Crime in twenty-first Century America

Like it or not, crime is closely associated with intelligence and race. Throughout the world this general rule applies: the darker are the skins of a country's people the lower is the mean IQ of its population and the higher its crime rate. There is a reason that the countries with the five highest murder rates in the world are all in Africa. In America, which has the seventh highest murder rate in the world, if you remove Chicago, Washington DC, New Orleans and the cities of Flint and Detroit Michigan from consideration, we would be fourth from the bottom in race to become the world's most murderous nation. These crime ridden cities are predominately black and have been run by corrupt incompetent black politicians for the past 50 or 60 years. Liberal theorists argue that environmental factors, including poverty, lack of educational opportunity and the usual litany of other disadvantages that afflict the poor, are responsible for the lack of economic development, poverty and high crime rates in countries and cities that are predominately Black or Latino. These arguments do not explain the fact that cities like Detroit and Flint Michigan were, only a few short years ago, shining examples of America's greatness. That, of course, was before they became predominately black. The disparity in prosperity between nations also can't be explained by differences in national resources as many liberal theorists are want to do. For example, The per capita income in Venezuela is only $6406 a year even though this small South American country has $14.3 trillion in natural recourses, the tenth largest in the world. Similarly, Africa nations have an abundance of national resources including copper, manganese, iron ore, gold, oil, gas, diamonds and uranium yet the vast majority of the African people live in abject poverty. Liberals will maintain, to their last dying breath, that Africans remain poor because of foreign exploration, capitalism and white supremacy. These ridiculous claims are made despite the fact that Charles Taylor, Paul Bizo, Robert Mugabr, Sani Abacha, Seku Toure, Macias Nguema, Siad Barre, Omar Al-bashi, Hissine Habre, Amin Dada and Idi Amin, to name only 10 of the worst dictators running these impoverished African countries, are all black. Reminds one of Detroit and Flint Michigan doesn't it. But, as often is the case, I stray from the point. Author's like Herrnstein and Murray who write about America's social and economic problems do not emphasize sufficiently, I think, the undisputable fact that there is a significant racial component to illegitimacy; crimes such as murder, rape and theft; and other forms of antisocial behavior. These antisocial acts are predominately committed by people of color and until we recognize this reality it is extremely unlikely that the situation will change in any meaningful way. For example, in New York city 96% of the crimes are committed by Blacks and Chicanos even though they comprise only about 50% of the population. This should come as no surprise to anyone who watches the evening news because the vast majority of crimes report on, especially those occurring in American larger cities, are committed by Blacks and Latinos, many of the latter being illegal's from Mexico. As I will stress to ad nauseam in this book we are paying a high price for diversity and a even higher price for not recognizing the fact that, after 60 plus years of political correctness, head start and the host of other social programs designed to lift the down trodden minorities from poverty, the crime rate is many times higher now in the minority community than it was before Lyndon Baines Johnson began his war on poverty. When all is said and done today, after 60 years of every affirmative action program imaginable, black males who do not make it in sports seem designed for a life of crime and poverty. The criminal element in Black and Latino America, irrespective of IQ, has played a significant role in America's decline and it's high time we recognized this all to obvious and important fact. In this respect, when reporting on crimes, newscasters today seldom mention the race of the criminal, even when they are attempting to assist the authorities in tracking down the person, or persons, who committed the offenses. At present it is considered racist even to mention the skin color of a person who has committed a criminal act unless, of course, he or she happens to be white. A good example of this politically correct lunacy is the way the media reports on the knockout game which in now the rage in the inner cities of America. Reporters from all branches of the media invariably report that these crimes are being committed by a generic group of teenagers while it is perfectly obvious to anyone who has TV, or some type of I pad device, that the vast majority of these senseless batteries on innocent victims are being committed by black hoodlums. At this point in time, political correctness has so muddied the waters that members of the media cannot, under any circumstance, make reference to the color of a criminals skin for fear of being tagged as a racist, and they don't! I take the opposite view! Unless we face up to the fact that minority Blacks and Latinos, are primarily responsible for crime in America we will not be able decrease the crime rate one iota. In this respect, we should not be passing out get out of jail free passes to individuals just because they are Black or Chicano. Rather, we should own up to the fact people of color are responsible for most of the crimes committed in Americas larger cities and take whatever measures necessary, including racial profiling when appropriate, to curtain their criminal activity. In the case of inner city crime, I fail to understand why we have not been able to eliminate the gangs that, for all practical purposes control the streets in many of our large cities. This is particularly puzzling since we were able to curtail the mobs in the 1930s and those criminals were, on average, far more intelligent and sophisticated than the members of today's gangs whether they be white, black, Chicano or Asian. In this respect, it should come as no surprise, as Herrnstein Murray point out in The Bell Curve, that 78 percent of all Black and Latino gang members are cognitively challenged. One has to wonder if our adversity to racial profiling has anything to do with the fact that these hoodlums, which now number over 1,400,000 in the USA, are allowed to cause such havoc in our society. If we have learned anything from the failures of the past 60 or so years of failed social engineering, it is that we need to spend more tax dollars on jails and prisons and less on ineffectual pie in the sky rehabilitation programs. Despite what the liberal social engineers tell you, most attempts at rehabilitation of the criminal element fail and, thus, are not cost effective. No matter how you slice it, 70 percent of all crimes are committed by repeat offenders who have failed to benefit from either prison time or r

Corrupt Career Politicians

It is highly unlikely that the founder's of our nation ever considered the possibility that our elected public officials would spend their entire working lives in one of our state capitals or Washington DC. If they had, our constitution undoubtedly would have included a clause or amendment pertaining to term limits. However, in 1776, such a law would have been unnecessary because we were an agrarian nation of farm and plantation owners whose livelihoods depended on the crops they could produce, not on the paltry stipends they would receive while serving in a government office. In this respect, from 1789 to 1815 congressmen received $6.00 a day and, interestingly, they were paid only if they showed up for work. At the time of our nation's founding, it was a significant imposition for politicians to leave their farms and places of business to serve in a public office. They made this sacrifice because they cherished their country and, as good citizens, felt compelled to serve. But, with rare exception this compulsion did not oblige them to serve more than one or two terms. At that point they either ran for higher office or, as was most often the case, when home. As we moved from an agrarian society to an industrial nation things began to change and not necessarily for the better. At some point in time, probably around the beginning of the twentieth century, politicians tumbled to the fact that they could make more money in government than they could in the private sector. Public service became a pretty good racket with a good salary and many, not so well hidden, perks. For example, if you were a congressman or a senator wanted to make more money you did not have to ask the boss for a raise or increase the acreage of your tobacco farm. Nope, you could just vote yourself a raise and, as long as the legislation authorizing the increase in salary included something for the president, he was likely to sign it. But the real money to be made in public service is unrelated to salaries, medical care or lucrative retirement packages. Rather, the real money comes from the use and sale of the power inherent in any public office whether it be dog catcher, state or federal legislator or head of state. Occasionally a member of the ruling class gets caught with his pants down (to date corrupt female politicians have escaped scot free) and is forced to spend a little time in a federal prison. This is particularly likely to happen in Illinois where their mentally challenged politicians are exceptionally brazen in their self-serving illegal abuses of power and, thus, more apt to be caught in one of their nefarious and endless get-rich schemes than are the average politicians in other parts of the country. But, governmental abuses of power are not limited to crooked politicians from Illinois. No, dirty self-serving career politicians are a dime a dozen and come from every region of our nation. Here are two well known examples of political corruption that should make you grit your teeth and spit nails. Lyndon Banes Johnson began his working life as a near penny-less high school teacher. Thereafter, before being forced into retirement because of the Vietnam debacle in 1969, he spent his entire working life as a public servant in Washington DC. This consummate career politician died a multimillionaire. Most of his fortune was made in his wife's name but, as Robert A. Caro explains in The Years on Lyndon Johnson: means of ascent, Johnson was very adept at using his political clout behind the scenes to grease the skids for his wife's various nefarious business deals which made her, and him, a fortune. Possibly the most outrageous example of the abuse of power by a career politician is the shenanigans of California's liberal Senator Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein and her husband Richard Blum are worth an estimated 100 million dollars. As was the case with LBJ, whose money was made in the name of his wife, Lady Bird, Feinstein's money has been accumulated in the name of her investor banker husband Richard C. Blum. Much of Blum's wealth was made in federal governmental contracts brokered for him by his wife Senator Dianne Feinstein who, as a member of several important senatorial committees including, most importantly, the appropriations committee, has tremendous clout in the halls of congress. It is highly unlikely that Blum could have been as successful in his business dealing with the government if his wife had not been a powerful US senator who worked behind the scenes to steer government contracts his way. The most notorious of the deals senator Feinstein cooked up, to feather her own nest, occurred in 2009 when she introduced legislation that provided $25 billion in tax payer money to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. This agency then awarded her husband's real estate firm, Blum Capital, a lucrative contract to sell millions of dollars worth of foreclosed properties at rates higher than industry norms. The most recent example of the Dianne Feinstein's nepotism involves the contemplated sale of 56 US post offices throughout the United States. These properties are worth billions of dollars and the firm brokering the deal will make millions of dollars in commissions. It should come as no surprise to learn that Richard C. Blum's real estate firm will be handling these transactions. Meanwhile, senator Feinstein fly's around in her 55 million dollar Gulfstream jet claiming that she is an innocent bystander and knows nothing. Well, she knows how to use her political clout to make money, lots of it, that's for sure. The net worth's of our public servants in Washington DC tells the whole rotten story. In 2011 the average US congressman was worth $6,594,859 and the average U.S. senator was worth a whopping $14,013,596! Now it's true that some of these people were wealthy before they ran for public office and some, like John Kerry, married into their money while in office. But most of the newcomers to Washington DC were not all that wealthy when they first got there. In fact, the net worth of the 94 new senators and representatives in 2011 was only $1.07 million, much higher than the $66,740 of the average American, but substantially less than that of their more senior colleagues and undoubtedly far less than they will be worth at the end of their dubious political careers in Washington DC. No, in the days of our founding fathers men went to Washington DC to serve their country. Today, with rare exception, the career politician goes to our nation's capital to make money, it's really as simple as that! Unfortunately, their corrupt political practices are ruining the country in the process.

America In Decline

As things now stand, we are living in the last days of the great American experiment, of that there can be little doubt. Flint Michigan, with a murder rate of 64.9 per 100,000 is the largest killing field in the country but other large cities including Detroit, New Orleans, St Louis and , Baltimore are not far behind. Just consider this fact for a moment. In the entire world only one country, Honduras, has a higher murder rate than Flint Michigan. Not only do the majority of our large inner cities look like war zones but 59,500,000 of our citizens are on either welfare or food stamps. Another 10.9 million are chronically unemployed. Seventy two percent of black children are born out of wedlock and 15.1 percent of our citizens live in abject poverty. Just a few decades ago the USA was the wealthiest nation on earth, now we rank 7th in per capita income and one in every six Americans goes to bed hungry every night. Cities, large and small, are filing for bankruptcy at an alarming rate. California, with the world's eighth largest economy, has $162 billion in admitted unfunded pension liabilities (outside analyst's peg the true figure to be between $500 billion and $884 billion) and already is bankrupt even though the liberals running the state continue to spend money on bullet trains and other boondoggles as if it grew on trees and there was no tomorrow. The nation as a whole, with a federal debt exceeding $17.3 trillion, also is bankrupt. Each citizens share of this debt, which is increasing at a rate of $2.7 billion each day, is an astonishing $54,345. The printing presses of the Federal Reserve cannot keep this sinking ship afloat much longer. No, as a nation we are finished, may as well stick a fork in us and be done with it! At this point, the only question is what, if anything, will be done to right our sinking ship of state.

What Can Be Fed To Composting Earthworms?

Unlike the magnificent carnivores, the Red Wiggler (eisenia foetida) earthworms used in vermiculture have very small mouths and do not have the greatest teeth. In fact they do not have any teeth at all! Thus, even though they can eat almost anything that was once alive, it may take them a long time to do it. For example, if you give them a raw carrot they will not be able to do much with it until it starts to decompose and softens up a bit. On the other hand, earthworms will devourer a cooked carrot in a few days. Along the same lines, composting earthworms love newspaper and can consume large quantities of it in a relatively little time; however, they cannot handle paper that is matted together. Thus, newspaper should be shredded before it is feed to earthworms. If you do not have a paper shredder you can add single sheets of newspaper to a wormery as long as they are separated from each other by the other organic material in the worm's bedding. Along the same lines, earthworms love cardboard. If you add large pieces of cardboard to your worm bins the worms will love to live in it but they will not be able to eat it until it softens up and starts to decompose. To clarify this issue, I should point out that earthworms are actually eating the protozoa and microorganisms that cover the newspaper and cardboard, the paper simply gets consumed in the process. A lot has been written about what earthworms like and dislike. For example, they are not supposed to like citrus fruit, especially the skins. On the contrary, I have found that my worms love the pulp of an orange and will also consume the rinds as soon as they soften up. The Red Wiggler Earthworms used for composting kitchen waste, however, would not do well if feed nothing but, or primarily, citrus skins or citrus pulp because large quantities of this organic material would make the worms bedding to acidic. In this respect, everything in moderation applies to earthworm farming. Contrary to what you may have been told, composting Red Wiggler Earthworms also will eat any meat product, the rottener the better! Just be sure to bury the meat and other similar items in the bedding so that they will not attract flies. Again, everything in moderation is the rule here. If you give your composting earthworms more than they can eat (over feed them with meat products) the bins will begin to smell bad which, of course, is a problem if your worm bin is indoors. With respect to home vermiculture, the only type of kitchen waste that should not be put in a worm bin is large quantities of fatty substances like grease, lard and butter. Small quantities of these products are OK and need not be separated from the other table scrapes you feed worms. In short, you can feed your Earthworms almost anything from your kitchen, even egg shells! Over wet, worm bedding can be a problem in home wormeries because vegetable scraps, which are excellent food for composting Earthworms, are 80% water. As a result, the bedding of worms that are feed primarily vegetable scraps will rapidly become muddy. The answer, is to place layers of threaded newspaper between the layers of kitchen waste. This practice also will provide a more favorable carbon/nitrogen balance in the worm’s bedding because the high nitrogen content of the vegetable waste is offset by the carbon rich newspaper. What should not be fed to Earthworms? Any leaf that has an aromatic aroma is not suitable for vermiculture. This includes pine and redwood needles and eucalyptus and pepper wood leaves. Redwood and cedar chips also should be avoided in vermiculture. Very large volumes of dairy and meat products should not be fed to your Earthworms because worms have a difficult time digesting high concentrations of oil and fat. However, as discussed above, small amounts of these ingredients are well tolerated and there is no reason to separate them from the other table scraps that you feed your worms.

Death By Tonsilectomy

As readers of this blog know, I have spent a fair amount of time over the past couple of years writing about the deteriorating state of medical care in the United states. Recently, a young black girl was pronounced brain dead after have undergone a simple tonsillectomy at the prestigious Children's Hospital in Oakland California. Unbelievable as it may sound, she simply bled to death postoperatively as her parents stood by her side pleading, in vain, for hospital personal to do something to stop the bleeding and save their daughter's life. To date, hospital officials have refused to comment on the specific events that led to this youngsters tragic death (sighting the dead girls right to privacy) other than to suggest that "These things just happen." Implying that, if a hospital performs enough of any surgical procedure, no matter how simple, someone eventually is going to die. If the inevitable malpractice suit is settled out of court (as most certainly will be the case) and the records are sealed, we may never know, as the late Paul Harvey would have said, the true story behind this senseless death. In any case, what the hospital bureaucrats say is true, at least to a point. Indeed, one in every 15,000 children who undergo a tonsillectomy dies from the procedure. It is quite another thing, however, to argue that a post-tonsillectomy death is inevitable and, thus, acceptable just because it is rare. This case stinks to high heaven of criminal malpractice and the hospital personal who stood by not lifting a finger, other than to provide a tonsil basin to collect the blood, to stop this poor youngsters post-operative bleeding should be tried, convicted, and sent to prison. The surgeon who failed to check on his patient after surgery should lose his medical license and be forced to spend 10 to 20 years in prison. May Rutherford, director of clinical quality at Children's, obviously, should be sacked! Understand, that it would have been one thing if the child had died in the operating room while the surgical team was frantically doing everything in their means to stop the bleeding. It is quite another for them to simply abandon her while she bled to death. In this respect, it is important to realize that this child would not died were it not for the utter incompetence of the entire staff that was charged with her care. The primary culprits include the surgeon who performed the tonsillectomy; the anesthesiologist who obviously did check on her closely enough postoperatively; and the nurses who, after surgery, stood by and watched her bleed to death, without lifting so much as a little finger. Amazing! To muddy up the waters even more, it is questionable that a tonsillectomy was even appropriate for a child who suffered only from a sleep disorder. What were these people thinking?

Addendum to America In Decline

My conservatives friends and relatives who have read galley proofs of America In Decline are of a single mind. They are confounded by some of my recommendations for righting our floundering ship of state which, to them, at best smack of socialism and, at worst, pure unadulterated fascism or communism. One reviewer went so far as to remark that "Carl Marks would be very proud of your latest rendition of his Communist Manifesto." I understand these criticisms and take them very seriously. I am now in my 78th year and, in my view, am becoming increasingly more conservative with each passing day. However, having said this, we are now living in a twenty-first century world that is much different than it was when I entered this world in 1936. Pure capitalism was king in those days, and rightly so. It is hard to argue that these United States would have become the economic juggernaut it was in twentieth century were it not for the liberties granted to us in the constitution and our capitalist way of doing things. In my opinion, the concept of equal opportunity for all to become the best they possibly can be, which is one of the foundation blocks of capitalism, is largely responsible for the successes we American's have achieved since the nation's founding 238 years ago. Unfortunately, over time, equality of opportunity has morphed into, and become badly confused with, the socialist concept of equal outcome for all. While it is true, as the socialist are wont to remind us every minute of every day, it is the height of unfairness that some people are born smarter than their fellows while others enter this world dumber than a box of rocks. Fairness, or lack of same, however, is not the issue that should concern us. Everywhere you look in our imperfect world unfairness abounds, the question is how do we best deal with the cards that are dealt to us. In days long past, when anyone capable of performing manual labor could find employment that paid enough to support a family, innate intelligence was far less important than it is in today's world of high technology. Nowdays successful people are paid for their intellect not for their ability to swing a hammer or shovel dirt. As I harp on incessantly in this book, the socioeconomic problems our nation faces today are worsening by the day because the mean IQ of the nation is falling one to one and a half points each generation. As a result, less intelligent members of our society will find it increasingly more difficult to find meaningful employment with each passing year. There is no magic bullet that will magically increase the mean IQ of our nation any time soon. There are ways to smarten up our population, as I have discussed at some length in previous chapters; however, in the short run, we must play the cards that we have been dealt and face up to fact that the principals of pure capitalism will not be enough to dig ourselves out of the deep hole into which the liberal have throw us. The key to the nations survival as a viable economic force is simple and straight forward, we must put our people back to work! For this to happen we must provide them with jobs that pay a decent living wage and force those who are able bodied to take the jobs that are made available to them. As discussed a length above, bringing back manufacturing jobs from abroad and curtailing illegal immigration are two important keys to the social and economic revitalization of our nation. Unfortunately, at this point in time, a fair amount of social engineering will be necessary to achieve these goals. Some of these measures, including the stiffening of import tariffs on goods that are now manufactured in third world countries; some degree income redistribution; and the implementation of a livable minimum wage for intellectually challenged people who are trying to raise a family will, admittedly, be difficult for conservatives to accept. However, what are the alternatives? Unless we are willing pay a fair price for manufactured goods like tennis shoes or commodities like lettuce or string beans, can we expect that they will be produced by American workers? If not, where will the tens of millions of intellectually challenged people, who are not destined to be employed in high tech jobs, find employment? If we do not put such people back to work at meaningful jobs, is it not likely that they will turn to lives of crime or, worse yet, life-long government dependency? It seems to me that our governmental policies must reflect, rather than ignore, the realities of the changing demographics of the world in which we live. If, in some instances, governmental policies that smack of socialism and isolationism are necessary to bring about meaningful social change then we conservatives must grit our teeth and accept those realities, at least until we can right pour floundering ship of state. I will be the first to abandon the socialistic measures I reluctantly suggest in this book if someone can come up with better solutions so the socioeconomic problems we face. So far, no one has done so and, if we continue down the present path of increasing governmental dependency, we are domed, sooner rather than later, to become a socialist wasteland like Greece. That, of course, is simply unacceptable! For those who have not read The Bell Curve, and believe that we are all born with we are all born with essentially equal IQs, the answer is to expand programs like head start which are designed to level the playing field for the disadvantaged. Those of us who believe that there is a significant genetic basis for intelligence should focus on governmental programs that, over time, will increase the mean IQ of our citizens by, among other things, reducing the birth rates in low IQ women and eliminating the immigration of low IQ Mexicans into our country. Yes, some of these policies will smack of socialism but, none the less, they are necessary Perhaps the biggest criticism of America In Decline pertains to my suggestions that, at least on the near term, trade policies which snack of isolationism and tax policies which, to some degree, redistribute the nation's wealth, will have to be implemented so that people with low IQs can make enough money working at low skill jobs to support a family. Again, governmental policies such as these are socialistic and, as such, repugnant to the vast majority of conservatives, including me. However, at this point in time, given the hand we have been dealt, I fail to see a viable alternative to the changes in social policies that I suggest in America In Decline. To continue down the road we are now headed is, as I've said repeatedly, simply unacceptable.

What would a Head of Lettuce Cost if Farm Workers Received a Decent Livable Wage?

We all know that most farm workers live in a state of abject poverty. Having said this, just how much more would we have to pay for agricultural products, such as lettuce, if farm workers were paid a decent living wage? That's the sixty four thousand dollar question. Economists at the University of California Davis have studied this issue at some length, I believe the results of their research will surprise you. Presently, a head of lettuce costs $2.99 at WalMart. Only six percent, or 17.94 cents of what consumers pay for the lettuce goes to the farm workers who raised it. Ninety four percent, or $2.81 of the cost of that head of lettuce goes to the farmer, truckers, middle men and retailers. At present the migrant workers who cultivate and pick the lettuce are paid a mean annual wage of around $13,500. The vast majority of these workers are illegal aliens from Mexico because Americans refuse to perform stoop labor for a meager $6.50 an hour, and rightly so I might add. Now back to the question I originally asked. What would the head of lettuce cost at WalMart if farm workers were paid a decent wage? Let's say $26.00 an hour or approximately $54,000 a year? The cost paid the farmers, trucks, middle men and retails would remain unchanged at $ $2.81 but the farm labors share of the pie would increase four times to 71.76 cents a head; thus, the cost of a head of lettuce, that originally cost $2.99 when produced by wages approaching slave labor, would cost a whopping $3.53 if produced by workers who were paid a decent wage. How many people, do you think, would stop buying lettuce if they had to pay $3.52 a head for it rather than the $2.99 it now costs when Mexican illegal's produce it? More importantly, do you think Americans would be willing to work in fields if they were paid $54,000 a year to do so? I think the answer to both of these hypothetical questions is obvious, don't you.