Now as promised a Special Comment on the madness of the Tea Party and the elections of next Tuesday.
It is as if a group of moderately talented performers has walked on stage at a comedy club on Improv night. Each hears a shout from the audience, consisting of a bizarre but just barely plausible fear or hatred or neurosis or prejudice.
And the entertainment of the evening is for each to take their thin, absurd premise, and build upon it a campaign for governor or congressman or senator. The problem is, of course, when it turns out there is no audience shouting out gags, just a cabal of corporations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and political insider bloodsuckers like Karl Rove and Dick Armey and the Chicken Little Chorus of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
And the instructions are not to improvise a comedy sketch, but to elect a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the '30s, or backward** to hanging union organizers, or backward to the Trusts and the Robber Barons.
Result: the Tea Party. Vote backward, vote Tea Party. And if you are somehow indifferent to what is planned for next Tuesday, it is nothing short of an attempt to use Democracy to end this Democracy, to buy America wholesale and pave over the freedoms and the care we take of one another, which have combined to keep us the envy of the world.
You do not think your freedom is at stake next Tuesday?
The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate for senator from Nevada, Sharron Angle, compared rape to, quoting, "a lemon situation in lemonade." She would deny an abortion even to a teenaged girl who had been raped by her own father.
The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate to be the only Congressman in Delaware, Glen Urquhart, said "there is no problem that abortion can't make worse. I know good friends who are the product of rape."
Mr. Urquhart also does not believe the phrase "separation of church and state" was said by Thomas Jefferson.
He thinks it was Hitler: "The next time your liberal friends ask you about the separation of church and state, ask them why they are Nazis."
Advertisement | ad infoThe Tea Party-and-Republican candidate in the Ohio 9th, Rich Iott, not only ran around in a Nazi uniform celebrating their military tactics, but implies he is a Veteran and as late as this March listed his occupation as "soldier" even though the volunteer militia to which he belongs has never been called, will never be called, to any active service, in the 29 years in which he has belonged to it.
It's more than just dress-up. They mean business - literally. The Tea-Party-and-Republican-candidate for New Jersey's 3rd House seat, Jon Runyan, defended corporate tax loopholes: "Loopholes are there for a reason. They are to avoid people from really having to pay too many taxes."
The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate for the Senate in West Virginia, John Raese, explained, "I made **my** money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it. I think that's a great thing to do. I hope more people in this country have that opportunity as soon as we abolish inheritance tax in this country."
The inheritance tax applies only to estates larger than $3.5 million. For the 99.8 percent of Americans not affected by the estate tax, there is the minimum wage, which Mr. Raese also wants abolished. Or there is Social Security.
The Tea-Party-and-Republican-candidate in the Indiana 9th, Todd Young, says "Social Security, as so many of you know is a Ponzi scheme."
The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate in the Wisconsin 8th, Reid Ribble, disagrees. Social Security "is, in fact, a Ponzi scheme."
The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate in the Arizona 8th, Jesse Kelly, wants to resurrect President Bush's scam to transform Social Security into private investment accounts so the government can force you to spend part of your paycheck on Wall Street commissions, and so that market manipulators can wipe out your retirement money.
The Republican candidate in the Wisconsin 1st, Congressman Paul Ryan, has a more sophisticated plan: Personal investment Social Security, guaranteed dollar for dollar by the government. A fiscal fountain of youth, until you find out its cost: Ryan would pay for it by taxing the health insurance you get from your employer.
If you are not employed, Mrs. Angle of Nevada says unemployment benefits can neither be increased nor extended because that "has caused us to have a spoilage with our ability to go out and get a job… There are jobs that do exist. That's what we're saying, is that there are jobs."
The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate for Senator in Alaska, Joe Miller, says this is academic, because unemployment insurance is unconstitutional. His own wife received unemployment insurance after losing a temp job he got for her. Mr. Miller also called Medicaid unconstitutional. It proved his entire family had received Medicaid funds.
Mr. Miller also claims Social Security is unconstitutional, yet hypocritically he says it should still be paid out, and then the issue dumped into the laps of the states.
Advertisement | ad infoThe Republican-and-Tea Party candidate for Senator in Colorado, Ken Buck, would not stop at butchering just Social Security. [He said] "would a Veterans Administration hospital that is run by the private sector be better run then by the public sector? In my view, yes."
The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate in the Pennsylvania 4th, Keith Rothfus, has promised to overturn anything the Supreme Court decides, with which he disagrees: "Congress's ultimate weapon is funding. If the Supreme Court rules you have to do something, we'll just take away funding for it."
Back in Nevada Mrs. Angle decries health care - not reform, but health care itself. "Everything that they want to throw at us now is covered under 'autism'," she said. As to educating those children Mrs. Angle won't pay for, Mr. Buck of Colorado, waxes nostalgic: "In the 1950's, we had the best schools in the world, and the United States government decided to get more involved in federal education…well, since, we've made education worse, we're gonna even get more involved."
In Ken Buck's America of 1957, fewer than one in five Black children graduated high school. Fewer than half of white children did. To the Tea-Party-and-Republican-candidate in the California 11th, David Harmer, Mr. Buck is a wild-eyed liberal. Mr. Harmer once advocated eliminating public schools altogether, and return education in this country to where it was before 1876: "People acting in a free market found a variety of ways to pay for a variety of schools serving a variety of students, all without central command or control." And without girls, blacks, or even the slightest chance you could go to college.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Olbermann: If the Tea Party wins, America loses
How Candy and Halloween Became Best Friends - Food - The Atlantic
Corey Ann/flickr
Editor's note: This is the first piece in a series on the history of candy in America. Check back between now and Halloween to read the remaining articles.Wherever you turn this October, candy beckons. Americans will spend an estimated $2 billion on candy during the Halloween season this year, and here's a fun fact from the California Milk Processors Board: "an average Jack-O-Lantern bucket carries about 250 pieces of candy amounting about 9,000 calories and about three pounds of sugar."
Phew. My molars are hurting just thinking about it. If treats are a temptation you hope to avoid, October is the cruelest month. And I can think of only one place in America where your Halloween composure is unlikely to be ruffled by endless quantities of cheap and glittering candies: the past.
Given the ubiquity of candy at this time of year, it is hard to imagine that 100 years ago, Halloween looked quite different from the candy debauch of today.
The biggest difference was trick-or-treating. This seemingly timeless custom is actually a quite recent American invention. The ritual of costumes, doorbell-ringing, and expectation of booty appeared for the first time in different locations throughout the country in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It wasn't until the late 1940s that trick-or-treating became widespread on a national scale. And even then, candy wasn't the obvious treat.
Kids ringing a stranger's doorbell in 1948 or 1952 received all sorts of tribute: Coins, nuts, fruit, cookies, cakes, and toys were as likelyKids ringing a stranger's doorbell in 1948 or 1952 received all sorts of tribute: Coins, nuts, fruit, cookies, cakes, and toys were as likely as candy. In the 1950s, Kool-Aid and Kellogg's promoted their decisively non-candy products as trick-or-treat options, while Brach's once ran ads for chocolate-covered peanuts during the last week of October that didn't mention Halloween at all.
as candy.It took a while for candy to become what it is today, the very essence of Halloween. Going back even farther to the early decades of the century, before trick-or-treating spread across the land, candy didn't have any special role to play in Halloween observance.
For youth, and especially boys, Halloween was the one night of the year when communities generally tolerated pranking, which might range from the clever or playful to the dangerous or destructive. Mailboxes, fences, streetcars, and gravestones were popular targets. The point was to cause mischief, not to gather treats. Halloween also wasn't a gift-giving holiday, which in the case of Christmas and other early candy holidays provided the candy "hook."
While the hooligans were out wreaking havoc, the more genteel would celebrate Halloween with parties. The menus and décor for these early Halloween festivities emphasized seasonal fruits. Pumpkins and apples were especially important. Making popcorn balls and fudge was sometimes part of the festive activities, but if there was purchased candy along the lines of candy corn or jelly beans, it was an afterthought, just a something over there with the nuts and favors.
When candy makers in the 1910s and 1920s looked for ways to grow their fall sales, Halloween barely registered as a potential marketing opportunity, even though they were already using holidays as opportunities to sell seasonal confections. Christmas and Easter were big candy events, already established with their candy traditions by 1900: boxed chocolates and hard candies for Christmas, jelly eggs and molded bunnies for Easter. Lagging not far behind in importance on the candy holiday calendar was Washington's Birthday, to be celebrated with special marzipan cherries and cocoa-dusted logs. But special candies for Halloween? Not a one.
It was during the 1950s that candy made decisive inroads in dominating Halloween. The rise of trick-or-treating made the holiday the perfect occasion for marketing a product associated with children and fun. But the push from candy sellers was met with equally enthusiastic demand. Candy was easy to buy and easy to distribute, making it a convenient choice for Halloween hosts. And as the numbers of trick-or-treaters swelled, candy was also economical. Small, inexpensive candies became popular, and major candy manufacturers began making smaller candy bars or bags of candy corn.
Through the 1960s, it was still conceivable that some other treat might be offered. It wasn't until the 1970s that candy came to be seen as the only legitimate treat. And while the candy industry reaped the benefits, the immediate impetus was not brilliant marketing so much as rising fears that unwrapped or homemade Halloween treats posed risks of tampering and poisoning. Commercial wrapped candy was the only safe choice.
All of which raises the question: What was the candy industry up to during all those years before we had the license and opportunity to indulge in enormous quantities of Halloween candy? It turns out that in 1916, candy promoters did come up with an idea to launch the fall candy season and boost sales and consumption, but it wasn't Halloween. It was a new holiday invention, uniquely American in its entrepreneurial spirit: Candy Day.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/10/how-candy-and-halloween-becam...
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Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
11/2/1991: Post reporter Williams apologizes for 'innappropriate' verbal conduct
Post reporter Williams apologizes for 'innappropriate' verbal conduct
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 2, 1991; 12:01 AM
Washington Post Magazine reporter Juan Williams said yesterday that the newspaper has disciplined him for what he called "wrong" and "inappropriate" verbal conduct toward women staffers and he apologized to his colleagues.
In an open letter to the newsroom, Williams said: "It pained me to learn during the investigation that I had offended some of you. I have said so repeatedly in the last few weeks, and repeat here: some of my verbal conduct was wrong, I now know that, and I extend my sincerest apology to those whom I offended. I have committed to Post management, and I commit to you -- and to myself -- to change my ways."
Williams's letter came several hours after about 50 female employees met with Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. and said they objected to The Post's refusal to say how the paper had resolved allegations of verbal sexual harassment against Williams. The newspaper's management has maintained that such personnel inquiries must remain confidential.
Downie said in a letter to the staff, which was posted in the newsroom with Williams's letter last evening, that "the complaints about Juan's verbal conduct with a number of women in the newsroom were thoroughly investigated. The complaints were found to be serious, and, as Juan acknowledges, he was disciplined for his conduct and intends to apologize to women he offended." Downie declined to answer questions about his statement.
The Post disclosed the internal inquiry involving Williams, 37, in an editor's note and news story Oct. 15.
The disclosure came five days after a Williams column on The Post's op-ed page in which he said that Anita Hill had "no credible evidence" for her allegations of sexual harassment by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, but that Hill was "prompted" to make her charges by Democratic Senate staffers. The Post's personnel inquiry had begun more than two weeks earlier, but the column angered many women in the newsroom, and several came forward to say that they had also had problems with Williams. Post editors say they decided to make a public statement after WRC-TV aired a report on the controversy.
Williams returned to the newsroom Monday after working away from the office for two weeks, and the controversy seemed to have died down. But emotions began running high again Wednesday when Williams was quoted in USA Today as saying the complaints stemmed from "my attempts at being friendly" and saying "Hi. How are you? . . . Hey, did you have a date? How was your weekend?" He also said The Post had "said basically, 'Come back to work. We're sorry this happened.' "
A letter to Downie signed by 116 newsroom employees yesterday said: "We feel Juan's unrefuted false statements to the national media continue to cause anguish and professional harm to the women involved. They have also left many people inside and outside The Post with the impression that either the complaints were not serious or were not taken seriously . . . . The Post has an obligation to set the record straight by refuting such comments."
In a letter to The Post, 11 female employees, including senior reporters and editors, dismissed the notion that "the women bringing the complaints were victims of some sort of mass hysteria perpetrated by an identification with Anita Hill." They said the recent complaints were made "before the world ever heard the name 'Anita Hill.' "
In his letter, Williams, a frequent television commentator, said that "there was no suggestion that I ever engaged in offensive physical contact, or that I attempted to abuse my position at The Post, or that I discussed pornographic materials, or called women employees at home, or the like." But, he wrote, "I do not mean to belittle the inappropriateness of the verbal conduct which I have acknowledged."
Williams expressed hope that his letter "will be seen as the first step toward restoring those relationships."
Seven women said in on-the-record interviews yesterday that Williams had repeatedly made hostile and sexually explicit comments to them, in some cases over a period of several years. All of them said they believed the comments were meant to embarrass them, not an attempt to date them, and most said that Williams persisted despite their protests.
Jo Ellen Murphy, art director of the Weekend section, said that "he was obsessed with my sex life and that's all he wanted to talk to me about . . . . I raised my voice at him and said, 'Just don't talk to me again.' "
After Williams made some "hostile remarks" in late September, Murphy said, a male co-worker reported it to an editor, which triggered the personnel inquiry.
Nancy McKeon, the magazine's features editor, said she told Williams that "you've got a little problem here" after she complained about a sexual remark he made to her. Karen Tanaka, an assistant photo editor, said Williams had been "nothing but nasty to me." Deborah Needleman, the magazine's photo editor, said that when she objected to Williams's "demeaning" comments, he said: "What's wrong with a little flirting?"
In the Oct. 15 editor's note, The Post said that Downie and other top news editors "mistakenly failed to inform" Editorial Page Editor Meg Greenfield about the inquiry before Williams's column on Thomas was published. Downie said he regretted that he did not read the column before publication.
Williams, who was told about the allegations after he wrote the column but before it was published, said at the time that his view of the Thomas nomination was "completely unconnected" to the Post inquiry. He also called the allegations "absolutely false."
Downie said in his letter yesterday that "we normally keep such newsroom disciplinary matters confidential," but that "maintaining confidentiality does not mean that the seriousness of the charges is being minimized or that discipline is not being applied when warranted."
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Saturday, October 23, 2010
Trees Eat Pollution Better Than Expected : Discovery News
Some common and dangerous air pollutants found in cities can be absorbed by plants at far greater rates than ever suspected.
The discovery has big implications for modeling how vegetation affects pollutants, as well as how particles in the atmosphere affect human health and global warming.
The finding comes from a fruitful and unusual collaboration of plant geneticists and atmospheric scientists. The plant scientists found the genes used by plants and the conditions under which they are activated to allow more volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to be absorbed, while the atmospheric scientists lugged equipment around the globe to verify that the plants were indeed sucking up pollutants in the real world.
"It's been hard to measure this in the real world," said Thomas Karl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "That's why we hauled this instrument all around the world."
Karl led the field work which involved gathering and immediately analyzing air samples in remote forests using a 200-pound, washing machine-sized mass spectrometer. He is also the lead author on a paper reporting the discovery in the Oct. 21 issue of Science Express.
"Our goal was to really be in places that were undisturbed to mimic the most natural case," said Karl. That took them to seven locations in more than six years.
Among the specific discoveries is that deciduous plants take up about a third more oxygenated VOCs -- a form of pollutant that has reacted with oxygen -- than previously thought. These oxygenated VOCs come from burning gasoline, forest and other biomass fires and are e even released by some kinds of trees.
"The trees actually clean up more than we thought," said Karl.
That's extremely useful information when trying to figure out what's happening globally. The work will be used by modelers, Karl said, working on Earth systems models which attempt to try to take into account and simulate as many processes as possible.
"This paper is very interesting to me because we want to understand the sources and the sinks" of VOC pollutants, said researcher Qi Zhang of the University of California at Davis.
Of particular interest are particles, called secondary organic aerosols (SOAs), that are created by oxygenated VOCs. These SOAs are extremely important, Zhang said, because they can serve as seeds for cloud droplets, affect the way the atmosphere holds heat and they are major cause of disease and death in urban areas.
"(SOAs) are more deadly than car accidents," Zhang told Discovery News.
Now that the plant genes for grabbing VOCs are understood, there could be a future application for them in helping to clean cities, said Chhandak Basu of the University of Northern Colorado, a co-author on the paper. He envisions a day when plants with these VOC-sucking genes line highways, or other sources of pollution, sucking the harmful compounds out of the air.
As for the unusual cross pollination that produced the discovery, it was not easy, said Brenda Thornton, of the University of Northern Colorado, who identified the plant genes at work.
"It's really difficult to get different fields working together," said Thornton. They often seemed to be speaking separate languages, she said, but they managed to bridge the gaps.
Arbor Day takes on a whole new meaning!
Eight False Things The Public “Knows” Prior To Election Day
There are a number things the public "knows [1]" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.
Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:
1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget [2] had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first reduced that to $1.29 trillion [3].2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes [4]. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt [5], which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush [6] and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts [7] to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.4) The stimulus didn't work.
Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough [8]. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office [9], the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.
Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand [10]. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts [11].6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.
Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion [12].7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme [13], is "going broke," people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.
Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.
Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on "welfare" and "foreign aid" when that is only a small part of the government's budget.This stuff really matters.
If the public votes in a new Congress because a majority of voters think this one tripled the deficit, and as a result the new people follow the policies that actually tripled the deficit, the country could go broke.
If the public votes in a new Congress that rejects the idea of helping to create demand in the economy because they think it didn't work, then the new Congress could do things that cause a depression.
If the public votes in a new Congress because they think the health care reform will increase the deficit when it is actually projected to reduce the deficit, then the new Congress could repeal health care reform and thereby make the deficit worse. And on it goes.
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Friday, October 22, 2010
I Got A Brand New Pair Of Roller Skates- You Got A Brand New Key- HP ePrint Baby
Baby walkers will never look the same again.
Nobel Prize Winner Joseph Stiglitz Calls for Jail Time for Corporate Crooks - DailyFinance
Nobel Prize Winner Joseph Stiglitz Calls for Jail Time for Corporate Crooks
http://t.co/fBGMjmQ via @AOL
Study: Dogs' Separation Anxiety May Be a Sign of Pessimism
The only time my dog's tail stops wagging is when she's asleep. She's a really happy pup, in other words — or at least I thought she was. The lead author of a new study in the journal Current Biology suggests she may have a "negative underlying emotional state."
According to researchers at the University of Bristol and University of Lincoln in the U.K., dogs that exhibit "separation-related behavior" (SRB) may be inherently pessimistic pooches. This behavior includes barking, destructive chewing and peeing and pooping when left alone. (My dog, Lola, exhibits the second one.) (More on Time.com: Why Spamming Your Friends With Cute Kitties Is Good Karma)
For the study, researchers observed 24 shelter dogs to determine which ones exhibited SRB. Next, the researchers taught the dogs that a bowl placed on one side of a room would contain food, while a bowl placed on the other side would not. After the pups had that down, the researchers placed a test bowl elsewhere in the room. Dogs that ran to that bowl expecting food were labeled "optimistic"; dogs that ignored the new bowl figuring it wouldn't contain food were labeled "pessimistic."
The authors of the study found a correlation between dogs that exhibited SRB and those that were pessimists in the bowl test. In a published interview, Mike Mendl, the study's lead author said, "Happy people are more likely to judge an ambiguous situation positively. Now it seems that this may also apply to dogs." The ambiguous situation he referred to was being left alone. Pessimistic dogs, the study says, may view this circumstance as bad and react accordingly, while optimistic dogs may not.
Back to my dog, Lola. When my husband and I first adopted her from a rescue group, we immediately bought a metal crate and began the process of "crate training," allowing her to be outside her crate only under supervision or if it was time to go for a walk to pee and poop outside. Once she got the hang of that, we left her outside her crate while we were at work. She was free to roam around our apartment all day. (More on Time.com: Photos: Animals That Can Think)
I'm not sure how much roaming she did in between all the destructive chewing. First, she destroyed her dog bed, ripping it apart and pulling out all the stuffing. Then, she chewed up a corner of our bed's box spring. Later on, she ate the wooden handles of our antique writing desk. We didn't worry too much — these were our own possessions, after all, and we wanted to give her time to adjust. Then, she chewed the windowsill. This was actually attached to our rented apartment, so it was cause for concern. But we didn't react to Lola's SRB until she took it one step further, literally chewing a hole through the hardwood floor.
After this, we decided we would keep Lola in her crate whenever no one else was home. Many people might think this is cruel, but there are a few mitigating circumstances. One, Lola loves her crate. When we're home, we leave the crate door open and she frequently saunters in there to curl up and nap, having claimed the space as her "den." Secondly, when she's in her crate, Lola is calm and sleeps almost all day. (We know this because we had a brief foray with a pet-cam during the chewing escapades.) Thirdly, we take Lola off leash in a nearby park every morning for at least an hour, so she gets lots of exercise.
But in light of this new study, might my husband and I have missed a clear sign that Lola is just a pessimistic dog? What is pessimism after all? If it's a sign of unhappiness, what accounts for the constant tail wagging? And what about our successful use of positive reinforcement? We trained Lola to shake on command by giving her a dog biscuit every time she performed. After she learned this trick, we started giving her a biscuit for shaking only occasionally. This didn't cause her to stop extending her paw for a greeting. On the contrary, every time we ask, "Can you shake, Lola?" she lifts her little white paw upward, eyes glistening in anticipation. That seems like pretty optimistic behavior to me.
More on Time.com:
Photos: Amazing Moms of the Animal Kingdom
Video: Animal Intelligence: Birds That Use Tools
Seagull Droppings in Drug Development? Why Not!
Health.com: What Does Depression Look Like?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
10 infants dead in California whooping cough outbreak
10 infants dead in California whooping cough outbreak
From Miriam Falco, CNNSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- California health officials say it's the worst outbreak of whooping cough in 60 years
- Nearly 6,000 confirmed or probable cases have been reported since January 1
- Vaccinations prevent the spread of the highly contagious bacterial disease
- "This is a preventable disease," says a health department spokesman
(CNN) -- Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, has claimed the 10th victim in California, in what health officials are calling the worst outbreak in 60 years.
Since the beginning of the year, 5,978 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of the disease have been reported in California.
All of the deaths occurred in infants under the age of 3 months, says Michael Sicilia, a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health. Nine were younger than 8 weeks old, which means they were too young to have been vaccinated against this highly contagious bacterial disease.
"This is a preventable disease," says Sicilia, because there is a vaccine for whooping cough to protect those coming in contact with infants, and thereby protect the infants.
However, some parents are choosing to not vaccinate their children. In other cases, previously vaccinated children and adults may have lost their immunity because the vaccine has worn off.
The vaccine "does not protect you for life," explains Alison Patti, a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sicilia says California Health Department epidemiologists estimate 50 percent of the children who have gotten sick were infected by their parents or caregivers.
According to the recommended vaccine schedule for infants, newborns don't get their first pertussis vaccine until they are 2 months old, leaving them vulnerable to infection until then if the people surrounding them are infected.
"That's why the real important message is -- whether it's a mom, dad, sibling, grandfather or grandmother that comes in contact with these really young babies -- all the close contacts, including the health care professionals, need to vaccinated," says Patti. It's called the "cocooning strategy," where the newborns are protected because the older people around them have been vaccinated and protected from pertussis, and therefore won't pass it on to little babies.
Pertussis, or whooping cough, is a highly contagious disease caused by bacteria that can lead to severe upper respiratory infections. The bacteria is spread in tiny droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
Initial symptoms are very similar to a cold, but a week or two later, a violent cough develops.
"If you've ever seen a child with pertussis, you won't forget it" -- that's how the American Academy of Pediatrics explains what whooping cough is on its website. The academy says a child with the disease coughs so hard and so often "until the air is gone from his/her lungs and he/she is forced to inhale with the loud 'whooping' sound that gives the disease its nickname."
The cough can last for weeks and children can cough so hard and rapidly,that blood vessels can burst and they have difficulty eating, drinking and breathing. According to the CDC, "about 1 in 5 infants with pertussis get pneumonia, and about 1 in 100 will have convulsions. In rare cases (1 in 100), pertussis can be deadly, especially in infants."
Parents and doctors can often miss the initial symptoms of pertussis in the youngest patients because they often do not have the characteristic cough with a "whoop" says Patti.
According to the National Institutes of Health, "the whoop noise is rare in patients under 6 months and in adults."
That's why parents need to be alert to symptoms in themselves as well as their children, says Patti. If there's a prolonged pause in breathing or they have trouble breathing, that's an important sign and parents should seek medical attention immediately, she explains.
"It's important to go to the doctor early on," says Patti because, "antibiotics don't help you later."
Adults usually don't have the "whoop" cough, so they may not think they have pertussis. Patti recommends if someone has a cough that doesn't go away, they should get tested for pertussis.
Sicilia points out that the pertussis vaccine isn't perfect and its protection wanes after about five years.
Health officials are urging everyone who hasn't had a pertussis vaccine in the past five years or -- doesn't remember if they had one -- to get the shot.
Jenny McCarthy should be proud.....
HDDs' Burgeoning Capacities: Aspiring To Cut Off SSDs At The Knees - Brian's Brain | Blog on EDN
Some industry observers, such as yours truly, believe that HDD (hard disk drive) capacities have already overshot the vast majority of computer users’ storage needs. As such, other factors beyond the historically dominant metrics of absolute capacity and cost/bit will gain in prominence as selection criteria. And those other factors, such as random access performance, power consumption, ruggedness, reliability, and operating noise, specifically favor the flash memory-based SSD (solid-state storage) apparent successor.
Mine is not, I admit, a universally held opinion within the analyst ranks. And for those who favor the continued dominance of capacity-related decision factors, the HDD suppliers (many of which, I’ll note, have recently also become SSD vendors) are providing plenty of ammo to bolster their stances. Consider, for example, some cost/bit promotional examples I collected just yesterday:
- A Samsung 3.5″ 1 TByte HDD for $49.99, along with a Western Digital 2 TByte model for $99.99 (both $0.05/GByte), and
- A Toshiba 2.5″ 500 GByte HDD for $49.99 ($0.10/GByte), all in contrast to
- A Corsair 2.5″ 32 GByte SSD for $58.99 ($1.85/GByte)
Now, from an absolute capacity standpoint, consider the industry news of just the past few days. Yesterday, for example, Western Digital unveiled a 3 Tbyte HDD in a 3.5″ ‘bare’ configuration ($239, quantity 1), following up on a USB3-interface external storage variant ($249.99, quantity 1) unveiled earlier this month. At first glance, WD’s announcement might seem to be a copy-cat; after all, I wrote up Seagate’s 3 Tbyte release back in early July (a product which is already down to $199.99 or less). However, as Anand also noticed and noted in his WD coverage, Seagate’s drive was a five-platter monster (I’m reminded of Hitachi’s four-platter 1 Tbyte premier in early 2007). Conversely, WD’s focus was on power consumption, not to mention cost reduction, so it was willing to delay its entré until it could shoehorn the requisite capacity into an industry-leading four-platter configuration.
Then there’s Hitachi, who also chose October 5 to launch a new product, this a 750 GByte 2.5″ HDD. Again, at first glance you might wonder what the big deal is; Western Digital launched a 1 TByte 2.5″ HDD more than a year ago, after all, and Seagate started shipping a 1.5 TByte portable external drive a month ago. But WD’s drive is a three-platter, 12 mm design (translation: thicker than normal, thereby unable to fit in some systems), and Seagate’s drive is an even more bloated four-platter arrangement. Hitachi’s $129.99 drive matches Seagate’s per-platter capacity but, since it’s a two-platter approach, it fits into a conventional 9.5mm chassis. And it comes in both 5,400 and (beginning in the first quarter of next year) 7,200 RPM variants. Effective drive capacity tends to decrease as rotational speeds increase, thereby making Hitachi’s high-speed product plans particularly notable from an areal density standpoint.
Regarding Seagate’s 3 TByte external drive, I wrote back in early July:
This drive has migrated from the traditional 512 byte sector size to the newer 4 Kbyte sector arrangement with resultant stronger ECC, as a means of more effectively mitigating the degrading effects of raw error rates. Unfortunately, the 4 Kbyte sector size is at minimum performance- and capacity-inefficient, and worst-case completely incompatible, with legacy operating systems when the drive is directly accessed by them. By putting an intelligent USB- or FireWire-to-SATA controller in-between the drive and system, however, such incompatibilities can invisibly be worked around by it.
An intermediary approach can eliminate some, but unfortunately not all, O/S cognizance problems. A bit over a year ago, I mentioned in a blog post that I was in search of 120 GByte HDDs because of capacity-limiting 28-bit-maximum logical block addressing support in some of my computers. Well, folks, at 3 TBytes we’re once again bumping up against legacy LBA issues driven by 32-bit-max access limitations. Specifically, the full capacity of the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex drive (beyond ~2.1 Tbytes) can only be harnessed by systems that fully support 48-bit LBA; hardware, BIOS (specifically EFI), drivers, and one of the following operating systems:
- A 64-bit variant of Windows Vista or Windows 7 (including Windows Server variants derived from them)
- Mac OS 10.6 ‘Snow Leopard’, or
- A ‘modified’ Linux distribution
Unfortunately, as WD’s 3 TByte HDD system specifications suggest, I wasn’t underestimating the challenge of utilizing such an advanced drive. The 4 KByte sector size approach that I was speaking of is known as the Advanced Format; both the WD 3.5″ and Hitachi 2.5″ drives mentioned in this writeup employ it. And to get around at least some of the native system support shortcomings, WD is including an AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface)-compliant HBA (Host Bus Adapter) with the drive.
This board bundling is conceptually no different than Maxtor (now owned by Seagate) did when it was advocating ATA/133 drives in the absence of native chipset support for that particular proprietary PATA speed, for example, or what some early SATA drive suppliers did until native chipset support for the serial storage interface reached critical mass. Nonetheless, it’s a cost-burdening extra step that I’m sure WD will be happy to dispense with as soon as possible.
Super size me....
Technology Review: A Cell-Phone Network without a License
A trial cell-phone network in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, gets by without something every other wireless carrier needs: its own chunk of the airwaves. Instead, xG Technology, which made the network, uses base stations and handsets of its own design that steer signals through the unrestricted 900-megahertz band used by cordless phones and other short-range devices.
It's a technique called "cognitive" radio, and it has the potential to make efficient use of an increasingly limited resource: the wireless spectrum. By demonstrating the first cellular network that uses the technique, xG hopes to show that it could help wireless carriers facing growing demand but a relatively fixed supply of spectrum.
Its cognitive radios are built into both the base stations of the trial network, dubbed xMax, and handsets made for it. Every radio scans for clear spectrum 33 times a second. If another signal is detected, the handset and base station retune to avoid the other signal, keeping the connection alive. Each of the six base stations in xG's network can serve devices in a 2.5-mile radius, comparable to an average cell-phone tower.
"In Fort Lauderdale, our network covers an urban area with around 110,000 people, and so we're seeing wireless security cameras, baby monitors, and cordless phones all using that band," says Rick Rotondo, a vice president with xG, which is headquartered in Sarasota, Florida. "Because our radios are so agile, though, we can deliver the experience of a licensed cellular network in that unlicensed band."
While most radios can only use frequencies that are completely clear, xG's radios can unlock more free space by analyzing channels whose use varies over time, Rotondo says. Signals can then be inserted in between bursts of activity from a device using that channel.
"Where a more conventional radio would see a wall of signals, we are able to put our packets in between them and move around between those gaps," he explains. "Using that method, we find that even in an urban area, the 900-megahertz band is really only around 15 percent occupied at any time."
The company recently won a contract to install an xMax network to cover a large chunk of the U.S. Army's Fort Bliss training base in New Mexico. "They're interested in the possibility of one day being able to create cellular networks for use on their bases for everything we use cell networks for: voice, texting, e-mail, and data access," Rotondo says, "or rapidly deploying a version on the battlefield."
Craig Mathias, an analyst with the Farpoint Group, which specializes in the wireless industry, has inspected the Fort Lauderdale network. "It really is just like using a regular cellular system, even though the technology is so different," he says.
The potential for cognitive radio to make better use of spectrum has motivated many companies and academic labs to work on the technology in recent years, says Mathias. "The real advance of xG's system is that it can be deployed in exactly the same way as a conventional cell-phone network," he says. But exactly how xG will bring the technology to market is unclear. "One option may be for a carrier to use this in an area or market where they don't have spectrum, or to serve rural areas without coverage."
Rotondo says that xG wants to offer its approach as a complement to existing networks. "We are interested in having devices able to dynamically access different areas of spectrum--both licensed and unlicensed," he says. Wireless carriers like AT&T are turning to Wi-Fi hot spots to offload some of the load on their licensed spectrum, he points out. Being able to have devices switch to the 900-megahertz band at times of high load could be an attractive option, because it can perform much more like a cell network. The radios developed by xG could be built into commercial phone handsets, says Rotondo.
Alternatively, the system could augment emerging networks that operate in the unlicensed "white spaces" recently freed up by the end of analog TV broadcasts, Rotondo says. A recent study by University of California-Berkeley academics revealed how the density of TV stations in metropolitan areas could reduce the availability of white spaces in such areas.
Copyright Technology Review 2010.
Hello... Who is calling, please?
From Obama, the Tax Cut Nobody Heard Of
HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — What if a president cut Americans’ income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?
It is not a rhetorical question. At Pig Pickin’ and Politickin’, a barbecue-fed rally organized here last week by a Republican women’s club, a half-dozen guests were asked by a reporter what had happened to their taxes since President Obama took office.
“Federal and state have both gone up,” said Bob Paratore, 59, from nearby Charlotte, echoing the comments of others.
After further prodding — including a reminder that a provision of the stimulus bill had cut taxes for 95 percent of working families by changing withholding rates — Mr. Paratore’s memory was jogged.
“You’re right, you’re right,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you: it was so subtle that personally, I didn’t notice it.”
Few people apparently did.
In a troubling sign for Democrats as they head into the midterm elections, their signature tax cut of the past two years, which decreased income taxes by up to $400 a year for individuals and $800 for married couples, has gone largely unnoticed.
In a New York Times/CBS News Poll last month, fewer than one in 10 respondents knew that the Obama administration had lowered taxes for most Americans. Half of those polled said they thought that their taxes had stayed the same, a third thought that their taxes had gone up, and about a tenth said they did not know. As Thom Tillis, a Republican state representative, put it as the dinner wound down here, “This was the tax cut that fell in the woods — nobody heard it.”
Actually, the tax cut was, by design, hard to notice. Faced with evidence that people were more likely to save than spend the tax rebate checks they received during the Bush administration, the Obama administration decided to take a different tack: it arranged for less tax money to be withheld from people’s paychecks.
They reasoned that people would be more likely to spend a small, recurring extra bit of money that they might not even notice, and that the quicker the money was spent, the faster it would cycle through the economy.
Economists are still measuring how stimulative the tax cut was. But the hard-to-notice part has succeeded wildly. In a recent interview, President Obama said that structuring the tax cuts so that a little more money showed up regularly in people’s paychecks “was the right thing to do economically, but politically it meant that nobody knew that they were getting a tax cut.”
“And in fact what ended up happening was six months into it, or nine months into it,” the president said, “people had thought we had raised their taxes instead of cutting their taxes.”
There are plenty of explanations as to why many taxpayers did not feel richer when the cuts kicked in, giving typical families an extra $65 a month. Some people were making less money to begin with, as businesses cut back. Others saw their take-home pay shrink as the amounts deducted for health insurance rose.
And taxpayers in more than 30 states saw their state taxes rise, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
That is what happened here in North Carolina. The Treasury Department estimated that the federal tax cut would put $1.7 billion back in the hands of North Carolina taxpayers this year. Last year, though, North Carolina, facing a large budget shortfall, raised a variety of state taxes by roughly a billion dollars.
“It was a wash,” said Mr. Tillis, the state representative.
The guests at the Pig Pickin’ rally here could rattle off the names of the House speaker and the Senate majority leader with ease, if with disdain, and were up on many of the political controversies of the day. They studied the campaign fliers at their tables, and pocketed the 1.5-ounce jars of strawberry preserves with special labels urging them to vote for Judge Bill Constangy for Superior Court (“Preserving Justice,” the labels read).
Many volunteered that they thought the Bush tax cuts should be extended for all taxpayers, even for the wealthy ones whom Mr. Obama would like to exclude. But few had heard that there had also been Obama tax cuts — which will also expire next year unless extended, but have generated far less public debate.
Bob Deaton, 73, who wore a “Fair Tax” baseball cap, was surprised to hear that there were tax cuts in the $787 billion stimulus bill, which was wildly unpopular with many at the rally even though roughly a third of it was in the form of tax cuts.
“Tax cuts?” he asked. “Where were the tax cuts?”
Ron Julian, 50, a Huntersville town commissioner, said he thought his taxes had gone up under Mr. Obama. And Mr. Paratore, a former Hearst executive, said he might have noticed the tax cuts if his paycheck had jumped more in the weeks before he retired last year: “I couldn’t even tell you what it was, to be honest with you.”
The Obama administration wants to extend the little-noticed tax cut next year. Jason Furman, the deputy director of the National Economic Council, said the administration still believes that changing the withholdings was a more effective form of stimulus than sending out rebate checks would have been.
“In retrospect, we think that judgment was right,” he said. “It’s harder to predict what’s good for politics. Ultimately, the best thing for politics is going to be helping the economy.”
But at least one prominent economist is questioning whether the method really was more effective. Joel B. Slemrod, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, analyzed consumer surveys after the last rebate checks were sent out in 2008 by the Bush administration, and after this tax cut, called Making Work Pay, went into effect under the Obama administration.
After the 2008 rebates, he found that about a quarter of the households surveyed said they would use the money primarily to increase their spending. After the Obama tax cut took effect, he said, only 13 percent said they would use the money primarily to increase their spending. The Obama administration believes that people did spend the money, and cites analyses calling the cut one of the more effective forms of stimulus.
Mr. Slemrod said it was not unheard of for voters to miss tax cuts. Just a few years after a 1986 overhaul of the tax system made significant cuts to most people’s taxes, he said, a survey asked people what had happened to their taxes. “Most people didn’t answer that they went down,” he said.
Peter Baker contributed reporting from Washington.
In case you didn't know....
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Feds probing possible criminal violations in home foreclosure crisis
Feds probing possible criminal violations in home foreclosure crisis
By Terry Frieden, CNN Justice Department ProducerSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- A federal task force is investigating potential fraud in the foreclosure crisis
- The task force will meet Wednesday, and a White House briefing is likely afterwards
RELATED TOPICSWashington (CNN) -- Federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday the probe of potential fraud by financial firms in the foreclosure crisis includes an investigation into possible criminal violations of federal laws.
Two sources familiar with the federal Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force indicated the multi-agency effort by investigators in the Justice, Treasury and Housing departments would determine whether prosecutors would ultimately pursue criminal or civil penalties -- or both.
The task force has scheduled a meeting for Wednesday at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Upon conclusion, a briefing is likely at the White House, officials said.
"The administration's Federal Housing Administration and Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force have undertaken their own regulatory and enforcement investigation into the foreclosure process," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed Tuesday. "We remain committed to holding accountable any bank that has violated the law," he said.
Growing concern over flawed paperwork by banks and other lenders in foreclosure proceedings has prompted growing anger and confusion in the housing market. Some banks temporarily froze foreclosures, but are now indicating plans to resume seizing homes after reviewing new paperwork.
Morals Without God?
Monday, October 18, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The Buzz: It may soon be time to worry about the weak dollar - Oct. 14, 2010
Is the dollar toast?
By Paul R. La Monica, editor at largeOctober 14, 2010: 12:47 PM ETNEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In Gary Shteyngart's brilliant new novel "Super Sad Love Story," he envisions a not-so distant nightmarish future for the United States where the dollar has essentially no value and China gets tired of backing our worthless debt.
Fortunately, it's just a satire. Or is it?
The dollar has sunk like a stone in recent weeks. With the euro now at $1.41, nobody's seriously talking about parity any more. There are growing concerns about the trade deficit in the United States and the possibility of trade and currency wars -- particularly with China.
And with the Federal Reserve strongly hinting that a new round of bond buying -- the so-called quantitative easing policy -- is likely to be announced at its next meeting in early November, long-term bond yields could continue to sink.
That may put pressure on the dollar and make our nation's biggest creditors, i.e. China and Japan, increasingly wary of holding debt that offers such little in the way of return.
So is it time to worry yet about the anemic dollar? Investors in stocks are strongly saying no. As the chart at the top of this column shows, the market has tended to move higher even as the dollar weakens against a basket of major currencies, which includes the euro and the yen.
The bet is that the weak dollar is good news for big multinational firms like IBM (IBM, Fortune 500), Coca-Cola (KO, Fortune 500) and McDonald's (MCD, Fortune 500). It should lead to increased demand for U.S.-made goods and services abroad -- particularly in hot emerging markets like China and India.
But how long can that last?
Several experts said the dollar does have some room to fall further before it becomes a problem. But not that much room.
"We're not in a danger zone yet. However, the dollar is rapidly depreciating so the time to worry could come up more quickly than people realize," said Andrew Busch, global currency and public policy strategist with BMO Capital Markets in Chicago.
Busch said something has to give soon though. If bond yields continue to fall and the price of gold keeps hitting new record highs, then that's troubling for the dollar.
Fred Fraenkel, vice chairman with Beacon Trust Company, an investment firm in Summit, N.J., agreed that the time may be coming where the sluggish greenback does more harm than good for the economy and markets.
"Right now, the positive impact the weak dollar has had on exports and multinational earnings has so far overwhelmed the impact of people in the financial world looking for a different place to invest their reserves," he said.
"But when you degrade your currency over a long enough period of time, it's a negative for your standing in the world and reserve currency status. That's the big problem that can eventually come back to haunt you," Fraenkel added.
Degrade is a strong word. It implies that there is a conscious effort to make the dollar weak. And in some respects, that is what's happening.
The Fed is clearly making the decision that it's willing to let the dollar fall a bit more because it thinks a new round of QE could help get the economy back on firmer footing in the short term.
The big concern though is that the Fed may be going too far. If the dollar gets so weak that the likes of China and Japan pull out of the U.S. debt market and other nations find that there's no incentive to invest here, then Shteyngart's fiction could become reality.
"The dollar had been rallying earlier on a flight to perceived safety," said Anthony Welch, co-manager of The Currency Strategies Fund, a mutual fund specializing in foreign exchange investments in Sarasota, Fla. "Now the behavior of the dollar is a function of our economic policies, which people can argue are not really that sound."
The dollar is still about 13% above its all-time low against the euro from two years ago. So it's definitely not panic time yet. But Welch said the Fed can't get too carried away or the dollar could fall to new lows.
"We've been here before. But the dollar needs to stabilize around current levels. If it doesn't, there's cause for worry," he said. "I would imagine the Fed doesn't want the dollar to disintegrate and go too low. I hope that's the case."
- The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney.com, and Abbott Laboratories, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.
Buy Gold....
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Dear 20something: Your future
Dear 22 Year Old: Concerning your Future
Dear 22 year old:
Now that you are about to graduate from college some Baby boomer ought to level with you about your fiscal future. Maybe you’ve heard about it already in the news (though few of you ever listen to “the news”). Here it is straight up: your economic future isn’t as rosy as we hoped, but you will survive.
In the next 40 years, unless we do something drastic, our country will spend way more than the whole GDP. This is impossible to sustain, so something has to change. Maybe you will understand the dilemma of our nation though, since you are probably graduating with about $40,000 worth of school debt and your first job will bring you less than that a year—you will personally reach the 100%-of-GDP situation long before the nation gets there. Both the country and you personally have to face the music. But don’t despair, you are up to it—and so are the Boomers, if you lead us. Action hasn’t been desperately required yet, so both parties are dilly-dallying. Once action is demanded I’m confident we Americans will bite the bullet and do the hard thing. Both of our generations will feel that crunch. But it won’t destroy us—we’ll survive.
So, what can you expect in the future? It is hard stuff, but not impossible. Though no politician will tell you this, I’ll be truthful—you can expect both reduced government services and higher taxes. Just one of these actions won’t solve our economic problems, though cutting-before-raising is preferable to many of us. Here’s is my opinions on the economic future you face in the coming decades while Boomers climb into the passenger seats and you take over the steering wheel of this country:
EXPECT REDUCED GOVERNMENT SERVICES
1. You probably won’t collect Social Security until you are 70.
The numbers just won’t crunch. Forget retiring at 67. Count on age 70, or even later. Luckily, you will have more than 20 years to live when you reach 70, so you will be retired longer than any generation before you—even if you wait until 70. Though physical workers in your generation who crawl under houses or dig with shovels will retire at 70 many professional workers (like ministers) will copy Wilbur Williams and work right until they are 80.
2. You won’t to get Social Security unless you stop working
Boomers were generous to the “greatest generation” before them and built all kinds of giveaways into the system. We let them collect their Social Security even if they kept on working. You won’t be able to do that…and you probably ought to take away that benefit away from boomers now. When you get in charge, I suspect you won’t let people collect a penny from Social Security until they actually quit hogging their job—you’ll want them to leave that job opening it up to others, for instance you. The sooner you make this change the better—it is a boondoggle we could afford for the Boomer’s parents—but you can’t afford it for us Boomers.
3. Your Social Security will become “needs-based.”
Right now millionaires can collect Social Security. In 2058 when you are 70, if you retire with a handsome savings account that produces $100,000 a year interest, I bet you won’t be able to collect Social Security on top of that like people do now. Social Security won’t be a retirement plan—it will be a safety net by then. The sooner you make this change the faster the country will balance the books.
4. Government welfare will be greatly reduced.
The generation before us and the Boomers wanted government to do nice things for people—so we made “helicopter government” which you understand because your parents still pay your cell phone bill. The country decided to pay for the education of all the “Greatest Generation” when they came home from the war through the expensive “G I Bill”—not loans, mind you, but outright payments. Then we decided to help all kids go to college by offering grants and then later (by your time) interest-free loans until the graduation payback time occurs. My generation offered help for single mothers to buy food for their children—we thought that was kind. We decided to help people who lose their jobs by offering unemployment checks until they got back on their feet. Your government probably won’t be so generous. (We weren’t really that generous actually, because we borrowed most of the money we gave away and you’ll be paying that off—your inherited generosity?) To be practical, you probably shouldn’t expect government subsidized educational loans for your own kids like your parents had for you. You might have to be your own kids’ bank when they need $40,000 for college like you did (they’ll need more). This means you have to get out of debt yourself as fast as you can, then save like crazy so you have some money by the time your own kids go to college. (Or, home-college them.)
5. Health care rationing is coming.
Right now we think old people are entitled to health care no matter what it costs. In the future it will be technologically possible to keep your mom alive for years so long as we are willing to fork out a million dollars a year. In your world Medicare and Medicaid won’t be able to afford million dollar heart transplants for 85 year olds. This will be hard to swallow for us pro-life Christians, but its coming. You might face it with your own parents. The only folk who will be able to add another six months to their life for a million dollars will be people who have a million dollars of their own money to pay for it.
6. Your nation won’t be the world’s military.
Your nation won’t be able to afford so many periodic middle east wars like those in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. Even these “little wars” will just cost too many Billions of dollars for your nation. Instead you’ll be paying back the money we borrowed for the Boomer wars instead. You might even end the V.A. and shelve the notion that once someone serves in the military they are entitled to free health care the rest of their lives.
BUT YOU SHOULD ALSO EXPECT TO PAY HIGHER TAXES
I’m a fiscal conservative so I think we should cut first then raise taxes. But either way we won’t be able to pay down the national debt by cuts alone. Even all the above cuts in government won’t make your nation solvent. Sorry, we just owe too much. You will have to make all these cuts in government services just to get the budget nearer to balancing—to actually balance the budget and pay down the debt you will have to pay higher taxes too… like these:
1. Closing the welfare-by-deduction loopholes.
One of the ways the government gives welfare to people is exempting some of their income from taxes. It isn’t a direct payment but it is a government gift just the same. I suspect one of the ways your generation will “raise taxes” is close some of these deductions and exemptions. To start with you’ll probably shut down the government subsidy for ministers by eliminating the tax-free status of a ministers housing allowance. Ministers don’t pay any income tax on their housing or housing allowance. When I explain that to your generation you always think it is wrong so I suspect you will close up that loophole in the tax system. It will cost us ministers several thousand dollars a year but you say you’re going to make this change “to equalize things with laity.” You also think a minister living in a parsonage for free ought to pay income taxes on the value of that parsonage—so, even though it affects you personally, I suspect you close this loophole…alone with all kinds of other deductions… like tax-free insurance from an employer, deductions for interest on mortgages, and about a hundred thousand other deductions and exemptions for individuals and business. Many of you favor something like a “flat tax” that only exempts the bottom $20,000 of income… (we’ll see if you keep that opinionwhen you earn more than $20,000 ;-)
2. Higher Social Security taxes.
Right now we Boomers (with our employers) pay 12.4% of wages as Social Security taxes—it is “taken out of our paychecks.” To finish fixing Social Security you can expect these taxes to go up to 14.2% of your wages—half paid by you and the other half by your employer. If you are self-employed (like most ministers) expect your bill to rise to 17%
3. Higher Medicare taxes.
While there is more attention paid to the “Social Security crisis” actually Medicare is closer to meltdown than Social Security. We Boomers now pay (on top of our Social Security taxes) an additional 2.9% of wages as Medicare taxes. You can expect to pay as much as 5% of your wages in the future—even after you’ve made all the cuts above.
4. You will probably have to pay income taxes on your inheritance
When the Boomers die they’ll leave Trillions of dollars to your generation. Boomers allowed themselves to receive their own inheritances as tax-free income (up to a million dollars or so). Though Boomers never “earned” this money we allowed ourselves to inherit our first million without paying any taxes on it. (Our rationale was that our parents already paid taxes on it when they earned it and thus we were entitled to it tax-free.) You probably won’t have that advantage. When we boomers die off and leave you whatever money we have left, you’ll probably expect everyone to pay income taxes on their inheritance just like they earned it from work.
5. You’ll have to pay income tax on all your Social Security when you retire.
Right now couples who earn less that $44,000 get a free ride on paying taxes for most of their Social Security income—you will probably close that gate. In fact, you will probably enact this early so Boomers have to pay taxes on their Social Security income too—after all we will be a large cohort in retirement so taxing us will be wise.
6. You can expect a national sales tax.
Even all the cuts and taxes above won’t get your country completely out of the hole—if you really are serious about balancing the budget and paying down the national debt you’ll probably have to also enact a VAT—a Value Added Tax. Your “National Sales Tax” would be added to products at each stage of production so that you won’t be able to buy a shirt for your toddler at Wal-Mart for five bucks any more—it will cost $7 including the VAT. You may say, “So what—that’s only two dollars.” But, since your real wages will not rise like ours did, you won’t be able to buy as many shirts for your toddler—or anything else. You aren’t headed for abject poverty, but you will be able to buy fewer shirts for your toddler and fewer new cars if you enact a VAT. Luckily, your generation already likes to buy things at Goodwill so you might consider keeping that habit in the future—especially if you enact a VAT.
-------------------
Sorry about all this… but some boomer had to tell you the truth. Unless there is some phenomenal change in the world, like figuring out how run our cars on water, heat our homes with air, or we invent a Fusion-in-a-Coke-can machine, your future appears to be one of less government services and higher taxes at the same time. That is, if you really want to “fix the fiscal problem.” Of course, you could be like your parents and cut taxes to yourself, and raise government benefits and borrow the difference—but that won’t work long because eventually nobody will eventually lend to your nation and everything will collapse in one great economic Alt Ctrl Del.
But I think you’re up to it. I have taught your generation for a few decades and I believe you can handle this challenge. You have already rejected the notion of being rich. You don’t think you are entitled to a mansion—in fact giant houses turn your stomach. You aren’t impressed with multi-million dollar mega-churches. You live simply, serve locally, and recycle. While you have been pampered and helicopter parented like no generation before you, at the same time you seem content to live in a modest apartment, drive a used car, and work part time “until something better turns up.” I’ve gotten to know scores of you over the years and most of you expect things in your future to be far worse than what I described above. Many of you think “I’ll never collect a penny from Social Security” and “I’ll never get out of debt until maybe I’m 60 or so.” So, the picture I just painted above might actually be encouraging to your generation, given your own economic bleakness!
All this won’t to happen right away because the cheerful Boomers (after all, we invented the have-a-good-day smiley face) will pretend this crisis will go away if we all just spend more money “to get the economy moving again.” But that won’t work in the long run. Our generations together have to figure out how to do two things that are repugnant to both of us—reduce government services and increase taxes. Just like you 20somethings will have to live on less to pay off your $40,000 college debt, we as a nation have to do the same thing to do penance for our past fiscal profligacy. But you are up to it! And so are we if you lead us. Don’t expect boomers to lead on this issue. Boomer rhetoric says all the same things but in actuality boomers want the opposite—greater government service (to us, at least) and lower taxes. You’ll have to lead the country to do the opposite—reduce service, increase taxes and get out of debt. We boomers will eventually be willing to take some of these cuts ourselves as we admire your own example of modest living and reduced income. We can do this together. And since many of these cuts will affect Boomers in our old age—you may have to count on your mom or dad moving in with you, or leaving your job to take care of your dad when he has Alzheimer’s because your government might not be able to pay their thousand-dollar-a-week nursing home bill though Medicaid.
But we can do this, even though its hard. All this is actually not that much harder than what you’ll be doing personally in the next five years. You might be a youth pastor earning $30,000 a year while paying off a $40,000 school debt. This can be your practice session for what the nation has to do—live on less and pay more. Boomers will follow you if you step up and lead. We can do this together.
I’m not writing about Republicans, Democrats or the Tea Party this week. No matter who we elect we will have to do these things. Everyone will be a fiscal conservative in the future. Parties aren’t the issue, money is. In Grant County, Indiana where I live, all the Tea Party candidates are running as Democrats!). This column is not so much about political parties as about fiscally conservative policies.
What I’m asking this week is this: What are the other “cuts” in government we need to make in the future—especially cuts in the benefits we personally receive (anyone can cut others’ benefits). And what other loopholes need shut that increases revenues for government so we can work our way out of debt—or at least reduce the debt and balance the budget?
So, what do you think?
The discussion of this column is on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=161502633
Keith Drury October 12, 2010
CREDITS: I am indebted to several people for the fiscal data on which this column is based. First to Michael Kinsley’s article The Least We Can Do in The Atlantic, October 2010 and second to The Global Budget Race, by Douglas Besharov & Douglas Call in The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn, 2010 (and to Steve Lennox for the gift subscription to the WQ;-)
All my nieces and nephews need to read this!
The discussion of this column is on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=161502633
Keith Drury October 12, 2010
CREDITS: I am indebted to several people for the fiscal data on which this column is based. First to Michael Kinsley’s article The Least We Can Do in The Atlantic, October 2010 and second to The Global Budget Race, by Douglas Besharov & Douglas Call in The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn, 2010 (and to Steve Lennox for the gift subscription to the WQ;-)
