Some health-care thoughts:
* 1) Since Ronald Reagan changed tax policy and trade policy to shift wealth from American workers to investors and foreigners, the number of Americans unable to afford health care has soared to unconscionable levels. The beneficiaries of this wealth shift should embrace universal health care as a just and affordable restoration of economic balance, one that greatly reduces worker anxiety and misery while minimally affecting worker incentive.
* 2) Conservatives complain that their taxes will increase to pay the trillion-dollar ten-year cost of universal health care, a liberal initiative to help millions of Americans. That seems fair enough, since liberal's taxes must increase to pay the trillion-dollar ten-year cost of the Iraq war, a conservative initiative that unjustly hurt millions of Iraqis and thousands of Americans.
* 3) Owing to its portability, universal health care should stimulate economic ferment, as it will enable people to move to more compatible jobs and undertake business initiatives that are now prohibitively risky.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Robotic Surveillance Lighter-than-air Craft
Why wouldn't this 19th century idea work?
** Since the mid '90s, I've been thinking about the potential of robotic surveillance lighter-than-air craft (RSLC) in military and law-enforcement applications. The device would be essentially a miniature Zeplin. The balloon would be filled with hydrogen, its top and side skin being covered with solar-voltaic surface to charge batteries servicing electronics and electric motors driving the propellers and controls. The payload would be several video cameras, including visible-light and infrared, and transmitters for their signals.
** The device would be commanded to approach within a few yards of designated GPS coordinates at an altitude safe from ground fire and small rockets. Barring strong winds, it should be able to hold its position indefinitely. Larger rockets and antiaircraft guns would have to be attacked when identified. The cameras would take video at about 10 frames per second, enough to keep up with moving objects on the ground. Their default zooms would be as wide as compatible with sufficient pixels per unit ground area. On command from an operator on the ground it would zoom in on any object of interest long enough to capture identifying characteristics. It would report the GPS of any object on the ground pointed at by the operator.
** Such a device could provide surveillance around anything in need of protection (a village, an installation), or it could document events in an area rich in criminal activity (Juarez Mexico). Several of them along any route could identify IEDs being planted (where the planters came from and go to), and they could locate ambushers before, during and after an ambush.
** These applications are available to the side that controls the air in an asymmetric conflict. RSLC could have been used in the '90s to monitor and control Iraq (by threats), allowing withdrawal of flyovers, embargoes and blockades (until a new regime could come to power more naturally), thereby avoiding the unethical invasion and occupation.
** It seems that the only engineering challenge in this idea is how to ensure that the energy needed to hold position in expected wind is less than that gathered in expected sunlight. That would have to be addressed in shape of the device (to get more sun exposure, to get less wind drag).
** Since the mid '90s, I've been thinking about the potential of robotic surveillance lighter-than-air craft (RSLC) in military and law-enforcement applications. The device would be essentially a miniature Zeplin. The balloon would be filled with hydrogen, its top and side skin being covered with solar-voltaic surface to charge batteries servicing electronics and electric motors driving the propellers and controls. The payload would be several video cameras, including visible-light and infrared, and transmitters for their signals.
** The device would be commanded to approach within a few yards of designated GPS coordinates at an altitude safe from ground fire and small rockets. Barring strong winds, it should be able to hold its position indefinitely. Larger rockets and antiaircraft guns would have to be attacked when identified. The cameras would take video at about 10 frames per second, enough to keep up with moving objects on the ground. Their default zooms would be as wide as compatible with sufficient pixels per unit ground area. On command from an operator on the ground it would zoom in on any object of interest long enough to capture identifying characteristics. It would report the GPS of any object on the ground pointed at by the operator.
** Such a device could provide surveillance around anything in need of protection (a village, an installation), or it could document events in an area rich in criminal activity (Juarez Mexico). Several of them along any route could identify IEDs being planted (where the planters came from and go to), and they could locate ambushers before, during and after an ambush.
** These applications are available to the side that controls the air in an asymmetric conflict. RSLC could have been used in the '90s to monitor and control Iraq (by threats), allowing withdrawal of flyovers, embargoes and blockades (until a new regime could come to power more naturally), thereby avoiding the unethical invasion and occupation.
** It seems that the only engineering challenge in this idea is how to ensure that the energy needed to hold position in expected wind is less than that gathered in expected sunlight. That would have to be addressed in shape of the device (to get more sun exposure, to get less wind drag).
Friday, October 9, 2009
Moon's legacy
* Back in the '50s there was a pea cannery in Walla Walla, WA, where I worked the night shift on the can line, living in a bunk house with 70 other workers in one room. There were guys of all races, prospects and getting-by strategies. There was a black man, older than most of us, with a background in heavy construction and pimping, nicknamed Moon because we admired his rendition of "Blue Moon".
* One evening while walking the quarter mile from bunk house to factory, after recounting a couple of brothel stories, Moon pontificated that society is like a bucket of crabs -- only a few can be on top; the vast majority must struggle down below and can rise only by climbing over and displacing others downward. That analogy saddened me then and has haunted me since.
* Moon messed up my mind. I can't forget that the comforts of my status derive from the efforts of others with less comforts today and historically, often unjustly. I can't stop wishing for more satisfaction lower in the bucket, examining how my choices affect those looking up, wondering what I could share that would spread some happiness throughout the bucket.
* This reminiscence is in reaction to several recent letters repeating sentiments of Fox Talk Radio, where there is a daily diet of white entitlement, resentment, contempt, self righteousness and hate. Grinding down the less fortunate reduces happiness throughout the bucket.
* PS: I haven't eaten a canned pea since 1956.
* One evening while walking the quarter mile from bunk house to factory, after recounting a couple of brothel stories, Moon pontificated that society is like a bucket of crabs -- only a few can be on top; the vast majority must struggle down below and can rise only by climbing over and displacing others downward. That analogy saddened me then and has haunted me since.
* Moon messed up my mind. I can't forget that the comforts of my status derive from the efforts of others with less comforts today and historically, often unjustly. I can't stop wishing for more satisfaction lower in the bucket, examining how my choices affect those looking up, wondering what I could share that would spread some happiness throughout the bucket.
* This reminiscence is in reaction to several recent letters repeating sentiments of Fox Talk Radio, where there is a daily diet of white entitlement, resentment, contempt, self righteousness and hate. Grinding down the less fortunate reduces happiness throughout the bucket.
* PS: I haven't eaten a canned pea since 1956.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Money Problems
> Money is one of the pillars of civilization. It lubricates and simplifies commerce. It incentivizes useful human behavior, from day labor to innovation, from intellectual development to respect for law.
> Everyone needs the ability and the opportunity to earn money or the support of someone who has it. For most of us, the biggest bulk expenses are for shelter and transportation. Taxes and insurance may add up even higher. Prudent people control spending and save money regularly throughout most adult years.
> Responsible governments attempt to adjust economic activity to a level that enables most citizens to satisfy their needs for money--by use of tax policies, spending programs, regulations and central-bank actions. With the advent of Reaganomics all of these tools except central-bank actions have trended toward abdication of responsibility for America's long-term economic health, with the result that central-bank actions were over used and finally counter productive. Citizens were encouraged to be imprudent until their ability to do so was exhausted.
> It's time to use all the tools of economic adjustment to restore sustainability and integrity to the US economy.
> Everyone needs the ability and the opportunity to earn money or the support of someone who has it. For most of us, the biggest bulk expenses are for shelter and transportation. Taxes and insurance may add up even higher. Prudent people control spending and save money regularly throughout most adult years.
> Responsible governments attempt to adjust economic activity to a level that enables most citizens to satisfy their needs for money--by use of tax policies, spending programs, regulations and central-bank actions. With the advent of Reaganomics all of these tools except central-bank actions have trended toward abdication of responsibility for America's long-term economic health, with the result that central-bank actions were over used and finally counter productive. Citizens were encouraged to be imprudent until their ability to do so was exhausted.
> It's time to use all the tools of economic adjustment to restore sustainability and integrity to the US economy.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Economic Remedies
> Were Republican prescriptions for economic health effective, there would have been some balanced budgets under Republican administrations, instead of the 10x increase of national debt since 1980 and even bigger increases of private debt.
> The periods of apparent prosperity and economic vigor in the past three decades depended on irrational behavior by every segment of society. Ordinary citizens were irrational to take on mortgages so large that other forms of saving were precluded, to believe that prestige could be gained from owning a larger house or fancier car, to shop recreationally, to chronically carry credit-card balances, to take out second mortgages exceeding appraised values, to contract for ballooning or ARM mortgages, to believe that most businesses can increase revenues faster than inflation.
> Policy makers were irrational to cut taxes when spending exceeded revenues, to allow unfettered off-shoring of manufacturing jobs by multistate retailers for pennies per item, to neglect incentivizing wind and solar electricity generation, to neglect world-wide family planning, to organize society such that it depends on constant economic growth when the earth cannot support existing economic activity and when most of that activity is un-needed fluff.
> It is now clear that the our socio-economic system, capitalism, can't function when people start behaving more rationally. If tax cuts were the remedy, we'd have a hot economy now.
> The periods of apparent prosperity and economic vigor in the past three decades depended on irrational behavior by every segment of society. Ordinary citizens were irrational to take on mortgages so large that other forms of saving were precluded, to believe that prestige could be gained from owning a larger house or fancier car, to shop recreationally, to chronically carry credit-card balances, to take out second mortgages exceeding appraised values, to contract for ballooning or ARM mortgages, to believe that most businesses can increase revenues faster than inflation.
> Policy makers were irrational to cut taxes when spending exceeded revenues, to allow unfettered off-shoring of manufacturing jobs by multistate retailers for pennies per item, to neglect incentivizing wind and solar electricity generation, to neglect world-wide family planning, to organize society such that it depends on constant economic growth when the earth cannot support existing economic activity and when most of that activity is un-needed fluff.
> It is now clear that the our socio-economic system, capitalism, can't function when people start behaving more rationally. If tax cuts were the remedy, we'd have a hot economy now.
What good is the stock market?
> I've contributed to a retirement stock account for 35 years, but I still don't know what my investment does for the businesses whose stocks are in my account. The only investments that clearly support a business appears to be venture capital and the IPO. Subsequent stock sales just repay and enrich earlier stock holders and don't go to the business.
> If this be true, there seems to be no benefit to society of hedge funds. Every dollar sequestered by a hedge-fund investor is a dollar removed from the pool of ordinary investors. Can that possibly support the businesses whose stocks are traded by the hedge fund? Why, then, would the inventors of the hedge fund be awarded the Nobel Prize in economics? Why was that hedge fund bailed out during the 1990s?
> I raise these questions because reporters and policy makers seem to care about the index-fund prices. Stockholders like me care for personal reasons. Is there an objective reason, that is a national interest in the index-fund prices?
> If this be true, there seems to be no benefit to society of hedge funds. Every dollar sequestered by a hedge-fund investor is a dollar removed from the pool of ordinary investors. Can that possibly support the businesses whose stocks are traded by the hedge fund? Why, then, would the inventors of the hedge fund be awarded the Nobel Prize in economics? Why was that hedge fund bailed out during the 1990s?
> I raise these questions because reporters and policy makers seem to care about the index-fund prices. Stockholders like me care for personal reasons. Is there an objective reason, that is a national interest in the index-fund prices?
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Reaganomic Crisis
* Few individuals or businesses are unscathed by the economic crisis. Republican law makers, encouraged by Fox News lemmings, are insisting on the very Reaganomic formulae that got us here--out of work, losing money and in debt. Even if tax cuts were to stimulate, it would leave us with the same vulnerabilities and competitive disadvantages, with nothing to show for the additional debt.
* The fundamental and irreversible problem with the economy (ours and the world's) is that all the goods and services needed by the population can be provided by a declining fraction of the population, this as technology increases efficiency. Conscientious workers and well run companies are weakened by competition for providing goods and services and bankrupted by modest reductions in demand for them, as occurs when consumers behave more rationally.
* A satisfactory distribution of economic opportunity can only be achieved artificially by policies with that as a goal, ie by anti-Reaganomic policies.
* We should use this crisis as an opportunity to make adjustments that will be needed eventually when the earth cannot support the wasteful American way of life or the extension of that way of life to developing countries. Specifically, a substantial portion of the stimulus spending should go to wind, solar and geothermal power, as well as improved energy efficiency (cars, buildings, transit).
* The fundamental and irreversible problem with the economy (ours and the world's) is that all the goods and services needed by the population can be provided by a declining fraction of the population, this as technology increases efficiency. Conscientious workers and well run companies are weakened by competition for providing goods and services and bankrupted by modest reductions in demand for them, as occurs when consumers behave more rationally.
* A satisfactory distribution of economic opportunity can only be achieved artificially by policies with that as a goal, ie by anti-Reaganomic policies.
* We should use this crisis as an opportunity to make adjustments that will be needed eventually when the earth cannot support the wasteful American way of life or the extension of that way of life to developing countries. Specifically, a substantial portion of the stimulus spending should go to wind, solar and geothermal power, as well as improved energy efficiency (cars, buildings, transit).
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Reagan-Bush Revolution
* On or about Jan 19, 2009, a 93-year-old WWII veteran froze to death in his Michigan home. His local government had turned off his electricity. On his kitchen table was an electric bill clipped to a large amount of money. He was $1000 behind on his electric bill.
* Will he be the last casualty of the Reagan-Bush revolution? Probably not, since Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, Rush Limbaugh, Steve Gill, Phil Valentine, George Will and others still have a vast following of self-righteous, anti-tax, anti-government, anti-intellectual Kool Aid drinkers.
* Why would people of good will support a movement that enlarged the number of Princeton graduates sequestering billions by shuffling paper on Wall Street at a time when the need for Wall Street paper shufflers was actually diminishing? Why would ordinary workers support a movement that encouraged multi-state retailers to off-shore suppliers for pennies per item? Why would economists justify a movement that concentrated wealth in a tiny fraction of the population, that perpetuated a plutocracy, that made war on the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid? Don't economists know that a healthy economy needs people down there who can afford what they need?
* On or about Jan 19, 2009, a 93-year-old WWII veteran froze to death in his Michigan home.
* Will he be the last casualty of the Reagan-Bush revolution? Probably not, since Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, Rush Limbaugh, Steve Gill, Phil Valentine, George Will and others still have a vast following of self-righteous, anti-tax, anti-government, anti-intellectual Kool Aid drinkers.
* Why would people of good will support a movement that enlarged the number of Princeton graduates sequestering billions by shuffling paper on Wall Street at a time when the need for Wall Street paper shufflers was actually diminishing? Why would ordinary workers support a movement that encouraged multi-state retailers to off-shore suppliers for pennies per item? Why would economists justify a movement that concentrated wealth in a tiny fraction of the population, that perpetuated a plutocracy, that made war on the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid? Don't economists know that a healthy economy needs people down there who can afford what they need?
* On or about Jan 19, 2009, a 93-year-old WWII veteran froze to death in his Michigan home.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Israel / Gaza
* Cal Thomas, in his Jan 4 column, condemns Hamas as Nazi-like, as the Nazis of modern times. He espoused the invasion of Gaza that is now underway, that he hopes will be pressed to total victory. Judging from his earlier writings he believes that the western Judeo-Christian civilization can better vanquish the middle-east jihadists if Muslims are dehumanized as Islamofacists.
* I don't admire mullah government, Wahhabi madrassas, female oppression and terrorist tactics more than does the next Euro-American, and I have no patience for the word "infidel"; but, looking over the sweep of history from the 4th century to the present, I see much to justify some modesty on our part. We Judeo-Christians have committed the greatest crimes--senseless wars, impulsive invasions, slavery, female oppression, colonialism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the domination and exploitation of nearly every other nation on earth. Our wasteful ways are almost entirely responsible for despoiling the planet, leaving an impoverished environment for future generations. Our sense of entitlement is boundless.
* If the self-righteous Cal Thomas could imagine himself as a Gazan, displaced from his ancestral land, crowded in a virtual concentration camp, blockaded from the outside world, and experiencing daily deprivation and humiliation, he might see Hamas as analogous to Comanches or Apaches resisting domination by the more technologically advanced and better organized European tribes.
* Israel needs a brave new paradigm for peace as do we.
* I don't admire mullah government, Wahhabi madrassas, female oppression and terrorist tactics more than does the next Euro-American, and I have no patience for the word "infidel"; but, looking over the sweep of history from the 4th century to the present, I see much to justify some modesty on our part. We Judeo-Christians have committed the greatest crimes--senseless wars, impulsive invasions, slavery, female oppression, colonialism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the domination and exploitation of nearly every other nation on earth. Our wasteful ways are almost entirely responsible for despoiling the planet, leaving an impoverished environment for future generations. Our sense of entitlement is boundless.
* If the self-righteous Cal Thomas could imagine himself as a Gazan, displaced from his ancestral land, crowded in a virtual concentration camp, blockaded from the outside world, and experiencing daily deprivation and humiliation, he might see Hamas as analogous to Comanches or Apaches resisting domination by the more technologically advanced and better organized European tribes.
* Israel needs a brave new paradigm for peace as do we.
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