A View From The Edge

Thoughtful and thought-provoking op-eds. "Be at the vanguard of something at least three times in your life."

[peter-author]

Boeing: Basic Dumb Think

In 2001 Boeing, with a push from Wall Street investors – who had manipulated stock and buy-outs of many of Boeing’s competitors, folding them into the larger aviation company -- changed from being an aviation pioneering and engineering company to being a supplier of services to aviation and space exploration and supporting the Pentagon’s needs. In lock step with their newly redefined corporate role, the board of directors decided to be nearer to the center of America and moved all the corporate offices away from Washington State to Chicago. It took them another few years to realize that wasn’t working and they simply moved to where the money hand-outs were being made, Washington DC.

As the then-Boeing CEO Harry Stonecipher explained, “When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent, so it’s run like a business rather than a great engineering firm.” That intent met with great profit forecasts from Wall Street and a huge increase in executives’ salaries. However, two decades later Boeing is neither a great business nor a great engineering firm. No one was at home watching the day-to-day hands-on operation and if they were, they were being told, very long distance, how to cut costs so that Wall Street money people could make more money. After all Boeing was only a business, wasn’t it?

Imagine you were a restaurant owner. Let’s say your restaurant is at the cutting edge of capability and innovation. Would you, as the owner try to guide your staff from thousands of miles away? Did Henry Ford leave his offices in Highland Park only to move to Wall Street? Where do the most innovative engineering CEOs in electronics have their offices? Is INTEL’s Patrick P. Gelsinger’s office in Manhattan? Nope, like many others in that trade, his office is where the day-to-day oversight need to be, deep in Silicone Valley.

Manufacturing is not a business first and foremost. The lesson at Boeing is that if you run your engineering and manufacturing well, then the business will thrive. If you cut corners, putting business practices ahead of manufacturing and engineering needs, your product quality will decline, you will lose business, you will be open for take-overs and lose customers. Airbus is now over 50% of all aircraft sold to airlines in America. Where’s Guillaume Faury, the head of Airbus, located? Atop the factory in Toulouse, France. And he has no plans to move anytime soon.

If Boeing wants to recover its reputation and impetus, it needs to move back to the office atop the plant in Everett, keep an eye on actual manufacture, and go back to basics. Arlington Virginia, as plush as it may be for executives, is a poison pill Boeing cannot survive.

[peter-author]

Perspectives

If we knew more about the world we live in, if the media and schools taught a global perspective, we would already know that the population of America equals less than 5% of the people on this planet. That humbling number should lessen our ability to think of ourselves as a “superpower.” If you stop and think that for every single one of you there are 20 people out there who maybe don’t want our American way of life, you will begin to see the huge gap between your understanding of America and theirs.

Your fathers and mothers knew this. Your grandparents also knew. Your immigrant relatives knew. America may be big, expansive, roam-able but, in some respects, it’s very, very small, plebian, community-ridden and, above all, spreads similar culture from coast to coast. It is this sameness coupled with the wonderful size of our country that gives us the impression that America is important, large, giant, capable, and perhaps omnipotent. We are wrong. Ask you fathers, who fought in Vietnam, Korea, W.W.II, Afghanistan or Iraq, ask them if they think the foreign countries they fought in are either small or can be brushed aside so easily.

For example, is it wise for us to under-educate our population, to remove a true global perspective by the expedient of the glossy evening news concentrating on another flood in Houston when, at the same time, Ukraine, about  the size of the whole of Texas, is engulfed in a bloody war with Russia?  Sure, it is mentioned, when new video pictures come out every few days. The point is, the news’ perspective is skewed. Which is more important, the flood or thousands dying to fight for their democratic right? Later those “foreigners” will remember our boasts of being the most powerful nation on Earth, they will remember our capability when we desire to act in national flooding or tornadoes but they may conclude we just don’t really give a damn about murdered, bombed, targeted, dying on the battlefield people trying to fight to keep their nation alive; a nation the size of the whole of Texas where every town and city is their Alamo.

If you watch American television or read the papers you may be left with the impression that a lead-off story of a salacious sex scandal and cover-up is more important, needs more of your brain cells than, say, yesterday’s China Sea incursion threatening Taiwan, again. Wouldn’t you have wanted to know how this seemingly far-flung news was directly impacting you? More importantly, wouldn’t it have been helpful if it had headed the news so you could see it was of primary importance, not relegated to “also in the news?” The election catch-don’t-tell story is salacious, criminal but, in the end, presented as gossip. The China Sea news is perhaps more life altering to you and millions. Being shown perspective is vital to your well-being.

The feeling around the globe is growing that America is isolating itself, enjoying a resurgent prosperity and doesn’t care about the rest of the world’s problems. Media coverage in Europe and Japan depicts our news output as blinkered and uncaring about world events. This is a dangerous and potentially lethal combination.

Ignorance and other’s recognition of our isolationist ignorance has led or contributed to “surprising” global conflicts like Ukraine and Gaza.  Our lack of desire for a true global picture always gives our foes the impression that we are weak, not strong. Hundreds of thousands of our forefathers had to perish to remedy the Japanese “sneak attack,” the “sudden” Korean insurgency, Islamic Terrorism, and even the Vietcong; all predictable years in advance of our grudging, bloodied-nose, acceptance of reality. Unless we undertake and portray a clearer global understanding and an interest in the events and people of this our only planet home, the ignorance we hide behind today may become the epitaph for our children tomorrow.

[peter-author]

More Profit From Almost Nothing

Manufacturing is a simple formula. You take a small amount of material, mold or shape it into something unique and sell it for many hundreds of times more money than the material cost you. A Rolex has maybe $40 worth of raw materials. Carefully designed and constructed, it is worth thousands when complete, many times that when fashionable. So too with cars.

The problem with the car industry is that they are convinced that the formula works so well that they want to make more money but there are only so many customers. Everyone either has or uses a car. Out of the 350,000,000 Americans of all ages – babies and non-drivers -- there already are 278,063,737 personal and commercial vehicles. So the problem facing car manufacturers trying to make more and more profit is that either they have to try and sell two cars to every driver or they have to make the cars much more expensive, thereby making more profit.

The manufacturers chose the latter solution.

How do you make the car more expensive and thereby profitable? Remember the formula: take 10¢ of steel, shape it and sell it for $1.00. Now, there are exceptions to this rule. First you can create a mystique about Bentley, Mercedes, BMW and the like and get an extra 10% for “beat-the-Jones” show-off value. But 10% is not enough to satisfy Wall Street investors. Or you can make very limited numbers of a model to create extra demand like Ferrari and Porsche. Or you can stick to the manufacturing profit model and simply add more and more steel and other components.

It all started to get out of hand with Ralph Nader who declared the ’69 Corsair “unsafe at any speed.” The Corsair was the only US manufactured rear engine car. Kill the Corsair and you effectively killed the other “unsafe” car, the VW Beetle. The Corsair weighed 2,414 lbs. The VW Beetle weighed only 1,742 lbs. and out-performed and was more reliable. But that Nader label of “unsafe” effectively killed the US market for the rear-engined Beetle. VW’s answer was to put the motor back in front, add almost another ton of steel, and relaunch the Beetle. More steel equaled a higher price and more profit.

Meanwhile, Chevy and Ford sedans in the mid-‘60s weighed 2,600 lbs. By 2022 they had ballooned up to 3,500 lbs. More material, more profit. VW Jetta’s are 50% heavier than when launched. Camry weighed 2,161 lbs. when launched in 1982, now weigh in at 3,310 lbs. In the SUV market, 2023 weights are getting up close to 6,000 lbs. or 3 tons for Tahoes and Expeditions.

And then along came electric cars.

Instead of going back to lighter, less bulky chassis, they simply stuck the new motor(s) and all those batteries in conventional platforms, adding another 300 lbs. even though they had removed the engine and gearbox – hardly lightweight components – and had reduced the overall size of the car by 20%. And Tesla? The lightest is 4,048 lbs. with the Model X at 5,390 lbs. And the prices for these increases in weight? Pretty much in lock step. More metal and plastic costs you more.

Now here’s the question we all need to ask ourselves: given today’s technology providing reliability mechanically (which is also lighter than old cast-iron engines), wouldn’t it be nice to have a reasonably heavy car instead of a gas guzzling heavyweight or an electric car that can only go 200 miles? Put today’s engine into a 1968 Volvo weighing 2,500 lbs. and you’d get 50 mpg and all the safety needed. Put an electric drivetrain in an original VW Beetle and you’d get 400-mile range with half the batteries of a Tesla. Or do as Ford is doing, stripping out all the unessentials, and launching the Maverick small truck with a base price of $22,000. Now that’s a business model to suit today’s consumer.

[peter-author]

Nonsense About Hypersonic Weapons

There’s a media circus around hypersonic weapons. The media issue is threefold. One these weapons are hard to design and build, two we’re lagging behind Russia and China and three, and this is a critical part, we’re so far behind we’ll never catch up without more money.

Here’s a little history. In the ‘60s (yes the ‘60s) Kelly Johnson’s Skunk Works designed a seriously supersonic plane called the YF-17. It was a secret for over 10 years until the plane was accidentally renamed the Blackbird and broke speed records flying across the USA in the late ‘70s. It was not until 1990 that the plane was officially shown to and flown for the public – 25 years after Skunk Works first started secret test flights. Keep that time frame in mind.

Now, the USA is behind in the hypersonic weapons race.  Nonsense. We’ve had prototypes flying since well before 2010. There were three test programs then, the HTV-2 from Kelly Johnson’s Skunk Works (HTV-1 is not mentioned but predates 2010 by 5+ years), X-51 (well, there were X-49 an X-50 before that), and HyFly – these two both from Boeing. Since then there have been prototypes aplenty flying all over the country, seven prototypes in all from Lockheed Martin (ex-Skunk Works), Raytheon/Northrup Grumman, Dynetics/Sandia, Lockheed Martin/Dynetics, Sandia/Dynetics, Boeing and Lockheed Martin/Rocketdyne. Some of these are Air Force projects or DARPA/Airforce projects, or Army/Navy projects, or just plain Army projects.

The testing breaks down into two types of hypersonic systems: Scramjet or Boost-glide. In the first you air-launch the vehicle and a scramjet engine turns on and it zooms away at fantastic speeds at high altitude (usually). What’s a scram jet? Well, the combustion inside the casing is so intense that the engine needs more and more air to fuel the fire and the engine literally sucks its way faster and faster, especially at high altitude where the air is thin. In the Boost-glide vehicle, a rocket takes the vehicle to a very fast high altitude (sometimes just into space), aims it down towards a target and speed and gravity handle the rest. Some of these are long range weapon delivery vehicles like the LRHW (yes, that means long range hypersonic weapon – catchy, no?) and some are meant to be carried closer to target by conventional planes and launched towards target but at hyper-velocity speeds (Mach 5+) that an enemy will have little defense for.

And are these weapons ready to combat the China and Russia threat? Publicly? No. The Air Force, Army, DARPA, and Navy want more funds, the Pentagon wants more secrecy, the manufacturers want contracts that never end. And the media only gets snippets of information of tests that “failed to reach objectives,” “need more development” or “we’re trying to catch up.” Oops, we’ve seen this dance before. Mike White, the Pentagon principal director for hypersonic vehicles is quoted saying, “For operational security reasons, we cannot disclose the number of hypersonic flight tests and dates…. Across the department, we have dramatically increased the number of hypersonic flights tests in the past few years…” Translation? We’re having flight tests, not trials. The vehicles fly and we’re ready for next steps and newer, more expensive, models.

What, you thoughts the Blackbird program of the ‘60s, ‘70s and 80’s ethic was a one off?

[peter-author]

Fix The Environment

In order to lead the world in fixing the environment, we have to realize that industry, Wall Street, and rich science-deniers have the upper hand currently. And if you are wondering what upper hand they have, it’s all about handouts to politicians to keep their interests in control, make profit now and never, ever, take a long-term pro-humanity view.

Roger Smith, then head of GM made a statement back in the ‘80s that he felt the CAFÉ (fuel economy regulations) should be suspended for the good of the economy. I talked with him at the UN and pointed out that his view was shortsighted. I asked him, “Who do you think you are going to sell cars to in fifty years when the environment is destroyed?” His response was simple, “That’s not our problem right now.” Ted Turner was not amused at the same luncheon.

However, I have a guaranteed solution to the problem with big business preventing environment protection regulations. Simply put, every do-gooder organization, from the Sierra Club to the Environmental Defense Fund, the Nature Conservancy, the Natural Resources Defense Council, American Rivers and the Trust for Public Land, and then throw in every renewable energy company from General Electric Co., Iberdrola SA, Constellation Energy Corp., NextEra Energy, Vestas Wind Systems A/S, Jinko Solar Holding Co. Ltd., Canadian Solar Inc., and all the way to Brookfield Renewable Corp. and tell them all to fire every employee, stop every campaign, borrow as much money as they can from banks and spend it all on bribing – oops, sorry – paying politicians to endorse the most radical pro-environmental laws possible.

Wonder if it will work?  Well, currently the anti-environmental industrialists and petroleum companies spend 14 times more on funding politicians with cash than the entire operating budgets of the pro-environmental folks. Simply put, we have to outspend them and wrest financial control of the politicians they currently have absolute power over. If we outspend them, controlling politicians, even for one or two terms, laws could be put in place that would, quickly right this sinking environmental ship we’re all in.

[peter-author]

New, Dangerous, Pests

In Nature there is something called hybrid vigor. This means when you take one plant, microbe, animal, fish, or insect from one place and cross breed it with another plant, microbe, animal, fish, or insect it gains strengths that were either not apparent before or developed because of the mixing of genes. Similarly, when you take something from one location and move it to another location, the lack of competition in the new environment allows it to dominate and run unchecked.

All over the world, one of the greatest dangers to environmental conservation is this form of unchecked cross-breeding or transplanting vigor. We all now Purple Loosestrife, which is a lovely looking plant, now choking out indigenous species of marsh plants, changing the feeding and breeding habits of insects. The red squirrel came from Europe just as our gray squirrel went there (and is considered vermin pest). Plants in your garden, imported as decorative enhancements, have spread as weeds, and are choking out indigenous plants everywhere (Ireland has put the Himalayan Rhododendron on the “most wanted” list).

You may remember what happened when the African bee was cross bred with the South American bee to improve that bee’s pollen gathering capability, only to result in “killer bees” swarming and actually killing adults and kids as they spread past the Amazon, up through Mexico and into Texas.

Another insect has joined the ranks of “killer” invaders, in Australia. A small ant from South America was inadvertently released, has spread rapidly and because of its practice of community defense, has few enemies that survive its attacks. The conditions in the jungles of the Amazon are so severe, these little ants have evolved a poisonous bite coupled with a gang warfare in which one ant can summon thousands to its defense all with poisonous mandibles. So deadly is this insect, that the Australian government has posted rewards for its destruction in Queensland.

The same accidental importation happens with germs as well. We all know about Covid. But did you know that a Foot & Mouth outbreak in Britain happened because a pig came from Vietnam? Such accidents happen all the time, and all local immune systems, pesticides, and even vaccines are not effective, until adapted.

We live on this planet together, microbes, humans, flora, and fauna. We have to get along in our own specialized environments and when we have the opportunity to visit other environments or have flora or fauna from these foreign places visit us, we need to be respectful of the powers of Nature, the ability for hybrid and transplanting vigor to make our lives better and worse. Either way, in the end, one microbe, one plant, one ant taken out of its environment and placed in your backyard will irrevocably change the world you live in daily. Sometimes it is for the better and we are happier with daffodils and tulips, chickens and pigs, coconuts, and pineapple. Sometimes, it is better to keep our defenses up.

[peter-author]

Who Pays For What?

All developed nations subsidize their industries and thereby put goods on the market at artificially low prices. This, in turn, means that developing nations (without budgets for subsidies) cannot compete in an open and fair marketplace leaving them little recourse but to strip mine their natural resources and cut manufacturing costs where they can (as well as producing old-fashioned energy with makes abundant pollution).

It's a fair argument, on the one hand, and an unfair one if seen from a different perspective.

Let's try to tell the truth first. Everything developed nations produce has some subsidy applied, either to raw goods or energy or delivery. In the USA and Europe, the planes built were designed from specs originally developed as part of your taxpayer defense budget. The trucks that deliver goods are fueled by diesel that has a reduced import rate or a domestic tax credit as an essential product for the economy, and run on roads in which private cars pay a hugely disproportionate amount of tax for the wear the trucks actually cause. Food produce is subsidized to the tune of billions of dollars annually, even though farmers hardly make a reasonable wage for that most dangerous occupation. All cell phones have been subsidized by monopoly rights and monthly service fees for decades. Computer components have been designed with ample support of defense budgets and, further, that industry receives some of the most generous tax incentives and government guaranteed loans of any industry.

You may ask: "Why do we have these subsidies?" It's called managed common good. For example, computers are good for a modern economy. Made from raw materials refined in, processed in, assembled in and shipped from developed nations, this industry keeps many thousands employed and makes efficient use of raw materials. The subsidies and tax credits applied to this industry means that developed nations’ technology remains cheaper and in demand across the world. Now, of course, we have to pay for these subsidies. How? By earning more and paying more tax.

Henry Ford first realized this paradigm. If he paid his workers $5 a day (an unheard-of amount of money in 1920) then not only could he demand more of those workers, but they would have more money to spend. On what? A car, of course. Once the Model T started showing up everywhere, the boom took off.  

Take the case of corn. America is the No.1 producer of corn worldwide. Our regular corn production is so heavily subsidized (from farm credits, tax incentives, and export tax kick backs to the reduced cost of fertilizers and diesel fuel made from oil) that we export corn at less than 50% of the cost of comparable corn producers in India, south American farmers, and most African nations. On the one hand, this well managed US subsidy produces a strong economy, assures a national defense strategy, and makes our customers (who sell on the corn to the end-users throughout the world) dependent on at least one American product (and good-will). It is worth noting that the State Department has used these visible subsidies, especially the export tax credit subsidy, as part of most treaty negotiations since before Nixon. In fact, the great inflation recession of the early '70s was caused by a Senate approved subsidy for wheat that caused us to lay out $350 billion in one purchase order to Russia (which had a catastrophic wheat failure that year). Subsidies can work for and against us. But managed properly, subsidies can move financial resources from, say, excess shopping at Walmart to the farming sector and make America stronger. In the end, you pay for it. This way you pay less for bread and gasoline, but more for that toaster oven than you should.

Seen from a developing nation's perspective, subsidies are evil and the cause of their poverty. In truth, what they want to know is: How do we get up enough of a head of steam to do the same? How will Tanzania or Zambia turn away from simply licensing those huge mines of copper or gems to foreign companies and actually make the copper pipe at a cost-effective price, or polish those emeralds in Dar-es-Salam instead of Holland? To do so they need to subsidize those industries from somewhere, but their economies are too fragile, they have no tax base, no spreading of the common wealth to rely on. So they scream "Unfair!" at world trade and environmental forums. They have a point. We have shown them the promised land but are doing little to help them get there.

The solution is not to dismantle our system, but to help them, like the Marshall Plan, and build theirs. There will always be parts of society that need more help than others. NPR is necessary to maintain some semblance of media balance away from commercial interests. Good roads are necessary for industry even if they are paid for by the family car. Our airways are a vital means of national communication, defense, and transport and deserve to be paid for by that surcharge on your holiday ticket. What you now need to do is listen to the voices of your cousins in Asia and Africa and South America and embolden our congressmen and women to promote the true American dream into reality. In the end, it will be beneficial to us all. If that Zambian earns more, he will surely want to buy the best American goods. Henry Ford was right, make the best product, create the most affordable new way of life and they will flock to your side.

[peter-author]

AA, AAA -  What’s Next?

If you’re old enough, you will remember flashlight D or C batteries that would leak after a while. The acid would eat through the casing. Later on, when small penlight, size AA, batteries came along, if you liked your Walkman, you checked them often in case they were leaking, eating through connections and even the plastic case. All these batteries were acid batteries until alkaline batteries came along that lasted twice as long and carried more of a charge. However they can pose a health risk as they leak potassium hydroxide, a substance that can cause serious eye damage and respiratory and skin irritation.

Many alkaline batteries can be recharged. You bought them for your power drill and camera batteries. And then along came lithium batteries which carry six times the wattage capacity and can last up to six times longer than alkaline batteries. Your new power drill, electric garden equipment are lighter and last longer with lithium-ion batteries.

The problem is, lithium is a rare earth material and even with lithium batteries being six times longer lasting than alkaline batteries, they are still way too heavy and not so enviro-friendly to allow your electric car to go much further than a few hundred miles on a charge. You car could go much further and that electric chainsaw work much longer, but both would be much heavier needing to carry more and more batteries. A Tesla’s battery pack, made up of hundreds of AA batteries, weighs almost a ton and can only be recharged about 500 times.

Now, what if that same powerful battery only weighed a quarter of that? Your whole Tesla car would weigh half as much, travel 1,000 miles on a full charge… and electric air travel becomes feasible for planes carrying 100 people up to 900 miles. That’s La Guardia Airport to Atlanta. This new battery design is called a lithium-air battery. Larry Curtiss of the US Dept. of Energy’s Argonne National Lab, “the lithium-air battery has the highest projected energy density of any battery technology being considered for the next generation of batteries beyond lithium-ion.” How much density? “1KWh/kg,” and is based on a solid ceramic electrolyte core which increases the energy density and recharge cycle lifetime to above 2,000 times.

Developed by the Illinois Institute of Technology and the Argonne National Lab this new design of future batteries consists of a lithium metal anode, an air-based cathode, and a solid ceramic polymer electrolyte. And the electrolyte is made from relatively inexpensive elements but in nanoparticle form (that’s the secret process). This solid material enables chemical reactions that produce lithium oxide on discharge which involves four or more electrons, twice as many as the best lithium superoxide batteries. More electrons means higher energy density. And this new battery does this at room temperature, never overheating, safe for road, air, and home use.

[peter-author]

Inflation Fix: It’s Nuts!

Inflation can happen with a serious banking failure (2008), or crop failure in Russia destabilized Détente and Nixon gave away billions in US wheat (1971), or Reagan unleashed the savings and loan banks to allow commercial activity (1982), or 9/11 happened… all these events caused portions of the economy to find their supplies in short supply which caused a buyers’ market to instantaneously become a sellers’ market. When the Capitalist system becomes a sellers’ market, sellers prefer to sell to the highest bidder to make more profit.

When the gas shortage happened in the 1970s, America was a net importer of oil. Gas prices rose steeply, setting off American inflation. Banks and the Fed needed to protect the value of the dollar and interest rates rose quickly, capping at 11.20% in 1979. That’s the official rate… some credit cards were over 25% and mortgages ranged from 12% to 18% depending on someone’s evaluation of your capability to make payments.

The problem with the Fed now is that they are nuts.

They want to stop prices rising and to do that they are, once again, reaching into the bank’s comfortable bag of tricks and raising interest rates. Why is there a crisis? Because Russia threatened for almost a year and then did invade Ukraine and the world is, rightly, cutting off buying Russian oil and gas. And the ripple effect? Oil and gas are 10% in short supply worldwide. And what do the petroleum folks do? They become, like all sellers’ market devotees, happy to raise prices and make more profit, loads of profit off the consumers’ back.

But the Feds have miscalculated. America has no shortage of petroleum or gas supply. America is a net exporter now, not like the 1970s. There is no shortage reason for the oil and gas companies to raise prices on Americans. Sure they can export their oil and gas and make more money, thereby creating a shortage here and causing prices to rise at our gas pumps, heating oil, and gas stoves. But why would they do that if they are American companies? Why would they forsake the American customer in favor of making more money selling overseas? Won’t they, longer term, lose faithful customers?

No, they won’t in the short term because you need their supply for your gas guzzler, you need that heating oil, that propane, and gas for your stoves. They know it and don’t care a whit for you as a customer. In short, they hold your prosperity to ransom and the Fed, not realizing that instead of raising your costs and interest rates they could simply freeze the wholesale, very profitable already, price of crude and gas until the Ukraine emergency is over.

And that’s the point. There is an emergency, and the Fed should have taken measures to deal with the emergency, not pander to outdated methods of stemming inflation. Instead, they have poured gasoline onto the inflationary fire caused by this true emergency and, in the end, as it did every time the Fed sought to cure inflation, everything will become much more expensive. Gas under Nixon was 41¢ a gallon, 90¢ under Carter, $1.10 under Reagan, $1.36 under Clinton, jumped post 9/11 to $3.37 under Bush, fell to $2.14 under Obama, and rose post Russian/Ukraine invasion to $3.95. Just do the math, since Russia threatened Ukraine gasoline price inflation is +84%.

Although it is understandable the Fed wants to slow  inflation down, how they are doing it is un-American. We have the oil, gas, and gasoline we need if only – in the national interest – they froze prices to pre-worry of Russia invasion (May 2021) when it was $2.90 a gallon.

Information link:  https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=W

[peter-author]

Human Death Toll In War

Civilians have, as history proves, always gotten harmed and killed during times of war. It wasn’t until WWII that deliberate targeting of civilians developed as a means to “bring the war to an early close by attrition and suffering.” The Russian bombing of Ukraine is simply an outdated means to win the war by forcing the destruction of an ordered way of life, making your enemy’s war-support collapse from within. The human tragedy, the toll of maimed and twisted bodies, proves, one again, an economic and effective weapon regardless of any morality (of which there is, of course, none).

The Atomic Age brought a greater potential to the destruction of nations. Throughout the Cold War, as the Arms Race heated up, governments went to great lengths to remind us of the power and yet show regret over the use of such weapons. As we now spin in a more connected age, where information and communication is truly world-wide, the use of such a massive bomb may seem less probable than before. A society that now knows that citizens can pick up trade (e-commerce) via a laptop and reform alliances (e-mail, SMS, etc.) the morning after an attack, may be less likely to fear total societal breakdown from a one-off 100-megaton detonation somewhere “over there.” So, what’s the military preparing as a threat for the newest weapon of war in the 21st century to leverage detente?  A good way to find out is to see what hints they’re leaking.

The Pentagon has a division called U.S. Army Hackers. The media has been given all sorts of information about electronic warfare and the destruction of telecommunications by high-output radio frequency via atomic explosions in the upper atmosphere or space. Images are released of aircraft being built to carry special attack forces –specialists in electronic warfare – that can destabilize an enemy with everything from small radiation bursts to radio jamming to computer hacking. A new bomber – the B-21 – carries hyper-weapons. The Navy is testing airborne “high energy” weapons – offensive and disruptive. Airborne and space synthetic aperture radar can see into buildings to identify the use of electronic equipment and then send a ray beam of energy particles to destroy computers, radar, and radios. Some of these aircraft or satellites are manned, but all the newest designs are unmanned and fly in swarms.

Unlike the possible deployment innocence of Hiroshima, the military people using these new weapons know exactly the devastating long-term effect being aimed for.  Oh, sure, these gizmos look harmless enough, a little blast here and fried computers there… but in a world dependent on telephones (fire, police, ambulance as well as your business), computer records (medical files, social security, corporate records, your very birth record) and media access (television, emergency broadcast systems), the devastation to your world, and the health of our very civilization, by the use of such weapons would cause world systems to collapse. Instantly, without warning, you would have no contact with anyone outside of your walking circle. Your car computers would cease to function, no planes, no radio, no satellites, no phones, no movement of produce, no food, no water, nothing.

We have now designed weapons that are effectively more powerful than the A or H bombs, electronic ones designed disrupt a whole population, effectively killing whole nations with one shot. Makes the Cold War weapons look like child’s play.

[peter-author]

Bigger, More Powerful, Cars

When Henry Ford was asked about the Model T, one of the first things he spoke of was how far it drove on a tank of gas: up to 500 miles at 31 miles per gallon! It was small, light, go-anywhere, carried 1000 pounds and, most of all, was affordable. How far we’ve come. In the search for a faster, bigger, more bulletproof car, it’s a case of “Beat the Joneses,” especially America’s love affair with trucks. Some of these so-called personal vehicles have exceeded the axle limit for trucks in the 50’s. I remember the size and weight of some of the cars back then, when gas was 35 cents a gallon: Big fins, big engines (always a V8 under the long hood), exemplified by the Cadillac of 1959 with the pop up taillights to reveal the gas cap.

Have we come very far since then? In fact, gas is cheaper, if you compare the dollar value and the price of bread and meat, then and now. The big car makers, especially in the USA, know this, that’s why they make engines that, just 35+ years ago in the last energy crisis, were unthinkable: 6.9 liters and up! New huge SUVs make a ‘60s Corvette seem to accelerate like a pedal car. I watched an Expedition SUV the other day alongside a Dodge Ram Truck, revving up and then squealing tires off the line. Two three-ton behemoths, drag racing, in town!

And what do they do with all this power? They set the cruise control at 65 on the highway and turn on the in-car DVD for the kids, complete with headsets. The front seats have their own stereo with more buttons than a Jumbo Jet. Note that more gadgets means more buttons which means more distraction crashes. When that 3-ton personal vehicle crashes, whoever is in the way in a smaller car is toast.

The environment is toast too; it’s not just the gas they guzzle but the cost of making a 3-ton vehicle of plastic and steel instead of two smaller SUVs for the same weight of material. This is short-term thinking. The profit in making these huge SUVs and flatbeds (without actual car safety regulations except light truck rules which date, mostly, from 1948) is actually higher per pound than your average sedan. Yes, higher. So why do they cost so much? It looks bigger, feels bigger, and if you believe the marketing, you are getting more too. Yeah, non-monocoque safety, more steel, less engineering, less drive-ability, less handling safety. But don’t check those things out, check out the big fat manly tires!

Today we’re faced with concerns, fiscal and civic, directly related to these road hogs. Drivers have no training in driving a 3-ton moving lump of steel (as opposed to semi truck drivers, who do). The price of gas is edging up and the more gas we buy at the pump, the more vulnerable we become to foreign pressure. And not least, our accident health and car insurance rates will be going up continually, in part because of the severity of the damage done by these road warriors when they hit something or someone.

In this race to beat the Jones, we’re now committed to roadways jammed with huge, gas-guzzling, less safe (for everyone) road tanks. Someday, hopefully, common sense will prevail.

[peter-author]

The Power of the Dollar

It’s not the buying power of the dollar, it’s the stability – stability that every US taxpayer pays for with hard work, paying taxes, and cutting-edge innovation. Most of the goods sold on this planet are quoted in dollars or a floating currency based on the dollar’s value at time of purchase. That stability means that America, and uniquely America, can measure our trading relationship around the world without having to guess at others’ currencies values. Currency stability, valued in dollars, requires developing countries to maintain a political and diplomatic relationship with America lest America destabilizes their internal currencies by changing the exchange rate and therefore upset their economy. In short, the dollar is an almighty lever, politically, diplomatically, and economically. Let’s look at Africa, for just one example. Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe have favorable trade with the USA. In fact, except for Sudan, these countries trade almost 6-1 with the USA compared to their trade with Russia.  If you think that doesn’t color these countries diplomatic decisions you would be wrong. On the UN issue of sanctions against Russia for the Ukraine invasion, every one of these countries either voted with the USA or abstained (allowing the resolution to pass). This group of nations, part of the Organization of African Unity, are a strong force within the democratic voting blocs in the UN, affecting many decisions the USA makes in the international arena. There is a war going on financially around the world precisely because of the stability and therefore leverage of the US dollar. The EU probably would have succeeded in making the Euro at least on par with the dollar had Brexit not happened. When the UK refused to join the currency, favoring their Pound over the Euro for nationalistic reasons, the Euro once again lost the power battle with the dollar. Forget the Russian Ruble (even their export gas is quoted in dollars), forget the Indian Rupee, even forget the Chinese Yuan… all of these currencies fluctuate against the same standard: the US dollar. So, when you hear that the unconditional guarantee or commitment to back the interest and principal of the dollar is at risk in Congress, the so-called “Full Faith and Credit Act,” know that unless Congress does its job and upholds that full faith and credit in the US dollar, not just interest rates and big business stability is at risk. What’s really at risk is global stability, the power of the US dollar to be absolutely the standard bearer for the world’s economy. If that fails, every liaison, diplomatic relationship, ordering and buying process of every company will be at risk. The “Full Faith and Credit Act” is not really about money, it is about stability everywhere, for every business, and for you.

[peter-author]

Fundamental Changes

There is perhaps nothing you need to create so fundamental as a home, a house, a place to live. There is something primitive and basic about construction, from laid stone to wooden beams to roofing to sheetrock and paint—anyone who lives anywhere either knows how their home was built or, indeed, can build and maintain the structure. It’s fundamental in every sense.

All that is about to change, in the same way your cell phone has changed how you live, when your phone had a chord you were more free than you are now. If you could, would you go back to a dial phone? Nope, your world has changed, better or not, you cannot go back. And so, how your ancestors lived and built homes is about to be revolutionized to the same degree.

First I have to explain 3-D printers. 2-D printers, like the one you use to print letters or signs, lay down a layer of ink on a sheet of paper. 2-axis 3-D printers are similar in that they lay down a slightly thicker material layer, layer upon layer, building up a 3-D printed object. 3-axis 3-D printers do the same thing but they can rotate the printed object to allow inner cavities, occlusions and additions. Think of it like this: 3-axis 3-D printers can print a lightbulb from the inside out, filament and all. It doesn’t matter what the print substance is, start with metal, change to glass… these printers have different nozzles for different substances.

So, here’s the kicker: In Texas a start up company, ICON, is currently building 3-D printed homes. What do their nozzles print out? Lavacrete, a sort-of concrete substance that squirts out, layer upon layer. Alquist is building them too and research shows their homes are net zero when it comes to the environment. All these printed homes have cavity walls (later pumped with insulation), wiring and plumbing chases printed right in, and the printing machines are truck portable. Arrive on site, set up on concrete slab and within 24-48 hours you have a house ready for roof trusses and roofing. If you want a printed roof, they can do that too.

Cost? It’s early days, like electric cars, 30%-50% more than stick-built homes. But think of this: You can draw your ideal home on a napkin, they put it on the computer, you do the prep (concrete slab, etc.), they show up and 24-48 hours later you have a house you designed. What’s the time saving worth to you?

The estimate is that within two years there will be as many as 50 companies loaning out hundreds of machines, each machine making a few houses a week. No factory construction (pre-fab), or pre-cut house kits can offer that turn-around time.

So, think of going into the building trade? Make sure you also learn in step with this revolution in fundamentals of house construction, because like the cell phone and the dial phone, once they start building houses this way, there’s no turning back.

Now, think of Earth orbit… Amazon is already funding and prototyping a 3-axis 3-D printer to be placed in orbit to build the habitats needed in space for exploration and research… as well as satellite construction. Construction is fundamental to all human activity and it’s in the process of fundamentally changing.

[peter-author]

Space Planes

There was a time when the idea of a space plane was a work of science fiction; like Buck Rogers or futuristic drawings in Popular Mechanics. Then NASA started testing lifting bodies in the ‘70s which culminated in the design for the Shuttle (properly known as STS meaning Space Transport System). Here was a rocket propelled-into-orbit transport vehicle (think space truck) which could deorbit and glide to land on a runway, only to be reused time and again. Re-usability and reliability of transport to and from space, that was always the goal.

The Shuttle was, as many now know, inherently cutting edge of what was possible for materials and engineering, for as printed on the side of every single one was painted “Experimental.” What most people don’t know is that no two Shuttles were the same. If you trained on one, you had to be completely retrained to fly another. Columbia and Challenger shared 50-60% of similar components. Everything else was first-time-ever and had to be relearned; every wire connection, every component, all the computer programming, even the toilet function. The Shuttle program was a work in progress and when the last one was built, overseen by a great American Astronaut Brewster Shaw (who flew three Shuttle missions previously), the Endeavour was almost the perfection of the system.

All that technology, paid for by the taxpayer, lead to the International Space Station which has been extremely commercially valuable to medicine, manufacture, and scientific research (both looking down at Earth as well as to the cosmos). That same technology has also been useful to the military. And, as is normal with the military, you usually only hear about their secret projects when they have been around for a while and are likely coming to an end.

Such is the case with the X-37B robotic space plane, looking like a smaller Shuttle-derived space truck which landed late last year after having completed 908 days in space. Yes, you read that right, two and a half years orbiting the Earth, conducting deliveries, launching satellites, conducting observation up and down. Oh, and it’s not the only one nor the only flight. The big deal here was that the X-37B broke the record by a few months over previous flights both by itself and its sister X-37B, both of which are officially called Orbital Test Vehicles. Time they spent in space (that the military is revealing)? Almost 8 years all together, now operating as part of the Space Force (which is officially part of the Air Force in the same way as the Marines are part of the Navy).

What you are not, yet, seeing are the X-37C space planes which are bigger, nor the Radian Space Plane prototype under construction, nor DARPA’s XS-1 (now called  Experimental Spaceplane Phase 2/3), nor China’s Spaceplane Shenlong, nor in-development China’s Tengyun (a piggy-back spaceplane, runway-launchable, two-stage vehicle), nor China Academy of Launch Vertical Technology’s VTHL single stage to orbit spaceplane, nor exciting British designs, nor Rockwell’s… the list of prototypes and soon-to-be-built models seems almost endless.

Think of these vehicles like Conestoga Wagons during the frontier expansion with wagon trains across America. Those prairie wagons made pioneering possible. So too, space planes will make traveling to orbit and beyond feasible for thousands.

[peter-author]

On Balance It Is Worth It

The job of the various military, space and aviation industries rarely embodies good public relations. For example, the Apollo 11 mission to the moon was to depart without a TV camera until a last-minute suggestion from Arthur C. Clarke to Brian Duff (Public Affairs Officer at NASA) that he couldn’t wait to see live images from the moon. That prompted a hurried install of a fixed focal length, fixed aperture B&W camera to the Lunar Lander leg which was already atop the Saturn 5 ready to go to the launch pad! Without that comment, after quarantine on return, you’d have had to wait 30 days to see the stills and 16mm film they shot. Gee, I wonder if people would have believed they were really there.

NASA is not very good at tooting its own achievements. Take the Hubble Space telescope for example. Scientists will tell you it uniquely helps us understand gravity and the fundamental laws of the physical world and that the future on Earth scientific results will help shape our world. But has NASA bothered to tell you that the mammogram and computer spectro-analysis many women now undergo was a direct spin-off, saving thousands with earlier detection of cancers? Add to that micro-endoscopes, 50% improvement to all CCDs made in the past 10 years (yes, that camera in your mobile phone uses Hubble technology), and if you wondered how they can make the computer brains so small, you have only to thank Hubble-developed microlithography—a method for printing tiny circuitry in computer chips.  I think Hubble is worth it, don’t you?

Apollo was groundbreaking is so many ways, it’s easy to begin to make a long list: The retractable roof in the NRG Stadium in Houston (the Texans stadium) is only possible with Apollo cloth material; Moon boots; the first computer chips and circuit boards; computer code used in every computer on earth; firemen’s safety suits; silver-ion water purification technology now makes all those giant aquariums possible; all your burglar house-movement detectors; solar panels now in use worldwide; implantable heart pulse regulator; cordless drills and tools; the micro-radar in your car to help prevent accidents; modern dialysis blood purification; the dust-buster; digital imaging technology developed into CAT, MRI, radiography, and microscopy in every hospital; all the way to mylar balloons and reflectors. I think Apollo was worth it, don’t you?

Think the Shuttle program and the International Space Station were expensive experiments? The medical and basic human physiology studies alone were groundbreaking and not feasible in Earth’s gravity. Everything from the safety of the food we eat every day to weather prediction allowing for saving countless lives. Of course, there’s memory foam mattresses; baby formula enhanced Omera-3; the mobile phone (the glass, the LCD, the alloy of the case, the programming, the camera, the microphone, the speaker…); precision GPS in your car and every plane flying; Shuttle shock absorbers now enable modern bridge design; invisible braces for your teeth; voltage controllers saving 30% of power in large machines (and every electric car); heart transplant cardiac pumps; Aerogel in your winter coats; and 3-d hologram displays (yes, those goggles gamers are using) – to name only a few new commercial advancements.  I think the Shuttle and Space Station were worth it, don’t you?

Until NASA and other government funded programs realize that public awareness of the benefits of such investments are critical for the public taxpayer’s support, you’ll rarely get an update. In case you do want to know, there’s a good resource here: facebook.com/NASAspinoff.

[peter-author]

Estate Tax Again

In the coming weeks, as we approach the national budget discussions, the media, on every side, will start to rekindle the democracy moral ins and outs of Estate Tax. At least in Britain they call it what it is: Death Tax. You die, the IRS will tax your remaining assets and worth. You are dead, you have no representation. Gee, I wonder if we fought a revolution over taxation without representation?

Anyway, I am sure that really rich folks will profess to be in favor of Estate Tax. Yeah, sure, like really rich people haven’t already got family trusts hiding all their wealth. Ask a truly rich person if he or she actually owns a car… I’ll bet you fifty bucks the car is owned by a corporation or a trust, not them personally. I once challenged Bill Gates Sr. over this and he got angry and could not answer if he even had a house in his personal name. Only the really rich can afford to set up these trusts and maintain them. It’s petty cash for them but beyond the reach of most in the Middle Class.

If really rich people feel Estate Tax is fair, all they have to do is give it all to the country and not set up foundations, trusts, and co-called “good works” charities employing relatives and lackeys. Do some of these foundations do good? Sure, but they are legacy political leverage machines, like the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, all of which have lobbyists in DC. Non-paid Estate Tax for those families mean they can leverage influence for centuries after passing. Where’s the moral democracy in that?

The Estate Tax threshold this year is a little over $12,000,000. Think that’s a huge number? Think that doesn’t apply to you? When you’re under their radar, maybe they will let that full blue book value of your cars escape tax, maybe they will accept the ten year old valuation on your house and land, maybe they will be nice and not come tramping through your house adding up the value of your silverware, that china bowl Aunt Mabel gave your father and your heirloom jewelry. They have that right, make no mistake, they have the right to assess all your assets at time of death, every single piece of paper, every piece of underwear, anything of value, including the suit you are buried in. You would be surprised how quickly it adds up. And they can affix their own value, it will be up to your inheritors to prove otherwise by selling it all (paying tax), paying two independent valuers, or destroying every piece.

So, what happens if there is no Estate Tax? Will charitable foundations and good will charities evaporate? Sure, thousands of phony self-serving private charities may suddenly be unnecessary as the wealthy no longer have to pretend to run a charity (to pay their heirs’ cars, incredible salaries, trips and housing all over the world). However, public charities set up with intent, purpose, and moral values will continue apace, never faltering, needing their tax-free status to maximize their charitable gifting to the needy. The church won’t disappear, nor will the Salvation Army, the United Way, the Friends of the UN, the Police Benevolent Fund and countless thousands of others. They are run by the goodwill and for the benefit of others.

Estate Tax was put in place by the richest members of Congress precisely to sound like a public good work but is, in fact, a heavily lobbied means to ensure expensive trusts remain beyond any tax threshold. Meanwhile, the Middle Class gets hammered again – taxed without representation.

[peter-author]

A Global Overview

America can learn. We learned that avoiding stopping the Axis and allies early on cost us Pearl Harbor and millions of American soldiers and sailors with their lives and health. So, it is better to stop Russian aggression now, rather than wait until a surprise escalation catches us off-guard. Europe learned the lesson as well, preferring not to repeat Czechoslovakia and then Poland before trying to stop the Axis. The EU Foreign Minister visited Kiev, again, and pledged all-out defensive support. We’re now sending Patriot Missiles. With dictators, the rule is stop them asap or you will be fighting them for years, crippling the global economy and stealing a generation of your citizens.

Meanwhile, what is the greatest threat to long-term prosperity and survival? Global Warming. Global Warming is a fact. But it is the wrong term to explain what is happening. That’s like telling you that it’s flu season when you personally feel fine yet paying no attention to the fever, chills, and sweats already experienced. The planet is having climate shivers, higher highs, lower lows, higher winds and longer droughts, less rainfall and sudden deluges, and more pandemics. The early symptoms of this global climate disease are already here along with the greatest drought in memory in the Horn of Africa, where 750,000 people are likely to die of starvation in the next months. And remember that 2022 was one of the most financially damaging Atlantic hurricane seasons ever recorded. 14 named storms landed, 8 of them measured as hurricanes, and 2 of those were Cat 4 or above. NOAA’s prediction for 2023? Even worse. Buckle up. And who’s going to pay for the FEMA increased costs? You.

Look, any farmer can explain to you that unpredictability in growing crops wreaks havoc on their sustainability. When those rains come, when the crop is ready to harvest is normally, by and large, predictable year-on-year. Not last year and not this. Farmers have to rely on minute-to-minute satellite weather prediction now to try and get that crop in before something unexpected but major happens. Farmers are heard talking about the merits of the American model versus the European model of climate prediction. This year, we’ve watched hay growers take in green hay early when the drying periods were too unpredictable. How can farmers cope with that unpredictability? Instead of making square bales, they bale and wrap the hay, allowing it to ferment wet, cooking in those marshmallow shapes you see across the countryside. Does that work? Yes. And the cost of global warming to a farm? The baler/wrapper alone costs $90,000. Want to guess who will pay for that? You.

For the past two years the Pentagon has formed an anti-global warming policy which predicts increase conflicts over water and food. “Climate change poses a serious threat to U.S. military operations and will lead to new sources of global political conflict,” the Department of Defense wrote in its climate adaptation plan.

So is the future gloom and doom? No, human ingenuity will cope, new biofuels, more sustainable product, better weather prediction for industry… couple this with intelligent, competent people running the government and the military who clearly have a plan to thwart the advent of WWIII… 2023 should be okay. But everyone should be aware of the realities, to avoid any shock of “I had no idea!” when something doesn’t quite work out as it should. Keep an eye on our leaders, keep an eye on history lest it tries to repeat itself and follow those who are realists and not merely hopefuls.