Attn: Chicago Area and Southern Wisconsin Shooters

On Aug. 15 & 16 there will be a two-day rifle marksmanship clinic at the Kenosha County Range in Bristol, WI (about 60 miles North of Chicago):

The Appleseed Program is designed to take you from being a simple rifle owner to being a true rifleman. All throughout American history, the rifleman has been defined as a marksman capable of hitting a man-sized target from 500 yards away — no ifs, ands or buts about it. This 500-yard range is traditionally known as “the rifleman’s quarter-mile;” a rifleman can hit just about any target he can see. This skill was particulary evident in the birth of our country, and was the difference in winning the Revolutionary War.

See this web page for more information.

(The Appleseed Program is a project of the Revolutionary War Veterans Association.)

This looks like a fun event!

2009 Lollapalooza Day One

Lollapalooza Day One was quite muddy and cold, which is going to be quite a change from the other days since it is supposed to be extremely hot (for the first time this year in Chicago). The festival attracts over 225,000 people over three days, and it seemed very full, but not too crowed.

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The New “Nomenklatura”

Recently in Illinois a scandal broke out regarding preferential admissions at Illinois public universities, notably the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Politicians were forwarding lists of applicants (who otherwise would not have been allowed to attend because they lacked the requisite credentials) and these “connected” applicants were accepted ahead of more qualified but “unconnected” residents.

The scandal has now moved on to other educational institutions, notably the “magnet” high schools such as this Walter Payton High School on Wells street in the River North area of Chicago (it is actually halfway between River North and Old Town). Here is a link to a Chicago Tribune article on the subject. Here is a more recent article… now the Federal authorities are getting involved.

The real issue, however, aren’t the specific instances of corruption. The broader picture is what our country will look like in the future as the government controls more institutions due to economic failure (car manufactures like GM, financial institutions like Citicorp, AIG and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) or due to encroaching powers (perhaps the entire medical industry).

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Government Incentives

When I review tax programs, whether they are for local, state, or federal governments, there are two critical criteria:

– Effectiveness – does the tax program raise the revenue in a manner that is cost-effective and have the lowest level of harm and distortion to the overall economy?
– Incentives – if the tax program is designed to promote a certain type of activity or “deter” a different type of activity, do the incentives actually drive the behavior that the law is intended to achieve?

I thought about the “incentives” element of the program as my parents rushed out to take advantage of the “cash for clunkers” program which provides a credit (on the spot, to the dealer) for turning in cars that basically get less than 18 mpg and purchasing a new car off the dealer lot. This program has their own website (where they unhelpfully refer to the program as “Cars” or “Car Allowance Rebate System” rather than the far more effective “cash for clunkers”). My father’s car barely made the cut because it was right around 18 mpg and they have been clarifying the program and making him sign form after form (to prove that he has owned it for several years, that he had it scrapped, etc…) but generally this program was a “shining star” of an incentive because 1) the government wanted him to go out and buy a new car off a dealer’s lot right now 2) they wanted to make sure that his old 18 mpg car was taken off the road 3) they wanted to make sure that he actually owned the car and didn’t just swap it with someone else to get the $4500 in trade in when the car was only worth maybe $1000. All of these criteria were met, in this case.

While the FDIC isn’t a tax program, the agency that guarantees deposits at insured banks (with your tax dollars) also provides incentives. I was involved in the early 1990’s when the Resolution Trust Corporation was created by our Federal government in order to take control of insolvent banks (basically banks that made dud loans, generally for property) and pay back depositors. I was on one of the teams that would go into banks right at the time they were being shut down and secure the cash and assets as a lowly auditor. We weren’t exactly the CIA – we sat in cars outside the bank and everyone knew it was coming and the staff were generally very polite – but that was where I frequently heard the phrase

Heads – I win, Tails – the FDIC loses

By this phrase they exactly summed up the banking game at the time – make a lot of big and risky loans with “guaranteed” customer deposits, and if it goes well and the loans are repaid, you make a bunch of money. If the loans go sour, oh well, you just walk away and leave the FDIC holding the bag.

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Go Maroons!

The College Crunch Top 50

Apologies if this is a repeat; I just heard about it from Pejman Yousefzadeh.