The Social Security Cost of Smoking

Our paper is an examination of the Social Security cost of smoking from an individual point of view. It is well known that smokers have a shorter life expectancy than nonsmokers. This means that by smoking they are giving up potential Social Security benefits. We estimate this cost and consider the effects on the system as a whole. We use mortality ratios, which relate the annual death probabilities of smokers and nonsmokers, and the percentage of smokers in each age group to break down the life tables for men and women born in 1920 into the approximate life tables for smokers and nonsmokers. We then calculate expected Social Security taxes and benefits for each group, using median earnings as a base. We find that smoking costs men about $20,000 and women about$10,000 in expected net benefits. The implication of this for the system as a whole is that the prevalence of smoking has a direct effect on the financial viability of the system; every decrease in the number of smokers in society increases the system's liability. Changes in smoking behavior should be recognized as affecting the system.

Film Review: Narco Cultura – A Tale of Three Cities

This is a film review

A Perspectival Punctuated Action Approach to Policy Development in Information Technology and Systems

The evolution of information technology and systems (ITS) architecture in recent times has magnified the complexity and multi-perspectival nature of the ITS management context. ITS developments such as e-Business models and frameworks, commercialisation of the Internet and creation of agile systems development approaches have highlighted the need to consider ITS management from a more diverse, inter-subjective and multi- perspectival point of view (rather than the more traditional positivist process reduction approaches). The Perspectival ITS Management Model (developed by Bunker 2004) provides a multi-perspectival insight into ITS management and the planning, control, policy development and processes that accompanies this management. The focus in Design Science (Simon 1977) also reflects the development of innovative and useful system artefacts (from a more traditional positivist process reduction orientation) and is consistent with the Perspectival ITS Management Model. In this paper it is argued that much can be learnt from using Simon’s (1977) Design Science approach as a lens of process analysis in conjunction with the Perspectival ITS Management Model to study the management of ITS artefacts through the development of a Perspectival Punctuated Action (PPA) approach. PPA is explained and used to briefly explore the public consultation process in the development of a B2G online authentication framework

VBIEDs in the Mexican Criminal Insurgency

At least 130,000 people have been killed in the ongoing Mexican “crime war,” and many more have been kidnapped or simply gone missing. Yet despite the significance of these numbers, official reports and news accounts frequently underreport the toll of this war

Suicide Bombings in Operation Iraqi Freedom

Suicide bombing is the act of blowing oneself up in order to kill (destroy) or injure (damage) a target. The target may be military or civilian or both. Typically, the killing or physical destruction of the target is less important than the terror generated by undertaking the act. This ultimately makes suicide bombing a “disruptive firepower” capability (based on Bond-Relationship Targeting) utilized by opposing forces (OPFORs) which lack traditional destructive firepower

Extreme Barbarism, a Death Cult, and Holy Warriors in Mexico: Societal Warfare South of the Border?

This short essay is about impression—gut feelings combined with a certain amount of analytical skill—about recent trends taking place in Mexico concerning the ongoing criminal insurgencies being waged by the various warring cartels, gangs, and mercenary organizations that have metastasized though out that nation (and in many other regions as well). The authors spent over eight hours sequestered together about a month ago on a five-hundred mile ‗there and back again road trip‘ to attend a training conference as instructors for the Kern County Chiefs of Police. Our talks centered on Mexican Drug Cartels, 3rd Generation Gangs, 3rd Phase Cartels, Criminal Insurgency Theory, and a host of related topics most folks just don‘t normally discuss in polite company. In the car, and at the conference, we were bombarded by Sullivan‘s never ending twitter and social networking news feeds—in Spanish and English—linked to the criminal violence in Mexico. If Dante had been our contemporary, we fear, he could just have easily taken a stroll through some of the cities and towns of Mexico using those news feeds and substituting the imagery for the circles of hell he described in his early 14th century work the Divine Comedy