A Tufted Titmouse Watching The Moon Rise

From the Boston Globe of May 16, 2011

Social Science or Medical Science?

William Easterly has another excellent article which questions the validity of the numbers used in social science studies published in medical journals. Here's his summary of the decision tree that some researchers use when deciding whether to publish in a medical or economics journal.

St. Paul?

This is probably today's joke but there is a story making the rounds that a Russian sect believes that Vladimir Putin is the reincarnation of St.Paul. The article that is the basis of this story is attributed to AFP, which most people would think refers to Agence France Presse. It refers to a website run by an unnamed Sobedednik weekly. Anyway, it's kind of cute and an innocuous story to start the day.

Can't Do Without It

Food, that is. Yet, we have a problem today and, if Lester Brown is right, a much bigger problem tomorrow. He's talking about food as possibly being the cause of future wars. Brown bases some of his argument on the fact that food prices, as measured by the U.N. Food Price Index, are at an all-time high and he doesn't see them coming down soon, if ever, unless we take action.

Fundamentally, it's a supply and demand issue. More people and the difficulty of increasing production to the necessary levels form the basis of his argument. We all know that the population is increasing, some see a population of 9 billion in 2050. Furthermore, as more countries move out of the development phase, they want to move up the food chain. Hence, the demand issue. The supply issue has a few more parts which can be summarized by the energy situation, climate change, wells running dry and mismanagement of soils.

Ethanol is one of the factors affecting supply as more and more land is being devoted to the raising of crops which will be converted to fuel. In 2000 16,000,000 tons of grain were converted to ethanol, today it's over 126,000,000 tons. Total grain supply has not increased a similar 8 times in that time period.

Scientists have a rule of thumb with regards to climate and production of grain: "for every 1 degree Celsius above the growing season optimum, farmers can expect a 10% decline in grain yields". We are seeing only the beginnings of climate change today. What will tomorrow bring?

More than half of the world lives in areas where the water table is falling. What happens when there is no water for crops?

There are now two new dust bowls, one in China, the other in central Africa. It's estimated that one-third of the world's farmland may wind up the same way due to overplowing and bad management of the land.

Tensions are also exacerbated by the actions of countries facing a lower supply of grain. Many of them have signed deals with good producing countries whereby these countries with poor supply can export the producer's grains. This bothers some people, to say the least.

It's not looking good.

Men with Three Names

I tend to look askance at men who use three names. Usually they seem to want to elevate themselves above we commoners and believe they have more rights than we do. The latest three-namer is Dominique Strauss-Kahn. He seems to have a hard time keeping it in his pants.

Over the past nine years he has now been publicly accused three times of sexual offenses. Granted accusations are just that, but when one is accused more than once of the same offense, there may be some truth behind the accusations. In 2008, the IMF, of which he is managing director, chastised him for having an affair with one of his subordinates. The current accusation of a hotel maid seems to have the ring of truth, but we have to wait for the forensics to be analyzed.

What's that saying about power?

Nakba Day 2011

This is a celebration of Nakba Day at the border between Syria and Israel.
 

Similar 'celebrations' were held in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. Nakba Day is Commemoration Day for Palestinians. This is the 63rd anniversary of the establishment of Israel. It has been a bloody day. There are possibilities of more violence.

You have 7 days to repent

I have it on very high authority that the end of the world will begin on May 21. That's when, just before midnight Jerusalem time, Christ will come down from heaven and select those who will go back up with him. Five months later, on October 21, there will be no more earth or universe.

The fellow who has told me so is Harold Camping, who tells me this via his radio network. He hasn't told me to reveal this photograph of him, but you should be aware of what this forecaster looks like in case you meet him next Saturday.

This is Mr. Camping's second attempt to warn us of this catastrophe. He did tell us that the Rapture was due on September 6, 1994. He has admitted the error and assures us that this time he is right.

Making Beer

It's not just beer. It's Allagash Beer.

“Where have the police and military gone?”

That's the question Mohamed ElBaradei is asking, as a crime wave seems to be sweeping Egypt. There have been five attempted jailbreaks in Cairo in the past 2 weeks. We saw the battle between Muslims and Christians earlier this week. The grandniece of Sadat has been kidnapped. Police assigned to patrolling a soccer game vanished when a riot broke out. There was a riot in an upscale town. A policeman has been abducted. What used to be the peaceful streets of Cairo are now streets with few pedestrians as fear has come to Cairo.

Some believe that the police can no longer function as they had become indoctrinated in the old ways where they could run roughshod over the populace. Now,they retreat from confrontations. Others think the performance of the police is a stratagem to weaken the democracy.

Whatever the reason it does not bode well for the new Egypt.

Why not a Volunteer Army

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services, to the defence of it.
George Washington

Is This What We Are Moving Toward?

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 48 women are raped every hour. How is that possible? Why is that possible? What the f**k kind of world are we living in?

Psst! I've Got a Secret

Raj Rajaratnam had many, most of which were told to him by people on the inside of imminent deals or announcements. Mr. Rajaratnam was convicted on 14 counts of securities fraud. Mr. Rajaratnam parlayed his involvement in the Southeast Asian community into a network of informants who would tell him of upcoming major announcements. He was not cheap and paid generously for these tips, which earned him millions.

The question is whether the government will pursue other cases, including cases involving the issues that led up to the Great Recession.

Analyzing Microsoft

Barry Ritholtz sees an emperor without many clothes. He contends that legal expertise and business acumen in Microsoft's early days was responsible for the company's growth and reputation. Microsoft was not a technological innovator then nor is it one now. In Ritholtz's words, "Microsoft has missed just about every major trend in computing over the past decade. They missed Search, they missed MP3 players, had to buy webmail, missed user generated content, maps,blogging, online video, cloud computing, location sensitive apps,  smart phones, Apps, texting, social networking, tablets, micro-blogging (ie, Twitter)."

The $3 Trillion Man

The National Journal has an interesting take on the killing of bin Laden. Tim Fernholz and Jim Tankersley try to calculate how much in dollars and cents bin Laden has costus. They estimate $3 trillion over 15 years.

They then compare the cost of the war on terrorism and to other conflagrations and the Oklahoma bombing of Timothy Mc Veigh. Finally, our 'regular' wars yielded economic benefits, the war on terror has yielded none. This chart, which I've had to blow up so that you can read the numbers (albeit with difficulty), summarizes the article.

Your Water Is Burning

You may be surprised that methane gas could cause your well to begin burning or even explode. It can also enable you to perform a trick of lighting a match as water comes out of your faucet and burn the water. These things have happened in some places in the United States. It tends to happen when the water well is as "close" as 3,000 feet (.6 mile) to a natural gas well.

A study by Duke scientists seems to place the blame for the burning water capability on the "hydraulic fracturing" which is used in 90% of natural gas wells; the fracturing, which involves pumping sand and chemicals into the natural gas well, breaks rocks so that gas can be released and enter the marketing chain. The amount of methane in the affected water wells is considered dangerous by the Interior Department and requires urgent “hazard mitigation” action.

One good thing coming from the study was that the wells were not contaminated.

It's a Male World

At least in the eyes of Der Tzitung, a Brooklyn-based Jewish newspaper. They airbrushed out Hillary Clinton and Audrey Tomason, the Director of Counterrorism, from the recent photo of the Obama brain trust watching the attack on Osama.

This is the 21st century is it not? The newspaper is based in Brooklyn, not Mecca.

Not All Quiet on the Egyptian Front

Now Christians and Muslims are battling each other. Twelve of them were killed in a battle over a story about a Muslim woman being held in a Christian church. It must have been a pretty wild scene as 190 were arrested.

One More Once

Jim McGovern and Walter Jones will soon be introducing the Afghan Exit and Accountability Act, which is an attempt by the Congressmen to get us out of Afghanistan. If the bill passes, the President would have to give Congress a timetable for withdrawing our troops by a date certain. Plus, he would have to submit quarterly reports to Congress on the progress of troop withdrawal, as well as the human and financial costs of continuing the war. The President would also have to report how much money U.S. taxpayers would save if the war were brought to an end in six months, instead of five, ten, or twenty years.

You wonder how much the administration will oppose this bill, as it is now talking about 2014 as the date Afghans take the lead, not necessarily the date we withdraw and they are pushing Afghanistan to accept a Permanent Bases Agreement which would keep our troops there until further notice.

McGovern has been pushing us to get out of our quagmires for quite a few years. He hasn't succeeded but that is not for lack of trying.

All Quiet on the Bahrain Front

In Bahrain, Shiites outnumber Sunnis 4 -1. However, the Sunnis are in power. They seem bent on wreaking havoc on the Shiites. One of their primary tools is destroying Shiite mosques. But, you know from the news, they are doing much more, even to the point of bringing in troops from Saudi Arabia. And, of course, they've started to shut down media that the state does not control.

And what does our country say? I guess our message varies depending upon what country is involved and how much we are beholden to them.

Houston, We have a problem

The St. Louis Fed has some interesting charts. This one illustrates quite clearly the depth of our employment problem.

Change the Measuring Stick

Walmart has not been doing that great for the past year or two. Yet, that has not stopped them from making sure the executives continue to make good money. Historically, one of the major components of the company's bonus plan has been same store sales, which has long been considered the basic measure for retail companies. However, Walmart has changed its mind as to the utility of same store sales and has shifted to total company sales as a standard for measuring the performance of its executives. One wonders whether the standard was changed because same store sales have been down for almost two years, while overall revenue has been up because of new stores.

Changes in the measuring stick have also been made in the time period being evaluated. Walmart used to use three years, now it's annually. Do you think the executives are worried about the company's future and want to get as much money as they can now?

At the same time the executives ares sweetening their pot, they are screwing the employees. They have ended the profit-sharing plan that had been in place for years.

Saying Arriverderci

Now that I've moved from Massachusetts I must say arriverderci to the license plate I've had for 56 years. It's been on many cars in those years. Some were great, my 1960 Corvette. Some were not so great, my Corvair and my Volkswagen. The number was always great; I never had a problem remembering it.

Criminal Aliens

The GAO has just released a study about criminal aliens. Some interesting numbers:

• 3.5% of the 10,800,0000 illegal immigrants are in jail, with drugs being the reason in many cases
• Most of the jailed illegals are Mexican
• It costs us about $1.5 billion a year to house these criminals. This number has been fairly constant for the past four years.

Quite a Maverick

Dina Rasor has been reporting on the Pentagon for almost thirty years; in that time her message has been fairly basic: we are wasting a lot of money with the present Pentagon systems. She has an interesting article on how some weapons never die, even if they have been failures from day 1. These weapons never die because they have developed a constituency in Congress; they bring jobs to the Congressmen's districts. One problem with these weapons is they are constantly being modified to meet the "current needs"; this is usually necessary because the weapons did not meet the needs for which they were originally intended.

Rasor discusses the Maverick missile as an example. This missile has been around for almost 40 years and has gone through six generations. One benefit to the defense companies when a new generation is built is that there is seldom any competition to develop a different type of weapon to meet the need; this usually translates into increased revenue for the companies and increased costs for us.

The Maverick is a "tactical, air-to-surface missile that is carried on the A-10 close air support plane, the F-15E and the F-16." It's job is to back up troops on the ground, which is exactly the same function that the guns on the A-10 do and at a much lower cost. Not only does the Maverick duplicate lower-cost functions, it does not work very well. The guidance system, kind of a key component, has never worked properly; questions about the system were raised as early as 1982. And naturally it costs a pretty penny to continually modify it so that one day it will work properly. 69,000 Mavericks have been built; we have used 6,000 in combat. Yet, we paid for 69,000 and we maintained 69,000. A wise use of our money?

As you have surmised, the Maverick is but one example of how our money is wasted. If our leaders want to lower the deficit, they must look carefully at the Pentagon.

$100,000 Not To Go To College

That's what Peter Thiel is offering to twenty people under twenty years old who don't want to go to college. Applicants for this grant, which also includes being mentored by a Silicon Valley luminary, answer two key questions:

• What is it about the world that you know is true that everyone else doesn't understand?
• Does understanding this fact help you to change the world? How?

Thiel wants to sponsor the next generation of tech visionaries. He doesn't think colleges will do this. In fact he thinks colleges represent the next bubble as housing represented the current bubble and high-tech companies the previous bubble. He may have a point. As my readers know, I don't believe that everybody should go to college. I am also coming around to Thiel's view. Others are also. See, for example, this article from New York Magazine. (Thanks to my NYC correspondent for sending me the article.)

Spending Our Money

There is such a government agency as the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is an independent legislative commission established by Congress. Much of their work has involved identifying where we as taxpayers are getting cheated by contractors that we have hired to work in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Recent testimony of Pratap Chatterjee of the Center for American Progress summarizes the situation. Fundamentally,it sucks; the basic problem is a lack of good date and, in many cases, a lack of any data. In more detail here are some excerpts from Chatterjee's testimony:

• In my remarks I will touch on the lack of inventory tracking of weapons and ammunition that were supplied by contractors, and the theft and misuse of the weapons by security forces. I will describe the weapons and security startups like AEY and USPI that defrauded us. And I will tell you about the unqualified translators we hired through L-3/Titan, the inexperienced police officers through DynCorp, and the payments that Third Country Nationals have to make to labor brokers to get jobs on bases.
• In one meeting my translator overheard the Afghan police officials discussing in Dari how to answer my question because they did not have proper systems to track the guns, let alone the ammunition. The biggest problem they faced was the fact that most police officers are illiterate—at least 70 percent by the most optimistic estimate I heard and as much as 95 percent—and are unable to fill out forms to track the weapons. The second problem was that some company officials shortchanged the Afghans—such as Efraim Diveroli of AEY, who was sentenced to jail in March for supplying 50-year-old ammunition.
• Nor are guns the only items that are traded; it was common knowledge that one could buy Afghan police officer uniforms and boots at the Kohan Froshi market in downtown Kabul.
• Back in 2006 I commissioned and edited a report that revealed that a company called United States Protection and Investigations, or USPI, was hiring local thugs to protect U.S. construction contractors in Afghanistan working for USAID, thereby supplying money and weapons to some of the worst elements of society. Since then, Del and Barbara Spier, co-owners of USPI, pleaded guilty to defrauding the government, billing for nonexistent expenses from fictitious companies, and inflating the number of Afghan guards on their payroll.
• But what this tells us is that when we, as taxpayers, demand that our money is spent well on hiring the best security, the best cook, or even the best janitor, the contract officers we pay to pick the best contractor have almost no role in determining who we get. The actual decision is made by a third party—a labor broker collecting the fees—who almost certainly does not show up on any government contract.
• What connects these disparate incidents—the security guards in Kabul, the Bangladeshi janitors in Kuwait, the Fijian truck drivers in Iraq, and the Arabic translators who cannot translate—is the fact that we do not know who we are hiring. We don’t know if they are qualified, we don’t know if they paid bribes to get their jobs, we don’t know what they do with their weapons, and we have no way to find out. If we did, maybe we could have prevented AEY and USPI from defrauding the government. We should have audited L-3. We should not be tolerating bribery by labor brokers.

A Blessing in Disguise

Now Obama has a 'reason' to leave Afghanistan: he's eliminated the #1 terrorist in the world. Many are calling for us to leave, even our good friend Hamid Karzai. It would be wonderful to see yesterday's celebrants make the same noise about getting out of our quagmires.

A Reason for the Fuss

My friend, Peter, thinks that one reason for the celebration of Osama's death is the fact that this was truly a joint venture by many arms of our government - military, CIA, state department, presidency etc. And, in Peter's words, "It demonstrates that the US can get things done if all work together and hopefully this is repeated in the budget deficit and debt problems that the nation is facing. This is a confidence builder and hopefully will be repeated."

I hope he's right as to the possibility of our leaders working together.

Why all the fuss?

I really find it very hard to understand why people are celebrating in a most extreme way the death of Osama bin Laden. Some of the celebrations remind me of those of V-J Day. However, V-J Day was the end of WWII. We are nowhere through having to combat terrorists. Yet, people seem to be acting as though we have won and peace will rule the planet. It's been almost ten years since 9/11. What has Osama done in that time frame? Was he stronger or weaker in 2011 than he was in 2001? There are no quick fixes to the quandaries we find ourselves in.

More Gaming

Last week I wrote about colleges gaming the Title IX situation. This week I'd like to talk about law schools gaming incoming students. Yesterday's NY Times reported on what appears to be a common practice among law schools - granting full scholarships to incoming students with the implication that these scholarships will be good for the three years of law school. As you would expect, these scholarships are conditioned on the student having good grades (usually B) for all three years. Most students believe they are superior and will have no problem making the grade.

However, as with many things in life, it is important to know how things will be measured. The way many law schools measure is via a curve so that a finite number of students will receive A, another number will receive B, etc. So, even if the class had all geniuses, not all would meet the terms of the deal.

Why do law schools play this game? So they will improve their score on US News & World annual surveys of law schools. Ah, the wonders of the modern world.

The PR Game

We're living in a world in which companies are, by and large, focused on PR almost as much as they are focused on compensating their top executives. How else to explain banks acting reasonably responsibly to the foreclosure of homes owned by military personnel yet continue to screw we civilians?

Of course, it did take a law suit to get JP Morgan to act. There is something called the Service Members Civil Relief Act, which says that banks can't foreclose on military personnel and that banks are limited on how much interest they can charge. Well, JP decided to settle a lawsuit brought under this statute. The settlement calls for JP paying $12,000,000 to those foreclosed plus another $21,000,000 for additional damages. Beyond the settlement, JP has lowered interest rates to a number less than they can legally charge, given 1,000 homes to veterans,said it will hire 100,000 veterans over the next five years and, for those who experienced a wrongful foreclosure while serving overseas, give them back their homes for free, forgiving all remaining mortgage debt. Isn't JP Morgan really a good and fair company? Please don't remember that all this largesse was triggered by a law suit.

Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and BofA are instituting similar programs. The question is what are these banks doing for the millions of civilians who face foreclosure because of the greed of the banks and the mortgage service companies.

Meet the Deadline

We've signed an agreement with Iraq to remove all of our troops by the end of this year. Will George W. Obama honor that agreement? He and Mr. Gates are pushing Maliki to keep our soldiers there. Lawrence Korb thinks this is a bad idea for a couple of reasons:

• the Iraqis don't want us
• if we stay, it's likely that Maliki will go
• the Iraqi army is strong enough to  handle the insurgents.

I'm not sure that I agree with this last point, but I think the odds of our leaders pushing for us to stay there are very high.

Not Exactly a Resounding Success

Terry Jones came back to Dearborn yesterday and led his protest against Islamists. He's also added the President to his list of people he doesn't like. Jones did have trouble being heard as the crowd was quite vocal and they also threw stuff at him. Jones cut the rally short; he probably thought he had gotten enough publicity. He says he will return to Dearborn to continue his battle.

Elizabeth Warren on The Daily Show

It is a long interview, but she is leading the effort to regulate the financial industry so that you and I will have a fair chance. Of course, the financial industry thinks they played a small part in causing the Great Recession and, being good citizens, are fighting to ensure that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) does not get off the ground or, if it does, that it has little power. The bureau is not an ideal by any means, but we need to ensure that the CFPB does get off the ground however imperfect it may be.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt. 1
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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt. 2
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt. 3
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Cutting the Defense Budget

Foreign Policy has an article by Col. Douglas MacGregor who proposes the following steps to reduce the Pentagon budget:

Estimated annualized savings resulting from withdrawals from overseas garrisons and restructuring the United States' forward military presence: $239 billion
Estimated annualized savings from reorganizing the Army and Marine Corps: $18 billion
Estimated annualized savings from reductions in naval surface forces and Marine fixed-wing aviation: $10 billion
Estimated annualized savings from eliminating the F-35B: $2.5 billion
Estimated annualized savings from reducing the number of unified commands and single service headquarters: $1 billion
Estimated annualized savings from eliminating the Department of Homeland Security and restructuring national intelligence and the Army National Guard: $7 billion

I am far from really knowledgeable about the details of the defense budget, but it makes a heck of a lot of sense for us to really scale back our presence in the rest of the world. It probably also makes sense to do something about DHS. And MacGregor makes a good case for his other projected cuts. All in all it seemed to make sense for me to post my reaction to this article. However as is my wont, before doing so, I thought I should learn something about the colonel.

Google showed that he is truly an iconoclast; he was shunted off the promotion track because of his unconventional ideas. But many have experienced the same reaction for being unconventional. Google also led me to the colonel's web site, which is clearly unconventional. Being a military man, he has a mission statement, which is really a brief resume. Being a marketer, he provides a sample of his speaker's letter, which is a direct mail pitch to hire him as a speaker for $4,000 - $10,000 a speech. Being a 21st century guy, he has a YouTube Video Channel; I was especially struck by "Lunch-on-Libya" a video which advertised an upcoming speech to the Northern Virgina Tea Party. You'll find other interesting videos on his channel.

Does the fact that he is on the opposite political spectrum from me invalidate his argument re the defense budget? I think not.

Why the hairdo?

Profitable Panic

It was only two years ago that Tamiflu was the word of the day for many days and for many people. It was the days of the H1N1 virus. Mexico practically shut down for a few weeks. China quarantined travelers. Egypt killed all the pigs in Cairo. And WHO officially announced a pandemic emergency and urged the world to buy Tamiflu, as it was the drug you needed to fight the virus. Fortunately, there was not a pandemic as fewer people died from influenza than in a 'normal' year. However, many countries did stockpile the drug, which was not given away by the manufacturers, and the stockpiles were not depleted in any fashion. Having spent hundreds of millions of euros on this drug, some European countries started asking questions about WHO.

One question was the need for a declaration of a pandemic emergency when the H1N1 virus was known to be mild. The second question concerned the influence of drug companies on WHO's declaration. It is this latter question that Helen Epstein explores in this article from the NY Review of Books. Her conclusion: the drug companies play a very large role in the pronouncements of public health agency, both foreign (WHO) and domestic (FDA).

Roche and GlaxoSmithKline helped develop WHO's "pandemic preparedness" programs. They helped create the documents for the H1N1 program, which documents advised the stockpiling of drugs they made. They had their people as part of the committee that declared the pandemic. The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association has awarded grants to our Centers for Disease Control. A good part of the FDA's budget comes from fees it collects from the drug manufacturers they 'regulate'.

The article goes on at great length questioning the validity of the clinical trials for Tamiflu, the most serious question being why Roche will not supply the basic clinical data to independent researchers who are trying to validate the conclusions described in journal articles.

India or Bangladesh?

Before I read this article by Amartya Sen, I thought that the average Indian was much better off than his counterpart in Bangladesh. I was right if I looked only at GNP per capita; India at $1,170 is almost double the $590 of Bangladesh. But money isn't everything. For example

• Indians die sooner (66.4 vs. 66.9 years)
• More of their children are underweight (43.5% vs 41.3%)
• They have less schooling on average (4.4 vs. 4.8 years)
• Infant mortality is higher (50/1000 vs. 41/1000)
• Fewer children are vaccinated (66% vs. 94%).

It looks like India is spending less of its money on its people.

Masters of the Game

If the game is complying with Title IX, many colleges, including such household names as Cornell, Duke, UCal, Texas A&M, certainly play the game well. Basically, Title IX says that colleges that receive money from the federal government must provide equal opportunity to all members of either sex who wish to participate in educational programs or activities. But the rules to comply are not as straightforward as they should be.

For example, colleges can count men as women if they practice with female teams. Cornell has 15 men practicing with the 34 person fencing team. Ergo, Cornell adds 34 to the total number of women participants. Texas A&M and Duke do the same with their women's basketball teams.

Some colleges include as team members 'athletes' who never compete. That's the strategy the University of South Florida used; only 28 of their 71 member cross country team actually entered a race. In fact, some members of the team claimed they did not know that they were members. Track is an especially good sport to help meet the regulations, as one person who competes in indoor, outdoor and cross country is counted three times.

The more you read about colleges playing games like Title IX, paying outrageous salaries to coaches and presidents, accepting people who just about graduate from a crummy high school, offering special courses for athletes, etc. ad nauseam, the more you wonder how low we have sunk.

Another Posting About A College Education

I think that it was in my youth that the nation began thinking of college as a way to a better job, rather than a way to become better educated about life and living. In my old age going to the right college has become the be-all and end-all for many American parents of the 21st century. They spend a lot of money and time trying to get their children into the right school. They are willing to go into debt to make sure their child gets a proper education.

And, on the seller's side of the fence, colleges spend more and more money and time trying to convince people to come to their school. There is fierce competition to be listed high up in US News annual college surveys. It has become so important to be successful in athletics that college coaches are paid in six and seven figures; many are paid more than university presidents. Of course, I'm only talking about what we consider regular colleges, not places like the University of Phoenix which are in it for the almighty dollar. Interestingly, the for-profit places do not have sports teams.

The preceding is by way of introducing you to "Bad Education", an article by one Malcolm Harris, a writer from San Francisco. Harris disputes the notions that a college education is a good investment and an unmitigated social good. He argues that tuitions have increased 900% since 1978 but the quality of education has not. In fact, there are more courses taught "by someone who has started a degree but not finished it; was hired by a manager, not professional peers; may never publish in the field she is teaching; got into the pool of persons being considered for the job because she was willing to work for wages around the official poverty line (often under the delusion that she could ‘work her way into’ a tenurable position); and does not plan to be working at your institution three years from now". He attributes much of the problem to the fact that colleges have really become businesses and they pour money into administration and marketing rather than education.

A very interesting article.

Holy Saturday

I'm not sure why but this day, at least in the East Cambridge of the 1940s and 1950s, was not as bound up with religion as were Holy Thursday and Good Friday. The big deal was the evening Mass, which is usually the only Mass said on Holy Saturday. It was a big deal because of the unveiling of the statues. Let me explain.

On Passion Sunday, which was the Sunday before Palm Sunday, the statues in the church were covered with purple cloths. I suppose that this was to make us think more about the upcoming crucifixion. At the Alleluia of Holy Saturday's Mass the cloths were removed to signify the upcoming Resurrection. Lent was now over. Christ was about to prove he was divine and the Roman Catholic Church was the one true church.

A Bad Day for Terry Jones

First, he was found guilty of breaching the peace and had to pay the huge bond of $1. However, I do think that his right to free speech was violated and he should not have been brought to court.

Then, he 'accidentally' discharged his gun..

The rally has been postponed a week. I wonder whether Mr. Jones will be quiet until the rally. It's possible that he has satiated his recent need to be in the news.

Good Friday

It was a quiet day at my parents' house even though it was a day off from school. Why it's called 'good' I could not understand as we were commemorating Christ's crucifixion; perhaps it's because he couldn't be resurrected unless he died and the Resurrection is the church's 'proof' of his divinity.

A couple of memories from my youth:

Good Friday is the only day of the year when Mass is not said.

We made the Stations of the Cross.

We tried to stay silent between noon and three, as this was the time when Christ was on the cross.

"A Modest Contribution"

Gates' term for the decision by Obama to use drones to convince Gaddafi to throw in the towel. US boots on the ground by June? How much would you bet?

Holy Thursday

In the Roman Catholic Church this week is the most important. It began with Palm Sunday which commemorates Jesus' triumphal march into Jerusalem. Today is what Catholics call Holy Thursday and Protestants call Maundy Thursday. Today we remember the Last Supper at which Jesus washed the feet of his disciples.

The previous paragraph should indicate to you that I was raised Roman Catholic and, for those who read this blog, this was in the 20th century and much water has passed under the bridge. I am no longer a Roman Catholic. My children have little knowledge of the Catholic religion and my grandchildren have none. No matter, the Church was a big factor in my youth.

In the East Cambridge in which I grew up, this was a special week. Today, Holy Thursday, we made the "Seven Churches". I never knew the origin of either the term or the practice but, thanks to the web, I've learned that the term refers to the seven churches mentioned in the Book of Revelation. What we practiced on this day was a visit to seven churches, at each of which we would pray. When I was a young lad, I could not roam far from home, so we visited 3 churches a total of seven times. As I grew older and could roam as far as Inman Square, I was able to visit seven unique churches, for the lower middle class section where we lived was predominately Catholic and there was a church for every nationality.

Those days are long gone. Whether anybody still visits seven churches I know not. But the practice - and the week - was an important part of my childhood.

Somethings to Think About Libya and Related Follies

Adam Martin in Aid Watch has some quite interesting thoughts about our work in Libya:

I wish I knew why, this time, we should expect foreign intervention to succeed at regime change. But I don’t.

I wish I knew why, this time, we should expect foreign intervention to bring democracy. But I don’t.

I wish I knew why, this time, we should expect foreign intervention to save more lives than it costs. But I don’t.

I wish I knew why, this time, we should expect foreign leaders to know what’s best for Libyans. But I don’t.

I wish I knew why, this time, we should expect we’re not training and supporting thugs. But I don’t.

I wish I knew why, this time, we should expect we won’t inspire future outrage and violence. But I don’t.

I wish I knew why, this time, the long history of disastrous foreign military intervention will find an exception. But I don’t.

I wish I knew why, this time, procedural safeguards on grave decisions are not important. But I don’t.

Human Trafficking in America

The EEOC has just filed its largest farm workers human trafficking suit. It's against a company called Global Horizons Inc., a California labor recruiter that claims to be setting "a powerful new standard in Twenty-First Century recruiting". The EEOC would dispute that claim if you define recruiting as acting in a humane way.

This is not the first time Global Horizons Inc. has been charged with human trafficking. In this particular case they enticed Thai farm workers to Hawaii. Of course the workers had to pay the company a considerable sum for this move. Then when they actually began work on the farms with which Global Horizons had contracted they really got the shaft.

In the words of the EEOC they "were forced to live in dilapidated housing infested with rats and insects, with dozens sleeping in the same room, many with no beds. They were forbidden from leaving the premises. On the job, they endured screaming, threats and physical assaults on the part of supervisors, and were isolated from non-Thai farm workers who appeared to be working under more tolerable conditions, says the EEOC. Bound by their debts, stripped of their identification and silenced by the perpetrators, the Thai workers had little recourse until the Thai Community Development Center in Los Angeles brought victims to the EEOC to file charges of discrimination."

More Boots on the Ground

France and Italy are sending 'advisers' to help the Libyan rebels. What will next month bring?

Increasing Federal Revenue

In 2009 we collected about $9 billion in royalty payments from oil and gas companies working on federal land and water. That's a good piece of change. And it can and should be increased not by more drilling and extracting but by our improving our ability to collect what is due us.

The GAO and the Inspector General for the Interior have been telling us for years that Interior's system of collecting royalties is flawed. The GAO has not been able to figure out how much money we have lost as the record keeping of the Interior sucks. Part of the problem is due to the companies telling Interior how much they owe and Interior not being able to validate the amounts.

If Interior collected only 5% more, we'd have $450,000,000 in our pocket. Not exactly chickenfeed.

Very Large Pockets, Very Small Gun

How else does a 6-year-old take a gun to school? That's what happened in Texas yesterday when the gun fell out of the kid's pocket and wounded three children. Lots of questions about the parents in my mind.

Time to Make the News

It's been almost a month since the Reverend Terry Jones made the news by burning the Koran, which gave the Taliban and disgruntled Afghans an opportunity to protest and kill innocent people. A month is a long time when you are addicted to being in the news. So, now he plans to rally his troops outside what is the largest mosque in the U.S. (Incidentally, there was a mysterious fire there on April 1.)

He seems to have a need to be considered a macho man; he's a peaceful guy but does carry a gun. And, naturally, he is only protesting against radical Muslims, not all Muslims. I wonder what the ratio of radical and non-radical Muslims in America is, particularly at the mosque at which he will be protesting.

Detroit is trying to prevent Jones from protesting at the Mosque itself. Authorities want him to use "free speech zones" which the city has established and which Jones - and I - think are unconstitutional.

I think the residents should take the matter into their own hands as they did in Oklahoma and Kansas.

Boots on The Ground

England is sending 10 military officers to Libya " to support and advise the NTC [opposition National Transitional Council] on how to better protect civilians." Part of this support will be teaching the rebels "how to improve their military organisational structures, communications and logistics".

You want to tell me how we became involved in Vietnam?

You're Too Close

That's part of the message Oklahoma is sending to the Westboro Baptist Church. The state has just passed a law prohibiting protests within two hours of a funeral and also restricting the protesters to no closer than 1,000 feet.

The other part of the message was given by residents of the state five months ago.

Someone Agrees With Me

Steven Thomma of McClaatchy Newspapers thinks that Barack is morphing into George How many more of us have the same opinion?

Obama will probably cite S&P's questioning of our willingness to control the deficit as another reason he should join the GOP. These are truly sad times. He forgets that S&P and the other rating agencies played a large part in creating the Great Recession.

A Biased Abacus

That's what Goldman Sachs sold some of its customers: a CDO called Abacus 2007-AC1. Abacus was touted as a good deal. But customers were not told that it was a good deal for John Paulson, a very, very good customer of Goldman Sachs. In fact, Paulson had selected the securities that made up Abacus 2007-AC1 and he had selected securities that he thought would fall quite far and soon. Goldman neglected to tell its more average customers that they were buying securities picked to fail. Paulson made $1 billion on the deal and the other customers lost about the same.

Surprisingly, the SEC is going after Goldman; they have charged the firm with fraud. How far will the SEC take this case?

Society At A Glance 2011

The OECD has published its biennial edition of how societies in in constituent countries compare in a variety of areas from cooking through fertility, health and social cohesion. There is a raft of data available. A couple of items that stand out:

• We have the second highest household income but that income is distributed very unevenly.
• Our life expectancy is lower than the OECD average although we spend the most on healthcare.
• We are a generous nation when it comes to volunteering; we lead the OECD.
• We put a lot more people in jail than any other OECD country.

From Mike Lukovich

Outsourced to the U.S.

And you and I thought that we were doing the outsourcing. Well, Sweden, in the person of Ikea is also outsourcing and they are outsourcing to us because our wages and benefits are less. Ikea has a plant in Danville, Va., which makes bookcases and tables. Employees here start at $8/hour and get 12 vacation days, 8 of which are scheduled by Ikea. The comparable Swedish plant pays $19/hour and provides 5 weeks of vacation. Given these discrepancies the workers are trying to unionize and Ikea is fighting them all the way.

Ikea explains the difference in pay and benefits as follows, "That is related to the standard of living and general conditions in the different countries."

April 20, 2010

Wednesday will be the first anniversary of the Gulf Oil Disaster. Antonia Juhasz has some questions for BP. She tried to raise some of them at BP's annual meeting a few days ago and did not get very far. Interestingly, BP would not admit five people who had proxies to the meeting; it so happened that these five were Glf community leaders who had come to protest BP's actions over the past year.

Juhasz argues that BP and the rest of the oil industry is still not ready to deal with another spill similar to Deep Horizon. She makes a strong case.

Levin and Coburn Agree

A Senate committee headed by Carl Levin and Tom Coburn has issued its report on the financial crisis. As you can imagine, it's not pretty. They looked at high risk lending in the person of Washington Mutual, regulatory failures as exemplified by the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), inflated credit ratings issued by Moody's and S&P, and the schemes of investment banks such as Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sacks.

WaMu, like so many of its ilk, was basically greedy. Some executives argued that the housing market was in "a bubble” with risks that “will come back to haunt us.” Yet, WaMu issued hundreds of billions in mortgages that really should not have been issued.

Who was supposed to be watching WaMu? The Office of Thrift Supervision. Their peons recorded almost 500 serious deficiencies in WaMu's lending practices from 2003 to 2008. When did OTS act? A week after WaMu went belly up.

And then we have probably the major culprit in this fiasco, the credit agencies. As we know, they believed in Lake Woebegone and rated almost everybody as A or better. Again, employees there knew what was going on and warned management, which preferred to get the checks from their customers.

With Goldman it's the old matter of crappy CDOs being sold as solid investments. The investments were so solid that Goldman bet against them.

Oy vey!

Libya's Pathway to Peace

That's what Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy have charted in a letter that has appeared in major publications around the world. The pathway, as you would expect, begins with Gaddafi losing power. As the leaders write, "Gaddafi must go and go for good." Howsomever, they also write, "Our duty and our mandate under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that. It is not to remove Gaddafi by force. But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gaddafi in power."

So, how do you think Gaddafi will go since he will not be removed "by force"? Here is a clue.

A Few More Planes, Please

The Secretary General of NATO is asking for a few more planes to attack Libya. No one has answered his request. Is that because France and England feel that they are doing enough and it's time for the other members of NATO to start contributing weapons and people to the war? Apparently, the U.S. is not being asked to contribute more as we have contributed the NATO Supreme Commander.

Who's Paying The Piper?

Hardly anyone who helped create the Great Recession has been charged with anything, not even jaywalking. Contrast this with the aftermath of the Savings & Loan Scandal when 800 bankers spent more than a few nights in jail. Could this be because the government prosecuted 1,000 cases relative to the S&Ls and our 21st century government hasn't prosecuted 50? Bill Black, who was a major force in the S&L prosecutions, comments as to our 21st financial scandal, "There were no criminal referrals from the regulators. No fraud working groups. No national task force. There has been no effective punishment of the elites here.” Basically, our government said, "Tough shit. We will not seek to ferret out and try potential criminals."

Syracuse University keeps track of the cases bank regulators refer to the Justice Department. Their database "indicates that in 1995, bank regulators referred 1,837 cases to the Justice Department. In 2006, that number had fallen to 75. In the four subsequent years, a period encompassing the worst of the crisis, an average of only 72 a year have been referred for criminal prosecution."

For more items to make your blood boil, read this article by Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story.

A Primer on Taxes

Expect the volume to increase substantially as our leaders 'debate' our financial future. The volume with regard to taxes will be especially loud. It would be nice if our leaders read this article by David Cay Johnston, but we know they won't read anything which may cause them to have second thoughts about their statements and actions. Hopefully, you will read the article after you read my summary.

1. Poor Americans do pay taxes. It is true that many of the truly impoverished do not pay federal income taxes. However, they do pay federal payroll taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes and other taxes.
2. The wealthiest Americans don’t carry the burden. Again, income taxes are not the only federal tax. Payroll taxes (social security, Medicare, unemployment) stop at $106,800 in income, which means that those earning more than that pay a smaller share of their income in payroll taxes.
3. The wealthy are paying less taxes. In 2007 the wealthiest 400 taxpayers paid 16.6% of their income in federal incomes taxes, the average Joe 22.5%
4. Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all. Many hedge fund managers can defer their taxes for years.
5. And (surprise!) since Reagan, only the wealthy have gained significant income. Since 1980, the average income of average Joe has increased 1%. Those at the top of the income pyramid have seen their income double in that time.
6. When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same: less taxes, 15.2% in 2000, 12.6% in 2008.
7. Other countries do it better. We need "a tax system that benefits the vast majority, reduces risks, provides universal health care and focuses on diplomacy rather than militarism abroad (and at home)".

Obama's WMDs?

We were told that we went into Libya to prevent a bloodbath in Benghazi. Slowly, we're hearing more and more that Gadafi's forces are not conducting a bloodbath. True, they have violated international law and innocent people have suffered. But what has happened in Libya to date is very far from what happened in Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia. Gadaffi has not engaged in wholesale slaughter of the civilians in the towns he has recaptured.

More and more we are seeing a repeat of Bush2.

A Factual Misstatement

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How to Lose a Negotiation

The Wall Street Journal reports that Obama is "open to deal on debt cap". In January Goulsbee was saying that Republicans were "playing chicken with the debt ceiling and playing games potentially with the full faith and credit of the United States." Obama's press secretary this past week said "To hold hostage a vote…in return for an exchange for some proposal that one party wants is not the way to treat this issue. It's too dangerous to do it that way." Presumably, these guys are speaking for our President. Now that the debt ceiling is on center stage Obama is already conceding. What is wrong with the guy?

Supposedly, more spending will be cut. Do you think that our leaders will look at spending cuts in an intelligent or emotional way? If you think intelligent, take a look at this bridge I'm selling.

Get Serious

The Congressional Progressives Caucus has introduced "The People's Budget".This three-page document proposes a balanced budget through revenue increases primarily; spending is cut only for defense. I wonder how much time they spent on this kids document. These are people we elected to help lead us? I'd be embarrassed if I were a member of this caucus. At least Ryan went to some trouble to present his 'plan'.

I never thought I'd be saying this

We lived through and survived the Bush2 years but our nation suffered under what was, until then, the worst presidency in my lifetime, which dates back to pre-World-War-II. I'm beginning to wonder whether Mr.Obama may take the title away from W.

One admirable trait that W had was his willingness to stand up and be counted, to say what he thought and to fight for what he wanted. I disagreed with most of what he wanted but at least W didn't continue Clinton policies he had inveighed against in his 2000 campaign. He didn't go into a negotiation already ceding a good part of his policies. He didn't sound like a member of the opposing party. He didn't appoint a raft of people who believed in Democratic ideas to his team. I can't say the same things about Mr. Obama. I don't see him getting better. My fundamental question - what does he believe in. Is there anything he would really fight for other than reelection?

Obama may be the last president I live under. I was born when we had a president, FDR, who cared about the world and fought for his beliefs. I'd like to see one of these presidents again before I shuffle off. Clearly, Obama is not such a president.
I have often said that the smartest person in the room does not necessarily make the best leader. Obama proves my point.

What we need is leadership by people who really care about this country. We don't have it now and have not had it for several years. This brouhaha about the deficit and government spending epitomizes our current state. How you can evaluate government spending without considering the benefits of that spending is beyond my ken. Ditto about revenue when crafting a budget. And why don't our leaders read the GSA reports on the waste and mismanagement in the government? Yes, we have financial - and many other - problems. But our leaders are not on a road to solve problems. They are on the road to win elections so that they can continue to live very well and soothe their egos. Is this the kind of leadership we want? I'm glad I'm old and will not be here in the final days of the American empire.

NCAA Rules Are Strange

Money has always been the raison d'etre of the NCAA. Do you disagree? But, since, the NCAA is supposedly run by colleges could one not argue that money is the raison d'etre of many American colleges?  By money I mean the salaries the 'leaders' of these organizations take home. A few years ago Suffolk University was in the news when it was revealed that its president was being paid almost $3,000,000 a year. Have you heard of Suffolk? Somehow the president of this little-known university made more than the president of any of the Ivy schools.

But, let's stick with the sports aspect for awhile. Basketball is really big in my new home state of Connecticut. Both the men's and women's teams of UConn have done very well over the past few years. But should this mean that the men's basketball coach is the highest paid state employee; his salary of $2,300,000 is many times that of the governor.

However, not only does the coach do well financially, he gets to elect when to serve whatever punishments the NCAA may give him for violating NCAA rules re recruiting players. Recently the NCAA ruled that he was suspended for three games. Well, the team was involved in March Madness so the coach will serve his suspension next season.

Contrast this with the suspension of a player, Perry Jones of Baylor. He had to serve his suspension immediately. And what was he guilty of? His mother borrowed rent money from Jones' AAU coach. She paid it back quickly. Yet obtaining the rent money violated the rules. Jones had to be punished.

But the NCAA rules don't seem very firm. The Auburn quarterback was not suspended although his father tried to auction him off to the highest bidder.

Strange.

Sickening

The following chart was developed by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. How things have changed in 30 years.

Making Homes Affordable

Today is GAO day. Here's a little summary of how well the Treasury has been implementing the Making Homes Affordable Progam

Program	Date announced	Implementation date	Funding allocation	Reported activity as of 12/31/2010
Second-lien Modification	March 2009	March 2010	Nearly $133 million	$2.9 million in incentives paid
Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives	March 2009	April 5, 2010	$4.1 billion	$9.5 million in incentives paid
Principal Reduction Alternative	March 2010	October 1, 2010	$2.0 billion	Activity not yet reported

A Little Duplication Can Be A Good Thing

But the federal government has taken it to extremes. In March the GAO published a lengthy report detailing some of the duplication we are paying for. Now they have provided summary information of the duplicated functions. Here they are:

• 80 economic development programs
• 100 surface transportation programs
• 17 different Department of Homeland Security grant programs FEMA manages and provides funding information for these programs
• 18 domestic food nutrition and assistance programs
• 20 federal programs across seven different departments that provide shelter or housing assistance.
• 80 programs across eight different departments that GAO identified as providing transportation services to transportation-disadvantaged persons
• 47 federal employment and training programs GAO identified—44 overlap with at least one other program in that they provide at least one similar service to a similar population.
• 82 federal programs supporting teacher quality improvement.
• 56 federal financial literacy programs identified by federal agencies.

For a complete list of these programs click here.

If our leaders were serious about budget-cutting, they might look at this list.

Gaming the System

Candie's, Inc. sells clothes to teenage girls. Judging from this home page, sex seems to be part of the sales technique. This company history makes it evident that sex is their primary marketing approach. However, the company has established a non-profit foundation whose mission is to "educate America's youth about the devastating consequences of teen pregnancy through celebrity PSA campaigns and initiatives."

One of the celebrities is Bristol Palin. She was paid $262,5000 in 2009 to participate in the 'celebrity PSA campaigns and initiatives'. In the same year the foundation donated a total of $35,000 to organizations working in the area. Do you detect a slight imbalance here?

For more about the connection of Ms Palin and Candie's and to see samples of Candie's ads, click here.

Peace, Persistence

Defining Safety

For the executives of Transocean Ltd. it is meeting or exceeding "targets concerning the frequency and severity of its accidents". And, since they did this in 2010, certain of the company's executives got a small bonus; the CEO got $374,062.

How would you define safety if one accident in which your company was involved resulted in 11 people being killed and 200,000,000 gallons of oil being dumped in the ocean? That was the experience of Transocean, the owner of the Deep Horizon oil rig that was in the news a year ago.

Are we addicted to war?

You really have to wonder. It certainly seems that way in this 21st century - three wars in eleven years. Since 1900 we have been in almost a dozen wars, both here and abroad. That's about one war every ten years. Why are we so bellicose and seemingly growing more so? Stephen Walt presents what he thinks are the major reasons for our addiction:

1. Because We Can. 
2. The U.S. Has No Serious Enemies.
3. The All-Volunteer Force.
4. It's the Establishment, Stupid. 
5. Congress Has Checked Out.
    

I wish that there were a possibility of intervention as there is with our personal addictions. But it's looking less and less likely. Obama seemed like he was going to do something about the addiction, but he's sucking on the drug himself.

What's Going On In Maine?

Directing that a mural depicting labor history in Maine be removed, the newly elected governor, Paul LePage, said, “I’m trying to send a message to everyone in the state that the state of Maine looks at employees and employers equally, neutrally and on balance.” Well, that's going to cost Maine $37,800, the amount of a federal grant it received to buy the mural. The grant agreement with the Feds requires the state to display the mural or return the money.

Item 2 - the governor has ordered that the names of conference rooms at the Department of Labor be changed. The Cesar Chavez and Frances Perkins rooms apparently were too pro-labor for the governor.

Item 3 - The legislature apparently feels that business is paying too much for labor. So, they are trying to change the laws so that employers can hire kids to work an unlimited number of hours and be paid quite a bit less than adults.

Cutting the Workforce

I think that many of us believe that most government workers don't work very hard. We have all met such workers. The Deficit Commission seems to be on the same wavelength and has proposed cutting the federal staff by 10% and also freezing their salaries, which is something Mr. Obama is pushing. However, we have met these 'slow' workers in private industry as well. Yet we do not kibitz about how wasteful the activities of these people are.

Cutting the federal workforce may not be such a good thing. Clearly, those who really don't want to be in the government should not be, just as those who don't really want to be with Company X should not be.

I have written fairly often of the growth in private contractors for the military. These contractors have taken over many of the jobs soldiers used to do. So, the military claims that it is getting the job done with fewer soldiers. Other government agencies can claim that they have fewer staff but they can't easily claim that they are getting the job done. John Gravois lists some of these agencies and documents what the low staffing regimen has meant to the country; it hasn't meant good times.

One of the issues Gravois raises is the need for federal agencies to comply with the law. The law says doctors should be paid for their Medicare patients within thirty days, Social Security recipients should receive their monthly check on time. Soldiers in our three wars need to have adequate supplies delivered on time. If we cut the staff, we will not be able to meet the mandates laid out in our laws. And, in fact, we are having a fair degree of trouble meeting these mandates; hence, the rise of the private contractor in other federal agencies.

By cutting staff or freezing salaries we have wound up paying a big price. The Defense Department's procurement activities are a constant complaint of the GSA; systems are late and quite a bit over budget. The Special Inspector Generals for Iraq and Afghanistan have reported on the lack of management of private contractors in those war zones. The FBI can't build a modern computer system. The Coast Guard has no one to monitor the activities of their contractors. The Minerals Management Service could do nothing about the BP oil spill because it was understaffed in both the number and quality of staff. The SEC let companies run wild.

We need good people working for us. Arbitrarily cutting the federal workforce is not a smart thing to do.

Petraeus Doesn't Think Highly of Burning the Koran

He calls the action "hateful, extremely disrespectful and enormously intolerant." Thus far, it's resulted in three days of violent protest in Afghanistan. Clearly, much of this is sparked by the Taliban, who are simply taking advantage of the stupidity and arrogance of Jones and Sapp. And, it also appears that Mr. Karzai is using the incident for his own purposes; he was the one who informed his countrymen of the burning.

Wayne Sapp and Terry Jones: Guilty of Murder?

Eight UN workers were killed today by Afghans who were protesting the burning of the Koran by Messrs. Sapp and Jones. I'm not saying the Afghans were innocents, but clearly Sapp and Jones had been warned about the negative effect their actions denigrating the Koran could have.