Did Matt Cassel run over your dog or something? Listening to talk radio and reading the blogs, I continue to be surprised at how down the KC fans are on Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel. Let’s try to put this into a little perspective. It was only a year and a half ago that ESPN was speculating that the Patriots might be forced to cut Tom Brady and keep Cassel for the betterment of the future of their team. And not only did new general manager Scott Pioli and the Chiefs want Cassel as their quarterback of the future, Denver’s new head coach Josh McDaniels (who had been Cassel’s offensive coordinator in New England) alienated quarterback Jay Cutler when he made a play to acquire Cassel from the Patriots.

Here are some facts to digest.

1. Cassel is still a very inexperienced quarterback. He played very little in college at USC, and basically has two years under his belt in the pros. He will suffer threw some growing pains. He takes too many sacks. And he’s a little slow through his progressions. He seems to be at his best in the hurry up offense when he’s more in rhythm with the passing game. There’s no reason to think that he won’t improve.

2. Last year Cassel was traded to KC and learned Chan Gailey’s offense during the offseason, only for Gailey to be fired right before the season began. Head coach Todd Haley completely revamped the offense WHILE Cassel was on the sidelines suffering through a preseason injury. Cassel and the rest of the offense started off very slowly last year as they attempted to digest and implement a new scheme.

3. The offensive line started poorly last year. They allowed 37 sacks in the first ten games (3.7/game). But over the last six games, they only allowed eight sacks (1.3/game). It would have been tough for any quarterback to be productive with that kind of pressure.

4. And not only was the offensive line playing poorly, Cassel had no help on offense. Larry Johnson was awful. The receivers dropped more balls than any other team in the league. The Chiefs were picking up every wide receiver available looking for some type of spark or consistency. It wasn’t until late in the season when Jamaal Charles got his shot to run the ball, and wide receiver Chris Chambers came onboard, that the Chiefs started to find some offensive production.

Now how about some historical perspective? In general, most quarterbacks struggle their first year with a new team. Cassel’s struggles last year should have been anticipated. Trent Green was one of the most productive quarterbacks in the league for several years, but have you all forgotten how bad he was in his first year in KC? Jason Whitlock renamed him Tr-INT. Here are Green’s stats from his first year in KC:

Completion Percentage: 56.6
TDs: 17
INTs: 24
Yards: 3,783
QB Rating: 71.1

Now what were Cassel’s stats last year?

Completion Percentage: 55.0
TDs: 16
INTs: 16
Yards: 2,924
QB Rating: 69.6

Pretty similar stats. Green played one more game than Cassel, and was in a pass happy offense. Green also played behind a better offensive line, and had Priest Holmes and Tony Gonzalez at his disposal.

Now let’s look at Green’s numbers from year two:

Completion Percentage: 61.1
TDs: 26
INTs: 13
Yards: 3,690
QB Rating: 92.6

Will Cassel make that same leap that Green made in his second year in Kansas City? I don’t know. I’m not predicting that Cassel will be a Pro Bowl quarterback. But I see the tools. I like his leadership and mentality. His accuracy looks better this year already. And he looks like he’s got a pretty good supporting cast with an improved offensive line, and legitimate weapons with Jamaal Charles, Thomas Jones, Dexter McCluster, Dwayne Bowe, Chris Chambers and Tony Moeaki. Let’s give this guy an opportunity to show what he can do before we run him out of town.

“Unfortunately, over the last decade, we have not done what is necessary to shore up the foundation of our own prosperity. We have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits. For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform. As a result, too many middle class families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation’s long-term competitiveness is put at risk.” This is from President Obama’s speech on Iraq, August 31, 2010.

“You know, it’s easy for the Monday morning quarterback to say what the coach should have done, after the game is over. But when the decision is up before you — and on my desk I have a motto which says The Buck Stops Here’ — the decision has to be made.” This is from President Truman’s farewell address to the American people given in January 1953.

President Obama has continued to blame “eight years of failed policies” for our current economic climate. Never mind that the democrats have been in control of Congress since the 2006 election. Never mind that recessions are cyclical and unavoidable. But now President Obama has stated that the war on terror, and the money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, is to blame for our current lack of prosperity. Hhhmmm, one trillion spent over the last decade fighting terrorism, or this year alone where we have a $1.3 trillion deficit due largely to out of control spending from the White House and Congress. And projections for another trillion plus next year in deficit spending.

Where does the buck stop? I guess with Obama it still stops with the last guy.

I have some bad news for you. We will have another recession. I’m not sure when, but it’s coming. Want to know how I know? Because there’s ALWAYS another recession.

President Obama has continued to blame eight years of failed policies for our most recent recession: “The policies that crashed the economy, that undercut the middle class, that mortgaged our future, do we really want to go back to that, or do we keep moving our country forward?” says Obama.

Yet one of the administration’s themes about raising taxes on the “rich” is because we’d be returning to the tax rates of the ’90s, and the ’90s were such a glorious economic time. It must have been the higher tax rates that allowed us to thrive through the economic boom of the ’90s. Yet what did the economic boom of the ’90s create? A recession that began with the tumbling of the NASDAQ in March of 2000. And yes, Bill Clinton was still president in March of 2000.

So was the boom of the ’90s because of successful economic policies? Or was the recession that followed because of failed economic policies?

“Theoretically, economic recessions are unavoidable as in a perpetual fluctuation of economic boom and decline,” says  Yang Yang the EconGuru. “Not a single nation is doomed with forever recession nor are they blessed with forever booming.”

Do you know how many recessions we’ve had since the beginning of the Great Depression? From the recession of 1937 through now, we’ve lived through 13 recessions. That’s one recession about every six years.

How many years were there between the recession that followed the ’90s boom and our most recent recession? Six years.

Recessions have come during or on the coattails of the presidencies of Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. That’s every president since the Great Depression. (See this list of recessions.) This doesn’t include pre-depression recessions.

Using President Obama’s logic, it appears we’ve had failed economic policies during every presidency for the last 70 years.

Government Policy
So now that we’ve established that recessions are unavoidable, can the government prevent a recession? Should the government attempt to prevent future recessions? The answer is simple: no.

One of my greatest fears about the economy is that the federal government will do everything it can to prevent future recessions, but all they’ll end up doing is creating a climate that will stifle growth and prevent future booms. Government policy cannot prevent future recessions. But it certainly can stifle economic growth and opportunity.

The Blame Game
I guess it’s human nature to assign blame. And the government certainly bares some responsibility. It was (failed) economic policy from the ’90s that created the housing bubble that was never fully corrected in the recession of 2001. And (failed) economic policy certainly contributed to the atmosphere that created the recent failures in our banking industry. But even if the government does everything right (and they never do), I can guarantee you one thing: We will have another recession.

I know I’ve been away, but my schedule will be back to normal soon. It’s been a hectic summer. Writing this today because I need your help, especially if you live in the Lawrence area.

We organize two concerts each year, and have just completed our first event in Hutchinson for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Reno County with great success. The crowd was awesome. The sponsors stepped up to the plate and really delivered. We raised more than $6,000 when you include in-kind donations. A very successful event.

Now we’re just a couple weeks away from our second concert — this time for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Douglas County. The concert will be at the Granada on Saturday, September 18th. We need your help to make this a great event as well.

Sponsors
We’re a bit behind on where we had hoped to be for sponsors this year. Here’s a link to our sponsorship package. It’s not too late to help sponsor the event!

Raffle
We had a sponsor donate a free vacation at our Hutchinson event, and it generated almost $500 in additional donations. Got something we can raffle? Email me here.

Promotions and Attendance
Lots of ways to help us promote the event. Post the event to your facebook and twitter accounts. (You can visit the Alpheus facebook page here and provide a link to the event, or invite your friends to the event.) Hang flyers at work (here’s a flyer for you to print). Help to organize a group of people to attend. Do you belong to a networking group? A social group? Maybe you can organize your fellow employees to attend?

If nothing else, just grab a spouse or friend and come on out. Alpheus plays a lot of great music from the ’70s and ’80s including the Cars, Rick Springfield, KC and the Sunshine Band, Van Halen, Wild Cherry, Pink, Journey, Monkees, Romantics, Green Day, Neil Diamond, Talking Heads and much more. Hope to see you there!

I am so ready for football. And with the Chiefs this year, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that this team is turning things around. As we compare this team to last year’s team, don’t just look at how they finished the season, but think about where they were a year ago today. The transformation is significant.

1. Coaching Staff: The Chiefs had wanted to hire Romeo Crennel a year ago to lead the defense, but the timing just wasn’t right. The Chiefs settled for Clancy Pendergast as defensive coordinator. Haley retained offensive coordinator Chan Gailey from Herm’s staff, but then fired him right before the season began. Enter 2010 where the Chiefs have added Romeo Crennel, Charlie Weis and Emmitt Thomas, and the Chiefs now have one of the most highly regarded and accomplished staffs in the NFL.

2. Matt Cassel: If you follow the NFL closely, you’ll realize that typically when a quarterback changes teams, he struggles in his first year with his new team. In 2009 Cassel threw for almost 3,000 yards with 16TDs and 16 INTs. A mediocre season for an NFL quarterback. But take into account that the entire offense was learning a new system on the fly as the season began, the offensive line allowed a ton of sacks early in the season, and the team received disappointing seasons from their primary weapons in Larry Johnson and Dwayne Bowe.

Cassel has proven that he’s as tough as anybody out there. He seems to have the leadership qualities you’d want from your quarterback. What can we expect from Cassel this year? With Weis at the helm, new offensive toys, and a year in Kansas City, I think we should expect 3,500 yards passing, and hopefully close to a 2-to-1 TD to INT ratio. The jury is still out on Cassel, but I think he’s got the tools to be a competent starting QB in the league. Is that good enough? We’ll soon see.

3. Offensive Weapons: As the season began last year, the two primary weapons on offense were Larry Johnson and Dwayne Bowe. Johnson was a shell of his former self. And as the offensive line struggled, Johnson could barely find his way back to the line of scrimmage. Fans had hoped for a breakout season from Bowe, but were disappointed as he dropped ball after ball.

We all know the story now, but when Johnson was released, the offense came alive under speedster Jamaal Charles. The Chiefs picked up Chris Chambers midway through the season to anchor their receiving core. And during the off season, the Chiefs added running back Thomas Jones and rookies Dexter McCluster and tight end Tony Moeaki. Hopefully Dwayne Bowe can relax knowing that he’s now just a piece of the offense and will not be leaned upon to be the star. Bowe has tons of potential, but whether he develops into a consistent player or not, the Chiefs are much further along than they were a year ago today.

4. Offensive Line: Once the team settled in with five consistent starters, the line play improved last year. In the first 10 games of the season, the line gave up 37 sacks (3.7 per game). During the last six games, the line gave up only eight sacks (1.3 per game). In the first half of the season, the line couldn’t open a hole for Johnson. For the last half of the season, Jamaal Charles gained more yards than any back in the league except Chris Johnson. Much of that was due to the speed and elusiveness of Charles. But it was also due to the improved play of the offensive line.

During the off season, the Chiefs added veteran center Casey Wiegmann and guard Ryan Lilja. Both are a bit undersized, but experienced. And they drafted Jon Asamoah, who is capable of playing at center or guard. There will now be some competition along the line. They should be better this year.

5. Team Speed: The Chiefs have been painfully slow the last few years. General Manager Scott Pioli has focused on increasing the team’s speed, and I think in particular this will be obvious on special teams.

6. Happy Returns: The Chiefs haven’t had a legitimate threat on kick and punt returns since Dante Hall. Jamaal Charles gave the team a bit of a spark last year, but he’s too valuable on offense to risk on special teams. Enter rookies Dexter McCluster and Javier Arenas. Both have speed and elusiveness, and should supply a spark to special teams. This will be an interesting battle during the preseason.

7. Eric Berry: You hate to heap too much pressure on any rookie but safeties are not typically taken so early in the draft. There are a handful of safeties who can change the game. Troy Polamula (when healthy). Bob Sanders (when healthy). Ed Reed. Brian Dawkins, though he’s at the end of his career. The Chiefs think they’ve drafted the next great safety. He will certainly add some explosiveness to the defense compared to the departed Mike Brown.

8. Ryan Succop: Last year, kicker Ryan Succop  was Mr. Irrelevant as the last player taken in the NFL draft. But he proved to have the leg and mentality it takes to kick in the NFL. What was a big question mark last year appears now to be a position of strength.

9. Todd Haley: Haley made a lot of mistakes last year, but it was his first year as a head coach, and he certainly was given a team with a lot of holes. He really seems quite a bit more at ease this year. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the same fiery temper, but I’m OK with that. So long as he only loses his temper when it serves a larger purpose of getting this team over the next hurdle. The jury is still out on Haley as well, but I’m optimistic that he’s gotten this team headed in the right direction.

10. Year Two: The Chiefs’ leadership is young. Owner Clark Hunt, general manager Scott Pioli and head coach Todd Haley form the nucleus of the future of the team. This is the year we should start to get a glimpse of what they’re attempting to build.

I don’t expect the Chiefs to make the playoffs this year, but there are many reasons to believe they’ll be improved. And that’s good enough for today.

It’s time for a new topic. I was poking around online the other day, and found an article that peeked my curiosity. It’s always interesting when perception meets reality, and they look nothing alike.

Would you be surprised to learn that government employees make more money than their private sector counterparts? I was.

Perception: I don’t remember when or where, but I know that at some point in my life I was told that government employees (public sector) make less than people who work for businesses (private sector). And maybe at the time I was told, this was true. My perception had been that people chose to work for the government despite lower wages for the benefits and for job security.

Today’s Reality: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the typical federal worker is paid 20% more than a private sector worker in the same occupation. Here are just a few examples:

A chemist on average makes $98,060 working for the federal government, and $72,120 in the private sector. A graphic designer makes $70,820 working for the feds, while making $46,565 in the business world. Did you know that we employ dry-cleaning workers in the federal government? They make $33,100, where they make only $19,945 working in the private sector. These figures are all from 2008.

On average, the typical federal worker makes $66,591 compared to their private sector counterparts, who make $55,500. That’s 20% more money in wages alone. According to the USA Today (see the full article here):

Federal. The federal pay premium cut across all job categories — white-collar, blue-collar, management, professional, technical and low-skill. In all, 180 jobs paid better average salaries in the federal government; 36 paid better in the private sector.

Private. The private sector paid more on average in a select group of high-skill occupations, including lawyers, veterinarians and airline pilots. The government’s 5,200 computer research scientists made an average of $95,190, about $10,000 less than the average in the corporate world.

State and local. State government employees had an average salary of $47,231 in 2008, about 5% less than comparable jobs in the private sector. City and county workers earned an average of $43,589, about 2% more than private workers in similar jobs. State and local workers have higher total compensation than private workers when the value of benefits is included.

Benefits: Now let’s look at benefits. According to the same USA Today article, “These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.”

That brings total compensation to $107,376 for federal employees and $65,382 for their private sector counterparts. That’s a difference of $41,994 per year.

I don’t bring any of this up to disparage government employees. They’re just people like you and me trying the best they can to provide for themselves and their families. If you were a dry-cleaning worker, why wouldn’t you take a job with the feds if it paid $13,155 more and provided MUCH better benefits?

My question is, why are the salaries so out of whack with wages and benefits in the private sector? Officials attempt to explain it that these jobs aren’t direct comparisons. Again from the USA Today article: “National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley says the comparison is faulty because it “compares apples and oranges.” Federal accountants, for example, perform work that has more complexity and requires more skill than accounting work in the private sector, she says.”

This is nothing more than union speak and misdirection. Do you believe that nurses working  for the Veterans Administration perform tasks that require more skills than their private sector counterparts? Yet on average, a nurse working for the VA makes $10,680 more than private sector nurses, plus the difference in benefits.

Conclusions: Simply put, government is inefficient and wasteful. Think of how much money we could save by paying government employees comparable salaries and benefits to their private sector counterparts. The government fails to understand simple economics. Supply and demand. They set wages and benefits artificially high. Why? I have a few theories, but they’ll have to wait for another day.

Want to know why President Obama has finally succumbed to accepting assistance in the gulf? Because of people like Bill Clinton. Listen carefully to what President Clinton says in this clip. He says that Obama has gotten a bum rap on this “empathy issue”, but Clinton clearly disagrees with Obama’s priorities and handling of this catastrophe. Clinton says that we should accept assistance, and that the least important thing to do right now is to assign blame. “I think we need to get all this stuff over here (referring to assistance from other countries) and just work on solving the problem.” I agree with Clinton completely.

Since I’ve been commenting about Obama’s lack of leadership in the gulf, and possible ulterior motives for his lack of attention to the spill, I thought it only fair that I let everyone know that our President has now decided to accept some international aid (from 12 of the 30 countries and organizations who have offered). This is from the AP (found on Yahoo):

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is accepting help from 12 countries and international organizations in dealing with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The State Department said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. is working out the particulars of the help that’s been accepted.

The identities of all 12 countries and international organizations were not immediately announced. One country was cited in the State Department statement — Japan, which is providing two high-speed skimmers and fire containment boom.

More than 30 countries and international organizations have offered to help with the spill. The State Department hasn’t indicated why some offers have been accepted and others have not.

I guess I remain curious as to why this is a good idea now, but was a bad idea a month ago.

I have a number of things swirling around my head this week. Makes it difficult to pick where to begin. So before I move on to other things, I think I need to go back and take a look at The Obama Agenda. It appears to be quite different than what we were told during the election, and different than what the administration continues to tell us every day. Actions speak louder than words. And the actions of this administration are now speaking very loudly. If you’re not hearing it, you’re not listening.

A few quotes to get us started:

1. “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” — Rahm Emanuel

2. When Al Gore was asked about his method for communicating global warming to the people, he replied, “(U)nfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.” (Interview for Grist in 2006.)

3. Dick Morris on socialism: “Socialism is not an epithet or even an economic philosophy. Whether a nation is socialist or not is determined by a single, simple statistic — what percent of the economy (GDP) goes to the public sector? When Obama took office, the U.S. public sector (federal, state, and local) spent about 30% of GDP. Now it is 36%. If Obamacare lives to be fully implemented, it will pass 40%.” (This quote is from last April on Morris’ website.)

What do these quotes tell us? That’s it’s OK to use a crisis to push a political agenda. That it’s OK to lie about the facts if you “know” what’s best for the country. And you never have to announce you want us to be socialists, you can move us there one step at a time by enlarging the federal government through legislation.

Economic Stimulus Package
We were told by the administration that it would save or create millions of jobs. The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) warned that by 2011 their would be NO net gain in jobs. And some economists and business experts, like those at IBD (Investors Business Daily), were predicting it would actually make things worse. That the stimulus bill was nothing more than big government spending. The result? We’ve lost millions of jobs, and the economy continues to struggle. Despite claims to the contrary, jobs and the economy have never been high on the administration’s priority list.

Health Care
We were told by the administration that their health care reform bill would lower costs and insure millions of people who are currently uninsured.  But at this point, virtually every organization is predicting that the cost of health care will continue to rise, and if businesses drop health care coverage as expected, it’s possible that we’ll end up with MORE uninsured people than we have now. We were repeatedly lied to about the costs of the bill. By ignoring tort reform and competition for insurance companies across state lines, it’s clear that reducing costs was never a goal of the bill. The true goal of the bill was to backdoor us into nationalized health care.

Banking Reform
This is a little more difficult for me to grasp. Banking regulations certainly aren’t in my wheelhouse. And I’m certainly open to the idea that our banking industry could use some smarter regulations and better oversight. But when the bill completely ignores two of the biggest culprits in our near banking collapse, the government run Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, it’s difficult to take the reform seriously. It’s another 2,000 page bill that even the democrats admit they don’t fully understand what it will do. And when the bill gives our federal government unprecedented power to takeover financial institutions engaging in “risky” business, I begin to get nervous. Real nervous.

The Oil Spill
I’ve written another post recently about the administration’s mistakes in the cleanup of the oil from BP’s disaster. Despite the administration’s claims that they’ve done everything they could in this crisis, they have not. They have not waived the Jones Act, and they have refused numerous offers of international aid. Why? I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s because allowing the oil spill to spiral out of control feeds their real agenda: green energy, cap and trade, and government control of our resources. There is no other intelligent conclusion.

So where is the Obama administration taking us? Down the path that even they will not name. Socialism.

One of the points I made all along during the health care reform debate is that the current plan leads us down the path to a single payer, government run health care system. President Obama understands that a government run solution would never have passed Congress, so they backdoored a plan that would eventually create a single payer system. How? By making sure that businesses would be put in a situation where they couldn’t afford to comply with the new regulations and increased costs of health care coverage. The plan was never intended to reduce health care costs, but to increase them.

When President Obama said that Americans would be allowed to keep their coverage, he lied.

Many large firms including AT&T, Verizon and John Deere, have already explained how they may have to drop health care coverage for their employees. A tax change created in the new law will cost these companies millions of dollars, and it may no longer be economically viable for these companies to continue to provide health care coverage. (See this story from CNN.com.)

But what came out in a recently leaked government document is even more disturbing. We had been promised that our health care coverage would be “grandfathered” in under the new law, allowing us to keep the policies currently offered by our employers. According to a joint project that is being prepared by the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the IRS, they have predicted that up to 51% of employers may have to relinquish their current health care coverage under the new law.

Why? Because most of these policies will lose their “grandfathered” status within the first few years.

The “midrange estimate is that 66% of small employer plans and 45% of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfathered status by the end of 2013,” according to the document. In the worst-case scenario, 69% of employers — 80% of smaller firms — would lose that status, exposing them to far more provisions under the new health law.

If a company makes even simple adjustments to their current plan, it is now considered a “new” plan and no longer subject to the “grandfathered” status. And all NEW plans must conform with the new government regulations, which will INCREASE the costs of the coverage. Just to give you some insight, 66% of small businesses and 47% of large businesses made a change in their health care plans last year that would have forfeited their grandfathered status. (See this story from IBD.)

So what do you think will happen when millions of Americans lose their health care coverage over the next few years? Don’t worry, the government will have a solution for us. It’s called government run health care.