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Deaths Among Contractors in Afghanistan Accelerating as They Outnumber Soldiers
A recent Congressional Research Service analysis obtained by ProPublica looked at the number of civilian contractors killed in Afghanistan in recent months. It’s not pretty. Of the 289 civilians killed since the war began more than eight years ago, 100 have died in just the last six months. That’s a reflection of both growing violence and the importance of the civilians flooding into the country along with troops in response to President Obama’s decision to boost the American presence in Afghanistan. The latest U.S. Department of Defense numbers show there are actually more civilian contractors on the ground in Afghanistan than there are soldiers. The Pentagon reported 107,292 U.S.-hired civilian workers in Afghanistan as of February 2010, when there were about 78,000 soldiers. This is apparently the first time that contractors have exceeded soldiers by such a large margin. Using civilian contractors to haul food, prepare meals and act as bodyguards has kept the Pentagon’s official casualty figures lower than they would have been in past conflicts, where contractors were not as heavily used. Contractor casualties are, by and large, invisible to the public, disguising the full human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are not reported in totals given by the government. If they were, the death toll in Afghanistan would have surpassed 1,000—848 soldiers, 289 civilian contractors—from 2001 to 2009, a milestone that has gone entirely unmarked. The number of contractor dead is released only though the Labor Department, which keeps count as part of an insurance program for contractors known as the Defense Base Act. And these numbers, agency officials have admitted and our reporting has shown, undercount fatalities. As David Isenberg pointed out in the Huffington Post recently, a new database designed, in part, to track contractor deaths is still not being used to do so. Staff researcher Lisa Schwartz contributed to this report. This article was originally posted on ProPublica and is republished under Creative Commons license.

A recent Congressional Research Service analysis obtained by ProPublica looked at the number of civilian contractors killed in Afghanistan in recent months. It’s not pretty.

Of the 289 civilians killed since the war began more than eight years ago, 100 have died in just the last six months. That’s a reflection of both growing violence and the importance of the civilians flooding into the country along with troops in response to President Obama’s decision to boost the American presence in Afghanistan.

The latest U.S. Department of Defense numbers show there are actually more civilian contractors on the ground in Afghanistan than there are soldiers. The Pentagon reported 107,292 U.S.-hired civilian workers in Afghanistan as of February 2010, when there were about 78,000 soldiers. This is apparently the first time that contractors have exceeded soldiers by such a large margin.

Using civilian contractors to haul food, prepare meals and act as bodyguards has kept the Pentagon’s official casualty figures lower than they would have been in past conflicts, where contractors were not as heavily used.

Contractor casualties are, by and large, invisible to the public, disguising the full human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are not reported in totals given by the government. If they were, the death toll in Afghanistan would have surpassed 1,000—848 soldiers, 289 civilian contractors—from 2001 to 2009, a milestone that has gone entirely unmarked.

The number of contractor dead is released only though the Labor Department, which keeps count as part of an insurance program for contractors known as the Defense Base Act. And these numbers, agency officials have admitted and our reporting has shown, undercount fatalities. As David Isenberg pointed out in the Huffington Post recently, a new database designed, in part, to track contractor deaths is still not being used to do so.

Staff researcher Lisa Schwartz contributed to this report.

This article was originally posted on ProPublica and is republished under Creative Commons license.

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Quick Fact: Krauthammer falsely claims health care reform will add “about two trillion” to the deficit

Charles Krauthammer falsely claimed that the recently passed health care reform law would add “about two trillion” to the federal budget deficit. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the new law will reduce, not increase the deficit.

From the April 14 edition of Fox News’ Special Report:

BRET BAIER (host): Charles?

KRAUTHAMMER: I’m interested in the timing of all this. It seems as if now that health care is behind us, with all the smoke and mirrors and deception that went into the numbers that made it look okay, honesty has broken out on Capitol Hill. So all of a sudden, we’re gonna hear from the chairman of the Federal Reserve and others how deep in debt we are, ’cause remember health care added about two trillion to our deficit.

FACT: CBO found that health care reform would reduce the deficit

CBO, JCT found health care reform legislation would reduce the deficit by $143 billion through 2019. From a March 20 CBO cost estimate of the Senate health reform bill and the health care and education reconciliation bill:

CBO and JCT [Joint Committee on Taxation] estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation–H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation proposal–would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010-2019 period as result of changes in direct spending and revenues (see Table 1). That figure comprises $124 billion in net reductions deriving from the health care and revenue provisions and $19 billion in net reductions deriving from the education provisions.

Estimate also found reform legislation would continue to reduce deficit in second decade. The CBO further stated:

Reflecting the changes made by the reconciliation proposal, the combined effect of enacting H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation proposal would also be to reduce federal budget deficits over the ensuing decade relative to those projected under current law–with a total effect during that decade in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP.

Jim Cramer is Founder and Chairman of TheStreet.com and writes several times each trading day on RealMoney.com.

Considering The Recovery As A Reality

Maybe this time, the recovery is better, healthier and more sustaining. Maybe this time we’ve got it right, not wrong, and the recovery will be responsible and fueled by a longer-term health in the consumer, not turbocharged bad lending, like we saw from the likes of the Washington Mutuals, which, outrageously, former CEO Kerry Killinger is in total denial of what caused the bank’s downfall.

What makes this one sustainable? As I go through the JPMorgan quarter, I am conscious that the recovery is not being fueled by excessive consumer debt or consumer spending. It is not being fueled — for certain — by too-easily-available home equity loans. It is not being fueled by reckless issuance of credit cards.

Now all of this could be, and it is almost always spun negatively. Numbers that show slower consumer spending because of less-easy credit are invariably being used to infer a double dip in the economy down the road.

But I am saying that the big multiyear bear case against this market, one that has been proven out, was based on too much reckless credit issuance, particularly against housing.

Now, though, we are in a world where housing is cheaper and down payments must be had. That’s OK with me, and it’s quite bullish long-term for certain. The credit card correction is ongoing, and the doling of cards to dogs and cats and children is a thing of the past, thanks to reform and the losses taken.

Now, the bear case will switch to too much government spending, and how the economy is on steroids from stimulus. I think that we are going to be viewing that as a canard, not unlike the “commercial real estate collapse will bring us down” or the “Chinese bust will bring us down” scenarios. This recovery will create more jobs than people think, as the table of employment in this country is way too lean for this level of demand. It will produce bigger tax receipts than expected. It will produce lower deficits than expected. That, and the negativity that I am saying is misplaced, will keep this rally going longer than people want to believe.

Dow 12,000 beckons, because as much as this economy looks like it is on steroids, once it catches fire, a gradual increase in interest rates without a concomitant increase in inflation — particularly if you were to include housing — will only further buttress my contention of a real and long-lasting recovery.

These theories of mine will be fought against tooth and nail, and I get that. They seem fanciful. But remember that I am about trying to understand the rally. This is the best that I can come up with, and I like it.

Random musings: The rotation out of the soft-goods stocks and drug stocks is part and parcel with the thesis I am propounding. Those stocks cannot work at this point in the recovery unless they have some secular growth basis that is eluding most of them.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long JPM.  Cramer’s commentary is available here: Jim Cramer and 60+ market commentators on TheStreet RealMoney.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

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Oops, broke Father Time’s face? Just replace the Rusch clock face with an art piece. In Claudia’s case, a piece of doodle by her kid, Topastro. Her kid’s not quite Picasso yet but give him some time (no pun intended) and you’ll never know. Anyways, you get the idea and the possibilites here are endless.

See how to personalise your Rusch clock here. (Italian) Google translation here.

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Spam, Spam, Spam, Soam…
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Here’s a lighting system you probably haven’t ever seen or heard of before, unless your obsession with origami led you to build a house in which folding up paper wall resulted in creating windows, “Light Form”, by Francesca Rogers and Daniele Gualeni Design Studio is a modular lighting system that uses wood panels that you can simply flip back and have the energy-efficient electroluminescent lights behind them exposed.

These beautiful panels create a sort of mosaic design when flipped back and reminds you of traditional Japanese art. Allowing you to create lighted patterns to your taste by flipping panels, the Light Form can also use a bare white wall surface to reflect light instead of an electro-luminescent film.

[Inhabitat]

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The car’s V8/electric motor powertrain produces 380 horsepower with an average of about 28 mpg. The hybrid version will cost around $4000 more than a standard Cayenne S. The hybrid Porsche will hit the asphalt sometime later this year. Hopefully, more gas-guzzling SUVs around look up to the example set by the new Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid.

[LeftlaneNews]

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Welcome to the March edition of G.E.R.’s Top Ten Players in Green Energy. This month Chevron and its pragmatic green strategy takes the lead. Our ranking takes into account a player’s ability to influence the cleantech industry, whether it be because of a forceful policy position, access to funding or a combination of the two.

1: Chevron

Over the last decade, some oil and gas majors jumped right into the green energy revolution, hoping to leverage their considerable cash and energy expertise into a profitable sideline in renewables. That tactic has not weathered the recession well, as BP has shown in the last year. Enter Chevron with a new approach. The California-based company has been easing into green energy with an eye towards making its core oil and gas business less energy intensive. In March, The company opened Project Brightfield, an 8-acre facility to test solar panels under different conditions and compare the performance against benchmark technologies. Chevron is also testing concentrating photovoltaic technology at a mine in New Mexico and solar steam technology in Central California. It’s not a strategy that’s going to save the world, but it is moving green energy forward.

2: Steven Chu, Energy Secretary

Every day, there is one thing you can be sure Energy Secretary Chu thinks about: China, and how can the U.S. beat the rising green power to lead the global green economy. These days, the Secretary is not mincing words, reminding anyone who’ll listen that failure is not an option. He’s blunt and says that  right now, void of any climate change law and paralyzed by the loud voices of climate change deniers, the U.S. is losing that race! At a press briefing last month, Chu told reporters that on China, “the U.S. should sit up and take notice.” He added: “The [Chinese] leadership increasingly sees economic opportunity in cleantech… Having missed the industrialized revolution and the semiconductor revolution, they do not want to miss this opportunity.”

3: Old-school Techies Become Cleantechies

Comparisons are often made between the innovation that drives Silicon Valley companies and the kind of game-changing ideas that cleantech companies need to succeed. It’s not surprising, then, that the two industries have started to share some brainpower. In March, we saw Geoff Tate, formerly of chipmaker AMD and Rambus, take over at Nanosolar, a solar cell maker. A week later, Tony Fadell, the not-quite-James-Brown-but pretty-good-anyway “Godfather of the iPod,” announced that he was leaving Steve Jobs’ kingdom to work with consumer greentech companies. Another former chips guy, John Van Scoter of eSolar, told Earth2Tech that the solar markets today are reminiscent of the semiconductor industry 25 years ago. Things are ready to take off and the techies know how to achieve ignition. Let’s hope so.

4: Alcoa

The aluminum giant looked at its aluminum raw product and saw cash. Last month, the company rolled out an innovative aluminum-based concentrating solar power (CSP) parabolic trough, that could act as the company’s entry-point into the trillion-dollar global cleantech business. The parabolic trough is being tested at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) Colorado campus. If test results are good, Alcoa would be well-positioned to turn its budding CSP technology into a full-fledged business. The move by the Pittsburgh-based company in some ways is reminiscent of General Electric’s own entry into the wind turbine business more than a decade ago.

5: Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario

Ever heard of Dalton McGuinty? He’s the Premier of Ontario and these days, probably one of the most effective (and low-key) green politicians in North America. As Washington endlessly debates climate change and carbon pricing, McGuinty and his left-leaning government have passed some of North America’s most effective (and investor-friendly) climate change regulations. The regulations have helped attract  billions in new investments, creating the types of green-collar jobs that gets a lot of political airplay south of the border. Over the past year, shepherded by McGuinty, Ontario has debated, passed, and implemented a province-wide feed-in tariff. A couple of years earlier, it launched the RESOP program, an effective system that links renewable energy power projects with long-term power purchase agreements. Ontario is plowing ahead, laying the foundation of a green economy.

6: The Blackstone Group

In the end,  the New York buy-out fund wasn’t willing to spend its much needed political capital defending an unpopular (and potentially lucrative) coal-fired power project. Not when Congress was set to debate crucial legislation that could have severely impacted its bottom line. The plant in question was going to be Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s back yard. Not a good idea, when you’re trying to make friends on the Hill. Instead the fund portfolio company, Sithe Global,would convert the 750-megawatt coal-fired Toquop energy project into a 700-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant with a 100-megawatt solar photovoltaic power plant. Blackstone is going green to literally save its green…

7: BP

“It’s just business….”  That’s in short how BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward justified his company’s decision at the end of March to close its Maryland photovoltaic panel manufacturing facilities, arguing that with the price PV at an all times low, it just didn’t make business sense to operate a U.S. plant. Instead, BP is relocating  its U.S. production to Chinese and Indian joint-ventures. The company is testy when pressed to tell whether it is scaling back its cleantech business in general, and points out that in the past four years, it’s invested about $1 billion a year in clean energy and plans to invest about the same amount in the next two years. What is undeniable is that Hayward has shelved his predecessor Lord Browne’s “Beyond Petroleum” strategy that sought to transform BP into a forward-looking pan-energy company (at least in the public consciousness). Under Hayward, BP is an old-fashioned oil and gas business with cleantech investments.

8: UK, Wind Tidal

The United Kingdom has been on a green energy spree without precedent this winter and spring. First came the offshore wind plan worth tens of billions of Sterling (UK’s Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband #1 in the January Top 10). Now, the Crown Estate, which manages public land, has awarded development rights for 1.2 gigawatts of wave and tidal projects around the Scottish coast. The tender is the first step in making Scotland the “Saudi Arabia of marine power,” a laudable goal. Of course, there is a great deal of uncertainty in this project. Critics compare wave and tidal energy to fusion – a comparison that is a little bit harsh, but points out that marine power is largely untested on a utility scale. We at G.E.R. – perhaps a bit predictably – respond that risk is good and, yes, even failure is good. Government and industry needs to invest in these large-scale energy programs to see if they work. There’s no sense in waiting for the perfect technology.

9: GE

Jeff Himmelt, CEO

Here at G.E.R., we love R&D and we really love it when oil and gas or industrial majors invest heavily in R&D. This month, General Electric (# 3 in the December Top 10) really turned our windmills with announcements about its work on thin film photovoltaic solar cells and €340 million ($453 million) investment in offshore wind turbines in Europe. The offshore turbine manufacturing plant and testing facilities are an obvious move. The U.K. alone will provide a multibillion Sterling market in the coming decades, so it makes sense to develop the best new offshore technology nearby. GE is betting on its 4-megawatt wind turbine, designed with technology from recent acquisition ScanWind of Norway, and will open offshore testing facilities in Norway and Sweden. GE’s research into cadmium telluride solar cells is more of a gamble, since it has long been invested in traditional silicon for its s

olar cells. First Solar dominates the cadmium telluride market space right now, but GE is working with another acquisition, PrimeStar of Colorado, to barge into the market. The chances of failure are greater here and that’s partly what makes the effort great. GE is following the advice of its own slogan by being innovative.

10: France Folds Carbon Tax Plan

When Nicolas Sarkozy (#7 in the December Top 10) took over the French presidency nearly three years ago, he vowed to make climate change one of his cornerstone policies and moved quickly. After a few months in office, he called together a national conference for government officials, industry leaders and policy makers. Fast forward to this year, and Sarkozy, much like his American counterpart, is learning the tough realities of climate politics. His administration recently announced it would fold its plan for a first-of-its-kind carbon tax, calculating that the unpopular administration wouldn’t have the political capital to pass the legislation. The French parliament had actually already voted the tax into law, but a few hours before its implementation, the country’s highest court deemed it unconstitutional, ruling that the law’s many loopholes to the country’s carbon-dependent industries rendered it infective.

The US military is all set to go green, greener than their camouflages that is. The US military will save up around $1.6 billion if they adhere to more energy efficient standards. The military has already taken a few steps towards energy efficiency. Spraying foam insulation on military tents in Iraq and Afghanistan, soaking in the suns energy with solar panels, and HVAC upgrades are a few of the efforts the military is taking to be a greener force. Environmental benefits, in hand with national security are the cause of these measures being undertaken.

Besides this, the military is also setting up and offering green jobs to its veterans with green job training programs. With advancement in electric vehicles and hybrids, maybe the US military could replace some of its gas-guzzling vehicles for cleaner electric powered ones in future too! Just a thought, might take a few years for that though.

[MNN]

We’re not talking fully-appointed kitchens at the poolside here. Rather, these kitchens are the main kitchens of home interiors and serve as a connection between the indoors and out through openings, views, materials. It’s easy to imagine the purpose of such a kitchen on a nice spring day like today (not that the poolside version wouldn’t be fun, too!).

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