Where's the Outrage?

• Mitt Romney has proved himself to be the Republican front-runner by pulling in $18.25 million. He still seems to be confused about whether the Obama administration made the economy worse or not because he’s flip-flopped.
• I don’t understand the country’s conniption over the Casey Anthony verdict. Some people were simply apoplectic. We need to get a grab on reality. We need to be upset over Republicans’ refusal to renew the debt ceiling. We need to be upset at the fact that Republicans are refusing to stimulate job growth which would ease the symptoms of this economic slowdown for millions of Americans. We need to focus less on the sensational trials and more on the fact that jobs are being shipped overseas and wages are stagnant and have been for more than 20 years.

• Huge dust storm envelops Phoenix. The airport was shut down for over an hour. Now, that’s a dust storm.
• Mentally deranged man is being detained for mental health evaluation after threatening to kill the President.
• When I was on the air regularly, there are times when I was talking and it seemed to me that I was not as engaged in what I was talking about as I should’ve been. I think the same thing happen to Republican presidential candidate and former Senator Rick Santorum. He stated, on-air, that “they (the Obama administration) created only 240 million jobs.” Misspeaking is not his only problem. The problem is that his error was pointed out and he doggedly stuck to it. He didn’t realize that he was off by a factor of 100. The total number of jobs in the United States is only about 130 million. Our population is only 311 million. To me, the take-home lesson is be aware of the facts and if you make a mistake correct it.
• To everyone who follow sports, it was clear that Roger Clemens had taken some sort of performance enhancing drug. Yet, he sat in front of Congress and simply lied. Now, his trial for perjury begins. I think it is a separate question whether drugs should or should not be allowed in professional sports. The question is should you be able to sit in front of Congress and lie like Jim Carrey‘s character in the movie Liar Liar.
• America’s education system is in a sad state of affairs. Many students are not learning the information that is necessary to make them successful in this hyper-competitive, technology-based society. So, it is extremely disheartening to find out that over 150 teachers and principals in Atlanta have been caught up in a cheating scandal. As a reflex, I would like to take the side of the hard-working teachers and principals, but there really is no excuse. I understand they’ve been put under increased scrutiny and pressure and have not been given the resources to adequately complete their tasks, but there is no excuse.
• American businesses are sitting on cash. A lot of this cash could be used to expand business and hire workers but it isn’t happening.

• A study by the Labor Department was supposed come out four years ago. This study was supposed (may need a subscription) to look at workers who have lost their jobs and have been “retrained” to qualify for higher paying jobs. I’m not sure we need to study. I think it is pretty clear that once a middle-aged worker loses a manufacturing job the majority of these workers end up in the service sector which cuts their pay approximately in half.
• A new study questions whether too many angioplasties are performed in United States. All I know is if I’m having chest pain and I have other signs and symptoms of a heart attack I want an angioplasty by a qualified cardiologist because that could save my life. Also, when you have a patient that comes back to the ER with recurrent chest pain and you can’t find an etiology and cardiology is finally consult it and finds a mild coronary artery lesion should they stent that as the possible problem for the chest pain? I’m just asking.
• The online magazine Mother Jones has a section of a huge graphic called Capital Gain which simply asks the question of whether Congress can really represent the American people. With the median net worth of American families being approximately $120,000 and the median net worth of the members of Congress being $912,000. In our general population one and 22 Americans are millionaires. In Congress, nearly half of every congressman is a millionaire. The combined net worth of the top 10 members (richest members) is $2.8 billion. All 10 of these members voted to extend the Bush tax cuts. So, does Congress represent us?

So what articles are you following? So what’s on your mind?

Tags: Business, Congress, Economy, Education, Elections, Environment, Healthcare, Sports by ecthompson md
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Over the past 20 years, Americans have heard that “Washington is spending too much.” Whatever politician was railing against Washington spending would come up with some obscure program that is measuring methane gas as pigs past wind. These are almost always conservative politicians pointing out these “problems.” For some reason, and I don’t understand why, they never mention billions of dollars spent on weapons systems that have never worked or the fact that we are now enjoying the third-generation of stealth fighter/bombers. The third generation. No military in the world has ever been able to detect the first generation or the second generation. Yet, we’re spending more money on the third generation and are currently developing a fourth generation. In spite of these spending atrocities (in this case, an atrocity is in the eye of the beholder) the following chart puts our spending and our revenues into perspective.

click on graph to enlarge

This chart clearly shows that our problem is one of revenue. I wonder if we could fix this revenue problem by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and reversing the Bush tax cuts?

From CBPP:

Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration — tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for almost $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs. [6] (The prescription drug benefit enacted in 2003 accounts for further substantial increases in deficits and debt, which we are unable to quantify due to data limitations.) These impacts easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues. Furthermore, unlike those temporary costs, these inherited policies (especially the tax cuts and the drug benefit) do not fade away as the economy recovers (see Figure 1).

Without the economic downturn and the fiscal policies of the previous Administration, the budget would be roughly in balance over the next decade. That would have put the nation on a much sounder footing to address the demographic challenges and the cost pressures in health care that darken the long-run fiscal outlook.[7]

Tags: Economy by ecthompson md
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I hope that everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July.

Let me share this with you:

July 4, 1861 — exactly a hundred and fifty years ago — witnessed the reading aloud, on the floor of Congress, of Abraham Lincoln’s Message to Congress in Special Session.

The circumstantial appeal of Lincoln’s message turned on his defense of the Union against the threat posed by secession, and that is the part most people have in mind when they recall the most famous words of the address: “This is essentially a People’s contest.” Lincoln was speaking for democracy. He was also speaking for a Union, popular in character and progressive in direction, as the heart of all future hopes for democracy.

Another part of the Special Message matters more to us today. For Lincoln saw an unresolvable tension between the constitution of a democratic republic and the policies of aggrandizement and intemperate self-interest that lead from the manners of freedom to the slavish love of power. He spoke of the difference between the work of establishing a constitutional republic and the longer task of maintaining it. But maintaining it against what? Lincoln’s answer was always the same: against the internal pressure of greed, and the external pressure of war. The predicament of the country in 1861, he said, “forces us to ask: ‘Is there, in all republics, this inherent, and fatal weakness? Must a government,
of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?’”

We are now ten years into a policy shared by two successive administrations to plant a new understanding of the spirit of the laws in America. That policy has pretended there is a “trade-off” between liberty and security, and that in a time of crisis, security ought to have the upper hand. The Cheney-Bush and Obama administrations have accustomed us to laws and language concerned above all with the “protection” of citizens — as if there were something higher or more worth protecting than the liberty that is guaranteed by our laws and
the framework of laws, the Constitution. (more…)

Update: I really liked this photo. It captures the 4th at least it did for me. So, I posted it.

Tags: Domestic Issues by ecthompson md
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• It seems that everybody on the planet is following the Casey Anthony trial. I actually had to do a Google search in order to figure out who Casey Anthony was. I think it’s far more interesting to follow the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case. Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the former head of the IMF. He’s been accused of the rape of a hotel maid. I thought the case was locked tight when his DNA was found on the maid’s clothing. But no! The prosecution’s case has begun to crumble. The maid was taped during a call with her boyfriend saying, “Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing.” That doesn’t sound so good for the prosecution. She lied about being gang raped in Guinea. She told prosecutors that she had a single source of income, her maid job, but she has four different bank accounts with over $1000 each in four different states. All of a sudden the former IMF chairman seems to be looking less and less guilty.
• Another week goes by and another Republican announces that he/she is running for president. This time it is Thaddeus McCotter, a congressman from Michigan.
• A huge protest at the Georgia state capitol over their extremely restrictive immigration law. We need to get a handle on immigration. This is not something that the states need to undertake or should undertake, in my opinion. Instead, Congress needs to fix this.
• According to a new poll, only 58% of Americans knew the answer to this question: “In which year did the United States declare its independence?” Seriously? Republicans are cutting education budgets throughout the country. When you see results like this, it is obvious that we need to increase education funding, not cut it. In case you’re wondering, the answer is 1776.
• If you’re looking for a good reason why the American middle class struggling, just look at this article on a BMW plant which is closing. This is exactly what happened throughout the Midwest. Once good manufacturing jobs leave, members of the middle class, as a rule, are forced to take lower paying service sector jobs. I think I would feel differently if companies who are outsourcing jobs were losing market share or losing money, but neither is the case. Instead, companies want to make more money than they’re already making. I would feel better if this outsourcing and increased corporate profits would lead to increased salaries for workers, but it doesn’t. The only ones who win from this outsourcing are the corporate executives. When America begins to care about the middle class again, stuff like this will not happen.
• A Pennsylvania congressman confronts his constituents over cuts to the middle class and protecting big business and the rich.
• Michele Bachmann ended her gaffe-prone week by stating, “a dollar in 2011 should be the same as a dollar in 1911.” I’m not sure what Michele Bachmann meant by the statement. I think that she was implying that the Obama administration’s trying to stimulate the economy and injecting money into the system has caused the devaluation of our dollar. I guess she was suggesting that we should’ve done nothing and sat by as millions more Americans would’ve lost their jobs, pushing unemployment rates up to the 15-20% range. Is that what she is suggesting?
• Leave it to Chuck Schumer, Senator from New York, to say what everyone else is thinking. The GOP is sabotaging the economy for their own political gain. I don’t know if this is true or not. I do know that a stimulus of some sort will help the economy and help drive down the unemployment rate. The GOP is resisting this with all of its might.

• We have a new champion at Wimbledon. Novak Djokovic!!

Tags: Domestic Issues, Elections, Sports by ecthompson md
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I have talked about this before but it seems that only a few of us were paying attention. Let’s look at our economy like a house. During the George W. Bush years, our “house” looks like a 20-30-year-old house that has some problems. It basically looks good, but is showing some signs of age. It needs some upgrades. It needs a coat of paint and some other modifications to make the house run more efficiently and protect us from inclement weather. George W. Bush did nothing to repair the problems of our “house.” He was warned on several occasions about faulty wiring (the housing market). The house catches on fire.

Barack Obama takes over an economy that’s on fire… literally on fire. The whole thing is about to burn down and he wants to put out the fire. He’s given an allocation of water (stimulus plan) which he states is insufficient to put out the fire. Republicans stand back and smile. They tell the president and anyone else who states the water allocation is inadequate that the economy has been given a huge amount of water. That water should be sufficient to put out any fire. Does this make any sense to you?

Barack Obama and the Democrats did the best they can with the supplies that they were given. The amount of water given to put out the fire was indeed inadequate. The fire is clearly better but it still smolders. Now, before the fire is completely under control the Republicans are stating that we need to fix the faulty wiring (get the budget deficit under control). I don’t think that anybody doubts the fact that we do need to get our fiscal spending under control. The question is should we do it now or after we put out the fire?

Check out this 60 Minutes take on how the middle class isn’t making it:

We have to get the economy going. We have to develop new industry which will hire millions of Americans not over a five to ten year period but now! Arguing over the debt ceiling is stupid… Playing with the debt ceiling is also stupid… Millions of Americans need help now. They need good paying jobs, now. We can do this by simply doing two things – rebuilding infrastructure and pouring billions of dollars into green energy.

EPI puts it this way:

Economic policy must be focused on creating jobs and strengthening the economy, not counterproductively cutting spending or reducing the deficit.

If political circumstances require that additional economic support must come through the tax code, a payroll tax cut would help turn the dial on unemployment in the right direction, albeit insufficiently. Even better would be reinstating the targeted, refundable Making Work Pay tax credit, which was replaced by the flat payroll tax cut. Targeting assistance to families likely to quickly spend an extra dollar would be more cost effective, but either policy would raise disposable incomes and increase demand for goods and services.

But political viability should not be confused with economic effectiveness.

Direct spending generates more economic activity per dollar than tax cuts, because tax cuts can be saved or used to pay down debts instead of increasing current consumption. A dollar of infrastructure spending packs about four times the economic punch of a dollar of income tax cuts. With long-term interest rates at historically low levels, financing overdue infrastructure investments would more effectively increase employment and spur long-term growth.

Finally, let me say this to those who believe that if our government continues to spend money (stimulate the economy) that this would lead to uncontrollable inflation – horse hockey. Inflation is a reflection of supply and demand. If there’s too much demand and not enough supply, inflation is allowed to increase because business will raise their prices for items that are having trouble staying on the shelves. This is not happening, anywhere. Let’s get the unemployment level under 5% and then we can worry about inflation.

Tags: Economy by ecthompson md
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Julian “Cannonball” Adderley was one of the greatest sax players of all-time. It is my opinion that because he played with Miles Davis (on some of Miles’ greatest CD’s like Kind of Blue) and with the really, really great John Coltrane , that he never really got his due. Also, he died young (at the age of 46). This is an absolutely great tune. Enjoy. (Oh, this is a great video. It isn’t live but whoever but this together chose the photos perfectly to go with the music.)

Artist: Cannonball Adderley
Tune: Autumn Leaves

Tags: Music by ecthompson md
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Now, this is perfect.

Artist: Bill Evans
Tune: Waltz for Debbie

Tags: Music by ecthompson md
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I find it amusing how all of the sudden everybody’s an expert climatologist. Whenever I post something on climate change I always get several e-mails from people telling me that the science is “bad.” None of these people have actually read a scientific paper that I know of. None of them have the ability to discern between “good science” and “bad science.” Conservative commentators, who also cannot evaluate scientific papers, have stated that many of these papers represent “bad science” and conservatives parrot this nonsense.

Just for a second, let’s forget all the craziness that surrounds climate change secondary to man’s burning of fossil fuels. Let’s forget the controversy and who said this or that and let’s just focus on a couple of things. Let’s focus on carbon dioxide and temperature. Let’s just focus on one group of studies which looked at ice core data. (Anybody who has a problem with this data, please let me know.)

I wrote the following several months ago, but I think it still applies today:

How can climatologists point to some of the events that are happening now as evidence of climate change secondary to man’s burning fossil fuels? Well, thankfully, I don’t have to come up with an experiment off the top of my head. Smart people, scientists, have done this for us. There are a few places in the world that don’t change all that much. As a matter fact, they haven’t changed for thousands of years. One place would be Antarctica the other would be Greenland. In these two places, it gets extremely cold. The ice in some places is several miles thick. NASA explains it like this:

Throughout each year, layers of snow fall over the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Each layer of snow is different in chemistry and texture, summer snow differing from winter snow. Summer brings 24 hours of sunlight to the polar regions, and the top layer of the snow changes in texture—not melting exactly, but changing enough to be different from the snow it covers. The season turns cold and dark again, and more snow falls, forming the next layers of snow. Each layer gives scientists a treasure trove of information about the climate each year. Like marine sediment cores, an ice core provides a vertical timeline of past climates stored in ice sheets and mountain glaciers.

So, by drilling into the ice, we can go back in time and see what the environment was like. What was the composition of the ice 100 years ago… or a thousand years ago? How much methane or carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere? Whatever was in the atmosphere should be trapped in the ice. Scientists have been able to look back over 420,000 years. (Please click on the picture for a larger version.)

Notice how at the end of the graph (the right side) CO2 levels are higher than at any time during the measuring period. This seems to correlate very nicely with the industrial age, which started approximately 150 years ago. Below is another graph looking at temperature variation and carbon dioxide concentration. This graph covers only 18,000 years. Again, towards the end of the graph, on the right, you can see the abrupt increase in carbon dioxide.

This data makes a compelling argument that the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is a new phenomenon. CO2 has not accumulated at this high a level over the last 420,000 years. This is a compelling argument to support the fact that man is having a definite impact on the world around us and that climate change second to man’s burning fossils is really happening. Currently, the leading explanation for this accumulation is the beginning of the industrial age and the burning of carbon fuel at a much higher rate than ever before. The question is whether you are going to believe the scientists or the other guys who are making huge vats of money burning fossil fuels. Is oxygen real or not?

So, by drilling into the ice, we can go back in time and see what the environment was like. What was the composition of the ice 100 years ago… or a thousand years ago? How much methane or carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere? Whatever was in the atmosphere should be trapped in the ice. Scientists have been able to look back over 420,000 years. (Please click on the picture for a larger version.)

So, here’s my question – what’s the problem with this science? If there’s no problem with the science that it is clear that CO2 levels seem to correlate with rising temperatures. It is also clear that CO2 levels have risen to levels we haven’t seen in over 500,000 years. Now, we can argue over why CO2 levels have risen. We can pretend that this is some natural phenomenon that started approximately 150 years ago or, we can look at this data and realize that man’s burning of fossil fuels and throwing hundreds of thousands of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere may, just may have some effect on our climate.

Tags: Environment by ecthompson md
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I just decided not to wait until Friday night to post this great tune. I was listening to it and I think that this is my favorite Stevie Ray Vaughn tune.

Artist: Stevie Ray Vaughn
Tune: Pride and Joy

Tags: Music by ecthompson md
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