Swickard: Being smart in college football programs

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  “I find that the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni and parking for the faculty.” Clark Kerr, 1958

          There is a gloom over some New Mexico State University Aggies due to their football team falling on hard times these last fifty years. If the administrators wanted to get a good look at whom it was than precipitated the crisis, they only need to find a mirror.

            The NMSU Aggie motto might even be to blame: nobody tells an Aggie what to do. That’s the Aggies I have known since I started watching Aggie Football during coach Warren Woodson’s last season in 1967. He found success while none of the following coaches even came close.

            Woodson had a great quote: “The perfect record is seven and four because the fans are happy with the winning season, the Alumni are sullen but not mutinous and the NCAA won’t come and look at your program.”

            In the last thirty years of writing columns the number one topic has been Aggie Football. More than anything else I have protested one policy: selling loses to big programs for cash.

            NMSU has been harvesting cash with loses for most of forty years and each year their fortunes get worse because all football programs are judged by their win/loss record. I have made no progress with the leaders of the university. One said to me, “We know what we are doing!”

            My reply was that they were ignoring research and available data. This same person said that I just did not understand university administrative issues. Friends, I have a Ph.D. in educational administration from NMSU and pointed this out to that administrator. To no avail, they kept selling losses and the program gets weaker and weaker with their abysmal win/loss record.

            Finally, NMSU was thrown out of the good football league that included some great teams. Our college was dragging the rest of the league down because we sold losses. Currently NMSU finds that there is not a league that wants NMSU because NMSU sells losses but NMSU next year is going to continue selling losses.

            Fine, but don’t look surprised when your Football Program ends. That is the fate of Football Programs that continually sell losses.

            From the Clark Kerr quote to start the column, parking is a big problem at colleges. I asked a professor at NMSU about the parking some thirty years ago. He said, “It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.” So I immediately asked, “Do you think it will get better?” He shook his head, “No.”

            Many colleges had declining enrollments and act surprised. Why should less students coming be a surprise? College doesn’t hold the magic key of prosperity like was once the case. Now to even get a job students have to be savvy enough to select an employable major.

            The colleges won’t help because their administrative fiduciary relationship is with the professors so they will try to keep everyone employed rather than pare off majors where few jobs are available. With the football program and the majors at the university, NMSU is a contrast in roles.

            Does NMSU have the best interests of the students in mind or are those administrators feathering their nests? Why sell losses when it only weakens the program. Why keep majors where there are few if any jobs? Those questions need to be answered.

            Remember that the motto of NMSU is: nobody tells an Aggie what to do. So I doubt that there will be any changes. In fact, each time I point out the lunacy of selling losses the leaders double-down on their stupidity and amaze me even more with bad leadership.

            Ultimately, it is easy to see that these failures are my fault. I always buy season tickets to the Football Program and I went to NMSU for my Ph.D. So I guess I have no complaints. While I talk bad about the management they know I still support their decisions with my money.

            The customer is not always right but the customer always is the one with the money. This customer would like NMSU to be smarter.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net

Swickard: Being smart in college football programs

Swickard column: Windy boy windy for New Mexico

Columbia loaded for trip home- George Swickard

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  After college my first professional job was in television production. The Albuquerque station had a weatherman who was interesting because he was not from New Mexico. The annual spring winds upset him. In fact, when you asked about the next day’s weather anytime during the year he answered, “Windy boy, windy.”

            And it is time for New Mexico’s annual spring winds. Some people are quite upset with them while the rest of us usually shrug and go about our business. Sometimes we even find humor in the winds.

            A tourist from back east pulled up to a restaurant at the same time as me and was having trouble keeping ahold of his hat. “My God,” he exclaimed with a look of horror at the dust and debris flying by, “Does the wind always blow like this in New Mexico?”

            “Nope,” I said and smiled. “Sometimes it comes from the other direction.” The man was shocked by the violence of the dust. I could not resist. “But the wind right now isn’t blowing enough to pick up scorpions and rattlesnakes so you should be fine. Watch out when the wind really picks up, they can drop right out of the sky.”

            The man could not get out of New Mexico quickly enough. Our Chambers of Commerce hate it when we play with the tourists. And in March and April each year there is plenty of wind to play with tourists. The truth is that if you were born in New Mexico and the winds in spring start blowing dust, you will not have a surprised look on your face.

            One bright spot if you are heading east. A couple years ago I went from Las Cruces to Roswell almost not using any gas in my truck. I felt pretty good about the wind until I drove back to Las Cruces and almost used a tank of gas.

            I feel bad for high profile vehicles since the wind often plays the devil with handling and sometimes even just keeping all four wheels on the ground. Some of the roads in New Mexico are closed in bad dust storms because there can suddenly be zero visibility with the possibility of a big wreck involving many vehicles.

            One of the almost lost stories of wind in New Mexico involves the only time when a NASA Space Shuttle landed in our state. More to the point, what is rarely referenced is the windy day before Space Shuttle Columbia landed.

            In 1976 Northrup Strip was selected by NASA as a Space Shuttle training and backup landing facility. We now call that facility the White Sands Space Harbor at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. New Mexico was halfway between shuttle landing areas at Edwards Air Force Base in California and the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

            STS-3 was launched in March 1982 as a seven-day mission but excessive rain in California flooded the landing area there. So the Northrup Strip at White Sands Missile Range was selected. However, it was spring wind season. On the scheduled landing day, it was a nasty dusty day of high winds and low visibility.

            The network news programs showed a New Mexico straight out of a Chamber of Commerce nightmare. It looked like a hurricane except it was dust instead of water. One reporter opined that the Space Shuttle Columbia might never be able to land in New Mexico.

            Not so. The next day at about nine in the morning it was a glorious New Mexico morning as if there had never been a dust storm. About twenty thousand people were at the landing strip and millions watched on television as Columbia landed. So we rarely mention the Wind Hall of Fame day that proceeded the landing.

            Best way to deal with the wind is to expect the coat of dust and not get too worked up about it. We have been having these dust storms in New Mexico for the last two-hundred and eighty million years, come next August so don’t be surprised.

            My advice: get yourself a beverage and stay inside with a good book. It’s going to be windy boy, windy.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net

Swickard column: Windy boy windy for New Mexico

Swickard: The magic wand of work

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  “I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.” Thomas Edison

            The New Mexico Legislature has ended and there are people in our state who were wanting those politicians to change the sad plight of New Mexico, which is last in almost every category in our nation. They are disappointed that despite the politician promises at election time New Mexico remains poor.

            If past performance is a predictor of future performance it is a good bet that New Mexico ten years from now will still be last in most categories. Why, because the Legislature does not have a magic wand to wave over the Land of Enchantment to bring wealth to every citizen.

            Yes, legislation can help citizens who want to lift themselves out of poverty. Legislation can make New Mexico more attractive for businesses. But the heavy lifting of changing the fortunes of New Mexico must be done by the citizens themselves.

            It starts with a work culture. New Mexico suffers from a culture of not working. Right now more New Mexicans are not working than are working. The poverty programs in our state make it hard to take a job for pay when the pay will nullify benefits. And the state does nothing since the poverty programs employ many people and give power to the leaders.

            Question: when do most people who get a job do so? The week after their unemployment benefits end. Or, and this is important. They get a job almost immediately after losing a job. One or the other. I’m painting with a large brush, but we have two cultures.

One says “I work proudly.” The other rides government programs until they end and then despairs. Those who go for a year between jobs while milking the system find it hard to get a job when benefits run out.

            However, some sectors such as the Agriculture Industry are full of proud workers. If they do not like a job they hunt another before moving on. The Oil and Gas Industry have men and women who do not watch the clock, they get the job done.

            But as an employer myself and manager of hundreds of workers over the last forty years I find many young people are not taught to work. No, not that you need a 13/16 socket to take out a spark plug. They do not know you must be on time always. In fact, be five minutes early so if traffic snarls you are not late.

            This all starts in public schools which should not propagandize but should provide many examples of enjoying work. The magic wand, if you want to think of it as such is attitude. Thomas Edison looked forward to going to work each day because he liked to work. Those people who enjoy being employed are important.

            Many people in New Mexico think that wealth comes from the government and all you have to do is have one of your relatives get elected to some office and the wealth truck will make regular deliveries. And in our crony corrupt state that is more true than not. But it cannot and will not last.

            What happens to these people when their relative is caught and cannot provide any more loot? Then they turn to drugs for quick cash. Some New Mexicans have no Social Security benefits because they never have worked officially.

            The attitude that is important is to find things about the job that prepare you for the next job. We hear so much about minimum wage jobs but most people only make the minimum wage for a few months and then are promoted beyond it if they apply themselves.

            If it is easier to float on the government programs than actually go to work this will come to the end at some point. At some point the problems of our budget and debt will intrude. We are spending money that we do not have.

            Who will ride out the hard times the best? Those who can hunker down working at any job and being satisfied with making money rather than having it given to them. They have the magic wand of work.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net

Swickard: The magic wand of work

Swickard: New solutions for poverty and illegal drug use

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.    Comedian W. C. Fields joked, "The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep." That is like the solutions our leaders have for America's problems of illegal drug use and poverty. Over the last sixty years our leaders have filled to overflowing our court system with non-violent illegal drug users. And our leaders have dramatically increased the number of people on welfare.

            Neither solution over the years has even started to eradicate the problems. Worse, it seems the best minds in our society can only come up with things that make the problems worse. We have more illegal drug use and more poverty now after spending billions of dollars.

            Tragically both leave lots of human carnage in their wake and lost opportunities for generations. It would be nice if we apply Thomas Edison's view of failure. He referred to inventions that didn't work by saying, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." In each case he tried something different.

            Our leaders cannot see different solutions for poverty and illegal drug use other than what we have been doing for sixty years. Albert Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

            Part of the problem is that crime and welfare are huge industrial complexes with billions of dollars to employ people. If you no longer need all of those police and prison workers do we have anyone who could fire a million government workers? Politically it is impossible. But it needs to be done.

            Poverty is not because other people are successful. Poverty is because people do not have the desired productive skills or inclinations to use their skills. Welfare stalls people from jobs because they lose benefits.

            Poverty doesn't cause crime. Criminal behavior and illegal drug use are mental illnesses. I am not saying ignore or release them because it is an illness. But before we find a solution we must correctly identify the problem. We must frame as mental illness the disregard of society's rules.

            Putting millions of Americans into the legal system because of their choice for themselves of taking drugs does not work. One approach is to view illegal drug use as a health problem rather a criminal offense. Portugal did so in 2001. The results are compelling.

            I am not involved in the illegal drug question personally. A few years ago a speaker said, "All you people from the sixties spent your time in college partying and smoking dope." I raised my hand and said, "Did not!" If drugs were all legal I would still only be medicated by coffee and green chile.

            The reason I am looking to Portugal along with twenty-five other nations is that over fifty years as a journalist I have watched our drug policies fail miserably. Drugs are as available now as fifty years ago, according to people who know.

            I believe that the correct direction for our country was mentioned by Herbert Hoover in 1928 as he was campaigning to be elected President of the United States. He said, "We have not yet reached the goal but... we shall soon, with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty shall be banished from this nation. There is no guarantee against poverty equal to a job for every man."

            Our nation can become great when we allow people to become more productive, to use their natural talents and abilities in jobs. Jobs are the great changer of a society. The free market is the engine of prosperity. The enemy of prosperity is government people who want to control the free market.

            Every rule or regulation that diminishes the ability of people to be productive moves people toward poverty. It is not something that can be legislated. Everyone is either moving toward poverty or not. Change the drug laws to treat it as an illness and not something to fund our vast law-enforcement/judicial/prison industries.

            I hope Winston Churchill was right when he wrote, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." We've tried all those things that don't work, let's try something different.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net

Swickard: New solutions for poverty and illegal drug use

Swickard: SJR 1 has a serious defect

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  "The prison-industrial complex and the military-industrial complex are here with us and are multi-billion dollar enterprises. We can make more money off the kid in Compton if he's a criminal instead of a scholar. It's business." Henry Rollins

             I have written many times about the prison-industrial complex in New Mexico and our nation. Millions of dollars go to law-enforcement and the judicial-industrial complex for justice. From the pettiest of crimes to the most pernicious, the judicial system rides herd over thousands of citizens.

            Then there are prisons with all of the staffing. Somewhere in all of this money come bail bondsmen. There is something aimed at them that is not a good idea.

            This session in the New Mexico Legislature a proposed Constitutional Amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 1, involving bail reform doesn't mean what people think. The test is easy. Another bill with the same language except for one provision, House Joint Resolution 13, is being offered and is said to be dead.

            The news media and casual observers may not see what is happening but the attorneys in the Legislature certainly do and they are "game-on" for this windfall. What is the one provision?

            That if someone is arrested and goes before a judge instead of having to post a bond saying they will make their court appearance, they can be released if they are poor and are not violent. For them no bail will be required.

            The easy sell on both measures is that Judges will have more power to keep violent people in jail without any chance of being released before their trial. That is a big push for a safer New Mexico. Many people are injured because a violent offender reoffends while on bail. The second set of victims naturally feels that the offender should have been kept in jail. So that change in New Mexico Constitutional Law is needed.

            The "More money for defense lawyers" provision in SJR1 which is missing from HJR13 involves that some people are kept in jail when they cannot arrange bail. Sometimes bail is ridiculously low such as one hundred dollars. Jails spend more than that per day housing those citizens.

            What is not being said by anyone but the Bail Industry spokesmen is that most people who can get bail do so by their relatives or friends coming up with the money and property collateral. Who would put up their house for their child if the alternative is to refuse to do so and their child is released for being poor and unable to afford bail?

            When someone is bailed out there are two parties that work together to make sure that person makes their court appointments: the people who provided the money for that person's release and the Bail Bondsman. Both have a financial interest in that person doing the right things.

            If people are just released on their own recognizance, there is not that pressure. Further, the private enterprise of Bail Bonds is such that the risk is weighed on each individual. Some people cannot bond out because no bail bondsman will take the risk. That is good to know.

            Finally, the real push for this provision is to free up resources from the parents and friends for the defense lawyers. Right now they see the bail as taking money from them since the friends and relatives come up with that money. With no bail required that same money that otherwise would go to bail would be available as extra resources for the lawyers.

            With this provision in SJR1 the lawyers see a pot of money glimmering and they assume most people will not think this through. They will just react to the notion of a debtor's prison where people sit behind bars because they don't even have a hundred dollars.

            I would like to see HJR13 pass and be voted on by citizens in November but not SJR1. It is making a bad situation worse and funneling more money to lawyers while ending a private enterprise that minute by minute in our system looks at the flight risk of each person.

            Are their abuses? Of course. But that is no reason to make the system worse.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net

Swickard: SJR 1 has a serious defect

Swickard: Mosquitoes like the DDT ban

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." Voltaire

             The newest scare for Americans is a virus just making its way into our country named Zika. It is related to West Nile virus which we already are battling. The problem is we Americans have a cure for mosquitoes but for political reasons we will not use it.

            The way to deal with this epidemic is to kill all of the mosquitoes who spread the disease. While it seems hard to kill all of the mosquitoes, we have almost done it once before but politics gave the mosquitoes a chance to come back fully and kill millions upon millions of people.

            Several years ago two researchers had an article in Forbes, "Rachel Carson's Deadly Fantasies." This was published September 5, 2012. Dr. Henry Miller and Gregory Conko wrote that Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring" led to a worldwide ban on DDT use. Lacking DDT to kill mosquitoes is responsible for the loss of tens of millions of human lives, mostly children in poor tropical countries.

            They opine, "This remains one of the monumental human tragedies of the last century."

            The insecticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) was first discovered in 1874 and in 1939 a Swiss Chemist found it had great insecticidal properties. It was used in World War Two to control malaria and typhus. After the war the use of DDT expanded.

            The discovery of DDT's usefulness won the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine. Mosquitoes were controlled to the point that in just a decade they were seriously on the decline and therefore Malaria deaths were likewise on the decline.

            With no valid data DDT was banned and still is banned due to a political book by Rachel Carson in the 1960s. Malaria death returned and have stayed high. Mosquitoes have brought many other maladies of encephalitis and West Nile virus to the point that New Mexicans are injured or killed each year.

            It is a political campaign to keep DDT on the banned list when it has no known harm to humans and the presumed harm to raptors could not be replicated from Rachel Carson's book. Instead of telling people in New Mexico to put on mosquito repellent and to stay indoors, our government should kill every mosquito.

            Yes, the environmental lobby will not stand for it, but we could try. I have lost two friends to West Nile virus and have no patience for the environmental people who condemn our most fragile populations to death and diseases. If they, the environmentalists wish to die, so be it, but the great martyrs of our world did not send women and children into the wilderness instead of going themselves.

            Every death worldwide to malaria is an unnecessary death. Every death or illness from mosquito born viruses is not necessary. Millions are dying unnecessarily each year. Rachel Carson and her faulty research are responsible for millions of deaths.

            And we are responsible for those deaths because even by the early 1970s it was obvious to our scientists that the loss of DDT was far more harmful to human lives that we had realized before the ban. At that point there should have been an outpouring of information to reverse this ban. There wasn't because environmentalists are rabid about their agenda.

            In the 1950s, while I was living in Japan, early in the mornings the DDT truck would come down our street spraying the mosquitoes. We kids would often play in the mist to no harm other than ants refused to crawl on us for several days.

            Talking the truth gets people attacked because the environmentalists are political not scientific. If you join me in calling for the reintroduction of DDT all over New Mexico to protect our elderly and children you will be attacked. But the lives of our children are worth it.

            I'm all for setting up a Blue-Ribbon panel to investigate this controversy as long as politicians stay out of the way. They know nothing and only react to political causes. I always say to never use a political solution for a non-political problem.

            Mosquitoes are killing our citizens. There should be no politics as to the cure. It's DDT.

Email: drswickard@comcast.net

Swickard: Mosquitoes like the DDT ban

Swickard: The five rights we need to do

Bill Richardson horsing around

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  We are living in angry times. Anger drives much of what we do. With the New Mexico Legislature in session there is more anger than normal. The political animals realize they only have a small amount of time to get what they want. So they spew anger to get their way.

            It makes me think of what Aristotle observed: "Anybody can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way... that is not within everybody's power and is not easy."

            There are big things driving anger in this Legislature like the impasse caused by driver licenses. Some want a driver's license for those who are in our country legally and another license for those without legal status.

            The anger has ratcheted up in the dialog so that thinking people want nothing to do with the debate since the flamers will scorch everyone who does not conform. That fight involves the political bases of both parties.

            Another flash point for anger is the desire of political animals to have their way regardless of the rules and regardless of any promises made earlier. Example: When Spaceport America was first proposed the idea was to get the construction paid by Dona Ana and Sierra County taxpayers. Those taxpayers stood to gain the most from an active and vibrant Spaceport.

            And I supported the idea of a Spaceport since, at the time many years ago, this was going to be the first one and the promises were rosy to say the least. Governor Bill Richardson, who was putting together a presidential bid, was looking for high profile projects and this fit the bill, er, the Bill.

            About the same time presidential candidate Bill Richardson unveiled the Richardson for President Rail Runner Express Transit system from Belen to Santa Fe which proclaimed Richardson's stature nationally that he understood mass transit.

            The enabling legislation never mentioned a rail project; it was aimed at New Mexico highways. That seemed a good idea and then the political animals dashed in and sprung the Rail Runner on New Mexico taxpayers without the taxpayers having any way to avoid the financial consequences which are huge.

            What do the Rail Runner and Spaceport America have in common? Both started with a political push and both are now mired in controversy about their financing. The Rail Runner is a deep hole in the Earth into which New Mexico taxpayers must pour money.

            I am not sure about the ultimate fate of Spaceport America. But the leaders of the project are doing things that anger New Mexico taxpayers and that is not good. The Spaceport is clearly not going as we expected when it started and putting lipstick on the project with cheerful press releases has not helped.

            State Senator Lee Cotter (District 36) who represents Dona Ana County has Senate Bill 157 to stop Spaceport America from paying salaries and other expenses with tax dollars intended to pay off the facility debt.

            Cotter has sponsored this bill previously. The proponents of hijacking the dollars say they need the money. But they don't want to come to the Legislature for those funds because they are afraid the legislature will say no.

            Senator Cotter said, "Dona Ana and Sierra County taxpayers are hurt when their taxes are diverted and do not go towards paying down the debt faster." Exactly. He points out that it is all borrowed money. If New Mexico had the money to begin with that would be one thing but both Rail Runner and Spaceport are with borrowed money.

            With the Rail Runner there is a day coming when many millions of dollars will be due. And it can only come from the taxpayers. We always need to do these projects with the five rights: the right people, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way.

            Hey, since the Iowa Caucus is now done, can New Mexico lose the Ethanol mandate. Why give that money to the Iowa farmers and take it away from New Mexicans? Why indeed.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net

Swickard: The five rights we need to do

Swickard: To deal with today's boy behavior

With glasses and a punch

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  I was born a small boy. Yes, small. And yes a boy. Both were a problem in public school. The first because it attracted larger boys who exercised boy behavior at my expense and the second because I accepted that is how boys are supposed to act. And so I had to adapt to being smaller than other boys.

            Sometimes I even admired how larger boys pushed me around since I thought at some point I would grow to be as big as my father. I didn't get a growth spurt until ninth grade. Previously I was one of the smallest in each class.

            But I have always been a boy and therefore I had plenty of boy behavior hardwired into my very being. If I was punched my automatic response was to hit back. No, I didn't go tattle to adults; I tried to land a blow on the tip of the offender's nose where it would start a nose-bleed.

            Public schools tried to extinguish all boy behavior when I was in public school since it was loud, chaotic and irritating to adults. We boys were treated as if we were dysfunctional girls. We were treated as if we had not thought of what would be acceptable behavior.

             "What were you thinking?" was a frequent question. Truth: wasn't thinking, just reacting as a boy.

            Public schools then and now try to make all children act like girls. Pay attention, don't take cuts in line and don't ever punch another boy. The expected behavior of schools is modeled after girls who act like girls.

            In the 1980s when my daughter was in third grade she was pushed around by a boy. I taught her something my Uncle Ralph taught me when I was young. It is a punch called the Hook. I didn't talk to the school about the boy behavior that is always at public schools, I gave her a way to deal with it. We practiced it.

            Young kids throw straight lefts and rights which are easily blocked. The hook comes out of left field and knocks the offender down. Her mother and the school weren't pleased with her knocking the boy down but he never pushed her again. Nor did any boy at that school. After her lecture was over, she came and high fived me.

            That is what Uncle Ralph's lesson did for me. I was much smaller but packed a punch. My father was in the Air Force and we moved eight times in my public school time. Each new school had a bully or a couple bullies that picked on new smaller kids. But not me more than once.

            My mother and the schools were exasperated with me hitting back. But I was usually left alone afterwards. And I learned to rely upon my own self instead of thinking I had to be protected by adults. They were never there when the flan hit the fan.

            It is in the public dialog that bullying in public schools is rampant and out of control. There are many new procedures. The newest ones command the kids to not fight back when attacked. Rather, to take their assault and make a report to an adult. The schools are ramping up anti-bullying administrators, hiring more and more adults to take over the fight rather than teach children to be their own advocate. That is pure crap!

            No I'm not saying the way to end all bullying is protective headgear and eight ounce gloves. But one thing is for sure. Throughout our children's lives they will be pushed around. Thinking that the only way to deal with abuse is to get a government higher authority to attend to it is lunacy.

            Yes, the government must deal with cases of physical abuse beyond a certain level. And often a restraining order only works when the person also has a pistol and is willing to use it. We need to teach our children to take responsibility for themselves as much as possible.

            Often it is just boy behavior anyway and should not trigger having a SWAT team parachute into the school. Let boys be boys and teach everyone how to cope.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net 

Swickard: To deal with today's boy behavior

Swickard: The lost world of human capital

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. "Achieving the highest possible return on human capital must be every manager's goal." 
     Brian Tracy  People in business know the value of human capital, but do we citizens? Brian Tracy writes about the value of good employees. I was thinking about the human capital of our citizens, as a whole, in our country. Some of that valuable human capital is being lost. And we are not attending to our losses.

            We spend lots of money educating all children. Billions of dollars are being used in public education and colleges. We get doctors, lawyers and engineers along with people in the trades who keep our country functioning. We, as a country, are only as good as all of our citizens.

            However, a third of all children drop out of a free education and often end up in jail. America loses when people who could have invented something useful or who would have raised children well are put in prison for non-violent crimes. America needs those Americans, but our leaders have a political need to ruin lives.

            The New Mexico Legislature leaders are talking for this session about getting tougher on crime. As if this country has not being doing that for decades. That sounds nice in political speeches but our country is either a Police State right now or very close to it.

            I do realize that violent crimes must be dealt with harshly. No, I am talking about non-violent crimes that have filled our prisons to capacity and more. We have allowed police units to become a military of their own.

            Everywhere I go I am under the watchful eye and firearm of the police. Every action I take is monitored by a government agency. Not just me, every American. Yes, the NSA said they were going to stop spying on Americans. They are such liars.

            Here's the problem: progressives from both parties over the last one hundred years have used any excuse to make government bigger and bigger. The War on Drugs for the last seventy years has just been an excuse to turn our country into a de facto Police State. Sadly, drugs are just as plentiful today as when they started.

            America's incarceration rates are far beyond any other free country and now the New Mexico Legislature wants to toughen up the laws, which means incarcerate more New Mexicans. These are just numbers to the politicians and leaders. But they are flesh and blood humans.

            And we are losing their potentials. When we incarcerate them then all of their talents are lost and often lost forever. Some convicts do come out of prison and restart their lives. And that is the lesson. We really lose when we keep people incarcerated their entire lives.

            In the last year I have gotten to know someone who five years ago was in prison. I think his violations were drug related. When he got out all he could get was a janitor's job. But amazingly he was the best janitor that company had ever seen. He is naturally clever without any college.

            Over a couple of years he first became assistant manager and then a store manager. I am being vague because I do not have permission to identify this person. I have owned several businesses and run others. This person's store reflects his great managerial skills. So do his employees. Even when he is not in his store I see him in every one of his employees.

            He is changing lives by leadership. Years ago he was in prison and only by the fortune of a company taking a chance on him do we see the potential of his human capital. How much value are we losing when we send so many to prison?

            Becoming a Police State benefits politicians and unions by having many more people employed in police departments, courts and prisons. It is a vast ever-growing industrial complex that knows no bounds. New Mexico is getting tougher on crime for more political benefits. And we all lose the human capital from our society.

            America thought their way to the moon. Can we readjust our legal system so as to not lose all of this human capital? Perhaps.

Email: drswickard@comcast.net 

Swickard: The lost world of human capital

Swickard: The wealth effect in politics

© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  It's no secret money and power flows to and from politics. Lots of it. This has been the modus operandi of our political system for much of our country's history. Countering those politicians and money waving influencers are supposed to be the mainstream media.

            They're supposed to watch for bad behavior in politicians and take the side of the citizens. But now they are taking sides for themselves in the political fights. They are vicious against the politicians they oppose while absent from the watchdog role with the politicians they support.

            In the last twenty years the Internet has blossomed in a watchdog role despite taking no vows to be accurate. With all of these eyes watching politicians you would think scummy behavior by elected officials would be as dead as television rabbit ears.

            However, scummy behavior in politicians seems more rampant than ever. With the next session of the New Mexico Legislature set to start shortly there are many initiatives looking to reign in the influence of money in politics. Transparency watchdogs are pushing for tougher reporting of campaign donations.

            What it shows is that few people really understand the scummy side of politics. Paper shufflers and those who look at the paperwork only get a tiny look at scummy behavior. Filed paperwork only shows mistakes made in reporting but not the real intent.

            The real players when major money is given and taken do not intend for it to be seen. When a willing bribe giver and a willing bribe takers exchange there is not any paperwork filed. If both parties are happy no one will talk about it. The same is true for those politicians who sell out for sexual rewards or jobs for relatives.

            To see the real effect of money on politics you must look at a measured effect of the money. Not the decisions elected officials make because there are always explanations. If someone is on the take, their net worth goes up. But the watchdogs are not looking at net wealth increases.

            If watchdogs don't look at the wealth effect, they will not see it. What needs to be done by the investigative reporters is very mundane and labor intensive: chart every year of service as to the net worth of the person serving. Start with the year before elected and keep a running tab on how their wealth changes.

            There are ways to hide wealth with spouses and children and other relatives. But wealth sticks out in our society because to have wealth is to use it. Just piling up numbers in an account doesn't do anyone any good. To have money is to spend money.

            So when looking at a public servant on the take there will always be evidence of unbridled increase in wealth. This is especially so when you compare them to colleagues. Some people in politics will have a similar wealth before, during and after their years in service. Others hit the jackpot and pile up wealth.

            Of course there will always be explanations such as: I started a new way of investing. It is returning a thousand percent per month... Can we see your market report? Ah no.

            It is important to treat each wealth inquiry fairly and not with partisan zeal so that some slip through and others are caught. For this to be useful we must catch everyone who spins up their wealth briskly while in office.

            Questions of fantastic increases in wealth are not proof of taking bribes, but it certainly opens the door to looking very carefully. But if this inquiry is automatic to all who are elected it will discourage bribes because when caught politicians turn on the bribe givers. There is no one thing to clean up politics but this will help.

            Most importantly, it is unfair to the honest servants of the people to look at them like they are a chicken killing dog. The effect of the time served on honest politicians shows they give citizens a great gift of their time and effort while not taking any advantage of their position.

            We owe them this inquiry to catch scummy politicians. We are left with honest and faithful servants.

Email: drswickard@comcast.net 

Swickard: The wealth effect in politics