What is the Answer?

After my last post I had someone comment to ask what the answer was to all this, and honestly I have no idea. I guess that's one of the benefits of having a blog...you can complain all you want, but never have any answers. Without sounding like a complete revolutionist I could advocate that we move to a system similar to that in England, but they have their issues as well. Could we just ask everyone to cooperate a little bit better? We could, but it wouldn't do any good.

As with many people these days, those in government keep moving the line of acceptable behavior. We always argued about the issues, but it rarely became personal. Now we have all sorts of name-calling on both sides, and it just keeps getting worse. Maybe we should adopt the mafia's, "It's not personal, it's just business" saying for government? If we did that, maybe people wouldn't feel the need to dig so deep?

Who knows? I stay in the middle of the road on most issues, so who am I to talk? Many of my friends tell me that I don't have the right to complain because I never really take a stand. I tell them that it's not that I don't have opinions, I just don't tell everyone what my opinions are when it comes to which side I'm on. I would much rather discuss issues of ethics and fairness than to call names. The big picture is a lot more important to me than who the favor-of-the-month is...and that's all this election is about.

I don't expect much from anyone who becomes president, they are crazy for wanting the job in the first place. They live at the will of Congress, and are constantly taking responsibility for things they have no control over. They make decisions based on what will get them elected, or add to their war-chest. They do nothing for the common person. Why would they? Most of them come from rich families, with no idea what it is like to struggle paycheck to paycheck.

Bottom line: When you don't know how many homes you own...you have too much damn money!

Checks & Balances / Electoral College

Checks & Balances

Sound like a breakfast cereal right? Probably should be, but if it were anything like our form of government it would never have the same flavor, would have lies and distortions on the packaging, and you would not be able to find it in stock when you needed it. That’s the way things go…..

Now, I want to be the first to say I am very proud to be an American, and our system may not be the best, but it’s better than any place else I can think of. Well…Sweden would be good, but only if I lived next door to the Swedish bikini team…. Anyway, the point to all this is that I want to preface my remarks about this country by also giving my allegiance to it. As a citizen I have a right…nay obligation to question my government, and the system we live under. But often we confuse questioning with standing up against, and I want to make that distinction clear from the beginning.

Anyway, I believe the checks and balances that were built into our system served its purpose a long time ago. It prevented one person or party from gaining too much power. That being said, the executive and legislative branches of our system function too close together to really provide a check and balance. It’s more like a punch and run. The Supreme Court on the other hand sits up on high, and watches the fray while rarely, if ever, getting in the mix. You rarely hear a senator or representative bashing a supreme about the problems in our country, but they attack the president daily.

A true check and balance would have at least three completely separate but equal branches. Since senators and representatives can run for president, who better to clash with? Who better to blame, or point fingers at? Who better to make life miserable for? That’s the problem, our elected officials are so concerned about their job or next one that they fail to take care of the people they serve.
However, because senators and representatives rarely if ever become a supreme, the court stands separate and is respected for the position it holds. If being a supreme required a vote, they would be in the same mess that the legislative and executive branches are in.

Electoral College

This brings me to the Electoral College. The first time a teacher told me that the person with the most votes may not win the presidency I was shocked! Who could possibly feel that anything but a majority vote should win public office in our society? Well, that’s the way it is here….as we all know from the 2000 election. I can hear all the different reasons behind the matter, but to me it is just a way for the elite to throw an election should a person they don’t want wins the popular vote. I know that sounds like a conspiracy, which by definition it is. But I’m not a conspiracy nut, and know the rules of the election upfront, so that helps.

But why doesn’t the popular vote in our country decide who is president? Why some convoluted system of electors, when a simple majority will do? Half plus one always works for me. Instead, electors are assigned based on the vote of the people, and these folks get together at their respective state capitals to vote on who the president will be. Hopefully the elector will cast his/her ballot for the candidate based on the vote of the people they represent, but they don’t have to! Why create a system that may not give the country the results it wants? Well, our founding fathers were anything if not open to options. And this gave the system a way to supposedly correct mistakes. It never has, but who knows?

The Election is Almost Here!

It's that time again, the time when we get to choose who gets to screw-up the country for the next four years. That's not really fair; actually the president has very little authority over our form of government. Yes, he does get to make some decisions (Supreme Court Appointments, Presidential Orders, etc.), but the big plans come from the guys and gals down the street in Congress. The president, though a check and balance, has very little say in what this legislative body does. In years when the president has a majority he is more likely to get the laws passed that he wants. Otherwise, it is a constant battle between the two parties with the American people in the middle.

Wouldn't we be better off if the person that controlled the White House also had a majority in Congress? England does it that way....so it can't be all bad....right? It makes sense that the majority party should be allowed to steer the country in the direction the people want it to go...so says their vote anyway. If the majority messes-up the people correct it on the next election cycle, and the new ruling party is put in place and they "have a go at it" (a little lingo from across the pond).

Either way, the parties could still fight each other; they just wouldn't have governmental policy and the American people in the middle. The policy would be aligned with the party in office, so whether it sank or swam we would know who to blame. In the last four years we have blamed President Bush (rightfully so in many instances). However, the Democrats are not completely powerless (House of Representatives). How much blame do we place on them for this mess as well?

Honestly, no one knows. Questions like this are answered by what political affiliation one belongs to, and not the reality of the situation. Were checks and balances a good idea or just a way to keep our system in turmoil?

I Don't Mean To Sound Negative

I don't mean to sound negative, but after another 500+ point loss on the NYSE I just don't see things getting better anytime soon. As millions of families suffer through one of the largest losses of personal wealth in the history of this country, no one seems to have many answers...save for the government who is giving our hard-earned tax dollars to bankers who made terrible decisions about their businesses. Who is helping the little guy in this equation?

We send money to AIG, who after the bailout sends it's executives on a $500,000 retreat. I now read that some of the bailed out banks are stopping golden parachute payments to former executives. We all know in the end the guys or gals are going to get the dough. You don't stop payments that large without getting someone's attention...legal attention. These people were smart enough to have contracts...yes, something you and I never get. The company is contractually obligated to make these payments...so who are they trying to fool?

Just because the government tells the company not to pay them does not keep the company from honoring a legal and binding contract...unless the company files bankruptcy of course....which our bailout allowed them to avoid. A "Catch 22" I would say. Now we have an election coming up, and neither guy has an idea of what to do to help us out of this crunch. Maybe the best thing would have been to let the banks collapse, and then start over. Don't know many other inductries in this country that would get the sort of help that airlines, railroads, and banks get.

Yes, I know they are important to our country, but if they can't stand on their own two feet...well, maybe they are not meant to be around...capitalism right?

Education v. Training

I have been working on a project for another class, and the topic of education v. training came up. For some reason this interested me. I guess it's because I never looked at them as two different things....training is education right? Well for this discussion education was defined as gaining conceptual or historical knowledge; while training is designed to learn a specific task. In general, learning why is considered education, and learning how woud be training. I debated whether a learning event could be both elements of education and training, and overall I believe they could contain both. Others I have talked to from a business perspective basically say they could care less if the event is training or education, as long as the objective of making the company better is achieved.

I partially agree, which I guess means I disagree. Business is about making money, plain and simple. Teaching an assembler in a factory how to put together a product might provide you a good worker, but I contend that teaching the same assembler why the parts fit together a certain way gets you an engaged employee and someone you can count on to see errors in the process. So in the end, should an organization train, educate or both train and educate employees? Does it matter what industry you are in?

As for self-directed learning, do you learn best by being trained or being educated? Are their times when you only want to know how to do something, but not why? My wife would argue that because I never read the instructions to anything I'm after what I perceive to be the fastest way to put something together....in other words, show me how to do it and get out of my way. But in the end, shouldn't I want to know why parts are going together a certain way...that is if I want to be able to tell if the item is going together correctly. Maybe that's why many supervisors and managers never bother to provide detailed instructions to their employees....maybe that's why I never did? If we never want direction isn't it logical to assume that nobody else does either? Well, I was wrong....

Just some food for thought....

Today, a Little More Fun.....

As a second installment of my two-part series on other blogs I enjoy....hey, I have a series...cool! Anyway, this post will focus on some of my interests and a writer I enoy. No, I won't be telling you my favorite color, food, football team (KC Chiefs)...ok, off track just for a second, but I do want to provide you with a few sites I think are pretty interesting. That is, if you enjoy some of the same topics I do. This also falls within the category of self-learning, so this might be part three of a multi-part series.... Regardless, I learn everyday, some of it useful, some of it just interesting. Either way, I have some new knowledge to share, or just let rattle around in my mind a while. The three other sites I really enjoy are:

Dave Barry (Writer for the MIami Herald): Often humor type stuff, but he makes me think.
-blogs.herald.com/dave_barry_blog

Everyday Science (General blog for all things science): I often share this stuff with the kids, especially my 11 year-old daughter who's into science.
-blog.everydayscientist.com

Wired Science (Another general science blog)
-blog.wired.com/wiredscience

As you can tell, I enjoy the sciences....never been good at them, but I enjoy reading about them. Hope this gives you a few interesting places to visit.

Enjoy these as well!

Off Self-Directed Learning for a Minute...Maybe

When I sat down to write this post today my goal was to provide you some of the blogs I have been in the habit of reading since the last emerging technologies class. As I began to write how this post would not pertain to self-directed learning I had to stop myself. I remembered that much of the learning we do is self-directed and are things we do everyday that we are not even aware of....reading the paper, watching the tv news, talking with informed friends and associates, and yes....reading blogs.

With that said, here are some sites that I enjoy keeping up with. I do this through the Blogger Dashboard and not the Google Reader we learned about in class. I will say that the Blogger Dashboard does not have all the features of Google Reader, but it does allow me the opportunity to "one stop shop" for both the blogs I want to read, and for the blog I want to update. Anyway, here are the sites and a brief description:

Mark Cuban (Owner of Dell Computers and the Dallas Mavericks NBA Team): blogmaverick.com

Jonathan Schwartz (CEO/President of Sun MIcrosystems):
blogs.sun.com/jonathan

Rex Hammock (President/Founder of Hammock, Inc.):
rexblog.com

Davis Sifry (CEO of Technorati; CTO of Sputnik; & Founding Board Memember of Linux International):
sifry.com

These blogs tend to focus more on business and technology (an interest of mine), though Cuban does get into some of the inner-workings of his basketball team and the NBA. I will offer some of my favorite entertainment blogs shortly.

Enjoy!

Self-Directed Learning

Over the last several weeks I have been doing a considerable amount of reading on the topic of self-directed learning in adults. An interesting concept, and one that has made me do a lot of thinking. I know that people learn on a continuous basis, and much of it is unplanned, but what caught my attention was the question of how businesses and schools go about teaching adult learners. For all the many trainings I have had in my professional career not one attempted to be effective, efficient, and engaging. Instead, data was thrown out at a very fast pace and those who got it were in good shape. For those who did not....well they were left to flop around like a newly caught fish on the river bank. Businesses in a hurry to get people out of training and back to work fail in almost every attempt to train their employees new things, and I was one of the biggest offenders. The old routine of putting everything on a Powerpoint just doesn't work anymore....heck, it never worked for the most part. It looks nice and neat, but not very effective in teaching something new.

Our school systems also fail our young adults in this regard. Many high school students are ready to be taught in a different manner, yet our schools continue to teach in the lecture format. Sometimes that works, sometimes (most of the time) it does not. We need to change our view of education and training in this society. Just because someone has to learn something to do their jobs does not mean they will. What's the answer? We'll I have many suggestions....stay tuned for more.

What is this world coming to?

I was having lunch today with a good friend and the topic of the economy came up. Well, it just didn't "come up" it was the topic of conversation from the moment we sat down. The questions back and forth ranged from what we thought was going to happen in the next 2-3 months, to the stability of our jobs, to the financial future of our children. But this was no ordinary conversation, in fact it was unlike any conversation we have had in the nearly 20 years since we first met. What made it different was the fact that neither one of us had any answers, nor pretended to have any. To almost every question revolving around the country's future and this economy we exchanged nothing but blank stares. Now this wasn't like a meeting of the Federal Reserve, and the fact that 2 fat old guys would not have a clue about the future of our economy would rarely surprise anyone. But the real issue is that we should at least have an opinion...shouldn't we?

We should have some feeling of confidence in our country and our way of life...but we don't. We don't have the answers, and unlike past conversation we were both too nervous to venture a guess on what is going to happen. This is unlike the baseball and football games we badger each other about on a regular basis. This is about eating or not eating....survival. This country has spent to many years living the good life on credit...credit that was given out too freely and to everyone....especially to those who could least afford to pay it back. Now it's time to pay for our bad choices, and the one's to be hardest hit will be those that always get hit the hardest...the middle class. The poor will always get help, the rich will have their money, but the middleclass is the group that struggles to do just a little better than those that came before them....and because of some bad choices by the wealthiest people in our society we are going to have to pay for our dreams.

We're not paying for a cause worth fighting for like feeding the poor, comforting children, or helping abused animals....we're coming to the rescue of banks and financial instituations....God Bless America!

The World Financial Crisis....Our Fault?

Well I am finally back on to do more ranting about pretty much everything. Not because I enjoy it mind you....well, I enjoy it a little, but because it's hard to believe how things in this world are going now. I read yesterday that various countries are blaming us for the world's financial crisis, and I must say that bothers me. Not because it's true, but because no one person, group, organization, or government ever takes responsibility for their actions. Yes, the financial institutions in our country made some very bad choices, but that does not mean the rest of the world had to follow us. They could have made their own decisions, and chose to stay out of the US markets. When times are good and we send money overseas in the form of aid the U.S. gets accused of meddling in other countries affairs. When we don't send money we are a cold hearted country that does not care if people starve. It's a no win situation. Now the world is going through an economic crisis, and they want to blame us for that as well.

I am not an isolationist by nature, and agree we need to help people in other countries. We just do not do enough on the world stage to pat ourselves on the back for it. We never build any political capital over our world aid, and thus we hae none to use when times are tough. We need to set a new course in regards to our overseas giving as a nation, and demand the political capital we deserve when we do help another country. We need a leader with a clear vision; one who can set a course and communicate it to the masses. I doubt we'll ever get such a person, but it is certainly nice to dream about.

Let's Just Add More.....

As most of you have probably heard, the Bailout Legislation passed the Senate last night with some pretty major addions in order to get the House to buy into it. The word is still out on whether or not this will work, but we just keep pouring more money into failed business practices. If we really are going to pick-up the problems of major corporations shouldn't there be some type of legislation that prohibits them from doing this again? What is to stop bank and mortgage brokers from offering easy money to borrowers who can least afford to make the payments? We would like to think that the industry would correct itself, but what promises do we really have. I'm all for a free market system with less regulation, but when an industry has shown a lack of restraint don't you think we should have the sense to not let them do it again?

Here is an area I might be willing to see more government regulation in the future. We need to safeguard the American public from the industries that prey on the average person. You would think that lenders would want to make sure that people can actually afford the mortgage they are giving them...maybe I'm being to simplistic?