Scott Rasmussen is best known as a public opinion pollster and the author of the
Rasmussen Reports. So his latest book might seem like a departure until you realize that
he has used polling data to plot how America could eventually balance the budget and
eliminate the national debt. It would take tough choices which he believes the voters
would accept if done within certain limits.

He was on my radio program to talk about his book, The People’s Money: How
Voters Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt. The word that kept
surfacing in our interview was the word “disconnect.” It is obvious that there is a major
disconnect between the political class and the voters. Another word that surfaced was the
word “deception.” Scott Rasmussen has a whole chapter on “How the Political Class
Deceives.” This can easily be illustrated by the different meaning given to key financial
terms.

For example, the phrase balanced budget means something different among the
political class compared to the standard definition. The federal deficit most recently was
listed as $1.6 trillion. But he points out that the government actually went into debt that
year by $5 trillion. Even if the federal budget were officially “balanced” it would have
actually fallen another $3 trillion in debt.

Scott Rasmussen does point the way for politicians who really are serious about
balancing the budget. Voters generally realize we have a problem and are willing within
certain limits to address the major budget items of national defense, Medicare, and Social
Security. But they also want to fix the current tax system and end corporate welfare. And
they against any more bailouts even when the administration tries to argue they were
necessary.

The biggest problem is that the political class has not taken the time to listen to
what the American people are saying. They think they know what should be a winning
strategy, but are often making the wrong assumptions. There is a “disconnect” between
them and the voters. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

If you want to better understand why many jobs are going to China, you might
want to read the article, “Why the United States Will Never, Ever Build the iPhone,” that
appeared in The Atlantic. It summarized a longer article that appeared in The New York
Times about why Apple chooses to build its iPhones in China.

If you assume that the reason Apple builds iPhones in China is merely because
the country has cheap labor, guess again. Certainly that is a small part of the reason.
Building the iPhone stateside would add up to $65 in cost to the device. But given the
margins on Apple’s products, they could absorb that extra cost and still make a profit.

Tim Cook of Apple says their decision to focus on Asia “came down to two
things.” Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have
surpassed what’s in the U.S.”

What does it mean to “scale up” faster? The manufacturing company that Apple
pays to assemble its product has the ability to hire thousands of new workers in a single
day. They can “wake up 8,000 employees, herd them out of the company’s on-sight
dorms, and order them to pull a midnight shift fastening glass screens onto phones.”

What about supply chains? Asia is the hub of electronic components
manufacturing. Therefore, Chinese factories get crucial parts faster and cheaper, whether
they are coming down the street or from a Samsung plant in South Korea. And local
Chinese factories crank out little metal bits like screws cheaply and efficiently.

Finally, China has a labor advantage that goes beyond the low-skill workers. It
excels in educating middle-skill “industrial engineers.” And the Chinese schools educate
600,000 engineers a year compared to the 70,000 educated in the U.S.

The reason the iPhone is manufactured in China instead of the U.S. is due to
much more than cheap labor. China’s industrial policy and supply chains are better than
ours. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Is it time to get rid of skeuomorphism? Before you could answer that question,
you would probably like me to give you a definition for that word. A skeuomorph is a
design on an object that resembles another object. If you are a car aficionado, think of the
simulated wood grain on some of earlier model stations wagons. If you like pottery, think
of the imitation rivets that make it look like a metal pot.

My focus in this column is not on cars or pots. I want to talk about the interface in
computer applications. In order to introduce new computer users to an application,
software designers used graphic images that mimicked the real world. You place
documents and other articles in file folders. You take notes in notebooks. Your calendar
displays days in an animated function that allows you to flip the calendar. Your eBook
collection sits on a wooden shelf in your computer’s book section. You play cards on a
felt poker table.

The argument in favor of skeuomorphism originally was compelling. People
unfamiliar with computers would find it easy to use these computer applications because
visually they were similar to what they were doing in the real world. They were taking
notes in notebooks. They were putting books on a shelf. They were playing cards on a
card table. All of this took place on a computer screen that looked like desktop. Using
skeuomorphism made sense because it was easy for the user and intuitive.

The question today is whether they are necessary. Most people have been using
computers for many years. Even children grow up learning computers at a young age and
probably do not need these visual devices to know how to use a computer and its
applications. In fact, in our computerized world they might not even understand some of
these interfaces.

We may like the look of books on a wooden bookshelf or the look of taking notes
on a leather-bound notebook. That is fine if we want to nostalgic. Let’s also acknowledge
that we don’t need them. A simple, clean interface might be enough.

The digital age is affecting how America communicates. It is also shaping parent-
child relationships. Those are some of the conclusions of the Barna Group from their
survey of parents and 11-to-17-year-olds from the same household.

They found that parents are just as dependent on technology as are teens and
tweens. In fact, parents are more likely than their kids to use cell phones and desktop
computers. Parents watch just as much television and movies, use the Internet for as
many minutes per day, and spend more time on the telephone than their kids spend.
Young people do spend more time listening to music, texting, and playing video games.

The survey also found that very few adults or youth take substantial breaks from
technology. Their addiction to digital technology is significant. One out of three parents
and nearly half of their children say there is no specific time when they “make the choice
to disconnect from or turn off technology so they have a break from it.” Nearly half of
both parents and teens said they emailed, texted, or talked on the phone while eating in
the last week. Two out of five youth and one-third of parents have used two or more
screens simultaneously during the last week.

I also found it interesting that very few families have experienced (or even expect)
churches to address technology. Most parents and their children have not heard any kind
of teaching in a church, religious setting, or public forum (like school) about how
families can best use media, entertainment, or technology. On the other hand, nearly a
majority expressed interest in hearing “a Christian or faith-based perspective about how
to be a good user of entertainment and technology.”

Pastors and church leaders, are you listening? We live in a digital age that is
affecting us. We also know that it can sometimes influence us in negative ways. Those of
us in church leadership should be addressing these issues and providing biblical
guidelines.

Although there has been lots of discussion about the millennial generation, we
should also start paying attention to tweens. Those are young people between the ages of
8 and 12. My interview with iShine founder Robert Beeson alerted me to some of the
sobering facts about these pre-teens.

A study by the Barna Group found that only one percent possess a biblical
worldview. Only 18 percent believe in moral absolutes. About a third (32%) believe
Jesus was resurrected. About the same percentage (36%) believe that the Bible is totally
accurate.

On the other hand, two thirds (68%) believe that being a “good person” equals
salvation and that they can earn salvation by their good works. And 80 percent say the
Bible, the Koran, and the Book of Mormon all teach the same truths.

To put it mildly, we have our work cut out for us. This generation has been
profoundly influenced by the media and pop culture. They consume 60 hours a week of
media, yet we expect to counter this pervasive influence with an hour in church each
week. No wonder tweens have a secular view on life. In their teen years they will be
living out the natural consequences of that worldview.

Add to this the fact that major life decisions are being made earlier and earlier. In
the past, high school or college was the time in which most decisions were being made
about money, sexuality, religion, and priorities. Now many of those life decisions are
being made in middle school. They are also facing peer pressure like never before.

Robert Beeson started iShine to begin to counterprogram tweens. The television
program, radio, social media, and music events are an attempt to produce positive,
Christian media that will connect with tweens.

These sobering facts should be a wake up call to parents and youth pastors. We
need to use biblical principles and the best resources to keep tweens from being the lost
generation.

This month pundits have been talking about spending cuts. In the midst of these
discussions and debates have been many polls used by both sides to prove their point.
One side says voters want cuts in federal spending. The other side points to different
polls showing they do not want any cuts. Fortunately, pollster Scott Rasmussen stepped
into this debate and cleared up lots of confusion.

He argues that Mainstream America and our Political Class do not have a
common language. As an example, he used a recent poll by the Pew Research Center that
seemed to show that Americans do not want cuts. He points out that the raw numbers in
the Pew poll are similar to his Rasmussen poll, but they were reported differently.

For most Americans, he says, “maintaining spending at current levels would
mean spending the same amount in 2013 as we spent in 2012.” That is not what
Washington means. He says, maintaining spending at current levels “means spending
$3.5 trillion this year and $4.5 trillion in five years.” Most Americans would see this as
an increase in spending of a trillion dollars.

The Political Class would “consider spending unchanged at current levels to be a
massive spending cut.” It doesn’t allow for the trillion dollars already built into the
federal budget.

Let’s now apply this to the Pew poll. On the question about roads and
infrastructure: 38 percent want more spending and only 17 percent favor a spending cut.
But a plurality (43 percent) want to hold infrastructure spending steady. “Since the
Political Class would consider holding steady to be a cut in spending, 60 percent in the
Pew poll favors what official Washington calls cuts.”

Once you apply plain English to some of these polls, you find there is much more
support for spending cuts than is usually reported. Part of the reason is deliberate
deception. Most of the problem is that the Political Class doesn’t speak plain English.

You have seen or at least heard about the 10-part mini-series on “The Bible”
airing each Sunday on the History Channel. Roma Downey and Mark Burnett produced
the mini-series in order to “encourage audiences around the world to open or reopen
Bibles to understand and enjoy these stories.” Whatever you think of the series, you have
to applaud their desire to get more people to understand the Bible.

In a recent column, Roma Downey and Mark Burnett argue that public schools in
America should teach the Bible. Decades ago teachers exposed students to the Bible until
the Supreme Court ruled against compulsory Bible reading. They didn’t rule against
providing instruction about the Bible, but the net result has been a generation of young
people who are biblically illiterate.

In their column, they begin by asking good questions. “Have you ever sensed in
your own life that the handwriting was on the wall? Or encouraged a loved one to walk
the straight and narrow? Have you every laughed at something that came out of the
mouth of babes? Or gone the extra mile for an opportunity that might vanish in the
twinkling of an eye?

These are all phrases that come from the Bible. When I have an opportunity to
speak to youth groups, I find that most of them do not know the origin of these phrases.
That is a sad commentary on Western culture. The Bible is the best-selling book of all
time. It has had an influence on not only our language but also our art, history,
philosophy, and culture.

Both of the authors in their countries of origin (Roma Downey in Ireland, Mark
Burnett in England) grew up learning about the Bible. The Bible was foundational to a
well-rounded education. They remind us that the Supreme Court did acknowledge that
“the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities.” They also mention
one reference guide that declares: “No one in the English-speaking world can be
considered literate without a basic knowledge of the Bible.”

One way to reduce biblical illiteracy is to encourage teachers in the public schools
to teach about the Bible.

We live in the world of “Big Data.” That is the new way people are trying to
describe this sea of digital facts, figures, products, books, music, video, and much more.
All of this is at our fingertips through computers and smart phones. And there is a lot of
data. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman for Google, estimates that humans now create in
two days the same amount of data that it took from the dawn of civilization until 2003 to
create. No wonder people say we live in the world of “Big Data.”

This remarkable change in our world has happened quickly and seamlessly.
Today we take for granted that we can create data and access data instantaneously. Pick
up the book, The Human Face of Big Data, and look at the pictures and stories that
describe the powerful impact the tsunami of data is having on our lives and our world.
Look at how this vast amount of data is being used by individuals, universities, and
companies to answer questions, pull together information, and persuade us to purchase
various goods and services.

One article in USA Today explains how “Big Data” will transform our lives and
lifestyles. Retailers can target you with online purchasing appeals because of the data
they already collect from you when you are online. They can suggest books, videos, and
various products you would be interested in based upon previous searches or purchases.

If you have a smartphone, think of how you already depend upon it in ways that
would have been unimaginable a decade ago. It can help answer a question someone
poses. It can direct you to a place to eat. If you need gas for your car, it can tell you
where the closest gas station is located.

“Big Data” also provides power through instant access to information. Juan
Enriquez, author of As the Future Catches You, writes that “today a street stall in
Mumbai can access more information, maps, statistics, academic papers, price trends,
futures markets and data than a U.S. president could only a few decades ago.”

Welcome to the world of “Big Data.” We have more information at our fingertips
than any generation in history. It will be important to use it wisely.