Creative Accounting?

I wish I had been as good at "creative accounting" as the different levels of government are.  How great to have been able to play games with, say, my mortgage and fool the bank into not getting paid!  For instance, unemployment isn't falling--not at all.  In fact, the number of people working or looking for work is lower than it's been in 30+ years.  That means the actual number of people not working (hmmm..."unemployed?") is higher than any time since 1981.  Why does't the media jump all over that one?  Boy, they were quick to tell us last week about the "life-threatening" weather/heat coming in here--it was goin all the way up to 84 degrees!!!!!!  Yeow!

Does anyone believe crime is decreasing in Detroit?  Well, "the numbers" say so--at least at first glance.  A closer look reveals something else.  First, how many crimes just don't get reported because nothing is done about them?  I'll bet a lot.  Second, money has been cut, with fewer police on the streets, etc.  What Detroit has essentially dne is decreased its crime rate by ignoring or at least refusing to acknowledge that some crimes occurred.  Cool!

These remind me of two things.  Back in another lifetime, at the high school, tardies were a big, big problem.  (I'll ignore than students who were reported for excessive tardies were usually not punished.)  The solution was pretty simple.  The administration made the tardy-reporting process so onerous, so time-consuming, that teachers just stopped counting tardies.  Did tardies decrease? Certainly not.  But fewer were reported and, I believe, bonuses were passed out to administrators, at least in part, for "solving" the tardy problem.  Genius...pure genius.  Just like the federal government on unemployment and Detroit on crime.

Mark Twain once lamented, "Lies.  Damn lies.  And statistics."

While riding my bike the other day, I was reminded of something that seems backward.  Why do we continue to encourage bad behavior through government programs/spending, but often discourage good behavior with no government programs/spending?  For instance, how much money is given to women who continue to have children without getting married, often with multiple men?  How often are the fathers able to skip paying for their kids they have sired with multiple women?  On the other hand, why don't we encourage exercise by building all roads with bike lanes?  It's hard enough to get folks to exercise, but biking is easy and fun.  Yet, with all the lame-brains on the road, talking on their cell phones, text-messaging, applying make-up, etc., perhaps one is much more likely to die from an auto crashing into one's bike than from the lack of exercies.  Why don't schools mandate physical education?   (I know why--physical education isn't on the state tests--the driving force behind the so-called educational reforms being perpetrated, yes "perpetrated" in all its insidious inference, by so-called experts in education.  They aren't, of course, having no experiences with the rigors of quality education.) What is the figure, 30% or more, of our youths who are not merly overweight, but obese? 

I love the use of the word "greed."  It's so selective.  Oh, we know the CEOs are "greedy."  So are big Oil, the banks, Wall Street, and the rest of their ilk.  But the Hollywood-types, Hippy Rock Stars, and professional athletes aren't.  It's "greedy" for Bain Capital to use money voluntarily received from investors to make more money.  It's not for the federal governmnt to use coerced money to try to do the same thing, although it's not as clear the feds are nearly as successful as companies like Bain.  And it's certainly not "greedy" for politcians to spend, spend, spend to give programs to ensure their own re-election--and borrow that money, leaving future generations of politicians and taxpayers to deal with the problem of spend, spend, spend.  How "greedy" is it to have, currently, an unfunded liability bill for each family of four in excess of $500,000?  Hey, that's about half of what I'll make in my entire lifetime!

Out to play...forgive any typos.  The humidity seems to have my computer keys sticking.