Sideshow

We had a small group for dinner once –not quite 100 people- and I overheard a guest say “Everyone knows that we choose our own parents.” I interrupted him to say “That’s funny not everyone, because I didn’t and still don’t “but he ignored me and continued his new-age-astrolo-babble.  I have to admit that some famously rich and powerful people had the good sense to pick parents who left them an inexhaustible money machine:  William Randolph Hearst, (all the silver in Nevada) and Howard Hughes, (Hughes tool, drills for all the oil wells in the world) come to mind.  You can probably know half a dozen more. They don’t advertise their silver spoon birth, but wind up in politics or Hollywood. This is not as exclusive a company as it might sound. Ivanka and Jared had the good sense pick wealthy parents, as did the Golfer-In-Chief.  What could you have accomplished if you had inherited $40 million?  

What a sideshow, much sound and fury accomplishing nothing but a shoo-in nomination to the Supreme Court. Repeal Obamcare, repeal Obamcare, repeal Obamc….. Executive Orders displayed with the pride of an eight year old coloring inside the lines.  A list of things promised to accomplish immediately, well maybe soon: completed zero.  Attempts to unring the bell, repeal other orders or regulations, but are more like vague permission to not fully comply. Poorly written new regulations quickly deemed illegal. This method is like setting fire to the house to get rid of the fleas.  Drain the swamp, but only enough to give the alligators a bigger advantage over the sucker-fish.  Be careful: while you watch the sideshow someone is picking your pocket, then they max out your credit cards or steal your car.

Fortunately most bureaucrats did their job, and obeyed the law.  Obeying orders is not a defense, but doing the right thing usually is. It also lets you sleep. Unsurprisingly a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific, that happens to be in a State, this little State, can block an illegal order;  that’s how it’s supposed to work. We have a complex system of checks and balances, not only with three branches of government, but 50 State governments, each with three branches.  The branches have branches, House and Senate, Grand Juries and Special Prosecutors, U.S. Marshalls and the CBO.  There are NGOs like the ACLU, NRA, PTA and a free press.  The beauty of a free press is that they compete for attention try to expose fakes.   

“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”  HL Mencken 1926

The Emperor-new-clothes has lived by this advice.  Surprises every day, seemingly random picks for high posts have started to backfire. There are some good ones, and some, well let’s hope. It’s just a matter of who, like James ‘Watergate’ McCord, spills the beans first to avoid jail, and how many henchmen go to Club Fed.  Does Mr. Ratings Machine declare “mission accomplished” and retire before the GOP finds the fortitude to impeach? I don’t know if they will do it to save the country, but probably will to protect Party-unity.  You would think repealing Obamacare was the nation’s highest priority, like “Get Osama bin Laden” was; well after Party-unity. No wait, the highest priority was making Obama a one term President. Crime rate peaked around 1991 so Sessions wants to take justice back to 1973. If you are not confused you have not been paying attention.  Mind your pockets the main event is yet to come.

Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a semi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today. E-mail obenskik@gmail.com

Taxes

Don’t tax you. Don’t tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree Russel B. Long, probably.

The history of taxation is a history of unfairness there has probably never been or ever will be a fair tax.  What can we do?  It sounds fair to tax everyone their portion of the County budget. Five hundred million dollar County budget divided by 200,000 people comes to $2500 each. Some families could not pay that if you took everything they own.

To add to unfairness state law limits a county to a few sources. Property tax, GET (sales tax), Fuel tax, TAT (transient occupancy tax)

Money is like manure. If you spread it around it does a lot of good. But if you pile it up in one place it stinks like hell. Clint Jr. Murchison 

I sweated my way through Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, gave up halfway, but tried again when I learned that it included recommendations.  The most constructive form of taxation is one that limits the gross accumulation of wealth.

One way the County can do that is property tax, but that has problems.  To determine the tax one needs to value the property.  We could tax all land at the same rate, but obviously some land like beachfront is worth much more than other, like mauka desert.  It does at least aim at the accumulation of wealth, but can fall particularly hard on farmers because they need a lot of real property i.e. land, to be viable. Property tax also discourages the preservation of natural features that pay tax, but provide no income to the owner. There are exceptions granted for things like hospitals, schools and houses of worship. There is the tax windfall when the neighbor’s farm turns into a shopping center and adjacent land suddenly has a higher appraisal. So that which sounds simple gets complicated. Thus value based on similar property sales may be the best we can do.

GET: Just an insidious and vastly complicated sales tax that puts the government finger in every single transaction.  The County is allowed to add a surcharge which adds complexity but raises little additional revenue.  Like all sales based taxes it falls hardest on those with the least ability to pay or avoid and puts an accounting burden on small business.

Fuel tax:  Sounds equitable, but on Hawaii the most common fuel purchase is gasoline. Who purchases the most? Low paid workers who live in Kau or Puna and commute 80 miles a day in an old car that gets 12mpg.  Maybe the fuel tax could be lower in Kau and Puna.  ­

TAT: This was supposed to be shared with the counties, but the State keeps taking a bigger bite, because they can.  Of course the State and Honolulu County are almost inseparable. So essentially Honolulu gets the governors 4 votes making 5 votes and the other 3 counties get one vote each.

No one likes to pay taxes, but many of us don’t mind too much if we feel the rate is fair. What is fair? First the rate for an individual, family or business should not cause hardship or depravation. Like the Federal Income tax, progressive with an exemption so that low income people don’t have to starve to pay their tax. They still pay plenty of other taxes indirectly because taxes are built into everything that they buy.  At the other end of the scale are the truly wealthy.  It would take an extremely high tax rate to cause them to actually suffer, unless you think doing without champagne popsicles a 100 foot yacht and two villas in the South of France as suffering. Can property tax be progressive with rates that rise along with increasing valuation? Rate times    value to the 1.02 power.  

Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a semi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today. E-mail obenskik@gmail.com

  

It;s OK to be offended

June second when I read Henry Scroggin’s notorious letter I could not decide if really meant what he said, or was it irony. The firestorm of replies suggests to me that people took him seriously.  He has not yet disavowed the interpretation. Just when that storm looked dead we got Dr Blum’s reasoned response and then Sue Nimms’ attempted rebuttal using Faux News Alt-right factoids.

More recently Bill Hastings (June 14) explained Conservatism in rational terms that sound like a basis for lokahi (figuring out where we can agree).

While I surely disagree with the things in the first letter, whichever way he meant it, there is an important message.  Many people would censor such content because they find it offensive. The beauty of free speech is that hate filled content is its own limitation. Some people use offensive language to affect, some by accident, some don’t know any better. I try to see past the offense to find a message. Funny how both extremes accuse WHT of bias.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" Evelyn Beatrice Hall and Voltaire 

Bill Maher, an equal opportunity offender, has been in the news for a slip, we will see what happens. I took it as self-degradation. I would be offended if his insightful comedy died an ignominious death over one word. He is the modern King’s Court Jester, who aggressively points out that the Emperor has no clue, the liberals have no direction and the Media have no principles.  

Last month I quit the NRA.  The cover of American Rifleman “Do you have Trump’s back?” offended me and that’s not easy. Does he need my protection?  I told them why but doubt they care. They have a right to say it, and I, to not pay for it.  It was not a singular offense, but the culmination of a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing an object not part of their core principals. It was hard to read the accompanying article: they implied that supporting him was the way to win his support for all NRA politics! He was the “Great god come from the skies. Take away everything and make everybody feel high” (apology to Bob Marley)

 NRA was formed for patriotic reasons, to improve army recruits. For 100 years, more or less, it stood as the defender of the second amendment which - here is where I annoy some liberal friends - is an essential part of our liberty.

"For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security."  Thomas Jefferson

About twenty years ago the NRA pointed out that the Brady Bill had not lived up to its main promise.  Although about 800,000 misfeasors had been deterred from illegally buying a firearm from a licensed dealer, a felony, none had ever been arrested, not even one. I had the opportunity to verify that fact with the United States Attorney for the Southwestern District. He admitted that it was true until about a month before, since then they had arrested, due to the NRA publicity, so far a grand total of two.

The NRA has gone off mission. Instead of using politics to defend rights the NRA officers are using the second amendment to support their personal reactionary and perhaps racist politics. They hated Obama enough to blame him for things that never happened, never would happen. The irony here is that their criticism of Obama was good for their industry sponsors. Without a boogeyman for them to flog, gun and ammo sales have plunged.  I will have to find another organization to fulfill that mission, or convince the ACLU that the second amendment is still part of the Bill of Rights and Militia includes you and me.  

Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a semi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today. E-mail obenskik@gmail.com

Everybody knew health care would be complicated!   It’s not just the health care itself that is complicated.  To some extent that is unavoidable; humans are complex and fussy about their comfort.  The health care delivery system does a pretty good job for most Americans most of the time. 

Unfortunately the health care financial system is like a platypus redesigned by a dysfunctional committee using meth.  Actually you can’t really call it a system, because it’s an uncoordinated conglomeration of semi-autonomous entities.  I can’t name them all, can you?  First, in the news, is the GOPcare replacement for ACA (aka Obamacare) then, Medicare and Medicaid. That’s just the Federal Civilian programs.  Then pubic private partnerships like Queens.  The military has their own, plus CHAMPUS for dependents, and don’t forget the VA.  On the civil – aka, free market - side we have HMO’s like Humana and Kaiser.  We also have insurers like Blue Cross (HMSA), and Aetna.

Health care providers work hard and deserve to be paid, the problem is that each payer has a different schedule of what they will pay and when.  If the payment is too attractive the unnecessary happens.  If the payment is stingy, necessary care may be delayed or forgone; providers have to beg and borrow to get paid.

One reason America spends more than any other country and has mediocre results is that the “system” is configured to insure that at least 20% of health care dollars are siphoned off as insurance profit and operating cost.  Hospitals bill for every penny with a huge markup:  (cotton ball $0.09, Aspirin $0.48) spending more to account for stuff than to buy it.  To get paid they need an extensive detailed cost collection system, like a factory, but unlike a factory every unit is unique and every hour is different.

The ACA was crippled from the start, because it is an assigned risk pool.  It gets the leftovers after the profitable population has been scooped up.  The ACA carriers got all the high risk poorer, older, sicker patients with bad habits.  The low risk young-and-healthy have no motivation to enroll.

What are the options, besides more of same?

One is a single payer system. The providers would not spend time figuring who pays how much for each element of a service. There would be less duplication of effort, but someone would still have to tally up a bill and someone else to negotiate a payment and eventually pay it.  Automatic payment has a frightening potential for abuse.

Another is National Health Service:  Everyone pays a tax like we do for other government service.  Everyone gets treated; providers get standard compensation.  It’s run much like the Fire Department.  Sure some people would overconsume but how many?  It has to include everyone especially Congress.

Third option, take all the money the government and industry spend on health insurance and put it in a pool.  Everyone gets a stipend adjusted for age and demographics.  They can spend it on insurance, HMO, or even a Medical Savings Account (a naive option).   The existing providers can compete for the business.  The idea of a truly free market for health care is almost ludicrous though; nobody can negotiate in an emergency and the products are way too complicated for the buyer to comparison shop. Individuals have no real bargaining power.

GOPcare: Free market solution, chose your own plan, pay with tax credits for those who earn too little to pay taxes, or do without.

I know you’re thinking.  (I would be)  “OK, wise guy what would you do?”  I would have a small select non-partisan committee. Nine members plus staff like the Supreme Court examine the National Health Services of large countries.  Determine which one is most effective, and copy it exactly.  Don’t let Congress try to improve it because when it comes to health, failure is not an option.

Holidays

So many issues; so little space on a page.

Every culture or religion in the northern hemisphere it seems commemorates the winter solstice, and for what seems like a good reason to the primitive mind.  The days were getting shorter.  What happens if they keep getting shorter and it becomes night all the time?  What will happen to us?  Of course the more astute tribal members were aware of the cycle and had learned to predict almost to the day when the days would start getting longer, a time for rejoicing, or perhaps penitence.  This has taken many forms; I’m sure far more than I am aware of.  Is there a Southern Hemisphere equivalent?  One of these ancient celebrations has settled into a complex form usually known in the modern western world as Christmastime.

There it becomes an unnecessary controversy.  Some insist it is a religious holiday requiring certain reverence others want it to be just a fun time for spending money, and possibly even licentious behavior at least on New Year’s Eve.  Some have different holidays that they want to celebrate independently of Christmas. My personal wish is that everyone gets to celebrate this wonderful time of year in the way that brings them the most joy to share.

America is unusual among nations in that it did not evolve from a unique tribal culture, but as an amalgam of many.  Now it is true that the most powerful factions have not always been kind to the powerless, however our founding documents say we should.  Some of us try to blend, while others feel put upon that some minority wants equal (special?) treatment.  One faction’s religious display in a public place becomes offensive to another.  The other wants equality, but does not have comparable resources.  There is not enough choice public space to please everyone.  A minority’s humble display might look tacky (or respectful) next to a wealthy sect’s ostentatious display.

So many things to disagree over.  Some are obsessing over coffee cups that are too sectarian, or not sectarian enough. Is it right to put a Christian Christmas tree in a public park?  Wait! the tree was a harmless Pagan symbol that northern Europeans elected to keep, when they were Christianized over 1000 years ago.  In fact if you look into the past of many religious symbols you find will that in one way or another they were adopted from another culture.

To me whatever faith my friends and neighbors choose to follow, or to not follow is their business.  I hope it gives them hope and comfort, but I do insist they not force it on others.  I do not have faith in a divine being, nor do I deny one; I do notice a lack of evidence.  Perhaps “God is an imaginary playmate for grown-ups,” Morgan Freeman, The Big Bounce. “He who made kittens put snakes in the grass,” Jethro Tull, Bungle In The Jungle. 

I have my faith that the laws of math, physics and chemistry will always have predictable outcome; that the laws of the soft sciences, if we ever understand them, will be similarly predictable and that human curiosity and ingenuity to solve what problems we still have, that almost everything can be scientifically explained.

I do believe: There was one miracle: Somehow, improbably, unexplainably, life started spontaneously, on this insignificant lonely planet.  There is no evidence of anything like it within the observable universe.  Evolution via natural selection is a viable explanation for the adaption of a variety of life forms to their environment leading from inexplicably simple life forms to one that attempts to understand it all and appreciate one another.

“I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do. They're really saying I love you.”  Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World. Although I may not share another’s faith I am never offended by a friendly greeting whether it’s Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Mele Kalikimaka, Shalom Aleichem, Aloha, simply Hi or Happy New Year it’s all the same.  They're really saying in a small way I love you.” 

What will change with Trump

“Every country has the government it deserves" and "In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve."   Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre 1811.

Now, like it or not, we are getting President Trump, thanks largely to the liberal media, that he excoriated, giving him free publicity.  There will not be as much change as people fear, or hope.  After the outrageous things he has said, almost anything else may look reasonable.

Previous Presidents have learned, changing the Government is like turning a battleship, with a canoe paddle.  Let me explain.

There are almost 22million government employees.  Almost all of them civil service; he can’t fire them, or stiff them like contractors.  For the most part they will do what they always do as covered by their job description, habit and long standing department policies and procedures.  Never forget the prime mission of a bureaucracy, like any organism, is its own continuation. Those with the power to make changes have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution, not the President, and see that the laws be faithfully executed.  Hmmm, even the President swears to support and defend the Constitution.  He might have to have someone to read it to him. Most Civil Servants do not work for the Federal government but state and local government; they get their direction from governors, judges and local officials, who have sworn a similar oath.

So the President has a Cabinet plus a few thousand appointees at his beck and call, but they in turn have to work through 1.4 million Civil Service bureaucrats who, see above.  He has a similar number in the armed forces who also have policies and procedures that change as often as rivers flow backwards.  All the officers and enlistees have taken the oath.  While the grunts might not appreciate it, most of the officers take it very seriously.  They understand from Nuremberg what executing an illegal order can mean.

Trump likes to say he’s not a politician.  If I might paraphrase Mayor Kenoi, ‘If you run for office, you’re a politician.’  Politicians have a history of broken promises. Trump has a history of broken promises. Why would Politician Trump be any different?  If he could not keep a promise then, why should anyone think he can now?

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." - H. L. Mencken. Trump has made these brash promises in a factual vacuum. Whether or not he was aware of that no longer matters. Now he will have to deal with reality where there are no simple answers, no quick fixes, no do overs.  You can’t manage an entire country the way you bankrupt a casino (or hotel). Everything about a country affects everything else, everything.  Even things you can’t imagine, because the whole world’s involved.  A decision to isolate Iran could precipitate another Pearl Harbor.  Every proposal will require the consent of someone, Congress, the Senate, the Joint Chiefs, Governors, NATO; all the people in the chain of command who, like Clerk Kim Davis in Kentucky, can monkey wrench anything that goes against their principals. 

For example, to overturn Roe v Wade he would have to pack the Supreme Court. Unless another liberal Justice dies or retires that’s almost impossible.  Republicans decry activist courts, and some conservatives become liberal Justices, e.g. Earl Warren.  He will need someone to file a lawsuit claiming Roe v Wade has deprived them of their right to, to what, their right to not have abortion?  That will take some creative lawyering.  Then it goes through the system starting with a State Court that might just kill it, and get past Federal Judges including a Supreme Court reluctant to overturn previous decisions.  It could take 100 years, or 1000.

I hope, against evidence that he will do right.  If not we still have the ACLU, courts and a Congressional election in two years. 

Why I prefer news on paper

 THE DEATH OF NEWSPAPERS HAS BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED

OR WHY US GEEZERS STILL BUY THEM

1. First of all there is the look and feel.
2. It’s light, compact and portable.
3. I can take it anywhere.
4. It’s easy on the eyes in a wide variety of lighting conditions.
5. I can skim several headlines or lead paragraphs easily.
6. The headline matches the article, it’s not click bait
7. You can tell easily how long an article is.
8. No one is invisibly tailoring the news to their idea of what I am.
9. The owners have a huge investment in a physical plant that requires integrity to protect.
10. The editors don’t know what I read.
11. There is no download time to read past the first line.
12. You can’t accidentally click on a full page ad for Viagra
13. There is no annoying animated advertising.
14. There are no pop-ups.
15. It doesn’t suddenly reformat the whole page for no apparent reason
16. It’s silent.
17. I can’t accidentally download a computer virus.
18. Print media is updated on a predictable frequency, daily, weekly, monthly
19. What looks new, is not just a “nine minutes ago” pointless update of something I already read.
20. Because the space has costs, someone has edited the content to fit so I don’t have to figure out what’s worth reading.
21. There is no expensive hardware to safeguard.
22. When I’m done, I can throw all or part of it away even at the airport or on the train. 
23. I can take the ads to the store and leave them in my shopping cart.
24. I can tear out a page or a section and give it to someone else.
25. We can separate sections and share one paper.
26. I can tear out a part I want to save and fit it in my pocket, or even my wallet.
27. I can fold it to fit my reading environment, a small table, the subway.
28. I can write on it.
29. I can do the puzzles without a printer.
30. The movie listings are easy to find and fit in my pocket.
31. The ads are local.
32. All the comics are on one page in the same order as yesterday.
33. If I lose a paper, or get it wet, or someone steals it, no big deal.
34. Sometimes it’s handy to have the old paper for templates, or patterns.
35. Old newspaper makes pretty good packing material.
36. If I’m cold I can stuff it in my jacket for warmth.
37. Try making a fire with a Kindle.
38. The Sunday color comics make great gift wrap especially for kids.
39. Fresh newspaper can form a sterile surface for emergency first aid, or childbirth.
40. A rolled up paper makes a decent splint.
41. I can use it to train the dog.