Ron Amundson’s Political Blog

To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to endanger the public health by encouraging food-borne illness, decreasing the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and decreasing the security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.

1. It encourages food borne illness through consolidation of operations, through preferable treatment to large agribusiness.

Its interesting to note the major food borne illness outbreaks are the result of large consolidated ag practices, which are encouraged under this bill. Diversity of production is a national security concern. Imagine the consequences of Monsanto, or ADM screw up in a huge way, its not a matter of if, its a matter of when, biology can be messy that way. In part, this is why small producers are subsidized to encourage some level of diversity. Just as we found in banking, the too large to fail mantra, and the monopolistic practices granted to some firms are counter productive. Thousands of small banks did ok. The 18 or so super banks are in serious trouble.

2. It decreases the safety of food, by a massive influx of new and inexperienced inspectors, and focuses more on the administrative side than physical inspection and testing.

The FDA is tragically undefunded as it is. Adding a new overhead layer of govt, re-arranging all the chairs, increasing the paper work burden, and the inspection scope, will require a massive increase in human resources and training. As a result, experienced people are likely to be diverted to greater administrative functions, rather than being in the field. The end result, greater administrative functions, and a focus on paperwork inspections, combined with less actual testing, planning, and review by those skilled in the art.

3. It decreases the security of food from intentional contamination.

This comes back to the diversity issue once again. Ie, one person could now jeopardize security of food for millions of people, rather than just a local area. It would no longer be necessary to utilize massive terrorist cells for a ampaign, as the vulnerabilities are so concentrated. The lone errant individual would be a much greater concern as well. Introducing pathogens in the food supply chain is not rocket science, doing it over a large scale as existed 30 years ago would be impossible. Today, its possible but difficult. After passage of this bill, it would be rather simple.

In many ways large agribusiness using transgenic crops is in effect a bio lab on a large scale, and its open for business pretty much anytime day or night, with exceedingly limited security. Such crops pose a serious enough problem in the south that over 50% of biotech cotton land must be used as refuge acres, and even here in the north, the EPA requires 20%. The idea is to prevent transgenic crops from loosing their specific traits as concerns insect resistance. Its a similiar situation with volunteer corn having different gene expressions than off the shelf corn. In other words, if left unchecked its a disaster waitng to happen. Case in point, BT volunteer corn.

Yep, I got a typo in the title, and then thought hey, why not live it as is… it is a dud in many ways. The legislature has asked for opinions, so I cranked out a number of suggestions in their online form, not sure how well that format will work… I guess if I get any feedback from them, maybe it does, but then again, its likely filled with a bunch of extremes on all sides. As such, I expect the local meetings likely will carry a lot more impact, but I just don’t see how I can get to one, much less testify… so I’ll rant a little bit here.

The biggest issue… the legislature. They need to take this seriously, and realize that nothing should really be off the table, and that little things do add up. Now, in sound bites and internet commentary, they do seem to look at this seriously. However, a quick scan of the 290 proposed bills in the domain of the finance committee suggest otherwise. Egads, it seems nearly every bill is focused on expanding government and spending more money. That doesn’t bode too well for a need to take things seriously. If anything, a moratorium on all new spending bills may be in order. Granted, there are no doubt some good things in there… but when you can’t manage with what you have, adding more is not prudent at all. At a minimum, if one proposes to spend more money in one area, concurrently cut in another. (in fairness some of the bills are based upon incoming fed money, but thats a whole other story).

The only way the budget issue will be solved is massive cuts, plus tax increases. One or the other along will not cut it… and using debt and creative accounting sure didnt work out too well for banking and housing… its not going to work out too well for state govt either, if not now, it will come back to haunt later.

I really like what rep Steve Drazkowski had to say in his learning from the private sector release. However, he didnt go far enough with the parallel to the private sector. Ie, no business in their right mind will cut their unique selling position / core competence beyond what will scale (ie, a business needs scalability, otherwise its doomed to shrink etc). Pretty much everything is negotiable up to that point. Once you start gutting out a business such that scalability is negative, failure becomes inevitable, short of the current trend of bailouts.

And thats the issue of state budgeting, what is the minimum level needed to achieve positive outcomes in the future. Ie, q-comp is not it, prisons are not it, university building projects are not it, nor is any level of further govt expansion. Cutting public health services to the citizens will come back to bite, even dental funding if deferred will be much more expensive later. Oversight, administrative, and supervision functions on the other hand even if efficiency drops, provided its not state mandated are tolerable. Errors made in those areas are fixable at minimal cost later… but basic safety nets are not. Thiis would require a rewrite of mandates and qualification criteria, as agencies would not have the manpower to comply, if overhead in such areas were cut…. lots of sacred cows would need to go.

Cutting public safety back through a reduction in laws and a change from misdemeanors to non-crimes will also reduce the load on the judiciary, and the prison system at minimal future expense. (I dont buy the law enforcement side that going after minor crimes saves money in the long haul…. I’ve got too many friends in law enforcement who admit otherwise privately). Also history bears that out, in the 70’s our percentage of folks in prison was a fraction of what we have today, and society back then was not all that bad.

Education needs to be cut all around… $160,000 costs per classroom, where a teachers fully burdened wages is under $100,000 is just too much overhead. Its not sustainable long term… and do teachers and students really get much benefit for that $60,000 worth of overhead, I really doubt it. I know they dont get didly for standardized testing, in fact, I realy see NCLB as focused on all the wrong things… rote learning and teaching to the lowest denominator in 2 subjects is not the way to prepare the young for the future. Accountability is needed, absolutely, and NCLB had good intentions, but the implementation is insanity cubed. I’d rather see overhead slashed by 25%, and a $2000 refundable tax credit given to each full time teacher for their classrooms… Put the money where it most closely impacts the students with as few strings as possible… My guess is education spending efficiency would shoot through the sky if the individual classroom teacher had the responsibility to make it happen. Sure, some would get wasted or misused, but I’d bet the vast majority of cases would result in a windfall

LGA at the city level should not be cut , as its where most citizens receive the greatest value for the dollar, either via education, local services, or public safety, ie police and fire. Otoh, LGA should not be expanded either.

At the county level, consolidate, consolidate, consolidate, even going so far as to use online remote terminals and limited hours in some locations. Its a luxury we can no longer afford.

Tax cuts, when the problem overall is a lack of demand are likely to result in hoarding, or offshore investments. Encouraging investment in NEW MN business or expansions into NEW markets through targeted tax deductions is a different matter entirely. Its like the stimulus bill, if you want A, you need to comply with B… across the board non discretionary tax cuts would be exceedingly counter productive.

As far as MNCare and such goes… cutting is counterproductive on the outset. However, negotiating with providers to save money is another story. They full well know if MNCare gets cut, their ER visits, and non collectible recievables will go through the roof. Force them to compromise on reimbursement… as getting 80% on the dollar, is better than getting nothing combined with increased usage.

Its probably a good thing I’m not in govt… I’d be too ruthless with cuts, and lobbyists would have my head by upending central control, but I’d rather see the calls made in Warroad, MN that best benefit that area, than St Paul dictating what they think best for the far north areas of the state.

I’ve seen reference to the 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure in numerous news sources, but had to do some digging to find the actual source. Well,its there in the previous link. Obviously, the ASCE wants things fully funded, as their membership base would do very well financiall. However, beyond that, it is very clear infrastructure is in terrible shape. How many more I-35 collapses, or dam collapses, or even power grid failures (I should write a blog on that, its probably a good thing J6P doesnt know how bad things really are) will occur before action is taken.

Clearly, a $2.2 trillion dollar package for infrastructure alone is not going to fly, in part that the govt would rather throw such levels of money at Wall Street for the benefit of the few cronies, but also, there is not enough construction capacity to burn through that amount of activity in a reasonable time frame. That being said, the current funding levels proposed for infrastructure do not max out capacity, and in many ways, end up continuing with the bandaid process which has been used for years. Sooner or later something very bad is going to happen… unlike mark to finger in the wind accounting as was used by Wall Street, the damages from an infrastructure collapse will make the financial collapse seem miniscule.

Some years back, we were within minutes of loosing half the midwest power grid, fortunately good judgement calls, and some systems that worked kept disaster at bay…. but having multiple states without power for weeks if it were to happen in winter would no doubt result in substantial loss of life. Emergency backup is designed for short terms, and it assumes key infrastructure within a reasonable transport distance is available… 7 minutes, and the midwest would have been toast.

Next, look at Mississippi river transport, and even the St Louis seaway. A lot of that infrastructure is operating beyond its expected life span… and all it takes is one link in the chain, and now we have a huge problem with multiple cascading and far reaching effects.

Then brownfields… yes, they can be a real boondoggle for a wide range of reasons, imho mostly too much govt involvement and oversight on the technical and operational aspect causing huge costs, all the while running with minimal financial oversight. Go figure, but its not attractive to a finance type, but they attrack bureaucrats in huge numbers, with restrictions at every path. Hopefully the ASCE guys can apply pressure… the clean up needs to occur, and it needs to be safe, but one should never have to get a flat bed and crane for a day to take a piece of gear off the brownfield for a 15 minute repair, as it takes 2 weeks of paperwork to effect the repair on site.

And there-in leads the inefficiency of govt contracts and programs. The focus is often driven not on what is beneficial to the public whether it be optmization value via low cost, or short duration, but on what is beneficial to the politically driven govt bureaucracy… In the case of catostrophic failures, the govt can step in and work wonders as evidenced by the repair of the Oakland bay bridge after the earthquake nearly 20 years ago, or the I-35 bridge more recently. Contrast this with the current Eastern span replacement of the Oakland bay bridge… yikes.

No doubt infrastructure needs help, and a ton of it… but just how much can be done, how much it will help the economy, and if it can be soon enough before disaster ensues. All very difficult and challenging questions, the only thing for sure, is the status quo (ie bandaids) will result in failure for all of the above.

Senate approves four-month delay to digital TV changeover — OrlandoSentinel.com.

This was a good call, albeit it doesnt solve the underlying technical issue, which is lack of coverage, which could result in no OTA (over the air) availability for some, and drastically reduced selection for others.  In some cases, its possible a high gain antenna, tower, and amplifier may be adequate, in others… it will take a change in the laws, the private sector cannot be expected to solve this on their own.

The reason being, to solve the problem of blackout areas, assuming the end customer has done everything on his end possible, it will require one or more of the following. Greater transmitter power (a regulatory issue… and many digital transmitters run at significantly lower power than their analog predecessors), more translators (low powered tv transmitters operating on unused channels to provide specific coverage to a local area), and/or potentialy a requirement that broadcasters must ensure their coverage area remains the same on digital as it did on analog.

The end result, hugh cost increases for tv stations, and potentially tons of regulatory hoops to jump through… then add in an assurance of virtually nil increase in market size, and its not justifiable. Ie, providing service to 1000 existing viewers in a market of hundreds of thousands just doesnt add up.

Now some would say tough, folks should just switch to satellite or cable, but in todays economy, more and more are going to OTA, rather than sat or cable. Then add in the fact this whole deal was done, not so much as to increase quality for the average Joe, but to bring in huge revenue in spectrum auctions for Uncle Sam. Sure, in some areas, clear spectrum is rare, but for vast portions of the US, its amazing how little spectrum is really used, and for where it is in use, how inefficiently it is used.

And yet others will say, who needs OTA TV, its not a right or anything… well there is a public safety aspect to this. Tornado warnings, and other emergency comms are typically disseminated via TV. Sure, radio does some, as does even the internet, but the primary method is via TV. To drop the coverage from entire communities is just asking for liability headaches should something bad happen, and thats apart from any injury or loss of life aspects.

Then add in the 4 month delay, and wow, we are right in the middle of Tornado season. At least the bill buys more time to get more of the tech issues solved, and it is much easier to do antenna work in the summer than it is now. On the other hand, the way things normally go, it will just be a delay, and until analog goes away, we really wont know how bad things truly are…. and then the mad scramble begins. Hopefully more and more testing will be done, and heat can be applied to the legislature, well before segments of rural America go completely dark in the midst to summer.

U.S. Mulls Widening Bailout to Insurers – WSJ.com

Go figure… life insurance companies made bad investments, and now want in on the bailout too… but they also do not want to fess up to their precarious financial position, and thus want govt to socialize the whole industry so as not to give competitive advantage to well run firms.

Its pretty screwey, many folks are against socialized medicine, and yet we have big insurance firms that want to be socialized, at least in the less lucrative arena’s it seems.

About the only thing we can probably figure on, is that Joe sixpack and mainstreet are not going to get bailed out, and likely a vast portion of the F1000 will, either through overt socialization through the bailout program, or exceedingly favorable tax or other corporate welfare schemes. What on earth ever happened to antitrust laws such that no entity would ever be too big to fail.

A most interesting discussion by senators as concerns energy speculation. Al Franken brought this to light when he brought up Norm Coleman’s vote against it.

GovTrack: Senate Record: STOP EXCESSIVE ENERGY SPECULATION ACT OF… (110-s20080722-17).

Its pretty clear no one wants to look at the one or more elephants in the room….

1. The idea is to game the speculation markets, such that oil prices will drop…. The differences are on how to do so. and….

2. Oil companies see this as the potential for a huge land grab, which they know is unlikely to be available after this session.

3. Likely all senators agree a coordinated plan with multiple attack paths are needed… but Republicans want to protect the speculator markets from going offshore and apart from the fact their campaign contributors would be severly hurt by such, they also would likely loose any and all future control, and once the genie is out, he is not likely to come back in. Democrats want to protect the environment and the associated economies, and see through the land grab issue, the speculator issue, and likely feel that increased capacity through leases is unlikely to have much of an impact either short or long term as to oil prices, albeit many likely do see the issue of some big businesses making a windfall at the expense of others.

Again, the goal is to up-end the speculator market, such that oil prices will drop, all the while ensuring that not too many investment banks and speculators dont loose their shirt.

Why not be brutally honest and put all the cards on the table, illuminate those elephants… other solutions might just well appear.

If the elephants I presented are true, and even partly true which is a huge guess….

1. Look into a world solution… work with China, Russia, the EU, India, and other countries. It does affect us all… easy in a blog, not so much in practice. Yet, putting speculator limits on US soil, will accomplish nothing, if the speculation market just goes off shore.

2. Put huge fear in the speculation markets, by investing in infrastructure to make oil shale recovery economically and ecologically viable. If that happens, the US reserve is huge… and it will make speculators run for cover. Its also a slow process, and likely many incremental steps will occur along the way, thus allowing only but the highest risk speculators time to jump out with safety. (it is banking on unknown technology, with a multitude of pitfalls though…. it could well end up failing)

3. Follow the Franken plan part 2 as concerns the strategic petroleum reserve. It will create a huge ripple in the markets…. and it may be possible to capture data to offer some predictability as concerns the speculator markets in the future. It may end up accomplishing very littel too… but at least knowledge would be gained to assist in future strategy.

4. Follow the Franken plan part 3 as concern conservation… its simple, and proven effective.

At that time… we can likely get through the elections, and by then be working on a longer term energy strategy which includes multiple attacks on energy which likely will include drilling in some capacity. What must happen, is something short term, or way too many folks are going to be in a world of hurt come winter, and the high costs of home heating.

From wcco…

The deal required the Republican Party’s host committee to buy insurance covering up to $10 million in damages and unlimited legal costs for law enforcement officials accused of brutality, violating civil rights and other misconduct.

And of course, that can open the door for pretty blatant civil rights violations…

The Sisyphus Journals: Good Morning America, Vietnam Era Returns.

Granted, there are some off the wall ideas held by some of those protesters, but in no way, should that abrogate their rights to free speech, unreasonable search and seizure, holding without cause, to say nothing of speedy trials, which considering many court cases from 04 have yet to be heard.

Apart from that aspect… talk about shooting holes in the future. Law enforcement is likely to ended up having their credibility shot, both by the civil rights violations, but also by not being in the right places at the right time. Average citizens were terrorized, no doubt in part by misjudgements on the part of law enforcement…. (I hate to second guess, as I’m sure the calls were done fast and furious… but they really hosed up on this). From Aaron Landry.

The most unnerving moment was on our way out. A man in a gas mask stood in front of the SUV staring at our driver to her the face, refusing to move. The ugly face of terrorism was standing in front of her vehicle. She froze, with her hands on the wheel and did not honk or try to move. It was a frightening scene. …..Meanwhile, the mob was coming up behind us.

……

Finally the guy moved and ran and we drove away. Our driver, who asked her name and occupation to be off the record told us that she was a mother, works downtown and was simply trying to go home in the eastern suburbs. She said she was appalled, disgusted incredibly shaken and said she felt like she was about to throw up.

A very sad week indeed.

McCain Sees Need for More Nuclear Power – WSJ.com
The key words….. “developing domestic capability to manufacture key parts.”

I think in many ways, Nuclear energy could have played a substantial role in energy policy…. but alas, its time has come and gone. In part, due to the regulatory and litigious climate today, the publics view of nuclear disasters,  but on a very practical basis…. I seriously doubt we could manufacture them anymore for a number of reasons…. its not that we lack the technology, certainly manufacturing tech is light years ahead of where it was in 1960, but there are huge problems.

First, every engineer or designer from that era is either at the point of retirement, or long ago did so. Prints only tell a small story when it comes to manufacturing, no matter how well documented they are. It is indeed, the craftsmanship that resides in the assembler, the maintenance tech, the  engineering techs, and the engineers that make the difference, not so much as what is on paper (which of course is what we are led to believe today with all our super cool and whippy high tech tools)

Second, any and all prints from that era, are likely to be in archive status, if indeed they are still around at all. Fragile blueprints, the smell of ammonia, and massive rows of drafting tables have long since fell by the wayside. Even cad systems have a finite lift, and it is indeed likely much of the documentation is either missing, or incorrect, thus leading to a multitude of rabbit trails should a call be made to tool up and crank out parts.

Perhaps most critical is the mindset…. I’ve brought back to life more than a few legacy products over the years, in addition to maintaining some pretty archaic products as well… (yep, I’ve worked off of prints from the 40’s) The mindset of production in the 60’s up to the mid 80’s was totally different. I don’t know how many times I’d send something out for a quote, only to have it come back as we can’t build that, its impossible…. and my response was… no its not impossible, as your company built a bunch of these for us in the past, ie, in 1973, and my records show, the acceptance rate was very high, and there are even file notes saying how impressed the guys were with the quality.

Todays emphasis on lean manufacturing by the least common denominator skill wise, combined with huge reductions in overhead don’t allow for designs with low yields, or processes which require a high degree of supervision, typically by an old grey beard craftsman. Thus, its easy for vendors to no bid, rather than to take risks on huge scrap rates and failures in order to provide a limit quantity of product which meats spec. Then add in huge increases in labor costs since then, and its understandable why things are the way they are today. Yet, if one needs a specific part, understanding a vendors issues doesn’t cut it.

To rebuild the nuclear manufacturing base will require a huge change in mindset, throughout a vendors operation. I would not rule it out as being impossible, but todays climate makes it unlikely, and if possible, the costs would be out of this world.

Imho, a better solution is a focus on technological solutions aligned with what we have, and what we can project into the future, rather than trying to relive the era of 30-50 years ago. Minnesota is primed and ready for such new challenges, the issue is whether the social political climate will embrace  such, or try to revert and live in the past.

Back in my Republican days, I used to enjoy sitting down and talking with Steve Sviggum, who was speaker of the MN house at the time. Sometimes we’d agree, sometimes not, but it was always a blast just to jaw with him. One of the things I remember asking, was whats the deal with all this hate stuff. I remember him saying, they could have huge disagreements on the floor, yet, at the end of the day be willing to go have a beer across party lines etc.

Twenty years ago, when I was involved with the IA state govt (no, not as an elected guy), I found the same thing. We might have substantial disagreements in the meeting sessions, yet, when finished for the day, it was a real blast to sit back and share experiences… many of which ended up being not all that different…. apart from the difference in official pov.

Thus, it does seem to be the case, that in actual political work, hate doesn’t enter the picture all that much, folks ultimately do have to work with one another. Yet, it seems more and more, the MSM likes to focus on the disagreements, and spin such into hate in order to bump up market share, and thus ad revenue. Its somewhat similar on websites…. intense controversy teetering on hate brings up traffic counts, which again helps page rank, SEO, and ultimately ad revenue. (hate in and of itself on the web is a real problem though… just ask any webmaster… there is a fine line not to be crossed, something the MSM doesn’t have to deal with).

The problem is… hate is an insideous thing, and it can propagate from the screen or newspaper into real life fast if left unchecked. These 2 guys got into it, and one ended up in the hospital, and another in jail.

Its great to be passionate about ones candidate or issues, even so far as being vocal, but hate….whoa, thats going too far.