General Electric wants out of the locomotive business

Wow.  The diesel locomotive business really got started right after WWII.  All the railroads wanted to replace their steam engines.  This was a huge piece of business.  Between 1945 and 1957 every steam engine in the land was scrapped and replaced with brand new diesels.  The Electro motive division of General Motors got the bulk of this work.  Old line steam engine makers Baldwin and Alco offered  product, and Fairbanks Morse and GE offered product but EMD got all the business.  90% or better of all railroad locomotives were EMD built by 1960.  All the competitors dropped out except GE, who still offered fairly decent product, but wasn't selling much against EMD. 
   Somehow, in the 1980's GE pulled ahead of entrenched EMD and today is the best seller, with EMD just clinging to life.  GE did some $4.7 billion worth of diesel locomotive business last year.  A handsome chunk of change, even compared to GE's other businesses (jet engines, heavy electrical equipment) which brought in close to $100 billion. 
   For some reason the new guy at GE, the one who sold off the GE corporate jet fleet,  wants to get rid of the locomotive business.  No reason given.   That's some 10000 employees.  The Wall St Journal had a picture of the locomotive production line,  giant room,  half a dozen big locomotives under construction. 
   Some business writer ought to do a book on how GE managed to take to diesel market away from EMD back in the 1980's.  There ought to be some good stuff in there.  Was it GE's AC powered locomotives that had greater tractive effort (pulled harder) and cost more?   Was it sloppiness over at EMD?  something else? 
  I wonder why GE now wants out of the locomotive business.

Tempest in Teapot

"Don't Trust the Chinese to make Microchips for the Military"  Headline to a Wall St Journal op-ed yesterday.  The writer, Dan Nidest, clearly lacks experience in the design of military electronics.  Whereas it used to be my day job. 
   US procurement regulations require that all the semiconductors in a military gadget be "Mil-Spec" semiconductors.  Which cost ten times as much as commercial devices, and are of marginal quality.  The Mil Spec thing got started back in vacuum tube days.  The military knew that tubes with extra thick filaments would last longer than standard commercial tubes.  And they bought such tubes, for a premium price.  Trouble is, there is no way to inspect the insides of a glass vacuum tube without ruining it.  And so unscrupulous vendors put mil spec markings on ordinary commercial tubes and sold them to the military.  And so, the military demanded that mil spec tubes only be manufactured on special production lines, under inspection by government agents. 
   This quaint custom carried over to semiconductors when they came into service in the 1960's. 
   So, false alarm.  All semiconducters used in military electronics are made in the US of A.  Not to worry.

Dawn over Marblehead (Wall St) Finally.

Price of Puerto Rican bonds is finally dropping into the toilet.   About time.  Early in 2015 a Puerto Rican bond was selling on the street for 95 cents on the dollar.   This price drifted down gradually thru out 2015, 2016, and most of 2017.  It had reached 65 cents on the dollar by this summer.  Only this fall did the price dive down to 30 cents on the dollar. 
   In actual fact, Puerto Rico doesn't have the money to pay off a nickel of the $93 billion that Wall St bankers were stupid enough to loan them over the years.  It's been obvious for twenty years that Puerto Rico didn't have, and could not get, the money to pay off any of its loans.  And yet,  those clever Wall St banks kept loaning Puerto Rico more money.  And trading Puerto Rican securities and bonds back and forth among themselves as if these securities were actually worth something.   They aren't.
   The amazing thing.  The Wall St bankers only figured things out in the last few weeks.  You gotta wonder where these people went to school. 
 

OK, so Corker and Flake are bailing out

Two US republican senators announce they will not run for re election in 2018.  They are no friends of Donald Trump, but up until now have been more loyal and useful Republicans than John McCain, Susan Collins, or Rand Paul.   
   They both come from reasonably Republican districts, which may elect Republican replacements.  On the other hand, incumbents usually have better odds of winning the election than  challengers.
   Granted, Trump and his friends will have a more tractable Congress if Corker and Flake are replaced by Republicans.  If they are replaced by democrats, life will be harder for the administration.   The Republican control of the Senate rests on a mere two seats. 
  Note to Steve Bannion.  You would do the party more good by attacking democrats, rather than Republicans. 

Opioid Crisis Some more bad stuff

Article in a local paper said that opioid prescriptions were down, from about 90% of patients in 2014 to maybe 70% in 2016.   The article didn't bother to explain the percent numbers (typical of newsies who are totally innumerate).  I'm guessing that it is the number of opioid prescriptions written over the total number of patients.  Any one please feel free to correct me on this. 
   If this is progress we are doomed. 
   I take my self to the doctor today.  I used to bring all three children to the doctor along with my wife.  For 50 years, 200-300 doctor appointments at least.  Never did I or any of my family receive a prescription for opioids.    That's an opioid prescription rate of 0 for me and my family. 
   To hear that an opioid prescription rate of 70% is an improvement is ridiculous. 
   I can believe that there are some people with real pain problems for whom opioids are indicated.  I cannot believe that 70%  of people have real pain problems. 
   I am aware that most of the overdose deaths are caused by heroin and fentanyl , both of which are illegal.  I'd like to know how many of these overdose cases got started with prescription opioids.  I have never seen any numbers on this.  But if 70% of patients are started on opioids,  you gotta believe that a lot of 'em move over to cheaper (but more dangerous) street drugs.

Whither the EU?

Just as it looked like the EU was coming together, the Brits pull out.  Britain is the number 2 EU country, just behind Germany and ahead of France in terms of GNP, population, diplomatic effectiveness, American connections, lotta things.  To have your Number 2 member pull out has gotta be disheartening for the advocates of European unity. 
   And we may have further breakups in the works.  Catalonia, an important Spanish province, has voted in a referendum to succeed from Spain.  There has been some pushback by the government of Spain, and some stories about how turnout for the referendum was very light, say 20%.  If that's true, it says that only the hard core Catalans came out to vote.  And, if the Catalans succeed, the Basque region will be right behind.  And the Scots and the Welsh are making noises about pulling out of the United Kingdom (Britain).  That's four small provinces making succession noises.  Although I don't remember hearing anyone from these proto-mini-nations talk about joining the EU, it's a good bet that some, maybe all of 'em will apply for EU membership after they make their succession good. 
   The EU got started right after WWII.  The European survivors of that disaster wanted to prevent WWIII by welding Europe together into a single country.  The Americans were all in favor for that reason and to present a united front against Russian Communism.  It started small with a trade deal called the European Coal and Steel Community.  I don't remember, perhaps never knew, just what kind of a deal this was, but it worked.  Sometime in the 1960's the Common Market was declared.  Initially the Common Market had a mere six members, and Britain was not one of them.  In fact the Brits put together a trade block of their own, which lasted for some years.  Eventually the Brits, and their trade block joined the EU.  Then the Soviets collapsed and all the Warsaw pact satellites rushed to sign up with the EU as a defense against Soviet revanchism.  Then the big step, the Europeans launched a successful European currency, the Euro and that worked. 
   But, the EU never was able to pull together like the American United States did.  The EU members never surrendered control of their armed forces, or their diplomatic corps to the central EU government.  The American founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution talk about base principles ( all men are created equal) and distribution of political power (executive, legislative, judicial).  The EU founding treaties are silent on most of the issues Americans find fundamental, and have a lot of happy talk about all the bennies EU citizens are entitled to, free healthcare, universal education, and the like, but don't divvy up the political power the way the Americans did.  The American states yielded up serious and important powers (rights to have their own armed forces, right to operate their own foreign policy, and a lot of other heavy duty stuff to the new federal government.  The European states didn't yield up an ounce of their sovereignty to Brussels.
   Where to next?  Will the rest of the EU hang together?  Or will more members follow the British lead and bail out?  Will the US offer Britain membership in NAFTA?  What about other EU refugee countries?  Stay tuned for future developments. 

Driving down to a Boston Train Show

It was a lovely day, dry, warm, sunny.  Leaves are a bit past peak in Franconia Notch, but are at peak down south.  I93 was in good shape except the widening project south of Manchester hasn't gotten anywhere since I was thru there last.  More NH infrastructure money spent with out improving the road at all. 
   The North Shore Model Railroad Club of Wakefield MA, of which I used to be a member until I retired to NH, put on the show.  They had the swap meet at the Wakefield Americal Hall, across the street from the club layout.  The vendors had a lot of rolling stock and some structures, no tools or parts.  A fair number of steam engines that could serve as project locomotives, except I have two such project locomotive in my shop awaiting work.  The crowd was mostly older guys, a few very small children who were entranced, no kids old enough to be into electric trains on their own.  The hobby is not recruiting new hobbyists to replace the older guys who are dying off.  The North Shore club had three member who I had known die just this fall. 
  The club layout is down stairs from Brother's restaurant on Main St.  The layout is 90 feet long.  The newest and last section toward the back is largely done.  Benchwork is in, track is laid, trains run.  Scenery is coming along nicely.  The old core of the club was still there, still guiding the work.  This layout was large enough to make a cover story of Model Railroader back in 1985, and it's bigger now. 
   Anyhow a nice day.

Something must be happening that isn't Donald Trump

All the TV newsies talk about these days is Donald Trump.  Nothing else is covered.  Not even the stock market.  Surely there is something significant happening somewhere in the world that isn't about Donald Trump.  But we will never know.  Unless we do some web surfing. 

Oh Say Can You See

Small patriotic ritual, performed before sporting events.  Americans are expected to stand and place their hand over their heart as the national anthem is played.  It's a symbol of respect for the flag, and the Republic for which it stands, to borrow a line from the pledge of allegiance.  And it's a sign of unity.  Anyone who fails to participate is saying they don't like the flag, they don't like the country, and they don't like other other Americans. 
   No beef with anyone or anything justifies failing to stand for the national anthem.   I don't like it, and a whole big bunch of my fellow Americans don't like it.  It may be legal. but we don't have to like it.  And we don't accept any excuses for failing to stand.  

The Microsoft Computer scammer calls again

This guy pretends to be from Microsoft, and wants to fix your computer.  The first time he called (maybe a year ago) I played along until he tried to get me to upload a piece of malware onto Trusty Desktop.  I used some salty service language on him and hung up.  Since then he has called back about once a month, giving me another opportunity to insult him. 
   Anyhow, if you get a call from someone who says he is from Microsoft, he is trying to plant a virus on your computer.  The real Microsoft never calls anyone. 

Print is up, E-books are down

According to the Wall St Journal, sales of printed books are up 5% this year whereas sales of e-books are down 17%.  The Journal gave no reasons.  Wow! 
   The electronic wave of the future stopped cold by Gutenberg's printing press from the 1400's.  
    I'm in favor, I like reading a printed book better than I like fussing with a laptop to read an e-book.  I only mess with e-books to read old favorites no longer in print.  Old Edgar Rice Burroughs, old E.E. Smith,  old Andre Norton for example.  The laptop is bulky but it has a decent screen, the special e-book readers are micro screen devices which don't excite me much.   Even the idea of having the Library of Congress packed into a hand held device doesn't really excite me.  Apparently the market agrees. 

   

Leaf Season in Franconia Notch

Does Weinstein affair account for poor Hollywood movies?

No doubt about it, Hollywood is making fewer movies, many of them are comic book movies, and box office has been terrible this season.  And then we have Harvey Weinstein, allegedly a top man in Hollywood.  Maybe he doesn't pay enough attention to making decent movies, and wastes too much time harassing and raping actresses?  If Harvey is typical of Hollywood management, no wonder the movies are lacking. 

Cost Sharing Payments

President Trump has raised yet another firestorm from the Democrats.  He has decided to stop "Cost Sharing Payments" to the health insurance industry.  This is in accordance with a federal court decision calling the payments illegal, because Congress never appropriated the money for them.  Plus the concept of my tax money going to private insurance companies boggles my mind.
    Democrats claim these payoffs are necessary to keep Obamacare insurance premiums from going even higher than they have.  To which one might ask why they haven't appropriated the money.  And why the money should go to insurance companies, rather than to patients. 
   The Democratic whining over "Cost Sharing Payments" has drowned out Trump's other Obamacare reform, announced the day before, allowing sale of economical insurance policies, instead of the "covers everything under the sun" Obamacare policies.  The medical industry loves the Obamacare policies, they pay for everything, whether it does any good or not.  Patients don't complain about cost, 'cause it's all paid for.  Used to be you could buy "covers everything" policies for $12000 a year.  They cover routine physicals, the wife and kiddies, prescription drugs, out patient treatments, chiropracty , drug rehab, maternity, mental health, and all the cat scans, ultrasounds and MRI's the patient can stand.  This was the usually deal for employer provided health care. 
   But, they was another option, one that paid for the big stuff that nobody has the money for, and let the patient cover the little stuff out of pocket.  This coverage could be had (before Obamacare outlawed it) for $3000.  If you were in reasonably good health (most of us are) you could save $9000 a year by going with "big stuff only" or "hospitalization only" policies.  The $9000 difference was more than enough for yearly physicals, out patient treatments, pills and plasters, just about anything.  I used to go this way until Obamacare outlawed such policies, and I became eligible for Medicare.   My doctor never approved, he wanted me to get an MRI, I asked what it would cost, he didn't know, it took months to finally get someone to quote me a price ($ Many Thou)  at which point to matter was quietly dropped. 
   Trump is going to allow writing policies that only cover what the patient wants to pay for, rather than cover everything under the sun policies, which are outrageously expensive.   Good deal. 

Republicans don't really control the federal government

So what is a Republican?  Really.   A real Republican votes for measures (Obamacare repeal!) important to the party.  There is a shortage of real Republicans in DC these days.  We have a lot of RINOs, who call themselves Republican but believe in Democrat policies like tax and spend.  They actually like robbing their constituents of  as much tax as they can get away with, and then using their ill gotten proceeds to buy votes in their districts with pork barrel spending.  And we have a lot of just plain weirdos, like John McCain and Rand Paul and Susan Collins who stick it to the party every time they can, just because they can.  And we have the "House Freedom Caucus", a bunch of "Republicans" from safe districts, who will bolt the party at the drop of a hat, for any reason at all, or no reason.
   As we have seen on Obamacare repeal, these people cannot be depended upon to vote for crucial bills.  In the Senate the Republicans have only 52 members and four or five of them are undependable weirdos.  Things are a little better in the house, but not much. 
   Rather than saying  "The Republicans control the government."  it would be more realistic to say, "The weirdos have enough votes to stop anything."

Girl and Boy Scouts of America??

Just heard about this on the TV.  Apparently the Boy Scouts have announced that all ranks of scouting are now open to girls as well as boys.  The Girl Scouts of America have objected to what they see as a grab for their membership.  Actually, a co-ed scouting program sounds like a good idea in many ways.  Maybe the leadership of both the Boy and Girl Scouts can get together on this.  Or maybe not.   Stay tuned.  

Forgiving Debt would Hurt Puerto Rico ??

Headline of an op ed in today's Wall St Journal.  Author is a John Tamny,  director of Center for Economic Freedom at Freedomworks, editor of RealClearMarkets, and author of "Popular Economics".  He has some credentials, although the name is new to me.  His arguments make little sense to me, even after re reading the piece several times.  He says "By erasing Puerto Rico's debt, Mr. Trump would be handing the territory's political class more money to spend inefficiently."  Let's be real here.  Fixing up after Hurricane Maria needs lots and lots of money.  Puerto Rico doesn't have any money at all.  There are only two ways for Puerto Rico to get the needed money, borrowing it, or getting it as a free gift from mainland taxpayers.   Lenders are scarce on the ground.  It's obvious to real people (but perhaps not to dumb as rocks Wall St bankers) that Puerto Rico doesn't have the money to ever pay off the $93 billion in debt they have already racked up.  Those lenders won't get paid back, not ever.  New loans won't get paid back either.  Lending to Puerto Rico is just plain charity, loans that won't get paid off are charity, not banking. 
   The other source of money to fix up the hurricane damage is for the US Congress to appropriate the money out of  federal tax revenue, or by selling some more T-bills, or both.  This is charity, and there is a decent chance that the Congress will feel charitable and will cough up the money, especially if the MSM and the Democrats get on board with the idea.
   The concept of "forgiving" Puerto Rico's debts is just psycho-babble.  They don't have the money, they will never have the money, and the lenders are never gonna get paid.  For that matter Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy a couple of months ago,  which means they won't pay anyhow, even if they had the money, which they don't. 

Decertifying the Iran Deal?

TV newsies have been talking about it.  But they say "decertifying" isn't like canceling the deal.  If so, why do we care?  It may be a way of expressing disapproval of the deal, but if it doesn't do anything, why does it matter? 

US Immigration reform

The TV tells me that the Trump administration has laid some 70 changes to current immigration law on Congress today.  Of course the TV newsies don't bother to list just what these changes might be.  They did manage to say that the Democrats oppose them, no reasons given. 
   For myself,  I like the idea of a DACA program.  People who were brought into the US as children, who have stayed out of trouble with the law, graduated high school or college, who have served in the armed forces, who are gainfully employed, and who want to stay in the US, sound like good and decent citizens to me, and more good and decent citizens make America stronger.  We need all the good and decent citizens w can get.
   I think anyone who served in the armed forces and received an honorable discharge ought to be offered citizenship if they lack it.  For that matter foreign nationals who worked with US forces as interpreters ought to be offered citizenship.
   America can take in a lot of immigrants, but there is a limit.  I'd set that limit at 1% of the current population, which is like 3 million immigrants a year.
    Since a lot of people want to come to America, we can be picky about who we let in.  Make a list of desirable characteristics,  young, educated, married, married with children, English speaking, no matter how poorly, parents already in the US, healthy, valuable skills, and many more.  Assign a point value to each desirable characteristic, and we let in the 3 million with the top scores.  Everyone else gets to try again next year.

Un diagnosed mental illness.

That's what one TV commentator said about the Vegas shooter.  And, it's kinda true by default.  We believe anyone who would shoot 500-600 innocent strangers to be mentally ill.  A week of investigation has failed to find (or at least report on TV) any sort of motive, history, or association that would give a motive, or suggest some kind of mental illness.  So, we figure he must have been acting out a horrible mental illness when he opened fire, and no investigator has found any evidence of mental illness before the shooting.  On the other hand, they have reported that he had been buying a lot of guns, legally, for a year before, which surely suggests that what ever it was, it started back when he started buying all the guns. 
   And this is really unusual.  In all the previous awful cases, the shooter had given clear signs of mental illness or some kind of dreadful political fanaticism.  Unfortunately these signs were ignored until it was too late.  In this case alone, we haven't seen any signs of mental illness or political craziness after a week of investigation. 

Smart Phones bad for you

Thus sayeth the Wall St. Journal this morning.  They cite some studies, but do not get down to the nitty gritty such as how large was the sample, how did they measure increase of stupidity of subjects. There were some vague and subjective statements, using the blandest of language. 
   Me, I'm an old fogey, I don't have a smart phone.  I do have a laptop that will do anything a smart phone will, and I pack it along when I travel.  The laptop has a real QWERTY keyboard and a mouse, which the smartphones lack, and I find essential.  I do notice that my smartphone equipped children tend to whip them out during discussions and pop up information to support their points of view. 
  And I an old enough to remember all the things teachers and parents said against television back when it was just coming in.  My buddy Dewey Walsh's family had a 21 inch B&W TV back in the late 1940's.  I do remember watching Howdy Doody and Hopalong Cassidy on it.  My family didn't get a TV until 1956. 
   Could it be the people railing against smartphones are the same sort of people who railed against TV?

There must be something in the water

On Wall St that is.  Something that turns brains to mush.  Only a totally mushed  brain would have loaned $93 billion to Puerto Rico over the years.  It was obvious to anyone that Puerto Rico, a nice place to visit during the New England winter, had no way of ever paying the loans back.  The money was frittered away on salaries and graft, and this and that, it didn't create anything like industries that made money.  Most of  the new loan money went to rolling over old loans.  But Wall St kept on making loans to Puerto Rico.  Must be something in the water.
   And then Puerto Rico, after getting a special act of Congress to allow it, declared bankruptcy last month.  You would think that lower the value of outstanding Puerto Rican loans.  Not on Wall St.  They kept right on trading Puerto Rican bonds at around 90 cents on the dollar, right up to last week.  After Hurricane Maria blew down every electric wire on the whole island and President Trump made an off hand comment that Puerto Rico's loans would have vanish, then finally did Wall St start trading Puerto Rican bonds at 60 cents on the dollar.  Not quite worthless, yet, but a solid hit.  Anyone with two brain cells firing knew that after filing for bankruptcy, Puerto Rico was never going to pay off those bonds.  Which makes them worthless.  But Wall St kept swapping them around at a mere 10 percent discount for weeks.   Must be something in the water.

Let's outlaw Bump Stocks!

I never heard of "bump stocks" until the Las Vegas massacre this week.  And I am a medium savvy gun guy.  Not a total expert, but reasonably knowledgeable.  From what the MSM is telling us (you can believe as much of that as you like) the bump stock is some kind of spring loaded rifle stock that gets an otherwise legal semi automatic AR15 to fire at 700 rounds per minute, machine gun speed.  And the Las Vegas shooter used some.  Apparently the Obama administration ruled bump stocks to be legal a few years ago.
   And the Congress is so happy to find something to ban, that most of us would not object to banning.  They can pass a law, gain some favorable publicity, what's not to like? 
   Depends upon what the letter of the proposed law might be.  Congress critters (mostly dumb as rocks) might vote for language so broad as to outlaw perfectly ordinary shooting accessories like slings, sights, cheek pads, and rests.  I agree that such a law needs to define what it is banning.  Just banning "bump stocks" doesn't work, the makers simply rename the product some thing else, anti recoil stock for example, and go right on selling them.  They gotta come up with words that only ban devices that raise the rate of fire.
 

Gerrymanders, how to detect them, what to do about them.

The term goes way back.  Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, vice president of the US under Madison, fairly heavy duty guy for his time, signed off on a Massachusetts redistricting.  One district came out long and thin and looked kinda like a salamander.  Gerry's political enemies, of which he had a decent number, called the district a Gerrymander, designed to make Gerry's party win the next election. The term stuck.
   Today, skillful politicians attempt to draw district boundaries to win elections.  The idea goes like this.  Pack the opponent's voters into a few districts where they form 100% of the vote.   Spread our voters out so they form 51% of the vote in as many districts as possible.   This way we win more districts than the opponents do, which gives us control.
   Wisconsin Democrats have gotten a case to the Supremes claiming the last redistricting by Republicans is unfair to Democrats because the "Efficiency Gap"  exceeds 7%.  What is the "Efficiency Gap" you ask? Good question.  I never heard of it before.  According to the Wall St Journal it is the sum of "wasted" votes from Party X less the  sum of "wasted" votes for party Y over the sum of all votes.  Chief Justice John Roberts wasn't fond of "Efficiency Gap".  He called it sociological gobble-de-gook.
   I could get with rules against weird shaped districts, such as "The longest distance across a district shall not exceed 1.5 times the shortest distance across the district."  I can get with rules requiring all districts to have the same population, give or take 10%.  I could get  with rules against districts formed of several blobs connected by ultra thin connecting strips.   But I don't like the "Efficiency Gap" idea, it sounds like "You have to redistrict until my party wins."      
  

Electric cars

The Chinese are pushing sales of electric cars.  To keep down the traffic in their biggest cities, they conduct license plate lotteries. Out of millions of hopeful car owners, only a few tens of thousands get plates.  Unless it's an electric car, electric cars get plates immediately. And, the Brits and the Euro's are talking about the same thing, everybody drives an electric by 2040.  Yesterday GM and Ford made similar noises over here.  GM has actually made and sold electrics for twenty years now, abet not many of 'em.
  Is this really the wave of the future?
  Not for me.  The best electrics only go 200 miles on a charge, most of 'em are worse, like 100 miles.  I regularly drive 400 miles down to see my daughter, my new grandson, and my son-in-law, who is a perfectly nice and decent guy, but I am a little closer to my daughter than my son-in-law.  My Buick will make the trip on a single tank of gas.  A best electric would have to recharge once, the lesser electrics would have to recharge three times.  Even with a high powered 440 volt charger, it takes two hours to get a charge.  Lesser 220 volt home chargers take all night.  I don't want to spend two hours waiting on a charger, and turning a 10 hour trip into a 12 hour trip.  I'm sticking with 87 octane gas engines. 

Las Vegas Shooting

Just awful.  My sincerest condolences to the victims, their families, and the wounded. 

This Blog is now TEN years old.

Yep, started posting back in October 2006.  For the first years I got no page views at all.  Nowadays I can count on 10-20 pages views a day  Some hot days the page view count hits the hundreds. That doesn't happen all that often, but it feels good when it happens. 
  Any how, thank you all for reading here.