9/2/18

United States Government Reformers Could Learn from the Russian Example


Russian can provide some good ideas for the reform of the United States government. The US government is bogged down with bureaucracy and inertial expansion without any sort of general evaluative systems analysis with an eye to reform. Russia isn’t like that; it has an ongoing evolution coupled with reform of the inherited prior Soviet state residuum. The process is something of a marvel to observe as a field activity. I would think it's comparable to scientists having the opportunity to observe first-hand physical processes that haven’t been observed before, such as the volcanic evolution undersea on Europa.

I have had the opportunity to upgrade my learning about Russian history that I had left off with the end of the cold war and college courses with a new course available on-line at coursera.org. Its a course on Russian Governance and public policy provided by St. Petersburg University in Moscow. https://www.coursera.org/learn/political-governance-russia

The instructors all speak English. It is a realistic examination of Russian government changes since the end of the cold war and of where they are today and where they are headed. I found the future prospects for development and reform interesting since the U.S. Government has just kept expanding what has existed for a very long time without reforming much. It also has a vast 21 trillion dollar bi-partisan public debt while that of Russia is manageable.

I don’t know if the U.S. public debt means that the U.S. government cannot reform as its creditors own it to a certain extent. The United States has led sanctions on Russian and forced it to be disciplined, realistic and to stay out of debt and become as self-reliant as possible while they continue evolving a modern democratic government that is adaptive and less of a doctrinaire neo-liberalism corporatist functionary.

I would like the U.S. government to be more ecological economic oriented before the world reaches its final status as a hot desertified place with a great population crash in a couple hundred years. Business should be vetted and favored regarding being ecospherically synergistic with the worst offenders less favored. Capitalism should be reformed so the use of material resources support intellectual activities and well being of a;ll citizens materially within a democracy paradigm of general enlightened self-interest.

Here are some of the concepts from the Russian governance course that might be considered by Americans. I will actually quote some of module six that has some very good ideas, slightly edited for American English readers..

Some main characteristics of these three models.
1) The State as a developmental institution;

The main idea of this concept is to separate development management from administration of current functioning.

Main characteristics of this approach...
To create a Reform Headquarters, which would play the role of delivery unit, organizer, conductor and coordinator of the growth in the country.
To implement a system of budget program and indicative planning.

New information technology based on big data should be used in strategic management.

To reform the system of state statistical data by integrating data from the Federal Tax Service, the Bank of Russia and other agencies. And last point, this is to create an effective project management system for development to ensure the stability of financing of priority state program. “


The second project, this is a state as a platform.

The main idea of this concept is modern technologies in the near future allow creating an environment for a high-tech digital platform of public administration that will ensure the minimization of the human factor and attendant corruption and mistakes in public policy and administration.

The main principles of this approach are;

Goals are more important than functions.
The customer defines the process of public policy.
Who does is much more important than how to do.
We need rules changes in real time.
Client's life situations as a business process for public policy.
We need use one-touch solutions.
Real time data when it used for public policy and administration.
And the last point,;the digital ecosystem as a center for synergy of the state, business and citizens."

The Third model...

"The last project, this is state as collaboration. 

The main idea of this concept;  public administration is the governance of people mostly, than structures and systems. 

Important principles and approaches; Governance is based on the human factor. Leadership and cooperation is the main factor of successful development. 

We need crowdsourcing for setting agenda in public policy. 

Trust and teamwork is the basis for effective governance. 

We need wide open governance. We need to develop citizen-government collaboration in different fields of public policy. 

We need to construct joint responsibility through organizational network and other learning. 

We need unit risk, mobility and changes. 

It is clear, the development of public administration, which will meet the challenges of justice development and improvement of the social welfare level, require not only participatory institutions, but also participatory culture. The development of institutions simultaneously transforms the consciousness and activity of participants in public administration and public policy. 

This period is marked by searching for new principles and approaches that can be later be transformed into policy and administrative reform under new name. These reforms remind us about the public role of the state. 

In this era of market and globalization, surprisingly enough the role of the state is more crucial than ever before. This law extends beyond regulating domestic market or correcting for market failure. 

It is about creating the initial conditions for capturing the benefits from globalization, about managing the process of integration into the growth of economy, in terms of pace and sequences, about providing social protection and other issues. In sum, governments need to regulate and compliment markets in order to make them people friendly. 


The reason is simple, governments are accountable to people, whereas market are not." 



Where are the PV Electric Building Siding Panels on the Web?

 I Googled it and it was hard to locate. CSEM has some colored siding photo voltaic panels with a glossy visual yet there is nothing about where to buy building siding that collects sunshine for home electricity. With a few minutes of internet search using any term I could think of I found no listings at all for building siding useful for collecting electricity.

So someone has an old home and wants to put new siding on it to make it look modern. And they want to collect whatever sunshine they can to make electricity. Some sides of a home may not receive direct sunlight, so pv siding should be of two kinds that look the same and yet sell for two different prices; one is an electricity producing panel and the other a dummy that is less than half price and is used on 'dark' areas of the home.

They may even want to work-it-for-themself and nail it right over the old building exterior. Where are the products for sale in the U.S.A.?

Why can’t one drive to Home Depot or Lowe’s and fill up a truck with solar pv building siding presently? Is this the later days of the Neanderthal building construction era where everyone wants central power authority to run lines to their home so Fred and Barnie can have work?

The panels should have nice shapes and resemble the most modern metal siding that can be nailed up (or screwed). It should be a simple production issue; doesn’t require anything brilliant.

Aren’t Virtual Currencies in Conflict With U.S. Mint Exclusivity?

How do blockchain virtual currencies conflict with the exclusivity of the U.S. Mint and federal monopoly of the right to print dollars?


What if states opt out of dollars for business transactions and use virtual currencies to pay employees?

Early in the national history any number of entities could mint their own currencies. Some weren’t worth much and Gresham’s law with bad money following good phenomenalized, so the right to print one’s own form of cash was taken away.


Printing one’s own money or virtual currency might be considered  a solid step on the road to sedition.


“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

 To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;”

Ultra-Rich Have a Quarter of National Income- Another Kennedy-McCain Legacy

Income inequality is an increasing problem in the U.S.A., or it should be a concern for voters that are realistic and not apathetic. One percent of the populace has the tools of capital for development and innovation, while so many Americans are head nodding followers without anything they would want capital for to invest in evidently. So they aren't concerned about income inequality. Senator John McCain and Ted Kennedy created a number of issues that distracted Americans, divided Americans and brought opportunity costs with bad politics that let the most rich concentrate wealth farther. Each sought to expand the size of a favorite government sector spending; defense, health care and civil service

Senators with bad politic theory chase after homosexual marriage, foreign wars and sundry inefficient health care measures that fail to address the real economic core structures that should be reformed.

The French economist who wrote Capital in the 21st Century, Thomas Piketty, said that Donald Trump was elected in response to voter dissatisfaction with decades on rising income inequality. That is a message the Democrat Party haven't learned. Voters don't want to just have an increase in government redistribution of taxes from the rich to increase there standard of living, they want actual earning increases and opportunities for an increase in personal capital through government action and legislation to put the market on a more equitable foundation.

While the Democrat Party and President Bush were gathered together to celebrate the life of the late Senator John McCain, who had brain cancer like his friend Sen. Ted Kennedy, at the Senator's funeral, and while Bishops were groping stars at Aretha Franklin's funeral and Democrats were dissing President Trump at John McCain's, who wasn't invited to the funeral by John McCain, the rich were getting richer and Democrats were still clueless about it having no plans at all about reforming capitalism in the U.S.A.

The United States has the same level of income inequality as Mexico. In America though the race issue is used to attack the President and divide the voters so they have no ideas about reforming economic policies. It would be too easy to coordinate income equalization with ecological economic reform. Income brackets aren't racial, they are objective and financial. The majority of the poorest 20% of Americans in the U.S.A. are white. Attacking the income of white people when that group includes the 1% is bound to incite conflict that allows more concentration of wealth with the distraction.

  If the nation had a fair and rational working economic policy inclusive of ecospheric sustainability and objectively fair for anyone regardless of race then race would not be an issue. Race as an issue for economics arises just when rational economic objectivity and structure isn't a primary concern.  As Forest Gump said; 'Stupid is as stupid does'.

9/1/18

Traditional Hatred of U.S. Presidents from Foreigners

It isn’t rare. A number of authoritarian governments have encouraged international protests against American Presidents, worn masks mocking them, hung them in effigy and so forth when they took a break from burning American flags. Neither were they imitating Democrat Party voters; sometimes they called the U.S.A. the Great Satan even before the legalization of homosexual marriage by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two Presidents that were roundly hated on at home and abroad were Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. Even the English had anti-American marches with full hate and ridicule regalia. That’s just the way it was. Hating on President Trump without a substantial foreign policy reason isn’t especially unique. Usually economic conflicts aren’t sufficient to bring out haters of U.S. Presidents. European haters of Donald Trump began even while he was running for office. Foreign leadership was elitist and conceited and felt some kind of supremacy of quality that deserved a pushover in the White House.

Even the slimy Nobel Prize Committee found a reason not to award a peace prize this year in order to avoid giving it to President Trump for his conspicuous reduction in world military conflict such as in Syria and for trying to be on better terms with Russia. Yet they were too happy to award a Nobel Prize to a certain Gunter Blobel in 1999 when President Clinton was inflamed before Congress for his blow jobs from a student intern, and also to award a Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama just for being black apparently, before he had done anything to reduce violence anywhere. In his first year he made speeches in Africa and the Middle East hat helped several civil wars get started including the Syrian war.

How Buddhism Evolved Moving East

I will give it a try. The subject is quite vast and and scholars probably could take lifetimes looking into the history. Siddhartha Gautama, was the Buddha. He was from the Śākya tribe of India- a Prince who was troubled by wars from invaders encroaching upon his territory. He sought answers for all of the suffering he observed in the kingdom, and resolved to understand why it happened in life, and what to do about it.
A wikipedia note relates that the Śākya tribe was an oligarchic republic-like state of India. The Buddha was to the left of Ronald Reagan i.m.o.
So he left his home at age twenty-nine and sought wisdom until age thirty-five when it arrived after sitting beneath a Bodhi tree 45 days. He was practicing dhyana meditation that he thought led to spiritual truth. The result of his enlightenment was the sermon near Benares at Samath where he taught the noble eightfold path. Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta - Wikipedia
The Buddha was a philosopher-prince who found practical, moderate responses to existential challenges rather than purely religious, metaphysical answers to actual suffering. He could be regarded as an idealist-atheist with what some regard as a modernist perspective of life being phenomenal and so unique that it is nearly virtual reality that has no significance and vanishes into nothingness. Siddhartha regarded suffering as meaningless as life. To initiate causes was thought to bring transcendent effects. Reincarnation and cycles of rebirth and protracted suffering were problematic metaphysics that should be negated. The goal of Buddhism is nothingness; nihilist nothingness that might be accomplished with perfection of inaction, or possibly perfection of action with insight.
One might disagree that the Buddha was an atheist. Interestingly his ideas probably influenced western philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer and even Friedrich Nietzsche (if his ideas about eternal recurrence originated somewhere besides advanced syphilitic mental disturbance). Schopenhauer thought life was created by a demiurge that made people suffer. One might infer that if life is a cycle of recurrent rebirth and suffering that some diety was sadistic or a hater of humanity. Thus it might be a good idea to escape that. So in a sense Buddhism may be viewed as travelling west as well as east and influencing more than three schools of followers with somewhat different traditions about Siddhartha’s ideas.
The teachings of Buddha as kept in the Pali (Theravada) Canon were said to have been written about the year zero however the earliest written records start in the 5th century a.d. That is enough time for the possibility of inaccuracy to be introduced in regard to what the Buddha actually said or wrote. Pāli Canon - Wikipedia Theravada established itself in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, China and Vietnam..  
Over the centuries Buddhism journeyed across Asia through China to Japan. The Mahayana and Theravada were two major forms that developed during the journey over centuries. The former was known as the greater basket and the latter, Thervada aka Hinayana, the lesser basket. Tibetan Buddhism retained the teachings of 8th century Vajrayana precepts.
Chan Buddhism developed in 6th century China and so did Pure Land Buddhism. The Pure Land doctrine is of a better metaphysical plane beyond the realm of the forever, intrinsically corrupt world-Universe. Zen is another school of Mahayana Buddhism. Over more centuries Buddhism journeyed to North America and California where it is popular in wine-drinking country.
Buddhism is the primary religion of the orient and has more than a half billion followers.

John McCain's Military Service Should Not Have Been Politicized

I would have preferred that John McCain’s pow service was not politicized. President Trump said that Senator McCain wasn’t a hero. That is probably true, if one is comparing a p.o.w. that did not escape with medal of honor recipients.
Suffering in the Hanoi Hilton was very bad. Being a captive and remaining when relief was possible is wierd. McCain’s father was technically in charge of the naval theatre of war in that portion of the Pacific. He was exceedingly powerful and possibly hated by some of the draftees. John’s aircraft was destroyed on the deck of the Forrestal by another aircraft’s missile that hit it, and more than a hundred sailors died. John was made a liason in Vietnam for some time after the incident the requested to go aboard a carrier again.
He went quickly on a mission he didn’t need to, flew too low and was shot down by a missile that no one else saw, and broke his jaw evacuating the aircraft. He remained in captivity went he could have returned to duty. He saw duty as being a captive for encouragement of his fellow captives or to resist being made a propaganda tool? The entire paradigm has an amorphous nature about it, yet unit cohesion is important and so not going a.w.o.l from his unit as a p.o.w. may have been his point.
President Trump tends to see things in black and white, or at least doesn’t say things in nuanced terms. So one may easily understand how ‘p.o.w.’ isn’t doesn’t share equal weight in valor with those that were awarded medals of honor. Heroic personal conduct in captivity is disqualified implicitly from the President’s objective standards. L.B.J. awarded many of the 260 medals of honor that were given in the Vietnam War. Probably none went to p.o.w.s. maybe a new medal for valor while a captive could be invented by Democrats.

https://www.breitbart.com/video/2018/09/02/abcs-martha-raddatz-at-times-mccain-memorial-felt-like-a-censure-of-donald-trump/
I am not a combat vet. The Cold War ended while I was a reservist followed by the Velvet Revolution.Peace was victory for me. In other words I prefer a Reagan kind of military preparedness that transitions into peace and prosperity instead of perennial blood and guts, death and hell-for-others.
Being a p.o.w. in some respects is worse that simply being killed in action. tens of thousands of Americans were killed in action and received nothing more than a purple heart. For those that have experienced the worst end of killing fields and human depravity, one need be understanding, so much so that one doesn’t necessarily accept values that may or may not reflect the best interests of the nation. My father was a four year naval veteran of the Second World War and he never talked about that war at all. There’s was the greatest generation.
The medal of honor recipients tend to say that they are wearing the medal representatively for all those that served in an action. They are almost entirely humble. Sgt. Roy Benevidez for example, or Kenneth Stumpf each were awarded medals for valor and neither was a p.o.w.
Kenneth Stumpf actually made a joke that he relates in a video describing the action. Someone had explained to him before he got the medal and was still in Vietnam that a c.m.h. meant ‘casket metal handle’. so when he overheard someone saying “that guy is getting the cmh” and realized they were talking about him, his first thought was…

Democrats Used McCain's Corpse for an Attack-the-President Boost

It was unfortunate that a funeral was made by Democrats into a political platform. Apparently Democrat politics are an existential obsession even unto death.

Former V.P. Biden led the charge to step on McCain’s corpse for a boost to hit out at the President rhetorically. It is not surprising that other’s would also attack the President, given the opportunity. The rich, powerful and their heirs sometimes expect homage.

John McCain now faces eternal judgment by God. Democrats apparently don’t consider such things seriously. The former P.O.W., like all human beings besides those living, has achieved death. It is not the end.

An Ideal Plan for a Gun Free Society

One could breed all Americans in eugenics facilities to be deaf, dumb, blind and stupid. Then exterminate all wildlife on Earth that bites, constricts or stampedes, finally, eradicate all potential human mortal dangers to Americans that require defense with a gun or an equivalent lethal weapon. Gun ownership would wither away, and voila, utopia!

Kopernikus and NFL Battle of Socialist Realism


Karlos the Jackal Kopernikus is suing the NFL for collusion to keep him from leading protests against the nation and the President of the United States during the national anthem. NFL players and college athletes that aren't drafted and given multi-year, multi-million  dollar contracts are victimized by collusion of NFL team owners from playing.

Some NFL team owners may have been in contact with Russian agents such as Buffy the Lumbago Slayer from Potchinsk Region Districkt of Siber eeah. NFL owners are counter-reactionary force receiving special consultation from Buffy on how to repress socialist workers player utopia from NFL.

With good workers utopia all NFL players can receive equal pay for equal one-hour clock work every Sunday Womday playing pro footsie ball. NFL owners want make big profit and collude 2 gouge fans with high ticket prices. Kopernikus lead resistance fork thapt.


Imperfect Character is Universal

The question of why anything exists rather than nothing was a question that Plotinus considered in The Enneads. Why would The One order anyt...