Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
FRENCH PLACE MOSLEM WOMEN IN A MORTON’S FORK DILEMMA
Today, April 11, 2011 is a day of shame for the French—the birthplace of modern democracy which on this date banned the veil for Muslim women. Such laws are not new. Similar regulations were imposed on Jews in Tsarist Russia in the 19th century (the May Laws of May 15, 1882) which among other injustices, prohibited the Hasidim from wearing their traditional kaftan head-covering or displaying their long side-locks in public. In modern day France, some estimate there are perhaps only 2000 Muslim women in all of the country who follow the tradition of wearing the burka or niqab in public places. The new law, which exacts a fine of about $200 dollars for each infraction, would seem to have the undesired effect of simply forcing this small minority of (isolated and possibly maltreated) Muslim women to live an even more-cloistered life restricted to their homes. The new French law places these women in a variant of a Morton’s Fork dilemma that presents them with two equally undesirable choices: either break a deeply-held emotional and religious conviction, or be humiliated in public and pay a substantial fine. To force upon a person such a decision is unfair and unbecoming of a great democracy such as France. Wouldn’t it be better to permit them the freedom to express their religious beliefs as they see fit-- and for a just state to ignore their dress preferences, which by all accounts harm no-one. By singling them out this way, France has now instituted a state “dress code” for its Muslim population, the second largest religious group in the nation. One wonders will they next institute legislation to control habits of Catholic nuns, or the size or color of the head-covering elderly Catholic women wear when they attend mass, or will they force the Hasidim to cut their beards, or stop the cruel practice of circumcising their infant boys. This seems a sorry day for human dignity and religious freedom in France. What will come next?
* Morton’s Fork dilemma. Named after John Morton, Lord Chancellor of England in 1487, who under the rule of Henry VII decreed that if a man lived in luxury and spent a lot of money he must have excess cash and his tax should be raised. On the the other hand, if a man lived frugally, with no signs of wealth, he must have saved a lot of cash and therefore his taxes should be raised.
* Morton’s Fork dilemma. Named after John Morton, Lord Chancellor of England in 1487, who under the rule of Henry VII decreed that if a man lived in luxury and spent a lot of money he must have excess cash and his tax should be raised. On the the other hand, if a man lived frugally, with no signs of wealth, he must have saved a lot of cash and therefore his taxes should be raised.
Friday, April 8, 2011
THE ONE PERCENTERS
You have heard the Republicans complain about "confiscatory" taxes. Their complaint is that their clients-- the just plain wealthy, the super-wealthy, and the true oligarchs--do not want their “hard won” profits to be confiscated by the government. The awful truth is: it’s the other way around---the oligarchs are confiscating the nation’s wealth.
According to G Wiliam Domhoff ( Univ California) in “Wealth Income, and Power, (9-2009 updated 1-2011) “wealth in the US is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands”. That fact probably comes as a shock to most of you (readers). Based on a recent study, most Americans from every walk of life and political persuasion have no idea just how unevenly wealth is distributed in this nation (Demhoff quotes a study by Norton & Ariely, 2010) But who would believe that the top 20% of the population controls more than 90% of the nation’s liquid assets?
First a few definitions. Wealth is defined by Demhoff and other sociologists as what we would call “net worth”, the value of everything a person or family owns, minus its debts. The figures that most economists use to calculate this value are “marketable assets” such as homes, land, commercial properties, stocks and bonds—all those items that are readily convertible into cash, but not cars and household items, which are valuable to people for personal use but difficult to convert into ready cash for investment. Financial wealth is defined as “non-home-wealth” or a person’s or family’s net-worth, minus the family’s “home value” (net worth-minus net-equity in owner–occupied housing). This latter term is a better measure of a person’s or family’s “liquid” assets which may be available for consumption or investment.
According to Demhoff, net-wealth in the USA is highly concentrated in just a few hands. As of 2007, according to figures compiled by our government, the top 1% of households (people with incomes of a 500,000 to a million dollars or more annually--and referred to here as "one-percenters" owned nearly 35% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (managerial, professional, and small business owners) held 51%. That means that the top 20% of the nation’s families owned (35+51) more than 85% of all the private wealth in the nation, leaving less than 15% to be distributed by the bottom 80% (the wage and salary workers)! If we examine the "financial wealth" of the top group, the picture becomes even more skewed toward the higher income level, since ownership of a private home is such a large portion of middle class American wealth. Thus in a measure termed “financial wealth” (defined as net wealth minus home value) a clearer understanding of the liquid assets of the top 1% may be visualized. In that analysis, the top 1% of households held 43% of the nation’s financial wealth, the next 19% held 50%, and the workers and salaried people held only 7%. Thus in terms of “financial wealth” the top 20% of the population hold 93% of all liquid or disposable privately held wealth.
So when you hear the term “confiscatory” taxes, or of certain classes of people unwilling to pay their fair share…review these figures for a better understanding of what they want. It seems to me they have most of the "pie" now. Apparently what they appear to be seeking is to have it all!
Keep in mind that the top 1% (of wage-earners and simply wealthy) have in the last several decades cornered the vast majority of the nation's income. Considering the disparity in wealth, is it any wonder that these same individuals wield a much greater share of political power? Since money can buy control of the media as well as the government, the one-percenters not only have the raw power that wealth brings, but also control of the "story". With such breadth of control they are able to control public opinion and by means of paid lobbyists, mold legislation to their own needs.
Since the “one-percenters” (who have enough money to provide more than adequately for all their own and their family's requirements) they have no need for government supported basic health care, or public transit, or good roads, or good schools or the basic infrastructure which is a requisite for a well-run functioning society and for a decent life for the vast majority of Americans. The one-percenters' agenda is to limit government expenditures for these services. They seek to decrease taxes and government spending on basic infrastructure, since such outlays would only increase their taxes for services which they perceive they do not need or use. Furthermore, since they (and their children) are highly unlikely to serve in the military where they might be placed in harms way--they see military intervention in quite a different light than the rest of us. And perhaps more importantly, they envision financial gain in the hideous concept of endless war-and so they tend to favor military solutions to all our foreign problems great and small. Furthermore, government funds that are allocated to "defence" are unavailable for domestic infrastructure development--in effect this "starving of the governemnt coffers" serves to limit spending in the areas that the one-percenters see as of no utility to their goals. On the other hand, war and military spending is a fine make-work and jobs-programs for the elite, super-wealthy. These defence expenditures serve the one-percenters by moving vast sums into military projects where they can generate enormous profits from government contracts. One has only to recall the intensity and single mindedness with which Bush and Cheney promoted their Iraq war which was planned as and turned out to be a giant giveaway for the one-percenter crowd.
Thus the “one percenters” have taken control of our nation's media and government and turned it into a system which serves them and only them. They have helped to mold us into a nation of low taxes for the ultra wealthy, a hog-tied ineffective government which can not support the basic infrastructure or needs of its citizens, but which supports a bloated, make-work program for the military-industrial complex which their heirlings continue to categorize as our “defence budget”.
So my dear citizen-friends every time you make an expenditure that might have better been provided by a more just and equitable government, the difference you must lay out is the amount that the one-percenters and their facilitators have purloined and allocated to themselves. When you must pay your physician for a larger and larger “co-pay” for health services, or your kids are ill-served or struggling in poorly funded and staffed schools (and you must fork over cash for a tutor or a private school), or you lose a tire to a pot-holed and unreparied road, or you have no basic rapid transit system to get to your job when gas prices go sky high, or perhaps your job has been "off-shored" and you have no job. In those times think of the “one-percenters” who have more than their share of wealth and income, but pay less than their share of taxes—or often no taxes. Think of them each time you put your hand in your pocket to make-up the difference from what a just government should have provided you and what our one-percenter dominated government presently provides and remember that you must pay because they are not paying. In fact, because money is fungible…the money you pull from your pocket goes in effect directly into their pockets. The one-percenters do not spend their money to increase jobs here. They spend it perhaps on a ten-thousand acre ranch in Brazil, or a fifteen-room penthouse in Manhattan, or a second Lear jet, or a trip to some far-off vacation paradise--but not on infrastructure in this USA of ours. The one-percenters are parasites that must be made to pay their fair share. If you finally get the picture perhaps you will get mad enough to do something about it.
Get the picture?
According to G Wiliam Domhoff ( Univ California) in “Wealth Income, and Power, (9-2009 updated 1-2011) “wealth in the US is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands”. That fact probably comes as a shock to most of you (readers). Based on a recent study, most Americans from every walk of life and political persuasion have no idea just how unevenly wealth is distributed in this nation (Demhoff quotes a study by Norton & Ariely, 2010) But who would believe that the top 20% of the population controls more than 90% of the nation’s liquid assets?
First a few definitions. Wealth is defined by Demhoff and other sociologists as what we would call “net worth”, the value of everything a person or family owns, minus its debts. The figures that most economists use to calculate this value are “marketable assets” such as homes, land, commercial properties, stocks and bonds—all those items that are readily convertible into cash, but not cars and household items, which are valuable to people for personal use but difficult to convert into ready cash for investment. Financial wealth is defined as “non-home-wealth” or a person’s or family’s net-worth, minus the family’s “home value” (net worth-minus net-equity in owner–occupied housing). This latter term is a better measure of a person’s or family’s “liquid” assets which may be available for consumption or investment.
According to Demhoff, net-wealth in the USA is highly concentrated in just a few hands. As of 2007, according to figures compiled by our government, the top 1% of households (people with incomes of a 500,000 to a million dollars or more annually--and referred to here as "one-percenters" owned nearly 35% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (managerial, professional, and small business owners) held 51%. That means that the top 20% of the nation’s families owned (35+51) more than 85% of all the private wealth in the nation, leaving less than 15% to be distributed by the bottom 80% (the wage and salary workers)! If we examine the "financial wealth" of the top group, the picture becomes even more skewed toward the higher income level, since ownership of a private home is such a large portion of middle class American wealth. Thus in a measure termed “financial wealth” (defined as net wealth minus home value) a clearer understanding of the liquid assets of the top 1% may be visualized. In that analysis, the top 1% of households held 43% of the nation’s financial wealth, the next 19% held 50%, and the workers and salaried people held only 7%. Thus in terms of “financial wealth” the top 20% of the population hold 93% of all liquid or disposable privately held wealth.
So when you hear the term “confiscatory” taxes, or of certain classes of people unwilling to pay their fair share…review these figures for a better understanding of what they want. It seems to me they have most of the "pie" now. Apparently what they appear to be seeking is to have it all!
Keep in mind that the top 1% (of wage-earners and simply wealthy) have in the last several decades cornered the vast majority of the nation's income. Considering the disparity in wealth, is it any wonder that these same individuals wield a much greater share of political power? Since money can buy control of the media as well as the government, the one-percenters not only have the raw power that wealth brings, but also control of the "story". With such breadth of control they are able to control public opinion and by means of paid lobbyists, mold legislation to their own needs.
Since the “one-percenters” (who have enough money to provide more than adequately for all their own and their family's requirements) they have no need for government supported basic health care, or public transit, or good roads, or good schools or the basic infrastructure which is a requisite for a well-run functioning society and for a decent life for the vast majority of Americans. The one-percenters' agenda is to limit government expenditures for these services. They seek to decrease taxes and government spending on basic infrastructure, since such outlays would only increase their taxes for services which they perceive they do not need or use. Furthermore, since they (and their children) are highly unlikely to serve in the military where they might be placed in harms way--they see military intervention in quite a different light than the rest of us. And perhaps more importantly, they envision financial gain in the hideous concept of endless war-and so they tend to favor military solutions to all our foreign problems great and small. Furthermore, government funds that are allocated to "defence" are unavailable for domestic infrastructure development--in effect this "starving of the governemnt coffers" serves to limit spending in the areas that the one-percenters see as of no utility to their goals. On the other hand, war and military spending is a fine make-work and jobs-programs for the elite, super-wealthy. These defence expenditures serve the one-percenters by moving vast sums into military projects where they can generate enormous profits from government contracts. One has only to recall the intensity and single mindedness with which Bush and Cheney promoted their Iraq war which was planned as and turned out to be a giant giveaway for the one-percenter crowd.
Thus the “one percenters” have taken control of our nation's media and government and turned it into a system which serves them and only them. They have helped to mold us into a nation of low taxes for the ultra wealthy, a hog-tied ineffective government which can not support the basic infrastructure or needs of its citizens, but which supports a bloated, make-work program for the military-industrial complex which their heirlings continue to categorize as our “defence budget”.
So my dear citizen-friends every time you make an expenditure that might have better been provided by a more just and equitable government, the difference you must lay out is the amount that the one-percenters and their facilitators have purloined and allocated to themselves. When you must pay your physician for a larger and larger “co-pay” for health services, or your kids are ill-served or struggling in poorly funded and staffed schools (and you must fork over cash for a tutor or a private school), or you lose a tire to a pot-holed and unreparied road, or you have no basic rapid transit system to get to your job when gas prices go sky high, or perhaps your job has been "off-shored" and you have no job. In those times think of the “one-percenters” who have more than their share of wealth and income, but pay less than their share of taxes—or often no taxes. Think of them each time you put your hand in your pocket to make-up the difference from what a just government should have provided you and what our one-percenter dominated government presently provides and remember that you must pay because they are not paying. In fact, because money is fungible…the money you pull from your pocket goes in effect directly into their pockets. The one-percenters do not spend their money to increase jobs here. They spend it perhaps on a ten-thousand acre ranch in Brazil, or a fifteen-room penthouse in Manhattan, or a second Lear jet, or a trip to some far-off vacation paradise--but not on infrastructure in this USA of ours. The one-percenters are parasites that must be made to pay their fair share. If you finally get the picture perhaps you will get mad enough to do something about it.
Get the picture?
Thursday, March 31, 2011
OBAMA'S LYBIA WAR--AEGRESCIT MEDENDO
The news that Obama has moved to open a new front and a new war in Libya is another example of American military interventionism in Muslim lands which will likely add another sad page to the already sad history of those places. In similar circumstances in the oldest and first democracy of ancient Athens, the great philospher, Socrates (469 BC -399BC) would have been plying the Agora, cornering members of the boule to use his questions (elenchus or the Socratic method) to probe the validity of the decisions of the Greek archons (leaders) of his time. But in modern America, few raise any serious questions. Our government, press and citizens all seem to fall in line with our President's statements, however untrue or even ridiculous they appear.
When I heard of Obama's plan to enter Libya brandishing cruise missiles, cluster bombs and napalm canisters---to be used only for humanitarian purposes" a quote from Virgil, (aka Publius Vergilius Maro, Roman Poet, 70BC to 19BC) popped into my mind. It is: "Aegrescit Medendo" which literally means "it becomes worse for the treatment used," but is often translated as "the cure is worse than the disease". This seemed so appropriate to the present case. Can anyone truly believe that Obama's motives are what he states and he is acting so belligerently in Libya to save human life? To me, Obama seems more a man ready to acquiesce to the existing power structure when he thinks he is cornered, or because he perceives some political gain in his aquiescence. His deep, dark eyes are presently focused, not on saving the lives of Libya's insurgents, but on saving his 2012 election bid--where he perceives a need to present a tough, macho persona to the electorate in November next. In politics, looking tough is more important than making tough decisions. One need not look further than his troop-surge in Afghanistan and its expansion into neighboring Pakistan, for evidence of what can go wrong with a largely aerial war. In both these places there are too numerous instances of "accidents, mistaken-identity, and also some obviously purposeful cruise-missile strikes and bombings targeting innocent civilians (at this juncture, I can not pass up the opportunity to remind my readers of the recent tragic deaths of nine(9)--young Afghan boys ages 9-14 who were blasted to smithereens by US bombs as they peacefully collected firewood for their parents on a hillside.) To "suppress" Libyan-air-defenses (read destroy emplacements and kill operators) there will have to be many strikes which will no doubt kill scores of innocent civilians who happen to live near-by, since many defense facilities are sited in populous areas. In what Obama proposes civilian casualties are inevitable. Therefore Obama's stated "cure" to prevent the potential for a "slaughter of innocents" is certain to slaughter innocents. Furthermore, I found his language simply too reminiscent of George Bush's syntax and rationale when GW presented his cooked-up reasons for going to war in Iraq to protect the US from the "possibility" of nuclear holocaust, by creating a conventional holocaust where nearly a million Iraqis lost their lives. It seems that Obama's rational is: if the patient needs a tooth pulled to ease the pain in his jaw, send in a surgeon to cut off the patient's head. That tooth will not hurt him any more! Agrescit medendo!
After writing that last paragraph a second quote from Virgil came to mind: "Facilis descensus averni"--(Aen.6.126) "Easy is the descent into Hell". One need not have a degree in military history to recall how unpredictable war is. And also how quickly motives and military missions magically change and morph from one thing into another. Your memory bank need go back no further than Bush II's Iraq war where, "sending a message" became, "finding weapons of mass destruction", which altered to: "spreading democracy", which changed to: "making the Middle East safe", and which finally resulted in a plaintive and surly: "getting rid of Saddam". Bush and Cheney expressed so many different aims of war over such a short period of time that it would often make one's head spin. These changes in reasons, purpose and motives are of-course tailored by our leaders to fit the political needs and vagaries of the day, minute, or to explain away unpleasant realities of the war enterprise. These alterations are termed "mission creep" by the military. Thus as Virgil stated, It's so easy to descend into hell! "Facilis descensus averni". But what is more disgraceful than a politician who affronts us with bald-faced lies (as he spends money we do not have to send our young men and women into harms way, and for highly questionable purposes)? Unhappily, such behavior is something that we almost come to expect from them! But what is more disgusting than a mendacious politician is a compliant electorate and citizenry in which no one speaks up to confront the lies and misrepresentations. Instead, Americans all line up to nod their collective heads in agreement as the President and his functionaries (and the press) shovel the manure our way. Oh where are our skeptics and our questioners? Where is our Socrates?
When I heard of Obama's plan to enter Libya brandishing cruise missiles, cluster bombs and napalm canisters---to be used only for humanitarian purposes" a quote from Virgil, (aka Publius Vergilius Maro, Roman Poet, 70BC to 19BC) popped into my mind. It is: "Aegrescit Medendo" which literally means "it becomes worse for the treatment used," but is often translated as "the cure is worse than the disease". This seemed so appropriate to the present case. Can anyone truly believe that Obama's motives are what he states and he is acting so belligerently in Libya to save human life? To me, Obama seems more a man ready to acquiesce to the existing power structure when he thinks he is cornered, or because he perceives some political gain in his aquiescence. His deep, dark eyes are presently focused, not on saving the lives of Libya's insurgents, but on saving his 2012 election bid--where he perceives a need to present a tough, macho persona to the electorate in November next. In politics, looking tough is more important than making tough decisions. One need not look further than his troop-surge in Afghanistan and its expansion into neighboring Pakistan, for evidence of what can go wrong with a largely aerial war. In both these places there are too numerous instances of "accidents, mistaken-identity, and also some obviously purposeful cruise-missile strikes and bombings targeting innocent civilians (at this juncture, I can not pass up the opportunity to remind my readers of the recent tragic deaths of nine(9)--young Afghan boys ages 9-14 who were blasted to smithereens by US bombs as they peacefully collected firewood for their parents on a hillside.) To "suppress" Libyan-air-defenses (read destroy emplacements and kill operators) there will have to be many strikes which will no doubt kill scores of innocent civilians who happen to live near-by, since many defense facilities are sited in populous areas. In what Obama proposes civilian casualties are inevitable. Therefore Obama's stated "cure" to prevent the potential for a "slaughter of innocents" is certain to slaughter innocents. Furthermore, I found his language simply too reminiscent of George Bush's syntax and rationale when GW presented his cooked-up reasons for going to war in Iraq to protect the US from the "possibility" of nuclear holocaust, by creating a conventional holocaust where nearly a million Iraqis lost their lives. It seems that Obama's rational is: if the patient needs a tooth pulled to ease the pain in his jaw, send in a surgeon to cut off the patient's head. That tooth will not hurt him any more! Agrescit medendo!
After writing that last paragraph a second quote from Virgil came to mind: "Facilis descensus averni"--(Aen.6.126) "Easy is the descent into Hell". One need not have a degree in military history to recall how unpredictable war is. And also how quickly motives and military missions magically change and morph from one thing into another. Your memory bank need go back no further than Bush II's Iraq war where, "sending a message" became, "finding weapons of mass destruction", which altered to: "spreading democracy", which changed to: "making the Middle East safe", and which finally resulted in a plaintive and surly: "getting rid of Saddam". Bush and Cheney expressed so many different aims of war over such a short period of time that it would often make one's head spin. These changes in reasons, purpose and motives are of-course tailored by our leaders to fit the political needs and vagaries of the day, minute, or to explain away unpleasant realities of the war enterprise. These alterations are termed "mission creep" by the military. Thus as Virgil stated, It's so easy to descend into hell! "Facilis descensus averni". But what is more disgraceful than a politician who affronts us with bald-faced lies (as he spends money we do not have to send our young men and women into harms way, and for highly questionable purposes)? Unhappily, such behavior is something that we almost come to expect from them! But what is more disgusting than a mendacious politician is a compliant electorate and citizenry in which no one speaks up to confront the lies and misrepresentations. Instead, Americans all line up to nod their collective heads in agreement as the President and his functionaries (and the press) shovel the manure our way. Oh where are our skeptics and our questioners? Where is our Socrates?
Monday, March 28, 2011
UNDERLYING CAUSES--UNEMPLOYMENT AND OFFSHORING JOBS--PLUS A WHISPER OF HOPE
My friend Howie visted us recently sporting a fine red and gold baseball cap which blared out in bold red letters in the gold crown “Espagna”.
“It’s a gift from my daughter!” he stated proudly. “She brought it back for me from the Ebitha, in Spain, where she was vacationing,” he explained.
But when the proud dad turned it over, he was surprised to read “Made in China” on the inner band.
“Oh, I guess, it came from China via Spain!” quipped Howie.
But no one else was really surprised. The cap was just another bit of hard evidence we see all around us everyday of how and where things are manufactured these days.
“You’d think they could make their own hats in Spain,” mused Howie, a bit disappointed in the provenance of his gift.
"Don’t feel bad my friend,” I assured him, “Everything is made in China or Asia these days—where labor is cheap.”
But the cap did have a story to tell. The yellow and red hat, like many other manufactured products was made in some Chinese busy, Chinese manufactory. It was packed up with thousands of others, shipped out and spent some time on a vessel on its way to Spain. There it set on some shelf in a trinket store in Ebitha for a few months. Finally, it was purchased by a young American woman to bring home to her dad, and wound up in Southampton, New York.
Not long ago I wrote a blog lamenting the fact that we do not make anything here in the US any longer and that is why today,two-and-one-half-years since the market collapse and Great Recession of 2008, we still have 14 million people out of work. But perhaps the story is more complex than simply cheaper wages.
Today, March 27, 2011, I read a piece by Robert Kuttner entitled “American Industrial Rennaissance” (which appeared in the Huffington Post) which helps to explain the underlying reasons why most American business find it profitable to “offshore” so much of their manufacturing. It goes a good way to explain as well, why we have an unemployment rate here in the US which remains so intractable years after the Recession of 2008.
Kuttner explains that US businesses are attracted offshore “to take advantage of lower labor and environmental standards in foreign countries.” Its cheaper to make things in countries where labor has no rights, and companies can freely pollute their host country’s environment with little cost or worry to themselves.
“Then too, foreign governments offer US companies subsidies to encourage them to locate production in their country . These subsidies are illegal, in principle, under the World Trade Organization. But China's entire industrial system depends on subsidies intended to attract western companies to shift production to China.
And finally offshoring makes it easier to book profits in such a way that avoids national tax liability. It was recently reported that GE, with worldwide profits of $14.2 billion in 2010, paid no US taxes. In fact, the US ended up owing GE $3.2 billion.”
But according to Kuttner, the recent tragic events in Japan, aside from the Iodine 131 and Ce 137 raining down on us, have caused some companies to rethink aspects of their policies regarding the advantages of their offshore operations.
Japan is right now, and for sometime to come, going to be off-line. It will not be able to produce the large number of computer “chips” and other products it manufacutres and sells abroad. Many of its automotive products, components of vehicles which are “manufactured” here, will not be available either. Those companies which depend on these component parts will not be able to put their products on the shelves or in the showrooms of the US.
Modern US industries (and many of those in Spain too) have long and fragile supply lines. Raw matierials travel long distances to a manufacturing site and then more long miles to the place where they are sold. These long-distance supply lines have their weaknesses. Wars, natural disasters, hurricanes, tsunamis, pirates and earthquakes can easily disrupt the supply line somewhere along its course—as in Japan—and the longer the line the more it is subject to interdiction. There are advantages to producing component parts closer to home. Furthermore, there are increasing energy costs to bear when production is “offshored”. Today with the costs of fuel rising rapidly (a barrel of oil is well over $100 dollars theres days) it is becoming increasingly expensive to move manufactured products, their component parts and raw matierials from place to place over the earth’s surface.
With the high cost of eneergy and increased mechanization the relative advantage of cheap labor has been partly nullified. The fact that mechanization has decreased the number of workers needed, lowers the cost of labor in that product. So that in the past, on an assembly line where forty or fifty workers were needed, now there are only five—pushing buttons on a big surface-active screen. Thus, the relative advantage of cheap Asian labor has fallen. Kutner states: “labor represents a dwindling share manufacturing costs”, while the energy costs of production have risen. “So even if a Chinese worker is paid just one-twentieth the wage of his or her US counterpart, there is only so much that can be saved by moving production abroad. “
Kuttner states: “As energy and the cost of shipping become expensive, and production becomes more automated, the logic of production shifts back in favor of more domestic manufacturing.” However, don’t expect a renaissance of US industry or vast increases of US jobs, because there remain those other advantages of "offshoring". But the hope lies in the fact that those aspects or advantages to business can be addressed legislatively. Why should we permit GE and other giant coprorations to manipulate the tax code and offshore jobs so they pay zero taxes? Why continue to provide businsesses tax relief and other subsidies when they offshore jobs? Products which arrive on our shores should have been produces in ways that do not pollute the environment of abuse basic rights of foreign workers. These issues may be addressed if President Obama screws up some gumption to tackle the reactionary forces. Perhaps as a start he should dump some of the rabidly pro-business people in his cabinet and begin to look at these problems with an eye for the needs of the nation as a whole. Perhaps, he might even give voice to a new more just industrial policy, that which will bring back manufacturing jobs to the US and save energy as well.
Get the picture?
rjk
“It’s a gift from my daughter!” he stated proudly. “She brought it back for me from the Ebitha, in Spain, where she was vacationing,” he explained.
But when the proud dad turned it over, he was surprised to read “Made in China” on the inner band.
“Oh, I guess, it came from China via Spain!” quipped Howie.
But no one else was really surprised. The cap was just another bit of hard evidence we see all around us everyday of how and where things are manufactured these days.
“You’d think they could make their own hats in Spain,” mused Howie, a bit disappointed in the provenance of his gift.
"Don’t feel bad my friend,” I assured him, “Everything is made in China or Asia these days—where labor is cheap.”
But the cap did have a story to tell. The yellow and red hat, like many other manufactured products was made in some Chinese busy, Chinese manufactory. It was packed up with thousands of others, shipped out and spent some time on a vessel on its way to Spain. There it set on some shelf in a trinket store in Ebitha for a few months. Finally, it was purchased by a young American woman to bring home to her dad, and wound up in Southampton, New York.
Not long ago I wrote a blog lamenting the fact that we do not make anything here in the US any longer and that is why today,two-and-one-half-years since the market collapse and Great Recession of 2008, we still have 14 million people out of work. But perhaps the story is more complex than simply cheaper wages.
Today, March 27, 2011, I read a piece by Robert Kuttner entitled “American Industrial Rennaissance” (which appeared in the Huffington Post) which helps to explain the underlying reasons why most American business find it profitable to “offshore” so much of their manufacturing. It goes a good way to explain as well, why we have an unemployment rate here in the US which remains so intractable years after the Recession of 2008.
Kuttner explains that US businesses are attracted offshore “to take advantage of lower labor and environmental standards in foreign countries.” Its cheaper to make things in countries where labor has no rights, and companies can freely pollute their host country’s environment with little cost or worry to themselves.
“Then too, foreign governments offer US companies subsidies to encourage them to locate production in their country . These subsidies are illegal, in principle, under the World Trade Organization. But China's entire industrial system depends on subsidies intended to attract western companies to shift production to China.
And finally offshoring makes it easier to book profits in such a way that avoids national tax liability. It was recently reported that GE, with worldwide profits of $14.2 billion in 2010, paid no US taxes. In fact, the US ended up owing GE $3.2 billion.”
But according to Kuttner, the recent tragic events in Japan, aside from the Iodine 131 and Ce 137 raining down on us, have caused some companies to rethink aspects of their policies regarding the advantages of their offshore operations.
Japan is right now, and for sometime to come, going to be off-line. It will not be able to produce the large number of computer “chips” and other products it manufacutres and sells abroad. Many of its automotive products, components of vehicles which are “manufactured” here, will not be available either. Those companies which depend on these component parts will not be able to put their products on the shelves or in the showrooms of the US.
Modern US industries (and many of those in Spain too) have long and fragile supply lines. Raw matierials travel long distances to a manufacturing site and then more long miles to the place where they are sold. These long-distance supply lines have their weaknesses. Wars, natural disasters, hurricanes, tsunamis, pirates and earthquakes can easily disrupt the supply line somewhere along its course—as in Japan—and the longer the line the more it is subject to interdiction. There are advantages to producing component parts closer to home. Furthermore, there are increasing energy costs to bear when production is “offshored”. Today with the costs of fuel rising rapidly (a barrel of oil is well over $100 dollars theres days) it is becoming increasingly expensive to move manufactured products, their component parts and raw matierials from place to place over the earth’s surface.
With the high cost of eneergy and increased mechanization the relative advantage of cheap labor has been partly nullified. The fact that mechanization has decreased the number of workers needed, lowers the cost of labor in that product. So that in the past, on an assembly line where forty or fifty workers were needed, now there are only five—pushing buttons on a big surface-active screen. Thus, the relative advantage of cheap Asian labor has fallen. Kutner states: “labor represents a dwindling share manufacturing costs”, while the energy costs of production have risen. “So even if a Chinese worker is paid just one-twentieth the wage of his or her US counterpart, there is only so much that can be saved by moving production abroad. “
Kuttner states: “As energy and the cost of shipping become expensive, and production becomes more automated, the logic of production shifts back in favor of more domestic manufacturing.” However, don’t expect a renaissance of US industry or vast increases of US jobs, because there remain those other advantages of "offshoring". But the hope lies in the fact that those aspects or advantages to business can be addressed legislatively. Why should we permit GE and other giant coprorations to manipulate the tax code and offshore jobs so they pay zero taxes? Why continue to provide businsesses tax relief and other subsidies when they offshore jobs? Products which arrive on our shores should have been produces in ways that do not pollute the environment of abuse basic rights of foreign workers. These issues may be addressed if President Obama screws up some gumption to tackle the reactionary forces. Perhaps as a start he should dump some of the rabidly pro-business people in his cabinet and begin to look at these problems with an eye for the needs of the nation as a whole. Perhaps, he might even give voice to a new more just industrial policy, that which will bring back manufacturing jobs to the US and save energy as well.
Get the picture?
rjk
WARS- A "JOBS PROJECT" FOR BIG CORPORATIONS
In these days of financial pain, (so aptly summarized by the NYT Bob Herbert's last column) "when 14 million Americans remain jobless and when only one job is available for every five applicants, when the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth, and the wealthiest top 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth, leaving the overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively holding just 12.8 percent of that wealth."
With that as background we should be shocked and angered(at least I am) to listen to our gevernment representatives of both parties bewail the government deficit, as they ignore the "big ticket" items of unnecessary wars and so-called "defense spending" (read here jobs program for the very rich and huge influential corporations) while they gleefully slash at the minimalist social-saftey-net of this nation (which by the way is the weakest and most shabby in all of the industrial nations of the western world) for spending cuts to balance the budget. We must be shocked and flabbergasted at the unbeleivable hutspaha, cynicism, and hypocracy of these so-called deficit hawks. They glibly target social security, medicare and medicaid, and any expeditures for education, and child care, but remain silent as a sphinx regarding the trillions of dollars spent on the unwarranted Iraq, Afghanistan, (and covert Pakistan) and now Lybian wars.
But today there surfaces a story from the Center For Public Integrity that goes a long way to explain the underlying motives and reasons for our present circumstances. Read it and understand why we spend so much on "defence" and where your tax dollar really goes. It will also make it clear why the middle class have become an underclass in last last several decades and why the upper 5% of earners own nearly two-thirds of the nation's wealth.
From the Center for Publicv Integrity (http://www.publicintegrity.org/) March 27, 2011
"As the invasion of Iraq turned into an occupation, a new and deadly threat to U.S. troops emerged, one for which the U.S. was ill prepared: the roadside bomb.
This piece is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and McClatchy Newspapers. Peter Cary is a freelance writer working for the Center. Nancy Youssef is the Pentagon correspondent for McClatchy.
So in February 2006, with casualties mounting, the Pentagon responded by creating a new agency designed to attack the problem by harnessing the full might of America’s technology community. The new organization was dubbed the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, and a retired four-star general was tasked to run it.
The launch of JIEDDO eventually turned what had been a 12-person Army anti-homemade bomb task force into a 1,900 person behemoth with nearly $21 billion to spend.
Yet after five years of work, hundreds of projects, and a blizzard of cash paid to some of America’s biggest defense contractors, JIEDDO has not found a high-tech way to detect or defeat these so-called Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) from a safe distance. In fact, the rate at which soldiers are able to find IEDs before they explode has remained mostly steady, at roughly 50 percent, since JIEDDO was formed. And while in the past few months the detection rate of IEDs has improved a bit, it is not clear whether this trend can be maintained.
JIEDDO’s outgoing director, Lt. General Michael Oates admits “there are no silver bullets that are going to solve this problem,” Indeed, the most effective IED detectors today are the same as before JIEDDO, and they don’t hum, whir, shoot, scan, or fly. They talk. And they bark. The best bomb detectors, Oates says, are still dogs working with handlers, local informants, and the trained soldier’s eye."
Lets forget the three trillion dollar Iraq war and the fact that it was a sham..there were no weapons of mass destruction, no threat and no need for the vast expenditure or blood and treasure there. There was no need for the JIEDDO project's
21 billion dollars either. Wasted money! Wasted lives! Think what could have been done with that 21 billion dollars spent here in the USA. But the money entered the coffers of the giant defense contractors. It moved from your pocket into the government's coffers and there into the pockests of the wealthy. Who profited? The top echelon. Who is pauperized the poor and middle class. Follow the money trail and undertand why we manufacture enemies (Gaddafi is our newest) and why we fight "terrorism" abroad. There is great profit in it for the wealthy and the giant corporations. But why is there no complaint from those of us who sacrifice our money, our young men and women, and the well being of future generations? Is it blissful ignorance? Perhaps! Don't forget somehow the media and government of this nation have somehow convinced its citizens that it is rational and necessary to field 100,000 plus troops in Afghanistan (at a million bucks a piece) to fight the estimated 100 or so al Qaida known to be there!
With that as background we should be shocked and angered(at least I am) to listen to our gevernment representatives of both parties bewail the government deficit, as they ignore the "big ticket" items of unnecessary wars and so-called "defense spending" (read here jobs program for the very rich and huge influential corporations) while they gleefully slash at the minimalist social-saftey-net of this nation (which by the way is the weakest and most shabby in all of the industrial nations of the western world) for spending cuts to balance the budget. We must be shocked and flabbergasted at the unbeleivable hutspaha, cynicism, and hypocracy of these so-called deficit hawks. They glibly target social security, medicare and medicaid, and any expeditures for education, and child care, but remain silent as a sphinx regarding the trillions of dollars spent on the unwarranted Iraq, Afghanistan, (and covert Pakistan) and now Lybian wars.
But today there surfaces a story from the Center For Public Integrity that goes a long way to explain the underlying motives and reasons for our present circumstances. Read it and understand why we spend so much on "defence" and where your tax dollar really goes. It will also make it clear why the middle class have become an underclass in last last several decades and why the upper 5% of earners own nearly two-thirds of the nation's wealth.
From the Center for Publicv Integrity (http://www.publicintegrity.org/) March 27, 2011
"As the invasion of Iraq turned into an occupation, a new and deadly threat to U.S. troops emerged, one for which the U.S. was ill prepared: the roadside bomb.
This piece is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and McClatchy Newspapers. Peter Cary is a freelance writer working for the Center. Nancy Youssef is the Pentagon correspondent for McClatchy.
So in February 2006, with casualties mounting, the Pentagon responded by creating a new agency designed to attack the problem by harnessing the full might of America’s technology community. The new organization was dubbed the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, and a retired four-star general was tasked to run it.
The launch of JIEDDO eventually turned what had been a 12-person Army anti-homemade bomb task force into a 1,900 person behemoth with nearly $21 billion to spend.
Yet after five years of work, hundreds of projects, and a blizzard of cash paid to some of America’s biggest defense contractors, JIEDDO has not found a high-tech way to detect or defeat these so-called Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) from a safe distance. In fact, the rate at which soldiers are able to find IEDs before they explode has remained mostly steady, at roughly 50 percent, since JIEDDO was formed. And while in the past few months the detection rate of IEDs has improved a bit, it is not clear whether this trend can be maintained.
JIEDDO’s outgoing director, Lt. General Michael Oates admits “there are no silver bullets that are going to solve this problem,” Indeed, the most effective IED detectors today are the same as before JIEDDO, and they don’t hum, whir, shoot, scan, or fly. They talk. And they bark. The best bomb detectors, Oates says, are still dogs working with handlers, local informants, and the trained soldier’s eye."
Lets forget the three trillion dollar Iraq war and the fact that it was a sham..there were no weapons of mass destruction, no threat and no need for the vast expenditure or blood and treasure there. There was no need for the JIEDDO project's
21 billion dollars either. Wasted money! Wasted lives! Think what could have been done with that 21 billion dollars spent here in the USA. But the money entered the coffers of the giant defense contractors. It moved from your pocket into the government's coffers and there into the pockests of the wealthy. Who profited? The top echelon. Who is pauperized the poor and middle class. Follow the money trail and undertand why we manufacture enemies (Gaddafi is our newest) and why we fight "terrorism" abroad. There is great profit in it for the wealthy and the giant corporations. But why is there no complaint from those of us who sacrifice our money, our young men and women, and the well being of future generations? Is it blissful ignorance? Perhaps! Don't forget somehow the media and government of this nation have somehow convinced its citizens that it is rational and necessary to field 100,000 plus troops in Afghanistan (at a million bucks a piece) to fight the estimated 100 or so al Qaida known to be there!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
MOST DANGEROUS WAY TO BOIL WATER
THE MOST DANGEROUS WAY TO BOIL WATER
(Or Playing With Fire In A Ship’s Gun-Powder Magazine)
The 104 nuclear power plants operating in the USA produce electricity the old fashioned way---they simply boil water and let the steam produced expand across the blades of a turbine fan. The fan turns a dynamo –much like the generator (alternator) in your automobile—and produces electricity. The process is based on the 18th century concept of James Watt who modified earlier designs dating back to Greek experimental steam-machines of the first century AD. The engines of Watt were piston-type engines which could be hooked up to farm machinery. But late in the 19th century, Charles Parson (1884) devised the steam turbine to convert steam into more useful mechanical energy by way of a complex “fan” which rotates in the stream of expanding gas and generates electricity by turning an electromagnetic dynamo. The only thing that has changed much over time is how we boil the water to make the steam. The early Greek machines used olive-oil lamps placed under the metal “boiler”. Early 19th century designs burned wood, later ones burned coal or petroleum and even natural gas. But the most modern and most dangerous of all-- use nuclear energy (that is: nuclear, pronounced nu clee arrrr! There is no “u” after the “c” in “nuclear” as President Bush was wont to add).
To produce nuclear energy one must acquire and concentrate large, heavy, unstable atomic nuclei which naturally decay into lighter more stable nuclei (a natural process known as nuclear fission); or alternately permit nuclei of lighter elements to combine into heavier more stable ones (nuclear fusion). The former process is what is commonly used to generate electricity. By this means (nuclear fission) unstable heavy elements such as certain forms of Uranium and Plutonium (which decay naturally by releasing particles of matter such as protons or neutrons) alter into lighter elements. As they alter from one element or one state of matter into another they give off radiation (the nuclear particles noted above) and great quantities of heat. That heat can be trapped to boil water. The reactor where this process takes place must be shielded by great thicknesses of metal and concrete to protect the staff, workers and general population from dangerous radiation. The problem with nuclear fission is that the process besides producing ionizing radiation which is harmful to all living things also generates great quantities of highly radioactive waste material which must be stored and isolated from the biosphere and which requires long-term (permanent) storage deep underground (though sometimes that does not take place as it should—as in the exposed used fuel rod pools at the Fukushima incident).
The water in the reactor is heated in an enclosed vessel by long fuel rods each filled with pellets of uranium ore. The sealed rods are surrounded by water and as the eclosed uranium decays into its fusion products the pellets give off energy which heats the surrounding water to the boiling point. The steam is directed over the blades of the turbine which rotates and generates the electricity. The steam is condensed and carried back by pipes into the boiler vessel so that the process can continue. To modulate the rate of reaction, control rods (often of graphite) are used which can be introduced into the spaces between the fuel rods. The control rods absorb the radiation which would otherwise interact with other nuclei and increase heat production. To slow the reaction and shut the core reactor down, the control rods are introduced in such a way as to interpose their mass between the fuel rods and thus maximize their absorption and modulation effects. As this is going on the excess heat must be drawn away by circulating water. If it is not constantly flowing through the core within the boiler-vessel, heat will build up. Loss of water circulation or loss of water may cause the fuel rods to decay and melt. Some of the substances produced (such as Cesium 137) are gases at these high temperatures and if the containment vessel is breached, these radioactive gases can escape into the atmosphere. If the entire mass of fuel melts it can produce an extremely hot molten mass which can actually melt its way through the floor of the containment vessel. This is sometimes referred to as a “China syndrome” or “complete meltdown”. In a meltdown there is no longer any way to modulate the reaction and an uncontrolled chain reaction can ensue. The boiler vessel and the containment structure could be damaged and breached and the radioactive elements can escape into the atmosphere, seep into the groundwater, be run off into surface waters or the ocean. In each case the substances which are released are deadly to living things and will remain so sometimes for thousands of years. Cesium 137 however, has a short half-life of about 30 years. Thus half of the atoms will have altered to some other more stable element after 30 years, then after 60 years that half would have halved itself and so on.
In the Chernobyl Disaster of April 26, 1986 in what is now north-central Ukraine an accident during a routine shutdown of the plant ultimately caused the loss of water, an great explosion and exposure of the plants fuel and graphite moderator rods. The graphite rods began to burn and an explosion blew the top off the less-than-adequate containment vessel. Radioactive debris was carried across much of Eastern Europe by upper-air winds. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the plant and the near-by city are deserted as radiation exclusion zones. The radiation caused the deaths of several hundred who lived near the plant and those many valiant Russians who gave their lives to contain the disaster. Years later scientists using statistical methods estimated that in those areas affected by the fall-out nearly a million people died as a consequence of their exposure. Even today nearly a quarter-century later the incidence of thyroid cancer in affected areas is 500 times what is was prior to 1986.
The disaster at Fukushima in Japan has made it clear to all that there are no assurances that nuclear energy can be “tamed” and made safe.
Oh there will be many who will claim that this was a “unique” set of circumstances; the disaster occurred at an old, outdated plant that was going to be retired soon that was simultaneously hit by a massive earthquake and then a tsunami. “What do you expect?” they might add? You counter with…”What about the disaster in 1976 at the American nuclear plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Three Mile Island)? Their response would be: “That was the result of a simple careless mistake.” “The plant itself and the construction were flawless!”
But what about the massive nuclear disaster in the USSR (Ukraine) in 1986 at Chernobyl? They would be sure to cite the facts that the Chernobyl melt down and explosion in 1986 happened at an old plant, designed by Russians. Would you ever buy a Russian-designed and manufactured motor-vehicle? You roll your eyes, and think, “No, probably not”, remembering those cheap “Lada” vehicles that the Russians exported to Cuba and other Soviet-block countries in the 80s and 90s. While Americans can be creative and inventive, they are not the ones you would want to repair your antique watch or fiddle with the fine mechanisms in your Infinity Sedan. You know that they have little interest in fixing that auto when we know that they all want to be either top executives or wealthy entrepreneurs (that is if they have no talent for baseball or football where they can really make money). You can expect Americans to make sloppy mistakes—just compare the maintenance records and finish on a Dodge Caravan-(a great idea that Chrysler Corporation came up with) with the Honda Odyssey—a copy-cat-design but mostly manufactured by the Japanese with better finish, and better maintenance performance. The Japanese have the mindset and the cultural background for that kind of work and success. They are methodical, systematic, precise and disciplined. So if the Japanese cannot keep the nuclear “tiger” under control, how could we expect the Americans—and all the others who want to use this dangerous way to boil water—the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and others to do so?
It’s a sure thing that the name “Fukushima” will become another metonym for nuclear disaster. “What do you want to have another Fukushima here? The answer from most citizens, faced with the possibility of constructing a nuclear power plant in “their back yard” would be: “No Fukushima for us!”
And of course we would feel the same way ourselves!
Get the picture?
(Or Playing With Fire In A Ship’s Gun-Powder Magazine)
The 104 nuclear power plants operating in the USA produce electricity the old fashioned way---they simply boil water and let the steam produced expand across the blades of a turbine fan. The fan turns a dynamo –much like the generator (alternator) in your automobile—and produces electricity. The process is based on the 18th century concept of James Watt who modified earlier designs dating back to Greek experimental steam-machines of the first century AD. The engines of Watt were piston-type engines which could be hooked up to farm machinery. But late in the 19th century, Charles Parson (1884) devised the steam turbine to convert steam into more useful mechanical energy by way of a complex “fan” which rotates in the stream of expanding gas and generates electricity by turning an electromagnetic dynamo. The only thing that has changed much over time is how we boil the water to make the steam. The early Greek machines used olive-oil lamps placed under the metal “boiler”. Early 19th century designs burned wood, later ones burned coal or petroleum and even natural gas. But the most modern and most dangerous of all-- use nuclear energy (that is: nuclear, pronounced nu clee arrrr! There is no “u” after the “c” in “nuclear” as President Bush was wont to add).
To produce nuclear energy one must acquire and concentrate large, heavy, unstable atomic nuclei which naturally decay into lighter more stable nuclei (a natural process known as nuclear fission); or alternately permit nuclei of lighter elements to combine into heavier more stable ones (nuclear fusion). The former process is what is commonly used to generate electricity. By this means (nuclear fission) unstable heavy elements such as certain forms of Uranium and Plutonium (which decay naturally by releasing particles of matter such as protons or neutrons) alter into lighter elements. As they alter from one element or one state of matter into another they give off radiation (the nuclear particles noted above) and great quantities of heat. That heat can be trapped to boil water. The reactor where this process takes place must be shielded by great thicknesses of metal and concrete to protect the staff, workers and general population from dangerous radiation. The problem with nuclear fission is that the process besides producing ionizing radiation which is harmful to all living things also generates great quantities of highly radioactive waste material which must be stored and isolated from the biosphere and which requires long-term (permanent) storage deep underground (though sometimes that does not take place as it should—as in the exposed used fuel rod pools at the Fukushima incident).
The water in the reactor is heated in an enclosed vessel by long fuel rods each filled with pellets of uranium ore. The sealed rods are surrounded by water and as the eclosed uranium decays into its fusion products the pellets give off energy which heats the surrounding water to the boiling point. The steam is directed over the blades of the turbine which rotates and generates the electricity. The steam is condensed and carried back by pipes into the boiler vessel so that the process can continue. To modulate the rate of reaction, control rods (often of graphite) are used which can be introduced into the spaces between the fuel rods. The control rods absorb the radiation which would otherwise interact with other nuclei and increase heat production. To slow the reaction and shut the core reactor down, the control rods are introduced in such a way as to interpose their mass between the fuel rods and thus maximize their absorption and modulation effects. As this is going on the excess heat must be drawn away by circulating water. If it is not constantly flowing through the core within the boiler-vessel, heat will build up. Loss of water circulation or loss of water may cause the fuel rods to decay and melt. Some of the substances produced (such as Cesium 137) are gases at these high temperatures and if the containment vessel is breached, these radioactive gases can escape into the atmosphere. If the entire mass of fuel melts it can produce an extremely hot molten mass which can actually melt its way through the floor of the containment vessel. This is sometimes referred to as a “China syndrome” or “complete meltdown”. In a meltdown there is no longer any way to modulate the reaction and an uncontrolled chain reaction can ensue. The boiler vessel and the containment structure could be damaged and breached and the radioactive elements can escape into the atmosphere, seep into the groundwater, be run off into surface waters or the ocean. In each case the substances which are released are deadly to living things and will remain so sometimes for thousands of years. Cesium 137 however, has a short half-life of about 30 years. Thus half of the atoms will have altered to some other more stable element after 30 years, then after 60 years that half would have halved itself and so on.
In the Chernobyl Disaster of April 26, 1986 in what is now north-central Ukraine an accident during a routine shutdown of the plant ultimately caused the loss of water, an great explosion and exposure of the plants fuel and graphite moderator rods. The graphite rods began to burn and an explosion blew the top off the less-than-adequate containment vessel. Radioactive debris was carried across much of Eastern Europe by upper-air winds. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the plant and the near-by city are deserted as radiation exclusion zones. The radiation caused the deaths of several hundred who lived near the plant and those many valiant Russians who gave their lives to contain the disaster. Years later scientists using statistical methods estimated that in those areas affected by the fall-out nearly a million people died as a consequence of their exposure. Even today nearly a quarter-century later the incidence of thyroid cancer in affected areas is 500 times what is was prior to 1986.
The disaster at Fukushima in Japan has made it clear to all that there are no assurances that nuclear energy can be “tamed” and made safe.
Oh there will be many who will claim that this was a “unique” set of circumstances; the disaster occurred at an old, outdated plant that was going to be retired soon that was simultaneously hit by a massive earthquake and then a tsunami. “What do you expect?” they might add? You counter with…”What about the disaster in 1976 at the American nuclear plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Three Mile Island)? Their response would be: “That was the result of a simple careless mistake.” “The plant itself and the construction were flawless!”
But what about the massive nuclear disaster in the USSR (Ukraine) in 1986 at Chernobyl? They would be sure to cite the facts that the Chernobyl melt down and explosion in 1986 happened at an old plant, designed by Russians. Would you ever buy a Russian-designed and manufactured motor-vehicle? You roll your eyes, and think, “No, probably not”, remembering those cheap “Lada” vehicles that the Russians exported to Cuba and other Soviet-block countries in the 80s and 90s. While Americans can be creative and inventive, they are not the ones you would want to repair your antique watch or fiddle with the fine mechanisms in your Infinity Sedan. You know that they have little interest in fixing that auto when we know that they all want to be either top executives or wealthy entrepreneurs (that is if they have no talent for baseball or football where they can really make money). You can expect Americans to make sloppy mistakes—just compare the maintenance records and finish on a Dodge Caravan-(a great idea that Chrysler Corporation came up with) with the Honda Odyssey—a copy-cat-design but mostly manufactured by the Japanese with better finish, and better maintenance performance. The Japanese have the mindset and the cultural background for that kind of work and success. They are methodical, systematic, precise and disciplined. So if the Japanese cannot keep the nuclear “tiger” under control, how could we expect the Americans—and all the others who want to use this dangerous way to boil water—the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and others to do so?
It’s a sure thing that the name “Fukushima” will become another metonym for nuclear disaster. “What do you want to have another Fukushima here? The answer from most citizens, faced with the possibility of constructing a nuclear power plant in “their back yard” would be: “No Fukushima for us!”
And of course we would feel the same way ourselves!
Get the picture?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)