Finally!

This blogger has long been skeptical re the "how come we (i.e. the U.S.) don't just use the Israeli airport security model" meme, pointing out that it is not at all clear if it is really possible to scale up to the extent necessary e.g. see the 'Worth repeating?' blog entry from December 2009.

Well, FP's 'What would it cost for the U.S. to get Israel-level airport security?' attempts to do the math, albeit rather roughly. However, it does show the difficulties involved, and the numbers derived are large enough to cast doubt on the viability of the meme, for example:

"According to an analysis by Bloomberg News, Israel spends around 10 times more per passenger than the United States does. "[An analyst] estimated El Al's security bill at $100 million a year, which amounts to $76.92 per trip by its 1.3 million passengers. Half is paid by the Israeli government," Peter Robison wrote. The United States, in comparison, spent in 2008 $5.74 billion to monitor and protect 735,297,000 enplanements, or around $7.80 a passenger ..."

"Well, for one, the United States would need a whole lot more security guards -- at least according to my back-of-the-envelope math. Say each passenger flying through a U.S. airport received on average 10 minutes of questioning from one guard. That would work out to 7.35 billion minutes, or 123 million hours, of work annually. We'd need 3 million full-time guards to perform it. That's 200,000 more people than the total number of active and reserve military personnel, and twice the number of U.S. Wal-Mart employees. It would cost somewhere north of $150 billion a year ..."

"Working the math out another way, let's say that the U.S. decided to spend as much per passenger as Israel does, according to the Bloomberg analysis. We'd then pour around $62.2 billion a year into airport security -- more than 10 times what we currently spend on airport security, and about as much as we spent fighting the war in Afghanistan last year ..."

Random charts...

Source: Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform Study that "... uses a computable general equilibrium model to estimate the economic ramifications of three different scenarios: 1) comprehensive immigration reform that creates a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants in the United States and establishes flexible limits on permanent and temporary immigration that respond to changes in U.S. labor demand in the future; 2) a program for temporary workers only that does not include a pathway to permanent status or more flexible legal limits on permanent immigration in the future; and, 3) mass deportation to expel all unauthorized immigrants and effectively seal the U.S.-Mexico border. The model shows that comprehensive immigration reform produces the greatest economic benefits..." so that "Legalizing the nation’s unauthorized workers and putting new legal limits on immigration that rise and fall with U.S. labor demand would help lay the foundation for robust, just, and widespread economic growth."

Bomb - explosive, firearm, and WMD

An indictment has been returned against Flight 253 "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab... He is charged with six counts:

1. The attempted use of a WMD.
2. The attempted murder of 289 individuals ("within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the U.S.")
3. A willful attempt to destroy and wreck an aircraft.
4. Willfully placing a destructive device on an airplane that would be likely to endanger its safety.
5. That he "knowingly used and carried a firearm" in furtherance of one or more crimes of violence, and,
6. That he "knowingly possessed a firearm" in furtherance of one or more crimes of violence.

.... all of which he will be found guilty of and put away for a very long time. Per the law his bomb is considered an explosive device, a firearm, and also a weapon of mass destruction. As observed in the April 2008 blog entry, 'WMD ain't what they used to be...', the term "WMD" is cheapened by its promiscuous and indiscriminate use...

A day of mourning

The September 5th blog entry, 'All about Smith Dodd', noted that the web site of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs appeared to be a paean to that illustrious legislator, that 'friend of the everyman', the one who selflessly sacrificed himself to bear the entire burden of effort while surrounded by 21 ciphers... Senator Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT).

Alas, alack, woe is us! Today this colossus dashed our hopes and threw the country into the slough of despond by announcing that he will not run for re-election... After some thirty years of selfless and dedicated service this Titan will be departing the scene... Truly a day to mourn!

Great quotes

"Importantly, we see no serious broad spillover to banks or thrift institutions from the problems in the subprime market. The troubled lenders, for the most part, have not been institutions with federally insured deposits."- Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve. This in May 2007...

Fast forward to 2009... Bernanke named TIME's Man of The Year because "... his creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression, and he still wields unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future. The decisions he has made, and those he has yet to make, will shape the path of our prosperity, the direction of our politics and our relationship to the world..."

Great quotes

“I’d rather, in the interest of protecting people, overreact rather than under-react.” Gem from Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Homeland Security for Grown-Ups

Random chart

Source: Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers