Post Scripts

Posted by Tina

I’m a human being doing my best every day to be truthful and accurate. I was accused of lying recently when I wrote in comments that there were more people in America receiving benefits that there were people working. I finally found the source of the information I had heard on the radio at CNS News, whose source was the Census Bureau:

(CNSNews.com) – Americans who were recipients of means-tested government benefits in 2011 outnumbered year-round full-time workers, according to data released this month by the Census Bureau.

They also out-numbered the total population of the Philippines.

There were 108,592,000 people in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2011 who were recipients of one or more means-tested government benefit programs, the Census Bureau said in data released this week. Meanwhile, according to the Census Bureau, there were 101,716,000 people who worked full-time year round in 2011. That included both private-sector and government workers.

That means there were about 1.07 people getting some form of means-tested government benefit for every 1 person working full-time year round.

Now some of you may argue that part time workers should be accounted for in this report. Maybe so but the offhand remark I made in comments is still a pretty astounding reality!

This is not America…and if this is what Obama’s vision for a “fundamental transformation” of America looks like, then it is time for him to either change course dramatically or get the heck out of Dodge.

Americans need good full time jobs! (And we still need affordable health care insurance)

Posted by Tina

People wanting revenge might be happy to see that J.P.Morgan Chase has agreed to pay the government $5.1 billion in a settlement. Chase had been accused of trying to con Fannie Mae prior to the financial meltdown. But a story in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend further reveals that the government’s heavy forceful hand, along with “reckless gambling” on the part of Fannie and Freddie, created the whole debacle:

The premise of the allegations settled on Friday is that while it may appear that Fan and Fred were recklessly gambling on the housing market for years before the crisis, they were duped by Morgan and other banks into buying risky mortgage-backed securities that they did not understand. This is the Little Orphan Fannie defense.

I have to laugh. This is the standard excuse given by any progressive in any crisis circumstance. They present themselves as the most competent and upstanding people in the world but as soon as their plans turn to bat dung someone else did it or made them do it or caused it in the first place. Nothing they did, even when they have been in charge and signed the legislation or were the CEO of the company, made them responsible. In fact they pitch a story in which they become the victims of some devious right wing conspiracy! It was George Bush’s fault! The Tea Party made it happen. Ted Cruz is an evil destroyer. Ronald Reagan is to blame. The Republicans just won’t cooperate…the dog ate my homework. Please!

It’s time the people stopped falling for these lame excuses and the lies, the cheating, and the milking of the system for personal gain. The Democrat party has been protected, promoted, and held blameless because they are allowed these ridiculous excuses. They have been protected for so long that they believe themselves to be touched by magic, incapable of being brought to account.

At Post Scripts we have presented evidence that steps taken by Democrats in positions of power set this nation up for crisis in a perfect storm. When it finally hit the result was millions of Americans losing their homes, their savings, their jobs and, as we continue in this non-recovery “recovery,” years of earning and wealth building power. It resulted in massive bail outs and failed QE stimulus costing taxpayers trillions taxes and debt. Not once has any Democrat been tainted in the debacle.

In 2009 Nancy Pelosi and a former Democrat Party Chairman formed a commission to look into the financial crisis. The bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hoped to absolve the government and find evidence of gross wrong doing by Wall Street banks. But although there was evidence of irrational exuberance in the private sector the commission found that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD were the more culpable players:

The committee’s report dubbed Fannie and Freddie the “kings of leverage” and described all of the ways they avoided oversight while relaxing underwriting standards and raising their bets on subprime mortgages.

The two companies, which profited from an implicit government guarantee, owned or guaranteed $5 trillion of mortgage assets. Sometimes they bought home loans and bundled them into securities for sale to other investors, and sometimes they bought securities that others had assembled. They were the biggest buyers of subprime bundles during the housing boom, and their lust for those bundles fed the subprime machines at Countrywide (later bought by Bank of America) and Washington Mutual (bought at federal request by J.P. Morgan JPM +0.55% ).

After it all fell apart, the only debate was whether the twin disasters at Fan and Fred were primarily the result of federal “affordable housing goals” or executives’ desire for bigger profits and bonuses. Being Democrats, the commission majority settled on greed as the principal problem at Fan and Fred, but nobody concluded that they were victims.

The commission learned from John Kerr, an examiner with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), that Fannie was “the worst-run financial institution” he had seen in 30 years as a bank regulator. Austin Kelly, an official at FHFA’s predecessor agency, said regulators couldn’t trust Fannie’s numbers because their “processes were a bowl of spaghetti.”

This morning I googled to see if I could find evidence that would lend more weight to these revelations and hit pay dirt in of all places, Huffington Post Business :

In the summer of 2008, as the financial crisis gathered steam, Barack Obama, the putative Democratic presidential nominee, began the crucial search for a vice presidential candidate. The man he chose to lead his effort was James A. Johnson, the former chief executive of Fannie Mae and one of the most powerful men in Democratic circles in Washington.

But on June 11, before Johnson had gotten far in the vetting process, he resigned from the committee. News that he had received $7 million in cut-rate mortgage loans from Countrywide Financial prompted the resignation.

It was a rare trip-up for Johnson, a consummate Washington insider who had advised John Kerry in his run for the presidency, run Walter Mondale’s failed presidential bid and enjoyed, as he still does, a prestigious post as a director at Goldman Sachs.

But for many who knew Johnson and had watched him work his power base over decades in the nation’s capital, it was paradoxical that a raft of sweetheart mortgages from Countrywide had driven him from the Obama A-list. Indeed, Johnson’s ties to the burgeoning financial crisis were far greater than a few Countrywide loans. They arose from his eight years at the head of Fannie Mae, the mortgage finance giant that became taxpayer-owned in September 2008. Presiding over the company from 1991 to 1999 placed him front and center in the nation’s homeownership push, an effort that would bring about the worst financial debacle since the Great Depression.

And yet Johnson has largely escaped scrutiny in the aftermath of the crisis. This is surprising because under his direction, Fannie Mae capitalized on its government ties, building itself into the largest and most powerful financial institution in the world. In 2008, when the colossus fell, it required more than $100 billion in taxpayer backing to keep it afloat. Fannie Mae became the quintessential example of a company whose risk-taking allowed its executives to amass great wealth — but when those gambles went awry, the taxpayers had to foot the bill.(emphasis mine)

Many of you recall the video of Barney Frank insisting that worries over a collapse in the financial market were ridiculous. You may recall the video of Jamie Gorrelick advertising that Fannie Mae was eager to buy bundled loans. You may recall the utter scandal that Chris Dodd, another beneficiary of a special Countrywide loan deal, and Barney Frank, financial crisis denier, were given the power to write new regulations for banks…the were rewarded!!! The foxes were given the keys to the hen house.

The Huffington Post article, an adaptation from the book, “Reckless Endangerment,” examines Johnson’s leadership atop Fannie in the 1990’s. It was Johnson who automated the lending system and it was Johnson who relaxed lending standards to reflect President Clinton’s new lending law, The Community Reinvestment Act:

When Johnson became chief executive of Fannie Mae in 1991 the tone at the top of the company began to change from that of a sleepy utility to a political machine, according to people who worked there at the time. Under Johnson, Fannie’s primary goal changed from buttressing the mortgage market when necessary to protecting — at all costs — the company’s government ties and the riches that sprang from them.

Because the company was perceived to be at least implicitly backed by the government and would be rescued by it if necessary, Fannie Mae found it easier and cheaper to raise money than its competitors. And it routinely claimed that it passed along every penny of its cost savings to homebuyers in the form of lower mortgage rates. This allowed the company to argue that any change in its status would result in higher housing costs for everyday Americans.

It wore the claim like a coat of armor, protecting itself from critics’ slings and arrows. Only later would it emerge that the company kept billions of dollars — at least one-third of the government subsidy — for itself each year. Fannie dispensed this money to its executives, shareholders, and friends in Congress.

Fannie Mae and its sibling Freddie Mac were regulated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Not much of a watchdog, its oversight of Fannie and Freddie was a part-time arrangement — only a handful of people at the agency dealt with matters involving the companies, and they juggled other duties as well.

The thing every American should be asking today is why the American press never bothered to investigate and report any of this information and whether it is wise to continue to buy the excuses, the cover ups that keep the Democrat Party Machine alive and creating one crisis after another! (Recall: Never let a crisis go to waste”)

J.P. Morgan Chase was not “too big to fail” in this crisis. J.P.Morgan Chase agreed to buy out Washington Mutual for $1.888 billion, which re-opened the bank the following day. The share holders of Washington Mutual lost their investments and government entities Fannie and Freddie were sheltered from scrutiny…as were the main architects of the crisis, The (Democrat) Community Reinvestment Act, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, James Johnson, Jamie Gorrelick, Fannie and Freddie, a whole cast of Democrats, and Republicans (friends of Angelo in countrywide loan deals), who benefited financially in the scheme. Yet today the mafia style strong arm tactics remain in place and JP Morgan Chase will pay up without admitting culpability rather than spend years and wasted dollars defending themselves on specious charges in court.

Posted by Tina

You can read the transcript and see the video here. One of the more disturbing exchanges:

We have learned there were two Delta Force operators who fought at the Annex and they’ve since been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross — two of the military’s highest honors. The Americans who rushed to help that night went without asking for permission and the lingering question is why no larger military response ever crossed the border into Libya — something Greg Hicks realized wasn’t going to happen just an hour into the attack.

Lara Logan: You have this conversation with the defense attache. You ask him what military assets are on their way. And he says–

Greg Hicks: Effectively, they’re not. And I– for a moment, I just felt lost. I just couldn’t believe the answer. And then I made the call to the Annex chief, and I told him, “Listen, you’ve gotta tell those guys there may not be any help coming.”

Lara Logan: That’s a tough thing to understand. Why?

Greg Hicks: It just is. We–, for us, for the people that go out onto the edge, to represent our country, we believe that if we get in trouble, they’re coming to get us. That our back is covered. To hear that it’s not, it’s a terrible, terrible experience.

The U.S. government today acknowledges the Americans at the U.S. compound in Benghazi were not adequately protected. And says those who carried out the attack are still being hunted down.

Just a few weeks ago, Abu Anas al-Libi was captured for his role in the Africa bombings and the U.S. is still investigating what part he may have played in Benghazi. We’ve learned that this man, Sufian bin Qumu, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and long-time al Qaeda operative, was one of the lead planners along with Faraj al-Chalabi, whose ties to Osama bin Laden go back more than 15 years. He’s believed to have carried documents from the compound to the head of al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Just a few days ago we spoke here on Post Scripts about the importance of Guantanamo. Looks like we erred in allowing Sufian bin Qumu to leave. He returned to the field of battle, emboldened and strong, to do us great harm. Can you imagine his thoughts about us? How stupid we must seem to him.

I am ashamed to have to say it, but our parents wouldn’t have been so ignorant about the necessitates of war…no matter how unpleasant, distasteful, inconvenient, or difficult.

by Tina Grazier

A comment was posted this morning that created the necessity to address the meaning of that part of the First Amendment to the Constitution that prevents the federal government from establishing a state religion and prohibiting the free exercise of religion by the free citizens of this nation. Let’s begin with a quote from Jefferson. It shows his understanding of the notion of free will and the influence this had in the creation of a nation of free citizens:

“Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishment or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was his Almighty power to do.” – Thomas Jefferson’s opening lines to the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, 1786

What an incredible blessing. We are free people as a reflection of the Biblical notion of free will. It’s unfortunate that some in our society don’t appreciate what Jefferson has said in this quote.

It was no accident that our nation was established a free nation with authority vested in the people. It’s no accident that our founders chose not to instill a king to rule over the people. It is no accident that individual protections were designed into the Constitution and Bill of Rights to assure that every citizen had religious, speech, and press freedoms. These freedoms were made clear and solidified in the very first amendment to our Constitution to protect every citizen from a tyrannical form of government.

In recent decades the so-called “separation of church and state” has been used as a means to distort the meaning of the first amendment and silence certain expression. It has been used with great success as a means to undermine religious and moral influence in our schools and in our politics. But it is a lie, a distortion, that must be countered.

The phrase “separation of church and state,” was coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut. It was written more than a decade after the Constitution and Bill of Rights were ratified. But the phrase does not appear in the text of the Constitution or in any of the debates leading to its ratification. The complete undistorted sentence reads as follows:

“…I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

The wall he refers to prohibits government from establishing a state religion and it prohibits government’s intrusion into religious freedom, its practice and expression. The wall protects individuals from state tyranny and the tyranny of group intimidation and oppression.

Certain radical elements have used the incomplete sentiment, “separation of church and state”, as a bludgeon…as justification for removing the moral tenets of the Bible from our classrooms and the public square. As a means of intimidating to silence those citizens with religious and moral convictions they don’t share. But the First Amendment gave them no such right. It says, I repeat:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

The Amendment continues regarding the speech and press rights of all Americans. Together they solidify the rights of Americans to express themselves openly and freely without restriction. Civility and respect are assumed as tenets of good citizenship and agreement with the Constitutional principles under which we all live.

Extremists who work to influence and control through intimidation and degradation show they have no respect for the First Amendment or the rights of the people.

The important protections imbedded in the Bill of Rights address our most basic freedoms including the right of each and every individual to express his religious beliefs, or lack thereof, freely. It does not give anyone the right to impose his beliefs, religious or secular, on other citizens. It does not give anyone the right to restrict certain speech.

Open contempt of the views of others breeds discontent, division, and chaos. Open and free expression is both necessary and healthy to maintain our freedom. When all views are respected and given full voice damaging discord can be avvoided.

We at Post Scripts offer a platform for the free expression of ideas and beliefs. We welcome all opinions. We ask only that respect be shown to others and that reasonable restraint be maintained to keep our deliberations civil and suitable for young readers. As we write let us remember to honor the freedom of expression that the First Amendment affords each of us by showing respect to each other. We owe it to our posterity!

 Dear Libby,

You challenged me on several points regarding this homeless problem we’re having in Chico and because your opinion mirrors that of at least five of our seven council people and many thousands of their constituents who support them, I thought it might be worthwhile to air our differences on page one and let everybody in on it. I will let you have the last word because you were not prepared to have this out in public in our posts.  I just want to be fair.

This quote taken from something I said started it;  “Libby, the total number of beds available in Butte County often exceed the number of people looking.”

Libby: l want to see a source for that statement. Torres’s website will confirm the number of beds. I got the 1200 from the census the county took. It too is online.

So, what do you got?

Denial … that’s all you got.

It stands to reason that a person who exhausts all other resources and winds up on the street is gonna be a hard case. You just won’t exert yerselves (pony up, really, is all you have to do).

And if you won’t, and you know you won’t, and you absolutely won’t … then, why not just step over the beggars? What’s it to you?

Jack:  Libby, we can debate whether or not we have enough beds in the shelters, but it would not be doing justice to the bigger issue you and others who agree with you want to impose on us.   You believe the answer to everything is taking more money out of the pockets of taxpayers.   This time you want to build more homeless shelters and provide a host of other things such as good healthcare, rehab counseling, etc., for anyone who needs it, without regard to their life choices, without accountability, or even if they are legal citizens or not.   And you believe if we (the working society) will only “pony up” enough money we can solve this problem of the poor by shifting the wealth until it goes away.   If we will only spend more money to fix it we won’t have people sleeping under bridges, hitting people up on the street for their spare change, or getting falling down drunk in some back alley and worse.

However, even if we had the money spend for such a massive project, it won’t be coming from you – you want to be generous with our money.    We could take your entire salary and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, so you want us to take it from deeper pockets, i.e., people who consistently earn good money.  They are anybody making $40k a year or more also the big companies and corporations that provide jobs and pay good wages.   You want government to take their money (as much as needed) and give it to those people who choose not to work.   You want us to give to them with equal generosity as we would for the truly needy, those who are indigent through no fault of their own….and I say no way!

The number of people who choose not to work and live off the hard work of others are really growing.    It’slike  an epidemic and it’s become a populist movement, where people can vote themselves all sorts expensive things just because they have the numbers.    These are typically the low and no income people, but by virtue of their sheer numbers they can rob the wealth.    If they can’t do it through direct democracy, then they can elect your representatives to do i, and they do!  We’ve seen plenty of that right here in California.  It’s why we support over 25% of the nation’s total welfare cases. 

I strongly believe that people reach an age of accountability, where we must all take responsibility for our life choices.   If we try to remove the consequences for bad life choices we become enablers and codependents and we also remove a good learning opportunity that might help them can correct their path.      

This is why I say a populist movement  is a very dangerous thing.   When the masses realize they can vote themselves whatever they wat, it always leads to greed and taking too much.

 Thanks to populism/liberalism there always comes a time when there are simply too many takers and not enough workers.   When that happens the financial burden becomes too great for the few supporting the many.   This leads us to the next phase, a guaranteed economic ruin!   It will be a total destruction of the core values that built this great society.    All the incentives, all the motivation, all the opportunities associated with our free society will be gone.    And at the same time, we will suddenly lose our market share to a competitive world that has always been nipping at our heels. They’re eager to dominate us and if they have their way, we won’t be making a come back.  So, once the damage is done, it’s unlikely we will ever recover.    

This is the big picture Libby, but you are in denial… despite all the evidence that keeps piling up.   The populist movement is gaining traction and that’s going to bring more people down, more mouths to feed and less workers.  There’s no winning for anyone when that happens .    This is why I say this is not about bed counting or even about homeless in Chico, this is about a cancer that is pervasive in our society and our very survival is in doubt.    If we continue to shift the wealth and chip away at our strengths as we grow socialism… we’re going to destroy our future.    Okay, your turn Libby.

 Libby: 

“Libby, we can debate whether or not we have enough beds in the shelters, but it would not be doing justice to the bigger issue.”

But alas, you do not go on to define the bigger issue, as such. Still, I was able to figure it out:

“… taking more money out of the pockets of taxpayers.”

“… without regard to life choices, without accountability, ….”

“… taking more away from the productive side of society than can be safely tolerated.”

First and foremost, you cannot deny that present services are inadequate, but you do not want to, and will not, pay for adequate services.

Because … you blame these people for their joblessness, their poverty, their addictions and so on. You blame them, you disapprove of them, and you will not help them.

Finally, your insistence that providing adequate services will sap the moral fiber of the country is just baloney … a truly feeble justification for selfish, small-minded, meanness.

I think you’re hoping you can get the cops to strong-arm them out of the county, but I don’t think you will be able to convince them to attempt it. I’ll bet there is at least one “hell-fer-leather” civil rights attorney in this town, and the city don’t need no more legal bills.

So, you will not be allowed to jail them for any length of time (current law will not allow it, and you won’t pay for it), intern them in some gulag (at least, I hope not), or euthanize them.

We seem to have a stand-off.   And I can’t see that it would be productive to go any further with this, unless you do have some other concrete option.

Posted by J. Lee

“The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epocha in the history of America. . . . It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
–John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776

On June 7, 1776, Richard H. Lee of Virginia, introduced this resolution in the Second Continental Congress proposing independence for the American colonies.

by Jack

I’ve spoken with a number of Chico police officers recently about the bum problem and to a man (or woman) they all say the bums are here because of one thing…services.   It’s another way of saying, “Build it and they will come.”   This simple logic seems lost on the people of the Homeless Task Force, which is not seeking real solutions to removing the bums from Chico, instead they’re seeking to accomodate them with more services, which is 180 out of what they should be doing! 

Later on today I’m going to do a photo essay of the bums of Chico and their camp sites.  These people are mostly new to the area, but if you ask somebody on the Homeless Task Force, they will point to their study that showed almost all of them are long time residents.  The police know different.  They tell me their polling was totally bogus and the bums were playing the pollsters.  They knew what to say, which establishes that the bums were smarter than those asking them the questions. 

One of the problems the police have experienced is the lack of support from the court.  When they bust somebody for sleeping in the park, the court gives them a hard time and finds ways to let the defendant go.    This ticks off the cops who don’t have time to waste.  

I say bust them anyway!  If and when the court starts showing a pattern of letting the bums off easy, then we as citizens can do our part bring pressure to bear on the offending judges.  L0ok, we have a good law that has been tried and tested over time and it says, you can’t camp in the park.   It’s a misdmeanor.  Yet there’s all kind of camping going on inside Chico’s Bidwell Park and we’ve got the trash to prove it.   

This situation is the perfect opportunity for Chief Trostle to show the  community what he’s made of.  He needs to instruct his officers to do a few late night raids in Bidwell Park and other areas where overnight camping is illegal.   The officers would love to do this too!   They want these bums out of Chico as much as anyone.   And do be fooled, the manpower is absolutely there, it just takes a little creativity to pull it off.   For example, one officer with 3 or 4 community volunteers could have a big impact on the park campers.  But, it requires a little extra effort and some mildly inspired thinking to do it.   The question is, will the Chief make an effort or will he play it safe and stay with the status quo? 

The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs commissioned a civic education poll among public school students. A surprising 77% didn’t know that George Washington was the first President; couldn’t name Thomas Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence, and only 2.8% of the students actually passed the citizenship test. Along similar lines, the Goldwater Institute of Phoenix did the same survey and only 3.5% of students passed the civics test.

Factoids for your consideration:

• Fox News, the most watched news program in the U.S., has on numerous occasions recommended that school science classes be “fair and balanced,” meaning by the teaching of biblically-inspired creationism alongside Darwin’s’ scientific theory of evolution.
• According to the National Research Council report, only 28% of high school science teachers consistently follow the National Research Council guidelines on teaching evolution, and 13% of those teachers explicitly advocate creationism or “intelligent design.”
• On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of American’s thought Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks; four years later, even though proof had been provided that he was not, 34% still believe he was.
• 18% of Americans still believe that the sun revolves around the earth, according to a Gallup poll.
• According to another poll, the average American voter believes that U.S. foreign aid consumes 24% of the Federal budget, when it is only 1%.
• The American Association of State Colleges and Universities report on education shows that the U.S. ranks second among all nations in the proportion of the population aged 35-64 with a college degree, but 19^th in the percentage of those aged 25-34 with an associates or high school diploma, which means that for the first time, the educational attainment of young people will be lower than their parents’.
• In a Newsweek poll, of U.S. citizens, 29% couldn’t identify Joe Biden as the Vice President, and 44% couldn’t describe the Bill of Rights.
• In a 2009 survey of a number of European countries and the U.S. on international affairs, a significant majority of Europeans could identify the Taliban, and just over 50% of Americans could, despite the heavy presence of the U.S. in Afghanistan.
• 74% of Republicans in the U.S. Senate and 53% in the House of Representatives deny the validity of climate changes since despite the findings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and every other significant scientific organization in the world.
• Researcher Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary analyzed 300,00 Torrance Creativity Test scores of children and adults in the US. Kim found creativity and IQ scores rose steadily until 1990, and were in decline thereafter, and the most serious decline occurring for the youngest children.
• In 1966-67, approximately 1.4 million students who took the verbal portion of the S.A.T and a score of 700 or more was achieved by 33,000 students. In 1986-87 over 1.8 million students took the test and a score of 700 or higher was attained by fewer than 14,000.
• A new global study of educational systems in major nations ranks U.S. 15 year olds 14th in the world in reading skills, 17th in science and 25^th (below average) in math.
• According the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 68% of public school children in the U.S. do not read proficiently by the time they finish third grade. And the U.S. News & World reported that barely 50% of students are ready for college level reading.
• Of the 21 countries participating in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, American high school seniors did better than only 2 countries–Cyprus and South Africa.
• According to the National Endowment for the Arts report in 1982, 82% of college graduates read novels or poems for pleasure; two decades later only 67% did. And more than 40% of Americans under 44 did not read a single book–fiction or nonfiction–over the course of a year. The proportion of 17 year olds who read nothing (unless required by school ) has doubled between 1984-2004.
• Renowned T.V. producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who has produced many successful T.V. shows, was once quoted as saying, “it is getting harder and harder to underestimate the intelligence of the American public. It now averages well below the previous 6^th grade level.”
• Harvard University’s Kiku Adatto found that between 1968 and 1988 the average sound bite on the news for a presidential candidates-featuring the candidate’s own voice-dropped from 42.3 seconds to 9.8 seconds. By 2000, according to another Harvard study, the bite was down to 7.8 seconds.

One need only look at the social interactions of students in high schools to see the predominant views of the well educated or intellectual. Well-educated and intellectual students are commonly referred to in public schools and the media as “nerds,” “dweebs,” “dorks,” and “geeks,” and are relentlessly harassed and even assaulted by the more popular “jocks” for openly displaying any intellect. These attitudes are not reflected in students in most European or Asian countries, whose educational levels have now equaled and and will surpass that of the U.S.