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CNN Money reports in "Retired Truck Drivers Could See Their Pension Checks Cut in Half" that:
"Retiree Bill Hendershot stands to lose $2,104 a month if his pension fund gets its way.
"The Central States Pension Fund is pursuing a plan that would slash pension checks in half for some former union truck drivers. The fund is on the brink of insolvency and says it needs to cut benefits for 273,000 current and future retirees in order to stay afloat."
According to Hendershot,
"This is going to be rough. It's quite likely that I'll have to try to find some work. But who's going to hire a 74-year-old?"
Previously, retirees would have been protected from these cuts. But a controversial law passed last December changed the rules of the game to allow multi-employer pension funds to reduce benefits if they are projected to run out of money. According to CNN Money, "A lot of these funds–which cover more than 10 million workers–are in financial trouble."
There are two lines of argument here. The retirees can argue that their former employers and/or their current pension funds have a moral obligation to pay whatever was promised, no matter what.
On the other hand, there is the reality-based argument that "What can't be paid, won't be paid." If previous employers and/or current pension funds are already bankrupt or nearly broke, court orders compelling them to pay the impossible will have no effect other than to bankrupt and destroy whichever firms or funds are deemed liable to make good on the pensions. In the end, before the courts rule on who is liable to pay pension and how they're liable to pay, they'll have to first ask: 1) Are the retirees better off with 50% (or less) of whatever was promised?; and 2) Are retirees better off demanding 100% of what was promised and thereby bankrupting the pension funds, and getting nothing?
Whether the court will rule in the next case that the pension funds must somehow pay off 100% of whatever was promised remains to be seen. But, however the courts might rule in the next few months, it's going to become quickly apparent that reality will overrule any of the judiciary's wishful thinking.
As I've warned and argued for most of five years, What Can't Be Paid, Won't Be Paid. The pension funds cannot pay out money that they don't have and aren't likely to get any time soon.
"The Central States Pension Fund covers workers and retirees from more than 1,500 companies across a range of industries including trucking, construction and even Disneyland workers. Truck drivers once made up a majority of participants, and are now a majority of those facing cuts. A lot of their companies went bankrupt after the industry was deregulated in the 1980s, which is a big reason why the fund is in trouble now. It has five retirees for every active worker."
Interesting. They're arguing that the primary cause of today's retired truckers' pension problems were the deregulation laws of the 1980s that drove many trucking companies into bankruptcy. It may be that such deregulation brought on more competition, slimmer profit margins for trucking firms, and created a new economic arena in which old-time trucking firms (that relied on government regulation to protect them from competition) went broke.
In other words, the government passed laws in the 1980s that increased competition, eventually drove some trucking firms out of business and thereby helped cripple pension plans 30 years later.
Assuming that chain of events is true, I'm reminded that the government has more recently passed a series of "free trade" treaties which can be expected to increase global competition (at least for laborers and employees). Do you suppose that the enhanced competition spawned by global free trade will drive a number of US corporations and industries out of business? Do you suppose that these corporate bankruptcies will further compromise the pensions promised to current employees?
I do.
All of which brings me back to my five-year mantra: "What can't be paid, won't be paid."
If you are willing to trust your retirement to some corporation, pension fund or even government, good luck with that. Twenty years from now, some of your corporations will still be in business. Some of today's pension funds will still be solvent. Some of the retirement accounts owned and operated by government will still pay out as promised. But most of the corporations, pension funds, and even governmental agencies will be insolvent and unable to keep whatever pension promises they'd previously made.
Hard lesson? If you want to ever retire with enough wealth to live even modestly, you can't trust the promises of corporations, pension funds or government. You'd better figure out a way to save whatever wealth you're going to need, on your own.
• We see that the pension debt owed to some truckers won't be paid, and we say "Well, that's too bad—but why should I care? I'm not a trucker."
We see that the debts owed by the City of Detroit to some of its former employees and creditors won't be paid, and we say, "Gee, that's too bad—but why should I care? I never worked for Detroit."
We see that the state of Illinois is virtually bankrupt and we say, "Golly, that's awful—but why should I care? I don't live in Illinois, I didn't work for Illinois, and I'm not a creditor for Illinois."
Well, we should care because we're living at a time when, while each of these debt defaults may seem like isolated events, they are actually "dots" that can be connected to illuminate a growing reality and a pattern that threatens us all:
First, what can't be paid, won't be paid.
Second, despite what central banks and governments would have you believe, a promise to pay is not a payment. A "promise to pay" is only a debt. A written "promise to pay" is a debt-instrument. A debt-instrument isn't really an asset. If you are accepting paper promises-to-pay as "payments," you have not been paid. You've only received an IOU, regardless of whether it was signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, your local bank or your employer. You have not been "paid" until you've converted those paper promises-to-pay into tangible goods or meaningful services provided by the same entity that issued and signed the "promise to pay".
Third, right now, private, national and even global debts are so enormous that it's all but certain that at least 50% of the debt will be repudiated, and there's a high probability that 80% to 90% of the total debt will be repudiated.
That repudiated debt will include the governmental/"sovereign" debt of most nations' governments—including the US. It'll include most US bonds, most municipal bonds, most stocks, most pension funds, and most bank accounts—including yours.
When your bank repudiates the debt they owe you in "your" bank account, you will scream and shout that, "You can't do that! I'm a depositor! My funds are guaranteed by the FDIC!!!"
And people will read about your plight in the newspaper and they'll say, "Gee, that's too bad—but why should I care? I don't have any money in that bank."
At which point, you might learn a lesson. You might remember when you asked "Why should I care" when the trucker's pension was repudiated, Detroit went bankrupt, and Illinois became insolvent?
You might've (and should've) cared to the extent that those debt repudiations were among the first signs that most of the existing debt was going to be repudiated in the near future. Seeing those seemingly isolated events as repeated, and connected warnings, you might've cared enough to take whatever wealth you'd saved in the medium of paper debt-based monetary instruments and converted that wealth into real, tangible assets like land, tools, guns, bullets silver and gold that could not be "disappeared" when most of the world's paper and digital debt-instruments are finally repudiated.
• Most people who read this article will fail to understand it. In the end, I'm warning people that anything that we regard as wealth that's made of paper is not a "payment" but is only a "promise to pay". It's not easy for most people to understand the distinction between payments (something received that's tangible) and promises to pay (something given that's intangible or made of paper and is nothing but an IOU/debt).
If you can't grasp the difference between a "payment" and a "promise to pay," you're headed for poverty and financial ruin.
Q: Why is it that most of our modern private, national and global debts can't and therefore won't be paid.
A: Because the vast majority of modern debt is nothing but promises to pay. It's like me giving you a check for $10,000 when I have nothing in my bank account. That check is nothing but an empty promise to pay. I could just as easily write you a check for $100,000 or $1,000,000 ore even $1,000,000,000. They are all equally empty, worthless, promises to pay.
The point is that, while it's hard for me to actually pay my debts with something tangible like a car, a home, gold or silver–it's incredibly easy for the to appear to pay my debts by just writing a paper promise-to-pay that we call a "check". In fact, I can live large so long as everyone will accept my paper "promises to pay" as if they were payments.
Of course, virtually everyone is wise enough to accept my $10,000 check with caution and to absolutely refuse to accept any check of mine for $100,000 or more.
But what about checks (promises to pay) issued by our government, Federal Reserve, or too-big-to-fail banks like JPMorgan? Are we also wise enough to treat those promises to pay with caution? Are we wise enough to recognize the "promises to pay" that've been issued by major institutions are intrinsically worthless and therefore are not "payments"?
No–we are not. About 99.9% of the American people have no idea of what I'm talking about. And, based on the public's general ignorance and/or general lack of intelligence, they are going to wind up impoverished and scrambling to survive. Even in the midst of their calamity, 90% of 'em probably still won't really understand the difference between payments and promises to pay or even understand why their survival, their very survival, may depend on grasping that distinction.
Our major institutions gave us promises rather than payments. They were able to write an endless stream of paper promises-to-pay just as easily as I could write a check for $1 billion. But, unlike me, they were never called on to redeem their paper-promises-to-pay. Result? The government, the Federal Reserve, and the major corporations have been able to thereby buy our homes, cars, land, government with nothing but paper IOUs!!!
Do you get that? Do you understand?!
Most of us have pissed away our effort, our work,our creativity and our lives working for the federal government and the Federal Reserve in return for nothing but promises-to-pay (debt instruments). These promises-to-pay are in the form of pieces of paper (and more recently electronic (digital) 1's and 0's on somebody's hard drive) that are functionally and intrinsically.indistinguishable from Monopoly Money.
• Let me prove my point.
Historically, if a bank or the government issued a paper dollar the bank/government that issued that paper debt-instrument was required to redeem it by giving a mass of physical gold or silver to whoever held the paper dollar(s). That physical gold or silver had to come from the account of the bank and/or government that issued the paper debt-instrument.
The idea that the bank or government that issued a paper dollar (promise to pay, IOU) must redeem that paper dollar with gold or silver from the bank's/government's own account is virtually identical to modern checking account principles. If I issue a check (paper promise to pay; IOU) for $10,000 should it be redeemed by charging it to the account of Janet Yellen, Barack Obama or you, dear reader? Or should my check be redeemable only when charged to my personal checking account?
The answer's obvious: the checks I write and sign must be redeemable against whatever funds I've deposited into my checking account. I give you a check for $10,000; you deposit my check into your bank account; your bank sends/charges my check to my bank which deducts $10,000 from my checking account and sends it back to your account. When you received $10,000 from my checking account, you are figuratively "paid". Until that event, all the rest of deposits and transfers are nothing more than promises to pay.
Now, consider the Federal Reserve that issues the Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) that you hold in your wallet. They issue paper debt-instruments that we call "dollars" and "money". They buy things like US bonds with their freshly-minted paper dollars. Those paper dollars wind up in your wallets and mine. If we go to a Federal Reserve Bank and try to redeem those FRNs for anything tangible, we will be politely but firmly rebuffed. By law, the most you can get from a Federal Reserve Bank for a paper $100 FRN is a newer, crisper $100 FRN. That's it.
The FRN issued by a Federal Reserve Bank will never be redeemed by the Federal Reserve Bank that issued it. Nevertheless, each FRN is "legal tender" for all debts, public and private.
Think about that. You are required by law to accept the Federal Reserve's FRNs as "payment" for all debts owed to you, even though the FRN is, by law, not redeemable by the Federal Reserve banks.
Imagine that our government, in its infinite, infallible and benign wisdom, passed another law that declared every check issued by "ALFRED N ADASK" to be "legal tender for all debts, public and private". If I issued a check, you'd be forced by law to accept it as payment for whatever you had for sale, even though you could never redeem my check against my checking account. Suppose you had a car, some acreage, a mansion or a corporate jet for sale. If I offered to buy and pay with one of my checks, you'd have to accept my check, even though you could never redeem it against my checking account. If I had only $1 in my checking account, I could still write checks for $100, for $100,000, for $1 trillion–and everyone in the US would be obligated to accept them.
If I could write checks that people must accept, but never be required to personally redeem them, how long do you suppose it would take me to buy all of Dallas, Texas? All of Texas? All of the United States?
The Federal Reserve issues FRNs that are used to purchase property even though its FRNs are apparently never redeemed against the Federal Reserves account.
That doesn't sound possible, does it?
Well, it happening every day because . . .
• We are fools to accept the Fed's debt instruments (FRNs) as "payments" for our work because they are intrinsically worthless and, by law, can't and won't be redeemed by the Federal Reserve. Nevertheless, even though these promises-to-pay (debt instruments) are not redeemable by the party that issued them, they do "spend".
I may have been a fool to have accepted intrinsically-worthless and irredeemable FRNs (promises to pay) as if they were payments for my work. But if you think I'm a fool, just look at my neighbor–he's an even "greater fool"! That moron is going to take $10,000 in cash (promises to pay) from me from me as if they were a payment for his used pickup truck.
Once I receive his pickup truck, I will have received some tangible good or service that I deem sufficient compensation for the $10,000 in cash I foolishly accepted for my work. That $10,000 will not have been redeemed by the entity (the Federal Reserve) that issued the $10,000 in cash, but it will have been spent to purchase a pickup truck and thereby converted (at least in relation to me) from a "promises to pay" into a tangible "payment".
But note that I am not paid by the Federal Reserve that issued the $10,000 in cash. I was not "paid" by the Fed. But–because I was fortunate enough to find some fool across the street willing to trade his used, but tangible pickup truck for "my" $10,000 cash. But note that the $10,000 is never redeemed by the Fed–it's redeemed (in relation to me) by the fool across the street.
Historically, paper cash had to be redeemed with gold from the account of the bank or government that issued it–remember? And, even today, paper checks have to be redeemed against the account of whoever wrote the check. But ordinary people cannot redeem paper FRNs against the Fed's own account.
So, how do we "redeem" our worthless FRNs? We spend them among ourselves. This is where the "full faith and credit" of the people of the United States comes into play. So long as I remain confident that I can pass that worthless $10,000 off on the fool across the street, and that fool remains confident that he can pass the $10,000 again to some other fool down the block, and that third fool remains confident that he can pass the $10,000 off again to you–the system works.
So long as we remain confident that we can spend the paper and digital debt instruments issued by the Federal Reserve with "greater fools," we don't care, notice or comprehend that our FRNs aren't redeemable by the entity that issued them. So long as we can spend those debt-instruments, that's good enough for just about everyone. We don't notice or care that, because the FRNs aren't redeemable by the Fed, the Fed and/or its owners might acquire fabulous sums of unearned wealth. Likewise, we don't notice or seem to mind that We the People (with our "full faith and credit" a/k/a "greater foolishness") are redeeming the Fed's FRNs. We are merrily redeeming the Fed's debts. We–you and me–are redeeming/paying the Federal Reserves debt/promises-to-pay (FRNs) every time we accept a FRN in return for our labor or property.
• So (as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might say), what difference does it all make?
OK–I played the fool and accepted FRNs (promises to pay issued by the Federal Reserve and/or the federal government) as if they were payments for my work. So what? There were plenty of other "greater fools" willing to accept my worthless $10,000 in FRNs as if they were payments for tangible goods and services. I had virtually no trouble converting those promises-to-pay into a tangible pickup truck (payment) so I'm golden. So long as they spend, why should you or I care that paper debt-instruments (FRNs) are intrinsically worthless?
A: Because the entity that issued the FRNs (Federal Reserve and/or federal government) doesn't have to redeem the FRNs they issued. The Fed and the feds don't have to make good on their "promises to pay".
Suppose I purchased my neighbor's pickup truck with a $10,000 check. Is he "paid" when he accepts my check?
All he has is my personal, signed "promise to pay" $10,000. Figuratively speaking, he's not paid until he's deposited my check/promise-to-pay into his bank which forwards my check to my bank . . . which deducts $10,000 from my account . . . and sends that $10,000 to my neighbor's bank account. Then, when the neighbor receives the $10,000 from my account, he will have been figuratively "paid".
I will have "redeemed" my check (promise to pay) that I wrote and signed with the $10,000 that's deducted from my bank account. I will have thereby personally kept and "redeemed" the $10,000 check/promise-to-pay that I issued.
But suppose that after I issued the $10,000 check/promise-to-pay for the neighbor's pickup truck, the neighbor didn't want to take the trouble to deposit that check into his bank account and instead signed it over to the next neighbor as if it were a "payment" for his bass boat. And then, that next neighbor also failed to deposit my check and signed it over to another neighbor, and then another, etc. etc. The net result would be that my check was being spent by one fool after another–but it would never be redeemed against the personal bank account of the man (me) who issued the check/promise-to-pay. While the fools and greater fools were "spending" my check over and over, I would never have to keep my "promise to pay". My check would never be redeemed against my own account.
Pretty cool, hmm?
I just acquired a pickup truck with nothing but a promise to pay that I never had to keep. I got a pickup truck without paying for it. Is this a great country, or what?
In fact, if I can pass a $10,000 check for a used pickup that's never redeemed at my personal bank account, why couldn't I pass a $75,000 check for a new Cadillac Escalade, and a $1 million check (promise to pay) for the McMansion down the block? In fact, the more checks I pass (but not redeem) the richer I seem to be. The neighborhood's "greater fools" will increasingly value my checks because they'll see my Escalade and McMansion and say, "Gee, look how rich Al is! If he's rich, you know you can trust in, and spend. his checks!" (In Al We Trust, hmm?)
But, in fact, I've been seemingly purchasing all these products, land and homes with irredeemable promises-to-pay. Because none of my checks ever were redeemed against my bank account, I never actually paid for the pickup, the Escalade,and the McManson! I am simply defrauding neighbors–annnnd–miracle of miracles–the more I defraud them, the richer they think I am and the more they are willing to be defrauded.
So long as the public will (increasingly) accept my checks (promises to pay) as spendable (among their neighbors) rather than redeemable (at my bank account), I could purchase my city. I could purchase my county. I could purchase my State and nation and even the world! All I have to do is be careful to maintain public confidence in the idiotic idea that if you bothered to submit any of my checks (mere promises to pay) to my bank account, they could and would be paid with some of my real wealth.
But, if the public ever found out that there was no real wealth in my checking account and understood that none of my checks (promises to pay) could ever be kept/redeemed from my bank account, then my checks would become less "spendable". They'd probably still work for a while. But the pickup truck that I purchased for $10,000 (in my checks) would be priced at $20,000 (in my checks). The Escalade that I purchased for $75,000 (in my checks) would be priced at $200,000 (in my checks). The McMansion I purchased for $500,000 might now cost $3 million. We'd be an an era of inflation or even hyperinflation.
This hyperinflation would be evidence of the public's growing distrust in my ability to keep the "promise-to-pay" that was inherent in every one of my checks. Eventually, the public's confidence in my "promises-to-pay" would diminish to a point where no one would accept my checks (promises-to-pay), the system would collapse under the weight of all of my unpaid and unpayable "promises," and I might have to borrow enough money to pay for an airline ticket to some country that doesn't have an extradition agreement with the United States.
Of course, in realty, no one is dumb enough to take my checks and rely on being able to spend them among the public rather than redeeming them against my bank account. We're no dummies, right? We'd never take some joker's irredeemable promises to pay in hopes of being able to spend them in public rather than redeem them against the joker's bank account, right?
That's exactly what we're doing every day, every hour, every minute that we hold and use Federal Reserve Notes. We don't redeem any of our FRNs issued by the Federal Reserve against the Federal Reserve's bank account. Instead, we are content, to merely spend the Fed's FRNs among ourselves. We the People (a/k/a "we the greater fools") are accepting worthless pieces of paper (promises to pay) rather than real payments (something tangible) in return for our lives and our property.
As a result, we are "selling" our land, our homes, our factories, and even our lives to people and institutions that give us nothing in return but irredeemable pieces of paper.
Result? We are becoming increasingly impoverished. And why not? We're trading our property, our work and our lives for nothing! We the People are so damned dumb that we've been giving our nation away in return for nothing more than "promises to pay"–even though, by law, those promises can never be kept. I.e., the FRNs cannot be redeemed for something value (say, gold or silver) deducted from the bank accounts of the Federal Reserve or the federal government.
Is it any surprise that the federal government is growing bigger every day? Is it any surprise that our liberties are shrinking? Of course the federal government is growing bigger. It never has to redeem it's promises to pay. It can purchase property, people, institutions, foreign countries, by using FRNs that are never really redeemed for tangible wealth against government accounts. (There is one exception; FRNs can be used to pay your taxes. In that regard, your FRNs are "redeemable". But if your tax rate is 20%, 80% of the FRNs you've received in trade for your property, work and life will never been redeemable.)
Just as, in my previous example, I could ultimately own and rule the world if no one ever redeemed my checks against my bank account, but instead just spent my checks–the Federal Reserve and/or federal government could own and rule the world so long as no one tried to redeem FRNs with the Fed or feds. The government has grown gargantuan because it never has to pay its bills out of its own account! It never redeems its promises-to-pay. It lets you and me "redeem" its debts by letting us trade our property, work and lives between each other in return for the gov-co's worthless FRNs.
Result? The nation is going to hell. Its wealth is disappearing. We might soon become a Third World Nation–and almost no one will understand why.
How could this be happening? It's happening because We the People have been the "greatest fools" the world has ever seen. We've trusted our political leaders and the Federal Reserve. Our trust has been betrayed. We've ignored our express constitutional mandate that only gold or silver can be used as a "tender in Payment of Debts". Our ignorance will be rewarded with poverty.
Result? Soon, almost all of us are going to feel the pain currently felt by some retired truck drivers.
What can't be paid, won't be paid. So, don't sit around waiting to be paid. Don't accept promises to pay. Get paid now.
Don't take any wooden nickels and don't hold onto any of their direct offspring–paper dollars–for long.


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Wednesday, September 19, 2007
No "Common Criminals" in Castro's Jails
All "judicial" acts committed by this outlaw de facto regime over the last 48 years are unconstitutional, from the witch trials at the beginning of the Revolution to the latest sentence handed down by a Castro "tribunal."
Everyone in a Cuban jail is a political prisoner.
No need to parse that, though there are many who fall into Castro's trap and actually define political prisoners according to his rules.
4 comments:
- Charlie Bravo said...
Manuel, I remember clearly that I was attending the "trial" of a friend who was caught in the act of leaving Cuba on a raft. The man before him was a slim mulatto, who looked famished, and he was there beacause he was caught "stealing" oranges from a grove. He said that he had stolen the oranges because the revolution has stolen everything else from him, and it was the only way he had to get back to them. He was given 5 years in prison for taking about 10 oranges and wrapped them in his shirt.
Any action against the government is political, even if it entices to steal one single orange from a tree. Everything that one does nor does not do in Cuba has a political slant to it.
- Fantomas said...
manolo si te dedicaras a poner mas noticias como estas y menos reviews de tus adversarios tendrias un blog de mucha mejor calidad. Cuba te necesita Manolo. Escribe por los que no pueden hablar , por los presos o por el pueblo cubano
Fantomas , concientizando a Manolo
Sept 19, 2007
- Vana said...
That is so damn sad, to think that someone was so hungry he had to organize some oranges and it got him thrown in jail.
Manuel I think you may be right, all are political prisoners, for the smallest thing will land you there
- Manuel A.Tellechea said...
I know of an even more terrible instance of the regime's disdain for the dignity of man which finds no parallel except in the Europe of the 18th century, where men and even children were executed for stealing a loaf of bread.
It happened some 20 years ago. I must still have the clipping in my file cabinets and it might be worthwhile to spend half a day looking for it. The article concerned a 12-year-old boy who was literally executed on the spot for "stealing" a mango from a special reserve. This reserve was "special" because 40 years ago Castro ordered 90 percent of Cuba's mango trees to be chopped down in order to diversify agriculture. The diversification failed and the mango trees nearly became extinct on the island.
The boy was literally picked off by a sharpshooter while climbing the mango tree.
It is difficult to convey the idea of just how trivial a mango was before the Revolution. They were literally to be had for the picking and most withered on the vine because they went unpicked.
If you had told anyone then that some day mangos would become as rare as black swans in Cuba and that a child would be killed for desiring one, no one would have believed it.

subset: commoncrawl


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Build Your Own Navy-Flattop Edition
The Navy and yours truly part company in terms of fleet composition. They continue to build ships that are individually capable, which they see as reducing overall operating costs for the entire fleet without reduction effectiveness. Yet they get less effective each year, with ships and crews overworked and the fleet stretched thin, consumed with increased Post Cold War missions with fewer, harder to build, more expensive platforms. Meanwhile, as the Navy looks long-term concerning operating costs over a vessel's lifetime, the civilian buyers see the initial purchase price and are getting constant sticker shock from what the Admirals consider a "bargain".
Higher construction costs are driving down ship numbers, not annual operating budgets. Rationally, if the price of individual ships were reduced, you could have real savings, though first you must get over the fear that economical ships are less capable, an assumption the Navy uses which we think is bogus. Add to the fact that simple and smaller ships coupled with new weapons and sensors developed in the late Cold War like advanced SAMs, cruise missiles, unmanned vehicles, have made warships individually more powerful than ever, raising our submarines and non-aviation ships to capital ship status. High tech platforms like the Fords, Burkes and Virginia ships are very capable, but we also should spread such capability throughout the fleet rather than concentrate it where it is less effective.
The Cost Effective versus an Effective Navy
The Navy then might say they can operate a single, large $6 billion supercarrier with 70 warplanes over its lifetime far cheaper than a $3 billion light carrier like the future America class with say, 30 F-35 JSF. This is probably a true statement from an economic standpoint, especially with the price of fuel, the two smaller ships would be more costly over time, comparing the two types individually.
However if you factor in the effect of 10 light carriers, all fitted with precision bombers might have beside 10 supercarriers with the same weapons, the savings of the latter disappears. In other words, if a single light carrier can perform the standard presence mission done by the $6 billion ship, also in wartime the same attack mission (recalling that precision weapons now assure us "one bomb, one hit"), here you would see enormous savings. Specifically, small carriers take best advantage of the advances in precision bombing aircraft, manned or unmanned, since smart weapons do not require smart platforms.
- 10 x Nimitz class carriers-$60 billion
- 10 x America class light carriers-$30 billion
So we find that building the same number of light carriers which ship-for-ship is as effective as large deck vessels, we have savings of $30 billion with which to do other things with. For example, if you are still worried about any loss of capability in small carriers, you could at least build 15 extra $2 billion each Burke destroyers to provide enhanced protection, and these multi-purpose ships can also perform presence themselves, as we often see with their anti-ballistic missile capability. Also more Virgina class subs, or you could pay for the entire LCS program. Better still would be the construction of new fleets of light corvettes, a hundred or so to fight pirates, rebuilding the long-neglected and under-appreciated flotilla in the US Navy.
You could be bolder still, by constructing ships similar to the European/Asian aircraft carriers that average 20,000 tons at $1.5 billion each. Using V/STOL planes, like the F-35B or the Harrier, and hopefully new UCAVs as they are available, you could only deploy 10 planes each, at most on your 10 carriers. This would not be an insignificant capability since you would still possess more V/STOL ships than all the world's navies combined at present. Wait, there's more! With leftover funds at a tremendous $45 billion would give you 22 new Aegis ships for defense and to join in the offense with cruise missiles. 80 LCS could be purchased or enough smaller corvettes to overwhelm the pirates and rogue states with numbers, something foreign to the US Navy since the 1960s.
- 10 x Nimitz class carriers-$60 billion
- 10 x Mistral (upgraded*) light carriers-$15 billion
So with smaller, reasonably priced warships, coupled with the new technology developed late in the Cold War, you would create a larger, more effective Navy. Instead of much power concentrated in a few increasingly vulnerable and worn-out Big Decks, you would have a larger fleet where power is dispersed among individually capable warships, supported, rather than dominated by naval airpower.
Note*-Mistral is about the size I had in mind but there are numerous alternatives such as the British HMS Ocean, the Japanese Hyuga, the S Korean Dokdo, the Italian Cavour. Only the last is V/STOL ready which is why the jump in price for Mistral from $800 million to $1.5 billion.
2nd Note-You might also recognize the price for the Nimitz class, which I low-balled just to be able to write this article with pertinent figures. The latest version of the class USS George HW Bush prices at $6.2 billion. The next version, the USS Gerald Ford class is an estimated $14 billion for the first ship, $8 billion each thereafter. Total program cost for ten Fords is $86 billion. Like much of the American economy, the Navy is mortgaging away its future.
Kurt permalinkDecember 18, 2011 12:08 pm
I should add that I don't know how future mine warfare will work. Unmanned vehicles seem a suitable choice and self-defense against these.
But why lay only explosive mines with sensors attached? What if you lay a more numerous network of sensors and markers with mines being unmanned vessels that receive information about targets from the markers and can be directed by broadcasted human command (fulfilling current legal requirements for sea mines). Such a network can be more resilent to countermeasures because of adaptable reactions and has more eyes in the water, plus can provide very good terminal guidance for all ordnance by sticking to the recognized target. Instead of damaging a ship, you can sink it and it's far less weight to create a carpet of sensors with moving explosives than one of combined sensors and explosives.
Kurt permalinkDecember 17, 2011 6:21 pm
The idea of the sea control ship build finally as the Spanish aircraft carrier Principe de Asturias was to have small ships do the control thing and big carriers doing the fighting thing. Small carriers offer more airfields and a better coverage if the tanker and range problem can be solved. Well, there seem several solutions possible. Sea control can be done with big carriers with tankers on board possibly mixed with few small carriers that use the big ship's tankers for range extension. I could imagine up to 2 small carriers per large carrier that also offers better repair services for the aircrafts from the small carriers. These small carriers could be multi-purpose carriers with an amphibious warfare design like the Juan Carlos and few dedicated sea control ships for ASW. A different solution would be large, really large aerial refuelling tankers that are flying boats. These must be able to land in rough seas, but perhaps land on airfields in the sea that have been fenced with swimming USV breakwaters that transform the energy of incoming waves into own movement to reduce wave energy in the protected field (such a technology would also greatly improve large carrier operations that have to be suspended due to wheather). The mentioned flying boat aircrafts can travel long distances and use oilers for refuelling themselves, thus offer a great logistical advantage. At the same time such a design of a flying boat can be stuffed with torpedoes and sensors in order to go hunting for submarines at long range in ground effect flight (kind of Caspian Sea monster in the Atlantic) and the Russians were right that this design offers great capability for a missile arsenal, surprise landing troops or saving sailors from a wet death after an engagement went wrong. Well, such a monster tanker is a lot cheaper than a large aircraft carrier for tanker operations while a sea control ship can do with rather light multi-mission fixed wing aircrafts such as the Saab Gripen (perhaps with a stronger engine, better thrust vectoring and improved low observability) that in turn have less heavy spare parts.
So if you follow the Caspian Sea monster trail that I prefer because it has the least complex logistics and offers the cheapest apporoach to sea control. Sea control is vital to being able to procure equipment, ordnance and fuel to fight an enemy and the side that has more problems with sea control of sea lines of communication will be out-equipped during the duration of a conflict.
Well, fighting the enemy is for sure quite well carried out by large aircraft carriers that can handle high sortie rates and have capable countermeasures due to the immense energy from their machinery for the most powerful jamming devices and close in defense. But fighting from the air is just half the story, you need ground troops landing in enemy country and destroying and marking targets at close distances. So you need amphibious warfare ships. A clever concept in my opinion is having these amphibious warfare vessels as a very numerous class with modification packages for sea-control, LHA and LHD using economies of scale to reduce development costs for very similar ship designs.
However these amphibious warfare ships as well as the aircraft carriers best keep their distance from the littoral high threat environment under the protection of one class of large warships that gets modular adaptions for different defence and attack missions, including arsenal ship capability. You can call it cruiser, destroyer or battleship, but ocean combat ship would be a more convenient name if you embrace the littoral combat ship. That also means a new mindset away from the old ship classifications that too often have lost their meaning.
The littoral combat ship is a less capable ship as I said in a different post and it needs a silent big brother support via a very capable ship. In many cases ocean combat ships are this platform, but well, they aren't littoral, so not very close to vessel under attack. There are two ways to solve the dilemma, load the littoral combat ship with capabilities until it's a VCS on its own or design a class of large ships that can bring fighting power to the littorals. Looking at hull designs the M-shaped hull of the M80 stiletto seems the most suitable option to me for a ship with a large payload and a shallow draught while maneuvering at high speeds with low observeability. A suitable load for this vessel is for sure a missile arsenal that in my opinion should include light UAV fighters and long range very low observeability UAV bombers (much cheaper than a new cruise missile for each target). Of course this ship can also employ rotary wing and fixed wing STOBAR fixed wing aircrafts, but as a carrier it serves rather in the quick rearmament and range extension role close to the shore while its main task is as arsenal and quick amphibious support and flotilla air defense. After the VCS has been found the LCS can be reduced in size, increased in self-defense as part of a flotilla of ships with differing capabilities and get mission specific packages.Surviv eability is not just dependant on stealth or low observeability, the more correct and less buzzword term, but also on creating wrong impressions with imitations of real ships. If a saturation attack against a flotilla needs 100 missiles, how many more do you need if there are 5 imitating USV for each vessel that possibly have their own close in weapons for supporting the group under attack.
You can reach a point where local missile supply gets exhausted or where shooting the ships is more expensive than building them, plus you really create stealth without being stealthy through lots of immitations that make you as delocalized as a particle under Heisenberg's uncertainty principle because these aren't the ship's you're looking for…
Submarine is also quite interesting because there's nothing that compares to a nuclear submarine in the ocean, so these best keep on hunting and carrying second strike capability. The question is again about the littorals, scale down and quiet nuclear submarines or employ cheaper conventional submarines with good AIP?
The conventional submarines aren't good at moving at speed under water for a long time. They're good and cost efficient if they can wait for their prey and vary their position just slightly. the problem with that is that you can count on them being very close to important shipping lanes or moving fast with a snorkel. So if you want to move on the hunt there's no alternative to nuclear, also in the littorals. The conventional submarines however offer a cost effective option for commando insertion and I would argue as arsenal submarines because there's hardly an arsenal ship with better surviveability close to the enemy while long range strike capability with the help of UAV and USV reconnaissance are a prerequisite for all effective use of lurking submarines. The surprising step towards conventional arsenal (=guided missile) submarines in numbers is also the one of the best solutions for LCS protection by a very dangerous force you can't locate.
Back to the nuclear submarines, I think it's possible to have just one type of nuclear hunting submarine that must be able to operate in very shallow water while still carrying no small crew in order to reduce indivual stress during the long deployment. Such a design can be quite tricky and possibly works best with a combination of reactor and rechargeable AIP (oxygen and hydrogen) in order to reduce heat emission near the surface by running on AIP and thus also eliminating any stealth gap to conventional submarines. Giving such a nuclear system to the arsenal submarines would be gold-plating them however because they don't have to be very much on the move.
So my suggestion for surface ships has few classes: large aircraft carriers, medium sized multi-purpose carriers, very large flying boats, ocean combat ships, littoral combat ships, littoral arsenal and carrier ships. For submarines i'd opt for one nuclear hunter that can switch to a very silent non-nuclear AIP supported by a large number of rather inexpensive conventional powered arsenal submarines (but any navy establishment will make them as nuclear as the hunter submarines) and a second strike missile carrying deep sea submarine force.
So it's just 6 types of surface combat ships and 3 types of submarines. That was very important to me because developing one type of machine requires lots of funds for developing and debugging. The more types of machines you have, the more you pay for development and the more difficult is their supply chain. A very clear example is the artillery of the Spanish Armada that wasn't standardized and so rather not optimized and thus not capable of countering the English despite being a much larger investment in material than their enemy's fleet. My idea, that's certainly very European, is to have as few types as possible and adapt one type for different tasks according to requirements while using economy of scale to produce each type as cheap as possible.
Well, so far the opinions of an armchair admiral who's going to take a shower. What are your opinions on my post?
Graham Strouse permalinkDecember 4, 2009 5:46 pm
How about embarking on a Red Team variation of your build-a=fleet game? "Turn The 7th Fleet Into An Artificial Reef By Following This One Rule!"
You know what I mean…
December 4, 2009 2:44 pm
My guess is, at this point, building new B-1s now would approach the level of effort to design and build a clean-sheet design. The production line has been cold (and disassembled) for a long time now. The B-1B designs were based on 70s and 80s technology. All of that would have to be upgraded.
We can still plan to have significant A2A capability in a new bomber design, even to the point of reserving space & power for a solid-state laser weapon. We can also make the choice to include some level of supercruise, if that makes (cost-effective) sense.
I see the long-ranged UCAV and NGB as complementary. The NGB can have a secondary role as a "UCAV coordinator" in cases where bandwidth or SATCOM is denied.
December 4, 2009 11:51 am
B. Smitty,
The B-1R was originally to redo the old B-1Bs with, but my idea is as a new-build bomber/fighter…able to put serious quantities of arms within the reach of hot/trouble spots at fairly short notice in a low-observable, high-speed package. And for an extra $99.99, a lifetime supply of carnuba wax.
If put it into the naval mix, one could make the argument that X qty of these give you that option of either retiring Y amount of carrier-based airpower or simply having a reduced at-sea naval airpower presence and having planes such as these serve as "the calvary" that you'd call in an emergency.
Mike's warnings about emerging threats to carriers don't fall on deaf ears here. I don't think a threat to something invalidates the something (or else the infantryman has been obsolete for over 10,000 years) but one cannot take for granted that previously 3rd-class (at best) adversaries don't possess the ability to give you a major black eye these days.
But, you are right. As spiffy as I think my idea to be, the B-1Rs could not penetrate the best IADS out there and would have to rely on the speed and stealth of current and future cruise missiles. Your plan might be superior, overall. I'm a guy that owns a supercharged car, so expect me to give the "pro-high-speed" POV on things now and again :) :)
I guess my major worry with UCAVs (not specifically what you proposed) is that if we come to rely too much on them for ever more roles, that given the computer/satellite/bandwidth necessities inherent in the platform, that an enemy could successfully attack that and ground an entire fleet. Maybe I invest too much in that concern??
No platform is ever safe. With my notion of the "R", an enemy would have to theoretically defeat each plane and/or each missile on those planes as opposed to attacking one crucial point in the process (satellites).
Totally spot on about the B-52. Aged air asset but one that performs a vital role more cheaply than anything else in existence. Putting new engines on it could create a platform that *might* outlive me (42).
December 4, 2009 9:05 am
Joe said, "But as I proposed once upon a time here, if you want to go with an all V/STOL-type naval airpower arm, build a modernized version of the B-1R concept, put it under the power of the navy (as the Air Force doesn't want anything to do with it) and use that to replace the qty of bomb-on-target airpower that would be lost in the process. You would not always need them but they would be in reserve for those moments when needed."
I'd prefer to move forward on the NGB and a long-ranged, stealthy UCAV rather than spending a lot of money re-engining and upgrading the B-1s. The B-1s are not survivable against a modern IADS without resorting to cruise missiles.
It's a shame NATF didn't go anywhere. Carrier-based NATFs providing OCA for long-ranged stealthy bombers (B-2 and NGB) might be able to overcome the massive fighter numbers the Chinese can put in the air along with their S-300 SAM systems. F-35s and F/A-18s won't have the same effect.
I do think we should consider re-engining the B-52s though. They're going to continue to soldier on for a long time and are better for the long-range, long-loiter, big warload job.
December 3, 2009 7:43 pm
I'm just a rookie at discussing this subject matter, but I do not think it makes sense to so heavily restrict your navy to fielding just V/STOL aircraft carriers if the funding does not dictate that. I agreed with the idea of change in light of the fact we're facing relatively fixed naval budgets for the 2010s – at the present time anyway.
Given that I endorse "change", I see two routes to get it approved by the powers-that-be: Go with a smaller version of what we currently field or to a mix of what we have and introduce smaller versions to serve alongside.
I do not think you'd get Congress and the Navy to give up angled-deck carriers altogether. B. Smitty spoke of the conventionally powered version of the Nimitz, or you might consider an American version of the forthcoming Royal Navy or proposed French carriers. Both would have lower upfront costs than a full-sized nuclear Ford.
The other idea I see is one that's been brought up elsewhere before, of allowing the scheduled RCOH times for upcoming carriers to be times of retirement and also introduction of (keeping with your idea for the moment) of modified LHA-6 platforms. "Modified" in that extra money be spent to absolutely guarantee they could launch planes other than the F-35B.
That way, you could orient the Nimitzs/Fords to your major hotspots and your smaller carriers to the less risky theatres (define those at your own peril).
But as I proposed once upon a time here, if you want to go with an all V/STOL-type naval airpower arm, build a modernized version of the B-1R concept, put it under the power of the navy (as the Air Force doesn't want anything to do with it) and use that to replace the qty of bomb-on-target airpower that would be lost in the process. You would not always need them but they would be in reserve for those moments when needed.
B. Smitty, I met your crack dealer and he said to tell you "hello". And to pay your bill…no more credit.
December 3, 2009 4:28 pm
See this is the kind of thinking thats dangerous. Give someone a hint of an idea and then everyone wants to play admiral! Seriously though. The US Navy might be able to ramp down to the 10 carrier plan with no problem but supposedly the Chinese are about to launch a carrier bigger than the "whatever it is they bought"…if that's so then sea control ships, converted amphibs, jeep carriers…however you name them will get ate up by one of those. I don't think we can afford that type mauling. If anything, while saying that Navy only wants to fight big wars, wouldn't a force proposed by Mike be only capable of handling brush wars?
December 3, 2009 4:17 pm
Alex 2.0 said, "Smitty, CATOBAR-LPH; she already exists (well she does if the RN decide to put cats and traps on the QE class)"
Frankly I'm still a bit amazed that it took this long for them to go CATOBAR. Sure, putting steam cats on an electric boat would be no fun, and EMALS is still on shaky technical ground, but either of those is less risky, IMHO, than hitching your horse to a single, completely unproven STOVL aircraft (not to mention suffering with helo-based AEW).
I would like to see a real analysis around ditching the LHAs in favor of a QE-sized CTOL carrier (if not actually using a modified QE class).
Of course I'd also like to see equally improbable things like the Marines ditching the MV-22 for a marinized CH-47, cancelling the F-35B (if not the rest of the program), continuing production of the F-22 and F-16, actually funding the Next Gen Bomber, and building an armed, G.Hawk-sized, stealthy UAV with global range and multi-day endurance.
Yes, the crack is good where I come from.
December 3, 2009 3:18 pm
Well, I held off. But, hey, just for fun..!
With, oh, $6 Billion. We build (20) 600′ Airships (flying carriers)
Each carries (10 X-47 UCAV).
No catapult/ trapping needed, as these carriers fly at between 70-100 kts
Top of the hull is covered with solar cells, giving the airship carrier unlimited range/endurance.
No sonar sig at all, no wake.
No worrys about mines, torpedos. (free up some escort surface vessels)
Among other advantages not written here; this: can deploy UCAVs from deep within continent as well as ocean.
(I just couldn't resist, Mike. Things need to be said. New ideas need to be considered)
- Alex 2.0 permalinkDecember 3, 2009 3:11 pm
Alternatively a Modern HMS Ocean type ship could be produced for no more than $500m
Cavour is an alternative to gold, she cost around $2.5bn, too small to operate as a carrier, too small an EMF to operate as an amphib.
Smitty, CATOBAR-LPH; she already exists (well she does if the RN decide to put cats and traps on the QE class)
December 3, 2009 3:01 pm
You're comparing a Nimitz class carrier to a Mistral????? A Mistral isn't as capable as an LHD-8 in its intended role! There is no way that it will be ANYWHERE as capable as a Nimitz in the force projection role. I luv ya guy but who spiked your coffee? One Nimitz class carrier is almost the equal of the entire French Navy. Push for a reduction in carriers IF you must. State that our capabilities are overkill but to state that these big deck amphibs can be turned into Sea Control Ships and replace a full deck carrier is misleading. As they say on Monday Night Countdown….C'mon Man!
December 3, 2009 1:18 pm
Joe asked, "As a side question, how much carrier runway does the X-47B (supposedly) require to lift off?"
~90m? :)
December 3, 2009 1:07 pm
As a side question, how much carrier runway does the X-47B (supposedly) require to lift off?
December 3, 2009 12:27 pm
There is ONE option for future fixed wing airpower on STOVL decks in anything remotely like "near term" – the F-35B. It has not started flight testing (last time I checked). It uses a lot of brand-new, untried technology. Maybe it will deliver as promised, maybe not.
Certainly we can speculate on STOVL UCAVs, reconstituting the AV-8B line, building an AEW V-22, or other options, but turning them into reality will take a LONG time and cost a lot of money. The fact of the matter is, none of these are programs of record (or even glimmers of programs).
There is one U.S., carrier-capable fighter aircraft in production right now – the F/A-18E/F. There is one carrier-capable AEW system in production now – the E-2C/D. Neither of which will fly off of a STOVL deck.
Betting the entire naval aviation farm on a single, unproven fighter design and mere speculative AEW and UCAV designs does not seem like a good approach to risk management. In 10-20 years you could end up with a bunch of helicopter carriers and no fixed wing naval airpower.
OEF and OIF were both fought during the prime of the so-called "age of precision airpower". Yet in each conflict, sortie numbers still mattered. The number of aimpoints struck still mattered.
One bomb can often hit one target, but there are a lot of targets out there. Plus, the ISR contribution of a modern fighter is still extremely important, even if bombs aren't dropped.
Numbers still matter in the age of precision weapons.
Mike said, "Now the unmanned vehicles give us less excuse not to deploy small carriers, because they can also be launched from surface ships."
What can be launched from surface ships? Fire Scouts? Scan Eagles? How do they even remotely compare to the capability of an F/A-18 (or even X-47)?
December 3, 2009 9:14 am
Mike said, "If only 100,000 ton decks can effectively deploy naval airpower at sea, then the concept must be obsolete, because if you follow the numbers the Big Decks are gradually vanishing. "
Define "effectively".
With the America class LHA, you currently have one option for fixed wing aircraft – the AV-8B. It's an option that is not even in production anymore. We have all them we will ever have. F-18s won't fly off of an LHA. Neither will E-2C/Ds.
At some point, maybe, the F-35B might become available (if it can ever start and finish flight testing, come in at a price that doesn't break the bank, and prove sustainable on small decks. Lots of "ifs".)
So can an LHA provide a limited number of relatively short ranged fighter sorties? Yes.
Can a similar number of LHAs replicate the sortie rates generated or aimpoints struck by the CVNs during OEF or OIF? Not a chance.
Can they provide CRITICAL force multipliers like the EA-6B/EA-18G and E-2C/D? No.
Are there any fixed wing STOVL UCAVs in development? No.
Are there any fixed wing STOVL aircraft in production today? No.
Personally, I'd love to see us investigate ditching the LHA in favor of a real conventional, CATOBAR carrier that can swing role as an LPH.
December 3, 2009 8:37 am
The problem is, how do you keep enough capability to handle the "big war" thsat might come about.
The 600-ship navy was designed to fight World War III – it never did, but it was able to "dial down" to handle the Line of Death, Operations Urgent Fury and Preying Mantis, as wel as a host of smaller crises without breaking a sweat.
The 1990s drawdown in naval force structure was a huge mistake, and one that will be very expensive to fix.
December 3, 2009 7:07 am
Mike said, "So we find that building the same number of light carriers which ship-for-ship is as effective as large deck vessels, we have savings of $30 billion with which to do other things with."
??? We must have different definitions for the word "effective".
We may be in an age of "one bomb, one hit" but we are still in an age of "less bombs means less hits". Numbers still matter, as I've tried to show using statistics from recent conflicts.
Why not, instead, revive the idea of a conventional super carrier? Up front cost estimates for a Nimitz-sized conventional carrier ranged from 50%-70% of the price of a CVN, IIRC. (Lifetime costs are harder to determine)
America class LHAs devote too much internal space to stowing Marines and their gear, IMHO. If we want a carrier, we should buy a carrier.
Marcase permalinkDecember 3, 2009 6:44 am
There is, however, one major drawback when considering small/medium carriers which depend on VSTOL aircraft; there are currently no AEW and usefull air tanker variants available able to provide the same coverage that the E-2 Hawkeye, or the late KS-3 and KA-6 tankers could. Buddy-buddy tanking is possible, but VSTOL (F-35B and AV-8B) tankers are really not a viable option for obvious reasons.
The Seaking AEW and projected Merlin AEW are options, but only for fleet surveillance and not for (hostile) overland AEW coverage – short legs, short range and vulnerable.
Offshore E-3, KC-10 and RQ-4 Global Hawk support is an option, but that requires land bases in the vicinity, which may not be an option (either due to politics or pure location).
Then there is 'kill' stowage. A large carrier carries more fuel, spares and ordnance for its airwing, allowing higher OPTEMPO during a life-fire crisis.
Small and medium carriers do have their advantages, but also some drawbacks.


text:
Happy Easter to my friends and family.
I hope that this update finds you all well and happy!
I know that I have been absent for quite a while, please forgive the extended absence. So much has happened in the time that has passed. Most importantly is that my spirits have lifted and my interest in being creative has begun to fill my heart and mind.
Our family is now independently demonstrating items available through Stampin' Up! If you are looking for some quality crafting supplies, please visit our website at http://bennetts.stampinup.net . Very soon I will be adding photos of projects that I have completed, and possibly some tutorial videos.
Again, I want to wish you a very Happy Easter. I pray that you are spending the day with loved ones, whether they be the family that you were born into or one that you have chosen.
Until next time - I plan to be in touch at least once a week!
Sunday, April 20, 2014
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Tiers of Joy Cakes by Celeste Davis Serving the Las Vegas area's wedding and special occasion cake needs. Please call (801)891-1493 to schedule a consultation.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Katrina's cake
- Posted from my iPhone
7 comments:
- Schmath said...
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- The Crandizzles said...
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- chelsea said...
Those cakes are really awesome!
Like this post!
Windows Server 2008 | Seattle Homes
- Fri Jan 28, 03:55:00 PM 2011
- Mom to Many said...
Wow, how do you transport a cake that far and get it there in one piece?
- Sat Jun 25, 11:42:00 AM 2011


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If you are interested in jamband music and want to find it in your area, try Jambase. Listings and news of the genre.


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Monday, 18 August 2014
Jammy French Toast
Jammy French Toast
16 comments:
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delicious breakfast !ReplyDelete
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Unsafe Abortion
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Redefining Literacy; Learning About Learning to Read:
A Conversation with Sally Shaywitz and Marcia D'Arcangelo
Unlike speaking, reading is not an instinctive human ability. New imaging techniques now allow researchers to see how our neurocircuitry uses the brain's language system to both speak and read. Neuroscientist and professor of pediatrics at Yale University School of Medicine, Sally Shaywitz, along with her husband, Bennett Shaywitz, is codirector of the Yale Center for the Study of Learning and Attention. For 30 years, she has focused on understanding the brain mechanisms involved in reading. While developing "The Brain and Reading" video series, Marcia D'Arcangelo interviewed Dr. Shaywitz about her life's work. We hear how advances in brain imaging technology let us see the brain at work. Because we wonder whether new discoveries can inform our instructional practice, learning about how the brain works is of great interest to educators today. Educators have always been interested in the brain, but we scientists haven't had the ability to bring issues relating to the brain to education. But now, we can actually look at the working brain and examine what happens when a child tries to learn. These matters are very germane to what teachers need to know.
What do we really know about how the brain learns to read?
We know that whereas speaking is natural, reading is not. Children do not automatically read. They have to learn how to do it. Through tens of thousands of years of evolution, men and women have developed the abilities to speak, to hear, and to listen. Every society has some form of spoken language. Put a baby in a speaking environment and that child will learn to speak. We don't have to teach children how to talk. As Stephen Pinker says, language is instinctive. But reading isn't. Reading is a recent development. Not every society reads. There isn't a little reading center in the brain. Humans haven't evolved that way. The neurocircuitry isn't set up to allow us to read. But humans do have the capacity to read. Over time, we have learned to use our neurocircuitry to read. The brain system that lends itself to reading is the language system. To read, a child has to use this wonderful, enriched, and robust language system to somehow get meaning from print. To do that, a child has to somehow transcode that print into language.
Are you saying that in order to read, we have to adapt, or train, our brain to perform in ways it wasn't naturally designed to work?
In essence, yes. We acquire the ability to do many things that we aren't born knowing how to do. Children have to develop the awareness that words are made up of sounds. And that print represents these sounds,or phonemes. For example, the word bat really has three phonemes, b, a, and t, so children have to develop this awareness. And then they have to develop the understanding that the letters on the page——the b, the a, and the t——represent these units of sound. When children reach this level of awareness, they're ready to learn to read. For some children, it's easy; for others, it's very difficult.
You and your group at Yale have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology to analyze how the brain learns to read. Have you discovered why it is easy for some and difficult for others?
In one study, we examined very disabled readers and compared them with good readers. We found a difference in the brain activation patterns of the two groups when the task made increasing demands to break up words into their underlying phonologic structure or sound pattern. This is very exciting and extraordinarily important. One, it shows the functional organization of the brain for reading. Two, it shows what happens when people have trouble reading. And three, it shows when the problem occurs. Knowing all of this supports the view that reading is biologically based and lends substantial support to the phonologic hypothesis of how we read and why some people can't read.
Why is it important to understand that reading is biologically based?
We often blame children, particularly bright children who have trouble reading, for not being motivated enough or for not trying hard enough. As if somehow, it's their fault. But if we have evaluated the children, we know that they're trying hard, more than anyone can imagine. But they have nothing to show for it. Before, we could hypothesize that the child was very bright but had a real biologic difficulty making him or her unable to read. Now, we can look at an imaging pattern and say, "Aha, this is a real problem; this is as real as a broken arm that you might look at on X-ray."
Can we look at brain imaging patterns and tell which children will have trouble reading?
This technology has been an extraordinary advance, but I don't want to mislead people. We can't use it yet to diagnose an individual. Someone cannot get into the scanner and say, "Aha, I have an image, and I can have a diagnosis." But I have no doubt about the potential for this technology to diagnose people early and more precisely and then to actually examine the effects of interventions.
What difference, specifically, did you see in the brain patterns of good and poor readers?
Good readers had a pattern of activation in the back of the brain, the system that includes the occipital region, which is activated by the visual features of the letters; the angular gyrus where print is transcoded into language; and Wernicke's region, the area of the brain that accesses meaning. This posterior area is strongly activated in good readers, but we saw relative under- activation in poor readers. As we asked good readers to do more and more phonologic processing——to look at single letters and tell whether they rhyme and then to look at and sound out words that they had never seen before——we could see an increase in activation in these areas. But when poor readers performed these same phonological tasks, they really didn't increase the activation in the back of the brain. There was a significant difference. What made it even more interesting was that there were differences in the front of the brain as well. When good readers read, an area in the front of the brain called the inferior frontal gyrus, or Broca's area, was activated. When poor readers read, that area was even more strongly activated.
What does this pattern of relative underactivation and overactivation in poor readers tell you?
We've interpreted this to mean that in going from print, from seeing letters, to language——which is the task of reading——poor readers have incredible difficulty. The relative increase in activation in the front of the brain reflects their effort. Sometimes when people can't read, they sub-vocalize. They say the word under their breath. This may represent additional effort to pronounce the word accurately. It's incredible that we found this difference in the angular gyrus, the area that helps transcode one precept——say, the visual——to another, the linguistic. This makes sense given what we know about the cognitive process of reading, going from print to language. Clearly, we have a lot to learn, but now all investigators who have worked hard to understand reading and the brain have a place to focus future research. We can go to the next level of trying to understand the neural mechanisms that lie under reading and reading impairment.
In other words, the brain systems of poor readers process incoming print information differently from the way that the systems of good readers do.
Yes, there really is a difference in brain activation patterns between good and poor readers. We see the difference when people carry out phonologically based tasks. And that tells us that the area of difficulty—— the functional disruption——in poor readers relates to phonologic analysis. This suggests that we focus on phonologic awareness when trying to prevent or remediate the difficulty in poor reading.
After poor readers master the reading process, do their brain activation patterns change, or are patterns of activation similar all their lives?
That's an important question that our research group at Yale is collaborating with investigators at Syracuse University (Anita Blachman) to address. Children who are poor readers are receiving a highly focused, phonologically based intervention, and they are imaged both before and after the intervention. We expect to have the results of this study within a few years.
Are the results you discovered with brain imaging consistent with what you find when you study readers cognitively?
They are. For example, a number of years ago we studied more than 300 children, most of whom were poor readers. When we examined these children on a range of tasks, the one that most significantly differentiated good readers from poor readers assessed phonemic awareness. For example, we asked children to say a word and remove a phoneme: "Can you say 'Germany' without 'ma'?" To do that, they have to segment that spoken word and pull out a part. Children who had difficulty with this phonologic processing task were also the poorest readers. One of the strongest predictors of who will be good readers is their phonemic awareness. The evidence we have that this is brain based converges nicely with behavioral information.
What are the implications of these studies for teaching reading?
Pretty strong evidence supports a phonologic model of reading. People have to be aware, clearly, that it's a complex issue. We want children to be able to read the word on the page. But we must also remember that we want them to read the word on the page to get to the meaning and the richness of the literature and the language. But if they don't know how to read the individual words, what can we do? The most comprehensive reading program explicitly teaches about the sounds of language. It teaches children that words can be broken up into these smaller units of language, that the letters represent these units of language——phonics. But we also want to teach children about language and to build their vocabulary. We want them to have a knowledge base. We want them to practice reading and to read for meaning. So we want a balanced program. Although phonics is more important for some children than for others, all children can benefit from being taught directly how to break up spoken words into smaller units and how letters represent sounds.
You mentioned that children must practice reading. What is it about how the brain functions that makes practice important?
Think of brain pathways as circuits. The more we use them, the more they become reinforced. It's very important for children to read often. But if children can't read well, they're not going to want to read. But if we can give poor readers a sound foundation so that they know and can decode a group of words, they will have the phonologic skills to sound out words they've never seen before and will be encouraged to read. Once children know how to decode words, we want them to become fluent and automatic and be able to see words and read them without struggling. Only then will they have the resources left to enjoy what the word means and to think about the multiple meanings of what they're reading.
Can you give an example of how being taught directly about language can be more important for some children than for others?
We get very concerned about poor readers who are dyslexic, who have difficulties in phonology but have strong skills in reasoning, understanding, and comprehending. Their isolated skill in phonology is lacking, but all the other skills and understandings are there. These children often have wonderful vocabularies. Imagine their frustration. They see a word in print but can't read it. Then someone says, "Oh, you don't know that?" But when they hear the word, they know it very well. It is important to identify these children as early as possible and to give them the help they need in the most intense, direct way possible. Back in 1985, Becoming a Nation of Readers suggested that teaching phonics is not a useful practice after the early grades. Yet we have many children in the upper grades, including high school, who read poorly.
Do children outgrow the need for direct phonics instruction?
We know that brain systems are plastic, flexible, and responsive, but we have to give children the right substrate in terms of how we teach them. Children who have a biologically based difficulty can learn, but we have to present instruction in a more direct, more intense way over a longer duration. We should also clarify that today's research-based interventions are not our mother's phonics. Today's programs, for example, research-based interventions supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), are balanced, comprehensive programs that include phonologic awareness, phonics, literature, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension-strategy components.
Have your studies revealed any differences between boys' and girls' ability to learn to read?
We've examined this issue in several ways. We started the Connecticut Longitudinal Study in 1983, when we identified a random group of more than 400 five-year-old boys and girls about to enter kindergarten. We didn't select these children because they had reading problems. The only criterion was that they attended public school in Connecticut. We're still following over 90 percent of these children, who are now in their early 20s. We've tested them in reading and arithmetic every year. When we compare the boys' and the girls' reading scores, we don't see differences. That surprised us because the literature suggests that boys may have more problems. So, for all the children in our study, we asked their schools, "Has this child been identified as having a reading problem?" We found that four times as many boys as girls were identified as having a reading problem. When we examined our data for an explanation, we found that teachers seemed to be using behavioral criteria. They saw that Johnny was a little more fidgety in class, a little more disruptive, so they selected little boys for further evaluation; little girls who were just sitting very nicely, very politely, but not reading, might not be identified.
Recently, haven't you found some brain-based gender differences in the ways that men and women read?
We found something rather remarkable. We examined brain activation patterns in men and women as they were sounding out nonsense words. We gave them two printed nonsense words and asked, "Do these two words rhyme?" Men activated an area on the left side of their brain, the inferior frontal gyrus, or Broca's area. When women did the same task, they indeed activated the left inferior frontal gyrus. But they activated the right as well. Equally interesting was that there was no difference in how quickly and accurately men and women could sound out nonsense words. This tells us that men and women can get the same result by perhaps using different routes.
Are different mental challenges involved in learning to read and reading to learn?
The so-called simple view states that reading has two major components: identifying the single word——decoding—— and comprehending——understanding what we read. We now are able to examine the process of decoding in terms of brain organization. Comprehension is a lot more complicated. Obviously, to comprehend a printed word, we first have to decode it. But more is involved. We are studying that now.
What part of the brain is involved with processing meaning?
We speak of "this area of the brain" or "that area of the brain," but it's important to know that the brain is connected and that there are brain systems. These brain systems are forever communicating with one another. So even though for ease of communication we speak of specific areas, what we really have are networks that are communicating with one another constantly. Having said that, I will note that an area of the brain that particularly has to do with meaning is Wernicke's area, in the temporal lobe of the brain. The temporal lobes are located on each side of the brain just behind the ears. Teachers often find that some students can read and not understand a word whereas others can understand everything but have trouble decoding words.
How are those problems different?
Some children, particularly as they get older, reach a high level of accuracy in identifying words, but still have difficulty becoming fluent or automatic in their reading. They're very slow readers. And reading takes a great deal of energy. But those children or young adults can understand what they read. It just takes a lot out of them. It's very much an energy-consuming process. Other children may read words rapidly but may not get the meaning. Children with a serious problem called hyperlexia can decode very well, but they can't comprehend. It's the inverse of dyslexia. Dyslexic children have the lower-level phonologic deficit, but intact higher-order skills that allow them to comprehend at high levels. Children with hyperlexia have terrific phonologic skills but can't comprehend. Hyperlexia is a relatively rare disorder, and affected children often experience other difficulties as well. For all we know about the nature of reading, many misconceptions still exist about reading difficulties—— dyslexia, for example. One common misconception about dyslexia is that people see letters and words backward. That is unfortunate because I've seen many people for whom the diagnosis of dyslexia was delayed because they did not manifest reversal. People with dyslexia have no problem copying letters and words, and they don't copy words backward. They may make some reversals in writing but no more than other children do. They have difficulty naming things because dyslexia is a language difficulty, not a problem with visual perception. These children can copy the word correctly. For example, they can copy w-a-s for was and say the letters correctly. But when we ask them what word they copied, they say, "saw." So it's not a question of having the visual, perceptual skills but of what they do with a word on the page.
How do we bring the print to language?
Again, the brain mechanism of going from print to language is phonologically based. We have to transcode the print. We have to appreciate that the print stands for words that can be broken into smaller phonologic units and that the grapheme, the letter or the letter groups, represents these bits of language. When we look at print, we activate areas in the back of the brain that have to do with vision, convert the print to language by using areas farther forward in the brain that have to do with transcoding, and then use areas of the brain that get to the meaning of language. The important thing to remember is that although for ease of communication the system is described as linear, in fact, information is transmitted bidirectionally and in parallel. Educators are vitally interested in information that can help them teach reading. Many middle school and high school teachers, in particular, haven't been taught how to teach reading. I find it curious that teachers are often blamed for their students' poor reading. Of all the people to whom I lecture, the largest group, the most committed group, is teachers. They're the ones who want to know, "What do we know about reading? What can I take back to my classroom?" We haven't been able to provide teachers until recently with a knowledge base of what reading is all about. But fortunately, we——and when I say "we," I mean the whole scientific community that studies reading--now really understand the reading process from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives and, increasingly, from neurobiological perspectives. This evidence supports the fact that reading is part of language. To read, we have to break up spoken words into smaller units, understand that letters represent sounds, have a knowledge base, have a vocabulary, and have the motivation and enjoyment. Teachers now have a template, a scientifically based template, to guide them in how they teach reading. If they use this approach, they can actually make a difference.
Sally Shaywitz is Professor of Pediatrics at the Yale Child Study Center and at Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St., New Haven, CT 06510 (e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com). Marcia D'Arcangelo is a Producer on ASCD's Professional Development team (e-mail: email@example.com).


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The Air Force just concluded their Renewable Energy Symposium at Ventana Canyon, Tucson, Arizona. Over the course of the two day discussion, the group discussed Corporate Energy, Congressional Energy Perspective (from Rep. Giffords' office), industry trends and technology, technology, technology. For those of you, like me, who did not attend, the AF has made most of the information available. The same day as the conference closed. Very impressive. As a former information operator I understand the impact of timely information. One way to tamp down uncertainty is to provide knowledge as quickly and as succinctly as possible.
The Air Force, specifically, the Air Force Civil Engineering Support Agency, had the website up and the information out within hours of COL David Uselman and COL Patrick Kumashiro's closing remarks. In a market place where information has been slow to be shared (or created), the USAF has set the standard in transparency. As far as the substance, that will take a little time to review.
The next opportunity to excel will be the Air Force & Army Energy Forum 19-20 July in DC. Again, for those who are not able to attend but have questions you would like asked, please add them to the comment section and I will take them with me. All in good taste, of course! Dan Nolan


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Archive for the 'ballroom' Category
Lennon Ledbetter's Mansion Up for SaleAugust 8, 2009
A closer look at Bob Bahre's Lakefront Mega-MansionJune 13, 2009
- 35,000 square feet of living space
- 7 bedroom suites (each with a fireplace)
- 10 full baths, 6 half baths
- billiards room with fireplace
- double bridal staircase
- 14 seat home theater
- 14 fireplaces
- 2-story salon/ballroom with surrounding balcony, north and south staircases, and a catering kitchen
- pub room
- library
- dining room behind library with fireplace
- upstairs office
- master suite with his and hers closets, sitting room, and large master bath
- 5 kitchens
- 2 separate garages that can hold 8 cars each
- living room
- 2 guest apartments above each garage complete with bedroom, kitchen, and living room
- conservatory
- exercise room
- game room with card table
- lake room with fireplace and kitchen
- workshop
- numerous storage rooms
"Villa Taj" The Midwest's Grandest Monster Mega MansionJune 1, 2009
Another Alpine Estate hits the MarketMay 13, 2009
Location: 31 Timberline Drive, Alpine, NJ
A look at Mansions for Sale 2May 11, 2009
Goldenhill – A premier England Mega-EstateApril 7, 2009
CLICK HERE for more pictures
CLICK HERE to view a video on the home. (absolutely awesome video!)
Lennon Ledbetter's Utah Dream Mega-MansionApril 2, 2009
CLICK HERE to watch a video on the home
Pasadena Mega-MansionMarch 5, 2009
Location: 1288 S. Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, CA
Price: $52,000,000
Square Feet: 31,415
This massive estate is situated on close to 5 acres of land and has a mind boggling 15 bedrooms and 19 bathrooms. It was built in 1991 and sold for $4,300,043 in 1997. Even more impressive is the price tag, which stands at $52 million! The home's grounds contain an exquisite European garden complete with topiary structures, stained glass domed pavilions, pond with bridge and waterfall, walkways, bamboo covered arbors, koi pond, water gardens, a tennis court, and an elaborate pool with spa. The mansion contains 3 security gates, a guard house, a subterranean 8-car garage, a detached 2-story garage house, a porte cochere, an amazing 2-story foyer with sweeping staircase, a library, an office, a gallery, an elevator, a living room, a ballroom, a dining room, a family room, a large gourmet kitchen, 3 maids bedrooms, a wine cellar, a home gym, a media room, a massage room, a lounge, a steam room, and an indoor resistant pool with spa.
CLICK HERE for the listing
Monte Ahuja's Ohio Mega HomeFebruary 25, 2009
Location: Hunting Hill Farm Drive, Chagrin Falls, OH
Appraised Value: $4,205,000
Square Feet: 29,000
Monte Ahuja is chairman and CEO of Transtar Industries Inc., the largest supplier of automatic transmission parts in the aftermarket, both in the United States and overseas. The 29,000 square foot mansion was built in 1995 and contains 5 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms. It was designed by architect Joseph Giglio. The home has a dramatic Y-shaped staircase with dark granite. Beyond that is a 2-story sunroom with a waterfall feature. The magnificent lower level of the home inludes a ballroom that can accomodate 140 guests for a sit down dinner, a dance floor, a home theater, and a home gym. The home also has an indoor pool and lush landscaping. It was on the list of the top 250 most expensive homes in Northeast Ohio where it was ranked at #12.
Mohamed Hadid's Gargantuan Bel Air Super MansionFebruary 21, 2009
Location: Nimes Road, Bel Air, CA
Price: $85,000,000
Square Feet: 48,000
This extremely opulent and massive mansion is owned by Mohamed Hadid. Mohamed is a real estate developer and runs Hadid Development. He has built numerous Ritz-Carlton Hotels as well as other mega-mansions. His other home, located on N. Carolwood Drive, is featured on this website along with pictures and videos. This magnificent French Chateau inspired behemoth sits on 2.2 acres and boasts a mind numbing 48,000 square feet ! Mohammed had said that he spent an amazing $59 million to build the home which explains the astronomical listing price. The home has 10 bedrooms ,14.5 bathrooms, and 19 fireplaces. There is a iron gated entrance as well as a 1,000 ft. long imported Jerusalem stone wall built for privacy. The circular motor court is large enough to fit 20 cars and contains a large fountain. The first level of the home contains a sweeping imported wood staircase with beautiful ornate molding, a grand reception room, formal living and dining rooms, a family room with a wet bar, a music room, a library, an elevator, a lovely gourmet kitchen with imported wood cabinets and large center island, a study, and a staff bedroom. The lower level is perfect for grand scale entertaining. It contains a 5,000 bottle wine cellar, a grand ballroom that can seat up to 250 people, a commercial kitchen, a Moroccan inspired home theater, a gym, a Moroccan room , a Turkish hammam, and a game room. The gorunds of this massive estate has staff quarters over the garge, two limousine garages, a swan pond, formal gardens, a 70ft long infinity pool, a 12-person spa, an alfresco dining area, an outdoor kitchen with pizza oven, fireplaces, and a large courtyard that can accomodate up to 100 people.


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If any woman in the world is beautiful enough to pull off a pixie cut, its probably Beyonce. But that doesn't mean I agree with her decision to chop off her long locks, ahem remove her weave. Maybe its personal bias from cutting my hair heinously short as a teen (may the internet NEVER reveal my first driver's license picture). But if I'm gonna worship at the altar of this diva, I'm sure as hell gonna want to see her whip her hair. Or have an fro. Or those full head braids every white girl secretly wants. I just think something remarkable about Beyonce was her ability defy the norm that black women can't have soft flowing tresses. Its also just a pretty butch move for someone who's all about being sexy. And of course the pixie cut bears striking resemblance to Miley Cyrus's new do, and that is wrong.
Tag Archives: beyonce hair
R.I.P. BEYONCE HAIR11 Aug


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Duncan & Duncan Inc is located at 3288 Johnsey Bridge Rd, Jasper, AL. This business specializes in Transportation.


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Monday, January 18, 2010
This is the WEEK!
In just a few days, I will meet my partner for the next seven weeks. Soon, I will know whom the person is that I will hold accountable and that will hold me accountable for continuing on our trek for a healthier lifestyle. I cannot wait for the Twitter party Thursday night!
If I learned anything from the last Mamavation campaign, it was that it is never too late to start making changes. The hardest part was the discipline. Holding myself accountable for my actions. What really kept me focused was the sistahood, knowing full well that there were many others out there that wanted a chance at what I was so fortunately allowed to do – to represent the Mamavation program.
The last month, since the campaign ended, I have relied on my friends to keep me motivated to go to the gym. Also, keeping track of what I'm eating is very important. Chance are, if you have to write it down, you will really think twice about what you are consuming.
I am just beginning my new goal and I know that it will be a lot of hard work in the next two months. I am going to need help staying on track and perhaps for the first year in decades, I may even buy a swimming suit?!
Together, we are going to make this the best start of the New Year!
12 comments:
I'm excited too! I can't wait to find out who it is. I hope this really helps you live the life you want in the future!ReplyDelete
How sweet. Yep, I'm definitely feeling all the things you wrote about Alyssa. My life is forever changed already! Thanks for sharing your thoughts/feelings.ReplyDelete
Alyssa I am excited too, I know it is a long shot and I am giving it all I got, so I know no matter what I will not be disappointed because I have and am working hard!ReplyDelete
Keeping a balanced view of it all...because it is all good! :)
You really have inspired me and no matter if I am one of the Moms, I know that inspiration will continue and the support!
I'm so happy to have you around in the Sistahood and as a Mamavation Mentor. The girls are really going to benefit from your wisdom.ReplyDelete
You get it..it's just holding yourself accountable, reaching out when you need encouragement and support, and tracking what you eat. You keep that up and you will be in skinny jeans. BTW, how much more do you want to lose?
Can't wait to see what swimming suit you pick after working sooo hard to get it. :-) Thanks for being an inspiration to all of us--even after your campaign. I appreciate it big time!ReplyDelete
That's awesome, and I think it always works out better if you can workout with people who support you, and you support them.ReplyDelete
How exciting that you get to partner with one of the new Mamavation Moms!! I love the accountability and camaraderie that I've found in the Sistahood. I love the positivity!ReplyDelete
So fun that you have a blog that we can visit now! I see my life changing, too! It is so wonderful that we have tons of support from each other. I know that it really helps me. Chat with you on Thursday!ReplyDelete
Love to have you mentoring these girls!!! Good to hear from you! Please share!!! Have you seen big results since you were a mamavation momma?ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJanuary 19, 2010 at 6:16 AM
And we are right here to help you get through the tough and the not so tough times. So happy that you have decided to be a part of mamavation because you know that you are ready to have a better and healthy lifestyle. GREAT!!ReplyDelete
I agree about writing it down, Alyssa. I really slack on that sometimes - I just count it up in my head - but I've got to really write it down to fully be aware of every last bit. Thanks for the reminder. :)ReplyDelete
Good job with the food journaling! See you Thursday night!ReplyDelete


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