Politics

Jane Mayer interviews Billionaires who use their money to finance politics

Posted by Rick on in News, Politics 0 Comment

Jane Mayer interviews Billionaires who use their money to finance politics

Jane Mayer writes for the New Yorker. She’s written two articles about Billionaires from different sides of the political fence who use their money to advance the political views.

George Soros

Koch Brothers

The Koch Brothers is the more interesting one to me, as it explains how they’ve used their money to covertly fund the Tea Party and co-opt it’s politics for their own. It also talks about how David Koch has cancer, yet his company continuously battles to keep formaldehyde unregulated even though it’s one the most common cancer causing agents in use today.

A solution for Universal Health Care

Posted by Rick on in Analysis, Politics 0 Comment

A solution for Universal Health Care

There is no reason we could not have “Socialized” Health Care (instead of it’s true meaning – Universal Health Care,) have it cheaper, and allow it to serve all people, AND still have the ability to bypass the “Lifetime Cap” that so many people are afraid of. It does mean that all sides would have to make sacrifices though, plus the Insurance and Health Care Industries would have to undergo some major changes.

Step One would be to Nationalize ONE major Insurance Carrier. This company would have a cap of 6.5% profit margin. They would operate independently of the US Government, but would answer to Congress, the Judicial Branch, and it’s investors. The 6.5% Profit margin is below high risk funds, but slightly above most medium risk funds making it a good company for larger funds to invest in. The company would have as it’s mandate to reduce costs as long as it is not at the expense of the care their clients would receive. Their secondary goals would be 99% customer satisfaction, 5% or less waste, 90% Employee Satisfaction, and client processes that are as simple as possible. This means Bonuses, company perks, benefits, etc – you want the place to be a happy place to work which means happy and productive workers who in turn give good service to the clients.

Step Two would be to mandate health care upon everyone. Companies would still contribute to Health Insurance just like they do now, and would need to include part time employees in the plan. I would allow them the ability to only need to pay 75% of the cost of a full time employee for the part timers though so it would still be cost effective to have part time employees in certain situations. Although I would not allow the number of part time employees exceed more then one half of the number of full time employees unless special circumstances warranted it.

Step Three would be to put a cap on Doctors earnings, I’d still make it fairly high to make the industry attractive. In return they would be exempt from general malpractice suits, although they would still be liable for gross negligence. I would make it easier for Doctors to consult with each other, including a national database (and forums!) of illnesses and diseases, their symptoms and a step by step regime for each one. Controls would be put in place to allow doctors to step outside of that regime when needed – probably a peer review committee randomly selected of doctors and retired doctors within the local geographic area. Doctors would also need to go through a periodic re-examination. The test would include mental abilities, skills, and face to face behaviors. It would also be partially dependent on their patients treatments, recoveries, and happiness with the doctor in general.

Step Four: Give the FDA more power to analyze and enforce Food and Drug quality controls and tests. They would also have the ability to fast track promising new drugs and greater ability to use human volunteers. The FDA would also have the power to price control drugs, making it cheap enough to be cost effective for general use.

Step Five: Drug and Medical Supply Companies. As above, I’d Nationalize one of each industry. The goals would be the same, with the same profit margins, employee bonuses, etc. Drug Companies would not be allowed to give gifts to doctors and such would be as tightly controlled as campaign donations are for politicians. (Or more so.) Companies would still be allowed to patent and license technologies, plus sell their own house brands of common medications.

Step Six: Consumers/Patients would be able to purchase additional insurance to hedge against costs that went over the lifetime cap – I think most people are saying $3 million lifetime. The exact finances would have to be worked out, but say you want to go to a five million lifetime cap. You’d have to add say $1.5 million to a general fund that is only payable upon your death, or upon your reaching the $3 million dollar cap. Excess monies in the fund at your death would be inherited, taxed at a slightly lower rate (to encourage starting the fund in the first place,) but would only go into your inheritors own fund. Half the interest on the fund would go to the company that administrats these funds and the other half would go back into the fund itself. The companies would only be allowed to reinvest the money in low and medium risk ventures as determined under supervison of the SEC, but would be liable for any decreases of more then 10% over the life of the fund. IE – if a person puts in $1 million dollars over their lifetime, but the funds value decreases to $500,000 the company would be liable for the missing $500,000.

Individual Users would be able to get a .05% tax break per a year that they’re able to see a Doctor for regular check ups. They would also be able to get another .05% tax break once every ten years, providing they either make significant changes to their health (significant weight loss, stop smoking, etc), or maintain within 15% of the recommended standards as approved by a doctor. To qualify for this, they would simply need to have an annual physical/checkup every two years.

There is still a lot more to it, but I believe that this would be an extremely effective system, provide health care for all and answer all the issues people have with Universal Health Care, yet not give up too many individual rights and freedoms.

The failure of Modern Combined Force Tactics

Posted by Rick on in Misc, Politics 0 Comment

The failure of Modern Combined Force Tactics

I am by no means a tactician or even taken a class on Tactics. I have played plenty of war games, both table top and computer based, studied history (and thus war,) quite extensively, and able to apply a healthy dose of common sense.

Every military unit from the pikeman to the modern Unmanned Aerial Vehicles both has it’s strengths and it’s weaknesses on the battlefield. As such one unit may have advantages over another, especially in certain situations. For instance Knights on horseback can easily win against a superior number of swordsmen due to their speed and weight.

But pikemen with the long reach of their weapons can easily blunt a calvary charge, removing the Knights advantage. In turn, without the advantage of shields, Pikemen are extremely vulnerable to the various types of bowmen, especially those wielding the English Longbow.

In Combined Force Tactics, each element lends it’s strengths while it’s weaknesses are covered by the other elements. In the example above a typical army would consist of one of each of the elements. The Knights on horseback would be used as flanking force instead of initial charges. Pikemen on the front would have either swordsmen or bows directly behind them depending on the terrain and the forces available to the enemy.

Basically the swordsmen with their shields would be at the front of the battle. The brunt of any bow attacks would (mostly) bounce off their shields. As the armies closed, the swordsmen would pass through the front lines behind the pikemen and then counter attack from the side. In the meantime the Knights would be circling around to the rear or the other side to encircle the enemy and hopefully defeat them.

During World War I, troops with machine guns faced each other across open land and dug themselves into trenches. Artillery that had been so useful in previous wars did little when the infantry was dug in. The introduction of airplanes added little to the battle itself, but quickly became an important component as commanders were able to better see where the enemy troops were. The introduction of the tank changed trench warfare again as the tracked vehicles simply went through and over defenses designed to stop humans.

In the modern Military there are many more elements, but the essence is the still same. Soldiers on the ground can only carry so much firepower and see so far. Tanks can carry vastly more firepower, but are limited by the terrain. Airplanes carry less firepower, but have the ability to provide an extremely fast response to threats, and provide superior suppression fire with their speed and height above the ground. There are many more elements in a modern Military force, but for now these three remain the main ones.

The UAV or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is both one of the most hated and most loved weapons currently in use. It’s a great weapon to keep soldiers and pilots out of direct harms. The UAVs original purpose was to be an intelligence gathering mechanism only. With the added ability to carry missiles and coupled with a lack of proper tactics, we now see failure and tragedy.

The current over reliance on UAVs the US Military is failing to properly utilize Combined Force Tactics in Afghanistan, Iraq, and especially Pakistan. They are being used to gather intelligence correctly, but then attack targets with. This often leads to devastating results and loss in innocent lives.

While the terrain in such areas makes tanks and wheeled vehicles extremely impractical, the lack of a human component on the ground leads to mistakes that have effects far beyond the initial consequences. Instead of changing tactics, more technology is thrown at the problem.

Now, the loss of one UAV doesn’t even compare to the loss of one human life. But the UAV’s indiscriminate ability to kill, and worse, misjudge a situation that is only viewable from the air above, seems like it leads to just as much innocent life lost.

On a normal battlefield between two armies, UAVs would probably stand out fairly well as extremely useful weapons, especially combined with other elements such as Infantry, Tanks, Missiles, and other Aircraft. But with an enemy that uses the terrain, innocent people, misdirection and local knowledge to hide, they become fairly useless in their secondary role as weapon platforms. Doubly so when they’re the only weapon deployed.


Human Nature causes law breaking

Posted by Rick on in History, Politics, Quote, Science 0 Comment

Human Nature causes law breaking

The human concept of morality poses upon us some interesting quandaries. We create laws to regulate behaviors and protect the innocent, but in some cases these laws actually cause more issues then they solve.

As I pointed out earlier the economic impact of the Drug Trade alone is well into the Billions if not over a Trillion dollars a year in the United States alone. This is money that is spent because Federal Law says that the mere use and in some cases possesion of certain drugs is illegal due to morality.

The number of drunk driving deaths in the United States was 11,773 in 2008. This was a 9.7% increase from 2007. These are deaths that we live with because by 1933 the cost of enforcing Prohibition Laws, coupled with the sheer amount of illegal activities surrounding alcohol made it impossible to enforce. It is estimated that there were between 30,000 to 100,000 Speakeasies in New York in 1933. In modern day New York there are only about 20,000 bars AND restaurants in New York City. This is despite a nearly doubling of the population in the City itself.

Take a look at this map which covers 176 bars in the East Village alone. Now imagine what up to five times as many bars would look like. I’m pretty sure that Police Enforcement in that day and age must have consisted of walking down the street, looking for the unmarked “empty” storefronts and simply kicking down the door. The number of false positives under such a method would have been remarkably low.

“Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws.” ~Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations

That certain laws inherently cause crimes has pretty much been a given throughout history. Speed Limit laws are a great example. I know that I regularly travel 5-10 miles over the posted limit. Even though it may be perfectly safe for me to travel at that faster speed, I’m still breaking the law. This happens so much that Police departments across the United States tends to give an unofficial 3-5 mile grace. Or if all the traffic around you is going faster, they’re more likely to pull someone over for not going with the flow of traffic.

“The more laws the more offenders.” ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

In another example, Oregon’s Cell Phone law goes into effect January 1st, 2010. In short, talking on a cell phone without a hands free device will result in a Class D traffic-violation with a minimum $142 fine. The fine amount and exact classification will change depending on the jurisdiction.

Both my wife and I believed this law already to be in effect. But I also found that it only marginally changed my cell phone usage behaviors in the car. Now that I know for sure that the law goes into affect tomorrow, this may be a different story.

Another example is Age of Consent laws. In the United States the age of consent is defined between 16 to 18 depending on the state. Yet in Europe and Latin America, the age is 13-16, which Chile being the only country at 18. Here is where things get weird. According to this chart in 1880, the Age of Consent in almost every State was either ten or twelve, with Delaware at seven! Universally that age increased to the 16-18 range by the 1920’s, but in many cases it was moved from 18 back down to 16.

The Age of Consent is aimed at “protecting” innocent and immature children. The definition of innocent and immature is at best a crap shoot as it varies from person to person. Even what actions would make someone immature or mature vary and could be seen in the same person within a few minutes of each other.

Not counting in the Morality arguments, Age of Consent still has one more huge factor to take into account. This being human nature AKA basic psychology. In 1943 Abraham Maslow wrote “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Included in this paper was the theory of the hierarchy of needs.

450px-Maslow's_Hierarchy_of_Needs

This chart was borrowed from Wikipedia. I have been utterly facinated with this theory ever since it was introduced to me in High School. There are hundreds of variations on this chart, which all pretty much manage to differ only on wording and color. To interpret this chart the needs at the bottom have to be met before the next level can even be met.

Note that the third level puts sexual intimacy before needs such as self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of self and lack of prejudice! To be fair not every need on every level needs to be met by every person to advance to the next level. Add in the fact that in the past ten years it’s pretty much become accepted in Psychology that both sexes are hardwired to be attracted to younger members of the opposite as a matter of Evolution, and we have a recipe for disaster in light of these Age of Consent Laws.

So in this case people are torn between three things, their morality, societies laws, and their own psychological needs. People can barely keep to the speed limit which is a fairly black or white issue in comparison! Who in their right mind really expects the average person to be able to wrestle with questions on this level when philosophers have been asking these kinds of questions for thousands of years?

The primary reason in the slippage of the Age of Consent from 13-14 to 16-18 being fictional news reports in a British Newspaper about forced child prostitution in 1885. But what continues to be covered up is that the primary factor behind child prostitution (and prostitution of any form) is economic. Prostitution drastically decreased during the 1870-1910 period due to Industrial Revolution which grew fastest in the United States and led directly to a higher amount of wealth across all sections of the population. This had to have a much bigger effect then any laws put in place.

So now we have a supply and demand situation that leads directly to child abuse and it’s associated side effects. And worse of all, Child Prostitution hasn’t gone away. It’s simply been moved to third world countries were it once again makes economic sense.

The key point here is that humans will break the law after a risk analyst and nothing is going to stop that, no matter the punishment. Millions of years of Evolution can not be stopped in a couple of hundred years, and it can be argued that doing so could be more detrimental to the individual then anything else.

I’m not sure what the answer is. Perhaps 1985 type mind control techniques do make sense for the betterment of society. Or perhaps the Golden Rule or the Ethics of Reciprocity should become law unto themselves. Maybe the Age of Consent should be revised downwards and parents forced to take a more active interest in their Children’s lives and development?