Just finished reading Steven Goprelick's book "Oil Panic and the Global Crisis: Predictions and Myths". He systematically points out how all prior predictions about commodity shortages have been wrong and why peak oil in 2010 is wrong. You name the commodity and at some point it was predicted to peak and yet we have never run out of any commodity as the market makes adjustments to either find more or switch to alternative solutions. He shows quite convincingly that the Hubert's peak oil chart for the United States was wrong.
I feel better and I hope he is correct.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
We're doomed
Just finished reading James Kunstler's "The Long Emergency" which outlines our likely future once we go past peak oil and are starved of energy. Even if all the countries in the world magically got serious and attacked oil usage with a vengeance it's probably too late. Meanwhile our Senate squabbles over meaningless things and can't get anything done. The rules in the Senate are so dysfunctional with the filibuster and the unbelievable system where ONE senator can block a bill from a vote by simply saying "I want to put a hold on it", even though this absurd rule is nowhere in Senate rules or the constitution. Business Week reports that over 300 bills are stalled because of this.
Meanwhile Obama, who I supported, is letting Harry Reid put immigration reform ahead of the energy bill ,and leaving it up to congress to muddle along. Thomas Friedman's editorial today sums it up real well.
The only bright spot is that Kunstler's book was written in 2005 and here we are five years later and the world seems to be humming along. Maybe, hopefully, he is wrong. To boost my mood a bit I ordered Steven Goprelick's book "Oil Panic and the Global Crisis: Predictions and Myths". He sides with the optimists so I am hoping he can give me some hope for my grand kids.
Meanwhile Obama, who I supported, is letting Harry Reid put immigration reform ahead of the energy bill ,and leaving it up to congress to muddle along. Thomas Friedman's editorial today sums it up real well.
The only bright spot is that Kunstler's book was written in 2005 and here we are five years later and the world seems to be humming along. Maybe, hopefully, he is wrong. To boost my mood a bit I ordered Steven Goprelick's book "Oil Panic and the Global Crisis: Predictions and Myths". He sides with the optimists so I am hoping he can give me some hope for my grand kids.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Health Care
What a mess and how sad it is that the current direction is to just further bastardize a bad system instead of making the major changes that are necessary. This is the best case of how ineffective Obama and democrats are even when they have the power to make it happen.
Having employer's buying health insurance for their workers is a ridicules system that adds no value. Not only does it waste money in administration, it makes our products more expensive on the global market. When you tax corporation's with costs that American citizens should be paying directly you essentially are passing a portion of those costs onto the world via higher product costs and we therefore become less competitive.
And isn’t it amazing that we think insurance companies are a good idea. They consume a huge portion of our health cost dollar and they deliver zero health care. A single payer (Medicare for All) solution would absolutely be the best solution, phased in over time, but we are incapable of fixing a totally broken system due to the lobbying from insurance companies to protect their turf and the policy of Republicans to block anything Obama does regardless of is merit. And the fact that Democrats also suckle on the insurance contribution teat makes change impossible.
Having employer's buying health insurance for their workers is a ridicules system that adds no value. Not only does it waste money in administration, it makes our products more expensive on the global market. When you tax corporation's with costs that American citizens should be paying directly you essentially are passing a portion of those costs onto the world via higher product costs and we therefore become less competitive.
And isn’t it amazing that we think insurance companies are a good idea. They consume a huge portion of our health cost dollar and they deliver zero health care. A single payer (Medicare for All) solution would absolutely be the best solution, phased in over time, but we are incapable of fixing a totally broken system due to the lobbying from insurance companies to protect their turf and the policy of Republicans to block anything Obama does regardless of is merit. And the fact that Democrats also suckle on the insurance contribution teat makes change impossible.
The Deficit
It’s clear to anybody who pays attention that we are heading for a cliff with unsustainable government spending on Health Care, Social Security, Medicare, and Prescription Drugs. Yet we are incapable of doing anything now to make the future less onerous. All the politicians know what the answer is and yet none of them will stick out their necks to solve the problem. We truly are led by people who only care about how they personally are doing now and how they can get reelected. There are no Adams or Jeffersons in today’s government. Just people who care about their personal short term benefits. The solutions are difficult but necessary. Our gap between rich and poor is growing and history shows that it will eventually cause huge problems.
The only solution for the deficit is to reduce the benefits and increase taxes
on the well off. Social security eligibility needs to be based on need and not an
automatic entitlement. I get it every month even though it’s a small portion of my retirement income and if it went away I would do just fine. The health care mess is escalating the costs to unsustainable levels. A single payer plan with a focus on keeping people healthy instead of paying to fix their problems would save big time. A good example is the Kaiser HMO. They don’t get paid when a patient comes in and they can charge them for a procedure. They make money when they keep you healthy so they have a much more streamlined process with phone consulting, email, consolidated records for all the physicians to access, etc.
The only solution for the deficit is to reduce the benefits and increase taxes
on the well off. Social security eligibility needs to be based on need and not an
automatic entitlement. I get it every month even though it’s a small portion of my retirement income and if it went away I would do just fine. The health care mess is escalating the costs to unsustainable levels. A single payer plan with a focus on keeping people healthy instead of paying to fix their problems would save big time. A good example is the Kaiser HMO. They don’t get paid when a patient comes in and they can charge them for a procedure. They make money when they keep you healthy so they have a much more streamlined process with phone consulting, email, consolidated records for all the physicians to access, etc.
The Financial Mess
The major source of the collapse was due to a perverted system where the people making loans did not have to worry about the loan going bad.
How stupid. This whole housing mess could have been eliminated with these four simple rules:
1) No loan can be made for more then 95% of appraised value.
2) All loan payments must be fully amortized from payment one with no front end low ball payments.
3) The entity originating the loan cannot sell the loan for 5 years.
4) All funds for closing must be seasoned at least 3 months with income verification.
And it was a very bad idea to let banking and investments merge together creating a massive incentive to game the system. But will we fix this? Probably not. All the talk is of relatively worthless things like controlling CEO pay and requiring more financial reporting won't accomplish much. We have 50% of our financial system tied up in about 4 giant corporations who don’t really care what happens as long as they get their bonuses. And now they are “too big to fail” so they can just about try every crazy idea with little risk of actual failure. We should break up the big banks by separating banking from investment and we should put in simple rules for home lending. The recent credit card bill was the one good idea that Obama pushed through.
How stupid. This whole housing mess could have been eliminated with these four simple rules:
1) No loan can be made for more then 95% of appraised value.
2) All loan payments must be fully amortized from payment one with no front end low ball payments.
3) The entity originating the loan cannot sell the loan for 5 years.
4) All funds for closing must be seasoned at least 3 months with income verification.
And it was a very bad idea to let banking and investments merge together creating a massive incentive to game the system. But will we fix this? Probably not. All the talk is of relatively worthless things like controlling CEO pay and requiring more financial reporting won't accomplish much. We have 50% of our financial system tied up in about 4 giant corporations who don’t really care what happens as long as they get their bonuses. And now they are “too big to fail” so they can just about try every crazy idea with little risk of actual failure. We should break up the big banks by separating banking from investment and we should put in simple rules for home lending. The recent credit card bill was the one good idea that Obama pushed through.
Global Warming and Oil Dependence
We could easily move in a very positive direction by slowly raising taxes on fuel and giving increasing credit for green sources. Cap and Trade might work but it will probably be so complex and screwed up that it won’t really help.The market could fix this if we just put in the right incentives (higher tax on carbon and more credits to help new energy get off the ground
It’s amazing that today your local electric utility will grudgingly give you credit for your green energy production but not pay you for any excess electricity you produce. How stupid. I recently came across a very cost efficient electricity generating solution but it would have produced more than I use and since there is no payback beyond zeroing out my bill I had to pass on the idea.
When gas prices were over $3.00 we should have put in a floor tax that would have kept them at that rate and slowly raised taxes over 10 years to European levels. I just came back from Italy and paid $6.00 per gallon. People still drive but at slower speeds and with more efficient cars mostly running diesel. And even though we have factual evidence that most bio fuels, especially corn ethanol, are worthless we just keep on going in the wrong direction. Thank the Iowa caucus for the bonehead corn ethanol direction. What a system.
It’s amazing that today your local electric utility will grudgingly give you credit for your green energy production but not pay you for any excess electricity you produce. How stupid. I recently came across a very cost efficient electricity generating solution but it would have produced more than I use and since there is no payback beyond zeroing out my bill I had to pass on the idea.
When gas prices were over $3.00 we should have put in a floor tax that would have kept them at that rate and slowly raised taxes over 10 years to European levels. I just came back from Italy and paid $6.00 per gallon. People still drive but at slower speeds and with more efficient cars mostly running diesel. And even though we have factual evidence that most bio fuels, especially corn ethanol, are worthless we just keep on going in the wrong direction. Thank the Iowa caucus for the bonehead corn ethanol direction. What a system.
Easy Tracking of Visitors
Recently the New York Times reported that after more then 8 years since 9/11 we still have no way to track visitors to our country. This is a great example of government incompetence and a lack of imagination. There is a relatively simple solution that would be cost effective and not take years to implement. All it takes is political will to make it happen.
This solution takes advantage of the thousands of ATM machines already installed throughout the country.
1) When people enter the country they are processed through a card creation station. In this process their passport is scanned, their picture is taken and a plastic "visitor card" is created that has their picture, an ID number, the date by which they must exit the country and how often they are required to "check in". (Weekly, Monthly, etc). This card would have identical physical properties to all ATM cards in existence today. The check in frequency would be based on the visitor's risk profile.
2) To check in one would simple go to any ATM and insert their card. The ATM machine would recognize that the card is foreign visitor card and would not prompt for a pin. The ATM would simply snap a picture as most do today and would display a "Thank you" and eject the card. In the background the ATM would transmit the picture, card data and the ATM location to the INS computer systems.
3) When the visitor exits the country they pass through an ATM like card reader that keeps the card and closes out the visit. And, as appropriate, flags authorities that someone who has violated their visitor terms has now tried to exit. For people who frequently come and go the card would be permanent and not kept.
With this information the INS computers can easily monitor all visitors to determine who has overstayed their limit, who has not checked in per the required frequency, (Weekly or Monthly), and where have they traveled in the country. And with today's face recognition software the facial images could be compared to catch card usage fraud.
The key changes to make this happen:
1) Develop the card creation process. Software and hardware is simple. Key challenge is to have enough stations to quickly process people. Road borders from Canada and Mexico are clearly a major challenge along with many airports who might not have the physical space to put in enough machines. However, people who come and go across the border could be given a permanent card so card creation is a one time event.The key is to make the process very quick so the immigration agent could execute the process in about as much time as they take today. And in some cases people could get their card at the origin airport.
2) The programming changes for the ATM machines is not difficult but would of course elicit howls from the banking industry who would claim it is a gigantic task that will take years and millions of dollars. This would have to be pushed and there is no reason why it could not be implemented within one year.
3) The largest challenge is what to do with the mountain of data showing violations of the visitor's entry terms. But no matter how one collects the data it will produce the same result. Thousands of visitors will be in violation of visitor terms and will have to be dealt with in some manner. But having a clear record of all check in locations, dates and times would greatly enhance the ability to find the person.
This solution takes advantage of the thousands of ATM machines already installed throughout the country.
1) When people enter the country they are processed through a card creation station. In this process their passport is scanned, their picture is taken and a plastic "visitor card" is created that has their picture, an ID number, the date by which they must exit the country and how often they are required to "check in". (Weekly, Monthly, etc). This card would have identical physical properties to all ATM cards in existence today. The check in frequency would be based on the visitor's risk profile.
2) To check in one would simple go to any ATM and insert their card. The ATM machine would recognize that the card is foreign visitor card and would not prompt for a pin. The ATM would simply snap a picture as most do today and would display a "Thank you" and eject the card. In the background the ATM would transmit the picture, card data and the ATM location to the INS computer systems.
3) When the visitor exits the country they pass through an ATM like card reader that keeps the card and closes out the visit. And, as appropriate, flags authorities that someone who has violated their visitor terms has now tried to exit. For people who frequently come and go the card would be permanent and not kept.
With this information the INS computers can easily monitor all visitors to determine who has overstayed their limit, who has not checked in per the required frequency, (Weekly or Monthly), and where have they traveled in the country. And with today's face recognition software the facial images could be compared to catch card usage fraud.
The key changes to make this happen:
1) Develop the card creation process. Software and hardware is simple. Key challenge is to have enough stations to quickly process people. Road borders from Canada and Mexico are clearly a major challenge along with many airports who might not have the physical space to put in enough machines. However, people who come and go across the border could be given a permanent card so card creation is a one time event.The key is to make the process very quick so the immigration agent could execute the process in about as much time as they take today. And in some cases people could get their card at the origin airport.
2) The programming changes for the ATM machines is not difficult but would of course elicit howls from the banking industry who would claim it is a gigantic task that will take years and millions of dollars. This would have to be pushed and there is no reason why it could not be implemented within one year.
3) The largest challenge is what to do with the mountain of data showing violations of the visitor's entry terms. But no matter how one collects the data it will produce the same result. Thousands of visitors will be in violation of visitor terms and will have to be dealt with in some manner. But having a clear record of all check in locations, dates and times would greatly enhance the ability to find the person.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The curse of software upgrades
Back in the 80's and 90's we looked forward to new versions because of all the cool new features. But all software reaches a point of perfection where more features just make it less useful. Unfortunately, putting out a new release is the primary way to keep revenue coming in so software publishers keep adding features that have less and less value.
Take Excel. The 2003 version continues to be a great version. The 2007 version introduced the ribbon which essentially crippled productivity. It was as if Microsoft decided to dumb down the program to the lowest level of competence and ignore the power users. Like many, I had developed a large library of custom icons in the tool bar that launched frequently used macros. Editing the button image helped define the button. Amazingly the new 2007 version essentially eliminated this capability so I had to uninstall 2007 and go back to 2003.
As an Excel power user all I wanted in a new version was the expansion of row and column limits and a completely new macro language that was designed to specifically work with spreadsheets and not a clumsy, hard to follow VB language.
I recently downloaded the latest version of Snagit from Techsmith. This was a very useful program 10 years ago. Now it's so bloated with useless features it is no longer simple to use for simple screen captures. I finally found something free that does all I need so I have dumped Snagit.
I wish there was a way to just pay annually for the use of a program so the endless addition of useless features would slow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
