Keachie Again Misreads Rebane

George Rebane

Mr Douglas Keachie is a loud voice in the community and on local blogs.  A man of progressive persuasion, he is also a sometime commenter on these pages.  In his latest effort he attempts to reveal “three fatal flaws” in my 11jun11 Union column ‘Entrepreneurship 2011’.  His revelation was published as an Other Voices submission in the 21jun11 Union (here).

Mr Keachie launches his piece with the devastating deduction that I claimed the tax rate to be 100% (confiscatory) for all earnings above $250,000 – “The tax on net income above $250,000 is not 100 percent.”  It is easy to verify that nowhere in my column do I make such claim or anything that remotely resembles it.  From that point of departure Mr Keachie proceeds swiftly downward in his displayed comprehension of what I wrote, and in his understanding of the entrepreneurial enterprise in general.

There are two possible explanations for such errors.  The first is that Mr Keachie is among the many who have been short-changed by our public educational system.  And that would explain why his remarkable conclusions fall into the lower categories as documented in the longitudinal National Adult Literacy Survey   that is conducted every ten years by the National Center for Educational Statistics.  As the record shows, this is not the first time that Mr Keachie has had trouble understanding what I write.  (I have reported extensively on adult numeracy and literacy on these pages – RR keywords ‘numeracy’, ‘adult literacy’.)

The other explanation is that Mr Keachie is taking a page from Saul Alinsky’s manual of political discourse, and simply fabricating a set of ‘facts’, attributes, or other characteristics that can be ascribed to a person to be denigrated.  Such characteristics, derived from whole cloth, go on to serve as the ridiculed targets for the remainder of the presentation.  The reader, unfamiliar with the original, is then at the author’s mercy.

As to why The Union so prominently published Mr Keachie’s article, one can only guess.  Perhaps, through their over-worked editorial filter, my column represented an ideological bias that had to be ‘balanced’, and the Keachie piece was the only one at hand – any port in a storm.

Comments

[Douglas Keachie]

You implied 100% by saying that there would be no money for the entrepreneur left after taxes with which to hire more worker bees.

[Mikey McD]

George, Keachie's "other voices" piece was so poorly formulated and void of reason/logic that it hurt his cause (what ever that may be). His rant was unfocused and left readers confused and annoyed. Further, his arguments highlighted his lack of business prowess and understanding of economics. It is fun to watch progressives attack personal liberty with no factual/logical/ethical basis. I encourage him to write more :).

[Douglas Keachie]

Or there's a third possibility. You are simply one more propagandist for letting the top 1% call in all the marbles and re-establish the New Feudalism. Do you claim that the entrepreneur, by taking extra money in the year in which it was made, and hiring folks, would suffer tax losses as a consequence of such actions?

If you cannot make such a claim, then your argument about taxes above $250,000, regardless of how big or small, falls apart, with respect to the entrepreneur' abilities to create jobs.

[Douglas Keachie]

Mikey McD, I asked before if the workers "you kept on" were charity cases who sat around and did nothing while collecting their paychecks, or if they actually contributed all along to your business recovery? You had no answer. Would you care to try again?

[Greg Goodknight]

For some reason Keachie took early retirement from his job as a public school teacher from Planet Frisco, landing in North San Juan complaining about his small pension a decade or so ago. BA History from UC Berkeley. Math challenged.

He can make incredible leaps past conventional logic in a single bound.

[Todd Juvinall]

After reading Keachie's screeds for a wile now, it is clear he has no clue about economics. This is a good example of people teaching our young into oblivion

[Douglas Keachie]

The reason was simple. They don't pay teachers what they pay consulting engineers, so I had no plane with which to commute, and wife had and still has job up here. We bought here in 1997. Had I known which way the economy was going, I would have stayed on. Calculus challenged, yes.

Tax 25 cents per $100 of stocks and commodities sold each open market day, and generate roughly 30 billion per year. Or tax the roughly 300 million Americans $1,000 each, regardless of how rich or poor, and generate the same amount. Good luck collecting... Soon it will be the rich moaning about paying for debtors prisons. Of course, they are already doing that, they're just to selfish, shortsighted, and greedy, to realize it. Exporting jobs was the equivalent of shooting the USA in the back. Our prisons are currently full of the uneducated and unemployed, thanks to no taxes for excellent schools. Of course bringing in 12 million strike and wage busting illegals to work didn't help matters much either.... Or would you care to document that Sanchez came across the border to vote for Democrats, because the Dems were paying them to do so?

[Paul Emery]

In general. it would be useful to include some form of documentation to support opinions. I'm still looking for the one that documents the Reagan era doubling of tax income that does not include population increases and cost of living in it's calculations. Can anyone help me on this?

[Greg Goodknight]

"Our prisons are currently full of the uneducated and unemployed, thanks to no taxes for excellent schools."

I suspect San Francisco's gain is North San Juan's loss.

We're paying for excellent schools. Of the $92 billion of the 2010-2011 California state budget expenditures, $36 billion went to K-12 and $12 billion to higher ed. Giving more money to current administrators and current teachers would be as productive as giving beer and car keys to teenaged boys.

[Douglas Keachie]

And how much did we spend keeping folks incarcerated? My understanding is that it is more than we spent on higher ed. $43,000 a year or so per prisoner, as compared to how much per pupil, including all the offspring of the illegals enticed here by the employers, who are generally associated with which party?

[Greg Goodknight]

And now we're branching off to undocumented Democrats. All the world's a conspiracy to some folk.

[Douglas Keachie]

So Greg, does your conspiracy theory insist that they came here to become Democratic voters, or do you admit they come here to be cheap labor and union busters, at the behalf of the employer folks, who, once again, tend to be members of which political party?

[Greg Goodknight]

When Keach comes to a fork in the road, he takes it.

You're the one who seems to think illegal aliens are coming here at the behest of "employer folks" to be union busters, Keach.

[Douglas Keachie]

If they are not coming here to pick up on low paying jobs from employers who will NOT ask them about citizenship in any meaningful way, then why do you think they come here? Do you deny that there are 12 million plus folks who showed up and, without stealing the country blind, have stuck around, now, for several generations? How do they do that, if not by being employed, and taking away jobs from American workers? Do the Unions say it is OK, or do the employers, not only say it's OK, and do they then take steps to hire and employ these folks? How does this work, Mr. Goodknight?

[Todd Juvinall]

Yeah Keachie, those thousands of illegals in front of every home depot were being hire as computer scientist by HP. You crack me up. Those illegals were hired by people like you. You wanted a cheap lawn mower, branch cutter and roof cleaner. The left hired millions of these people to take care of their kids and their property. That is the "dirty" little secret. Also, you liberals are the ones who campaigned for all the civil rights for the convicts, not us. We wanted to build camps and do the Joe Arpaio thing. But no, we had to build these convict palaces for you liberals. The reason I know is because I was part of the Wayne Brown jail as a county supervisor. I want to incarcerate on the cheap but your ilk won't allow that. Just look at the medical decision one of your ilk started and has now led to the release of many of your friends. We spend the most per capita in the world for education and we are sending our kids into the crapper because of you and your ilks policies. I bet you are so proud.

[George Rebane]

Many illegals also benefit from the various transfer programs that require only a fogged mirror for qualification. But all the fine points aside, the illegals come here because 1) our government makes it ridiculously easy, and 2) no matter the impediments, they have hope in America where none existed in their native land. All of the crap about how illegals are mistreated in America is just that; they would not come if they did not perceive a net benefit.

[Greg Goodknight]

How's this for a Faustian bargain, Keach. The corrections budget in the state of California is about $9 billion, a quarter of the money spent for K-12 education.

In return for pouring $9 billion a year extra for teacher's salaries, the teachers union agrees to accept the removal of the bottom 5% of teachers as determined by an objective assessment such as the teacher's SAT/ACT scores, or a value added determined by an analysis of their student's test scores.

Does anyone think that could fly better than the other budgetary pigs in Sacramento?

[stevenfrisch]

Perfect example of the mind set here. Keachie responds to George's OV and the critique here is....he must be an poorly educated idiot... from both George and Greg. According to Greg only physics and math majors are capable of commenting on anything. Probably no art in his world;) Of course Todd tries to join in, but since he is barely literate he merely demonstrates that he reads bubble gum history and libertarian comic books.

This may become my favorite Toddism, "After reading Keachie's screeds for a wile now, it is clear he has no clue about economics. This is a good example of people teaching our young into oblivion".

[Greg Goodknight]

No, to the contrary. In my opinion, Keachie is a well educated idiot, and I've never written anything remotely like "only physics and math majors are capable of commenting on anything". Just another defamatory statement from Chef Frisch.

[Douglas Keachie]

Wiley Toddy ranks right up there with Wiley Coyote. He certainly isn't related to the book publisher..

Greg,

697 English, 613 math,NMSQT Semi-Finalist, guess which teacher would not be removed by your proposal?

Funny how our government can practical strip search a member of the flying public, but didn't have the gumption to secure the borders long ago. Who was it that lobbied to make the borders so porous? Was it Democratic community organizers, or was it the large farmer owners' lobbyists that brought about that situation?

[Greg Goodknight]

Keach, the SAT net wasn't for you. I'd have relied on the value added net for that, and if you never made the 5% cutoff, I'd be happy the ones even worse that were shown the door.

More forks in the road, and Keach takes all of them.

[George Rebane]

Would love to see a shred of evidence that points to the Ag lobby in making/keeping the borders porous. Any links or citations?

As a teen-aged stoop laborer from the farm fields of Indiana, I'd also like to know at what wages would all of our unemployed teens banzai out to the fields of Imperial, Oxnard, Santa Rosa, and Salinas counties, let alone the farms of the Central Valley. These, no doubt, are the unemployed Americans who are standing at sidelines and cursing the illegals for taking their jobs. (Cue laughter.)

[Todd Juvinall]

Frisch brings in his hate and never addresses the points made. What that ells me and others here is he is incapable of defending his positions or even responding to questions. How is the racial makeup of SBC Stevie? I have asked this for a long time because of your demeaning us as racists so many times. You never answer. Why is that? Regarding my literacy. I am as literate as you or any other liberal. Actually, I am deemed by many intelligent people as very literate. Your slights just cracks me up. When ou can'y resist name calling like a fifth grader, you prove I am smarter than you.

[Greg Goodknight]

The other little smear in Frisch's love note "Probably no art in his [Greg's] world"

Now, why would Frisch write something like that? There's no basis for it whatsoever, besides the age old bigotry against folks who have actually managed to get degrees in science that they must not be touched by beauty in the same way as artists do. In my experience, students of the sciences are more likely, not less, to also be artists than the general high school and college populations.

What I have written in the past is that if the subject is a physical science, it helps to have a background in physical sciences to understand it, and neither journalism, poli-sci, history or even biology are remotely like physical science. It takes relatively little intellectual capital to wade through an upper division poli-sci or history class compared to fluid dynamics or quantum electrodynamics.

[Todd Juvinall]

Frisch us simply jealous of your smarts and my successful life here in my home county. You make him look like a silly little portly fool when he tries to debate you and he is jealous of my ability to make women swoon when I go thru the xray machine at the airport. He is merely jealous.

[Greg Goodknight]

Todd, your comments are not very helpful, to my mind little different than the nasty little ad hominems that Frisch and Keachie fling into the fan on a regular basis.

Your opinion of what they really think is as useless as their opinion as to what you really think.

[RL Crabb]

Again, the x-ray machine...Sometimes I think Todd is as obsessed with his wedding tackle as Tony Weiner. Two guys who are aptly and correctly named.

[Steve Frisch]

What we have here are the Grand Teton's of ego.....

Reread the string dear lurkers and ask yourselves are these the people you want making decisions for you?

That's the choice you face.

In my mind 'regressive' is kind. Try totalitarian on for size.

[Greg Goodknight]

And some ad hominems are thrown by Steven Frisch as if on cue. Trying to make Todd look good in comparison?

[Mikey McD]

Frisch, your use of totalitarian as a label for those calling for more freedom is asinine propaganda. Totalitarian governments are birthed from collectivism, not individual liberty.

Todd you have much more to offer when you take the high road (real life experiences, political history, local politics, construction regulations, etc).

Keachie's other voices exemplified/labelled himself as 'someone who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot

[Greg Goodknight]

Mikey, I believe you are wrong, and I apologize to idiots everywhere. By the wiki, Keachie is better termed a fool, not an idiot. High functioning but profoundly lacking the wisdom needed to put life into perspective.

[Greg Goodknight]

Todd J does bring up an interesting question. Steven Frisch, what is the ethnic composition of SBC's staff?

[Walt]

Man,,,, this has been a fun read.Ya,,,, even a ditch digger understands these big words. ( I even went to school!!)
Here is a clue about illegals.. they are not just taking the "jobs no one wants" BS!! pushing a shovel may be unskilled labor, but it's honest work. Thanks to Mr. and MRS. Liberal promising them moon and stars, passing more and more laws to help illegals stay,
hinder their being caught and deported, ETC.
And anyone with ANY common sense knows a guy looking to hire is going to get the cheapest labor possible. And the Liberal couple strikes again. Passing law after law, that makes Mr.and Mrs Business
life more difficult, making their profit margin slimmer and slimmer. ( ya,, there's that evil word.. PROFIT )

I like that "undocumented Liberal" comment. LOL
Libs want felons to vote. They want illegals to vote.( just because they live here, and how "we" vote affects them)
HELL Some LIBs want other nations to be able to vote in our elections.( because we have such a great influence on the rest of the world). NO ID to vote. But try and rent a video.
Then again,,, maybe we would have tried that when "O" was running. Ohhh never mind,,, I forgot Europe loved him too. ( but not today...)

[Todd Juvinall]

Come on guys, this is fun. The left has attacked me and my family for many years and I always took the high ground and took their crap. Then I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. I once did and OP-ED on AGW in 1997 and they almost ran me out of town. I have a lot of info in my head but I have concluded they are not salvageable on the left and they resort to the lowest common denominator. So, I return the favor because it makes me feel good. Frisch and his ilk trash you all and GOD bless you for putting up with it. I just don't give a rats butt anymore. Blogs are a hoot!

[Todd Juvinall]

RL for a cartoonist you sure are dense. I am using humor, sheesh! I guess you guys are just too serious.

[RL Crabb]

I may be dense, but I can whip ya in a spelling bee.

[Greg Goodknight]

Todd, no one is laughing because it isn't funny.

[Larry Wirth]

Math challenged, indeed! Sorry to be late to the pissing contest, but by now I would someone to have pointed out to Doug that 300 million Americans at $1000 apiece would raise not 30 billion, but 300 billion.

The sad fact is that even that figure wouldn't cover even 20% of the annual Federal deficit.

Try $5000 each for every, woman and child in the US on an annual basis and the total deficit would only rise by a trillion every decade instead of every 7 months.

Let's take a vote: who believes the revenue side of the US financial mess contains a solution?

[Larry Wirth]

Beg your pardon for letting my fingers fall behind my thought. Of course, that should read "I would have thought that..." and "every man, woman and child..."

[Todd Juvinall]

Wow,even Greg is a sourpuss.

[Mikey McD]

Let's take a vote: who believes the revenue side of the US financial mess contains a solution? Posted by: Larry Wirth | 22 June 2011 at 12:03 AM

Not I.

[Todd Juvinall]

All the revenue is brought into the government by laws. You have to change the laws. Unless we have enough of our ilk in charge nothing will change.

[Douglas Keachie]

Thank-you Mr. Wirth,

I knew eventually Greg would slip up in his role as high grand master of all things mathematical.

Yesterday was the day.

Let's see, did they all come rushing across to pick up a lawn mowing job here, a baby sitting job there, OR

WERE THEY ALREADY HERE, and the work in the fields was over?

If the invisible hand of the market wasn't shattered and bloody from employers, mostly Repubbys, arranging for cheap farm labor in this country, then yes, wages would rise, food prices would rise, and Americans would pick crops in the fields. The country was 95% farmers at the time of the Revolution, and Americans didn't "have to have" imported labor from Mexico, because they "didn't feel like working in the fields." They did the work because it was available, and BTW, I had a girlfriend who sorted carrots in Santa Maria, California, who had a brain but didn't know it. White like me, I might add, just educated to believe that sorting carrots was her role in life. When I was done filling in for the librarian on leave at Allen Hancock College, I couldn't convince her to come north. Last I heard from her, she had married a Hells Angel who provided well for her, digging graves at the cemetery.

If we up the 25 cents per $100 sold in the stock market to $2.50, we then generate $300,000,000, which of course is where I was going with the camel's nose under the tent. Now $300,000,000 may not seem like much to some people but it is indeed almost one third of a trillion dollars.

Now of course there wouldn't be as much random noise in the markets due to computerized algorithmic trading, but maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing? Maybe having investors atually look at what companies are doing, and the markets they are involved in, might make for a more rational view of the USA economy. Algorithmically driven trading makes cash, but is it good for the country? Does it allow for our current long term disasters?

Have you ever thought, BTW, that all the big trading houses not only know what you have, they also know what you intend to do with it,because they know where your buys and sells are. You don't suppose they can't build themselves a very neat model of which way a given stock is trending, and buy it up, and sell it, either long or short, on a daily or hourly basis, based on that knowledge?

SUCKERS!

[Douglas Keachie]

If Americans, especially young Americans, are afraid of hard work, how come so many go through the rigors of military training? If the wages of farm hand rise to become respectable, and Winston Cromwell can make $20/hour in the fields of Fresno picking spaghetti, American can pick just as fast as any imported workers. Case in point, MacDonald's in the Fowler Center. Hot nasty noisy environment, and not much above minimum wage, and American teenagers going full tilt boogie.

[George Rebane]

The beat goes on. "Now $300,000,000 may not seem like much to some people but it is indeed almost one third of a trillion dollars."

3e8/1e12 = 0.03

[Douglas Keachie]

As you have pointed out correctly George, $300,000,000,000 is the correct figure. BTW, I have sent in a correction to The Union.

a correction to yesterdays Other Voices by me:

$1,000 should be replaced by $100.

Please place this in your addenda or errors and corrections box

thank-you

Douglas Keachie

Now how about you guys?

Did the Mexican cross the border to mow your lawn?

[Douglas Keachie]

300,000,000 100 $30,000,000,000.00
30 billion dollars, one hundred dollars for every man woman and child

100,000,000 300 $30,000,000,000.00
30 billion dollars, three hundred days of taxes colect at 25 cent per $100 traded

10 30,000,000,000 $300,000,000,000.00
300 billion dollars, if tax on stock sales (AKA, trades) is 2.5%, one third of our current county and state taxes, also equivalent to roughly one third of a trillion dollars.

Now, for George, who likes his numbers to be scientific.

3.00E+08 1.00E+02 3.00E+10
30 billion dollars, one hundred dollars for every man woman and child

1.00E+08 3.00E+02 3.00E+10
30 billion dollars, three hundred days of taxes colect at 25 cent per $100 traded

1.00E+01 3.00E+10 3.00E+11
300 billion dollars, if tax on stock sales (AKA, trades) is 2.5%, one third of our current county and state taxes

[Karen]

This Keachie guy is off his rocker! Logically Challenged Conspiracy theorists unite!

[Douglas Keachie]

Karen can't read the math, evidently. Can't build her own website either. Nah nah nah, must adapt to level of Rebane's commentator chorus.

[Greg Goodknight]

Now Keach is faulting me for not doublechecking all of his rants. Classic.

[Douglas Keachie]

But Greg, you did it so well in the past, as if it was instantly available to you from that great big physics enabled brain of yours? Now is it just possible that if it missed being intuitive to you, then it might have be the same way for me? Frankly with the loss of 50% vision in one eye, I have trouble seeing both ends of a 1 followed by many many zerooooooooooooooooooooos. Quick, tell me how many "o's" there are. Ah too bad, that takes some time, doesn't it? It's after all, jsut a simple mathematically operation you're doing. It's called, "counting."

[Douglas Keachie]

"just a simple mathematically challenging operation you're doing"

[Douglas Keachie]

Like many here, my typing has a difficult time keeping up with my thinking, ain't it the truth, Todd?

[Larry Wirth]

Doug, it's good that you acknowlege a small slip-up in your arithmetic. Still, you miss the larger point; for your "new tax" to get the job done, you'll need a rate north of $12.50/$100 just to fund the current level of deficit spending. Raise it to $25 and in a mere 14 years, the debt will be gone completely. That'll goose up the number of transactions, no?

Sorry guys, the economy can't be "fixed" on the revenue side revenue side alone.

At some point, people have to decide the proper rate of taxation and the government then needs to direct those revenues to the most needed places and not just turn around and demand more. That's what got us here, it's not going to get us back.

[Greg Goodknight]

In Keachie's alternative universe, the above probably makes perfect sense.

Doug may be available for private tutoring; any of you with kids or grandkids needing help with their gibberish from a bona fide certificated public school teacher from San Francisco, give him a ring!

At one time, circa 2000, public school teachers in SF sent their own children to private school more often than the public as a whole. Can you blame them?

[Larry Wirth]

And for you math mavens who may be wondering why fourteen years to break-even, rather than the ten you would expect, it's because the deficit is scheduled to go much, much higher as Obamacare kicks in and that too will need to be paid for.

[Douglas Keachie]

Our daughter attended Wee Care in Mill Valley, Kindergarten in a another private school, because the public schools would take her because of a late December birthday. From then on out it was public all the way, Alamo, Presidio, and Lowell. She also attended NU, but spent much of her time at Sierra College. Se's turned out just fine.

Why should the children of any of RR's readers need a tutor, when their parents already know it all?

My proposal was not supposed to pay off the national debt in one year, or twenty. In was just supposed to help with the problem. Bring the military home and setting them to work building solar installations would be another angle. Home grown energy is a very effective strategy for defense.

[Douglas Keachie]

"she's"

[Douglas Keachie]

Is there some reason to use a template that doesn't allow for the nesting of replies?

[George Rebane]

DougK - I tried nested replies about four months ago, and they didn't work out. Instead of finding the latest comments at the end, readers had to go search through all the reply threads to see if there was anything of interest to them. Referencing your comment with an addressee (such as this one), and using a date/time stamp to point to off-page comments turns out to be more convenient. I went through this administrivia some time ago.

[Douglas Keachie]

OK, that make some sense to me, but usually I go to the most recent comments, lick on someone, and I'm taken right to the area in the thread where not only do I find their comments, I find what they are going on about.

[Douglas Keachie]

Nothing uite like a sticky "c" key to provide general amusement, except for maybe a sticky "q" key.

[Greg Goodknight]

Keach, besides you, no one here speaks gibberish as their native tongue, and there's a market for tutors in just about everything. Just trying to help.

I'm not surprised you'd be happy with SF public schools, but you apparently had a number of coworkers who chose not to have their own children attend their public school.

[bill tozer]

Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize to you because after reading all 63 comments, I plumb forgot what the topic is/was. Ain't as sharp as I used to be, I reckon. However, let's all take a deep breathe ( in with the good, out with the bad) and be grateful that Mr. FBAE (former Bay Area educator) is not railing and wailing about how much interest credit card companies are charging. That got old. I always said that if you do not like the interest rates, then don't borrow money from credit card companies or ever, ever carry a balance. Always read the fine print. Think is was old Ben Franklin that said "Never a lender nor borrower be". Could have been my Mama. To tell the truth in all this confusion, I can't rightly recall. Count your blessings because Keachie isn't going all ballistic on what banks should charge him and...and what was the topic??

[Douglas Keachie]

And the private schools they sent them to were not the bottom three quarters cheap ones, but as a product of Berkeley schools, K-16, I had no fears, so our younger daughter sailed through, as the older daughter did before her. Tell me Greg, did not your son go to private schools? Last I heard he was doing well, so you tell me, who got the better deal $?$.

hey Tozer, you missed out on FBAT....

[Douglas Keachie]

Wake up you lazy entrepreneurs!

Do lazy aircraft owners getting 2 million dollars for a new runway live off the government tit?

yes or no, please...

[Unlazy E]

Ironically, I am at work.

"Wake up you lazy entrepreneurs! " Posted by: Douglas Keachie | 23 June 2011 at 08:18 AM

[Todd Juvinall]

Keachie, you pay a fee for airport upgrades every time you buy a ticket. Then it gets sent to airports. Are you awake man?

[Greg Goodknight]

GA airport funds come out of the heavy taxes placed on aviation gasoline (currently averaging $5.91 a gallon in California) and jet fuel sold to private aircraft. Last I noticed, the Feds were transferring funds out of it rather than maintain the facade it was to be spend on general aviation.

Keach, I'm sure all who were involved in the Berkeley K-16 system are proud of you.

[Larry Wirth]

Some intelligent children do just fine in public schools, notwithstanding the odds. In most cases,
the quality of parenting is the key consideration, not the quality of teaching.

Doug, your question as to "value recieved" is meaningless, inasmuch as those who opt for private schools still have to pay for the public option as well- those who you say get "no money." So, if youre going to fight, fight fair and compare the per pupil expenses of public vs. private schools, then make a second comparison of the respective outcomes.

[Greg Goodknight]

The problem with "do just fine" in the public schools is one of definition of "just fine". Any kid who tests basic, graduates from high school and enrolls in a community college is doing 'just fine', but what would they be doing if they had been challenged in school rather than bored stiff, day after day? Harvard maybe?

While student achievement is well correlated with parental socioeconomic status, incompetent schools trump all. Half of the middle class kids at Hennessey Elementary in my son's cohort tested in the bottom 25% when the first state STAR exam was given, while in neighboring Alta Sierra Elementary IIRC non of the kids tested in the bottom half. The difference was the whole language, whole math focus in the GVSD and the purge of teachers who didn't believe in constructivist dogma. Unfocused, scattershot teaching claiming to be focused on "critical thinking" skills has been the rage in ed circles for years. Induction can be useful, but logical deduction is a key skill that isn't being taught.

But, as Will Rogers said, "You can't teach what you don't know any more than you can come back from where you ain't been."

[Douglas Keachie]

MS in Journalism from UC Berkeley I suppose is not quite fine enough for you, but then she's a SAHM with Internet based business, and probably didn't really need the degrees.

That's the older daughter.

Now the younger daughter on the other hand???

Resident neurosurgeon "just fine" enough for you?

[Douglas Keachie]

And I'm sure there are enough landings by commercial passenger aircraft at Grass Valley to cover for the private pilots there? That's the two million I'm talking about. Or do the private pilots pool their money for the tab? I'm sure CALFIRE helps you out...

Are you asleep?

[Greg Goodknight]

Keachie, you're the one who is asleep here. As I have already written, improvements to airports like the Nevada County Airpark are paid for from the fund that receives the taxes on fuel, and, in addition, both aircraft and hangars are assessed property taxes by the County based on their value, and the cheapest one can get away with storing an airplane in Grass Valley is a small tie down spot suitable for the smallest Cessna for $660 a year.

Calfire buys tax laden fuels, but I expect neither their property or aircraft gets taxed.

I realize your scattershots are intended to weed out some sort of hypocrisy on the part of aviation in Nevada County, but you should learn something from your mistakes.

[Greg Goodknight]

Regarding brain surgery, it isn't rocket science. And that is a more serious comment than it might seem; in order to start college ready to study math, physics, chemistry or engineering requires a great deal of mathematics, and the standard pre-Med curriculums at even the UC Berkeleys of the world avoid the solid math, the solid chemistry and the solid physics that students of the physical sciences take. It is rare for graduates of California public high schools to be prepared for the mathematics they'll be expected to master their freshman year if they choose a hard core science major.

[Douglas Keachie]

How many aircraft at GV airport?

100 - 200, max.

How much fuel so they buy in a year, at what taxation rate?

Does that add up to $1,900,000 the Feds are pumping into the airport?

Please do the math.

And BTW, if you need brain surgery, be sure to find the finest mathematician you can. I'm sure he'll do a much better job on your mind than a neurosurgeon can! You make this too easy!

[Douglas Keachie]

"Regarding brain surgery, it isn't rocket science. And that is a more serious comment than it might seem; in order to start college ready to study math, physics, chemistry or engineering requires a great deal of mathematics, and the standard pre-Med curriculums at even the UC Berkeleys of the world avoid the solid math, the solid chemistry and the solid physics that students of the physical sciences take. It is rare for graduates of California public high schools to be prepared for the mathematics they'll be expected to master their freshman year if they choose a hard core science major."

Seems to me, you might also want to consider having a PhD in Petroleum Engineering mix up the next prescription you need from a pharmacy, as they are obviously much better qualified than your local pharmacist to do so. Besides, your mental gears seem a little rusty these days...

Again I notice your typical bypass, by completely ignoring questions you don't want to answer, in your lack of response to the airport questions posed above. Hardening of the mental arteries? Or is Estonia such a much more fascinating topic?

BTW, don't get me wrong about socialism for the airport. I strongly support it, as I use it myself and depend on it for CALFIRE.

[Douglas Keachie]

"and the cheapest one can get away with storing an airplane in Grass Valley is a small tie down spot suitable for the smallest Cessna for $660 a year"

Does the $660 go to the county, or to the Feds?

Let's ask Dr. Hard Science!

[Douglas Keachie]

While you're at it, compare the $660 to the anchor out buoys at Scotts Flat, which I believe run $200 -$300 per season. Who is subsidized more?

[Douglas Keachie]

In summation Greg, maybe the following set of questions will illustrate to you how you come off to other members of the communtiy,in regards your feelings/opinions about the superiority of physicists/engineers over the rest of humanity:

Is a trumpet the superior instrument over the trombones, French horns, tubas, and drums?

Are Concert Bands superior to symphony orchestras, ensembles, trios and quartets?

Are pilots of Cessna aircraft superior to captains of ocean liners?

And so on. Do you get it now?

We will leave you and your obsessions over "hard" and "solid" sciences to you and your therapists.

[Douglas Keachie]

GA airport funds come out of the heavy taxes placed on aviation gasoline (currently averaging $5.91 a gallon in California) and jet fuel sold to private aircraft. Last I noticed, the Feds were transferring funds out of it rather than maintain the facade it was to be spend on general aviation.

Posted by: Greg Goodknight | 23 June 2011 at 10:25 AM

So Greg has stated:

"GA airport funds come out of the heavy taxes placed on aviation gasoline (currently averaging $5.91 a gallon in California)"

Some people might read this as the taxes on aviation gasoline as being $5.91 a gallon, but of course Greg knows that the feds get roughly 18 cent per gallon nad the state gets a similar amount. Greg certainly wouldn't want to mislead anyone, now would he?

42007-08 19.1 79.9 $3,657,000 $3,574,000 $7,231,000
Current Fuel Tax Rates: 1$0.18/gallon. 2$0.02/gallon
1&2Source: The Board of Equalization (BOE) Tax Division: Taxable Aviation Gasoline Gallons 10-Year Report

So statewide, general aviation generated how much in total from aviation fuel, Mr.Goodknight?

[Douglas Keachie]

For the mathematically challenged, at roughly 20 cents per gallon, to generate the two million dollars from the Feds for the airport upgrades, the airport would have had to have pumped 10 million gallons of av fuel, or roughly 27397.26027 gallon per day in a 365 day year. Can Greg document anything even vaguely close to this?

[Douglas Keachie]

Roughly speaking, that would be a 1,000 gallons of av fuel leaving the airport every hour, 24/7/365 Need I say more?

[Greg Goodknight]

Keach, you aren't right enough to just be wrong. Are your taxes high enough to buy you a new street to your house every year?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_and_Airway_Trust_Fund

The county makes a big profit on all the fuel they sell, a big profit on the rents they collect, and the Feds have kept a surplus in the Airport trust fund.

George, you might consider that Keachie is just interested in a forum to make attacks, and eventually do what The Union was forced to do, over and over.

[Greg Goodknight]

Keachie, you're a possibly former public school teacher with a history of creating anonymous sock puppets in order to defame others online. Do you have any idea how, as you put it, "you come off to other members of the communtiy[sic]"?

One by one:
"in regards your feelings/opinions about the superiority of physicists/engineers over the rest of humanity"

Never happened, except in matters of physics and engineering.

"Is a trumpet the superior instrument over the trombones, French horns, tubas, and drums?"

Never made the claim.

"Are Concert Bands superior to symphony orchestras, ensembles, trios and quartets?"

I'm partial to quintets and symphonies myself. You?

"Are pilots of Cessna aircraft superior to captains of ocean liners? And so on. Do you get it now?"

I got it a long time ago, Keach, about when you demonstrated you couldn't divide 3/2 by 1/2 on the NC Forum list ten years ago. You're a fool.

[Douglas Keachie]

Only a fool would suggest that petroleum engineers study harder or work harder than brain surgeons.

Only a sly cunning fool would suggest that the taxes on aviation fuel paid at GV airport come anywhere near close to paying for the repaving, even over a 20 year collection period.

And only a completely un-selfaware fool would fail to realize what a snob he comes across as.

And only a total ass measures other people by slight lapses in math or spelling.

I did my best, but since you long ago decided that I was beneath contempt, you are not listening, but other people are. And they can decide for themselves who is the conceited fool here.

[Douglas Keachie]

Further reading Fed funding history can be found here:

http://www.tcpilots.org/resource/fund_history.html

[Douglas Keachie]

"Last I noticed, the Feds were transferring funds out of it rather than maintain the facade it was to be spend on general aviation"

No Greg, the monies collected also go to commercial aviation. General aviation, for those unaware, is everything left over after the Big Boys of commercial aviation leave.

[Douglas Keachie]

What's more, 80% of the monies collected from all sources go to fix commercially served airports. This information is from the article cited above. So 20% of all the loot goes to "General Aviation." Commercial airliners keep 5,000 planes in the air during most day time hours. It would seem to me that the passengers on those commercial flights burn up far more than 80% of the fuel used every day, and that therefore commercial airports should be getting a much larger share of the pie than they do. I would offer this as further proof that the "general aviation" portion of the flying spectrum is heavily subsidized. From the end of that article:

"Around the world, today's airports may be operated by a national airport authority or transportation department, local authorities, airlines, private owners, or contractors. In the United States, most funds for new airports come from the sale of bonds managed by a local authority or sponsor. In the last decade, about $45 billion of AIP money has been spent with about 80 percent going to airports with scheduled air service, though like earlier programs, there continues to be disagreements and even lawsuits over how to spend the aviation trust fund."

[Greg Goodknight]

"Only a fool would suggest that petroleum engineers study harder or work harder than brain surgeons."

I never did that, Keach. Like so many of your imagined 'insinuations' it was entirely in your mind, and, since I've never even spoken with a petroleum engineer or written about one it seems strange you'd bring up that specialty as an example.

Let's get back to that point you were missing, and let me use a young man I know to illustrate it. Smart guy, a lawyer. Clerked for a state Supreme Court Chief Justice. Young family.

He started his frosh year at a University of California wanting to study Computer Science, but he couldn't keep up and compete with the mathematics required, so he changed to Econ and later, law school. His high school proudly used the wretched CPM program from Davis.

Did he turn out OK? Well, he's doing OK, but had his California public K-12 system been competently teaching mathematics, he'd have had different choices, and California won't be able to support lawyers or brain surgeons in the lifestyles they expect without the scientists and engineers that drive innovation.

BTW nice to see you've bothered to learn something about GA, but again, you've read between my lines to fabricate claims I never made.

[Douglas Keachie]

Greg, you can pretend to not insinuate, and I suppose it is wildly possible you are so un-self aware that you do not realize you are doing it,but you do an excellent job of it, on a daily basis. Your aviation gas statement is just the latest in a long line of similar statements.

You want an "A" in clever and vague plausibly deniable insinuations? You've got it!

I would submit that the reason people find math difficult is two-fold:

It is difficult.

Those that have figured it out have failed to figure out ways of transmitting the information clearly, and take the easy way out. They blame the pupil.

Teaching binary used to be a real drag,but I took the time to figure out an explanation and exercises such that my wife, an artist, can understand them, and teach them to her kids, in art classes.

On teachers and CPM, who set the prices, and who did the purchasing? Teachers? FAIL!

On teachers get paid for what they do, try this:

http://front.moveon.org/where-in-the-world-can-teachers-get-paid-what-they-deserve/?rc=fb.fan

[Greg Goodknight]

Keachie Again Misreads Goodknight. Not a surprise.

Constructivism, the birthplace of whole math and whole language, remains a darling of the colleges of Education, Keach. Not the math and science departments. Here's what professional Educators think of the high grades given the weakest students in most colleges:
"It makes perfect sense to me that students in the Education Department of a university would have the highest GPAs because they are being taught by trained educators. I would expect the lowest GPAs to be among the math and engineering students because mathematicians have still not figured out how to teach math." - Educator and author Nancy Illing, commenting on a story about grade inflation at teachers' colleges.
(June 10 Teacher Beat <http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2011/06/do_education_schools_give_too.html?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:e6ab78fa-620f-465c-a511-e408072d86c0> )

Keach, answer this... you seem to understand that math is difficult. Do you think a freshman year class in multivariable calculus, and it's companion classes in physics and chemistry (the ones meant for science majors, not pre-Med or other biology), are more, less or the same difficulty as the lower division classes a history major might take?

[Greg Goodknight]

"Those that have figured [math] out have failed to figure out ways of transmitting the information clearly, and take the easy way out. They blame the pupil."

Actually, Keach, mathematicians have figured out "ways of transmitting the information clearly". A problem in K-12 is that many, if not most, teaching arithmetic are not qualified to do so. They lack the profound knowledge of elementary mathematics that one needs to clearly understand the subject in order to teach it, and a student lacking an understanding of the arithmetic of fractions and decimal operations is going to be lost studying Algebra, and without a solid foundation in Algebra any academic or professional career in math and the sciences is unattainable. Yes, at any time one can start from scratch and get that profound understanding of the basics, but most of us don't have unlimited time or money.

[Douglas Keachie]

It' much easier to bullshit in the social sciences, and get a passing grade, I grant you that. Since moving on in math requires accurate comprehension of what was taught before, and since most of the stuff is NOT open to different interpretations, you are stuck with being able to replicate logic of the stuff and work with the stuff precisely

Geometry was the big surprise in high school. It was quickly obvious that detour had nothing much at all to do with the second year of algebra.

Does taking social science courses indicate that you have an inferior brain, not necessarily so at all.

I did not taake a single course in the Ed dept before getting my BA. I left that to graduate school, and very little of what was taught was very useful. Working with top notch teachers and observing how they worked helped more than anything. It was the dawn of the video age, and I got paid to film and analyze master teachers at work. I learn more from that than the classes I was in most instances, forced to endure. Since most Ed Dept are upper division or graduate oriented, I'm not surprised to see higher GPA's.

Did you know that staying current is a really big challenge?

Try this: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/how-static-electricity-works

[George Rebane]

GregG, the revealing Nancy Illig comment that you cite in your 0937 comment is beyond mind boggling. (This woman deserves a full tuition refund from her schools, for they taught her nothing.) And is there a shred of evidence that graduates of Ed schools can teach one iota better than those who are expert in their subject matter and pick up some basic principles of instruction from an Army field manual on the subject?

[Greg Goodknight]

"It' much easier to bullshit in the social sciences, and get a passing grade, I grant you that."

Keach, the essence of the issue continues to escape you. Let's focus: It's Impossible to BullS*** in multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and the chemistry and physics taken for credit by math, physics, chemistry and engineering majors. Impossible. There is a huge base of knowledge that needs to be acquired, and there is no getting around it. And no, not everybody succeeds. It's difficult "stuff" and frankly, the average K-12 teacher doesn't have a bloody clue what goes on there. Your Stanford BSEE brother does, talk to him about it someday.

You blame mathematicians for not being able to think clearly about mathematics while being an apologist for incompetent teachers. I know one California State University math professor who described the students he got who were planning on becoming a certificated California public schoolteacher thusly: fourth grade level, barely, when they'd come in to his 'methods of teaching elementary arithmetic' class, and it was his job to get them to a 7th grade level. Even so, he (and the other math professors) felt a need to fail the ones who couldn't get to a 7th grade level of math by the end of the class, so the Ed department ended up creating their own class that would have a higher 'success' rate.

Any teacher who received 18 years of free or subsidized education who can't manage a 7th grade level understanding of math doesn't need a raise, they need to be shown the door. No matter how hard they work.

[Douglas Keachie]

There is one aspect of teaching and learning that neither of you seem to be aware of:

A given student is predisposed to learn from different sources at different rates. Therefore, if you know of only one way to teach something, and you insist on teaching it that way, some of your students will fail. The art of teaching is the art of studying your students closely, as you are teaching, and picking up on voids as they occur, and repeating concepts in new ways until you hit upon the combination that works for them.

I found for myself that often the best lecturer would have a crappy textbook,and vs versa. Accordingly I would preview all professors in advance for lecture style for a given course, and do the same with the textbooks. I then took the course from the best lecturer, and used both their book(s) and the ones I could understand easily.

Of course this take a large university, to offer multiple teachers for the same courses. I suspect the profs at the Claremont Colleges get around this,by practicing my original statement about teaching and learning, and they can do so, because of the small class sizes afforded by the high tuitions. CA K-12 teachers do not have such luxury. In high school a teacher deals with 180 different personalities ever day of the school week. Rather hard to offer much in the way of quality education, especially when you throw in all the language problems.

"You blame mathematicians for not being able to think clearly about mathematics " I made no such statement. I did say that they are unable to teach their concepts well. Being able to think clearly is not the same as being able to transmit and teach information well. It does help, but if you are clueless as to the mindsets of your students, you will shoot well over their heads, and then wonder why they don't "get it."

[Douglas Keachie]

One final note on teaching math. If you don't regularly do math involving decimals and fractions, you do get rusty. I'm quite certain this probably explains most of what you and others like you decry as, "They can't do math!"

They did learn it once, but if they haven't used it for 10 years, it is probably as fresh in their minds as a similarly unused foreign language is in yours.

[Greg Goodknight]

Keach, if a college student is in a class on how to teach elementary math, there's no good reason to not expect they be able to handle elementary math FIRST. Not fire the math professors for not being able to get them to learn it. In fact, teaching bonehead math was my first wife's first job as an adjunct at Sierra College, and she had students she couldn't reach, usually the fresh grads from NUHS who weren't motivated. The adults grasping for a second chance at a better life were more attentive.

All I hear from you are excuses why teacher's can't be held responsible for teaching (unless they are a math professor), and no, your guesses about classes at colleges you've never been to and subjects you are ignorant of are as wild as most of your guesses.

I never had a math professor unable to explain the concepts well. If you did, it might not have been the professor's fault.