"...hundreds of witnesses were effectively prevented from testifying in Birmingham and other locations even though they were present on the site -- or more accurately, in the parking lot."

He continued:

"We are not critical of the videoconferencing format itself...but field hearings necessarily require a day in each location, while in this case the Agency tried to cram seven locations into one day, using facilities that were grossly inadequate."

"MSHA should also extend the period for written comments for at least two week after the transcript of those hearings is available in the electronic format.  A month would be better."

The letter from the United Mine Workers noted:

"While literally hundreds of miners have foregone a day of work and wages in a futile attempt to participate in this hearing --- no small matter in these dire economic times -- we renew our request that MSHA establish additional hearing opportunities, and that it provide ample prior notice, along with an extension in the comment period."

As the Steelworkers' Mike Wright indicated in his testimony at the public hearing yesterday:

"We believe this rule is unconstitutional and unnecessary, and we continue to maintain that MSHA's best course of action would be to withdraw it.  But if the Agency proceeds, it must do so with great deliberation, a complete record, and fairness to all participants."

Amen.

I confess I speed when traffic allows. But I never go more than 10 mph over the speed limit. That's not due to my general law-abiding nature, concern for public safety or desire to conserve gas. It's knowing that a State Patrol trooper with a radar gun might be lurking around the next bend.

Sometimes I resent that brake on my speed. But I'm also glad that someone is keeping the truly crazy drivers from endangering us all.

One of the basic functions of government is to set and enforce rules that keep us safe and give us the confidence to participate in the market economy. Because of government regulation, food we buy and water from the tap don't make us sick, buildings and bridges don't collapse, and medicines don't kill us -- or when they do, it's a rarity that dominates the headlines.

At this point in the global economic meltdown, everyone concedes we should have had better government oversight of the financial industry. Unfortunately, 28 years of government bashing and six years of anti-regulators, government-downsizers, and pro-privatizers running amok in Washington, D.C., have put many of the protections we've long taken for granted in jeopardy.

A scan through the reports of the non-partisan Government Accountability Office reveals growing gaps in government oversight. The Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of 80 percent of the U.S. food supply, examined less than 1 percent of the fresh produce imported into the United States from 2002 through 2007. As the department's workload has increased, the number of inspectors has decreased. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, between 2003 and 2006, federal inspections on both domestic and imported food sources dropped by 47 percent.

At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of contractors increased by 139 percent from 2000 to 2006, while federal staff increased by only 3.5 percent, leading to problems with control, supervision and low morale -- even as we face the proliferation of new diseases such as avian flu and drug resistant infections.

The Department of Labor is supposed to ensure that workers are paid minimum wage and receive overtime pay, yet understaffing and the resulting delays too often render enforcement meaningless. The GAO documented cases in which backlogs kept the department from investigating complaints until the statute of limitations was about to expire or the business closed -- so the cases were dropped.

The scandalous conditions -- including moldy walls and vermin infestation -- that surfaced last year at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center resulted in part from privatizing mania. The Army Times reported that when a private company with ties to Halliburton took over facilities management in early 2007, only 50 workers were hired to do the job that had formerly been performed by 300 federal employees.

According to testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in May, staffing at the Social Security Administration has been reduced to the point that citizens are having difficulty collecting the benefits they've earned. Calls go unanswered from one-fourth to one-half the time. Those filing for disability benefits frequently face delays of two years. With baby boomers on the brink of retirement, President Bush's budget cut Social Security staffing by more than 9 percent from 2005 to 2009.

At the state level, too, the size and scope of government -- and the implicit assumption that smaller government is better -- has been a major focus in the governor's race.

We've learned in the past few weeks how quickly things collapse when people lose confidence. We need to re-empower government at all levels to provide basic regulation and enforcement. Unless we as consumers, along with farmers, retailers and private enterprise in general can rely on basic guarantees of safety, our economy will experience storm after storm.

Of course, government too requires oversight. That's the point of democracy. We get to change decision makers when we don't like the direction things are going. Part of the wrong direction this nation has taken the past eight years is the demonization of regulation and the adulation of private enterprise.

We all chafe sometimes at rules, but we need them just the same, and we need someone to enforce them.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

• The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
• The fifth would pay $1.
• The sixth would pay $3.
• The seventh would pay $7.
• The eighth would pay $12.
• The ninth would pay $18.
• The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80 total.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

• The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
• The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
• The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
• The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 ( 25% savings).
• The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 ( 22% savings).
• The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,"but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

Last week I broadly welcomed the bailout approach adopted by Brown in contrast to the Paulson Plan in the US which was already failing.  Not that Brown can take a credit for inventing the approach; a very similar scheme was used in Sweden in the early 90s and very recently by Warren Buffet, the world's most successful investor, to rescue Goldman Sachs so the precedents were clear.  Moreover, he had the experience of Northern Rock some months before giving him time to get his head round the concept (with Vince Cable calling it consistently right).  Now most EU countries and, to a limited extent, the US are moving to adopt schemes based on the 'British Plan' in some degree.

The background is, of course, an absolutely monumental failure of the banks themselves, the regulators and the government.  (Which is to say that Brown is doubly implicated in that he both heads the government and, as Chancellor, designed the regulatory framework that has failed so catastrophically).

But all that was last week and it seems that even a weekend is a long time in politics.  For the plan that was being discussed last week has mutated over the weekend in ways that are subtle yet important and fill me with foreboding.  Motives matter, and I am not convinced that the government is as pure as driven snow at this point.  It needs to be.

Firstly, the decision to let Lloyds TSB take over HBOS in flagrant breach of competition rules was just about (downhill and with a following wind!) justified when first mooted on the basis that Lloyds could rescue HBOS without recourse to the taxpayer.  But since it has emerged that both Lloyds TSB and HBOS will need taxpayer help this rationale entirely evaporates.  Labour is acting as midwife to the birth of a very dangerous offspring.  Moreover, the loss of an important plc head office to Edinburgh is no small matter.  The UK as a whole would be healthier if more public companies had head offices outside London.  I would like to see this deal stopped or, failing that, a Lib Dem commitment to break up Lloyds/HBOS.  Let it not be said at some later date that Lloyds/HBOS didn't know the risk.

Secondly, the original rescue plan envisaged that government help would be in the form of preference shares with various conditions attached.  While these were not precisely spelled out it is clear that they would include restrictions on executive pay and bonuses.  What we are actually getting seems to have mutated to a small number of preference shares with most of the money injected in the form or ordinary stock with directors on the board to match.

Now this distinction matters, not so much because of the mechanism per se, but because it seems to herald a shift in government thinking over the weekend.  For, despite the name, 'preference shares' are nearer to loans than to ordinary shares.  Under the original proposals the government effectively gives the banks concerned a loan at an interest rate somewhat higher than the government itself pays (so making a profit on the difference), not taking management control as such except via the conditions linked to the purchase of the preference shares.  Under the revised proposals the government is very much involved as a 'player' - with ongoing involvement in day-to-day decision making. 

These two approaches are subtly but importantly different.  The first is rather similar to the way the Bank of England operates in setting exchange rate targets - government sets the target at the outset in the full glare of democratic accountability but then stays firmly hands off.  The second is, at first sight, more democratic but in reality it's classic Labour, hands-on-the-levers-of-power.  However much Brown insists that the government-appointed non-exec directors are just that - not executive - they will have a disproportionate influence in transmitting Brownian wishes into routine management decisions at a level that stays far below any Parliamentary radar.  If Brown says (or even thinks), "jump" the board will have to be exceptionally strong-minded not to ask, "how high?".  And Parliament will never know, not even that some issue was in play.

Under the preference share approach government has to make its mind up about conditions now then stick to them.  Key decisions are not difficult - the premium over the government's cost of borrowing, director's pay and bonus capped at, say, £250,000, until the preference shares are redeemed (Germany has imposed a cap of 500,000 Euros).  This would give directors a powerful interest in giving  taxpayers their money back ASAP so minimising risk.  This giving the money back ASAP is the approach taken with Northern Rock where over half has already been repaid.

Under the ordinary share purchase approach the government will find itself facing a 'difficult' election while enjoying massive de facto influence (if not outright control) of a huge pile of assets.  If Brown judges that a quick boom will improve Labour's chances then a hint here and a nudge there will ensure that there is one by pouring these assets into schemes whose merit may be more political than financial.  And if these schemes can be spun to have wider social benefits then so much the better.  House building would seem to be the obvious way to tick all the boxes.

Already the government is showing its prediliction for political objectives in telling the banks that they must lend to house buyers and small businesses at the same rate as they lent to them in 2007 at near the height of the boom.   Government spokesman have been doing the rounds of the media trying to deflect criticism on this point by saying that they still expect the banks to be prudent lenders.  But that's not what the government said earlier.  They could just as well have left this to the banks themselves; after all banks make their living my making loans to people and businesses so they can't and won't stop just like that.  There are still other banks out there who would be more than happy to pinch their best customers.

Brown needs to get this sorted quickly because, although necessary, this plan is not sufficient to get us out of this mess.  We need to be moving on fast to get ahead of events, and not trailing in their slipstream.

Th bankers who have lost their jobs have no need to worry, they will have numbers of other well paid directorships to tide them over until the next money making opportunity comes along. If they really get stuck they could offer their services to the government's new economic committee. They will be in good company and know many of the members.

Feckless is often applied to the people at the bottom of the ladder, you know the people who's taxes trickle up to keep the wealthy  well upholstered, can now be applied to that well respected and trusted group, the financial classes -

Feckless - not fit to assume responsibility, “showing lack of care for consequences”; "behaved like an irresponsible idiot"; "hasty and irresponsible action" “generally incompetent and ineffectual "not qualified or suited for a purpose”;

Question: Should the term be tattooed on the foreheads of the people, bankers, politicians and the so-called experts who kept their mouths shut for the last 15 years or so. That does include the Conservative politicians who helped Maggie with the deregulation process and now occupy the opposition benches pretending to innocent. Does make you wonder how many directorships the Conservatives hold in banking businesses.

Wasn't that a nice gesture by the chief exec of the nationalised bank to refuse his million pound salary. Trouble is that his million pounds equals 10 pounds in my bank account.

• Administrative services, until November 2006, were provided to me at a .5 EFT level. Since November 2006, until April 2008, Administrative services were provided at near 1.0 EFT level.
• In February 2005, Community Health Services, in collaboration with the Department of Family Services and Housing, established the full-time permanent position of Coordinator, Community Disaster Management based on my recommendation.
• In October 2006, the incumbent Coordinator, Community Disaster Management left the Program for opportunity elsewhere. The position was vacant until January 2008.
• To this day, there are no other positions in direct support of the WRHA Disaster Management Program.

Medical Director Support to the Program
Given the complex milieu of the health care sector there is a paramount need to effectively liaise and communicate to all key stakeholders on matters pertaining to disaster management. A principal component of any disaster management communication strategy would be to have reliable and credible individuals who assist in fulfilling this goal. Within the health care sector Physicians are well suited and positioned to fulfil this role as they have a broad understanding of the health care sector, are generally respected and perceived to be credible, and are in a good position to enlist the cooperation and input from other physician and allied health leaders.

Other WRHA programs, which include a medical/clinical component, are directed by a Program Director with the added expert leadership of a Medical Director.

Medical Director duties in support of programs are rationalized according to program needs. Generally, however, a Medical Director would serve the Program administratively/operationally and in leading research in areas specific to the supported program.

There was no support to engage a physician to take on the required position of Medical Director Disaster Management in answer to my recommendation.
Conceptual Disaster Management Program Structure (Staffing)

In order to boost regional all-hazards planning and readiness and to more fully address:

• the issues surrounding disaster management across the Winnipeg Health Region as indicated throughout these notes;
• making greater headway in the establishment of Regional guidelines and plans concerning each of the standardized emergency colour codes; adverse weather; telecommunications, water, HVAC, power, and other utility failures; communicable, infectious, and epidemic diseases;
• the necessity to provide guideline implementation assistance to the acute care, long term care, and community health services sectors on a regular basis;
• the critical importance of providing a regional training and exercise design capability to assist sectors in the design, conduct and evaluation of their own exercises; and
• the establishment of a regular test routine for Region-wide plans,

I proposed to Senior Management, a Program structure to include a Medical Director, a Planning Specialist, Acute and Long Term Care Specialists, and a Training and Exercise Design Specialist resembling the organization chart at Chart 4 below. No support was won.

CHART 4 – Conceptual Disaster Management Program Organization

Resources
Although the WRHA supported the implementation of ICS, the establishment of the RDOC, and, most recently, the development of a full-scale, mass-casualty exercise scheduled to be conducted in spring of 2008, my Program had otherwise no budget line and did not participate in the annual business planning process. Funds required to properly manage the operation of the Program and to provide on-going training across the Region to senior managements and other personnel who would be assuming roles and responsibilities in response to and recovery from disaster events (including the outbreak of a Pandemic Influenza) were only available on an ad hoc basis and sometimes not at all.

Moreover, resources required for Disaster Management all-hazards activity (including planning and readiness for Pandemic Influenza) were not included as annually budgeted activities at each sector and at all program areas of the WRHA.
Regulation/Legislation
The imperative to provide a core response and recovery capability in the face of inevitable disasters is recognized federally by the (new) Emergency Management Act and likewise provincially by Emergency Management Acts across the country. These acts and other related legislation provide the basis for establishing federal, provincial/territorial, municipal/local authority compliance with the requirements to dedicate resources and effort to pre-disaster activities such as mitigation and preparedness. The Health Sector, however and unfortunately, is not included in the definition of a “local authority” in these Acts and is consequently left to implement disaster management strategy voluntarily and at its own whim.

Incentives
In WRHA, there was acknowledgement of the importance of disaster management and associated responsibilities. Likewise, in the Province of Manitoba, a robust Office of Disaster Management in support of Regional Health Authorities is maintained which requires reporting from Regional Health Authorities on Disaster Management Performance Deliverables. Nevertheless, few other incentives to organizational commitment exist save the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation requirement to meet disaster management standards and criteria for accreditation purposes.

Government moves into banking -- to the tune of $250 billion -- as the bailout becomes a buy-in

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Big banks started falling in line Tuesday behind a rejiggered bailout plan that will have the government forking over as much as $250 billion in exchange for partial ownership -- putting the world's bastion of capitalism and free markets squarely in the banking business.

Some early signs were hopeful for the latest in a flurry of radical efforts to save the nation's financial system: Credit was a bit easier to come by. And stocks were down but not alarmingly so after Monday's stratospheric leap.

The new plan, President Bush declared, is "not intended to take over the free market but to preserve it."

It's all about cash and confidence and convincing banks to lend money more freely again. Those are all critical ingredients to getting financial markets to function more normally and reviving the economy.

The big question: Will it work?

There was a mix of hope and skepticism on that front. Unprecedented steps recently taken -- including hefty interest rate reductions by the Federal Reserve and other major central banks in a coordinated assault just last week -- have failed to break through the credit clog and the panicky mind-set gripping investors on Wall Street and around the globe.

The Dow Jones industrials declined 77 points on Tuesday after piling up their biggest point gain ever on Monday on news of Europe's rescue plan and in anticipation of the United States' new measures.

Initially the U.S. government will pour $125 billion into nine major banks with the hope that they will use the money to rebuild their reserves and to increase lending to consumers and businesses. Another $125 billion will be made available this year to other banks -- if they need it -- for cash infusions.

In return, the government will get ownership stakes in the financial institutions. Banks, meanwhile, will have to accept limitations on executives' compensation.

"Government owning a stake in any private U.S. company is objectionable to most Americans -- me included," Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in announcing the initiative. "Yet the alternative of leaving businesses and consumers without access to financing is totally unacceptable."

Whether the $250 billion will be sufficient to encourage banks to lend again is hard to tell, said Anil Kashyap, professor of economics and finance at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. The Treasury Department arrived at the $250 billion figure after consulting with banking regulators.

"This plan will work if we wind up with everybody pretty well capitalized," Kashyap said. "But if it doesn't reach that point, we'll be back in soup down the road."

The government is counting on banks not to just clutch onto the cash, which aggravated the credit crisis to begin with.

"The needs of our economy require that our financial institutions not take this new capital to hoard it, but to deploy it," Paulson said.

Treasury switched gears deciding to first use a chunk of the $700 billion from the recently enacted financial bailout package to pay for taking partial ownership stakes in banks, rather than using the money to buy rotten debts from financial institutions. The government said it still intends to buy the bad mortgages and other toxic assets, another move aimed at getting credit flowing again.

Besides the $250 billion this year on the stock purchases, Bush said Tuesday that an additional $100 billion would be needed in connection with covering bad assets. That would leave $350 billion of the $700 billion program, presumably to be spent by the next president.

Economists as well as both Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill had urged Treasury to first move forward on the capital injection plan, arguing that was a more effective way to battle the financial crisis.

The first bank to take advantage of the program was Bank of New York Mellon (BK) which announced it would sell $3 billion in preferred shares to the Treasury. Other banks initially participating include Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), including the soon-to-acquired Merrill Lynch (MER), Citigroup Inc. (C), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), and State Street Corp (STT).

The government's cash infusions are attractive to banks because they are having trouble getting money from elsewhere. Skittish investors have cut them off, moving their money into safer Treasury securities. Financial institutions are hoarding whatever cash they have rather than lending it to each other or customers.

Two other initiative also were unveiled to stem the credit crisis: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. launched an insurance fund to temporarily guarantee new issues of bank debt -- fully protecting the money even if the institution fails.

And, the FDIC will start providing unlimited deposit insurance for non-interest bearing accounts, which are mainly used by businesses to cover payrolls and other expenses. Frequently these accounts exceed the current $250,000 insurance limit, so the expanded insurance should discourage nervous companies from pulling their money out. Both of these efforts would be financed by fees charged to participating financial institutions -- not money from the bailout package.

Even if the new plan works, economists caution that it could take years before locked up lending returns to normal.

The difference between the rate at which banks lend to other banks and the rate at which they buy U.S. government debt has narrowed, but remains near a 25-year high -- a glaring sign that there's still fear in the market. But there was a hopeful glimmer elsewhere: A crucial short-term, bank-to-bank lending rate called the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, inched down Tuesday. That rate is important because a lot of commercial loans and many adjustable-rate mortgages are tied to it.

Some of the banks had to be pressured to participate by Paulson, who wanted healthy institutions to go first as a way of removing any stigma that might be associated with banks getting bailouts. Paulson met privately with bank executives on Monday.

The government's shares will carry a 5 percent annual dividend that will increase to 9 percent after five years. That increase in the rate is aimed at providing an incentive for companies to buy the government out. The advantage to the taxpayer is that if the rescue plan works, then the shares can be sold for more than the government initially paid, providing a profit on the transaction.

The move, in effect a partial nationalization of the banking system, does put the United States in the awkward position of owning shares in institutions it also regulates. The shares purchased by the government will be nonvoting. They also give the government a priority in getting paid back if a company fails.

So far this year, 15 banks have failed, compared with three for all of 2007.

"The government's role will be limited and temporary," Bush pledged. "These measures are not intended to take over the free market but to preserve it."

At a news conference last month, Bush defended his administration's increasingly aggressive market interventions to deal with the worst financial crisis in more than a half-century.

"I'm sure there are some of my friends out there saying, I thought this guy was a market guy; what happened to him? Well, my first instinct wasn't to lay out a huge government plan. My first instinct was to let the market work until I realized, upon being briefed by the experts, of how significant this problem became," Bush said then.

The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, announced that it will begin buying vast amounts of short-term debt on Oct. 27 -- its latest effort to break through a credit clog. The Fed is invoking Depression-era emergency powers to buy commercial paper -- a crucial short-term funding that many companies rely on to pay their workers and buy supplies. Last week the Fed said it intended to take the action but didn't specify when.

The economy's problems also are taking their toll on the government's coffers. The 2008 budget deficit hit an all-time high of $454.8 billion. The red ink probably will be a lot worse next year as the costs of the government's rescue of the financial system and the economic hard times clobber the federal balance sheet, economists predict.

Associated Press writer Martin Crutsinger contributed to this report.

Defendant Barack Obama is not eligible for the Office of the President because Obama lost his U.S. citizenship when his mother married an Indonesian citizen and naturalized in Indonesia. Plaintiff further alleged that Obama followed her naturalization and failed to take an oath of allegiance when he turned 18 years old to regain his U.S. citizenship status.

The plaintiff filed an official complaint and additional supporting documents have been filed (see the court docket). The Federal Election Commission has been called in and the case is moving forward.

While questions of Obama's birth certificate, Kenyan citizenship, and so on have all be clarified across the media and Obama's own 'Fight the Smears' website has addressed the issues, I have seen no large mainstream coverage of this case however. Even the Obama campaign, the DNC and other Obama allies have been silent. None of them have mentioned or debunked this court case.

So... all I can ask is - Why?

McCain's letter -- signed by nineteen other senators -- said that it was "...vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]...operate in a safe and sound manner.[and]..More importantly, Congress must ensure that the American taxpayer is protected in the event that either...should fail."

I guess Asst. Secretary of Labor Sequeira needs a little lesson about "Open Access."  The document that I submitted (and of which I am a co-author) was an article published in a journal called "Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source."   In big bold letters on the first page it says "Open Access," and it reads:

"This is an Open Access article...which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any manner..."

Just in case Mr. Sequiera wasn't sure about this new-age Open Access stuff, he could have visited the BioMed Central site which makes it even more plain:

"Anyone is free to:

copy, distribute, and display the work;
make derivative works;
make commercial use of the work."

And he could read more about the international Open Access movement which

"encourages the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society.  ...The Open Access philosophy was firmly articulated in 2002, when the Budapest Open Access Initiative was introduced.  It quickly took root in the scientific and medical communities because it offered an alternative route to research literature that was frequently closed off behind costly subscription barriers."

A great example of the Open Access movement is the Public Library of Science (PLOS), a "nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource." 

After Mr. Sequiera quickly reads-up on Open Access publishing and realizes that it is A-OK to post our article in the electronic docket, he might also want to revisit his decision to exclude other documents from the electronic docket.  NIOSH, for example, submitted a brief statement specifically addressing the proposals call for "industry-by-industry evidence relating to working life exposures."  NIOSH included with its statement several supporting articles which were published in the journal Risk Analysis and the Scandanavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, and were written in-full or in-part by federal employees.  DOL is not including these journal articles in the electronic docket, and like the situation with my article, has inserted a placeholder that says:

"The above reference document was submitted to the docket as an attachment to comments from NIOSH.  The document is subject to copyright protections and therefore is not being made available by DOL in the electronic docket.  (full text here)

The problem is this: Copyright protection does not extend to work of the U.S. Government.  If the work was produced or prepared by an federal employee as part of that person's official duties, the work cannot be "owned" by the journal---it belongs to the public.  

I suspect the reason that NIOSH submitted these documents to DOL was to make the case that the 45-year working lifetime default value has been used consistently by NIOSH.  It submitted these NIOSH-PRODUCED papers to illustrate this fact.  I think a few NIOSH scientists will chuckle when they hear that the Asst. Secretary of Labor for Policy thinks their work is copyright protected.   I guess he doesn't realize that when NIOSH, or EPA, or other government scientists submit their work to journals for publication, the journal editors already know that the work is not protected by copyright laws.  The journal Risk Analysis (where two of the above mentioned NIOSH papers were published) even has a handy-dandy FAQ's for authors, with this item:

A contribution prepared by a US federal government employee as part of the employee's official duties, or which is an official US government publication, is called a ‘US Government work’, and is in the public domain in the United States.

 So, why do I really care that Asst. Secretary Sequeira doesn't understand Open Access or copyright issues? 

It goes back to the key issue of WHY the Secretary of Labor's Office of Policy is writing a regulation on MSHA and OSHA risk assessment practices.  Mr. Sequiera does not have rulemaking authority, but since he's claiming it, at least he should have sought some advice from knowledgeable career employees at OSHA or MSHA to make sure he knew how to manage a rulemaking docket.   

By the way, a three-part report prepared for Secretary of Labor's Office of Policy entitled "Review and Analysis of The Department of Labor's Risk Assessment Practices and Risk Management in Rulemaking and Guidance," by the firm CONSAD (dated March 2008) is also not posted in DOL's electronic docket.  I understand that at least one individual or organization submitted this work to the docket, but it doesn't appear on the Regulations.gov site. 

Perhaps Mr. Sequiera can type up a little placeholder for this submission and let us know why it is being withheld from the electronic docket.  Is it copyright protected?

---

P.S. Today, October 14, 2008 is Open Access Day.

Lendingclub blog

Today, we’re delighted to announce that we have completed this process and are now available to both borrowers and lenders. We believe that this SEC registration is a major step forward for the Lending Club community and social lending in general, as it helps establish the space as a investment alternative to the traditional debt instruments and credit products offered by large financial institutions.

Much of this remains to be digested, but the immediately obviously novel parts are:

1. Partnership with FOLIOfn Investments, Inc.,
2. On the trading platform, lenders who become customers of FOLIOfn will be able to put notes up for sale in the event they need liquidity before the completed term of a note.

Clearly social lending is undergoing consequential changes and shifts that will determine ultimate viability, and LendingClub are leading the current next wave with securities regulation under their belt and apparently unlimited access to lenders and borrowers.

This immediately reminded me of Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society".  Change is endemic to history and economies, and to rely on set rules for the governing of economies (or the interpretation of history) is folly.

I was also struck that students of both economics and history frequently get into positions of power and immediately throw away this important lesson by regulating or steering the country's foreign policy as if nothing has changed since they were in school.  Things always change.  There is always something you do not know .... an unknown unknown, if you will.  To act otherwise, to act as if your answer is absolutely correct is hubris.

Traffic restrictions have been re-introduced in China's capital Beijing, in an attempt to bring back the clear skies seen during the Olympics.

Each car must spend one day a week off the road, in a scheme based on registration numbers.

The new rules are expected to take some 800,000 cars off the road every day, according to the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications. "It's expected to reduce Beijing's average road traffic flow by 6.5%," a committee official told the state news agency Xinhua.

During periods of exceptionally heavy pollution, the restrictions will be increased so that half of Beijing's 3.4 million cars will be taken off the roads.

They've seen what success the most drastic measures produced. Now, being politicians, the process will begin all over again - rather than investigating methods and means of furthering the original success.

Doesn't the mayor of every big city in the world aspire to be president?

As Michael Hesletine put it rather well recently*, why would the man who dug us into this hole possibly be the best man to get us out again?

Don't believe he got us into this? Well, how about these two examples of just how blind he was to the risk that countless others warned about?:

Here is a question Mr Cable’s posed to Gordon Brown, then Chancellor, during Treasury Questions back in November 2003: “The growth of the British economy is sustained by consumer spending pinned against record levels of personal debt, which is secured, if at all, against house prices that the Bank of England describes as well above equilibrium level. What action will the Chancellor take on the problem of consumer debt?”

Mr Brown did not answer how he would solve the problem, merely replying that: “We have been right about the prospects for growth in the British economy, and the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cable) has been wrong.” (Times Online)

But perhaps most devastating of all, bearing in mind Brown's recent proclamations of the need for greater regulation, is this:

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, this morning launched a Better Regulation Action Plan to boost flexibility and enterprise...

Speaking to business leaders in Downing Street at the launch the Chancellor said:

“Today Alan Johnson, John Hutton and I are announcing details of a risk based approach to regulation to break down barriers holding enterprise back...

In the old regulatory model – which started in Victorian times – the implicit regulatory principle has been 100 per cent inspection of premises, procedures and practices irrespective of known risks or past results. The theory has been to inspect everyone continuously, demand information wholesale, and require forms to be filled in at all times, the only barrier to the blanket approach a lack of resources.

The new model we propose is quite different. In a risk based approach there is no inspection without justification, no form filling without justification, and no information requirements without justification. Not just a light touch but a limited touch. Instead of routine regulation attempting to cover all, we adopt a risk based approach which targets only the necessary few.

A risk based approach helps move us a million miles away from the old assumption - the assumption since the first legislation of Victorian times - that business, unregulated, will invariably act irresponsibly. The better view is that businesses want to act responsibly. Reputation with customers and investors is more important to behaviour than regulation, and transparency - backed up by the light touch - can be more effective than the heavy hand.

This is classic Brown arrogance. He thought he could improve upon rules and customs that had been in place for many, many decades.

As the BBC desperately tries to prop up a criminally incompetent PM by forcing a "Brown to lead the world" narrative down our necks, bear these examples in mind.

* I realise using an anti-Brown quote from a BBC source to claim BBC pro-Brown bias seems a little inconsistent. But "Brown leading the world" has received a little more play than "Brown played a major part in getting us into this mess", don't you think?

Europe puts $2.3 trillion, far more than US, on the line for banks and stocks soar

PARIS (AP) -- Europe put $2.3 trillion on the line Monday to protect the continent's banks, a figure that dwarfs the Bush administration's $700 billion rescue program, in its most unified response yet to the global financial crisis after a stumbling start.

The pledges by Britain and the six countries that use the euro helped soothe stock markets, along with a promise by top central banks to provide unlimited short term dollar credits.

The action by Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Austria and Britain came after weeks in which the governments often acted at cross purposes and sniped at each other -- a piecemeal approach that failed to stop steep and frightening slides on financial markets.

"The time of each one for itself is fortunately over," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, following a Cabinet meeting that approved France's spending in the framework of the plan.

"United Europe has pledged more than the United States," added Sarkozy, who has taken a lead in getting the cooperation.

The pledged money will not go into a collective pot. Instead, governments were deciding individually how much to commit to supporting their own banks under broad guidelines agreed at a summit Sunday. The sums are considered a maximum, and might not all be spent if the financial crisis eases.

About $341 billion of the European pledges was earmarked to be spent on recapitalizing banks by buying stakes.

The pledges put a price tag on the package agreed to Sunday by the 15 countries that use the euro. They agreed to individually guarantee bank refinancing until the end of next year, rescue important failing banks through emergency cash injections, and take other swift measures to encourage banks to lend to each other again.

Stock markets rebounded Monday after the European decision and other weekend efforts to find solutions to the financial crisis, which has crushed major banks in both the U.S. and Europe and battered stock exchanges worldwide.

At the close, Germany's DAX was 518.14 points, or 11.4 percent, higher at 5,062.45, while France's CAC-40 was up 355.01 points, or 11.2 percent, at 3,531.50. Britain's FTSE 100 was 324.84 points, or 8.3 percent, higher at 4,256.90, despite some hefty falls in the banks that have accepted government help.

Also helping markets was a joint move by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank to provide unlimited short-term credit in U.S. dollars to financial institutions. The Bank of Japan said it was considering similar measures.

Europe's biggest economy, Germany, put together a rescue package worth as much as $671 billion to shore up the country's financial system. "We are taking drastic action, no question about it ... so that what we have experienced is not repeated," Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Sarkozy said the French government would provide up to $491 billion to help banks, most of that in guarantees for bank refinancing. The Netherlands put up $273 billion to guarantee interbank loans.

Austria's government offered up to $116 billion. Spain said it would guarantee up to $135 billion in a bank bond issuance this year. Portugal guaranteed $27 billion -- nearly 12 percent of annual GDP -- to encourage its banks to lend to each other.

Italy did not earmark a specific amount but Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti said the government would offer "as much as necessary."

The European moves are modeled on Britain's $88 billion plan to partly nationalize major banks. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also promised to guarantee a further $438 billion worth of interbank loans to restore confidence in the financial sector.

The head of the International Monetary Fund welcomed the European decision despite the high price it is expected to impose on state budgets.

"We must recapitalize the banks ... otherwise everyone will suffer," Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on France's Europe-1 radio Monday. "And that costs money."

The euro zone leaders have yet to sell their packages to voters at home, and analysts warned that governments and legislators could still balk. The overall cost will be heavy, especially on countries already in or on the brink of recession.

Bank of America (BAC) economist Gilles Moec says the bailout plans will not immediately and directly affect the public deficits.

But he expects some countries to boost spending or lower taxes to mitigate the impact of the credit crunch on the real economy -- which combined with the effects of the economic slowdown could bring the deficit to 4 percent of GDP in 2009 in France and 3.2 percent in Italy.

Governments that use the euro are bound by budget rules that limit their deficit to 3 percent, although France and Germany have broken the rules in the past.

Merkel said the government may have to defer its aim of delivering a balanced budget in 2011.

French Budget Minister Eric Woerth said he isn't revising his forecast for a national budget deficit of 2.7 percent this year. He said the bank refinancing is structured so that if many banks take up the offer, the state would make money.

The rest of the 27-member EU will have a chance to sign up to the euro-zone measures when they meet Wednesday.

Norway, outside both the euro zone and the EU, said it plans to offer new government bonds worth $55.4 billion to banks to help improve liquidity in the market.

In Sweden, Finance Minister Anders Borg said the government plans to put forward a draft law Wednesday to guarantee new bank debt until the end of 2009 and support banks with added share capital.

BusinessEurope -- a group representing most European major companies -- said EU governments' parallel moves to unfreeze bank lending would help "reinforce confidence and contribute to a continued flow of credit to companies and households."

Associated Press writers Melissa Eddy in Berlin, Malin Rising in Stockholm, and Jamey Keaten in Paris contributed to this report.

Prof Black pontificates

Professor Dame Carol Black writing on regulation and professionalism. I found it largely to be blether but I particularly liked:

We might optimistically ask: 'Can regulation influence professional behaviour to such a degree that it can be applied with a lighter touch; for example where institutional, peer pressure and personal commitment rekindle responsible self-regulation – an earned autonomy?'

Hmm. Light touch eh? Perhaps she hankers after the day when she is not the target of abuse from junior doctors. The other bloggers (Jobbing Doctor, NHS Exposed, Witch Doctor, Dr Rant etc) can fill you in on the details of MMC/MTAS/Dr Scot Junior etc...

Over the last couple of weeks, we've enjoyed a dramatic drop in prices.  At my local gas station, it's dropped from over $4 to $2.69 yesterday.  Things were seeming to head in the right direction.

That is, until European countries decided to put more money in the hands of banks.  The result is a few people in the market decided that gas prices might go up in the future, and to ensure that, bought futures.  This caused the gas prices to go back up to $2.99 (30 cents difference in my area overnight!).  So here's what happens: a few people try to get rich quick, and a LOT of people pay more money to the booming oil company business.

The frustration is that this is legal, congress won't do anything about it, and it undermines free market principles.  What happened last night?  Did supply suddenly plummet?  Did people around the world go out and trade their sedans and compacts to SUVs in a wild rush overnight?  No.  This price increase is not based on supply-and-demand.  This increase is based on speculators gambling on the fact that these factors might happen, and worse, the market reacting by raising the price.

This is not fair, and in fact, it is wrong, that a few people should try to get rich at the expense of the world around them.  Speculation is part of the problem why gas prices shot so high to begin with.  As long as oil was going up, speculators kept getting richer, and their greediness was rewarded.  It is time for this to end.  It is time to be fair with our commodities.

It is time for the rich to stop exploiting the poor and the working class, and getting rewarded for it.

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According to reports on CNN and Yahoo News, the EU is pushing Europeans to turn down their music playing devices. They are arguing that individuals are at risk of gaining "permanent hearing loss from listening too long at maximum levels." OK, so that's nothing new - it's the same thing Mom always said. I should point out I have excellent hearing by the way (medically proven). However, the EU is not your Mom. The EU is government, an entity with no right to interfere with personal choice, responsibility, or lifestyle. If I want to be deaf from self imposed rocking out, than by gollie so be it! It is my right! It might be a bad decision or it might not, either way shouldn't I be allowed to learn from my own mistakes?

The EU disagrees. They do not think people are good enough to make decisions on their own. How they rationalize government is any smarter, given its record, I do not know. Yet they still do not believe in personal choice, decision making, or self-learning for that matter.

EU regulators will be looking into "lowering the EU legal limit of 100 decibels for MP3 players." This would mandate that all MP3 players be manufactured to play no louder than 100 decibels, period. All manufacturers would have to change their products - a cost that would be passed back to the European consumers by the way. Sadly this is something Apple was already forced to do in order to sell its iPod products in France, where an iPod costs an average of double the rate it sells for in the US.

Currently EU volume and noise regulations target traditional sectors - i.e. the workplace, construction sites, and factories. However personal headsets have become the next target. What's next? Soon you won't be able to talk to one another without whispering... because the volume of your voice might damage someones ears, and cheering at the World Cup - that's out too - people yell and chant far too loudly.

Just to show the logic of EU noise regulations, they also regulate orchestras. We wouldn't want Beethoven's 5th to get out of hand now would we?

I agree that certain regulations are required. For example, regulations to exclude coarse language, socially unacceptable topics, and identification of trade secrets are but a few examples of areas which naturally require some degree of regulation. These 'limitations' represent obvious exclusions that should be respected by the application user, and hold recognisable similarities with real world examples. Content which contains elements of any such topics should be addressed to ensure that the detrimental effects thereof are contained within reason.

The process of generating content involves two parties; the organisation offering the community, and the user members that represent it. Each party must be held equally accountable for any actions that may affect the position of the other. Remember that, to a degree, neither the application, nor the application-specific community can exist without the other. Although the application providers rely far more upon their community, particularly in the presence of an abundance of alternative product offerings, common sense should direct users to only post content that is appropriate for the forum into which it is being offered. Unfortunately, we all know that in practice, common sense does not always prevail; someone will always ruin things for everyone else. Even in these cases though, moderation software which relies upon human determination of appropriateness is available to sort the relevant material from the rubbish. If anything, it is these human moderators that should be regulated to ensure that they suitably understand the material that should and shouldn't be displayed. If implemented effectively, such content sifting need not represent regulation.

In the case of the article described above, it reads more like a case of 'sour-grapes'; a term taken from one of the comments made by one member of the Digg community in response to the report. Yes, social communities such as Digg have an obligation to their community. Similarly, the community has a responsiblity to respect the rules governing the use of the application. If these are not upheld, then action should indeed be taken to limit the detrimental impacts of their actions in the community at large. If the offence is adequately significant, then of course exclusion will represent a viable course of action.

This debate is likely to continue for as long as social communities remain popular, but these are my thoughts. I would love to hear your views on the matter.

Terms of the UK Bailout: The key features is that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Lloyds and HBOS will get cash injections of £20bn for RBS and £17bn between the two latter banks. This money will be used to recapitalise these banks, ie strengthen their reserves in order to withstand financial turmoil and market volatility we are facing at present. However in return the Government is effectively part-nationalising these three banks by taking a large or controlling share in them as these banks sell its shares to the Government in exchange for money.

The objective of part-nationalisation, apart from taking more control in the banks's affairs now, is to also get income back to the Government and the UK taxpayer once the banking system does recover and shares go up in value.

Banks management changing: On the strength of this effective humiliation, the heads of RBS (Fred Goodwin and Tom McKillop) and HBOS (Andy Hornby and Lord Dennis Stevenson) are resigning, stepping down, or retiring. The UK Government is keen to see proven people with strong and relevant industry experience step into their shoes.

Banking bonuses curbed: One of the conditions of the UK Bailout is that there will be no bonuses to senior executives this year, and a move towards paying bonuses in shares not in cash in future years. However these restrictions do not impact those banks that are not part of today's headline £37bn bailout proposal.

Barclays route: Barclays has opted to raise the money it needs without Government's help. It needs £6.5bn. It seems that one of the reasons Barclays is trying to make it on its own, apart from avoiding the humiliation of the bailout, is that it will remain free to set banking bonuses as it sees fit.

US v UK Bailout compared: There are some distinctions between the US and the UK Bailout proposals. Some are driven by the fact the two banking systems have different features - for instance, in the US there are many more banks in existence making individual targeted action possibly more difficult to achieve.

US:

• The US package has been aimed primarily at buying up the bad debts of failing banks on Wall Street as opposed to just recapitalising banks. However recapitalisation can also be used where appropriate and there has been more support of this option in the US Government in the last few days
• The US Government and hence US taxpayers will in return get a non-voting stake in the banks they rescue.

UK:

• The objective is to recapitalise banks as the key objective, and not take the bad debts off them
• The UK Government will get some shares with voting rights enabling them to take more control of banks. The UK taxpayer hence also effectively has a stake in banks.

It seems that there is now a greater interest in the US towards UK's bailout terms. The US bailout has been received by the market in a fairly lukewarm way, probably since it was rushed and was not perceived to be addressing the core issues. The UK bailout is being received better by the market. There is now talk in the US government about turning to recapitalising banks to a greater degree, much like what UK proposes to do.

Unprecedented - but not effectively new: Yes, all these bailouts are pretty unprecedented in the West. We are seeing a shift towards "socialist" tendencies in the State controlling key financial sector players. Although these are envisaged as medium term measures, do we know for certain if the Government will elect to let go of this control in future? It remains to be seen.

Moreover, although these are groundbreaking changes to the way the banking sector will operate, none of these measures are totally new. To some extent they have been performed before although not on this scale. The remaking of the financial world's order is thus being accomplished with fairly old tools. Maybe it's just as well - these have been used to some extent before and are seen to have worked. There will be no debt write-offs across the whole system, for instance, as some blog writers wanted to see happen. I am relieved we've not come to this yet.

End of an era: But make no mistake - this is an end of an era. The world of finance will get regulated very tightly after we achieve some stabilisation. This might mean any or all of the following:

• New regulatory bodies. We are already seeing that US regulatory bodies are being considered for remodelling, possibly using UK regulator the FSA as an example
• New powers. The Government and the regulators will have a greater say in what banks can and cannot do
• New legislation. Deregulation that has caused much of current day's evil aftermath is dead. Regulation is the new flavour of the day.
• New accounting measures. I would hope that we will finally achieve a resolution of long running inconsistencies in accounting rules across the world which has allowed banks to manipulate their statements and hide the truth, for instance improvements in off-balance-sheet disclosure and moving to bringing this on-balance sheet early.

 And like any new era, it will bring with itself new opportunities to get involved and make one's mark.

Copyright 2008 by CuriouslyInspired