The NPR Story

Maybe you have heard about Juan Williams being fired from NPR. Maybe you are wondering what the fuss is or maybe you are infuriated about it. Maybe a little background would help.

But first, a quiz:

1. How much money does NPR get directly from the Government?
a. 100%
b. 60 %
c. 20 %
d. 2 %
2. How many companies was Juan Williams working for?
a. 1
b. 2
c. 3
d. More than 3
3. NPR does not allow it's workers to criticize the government?
a. Yes
b. No
4. Fox News never fires anyone for what they say.
a. Yes
b. No

Okay, a little background on NPR. It was created in 1970 after the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. It is a both privately and publicly funded although the majority of it's funding now comes from members and corporate donations. Federal monies comes to about 2% of NPR's direct annual budget. Because member stations pay a fee to NPR, and they are sometimes funded through government grants, this figure is debated. More information can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Public_Radio

Now Juan Williams was a contract worker, although he was not solely employed by NPR. He also worked for FOX, wrote newspaper columns and also was an author. Under his contract, NPR could fire him if they felt he breached their code of ethics, and since he had been warned before about statements on FOX, it seems that this was legal.

Now, people are calling for the government to cut all funding to NPR. As above, there is very little direct funding. Indirect funding would be harder to stop, without affecting many small community radio stations. It might be interesting to know that in recent years, NPR has come under fire for being too conservative, based on money flowing in from corporate sponsors. Here is a peak at their 2008 sponsors. Note that Fox Broadcasting was a donor in the $50 - $99 thousand dollar range.

Of course Fox has had some firings also, but not so famous. They fired one of their on air staff , E.D. Hill, after comments about the President and his wife. Also fired as another commentator who might have protested too much against another FOX commentator. Mark Lamont Hill got in a "dispute" with David Horowitz and was soon gone. Guess to be on FOX your name cannot be Hill!

So, in the end, what is the result?
1. Juan Williams gets fired for something he was warned about. (my personal opinion was it was overdue)
2. NPR gets a lot of bad press at a time they are doing fund-raising.
3. Juan Williams gets $2 million dollars to stay at FOX. (I wonder how long this will last not that he does not have Liberal ties)
4. His First Amendment Rights are certainly not violated, and considering NPR's budget, he will be paid only a little less than the government money that goes directly to NPR.

What a Country!

Oh, the answers to the quiz?
1. d
2. d. (counting himself as author)
3. a. Actually a trick question - they are not to give any comment based on the section" VIII. Politics, community and outside activities" in the ethics code.
4. b.

ChrisZ

Up is down and black is white

The new economic report came in and the job numbers were not good. Private business created 64,000 jobs and the feeling is that over 200,000 are needed each month to keep the economy going. But the interesting news is that government CUT jobs, buy over 100,000, so there was a net loss for the month. Now on one hand, some are saying what a terrible job the Democrats are doing, while calling for MORE job cuts in government. You can't have it both ways. Either cutting jobs in government is cutting spending and is a good thing; or cutting jobs is a bad thing - period.

So if you take the government jobs out - the economy gained 64,000 jobs - good.

BTW - the Stock Market was so depressed by the news that the Dow broke 11,000.......

What do I have to do?

I am tired of repeating the mantra:

"The President did not say that passing the stimulus would keep the level of unemployment under 8 percent!"

I keep hearing it left and right. For the record. The 8 percent figure came from a report his economic advisers released in January 2009, BEFORE he was elected.

If you want more info on this - check out:

Politifact - George Will

I would not even give it a "Barely True" - I would give it a false.

The unemployment rate in February, when the stimulus passed was already at 8%

So how can the stimulus hold the rate to something lower than it already is???!!!

Is the Recession over?

Today on a Fox News Roundtable - Bill Kristol kept saying that it would be wrong to raise taxes during a recession. Well Bill, I have news for you, the recession is over:

Is the Recession Over?

Technically it was over last year (2009). The problem is that people feel that since unemployment is still high, that the recession is no over. Actually, lots of companies are making profits and lots of people are making insane amounts of money again. They are doing okay while many are still fighting for the few jobs out there.

Now, I am not saying that there are not problems. The concept of a jobless recovery, but its own definition is a problem. But let us not say that we can't raise taxes because we are in a recession, because that is technically not correct.

ChrisZ

Questions for New Yorkers

1. How far does ground zero extend - 1 block? 2 blocks? 10 blocks? 100 blocks? The entire city?

2. The people we are fighting to free in Iraq and Afghanistan - what religion are they?

Thanks

The story of the economy

I will give a simple view of the current economy.

Supply and demand - with very few exceptions (fads like iPhones and Beanie Babies) supply follows demand.

For the last 20 years, the American consumer has been on a buying spree, fueled by artificially low interest rates and availability of cheap credit.

Cars, houses, consumer electronics, vacations; all purchased on credit, without a corresponding savings to back them up, led us to this economic bubble.

As we overspent the economy went into overdrive and incomes, home values, government, health care all spiralled up as no one cared about the end of free money.

Well the end has come. Jobs have been cut, salaries are frozen if not going down, home values have crashed, and next; government jobs, salaries and benefits will have to be cut to bring things back into balance.

Once that happens, and people get their savings and lifestyle back into balance, then the economy will start to properly grow.

There are new factors that will affect this however. Technology will create a problem as it displaces traditional jobs. Education and especially mathematical and scientific knowledge will be necessary for the worker of the future.

The question is, what to do about the person who cannot work and will not continue to learn.

That is for another post.

ChrisZ (10 min)

Paul Ryan Lies

I don't think I can express my feelings. It is one thing to go on Sean Hannity's show and agree with a nod and a wink, but to blatantly tell lies, or deliberately confuse people with numbers, when you are accusing others of doing the same thing is unbelievable. I guess Congressman Paul Ryan decided that if you can't educate people with logic and facts, then the only way to go is to fabrications to get them excited.

From this date on he is totally worthless in my book.

ChrisZ

Keep Geithner away from the press

Timothy Geithner is a very smart man. I believe he has worked very hard to keep the financial system afloat. Maybe in later years we will find how close we really came to a complete financial breakdown but for now I will assume that everything we did was necessary for the country.

Having said that the man should not be on TV, the radio, or quoted in the papers. He has no concept of public speaking. I just watched an interview with him on one of the Sunday shows and he either did not hear any of the questions, or he avoided them. He was very self congratulatory (which might be true - maybe he did all those things) when he needed to be more humble. He needed to give confidence and hope and what he gave was a technical dissertation.

He needs a good speech coach.

Chris Z
5 min

Checking in

Too little time, too many thoughts.

Random thoughts

Research, research, research - people keep sending me things that are easy to research and rebut. Don't just forward something unless you check it out first.

Government cannot create jobs - unless they are government jobs. Tax cuts don't create jobs - unless they are targeted to specific industry. So how do you create jobs? You get the economy moving by inspiring hope, trust and a purpose. When people share these feelings then jobs will come out of the woodwork.

I like term limits, I like restricted benefits for elected government service (no big pensions), I like government funded web sites for candidates (they can spend all the money they want on their own) and I would love a portable lie detector on all politicians and talk show hosts!

ChrisZ

5 min

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

There is a TV commercial where your day trading skills can be improved by plotting and watching trends on stock values. My belief is that this is wrong - a capitalistic sin. People are making trades not on the intrinsic value of a stock, but rather the lemming mentality of it going up or down. No wonder we end up with overvalued stocks and ready to burst bubbles. Why we keep ending up with the rich getting richer and the rest of us with nothing to show for it - not even products of worth.

ChrisZ

Cash for Clunkers - good or bad?

Do I like Cash for Clunkers? I would if I had a vehicle to trade in and I needed another car....

I have 2 vehicles I would like to get rid of. First, an old Ford Taurus that is rusting away but gets too much MPG to qualify. Second is a Dodge truck that I use to haul my race car around with. It qualifies, but I can't afford the $15,000 extra to get a new truck after the rebate. Besides, I ride a motorcycle or bicycle to offset the times I do use the truck.

So, I don't qualify, but are there some myths out there to debunk? Maybe.

1. This program takes valuable vehicles off the road. If you visited the local car dealer back lot and saw the trade ins for this program, you would not want to drive them. Most are old, rusty, trucks and SUVs. Very few good small cars are there. Either they get too good MPG or they are worth more as fuel efficient cars. There are some odd cars here in there, but you are not going to find a mint BMW there, because they are worth more than $4500!

2. If a guy trades in an old SUV that gets 12 mpg and gets another SUV that gets 18 mpg, he has still reduced his fuel usage by 1/3rd - not too shabby.

3. Does it take good cars out of the used car market? Maybe a few, but most of these cars were in too bad a shape anyway. Plus the used car market is already glutted. Plus this leaves better cars that get better mileage - The price may be a little higher, but will be more than made up for with better cars and mpg.

Could the program be done a little bit better? Yes, scrap the engines but leave the rest of the car for the auto recyclers. Make a sliding scale to is is better to purchase a high mileage car rather than a truck, and handle the pr and interface with the dealers better. Is it the best program, no, but as long as it goes away in November it will be fine.

15 min

Will the rich get richer?

I was reading an article in the new Wired magazine called "Socialism - redefined". It looked at how people were pooling their talents for free in what were traditionally paying jobs - like Wikipedia instead of Encyclopedia Britannica. So I got thinking. If people don't have to work harder to earn more money to but things - if day to day items get less expensive and more common - think of i-Tunes instead of a record collection, or digital photos instead of paying for film; what will the average wage earner look like in 10 years? In the past, rising wages came from people making things - manufacturing items that other people bought. Now we find ourselves in the information age and sharing, renting and combining resources. For example, the average car is idle for 80 % of its life. What if we shared cars instead of owning them. The cars would be used to 100% of its capability, but we would only need 20% of them. Who is is going to make money on that? The person who organizes it, the person who designs the tools that allow us to share. In that sense, there will be fewer and fewer people making more money. How is this going to affect our life? Our tax system? Some things to think about.

ChrisZ

15 min

They still don't get it

The outrage over the AIG bonuses (real or not) just points out how out of touch everyone is.

AIG (and Wall Street in General) - Okay they had contracts, and you have to remember that even on a losing baseball team, you could have a superstar that needs to get paid, but guys, did you ever take a course in marketing? You had a whole year to inform everyone, temper the reaction, explain the situation, cut back or renegotiate the bonuses - did you really think nobody would notice?

The Government - Same marketing question as above, if you give out money (and those blaming the Democrats, remember; this deal for TARP was under the previous administration, this was a modification in the stimulus plan to restrict compensation, with the infamous clause). Keep you mouth shut till you know the facts and then be honest - If AIG pulled one over on us, shame on them. If it happens again shame on you.

The Average Citizen - Give me a break - the last place Baltimore Orioles in 2008 had more that 10 players who made over 1 million dollars. The highest player made over 8 million. Do you think that they shouldn't be paid? What about all the financial companies that went out of business? Did those guys get bonuses? We don't even know what the people who got the bonuses did. Maybe they saved the company billions of dollars. Grow up and start being responsible yourself.

The real problem, and nobody has spoken about this, is the salary gap between the average person and the highest wage earners. Where was all this outrage when things were good? They were getting even more obscene bonuses then, but nobody cared, because times were good. If we are going to make any changes we have to be consistent and vigilant. Learn from our mistakes and not keep making the same ones over and over and over.....

ChrisZ

10 min

The Future is the Past?

Where to we go from here? Is Suburbia dead? This article thinks so:

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/106732/Suburbia-R-I-P

And the recent concept of Suburbia may be dead. Of people living in bigger and bigger houses with more land, living farther and farther away from the center of cities. But is there a new model of suburbia that will work? Here is my idea:

1. Cities will build new communities within their center. Projects like Co-op city in NY (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-op_City,_Bronx) but on a much smaller scale. These communities will house many different people. There will be students, young singles, married couples with small families, professionals and some older residents. The buildings will have garages, playgrounds, pools and open space area.

There will be small, multi family housing, this may go back to the days of families living in separate houses but on common property. Zoning laws will need to be changed to accommodate this. In addition, some larger houses will need to be modified to multiple occupancy. The challenge to zoning laws is will this be restricted to relatives or opened up to anyone?

For standard single family housing, children will stay longer and contribute to the household costs. Houses will be retrofitted with energy saving devices. There will be more solar collectors for heating. Second floors will be converted to storage and sealed off with doors to keep the main floor either cool or warm depending on the location. People will live simpler, with less grandiose houses. Americans will start looking around the world for ideas and then in our own manner, adapt and expand on them to suit our desires.

As the infrastructure changes, transportation will also change. Highway design will freeze as extra lanes will no longer be necessary. Car will be come smaller with rentals becoming more popular with shorter rental times. You might carry an entertainment center and plug it into a generic rental car. These rental centers will be centrally located. So you may take your car to a train, take the train to destination nearby where you want to go, and then rent a car locally. Or maybe, we will see more auto trains that can carry smaller autos between common destinations, like New York to Boston, or New York to Chicago.

Industrial Parks will move back within city lines and production will move back closer to the final distribution point. There will be more car pooling and buses, but only where the volume of use will make economic sense. In other locations, people will still have multiple cars, but they will be more diverse in thier function. One might be a small truck and the other a high mileage hybrid.

More ideas on the city of the future to come.....

Working hard just to keep up

When we are young, we spend most of our time trying to improve ourselves. Like a new car we put on fancy hub caps, install new radios, maybe even a exciting new paint job. The problem is we are not interested in the basic maintenance or strengthening the chassis. I am now finding that this relates to our bodies also. Rather than eating well and working out, keeping our blood pressure low and watching how we act; we do crazy things and they rely on our young body to pull us through. Then, when we get old, we spend just as much time just trying to maintain what is falling apart, that we have no time for improvement. Oh the follies of youth......

3 min

Chris's Words of Wisdom (WOW)

“This country will collapse economically, when the government cannot pay for the seemingly reasonable demands of the people .”

ChrisZ
1 min

Out in the 'Burbs

I have been reading about the move back to the cities from the suburbs. While I an not going to make a blanket statement, I want to throw out some observations about suburban living and how it has changed.

Disclaimer - I grew up in Mineola, Long Island. At one time it was farm country, then was developed, not so fast as Levittown to the east, but it was considered the suburbs. My friends in the city called it the "sticks" because you could not walk out your door and get on the subway, although we did have a bus stop at the corner and the train was within walking distance.

The suburbs have changed in the last 50 years. What was once 1/4 acre lots have become 2 - 3 acre lots. What was once grid style road layouts have become mazes of cul-de-sacs and dead ends. Town like Torrington, where I currently live, even have a fading suburbs, as growing out from a central town, the developments change as they finally fade into real rural areas.

The families have changed also. From the, father works while the mother stays home, modern suburbia is a virtual ghost town during the day, and actually, most all of the time. As families got smaller, kids no longer could find entertainment in their own house or neighborhood, but now have to be driven to group activities, whether band or soccer. Older people no longer retire to Florida or an apartment or move in with their kids, but hang on to their homes much longer.

Financially, taxes are going up as municipal services are stretched thin, citizens are less connected to their government (despite the advent of the Internet), and schools are dealing with kids needing extra services.

Now is any of this bad? If so, what needs to be done? That is for another time.

ChrisZ
10 min

We've come so far - so far to go

At this time in history - a point that will not just be a sidebar in future history books, there are signs that, as far as we have come, we have a long way to go.

Listening to the callers and "conservative" talk show hosts I realize that we have been divided so savagely, that I don't know how it can be healed. In the age of information, the flood of mis-information is so great, and people are so willing to believe what they want to believe, that the truth is still hostage.

I have hope, but it will take another generation.

My House - Is a Very Fine House

I was always wondering where I could put the combined wealth of knowledge I have accumulated during the course of owning a house - well here is the perfect venue.

Maybe nobody reads it, maybe no one will ever head my pleas, but here goes:

1. If you are going to buy a house, try to look at it in the fall - especially when leaves fall off. Raking leaves can be a big expense, either monetarily or in time. (It seems like all the leaves in the neighborhood blow to my property!)

2. Never have a perfectly flat driveway if you live in an area of snow or freezing rain. Also, if you pick one with a flat drive or walkway, make sure it is on the south or west side. Nothing more interesting that to shovel snow in the morning, have in melt and then freeze in the afternoon (no sun) and come home to an ice rink.

cmz - 5 min

Deja Vu all over again

After listening to the reviews of the VP presidential debate, I wondered where I heard it before - right -the presidential debates of 2000. The bar was set so low for now President Bush that any show of competence was seen as a win. hmmmmm.

ChrisZ

5 min