The hurricane is named after Fannie Mae because the government-sponsored enterprise had precipitated much of the damage to the nation’s housing by establishing the practice of securitizing mortgages; that is, bundling them into bonds for sale in worldwide bond markets.  The practice severed the personal relationship between mortgagees and mortgagers that had existed previously and had kept borrowers and lenders from becoming greedy imbeciles. 

Adding to the force of Hurricane Fannie Mae were the easy money policies of the Federal Reserve, the lowering of mortgage standards by the federal government, the greed of buyers who bought homes they couldn’t afford, the greed of lenders who wrote what were essentially unsecured mortgages, and the mania brought about by the hokum spread by the government, academia, media, and the real estate and financial industries that housing never decreased in price and was a great investment for everyone.  

Now for the tour:  

A couple of blocks from my small townhouse is a ritzy, leafy neighborhood of one-acre lots and million-dollar-plus homes, some of which are zoned as horse properties.  One of the lots is vacant and devoid of any evidence that a large, brick ranch house had once stood there. 

The perfectly good house had been torn down in the middle of the housing bubble.  Soon after, construction began on a replacement house, a 13,000 sq. ft. McMansion.    One day during the housing bust, after framing and plywood sheeting had been completed on the house, construction abruptly stopped.  Construction workers suddenly departed, taking their equipment and locking the gate behind them on the temporary cyclone fence that surrounded the property.  No doubt, the builder went broke.   

The half-finished house sat for two years, slowly deteriorating in the elements and becoming an eyesore in the upper-income neighborhood.  A couple of months ago it was sold and razed in preparation for a smaller home to be built in its place.  The lot is once again vacant and devoid of any evidence that homes had stood there.

I don’t know the exact amount of money that has evaporated on this one lot, but it has to be a staggering figure, probably in the range of what it would cost to send three kids to Ivy League universities for four years.  Capital that could have gone to education or been invested in new businesses is–poof!–gone with the wind, to borrow the title of Margaret Mitchell’s masterpiece.   Multiply the evaporated money by a million and you’ll come close to the total cost of Hurricane Fannie Mae. 

Next door to the vacant lot is a sprawling ranch home, circa 1975, that is for sale and in the process of being foreclosed–or at least it shows all the signs of being foreclosed.  The lawn has turned to dirt, the shrubbery is untrimmed, a broken lantern has fallen on its side, sprinkler heads are broken, a step ladder leans against a tree, and children’s toys litter the yard.  But those aren’t the most telling signs of foreclosure.  The most telling signs are the expensive SUVs in the driveway.  They probably cost $150,000 in total when purchased new, and, as vehicles do, they’ve quickly depreciated in value and are worth about half as much now. 

The expensive vehicles indicate that high-fliers bought the house and quickly found themselves over their heads in debt when the housing bubble burst and the economy collapsed.  In their case, their heads are probably in their butts, so it wouldn’t have taken a lot of debt to pull them underwater. 

More than likely, the buttheads are living rent-free at the house, because once borrowers stop making mortgage payments, it takes months or years to evict them. 

A couple of blocks from this house and across a major thoroughfare is the wealthiest town inArizona,ParadiseValley.  About a third of the homes on a nearby street in the town had been torn down during the housing bubble to make way for McMansions.  Due to the bubble bursting, construction never began on several of the lots, and construction stopped abruptly on two unfinished homes.  Only now, years later, has work continued on the unfinished homes.  This is a sign that the market is at, or near, the bottom.   Prices have fallen nearly 50% and are now where they were in 2003, which is the year that prices had begun climbing 50%.  

You didn’t have to be a genius to know that if home prices had increased for no sound economic reason, they would eventually fall after the bubble burst to what they had been.  Yet most experts in economics and real estate didn’t know this and still held out the false hope that prices wouldn’t drop that far. 

In the meantime, three nearby restaurants have closed, along with scores of high-end retail shops.  Vacant space also abounds at nearby Class A office buildings, including one building where, ironically, a remaining tenant is JP Morgan, one of the culprits behind the housing crisis. 

Each time I walk down the Paradise Valley street, I wonder if recent home buyers  have given any thought to what the air-conditioning bills are going to be for their gargantuan homes if electric rates skyrocket as expected in the coming years.  Will these homes become white elephants?  And do the residents stop to ponder why so much American capital goes into housing instead of manufacturing plants and other investments necessary for a vibrant economy? 

Well, our walk ends here.  Did you enjoy it and learn anything about the American culture and economy?

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Mencken’s Ghost is the nom de plume of an Arizona writer who can be reached at ghost@menckensghost.com.

Years ago, when I was going through my delusional stage and thought that people would care as much about serious matters as they do about murder trials, I published my research showing that approximately 60% of voters are dependent on the government in some way.  The 60% live in households where the primary household income comes from welfare, entitlements, subsidies, a government job, or a private-sector job that depends on the regulatory state.  I predicted that so much dependency would bring the nation to fiscal and cultural ruin if not addressed.

It doesn’t surprise me, therefore, that a recent poll showed that 58% of Americans support President Obama’s non-plan plan for reducing the deficit.  Even my average intellect can grasp that the 58% might be related to the 60%.

To be fair to Obama, none of the plans, including the Republican plans and the plan of the Gang of Six, addresses the root cause of deficits–namely, fiat money that is not anchored in precious metals or in the Constitution, which unequivocally states that national money should be so anchored.  All anchors to precious metals and fiscal restraint were severed by Richard Nixon when he closed the gold window in 1971, based on the advice of Milton Friedman, of all people.  Ninety-seven percent of today’s worldwide debt of nation-states has been created since that closing.

The Federal Reserve is of course the enabling institution in theUSA.  A love-child that was produced by the illicit mating between the government and private banks, the Fed allows politicians to spend money that the government doesn’t have and to enrich bankers in the sordid process.  Before he became Federal Reserve Chairman and sold his principles to the devil, Alan Greenspan warned that this illegitimate offspring would eventually devour all of the nation’s seed corn.  The current chairman, Ben Bernanke, also knows this but has made his own Faustian bargain, trading principles for fame and power.  The same with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who used to head the New York Fed and was too busy romping in bed with bankers to pay his taxes.

These guys are all geniuses, as measured by IQ and academic accomplishments.  They demonstrate that genius and scruples are two different things.      

The plan hatched by the Gang of Six has some good features, but it will do nothing about the problem of fiat money and the lovemaking between private banks and government.  It also has a horrible feature:  It proposes the elimination of the tax deferral on investment income earned on savings.  From an economics perspective, this is nutty, for it will remove an incentive to save money and thus deprive the nation of needed investment capital.  From a moral perspective, it is nuttier yet, for it will tax income twice:  once when earned and once when saved.

Speaking of morals, I’ve been studying the writings of the great moral philosophers all of my adult life, searching for the moral justification for the country’s social and tax policies.  There is no moral justification.  It simply isn’t moral for half of adults to pay no income taxes and to mooch off the other half, especially when at least two-thirds of the moochers are able-bodied and able-minded. 

Take a guy who picked his nose through school instead of studying, who never had any interest in making something of himself, who has never saved a nickel, and whose only interests are beer, bimbos, sports, tattoos, backward caps, a scruffy beard, and gambling.  There is no moral justification for him to vote to take money from a guy who grew up in the same circumstance but had a long-term outlook, lived below his means, invested in his future, and learned how to use a razor.

Yet Republicans are incapable of making a moral case against the welfare/entitlement state and somehow lose the moral argument to the collectivists and neo-Marxists in Congress, the White House, the media, and academia.  This is like losing a game of chess to a rodent.  (No offense to Rod Blagojevich, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, and Charlie Rangel.) 

Enough ranting for today.  In closing, here is a prediction:  58% of readers won’t like this commentary.  

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“Mencken’s Ghost” is the nom de plume of anArizonawriter who can be reached at ghost@menckensghost.com.        

October 1, 2004

A voracious blob is devouring the nation of its self-reliance, common sense, wealth, competitiveness and freedom.  But because it is amorphous and insidious, Americans do not realize how big the blob is and what a threat it is to their standard of living and way of life.

What is the blob, or Blob?  The Blob is government bureaucracy and its bureaucratic offspring in the private-sector.  Yes, something as boring and seemingly innocuous as bureaucracy is indeed a major threat to the future of the nation.

How big is the Blob?  Well, because it is amorphous, its dimensions cannot be determined with accuracy.  However, we can discern some of its features.

For example, we know that there are 21 million government employees at the federal, state and local levels.  We know that there are 1.4 million words in the Internal Revenue Code, over 100,000 pages of Medicare regulations, and 676 pages to the Medicare reform bill recently signed by President Bush – to identify just a tiny fraction of the Blob.

We know from reliable think tanks that the cost of federal and state regulations is $1.6 trillion, or 17.2 percent of national income.  Moreover, we know that Americans have to work until July 11, or 53 percent of the year, to pay the cost of government and the cost of regulations.

We know that the Blob has put American manufacturing at a serious competitive disadvantage in world markets.  A recent report released by the National Association of Manufacturers and the Manufacturers Alliance shows that the United States has higher manufacturing costs than all major competing countries but Germany, largely due to the cost of regulations, lawsuits and health care.  Of course, health care costs are high because the Blob destroyed a consumer market in health insurance 60 years ago.

We know that U.S. manufacturing employment has plummeted to a record low of 12 million workers while government employment has skyrocketed to a record high of almost twice as much.  We know that private-sector union membership also has plummeted while public-sector union membership has skyrocketed to become one of the largest special-interest groups in local and national politics.

We know that many of the fastest-growing and highest-paying occupations in the private sector have been spawned by the Blob to cater to the Blob, including millions of accountants, lawyers, consultants, administrators and lobbyists.

We know that many of the Blob’s de facto agents in the private sector are Republicans.  Because they make a living by catering to the Blob, they have been co-opted politically and no longer support the conservative principle of limited government.

Legislation like the recent Medicare reform bill is manna from heaven to the Blob’s many agents, who will be paid handsomely to interpret the gobbledygook that fills the bill’s 676 pages, including such indecipherable wording as the following:

(a) Exclusion From OPD Fee Schedule – Section 1833(t)(1)(B)(iv) (42 U.S.C. 13951(t)(B)(iv)) is amended by inserting before the period at the end of the following:  “and does not include screening mammography (as defined in section 1861 (jj)) and diagnostic mammography.”

We know that interpreting such gobbledygook is make-work, not real work.  It is work that does nothing to make the nation more competitive and productive.  In fact, it makes the nation less competitive and productive, for it has shifted some of the best and brightest Americans from producing goods and services of value to untangling red tape.

We know that about 25 million Americans are employed either directly by the Blob as government workers or indirectly as private-sector agents.  Assuming an average pay and benefits package of $40,000 per worker, the Blob’s payroll totals $1 trillion, a staggering number that excludes the cost of office space, office equipment, travel expenses and other overhead necessary to support all of the Blob’s employees and agents.

We also know that the Blob consumes something more valuable than money, time and talent.  It consumes America’s entrepreneurial spirit, self-reliance, freedom and common sense.  We cannot measure the loss of these things, but we have plenty of examples to show that the loss is huge.

We are stuck in a vicious cycle.  The more bureaucratic that the nation becomes, the more important that make-work becomes.  The more important that make-work becomes, the more important that people who do the make-work become.  The more important that people who do the make-work become, the more that government and industry are run by lawyers, accountants and bureaucrats.  And the more that people in such professions run government and industry, the more bureaucratic that government and industry become.

Can the Blob’s growth be stopped?  No, it’s too late.  Too many influential people get their power, wealth and status from catering to the Blob.

What’s the answer, then?  There are two answers:  First, start investing your money in countries with smaller blobs; and second, make sure that your kids become bureaucrats instead of doing real work for a living.

________________

“Mencken’s Ghost” is the nom de plume of an Arizona writer who can be reached at ghost@menckensghost.com.

April 8, 2011

Within a 10-day period recently, I had my 10-year-old Nissan Maxima repaired and had both a colonoscopy and hernia surgery. No, my head wasn’t found, but, clearly, anyone who would endure two medical procedures and a car repair within 10 days has his head somewhere other than on his neck. 

Because I’m on a group medical plan, I didn’t know or care beforehand what the medical procedures would cost.  However, I knew and cared what the car repairs would cost, because car repairs are paid out of my own pocket and not the pocket of a third party.  In fact, the repair garage provided an estimate of the car repair costs before proceeding, but the hospital, proctologist, and surgeon did not provide an estimate of their charges.

What the typical American family pays in medical insurance premiums per year is difficult to know with certainty.  The numbers are squishy, corrupted by political agendas, and difficult for individuals to calculate, because, for those who have employer-provided insurance, the cost is split by varying percentages between the employer and themselves.  But the most common number thrown about by the mainstream press is $12,000 per year for family coverage.

By comparison, the cost of owning one car is estimated at $9,000 per year.  This includes the amortized cost of purchasing the car, the cost of car insurance, and the cost of gas and repairs.  Since the average American household owns 2.28 cars, the average household spends $20,520 per year on cars (2.28 x $9,000), not counting the cost of roads and highways.

So why don’t we hear about a car-care crisis in America?  It would take a book to fully answer the question, including chapters on how Americans are steeped in canards, fallacies and economic ignorance in K-12 school and college.  The short answer is that Americans have been led to believe that medical care should be free because it is an invented right.  A more cynical answer is that most Americans are spoiled brats who think they have a right to drive status symbols while sticking other people with the cost of their medical care.  If you doubt that, then go to a senior center and listen to the seniors complain about evil Republicans wanting to cut Medicare while their Buicks and Escalades depreciate in the parking lot. 

A cynic might also say that Karl Marx was wrong:  Religion isn’t the opiate of the masses.  Cars are.

Fortunately, I’m not a cynic and won’t be attacked for what the cynics say.

It’s instructive to compare the cost of repairing my car with the cost of my medical treatments.  Let’s start with the medical cost.

Statements sent by the medical insurance company after the medical treatments show that the medical care was billed and paid as follows:

Colonoscopy:  The physician and hospital billed the insurance company $3,235.  The insurance company paid them $967. 

Hernia surgery:  The billed amount was $11,745, and the paid amount was $3,632.

Why the big difference between the billed and paid amount?  I don’t know but suspect that it’s some kind of game played between medical care providers and insurance companies.  It also should be noted that the amounts might not be totally accurate, because medical billing is so convoluted that it is beyond a layman’s understanding.

Was $967 for a colonoscopy and $3,632 for hernia surgery competitive pricing and good value for the money?  The question can’t be answered, because there isn’t a free market in medical care or medical insurance. The market was killed 69 years ago by the government, when its wartime wage and price controls resulted in companies providing medical insurance to employees, thus triggering the dysfunctional third-party payment system in which most consumers of medical care don’t pay the cost directly out of their own pocket.  In economics jargon, consumers are price insensitive in medical care.  The system is further distorted by medical providers having to pick up the cost of uncompensated care for the uninsured, including for illegal immigrants, whose costs are shifted to those with insurance.  

Still, the cost of the medical treatment looks like a good deal when compared to the cost of repairing my car.   The car repair bill was $2,719 for the following:

Diagnosis and reset of computer codes

Replacement of CV boot

Replacement of two rear O2 sensors

Wheel alignment

Tire rotation

Replacement of six coil assemblies

Replacement of spark plugs and spark plug wires

“Free coffee” in the waiting room

“Free” shuttle service

“Free” car wash

So, to recap:

Colonoscopy = $967

Hernia operation = $3,632

Car repairs = $2,719

The auto repairs were done by a high school graduate who attended a year of so of technical school to learn auto repair.  The medical procedures were done by medical specialists with eight years of college plus a couple of years of specialized training.  Moreover, the colonoscopy and surgery were done in a hospital that has considerably more expensive technology than a repair garage, as well as more highly-trained employees, more complexity, and higher overhead expenses.

The colonoscopy required a proctologist to knock me out with anesthesia, run a camera up five feet of my colon, and use his expertise to read the results and determine if I had cancer or pre-cancerous polyps.  For this he was paid a paltry $197.60.  The hernia surgery required an anesthesiologist to knock me out and a surgeon to cut me open in an area just north of my manhood, insert mesh between my intestines and skin, and then close up the wound.  Nurses and other highly-skilled personnel assisted the specialists.   

If the proctologist, surgeon or anesthesiologist had screwed up, I could have ended up dead, seriously injured or in excruciating pain.  If the auto mechanic had screwed up, I would have been inconvenienced

Amazingly, Americans think that medical care is too expensive.  A colonoscopy would show that they have their head up their ass.

____________

“Mencken’s Ghost” is the nom de plume of an Arizona writer who can be reached at ghost@menckensghost.com.

February 18, 2009

The Treasury Department has written an obituary of the United States. You’ve probably not heard anything about it, because the mainstream media has been too busy covering the political game in Washington to read the obituary and thus understand that it’s all over for the nation, except for the burial of the rotting, maggot-infected body politic.

The obituary is the 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government, published by the Treasury Department, with a cover letter from former Treasury Secretary/Chief Undertaker Harry Paulson. The report is 206 pages long, which is 204 pages longer than the attention span of the typical journalist, 205 pages longer than the attention span of members of Congress, and 205.5 pages longer than the attention span of readers of USA Today.

This commentary summarizes what the obituary says, but if you want to read the entire depressing document, it can be found at:

http://www.fms.treas.gov/fr/08frusg/08frusg.pdf

Keep in mind that the obituary was written before President Obama’s stimulus bill and Treasury Secretary Geithner’s proposed TARP II. Because the nation is financially deceased, both of these spending schemes rely on grave robbing for their funding.

For a product of a government bureaucracy, the obituary contains some strong language. It uses words like “not sustainable” to describe federal fiscal policy and says that current and projected budget deficits and debt will eventually lead to “renewed financial and economic insecurity.” It also warns that without significant changes, the government will be unable to manage a future financial crisis like the one today.

Wouldn’t you think that such a dire warning would be front-page news? Hello, are you still with me, or are you moving your lips as you struggle with the third-grade prose of USA Today?

Sobering charts are scattered throughout the obituary. For example, Chart 2 on page 2 shows that government debt held by the public will be 650 percent of GDP by 2080. For comparison, it was “only” 109 percent during World War II, when the last record was set.

Have you seen this chart on the front page of your hometown newspaper? Oh, that’s right: Instead of the chart, you saw a photo of President Obama’s last town hall meeting, where the president made wine out of water, distributed manna from heaven, and healed lepers.

Even more sobering than Chart 2 is the federal government’s balance sheet, which is shown on page 10 of the obituary. It lists assets of $1.9 trillion, liabilities of $12.1 trillion, and the difference between the two of a negative $10.2 trillion. The bonds of a corporation with such an unhealthy balance sheet would be rated as junk bonds.

Then there is the footnote to the balance sheet in fine print. It says that the unfunded liability of $49 trillion for Social Security and Medicare is not counted as a liability on the balance sheet.

An addendum to the obituary is titled, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis.” Table 1 on page 3 shows changes in the federal government’s cost of operations from 2007 to 2008. In that one year — buckle your seatbelt and assume the crash position — liabilities for “postemployment” benefits (i.e., retirement benefits) for veterans and civil servants increased from $90 billion to $550 billion, an increase of over 600 percent. Did your employer increase retiree benefits by 600 percent? Heck, even General Motors hasn’t been that irresponsible.

Exhibit 2 is an exhibit of irony. It graphically shows how consumer banks, investment banks, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had securitized mortgages and caused the mortgage meltdown. It’s an exhibit of irony because Harry Paulson had headed an investment bank before becoming Treasury Secretary. Of course, almost all of the former and current heads of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, other than a few academics, have been members of the same exclusive banking club, rotating between the private sector and the government. No conflict of interest there.

Exhibit 3 on page 13 will make you pull your hair out and rend your clothes. It tries to explain the government’s financial statements and how the administration’s statements differ from the Treasury’s. No doubt, Enron designed the statements. To save your hair and clothes, let me give you the bottom line: The net operating cost of the federal government increased 266.3 percent from 2007 to 2008.

Eager-beaver reporters and editors from the mainstream media have certainly reported this figure. Right?

Treasury management then proceeds to lie about the performance of federal managers, claiming that considerable progress has been made by the managers of federal agencies in producing reliable financial reports. Then a letter from the General Accounting Office says otherwise. To quote:

“The material weaknesses discussed in our [audit] report continued to (1) hamper the federal government’s ability to reliably report a significant portion of its assets, liabilities, costs and other related information; (2) affect the federal government’s ability to reliably measure the full cost as well as the financial and nonfinancial performance of certain programs and activities; (3) impair the federal government’s ability to adequately safeguard significant assets and properly record various transactions; and (4) hinder the federal government from having reliable financial information to operate in an efficient and effective manner.”

Translation: The government cooks the books.

Yet the Obama administration can tell you precisely how many jobs will be produced by the stimulus bill.

Oh, get this: The Federal Reserve isn’t audited because it is considered a private entity. Even more shocking, the most public institution of all, Congress, isn’t audited, either.

On page 151 you can find doublespeak that makes the newspeak in George Orwell’s 1984 seem like straight talk. There you’ll find a definition of “Unexpended Budget Balances.” Before reading it, sit on your hands so you don’t pull your hair and rend your clothes. Okay, here it is: “Unexpended budget balances consist of the unobligated and obligated, but unliquidated, budget balances.”

Got it? If you do, please explain it to me.

Page 151 also has a table showing the gross unfairness and lack of social justice of the tax code. For example, those earning between $30,000 and $50,000 pay $2,043, on average, in federal income taxes, or a whopping 6.1 percent of their adjusted gross income. Those earning $200,000 or more pay $133,380, on average, or a measly 22.4 percent of their adjusted gross income. Clearly, the fat cats aren’t paying their fair share. (I’m practicing to be a Marxist so I can get a job in the administration. How am I doing?)

I’m going to stop here, because after reading the 206-page obituary, I’m now completely bald and naked from pulling my hair and rending my clothes.

Maybe I’ll see you at the nation’s funeral. I’ll be the bald, naked guy weeping over the demise of a once great country. No doubt, because of its titillation value, my photo will be published on the front page of your hometown newspaper. However, in keeping with media tradition, an intelligent explanation of the tragedy that caused my nakedness and weeping will not be provided.
______________

”Mencken’s Ghost” is the nom de plume of an Arizona writer who can be reached at ghost@menckensghost.com.

By Mencken’s Ghost

March 2, 2011

 Click.  I turned on a liberal radio station.  There, a news announcer referred to what is happening in the Wisconsin legislature as “union busting” and “overturning collective bargaining rights.” 

Click.  I turned it off. 

Click.  I turned on a conservative radio station.  There, a news announcer referred to what is happening in the Wisconsin legislature as “union busting” and “overturning collective bargaining rights.”

Click.  I turned it off. 

Click.  I turned on liberal CNN and heard the same words.  Click.  I turned it off. 

Click.  I turned on conservative Fox News and heard the same words.  Click.  I turned it off. 

I feel as if I’m a character in the book 1984 and some central propaganda ministry is controlling the media. 

Whether the news outlet was conservative or liberal, no one referred to the events in Wisconsin as stopping union overreach or giving taxpayers the same power as unions. 

How does it happen that every news outlet across the fruited plain uses the same words to describe a news event?  When reporters were in journalism school, did they learn to copy each other’s homework and to cheat on tests? 

Apparently, they did not learn the difference between positive rights and negative rights, or the difference between natural rights, constitutional rights, legal rights, reciprocal rights, and invented rights.  Nor did they learn the history of the American labor movement and the genesis of the Wagner Act, the National Labor Relations Act, or the Davis-Bacon law.  

What, exactly, is learned in journalism school?  How to write simple declarative sentences and check sources?  See Spot run.  See Spot bite man.  See reporter check the spelling of man’s name.  See reporter get a headache from thinking so hard.     

The fact is that before there was one labor law in the United States, people had the right of free association–or at least most people did after slavery was ended.  They could form an association and take the collective action of withholding their labor or engaging in a work slowdown in order to wring concessions from an employer.  And their employers could either cave in or fire them and hire replacements.  

Whatever happens in Wisconsin, that right will still exist.  No one is going to “bust” the National Education Association.  Teachers will still be able to be members of the NEA and will not be dragged out of their homes in handcuffs and forced at gunpoint to show up at the neighborhood schoolhouse. 

Incidentally, if you’re a masochist, take a tour of the NEA’s website (NEA.org).  Particularly nauseating are the neo-Marxist keynote addresses at the NEA’s annual conventions. 

What the Wisconsin demonstrators really want, of course, is a “right” that comes at the expense of others–namely, from taxpayers who don’t sit at the bargaining table.  In other words, using the convoluted conventional definitions of “positive” and “negative” rights, the demonstrators want a positive right.  They want to use the force of government to stick taxpayers, or society, with the cost of their pay and benefits, but they don’t want to give taxpayers the same right of charging union members for their pay and benefits. 

Unfortunately, the demonstrators get the last laugh, whatever the outcome in Wisconsin.  

Look closely at the videos of the demonstrating teachers.  Read their protest signs.  Listen to their vitriol.  Observe their physical appearance.  Note the incongruity of them saying that they are professionals deserving of respect while they behave and think like United Auto Workers.  Imagine their underlying values, their political ideology, and their party affiliation. 

Now kiss your innocent, trusting children goodbye as they leave the house to catch the school bus to the local public school, where they will be subjected to such thinking for 12 years.  Then if they go on to college, they will be subjected to similar thinking for four more years from a predominately leftist professoriate. 

And if they major in journalism, they’ll copy the work of others and graduate without knowing squat about rights.   

_________________

 “Mencken’s Ghost” is the nom de plume of an Arizona writer who can be reached at curmudgeon@menckensghost.com.