Swickard Column: Frustration then and now

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   “Expectation is the mother of all frustration.” Antonio Banderas

            Graduation from high school was May 1968. In technological terms that was at a time when everyone put hay in one end of their personal transportation. Then had just as many frustrations every day despite the notion of a kinder and gentler time in America.

            Speaking of personal frustration: I didn’t have a car so I could go anywhere if I had enough time to walk. In the verbiage of the day, “What a drag.” But I survived that frustration.

            Back then I had three technological wonders: a ball-point ink pen, a Timex wrist-watch that “takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” And, I had use of my grandmother’s 1930 Underwood manual typewriter.

            My first newspaper column was written in 1969 on that manual typewriter with carbon paper for a copy. It was nothing like the ease of writing this column using a computer. But I am frustrated today, almost to the level of using a manual typewriter.

            Going to college in the 1960s meant that if you had communication technology it was a phone tied to the wall with a three-foot cord. And a clock radio with only the AM band. I lived a mile off campus with a relative so spent lots of time walking back and forth through mostly sunshine. But there was dust, rain, gloom of night and blisters.

            My expectation those years was that I would survive and get a college degree followed by a good paying job to replace the small paying jobs that kept me going in college. That did happen. So why am I so frustrated?

            Over the last twenty years of having a cellphone, I have enjoyed them except when having to get getting a new one. And, the technological frustration making the new one work. That why I am frustrated. I’d rather have a beating than change cellphones.

            But the new ads for the Samsung Galaxy S8 seemed wonderful though my S5 still worked. In a moment of weakness instead of taking a nap I called my Cell Company. In a long conversation, I was persuaded that the S7 was better than the new S8. I know: buyer beware.

            The short of it is that the unit would not activate but the Cell Company was able to deactivate my phone as I was talking to Tech Support. I have dubbed them: Tech Non-Support. In nine hours of calls and calls the new unit could not be activated which is the uncertainty I was trying to avoid in the new Samsung but got in an older model.

            Yes, I spoke to them nine hours over two days trying to make this technological wonder work. As of now it has little chance to come to life. It is a good thing that I experienced all that frustration earlier in my life so I take this setback well. Other than sarcasm which has flourished.

            I’m frustrated because somehow I was expecting it to work.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com 

Swickard Column: Frustration then and now

Swickard: What it means to be an American

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  Talk show host Dennis Prager was asked: What’s the biggest danger to America? He said, “We have not passed on what it means to be an American to this generation.”

            Our country was founded because British leaders acted oppressively. The English King and his Parliament changed the course of history for the entire world by planting the seeds of rebellion in a society strong enough to resist and wise enough to construct a lasting representative republic. There were no free countries when Americans revolted.

            The King and his advisors were arrogant and ignorant, two traits that infest oppressive governments. A reasonable British government would not have inspired rebellion and I would be drinking tea while writing my columns instead of coffee.

            Americans hold three American ideas: the presumptions of innocence, commerce and freedom. But these presumptions are under attack in our country and not taught in schools as often as they were when I was young. They are some of the reasons that America is the shining light of liberty. Or was.

            As to innocence, we are supposed to assume those accused of a crime are innocent unless convicted in a court of law. The media has lead an assault on that presumption. There really is no longer this presumption.

            As to commerce, except where the government has made winners, our rich have gotten so by public free exchange where both parties walked away happy. Steve Jobs became rich by anticipating what we wanted, not because the government poured money into his pocket.

            Our country became a great example for all of the world because of our principle that a willing buyer and a willing seller, both happy with the outcome are the cornerstones of our nation. Little by little over the last one hundred years the government has intruded and we no longer have free markets.

            Finally, American freedom is the ability of citizens to not have to do what they do not want to do so long as it does not harm someone else. However, our government lives to impose its will upon Americans. I pray we retain enough freedom to teach our children what freedom means along with the other two presumptions.

            The great question for us geezers and geezerettes is how to teach something to the young people that isn’t prominently on display in our country. It is tough to do but must be done. It isn’t just restoring Civics to the public-school classrooms, we must change some of the narratives. One is the country is basically unfair.

            While the founding of this country involved men who kept slaves we are long past that and we should not reject the good with the bad. The men who put their lives, their possessions and their sacred honor on the line so we could be free were magnificent

            And the Constitution is unique to our nation even though it has been under assault for a hundred years. We must teach these uniquely American ideas to our young people.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com 

Swickard: What it means to be an American

Swickard: It isn't smart to be that stupid

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. “Stupid is as stupid does.” Forest Gump

            Sometimes there is a fine line between genius and stupid so it’s hard to know which it is. But with New Mexico the mantra for the state is: let’s always do the stupid thing. Shuckins.

            In a state dead last in education it would seem to call for a change, but no. In a state that is the only state in the Sun Belt to be losing citizens it would seem to call for a change, but no. In a state with institutions of higher learning losing students it would seem to call for a change, alas, but no.

            Let’s start with the colleges. Most have been having financial difficulties because their student population is dropping. Concurrently that have raised the cost of attendance dramatically. At New Mexico State University in 1993 the cost of Tuition and Fees was under $600 a semester. Twenty-five years later it is around $3,000 a semester.

            This is important since some jobs will only pay about $18,000 a year. The cost of getting a degree becomes a limiting factor. Certainly not so with Electrical Engineers but when five years cost $6,000 in tuition and fees, any degree was fine. Make that cost $30,000 and some graduates will have trouble making ends meet.

            The population at these colleges is dropping. That should signal to drop the cost of tuition and fees to get students back. Instead, they are raising the cost of attendance. It isn’t smart to be that stupid.

            In a state that is in a budget crisis because oil and gas is much lower and the state is losing businesses and citizens the idea of increasing taxes should be labeled as a stupid thing to do. But no, that is the solution which of course won’t work long because more businesses and citizens will leave the state. Sad.

            Finally, in education all of the high powered smart people who have screwed up the New Mexico public schools are doubling down on bad advice. Again sad. What the public schools need to do is release so much administration and experts while going back to the teachers.

            The research is compelling that all of these supposedly new programs are nothing but educational fads which have not worked in the past, will not work now and sadly, when the experts try to use them in the future they will not work then. Over the last fifty years there are many fads that experts bring back to not work again.

            New Mexico has many very smart people but the leaders are not listening. To get students back in New Mexico colleges these colleges must be student centered. They are administration centered now and that why every solution does not work. Same in the legislature and in the public schools.

            After the next few years of stuff not working could we have a moratorium of stupid in the state? Just a few years of doing intelligent things would be so welcome.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com 

Swickard: It isn't smart to be that stupid

A picture from Tony Branco is worth a thousand words

Tony Branco

A picture from Tony Branco is worth a thousand words

Swickard: Getting home safely in self-driving cars

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  “Baseball is like driving, it’s the one who gets home safely that counts.” Tommy Lasorda

            This last weekend there was a car accident which involved a self-driving vehicle. The media had a great visual of this car on its side. To our way of thinking that is never supposed to happen. It’s a self-driving car which should be programmed to stay out of accidents.

            The good news is that it wasn’t the self-driving car’s fault. But the car ended up on its side. That is never good. Seems the car ended up on its side after someone, a human, not another self-driving car, didn’t yield when it was a yield situation.

            Are we to assume self-driving cars are not going to get into accidents? Of course they will have accidents because they are out there with all of us humans. Regardless of the fact that self-driving cars will not be texting or talking to a spouse, the human other drivers do.

            Like Los Angeles Dodgers Manager Tommy Lasorda observed, it is the one who get home safely that counts both in the game of baseball and driving. When I took a defensive driving course the mantra was to arrive safely despite the actions of others. Even if you are a self-driving car.

            Imagine how hard it would be to sit in a self-driving car as it gets into an accident. What can you say since there is no one else in the car? In a regularly driven car you might resort to colorful language for a driver that gets you into an accident but if you are the only one in the car the best you can say is, “Shuckins!”

            Obviously, some statistician can point out that you will be many times safer if a knucklehead isn’t driving but there is that media picture of a self-driving car on its side to consider. And if you think that the self-driving car is doing something wrong, what can you do other than gasp?

            One time I was in a commercial jet taking off from Dallas when as we were heading onto the runway I noticed that the pilot had not engaged the flaps. Normally to take off or land the flaps are extended. Someone traveling with me noticed I was agitated.

            I mentioned the flaps to which this person just shrugged. Then the pilot announced, “Most times we use flaps to take off but for you pilots there are a few times when we have a no-flaps takeoff. This is one of those times.” I went whew.

            So, it may take a bit of trust to ride in self-driving cars, especially in traffic with the usual amount of human knuckleheads. I guess we could get used to it or perhaps some of us never will. It could be that we can consider what Will Rogers wrote, “When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.”

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is availableat Amazon.com 

Swickard: Getting home safely in self-driving cars

Swickard: An Overdue New Mexico Celebration

Sheriff Pat Garrett

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  There is a celebration missing in New Mexico. Naturally our tourist industry would love to have another festival where tourists come celebrate with us. Better, this celebration would be about a real New Mexico hero. Unfortunately, New Mexico does not currently celebrate this man and he should be celebrated.

            Over the years New Mexico has developed a large celebration involving famous western outlaw Billy the Kid. Me, I would rather celebrate lawmen than outlaws. So why not celebrate Sheriff Pat Garrett? There is so much misinformation about Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, which is why Pat Garrett still is not celebrated.

            No longer. A new book is out written by David G. Thomas: Billy the Kid’s grave: a history of the Wild West’s most famous death marker. It’s Volume 4 of the Mesilla Valley History Series.

            The author is the son of former New Mexico State University President Gerald Thomas. David Thomas is a careful historical researcher combining a background in history and competition chess. What David learned as a chess master translates to his history research. He researches history like it is a chess match.

            There are many parts of the Billy the Kid story that I had wrong from traditional sources. David Thomas’s book clears up several inaccuracies that I had embraced. I am thrilled to really see what happened.

            Nothing is more so than the actual location of Billy the Kid’s grave. Previous reports are now shown to be wrong. It took a researcher of David Thomas’s ability to prove the location. There’s a wealth of this kind of research in the book. I was most interested in Pat Garrett.

            Over the years, I have called for some celebration of this lawman who was a Sheriff of Lincoln County then later of Doña Ana County. He is a New Mexico hero with plenty of blemishes.

            Regardless, he deserves a celebration at least equal to that of Billy the Kid. This is difficult because people are stuck in their ways of thinking from popular movies where Garrett is the villain and Billy the hero.

            This is false. The real hero was lawman Pat Garrett while Billy the Kid was a criminal who murdered people including three New Mexico lawmen. Over the last forty years I’ve written this several times. The Billy folks always point out that Garrett was known to visit taverns. And was a rotten gambler.

            While having human failings, Pat Garrett performed heroically when duty called. If Pat Garrett was living today he would provide plenty of stories for the tabloids about his drinking and gambling.

            But when duty called, Sheriff Pat Garrett didn’t shrink back. He performed his duty. Like the stories about the police and fire personnel on September 11th, Garrett ran toward danger, not away from it.

            We remember Pat Garrett mostly because he is currently depicted as the villain in the Billy the Kid movies. However, Billy’s character, by actual western standards, was that of a coward, cheat and horse-thief. The community in 1881 heaved a collective sigh of relief when Sheriff Pat Garrett finally got Billy the Kid in Ft. Sumner that July 1881 night as David Thomas’s book conclusively documents.

            As we think of Garrett, let us reflect on these facts: Garrett only used his guns to bring peace to New Mexico. Billy killed at least seven people in cold-blood. Garrett raised a family. His blind daughter Elizabeth was a nationally recognized opera singer. In 1915 she wrote New Mexico’s official song, “O Fair New Mexico.”

            We should have Pat Garrett Days. Perhaps tourists would not buy Pat Garrett trinkets the way they buy Billy the Kid trinkets, but decent folks would appreciate community values being celebrated.

            I cannot right the wrong done to Pat Garrett and to the generations of Garretts still in our community other than tell the truth about him. We need a Pat Garrett celebration to make up for the fact he was murdered foully and treated in death even worse.

            David Thomas has written a history book for the ages which tells the truth about Billy and Pat Garrett. I believe Las Cruces should be the center of the Pat Garrett Days Western Celebration.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com 

Swickard: An Overdue New Mexico Celebration

Swickard: Two big problems with the minimum wage

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  “The real minimum wage is zero.” Thomas Sowell

             Two problems: government imposition of a minimum wage is price-fixing. Worse, it doesn’t work because people don’t live an hour at a time, they live month to month.

            It’s not in the best interest of consumers when governments price-fix the price of labor. Technically, price-fixing is when participants in a market buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price.

            Besides causing higher prices, price-fixing a minimum wage raises employment barriers for unskilled workers since workers trade productivity for wages. If what a worker must be paid does not return an equal economic productivity, they cannot be employed.

            The media bombards us with heart-wrenching stories of abject poverty for people making the minimum wage. But people live by the month, never by the hour.

            There is no amount guaranteed other than the hour worked. The workers are injured when businesses, reacting to rising labor costs, trim the workforce hours or workers.

            Consider if someone is making $7 an hour for thirty hours a week. Their gross pay is $210 a week. If the minimum wage rises to $9 an hour, since the business labor costs may be fixed, that business may cut minimum wage employees to fifteen hours a week which is $135 a week.

            The government requirement is an hour, not a month. We live by the month. Of course, minimum wage earners may be the first cut since they have the least job experience. Then their minimum wage is zero.

            Price fixing has been illegal in our country since the Sherman Act in 1890. When has any government price-fixing worked? Soviet Union price-fixing caused low prices for groceries in empty grocery stores.

            In World War Two our government froze wages so for businesses to hire someone from a competitor they had to offer something else of value. It was health insurance which was not used much before then.

            Over the years, the health insurance industry grew into one sixth of our economy as our resources were given to Insurance and pharmaceutical companies along with lots of lawyers, lobbyists and politicians. Smaller amounts went to doctors and hospitals. Finally, we people became just the giving units to the high and powerful.

            Price-fixing by our government on domestically produced oil brought us the gas shortages and higher prices for energy in the 1970s along with the increase of economic power for the Middle East Oil Cartels.

            President Reagan stopped the price-fixing and oil prices went down. The more governments price-fix, the worse it becomes for their citizens. Economist Milton Friedman wrote, “The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.”

            My biggest concern in these Minimum Wage increases is that it precludes some people, usually very low skill or no skill workers from even getting a job since they must return in productivity what they are paid or the business will fail at some point.

            Often work hours are cut for the already employed low-skill workers which reduces their gross amount of monthly money. We used to work a standard forty hours a week. Lately it’s thirty-two or twenty-eight hours.

            The living wage is touted but what should be the amount? If it’s tied to $15 an hour and full employment of forty hours a week, that’s $31,200 a year. The government requiring a living wage means low-skill workers will never be employed since they cannot return that much monetary value to their employers.

            Now, if the government doesn’t like what I, as an employer, pays, they are free to add any amount they want to the paycheck of my employee. But I have three factors always: markets including prices for my goods, labor costs to produce those goods and the return on investment that keeps me in business.

            If you take the cost of labor over the possible return from the sale of my goods, I must either trim the work-force or close the business. That’s Economics 101.

            As President Ronald Reagan said at his first inauguration, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Amen to that.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com 

Swickard: Two big problems with the minimum wage

Swickard: A better solution using an engineering idea

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   Our nation has been talking about the problem of immigration into our country involving people without legal status for decades. No one has done anything about it. Much of the talk has focused on the country of Mexico since many people coming into our country without legal status come from Mexico. Many, not all.

            As I said in last week’s column, the politicians for and against immigration solutions have been and are mainly using the controversy for their own fundraising. Politicians on both sides don’t want resolution of immigration issues because they themselves are making so much money fundraising on the fears.

            For all these years, what we know is that many people from other countries are bypassing our legal immigration processes. Over the years one of the plans is to build a wall. And it would appear a doer rather than just a talker, President Donald Trump, is set to build a wall between our country and Mexico.

            Don’t do it President Trump, I have a better plan. The wall is a thumb in the eye of Mexico. Plus, we are building a wall with no utility other than stopping people entering our country outside of legal processes.

            It won’t work. China found that after building the more than five-thousand-mile Great Wall of China. It didn’t work because invaders just bribed the Chinese guards to go through the wall when they wanted. Sounds like the problem Americans have with Drug Cartels bribing our authorities.

            I do not like win-loss political solutions. A wall does nothing for our country other than provide jobs building it and bribes for our authorities from Cartel members to get past the wall.

            There is another way to spend that money and spend it on a better win-win solution. Rather than just build a wall on the border, build a fifteen-foot raised six-lane super-freeway along with an easement on our side for two-way railroad track construction, multiple pipelines, powerlines and cellphone towers.

            The cost of just building a wall is similar to building a fifteen-foot-high super-freeway which would act as a wall. We get the benefit of an easement on our side. My friend, former State Senator Lee Cotter, a civil engineer, first mention this to me a couple weeks ago. I really like the idea.

            One of the great improvements of our time is super-freeways. President Dwight Eisenhower was an Army Lieutenant-Colonel in 1919 when he was joined a convoy of equipment and men from the nation’s Capital to San Francisco. It took the eighty-vehicle convoy sixty-two days averaging a rate of six miles per hour.

            He vowed that if he was ever in charge, he would build superhighways. At the time, Germany was doing so with its Autobahn. Eisenhower was lifted out of obscurity at the start of WWII to become the Supreme Commander of the military and then the 34th President of the United States.

            Now coast to coast travel on freeways is only a few days. So why not put another path across the Southern Border which would allow better transportation along with more access to our country’s markets for Mexico and to Mexico’s markets for our country.

            Queen Elizabeth II said, “At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions.” I agree, engineering solutions are much better to use than political solutions. Our nation, using engineering sent people to the moon and returned them safely. While politician President John Kennedy started the quest, it was engineers that achieved that mission.

            Just having a wall out in the middle of the area with nothing around it will still require constant monitoring which would also be what the freeway would require. A fifteen-foot rise would make it harder to just walk across the border, but it would not be impossible. Having traffic and regular rest stops would make it attractive to our citizens and would be heavily monitored for anyone trying to cross without authorization.

            Let us build something useful to use on both sides of our southern border while still being a barrier to those who would enter our country without legal status. It is an engineering solution rather than a political solution. I like win-win solutions.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com 

Swickard: A better solution using an engineering idea

Swickard: Take the political fundraising out of immigration issues

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   “If you want to understand any problem in America, you need to look at who profits from that problem, not at who suffers from that problem.” Dr. Amos Wilson

             The immigration problems of the last thirty years are caused by politicians who profit from them. Both sides use immigration problems for fundraising with no intention of ever solving the problems.

            No one knows what the immigration laws are any longer so people with legal status in our country and those without legal status have no idea what government agencies are going to do.

            I am sure it is not true that we have the cure for cancer but the medical field and pharmaceutical companies are making so much money they don’t want to cure cancer. Again, probably not true but I hear that said.

            It is true that when it comes to immigration reform, neither party wants to fix this broken system since they are getting political contributions from frustrated citizens on every side of the dispute. More on that shortly.

            But what is the controversy? The immigration laws of our country, specifically, the Immigration Reform and Control Act known as Simpson-Mazzoli Act enacted in November of 1986 is not being enforced. Some people think we need immigration reform while others think we should enforce the existing immigration laws.

            What is the most unfair is that both political parties have spent thirty years fundraising and not dealing with the immigration issues. Namely, there are millions of people in our country without legal status. This is the strategy of both parties to have millions of people who are uncertain of what our government is going to do.

            Recently President Trump started an effort to deport people without legal status who have committed felonies. Both political sides are showboating the issue while millions of people, heck, the entire population of our country, both those with legal status and those without legal status have no idea what will happen.

            In a nation of laws, it is unconscionable to have laws but not obey them. I don’t blame the people in our country without legal status because both political parties have barked about the issue but only looked at it to get political contributions. We should either follow the laws, make more specific laws or amend the laws. We should never ignore our laws.

            The political climate harms our nation in many ways. First, people without legal status often do not get the legal protection of our laws because they don’t want to be involved in a legal system that will note that they are without legal status. Criminals often take advantage of these people because they rarely report crimes.

            It is unfair to immigrants who followed the laws to gain legal status to have millions of people who are jumping the immigration lines. It is especially unfair to have immigration processes that often take more than ten years. We can send people to the moon and back safely, but we cannot operate an immigration system.

            Yes, I know that it doesn’t operate so that politicians can use the fear, uncertainty and doubt to drive their fundraising efforts. I see a whole lot of dysfunction that is intentional.

            So, what to do? Obviously, stop using immigration issues for fundraising. We will never get viable solutions when “There’s gold in them ills.” I see three possible actions which will be opposed by the political animals because they will reduce fundraising.

            First, before enacting immigration reform go back and see what was wrong with the 1986 Immigration Reform Act. Is it a problem of enforcement or wrong solutions? Second, endeavor to not have a shadow society since that isn’t good for anyone except politicians. Finally, find ways to have win win solutions instead of the normal political one side wins while the other side loses.

            I often say to never use a political solution for a non-political problem, be it education, the military, the economy or immigration. Finally, the political trolls on both sides who only want to call people names and make our society unpleasant, they cannot be part of any solution. We must make our society better despite the actions of our fundraising politicians.

 Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com 

Swickard: Take the political fundraising out of immigration issues