More Recalls

On Thursday Ford recalled 1.3 million vehicles, mostly because of steering problems. So far this year, Ford has recalled more than 2.9 million vehicles in the United States, far surpassing last year’s 1.2 million vehicles.

By March, Nissan had recalled 990,000 vehicles in the United States, about 30,000 more than in all of last year. 

Toyota is already more than halfway to exceeding its total from last year, when it led all automakers with 5.3 million vehicles recalled.

All come several years after the automaker first knew of problems, and in three cases, only after investigations by either the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or its counterpart Transport Canada.

Casting the first stone

Democracy Now will have an interview next week with former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke, who resigned in 2003 after Iraq was invaded. Clark was asked if “President Bush should be brought up on war crimes [charges], and Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, for the attack on Iraq.” His response, “I think things that they authorized probably fall within the area of war crimes. Whether that would be productive or not, I think, is a discussion we could all have.”...“It’s clear that things that the Bush administration did — in my mind, at least, it’s clear that some of the things they did were war crimes.”

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, agrees with Clarke, "I'd be willing to testify, and I’d be willing to take any punishment I’m due.

Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. 

Maya Angelou

The Youngest Conductor in the World

Whistling Parrot

You really should read the June issue of The Atlantic

The lead article by Ta-Nehisi Coates makes a strong argument for our paying reparations to the blacks in America. He contends that we would not have achieved our greatness had we not penalized the blacks. He asserts, "Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole."

The article got me thinking how prevalent the discrimination was in our history. In Coates' telling just about everybody in this country hurt and profited from the blacks. For the past 25 years John Conyers has introduced a bill in Congress to create a Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans. Coates wants the bill enacted now.

Have we paid the Indians enough for what we did to them?

Another no vote re the F-35

I've been writing about the F-35 since 2010, so readers know my feelings on the issue. It was good to see another article by someone who has extensive experience with the Air Force. Col Michael W. Pietrucha thinks that the program should be stopped now.  He cites the usual reasons of program delays, low payload, short range, unmet performance requirements, and spiraling costs. But he argues that the assumptions that led to its birth are no longer relevant; they were based on the Cold War. The issues today are the Pacific theater and a China with very strong air defense capabilities 

Don't violate public morality in Iran

Many in Iran are in a tither about an Iranian actress being kissed in public at the Cannes Film Festival. In their eyes she has violated public morality and should be flogged. Flogging is not a trifling matter in Iran. The sentence can vary from 10 to 100 lashes across the back with a three-foot whip. The pain is so severe that offenders often faint after seven or eight strokes. Crimes that violate public morality include adultery, kissing in public, theft, homosexual acts, drinking or selling alcohol, and blasphemy. Even foreigners may be flogged if they have sexual relations with a Muslim.

Amnesty International has declared flogging to be a form of torture; it is banned by international law. 

Levin is trying

Senator Carl Levin is trying to do something about situations where companies use offshore tax havens to minimize the taxes they owe the U.S. Levin has proposed a bill to eliminate a process known as the Double Irish, in which a company sets up a subsidiary in Ireland and cedes to the subsidiary the company's intellectual property rights. The subsidiary then charges royalties to the parent, so that the parent's expenses are increased but are offset by the subsidiary's revenues. It would be a wash except that the parent pays taxes to us on its profits, which are now less because of the royalties. So, overall the company's total expenses, including taxes, are less.

Oops

France has a very good train system and has had for years. The country's 8,700 stations probably exceed the number we have in the U.S. A few years ago they decided to add almost 2,000 more trains to their system at a cost of $20.5 billion. But, there was a slight error in analyzing the platforms the trains would use.

They only considered platforms built less than thirty years ago. However, there are about 1,000 platforms built more than 50 years ago when trains were a little slimmer. Thus, the platform edges are too close to the tracks in about 1,000 stations; hence,the trains cannot get in. Thus far they've spent almost $70,000,000 rectifying the problem.

Thanks to our Suffield correspondent.

Climate Change or ET?

What's more likely - the earth gets ravaged by climate change or extraterrestrials? The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee thinks it would be extraterrestrials. It has held 15 hearings on space exploration alone, at least three of which have involved the search for extraterrestrial life. By comparison, the committee has held just two hearings devoted to climate change.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has held three hearings this session on climate change, while the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has not had a hearing devoted to the topic since 2012. The Senate Commerce Science and Space Subcommittee has had one hearing about climate change and four about space.

Our tax dollars at work.

Hummus made with love and chickpeas

That's the new slogan for Tribe, a major manufacturer of hummus owned by Nestle. Gabriel Collazzo, a former worker of the Tribe plant in Taunton, Ma., would question that slogan. Gabriel's brother, Daniel, was killed in December 2011 while cleaning the hummus-making machines at the Tribe plant.  

It looks as though Daniel's death could have been prevented had the plant followed a standard safety practice known as "lock out/tag out." It requires employees to be trained to cut power to industrial machinery before cleaning activities begin. In 2009 the company had been fined for failing to follow this procedure in another of its plants. Tribe's own consultant had warned that failing to train cleaning workers in lock out/tag out created "an extreme safety risk," and said "the probability that a fatality could occur is likely certain within a year's time frame."

I had thought that Tribe was a local company and a rather small one. It was a surprise to me that it is owned by Tivall 1993 Ltd., a subsidiary of OSEM Investments Ltd., one of the largest food companies in Israel. Last year, it generated $109 million in profit The majority owner of OSEM Investments is the Swiss food products conglomerate Nestle SA, which earned $10 billion in profits last year on sales of $92 billion.

Looking at states

The U.S. has not performed very well with regard to OECD's PISA tests, which aim to measure the performance in math of high school students. Many have claimed that the basic problem lies with poor kids in central city schools. Three professors have analyzed the data on a state basis and have concluded that there are wide variances by state.

To wit, the results of students in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana are similar to developing countries such as Kazakhstan and Thailand. While results for Massachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont, New Jersey and Montana would rank among the highest compared to other countries. New York and California are similar in ability to countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, well below the averages for the US and OECD industrialised countries.

“God knows where kids get these ideas.”

That's a quote from William Bratton, Commissiner of the NYPD. That was his reaction to allegations that two Brooklyn school kids, 9 and 12 years old, put rat poison in a teacher's water bottle.

The GI Bill

Tom Ricks raises the question of the impact of the GI Bill of WWII on the country. His comments are brief but interesting. For example, the incidence of PTSD was quite minimal compared to our 21st century wars. True, the phenomenon was not named until after the war. And, yes, I was a kid at the time, but the percentage of veterans who went berserk post-war was far smaller then that of today.

The GI Bill was quite generous; you could pay for an education, get  mortgage, or draw $20 a week for a year. Some who benefited: Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, Elmore Leonard, Rod Serling, Robert Duvall, and Robert Rauschenberg. 

Coincidentally, we did not lionize the 'warriors' as we seem to do today. Was that because we all - young and old, rich and poor, college students and high school dropouts - fought in the war? 

13,000,000 and counting

That's how many cars GM has recalled since February, that's February 2014 three months ago. Some of the vehicles recalled are of 2004 vintage. How could it have taken the company so long to rectify the problem? 

Guilty of criminal wrongdoing

For the first time in 25 years a major bank, Credit Suisse, has pled guilty to criminal wrongdoing. The bank helped thousands of Americans to hide assets in offshore accounts in order to evade paying taxes. The bank will pay $2.6 billion in penalties and hire an independent monitor for up to two years.

Next up to plead guilty to criminal charges is BNP Paribas, which is suspected of doing business with countries like Sudan and Iran that the United States has blacklisted. It will pay more than $5 billion in fines; some employees will also be penalized.

Bad words to describe GM cars

Entertainment 2014

I've been out of action for the past couple of weeks and have been forced to watch more television than I normally do. Despite claims made by many critics that the quality of tv has improved, I can't accept that conclusion for the vast majority of programs.

First of all, the number of advertisements has increased dramatically, it seems that at least half of the time one is bombarded by ads. The most common ads are for the pill that will save your life. These ads are very carefully crafted and manage to almost hide mention of side effects.

The cost of producing a program must have decreased, as there are so many reality shows. Why anyone would pay the performers in these shows in beyond me? I suppose the number of these stars is reflective of our growing population. There are still the 10% nutter population, but it's a lot larger on an absolute basis.

I used to like watching mysteries. But now the crimes are overly violent.

Oh, well, I'm getting old.

A major issue for 2016

The Colbert Report
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Cat defeats dog

I wonder whether the person who filmed the fight should have tried to stop the dog from attacking the child.

Rewarding superior service

The FCC is pushing the abandonment of net neutrality because the U.S. has such fantastic broadband speeds as the following chart shows.

How honest are private equity firms

Dodd-Frank requires private equity firms to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC has just completed an initial examination of 150 of these firms. Andrew Bowden, the director of the SEC’s examinations office, concluded, "When we have examined how fees and expenses are handled by advisers to private equity funds, we have identified what we believe are violations of law or material weaknesses in controls over 50 percent of the time.” 

Many of these firms buy out companies with the funds supplied by investors. Some of these funds are not used in quite the way the investors expected:

• Employees of the private equity firm are fired and then rehired immediately as “consultants.” The investors are responsible for consultants’ salaries, where private equity employees are paid out of their own pockets. 
• Investors are billed for what should be management fees of the firm, such as legal and compliance costs
• The private equity firms lie about the valuation methods they use to tell investors about the returns they make each year. 

Some budget cutting is stupid

The Fulbright Program has served this country and the world well for 68 years. It annually arranges for thousands of educators, students and researchers to be exchanged between the United States and at least 155 other countries. It has been lauded as “the flagship international educational exchange program” of American cultural diplomacy. There have been more than 325,000 Fulbright Scholars. Their accomplishments are fantastic: 53 Nobel Prize winners, 28 MacArthur Foundation fellows, 80 winners of the Pulitzer Prize, 29 who have served as the head of state or government and at least one, lunar geologist Harrison Schmitt (Norway, 1957), who walked on the moon. Plus the hundreds of thousands who returned to their countries with greater understanding and respect for others and a desire to get along. So why does the State Department want to cut the program's funding?

This is one of the few programs that other countries help fund. Fifty countries have established Fulbright commissions of their own to fund their share, or more than their share, of the mutual exchange. The program is not intended to be a tool of foreign policy. It was and still is “designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” 

Who's spending the big bucks on defense?

Every year two international organizations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) release independent estimates of international defense spending. While their methodologies and, therefore, their estimates differ, their data comes to the same basic conclusion: the US vastly outspends what many in the US today characterize as the threat nations: China, Russia, Iran, Syria and North Korea. We outspend them not just individually but collectively, by a factor of at least two.

John Oliver on Climate Change

Accessing Research on the Web

Research libraries across the country are canceling subscriptions to academic journals, largely for reasons of rising costs. For example, the cost of scientific periodicals, most of which are published exclusively online, has increased at four times the rate of inflation since 1986. The average price of a year’s subscription to a chemistry journal is now $4,044. In 1970 it was $33. A subscription to the Journal of Comparative Neurology cost $30,860 in 2012. Publishing academic journals can be good business; the leader, Reed Elsevier, had a net profit margin of 39% on revenue of £2.1 billion from its science, technical, and medical journals.

Of course, these journals report on research which has been funded in considerable part by we, the unwashed. Congress in 2008 acknowledged that fact when it required that articles based on grants from the National Institutes of Health be made available, free of charge, from an open-access repository, PubMed Central. But lobbyists blunted that requirement by getting the NIH to accept a twelve-month embargo, which would prevent public accessibility long enough for the publishers to profit from the immediate demand.

The issue of accessibility to research is not some academic foofahrah. Access to research drives large sectors of the economy—the freer and quicker the access, the more powerful its effect.

Things have gotten too complex

Robert Myerson, a Nobel Prize winner, has written a review of The Banker’s New Clothes, by Admati and Hellwig. The review focuses on the politics of bank regulation. However, capital regulation has become more technical and complex and, more and more, we are asked to simply rely on the expertise of the regulators, since we cannot rely directly on the disclosures provided by the banks. An interesting quote: “If there are abstruse financial transactions that generate risks which cannot be adequately represented in standard public accounting statements, then perhaps such transactions should be off limits for banks that are in the business of issuing reliably safe deposits.”

How, then, can regulators monitor banks?

A Voice from the Wilderness

Thomas Hoenig, the Vice Chairman of the FDIC and former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, has not stopped his campaign to break up the biggest Wall Street banks by restoring the Glass-Steagall Act. His most recent presentation to the Boston Economic Club featured some observations as to where we stand now:

• Mega banks are now “larger and more complex than they were pre-crisis” “The eight largest banking firms have assets that are the equivalent to 65 percent of GDP”; 

• “The average notional value of derivatives for the three largest U.S. banking firms at year-end 2013 exceeded $60 trillion, a 30 percent increase over their level at the start of the crisis”; 

• The largest banks are “excessively leveraged with ratios, on average, of nearly 22 to 1”;

• Taxpayer bailouts have not ended under Title II of Dodd-Frank and, most likely, not under Title I as well;

• Smaller regional banks “are smothering under layers of new regulations” even though they are holding “significantly higher levels of capital than the largest banking and financial firms”

His basic point is that Dodd-Frank "cannot solve the problem of bailout so long as firms remain too large, too leveraged, too complicated, and too interconnected to be placed into bankruptcy when they fail".

A test for Pope Francis

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati wants to ensure that its teachers lead the right kind of Catholic life, the definition of which is spelled out in a new contract being offered its 2,000 teachers. Sex plays a large role in the contract. Being homosexual, favoring it in any way, having homosexual relatives prevent one from being qualified. Living together without having been married or having sexual activity outside of marriage also prevent one from being a teacher.

If one does sign the contract, he/she is signing a “teacher-minister contract.” This raises the question of whether the school district can claim exemption from anti-discrimination statutes in the hiring and firing of teachers.

Frank Bruni asks why other doctrinal matters besides sex are not mentioned in the contract. After all, Pope Francis has been touting a more open view on sex and has expressed his belief that the Church spends too much time an effort on things that separate rather than unite us.

What Obama had to say about net neutrality

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