Fortress Update

The astonishing and unexpected progress continues! Despite the masons taking the day off (because of the uncertainty about the inspection time), a lot was accomplished. Ruben (my contractor) and the inspector showed up within moments of each other, before 8 am. A few minutes later, after some minor difficulty locating the rebar schedule (the specification for the size of the rebar) on the design drawing, we were approved – we passed the inspection!

Next came the really surprising part… I can't help but think of Ruben as the absolute master of procrastination – eight months of zero activity will do that to you. But today, after the pleasant surprise of an early-in-the-day inspection (passed!), Ruben turned into the whirling dervish of Jamul. With a few phone calls, he arranged for the delivery of the remaining materials we need for construction, for delivery this afternoon of the 3.5 yards of concrete needed for the next pour, for Carlos (the concrete pumper) this afternoon, and for the masons to show back up tomorrow. Whew!

Even better – the material actually showed up, Carlos arrived and set up his pump, and the concrete arrived on time. Moments later, Carlos started pumping concrete into the voids inside the concrete blocks already laid. This operation is called a “grout lift” – the “grout” means filling the holes in the blocks with concrete, and the “lift” refers to filling the blocks up only to a certain height (five feet, in this case). The reason for limiting a grout lift to five feet is to limit the hydraulic pressure acting on the lower runs of block being filled – if the lift were made high enough (say, 10 feet), the pressure might be high enough to burst those blocks. What a mess that would be, with concrete running out all over the place!

Tomorrow Davy starts early in the morning, putting up the last 7 runs of block. He and his sons should be finished with that in two or three days of work. After that, they'll begin installing the form and rebar for pouring the last grout lift (which will fill the new blocks they're about to lay) and the pour for the roof. My estimate is that we'll make that pour next Wednesday or Thursday. Woo hoo!

The Blob

The unions who represent federal employees love to spin the image of their members as selfless civil servants, making sacrifices like long hours and low pay in order to (patriotically, of course) serve their country.

Don't you believe it!

The new data for 2006 show that 1.8 million federal civilian workers earned an average $111,180 in total compensation (wages plus benefits). That is more than double the $55,470 average earned by U.S. workers in the private sector.

Looking just at wages, federal workers earned an average $73,406, which is 60 percent greater than the $45,995 average earned by private sector workers.

The full report has much more detail.

At the same time that compensation for Federal employees is soaring, so is the percentage of the work force employed by the government. In 2006, the government employed 16% (20 of 128 million) of all employees.

We are slowly being transformed from a society of entrepreneurs with a small, idealistic government to a society that impedes entrepreneurs with a large, selfish government of leeches. This path leads to a bad place, similar to where Europe was a couple decades ago – and has been running away from ever since.

The more developed and entrenched our money-corrupted government becomes, the harder it becomes to throw the bums out. The recent earmark “reform” should be all the proof of this thesis that anyone needs – not only have the Democrats not followed through on their promise to clean up the corruption of earmarks, they're actually making it worse (mainly by eliminating any transparency on the earmarks at all).

Here's something for you to think about: in 2006, the government paid out 28% of all compensation paid in the U.S. What goods or services did those employees produce or provide? Not much, that's for sure.

Think leeches.

When leeches are sucking out your blood, do you leave them on your body so they can suck some more? No, of course not. You remove them.

We need to remove the government leeches. Short of a revolution, that can only happen as a political process: we must elect Representatives, Senators, and a President who are committed to reducing the size of government. Traditionally in our two-party system, that has been the position of the Republicans. In the last few years, it is not the position of either party.

We need a new party, before the Blob of Federal Leeches sucks out every bit of life this country has. Where is this new party going to come from? It seems unlikely to me that a brandy-new party could successfully be started from scratch. More likely is the emergence of a reformer from within an existing party who can transform the party's purpose. Given their respective ideologies, that seems much more likely from the Republican side. As I look at the announced and possible 2008 Presidential candidates there, limiting myself to those that have any realistic prayer of success, I come up with only two names (Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich), and I'm not real sure about either one of them…