Bus Systems Are A Logical Option : Rail System History Is Bleak

This is not rocket science - follow the money. That high speed rail and inner city rail systems are not a viable system for public transportation, which has a ton of history for all to see and study, is the best option before taking the money from the feds.

Every one that has any authority in making the decision to take the money will have a good reason for doing so, that is, they stand to benefit financially in some way as will all those that are standing behind them. The losers are the taxpayers, always.

Bus Systems Are More Cost Effective than Rail Transit
Source: Randal O'Toole, "Rapid Bus: A Low-Cost, High-Capacity Transit System for Major Urban Areas," Cato Institute, July 30, 2014.

August 8, 2014

Inspired by the prospect of federal funding, 30 cities across the nation are building rail transit lines. Unfortunately, the new rail lines are expensive and offer little additional carrying capacity.
Randal O'Toole of the Cato Institute has an alternative to rail transit: "rapid bus" systems. Such a bus system would be speedy and convenient. Running from neighborhoods into the downtown areas of cities, buses could reach more people than rail lines and transport more people for less money:

• Rail lines are limited in their ability to serve multiple areas, whereas buses can reach many more individuals throughout a city: A four-line light rail system can bring 36,000 people into a city's downtown center, while O'Toole gives the example of a rapid bus system that could bring in 140,000 per hour.
• A rapid bus system could offer more frequent, faster service with less need for transfers.
• Buses are more comfortable: When operating at capacity, more than half of the passengers on a rail line must stand. Yet two-thirds to three-fourths of bus riders can sit during transport.
• A rapid bus system is much less expensive to maintain than a rail system.

O'Toole shows why it is much cheaper to develop a rapid bus system instead of rail lines:

• The average urban area requires 52 miles of rail lines, and the average cost of one mile of rail line is about $100 million, for a total of $5.2 billion.
• In comparison, the capital costs for a high-frequency rapid bus system would only be $110 million.

While O'Toole says that it wouldn't make sense for rapid bus systems to replace public transportation in cities like New York City with long-established subway systems, rapid bus systems could replace aging rail systems in places like Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.
 

Single Mothers Face Hard Times : Education To Change Behavior

Education is key to any successful enterprise no matter what it is. If you are ignorant there cannot be a behavior change to that will reward success. Understanding for those that want to change their statues, you have to understand the basic need for learning life's simple lessons, which are, the more you know, knowledge, the more you can do to change your current environment that will reward your efforts.

Knowledge is the key to freedom of choice, and that is the very basis of our Constitution. You have the freedom to chose to be successful. Without knowledge, learning, your chances for success will be diminished.

Single Motherhood and Wealth
Source: "How does single motherhood affect wealth?" American Enterprise Institute, August 5, 2014.

August 8, 2014

In an interview with Kimberly Gedeon of MadameNoire.com, Aparna Mathur, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, explains why single mothers are more likely to be poor.
Data from the Pew Research Center suggests that single mothers tend to be younger, are less likely to have an education and are more likely to be black or Hispanic. The numbers are staggering:

• According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 72 percent of black children are born to single mothers.
• Fifty-five percent of black children live in single-parent homes, in contrast to 21 percent of white children that live in single-parent homes.

Mathur explains that marriage rates -- while they have fallen for both blacks and whites over the last half-century -- have dropped dramatically for black Americans. And research data indicates that women who grow up in poor families and who perceive a lack of economic opportunity are more likely to settle for having children outside of marriage.
Compared to married mothers, single mothers make significantly less money. Using data from the 2012 Current Population Survey, Mathur calculated the income disparity between married and single women:

• The difference for married or single women without children was $857.
• However, for married and single mothers, the difference was $19,900.

It is difficult for single mothers to generate more wealth because they tend to have low levels of education. Their resulting low incomes must cover standard living expenses in addition to their children's health care and education expenses, leaving little additional money for savings.

Mathur says that education is key to economic advancement, encouraging women to complete their educations, whether attending college or a technical school. She also suggests expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and reforming the child care tax credit.

Mathur cautions, however, against, government-mandated paid maternity leave. If businesses are forced to pay their employees while they are on leave, many employers will be hesitant to hire women in the first place.
 

Charter School System Is Successful : KIPP System Working

When you demand students obey the rules, success will have a better chance at changing behavior and therefore allowing new behavior to breed more success. This sounds simplistic but convincing someone that one's behavior is a detriment to their own personal growth is huge. Everyone wants to be seen as relevant in the eyes of their fellow students.

Still the problem is presenting the options for success must be made in such a way as to convince the student, in making a behavior change, is in the students best interest. Not an easy task but apparently working for the KIPP program.
successful

Why are KIPP Schools Successful?
Source: Ira Nichols-Barrer et al, "Does Student Attrition Explain KIPP's Success?" Education Next, Fall 2014.

August 8, 2014

The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) is a network of charter schools that utilize strict student-behavior policies, longer school days, greater principal autonomy and performance monitoring. Most KIPP schools serve middle school students in grades five through eight. Today, there are more than 140 of these schools across the country.

Students in KIPP middle schools have seen positive impacts on their testing performance, with one study from Mathematica Policy Research finding that three years in a KIPP program was the equivalent of having an additional eight to 11 months of learning.

Why are the schools so successful? Critics have suggested that the numbers are misleading: that KIPP students only appear successful because less successful students leave the program, leaving the more successful students in the KIPP schools to bolster the achievement numbers.

As a result, a team from Mathematica Policy Research Inc. -- Ira Nichols-Barrer, Brian Gill, Philip Gleason and Christina Clark Tuttle -- set out to identify whether student attrition has anything to do with KIPP students' success.

The authors examined 19 KIPP middle schools and compared them with local public schools. They found that KIPP middle schools admit similar students to those in traditional middle schools. Their student attrition rates are also very similar, as are the characteristics of students who leave: at traditional schools and KIPP schools, students who drop out are much lower achievers than the rest of the student body.

Compared to public schools, KIPP schools replace fewer of those drop-outs with new students and, when they do replace them, they replace them with higher achieving students. However, the authors conclude that this has a very small effect on KIPP achievement rates, because the positive achievement effect largely takes place in a student's first year in a KIPP school, before attrition and replacement rates play a role.

The authors conclude that there is something more to KIPP student achievement than attrition and replacement factors, suggesting that the KIPP model could produce similar effects in schools across the board.
 

School Choice IS Flexiability for Thought and Actions

Just like the free market, school systems must have the freedom to organize around the needs of the students. And if one system doesn't work, then stop what your are doing and head in another direction.

With the ability to be flexibility in thought and actions unleashes great potential for success.

School Choice: Leveling the Playing Field
Source: John Merrifield, "The Importance of School Choice," National Center for Policy Analysis, August 6, 2014.

August 8, 2014

Currently, all taxpayers fund traditional public schools, even when their children attend private schools that cost them additional funds. Parents who are unhappy with the public education options offered to their children have two options: they can move, or they can enroll their children in private school (paying additional funds, therefore, on top of the public education funds they have paid in taxes).
In a new video from the National Center for Policy Analysis, Senior Fellow John Merrifield explains exactly why school choice works to benefit students.

Allowing for school choice, Merrifield says, expands schooling options to families that would otherwise be unable to afford them. Alternatives to traditional public schools become more accessible to all students, because no longer are students limited in their choice of school based solely on their address or ability to pay additional tuition.

According to Merrifield, the current system of assigning children to classrooms based on nothing more than their ages and addresses creates disengagement, because such a random collection of students will have a wide range of interests and skills. This situation is tough on teachers as well as the students.

What the United States needs is a process that would match educators' strengths with children's needs. That, says Merrifield, is what school choice would do.

Merrifield suggests that schools could be tailored to student interests. He offers the example of a sports-themed school: students would learn math and reading and writing just like they would in any other classroom, but with a sports-themed curriculum. By packaging the material in a way that appeals to students' interests, children will learn better and be excited about going to class every day.
The current education system is a disaster for the poor, says Merrifield. With vouchers, tax credits and Education Savings Accounts, more families could choose the education options that best fit their children's' needs.
 

National Health Care Crumbling : Millions of Illegals Hasten Its Demise

The progressive socialist democrat strategy is to flood the system with individuals that cannot pay for their medical treatment but still have the law on their side forcing the medial system to provide services of all kinds.

For the democrats, it isn't a matter of how to pay for the increase in cost to cover the illegals that are coming by the 10's of thousands for medial care, it's how can we get them ready to vote this November and again in 2016.

One of the ways to solve this coming problem of economic disaster that has been proposed by democrats is when the system completely collapses under the weight of millions of illegals and others demanding their rights for medical care and economic support, is for Mr Obama to suspend the Constitution and institute martial law. And to deal with a Constitutional suspension, Mr Obama proposed in 2009 a military force to deal with unrest in the country called the " Civil Defense Corp" that would have all the capabilities of the regular army to suppress descent.

This will allow Mr Obama to be president indefinitely with the capabilities to make laws that support his ideology without having to worry about congress or the people. I wonder how that will work out in the long run for the rest of us that believes this isn't a good idea?

What Does the Border Crisis Mean for Health Care?
Source: Kate Rogers, "The Economic Impact of the Border Crisis," FoxBusiness.com, August 5, 2014.

August 7, 2014

As illegal immigrants have surged over the southern U.S. border, much of the debate surrounding the problem has focused on immigration policy, border security and what to do about the illegal aliens already in the United States.

But there are also economic and health care implications of the immigration surge. FoxBusiness.com reports that there are between 10 and 12 million illegal aliens in the United States, and minors continue to pour over the border:

• According to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), illegal unaccompanied minor children cost taxpayers $252 per child each day, with the typical child spending 35 days in the United States.
• Three quarters of the unaccompanied minors are male, and most are above the age of 14.
• From January 2014 to the end of June, more than 57,000 illegal alien minors have entered the United States, up from 15,949 in 2011 and 38,759 in 2013.
• Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson estimates that up to 90,000 unaccompanied minors will cross the U.S. border before September 30.

NCPA Senior Fellow Devon Herrick notes that illegal aliens have the highest uninsured rates in the United States and that 10 million of the uninsured are illegal immigrants. While illegals are not granted access to Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, their children qualify for the program -- putting strains on an already strained system.
 

IQ Test : What's Shape Is Your Brain In?

This is cool - an IQ test that is very interesting. Take the test if no other reason but to find out what your brain is capable of. If it shows you are a moron, so what, nobody will know.

Democrats shouldn't take the test in that it will show them to be a vegetables.   heh

https://memorado.com/iqtest?r=134#.U-Kaz2VBbhT.facebook

United Nations Study On America's Health System Before ObamaCare

A recent "Investor's Business Daily" article provided very interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization.

Percentage of men and women who survived

a cancer five years after diagnosis:

U.S. 65%
England 46%
Canada 42%

Percentage of patients diagnosed with

diabetes who received treatment within six months:

U.S. 93%
England 15%
Canada 43%

Percentage of seniors needing hip

replacement who received it within six

months:
U.S. 90%
England 15%
Canada 43%

Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:

U.S. 77%
England 40%
Canada 43%

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:

U.S. 71
England 14
Canada 18

Percentage of seniors (65+), with low

income, who say they are in "excellent

health":
U.S. 12%
England 2%
Canada 6

Welfare A better living Then Employment : Why Work?

The New Welfare Map

Make sure you read to the bottom...
Quite an eye opener...

These 11 States now have More People on Welfare than

they do Employed! Last month, the Senate Budget

Committee reports that in fiscal year 2012, between

food stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid and

other benefits, the average U.S. Household below the

poverty line received $168.00 a day in government support.

What's the problem with that much support? Well, the

median household income in America is just over $50,000,

which averages out to $137.13 a day.

To put it another way,

being on welfare now pays the equivalent of $30.00 an hour for a 40-hour

week, while the average job pays $20.00 an hour. 

 

Economic Expertise Lacking in Obama Administration

Check the last set of statistics!!

The percentage of each past president's cabinet... who had worked in the private business sector...prior to their appointment to the cabinet. You know what the private business sector is; a real-life business...not a government job.Here are the percentages:

T. Roosevelt................38%
Taft.............................40%
Wilson .......................52%
Harding.......................49%
Coolidge......................48%
Hoover.........................42%
F. Roosevelt.................50%
Truman........................50%
Eisenhower..................57%
Kennedy.......................30%
Johnson.......................47%
Nixon............................53%
Ford.............................42%
Carter...........................32%
Reagan........................56%
GH Bush......................51%
Clinton ........................39%
GW Bush.....................55%
Obama............... 8%

This helps explain the incompetence of this administration:

ONLY 8% of them...have ever worked in private business!

That's right! Only eight percent---the least, by far, of the last 19 presidents!And these people are trying to tell our big corporations...how to run their business?

How can the president of a major nation and society...the one with the most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one? Or about jobs...when he has never really had one? And, when it's the same for 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers? They've spent most of their time in academia, government, and/or non-profit jobs.Or...as

"community organizers."

Open Boarders Rush Takes On New Dimension : Air Travel

I always knew Mr Obama had planned this influx of illegals from the beginning, but now, as this pictures shows, he isn't satisfied with just them coming by bus, now he has decided they have to be brought here by air!

What next? Ocean liners bringing them by the boat load?