nerdgirl

One area that has not gotten as much attention relative to discussions of the nuclear mission in context of USAH Minot and Hill AFB incidents is the role of strategy and driving decesions on new nuclear weapons. Should the uniformed military and/or the civilian defense leadership abrogate decisions, explicitly or implicity, on future/new nuclear weapons to DOE weapons lab? (1) Argument pro: the technical skill set needed to design and engineer new nuclear weapons is held by the DOE weapons laboratory, e.g., Los Alamos, Sandia, Lawrence Livermore. The scientists and engineers at those laboratories have unique skill sets that are rarely (if at all) found in the uniformed services or DoD civilian leadership. Monitoring and maintenance of the US nuclear stockpile is the responsibility of the scientists and engineers at the DOE Laboratories (not the delviery vehicles). They are, therefore, also in the best position to make decisions on future nuclear weapons and the military services and DoD civilian leadership should abrogate such decisions to the leadership of the DOE weapons laboratories. (2) Argument con: Policy on new nuclear weapons should be driven by US strategic interests, e.g., the US National Security Strategy and the US National Military Strategy. Strategy on future nuclear weapons should originate from the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the leaders of the uniformed military not DOE ‘goco’ laboratories, regardless of unique technical capabilities. What do you think? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

One not infrequently encounters anecdotal stories here and outside regarding what type of home loans are underlying the foreclosure mess. Some are thinly veiled racist attacks. Others are general stereotypes of “them” who are poorer and different than “us.” Of those I've seen, they're slim to lacking data. Does anyone have any data on what type of foreclosures are the largest contributors? Is it ‘McMansions’ in suburbs? Inner city poor? Working class poor? Stockton, Merced and Modesto metro areas of California lead the nation in % foreclosures. That’s significantly mixed income demographics. Outside of California, the only two localities to make the top ten in the latest data for foreclosure rates were Las Vegas-Henderson, NV and Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL. What do they share? 10+% increase in population since 2000, e.g., Stockton 17.4% increase, Las Vegas-Henderson 15.5% increase, Merced 17.6% increase. And high housing values. The top three states in terms of absolute number of foreclosure were Nevada, California and Arizona. The top state in terms of % of foreclosures was Florida. “Where did the mortgage mess come from?” (from Kansas City Star, mid-America) traces the tremendous increase in housing prices in areas of the countries that are also – surprise, surprise – experiencing the highest rate of foreclosures. As the author details, foreclosures rates in urban and rural areas of Mississippi, *where the housing prices are reasonable,* has been on par with historical averages. Where housing prices have skyrocketed, e.g., California which leads w/8 of the highest foreclosure communities?“Since the start of the Wall Street mess, several pundits and some economists have blamed the mortgage meltdown on the push in the 1990s and 2000s (through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to extend credit to lower income borrowers who otherwise wouldn't have qualified for loans. “Those borrowers have now defaulted, the argument story goes, wrecking the mortgage-backed securities owned by investment banks and others. “Here's a typical column … [observe the lack of data – nerdgirl]. “But is the claim really true? Let's look at some numbers. “Mississippi was the poorest state in the nation in 2007 on a per-capita basis, with an average income of $28,845. And its home prices are low: in late 2006, when many of the problem loans were made, the median home sales price was $82,700. “Even so, at the end of June this year, Mississippians were having problems paying their loans -- 10.44% of all mortgages were past due, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That would suggest that, indeed, lower income people were extended credit they couldn't afford. “But let's look at California and Florida. Per-capita income in California is $41,571; in Florida, it's $38,444. And, as you might expect, home prices in both states in 2006 were extraordinarily high, too. The median sales price in California was $452,000, while it was $236,000 in Florida. “Here's the key: Foreclosure rates in both states -- loans that are non-performing, the very paper the government wants to buy -- are now very high, too. Florida leads the nation: 6% of its loans are in foreclosure. In California, the rate is 3.86%. “Mississippi? The foreclosure rate is 1.98%, lower than the national average, suggesting that borrowers in that state are behind on their payments but not yet in default. “Those numbers suggest the biggest cause of the mortgage meltdown may be loans to relatively wealthier borrowers in higher-price markets that went into foreclosure when home prices collapsed in those areas. “And remember – on an aggregate basis, the effect of bad loans in high-income and high-price states cost more than in a lower-income area. That is, a foreclosure in California may be on a $400,000 mortgage, [that’s a *very* cheap mortgage in many parts of California-nerdgirl] while one in Mississippi may be, say, $200,000. It adds up. The Mortgage Bankers Association says Californians are paying off 5.9 million home loans; Florida, 3.5 million. Mississippi: 253,000. “The figures may not tell the whole story. Florida's high foreclosure rate, for example, may reflect subprime loans in poor areas and not defaults on relatively expensive homes. [It also makes sense that predatory lenders in a capitalist system would concentrate on areas where the loans are significantly larger, i.e., they could make more money rather than areas where loans are much smaller – furthering (multiplying) the effect – nerdgirl] “But let's assume foreclosure rates in Florida among poorer borrowers reflect Mississippi's experience (they are, after all, neighboring states.) That would mean -- very roughly -- that one-third of the crisis comes from non-performing loans from lower income borrowers, while two-thirds of the problem comes from wealthier borrowers buying more expensive homes." And we don't seem to have good numbers on what is the differential between those "lower-income borrowers" and more expensive homes. If a lower-income" mortgage is $150,000, it takes 3 of those loans defaulting to equal one $450,000 mortgage default or 6 of those loans defaulting to equal one $900,000 McMansion default (altho' parts of California, $900k is a 1500ft^2 single-family home). Historically, some very small percentage of home loans have defaulted and led to foreclosures (~1.5%, iirc), when the average default was some relatively smaller value, the impact could be adsorbed by the larger economic system; as mortgage defaults grew larger both in absolute number and average value, it's a larger pressure on the system. VR/Marg [Edit to add attachment: US foreclosure map] Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

You're right - it is confusing. There is really no question w/r/t NPT. In addition to what Jasmin has written, under the NPT anything less than manufacture of a nuclear weapon is allowable for a non-nuclear weapons state (NNWS) party. When the NPT was negotiated, the line for prohibited use of what was to be considered peaceful (allowable) nuclear behavior was anything up to manufacturing a nuclear weapon. Everything up to that was considered allowable by the treaty. There were debates at the time of negotiation (late 1960s) on where to metaphorical draw the line. That the line was drawn so far to the right (toward having a bomb) is largely an artifact of the NNWS that wanted and were technically able to pursue peaceful nuclear energy at the time, e.g., West Germany and Sweden. The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) formed in 1974, on US initiative. The NPT is not formally tied to the NSG. The NSG was a response to India’s “Smiling Buddha” nuclear weapon test – that’s the NSC line … originally. It changed last month when the NSC voted to allow the US-India deal. The NSC is currently considering enrichment and reprocessing restraints too. All states party to the NPT are not automatically members of the NSG. The NSG is by-invitation-only. (Not unlike the Australia Group.) VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

On what basis do you make that assertion? The attacks I've received, e.g., "stupid bitch" and "elitist cunt" [reconcile those two in the same PM], thinly veiled death threats, and the less than conscientious comments, e.g., Sunday's "Communist" charge, have come from outspoken Republicans. All from different individuals. The posters who have been condescending to me all have all been outspoken Republicans. So either I drive right-wingers (your word) to be undisciplined, mean, and egotistical or your hypothesis is less than valid and we see the converse. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Did he ever say he “prefers” Governor Palin or is that intentional misconstruction? Reminds me of when President Bush said “Well, Mandela is dead”. I'm giving him credit that he wasn’t actaully saying Mandela was actually dead … just as former President Clinton wasn’t saying he thought Governor Palin would be a better Vice President. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Fabulous - a counter hypothesis! On what basis (evidence) are you making the argument? And on what basis are you discounting the explanations offered by folks like Joe Stiglitz? How do you disentangle regulation from enforcement? A poignant and timely example of how the latter is crucial can be seen in the melamine-caused deaths and illness of a reported 53,000 infants in Asia. Regulation without enforcement is not effective whether it be the US financial system or Chinese dairy system. Back in March, Alan Greenspan had a short and relatively transparent (for him) piece in the Financial Times "We will never have a perfect model of risk, in which he noted the inherant difficulty regulating things that don't yet exist or that are very new -- like those "innovative new ways" of securitizing risk that Stiglitz & others have spoke. (It's not much different than regulating things that don't exist technologically - the policy options are very limited.) If one innovates and generates products beneficial to the economy & the nation (good risky behavior), there is commensurate reward, often very large. Those are individual consequences. I doubt very many people "like" the proposed bailout. Most people don't like getting painful (economic or otherwise) procedures like immunizations. A lingering question that I haven't seen addressed -- it may have been, I just haven't seen it -- is what are the negative consequences for those who engaged in the bad risky behavior & 'creative' accounting practices (e.g., disclosures by Frank Raines under oath & OFHEO charges of accounting manipulation that were dismissed by the SEC)? (Folks at the bottom and in the middle who took out 2nd loans on 'McMansions' are suffering consequences - they're losing their homes. The top city for foreclosures is Modesto CA, 2nd Merced - these are hardly all 'inner city neighborhoods.) Where are negative consequences -- ones that actually affect them directly -- for those who orchestrated and benefited on Wall St and across the US? I don't like the message being sent that if they innovate another bad risky economic scheme and mechanisms that are integrated into the economy, the USG will come behind and bail them out. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Ryan - would you point to anything that supports your assertion? Atlho' really I'm honestly more curious as to what was the underlying thinking process that prompted you to state that conclusion. What was it? How did you get from my words to your conclusion? I don't think I know you. ASAIK, we've never met in person nor have we exchanged PMs. I cannot say whether or not or I would "miss you" as I don't know anything more than is in your profile and this single post. What is it about my posts that prompts you to want me to leave? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

... was an ad hominem argument ("replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.") If I hadn't cited exact references to what I was arguing against, I would agree with you. However, I responded directly to what Lucky cites as goals to aim for, from Healthcare, taxes and the US role in the world. He wants Universal care. I cited a reason against it. He wants higher taxes for corporations. I cited exact tax brackets and explained that the small business would be hurt (by the way, that's 90% of the US economy). He wants the US to take its toys and go home. I asked him if that meant not responding to any situation, to which he said, in all simplicity, "yes". Instead, I provided real issues in response. That's not an argument against the person. Yes ... & concur. Through that it was not an argument argument against the person. It's the ad hominem portion (very top) to which I replied (#142) and quoted (#150) that wasn't. His highly debatable views do not necessarily correlate to the asserted conclusions, just as being pro-liberal economics/capitalism does not necessarily correlate to Enron-style illegal business practices. Again, it was notable because it was uncharacteristic. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I can make an argument that government vulnerabilities to cyberthreats and non-malicious information security breaches may have larger strategic implications, especially for national security. E.g., NATO Chief says Cyber Threat Poses as Great a Threat as a Missile Attack & discussion therein. Concurrently, however, as I cited ($100,000 fine for HIPAA violation by private a healthcare provider), the private sector is hardly immune (to cyber security or to HIPAA violations). (1) It is likely less well reported because they're private (anecdotal numbers suggest Microsoft is subject to 3-10x the number of cyber attacks as the DoD), and (2) while protection of proprietary information is important, the sensitivty is not the same as some USG information. It gets more attention because the potential consequences are greater. Additionally a 2005 DOJ ruling limited HIPAA (it may have been reversed Congressionally ...). I said, "light regulation", not "no regulation". Exactly! You don't advocate Enron-style business practices. Asserting that anyone who favors liberal economic-based capitalism automatically favors Enron-style buiness practices would be a spurious correlation. Similarly was an ad hominem argument ("replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.") VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Now this is more characteristic.

Aaah! I think you may be onto something. It's not a global Salafist movement to re-establish a 7th Century Islamic Caliphate (w/sat phones, RPGs, and AK-47s ) ... but a Scandinavian berserker uprising to re-establish global Norse dominance. It started with Ikea. (Don't let the superficial Swedish origin of Ikea fool you ... pretty soon it will nothing but meatballs, lingonberries, and gelled fish.) [/silly-sarcasm] Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Concur! And then some. Greed is not the problem. Greed is a constant. How good greed (entrepeneurial capitalism is encouraged/fostered) versus how bad greed is minimized is the problem. (One point I'll differ with Chris, both Sen McCain & Sen Obama have been warning of the potential consequences of bad greedy behavior. February 2006 Sen Obama introduced S.2280: STOP FRAUD Act (Introduced in Senate); To stop transactions which operate to promote fraud, risk, and under-development, and for other purposes, which directly addressed sub-prime and predatory mortgage practices. In March08 as reported by FoxNews, Sen Obama was advocating intervention and "reforming its own agencies to adjust to the realities of modern finance," at the time what Sec Paulson and Pres Bush did this week were still politically unpalatable.) VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Max, Are you running for office this year? You usually don't use ad hominems. On principle your characterizations are hyperbolic and unsupportedly conflating opinion with fact. You claim with no evidence that supporting universal healthcare equals advocacy of the suspension of privacy. Come on’ – you’re usually better than that. (Nevermind ignoring the myriad other potential privacy infringement acts & actions.) That’s on the order of asserting that lack of universal healthcare means some people will not receive needed treatment and some might die from it, therefore you are in favor of killing children. Does that contribute to a discussion? (See [mnealtx]'s comments in this thread for more cogent arguments against universal healthcare.) Factually how many non-medical personal have access to your files now? Lots. One can generate equally specious correlations suggesting that you want the US to be the world’s policeman and favor Enron-like business practices. You’re usually better than the above post suggests. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

While some of the secondary & tertiary accounts may make those mistakes, the actual study & the authors don't. One more example of my obsession with primary data. "Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits" Science 19 September 2008: Vol. 321. no. 5896, pp. 1667 - 1670. (If anyone without access would like a full text version, for educational reasons, PM me.): "Our data reveal a correlation between physiological responses to threat and political attitudes but do not permit firm conclusions concerning the specific causal processes at work. Particular physiological responses to threat could cause the adoption of certain political attitudes, or the holding of particular political attitudes could cause people to respond in a certain physiological way to environmental threats, but neither of these seems probable. More likely is that physiological responses to generic threats and political attitudes on policies related to protecting the social order may both derive from a common source. Parents could both socialize their children to hold certain political attitudes and condition them to respond in a certain way to threatening stimuli, but conditioning involuntary reflex responses takes immediate and sustained reinforcement and punishment, and it is unlikely that this conditioning varies systematically across political beliefs. "Alternatively, political attitudes and varying physiological responses to threat may both derive from neural activity patterns, perhaps those surrounding the amygdala. There is a connection between localized activation of the amygdala and aversive startle response (30). Amygdala activity is also crucial in shaping responses to socially threatening images (31, 32) and may be connected to political predispositions. Indeed, given that political and social attitudes are heritable (33–36) and that amygdala activity also has been traced to genetics (37–40), genetic variation relevant to amygdala activity could affect both physiological responses to threat and political attitudes bearing on threats to the social order. "Our findings suggest that political attitudes vary with physiological traits linked to divergent manners of experiencing and processing environmental threats. Consequently, our research provides one possible explanation for both the lack of malleability in the beliefs of individuals with strong political convictions and for the associated ubiquity of political conflict." Some secondary sources/reports have appreciated the difference as well: "The study's authors are quick to point out that these correlations won't necessarily apply across the board, and that the findings don't imply that people take political positions out of fear. (Fear, of course, is not a bad thing — a certain amount of it is necessary for survival.) The point, rather, is that there may be something fundamentally biological about politics." VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Wednesday the State Dept’s Under Secretary For Public Diplomacy And Public Affairs, James K. Glassman, held an informal press conference. One of the programs about which he spoke was the Digital Outreach Teams, essentially multi-lingual Americans who engage productively … & occasionally pointedly … in Arab, Farsi, and Urdu language blogs to advance US interests and to communicate US ideals. Under Secretary Glassman: “Digital Outreach team – I believe there are eight – it’s either eight or nine people who are on it who blog. And I say “blog” advisedly. They don’t have their own blogs, but they enter into digital conversations online either on other people’s blogs or other websites. And they identify themselves as working for the United States Government and they are participating in the conversation. And you know, at times they will push back and say, you know, that’s not accurate, here’s the truth about U.S. policy and here’s a link, you can go to America.gov, you can go somewhere else. But they’re entering – they are participating in the conversation. They do this in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and by the way, we hope soon, in Russian. “Now, one of our Digital Outreach Team members back in – back last month participated – well, what he did was he went on to Mr. Ali Akbar Javanfekr’s personal blog and he is President Ahmadinejad media advisor, Javanfekr. And so he has his own blog. Ahmadinejad has his own blog. And blogging is big, as I’m sure you all know, in Iran. “Anyway, he went on in response to some of the things that this gentleman had put on his website, and there ensued an exchange of, on our side, five postings. I guess it was ten postings in all back and forth. And first of all, we were very surprised that an Iranian official would engage in this kind of back and forth. We also think that our guy made some very telling points. We were surprised from that point of view that it was published. And we were also surprised that the entire transcript was printed in the Persian language newspaper Iran on Mr. Javanfekr’s instigation on August 27th of this year “So I think we – we either have made this transcript available or we will make it available. And anyway, I just thought this was a good story. And this is only one example of the kind of public diplomacy engagement that we are having with Iran. Now, it’s mostly at the level of the Iranian public.” “And let me just say that the war of ideas aspect of this is that our opponents in the war of ideas can’t stand this kind of thing. They use the internet for a completely different purpose. They are broadcasting, exhorting, teaching people how to make bombs, banging them over the head with their ideology, and they don’t want feedback that may be negative. We, on the other hand, are encouraging this kind of conversation with the confidence that people will arrive at the kinds of answers that make the world a better place.” Short article from NY Times on the program here. Fabulous! Public diplomacy – the promotion of better understanding of the United States among the peoples of the world and to strengthen cooperative international relations – is a skill at which the US has not excelled recently. We used to be very good at public diplomacy. Activities must stay truthful and transparent, e.g., identification as USG employees. To echo UnderSec Glassman’s words (from later in the informal press conference), public diplomacy is not a goal unto itself. Public diplomacy is a means to inform and to advance US goals. For example, last week, a poll covering 17 states – including allies like Turkey, Britian, Germany, Mexico, ROK, – found considerable doubt regarding who was behind the September 11th attacks. And it’s not Saddam Hussayn. Overall only 46% responded that al Qa’eda was responsible (!) The remaining 54% asserted they didn’t know or asserted that US or Israel were responsible for 9-11. That’s just f%&ked! Connection with public diplomacy: “Though people with greater education generally have greater exposure to news, those with greater education are only slightly more likely to attribute 9/11 to al Qaeda. “A stronger correlate of beliefs about 9/11 are respondents' attitudes about the United States. Those with a positive view of America's influence in the world are more likely to cite al Qaeda (on average 59%) than those with a negative view (40%). Those with a positive view of the United States are also less likely to blame the US government (7%) than those with a negative view (22%).” Lack of effective public diplomacy makes advancing US strategic interests much more difficult and costly. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

The mention of The Lancet cited data piqued my attention. The first piece, “The Pitfalls of Socialized Medicine,” notes“An article published last year in the British medical journal The Lancet strongly suggests that the United States is also outperforming the world when it comes to surviving diseases such as AIDS, heart disease, cancer, and pneumonia. For example, approximately 63 percent of Americans diagnosed with cancer survive for at least five years. This tops the survival rates in countries with state-run national health care, including Italy, Spain and Great Britain.” I went looking for that article. (Ya had to see that one coming, eh? ) I couldn’t find it. I'm not questioning that there was an article in The Lancet on the subject; I just can't independently verify the author's claims of what it said. And I do certainly hope the US is “outperforming the world” (not sure what the statistical meaningfulness of that is) in treatment of pneumonia, malaria, measles, whooping cough, diarrheal diseases, etc. We may be “outperforming the world” in treatment of heart disease and cancer due to more people (more demand) having those chronic ailments – those are ailments of rich countries. The other piece, John Goodman 's (Cato Institute Newsletter) “Five Myths of Socialized Medicine” makes some very strong claims without any references: “Among women who are diagnosed with breast cancer, only one fifth die in the United States, compared to one third in France and Germany, and almost half in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. “Among men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer, fewer than one fifth die in the United States, compared to one fourth in Canada, almost half in France, and more than half in the United Kingdom.” Those are really strong and powerful results … would very much like to know how that data was acquired? Is it statistical? Is it epidemiological? How and who? Can anyone point me to the source of those claims? The chart on page 3 of Goodman's Cato Institute newsletter is also interesting, “Use of High-Tech Medical Procedures (per 100,000 people per year)” (which does include a reference: Gerard Anderson, et al., “It’s the Prices, Stupid: Why the United States Is So Different from Other Countries,” Health Affairs 21, no. 3 (May/June 2002): Exhibit 5.). From the Health Affairs article & points that Goodman does not seem to address: “This paper uses the latest data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to compare the health systems of the thirty member countries in 2000. Total health spending—the distribution of public and private health spending in the OECD countries—is presented and discussed. U.S. public spending as a percentage of GDP (5.8 percent) is virtually identical to public spending in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan (5.9 percent each) and not much smaller than in Canada (6.5 percent). The paper also compares pharmaceutical spending, health system capacity, and use of medical services. The data show that the United States spends more on health care than any other country. However, on most measures of health services use, the United States is below the OECD median. These facts suggest that the difference in spending is caused mostly by higher prices for health care goods and services in the United States.” “In the U.S. health system, for example, money flows from households to the providers of health care through a vast network of relatively uncoordinated pipes and capillaries of various sizes. Although the huge federal Medicare program and the federal-state Medicaid programs do possess some monopsonistic purchasing power, and large private insurers may enjoy some degree of monopsony power as well in some localities, the highly fragmented buy side of the U.S. health system is relatively weak by international standards. It is one factor, among others, that could explain the relatively high prices paid for health care and for health professionals in the United States. “In comparison, the government-controlled health systems of Canada, Europe, and Japan allocate considerably more market power to the buy side. In each of the Canadian provinces, for example, the health insurance plans operated by the provincial governments constitute pure monopsonies: They purchase (pay for) all of the health services that are covered by the provincial health plan and used by the province’s residents. “Even a pure monopsonist, of course, is ultimately constrained by market forces on the supply side—that is, by the reservation (minimally acceptable) prices of the providers of health care below which they will not supply their goods or services. But within that limit, monopsonistic buyers enjoy enough market clout to drive down the prices paid for health care and health care inputs fairly close to those reservation prices. It can explain, for example, why Fuchs and Hahn [published in the New England Journal of Medicine-nerdgirl] found that ‘U.S. fees for procedures are more than three times as high as Canadian fees [and] the difference in fees for evaluation and management services is about 80 percent.’” How does one set aside that counter-explanation? I.e., it’s not quality of service but cost of US services? Our system costs more. Inherently higher costs are not a reason, imo, to necessarily abandon a system if the long term benefits are greater; it may even be a reason to accept initial costs. The graph in Goodman's piece does *not* appear in the referenced Health Affairs article. I can easily see how Goodman (or a staff intern) extracted the coronary angioplasty & dialysis figures from this tabular data in the Health Affairs article. Goodman’s chart does not include spurious data on coronary angioplasty & dialysis, and copyright restriction would prohibit duplication of the original. Where Goodman got the coronary bypass data is not as clear. There’s also a lot more data that isn’t as seemingly straightforward in the Health Affairs table. Should one not be asking *why* are health services costing more in the US? Should not costs be lower in a free market? If one uses services more (needed or not needed?) or has a larger overall volume of treatments, it would not be unexpected for a higher overall cost. A state can decide that it favors higher cost for myriad of reasons. Lower cost is not inherently better. Otoh, it seems less than apparent that higher costs are *really* equaling better services. At the end of the day, if the state and its people do value higher cost with maybe better services (anecdotally) because of political philosophy (which is completely acceptable), it still has to be paid for. How are we going to pay for it? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Not marmalade ... but how about what's going on with your PM? What do you think are the chances that the conservatives may return to power? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

While perhaps appearing superficially counterproductive (... & perhaps counterproductive in the long run), it is a strategy that has been pursued by disparate terrorist groups with varying levels of effectiveness, particularly if the government against whom the terrorists are fighting is seen/perceived to be aligned with the US, e.g., Yemen News Service (SABA) reported on 14Sep/3 days before the attack: "U.S official praises Yemen's fight against al-Qaeda." The US official was the ASD SOLIC. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

The Schlesinger report recommends Air Force Space Command (AFSC) be re-org'd & renamed Air Force Strategic Command (AFSTRAT). AFSC is currently a 4-star command. Unadressed is relation of OSD policy/strategy to overall nuclear complex. (Albeit outside the Schlesinger committee TOR.) How a AFSTRAT will intersect w/AF Cyber Command also TBD. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I'd like to report Marg. She abuses me constantly here. Who has the magic golden lasso? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Congratulations! Sounds like a job very well done and job that needs to be done very well. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

PhD Chemist ... hmmm ... nice.

Joe Stiglitz has commented on the causes of the current financial downturn in “How to prevent the next Wall Street crisis.” Excerpts: “There is ample blame to be shared; but the purpose of parsing out blame is to figure out how to make a recurrence less likely. “President Bush famously said, a little while ago, that the problem is simple: Too many houses were built. Yes, but the answer is too simplistic: Why did that happen? “One can say the Fed failed twice, both as a regulator and in the conduct of monetary policy. Its flood of liquidity (money made available to borrow at low interest rates) and lax regulations led to a housing bubble. When the bubble broke, the excessively leveraged loans made on the basis of overvalued assets went sour. “For all the new-fangled financial instruments, this was just another one of those financial crises based on excess leverage, or borrowing, and a pyramid scheme. The new ‘innovations’ simply hid the extent of systemic leverage and made the risks less transparent; it is these innovations that have made this collapse so much more dramatic than earlier financial crises. But one needs to push further: Why did the Fed fail? “First, key regulators like Alan Greenspan didn't really believe in regulation; when the excesses of the financial system were noted, they called for self-regulation -- an oxymoron. “Second, the macro-economy was in bad shape with the collapse of the tech bubble. The tax cut of 2001 was not designed to stimulate the economy but to give a largesse to the wealthy -- the group that had been doing so well over the last quarter-century. “The coup d'grace was the Iraq War, which contributed to soaring oil prices. Money that used to be spent on American goods now got diverted abroad. The Fed took seriously its responsibility to keep the economy going. It did this by replacing the tech bubble with a new bubble, a housing bubble. Household savings plummeted to zero, to the lowest level since the Great Depression. It managed to sustain the economy, but the way it did it was shortsighted: America was living on borrowed money and borrowed time. “Finally, at the center of blame must be the financial institutions themselves. They -- and even more their executives -- had incentives that were not well aligned with the needs of our economy and our society. They were amply rewarded, presumably for managing risk and allocating capital, which was supposed to improve the efficiency of the economy so much that it justified their generous compensation. But they misallocated capital; they mismanaged risk -- they created risk. They did what their incentive structures were designed to do: focusing on short-term profits and encouraging excessive risk-taking.” So in the opinion of dz.com’s expert and/or unauthorized armchair economists, what’s wrong with his assessment of direct causal and contributing factors? If one does agree -- even marginally -- with his assessment, what kind of incentives or disincentives do you think are needed to change the incentive structure that led to excessive risk-taking? Alternatively, if you don't think that incentives &/or disincentives are approporiate, how do you explain that the market did not prevent this excessive risk-taking behavior? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I recall a discussion among several of my peers early last week and the topic of 6-sigma and other similar initiatives (AFSO21) and one of my peers pointed out that this sort of thing was difficult to apply to Govt/military programs because there are fundimental differences between product development in a company and the same in the government. for example whereas a company (one entity) is developing a product to sell to many customers (and more customers are better)... the government/miliary is one customer trying to aquire/develop products using many suppliers... which is fundimentally reversed from corporate structures... Concur. TQM, six sigma, etc can be efficient and useful for things like delivery of very large ($$$, size, & multiple components) like submarines (e.g., Vinny's example of the USS NEW HAMPSHIRE) or repeatedly delivering items like helicopters or cell phones. Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, (Robbins AFB) Depot Maintenance Program has instituted a specifically-designed (& tweaked) variant for scheduled maintance of C130s that is saving costs and getting aircraft returned to operations quicker. Concur very strongly that imposition of those business production model practices on RDT&E (i.e., Basic Research through Demonstration/Validation; 6.1 - 6.4) is less than optimal, to put it diplomatically. It was a neat idea, but it's somewhat akin to using a hammer on something that needs a screwdriver ... or that needs something not found in a toolbox. As an example from the private sector, 3M abandoned Six Sigma for its R&D enterprise last December . Concur also that imposition of those models on management of people is less than optimal. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Officially not tied to al Qa’eda … yet. Reportedly, 6-US Embassy guards (foreign nationals) and several Yemeni who were Embassy employees were killed. The US Embassy in Yemen is closed. ”A group calling itself Islamic Jihad in Yemen claimed responsibility for the bombing and threatened attacks on other embassies including those of Britain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. “It had threatened in a previous statement on Tuesday to launch a series of attacks unless the Yemeni government met its demands for the release of several members from jail. “‘We, the organization of Islamic Jihad in Yemen declare our responsibility for the suicide attack on the American embassy in Sanaa …. We will carry out the rest of the series of attacks on the other embassies that were declared previously, until our demands are met by the Yemeni government.” Images. In March, Jund al-Yemen Brigadesal, an al Qa’eda affiliated terrorist group, executed a mortar attack near/directed at the US Embassy, they weren’t accurate in mortar delivery and killed a young girl & a Yemeni police man. Al Qa’eda in the Maghreb? Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying