Eideard

With little fanfare, China’s currency has appreciated significantly in the last year and a half, leading many economists to question whether the exchange rate is still the most important economic issue for the United States to press with China’s leaders.

The rise of the renminbi — up 12 percent since June 2010 on an inflation-adjusted basis and 40 percent since 2005 — has helped American companies by effectively reducing the cost of their products in China. In the last two years, American exports to China have risen sharply…

In his Oval Office meeting on Tuesday with Xi Jinping, China’s vice president and likely next leader, President Obama discussed the currency as one of the trade practices that concerned the United States. That meeting — and tough public comments by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — continued a three-year campaign by the administration to convince Chinese leaders that a stronger currency is in their interest…

Administration officials and members of Congress have chosen not to emphasize the appreciation publicly, partly to keep pressure on China. Widespread discussion of the change could reduce support in Congress for a bill that would impose sanctions on Chinese imports to the United States and that Beijing strongly opposes…Passing legislation based on a lie doesn’t upset Congress or the White House at all.

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Yup. The Supreme Court says corporations are just people. Their money doesn’t count anymore than money from you or me.

Let me get my Wellies on before this crap gets any deeper.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s big, bold stroke encouraging all states to prohibit drivers from using cell phones faces a long, tortuous process in the nation’s statehouses…

This political reality stands out: Since states began legislating distracted driving or cell phone use in 2000, none has gone so far as to impose a complete ban on mobile devices behind the wheel, and only one state — Alaska — has considered such a blanket prohibition, just this year…

Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, said opponents don’t like big government intrusions and savor their personal freedoms. “This is a controversial issue so you can assume it’s not going to pass right away,” Harsha said. “It’s going to take a long time for legislatures to pass laws, and a long time for states to begin to enforce the laws, and then a long time for behavior to start to change.

“The first seat-belt law was passed in the mid-’80s, and we’re now at 84 percent of drivers who are buckled up nationwide,” even though all states now have laws requiring drivers and passengers to wear seat belts, Harsha said…

In the past 10 years the NTSB has increasingly sought to limit the use of portable electronic devices — recommending bans for novice drivers, school bus drivers and commercial truckers. Tuesday’s recommendation, if adopted by states, would outlaw nonemergency phone calls and texting by operators of every vehicle on the road…

The initiative would apply to hands-free as well as hand-held devices, but devices installed in the vehicle by the manufacturer would be allowed, the NTSB said…

“There’s conflicting evidence” on whether hands-free cell phone conversations would be as unsafe as those by hand-helds, Harsha said, adding that more “definitive research” is needed. “If it shows both are unsafe, then a total ban may make the most sense,” she said.

There already are beaucoup studies proving that distractions are the cause – not the effect. The source of distraction affecting the human brain ranges from your passenger [if you have one] shouting “look at that!” – to noticing a particularly attractive member of the opposite sex in another car [depending on your gender identification I guess] – to a particularly uncomfortable gas pain.

Give mental pause whilst driving today – and reflect upon the artificial need for politicians to pass regulations to impress upon their peers and constituents alike that they’re earning their keep.

Jack Abramoff and Dickhead

Ethics reforms put in place since the influence-peddling scandal surrounding high-rolling lobbyist Jack Abramoff haven’t cleaned up the system “at all,” a now-free Abramoff says.

Abramoff served three and a half years in prison for conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion before his release last December. In an interview…he said the reforms imposed after his guilty plea have little effect while campaign finance remains untouched.

“You can’t take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak or something like that,” he said. “But you can take him to a fund-raising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fund-raiser — and have all the same access and all the same interactions with that congressman…”

“There’s an arrogance on the part of lobbyists, and certainly there was on the part of me and my team, that no matter what they come up with, we’re smarter than them — we’ll just find another way through,” he said.

The high-flying Republican lobbyist pleaded guilty to a raft of federal corruption charges in 2006 and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors investigating Washington influence-peddling. He admitted illegally showering gifts on officials who provided favors for his clients in a probe that led to convictions or guilty pleas for 20 lobbyists and public officials — including Ohio GOP congressman Bob Ney and Stephen Griles, the Bush administration’s deputy interior secretary.

Between the two phony political parties – and a Supreme Court packed with rightwing political appointees – democratic processes in legislation and regulation continue to be removed as quickly as they were the day Newt Gingrich rolled out his contract on the American people in 1994.

Abramoff was the champion of gaming the system designed by corrupt corporate ideologues, agreed to nowadays by both Democrats and Republicans. He ought to know how it works.

Nearly 11 years after the 2000 presidential election brought the corruption idiosyncrasies of the United States’ Electoral College into full view, 62% of Americans say they would amend the U.S. Constitution to replace that system for electing presidents with a popular vote system. Barely a third, 35%, say they would keep the Electoral College.

Gallup’s initial measure of support for the Electoral College with this wording was conducted in the first few days after the 2000 presidential election in which the winner remained undeclared pending a recount in Florida. At that time, it was already clear that Democratic candidate Al Gore had won the national popular vote over Republican George W. Bush, but that the winner of the election would be the one who received Florida’s 25 Electoral College votes…

Republicans have grown somewhat more amenable to adopting a popular vote system over the past decade. Now, for the first time since 2000, the majority of Republicans favor it. Independents are not quite as supportive as Democrats of the popular vote system, but the majority of them have consistently favored it.

Additionally, Gallup finds little difference in the views of Americans of various age groups on changing how the country elects presidents. Support for amending the Constitution on this matter is 58% among 18- to 34-year-olds, 64% among 35-to 54-year-olds, and 62% among those 55 and older.

From 1967 through 1980, Gallup periodically asked Americans about replacing the Electoral College with a popular vote system using different question wording, and each time, the majority favored it. The issue was particularly relevant during this period because the popular vote in the 1968 and 1976 presidential elections was so closely divided…

Next question? What do you think Congress will do about responding to the will of the people?

I thought so, too. They are truly useless.

A prolonged chill in the atmosphere high above the Arctic last winter led to a mobile, morphing hole in the ozone layer, scientists report in a new paper. It’s just like the South Pole hole we all studied in school, but potentially more harmful to humans — more of us live at northern latitudes. Here are five things you need to know about it.

1: THIS IS A NEW PROBLEM — Most of the public probably knows about the infamous ozone hole over the South Pole, which became one of the great environmental recovery efforts of the 1980s. The Arctic loses some ozone every year, too, but not like this, said Gloria Manney, who works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro…

2: IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN — Without ozone, more radiation would get through to interfere with our DNA, and that of other life forms on Earth. The planet’s climate is an extremely complex system, so it’s hard to say what will happen if global surface temperatures rise as expected. But it’s generally accepted that an increase in surface temperatures will translate to a chill in the upper atmosphere, Manney said….“If the stratosphere cools as a result of the changing climate, we might see severe ozone depletion more often in the future,” she said.

3: IT’S TOO LATE TO STOP — Humans have already emitted enough chemicals to seed the process…

4: PEOPLE NEED OZONE — The air over the Arctic is extremely mobile and turbulent, forming a vortex that covers the entire region…In April 2011, the vortex — and the hole — moved over northern Russia and Mongolia, Manney said. The climate-monitoring scientists didn’t notice it at the time, but ground-level ultraviolet radiation monitors started to spike…

5: WE NEED MORE DATA — International groups of scientists monitor the Arctic with a suite of Earth-observing satellites, balloons, ground stations and more…The instruments onboard NASA’s Aura spacecraft, whose trace gas and cloud measurements were key to this study, were designed to last about 5 years and they’re now about 7, Manney said…And as we’ve seen before, it’s tough to get a polar-observing satellite approved.

Combating greenhouse gas emissions and reversing global warming will help — if surface temps don’t rise dramatically, the stratosphere may not cool dramatically, and the chemical reactions that cause ozone depletion may not occur over the Arctic. What’s more, humans have already made some progress with the Montreal Protocol, Manney said.

“Having done that, we expect that we are now on a path to where eventually, in several decades, we will stop having enough chlorine to form ozone holes,” she said.

Which premises that politicians – on their own or forced to act by popular movements – will get off their rusty dusty and allocate funds and programmatic efforts to mitigate climate change, pollution and environmental degradation.

On a global scale.

Doctor Patti McCarver meeting with a patient

With pain in her right ear, Sue Cassidy went to a clinic. The doctor, wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope in one pocket, introduced herself.

“Hi. I’m Dr. Patti McCarver, and I’m your nurse,” she said. And with that, Dr. McCarver stuck a scope in Ms. Cassidy’s ear, noticed a buildup of fluid and prescribed an allergy medicine. It was something that will become increasingly routine for patients: a someone who is not a physician using the title of doctor.

Dr. McCarver calls herself a doctor because she returned to school to earn a doctorate last year, one of thousands of nurses doing the same recently. Doctorates are popping up all over the health professions, and the result is a quiet battle over not only the title “doctor,” but also the money, power and prestige that often comes with it.

As more nurses, pharmacists and physical therapists claim this honorific, physicians are fighting back.

An illegitimate characterization. “Fighting back” implies medical doctors are losing something. The quandary is over their ego-smitten self-worth. Standards for doctorates in most fields, medical or otherwise, allow the term “doctor” for anyone who reaches or surpasses those standards.

For nurses, getting doctorates can help them land a top administrative job at a hospital, improve their standing at a university and win them more respect from colleagues and patients. But so far, the new degrees have not brought higher fees from insurers for seeing patients or greater authority from states to prescribe medicines.

Nursing leaders say that their push to have more nurses earn doctorates has nothing to do with their fight of several decades in state legislatures to give nurses more autonomy, money and prescriptive power.

But many physicians are suspicious and say that once tens of thousands of nurses have doctorates, they will invariably seek more prescribing authority and more money. Otherwise, they ask, what is the point..?

The point is knowledge, skill and understanding. For the nurses. Obviously the point for the doctors is money and status. And money.

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Learning in-car technique at a ssu-parazzi school

With his debts mounting and his wages barely enough to cover the interest, Im Hyun-seok decided he needed a new job. The mild-mannered former English tutor joined South Korea’s growing ranks of camera-toting bounty hunters.

Known here sarcastically as paparazzi, people like Mr. Im stalk their prey and capture them on film. But it is not celebrities, politicians or even hardened criminals they pursue. Rather, they roam cities secretly videotaping fellow citizens breaking the law, deliver the evidence to government officials and collect the rewards.

“Some people hate us,” Mr. Im said. “But we’re only doing what the law encourages.”

The opportunities are everywhere: a factory releasing industrial waste into a river, a building owner keeping an emergency exit locked, doctors and lawyers not providing receipts for payment so that they can underreport their taxable income.

Mr. Im’s pet target is people who burn garbage at construction sites, a violation of environmental laws.

“I’m making three times what I made as an English tutor,” said Mr. Im, 39, who began his new line of work around seven years ago and says he makes about $85,000 a year… Wow!

Snitching for pay has become especially popular since the world’s economic troubles slowed South Korea’s powerful economy. Paparazzi say most of their ranks are people who have lost their jobs in the downturn and are drawn by news reports of fellow Koreans making tens of thousands of dollars a year reporting crimes.

There are no reliable numbers of people who have taken up the work since governments at all levels have their own programs, but the phenomenon is large enough that it has spawned a new industry: schools set up to train aspiring paparazzi…

The outsourcing of law enforcement has also been something of a boon for local governments. They say that they can save money on hiring officers, and that the fines imposed on offenders generally outstrip the rewards paid to informers…

For most infractions, rewards can range from as little as about $5 (reporting a cigarette tosser) to as much as $850 (turning in an unlicensed seller of livestock). But there are possibilities for windfalls. Seoul’s city government promises up to $1.7 million for reports of major corruption involving its own staff members…

Not a new idea; but, certainly the most extensive implementation of civilian policing I can recall. Being a bounty hunter – without a gun and the crap ideology it’s wrapped in here in the USofA – is an old and usually honorable profession. Only the crooks and corrupt are serious about their complaints. And honest civilians who criticise the craft – should take a look at the standards they’re using to judge their fellow citizens who own both a conscience and a camera.

Thanks, Eric

Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief executive of Starbucks, has always been the kind of boss who wears his heart on his sleeve. So it came as no surprise to Starbucks employees when, on Monday, he sent out a long, passionate, companywide e-mail entitled “Leading Through Uncertain Times.”

In it, he wrote about his frustration over “the lack of cooperation and irresponsibility among elected officials as they have put partisan agendas before the people’s agenda” — creating an enormous crisis of confidence in the process. He said that Starbucks had a responsibility “to act in ways that can ease the collective anxiety inside and outside the company.” It needed to continue creating jobs. It had to maintain its generous package of employee benefits. And it was critical, Schultz wrote, for employees “to earn our customers’ trust by being respectful of their own life situations — whatever it may be.”

No, the surprise wasn’t the e-mail; it was what happened next. Although he has made his share of campaign contributions — “to candidates in both parties,” he told me on Friday — Schultz is hardly a political activist. Yet the response to his e-mail — not only from within the company but among a group of some 50 business leaders he shared it with — was so overwhelming that it galvanized him…

In effect, Schultz thinks the country should go on strike against its politicians. “The fundamental problem,” he said, “is that the lens through which Congress approaches issues is re-election. The lifeblood of their re-election campaigns is political contributions.” Schultz wants his countrymen — big donors and small; corporations and unions — to stop making political contributions in presidential and Congressional campaigns. Simple as that. Economists like to talk about how incentives change behavior. Schultz is proposing that Americans give Washington an incentive to begin acting responsibly on their behalf. It’s a beautiful idea…

He believes Congress needs to come back from the August recess now, instead of waiting until September. Then, he says, the president and Congress should hammer out a debt deal, which will restore confidence. And finally, and most importantly, they should start focusing “maniacally” on the nation’s most pressing concern: job creation. Once they’ve done that, the boycott would be lifted…

Is Schultz’s idea a long shot? Yes. Is it worth trying? You bet it is.

First, here’s a link [.pdf] to the original email to Starbucks employees, partners and the 50 CEOs outside the company.

Go for it, Howard! Though buying “local” is our usual style, I’ll stop by for a coffee, this weekend, when we come to town for grocery shopping.