Golden Hill: A Golden Goose or Golden Noose?
Whenever I am considering the wisdom or legitimacy of any government program or proposal, I consider the underlying idea its proponents espouse by taking the idea to its full “gestation.” For instance, take minimum wages. Why mandate just $7.50 an hour? If it is really good for low-wage workers, how about just naming a sum that would really change the life of said workers, say $25 an hour? It brings clarity in a hurry. You know that those workers would be tossed out on their ears. Anytime you try pricing labor above its actual financial benefit to an organization, there will be fewer jobs. Remember, the equation is not just supply and demand, it is supply and demand coinciding at a particular price—the price at which the seller and buyer are willing to seal the deal.
Consider the unemployment rate for untested or uneducated individuals in Ulster County. You don’t need a statistician for this. Can your teenager find summer employment? In the late 1950s and early 1960s in Ulster County I could have worked three jobs if I had been allowed to drink coffee. Today, young people (and even older ones) rarely find even a part-time position.
I don’t want anyone to have to work for $5.00 an hour. On the other hand (this is why there are no one-handed economists), most beginning workers are worth only that or less to an employer (otherwise there would be no need to legislate a “minimum wage”). Once the new employee learns something, hopefully he/she becomes worth more to the organization and will be worth more pay. Sadly, under minimum wage laws, the employer may simply do that menial job himself rather than hire a youngster or trainee. In addition to the outright wage and benefit cost of the worker, the government paperwork on employee withholding and the time to train someone who may very well walk away after a couple of days or weeks, it is easier and less expensive to forego the new hire. The law hurts many of those it is supposed to help.
Which brings me to Golden Hill. If it is a good idea or an economic benefit to the taxpayers for Ulster County to be in the nursing home business by continuing to run Golden Hill, why doesn't the county buy the all private facilities in our county and run them, too? According to the Web, Ulster has the North East Center for Special Care, Wingate at Ulster, Ten Broeck Commons, Mountain View, and the Hudson Valley Rehabilitation and Extended Care Facility listed as residential homes in Ulster County. Is there something special about Golden Hill that makes it “the one” our county should run, and not the others? If so, I hope that gets some press before the legislature votes to spend your money on continuing to run it.
While you are at it investigative media, I would also like to know who gets to reside at Golden Hill? Is it a different demographic from those who are residents of the Hudson Valley Rehabilitation? Wingate at Ulster? I would like to see that spelled out. In light of the belief that “we owe it to our seniors,” exactly who owes it and to exactly which seniors?
Another thing impacting nursing homes and the ability of residents to pay personally for their care are the laws allowing me to put my house in my child’s name and live in it until I need nursing home care. Then, because I have successfully transferred assets to my heirs years before, I can count on you taxpayers to pay for my infirmity at a nursing home until I enter that big tax-free, government-free place in the sky. Taxpayers of all levels of wealth subsidize the wealthiest and most tax-savvy residents of Ulster County (and elsewhere). It’s hard to fault people who do take advantage of this estate planning technique. If you are the only one who does not, you look like a dope, but maybe you sleep like a baby.
How did such an unfair and unscrupulous law get on the books? Like all laws of that description, someone went to some congressman and lobbied—that is, promised votes or donated to his/her campaign— in other words, the law got passed because someone had the money or the pull to get it passed. I am sure they sold it as “the right thing to do,” or said “we owe it to our _______,” (fill in the blank depending on the law in question with seniors, children, teachers, etc.). You can bet it was not lobbied for by the un-connected poor schlep who will now pay for me to be taken care of for a lot of years if I am lucky and the taxpayers are not.
I had a very long conversation with an Ulster County legislator who said the numbers were “on the side of keeping Golden Hill.” I have no doubt this man is sincere and believes what he was saying. My question to him is: If it is a good idea and makes all residents of Ulster County better off, then let’s buy up all the facilities and make us all richer.
Deep in their hearts, I think the legislators know they should divest the county of Golden Hill for sound economic reasons and because government has no business in health care. However, there is a bureaucracy and union with vested interests in keeping the status quo. Therefore, they fall back on the tried and true “senior citizen is owed” ploy. If seniors were not allowed to give away their assets they could afford care in most instances, or at least many years of care before becoming wards of the county, state, and federal taxpayers. Better yet, the eventual heirs could take care of the person with the benefit of inheritance.
On another note, if the legislature votes to keep Golden Hill and there is an upgrade to or even rebuilding of the facility, who will be responsible for its cost overruns? Was the Ulster County jail not enough proof that public projects are problematic and expensive to taxpayers?
The unions and the families of Golden Hill residents continue to lobby the legislature, but there is no one lobbying for the taxpayer. Remember, the ultimate lobbying technique is your vote. Any legislator who votes for keeping Golden Hill should be tossed out in the next election. We can't keep obligating future generations to make ourselves “feel good.” We owe it to taxpayers now and in the future.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Welcome To Oklastan
Two seemingly unrelated things happened recently, one in Oklahoma, the other in Pakistan, that focused my attention on our fragile American culture. We think all people are like us, are similarly motivated, see the world as we do, abide their religions as we do, and most importantly, believe all religions are basically much alike and life affirming. We are endangered by our own blissful ignorance of other cultures.
Ruling in Oklahoma
A recent ruling in Oklahoma, by Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange, has blocked a change the voters of her state had approved. The voters said the state must not use the laws of other nations, nor Islamic Sharia Law in the deliberations of its courts. In over-ruling the electorate, the judge said she believed Sharia Law changes from environment to environment. I read that as saying that Sharia Law here wasn’t the same as (as bad as?) in Somalia or Pakistan. Laughable were it not such a dangerous notion.
We don’t like to think of any religion or culture as not being equally protected by our laws and Constitution. However, if being a religious Muslim meant living by a code similar to that of a good Lutheran, that is, dealing mostly with the “inner world” of the individual and following the Golden Rule in the outward culture, the issue would not have been on Oklahoma’s ballot. The judge failed to understand what the citizens did: Islam is a complete culture, a way of life, a system of law, not just another religion as we understand “religion” in the West.
As a way of life and culture, Islam dictates almost all of an adherent’s major “choices.” Most of the substantive actions in life are demanded by Allah in the Koran. Some actions are proscribed in a second book (The Hadith), and a tiny portion of actions Allah does not care about. A large number of actions are forbidden. Sharia Law is there to spell out details of marriage, divorce, child rearing, food, clothing, hygiene, prayer, commercial and criminal law, and much more. A complete code of daily conduct. It is religion, politics, and law. Most important of the things forbidden is to question any part of Islam.
Unfortunately for the women of Islam even the activities that Allah does not care to direct, husbands or other male family members do. The men believe they are empowered to control females—totally, like their sheep or their cell phones. The voters of Oklahoma don’t want Sharia Law in their courts because they understand the consequences of Sharia’s underpinning culture and it is not ours: Steal? Cut off the hand. Raped? Four men must bear witness against the rapist. If the rapist is exonerated, the woman is stoned to death.
I recently opened a National Geographic magazine and staring back at me was a young woman. Her nose was gone. So were her ears. After suffering beatings from her husband, she decided to run. She was caught, held down, and her husband disfigured her.
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial “Fulfilling Our Duty as Muslim-Americans” by Dr. Quanta A. Ahmed, author of In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom, “Justice is the cornerstone of Islamic life—despite the appalling reality of many Muslim-majority countries today. Every faithful Muslim must contribute to the preservation of justice within their society.” She goes on to say that can be accomplished by providing “expert testimony, informing on radical entities and perhaps foremost, educating ourselves about our religion.”
Assassination in Pakistan
The hard fact is, critical examination of Islam is forbidden. Even to question is heresy. The recent assassination of Salman Taseer in Pakistan, by one of his own guards, was in retaliation Taseer’s belief that the Islamic blasphemy laws needed to be examined. Taseer was responding to a case in which a Christian woman was under arrest and in danger of death because she was alleged to have said something Muslims believed to be blasphemy.
Five hundred clerics in Pakistan lauded Taseer’s assassin who smiled for the press cameras from the police car. The clerics told their people not to mourn Taseer, he had been dealt with justly.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, “Experts believe the outpouring of praise for the killer of Salman Taseer, the former governor of Punjab who was slain by his own security detail in Islamabad on Tuesday, reflects deep support for religious intolerance and will have a chilling effect on reform-minded public figures.”
Chill indeed. Europeans are reaping the harvest of their silence and the refusal to rightly name the adversary within. Large European cities, such as Paris have Muslim enclaves where police fear to enter. Many, if not most, of the disturbances outside these enclaves are from bands of male Muslims, euphemistically called “roving youth” by the cowed European press. The authorities are afraid their culture will be completely overwhelmed if they try to stem this violence head-on.
The Muslim birthrate in these countries and in Russia far exceeds the aging native populations. Demographers estimate that by 2050 (and many say sooner), Muslims could simply vote in a Sharia-compliant government in some European countries.
Sometime the death knell of a people and their culture is the physical environment. Sometimes change is wrought through conquest, sometime by demographics. And, sometimes, because ignorance is not bliss. America can survive all of those influences by upholding the inherent cohesive force of our culture embodied in our laws.
To understand why that is imperative, we need to start learning about Islam, Sharia, madrassa schools, The Hadith, and the heros of Islam. We need to speak up against rulings like Judge LaGrange’s. We need to be counted, like the 70% of Oklahomans who understand that our way of life, not just religious freedom, is protected by the Constitution; we need to affirm that if we start bringing in laws that have not been sifted through the historical process of our courts and our Constitution, we are in danger of becoming a culture with courts that can excuse murder and mutilation, and eventually, exert rigid control of all education and personal activity.
Ruling in Oklahoma
A recent ruling in Oklahoma, by Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange, has blocked a change the voters of her state had approved. The voters said the state must not use the laws of other nations, nor Islamic Sharia Law in the deliberations of its courts. In over-ruling the electorate, the judge said she believed Sharia Law changes from environment to environment. I read that as saying that Sharia Law here wasn’t the same as (as bad as?) in Somalia or Pakistan. Laughable were it not such a dangerous notion.
We don’t like to think of any religion or culture as not being equally protected by our laws and Constitution. However, if being a religious Muslim meant living by a code similar to that of a good Lutheran, that is, dealing mostly with the “inner world” of the individual and following the Golden Rule in the outward culture, the issue would not have been on Oklahoma’s ballot. The judge failed to understand what the citizens did: Islam is a complete culture, a way of life, a system of law, not just another religion as we understand “religion” in the West.
As a way of life and culture, Islam dictates almost all of an adherent’s major “choices.” Most of the substantive actions in life are demanded by Allah in the Koran. Some actions are proscribed in a second book (The Hadith), and a tiny portion of actions Allah does not care about. A large number of actions are forbidden. Sharia Law is there to spell out details of marriage, divorce, child rearing, food, clothing, hygiene, prayer, commercial and criminal law, and much more. A complete code of daily conduct. It is religion, politics, and law. Most important of the things forbidden is to question any part of Islam.
Unfortunately for the women of Islam even the activities that Allah does not care to direct, husbands or other male family members do. The men believe they are empowered to control females—totally, like their sheep or their cell phones. The voters of Oklahoma don’t want Sharia Law in their courts because they understand the consequences of Sharia’s underpinning culture and it is not ours: Steal? Cut off the hand. Raped? Four men must bear witness against the rapist. If the rapist is exonerated, the woman is stoned to death.
I recently opened a National Geographic magazine and staring back at me was a young woman. Her nose was gone. So were her ears. After suffering beatings from her husband, she decided to run. She was caught, held down, and her husband disfigured her.
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial “Fulfilling Our Duty as Muslim-Americans” by Dr. Quanta A. Ahmed, author of In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom, “Justice is the cornerstone of Islamic life—despite the appalling reality of many Muslim-majority countries today. Every faithful Muslim must contribute to the preservation of justice within their society.” She goes on to say that can be accomplished by providing “expert testimony, informing on radical entities and perhaps foremost, educating ourselves about our religion.”
Assassination in Pakistan
The hard fact is, critical examination of Islam is forbidden. Even to question is heresy. The recent assassination of Salman Taseer in Pakistan, by one of his own guards, was in retaliation Taseer’s belief that the Islamic blasphemy laws needed to be examined. Taseer was responding to a case in which a Christian woman was under arrest and in danger of death because she was alleged to have said something Muslims believed to be blasphemy.
Five hundred clerics in Pakistan lauded Taseer’s assassin who smiled for the press cameras from the police car. The clerics told their people not to mourn Taseer, he had been dealt with justly.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, “Experts believe the outpouring of praise for the killer of Salman Taseer, the former governor of Punjab who was slain by his own security detail in Islamabad on Tuesday, reflects deep support for religious intolerance and will have a chilling effect on reform-minded public figures.”
Chill indeed. Europeans are reaping the harvest of their silence and the refusal to rightly name the adversary within. Large European cities, such as Paris have Muslim enclaves where police fear to enter. Many, if not most, of the disturbances outside these enclaves are from bands of male Muslims, euphemistically called “roving youth” by the cowed European press. The authorities are afraid their culture will be completely overwhelmed if they try to stem this violence head-on.
The Muslim birthrate in these countries and in Russia far exceeds the aging native populations. Demographers estimate that by 2050 (and many say sooner), Muslims could simply vote in a Sharia-compliant government in some European countries.
Sometime the death knell of a people and their culture is the physical environment. Sometimes change is wrought through conquest, sometime by demographics. And, sometimes, because ignorance is not bliss. America can survive all of those influences by upholding the inherent cohesive force of our culture embodied in our laws.
To understand why that is imperative, we need to start learning about Islam, Sharia, madrassa schools, The Hadith, and the heros of Islam. We need to speak up against rulings like Judge LaGrange’s. We need to be counted, like the 70% of Oklahomans who understand that our way of life, not just religious freedom, is protected by the Constitution; we need to affirm that if we start bringing in laws that have not been sifted through the historical process of our courts and our Constitution, we are in danger of becoming a culture with courts that can excuse murder and mutilation, and eventually, exert rigid control of all education and personal activity.
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