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2015 April 1

Deadly big rig-related accidents on rise

The incidence of such accidents could be dramatically reduced through a couple of fundamental policy changes that would also have several beneficial effects in numerous other human and environmental areas of interest.

First, having governments raise their funding primarily through sales taxes would result in people being more conscious of their consumption because, even through the government would get the same amount of money through any tax scheme, taxation primarily at the point of economic transactions would result in a higher proportion of taxes being paid during each transaction event, thus, increasing the awareness of such payments causing a reduction of consumption. Keep in mind, people will not be taxed more, they will be taxed the same as a conventional tax scheme. It’s just that the tax burden is shifted onto active economic transactions (the buying and selling of goods and services).

Second, reigning in the credit created by our fractional reserve banking system would have the long-term beneficial consequences of reducing the overall interest payments that must be generated through increasing the amount of ‘rats’ in the ‘rat race’ in addition to increasing the speed with which ‘rats’ must do their productive activities to generate ever diminishing returns on their incrementally increased labor investments. Credit backed by real assets (100% reserve banking) would return our world to a more logical and fundamentally safe form of business expansion and other activities. The ‘boom-and-bust’ business cycles would be dramatically moderated or even eliminated for all practical purposes. This policy proposal would have the effect of encouraging an economy to produce goods and services which are more clearly beneficial and desirable rather than those which are less beneficial or desirable. Thus, the amount of goods and services being delivered across any landscape would be lessened, reducing the incidence of such truck tire accidents.

Third, removing subsidies of all kinds, especially fuel subsidies would result in higher fuel costs, which in turn would result in higher transportation costs, obviously leading a reduced demand for transportation services. Thus, fewer truck tire accidents.

Other policy proposals would reduce these types of accidents like having the trucking industry pay their fair share for roadway maintenance (they cause most of the wear-and-tear on roadways) and requiring inspection of vehicles upon entry into the U.S. or across any international border.

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2015 April 2

Donors Pledge $3.8 Billion for Syria, Less Than Half of U.N. Appeal

One of the things an international military organization needs to successfully carry out its mission with authority is a reliable source of funding. This is one of the fundamental problems with the United Nations. Member nations pay their dues voluntarily.

An international military organization needs to also have a narrow enough focus in order to get the consensus of member states, which is how such an organization gains long-term support. In this proposal, an international military organization is charged with keeping the peace across international borders under the condition that distinct people have their own sovereign country. Problems that cross an international border, such as refugee migrations would also fall under the realm of control.

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2015 April 3

Johns Hopkins Sued for $1 Billion over Guatemala STD Study

For the US to have intentionally infected a Third World country with sexually transmitted diseases for it own selfish interests beginning just after WWII is just another disgrace in a long list of shameful acts that have been perpetrated onto others by the United States. No wonder so many people around the world hate us. The idea that the US is ‘exceptional’ and has a mission to deliver democracy and freedom to the world is ringing more and more hallow as more is learned about the behavior of this country over its history. It’s hard and sad to bring my expectations of a nation down to the level of other nations, whose greed and corruption have gotten hold of them and who have caused much unfair and needless pain and suffering to multitudes around the world.

An international military organization, governed with the interests of the majority in mind, may be the only way to prevent the kind of abuses so often carried out in the past.

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2015 April 4

Ontario urged to ban use of hotels, motels for foster children

Banning the use of hotels and motels for the use of placing foster children is a symptom of a larger problem which is an unacceptable level of crime against these children. To address this problem, we would need to reduce the amount of children born to people who do not necessarily want them, euthanize a significant portion of the the severely defective population so remaining resources are better available for those moderately and slightly defective, increase efforts at mental diagnosis of all people so early intervention will prevent further regression into antisocial behavior, punish criminals effectively so that part of their punishment include an education about exactly why what they did was wrong, institute a loser pays system in courts where parties that are shown to be in the wrong pay the other sides legal bills, and make sure that prompt payments are made to the victims of any crime.

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2015 April 5

Odessa Man Caught Impersonating Police Officer

The penalty for this crime should be, initially, the cumulative total of all fines that were documented while in route to his apartment using his lights and sirens. In addition, a question should be asked as to how long he’s been doing such a thing. His answer could then be checked with records of the work done on his vehicle. If there is a significant discrepancy with what the man says and what is actually found to be true, then an additional penalty for that should be levied. A projected number of violations should be made and a penalty applied to each of the violations and fined accordingly. Furthermore, this man should be fined for impersonating an officer and for illegally purchasing tools or items to do so. The actual automotive shops that installed such equipment on his car should also be fined for their part in this counterfeiting scheme.

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2015 April 6

Jackie, the original storyteller and, to a lesser extent, the reporter, Erdely, should be punished by paying a fine for each of the false accusations that were reported in the article. The magazine should also face some fines as a result of providing the platform for the mass distribution of this false story.

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2015 April 7

Is fracking to blame for Oklahoma’s earthquakes?

Human activities will always have negative implications for the environment. This is just a truism because human activities are, by definition, unnatural. However, properly regulated human activities would have minimal impacts on the natural environment. In this case, the way to minimize human activities that are the cause of these earthquake would be to reduce subsidies on fossil fuels, thus making them more expensive and resulting in other fuels becoming more economically competitive, leading to reduced production of fossil fuel, thus less fracking-induced earthquake activities. Next, all this waste water injected into the ground should be charged a significant pollution fee per unit (for each type of pollution included) so that there is an incentive to prevent the injection of wastes into the environment.

Perhaps these fracking companies/oil companies should be required to pay for all damage resulting from these earthquake. I know it would be difficult to trace of cause of each of these earthquakes directly to fracking, but at least a large subset could be attributed to this activity.

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2015 April 8

Senator Rand Paul Has No Idea Why The USPS Appears To Be Failing, But He Blames Unions

Some things here are complicating the issues surrounding the USPS’s real or perceived failures and if these factors were to be removed, trouble-shooting core problems would be easier. One of the things that that would make the truth easier to arrive at and identify is if employers would only pay their employees for time worked and not for things like retirement and insurance.  The USPS (as should most employers) should pay just for the hours worked. It is the employees responsibility to save and provide for everything else they need. Naturally, wages would need to go up to compensate for the fact that benefits are no longer being given. Fortunately, after a few years of this form of payment, it would be much easier for people to compare compensation across various different jobs.

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2015 April 9

“Scott was trying to just get away from the Taser”

The man who shot this video, Feidin Santana, and made it public, should be given a reward equivalent to 10% of whatever financial penalties are given to the officer in this case. Since this is not a ‘financial’ crime per se, much of the punishment should be denominated in terms of money because this was clearly not a malicious crime of intent. Walter Scott was clearly running away from the police after he had apparently broken free from Officer Slager just before. It’s never a good idea to run from the police. Nevertheless, deadly force should not have been used and the Officer should have aimed for the legs or otherwise ensured that deadly force was not used. However, it must be taken into account that Walter Scott’s story appeared suspicious from the beginning…no insurance, running away from the vehicle/police.

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2015 April 10

80 municipal courts in St. Louis County agree to uniform fines for ordinance violations

It is good to have a more uniform fines schedule (because standards make life easier) so that people will more clearly know what the punishments for various violations are, however, cities should always be free to set their own fines for each kind of violation. Cities could voluntarily enter into agreements to set uniform fine schedules, as this article stated happened.

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2015 April 11

1,000 Migrants Rescued from Overcrowded Skiffs

Illegal migrations are obviously a symptom of a larger problem. People fleeing their homelands usually do so as a result of war or poverty, conditions which are well within human power to control. Unfortunately, it is often the people at the top who design and perpetuate policies that prevent an effective solution to issues of war and poverty from being implemented. In essence, policy changes could do most of the work towards solving these macro-level social problems. The biggest policy changes would involve the guaranteeing of distinct people groups their own independent territories as well as creating an authoritative international military organization to enforce certain just principles, a short-term boosting of economic incentives for the poorest countries to renter the global market place at a more competitive equality, and the imposition of tariffs at international borders so that super efficient global competitors cannot garner most of the market share. Ideally after, but practically concurrently will the implementation all these policies, should be the imposition of policies to keep illegal immigrants in their own countries for several purposes, perhaps the largest of which may be to keep their energetic, young people (the ones most likely to emigrate) within their own countries so that they could use their energies for correcting problems at home.

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2015 April 12

Asteroid Early-Warning System for Potential Impacts Makes Progress

It is good that we are looking out for asteroids, because they do pose a threat, albeit a minor one. But, as a higher priority, I would support funding efforts to identify and remove space junk from all levels of earth orbit because they pose more of a threat, not so much to human life on the ground, but to the normal functioning of human infrastructures, mainly communications satellites, around the planet. Orbital junk, I would argue, also poses more of a threat to humans in space than asteroids pose to humans on earth. Of course, it only take one good hit from an asteroid or comet to completely reverse these numbers.

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2015 April 13

To Save for a House, a Teacher Takes on Two Jobs

Theoretically, it would be possible for Dean Simmer to earn more money if his employers didn’t fund part of his health insurance and 401(k) costs. OK, certain other policies would need to change as well for this to be completely true, but this is the world we must strive for, otherwise, we will forever be stuck with needless complexity.

First, employers should not be required to pay anything other than direct compensation for labor in the form of wages. If employers would only pay wages as the total compensation for labor, the overhead associated with providing all the other additional forms of traditional compensation (health insurance, retirement accounts, paying part of various employee taxes, etc.) would be dramatically reduced, even eliminated. Thus, the costs to the employer of figuring out the employee’s wages/benefits would be lower. This means that the company would have a larger margin, which means that there would be more money left over, and hopefully made available to put towards wages.

Second, it is clearly the case that group insurance, for example, costs less on a per capita basis, than individuals purchasing insurance themselves, individually. This needs to change. In the end, insurance companies will get however much money (premiums) they need to operate and stay profitable, whether they charge group-covered employees relatively little and individually covered people relatively more, or whether they charge everyone individually. Why have a system that inherently penalized an individual for purchasing insurance himself? Insurance should be purchased individually. Costs should be based on individual variables. The best policy would be to require everyone to purchase insurance. This would provide the lowest absolute costs for everyone.

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2015 April 14

Four Blackwater guards sentenced in Iraq shootings of 31 unarmed civilians

It took a very long time for the justice system to complete its investigation and hand down a verdict. I don’t know what the victims and their families may have received in this case, but they should receive very significant compensation for their losses by the US government, and this compensation should begin within 3 months of this verdict.

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2015 April 15

ISIS News: 9-Year-Old Girl Pregnant After Being Raped By Islamic State Group Militants

War causes all kinds of horrors. That is why it is so important to have an international military organization that has the intrinsic authority to mediate and manage international conflicts. Education is the other biggest element that is extremely critical to the foundational well-being and health of civilized human populations.

Though it may not be practical to identify the perpetrators of this rape against this 9-year old girl in such a war-torn chaotic environment, there should still, ideally, be in place a system for compensating informants who may come forward, even anonymously, and turn over the rapists.

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2015 April 16

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2015 April 17

GOP passes massive tax break for millionaires, billionaires

This $269 billion estate tax elimination bill should be passed because it is logical to not tax gifts or assets that have already been bought. However, sometimes it is better to prioritize your fights so that you don’t sacrifice victory in the war for merely winning one battle. Therefore, because this tax cut will clearly benefit the top of the most wealthiest people in the US, this tax cut should be put on the back burner. It should only be proposed again when the American public is convinced that the federal government is adequately concerned about and is actively implementing a fairer, progresssive tax code…one that dramatically increases taxes on the rich. Income taxes, the banning of tax loopholes, an education tax, and several other kinds of activities could be taxed so as to make the overall code fairer and more progressive.

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2015 April 18

At least 19 killed in Tanzanian mine collapse

The demand for gold could have been reduced through several means, thus reducing the chance that so many miners would have been buried in such a disaster. First, by forcing the internalization of all identifiable externality costs onto the producers, then the price of the final product would be higher, leading to a reduction in demand. Second, as part of this internalization, production methods and techniques would be required to be safer to prevent the chances of such tragedies from occurring.

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2015 April 19

Pakistani woman burned alive for leaving home without permission

This is just another example of ignorance shielded by religion and perpetuated by a society’s desire to not value an education. Such a mix naturally leads to ridiculous incidents like this. It should be mandatory for everyone to complete a secondary education and to have discussed religion from a wide variety of angles so that extremist views can be tempered.

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2015 April 20

Saudi Arabia issues alert over potential attack

If the Saudi Arabian government loses control of its territory, global oil prices will spike dramatically and likely stay high for a very long time. And since we would be dealing with people who couldn’t care less about global economics or international relations, they wouldn’t have much of an incentive to enter into normal agreements. We, the United States and the West have set us up for this collapse. We have no one else to blame.  We went around the world, carved up their territory, made countries composed of different ethnic groups, knowing they would fight each other, overturned elected government, interfered on countless occasions with their internal politics, instituted unpopular government and backed unpopular policies…it’s no wonder they don’t like us. There is a lot we need to pay for, and I don’t think the terrorist have forgotten that. Furthermore, these generations are the new breed. They have been born into war and turmoil, as have their parents and the parents before them.  Each successive generation has become more war-hardened. The West, on the other hand, has become less war hardened because of the amount of time that has elapsed since the last real war took place. Our only defense is to turn our ways and to be as fair as possible in our dealings with the rest of the world and to work to create an international military organization that is able to successfully ratchet us down from a brink of a very uncomfortable future.

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2015 April 21

Fatal crash closes Route 404

The chances of this crash and many other crashes could have been minimized by reducing subsidies on fuels, making sure that the users of infrastructures pay their fair share. Also, having a tax system that raises most of its revenue through the imposition of sales taxes on active economic activities would also go a long way towards reducing the need of transporting so many goods around.

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2015 April 22

Video seems to show deputy smashing woman’s phone

Without knowing anything else about this case, I am virtually certain that this woman was probably way too close to the scene and likely had an ‘in-your-face’ attitude that contributed to the officer illegally taking her phone away and destroying it. People should have the right to record almost whatever they want in public, and should especially be encouraged to record police actions as a further check on police powers. Police should welcome these recordings given the recent epidemic of highly publicized police violence.

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2015 April 23

U.S. drone strike accidentally killed 2 hostages

Though its intentions were good, the US messed up and killed two innocent hostages. As a result, the US should compensate the families of those hostages an amount equivalent to 50% of what their projected future earnings would have been. In this case, punishment should be denominated primarily in terms of money. I just made up this figure because it’s hard to come up with a figure to compensate people for the killing of a person because to construct a consistent system requires the incorporation of so many variables, such as intent, accidental or deliberate, death as a byproduct of another accidental or deliberate activity and/or crime, whether provocation was a factor, age, status, current earnings, and potential future earnings of the killed individual, how many dependents the killed individual had, and a host of other factors. In this case, prison for the people who were involved in the chain of command should not be required.

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2015 April 24

Comcast Drops Bid for Time Warner Cable

The government should get out of the business of determining whether companies should merge or not. All that needs to be done is to properly construct a tax structure such that as companies grow in value, grow in market share, grow in profits, their taxes would go up.  Under such a system, if properly constructed, there would come a point that companies become so large that they would no longer be profitable, thus there is a natural incentive for them to reduce their sizes.

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2015 April 25

2015 Nepal Earthquake

Earthquakes don’t kill people, building do. Along that same line, but not quite as true, it could be said that earthquakes don’t damage things, bad designs allow them to be damaged. The best way to mitigate deaths and damage in during any form of natural disaster is to mandate better designs of everything. The best way to do that is through government regulations, of course. However, the best way to make contractors obey these government regulation and have the public stand behind them is to create a fund that pays for reconstruction from natural disasters that is mathematically linked to the amount of damage that results from such natural disasters. The more damage that results, the more money will be required to be deposited into this fund that pays for the repairs. The less damage the lower the amount of funds, and thus, the lower the tax for this purpose.

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2015 April 26

White House Takes Cybersecurity Pitch to Silicon Valley

The government’s attempt to grab everything it could from the global communications networks has backfired to a certain degree because, now that the other side knows about its effort, they are redoubling their efforts to increase their encryption abilities to counter the government snooping threat.  Theoretically, it is good for the good guys to have the upper hand in terms of surveillance, however, it is always very frustrating to find out that the good guys sometimes are not the government. So until we find a way to create better checks and balances on these government agencies charged with surveillance to reduce both the actual and perceived threats of government intrusion, it may be a good thing that out government is being locked out of as many networks as possible. The government is still a critical player that cannot be substituted in order for crime to be taken under control on the internet. We must work frantically to make the government partnership secure, fair and transparent. One small policy change that would result in a reduced amount of junk travelling across the internet would be a fee for each e-mail sent, perhaps just 5 cents. This would, without a doubt, significantly reduce the amount of junk mail.

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2015 April 27

Israel Launches Airstrike on Syrian Border

Hopefully, this will not escalate to include Israel in the was against these various Arab factions. But at some point it appears that Israel will be drawn to war again. An international military organization charges with keeping the peace across international borders (of the member states who agree to its terms) would go a long ways towards securing the peace in this and many other location around the globe.

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2015 April 28

Apple’s Earnings Surge, as iPhone Sales Jump and China Business Rises

Apple has a great product, no doubt about it. However, other competitors should be allowed to get into the market to keep the market healthy and thriving with new ideas. Here’s a proposal for a tax structure that would create a more naturally (i.e., less government interference required) functioning market. It involves income taxes, the market share taxes and profit taxes. The higher either of these company statistics are, the higher the tax on the company.

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2015 April 29

Saudi royal reshuffle likely to ensure kingdom’s US loyalty for decades

The Islamic rebel fighters are getting closer to Saudi Arabia and with an internal population that is restless against the current regime, there is a significant potential that within the new few years, the current government will be replaced by one that is not so friendly to the West. Not that they have to be. However, as a result of the history of US involvement in Saudi politics since WWII, there will inevitably be a period of overcompensation to the right of the political spectrum as the Saudi population shake off the feelings of disgust with the Western involvement of the past. This shift to the left will likely last at least several years up to a decade. If the US and the West play their cards right, namely, if they become honest brokers and do not engage in covert operations to destabilize government or other nefarious activities, then the region may come back to becoming our genuine friends. But our actions over these past several decades have resulting in momentum against us which must be stopped and then reversed, resulting in a higher overall cost than if we were to have just disengaged from the Middle East over the past couple of decades.

To prevent such disastrous developments in human history from occurring again, we would need an international military organization, with intrinsic authority, to assume the responsibility of assuring the international peace and security of whoever signs up to become one of its member states, from any attack across its international borders.

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2015 April 30

In Brazil, Protesting Teachers Get Lesson In Police Brutality

Austerity is always met with resistance, for perfectly understandable reasons. However, the root of this particular unrest lied with the fact that pension funds were being transferred over to a different pension system saving the state $500 million over the next year. Naturally, people don’t like their pensions cut. But this perhaps could have been avoided by merely shifting to a system where employers just do not provide any pension benefits. This would seem like it would be a worse deal for the people, but if you were to transfer the expected spending on pensions for the life of an individual worker and, instead pay up-front all those costs into the worker’s present wages, then the worker doesn’t not come out any worse than if he were to have gotten a regular pension later in life. The worker would be responsible for saving up for his own pension from the earnings he received while working.

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