The Rich Get Richer

There is a truly fascinating article about the trends in executive pay from 2008 to 2010, not exactly great years for the economy.  You'd never speculate that executive pay increased in that time period.  Would you? The economy sucked.

Well, the total annual compensation (TAC in the diagram below) paid to top management, those in the so-called C-suite (NEOs in the diagram below) increased by 37% largely due to the fact that stock awards now make up more than half of the annual compensation.

Your total annual compensation is likely the sum of your weekly pay checks.  Well if you had an office in the C-suite your pay would be made up of: base salary, bonus, non-equity incentive plan compensation, stock awards, option awards, change in pension value and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings, and all other compensation, such as perquisites.

Obama beats Bush again

This time it's with drone raids. Bush authorized 44 raids, Obama is closing in on 240.  Okay, you could argue that Barry is substituting drones for soldiers; there is some truth in that argument. But drones can only kill or injure people, sometimes innocent people.  They cannot make the country better; Pakistan is still as troubled as it has been for many years despite the drones.

There is a great deal of secrecy attached to drones.  Barry has not told us how he decides to kill the people the drones are aimed at.  And the people killed have included Americans.  True, they were involved with the other side supposedly, but we know of no legal basis for ordering their demise.

We are at the stage where the president acts as though we can do just about anything anywhere as long as we claim that he is acting to preserve national security.  What kind of country does that sound like?

McKibben on Fracking

I was surprised to learn that Bill McKibben, a very staunch environmentalist, has not always condemned fracking.  In a book review for the NY Review of Books he writes, "I was originally encouraged at the thought of major natural gas finds as well, because they seemed, as I mentioned in passing in my 2010 book Eaarth , to extend slightly the short time we have to get off fossil fuel without doing more climate damage." But that was then, now he is very strongly opposed to fracking, mainly for reasons of climate change.  He is not the only environmentalist to have changed his mind, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is another.

In addition to climate change issues, McKibben discusses what are now recognized - at least by those with no financial interest - as problems related to fracking: damage to water wells, underground aquifers, rivers, streams; air pollution; lax regulation.

Invoking 1917 Legislation

In 1917 Congress passed the Espionage Act to punish people who transmit information to a foreign government or entity "with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation."  This act  has become popular with the Obama administration.  It has used the act six times; all prior administrations used it three times.

The administration apparently has stressed the 'injury of the United States' aspect of the law, as their prosecutions have concerned administrative secrecy rather than national security.  They seem to feel that the people’s right to know does not supersede the government’s right to hide its business. For example, they charged a former CIA officer for leaking to journalists information about CIA people involved in waterboarding.  Yet, no one has been charged with waterboarding, a form of torture.

More than 1 American is killed each month by an Afghan soldier

That's what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says. Since May 2009 35 U.S. soldiers have been killed by an Afghan, most of whom were being trained by us.

Time to face reality

Ryan Crocker, our ambassador disagrees,  “This is not the time to decide that we’re done here. We have got to redouble our efforts. We’ve got to create a situation in which Al Qaeda is not coming back.”  How many more American deaths does Crocker think we need before saying 'Sayonara'? Two of our soldiers were killed inside the Afghan Interior Ministry.  How many more days of protest by larger and larger crowds can we tolerate?  How much more money do we waste trying to train the Afghan 'security forces'?  

It's a lost cause there.  It's time to declare victory and leave.

A Forgotten Company?

In all the talk about innovators of the 21st century - including Apple, Google,Facebook - there has been little mention of the company whose innovations dwarf those of just about any company in any time period. That super innovator was Bell Labs. It is absolutely amazing the things created at the Labs in the 20th century. Our world would be totally different without Bell Labs. Jon Gertner has a two-page diagram of those created from the 1920s to the 1980s. He has divided these innovations into seven categories: telephone, space, internet, music, cellphones, radio, television.

I'm biased in that I tend to think their work in the internet arena was their largest contribution to mankind. Claude Shannon and company developed information science. UNIX and the C programming language was created by Bell Lab people. But Shannon and the UNIX people would have been mere footnotes in the computer world without the invention of the transistor by Bardeen, Shockley and Brattain, Bell engineers and recipients of the Nobel Prize.

Here are some other innovations that owe a lot to Bell Labs: hi-fi records, facsimile, long-distance television transmission (this in 1927), stereo sound, cellphones, laser technology, fiber-optics, etc., etc.

While the demise of AT&T, parent of Bell, was a force for the good, it has had a bad effect on Bell. The Labs were spun off and are now part of Alcatel. In 2008 Alcatel pulled out of the basic science and research that made Bell Labs what it was. The company is now focused on things that can be sold today, not 20 years from now.

Keep 'em guessing

That seems to be Iran's strategy vis-a-vis nuclear weapons.  Apparently, all of our intelligence agencies do not believe that Iran intends to build a bomb. But, we all recall the misreadings of Iraq's capabilities by the intelligence people. Improvements have been made in processing information by the agencies since their screw-up with Iraq.  And we do have a presidency that may actually not be panting to go to war; they'd rather execute people using drones.

But even if Iran does build a bomb, would they try to use it?  North Korea, whose leaders are far nuttier than those of Iran, have had the bomb for quite a while now and have yet to use it other than for show.

Questions for those wanting to bomb Iran

From the Nieman Watchdog:

 Q. America has not had a diplomatic presence in Iran for three decades. As such, much of our knowledge relies on intelligence. Given the controversy over our intelligence on Iraq, how are we factoring in and addressing the uncertainty of intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program?

Q. What are the views of the Iranian people in regards to a potential war and the current sanctions regime? Is this current path helping us win or lose hearts and minds in Iran?

Q. What are the forces behind Iran’s nuclear program? Could one factor be a desire for a nuclear deterrence due to a sense of insecurity and threat? If so, how can we affect Iran’s sense of need for a nuclear deterrence? Does the increasingly bellicose and confrontational approach of the West actually increase Tehran’s desire for nuclear deterrence?

Q. The U.S. has thousands of nuclear weapons. Israel has hundreds. Iran currently has a mighty arsenal of zero nuclear weapons. The U.S. has successfully deterred Iran for more than three decades. Why are we assuming that suddenly, deterrence will not work with Iran anymore?

Q. The U.S. military leadership does not believe Israel has an effective military option when it comes to unilaterally destroying Iran's nuclear sites. A tense exchange is currently playing out in public between the Netanyahu government and the U.S. military, with Israeli officials accusing Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey of having "served Iran's interests." What lies behind the starkly diverging views of the Netanyahu government and the U.S. military on Iran?

Q. According to the Congressional Research Service, total war-related funding for Iraq has exceeded $800 billion -- an average of approximately $100 billion per year. With these numbers in mind -- and at a time of over 8 percent unemployment and unprecedented government bailouts -- how will we pay for a war with Iran?

Snow as you've never seen it

Courtesy of our Wakefield correspondent

Fear is the modus operandi when it comes to Muslims

The New York Police Department is so afraid of another terrorist attack that it is investigating all Muslims simply for being Muslim.  These investigations are not triggered by an indication of terrorism or criminality. The reports are essentially used to populate databases showing where Muslims work, shop and pray. It has compiled reports on Muslims in Newark and Suffolk and Nassau counties.  

Does anyone remember someone saying, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."?   How low we have sunk since Roosevelt said those words.

Finnish schools vs. American schools

Diane Ravitch has been a long time critic of our educational system.  She has been especially damning of the current efforts at reform with its over-emphasis on standardized testing.  She is a strong believer that poverty plays a large role in the current sorry state of education in the U.S.  In her view the reformers believe that better teachers will solve our problems. Ravitch asks whether we also need better superintendents and elected officials, as these people control the purse and how funds are allocated.

Her latest article in the NY Review of Books discusses the education system of Finland, which is rated as one of the best in the world when measured by the PISA assessment of OECD countries.  She thinks this assessment is based on the following (emphasis mine):

• Unlike our domestic tests, there are no consequences attached to the tests administered by the PISA. No individual or school learns its score. No one is rewarded or punished because of these tests. No one can prepare for them, nor is there any incentive to cheat.
• Finland is an alternative universe. It rejects all of the “reforms” currently popular in the United States, such as testing, charter schools, vouchers, merit pay, competition, and evaluating teachers in relation to the test scores of their students.
• Finnish schools have the least variation in quality, meaning that they come closest to achieving equality of educational opportunity—an American ideal.
• Finland borrowed many of its most valued ideas from the United States, such as equality of educational opportunity, individualized instruction, portfolio assessment, and cooperative learning. Most of its borrowing derives from the work of the philosopher John Dewey.

 Another major difference between us and Finland is the training of teachers.  It seems more rigorous than ours; all must earn a master's degree in the subject they will be teaching.  The curriculum gives a lot of leeway to the teachers; they decide what to teach, how to teach and how to gauge the student's progress. And, of course, Finland is more socialist than the U.S., taxes are high but education, including college, is free.

Ravitch concludes the article thus, " the central aim of Finnish education is the development of each child as a thinking, active, creative person, not the attainment of higher test scores, and the primary strategy of Finnish education is cooperation, not competition."

 

Getting Confirmation

You may remember the problems I had with Zagat Wine in December.  I vowed then that I would not buy anything more from them. Unfortunately, I had committed to join their wine club.  

Last week I received an e-mail from Zagat Wine informing me that they were about to ship more wine to me as a member.  I immediately called and cancelled my membership. The clerk indicated that I would get an e-mail confirming my cancellation. When none came the next day, I called again. This clerk did confirm the cancellation and said I would get an e-mail stating this within 24 hours. When nothing came in within 120 hours, I called again. Again, I was told my membership had been cancelled but there was a backlog in the e-mail room and I would not receive confirmation for 4 days.

Should I believe Zagat Wine?  Has my membership been cancelled?  What is so difficult about sending an e-mail?

This is just another example of this company's sheer incompetence.

Is McDonalds financing this?

Stem cells can have a wide use. Prof. Mark Post is trying to develop a hamburger from them and he's coming closer to succeeding, he says. Here is his  proposed method:

• Take stem cells from a cow and add serum from a cow fetus.
• Put them in a soup in which they will grow into muscle cells and multiply as many as 30 times.
• Attach the muscle cells to velcro and stretch them.
• Grind in fat tissue.
• Voila - a Big Mac.

A better looking burger can be ready by October. Supposedly, Post has a financial backer who is willing to invest 200,000 English pounds.

While this story does seem very futuristic, there will likely be a need for something like this if the world's population continues growing at its current rate.

Hat tip to our Vineyard correspondent.

He just doesn't get enough

DSK has been picked up again by the police.  This time the French police are investigating him with regards to another sex scandal - a prostitution ring.  He may not be charged, but it looks like he has a thing for prostitutes, or maybe just a thing for women. The main question is how much was he involved with a suspected prostitution ring; three of DSK's associates are suspected of being among the ring's organizers.

How's about an ultrasound?

I don't normally write about the various bills to control sex that are proposed by legislators. But this bill proposing an ultrasound for those seeking an abortion is unbelievable. Stewart's take on it is less funny than most of his bits because the proposal is so beyond the pale. Yet both houses of the Virginia legislature passed the bill.

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A report card for GWOT

Here's how Andrew Bacevich sums up the situation at this point:

Operationally, a war launched by the conventionally minded has progressively fallen under the purview of those who inhabit what Dick Cheney once called “the dark side,” with implications that few seem willing to explore.  Strategically, a war informed at the outset by utopian expectations continues today with no concretely stated expectations whatsoever, the forward momentum of events displacing serious consideration of purpose.  Politically, a war that once occupied center stage in national politics has now slipped to the periphery, the American people moving on to other concerns and entertainments, with legal and moral questions raised by the war left dangling in midair.

 Is this progress?

Expanding the donor base

400,000 of our neighbors are tied to dialysis machines. 90,000 of them have registered for a kidney transplant. 17,000 receive a kidney transplant each year. Computer technology is helping to increase the number of transplants.

Many kidney transplants are between relatives. However, while a relative may be willing to donate a kidney to a family member, oftentimes this is not possible as the medical conditions of the parties are not compatible.  Enter Grant Hil and the National Kidney Registry.  He had the insight that a kidney transplant is more likely to be possible if the donor base was enlarged to include anyone who wished to donate and was capable of doing so.  To be successful a kidney from a family member is not needed. The Registry pairs willing donors with those having a need, even if the parties live thousands of miles apart.  Hil uses computer technology to track donors and their kidneys with patients needing a kidney.

Today's NY Times has a heartwarming story on sixty of these people. It's amazing how selfless these donors have been.

Fracking does not cause ground water contamination

That's what a University of Texas study claims. The study thinks the contamination is caused by "casing failures or poor cement jobs" or is the result of above-ground spills or mishandling of waste water.  One concern that I have about this study is that is was done by the Energy Institute at the university. It would be nice to know how the Institute is funded. Here are some other views on fracking.

Will anybody be indicted?

Citibank has just paid another fine. This time the $158,000,000 fine was assessed because Citi tried to cheat the FHA.  Citi passed bad loans - some of which were fraudulent - to the FHA, which insured these loans and allows Citi to avoid the risk of default by the homeowner. 

The FHA has standards for these loans. Citi essentially ignored these standards. In some years, almost half of the loans Citi had passed to the FHA defaulted. Citi did establish a quality control unit for these loans, but did almost everything in its power to emasculate the unit.

While the government has reserved the right to pursue criminal charges, do you think any Citi bigwig will face retribution?

A restraining order against a drone

It will come to that at some point now that the FAA is allowing drones to be used for all sorts of commercial endeavors. Sure, some of these endeavors will be very worthwhile. But many will invade one's privacy. There is already too little privacy on the internet. Can you imagine the privacy violations that will take place using  drones equipped with cameras and who knows what other high-tech devices?

DOD has problems estimating operating costs

I've said numerous times that the budget cutters should read GAO reports, as these reports list numerous areas where we are wasting money. One of the primary areas is the Department of Defense. Here is an example of what goes on in DOD.  DOD acknowledges that its financial statements cannot be audited. It also appears that its statements do not help them manage either. Take the issue of the operating costs of DOD's multi-billion dollar systems. These costs tend to run to 70% of a system's lifetime costs.

Surprisingly, Congress expects DOD to report on these operating costs via something called a selected acquisition report (SAR); there are even standards as to what should be included in a SAR.

When GAO reviewed the SAR data for 84 major systems, it found "a number of inconsistent practices in how program offices were reporting life-cycle O&S cost estimates in the SAR. Program offices were inconsistent in (1) the explanatory information they included with the cost estimates; (2) the source of the cost estimate they cited as the basis for the reported costs; (3) the unit of measure they used to portray average costs; (4) the frequency with which they updated reported costs; and (5) the reporting of costs for an antecedent system being replaced by the new weapon system. For example, 35 (42 percent) of the 84 programs that reported O&S costs in the 2010 SAR did not cite a source of these data, contrary to DOD’s guidance, and 57 (68 percent) of the programs did not report O&S costs for an antecedent system. Also, O&S cost submissions in the SAR did not always incorporate best practices for presenting cost estimates, such as tracking cost changes over time and identifying cost drivers. In addition, 11 systems did not provide OS cost estimates in the 2010 SAR."

DOD is supposed to have a SAR reviewed by many departments before being submitted to Congress. Clearly, there is a management problem here.

Fantastic Icebergs

From the Australian Antarctic Division

A Better Way to Invest

Unfortunately only a few can use this method.

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Another weapon in the Too Big to Fail battle?

Eugene White of Rutgers thinks that the shareholders of banks, big or small banks, should be penalized if the bank fails or is on the verge of failing. He seems to think that the possibility of paying out a sum of money by shareholders will cause them to be more sensitive to risk and will result in the bank not taking wild chances.  I'm not so sure. White relies on a study of bank experience from 1864 to 1913 which seems to show that such a shareholder liability program did reduce bank failures.  

I hate to say it but we are living in different times.  The whole idea of share ownership is very different. In the 19th and early 20th century there was much less trading of shares, people tended to invest for the longer haul.  The shareholder then had a lot more control over a company than the 21st century shareholder. Liability then was expressed in the par value of the stock, which value is meaningless today. So how would we define liability in dollars and cents? 

White's idea is not a bad one but it needs to be matched with regulatory means of limiting risk.

Birth of an Island

Courtesy of our Pembroke correspondent.

A new way of war

That's Andrew Bacevich's opinion.  He argues that by keeping the civilian population 'immunized' from our military actions Obama and company have gained a free hand to do essentially what they want wherever they want. 

One thing they want to do is expand the use of drones, not only to gather intelligence, but to kill people, some of whom have no skin in the game.  Does it matter that we send these drones to whatever country we want in violation of international law?  What would will our reaction be when the drones start landing here?

Then, there is the question of SpecialOps. Again, Obama wants to use them whenever and wherever he sees fit.  The notion that Congress - not the President - declares wars is now passe. 

In bed with terrorists

We may not be in bed with terrorists, but it appears as though our friends, the Israelis, are.  NBC has a damning report on the links between the Mossad and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), which in 1997 was designated a terrorist group by our State Department. 

MEK killed American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supported the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980. The State Department report on MEK includes these points:

• “Bombs were the Mujahedin's weapon of choice, which they frequently employed against American targets.” 
•  "The National Liberation Army (MLA), the military wing of the Mujahedin, conducted raids into Iran during the latter years of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War." 
• The NLA's last major offensive reportedly was conducted against Iraqi Kurds in 1991, when it joined Saddam Hussein's brutal repression of the Kurdish rebellion. In addition to occasional acts of sabotage, the Mujahedin are responsible for violent attacks in Iran that victimize civilians."

The mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing worked with MEK to bomb a Shia mosque in Iran. And the list goes on.  One would have to conclude that the MEK are not nice people. Yet, our friend has no problem working with them.

What's that expression about the tail wagging the dog?

Keep it secret

That's the motto of the Department of Justice (DOJ) when it comes to reporting on the surveillance activities of the federal government. The law requires that "The Attorney General shall annually report to Congress on the number of pen register orders and orders for trap and trace devices applied for by law enforcement agencies of the Department of Justice," That does not happen very often.  DOJ does not report annually, Congress does not ask for a report. The pen register and trap devices are wiretap methods that reveal a subject’s communications, and who a subject is communicating with, all in real time.

And it's not as though these methods are used sparingly. There are close to 25,000 wiretapping orders issued each year. Interestingly, these orders can be issued for almost any reason.

Building Boom in Afghanistan

Nick Turse describes the building projects that our military is working on in Afghanistan. The cost will be in the billions. How much use we will make of these buildings is unknown, but, I'd wager that the SpecialOps people will come to know the buildings well. It is also looking as though the country will become a major drone operation center. Almost 130 construction projects will be carried out in Afghanistan this year.

Suspended from School

It seems that more and more we are reading of cases where very young  kids - kindergarteners (including pre-kindergarteners) and first graders - are being suspended from school. Here are some recent cases:

• a 4-year-old for kicking off his shoes and crying in frustration. 
• a 6-year-old who formed his hand into the shape of a gun.  
• another 6-year-old was ousted for having a Cub Scout camping tool that included a knife.
• an 8-year-old boy who pocketed a pill for his attention deficit disorder as he rushed to leave for school. After he went to take the medication during a restroom break, he was suspended for possession of a controlled substance.
• a kindergartener with autistic-like behaviors, prone to meltdowns, was suspended for more than 10 days. 

That last case is particularly interesting as one would think the child would have been a candidate for SpecialEd. Walter Gilliam, a child development specialist, has studied pre-kindergarten expulsions. His comment on the issue:  “We would never send a child home because that child was struggling at reading. We would never send a child home if that child was struggling with math. Why would we send a child home for struggling with social-emotional skills?”

Gilliam and others believe that these early-age suspensions have little value. The kids  lose instruction time and slip behind in classes.  And, the experts worry about other potential problems: lower regard from peers or teachers, a shift in identity, an alienation from school. Some studies show that suspended students are more prone to low achievement, dropping out of school and landing in the juvenile justice system.

While no one knows why some kids act up to a fearsome degree, there is at least one theory that it is because they are academically not up to the same level as the other kids, for example, they may not be able to read. Others blame family problems or learning disabilities.

Paying Taxes, Getting Benefits

Today's NY Times has a fascinating article on the benefits some of us derive from payments from the federal government. The charts are especially interesting. There are two of them, click here and here.

Fallows on Obama 3 years in

James Fallows offers his current evaluation of Obama in the current issue of The Atlantic. Unlike most pundits, Fallows acknowledges the difficulties involved in assessing Obama's performance thus far.  Often, we - and history - change our mind when a president serves a second term.  Fallows thinks that Obama really was not ready for the presidency in 2008, but that is true of many of our presidents. He believes that Obama has grown in these three years and will continue to grow should he win in November.

Fallows contends that in many ways Obama's situation is much like that of Harry Truman. Truman won in 1948 by portraying the legislature as a "do-nothing" Congress, a strategy that Obama now seems to be adopting.  However, I think there is a world of difference. Admittedly, I was a kid when Truman ran and now I'm an old man. My sense - and I think history's sense - of Truman was of a man who really believed in something beyond his re-election. Obama has not demonstrated that quality to me.

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Trying to fix a Blogger problem

Will it display more than one post?
It looks like the Westboro Baptists have decided to attack this blog as the previous post (the one below this) was appearing all by itself.  It is necessary to click "Older Posts" to see the rest of this blog.

They're overdue for another hit of publicity

The case of the father blowing up his house and killing his two children has garnered a fair share of national publicity. With the number of military casualties having diminished over the past few months, the Westboro Baptist Church has had few opportunities to use publicity to spout its message of hate. But they'll be back in action this weekend, this time in Tacoma at the church where the funeral for the two children will be held.

The 'rationale' for their appearance is that Washington is about to enact a same-sex marriage law.  The 'Christians' of Westboro known that the likely passage of this law is the reason why the children died.  So, they must protest. But, as is now common practice by a variety of groups, Occupy Washington will do its best to “protect it (the funeral) from Westboro’s abhorrent message.”

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/09/138371/westboro-church-to-protest-powell.html#storylink=cpy