Homeowner Associations Make for Bad Neighbors

Whoever said it was a free country?

A multi-cultural nativity scene is under attack in one Novi, Michigan subdivision, but the owner said she isn't removing the display from her front yard. The nativity sits among other statuettes like Minnie Mouse and Santa Claus, but the fuss is over the nativity scene and one family's personal tradition is turning into a public debate. Nativity Scene Causes Stir In Novi Neighborhood

At first glance this appears to be just another example of what's quickly becoming a holiday tradition - the fight to keep church and state separate by prohibiting religious holiday displays. But it's not.

That's because this isn't about a public display, but a private one. And because it's not the city or county enforcing the rule. Instead this order came from the local homeowners association.

This is just one more example of homeowners associations (HOA) gone bad. These quasi-governmental groups are becoming the neo-fascists of suburbia. And it's gone way beyond telling us the colors we can paint our house. For example:

- An Ocala, Florida HOA warned residents that taking in families displaced by hurricanes would violate association rules.

- A Congers, NY condo association is fighting to restrict a blind woman and her seeing eye dog to her apartment and a single parking space (apparently the right to a doggie-do free complex supercedes the right of a disabled person to move about freely).

- A Naples, FL condo association fought to preserve rules that limited grandchildren visits.

These are the work of control freaks. Which should come as no surprise - homeowner associations are magnets for nitpickers, busybodies and do-gooders. Those of us with real things to do have neither the time nor inclination to get involved in telling our neighbors how to live. So HOA's too often end up dominated by people whose mission in life appears to be trying to get others to live as they see fit.

These boards are worse than local government because they are largely unbound by minor inconveniences such as our constitutionally guaranteed rights. We agree to their rules when we buy our homes, so if they want to limit free speech or religious expression, they are largely free to do so.

Then why are they so popular? Well, we believe they are protectors of our personal sensibilities and, by proxy, our property values. They give us a way of complaining about our neighbor without having to complain to our neighbor. They create a buffer between ourselves and the targets of our pet peeves. It's an extension of our contentious and litigious society that seeks formal validation and enforcement of our every whim.

It wasn't always like this. There was a time when disputes were worked out one-to-one. And if you didn't like what your neighbor was doing, a few well-placed trees and shrubs could provide all the buffer necessary. But not anymore. In fact, you probably can't plant those trees without prior HOA approval.

We've come a long way since Patrick Henry said give me liberty or give me death. Today it's give me liberty unless it hurts my property value. It seems we may have come a bit too far.

Gender Inequities in Education

For thirty-three years - since the adoption of Title IX - we have tried to eliminate alleged gender inequities in education. By now it should be apparent that we've not just closed the gap, but reversed it. The Washington Post just ran a report on the disappearance of men from college campuses. No, it's not about some gender-reverse Ted Bundy-type serial abductor, but the worrisome decline in male college enrollment compared to women, with men making up only 43% of the student population on U.S. college campuses. That continues a trend that began in the late 70's when women first passed men in college enrollment. Washington Post story

First, let's clarify that though the writer implies that fewer men are now attending college, that’s not the case. In reality, the number of men attending college has increased since 1990, both in raw numbers and as a percentage of high school graduates. A 2003 study by Andrew Summ, Neeta Fogg, et al. shows that the percentage of male high school graduates going on to college rose by two percentage points from 1990 to 2001. (Study link)

Still, a woman is far more likely to go on to college than is a man. Not only that, she's also more likely to finish high school since males are more likely to drop out before graduating. (Chart) So, why in this era when knowledge is king, are there such gender discrepancies in both college enrollments and high school dropout rates? I believe there are three basic explanations.

The first is differing perspectives of career prospects among men and women. While more women have come to see a college education as their best hope for a good job, many men still cling to the notion that they'll be able to get high-paying, low-skill jobs in manufacturing and elsewhere.

A second, more insidious reason, is the changing educational approach in our primary and secondary schools arising from attempts to satisfy the requirements of Title IX. When first enacted, women were more likely than men to drop out of high school and less likely to attend college. Four years later, men were dropping out of school at higher rates than women. Just two years after that, men became the minority on college campuses. Despite this reality, nearly all the focus on gender inequities in education remained skewed toward alleged hardships faced by girls. Complaints that our schools favored boys with regard to teacher attention, science, math and computer instruction, athletics and more still drove much of the debate in academic circles.

Yet it was the boys who were dropping out and not going on to college. Gender activists claiming to seek gender equity, instead enforced a new gender inequity. We ignored our struggling boys, while continuing reforms that favored girls. Verbal skills were emphasized, while instruction in areas where boys performed well like math and science, was made more girl friendly. Couple this with misguided attempts to improve students' so-called self-esteem, and it's no wonder our boys feel lost. Boys tend to feel good about themselves through restless, competitive, hands-on achievement. But in our efforts to make sure little Johnny's (or Janey's) feelings weren't hurt, we removed opportunities for competitive comparisons. Schools have eliminated everything from letter grades to dodgeball. Lo and behold, we find that boys don't feel at home in school.

This demographic shift in higher education is a harbinger of bad tidings. Lesser education means lesser career prospects. Mismatched academic achievement means mismatched relationships. Underemployed at work and overmatched at home, too many men risk becoming marginalized members of society. The self-esteem we've worked so hard to instill in girls has been at the expense of the self-esteem of our boys - boys who tend more toward crime, violence, substance abuse and unemployment than do women. Directionless men seeking purpose too easily and too often find it in less than ideal groups, as can be seen from the gangs in our inner cities to the terrorist groups of the Middle East. The risk will only worsen as fewer boys grow up with worthy role models.

And therein lies the third reason for college enrollment gender inequities: we’re now into the second and third generation of poorly educated men. While previous generations may have grown up in homes headed by fathers without degrees or diplomas, it was not because the father failed to value education. Today, it is – if there is a father at all.

Yes, gender inequities remain. But now it's our boys’ turn to suffer. If we do not address the issue quickly and effectively, they won’t suffer alone.

[Footnotes: The NY Times ran this David Brooks column in 2022 that amplifies the issues in this piece. 

The intro to Ezra Klein's March 10, 2023 podcast began with a line quite similar to the opener of this 2005 piece: "In 1972, when Congress passed Title IX to tackle gender equity in education, men were 13 percentage points more likely to hold bachelor’s degrees than women; today women are 15 points more likely to do so than men."

Another story on struggling boys and education (kindergarten) 6/24/24 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/23/upshot/male-kindergarten-teachers.html

Congress Butting In Where it Doesn't Belong

Glad to see Congress sticking to the things that matter:

Lawmaker Calls Hearing on 'Flawed' BCS

By JIM VERTUNO
AP Sports Writer

HOUSTON (AP) -- Calling the Bowl Championship Series "deeply flawed," the chairman of a congressional committee has called a hearing on the controversial system used to determine college football's national champion.

A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, charged with regulating America's sports industry, announced Friday it will conduct a hearing on the BCS next week, after this season's bowl matchups are determined.

Read entire story here

According to committee Chairman Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, "Too often college football ends in sniping and controversy, rather than winners and losers. The current system of determining who's No. 1 appears deeply flawed."

So what. That's the NCAA's problem, not yours.

And then there's this:

Senator Suggests Hearing on Terrell Owens Matter

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Sen. Arlen Specter accused the National Football League and the Philadelphia Eagles of treating Terrell Owens unfairly and said he might refer the matter to the antitrust subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he chairs.

Specter said at a news conference Monday in Harrisburg it was "vindictive and inappropriate" for the league and the Eagles to forbid the all-pro wide receiver from playing and prevent other teams from talking to him.

Read entire story here

There are 280 million people in the United States. I'm guessing that at least one or two have been the victims of "vindictive and inapproriate" treatment from an employer. Are you going to call hearings on their cases, Senator?

Come on guys, this is not your business. Stay out of it.

Quick Thoughts: Supreme Court

Does the U.S. Supreme Court have any role other than to consider Roe v. Wade? It would appear not, given the scrutiny that is given to each court nominee's views on that particular issue. I just wonder how much we shortchange ourselves by maintaining such a narrow focus. Wouldn' it be interesting if we found that Roe v. Wade turned out to be the Trojan Horse that was used to slide nominees who have different, but no less troubling, agendas onto the court?

Quick Thoughts: Immigration Policy

It seems to me that our immigration policy has it completely backwards: We're incapable of preventing the flow of cheap, unskilled laborers willing to take jobs Americans don't want, but quite effective at keeping out educated immigrants who can fill jobs for which too many Americans are unqualified.

This is a result of crackdowns in the wake of 9/11 designed to keep suspected terrorists out of the country. Yet a terrorist could enter the country just as easily as a Mexican migrant worker, while an Asian engineer or Indian computer programmer faces a bureaucratic maze when trying to enter the country.

Part of our historical competitive advantage vis-a-vis the rest of the world has been our ability to attract the earth's best and brightest. I'm afraid our loss will be our competitors' gain.

EJ, Ronnie and Me

 This postcard was sent to me following the 1984 presidential election by a very good friend with political views that were the polar opposite of mine at the time. I appreciated it more for his take on me than on the president. Though we argued fiercely at times, I think he could see I was able to see both sides, even when we disagreed. I've always taken pride in that - and worked hard at it because it's rarely easy to read, watch or listen to the other side's argument, let alone consider it with even a hint of objectivity. But try we must.

Seek and Ye Shall Find

Soon after I began writing my newspaper column it seemed that I saw potential topics everywhere I looked. Whether it was my young son asking about the war, a neighbor becoming a U.S. citizen or watching students choke up with tears while trying to save a favorite teacher's job at a school board meeting, I found myself surrounded by subjects I could write about.

When I owned my dry cleaning business I saw dry cleaners everywhere. When I sold the business and became interested in real estate, I started to see “For Sale” signs everywhere. It’s not like they suddenly popped up, I just hadn’t noticed them before. But once I started looking, I couldn’t miss them - much like you never notice the car ads in the paper until you are in the market for a new car.

My guess is this happens to everyone. The old Seinfeld show was heralded for being about nothing. But that wasn’t true. It was about everything and anything, whether waiting forever for a table at a restaurant or losing a reservation for a rental car. But, whereas most of us seethe at such inconveniences, Jerry Seinfeld and his creative crew saw them as potential comedic dynamite. They didn’t dream up these ideas, they lived them – and saw the humor because that was what they were looking for.

There's a valuable lesson in that – you will find what you are looking for. Seek and ye shall find.

If you look for opportunities, they will come your way. If you are forever on the lookout for obstacles, they too, will surely come your way. You can look for humor and laugh or for heartache and cry. Seek kindness and you’ll be rewarded with it. Seek irritants and you will be forever irritated.

I have often read of injustices, “both real and imagined.” An imagined injustice is just that – imagined. It exists only because we were expecting it. If you really think about it, it is impossible to be blindsided by an imagined injustice. “Boy, I didn’t see that one coming.” Yes you did, otherwise you wouldn’t have even noticed.

This is not to say that life is just a bed of roses. There is real sadness, real heartache, real injustice. In fact, there is more than enough to go around, so why go out looking for more? And if in the process of ignoring imagined slights we just so happen to miss a real one, are we any worse off? It’s kind of like the “if a tree falls in the forest” conundrum. If someone sets out to hurt you and you don’t notice, were you really hurt?

This extends to people as well. Look for the best in them and you’ll find it. Look for the worst, and you won’t be disappointed. I learned the former from my brother-in-law when he lived with us back in 1993-94. He saw only the good side of people, never saying anything bad about anyone. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that he is one of most well-adjusted people I know. Contrast that with those who seem to revel not only in finding fault with others, but in their own misery as well.

Michigan’s state motto is “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.” We might be wise to steal a bit from that thought – whatever it might be that we want from life, all we have to do is look. It’s all around us.

Pointing Fingers in the Rich/Poor Debate

How many times have you heard some adult say they had no idea they were poor when they were young? They knew the poor existed, but that term described someone else. It’s only in adulthood that they can see that the poor they heard so much about included them.

Well, I have a feeling that today’s children are more likely to claim they had no idea they were rich when they were young. They’ll grow up, get a degree, take an entry level job and move into an apartment. Then for the first time, they’ll be living on a salary that barely covers the rent and car payment, let alone all the luxuries they enjoyed while living with mom and dad. Suddenly, they’ll realize that when they heard all this talk about the wealthy in the U.S., they were hearing about their own parents.

So is it any wonder that there are such misperceptions about the wealthy, when even those who are counted among their ranks don’t realize it?

But misperceptions, there are.

Ask my friends on the left about the wealthy, and you’ll hear that they are robber barons who maintain their wealth only by keeping the poor down. Their world view is that of a zero-sum game where one only wins if another loses.

But it is not a zero-sum game. Wealth is created, not stolen. Henry Ford was an average man who changed the world with the mass-produced automobile. Not only did he create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, he opened the world to the masses in a way that only the automobile could. And he became wealthy as a result.

That is how one becomes wealthy – by providing something of value to others. It is not done by stealing. Nor is it attained by keeping others down. Just look at household computer usage. The poor are the least likely to have a computer in the home because they are least able to afford one. So wouldn’t Bill Gates be even wealthier if everyone could afford a computer? Of course he would. Thus, he has no interest in keeping anyone poor – he wants everyone to be able to buy a computer.

If that’s the case, why do some insist that wealth is attained only through nefarious means? Because it is the necessary counter-balance to the view that the poor are the victims of an oppressive system. If there are to be oppressed, then there must be oppressors. The wealthy serve to fill that role.

But if the wealthy are not the ones keeping the poor down, then what is the cause of poverty? Some of my conservative friends will argue it’s the poor’s own fault – a failure to be disciplined in going to school, getting up for work and doing the best job possible.

Yet just as some liberals have a misguided view of the wealthy, this portrait of the poor is too simplistic. Yes, each person has the power within themselves to become the best that they can be. But too few believe that to be the case and even fewer know how to put that power to use. We can say it’s their fault for not doing what they need to do, but is it their fault that they don’t know how?

If there is an oppressive system to be blamed, it is a system where our blame is misplaced. Instead of blaming the wealthy, we should learn from them. Instead of blaming the poor, we should teach them. Blaming the wealthy only serves to give others an excuse for their circumstances, while blaming the poor does nothing to improve their lot. And if all the energy spent pointing fingers were instead focused on showing the less fortunate the way, we might actually make some headway in the fight on poverty.

And everyone would be all the richer for it.

Goodbye

Well, folks, the time has come for me to say goodbye. I’ve enjoyed sharing my opinions with you for the past two years, but I’ve decided there are lots of things I want to do which are going to keep me from devoting the time I need to make sure what I write is worth reading. Not that all of you thought it was worth reading before.

While it’s been fun, there certainly have been some ups-and-downs. The feedback’s been great, whether you agreed with me or not. By far, my favorites have been from people who said they didn’t necessarily agree with me, but that a column or idea made them think. That’s all I could ever ask.

But it has not been without its downside. I know I’ve ruffled some feathers, taking positions that were extremely unpopular with some people. That’s been very difficult at times, especially when I knew taking a different stance would probably be in my own best interest. If nothing else, I would hope those who disagreed would at least appreciate that I never let my own interests compromise my principles.

I would also hope that after two years that some of those principles would have become clear.  Principles like taking personal responsibility for our own lives and situations. Not looking to government to fulfill all our wants and desires.  Respecting education as the single most important investment we can make in ourselves and our children. And last but not least, remembering that life is what we make it. Appreciate the good things that happen and let the bad things go. It makes life so much easier.

So with that, I’ll leave you with a few thoughts on what I’d like to see in the months and years ahead.

I’d like to see us teach our children that success isn’t measured by the size of one’s house, but by the size of one’s heart. Find passions in life and pursue them with gusto, otherwise all the money in the world won’t make you happy. Follow your heart and you’ll find success.

I’d also like to teach them that life isn’t always fair. Don’t dwell on slights and setbacks. That’s the road to bitterness.  Instead, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on. It’s like a flat tire – you can curse the nail and kick the car, but that gets you nowhere. Fix it and be on your way.

Let’s seek out opinions contrary to our own. If you’re conservative, read the New York Times and listen to NPR. If you’re liberal, listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Fox News. Like a weightlifter, if your views never face resistance they’ll become weak and flabby. Exercising our minds is as important as exercising our bodies.

Treat each other with respect. We can disagree, but we don’t have to be nasty. Which brings me to my one regret regarding this column. Last December I wrote a very sarcastic column that unfairly ridiculed some of our elected leaders, most notably the West Chester Township trustees. It was uncalled for.  Whatever differences of opinion we might have, George Lang, Catherine Stoker and Jose Alvarez are all good people who sincerely care about their community. I have personally apologized to George, and I’d like to publicly apologize to Catherine and Jose. I hope they’ll accept it.

With that, I’m off. But I won’t be gone. Thanks for reading.

Mortgaging Our Future

Remember the economy just before the stock market bubble burst? Jobs were so plentiful that fast food joints were offering signing bonuses and one tech interviewee actually invoiced a prospective employer for the time he spent interviewing with them. With skyrocketing stock prices, we were feeling flush and believed we could do anything.

Well, would you believe that the economy has grown faster in the past two years than it did in the two years leading up to the stock market peak in March of 2000? Yep, adjusted for inflation, gross domestic product has surged 8.9 percent in the past two years versus 8.5 percent in the two years ending in March of 2000. So why do things feel so unsettled today compared to five years ago?

For one, we’re coming off the sluggishness early in the decade. We’re at war, for another. But I think the real reason is far more fundamental – and here is where I put my economist’s hat on.

Not to generalize too much, but there are generally two schools of thought on government deficit spending. To fight off recession, you can increase spending to generate demand or cut taxes to spur private spending and investment.

We’ve used a combination of these two policies – increased government spending AND reduced taxes. In the process, we ran up record government deficits, excluding Social Security surpluses, of almost $600 billion in 2004. Meanwhile, our trade deficit – the difference in how much we import versus how much we export – was a little over $600 billion last year.

So what we have is a government that provides us with $600 billion in government programs and services for which we’re not paying (at least not yet). Then we go and spend that $600 billion on stuff overseas. Essentially, we are financing a huge foreign shopping spree, with the feds as the credit card company. Granted, it’s far more complex than that, but bottom line, the amount we borrow to fund the government is about equal to our excess overseas purchases.

The end result is that the deficit spending that economists say should boost our economy is doing as much, if not more, to create jobs in China, Korea and India as it is to create jobs at home. We don’t feel it materially because our lifestyle is being maintained by this government-funded foreign splurge. But we feel it psychologically, as evidenced by consistently low consumer confidence surveys. Perhaps deep down we realize we’re spending our future rather than investing in it.

The real danger is that our foreign trading partners are the ones funding our federal deficits. They use the cash they get from us to buy U.S. government securities. They essentially sell us stuff, then loan the money back to us to buy more. What happens if they decide they have better things to do with their money?

I have no problem borrowing to finance a house, business or asset that will provide a future return on investment. But I believe it’s unwise to finance a lifestyle. Yet that seems to be what we are doing as a society. It’s a message no politician will ever give, but at some point we are going to have to sacrifice the boat, big-screen TV or some government services and start paying as we go. Otherwise we could find ourselves sacrificing something much more precious – our future.