When parents switch channels from violent television shows to ones that promote peaceful conflict resolution, their young children's behavior improves. Those are the findings of a study conducted by the Seattle's Children's Research Institute and reported this week by Donna Gordon Blankinship of the Associated Press. You can see the article here.
The study included 565 Seattle-area parents with three to five year-old children and lasted for a year. Half the families were coached to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" and avoid programs like "Power Rangers." The other half got coaching on healthier eating. Parent questionnaires revealed behavioral improvements in both groups after six months, but more for those who had altered their television viewing habits. The greatest improvements were documented for boys from low-income families.
After one year, there was little perceptible difference between the two groups. The parents were not told the purpose of the study, but "the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results." With the incidence of crime and violence a major current focus in current American public affairs, more such research would be timely and welcome indeed.
We have all heard plenty of speculation and hypotheses about our high levels of societal violence compared to the rest of the world. We know there are strong correlations to income levels and abusive patterns in the home. It's certainly well worth our while to further such research and develop a lot more hard data on other factors that may be contributing. Lives are at stake.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
OPEC and Speculators Push Gas Price Surge
Nationally, gasoline prices at the pump have gone up 44 cents in the past month, to an average $3.74. Over the same period they've risen 50 cents in Fresno to $4.06 and 48 cents in Visalia, to $4.04. We have boosted domestic production immensely, which the "drill baby drill" chanters promised would reduce prices. So what's going on? As an analysis in today's Fresno Bee by Kevin G. Hall points out, it's the usual suspects: the OPEC cartel and financial industry speculators. It continues to pound home a lesson we should have learned long ago: so long as we continue to rely on a commodity like a fossil fuel for our main energy needs we will never be able to get ahead of this vulnerability. We will only enjoy true independence and predictability once we have made the switch to renewables like solar and wind.
Higher gas prices suck the steam out of the economic recovery. They reduce the purchasing power American consumers have to spend on other items. Hall writes, "Gasoline expenditures as a percentage of U.S. household income hit three-decade highs in 2012."
This hasn't been abated by our own ramping up of drilling and production. From 2011 to 2012 the U.S. domestic oil industry, largely unleashed by the Obama Administration, expanded its drilling by 800,000 barrels a day. American production is on track to "rise from 6.89 million barrels a day in November 2012 to 8.15 million by December 2014." We now produce more than half the oil we consume, up from less than a third at our lowest. Thanks to increasing vehicle fuel economy, we are also using less. As a result of these factors, as you can see by the chart in this link, we have cut imports by about 20% since President Obama took office. That is all good, but it still hasn't resulted in a big price break for U.S. consumers. That's because we don't really have a free market for oil, and also because we do. Let me explain.
On one level, there isn't enough free enterprise in the market. The OPEC oil cartel can, and does, intervene to keep the price of oil at a level they want. They do this by cutting production when price drops too far or increasing production if they want the price to go down. The OPEC countries with large reserves but small populations to support, like Saudi Arabia, simply drill less oil, and by the laws of supply and demand, the price goes up. That is even though world demand has recently gone down. The International Energy Agency reports that, "Lacking demand, OPEC, the oil-exporters cartel, has reduced production."
But that's only half the story. The other half is where we have too much free enterprise, and that refers to energy speculators. Rather than trucking companies and airlines, who are consumers themselves and used to buy most of the oil futures at prices designed to keep costs in check, these days, as Hall reports, "Non-commercial financial speculators now dominate 70% of the market. The trading is dominated by Wall Street banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions that have no intention to take delivery of the oil needed to make gasoline."
They buy all the uncontracted oil they can and hang onto it, starving the world's economies of oil until desperate consumers begin bidding up the price. Then they sell at a hefty profit. According to Bart Chilton of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, "It's speculators who are moving markets. They are almost the entire market at certain periods of time." So manufacturers, transportation companies and everyday drivers are stuck with crippling and escalating costs so that the already engorged oil cartel and Wall Street operators can continue adding to their untold billions.
Whether we drill more or not, those who have the system rigged in their favor are certain to get their pound of flesh. Only when we get the lion's share of our energy directly from sources they can't control and gouge the rest of us to access--like renewables--will we break ourselves from this stranglehold. That makes the President's wind, solar and conservation initiatives all the more critical for the well-being of the "real" economy and the average American consumer.
Higher gas prices suck the steam out of the economic recovery. They reduce the purchasing power American consumers have to spend on other items. Hall writes, "Gasoline expenditures as a percentage of U.S. household income hit three-decade highs in 2012."
This hasn't been abated by our own ramping up of drilling and production. From 2011 to 2012 the U.S. domestic oil industry, largely unleashed by the Obama Administration, expanded its drilling by 800,000 barrels a day. American production is on track to "rise from 6.89 million barrels a day in November 2012 to 8.15 million by December 2014." We now produce more than half the oil we consume, up from less than a third at our lowest. Thanks to increasing vehicle fuel economy, we are also using less. As a result of these factors, as you can see by the chart in this link, we have cut imports by about 20% since President Obama took office. That is all good, but it still hasn't resulted in a big price break for U.S. consumers. That's because we don't really have a free market for oil, and also because we do. Let me explain.
On one level, there isn't enough free enterprise in the market. The OPEC oil cartel can, and does, intervene to keep the price of oil at a level they want. They do this by cutting production when price drops too far or increasing production if they want the price to go down. The OPEC countries with large reserves but small populations to support, like Saudi Arabia, simply drill less oil, and by the laws of supply and demand, the price goes up. That is even though world demand has recently gone down. The International Energy Agency reports that, "Lacking demand, OPEC, the oil-exporters cartel, has reduced production."
But that's only half the story. The other half is where we have too much free enterprise, and that refers to energy speculators. Rather than trucking companies and airlines, who are consumers themselves and used to buy most of the oil futures at prices designed to keep costs in check, these days, as Hall reports, "Non-commercial financial speculators now dominate 70% of the market. The trading is dominated by Wall Street banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions that have no intention to take delivery of the oil needed to make gasoline."
They buy all the uncontracted oil they can and hang onto it, starving the world's economies of oil until desperate consumers begin bidding up the price. Then they sell at a hefty profit. According to Bart Chilton of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, "It's speculators who are moving markets. They are almost the entire market at certain periods of time." So manufacturers, transportation companies and everyday drivers are stuck with crippling and escalating costs so that the already engorged oil cartel and Wall Street operators can continue adding to their untold billions.
Whether we drill more or not, those who have the system rigged in their favor are certain to get their pound of flesh. Only when we get the lion's share of our energy directly from sources they can't control and gouge the rest of us to access--like renewables--will we break ourselves from this stranglehold. That makes the President's wind, solar and conservation initiatives all the more critical for the well-being of the "real" economy and the average American consumer.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Obama Fifth SOTU A Mix of Old and New
In his fifth State of the Union Address last night, President Obama delivered a call for action on many fronts to attack the deficit, accelerate the economy, increase opportunity and deal with pressing social problems. Rather than soaring rhetoric, the address to Congress and a national audience constituted a workmanlike blueprint of effective policies backed by research or a history of what works. Many of the proposals offer innovative ideas that look promising. The principal exception to the President's businesslike delivery was a heartfelt and emotional appeal near the end of the speech for tighter gun control restrictions, which received excited support from many in the House Chamber. In a preview of the politics, the Address was interrupted 26 times by sustained applause. Of these, 15 times the legislators showed enthusiasm on both sides of the aisle, while on the other 11 only the Democrats rose. That indicates there is a good chance a fair number of things may well be enacted in some form. Here is what I consider most interesting in the Address.
On the deficit, the President's most interesting point to me was that two and a half trillion of the four trillion dollars sought over ten years for deficit reduction in the quest for a "grand bargain" has now already been agreed to. About one-third of that comes from higher tax rates on the well-to-do and two-thirds from cuts negotiated in previous deals. As always, President Obama staked out his position for a balance between new revenues and careful additional cuts to accomplish the rest. The coming "sequester" cuts would be completely irresponsible and would drag the economy back into recession because of all the layoffs they would produce. That's according to the White House and Congress' own economists. He made the case again that items like off shoring and outsourcing tax breaks and special write offs that benefit only the wealthy or a few should be eliminated before any cuts to middle and working class benefits like medicare and college loan programs. This is familiar ground. They key is to realize that with 62% of the original job done, the remainder may not seem so unreachable. The projected deficit for the current year is some $600 billion less than three years ago.
The President moved next into economic growth and jobs. I considered it highly important he made the point that deficit reduction does little to improve the economy or create jobs. Republicans continually conflate the two as though they are the same problem, and in order to win public opinion he cannot let them get away with that mischaracterization. He called for action on renewable energy (wind power has provided 50% of the new energy in recent years), and promised executive action if climate mitigation legislation was not forthcoming. He supported continuing an "all of the above" energy development strategy that has cut imports to a 40-year low and wants a program to insulate and otherwise cut energy wastage by 50%.
He wants a fix-it-now initiative to repair 10,000 bridges along with the power grid, and other infrastructure to provide jobs now, perform needed maintenance and serve business development needs. He pointed to housing recovery including a 50% gain in home purchases and called for expediting a bill currently in the hopper that would help people save $3,000 in refinancing at today's low interest rates. "Take a vote! Send me that bill! This is not partisan. I will sign it right away," he exhorted.
One of the most surprising, not to mention beneficial, economic ideas was to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.00 an hour and index it to inflation. He would also like to rebuild the 20 hardest recession-hit communities, provide tax incentives for business to hire and remove incentives to outsource. Bad environments with few job prospects are breeding grounds for gangs, crime and hopelessness.
Another extremely intriguing idea are negotiations he will initiate to pursue a Transatlantic trade pact, perhaps a fre-trade zone. The U.S. and European Union combined are more than half the global economy. He's initiating negotiation on a Transpacific accord too. Yet dangers exist. He pointed to increasing cyber warfare threats and electronic penetration of manufacturing and banking systems. He wants congress to pass authorization for "greater capacity" to deal with this. I have read that our intelligence services believe a great deal of this activity is coming from China.
On education a striking proposal was to increase preschool availability from the current 30% to 100% of children. He said research shows every dollar so spent returns $7 over time to the economy, through higher graduation rates, lower crime and unwed pregnancy, and better earning power. He touted the example of P-Tech in Brooklyn which has program to earn not only a high school diploma but a community college Associate's Degree in computers or engineering upon graduation. He suggested a German model for vocational ed wherein students not on the college prep track come out of high school with a trade certificate. That sounds like an excellent idea to me.
Obama got nearly unanimous applause from the full house when he praised the bipartisan work done so far on comprehensive immigration reform and made the plea for passage in the next few months. This should, he made clear, include a reform of the legal immigration policy as well.
It was gratifying to see, given the egregious voter suppression efforts made in Republican-governed states in the recent election, he will be forming a nonpartisan commission on voting rights.
The conclusion, calling for sensible gun registration and restrictions, pointing to survivors and victims from Newtown, Aurora, Detroit, Milwaukee and Tucson including Gabby Giffords, brought down the house. It was a good finishing note and now the President will head out across the country to try to build support for his entire agenda.
On the deficit, the President's most interesting point to me was that two and a half trillion of the four trillion dollars sought over ten years for deficit reduction in the quest for a "grand bargain" has now already been agreed to. About one-third of that comes from higher tax rates on the well-to-do and two-thirds from cuts negotiated in previous deals. As always, President Obama staked out his position for a balance between new revenues and careful additional cuts to accomplish the rest. The coming "sequester" cuts would be completely irresponsible and would drag the economy back into recession because of all the layoffs they would produce. That's according to the White House and Congress' own economists. He made the case again that items like off shoring and outsourcing tax breaks and special write offs that benefit only the wealthy or a few should be eliminated before any cuts to middle and working class benefits like medicare and college loan programs. This is familiar ground. They key is to realize that with 62% of the original job done, the remainder may not seem so unreachable. The projected deficit for the current year is some $600 billion less than three years ago.
The President moved next into economic growth and jobs. I considered it highly important he made the point that deficit reduction does little to improve the economy or create jobs. Republicans continually conflate the two as though they are the same problem, and in order to win public opinion he cannot let them get away with that mischaracterization. He called for action on renewable energy (wind power has provided 50% of the new energy in recent years), and promised executive action if climate mitigation legislation was not forthcoming. He supported continuing an "all of the above" energy development strategy that has cut imports to a 40-year low and wants a program to insulate and otherwise cut energy wastage by 50%.
He wants a fix-it-now initiative to repair 10,000 bridges along with the power grid, and other infrastructure to provide jobs now, perform needed maintenance and serve business development needs. He pointed to housing recovery including a 50% gain in home purchases and called for expediting a bill currently in the hopper that would help people save $3,000 in refinancing at today's low interest rates. "Take a vote! Send me that bill! This is not partisan. I will sign it right away," he exhorted.
One of the most surprising, not to mention beneficial, economic ideas was to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.00 an hour and index it to inflation. He would also like to rebuild the 20 hardest recession-hit communities, provide tax incentives for business to hire and remove incentives to outsource. Bad environments with few job prospects are breeding grounds for gangs, crime and hopelessness.
Another extremely intriguing idea are negotiations he will initiate to pursue a Transatlantic trade pact, perhaps a fre-trade zone. The U.S. and European Union combined are more than half the global economy. He's initiating negotiation on a Transpacific accord too. Yet dangers exist. He pointed to increasing cyber warfare threats and electronic penetration of manufacturing and banking systems. He wants congress to pass authorization for "greater capacity" to deal with this. I have read that our intelligence services believe a great deal of this activity is coming from China.
On education a striking proposal was to increase preschool availability from the current 30% to 100% of children. He said research shows every dollar so spent returns $7 over time to the economy, through higher graduation rates, lower crime and unwed pregnancy, and better earning power. He touted the example of P-Tech in Brooklyn which has program to earn not only a high school diploma but a community college Associate's Degree in computers or engineering upon graduation. He suggested a German model for vocational ed wherein students not on the college prep track come out of high school with a trade certificate. That sounds like an excellent idea to me.
Obama got nearly unanimous applause from the full house when he praised the bipartisan work done so far on comprehensive immigration reform and made the plea for passage in the next few months. This should, he made clear, include a reform of the legal immigration policy as well.
It was gratifying to see, given the egregious voter suppression efforts made in Republican-governed states in the recent election, he will be forming a nonpartisan commission on voting rights.
The conclusion, calling for sensible gun registration and restrictions, pointing to survivors and victims from Newtown, Aurora, Detroit, Milwaukee and Tucson including Gabby Giffords, brought down the house. It was a good finishing note and now the President will head out across the country to try to build support for his entire agenda.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
FISA Court Provides Model for Drone Dilemma
The latest defense versus civil liberties issue to come up concerns the Obama Administration's heavy use of missile attacks from remotely piloted vehicles (RPV's or drones) to kill Al Qaida and affiliated terrorists, especially if the targets happen to include American citizens. Civil libertarians, especially Democrats, are very worried that citizens, according to the Constitution's Fifth Amendment, ought to face arrest, indictment and conviction at trial before suffering death or punishment. The proper resolution of these concerns ought to be the passage of a court patterned after the FISA Court established in 1978 following President Nixon's surveillance of political enemies and anti-war groups during his Administration.
Michael Isikoff of NBC News recently obtained and published a Department of Justice "White Paper" offering legal justifications and standards to apply when targeting American citizens in the ongoing campaign against terrorist groups overseas. It says, "senior operational leaders of Al Qaida or an associated force" may be targeted if they present an "imminent threat of violent attack" to the United States. Imminence is not defined as having clear intelligence that a specific attack is about to happen. The NBC site explains rather, that an “informed, high-level” official of the U.S. government may determine that the targeted American has been “recently” involved in “activities” posing a threat of a violent attack and “there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities.” The memo does not define “recently” or “activities."
This goes to the nature of the type of struggle American leaders have to grapple with. Gone are the days when an American defector, donning the uniform of Nazi Germany in World War II or North Korea during the Korean War, made himself vulnerable to American attack simply by that act. The war is not declared in the traditional sense of the term, it is not against the government of a recognized nation state, and the combatants on the opposing side do not wear identifiable uniform. They are also outside the boundaries of the United States, typically in lawless areas not under the control of the local government, such that normal police and judicial procedures like arrest and extradition are out of the question. In such cases, is it all right for the President, CIA Director or Secretary of Defense simply to give an order or sign a form stating that a certain person is marked for death?
In the American system, probably not. There should be some type of oversight of the Executive Branch's call, but it can't go through the regular courts due to the time constraints of acting to mitigate deadly threats, nor can it be conducted in public in order not to tip off terrorist targets and make them and the rest of the world privy to our intelligence. The clear solution is to involve all three branches of the U.S. government along the lines of the FISA Law (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978).
The Legislative Branch (Congress), would pass a law defining terms and parameters and setting standards under which individuals could be singled out as terrorist threats. The law would also commission a special court. The Executive Branch (President or Executive Departments concerned with security) would bring the evidence or intelligence to the Court for its examination. The Judicial Branch (Special Court) would determine if the intelligence justified the targeting according to the legal standards of the Act, and approve or deny the request. That's pretty much how the FISA Court operates now in order to approve the surveillance of suspected U.S. citizen spies within our territory. An 11-member court appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and housed within the Department of Justice Building provides the oversight, making sure that national security is maintained, but only after an established threshold of suspicion has been reached. Thus can the nation defend itself against foreign-based U.S. citizen enemies without giving any future potential rogue Administration unchecked power over life and death.
Michael Isikoff of NBC News recently obtained and published a Department of Justice "White Paper" offering legal justifications and standards to apply when targeting American citizens in the ongoing campaign against terrorist groups overseas. It says, "senior operational leaders of Al Qaida or an associated force" may be targeted if they present an "imminent threat of violent attack" to the United States. Imminence is not defined as having clear intelligence that a specific attack is about to happen. The NBC site explains rather, that an “informed, high-level” official of the U.S. government may determine that the targeted American has been “recently” involved in “activities” posing a threat of a violent attack and “there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities.” The memo does not define “recently” or “activities."
This goes to the nature of the type of struggle American leaders have to grapple with. Gone are the days when an American defector, donning the uniform of Nazi Germany in World War II or North Korea during the Korean War, made himself vulnerable to American attack simply by that act. The war is not declared in the traditional sense of the term, it is not against the government of a recognized nation state, and the combatants on the opposing side do not wear identifiable uniform. They are also outside the boundaries of the United States, typically in lawless areas not under the control of the local government, such that normal police and judicial procedures like arrest and extradition are out of the question. In such cases, is it all right for the President, CIA Director or Secretary of Defense simply to give an order or sign a form stating that a certain person is marked for death?
In the American system, probably not. There should be some type of oversight of the Executive Branch's call, but it can't go through the regular courts due to the time constraints of acting to mitigate deadly threats, nor can it be conducted in public in order not to tip off terrorist targets and make them and the rest of the world privy to our intelligence. The clear solution is to involve all three branches of the U.S. government along the lines of the FISA Law (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978).
The Legislative Branch (Congress), would pass a law defining terms and parameters and setting standards under which individuals could be singled out as terrorist threats. The law would also commission a special court. The Executive Branch (President or Executive Departments concerned with security) would bring the evidence or intelligence to the Court for its examination. The Judicial Branch (Special Court) would determine if the intelligence justified the targeting according to the legal standards of the Act, and approve or deny the request. That's pretty much how the FISA Court operates now in order to approve the surveillance of suspected U.S. citizen spies within our territory. An 11-member court appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and housed within the Department of Justice Building provides the oversight, making sure that national security is maintained, but only after an established threshold of suspicion has been reached. Thus can the nation defend itself against foreign-based U.S. citizen enemies without giving any future potential rogue Administration unchecked power over life and death.
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