R.P. Barr

Romney's Job Creators

Last week, Sears announced the closing of 120 Sears and K-Mart stores.  (Sears owns K-Mart.)  As part of the NPR report on this news, a retail expert pointed out that when Wal-Mart and Target had invested in renovating their stores, improving the lighting and layout, etc. The hedge fund that owns Sears had used their extra cash to buy up Sears stock in the expectation that a shortage of stock would drive up the price for benefit of those who owned it.  The dingy, dated stores that were left to languish did not attract shoppers.  Sales dropped off until the bean counters decided the best way to show a profit was to cut stores and personnel.

Business owners like that are the “job creators” that Romney and the Republicans want to protect from regulations and taxes.  I mention Romney because he recently proclaimed that he did not want the United States to be like Europe.  Of course, not like the Europe of today.  The direction he’s heading will make the U.S. more like the the Europe of the 15^th Century, with a handful of superrich nobles riding on the backs of the rest of the population.  That’s freedom to Mitt Romney.

Lawrence Lessig wrote Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It, in which he points out that the country is not run by the top 1%, but by the .05% who finance political campaigns.  The question is how the rest of us can take the country back.  The campaign contributers find that putting money in political coffers is a very economical way to get the favorable treatment that keeps them rich.  For Congressional office holders for whom elections have become so expensive that they spend half their time fund raising, the opportunities for extortion that expiring subsidies and regulations create are irresistable.  The lawmakers are not going to change the system.  They’ve legalized corruption.

Don’t look to the Tea Partiers who are more concerned with redefining Christianity as the faith that turns its back on its neighbors and squeezes camels through needle eyes.  The Occupy Wall Streeters have got to get out of their tents, stop complaining and stand for something.  Conservatives love to march in time with each other.  For them, unity is more important than truth—or thought.  Liberals can’t agree on which way to walk in a revolving door.

What to do?  George Bernard Shaw said, “The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.”  It may come to that.  If we keep going in the same direction, and can’t get focused on  political solutions, bad things are bound to happen.

Happy New Year!

 

War in Peace

U.S. forces are out of Iraq.  We should never have been there, and it ain’t over yet.

After 9/11, I oversaw a retraining program for my agency to redirect them toward anti-terrorism.  In preparation, I read a few books about al-Qaeda and terrorism.  I don't claim expertise, only a little study.  But, I told people in the classes I taught that Iraq was not the enemy.  Saddam Hussein was a nasty dictator, but not suicidal.  He would not attack us.  He also knew that al-Qaeda’s top two concerns were 1) to get Western influence out of the Middle East, and 2) to overthrow secular leaders in Muslim countries and install theocracies like Iran.  Saddam would not give powerful weapons to al-Qaeda for fear that they would be used against him.  Many, if not most, of my colleagues believed President Bush’s accusations.  A West Point graduate even argued with me.  I told him that as the war stretched on and American casualties accumulated, the people would turn against the war.  He dismissed me a deluded liberal.  The war would be over in a few weeks.  I wonder if he recalls that conversation now.

 I just saw the movie, Fair Game which is about those early pre-war days, and how hard the Bush Administration fought against those who challenged their views.  The right learned nothing from Vietnam.

Saddam Hussein, like Muammar Gaddafi and the Iranian Ayatollahs, did sponsor terrorist activities here and there, but nothing big enough to prompt an invasion.  The world is a better place without him.  Whether getting rid of him was worth a half million Iraqi lives and 4,500 Americans is another question.

 Some commentators worry that Iraq will dissolve in civil war.  It might, but I don’t believe it will happen in the near future.  A few bombs, but no armed uprising.  The primary aftermath, as far as we are concerned, will be taking care of the men and women who served, those who returned with disabilities, and the widows and orphans of those who died.  For at least the next fifty years the government—you and I—will be paying for the wounds of that war just as we have for all of the others. 

 Did you see that the last combat veteran of the First World War died this past year?  I’m sure that there are still a handful of widows and maybe some dependent children who continue to receive benefits.  That’s how long a war takes.

 And, before we get involved in another—after Afghanistan—Congress needs to set aside a century’s amount of benefits.  That should be a requirement.  Budget for that before a single boot steps into combat.  Make the Administration that agitates for war pay for it up front.  Maybe then they will think twice.

 

Putting the Republic at Risk

The first coal in my stocking this Yule was the vote on granting the government power to detain anyone anywhere, including the U.S., on mere suspicion of aiding terrorists.  The first vote on this provision was overwhelmingly in favor.  This bill was the worst threat to the the United States since the British burned Washington in 1814.  It’s been watered down, but hasn’t been killed completely or universally denounced.  

 It is appalling that any Americans would think that our justice system is incapable of dealing with terrorists.  In 1862, the Sioux in Minnesota massacred some 800 settlers.  303 Sioux were arrested, tried and sentenced to hang.  Abraham Lincoln reviewed the sentences and commuted all but 39, which is still the largest mass execution in American history.  Southern sympathizers murdered Lincoln, but the system was trusted to try and condemn 8 conspirators.  In 1920 two men were murdered by anarchist bank robbers. Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were tried and executed.  When communists stole secrets of the atomic bomb, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested, tried, and executed.  I could go on.  Some of the cases are still controversial—and the rules of civilian trials were not always followed--but the point is that none of the suspected terrorists walked away free.  Our record of catching the bad guys is excellent.  We have more people in prison than any other country.  (The pros and cons of executions can be saved for another time.) We don’t need to broaden our detention rules.

 Besides that, we have a reputation (somewhat tarnished now), of being fair.  Our enemies tell their recruits that we are cruel and barbarous.  Reinforcing that prejudice is not helpful to our cause.    Americans like to think of ourselves as the good guys, and our men and women in uniform have proven that to be true in combat zones all over the planet.  The exceptions to that practice have been, in fact, exceptions.  We cannot allow a bunch of millionaire dilettantes in Congress to endanger our troops and diplomats by throwing out the Bill of Rights in an effort to appear tougher than the men and women who actually go into harm’s way.

 Of course it is really less about terrorism than it is an attempt to shut down debate and the free exchange of ideas.  If someone disagrees with a government policy, he is, by definition, an enemy of the state who is giving comfort to the foreign powers who hate us, and should be locked away.  That can be any one of us, depending on who is in office at the time.  And, detention without trial means that you or I don’t even have to disagree with the government.  If I object to the charges on my credit card statement and make a stink about it, the bank manager could make a call, and I disappear.  Take away the matter of credit cards, and that is how some detainees wound up in Guantanamo and spent years trying to fight evidence held in secret.  We must give our enemies benefit of our Constitution in order to protect ourselves.

 

Occupy This

Having left the Occupy Wall Street folks alone until now, their eviction from parks around the country creates an opportunity to reflect that I would like to address.  Squatting in public places is a good attention getter, but alone, it is not going to accomplish anything.

 Not every opinion spouter offers full disclosure, but I do.  Therefore, I admit that I have not attended a demonstration since 1969, although I did march in a union picket line a few years ago.  And, to be honest, in ’69, I was on the other side as a Military Policeman.

 That perspective inspires my first point.  The police are part of the 99%.  Embrace them.  (Not literally, of course, that could get ugly.) I’ve heard several protestors on the news say things to the effect of “Now I’ve seen a police state.”  That is a bad direction to go.  For centuries, the rich and privileged have pitted groups of the oppressed classes against each other.  When the French peasants stormed the Bastille, they could not have succeeded except for the soldiers who were sent to crush them and instead joined them.

That may be a little too dramatic to expect on American streets, but think of staging a day of protest in defense of first responders—police and fire and EMTs—who have seen their numbers cut, their pay and pensions cut, and who still go out every day, often risking their lives for the rest of us.  Tell the cops that “We’re doing this for you.”  Some won’t appreciate the gesture, but some will.

 The thing to remember is that cops don’t like disorder.  In part, that’s why many of them joined the force—to bring order and sanity to a brutal world.  More than that, every cop knows that losing control of a situation can cost him his life.  And, we’re not being hyperbolic as in, “I got killed in the stock market.”  So, tell the nice policeman what you are planning to do.  Apologize for making him arrest you but explain that you need the publicity to fight the bastard bankers who are screwing with his retirement savings.

 And, remember the Bastille!

 The other lesson to take from the French Revolution is what happened after the Bastille fell.  The Committee of Public Safety couldn’t agree on much except that there were always more heads to cut off.  That chaos led to the rise of Napoleon.

So, the movement needs to coalesce around some basic goals and then do what it takes to achieve them.

Allow me to offer a few:  1) Re-instate the Glass-Steagall Act which was instituted after the Great Depression to prevent a recurrence of financial collapse—and it worked right up until it was repealed.  Bring it back. Get the hot dogs out of banking and make that industry dull and reliable once more.  2)  If you or I went into a bank and took one of their chairs we would be arrested.  Bankers have taken entire houses from people who never missed a payment on their mortgages.  Insist that the Attorney General employ the RICO statute to prosecute the conspiracy surrounding those thefts.  Put the offending bankers and their bosses in prison.  3)  The reason Congress is a mess is because financing for campaigns has become more important than votes.  We need some tough campaign finance reform.  Money is inherently corrupting.  Separate the financing from the politicians.  5)  In line with that, let’s have a Constitutional amendment that defines a person as an individual, biological human being.  Corporations are not people.  They do not have the same rights and privileges.

There you have it.  Treat the police as brothers and sisters, and pursue five simple goals.  Getting there won’t be easy, but forming a community in a city park isn’t easy either. 

 

Reasons why

On 60 Minutes this week, the new Jobs Czar, Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric asked why people don’t cheer for the success of big business.  He claimed that people in other countries take great pride in their flagship businesses.

 Jeff, I wish that I had a personal story about GE, but I’m sure  someone does.  We’ve all got stories of encounters with big businesses.  I’d like to tell you about Richmond American Homes.

 About a decade ago, my wife and I were shopping for a townhouse.  There was a construction boom in our area so we found several model homes to review.  The one we liked best was by Richmond American Homes.  Since the home hadn’t been built yet, we got to select the floor plan and a number of options.  It was the American dream, modestly speaking.

 Now, flash forward nine years.  The wood around the front door and garage door was rotting.  That’s not right.  We repainted a few years before.  With a vague memory of a ten-year warranty, I called Richmond American.  That wasn’t as easy as it seems, since they close down and open up offices as they start and complete developments.  Anyway, I tracked them down and was told that Richmond American only handles the first two years of the warranty.  Then, they pass the responsibility along to an insurance company.  They gave me the address. 

 I wrote a letter to the insurance company and included photographs.  They asked me to read my policy.  The only document with their name on it was a “Sample” policy.  The word “Sample” was stamped on every page.  But, apparently this was also their actual policy, and it clearly stated that the warranty did not apply to water damage.  I asked what possible defect on the exterior of a house would not involve water damage?  They simply reiterated that rotting wood was a sign of water damage and they didn’t cover water damage.

 I looked around the neighborhood and found that virtually every home had damage similar to mine.  I decided to put together a class action law suit.  My damages were only a few thousand dollars, hardly enough to interest an attorney, but everyone together—well, that would get the juices flowing.  I went door to door with the goal of gather 20 names of people willing to be part of the class.  Once I found a willing lawyer, then I could go after the hundred or so others. 

One home owner declined to join the suit.  He said that the houses were built according to code and so we didn’t have a leg to stand on.  That got me thinking.  How did he know they were built according to code?  I contacted the county and learned that all wood used on the exterior of homes had to be weatherproof.  The wood on our homes clearly wasn’t.

 I called around.  Several local attorneys were not interested in suing a big company with deep pockets.  Then, I found someone who would talk to me.  I brought him my information, and he agreed to look into our chances.

 Three days later, he got back to me.  Home builders had convinced the legislature years ago to pass a law that said code violations could only be enforced within two years of the completion of construction.  Home owners only had two years from date of original purchase to sue the builders over faulty construction.

 In other words, home builders in the state of Virginia—and probably other states as well—could commit any violations that they could paint over and were immune to customer complaints.

 Repairs cost me $7,000 from my retirement fund.  I could have done it cheaper.  Some of my neighbors simply calked over the rotting holes and repainted.  But, I wanted the job done the way it should have been done in the first place.

So, when Jeffrey Immelt wants to know why Americans don’t trust or cheer big business, he needs to be reminded of how big business legalizes fraud, and makes themselves immune to redress.

 

 

Waiting for an apology

I wrote the following poem shortly after 9/11/01.  I am still waiting for someone in Congress to apologize for cutting the Sky Marshal program in the 1990's and failing to improve airport security despite hearings and books and all sorts of notice.  Congressional budgetary stinginess led to the 9/11 disaster and will lead to more.

                                Responsibility

 

Every day—

I looked it up—

How many go to work,

One hundred thirty-five million.

And, every day, one or two

Fail to come back home.

 

Most often, it’s health at fault.

Accidents sometimes, and

Now and then there’s violence.

 

For a handful of family,

Friends and the like,

The grief is profound.

Swallowed by sorrow, scalded by tears,

While the rest of the world never knows.

 

And, then, one crisp September morning,

Wrapped in a sky so bravely blue,

Two tall buildings came crashing down,

A third shot through,

And a fourth escaped because

Some fought back.

 

Four planeloads perished, and

Thousands of workers that single day

Failed to come back home.

 

Some charge the reason was hate

For a country that minds its business.

Others opine the motive to have been

A heartless cry for help.

 

But, the reason was neglect.  It was.

You know hostility is as sporadic and yet

As expected as the rain.

And those elected to watch over our shelter

Were shown the holes again and again.

But, why patch the roof

When the sun shines brightly,

And the sky above is blue.

 

Besides, every day,

Millions go to work.

Only one or two

Fail to return home

And, hardly anyone notices.

 

Hurricane Irene and the Earthquake Shake

It sounds like the name of a rock band, but the week's left a lot of people both shaken and stirred.  I was fine.  Both work place and home escaped damage.  That’s not what I want to talk about.

The storm before Irene, the one that hit Florida, began in the southern Caribbean.  All of the news broadcasts I heard spoke of how that storm was poised to strike Haiti.  I heard this over and over and wondered, what about Dominican Republic?  So, I switched to the Spanish-language channels.  I only understand about 1% of what they say, but their early hurricane coverage is better than on English-language channels, and I can follow the graphics.  Interestingly, they talked about how the storm was threatening Dominican Republic, but not one word about Haiti.  The experience left me shouting at the television, “THEY’RE ON THE SAME ISLAND.  IF YOU TALK ABOUT ONE, TALK ABOUT THE OTHER.”

Then along came Irene.  I’m sure we all watched the devastation in North Carolina, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Vermont.  Some people complained about so much coverage.  I thought the press orgy on Casey Anthony was excessive, but a hurricane--  When I am anxious about what a storm will do to me or to people I know I want to be able to turn on the set at any time, night or day, and not have to wait too long for news of its progress.  Of course, I am also aware that there is other news in the world, and it would be nice to hear a little of that sprinkled here and there.  But, what was truly interesting was that after this soggy blanket of hurricane news smothering everything for days, I heard a newscaster say, “The U.S. is no longer being threatened. The storm has moved into Canada.”  And, that was that.

Hello, there are people across that border.  I believe we call them Canadians.  The naughty lady beat them up pretty badly, too.  Ferries and bridges shut down, there was flooding, people died.  Don’t they rate a mention?

Finally, we heard from Ron Paul that FEMA disaster money should not be spent unless equal cuts were made to the budget.  You know that the system that has always worked is that since we can’t know what disasters may or may not visit us in the coming year, Congress allocates some funds to keep FEMA running and then adds more during the year as needed.  Meanwhile, FEMA instructs us that we should keep at least 72 hours of supplies on hand, because we shouldn’t expect help for that long.  Under Paul’s plan to have each expenditure offset with cuts, and its attendant arguing in Congress, we will have to expect to be on our own for at least 72 months.

I hope you fared well.  Until the next time--

 

Our Longage of Expectations

Recently, I was asked my opinion of a podcast conversation.  Since I find that kind of request to be flattering, I took some time to study the podcast transcript.  The two men having the conversation were Chris Martenson and Nat Hagen.  I didn’t know either one, but they seem to be accomplished so we travel in different circles.  Some of their points agreed with a few I had made in earlier posts, so I judged them to be intelligent and insightful.  But, really, it was the concepts new to me that were fascinating.

The whole thing is available at http://www.chrismartenson.com/page/transcript-nate-hagens-were-not-facing-shortage-energy-longage-expectations.  And, I recommend it.

 They discussed the economy in terms of oil production and consumption.  They pointed out that for as long as humankind has engaged in economic activity, the goal has been growth.  Bigger and bigger, more and more.  Standing still means falling behind.  Today, however, we are rapidly expanding into a wall.  Oil is a finite commodity and as tantalizing as the other sources of energy are, none of them are even remotely ready to replace oil. 

Hagen used the example of ethanol.  We currently produce about a million barrels per year which takes more corn than is used for food.  And, barrel-for-barrel, ethanol produces only 70% as much energy as oil.  Meanwhile, we consume 19 million barrels of oil a day.  So, if my math is correct, we could take a year’s worth of ethanol and replace oil for roughly an hour and twenty minutes.

He went on to explain that the government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) has statistics on Energy Return On Investment (EROI).  Of course they do.  EROI is how much energy it takes to produce one unit of energy.  Seventy or eighty years ago when a wildcatter could find an oil field, stick a pipe in the ground and get a gusher, we would invest one barrel of energy to harvest a hundred barrels of oil.  That was a pretty good business plan and led to the primacy of the internal combustion engine.  By the 1970’s however, that one barrel of energy would only bring thirty barrels in return.  Still not a bad investment.  Then while the world worried about computer crashes in Y2K, the EROI came in around 10:1, and “the EIA stopped producing data on how much energy it takes to get energy.”  I wonder whose idea that was?  Who didn’t want us frightened by statistics?  Hagen doesn’t speculate on the who, but he reasonably estimates that our return on that barrel of energy spent is in the single digits today.

 We may be forgiven for believing that as oil becomes more expensive, drillers will go to greater and greater lengths to find it.  But, Hagen asserts that “you eventually get to a point, even if oil is $100,000 dollars a barrel, or $1 million dollars a barrel, if it takes one barrel of oil to get out [one] barrel of oil, you’re kind of out of gas at that point.”

What happens to our economy then?  What happens when we can’t grow our way out of our problems?

Martenson and Hagen go on to talk about how the issue shouldn’t be the shortage of oil or fresh water or anything else, it should be about the “longage of expectations.”  We, as a society, nation and planet, need to plan how we will get along when growth has been replaced with contraction.

Here is where they lost me because they went on about living on a smaller carbon footprint, and buying locally.  The elephant in the room, gentlemen, is that what needs to be downsized is us.  There are simply too damn many people.  If the available stuff doesn’t stretch far enough now, it sure won’t if the population keeps ballooning.  Back when society could get 100 barrels by spending one, there were only two and half billion people to use it.  This year we have or will top seven billion.  And, as development in China and India has proven, they all want cars.   Given the chance, like Jay Leno, they won’t stop at one.

Current projections are for population growth to slow--but not stop--toward the end of the century--as we approach nine billion hungry consumers.

We can prepare for the crash mentally—as Martenson and Hagen advise.  We can stockpile goods, which they say won’t do us much good since we can’t possibly cover all the bases.  Even money and gold will have little value when we run out of stuff to buy.  Does that sound bleak?  Remember that everything we use comes to us courtesy of oil—in trucks, planes, ships, and trains.  Run out of oil and we run out of everything else, too.

There is a school of thought that expounds belief in human ingenuity.  Pushed to the wall, we will invent a way over.  It’s a nice thought. 

 

Living Long Enough to Regret It

This morning, I flipped the channel to Bloomburg news just in time to hear the CEO of something drop the final sentence in an interview.  He pointed out that we are cutting benefits to the elderly, I don’t know whether he meant private companies or the government, but both are on the chopping block.  What that means is that everyone is going to have to save more money to prepare for getting older.  In an economy that is driven by consumer spending, that means recovery will be much slower.

From another source, I learned that the average American has $52, 000 in retirement savings.  Assuming that you are average, how long is that going to support you?  Better spend less and sock away more.

 And, how long will that savings have to last you?  The BBC reports that the a baby boy born in Britain today has a one-in-four chance of living to be 100.  A girl has a one-in-three chance.  Of course we Americans don’t have so much to worry about.  The average American male will live 1.5 years less than the average Briton.  Canadians, Australians, and Japanese outlive us by even more.  And, the gap is growing.

 If I may, I will quote from the article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14070090

 "We weren't surprised that we had lower life expectancies than other countries, but we were surprised by the fact that we were falling further behind," says Dr Ali Mokdad, professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

…But the US is a big country, and while parts of Mississippi have a male life expectancy of 67, behind nations like the Philippines, women in areas of Florida live as long, on average, as the Japanese, who top the longevity rankings.

It is precisely this kind of inequality that goes some way to explain why the US - and the UK to a lesser degree - lag behind other countries, according to Danny Dorling, a professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield in the UK.

He believes a more even distribution of wealth, even if the average were lower, could mean longer lives for everyone.

Meanwhile: Elderly Americans have a higher chance of surviving heart disease and many cancers than their counterparts in other rich countries, she says. Where the US lags behind is what happens at a much younger age.

That brings us back to being able to pay for longivity.  Those who want to be able to afford to grow old will not be spending the money necessary to provide jobs for the rest.  Funded pension plans are going the way of the dinosaur.  Social Security was never intended to support people in their old age.  It is a supplement, and one that conservatives want to reduce.  Meanwhile, putting our money in stocks and mutual funds seems to be riskier every day—unless you happen to manage stocks and mutual funds. 

Isn’t freedom great?  Slogans beat soup any day.

 

Wounded on the Job

Among other things, I follow news of workplace injuries.  Lately, there have been some new cases that present some new trends. 

 There was the woman who telecommuted from home.  Her workplace was an office in the garage.  One day, on her way from the house to the garage, she tripped over her dog.  I forget the injury, but it was apparently worth going to court over. The employer said—in other words—“Oh, come on.  This was her dog in her house, how can we be responsible?”  The court disagreed.  The employer knew that she had her office in the garage, and walking from home to garage involved all the risks therin. 

In another case, a woman working from home had a fatal heart attack.  The court ruled that AT&T, the employer, knew that she was working beyond her normal hours, and that too many hours at a sedentary job is a heart attack risk.  The woman’s obesity was not relevant.

 The lesson of these two cases—and of others sure to come—is that employers are responsible for remote workplaces.  They may need to visit the homes of telecommuters to ensure a safe workplace, and to monitor employee activity to see that they get up and walk around periodically.  Or else, get out of the telecommuting business altogether.  Or—and I think this is most probable—businesses will seek legislation indemnifying them against employees who are injured at home.

Another pair of cases are so similar, I don’t have to tell the separate stories.  Employers hired undocumented immigrants.  Of course they claimed that they did the due diligence and the employees appeared legal.  The employer did not provide safety equipment or training.  When the workers were disabled or killed on the job, the employer said, “I don’t have to pay because they were illegal.”  The court said—and I completely agree—the legal status of the workers is a separate issue, and irrelevant to the OSHA violations and Worker's Comp responsibility.  To decide differently would be to reward the employer for hiring undocumented workers.

 The moral, as I see it, is that there will always be employers who will look for cheaper operating costs without taking responsibility for the consequences, whether its saving office space by letting people work from home, or by hiring people who won’t question the work rules.   Cutting government oversight will make us no better than Chinese or Indian employers.