Category: Economy

In case you thought Barry Obama was the only one out of touch with the real world…

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones went against a unified front of labor and employer representatives siding with the insurance industry and the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) in approving a 8.3% increase mid-year rate hike for California employers. Added to the 37% rate increase he approved for January, July and later renewals are facing an average rate increase of 45.3% over last year at the same time.

from http://wcexec.com/Jones-Approves-45-Workers-Comp-Hike-for-71s.aspx

emphasis added.

High tech jobs going out of state as this vacant Intel facility near Sacramento illustrates.

A few days ago I went to Border’s Books to browse their remaining inventory during their going out of business sale. I had a feeling that sections would be somewhat disorganized. The attached photo is one such example. Since there were several pre-season football games on the TV at the time of my visit, I thought maybe this was a commentary on fantasy football. The photo below is not staged, just strangely random.

Also, I found Charles Dickens classic “A Tale of Two Cities” in the Science Fiction section.

Yeah. Amazon.com is taking the newly imposed tax to the ballot. The California legislature is willing to take a one billion loss just to say they tax Internet sales. California has no way to track these sales taxes except to have complete access to all sales records of Amazon and their California affiliates. Amazon and other online retailers can’t be compelled to give these records to the government. California would lose this fight in Federal Court but it would take years and they would have to go thru the Ninth Circuit to win. The ballot is a better place to start and they have the funds to see this thru to the end.

Today’s mail from the State of California was a lay-off notice (a.k.a. SROA letter). Where is the media on this one?
How can there be a lay-off when there is no budget?
Oh, they spent $5.65 to send a four page letter to each person on the list. The six page resume/application I mailed today cost me $0.65.

I’m sure no managers were harmed in the making of these weighty decisions.

Happy Memorial Day!

By far the most pervasive myth of nuclear power is that the reactor goes critical just before it explodes. This is non-sense and has been a constant source of irritation to people knowledgeable about nuclear power. I don’t care how big a budget the movie has, when characters start talking about nuclear power they always get it wrong. The only description I have ever seen in popular culture that got it right was Tom Clancy.

Simply put when a reactor is critical, it is creating enough power to sustain a nuclear reaction.

A nuclear reaction is controlled by several factors including design of fuel and control rods, degree of enrichment of the uranium, medium used for heat transfer. The two things controlled by nuclear plant operators are position of control rods and coolant.

When a reactor is “scrammed” the control rods are rapidly inserted into the reactor. The rods absorb energy that would otherwise go into the fuel and disrupt the chain reaction from continuing. Thus the reactor is shutdown. Gradual raising and lowering of control rods can increase or decrease the temperature of the reactor. Depending on the design, a reactor will operate at a temperature of 450 – 600 degree Fahrenheit.

Coolant is used to transfer heat from the reactor to heater exchangers (often steam generators) and then the cooler fluid is pumped back to the reactor to be heated again. Usually the coolant is very pure water. However, I have been to an early reactor in Idaho that was cooled by liquid sodium. This closed loop then transferred heat to another closed loop of liquid sodium and then via a heat exchanger, created steam to power a generator. Imagine if this was the design in Japan and they had to resort to cooling their reactors with sea water. (If you didn’t know, sodium reacts violently with water.)

In many water cooled plants, the water not only is used to transfer heat but it actually can help control the nuclear reaction. In water cooled, water moderated nuclear power plants, the water’s ability to expand when heated and contract when cooled is used to help the reactor maintain a constant temperature. When the water is heated, the water molecules get further apart and reflect fewer neutrons back into the fuel, when the temperature decreases, the water becomes denser and will reflect more neutrons back into the reactor.

A normally operating reactor is critical and will maintain a rather constant temperature as long as the heater transfer process is constant.

Next time you see a movie featuring a hero that is desperately trying to prevent the reactor from going critical; please remember that you are witnessing a drama where a Hollywood myth is being presented as fact. Reactors are supposed to go critical. That’s what they are designed to do.

First, I am moved by the destruction and devastation in Japan. My prayers are going out to the folks over there. The loss of life is much greater than the preliminary reports.

In a former life, I worked as a nuclear reactor operator so I think I understand the basics of what is occurring in Japan. Much of what is happening depends on the design of the plant. What is the percentage of enrichment of the fuel? What is the coolant used? (Likely very pure water but nuke plants can run with other types of coolant.) What is the operating temperature and pressure of the plant? What is design and placement of the control rods?

The plants where I worked is in some ways like the typical cooling system in a car. The engine is a heat source, water is pumped thru the engine and is warmed, it passes thru pipes to the radiator and is cooled and then the cooler water returns to the engine to be heated. The whole system is closed with an overflow source to allow for expansion and contraction of the water and this allows for the addition of more water to the system.

If the engine is running, ever just idling, and the water pump breaks, water ceases to circulate in the engine. As it heats—even under pressure—it will turn to steam. In a reactor when this happens the core can become uncovered, the fuel rods will distort and could leak fuel into the reactor. What can happen is an uncontrolled reaction that damages the reactor vessel and/or a steam explosion. The end result is an uncontrolled release of radioactive material.

To prevent such an occurrence, there are emergency generators on the site in case an external source of power is needed to run pumps for cooling during maintenance or emergency. Since the plant is on the coast, a last resort would be salt water. The plant can never be operated again if saltwater is used to cool the reactor compartment.

It appears that this option has been used to cool the reactor. When the water was pumped in and came in contact with the pressure vessel—which contains the nuclear fuel—a brittle fracture resulted, some water flashed to steam and the building which was structurally compromised by the earthquake collapsed. At this point the core is covered and the plant is a multimillion dollar pile of scrap.

• Governments nationalizing their banking and largest industries.
• Government regulating salaries of the businesses that they control.
• Government hiring and firing executives and members of governing boards.
• Government confiscating or depleting the assets of its wealthiest citizens.
• Government trying to spend its way into economic prosperity.

The Cold War Soviet Union? Cuba? China? Venezuela?
NO! It’s the United States of America under Barack Obama.

Reports are surfacing today that the newly elected President will be give the head of General Motors President, Rick Wagoner, as the price of any more federal funds to keep GM afloat. Wagoner has reportedly agreed to step down. Wagoner’s sin according to Obama was that “He is considered responsible for increasing GM’s focus on trucks and SUVs—at the expense of the hybrids and fuel efficient cars that have become more popular in the last couple of years.” – Politico
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20625.html

Translation, GM made the types of vehicles that Americans wanted to buy instead of forcing American consumers into “green” vehicles that the environmentalists said were good for the planet. He has sinned against the planet and assisted in the violation of “Mother Earth” and for this he must be sacrificed.

Obama furthers his fascist aims of controlling the means of production and also furthers the erosion of individual liberty and freedom of choice.

Yesterday I saw a news story that combined a multitude of cultural and social issues into one story. Some of the issues that come to mind include NAFTA, healthcare and redefining the family.

Since the days of NAFTA and Ross Perot, many Americans that favor protectionism and isolation have railed against “out sourcing” jobs to other nations. I have vivid mental pictures of “that giant sucking sound” of American jobs.

Also in the 1990’s, we were bombarded with “Hilary Care.” This resulted in the lively discussion of how the government (and trial lawyers) created rising costs of healthcare and the solution was more government.

Many of us have wanted to divorce our children when they were teens, but what should they do with us when we get old and can’t care for ourselves? Should families expect to bankrupt themselves to care for the elderly in their final years? Should we rethink “Logan’s Run”?

Most people have had to struggle with these issues at some point in their lives (or will soon). Some people have been thinking outside the proverbial box and come up with a novel approach.

Why not simply do what corporate America does, let’s outsource our parents!

That’s right! Who needs astronomical rest home bills and medical expenses when we get more bang for our buck overseas. Yes, people are really shipping their parents to India for care in their later years.

India, the second most populous country on the planet and home of some of the most wretched living conditions ever known, has a five star resort to warehouse middleclass old folks.

The article on one level is absolutely funny and upon reflection says a great deal about what is wrong with our country.

Man turns to India for cheap care for parents
By Laurie Goering
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Sunday, Aug. 05 2007

PONDICHERRY, INDIA — After three years of caring for his increasingly frail mother and father in their Florida retirement home, Steve Herzfeld was exhausted and faced with spending his family’s last resources to put the couple in a cheap nursing home.

So he made what he saw as the only sensible decision: He outsourced his parents to India.

Today his mother, Frances, 89, who suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease, gets daily massages, physical therapy and 24-hour help getting to the bathroom, all for about $15 a day. His father, Ernest, 93, an Alzheimer’s patient, has a full-time personal assistant, and a cook who has won him over to a vegetarian
diet healthy enough that he no longer needs his cholesterol medication.

Best of all, the plentiful drugs the couple require cost less than 20 percent of what they do at home, and salaries for their six-person staff are so cheap that the pair now bank $1,000 a month of their $3,000 Social Security payment. They aim to use the savings as an emergency fund or to pay for airline tickets
if family members want to visit.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a solution for everybody, but I consider it the best solution to our problem,” said Herzfeld, 56, who made the move to India with his parents, and now, as “care manager rather than the actual worker” has time for things such as strolls in the botanical gardens with his father.

With the cost of nursing homes, home nurses and medications painfully high in the United States, the elderly and their caregivers have long looked abroad for better solutions. Many families now drive regularly to Mexico or Canada to buy cheaper drugs, or hire recent immigrants — some of them undocumented — to help them look after frail parents.

A growing number of aging couples have bought retirement homes in Mexico, where help is cheap and Medicare-funded health care just a quick drive across the border.

From http://www.stltoday.com

I am concerned about a silent epidemic that can be laid at the feet of Wal-Mart and globalization. We all know about the mercury threat from compact fluorescent light bulbs in our landfills but there is an even more insidious problem in our midst: lead.

That’s right, lead! Although outlawed from almost every segment of American life except fishing (where mercury in fish is a bigger problem than lead weights), lead is a growing menace in our landfills. The primary source of this lead is China! Yes, all the recalled toys and food products that Americans discard are going to our landfills and it is just a matter of time before this lead begins to be found in our ground water and domestically produced food.

China is trying to export their industrial waste by hiding it in products that it sells in the United States. This is obviously a prelude to their planned colonization of the good ole US of A. They are trying to pollute our nation to the point that it is just like theirs and then they will come.

Soon there will be a flood of Chinese movies, campaign donations, and clothing. Next they will corner the market on raw materials that should be going to the United States to build our economy. Oh, no they already did all that!

It is no coincidence that the heart of this conspiracy is in Arkansas. Both Bill Clinton and Wal-Mart are based in Arkansas. Hilary was on the Wal-Mart board until she had aspirations to be President. Obviously Bill didn’t finish the job in his eight years as President so his wife must pickup where he left off. While it is hard to conceive of any military secret the Chinese didn’t get during the first Clinton administration, there must be something more that they want.

Perhaps the answer is in a different direction. Look at the facts; we outlawed lead (and mercury) “for the children.” Hilary wants universal healthcare “for the children.” My doctor went to college and medical school in China. Medicine is one seventh of the US economy and one of the few economic areas were America can still excel in the global economy. Wal-Mart wants to corner the market on prescription drugs. The liberals see Cuba as a model for medical care and China as the most successful Communist country still in existence.

Given all the above facts, it is clear that the Chinese are purposely putting lead in children’s toys that it is selling at Wal-Mart to grow their economy while simultaneously offloading their industrial waste and increasing our government’s intrusion into our lives by trying to protect the children of greedy middleclass consumers from lead while simultaneously using its presence to make the case for universal healthcare and thus creating a need for Americans to elect Hilary Clinton so the Chinese can do to us what Bill did to Monica in the Oval Office.