A Congress Worse Than Ours

I'd say the title applies to Brazil.  Here are some examples:

• Almost 200 legislators, or a third of Brazil’s Congress, are facing charges in trials overseen by the Supreme Federal Tribunal.  A couple of these charges: employing slave labor on a cattle estate or ordering the kidnapping of three Roman Catholic priests as part of a land dispute in the Amazon.
• Congressmen can only be tried in the Supreme Federal Tribunal.  That's an improvement as in the 20th century they could not even be tried without the authorization of Congress
• In 1963, a senator shot dead a fellow legislator on the Senate floor, only to escape imprisonment, since the killing was considered an accident because he was aiming at another senator.  

But the current protests seem to have had some effect. Congress has approved a bill to use oil royalties for education and health care. The Senate, the upper house of Congress, gave its nod to stiffer penalties for corruption, and the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, shot down an attempt to rein in corruption investigators.

The buck stops here

That's what the CFTC is saying to Jon Corzine with regard to the failure of MF Global, the firm he headed which became the largest Wall Street bankruptcy since the 2008 financial crisis.  Interestingly, they are saying this to him in a civil - not a criminal - suit.  The fundamental charge is that Corzine failed to prevent a lower-level employee from transferring customer money to banks and clearinghouses. 

Corzine, the former head of Goldman Sachs, governor and senator, has been pursued for the past five years, but he has managed to elude his pursuers.  Will he succeed in evading what is probably his final pursuer?

We're doing just fine

Here's an interesting chart from the OECD.

Government doing its job

Did you know that the government did not do a background check on Snowden and, I assume, all other contractors hired through Booz, Allen?  The background check was done by USIS, another company. I would have thought that our government would have done its own check on any contractors working for the NSA.

Scamming the system

The government favors companies that are owned by a veteran who was disabled in the service; some contracts are set aside for these companies.  Mr. Castillo in the video below claims to own such a company.  However, it is questionable when he was disabled.  Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs and severely damaged her right arm while a helicopter pilot in Iraq, questions him about his injury.

Thanks to our NYC correspondent.

 

Things are not quiet in Iraq

Throughout 2013 things have been getting worse in Iraq. In January 319 were killed; in May 1,045, which was the most monthly casualties since 2008. Many of these casualties are Sunnis, who have once more begun to protest the action' of Maliki's government, which has employed harsh tactics, such as mass raids where families are arrested and then tortured.

Are Iraqis better off now than under Sadaam?

Our country has changed

Don't listen to the opposition

Cardinal O'Malley is the boss of the Boston Archdiocese and he does his job - as he interprets it - fairly well.  One of the policies of the archdiocese is controlling who speaks on church property.  Those who advocate positions contrary to church doctrine are not permitted to speak.  Trying to prevent Catholics from hearing different views of the world has been a modus operandi for the church since I was an altar boy.

The latest attempt to keep Catholics in the dark is O'Malley's decision to ban the Rev. Helmut Schuller from speaking at a church in Dedham.  Why the ban?  Schuller advocates addressing the growing shortage of priests by ordaining women and married men.  This seems a sensible approach to a very real problem for the church. 

The Voting Rights Act Decision Explained

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What changed?

Pam Martens in Wall Street on Parade refers to various comments over the past few years urging restoration of Glass-Steagall.  I found the following most interesting, particularly the section I've highlighted.

March 16, 2012: Bill Moyers Interview on PBS With John Reed, former Co-CEO of Citigroup

JOHN REED: [Speaking about the repeal of Glass-Steagall.] “No one that I’m aware of saw it clearly. You point out to some Senators and Congressmen who did, but somehow we described them as being peripheral. And I simply said, ‘They’re wrong.’ Turned out they weren’t…

“Sandy Weill. I mean, his whole life was to accumulate money. And he said, ‘John, we could be so rich.’ Being rich never crossed my mind as an objective value. I almost was embarrassed that somebody would say that out loud. It might be happening but you wouldn’t want to say it.

“But you know, the biggest bonus I had ever received when I was at Citi was three million dollars. The first year I worked with Sandy it was 15 [million]. I said to the board, ‘I’m the same guy doing the same job, same company. There are two of us. The company’s bigger but there are two of us. What’s going on?’ ‘Oh, you don’t understand.’ And it was just a totally different culture. And see, Wall Street developed that culture.”

Risk is all around us

Will the 21st century be known as one in which we learn that evil can exist in the most benevolent of organizations?  We've seen it with the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, Penn State and elsewhere.  Gabrielle Glaser tells us about the problem of evil within Alcoholics Anonymous.

The basis of the problem is the good reputation AA has.  In many criminal cases, going to AA meetings is part of the punishment meted out by our courts.  AA, being a volunteer organization, accepts any and all without any check on their backgrounds.  Some of those sentenced by the courts are not very good people.  Some of the women who attend AA meetings are very vulnerable and become targets for the criminals. It's a situation ripe for exploitation. 

Interestingly, one of the founders of AA was known for his sexual encounters with attractive female members.

Getting Better

Our Internet speeds and capabilities have increased over the past few years.  We are now ranked among the top ten countries, up from the twenties or thirties.  We are still #1 when it comes to costs. We are by far the most expensive.  If you lived in Seoul or Paris, you could get a "triple play" bundle with 100 meg download speeds for around $35 a month. But if you're in Washington or New York, that triple play will not only cost you three times as much, your internet with be only one-quarter as fast.

The Internet is becoming as necessary a part of our lives as water and electricity, which are regulated by the government.  Why can't the Internet also be regulated?

Independent Ratings Agencies

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What if the situation were reversed?

The Obama administration is castigating Russia and China for failing to detain Edward Snowden.  Would we be as forthcoming as we want them to be if a Russian or Chinese defector was trying remain free?  I think the answer is obvious.

Will Brazil Be Different?

It certainly seems as though Dilma Roussef, the president of Brazil, is taking a different path than Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey, in handling a national protest movement.  

Public transportation was the initiating factor in the protests; Roussef vows to upgrade the system and will spend $22 billion doing it.  Medical care was another major  issue; Brazil will hire foreign doctors to ease the strain.  She also proposed stiffer penalties for political corruption, increased teachers' pay and a plebiscite to determine whether Brazil should convene a constituent assembly intended to carry out “political reform.

Invest in the OAA

You don't hear much about the Older Americans Act (OAA).  Perhaps, that's because it's a small part of the budget; it's $2.3 billion budget accounts for just 0.06 percent of the federal budget.  The act was created in 1965, at the same time as Medicare and Medicaid.  It provides federal funding for essential senior services like job training, caregiver support, transportation, preventative healthcare, meals and protection from abuse and financial exploitation. The funds expended under the act have proven to be a good investment as the results of its programs have meant lower costs for Medicare and Medicaid.

Some examples of the ROI from OAA funds:

• Enabling seniors to continue living at home means fewer stays in hospitals and nursing homes saving a substantial amount
• Programs to reduce the incidences of falling - a major problem for the elderly - have reduced falls by more htan 30%.
• For every $1 in federal spending on Meals on Wheels, there is as much as a $50 return in Medicaid savings alone.

Funding for the act does not appear to have kept pace with inflation and our growing populations of seniors; it is expected that the senior population will double to more than 70 million people by 2030.  And the economy is not great; the recession caused median wealth for people between ages 55 and 74 to decline by approximately 15 percent, and for those over 65—many of whom now need to continue working or go back to work just to stay afloat—unemployment is at its highest rate since the Great Depression.

A quote from Elizabeth Warren: “What is our measurement of who we are as a people other than how we treat those who are more vulnerable?  This is a place where good economics merges with the decisions that are right for us as a country.”

On a tightrope

Nik Wallenda of the famous Wallenda family walked a quarter mile on a wire 1500 feet in the air. 

There were winds of 18 to 30 mph and he was carrying a 45-pound pole.  The wire was 2 inches wide.  He did it in 23 minutes.

Changing FISA

Max Frankel argues that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) should operate more like the U.S. Tax Court.  The judges of FISA are chosen from federal judges around the country.  The judges of the Tax Court are confirmed by the Senate for terms that allow them to become real experts in the subject.  FISA does everything in secret; the Tax Court reports the nature of its cases and its record of approvals and denials. "Most important, it (FISA) should summon special attorneys to test the government’s secret evidence in every case, so that a full court hears a genuine adversarial debate before intruding on a citizen’s civil rights."

Discouraging acts of patriotism

When Mr. Obama was first running for the presidency, he said "acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled."  Yet, as we know, he has prosecuted more 'leakers' under the 1917 Espionage Act than all previous presidents combined.

Three of these cases are particularly egregious:

• Thomas Drake had analyzed the specifications of a data-mining program being proposed by outside contractors and found it wanting as well as a waste of money when compared to a program that had already been developed by NSA.
• John Kiriakou revealed the CIA's use of waterboarding.
• And now Edward Snowden who showed us just how much privacy has been compromised by the NSA.

Step by step

Now we have1,000 troops in Jordan ready to go into action in the Syrian conflict.  In addition, we are leaving squadron of F-16 fighter jets plus the crews of two Patriot anti-aircraft missile batteries and the logistics, command and communications personnel needed to support those units.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/21/194636/us-to-leave-700-troops-in-jordan.html#storylink=cpy In

What's going on in Brazil?

The past few weeks have seen Brazilians protesting the inadequacies of their government.  The protests have spread all over the country.  They were triggered by an increase in bus fares, but have spread to disgust with their government, as seen in this video.

Moving toward paying student-athletes?

A group of former student-athletes has sued the NCAA for its share in the revenue generated by big-time athletics through the licensing of broadcast rights and video games.  They want the suit to be treated as a class action.  If they are successful in doing so, this will be a step in stopping the colleges from treating the athletes as slaves.

The NY Times has reviewed a series of NCAA e-mails which show that the organization has been very worried about this issue for a long time.  Yet it issues such public statements as:

“With regard to the student-athlete, I think the focus on exploitation may be misplaced, and maybe it is not our duty to protect the student-athlete,” David Berst, a senior N.C.A.A. executive.

“The N.C.A.A. is not exploiting current or former student-athletes but instead provides enormous benefit to them and to the public,” Donald Remy, the N.C.A.A.’s chief legal officer.

Walking with your cell phone

Researchers from Ohio State think this is a growing problem. The number of injuries in 2010 for injuries related to using a cell phone while walking has more than doubled since 2005, even though the total number of pedestrian injuries dropped during that time. The study found that young people aged 16 to 25 were most likely to be injured as distracted pedestrians, and most were hurt while talking rather than texting.

The number of people considered as being injured while on the telephone was quite small, 1500 in 2010 from 100 hospitals across the country.  The researchers feel that most of the accidents go unreported

You've really made me mad

That seems to be the feeling of Maine Governor Paul LePage.  He's upset because of a series of articles published by the Portland Press Herald.  The series, entitled “The Lobbyist in the Henhouse", accused a member of LePage's administration of advancing policies that benefited her friends but not the people of Maine.

Because of this and other articles the governor, through his press secretary, feels that the newspaper “had made it clear that it opposed this administration.”  Therefore, the governor
will no longer respond to queries from the Portland Press Herald, including responding to requests for public documents.

I wonder how old the governor is.

Finally, a Senator Speaks Against TPP

Keeping it secret

With all the commotion about classified documents, it's good to know that the government actually also declassifies documents.  Of course, the declassification does not have to be done until the documents are 25 years old and we have almost 3,000 people classifying and only 70 declassifying documents.  We spend over $11 billion classifying and $9,000,000 declassifying.  The backlog simply increases.  It's good to live under an administration which "is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government."  What if the administration weren't so committed?

More transparency in the Obama administration

Some vital budget cuts due to the sequester

Columbia Journalism Review highlights a few cuts: 

• the chief federal public defender in southern Ohio, who laid himself off;  
• 50 Head Start teachers in Kentucky thrown into poverty along with their children when they were laid off; 
• Florida workers whose last four weeks of extended unemployment benefits were denied without warning;
• a woman made homeless by hurricane Katrina eight years ago, who was about to get housing but did not; 
• a physician whose breast cancer research grant was slashed 75 percent; 
• elderly Meals on Wheels participants who will eat less often;
• cancer patients whose life-extending medicines are no longer available to them.

We're really lowering the deficit, which is our most important problem.

Protecting One's Turf

Automobile dealers are worried about Tesla's electric car.  I'm not sure whether they are worried about the car itself or the fact that Tesla plans to sell its car through its own network; they do not plan to use dealers as all other car manufacturers do.  One reason why just about all car manufacturers use dealers is because state laws require it.  So, the dealers are lobbying state legislatures to make sure that the only way Tesla can sell its cars is through dealers. That's how the car business has worked since the beginning.  Why should car dealers have to change their modus operandi just because a new kind of car has entered the market?

Our infrastructure of bridges

 

Fortunately structurally deficient bridges usually don't collapse, but they do cause us to pay more for things we buy when those things reach our stores by truck.  When these bridges are not properly maintained, their weight-bearing capabilities are reduced and the government lowers the weight restrictions on the bridge.  This means that the delivery truck has to find a new route to reach your store. That new route is longer with the result that trucking costs increase.  We pay these higher costs. The costs are not only monetary; we'd prefer that the big trucks stay on roads built for them.

One of nine bridges in this country have been declared structurally deficient.  Kansas leads in the number of these bridges, it has 6,853.  The Federal Highway Administration estimates that it will take $76 billion to repair deficient bridges that carry 260 million vehicles each day.
Will we make that investment as a nation or will we continue to pay extra for the things we buy?

Today is Bloomsday

This recording of Joyce reading from Ulysses was made in 1924.  It's difficult to understand, but it is an historic recording.  Thanks to our Dover correspondent.

What's with our generals?

They have certainly provided fodder for the media over the past few years.  Petraeus was the most visible and commented on.  But in just the past three months three more generals have been fired or suspended, all related to sexual matters.  The Army has not always been forthcoming in detailing the offenses of these generals.  For example, it found that the head of West Point was using soldiers as private aides for himself and his friends; the aides provided free driving lessons and fed a friend’s cats.  But it's the timing in this case that really gets me.  The report was completed a year ago (May 2012) but was kept secret until yesterday.  Now that the general is about to retire the report was supposedly made public, the problem being that 21 of the report's 31 pages are redacted.

We have to protect our leaders.

Lowering food standards

I've written a number of times about the dangers inherent in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).  I recently found out that the treaty could also make us sick in that food, such as seafood, will also be subject to the rules of the treaty.  As such, we will have to abide by the lowest standards of all participating countries.  If we don't, we can be sued for the loss of anticipated future profits.

I won't repeat my other concerns about TPP.

Another line crossed

So, Obama thinks his red line has been crossed and we'll start supplying arms to the Syrian rebels.  For now, it will be small arms, but I'll wager it will grow.  Of course, the question remains as to which of the rebel groups we will supply arms since a number of the groups are not exactly supporters of the U.S.A.; if the rebels are successful, we may repent our actions should the wrong group be in charge if Assad is overthrown.  Then,we have the question as to whether the arms will be of much use as the tide seems to have turned with Assad regaining the initiative.

A more important question to me is our history of failing in most wars and in 'democratizing' nations.  We have not won a war since WWII and even that is questionable when one considers the inability of Germany to defeat Russia.  Yes, we did succeed in Bosnia and maybe Libya, but is this investment in Syria likely to succeed.  The odds are against it.

And then there is the question of costs.  Don't we have a few problems in this country that we should address?  As Eisenhower said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

I've heard this song before

New York has a reputation for having the highest requirements for insurance companies to do business there.  So, I guess it's to be expected that it would raise a warning flag about the growth of captive reinsurance.  

Reinsurance has long been recognized as a sound policy for insurance companies, as there is no FDIC for insurers as there is for banks.  Until recently, reinsurance deals have been negotiated at arm’s length by independent companies; both sides understand the risk and agree on a fair price for covering it. The obligations drop off the original insurer’s books because the reinsurer has picked them up.  Captive reinsurance is quite different; the risk is not transferred to an independent reinsurer; it is transferred to a subsidiary of the insurer. Thus, the deal is not at arm’s length. Because the risk is transferred to a subsidiary it is difficult to know what the deal really is.

Like the structured mortgage deals that played a large role in the Great Recession, captive insurance deals are quite complex.  It took the New York regulators nearly a year to follow the paper trail, even though they had the power to subpoena documents.  And, like the structured mortgage deals, the companies say there is nothing to worry about.  

MetLife says that it “holds more than sufficient reserves to pay claims on its policies” and added that it used reinsurance subsidiaries “as a cost-effective way of addressing overly conservative reserving requirements” for certain insurance products. If it had to set aside that level of reserves more conventionally, it says, it would either have to borrow — putting its credit rating at risk — or raise the money by selling stock, dragging its returns below the level its stockholders require.  The New York regulators say, “Those practices (re structured mortgages) were used to water down capital buffers, as well as temporarily boost quarterly profits and stock prices.  And ultimately, those practices left those very same companies on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars in losses from risks hidden in the shadows, and led to a multitrillion-dollar taxpayer bailout.”

New York contends that these deals allow the companies to describe themselves as richer and stronger than they otherwise could in their communications with regulators, stockholders, the ratings agencies and customers, who often rely on ratings to buy insurance.

Interestingly, these deals do not seem to be as enticing to mutual companies as they are to publicly traded companies.  Why do you suppose that's so?

Ai Weiwei comments on Prism

Excerpts from The Guardian:

Even though we know governments do all kinds of things I was shocked by the information about the US surveillance operation, Prism. To me, it's abusively using government powers to interfere in individuals' privacy. This is an important moment for international society to reconsider and protect individual rights.
I lived in the United States for 12 years. This abuse of state power goes totally against my understanding of what it means to be a civilised society, and it will be shocking for me if American citizens allow this to continue. The US has a great tradition of individualism and privacy and has long been a centre for free thinking and creativity as a result.
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But still, if we talk about abusive interference in individuals' rights, Prism does the same. It puts individuals in a very vulnerable position. Privacy is a basic human right, one of the very core values. There is no guarantee that China, the US or any other government will not use the information falsely or wrongly. I think especially that a nation like the US, which is technically advanced, should not take advantage of its power. It encourages other nations.
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In the Soviet Union before, in China today, and even in the US, officials always think what they do is necessary, and firmly believe they do what is best for the state and the people. But the lesson that people should learn from history is the need to limit state power.
If a government is elected by the people, and is genuinely working for the people, they should not give in to these temptations.
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To limit power is to protect society. It is not only about protecting individuals' rights but making power healthier.
Civilisation is built on that trust and everyone must fight to defend it, and to protect our vulnerable aspects – our inner feelings, our families. We must not hand over our rights to other people. No state power should be given that kind of trust. Not China. Not the US.

The Real Question re NSA

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Some Basic Questions re NSA

ProPublica asks five basic questions that have yet to be answered:

Has the NSA been collecting all Americans’ phone records, and for how long?
It’s not entirely clear.

What surveillance powers does the government believe it has under the Patriot Act?
That’s classified.

Has the NSA’s massive collection of metadata thwarted any terrorist attacks?
It depends which senator you ask. And evidence that would help settle the matter is, yes, classified.

How much information, and from whom, is the government sweeping up through Prism?
It's not clear.


So, how does Prism work?
In his statement Saturday, Clapper described Prism as a computer system that allows the government to collect “foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision.”
That much seems clear. But the exact role of the tech companies is still murky.

Richard Viguerie makes sense

Mr. Viguerie is virtually a god in the American conservative pantheon.  But he does make a lot of sense in a op-ed in today's NY Times, aptly titled "A Conservative Case for Prison Reform".  

It's hard to disagree with his premise:

But it’s not just the excessive and unwise spending that offends conservative values. Prisons, for example, are harmful to prisoners and their families. Reform is therefore also an issue of compassion. The current system often turns out prisoners who are more harmful to society than when they went in, so prison and re-entry reform are issues of public safety as well.

and his recounting of the basic prison problems: we put a lot of us in jail, we spend a lot of money on prisons, we get little return.

His solution is embodied by the Right on Crime campaign.  While this campaign is somewhat more conservative than I would like to see, it is time for us to address our prison problem, as it cannot be solved simply by building more prisons and incarcerating more people.

Why worry about NSA

From Stephen Walt:  (my emphasis)

Vigorous debate on key issues is essential to a healthy democracy, and it is essential that outsiders be able to scrutinize and challenge what public officials are up to. People who work for the federal, state, and local governments aren't privileged overlords to whom we owe obeisance; in a democracy, they are public servants who work for us. Right now, however, there are hundreds of thousands of public servants (including private contractors with fat government contracts) who are busy collecting information about every one of us. Citizens don't have similar resources to devote to watching what our elected and appointment officials are doing, so we must rely on journalists, academics, and other independent voices to ferret out wrongdoing, government malfeasance, corruption, or just plain honest mistakes. But if these independent voices are becoming more vulnerable to retribution than ever before -- and via completely legal means -- then more and more of those voices will be cowed into silence. And the inevitable result will be greater latitude for government officials, greater corruption, and a diminished capacity to identify and correct errors. 

In short, the real reason you should be worried about these revelations of government surveillance is not that you're likely to be tracked, prosecuted, or exposed. You should be worried because it is another step in the process of making our vibrant, contentious, and most of all free-minded citizenry into a nation of sheep.

Security: a growth business

The military has outsourced quite a lot of its work to private security contractors, like the infamous Blackwater.  So, I guess it's nothing new that we also outsource a lot of the NSA's work to a private security contractor, BoozAllen.  The latest security brouhaha has revealed that BoozAllen, which in the 20th century was a major management consulting firm, derives 98% of its revenue from the government.  And it is quite profitable revenue, netting income of $1.3 billion on revenue of $5.76 billion, a 23% margin.  Surprisingly, almost half of its employees hold top security clearances; it is possible that these clearances were granted by the company itself, as they are authorized to do.

Some have estimated that we have more than a million private contractors involved in our security efforts.

More of the secret world of the NSA

So now there is something called Boundless Informant which details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks. We learn this from The Guardian, which has been on a tear this week re the NSA.  The information provided by this tool is still metadata, rather than the content of an email or instant message. And it is collecting a ton of data, collecting almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013. 

While NSA says it does not collect any type of data on us, the fact sheet for the tool states the tool shows information including: "How many records (and what type) are collected against a particular country."  Since the tool can provide data as detailed as the IP address, the question of the veracity of NSA's claims is raised.

It just gets worse and worse.

Some Talkers Can Be Doers

Obama can still give a good speech.  The problem is it is just a speech, nothing will happen.  Adam Clymer reminds us of an equally good orator who actually made things happen.  That orator was JFK.  

On June 10 and 11 Kennedy gave two speeches which changed the world and this country.  On June 10 in a commencement speech at American University he announced new talks to try to curb nuclear tests.  An excerpt from this speech:

“In the final analysis our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

An agreement to establish a hot line between Washington and Moscow came in a few days, and a limited nuclear test ban treaty in four months.  

On June 11 he spoke to the nation on television outlining the civil rights bill he would be submitting to Congress.  An excerpt:

“The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.”

In just over a year, the 1964 Civil Rights Act became the most important American law of the 20th century.

What action has resulted from a speech by Obama?

2,800 on the dole

The airport screening program of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has 2,800 employees.  This is the “behavioral detection program” that relies on security officers to pull aside passengers who exhibit what are considered telltale signs of terrorists for additional screening and questioning. The Inspector General of the TSA thinks that the program has no basis in science, enables racial profiling, and is not cost-effective.  Howsomever, we have spent about $1 billion dollars on it.  The TSA has never analyzed the effectiveness of the program nor have they trained the 2,800 employees in how to get the most out of the program.

Looking for cuts in the budget?  Not a bad place to start.

Financial management at the Pentagon is laughable

The Pentagon can't do simple bookkeeping.  For example, in fiscal 2011 it made $238.2 million in overpayments and $48.4 million in underpayments related to travel alone. But documentation of these payments sucks; the Pentagon was only able to identify $1.6 million, or less than 1 percent, of the program's estimated overpayments as recoverable, explaining that they lacked supporting documentation.  Documentation is so bad that the GAO can't validate many purchases.
 
Overpayments are not a new problem. In the 1990s, the Army paid $6 million to 2,269 troops who had already quit the service, were absent without leave or had deserted their units.The Army was able to document one overpayment since 2009, it was for the huge sum of $20.79.

Some at the Pentagon should go back to grammar school as the department claimed it would recover $67.6 million in improper military retirement payments while estimating that only $18.8 million in overpayments had actually occurred.  It's magic!

Money for prisons but not for schools

I had thought that Pennsylvania was a reasonable state. Now I'm not so sure.  They are willing to close twenty-three schools in Philadelphia because the state can't find $304,000,000. But they can find $400,000,000 to build a new prison to add to a prison built ten years ago.  Plus, they are forfeiting $600,000,000 in taxes by granting corporations a break.

Adding further shame to such decisions is that in the schools being closed 81% of the students are black, although blacks comprise 58% of the total school population.  While 4% of the kids affected are white, whites comprise 14% of the total school population.

Slavery in America in the 21st Century

Here's how the NCAA describes its basic function:

Founded more than one hundred years ago as a way to protect student-athletes, the NCAA continues to implement that principle with increased emphasis on both athletics and academic excellence.

We all know that they really are not interested in "academic excellence".  And it also seems evident that they have little interest in "protect(ing) student-athletes".  One has only to look at their transfer policy to see that.

Should an athlete decide to transfer, he must follow the rules of the NCAA, the conference in which the school competes and the letter of intent he signed when he was still in high school.  The letter of intent was originally intended to stop the pursuit of high school players; now it is used as a way to stop the athlete from transferring.  Fundamentally, it comes down to the coach deciding to which school the athlete transfers. If the coach does not grant a release, the player must forfeit any scholarship opportunity, pay his own way to the new university and sit out the next season. The player really is on the short end of the stick. In the case described in the NY Times article, the coach refused forty requests by the player.  Once the student signs the letter of intent, he really becomes an indentured servant.

On the other hand, the coach, the student's master, can easily move to another college, usually for as healthy increase in his compensation.

Note: I found it ironic that a state university, Oklahoma State, pays its football coach over $3,000,000 a year.

A PRISM of a Different Kind

The Washington Post has an in-depth view of one of the tools - perhaps the most important one - that NSA uses for spying on our electronic communications.  The tool, known as PRISM, relies on being able to access the servers and networks of some of America's leading companies: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.  The NSA is able to extract audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets.  This tools is also used by GCHQ, Britain’s equivalent of the NSA.

This tool was authorized by Congress via the the Protect America Act in 2007 and the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court Amendments Act of 2008, which immunized private companies that cooperated voluntarily with U.S. intelligence collection.  FISA is a court that meets in secret, allows only the government to appear before it, and publishes almost none of its opinions.

You really should like at this show from the Post.  Some of the slides appear below.

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We have nothing to fear but fear itself

This post from 2010 shows that you are more likely to die in an auto accident or be murdered than die from a terrorist attack.  Yet, we are being fed the line that terrorism presents us with unbelievable risks.  Yes, there have been people who have been victims of terrorists. But, as Steve Walt writes, "Terrorism often succeeds when its targets overreact, thereby confirming the extremists' narrative and helping tilt opinion toward their cause. Thus, a key lesson in dealing with these (modest) dangers is not to exaggerate them or attribute to enemies advantages that they do not possess."

Deferring or Investing?

One of the primary ways government tries to keep budgets within reason is by deferring maintenance.  My experience with town governments demonstrated to me the futility of that approach.  At least once a year we would learn of the necessity of a fairly large increase in a department's budget due to the need for maintenance which had been deferred in prior years.  On the federal level we are currently deferring maintenance to reduce the deficit.  From an economic standpoint  this makes no sense when the cost of money is close to zero and unemployment, particularly in construction, remains high.  And, of course, deferring maintenance of bridges and roads does not make us safer.

Keeping us informed

I guess if the  Federal Housing Finance Agency had settled with Citigroup for hundreds of millions of dollars they would have shouted it from the rooftops. The agency had accused Citigroup of violating securities laws and making misrepresentations about $3.5 billion of mortgage bonds that it sold to Fannie and Freddie during the housing bubble.  But, as happens so often with big miscreants, the government settled the case.  No one was charged, some company money was paid, Citigroup resolved to be a good boy.  Everybody is happy except we don't know what we should be happy about.  Why won't the agency tell us what the deal was?  Was it that bad a deal?

Big Brother At Work

Forty years ago the mandate of our National Security Agency was to gather foreign intelligence only; domestic snooping was verboten. In the 21st century President George W. Bush, frightened out of his wits by 9/11, ordered the agency to collect intelligence on Americans.  GW2, Barack Obama, I guess is as frightened as GW and as focused on 'protecting us' - whether we are average citizens or suspected terrorists - since he has ordered Verizon to collect information on all calls within the U.S.A. as well as between us and other countries.  Every day Verizon collects the numbers of both parties on a call,  location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.  Furthermore, the court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself. 

This situation is to continue until July 19, but we really don't know when the order became effective and whether or not it is issued in three-month increments.  Also, we do not know whether other companies are collecting intelligence for our own good.  The warnings by Senators Wyden and Udall over the past two years probably reflect such actions.

Don't you feel safer now?

Dorothy Custer - Experiences of a Century and more

TPP finally made The Times

I should say that for the first time a negative article about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has appeared in a major publication, as far as I can tell.  The TPP is a major agreement that in the words of United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk “will create binding policies on future Congresses in numerous areas,” including “those related to labor, patent and copyright, land use, food, agriculture and product standards, natural resources, the environment, professional licensing, state-owned enterprises and government procurement policies, as well as financial, healthcare, energy, telecommunications and other service sector regulations.”  Yet, the Obama administration has been keeping it secret.  

It has yet to allow Congress to attend negotiations as observers, which is common with such an agreement, or to see the text of the draft agreement. The Administration wants the agreement to be given fast-track treatment on Capitol Hill. Under this extraordinary and rarely used procedure, Obama could sign the agreement before Congress voted on it. And Congress’s post-facto vote would be under rules limiting debate, banning all amendments and forcing a quick vote. 

And Obama continues to talk about transparency.  Why hasn't the major media given this any real attention?

More negative news re the IRS

The IRS Inspector General is expected to report on Tuesday that between 2010 and 2012 the IRS held at least 220 conferences for its employees for which it spent about $50,000,000.  That's more than one conference per week and more than $22,000 per conference.

At a conference in Anaheim in 2010, some of the 2,600 attendees received benefits, including baseball tickets and stays in presidential suites that normally cost $1,500 to $3,500 per night. In addition, 15 outside speakers were paid a total of $135,000 in fees, with one paid $17,000 to talk about "leadership through art".

Most of the spending occurred in 2010; in that year $37,600,000 was spent.  In 2012 only $4,900,000 was spent.  So, sanity was rising at the IRS.

Banks are doing well

Or are they?  Sure, stock prices are high, the highest since 2008 for leading national and regional bank stocks.  Earnings for the 7,000 banks tied to the FDIC were up 15.8%.  But Gretchen Morgenson looked behind the figures and found some disturbing facts.

The increased earnings were made by only half of the banks.  That ratio - about 50% - was the lowest percentage since the last quarter of 2009.  Banks have a fair degree of leeway as to what they estimate their losses from loans will be.  This year the amount placed in their loan loss reserves declined by 23% from last year, this is the lowest since early 2007, at the height of the housing bubble. The loan loss reserves were down despite the fact that loans delinquent for 90 days represented 3.41% of all loans.  This is a good number when you realize that it had been as high as 5% a few years ago.  However, it was less than 1% in 2007.

Despite the record-setting stock market, we are not out of the woods yet.

What country has the highest health costs?

Of course, it is the U.S.A.  A list of drug, scan and procedure prices compiled by the International Federation of Health Plans, a global network of health insurers, found that the United States came out the most costly in all 21 categories — and often by a huge margin.  A couple of examples:
Angiogram -          U.S.A. $914, Canada $35
Hip replacement - U.S.A. $40,364, Spain $7,731
Lipitor -                  U.S.A. $124, New Zealand $6

We spend about 18 percent of our GDP on health care, nearly twice as much as most other developed countries.  Part of the problem is due to the fact that we don't allow our government to set rates for medical services other than for Medicare and Medicaid; most other countries do.  Another attests to the strength of the medical lobbies.  We generally don't give the cheapest effective tests for various conditions, such as colon cancer.  We allow anesthesiologists to be required in many cases where your doctor can apply a sedative.  We pay more for procedures performed at 'surgical centers' than doctors' offices.  All because the doctors have lobbied our leaders successfully.

Basically, we are not smart about paying for our health systems.

More on the Volunteer Army

Earlier this week I wrote about an Op-Ed by Karl Eikenberry and David Kennedy in which they raise the issue of how well the volunteer army fits into a truly democratic and involved citizenry.  Eikenberry has expanded on his article in the Winter Issue of The Washington Quarterly.  While he does think that the volunteer army is the way to go, he questions just how well it has performed.  A lot of the problem is due to the separation of the army from the citizens.  Eikenberry argues that we do not assume our responsibility as involved and informed citizens when it some to the army; basically, it does what it wants in matters of both war and peace.  The problem of non-involvement vis-a-vis the military is not only when it comes to citizens' responsibility.  The Congress and the media are not doing their jobs either.

It's a fascinating article and well worth a read.