Could we exist without the automobile? The question pops into my head every time I stop at the pump, but there is reason for doubting the possibility.

One of every ten jobs in the country is manufacturing cars or supplying the manufacturers. Add in the dealers, the repair shops, gas production and distribution and a few odds and ends and it comes to about one in seven jobs.

I was much younger and lighter while in grad school but I enjoyed walking. The school was on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C. My studio apartment was a little more than a block away. I parked my car in the basement garage and drove to the supermarket in Silver Springs, Maryland every Saturday.

The rest of the time I walked. It might be to the Smithsonian museums, the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, Burger King for my weekly Whopper, the corner grocery store or DuPont Circle to watch a few games of chess. The District was a wonderful place to walk.

At the time the Embassy of the USSR was a block away. I must have been the star of many video tapes walking past so often. The staff took the top two floors of our apartment building. They never spoke. They never smiled. They never took the same elevator. That was quite an object lesson.

New York City is walker friendly, though not so friendly in other ways. Living in Los Angeles was hell. When I first moved to L.A. I had no car. Pedestrians there are known as California cripples. I quickly acquired a small Honda motorcycle. That sufficed for a few months, until my wife and daughter arrived from Korea.

I was born in a town of about 3,500 Mayberry-type souls. One grandfather was sheriff; the other chief of police and city manager. We walked. Everyone said hello. Stores were next to each other.

Later, I was mayor of a small town, a bedroom for Atlanta, where you drove to the parking lot of the dry cleaners, then drove to the parking lot of the bank and on and on. Then they invented malls. The idea being to recreate the small town by making it possible to walk from store to store.

A lot is lost while riding in a car. You focus primarily on the roadway. You miss out on most of the scenery. It’s difficult for the odor of the roses to seep through the air conditioning. You miss out on the heat, the cold. You miss out on most of what makes up life.

Speed feeds on itself. We want to get there quicker, no matter where there is. Our impatience grows. That impatience spills over into other aspects of our lives. We get lazy. We get used to sitting in the car seat. That also spills over.

Most of our ancestors seldom, if ever, wandered more than 25 or 30 miles from where they were born. Many daily commutes are further. The difference in the pace at the downtown office from the pace in the bedroom community induces stress.

Our cars have molded our lives. It hasn’t been an unmixed blessing.

The other night, Jon Stewart’s guest on the Daily Show was Brad Pitt. He brought up the question of what cars would be like if they had not yetr been invented but we had today’s technology. He asked if they would be powered by a limited fossil fuel that required an expensive military to protect our access and transferred half a trillion dollars a year out of the country. Would we choose a fuel that polluted? Interesting questions. Basically, something so integral to our economy, our lives, is based on technologies more than a century old.

I’m not ready to give up my trusty, internal combustion-powered steed. However large a role as it plays in my life, I can’t ignore the less than salutary effect it has on my routine, my psyche, my health and my wealth.

In the next article I intend to examine how one aspect of this is related to our present predicament and impedes our addressing our problems.

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Yes, I’m back from vacation. I know. You didn’t even realize I was gone.

Well, it wasn’t really a vacation. It was 9 days at Fall Creek Falls State Park with about 70 of my wife’s relatives. No it wasn’t as bad as it sounds.

Actually there is a little good came about while I was there. Perhaps I should relate that before preaching on the topic of the day. Each family is assigned a meal to cook. They either produce their specialty or whatever is easiest to prepare for that size of a mob. Hot dogs and hamburgers are de rigueur for the 4^th. Diet food, it ain’t.

That’s the problem. I overcame seven books on economics in the past couple of months. Why? Research on my next book.

I needed a break. So, I did some Internet searching for ideas on nutrition and downloaded to my Kindle 3 books that seemed to make sense. Okay. So it’s my form of recreation.

Actually, as age and weight have crept up I have been tested for diabetes, metabolic rate, tumors, everything. It’s nice to know I don’t have any of those problems but there were no definitive answers. Nothing seems to work.

The good news? Having just begun reading 2-3 days before the trip, I was far from having mastered the subject. Again, their wasn’t any diet food in sight. Considering those conditions, I am shocked that I lost over 7 pounds. I was not reducing calories. None of it was the fluid loss that causes many diets to look good the first week or so. The theory is that it’s what you eat, not how much and that your body will find its own ideal weight. I hope so.

I didn’t starve. I didn’t explore the great outdoors. My arthritic joints and ever-present cane have trouble navigating a round trip to the rear of a Walmart. But now, back to the topic of the day.

Dancing On The Ceiling

What is going to happen with regard to the debt ceiling? What will happen if it isn’t raised? The truth is that no one knows.

But, how do I answer the question? I am neither a prophet nor a fortune teller. They are different. Prophets don’t predict the future. Most everyone misunderstands. A prophet passes on messages from God to the people. Most fortune tellers are gypsies.

Neither Oral Roberts, nor Bob Jones, nor Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Bible College is on my résumé. I am not a gypsy. I’m just going to rely on my unfamous (infamous?) ability to see through political BS.

First, they will not recognize the unconstitutional nature of the debt ceiling law. Politicians prefer complex and obscure machinations. They offer opportunities to hide from and/or misrepresent to their constituents what they are really up to. They are not fans of Occam’s Razor.

The debt ceiling will be raised. The Republican leadership in the Congress publicly assured Wall Street that it would. The Democrats’ action was never in doubt. Both are owned by the casinos and have heard  their master’s voice.

There possibly is a horsefly, or the rear of a centaur, in the ointment. Eric Cantor has put Speaker Boehner under siege in his quest to satisfy his ego, his desire for John’s job. To do this, he has decided to sell his soul to the Tea Party. Why is it so common for a centaur to be looking to the rear?

By some counts, Eric can muster more votes from their caucus on this issue than can John. Eric hopes that will translate to votes for John’s office. That explains Mitch, over in the Senate, showing the white flag with his Rube Goldberg proposal.

Dissension among the Republicans in the House has given Obama a chance for victory. I have trouble crediting the White House with mature, nuanced strategizing but they have made a helpful move or two; even if by accident.

This hullabaloo about the debt ceiling is mere political posturing. It has been brought in to the game solely for political reasons. The last Bush raised the ceiling 7 times. St. Ronny did it 17 times – yes, 17. There should be a clear-cut severing of the problem and the play.

Obama should say that the question of the debt ceiling will stand on its own. Vote it up or down. Let the people decide who is jeopardizing the world economy.

Since I see it as almost a given that the ceiling will be raised, what remains in question is the timing. The financial world may be foolhardy gamlbers with other people’s money but they are cowards when their own neck in on the block. They are getting skittish.

One final point. The Treasury has actually borrowed more money from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds than from China or anyone else. That money may have been borrowed by Congress but it isn’t theirs.

If creditors are to get paid while others stand by, Social Security and Medicare should be at the head of the line. They are just getting back their own money. That is not the same as the oil, agricultural, drug and other industries holding out their hands for subsidies.

The President has been speaking about the possibility of Social Security checks not going out on time. That is pure political theater. It is scare tactics. No group shows up at the polls in higher percentages than do seniors. No one wants to alienate them. Enjoy the show but live in reality.

Just remember the problem. Our economy is sick because there is insufficient blood (money) flowing through the system. Sending money to China and not letting seniors put it back into our economy would be the height of stupidity.

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This is a warning for older men.

Women often receive warnings about protecting themselves at the mall, in dark parking lots and other, similar spots.

This may be the first such for men, older men. I would like to pass this along, just in case you haven’t already heard about it.

A ‘heads up’ for those men who may be regular customers of Lowe’s, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Costco and like establishments.

This caught me totally by surprise. Over the past couple of months I became a victim of a clever scam  while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don’t be naive enough to think it couldn’t happen to you or your friends.

Here’s how the scam works:

Two nice-looking, college-age girls will come over to your car or truck as you are loading your purchases. They both start squirting your windshield with Windex and wiping it off, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy attire. It’s impossible not to look.

When you thank them and offer a tip they refuse and say no. They ask instead for a ride to McDonald’s. You agree and they climb into your vehicle.

On the way, they begin undressing. One crawls all over you while the other one steals your wallet.

I had my wallet stolen April 4^th, 9^th, 10^th, twice on the 15^th, 17^th, 20^th, 24^th and 29^th. Also May 1^st, 4^th, twice on the 8^th, 16^th, 23^rd, 26^th and 27^th. It is very likely to happen again this upcoming weekend.

So tell your friends to be careful. What a terrible way to take advantage of us older men. Warn your friends to be vigilant.

Wal-Mart has wallets on sale for $2.98 each. I found even cheaper ones at the dollar store for $.99 and bought them out at three stores.

Also, you never get to eat at McDonald’s. I’ve already lost 11 pounds just running back and forth from Lowe’s to Home Depot and all.

Please send this on to  all of the older men you know and warn them to be on the lookout for this scam. (The best times are just before lunch and around 4:30 in the afternoon.)

Best of luck guys.

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It’s been over half a century since I have seen my favorite teacher. That I still recall him means he made a lasting impression.

The year I first met him, counting substitutes, we had five teachers in the first semester of our junior-year English. One left due to pregnancy. One got married and moved. One went into the army and there was a substitute in there somewhere.

Max Vann came just a couple of weeks before the semester ended. He was trained as both a teacher of English and math.

In a class of over 400 I was the second shortest guy. That was true when the school year began. When it finished I was the fifth tallest – from 5’2″ to 6’3″ in nine months. My weight gain was probably no more than five pounds. Even my mother was among those calling me Stringbean McPole.

I was just a little self-conscious, a little shy and, to be kind, somewhat awkward. Mr. Vann assigned various members of the class roles from Hamlet. We were to stand and read our lines.

Though I had a minor part, I stammered, stumbled and stuttered through it. After class, Mr. Vann asked me to stay a moment. He asked why I had such difficulty. I referenced my obvious shyness and tried to prevail upon him to avoid selecting me the next day. He asked if I would be more comfortable reading the lines while sitting. I supposed so.

The next day he assigned me the lead after announcing that we would be reading our lines sitting down. The Royal Shakespeare Company would not have been impressed with my performance but I was. It didn’t cure my shyness but I made it through with minimal trauma.

The results may not have pleased everyone. Since, I have run for and held public office, given speeches across the country, taught a little and testified before legislative bodies. Mr. Vann helped me master my problem but cannot be blamed for all of the results.

He wasn’t hired to teach English. That was just to cover a vacancy. He was hired to develop a special math curriculum. He created a class that covered subjects reserved for the college level. Among other subjects, we were the first school in the South to offer calculus.

Those first classes were not available to everyone. Mr. Vann was allowed to handpick a class of 15 from among the seniors. There was a guarantee of a 5-year, full, work scholarship at either Auburn or Georgia Tech for anyone passing his course. All 15 passed.

How did I come to be selected? Why? At the time I was considering becoming a professor of History. Mr. Vann used that.

He invited all of the selected students to his home one Summer day before school restarted. We were told to look through his extensive library for books to read. Knowing my interest was in History, he directed me to the biographies of famous mathematicians. I became hooked on the subject.

I never did find out how he discovered that I had a facility for math. It was something of which I was unaware. That was a time when we were either hiding under our desks or being urged to master science, in order to out compete the USSR. Math and science is where the money, glamor and duty were.

In college I wandered from math to various physical sciences. I became enthralled with anthropology. That is a special subject, as there is both physical and cultural anthropology. One is a physical science. The other falls into the realm of social and behavioral sciences. Later I wandered around those ‘other’ sciences.

The math and science background provided me a perspective rare among those in the social and behavioral sciences. When studying economics I quickly found its basic problem. While enamoured of econometric models, I never found a professor of economics with a background in math.

Later, when researching my book on mental illness, I discovered why the pharmaceutical companies preferred that their studies be “run” by MDs, rather than PhDs. The former have no training in research. They usually accept whatever they are told. PhDs must learn at least basic research for their dissertations.

Though I strayed from math and science, the training has proven valuable in various endeavors. It even helped my accumulation of eight patents. Mr. Vann is more than deserving of a belated thank you.

Class Reunion

I was back in my home town at the time of our 25^th class reunion. I was induced to be on the organizing committee.

It was fun. It was interesting. I recommend it.

There came a time when we discussed inviting our class sponsor and a few other teachers. Mr. Vann’s name never came up so, during a break, I asked one of the guys about including him. He said they didn’t have a contact for him. They heard he had moved to Nashville.

I was told that after our graduation he had been put in charge of all math instruction in the local school system. Later, he was found to have a steady male friend. I don’t recall the subject of homosexuality ever coming up back then. Perhaps we were living in a cocoon. I have since gotten past any sense of surprise or concern over the sexuality of others. I still knew the effect he had on my educational development.

The story continued that he was dismissed and possibly took a position with the state Department of Education.

I now live in a suburb of Nashville and have made some initial efforts to locate him. He would be about 85 years old. I could find no one at the Department of Education that would provide any help. They wouldn’t even confirm if he had worked there. Privacy rules can be a bummer.

I may not recognize him after all of these years. He was short and stocky. His hair may still be somewhat kinky but I doubt that it’s still red. I really would like the opportunity to tell this teacher that he had an effect.

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My days of playing football began 60 years ago. No. We did have helmets.

Back then, we played both offense and defense. Not just because I was the 2nd smallest guy on the team, I was terrible at both.

I don’t think I could have gotten better by using steroids. They may not even have existed back then. At least we had never heard of them.

But in football, as in other areas, there are and were other ways one could cheat. A receiver traps the ball. He’ll never win an Oscar™ for that performance. He knows it wasn’t a catch but he wants credit for it. Why?

Games should be played for the fun of it. That idea died even before leather helmets. Okay. We should play to see which team is the best. Remember? It’s supposed to be a team sport.

It isn’t about fun. It isn’t about who’s best. It’s about me winning. It’s about me.

Who’s faster? Who’s stronger? Who’s bigger? Who’s got the best steroids? Who cares?

A few years back I read an article based on a study that showed over half of college students admitted cheating on tests. Getting a good grade, or just a passing one, is more important than bothering to learn the subject matter. That could explain a lot of the blunders we read or hear about on a daily basis.

I know it sounds unAmerican but our esteemed leaders don’t care what the public wants, as long as they get what they want. A president was elected. The people said they wanted him and his policies. But that’s not what some politicians wanted. They did everything they could to thwart the wishes of the electorate. They lied. They obstructed.

While claiming that jobs and the economy topped their list of priorities, they have yet to offer a single bill that would create jobs. Additionally, they have pursued the repeal of health care reform. That would add $400 billion to the deficit. They have offered $32 billion in budget cuts while spending most of the House’s time on what they laughingly call family values issues.

Did the people really demand a redefinition of forceable rape that claimed it wasn’t necessarily rape if it was forceable? Is abortion the number one item on the national agenda that is, according to Mr. Orange, topped by jobs and the economy? And repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell trumps jobs?

Where are the polls that show those issues at the top? Where are the polls that show that the people even want those changes?

Health care reform has again managed to attract a greater number of supporters than opponents. When asked about specific components of that reform, the majorities run as high as 78%. Does the leadership of the house care what the people want? Really?

So, why would they swim upstream on so many issues? Because they think their strategy will continue the stagnation through the next election and benefit them then.

Why do they refuse to abide by their promises to create jobs and improve the economy? Well, it’s a dirty little secret. They don’t have any plans. Why? Because everything in their economic arsenal, tax cuts, have proven to have the opposite effects.

Where are the $500 billion budget cuts? Their political prospects would be worse than Hosni Mubarak’s if they tried to cut Medicare or Social Security. The same would be true if they cut too deeply into the welfare their friends in the military-industrial complex have enjoyed for low, these many years. Well, at least they found $32 billion in cuts and no one gets hurt, except poor women and children and our education system and . .

It isn’t just professional athletes. It includes more than even college athletes. Remember, it’s students at every level cheating on their tests. The list isn’t complete even after we have added in politicians of every stripe. Regardless of the outcome of the various games they play, cheaters are, in reality, losers.

Why do so many of us have such a desperate need to win, regardless of whether we are better or faster or stronger or smarter? Parents, grandparents, other relatives and teachers are some of the culprits. We tell kids they are the future, as though we creating the present have little value. We tell the kids they are important. Potentially, they are, but only potentially.

It is impossible to go to the mall without seeing kids reveling is disrespect, for their elders, their peers; in reality a disrespect for themselves. It’s a rare outing when I am not in danger of sprawling on the floor or caning someone for putting me in harm’s way. It isn’t limited to the young. Need I even mention the terror of rush hour traffic?

There is another major causative factor. Manifest destiny. Despite centuries of killing the natives and enslaving Africans, we’re the good guys. Despite developing and propping up generals, shahs, other tyrants in Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba, Iran, Vietnam, China, the Congo and many places, far-flung and in our good neighborhood, we are the champions of democracy and self-determination.

We are the richest; well, not any more. We are the most generous; not by a long shot. We are the most productive; not in a long time. We are the smartest; of course our kids lag on every educational measurement. Well, anyway, we deserve our position because, somehow, we are the best. God says so. Therefore, we deserve to win. Don’t look behind the curtain at Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, et al.

Our three decades of support for Mubarak, against the best interest of Egyptians, may bite us where the sun don’t shine. Beyond that, it could lead to destabilizing several other regimes in the area.

Recent events, economic and otherwise, have sharpened our need to reassure ourselves that we still are special. The need to see ourselves as winners is the more acute. The cheating, the winning regardless, these things are not the cause, just the most obvious manifestations of the primal forces that control us. Altogether, they make us all losers.

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Despite my obsessions with current events, history and the rest, I sometimes need a respite. I spent most of yesterday listening to music. It was an idle I too rarely gift myself.

There was a spectrum of genres to be savored. There were artists to be brought back to mind. There were moods to be indulged. There was a soul to be pampered.

The time was well-spent. The music begged to be shared. How could I not? I could list enough to keep you listening for hours on end.

Not all of it was universal in its appeal. There were, however, a couple that do seem to cross every boundary. These two in particular share the added benefit of having been performed by a group called Blast!

Blast! is a troop of 68 talented artists/musicians/entertainers. Their heritage begins with drum and bugle corps. From there it progresses to marching bands. They brought this indoors, to the stage, and stretched the boundaries to the limit. Then they nudged them just a bit further. The results are memorable.

I haven’t had the opportunity to experience a performance in person but I could not allow a chance to do so to pass me by. Based on the videos it must be, as some critics tell us, unique, transcendent. Here I give you two.

The first is Malagueña. It is a piece of music you have heard. It has been performed by hundreds of artists, both with lyrics and as an instrumental. Still, this will be new.

The song was taken from the sixth movement of the Suite Andalucia by Ernesto Lecuona. Another piece of music by him was nominated for the Oscar in 1942 but lost to White Christmas. This performance begins slowly, as it should. The anticipation of the change in dynamics adds to its power. Enjoy.

As promised, the next selection is also by Blast! Coincidentally, it is also Spanish in nature. Strangely, Bolero, one of the pieces of music most closely identified with Spain was composed by a Frenchman, Maurice Ravel. He was born close to the Spanish border of a Basque mother, however. His father was Swiss.

Bolero was written as a dance piece for a ballet but is rarely performed that way. The story of its inspiration is possibly apocryphal. It is said that in the Paris apartment next to his was a young Spanish couple who seemed to spend every possible moment making love. Once you have heard that story, true or not, you cannot but think of it in those terms when you listen to it. The slow, retarded pace gradually builds to that final crescendo; climax, if you will. Once again, sit back, relax and enjoy.

My tastes in music have been somewhat eclectic. Whatever the genre, there must be talent. It always helped if that talent served to push the limits, to create more room. This will not be everyone’s cup of tea but my hope is that it will expand your horizons.

As a youngster, playing clarinet, sax and piano, I was enthralled by Stan Kenton. He was one of the most controversial musicians around. He was loved. He was dismissed.

He was always out front. In the selected piece below, Peanut Vendor, one of his signature pieces, he hits you with a “wall of sound.” He developed and named that at least a couple of decades before Phil Spector used it and proudly claimed it for his own.

Listen carefully to the superficial dissonance. Realize the complexity of the arrangement. Every section was playing at a different time signature. Stan was a good pianist, composer and band leader but his forte was arranging.

One personal note: In high school I played in the band with an excellent fellow clarinetist and saxophonist, Bill Byrd. Bill went on to play with a few of the big bands in their final stand against the onslaught of Rock ‘n Roll. Of those he played for, the Kenton orchestra was his favorite.

I got to speak with him at our 25th class reunion but learned he had passed away prior to our 50th. You made beautiful music, Bill. You gave a lot of pleasure.

There you have it: the partial results of a rare, but delightful, day keeping myself amused. I hope you feel your time was well spent.

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Simon Johnson last week wrote a piece for the New York Times. His contention is that the fiscal conservatives, Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats and others, cannot, in his words, be taken seriously.

I share that sentiment. I also share his fear that they will define the debate.

Fiscal Austerity and America’s Future

By Simon Johnson

There are three main views of the financial crisis and the most recent recession. In the first two views, the debate over the fiscal deficit is quite separate from what happened in the crisis.  But in the third view, the financial crisis and likelihood of fiscal austerity are closely linked.

The first is that something went wrong with the financial plumbing central to the world’s economy. Failed plumbing is a serious business, of course — great real estate can be ruined by a burst pipe. But it’s a technical issue; nothing deeper is at stake.

The Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation ended up addressing a myriad of technical issues. Clearly, “fix the plumbing” is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s interpretation of what we need to do – he insists that making the system safer just requires “capital, capital, capital.” Note, however, that the leading global experts on capital think that the Treasury’s specific approach is wrong-headed, not making progress and likely to lead us into great danger.

The second view is that the financial system is more deeply broken.

Opinions vary in terms of the relative importance of various elements, including too-big-to-fail incentive problems that encourage banks to take on excessive risks — and to be supported by the credit markets when they do take on these excessive risks.

Both focus primarily on the nature of the financial system, somewhat in isolation from the rest of the economy.  But a third view is increasingly emerging that implies both the first two views are too narrow.

The first and second views are mutually exclusive – either our financial system is badly broken, or it is not and technical fixes will suffice. But a third view increasingly challenges the first view even more deeply, and may end up incorporating or subsuming the second view.

This deeper critique is posed probably in its sharpest form by Arianna Huffington in her new book, Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream (in the spirit of disclosure, let me note that I am a contributing business editor at The Huffington Post). Her point is that we should not think of the last financial crisis in isolation, but rather as the outcome of a longer-run pattern of behavior.

Excessive consumer debt is an outcome of prolonged inequality – in trying to remain middle class, too many people borrowed too much, while unscrupulous lenders were only too willing to take advantage of such people.

Raghu Rajan, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, and Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary, also have new books with related themes that link persistent inequality of income to the onset of financial crisis through various mechanisms. Mr. Rajan’s Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy is more about the global economy (and overspending at the level of the American economy); Mr. Reich’s Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future focuses on the social and political impact of the crisis (and why, without addressing inequality, our financial problems will recur).

The distribution of income in the United States is undoubtedly becoming more unequal. Specifically, over recent decades, it has become harder for people with only a high-school education to build a secure middle-class future for their families.

We can argue about proximate causes, including the relative roles of new technology and globalization, but there is no question that unionized jobs, well-paying assembly-line work and prosperous small-business niches have all tended to disappear.

The financial crisis may be behind us, but the link to the likely intense debate this fall regarding fiscal policy is direct. We are told that fiscal austerity requires outright and immediate further cuts in the benefits previously promised to people at the federal, state and local level.

Never mind that this is simply not true — at least in the form currently presented. A vocal class of people — including some at the upper end of the income distribution – incessantly insist that entitlements must be cut while refusing to address the real causes of both our recent surge in government debt (the financial crisis, caused by perverse incentives in the financial system) and the genuine longer-term issues we face (which are about controlling the future increase in health care costs, not cutting the level of benefits today).

Editor’s Note: Here is one example. Does it seem a bit convenient that all “conservative” solutions boil down to two strategies? One is to cut taxes, heavily tilted toward the wealthy. The other is to cut benefits, tilted exclusively toward the poor and middle class.

The poor and middle class pay a higher percentage of their incomes for Social Security and they pay an overwhelming percentage of the total amount. Somehow, something that the poor and middle class pays for gets translated into welfare. It becomes a target for cutting of benefits.

Scaremongers speak of Social Security as though it is in imminent danger of total collapse. The facts are otherwise. It will continue to generate a surplus until 2027. That surplus will pay full benefits until about 2070. The only adjustment needed to extend that indefinitely is to eliminate the break that the wealthy presently enjoy by not paying the full FICA tax.

The self-described fiscal conservatives really cannot be taken seriously. In the financial reform debate, they either didn’t show up or preferred to keep the existing system in place, and they refuse to put serious health cost control measures on the table.

If the “conservatives” don’t really want to reduce the shocks that have caused government debt to explode recently — or to deal with the underlying, longstanding health care cost issues in a reasonable fashion — what exactly is going on?

That’s a question they should answer for themselves, and hopefully they will be pressed on this in public debates during the campaign for November’s elections. But there is a striking similarity between the longstanding stated intention to “starve the beast” (meaning to press for reduction in government by creating binding constraints, like a perceived crisis) and what we are seeing play out today.

And there is very real danger that this strategy will work, in the sense that the contours of a coming “fiscal crisis” — what will be discussed and how the issues are framed — will largely be structured by scaremongers who wish to cut pensions and health care benefits for middle Americans in the years ahead and who will work hard to keep meaningful tax reform off the table.

People who push for this view are not being fiscally responsible, and they are well down the road to exacerbating developing world-type problems in the United States – and to creating the conditions for another financial crisis.

Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is the co-author of 13 Bankers.

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Did you watch Top Kill this Thursday? I bet you didn’t.

That great entertainer, BP, decided that the government didn’t mean what it said when they said to make the video available. They decided you didn’t need or deserve to see what was really going on.

While people were watching the entertaining video of Top Kill, it turns out that there was no Top Kill. BP had shut it down for 16 hours. While President Obama was telling everyone that the government was in charge, Top Kill was not actually operating. The video was but Top Kill wasn’t.

There is a special treat for those reading through this post.

BP has yet to learn that the Gulf is not their bathtub. It is a significant part of our world, our ecological foundation.

After all of the media were so kind as to make the video available to us almost 24/7, it was just a BP public relations gimmick. They were afraid something would blow apart and we might see how incompetent they really are. Another gimmick was to bring in busloads of cleanup crews just before Obama’s arrival and bus them back out after he left.

They were right to worry that Top Kill might embarrass them. It turns out that most of what came out was the mud they were forcing into the leak. As soon as they stopped the mud, the oil continued to leak as before. That wasn’t as bad as they had feared. They were concerned that the extra pressure they were providing would cause several more leaks.

Meanwhile, there was a new discovery. They found a plume of oil. Isn’t that a pleasant-sounding word? A plume.

This plume is 22 miles long, 6 miles wide and goes from just beneath the surface to a depth of 3,300 feet. The heaviest concentration was at 1,300 feet. I have difficulty holding my breath at that depth. They have more than enough difficulty dealing with the oil that is staying on the surface.

If that isn’t enough to impress you, just think, it likely isn’t the only one. Also, it is headed towards Florida’s Panhandle. Along the way is a deep trench that plays a vital role in the food chain for aquatic life in the area.

Back up on the surface, we were told Thursday morning that the spill covered an area the size of South Carolina. Please don’t get confused. This is not near the Appalachian Trail. It does have the advantage, from my personal perspective, of not being near Ft. Jackson.

Here in the US we think of this spill and the Exxon Valdez. Few Americans could recall any more major leaks. This leads us to accept BP’s characterization of the spill as an accident. If you are constantly having ‘accidents,’ it might be that another description would be more apt. I could suggest total incompetence. Another would be that they just don’t care, as long as the money keeps rolling in. They call it, “the cost of doing business.”

Do you recall the ‘accident’ at Galicia, in the Bay of Biscay, or Lebanon, or South Korea, or San Francisco, or South Africa, or, just about anywhere there is sea water.

For those with shorter memories than I (translation: young), Rachel Maddow had a special treat the other night. This is just another treat; not the one I promised above. Even with a long, but spotty, memory I had failed to realize how similar an experience we had 31 years ago. Enjoy this break from my scare tactics (aka facts).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBYlK0KOiDo

There was a fairly recent spill in the Persian Gulf. John Hofmeister is the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Citizens for Affordable Energy. He is also the former CEO of Shell and the author of the book, Why We Hate the Oil Companies. In an interview he noted the way that spill was handled.

They gathered several supertankers and had them suck up the oil and water. They went to port and unloaded their cargoes. The oil and water were easily separated. They then went back for more. It only recovered the oil from the surface, but that was very useful and more than is being done in our Gulf.

The President could easily tell the ship owners that, if they wished to be allowed in American ports, they would have to provide ships to be used as they were in the Persian Gulf. I think they might cooperate.

When you recall the Exxon Valdez, you think of Exxon, naturally enough. You should think of BP. That oil came from the Alaska Pipeline. The lead company in the consortium operating that pipeline was BP. So, the cleanup operation fell to the ‘leadership’ of BP. The subsequent inquiry found that BP screwed up. Surprise. They could have easily taken steps to contain the spill within a few acres. Instead, their performance led to a spill that contaminated thousands of square miles and that area is still feeling the effects.

BP and the others brag about their advanced technologies and techniques. That may have some relevance as to the drilling. However, they are operating on and beyond the outer edges of those technologies.

Meanwhile, there has not been a single attempt to manage this leak that uses technology or techniques newer than three decades old. There have been no suggestions of future attempts using newer technologies, because there are none.

Canada and other countries require that an offshore operation simultaneously drill at least one relief hole, just in case something like this were to happen. It could, you know? BP’s refusal to follow such a common sense course is the reason we have to wait for 3 months while they drill a relief hole. This procedure is considered the almost surefire method for stopping the leak.

BP originally stood for British Petroleum (although their headquarters is in Houston). They now say it stands for Beyond Petroleum. I have heard and read many suggestions that are not printable. My own persuasion is that it simply stands for the ultimate in incompetence.

Someone questioned why we don’t stop government purchases from BP. Well, it seems that they are the primary supplier of petroleum products to our military. There are security considerations that would require a detailed study by the National Security Council in order to change suppliers. This may be another case of a corporation that is too big for our own good.

And Now For The Treat

This is not germane to the topic of the post but one I wanted to share.

Hank Jones died recently at the age of 91. He was one of the greats of jazz. To the end he was still touring, having recently returned from Japan. Hank was the longtime accompanist for Ella Fitzgerald. He also played with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Coleman Hawkins. This clip is from a concert at Carnegie Hall when he was only 75 years old. The song is Willow Weeps For Me. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUWZzj0TU1s

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They call it an accident. Either my dictionary is seriously out of date, or they have redefined the word.

Despite the attempts to control the flow of information, more keeps leaking out. My apologies for the puns but, in such a dire situation, humor eases the anxiety somewhat.

Dire? Yes.

First, the leakage was only 1,000 barrels a day. Then it was 5,000. If you are addicted to reality, it is far worse.

While independent guesstimates range from 50,000 to 200,000, BP holds fast to the 5,000. One of their public relations people may have temporarily forgotten that ‘fact’ when they claimed the straw they finally stuck in the leak was pumping out 5,000 barrels a day. Videos showing the straw don’t show it making much headway, especially when 5,000 minus 5,000 used to equal zero.

In my reading on this topic I have been swamped with information about the culpability of BP. Their Texas City refinery and another in Toledo, Ohio account for 97% of the cited “egregious willful” violations issued by OSHA in the last three years. The Texas City plant had an explosion five years ago that killed 15 employees. The stories just keep coming about the screw-ups on the platform involved in this latest mess.

BP assured the government that an accident was all but impossible; that they had met the requirements for a permit and that they had appropriate plans for dealing with an accident. That alone is three strikes or, more accurately, lies.

Offshore drilling is a complex, difficult operation. Drilling down to the seabed one mile below the surface, at 152 atmospheric pressures, is beyond the reasonable technical competence of anyone. Even if they can accomplish that feat, it does not mean they have the knowledge or equipment to deal with a problem at that depth.

The drilling actually went down another two and a half miles below the seabed. They had to terminate one attempt and start anew. That cost them at least two weeks. At a million dollars a day to operate the rig, BP pushed them to drill faster. At that depth, the stress on the drill and on the material through which they were drilling called for slow, not fast.

The pressure of the oil at that depth dictated the ultimate in caution. They decided it would be faster to use fluid instead of mud in the hole as a measure to prevent a blowout.

Accident? Not really. One of the two devices for monitoring what was happening had had a dead battery for two weeks. A rubber collar that was supposed to stop a blowout was damaged. The drillers had collected a couple of handfuls of pieces of that collar to show to the officials in charge. They were told not to worry.

The government keeps making empty threats to take over from BP. Why are those threats empty? Because the government has neither the equipment nor expertise to deal with the problem. Neither does BP but their resources go far beyond that of the government in this area. Many of those who are blaming the government for not solving the problem are the ones who rant that the government is too big.

The government does bear a measure of responsibility for this but that is the result of a mindset that runs through the government, both appointed and civil service staff, that they are there to facilitate the wishes of the corporations with which they deal. Their client is supposed to be you and me. They accepted the assurances of BP rather than tests and proof.

The Gulf does not belong to the oil corporations. We and the people of the other countries surrounding it are responsible for it and have the right to benefit from it. Or, at least we did.

In what is called a worse-case scenario, but isn’t necessarily, the release of oil would fill enough gallon milk jugs that, if placed side by side, would stretch from New York City to Buenos Aires and back. As of this morning 120 miles of Louisiana shoreline has been covered.

The oil has penetrated 12 miles into the marshland. The Governor repeated what I had heard from some experts, that every method they know of to clean the marshes would destroy the wetlands. Those wetlands are an important defense of the New Orleans area against hurricanes.

I heard most of an interview on public radio with a government weather official. He stated that the predictions for this hurricane season, which is on us within a week, were for one above average in activity.

They have never had a hurricane hit an oil spill before. They are making informed guesses as to the results. The oil, being darker, should absorb more heat than the water. The cover on the water will retain that extra heat. Heat is the engine for a hurricane. Therefore, they expect more hurricanes than average and stronger hurricanes than they otherwise would.

If that isn’t enough to bother you, consider this. Hurricanes suck up water from the sea and return it as rain. This rain extends far inland. This time the hurricane will suck up some oil, along with the water. Here in Nashville we usually experience some rain from hurricanes that hit in the Gulf. Tell me what to expect when it rains oil.

The tourist industry on the Gulf is estimated at around $60 billion. I’m guessing that the fishing industry is fairly large also. People and businesses have already experienced loses and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. You may have to go to KFC instead of Red Lobster for a few dinners.

All of this means reduced revenue for the states and the federal government. It means greater needs for those governments to meet. BP promises to make everyone whole. How many hands do I see of those who believe that?

Now they tell us that most of the oil remains under the surface. If we can’t fully deal with that on the surface, how to we deal with that which we cannot see? Gas is also leaking. Water pollution isn’t enough of a problem. Now we have to worry about air pollution too.

I haven’t even mentioned that BP is balking at the government’s order to change dispersants. The one they have been using all along is not recommended for use over a span of more than two weeks. It is actually banned in some European countries. The alternate dispersant is siting stockpiled in Houston.

I make no claim to being an expert but the concept of dispersants bothers me. To where does this dispersed oil go? Isn’t it harder to collect in that form? Is it really anything more than a cosmetic fix?

We might see how much better the beaches look if they have any success in cleaning them. But, if the bulk of the oil stays under that water, what effect does it have long-term on the various lifeforms in the Gulf? Will all of the fishermen need to look for jobs in other sectors of the economy?

Perhaps I’m simply a pessimist. Whatever, I see this as having the potential to be the disaster of a generation, if it isn’t superceded by an even larger spill.

What has been learned? Nothing. Last week an additional 12 rigs were authorized to drill. Despite promises, ‘accidents’ do happen. They are deadly to human and other life. They are difficult to deal with on land but appear to represent an unacceptable disaster offshore.

These corporations are the biggest and richest in the world. Our world has become much poorer for this failure. How many more such failures can we afford. The oil corporations can afford many while they get richer.

We have to go to alternative fuels sometime – sometime soon. We should have started no later than the first oil embargo in 1973. We could already be energy independent. Every hole we drill just delays that independence that much longer. How much oil do we get from offshore drilling? About 1%. It doesn’t seem worth the risk and the total costs.

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There was some interest in the recent volcanic activity in Iceland. Don’t worry. I have no intention of showing off my ability to type its name just to twist your tongue.

My own interest was also sparked. I used to work for Delta Air Lines, back in the dark ages before deregulation. It was constantly emphasized that safety was paramount. Delta’s only fatality after five decades was a skeleton flight crew on a training flight.

Since deregulation, the industry has shown a willingness to juggle their priorities.

Let me give you a good piece of financial advice. Never buy airline stock. Over its entire history, the industry has lost money. The government helped get it off the ground in the 1920s with air mail contracts.

I’m uncertain of the present economics but when I was there the carrying of mail was still a way of subsidizing the airlines. Delta’s biggest profit ever was on the sale of stock it received from Priceline for its participation in their discount ticket program.

In most businesses, salaries and wages are the biggest cost. Even in the 1960s and 1970s fuel was the largest expense. It is difficult to see how they could have accommodated the rise of fuel prices.

In 1966 Delta had a dedicated pipeline from Louisiana to the far side of the Atlanta airport. It carried only jet fuel, only for Delta, only in Atlanta. We were told that, otherwise, it would require trains delivering 100 tanker cars a day. Fuel represented half of their budget before the oil embargo.

Given the economic pressures, I can appreciate the search for budget items that can be cut. I do not, however, appreciate those that effect safety.

Safety was important to me as a pilot. No, I was not a pilot for Delta. I held a commercial ticket with instrument and multi-engine ratings but did not fly commercially. I wanted to but with jets taking over and jet time being so expensive, almost all hiring was of those pilots returning from Vietnam.

After all air space was closed following 9-11, the government gave the airlines some money to help them avoid bankruptcy. The industry is necessary but it benefits businesses and the wealthy far more than Joe Average. The government pays for the weather reports, air traffic control, security and subsidizes airport construction, among other things. Businesses and the wealthy have never paid their fair share.

As I said, the industry is necessary and there are some collateral benefits to the general population. But the volcano in Iceland further highlighted the inherent problems.

The airlines are claiming they should be reimbursed for lost revenue. I think it can be successfully argued that 9-11 was an attack on the nation and the airlines were kept from flying for national security reasons.

Volcanic ash can represent a safety problem. The airlines claim it did not represent a significant problem. They wanted to make money.

Volcanic ash is not like sand. It is more like powder; a powder that can quickly turn into the consistency of a thick gravy or a thin peanut butter. It isn’t recommended for precision-machined parts moving at high speeds.

One crash would have brought down widespread wrath upon the governments, more so than on the airlines.

Volcanic ash is far more common than terrorist attacks. A volcano spews forth somewhere on an average frequency greater than weekly. Volcanoes are things that should be factored into the price of a ticket, as are maintenance, weather delays and other disruptions.

If the taxpayers in all of the affected countries make the airlines whole, where does it stop? There are pleas from the car rental agencies, hotels, etc. Even the flower growers of Morocco want to be reimbursed by the European governments.

What about the passengers? Their plans were disrupted. Their trips cost them more than planned. They may have missed work or school or weddings or funerals. Various industries demand recompense for their sector. Some politicians have proposed compensating multiple business sectors but I heard none proposing dipping into the government kitty on behalf of the passengers.

The mentality of putting corporate interests above that of human beings is deeply ingrained everywhere you turn. If you look you will see it and wonder just how valued you are.

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