Bored at Work?

Review the boondoggles and non-boondoggles in the Stimulus.

From my quick 30 second perusal, dog park management is a growth industry.



You know, this is a really good idea actually. I was thinking about my own boondoggle on my street, the pedestrian bridge to nowhere, and such a website detailing all projects would have let me vent about that. Maybe stopped it.

DAMAGE REPORT

Here's the Year of the Bull so far....

Dark Night - too long, and with some unbelievable stuff....like the police honor guard that must train together a lot not noticing a man replacing their female member?

Iron Man - better, though I seriously doubt US weapons companies would be willing to risk their Pentagon contracts to sell a few missiles to terrorists.

Zohan - Pretty funny. I bet picking a release date was hard.

Some movie about a Fraternity of Assassins. You get to see Angelina Jolie's ass and bullet pop through Morgan Freeman's forehead in slow motion. It was a good movie too

Madagascar II - Fun for both kids and adults. Fiona's first movie experience and sat through it pretty well.

A&A online - all nighter pulled (5:00 a.m.) Japan took down Russia despite Berlin falling. Did not mention this heroicism to wife because Hemingway told us not to toot your own horn...and I didn't want to be skinned alive.

Homemade Chilli - not bad. Tastes like Hormel but with steak not ground beef.

Beer consumed - as part of the "global austerity till we all hurt" program, I bought the cheapest beer at Carrefour - Essential Beer. Also useful is that you can explain to the wife that this beer is "essential" and cannot be left un-drunk.

Books - Next by Michael Chrichton and first book of the Dresden files. Chrichton makes an elementary yet minor error about patents in the post script which made me feel pretty damn smug, except he's dead*. He will never know that I caught his error.

Also visited Taichung Science museum to see the Woolly Mammoth. Pretty cool.

* Its interesting that in the book a character dies suddenly of cancer, but its really a hail mary gene therapy that kills him....and the author himself "died unexpectedly in Los Angeles Tuesday, November 4, 2008 after a courageous and private battle against cancer." Hmmmmmm. Great author, who will be missed.

Hmmmmmmm

On Wednesday, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger predicted there would be no wage cuts as part of the union's concessions to GM and Chrysler. Gettelfinger argued Toyota's workers actually make $2-per-hour more than UAW workers, if you count bonuses....

\ from Mickey Kaus at Slate.



So, let's see...you can join the UAW and make less money plus make sure your company is shackled and unable to compete, or you could go to work for Toyota and make more money at a profitable going concern.

But you might have to be flexible at Toyota and like move from assembly to welding once in a while. That would break up the pure monotony all workers seek.

First day

Obama's first day included limiting some of his own powers and creating some rules for more transparent government.

Good start.

Interesting Video

Video of the aftermath of the inauguration.

1. Looks very creepy. Like a zombie movie or the aftermath of some disaster. Amazing what enough people can do to an area.

2. I find it disturbing that a crowd of the most idealistic Americans, devoted to green issues, and probably more publicly minded than most of the populace could make such a mess. There seems to be some lessons here for why we should not think that if we just had the right, well-meaning people in power, all would be well. Or maybe its just that we need government to put out more trash cans...now there's a stimulus idea for Taiwan.

3. I feel sad for the "Litter Free Inauguration" activists. Next time hand out trash bags to people in attendance.

p.s. I don't want this to be construed as some sort of slight on Obama. Its not. I imagine that a similar crowd would cause litter problems even if composed entirely of Mormon sanitation engineers.

Its just that you could almost splice it into a news reel about a comet hitting the earth. Maybe its the winter coats that also adds a little to the zombie effect.

p.s.

At the time of this post, the USA Service website has 22 people signed up to help clean up. A couple million at the party, 22 come to clean up.

Yahoo Headlines

Obama appears cool and calm on eve of presidency

Slooooow news day but editor keeps asking for Obama stuff.

Though I do say getting the Israelis to pull out of Gaza to avoid spoiling the inauguration was pretty good.

Maybe we should have inaugurations every two weeks or so, in the name of middle east peace.

Unilateral Cease-Fire by Taliban as Obama Announces White House Puppy Choice

Peshawar - A Taliban official spokesperson says the cease-fire will start approximately 3 hours before the Oval Office announces the White House dog, as the Taliban  do not want to ruin a special moment for the world. Plus they need to buy popcorn and diet Cokes. "I confess I am hoping he chooses the Portuguese Water-Dog." the official said at a press conference, adding,  "Do you know the so-called Afghan breed is actually Tajik? We spit on such dogs."
 

Southern Accents

I like southern accents. Maybe its because they use better similes and shit. 

Exhibit 1: "Look at the turd cutter on that woman." (paraphrased from IJ story)

I think this is the same argument Taiwanese make when they explain that they just cannot express themselves fully in Mandarin. After all, how in Mandarin do we explain that Singapore is holding China's balls? (Ya'll recall the LP vocabulary lesson?)

Now, I have considered that if I were really, really rich, I'd move somewhere in the South just to get my kid a southern accent. Think about it. Exotic female speaking in southern accent = investment banker....errrr, I mean bankruptcy lawyer bait. Daddy wants a relaxing retirement.

I fondly recall from my Uni days, the hottest thing I ever saw wasn't some garish display of bisexual blondes going lesbo, but a Vietnamese-American from Texas hottie making Chicken-fried steak for her boyfriend. Oh yeah, the stunning body made you gawk, but the beef fried in batter would keep you around to get to know her mind.

Okay, now the science:

"We all speak with the accent of the region we are raised in during the critical language learning period from 2 to 6 years of age. "

My kid now has 2 years left before she will forever keep her Californian-Filippino accent.

p.s. Why do you guys from Florida, Texas, and New Zealand keep mimicking my Californian accent. Its like you want to sound like me. Like my accent is some kind of standard. Its as if the whole world has decided to drop their own bullshit regional gibberish and accept the fact that Californians are their Gods.  Kneel. Supplicate. Pay some additional taxes. You may go now, dude.

Whoa.

Is this a function of Obama being elected or am I entering Bizarro world...

Protesters label Redford an enemy of the poor

Oil and gas drilling » Clergymen link his environmentalism to racism.

By Patty Henetz

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 01/14/2009 06:45:16 PM MST

Click photo to enlarge

Former Cincinnati Councilman Sam Malone speaks along with other African-American... (Chris Detrick)

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Hollywood's Sundance Kid is hurting poor people.

So say some East Coast ministers and conservative activists, who took to the streets in front of a downtown Salt Lake City theater on the eve of Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival to accuse the actor of holding down low-income Americans with his opposition to oil and gas drilling near national parks in Utah.

The protesters, led by the Congress of Racial Equality's national spokesman Niger Innis, suggested Redford should "relinquish his wealth" and live like a poor person. They complained that the filmmaker's anti-drilling stance could lead to higher energy prices for inner-city residents, forcing them to accept a lower standard of living.

The clergymen prayed for Redford "to see the light" and linked his environmental activism with racism.

"The high energy prices we're going to see this winter are essentially discriminatory," said Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., chairman of the High-Impact Leadership Coalition, a petroleum industry advocate.

A month ago, Redford, a trustee of the National Resources Defense Council, voiced support for a federal lawsuit aimed at blocking the Bush administration's "morally criminal" attempt to auction 103,000 acres of scenic redrock desert for oil and gas drilling near Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument.

Facebook Status Wars

NAME REDACTED reports: In 19 days 984 Palestinians killed by Israel including 311 children & 100 women, 4525 injured. Donate your status: http://apps.facebook.com/supportgaza.30 minutes ago - Comment

NAME REDACTED QassamCount: 9 Hamas rockets hit Israel so far today. 3 rockets fired from Lebanon hit Northern Israel. Donate yourstatus: http://qassamcount.com/fb.about an hour ago - Comment

 

not to make fun of a serious situation....oh hell, yes I am making fun of this:

 

Beer count: Red A has gone 15 minutes without a beer. Please donate your facebook status to rectify this alarming situation

If China invaded Taiwan

What would be the media narrative?

A. Would Taiwan get sympathetic coverage like Kuwait being invaded by Iraq ala 1990?

B. Or would it be sympathetic, but more like Chechenya being invaded by Russia (twice) with some general unease about the tactics used, "but, hey, what can we do about it when its a part of Russia?"

C. Or would China be smart enough to make it look like Georgia-Russia 2008 or Gaza/Israel - war is very, very bad, but those crazy Taiwanese had it coming?

Important points to consider:

Taiwan is a democracy. China is not. That could be helpful.

The media will want access to China in the future and might consider that in their reporting.

International law is technically on China's side.

Europeans are far away from Asia and sell a lot of stuff to China.

What else am I missing?

My predicition would be a mixture of B & C for most international media. Any A style coverage will be from some outlets in the American press and possibly Japanese press.

China will definitely have some sort of excuse for its "intervention" and probably even an "invitation to restore order" from pro-unification elements.  (How about rioting in Taiwan over party-party unification talks in China in the waning days of a Ma administration that allows KMT old guard to ask for help "to restore order" from China?) 

Since the international media probably doesn't have strong feelings about Taiwan (the initial panic will be why Thailand is being attacked by amphibious invasion and then a mad scramble to find Taiwan on their globe) they will probably try to be neutral in their reporting, like in the Georgia example. This will include dutifully reminding viewers that according to the UN, Taiwan is part of China, etc., etc. They will be especially careful in reporting on the Taiwan side, other than the pyrotechnics, because they know that China could cut access to their networks at any time.

Is that too pessimistic?

CPSIA of 2008

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 designed to make children's products safer by mandating extensive product testing is starting to take effect. Apparently, boutique stores and small producers in the USA are going  out of business because this law requires every material used in a children's product to be tested for lead along with a battery of other tests. 

For China, its less of a problem because of the large volume of products being made means testing charges are not that big and can be passed on to the customers in some cases.

For example, the cost to test our chalk products will be around US$ 2,0000. That's a big deal if you make 300 pcs per year, but less so if you make 300,000 pcs per year.

Now for the stupidity of this law. This law is very stringent and the lawyers must be pretty smug that they have increased penalties and are forcing factories to test their products for even more stuff than before.

Unfortunately, they have kept the same system of compliance as before, which is you test your product once, and then show the certificate when you ship your orders to "prove" you are compliant. So, any unscrupulous company simply makes one sample with safe materials that will pass the testing, and then uses the certificate to ship container after container of unsafe product. 

Oh, but maybe the government in the US will be randomly testing stuff on the store shelves! Yes, and those small factories in China who were doing the lead painting don't worry about that because they will have been paid already and will simply abscond if they are caught. I am not even sure if they really will do more random testing in the retail stores - it wasn't included in the law I read (HR 4040)

I suspect all of the big toy companies are now testing the products BEFORE shipment is made (like they should have been doing on a random basis before the whole crisis.) I suspect they started doing that within one week of the first problems with lead on toys, though probably only on materials that can actually have lead in them.

The government of course simply mandates that EVERYTHING has to be tested...organic cotton? Test it for lead! Injection molded plastic? Test it for lead? Zippers? Test them too! Lead? Test it for lead! 

And test it for phalathates! Which are plastic softeners but if you really want to comply you will test your metal parts for plastic softeners.

I can understand the politicians' predicament though - voters/consumers screaming for action means a hurried up law must be passed.  Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I am not against testing, regulation, etc., I just wish it could have been implemented better. I would prefer more on the actual enforcement side with perhaps less mandatory testing of every component. The government is already backing down in this manner by excluding some products from testing - like products made from raw wood, etc.

Bonus link: This law also will sponsor a study as follows:

Sec. 107. Study of preventable injuries and deaths in minority children related to consumer products.

Because we all know that minority children play with their toys in very different manners than white kids.

Bankruptcy Pricing in China II

One of our oldest suppliers sold his factory last year. He wanted to retire. 

He sold the equipment and the business, but rented the factory building to the new owner.  He gave him technical help and brought along all the old customers. Its  a simple, profitable business and the new owner could have paid back his investment in one year, and made around US$ 60-100k profit per year thereafter. 

Instead, the new owner took all accounts receivable and used them to pay for the machinery, etc. The new owner then decided to not pay any of his material suppliers. He has attempted to raise prices 30-40% (when material prices are falling!) We think he also borrowed money from banks against the machinery, too. Now the company is basically bankrupt.

I have to wonder if this was his plan all along.

More Thoughts US Healthcare System

As noted in a comment by Karl, its not exactly a free market for healthcare when 60% of revenue for a hospital group come from Medicare and Medicaid, and the hospital subsidizes those with the remaining 40% of revenue from the private sector.

I guess its still a free market in the sense that there are competing hospitals, choice for patients, etc. but the payment structure implies that its being distorted quite a lot.

Assuming the case of the non-profit hospital group in the podcast is typical of the entire system, I have the following thoughts:

1. If we think the present system is bad, why are most of the popular reforms being considered designed around extending the government payment system rather than moving more towards a freer market? 

2. If people are worried about the rising cost of healthcare, how is moving the payment more and more to the government side going to reduce costs when the private 40% is already having to subsidize the medicare and medicaid portion? I think those subsidized costs will have to re-appear somewhere if it were 100% government, e.g. single payer. 

This suggests to me that any savings will be elusive.

Slogan Contest

War on Poverty...

War on Cancer...

War on Drugs...

War on Terror...

now VP Joe Biden says "We are at war" in regards to the economy.

But we can't call it a "War on the Economy" because that would mean we would start to blow up factories and stores. (Though some people want to bulldoze excess houses to reduce the stock of unsold homes.)

I guess "War on Recession" would be the boring choice. Any better ones?

Animal Blogging done right...

Fuck You Penguin

Now that is a blog name.

Another Explanation of the Fed's actions...

but with cooler graphics.

Healthcare in the USA

I was listening to a podcast with the CEO of a non-profit chain of hospitals in the Midwest.

He was explaining the price structure of healthcare as follows (paraphrased):

About 60% of their revenue comes from Medicare and Medicaid.

The other 40% comes from private insurers, HMO's, etc.

Because the Medicare and Medicaid prices are fixed by government fiat, they have to increase the cost of care to the 40% of private coverage to subsidize it. Then because the private companies keep asking for discounts, they mark-up the "book" price, too. (Note to customers, we do this too. If you are known for cutting 5%, I just add 5% for you to cut. If you are known to add all sorts of extra costs on, I pad my pricing.)

My reaction to this is that I guess we are already very close to national healthcare when 60% of revenue at a hospital comes from the state. In fact, I wonder if all of those "uninsured" people we hear about simply don't know to fill out the paperwork for Medicaid or SCHIP or whatever.

What Bernanke is trying to do...

http://www.scrivener.net/2008/12/mvpq-in-pictures.html

I think this is a very good explanation of what Bernanke is trying to do.

It also begs the question of what happens when V starts to move again...but with increased M still in the system... we will either get increase pricing, i.e. inflation, or have to reduce M via large interest rate hikes.

I think increased inflation may actually be the politically easier choice because America has lots of debt. That would mean a weaker dollar.

If interest rates have to go sky high to reduce M, then we would see a much stronher dollar.