Senseless Census.

        So I started my "trainging" as a Census Enumerator on Saturday.  We met at a fast-food restaurant that has Golden Arches at 8:30 am.  I collected my paper work, messenger bag, and marked the attendance sheet.  I sat down with my paper work and started filling things out before the Crew Leader even called the meeting to order.  By the time he had introduced the schedule I had already filled out half of the paper work.  By the time he had started the actual "training" or "orientation" I had filled out all of the paper work, put it in the order it was supposed to be in and had started reading a book to bide the time.  Six hours later the class was over and we were allowed to leave so long as we had finished having our fingerprints taken.  Just a little math for those who are interested.  I was paid $11.75 an hour for my time which was calculated from the minute I left my house.  So I left my house at about 8:00am and arrived at about 8:30am.  I was also then paid for the time it took me to return home another 30 minutes.  In just travel time I "earned" $11.75.  Oh, but that's not all.  I was also paid $.50 per mile to travel to the restaurant.  It was 24 miles round trip.  So I "earned" another $12 just to get to and from the meeting.  So far so good.  I then sat through the reading of 5 hours of mindless droning about how important it was to make sure you entered everything just so.  In all I "worked" for 6.5 hours and "earned" a total of $88.38 while reading a book, signing my name to a dozen pages, and inking my fingers.  Now lets just go ahead and multiply that by the number of people at this "training" which I will estimate at 25 making the total for just the trainees at $2209.50 that doesn't include the Crew Leader pay for 2 crew leaders and 2 Crew leader assistants.   Keep in mind that I was one of the first to leave after getting my fingerprinting done so this number is actually much higher.   This total of greater than $2000 was for a task that I completed without instruction in less than a half hour.  If this task were to take even an hour for someone to complete on top of an hour for transportation we can assume that 2 hours are needed for the task.  That would make the total savings from this task roughly $1325 for just the first day of training.  Drag that out to the 5 days of 5hour training (remember that I'll also get paid for travel time and miles) and the average savings could be over $5000 in just the training (assuming it takes a third of the time that they schedule). The Census this year will cost roughly 3 times the amount spent on the 2000 Census.  The amount per person counted will have jumped from $15.99 to nearly $46.93, or more than any jump from one census to the next since 1790.  In case you're wondering the price per person has gone down one time census to census in 1890 it cost 18.33 cents per person in 1900 it cost 15.54 cents.  This as a result of an estimated increase of population of about 27 million.  In researching for this blog I found an article that says the costs of this Census would have been $3billion less if the Census Bureau would have approved hand held enumeration devices.  Bringing the estimated cost of the Census to over $14 billion.  I contend that the Census could have cut even more from the costs by not only doing the computerized option but by also eliminating the oft derided "pre-census" mailing.  It's no wonder that the National debt will triple under this administration if this is how they run the Census.  Please for the sake of the country return your Census paperwork so that I don't have to waste your money by knocking on your door to fill out a form that will be processed manually and rechecked manually by at least 4 other people before actually being counted. 

USPS "not viable"

Image via Wikipedia

Well DUH!  The USPS has been "not viable" since they made it a quai-Government agency and dictated the way it was run the USPS has not been able to compete with UPS, FedEx and other carriers for the more lucrative overnight and express parcel service.  The reason I'm writing about this is two fold, one, the USPS is one more example of what happens when Government intervenes in commerce and second, the USPS drives me crazy.
I read an article today that detailed the information from a report given by the Government Accountability Office (ironic...Government Accountability) that all but doomed the USPS in a matter of years if they are not released from the absurd restrictions placed on them by the Federal Government.  If they can't cut offices, drop Saturday delivery, and restructure union contracts they will not only continue to offer substandard service but they may also require a bailout.
Bailout is a naughty word these days and its Kryptonite to Democrats seeking re-election.  The problem is that congressmen don't want to be the bearers of bad news when a Post Office is closed and Rural deliveries get cut.  The USPS has nothing to offer in the way of hope for politicians or those who require its services.  With the estimate at $7 Billion (yup that's a B) in losses just this year not only is the USPS not viable its not worth saving.
I have a lot of problems with the USPS mostly because of what I deal with at work.  I work for Amazon.com and handle customer calls as they relate to everything from how to navigate the site to "where's my stuff" calls.  Most (I'd like to say upwards of 80%) of the "where's my stuff" calls are a result of USPS not scanning products or just plain losing them all together.  Some people are already aware of the program call "Smart Post" and it is anything but smart.  It is a cooperative agreement between FedEx and USPS.  It would be a smart move for USPS if they actually made it work.  More often than not when the USPS gets the package they deliver the package with no additional updates.  Occasionally, however, they don't scan the package and fail to deliver it as well.  Most people don't even know that FedEx had anything to do with it unless the package doesn't show up.  So now instead of one carrier getting the blame (in addition to my employer) two carriers share the blame and the both share the consequences of just one carriers ineptitude. I wouldn't care that much except that I get a half dozen calls or more per day that people are upset about their package arriving late or not at all and they get mad at ME.
Well I don't have any solutions for the Post Office other than to fire every lazy Union worker and close down every duplicate post office where another office exists within 15 miles and then either become more efficient or get out of the way for a truly independent universal postal service that doesn't bow to the Government.  I don't ask much.

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• Post Office needs to cut deeper (money.cnn.com)

They Vote then Vault

Can you say AWESOME!?  I of course mean that in the most sarcastic way possible. Bart Stupak the infamous congressman that "almost" blocked the Healthcare Reform Bill before actually passing the bill. His leaving office puts the Democrats in an awkward position to try and fill his position, a position with a pretty conservative core already.  This is the type of thing that the Democrats are going to have a hard time with in a lot of the races this year.  Of course the other issue at hand is that the Republicans also need to convince Tea-Party folk that they are worthy of their vote.  Not an easy task for incumbent Republican's that helped Bush spend us into a debt that could have been managed much better.  I have nothing in particular against Stupak.  In fact I sort of admire his hard headed style over the run-up to the healthcare vote.  His stance on abortion has been consistent until now and given the pressure to pass from Nancy Pelosi and others it was impressive for him to last as long as he has.  This may be a sign of things to come as polls indicate the hard battles associated with the mid-term elections.  Republican's, if they are smart, will put people on the ballot with zero association with the big spending of the last administration and people that are ready to get America out of debt.  Of course getting people to understand that the only way for that to happen is to cut programs completely.  If you can put a candidate that can communicate the strength of the individual and negate the need of government to provide for them and get people excited about it then you'll have the ideal candidate.  This is the time for "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" rhetoric.  That is what the Healthcare issue is really about.  The candidate that emphasizes personal responsibility and challenges his constituents to be personally responsible for their own lives and not dependent on others is the candidate that will win the Tea Party and very likely the election.

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• Rep. Bart Stupak won't seek re-election (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Stupak's Exit: How Bad An Omen For Dems? (swampland.blogs.time.com)

Temperance and Vengeance

So lately there has been some really heated political rhetoric and even some violence from both sides of the political rainbow.  I want to express my feelings on the way that this has been covered and also on how it has been executed.  There is no question that the political climate is as divided as it has ever been in any living person's memory.  There are talks by some groups of a complete government coup and others are silently trying to marginalize populist movements in hopes that they can continue a coup of their own.  Here's the deal.  Neither of these groups is right.  It seems to me we have two choices when it comes to our political activism.  We can either choose temperance or vengeance.  Temperance will bring everyone closer.  It will give those, who don't have anything to do with the process because of the insanity of both sides, a chance to feel like the can get involved without feeling like they're part of the insanity.  The country was built on temperance.  I know, some of you will point out that it took a violent revolution to create this country.  The premise of this country is built on temperance.  The founders foresaw what could (would) happen if we allowed the political process to be defined by the margins.  They created a Constitution that is at once simple and complex enough to embody the basic tenets of free society.  The process that was used to develop this document was rife with political posturing and grandstanding and philosophical debate.  The end result was that all of the vastness of opinion were distilled and, dare I say it, tempered, into a document that has founded the greatest nation of civilization.  The type of give a little take a little temperance that created this country is the very thing that we are in need of now.  The problem is that one party has took while another party gave for nearly a century now.  Progressivism has given America some very important things namely woman's rights, Civil Rights, and Environmental Protections.  The problem with Progressivism is that it also created things that are not fundamental rights like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, and Education.  These things were seen as for the good of the country and, indeed, it can successfully be argued that some of these contributed to our success as a country (ie Education).  I have a different opinion of some of the entitlements and what they have done to our country.  I see entitlements as being explicitly against the Constitution or at the very least explicitly against the Founder's intent to create a country that enabled liberty and the pursuit of happiness but did not guarantee happiness or anything else for that matter.  We are free to govern ourselves and the government guarantees that freedom by preventing invasion and in all else they should have no power.  By starting entitlements the Progressive movement has created an environment whereby they can subtly change the culture of America.  The heat of the current debate hinges on this very notion.  Many of the most virulent right-wingers view the left as bringing about a socialist/communist/Marxist government that is heavy handed and oppressive just as Stalin, Lenin, Castro, Mao and others have been.  They may have a point.  The problem is that they are so lost in the heat of their passionate distaste that they fail to think and just strait to action, or what I am terming vengeance.  This is no different than those from the left that did similar acts in the 60's.  The difference should be that we temper our resolve to act according to our beliefs and not to our passions.  This is how America should work and how it can work if we choose temperance over vengeance.