And not a word about married parents

The number one reason for children growing up in poverty is their parents: unmarried young mothers who didn't finish their education. A child whose mother didn't have her first child until she was out of her teens, who finished high school, and got married before she started a family has a very small chance of growing up in poverty. But here's what Obama said he would do--and none of this is original to him--we've been goosing this problem with government money (and good salaries for the bureaucrats in the programs) since the 1930s when social workers decided Uncle Sam could be a step-father to millions, thus keeping them in poverty and on the rolls for the Democrats for a life time.

"My anti-poverty plan will significantly improve opportunities for millions of poor children and their parents by strengthening the economy for working Americans and providing additional resources to programs that have proven to be effective in reducing poverty. For example, my plan will expand the EITC, which is considered one of the most effective pro-work anti-poverty programs to date, to 5.8 million more Americans. Additionally, my EITC plan will increase EITC benefits for another 6.2 million Americans. I will also extend affordable, quality and portable health insurance coverage to every American and make significant investments in early childhood education to help low-income families. I will invest $1 billion over five years into transitional jobs and career pathways programs to engage more Americans into the workforce and help them succeed. I will also work to tackle chronic poverty in urban neighborhoods across American by creating Promise Neighborhoods in 20 cities to provide new hope and opportunities to residents of concentrated poverty." Spotlight on Poverty

William Galston, a Democratic strategist and former domestic affairs adviser to President Clinton is usually acknowledged as the source of the statistics on the relationship between poverty, education and marriage. But it's been confirmed many times either in research or in personal experience by people who work with the poor. Even divorce lowers a child's economic level. Only 8% of people who do all three will be poor; of those who fail to do them, 79% will be poor. The evidence that mother-only families contribute to crime is powerful. When two scholars studied data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, they found that, after holding income constant, young people in father-absent families were twice as likely to be in jail as were those in two-parent families. And their lives did not improve if their mother had acquired a stepfather for them. Fill-in dads don't improve matters any more than do fatter government checks.

Will more money in the form of EITC help? More health insurance? Vinyl siding and new windows on the home bought with a government grant? Not if marriage is left out of the poverty solution. Poor and low income women already have access to many government programs--most of which hold them hostage. I know a married mother of a school age child who doesn't work because the family would lose its EITC and SCHIP. It will also never get beyond "low income." During the year before their babies were born, 43% of unmarried mothers received welfare or food stamps, 21% received some type of housing subsidy, and 9% received another type of government transfer (unemployment insurance etc.). For women who have another child, the proportion who receive welfare or food stamps rises to 54%. (McLanahan, Sara. The Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study: Baseline National Report. Princeton, NJ: Center for Research on Child Well-being, 2003). Unmarried parents put children at risk for high rates of asthma (Harknett, Kristin. Children’s Elevated Risk of Asthma in Unmarried Families: Underlying Structural and Behavioral Mechanisms. Working Paper #2005-01-FF. Princeton, NJ: Center for Research on Child Well-being, 2005: 19-27.). In a study of INTERPOL crime statistics of 39 countries, it was found that single parenthood ratios were strongly correlated with violent crimes. (Barber, Nigel. “Single Parenthood As a Predictor of Cross-National Variation in Violent Crime.” Cross-Cultural Research 38 (November 2004): 343-358.)

Putting himself out there to the public as a married family man may be the number one thing President Obama can do bring down poverty. This he needs to say before every speech on proverty. Bring Michelle and the girls on stage and say proudly, "Here is plan A. Now for Plan B. . . "

To think they would grow up

to support and dance around the Porkulus Bill. "Some are going to live and some are going to die. . . make sure that tunnel has a door."

Governor honors long-time married volunteers

This was apparently started under Governor Taft and Strickland has continued it. No one from Columbus on the list.

First Lady Frances Strickland and the Ohio Department of Aging today honor 31 couples for their dedication to marriage and volunteerism at the tenth annual Joined Hearts in Giving celebration, held in observance of Valentine's Day at the governor's residence in Columbus. Joined Hearts in Giving honors Ohioans at least 60 years old who have been married 40 years or longer and who share a commitment to volunteerism.

"Ohio is a better place because of the efforts of these great people," said Mrs. Strickland, the event's host. "Through the hours and hard work they volunteer, they embody all that makes this state exceptional."

"The devotion of these couples is truly heart-warming," said Barbara E. Riley, director of the Ohio Department of Aging. "Their commitment to each other and their passion to help others is a model we can all take to heart."

I wasn't aware of the nomination process. I certainly would have recommended my neighbors long time volunteers at their church and the senior center, and married over 60 years.

Deja vu all over again

In 1978 I had a wonderful position in the Agricultural Library at Ohio State University working with agricultural credit and technology files. The position, like many at universities, was paid for by the State Department USAID. Essentially, it was research on what very small amounts of credit from non-profits and governments could do for families and villages in rural, third world countries. Browsing the examples that will be presented at this Fisher College of Business event next week, looks like not much has changed in 30 years. A scarf project in Bolivia and a charity in Appalachia. Well, they probably meet green goals even if they don't lift anyone out of poverty. And that's what is about these days, right? I doubt if the ACT files are still there, but there's no need to reinvent the wheel (although how would academics get promoted if they couldn't rewrite the research done 30-40 years ago?).

Students organize dialogue on battling poverty through entrepreneurship

On Feb. 20, students, the ambassador of Bangladesh, business executives, business scholars, state officials and poverty practitioners will gather at Gerlach Hall for the "Alleviating Poverty Through Entrepreneurship Summit." The day-long summit, inspired by Fisher students, will bring together poverty experts and individuals interested in this topic to create a dialogue and exchange successful strategies, ideas and practices.

“There are many entities addressing poverty utilizing different approaches, as business students we wanted to bring many views together in one forum,” said Benjamin VanBuskirk, one of the student organizers for the event. “We hope this interaction will create discussions about how theory and practice are intersecting while offering participants opportunities to learn from each other.”

The format for the summit will be panel discussions—focused on four areas, research, government, practitioners and business." Link

When the markets realized who would be the next president

So why didn't everything collapse in 1999?

In this morning's WSJ front page article about corporate default rates on high yield bonds I noticed something very peculiar in the chart. In 1999 the default rate was above 5%; in 2008 it was 4.5%. The projection--a big bold red dotted line--was for 13.9% in 2009, but we aren't yet where we were in 1999. So after the Obama Pork and Plunder (O-PAP) bill, we're still to expect defaults of businesses to continue? You mean bashing business, capitalism, free markets, nationalizing health care and parading high earners before Congress for public tongue lashing doesn't help the economy? Whudathunkit?

"A growing wave of souring corporate debt claimed another victim on Thursday as Charter Communications Inc., the nation's fourth-largest cable-TV company, said it would seek bankruptcy-court protection by April 1." Sorry, this is subscriber only

Our ever vigilant, free and independent press

"After curbing enthusiasm, Obama must ease anxiety" is the headline in today's WSJ article by Gerald F. Seib. This appeared in Capital Journal, "Capital Journal is WSJ.com’s unique site for analysis of the political and policy maneuvering in Washington in the era of Barack Obama. It features the Capital Journal columns and occasional other postings by executive Washington editor Gerald F. Seib, and will house Political Wisdom, the Journal's daily aggregation of the smartest political analysis from around the Internet. . ." What an Obama patsy. This corny mush couldn't keep a starving baby chick alive. God help us. He says the execessive enthusiasm (i.e. the bizarre hope ginned up by the candidate to win votes), needed some cold water.

If the goal was to head off irrational exuberance, it worked. More than half the country now says it expects the recession to last as long as three years. Link.

Not me. I expect Obama to exceed FDR's record and give us at least 12 years of bashing and destroying capitalism, high unemployment, and an even higher misery index. Then it will be up to whoever owns our debt, probably China, to decide what to do with us.

Barney the dog has left DC

We'll enjoy the memories of his antics. Barney the Frank is still there, marauding through the halls of Congress, looking for plunder, still misleading us into more debt. Barney Frank, the Representative from Massachusetts has done more damage to this nation than the senior senator from that state could ever have imagined.

Rep. Barney Frank asserted Thursday that the Obama administration can be more trusted than the Bush administration to ensure that banks do not misuse money they get from a $700 billion bailout fund. Chicago Tribune

Yes, good ol' Barn. He's the one who told us there was no problem with Fannie and Fred; he's the one with Chris Dodd whose oversite responsibilities got us here along with all the other Democrats and "can't we all get along" Republicans. He's the one who should be brought before Congress to do the mea culpa they are forcing on CEOs.

As my artist friend Charlie wrote, Barney is attempting to "wash his hands and those of the Democrat party of any blame for the mess, and lay total responsibility on the Bush administration and Republicans in General. The truth is that Frank and the liberal left generated the whole problem by coercing financial institutions to make loans to people who couldn't afford them and using their political clout in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to cover up the problem. (The loans were nicknamed "NINJA" loans....No Income, No Job or Assets)." Yes, I've written about that many times at this blog, and my man Bush certainly can take part of the blame. Four years ago he was praising the number of new home owners among minorities, pandering to the liberals in his own party and moderate Democrats. Owning a home isn't a "civil right," and there was a very good reason for 20% down and fixed mortgages. Once the government began demanding that banks become social workers and nannies, the scene was set for our current playbook.

If government would stay out of this, we could come out of this recession as we've come out of the last 5 or 6, without a massive Depression, but we're on our way! Wheeee! But now we have a $13 a week payback "to make work pay" for all those who believed in Hope and Change.

Here's your tax break

Don't spend it all in one place.

Q: What are some of the tax breaks in the bill?

A: It includes Obama's signature "Making Work Pay" tax credit for 95 percent of workers, though negotiators agreed to trim the credit to $400 a year instead of $500 — or $800 for married couples, cut from Obama's original proposal of $1,000. It would begin showing up in most workers' paychecks in June as an extra $13 a week in take-home pay, falling to about $8 a week next January.

There is also a $70 billion, one-year fix for the alternative minimum tax. The fix would save some 20 million mainly upper-middle-income taxpayers about $2,000 in taxes for 2009. Yahoo News

I think the decrease in the cost of gasoline in the fall added about $2,000 to the average worker's wallet, didn't it? So what will $13 a week, dropping to $8 a week do? What is that, a half pack of cigarettes a day? And their taxes on that pack are the ones paying for the new SCHIP for the middle class. A cup of coffee a day at Panera's? And now we know it's good for us. Where are all those whiners who disparaged the Bush stimulus--like Michelle Obama? Meanwhile, Geithner the tax evader is promising to throw trillions at . . . what? Does anyone know what he's talking about?

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner vowed on Tuesday to jumpstart the nation’s financial system, announcing sweeping new plans to aid struggling banks, spur lending and help beleaguered homeowners.

The program will commit as much as $2 trillion in public and private funds to spur consumer and business lending.

Geithner christened the administration’s revamped bailout program the “Financial Stability Plan,” a not-so-subtle attempt to distance the new Obama administration from the much-maligned management of the “Troubled Asset Relief Program” established in the waning days of the Bush administration. Politico

I'm not too good at math but I saw this at Soda Head: At a million dollars a day, it would take 1,000,000 days or about 2,740 years to spend one trillion. If you want to spend it in your (obviously not mine) life time you would have to spend at least 20 billion per day. Even then it would take you 50 years.

FiSP instead of TARP.

Read The Audacity of Dopes by William K. Black.

Heavy reporting

James Taranto took the USAToday writer to task for the sloppy writing on the figures for overweight military yesterday, but today he says it wasn't enough--the article was even more poorly researched with speculative (i.e. anti-war) conclusions than he thought.

To begin with, the study contains nothing--zilch--to back up Zoroya's contention that the trend "since the start of the Iraq war" is "yet another example of stress and strains of continuing combat deployments." And a close look at it gives further reason to doubt [Gregg] Zoroya's linkage of the findings to the Iraq effort.

So who's chubbing out? The women, and the elders--just like the rest of the population. The Army and the Marines, the bulk of the Iraq troops, have the lowest rates of obesity. I guess the press will need to find another way to slam the troops. The prisoners on Gitmo got fat on good food, too--which will probably all change when they are sent home to "reeducation camps" and then loosed to come back to us, slim and trim.

Today's new word--JEREMIAD

This is a noun from the name of the Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah, and means lamenting and denunciatory, complaint, doleful story. My goodness, haven't we been hearing a lot of jeremiads lately from the folks in Washington. The context: "[Jonathan Edwards] vision of depravity and sulphur is in the tradition of the jeremiad . . . one of the ongoing themes in American society and rhetoric. . ."

Every improvement has a consequence down the line

Our polio epidemics of the 20th century were a result of good sanitation--the flush toilet. Here’s one I wouldn’t have thought of--clean water increases poor sanitation.

"Clean Water Makes You Dirty: Water Supply and Sanitation Behavior in the Philippines"
Daniel Bennett, Assistant Professor, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago
June 12, 2008

Improving the water supply is a common policy response to endemic diarrhea in developing countries. However, water supply interventions may inadvertently worsen community sanitation by mitigating the consequences of unsanitary behavior. Since sanitation has large health externalities, the impact of declining sanitation may overwhelm the benefit of receiving clean water. This paper shows how the expansion of municipal piped water in Metro Cebu, the Philippines has exacerbated public defecation and garbage disposal. According to estimates, a neighborhood’s complete adoption of piped water increases public defecation and garbage by 15-30 percent.

I think there’s a message here for us, but I’ll have to think about what it is. Something like "it’s not my problem any more," or “now the government will take care of me so I can do anything I want.”

Cornell McCleary, former Columbus talk show host dies

He also was a blogger. He will be missed. Story here.

A longtime critic of Mayor Michael B. Coleman, McCleary had posted comments in recent days critical of the decision to demolish Columbus City Center. McCleary had wanted the city to subsidize the relocation of businesses from poorer communities into a new center named Columbus International Unity Center.

He ran unsuccessfully for Columbus City Council as a Republican in 2001.
He hosted a radio show on 610 AM WTVN for eight years, ending in March 2006.

Urban Infrastructure Recovery Fund

Even before the Obama jobs program, there was the Bush jobs program, which pumped millions and millions into cities to "revitalize" various neighborhoods. Very few poor people benefitted, unless they worked in one of the building trades that did the work. Many of those homes are now boarded up. These were bad investments for everyone concerned. And actually, I can't even blame Bush II because this was going on for about 20 years--maybe back to Carter, but on a smaller scale. In Columbus, you might find $60,000 homes in the central city getting $200,000 worth of renovations. The roofing programs were--out the roof. But, and this is no pun intended, get a load of this one for "assley resurfacing." Either someone hacked the site, or a PIC worker typed it. Look it up in an urban dictionary. I kid you not; I've cut and pasted from this web page

The program funds several million dollars of capital improvements per year in Central City Neighborhoods. Residents propose projects based on a premise they know their neighborhood needs. Since 1992, $36 million in public roadway and public park improvements were constructed such as street paving, assley resurfacing, street lighting upgrades, street trees, curbs and sidewalks, playground equipment, and neighborhood gateways.

We will probably get to tear down our 20 year old City Center Mall and build another unsafe park! That, Mr. and Mrs. America, is just a downpayment on Mr. Obama's programs for the nation--assley covering.

Now he shows up for work

President Obama has really been testy lately, no more Mr. Hope and Happy Talk. But he's learning. He now shows up. He can't just vote "present" anymore. Today he's back in Illinois (Lincoln's birthday) talking up his 1930s jobs program. He doesn't need support from Republicans. He doesn't need "bi-partisanship" to get this killer bill through Congress. He's got all the votes he needs. He just doesn't want all the blame. Maybe that is like voting "present," come to think of it. I think San Fran Gran gets most of coaching credit.

You can read about the first assassination attempt on Lincoln here at my blog. It wasn't reported in the news until 50 years later, but a librarian saved his life. William T. Coggeshall was Lincoln's bodyguard in 1861 and later became the state librarian of Ohio.

Cancer hoax in e-mail

The latest I received was supposedly from Johns Hopkins, but they are all over the internet. There are lots of things you can do to have a healthier life, but avoiding the microwave, fast food containers, and freezing water in plastic bottles aren't those.

You can eat real food

Get up and go for a walk and breathe

Be faithful to your spouse

Stop smoking or don't start

Just those four things--without Yoga, or vitamin supplements, no vegetarian diet, no navel gazing, will do a lot to help. Even prayer if it reduces your stress level. A nice hobby. A beautiful scene. An occasional vacation that doesn't wear down your wallet. Perhaps putting your hands in dirt and growing a garden. But no modification in living would have stopped my daughter's cancer, which she survived thanks to modern medicine and alert doctors, only to almost be taken out by a DVT which had nothing at all to do with anything except flying too often and wearing high heels.

Let's put good intentions in perspective. The environmentalist movement has killed more Africans than the Atlantic slave trade ever did; over 40 million developing Americans have died in abortions; a dirty peanut plant with careless owners is taking its toll on immune compromised people who survived cancer and other problems through a living, perfectly "natural" bacteria called Salmonella Typhimurium.

Now, listen to mother and get a life.

Craig's List and Ohio Prostitution

This seems to be a problem around here. Although if these folks weren't advertising on the popular Craig's List, which snagged an OSU Nursing School adviser and former employee of the Governor, the authorities might never catch up with them.

A fourth-grade teacher at Bellefontaine’s Western Intermediate School, who was arrested Tuesday on prostitution charges, allegedly used a school computer and postings on Craigslist to set up daytime trysts with clients.

Amber R. Carter, 35, of Bellefontaine, was taken into custody around noon by deputies of the Logan County Sheriff’s Office in the parking lot of the Bellefontaine Super 8 Motel, 1117 N. Main St., without incident. She was charged with third-degree misdemeanor prostitution and fifth-degree felony unauthorized use of property.

She is now free on bond and no date for her initial court appearance had been set as of this morning.

Bellefontaine City Schools is cooperating with the sheriff’s office, Superintendent Larry Anderson, Ph.D., said this morning. “It’s really a shock,” Dr. Anderson said. “We’re pretty devastated on this. Bellefontaine Examiner

I guess it was tough explaining to the kids why the teacher had a sub.

The Christmas wreath

When I stepped outside this morning, I narrowly missed crushing some pinecones and bulbs. The Christmas wreath was in the bushes and pieces parts in the entry. Well, it was time, right? About 20 of our neighbors across the ravine are without power, according to one that I saw at Panera's this morning with her family getting breakfast. They also lost power for 5 days after Hurricane Ike roared through here in September. Being without power in Ohio in February is a bit more challenging than September. We lost power for about 30 seconds, but I heard the wind roaring most of the night.

Time to hang the spring wreath anyway.

Who bears the responsibility?

If the managers and owners of Peanut Corporation of America knew about the salmonella contamination, they are worse than pond scum and should go to jail. But what about all the workers, the ones who now say they saw the filth, the rats, the chipped paint above roasters?

Terry Jones, a janitor, remembered the peanut oil left to soak into the floor and the unrepaired roof that constantly leaked rain.

And James Griffin, a cook at the plant, recounted how his observations led to this simple rule. “I never ate the peanut butter, and I wouldn’t allow my kids to eat it.”

In interviews, these three men and another employee who worked at the now-closed plant, provided an inside glimpse into the day-to-day sanitation lapses there. AJC.com

There must have been employees up and down the line, managers, union members, illegals and legals, educated and no-so-much, who saw and didn't act because they wanted to keep their jobs. How is that different than the men testifying before Congressional leaders whose values and ethics are also screwed up?

So now a government that can't provide enough employees so the FDA can keep the plants inspected using regulations and laws long on the books is going to spend massive amounts of our money dabbling in less critical facets of our lives, like universal pre-school, light bulbs to save energy and dangerous to dispose, and rewriting marriage laws so gays don't feel left out.

"Stimulus deal forged"
That was the Columbus Dispatch headline today. Yes, forge means to form or bring into being through effort, but it also means to make with intent to defraud, to commit a forgery. And it is definitely a forgery when over half of the American people know that government doesn't create wealth--it takes wealth from producers and gives it to non-producers. This past week we were all Joe the Plumber asking questions, and we were pushed aside by Congress and ridiculed in the press. A forgery has definitely taken place.