‘Creating jobs’ explained

Creating ‘union government jobs’ isn’t what we had in mind

Maybe this explains why wages for federal employees have risen so fast: for the first time, the majority of union members work for local, state, or federal government.

This is not good. Unions act as clearing houses for political contributions to Democrats, and together they make deals to grow government. Now that most union members are now government workers, this is a huge conflict of interest.

So now we have a perfect storm: unionized government bureaucrats, whose salaries come from our tax dollars, and whose compulsory union dues are funneled (sometimes against their wishes) to Democrats for the purpose of growing a government that is already too big, too expensive, and a drag on the economy.

More, from the above:

Last month when the White House released its visitor log for the first six months of the Obama presidency, one name appeared far more often than any other: Service Employee International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern. Stern has every right to expect to be welcome in the Obama White House. He has repeatedly bragged about the fact that under his leadership, the SEIU spent $60.7 million to elect Barack Obama president. And what is Stern buying with his $60.7 million besides White House tours? Ever expanding federal government programs and state government bailouts which are rapidly bankrupting our country.

There was a time when unions protected working people from harsh, inhumane conditions. But do today’s government workers, who mostly sit in cubicles in temperature-controlled offices, need to be unionized? To protect them from what? Lower (and more realistic) wages?

Again, from the above:

Union membership has fallen to 7.3% of private sector workers – the lowest rate since Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. But it is a completely different story in the public sector: 37.6% of government employees belong to unions, up almost a percentage point since last year. Those 7.9 million unionized government employees are 51% of all union members nationwide.

So when we hear Obama continually talking about “creating jobs”, we have to remember: he must mean creating government jobs. Because that’s the only kind his kind of economic policies can create.

Kiss still draws capacity crowds in large arenas. Sure, they’re all AARP members, but still.

Back in the fall of 1975, when the monster album “Kiss Alive” was released, I remember buying it at Korvette’s for $5.99.

In fact, that might have been my first “hard rock” album. I was a junior in high school, and was just starting to get into Led Zeppelin, Kansas, The Who, all that, and Kiss was in the mix too.

Kiss, of course, was outrageous. They wore ridiculous makeup and costumes, and bass player Gene Simmons used to spit fake blood and do crazy things with his huge lizard tongue. To me, that whole thing seemed a tiny bit campy and silly, but they quickly developed a reputation as a great live act, and sold out shows accordingly. For me, it was more about (some of) the music. “Rock and Roll All Nite” was a decent party anthem, and I liked a few other songs, especially “Room Service” from the Dressed to Kill album.

But, seriously, if somebody had told me back then that 34 years later, Kiss would still be spitting blood, wearing ridiculous makeup, and selling out large arenas for live shows, I would never have believed it. Outrageous is strictly for the under-30 set, right?

Well, believe it, bucko.

The crowd at the United Center was a bunch of old guys and gals, some even dressed up like their favorite Kiss band member.

Yow! The mind reels.

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, the founders of the group, must be doing pretty well for themselves: for just another $30 last Friday night at the UC, you could get a “USB leather wristband containing digital files of the night’s performance”.

Do the math on that profit margin, and multiply it by all that other crap you can buy at concerts. Think about all the other old fogeys doing concerts today, and how much cash is made from all that crap people buy at the shows. Say, how’s that career choice looking now?

My Kiss fascination ended pretty quickly. Within 4-5 years I wasn’t even listening to much hard rock any more. Maybe their wimpy ballad “Beth”, from their next studio record, had something to do with that. That song, in fact, might have started a huge 1980s trend: power ballads from hard rock bands. Gosh, thanks for that, guys! Really, that’s just awesome. Thanks again.

For completists only, I imagine: a 1994 tribute record called Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved, featuring Stevie Wonder, Garth Brooks, Lenny Kravitz, among others.

 

“Notes left behind”

Wow.

Notes left behind: Six-year-old cancer victim Elena Desserich’s heartbreaking messages of love to her family

These are the heartbreaking notes a six-year-old cancer victim hid for her family to find after she died.

Elena Desserich was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer when she was just five years old.

During her nine-month struggle with the illness, Elena, from Wyoming, hid hundreds of notes between the pages of books, in cupboards, drawers, bags, and clothes stashed away for the winter.

What a sweet little angel. They’re still finding the notes, more than two years later, and have written a book about it called “Notes Left Behind” as a tribute to Elena and to help little sister Gracie remember her.

“Gracie” … a nickname for “Grace”. Sounds like there is a lot of Grace in the Desserich family.

While the Desserichs were forming their own tribute, Elena was secretly writing notes and tucking them away in nooks and crannies in her house and the houses of relatives.

‘She was a child who was wise beyond her years,’ said Mr Desserich. ‘I hate to think she knew she was dying but I think she did.’

‘I think the notes were her way of telling us that everything would be OK,’ added Mrs Desserich.  ‘It feels like a hug from her every time we find one.’

[...]

‘We don’t ever want to find the last note,’ said Mr Desserich. ‘I hope we keep on finding them for years to come.’

In fact, both parents have saved one unopened note from Elena which they carry with them in their briefcases.

‘It’s our way of saving the last note,’ said Mrs Desserich.

Our sincere condolences to them on their loss.

Please go read the whole thing.

 

Bears offensive line so bad it screws up the entire offense?

Brad Biggs gives his usual 10Thoughts about Sunday’s Bears game, a dreary 30-6 drubbing of the ridiculous Cleveland Browns.

I have a theory: the Bears’ O-line is so awful that it is screwing up the entire offense.

They can’t run the ball, because the line can’t open any holes. When you can’t run the ball, the defense tees off on pass plays. And since their pass blocking isn’t that great either, this means that on every offensive snap, basically, they are operating at a big disadvantage.

Stated another way, if they had the O-line of the Colts, or the Broncos, or the Patriots, how many of their current issues just go away? A lot, I’ll bet.

I was not convinced when Jerry Angelo said after last season that the QB was the biggest issue to be solved. It seems like I was right, and Angelo was wrong:

Just sticking to offense, and in approximately the order I’d fix them:

• old, slow, offensive line,
• bad, small receivers,
• no discernible fullback,
• a general lack of depth across all positions,
• mediocre position coaches,
• unproven quarterback who has never been given a real chance with a real offense.

Does bringing Tom Brady, or Drew Brees, or whoever else you like, fix all that, too?

Cutler, Brady, Brees, same difference.

Note that Kyle Orton seems to be doing just fine in Denver, with that great offensive line, big physical receivers, and good coaching.

Feel free, then, to draw important conclusions about the people running the Chicago Bears, both on the field, and off.

I know I have.

You can’t really call it “education” if you aren’t teaching enough facts

E. D. Hirsch, who wrote the bestselling book “Cultural Literacy” in the 1980s, seems to have been validated by education reform in Massachusetts over the last 15 years.

His belief—which I completely agree with—is that background facts are an important piece of the educational puzzle, especially as opposed to the popular practice of teaching reading and writing as skills, completely disconnected from the world around us, and from our history.

His Core Knowledge curriculum, for example, specifies:

… in English language arts, all second-graders read poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, and Gwendolyn Brooks, as well as stories by Rudyard Kipling, E. B. White, and Hans Christian Andersen. In history and geography, the children study the world’s great rivers, ancient Rome, and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, among other subjects.

Today’s high school and college students have great difficulty writing effectively, and comprehending what they read (ask any college or high school teacher). I’ll join Mr. Hirsch in blaming that on the fateful decision to abandon in the early school years both the emphasis on facts, and on reading great literature about real people and places from history.

Context matters. History matters. Knowing what came before us matters. And it all matters in very real ways, not just in being good at Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit.

Hirsch on educating the poor:

“Cultural literacy constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children,” Hirsch writes, and “the only reliable way of combating the social determinism that now condemns them to remain in the same social and educational condition as their parents. That children from poor and illiterate homes tend to remain poor and illiterate is an unacceptable failure of our schools, one which has occurred not because our teachers are inept but chiefly because they are compelled to teach a fragmented curriculum based on faulty educational theories.”

He’s right, and we know he’s right because we used to educate our children with more practical knowledge, as he advocates, and we didn’t have poor performance in our students that we see today.

But even though his system works, and he can prove it, Education schools have worked hard to discredit him. Hmmm. Whose interests are being served there?

Education schools have been experimenting on our children for decades, and it is not working.

More powerfully than any previous critic, Hirsch showed how destructive these instructional approaches were. The idea that schools could starve children of factual knowledge, yet somehow encourage them to be “critical thinkers” and teach them to “learn how to learn,” defied common sense. But Hirsch also summoned irrefutable evidence from the hard sciences to eviscerate progressive-ed doctrines. Hirsch had spent the better part of the decade since Cultural Literacy mastering the findings of neurobiology, cognitive psychology, and psycholinguistics on which teaching methods best promote student learning. The scientific consensus showed that schools could not raise student achievement by letting students construct their own knowledge. The pedagogy that mainstream scientific research supported, Hirsch showed, was direct instruction by knowledgeable teachers who knew how to transmit their knowledge to students—the very opposite of what the progressives promoted.

Please read the whole thing. I’ve just barely scratched the surface here.

Frankly, it comes down to a debate between what the Founding Fathers wanted, and what today’s Ed schools want. Do we really have to ponder that question for long? I know I don’t.

The future of our children depends, at least in part, on our understanding of (1) why we are failing to educate our children adequately, and (2) how to address it. E.D. Hirsch seems to have a pretty good handle on it. Will he continue to be largely ignored?

Bill Ayers has more legitimacy in Ed schools than a genuine educator like E.D. Hirsch. This tells us a lot. And frankly, it makes me ill.

The only government intervention that will drive the economy is “getting the hell out of the way”

I think I just found a new blog to love. It’s called Mean Street, at wsj.com, by a man named Evan Newmark. Here’s why.

He says we should be very careful about buying into this “the recession is over” stuff in A Sham GDP for a Sham Economy. Our GDP “growth” announced today is from government spending, much of it from cash for clunkers. This is just kicking the can down the road in the form of borrowing against the future. Remember how auto sales tanked horribly in September, after the program ended? That is not, by anybody’s definition, an “economic recovery”.

But even better, this post is a must-read: It’s Official — Obamanomics Isn’t Working.

You likely missed it. But Thursday’s Congressional testimony from Obama Council of Economic Adviser Chief, Christina Romer was the big story. She officially admitted what many of us already knew: Obamanomics isn’t working.

The $787 billion Obama stimulus package that was supposed to keep U.S. unemployment at under 8% will not only fail to keep it under 10%. But by mid-2010 “fiscal stimulus will be contributing little to further growth.”

As for President Obama’s big promise last January to create 3.5 or 4 million new American jobs. Forget it. “Unemployment is unlikely to end 2010 much below its current levels.”

Romer’s admission was startling. You’ll recall that it was her January 10th paper that outlined what a mighty job machine the Obama presidency would be. Every 1% boost in GDP would get a million new jobs.

Now here we are running stimulus-heavy budget deficits that will total almost $3 trillion over this year and next. GDP is on the rise again. And still, no new jobs.

What’s even more depressing, is that the Obama White House still hasn’t figured out why businesses aren’t hiring.

The White House seems pretty certain about how American businesses should behave. And it seems pretty certain that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, insurance companies and banks aren’t doing what they should be doing.

But all that joblessness? Who knows? Not Romer. It’s all a macroeconomic mystery of time-lags and GDP multipliers. In her testimony, she offers up seven different guesstimates on jobs created by the stimulus.

Does it ever occur to the White House to see the economy as businessmen do? Does it ever occur to the White House that America’s businesses aren’t hiring because they don’t trust Washington?

No. Business is E-V-I-L!

Just check out President Obama’s Saturday radio address on small business to see what I’m talking about.

The president paid tribute to small business, to “mom and pop stores and neighborhood restaurants we know and love.” Small business, he intoned, was the “engine of our economy,” “the heart of the American dream.”

So did the president propose new ways of cutting payroll taxes, employment costs and red-tape for the “engine of our economy?” Nope. Instead, he promised more federal SBA loans and health insurance reform courtesy of federal intervention and mandates.

How many small businessmen do you know that want government more involved in their business?

I know lots of small businessmen and I can’t think of one. I myself employ just one worker in New York City — and the amount of paperwork, fees, taxes and aggravation involved makes it feel like I’m employing a thousand.

I recently discovered that as a self-employed New Yorker I now have the pleasure of paying a new Metropolitan Commuter Mobility Transportation Tax. This measly 0.34% tax on wages is exactly the kind of stupidity that kills jobs. It’s the kind of tinkering that governments can’t resist. And it’s the very reason government terrifies businesses.

Read the whole thing.

How did we end up with a bunch of Keystone Cops in the White House?

 

Your government at work. Well, if by “at work” we mean “stealing from you”.

 

Hmmm. This seems backwards.

 

Two major things wrong here. Federal civilians not only make TWICE what those in private industry make, thereby pulling money out of the economy with higher taxes, but the rate of increase in their wages and benefits is much higher, too. Compare the slope of the two lines.

Via Illinois Policy Institute.

 

 

This could be the dictionary definition of “a rough day at work”

Next time you’re having a rough day at work, thank God that you aren’t having as bad day as those who were on-site at the Nedelin catastrophe in the Soviet Union in 1960:

People near the rocket were instantly incinerated; those farther away were burned to death or poisoned with the resulting toxic gases. Andrei Sakharov described many details—as soon as the engines were fired, most of the personnel there ran to the perimeter but were trapped in it by the security fence and then engulfed in the fireball of burning fuel.

Incinerated, burned to death, poisoned by toxic gases, or engulfed in a fireball of burning fuel.

Nice set of choices, for a rough day at work. Hmmm. I guess I’ll take incinerated, please. If you’re going to end up dead anyway, might as well get it over with.

On the other hand, some of us are all, like, “I broke a shoelace and I had to walk around all day like that!”. Or, “Sat in traffic for an hour and forty minutes and I really REALLY had to go to the potty!”. Poor dears.

There is also the “Some toolbox stole my lunch out of the fridge!”. Or even, on particularly horrifying days, “Starbucks was too crowded and I had to start work without my mocha latte!”. To quote Joseph Conrad from Heart of Darkness: “the horror”.

At least 90 were killed. The catastrophe is named after Mitrofan Nedelin, the commander of the Soviet R-16 rocket development program.

This was kept secret until the 1990s, by the way. You can do that when you control the media.

Links and Aggravation

I really don’t know what the hell is going on with our country any more. I read all of these stories in ONE DAY …

Does Obama Believe in Human Rights? – When it suits him. And just in his speeches. Bret Stephens lists the failures: the Berlin Wall, China, Sudan, Iran, Burma. Quoted:

It takes a remarkable presumption of good faith, or perhaps stupidity, to imagine that the Burmas or Sudans of the world would reciprocate Mr. Obama’s engagement except to seek their own advantage. … It also takes a remarkable degree of cynicism—or perhaps cowardice—to treat human rights as something that “interferes” with America’s purposes in the world, rather than as the very thing that ought to define them.

Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast – Humans Rights Watch founder Robert Bernstein: “As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics.” Finally, a sane voice in a human rights group.

What Singapore Can Teach the White House – Universal health care with individual responsibility seems to be working in Singapore. We aren’t following that model.

A Survival Strategy for Free Enterprise Over the Long Term – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has rolled over on fighting a carbon tax: “what we need is a carbon tax.” No, we don’t. In fact, that is exactly what we don’t need. Are you freaking kidding me? A business group endorsing a tax on economic activity? This is the stupidest public comment I’ve heard in … hours.

Excuses wearing thin for Obama, media pals – And now we see why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has rolled over on fighting a carbon tax: “The MSNBC blast against the chamber appears to dovetail with what the Politico newspaper reports is a White House and Democratic effort “to marginalize” the business organization.”.

What the Limbaugh Quote Hoax Really Tells Us – Frankly, the demonization of conservatives really needs to stop. It’s become tedious. And frankly, it makes the Left look vapid, paranoid, and venal. Is that what they want?

Will the last resident to leave Michigan please turn out the lights?

While you were out … the state of Michigan has turned into an economic hell-hole.

It’s too bad. Michigan is a nice place, with a lot of natural beauty, and Great Lakes on three sides. But the place is slowly being destroyed economically, due to a deadly combination of too much reliance on a very sick auto industry, and high taxes, and big government, and excessive union power.

So those who can leave, do. Every 12 minutes, a family leaves the state of Michigan. 5 families per hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Do the math. That’s 840 families every week.

And it’s no wonder. Taxes are a strong disincentive to invest, to run a business, to work or raise a family. Raising taxes chases away the people who pay into the system but get very little out of it, leaving behind those who depend on that system–government largesse–for their livelihood. It’s a recipe for failure.

And Illinois, which is right now facing some big financial burdens, has the same tendency to “raise taxes first and ask questions later”. So does the U.S. government.

They might want to take a look at Michigan’s situation. And you might, as well. If raising taxes to address budget problems works so well, why do they have to keep doing it?

Free Opinions, and Worth Every Penny

Phil Simms has long been one of my favorite color analysts on football, and it’s because of plain-spoken common sense like this (on the criticism of Jay Cutler last week by Jim Mora, Sr., and Mike Martz):

“The critical comments, the overanalyzation of everything, Week 1, there is no other way to describe it except that it is out of control. That’s all I can say. All I am reading is body language, `I can see this,’ or `I can see that,’ ‘I can just tell.’ I’m telling you, I wish I could go on and do the game today and do commentary on that because it is absurd.”

“Out of control” and “absurd” are exactly right.

What is it with people today? Everybody’s a critic.

I hadn’t realized that ex-football-coaches have enough expertise in reading body language to cast public criticism at players for not showing us the right post-game moves that send out the recommended degree of contrition.

Seriously, this is the stupidest thing I’ve heard since the idea of our government fining people thousands of dollars for not having health insurance. And that is a pretty high bar to clear.

More Simms:

“The players don’t listen don’t listen to all the talk radio, read all the articles and watch ESPN around the clock where we have 40 guys analyzing every throw Jay Cutler makes,” Simms said. “If I have to hear one more time, `Oh, you don’t throw across the field.’ That’s another cliche that needs to be blown up because Jay Cutler has thrown across his body 300 times already in his career and he has hit about 100 big plays out of it. Is he going to make mistakes? Sure.

“Someone could say, `Well, hey, he could have a bad day again today.’ No kidding. It is the Pittsburgh Steelers. It won’t be a walk in the park. I’ll make judgment after about eight weeks, maybe at the end of the season. I feel pretty secure in saying his talent and who he is will come through. His talent is tremendous, absolutely one of the top five most talented quarterbacks in the NFL.”

Phil Simms won’t suffer fools gladly, and I love that about him. Especially in comparison to so many TV and media “personalities” who are both too impressed with themselves, and afraid of their own shadows.

Arnold Palmer turns 80

Happy 80th Birthday, Arnold Palmer!

Surely one of the best-loved athletes in history, he is also one of the highest-earning athletes. He makes something like $25M a year.

Did I mention he is eighty years old?

Golf owes him a huge, huge debt of gratitude.

Links and Notes

The Wildcat formation is causing defensive coordinators in the NFL to do some adapting, and this article does a nice job of explaining the whys and wherefores.

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Golf legend Arnold Palmer turns 80 on Sept. 10th, and USA Today has a bunch of reader rememberances.

In reading them, it’s very easy to see how he got to be so popular: he went out of his way to engage people. Probably because he’s just a nice guy and a people person. You know who could stand to loosen up a little bit in that department? Tiger Woods. But then, he wouldn’t be Tiger Woods. He thrives on focus and drive, and those things are incompatible with being a people person.

Golf could really use a guy like Arnold Palmer right now. How many people started playing golf entirely because of Arnold Palmer’s charisma? It sure sounds like a lot, from reading those letters.

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One of my favorite bands, Steely Dan, played the Chicago Theatre last week. Monday night they played “Aja” in its entirety at the start, and then a bunch of their other great songs. Check out this set list:

1 Black Cow
2 Aja
3 Deacon Blues
4 Peg
5 Home at Last
6 I Got the News
7 Josie
8 Black Friday
9 Time out of Mind
10 Daddy Don’t Live in that New York City No More

11 Bodhisattva
12 Babylon Sisters

13 Show Biz Kids
14 Hey Nineteen
15 Dirty Work
16 Love is Like an Itching in My Heart (Supremes)/band intros
17 Do It Again
18 Don’t Take Me Alive
19 My Old School
20 Kid Charlemagne

Encore
21 Reelin’ in the Years

Color me bright green with envy. I’ve listened to most of these songs sooooo many times over the years, I know every solo, every chord change, every note and lyric. Except for the songs on Gaucho … never a big fan of that record.

My favorite Steely Dan records, in order:

1. (tie) Can’t Buy a Thrill and Aja
2. Royal Scam
3. Pretzel Logic
4. Countdown to Ecstasy
5. Katy Lied

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Locally, Chicago’s attempt to remake public housing has fallen somewhat short. So, to review, the Federal Government created the publc housing mess which helped destroy our cities, and then the city government has distributed that mess into the neighborhoods and suburbs, and done an inferior job at it, too. Maybe it’s time to bring sanity back to housing policy?

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Finally, Tony Woodlief writes about the quality of education today. I agree with everything he says there. We don’t home school, but I support and sympathize with many of those who do. And then we have this Education school lunacy. Do people realize what is going on under their noses? On their dime? To their kids? I really don’t think they do.

Links and Notes

It must be Philosophy in Old Rock Songs Day today.

On the drive into work, I heard “Live for Today” by the Grass Roots, followed by “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones. Also, “I Can Help” by Billy Swan was the first song out of the radio when pulling away from the house, a song that I really like a lot. There is a guitar riff in there that sure reminded me of Les Paul, a connection I’d never made before. One of those runs down the neck, and back up, repeating the same sequence of notes. Here’s a recent version:

Something about the mood I was in made it all sound extra good. I think it’s because I was already in a very good mood, after getting my first good night’s sleep in a quite a few nights. I’m pretty sure this is directly due to my bike ride last night, also for the first time in many days. Went with my youngest boy Jordan, just the two of us, so it’s a win/win. I’ve noticed over the last few years that on days when I get zero exercise, my sleep is low quality. It’s shorter and not as deep, and during the next day, I don’t feel as good, I don’t have as much ability to concentrate, my mood is often inferior, etc. I often wonder how many people who fight problems with sleep and are taking medication for it are sort of barking up the wrong tree.

On to the links:

A night of healing in Iowa – A summation of Friday night’s tribute to Ed Thomas, the coach at Aplington-Parkersburg who was killed by one of his former players in June. He was instrumental, also, in helping rebuild Parkersburg after a devastating tornado mostly destroyed the town in 2008.

Ichiro defies critics and odds – Computers sometimes don’t throw Ichiiro Suzuki lots of love. Proving, I don’t know … that computers can be stupid? Is there a GM that wouldn’t sign him if they had a chance to start a team from scratch and wanted to win a World Series? I sure would. The guy creates team offense by getting on base at a ridiculous rate.

Political Economics 101 – Eric Raymond explains how health care would respond to government intervention in that market. See if you can guess how it turns out!

Oh, come on: one extra club costs Jim Furyk over $130,000 – And that’s why golf is the most honorable game in the world. Rules is rules. It sucks when you forget and break one. Which encourages not breaking them, and rewards those who follow them. The higher the cost of breaking them, the more value they hold.

Chicago street-grid system turns 100 on Tuesday – So … I guess the Chicago City Council has done at least one thing right in the last 100 years.

John Hughes, Prolific Writer of Comedy Gold

I guess I never fully appreciated the true writing genius that was John Hughes, who died a couple of weeks ago of a heart attack at 59.

He wasn’t just a director. In fact, he was primarily a writer, a very prolific one, who started out writing jokes for Rodney Dangerfield on the side, after working tirelessly at his day job at the Leo Burnett ad agency. Later he submitted freelance work to National Lampoon, where they eventually hired him as an editor.

There, he hung out with P.J. O’Rourke. Think for a second about the writing talent in that pairing. The back-and-forth between those two must have been pretty entertaining, I’m guessing, especially on the occasional four-hour lunch.

Eventually he moved his focus to Hollywood, and the rest is history. He wrote some of the best funny movies of the last 30 years, classic comedies including:

• Mr. Mom
• Vacation
• Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
• Christmas Vacation
• Home Alone
• Beethoven

Most writers couldn’t come up with one movie on that list, much less all six. “Mr. Mom” and “Vacation” alone would cement his reputation as a comedy legend, and those came out in the same year, 1983.

And then there are the minor classics, like The Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck, Dutch, Weird Science, and a whole lot more.

A total of 38 movies have his name on them as screenwriter, nearly all of them in a period of just about 20 years, from 1982-2002.

How many screenwriters in the history of movies can match that track record? I don’t really know, but it can’t be very many.

And he was also, of course, a wonderful director of fun, clever, amusing movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles. He wrote those, too. And he produced over half of all these movies, as well.

He also loved music, and used his movies to promote it. He even says the only reason he went into writing was because he had no musical talent.

So as both writer and director, he basically invented a movie genre: quality, funny movies that are true and have characters with depth and inherent value.

Some of these may have aged a bit. But all movies from the 80s have aged, most of them quite a lot. Why is that? I’m not sure, but the silly hair and clothes sure don’t help. But we can’t blame Hughes for that, and besides, those weaknesses are overtaken by the quality of the stories, writing, and characters.

Some may dismiss his material as suburban and banal, the anti-Spike-Lee. OK, sure, it was about suburban white people. So what? Suburban white people have some compelling life stories to be told, too. Just because your Dad has a Porsche doesn’t mean you live a problem-free life, even though we like to pretend money fixes everything for us. And even if we grant that there is less true drama in those stories, the mark of a good writer is to make the everyday events interesting to us. And that’s exactly what Hughes did.

After dropping out of Hollywood to save his kids from its corrosive effects — thereby proving he respected his own kids, in addition to his movie character kids — he moved to a farm in northern Illinois and continued writing for movies under his pseudonym Edmond Dantes. He also wrote unpublished short stories for the last ten years of his life.

A true artist, both funny and endearing, who would not compromise his kids for the “advantages” of the L.A. lifestyle. Imagine that!

It’s pretty obvious to me that John Hughes was good people, who just happened to earn a living in Hollywood for a few years. For awhile, he was in Hollywood, but he was never “of” Hollywood.

And he was a prolific writer of comedy gold.

Competition: Good. Regulation: Bad.

Ever wonder why health insurance costs so much?

Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute has some information for you about insurance regulation and the power of free markets: O’s Rx: Break It. Even with the silly title, it’s a must-read.

Here’s a bit of it:

The individual market is where people face the most choices and have the most choice — except in those states with Obama-style regulations. People are spending their own money and so must confront directly the value of more insurance protection versus other uses of their cash. Not surprisingly, they often opt for less generous coverage with less onerous premiums.

To discover this world of choice, just go to ehealthinsurance.org. Pop in your state, age and gender, and then ponder a myriad of choices to secure protection from catastrophic health expenses, the proper function of insurance.

A 55-year-old man in Allentown, Pa., can choose from 99 plans starting as low as $141 a month for hospital coverage. A zero-deductible HMO plan costs $418 a month. Or he can pick a more flexible PPO, with a higher deductible and pay less monthly out-of-pocket for the premium.

Young people, “the invincibles,” often skip insurance, because they have few assets to protect and little fear of getting sick. The congressional Democrats’ solution is a tax increase by another name: Force employers to keep paying for them on their parents’ expensive plans until age 26.

Yet the market has responded with products targeted at the needs of the young, such as Wellpoint’s Tonik, which offers excellent protection, prescription drugs and preventive care for less than $100 a month for the under-30 set.

So if 50-somethings can get a plan at less than $200 a month and youngsters can sign up for less than $100 a month, where’s the problem? Why, it’s in New York and New Jersey — precisely the states that have adopted Obama-style reform — restricting insurers from charging rates based on age and preventing them from saying no due to poor health.

Change the zip code from Pennsylvania to neighboring New Jersey, and choice plummets even as the cost per plan skyrockets. In New York, our 55-year-old has only 12 plans to choose from.

The reason is simple: When people can buy fire insurance after their houses are burning, only those with a fire in the attic apply for insurance. Soon, only those who expect a blaze can afford the high premiums.

Massachusetts enacted such a system in April 2006. A CEO of a major health network reports exactly this problem: Despite the state mandate that everyone buy and keep insurance, his company is experiencing a drastic increase in people who purchase new coverage, run up big bills that are fully covered and then drop the plan.

People are simply gaming the system. Since they can acquire insurance any time, regardless of health, why pay the premium in times of good health?

Read it all.

We’ve been hoodwinked into believing that Big Business got us into this mess, and that Big Government Meddling and Regulation will fix it. Sadly, Big Government Meddling and Regulation doesn’t fix anything. In fact, it makes it worse, just about every time.

Free economic markets usually do a pretty good job of sorting these things out. And that is because competition on price is always good for consumers. I.e., us.

Conversely, government regulation tends to limit supply of some essential good or service, and drive individuals and businesses away from that line of work, along with the innovation they may bring.

Limiting supply with constant (or increasing demand) always pushes prices up. Always.

So does artificially increasing demand. That’s how the whole mortgage mess started.

It’s just not smart to ignore the laws of economic markets. And this is true even if—especially if—you don’t understand them, or wish they worked differently.

Via No Left Turns.

Friday Links

Worth Mulling: A Late-Summer Reading List – a few books on this list I’d like to track down:

• Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems by Michael Strong
• Meltdown by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
• The Housing Boom and Bust by Thomas Sowell

Bolt shreds 200m mark, sets second world record this week – 19.19 for the 200m. Sliced .11 off the old world mark of 19.30 he set in last year’s Olympics. This guy is amazing, and I hope he’s clean. We don’t need more reasons to be suspicious of athletic performances.

Giants’ owner and teammates say Burress jail term is an American tragedy – I’m not a Giants fan, I don’t care about Plaxico Burress, but it sure seems odd to me, the way that whole story has evolved. Two years in jail for a weapons violation? Wow. Whose interests are served by it?

Bus drivers reject paying red-light tickets – Issuing automatic $100 tickets for not stopping at some exact spot on a road is a DUMB idea. It annoys drivers who are doing nothing wrong, and is nothing more than a cash grab by cash-obsessed local governments. Just because technology enables a particular idea is NOT justification enough for implementing it. In fact, that might be an argument against it.

Intellectuals and Thinkers

I invite every reader who views him or herself as an intellectual, or a thinker, to read this interesting and morally substantial essay “Wanted: American Intellectuals Thinkers” by a man named Larrey Anderson at AmericanThinker.com.

The two terms are not synonymous, as he explains. Intellectuals probably won’t like his analysis, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

In fact, that might strengthen his case.

The essay is well worth reading, in any case.

Monday Links

UI grad putting finishing touches on Grange statue – This statue is big – 12 feet high, sitting on a base 14 to 18 feet high. Sounds cool. And Red Grange is a local boy, growing up in Wheaton, where I’ve lived for the last 9+ years.

Superman! Usain Bolt shatters 100-meter record at worlds – Wow! 9.58 is crazy fast for 100m. I hope he isn’t juiced.

Dear Whole Foods: We’re through. It’s not me. It’s you. – Hilarious. True. There is something about that store that bugs me. It’s food, not a personal statement.

Sensible suggestions on health care – Speaking of Whole Foods, CEO John Mackey has very good suggestions on free market solutions to health care. Because, get this, free markets usually work, and government meddling doesn’t.

Heroes Among Us – This kind of thing is one of the main reasons I so often rip on both politicians and journalists: they celebrate all the wrong things.

Chicago’s politicians have got ethics covered – Speaking of journalists and politicians, one of the few good journalists writing on politics is columnist John Kass of the Chicago Tribune. Today’s column reveals his bemusement that the national media is finally starting to wake up to the fact that Chicago is a political cesspool of corruption. So … they didn’t know any of this before, or they just didn’t feel like digging into any potential connection to Obama? Hint: either answer is wrong.

One Chart to Rule Them All – Finally, speaking of corruption in government … government corruption traced back to the change to elect Senators directly rather than via appointment from the states? Apparently. Also see One graph to rue them all, the source for this item.

Duncan Keith Works Out Like a Maniac

Here he is doing something called “Climbing Bear Mountain”. That’s a link to the video, which I can’t embed here.

Like Sarah Spain said in her tweet for it, “I got tired just watching this…”.

Someone who wanted to do just one exercise as a complete work-out would be hard pressed to find a better one. I’d probably kill myself trying to do this, though.