Media describes Palin budget increase as cut
September 3, 2008
Slashed funding. Budget cuts. Reduction in needed services. Increased class sizes. Shorter library hours. All of these statements are code words used by the liberal left to scare the crap out of senior citizens, school parents and unions. If you don’t agree to tax increases, your precious services - that can only be provided by the government - will be slashed.
The problem is, many of these statements are used to cover lies and misrepresentations, often supported by liberal media hacks. A great example is Paul Kane’s drive-by-media article on how Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and vice presidential nominee, “slashed” funding 20 percent to Covenant House Alaska. Read more
What is the Cost of Educating Kids?
April 14, 2008
Quite frequently local municipalities provide data detailing how much money is spent per pupil for budget disclosure. But are the numbers we are provided the real cost of educating kids in the United States?
It should be a pretty easy calculation, take the total amount of money spent to run the facility, pay teacher salaries and benefits, pay the administrators, buy the books and supplies, play the utilities bill and then divide that by the number of kids in the school.
But what if a town or city is only using money appropriated to the schools that is contributed by the local tax base in their per-pupil spending numbers? Read more
Business Survival Depends on Three Critical Success Factors
March 4, 2008
About two years ago I took a graduate-level class - jammed into four days - on business operations. Drilled into our minds were the critical success factors for any business - service, quality and cost.
Since a co-worker is taking the same class this week, and a post I recently read on SigForum by author JALLEN deals with the same subject, I thought it timely to post here.
Provide service, on time all the time; at the lowest justifiable cost; at the highest justifiable quality. It’s a balanced triangle you see, and JALLEN sums it up quite well.
Every day the gazelle wakes up knowing that it must eat enough, and drink enough, and exercise enough so it can be faster than the fastest lion, or at least not be the slowest gazelle. If the gazelle doesn’t spend the time grazing, or going to the watering hole when it is supposed to, and spends too much time grab-assing in the meadow with its buddies, it risks spraining a leg, running out of hydration, not get enough to eat, and ends up a lion’s dinner.
By the same token, a lion wakes up every morning knowing that it has to be faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It has to do its wind sprints, stay in top shape, get plenty of water, etc. If the lions spent too much time grab-assing in the meadow with the other lions, they might get hurt, bitten, etc, and be unable to run fast enough to catch dinner.
In other words, survival depends on doing things efficiently, wasting neither time nor resources, nor opportunities unduly. To the extent that businesses do this, they prosper and grow. A business that has too high a payroll for what it produces, exorbitant occupancy costs, too few or too many employees, too little capital, too many over-paid, fat cigar smoking Mercedes-leasing unproductive salesmen, etc., runs the increased risk of failure. If the managers fail to take note of changes in the marketplace, new developments, and therefore make stupid decisions, like investing in a new photo processing plant when the world is going digital, or a new buggy whip plant just as Henry Ford rolls out the automobile, etc. failure looms large, disaster, losses to the shareholder(s). To the extent the management anticipates change, plans for it accurately, gauges the demands of it’s customers and meets those needs efficiently, it prospers and grows.
Every one of the factors of production has to be present in proper proportion for the industry. Some industries are capital intensive, some are labor intensive. Too much capital and not enough labor is inefficient in a labor intensive industry. Insufficient capital for the needs of the business, too much labor, too costly labor, are just as deadly. Entrepreneurial ability, allocating the various ingredients in proper proportion, is critical to efficiency.
Wailing about some companies thriving while others do not is silly. Where is it written that one company has to operate less efficiently so that its competitors have an easier time of it? Where does it say that the Cowboys have to use a slower, smaller left tackle so the Packers can have a better chance of sacks, or that the Red Sox pitchers can’t use left-handed curveballs, because the Royals can’t hit them well?
Part of entrepreneurial ability is assessing the market, to figure out how many widgets can be sold, and at what price, and figuring out what widgets can be produced at what cost. Decisions have to be made about three main issues…. price, service and quality.
Is the business a Nordstroms? Very high cost high quality lots of service in sales, returns, customer satisfaction? Or a Costco, low cost, minimal quality and service, no salesmen, no credit cards, all cash, no carry out, etc. Some combination? If you try high cost and no service, that might not be optimum. The opposite might be just as disastrous for the return on investment.
This subject also fits well with current events, specifically the discussions about NAFTA, tariffs and “job security” between the Democrat candidates. I think they can learn quite a bit from the gazelle and lion, so can we.
State of the Union Address Tonight
January 28, 2008
Instead of watching the SOTU tonight, why not download the talking points from the White House and read through everything.
Mostly, it contains bullet point after bullet point after bullet point, so it will not be too difficult to do.
Homework - again, instead of watching, use the time to go through the linked document above and ask the following two questions frequently.
- Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the federal government is supposed to provide this program? Some are clearly the responsibility of the feds (national security) and others are not (health care and education). For reference, I’ve got the Constitution along with the Bill of Rights and additional Amendments here on the site.
- How much will all of this stuff cost?
That’s it. Move along towards your assignment. I’m going to watch the Last King of Scotland.
The Cost of Education
December 20, 2007
Walter Williams posted his column yesterday that dealt with the average cost paid - per year I assume - by public secondary education schools in the U.S. compared to other countries. He also looks quickly at the academic results posted by the U.S. Department of Education1. We’re not doing all that well; ranked 33rd in industrialized countries when it comes to math and science. (No data is available on reading due to some sort of glitch.)
Of course, democrats want to throw more cash at the problem, but a 2005 study by a good friend at windsorwatch.org clearly indicated that in the town of Windsor, Connecticut - and in the state as a whole - there is absolutely no correlation between the dollars spent per kid and academic results. As a matter of fact, there is no correlation between student to teacher ratios, class size or the number of computers in the classroom either.
The only clear correlation was between test scores and median income of the family. Well isn’t that interesting?
Of course, a democrats answer might be just to give cash directly to families to increase their median income, but we all know that won’t work.
Instead, we should be looking at those outlier towns that spend less per student and get better academic results. What are they doing differently?
1Of course, we all know that there is no authority in the U.S. Constitution to create or fund this department. That responsibility, since it is not listed specifically in the Constitution, is given to the states or the people.
