Pope Francis and Muslims

I've been wondering for quite a while whether there are any moderate Muslims. So, it was refreshing to hear that Pope Francis has urged Muslim leaders around the world to condemn terrorism carried out in the name of Islam. He also denounced those who say that "all Muslims are terrorists. As we cannot say that all Christians are fundamentalists".

The drought in California....

..has been a major story for much of the year. There is a real difference in the use of water between some wealthy communities and others not so wealthy. For example, Rancho Santa Fe used an average of 584 gallons a day in September, nearly five times the average for coastal Southern California. There is some rationale for this as the properties in Rancho Santa Fe are much larger than those in Southern California. And the town has started doing something; outdoor watering has been restricted to three days a week, and rebates are available for those willing to rip out their grass. But still water use in Rancho Santa Fe was down only 1.5 percent from September 2013, compared with 10.3 percent statewide.

Taking chances

A lot more oil is being produced by us. That oil has to be moved to a refinery. Some is moved via pipelines, some is moved by rail. Researchers estimate that trains are three and a half times as likely as pipelines to suffer safety lapses.The oil being produced in North Dakota is now our largest source and it is being shipped by rail; this year carloads of crude are up 50 percent from last.

Since 2012, there have been eight major accidents involving trains carrying crude in North America. The worst killed 47 people and burnt down a quarter of a town in Canada. There have been a lot more safety incidents, most of them minor. The data shows such incidents in more than 250 municipalities over the last four years.

One of the major risk factors in shipping by rail is the vulnerability of the DOT-111 tank cars in which much of the oil is moved. The government has known of this vulnerability for years, but has really not done anything truly serious and effective about it. You can't blame the railroads themselves for the problem, as most of the shipping is done by a separate company focused on shipping.

Some interesting laws

1. It is illegal to inhale bus fumes with the intent of inducing euphoria. (New Hampshire) 
 2. It is illegal to operate a surfboard while on a hallucinogen. (Washington, DC) 
 3. It is illegal to sip your beer more than three consecutive times while standing.  (Texas) 
 4. People in possession of illegal substances must pay taxes on them. (North Carolina) 
 5. It is illegal to give lighted cigars to dogs, cats and other domesticated animals. (Zion, Illinois) 
 6. No man may purchase alcohol without written permission from his wife. (Newtown, Pennsylvania) 
 7. It is illegal to sell laughing gas with the intent to induce laughter. (Indiana) 
 8. Beer at more than 3.2% ABV must be sold at room temperature. (Oklahoma)  
9.It is illegal to force a monkey to smoke a cigarette. (South Bend, Indiana) 
10. Riding a horse under the influence is punishable with a DUI. (Colorado)

from Substance.com

The recession is still here

Dean Baker writes:

It would still take another 7-8 million jobs to bring the percentage of the population employed back to its pre-recession level. The 5.8 percent unemployment rate (compared to 4.5 percent before the recession) doesn't reflect the true weakness of the labor force since so many people have dropped out of the labor force. 

Furthermore, more than 7 million people are working part-time who would like full-time jobs. This is an increase of almost 3 million from the pre-recession level. It's not just the labor market that shows the economy's slack. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the economy is still operating close to 4.0 percentage points below its potential.

Demand is still weak. Problems still abound: our infrastructure, our education, greenhouse gas emissions, etc. Attacking the problems can increase demand. We just need a government that tries to solve problems.

"Structurally deficient" Infrastructure

Source: 60 Minutes

sorry for the ads

Five Bedrock Washington Assumptions That Are Hot Air

That's the subtitle of an article by Andrew Basevich. Here are the assumptions:

* The presence of U.S. forces in the Islamic world contributes to regional stability and enhances American influence. 
 * The Persian Gulf constitutes a vital U.S. national security interest. 
 * Egypt and Saudi Arabia are valued and valuable American allies. 
 * The interests of the United States and Israel align. 
 * Terrorism poses an existential threat that the United States must defeat.

Do you have to read the article to agree with him? When will we start living in the real world and forget "American exceptionalism?

Printing a gown

Unlocking your car

Tapeworm in the brain

For four years a man in England was having problems with his head: headaches, memory problems, strange olfactory hallucinations and seizures. After many scans the doctors found an unidentified mass in the patient’s brain that appeared — after repeated scans — to be moving from one side of his head to the other. When they removed the mass, they found a 10 cm long parasitic tapeworm, known as Spirometra erinaceieuropaei. It is very rare; only 300 human patients have been identified as victims since 1953, and only two of those victims were in Europe.

They really don't know how the tapeworm entered the man's brain but think it came from contaminated food or water or burrowed in through the skin.

The Fed's role

Yesterday, William Dudley, the president of the NY Fed appeared before the Senate Banking Committee. Naturally, many of the senators did a fair amount of grandstanding. But I thought the following comment from Dudley about the Fed's role said a lot, “It is not like a cop on the beat. It’s more like a fire warden.” 

Most cops on the beat would know more about what's going on than the fire warden who appears after the fire has started.

Operation Resolute Support

That will be the official name of our work in Afghanistan next year. And there will be work. It seems that Obama is escalating our role in Afghanistan, at least through next year. 

In May, Obama said that we would have no combat role in Afghanistan next year, and that the missions for the 9,800 troops remaining in the country would be limited to training Afghan forces and to hunting the “remnants of Al Qaeda.”

I guess he's changed his mind and now our troops will also carry out missions against the Taliban and other groups. Plus, our air force will not be quiet; it will be able to use our jets, bombers and drones to support Afghan troops on combat missions.

Knowing the important things

From a Duncaster correspondent

True or False

Kinda cute

Hot enough for you?

Give thanks you're not in Buffalo

Terrorism numbers

I don't know much about the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) other than it has offices in Australia, England the U.S.; it has been producing the Global Peace Index for eight years. This year they have also produced the Global Terrorism Index. There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism; IEP uses the definition agreed upon by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland: "the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation."

As we all know, terrorism is on the upswing. 2013 saw a 61 percent increase in deaths from terrorism globally. Since 2000, there has been a five-fold increase in the number of deaths caused by terrorism. Last year the index recorded 17,958 deaths from terrorism in 60 countries, the leaders being: 

• Iraq — where 2,492 incidents in 2013 left 6,362 dead. 
• Afghanistan — where 1,148 incidents left 3,111 dead. 
• Pakistan — where 1,933 incidents left 2,345 dead. 
• Nigeria — where 303 incidents left 1,826 dead. 
• Syria — where 217 incidents left 1,078 dead.

The U.S. had nine attacks and six deaths. The United Kingdom had a high number of attacks (131), but most of these were small-scale attacks in Northern Ireland and left only three dead. The IEP finds that only four terrorist organizations — the Islamic State, Boko Haram, the Taliban and al-Qaeda — had asserted responsibility for more than 66 percent of the deaths.

Goodbye, Doctor. Hello, Insurance Company

Drs. Hartzband and Groopman have a very challenging op-ed in today's NY Times. The title is How Medical Care Is Being Corrupted. They argue that insurance companies have created incentives and disincentives that might cause a physician to override the needs of an individual patient by doing what is best for the general population.

One example they use: "doctors are rewarded for keeping their patients’ cholesterol and blood pressure below certain target levels. For some patients, this is good medicine, but for others the benefits may not outweigh the risks. Treatment with drugs such as statins can cause significant side effects, including muscle pain and increased risk of diabetes. Blood-pressure therapy to meet an imposed target may lead to increased falls and fractures in older patients". If doctor's don't comply, they will receive less compensation and, perhaps, a lower rating on various web sites.

Doctors are also beginning to be told what medicines to prescribe, as more and more insurance companies are offering their recommendations to doctors. Are you aware of many drugs which do not specify side effects or recommend conditions which should not be using the drug?

The companies are assuming that we are at a point in time when we have mastered the ills of man. Merck assumed that Vioxx would take care of many types of pain; at least, they held that assumption until the product was taken off the market.

I think Hatrzband and Groopman make a good case. But, are they just upset that the doctor is no longer in control?

Where did the $2.5 billion go?

The recent GAO audit of the SEC found “In fiscal year 2014, SEC recorded approximately $3.7 billion of new disgorgement and penalty accounts receivables. As of September 30, 2014, SEC’s disgorgement and penalties accounts receivable balance, net of an allowance for uncollectible amounts, was $381 million. SEC’s custodial revenue collected from disgorgement and penalties and transferred to the general fund of the Treasury during fiscal year 2014 was $825 million.” Adding the $825 and $381 one gets $1,206,000 billion. Yet the SEC collected $3.7 billion. So, where did the $2,494,000 go? Was it all uncollectible? 

This 'missing money' is not a new phenomenon. Almost every year the GAO reports that the SEC needs to clean up its act when it comes to the proper handling, collection, disbursement and financial reporting of penalties and disgorgements it is supposed to be collecting from violators of securities laws.

Say it isn't so

Two major manufacturers of chocolate, Mars and Barry Callebaut, think we will run out of chocolate by 2020, only six years away. Last year we ate about 70,000 metric tons more cocoa than were produced. The two manufacturers guesstimate that by 2020 the gap will be 1 million metric tons (a fourteen-fold bump). 

But are they trying to justify price increases, smaller sizes or lower quality? Or, are they right? Chocolate production has been negatively affected by drought and disease over the past few years. And it does take years to develop a chocolate tree.

Improve your memory. Meditate

A young Jain monk pulled off quite a memory feat before 6,000 people in India. Over six hours people spoke to him with the express purpose that, at the end of the six hours, he would be able to recite back everything they said in sequence. He had 500 phrases or numbers to remember. And he did remember all 500 items in sequence. 

He attributed his skill to meditation, something Jain monks are really proficient in.  His leader claims that the young monk has committed more than 20,000 verses of Jain scripture to memory, and he has also been able to retain as many as 800 random items in order.

Ask your doctor

I don't know how many times I've heard that in the past few days when I have been watching more television than normal. It is just amazing how many ads there are for drugs, many of which I've never heard of. The ads all feature attractive people doing a wide variety of activities. They also do comply with the FDC rule to list the side effects. However, it's really hard to understand what those effects are as there is so much else going on in the ad at the same time. 

I assume that these ads are effective, as the pharmaceutical industry spends $3 billion a year on them. Some doctors are complaining that people insist that they’re suffering from a disorder. One doctor's comment: “I could not convince many of my patients that the marketing they were hearing about Vioxx was maximizing the benefits and minimizing the risks.” Vioxx is no longer on the market as it was proven dangerous to one's health.

A classic quote from November 17, 1973

There's a drought in California

But still the state has allowed oil and gas companies to pump nearly three billion gallons of waste water into underground aquifers that could have been used for drinking water or irrigation. Those aquifers are supposed to be off-limits to that kind of activity and protected by the EPA.

Australia as the United States

Niall McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist, author and critic. He is worried about his country. It is moving more to becoming like us vis-a-vis Islam and terrorism. You should read his article in Truthout. While his subject is Australia, it also describes the U.S. Some excerpts:

• There is the very clearest historical correlation for anybody who wishes to look at it: the more foreign intrusion and disruption there is, the more the locals will react with animosity. The more people's legitimate aspirations are suppressed by brutal, Western-backed autocracies, the more traction extremists gain. That is, of course, the definition of extremism: somebody beyond the edge of legitimacy, somebody adopting harsh views and methods that the great majority reject. But when the majority of people feel crushed, ignored and oppressed and believe their courteous requests to be left alone have achieved nothing, then an increasing proportion of ordinary citizens will say: "Break out the weapons." That is inevitable. If a foreign country occupied my homeland and oppressed us (and don't say it already has), then I too would eventually reach the point of exasperation. I don't see anything unpredictable or immoral about that. Did it not happen in 1776?

• The so-called, undeclared "war" we have been dragged into is the product of self-righteous, panicky people with an exaggerated sense of persecution and no ability to look objectively at history. That is, they are paranoid. Because of their bizarre views, paranoid people cause trouble, then they deny responsibility and use the victim's defensive reaction to justify further aggression. That is exactly the position of the West vis-a-vis the Muslim world.

• That's the polite interpretation; the harsher view is that Australia's Liberal government has latched onto a so-called "humanitarian duty" to push back against ISIL, ignoring other humanitarian needs just because this will distract people from its woeful budget and bind our country more tightly into the Five Eyes axis. I'd feel safer if we went back to being a sunburned country that nobody gives a damn about.

Do it for Denmark

Believe it or not the following video is a commercial for a Danish travel company.

Speaking Correct English

From our Florida correspondent

Running for office

Zephyr Teachout (that is her name) ran against Cuomo in the Democratic primary for governor of New York. While she lost, she received more than a third of the vote and carried almost half of the state’s 62 counties.

Rooting for the home team

You can't say that Tallahassee and its Tallahassee police department does not root for the home team, the Florida State football team. There's the long running rape allegation against the quarterback. And now we have the police changing their decision from a hit-and-run to two traffic tickets: one for an improper left turn and the other for “unknowingly” driving with a suspended license. Even here I find it strange that one can not know that their license has been suspended. And it gets worse.

The case did not show up in the city’s public online database of police calls — a technical error, the police said. The driver, a starting cornerback, was not tested for alcohol nor was he asked if he had been drinking or why he had fled.  The university police also helped in the case; they sent two ranking officers — including the shift commander — to the scene. Yet they wrote no report about their actions that night.

Fear has defeated the 3 Ps

The Secret Service and Omar Gonzalez

Gonzalez was the guy who jumped over the fence and made it into the White House in September. Homeland Security has published a report on the incident. 

Some conclusions: 

• the Secret Service’s alarm systems and radios failed to function properly, 
• many of the responding officers did not see the intruder as he climbed over the fence, delaying their response. 
• Gonzalez could have been stopped by a Secret Service officer who was stationed on the North Lawn with an attack dog. But the officer did not realize that an intruder had made it over the fence because he was sitting in his van talking on his personal cellphone.

Managing nuclear weapons

We don't do a good job of it, two recent government studies show. The Pentagon will have to spend billions of dollars over the next five years to make emergency fixes to its nuclear weapons infrastructure. Note the word 'emergency'.

Some problems found:

• aging blast doors over 60-year-old silos would not seal shut.
• crews that maintain the nation’s 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles had only a single wrench that could attach the nuclear warheads.
• at submarine bases staffing was so short and parts so scarce that nuclear-armed submarines were kept away from patrols for far longer than planned.

The fundamental problem seems to be that the nuclear commanders focused on micromanaging minor issues and ignoring major problems staring them in the face.

What government agency will next appear in the media for being incompetent?

More fines...

but still no jail time. These fines are for rigging the foreign exchange market; the LIBOR fines are extra. The fines total $4.3 billion and were levied in the U.S., England and Swotzwerland. In the U.S. the CFTC issued fines totaling $1.4 billion to JPMorgan, Citigroup, UBS, HSBC and RBS; the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup a total of $950 million.The same five banks were fined $1.7 billion by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Swiss regulator FINMA charged only UBS with a fine of $139 million and included rigging of precious metals trading along with rigging foreign exchange maarkets.

The CFTC complaint against JPMorgan sounds familiar. It “lacked adequate internal controls in order to prevent its FX traders from engaging in improper communications with certain FX traders at other banks. JPMC lacked sufficient policies, procedures and training specifically governing participation in trading around the FX benchmarks rates and had inadequate policies pertaining to, or insufficient oversight of, its FX traders’ use of chat rooms or other electronic messaging.”

A big step for mankind?

Emotional-support animals

Patricia Marx decided to test just how far she could go with odd animals that had been designated as emotional-support animals. The business of emotional-support animals takes advantage of the acceptance of service dogs to help people in many of their life activities. It's a growing business. In 2011 the National Service Animal Registry, a commercial enterprise that sells certificates, vests, and badges for helper animals, signed up twenty-four hundred emotional-support animals. Last year, it registered eleven thousand.

There is a vast difference between emotional-support animals and service dogs. Anyone can buy an emotional-support card from one of several organizations, none of which is authorized or approved by the government. All that the card means is that your pet is registered in a database of animals. The card does not give you the authority to bring your pet into a hotel, store, taxi, train, or park. Service dogs, on the other hand, can go anywhere.

Marx has a fun article about her adventures with a turtle, a snake, a turkey and an alpaca. She goes all over New York City visiting all kinds of establishments: museums, restaurants, buses, delicatessens, hair salons, funeral homes, etc. She flies to Boston with the pig.

We should be taken to the woodshed

With all of the complaining about our government, one would think that voter turnout would be higher than normal. In fact it was worse than normal with only 36.3% of voters actually voting; this was the worst turnout since 1942. Two states were tied for the lowest turnout at 28.8%: New York and Utah. Maine had the largest turnout with 59.3%.

But, maybe the low calibre of our existing government wasn't enough to elicit a change. After all, would you run for office in the current political climate? Just think of how much money you'd have to raise. And, if you're anywhere close to being normal, you have something to hide, even if it is something that happened in grammar school.

We need change in the electoral process. One good thing would be to reduce the electoral period. Canadians have only 36 days to decide who to vote for. I can't think of another country that has the perpetual campaining we do.

A General Speaks

Daniel Bolger retired from the Army last year as a lieutenant general. He is not one who thinks we won the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. He writes,

"The surge in Iraq did not “win” anything. It bought time. It allowed us to kill some more bad guys and feel better about ourselves. But in the end, shackled to a corrupt, sectarian government in Baghdad and hobbled by our fellow Americans’ unwillingness to commit to a fight lasting decades, the surge just forestalled today’s stalemate."

His reasoning as to why we failed:

"We did not understand the enemy, a guerrilla network embedded in a quarrelsome, suspicious civilian population. We didn’t understand our own forces, which are built for rapid, decisive conventional operations, not lingering, ill-defined counterinsurgencies. We’re made for Desert Storm, not Vietnam. As a general, I got it wrong. Like my peers, I argued to stay the course, to persist and persist, to “clear/hold/build” even as the “hold” stage stretched for months, and then years, with decades beckoning. We backed ourselves season by season into a long-term counterinsurgency in Iraq, then compounded it by doing likewise in Afghanistan. The American people had never signed up for that."

He thinks we need to thoroughly understand our actions in these wars. He suggests that we establish a non-partisan, non-military commission like that which investigated 9/11.

And for those pushing boots on the ground against ISIS, his comments are also tempered in reality:

"Maybe an incomplete and imperfect effort to contain the Islamic State is as good as it gets. Perhaps the best we can or should do is to keep it busy, “degrade” its forces, harry them or kill them, and seek the long game at the lowest possible cost. It’s not a solution that is likely to spawn a legend. But in the real world, it just may well give us something better than another defeat."

Lottery for education financing?

Seminars on Civil Forfeiture

Civil forfeiture has become such a bonanza to police departments across the country that seminars on the subject are being offered. As an indication of the money involved the Justice Department in 2012 seized assets of $4.3 billion in, in 2001 they seized a tenth of that ($407 million).

Cars are a hot item in this world. They are not only taken from suspected drunken drivers but also from men suspected of trying to pick up prostitutes. Illinois also seizes boats. In New Jersey they seize cars in shoplifting and statutory rape cases.

The seminars include advice on dealing with skeptical judges and seem to base seizure decisions on the value of the asset rather than public safety.grandparent loses their car.

CyberKnife

Is that a good name for a company that offers radiation treatment to victims of prostate cancer? I find it to be very scary. Somehow a knife is going to be used to extract someone's prostate cancer. True, just about all operations on one's body use some sort of knife, but I don't know of any organization or person who highlights that fact by including the word 'knife' in any naming of the procedure or in conversations with the person to be operated on. Yet, this hospital of which I've never heard, is buying full page ads in the Sunday NT Times Magazine for what they call 



I'm surprised they were able to get funding from any financial organization while using this name. All the product does is use localized radiation on prostate cancer. It does offer a much shorter treatment time. Whether it works better than normal radiation is up in the air. 

Life's Biggest Disappointments

From This is Marvelous

I think we're up to 3,000

3,000 is  the number of troops we will have in Iraq after the next deployment  of 1,500, which has been approved by the powers that be. Of course, there are dollars involved. The White House Budget Office will ask Congress for $5.6 billion for overseas contingency operations, including $1.6 billion to train and equip Iraqi troops.

It was only two months ago that I forecast 5,000 troops in Iraq by year-end. 

More Power to Wage War

Jack Goldsmith, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel under GW, thinks Obama has introduced three situations in which the President can declare war.

1. While Article 2 of the Constitution gives the president the power to repel an attack on America, Obama has declared that he can go to war even if an attack on us is not imminent. He initiated action in Libya and called it a pure humanitarian intervention and he bombed Syria to "protect regional stability" and "enforce international norms"

2.The War Powers Resolution declares that the president must cease "hostilities" after 60 days without congressional authorization. Yet, Obama attacked Libya from the air for seven months because in his world an air attack does not count as 'hostilities'. 

3. In 2001 Congress approved  the authorization to use military force, or AUMF. It declares "that the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons..." Yet, we've gone to war without Congress' approval despite the fact that ISIS is a relatively recent organization that was not in existence in 2001.

Another reason to reject the TPP

Pesticides in our food

Testing for pesticides in our food is done by the FDA and USDA. The testing is not done very well according to the GAO. (Don't you like the abbreviations in the previous sentences? Well, it's the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the General Accounting Office.)

While the FDA data from 2008 through 2012 show that pesticide residue violation rates in 10 selected fruits and vegetables were low, the GAO felt that their approach to monitoring for violations was weak. For example, the FDA uses small samples for testing; when testing imported shipments the sample size was less than one-tenth of 1 percent. Also, the FDA does not test for several commonly used pesticides with an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established tolerance (the maximum amount of a pesticide residue that is allowed to remain on or in a food)—including glyphosate, the most used agricultural pesticide. Hence, the FDA cannot achieve one of its objectives: to determine the national incidence and level of pesticide residues in the foods it regulates.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service's (FSIS) tests domestic and imported meat, poultry, and processed egg product. Again, there was a problem with the testing process in that it did test meat, poultry, and processed egg products for all pesticides with established EPA tolerance levels. 

The most recent data from USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service's (AMS) annual survey of highly consumed commodities, including fruits and vegetables, show that, from 1998 through 2012, pesticide residue detections varied by commodity and were generally well below tolerance levels.

Plea bargaining has replaced the trial

Of the 2,200,000 people in jail today, at least 2,000,000 are there as the result of a plea bargain rather than a trial. And the plea bargains largely determined the sentences imposed. In 2013, while 8 percent of all federal criminal charges were dismissed (either because of a mistake in fact or law or because the defendant had decided to cooperate), more than 97 percent of the remainder were resolved through plea bargains, and fewer than 3 percent went to trial. A similar situation applies in the states.

The plea bargain gives almost exclusive power to the prosecutor. The judge has no say. The Defense counsel is at the mercy of the prosecutor. Interestingly, we are the only major country that uses plea bargaining; other countries look upon it as allowing guilty defendants to avoid the full force of the law.

Also, the plea bargain is typically made in in the prosecutor’s office, and is subject to almost no review, either internally or by the courts. Furthermore, the process of plea bargaining has resulted in innocent people being so overwhelmed by the process that they plead guilty.

We need to return to have more trials or change the method of plea bargaining so that the prosecutor is not god.

I don't understand

The media is blaming the Democrat's debacle largely on Obama. Do the pundits think that voters are focused on him when they vote for Governor, Senator, Congressman, etc.? I acknowledge that my opinion of Obama is not a favorable one; I think he's in a close tie for George W. for the title of worst president I have lived under. But it makes no sense to me to let my opinion of Obama color how I vote for other offices. I can't see that many voters acting otherwise. The media just needs to fill up space and time.

Winding Down Deep Horizon

Back in September a U.S. District judge found BP "grossly negligent" in the Deep Horizon fiasco of 2010. If this ruling holds, BP's fine would increase from $1,100 per barrel to as much as $4,300 per barrel.

Determining how many barrels were released to the Gulf of Mexico has been in contention for the past four years. The government established the Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) to determine the true amount of oil injected into the Gulf of Mexico. The FRTG was composed of scientists from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US Geological Survey, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, the US Department of Energy and outside academics. It has concluded that at least 4.9 million barrels of oil were injected. Naturally, BP disagrees. If the figure of 4.9 million barrels spilled is used, BP will pay fines exceeding $21 billion for gross negligence versus $5.39 billion in fines, had negligence not been found.

But the dollars fined may be the lesser problem as money cannot reverse ecological impacts from which scientists estimate the Gulf will take decades to recover.

Stewart on the elections

Jon Stewart election 110414 by lookatmyshirt

Step by Step

Kara Stein is a relatively new SEC Commissioner. But she's stirred up the waters a little. She has tried to prevent Bank of America from using a waiver to avoid some of the penalties arising from its $16.7 billion settlement for selling toxic mortgages. 

Banks can seek waivers from SEC-imposed penalties. The waivers can ban the bank from managing mutual funds, raising money for private companies, or from issuing its own shares or bonds without SEC approval. Stein is trying to prevent Bank of America from using a waiver. 

Surprisingly, these waivers could be given by staff unilaterally; now the commissioners have to sign off on them. It will be interesting to see how this affair winds up.

Between a rock and a hard place

At first glance that seems to be where the NY Fed is. It is responsible for most of the Quantitative Easing (QE) programs. One aspect of QE is the purchase by the Fed of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). They have bought a lot, like $1.7 trillion.

Unlike the old days of mortgage financing, MBS are high maintenance products, consisting of pools of mortgages which turn over frequently as houses are sold or re-financed. They require a lot of record-keeping and cash management work. The Fed may have decided that farming out the high maintenance work and reinvesting the cash flow short term is more cost effective than attempting to staff up and develop applications to custody the assets in house.

However, most of the financial institutions that can perform this maintenance work have, over the past few years, been charged with rigging Libor, money laundering, aiding and abetting tax evasion, and defrauding clients. So, the Fed has given the maintenance work on the MBS to JPMorgan, which has probably been the bank with the most charges against it.

The basic question is why the regulator has allowed such a crime-ridden environment to exist among the firms they are supposed to regulate.

Another one of the Wallendas walks in Chicago

No Corkscrew? No Problem

I can't wait until Wednesday

The elections will be over finally. Bill Moyers has summarized some of the excessive spending by the candidates. In this election period, almost three million spots have aired at a cost of $1.67 billion. Around 40 percent of it is dark money, with undisclosed donors. Republican-aligned groups have outspent their Democratic counterparts by around three-and-a-half to one. And forty-two people have donated more than a third of what all Super PACs have spent this cycle. 

Slower than almost everybody else

That's the U.S. with regard to internet speeds. Take downloading a high-definition movie, for example. In our big cities it takes about 1.4 minutes if you are paying for our highest speeds; by the way you pay about $300 a month for such service. If you lived in  Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Zurich, Bucharest and Paris, it would take 7 seconds and cost you $30 a month.

But if you live in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Kansas City (in both Kansas and Missouri); Lafayette, La.; and Bristol, Va., your speed is about the same as the foreign leaders. Is that because these cities do not have Comcast and other monopolies as their carrier? They have a city-run network or start-up service.
the lack of competition in the broadband industry. 

As the head of the FCC recently said, "Three-quarters of American homes have no competitive choice for the essential infrastructure for 21st-century economics and democracy.”