Like the Value Added Tax
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of a consumption tax. I just don’t like the current European like version of it. I like the idea of, if you don’t buy anything you don’t pay anything. I don’t think it’s noticeably regressive on poor people. If they are truly poor, they’re not buying hardly anything and that’s how it should be. This tax should have no product or personal circumstance exceptions, in fact, no exceptions of any kind.
If you grow something, trade something for anything, or make something from raw materials you own; you pay nothing.
I want taxes simplified and reduced, or eliminated. I’m not interested in a better tax idea, like the so called Flat Tax, until Federal spending has been substantially cut and the current tax burden simplified and reduced for all current taxpayers and changes that require all working people to pay some income tax. Currently more than half of working people pay no income taxes.
Term limits is another idea I’m not interested in; what a ridiculous idea. I’m not interested in any more restrictions to my right to vote for the candidates of my choice. I don't like the current crop of morons we've elected, but if we get someone good, I'd like to be able to vote for them as long as they are useful.
I am against the further erosion or confiscation of any of my constitutional rights, especially my right to have and use arms and ammunition, free speech, free association, and protection from state imposed religion, property ownership, due process, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, a speedy, impartial, public trial prohibiting double jeopardy, and the rest of the Bill of Rights, Constitutional Amendments, and the rest of my individual rights not enumerated.
If the corrupt, mealy-mouthed, backstabbing cowards that have been elected could be trusted to establish a “fair tax” then I would support a better, simpler taxation scheme.
I doubt I will live that long.
27 September 2010
Cut Federal Government,
Too Large, Too Intrusive
I want the Federal government, discretionary and non-discretionary spending to be 30 to 40% less than fiscal year 2008.
I would ask incumbents one simple two part question. What have done during your political career to cut federal government spending?
I would ask incumbents and new candidates the second part; what will you do during your brief time in office to cut the cost of Federal government?
Not trim, not slow the rate of growth, but reduce the total cost of Federal government year to year until it’s 35% less, adjusted for inflation, than in FY 2008.
Their meaningful answer would need to be short and uncomplicated, not the typical obscure, complex, convoluted, caveat and nuanced filled politically correct answer.
Non-answers and meaningless answers will definitely not get my vote. Poorly contrived non-specific yes answers will not get my vote.
Yes answers that include specific programs and monetary reduction targets with a strategy for success and a plan that starts the day they arrive in DC will definitely get my vote and the votes of millions of hard working money making tax payers.
They will definitely get my vote if they list ineffective programs, offices, agencies, commissions, and departments they would eliminate. It would show me they have actually thought about it seriously. And if they have a plan, objectives, and measurable targets to restructure and reduce entitlement benefits (i.e. Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, etc.) until they can be afforded on substantially reduced Federal revenues.
That would be a candidate I could enthusiastically support.
I want the Federal government, discretionary and non-discretionary spending to be 30 to 40% less than fiscal year 2008.
I would ask incumbents one simple two part question. What have done during your political career to cut federal government spending?
I would ask incumbents and new candidates the second part; what will you do during your brief time in office to cut the cost of Federal government?
Not trim, not slow the rate of growth, but reduce the total cost of Federal government year to year until it’s 35% less, adjusted for inflation, than in FY 2008.
Their meaningful answer would need to be short and uncomplicated, not the typical obscure, complex, convoluted, caveat and nuanced filled politically correct answer.
Non-answers and meaningless answers will definitely not get my vote. Poorly contrived non-specific yes answers will not get my vote.
Yes answers that include specific programs and monetary reduction targets with a strategy for success and a plan that starts the day they arrive in DC will definitely get my vote and the votes of millions of hard working money making tax payers.
They will definitely get my vote if they list ineffective programs, offices, agencies, commissions, and departments they would eliminate. It would show me they have actually thought about it seriously. And if they have a plan, objectives, and measurable targets to restructure and reduce entitlement benefits (i.e. Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, etc.) until they can be afforded on substantially reduced Federal revenues.
That would be a candidate I could enthusiastically support.
16 September 2010
Unemployed,
How many are there, really?
My estimates before any research are, 104 million people are working, 216 million are not, counting mothers, children, retired people, students, prisoners, and entitlement recipients; seems like more like 67% unemployment. I know that’s not how the government reports unemployment. We’ll examine that below.
How many of the 67% are employable and how many are unemployable? How to count mothers that chose to raise children? How are the incompetent, severely handicapped, and mentally ill counted? How do we count the deliberately ignorant, and handicapped workers, and the partially employable? How the under-employed are counted? And how to count mothers that choose to work; or single parents, biological or non-biological? How are foreigners, legally here and not, counted?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says at http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm
Who is not in the labor force?
Labor force measures are based on the civilian non-institutional population 16 years old and over. Excluded are persons under 16 years of age, all persons confined to institutions such as nursing homes and prisons, and persons on active duty in the Armed Forces. As mentioned previously, the labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. The remainder—those who have no job and are not looking for one—are counted as "not in the labor force." Many who are not in the labor force are going to school or are retired. Family responsibilities keep others out of the labor force.
Who is counted as employed?
Not all of the wide range of job situations in the American economy fit neatly into a given category. For example, people are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment. Persons also are counted as employed if they have a job at which they did not work during the survey week, whether they were paid or not, because they were:
On vacation, Ill, Experiencing child-care problems, Taking care of some other family or personal obligation, On maternity or paternity leave, Involved in an industrial dispute, Prevented from working by bad weather
Who is counted as unemployed?
Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work. Actively looking for work may consist of any of the following activities:
Contacting: An employer directly or having a job interview, A public or private employment agency, Friends or relatives, A school or university employment center, Sending out resumes or filling out applications, Placing or answering advertisements, Checking union or professional registers, Some other means of active job search
Are undocumented immigrants counted in the surveys?
Neither the establishment nor household survey is designed to identify the legal status of workers. Thus, while it is likely that both surveys include at least some undocumented immigrants, it is not possible to determine how many are counted in either survey. The household survey does include questions about whether respondents were born outside the United States. Data from these questions show that foreign-born workers accounted for about 15 percent of the labor force in 2006 and about 47 percent of the net increase in the labor force from 2000 to 2006.
Here’s what I think:
1. If you are unable to work, for whatever sensible reasons, you are not counted.
Some prisoners do work and are compensated and should be counted. Military personnel are working and compensated and should be counted. Some students are partially compensated for being a student and should be counted. If you are an uncompensated student and not working, you are unemployed.
2. If you are able to work and are not, you are unemployed. If you are unwilling to work you should be counted as unemployed.
3. If you are working, or excused from work for some sensible reason, but still considered an employee, you are employed. If you are compensated or earning future or deferred compensation of any kind, you are employed.
4. Child care is work. Unpaid family care, child or elderly, is work. Unpaid care workers should be counted as employed.
5. Those working for free now for some future consideration should be counted as employed, like Congressional aids, interns, volunteers, apprentices, etc.
6. Some number of people are employed in illegal activities (prostitutes, drug dealers, extortionists, gambling, etc.) and some work “under the table” for unreported cash, and some are in “swap-meet” and “tailgate” commerce, and some trade goods and services instead of money. These people are currently counted as unemployed, about 10 million people. They should be counted as employed.
My estimates now are:
Not available to work: 170 million
Employed: 154 million
Unemployed: 20 million (13.9%)
It totals 344 million, more than the official population because:
Foreign nationals and illegal immigrates aren’t part of the official population estimate.
And, entitlement recipients working illegally and those in criminal and black market enterprises are supposedly not available to work but are and are double counted.
So what?
124 million people are employed. 24 million are legal and illegal foreigners, and black market cash workers.
200 million people are not working, or taking entitlements and working secretly.
30 million non-working foreigners are living here, many illegally, many receiving the entitlements and benefits of citizenship, which they have not earned.
Non-citizens, not here legally, must be returned to their native countries, then apply for acceptance into the United States. If accepted they must obey our laws and work to become citizens. If not, they and their offspring must be returned to their native homeland, no matter what a repressive, corrupt, disease infested, ignorant, crime laden, poverty ridden sewer it is.
My estimates before any research are, 104 million people are working, 216 million are not, counting mothers, children, retired people, students, prisoners, and entitlement recipients; seems like more like 67% unemployment. I know that’s not how the government reports unemployment. We’ll examine that below.
How many of the 67% are employable and how many are unemployable? How to count mothers that chose to raise children? How are the incompetent, severely handicapped, and mentally ill counted? How do we count the deliberately ignorant, and handicapped workers, and the partially employable? How the under-employed are counted? And how to count mothers that choose to work; or single parents, biological or non-biological? How are foreigners, legally here and not, counted?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says at http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm
Who is not in the labor force?
Labor force measures are based on the civilian non-institutional population 16 years old and over. Excluded are persons under 16 years of age, all persons confined to institutions such as nursing homes and prisons, and persons on active duty in the Armed Forces. As mentioned previously, the labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. The remainder—those who have no job and are not looking for one—are counted as "not in the labor force." Many who are not in the labor force are going to school or are retired. Family responsibilities keep others out of the labor force.
Who is counted as employed?
Not all of the wide range of job situations in the American economy fit neatly into a given category. For example, people are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment. Persons also are counted as employed if they have a job at which they did not work during the survey week, whether they were paid or not, because they were:
On vacation, Ill, Experiencing child-care problems, Taking care of some other family or personal obligation, On maternity or paternity leave, Involved in an industrial dispute, Prevented from working by bad weather
Who is counted as unemployed?
Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work. Actively looking for work may consist of any of the following activities:
Contacting: An employer directly or having a job interview, A public or private employment agency, Friends or relatives, A school or university employment center, Sending out resumes or filling out applications, Placing or answering advertisements, Checking union or professional registers, Some other means of active job search
Are undocumented immigrants counted in the surveys?
Neither the establishment nor household survey is designed to identify the legal status of workers. Thus, while it is likely that both surveys include at least some undocumented immigrants, it is not possible to determine how many are counted in either survey. The household survey does include questions about whether respondents were born outside the United States. Data from these questions show that foreign-born workers accounted for about 15 percent of the labor force in 2006 and about 47 percent of the net increase in the labor force from 2000 to 2006.
Here’s what I think:
1. If you are unable to work, for whatever sensible reasons, you are not counted.
Some prisoners do work and are compensated and should be counted. Military personnel are working and compensated and should be counted. Some students are partially compensated for being a student and should be counted. If you are an uncompensated student and not working, you are unemployed.
2. If you are able to work and are not, you are unemployed. If you are unwilling to work you should be counted as unemployed.
3. If you are working, or excused from work for some sensible reason, but still considered an employee, you are employed. If you are compensated or earning future or deferred compensation of any kind, you are employed.
4. Child care is work. Unpaid family care, child or elderly, is work. Unpaid care workers should be counted as employed.
5. Those working for free now for some future consideration should be counted as employed, like Congressional aids, interns, volunteers, apprentices, etc.
6. Some number of people are employed in illegal activities (prostitutes, drug dealers, extortionists, gambling, etc.) and some work “under the table” for unreported cash, and some are in “swap-meet” and “tailgate” commerce, and some trade goods and services instead of money. These people are currently counted as unemployed, about 10 million people. They should be counted as employed.
My estimates now are:
Not available to work: 170 million
Employed: 154 million
Unemployed: 20 million (13.9%)
It totals 344 million, more than the official population because:
Foreign nationals and illegal immigrates aren’t part of the official population estimate.
And, entitlement recipients working illegally and those in criminal and black market enterprises are supposedly not available to work but are and are double counted.
So what?
124 million people are employed. 24 million are legal and illegal foreigners, and black market cash workers.
200 million people are not working, or taking entitlements and working secretly.
30 million non-working foreigners are living here, many illegally, many receiving the entitlements and benefits of citizenship, which they have not earned.
Non-citizens, not here legally, must be returned to their native countries, then apply for acceptance into the United States. If accepted they must obey our laws and work to become citizens. If not, they and their offspring must be returned to their native homeland, no matter what a repressive, corrupt, disease infested, ignorant, crime laden, poverty ridden sewer it is.
31 August 2010
Ignorance;
World’s Most Dangerous Weapon.
Poverty, diseases, corruption, crime, injustice, maladies and most human miseries originate in ignorance. Accessible knowledge and inspired life-long learning are the solutions.
It is part of human nature for some to take advantage of the weak and ignorant. Those with ill gotten and unearned gains fear competition from those who know more, are more capable and more powerful than they, and understand things they do not.
Human perception is severely limited by ignorance. Humans see, hear and understand very little and imagine even less. Without knowledge, access to information, and the skill to evaluate it, and a thirst for it, people cannot hope to imagine the future based upon current causes, or imagine how the future might be different based upon new choices
Many are incompetent due to mental deficiencies and illnesses and cannot see or understand that they themselves are incompetent.
Cultural ignorance and false cultural. Pregnant women eating river clay to nourish their unborn child, or that fertility spirits determine the yield of your crops, or demons make people do bad things, or that gods decide which women will bear children, or that an erupting volcano can be stopped by human sacrifice are cultural ignorance that still exists. Claiming that perpetual unemployment, theft, drug abuse, child molestation, mindless violence, gratuitous sex, irresponsibility and ignorance are cherished elements of your special ethnic culture is ridiculous.
Logic, reason, cause and effect errors; if you cannot determine with near certainty what causes what, or from this action what is the likely outcome, if you do this, this will certainly happen, if you cannot see probable events in advance by foresight, then you are truly ignorant. If you cannot choose correctly that this is likely, this is not, you have poor logic. If you cannot imagine the likely future results from current events, you are ignorant. If you do not think ahead, if you have not collected knowledge and some wisdom from experiences where you were paying attention, then you are truly ignorant and perhaps stupid. It’s important to figure out which one, ignorant you can fix.
Facts and beliefs, that’s all there is. Facts are known, provable, repeatedly demonstrated to be true within our perception and understanding throughout recorded history. Beliefs are structured guesses, feelings, improvable, not demonstrable, believed by groups of followers throughout recorded history and about the future. Beliefs are shrouded with magic, miracles, and mysticism, and writings and teachings by charismatic leaders believed by some to have special affinity with the spirit world, gods, or God. Much opportunity exists in the realm of beliefs for trickery, illusion, delusions, curses, possessions, mystic forces, paranormal, mental distractions and spiritual mumbo-jumbo; and therefore the perpetuation of myths, lies and ignorance by charlatans, psychotics, and the charismatically deficient of all kinds. Human decisions are mostly or more often based upon beliefs
Encouraging ignorance and dependency has expanded rapidly the past 50 years. Government entitlement programs, required safety equipment, warning labels, blaming inanimate objects and third persons, allowing frivolous suits, not grading student academic performance and behavior, not keeping score in athletic games; if people are not compared to the most competent among us, how are they to learn what things they need to study and improve, and for what things have they become an acceptable person, and what things must be accomplished to become a human in good standing.
Louis D Brandeis said, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.”
I dislike nearly every view point and achievement of this intelligent and influential progressive Supreme Court Justice, except the most excellent insightful quote above. I doubt he ever understood the massive damage to human liberty his masterful persuasion brought.
Most programs and social systems in place today were ill conceived and hastily enacted without much, if any, thought as to their unintended consequences. Virtually none have been revisited, and nothing has since been created to evaluate their effectiveness or eliminate harm.
These programs and systems, safety nets, like Social Security, Medicare, criminal rehabilitation, Food Stamps, Welfare, Affirmative Action, the Drug War, Extended Unemployment benefits that gift or grant people excessive, perpetual, unearned benefits are promoting dependency, enshrining ignorance, and destroying self esteem.
You will get more of what you reward, and less of what you tax.
Achievement, forethought, conservation, responsibility, and self reliance are discouraged, taxed, and penalized.
Ignorance, incapability, carelessness, thoughtlessness, irresponsibility and dependency are encouraged, subsidized and rewarded.
If you:
Tax jobs and reward unemployment;
Tax family life and reward out of wedlock child birth;
Punish achievement, and reward birthrights;
Punish conservation, and reward wastefulness;
Discourage savings, encourage over-spending;
Criminalize rights, celebrate crime;
Demean citizenship, idolize the corrupt;
Then you are truly ignorant and corrupt, and likely stupid!
Poverty, diseases, corruption, crime, injustice, maladies and most human miseries originate in ignorance. Accessible knowledge and inspired life-long learning are the solutions.
It is part of human nature for some to take advantage of the weak and ignorant. Those with ill gotten and unearned gains fear competition from those who know more, are more capable and more powerful than they, and understand things they do not.
Human perception is severely limited by ignorance. Humans see, hear and understand very little and imagine even less. Without knowledge, access to information, and the skill to evaluate it, and a thirst for it, people cannot hope to imagine the future based upon current causes, or imagine how the future might be different based upon new choices
Many are incompetent due to mental deficiencies and illnesses and cannot see or understand that they themselves are incompetent.
Cultural ignorance and false cultural. Pregnant women eating river clay to nourish their unborn child, or that fertility spirits determine the yield of your crops, or demons make people do bad things, or that gods decide which women will bear children, or that an erupting volcano can be stopped by human sacrifice are cultural ignorance that still exists. Claiming that perpetual unemployment, theft, drug abuse, child molestation, mindless violence, gratuitous sex, irresponsibility and ignorance are cherished elements of your special ethnic culture is ridiculous.
Logic, reason, cause and effect errors; if you cannot determine with near certainty what causes what, or from this action what is the likely outcome, if you do this, this will certainly happen, if you cannot see probable events in advance by foresight, then you are truly ignorant. If you cannot choose correctly that this is likely, this is not, you have poor logic. If you cannot imagine the likely future results from current events, you are ignorant. If you do not think ahead, if you have not collected knowledge and some wisdom from experiences where you were paying attention, then you are truly ignorant and perhaps stupid. It’s important to figure out which one, ignorant you can fix.
Facts and beliefs, that’s all there is. Facts are known, provable, repeatedly demonstrated to be true within our perception and understanding throughout recorded history. Beliefs are structured guesses, feelings, improvable, not demonstrable, believed by groups of followers throughout recorded history and about the future. Beliefs are shrouded with magic, miracles, and mysticism, and writings and teachings by charismatic leaders believed by some to have special affinity with the spirit world, gods, or God. Much opportunity exists in the realm of beliefs for trickery, illusion, delusions, curses, possessions, mystic forces, paranormal, mental distractions and spiritual mumbo-jumbo; and therefore the perpetuation of myths, lies and ignorance by charlatans, psychotics, and the charismatically deficient of all kinds. Human decisions are mostly or more often based upon beliefs
Encouraging ignorance and dependency has expanded rapidly the past 50 years. Government entitlement programs, required safety equipment, warning labels, blaming inanimate objects and third persons, allowing frivolous suits, not grading student academic performance and behavior, not keeping score in athletic games; if people are not compared to the most competent among us, how are they to learn what things they need to study and improve, and for what things have they become an acceptable person, and what things must be accomplished to become a human in good standing.
Louis D Brandeis said, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.”
I dislike nearly every view point and achievement of this intelligent and influential progressive Supreme Court Justice, except the most excellent insightful quote above. I doubt he ever understood the massive damage to human liberty his masterful persuasion brought.
Most programs and social systems in place today were ill conceived and hastily enacted without much, if any, thought as to their unintended consequences. Virtually none have been revisited, and nothing has since been created to evaluate their effectiveness or eliminate harm.
These programs and systems, safety nets, like Social Security, Medicare, criminal rehabilitation, Food Stamps, Welfare, Affirmative Action, the Drug War, Extended Unemployment benefits that gift or grant people excessive, perpetual, unearned benefits are promoting dependency, enshrining ignorance, and destroying self esteem.
You will get more of what you reward, and less of what you tax.
Achievement, forethought, conservation, responsibility, and self reliance are discouraged, taxed, and penalized.
Ignorance, incapability, carelessness, thoughtlessness, irresponsibility and dependency are encouraged, subsidized and rewarded.
If you:
Tax jobs and reward unemployment;
Tax family life and reward out of wedlock child birth;
Punish achievement, and reward birthrights;
Punish conservation, and reward wastefulness;
Discourage savings, encourage over-spending;
Criminalize rights, celebrate crime;
Demean citizenship, idolize the corrupt;
Then you are truly ignorant and corrupt, and likely stupid!
29 August 2010
Keep Your God
In your heart, in your home, and in your church.
Your beliefs are not mine. Our beliefs may not be like anyone else’s.
I don’t want your God or mine in our government, or in our schools, or using public resources; religions do not pay taxes, and even if they did, the constitution prohibits it. Your God or mine has no place on public property, using public money or acting officially for non-believers, or acting exclusively in official ceremonies conducting religious utterances that impose upon and compel others out of politeness stand quietly conscripted appearing to respect our beliefs.
I don’t want your God in my home, not on my mind, not mandated or made official, not with any of my money or using government resources.
Follow your religion, speak out courageously and use your resources and those of your church.
Don’t use my money, our government, our property, our schools, or my appearance falsely portraying it as my consent to foist your beliefs on anyone else.
Stop using history, celebrity beliefs or numbers of followers to try to compel anyone else to believe as you do. Try using principles, concepts and good works.
Stop seeking official recognition for your beliefs.
Stay out of government meetings, out of taxpayer funded school, and off public property; and stop trying to use our public resources to market your religion.
If your beliefs are good and useful, those wishing to believe as you do will come to your door. You should not go to theirs.
Use your and your churches tax-exempt resources to put your religious beliefs into the contest of ideas. You don’t need the cloak of official recognition or the popularity of politicians or celebrities; unless your religion is weak and has little merit, or needs to apologize for something, and you are trying to force your beliefs upon others.
If it has merit, willing followers will find it.
Your beliefs are not mine. Our beliefs may not be like anyone else’s.
I don’t want your God or mine in our government, or in our schools, or using public resources; religions do not pay taxes, and even if they did, the constitution prohibits it. Your God or mine has no place on public property, using public money or acting officially for non-believers, or acting exclusively in official ceremonies conducting religious utterances that impose upon and compel others out of politeness stand quietly conscripted appearing to respect our beliefs.
I don’t want your God in my home, not on my mind, not mandated or made official, not with any of my money or using government resources.
Follow your religion, speak out courageously and use your resources and those of your church.
Don’t use my money, our government, our property, our schools, or my appearance falsely portraying it as my consent to foist your beliefs on anyone else.
Stop using history, celebrity beliefs or numbers of followers to try to compel anyone else to believe as you do. Try using principles, concepts and good works.
Stop seeking official recognition for your beliefs.
Stay out of government meetings, out of taxpayer funded school, and off public property; and stop trying to use our public resources to market your religion.
If your beliefs are good and useful, those wishing to believe as you do will come to your door. You should not go to theirs.
Use your and your churches tax-exempt resources to put your religious beliefs into the contest of ideas. You don’t need the cloak of official recognition or the popularity of politicians or celebrities; unless your religion is weak and has little merit, or needs to apologize for something, and you are trying to force your beliefs upon others.
If it has merit, willing followers will find it.
16 August 2010
Unskilled and Unaware
"In 1995, McArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks and robbed them in broad daylight, with no visible attempt at disguise. He was arrested later that night, less than an hour after videotapes of him taken from surveillance cameras were broadcast on the 11 o'clock news. When police later showed him the surveillance tapes, Mr. Wheeler stared in incredulity. "But I wore the juice," he mumbled. Apparently, Mr. Wheeler was under the impression that rubbing one's face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to videotape cameras (Fuocco, 1996).
We bring up the unfortunate affairs of Mr. Wheeler to make three points. The first two are noncontroversial. First, in many domains in life, success and satisfaction depend on knowledge, wisdom, or savvy in knowing which rules to follow and which strategies to pursue. This is true not only for committing crimes, but also for many tasks in the social and intellectual domains, such as promoting effective leadership, raising children, constructing a solid logical argument, or designing a rigorous psychological study.
Second, people differ widely in the knowledge and strategies they apply in these domains (Dunning, Meyerowitz, & Holzberg, 1989; Dunning, Perie, & Story, 1991; Story & Dunning, 1998), with varying levels of success. Some of the knowledge and theories that people apply to their actions are sound and meet with favorable results. Others, like the lemon juice hypothesis of McArthur Wheeler, are imperfect at best and wrong-headed, incompetent, or dysfunctional at worst.
Perhaps more controversial is the third point, the one that is the focus of this article. We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they
suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine. As Miller (1993) perceptively observed in the quote that opens this article, and as Charles Darwin (1871) sagely noted over a century ago,
"ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
Note this quoted text taken in its entirety from;
Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own
Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
Justin Kruger and David Dunning
Cornell University
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
1999, Vol. 77, No. 6. ] 121-1134
We bring up the unfortunate affairs of Mr. Wheeler to make three points. The first two are noncontroversial. First, in many domains in life, success and satisfaction depend on knowledge, wisdom, or savvy in knowing which rules to follow and which strategies to pursue. This is true not only for committing crimes, but also for many tasks in the social and intellectual domains, such as promoting effective leadership, raising children, constructing a solid logical argument, or designing a rigorous psychological study.
Second, people differ widely in the knowledge and strategies they apply in these domains (Dunning, Meyerowitz, & Holzberg, 1989; Dunning, Perie, & Story, 1991; Story & Dunning, 1998), with varying levels of success. Some of the knowledge and theories that people apply to their actions are sound and meet with favorable results. Others, like the lemon juice hypothesis of McArthur Wheeler, are imperfect at best and wrong-headed, incompetent, or dysfunctional at worst.
Perhaps more controversial is the third point, the one that is the focus of this article. We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they
suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine. As Miller (1993) perceptively observed in the quote that opens this article, and as Charles Darwin (1871) sagely noted over a century ago,
"ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
Note this quoted text taken in its entirety from;
Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own
Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
Justin Kruger and David Dunning
Cornell University
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
1999, Vol. 77, No. 6. ] 121-1134
06 August 2010
Stop Ignorant Unreliable Government
And Cut Programs That Endanger Sustainability.
Don’t start initiatives that can’t succeed. Recently there’s been talk of stopping economic fluctuations, avoiding recessions and depressions, eliminating risk, or squelching booms.
Are they nuts? They probably think they can predict the weather weeks in advance or change world-wide temperatures! Huh! Oh that’s right, they do.
We do not want to interfere in natural fluctuations. We don’t need economic fluctuation stopped; we need them anticipated.
I want preparation for economic inevitability's. Deposits set aside to pay unemployment during downturns, to spend to encourage economic activity from savings, not from a tax income stream we won't have. No amount of planning, or government programming, regulation or law will ever control the billions of individual purchasing and saving decisions made by people everyday, nor should they affect commercial activities of a free people.
I want preparations for global warming and ice ages, they will come. They have many times with little warning. Conserve some food, some things of value, some resources needed to sustain human life for as long a possible.
Conservation, preparation, and preservation require forethought and wisdom, something in short supply today.
If we do not prepare for bad times during good times, then no resources will be available to sustain us. There may be no way to secure funds that have accumulated, but as a country, as a society we must preserve surpluses and resist temptations to use them, to have resources available to survive inevitable hard times.
Trusting this vital task to ignorant, greedy, power mad, corrupt politicians clearly isn’t the best answer. A new, much more reliable system is necessary. preserving surpluses is so important that it may exceed the priority of all other human tasks, rights or authorities of governments, religions or peoples.
Nothing, no one, no business, or no government program is too big, or too important to fail, to stop, to modify, or to be eliminated if a free people chooses to use forethought and action to preserve their future well-being.
Don’t start initiatives that can’t succeed. Recently there’s been talk of stopping economic fluctuations, avoiding recessions and depressions, eliminating risk, or squelching booms.
Are they nuts? They probably think they can predict the weather weeks in advance or change world-wide temperatures! Huh! Oh that’s right, they do.
We do not want to interfere in natural fluctuations. We don’t need economic fluctuation stopped; we need them anticipated.
I want preparation for economic inevitability's. Deposits set aside to pay unemployment during downturns, to spend to encourage economic activity from savings, not from a tax income stream we won't have. No amount of planning, or government programming, regulation or law will ever control the billions of individual purchasing and saving decisions made by people everyday, nor should they affect commercial activities of a free people.
I want preparations for global warming and ice ages, they will come. They have many times with little warning. Conserve some food, some things of value, some resources needed to sustain human life for as long a possible.
Conservation, preparation, and preservation require forethought and wisdom, something in short supply today.
If we do not prepare for bad times during good times, then no resources will be available to sustain us. There may be no way to secure funds that have accumulated, but as a country, as a society we must preserve surpluses and resist temptations to use them, to have resources available to survive inevitable hard times.
Trusting this vital task to ignorant, greedy, power mad, corrupt politicians clearly isn’t the best answer. A new, much more reliable system is necessary. preserving surpluses is so important that it may exceed the priority of all other human tasks, rights or authorities of governments, religions or peoples.
Nothing, no one, no business, or no government program is too big, or too important to fail, to stop, to modify, or to be eliminated if a free people chooses to use forethought and action to preserve their future well-being.
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