Lush much?
by Lindsay
My last post might have also been about shoes, but when I came across this unique footwear, I couldn’t pass up the post.
check them out here.
If you actually drink so often that you need a flask built into the sole of your flip flops, I really think it’s important that you see somebody … soon. In the mean time, cheers!
Filed under: Gadgets | Leave a Comment
Why Women Love Shoes
by Lindsay
I’m pretty much as happy as a woman can get right now. My day hasn’t been particularly good, I’d love a nap, and the weather’s pretty gray, but none of that matters because I’m wearing a new pair of shoes. I fell in love and splurged – perhaps a bit beyond my means – but I just had to have them.
But why are women willing to empty their bank accounts for these little leather pick-me-ups? It can all be traced to innocent young girls looking for a fairytale.
Cinderella tried on a shiny glass slipper and all her dreams came true: rid of the evil step mother and sisters, winning the hand of the handsom prince, and not to mention a castle and crown!
Dorothy’s ruby slippers took her from the crazy land of Oz back to her family in Kansas.
And the Little Mermaid may have said she wanted legs and feet – but what good are those without attractive adornment?
Young girls’ childhood fantasies are replete with a good pair of shoes making a woman’s dreams come true. So just because in life a pair of ruby heels won’t make the commute any faster, and a glass slipper won’t impress men at the bars, doesn’t mean a good pair of kicks won’t make a woman feel like everything in life will fall perfectly into place.
Filed under: Fashion | Leave a Comment
We’re all going to be rich!
by Josh
I just realized that I have a talent for trading stocks. Not picking stocks — trading them, based solely on the past behavior of the price and volume. Maybe you have one too. Try this website. I warn you: it’s an addicting game. They show you a real chart from the past decade and the volume up or down. They don’t give you the stock name until you close your position. Either buy or sell short. Hold as long as you want. It’s simple really. Look for trends. Analyze the behavior of the crowd. I’m up several hundred thousand in a few hundred days. Give it a try – I bet you’re smarter than me.
Why can’t I do this in real life? Well it doesn’t count commissions, SEC fees, or taxes. Still, I’d be well above any index. Second, its sample represents a bull market (the last 10 years), and it may oversample wildly volatile stocks and small caps. Still, traders can make money in any kind of market, especially with options. Most importantly, it offers no risk. I routinely bet my entire stash on stocks I have no idea about. No sane person would do that in real life. Or would they?
Ok, so you’re good at technical trading. Now what? Hop into the market, sucker! I love this site. It’s a discount brokerage offering free trades (up to ten a month). For comparison, Etrade and Ameritrade cost up to $10 a trade and sometimes more on microcaps. I love it because it confirms the kickin’ trend of most services going free. The internet reduces transaction costs, which is great for consumers. Most services we’re used to paying for, like travel agents, antique dealers, even real estate agents, are being replaced by algorithms. A stock broker used to take your order, write it on a slip, take it to the floor of the exchange, find a seller, and make the swap. Now, they press a button on a computer terminal. Bandwidth and storage are so cheap, this can be done remotely virtually free. Etrade and Ameritrade will eventually have to go this route, because their commissions don’t account for much revenue. Ameritrade bought TD to diversify into its brick and mortar advisory services, and Etrade almost went under investing in asset-backed securities in an effort to expand its business. Anyone who still has an expensive brokerage (ahem, me) is losing the plot.
Here’s an idea that’s even better: crowdsource stock picks. The wisdom of crowds already brings us music we love, books we should read, and recommendations for Netflix. Couldn’t the hive mind do better than Jim Cramer? If you created a fund of the crowd’s top picks, you’d be doing better than Bill Miller and John Templeton’s lovechild. The worry is that “experts” will try to hijack the system to push up securities they own (there is no such disclosure rule as there is for “real” journalists). But if that moves the price, should you really care?
If you want to get really smart, there is no reason why you need expensive software. This custom screener will sort stocks based on virtually any criteria you want. Look at indicators like Parabolic SAR, MACD, stochastic oscillators, Bollinger Bands, you name it. Or get fundamentals like price/book, forward EPS, PEG ratio, etc.
Then again, why trade your own stocks when artificial intelligence can do it better than you? I’m not talking about a simple program here; hedge funds routinely use evolved algorithms running on “a neural net processah – a lührning komputah.” Lots of different algorithms compete in an “ecosystem,” suffer random mutations, adapt, cannibalize each other and are killed off in iterations by environmental stresses. The ones that survive are sufficiently complex to befuddle their creators.
Neural nets can be easily trained and “grown.” This guy has created one that generates picks for a small fee on his website. His success looks pretty good.
The internet is making interactive charts, real-time information, complete transparency, and instant trading a reality. There is no excuse for regular folks like you and me not to amass obscene wealth. Net benefit everyone.
Filed under: Self-Actualization, Technoutopianism | Leave a Comment
Are you beautiful?
by Josh
It’s not in the eye of the beholder. Or at least that eye is getting more objective.
A new robot from Israel can tell, within a tiny margin of error, whether you are a babe. I think a new “TAU index” should be a requirement for dating sites. No more grainy photos from 10 years and 30 pounds ago, and the subsequent nasty surprises. Get automatically vetted by a computer.
Then again, you could always digitally touch yourself up with this free cosmetic surgery preview morphing software. It’s free on the net.
Filed under: Business, Fashion, Psychology, Technoutopianism | 1 Comment
who has lapsed into self-parody.
by Josh
When I read this article an involuntary spasm of derision issued from my mouth that sounded like Nelson Muntz. 
My coworkers turned their heads in alarm.
Not only will Hillary stoop to any debasement to cling a second longer to the electoral stage, but it seems her supporters too will weave any thundering, spectacular mistruth in defense of her indefensible candidacy. Professor Wilentz, you are best leveraging what little national influence your Princeton history chair carries helping appraisers identify authentic 19th-century craft cabinetry on Antiques Roadshow.
Sean Wilentz, you are a logical man. Surely you realize your argument claiming legitimacy for elitist winner-take-all primary allotments, such as those instituted by the Republican National Committee (paragons of direct democracy), based solely on their precedent in history is comical and misleading. After all, proportional rules have a venerable, 20-year history as well. After the gross discounting of Jackson votes and torpid national campaign of Dukakis in 1988, the system was in need of a shakeup (as it had been in 1936, 1968, 1980, and many other occasions throughout history). Because we have had long traditions of primogeniture (or child abuse, or casual racism, or whatever you like) doesn’t mean we should look disfavorably on new, fairer ways of doing business.
Yes, Dr. Wilentz, you are right that Hillary would be winning if we practiced winner-take-all state allotments. But, then, why not go further, and have a national, popular vote winner-take-all contest? Nothing could be more equitable. (Obama wins, by the way, 50%-47%). Or, we could allow a national revote, and give all the Edwards, Richardson, Dodd, Kucinich, and Biden voters a chance to recast their ballots for one of the two remaining contenders. Anyone care to guess how that would turn out?
No, Dr. Wilentz, the rules are set up as they are, and we must play by them, Clinton dirty tricks notwithstanding. Kansas just beat Memphis for the national title in men’s college basketball. But Memphis’ high scorer Chris Douglas-Roberts poured in 22 points, while Kansas’ Darrell Arthur managed only 20. If you had dictated from your Ivory Tower that, on second thought, Memphis wins by virtue of having the game’s high scorer, what do you think would happen? I’ll tell you: a riot, starting with Darrell Arthur kicking your skinny white ass.
And no, Dr. Wilentz, your argument that Hillary has won the Democratic bastions is transparently disingenuous. Sure Obama has triumphed in right wing cauldrons of incest and banjo-pluckin’ like Wyoming, but he is also putting in play Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, and several other states that have a better chance of annexing themselves to Iceland than voting Clinton in the fall. That calculus backfires for your side, I’m afraid, and the superdelegates are paying attention.
Proportional primaries are a reality and they are fair. This article makes a far more sensible argument than I have here. Tricky math and what-if fantasy scenarios are not going to change the reality that Obama has won, and will win in August.
It’s cynical and intellectually dishonest to define democracy as that which disenfranchises the most supporters of your opponent. You, Howard Wolfson, and the entire campaign are grasping at straws, and the effort smacks of desperation. Your buddies were in the White House for 8 years. I hope for the sake of the country that Hillary’s sexagenarian base can swallow its bitterness and unite with the rest of us to fix the economy, provide health care for the uninsured, end our costly adventure in Iraq, and reduce greenhouse emissions. Because you’ve already fucked us over enough.
<— Sean Wilentz looking cheeky at Bubba’s impeachment hearing
Filed under: Politics | Leave a Comment
Microtrends = history
by Josh
“Mark Penn literally wrote the book on Microtrends, but this election is about a macrotrend.”
So said Sir Martin Sorrell of the global media conglomerate the WPP Group to Arianna Huffington last month. Now Godzilla is gone, and it’s time for the pundits to size up his legacy, and the legacy of the failed Clinton campaign.
The reviews are coming in and suffice to say there are a few more splats than tomatoes. Penn ceded the small states to Obama, chauvinistically acknowledging only the electoral heavy hitters. Oops. Penn positioned Hillary as the incumbent, discouraging her from active campaigning in early 2007. Bad move. Penn insisted Hillary’s clear-eyed gravitas was a strong suit, and refused her staff’s calls for a personality makeover, even when her contrived tears showed New Hampshire voters she is not a lizard and helped her win the state. Too late now: Penn’s Mephistophelean counsel urged Hillary to an ugly turn toward cruel and depraved fury — dismaying her core team, alienating her independent support, losing the press, and fracturing the Democratic party for years. That might ultimately be the legacy of this campaign. Imagine Hil’ trying to work with Patrick Leahy, or Ted Kennedy, or Nancy Pelosi, or John Lewis on Capitol Hill ever again.
Now Penn has been lost to history: last week, he covertly donned his Burson Marsteller, Exxon Valdez-spinning hat, and betrayed Hillary to Colombian strongmen, which seems to me worse than Obama advisor Austan Goolsbee’s Canada flap. While the press is now a whirlwind of “Clinton campaign in trouble,” this is probably a net positive for Maggie Williams and the gang. Penn steadfastly refused to acknowledge the reality of this campaign, what Jesse calls “21st century politics.” Sadly for Hillary and her all-consuming ambition, it should have come two months earlier.
This article, from March, remains the most salient critique of this election I have read. I agree with the author that, essentially, Penn has missed the forest for the trees. Microtrends, Penn’s 2007 opus, analyzed the role of endlessly segmented, niched vertical markets that compose the interest group landscape. When Penn polled for Bubba, and helped Dick Morris draft his cynical “triangulation” strategy, it was just these mini-constituencies he was targeting: “soccer moms”, “Nascar dads”, “dot-commers,” etc.
Penn’s argument is that an astute contemporary politician needs to be all things to all people, as tastes and political needs devolve to a micro-local level. A political long tail, as it were. This is fundamentally at odds with Obama’s “One America” message. Let’s put aside the petty stuff–late term abortion bans, flag-burning amendments, Sista Souljah–and come together around the important issues, like making political dialogue work again. I’ve felt it; for the first time in my life I’ve parted with cynicism and embraced a large-scale collective movement.
Penn’s occupation as a pollster is what led him into this fix. As Benjamin Disraeli said, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Woe to those who try to construct a science of political belief. Strategists as diverse as Kevin Phillips, Lee Atwater and David Axelrod understand campaigns hinge on fickle turns of emotion. Numbers might help forecast, but they cannot tell the whole story.
The mountains of data generated by Penn, Schoen, and Berland (Penn’s polling firm) are impressive, but the frivolous and fanciful conclusions Penn draws are inventions of their creator. One problem is how the questions are framed–often as either/or scenarios, or “pick 3 labels that best describe you.” Penn has designed surveys with the intention of slicing people up. His basic supposition is that people’s interests must inevitably diverge, and his findings support that premise. But they cannot prove it a posteriori, because Penn doesn’t control for the fact that his surveys determine the horizon of possibility for respondents. There is never an “N/A” option.
The other damning problem with Penn’s statistical gameplan is that polls sadly underrepresent people’s capacity for meaningful collective experience. It’s just hard to get inspired taking a survey. If you called me up 8 p.m. on Tuesday and asked me what matters more to me, tsunami relief or ethanol subsidies, I might answer one way. But put me in front of a drowning child and I might behave very differently. At the risk of tackiness, I offer this proverb: you cannot tranch up a nation’s soul.
Clinton, at Penn’s direction, has also repeatedly broken my cardinal rule of political communication: voters are not “you”; they are “us.” Penn’s strategy has been to position Hillary as the powerful, experienced champion who can deliver political bacon to the hapless little guy: “I will fight for your jobs”; “Your concerns matter to me”; “You deserve better healthcare in Michigan.”
By contrast, Obama has emphasized what “we” can do. He doesn’t treat us like fools, or like passive vehicles for some Madison Avenue niche-marketing scheme. “We” are going to fight to end the war, to reduce global warming, to pay down the debt. Change begins and ends with “us.” The spirit of Kennedy’s inaugural is not lost on Obama. Together, we will make it happen.
Such universal esprit is anathema to Penn’s microtrending, and he never caught hold of it. Penn’s PR firm, Burson Marsteller, is already synching up to the times: their new media practice is inventing ways to encourage feedback–not dictate unilaterally, to seed participation–not to muzzle it, to bring people together–not to wedge them into market segments.
Time will tell if Penn’s exit reveals a whole new Hillary, much the way Al Gore’s going of the rails (and off the grid) after his 2000 Pyrrhic victory unmasked him as the witty charmer we’d been told he was in private. My guess is that her naked lust for power (and for a measure of equality with her slippery husband) left her long ago without a coherent strategy. Just throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks, Hillary. But there can be no denying that Penn’s ouster has ushered out a decade-old tactic of divide-and-conquer, play-to-the-middle politics that viewed the political map as a gameboard, and voters as pawns. We are better than that.
Filed under: Media, Morality, Politics | 1 Comment
Tags: hope, Mark Penn, meaningless pablum, Obama, the future
In defense of fighting
by Mike Dob
A few months ago (December I think) Esquire Magazine published an article in which the author promoted the practice of punching assholes in the face as a mechanism for maintaining a mannerly society. In a subsequent issue of the same magazine, Chuck Klosterman wrote a piggyback piece putting forward his theory that Americans are no longer interested in professional boxing because so few of us ever have to fistfight; we can’t relate to the underlying premise of the sport. On Saturday, a friend and I agreed that we’d be that much closer to a more perfect union if you could sock jerks in the mouth without having to worry about spending the night in jail or being bankrupted in civil litigation. A-holes and D-bags would think twice before telling the person shushing them in the movie theater to fuck off or cursing out the Starbucks barrister for putting milk in their latte. Unfortunately these mouthbreathers have Johnny Law on their side and can use the court system as an extra tall teacher to run and hide behind when someone goes to chin-check them into minding their manners. One right hook can lead to jail time, months at civil trial and all the associated costs even if the defendant-pugilist wins, and loss of employment. Quite a price to pay for decking a guy who made an off-color comment about what he’d like to do to your girlfriend.
The process of using disproportionate punishment to disincentivize fisticuffs as a method of settling grievances begins earlier with each generation. In my high school, there was a rigid “one and done” policy where one fistfight meant expulsion. Think about that for a second: a school full of hormonal teenage boys where ONE FIGHT gets you expelled. It’s a wonder the teachers weren’t put out of work for lack of students. Now, I love my high school and acknowledge everything it did for my development as a student and as a man, but that is a policy I will never agree with. Boys fight. It happens. Should it be encouraged? Of course not. But to impose strict liability on fighting regardless of the conduct that incites it send a dangerous message: no matter what someone does to you, don’t resort to physical violence. That’s a lesson I don’t think I’d want my kids to learn.
At this point some of you (modern-parenting liberal sissy types) might be starting to take umbrage at this note and formulating responses. Fair enough. But let me clear some things up here. I understand the problems with allowing people to use physical violence against one another. I understand that what warrants a violent response is a very subjective thing that differs with the temperament and sensitivity of each person. I also understand that violence has a ripple effect, tending to beget more of the same and with increasing severity, and that unchecked violence is Darwinian anarchy. I get all that, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m not advocating a complete laissez-faire approach to boys being boys (and increasingly girls being girls). I’m talking about measured responses to habitual line-steppers. I’m talking about good old-fashioned “do you want to take this outside” dispute resolution. I’m talking about a backlash against the wave of big-talk, no-action prima donnas that have cropped up in the modern era where anybody can mouth off to anybody without fear of retribution. That’s what I’m talking about.
That being said, back to the main thoroughfare by way of a question: why did America turn its back on knuckle justice as a means of enforcing politeness? Because that’s what a civilized society does? Well maybe, though I think civility is often just window-dressing for cowardice. I think it has to do in large part with the aforementioned catalytic effect of violence producing violence. But I think even that is more deeply rooted in the erosion of fatherhood in communities across America. One of the things a father is supposed to teach a boy is how to give and take a beating like a man. When that figure is absent in a boy’s life, he tends to gravitate toward extremes. On one end of the spectrum is the doormat who never stands up for himself and wouldn’t take a swing if you spit in his mother’s face. On the other end are the boys who grow up taking their masculine social cues from movies and music and respond to insult (real or imagined) with disproportionate violence. These are the people who start shooting when someone steps on their Puma, afraid to fight because their friable masculine egos can’t stomach a fair loss.
These hyper-violent aggressors are what ultimately make it impossible to allow any fighting whatsoever. As John Witherspoon famously said in Friday, the good thing about the old days was that no matter whether you won or lost a fight, you lived to fight another day. You might have a split lip or a bloody nose, but you walked away. People knew when to stop. Now there are no limits to what might happen in a fight. If you happen to get knocked down, you’re getting the campfire treatment: stomped until extinguished. You never know what the other person is carrying or whether they’re willing to use it. This fear of the potential consequence of losing – a painful death – leads people to operate a Cold War mentality that rewards immediate and disproportionate violence. The world is a dangerous place, and all the more so because nobody knows where the line is anymore.
I’m an adult. I can and should walk away from a fight if fighting isn’t necessary. But I don’t agree with my Con Law professor that it’s never necessary. I don’t agree with him that as members of a civilized society we always have an obligation to turn the other cheek. Actions, including hurling invectives, have consequences, and I think something is lost when a person loses the right to hold the line at fist’s end if need be. But as stated above, there is no well-recognized line anymore and we need courts and legislators to mark one in red tape. “Normal” folks have to be protected from bullies and psychos and doormats have to be protected from everyone. It’s quite a paradox: our culture softens even as it coarsens. Anyone can say anything to anyone, but no one can touch anybody. The end result? The jerks inherit the earth, and the rest of us have to live in it.
Filed under: Law, Morality, Pop Culture, Sports | 3 Comments
Hot tip
by Josh
If I was a betting man (and I am) I’d look very closely at this chart.
This comes from intrade.com, the online political futures market. Intrade predictions are startlingly accurate, since people are staking real money, not rhetorical bluster.
This graph shows that if Barack Obama’s chances to win Pennsylvania were a security, they’d be trading near historic lows. Here’s a bit of insider info: I’d be short Hillary, long Obama at this price.
Why? Because this man
is on the scene. He is one of the wisest political organizers in the business, and he is revitalizing Pennsylvania’s Latino political infrastructure. Until now, commentators have written off PA as Clinton territory. No more. Now is the time to buy, buy, buy.
P.S. you need a foreign-based credit card
Filed under: Business, Politics | Leave a Comment
Ikea jive
by achitophel
The differences are there, JRO. But perhaps we can come to terms over the Sweedish techno phenonmenon Familjen. Their video here ought to be proof enough. And afterall, if historians and futurists can coexist anywhere, it ought to be at Ikea.
PS. This video has more to say about religion than all the bedstands of the Gideons stacked together.
Filed under: Music | 1 Comment
by Josh
Achitophel, you and I are just not gonna see eye-to-eye on this. You are a historian, I am an futurist. You are an antiquarian, I collect robots. You like quaint cottages in the country, I like titanium spaceships on man-made islands in Abu Dhabi. You like yardsalin’ and antiquein’, I like talking to Ramona, an artificial intelligence.
I used to like music made for pennies by slackers on detuned guitars – Sonic Youth, Pavement, Sebadoh, Built to Spill, Dinosaur Jr. But then I wised up and got with the times! You are a child of the nineties, I am a millennial.
Here is the hot shit now.
(MGMT, house band from my sister’s college; these dweebs in the video aren’t them – it’s a fan video)
Filed under: Music | 4 Comments
by achitophel
I’m usually behind the times, and I bet this won’t be an exception. [ed.'s note: yes, yes you are.]
There’s a fantastic blog out there called Stuff White People Like. It’s fantastic because it’s cleverly inane, and it’s fantastic to me because it’s designed to appeal to the prejudices and realities associated with them who share my tax bracket (ooo, you thought I was gonna say pasty complexion, didchtya?). I couldn’t keep the nods at bay while I read it. Passive aggressive class/identity politics at their best, tempered by satire.
By way of introduction, you might first want to read this piece from Nerve.
Filed under: Pop Culture | Leave a Comment
Rusty Blues
by Achitophel
I’ve been going back more and more lately to blues/rock I used to dig in Soulard. There’s something about the busted out Midwest, its rust and exposed chords, that does it well. The Black Keys come out of Akron, if you haven’t already heard them. I like this song (Your Touch), but I like its video even more.
Filed under: Music | Leave a Comment
Interactive Voice Robot
Last time I went home, my parents had three more remotes. I’ve got two higher ed degrees, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to get everything functioning. With the increasingly complexity added by On-Demand, DVD + BluRay, surround sound, DVR, and internet TV viewing. A little technological update to the interactive TV experience is needed. This adorable smart robot is exactly what we need.
Filed under: Art, Gadgets, Technoutopianism | Leave a Comment
Signing Off
Dear Faithful Readers,
I am sorry to say that I must take a brief hiatus from Shiny Steel, an awesome project started by one of the most extraordinary men I know.
I have taken a job with Obama for America, and I have to have a media blackout until the Pennsylvania Primary on April 22.
Remember, we are the techno-utopia we’ve been waiting for.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments
by Josh
Grumpum – [gruhmp - uhm]
n.
A species of pungent man-bear, hirsute, weighing between 200-350 lbs., with proud Norse heritage, but an incongruous nasally voice.
Can be identified by its call – “dooncha-knooow,” and “Minnissoooootah” – or by its habit of mumbling incomprehensible gibberish when exerting itself – “grumpum grumpum grumpum.”
Most often found in hardware or antique stores, watching “This Old House,” or listening to “Lake Wobegon,” amateur drywalling, wood lathing, plumbing, etc. Known to wear funny hats and clashing sweaters. Makes noise when it eats.
Snick – [snick]
n.
etymology: portmanteau of “snow hick”
A related species, also bearded and named Sven, or Gunther, or Kris, or Erik, or Branden. Less concerned with progressive politics and more with the Goooophers. Worships the deities of hockey and Kirby Puckett.
Difficult to spot because of its use of camouflage in all situations. Defends itself with hunting rifles. Enjoys snow-shoin’. Refuses to move to Chicago with its flock because “it’s too hard to get out into nature.”
Feeds exclusively on bison, venison, and elk.
Filed under: Fashion, Morality | Leave a Comment
Nerds Rejoice!
by Lindsay
As I was browsing Amazon.com, I found a particularly cool little gadget I wish had existed seven years ago when I started college: the Handheld Scanner Pen.
Now, I realize this makes me a huge dork, but I think this has got to be one of the greatest inventions ever. You just highlight a page like you normally would, and this little pen reads and saves the text you go over. You can carry it around and use it everywhere – save phone numbers or information about products at a store. It even has a portable dictionary. It certainly would have made my student life a lot easier. Perfect high school graduation gift idea.
Filed under: Gadgets | Leave a Comment
by Josh
I don’t usually pay attention to Maureen Dowd — no Clinton supporter herself — but this column is brutal. Everyone should read it who is undecided, and just think, from a pragmatic standpoint, what the implications of this election are.
[:Quote:] “Hillary is going for ‘the Tonya Harding option’ — if she can’t get the gold, kneecap her rival.” [:Quote:]
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/opinion/26dowd.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
P.S. My favorite Clinton tidbit comes from an earlier Dowd revelation:
“When I asked one of Hillary’s top health care deputies once why Bill hadn’t insisted that his wife scale down the size of her health care plan, and warned her that the tactics of speed and secrecy might backfire, he replied the president felt too beholden to intervene: ‘She has a 100-pound fishing wire around his dick.’”
Filed under: Politics | 3 Comments
“But what if it just slips?”
by achitophel
In all fairness to Texas, I think the legal code’s been updated or invalidated since this program aired. But it remains educational (and at times hilarious) nonetheless. And let me also say that I don’t blame this malicious nonsense on Texas, relgion, or the Republican party per se. Rather, I blame it all on an evident minority acting as a majority, by its posturing and sense of entitlement, after having been empowered to do so by pussy willow legislature.
Filed under: Law, Morality, Sex | Leave a Comment
by Josh
3) The private sector will be and must be the engine of change, as it has been for the past three centuries. For better or worse, a well-regulated capitalism has been the only sustainable and functional guarantor of quality of life in modern history. Marxist and post-Marxist calls for a state economy, prominent as late as 1968, have faded into the din of background noise. Private self-interest, not altruism, will always dictate the shape of human behavior. This is an evolutionary fact. It’s hardwired into our psychosexual firmware.
This doesn’t mean we want to live in a Randian wilderness of laissez-faire. The government has a role to support, sustain, and at times curtail private enterprise. The best example I can think of is private healthcare. While the specifics of single or multi-payer state support are beyond the scope of this argument, this is plainly an area where the government has a vested stake in protecting the public interest. As it is, inefficiencies and market imbalances are rampant, as in the deregulated energy sector (this isn’t the case, it happens, for transportation). The profit motive and the preservation of life are just not fully compatible. Why would Pfizer license its IP on an AIDS drug to save lives in Africa, when it could recoup its R&D expenditure by selling it?
So too is regulation in the financial services sector a recognized public good. While free-enterprise champions decry clumsy interventions like Sarbanes-Oxley, the principle is unassailable. The creation of the SEC and FDIC in the early days of the New Deal secured the reliability and vigor of American financial institutions and exchanges. American investors know that if they put their savings in a CD or a exchange-listed security, the game is not rigged (a few spectacular exceptions aside). Antimonopoly provisions, quarterly reports, IRS audits – these all guarantee us a measure of stability and transparency. When I buy a $100 share of Citibank, I have reasonable confidence that its not going to be liquidated by a holding company and turned into a Six Flags franchise, or that the books are not hiding billions in undisclosed liabilities for its sex-toy spinoff. That’s not the case in China.
As the current administration has systematically dismantled the foundations of the Glass Steagall Act, we’ve witnessed an unprecedented deregulation of risk underwriting. The result? Banks began to “securitize” or package debt obligations for sale, passing risk onto those with no inclination or ability to audit it. Banks were also effectively authorized to give payola to ratings agencies to slap AAA on questionable mortgage paper. This financial wheeling-and-dealing was never aired or explained to stakeholders, and has led to a precipitous decline in investor trust. Now Congress is talking re-regulation.
A fact conveniently ignored by economic libertarians is the substantial hand the federal government, especially the Defense Department, has played in laying the groundwork for explosive industries like microelectronics and telecommunications. The truth is, without the Pentagon’s ARPA (and the Cold Ware arms race), we would never have the Internet, and that lynchpin of the American economy, e-commerce. At the same time, if the network had remained in the hands of the NSF (who took over from DARPA), and not devolved to private service providers (thanks Al Gore!), we might have a similar situation to Great Britain, where the Post Office maintained strict control. The British high-tech industry was significantly retarded by primitive communications infrastructure, out-of-date technology, and lack of investment. The Internet is a case study in Uncle Sam’s elegant dance with private industry. This is a good thing.
So how does Washington lead and catalyze innovation in a positive direction, without getting in the way or gumming up the works? Rather than creating (more) officious bureaucracies, the feds have a powerful tool at their disposal: the constitutionally delineated power to tax and spend. Libertarians cry foul at what they see as an unnecessary mound of regulation and red tape. But even in the most deregulated industries, the government is already promoting certain behaviors, and discouraging others, through its fiscal policy. Firmly established in the midst of FDR’s forays into social security, Helvering v. Davis (1937) guaranteed the power of the Congress to levy taxes and create programs that uphold the general welfare. Currently, we give tax breaks to light truck-owners meant to foster small business, and small incentives to those who buy the most fuel efficient cars. By instituting a graduated tax scheme on vehicle fuel economy, or a dramatic excise tax on gasoline, Congress would effectively be legislating greener cars without directly encroaching on consumer freedom. Detroit may rail against mandatory emissions standards, but Washington also has the power to influence consumer behavior, which will in turn influence carmakers. To some extent, we are already doing this.
On a macro-level, fiscal policy determines consumption patterns as well. The evidence of the last half-century tells us that, with some exceptions, more spending on the side of aggregate demand generates more jobs, more disposable income, and more upward mobility. Tax breaks designed to stimulate savings almost never have that effect. The government can serve as something like the filter in a swimming pool. It will take water out of the general pool, but, when working properly, spending judiciously and wisely, it replaces what it takes out with clean, new water on top. Jobs may be lost here, industries slowed there, but new technologies, new consumer products will take their place, along with higher paying, more intellectually rewarding jobs, and cleaner industrial output. It’s creative destruction. German subsidies for solar power have facilitated a clean energy boom in that country. Grants for oil refineries have made the U.S. the leading processor of crude.
By far the most important way the government can help is by cultivating basic research. Uncle Sam is central to this process because basic research, by definition, is not applied, and hence has little immediate commercial value. Companies, and even universities, have little incentive to generously fund it. While not promising any short-term payoff, basic research has tremendous effects down the line. Such devices as digital computers, solid-state microprocessors, silicon solar panels, and the software undergirding the web would not have been possible without heavy DoD investment. They were not seen as cost-efficient by the private sector, though they turned out to have revolutionary economic potential. Of course, you need smart, technologically savvy managers at the helm, not lunatics. The way to get them is to do something the government rarely does: pay them ridiculously well.
In fact, we are not doing very well in this capacity. Recently, the NSF budgets for non-applied research have been slashed, grant support to universities has been scaled back, and NASA’s important discovery missions (like the Hubble telescope) have been subordinated to jingoistic fantasies like sending a man to Mars. Blame budget-hawk Democrats; blame sciencephobic Republicans. In 2004, U.S. spending on R&D had dropped to 2.4% of GDP, placing us behind Japan, Germany, and South Korea. The business sector accounted for 2/3 of this expenditure. Based on recent trends, Taiwan and China will be overtaking us shortly. If you look at the table of countries and their relative investment, you see almost a ranking of the most productive economies in the world. A correlation does not prove a causation, but nevertheless we can do better.
One thing government—and government alone—can do is build infrastructure. Without roads to deliver supplies, pipes to pump and process water, regulated wires and bandwidths for telecommunications, technology cannot move forward at the ground level. Unfortunately, we’re not doing well here either. Rapid population growth and municipalities’ inability or reluctance to spend on public works, has resulted in a crumbling infrastructure, rated a “D” by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Next time I get up the energy for a rant, I’ll talk about cheap ways we can begin to repair the damage.
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Hillary and Rush Limbaugh – BFFs
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004303769_clinpublicans25.html
Superdelegates take heed. Maybe the Republicans know something you don’t.
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