Hydrogen Power: The Ultimate Economic Solution

I'm still on semi-sabbatitcal from writing essays - trying to see if I have a book or two in me.  Nonetheless, every once in a while, I am overwhelmed with an urge to write about some issue.  This is one of those.   I believe it's time to revisit the issue of converting from oil to hydrogen fuel cells.  If any of you are interested in reading the essays I wrote on this issue in 2004, let me know - I'll post them all if there seems to be a demand. 

Joe

The Issue

            The United States is struggling with an epic economic crisis, due in great measure to our dependence on Middle-Eastern oil.  Like the rest of the western world, oil is the life blood of our economy.  Oil is also the life blood of terrorism, nearly all of which is perpetrated by radical Muslims who are sponsored by Middle-Eastern oil money.  We buy our oil from people who use the money we pay them to sponsor the terrorists that attack us; and, we are so dependent on the oil that we can’t stop buying it.  Economists agree that the loss of Middle-Eastern oil would almost certainly result in the economic collapse of the western world. 

            Washington may not publicly admit it, but one fundamental reason we are fighting wars in the Middle-East is to preclude the hijacking of that region’s oil reserves by radical Islamic fundamentalists.  These militant radicals believe they are on a mission from God to destroy America and the West, and their best strategy is to take over the entire Middle-East and hold the oil hostage.  Imagine all the Middle-Eastern oil controlled by Ahmadinejad and his cronies.  Nearly all of our national military, economic, and geo-political strategies include maintaining our supply of Middle-Eastern oil. 

            As this is written, much of the Middle-East is in turmoil from the so-called “Arab Spring” – more than a half dozen popular uprisings.  Those of us who love freedom see Islamic democracies emerging throughout the region, and it just might happen.  Amen.  But, the outcomes are far from certain - every one of those budding democracies will be butting heads with well organized and well armed Islamist fundamentalists. 

            So, will the Middle-East ultimately embrace democratic ideals, or are we doomed to perpetually funding both sides of an interminable war with extremist Islam?  Who knows?  This much is certain.  With the future of western civilization as we know it riding on the outcome, it behooves us to find a way out of this nightmare.

The Answer

            Fortunately, a much more predictable and stable option is at hand.  What if we didn’t need the Middle-Eastern oil?  What if we could reduce our dependence on oil to a tiny fraction of the present level, a fraction that we could easily supply from our own reserves?  This may sound like a pipe dream, but there is a clear, available, and practical option that will accomplish that very thing:  Hydrogen Fuel Cells!

            Currently, an enormous percentage of our energy is supplied by engines and generators that are powered by burning fossil fuels, primarily oil, gas and coal. Sometimes we burn them directly and more often they are first refined into gasoline, diesel, kerosene, etc.  Hydrogen fuel cells do not burn anything.  They are not engines that burn hydrogen – in fact, they are not engines at all.  Hydrogen fuel cells are batteries that produce electricity directly.  That electricity can power vehicles, heat and cool buildings, and power all your electrical appliances and lights.  Hydrogen fuel cell batteries work by combining hydrogen and oxygen, and the only byproducts are electricity and water.  Hydrogen is one of the two elements in water (H₂O), the most common material on earth, and oxygen is already free and available – it’s in the air that we breathe.

The electricity produced by hydrogen fuel cells can do almost everything that internal combustion engines, furnaces, air conditioning compressors, and other motors now do.  Hydrogen fuel cells could replace the engines in all modes of transportation except trains, ships, and airplanes, and we have plenty of our own oil resources to provide their fuel for hundreds of years. 

Are hydrogen fuel cells a pipe dream?  Absolutely not!  We already have the required technology.  We already know how to do it.  We can begin the switch from oil to hydrogen fuel cells right now.  The only thing lacking is an infrastructure to make, transport, and deliver the hydrogen.  That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is.  We need to replace our gasoline and oil infrastructure with an infrastructure capable of supplying hydrogen.  Fuel trucks, gas stations, pipelines, tanks, and all the other fuel-related stuff would have to be replaced because hydrogen is much more volatile than gasoline or oil. 

In 2004, I wrote a series of essays about converting our economy from oil to hydrogen.  My conclusion was that we could become completely independent of Middle-Eastern oil in 5 - 10 years (we might already be there if we had begun then).  But, I also concluded that the cost of converting to a hydrogen economy would be overwhelming.  I estimated that the cost would exceed $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars).  In 2004, that number seemed too big to even consider.  How does it seem now?  President Obama spent more than that on stimulus programs that didn’t seem to stimulate anything but the government.  If he had used that money to convert our fuel infrastructure to hydrogen, it would have created hundreds of thousands of jobs and automobile companies would already be cranking out hydrogen fuel cell powered cars.  Yes, the technology to build fuel cell cars is available right now.  The only reason they don’t build them is that there’s no way to get the hydrogen fuel. 

Ok, it’s all a little more complicated than that.  First of all, there’s the issue of getting the hydrogen out of the water.  Separating hydrogen from oxygen in water requires electricity – lots of it.  So, to get the hydrogen fuel, we will need to generate even more electricity than we currently do. Where do we get the electricity?  All the electricity we need can be provided by clean, safe, nuclear power, supplemented by alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric.  All of this technology exists this very minute.  We can do it, beginning right now, but the transition will be a monumental undertaking.  Ok, I know that nuclear power is scary – Chernobyl, the Japanese tsunami reactor, etc.  But, in spite of these tragedies, nuclear power remains the safest means of producing electricity.  20% of our electricity now comes from nuclear power.  We have the largest Navy in the world, nearly all of which is nuclear powered.  And, do you know how many Americans have been killed by all this nuclear power?  Exactly none!

And, what about Chernobyl and Japan?  Chernobyl was built and run by the Soviets – the only thing the Soviets didn’t manage to screw up was vodka, so you can forget them building and running safe nuclear power plants. The nuclear plants we build in America are completely different and safe.  The only serious mishap we have ever had was Three Mile Island, and do you know how many people were killed or injured in that incident?  Exactly none.  Our plants are so safe that even a major mishap harmed no one.  And Japan?  Well, I hope that disaster taught us not to build nuclear plants in a tsunami zone, and, if we must, at least put the cooling water pumps on the roof instead of the ground where the flood would render them useless.

Obviously, there are other issues.  The current political and regulatory roadblocks are a nightmare, and even if we manage to navigate the regulatory swamp, it will take 5 – 10 years to get all the hydrogen infrastructure and nuclear plants built.  15 years is probably a more reasonable estimate.  Meanwhile, as soon as OPEC figures out that we will soon become independent of their oil, they’ll likely try to sink our plans by threatening everything from raising the price of oil to cutting us off. 

So what do we do?  We begin by recognizing that some of the largest coal and natural gas reserves on earth are right here in America.  Furthermore, the northern Rocky Mountains and our offshore shelves hold huge stores of oil.  We have enough oil to easily last us 20+ years, gas to last 100 years, and coal to last hundreds of years more.  If we undertake a crash program of developing these resources as well as building new refineries, we could be independent of Middle Eastern oil in just a few years.  And, that would give us plenty of time to convert to hydrogen and nuclear power.

Beyond a doubt, there would be years of hardship while we undertake the conversions, but the end result would be an immeasurable gift to the future.

An America Without Oil

Think of the benefits of no longer being dependent on Middle Eastern oil.  Energy, the life blood of our economy would become plentiful.  Everything depends on energy, and stable sources of hydrogen and electrical energy would ensure a stable economy.

Furthermore, the environmental benefits are too wonderful to imagine.  The four greatest sources of man-made pollution are industry, sanitary waste disposal (sewage), solid waste disposal (garbage), and the extraction, refining, distribution, and burning of fossil fuels, especially for transportation and power generation.  We already know how to deal with the first three:  stack scrubbers and other pollution control measures have cleaned up 95% of industrial emissions; we have the technology to address sewage disposal (although funding remains a huge barrier for most State and local governments); and, the advent of modern composite and double liner systems in the past 25 years has reduced garbage-generated pollution to a tiny fraction of its former levels.  Therefore, if we could only stop fossil fuel related pollution, we would reduce man-made pollution to levels unseen since the advent of the industrial age.

And, imagine Radical Muslim terrorists going broke.  Without funding, Islamist terrorists would join the ranks of all the other wacko fringe groups, and they would soon fade into a dim memory.

In every way:  geo-politically, environmentally, and economically, the world would be such a better place if we were not dependent on oil.   Let’s begin the transition to hydrogen fuel cells, right now!

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

Do You Remember What Bush Said?

Last November I notified readers of this blog that, for the following reasons, I would not be posting for a while:  first, it seemed that I had nothing new to add - my thoughts concurred with those of many other commentators; and, secondly, I wanted to take some time to think about possibly writing a book or two.  Naturally, I noted that I might occasionally post if it seemed appropriate.  This is one of those times.


It seems the world has completely forgotten one of George Bush's primary motives for invading Iraq.  I confess that I stoutly opposed that intervention, and it does seem that the UN, European, Israeli, and US Intelligence Agencies were all wrong in their unanimous contention that Saddam had WMDs (or, even if they were all correct, the WMDs have not yet been found).   In any case, the WMD issue so enthralled the media and pundits around the world that we all seem to have forgotten that President Bush had another equally compelling motive for his invasion of Iraq.   He believed that the creation of a successful democracy in Iraq would model freedom and capitalism for all the other Muslim nations.  He believed that, given a foothold in Iraq, freedom would capture the hearts of the people and spread throughout the Middle East.  

I know that some of my far-left friends may not remember this goal of Bush's Iraq doctrine, but it is easy to verify:  he spoke about it publicly on more than 30 occasions in America, Europe, and the Middle East, including many televised interviews - just Google it.

Ok, I admit it's too soon to call Iraq a democracy, or anything else for certain, but everthing seems to be pointing in that direction (my heart will be forever touched by the photos and images of all those purple fingered voters).  I suspect that Iraqi freedom will not look like ours or Europe's, and that their democracy will have its own particular twist.  Nonetheless, life in Iraq is sure looking more like democracy than totalitarianism or theocracy.


And, here's the simple point of this short essay:  the people have revolted in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, and uprisings are popping up in several other Middle Eastern countries.  It's still way too early to tell which forms of government will emerge, but freedom is the rallying cry everywhere.  President Bush might just have been right.


But, fear not, you committed Bush haters.  Even if the Middle East does roll over to democracy, the world press and media will do their level best to convince us that it had nothing to do with President Bush - just like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union had nothing to do with President Reagan.

Veteran's Day

Many Vietnam veterans have mixed feelings about Veterans Day – you can count me as one of them. I was proud to serve in Vietnam, but it seemed that many of my countrymen at home hated me for it. I make no bones about my service in Vietnam. We fought in defense of freedom – freedom in Vietnam, in America, and everywhere people yearn to be free. Like all the veterans before and after us, we answered our country’s call, and, in Vietnam, we acquitted ourselves splendidly. We won every battle, and, by any military measure, we soundly defeated our enemy on the field of battle. (That’s why I went to war. I fought the war for much more personal reasons: my comrades in the air and on the ground.)

In any case, during the 1960’s and 70’s, hardly anyone was interested in our opinions about the war. The anti-war protestors held the stage and theirs was the predominant voice heard in America. The anti-war crowd portrayed America as an imperialistic oppressor of the Vietnamese people and American servicemen as lackeys blindly doing the will of a power hungry pentagon and greedy industrialists. And the anti-war crowd had plenty of support from Hollywood, television, magazines, newspapers, and the evening news, all reciting the same story: America had no right to intervene in Vietnam; America was responsible for the death of countless thousands of innocent Vietnamese people; the South Vietnamese hated us and wanted us to go back home; we were losing the war to a superior North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong; and, worst of all, American troops were dying in vain for a worthless cause. What a pile of BS - recalling that hogwash still makes me sick to my stomach. Hear this, America: the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong did not beat us – it was our own politicians, media, and anti-war protestors that lost the war. If you tell a lie loud enough and long enough, people will believe you, and America fell for the lie.

Consequently, when our troops came home, we were greeted with boos, catcalls, derision, and even people spitting on us. We were called baby killers, murderers, warmongers, cowards, and every other vile epithet the protestors could muster up. It broke our hearts, but it seemed there was little we could do to change the prevailing anti-war, anti-military sentiment in America. So, we swallowed our pride, packed away our uniforms, grew our hair out, went back to school, got jobs or started businesses, worked hard and supported our families. We went on to become an integral part of the most productive generation in American history. We helped to create more than 30 million new jobs, and we were part of the engine that powered one of the longest periods of economic growth in American history. When the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union fell apart, we were proud that America had won the Cold War. We veterans knew we had done our part – Vietnam was one of the hottest parts of the Cold War.

Nonetheless, we were mostly invisible, and remain so to this day. The press and the media continue to paint us with the same miserable brush. Vietnam veterans are portrayed as troubled, alcoholic, drug addicted, abusive, and violent - societal misfits. Even though that sad characterization applies to only a small percentage of us, it became and somehow remains the public face of Vietnam veterans everywhere.

If you have not served in the military, if you want to know the truth, if you want to know who we Vietnam veterans really are, ask us. We don’t talk about our wartime experiences very much except in the secure presence of each other, but we will respond if you ask. These days you will find many of us enjoying our grandchildren. If you ask us about our careers, you will find we served in government jobs, taught your children in school and Sunday School, built your roads, bridges, skyscrapers and homes, coached in community sports leagues, cut your hair, fixed your cars, treated your injuries and illnesses, flew your planes, and preached the sermons you came to hear on Sunday. We were trades and professional people, entrepreneurs, neighborhood business owners, cops and firemen, blue, pink and white collar workers, and on and on. Oh, and by the way, some of us achieved considerable success and hired many of you. In other words, we were and continue to be the normal productive Americans you see all around you every day.

Nonetheless, to this day, when someone first hears that I served in Vietnam, they commonly respond with pitying eyes, sorrowful looks, and a sympathetic,
“I’m sorry”.
You can imagine their reaction when I respond,
“Why are you sorry? I’m not. I’m proud of my service in Vietnam and my time in the Marine Corps. Those were my formative years and they changed me forever, all for the good.”
Believe it or not, those comments are usually well received, and they often lead to a productive discussion on the war in Vietnam, why we were there, what it meant, and the troops who fought there.

I have found that the best way for me to stand up for my fellow Vietnam veterans is to tell the Vietnam story from my perspective. When I do that, people usually listen and they are often surprised at what they hear. They tell me they never heard those things before. Often, they change some of their opinions about the war and the troops.

The first time I tried this approach was in 1972. I had been off active duty for a couple of years and I was back in school getting a degree in engineering. I was still young, only in my late 20’s, but I felt much older than most of the kids around me. One day Jane Fonda and her draft-dodging husband, Tom Hayden, came to the campus to speak at a big anti-war rally. I hung around in the back of the crowd to see if she was as bad as my friends had said (she was worse). After the rally broke up, I was walking back to the library when a young student, maybe 19 or 20 years old, confronted me. He got in my face and said,
“You’re a vet, aren’t you!”
I answered,
“Yes I am.”
Then he let me have it. He screamed,
“How could you do those awful things? How could you kill those babies and innocent women and children? How could you be part of that evil war? Why did you go? Why?
I should note that getting in a Marine’s face is usually not a wise move, and I did consider simply smacking his pimply nose; but, for some reason, I kind of felt bad for him. He was just a dumb kid who had been pumped up by the lies of a good looking, smooth talking movie star. So, I said,
“Do you really want to know why or do you just want to stand there and scream?”
Surprisingly, he paused, took a breath, and said,
“Ok, tell me.”
So, I told him.
“First of all, I was in Vietnam for over a year, and I didn’t do any of those awful things you said and I never saw anyone else do it. I joined the Marines and volunteered for Vietnam because I believe in freedom. I believe in it so much that I’m willing to die for someone else’s freedom. I went to Vietnam to free the Vietnamese people from totalitarianism. I went to fight for their right to be free. I went to defend freedom where it was most threatened - Vietnam. I went to defend the rights of free people everywhere. I went to fight for American freedom. I went to fight for your freedom. I went to fight for your right to stand there and insult me. That’s why I went. So, what do you have to say to that?”
His eyes got a little moist, and he said,
“Thanks.”

Government VII: Last Chance to Choose Freedom

Lots of polls indicate that America is a center-right country. Most of us don’t believe in socialism, we like democracy and capitalism, and we cherish our freedom. We love being free, and the free market, and we love America. We are proud of our country, we think of ourselves as patriotic, and we believe that America is exceptional: freedom’s greatest ally and the great hope of freedom loving people everywhere. We believe that families are the foundation of our society. We want freedom of religion not from religion. We like being self sufficient, and we have high hopes for our future and even higher ones for our children. We are generous, and we are more than willing to help those who cannot care for themselves, but we have little compassion for those who will not care for themselves. We want the government to protect us from enemies outside our borders and criminals inside our borders, but not from ourselves. Unless we become disabled, we don’t want the government or anyone else to take care of us – this especially includes economists, academics, intellectuals, the media, movie stars, politicians, progressives, and others of supposedly superior intellect and understanding who offer themselves as our leaders and caretakers.

So how does a country like us keep moving to the left, toward socialism? Many pundits say we are already a “socialist democracy”. How did that happen?

Actually, freedom, the genius of our system, has been its own downfall. Here is the litany of American freedom. America is great because it is free. Because America is free, opportunity is everywhere and individual strengths such as courage, drive, determination, pride, and a strong work ethic became the greatest determinants of financial and personal success. Because Americans valued individual strengths, Americans and American immigrants strove to develop those traits in themselves and their children; and, America became the most successful and productive country in the world. Because America was so successful, it became a safe, comfortable, and easy place to live. Because America was such an easy place to live, Americans became complacent, placed less value on individual strengths, and relied increasingly on government. Because America was complacent, individual strengths were gradually replaced with values such as self gratification, comfort, leisure activities, and dependency – a setup for ambitious politicians who promised entitlements and an easier life, all provided by a beneficent government that would take care of you. Entitlements, easier life, dependency on a strong central government - read socialism. Earlier Americans would have rebelled at the very thought of government or anyone else taking care of them. Their entire life’s work was dedicated to being able to care for themselves and their families. Many of us still feel the same way.

And it all began with freedom, our greatest value, our greatest gift, our genius. But, like so many precious things, freedom is fragile. It must be cherished, nurtured and carefully protected lest it become lost, deteriorated, or even destroyed. Freedom is the source of our strength and success, but we have lost touch with it. We have chosen comfort over freedom. We have succumbed to the temptations of an easier life of ever-increasing government benefits, purchased at the cost of our individual freedom.

This was not a revolutionary process. It evolved slowly at first and took root with the early 20th century progressives, followed by Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society, and kicked into high gear with the Obama Administration and Democrat control of both houses of congress.

Let’s get specific. In a democracy, government requires the support and consent of the governed, the productive class. We, the productive class, rarely agree to pay for government expansion without the expectation that it will provide benefits of at least comparable worth. So, progressive politicians have slowly traded benefits for our votes and some of our freedom. Initially, these benefits were practical in nature, but, once the basics were secured, the only benefits left to offer involved comfort, ease of life, and entitlements intended to “take care” of us. Because all new benefits and entitlements require more bureaucrats to process and manage them, the government continues to grow and expand. The costs associated with continually growing the government and providing increasing benefits and entitlements have now dwarfed the revenues that the government collects from taxes, so the government now has to borrow nearly as much money as it collects. Any country, business, family or individual that spends twice as much as it makes is sure to go broke. President Obama tripled the federal deficit his first year in office. The government has borrowed so much money that symptoms of a failed economy are everywhere – devaluation of currency, long term recession, failures of some economic sectors, etc. Worst of all, we have saddled our grandchildren with a huge bill. This is the first time in American history that we have asked a younger generation to sacrifice their own quality of life in order to pay for the comfort and benefits of a preceding generation. The American ideal has always been to pass on increasing opportunity and a better, stronger country. We are passing on a weaker country, a government that punishes success, a huge debt and a stifled economy. We ought to be ashamed, and our grandchildren will tell us so.

As a consequence, folks from all walks of life and political persuasions are questioning the wisdom of a big and growing government accumulating all this debt and insinuating itself into private businesses and our private lives. Washington’s only answer is that everything will get better if we only allow the government to grow even more, gain more power, and borrow more money (in total violation of the first law of holes: when you find yourself in one, stop digging). Nonetheless, in order to quell the growing public distrust, and to stay in power, rest assured that progressive politicians will continue to offer even more benefits (entitlements) and to tax “only the rich” in exchange for our votes and a little more of our freedom.

Right now we are at a critical junction. We, the productive class, must utilize our shrinking majority to stop the government growth before we forfeit too much. If the productive class fails to act in time, we will lose our majority status and any chance of reversing the course. The government will then be in complete control and will no longer need the consent of the governed – pure socialism. We will no longer be citizens – we will be subjects.

Think I’m crying wolf? Check out our economy right now: high unemployment, a stagnant stock market, housing market stuck in low gear, falling dollar values, deflation with a constant threat of inflation, small business choked by a regulatory nightmare, entire economic sectors bailed out or taken over by the federal government, tsunamis of government “stimulus” money that fails to stimulate, heath care (17% of the economy) overhauled in favor of the government, looming cap and trade legislation that will skyrocket all our energy costs, etc., etc., all capped by a staggering national debt – I’d say our economy is teetering on the edge of a chasm.

We are certainly at a crossroads where we must decide whether to abandon the free market and become socialists or to stop and reverse the unsustainable growth of government. Will we find the courage to fight for our core principles of democracy, capitalism, and freedom or will we just become lackadaisical euro-socialists? It may already be too late.

Government VI: Moral Standards

All societies need a moral foundation, and that is especially true of democracies because they are free. Freedom is a two-edged sword - it comes with great benefits and great temptations. Because we are free to succumb to our lesser angels, most of us need to be reminded and even exhorted to respond instead to our higher angels. Leaving aside the question of moral absolutes, each of us must be guided by some moral standards less we become anarchists. Like everyone else, I live by many standards. Here are some that I believe are among the most important:

• to provide for and protect our families;
• to care for those who cannot care for themselves;
• to protect our environment and use our resources wisely; and,
• to respect the rights of others.

I suspect that most readers will agree that all four of these are a good idea. But I see them as much more than a good idea. I see them as my personal responsibility. I believe I have an obligation, a bounden duty to live by these values; but, I sometimes lack the discipline to do so, and I need my family and my church to guide and remind me – to be my outer vocal conscience when my inner conscience succumbs to temptation. Many of my progressive friends also feel a bounden duty to live by these or other similar standards, but, rather than see them as moral standards, they believe the government should enact them into laws to ensure that everyone lives by them. Whether standards or laws, the issue is not whether morality is important – it clearly is. Rather, the issue is who establishes our morals: the government, or families and churches (temples, mosques, ashrams ... whatever).

So, should morality be legislated? Some legislation does have a moral foundation. For example, laws that redistribute wealth or limit the right to bear arms or require affirmative action are all intended to right perceived moral wrongs. In all three cases, some folks are in favor and some are opposed to the laws. Here’s the problem: many or even most people may disagree with any given moral stance, but once it is pressed into law, all are bound by its tenets. When the government is in charge of morality, everyone has to toe the line, whether they agree or not, and those who do not agree or comply are judged to be evil or corrupt or unethical, if not criminal. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want some professional politician or bureaucrat lecturing me about right and wrong, or censoring my speech, or dictating what food I eat, or deciding whether I should or can have a colonoscopy.

Absent government control, people are free to establish and live by their own standards, which will no doubt differ from those of many others. I am free to eat cheeseburgers even though they are bad for my health, and I am free not to get a colonoscopy even though my doctor thinks I should. Many people will disagree with my choices, but they cannot force me to cater to their judgment about what is the right thing to do. We must learn to get along in spite of our disagreements, remembering Oliver Wendell Holmes’ caution that “the right to swing my fist ends at where the other man’s nose begins”. If my choices, e.g., vulgar tatoos or failure to bathe, are repugnant to others, they are free not to hire or even associate with me. My repugnant choice may condemn me to live apart from others – my choice. Freedom is complicated and unruly, but it is far superior to government interference in our daily lives. I would much prefer to deal with an uncouth or nasty neighbor than a bureaucrat enforcing political correctness. We do not need the government to specify right and wrong.

Traditionally, American children have learned about right and wrong from their parents and their church. This seemed to work well enough for a long time, but America is becoming increasingly secular and the nuclear family is no longer the gold standard. Nowadays, many people rely more and more on laws, regulations, schools and the government to establish, teach, and administer moral codes. As people become increasingly reliant on the government to be their conscience, they become less generous with their time and money, and less participatory in their family and church lives. It’s just plain easier to let the government handle it - you don’t have to get personally involved. The rationalizations are endless: it’s the government’s job to care for the poor; I pay taxes so I don’t have to be personally concerned; belonging to a church ties up Sunday mornings and interferes with other discretionary time; everyone in the family is on a different schedule, so sit-down family dinners and discussions are just not practical; it’s the school’s job to discipline the kids; religion is for the ignorant; I live a modern lifestyle; I’m not stuck in the past; marriage is just a piece of paper; I’m just too busy.

So, how’s it working? As the influences of parents and churches have waned, gangs, violent videos, vile music lyrics, teen-age pregnancy, and poverty stricken single mothers are all on the rise. Cheating in school, in business, and in marriage, are an acceptable nuisance - troublesome, but tolerable as long as they don’t “get out of hand”. Lies and dishonesty are tolerated and even expected from our politicians and our government officials. A sense of entitlement pervades, and any sense of accomplishment is watered down in the name of “self-esteem” or “diversity”. Pride, personal integrity, loyalty, honesty, politeness, manners and decency, are often regarded as naive or even pretentious. Need I go on? Isn’t it time to return to our time-honored reliance on families and churches to establish and bear our moral standards?

We need family and religion. As everyone knows, both can be messy, sometimes unfair, and occasionally a huge pain in the ass; but, family and religion have traditionally provided an excellent foundation and purpose for our moral and ethical being. Families and religion are often problematical, but they are also the source of much of the sweetness in life. They bring us delight, they cause our spirits to soar, and they bless us with profound joy and love. I don’t know exactly how family and religion fit into economic theory and a free market economy, but they damned sure make us nicer people and the free market a nicer place.

Government V: Education

Like most folks, I believe that parents are ultimately responsible for the basic (K–12) education of their children. Whether parents choose to educate their own children or send them to public or private school, it is they who are responsible for ensuring their children receive a good education. Even though I recognize that many parents do not live up to that obligation, I remain confident that most parents want the best for their children and care very much about their education.

Parents naturally trust our public schools to deliver a good education, but American public schools are now subject to so much pressure from government agencies, teacher unions, and the education industry (ranging from colleges of education to textbook manufacturers) that parents no longer have much influence on school policies or programs. Government regulation and a pervasive liberal agenda in the education industry have displaced parental judgment on virtually all school matters, including which courses are taught, textbooks, and even value judgments on controversial issues. American parents have slowly but inexorably lost control. Instead of public schools being responsible to the parents, the schools have taken charge, and it is government employees and elected officials, not the parents, who are empowered to make the critical educational decisions.

Nearly 90% of American kids attend government controlled public schools, some of which are public charter or specialty (math, science, music, etc.) schools. The remaining 10% of children are home schooled or attend church or private schools. Home education has always worked reasonably well for those families with the means to hire tutors or a parent who is willing and able to teach, but this option is either out of reach or too overwhelming for most parents. For the most part, church schools provide a fine education, and non-church private schools almost always deliver a good, if not superior, education. Allowing that charter and specialty public schools generally provide a better education than the traditional public school down the street, I conclude that neighborhood public schools are at the bottom of the quality of education scale. With some notable exceptions, they are the least effective at accomplishing the primary goal of all schools – educating kids.

Many intervening forces plague our public schools: a regulated, legally established government controlled monopoly on education; school districts and administrative hierarchies that choke on their own bureaucracies; colleges of education which produce teachers who are committed to a progressive agenda and revisionist curricula; and, teachers unions that are focused more on themselves than the students. The result: our children are being educated by a public school monopoly that is failing to provide even minimally adequate, much less good education. Public schools are not preparing our children to compete in either the local or the global markets. Businesses continually complain that young people entering the work force have poor reading, writing, and mathematical skills. A recent widely publicized report on education concluded that American students rank 25th when compared to kids from other countries, even though American spending per student was the highest in the world. Ugh.

So, nearly everyone agrees that our immediate goal must be to improve education in America, but, what do we mean by a good education? Certainly, education should be open and available to all, providing every student with the same opportunity to excel and succeed. Most of us would agree that a good education must provide competency in core subjects like math, science, reading, writing, history, geography, and citizenship. (Some might argue about the last one, but this is my essay.) A good education should also offer an opportunity for students to explore their own interests and to honestly discuss opposing views on societal issues (without being coerced by their teachers); but make no mistake, education is first and foremost about the core subjects. All other goals, however important, are secondary. In the end, the overriding goal of education is to prepare students to provide for themselves and their families in an increasingly competitive world.

Let’s look at the big picture. The fundamental notion underlying education in America is that all students are equal. How silly. Certainly all students are equally valuable, but they are definitely not equal. Their abilities and interests vary immensely. The problems faced by the top 10% of each class are totally different from those of their peers in the bottom 10%. All the kids have problems and issues, but it is the lowest performing students that capture our attention. For example, consider “No Child Left Behind”. The name itself implies that we will concentrate on keeping even the lowest performing students in school, and nearly everyone seems to concur that this is an admirable goal. Admirable perhaps, but, should it be the primary goal of American education? How about broadening the emphasis to include all the students? How about, “No Child’s Potential Left Behind”? This would suggest that we should educate every child to the best of their individual abilities. It would suggest that top performing students are as important as their less gifted or less motivated classmates (oh, my ...). Of course we need to keep low performing students in school – the alternative is to condemn them to scratching for a living, or even gang life. That having been said, it is equally important to support and celebrate the top performers – our country and our future are in their hands.

Private schools do not ignore the top performers. We often hear that private schools offer the best educations, but they are too expensive for most of us ... or are they? We cannot know how expensive private schools really are because we have never allowed them to compete on the open market. Recent studies have shown that, in open competition, many private schools would be cost competitive with public schools. This is not too surprising considering that inflation adjusted spending for public school students has increased more than 300% in the past 40 years. Think about it. How can anyone reasonably justify a nearly quadruple increase in per student spending while student performance has remained flat or decreased? Any way you look at it, and regardless of the money spent, most public schools are doing a poor job of educating our kids.

Isn’t the answer obvious? If public education isn’t working, then eliminate the government monopoly. Open education up to competition in the free market. Allow public and private schools to compete for tax dollars. To do this, we must remove control of the money from the government and empower those who are responsible for the children – the parents. Instead of giving public schools tax dollars for each student, give the parents an equivalent amount in school vouchers and allow them to spend the vouchers at the public or private school of their choice. In order to be eligible for vouchers, schools would not be allowed to discriminate by race, ethnicity, etc., or to limit enrollment for any reason other than capacity, but they could advance students on different or even individual competitive tracks, based on student performance. Note that I suggest vouchers, not cash, be given to the parents. The vouchers could only be cashed by schools, thus ensuring that the money is spent on schooling. No doubt, some private schools would continue to charge more, some less, than the voucher amount, and parents would be free to pay the extra amount themselves or choose the less expensive school. All schools, public and private, would then be eligible to compete for the tax money. Top performing kids from even the poorest families would have an opportunity to attend the best schools, public or private.

Teachers unions, government bureaucrats, and their progressive friends often become apoplectic at the very suggestion of competitive education. Sadly, their opposing arguments are often more concerned with teacher benefits and teacher issues than with the quality of students’ educations. Their ongoing mantra is that they need more money, even though the last 40 years have clearly demonstrated that more money is not the answer. Even when they do set teacher issues aside and address educational quality, their arguments are related to equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. They prefer to teach all children the same, regardless of gender, drive, intellectual capacity, academic interest, or ability. Hogwash. This is classic dumbing-down.

Another commonly heard progressive argument against educational competition is that all the best students will leave and the public schools will be left with only the most difficult students. What a silly argument. If it is true that the best students will leave, it must be because they are leaving for better schools, including, by the way, some public schools. Yes, there are some public schools that will immediately attract the best students, because they are good schools. Obviously, it can and is being done, so why aren’t all the public schools providing a good education? Could it be because, absent competition, public schools have no incentive to change or adapt or improve? Competition works, and some healthy competition would force the rest of the public schools to adapt and become good schools themselves, to close their doors, or to change their educational emphasis.

Here’s a thought. How about a renewed interest in vocational education? At the risk of committing a huge politically incorrect faux pas, not every kid is college material. Many kids despise classroom academics, but are intrigued by mechanics, electronics, computers, construction, and other trades, and there happens to be an increasing dearth of young Americans who are qualified in the skilled trades. How often do we waste tens of thousands of dollars trying to cram a college education into a kid who hates school, will very probably never graduate from college, and, even if he/she does, it will be with a degree of doubtful value that is unlikely to ever generate enough income to pay back their student loans? Instead, why not convert some of our schools into work-study Vo-Tech schools that will graduate valuable, income producing, skilled trades-persons? They will become productive and enter the workforce at an earlier age, with the potential for a good income, and with no student loan debt hanging over their heads.

As long as our public schools remain a monopoly, and, as long as our teachers are protected by union contracts and tenure, neither the schools nor the teachers have any incentive to improve or even change. It is time to concentrate on every student’s potential, and to match their education to their abilities. It is time to provide access to good academic schools for students with academic potential, vocational training for those who dislike academics, and everything in between. It is past time to:

o institute a voucher system that will allow all schools, public and private, to compete,
o make each school an “open shop” where the teachers have an option whether or not to join the union,
o abolish tenure,
o provide nation-wide access to vocational training, and
o adjust each public school’s educational emphasis to the local demographics.

Call it what you will – our public schools are controlled by a government monopoly that is steeped in a liberal agenda. The result has been a system of “educational socialism” that is failing miserably.

I believe most Americans, given the choice, would chose the free market, thank you, and our children and our country would be so much better for the experience.

Government IV: Free Market Economics

I’ve been reading about economics. My original goal was to be able to discuss economics intelligently, but I am failing miserably and I remain confused. I’m pretty sure I understand the meaning of most of the words, but the econo-speak is apparently a dialect that is beyond my comprehension. I think reading economics is like going to an all-night root canal.

Despite my confusion, I have learned a few things. First and foremost, my lifelong faith in capitalism appears to have been well founded. Milton Friedman (he is definitely my favorite economist) sees a free market as the foundation of capitalism and democracy. Even I get the free market thing.

Here’s how it works: I go to the hardware store and I give the clerk money in exchange for a new drill. The hardware store and I both get what we want. I get the drill and they get the money, and we are both satisfied with the deal. If I think the hardware store is charging too much for the drill, I am free to look for a better deal at countless other hardware stores, which doesn’t bother any of the hardware stores, because there are countless other customers who are also looking for a drill. There are only a few requirements for this free market trade to work. First, both me and the store must be free to do or refuse the deal – no one is coercing either of us – and both of us must have other options, i.e., there are other stores and other customers. Oh, yeah, and we need the government to furnish pieces of paper (money) which we all agree to treat as “legal tender”. That’s it. Except for the money, government is out of the picture.

That’s how the free market is supposed to work, in theory - the government has no power to control any part of the deal. Reality, however, turns out to be much more complicated. The free market is really a simple system, but it has been all bollixed up, mostly by the government. In what I choose to believe is an honest effort to “protect” us, the government has inserted the most complex set of regulations imaginable. Just to name a few: OSHA regulations to protect workers; EPA regulations to protect us and the environment; health, liability, and other insurance requirements to protect us from insurance companies; EEO and other labor regulations to protect us from employers; FDA regulations to protect us from nature and mistakes; dozens of licenses and permits to protect us from each other when we seek to construct, open, and operate businesses; and, of course, unemployment, worker’s comp, payroll, income, sales, telephone, excise, electrical, capital gains, real estate, gasoline, and who knows what other taxes to pay for all the government protection. Every one of these regulations is coercive of either me or the store. Individually, none of them may seem too big a problem, but taken together they overwhelm that first principle of free trade – that neither party is coerced.

A retail business falls under the purview of hundreds, if not thousands, of regulations, all of which are coercive to some degree. By the way, most of those regulations also involve fees or costs which are passed on to the customer. Absent the government, that drill would have cost me a lot less than $260. Oh, yeah, add union contracts and negotiations, consumer safety investigations, the ACLU, class-action trial lawyers, and judges who continually bend and distort the Constitution, and I should be grateful the drill didn’t cost $500!

We didn’t always have all those regulations. However well-intentioned, many regulations are based on the outrageous assumption that Americans are too dumb or lazy to take care of themselves. The purveyors of the regulations never acknowledge this assumption, of course. They may not even be aware of it, but it underlies most of the government’s efforts to “protect us”. In fact, free market forces (if you sell a lousy product, people will stop buying it) and/or individual judgment, provide adequate protection. Nowadays, every time someone gets hurt or buys a defective product we pass a new regulation to “protect” everyone else. The government never considers the negative regulatory impacts: increased taxes, increased costs of products and services, government control of our lives, loss of individual choice, loss of freedom, and God only knows what else. Government can’t seem to resist imposing a 100% solution to every little 10% problem. No doubt some of us are dumb and lazy, but most of us get up every morning and go to work, out of which emerges the strongest and most productive economy on earth. Believe it or not, my progressive friends, we really can take care of ourselves.

Americans thrive in the free market. It is government control that stifles our economy. Even though it is impeded and endangered by increasing government intervention, our free market is still hanging on. Whether we call it capitalism, private enterprise, the free market, or we don’t have a clue what it is called, most of us love it.

But, as the old saying goes, “freedom is not free”. There is no guarantee that our market will remain free. There are many among us who would sacrifice our free market in the name of “fairness” or “equality”. Our Constitution guarantees equality, but it is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. It does not entitle us to anything - it sets us free to achieve in accordance with our innate talents and willingness to work hard. Our Declaration of Independence proclaims that life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are rights given to us by God, not the government. Our Constitution specifically limits the powers of the government and places the power in the hands of the governed – us. It protects us from interference by too much government. In many other countries, the government is in control and it is the power of the people that is limited. And here’s the really scary part: every new government regulation takes a little more power away from the people and increases the power of the government. With every new regulation, we get less freedom and more government.

By their very nature, all governments are inclined to grow. Not all of them are threatening or dangerous, but they all have the potential to become so. Nonetheless, we can’t do away with government. Some small, limited government is necessary and beneficial. We need some government to do those things that are impractical for free enterprise and individuals to do, and to protect us from those who would force us to do things we don’t want to do; but, the government should not protect us from ourselves and it definitely should not interfere with the free market. Above all, remember that only we, the people, can prevent limited government from growing into big government and taking over.

Furthermore, it must be the right type of government. The free market only works in a democracy wherein the power of the government is subject to the will of the governed. The people must ensure that the government remains limited and small, less it gain so much power that it is no longer subject to our control. At this very moment, our government has grown so much that it is poised to wrest control away from us. Our Constitution limits the size and power of our government, but the Constitution has been thwarted by guess who – the government and its progressive friends.

My little study of economics has taught me that the free market (capitalism) is messy and often unfair, but it is free, and it works better than any other economic system ever conceived. No one forces you to buy or sell anything. The free market encourages personal responsibility, achievement in accordance with our own talents and willingness to work hard, and cooperation with others – sounds great to me.