President has said, governments exist to do things we can't do for ourselves.  Unfortunately in this case I am not sure my hometown benefits from that bigger government largess. 

Saturday Morning Questions

Here are just a few of questions I have a hard time understanding.  Hopefully, the fans of a big powerful, maybe benevolent, government can answer them for me.

1.      If we have universal health care for our citizens, what does that mean? Will the government demand the same level of care per individual as is available to those who are fortunate to have good insurance today, or will all citizens have to accept less?

2.      Who decides what doctor we get to see?  If we have a doctor that graduated last in his/her class will we be charged the same as if we had the one at the top of the class?

3.      To control the cost of universal health care, will the government tell the doctors, nurses, physician’s assistants and everyone one else how much the are allowed to earn?  What if they don’t like that and quit?

4.      Who pays for health care professionals education?  What happens if the medical schools don’t change to allow more people to enter and graduate?

5.      Again to control costs, what happens when a “Whoops!”   moment occurs?  Will the government tell the lawyers and patients they don’t get to sue?

6.      If everyone is guaranteed a home, a car, and a minimum income what percentage of the population will seek out the stress of a job to complicate their day?

7.      Who in big government gets to decide what environmental protections, what use of natural resources, what protection for furry animals, or Internet laws need to be enforced on the nation?  The President, Congress, Supreme Court,  do we eliminate one to make it easier?

8.      What happens when individuals protest this big government, will it have a bigger police force to suppress this civil disobedience?

9.      How will this big government create innovation and advancement if they won’t allow people to get rich from it?

10.  Who will pay for all this when those dreadful 1% people all move to New Zealand like James Cameron and take their wealth with them? 

Space

Alone in a room full, adrift in a sea vast

Looking out towards the heaven

Seeing light separate the night

Always out, always forward, always

There is so much contained in Space

Quiet, solace, silent, shifting

Thoughts escape, return, and retreat

Centering on self, who, why and where?

As the day draws to darkness

There is so much contained in Space

For a future unknowing and unknowable

A purpose clear and yet obscured

Struggling to find the pathway

Looking back, inward and aside

There is so much Space contained in

Does Welfare and Social Engineering Enrich the Soul?

A simple question, does government welfare benefit individuals so they can improve their lives and gain independence and success, or does it just create a new class of people who now, like children, become dependent on the whims of the state?

In the 1930’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt, directing the Government as it dealt with the depression following the stock market crash of 1929, said this in his 1935 State of the Union address. 

“We have undertaken a new order of things; yet we progress to it under the framework and in the spirit and intent of the American Constitution. We have proceeded throughout the Nation a measurable distance on the road toward this new order….We find our population suffering from old inequalities, little changed by vast sporadic remedies. In spite of our efforts and in spite of our talk, we have not weeded out the over privileged and we have not effectively lifted up the underprivileged. Both of these manifestations of injustice have retarded happiness. No wise man has any intention of destroying what is known as the profit motive; because by the profit motive we mean the right by work to earn a decent livelihood for ourselves and for our families.

We have, however, a clear mandate from the people, that Americans must forswear that conception of the acquisition of wealth which, through excessive profits, creates undue private power over private affairs and, to our misfortune, over public affairs as well. In building toward this end we do not destroy ambition, nor do we seek to divide our wealth into equal shares on stated occasions. We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him and his a proper security, a reasonable leisure, and a decent living throughout life, is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.”

The President, just as we see today, lays out a grand plan to reshape the financial structure of the country and in so doing redistribute the wealth and provide all with an appropriate share.  He outlines the public works programs to provide government funded work for the unemployed, and sets the framework for the social security program that would be enacted later that year.  Did these programs bring America out of the depression, and can we expect to see similar programs bring us out of today’s depression?  I don’t know the answer, but I wander from my original question.  Do these social engineering efforts lead to happier, more fulfilled individuals who contribute to the success of a democracy, or do they lead to something else?

Perceptions of Self-Esteem in a Welfare-To-Wellness-To-Work Program is an extract of a research project to assess a program to help welfare recipients with their self-esteem and mental health.  It has a very small sample size to draw its conclusions; never the less it says that the program they were studying improved a participant’s self-esteem.  That is not so unusual, but the some of the other data is striking, in this sample they suggest poor self-esteem prevents many low-income families from ever leaving the program.  Mental health and drug dependency issues are also contributors to long-term welfare dependency.  

There are numerous studies that speak to the penalty one pays from a perspective of their personal self-worth, so what is the answer? Do we benefit the individual with government welfare or do we just prolong the suffering?