Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Pythons and Anacondas: King of the Southern Everglades

We import more reptiles than any other country; in 2005 we imported 11,000,000. The problem is that many of those importing pythons and anacondas have problems keeping them on a permanent basis; after a period of time they release the snakes, many into the Everglades. So many pythons and anacondas have been released in the past few years that many of the common animals - rabbits, raccoons, opossums, bobcats, etc. - are vanishing from the Southern Everglades.


Monday, January 30, 2012

Peace in our time

Here's what Anatol Levien thinks would bring peace in Afghanistan: 
(1) complete withdrawal of all US troops according to a fixed timetable;
(2) exclusion of al-Qaeda and other international terrorist groups from areas controlled by the Taliban;
 (3) a government in Kabul headed—at least nominally—by men the Taliban would see as good Muslims and Afghan patriots;
4) negotiations on a new Afghan constitution involving the Taliban and leading to the transfer of most powers from the center to the regions;
(5) de facto—though not formal—Taliban control of the region of Greater Kandahar, and by the Haqqanis of Greater Paktika;
(6) a return to the Taliban offer of 1999–2001 of a complete ban on opium poppy cultivation and heroin production in the areas under their control, in return for international aid. 
Plus: assuring all the other parties that the US will continue to guarantee military support against any future Taliban move to attack Kabul or invade the north; and partly in the approaching train wreck that the simultaneous departure of both US troops and Karzai may cause.

Is Freddie Mac a Private Venture?

We taxpayers have owned Freddie Mac since 2008. One of Freddie's roles is to make home loans more accessible. Now that mortgage interest rates are quite low, one would think that Freddie's job would be easier and homeowners would have some relief. That is not exactly the case. Many of its homeowners are stuck with their high interest rates. This is the case because Freddie has become an organization willing to take excessive risks with our money.

Freddie's portfolio is huge. They divided it up into two parts - safe and risky. The safe part, where the return is low, was sold by Freddie to investors seeking safety primarily. They kept the risky, high interest-paying loans so that their return would not be as low as the loans they sold off. For Freddie to achieve its goals with these loans, it has to ensure that the mortgagees cannot get out of their high interest loans. This policy is not something that Freddie had been following for a long time; it started in 2010.

So, rather than helping homeowners, Freddie is doing whatever it can to keep them in shackles. Is it possible that greed is behind these efforts? The big guys at Freddie make big bucks. The fellow in charge of the investment portfolio - a government employee - made $2,500,000 in 2010 and probably more last year. 

Update: Naked Capitalism thinks the deal is not as bad as this.  It's just a typical deal for financial companies.

One View on the Efficacy of Sanctions on Iran

Vali Nasr does not think sanctions will work; in fact, they will exacerbate the situation.

The Press and The Wars

Michael Hastings, the author of the article that led to the termination of General McChrystal, has just issued what appears to be an interesting book on our 'work' in Afghanistan, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan".  This interview with Robert Greenwald focuses on the role of the press in that 'work'. Some excerpts:

Marja must be controlled in order to eventually control Kandahar. Kandahar must be controlled to control Afghanistan. Afghanistan must be controlled to control Pakistan. Pakistan must be controlled to prevent Saudi Arabia terrorists from getting on a flight at J.F.K. Airport in Jamaica, Queens.

...when was the last time anyone at the Pentagon broke a story that wasn't pre-approved? It's very, very rare. And the reason why it's so difficult -- and this gets to the information operations and the public affairs -- it's a very difficult story to tell because you're lifting up the curtain on what have become very common practices for journalists to do.

This is not just normal public relations -- there are entire operations in the Pentagon whose goal is not just to influence the enemy's population but in fact the more important goal is to influence the U.S. population. And the line that used to be, or was supposed to have been the red line between public relations and information operations, meaning one you use on Americans and one you use on the enemy, they are tearing that firewall down. So you have generals with public media handlers and they have these contracting companies that are collecting data on who's tweeting what and they have different Twitter “sock-puppets” that they've put up to try to manipulate all these different social media.

I would guess American news organizations spend maybe 10 million a year, maybe 20 million to cover Afghanistan. The Pentagon itself is spending 5 million just to have one information operations unit there, and they have hundreds of them. So the actual military in Afghanistan is putting hundreds of millions of dollars of resources into manipulating the media. And the media is spending $10 -20 million.

But I would also call out a group of very influential national security reporters who work at most of the major media outlets. And if you look closely at their resumes, they all belong or have been paid by, or have worked for very influential think tanks. Now again, what's the big deal? These think tanks -- Center for New American Security is sort of the most egregious example -- are funded by defense contractors. These think-tanks also employ a lot of retired generals. And,, more importantly, they are promoting very specific pro-war policies.


Friday, January 27, 2012

How do you define budget cuts?

The Defense Department says it is cutting its budget. First of all, one has to ask what is meant by the budget. Is it the so-called base budget? Or, does it include the costs of our wars?

The base budget for FY2012 is $531 billion. It will go down to $525 in FY2013, but then goes up in FY2014 to $534 and eventually reaches $567 in FY2017, five years hence. That looks like a 2% annual growth to me.

The war budget will go down from $115 billion to $88.4 billion next year. Of course, the war budget costs assume a reasonable transition in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. Does anyone believe that either transition will be as smooth and as quick as projected?

Google will let you know

Expect an e-mail from Google over the next month. It seems that Google is trying to improve their ad sales. No matter which Google site you use - except Google Wallet, Chrome and Google Books - Google will note that fact and combine it with your other moves over Google products. The combination, Google hopes, will have great appeal to advertisers. Because of this market potential you will not have an opt-out option. Although, if you have infinite patience and time, you can delete the relevant Google cookies over and over again.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Don't Be Evil

That's Google's informal corporate motto. Some times companies and people don't live up to their mottoes or promises.  Would you believe that Google is one of those companies? They just paid the federal government more than half a billion dollars to settle charges that the company broke the law by knowingly selling ads to illegal prescription drug sites that pitched stuff like steroids, abortion pills, and oxycontin.

So, who is without sin?

Paula the Penguin Comments on the Kentucky Senate

Would that she would similarly comment on all of our legislative bodies.

What hands can do

The Other Side of Apple

Apple as a corporation, rather than as a magical company, is in the news this week. On Monday I commented on the Sunday NY Times article that discussed the advantages Apple derives from its operations that are not based in the U.S.A.  While I did note that one of the reasons for Apple's success was "because workers in other countries are willing to work in what are close to slave conditions where they are always on call", in a comment to that post RJ Adams expanded on this point with a litany of those deplorable working conditions. And, lo and behold, today's NY Times devotes several columns to these conditions. Here are some excerpts from that article:
Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.
Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens.
Bleak working conditions have been documented at factories manufacturing products for Dell, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Lenovo, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Toshiba and others.
But significant problems remain. More than half of the suppliers audited by Apple have violated at least one aspect of the code of conduct every year since 2007, according to Apple’s reports, and in some instances have violated the law. While many violations involve working conditions, rather than safety hazards, troubling patterns persist. 
Executives at other corporations report similar internal pressures. This system may not be pretty, they argue, but a radical overhaul would slow innovation. Customers want amazing new electronics delivered every year.
“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on,” said one former Apple executive who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. “Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.” 
But Mr. Lai was focused on Foxconn Technology, China’s largest exporter and one of the nation’s biggest employers, with 1.2 million workers. The company has plants throughout China, and assembles an estimated 40 percent of the world’s consumer electronics, including for customers like Amazon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Nintendo, Nokia and Samsung.  
Employees who arrived late were sometimes required to write confession letters and copy quotations. There were “continuous shifts,” when workers were told to work two stretches in a row, according to interviews. 
Those accommodations were better than many of the company’s dorms, where 70,000 Foxconn workers lived, at times stuffed 20 people to a three-room apartment, employees said. Last year, a dispute over paychecks set off a riot in one of the dormitories, and workers started throwing bottles, trash cans and flaming paper from their windows, according to witnesses. Two hundred police officers wrestled with workers, arresting eight. Afterward, trash cans were removed, and piles of rubbish — and rodents — became a problem. Mr. Lai felt lucky to have a place of his own.  
Last year, the company conducted 229 audits. There were slight improvements in some categories and the detected rate of core violations declined. However, within 93 facilities, at least half of workers exceeded the 60-hours-a-week work limit. At a similar number, employees worked more than six days a week. There were incidents of discrimination, improper safety precautions, failure to pay required overtime rates and other violations. That year, four employees were killed and 77 injured in workplace explosions. 
The seriousness of that threat, however, is unclear. Apple has found violations in hundreds of audits, but fewer than 15 suppliers have been terminated for transgressions since 2007, according to former Apple executives.  
“We could have saved lives, and we asked Apple to pressure Foxconn, but they wouldn’t do it,” said the BSR consultant, who asked not to be identified because of confidentiality agreements. “Companies like H.P. and Intel and Nike push their suppliers. But Apple wants to keep an arm’s length, and Foxconn is their most important manufacturer, so they refuse to push.” BSR, in a written statement, said the views of that consultant were not those of the company. 
“The only way you make money working for Apple is figuring out how to do things more efficiently or cheaper,” said an executive at one company that helped bring the iPad to market. “And then they’ll come back the next year, and force a 10 percent price cut.”  
Many major technology companies have worked with factories where conditions are troubling. However, independent monitors and suppliers say some act differently. Executives at multiple suppliers, in interviews, said that Hewlett-Packard and others allowed them slightly more profits and other allowances if they were used to improve worker conditions. 
In December, however, seven months after the blast that killed Mr. Lai, another iPad factory exploded, this one in Shanghai. Once again, aluminum dust was the cause, according to interviews and Apple’s most recent supplier responsibility report. That blast injured 59 workers, with 23 hospitalized. 

“There’s a real culture of secrecy here that influences everything,” the former executive said.  
Given Apple’s prominence and leadership in global manufacturing, if the company were to radically change its ways, it could overhaul how business is done. “Every company wants to be Apple,” said Sasha Lezhnev at the Enough Project, a group focused on corporate accountability. “If they committed to building a conflict-free iPhone, it would transform technology.” 
“You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories, or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards,” said a current Apple executive. “And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.”

And so it begins

But I guess it - Obama's attempts to placate the left - has already begun. His appointment of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who dropped out of the faux mortgage settlement by most of the states attorneys general, as co-chair of a Federal committee to investigate mortgage abuses is one such action. There will be many more actions like this, a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. In his current administration Obama has demonstrated quite clearly that he'll say anything to get elected and do almost anything to make a deal with those who diametrically oppose him and his supposed beliefs.

Most of us think 2 people when we hear "co-chair". Not in this case. The co-chairs are Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general at the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement at the SEC; John Walsh, a U.S. attorney in Colorado, and Tony West, assistant attorney general in the Civil Division at DOJ. Two of this group - Breuer and Khuzami - have strong ties to the industry they will be "investigating". So many co-chairs can only screw things up. If this group accomplishes anything worthwhile, I'll be amazed. Obama has done nothing re the mortgage issue in 3 years. Why start now?

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

The Good Bank - JPMorgan Chase

Here's Ryan Chittum's comments on Jamie Dimon's fulminations about the government's modest attempts to prevent another Great Recession:
JPMorgan are the good guys, you see. Just ask Jefferson County, or talk to the lawyers in Chase’s mothballed debt-collections department, or the investors who lost hundreds of millions of dollars while JPMorgan profited big on a SIV, or the Lutheran nonprofit defrauded on a CDO it built for Magnetar, or illegally foreclosing on and overcharging hundreds of troops while they were abroad, or the homeowners who got trampled in the foreclosure scandal, or the former Chase regional VP who regrets the $2 billion in toxic loans he made in 2007 under “pressure from the top,” or the consumers who get screwed by Vertrue, etc. etc.

Colored Water as an Identifier

In a number of countries police are using colored water shot from water cannons as a means to identify protesters. In some cases the water can cling to one's skin for an extended period of time, thus protesters can be identified long after the protest is over.

Of course, the water cannon does not discriminate between protesters and innocent observers. But, hey, it's the 21st century and we're moving to a world that doesn't want to spend much time separating the guilty from the innocent.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

THE Story on the Concordia

Der Spiegel has the best recap of the Concordia disaster that I have seen.  Not only does it provide salient details of the accident. It also raises the question of the safety of these gargantuan cruise ships. Here are some of the points that are raised.
The current high-tech navigation system still has problems that need to be worked out. Furthermore, "the equipment can also be set to issue alarm signals to warn against shallows, a ship deviating from its course, other ships or danger zones -- producing a cacophony of noise that encourages some captains to simply ignore the signals."

The height of these ships can result in serious problems if something goes wrong. "For example, when a lot of water floods into the ship, it can slosh back and forth below deck and, because of the enormous weight of the water, push to the ship to the side."

Everything about these ships is huge - the ship itself, the number of passengers, the number of languages spoken. That size means problems when abnormal situations occur. "The bigger the ship, the more people crowd through the corridors during a major fire, the more confusing the jumble of languages becomes and the more difficult it is for the officers to control the ship."
"Once the giant ships, with their thousands of passengers, capsize they quickly turn into death traps, because it makes it very difficult for the sailors to lower the lifeboats."

It's all about the money. Cruises are very big business now; about 19,000,000 people cruise every year and the market continues to expand. And competition increases. "that many cruise-ship companies are faced with bitter competition and gamble with the lives of their passengers as a result."  More passengers usually means lower per-passenger costs as the size of the ships grows.



Monday, January 23, 2012

Controlling Iraq

Okay, the deputy prime minister, Saleh Mutlak, is a Sunni and there is little love lost between Mutlak and al Maliki. But Saddam is once more being talked about in Iraq. Mutlak is quoted as saying, "Saddam brought a lot of things to Iraq, like construction and roads and other sorts of things, whereas al Maliki doesn't seem to be able to bring about such reforms to the country." Things have gotten a lot worse in Iraq since we left a few weeks ago. At least 250 Iraqi civilians have been killed by insurgents since we left. And then there are the accusations of imprisonment that were reported last week.

Meanwhile, Obama says, "Iraqis are working to build institutions that are efficient and independent and transparent." and calls al Maliki the leader of "Iraq's most inclusive government yet."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/22/136579/with-us-troops-hardly-gone-iraqs.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/22/136579/with-us-troops-hardly-gone-iraqs.html#storylink=cpy


Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/22/136579/with-us-troops-hardly-gone-iraqs.html#storylink=c

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/22/136579/with-us-troops-hardly-gone-iraqs.html#storylink=cpy
 

Bigger is not necessarily better for America

Yesterday's NY Times article on Apple's manufacture of the iPhone shows quite clearly that the day of the huge manufacturing plant in the U.S.A. is gone. There are almost 300,000 people involved in producing the iPhone. 43,000 work in the U.S., the rest in Asia.

It's gone largely because of size. We just don't have enough of the kind of workers that are needed to produce something like the iPhone in quantities that will serve the world. An Apple executive comments, "The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need." Apple needed 8,700 industrial engineers to oversee manufacturing of the iPhone; China found them in 15 days.

It's gone because workers in other countries are willing to work in what are close to slave conditions where they are always on call.  An Apple executive asks, "What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?"

It's gone because our factories are just not capable of being fast enough and flexible enough to handle 21st century demands. “The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.” From a Corning executive, "So we build our glass factories next door to assembly factories, and those are overseas."

It's gone because markets overseas have reached the state and size where they are quite profitable to American companies.

What will we do? Manufacturing has been fading in this country for probably thirty or more years and we have attempted very little to retain our manufacturing base despite the fact that almost all forms of manufacturing generate tons of related non-manufacturing jobs. Perhaps there is nothing to be done. But not even trying to change things is a defeatist attitude.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Do the Republicans Have to Win the Election to Get What They Want?

Mark Thoma says "NO". Since the GOP has gotten much of what they want under Obama, does it really matter whether Obama is defeated? It's unlikely he will change if he does get re-elected. If Romney (or Gingrich?) wins, he will probably face an opposition that is more united than the current supporters of Obama. His task will be harder than simply letting Obama do the job.

Defining War

The advent of drones has resulted in a failure to observe the Constitution, which says that Congress shall declare war. Or, is it that the definition of war has changed? If we don't send troops to kill someone, then killings by machines are not considered war. If the President can send troops to Africa or Australia without seeking Congressional approval, then the dispatch of troops is not considered war. If it's the CIA and not the military that controls the drones, then it's not considered war. Would we consider it war if Pakistan sent a killer drone to Chicago?

Peter Singer has an excellent discussion of the issue in today's NY Times. He argues that our current use of drones is undermining democracy. 

Singer also has a few interesting comments about our current attitudes toward war:
We don’t have a draft anymore; less than 0.5 percent of Americans over 18 serve in the active-duty military. We do not declare war anymore; the last time Congress actually did so was in 1942 — against Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. We don’t buy war bonds or pay war taxes anymore. During World War II, 85 million Americans purchased war bonds that brought the government $185 billion; in the last decade, we bought none and instead gave the richest 5 percent of Americans a tax break.

An Apology to Captain Schettino

The following is by Al Lewis from The Wall Street Journal.

The world's been too hard on Capt. Francesco Schettino, calling him "Captain Coward" and "Chicken of the Sea" when he has performed as well as many others at the helm.
Yes, he ran aground a $450 million cruise liner, lost lives, abandoned ship and turned Carnival Cruise Lines into a circus. It was an accident.
Plenty of other captains have boldly steered into perilous waters, failed to see rocks and crashed. They've also lost footing on shifting surfaces, only to land in lifeboats, leaving others to drown. This has been a regular headline for decades.
Capt. Jeffrey Skilling abandoned ship to spend more time with his family, months before Enron hit bottom. He said it was an accident, too.
Capt. Bernie Ebbers said he didn't have any idea how phony accounting entries got into his ship's log. As captain of WorldCom, he couldn't be bothered with minor details like accounting.
Capt. Dennis Kozlowski liked Italian islands as much as Capt. Schettino. He threw a $2 million birthday party for his wife on Sardinia, using money he looted from his shareholders at Tyco International.
Capt. Richard Fuld steered Lehman Brothers into a swampy lagoon of subprime debt. He, too, hit an uncharted rock. Or, at least, it wasn't on his chart.
Capt. Jimmy Cayne was reportedly smoking weed and playing cards as Bear Stearns sank.
Capt. John Thain took care of his crew at Merrill Lynch, pushing through $3.62 billion in executive bonuses as his firm washed up on the Bank of America.
Capt. Angelo Mozilo wouldn't go down with his ship. He unloaded more than $200 million in stock options before Countrywide Financial capsized, and he left the wreckage to shareholders.
Capt. Bernie Madoff sure had a funny way of financing his yachts. He even named one of them "Bull." People somehow thought this was a reference to bull…markets.
Capt. Allen Stanford, the world's second-greatest alleged Ponzi schemer behind Mr. Madoff, is slated for trial this week. He took over the island nation of Antigua with his offshore banking empire, Stanford Financial. Some even call him the "Pirate of the Caribbean."
Capt. Tony Hayward went to a yacht race as BP's rig was spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. He expressed the same thought other disgraced captains must have: "I want my life back."
Capt. Daniel Mudd of Fannie Mae and Capt. Richard Syron of Freddie Mac overloaded their cargo hulls with junk mortgage securities. They didn't need to hit a rock. They sank themselves.
Capt. Jon Corzine sank MF Global so deep they can't seem to find all of his ship. Not even the Bermuda Triangle can make $1.2 billion in customer funds mysteriously vanish.
Capt. Ben Bernanke has launched QE1 and QE2 and he may soon christen QE3 in the Federal Reserve's fleet. He wants these bond-buying programs to bail out every foundering captain on the sea.
Unlike many other captains, Capt. Schettino wasn't risking it all in a self-dealing bid to get stinking rich. He probably wasn't drunk like the captain of the Exxon Valdez. He was just trying to show people a good time by skimming by a beautiful island.
He then did what every other captain does in an unimaginable crisis. He learned he wasn't as fearless as he'd pretended to be. He panicked. He slipped. He somehow landed in a lifeboat. He probably wishes he hadn't. But it's not like he jumped with a golden parachute.
Al Lewis is a columnist for Dow Jones Newswires in Denver. He blogs at tellittoal.com; his email address is al.lewis@dowjones.com

Saturday, January 21, 2012

What path will you take?


May the path your life takes in the next year lead you to fun and adventure, love and peace.
Have a Safe, Healthy and Happy New Year.

Thanks to our Pawling correspondent!

Fracking and Climate Change

Two Cornell professors claim that natural gas wells created by fracking leak 40 to 60 percent more methane than conventional natural gas wells.This is not good for dealing with climate change. The professors assert that within the next 20 years, methane will contribute 44 percent of the greenhouse gas load produced by the U.S. Of that portion, 17 percent will come from all natural gas operations.

Other Cornell professors disagree. How do we mortals come to a decision? Looking at some previous posts on the subject may help you decide.

Trying to Understand the Muslim Approach to Conflict

A different article in Foreign Policy in Focus considers how Muslims handle conflicts and how their methods differ from ours. The author, Doron Pely, thinks knowing something about the issue could lead to better negotiating results.

First of all, in the Muslim world conflicts have victims and perpetrators, whereas we in the West don't like to assign blame and seek a win-win outcome. Resolution of a conflict in the Muslim world begins when the perpetrator acknowledges his guilt and apologizes truly for his transgression. If there is no apology, nothing will happen toward resolution.

Honor is critical to the Muslim; usually conflicts arise because one's honor has been besmirched. Honor must be restored if the conflict is to be resolved. To the Muslim revenge is not the sinful thing it is to us. Revenge by the victim is expected, but not mandatory. Forgiveness by the victim marks the final reconciliation.

Interestingly, the victim and the perpetrator do not meet until the conflict is settled. This is quite different from our approach.

The War on Drugs Kills People

We've seen that Colombia and Mexico are still a prime battlefields in our War on Drugs. But, as these countries try to build more pressure against the drug cartels, the cartels simple move their bases of operations. The upcoming crime meccas are in the "Northern Triangle" of Central America - Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Almost 17,000 people were murdered there last year, most of them by the drug cartels, which have subverted the police forces of these countries so that the people fear the police as much as they fear the cartels.

We've all heard how dangerous Ciudad Juarez in Mexico is. Well, a city in Honduras has overtaken Cuidad Juarez in its violence; 1,148 people were killed in San Pedro Sula last year, about 158 per 100,000 citizens. Things are so bad in Honduras that we evacuated all of our Peace Corps volunteers from the country last week.

Would the Northern Triangle be better off if we legalized drugs in the U.S.A.

Spending Money on Athletics, Not Academics

The more you learn about college sports today, the sadder you get about our colleges. Many see sports as their raison d'etre, a money source - but a source for more sports, not better academics. Here are some facts from a NY Times article by Laura Pappano today"
  • between 1985 and 2010, average salaries at public universities rose 32 percent for full professors, 90 percent for presidents and 650 percent for football coaches.
  • Spending on high-profile sports grew at double to triple the pace of that on academics. For example, Big Ten colleges, including Penn State, spent a median of $111,620 per athlete on athletics and $18,406 per student on academics.
  • “Here is evidence that suggests that when your football team does well, grades suffer,” said Dr. Waddell, who compared transcripts of over 29,700 students from 1999 to 2007 against Oregon’s win-loss record. For every three games won, grade-point average for men dropped 0.02, widening the G.P.A. gender gap by 9 percent. Women’s grades didn’t suffer.
  • For a Tuesday night game against Duke in Columbus (for which there were enough seats, according to Mr. Collins, the Block O president), Ohio State students pitched tents along the outside wall of Schottenstein Center starting at 5 p.m. on a Sunday. (Who attended classes on Monday and Tuesday?)
  • In the last 10 years, the number of college football and basketball games on ESPN channels rose to 1,320 from 491.  All that programming means big games scheduled during the week and television crews, gridlock and tailgating on campus during the school day.
  • “We no longer determine at what time we will play our games, because they are scheduled by TV executives,” it laments, going on to complain about away games at 9 p.m. “Students are required to board a flight at 2 a.m., arriving back at their dorms at 4 or 5 a.m., and then are expected to go to class, study and otherwise act as if it were a normal school day.” And: “our amateur student-athletes take the field with a corporate logo displayed on their uniform beside ‘Duke.’ ” 

Friday, January 20, 2012

Do you believe Nouri or Ayad?

I think it's pretty clear that Nouri al Maliki is convinced that he no longer has to answer to us and wants to ensure his continued control of Iraq. The question is how far will he go and how soon. Ayad Allawi and others in opposition to al Maliki claim that al Maliki has gone to the level whereby he has imprisoned many (over 1000?) members of opposition political parties. But, the claim is that al Maliki has gone beyond simply imprisonment; there is no access to legal counsel and there is torture.

Allawi's claims got some support earlier this week when The Guardian reported that Iraqi security forces are arresting people on trumped-up charges so that they can get payoff money from the prisoners' families, even though some of the prisoners have been tortured.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/19/136386/iraqs-maliki-accused-of-detaining.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/19/136386/iraqs-maliki-accused-of-detaining.html#storylink=cpy

More and better information faster

Interestingly, both Paul Saffo and Mark Thoma are pushing for more and better information faster as a (the?) way to prevent future financial blow-ups. Thoma is focusing on the Federal Reserve, Soffa on the economy as a whole. Both feel that we should join the information age, failure to do so is virtually criminal.

Thoma does go beyond the need for better information faster. He feels that the Fed has been worried much more about inflation, rather than jobs. Who can argue against this conclusion when the Fed minutes corroborate Thoma's thesis?

Soffa feels that we need a new Bretton Woods, but doesn't think we'll act on this until we get hammered again. In the meantime we need an economic clearinghouse "with the analytic resources of Wall Street players, the reach of Google, and the openness of Wikipedia. Such an observatory would leverage the capacities of cyberspace to become a global (and cost-effective) clearinghouse for economic information. .... it would serve a purely informational role with no policy responsibilities."

The Truth Shall Set You Free

It's becoming more and more unlikely that we will be given the truth about Afghanistan. The military says one thing, the CIA another.  Things are swell according to the guys with bars, the spies say that's not the case. In a recent intelligence estimate the CIA sees nothing but stalemate largely because of our friend, Hamid, and our Pakistani allies.

The activities of the past week support the CIA's position. The Taliban was able to attack a government building. The number of Allied troops killed by Afghan troops increases at a good pace.  The UN says, “Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history).”


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Some WPA Projects

John Henry, of the University of Missouri- Kansas City, has a fascinating article about the WPA. Perhaps the most interesting part of the article is this list of WPA projects:

  • 560,000 miles of roads built or improved
  • 20,000 miles of water mains, sewers constructed
  • 417 dams built
  • 325 firehouses built; 2384 renovated
  • 5,000 schools constructed or renovated
  • 143 new hospitals, 1,700 improved
  • 2,000 stadiums, grandstands built
  • 500 landing fields; 1,800 runways (including participation in the construction of LaGuardia Airport, NYC)
  • State and municipal parks, including the foundation of the extensive California state park system.
  • 100 million trees planted
  • 6,000 miles of fire and forest trails created 
  • Education: Through 1941, 1 million enrolled in adult education courses, 37,000 children in classes and nursery schools; 280,000 received music instruction, 67,000 art instruction.
  • Libraries were built. These were especially directed toward poor and rural communities.
  • Zoo buildings constructed
It's been almost 80 years since the start of the WPA. Look at the list again and review how much we Americans of the 21st century have benefited from the work of the WPA. Do you think we could do as much for the future America if we had leaders, not political hacks?

Monday, January 16, 2012

Even Feldstein is against too much emphasis on austerity

Martin Feldstein is a fairly conservative economist But, his current Project Syndicate piece inveighs against the sharp austerity promoted by some in the ECB.  His article is entitled "How to Create a Depression".

An Atypical Prison

I don't know whether Lurigancho Prison is a typical Peruvian prison, but I know it is very unlike any American prison of which I am aware. Basically, the inmates run the prison and at least one section is run as a democracy by the inmates. There is an excellent description of this world in an article in Harper's, "All Politics Is Local", by Daniel Alarcon. It has not yet been posted on the Harper's web site.

Lurigancho is the largest prison in Peru; there are 7,400 inmates and only about 74 guards. All the guards do is "secure the gate to the prison". The inmates do not wear uniforms; there is no roll call, lock-down or lights-out. The prison is like a small city, with richer and poorer neighborhoods, each run by a boss. There is even a prisoner-run market, where an inmate can buy soap, batteries, popsicle, etc. - and drugs. The prison administration delivers two meals a day to the prison gates. The inmates handle everything else, including maintenance, discipline and recreation. 


Most of the article is about the democratic neighborhood. All residents of this neighborhood are international drug traffickers. Alarcon writes about the election to select neighborhood leaders. The process is very open, quite democratic and fully accepted by the inmates. A world apart from my understanding of prisons.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Land of the Free?

Jonathan Turley questions whether we are still the land of the free. He raises ten issues where he feels our freedoms have been diminished.

Assassination of U.S. citizens
The president now has the authority to order the assassination of anybody, including American citizens and he has exercised that authority.

Indefinite detention
You've got a better chance of being tried in a court of law if you are a citizen charged with serial murders than if you are declared a terrorist. "Terrorists" can be kept in jail forever. Of course, the question of who is a terrorist is important. At Guantanamo we have detained many who were called a terrorist by their neighbor.

Arbitrary justice
More presidential authority: The president decides whether you are tried in a court of law or a military tribunal. Stacking the deck against "terrorists"?

Warrantless searches
Big Brother can be watching you at any time. The president does not need a warrant to put you under surveillance. He can also force companies and other organizations to turn over whatever information they have on you, no matter how innocuous that information may be.

Secret evidence
Certain things must be kept secret, especially classified information that would harm national security. Of course, the government makes that decision to use secret information against you or to shield itself from being sued by you.

War crimes
If we torture someone, it is not a crime. If another country does, it may be a crime. We only torture for the good of the nation.

Secret court
Our secret court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations.

Immunity from judicial review
How much privacy do we have if we can't sue those companies and organizations that have given our private information to the government?

Continual monitoring of citizens
GPS is great for getting to unknown destinations. The government also uses it to check us as we are driving to these destinations. They do not need a warrant to do so. 1984?

Extraordinary renditions
If you're a really bad terrorist - or, maybe just someone accused of terrorism, we can send you to countries which are more skilled in torture than we are.

It's a hell of a list. The 21st century will go down as the century of fear if we keep believing that the best way to remain the land of the free is to limit our freedoms.

Who knows the real reason

Deutsch: 45. Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz 200...Image via Wikipedia
Mohammed El Baradei has withdrawn from the contest to be Egypt's president. Whether he did so because he felt he didn't have a chance of winning or in protest against the military leadership is unknown. He did have a few words to say about the current leader of the military council: Egypt was like "a ship that was led by a captain who wasn't chosen by its passengers and who lacked leadership experience." And he felt that the chief was "insisting to continue down the old path as if the revolution never happened and as if the regime never fell." 

It's questionable whether his decision will help or hinder the revolutionary movement.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/14/135903/elbaradei-slams-military-as-he.html#storylink=cpy
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Friday, January 13, 2012

Korb again

I've posted several articles prompted by the work of Lawrence Korb, Assistant Secretary of Defense under Reagan.  He's expressed much common sense about how we can cut our ginormous defense budget. His latest one tackles compensation for the military.

Compensation for an individual in the military, is supposed to reflect the average salaries of civilian workers with comparable educational backgrounds. Well, it doesn't; a military person receives $15,000 more a year. Eliminating this differential would save us $6 billion a year.

Those who retire after 20 years service receive half-pay for the rest of their lives.  If the average soldier entered the service is his twenties, he still has twenty or more years in which to work. Couple his regular pay with his pension and you have a pretty good income.  For a brief time the pension was reduced to 40%, but the military leaders were able to get this policy overthrown.  A more reasonable pension plan would save substantially.

The medical insurance plan, Tricare, is a great one for the retiree: $460 a year for a family plan. How much are you paying? You're lucky if it's $460 a month. How much could we save with a more reasonable plan?

Will Panetta and company look at compensation costs?

The birth of a Super PAC


Sign up to help Stephen. Fill out a comment and I'll forward it to the campaign.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

A last minute candidate?

Cap the size of banks

Simon Johnson takes up the cudgel one more time. The only way we're going to avoid another bailout of the big banks is to make sure they don't get too big. Unfortunately, neither Obama nor Romney are interested in this idea; they think tweaking is all that is needed. Rules limiting a bank's size are anathema to them.

There is a candidate that does favor such limitation: Jon Huntsman. He has proposed that a bank's size be capped based on the bank's assets as a share of GDP. But Huntsman recognizes that excess leverage has also been a major contributor to our problem, hence he would impose a cap on leverage as well. Failure to abide by these conditions would cost the banks money, big money.

Oh, that Huntsman had more traction.

Nature Honors Kim Jong-il

His death has been lamented by bears. Magpies have informed a statue of his father of the death of Kim Jong-il.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

You paid for it but you don't own it

That's the theory of publishers of biomedical research journals like Cell, Science and The New England Journal of Medicine. They are pushing The Research Works Act, which would require us to pay for papers for scientific research funded by NIH, which is funded by we taxpayers.

Now, when NIH gives a scientist a grant, the scientist is obligated to provide the National Library of Medicine’s Web site with his published results so that you and I, who supplied the money to the scientist, can review the results if we so desire.

The research journals in which the results appear would prefer that we pay them to read these results and they would like us to pay $15 and more for the privilege.

Make any sense to you?

The media gone crazy

Okay, we've got 9,000,000 reality shows, the average Joe as a pundit, invasion of one's privacy. There seems to be nothing the media will not do. Except calling you up at 5 a.m. That's a part of CNN's morning show, "Early Start".




How stupid can people be?

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

President/CEO

Daniel Drezner makes a point that should be obvious - being President of the U.S.A. is quite a different job than running a company, no matter how large the company is.  The legislature is not as malleable as a corporate board. Our government is not a corporation; there are things that have to be done that are not profitable and can be very difficult. And then there is politics. What is our return from our annual investment in Israel? Would a CEO deem it a good investment? And that's only one area where things are different.

Monday, January 09, 2012

Jacques Brel didn't always get it right

I love "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris". Brel really was able to express a lot of things I have thought. But now that I am old, I find myself questioning just how well he understood old age. "Old Folks" is a wonderful song, but it does not represent much that I have experienced in my old age. Nor does it seem as though it captures the lives of my fellow Duncaster residents.

As you look at the following video (which I am listening to as I write this), think about my opinions about aging and where I am at today. First of all, the tempo is not what I have experienced in my senescence. Life moves faster than the song. I still dream. I still read. I move more than I ever have. I still go out, I wish arm in arm. I know I'm on the down track. I miss my wife terribly, but life does go on. 

Being old is not the end of everything as long as you're reasonably healthy and your mind is still active.


Sunday, January 08, 2012

You want to vomit

Gretchen Morgenson has some excerpts from a suit filed by the Nevada Attorney General against Lender Processing Services, the big name in the world of default and foreclosure. Here are some of the excerpts:
For example, a former L.P.S. employee who worked in “attorney management,” overseeing firms that performed legal work for foreclosures, told Nevada investigators that L.P.S. required him to resolve issues raised by the firms at a rate of 30 foreclosure files every hour. That’s two minutes apiece. The employee soon left L.P.S.
Former workers at another division described their work as “surrogate signers.” They said their job was to forge signatures on documents. These people were hired through temporary agencies; one said she was paid $11 an hour and told that her job was “to sign somebody else’s signature on documents,” the lawsuit said. She told investigators that she signed roughly 2,000 documents a day for months.
Another former worker said that when a banking executive came by for a tour, the signers were told “to lie” and tell the executive they were signing their own names, the lawsuit says.
Notarization worked much the same way, the complaint said. One former worker said she realized that she might have notarized documents she had also signed as a surrogate.

It's not lack of money

We seem to spend enough on elementary and high school education according to the following chart (courtesy of Business Insider). We're the fourth highest spender on a per capita basis. Why aren't our results comparable? We do poorly in tests conducted around the world.


Saturday, January 07, 2012

The Descendants

I'm not sure that I should have seen this movie. It was well-acted with an intelligent, adult story. But, for just about all of the story, the wife was dying and dying inexorably and quietly. That is not something I am particularly interested in reliving.Eventually, it reached the point where they 'pulled the plug'. 

The movie raised questions of marriage and parenting. I think many senior citizens who are still rational tend to relate the experiences of the protagonists in a serious movie such as this to their own experiences as a parent and a spouse.  In the real world, you really never learn whether your parenting has passed the test unless it has been a true disaster, but you do know whether your marriage was the right thing for you and your spouse.

In this movie the husband did not learn of his wife's infidelity until she had become a vegetable. He was cuckolded basically because the marriage had lost its spark.One of the basic questions the movie raises is how the husband should react to his wife's lover. The other is whether the husband will eventually become a real parent. Both questions are answered in a positive way. How realistic this is is for you to see.

A side bar to the movie was its setting - Hawaii. It is truly beautiful.

A cute pitch

The SEC changes its position?

Or, has it really? They said this week that it would no longer allow defendants to say they neither admit nor deny civil fraud or insider trading charges when, at the same time, they admit to or have been convicted of criminal violations. It 'used to be' that companies would pay a fine without admitting wrongdoing, which improved its positions vis a vis investor suits. And it will still be if there are no criminal violations. Most of the suits the SEC brings include only civil not crimnal violations. Furthermore, even if there has been a criminal case, the SEC will have the option of not using the facts from the criminal case when it is prosecuting a civil case against a particular firm.

So, it's just more b.s.

Friday, January 06, 2012

The Baton Moves to Senior Citizens


The "Wild Old Women" caused Bank of America to close a branch in San Francisco.  The women are old (from 69 to 82) and live at a home for seniors. The women, some of whom were using walkers and wheelchairs, were pushing for lower bank fees and a stop to foreclosures and evictions.

I guess they frightened bank management as they closed and locked the bank as the "Wild Old Women" approached.

It should not pass unnoticed

Mr. Obama did sign the National Defense Authorization Act despite his previous threats of a veto. He tried to placate the left by also producing a 'signing statement' ala GW; he said that he has 'serious reservation' about some of the act's provisions. However, I suspect that when push comes to shove he will order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians - even U.S. citizens - anywhere in the world. 

We'll see more of this mealy-mouth attitude as this election year moves on.

Where's the beef?

Obama and company opened the new year with a lot of noise about cutting the defense budget. Panetta and his people have been working on this for months. But we heard only bromides at their big announcement. Granted they are charged with making very important decisions. However, there have been tons of ideas of cutting costs floating around for years. I've reported on some of these since 2008. When will they get specific? After the election?

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Fibonacci Numbers

I first came across Fibonacci numbers when I was a computer programmer at Honeywell. The series is structured such that the first two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two, i.e., 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21....... Both the name and the sequence were different from those I had learned. But not only were they different, there were business advantages in using them. The sequence was used to construct a sorting program which was the fastest of its time.

You don't see the term very often, so I was struck by an article in the Wall Street Journal which mentioned the Fibonacci number sequence. The article was about Aidan Dwyer, a 13-year old who had won a national science competition by developing solar panels arrayed like the leaves on a tree and thus collected sunlight more efficiently than traditional setups. Or, so he - and the judges of the competition -  assumed. They were both wrong as Aidan had measured the wrong thing, voltage rather than power.

We live in a funny age. Who would have believed that the fact that a 13-year-old made a mistake which was not seen quick enough by judges of scientific competitions for kids could have caused a major commotion on the internet. Many people expressed hate towards Aidan. How people could get so worked up is beyond me.

From the article Aidan sounds like the kind of kid who will help reverse our decline. He knows he made a mistake, but he thinks the idea still has merit and is spending some time proving its worth. He's spending time between speaking engagements as he has been invited to speak before some fairly prestigious scientific gatherings including the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.

The Pentagon Needs Better Management

Lawrence Korb believes strongly that we need a good, experienced, strong Deputy Defense Secretary, who is really a COO. He harks back to such deputy secretaries as Charles Wilson (under Ike) and David Packard (under Nixon) as the kind of deputy we need; these were people who had relevant experience managing huge organizations. Korb contrasts these with recent deputies, such as Wolfowitz, who had no experience with huge organizations. The deputies Korb favors were able to cut spending while improving security.

The recent deputies have managed in a world where an audit is impossible; the Pentagon may be able to be audited in 2017. They have played games to hide expenditures in the war budgets. And, they have been unwilling to penalize contractors for cost overruns.

Here's a little tidbit about the quality of recent management: "the number of generals and admirals is now higher than it was in 1971, when the military was twice as large as it is today and when commands, such as the Joint Forces Command, duplicated the work of others".

Korb closes with a comparison:
"At the end of Eisenhower's first term, the defense budget was $380 billion in today's dollars; at Nixon's, it was $398 billion; and at George H.W. Bush's, it was $435 billion. At George W. Bush's, it was $478 billion and at the end of Barack Obama's, the baseline budget will be no less than $475 billion and probably closer to $525 billion."

The Good Old Days Are Gone for Kodak and Polaroid

And they are long gone. I grew up in Cambridge just when Polaroid was making a name for itself with its revolutionary instant cameras. At that time, Kodak was the indisputable industry leader, but Polaroid soon became as well known and as profitable. Kodak was able to withstand the challenge of the instant camera, but, like Polaroid, could not compete with digital cameras. It's really sad to see both of them go. They both realized the importance of treating their employees well - and did a very good job of it.

Years ago Malcolm Forbes used to list fallen industrial giants in his Forbes Magazine. There were all sorts of companies from saddle makers to utilities. I thought then with the wisdom of a 30-something and knew that would not happen with the then-current industry leaders and comers. Now, I know that everything eventually dies. We live in a very finite universe. Enjoy it while you can, but know it will certainly end, perhaps sooner than you think. And then what?

CCTV-9

CCTV-9Image via Wikipedia
I had never watched Chinese television until I went to this site. I arrived at CCTV-9 via another site I had never visited, WIMP.com. WIMP is a rather basic site for video uploads, but it does host some rather interesting videos. And it was through an interesting video that I got to WIMP. This video showed how some Filipinos are using soda bottles as a source of light. It's a quite ingenuous idea that uses solar power. One problem with WIMP from my point of view was that videos can not be downloaded.

CCTV-9 seems to be China's response to Voice of America. You can visit many Chinese TV stations while operating in languages - mainly English, French and Spanish as far as I can tell - other than Chinese. However, it does lack a search facility. I'm sure it, like VOA, is censored, as it is a marketing ploy by a government.
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