Gotta Get out of NJ - sort of

I plan to work another 15 years, not because I have to, but because I love it.  Regardless, I hate NJ and want to find someplace to buy a second home that will allow me to change my primary residence and cease paying NJ income tax. I'll never truly escape because my family is here, but it is time to accelerate the search.

I really like Nevada, have a friend and golf buddy already there. If Bryn moves to CA this will be a  no-brainer.   The following is a list of criteria:

• cost of living
• property taxes
• unemployment rate
• violent crime rate
• climate
• population growth of the senior demographic

Talk to me Ed!

Romney & Company Shipped Every Single Delphi UAW Job to China

OK. Now I'm pissed!

I've said many times that Romney is the most dishonest politician of my lifetime. Not corrupt, dishonest.

Just last week he said during the debate, "I would do nothing to hurt the US auto industry."  This is yet ANOTHER BLEEPING LIE!

Here's the facts as reported in this week's The Nation magazine cover story "Mitt Romney's Bail-out Bonanza," the Romneys are in a special partnership with the vulture fund that bought Delphi, the former GM auto parts division.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RwG_sBQU7OQ

The Romney vulture fund investment syndicate shipped every single UAW production job - every job - to China.

The truth? On June 1, 2009, the Obama administration announced that Detroit Piston's owner Tom Gores, GM and the US Treasury would buy back Delphi. The plan called for saving 15 of 29 Delphi factories in the US.

Then Romney's vulture funds pounced.

The Nation discovered that, in the two weeks immediately following the announcement of the Delphi jobs-saving plan, Paul Singer, Romney's partner, secretly bought up over a billion dollars of old Delphi bonds for pennies on the dollar.

Singer and partners now controlled the company - and killed the return of Delphi to GM.

These facts were revealed in a sworn deposition of Delphi's Chief Financial Officer John Sheehan, confidential, but now released on the Web.

Sheehan said, under oath, that these speculators threatened to withhold key parts (steering columns), from GM. This would have brought the auto maker to its knees, immediately forcing GM's permanent closure.

The extortion worked. The government money that was supposed to go to save jobs went to Singer's hedge fund, Elliott Management Corporation and its partners, including the Romneys. Once Singer's crew took control of Delphi, they rapidly completed the move to China, sticking the US taxpayers with the bill for the pensions of the Delphi workers cut loose.

In all, three hedge funds run by Romney's million-dollar donors have pocketed $4.2 billion, a return on their "investment" of over 3,000 percent - all care of the US taxpayer. The Romneys personally earned a minimum of $15.3 million, though more likely $115 million - a range their campaign does not dispute.

Frankly, I DON'T SUPPORT the way Obama allowed speculators to crank the US taxpayers for $12.9 billion in subsidies - losing almost all the auto parts jobs in the process.

But when I heard Romney, tell the nation, "I would do nothing to hurt the US auto industry," it really pissed me off. This guy cannot be trusted! Everything that comes out of his mouth is a carefully conceived fabrication designed to fool the low-information voter.

Hello, anybody home?

Stream of Consciousness

So I've been considering how to best identify the general theme for my BLOG. My readers are probably equally confused. Posts have ranged from my struggle to conquer personal demons, to my political perspective, and understanding of economic theory. It should come as no surprise to those who know me that my posts have jumped from one topic to another. My daily life is often a self-inflicted jumbled chaos. I can't sit still. My mind races to either analyze what's been done, or to plan how to best prepare for events on the horizon.

Sometimes the chaos intrudes upon my dreams, with entire sleep cycles lost to an invasion of job stress or the excitement of anticipation. I wish I knew how to turn off the images that flash uncontrollably in my head, but I don't. Instead I toss and turn all night, or awake suddenly at 2:00 AM fully alert. On these occasions I've no option but to rise and act upon what ever issue is assaulting my psyche for control of my thoughts. Last night was one of those nights!

I went to bed at 11:30 and fell fast asleep. To the best of my knowledge it was restful, until 2:30 when I awoke for the first time. From that point forward, until I got out of bed at 8:30, a freight train of sounds accompanied the lighting storm of images that agitated all attempts at sleep. No single thought won the battle. It was just a constant stream of consciousness that tortured me until I my only option to stop the "noise" was to get out of bed. 

Perhaps stream of consciousness should be the ongoing theme. It seems a natural extension, the essence of who I am. Stream of consciousness is a form of interior monologue which claims as its goal the representation of a lead consciousness in a narrative. This representation of consciousness can include perceptions or impressions, thoughts incited by outside sensory stimuli, and fragments of random, disconnected thoughts. Stream of consciousness writing often lacks "correct" punctuation or syntax, favoring a looser, more incomplete style.

Do I have any other choice?

The Energy Independence Myth

I'm so sick of hearing people bitch that the price of gas has risen under Obama! Listen up numb-skulls - oil prices are determined on world market just like the prices of wheat and corn. When a drought in Asia sends up the price of wheat, we will pay more for wheat in the United States even though we are a huge net exporter of wheat. Similarly, when the world price of oil skyrockets, people in Canada pay more for gas even though they are energy independent, as would we in the USA if we were energy independent.

A lot has been made of the Obama's lack of support for the Keystone Pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the US' Midwest and Gulf Coast. I won't support the POTUS or debate this issue because I lack sufficient information to take a side. Unlike most people I know, I won't espouse an opinion unless it's based on thorough analysis. I never speak unless I'm certain of what I'm saying.

Depite my inability to offer an opinion on the merits of the pipeline, I can say with aboslute certainty that it would have no impact on our price of gas. All one needs to do is look at what Canada is paying. The country is energy independent. Canada has also been celebrated by Republicans as having courageous politicians that have been willing to kick environmentalists in the teeth. How has this benefited the people of Canada? They only have to pay $4.00 a gallon for gas.

Anyone that has studied economics understands that being energy independent doesn't mean anything unless the country is at war and somehow cut off from foreign oil supplies. If this is our concern then drilling out our oil and gas now would be assinine. It would mean that the resources would not be there if we ever face such a crisis. I'd like to take credit for this suggestion, but it is a reality that was taught to me by an economist I follow - Dean Baker.

I wish others would take some time to santize their conclusions before sharing them with the world!

RIP Mrs. Allen

Earlier this week I returned from a business trip to attend the funeral of a woman I did not know particularly well; certainly not well enough to refer to her by her given name. Our interactions were limited to the few occasions when I would see her and Mr. Allen at a field hockey game. Her granddaughter is one of Bryn's former teammates, closest friends, and a young woman I've grown to love as a daughter. By the time I met her grandmother, Mrs. Allen was not the person that was being eulogized. Time and dementia had robbed the world of what I've since come to learn was an amazing woman.

The funeral mass was the most touching ceremony I've ever been a part of. Although my attendance was intended simply as a small measure of support for the Allen family, I now realize that I benefited from being there far more than any comfort the Allen's could have derived from me. Sitting in church it was impossible to not recognize that Mrs. Allen was the center of her family, that she was deeply loved and respected by all who knew her. Even an outsider like me could feel her spirit uniting the family one last time. There were several instances when it was difficult for me to contain my emotions, but none more so than when the grandchildren gathered, after the presentation of gifts, in a group hug that was as genuine an expression of true grief that I've ever witnessed.

The experience was a stark contrast to my mother's passing, when I didn't shed a single tear. That probably says more about me than my mother, but I don't think it's unfair to say that there was a very different vibe at Mrs. Allen's funeral. Although somber, it was a celebration of her life. A palpable sense of pain and joy engulfed the sanctuary. It was a privilege to observe a family say goodbye to its matriarch in a manner so foreign to my personal familiarity.

I'm so very thankful for the opportunity to watch the Allen's say goodbye because it reminds me of the legacy I'd like to leave for my children. They've not been blessed with the love of adoring grandparents. Deb's mother passed before they were born, forever changing my father-in-law. And somehow the grandparent gene wasn't inherited by my parents. To this day I remain confused as to how my grandparents were so attentive and loving to me and my siblings, yet my parents were so disinterested in spending any time with my children.

I think that I can finally let go of that pain because I now can internalize the image of just how wonderful an extended family can be. I cherish my life with my family and friends. Instead of dwelling on the pain of the past, I can focus on continuing to build a future. Mrs. Allen has left a indelible impression on me. I thank her for showing me what is truly important. One day, hopefully many years from now, my family and friends will celebrate my life, recalling that I was always there for them, and will be able to say goodbye content in the knowledge that my love for them will continue long beyond the days I walk the earth.

Racial Overtones - Will Your Vote be Influenced?

Just how angry was the American public at the Bush Administration? We elected a black President. That day was hailed as a seminal point in U.S. history, a sea change in race relations. Yet four-years after an election that inspired hopes of a post-racial future, the Republican Party seems hell-bent on dragging the nation backwards. 

"We're at a tipping point", said Susan Glisson, director of the Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi. "But I don't know which way we're going to tip."

Her concern is based on something called "implicit bias" - prejudices that people don't realize they have. Perhaps I'm overly sensitive to prejudice because of my Hispanic roots. My mother had a dark, olive skin tone. She was a beautiful young woman bearing a resemblance to Lena Horne. As a child my friends would often ask if my mother was Puerto Rican or black. Not that it matters, but we were told that she was Spanish. I never really knew. Regardless, I've always been very sensitive to prejudice and have taken a strong stand when I think an injustice has been done. 

Implicit bias is a curious thing. I've known people who make patently racist remarks and then vehemently object to be characterized as racist. They are so blind to the affliction and shocked to be confronted that they react as if they're defending their very life. I have first-hand experience with just such an incident. A Michigan field hockey parent that I was very close to ended our friendship because I objected to the raciest stereotypes he posted on Facebook. It was a sad day, and I miss my friend, but there are some wrongs that are too important to ignore.

So what does this have to do with the election? Sorry. My readers will come to realize that I have yet to completely master the ability to distill colliding thoughts into a coherent message. Tangential diversions from the theme may occasionally confuse the audience, but I'm hoping that you'll come to realize that nothing I do is ever a simple process.

Anyway, back to the election and implicit bias. Studies show that longstanding negative stereotypes about African Americans have produced a segment of the population that harbors anti-back biases yet don't even know it. You've heard the stereotypes. Blacks are inherently dangerous, unintelligent, or prefer welfare to work. Such unconscious biases are present in people of all backgrounds, not just whites. The disturbing thing is that the Republican Party knows it, and is fanning the fame of prejudice for political advantage.

Turn on the television. The Republican ticket is flooding the airwaves with racially-charged commercials designed to pit middle class whites against the minority poor. Republican ads accuse President Obama of gutting the work requirements enacted in the 1996 Welfare Reform Act.  Another alleges that Obama redistributed $716 billion from Medicare - a program serving an overwhelmingly white constituency - in order to fund ObamaCare - a program for poor blacks and Hispanics. The ads are intended to reinforce each other's claims, and to exploit the implicit bias of whites. 

If the claims were true I would not be condemning the ads as repugnant falsification of the President's policies. Unfortunately for you and me, they Republican Party will stoop to any depth to win back the Oval Office, even if it means inciting a new race war in this country. But don't take my word for it! The Washington Post's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, gave the ads his lowest rating - "Four Pinocchios".  Politifact was equally critical, describing the ads as "a drastic distortion" deserving of a "pants on fire" rating. 

There are so many reasons that I could not vote for Mitt Romney. My issues with his economic policies are paramount, but no less objectionable to me is his total lack of character. As if his position du jour is not enough to question his character, I cannot rationalize how a supposed "man of faith" could be so flexible with the truth. Flexible is the new Republican word for lie. Nor can I fathom how he could willingly endorse a campaign strategy that is intentionally divisive. 

If I influence just one person to take a stand, and cast a vote against racism and divisiveness, this post will have been worth the effort. I'm not suggesting that Obama is perfect, or that the Democratic ticket does not stretch the truth in its ads. They most certainly do. The difference is that the Republicans are inflaming old resentments. The Romney campaign is ignoring criticism about accuracy and veracity in favor of  blowing the dog-whistle of racism. We all know what "take our country back really means.

You may know me, but you don't KNOW me.

I just returned from an annual golf trip with my brother. My family has been going to Luray Caverns Country Club every year since 1980. Over the years the size of the outing has varied, peaking at 44. Today we shoot for 16. About 15 years ago my brother assumed the reins and began coordinating the outing. I didn't go for many years because he and I were not close. To say that we enjoyed a superficial relationship would be an overstatement. About five years ago my brother asked that I come back to Luray, that we use the trip to reestablish some kind of brotherly bond. Needless to say I agreed.   

Since my father's passing the trip has become a gathering of my brother's friends. Only my Uncle Walt and I remain from the original group. The trip is no less fun, just a different social experience than in the past. Golfing with 14 of my brother's friends is always a blast. I genuinely like all of them. That said, a common theme has emerged - it's become the Mike Mathews show. Mike, a former MLB journeyman pitcher, carries a 2 or 3 handicap. He beat me by 30 strokes in the three-round competition, destroying the field. He's the best golfer of the group by a wide margin. During the evenings Mike regales the group with graphic accounts of his off-the-field exploits. His retelling is hilarious, especially for the one or two newcomers each year that haven't heard the stories before. It's the typical "glory days" cliche', but a laughfest nonetheless.

Somehow the subject matter always shifts to me and the volatile escapades that dominated my 20's and 30's. Either my brother or one of his friends will mention an incident, using me as a prop to keep the conversation lively. I don't particularly care what people think or believe they know about me. In all candor, it's truly amusing to me that anyone that's been in my presence less than ten times over the past decade could believe they know anything about me, but that's a different post altogether. For my part, I'm happy to play the fool and share the incidents that troubled my past. If painting me as the family black sheep is somehow an affirmation of my brother's stature, I'm quite content to let his friends believe what they will.

Although the golf outing is the inspiration for this post, it's not my intent to poke any of them in the chest and say "you don't know me." Instead, it's to illustrate the challenge that I'll face in writing this blog. The trip with my brother heightened my awareness that people leap to conclusions on the basis of minuscule amounts of information. None of them, my brother included, has the vaguest notion what makes me tick, how I support my family, or the principals I hold dear. I'm simply Patrick's crazy brother.

It's possible that readers of my blog will also form opinions about me solely on the basis of my posts. In writing this blog I plan to chronicle family events, share photos, and talk about personal struggles past and present. In so doing - people may assume that's my whole life, and believe they'll know me because I put my whole life out there for all to see. Let me assure you that's not the case! It's not all out there and never will be. I won't share everything. There have been and will be moments and struggles that will remain deeply private. 

In a prior post I stated that I blog because it's cathartic. It allows me to purge many thoughts that rattle inside my head. Instead of struggling to find the right words to verbalize what I'm feeling, I can construct the message I want to convey, click the Publish button, and BOOM it's out there for everyone to see. The downside is that there is no editing process; no one reading the post prior to publishing to fact check or simply verify that I really want to say what I'm saying. It's just me and my writing.

My blog is an attempt to put my life and thoughts into context, to provide a clearer picture of what makes me tick than I typically do in social settings. I've been told that I lack a filter, that's true, but only half the story. The truth is that I always have a million thoughts colliding in my brain. My initial verbalization is typically out of context, a purely emotional reaction to a situation which doesn't accurately reflect the totality of my perspective. Therein lays the challenge. I've learned to harness my emotions and to apply situational awareness, but if I don't like or respect the audience, I have no inhibition in delivering unfiltered content . If I say something irreverent it's not because I lack the ability to filter, but because I have so little regard for what the person thinks of me. I'm simply playing a role. It's my way to telling them to fuck off, I can't wait for this to over, without them knowing. That makes me an asshole, not crazy!

The flip-side is that if I do care what you think, my default is to say nothing until I know exactly what it is I want to convey. The trouble is that I don't immediately know. I've got to homogenize the millions of colliding images in my head into a concise, rational, thought. Despite my 140  IQ, I can't process all of the data on the fly. This poem most accurately represents what it's like to be me:

I am an enigma unto myself.
Who lives behind these dull orbs of bright blue?
Someone or something I don't even know.
Who is this "I" I keep referring to?

I am an enigma unto myself.
I do things and say things I don't understand.
Strange thoughts race around inside my head.
Is it ever possible to know me?

I am an enigma unto myself.
I look in the mirror, and wonder who
Could be staring back at me. A stranger
Who's vaguely familiar. Is it really me?

I am something no one can comprehend.
In that respect I'm no different than you.

This post would be incomplete without an illustration. Several weeks ago I hosted a Baptismal celebration for my nephew's son at my home. During the party a woman, friend of my nephew's father-in-law, approached me to inform me that she thought I was an asshole but had revised her opinion and wanted me to know that she now believed me to be a sweet and generous person. Apparently this woman was offended by the "hard ass" persona I exhibited during my daughters high school athletic careers. I say apparently because we rarely spoke and didn't share a common social network. Her opinion was formed solely on the basis of how she perceived me, and I was unaware. The key point is that on the basis of very limited interaction she decided that I was an asshole. Now, on the basis of far more limited data, entirely based on 3rd-party input, she feels compelled to tell me that her opinion of me has dramatically improved.

All I could say to her was "thank you. You know me, but you don't really know me."


  

Why do I Blog?

There are days that I think I have something important to say. Yet most days I realize that no one reads my post, and worse, very few care what I believe to be right or true.

So why do I sit behind the computer in my spare time and stare at an empty screen, trying to gather my thoughts and make the effort of putting them into words? Why does any blogger publish their thoughts into cyberspace? What do we expect to get out of it? My wife certainly wants to know. She considers it a personal affront that I chose to blog instead of sharing my thoughts with her.

The answer to this question will be different for everyone. My answer is simple - I write for myself. It's cathartic. My mind races constantly, reflecting on the day's events, and trying to figure everything out. Writing is my way of harnessing a million different thoughts, scenarios, or permutations, so that I can derive a logical conclusion. Writing is the process I use to ensure that I can accurately communicate verbally. I wouldn’t describe myself as a verbal kind of person. In fact, words don’t come easy to me. I think in images or concepts.  Ideas form as images in my mind and when they are ready, I put them onto paper.

Well now you know why I write, but the question remains - why Blog? I'm asked this often. I also hear the 'your daughter is going to be so pissed when she reads all that you've shared on the internet'. A childhood friend implied that I'm being self-centered, selfish and thinking the world revolves around me. Maybe writing a blog is a bit indulgent but there are some good reasons why I chose to do it.

First, as described above, writing helps me to translate my visual learning style, to covert pictures to words, so that I can interface with a world that is principally verbally-oriented.

Second, blogging satisfies a creative need. I never knew how much I loved to write until I started writing professionally about twelve years ago.  I started writing business plans, collateral, and website content as a marketing consultant back in 2000. Much to my surprise, I was good at it.  That was it.  Once I started and I was hooked.  Today I need to write to work something out in my head. It feels good.

Third, I believe that it's really important to write about my struggles in life. You'll have to continue to read my posts if you want any more dirt.

But, the most important reason why I blog is my family.  This is for them.  This is a chronicle of our life together.  If, god forbid, something were to happen to me, they will always have these stories of our adventures, struggles, triumphs, failures.  I know that I'm an enigma to most. I don't want them to have as many unanswered questions about me as I've lived with.

Romney Won the Debate - Sort of

If we elect the President purely on their debate performances then Obama is in trouble. He looked disinterested most of the evening. The great James Lipton described POTUS performance as "listless, anxious for it to be over". There is no doubt that Romney had a better night - stylistically.

The good news is that the electorate has had the benefit of watching Romney campaign all year. Although Obama failed to challenge any of Romney's "new" positions or outrageous claims, fact checkers are hard at work clearing the smoke so that we can focus on the realities of his positions.

Romney may have had a better performance, but his lies will surface to cripple him in the long run. Here are a few examples:

ROMNEY: "What would I cut from spending? Well, first of all, I will eliminate all programs by this test, if they pass it: Is the program so critical it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it?"

THE FACTS: China continues to be portrayed by Romney and many other Republicans as the poster child for runaway federal deficits. It's true that China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, but it only represents about an 8 percent stake. And China has recently been decreasing its holdings, according to the Treasury Department. Some two-thirds of the $16 trillion national debt is owed to the federal government, with the largest single stake the Federal Reserve, as well as American investors and the Social Security Trust Fund.

THE FACTS: Romney is referring to the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel of experts that would have the power to force Medicare cuts if costs rise beyond certain levels and Congress fails to act. But Obama's health care law explicitly prohibits the board from rationing care, shifting costs to retirees, restricting benefits or raising the Medicare eligibility age. So the board doesn't have the power to dictate to doctors what treatments they can prescribe.

Romney seems to be resurrecting the assertion that Obama's law would lead to rationing, made famous by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's widely debunked allegation that it would create "death panels."
The board has yet to be named, and its members would ultimately have to be confirmed by the Senate. Health care inflation has been modest in the last few years, so cuts would be unlikely for most of the rest of this decade.

ROMNEY on the failure of Obama's economic policy: "And the proof of that is 23 million people out of work. The proof of that is 1 out of 6 people in poverty. The proof of that is we've gone from 32 million on food stamps to 47 million on food stamps. The proof of that is that 50 percent of college graduates this year can't find work."

THE FACTS: The number of unemployed is 12.5 million, not 23 million. Romney was also counting 8 million people who are working part time but would like a full-time job and 2.6 million who have stopped looking for work, either because they are discouraged or because they are going back to school or for other reasons.

He got the figure closer to right earlier in the debate, leaving out only the part-timers when he said the U.S. has "23 million people out of work or stopped looking for work." But he was wrong in asserting that Obama came into office "facing 23 million people out of work." At the start of Obama's presidency, 12

million were out of work.

His claim that half of college graduates can't find work now also was problematic. A Northeastern University analysis for The Associated Press found that a quarter of graduates were probably unemployed and another quarter were underemployed, which means working in jobs that didn't make full use of their skills or experience.

ROMNEY: "At the same time, gasoline prices have doubled under the president. Electric rates are up."

THE FACTS: He's right that the average price has doubled, and a little more, since Obama was sworn in. But presidents have almost no influence on gasoline prices, and certainly not in the near term. Gasoline prices are set on financial exchanges around the world and are based on a host of factors, most importantly the price of crude oil used to make gasoline, the amount of finished gasoline ready to be shipped and the capacity of refiners to make enough to meet market demand.

Retail electricity prices have risen since Obama took office — barely. They've grown by an average of less than 1 percent per year, less than the rate of inflation and slower than the historical growth in electricity prices. The unexpectedly modest rise in electricity prices is because of the plummeting cost of natural gas, which is used to generate electricity.

ROMNEY on cutting the deficit: "Obamacare's on my list. ... I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. ... I'll make government more efficient."

THE FACTS: Romney has promised to balance the budget in eight years to 10 years, but he hasn't offered a complete plan. Instead, he's promised a set of principles, some of which — like increasing Pentagon spending and restoring more than $700 billion in cuts that Democrats made in Medicare over the coming decade — work against his goal. He also has said he will not consider tax increases.

He pledges to shrink the government to 20 percent of the size of the economy, as opposed to more than 23 percent of gross domestic product now, by the end of his first term. The Romney campaign estimates that would require cuts of $500 billion from the 2016 budget alone. He also has pledged to cut tax rates by 20 percent, paying for them by eliminating tax breaks for the wealthiest and through economic growth.

To fulfill his promise, then, Romney would require cuts to other programs so deep — under one calculation requiring cutting many areas of the domestic budget by one-third within four years — that they could never get through Congress. Cuts to domestic agencies would have to be particularly deep.
But he's offered only a few modest examples of government programs he'd be willing to squeeze, like subsidies to PBS and Amtrak. He does want to repeal Obama's big health care law, but that law is actually forecast to reduce the deficit.

It's been a while.

I haven't posted in quite a while. It's not that I didin't have anything to say, I've just been too busy building a new organization to invest any time formulating a post. I won't make post for the sake of making a post. When I do, I try to base it on my interpetations of the facts.

You may not always agree with me. That's OK. If you want to challenge any of my assertions, feel free. I love a good debate.  Debate is an essential process in reaching decisive awareness. If I take a position and expose it to be challenged from many points of view, I'll be forced to defend that position against all objections. When all is said and done, I want any topic I opine to be free of logical inconsistencies or contradictions.

So let the games begin.