Mikel Livingston, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier, has an article about a laudable effort to improve financial literacy, banking in particular, initiated by city officials and participating area banks.

Participants are required to take 45- to 60-minute financial education course created by Homestead Consulting Services through a grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Lafayette. Once they are certified, participating banks will allow them to open a checking account in spite of prior mismanagement or never having had an account before.

The impetus behind this was apparently the realization that “the average person without a bank spends 5 percent of their net income on check cashing or cashier’s check fees.”

Financial illiteracy and innumeracy generally is a challenge. Lots of people don’t seem to grasp the principles behind interest, for example. Beyond mere understanding, there is also probably some interplay between delayed and instant gratification going on. The check cashing service isn’t taking $10 from that $200 check, they’re giving you $190 for a lousy piece of paper!

You’ve probably seen the joke making the rounds:

A unionized public employee, a member of the tea party and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, looks at the tea partier and says, ‘Watch out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie.

What has really been striking to me is the fancy dancing being done by those who favor busting unions but hated the idea of returning to the Clinton tax structure on incomes over $250,000. At the time, we heard that $250,000 per year is not rich. And, you know what. I can buy that. $250k per year is comfortable, and a lot more than most people make; but it’s not “go to hell” money where you can coast and ignore the rest of the world if that’s what you want to do. (Never mind for the moment that the plan wouldn’t start making a significant difference in your taxes until you were moving above $250k. You’d pay a few cents extra on your first dollar above $250k, but it’s not going to break you.)

Standing alone, the effort to portray people making in excess of $250k as “just folks” is probably at least an arguably defensible position. But, the position becomes indefensible when combined with the latest round of attacks on unionized public employees as being paid too much what with their fancy pants health care and pensions and whatnot.

As an aside, I believe that when the issue was increased taxes for people earning over $250,000, the argument was made that in such a fragile economy, we couldn’t deprive these people of economy stimulating income. Somehow that’s not a concern when the compensation of ordinary workers is at issue.

The favored angle of attack against public sector workers is to stoke the jealousy of private sector workers whose wages have stagnated over the past several decades. It’s an old game. Reminds me of the quote from railroad financier Jay Gould about how he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.

Richard Wolff, writing in the Guardian, has a pretty succinct article advancing the argument that the rich have done an effective job of soaking the rest of us over the past thirty or forty years. When folks bother to recall that income disparity wasn’t quite as stark in the 50s and that a working class wage used to do quite a lot for a family, the usual explanation was that post-World War II was simply different. Now that the rest of the world does not lay in tatters, our economy can’t yield that kind of wealth for everyone.

First, Wolff points out that the rich have dramatically reduced their tax burden since 1945, both absolutely and relative to the middle class and the poor. Second, since their tax burden has come down, their share of the total national income began to rise. He points out that the tax-the-rich years saw lower unemployment and faster economic growth than we’ve seen in years. He also notes a nice trick for people with money – once the government reduced taxes, it ran deficits wherein the people who got tax breaks got to loan that money to the government at interest. They have also been able to take that money and invest it in places like China & India in ventures that were then used to export jobs.

Robert Creamer takes a look at America’s post-war economic history and finds that:

This stagnation of middle class incomes has not happened because our economy has failed to grow over this period. In fact, real (adjusted for inflation) per capita gross domestic product (GDP) increased more than 80% over the period between 1975 and 2005. In the last ten years, before the Great Recession, it increased at an average rate of 1.8% per year. That means that if the benefits of economic growth were equally spread throughout our society, everyone should have been almost 20% better off (with compounding) in 2008 than they were in 1998.

But they weren’t better off. In fact, median family income actually dropped in the years before the recession. It went from $52,301 (in 2009 dollars) in 2000 to $50,112 in 2008. And, of course it continued to drop as the recession set in.

He also finds that the federal government has remained relatively constant as a function of GDP since World War II, median household tax burden has dropped slightly. Worker productivity has increased significantly while hourly wages has increased only 1% and median family income has dropped 0.9%. What has changed is that people who work for a living are getting a smaller and smaller share of America’s economic pie. “Virtually all of the increase in our gross domestic product over the ten years before the Great Recession went to the wealthiest 2% of the population. . . . . Between 1980 and 2004, real wages in manufacturing fell 1%, while real income of the richest one percent rose 135%.”

So, to conclude, I’m not sure that in the real world the CEO would be content with just 11 of the cookies. But, it’s a good joke.

Rebecca Green, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has a report on the 27 year sentence given to Matthew McChesney for wholesale pot distribution. More than 6,700 pounds of marijuana was seized from his home.

Normally, this isn’t the kind of thing I’d much notice, but last weekend, my buddy and I had a little debate about whether jail time was appropriate for the Alabama fan who poisoned oak trees with symbolic importance to Auburn fans. My friend was of the opinion that, at the end of the day, the guy just killed a couple of trees and so maybe locking the guy up wasn’t the most appropriate punishment. I didn’t have strong opinions on whether jail was the right punishment, but felt very strongly that what the tree poisoner did was more blameworthy than crimes for which we do impose jail time.

Marijuana offenses were my prime example. You sell a plant that is illegal by operation of law but which isn’t overly harmful, and you can get significant jail time. The Auburn tree poisoner, by contrast, was acting deliberately to harm other humans. If those were mere trees, the guy wouldn’t have poisoned them. It was the fact that they were special to others that caused him to target those trees in particular. That’s why I feel the latter offense is more serious than the former.

The Indiana General Assembly is considering a bill that would direct a summer study committee to consider whether marijuana should be legalized, penalized less severely, and/or be made available for medical purposes.

Tom Davies, writing for the Associated Press, has more details on the prosecution of Indiana Secretary of State, Charlie White. Of particular interest to me were the remarks of IU Law Professor Craig Bradley who says that White might have a plausible defense that White’s busy schedule caused him to screw up. However:

Bradley said prosecutors could argue that White had the political knowledge to know what he was doing was wrong.

“He would be in a position where he should know and follow the rules and perhaps make it more difficult for him to make an honest mistake kind of claim,” Bradley said.

(Professor Bradley is just all kinds of awesome, so I perk up whenever he’s quoted. He was an assistant U.S. attorney in the 70s and subsequently clerked for Justice Rehnquist. More importantly, he has a great deadpan sense of humor and was a good criminal law professor.)

White is represented by movement conservative lawyer, Jim Bopp out of Terre Haute, who is usually seen advocating Republican voting law initiatives who is blaming White’s actions on a “chaotic personal situation.”

I think White’s “I was busy” defense is a lot of bunk. Rather, to the extent he was “confused” about the law or its application to him, I think it can be adequately explained by the Upton Sinclair quote:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

If White is convicted of a felony, he will be ineligible to serve as Secretary of State. Ordinarily, this would leave the matter of a replacement up to the Governor. However, the state Democrats are maintaining that, because the matters underlying White’s indictment pertain to whether he should have been on the ballot in the first place, the law requires that the second highest vote recipient – Vop Osili – should take White’s place.

I don’t know about what the law requires as to replacement in this situation. But, I think the “right” result depends on whether you view voters as voting for a party where the individual candidate is incidental or whether you view them as voting for a candidate where the candidate’s party is incidental. If the former, then the Republicans should get to choose a replacement; if the latter, then Osili should be the replacement.

Lisa Trigg, writing for the Terre Haute Tribune Star, has a story reporting on charges against a Terre Haute pharmacist charged with committing fraud to the tune of $3.5 million. Apparently he would initiate a prescription that would be billed to Indiana Medicaid, then void the prescription before the system processed it in a way that would make it evident to other people working at the pharmacy that prescriptions were going unfilled. If the charges are true, it looks like this pharmacy billed Indiana Medicaid for $8 million, only about 56% of which was legitimate.

As part of the investigation, federal authorities seized five Harley Davidson motorcycles, a Corvette sports car, a Mustang sports car, four sport utility vehicles, an all-terrain vehicle and trailer, two pickup trucks, and more than $261,000 in funds from multiple bank accounts.

So, it doesn’t look like the guy was stealing just because he was in over his head on a mortgage or something. He liked his toys.

I think part of the reason I like seeing this kind of crime being prosecuted is that it makes me feel like less of a chump for keeping my nose to the grindstone and my recreational pursuits modest.

With the House Democrats in their second week of self-imposed exile, Secretary of State Charlie White finds himself indicted on seven felony charges; the most serious of which is a Class C felony charge of fraud on a financial institution. The most embarrassing politically, for the man who is our Chief Election Officer, are the charges that he committed voter fraud. These charges were brewing before the election, and, yet, Indiana’s voters elected White by a comfortable margin. Would it be cynical for me to speculate that Indiana’s voters don’t know squat about many of the candidates for whom they vote?

Anyway, we’ve got some interesting times brewing here.

In response to a David Brooks column, Tom Scocca, writing for Slate, makes an important point. Debt itself isn’t the disease, it’s a symptom.

Casting the debt as an object of moral concern is the work of minds that have come detached from human experience. The debt is an epiphenomenon. It is the side effect created by the specific moral decisions about what the country wishes to see funded, and how it is willing to fund those things.

Talking about the deficit is a way of cutting morality out of the discussion. Waste! Mismanagement! Incompetence! Unaccountable earmarks! These things are noise. The actual questions are: is money to be spent on people who do not have money? And where is that money going to come from?

Emphasis is mine. The point being that the moral problem, if there is one, isn’t the debt itself. It’s that we are spending too much on people we shouldn’t be spending on, not taking enough from people we should be taking from, or a combination thereof. Talking about debt as a problem is a shorthand for that basic point; but I think there is value in making it explicit so we don’t lose sight of what’s happening by abstracting debt as something independent.

I’d elaborate more, but I have a bad habit of getting interested in something just before I have to get ready for work.

Last night – and this actually happened, it’s not just a story I’m making up to dramatize a point – I was drinking some water out of the tap, and it occurred to me what a remarkable thing this really is. There it was, immediate and clean. And, I thought to myself, “people who believe they don’t have any use for government really aren’t thinking it through.” I had a similar thought earlier in the day when NPR had a story about the current government in Somalia. I thought sarcastically, “now there’s a place with limited government.”

I’ve made similar comments here in the past but wasn’t going to belabor the point. The inevitable response from self-described champions of limited government is that, of course they’d keep the useful bits. But, then, this morning, I read a (probably offhand) facebook status from Abdul:

Is is my imagination or do the only people who don’t understand the government is broke tend to be people who [work?] for the government?

There it is, just an unblinking, unqualified assertion that “the government is broke.” I’m picking on Abdul here because he’s close to hand (and likes it), but I see this kind of thing all the time. Not some nuanced assertion about some aspect of government that the person doesn’t like, but a blanket assertion that “government is bad.” But, consider how the government assists you with water – from clean water laws, to either running the water company or at least giving it the tools it needs to acquire rights of way and keep the system running, to a fairly elaborate system for drainage that takes the water away pretty effectively when the snows melt or the heavy rains come.

The best parts of government are the parts we notice the least – the parts that work in the background and are taken for granted. Since the “government is bad” rhetoric tends toward the simplistic, we probably need to pipe up from time to time to acknowledge that there are aspects of government that are hugely beneficial.

The problem with having dogs of similar ages is that they get old together. About seven months ago, we had to put Keesha to sleep. Today, we had to do that for our 15.5 year old dalmatian, Brooksey.

Amy had Brooksey before she had me. To give you some idea of how much I liked Amy from the very start, you have to know that Brooksey was an awful puppy. She just bit and tore and was generally a menace. I nicknamed her “Shredder.” Amy added the tagline (“the lesbian dalmatian”) because of Brooksey’s odd habit of mounting other female dogs. My early conversations with Amy often involved a puppy Brooksey gnawing on my wrist. Yelling at her, pushing her, nothing worked; except one thing. Pig ears were Brooksey’s kryptonite. She loved pig ears, but she was also mysteriously afraid of them. You could hold one out and it would ward her off for a time.

Amy’s first move seemed to calm Brooksey down. I think that first apartment was Amy’s sophomore year in college. She moved elsewhere for her junior year. After that, she wasn’t nearly as destructive – even though she had to put up with Amy’s roommate’s habit of flipping Brooksey’s ear backward and leaving it there.

Brooksey was extremely graceful, fast, and nimble. She could outrun our other dogs by an order of magnitude. She could turn on a dime. And, she loved running in tall grass. Absolutely loved it. The only time I saw her really come to harm from her all out running was one time at Southeastway Park in Indianapolis. She was going to leap up a small wall to the grassy area beyond, but the ground was just a little slick, causing her to miss her jump and crash her head into the wall. She went from a state of pure, speedy happiness to a sort of dazed confusion. The daze didn’t last very long, but there was a scary moment or two. It was a pretty solid blow. Much later, as she got older, she would occasionally forget that her body couldn’t maintain those fast turns – she’d make a cut and come up a little limping a little bit.

When we went for walks, Brooksey loved to play “the leash game.” For some reason, when we’d passed the half-way mark and headed for home, Brooksey would start jumping around and “attacking” the leash. Early on, this was a welcome change because she could be a challenge to walk — she’d pull as hard as she could, usually at a sideways angle. That is, until she found something to sniff. She had an outstanding sense of smell. Our shepherd-mix, Keesha, would frequently just rely on Brooksey to find the good smells, then go and body Brooksey out of the way.

Brooksey and Shady had a great time playing in our yard in Monticello. Brooksey would run circles around Shady, who would play along gamely. Brooksey would grab Shady’s collar and roll her, and then they’d get up and play again. Brooksey and Keesha had a much more complicated relationship. Brooksey had been a fairly spoiled, only child when Keesha came on the scene about 1.5 – 2 years later. And Keesha had to work out some issues from her time on the street – bullying Brooksey out of the way for food. After that, they generally got along very well; curling up together and being companions. But, every so often, Brooksey would get it into her head to be terrified of Keesha – usually when Keesha was curled up and sleeping. Brooksey would just regard herself as blocked and wouldn’t walk past wherever Keesha happened to be laying. This fear was despite the fact that, with one exception, they never fought. The one time was my fault, and Brooksey (literally) scared the crap out of Keesha. I had been sitting on the couch one Thanksgiving night, eating turkey out of a doggy bag. Shady was looking at me, coveting the Turkey. Keesha approached. Brooksey was curled up in a chair. Shady started growling this adorable puppy growl at Keesha. Keesha was pondering how, exactly, to put this upstart pup in her place. Then, out of nowhere, Brooksey latched onto Keesha’s neck. I had to basically put Brooksey in a scissor lock and squeeze her until she let go. Near as we can figure, Brooksey thought Keesha was threatening me and was coming to my defense.

Brooksey was the most cat like of our dogs. She was remarkably dense when it came to learning things that would benefit you, but could be quite clever when it came to communicating her desires. In particular, she was good at pawing in a very communicative fashion to let you know how you could best serve her. As a dalmatian, she was a rock star when we went for walks. Kids always wanted to pet her. She was reasonably tolerant of the attention but she certainly didn’t seek it out – and she got a little edgy when too many people crowded her. She was very delicate and would almost never lay on the hard, hard ground. She needed a blanket, or preferably furniture for laying on. Until very recently, she slept in the bed with us at night. That started the night before she had to go into the vet to get spayed. She’d go head first under the blankets and mold herself to Amy. Other times, she’d turn into “rigor mortis dog” – feet straight up in the air, making a little tent with the blankets. But, once she was on something soft, few animals could get as comfortable as Brooksey could get.

Unfortunately, toward the end, her body and mind started to go. Her tail started clenching under her body; her hind end was bent down; she began pacing incessantly; and, she began losing control of her bowels. She’s had a good long run for a dalmatian, but unfortunately it was time. She was the Alpha and the Omega of our dogs – at one time, we had three. Of those, Brooksey was there first and went last. We are dogless for the first time in a very long time. I doubt that will last too long. But, having very old dogs can be trying. It’s part of the bargain, and definitely the benefits outweigh the costs.

Good dog Brooksey. We love you, and we miss you.

Looks like Sen. Alting’s SB 32 passed the House which allows the continuation of vote centers in Tippecanoe, Wayne, and Cass Counties and provides for the option of adopting them in the other counties. All I can say is that I like them personally. I don’t know how they affect voters of various socioeconomic conditions or whether they skew to one party or another (though, it looks like a good chunk of the Democrats voted against them in the House.) I’m happy Tippecanoe County will be able to continue using them.