Monthly Archives: August 2018

Illinois Didn’t Lose On Foxconn

02 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Economy

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I think people are making too much of the Foxconn location. In fact I think it worked out great for Illinois. If it were on this side of the border we would probably have the same number of Illinoisans at the plant as we will do now.

We will not be responsible for the huge bonds backed by Wisconsin. We will not have the surrounding communities in Wisconsin urbanized by too many out-of-stater residents and hundreds of Chinese driving up real estate prices. If Foxconn closes like the Mitsubishi plant in Bloomington, the loss is mostly on Wisconsin.

I am sure the Chinese learned from the Japanese where to build their plants. By building their plant on the border they have two senators locked in and two more involved. At the time they had the Speaker of the House by the throat as well as other Wisconsin and nearby Illinois Representatives. The location provides political support from both parties in Madison, Springfield, and Washington, D.C. Their “investment” isn’t mostly Chinese money, its investor’s money with state and federal support. How much of the Chinese yuan has gone to grease the palms of officials and lobbyists will never be known.

I think in the competition for the plant, we got the gravy for free and Wisconsin is paying for it.

Left, Right, Center

02 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Politics, Uncategorized

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I must be a political enigma to readers, friends and the two major political parties. I now consider myself an independent that has a wide span of views. I have always voted for the candidate I thought was best for the overall good of America. I voted for LBJ, Reagan, Clinton, Gore, signed McCain’s petition and governor’s of both parties. I have financially supported individuals of both parties here and in other states. (My mail is very diverse.)

As Obama recently said in a speech, “All politicians lie and when they get caught,” fess up. I have seen almost every President since Kennedy take blame for something done in his name or some lie he said. Obama said many of today’s leaders constantly lie and their people have become inured to it.

If a person lies constantly, how can people believe anything they say or do? In today’s world of narcissism and Internet lies, is it possible social mores have taken a backseat to commonsense? Is appealing to lowest common denominator the way to get ahead in today’s cultures? Is making some people the bogeyman because of their skin color, ethnicity, or religion again becomes the way to gain support? Is anarchy the new way because anarchists always end up being the one despised or dead?

In today’s world much of the divisiveness has originated from carefully crafted Russian planning and operations. A few years ago we sent several Russian moles back home. Now the FBI has found a twenty-something woman who has infiltrated the NRA and an un-named politician to gain influence and divide us further. How much of the Russian operations caused people to vote for someone? Commonsense says Trump and the Russians are against our morals, beliefs and history. Someone believes making money is the ultimate goal. Getting to the top of the food chain and dominating everyone else is their only plan. Does President Trump consider his ideal leader to be Kim, XI, or Vladimir?

Beliefs Are Hard Change

02 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Climate Change

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Long, long ago in lands far away people believed the world was flat. The people were good catholic folks who were told that by their priests. The heathen Vikings were pretty sure it wasn’t. The Islamic scientists knew it wasn’t because of their great knowledge of science, in particular, mathematics and astronomy. Even after Columbus found the New World and Magellan’s ships sailed around it, many people clung to their flat Earth beliefs.

After our space capsule circled the moon and astronauts walked on it, lots of people still say it didn’t happen. Their belief is just as strong as the flat Earthers. Mounds of facts and seeing things with their own eyes can’t convince some people.

The same is occurring with Global Warming. The Earth is not only heating up but at a higher speed than any time in biologic and geologic records. Those records are like phony moon rocks to climate deniers. Even though they can see the effects and feel the warm winters they still can’t fathom the truth. Deniers use misinterpreted facts showing the warming is occurring but they can’t see it. One recent letter cited the minuscule amount of CO2 in the air and the amount of water vapor. Our atmosphere is a fine tuned balance of gases. The minuscule amount of carbon dioxide is the regulator for temperature. A tiny fraction up increases temperature and a tiny fraction down decrease it. It’s the difference between running the air conditioners year around or an ice age like 20,000 years ago. Another point was made of atmospheric water vapor increase as the cause is partially true because it is the result of the CO2 increase warming the oceans, melting the ice caps, and glaciers adding to the rise in temperature and violent swings in the weather. Just as predicted 150 years ago when its influence on climate was discovered.

No Planetary Manual

02 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Climate Change, Environment, Uncategorized

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The King James Version of the Bible says we are supposed to take care of the Earth. Man wasn’t given a user manual on how to take care of our only home. The problem didn’t exist a few thousand years ago because a few million primitives lived a simple life within their ecosystems. They ate what was available, wore skins of what they killed, and moved when nearby food become scarce.

The problems began small when civilization started. When people started to congregate into villages and cities, wild lands was turned to cropland and pasture. Forests were cut for buildings and agriculture. Technology began to allow for mining of metals and minerals for bu8ilding. As humanity spread out and the population grew so did the destruction of the Earth. As we learned the oceans were full of food we started to harvest an “infinite” source.

Today the Earth’s 7.5 + billion people have destroyed the Earth’s delicate ecosystem by trying to feed, house, and satisfy unnecessary consumerism. Look around. We have dug massive holes for minerals, dumped the acidic wastes on the surface and burned the coal to change the climate. The need to move faster than walking and animals has given rise to oil production, which has magnified Earth’s destruction. (It did save whales from extinction.) The seas have given their all on feeding us. Stories of the amount of fish and shellfish in Chesapeake Bay indicate we have less than one five-hundredth left. Cod in the Newfoundland area was in the billions and now vast areas have few cod left.

Wasteful consumerism, especially for plastics, have made floating plastic islands, some the size of Texas¸ in our oceans.

What will the world be like when 2050 has over nine billion people and 2100 with twelve billion? Will we have figured a peaceful way to limit population, recycle over and over, reduce pollution, and survive the results of climate change we caused?

Gang Violence

02 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Uncategorized

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I don’t live in Chicago and can’t see why people would want to live in a shoulder-to-shoulder environment. I remember a study done in the 70s with rats. When the rat population reached a critical mass they started to kill each other, even though they were given enough food for all of them. That’s how I see the violence in Chicago. Granted it’s probably wrong but that’s how this small town rural living guy sees homes stacked like cordwood.

I think Chicago’s violence may be, in part, the jamming of people together. Other causes are economic; too many and easy access to guns, lack of stable home environment, and peer pressure. In order for a gang to function it must have a source of income. The easiest is drugs and guns. Once a gang gets control of a neighborhood, they must defend it from other gangs, hence gang wars and drive-by shootings. Getting a gun is easy because the people who buy them at gun shows in little or no regulation states. Many of these kids have little or no stability in their family life. Peer pressure and fear of harm can cause kids to join gangs.

When I chaired the No-tolerance Task Force in the mid-nineties gang experts told us a leading factor was lack of a strong sense of involvement with family and community. If a kid doesn’t have that feeling then gangs will provide it. Parents must do more to keep their kids out of gangs and away from gang members. They must push education to get them to succeed in life.

The great majority of those shot in the Chicago area are people in one gang shooting another gang’s member. Others were shot because they happened to be down range of a bullet by just living in the area. Police cannot do it by themselves. People need to work with the police instead of marching and protesting.

The Consumer Tax

02 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Economy, President Trump, Taxes

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The congressional budget office and independent economists have said the tax cut could add a trillion dollars to our already red ink ocean. Has the administration come up with a sneaky way to reduce the tax cut’s red ink? Yes, it’s called a tariff war! The administration says any tariff will be absorbed by the companies and little if any will be passed on to the consumer. We know the corporations received about 80% of the cuts and aren’t going to eat the tariffs. They will pass the tariffs taxes on to us.

So consumers, suck it up, and if you manage to keep your job, you will spend more to buy those consumer products you enjoy. The President said the stock market has gone up during his tenure so if it goes down because of tariff wars, it is okay.

Since he believes he is the Supreme Being then the usual words at a graveside service are appropriate. “Trump giveth and Trump taketh away.”

Dim Future For Businesses

02 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Small Towns

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When I first drove up Morris’s Liberty Street, it and Hornsby’s Store was the areas dominate shopping area. As the growth moved north, downtown shopping didn’t change much. Then Wal-Mart moved in taking out Alco, which had bought Hornsby’s. Wal-Mart stressed downtown stores causing some to fail as shoppers moved most of their purchasing to the new discount store. Wal-Mart kept its prices mid-range so downtown stores could continue with better quality or items not sold by Wal-Mart. It was a promotional ploy.

Now Amazon and other Internet stores are assaulting retail. Wal-Mart is trying to compete with reduced prices and special delivery. In the United Kingdom, over fourteen percent of retail is Internet. That is twice our country’s, which allows for downtowns like Morris to continue if not prosper. Small English towns like Morris are shuttering their windows because they can no longer compete with the Internet companies.

Internet purchasing is increasing every year. The question is at what point will those sales make Liberty Street, Division, and Bedford Road ghost towns. Medical vacations to foreign countries are increasing, too. Those are people going to foreign countries for cheaper operations and treatment. Many of the buildings on those streets are medical. Add in the service businesses being usurped by the Internet like insurance and banking. Fewer local people and buildings are needed.

The question is how long will commerce continue in Morris’ buildings. As long as people would rather shop from a chair, bank from a phone, and stream entertainment, the future is not promising for small towns like Morris, Minooka, Channahon or Coal City’s businesses.

NATO Is Critical

02 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Europe, Politics, War

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The President and many Americans would like for us to leave NATO because we don’t need to be involved with European defense. When Trump was asked if American boys should have to go fight in Montenegro, he said that is the problem with NATO rules. Article Three has only been invoked once and we did it after 9-11. It is why several NATO countries are still in Afghanistan.

We were isolationists before WWI and WWII. Since NATO, Europe has not had a war or much of a verbal disagreement. The Cold War was a uniting factor because Stalin had put his massive army in the Warsaw Pact countries. West Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, and Turkey could feel his hot breath on them. When the Warsaw Pact dissolved, those countries asked to be in NATO to prevent Russia from pulling them back into Russia’s fold.

Today’s Russia is using its military to start getting parts of the pact back. The first was to cut off part of Georgia and nobody came to their aid because they weren’t in NATO. Next he hid his marines in ships anchored in the leased harbor in the Crimea. One night they flooded out and took control of the Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. The next year Putin sponsored an insurrection in Western Ukraine, supplied arms and finally “volunteers” with high tech weapons. It was a Russian missile operated by “volunteers” that shot down a KLM Airliner. Western Ukraine – another country not in NATO.

The Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia asked and got NATO troops to be an additional tripwire because Putin is eyeing their countries now. We have at least a company in each country along with those from other NATO countries.

Putin wants those Warsaw Pact countries back even if he has to nibble of pieces of them year after year. NATO prevents Russia from doubling the size of the army and starting little wars, which could become big ones.