Are CIA Agents Soldiers?

Not really but they are people we pay for helping defend the country, just as we pay our soldiers. True, they have different jobs and responsibilities, but moving them into a war zone is another step in what will likely be another quagmire. And we have admitted that the CIA is operating in Libya.

Protecting Us?

First the planes, then the rifles?

Arming the Libyan rebels has become a hot topic in Washington according to the NY Times. And, of course, if we supply arms, we will have to train the rebels how to use them. Will the sequence be - planes, guns, soldiers?

Naturally, no one really knows who the rebels are. Will we repeat one experience from Afghanistan and give weapons to a Taliban or Al Qaeda group?

Maybe this song will become a hit once more.

Barofsky has his say

and it's quite a say. He, the former IG of the TARP, concludes his analysis of what went wrong with TARP with the following:

Treasury’s mismanagement of TARP and its disregard for TARP’s Main Street goals — whether born of incompetence, timidity in the face of a crisis or a mindset too closely aligned with the banks it was supposed to rein in — may have so damaged the credibility of the government as a whole that future policy makers may be politically unable to take the necessary steps to save the system the next time a crisis arises. This avoidable political reality might just be TARP’s most lasting, and unfortunate, legacy.

I'd say that was a fairly strong indictment of Mr. Geithner and his minions.

Barofsky asserts that the TARP's goals for Main Street (i.e., the non big banks) were essentially ignored by Treasury. Further, the money that went to the banks was a gift; the banks had no obligations to lend the money or even tell Treasury how they were spending it.

Barofsky recites the failure of the HAMP program and then writes:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has acknowledged that the program “won’t come close” to fulfilling its original expectations, that its incentives are not “powerful enough” and that the mortgage servicers are “still doing a terribly inadequate job.” But Treasury officials refuse to address these shortfalls. Instead they continue to stubbornly maintain that the program is a success and needs no material change, effectively assuring that Treasury’s most specific Main Street promise will not be honored.

But we know that Geithner will be our man in Treasury for as long as he wants. In any rational organization he would never have been hired. In the current White House he is praised.

Paying One's Fair Share

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Once More Into The Breach

How is it possible that the U.S. invented the internet but we pay more for slower service than many of the Western nations? Sad but true. I can't believe that I've been saying this for five years. As has Bruce Kushnick. His latest diatribe was triggered by the release of the FCC Internet Access report.

This report cost around $300,000,000 to produce but it's hard to figure out what the money was spent on as much of the data is wrong. Go here, type in your zip code and see how accurate the data is. I did it for my old stomping ground, the Vineyard, and was surprised to see that Comcast does not provide service there although most of the Vineyarders I know use either Comcast or Verizon.

After Kushnick eviscerates the FCC report, he naturally moves to the cost and speed of broadband here and elsewhere. You know we are getting raped, yet the FCC will likely allow the providers to charge us even more.

Not Mincing Words

Phyllis Bennis has a few words to say about Obama's speech last night. Here are two excerpts:

The United States of America turns a blind eye to atrocities in other countries all the time. In fact our policies enable those atrocities far too often. Obama spoke of places "where change is fiercely suppressed." But the only example he mentioned was Iran — an often-discussed possible future target of U.S. military attack. He didn't mention any of the other places "where change is fiercely suppressed," such as Bahrain, a regional ally in the Middle East, where U.S. actions – non-military actions – could have real impact.
Do we think that the $67 billion arms deal — the largest in history — the United States just signed off on with Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with Saudi suppression of the nascent democratic uprising there? Do we wonder why the president of Yemen felt confident enough to escalate the slaughter of his own people, unarmed protesters, even after the UN resolution was passed and western warplanes were headed towards Libya — since he knew Washington's disapproval would never result in military, or even non-military action to stop him? How do we think the people of Bahrain, facing a U.S.-armed absolute monarchy, are supposed to believe that "the United States is different" when they hear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorse the "sovereign right" of Bahrain's king to import troops from Saudi Arabia to suppress democracy protests — just maybe because the U.S. Fifth Fleet is stationed in Bahrain? That's before we even get to the issue of U.S. active complicity and active impunity provided to Israel — by two administrations — during and after the lethal assault on Gaza that began after Christmas 2008 and killed over 1,400 Palestinians, more than 350 of them children.

What was missing from President Obama's speech was any discussion of ending the war — not just how will U.S. involvement end, but far more important, how will a ceasefire come about? Who will lead serious negotiations between the two sides in Libya, aiming at a solution not drenched in blood? The UN resolution called for an immediate ceasefire and for negotiations; the African Union (unmentioned in this speech) attempted to send a team of five heads of state to oversee such negotiations last week, but they were denied entry to the country, apparently by coalition forces. The attention to military engagement drowns out the call for negotiations, for accountability, and even for a ceasefire.


I would love to believe that Obama is breaking with U.S. history, that he is creating a really new American foreign policy, based on his understanding that "our own future is safer and brighter if more of mankind can live with the bright light of freedom and dignity." That would mean acknowledging that our "common humanity" is assaulted when the U.S.-backed, U.S.-armed president of Yemen kills 52 unarmed protesters and injures 200 or more, and that we must take action. It would mean recognizing that the King of Bahrain ceases to be our regional ally, Fifth Fleet or no Fifth Fleet, when he invites foreign troops in to suppress his own people's democratic uprising. It would mean that our "common humanity" includes the 1.5 million Palestinians struggling to live, not merely survive, under Israeli siege in the Gaza Strip. And it would mean, as he noted, that "the United States, as the world's most powerful nation, will often be called upon to help." The help need not be military.

How Well Does Intervention Work?

Now that we have intervened in Libya, it might be a good idea to look back at some other interventions since Vietnam. Micah Zenko does so in Foreign Affairs and concludes that people don't remember interventions as well as they should; in fact, memories are often the opposite of what actually occurred. He lists a few examples.

• Some claim that the overthrow of Milosevic was the result of NATO air power and the Kosovo Army on the ground. Zenko claims that NATO really had to escalate its air power over Serbia plus Russia's withdrawal of support for Serbia didn't hurt.
• Others cite the efficacy of a no-drive zone after the first Iraq war. Zenko points out that there was not a no-drive zone established.
• A no-fly zone protects civilians? Not in Zenko's eyes.

The constant quesion: who do you believe.

The Plan Is to Beat the Hell Out Of Gaddafi

We're using almost all of our weapons except soldiers on the ground to overthrow Gaddafi. We're attacking ground troops and supply convoys with low-flying aircraft. We're using psyops to get Gaddafi's troops to quit. We're the ones controlling the intelligence gathering. We've dropped more bombs than our 'allies' combined. We're the ones firing the Tomahawk missiles.

And, on Wednesday we'll turn it all over to NATO. Of course, he, our commander-in-chief, did not give a date as to which Wednesday he was talking about.

Democracy in the Nuclear Age

My friend, Peter, raises an interesting question with regard to our increasingly interconnected world.

An interesting development over the weekend in Germany, where the reigning CDU (Christian Democratic Party) lost a state election in Baden-Wuerttemberg, my home state, and is out of government for the first time since after the war. Reason for loss can mainly be tied to the Japan disaster with the nuclear power plants.

Germany, that is almost totally dependant on energy supply from outside, generates 20 % of its power in nuclear energy plants. The authorization to run these plants expired early in 2011, but the Federal government extended it. Following the Japanese event, the government announced a temporary stop, but this was interpreted by the voters as a trick to pass the election in Baden Wuerttemberg, where discussion over atomic energy ruled the controversy. However, the CDU lost and the Green Party, which is for total abolishment of atomic energy, won the election.

Now of course this becomes a huge issue for the federal government and alternative energy sources are difficult to substantiate within a short time frame. Difficult decision also as France, that gets 80% of energy from atomic energy, and Switzerland have all their nuclear power plants close to the German border. What is the benefit should Germany stop producing nuclear energy if our neighbors continue to operate their plants and how protected are we if something happens there?

I would assume that similar controversy unfolds all over the world and gas and oil will increase in demand and prices will skyrocket and with that, energy prices will go one way, up, up, up. Democracy has its shortcomings, not just advantages.

A Converging World?

A fascinating video from the BBC

The Time Should Fit The Crime

Which of these crimes do you think is the worst?

• Attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl
• Manslaughter after shooting the victim 8 times
• Stealing computer code

Before answering think of the times we live in and what penalties have been paid by those who helped spawn and benefited from the Great Recession. To date, just about none of the head honchos have come close to prosecution. So, you might think that in the opinion of our courts the third crime would not be considered the worst of the three. You would be wrong if you measure 'worst' in terms of the penalties assigned by the courts.

The fellow who stole the computer code was sentenced to 97 months in prison, three years of probation and payment of a $12,500 fine. The attempted rape earned a penalty of seven years in prison. The shooter will spend a year in prison and pay a $2,500 fine.

Does this make sense to you? The computer code guy made no financial gain and, in fact, had to sell his house. But he did work for Goldman Sachs. So, maybe this is the government's first steps to prosecuting others at Goldman. Believe that and you have real problems.

How much money did the bosses at Goldman or Countrywide or Wamu or ________ (fill in the blank)make? What time will they serve? Do you get the feeling that something is wrong here?

Changing of the Guard

Now Bob Herbert is leaving the NY Times. This is a few weeks after Frank Rich departed. Who is next? Maureen Dowd is my candidate. Then, of course, there was the re-design of the Sunday Magazine. This coming week you'll have to pay to read more than 20 articles on-line. Change is certainly afoot there. How will it turn out?

It's not over

While Japan has slid a little in the headlines, the catastrophe is far from over. The evacuation - or the people can't live here - zone has been enlarged and it looks like radiation is back on the upswing. This could take much longer to fix than the BP spill, that is if it can be fixed.

Making the world safe for democracy

Stephen Walt summarizes recent studies of attempts - recent and not so recent - to make the world safe for democracy by foreign powers throwing out leaders of other countries, such as Libya, Iraq, Germany. Some of these studies consider overthrows going back 200 hundred years.

The results are not good, especially in those cases where a new leader or group is brought in. For example, our interventions since WWII have led to democracies only 3% of the time. Another study found that the interventions by the U.s. and Russia during the Cold War resulted in less democracy in the world.

What will be the result of our 21st century interventions?

The World Is Ending

So more people are buying bunkers in which they can survive to populate the world once more. Companies that make so-called "doomsday bunkers" are seeing rising sales. While the number bought is relatively small, the increase on a percentage basis is quite large, almost 1000% in some cases.

Some of these bunkers will be multi-family. One company is planning to build a bunker to house 950 people; it will have "four levels of individual suites, a medical and dental center, kitchens, bakery, prayer room, computer area, pool tables, pet kennels, a fully stocked wine cellar and a detention center to place anyone who turns violent". The prayer room, pet kennels and wine cellar are must-haves. Some of these bunkers can be expensive; supposedly there is one that sells for $20,000,000.

In some ways it's good to see people clambering to be saved. It's a sign that the world has not changed. Some of us will clutch at straws to avoid the inevitable.

Shoot first. Ask questions later

That's a good definition of our foreign policy by Matthew Duss and Michael Cohen. They remind us that yesterday was the 8th anniversary of the Iraq War. Their article is one more cautionary tale with regards to our actions with regard to Libya over the past week.

It is really a succinct summary of the results to date of our efforts in Iraq: 4,439 Americans killed, 32,000 wounded, 100,000 Iraqis killed, 4,500,000 displaced, a cost that will likely exceed $3 trillion, a lightning rod for terrorists.

The question that keeps coming to me is - would we be in the same spot if we did not have a volunteer army. I truly doubt it. It was one's knowing people who were wounded or killed in Vietnam or who moved to Canada that stopped that war. It was seeing the caskets containing dead young men being unloaded at Hanscom Airfield that stopped that war.

Nothing seems able to stop today's wars.

From Sea to Table

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Slowly we turn

Today's NY Times headline: U.S.-Led Assault Nears Goal in Libya. Gee, didn't Obama say others would lead the charge? And NATO The Brave cannot decide who will take the lead role. And as Nicholas Burns points out, we don't really know the rebels and what kind of government they would want. Another quagmire coming up?

Sunset at Islamorada

Photo by Westledge Studios

What's the plan?

Do we have any idea what our leaders wish for in Libya? It doesn't sound that way. This no-fly zone could last into perpetuity; the Iraq one lasted twelve years before we went to war there. Why are we not interfering in Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, etc.? Aren't people in these countries being persecuted?

It looks like we've entered another quagmire. There is a small silver lining here in that it appears as though we were not the sole leaders of this effort and actually have some help. But that's a very small lining.

Ezra eats the moon

The moon really was big last night, but Ezra was bigger.

High Income, Low Living Standard

Equatorial Guinea has a per capita income of $37,900 yet 15% of their newborn don't make it to 5 years old and almost 80% of the population of 650,000 lives in close to the worst poverty on earth. Yet the son of the country's leader was able to buy a $30,000,000 house in Malibu, and that purchase was only small potatoes. Foreign Policy tells us more than we want to know about Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator. It is truly unbelievable. Thirty-six high class cars, living at luxury hotels all over the world, a large personal staff, parties costing in the millions, $7,000 dresses for prostitutes. It goes on and on.

And while it goes on, the Justice Dept. and ICE investigations have found that he has violated many of our laws about money from foreign sources. In fact, Riggs Bank has been fined for helping him to violate our laws.

Why all this money? Why the ability to flaunt our laws? Oil.

Second Opinions

As part of my move I gave away 400 - 500 books to the West Tisbury Library. It was not an easy thing to do. I had enjoyed reading most of them and still liked to look at them. I kept the 100 or so that I thought I would still enjoy and in my first weeks here at Duncaster I have started re-reading some of the books I kept. There has not been any real pattern to it; I've just let my hands roam.

I enjoyed the Martin Beck series once again. Surprisingly, I did not like 'Heart of Darkness" nor "Bech is Back". DeAssiss' "Dom Casmurro" made me want to re-read "Epitaph for a Small Winner" if I can only find it. But, my hands fell upon "Last Orders" by Graham Swift. "Waterland" turned me into a real fan of Swift. His writing is just beautiful and thought-provoking.

I enjoyed "Last Orders" more today than when I first read it 15 or so years ago. It's very likely my increased enjoyment was due to my increased age - I'm a lot closer to celebrating my own last orders - and to my more intimate knowledge of death.

Swift, as with most of his writing, really gets you involved with people's lives. He uses the funeral of one of four close friends to say a lot about life in a very moving, yet realistic, way. These people are not intellectuals, nor are they very sophisticated. They are average people with all of the problems we all have. The problems of marriage and parenting predominate in the story. But there are wonderful descriptions of some English landmarks, such as Canterbury Cathedral and Margate.

I suspect that I will be reading this for a third time soon. It really moved me.

Will the next mother be 10 years old?

I guess Romanians really believe in having children when they are young. Ridca Stanescu gave birth to her daughter, Maria, when she was 12. Now the daughter at age 11 has given birth. Ridca is a grandmother at 23, an age when most Western women are not yet married.

Spring Approaches

The Boston Flower Show opens today. This photo was taken from the Globe.

Finding Reliable Information About Fukushima

It's not easy finding information that appears reliable and is not clouded in an excess of verbiage or 'gee whiz' graphics. Pro Publica has compiled a reading list that covers various angles of the tragedy

One recommendation is The Guardian, which has a simple chart that shows the status of all the reactors. It's a Flash file so I can't reproduce it here. But I can summarize it:

Reactor 1 - Partial core meltdown
Reactor 2 - Potential meltdown feared
Reactor 3 - Blast, fire, radiation leak
Reactor 4 - Fire; water levels dropping
Reactor 5 - Heat rising in spent fuel pool
Reactor 6 - Heat rising in spent fuel pool.

While I have tried to follow the situation, I must confess that I did not know that there were six reactors at risk. There is a lot more I don't know, but there seems to be more news about the nuclear industry than the efforts being made to help those whose life is at risk.

Der Spiegel's Analysis of Fukushima

Der Spiegel calls Fukushima the end of the nuclear era and the 9/11 of the nuclear industry. Among the constantly changing conditions at Fukushima, this analysis will, in my opinion, stand the test of time.

Who do you believe?

The NY Times headline today:  
Japan Faces Potential Nuclear Disaster as Radiation Levels Rise
 The Wall Street Journal headline:  
Officials Report Progress at Plant

Not Seismically Qualified

Greg Palast, who in a former life investigated fraud and racketeering connected with nuclear plants, asserts that most nuclear plants around the world are not seismically qualified, i.e. they cannot withstand earthquakes. Although plants must be certified, Palast claims that most aren't because the costs are too high; so, the plant owners lie and convince the engineers building the plant to lie.

He doesn't stop here. Palast goes on about the Japanese plants:

Last night, I heard CNN reporters repeat the official line that the tsunami disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors, implying that water unexpectedly got into the diesel generators that run the pumps.

These safety backup systems are the "EDGs" in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn't work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn't save a building because "it was on fire."

Palast's concerns are increased because of the plans to build two nuclear plants in Texas. A major player in the building and operation of the plant will be Tokyo Electric Power, which is responsible for the plants in Japan that are currently at risk.

Will these Texas plants be in the news in the next decade or so?

Do the math

William Easterly has and his conclusion with regard to Muslims and terrorists is "even if you think that the Probability of a Terrorist being a Muslim is 95.3%, the probability of a Muslim being a Terrorist is only 0.0007%. That is less than the probability of a left-handed octogenarian Olympic discus-thrower being struck by lightning."

The Changing Times

That's the New York Times. Earlier this year they decided to present the current standings in the world of book selling: what was #1 in e-books, in softcover, in fiction, etc. There were four or more pages filled with this stuff and, of course, ads. Do I care about best sellers? I don't think so.

Last week they unveiled a new version of the Sunday Magazine. The major change seemed to be to move it towards more photos and fewer words. Do I want more photos? I don't think so.

Today Frank Rich announced his move to New York magazine. He did praise the Times fulsomely. But his was the one Sunday column I always read. Friedman? No. Dowd? Sometimes. The periodic graphics? I can't understand most of them.

Things change. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes for the worse. To me the changes at the Times are for the worse.

We all make mistakes

Truthout has an article by Paul Krugman that I can't find on the NY Times site. I wonder if that's because he makes the argument that cutting the defense budget won't do much for the deficit. His basic point, as I understand it, is that the DoD budget amounts to only a small percentage (4%?) of GDP. But it does amount to 15% of the federal budget. I find it hard to believe that cutting the defense budget would not be good - quite good - for our economy.

The Kind of Complexity that Led to the Great Recession

A major reason - besides greed - for the Great Recession was the issuance of so-called securities that very, very few understood. All that was important was that the "security' could be quickly sold to the next sucker.

Bloomberg writes about Lehman's use of one such "security". I can't say I fully understand it but Lehman was able to convince JPMorgan for at least a couple of months that the "security" was worth at least $5 billion. Eventually, JP caught on to Lehman's ledgerdemain. Four days later Lehman filed for bankruptcy.

How unequal has the U.S . become?

This is but the first of eleven charts in Mother Jones that you will find interesting

Bargain Basement Insurance Rates

A couple of days ago I wrote about the problems DoD's Tricore Management Activity is having. The problems were very basic - what do I charge this expense to.

When I wrote that post I did not know that Tricore was the branch that supplies health insurance to the military, with 'military' including retirees as well as those on active duty. Not only does Tricore have problems with basic accounting, it also has problems establishing a fair price for the insurance, particularly when you realize that retirees are covered and someone as young as 40 years old can be covered. The monthly premiums are laughable: $19 for an individual, $38 for a family.

I think my Medicare is a bargain and I'm paying $100 a month. I should have listened to my elders and joined the Army.

We need more revenue

The budget "debate" has been primarily about cutting costs. But most budgets have two parts - costs and revenues. There has been little talk about revenues. There needs to be more. This video proposes a revenue source.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget sponsored a video contest for people across the country to tell the budget experts in Washington, DC their ideas on ways to fix the budget. Here’s one of the runners up, Anna Flaherty.

An appropriate quote for thinking about today's tsunami

Considering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair. Henry Fielding

What does this picture signify?

For the answer go to Sparrow Chat.

Everything in its proper place

One of the really basic accounting ideas is to properly classify expenditures. Should I capitalize or expense this item? Is it a sales or administrative expense? Etc. Unless you do properly classify expenditures you really can't tell just where you are. Yet, another agency within DoD, Tricare Management Activity, has that problem; it misclassified 91% of its $102,709,000 outlays. How can one manage in such circumstances?

DoD's Posture Planning in Europe Needs Work

What in God's name is "posture planning"? Googling "Dod posture planning" does not lead to an answer to the question. I think it's something akin to strategic planning, but I wouldn't bet too much on that opinion. Anyway, the GAO understands it and says

it "does not require EUCOM to report the total cost to operate and maintain installations in Europe"
"Until DOD requires the combatant commands to compile and report comprehensive cost data in their posture plans, DOD and Congress will be limited in their abilities to make fully informed decisions regarding DOD’s posture in Europe."
"it does not provide for the analysis of costs and benefits"

It's only money.

Unauditable

That's what the GAO said about the financial situation at DoD. The Pentagon spends 15% of our money and we can't figure out just how it does so? Incroyable!

Here's what the GAO said back in December

"As in past years, DoD did not maintain adequate systems or have sufficient records to provide reliable information on these assets. Deficiencies in internal control over such assets could affect the federal government's ability to fully know the assets it owns, including their location and condition."

I did say 'December'. Why has the media ignored this sorry situation? If Google were not capable of being audited, wouldn't we have heard about it post-haste?

Darker than the Vineyard

I've been living on the mainland for two weeks now. Winter is almost over, but we have not yet moved to Daylight Saving Time. Would you believe me if I tell you that nights here at Duncaster in Bloomfield, Ct. seem darker than nights on the Vineyard?

On the Vineyard I lived about a half-mile from a paved road. In winter there were 14 people scattered over eighty acres. There were no lights on the road other than your headlights. Occasionally, one of the summer people would come down for a winter weekend and you'd see a kitchen light a quarter-mile away. In the morning you might have planned to go to a movie that night, but come 7 p.m. you just couldn't see yourself driving back and forth in the dark to the theatre.

Tonight at 10:45 there are lights on in the building opposite me. But there are very few, although two-hundred or so people live here. The building is quiet, interiors are well-lit but quiet. The windows are such that it's hard to hear the wind. On the Vineyard the wind was a constant winter companion. The other day it took me quite a while to realize that a fairly major rain storm was in process here on the mainland; even the rain was quiet.

Reading what I have just written seems to be telling me that it's the quiet, not the darkness, that is the difference between the Vineyard and the mainland as I am experiencing it. And I suspect that the quiet is a function of the age of my neighbors and of myself. There is no longer a need to make oneself heard; at our age we've exercised our lungs enough. I am not saying that old age means you stop working towards creating a better world. I guess I am saying you recognize that you need sleep and sleep comes easier when you and your environment are quiet. Tomorrow at dinner there will be enough noise so that you'll have difficulty hearing your dinner companion. And then an hour later silence will descend.

Costs of Crappy Infrastructure

Shayne Henry and Samuel Sherraden have looked at a number of government publications and have created the following table which, in their opinion, shows that our crappy infrastructure is costing us $195 billion a year in lost efficiency.

Submission vs. Freedom

Today is International Women's Day. The Foreign Affairs Group here at Duncaster celebrated it with a discussion of the status of Muslim women around the world. We all know that the status is not very good as judged by the standards of the Western world. However, in this matter, I really believe that our standards are better for the people involved and for the world at large.

We listened to a speech given at UWisconsin by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In the excerpt below she compares Islam to some basic theories about America. It's quite interesting.

Regurgitating the Past

In cleaning out some files as part of my move, I came across this short piece I wrote in 2003.

Door Opener

Who would I be if Eddie hadn’t introduced me to Joyce, Lawrence, Hesse, Faulkner, Dostoevesky, Mann, Gide, Proust, DeAssisis and other great writers of the world? What pleasures would I have lost by not hearing Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde” or Bruckner’s Violin Concerto on Eddie’s “hi fi”? I know that I would not have taken this course if I hadn’t met him.

I knew Eddie for nineteen years, from 1950 to 1969. He married my sister and became the closest brother I had. He opened the worlds of great literature and music to me. His ironic and non-conformist position on many matters forced me to think. His thoughts on our world of the ’50s and ‘60s were refreshing and challenging.

I guess he was the first really bright, sophisticated adult I met. And, most importantly, he treated me like an adult, although I was only thirteen when we met. He helped ease the pain of the teenage years by giving me confidence that my ideas and opinions made a certain degree of sense and were worth listening to.

Eddie grew up in a working class neighborhood, the eldest of four. Although extremely bright and very well-read, he did not achieve his academic potential until he was long out of high school. The Korean War prompted Eddie and Jo to marry when he was drafted. He then took advantage of the GI Bill to enter college – and proceeded to Dean’s List status while working full time and raising three children with my sister.

Surprisingly (at least to me), after college he became a salesman. He was a good salesman: empathetic, very articulate, sensitive and hard working. It was those qualities that caused me to hire him for my software company. However, we did not get much time to work together. Two months after he joined my company, he died of asphyxiation at the age of 38, leaving my sister and six children.

That year, 1969, was a tough one for my family. In January my oldest brother died and I cried. In October my mother died and I cried more. And, in December Eddie died and I felt his loss most of all. My last view of him is of the funeral director shoving him down so that he would fit in the casket when it closed. Thirty-four years later I can still see everything that was in that mourning room.

A College Education Does Not Always Mean A Better Job

Paul Krugman has an especially interesting article today. He argues that we are losing the ability to meaningfully employ a middle class. Offshoring is now moving complex as well as simple jobs to lower paying countries. He cites the case where complex legal work is now being sent overseas because a computer can do just as good a job of scanning legal documents as many college-educated lawyers can. Even computer work, itself, such as chip design, is being done by computers, rather than college-educated engineers.

Krugman's solution? A stronger labor force.

Is climate change the real driver of our revolutionary world?

David Warsh thinks it is playing a prominent role. His argument is that climate change has affected farm production, which, in turn, has affected food prices, which have been one of the prime sparks of the uprisings in Egypt and elsewhere.

The argument does have merit. How much? You tell me.

Get thee behind me, BP!

Satan, not BP,  is usually the object of that command. If their actions during the spill were not enough to bring out their Satanic qualities, their post-spill actions or lack thereof certainly are. Michael Conathon has a good summary of BP's post-spill attempts at making things right.

First, did you know that Ken Feinberg's contract with BP is subject to renegotiation every three months? Maybe that's why a judge issued an order banning Feinberg from claiming independence and requiring him to clarify that he is “acting for and on behalf of BP in fulfilling its legal obligations.”

At least one marine scientist has claimed that life on the seabed floor has been devastated and we will not know the full damage for ten or more years. I've yet to hear a counter to that claim.

BP is not paying what it said it would. It is late on paying Louisiana for reconstructing oyster beds and damaged wetlands. It has paid 10% of what it said it would pay to universities and researchers investigating the gulf's condition post spill.

But, hey, things are fine with BP. They're making money hand over fist as the price of oil tops $100. And you know that first deep water offshore drilling permit since suspension of permitting in the spill’s aftermath. The largest shareholder in the well that received the permit? BP.

Satan triumphs again.

More Education Stuff

I'm on an education kick this week. I came across a study that purports to measure educational productivity. The authors acknowledge that it's not easy to conduct such a study. The variables are very many. However, being intellectuals affiliated with the Center for American Progress, they were willing to spend a year looking at most of the school districts in the country.

I think that their most important "finding" was that it matters more how money is spent rather than how much money is spent. There are a raft of charts that rate the school districts. You may find it interesting.

Lowering our costs

Congress is all atwitter about cutting the federal budget. It would be nice if they would start acting to do so in a rational way. One place to start is with the GAO report issued this week which discusses a number of areas where duplication is rife. The Center for American Progress has developed a brief questionnaire which could be used to winnow down the GAO's list to a manageable few. I'm sure that other organizations have developed similar tools as the basic questions are rather obvious to anyone with some experience in resource allocation and strategic planning:

• What goals across government is the program contributing to?
• What impact does the program have on achieving those goals?
• Does the program work well with other programs to maximize collective impact and minimize duplication?
• How cost effective is the program compared to others?
• Is the program well run? Have there been delays or cost overruns?
• Does the program learn from experience and improve in response?

Nothing magical there. How does this compare to Congress' approach?

A different approach to highway maintenance

Matthew Kahn and David Levinson are proposing a change in the way the federal government finances our highway infrastructure.

They think that our current highway infrastructure is so bad that all the money in the Highway Trust Fund should go to maintaining what we have today. Currently, about 30% of the Highway Trust Fund (money from gas tax and tolls) goes to new construction. Not only should all the money go to existing infrastructure but 1% of the fund should go to improving the capabilities and performance of state highway departments.

New projects would be funded by a Federal Highway Bank, which, they hope, would be self-financing after being initially funded by the government. Also, they feel that this bank would have more rigorous standards in allocating funds. And to put money on the table the Bank would reward especially good projects with subsidized loans and bonuses for projects which exceed performance standards.

How much do we pay for defense in FY2012?

Looking at Obama's budget for FY2012 one would answer $676 billion. However, if you look at defense costs that are embedded in areas other than DOD, the number becomes much higher. Chris Hellman has looked at these other areas and the number becomes higher, much higher. In fact, by his calculations the number is at least $1,219 billion.

Here are some of the areas that are concerned with our nation's security that do not come out of the DOD budget:

• nuclear weapons activities
• counter terrorism
• homeland security
• intelligence
• veterans benefits
• military aid to other countries
• pensions to the military and DOD employees
• DOD's share of the debt.

Race to Nowhere #2

Just by chance, maybe, today's NY Times has an article about high school graduates who have to take high school courses in college in order to really become college students. True, the college, CUNY, must take every applicant with a high school diploma. But can you believe that three-fourths of the freshmen - all of whom are high school graduates - have to take high school level reading, writing or math courses before they can take regular college courses? It costs $33,000,000 to bring these kids up to speed; that's double what it was in 2001.

Again, this raises the question of whether all of these kids should be in college. Our world does not need everyone to have a college education. Yet, we act as though the only way to get a good job is to graduate from college. I really don't care if my plumber did not graduate from college; I just want the toilet fixed at a reasonable cost. There are many things that have to be done that don't require a college education. Why do all kids have to go to college?

The Race to Nowhere

That's the title of a movie I saw last night. It's also the name of a web site. More importantly, it's shorthand for a movement to change our educational system. The basic assumption made is that our current system of educating high school students has two primary flaws: it is bad for students' health and it really doesn't provide the thinking skills needed in life.

The health problem stems from lack of sleep and piles of stress. Advocates argue that too much homework is given so that kids have to stay up late to complete the assignments. And this need to put off sleep comes at a time in life when growing kids really need their sleep. Stress comes about because of the undue emphasis parents place on the need for their kids to be above average in what has become a very competitive school world.

Personally, I don't believe that the stress issue is a function of the education system. It is a function of our society. Garrison Keilor's description of Lake Woebegone where all the kids are above average applies to the actions of many parents which result in stress for their kids. Why else would they spend thousands of dollars on prepping their child to get into the 'right' kindergarten? Why would they hire coaches to train their 10-year-old 'athletes'? Most of us are simply average. Why wouldn't our kids be average?

It is evident that testing is the sine qua non of today's education system. Passing a test is not equivalent to learning a subject. Yet, we seem to think so. So, high schools aim to provide the kids with the tools to pass the SAT, rather than how to think. How many college freshmen are really not adequately prepared in the basics by their high school education? In the film, one student from UCal claimed that half of her fellow classmates were taking what should have been high school courses.

I find it interesting that this movement began when the U.S. is no longer the world leader it was in the 20th century. Is there a relationship between our education system and our place in the world?

This movement seems to be getting some traction. It made Katie Couric's show recently. The film is being shown at schools across the country. The Secretary of Education is proposing some big changes in our education system, including less of an emphasis on testing. Who knows? Change might happen.

Views of Reciprocity

From William Easterly at Aid Watch:

• I won’t invade your country unless I want you to invade mine.
• I won’t use exploitative photos of you for fund-raising unless I want you to use exploitative photos of me for fund-raising.
• I won’t support my aid agencies forcing you to do something unless I want your aid agencies to force me to do something.
• I won’t listen to my celebrities’ opinions on your affairs unless I want you to listen to your celebrities’ opinions on my affairs.

Simple but implementation of the above would make for a better world.