Perry to send a thousand to the Texas-Mexico border. An Arizona paper says it's stupid, but then, it's Perry. One big question ---

Coverage a-plenty, Fox here, CBS here, the Arizona "it's stupid" item, here; the latter source stating:

In a wildly popular political move Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced that he will deploy about 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the Mexico border, a decision that will cost the state about $12 million a month. Perry also has said that he would commit $1.3 million each week to the state's Department of Public Safety to assist in border security.

[...] So what will the National Guard do beside cost Texas taxpayers money?

It will help Perry, who wants to be a player in the next presidential election.

"If the federal government does not do its constitutional duty to secure the Southern border of the United States, the state of Texas will do it," Perry said Sunday at a Republican barbecue in Iowa (home of those early presidential caucuses.)

The move makes Perry look like he's doing something.

And he is.

He's costing Texas taxpayers a bundle of money.

Which is exactly what the Republican candidates in Arizona's race for the governor's job are promising to do.

It's the kind of tough talk that does nothing except waste cash and gain votes.

[...]

The ellipsis material covers why the thing is regarded as stupid beyond it being a Republican spending binge.

(Those tax-and-spend Republicans, their send-in-the-troops first move for every situation, is there no end to it in sight?)

Curiously, the entire Arizona item is without mention that Arizona has a Mexican border too, and how that might factor into opinions presented in an opinion piece out of Arizona, about Perry's use of his Guard troops.

In any event, CNN weighs in, this way:

Key questions about Rick Perry's border plan
By Leigh Ann Caldwell, CNN
updated 7:20 AM EDT, Wed July 23, 2014

Why did Perry call on the guard? [...]
But isn't this a crisis about kids? [...]
How does that stop the influx? [...]
So what will the border patrol do? [...]
What won't they do? [...]
How much will it cost and who will pay for it? [...]
Will it work? [...]
When will this take place and for how long? [...]
Is politics playing a role? [...]
Has the National Guard been sent to the border before? [...]
What is the situation on the border? [...]

Yes. If you want info beyond the sequencing of those sequential outline questions, the article format blurbs, follow the link. Make it a game, guess how CNN handles each question, write down your guesses, then calculate a score of your percentage of correct guesses. I leave it there since I did not read the thing.

My big question in all of this:

Will Rand Paul now try to set a new Senate filibusterer record, as a Tennessee politician's [i.e., no Mexican border to its south to grandstand over, only Missippi and Alabama] quid-pro-quo in the I want the White House as mine I can almost taste it, I need press attention, sweepstakes?

That's of interest, isn't it? The beat goes on.

Has the Tennessee National Guard been sent to any border before? The Arkansas border? Keep the Clintons at bay?

__________UPDATE__________

let them cross to come to my store
photo credit

How's immigration playing as a GOP hot-button issue in Minnesota? MPP, here. BluestemPrairie, here, re a Willmar rally at the library; and an interesting look at GOP money in the CD8 contest involving FleetFarm scion, Stewart Mills III's wannabe-politico-lust, while securing the Canadian border seems a non-issue. (FURTHER UPDATE - Quisling hunting in GOP CD8, aka the circus comes to town.)

Dan Burns at MPP says Arne Duncan should go, and Diane Ravitch would be a good replacement.

Burns makes that two pronged presentation online here. Read it. No paraphrase or quote, so go to the original.

Well, Ravitch agrees with the first part, judging from the report card she gave the gentleman. (Flunkin' Duncan).

Probably she'd take the job, if offered. First there is the detail of an ouster, however.

It is hard for me to suggest any "reform" of the education status quo. This is because I have no true expertise regarding education issues at K-12 levels, along with the belief that it is university post-graduate excellence that really matters and the big danger is we neglect that because of the politics of the grade school - a politics of parents with young children for whom they hope to see a prospering adulthood as feasible in an ever harder world for upward mobility to be grasped, in terms of social status and income where entrenched money talks out of proportion to the voice it might have.

That hopefulness makes those parents low-hanging fruit for the unprincipled among politicians, the snake oil salesmen, and are there any other kind when it comes to the bottom line nitty-gritty of vote counting being decisive? Politicians who are aloof or indifferent to the pressures of vote counting usually can be called ex-politicians.

 Posturing gets press. How it is.This or that charter experiment, or the tiny trial prototype demonstration does not easily scale to levels of Anoka-Hennepin enrollment numbers, with class size limits imposed on budgets by those same hopeful and ambitious parents who want exceptional public education on the nickel but not the dime. It is a conundrum. (A polysyllabic way of saying between a rock and a hard place, and where some tiny band-aid approach that worked in some tiny cosmos of differing nature, one that cannot scale to realistic size and application, is nonetheless trotted out for purposes of political gain, or just for shaming or guilt-tripping our actual in-the-trenches teachers).

No future time is better than the present, except given the severity of student loan debt being ginned up from those in that woeful line of commerce, earlier would have been better.

This Strib link.

I don't like this.

____________UPDATE____________
Story at Strib updated, here. This image - poster board and all. A jury-ready exhibit, perhaps.

I don't like this or this.
But if this were on Facebook, I'd give it a like.
Piling on is what it is. Coordinated piling. Unfair. Politics.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty's 685 p. text, translated from French by Arthur Goldhammer. My library hold has finally matured. Now I can see what it says.

Between the dotted lines is the Anoka County Libray's entry for the text:

.................................................

Capital in the twenty-first century

by

 

Piketty, Thomas, 1971-

Title

: 

Capital in the twenty-first century

Author

: 

Piketty, Thomas, 1971-

ISBN

: 

9780674430006

Personal Author

: 

Piketty, Thomas, 1971-

Uniform Title

: 

Capital au XXIe siècle. English

Publication Information

: 

Cambridge Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014.

Physical Description

: 

viii, 685 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

General Note

: 

Translation of the author's Le capital au XXIe siècle.

Contents

: 

Income and output -- Growth : illusions and realities -- The metamorphoses of capital -- From old Europe to the new world -- The capital/income ratio over the long run -- The capital-labor split in the twenty-first century -- Inequality and concentration : preliminary bearings -- Two worlds -- Inequality of labor income -- Inequality of capital ownership -- Merit and inheritance in the long run -- Global inequality of wealth in the twenty-first century -- A social state for the twenty-first century -- Rethinking the progressive income tax -- A global tax on capital -- The question of the public debt.

Abstract

: 

Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns and shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities. He argues, however, that the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth will generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken.

Subject Term

: 

Capital.

 

Income distribution.

 

Wealth.

 

Labor economics.

Added Author

: 

Goldhammer, Arthur,

Library	Material Type	Call Number	Library	Location	Holding Information
Northtown Library	Book	332.041 PIK	Northtown Library	Nonfiction Collection
Northtown Library	Book	332.041 PIK	Northtown Library	Nonfiction Collection
Northtown Library	Book	332.041 PIK	Northtown Library	Nonfiction Collection
Northtown Library	Book	332.041 PIK	Northtown Library	Nonfiction Collection
Northtown Library	Book	332.041 PIK	Northtown Library	Nonfiction Collection
Northtown Library	Book	332.041 PIK	Northtown Library	Nonfiction Collection

..........................................

Interested readers, from the ISBN, title, and author info, can search the web. Amazon would likely carry it, and there are numerous commentaries and reviews online.

The book has established traction as a text worth knowing.

As I understand things in advance of having the book in hand, Piketty looks at return on capital and rate of growth of the economy, and reaches conclusions about distribution of wealth [capital] trending.

I had earlier posted a "who's that" and got only one comment, correctly noting an online item:

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2014/05/more-on-piketty.html


Hat tip to Wes.

_____________________
For those living in Anoka County, the waiting list is substantial, even with multiple copies in the holdings, indicating some number of people in the County are aware of the item. If you are interested but do not want to buy a thick academic book, join the queue:

http://www.anokacountylibrary.org/

In the contents blurb the library posts, "A global tax on capital."

Now you're talking, Thomas. I'd say, "Right on," even before having the book in hand. Just based on nice policy for the 99%. Aside from justification by hundreds of pages of economic discourse and conclusions.

Just, policy. "Spread the wealth," is how Huey Long phrased the idea.

Oh, no. Say it's not so. That same old GOP cliche. Warmed over Kiffmeyer, ya betcha.

Gun bunny, ya betcha. Stooping for photo ops.

you guessed it - from AW's facebook, but - no face

While a bit distanced - correct me if wrong - the target looks a bit like Justin Boals.

Why not debate the guy instead?

========================

And that super nice "like" begs the question, who is Steve Abeler in the Whelan sphere of influence? Influnced or influencer? Whoa, even a Rasputin perhaps?

At least when the Ol' Kiffer did it, it was not anything like overly stale back then.



Oh, well. That advanced degree in whatever, an experienced student, taking aim, straight shooter, all those implications.

YET -- Also, worth noting, the Kiffer had the sense to photo op her frontside.

______________UPDATE______________
More of the same:

It wears thin after a while.

Q. Abigale, where are you on the real issues?

A. Look, an NRA hat.

Boals has ideas he is not fearful of sharing. What's Whelan's problem?

All those years in college, so what's your ideas? Can you not spell things out beyond soundbite/photo op? It really, really does wear thin, possibly even for the facebook mavens, although that's doubtful.

The worse thing, what's the future if saying nothing but "NRA" and a few website buzzlines along with facebook fluffing, "Wow, doorknocking is such fun," works this primary?

____________FURTHER UPDATE___________
In tracking down Boals' website link again, to post it above, I noticed friend Tossey being concerned over real issues:



Jason and I do not agree that much, sometimes though, and it appears we are alike in valuing content above cautious emptiness.

___________FURTHER UPDATE____________
This, from here - stoking generational discord instead of we are all in it together:

#MILLENNIALTAKEBACK
Team Whelan recently introduced a new hashtag for our campaign: #MillennialTakeBack.

This is a call to the newest generation of voters – the 18-34 year olds. Specifically, I hope to encourage others in our generation, and every generation, that it is not hopeless. We can make a difference if we engage in the community, educate ourselves, and shed the apathy that seems so rampant.

This does not mean it will be easy. Making a lasting difference takes hard work.
As the great men and women throughout history have shown us, in order to make true reforms, diligence is required. I will work hard for our district, for every generation, to make this state a better place today, and a better place for the generations to follow.

The older folks, we've already got functioning well-tuned bullshit meters, I suppose.

"TAKEBACK" it says. Boldly in capital letters. So, what does the candidate want to take, from whom? Then, "As the great men and women throughout history have shown us, in order to make true reforms, diligence is required." Who lady? Jefferson, Ghengis Kahn? Mother Theresa? Catherine the Great? Frederich the Great? The last two at least had "Great" as part of their persona, their badge, so you must mean them, right?

A. Why, really -- you cannot get to specifics, that might alienate a voter or two, so keep generic platitudes as the staple fare, up to primary election day; it's the Whelan way.

Give me a break.

RAMSEY - Again noting there has been recent ABC Newspapers coverage of things in town.

This link has been posted before, but it is a quick way to find and reach town-specific news items from the City's official newspaper's online website:

http://abcnewspapers.com/tag/ramsey/

The ABC homepage allows readers to view news reporting affecting other communities too, but for a focus on reporting about Ramsey, that tagged link provides the focus. And the more recent reports have footer content, relating back to earlier coverage of a related nature. For instance, one recent item relates back to here, with this quote:

Westby said ideally a Ramsey city street should last 60 years, but only if it receives nine crack seals, six seal coats and two overlays, which means the city must be steady with funding even in difficult budget years.

He said the problem with funding road projects through the property tax levy is it fluctuates depending on the council’s priorities.

That reminds me of the numerology in Revelation, except there it was seven seals.

Such on average numbers, out of the blue, and apparently not based on review of actual city streets but likely from some generic study ignores soils differences, traffic differences, and bed conditions from the fairly steady grading and regrading most Ramsey roadbeds received to stabilize them well before the city tarred most Ramsey streets.

It is like saying every adult needs 2.3 years of college, because that is some historical average actually not related to the fact each of us is a unique individual, with varying DNA, needs, beliefs, and opportunities.

"On average" can be misleading terminology. Averaged over what sampling pool, when, by whom, are a few interesting details that merely saying "on average" will gloss over, and it's a folk wisdom the devil is in the details.

Have YOU given up yet on the "We the People" petition page at whitehouse.gov?

A sampling, by screen capture, with 100,000 a big number for a short time -- yet, what's likely and why bother:

Executive order powers do exist for a range of reasons, fairness and justice being one: