This is a picture I dare not blow up any further (pun intended) - it is of "Fat Man", the plutonium based bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. And it is a little knowledge of the Manhattan Project and Nobel Prize winning scientist Glenn Seaborg that is needed to understand what is "in between the lines" of the deal recently cut with Iran.
According to nonuclear.se, Plutonium is a man-made nuclear explosive; it is created inside all nuclear reactors when uranium is bombarded with neutrons. Some uranium atoms can absorb a neutron without fissioning; when that happens, they are transmuted into plutonium atoms. Plutonium has become the nuclear explosive of choice in the world’s nuclear arsenals. Therefore, the goal of this deal had to be to stop Iran from developing a Plutonium based nuclear arsenal - Iran still could tell its hard-liners that they can produce a bomb. The P5+1 (The permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany) gets to be able to tell its hard-liners that Iran will not be able to produce Plutonium based bombs, explaining why this is so important in private.
No deal is perfect. But this deal allows both sides to save face. If anyone is worried about what will happen to Israel, they shouldn't be - the history of the US and the USSR shows how Mutual Assured Destruction helped prevent World War 3. (Or, I should say, that this war was fought via proxies and with money - a much safer form of warfare for all sides.) The Iranians may be crazy, but they are not insane. The last thing they want to do is provoke the Israelis into exploding 1 of their estimated 100-200 warheads over Tehran.
If one looks at the size of a ball that represents the amount of fissile Plutonium needed for a bomb, it's easy to see that one could easily transport that much material anywhere on the globe. Years ago, my high school had some non weapons grade "Yellowcake" (Uranium) - and I expect that 64 Kilos of the stuff would be much larger than the ball above. In short, Iran has signed off on a deal which prevents its fissile material from being used by non-state operatives. (That means: No Uranium or Plutonium in the hands of Hamas or Hezbollah.)
I'm not sure if Iran will live up to the letter of this deal. But I expect that there will be many people interested in keeping everyone honest - and I'd bet that the Iranians are serious, if only because they prefer not to ignite an arms race between it, the Saudis and Egypt....
I am not a fan of how Jorge Ramos acted at Trump's question and answer session. Would Ramos have treated the current president this way? Probably not. However, Trump is not the president yet, and he has to subject himself to the full onslaught of the press - some of which are actively (but covertly) agitating to end his run for the presidency.
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Since I am not a Spanish speaker, I do not watch Univision. I am told that Ramos has the reputation in the Spanish speaking communities that Walter Cronkite had in mine a generation or two ago. With this being said, I had to wonder - why was he cutting in front of other journalists to pose his questions to Trump? Why couldn't he wait his turn, like other journalists there?
There was only one easy to come up with answer to these questions - Trump's campaign people may have been avoiding Ramos's request for an interview with Trump, so that he could explain his positions on immigration to Ramos in detail. Trump is a bombastic demagogue whose message is more of style than of substance. He attracts angry old white men who feel that their nation has been ruined by newcomers. Yet, reality proves Trump otherwise. First world nations that actively accept immigrants usually outperform their peers.
Ramos is not innocent here. From what I understand, he has had a bug up his ass in regard to the issue of immigration for a while. The idea that a nation has a right to reject (and send home) uninvited, illegal immigrants may be abhorrent to him - which is the opposite of where Trump stands. But the people who watch Ramos' news reports have much to benefit from uncontrolled borders. So he can not have an objective viewpoint on this issue.
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What is really happening here? The average Trump Supporter has no clue about the real nature of illegal immigration. Mexican immigration to the USA (illegal and legal) has fallen, now that there are greater legal opportunities to provide well for their families. Mexico is also helping the USA keep other foreigners from crossing the border to illegally work here. (Many of these people are illegally being denied asylum here because of the civil unrest in their home countries. Of course, the combined issue of the narcotics trade, illegal immigration, and American demand for both illegal drugs and workers never gets mentioned for the cause of their countries' unrest.) But the real problem is that the vast number of illegal immigrants simply overstay their visas and absorbed into the cash economy.
Trump supporters actually believe that a 40 foot wall and mandatory deportations for all illegal immigrants will keep unwanted foreigners out of the USA and keep them from taking jobs from Americans. This is complete B.S.! But what would happen if we were to develop a realistic plan to deal with the illegal immigrants already here? What would it look like?
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One of the complaints that many "conservatives" have with allowing the illegals to stay here is that they jump in the line for citizenship, and that this benefits the "liberals". This is not as true as it sounds, as most illegals prefer to stay out of sight of the government, and choose to avoid things like voting fraud - simply to keep as low a social profile as possible and avoid detection from the INS.
So I pose the question: "Why not give these people only 'American National' status, but not ever let the illegal immigrants gain full American citizenship?" The nationals would have the following rights:
- The right to work anywhere in the USA (and pay taxes)
- Eligible for a US Passport (in the same way as residents of American Samoa and Swains Island).
But they would have the following restrictions:
- No right to vote or hold public office.
- (In this case) permanently ineligible for American citizenship.
This way, they could not affect American voting patterns, nor do they gain much from jumping ahead of the immigration queue. But by being legal participants in the labor market, they can actively negotiate higher market rate prices for their labor, pushing labor prices up, not down as they currently are doing....
What about their children, you may ask? To me, this is a simple question. If the child came over the border before the age of consent, they could immediately become American Nationals. But after serving in the military or performing other appropriate community service, they could apply for citizenship at the age of consent.
Doesn't this reward people for breaking our laws?
Sadly, our economy has already done that - these people have often created their own jobs in the cash economy, and we have already been rewarded by lower priced goods and services they provided us for our cash.
My question is: "Why don't we bring their labor efforts into the open where we can tax their income?" Conservative types have no answer for this. They think that an Albanian operating a food cart on 6th Avenue in NYC is taking work away from Americans. But what kind of native born American is willing to do this kind of work? We already know that much of the back breaking harvest time farm work is done by immigrants (legal and illegal). Would we see a rush of Americans to do this back breaking labor? I doubt it!
What will likely happen if we keep these immigrants in an "illegal" status?
As I see it, they will lose respect for more of our laws over time, and flow into the "illegal" economies - drugs, gambling, prostitution, etc. - where their experience of working in the cash economy is an asset instead of being a liability. Can we afford to risk this? I doubt it.
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So I have a question - when will the United States become serious in what needs to be done in regard to illegal immigration? Hopefully, it will be sooner instead of later....
I don't often put a advocacy group's graphic on my page without some editing. But I was a little lazy today, and I also did not want to take anything out of context.
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The folks that organize around the phrase "Black Lives Matter" (BLM) have been getting a lot of press these days. But what are they really campaigning for (or against)? As I see it, they are trying to get society to deal with the structural racism hidden in society, rules and regulations that most white people take for granted as benign, but have become very harmful to poor blacks. And they have some good points....
One of the things we've learned from the Ferguson, MO incidents is that the municipality made a good amount of money from poor people being unable to advocate for themselves after minor contact with the law. For example, a jaywalking infraction (when was the last time anyone you know got ticketed for this in the USA?) could require a person to appear before a court. Without adequate and inexpensive mass transit (and convenient court schedules), this person might not be able to appear, causing a default judgement to be assessed against the person. This person, not being able to afford paying the assessment would have a warrant issued to bring the person into the local jail, causing this person to have a record - and not be able to get a job. The police did not reflect the makeup of the community, and were totally alienated from the people whom they were supposed to serve. Therefore, BLM has a point to make when it comes to "broken windows policing". (This was also a factor in the Baltimore riots....)
All communities should be overseeing their police forces. All too often, the law enforcers get a "hall pass" on the degree which they can stretch the law in enforcing the law. How often in the past was the Billy Club used to "Tenderize" a suspect? All too often.
In today's world, the police are still much better, but not perfect. In McAllen Texas, there was a recent incident where a police officer wrongfully slammed a 15 year old black girl to the ground - and this was the same officer who wrongfully pulled out his gun during the same incident - would he have done this to a white girl? No. This is why we need citizen oversight - to hold the police accountable to the public they serve.
I'm not sure about you, but I want to limit the police force's ability to use force. Given the above mentioned incident, it frightens me that we depend on violence to keep our citizenry in line. What is the next step? Yes, the threat (and potential use) of violence is often needed. But we tend to abuse it in this country - we forget to be civil and polite first, then things escalate out of control.
Now, I'm concerned about the militarization of the police in this country. If the police get military surplus equipment, they will want to find excuses to use it. And they do. This could help America become a police state if the wrong demagogues get elected. (Can you imagine what would happen if a bombastic real estate developer actually ran a local police force? I'd be very afraid - and we have a person like this running for POTUS!) Years ago, this country made the decision to separate military aircraft development from civilian aircraft development, as they had their own unique needs. The same now goes for the tools used to impose a nation's or community's will - a military needs to impose its rule without much regard to those in opposition, while a police force must be sensitive to the needs of the entire community.
I could write several entries on the issues raised by BLM/Campaign Zero. But instead, I figure it best that their manifesto be examined, as they make some very good points....
It's hard to believe that the New York Stock Exchange once looked like this. The stock market was less regulated then, but never a place for a timid person to risk his/her money.
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One of the things I've said for years is that I believe in open, fair, and transparent markets. In an ideal world, these markets would be self regulating. However, powerful players love to distort markets via the use of rules, and via a lack of transparency. In the case of the stock market, most disputes are settled via arbitration - which is often rigged in favor of the large firm by the nature of familiarity. Precedents from one settlement are not applicable in the next case, so the large firms have an edge which is almost impossible overcome.
However, the lack of transparency affects more markets, and has an even greater effect. For example, the current practice of "Non-Standard" sizing makes it much harder for a person to "compare apples to apples" when determining the price of goods. In the case of a carton of Orange Juice, the standard 64 oz. size was shrunk by all players to 59.5 oz. - making it much harder for people to determine what the real price was. Also, the shrunken size went less far, so the customer had to buy more containers to sate their needs for Orange Juice. Something similar happened in the size of Tuna cans - a few years ago, the standard size was 6 oz. - now it's 5 oz.! No one asked the consumer (in these terms) whether we wanted to pay the same money for smaller size packages, or more money for the same size packages. If they did, the marketplace would have chastised the sellers of these goods - something they avoided by obfuscating their price hikes with package size changes.
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Right now, people are starting to see a crisis with student loans. This is another example of marketplace interference creating disastrous effects. A little over 150 years ago, it was "easy" for a person to attend some of the nation's most prestigious universities. All they had to do was learn the "basics" - which included Latin, and other skills no longer needed in the real world - and then pay the bills for school - which weren't that expensive. However, after World War 2, the GI Bill made it easier for students to afford college - and a college education was seen as the ticket to middle class success. Years later, our nation's policies changed to provide poor people with grants to go to college, trying to create a more diverse student base in these schools. And then came the age of college loans - which I see as a total disaster. Instead of increasing the supply of college seats (which would have reduced prices and increased availability), policy simply increased demand for college seats by making student loans cheap, easy to get, and with no demand that a student comes out with a salable skill. The only effect here was to raise the price for seats in a good school.
What happened to the students? Many got saddled by debt, studying in majors that would not prepare them for jobs in the outside world. When a student owes money on a student loan, it is almost impossible for it to be discharged in bankruptcy. As a result, the interest on the debt makes the student loan virtually impossible to pay off.
But what would happen if we eliminated the Federal guarantee of payment? What if these loans could be discharged in bankruptcy? Well, many of the private lenders would cease lending money, marginal students would stop going to college, and colleges might be forced to lower their prices for study. The powers that be don't want that. The banks making a lot of these student loans would cease making loans - and making guaranteed profits.
I posed a question to a couple of people and got the same negative response - therefore I know I'm on to something.... What if (1) there were no guarantees of student loan repayment by any level of government, and (2) a student loan lender could insist that a student loan borrower major in a field likely to result in a job? Both people said that this would be wrong - the student has a right to study what he/she wants to study. But at whose expense? The student is usually way too immature to make many decisions which will impact the rest of his/her life. Part of college's function in society should be more than that of a trade school - it should teach a person how to think, and how to look at life with a long term perspective. One of these people said that if he were to take out a bank loan for a car, that the bank has no right to tell him what car to buy. Yet, one could counter - that if a car manufacturer's finance arm offers you the loan on the car, it should have the right to tie you into buying one of their cars.
In short, the lack of a efficient market (with rules for proper debt discharging) for funding higher education has caused a crisis in higher education that also affects non-students. If a former student is saddled with too much student debt, that same person may not be able to afford getting married and having children. And if this person has children, he/she may not be able to pay enough in school taxes to educate the children - a long term risk for society.
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Not all problems in society can be resolved by market forces. Other methods must be used to limit consumption of resources. Great Britain spends about 35% of what America does on health care, and has a roughly equivalent standard of national health. Canada spends about 50% of what America spends. And other developed nations are in the same league. What is different? They all recognize that health care doesn't work with a marketplace model. So, instead, they ration care in ways that Americans would consider unacceptable. Britain uses results based medicine, and when in doubt, chooses the cheapest alternative. There is a waiting line for almost everything except acute emergency care - and even then, there are rules and regulations that apply - as if one were part of a giant HMO.
I do not advocate the British or Canadian models, because they err in ways Americans would not accept. But the German and French models have a lot to offer - if only we would examine them more closely.
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Americans like the idea of free express roads that take them from town to town, and city to city. There is one big problem - the price - FREE. This has encouraged the growth of the trucking industry over that of the railroads who pay for the upkeep of their track. One might say that truckers pay gas taxes that should maintain the roads. But in many states, especially in the South, these gas taxes have not been raised in years, nor have they been indexed to inflation. As a result, we're seeing part of our transportation infrastructure neglected by lack of proper funding, and now at great risk - as many structures are at the end of their life spans.
What happens when people have to pay to use a road? People actually think - do they need to make this trip? And this is an important question, as it reflects a market helping to shape a behavior. There is a discipline that takes place in a well functioning market. The trick is to design a market well, regulate that market well (but minimally), and make sure that only the right things are governed by that market.... This, as I see it, is the big challenge of the 21st century.
I don't think that most people realized what happened when Fox limited the "adult clown debate" to the top 10 contenders for the GOP nomination. By creating two levels of debates, they marked several serious contenders for the nomination as irrelevant before the bulk of campaigning had even started. Worse yet, the GOP delegated the task of culling out weak candidates to an interested, non neutral organization whose business should be reporting the news (with appropriate spin) and not being involved in the process of making the news itself.
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Currently, the joker in the deck is Donald Trump. He has the ability to foul up the GOP's chances for victory, as he can set the tone for the party well after the campaigns would normally be tacking back to middle ground to attract the interest of independent voters. Trump's success is easy to explain - he has gathered the interest of voters who believe that the 2 mainstream political parties no longer listen to the true wishes of the people. And in many ways he is right.
The way I view Trump's election bid is simple - it started out as a great publicity gimmick to promote Trump's other ventures. One problem - he didn't expect to succeed as well as he has done so far, and he's now caught in his own trap - he must make a serious run for an office that I don't think he wants to hold. He is now caught by his own words - he has to break the logjam that the two party system has made in Washington for his reputation to be preserved. So he has to learn how to tone down the BS and Bluster, and start saying things with real meaning. This is going to be hard for the greatest snake oil salesman alive in this country today.
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If Trump ends up making a 3rd party run for the presidency, I expect that he will not get on the ballot in all 50 states. This might not be as big a problem as it sounds. As long as we use the electoral college to perform the real election of the president, it is possible for a person to win the office of POTUS with the votes from a handful of states.
This brings us to examining previous 3rd party runs for POTUS. The most recent run that had any chance of success was H. Ross Perot's run - and he failed miserably. However, is we look back to the election of 1912, all hell broke loose when Teddy Roosevelt ran against Taft and Wilson. (And there were 2 other viable candidates, one of them being the Socialist, Eugene V. Debs.) Although Taft and Roosevelt had more votes than Wilson, the disunity in the "Republican Tribe" gave the election to the Democrats. And this is what the kingmakers in the GOP fear most.
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As for me, I like what I've seen so far. Trump is exposing the hatreds at the core of the GOP base, and the elders running the party machine don't like it. Trump's candidacy is going to bring a breath of needed fresh air to the GOP - and may finally force its leaders to rectify the mistake made when it chose the "Southern Strategy" of appealing to religious fundamentalists and racists during Nixon's reign.
I hope this happens. It would be nice to see a conservative party that only focuses on economic conservatism for a change....
