Quote of the Day
The manner in which it is given is worth more than the gift.
Pierre Corneille
Social Security Fix? Graham-Paul-Lee: Means Testing: Thumbs DOWN!
Why these 3 GOP senators, two of them considered to be Tea Party favorites, would be receptive to means-testing social security, baffles me. Conceptually, that transforms social security into a welfare program; it sets moral hazard, e.g., if I earn too much, I'll be disqualified from my fair share of the federal tit.
First, let's point out there is a cap on social security disbursements (under $30K). Since when is confiscating the distributions of a few higher-income people going to resolve the fundamental issues of funding longer lifetimes for the bulk of social security distributions? Second, the nature of the distribution is already progressive--that is, the rate of return on lower-income beneficiaries for their contributions exceeds that for high-income people. Third, the government already can recapture tax income on up to 85% of your social security benefits (given other sources of income).
I think one could reasonably argue that higher-income people should not be entitled to receive more than what they have contributed into the system and perhaps set a ceiling for payments (e.g., no cost of living increases). But you can't change the rules in the middle of the game. The federal government has a contractual obligation to pay benefits. I have already discussed FDR's political strategy in setting up social security. And this may be the only time you see a Daily Kos article cited in this blog, but "The Case Against Means Testing Social Security" echoes the same arguments (in fact, starts out with the same FDR quote I cited in my earlier post).
I give the 3 senators credit for taking the politically risky step of addressing the issue of raising the retirement age. But we may also need to discuss additional revenues (e.g., a slight increase in the payroll tax) to shore up a program already running at a deficit, essentially transferring the social security reserve to publicly held debt--just as bond guru Bill Gross and others (including other nations) are beginning to shun Treasury notes as investments.
The real issue they need to address is leftover piece of demagoguery from the Bush era: that allowing individuals to have more control over their own contributions is "gambling"; in fact, the disgraceful address yesterday by Obama specifically referenced that as something he would oppose. Obviously the little people can't be trusted to spend their own money as they see fit, like investing in companies which produce profits in goods and services: that's "gambling". What's not "gambling"--investing in the Obama Administration which has run a $1.3T or worse deficit for 3 consecutive years; the worst deficit we had under Bush is less than half of the lowest deficit we've had under Obama--and Bush was running in recessionary periods for nearly half his Presidency. So now we're running permanent deficits in social security--as if anyone really expects that "investing" in captive Treasury bonds that Bill Gross and several foreign governments don't want to buy is less of a gamble...
The difference between Obama and Reagan? When Reagan was acting, at least he read from a different script every show or movie. Obama is reading from the same Democratic script around since the 1960's...
Female Engineers--At a Multi-Year Low?
At a time when a majority of degrees are being awarded to women, where do we see the degrees? Are they distributed towards the academically rigorous disciplines like math, science and engineering? I haven't done a search on the distributions, but other than the medical profession, I suspect most of the women are in areas like education, business and (cough! eye roll!) pre-law. (One famous motto for a charitable organization is: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste". And yet we have lawyers... Far more lawyers than any legitimate free market economy should have. A lawyer never produced a widget; a lawyer only raises the cost of producing a widget.)
Let me say, before going further, that I have met some very talented women in these fields for decades: but they have been more the exception than the rule. It reminds me of an anecdote--the only time anyone in my family tried to fix me up on a date (I didn't even know about it). I was visiting my married sister, and we (including my brother-in-law and some of his friends) went to some bar where somehow my glass of beer remained full all night... The next morning I was lethargic while the others were in worse shape. This young woman entered the apartment, looked directly at me, sitting on the couch or floor, with audible disgust, saying, "A gentleman knows to get to his feet when a lady enters the room." (I had to bite my tongue from responding, "Great... Let me know when one gets here...") It seems that my brother-in-law had tried to fix us up; she was pursuing a doctorate in the health sciences--a perfect match, he thought, for a geek like me--and, of course, on top of everything else, she owned a Corvette. My brother-in-law LOVES Corvettes. The woman wasn't my type, and I don't think either of us made a particularly good first impression on the other. She didn't stay long, and my brother-in-law clued me in after the fact.
I've tried to encourage my nieces to consider math, sciences and engineering; my oldest niece seemed to be interested in biotechnology early in high school, but abruptly changed her plans towards art(!) I was gently nudging another niece to go pre-med, but she wanted to be a nurse like her mom. (I don't have much influence over my nephews or nieces...) The following quote is telling:
First, let's point out there is a cap on social security disbursements (under $30K). Since when is confiscating the distributions of a few higher-income people going to resolve the fundamental issues of funding longer lifetimes for the bulk of social security distributions? Second, the nature of the distribution is already progressive--that is, the rate of return on lower-income beneficiaries for their contributions exceeds that for high-income people. Third, the government already can recapture tax income on up to 85% of your social security benefits (given other sources of income).
I think one could reasonably argue that higher-income people should not be entitled to receive more than what they have contributed into the system and perhaps set a ceiling for payments (e.g., no cost of living increases). But you can't change the rules in the middle of the game. The federal government has a contractual obligation to pay benefits. I have already discussed FDR's political strategy in setting up social security. And this may be the only time you see a Daily Kos article cited in this blog, but "The Case Against Means Testing Social Security" echoes the same arguments (in fact, starts out with the same FDR quote I cited in my earlier post).
I give the 3 senators credit for taking the politically risky step of addressing the issue of raising the retirement age. But we may also need to discuss additional revenues (e.g., a slight increase in the payroll tax) to shore up a program already running at a deficit, essentially transferring the social security reserve to publicly held debt--just as bond guru Bill Gross and others (including other nations) are beginning to shun Treasury notes as investments.
The real issue they need to address is leftover piece of demagoguery from the Bush era: that allowing individuals to have more control over their own contributions is "gambling"; in fact, the disgraceful address yesterday by Obama specifically referenced that as something he would oppose. Obviously the little people can't be trusted to spend their own money as they see fit, like investing in companies which produce profits in goods and services: that's "gambling". What's not "gambling"--investing in the Obama Administration which has run a $1.3T or worse deficit for 3 consecutive years; the worst deficit we had under Bush is less than half of the lowest deficit we've had under Obama--and Bush was running in recessionary periods for nearly half his Presidency. So now we're running permanent deficits in social security--as if anyone really expects that "investing" in captive Treasury bonds that Bill Gross and several foreign governments don't want to buy is less of a gamble...
The difference between Obama and Reagan? When Reagan was acting, at least he read from a different script every show or movie. Obama is reading from the same Democratic script around since the 1960's...
Female Engineers--At a Multi-Year Low?
At a time when a majority of degrees are being awarded to women, where do we see the degrees? Are they distributed towards the academically rigorous disciplines like math, science and engineering? I haven't done a search on the distributions, but other than the medical profession, I suspect most of the women are in areas like education, business and (cough! eye roll!) pre-law. (One famous motto for a charitable organization is: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste". And yet we have lawyers... Far more lawyers than any legitimate free market economy should have. A lawyer never produced a widget; a lawyer only raises the cost of producing a widget.)
Let me say, before going further, that I have met some very talented women in these fields for decades: but they have been more the exception than the rule. It reminds me of an anecdote--the only time anyone in my family tried to fix me up on a date (I didn't even know about it). I was visiting my married sister, and we (including my brother-in-law and some of his friends) went to some bar where somehow my glass of beer remained full all night... The next morning I was lethargic while the others were in worse shape. This young woman entered the apartment, looked directly at me, sitting on the couch or floor, with audible disgust, saying, "A gentleman knows to get to his feet when a lady enters the room." (I had to bite my tongue from responding, "Great... Let me know when one gets here...") It seems that my brother-in-law had tried to fix us up; she was pursuing a doctorate in the health sciences--a perfect match, he thought, for a geek like me--and, of course, on top of everything else, she owned a Corvette. My brother-in-law LOVES Corvettes. The woman wasn't my type, and I don't think either of us made a particularly good first impression on the other. She didn't stay long, and my brother-in-law clued me in after the fact.
I've tried to encourage my nieces to consider math, sciences and engineering; my oldest niece seemed to be interested in biotechnology early in high school, but abruptly changed her plans towards art(!) I was gently nudging another niece to go pre-med, but she wanted to be a nurse like her mom. (I don't have much influence over my nephews or nieces...) The following quote is telling:
The number of male engineering graduates rose by 11% from 2004 to 2009, while the number of female engineering graduates actually fell by 5.2% over the same period, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In 2009, the percentage of undergraduate degrees from engineering schools that went to women hit 17.8%, a 15-year low, according to the American Society of Engineering Education.
Government Groping of a 6-year-old Girl? FOR SHAME! Thumbs DOWN!
Are we seriously treating senior citizens and first-graders as terrorist suspects? I feel so bad for this beautiful sweetheart, reportedly in tears following unconscionable, traumatic touching by government employees lacking common sense and refusing to recognize unalienable rights. We need a change of the government in Washington. I do NOT feel safer traveling in the skies because the government is fondling someone's grandmother or young daughter.
What we need to worry about is some overpaid ($160K) air traffic controller (of course, a government employee) whom can't manage to stay up during a midnight shift... HINT, GOVERNMENT RECRUITERS: I'm sure any bar in Las Vegas or New York City or any college campus frat house will reveal lots of people whom manage to stay up all hours, even without being paid for the privilege.... And if I hear one more time hiring another $160K employee to keep the other awake... This is a failure of management (what about rest requirements?) and proper system design; an alarm should sound if a controller does not respond (say, a blinking button indicating a message from the pilot) without an explicit acknowledgment in a timely matter. A repeated message attempt should trigger an alarm to some centralized operation desk and/or a night manager on call.
Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update
"One problem after another there." Is Roger Ailes ever going to deal with the ignorant, inexcusable, unprofessional ad libs being made by FNC anchors and reporters? Fox News continues its dishonorable coverage of Fukushima Daiichi. Today they were talking about police finally starting to look for victims "near the plant". The implication by context was that these were victims of the nuclear incident. In fact, these were people drowned in the tsunami (recall that the Daiichi site is located on the coast). The Hiroshima Syndrome blogger discussed this issue a week ago as a classic example of anti-nuke hysteria, that authorities had an irrational fear of recovering the bodies of tsunami victims.
And now another conservative media source I've referenced on multiple occasions, IBD, has issued a polemical editorial that deserves a reprimand. I'll probably save a more detailed debunking of this nonsense opinion "Faster, Japan" for a later date, but this analysis is disingenuous and unworthy of the publication. Let me just deal with a couple of the most egregious, irresponsible quotes.
- "There've been a series of missteps and denials since that have now led to the level-7 label." Absolutely false. The level-7 label has more to do with preventive steps to minimize issues with human health as a result of fuel damage done, after shutdown, because of the inability to maintain cooling, a direct result of the loss of power, including backup diesel generators affected by the post-earthquake tsunami. That damage was mitigated by the resumption of coolant injections and spent fuel pools within days of the incident. It is true that some radiation byproducts were leaked to the environment with prior releases of steam. But we have seen decreasing trends across the board--air, food, sea samples, etc.--in terms of radiation levels for weeks now. The level-7 has to do with expanded sampling and certain benchmarks used in classification--but this was damage in the early stages of the incident, not the result of more recent developments, which IBD is clearly and incompetently suggesting here. It is true that TEPCO has made some mistakes in reporting OVERSTATED results and some incomplete information. There have been some mistakes pointed out in this blog--e.g., lapses in safety protection, such as the subcontractors not wearing protected footwear in flooded contaminated basements. But trying to link these to the level rating is nonsense. One could argue that the design walls protecting against tsunami waves weren't high enough, but keep in mind the earthquake just over a month ago was several times worse than any recorded earthquake in Japanese history. Perhaps the margin of safety wasn't good enough--but the design decision was decided years ago, not with current management and personnel.
- "A more assertive response might have been put into place sooner, even to the extent of sealing off the plant with cement sooner, as the Soviets eventually did. Instead, a small problem became into a big one." Expletive deleted. Somebody has been spending too much time listening to anti-nuke
crackpotszealots like Kaku... The real problem is a lack of due diligence by and scientific illiteracy of the IBD editorial staff. First of all, the editorial staff doesn't realize that Chernobyl reactors were different than Fukushima Daiichi's boiling-water reactors. The latter have several layers of containment, minimizing the very type of problem involved in Chernobyl. I have patiently written about this throughout the past month's blog posts, but again--the problem at the Daiichi site was caused by the loss of cooling systems, in particular, when the backup diesel generators failed, an artifact of the tsunami. What the editorial writers don't know is the amount of radiation released is directly related to the coverage of fuel rod assemblies by coolant. Without cooling the coolant level can decrease by evaporation or steam generation. How does IBD see this as a small problem growing into a big one? What about the fact that all drinking water, including within the Fukushima prefecture, now tests safe for human consumption? That milk is being being sold in Fukushima prefecture? That air, seawater, and food samples have fallen with LNT safety threshold in a trend over weeks, well before Tuesday's editorial? This is more a case of a serious problem becoming much more manageable. Never mind the rather disingenuous suggestion regarding burying the site wasn't even feasible in terms of infrastructure and materials; I mean, the site was initially using a suboptimal seawater coolant because freshwater wasn't accessible in the short term. You would expect that a financial newspaper used to revisions to past economic data might recognize the same holds true for revised nuclear incident data. Utterly pathetic!
- "In terms of severity, the radiation emitted from the reactors matches Chernobyl on the International Nuclear Event Scale in quantity for only the second time in history." Absolutely, knowingly false. Chernobyl leaks into the environment have been at least 10 times worse (literally). There are a couple of things going on here. First, we have four different reactor/components potentially leaking contaminants at Daiichi. None of the individual reactors has been rated 7, but together we have had a sufficient enough leak into the environment to result in PREVENTIVE steps; unlike Chernobyl, nobody has eaten unsafe food or drink.
For a better understanding of the event classification (especially between Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl, see this Q&A session with Barbara Hamrick, currently the Radiation Safety Officer at the University of California’s Irvine Medical Center and Secretary-Elect for the Health Physics Society, whom considers commentaries like the IBD one to be a misuse of the INES scale and argues it would be more appropriate to consider Chernobyl an event 8 (if there was an eighth).
IAEA notes:
- daily: There was an interruption of dewatering the reactor 2 trench, checking for leakage. The silt fence in front of outlets for reactors 3 and 4 were completed yesterday, as well as the 3 steel plates in the inlet channel for reactor 2 (i.e., to control for any outflows of contamination).
Atomic Power Review notes:
- afternoon: there is a discussion of increasing temperatures in the reactor 3 RPV, possibly a malfunctioning instrument. It seems that dewatering of the trenches seems to be refilled, a likely explanation of which is that the contaminated basement waters could be replenishing the trenches.
NEI notes:
- daily: Continued injections into RPV's 1 through 3, watering as needed spent fuel pools 1 through 4, and nitrogen injections to primary containment for reactor 1. There are ongoing preparations to dewater the turbine room basements using the rad waste storage unit at the site. Additional work is being done to raise the level of backup diesel generators to make them less vulnerable to tsunami waves.
The Hiroshima Syndrome blogger discusses the elevated levels of iodine and cesium in the sample from the spent fuel pool 4 (briefly discussed in yesterday's post). The anti-nuke Western press has promoted the hypothesis that all the water had boiled off the cooling fuel assemblies (stored at the latest this past November, i.e., at least 4 months from cold shutdown) which led to a meltdown. Among other things, the blogger raised other possible explanations for fuel rod damage (e.g., isolated insulating pockets of falling debris and/or the crane used to hoist assemblies) He also persuasively argues that a worst-case scenario would have led to far greater concentrations of contaminants than the sample revealed, suggesting whatever damage has happened is relatively modest with respect to the 250 tons of spent fuel assemblies stored there and speculations in the Western presses diverge from those in the more scientifically-literate Japanese media. The blogger also reports the fact that, like the Fukushima Daiichi site, the nuclear Onagawa site, more directly affected by the April 7 earthquake, also largely withstood an earthquake beyond design specifications; the amazing resiliency of these sites can be attributed to solid engineering, which of course is not being acknowledged by the Western press. Another item which hasn't been promoted by the Western press: the electric power being supplied to the Daiichi site is from another electric company.
ABBA, "Momma Mia". This is a song I loved long before it became the signature song for an ABBA-inspired musical and subsequent movie. I watched this song video 5 times in a row just to watch Agnetha dance in that glorious white outfit (and I'm not a fashion guy): frilly layered bell bottoms forever! Agnetha married Björn Ulvaeus (the long-haired guitarist whom also sang lead on "Does Your Mother Know?"), and they had two children before breaking up in the late 1970's (ABBA continued performing and recording after the breakup of both couples, the other being Benny and Frida (Anni-Frid); if you haven't guessed, ABBA is an acronym of the 4 performers' given names). I continue my homage to Agnetha below with some non-ABBA recordings. I didn't catch her 2004 hit single ("If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind"), but I purchased the track from iTunes today, and it's now on my heavy rotation playlist: her voice still sounds as fresh as it did in the early 1970's! The man who has woken up to the sound of that angelic voice in the morning has been truly blessed.
Agnetha Fältskog, "If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind"
Agnetha & Peter Cetera, "I Wasn't the One Who Said Goodbye" (two of my favorite singers together: does life get any better?)
Agnetha, "Sealed With a Kiss" (Brian Hyland, move over...My new favorite version.)
