Looking for art books on Kindle? Below you will find a summary of oil painting instruction books by Rachel Shirley. A multitude of subject matter are tackled in each field, be it landscape painting or still life.
A diversity of oil painting techniques are also explored in depth in each book. Click on any book cover on the right to purchase a kindle art book from Amazon for just a few pounds (or dollars depending where you are), although my books are also available as print copy.
Briefly I have practiced oil painting from the age of six, achieving a BA Hons in Fine Art from Kingston, Surrey, as well as a PCET teaching qualification from Warwick. I also write children's picture books, details of which can be found at the bottom.
Why do My Clouds Look Like Cotton Wool? Plus 25 Solutions to Other Landscape Painting Peeves
Comprehensive troubleshooting advice on painting landscapes, including issues such as painting plein air, perspective and mixing greens. Chapters including ‘my skies are bland and empty,’ ‘my greens are artificial, and ‘how do I erase a mistake from my painting?’ tackles each issue indepth.
Book’s statistics: 24,000 words, over 100 colour illustrations and 20 diagrams, available as Kindle and hard copy.
Read more about this book.
Why do My Ellipses look Like Doughnuts? Plus 25 Solutions to Other Still Life Painting Peeves
Comprehensive troubleshooting advice on painting still life including issues such as ellipses, perspectives and textures. ‘Why do my flowers look wishy washy?’, or ‘the food in my still life resemble plastic toys?’ are just two chapters that tackle common issues related to still life art. An introductory chapter on oil painting materials enables the beginner to embark upon still life painting with minimal fuss, mess and expense, as well as a step by step demonstration at the back.
Book’s statistics: 24,000 words, over 100 colour illustrations and 20 diagrams. Available as Kindle and hard copy.
Read more about this book
Landscape Painting in Oils: Twenty Step by Step Guides
This oil painting instruction book contains 20 step by step landscape painting demonstrations on various landscape scenes including a coast, a castle and a desert. With preparatory chapters, troubleshooting tips and full instructions on how each painting was completed the project is likely to yield satisfactory results. Book’s statistics: 19,000 words and 187 colour images.
Read more about this book.
How Can I Inspire my Painting Class? (Lesson Plan Ideas for Oil Painting in Post Compulsory Education)
A guide book for art teachers offering lesson plan ideas for oil painting, including a section on a guide to oil painting materials, classroom management, learning styles and conducting assessments. The main section of the book gives lesson plan ideas for beginners, a course in still life, landscape art, plein air painting and lots of others. This book has 45,000 words and has over 100 colour images and diagrams. A must for any teacher of oil painting. Note, for those wishing to purchase a hardcopy, a colour version and a black and white version (for cheaper cost) are available.
Read more about this book.
Oil Paintings From your Garden
(Hard copy only) An invaluable oil painting book for artists wishing to find inspiration in the garden. Sections include a beginner’s guide to oil painting materials, finding inspiration in the garden and pointers to painting the various subject matter including flowers, figures and skies. My book is 172 pages long. Available as hardcopy only. Published by the Guild of Master Craftsman Publications (2002) Limited
Read more about this book or purchase a signed copy from Ebay.
Oil Paintings From the Landscape
(Hard copy only) A guide to painting the landscape, including a section on plein air painting, oil painting on a budget, and issues surrounding painting various subject matter in the landscape. This invaluable art book for landscape artists is available as hard copy only. Published by the Guild of Master Craftsman Publications (2003).
Read more about this book.
Children’s picture books
Ben’s Little Big Adventure
Ben’s Little Big Adventure describes a small boy’s quest for a midnight snack. Only trouble is, everything in his room seems to have scaled up to the proportions of the earth’s great wonders, including the furniture and even his cat. If only Ben’s toy helicopters, cranes and hot air balloon had real engines, for they would make his quest a little easier. With so much to climb and navigate, will Ben ever find his way to his prized biscuits and jam?
Print book’s statistics: 8x10in, 1000 words approx and 32 pages full of colour illustrations.
Read more about this book.
Katie’s Magic Teapot and the Cosmic Pandas
An educational picture book for children with full colour images completed in oils, Katie’s Magic Teapot and the Cosmic Pandas takes the reader into a journey through the universe to discover planets, moons, galaxies and other oddities within our cosmos. The journey takes place rather bizarrely within a magic teapot. See sample pages of Katie’s cosmic journey or purchase.
Print book’s statistics: 8x10in, 1000 words approx and 32 pages full of colour illustrations.
Read more about this book.
Katie and the Cosmic Pandas’ Deep Sea Voyage
Forming the sequel to Katie’s Magic Teapot and the Cosmic Pandas, this educational picture book for young children, describe Katie’s quest for treasure as she and her troupe venture in the deep oceans within Katie’s magic teapot. Along the way, Katie learns about coral reefs, oceanic mammals and creatures of the deep. But will Katie find any treasure to bring back to her mummy and daddy? See sample pages of Katie’s marine journey here or make a purchase.
Print book’s statistics: 8x10in, 1000 words approx and 32 pages full of colour illustrations.
Read more about this book
Books by Rachel Shirley
200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes: Healthy Living and Income Plotted Out
Professor Hans Rosling is a man who revels in the glorious nerdiness of statistics, and here he entertainingly explores their history, how they work mathematically and how they can be used in today's computer age to see the world as it really is, not just as we imagine it to be. Rosling's lectures use huge quantities of public data to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. In the following four minute film, he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes. Despite its light and witty touch, the film nonetheless has a serious message - without statistics we are cast adrift on an ocean of confusion, but armed with stats we can take control of our lives, hold our rulers to account and see the world as it really is. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine. Enjoy!
Hans Rosling has written a textbook too- check out Global Health: An Introductory Textbook.
Data is the New Oil,Africa is Rich
The environment is rich in phenomena that has been observed, analyzed, commoditized and, in many cases, exploited. But much like the precious mineral and natural gas resources of the continent, for local societies, the tools for extraction are sparse or absent. In this context we aren’t talking about refineries, we’re talking about the capacity to collect, understand, and manipulate statistics and quantitative research to build narratives that change behavior or encourage action.More here
Shanta Devarajan recently pointed out this ‘statistical tragedy’ of Africa:To show that this is not an arcane point, consider the case of Ghana, which decided to update its GDP last year to the 1993 system. When they did so, they found that their GDP was 62 percent higher than previously thought. Ghana’s per capita GDP is now over $1,000, making it a middle-income country. The “tragedy” is that we were happily publishing GDP statistics and growth figures for Ghana over the last decades, when in fact the national accounts were understating GDP by 62 percent…. The tragedy is that donors, including the World Bank, undertake statistical activities without ensuring that they are consistent with the NSDS. Why? Because they need data for their own purpose—to publish reports—and this means getting it faster, with little time to strengthen the countries’ statistical capacity. But just as Africans turned around their growth tragedy, they can turn around their statistical tragedy.
Khan Academy
Since I'm an elementary + secondary English person, I focus a lot on tools that can be used in reading and writing. Science-y tech tools are pretty easy to find, but I've found that, in general, I have a lot harder of a time finding technological math tools. One of my good friends teaches Algebra, and she is working hard this year to incorporate more technology into her classroom. When I stumbled onto Khan Academy, it immediately made me think of her because of the math possibilities on this website. But if you teach science, history, or any type of financial or economics course, Khan Academy would be good for you, too.
Khan Academy offers FREE videos to the public over the subjects mentioned above. There are over 2,000 videos available for viewing, and they seem to be adding more!
A really cool math feature: math exercises are offered, one-by-one, at whatever level of difficulty you need. Users work the problem out step-by-step before being taken to another equation generated by Khan Academy. The website can remember progress students have made while doing equations, and can e-mail the teacher statistics of each student's work.
While Khan Academy doesn't follow any state's specific standards, it does hit concepts commonly referenced on ACT, SAT, AP exams, and other standardized tests. I assume it would be easy to find a video to fit a particular objective since the videos are clearly labeled.
You can watch the videos for free and without doing anything to register, but if you want Khan Academy to remember any progress, produce any charts, etc. you must sign up for a free account. If you want your students to use this and be tracked individually, each student must have his/her own free account. I know it sounds like a hassle, but the rewards are steep! On the plus side, anyone can use their Google or Facebook account to sign in quickly and easily to Khan Academy, and almost everyone has registered for at least one of those websites!
If you only look at the subject list, it may appear as though Khan Academy doesn't offer much. But that's an illusion. They focus mainly on math and science, but their collections of videos in those two subjects are quite extensive. For instance, in the math section, there are the following categories: arethmetic, developmental math 1, developmental math 2, core pre-algebra, worked examples 1, brain teasers, worked examples 2, worked examples 3, worked examples 4, core geometry, trig, probability, statistics, pre-calc, calc, differential equations, and linear algebra. And then each of those categories hosts a plethora of video options. For instance, in the "core algebra" category, there appear to be about 100 videos!
The videos appear as YouTube videos, but since they're shown through the Khan Academy website, you shouldn't have any problems with filters, even if YouTube is blocked at your school.
Here's an example of a video. This one is titled "Algebra: Slope."
Although I believe that teachers should do the teaching in their classrooms, I do understand that sometimes videos are necessary. Videos taught by a person other than the teacher can give students a look at someone else's teaching method, which may increase understanding. Videos can also provide supplemental information (particularly at home) or can be something to show in a pinch when you need emergency lesson plans in preparation for a substitute.
Whatever your intention, maybe Khan Academy will help your students grasp a better understanding of its featured subjects.
11 Things Bloggers Should Do Today (And a Look at Blogger's New Changes)
The purpose of this blog post is to share with you six reasons I started with Blogger in 2005 and am here six+ years later, a view under the hood of blogger today (and some some upcoming changes that Google annouced at SXSW), and eleven things all of you who blog (especially Blogger) should do NOW. I know that my wordpress friends have access to lots of goodies and certainly that is a good platform, but Blogger is what I use.
Let's start with the ten things bloggers should do today. If some of them don't make sense, keep reading for screenshots and details on how this feature is used.
11 Things Bloggers Should Do Today:
- Log in to Blogger in Draft - http://draft.blogger.com - this is the ONLY place I log in. It gives you access to the newest features including the ability to mobilize your site. (If you are on another platform, look on their blog to see if there is a way you can access beta features.)
- Review your settings. All of them. (Do this again when the new interface is released.)
- Make sure you've made your blog go mobile. (Click on Design and Mobile in blogger.) Every website and blog should be mobile compatible and no, it is not automatic. I've tried Mobify and had a hard time with it so I like the automatic way Blogger does this for me.
- Control your own feed. I recommend Feedburner but there are other services out there as well. This means you can "port" your subscribers over if you ever have to. (Make sure you go into your settings and redirect your feed.)
- Activate an email subscription service. If you are a school this is essential. This is a feature of Feedburner but right now I use Feedblitz for this which interfaces with Feedburner. Many people still read email and with over half of adults in their email daily, this is coveted screenspace. Just make sure it is EASY to unsubscribe and that you follow the CAN-SPAM Act here in the US.
- Backup your blog - Look at how you are backing up. Certainly, your blog is there on the server, but what if someone hacked your account and deleted your blog? Could you get it back without having to call the company? I use Backupify.
- Syndicate your Blog to Twitter - Your blog should autopost a tweet when you update. You might forget and many people use Twitter as their RSS reader. I use Twitterfeed.
- Syndicate your Blog to Facebook - I use Networked Blogs but you can use any service that sends your Blog online. I highly recommend you make a Facebook Fan page for this service.
- Make it easy to send your blog to Facebook, Twitter, Wherever - I use Tweetmeme for the badge on my blog and the blogger widget for the bottom. I'm planning on adding a Facebook "Like " button. Make it easy to share your blog.
- Look at Other Blogs and make a List of Features to Try. I get "under the hood" of my blog at least once a year for one to two days. I start by looking at other blogs and making lists of what I like and don't like to decide what I will do. Right now, I have several issues on my own blog: load time of widgets, want to customize background, make easier to share to Facebook, etc. I keep a list in my Paperless app on my itouch so when it is time I'm ready to go.
- Be Real. Finally, blog well. Perhaps some of the best thoughts on the transparency and authenticity required to be a good blogger are in Guy Kawasaki's new book, Enchantment
. Great read for everyone, especially bloggers.
So, why would anyone use blogger? Here are my reasons. Look at your platform to make sure you've considered these issues.
- Google Search Optimization
When I started blogging in 2005, I was a noob at blogging but had been doing the search engine optimization thing since I started hand coding websites in 1995. Staying optimized for Google's search engine was a headache but I knew that if I went with Google for blogging that it would be optimized for Google. I've not been proven wrong in that my blog comes up quickly in searches of all kinds and doesn't have issues with the Google bot crawling, etc. that I've experienced with the sites that I've hand coded. - Ability to Customize using HTML
For many years I had hand coded my blog into three columns and yes, I wrote it by hand in notepad. It is nice for a blogging platform to "do it for you" (like wordpress) but I didn't HAVE to have that feature. The fact that I can have direct access to my HTML and copy and paste it into wordpad is a benefit.
So, when I see something on Timothy Ferris', Guy Kawasaki's, or even Techcrunch, I can look at their code (Go to View--> source in your webbrowser), figure out how they did it, and then do it on my own blog.
The good news for those who didn't understand a thing I just said is that you don't have to do this anymore to have a sweet site on blogger. You can just go into templates and use their widgets and have almost anything. Feed services like feedburner (now owned by Google) can easily add widgets as well. - Ability to Backup
I use Backupify to back up my Picasa web albums, blogger blog, and my gmail every week. If it is worth having, it is worth backing up. No, this feature isn't FROM blogger but is just one example of how many "plug ins" are available for the platform. - New Features Have Been Coming
If Bing has taught Google anything it is that competition can come from nowhere and quickly. We've seen super-fast improvements to Google Docs as well as blogger. I no longer have to link all of my about information to www.coolcatteacher.com and statcounter.com has become less vital to tracking my stats. Yes, I sometimes get things later than other people, but that is OK.
The new user interface announced at SXSW looks cool and you can see it in their video below. (You'll have to watch a bit of a pitch about how great blogger is at the beginning.) - Cool Tools Interact with Blogger
I love Zemanta (helps quickly add links and photos to posts), Tweetmeme (the cute Twitter button on the top left), Disqus (my comment moderation service), Twitterfeed (feeds my blog into Twitter), and Networked Blogs (feeds my blog into Facebook), Kindle Publishing (to feed my blog onto the Kindle), Diigo (the bookmarking service that feeds my links into my daily news blog post) and several other tools that don't come to me right now. Because blogger is one of the leading services, I have few compatibility issues. Yes, sometimes wordpress people get things before me, but if I can't hack my site, usually I know the service will be coming to me soon. - Moving Your Blog Takes You Backwards.
Some people like change for the sake of change. When you're dealing with a blog - even if you know how to move your subscribers using a service like Feedburner - you're leaving all that traffic and conversation behind. It is literally like splitting off part of you. I know people like Doug Belshaw who have had to move but still have issues with links to old posts. If you do it and have your reasons - do it ONCE but if you keep moving, you'll just not make best use of yourself.
I don't move because every link and every subscriber are precious. I've spent six years of my life building up the conversation and sharing things that are very important to me. My family has given up time with me for this blog and I'm not going backwards. This blog is very important to me and my life, not just monetarily, although certainly I've received some excellent speaking offers from my work here. Blogging is important to me because it is what I do and who I am. Onwards and upwards - don't go backwards. In this case, moving would be moving backwards. Not going there. - I don't have to advertise.
Lots of free services are supported with Google ads. I do use Amazon affiliates when appropriate, however, I've made a decision not to sell links nor use Google adsense at the present time. I'd like you to know that I am writing about what I share because it is something I like or believe in. The fact that Google doesn't force me into doing their adsense service is a positive for me. I know the traffic I get means that I'm giving up money, however, I hope that those who read my blog will come see me speak and buy my books when they come available.
I don't hate Google ads, it is just that contextual ads mean that things contrary to the message of a post can easily appear. For example, when I tested it, I had a page on term papers and had ads selling term papers come up. Sure, I can exclude certain types of ads, however, as an educator, I have decided this is the right move for me, who I am, and the message I carry.
New Blogger Features "Under the Hood"
For those of you who want to "compare" - let's look at the back end of my blogger blog today, knowing that some of these will change.
Blogger Posts and Pages
I can post blogs or "pages."Blogs, like the one shown below are individual blogs. You can add up to 10 standalone "pages" like the one I have on the top bar of my blog including Freebies and About Me.
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| The current blogger interface. The "in text links" and "context recommendations" are from the Zemanta plug in for Firefox that I use to generate links. |
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| New blogger interface announced by Google. |
Blogger Statistics
I've been using statcounter for years and have also recently used some alert services, but the new statistics tracking is a START. The most important thing to me is the backlinks. It is important to me to comment when people link to my blog. This has become a bit more challenging now that my blog is distributed over so many platforms, however, I like how statcounter lets me see just about every place I'm getting traffic to my blog. Then, I can go comment and read what they are writing. You can see that the referring URL's that I'm getting now are limited. I care about even the 1's and 2's and don't get that as much.
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| Current statistics tracking page for one aspect of stats - links. |
Blogger Templates
There are many more templates and the ability to customize the web fonts that you use. Still, for me, there aren't quite enough choices and the ability to customize templates is a feature most named by my wordpress friends. This is an area where I'll need to do some customization work over the summer. I and most of you like to look different and personal to who we are. I like the colors of my blog but have some work to do.
I do, however, like the widgets that we have now which requires less "geekiness" on my part as I can modularly edit HTML instead of getting into the code.
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| Current back end of my blogger template. You can see the gadgets or "widgets" as some call them. |
Mobile Sites
It is vital to "mobilize" your site. This is one reason I have our school news on blogger and then feed it into the website. Deploying via email subscription and mobile sites is important to me. It is easier to let Google handle the work. This is something you have to go into Google draft and activate, however.
Commenting
I still use disqus for a multitude of reasons, including the ability to moderate through email, however I set up disqus to sync my blogger comments. This way I can go back if and when blogger catches up to the robust features of disqus. It is a pretty simple setup and worth it. For most people, though, blogger comments with improved spam are doable.
I do not believe in "closing" posts as I think that this is a bit of legacy snobbery. Do we think that those who come later to a blog post do not deserve to be heard. I still get great comments on old posts and sometimes older posts just go active for some reason - let the conversation continue! Disqus is great at zapping the spam that hits older posts.
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| Current blogger commenting system which is improved, however, I still use disqus.com. |
Disadvantages
Blogger isn't perfect. No blogging service is. My biggest issues right now are:
- Limitations in China - In the last month even when using a VPN, the google blocking situation in China has become almost impossible to get around. My friends are reverting to yahoo mail and shunning google docs for things like Zohowriter. This is why it is important that I syndicate my blog in other places including Kindle. I don't have a complete answer to this as the situation in China and filtering Google has become HUGE.
- Glitches - Little glitches like the linking problem that I've been having while posting today can become annoying. What blog doesn't have glitches.
- Crash - I did crash halfway through this post, however, I've found that most often it happens in new browsers (I'm using Firefox 4) and with plug ins (Zemanta caused the last one.)
- Scheduled Posts -I schedule many of my posts. I have to be careful because at least one time out of three the scheduled post DOESN'T happen. I'm not sure why.
- Beauty. OK, Wordpress friends - your blogs are prettier. They just are, but if you can't be found then it is kind of like a flower in a box. (I'm not saying you can't be found but it does take some intentional work on your part.)
- Blogger Bar - You have to remove this manually.
Black Friday: Obama, Robert Frank, and Other Liberals are Wrong for Hating It
President Obama, like most liberals and the party it controls (the once-proud Democratic Party), doesn't like the fact that you make decisions regarding your life- he wants to make them. And now that he has the power of trillions in taxpayer money and thousands of employees, he has the means to tell you how to live your own life. And so he has decided that he doesn't like big stores that thrive by providing goods and services to people in efficient and low-cost ways; rather, he likes small stores and so is going to go around the nation and pay for his administration to fly around the nation making speeches ordering you to not shop for great deals and save money at the big stores, but rather to shop at smaller stores, because he wants you to.
Liberals, being the elitists they are, don't really like Black Friday- as E.D. Kain describes it, these liberals reject Black Friday and the larger consumerism that accompanies this season (regrettably) for two reasons
...first, a sense that such overt consumerism is the hallmark of capitalism and that capitalism is somehow morally insufficient; and second, a distaste for the aesthetic of Black Friday – all those plebes rushing about buying things like so much chattel- these denizens of midnight Walmart sales are just icky...It is the second thing that I believe really strikes me as the case, because most liberals think they are so much smarter than the rest of us and look down their noses at us, wanting to govern and manage us because they don't understand liberty, freedom, private property rights, capitalism, religion, morality, civic mindedness, charity, and all the other hallmarks of the conservative heartland of America. Because they don't understand these concepts, they reject them, pretending that they don't really exist, and that instead everyone who believes in them must be stupid or dumb, and so they wave around their Ivy League diploma's and listen to their pretentious public television or radio, use big words, scold everyone for not having proper grammar, and make fun of all the 'average people' scurrying about on Black Friday getting good deals and saving money and making our economy go around.
You see, you won't catch Barack Obama or other liberals out on Black Friday- he'll be joining the other Occupy Wall Street protesters in boycotting it, because they have enough money not to need deals, they have enough time to spend hours looking for a great deal, and they generally are not thrifty and efficient spenders enough to care about saving money as a family and getting the best deal.
Robert Frank is a great example of the sort of liberal who forms the intellectual backbone of modern day liberalism, the sort that dominates the Democratic Party today. He had time and money to go out and get several degrees in math and statistics, taking time off from his studies to work in government and give lectures, before he settled into an Ivy League school to lecture other elitists and write columns for snooty New York Times and write books with Ben Bernanke. For most of his life he has written and talked about how wealth and prosperity for all has somehow made the poor in America even more poor, and he sees no hypocrisy in doing so as he has flown around the world, eaten in nice restaurants, and lived in a nice house.
In this week's New York Times article How to End the Black Friday Madness, lectures those whom he sees as beneath him with a contempt just hidden (unlike the contempt that I hold him in that I am not hiding). He writes:
ADAM SMITH’S most enthusiastic modern disciples insist that the recipe for economic progress is to push government aside and let unfettered markets work their magic. His invisible hand theory does provide a tidy account of how market incentives can generate enormous wealth. But as Charles Darwin saw so clearly, unbridled competition doesn’t always promote the common good....Frank, being an educated liberal, employs here the usual judgement of other people, feeling that he somehow gets to decide what is a 'reasonable hour' for stores to open, even though he does not run any sort of stores and has never served as a manager of any sort of store at any level his whole life.
....In recent years, large retail chains have been competing to be the first to open their doors on Black Friday. The race is driven by the theory that stores with the earliest start time capture the most buyers and make the most sales. For many years, stores opened at a reasonable hour. Then, some started opening at 5 a.m., prompting complaints from employees about having to go to sleep early on Thanksgiving and miss out on time with their families. But retailers ignored those complaints, because their earlier start time proved so successful in luring customers away from rival outlets...
From this place of supreme unwisdom and experience, guided by a piece of paper saying that he knows something, he has decided to play God and decide when people should start shopping. He then ignores the overtime that these employees are paid and has no knowledge of the many people hired just for this day- people who are not regular employees but who are given a paycheck on this day purely because the hours are not regular- and with this lack of knowledge of what is going on he has decided that it isn't becoming of employees to go in to work at a job that they choose to be at. Don't worry workers- with a guy like Frank on your side, he'll push for less jobs and less overtime and less hours, and in so doing make you more poor. He's like all other liberals, and the Liberal-in-Chief President Obama, in his utter failure to understand economics, math, statistics, people, or anything else about this world.
Frank believes that if we were all to empower him with the ability to control the world, the collective will would be better served by him controlling when we shop and how much items sell for and all the other sorts of personal decisions made by private individuals that he doesn't understand or know about.
I've never been a big fan of Black Friday, but if the liberals and Obama and Robert Frank are against it, I think that I need to change my tune, and do a little bit of online shopping tonight!
Stick it in Frank and Obama's eye- buy something tonight! Here are a couple suggestions...
Shop Amazon's New Kindle Fire
Shop Amazon's Holiday Toy List
Shop Amazon's Gift Cards - Perfect Anytime
Shop Amazon's Christmas Corner - Holiday decor, tableware, and entertainment
UPDATE: Welcome readers from The Village Voice! Take a look around and learn something!
Government Aid vs Prosperity
Not that I'm telling you anything you don't know, but I always love it when statistics generally bear out my crazy theories that the way to create a prosperous free economy is to have low government regulation and low taxes. For my unit on state and local government, I found this article on Variations in Government Aid Across the Nation that was put together by the New York Times. This report looks at welfare, unemployment, housing assistance, food stamps, health insurance for poor adults, and health insurance for poor children, and measures them from state to state.
The top states in terms of providing generous benefits to their citizens- in other words, those that take money from taxpayers and re-distribute that wealth to those who did not earn it are (in descending order): Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, DC, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Iowa, and Michigan.
Out of curiosity, I decided to pull up some information on GDP growth, and provided by the Department of Commerce. The results are interesting. Here are the GDP growth rates for those states, with numbers from 2006 and 2007: Vermont (2.8, 1.5) , Maine (1.9, 1.3), Massachusetts (2.9, 2.5), DC (4.1, 4.3), Pennsylvania (1.7, 1.6), West Virginia (0.6, 0.1), Iowa (2.6, 1.7), and Michigan (-0.5, -1.2).
Those states that let citizens keep their wealth and freely make their own decisions are: Colorado, Texas, Utah, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Virginia.
Here are their GDP growth rates (2006, 2007): Colorado (4.3, 2.0), Texas (4.3, 4.1), Utah (7.2, 5.3), Florida (4.2, 0.0), Nevada (4.1, 0.6), Arizona (6.8, 1.8), Oklahoma (6.7, 4.0), and Virginia (3.2, 1.9).
As you can see, the results are pretty conclusive. States that redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, divert money from taxpayers to nonworkers, subsidize poor quality housing, give people food, and provide government-paid healthcare are less prosperous, less successful, and less free.
Those states that follow these unsuccessful public polices have GDP growth rates significantly and consistently lower, and over several generations destroy the wealth and productivity of their citizens. If our whole nation were to adopt those same policies, our children and children's children- our posterity- would grow up less free, less happy, and less prosperous than we are today.
The conclusion, as demonstrated with this limited amount of research, is clear- our public policies should emphasize self-sufficiency, less public welfare, and lower unemployment benefits, and should keep the state out of building structures for people just because of their income status, and should teach a man to fish instead of giving him fish, and should not provide as a right of birth state-supported healthcare.
UPDATE: Today I saw a report from the Mercatus Center at Georgetown called Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom. Earlier I pointed out that many of the states that provided the most social welfare services to its citizens also are less prosperous. Looking over this report, I notice that those states that provide healthcare to poor, housing subsidies, and food stamps also are less free. I guessed this fact (see above), but it's nice that my guess is now backed up in numbers that show that.
According to the rankings in the report (1 is most free, 50 is least), the least free states- the states with the most tyrrany and oppression by government- compare favorably with my list of states that had the highest social welfare.
Here are the states that provide the most social services and their rankings on freedom- Vermont (40), Maine (39), Massachusetts (43), DC (NR), Pennsylvania (20), West Virginia (33), Iowa (16), and Michigan (14). Here are the states that provide the least social services and their rankings on freedom- Colorado (2), Texas (5), Utah (11), Florida (22), Nevada (24), Arizona (8), Oklahoma (18), and Virginia (9).
There you go- states that encourage conservative values are more prosperous and more free. The data doesn't lie.
Targetting the Unbanked
Alec Russell reports in FT:
Economists have long argued that formal statistics underestimate activity in the informal sector.Under white rule(in South Africa), townships were ignored by banks partly because they were deemed commercially unviable, partly because of the lawlessness, and partly because it did not occur to most bankers to expand services out of their “comfort zone”, says one executive drily.
Now, however, there is a dual impulse for banks to reassess their old ways: there is growing awareness of the size of the informal economy and the rewards from tapping it; and they also need to fulfil their obligations to the banking charter, which requires banks to make amends for the past, when they catered mainly to whites, by expanding services...[continue reading]
Mining the Numbers: BLS Data Shows Obama Has Destroyed 500M in Jobs, Bush Created 9000M?
During his State of the Union address on January 24, 2012, President Barack Obama offered up reasons why voters should give him a second term of office, arguing that
...In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs...Many on the left (like Balloon Juice) are trotting out this statistic as evidence that President Obama's policies are successful at creating jobs and putting Americans back to work. Although the jobs are being created by businesses, and it could be argued that these jobs would have been created regardless of who was in office, liberals and Democrats and progressives argue that President Obama deserves credit for 3 million jobs created by him while he was President and that we should all vote for him again in 2012.
And to be fair, if President Obama's policies have been successful in creating millions of jobs for workers, then we should give him credit and a second term of office- President Clinton, who was a Democrat, deserved another term of office in 1996 on the strength of a booming economy. But also to be fair, if President Obama's policies have not been successful in creating millions if jobs for workers, let's hold him accountable and throw him out of office, because it is important to be fair.
So let's take a look at some numbers, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which are pretty unbiased (although I will point out that any likely bias to be introduced by this government agency would favor Obama). These numbers are generated here, and are not seasonally adjusted. All numbers are in the thousands.
For comparison, let's first look at President Bush, the Republican in office who preceded Obama. According to the BLS, when President Bush took office in January in 2001 the number of people age 16 or older employed in our nation was 136181K. Over the next year, that number dropped to 134177 (Jan 02). By January of 2007 the number climbed to 144275K. Democrats took over control of the House and Senate at this time. The number of employed though continued to climb, hitting 146867K in July of 2008. It is at this point that the 'crash' occurred, and on leaving office the number of people employed had dropped to 145362.
A couple ways to look at this data. Overall, 9181K (over 9 million) jobs were created during Bush's time as President. If you want to say that 'the first year doesn't count', then Bush created 11185K jobs. If you want to say that 'the first year doesn't count and the first year of the next guy's Presidency does'- in other words, count as 'Bush' the years from Jan 02 to Dec 10, then Bush created 2392K jobs. If you want to simply count by 'first three years', Bush created 1555K jobs.
Now let's look at President Obama. According to the BLS, when President Obama took office in January of 2009 the number of people age 16 or older employed in our nation was 140436K. Over the next year, that number dropped to 136809K (Jan 10). Buy January of 2011, the number climbed to 137599. Republicans took back control of the House at this time, although the Senate was still controlled by Democrats. The number employed continued to climb, hitting 139869 today.
A couple ways to look at this data. Overall, 567K (half a million) jobs have been lost during Obama's time as President. If you want to say that 'the first year doesn't count,' then Obama created 3060K jobs (or, 'over 3 million' as he bragged about in his speech). If you want to simply count by 'first three years', Obama lost 567K jobs.
So, let's go back to the earlier point that Obama was trying to make- that his policies helped us to recover from a recession and created 3 million jobs, and so he should be re-elected. In comparison to the Republican who was in office before him- a Republican who Democrats said was 'dumb' and who made 'lots of mistakes'- Obama fares considerably worse by any measure. In overall comparison, Bush created almost 10 million more jobs; in 'first year doesn't count', Bush created almost 8 million more jobs; and in 'first three years' comparison, Bush created almost 2 million more jobs. By any comparison, the 'bumbling idiot' who was in office prior to Obama did a considerably better job at being around when jobs were created by businesses.
The argument against why Obama should be elected to a second term is not 'things got worse under Obama', because that's going to turn out to be not true (I imagine employment will grow enough over his last year to give him a positive balance overall). The argument against why Obama should not be elected to a second term is that his policies made the road to recovery longer, tougher, and worse and that his job-killing policies, supported by a Democratic Congress, led to the loss of jobs in America versus what we could have expected from anyone else.
If the Republicans nominate a candidate comparable to Bush, whom Democrats constantly attacked as unqualified and dumb, than we can expect millions more jobs than what Obama has demonstrated that he can create; if the Republicans nominate a candidate better than Bush (someone smarter, with more business savvy, leadership skills, experience saving bankrupt enterprises, experience balancing budgets, etc) than we can hope for more jobs created than under Bush. Either way, Obama should not be re-elected.
And keep in mind I ignored for our purposes here the increase in population in our nation that has occurred (see my earlier discussion breaking down the Employment-Population Ratio, which measures number of people employed as a percentage of the population- under Bush that rate averaged around 62%, and under Obama it has hovered around 58%, even over the past 22 months of job growth that Obama is bragging about the ratio has only gone up 0.6%). Population growth should naturally lead to more jobs being created- it did under Bush, but yet it hasn't under Obama.
And also keep in mind the debt that our nation has taken on to achieve these results. Bush created 9 million jobs and added 4 trillion in debt- Obama lost 500 million jobs and added 5 trillion in debt. This means that my children and grandchildren gave up a lot of their future for nothing under Obama.
Personal insults, soaring rhetoric, and misleading claims don't stand up the force of data, information, facts, and reasoning. President Obama needs to be gone.
Workers Losing The Fruits Of Their Labor:Will DC Teachers Be Next?
On this labor day - many workers will have very little to celebrate with some 6.9 million jobs being lost since the recession. It is reported that August 2009 unemployment rates reached as high as 9.7 % and millions of workers have seen their hours, wages and health care cut.
compiled by Anna Turner, 9/4/09
TOTAL JOBS LOST DURING THE RECESSION: 6.9 MILLION
• New jobs needed per month to keep up with population growth: 127,000
• Jobs lost in August 2009: 216,000
• Construction jobs lost in the recession: 1.4 million (19%, nearly one in five construction jobs)
• Mass layoffs (50 or more people by a single employer) in July 2009: 2,157; jobs lost: 206,791
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: 9.7%
• Number unemployed: 14.9 million (up from 7.5 million in December 2007)
• Underemployment rate: 16.8%; Share of workers un- or underemployed: roughly 1 in 6
• Under- and unemployed, marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers: 26.4 million
• Unemployment rate, ages 16 to 24: 18.2%
• Male unemployment: 10.9%; female unemployment: 8.2%
• White unemployment: 8.9%; black unemployment: 15.1%; Hispanic unemployment: 13%
• Unemployment rate, young college graduates: 5.9% (2nd worst on record); Worst recorded unemployment rate for young college graduates: 6.2% (1983)
• Traditional ratio of young college grads’ unemployment to overall rate: 50%; Current ratio:70%
• Portion of unemployed who have been jobless more than six months: one third
• Average weekly unemployment benefit in July (including additional $25 per week from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act): $332
STATES WITH DOUBLE-DIGIT UNEMPLOYMENT IN JULY, 2009: 16; WHEN THIS LAST HAPPENED: 1983
• Highest unemployment rate: Michigan, 15.0%; lowest: North Dakota, 4.2%
• When California’s Hispanic unemployment surpassed black unemployment: 2nd quarter, 2009
INCREASE IN AVERAGE U.S. WORKER’S PRODUCTIVITY, 2000-07: 19.2%
• Decrease in all prime-aged worker’s real median weekly wages, 2000-2007: $1; Decrease forAfrican Americans: $3
• Annual growth rate of private-sector workers’ wages, last three months: 2.6%
• Annual growth of wages in managerial, professional, and related occupations, 2009, 2nd quarter:0%
• Ratio of average CEO’s pay to typical worker’s pay in 1979: 27 to 1; Ratio in 2007: 275 to 1
SHARE OF PEOPLE NEAR RETIREMENT AGE WITH A 401(K) BALANCE UNDER $40,000 IN 2007: 50%
• Percentage of amount needed to maintain living standards that is held by average 401(k) participant approaching retirement: 20-40%
• Share of 401(k) assets estimated to be lost since 2007: 29%
WORKPLACES WITH NO CONTRACT MORE THAN THREE YEARS AFTER ELECTION IS WON: 25%
• Share of employers that interrogate workers in mandatory one-on-one meetings, 1999-2003:63%; Share of employers that threaten workers in such meetings, 1999-2003: 54%
• Increase in likelihood that firm will fail if unionized: 0%
EXPECTED NEW SPENDING (12-MONTHS) FROM THE NEW $7.25 MINIMUM WAGE: $5.5 BILLION
• Share of minimum wage workers with high school diploma in 1979: 57.5%: Share in 2008:72%
• Workers getting a raise from latest minimum wage increase: 4.5 million
• Share of affected workers with annual family income below $35,000: 57.1%; Share working at least 20 hours a week: 81.6%
AMERICANS UNINSURED IN 2007: 45 MILLION
• Drop in children covered through parents’ employers, 2000 to 2007: 3.4 million
• Share of people under 65, with incomes in the top 20%, covered by employers in 2007: 86.4%; Share with incomes in the bottom 20%, covered by employers: 21.9%
• Share of Hispanic workers who are uninsured: 39.8%
• Percentage of under-65 Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance in 2000: 68.3%; In 2007: 62.9%
Posted by The Washington Teacher, Report courtesy of Economic Policy Institute
Tackling judicial corruption in Ghana
Justice Joseph Akamba said that the spectre of corruption was incredibly harmful to the legal profession. Complaints were not just about the payment of money to judges, but about the attitudes and practices shown towards litigants in court and within court premises, he said. Statistics from the complaints unit were disheartening and it was important that judges did not shy away from addressing the issues raised.
He called on judges to be committed to learning and to remain up to date with developments in the law.
A group of lawyers sparked controversy earlier this year when they accused the judiciary of corruption, leading to calls from magistrates and judges for the lawyers prove their claims or retract and apologise.