No way to treat addicts

It looks as though the VA is having problems treating veterans who have become addicted.  The Center for Investigative Reporting asserts that prescriptions for four opiates – hydrocodone, oxycodone, methadone and morphine – have surged by 270 percent in the past 12 years.  This is not because of an increase in the number of veterans being treated, as 270% is much less than the rate at which the growth in VA patients has occurred. A 2011 study by the VA's Health Services Research and Development Service reported that veterans seen by the agency’s doctors were dying from prescription drug overdoses at nearly twice the national average.  It looks as though the agency is overmedicating its patients as it struggles to keep up with their need for more complex treatment; the agency has issued more than one opiate prescription per patient, on average, for the past two years.

Sanctions against North Korea

You probably think that this posting will be about our sanctions against North Korea.  But, you'd be wrong as China, North Korea's patron, has just published a 236-page list of items banned from being exported to North Korea. Much of the banned materials are used to build nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles. Maybe China is upset that North Korea proceeded with a nuclear test this year despite China’s disapproval.  Or, maybe they're just worried about the stability of the young Mr. Kim.

Vital Employees

If the government shutdown occurs, which seems more likely day by day, in which departments would you furlough employees and how many of the employees would you furlough?  Here is what the government is planning:

97% of NASA employees
94% of EPA
87% of Commerce
82% of Labor
81% of Interior
80% of Treasury
69% of Energy
52% of Health and Human Services
50% of Defense
33% of Transportation
29% of Social Security
15% of Justice
14% of Homeland Security
4% of VA

Do you believe that the NFL is a non-profit organization?

You know, like the Red Cross or the March of Dimes.  Since 1966, the IRS lists “business leagues, chambers of commerce, real-estate boards, boards of trade, or professional football leagues.”as 501(c)6 corporations", i.e., non-profits and therefore tax-exempt. 

While the teams that comprise the league are regular, profit-seeking companies, they do receive a lot of money from taxpayers, the largest amount being for stadiums.  One study calculates that league-wide, 70 percent of the capital cost - i.e., cost to build - of NFL stadiums has been provided by taxpayers, not NFL owners.  And in many cases cities, counties, and states also pay the stadiums’ ongoing costs, by providing power, sewer services, other infrastructure, and stadium improvements.  In fact these subsidies can be so large that several teams have turned a profit on stadium subsidies alone—receiving more money from the public than they needed to build their facilities.  On an annual basis these subsidies and tax benefits can add up to perhaps $1 billion. 

Despite the fact that we pay for their stadiums the NFL has been able to charge for  television images made in those publicly funded stadiums and keep the profits.  The TV revenue for this season is $4 billion.

How to tell if your dog is involved in a sex scandal

From our California correspondent

An intelligent view on al-Shabab and its cohorts

Stephen Walt has an interesting article triggered by the FBI's sending 20 agents to Kenya to determine whether al-Shabab may soon be mounting an attack here.  Here are some excerpts that should - but won't - provoke our leaders to rethink our war on terror.

Got it? For Americans to be 100 percent safe on American soil, the U.S. government has to get more deeply involved in the local politics and national security problems of this troubled East African region -- using the FBI, CIA, special operations forces, drones, whatever -- in order to root out bad guys wherever they might be.
There are two obvious problems with this line of reasoning. First, it fails to ask whether America's repeated interference in this and other parts of the world is one of the reasons groups like al Qaeda and al-Shabab sometimes decide to come after us. Indeed, to the extent that the United States might face a threat from al-Shabab, it might be because Washington has been blundering around in Somali politics since the early 1990s and usually making things worse. The same goes for Kenya too. Al-Shabab attacked the mall because Kenya sent troops into Somalia in 2011 and their intervention had undermined al-Shabab's position in that troubled country. Kenya may have had its own good reasons for intervening; my point is simply that the tragic attack it suffered wasn't a random act. On the contrary, it was a direct consequence of Kenya's own policy decisions. To say that in no way justifies this heinous attack -- it merely identifies cause and effect. 
I am not arguing for a retreat to Fortress America or saying that the United States should not devote some of its vast intelligence and national security budget to monitoring possible terrorist groups. But we really do need to ask ourselves if chasing every terrorist group that might have some reason to target the United States (or U.S. citizens abroad) is going to make the problem bigger or smaller. And that is especially the case when these groups emerged largely or entirely in response to local political developments, as was the case with al-Shabab. We have no reason to like such groups at all, but getting in their face is probably the best way to get them in ours.  

November 13: Day of Destruction?

November 13 is the day when Tepco begins removing 1535 fuel rods from the Fukushima site.  If any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The risk of touching is high.  The rods are in a badly damaged pool perched 100 feet in the air.  The building containing the rods is tilting, sinking and could easily come down in the next earthquake, if not on its own.

Perhaps the most serious risk is that Tepco will be removing the rods. Tepco's performance has been miserable throughout the past 2+ years.  Its protection of the plant was totally inadequate. They have yet to stop radioactive water overflowing from another part of the facility.  While the government of Japan has taken some steps to control the situation, by and large they've ceded control to Tepco in building the plant, operating the plant and recovering the plant.

International action has to be taken.  The risks are too high to let a demonstrably ineffective company and government run the show when a mistake could wipe out a good part of the world. 

UCLASS is not in session

UCLASS stands for Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) capability.  This is a Navy plan to develop, build, and field from 6 to 24 aircraft starting in 2014.  The estimated cost is $3.7 billion over the years 2014 to 2020.  However, the Navy does not intend to conduct what in government jargon is called a Milestone B review--a key decision that formally initiates a system development program and triggers key oversight mechanisms--until after the initial UCLASS capability has been developed and fielded in fiscal year 2020.  Thus, the system will be developed without such basic mechanisms as a formal cost and schedule baseline, statutory unit cost tracking, and regular reports to Congress on cost, schedule, and performance progress.

The GAO spells out the risks involved by not having this review:

First, the UCLASS cost estimate of $3.7 billion exceeds the level of funding that the Navy expects to budget for the system through fiscal year 2020. Second, the Navy has scheduled 8 months between the time it issues its request for air vehicle design proposals and the time it awards the air vehicle contract, a process that DOD officials note typically takes 12 months to complete. Third, the UCLASS system is heavily reliant on the successful development and delivery of other systems and software, which creates additional schedule risk. Fourth, the Navy will be challenged to effectively manage and act as the lead integrator for three separate but interrelated segments--air vehicle, carrier, and control system--and 22 other government systems, such as the aircraft landing system, the timing and alignment of which are crucial to achieving the desired UCLASS capability.

A few sensible words

Downsizing in Germany?

Germany was the home of Pope Benedict and apparently many of the bishops of Germany will be having a hard time adjusting to Pope Francis.  Take the matter of where the pope and the bishops live.  Francis does not live in the Apostolic Palace, he lives in an ordinary room at the Santa Marta guesthouse in Rome.  The Archbishop of Munich is typical of many German bishops in that his palace was recently remodeled at a cost of $2,700,000.  A quote from Francis: "Be close to the people and live as you preach. Always be with your flock, do not succumb to careerism and ask yourselves whether you are truly living as you preach." 

Cars are another area where the bishops may have to downsize from their Mercedes.  Francis uses an old car and has commented about cars, "Cars are necessary. But take a more humble one. Think of how many children die of hunger and dedicate the savings to them."

We don't test well

As we've seen, we don't do well in international tests. And we haven't done well in our own tests.  For the past five years less than half of those who take the SAT attain scores that indicate they are academically prepared for college-level work.  Those whose scores meet or exceed the criteria were more likely to have completed a core curriculum, to have taken honors or AP courses, and to have taken higher-level mathematics courses, like pre-calculus, calculus, and trigonometry.  I wonder how our high school athletes would compare with students from other lands.

First the bionic arm, now the bionic leg

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JPMorgan Punching Bag?

How would you feel if you just settled several government cases for $1 billion and you were still under the gun in California and Pennsylvania and with HUD and the CFTC?  That's what Jamie and his crew face.  A lot of the problem is tied to the bank’s mortgage business, some of which is due to the dealings of Washington Mutual, which JP bought.  But the investigations also are looking at the London Whale case once more as well as the bank's debt collection practices and its hiring of the children of well-connected Chinese officials.

Another interesting infographic from Visual.ly

by lisamahapatra.
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High School Athletics

Amanda Ripley thinks we spend more on high school athletics than we should, particularly when you look at the standing of America in tests given to students around the world.  We rank 31st.  Countries, such as South Korea and Finland, where athletics are not part of the high school curriculum do much better.  She does not think that students don't benefit from sports, but the cost in dollars and distraction are too high.  She says that we "spend more tax dollars per high-school athlete than per high-school math student."

One example she uses is the Premont Independent School District, a small district in Texas.  It has 282 high school students, yet was spending $150,000 annually on athletics or c.$530 per student (whether the student played sports or not). The school decided to drop all athletics, thereby saving money and refocusing everyone’s attention on academics. The school made other changes, too, such as giving teachers more time for training and planning, making students wear uniforms, and aligning the curriculum with more-rigorous state standards. 

There were other benefits besides saving money.  Said one of the proponents of the change, “The first 12 weeks of school were the most peaceful beginning weeks I’ve ever witnessed at a high school.  It was calm. There was a level of energy devoted to planning and lessons, to after-school tutoring. I saw such a difference.”  That first semester, 80 percent of the students passed their classes, compared with 50 percent the previous fall. About 160 people attended parent-teacher night, compared with six the year before.

How not to implement facial recognition software

One of the newer uses of computer technology is the ability to match photographs.  Such systems are in use in thirty-eight states, primarily to match a photograph with a driver’s license picture.  As you would expect these systems are controlled by the driver’s license bureau, which uses the system to prevent duplicate or fraudulent identification cards.  Access to these systems in most of these states is limited, for example, Kentucky allows 34 people to access the system, Pennsylvania 500.  Ohio is much more permissive, it allows 30,000 police officers and court employees to search driver’s license images.  And it has virtually no control of the searching as there are no audits of the system's use and security is limited.  This is quite different from Maine, which prohibits use of facial recognition software by any state agency, including driver’s license personnel, for they "believe that people have a fundamental right to privacy".

Fly with an eagle

21st century porn

In the prehistoric days of the 20th century many men were attracted by pin-ups, photos of women in suggestive poses.  You could imagine all sorts of adventures with the women who were in these photos.  The key word is 'imagine'; you knew nothing was going to really happen between you and the woman you desired.  

Now pin-ups have been replaced by cam models, women who work on the internet.  Their work can be considered as pornography, but it is not offered in the same way - a film - as it was in the 20th century.  It is offered live on the web and has become quite popular, some sites get 30,000,000 visitors a month.  Now, viewers imagine in a different way, they become 'friends' with the model and express their friendship by sending money to the cam model of their choice.  One man described in this article has sent lottery winnings of $20,000 to his 'friend' and continues to send her money every month.  He 'talks' almost daily with her via text.  He has met her in person once.  He sees her as "a very open person.  There are no lies. No big walls."  It looks like the key word is still 'imagine'.

A good deal for private prisons

In The Public Interest has just published a report on private prison contracts.  Their major findings:

• 65 percent of the private prison contracts analyzed included occupancy guarantees in the form of quotas or required payments for empty prison cells (a “low-crime tax”). These quotas and low-crime taxes put taxpayers on the hook for guaranteeing profits for private prison corporations. 
• Occupancy guarantee clauses in private prison contracts range between 80% and 100%, with 90% as the most frequent occupancy guarantee requirement. 
• Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Virginia are locked in contracts with the highest occupancy guarantee requirements, with all quotas requiring between 95% and 100% occupancy.
• Though crime has dropped by a third in the past decade, an occupancy requirement covering three for-profit prisons has forced taxpayers in Colorado to pay an additional $2 million.
• Three Arizona for-profit prison contracts have a staggering 100% quota, even though a 2012 analysis from Tucson Citizen shows that the company’s per-day charge for each prisoner has increased an average of 13.9% over the life of the contracts.
• A 20-year deal to privately operate the Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Ohio includes a 90% quota, and has contributed to cutting corners on safety, including overcrowding, areas without secure doors and an increase in crime both inside the prison and in the surrounding community.

 

It's no longer 1962

America and the rest of the world has changed a lot in the past 51 years.  In 1962 you could walk to work, now you drive. Mother stayed home and took care of the children, now both parents work and pay for childcare.  You spent about one-third of your income on food, now you spend less than 10%.  The calculations that resulted in the poverty line of 1962 ($11,060 for a family of two) are the same that are used today ($15,510) with inflation added.

Furthermore, the calculations are based on a USDA diet designed to reflect what a family living for a short period of time on a severely constrained budget might need to get by, rather than a family’s diet over the long-term. Nor does it take into account the variations in costs across the states. The Economic Policy Institute has developed a family budget calculator which estimates how much it costs a family to live in every American city.  The costs for a family of two can range from $42,000 (Mississippi) to $69,000 (NYC). 

Isn't it time to change our definitions of the poverty line?

Don't take too much Tylenol

It can damage your liver or even kill you.  Over the past ten years more than 1,500 Americans died after accidentally taking too much Tylenol. What is too much? More than four grams or eight pills a day. In some countries (e.g., Great Britain, Switzerland, New Zealand) you can only bug Tylenol in drugstores and only one bottle at a time.

Acetaminophen overdose sends as many as 78,000 Americans to the emergency room annually and results in 33,000 hospitalizations a year, federal data shows. Acetaminophen is also the nation’s leading cause of acute liver failure, according to data from an ongoing study funded by the National Institutes for Health. From 2001 to 2010, annual acetaminophen-related deaths amounted to about twice the number attributed to all other over-the-counter pain relievers combined, according to the poison control data.

The FDA has known about this problem for  quite a while. In 1977, an expert panel convened by the FDA issued urgently worded advice, saying it was “obligatory” to put a warning on the drug’s label that it could cause “severe liver damage.”  The FDA did not do so until 20099. The panel’s recommendation was part of a broader review to set safety rules for acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, which is still not finished.

21st century idiots

They're Taking Over

That's the title of a book review in the NY Review of Books.  It is a review by Tim Flannery of "Stung! On Jellyfish Blooms and the Future of the Ocean".  It is very scary.  The essential point is that the jellyfish population is growing tremendously.  Lisa-ann Gershwin, the author of the book concludes

When I began writing this book,… I had a naive gut feeling that all was still salvageable…. But I think I underestimated how severely we have damaged our oceans and their inhabitants. I now think that we have pushed them too far, past some mysterious tipping point that came and went without fanfare, with no red circle on the calendar and without us knowing the precise moment it all became irreversible. I now sincerely believe that it is only a matter of time before the oceans as we know them and need them to be become very different places indeed. No coral reefs teeming with life. No more mighty whales or wobbling penguins. No lobsters or oysters. Sushi without fish.

Her final word to her readers: “Adapt.”

Jellyfish are appearing for the first time in a number of places from Cape Town to Florida. They became so plentiful in the Black Sea that their total weight was estimated to be ten times greater than the weight of all fish caught in a year.  And they are also affecting such man-made objects as the aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan, Japan's nuclear power plants, the electrical system in the Philippines.  Another book excerpt:

If I offered evidence that jellyfish are displacing penguins in Antarctica—not someday, but now, today—what would you think? If I suggested that jellyfish could crash the world’s fisheries, outcompete the tuna and swordfish, and starve the whales to extinction, would you believe me?

Of course, we are well aware that the sting of a jellyfish can be fatal. This one

could kill you in two minutes.  The irukandji shown below makes you hang around for twelve hours or so in tremendous pain.

More thoughts from Pope Francis

I never thought that I'd be writing so often about the pope.  But he is certainly making news - and in a good way.   He seems to be moving towards a more flexible, more understanding church.  Here are some quotes of his from an interview with America (emphasis mine).

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time. 

We must therefore investigate further the role of women in the church. We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of the woman. Only by making this step will it be possible to better reflect on their function within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions. The challenge today is this: to think about the specific place of women also in those places where the authority of the church is exercised for various areas of the church.  

If one has the answers to all the questions — that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. 

If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal “security,” those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists — they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies. I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else — God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God. 

JPMorgan, your local bank?

The Federal Home Loan Bank System (FHLB) was set up “to strengthen communities. The System directly benefits consumers by helping to ensure competition in the housing-finance market.”  But it does not appear that the focus of some of these banks is not on the local community, since the largest borrowers from these banks are JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citigroup. Apparently these banks are considered local in more than one FHLB area as they have, in fact, borrowed from more than one of these banks.  For example, JP has borrowed from three of these banks, one of which, FHLBank of Cincinnati, has given JP 65.8% of all of its advances. I guess since this bank serves Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee it should serve the local JP affiliate.

The TBTF banks are not the only recipients of FHLB largesse.  Sallie Mae, which is not a government operation,obtained an $8.5 billion line of credit from a Federal Home Loan Bank. Then, it borrowed on that line of credit at 0.23 percent and made student loans at 25-40 times that rate.

Hospital Costs

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A Muslim growing up in the 21 century in America

I came across the infographic below at visual.ly, a site filled with various interesting infographics on a variety of subjects. I suspect I will be referencing the site fairly often. (Hat tip to the Big Picture)

Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

More NSA spying

The latest Snowden release shows that NSA taps into financial institutions around the world.  One of these institutions is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a cooperative used by more than 8,000 banks worldwide for their international transactions; we do so despite agreeing not to. NSA also taps into Visa and Mastercard accounts around the world.

Should banks tap their reserves for loan losses?

The CFO for JPMorgan says that banks are at "20-year lows for delinquencies".  Bank of America says that more borrowers are paying their loans on time, which allows the lenders to keep less money on hand to cover loan losses.  So, naturally they don't need as much money in reserve for loan losses and they can use some of that money to boost their earnings.  Howsomever, mortgage lending has slowed down, cutting into a key source of income growth for the banks.  Overall loan growth has been tepid, plus litigation costs are rising.  And the banks believe their leverage ratios are just fine.  When will banks accept reality rather than cook the books?

Early Evening September Sky

A disagreement over Kant

Two Russian men waiting in line to buy beer struck up a conversation about Kant, the philosopher.  I guess they were very strong believers that their individual version of Kant was the right one, as soon they were fighting.  Then, one pulled a gun and started shooting.

 

What would Kant say?

Adoptions gone wrong

It's not easy raising kids, whether your children have been born to you or have been adopted.  There are no statistics of which I am aware that try to evaluate one's success at raising their natural children. Estimates of failed adoptions range from 10 to 15%. These estimates are based on children adopted in America.  Now there are many children from foreign lands who are adopted by Americans.  There are no statistics of failed adoptions for these international adoptions, but I would suspect the number of failures would be higher as, in general, adoptions in this country are normally subject to varying degrees of evaluation of the suitability of the parents.  I don't think international adoptions are subject to the same degree of evaluation.

Reuters has recently published a study of a year-long investigation of failed international adoptions. It is not a pretty story.  In just about all of these cases there is no vetting of the new parents by either the current parents or state authorities.  It's almost like selling something on E-Bay.  Here are some ads used:

• "Born in October of 2000 – this handsome boy, 'Rick' was placed from India a year ago and is obedient and eager to please."
• "I am totally ashamed to say it but we do truly hate this boy!"
• "We adopted an 8-year-old girl from China… Unfortunately, We are now struggling having been home for 5 days."

These ads are usually placed on internet bulletin boards.  There are people who monitor these boards and seem to specialize in adopting kids who are living in difficult circumstances which are usually attributed to the adoptee.

I've read only the first of five articles in this study.  I may report on the other sections of the study.

Making money from ethanol

As part of the attempt to move to a greener world, the federal government requires refiners to mix ethanol into gasoline.  Those that do mix receive credits which they can sell to those companies that don't mix ethanol. These credits have become a hot item this year; in January they could be bought for 7 cents each, by July the price was $1.43, it has slipped to 60 cents today.  

The rise has come about because the government mandates for ethanol use assumed a growing demand for gas, but with the Great Recession and more fuel-efficient cars the demand has not grown as expected.  So, the amount of ethanol the government is requiring refiners to use is close to the maximum amount that can be blended into gasoline without creating problems for gas stations and motorists.  Therefore, the credits have become more valuable.

You need not be a refiner to buy or sell credits.  Perhaps it was chance or maybe the big banks were prescient, but they seemed to have acquired millions of credits in the past few years.  Now they can sell them at a significant profit.  And best of all, they are not sold on a reasonably public exchange; sales are private affairs and you don't need to be licensed to trade.

This is just one more example of the banks being involved in more than banking.

Are you more at risk from terrorism or food poisoning?

If you've read this blog for a while, you know that I think the answer is food poisoning.  In 2011, 17 Americans were killed in all terrorist incidents worldwide. The same year, a single outbreak of listeriosis from tainted cantaloupe killed 33 people in the United States. Foodborne pathogens also sickened 48.7 million, hospitalized 127,839 and caused a total of 3,037 deaths.

Why then do we spend $75 billion a year fighting terrorism, but make it difficult for the FDA to get $1.1 billion to fund the food inspection program? 

Since the start of the 21st century, every state has experienced food poisoning and from companies like  Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Taylor Farms Organics, Ralph's, Kroger, Food 4 Less, Costco, Dole, and Kellogg's.  We have recalled contaminated cheese, organic spinach, salad greens, lettuce, milk, ground beef, eggs, organic brown rice, peanut butter, mangoes, cantaloupe and hundreds of other popular foods.  Food poisoning has had 36,000 victims this century; terrorism 323.  We are 110 times more likely to die from contaminated food than terrorism, with 1 in 6 sickened every year at an annual cost to the economy of nearly $80 billion. 

Where is the rationality in all this?

State universities for the rich

ProPublica has another blockbuster article, this one about the failure of state universities to serve students who do not have enough money to attend.  The article includes these 'takeways'.

• State universities, which have a public responsibility to provide students with access to an affordable education, are giving a growing share of their grants to wealthier students, and a declining share to the poorest students.
• Public universities are increasingly mimicking private colleges by using financial aid to further their own goals such as enrolling students who will bring revenue or boost their spots in the rankings.
• Industry consultants who help schools with what’s called “financial-aid leveraging” say their clients at public universities are trying to offset budget cuts by using aid to enroll students who can “positively impact the bottom line.”
• State universities have been serving a shrinking portion of the nation’s needy students. More of those students have been heading to community colleges and for-profit schools.

Sound familiar?

In June I reported on the rise of "captive reinsurance", which essentially allows insurance companies to re-insure their own policies rather than through an independent company.  This practice, which is quite complex, increases the company's risk while allowing the company to report higher profits, much like the practices that led to the Great Recession.  Moody's has estimated that captive reinsurance had artificially bolstered life insurers’ balance sheets by $324 billion.

There are other changes advocated and practiced by some insurance companies.  These changes are considered by the companies as “principle-based reserving".  Certainly, the idea of these practices being based on "principle" is laughable.  One of the principles is to allow actuaries to use their own data and assumptions rather than the current standards.  Another is to offer "universal life" policies which offer both death benefits and a cash value to policyholders.

New York doesn't like these changes and is proposing that insurance companies increase reserves by $4 billion.

Man enters interstellar space

Hat tip to our Florida correspondent

Student Loan Debt

Pam Martens is worried about student loan debt.  At $1.2 trillion is is larger than credit card debt.  Worse, it threatens the financial recovery, weak as it is.  The Financial Stability Oversight Council (F-SOC), a unit of the U.S. Treasury, has warned that high levels of student debt that it could “impact demand for housing, as young borrowers may be less able to access mortgage credit. Student debt levels may also lead to dampened consumption.”  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has expressed concerns about consumption - because the debt issue negatively affects household formations, which are an important factor in economic growth - and entrepreneurship - because heavy debt burdens will disqualify many from small business loans.  And the impact also affects student's parents and grandparents, who have co-signed loans.

Martens also feels that there has been some chicanery by the banks in granting these loans. 

12 years and counting

Most of us know what we were doing, where we were, who we were with and so on on Sept. 11, 2001.  How many of us knew that this was the day when once more we became a nation driven by fear?  Roosevelt was able to get us out of that trough back in the '30s.  WWII finished the job.  When we stopped fearing everyday life, our economy grew, equality grew, freedom grew.

Now, our economy, our equality, our freedom are on the wane, largely the result of our leadership in the 21st century which  has striven to make us a nation driven by fear. Who or what will get us out of this trough? 

"God forgives those who obey their conscience"

That's a quote from a letter of Pope Francis.  He went on to say that God will "forgive" atheists and agnostics as long as they behave morally and live according to their consciences. 

Another surprise: this from the new Vatican secretary of state, who said that the rule that priests should be celibate was not "a dogma of the Church" and could be open for discussion.  He went on to assert that the principle of celibacy among clergy was "ecclesiastical tradition" rather than "Church dogma" and therefore open to discussion. 

Is the Catholic Church joining the 21 century?

Sharing intelligence

Today we learn that the National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens.  The data we share is not necessarily filtered by NSA to remove government communications.  But, Israel receives signal intelligence, which includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content."  The agreement was signed in March 2009, early in the Obama administration.

Combating illegal parkers in Lithuania

Do as I say, not as I do

George Monbiot is a liberal English polemicist.  He has some interesting things to say about our country and its condemnations of the actions of other nations. Herewith a few of his thoughts:

• Why do we reject efforts to reform the security council?  He notes that half of the vetoes we have exercised have been prevent the censuring of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
• In 1997 we agreed within 10 years to decommission 31,000 tons of sarin and other chemical weapons we possessed. We have yet to do so, and now ay we will do it by 2021.
• We don't want international weapons inspectors to take samples of chemicals in the US and passed a law which forbade and allowed the president to refuse unannounced inspections. 
• We used chemical weapons in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. 
• We kept quiet about Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Iran.

The rich get richer

The so-called recovery from the Great Recession has seen 95% of all income gains go to the 1%; their 2012 income was above $394,000.   In 2012 pretax incomes of the top 1%  rose 19.6% compared to a 1% increase for the rest of Americans.

The top 10% did not do too badly last year either; they earned just under half of all income in the year.

You may get a call from Pope Francis

I suppose I should not be surprised that the Pope gets letters from all sorts of people, usually complaining about their fate.  I suspect that with most popes the letters may be acknowledged in a perfunctory manner.  Not so with Pope Francis.  He actually has telephoned some of those who have written to him.  He has done it so often that he has acquired the nickname "Cold Call Pope".  This is another area in which he differs from most of his predecessors.

Keeping our pork safe

The USDA has been conducting a "pilot" meat inspection program since 1997 and they have yet to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The program,  the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point-based Inspection Models Project, commonly referred to as HIMP,  has been in operation in five large hog plants.  It allows the plants to increase the speed of the processing lines, cuts the number of USDA safety inspectors at each plant in half and replaces them with private inspectors employed by meat companies.

There is a slight problem with the program. Three of the plants were among the 10 worst offenders in the country for health and safety violations, with serious lapses that included failing to remove fecal matter from meat. The plant with the worst record by far was one of the five in the pilot program.  The safety record of the three aforementioned plants were worse than those at hundreds of other U.S. swine plants that continued to operate under the traditional system, which features slower processing speeds and about double the number of government inspectors.

Is the USDA working for us or the pork producers?

A walking shark

Indonesia is the home of a new species of walking shark. It's questionable s to whether the first one in the video is actually walking.

How active is our military in Africa?

The military says not very.  This article by Nick Turse makes a convincing case that we are very active there.  Of the 54 African nations we recognize our military has something going with 49 of them.  This map created by TomDispatch documents U.S. military outposts, construction, security cooperation, and deployments in Africa.  

Key to the Map of the U.S. Military’s Pivot to Africa, 2012-2013
Green markers: U.S. military training, advising, or tactical deployments during 2013
Yellow markers: U.S. military training, advising, or tactical deployments during 2012
Purple marker: U.S. "security cooperation"
Red markers: Army National Guard partnerships
Blue markers: U.S. bases, forward operating sites (FOSes), contingency security locations (CSLs), contingency locations (CLs), airports with fueling agreements, and various shared facilities
Green push pins: U.S. military training/advising of indigenous troops carried out in a third country during 2013
Yellow push pins: U.S. military training/advising of indigenous troops carried out in a third country during 2012

Make or break time

When I was growing up, labor unions were very powerful.  When John Lewis or Walter Reuther said something, it appeared in most newspapers.  Politicians had to consider and mollify the unions.  Overall, the influence labor had in the 20th century was good for the country, as it reduced inequality. In the 21st century labor unions have become almost an afterthought. Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO wants to restore labor's sway in American life. 

Trumka wants unions to accept as members those who are, in fact, not members of a union.  For example, he would allow those who failed to unionize their workplace to join a union.  And he would welcome laborers who have not tried to establish a union in their workplace.  In fact, he would go beyond increasing union membership by building coalitions with organizations such as the NAACP or the Sierra Club, all under the banner of the AFL-CIO.  

As Gary N. Chaison, an industrial relations professor at Clark University, says: “Unions are thrashing around looking for answers. It just might prove successful from the very fact that there is great desperation to it. There’s a sense that this is make-or-break time for labor. Either major things are done, or it will be too late to resuscitate the labor movement.”

This is not faked

Bacevich on Syria

It's kind of a long video (thirty-three minutes) but he makes some strong points not only about the current situation with Syria, but also with the fact that, since the end of the Cold War, we have become essentially a militarized nation.  Bacevich is not happy with the volunteer army. Not only does it make us more willing to wage war, but the reality is that our all-powerful volunteer army has yet to win  war. He calls the volunteer army "Washington's Army" and contrasts it with the Citizen Army that won WWII.

He speaks of more than the military.  One of his strongest points is that we refuse to accept the reality of today's Mid-East.

I have not written about him for a while, but he is one of the people we should listen to.

Who do you believe

The video below presents six activists commenting on government assertions as to the legality of drone attacks.

Times have changed

In the 20th century there would have been a furor over this cover. Can you see why?

Does fracking lead to earthquakes?

A study of the Youngstown, Oh area leads Won-Young Kim of Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory to answer the question "Yes".  The study, which was conducted from January 2011 to February 2012,  concluded that there were 109 small earthquakes in the area (note he measured quakes as small as 0.4 on the Richter scale and as large as 3.9); they all occurred near a fracking site (a deep fluid injection well).  There were no previous recordings of earthquake activity in the area prior to the beginning of fracking.

Banks are just banks

They accept your deposits, loan money to business, offer credit cards, etc.  You know, the financial things we need.  Well, as I've written before, banks are in a lot of different businesses.   Bart Chilton, a Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) talks about some of them in a recent speech:

“Our little posse did find that Morgan Stanley has ownership stakes in oil tankers and a fuel distributor. And, of course, they also trade crude oil and other energy contracts. Parts of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America own or have owned power plants. They also trade energy contracts. And, everybody’s been talking about Goldman Sachs holding onto aluminum at warehouses they own. Some say that’s consequently driving the up the price of beer and soda, while the bank collects storage fees. And, they trade aluminum. JP Morgan also owns similar warehouses, although they said last week they may get out of commodities. We’ll see. Oh, and by the way, Barclays and JP Morgan are putting out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution for getting caught rigging electricity prices. There is that.” 

Chilton laments the fact that, even though he is a financial regulator much of what banks do is unavailable to him.

"I’m a financial regulator; you’d think it would be a piece of pie to find a list of what they own, right? I mean, it would be understandable if there were certain business reasons why a few particulars of the ownership information might not be available to the public. Nevertheless, you’d think I could get it. After all, banks own commercial interests that can impact prices, and at the same time their trading desks are all over the very same markets. There are obvious conflicts of interest. I’m not saying there have been any violations of the law, but how would we even know?"

 This is not exactly a good situation for us to be in.

What does the Powell Doctrine say about Syria?

Back in the last century Colin Powell 'proclaimed' the Powell Doctrine when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  The doctrine is quite simple in that it asks eight questions to determine whether we should send the military into battle. The questions:

1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
4. Have all other nonviolent policy means been fully exhausted?
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Do we have genuine broad international support?

How would you answer them?  I would answer 'no' to all of them. 

You should also read Barry Ritholz's

Point-By-Point Rebuttal of U.S. Case for War In Syria

Japan moves in on Fukushima

"Discarding the current, impromptu response, we will set up our basic policies for a fundamental resolution of the contaminated water problem," so spoke Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan.  He described Tepco's approach as "haphazard".  One of his ministers described Tepco as playing "whack-a-mole". 

Abe's plan is to freeze the soil around the stricken reactors to form an impenetrable wall they hope will direct groundwater away from the plant. The government hopes this ice wall will be operational by March 2015.  The cost will be about $500,000,000.  

The United States will escape with a very mild dosing of cesium-137 from ocean currents coming from Japan.  These currents will not reach us until next year and will peak in 2016.

The building is more powerful than the automobile

The photo above is of a Jaguar whose parts have been melted by the sun reflecting off this building.

This melting happened within two hours as the temperature reached 158 degrees.  The sun melted the side view mirror, the Jaguar emblem and parts of the body.  At least one scientist feels that the real problem is that the hot spot will move, so that simpling putting up a sun barrier will be ineffective.

Athletics and Education

At the college level it is obvious that colleges really are a minor league for the NFL.  But this belief that athletics is as valuable as education has spread to high schools.  The latest example is Somerville High School.  The news item here is the fact that three high school athletes have been accused of rape.  These charges may or may not be validated in the courts.

What gets me about this story is the fact that the alleged incidents took place at a weekend camp that the high school has run for at least twelve years,  The purpose of the camp is to promote team-building.  There were 165 students at the camp; they were members of the boys and girls soccer teams and the football team.  The students were accompanied by twenty adults, all of whom were connected to the high school in some capacity.

Now Somerville has been a working class city for at least as long as I can recall, although it is moving towards gentrification.  However, it is not yet a wealthy city.  How it can afford to hold this camp year after year escapes me. How much does it cost to house and feed 185 people for a weekend?  Would the money have been better spent on some attempt to improve academics?