I Know What You Did Last Shorties

Follow up: those painters got their jobs back.

Healthcare Filter: someone else’s thoughts on the Massachusetts “Health Plan”; and Wal-Mart wants to help fix the American health system?? Tell me you aren’t in your mind paraphrasing Reagan: “I’m from Wal-Mart, and I’m here to help.”

Problem: jobs are being outsourced wherever possible. Solution: “Services Science. “The hybrid field seeks to use technology, management, mathematics and engineering expertise to improve the performance of service businesses like transportation, retailing and health care – as well as service functions like marketing, design or customer service that are also crucial in manufacturing industries.” It sure sounds like finding better ways to ask if you’d like fries with that. In truth, it encompasses much more: there are ways to get more money out of customers in a variety of fields.

Disasters near and far: why did San Fransisco survive the great earthquake, while New Orleans looks doomed?

And Finally: your culture impacts your sex life.

General Discontent

Maybe you’ve heard about the 5 Generals who have publicly called for Rumsfeld to resign. And if you haven’t, here’s 7 quotes from Generals and the helpful backstory on why exactly they didn’t speak earlier. Oh, if you count Colin Powell, an 8th General who says mistakes were made. Generals don’t say bad things about superiors in public; they don’t contradict the boss. It just isn’t done. And since General Shinseki was, um, replaced, they are very cautious about saying things in private too. In fact, BuzzFlash goes so far as to call this a mutiny.

How far are they willing to go? And are current commanders thinking the same things their retired counterparts are saying? Are these public comments intended to be heard by the citizens, or are they a message to the current commanders?

On the economic front I bring you comments from the Secretary of the Treasury (who to me rather looks like a cartoon buzzard, but there you are). If you try to find the word “fiscal” you will jump to this mind-boggling quote:

Well, if you do the math, growing the public sector–that is, making government bigger–and achieving fiscal discipline, can only lead to one thing: higher taxes. And higher taxes always mean a larger role for government and a smaller role for the private sector. Is that the way we want to go? I don’t think so.

Yes, that’s right, the official government stance is that fiscal discipline is bad. Therefore increased deficit spending must be good. I wonder if he ran CSX this way… no, if he said this at a shareholder meeting or on CNBC the board of directors would have voted him out on the spot. True Conservatives, wake up! This administration does not stand for your values any more than they stand for those of the Progressives.

Two Unrelated Items

Massive Juice Sets

Yesterday, the Governor of Massachusetts signed that big health care bill. Contrary to the Grey Lady’s coverage, this will not make them “the first [state] to provide health coverage to virtually all of its citizens.” Nope, anybody who calls this “universal health care” is unclear on what the phrase means.

There are two components to this legislation. Part one is that any employer with more than 10 employees who does not provide health benefits to employees will have to pay a fine of $295 per employee per year. Inasmuch as a typical business can easily spend $295 per employee per month on health insurance, I consider this laughable. Raise this fine twelvefold and just maybe it will have the desired effect.

The other major thing this legislation does is impose a tax penalty for Massachusetts citizens who fail to obtain health insurance. You may point out that states already require motorists to have automobile liability insurance; you can get out of that requirement by not owning a car, and last I heard Boston had a decent mass transit system. Nor does this compare to requiring homeowners to have insurance on their homes; that requirement is from the mortgage holder, not the government. The biggest problem is this: the state is requiring citizens to get insurance, but they are not requiring the insurance companies to write policies, and they are not requiring that insurance companies charge affordable rates.

In the end — unless you live or do business in Massachusetts — all you need to know about this bill is that the insurance companies did not oppose it.

I wonder if this bill will be referenced in 2008 as “proof that universal health care doesn’t work.”

What Woz That?

And now for something completely different, a man who loves practical jokes.

Yesterday, Steve Wozniak spoke at the University of Washington to a low-tech crowd. He told fun stories and such. One tale he related involved putting a metronome he had made into a classmate’s locker at school. The incessant tick drove school officials nuts.

Today, he would have been expelled, if not charged with faking a bomb threat. How the world changes.

The Rain Falls on the Rich and the Poor Alike

On one hand, we have workers fired for leaving early to attend an immigrants’ rights rally. Now make no mistake: most of us would lose our jobs if we walked in one fine morning and told the boss we were leaving 2 hours early unless there was a really outstanding reason. Particularly if a quarter of the employees likewise wanted to leave 2 hours early. In some ways it is just as simple as “they left the job and were fired.” But would they have been fired if instead of attending a political event, they were going to a Holy Week service at church? If they were at a big ball game? If they went to the wedding/funeral/hospital bed of a co-worker? All the same, there is the net effect of chilling dissent. There is some question about the immigration status of some of the individuals involved, but that brings us to another issue. Illegal workers have limited legal recourse against ill treatment by an employer. This situation is a bit stickier than most, but it is a no-brainer that the ability of working people to participate in political protests is limited by their ability to get time off. Doubly so if they will have a hard time obtaining a new job due to issues of immigration status, limited skills, or just plain old fashioned discrimination.

Way off on the other hand, we have CEO paychecks. Did you know that the CEO of Capitol One made almost a Quarter of a Billion with a B Dollars in 2005? What’s in your wallet indeed. And he was awarded this princely sum for shareholder returns of less than 3%. Harry Silverman of Cendant (you remember Cendant?) earned well over a hundred million dollars while shareholders lost over a fifth of their investment! It must be nice to get paid so handsomely to lose other people’s money. Be sure to click through to the main story to flesh out those numbers with more general statistics on CEO paychecks.

In the words of the Gershwins, “Nice work, if you can get it.” Oh, and if you happen to need 17 painters in the Seattle area, I bet I know where you can find some.

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument?

You know I don’t usually do little stories like this, but this one was so interesting I double checked to make sure it wasn’t released last Saturday.

Scientists have found fossils of a new dinosaur in Utah. It resembled a 7 foot tall turkey. It had brightly colored feathers, but did not fly. It had a strong, toothless beak, and hand-like claws.

Upon reading this description, all I could think was “Oh my! They’ve found fossilized Big Bird!“

Rosemary’s Shorties

Presented in no particular order….

Midwives. Unfortunately both sides are right; Childbirth is a natural process, but it can go wrong. And if the lady who cuts my hair at that place next to the Kroger needs a license, then the lady who helps you deliver a baby should probably have one too.

Worried about the NSA listening in on your phone calls? The guy who brought us “Pretty Good Privacy” for email has something for you. If you are in a high tech industry and are worried about corporate espionage, this might be what you need.

Speaking of high tech, wouldn’t it be nice if the Biotech industry made money in addition to making new drugs?

Without DeLay. My favorite quote: “I’m a realist. I’ve been around awhile. I can evaluate political situations.” Now, what can we do about Frist?

What have I been saying about Adjustable Rate Mortgages for about two years now? I’ve been saying that you should refinance them at the earliest opportunity. Follow-up: Denver — Disturbing and Sad.

Follow up on immigration and guest workers: “If you ask me, the term ‘guest worker’ is another way of saying, ‘Welcome! Kneel!'” and “Battle at the bottom isn’t just for immigrants.”

Myth of the Opt-Out Mom is pretty self-explanatory.

And last but not least, Chinese official calls for sale of U.S. debt. He’s not the guy who gets to make the decision, but he has influence over that decision. This doesn’t mean the house of cards is coming down, but it means somebody jostled the table the house of cards sits on. If China stops buying bits of the United States’ debt, things could get bad. Interest rates might skyrocket, government spending may have to be drastically slashed, taxes may have to be raised. Just saying.

…But Somebody’s Got to Do It.

Maybe you’ve seen this show on the Discovery Channel called Dirty Jobs. As you can guess from the title, it features a good natured fellow who goes around the country learning about and doing the sorts of dirty jobs that like it or not must be done in this country.

I don’t honestly see how anybody can watch a whole episode of this show and still think there’s such a thing as “Jobs Americans Won’t Do.”

The current estimate is that there are 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States — a Senate proposal to allow 87,000 guest workers annually is nothing more than a paper parasol in a hailstorm. Most of the undocumented immigrants do their best to hold down jobs and follow the law except for the fact that they are here at all breaks the law. I have said before that we honestly have no way of telling whether they are just honest tax paying law abiding (except for immigration) folks trying to make a living or evil terraists and/or drug lords trying to do us harm. Nor do we particularly know how many of these people are living in poverty or are homeless — and would such people be included in, or over and above the reported statistics? But that’s not my point today.

My point is that these people hold jobs that could be held by a legal worker. The deliberately optimistic numbers released by the government* show that there are 7 million unemployed people who want jobs and another 1.5 million who are not actively looking for work but would gladly take a job if one came along. This says nothing of the millions of people who have been “retrained” from skilled labor to unskilled labor.

We are told Americans don’t want these jobs because these are low paying, low skill jobs. They involve hard work, long hours, and sometimes deliberately ignoring safety rules. The truth is that some employers want exploitable workers, and workers who fear they will be deported if they say anything are just perfect. Well it turns out that the people who have these jobs don’t much like that either.

The truth is that illegal immigrants are here because they can get jobs. We need to create incentives to businesses such that it’s easier and cheaper to improve pay and working conditions so Americans do “want” the job than to hire easily exploited foreign workers. Molly Ivins suggests jail terms for hiring illegal workers. It might make prices go up in a way that can’t be hidden in the Consumer Price Index, but we all benefit from having safe, decent paying jobs.

In closing: Joe Average can’t be a real voter because that house is owned by Joseph Average; How to Succeed in Retail; Greenspeak v. Bernankespeak, and New! Greenspeak for Kids!; and to paraphrase the classic children’s book Go, Dog! Go!, “Do you like my hat?”

* Under these criteria, just as an example, I am considered employed despite not having been paid to work because I “did at least 15 hours of unpaid work in a family-operated enterprise.” That means every high school kid who helps out after school at the family farm/teriyaki-stand/taqueria/store is theoretically “employed.”

Shorties of the Corn

Segue: Alternet points out that young people are being buried under student loans. In fact they point out, (emphasis mine)….

There is social control in loading young people up with financial obligations. Burdened with debt and desperate to have and keep a job, there is no way they can take a wild year off, and there is certainly no time for protesting, organizing or causing the kind of social and political trouble young people cause from time to time.

How many young people turn away from low-paying but vital professions because they can’t earn enough to pay back their loans? How many potential social workers, pro bono lawyers, journalists, environmentalists, teachers, artists, secondary medical professionals and community workers are we losing?

How ironic that the very next item I should read on Alternet would argue that we could sure use the kind of political activism we had in the 60s.

Reprise of theme: The Motley Fool scratches their head as they realize that a lot people with credit card debt are just trying to pay the darn bills. Maybe it’s because of the student loan debt.

Variations on thematic material: 2005 brought us a record level of personal bankruptcies, up 30% from 2004, as people rushed to file ahead of new rules. Expect to hear creditors complain about this any moment now. They got the new law they wanted, now let them wallow in the results.

And now for something completely different: by now you might have heard (assuming you keep track of such things) that Microsoft is delaying the next version of Windows until early 2007. Some people think this is bad news and some people think this is good news. I think it is irrelevant news. So what if they miss the Christmas sales cycle? Nobody is going to say “Oh well, the new version of Windows isn’t out so I might as well buy a Mac.” Some people will go ahead and get their Christmas PCs with the old operating system, planning to upgrade (Microsoft makes even more money), and others will simply put off their purchase a couple months (Microsoft makes the same money, but in a different accounting period). Someone, please point out the bad part for me.

It’s nice in the Forest: Dave Johnson over at Seeing the Forest has been absolutely on fire, on target, and on the money the last few days. Where to begin? Bloggers on the nature of our Government, Listening to Everyone including privileged communications, letting the Chinese run the radiation detectors at American ports, or Who is the Economy For are all great posts in a sea of good posts.

And finally, *itch, PhD tells us she might respect the Pro-Life movement if they actually supported life-affirming, mom-supporting, abortion preventing policies.

Security Theatre Act XII: Shiva

Today’s act comes to us from Cory Doctorow’s commentary on this commentary from security expert Bruce Schneier. As usual, Mr. Schneier thwaps us with reality, and it stings. There’s a lot of good material, but if I had to distill it to one quote, it would be this:

The terrorists’ goals have nothing to do with airplanes; their goals are to cause terror.

Airplane passenger screening as done in the United States is a failure; test after test proves it. It fails because of human boredom. It fails because we are using humans to do the job of a computer. It fails because it assumes that what has gone before is what will come again. It fails because the system is easily gamed. It fails because the system is aimed too broadly in the wrong direction.

What he does not say is that the system appears to be deliberately mind-numbing for passengers as well as screeners, that passengers are being desensitized to taking off their jackets and shoes and lining up to present their papers, that actually thinking about the system and its effectiveness is discouraged, that all the plans for a supposed get-out-of-the-security-line-free card involve paying a private company to investigate us. At the risk of sounding a little alarmist, the companies doing these checks are not constrained by the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution — even if they were, you signed up for them to find out everything they can about you — and all the information they find will be turned over to the TSA, an agency of the United States Government.

Mr. Doctorow points out that you almost need nine hands to juggle everything in the security line. Maybe Shiva could make do.

In closing: corporate homewreckers; ” Bad developers, who constitute the majority of all developers worldwide, can write bad code in any language you throw at them”; “We don’t need no steenkin warrant”; and bookends on health care.

Sugar Rush

Some years back, I was reading a medical journal called The Cortland Forum. Now, those of you familiar with medical journals know you are more likely to find this one in your doctor’s bathroom than his private office. It’s about 20% cartoons by volume. However, there is a section where doctors get to outline “interesting cases” they have encountered. The one I am thinking of right now involved a man whose wife had made him an appointment, concerned that he’d lost a bunch of weight despite not actually changing his diet much. It turned out this fellow drank copious amounts of soda at work — like multiple two liter bottles daily — and had recently switched from regular to sugar-free varieties. Gee, imagine that; cut a thousand calories from your daily diet and watch the pounds melt away.

And this brings us to last Monday’s L.A. Times. Researchers in Massachusetts did a study and found that teenagers can lose weight by simply switching to beverages that do not contain sugar. This should not be a revelation! I have always said you have to watch sugars — even the naturally occurring ones — to lose weight. The FDA says if you want to lose weight you need to pay attention to the calories you drink. So do the folks at Kid’s Health and the folks at Family Doctor. This is hardly cutting-edge research. Just remember the next time you reach for a glass of orange juice that if you want to lose weight, you are better off just eating the whole orange.

On an only sort of related note, I’d like to talk about Food In Bar Form. It turns out they may well be Candy Bars that Taste Bad. If you must eat the darn things, remember that Not all of them are good for you. These folks recommend “It can be confusing, but you want to look for whole grains, brown rice syrup, something that’s complex. You want to stay away from things that are refined, that have preservatives – anything you can’t pronounce.” Well heck, wouldn’t it be simpler to eat a piece of fruit or a packet of nuts? Heck, make it a balanced diet and eat both! It sure seems like the real purpose of these bars is to suck money out of your pocket $2 at a time.