President Roosevelt created the Social Security Administration in 1935.
President Johnson created Medicare in 1965.
President Obama passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
People say “Medicare and Social Security are broken. They need to be fixed.” Some say they should be eliminated, or turned into voucher programs. What are the facts? What does “Broken” mean, in the context of Medicare and Social Security?
Hewlett Packard‘s CEO Meg Whitman has her work cut out for her. It’s not just the losses due to alleged fraud committed by the management at Autonomy prior to its acquisition by HP. HP, a $25.05 Billion company, is writing off losses of $18.3 Billion to $18.5 Billion in calendar year 2012. The losses equate to 73.0% to 73.8% of the company’s value.
The adult in the cartoon is not Carly Fiorina, Mark Hurd, Leo Apotheker formerly of HP, or John Lynch, formerly of HP & Autonomy. While the three ex-CEOs were paid a total of $80 Million after being fired (here), they did NOT create shareholder value. Under their guidance, the company lost 77.92% of its peak value; the shareholders lost $81.54 Billion between Dec. 31, 1999 (here) and the close of trading, Nov. 23, 2012.
While Autonomy’s $10 Billion valuation may have been John Lynch’s fraud – the FBI and it’s counterparts in London are investigating (here) – HP’s acquisition of Autonomy was Leo Apotheker’s error, and has become Meg Whitman’s problem. I’m sure that if Whitman is unsuccessful, or the Board fires her before she can be successful, she will be well taken care of, as were Fiorina, Hurd, and Apotheker. Meanwhile Bill Hewlett & Dave Packard – who created value for the shareholders and other stakeholders – must be turning over in their graves.
Image 1: People enjoying the beach in Montreal, Canada, courtesy Jazz Hostels
While climate change and global warming will mean longer and hotter summers and shorter and warmer winters farther north in the northern hemisphere than previously, and even though we make like longer hotter summers and shorter, warmer winters …
Warmer and shorter winters mean thinner ice on frozen lakes – and people crashing through the thin ice and drowning in places like Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Alaska, and Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia.
Longer hotter summers also mean warmer oceans and an atmosphere that can hold more heat.
Hurricane Sandy, the 1,000 mile diameter storm brought rain, wind, water and power failures to 10.4 million from North Carolina up to Maine, and west to Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan in the USA and another 145,000 people in Canada, over 1.5 million people. As NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, here, “We have old infrastructure and new weather patterns… climate change is a reality, extreme weather is a reality, it is a reality that we are vulnerable.”
We need to build infrastructure that is more resistant to extreme storms, and resilient in the face of these kinds of storms.
Map showing people without power from Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy, NOAA handout satellite image taken on October 27, 2012. Note the size and position of the storm.
Man made factors that will exacerbate the storm’s damage:
In August of 2011 the Millstone 2 & 3 plants in Connecticut and the Brunswick 1 & 2 plants in North Carolina were operated at reduced capacity during and after Hurricane Irene, while the Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey, and the North Anna 1 & 2 plants in Virginia, were offline. The North Anna plants were shut down before the hurricane due to the earthquake. I expect Hurricane Sandy will effect most of those plants, and also the Calvert Creek plant in Maryland, Hope Creek, and Salem in Jersey, Indian Point in New York, and Vermont Yankee, in Vermont.
Solar power, wind, and wave power won’t work during a hurricane, but don’t need emergency crew on hand to make sure cooling systems are operational. And geothermal will function.
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As an analyst with Popular Logistics, I am available for research and analysis on a per project or a per diem basis. I can be reached at ‘L Furman 97” @ G Mail . com and US 732 . 580 . 0024.
Wen Jaibao, NY Times, 10/25/12
Guangxi River
Child in Linfen
The NY Times reported, here, that Wen Jiabao, the Prime Minister of China, has amassed approximately $2.7 billion, and so according to the Guardian, here, access to the Times has been blocked within China by the “Great Firewall of China.” In term’s of China’s population, Wen’s family fortune is approximately $2.08 for every man, woman, and child in China. This is ¥12.978 , at current rate of ¥6.2465 CNY to the $1.0 USD. The Times also details the Wen family empire, here.
Nicknamed “Grandpa Wen” because of his reputation of concern for the underprivileged, or, in Marxist parlance “The Proletariat,” for there are no “Privileged” people in the People’s Republic, Wen has called official corruption a threat to the ruling Communist Party. He should know. This is what happens when a disregard for rights is coupled with tremendous power. However, given that the Chinese leadership has embraced a form of capitalism, wherein the people who run the state own or manages the corporations that produce things or allocate resources, it must be noted that China seems to be following a fascist political and economic model, rather than a Marxist or Maoist communist political and economic model.
What would Mao say? Hard to tell. He ate well during the “Bitter Years” from 1958 to 1962, when an estimated 15 to 43 million people died (wikipedia).
Political and economic theory aside, when coupled with what we know about air and water pollution, working conditions in Chinese factories and coal mines, official attitudes toward intellectual property (Business Week / Popular Logistics) , the challenge posed by a demographic imbalance of a population of 700 million men and 600 million women, cultural attitudes towards homosexuality, prostitution, and HIV AIDS; the long term prospects for socio-economic stability in China seem low.
Linfen, a city of about 4.3 million, one of the most polluted cities in the world. Courtesy Greenpeace.
Air and water pollution in China, as documented by Elizabeth Economy in The River Runs Black, in 2004, ISBN: 978-080-1442-20-9, available at the Strand Bookstore, here, and also documented by Greenpeace here and here here and here, present tremendous long term threats to the people of China to breathe, drink, and to eat.
River Guangxi
As a public service to the people who make smart phones, laptops, routers, and clothing for use here in the USA, the NY Times article is reproduced below. It is not the policy of this blog to quote entire articles. However, given that the entire article – and the entire web-site – is blocked from within “The Great Firewall,” we have made an exception in this case. We trust that the writers, editors, and publishers of The Times will understand. Continue reading
Apple stock closed on October 9, 2012 at $635. While up $247, or 64%, for the year, the stock price has dropped 70 points, 10%, from the peak of $705 reached on Sept. 21, 2012. Where will it go next? What caused this 10% drop? And what about Amazon, Google, Microsoft, & Research in Motion?
Here’s what I think:
The Sphere, by Fritz Koenig, in Battery Park. Image by L. Furman
Should the President have been able to foil the attacks of September 11?
Throughout the 1990’s we sustained:
President Clinton and Vice President Gore knew that Osama bin Laden was a threat. They knew he had been trained by the CIA in the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. They also knew that he financed and or masterminded the simultaneous attacks on U. S. embassies in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya on August 7, 1998, and the October, 2000 attack on the U. S. S. Cole. And President Clinton told us that after his January 2001 inauguration he briefed President Bush on bin Laden.
One day, back in 2009, while driving my ’99 Chevy Malibu home from classes in Marleboro College’s MBA in Managing for Sustainability, I set a target for my next car that it would get over 45 Miles Per Gallon. That basically means a hybrid like the Ford CMax (Edmunds / Ford) pictured above or one of the uber-efficient Volkswagon TDI Clean Diesel (news / autoblog / VW).
The same way that they filibustered the The American Jobs Act of 2011, Senate Republicans filibustered the Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012. According to the Examiner, here,
the proposal failed 58-40, with most Republicans voting against it. Sixty votes were needed to overcome the procedural hurdle and push the bill toward final passage. Five Republicans – Sens. Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nev.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) – voted with all 53 members of the Democratic Conference to sidestep the procedural roadblock.
I know the Republicans CLAIM to be “Fiscal Conservatives” and “Patriots” but the evidence shows that they are neither.
Continue reading
“Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Progressive tax structures are not about punishing the rich. They are a recognition that wealthy people – like everyone else – derive benefits from being in society. Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, Oprah, for example, got rich because people buy their products or watched them play basketball or on TV. Paris Hilton is wealthy because her great-grandfather built a successful business. Their successes are wonderful. But their success should not require me to subsidize their lifestyles.
It’s not just Obama v Romney – it’s Hope v Nope.
As Andrew Frank, of Baltimore, MD, put it, here,
It’s not Romney’s Blunders, It’s His Message.
The Obama Administration issued final rules Tuesday 8/28/12 requiring joint mileage and carbon emissions rules for model years 2017 through 2025 that will eventually force automakers to meet a standard equivalent to 54.5 miles per gallon (news / White House / Announcement).
Back on July 7, 2009, when President Obama raised the CAFE standards from 27.5 mpg to 35.5 mpg, I wrote “CAFE Standards, Not Meaningless but Trivial,” I wrote, here,
Pres Obama has raised the CAFE standards from 27.5 mpg to 35.5 mpg, by 2016. Raising the CAFE standards to 35.5 mpg in 7 (or 26) years is not the change we need. It is very little, and very late. The standard for cars has been 27.5 mpg since 1990 (DieselNet). However, at least we are starting to move forward.
The standard of 54.5 MPG is Meaningful, Significant, and Terrific!
We also need a clean energy goals for the Efficient Use of Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Wave Power. 20% by 2020, and 100% by 2035!