Joey Daubin has good video of Jeanne Shaheen's town hall meeting. There were a bunch of people there, with video camera's and an attitude, but they were not violent, not shouting, and in general behaving as reasonable citizens.
By the way, there is a good crowd gathering in Portsmouth to give Obama a warm welcome. Signs, lots of signs. The Obama folks are hoping a delay and some rain will wear the crowd down. The event was announced for 9 AM, people started showing up really early. Fox News, while interviewing in Portsmouth, announced that the event doesn't start until 1 PM.
I gotta feeling a New Hampshire crowd has the patience to wait four hours, outdoors, in the rain. It's a warm rain at least.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
If you build it they will come
Otherwise known as the Field of Dreams marketing plan. Manchester Airport was something like that. It's a nice little airport. Ten years ago they had virtually no scheduled air service. Drove down to pick up youngest son last night. Plane was late (thunderstorms in Illinois was the excuse this time). While waiting, they had 5-6 planes an hour coming in and going out. Now they have several flights a day to NYC, Baltimore, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia and Florida. In short Manchester now has pretty decent air service to the rest of the country. Things are so good they now call themselves "Manchester-Boston Regional Airport".
In actual fact, Manchester is as easy to get to as Logan for everyone on the north side of Boston, to say nothing of all of NH. Parking is cheap and plentiful.
You could start up a business in NH now and count on air service to get your salesmen and service techs out to customers, and get customers and vendors in to your site. Used to be a startup had to be on Rt 128 to fly out of Logan. Now a startup can be in NH, with lower taxes, and fly out of Manchester.
In actual fact, Manchester is as easy to get to as Logan for everyone on the north side of Boston, to say nothing of all of NH. Parking is cheap and plentiful.
You could start up a business in NH now and count on air service to get your salesmen and service techs out to customers, and get customers and vendors in to your site. Used to be a startup had to be on Rt 128 to fly out of Logan. Now a startup can be in NH, with lower taxes, and fly out of Manchester.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Sunday Pundits on Health Care
Newt Gingrich on the ABC Sunday show said that most employers would be overjoyed to stop buying health care in return for an 8% payroll tax. Howard Dean (same show, other side of the table) said this number came from an insurance company supported think tank and was false. Newt didn't object and the talk moved on.
Got to thinking about that. Family health care runs about $12K, and costs the company the same for new assembly line hires as it does for high paid executives. $12K is more than 8% of all salaries less than $150K. In short, 8% of salary would be cheaper than buying a family health insurance policy. Also less hassle to the company.
So, corporate America has no problem with an 8% payroll tax instead of company health care. It will save them money. In short, the health care bill will wipe out company paid health insurance, the kind of insurance most of us have. Leaving us to the tender mercies of Government Health Care, Inc.
Got to thinking about that. Family health care runs about $12K, and costs the company the same for new assembly line hires as it does for high paid executives. $12K is more than 8% of all salaries less than $150K. In short, 8% of salary would be cheaper than buying a family health insurance policy. Also less hassle to the company.
So, corporate America has no problem with an 8% payroll tax instead of company health care. It will save them money. In short, the health care bill will wipe out company paid health insurance, the kind of insurance most of us have. Leaving us to the tender mercies of Government Health Care, Inc.
Unemployment is down, Hurray
The official un employment figures show a slight (0.1%) improvement this month. Then the Lehrer Newshour spent a lot of time explaining about how this was a statistical fluke, and if you looked at the real figures things are worse, and on and on. Seems like the Newshour would have been happier with worse unemployment numbers.
For me, I want the un employment numbers computed the same way this month as they were last month and the month before. Doesn't matter if the method has some problems, I just want to see if the economy is getting better or worse. If you change the accounting rules, you change the results. I want the results to reflect changes in the real economy, not changes in the way the statistics are computed.
I wonder why the Newhour seemed unhappy that the economy might be getting better, or at least not still getting worse.
For me, I want the un employment numbers computed the same way this month as they were last month and the month before. Doesn't matter if the method has some problems, I just want to see if the economy is getting better or worse. If you change the accounting rules, you change the results. I want the results to reflect changes in the real economy, not changes in the way the statistics are computed.
I wonder why the Newhour seemed unhappy that the economy might be getting better, or at least not still getting worse.
Hunt for Red October, or calling Sean Connery
Sunday pundits (the Mclaughlin Group) were waxing indignant about Russian submarine operations in the Atlantic. While I'd just as soon the Russians stayed in port and let 'em rust in peace, they do have a perfect right to steam in international waters. It's called freedom of the seas, and has been a big thing in US foreign policy reaching all the way back to Thomas Jefferson's administration.
Used to be, international waters started three miles offshore. We held to that standard for a long long time. Only in the 1980's did the US finally assert the right to control fishing for 200 miles offshore. Not sure if that included the right to exclude ordinary shipping or foreign navies that far out, but even so, the Atlantic is 3000 miles across, and most of it is still international waters.
Used to be, international waters started three miles offshore. We held to that standard for a long long time. Only in the 1980's did the US finally assert the right to control fishing for 200 miles offshore. Not sure if that included the right to exclude ordinary shipping or foreign navies that far out, but even so, the Atlantic is 3000 miles across, and most of it is still international waters.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Time to write your Congressperson
Two astoundingly bad bills, health care and cap & tax, are in Congress. Congressional mail is running against them, and the recent town hall demonstrations have made the popular opposition to these measures clear. If we keep up the pressure, we can defeat both of these two nation wrecking bills.
Write your Congressman a letter. Use a good strong lead sentence such as "Please vote against the Health Care bill". The letters are opened and read and counted by staffers. You don't have to be eloquent about why, just make it clear in the first sentence which way the Congress person ought to vote.
These matters are balanced on a knife edge right now. Just a few more letters will tip the issue.
It's worth a 44 cent stamp.
Write your Congressman a letter. Use a good strong lead sentence such as "Please vote against the Health Care bill". The letters are opened and read and counted by staffers. You don't have to be eloquent about why, just make it clear in the first sentence which way the Congress person ought to vote.
These matters are balanced on a knife edge right now. Just a few more letters will tip the issue.
It's worth a 44 cent stamp.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Tolerances, from Aviation Week.
The F-35 fighter (the latest, even later than F22) is having a few problems with costs. Some parts have having a 50% scrap rate, i.e. half the parts produced are out of tolerance and are tossed into the scrap bin.
Then we enconter this odd statement.
"The issue is not just producing parts that are within tolerance, Brig. Gen Heinz says, but insuring the variability within the tolerance band in minimized so that when parts are assembled the tolerance "stackup" is also within limits. "It's too early to tell" whether GE/Rolls will encounter problems."
Uh Oh. General Heinz doesn't understand manufacturing. Each part has a drawing, which calls out the dimensions, and the allowable tolerance on those dimensions. The shop folk work from the drawing. If the drawing says dimension "x" has a tolerance of + or - 0.005 inches, then the parts will vary by 0.005 inches. If the tolerance is tighter, the parts will be held to tighter tolerances. The shop builds to the drawing.
Tolerance "stackup" is a problem when the overall design isn't right. If all the parts in the assembly are at the limit of the tolerance, say they are all slightly oversize, they may not fit together, or require excessive force (a big hammer) to jam them together. The solution is to tighten the tolerances on the parts until the worst case will fit.
This in the principle of interchangeable parts. In the bad old days, parts were filed to fit the assembly. This required a lot of expensive skilled handwork, slowed production, and made it impossible to fix assemblies in the field. If the parts don't interchange, you can't cannibalize parts from a wrecked unit to fix another one. In this country Eli Whitney pioneered interchangeable parts way back in the end of the 18th century, and it is the basis of mass production.
If the F-35 requires "minimizing the variability within the tolerance band" before things fit, it's a good bet that parts don't interchange, they have to be custom fitted. Which is a bad thing.
Then we enconter this odd statement.
"The issue is not just producing parts that are within tolerance, Brig. Gen Heinz says, but insuring the variability within the tolerance band in minimized so that when parts are assembled the tolerance "stackup" is also within limits. "It's too early to tell" whether GE/Rolls will encounter problems."
Uh Oh. General Heinz doesn't understand manufacturing. Each part has a drawing, which calls out the dimensions, and the allowable tolerance on those dimensions. The shop folk work from the drawing. If the drawing says dimension "x" has a tolerance of + or - 0.005 inches, then the parts will vary by 0.005 inches. If the tolerance is tighter, the parts will be held to tighter tolerances. The shop builds to the drawing.
Tolerance "stackup" is a problem when the overall design isn't right. If all the parts in the assembly are at the limit of the tolerance, say they are all slightly oversize, they may not fit together, or require excessive force (a big hammer) to jam them together. The solution is to tighten the tolerances on the parts until the worst case will fit.
This in the principle of interchangeable parts. In the bad old days, parts were filed to fit the assembly. This required a lot of expensive skilled handwork, slowed production, and made it impossible to fix assemblies in the field. If the parts don't interchange, you can't cannibalize parts from a wrecked unit to fix another one. In this country Eli Whitney pioneered interchangeable parts way back in the end of the 18th century, and it is the basis of mass production.
If the F-35 requires "minimizing the variability within the tolerance band" before things fit, it's a good bet that parts don't interchange, they have to be custom fitted. Which is a bad thing.
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