Reaction to Obama’s school speech is tragic, sinister and sickening

This is my response to the column found here.

Dear Bob Ray -

Thank you for your courage in writing about a tough topic, and more courageously, admitting your ignorance.

Fortunately, the key to your enlightenment is at hand.

You start off assuming that the folks you disagree with are "frightened, misguided and hate-filled".  When you assume your opponents are irrational, it takes the burden off of you to see how and why their world view might make sense to them.  You don't take the time and trouble to see what subset of the facts they are focused on.  And you thus have no way to speak to them in their own terms.

This used to be the problem the Bush administration was accused of having with regard to the Middle East -- our opponents were all "evil" and understanding them wasn't necessary or desirable.  That Bush mindset, to the extent it guided foreign policy, codified intolerance.

And now you're doing it to your fellow Americans.

Tell me that, if Bush 43 had issued a lesson plan instructing children to write themselves letters regarding how they could support him, you seriously would have thought that was normal, standard, and unremarkable.  I would have found that creepy and overreaching.

As Hillary Clinton so eloquently put it, it's very American to dissent, debate and disagree.  It's not very American to have a President telling teachers to tell our children to write themselves letters listing ways they can support the Dear Leader.  Very North Korean, maybe.

If you can accept the possibility -- just the possibility -- that folks on the other side from you are actually motivated by love of their children, love of their country, and a different interpretation of some key facts, you can love them and respect them enough to figure out how to talk to them and about them in ways that will actually connect with them.  Maybe you'll even become persuasive.

Until then, the most intolerant person in this picture is still you.  You've got to be the change you want to see.

I think you can do it.

Cheers.
 -Tom

Tax Referral

A friend wrote to ask me:

Tom I spent 6 hours last Saturday in front of Aloha Post Office helping get signatures on two petitions which constituted the recently passed tax increase for Oregonians. One of our patrons use to work in accounting for Nike Inc. She was very convincing in accusing Nike of not paying any taxes at all some years, and many years paying less than the average family of 4. She said it is shameless and unethical the games many corporations play to keep from having to pay taxes. If this is so, perhaps the bill concerning changes to corporations taxes is a much needed overhaul. I don't know what to think. Are we the small people being manipulated by invisible connections with corporations to fight their battle to protect their unethical tax avoidance games????

What hard core information does Tea Party have? Do we have any tax attorneys or CPA's who can address what I've heard and speak to this problem?

Good for you for investing the time to roll back the tax increases.

It's typical of big-government types to criticize businesses for FOLLOWING the rules. When a Leftist creates a maze of incredibly complex rules, and then discovers that the result isn't what he expected, he accuses other people of being "unethical" or evil. In fact, Nike would be vulnerable to shareholder lawsuits if it failed to use every available lawful opportunity to lower its tax burden.

I have no doubt that Nike's tax liability was legitimately zero in Oregon in many years -- they do a lot of deductible R&D here, and don't have all that many sales here. Income tax is based on profit, not spending or activity, and state taxes are limited to your activities inside a given state.

The hard reality is that businesses never pay taxes, they only collect them. And yes there is a disparate impact when a bigger company can hire expensive talent to understand all the rules -- and lobby for loopholes -- when smaller firms cannot.

I know one small, family owned oil company that will make ZERO profit for 2008 and 2009 and will have to pay $30,000 under the new tax. How is that fair by any stretch of the imagination?

Finally, all of these tax increases were unneeded -- the state of Oregon is sitting on $4.9 billion in cash of which $3.5 billion is unrestricted. They had no legitimate need to raise taxes $2 billion.

Oregon Jobs cost $371k per year?

Fun with math -- the Democrats in Salem are desparate to claim they're creating jobs with taxpayer dollars. The numbers tell an ugly story of waste and inefficiency.

Among other things, according to an Associated Press analysis, they claim as a "job" work that lasted on average 35 hours. That's not the definition used anywhere else -- the standard definition is a 2,000 hour job (40 hours a week x 50 weeks a year).

So one Oregon "job" is 35/2000 or 0.0175 (about 1/57) of a real job.

On top of the lying, we have the waste -- apparently taxpayers are paying $185 an hour for government-created jobs that pay workers a whole lot less than that. Perhaps the rest is being eaten up in administrative costs?

Tea Parties support Iranians

I'm very proud that our Fourth of July events included a moment when the hundreds who had gathered all put on green ribbons and posed for photos, to show we support the people of Iran. The Iranians deserve a voice in their government. We have not forgotten them.

Foolish Pink Prescription

Forgive me for saying -- I find this Wharton puff piece embarrassingly shallow and trite. Pink is telling groups who pay him to speak and write -- largely the education bureaucracy -- what they want to hear and want to believe.

He ignores completely the fact that education is cumulative, and that rote learning of (say) reading and math is foundational to problem-solving. My daughter is constantly being put into "teams" (mere groups) with other students to create work products, which is fine except the entire process is utterly unlike any you would see in a modern or future workplace. She ends up doing much of the work herself, and a quarter of her cohort are functionally illiterate or innumerate. (Should school teach good teamwork, or just reinvent the broken team dynamics of the worst modern workplaces?)

Pink also depends heavily on the discredited "left-right-brain" imagery from the 1980s. Modern brain science has debunked this, however it's a useful shorthand for weak thinkers, so it lives on:

Pseudoscientific exaggeration of the research

Hines (1987) states that the research on brain lateralization is valid as a research program, though commercial promoters have applied it to promote subjects and products far out of the implications of the research. For example, the implications of the research have no bearing on psychological interventions such as EMDR and neurolinguistic programming (Drenth 2003:53), brain training equipment, or management training. One explanation for why research on lateralization is so prone to exaggeration and false application is that the left-right brain dichotomy is an easy-to-understand notion, which can be oversimplified and misused for promotion in the guise of science.^[18] The research on lateralization of brain functioning is ongoing, and its implications are always tightly delineated, whereas the pseudoscientific applications are exaggerated, and applied to an extremely wide range of situations.

Once he loses his cute brain-sidedness concept, Pink is left with suggesting that modern problems and future employment will depend on soft skills, complex skills, and other things not currently taught in schools. Duh.

Pink fails to point out that ALL of the skills he pimps -- "design, storytelling, synthesis, empathy and pattern recognition" -- depend on an underlying set of basic skills (literacy, numeracy, listening skills) that ARE supposed to be taught in modern schools, and largely are not, as well as human skills (work ethic, manners, self discipline, thrift, punctuality, respect for others, or overall emotional intelligence) today taught neither in schools nor many homes.

If this is the state of the art of advanced thinking about basic education, we're in big trouble.

Obama favors outsourcing?

If one believes Steven Ballmer of Microsoft (here), Obama must want US jobs moved overseas.

Key quote: "It makes U.S. jobs more expensive [...] We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S."

Seems counter-intuitive for Obama to want to create US jobs, and then promote policies that reduce US jobs.

Or maybe Obama prefers government jobs.

The new MBA morality

When I read something like this -- that 20% of Harvard MBA students are signing a new "Promise to Be Ethical in an Era of Immorality" -- it simply makes me suspicious.

First, MBA students protesting that they'll be all concerned about "the common good" -- oh, and that doesn't mean they can't take big-salaried jobs -- makes me wonder if they have any concept of how the world of business works.

There are six things that must be in place -- by the government -- for the free market to work:

1. System of property rights with enforcement
2. System of contract law with enforcement
3. Ban on coercion and fraud, with enforcement
4. Prohibit trade in dangerous (i.e. poisonous, malfunctioning) products
5. Prohibit collusion and monopolistic practices by employers
6. Protect workers from unsafe working conditions

All of these are necessary. All of them come from government.

Oregon Governor would rather raise taxes than talk to Republicans

What a surreal exchange. At the City Club of Portland today I asked our Governor how it is that we're short of money, yet the state government will grow 8%, and the Democrat-controlled House has passed 20 bills that raise spending 7.5% over the previous budget.

And I asked him whether he was going to look at the Republican's alternative that suggests ways to fully fund education and public safety without raising taxes. He summarily dismissed the Republican budget, yet couldn't offer any details as to why he was dismissing it other than to call it names.

I wonder if he even read it. He came across as partisan -- as if he'd rather take a "not invented here" mind set, ignore anything that comes from the Republicans simply because he dislikes them, and if that means he enacts job-killing tax increases during a recession, he's okay with that.

And finally, he says he's going to create a team of efficiency experts to help him find ways to reduce government costs... starting in July of 2009. Where was that in January 2003 when he first took office? And why wait until July of this year?

This is a shameful performance.

Profound Dishonesty at the Oregonian

Here's a stunning example of a newspaper's staff using their positions to advance their own ideology.  Compare the photos of the same event, first the Oregonian's, and next the group's own pictures.

The Oregonian's photos make it look like a few dozen people showed up -- after all, if it had been bigger, they'd have shown it, right?

In reality some 7,000 people crowded into Pioneer Square for this rally.

Regardless of your own agenda or opinion about the viewpoint of those rallying, you have to admit this is sheer bias.  Nothing else explains the poor selection of photos.  And certainly if it had been a pro-choice rally, a pro-Obama rally, or an anti-American rally, the crowd size would have been emphasized not understated.

(Oregonian writers crow that their paper's photo "helped elect Obama".)

Is it any wonder the Oregonian is not trusted?

Asking for a Testimonial

There are times when your customer is so happy, they seem to be looking for extra ways to help you. When that happens, ask them for a written testimonial. Do it in email or in a printed letter.

When I get their response, I'll rewrite their answer a bit and ask for their approval of the rewrite. Other times I'll write a draft testimonial based on the verbal praise they've already given me. I always make it clear in such cases that I want it to only say things they agree with and believe enthusiastically.

Here's a letter I sent recently. I was responding to some very strong praise I'd gotten from my client in email. Note that I simply ask for a testimonial, and offer an outline -- actually, two outlines -- for structuring the response. (This is enormously helpful to the person responding and increases both the likelihood of a positive answer and improves the quality of their response.)

Since you're being so sweet, let me ask you for a testimonial. The structure of a testimonial is often this (adapted from Kent Blumberg):

• Who are you (i.e. in what way can the reader identify with you)?

• Why did you decide to use us?
• What were your expectations, and how well did we meet them?
• What benefits did you get from working with us? (Please be as specific as you can.)
• Who should consider using us?

Here's a different outline (from Veronika Noize):

• First, why did you decide that the time was right to work with me? What situation or event prompted you to seek my help?
• Second, what specifically did we do together that resolved or improved that situation?
• And finally, what was the end result or outcome of our work together? How did you know that our work was successful?

Thank you kindly.
-Tom

That's all it took. You can do it too. And you should.