It seems that companies aren’t alone in noticing that people in other countries are willing to do the same amount of work for smaller salaries. The practice of “outsourcing” or “off shoring” has cost large numbers of U.S. employees their jobs. Now there is a evidence at least one, U.S. employee found a way to benefit from the practice. A Los Angeles Times article by Alana Semuels describes how one Verizon employee relaxed and enjoyed his day watching cat videos and dealing on EBay while someone in China did his work. The Chinese person was paid a salary of $50,000 a year while the U.S. employee enjoying his “work day” was being paid much more than that. Continue reading
Author Archives: RF_Alum
OK
The Oxford Dictionary observes there have been many attempt to explain the origin of this expression, and most of them are speculations with little historical evidence to back them up. The expression became popular in the mid-1800s, and is likely to be an abbreviation of orl korrekt, which was invented to be a “jokey misspelling of ‘all correct’.” Supporters of President Martin Van Buren called him “Old Kinderhook” after his New York birthplace and formed the “OK Club,” which helped popularize the expression OK to indicate all is well. Another theory is that black slaves had a term for “all right, yes indeed” in various West African languages which apparently sounded like OK. The explanation ends by saying “…historical evidence enabling the origin of this expression to be finally and firmly established may be hard to unearth.”
Sequester and Social Security Withholding
Politicians are howling with threats about how bad things will be if the sequester legislation actually goes into effect two days after this posting. I can’t possibly list all the threats, but they include layoffs of first responders, teachers, air traffic controllers, and homeland security screeners. The President has warned that the unemployment rate will increase and the economy will suffer. All of this hysteria is over a cut of 85 billion dollars out of an annual budget of about 3.6 trillion dollars. We are being warned that the government cannot possibly manage a slightly smaller budget without draconian reductions in essential programs and harm to the economy. The same politicians issued barely a squeak of protest about the impact on families when they passed legislation that included an increase of two percent withholding from paychecks for Social Security. It would seem our legislators think citizens can easily adjust family budgets to deal with having two percent less money in their paychecks while the government cannot possibly find two percent of spending that is nonessential or at least less essential.
Where did the sequester idea originate? There is an interesting back and forth going on between Bob Woodward of Watergate fame and the White House. Mr. Woodward writes in his book “The Price of Politics” that sequester proposal originated within the White House. He adds that President Obama and the soon-to-be Treasury Secretary Jack Lew incorrectly accused during the campaign that the sequester proposal originated from House Republicans.
The White House first disputed Mr. Woodward’s version, but it seems they have decided they can’t dispute the facts. They are still arguing against the additional charge that “Obama is moving the goal posts by requiring that additional revenues be part of a sequester substitute.” The White House protests this assessment by saying the President has always considered that additional taxes must be part of any negotiations on budget issues. I’d say I agree with the White House, because President Obama’s campaign speeches, and all of his speeches are campaign speeches, have always advocated more tax income is needed. The Republicans mention that more tax income was added by the bill that avoided the “fiscal cliff.” Mr. Obama must think that bill that he signed into law didn’t add enough taxes.
Politicians will always think raising taxes is preferable to reducing the growth of government. They will also think the optimum amount of money they can spend is the current amount plus some additional amount. A slight reduction is enough to cause them to act the way they are now acting.
A Case for Nuclear-Generated Electricity
Scott W. Heaberlin adds to the message in the title with the subtitle “…or why I think nuclear power is cool and why it is important that you think so too.” The book works hard to overcome negative feelings about nuclear energy. I was convinced, but admit that I was convinced before I read the book. I doubt any avid nuclear energy foes will have their minds changed. The book takes on a complicated technical subject in a both educational and conversational manner. The author sometimes succeeds, and sometimes falls into the “curse of knowledge” trap that leads knowledgeable people to want to explain everything in details much beyond what is necessary, or at least what I thought was necessary. Continue reading
I Have Dibs on that
The phrase is usually used by children to mean, “I claim ownership of that.” However, World Wide Words, a site I frequently use, tells me there is no definitive explanation of the origin. There are dozens of children’s games that have had “dib” or a similar expression in their name. H.G. Wells used “dibs” as slang for money. Perhaps the most logical explanation is that “dib” is an abbreviation of “division” or divide.” But that logic isn’t backed up by evidence.
President Obama and Global Warming
Our newly reelected President used his Inaugural Address and the State of the Union to advocate that we must take action to combat man made global warming. He said there have been increases in droughts and violent storms. I’m frustrated because those statements are easily proven to be false. Most of the media have once again simply ignored the fact that the President is speaking from beliefs not supported by facts. George Will is one exception. His latest article, which focused on the nonsense of having a State of the Union address, mentions comments about climate change. “Data are unkind to his assertion that climate change is causing storms to become more violent and drought to become more prevalent.” “Hurricane and other tropical cyclone activity are at a three-decade low, and Nature journal reports that globally ‘there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years’.” Continue reading