Democracy in America is a Useful Fiction - by Chris Hedges
Corporations have 35,000 lobbyists in Washington and thousands more in state capitals that dole out corporate money to shape and write legislation. They use their political action committees to solicit employees and shareholders for donations to fund pliable candidates. The financial sector, for example, spent more than $5 billion on political campaigns, influence peddling and lobbying during the past decade, which resulted in sweeping deregulation, the gouging of consumers, our global financial meltdown and the subsequent looting of the U.S. Treasury.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Knowledge
It's estimated that medical knowledge, for example, doubles every seven years, and scientific knowledge doubles every twenty years.
The total written knowledge in the world is said to have doubled between 1450 and 1750, and then to have doubled again between 1750 and 1900.
Between 1900 and 1950, human knowledge doubled once more, and then again from 1950 to 1975.
Now, it is believed to double every 900 days. By the year 2020, global knowledge is predicted to double every 72 days.
plain truth = schooling never ends; education is never finished.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Never A Bad Time To Laugh
You have to take everything seriously enough to make the effort necessary for finding the humor in it. Comedy is some serious shit.
From The Spectator, here's the first of what i hope is just the beginning of our recovery from the depths of terror.
From The Spectator, here's the first of what i hope is just the beginning of our recovery from the depths of terror.
Redneck Love Songs
"If Love Were Oil, I'd Be A Quart Low"
"I Got In At 2 With A 10, And Woke Up At 10 With A 2"
"At The Gas Station Of Love, I Got The Self-Service Pump"
"I Got In At 2 With A 10, And Woke Up At 10 With A 2"
"At The Gas Station Of Love, I Got The Self-Service Pump"
The New Paradigm
A couple of posts at The Baseline Scenario point to some real-world examples of a creepy feeling I've had for several years - that the point of the exercise is no longer to honor your word and to deliver at least what you promised, but to make the customer force you to hold up your end of the bargain. It's like every business is adopting the Used Car Lot model.
James Kwak tags it as "Design or Incompetence", and has begun to lean toward Design. ie: they do it on purpose. The banks or the mortgage companies or whoever make the contract or the offer of service as complicated and opaque as possible in order to suck us in and then fuck us over. (first post - second post)
Most of us being 'hassle-averse', we're not inclined to press a point even when we think we're not being treated quite right. Applying this assumption to a business rolling out a new offer (using rough round numbers here): I'm trying to pull in $1M in new revenue, with a Net Target of $300K. I'm spending $500K getting it out to the public, and I'm offering discounts/rebates totaling another $200K. Then I sit back and watch the numbers as the calls come into Customer Service. But what if I make a coupla relatively simple adjustments? First, the offer of discounts is big and splashy, but I add several lines of disclaimers and eligibility requirements in very complex and jargony language. Then I take some steps to ensure that I'm weeding out the new prospects who are likely to insist on getting the good deal they think I'm offering (putting them on hold when they call in works wonders - but any hurdle will do); plus, I build in a way for the Cust Svc reps to get a little bonus by cutting into the discounts, or upselling, or counterselling, or whatever. It could also be as simple as not telling the reps what the offer actually requires the customer to do to be eligible for the deal. It's not quite Bait-n-Switch, but it's really close.
The point is that we're going way off into the weeds of Caveat Emptor. Companies that can make it obvious that they're working hard to earn back the trust of their customers will lead the economy back to solid footing. Without that trust and confidence, we don't have an economy.
James Kwak tags it as "Design or Incompetence", and has begun to lean toward Design. ie: they do it on purpose. The banks or the mortgage companies or whoever make the contract or the offer of service as complicated and opaque as possible in order to suck us in and then fuck us over. (first post - second post)
Most of us being 'hassle-averse', we're not inclined to press a point even when we think we're not being treated quite right. Applying this assumption to a business rolling out a new offer (using rough round numbers here): I'm trying to pull in $1M in new revenue, with a Net Target of $300K. I'm spending $500K getting it out to the public, and I'm offering discounts/rebates totaling another $200K. Then I sit back and watch the numbers as the calls come into Customer Service. But what if I make a coupla relatively simple adjustments? First, the offer of discounts is big and splashy, but I add several lines of disclaimers and eligibility requirements in very complex and jargony language. Then I take some steps to ensure that I'm weeding out the new prospects who are likely to insist on getting the good deal they think I'm offering (putting them on hold when they call in works wonders - but any hurdle will do); plus, I build in a way for the Cust Svc reps to get a little bonus by cutting into the discounts, or upselling, or counterselling, or whatever. It could also be as simple as not telling the reps what the offer actually requires the customer to do to be eligible for the deal. It's not quite Bait-n-Switch, but it's really close.
The point is that we're going way off into the weeds of Caveat Emptor. Companies that can make it obvious that they're working hard to earn back the trust of their customers will lead the economy back to solid footing. Without that trust and confidence, we don't have an economy.
The Crystal Ball
Fixing healthcare will not fix the economy. But if you don't fix healthcare, you can't fix the economy.
Here's a nice peek into the future of the debt from a CBO report put out a year before Obama took office.
Here's a nice peek into the future of the debt from a CBO report put out a year before Obama took office.
Friday, January 22, 2010
We Are So Fucked(?)
SCOTUS blows up a hundred years of 'settled law', and there's an awful lot of sturm und drang about the end of democracy as we know it. (BTW: I'm gettin' a little tired of Olbermann - seems like he's in full Drama Queen mode every 3rd day about some damned thing or another) I don't wanna lose my shit just because something scary is happening.
That said, I think the decision is pretty fucked up. It allows any given company's Executive Suite to dedicate a portion of every employee's work to a political agenda item that will likely NOT be in the best interests of those individual employees, even as it works to benefit that company. It concentrates way too much power in way too few hands.
None of this is certain, of course, but I don't wanna be all Zen Master-y, and just say, "we'll see", because there's a very real potential threat here. The first priority of power is to perpetuate itself. And since we haven't seen anybody resembling Geo Washington lately, I'm not expecting to see anybody walking away from power willingly. Not now. Every tin-plated martinet now has even greater incentive to grab whatever he can. The real kicker is how ironic the whole thing becomes in light of two things: 1) proponents of the decision and of big corporate power are likely to claim status as acolytes of Ayn Rand. 2) Ayn Rand detested the weakness of people who tried to use governmental influence to further the interests of a company, and addressed it well in Atlas Shrugged in the section called 'The Politics of Pull'.
Maybe we'll get a better idea of how it plays out by watching to see who moves first &/or most aggressively &/or most stealthily, &/or whatever.
I think, if he wants to get back on top of things, Obama needs to pick a fight over this - we saw some of that yesterday(?) when he took some rhetorical shots at Wall Street Bankers and Special Interests. His SOTU next week is the perfect platform to launch a brand new campaign. Big opportunity; big risk; big potential payoff.
This post is rambling around the bend.
That said, I think the decision is pretty fucked up. It allows any given company's Executive Suite to dedicate a portion of every employee's work to a political agenda item that will likely NOT be in the best interests of those individual employees, even as it works to benefit that company. It concentrates way too much power in way too few hands.
None of this is certain, of course, but I don't wanna be all Zen Master-y, and just say, "we'll see", because there's a very real potential threat here. The first priority of power is to perpetuate itself. And since we haven't seen anybody resembling Geo Washington lately, I'm not expecting to see anybody walking away from power willingly. Not now. Every tin-plated martinet now has even greater incentive to grab whatever he can. The real kicker is how ironic the whole thing becomes in light of two things: 1) proponents of the decision and of big corporate power are likely to claim status as acolytes of Ayn Rand. 2) Ayn Rand detested the weakness of people who tried to use governmental influence to further the interests of a company, and addressed it well in Atlas Shrugged in the section called 'The Politics of Pull'.
Maybe we'll get a better idea of how it plays out by watching to see who moves first &/or most aggressively &/or most stealthily, &/or whatever.
I think, if he wants to get back on top of things, Obama needs to pick a fight over this - we saw some of that yesterday(?) when he took some rhetorical shots at Wall Street Bankers and Special Interests. His SOTU next week is the perfect platform to launch a brand new campaign. Big opportunity; big risk; big potential payoff.
This post is rambling around the bend.
Weird Science
Via True/Slant
Researchers have turned to a slime mold for tips on work efficiency. While that’s just another day at the office for me, the researchers seem impressed.
They say Physarum Polycephalum built a replica of the Tokyo train system in 26 hours that’s just about as efficient, reliable and “expensive” to run as the real thing. It could be the ultimate outsourcing strategy, but Japanese and British scientists see another opportunity.
Researchers have turned to a slime mold for tips on work efficiency. While that’s just another day at the office for me, the researchers seem impressed.
They say Physarum Polycephalum built a replica of the Tokyo train system in 26 hours that’s just about as efficient, reliable and “expensive” to run as the real thing. It could be the ultimate outsourcing strategy, but Japanese and British scientists see another opportunity.
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