A Homeless Mentor? A fictional short-short story

Don't Elect; select. A thought experiment on reinventing how we choose o...

Select, Don't Elect: A better way to choose our political leaders

On Staring at an Autumn Leaf

How They Attempt to Get Your Vote

Larry Sabato is among the best known and most successful observer and predictor of election results . I interviewed him today as my PsychologyToday.com article.

The President Apologizes: A Short-Short Story About How to Win and Whether To

In an attempt to avoid the pontification and aridity of the how-to article, in my PsychologyToday.com articles, I've recently been embedding psychological and other how-to-do-life issues in short-short stories. 

Today's offering is about a person who did what it takes to become president and his epiphany on his final chauffeured ride from the White House.

Reinventing How We Select Our Poltiical Leaders

I've seen more sadness and anger about the current presidential campaign than any in my lifetime. 

Of course, much of it is centered around Donald Trump: How could such a person be the leading GOP candidate? 

At least in part, it's testimony to the system, in which money and bombast trump (pardon the expression) competence to do the job.

It is my own growing unhappiness with the system that motivated me to, here, update my WashingtonPost.com article on how to reinvent the way we select our political leaders.  The updated version was just published on PsychologyToday.com.

Two Very Different Alternatives to America's Bad Economic Status Quo

It seems that nearly everyone is unhappy with America's economic status quo.  

The Haves, especially around tax time, are sad at how little they seem to get for paying the lion's share of taxes, and the massive effort required to pay one's taxes--filing all but the simplest returns is extremely  complicated. 

The Have-Nots, an ever growing percentage of the population, are struggling ever more just to make ends meet. 

As I've written ad nauseam, the recovery is a government-and media-perpetrated myth. Yes, a few very rich people and companies are recovering but most people are not. 

I'm of two completely different minds on what to do. One is a lightly regulated small-government version of capitalism. The other is socialism plus a method of selecting leaders that would make socialism more likely to succeed.

My preferred flavor of capitalism

Government does most things badly: slowly, inefficiently, and "invests" in schemes that the private sector rejects as bad investments and usually turn out to be. What pop to mind are ethanol, Solyndra, and endless "promising" social programs that fail, not to mention $85 hammers and bridges to nowhere.

The government seems to forget that it's our money they're toying with and they have a responsibility to spend it wisely. And government, riddled with sinecures and the near-impossibility of getting fired from most government jobs, ensures we get terrible value for the enormous amount of taxes we pay: not just federal, state, and local income tax, but sales tax, alcohol tax, tire excise tax, property tax, tolls, user fees, plus usurious fines for traffic violations, for example, I paid $85 for a parking ticket. The penalty for driving in the car pool lane is $481 dollars. The punishment should fit the crime. Rather, tickets are merely one of many hidden taxes.

I'd slash the size of government while retaining a safety net for the poor. Hard work would not be enough to make people rise out of poverty. Most are poor heavily because of bad luck in who their parents were and where they grew up. It feels appropriate to have some redistribution from people who won in the genetic lottery to those who lost.

So I'd fund free group-housing and food for the poor---If dorm living and eating is good enough for Harvard students, it's good enough for those who aren't working.  I'd also provide basic health care but not the same level of care available to provided to people who pay for health care. 

I'd dramatically scale back most agencies, including defense. We can't reduce risk to zero and the fortune we spend on defense doesn't sufficiently increase our chances of remaining safe. I'd cut education spending--We fund absurdly large bureaucracies that create mountains of regulations, micromanage, and require huge sums for schools to comply with regulations that, net, ironically impede learning.  Truly. 

I'd similarly review all government spending with an eye toward cost-effectiveness.That would put a fortune back into working and middle-class people's pockets. I believe they would far more wisely spend the money than the government can.

My preferred flavor of socialism

Capitalism creates too many losers. While a small percentage get wealthy, millions, unable to compete even for moderate-level jobs, must struggle to maintain even a meager existence. 

Socialism, which heavily taxes middle and upper incomers to provide a broad, cradle to grave support system is worthy of consideration. And indeed, America is rapidly moving toward a more socialist economy with ObamaCare, paid Family Leave, etc., etc. 

A brand new way to select our elected officials leaders

The problem is that socialism expands government and is likely to result in even more poorly spent taxpayer money. 

The core problem in my view is in how we select our leaders. The people who run for office are the types willing to continually press the flesh and say what's needed to win. Politicians are not the pool from which the wisest stewards of our tax dollars would come. 

Even if campaigns were brief and 100% publicly funded, you still have the problem of an electorate too subject to the influence of commercials, sound bites, and slick politician speeches. 

Instead, I propose that our government officials be selected using passive criteria, like a stock index fund picks stocks. For example, our legislators might consist of the most newly retired of the nation's 10 largest nonprofits, a randomly selected CEO of the S&P Midcap 400, the Police Officer of America's Cop of the Year, the Teacher of the Year, the most award-winning scientist who finished her or his Ph.D. in the last decade, plus five random citizens. 

Those legislators would vote to select the heads of executive branches: the president, state governors, and mayors. 

While the impact of better leaders would help all economic systems, it would particularly benefit a socialist government, because it is so large.

Making it practical
You protest, "But the incumbent politicians would never allow it--the foxes are guarding the hen house." My approach would be to get the media to urge voters to vote against candidates that oppose a fairer system for selecting our government's leaders. 

Your thoughts? 

I feel insufficiently knowledgeable to recommend either of these economic reforms wholeheartedly. They merely represent my best thoughts and I welcome your thoughts on the subject. 

How We Select Our Leaders, Reinvented

Here is my next column in Mensa's The Intelligencer. 

The Life Well-Led

by Marty Nemko

How We Select Our Leaders, Reinvented

Is the the lying and deceptions of both presidential candidates disgusting you? How about that they and their SuperPACS will have spent $2 billion, heavily to pay for truth-obfuscating commercials, slick ads that clutter your e-mail and snail mailbox, not to mention telemarketing get-out-the-vote phone calls interrupting your dinner?

And the future bodes worse: The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision means that they can raise money without limits to manipulate us into voting for them.

Indeed, today, nearly every sentence spoken by major politicians is dial focus-group tested by Madison-Avenue-inspired "messaging teams."  Sometimes it seems we're not voting for the best candidate but for the best propaganda machine.

As troubling, those special interests wouldn't be pouring billions into campaigns unless they were confident it would make politicians do their bidding rather than what's best for the nation.

Perhaps worst of all, the need to run a four-year-long press-the-fat-cat's flesh campaign deters many of the most worthy people from running.

I believe that the following two approaches would ensure we elect better and less-corrupted leaders:

The Two-Week Publicly-Funded Campaign

• All campaigns would be 100% publicly-funded. That has been proposed and rejected in the past as a denial of free speech. I believe that abridgment is far outweighed by the benefit to society
• All campaigns would be just two weeks long. That would control cost and only minimally reduce voter knowledge: By the time most voters vote, they've forgotten what they heard  weeks ago.
• The campaigns would consist only of one or two broadcast debates. Those would be followed by a job simulation: running a meeting.
• A neutral body such as C-Span or Consumers Union would post each major candidate's biographical highlights, voting record, and platform on key issues. 

Such a system would reduce candidates' corruptibility while increasing the quality of information voters would have about the candidates. As important, better candidates would run, knowing they needn't run an endless, expensive, beholden-to-special-interests campaign.  

Alas, this problem does create a thorny problem: Who participates? The best solution I can come up with is that the Democrats, Republicans, Socialists/Greens, and Libertarians would each have the option to present a candidate.

An even more different approach: Don't Elect. Select.

In Don't Elect. Select, our government officials would be selected, not by voting but using passive criteria. For example, the Senate might consist of the most newly retired of the 10 largest nonprofits, a randomly selected CEO of the S&P Midcap 400, the Police Officer of America's Cop of the Year, the National Teacher of the Year, the most award-winning scientist under age 30, a randomly selected Harvard visual/performing arts instructor, plus random citizens.  To ensure sufficient but not excessive continuity, the senators would every four years, anonymously rate each others' job performance, and the top 25% would retain their job for the next four years and the other 75% would be selected using the passive criteria mentioned in this paragraph.

The benefits of this system:

• We’d have a more worthy and ideationally diverse group of leaders.
• Because there would be no campaigns, our leaders would not be beholden to big donors.
• The public would view such a leadership with more respect than they have for our elected candidates.
• The absence of campaigns would save the public a fortune. Just our income tax form’s $3-per-person check-off box to political campaigns is projected to, over the next 10 years, cost the taxpayer $617 million[i].

Of course, one might argue that the incumbent politicians would never allow it. After all, the foxes are guarding the hen house. But I believe the media, equally eager to see better leaders, would urge the electorate to support candidates who would vote for a fairer selection system. And politicians, concerned about their place in history, would feel pressure to support the change. History would view politicians that voted themselves out of a job for the good of the nation as heroes, while no-voting politicians would be seen as self-serving obstructionists.

Another objection is that Don’t Elect. Select would require a Constitutional amendment, which is no easy task, but the Constitution has already been amended 27 times. I can’t think of a more worthy reason for number 28.

This is an adapted excerpt from from my just-published seventh book: What's the Big Idea? 39 Disruptive Proposals for a Better America.

Don't Elect. Select: a better way to pick our legislators

In the latest installment of my "What's the Big Idea?" series in the Washington Post, I make the radical proposal that we'd have better legislators if they were not elected but selected using passive criteria, like the way stocks are included in an index fund.

That may seem crazy. After all, electing our leaders is a hallowed tradition, foundational to the democracy created by our Constitution. But I invite you to read the column and then decide. HERE is the link.

Reinventions: Political Campaign Reform

Here's a video of my proposed reinvention of our political campaign system.

Reinventions: Bolder Approaches to the Big Issues

Reinventions

Bolder approaches to job creation, health care, education, religion, our election system, our economic system, psychotherapy, the gender wars, climate change, the gene pool, the meaning of life, and 30 other pillars of society.

a book proposal

by Marty Nemko

Many Americans believe the U.S. is in permanent decline. A just-released New York Times/CBS News poll finds that 39 percent of respondents believe “the current economic downturn is part of a long-term permanent decline.” That on the top of a June, 2011 CNN poll that found that 48 percent of Americans believe another Great Depression is very or somewhat likely.

And Americans aren't confident that the proposed solutions will help much. A just-released Time poll finds that 62 percent of Americans think the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction. Perhaps that's not surprising in light of the failure of the most recent round of remedies: Despite massive corporate bailouts, government stimulus spending, and two rounds of quantitative easing (QE1 and QE2) the un- and underemployment rate is higher than before. And education, the supposed magic pill, has turned out to be less than magical. For decades now, the U.S. has ranked #1 or 2 in per-capita education spending yet continues to lag in the most recent international comparison, tied for 23rd with Poland, while Shanghai, China, which entered the comparisons this year for the first time and spends far less than the U.S. per capita on education, ranked #1.

Such solutions are inadequate in part, ironically, because of our democratic process. Policies are adopted only after a diverse array of experts, the public, legislators, and political leaders have all embraced it. While that ensures broad buy-in, it tends to create tepid recommendations--that on which nearly everyone can agree, often a lowest common denominator.

There is need for bolder solutions. Unfettered by having to obtain consensus, in the proposed Work, I propose a bolder solution for each of 40 keys to the thriving society. Perhaps like many authors, my goal is no less than to trigger a national conversation that examines--forgive the cliche--out-of-the-box approaches to stemming what appears to be America's permanent decline, especially versus China and India.

I envision a slim volume: Each of the 40 reinventions will be presented in just enough detail to explain the concept, its benefits, and to counter likely objections.

Content

These blog posts provide a sense of my writing style and the content I'll present in the book:

A Blueprint for Permanently Creating U.S. Jobs: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/04/blueprint-for-permanently-solving-us.html

Elections Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/02/reinvented-election-system.html.

The College Report Card: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/11/college-report-card-key-to-higher-ed.html

Religion Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2008/08/spiritual-atheism.html

Do What You Love and Starve? http://www.martynemko.com/articles/do-what-you-love-and-starve_id1380

Education Reinvented: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/blueprint-for-reinventing-education_id1595

Higher Education Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/06/reinventions-undergraduate-education.html

Simplism: A new alternative to capitalism and socialism: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/06/simplism-new-alternative-to-capitalism.html

Are We So Sure Democracy is the Best Policy? http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/02/are-we-so-sure-democracy-is-best-way.html

Health care: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/11/nemkocare-how-id-do-health-care-reform.html

New Israel: A solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-israel-solution-to-palestinian.html

The Un-MBA: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/04/while-i-am-critical-of-many-aspects-of.html

Family is Overrated: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2008/09/family-is-overrated.html

Taxation Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-id-reinvent-taxation.html

My Plan for Closing the Achievement Gap: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2009/07/my-plan-to-close-achievement-gap.html

The One-Week Job Search: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/one-week-job-search_id1374

A Better Way to Gain Willpower: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2009/02/top-10-ways-to-gain-willpower.html

General Education Reinvented: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/generaledorg-reinvented-online-general-education-program_id1597

Career Counseling Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/07/career-counseling-reinvented.html

Climate Change: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=nemko+%22Climate+change%22

In Defense of Men: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/06/beginning-of-men.html

The Meaning of Life Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/05/toward-life-well-led-meter.html

My Top Ten Ways to Improve the World:

http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-top-ten-ways-to-improve-world.html

Other Reinventions to be included in the book:

Parenting

Housing

A proposal for safer, less expensive nuclear energy.

The case for and plan for transforming our product-based to a service-based economy.

A better alternative to mass transit: the shared-ownership auto-piloted hydrogen/solar-powered sky car.

Next-generation desalinization as the solution to our water problems.

Social networking reinvented--toward building real connection.

Genetically enhancing human potential...ethically.

Ending the gender wars ...to both sexes' advantage

Psychotherapy reinvented

5 to 10 more, to be determined.

Author credentials

Marty Nemko holds a Ph.D. specializing in the evaluation of innovative programs from the University of California, Berkeley and subsequently taught in Berkeley's graduate school. He has been a consultant to Consumer Reports, 15 college presidents, and dozens of top for- and nonprofit executives. His previous five books have sold 250,000 copies.

Author platform

He's in his 24th year as host of a weekly hour-long show on KALW-FM (NPR-San Francisco.) He has been a repeat guest on such major shows as Talk of the Nation and The Today Show. He's written for and been quoted in publications ranging from Time to the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times. His blog and site attract a half million visitors a year. Toastmasters International names one non-member its Northern California Speaker of the Year. Marty Nemko was a recent winner.

Marketing plan

With Nemko's ability as a speaker (see above) a media tour and live speaking tour, for example, on college campuses would seem to be cost-effective. The tour might be made additionally effective by the discussions of the Reinventions be debates with local public intellectuals, for example, the president of the colleges at which I'd be speaking.

Nemko will make a YouTube video of each Reinvention, and roll them out (in video and text versions) one per week on appropriate places on the Internet, noting that it is an excerpt from the book, Reinventions. For example, the proposal for reinventing undergraduate education will be posted as a letter to the editor on leading websites for higher educators and for students. Of course, each Reinvention video and its transcript will be submitted to major media outlets: with particular follow-up with producers of shows on which Nemko has previously appeared: Talk of the Nation, The Today Show, 20-20, CNN, etc. Each video will also be sent to major print, TV, and online outlets. Plus, each Reinvention will be posted on Nemko's Facebook, Twitter, Quora, blog, and website, which attracts a half million visitors a year, as well presented one per week on his National Public Radio-San Francisco show.

Timed to occur during the weeks preceding the 2012 presidential election, Nemko will disseminate as above, a special video; My Nine Worries and Their Solutions: The Stump Speech I'd Give if I Were Running for President: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/my-nine-worries-stump-speech-id-give-if-i-were-running-for-president_id1603

He will conduct press conferences on a few of the most newsworthy reinventions:

A bolder plan to create jobs

A bolder plan for reinventing health care

A bolder plan for reinventing education.

A series of contests would be held in which the public is challenged to come up with a better reinvention of, for example, education. Prizes could simply be books from the publisher's catalog. Worst case, the contests would be publicized only on Nemko's radio show, blog, etc, but an attempt would be made to get a major media outlet (e.g., Economist.com, USNews.com, where Nemko is Contributing Editor, etc, to co-sponsor the contests and host them on their site.

Are We So Sure Democracy is the Best Way?

As we hear nearly universal calls for democracy in the new Egyptian regime, I wonder if we too uncritically accept that democracy is the wisest form of government. Is it so clear that we wouldn't be better-led with some other approach to selecting our leaders?

For example, might this lead to wiser leadership: The country would be led by a 10-person team selected using passive criteria, the way stocks are selected to form an index fund. For example, it might include the most newly retired CEO from one of the 10 largest nonprofits, a randomly selected CEO from the S&P Midcap 400, the most award-winning scientist who completed his PhD in the last ten years, the American Philosophical Association Teacher of the Year, the winner of the American Police Officer's Association Cop of the Year, the National Elementary School Administrator of the Year, plus a few people chosen at random.

Especially when we see how, to get elected in a democratic system, requires so much flesh-pressing of and becoming beholden to special interests, four years of campaigning that requires disingenuousness to be elected, and in which the callow electorate is so manipulated by the ever more sophisticated Madison-Avenue "influencing" techniques, is it so clear that democracy is the best way to elect our leaders?

Your thoughts?

A Reinvented Election System

We consider democratic elections among the highest goods. Even in an era of incomprehensibly high federal deficits, the U.S. government, whether under Republican or Democratic control, spends billions of dollars to ensure democratic elections not only in the U.S. but worldwide.

Another example of our commitment to highly democratic elections is that literacy tests have, for almost a century now, been virtually eliminated so citizens now need no more qualifications to vote than to have passed their 18th birthday.

I want to argue here that a voting-readiness test should be reinstated. Why? First, because it's much more difficult today to cast a wise vote. Candidates' positions on issues are more much difficult to understand because much more complex issues are at play in our global, information- and technology-centric society. At the same time, candidates are spending enormous sums on highly sophisticated Madison-Avenue messaging consultants from Frank Luntz on the right to President Obama's dream team of influencing experts on the Left. Every campaign commercial or speech is based on computer analysis of focus groups' dial ratings of every word. Such efforts not only dwarf the election propaganda techniques used when voter literacy tests were banned, those efforts dwarf even the efforts of Josef Goebbels, Hitler's infamous Minister of Propaganda. It is extremely difficult to vote wisely.

So it's no surprise that we mainly elect lawyers and even occasionally actors (e.g., Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger,) and comedians (e.g., Al Franken and Tom Ammiano.) All that, at a time when truly wise, brilliant, ethical leaders are ever more important.

I believe those factors tip the scales in favor of requiring a voting-readiness test. More valid than a literacy test would be a test of the ability to critique a political campaign ad, commercial, and debate.

A high level of sophistication would not be required to pass the test--merely enough that a voter demonstrates the ability to acquire basic knowledge of the candidates and issues. That way, the benefits of a broadly participating democratic electorate could be retained while significantly improving the quality of the electorate's decision-making, and in turn, the quality of our elected leaders.

A nice side effect is that some people would prepare for the test, thereby making them better voters and, overall, better thinkers.

Of course, a voting-readiness test would bring liabilities. Obviously, there is the significant cost of even once-in-a-lifetime testing of each voter. More serious may be the alienation and disenfranchisement of people who fail the test. Exacerbating that alienation, even if scrupulous care were taken to ensure the test was fair to all racial and ethnic groups, if disproportionate members of such a group failed, it would yield accusations of racism and thus increase tensions.

Yet I believe the benefits of a voter-readiness test would far outweigh the liabilities. We would see better quality leaders, and in turn, better, fairer laws, a better quality of life for the citizenry, and even perhaps fewer wars.

To further improve the quality of our elected officials, as I've written previously, I advocate replacing our current election financing system with a 100% publicly funded system, which would allow only two- or three-week-long campaigns consisting only of televised debates and job simulations (e.g., running a meeting) plus an online/printed statement of voting records and positions on key issues.

Do you think America would, net, be better if a voter-qualification test were required and campaigns were the few-week-long publicly funded system I propose here?

My Top Ten Ways to Improve the World

#10. Radical election reform: Replace bought politicians with wisely selected ones. I'm undecided between two approaches:

1. All campaigns would be two to three weeks long, 100% publicly funded, and consisting only of a neutral body such as C-Span or Consumer Reports posting the candidates' voting records and positions on key issues, plus a broadcast debate followed by a simulation of the candidates running a meeting.

2. Our government officials would be selected using passive criteria, like a stock index fund. For example, it might consist of the most newly retired of the nation's 10 largest nonprofits, a randomly selected CEO of the S&P MidCap 400, the Police Officer of America's Cop of the Year, the School Principal of the Year, the most award-winning scientist who finished her/his Ph.D. in the last decade, plus five random citizens.

You protest, "The incumbents would never allow it--the foxes are guarding the hen house." My approach would be to get the media to urge voters to vote against candidates that oppose a fairer electoral system.

#9. Replace ObamaCare with NemkoCare. Patients having (ahem) skin in the game is key to cost control: the invisible hand of 300 million people voting with their feet. So, all but the truly indigent would pay fee-for-service except for catastrophic care, which they'd pay for with private insurance.

To empower consumers to make good decisions, all health care providers would be required to post patient satisfaction rates and success rates for procedures, adjusted by severity of illness.

Caring for the millions of currently minimally cared-for patients will require more doctors, nurse practitioners, etc. To provide them while improving quality, provider training would be shorter and practical--wrested from the university and provided by master practitioners. Physicians, let alone nurses, do not need a year each of college-level inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, calculus, and physics. Their training should be provided by the finest clinicians, not by academics, who mainly do research on esoterica.

#8. Replace curricular esoterica with essentials. Kindergarten-through-grad-school curriculum has long been selected primarily by professors, a group that has deliberately opted out of the real world and loves esoterica. Hence today, nearly all high schools students, even those reading on a fifth-grade level, must study the doppelganger, quadratic equations, stoichiometry, the Peloponnesian Wars, etc., even if that means they leave school unable to make change, critique an editorial, resolve conflicts, or prioritize ethics over expediency. Essentials must be prioritized over esoterica.

I'd wrest curriculum choice from the academics and replace them with a diverse panel of people from plumbers to CEOs, nurses to, okay, professors, who have been issued the following mandate: That which is most important for living must be taught and learned before teaching the less important.

#7. Require schools and colleges to post their report card. We require students to receive report cards every few months. We even require tires to have "report cards" molded into their sidewalls.

Well, if education is as important as everyone claims, shouldn't schools and colleges be required to post a report card on themselves? For example, shouldn't they be required to report their students' average annual growth in reading, writing, critical thinking, and mathematical reasoning, compared with national norms for schools with similar student bodies?

Shouldn't colleges additionally be required to post their four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates (disaggregated by high school record and SAT score,) and the actual average total cost of a degree, after financial aid, broken down by family income and assets? Shouldn't all schools and colleges be required to post the results of a student satisfaction survey and a summary of the accreditation visiting team's report?

#6. Replace a nation of variable-quality teachers with online top teachers. The nation has, for example, 30,000 high school math teachers, some magnificent, most not. Why not have ten of the nation's best teachers team-teach courses on video, available on the Internet, with local paraprofessionals or even teachers on site to answer student questions and provide the human touch. That would enable every child, rich and poor, urban and rural, to be taught by a dream team of teachers.

Of course, the reason that hasn't happened is that the teachers' unions have used their mammoth political clout to quash such proposals. Perhaps movies like Waiting for Superman will start to awaken the public that the teachers' unions are children's enemy.

#5. Create an Assistance Army. This would solve the employment crisis while improving America's quality of life. The government should fund a series of public service announcements encouraging people to hire a tutor for their children, personal assistant for themselves, and companion for their elderly relatives. Encouraging that Assistance Army would create millions of ethical, society-improving, widely doable jobs with minimal expenditure of our tax dollars, unlike with government-created jobs.

#4. Replace the media as brainwasher with the media as fair informer. Much wisdom resides left of center but much also exists right of center. Yet, except in the increasingly marginalized Fox News, the largest mindshare, especially among the influential class, is held by liberal media outlets: for example, CNN, New York Times, the TV networks, even Google searches, which on sociopolitical topics, in my experience, generate heavily liberal results, unlike the results of Yahoo! searches, which seem more even-handed.

The media has enormous power to affect our thinking and in turn, public policy. Not long ago, most members of the media felt a near-sacred obligation to present the full range of intelligent views on an issue or candidate. Today, with their professors' encouragement, most journalists consciously or unconsciously manipulate their audience into believing what they believe. And what they believe is overwhelmingly liberal thought because most journalists, like professors, have opted out of the real world and thus have been exposed mainly to the leftist thought hegemonic in universities and especially in prestigious journalism schools. Journalism schools should encourage their students to pull on ropes of restraint and make all efforts to fairly present intelligent perspectives from both right and left of center.

#3. Replace legal advocates with legal fact finders. In our legal system, two advocates devote their considerable intelligence and energy not to getting to the truth but to getting their side to win. That means that the side with the better lawyer has an unfair advantage. I believe that greater justice would be served if, as in the European Court of Justice, along with the judge, the two attorneys were charged with getting to the truth, not advocating, a priori, for one side.

#2. Embrace behavioral genetics. Real solutions to social problems require us to acknowledge that they have both environmental and genetic roots. Just as a VW Bug cannot run like a Ferrari no matter how well tuned-up, a person won't behave intelligently and responsibly unless both genes and environment are sound. Every mother of two or more children knows that each child emerged at birth with a distinctive, enduring personality: No matter how much effort parent and schools make, laconic infants rarely become high-energy, retarded toddlers rarely become intelligent, hyperactive children rarely become laid-back adults.

So we must not reflexively reject genetically oriented approaches to reducing social problems. We tend to viscerally reject such approaches because they evoke comparisons with the horrific Nazis' attempts to create a master race. But there's an infinite difference between the Nazis, who wanted to kill all non-Aryans, and a society that would, for example, attempt to reduce teen pregnancy by making available in schools not only comprehensive sex education but abortion and birth control, including new implantables such as the easily-insertable/removable five-year-lasting Jadelle.

We should even consider, fair-mindedly, the wisdom of funding research that would give parents the uncoerced option, subsidized for the poor, to ensure that their children be born without strikes against them: with high cognitive ability, immunity to cancer, and even perhaps the ability to love.

#1. Legislators must steward our tax dollars as carefully as their own. As every triage medic knows, we must prioritize investing our resources not in those with the greatest deficit but in those with the greatest potential to benefit. Yet we often don't. For example, our hearts reach out to children who are most at-risk, those with the biggest deficit: special education children, inner-city kids, etc. So we've reallocated huge percentages of education spending from the now-eviscerated programs for gifted kids to the lowest achievers. We've spent literally trillions of dollars in a failed attempt to reduce the achievement gap: everything from Early Start to Head Start, No Child Left Behind to dropout prevention, adult literacy to job retraining programs.

Perhaps the most blatant example of poor stewardship of our tax dollars and of our freedoms is that government is making ever more massive efforts to attempt to cool the planet with insufficient analysis of the likely extent of benefit, the opportunity costs, etc. Environmentalism has moved beyond science to religion.

If legislators and policy makers were investing their own money, I predict they'd invest differently.

I welcome your comments.

A Demonstration of Twitter's Power

One reason I'm blogging less is that I'm tweeting more. I'm finding that for many ideas, Twitter's 140-character limit results in my offering more help per my minute of my work and per minute of the reader's time.

Here are my 90 tweets. It should take you about 10 minutes to read them all. I believe you'll find that a rewarding use of ten minutes. Let me know if you agree.

If you do find my tweets useful, just click on the "Follow me on Twitter" button near the top of this blog and you'll get all my subsequent ones.

Solve doc/dentist/nurse shortage while improving quality: Replace long, abstract-science-based training with a short practical program.

The right health care reform: consumers have the most skin in the game, their choices abetted by excellent, accessible consumer info.

First it was storefront, then truck, now cart. Next? Backpack. e.g., In high-foot-traffic area, wear cute cap w. dozens in your pack.

Looking for a college? A commnty coll honors pgrm may be THE wisest choice--even if you're rich and kid is Ivy-level. http://bit.ly/a4quVF

Career coaches & counselors must often go beyond career: Help clients craft a life: esp. relationships, avocations & developing perspective.

Worried? Feeling sorry for yourself? Fill your time helping others and otherwise being productive.

In selecting an employee, these things count far more than experience and knowledge: intelligence, drive, ethics, kindness, and being low-maintenance.

The Repub. win reflects not just anger at big govt but voters resisting the media's efforts to manipulate them into voting Dem.

Do not begin a note with, "My name is XXX." That makes a terrible first impression because it's redundant with your signature line.

Meg Whitman would have won if instead of spending her $140M on ads etc., she donated it to charity. She'd have won while being a hero.

There's no good answer to how to increase US jobs when avg US income is 50K + generous benes & protections while the worldwide average is 1K.

Tip for establishing eye contact: What's his eye color? Does her eye area look kind or mean--eyes are a window to one's soul.

Many colleges market themselves as unscrupulously as a sleazy business might: http://bit.ly/aZl8YO.

Odd coincidence that the Giants representing the U.S's most liberal city beat George Bush's Texas Rangers on election eve. An omen? ;-)

Are you cut out for self-empl? 1. Would you sell and sell well? 2. Are you a self-starter? 3. Have the knack of buying low, selling high?

When setting a phone interview, have the person call you--that makes him feel he/s pursuing you. You'll more likely get what you want.

Want to be a better speaker? I used to tout Toastmasters but I'm now more impressed with Speaking Circles: http://bit.ly/cXfZRI

Love is feeling good when you're just sitting next to a loved one. My doggie, Einstein, is sleeping next to me at my desk now. I feel love.

Before prepping for a job interview, put yourself in that employer's shoes, "Would you hire you for that job?"

When it's out of your control, let it go. Let the river run, my friend.

Try pitching yourself to a RELATED field: For example, higher ed. reporters quote me because I'm a career counselor not another professor.

I've been watching many candidates on C-Span and I'm finding, in general, the Republicans vaguer and less direct.

How to get promoted even in this market? "Think two steps ahead of your boss and give her what she needs." Maya Mavjee, prez, Crown Publ.

Sign of the times: I've heard this so often: "I'm thankful to have any job." Scary.

It seems EVERY field is hypercompetitive. Ex: A guy wanted to make promo videos for realtors. Alas, many already do it well and cheaply.

Good Google-searching can make you more expert about your situation than are most experts.

Obama's racial policies are getting ever crazier and more unfair to Asians and whites: http://bit.ly/aRsylG

Be kind where possible, tough where necessary. It all comes down to that.

Would we have better political leaders if they were selected by a panel of 20 for-profit, non-profit & govt leaders plus random citizens?

Bringing a drug to market costs average $1.2 billion--FDA requires 3 truckloads of docs collected over 12 years.

Most older people don't mind a young boss. They mind a young boss who's inferior and thinks s/he's superior.

I've noticed that drivers of status cars (e.g., BMW, Jag, MB) are more likely to be mean to other drivers--e.g., won't let them into lane.

Language matters. That's why, for example, Dems changed "liberal" to "progressive." The liberal media picked it right up.

To uncover what's wrong with an organization, ask employees; "What's bothering you?" It can also be a good Q to ask of anyone.

Career counselors act as if IQ & its proxies SAT/GRE, etc don't matter. They think "Just merge skills, interests, values." Wrong.

Voting is the ultimate crowd-sourcing but it is near-impossible to be a fairly informed, not brainwashed voter.The media is so liberal-biased..

Glut of degree holders. Now, 17M w. B.A. are janitors, car parkers, waiters. 5,000 janitors with PhD. .http://bit.ly/aZEluG

Why should anyone be paid more than anyone else? Their success is largely preordained by their genetics, parenting, and birthplace.

I've been working with some constrained people. Encouraging them to sing unconstrained is making them live less constrained.

Better than franchising: Talk to non-local bizes top-rated on Yelp, etc. Merge their best ideas. Use the best as your consultant.

Don't let ego or embarrassment keep you from asking your network for help landing a job (or anything else) These are tough times.

Key: Publicly funded campgns w. only a debate, simulation (run a meeting on key issue,) & a doc w record & platform. http://bit.ly/bNxLu3

You can't be honest re race/ethn. e.g., NPR's Juan Williams got fired for saying he feels nervous on seeing full-garb Muslim get on plane.

Would we elect better leaders if we banned political TV and radio commercials?

Classes have bad ROI. Screaming need for online ed filled w must-have content, immersively, interactively guided by transformational tchs.

New use of offshoring: Even many large accounting firms outsource U.S. tax return preparation to India--at 80% savings.

My goal when writing how-to: Maximum fresh, valuable ideas per minute of the reader's time.

Mortgage paperwork "scandal?" No/minimal wrong foreclosures yet Obama + 49 AGs investigating--poor use of taxpayer $. It's all politics.

Teach for America tch: "I'm tired of dealing w soiled pants, burning garbage cans, and yard fights. Their problems are too big for me."

Interesting how the term "hoodlum" changed to "disadvantaged" and now "underresourced." It mirrors our externalizing responsibility.

Think twice before saying no. Is there any way you could twist it around so you could say yes?

When employed, it's worth building a network. When unemp, It takes too long to turn strangers into source of good job.http://bit.ly/96HASB

Good way to identify your ideal target job: list your job non-negotiables and your "nice-to-haves."

Phillip Roth: "It's hard to give up what you've been doing for 55 yrs...I'm kind of a maniac. How could a maniac give up what he does?"

I have many physician clients. That has led me to believe, alas, that many docs prioritize making money over quality of care.

Do you find that Google search results on sociopolitical topics are biased toward liberal perspectives? I do.

League of Women Voters used to be a neutral. Now, I got calls from them advocating CA props. and they funded a biased voter "info" site.

Job seekers: Don't overdress for interviews. It makes you look like you're selling, and no one wants to be sold. Ask what's appropriate.

Linkup.com, which aggregates job listing from individual employers' sites, now includes federal job openings from 341 divisions!

Cold contact is not working. http://bit.ly/ab1St4

DC schools spend 30K per kid, #1 in world + SuperSupt Rhee yet st. ach. is worst. Tch unions are everywhere, so that's not it. What IS it?

Write one charming note per week: to a friend, coworker, client, employer. Even if it yields nothing, it contributes to a kinder society.

Today, the norm is to not respond to queries. A polite, quick, no is so much more humane.

An anesthesiologist told me he started using drugs to cope with a romantic breakup. Sometimes I wonder whether relationships are worth it.

I don't know if it's just the Bay Area but here, many people take offense so easily. The culture of offense-taking offends me. ;-)

Twitter's turning out to be a way to archive my ideas. And I use my week's tweets on my radio shows.http://bit.ly/cFc0rz

If the govt provided NO safety net, would the private sector step up and provide a better one or worse one? I dunno.

When I was young, I was sure that giving good advice, even if unwanted, was wise. I'm not so sure anymore.

They say "Outsource your low-level work" but I clean my house. That offers exercise, tangible accomplishment, break from the intellectual.

When you wake each morning, you have a choice of mindsets: gird for battle or enjoy each moment. Which you choose makes all the difference

Good counselor Qs: Your best hope? What diff. would that make? What's already helping? What would be the next sign of progress?

The best artists are self-taught. Teachers make you mechanistic and/or follow the teacher's preferences--all disempowering.

Esp. when applying for a high-level job, writing a thank-you can make you seem obsequious. Perhaps don't.

Cool avocation for sports nuts: Announcer for kids' sports league. How fun for a kid to hear his/her name over loudspeaker.

How to be a good salesperson: Listen more than talk. When you explain the product, pretend you're talking to a 6th grader.

Hire teachers who are NOT a natural: http://bit.ly/b3SA2H

My blueprint for a breakthrough, reinvented general education curriculum. http://bit.ly/dfoJNK. Feedback welcome.

HOW you receive a businesscard can make all the difference: #businesscardetiquette http://bit.ly/9X0Coq

Cool career: book packager: come up with title, angle, structure (table of contents,) look and feel, marketing.

Biz idea: organic perfume. http://bit.ly/aK7v9c

Choosing a career is like choosing a college. It matters far more whether you make the most of it than which one you choose.

Unlike say MD, most careers don't have obvious labels. To find em: search indeed.com using skills you want to use.

Mainstream media can only thrive if providing rich multimedia content. Otherwise, bloggers, tweeters, etc will trump. http://bit.ly/aIUEjU

Obama technique: He holds his chin up. It appears authoritative.

Obama's fatal flaw: insistence that major taxpayer $$$ to have govt rejigger, regulate, and prohibit, will be a net good

A fad: "Making a Difference." See my blog post: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/09/fad-making-difference.html

Keys to landingajob today: walk in, usajobs.gov, write a White Paper, start a low-risk biz (e.g., an gourmet sandwich/salad cart, then clone it)

Again, if you found these tweets worth your time, just click on the "Follow Me on Twitter" button near the top of this blog and you can get my subsequent tweets as soon as I post them.

How We Should Choose Our President

Watching the Hollywood-orchestrated Democratic National Convention reminded me of the absurdity of how we elect our leaders: Four years of pressing fat-cat and special-interest-group flesh (now, often electronically) to pay for Vegas-style conventions, campaign "events," obfuscatory commercials, and media War Rooms.

Can someone tell me what's wrong with my approach to reinventing how we elect our leaders: A three-week-long, completely taxpayer-funded campaign, which would consist only of televised debates and a non-partisan statement of their voting records and platforms on key issues, distributed over the internet, or in print, on request?

The result would be:

• Candidates not in the hip pocket of special interests
• Incumbents not having the unfair advantage of getting more donations because donors like to contribute to likely winners
• Better candidates would run because they didn't have to press the flesh constantly to get elected
• Most important, the electorate would be better informed because the quality information listed above would not be overshadowed by the obfuscatory hype.
  

More Projects That Can Make a Difference

As I wrote yesterday, I have many more project ideas than I have time for. So, if you don't want to do any of those I mentioned yesterday, how about one of these?

• A private elementary school for high-ability kids or a chain of them. No Child Left Behind and other public school programs driven more by politics than pedagogy are denying bright kids their right to an appropriate education, curtailing their ability to live up to their potential.
  
• A career counselor who does the job searching for clients. This person would cold-call and answer want ads on behalf of clients, so all the client would have to do was show up at the interview.
• Create Utopia College, an undergraduate college whose sole mission was to help undergraduates grow in important ways and to land good employment after graduation.
• Advocate for men. On behalf of the National Organization for Men, continually send op-eds and letters to the editors of the major media. Offer to appear on major TV shows, perhaps having debates on such propositions as: Who has it better: men or women?
• Intelligent Choice: A high-school or college course helping young women to realize that the choice of their child's father has a profound effect on both their child and themselves.
• A parenting education course: Taught in high schools, colleges, as part of LaMaze classes, or in maternity ward hospital rooms, this course, based on the critical incidents in parenting ,would help ensure that, from day one, parents had the skills to raise their children well.
• A financial literacy course: Taught in high schools or colleges, this would teach students how to get good deals, avoid getting ripped off, manage checkbooks and credit, and invest wisely (The word "Vanguard" would appear prominently.)
  
• An entrepreneurship course: This, unlike courses commonly taught in universities, would not focus on building scalable large innovations, which are too risky for the average self-employment aspirant. This course would focus on replicating low-investment, proven successful businesses as well as the art of unearthing out new, practical ideas and how to bring them to fruition.
  
• Champion three-week-long, publicly funded elections. That would encourage good candidates to run and ensure they weren't in special interests' hip pockets. To help ensure an informed electorate, voter information pamphlets and websites would include the candidates' voting record and position on key issues.