Environmentalist Self-Damage

                          

Americans in the past created farmland out of forests, swamp and deserts.They produced the world's most widespread and inexpensive agriculture. They built dams and canals.

                           

Today, the population is growing by natural and immigration means. Yet many hundreds of thousands of acres of productive land is pushed out of use. At the same time we have chronic water shortages, particularly west of the Mississippi River.

                           

We are also taking too much productive farmland away from food supplies. As well as making food we do have more expensive.

                           

How? Professional environmentalists stop irrigation wherever they can. Too often it’s to save threatened species of fish and other organisms they view on the same level with human needs.  (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)    

College Failures

                         

A Pew Charitable Trusts investigation back in 2006 showed that 50% of college seniors failed a practical test. It had asked them to understand a table about exercise and blood pressure, or understand newspaper editorials, or to compare credit card offers.

                           

Graduates are less adept today, from more recent test scores being reported.

                           

Employers say many college graduates lack basic skills of thinking and writing. This is not surprising.

                           

About 20% of college seniors did not have the ability to estimate whether their car had enough fuel to get to a gas station. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the percentage of college graduates’ ability in literacy had declined from 40% to 31% in the past decade.

                           

I often say, colleges do more for their teachers and staff, than for a large portion of their students. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Essential Small Business Optimism

                          

If you want an idea of where the economy is heading and what the chances are for a brightening in the picture for more jobs, you will want to see small business optimism numbers.

                           

The National Federation of Independent Business periodically issues its Small Business Optimism Index. That, better than any political pronouncement from the White House, will tell you how small business folk are prepared to speculate with their hard-earned money, to create needed jobs that the government can only muse and pontificate about. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)    

Anti-Hiring Tactics by the Government

                      

The  administration would love to improve the job picture. but continues to overlook how job creation really works.

                       

It does not work by handing out one-time tax credits or benefits. It does help by improving the psychology for hiring. That means providing a clear understanding of the ground rules for business. And those ground rules must be pro-business.

                       

Enterprise requires less cost of doing business. With no future prospects of a choking increase in taxes. That means no higher minimum wages for unskilled labor and ever-increasing burdens such as government-mandated health care.

                           

Inasmuch as government bureaucrats and most politicians have never operated a pushcart, how are they to know the psychology of creating private enterprise jobs?  (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)    

College Teaching Deficiencies

                           

Over 4,000 colleges and universities enroll over 17 million students. College has obviously become a huge growth industry.  

                     

The industry has also mutated negatively, with far too little oversight of quality.

                       

As an example: Colleges appear to be primarily in the business of acquiring students, differing to a degree, only in their approach to marketing.

                       

Some do so as research centers. They may boast professors with science awards and Nobel Prizes which are very appealing marketing devices. Such esteemed faculty also attract more grants and endowments.

                       

But few undergraduate students have these celebrity professors. They often are taught by graduate students.

                       

Parents and taxpayers pay billions of dollars to colleges and universities. Schools make money whether students learn or not, whether or not students graduate, or are prepared to get good jobs after leaving school.

                       

Colleges and universities thus engage in "bait and switch;" conferring what are actually deficient degrees, and engage in other practices that would bring legal sanctions in any other business.  (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)    

What is The Pareto Optimality’s Efficiency Concept?

                           

Pareto efficiency, or Pareto optimality, is a concept in economics. Named after Vilfredo Pareto, the term is used in engineering, game theory, and social sciences.

                           

Pareto used his theory in studies of economic efficiency and income distribution. He claimed that a change from one allocation to another could make one individual better off, without making another worse off. This is referred to as a Pareto improvement. The allocation is called Pareto efficient or Pareto optimal.

                           

The 80/20 Efficiency concept, so often used in management, is his reasoning. For example, 20% of your sales foe may contribute 80% of your sales.

                           

I bring it up because those on the political left would do well to reconsider some of their anti-business tirades when trying to create jobs, contemplating the Pareto principles.  (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Permanent Vs Short-Term Tax Cuts

                       

Business psychology is not a political liberal’s strong suit. From time to time the Administration, for example, has offered tax cuts when under pressure, but only as temporary measures.

                       

Such half-hearted tax reductions have little effect because business people plan for years ahead. Temporary cuts are not only meaningless, they are a trap.

                           

For instance, a cut in payroll taxes for a short time is yet another version of failed Keynesian economics. It adds some money to the economy for a time and sounds good because it appears it will add to consumer spending. But experience shows it has no business multiplier effect for producing jobs.  (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)