A plum job

That's what being a member of the board of directors of a major public company is.  You make good money for doing very little and it's very hard for you to be fired unless you upset the powers that be at the company.  And the average shareholder is not a member of the powers.  

One of the primary problems is that most directors are elected via the plurality voting system, which says that the nominees who receive the highest number of affirmative votes cast are elected no matter how few votes they get out of the total cast. Since the board decides the number of nominees, and most nominate only as many as there are open seats, they’ll all be elected, even with a single yes vote (which may be their own).  

Another part of the problem stems from the fact that in most cases the largest shareholders are investment management firms.  The opinions of these firms can become clouded by the fact that they have a conflict of interest, i.e., they would like to manage the pension funds of the company.

Recalcitrant shareholders have not been very successful in unseating directors. Last year, there were elections for 17,081 director nominees at United States corporations. Only 61 of those nominees, or 0.36 percent, failed to get majority support.

What are the odds?

The Ad Council has been running ads for the autism world for several months now.  You've probably seen them.  They contrast the odds of being autistic as being much lower than the odds of some rare things, like becoming a professional athlete.  

In this week's NY Times Magazine the ad reads:
    Odds of becoming a top ranked Nascar driver: 1 in 125 billion
    Odds of being diagonsed with autism: 1 in 88.
Do you see anything strange here?  Last I looked there were over 6 billion people here and every year  there is at least one top-ranked Nascar driver.  How could the odds be 1 in 125 billion?

Will the Ad Council's copy reader be canned?

The Tests Are The Most Important

The fundamental measure of our schools has become the results of state-wide testing.  A lot can ride on these results - funds from the government. bonuses, promotions to administration, dinner at the White House, praise in the media, etc. So, you can understand that there may be some pressure to 'improve' the students' scores.  For example, in El Paso, a superintendent went to prison recently after removing low-performing children from classes to improve the district’s test scores. In Ohio, state officials are investigating whether several urban districts intentionally listed low-performing students as having withdrawn even though they were still in school.  

Atlanta tried a different approach. Seven teachers sat in a locked windowless room every afternoon during the week of state testing, and raised students’ scores by erasing wrong answers and making them right. Some wore gloves so as not to leave fingerprints on the answer sheets.

The state of Georgia has charged the former superintendent of the Atlanta schools, Beverly Hall, and thirty-four additional educators with racketeering, theft, influencing witnesses, conspiracy and making false statements. Prosecutors recommended a $7.5 million bond for her; she could face up to 45 years in prison.  Dr. Hall was named superintendent of the year and hosted at the White House. Plus, she earned more than $500,000 in performance bonuses while superintendent. The superior test scores were largely responsible for these rewards.

The Wall Street President

That's what Obama was in his first term. He stood by Geithner no matter what he did for the banks, as opposed to the people. Geithner's successor, Jacob Lew, promises to be as pro The Street as Geithner. Has Obama said anything about the attempts by the Congress to gut Dodd-Frank, which is not exactly the bill we need as it does not go far enough to straighten matters out. Why hasn't he made the regulatory agencies regulate? Does he not read the newspapers and the myriad stories about the shenanigans of the banks - Libor, the Whale, HSBC, ad nauseam? Why has no Wall Street executive gone to jail? Does he think all the major economists don't know what they're talking about? 

We need a president who works for us, not for Wall Street.

Pesticides and bees

This century has seen major declines in the bee population.  Last year may have been the worst, as 40-50% of the bee hives in this country were wiped out.  That means fewer fruits and vegetables and higher prices for those that make it to market.

Some think the reason for the decimation is a new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, which are incorporated into the plants themselves.  Others blame pesticides, fungicides and herbicides in general. Some say this year was so bad because of the drought.

The VA, a case study in no management

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Learn from a 9-year-old

This is from Robert Kurlwich of PBS via our Florida correspondent,

A Modern Dancer

Chances of a change in Iran are very slim

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a think tank focused on the relations between the U.S. and Iran, has published a report summarizing thirty in-depth interviews NIAC has had with senior Iranian political officials, analysts and members of the business community.   Their conclusion is that Khamenei still controls things despite the devastating effect of the sanctions.  Further, there is no serious opposition to Khamenei; we have not tried to negotiate in any serious fashion; capitulation is considered a greater threat than military confrontation.

Trying to control the banks

Barry Ritholtz doesn't think the Volcker Rule will be active in a reasonable way soon.  Until the rule actually is implemented according to its intentions, Ritholtz thinks the FDIC could do something to provide some measure of supervision.  

What can it do?  Charge the banks more for situations that increase risk, which are the size of the bank, the relative amount of off balance sheet transactions, high leverage ratios and low capital reserves.

Of course, he assumes that the FDIC could incentivize the accounting firms to actually report reality.

Add lying to the crimes of Standard Chartered Bank

On March 5 the Chairman, Sir John Peace, said that there was“no wilful act to avoid sanctions; you know, mistakes are made – clerical errors”.  This was in reference to the fines paid by the bank with regard to violating our sanctions laws.  Last week Sir John retracted these comments as they were “both legally and factually incorrect”.  He went on,  “Standard Chartered Bank unequivocally acknowledges and accepts responsibility . . . for past knowing and wilful criminal conduct in violating US economic sanctions laws and regulations.” 

This retraction was not made of the bank's volition.  The NYC District Attorney's office forced it.

Another Surprise from Rand Paul

While he doesn't want to legalize drugs, he is in favor of getting around the minimum mandatory sentencing that applies to most drug laws.  He thinks that some young people should not be put in jail for minor violations of the law.  His reasoning, “Look, the last two presidents could conceivably have been put in jail for their drug use. Look what would have happened. It would have ruined their lives,” he said. “They got lucky, but a lot of poor kids, particularly in the inner city, don’t get lucky. They don’t have good attorneys. They go to jail for these things, and I think it’s a big mistake.”

"In the long run, what’s more important to America: Afghanistan or China?”

That's David Boren speaking about the status of the CIA today where there has been such an emphasis on counterterrorism and military support that there has not been sufficient time or resources devoted to China, the Middle East and other national security flash points.  The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center now accounts for one of every ten CIA employees.  Boren is a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee who serves as co-chairman of the Intelligence Advisory Board, which is a super-secret panel that reviews our intelligence operations.

Another quote from Boren, "The intelligence community has become to some degree a military support operation.”   The new members of the CIA have been trained more, much more, in paramilitary operations than intelligence gathering.
 

Finnish Schools vs. American Schools, Part 2

Last month I wrote about Finnish schools.  Earlier this month Pasi Sahlberg, a major force in Finnish education, visited New York City.  Anu Partanen reported on his visit and concluded that the fundamental difference between our educational system and that of Finland is the emphasis on equality.  

The Finnish approach is every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.  The schools provide not only education but also free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.

Questions

Two ex-Marine officers ask some questions about what they saw in Afghanistan:

• non-alcoholic beer shipped around the world into Afghanistan? 
• The civilian contractors who slept all day in their hootches and ignored the war going on around them? 
• The ostentatious Post Exchange at the Marine Corps's headquarters in Helmand Province, with its aisles lined by televisions, air conditioners, and stereos?
• the money-losing commissaries back in the United States, a system of grocery stores receiving $1.5 billion in federal subsidies every year?
• the Semper Fit girls in Camp Lejeune, who acted like personal trainers but seemed like little more than beneficiaries of a welfare program for Marine dependents?
• Meals at the dining facilities in Afghanistan cost more than $25 per plate. 
• Back in America, many of our computers still had floppy drives. 
• the murky process of weapons procurement and acquisition, in which no-bid contracts have become all too common. 
• Why was it that we had money for such frivolities, but sometimes not the slings for our rifles? 
• Why was it that every contractor we talked to bragged about his six-figure income? 
• Why was it that the new two-story chow hall had a Mongolian barbecue, but there were never enough spots to attend humvee training?

Infrastructure Report Card

Every four years the American Society of Civil Engineers publishes a report grading the country's infrastructure.  The 2013 report card has just been published.  The grades are based on on capacity, condition, funding, future need, operation and maintenance, public safety, resilience, and innovation.  And, surprise of surprises, there is an improvement over 2009.  It's not much - from D to D+ - but it is an improvement for the first time in fifteen years.

The grades in 2013 ranged from a high of B- for solid waste to a low of D- for inland waterways and levees.  Most grades fell below a C.  Solid waste, drinking water, wastewater, roads, and bridges all saw incremental improvements, and rail jumped from a C- to a C+.  No categories saw a decline in grade this year.

The report attributed the increased grade to greater private investment in the rail category, renewed efforts in cities and states and federal funding. 

The aftermath of 21st century war

Depleted uranium (DU) was used in the munitions used by our troops in Iraq.  Over the past few years the number of congenital birth defects, cancer cases, miscarriages, premature births and other problems has increased almost exponentially.  These cases seem to be highest in cities like Fallujah which came under severe attack. 

Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.  And the official government statistics probably severely underestimate the total number of cases.

The rate of heart defects in Fallujah is 13 times the rate found in Europe. And, for birth defects involving the nervous system, the rate is 33 times that found in Europe for the same number of births.  The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings generated a birth defect rate between one and two per cent; in Fallujah the rate is 14.7%.

Singapore can teach us something

Joe Stiglitz has a very laudatory article about Singapore.  Granted he does not stress some of the undemocratic means by which it has done well in several of the ways he mentions.  I see his article as another effort to convince this country that we should really analyze our situation, rather than simply assume that we are better than all other nations.  My take-away from this article follows:

Democracy, we now recognize, involves more than periodic voting. Societies with a high level of economic inequality inevitably wind up with a high level of political inequality: the elites run the political system for their own interests, pursuing what economists call rent-seeking behavior, rather than the general public interest. The result is a most imperfect democracy. The Nordic democracies, in this sense, have achieved what most Americans aspire toward: a political system where the voice of ordinary citizens is fairly represented, where political traditions reinforce openness and transparency; where money does not dominate political decision-making; where government activities are transparent.

Out of Sight

Mayor Bloomberg seems to think that if stores were to hide cigarettes the health of NYC citizens would improve.  He also thinks that allowing the sale of large soft drinks is unhealthful.  The court rejected his attempt to outlaw the sale of large soft drinks.  I can't see it accepting his desire to hide cigarettes.

I don't smoke.  I don't think I've ever had a large soft drink or, if I have had one, ever being able to finish it.  But, I must say that I find both these efforts, particularly his latest one, to impinge on people's freedom to kill themselves.

Words, words, words

Is there a difference between organizations “primarily engaged” in promoting social welfare and organizations “operated exclusively” for social welfare purposes?   The IRS does not acknowledge that there is.  Thus, 501(c)(4) organizations are being allowed to keep secret the identity of their donors, while still maintaining their tax-exempt status even as they flood the airways with political ads.   This acceptance, which is basically the IRS interpretation of Citizens United, is being challenged in court by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).  Do you think Crew will get very far with the suit?

Fully autonomous weapons

That's the name for drones that don't need an operator.  They are programmed to find and destroy 'the enemy'.  Israel already sells the Harpy, which is programmed to recognize and automatically dive bomb any radar signal that is not in its database of “friendlies.”  The military looks on these weapons as a way to lower the military casualty rate.  I look on them as devices that are programmed by human beings; like anything made by people, they are subject to error.  But, with the world's move away from the human, it is likely that these weapons will be a reality in relatively few years.

How safe is our food?

Helena Bottmiller does not think it is very safe.   She quotes from a study by the CDC which claims that 48,000,000 Americans are poisoned by food each years; of these, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die.  There are many aspects to the problem.

We have fewer city and county health officials due to budget cutting; we've lost 50,000 since 2008.  Regulation is fragmented.  There are more than a dozen federal agencies involved in food safety, including USDA, FDA, CDC and EPA.

Congress did pass the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in December 2010. However, nothing has happened as the OMB us still trying to formulate the rules.

We don't need no stinkin badges

The JPMorgan saga continues.  The Senate report reveals more instances of the belief by JPM that it was the boss and the regulators could stand in the corner and watch. Here are some examples.

Jamie seems to have a selective memory.  He told the Senate that he was unaware of much to do with the London Whale.  Yet, he was aware enough to approve changes in risk management that allowed matters to eventually explode.  He also decided that the regulators did not need to know that JP was losing money on a daily basis.  At one point in 2012 JP stopped providing profit and loss reports to the comptroller’s office. as Jamie thought “it was too much information to provide.”

JP didn't mind lying to the regulators.  In January 2012 it said it intended to reduce the size of the Whale trading bet. Instead, the bank increased the positions.  Nor did it feel it should supply requested information as such a request was considered “unnecessary and intrusive.” JP described "high risk trading as hedging,”; under this description illegal became legal.

Similarities

Dennis Jett, a professor at Penn State, notes the following similarities between the Catholic Church and the GOP:

1. They both select the oldest white guy in the room as their standard bearer.
2. They have a fundamental policy of denying certain rights to gays and women.
3. They are convinced they have a monopoly on morality.
4. They believe putting a Latino face on their product will increase sales to that important demographic.
5. They cater to their base and could care less about public opinion or interest writ large.
6. They think to prevail in today’s world all they have to do is change the messaging without making any change in the meaning of their message.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/15/185852/commentary-six-ways-the-catholic.html#storylink=omni_popular#storylink=cpy

Shut JP Morgan Chase?

This week the Big Picture has been  posting parts of Josh Rosner's report on JP Morgan Chase focusing on the firn's risk management and internal control environment.  

Here's what I learned from the introduction to the report.  Chase spends a lot of money on legal expenses - almost $16 billion since 2009.  In addition, they have paid more than $8 billion in settlements in that time; this is 12% of their net income for that period.

Part 1 is a catalogue of Chase's attempts to get the FDIC to pay for some of the losses stemming from Chase's purchase of Washington Mutual.

Part 2 documents numerous failures of internal control and violations of the law, particularly with regards to sanctions and money laundering.

Part 3 reviews problems with the segregation of customer funds.

Part 4 lambastes both Chase and the regulators for the crappy investigative report re the London Whale scandal.

Couple this report with that of the Senate and you've got enough to start shutting Chase down.

Another Trillion Dollars

That's the latest estimate of the cost of providing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with disability and medical care and related services.  That's about $40,000 for each of the 2,500,000 soldiers who served in those wars.  Clearly, the cost is so high because of the number who have been deployed more than once; about one-third have.  The War on Terror will have produced more disability claims per veteran than our 20th century wars.  Why is that?  The number of deployments?  A different style of war? The volunteer army?

Death to Whistle-Blowers?

That's the title of an op-ed by Floyd Abrams and Yochai Benkler.  While they disagree about Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks, they are united in their opposition to the severity of the prosecution's charges, particularly that of "aiding the enemy".  Thus, a leak of supposedly national security information could lead to execution or a life sentence. 

The prosecution derives its aiding the enemy claim from the possibility that Al Qaeda could have read the leaks on the WikiLeaks web site and, therefore, Manning indirectly communicated with terrorists. Talk about a far-fetched conclusion!  In the Pentagon papers case, Justice Black gave the Court's view of such matters, “The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic.” If we now reject such principles, what will this do to future whistle-blowers?  As the authors conclude, "We cannot allow our concerns about terrorism to turn us into a country where communicating with the press can be prosecuted as a capital offense." 

They're really good guys...

... and have been for more than 100 years; this crime is an aberration.  That's how I interpret this statement: "The wrongdoing in this case by a small group of professionals at E&Y represented a deviation from the more than 100-year history of ethical and professional conduct by E&Y and its partners.” It concluded a "Statement of Facts" by the Department of Justice documenting a deal made with Ernst and Young with regard to illegal tax shelters devised by E&Y for about 200 clients who managed to avoid about $2 billion in taxes.  The first instance of the crime was in 1999.  E&Y has been negotiating a settlement since 2004 and they have to pay only $123,000,000.  No interest.  Another good deal for the moneyed crowd.

Secrecy above all

Anything connected with our use of drones must be kept secret. We can't let just any Senator or Representative look at the documents, only those on appropriate committees (which, by the way, may kill a presidential appointment) may and only when we have someone in the room watching the senators as they review the documents.

Land of the free! Home of the brave!

Martin Wolf on Cameron's austerity program

Martin Wolf enumerates the basic arguments against austerity at this point in time.

Mr Cameron argues that those who think the government can borrow more “think there’s some magic money tree. Well, let me tell you a plain truth: there isn’t.” This is quite wrong. First, there is a money tree, called the Bank of England, which has created £375bn to finance its asset purchases. Second, like other solvent institutions, governments can borrow. Third, markets deem the government solvent, since they are willing to lend to it at the lowest rates in UK history. And, finally, markets are doing this because of the structural financial surpluses in the private and foreign sectors.

Again, Mr Cameron notes that “last month’s downgrade was the starkest possible reminder of the debt problem we face”. No, it is not, for three reasons. First, Moody’s stressed that the big problem for the UK was the sluggish economic growth in the medium term, which austerity has made worse. Second, the rating of a sovereign that cannot default on debt in its own currency means little. Third, the reason for believing long-term interest rates will rise is expectations of high inflation and so higher short-term rates. But such a shift is going to follow a recovery, which would make austerity effective and timely.

Keeping secrets

Paul Thacker argues that Democrat-oriented watchdogs are not doing their job with respect to government secrecy because Obama is a Democrat and he pledged that “We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.”  Yet we have a situation where the Obama administration is as secretive - if not more so - than W's.  For example, the AP found that 17 major agencies were 50 percent more likely to deny FOIA requests than under Bush.  Journalism societies contend that Obama for muzzles scientists in much the same way President Bush had.  Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined.  The AP also found that the administration censored more FOIA requests on national security grounds last year than in any other year since President Obama took office.

Land of the free.  Home of the brave.

The effects of an indictment or fine

Mary Jo White, the nominee to head the SEC, is on the same wavelength as AG Holder: breaking the law counts for less than "whether an indictment of that institution would result in great damage to either the Japanese economy or the world economy."  She is also worried about stockholders in that "a corporate fine that in effect would have grievous impact on innocent shareholders is taken into account in terms of remedies that they seek."

There's a prosthetic for everything

including an alligator's tail.  Mr. Stubs lost his tail to another alligator several years ago.  He's managed to survive but has had a number of problems.  Swimming is difficult and he could not store food as other alligators do - in his tail.  His 'owners', the Phoenix Herpetological Society, decided to create a prosthetic tale for Mr. Stubs.  It took almost a year to make, but the alligator seems pleased.

Comparing Infrastructure

The World Economic Forum publishes a Global Competitiveness Report, competitiveness being defined as "the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country."  The U.S. ranks seventh in economic competitiveness.  It ranks much lower in the quality of its infrastructure, as I've said many times.  In this survey we rank 25th in the category.  Countries ranked above us include the UK, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden, Spain, Japan, Canada.

Everybody has cuts to the defense budget

Bloomberg's are:

• "Ground the glitch-ridden F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program." This is the trillion dollar plane.
• "Park the Ground Combat Vehicle."   It's not suitable for 21st century wars against terrorists.
• Stop building the M1 tank.  "Even the generals admit that they don’t want or need an updated version." 
• "Dock the Littoral Combat Ship."   "It might not survive in combat."  

 What are yours?

Going to court over a tombstone

Jason Carr was a fan of Nascar and the Indianapolis Colts and he loved his dog.  When he was killed in an automobile accident in 2009, his wife thought his tombstone should reflect his interests.  She bought a headstone that is shaped like a couch and features images of a deer, a dog and color logos of NASCAR and the Colts.  It turns out that the church which owns the cemetery where Mr. Carr is buried said that the headstone didn't meet the cemetery's standards and couldn't be placed in the church's century-old graveyard.  A decision will be made by the court.

This little piggy

So far, the bodies of more than 2,000 pigs have been removed from the Huangpu River, a major source of drinking water for Shanghai.  Authorities believe that the pigs were dumped by farmers upriver, the reason being unknown.

Women Programmers

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, was interviewed on PBS today.  She has been in the news recently as she is trying to publicize her book, "Lean In", which, I gather, is about the role of women in the 21st century.  I was struck by her comments that few women are in high tech and very few are in leadership positions.  She attributed it partly to the notion that women are not good at math.  I found her comments ironic.  Let me tell you why.

Back in the pre-historic high tech days of the 20th century, there were many women in the world of the computer, given the different role of women then.  Admiral Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace come immediately to mind.  By and large I felt that women were better programmers.  A math background was not necessary in those days; skills in logic and attention to detail were.  I even had a couple of women bosses and they were as good or bad as my male bosses. 

But, at some point (maybe the late 1980s), the women just seemed to vanish from the programming world.  I have never been able to figure out why.  The pay was good, the job was interesting, there was no heavy lifting involved.  Yet, they did leave the field.  Why?

A nice way to start the day

from a Duncaster correspondent

The American Justice System in 2013

Elizabeth Warren at a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee: “You know, if you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you’re going to go to jail.  If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night, every single individual associated with this. I think that’s fundamentally wrong.”

The world might end, or so says AG Holder

Here's what Holder thinks will happen if we really prosecute the Too-Big-To-Fail banks:  
“I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,”

He did swear to uphold the laws of this country, did he not?  Dimon and company must be very happy knowing things will keep going well for them under Barack and company.

Some surprises are good

While I thought Ron Paul was off the wall in some areas, in other areas - particularly freedom and liberty - he made a lot of sense.  Before this week I thought his son, Rand, was off the wall in all areas.  But his filibuster - re the Brennan nomination, our use of drones, the silence of the administration re killing people on U.S. soil - has changed my mind.  At least one Democratic senator, Ron Wyden, had the courage to join him.

Protecting Factory Farms

The Farm Bureau  is a fairly powerful organization, particularly when it comes to protecting its factory farm members.  Many of these members are known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs); these operations have often been exposed for abusing livestock, passing off sick cattle as healthy, and polluting water and air quality with massive amounts of animal manure. Drinking water pollution has been a serious problem for communities near these operations, which the US Geological Survey identified as the largest source of nitrogen pollution in the country. 

The bureau is successful at state and federal levels.  It was even able to get the EPA to rescind a rule which would have allowed the EPA to track how many animals each CAFO holds, how much manure is being discharged into the water supply, and which facilities are violating the Clean Water Act. 

Real Military Police

I'm not talking about the military police force itself.  I'm talking about our local police forces.  Since 9/11 the federal government has been giving grants to local police departments to help them fight terrorism.  Several of these grants have resulted in arming the local police as though they were serving in Afghanistan.  The ACLU has embarked on a campaign to determine just how well armed our police have become.  The campaign tag line is "Towns Don't Need Tanks".  Here are some examples from the ACLU site.

• Confused after throwing a deafening and blinding “flashbang” into a home, police mistakenly shot and killed a sleeping nine-year-old.
• A county sheriff’s department in South Carolina has an armored personnel carrier dubbed "The Peacemaker," which can shoot weapons that the U.S. military specifically refrains from using on people.
• New Hampshire police received federal funds for a counter-attack vehicle, asking “what red-blooded American cop isn’t going to be excited about getting a toy like this?”
• Police in North Dakota borrowed a $154 million Predator drone from Homeland Security to arrest a family who refused to return six cows that wandered onto their farm.
• Police in Arkansas announced plans to patrol streets wearing full SWAT gear and carrying AR-15 assault rifles.
• Drone manufacturers may offer police remote controlled drones with weapons like rubber bullets, Tasers, and tear gas.
• Two SWAT Teams shut down a neighborhood in Colorado for four hours to search for a man suspected of stealing a bicycle and merchandise from Wal-Mart.
• A company in Arizona submitted a patent for shock cuffs, which can be used by cops to remotely administer a Taser-like shock to detainees.
• An Arizona SWAT team defended shooting an Iraq War veteran 60 times during a drug raid, but had to retract its claim that the veteran shot first.
• The New York City Police Department disclosed that it deployed “counter-terror” measures against Occupy Movement protesters.        

Angel or Devil: Who can get the job done?

Franklin Roosevelt appointed Joe Kennedy, the patriarch of the Kennedy clan, as the first head of the SEC.  Roosevelt's theory was that Kennedy was expert in the various shaky deals of the Wall Street of his day.  He would know how the deals are made and who was making them and Kennedy would have no problem gong after his former colleagues.  

I wonder if Obama had the same idea in mind when he nominated Mary Jo White as SEC chief.  A good part of her legal career has been spent defending the current day's charlatans.  Frankly, I doubt it as I think he's in love with Tim and people like him  It now looks as though the next SEC enforcement head will also be an insider.

$15,000,000 per day

That's what Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, has concluded regarding our efforts to rebuild Iraq.   Bowen believes that we have spent too much money in Iraq for too few results.

Despite this money, Iraq's government is rife with corruption and infighting. Baghdad's streets are still cowed by near-daily deadly bombings. A quarter of the country's 31 million population lives in poverty, and few have reliable electricity and clean water.
Overall, including all military and diplomatic costs and other aid, the U.S. has spent at least $767 billion since the American-led invasion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. National Priorities Project, a U.S. research group that analyzes federal data, estimated the cost at $811 billion, noting that some funds are still being spent on ongoing projects. 

In too many cases, Bowen concluded, U.S. officials did not consult with Iraqis closely or deeply enough to determine what reconstruction projects were really needed or, in some cases, wanted. As a result, Iraqis took limited interest in the work, often walking away from half-finished programs, refusing to pay their share, or failing to maintain completed projects once they were handed over.  

Were they wrong?

The following ad appeared in the NY Times of September 26, 2002. The war started on March 19, 2003.  Should we have listened to this ad?

WAR WITH IRAQ
IS NOT IN AMERICA'S
NATIONAL INTEREST

As scholars of international security affairs, we recognize that war is sometimes necessary to ensure our national security or other vital interests. We also recognize that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and that Iraq has defied a number of U.N. resolutions. But military force should be used only when it advances U.S. national interests. War with Iraq does not meet this standard.

• Saddam Hussein is a murderous despot, but no one has provided credible evidence that Iraq is cooperating with al Qaeda.
• Even if Saddam Hussein acquired nuclear weapons, he could not use them without suffering massive U.S. or Israeli retaliation.
• The first Bush administration did not try to conquer Iraq in 1991 because it understood that doing so could spread instability in the Middle East, threatening U.S. interests. This remains a valid concern today.
• The United States would win a war against Iraq, but Iraq has military options—chemical and biological weapons, urban combat—that might impose significant costs on the invading forces and neighboring states.
• Even if we win easily, we have no plausible exit strategy. Iraq is a deeply divided society that the United States would have to occupy and police for many years to create a viable state.
• Al Qaeda poses a greater threat to the U.S. than does Iraq. War with Iraq will jeopardize the campaign against al Qaeda by diverting resources and attention from that campaign and by increasing anti-Americanism around the globe.

The United States should maintain vigilant containment of Iraq—using its own assets and the resources of the United Nations—and be prepared to invade Iraq if it threatens to attack America or its allies. That is not the case today. We should concentrate instead on defeating al Qaeda.

Robert J. Art

Brandeis University

Richard K. Betts

Columbia University

Dale C. Copeland

University of Virginia

Michael C. Desch

University of Kentucky

Sumit Ganguly

University of Texas

Charles L. Glaser

University of Chicago

Alexander L. George

Stanford University

Richard K. Herrmann

Ohio State University

George C. Herring

University of Kentucky

Robert Jervis

Columbia University

Chaim Kaufmann

Lehigh University

Carl Kaysen

MIT

Elizabeth Kier

University of Washington

Deborah Larson

UCLA

Jack S. Levy

Rutgers University

Peter Liberman

Queens College

John J. Mearsheimer

University of Chicago

Steven E. Miller

Harvard University

Charles C. Moskos

Northwestern University

Robert A. Pape

University of Chicago

Barry R. Posen

MIT

Robert Powell

UC—Berkeley

George H. Quester

University of Maryland

Richard Rosecrance

UCLA

Thomas C. Schelling

University of Maryland

Randall L. Schweller

Ohio State University

Glenn H. Snyder

University of North Carolina

Jack L. Snyder

Columbia University

Shibley Telhami

University of Maryland

Stephen van Evera

MIT

Stephen M. Walt

Harvard University

Kenneth N. Waltz

Columbia University

Cindy Williams

MIT

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A Different View of the New Highs in the Dow

Pam Martens does not believe that the new highs in the Dow are real.   Reason 1:  when you adjust for inflation, the Dow is not even back to its level set in the year 2000.  Reason 2:  The stocks that make up the Dow are not the same as they were as recently as four years ago; weak companies have been replaced.  So, we don't have any sort of consistency to say whether the Dow is doing better or worse today than before the Great Recession. 

It can't happen here

That's what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said with regards to Fukushima; to wit, "sequence of events such as the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident is unlikely to occur in the US. Therefore, continued licensing activities [of US reactors] do not pose an imminent threat to public health and safety."  Yet, the reactors that failed in Japan were built by General Electric, and 23 similar Mark I reactors were in operation at 16 sites in 12 US states. In addition, another eight Mark 2 reactors with similar design problems are located at five sites in four states.

The NRC is moving very slowly on this, largely because of the costs of additional safety to the nuclear industry.  Fukushima happened two years ago.  Nothing has been done yet and there really is no clear view as to whether anything will be done.

21st Century Technology Looks at 1960s America

Courtesy of The Atlantic

A good investment?

The Atlantic has a fascinating graph which plots the rate of drug addiction in the U.S. against the amount of money we spend to combat the addiction. The rate has stayed essentially the same over the period 1970 - 2010. One can't say the same for the amount of money.

Reality Intrudes

Courtesy of our Florida correspondent.