Biometric social security cards and real security

The current bill S.744, the JOLT ACT is a very long bill, over 800 pages and Section 3102 talks about creating wear-resistant, fraud resistant social security cards with biometric data. This is supposed to make social security fraud more secure, and having a plastic social security card as opposed to a paper one makes a lot of sense, but two parts of this section make absolutely no sense, and there is one thing that should be here that isn't.

1. Biometric data won't realistically improve the security of social security numbers. It also is expensive. This will mean the government will need to ensure that there are encrypted cards in each social security card, and make certain that the encryption can be only read by government approved machines to read the cards, to prevent the biometric data from being read from people who have no right to access the information. This means it will cost money. It makes sense for passports to have biometric data because travelers are going through customs across the world and scanning the passport allows customs to go quickly, but social security cards are used primarily for employment, and there is already a system to verify that someone has the right social security number on the Social Security Administration's website, so all that will happen with this is the government will waste money on a feature that has no clear advantage.
2. The individual is limited to receiving 10 replacement social security cards in his/her lifetime under this bill. If someone had a series of unfortunate events which led to him/her losing his/her social security card 10 times, whether through moving, fire, or another event, than this person would be unable to receive a replacement. Because social security numbers can be verified, and in conjunction with picture ID, whether it is a Driver's License, or preferably a Passport, it is extremely difficult to get away with making a fake social security number. If an employer didn't do this step right than that person would not be very intelligent. This won't effect the security, it just puts in one more administrative hurdle for people to follow.
3. There needs to be some way to verify that someone is using the right passport number through the Department of State. American Passports can be forged, like anything, and if the employer just has the copy of the passport but isn't able to verify the biometric data (which most employer's can't) than holding what looks like an American passport isn't worth much to be honest. If we really wanted to ensure that social security fraud was at a minimum and that people applying for work are who they say they are this bill would first allow any American Citizen to get an American Passport for free with proper documentation (which the government would verify using social security, driver's licenses, etc.) and then make it so that potential employers can verify that a claimed passport number is correct giving them the name, passport number, and date of birth on a secure part of the website.
4. Also, there should be some federal standards for how States verify that people have the correct information when applying for a state license, a system like the following would be fool-proof. These are for first time applicants (the most difficult part of verification) who have not had a passport, driver's license, or other form of government-issued ID before.
1. For an American citizen by birth who doesn't have a passport or other form of id, a certified birth certificate, social security card, and the presence of a parent or legal guardian with proof, along with proof of the parent or legal guardian's identity and citizenship. If the person's parent or legal guardian is deceased proof will be required. For legal guardians proof of custody is required. This means we can verify that they are an American citizen (social security number) their relation to their parents, and that their parents are who they say they are. It will be verified that the individual has not acquired a form of ID before. This would be extremely difficult to hack.  
2. For a naturalized American citizen, a naturalization certificate, social security card, and picture identification from when they immigrated would be required. New immigrants will have access to receive a passport as soon they have their immigration ceremony which will be provided immediately free of charge. This will make their lives easier.
5. For employment verification, the following should be sufficient. I have been a private investigator since January, and have been studying more about this issue since it has to do with my work. The following procedure or something very similar should be standard practice for employers to verify information
1. A social security number to verify that the person is legal to work here.
2. Picture identification that can be verified. This is why my third point here is saying there needs to be a way to verify a passport online for employers. Passports are the most standard form of identification in this country and since they are issued by the federal government are recognized throughout the world. A driver's license is good, but since different states have different licenses, an employer in Oregon who sees a driver's license claiming to be from Arkansas will probably have absolutely no idea what an Arkansas driver's license looks like. It is very easy to purchase machines that will print plastic cards. The embossing and engraving can be done, though it adds an extra hurdle. The driver's license would have to be verified of course, but using a passport would be the easiest way to tell at a glance, since they have a standard design and are issued nationwide, and as soon as we are able to verify them online through the State Department, they will be my preferred method of proving citizenship.

Most of the rest of this bill on a glance looks very reasonable, with the DREAM ACT and a farm worker visa which will cut back on an immense amount of abuse that currently goes on this country towards farm workers. But I find it particularly disturbing that there is no way to verify that someone has a passport through the Department of State, and that they think making biometric social security cards will make a real difference. Social security cards are not and should not be photo id, they should be designed to last a lifetime, and limiting the amount of replacement cards won't have a real effect on cutting down on fraud as long as employers know to verify their social security number and are able to verify their ID. Passports are the most universal form of identification and need to be able to be verified through the State Department. This is a major flaw in the current system the US has for verifying identity and needs to be fixed.

Euromyth 1: Agriculture

I was just reading an article on the BBC where an Austrian economist (think Creationist Biologist) was saying how the Euro was never going to work because the economies of north and south are so terribly different, because the north is industrial and the south is agricultural. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22366082

This may have been true when he was a child, but today is no longer completely accurate. Sure, southern Europe does have a larger percentage of the economy involved in agriculture than northern Europe, and if you look at Italy this is clearly the case. There are fewer large cities in Southern Europe and they have smaller incomes than Northern Europe.

If you look at a list of countries by the percent of the economy engaged in agriculture, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_agricultural_output one will very easily see how this is so very not true, and that Greece, Spain and Italy which are the hardest hit by austerity have a smaller percentage of their economy dedicated to agriculture than Denmark, and just glancing at the numbers one finds there is absolutely no correlation (let alone causation) between agricultural output and GDP growth among highly developed nations.

More to come as they come out of the Anti-European wing of economic thought, if one can call it thought when it is consistently so clearly contrary to the measured facts.

Republicans and Benghazi

So, the Republicans are trying to turn Benghazi into the next Watergate and make it into a huge scandal that will prevent Obama from being popular and Clinton from getting elected with their terrible leadership.

Why don't we focus on this photograph on the Republican's historically successful leadership as this 2003 photograph points out?

Solve AMTRAK's problems

AMTRAK has several serious problems with it. The largest collection is that the trains are never filled, the tickets are overpriced, and they don't run on time.

I took the train today, and it was the best ride I have ever had on AMTRAK. The problem was that the train got to the station too early. I arrived around 30 minutes early to my planned destination. The train was going from point to point without a single unscheduled stop due to freight, the first time this has ever happened and I've rode about 5 round trips from my original destination. This is due to the train automatically correcting for being held up by freight trains. People were missing the train due to it being early, and it didn't self correct which is not acceptable. The Wifi was excellent, food was reasonably priced, but I hate to think of how many people missed the train due to it not being on time. When it comes to transportation there is only one appropriate time, which is ON TIME. It is better to leave a minute late than to leave a minute early because you will miss passengers if you leave early, while if you leave late you will only have annoyed passengers.

Last weekend I took Greyhound and it was about half an hour late to the station. Granted, it was a cross-country route and I was close to the end of its route, but still, there need to be some serious changes in how mass transit operates in this country.

So, what are the solutions to these problems?

1. Give AMTRAK priority on our railways. AMTRAK needs to have reliability and speed which will come through requiring freight to wait for AMTRAK to pass, because passenger trains are (or should be) faster than freight given how they are smaller and have better acceleration.
2. AMTRAK needs to follow its schedule precisely, and by not correcting for early arrivals at stations, people miss the train. If the train waits at the station, so be it.
3. There need to be bypasses past train stops so that no one will be held up in the possible event that one train is stopped but another train doesn't have to stop at a station.
4. The prices for AMTRAK need to be set as if the train was going to be filled, because it is a very expensive mode of transportation currently. By doing this they will be more likely to fill, by simple supply vs. demand curves.

This needs to be advertised so people will try riding AMTRAK and find that it is more convenient than riding a car.

Fortunately, this is starting to happen with new trains that will make AMTRAK an even better system. http://www.komonews.com/living/travel-outdoors/Amtrak-unveils-locomotives-to-replace-aging-fleet-207223011.html

The future looks bright.

The Future of Strauss-Howe

The Strauss-Howe Generational Theory is one of my favorite theories in history. It hypothesizes that America's history flows in cycles, and the dominant attitudes of generations are effected by those cycles. It was hypothesized in the 1990s and it predicted a crisis starting between 2005 and 2010 following an identified pattern, and it was correct on that count.

First, I think it will continue over the next 130 years, which means the rest of my life, and everyone reading it unless my blog is read in a hundred years, will follow this theory.

• 2005-2025: Crisis, unemployment, reform of the financial industry, revolutions abroad, immigration reform, environment, government reform.
• 2025-2045: High, high employment, economic stability.
• 2045-2065: Awakening, due to the amount of oil left in the ground an environmental awakening takes place. People notice changes in climate which makes the environmental movement gain ground.
• 2065-2085: Unraveling, oil starts to rise in price and people panic.
• 2085-2105: Crisis, the global oil supply runs out and our infrastructure can't handle the lack of oil available. New energy sources are developed and implemented.
• 2105-2125: High, creation of a sustainable economy, America has energy independence.
• 2125-2145: Awakening, I don't know what will happen at this point, it is too far in the future to predict. Anything is possible.

Given the money in politics and the large number of people who deny the scientific evidence, large scale action from governments to fight climate change seems unlikely to me. In fifty years it is going to be very clear that oil is not sustainable, and we need alternatives imminently. Unfortunately it will be too late to avoid a crisis which will exist when I and other people of my generation are dying and our children are retiring. My grandchildren and great-grandchildren's generations who will be born in about 55-60 years will be the hardest hit.

The awakening in the early 22nd century could be (if many science fiction stories like Star Trek were right) could be the discovery of economically and demographically useful space travel. If this happens than it will be a gigantic awakening in terms of our relationship with the Universe. In this future the unraveling from 2165-2185 will be due to

This post brought to you by the stimulating music of Joly Braga Santos who defeated a three day blogger's block.

Also, Time predicts that my generation (Millenials) are the new greatest generation, which is amazing because that is exactly what Strauss-Howe predicted. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2143001,00.html

If corporations are people...

I just saw a post by Robert Reich that said the following:
"If the Supreme Court and most regressives insist big American corporations are people that deserve to be treated as American citizens – given tax breaks and subsidies, along with the right to make unlimited political contributions -- why shouldn’t those corporations take a pledge of allegiance to the United States? I’m thinking of a voluntary pledge so American consumers can at least know which companies that enjoy the benefits of American citizenship act like American citizens, and can boycott those that don’t.

Something like this:

Our Corporation Pledges Allegiance to the United States of America: We will create more jobs in the U.S. than we create outside the U.S. No more than 20 percent of our total labor costs will be outsourced abroad. If we have to lay off American workers when we’re profitable we will give them severance payments equal to their weekly wage times the number of months they’ve worked for us. No executive will be paid more than 50 times the median pay of American workers. We will pay at least 30 percent of what we earn in the U.S. in taxes in the U.S. We will not use our money to influence elections.

What do you think? Want to get behind this?"

While this isn't a bad idea, I have a proposal that is more in line with the saying "corporations are people too" and even more damning for why corporations shouldn't be treated as people.

1. If a corporation is foreign and is going to operate in this country for a specific amount of time based on where it is based, it will have to pay for the appropriate visa. If a foreign corporation decides to buy an American corporation it will have to pay the appropriate visa, otherwise it would just be unfair. This is one example where it is easy to see how different corporations and people are.
2. Corporate income should be taxed as individual income, because they are people. This will mean that they will get all the same deductions and tax rates as an individual as opposed to the rate of 15% to 35%, which will then range from 10% to 39.6%, and every large corporation will pay 39.59999% because they will make well into that range. As American citizens, they will be required to pay on their global income, not just domestic. Since most of the deductions won't apply to them, they won't have many to take. This is a bad deal for businesses.
3. Corporations should be able to vote since they are people! (this is a bad idea)

Let's keep defining companies and people differently, and instead of blaming decisions on the corporation blame it on the responsible parties. Claiming that corporations are people is an absurd assumption. Let's make our elections publicly run and publicly financed to avoid corruption and if a company wants to get a grant it will have to apply and the company that gives the best bang per buck will get the job if it is a job that will last less than a year.

How to look at big numbers

So, when it comes to budgets, people often label them in the billions or trillions of dollars. This is accurate, but needs to be taken into comparison. People often cringe when they hear of the government spending money on a social project that makes our country better, whether it is transportation, education, or health care. While the total cost is right it needs to be taken into account how much money is being spent per capita. If the government of Los Angeles county is spending $50 million on a new project to expand their mass transit, people need to ask the question “how much will the average person's tax bill be raised?” instead of immediately jumping to the conclusion that it is too much money. If you took the people of Los Angeles investing $50 million in a new transportation network per year over 10 years you would be spending $12.50 per capita per year on the project. $12.50 seems like a reasonable cost for getting rid of congestion and other problems that plague Los Angeles. Looking at it this way makes it seem a lot more reasonable.

Another way to look at it would be how much per household is being spent on a project. If Los Angeles had an average of 3 people per household, than that would mean that $50 million project would have a per household cost of $37.50. Taking these two comparisons together can bring the millions, billions, and even trillions into numbers that people can understand, and make it seem more reasonable. Also, $50 million dollars is 1/1000 of Warren Buffett's wealth.

This would mean that the United States deficit (not debt) this year is $2,907 per capita. The government collected $9,361 per capita in taxes this year. Government spending then is $12,268 per capita, less than the cost of living by pretty much any measure. When the upper class invests their money in stocks and pay 20% taxes on those as opposed to the 39.6% they would pay if capital gains were treated as regular income, the solution to our deficit becomes obvious. For comparison, the government spends $2,150 on defense per capita. If we spent as much as China on defense we would spend around $322 per capita on defense. NASA gets $57 per capita. Social Security is $2,847 per capita. Long attacked AMTRAK funding is $4.70 per capita.

Another way would be to find the number of taxpayers (using income tax) and then find the average taxpayer burden, and the numbers will be larger, but more accurate depending on what you are looking for.

So, next time you hear the talking heads on (mostly) the right talk about how much the government spends, keep in mind how much they are spending per person and it won't seem so unbelievably large.