R.P. Barr

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.

 

Quote: Warren Buffett

These excerpts are from In the Loop with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television.   Liu was in Sun Valley to interview Warren Buffett.

 Betty Liu: Is it misguided in many ways to look to the White House to try to help create jobs.  I mean,                 Obama’s got this jobs council—you know he keeps creating these councils to create jobs—is it                 misguided in that way?

 
 Warren Buffett:  People get their expectations too high.  I mean, if you                 look at these 15 recessions  we’ve had since we became a country.                  During half that period, at least nobody knew what monetary policy                 or fiscal policy was.  I mean,we cured ourselves and the system                 cures itself.   And, I would say that’s the biggest single factor.                  Government can do things to make it worse and they did in the                 Great Depression.  And, government can help some.

 Betty Liu:  Is the president making it worse?

Warren Buffett:  No, no, no.  We know the things to do that can help, but they                 are not, in my view, the prime determinant.  There are things to                 work through.  If you have too many houses, what can government                 do?

         …Government gets blamed too much and it may get too         much credit when things do improve.  Government’s a factor, but by far the biggest factor is correction of the business cycle over time is what would call the natural regenerative powers of capitalism.  Capitalism works.

[Later in the interview]

Warren Buffett:  It takes some cooperation from Congress, but [Obama] has ideas about what America can and should be                 that are in sync with mine.  Some of it is social justice and some of it is distribution of wealth, and that sort of thing.

Betty Liu:  Like what?  What are the lot of issues?”

 Warren Buffett:  Like I think, for example, that we’ve had a period in the last 15 years whee the 400  top tax payers in                 the United States—we have to go back 15 years—they had an average income  of about 45 million.  Now, they                 have an average income of 350 million, in the most recent figures, whereas their tax rates went down from                 27% down to 16%.  That’s not my idea of America.  I mean I want everybody to get rich, but I think that the                 rich have a responsibility to pay higher tax rates.

 Betty Liu:  So that when you hear him say targeting the millionaires and the billionaires, you’re saying  “Go get ‘em.”

 Warren Buffett:  Yeah.  

 Betty Liu:  Yeah?

 Warren Buffett:  Yeah, I am.

 Betty Liu:  But, don’t get me--

 Warren Buffett:  No, I look around at my friends here who are paying lower tax  rates than the                 people who are serving us the food—

 Betty Liu:  Do they agree with you?  When you’re here at Sun Valley talking to them, do they agree with  you?

 Warren Buffett:  I think some do, yeah.  And, many don’t.

 Betty Liu:  And are they still talking to you?

Warren Buffett:  Oh, yeah, they talk to me.  They figure I’m harmless and eighty.  This guy will only be  around a few                 more years.  

[So, if you are not a billionaire and plan to be around for more than just a few years, it is time to decide what kind of America you want to live in.  In the next 15 years do you want to see the income of the 400 top taxpayers rise by another 777% and their tax rates drop by another 40% while your numbers remains the same or worse?  The rich have already made their choice.  What are you going to do?]   

 

Questions for Presidential & Congressional Candidates

Budget cuts are coming, I’m reconciled to that.  However, I am weary of all the talk about how many trillions/billions, etc. will be involved.  I want to know the real numbers.  Anyone who advocates big cuts should be able to provide the real numbers.  The U.S. government has the best statisticians in the world and can count and predict almost anything.

So, Mr/Ms Candidate, tell me, what is the cost of your program in human lives?  How many careers and businesses will be ruined by your layoffs, and cutbacks in government purchases?  How many foreclosures will that involve? How many divorces?  How many students will not get higher education due to your cuts?  What will that do to their futures and their future families?  How many crimes will be committed for want of preventive measures?  How many crimes will go undetected and unenforced?  How much public corruption will occur for the same reasons?  How many people will be injured or made ill because safeguards and regulators are taken away?  Let’s make it simple.  How many people are expected to die for want of medical care, or workplace safety enforcement, or of pollution related cancers, or suicides or murders by the economically desperate?  What is the anticipated body count?

Please, put all this dollars talk into terms I can understand.  I don’t give a damn how many rings around the earth one could make with hundred dollar bills.  Cuts must be made.  Whether large or small, people will die as a result, just as some die now for want of more spending.  That’s reality.  Show some courage.    Tell us the real numbers.

The Timing of Alerts

In the aftermath of 9/11/2001, I was assigned to direct a training program to re-orient agency personnel to the mission of anti-terrorism.  As a result, I was pulled into a few brainstorming sessions to guess the next threat.  I was rather good at that game and gained a small reputation for scary scenarios.  One of these concerned me so much that I conducted a private campaign to take preventive measures.  Of course, all of these schemes were kept within agency walls.

Of course, if I could think of these things, so could the bad guys.  The secrecy was intended to make them work for it.  Then, in August, 2009, al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia tried out a version of one of my ideas, i.e. plant the bomb inside the bomber’s body.  It would be undetectable.  The bomber was an al-Qaeda fugitive who offered to give himself up, but only to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef in person.  Apparently, the structure of the human body combined with the strength of this particular explosive caused the blast to focus downward.  The bottom half of the bomber was blown to smithereens, there was a crater in the floor, and nobody else suffered more than minor injuries.  Clearly there are some bugs in the bomb design that need to be worked out.  I knew there would have to be practical trials when I came up with the idea seven years earlier.  It's just tough to find volunteers for those experiments.

It wouldn’t be worth mentioning except for Slate's article today [http://www.slate.com/id/2298657/] that reported the Department of Homeland Security had issued an alert for surgically implanted or other internally installed explosive devices.  Why are they alerting us now?

Did someone discover my idea in some archived folder?  Highly doubtful.  Did the upper management committees finally decide that the 2009 Saudi bombing deserved some official comment?  It’s only been two years, give them time.

I think the answer is at the bottom of the article.  Three security hardware companies claim to have the technology for scanners that see all the way through a person’s body.  But, they can’t sell this cutting-edge technology unless they have us scared enough to buy it.  So, DHS is beating the drum.  Who said that the private sector doesn’t need government?

Are these new scanners necessary?  Not if TSA does proper screening of passengers.  Al-Qaeda is not going to send one of their hardened cadre on a suicide mission.  They can’t afford the loss, and their best people are on our no-fly lists.  Just like with the shoe and underwear bombers, al-Qaeda will send a green recruit.  Such a person will have a difficult time acting casual with a bomb inside his body.  A trained observer might spot him by the way he walks.  A good interviewer will pick him up after a few seconds of questioning.  This is not rocket science.  It only takes enough trained, motivated people to do the job.

Government needs to spend its money on human resources.  Machines can always be beaten. 

That reminds me of another one of my ideas—the one that turned me into an internal lobbyist.  But--Shhhh.  It’s still a secret.