Author: R J Adams

General Electric is the 26th largest firm in the US and the 14th most profitable. So why can’t they make light bulbs that work?

In May this year I purchased six double packs of their ninety watt outdoor halogen bulbs for use in my security lights.

According to the pack, these bulbs will last 1.4 years. Then, the small print states that the figure is based on a usage of three hrs/day. Obviously, then, that figure won’t apply if the lights are used at night. This I found to be perfectly correct. My lights were used for six hrs/night through the summer. All twelve bulbs purchased in May are now defunct.

Given that my bulbs were on twice as long as recommended by GE, they should have lasted 1.4/2 = 0.70 years. That’s slightly less than nine months. All my twelve bulbs gave up the ghost within five months. Some lasted less than three.

“Ah, those bloody Chinese,” is the obvious response. Until one reads the pack blurb: “Assembled in the USA”. But, is that the same as “Made in the USA”? No, it just means the Chinese bits were shipped here for assembly.

One would think, given the size of the company, that by now GE would have learned how to make light bulbs.

Still, it’s only a bulb. I can always go out and buy another.

Have you noticed how Fukushima is decidedly out of the news right now? Remember the Japanese earthquake/tsunami of March 2011 that devastated whole communities, and took out six nuclear power plants that continue to pour highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean? It wouldn’t be surprising if you’d forgotten. The US media appears to have amnesia over the whole subject.

Which is all rather strange considering the United Nations and half the world’s atomic scientists are all rushing out to buy anti-diarrhea medicines because of it. You see, the problem with Fukushima’s six nuclear reactors is that they were badly designed in the first place. Reactor 4 is particularly critical right now. It houses about 1,300 fuel rods that, if they’re not removed safely, will cause a nuclear event roughly fourteen hundred times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.^[1]

Reuters:

“The No. 4 unit was not operating at the time of the accident, so its fuel had been moved to the pool from the reactor, and if you calculate the amount of cesium 137 in the pool, the amount is equivalent to 14,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs,” said Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute.

“They are going to have difficulty in removing a significant number of the rods,” said Arnie Gundersen, a veteran U.S. nuclear engineer and director of Fairewinds Energy Education, who used to build fuel assemblies.

Spent fuel rods also contain plutonium, one of the most toxic substances in the universe, that gets formed during the later stages of a reactor core’s operation…”There is a risk of an inadvertent criticality if the bundles are distorted and get too close to each other,” Gundersen said.

He was referring to an atomic chain reaction that left unchecked could result in a large release of radiation and heat that the fuel pool cooling system isn’t designed to absorb.

“The problem with a fuel pool criticality is that you can’t stop it. There are no control rods to control it,” Gundersen said. “The spent fuel pool cooling system is designed only to remove decay heat, not heat from an ongoing nuclear reaction.”^[2]

One major problem for the Japanese is that the pool housing these rods is over one hundred feet off the ground, and that ground is unstable, making the building prone to collapse. It’s vital those fuel rods are removed, and TEPCO, the Japanese company that owns the Fukushima plant, has stated it will begin removal next month.

There’s a problem with that. Normally, rods are removed using computer technology. They’re very close together, and it’s vital they do not touch or it could spark an unstoppable nuclear reaction. Even using computers, the process can take many months. TEPCO will be attempting to do the job manually.

One eminent western atomic scientist has already decided to move her family to the southern hemisphere, if it all goes wrong.^[3]

Meanwhile, world opinion is forcing the United Nations to put pressure on Japan to allow an international team of scientists into the site to assist with this highly delicate task.

Given that the prevailing trade winds across the Pacific carry anything the Japanese eject into the atmosphere straight onto America’s western coastline, one can only hope they’re successful. So far, the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is in no hurry to cooperate, and TEPCO have proved decidedly ham-fisted in their approach to the problem.

As stated earlier, the removal of the fuel rods is complicated by the unduly bad design of the nuclear plant. Had the building housing the rod pool been on the ground it would be less susceptible to further earthquakes, or the gradually encroaching mud that is causing the building to sink further on its foundations.

So, who can we hold responsible for designing this ‘catastrophe waiting to happen’? Is it another example of that cheap Japanese rubbish they tried to parm us off with in the sixties?

Well, no. Actually, all six Fukushima plants were designed and built by the General Electric Corporation of America, otherwise known as GE.

Remember them? The company that can’t even make a decent light bulb?

Still, it’s only a planet. We can always go out and buy another.

^{[1] “Humankind’s Most Dangerous Moment: Fukushima Fuel Pool at Unit 4. “This is an Issue of Human Survival.” Global Research, September 20th 2013}

^{[2] “Insight: After disaster, the deadliest part of Japan’s nuclear clean-up” Reuters, August 13th 2013}

^{[3] “Caldicott: If Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 collapses I am evacuating my family from Boston (VIDEO)” ENENEWS (Energy News) April 2nd 2012}

Yes, I know, this is supposed to be a blog by a foreigner living in America and I’m not supposed to comment on British subjects that Americans know nothing about. But the only reason they know nothing about anything outside their own borders is because the bloody US media ignore it – unless, in some way, US citizens are involved.

Actually, British life – and particularly political life – is so similar to the US way, that ‘not knowing’ really doesn’t matter too much. So, US citizens, just assume I’m discussing Washington, and replace the name of Cameron with Obama, and you won’t go far wrong.

It’s just so typical of the man. He wants to celebrate the centenary of the First World War. Now, I appreciate that this could prove confusing for my American readers. Why, they ask, is this relevant when the centenary of WW1 is still four years away?

(NOTE: for American readers, WW1 actually began in 1914. You were just a bit late arriving).

Yes, Cameron, apparently wants to see a:

“…commemoration that, like the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, says something about who we are as a people.”

Or, put another way, he’d like the British to be viewed as the sort of people who compare the suffering and deaths of twenty million slaughtered individuals with our monarch’s glorious sixty year reign.

Why it is that the British people insist on voting into office a load of rich public school (that’s ‘private school’ for our US readers) wallahs who’ve never done a day’s work in their lives and have no clue what it means to be ‘working class’ – (I did say British life is becoming closer to the US way, didn’t I?) – is quite beyond me.

David Cameron has no more qualification to lead a government than the Archbishop of Canterbury had to organize the Welsh national rugby team’s victory piss-up after winning the Triple Crown last year.

The man is a total jackass. So much so that one of the BBC’s oldest and most revered news presenters, Jeremy Paxman…

…took umbrage over Cameron’s comparison and told the BBC that:

…not to acknowledge the war’s significance would be wilful myopia”, but that “the whole catastrophe has been overlain with myth and legend”…

…the [Diamond] Jubilee was “an excuse for a knees-up in the rain to celebrate the happy fact that our national identity is expressed through a family rather than some politician who wants the job to gratify his vanity”.

“A number of distinguished fellow citizens, like the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and the thoughtful musician Brian Eno, are worried that the events will turn into a celebration of war. Only a moron would ‘celebrate’ the war,” he added.

Thank you, Jeremy, for those few words of common sense. It’s nice to know I’m not the only human being alive who considers David Cameron to be a complete and utter moron. It seems the British media can still speak its mind occasionally.

Which is, of course, one area where Britain and America continue to remain dissimilar.

^{[1] “Jeremy Paxman criticises David Cameron’s WWI comments” BBC, October 8th 2013}

Since I came to America ten years ago the cost of healthcare has appalled me. Every doctor visit, every hospital outpatient appointment, not to leave out the horrendous bills for in-patient procedures, results in insurance co-pays amounting to thousands of dollars a year, even for those “well insured”.

You wait with dread for the insurance company’s form to arrive stating the total cost of the medical bill, the amount the company will pay, and the amount outstanding (the co-pay) that is your responsibility. Inevitably, this is closely followed by the hospital/doctor bill demanding payment forthwith.

It’s always been my habit to check the medical bill with the insurance form to ensure the figures coincide, before stapling both together and instructing our bank to pay the outstanding amount.

The Marquette General Health Service, our local provider, has always given good service. Then it sold out. Duke Lifepoint was a relatively small operator when it bought MGHS in September 2012 for $132.7 million. Not a bad bargain for a 276 bed hospital with a host of ancillary departments, including a number of doctor’s offices and a pristine medical center.^[1]

At that time the Tennessee-based Duke Lifepoint, financed by hedge funds, had purchased three other hospitals: the 102-bed Maria Parham Medical Center in Henderson, N.C., an even smaller 50-bed Person Memorial Hospital in Roxboro, N.C., and the 86-bed Twin County Regional Healthcare in Galax, Va..

But it was, according to ‘Modern Healthcare’:

…the July deal for 276-bed Marquette General that was a turning point for the joint venture—signaling its intention to be not only a regional health network, but also a national one, where potentially every region of the country is ripe with targets.

Leif Murphy, executive vice president and chief development officer at LifePoint, said the joint venture has a list of 50 “perfect candidates” to pursue, which he described as having a reputation for quality but in need of additional capital to meet the demands for technology and clinical upgrades. Duke LifePoint, he said, is focusing on hospitals in the southeast region stretching as far as eastern Tennessee and South Carolina, but also major acute-care hospitals that could be located anywhere…”^[2]

That was twelve months ago. Shortly after the takeover my wife developed a serious condition in her right eye. It was the weekend. We rushed to the emergency room. Eventually, she was seen by a doctor, given treatment, and we went to leave. Our passage was blocked by a woman behind a desk in the foyer.

“You have a co-pay of $250,” she rasped, somewhat abruptly.

Rather taken aback, I responded, “We’ll pay it when the bill arrives.”

“You have to pay it now!” she snapped, “It’s expected that you pay before you leave.”

To be brief, I told the good lady we wouldn’t be paying ‘now’, and that we’d await confirmation of the co-pay from the insurance company before handing over a penny. With that, we left.

When the insurance documents eventually arrived, the co-pay was $175, not $250 as she’d stipulated.

Some months later I made a routine visit to our doctor’s office. As I was about to leave, the receptionist informed me I was expected to pay a $20 co-pay. On querying this, she told me “they” wanted co-pays to be paid before the patient left the office.

“Then ‘THEY’ need to learn a hard lesson,” I said, “that ‘THEY’ don’t always get what they want in life.” I left, keeping my credit card in my pocket.

Since this incident I’ve spoken to some of the staff at the Marquette General Hospital. While Duke Lifepoint’s website is smothered in images of ecstatically happy doctors and nurses, on balance, I found those at Marquette were somewhat unhappy. It seems Duke Lifepoint is cutting lots of corners to save money. Equipment is being replaced with inferior quality products; staff morale is sinking fast.

Perhaps the most disturbing comment I heard was that credit card readers were being taken around the wards and sick patients coerced into paying co-pays even before they were discharged.

Of course, its only hearsay. But I doubt nurses and medical professionals would have any reason to state this if it were not true. Duke Lifepoint, it seems, despite the sickly sweet rhetoric of its website, has only one thing on its mind: money. Not that Lifepoint’s CEO has to worry too much on that score. His annual income last year was just under $9,000,000.^[3]

Patients; caring quality healthcare; basic humanity, are all way down Duke Lifepoint’s list, if they’re on it at all.

‘Modern Healthcare’, again:

Durham, N.C.-based Duke [University Medical Center] launched its joint venture with publicly traded LifePoint Hospitals, Brentwood, Tenn., in January 2011 with the acquisition of 102-bed Maria Parham Medical Center, Henderson, N.C…Duke LifePoint marked the start of an aggressive, nationwide expansion strategy for the two-year-old joint venture when it clinched a deal to acquire a hospital on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The addition of Marquette (Mich.) General Health System, 1,100 miles from Duke University Medical Center— which holds a small stake and brings its name and clinical expertise to the venture — also will test whether a university health system could play on the same turf as its investor-owned peers.

Partnerships among for-profit and not-for-profit systems are nothing new — nor is it unusual for an academic medical center to forge clinical affiliations with hospitals hundreds of miles away. But groups such as the Mayo Clinic Care Network, which was launched in 2011 and now has 12 members, are about extending expertise on clinical matters, not ownership…

…LifePoint CEO Bill Carpenter declined to quantify how many deals he expects to pursue this year, but noted that LifePoint has acquired $500 million in new revenue from the joint venture’s four buys with the potential to continue on that scale…”

Is this the bleak future for US healthcare? How long before the doctor’s office receptionist is replaced by a card reader and computer screen on the waiting room wall? Insert your credit card, pay your money, or, sorry, the doctor won’t be available to you this morning.

My last post dealt with the corporate takeover of government. What we, in Marquette, are seeing is the early result of that takeover.

Believe me, it will get worse.

^{[1] “Duke Lifepoint” (For more of the sickly sweet rhetoric)}

^{[2] “Modern Healthcare” January 12th 2013}

^{[3] “Salary.Com” Mister William F Carpenter the Third’s tidy little stash for 2012.}