For the past two years, since some particular date in 2007, we have been hearing about a recession of depressing proportions, and some of us have been unfortunate to bear the weight of this recession head-on. Businesses have been shuttered, jobs have been lost, and most likely more than one family has decided that it has had enough with the most recent in the long line of California gold rushes and moved back to Alabama….Or wherever.

Since the beginning of the recession, the Bay Area (Silicon Valley to the uninitiated) has lost 183,000 jobs. When compared to the 143,000 job gain from mid-2003 to mid-2007, the statistics begin to feel far heavier. In the midst of a general leanification of American business, some the grand forces of globalization which has enabled InfoSys (an Indian company) to become the biggest business services provider in the world (work many US employees now do for much higher pay). As the US (and the innovation driver Silicon Valley) shed jobs, the work may move to places where the work force is as if not more educated, and as if not more experienced in their fields. So then, how do we maintain our competitive advantage in a hostile economic and global employment environment?

The answer is as simple as replicating what our competitors abroad have done here at home; low-cost workers. And no, I am in no way suggesting filling busses with Latin American workers and paying them pittance wages in order to build our infrastructure, the US is already full of a huge educated or education-in-progress workforce willing to work for below minimum wage. They are college students, and they are under-utilized. Neither is the answer to create unpaid internships in any company which desires to have an employee working for the singular benefit of taking up a paragraph of space on their resumes. Unpaid internships, though able to create some future opportunity for a young person, often pale in comparison with minimum-wage work at the local Café. Even there will a worker be exposed to common business practices.

Listen, Business. I haven’t gone through all of your financial reporting, and I don’t know how much money you have left over after for new hires or interns but I can bet that you have some money left over to give 150-200 dollars per week to a young person in order to motivate them to perform. Students aren’t as worthless as they may seem to you, many are highly educated in the software you use on a daily basis. Business Schools teach classes entirely based around Microsoft Excel, all students have used Microsoft Word, a pirated version of Photoshop, and have previous sales experience (be it retail or small-time drug dealing), and many others have a keen understanding of what it means to be a good employee. Not only will your new intern be working to gain experience in the field, which will enable them (and our country) to be more competitive in future employment environments, but they will be delighted that you provide them with the beer money they need to seek some cultured repose on the weekends.

Given this, I would expect businesses to be fighting over low-wage and highly-educated employees in their own country who are not only able to do much of what we are outsourcing, but will be delighted to fill the coffee order as well, but what are the facts? Monster.com, one of the biggest job search engines, and one which many turn to in order to find their next job currently (as of 9/13/09) list 723 internships. That’s 723 internships for the entire country, and only 96 of those are in California, a state known for its innovation drive. 43 of those 723 internships are located in the District of Columbia, and we all know what happens to interns there…

So what are we saying to our young people with our hiring practices? Have we given up on innovation so much that we offer more opportunities per employer in the field of lobbying and bureaucracy than in tech and internet? We need to stop putting the blame on our eroding competitive advantage on the educational system, because education doesn’t drive the economy directly, but employers and businesses do. So when you turn to each other in the board meeting and say that you’re unable to fill positions in the United States and need to outsource, you will not only be defeating the home economy, but will be falling prey to your own shortsightedness.

[Comment Now!]

Bills from large cities contained more frequent traces of the drug; places like Baltimore and Detroit. A whopping 95% of bills from Washington D.C. contained traces of cocaine. (That’s where your lawmakers live).

A similar study by the same research team in 2007 yielded results of 67% bill contamination, which mostly means that you guys are doing much more blow than two years ago, before spending that same $20 dollar bill to buy more blow and getting creative with your inhalation paraphernalia.

The bottom line: you can’t get high off of the trace cocaine levels on your bills, but at least the dollar is still good for something.

[Comment Now]

Since the very beginnings of institutionalized healthcare, the system has been marching in a sideways direction. Sideways for several reasons: for one, Americans currently have some of the best levels of care in the entire world. For another, healthcare is overbearingly expensive, with many Americans unable to get insured, or to afford expensive but possibly life-saving treatment. Some of these problems began in the early days of HMO or employer-based healthcare. Employers would sign contracts with health insurers to satisfy workers compensation regulations, and these insurers would require the workers to contribute a part of their salary for non-work related injury to be covered under their plans (the alternative at the time was still a physician-based fee-for-service system). These first HMOs, with Kaiser Permanente in particular being private companies, set upon a historic quest to provide the least care (cost) for the highest price (profit) possible. This is of course, the nature of capitalism.

Though the health care system is one of the most complex issues which could be tackled, with the inter-relation of many systemic problems, there are some problems which can be identified, but the solutions to those problems are not as readily available. One of the most major issues with the health care system, even before the patient marches into the hospital, is the health insurance system. Health insurance exists in order to save the patient on medicals costs which may be incurred in the future, and as with all other kinds of insurance has an up-front cost. This cost, in our health insurance system is tackled by employees and their employers, and sometimes by citizens and their government as in the case of Medicare and Medicaid. The prices charged by insurance companies take into account a lot of issues, including of course their administrative fees, the actuary tables which predict when and what payouts will occur, actual payouts, and the profit motive. Though costing is a regular part of running any business, the insurance companies, and the government-run insurance arms are constantly plagued with cost overruns, due in some part to the medical treatment of uninsured patients. According to research, “nearly 46 million Americans, or 18 percent of the population under the age of 65, were without health insurance in 2007,” the most recent data available.

Therefore, the unpaid medical costs of 18 percent of the population, when and if they decide to seek treatment at an emergency room are transferred to other, insured, patients at the same hospital. Thereby, essentially, the treatment of one patient entails costs of 1.18 patients, or that every single insured American is paying the already outrageous ER costs of another fifth of a human. Some of these ER costs, which can sometimes be in the thousands, could have been meliorated by a wider accessibility and acceptance of insurance, because in some cases, the individual’s practitioner could have taken care of the patient in a much more cost-effective manner than the hospital’s overcrowded ER rooms. The percentages of patients’ medical costs per procedure which have absolutely nothing to do with the patient’s treatment, but come from gaping inefficiencies in the system frequently force insurance companies to deny patients coverage for pre-existing conditions which would be too costly to treat.

Other problems arise when one attempts to chase down the inefficiencies in the entire health care system, and those problems do not only rest with the uninsured, or the insurance companies, but with the hospitals themselves. According to an SFGate article, “Experts estimate that 98,000 people die from preventable medical errors each year” this, as the article goes on to state, comes out to more deaths per month from medical errors than in the attacks of September 11^th. However, due to legislative issues and backtracking on the side of the hospital industry, these numbers are not thoroughly reported to the public, and only serve as estimates. Had the number of 98,000 been an official figure, this would place preventable medical errors as the number 1 killer of Americans, almost doubling the number from car accidents each year. An additional 99,000 die from hospital-acquired infections, and most of these cases are preventable.

Thus, from a broken link in the insurance system, we move to a gaping wound in the hospital system which at given estimates would kill almost 5 times more Americans than car accidents (accidents at a rate of 43,000 per year) and, to reiterate, a vast majority of these mistakes are preventable. It seems inconceivable that our nation can move into a direction of health-care reform on the insurance and access-to-care fronts if the care itself is the biggest killer in our nation, though this unfortunately is the case.

Fortunately, some hospitals in the United States have been moving to prevent these mistakes from happening, by utilizing technology, and re-evaluating their procedures one step at a time, and on a per-institutional basis. The Harvard Business Review article profiles several hospitals which have been using the Toyota Production System philosophy in order to improve their operations, to ensure patient safety, and reduce the amount of staff time necessary to perform procedures, all leading to a more efficient and frequently more profitable system of operations. Many of the solutions hospitals have undertaken have begun as simple ways to look at what was going wrong, and to attempt to fix small problems on the production (care) line before they cause a grave error.

However, as many have by now realized (or should have), keeping people sick is good business. This isn’t a downright pessimistic view, as some might say, but rather a view of reality. Hospitals seeking to reduce the rate of mistakes would face tremendous costs in implementing say, new computerized medication ordering systems. Furthermore, reducing the number of mistakes will frequently lead to lost revenue, “For example, when Utah’s Intermountain Healthcare hospital chain improved its system for prescribing heart patients the proper medications on discharge, re-hospitalizations were reduced by 900 beds a year. As a result, the hospital lost $3.5 million in revenue”. Pharmaceutical companies have long known about this issue, focusing their research on profitable palliative care instead of one-time curative care. Hospital managers who more often than not are businessmen instead of doctors then face a decision to decrease their revenue, and possibly profit in order to provide a service which has no effect on the bottom line. This is a problem which remains today due to lack of regulatory oversight, and hospitals losing their scopes on the target of patient care for a profit motive. This issue has been around for so long that it will be difficult to root out.

The third issue which can be covered within the scope of this report is the issue of lax regulatory procedures. During the Clinton administration, plans were drafted in order to demystify the system of accidental hospital death reporting, and make the figures available to the public. The response? “The groups [AMA and American Hospital Association] launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign that said mandatory reporting would drive medical errors underground. From 2000 to 2002, they spent $81 million on lobbying and political donations, records show” .This is because without publicly-available data, Congress or local legislatures will not be able to act to prevent these types of issues from arising, and without Congressional interference, everything is business as usual for these providers. Currently, 20 of our 50 states still do not provide any reporting on adverse hospital events, many others only offer data voluntarily, or state-wide without looking at specific hospitals. Only five states at this time offer hospital-specific data on these events, and they’re not even the big ones. The failure of government to act to prevent these, and many other health care related issues will be a large stain on our democratic process for years to come.

[references and bibliography available on request]

[Comment Now]

Keith Olbermann is a threat. He is a threat to newscasters and entertainers alike with his “What Really Grinds My Gears”-oriented segments. He is a threat to college kids – his particular brand of political B.S. is on a level far beyond the average UC Berkeley Poli-Sci student. Olbermann is (and no, this is not meant to be a detraction) probably the most liberal human being in the news media today. Instead of giving us the news, Olbermann provides a reaction reminiscent of one’s mother (yes, mother) expressing her disappointment.

This is the same B.S. we heard out of the Obama campaign before they realized that campaign issues don’t necessarily apply to being “Presidential.” As the Daily Show put it, “Yes we can- But that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to.” The experience has made Obama a more grounded figure, and definitely a better president than candidate.

Olbermann should try to do the same. Run for public office, sir.

But you won’t will you? Because as any other hypocrite knows, Congresspeople are paid much less than you are.

Although, he might be right…

Unless you haven’t noticed, billions are the new millions, and a single billion sent the way of real people after trillions have been poured to secure assets which even the bankers don’t fully understand is not just too little, too late, but is an outright spit in the citizenry’s face. (Not to mention a guarantee of further car-company losses due to wasted advertising).

The next time we want to start hemorrhaging dollars, please make sure that customers are the ones which get bled all over.

[Comment Now!]

The list follows a very simple formula in determining who will be first in line to receive benefits from the millions (billions?) of dollars which the US government just gave away to pharmaceutical companies (as if they needed it) for the purchase of this vaccine. Those who will be safe from symptoms “similar to that of the flu” first will be:

1. Pregnant Women (putting chemicals in them is always a great idea)
   
2. Caretakers of Infants (fine, whatever)
   
3. Children (fine..) and Young Adults (to enable them to be healthy while binge drinking and doing drugs)
   
4. Older People With Chronic Illness (a little late, no?)
   
5. Health Care Workers (getting vaccines is an occupational hazard)
   

Undernews has a better suggestion for the use of all those dollars. Buy Americans (American) Soap. Soap will not only aid in preventing contraction of the feared nanometer-sized pig who seeks to invade your sinuses, but will also help prevent hundreds of other kinds of inconvenient afflictions. Or, you know, just let human evolution take its course.

You know we’re right..

[realnews via WashPost]

[Comment Now!]

San Francisco, CA. Since July 23^rd, 2009, 13 cars have been destroyed by an unknown badass. The epic destruction has followed this epic path of destruction:

Date:           Time:           Location:
July 23        6:20 a.m.     Geary Street and Van Ness Avenue
July 23        12:05 a.m.   Post Street and Van Ness Avenue
July 25        3 a.m.          200 Block of California Street
July 25        11:30 p.m.   Franklin and Fern streets
July 26        4 a.m.          Van Ness Avenue and Olive Street
July 28        4 a.m.          Geary Boulevard and 48th Avenue
July 28        4: 25 a.m.    Geary Boulevard and Bertie Minor Lane*
July 28        6 a.m.          Geary Boulevard and 29th Avenue
July 28       11:23 p.m.    Newcomb Avenue and Selby Street
July 29        2:05 a.m.     350 Francisco Street*
July 29        3:15 a.m.     700 block of La Playa

Whoever this badass is, we congratulate him (not her, because we don’t believe that women are this stupid) on his incredibly misguided revolutionary tactics. Historically, destroying normal people’s private property has been best way to get your point (what fucking point) across. If you are reading this, Mr. Arsonist, we highly suggest that you chop off your dick and join the Flaming Lotus Girls artists’ coalition. They like to burn shit too, and are way….way… more creative than you are.

[via Examiner]

Asshole.

[Comment Now!]

1. This is a young woman.

2. This is a young woman from Santa Cruz.

3. Though not representative of young women from Santa Cruz as a whole, the probability of bumping into this type of person approaches p=1 as your distance from Santa Cruz approaches d=0.

Enjoy.

Until the courts set precedent on what a tweet actually is, beware… Just for posting an innocuous post like this,

could get you sued for defamation like the woman who posted the above tweet. She is being sued for $50,000 by Horizon Group Management citing, “maliciously and wrongfully published the false and defamatory Tweet on Twitter, thereby allowing the Tweet to be distributed throughout the world.”

You can read the full suit here. It is unfortunate that someone must pay with their time and money in order to establish a precedent for Twitter, and to place it into the proper legal guidelines. We just hope that Twitter will help with her defense, since she is indeed taking the fall for the company, and all of the users.

This is a different kind of Twitter Suit

Harvard University professor Henry Gates Jr. was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct while trying to enter his upscale home by police Sgt. Crowley. It would seem that Mr. Gates had forgotten his keys after returning from a trip to China. While no one knows if Sgt. Crowley had operated from a sense or racism or police duty, but the situation has managed to spark a media uproar. President Obama, ever the playground arbiter will attempt to remedy the situation by inviting both parties over to his house, and telling Crowley to tell Gates that he is sorry. After which, beer will be served, most likely in Presidential Edition Stella Artois Glasses by a member of the butler or wait staff of the White House. This will, undoubtedly teach Sgt. Crowley important lessons in race relations not learned in 8^th-grade History class from Mrs. Johnson.

[via ABC]

Unrelated? Rodney King.