Another cost of atomic testing

Our obligation

This weekend saw many ceremonies honoring our dead soldiers. Andrew Bacevich, whose son died in Iraq, thinks we need to do more than acknowledge their sacrifice. We need to hold our leaders accountable. Were the post-911 wars worth it? 

Bacevich says,"Those conflicts, the longest in US history, have exacted a terrible price without yielding anything even remotely approximating success. For proof, look no further than current conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then tally up the moral and material costs incurred since US forces first intervened in those countries. That the war against Iraq, innocent of any involvement in the 9/11 attacks, was also patently unnecessary only makes the results that much more mournful." 

His conclusion, "That accounting should begin with an acknowledgment of the grievous lapses in leadership that have marred recent American wars. To avert our eyes from evidence of duplicity, recklessness, and incompetence at the top is tantamount to betraying those who have borne the burden of the fight. Much the same can be said of the assumptions and ambitions underlying the policies that find the United States today more or less permanently at war. They require critical scrutiny. We must never forget those who gave their all while in service to the nation. But remembering requires more than unveiling monuments while offering words of consolation. It requires truth-telling, however painful or discomfiting. While remembering, in other words, we must also learn. Otherwise the expenditure of young American lives to no discernible purpose will continue."

Time waits for no man or boy

From a Duncaster correspondent

Switch to a low flow showerhead

A college for immigrants only

"Stay out of my territory"

Is marijuana good for old people?

Election 2016

Ouch!

A man in Thailand made his bathroom toilet stop the other day and was totally shocked to have his penis bitten by a 10-foot python. He needed the help of his wife and neighbors to get free. Both he and the snake survived. He lost a lot of blood, but not his penis. He is recovering in the hospital.

Tony winner 2017?

The Hartford Stage won a Tony in 2014 for "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder". I think it has another winner on its hands in "Anastasia". It is a musical based on the old Anastasia story of her being (or not being) a member of the Russian royal family, the Romanovs, who were assassinated by the Communists in 1917. The musical was written by Terrence McNally, with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. While the story and the music are pretty good (B, B+) it is the combination of these with an excellent cast (A) and superb production (A+) that bring it into the Tony class. 

Unlike many regional productions, the cast is made up of Actors Equity members only, all of whom are not only good actors but can sing and dance at a high level. Two of the cast are under 10 years old. In my limited experience (5 years) with the Hartford Stage, I have been most impressed with the production aspects of the plays. The production of "Anastasia" is the best I've seen here. In fact, I can't remember any other play that I've seen anywhere that has higher production values.

Maximizing ROI

That's the question today when, courtesy of Sparrow Chat, I read a GAO report on the federal government's legacy systems. The fed spends more than $80 billion on IT annually. 75% of this went to operating and maintaining legacy systems in 2015; 25% to developing new systems or modernizing the legacy systems.  In dollars, this number for maintenance has increased by $7.3 billion since 2010. 

Some of these legacy systems are over 50 years old. One would think that the government has gotten a good return on its initial investment in those systems. But, like everything in life, systems do become obsolete. Heck, these systems are using devices and languages that I used in the 1960, such as 8-inch floppy disks in a legacy system that coordinates the operational functions of the nation’s nuclear forces. That's right, nuclear forces. Some are still using Assembler, which I loved, and Cobol, which took over from Assembler in the 1970s.

Human Error once more

Occupy redux?

Another attempt to weaken Wall Street's hold over the government is being formally launched today. More than 20 progressive organizations have united in the Take On Wall Street campaign. They have five goals:

• Close the carried interest loophole
• End the CEO bonus loophole
• End “too big to fail"
• Enact a Wall Street speculation tax 
• End predatory lending and offer alternatives for the “unbanked.”

Earth and where it stands today

The United Nations Environment Programme does not think it stands too well. In its latest report it finds that, overall, damage to the planet is happening more rapidly than before, through slights ranging from air pollution, to the proliferation of human and toxic waste, to water scarcity and climate change. Why? A changing climate and an intense trend toward greater urbanization. 

DNA doesn't solve all crimes

But it does result in many false convictions largely because the analysis of DNA is subject to human error. Some of these errors are rather basic, such as a sample not matching the DNA collected. Some can be caused in situations such as that in North Carolina, where state and local law-enforcement agencies operating crime labs are compensated $600 for DNA analysis that results in a conviction. There is also the fact that it is unlikely that DNA typing passes the Frye Test, a legal standard that requires scientific evidence to have earned widespread acceptance in its field.

As with so much of life today, there are computer programs whose authors claim do a better job than people. Two problems here: the programs are written by people and the authors are unwilling to reveal the basic algorithms they use.

Your friendly crocodile

This is a Nile crocodile. It normally stays in sub-Saharan Africa, but four have been found in Florida over the past few years. It can grow to 21 feet long and weigh one and a half tons. It eats just about anything — including humans. 

Another comment on Netanyahu

Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s defense minister, resigned from the government. His reason: "The State of Israel is patient and tolerant toward the weak among it and minorities ... But to my great regret extremist and dangerous elements have overrun Israel as well as the Likud party, shaking up the national home and threatening harm to those in it."

Looking at China's population

Howard French thinks China is in for some tough times as its population ages. According to his numbers, by 2040 the ratio of workers to retirees will go from 5:1 to 1.6:1. The number of Chinese older than 65 is expected to rise from roughly 100 million in 2005 to more than 329 million in 2050. The median age will go from under 30 to about 46, making China one of the older societies in the world. And they don't have any sort of a modern national pension system. So, they have a choice: "allow growing levels of poverty within an exploding elderly population, or provide the resources necessary to avoid this situation." 

French is much more optimistic about us, primarily because of immigration. He thinks that our workforce will increase by 31 percent from 2010 to 2050. According to the Pew Research Center, immigrants and their children and grandchildren will account for 88 percent of U.S. population growth over the next 50 years.

Who pays the money?

Adjusting reality

In the 1930s the SEC and accounting leaders established Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and for many years these principles were followed by the corporate world. But in the 21st century many companies announce both reported earnings and GAAP earnings. These reported earnings are always greater than GAAP earnings and are typically the earnings highlighted in the media. 

This practice is becoming used more. 19 of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones average reported both “adjusted” and GAAP earnings; naturally the adjusted earnings were highlighted in the press releases as they were 28.9% higher than GAAP earnings. And the reporting by companies is getting worse. Last year, only 16 of the 30 companies in the DJIA resorted to this beautification strategy. And they inflated earnings by only 19.7% on average.

It's not only DJIA companies that feature adjusted earnings. Twitter lost $80 million in Q1 under GAAP. But reported a non-GAAP profit of $103 million. Tesla inflated its revenues as well. Its Q1 “non-GAAP” revenues were $1.6 billion, up “over 45%” year-over-year. But its GAAP revenues were only $1.15 billion.

Products of the Middle East

From The Big Picture

Stay off Facebook in Thailand

Patnaree Chankij's son is a leading activist against the military junta that rules Thailand. She has been arrested for posting the words "I see" on Facebook as a comment on a posting by a political activist. The police think that she should have condemned the comments as they insulted the monarchy, a crime that can lead to a lot of time in jail; last year another woman was given a sentence of 56 years for comments she made on Facebook.

More than 60 people have been charged with this crime. Apparently, the government wants to keep this secret as most of the cases are now heard in secret and in military courts, which restrict the rights of defense.

Is the junta trying to silence her son?

The parakeet knows

Reading the numbers

The UN recently stated,"The number of international migrants -- reached 244 million in 2015 for the world as a whole, an increase of 71 million, or 41 percent, compared to 2000." The Wittgenstein Center for Demography in Vienna disagrees with that number primarily because the 244 million includes "persons living in a country other than where they were born." This means that anyone who ever left their country of birth and is still alive is part of this number. If my father were alive, he would be counted in the 244 although he lived 69 years in this country. Another concern is with the the 41 percent number. It is based on the UN's previous number of migrants although the world's population increased from 6.1 to 7.3 billion. 

Some other conclusions:
- Significantly more Europeans migrate within Europe than Africans to Europe. 
- A much larger number of people migrate within the Middle East than from the Middle East to Europe. 
- The largest transcontinental flow continues to move from South to North America, although it has decreased considerably compared to the period from 2005 to 2010. 
- North America and Europe remain the most important target regions for international migration, although North America has a significantly smaller out-migration than Europe. 
- Europe's share of the total migration volume has declined. 
- Migration paths do not lead primarily from very poor to very rich countries, but rather adhere to a graduated model. 
- East and Southeast Asia are developing from typical source regions into target regions of international migration. 
- What has changed in the long retrospective view is the general direction of migration: from North-South to South-North and now, increasingly, to South-South. In earlier centuries, it was the Europeans who emigrated or colonized other parts of the world, which is just another form of migration. 
- But the most surprising result of Abel's calculations is that overall global migration has been on the decline in the last five years.  

A town dying

Economics is not Bill's strong point

A quote from Hillary: “My husband, who I’m going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy, because you know he knows how to do it.” Yes, the economy was good during the Clinton years, but it's been bad since then because or actions taken (or not) by Bill. Like, for example, dumping Glass-Steagall, doing little for the poor, kowtowing to Wall Street, etc., etc.

Call 911

Is there a petrochemical company in your backyard?

There are at least 2,500 in the greater Houston area. The Houston Chronicle hired Texas A&M scientists to study the likelihood of a calamity, of which there is one every six weeks. The scientists found 55 facilities with the highest potential for harm to the public. Close to 600 scored in the medium tier, storing chemicals dangerous enough to impose serious harm in an accident. Nearly 80 percent of the facilities in those tiers have 10,000 or more people within a 2-mile radius.

It seems that the government agencies which monitor these plants don't do a very good job. But that is the subject of part 2 of the report.

Hospitals in Venezuela have become death traps.

Last month I wrote about the shortages in Venezuela. The NY Times today talks about shortages in Venezuelan hospitals. It is terrible. Some excerpts from the article:

• The day had begun with the usual hazards: chronic shortages of antibiotics, intravenous solutions, even food. Then a blackout swept over the city, shutting down the respirators in the maternity ward.
• Hospital wards have become crucibles where the forces tearing Venezuela apart have converged. Gloves and soap have vanished from some hospitals. Often, cancer medicines are found only on the black market. There is so little electricity that the government works only two days a week to save what energy is left. At the University of the Andes Hospital in the mountain city of Mérida, there was not enough water to wash blood from the operating table. Doctors preparing for surgery cleaned their hands with bottles of seltzer water.
• The figures are devastating. The rate of death among babies under a month old increased more than a hundredfold in public hospitals run by the Health Ministry, to just over 2 percent in 2015 from 0.02 percent in 2012, according to a government report provided by lawmakers. The rate of death among new mothers in those hospitals increased by almost five times in the same period, according to the report.
• the ambulance had no oxygen tanks. The hospital has no fully functioning X-ray or kidney dialysis machines because they broke long ago. And because there are no open beds, some patients lie on the floor in pools of their blood.

The first in the United States

A Massachusetts man received a penis transplant, the first in this country. There have been two other attempts:a failed one in China in 2006 and a successful one in South Africa in 2014, in which the recipient later fathered a child. The estimated cost was $50,000 to $75,000 and was assumed by the doctors and Mass General Hospital. The operation took 15 hours, 12 doctors and 30 helpers.

There are about 1,000 veterans who have suffered so-called genitourinary injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nearly all were under 35 and had been hurt by homemade bombs, commonly called improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s. Some lost part or all of their penises. 

Preventing IGs from doing their job

Is the volunteer army a success

Louis Yunengert, who teaches at the Army War College, thinks so. He reminds us that the Commission which made the decision had some concerns:
• the possible mercenary motivation of volunteers 
• the creation of a separate warrior class within the society 
• a greater propensity of political leaders to employ the force 
• the possibility of a disproportionate percentage of volunteers being from lower economic classes and African-Americans 
• the expense of a recruited military 
• possible quality issues, and 
• opportunity costs associated with expanding personnel expenses within a fixed defense budget.

I think the major reason for reinstating the draft is our propensity to go to war. It is much more likely now. We deployed forces 19 times in the draft years between 1945 and 1973 (.7 a year) and since the end of the draft we have deployed forces 144 times (3.3 a year).

Will we see the 28 pages soon?

I'm referring to the 28 pages of the 9/11 investigation that have not been released to the general public. John Lehman, a member of the commission, is urging the release. He says that the pages show that the hijackers had support from Saudi government employees.

"The Jungle" Redux?

In 1906 Upton Sinclair exposed the sad lot of workers in the meat packing industry. Oxfam America has released a report which contends that some workers at poultry producers have to wear diapers, as their access to toilets is restricted. The producers dispute the charge. 

Average Annual CEO Compensation

From the Washington Post

Is it global warming?

I don't have to tell you that the fire in and around Fort McMurray in Alberta has been in the news the past couple of weeks. The scenes have been unbelievable. Many scientists think that global warming is a major factor in these fires, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, where temperatures have been rising (recent temperatures in Alberta have been 30 degrees above normal) trees are drying and snow is melting earlier.

In Russia, about 70 million acres burned in 2012, much of that in isolated areas of Siberia. Alaska had its second-largest fire season on record in 2015, with 768 fires burning more than five million acres.

Doctors and Big Pharma

A group of Harvard Medical School researchers have published a study the relationship between brand-name statins being prescribed by doctors who are compensated by the drug companies. They looked at 2444 Massachusetts physicians in the Medicare prescribing database in 2011. Here are the results:

Of the 2,444, 899 (36.8%) received industry payments, the most frequent being for company-sponsored meals. Statins accounted for 1,559,003 prescription claims; 356,807 (22.8%) were for brand-name drugs. For physicians with no industry payments listed, the median brand-name statin prescribing rate was 17.8%. For every $1000 in total payments received, the brand-name statin prescribing rate increased by 0.1%. Payments for educational training were associated with a 4.8% increase in the rate of brand-name prescribing; other forms of payments were not. They concluded that payments to physicians are associated with higher rates of prescribing brand-name statins. As the United States seeks to reign in the costs of prescription drugs and make them less expensive for patients, our findings are concerning.

Owning property and avoiding taxes

When it comes to real estate, Milwaukee is being shilled by a group of real estate investors. They do not invest in high quality property. They invest in foreclosed properties that the sheriff puts up for sale every week. Usually the properties need work and sometimes the new owners do some minimal repairs. The properties are rented. 

Often the renters complain about the conditions of the apartments and the building inspectors order repairs. Municipal judges may issue fines but often allow extended payment schedules. But the owner seldom pays the entire fine, he makes a minimum payment allowed by the court. The court can put a lien on the scofflaw's assets and issue an arrest warrant. But the warrant has little consequence and the lien has an impact only if the property is sold.

The owner does not pay property taxes and after three years the city seizes the property — which wipes out the tax debt. And the city must bulldoze, repair or sell the house.

A simple but effective money maker.

Boots are on the ground in Iraq

The NY Times has a fairly lengthy article about the attack on the hospital in Kunduz that was bombed. It seems that the bombing was intended to be of a government building that was thought to be a command center for the Taliban. Well, it was the hospital. The bombing itself was part of a battle against the Taliban, a battle led and fought by our troops. Our troops were not ambushed while advising local forces behind the front lines or struck by rocket fire while manning a fortified base, as the government would have us believe. Our troops were at the leading edge of an offensive to retake Kunduz, where Afghan forces had melted away as insurgents attacked, leaving an entire city in the Taliban’s grip for the first time since 2001.

Worse than Trump?

Why so secret?

Last year a U.S. plane bombed the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 42 patients and health workers and injuring many more. The Pentagon has investigated the affair and says it was a mistake, not a war crime. But there is no way to verify the Pentagon's conclusion as almost all of its report is redacted for the peasants, but available to those with a top security clearance. Should we be satisfied with this conclusion that the affair was “a combination of human errors, compounded by process and equipment failures”? 

Interestingly, the 4th Geneva Convention, Article 18, states unambiguously that “civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.”

Another very sophisticated type of stock transaction

Div-arb (dividend-arbitrage) transactions have become a very popular way of avoiding taxes on dividends, especially with German holdings by the big money people here. Some German investment funds and banks need not pay tax on German dividends or can claim refunds for tax withheld. So, the big money here briefly lends out some of their German holdings each year to those German funds that pay no tax. The time for lending is a few days or weeks before dividends are to be paid. The banks or funds that borrowed the shares receive the dividends tax-free and then transfer that money to the stocks’ original owner, minus fees for middlemen. The foreign investors typically end up with added income equivalent to about half the dividend tax that would have been owed.

This is hard to believe

In only one week last month four toddlers shot and killed themselves, and a mother driving through Milwaukee was killed after her 2-year-old apparently picked up a gun that had slid out from under the driver’s seat. Last year, at least 30 people were killed in accidental shootings in which the shooter was 5 or younger. In 2015, there were at least 278 unintentional shootings at the hands of young children and teenagers.

Derivatives Rising?

Derivatives were a major factor in the Great Recession. Are they coming back to hurt us once more? Freddie Mac has lost $15.54 billion in its derivative portfolio for the period 2014 to Q1 of 2016. In Q1 of 2016 it recorded a loss of $354 million. The report also noted that its derivatives portfolio lost $4.56 billion in the quarter. 

We all make mistakes

That includes doctors and other members of the medical fraternity. Johns Hopkins Medicine has just published a study of medical errors, which they assert is the third-leading cause of death in the United States. Only heart disease and cancer kill more people, according to the John Hopkins people.

The CDC keeps these numbers. However, the CDC asks for only the “underlying cause of death,” which is defined as the condition that led a person to seek treatment. So, if someone dies because the oncologist screwed up, the cause of death is cancer rather than doctor error. 

The Johns Hopkins’ authors said the inability to capture the full impact of medical errors results in a lack of public attention and a failure to invest in research. They called for adding a new question to death certificates specifically asking if a preventable complication of care contributed. But would doctors report that a patient died from a medical error? 

Texas, the beacon for refugees

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered that no Syrian refugees be allowed in the state and filed a law suit to that effect. Yet, the state resettled 2,677 refugees — more than any other state — between October and March. While most of the refugees who came to Texas from October to March are from Myanmar, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia, eighty-two Syrians have come to Texas so far this fiscal year.

Copying nature

You'll hear sounds of crickets, bird wings rustling, water dripping and hyper-dramatized operatic chanting

Mandatory Arbitration

When you open an account with a stockbroker, you agree that any disputes will be settled by arbitration, you cannot bring the dispute to the courts. Yet, the Seventh Amendment to our nation’s Bill of Rights states: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.” Arbitrators do not have to rely on case law or legal precedent as courts do. They can simply follow their gut instincts and they seldom provide detailed written decisions as a plaintiff would have in court.

Pam Martens really does a number on the mandatory arbitration clause in your agreement with your broker. This clause allows the financial industry to run its own private justice system where both its customers and its employees are barred from taking their lawsuits into a court of law so that the public and the press can monitor the proceedings and have future access to the detailed court records to analyze patterns of crimes or recidivism.

Bills to overturn Wall Street’s no-court system have failed to make it out of committee for decades.

A long pregnancy

Side effects

A Man, a dog, a hummingbird

From a Duncaster correspondent