Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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Editorial Comment = As is normally the case, the following questions were created before obtaining a copy of the book on which we are focusing. Accordingly, any pessimism on the part of Yours Truly should not discourage anyone from reading the book which, at least in theory, could be the proverbial Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread.
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1. What are the five areas in which our author has compared the United States to the world’s other developed countries?

2. Does our author seem to be aware that the U.S. government has reported for decades that 30% of Americans are illiterate as defined, for example, by the ability to read a warning label on a can of rat poison?

3. Does our author seem to be aware that 99% of American inner-city children live in single-adult households, that 95% live in single-adult households headed by a druggie, and that 75%-80% live in single-adult households headed by a druggie who turns over any receipts (e.g., welfare) to the pusher so the kids have to steal just in order to eat?

4. Is it any wonder that America has created a Permanent Under-Caste?

5. Because of the size of the Permanent Under-Caste that America has created, shouldn’t it be considered a miracle if America did not rate off the bottom of the charts comparing it to the world’s other developed countries in every important respect (e.g., education, health, etc.)?

6. With regard to education, does our author peddle the Old Discredited Snake Oil pushed for 10 years by Bill and Melinda Gates that all that is needed to bring the typical inner-city SINGLE-DIGIT high-school graduation rates up to the level of the rest of the country is to break up inner-city high schools into smaller high schools?

7. With regard to education, does our author peddle the New Discredited Snake Oil pushed for the last several years by Bill and Melinda Gates that all that is needed is to replace public schools with charter schools?

8. If so, why does our author believe Bill and Melinda Gates that calling a rattlesnake a canary will protect you if the “canary” bites? In other words, why does he believe Bill and Melinda Gates that calling a sociology problem an education problem will solve the problem? And why, then, don’t our author and Bill and Melinda Gates advocate closing every inner-city police precinct in whose jurisdiction a crime is committed and replacing those police with amateurs?

9. Isn’t the Bill and Melinda Gates approach nothing more than giving Mainstream America permission to blame inner-city teachers for inner-city conditions, rather than challenging Mainstream America to do the Heavy Lifting that will be required of Mainstream America to improve this sociological (NOT educational) problem?

10. With regard to wealth distribution, isn’t the real problem that America has refused to educate its Permanent Under-Caste? In other words, that America has refused to empower (rather than create entitlements for) the Permanent Under-Caste?

11. Does our author merely propose wealth re-distribution, or does he actually propose taxing the wealthy to finance the transformation of the Permanent Under-Caste in order effectively to bring it into the mainstream?

12. Do all of the recipients of this newsletter know that President Obama broke the heart of Yours Truly by wasting his first term on healthcare rather than effective education for the Permanent Under-Caste?

13. In other words (which have been expressed many times in the past in the answers to these short quizzes), why did we need a Community Organizer to champion universal healthcare which has been proposed by virtually every U.S. President starting with Theodore Roosevelt? Why couldn’t the Community Organizer, instead, have empowered America’s inner-city residents with effective education rather than provided them with another entitlement?

14. Is it the opinion of Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank and long-time Business Week Columnist Robert Kuttner that America has “the best government money can buy”? That “campaign contributions” (aka, bribes) dictate everything that happens (or doesn’t) in the cesspool known as Washington DC? And that the “campaign contributions” often take the form of extortion by the pols rather than bribery of the pols? And that the return on “investment” (“ROI”) for “campaign contributions”to U.S. pols is THOUSANDS of times higher than on any other kind of investment the world has to offer? And that we could probably eliminate our annual deficits and even pay off in short order our entire national debt by auctioning off governmental favors rather than letting the pols give them away for pittances in the form of “campaign contributions”?

15. Is President Obama’s failure to prioritize properly as described in Q&A-13 due to the realization that there are few, if any, “campaign contributions” available in the course of enacting effective education for America’s Permanent Under-Caste?

16. Whereas both President Obama and Congressional Democrats who controlled the Universal Healthcare Bill would be showered with “campaign contributions” from insurance companies, employers, labor unions, etc., etc.?

17. If America really wanted to control its healthcare costs and bring them into line with other civilized countries, wouldn’t it get rid of all the litigation against doctors and other health providers which compels them to order all kinds of tests, procedures, prescriptions, etc., that serve little useful purpose other than to protect against litigation? In other words, didn’t “no fault” car insurance make sense? Though, of course, doesn’t there have to be a mechanism for getting rid of careless doctors just as there is a mechanism for getting rid of careless drivers?

18. And isn’t it impossible to do so because the tort lawyers are major contributors to the Democratic Party?

19. And just to make the criticism bi-partisan, wouldn’t the next step in reducing American healthcare costs be to eliminate from President George W. Bush’s prescription-drug Medicare benefit the provisions that enable the drug companies to charge Americans for the world’s research and development costs? In other words, why should some paltry “campaign contributions” force Americans to pay higher prices for drugs than the rest of the world, and even try to prevent Americans from taking advantage of the two-tier pricing by buying their drugs on-line from Canadian pharmacies?

20. Does our author have any practical suggestions for improving our government? Or does he merely offer the same-old warmed-over suggestions that everyone else has proposed for decades because they aren’t practical?

21. Finally, to avoid ignoring our author’s fifth “vital measure of individual and national security” -- gun violence -- how many of us really believe that the most effective policy would NOT be for Mainstream America to do the Heavy Lifting required to transform the Permanent Under-Caste in which not only are 95% of the children living in a single-adult households headed by a druggie, the overwhelming majority of which turn over any money to the pusher so the kids have to steal just in order to eat, BUT THE CHILDREN KNOW BY THE AGE OF 5 THAT THEY ARE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR THEIR DREAMS AND THEIR ONLY REALISTIC CAREER OBJECTIVE IS PUSHER OR PIMP, OR GIRL FRIEND OF A PUSHER OR PIMP?