random rants and references

A good summary come from the Fourth Rail Blog on the Minutemen and the Border War . The Minuteman Project (MMP) has already had a real impact on getting more Border Patrol officers to the Arizona border immediately. It does raise the questions of why it took this much stimulus for action and whether this reponse is sufficient. The article provides a breakout of new Border Patrol forces assigned to Arizona - it's a large increment and starts now.

As to who is coming over the border : "According to the Department of Homeland Security, “over 351,700 illegal immigrants” were apprehended on the Arizona border in 2004. It is estimated that only one-third of illegal immigrants are apprehended. While the overwhelming majority of illegals crossing the border are Mexicans, a significant number of non-Mexican illegals are entering via the Southern border:

[O]fficials are alarmed that a growing number hail from Central and South America, Asia, even Mideast countries such as Syria and Iran. In 2003, the Border Patrol arrested 39,215 so-called "OTMs," or other-than-Mexicans, along the Southwest border. In 2004, the number jumped to 65,814. ....
Panamanian security chief Javier Martinez recently stated that al Qaeda is setting up shop in his country and may be planning to attack the Panama Canal, a vital economic and military causeway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Al Qaeda is also establishing relationships with Central American gangs and crime syndicates. The brutal Honduran gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, has begun to cooperate with al Qaeda “in an effort by the terrorist network to seek help infiltrating the U.S.-Mexico border.” Al Qaeda operative Adnan El Shukrijumah, who is believed to be the next Mohammed Atta and is the target of a nationwide FBI manhunt, has met with MS-13 to coordinate efforts."

It's good that the government is responding, but it does seem that the problem is a lot more threatening than just migrant workers. Also, these numbers do show why the government would seek a way to allow contolled entry of temporary workers, since that would free up resources to focus on the threat of criminal or terrorist infiltrators.

It seems clear that the MMP volunteers are getting a good start on the the kind of positive response and action they seek. They are not the only activists converging on Cochise County this April; their opposition will also be out in force. Let's hope neither they nor their antagonists cause a flare-up that sets this good cause back. I still think it would be a good idea for the Border Patrol to join forces with the MMP volunteer in a common experiment to find better ways to monitor the border. It's a good chance to learn some practical lessons.

Overall, I am a strong supporter of President Bush's international and domestic agendas. But no one hits all homers; and I think the President is swinging and missing a few in the homeland security area. My last post discussed the TSA bureaucracy's preference for contol over security.

Carrying that theme further, I think the President erred badly in calling the Arizona Minuteman Project participants "vigilantes", as reported here : "I'm against vigilantes in the United States of America," Mr. Bush said at a joint press conference. "I'm for enforcing the law in a rational way." The President should have shown more faith in the citizens, following the "Trust the People" theme of his campaigns. That theme and his "Citizen Choice and Action" theme are both noble and characteristically American.

So what do we know about the Minuteman Project (MMP) ? From the same article : "More than 1,000 people — including 30 pilots and their private planes — have volunteered for the Minuteman Project, beginning next month along the Arizona-Mexico border. Civilians will monitor the movement of illegal aliens for the month of April and report them to the Border Patrol." Sounds more like a neighborhood watch group than a bunch of vigilantes; but the neighborhood is 20 miles of Cochise County desert borderland southeast of Tucson.

Cochise County is named for the Apache chief who dominated the area 150 years ago; its rugged and desolate terrain made it a favorite for Geronomo's raiding parties. Today, that terrain, softened in places by irrigation and farming projects, still provides cover for groups of smugglers transporting illegal aliens, drugs, and weapons from Mexico to the US. And, while not as hostile as the old Apaches, the gangs of today pose a violent threat to rural ranches and residents. Some intelligence reports indicate that the smuggler gangs are used by would-be terrorists to gain entry into the US. This is tough terrain for an understaffed Border Patrol contingent to monitor; they should welcome the help, even for a month-long demonstration.

Of course, the MMP ( The Minuteman Project ) also bills itself as a "political assembly ... to protest the refusal of the Congress and President to protect our borders from illegal immigrants, ... thereby creating an imminent danger to all American." I guess that could be seen as political image problem; but the real question is - are these citizens doing something odious or frivolous , or are they engaged in a serious and potentially useful activity?

Perhaps, we can judge the MMP's character by the nature of its enemies. If so, this Washington Times article tells the story Gang will target Minuteman vigil on Mexico border : " Members of a violent Central America-based gang have been sent to Arizona to target Minuteman Project volunteers, who will begin a monthlong border vigil this weekend to find and report foreigner sneaking into the United States, project officials say."

The gang cited is the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, gang. According to the article :
"The MS-13 gang has established major smuggling operations in several areas along the U.S.-Mexico border and have transported hundreds of Central and South Americans -- including gang members -- into the United States in the past two years. The gang also is involved in drug and weapons smuggling. ... Authorities said that the gang has earned a reputation from the other street gangs as being particularly ruthless ....
The MS-13 gang, with 20,000 members nationwide, has risen in recent months to such prominence that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, has begun a nationwide crackdown on gang members in this country -- as part of a sweeping law-enforcement initiative known as Operation Community Shield."

I don't know all the details about this project, but it seems more beneficial than harmful. Participants come from many states and represent a wide variety of ethnicities, including mexican and native americans; they are said to be 40% minority and women. It seems like a good idea to let citizens become involved more directly in Homeland Security activities.

There is a lot that citizens can do to help keep their local areas safe and to respond to crises. When two criminals terrorized the Washington DC Beltway in a series of sniper murders, police tried to keep close wraps on information and were upset when details of the suspect vehicle leaked out. But it was the leaked information over talk radio that helped a trucker spot the criminals in a rest area. He called the police who arrested the pair. Citizen involvement does work and it can be enabled by clever use of our distributed communications and computing capabilities. We have relatively inexpensive and ubiquitous technology and a technologically aware and patriotic citizenry. Why not use these advantages to augment and support Homeland Security efforts?

Public protests and demonstrations like this one may be a good way to get the government's attention to the Border Security issue and also to the issue of how best to couple citizens and regular authorities to get results. These "Minutemen" seem more like citizen activists than vigilantes. Rather than denigrate them, perhaps the government should embrace them in a common experiment.


UPDATE 29March05 : This latest OP/ED from the Washington Times Gangs and Minutemen provides more detail on the gang targeting the Arizona MMP folks. It also indicates one of the unintended consequences of bureaucracies banding together to keep control - they can end up siding with the bad guys against the honest citizens.

In today's Washington Post, Richard Rahn writes how the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) is confusing control and security . I like his title because it is so descriptive of the activities of most large government or bureaucratic organizations - just change the word "security" to reflect the big organization's mission.

After describing the inefficient and ineffective TSA proceedures, he conclude : "If TSA would use sensible cost-benefit and probability analysis, they would put more resources into bomb and chemical detection and let us have our pocket knives and sewing materials. ... (They seem to forget that for decades before the recent use of metal detectors many people routinely carried guns on airplanes, and despite millions of flights there were only a handful of serious incidents.) TSA, and for that matter all other law enforcement agencies, should be required to subject every rule, regulation and procedure to strict cost-benefit analysis, as well as review by civil liberties experts. That would provide better security at lower cost, with far less harassment and intrusion."

His comment about guns in airplanes reminds me of the rather poor performance of the TSA concerning putting armed agents in airplanes despite the expressed intent of Congress for this politically incorrect action. Congress pushed for both more Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) and for arming all pilots that wished to be armed.

While FAMs have been hired, there are very few relative to the number of air flights; and it has been geting harder to retain and recruit them. They complain about a rigid and uncomfortable dress code that makes them obvious stand-outs among the passengers; and the frequency of flights without interim rest, due to the scarcity of FAMs. The lack of FAMs could be offset by more armed pilots. However, very few pilots have been certified for weapons carry; which seems odd since a large percentage of pilots asked for the right to be armed and are also ex-military. Why? Perhaps, because the TSA instituted a very extensive and slow program to conduct mental suitability profiles on applicants and to require lengthy training in how to handle a pistol ( and then provided very few training slots).

Of course, there are other ways to do this - one could supplement the FAMs by encouraging off-duty Law Enforcement officers to travel armed. That opens up a very large pool of trained LE agents who could qualify with a minimum of extra training and at very low cost. It's probably a lot cheaper and more effective than much of the current airport security hassle.

But that approach , or others that place more reliance on citizens, threatens to improve security at the expense of bureaucratic control. In many areas of Homeland Security, it seems we talk about Trusting the Citizens, but end up enacting centralized controls. It seems odd since this nation is the premier exemplar of the power of distributed decisionmaking and action in pursuit of common objectives - with major successes in fields as diverse as internet creation and exploitation to corporate management to modern warfighting in the Mid-East.

I posted earlier ( Another Social Security Strawman ) on the Schiller paper, as reported in the Washington Post, being a strawman that badly misrepresented relative investment returns for individual accounts vs. standard social security. This 27 March article by economist Alan Reynolds compares investment returns and finds standard social security vs. stock returns: no contest. He looks at several aspects and sees the advantage is strongly for individual accounts over standard social security in terms of getting a bigger retirement check for the same dollar amounts in FICA taxes. I like his version of the last word:

"In the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, Thomas Garret and Russell Rhine earned the last word on this topic. They calculate what the return would have been to those who retired in 2003 if they had been allowed to invest the money they "contributed" to Social Security in an S&P 500 index fund or six-month CDs. Then, they compare what retirees' amortized monthly income would have been were payroll taxes invested with what it actually is under Social Security. They found: "Over 99 percent of the U.S. population would have earned a greater return by investing in the S&P 500, and over 95 percent would have earned a greater return by investing in six-month CDs relative to the current Social Security system.

A person retiring at age 65 will only benefit more from Social Security relative to a private investment in the S&P 500 if he is a low earner and lives to be at least 96 years old. For those retiring at age 70, the only individuals that benefit more from Social Security are low earners who live to be at least 94 years old and average earners who live to be at least 108 years old." "

Indeed! How lucky do you feel about living that long just to break even? Not to mention how much more use you could have had for the extra money before reaching those advanced ages. Oh yes, he also shows why the comparison gets worse for those who retire in the future instead of 2003.

The The Belmont Club has some excellent reporting on the "stealth battles" between those who want to save lives by fighting Malaria and those who oppose them. Let me admit to stacking the rhetorical deck by that statement. I think there is overwhelming evidence that DDT remains the single most effective method for reducing malaria disease and death rates, which have risen dramatically since the use of DDT was largely abandoned. DDT does not harm humans; it can be applied effectively, economically, and safely. Malaria (and Dengue Fever, which is also controllable by DDT) does kill humans - by the millions, while disabling many more. I say "stealth" because most people don't even know of the issue and because the DDT opponents claim there is not a formal ban, while covering their informal actions under the cloak of environmental resposibility.

This The Belmont Club : Mal Aire post provides considerable background on the "informal banning " of DDT. Note this quote from a Ugnandan official : " DDT is a dangerous organic pollutant. If the government wants to use it in Uganda, it must first seek the sanction of fellow members of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants(POP), which we ratified in July 2004. ... DDT was outlawed 50 years ago - it seems we are being taken back to the dark ages."

In fact, the Stockholm Convention does not require "sanction" for user nations, nor was DDT "banned'. Indeed, an effort was mounted to ban DDT as a "POP", but it failed. The nuances are in the article, but the impact of the informal ban or pressure is clear.

The second post, The Belmont Club : Mal Aire 2 , continues the discussion of DDT and Malaria and presents a recent e-mail from Dr. D.R. Roberts addressing the informal ban of DDT. Dr. Roberts co-authored this 2000 Lancet paper on Re-emerging Malaria as part of the effort to preclude a world ban of DDT as a POP (Persistent Organic Pollutant). While the formal ban was avoided, the informal pressure continued. Some key excerpts from Robert's e-mail :

"In years after 1969 there was progressive environmentalist pressure to stop uses of DDT in public health programs. In the end, organizational structures of many fine malaria control programs were eliminated, spraying was stopped, and malaria rates started to increase. As a result, malaria rates are now about where they were in the early 1940s. These relationships can be demonstrated with quantitative data for many malaria endemic countries. ....
For DDT in particular, WHO has a document calling for countries to phase DDT out of their control programs. So, in my opinion, WHO is actually driven by an environmentalist's agenda, not a malaria control agenda.

Scientists around the world fought to get an exemption in the POPs treaty, for continued use of DDT in malaria control programs. Even with the exemption, developing countries are under increasing pressure from WHO, UNEP, USAID and others to stop all uses of DDT. Of course, when confronted, they claim no opposition to use of DDT. You have to judge from their actions, not their words. Incredibly, the loss of human life and human health seems to have no weight at all in these global transactions!"

Indeed!

This Business Week article discusses Outsourcing Innovation: "First came manufacturing. Now companies are farming out R&D to cut costs and get new products to market faster. Are they going too far? ... (with) the next step in outsourcing -- of innovation itself. "

"Underlying this trend is a growing consensus that more innovation is vital -- but that current R&D spending isn't yielding enough bang for the buck .. The result is a rethinking of the structure of the modern corporation. What, specifically, has to be done in-house anymore? At a minimum, most leading Western companies are turning toward a new model of innovation, one that employs global networks of partners. These can include U.S. chipmakers, Taiwanese engineers, Indian software developers, and Chinese factories.
When the whole chain works in sync, there can be a dramatic leap in the speed and efficiency of product development.

The downside of getting the balance wrong, however, can be steep. Start with the danger of fostering new competitors. ...The key, execs say, is to guard some sustainable competitive advantage, whether it's control over the latest technologies, the look and feel of new products, or the customer relationship. "You have to draw a line," says Motorola CEO Edward J. Zander. At Motorola, "core intellectual property is above it, and commodity technology is below."

Who will ultimately profit most from the outsourcing of innovation isn't clear. The early evidence suggests that today's Western titans can remain leaders by orchestrating global innovation networks. Yet if they lose their technology edge and their touch with customers, they could be tomorrow's great shrinking conglomerates."

I think Dominic Basulto would agree with that last sentence. However, he takes a more upbeat view of the Business Week topic, seeing instead: The Death of Idea Factories... and the Birth of Idea Networks . He also has an interesting perspective on what is driving some of America's leading companies and how they may stay ahead in the innovation race by involving their customers intimately with Beta Products... and Solving the Innovator's Dilemma . He argues : "that alpha companies are increasingly viewing beta releases as low-risk ways of experimenting with market-transforming technologies. Put another way, the most intelligent, most aggressive companies -- the alpha companies -- are willing to release products that are somehow second-rate or inferior to currently existing products when they realize the potential for these beta products to become category killers over time. That's a 180-degree change from what one would expect from America's best-managed companies. ....

Sound familiar? It's a variation of the 'disruptive technology' argument proposed by Harvard Business School's Clayton Christensen in his best-selling business book of 1997, The Innovator's Dilemma. Christensen claimed that the reason so many successful, dominant companies were being upstaged by rivals with low-end, inferior technologies was due to one simple reason: mature, well-managed corporations do not release unproven products to their largest, most important customers .... Instead, successful companies focus on making incremental improvements to market-leading products already in production. By the time big alpha companies realize that beta technologies are actually market-transforming disruptive technologies, though, it's too late. The disruptive technology gains market share so quickly that the former market leader is left playing a desperate -- and fruitless -- game of catch-up."

In discussing Idea Networks, he extends this theme by noting: "how companies like General Electric, BMW and Electronic Arts are tapping into the creativity of their customers and experimenting with "open-source" innovation. According to The Economist, "Not only is the customer king; now he is market-research head, R&D chief and product-development manager, too."

Clearly, the notion of innovation is changing rapidly. ..(and) Yes, companies are outsourcing innovation -- if that's what you want to call it. A more accurate representation, though, would be that companies are recognizing the immense creativity at the edges of their networks. These companies are finally learning the value of collaboration and information-sharing, whether it is with third party suppliers located in Bangalore, India or consumers located in Bangor, Maine."

I agree that the winners will be the companies most adept at marshaling the creativity and skills of workers around the world. I'd even bet on America maintaining the innovation lead. I'm just a little unsure about my role as unpaid Beta-tester, market -research head, R&D chief, product-development manager, and customer king.

Yesterday was Norman Borlaug's 91st birthday and he seems to still be going strong. So a belated 'Happy Birthday' to the father of the Green Revolution. This article on Social Entrepreneurs credits him with A Billion Lives Saved , for his pioneering biotechnology work and life long efforts in feeding the world through application of modern technology.

I'm not sure of the definition of "Social Entrepreneur", so I'll substitute my view of what makes Borlaug exceptional. Seeing things differently than the convential wisdom seems characteristic of genius and madness; the ability to demonstrate clearly and rationally the accuracy of one's insight is a good discriminant; the ability to transform the insight into widespread practice is entrepreneural. As an example, Bob Metcalfe is a technology pioneer for his invention of Ethernet and an entrepreneur for founding 3Com to produce and market it. He credits his and ethernet's success to the years of intense marketing and application.

Borlaug experienced the Dust Bowl in Iowa. "However, counter to the popular mythology about the Dust Bowl as the creation of "excessive technological resources" applied to agriculture, Borlaug surmised that it was actually the result of insufficient application of technology. He noticed that in places where techniques of high yield agriculture were being systematically applied, Dust Bowl conditions never developed with the same severity."

This inspired him to work on developing advanced crop production techniques, including a breed of dwarf wheat that resisted pests and disease while yielding 2-3 times more grain than normal. This technology was adopted by India and Borlaug worked with farmers in India and Pakistan to cultivate the wheat properly. The result was what is now called the "Green Revolution". Borlaug has pursued a great deal of field work in different parts of the world to assure the application of technology brings food to people. His career exhibits the blending of theory and practice that seems characteristic of entrepreneurs, engineers and others who accomplish things in the real world.

Of course, accomplishment on this scale does not go without opposition and there are many who feel that genetic modification of crops should be halted or greatly constrained. It is doubtful that their views would be shared by those alive because of these foods. For more information and a wide variety of links on this topic , check this older article from Reason Breaking Issue: GM Foods .

No, this is not about the Terri Schiavo case; although the title could be applicable there too. That case is just too heart-rending and emotional for calm discussion now .

This post title refers to an older study ( malaria.pdf ) and its brief summary in a paper entitled : When Politics Kills: Malaria and the DDT Story . In both, author Roger Bate lays out the history of controlling and almost eliminating malaria worldwide, primarily by use of DDT, and then its subsequent rise to a major worldwide killer as a case of 'when politics kills' . His study is well-documented and provides a good assessment of the effectiveness of different treatment approaches to control malaria based on experiences in many parts of the world. It provides the context for my 10 March Post ( Malaria Worsens; Remedy Ignored ) and I should have referenced it there.

Bate did his study about 4 or 5 years ago and did not have the benefit of the very recent Oxford University research, cited in my post, showing malaria infection and death rates greatly higher than previously known. His paper was an important factor in the world decision to not ban DDT use outright at that time (2000). Still, one of his key points was that world political and financial pressures were forcing under-developed countries to avoidance of or to relatively ineffective applications of DDT , resulting in unnecessary deaths. That posture does not seem to have changed much given the continued emphasis on bednets and vaccines ( rather than careful and effective use of DDT).

This recent post from OxBlog adds detail on how "informal" pressure can force the avoidance of beneficial application of DDT as well as on its continued effectiveness. Meanwhile, the bias against DDT has resulted in a worldwide reduction in DDT production and production facilities and, it seems, a much higher than anticipated death toll.

Market Watch comments that Social Security shortfall seen sooner based on the 23 March 2005 release of the 2005 OASDI Trustees Report , which shows SS fiinacial crisis dates occuring one year earlier than last year's report.

The report estimated the program would begin to pay more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2017. Social Security surpluses are currently used for general spending. The funds are replaced with special-issue Treasury bonds in the Social Security Trust fund, which is estimated to be exhauseted in 2041. Under law, Social Security would then have to cut benefits by an estimated 26 percent across the board to bring the system back into balance. The report estimated the trust fund's long-term funding gap would total $4 trillion over the next 75 years, up from the $3.7 trillion estimated over the 75-year horizon in last year's report.

"The numbers published today leave no question that Social Security reform is needed, and it is needed soon," said Treasury Secretary John Snow, in a statement. He also said the report : "once again demonstrates that the Social Security program is seriously under-funded and financially unsustainable in the long run. Cash flows peak in 2008 and turn negative in 2017, and the trust fund itself will be exhausted in 2041. .... The unfunded obligation, that is, the difference between the present values of Social Security inflows and outflows plus the existing trust fund, is $11.1 trillion on a permanent basis, and $4.0 trillion over the next 75 years. .... This means that taxes would have to be raised immediately by 3.5 percentage points, or benefits reduced immediately by 22 percent, to make the system whole on a permanent basis."


Market watch also notes that : "In other news the Senate Voted on the principles of SS reform :
By a vote of 100-0, the U.S. Senate passed an amendment to the budget resolution sponsored by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) that details the problems facing Social Security. Though the vote was largely symbolic, it was an important first step towards bipartisan support for reform.The amendment lays out the priorities for the Senate when it comes to discussing Social Security reform. The Senate agrees that:


* The President, Congress, and the American people including seniors, workers, women, minorities, and disabled persons should work together at the earliest opportunity to enact legislation to achieve a solvent and permanently sustainable Social Security system.
* Social Security reform must protect current and near retirees from any changes to Social Security benefits, reduce the pressure on future taxpayers and other budgetary priorities, provide benefit levels that adequately reflect individual contributions to the Social Security system, and preserve and strengthen the safety net for vulnerable populations including the disabled and survivors.


The resolution also notes (that) without structural reform, future Congresses may have to raise payroll taxes 50 percent over the next 75 years to pay full benefits on time or lower Social Security benefit levels."

This article by Donald Luskin on Social Security, Life-Cycle Accounts, and Robert J. Shiller on NRO Financial does a thorough job of debunking Shiller's recent "analysis" of of SS Life-Cycle accounts. It wouldn't be worth mentioning except that Shiller got a lot of press shilling by the Washington Post recently and the Anit-Choice crowd are running with it.

Contrary to the news hype, the Shiller paper is just a good example of how to build a strawman and then beat it down; although in this case, Shiller had to really work at finding straw frail enough to make his point. The Luskin article (click above) has many links to pertinent sources, including Shiller's full paper, to back up his points. So what did the paper say and what's wrong with it? According to Luskin :
"What the “paper” really said was that, in computer simulations of past investment performance, an investment strategy that Shiller invented out of whole cloth underperformed the returns of the existing Social Security system in 32 percent of the trials.
This leads Shiller, in overheated language not found in authentic research papers, to say in his “paper” that life-cycle accounts in Social Security “could be disastrous for some workers.”"

What are life cycle accounts and are they central to the Bush Plan? Well, they may be useful, but they are far from central to the Bush plan; as Luskin says :
"The White House has talked about life-cycle accounts in a general way, but it has never defined in detail how they would be designed. So Shiller’s “disastrous” simulated investment performance is for a strategy that he himself made up. And as you’ll see in a moment, he cheated.
The only thing the White House has said, in press briefings and in policy documents, is that a life-cycle account would shift “investment allocations from high growth funds to secure bonds as the individual nears retirement.” And the 2002 report of the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security talked about an investment option that would be 50 percent stocks and 50 percent bonds. Shiller knows all that — because he specifically cited all three sources.

Shiller says his simulated life-cycle portfolios were “designed to capture the President’s proposal.” Yet all of his simulations are based on hypothetical life-cycle accounts in which half the bond allocation is, in fact, arbitrarily devoted to money market assets. Historically, according to Ibbotson Associates, the real return for money market assets has been less than a third of the real return of Treasury bonds. Thanks to the power of compound interest, over many years that makes a huge — and “disastrous” — difference in returns.
Then, to make life cycle accounts look even more “disastrous,” Shiller uses historical returns that are far less than those actually achieved by the investments he is simulating. Instead of using returns from U.S. markets, he uses returns from an average of 15 countries."


The bottom line is that if you work real hard, you can build a weak strawman and knock it down. But why do so? Well, in his paper, Shiller does make a big point of thanking Jason Furman “for substantial assistance.” Furman was director of economic policy for the Kerry-Edwards campaign. Political bias on political issues is hardly a disqualifier; but it does add perspective to a weak position paper. As the old government saying goes " Where I stand depends on where I sit."

Check out these two new multi-media options : Sony hopes to give us all portable multimedia entertainment on a $250 hardware device. But you don't have to settle for just getting your media content from big providers; you can create and share your own freely with Ourmedia services. Maybe it's spring euphoria, but these blooms have the fragrance of opportunity for us living in rural areas at the end of the long global economic tail.

This CNET reviewer calls the Sony PSP: no one-trick pony, claiming it:
"could be one of the first limited-scale victories for "convergence," the oft-touted notion of combining numerous media functions into a single device. ...... The PSP takes a new path in the quest for an all-in-one gadget. It's being sold primarily as a portable game machine, a market where it can capitalize on the huge PlayStation brand, yet it can also play movies and music, display digital photos and potentially perform a host of Internet tasks through its built-in wireless networking. The result, analysts and industry observers say, isn't the "iPod killer" many have imagined, but a device that could give Sony a head start in the next phase of the digital-media era."

Others agree that the wireless connections could offer attractive new ways to get content onto the PSP, including real-time TV and web-based downloading and messaging; but also note that on-board storage and legal access to proprietary content are likely to be major inhibitors. The key is to get a few millions units into consumer hands now using the game machine draw. Sony is already working on the PSP-X and future versions. As one analyst puts it : "This is the first move in a very long game."

JD Lasica announces on his blog New Media Musings: That Ourmedia is here!!. Well at least in alpha version, this new grassroots media organization is operating from Ourmedia Homepage . Ourmedia is a global community and learning center where you can gain visibility for your works of personal media. And they offer to host your media forever — for free. Their message about Ourmedia is: "Create. Share. Get noticed".

They see a great surge in grassroots creativity due to newly ubiquitous digital tools.
"Just as weblogs let millions of people become part of "the media," so too are new tools empowering individuals to create video, audio, playlists and other works of personal media and to share them with a global audience.
The personal media revolution is turning multimedia. Digital stories, video diaries, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads, music videos, fan films, Flash animations, student films – all kinds of short multimedia works have begun to flower. Alas, the most compelling ones are scattered across the Web or hidden away on thousands of PCs, laptops and closed networks. These works deserve a wider audience.

Indeed they do ! And, perhaps, this will be especially helpful to creative folks in rural areas.

Gary Kasporov uses this OpinionJournal Article to tell us why he is retiring from competitive chess after 20 years at the top and what he plans to do next. He has a lot of insight into how we think and make decisions. Not content merely to impart this knowledge to others, he plans to employ it and his considerable talent as a political advocate for democracy in Russia.

The youngest World Chess champion ever, Mr. Kasporov was the ultimate challenge for the biggest and best of the chess computing machines - "Deep Blue", "Fritz", and "Juinor". To Kasporov, these high profile matches were more than man-machine contests :
" they were also helpful in revealing how humans make decisions. These computers looked at millions of positions per second, weighing each one to find the mathematically best moves. And yet a human, seeing just two or three positions per second, but guided by intuition and experience, could compete with the mighty machines."

Fascinated with the nature of decision making, he is writing a book on how life imitates chess for release this fall by Penguin. "It examines the unique formulae people use in thinking and problem-solving. For example, the way hope and doubt affect how we process information, or the way we perform in a crisis. I hope it will also serve as a guide to improving these processes."

It should be an intriguing book, with gems like this on chess themes in life: "For example: the difference between tactics and strategy; how to train your intuition; and maintaining creativity in an era of analysis. In particular, the topic of intuition is intriguing. When I analyzed a 1894 world championship game between Lasker and Wilhelm Steinitz, I also looked at their post-game analysis and the comments of other top players of the day. They all made more mistakes in analysis than the players had made during the game! The intuitive decisions of the players during the game were correct in most cases, and more often so than when they had all the time in the world to analyze later."

Kasporov believes chess has much to offer the world. Youngsters can benefit from disciplined thinking, friendly competition, and learning about the consequences of their decisions. The U.S.-based Kasparov Chess Foundation supports chess in schools. Chess also provides a sound holistic basis for thinking about complex world problems.
"There is something to be said for a chess player's ability to see the whole board. Many politicians are so focused on one problem, or a single aspect of a problem, that they remain unaware that solving it may require action on something that appears unrelated. It is natural for a chess player, by contrast, to look at the big picture. ....
Like everyone, I am dismayed by the long list of problems facing the world today. I am more concerned about the even longer list of proposed solutions and how many of them are considered by their proponents to be exclusive. Instead of looking at the whole board, they are focusing too narrowly and as a result devise narrow solutions. Our leaders must be able to think more ambitiously."

Chess at the higher levels requires more than just holistic thought; it takes patience, a keen sense of timing, and the ability to act decisively. Mr. Kasporov seems to have what it takes to be a very formidable political strategist. He certainly has a realistic vision of the world today : " This is a time for ambition. Victory in Ukraine and the reshaping of the Middle East are only the latest symbols of how democracy is dominant in the world today economically, militarily, and morally. We must leverage this ascendancy to set a global agenda and end the era of complacency and concession that is embodied by the United Nations. In politics as in chess, or in the military or in business, when you have the advantage you must press it quickly--or lose it. For the first time in history, we are in a position to checkmate tyranny. Momentum is largely on the side of democracy."

I'm glad he is on our side and wish him success in his great chess game of Global Statescraft.

Thanks to PowerLine Blog for this Post on the 1939-40 New York World's Fair Power Line:World's Fair . My parents attended it and it made a huge impression on them; as I remember from many conversations. Lot's of interesting links here.

Although I can't recall them discussing a major theme in Professor Hart's terms : "Second, however, was the fact that the fair's planners were ideological democrats who wanted to assert democratic values against the looming challenges of fascism and the communism."
Nor being so impressed as Professor Hart was by the emotional juxtaposition of Trylon and Perisphere with that of the Soviet pavillion and it's towering sculpture of a Soviet worker.

Another simple explanation of Why personal accounts would work for individuals and for the solvency of the social security system.

The author cites several economic analyses that show real average return of 4.7% or better after inflation are extremely likely in a 'poor' market as well as a 'good' one. It's all a matter of investing for the long term, i.e. 20 plus years. Having studied this topic, it's hard to fathom how one could disagree with their conclusion :
"We can have personal accounts that allow individuals to build retirement nest eggs they will own and control. In fact, such accounts are the only proposal on the table that can preserve Social Security for decades to come. The time to act is now."

There's been a lot of high profile publicity given to a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine that states that life expectancy in the United States may decrease due to increasing levels of obesity, particularly among children. Indeed, obesity may be a serious problem; but there may also be a good deal of overselling and some non-medical political agendas in play.

While there are quite a few articles on this topic, the question is concisely treated by ABC News: Will Obesity Shorten Life Expectancy?:
"Life expectancy in the United States is at an all-time high, according to recent reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Deaths from heart disease, cancer and diabetes are down, the agency reports, contributing to an average life expectancy of 77.6 years for Americans. ....

But some health experts are not optimistic. ....
'Obesity is like a tsunami heading to the U.S.,' said Dr. David S. Ludwig, pediatric endocrinologist at the Harvard School of Medicine in Boston and contributing author of the article.
'Our goal for this article is to make people aware that we all have underestimated the negative impact of obesity,' said S. Jay Olshansky, epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health and lead author.

The Social Security Administration has predicted that the anticipated rise in life expectancy may also contribute to the bankruptcy of Social Security funds.
But the authors think these predictions should be reconsidered given their calculations. The article cites that, with the predicted increased prevalence of obesity, the decline in life expectancy will actually conflict with the estimates given by the administration.
'I want this article to play a major role in the Social Security debate,' said Olshansky."

Well, that last direct qoute from Dr. Olshansky certainly says something about his political agenda; and Dr. Ludwig's comparison of obesity to a "tsunami" says something about his flair for the dramatic. Unfortunately, those quotes do leave one wondering - whatever happened to the old-fashioned image of scientists working quietly on unbiased investigations to discover truth?

Perhaps that answer is found in the balance noted by article that :
"Some health experts believe these predictions about obesity's health effects may be unnecessarily dire, citing advances in technology that can provide early detection and treatment."
And that :
"The journal article also notes that "a leveling off or decline in life expectancy in the United States is not inevitable."
"So we are getting fatter, and that is bad, but the sky is not falling," said Dr. Tim Byers, professor of preventive medicine and biometrics at University of Colorado Health Science Center in Denver.""

Indeed ! One must take obesity opining with a grain of salt. (Is that fattening?)

I've been posting about how Form and Functionality evolve together in the context of E-Reading, which may see a revival of scroll reading due to E-Ink on rollable polymer scrolls. How about a return to the village general store? Where you and your needs were known as soon as you entered; and you were guided to bargains and new items that the friendly owner knew might interest you - maybe he even had your regular supplies ready for your visit. Think it's just a fantasy of times past?

Perhaps not, we may be headed for a global version of the village store experience, with potential business opportunities for rural areas, as E-Commerce Gets Smarter (from the April issue of Technology Review) :
"The business jargon for this model of integrated retail sales is “multichanneling”—that is, fusing digital services with in-store, mail-order, and telephone sales, and with any other retail channels. The dige­rati have called it “clicks and mortar” since the Internet boom of the 1990s. No matter the term, it is now the driving force in retail. For while the Internet works fine for some types of goods—such as books, computer products, and music—many shoppers don’t want to purchase and pay shipping costs for things like canoes, cars, clothes, and entertainment systems without trying them out, trying them on, touching them, or maybe even talking to a knowledgeable salesperson.
New technologies and ideas are allowing retailers to remove the wall between online shopping and in-store shopping, and to make the gathering of customer data both easier and more valuable. Advanced data-mining and Web analytics techniques now examine not just what you bought online but what you viewed, helping retailers design promotions that will entice you to shop online and in stores. These enticements will themselves arrive over multiple channels—through magazines, regular mail, e-mail, the Web, and wireless transmissions to your car or shopping cart."

The end goal of leading-edge retailers is to provide more customized or personal service, on an international basis, using technology to make the connections between customers and sellers. Blending massive information technology functionality with personalized local retail forms for customers. What motivates this? Or, in other words, how big is the market?
"The sales figures for 2004 are in, and e-commerce is on a roll. Online retail spending soared 26 percent last year, to $66.5 billion, according to business analysis and advisory firm Jupiter Research. That’s 4 percent of total retail spending—compared with nothing about 10 years ago, and with 3 percent in 2003. By 2009, Jupiter predicts, online spending will reach 6 percent of total retail sales.But that’s just a small part of the e-commerce story. Last year, another $355 billion in retail sales took place in physical stores after consumers had done their homework online. Overall, says Jupiter, for every $1 consumers spend online, they spend $6 dollars offline as a result of research conducted on the Internet." (Translated, that's 4% plus 24% = 28% now; with 50% growth by 2009, its a potential market of 42% of total retail sales.)

Where is this taking us for personalized general store shoping? A novel approach, by Stop and Shop, which operates 350 supermarkets in the Northeast, is called Shopping Buddy. It consists of a wireless computer and data management system in a paperback- book size device installed in shopping cart handles. It has a simple graphical interface, displaying such features as sale items and a customer favorites list, naming the things the shopper buys most frequently, as well as a map of the store and a suggested route.
"Infrared beacons on the ceiling track the cart’s location, so the device can automatically alert the customer if any of his favorite items are on sale in the aisle he is currently browsing. The interface also lets the shopper wirelessly order cold cuts from the deli; an alert sounds when they are ready. Finally, an attached imaging scanner lets the shopper scan items as he puts them in the cart; as the cart fills, a running total is displayed. When it comes time for checkout, the cashier scans the shopper’s loyalty card, and all of the items in the cart are listed on the register screen. This saves time for both the shopper and the cashier."

Stop and Shop is expanding the program and working on new features, including one allowing customers to create online shopping lists that appear on the Shopping Buddy when they arrive at a store. Looking further ahead, IBM, the developer of the Shopping Buddy technology is
"hoping to better tailor advertisements and promotions, and generally improve the shopping experience. Rakesh Mohan, senior manager of IBM Research’s Industry Solutions group, says there’s no reason such a device can’t suggest a wine to go with a meal or provide dietary guidance by reporting an item’s fat or carbohydrate content. It could even sound a warning if a product that a shopper scanned contained ingredients to which he or she was allergic."

It is all about allowing people to integrate their online and offline environments in useful and time-saving ways that blend form and functionality; oh, yes, and making profits while doing so. So how do we exploit these trends in rural areas where we live at the end of the "long tail'? Well, as any college professor would tell you : "That's an exercise for the Student".

My previous post on buying campaign finance reform discussed the way "Big Money"lobbied to pass the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), which didn't keep money out of campaigns, but did restrict the 1st Amendment rights of citizen groups to speak prior to elections. A recent court case is pushing the FEC to examine and possibly extend that Act's restrictions to blogs and other internet expressions of political speech. It has caused quite an uproar among bloggers and , perhaps, some positive results.

Capt. Ed posts from his Captain's Quarters Blog that "Bloggers Have Been Heard", noting recent actions by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) :

"Reid shows the first sign that the Senate may have heard the outcry from the blogosphere about the BCRA, the FEC capitulation on Shays, Meehan v. FEC, and the coming limitations on blogging." Citing " a bill which Reid introduced to the Senate which exempts Internet communications from FEC regulation altogether:
Paragraph 22 of section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: 'Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.'

Expect a howl to arise from the people who have paid good money -- lots of it -- to ensure that campaign finance and speech limits get applied to everyone except the Exempt Media. However, with Reid pushing the bill, it may have a good chance of passing the Senate, especially if enough GOP senators sign on. Get the word out to your Senators as soon as possible to support this bill.

Reid has also written to Scott Thomas, chairman of the FEC, telling him that legislation affecting bloggers will not be received with favor by Congress:

Regulation of the Internet at this time, with its blogs and other novel features, would blunt its tremendous potential, discourage broad political involvement in our nation and diminish our representative democracy.

While I have a quibble with the qualifying phrase 'at this time' -- as if it would be better to wait a while longer -- his accompanying legislation demonstrates his sincerity in addressing the issue. Harry Reid deserves our thanks for acting to protect free speech and open political debate on the Internet.

Don't forget to join the Online Coalition, ( You can sign the The Online Coalition :: Letter to the FEC. here.) whether you blog or just read blogs. Supporters of free speech across the political spectrum have joined by the thousands -- add your voice to those who refused to be silenced."

The above is a long copy from another blog, but it is well said. I've signed the coalition letter and recommend it to others. Also, for those who care to write their Senator or Representative, there are draft letters available at PHILIPPICS ; who notes that this is only a proposal for action and not yet a bill.

This NYT article discusses Big Screens in Small Packages , providing an update to my earlier post about E-Reading and New Forms. One emerging form is based on E-Ink technology like this effort by Phillips Electronics to produce a scrollabe large screen that rolls back for storage in a cell phone or PDA when not in use.

"THE shrinking bulk of cellphones and digital organizers makes them easy to carry, but the miniaturization comes at a cost: the screens are shrinking along with the electronics. You can read a short text message on them, for instance, but not a page of a newspaper.
Within a year or two, however, you may be able to pull out a thin plastic screen from the side of your phone or digital organizer, read a magazine, a map, or a memo, then let the screen roll back into the device.Researchers at Philips Polymer Vision, a part of Philips Electronics, have produced a working prototype of such a screen, which can be pulled out like a modern papyrus to display many lines of highly legible text. The lightweight screen is so flexible that it curls around a pencil."

They expect to have the screen in a fully functioning working device this May as a base for market development. I wonder if this will take off. If so, the history of our reading forms will show evolution from papyrus scrolls to printed-paper books to scrolling on fixed LCD's to E-Inked polymer scrolls. Maybe old forms never really die, they just share space with newer forms or await revival by newer functionality.

I'm doubtful about how much, if any, credence to give to polls about SS or any other subject. But since so many main stream media (MSM) reports tell us SS Reform is dead in the polls, it's interesting to see the other view get some play.

This Beltway Buzz on National Review Online report today notes that : " Gallup has released more polling data on Social Security and it is newsworthy.
When respondents were asked, “Do you think it is — or is not — necessary for Congress and the president to pass legislation THIS YEAR to make changes to the Social Security system?” 51 percent responded yes, 46 percent said no, and 3 percent had no opinion.
Secondly, respondents were asked, “Suppose Congress and the president do pass legislation to make changes to the Social Security system this year. Do you think that legislation should — or should not — include a provision that would allow people who retire in future decades to invest some of their Social Security taxes in the stock market and bonds?” 58 percent responded yes, 37 percent responded no and 5 percent had no opinion.
Gallup polled 1,004 national adults over the age of 18 for their survey."

This data coincides with a lot of other polls I've been reading; and refutes a lot of the negative MSM spin - including some that seem based on polls that don't sustain the editorializing.

The McCain- Feingold Campaign Reform Act was supposed to get the "Big Money" out of federal elections. But in 2004, more money was spent on both sides than ever before; and a great deal came from truly unaccountable ( and "Big Money") sources - just what the Reform Act was supposed to preclude! Now the Federal Elections Commission(FEC) is considering new regulations to control the speech of bloggers and other internet sources prior to an election, while leaving the door open to main stream media ( big news papers and broadcasters) and, perhaps also, to 527 organizations.

How Strange!? I always thought the essential goal of the First Ammendment was to protect the free political speech of the people. Now it seems that the law is being used to do exactly the opposite. How did this come to be?

For an answer backed up with a lot of facts, figures, and dates, check Ryan Sager's column in the New York Post , which asserts that :" CAMPAIGN-FINANCE reform has been an immense scam perpetrated on the American people by a cadre of left-wing foundations and disguised as a "mass movement."
But don't take my word for it. One of the chief scammers, Sean Treglia, a former program officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts, confesses it all in an astonishing videotape I obtained earlier this week.
The tape — of a conference held at USC's Annenberg School for Communication in March of 2004 — shows Treglia expounding to a gathering of academics, experts and journalists (none of whom, apparently, ever wrote about Treglia's remarks) on just how Pew and other left-wing foundations plotted to create a fake grassroots movement to hoodwink Congress.
"I'm going to tell you a story that I've never told any reporter," Treglia says on the tape. "Now that I'm several months away from Pew and we have campaign-finance reform, I can tell this story."'

Sager cites facts and numbers, all referenced to IRS reports as well as to the conference tape. It tells an amazing story of who and how much money went into making campaingn finance reform appear to be populist, while it was heavily funded by a few big money interests. How much money ? Over $140Million for lobbying and 88% of that, over $123Million," came from just eight liberal foundations". According to Sager :"These foundations were: the Pew Charitable Trusts ($40.1 million), the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy ($17.6 million), the Carnegie Corporation of New York ($14.1 million), the Joyce Foundation ($13.5 million), George Soros' Open Society Institute ($12.6 million), the Jerome Kohlberg Trust ($11.3 million), the Ford Foundation ($8.8 million) and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($5.2 million)."

So why would they do that? Well, it seems the Reform Act only shuts up some of us but allows others to spend unlimited amounts to get their political message out. Case in Point - Mr. Soros, who spent over $25Million to defeat Bush in 2004, also spent $12.6Million to get the campaign reform bill that would let him do so.

So how is it that we never heard of this before, say in 2004, when these events first became public? It seems that the story almost came to light but the media chose to ignore it; creating a short periopd of great concern for the lobby group. Sager qoutes the prime lobby coordinator at that 2004 conference: " "But you know what the good news is from my perspective?" Treglia says to the stunned crowd. "Journalists didn't care . . . So no one followed up on the story. And so there was a panic there for a couple of weeks because we thought the story was going to begin to gather steam, and no one picked it up."'

Sager concludes : "So shame on Pew for undertaking a sustained campaign to mislead the public and Congress. And shame on all of the journalists who let them slide.
Above all else, looking ahead: Shame on any news organization that lets the campaign-finance-reform lobby keep on portraying itself as a "movement" now that the facts have come out.
Now we'll see if sunlight is indeed the best disinfectant."

Indeed. Wonder what we will see.

In this OpinionJournal article, a 30-ish WSJ editor reflects on his annual SSA report letter and arrives at an interesting perspective. " Looking over the letter, however, it became clear that there is a fundamental flaw in the arrangement. Although, I've already paid enough into the system to 'qualify' for benefits, not a penny of that money is likely to be counted in determining the size of my retirement benefits. What's more, whatever I pay over the next two years probably won't count either. The problem here is that I am only 30 years old. Social Security counts only a worker's top 35 wage-earning years when determining benefits. And since the government considers 67 to be my 'full retirement age,' assuming a steady climb of income, I'm still two years away from starting to accrue the credit that will determine the size of my monthly Social Security check. In other words, the system is exactly the inverse of what we've all been told to do in planning for our retirement. Those who work hard and put money into the system early in life, get the same as those who start paying in later on. And as a proportion of what they've paid in, the early-contributing ants actually get less than their grasshopper peers."

He makes a good case that many workers ( particularly low-end ones) get no consideration for their early work and contributions by the existing benefit formula. He feels "This all stacks up in favor of reform because private accounts are the only thing that can bring some equity to the system." An interesting view on why personal accounts are attractive to younger workers.

Another congressional hearing and Greenspan again urges Social Security changes: "Congress must encourage people to save more if it wants to ensure a secure retirement for baby boomers and also must put Social Security on a clear financial path by early 2008, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday. "That is really the only thing we can do which can counter the demographics over which we have no control," Greenspan told the Senate Special Committee on Aging, chaired by Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore." Greenspan again " offered his qualified support Tuesday for a system of private accounts, saying they are perhaps the best way to shield savings from a spendthrift Congress." Increasing the nation's personal saving rate as a key ingedient for economic growth is a consistent theme with Greenspan.

Individual SS accounts do that, providing real "lockboxes" and letting people accumulate wealth. The young editor and the senior advisor seem to have found common ground there.

Since I've been talking about national political polls and analyses, it seems fair to mention what's being written about Pennslyvania. These two items are interesting; although I doubt their predictive power or impact.

It seems early to start polling for the 2006 elections, but this Pennsylvannia SurveyUSA Election Poll is out and shows a slight lead for Casey over Santorum in the race for Senator and and a comparable lead for Rendell over Swann for Governor. Santorum's strength seems to be in the Northeast and the central "T"; Swann's in the West and the "T". If these two Republicans could combine their appeal in the West and Northeast, it would cause the Democrats to rely on the Southeast for victory. Of course,this might not be a real problem since, in 2004, Philadelphia County gave Kerry enough votes to surpass Bush's 280,000 lead in the rest of the state.

Then again, maybe Gov. Rendell's performance in office will be more of a problem for him. He managed to get one of the four "F's" for 2004 performance given to State Governors by the Libertarian CATO Institute. From the summary in CATO's Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors: 2004 :
"As states continue to claw their way out of the worst state budget hole in years, this report presents the findings of the Cato Institute's seventh biennial fiscal policy report card on the nation's governors. The report card's grading is based on 15 objective measures of fiscal performance. Governors who have cut taxes and spending the most receive the highest grades. Those who have increased spending and taxes the most receive the lowest grades. Our analysis shows that states that keep tax rates low and restrain spending growth have the best economic performance and thus the best longterm fiscal health.
This year, four governors receive the grade of A: Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Craig Benson of New Hampshire, Bill Owens of Colorado, and Judy Martz of Montana. Four governors receive Fs for their poor performance in dealing with the state fiscal crisis: Bob Holden of Missouri, Bob Taft of Ohio, Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania, and James McGreevey of New Jersey."

This Washington Post article states Support for Bush on Social Security Wanes , claiming that : "Barely a third of the public approves of the way President Bush is dealing with Social Security and a majority says the more they hear about Bush's plan to reform the giant retirement system, the less they like it, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll."

The poll was conducted 10-13 March 05. The actual poll raw date can be found here (Post-ABC News Poll) and the results are lot more positive for the Bush position than the article would indicate. The poll shows 56% support letting people choose to put some of their SS tax into stock market investments; and shows 71% believe that, if changes are not made, the SS system is heading for a crisis. That suggests to me that Bush is getting his message across; so why are the Post and the NYT claiming that he is going down in flames?

Byron York takes a different view of the same poll in his NRO article Winning Numbers? , saying that " The Social Security debate seems increasingly to be taking place on two tracks — some might say in parallel universes ". As he sees it, the Post did a bit of poll trolling to get answers it could talk about; and he gives some good examples.

York notes that : "The 56-percent support figure — 60 percent and higher among respondents under 50 years of age — is the highest level of support on that question in the last six Post polls going back before the 2000 election. The 41-percent figure is the lowest level of opposition in the last six Post polls going back before the 2000 election." He also notes that the siginficance of 71% fearing a "crisis down the road" is that threshold meets " a perception that the president's advisers call a "precondition to authentic reform."" (I think this translates as Bush is meeting his Phase 1 goal (precondition) of getting folks to see the need for reform now and for some individual choice on investments.)

The York article is a good guide for reading between the lines on stories about polls and this story in particular. I don't know whether we are seeing the waning of the Bush effort or the waxing of the media oppositional hysteria in these polls. But I do believe that Social Security reform is needed and that Individual Accounts are the essential ingredient to assure long term sustainable solvency for the system. I hope enough people are getting to that point ; so the political debate can shift to how best to implement the changes.

As a timely continuation of the "E-Reading" theme, an article in today's NY Times asks Can Papers End the Free Ride Online? The lead paragraph says quite a lot about the consumer-driven media market : "Consumers are willing to spend millions of dollars on the Web when it comes to music services like iTunes and gaming sites like Xbox Live. But when it comes to online news, they are happy to read it but loath to pay for it. "

Less than 3% of the nation's daily newspapers (only the WSJ among the big ones) charge for their websites; the NYT website is free and its online readership now surpasses its print readership. So where does the money come from to sustain the free riders? Advertising is the answer; and since many free sites require a registration form, ads can be focused or tailored to individual segments of the reader base. One recent studyof 700 daily newspapers found online ad revenues increasing an average of 45% from 2003 to 2004.

The trend to support news operation by ads instead of subscriptions has executives worried about the long term reliability of the revenue stream.But there do not seem to be good options. Changing from free online sites to paid online subscriptions has not worked out well - often resulting in a big decline in online readers ( and ad revenues) for little or no increase in print readership. Even the WSJ has kept its free online Opinion Journal site and has acquired MarketWatch, a free financial news website, to attract online advertising. As an executive at a smaller newspaper put it : "Print is going the way it's going, which is down..."

As if market pressure were an insufficient driver towards free online reading, governments are getting in the act too. The US and UK governments are giving academia added incentives to publish research journal articles online for free or open access, on the theory that government grants pay for much of the research. As discussed in this IEEE article, Information Free-for-All? , open access may be a trend that cannot be resisted.

The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is one of the largest international professional organizations in the world and publishes a wide variety of scholarly journals and topic area magazines. The Institute is reviewing its publishing options and strategies and is being urged to experiment now "when we have the luxury of income from subscriptions and can afford to" as one leader put it. Similar concerns were expressed by news executives in the NYT article above.

By the way, the IEEE has been publishing online for years, offering members the subscription choices of online, print or both for different prices. An online combination package offers most journals, extensive archives and search tools at a fraction of the cost of individual subscriptions. That's the choice of many active professionals. While no longer professionally active, I've gone online for my IEEE pubs as well as most other news sources. It save a lot of paper clutter, is more convenient and allows fast easy access to other information pertinent to whatever I'm reading.

A few years ago, I started the business day by skimming the NYT and WSJ papers; now I still skim them and more - but online. How we read is changing and faster than we realize.

My earlier post on "E-Reading" involved a bit of nostalgia that didn't seem to fit that discussion. In the early 1980s, I was engaged in a project to introduce computer-communications networking and distributed command-control technologies into US Army tactical operations. The project involved many experiments and exercises using computers to pass real time information over a tactical internet based on wired and wireless versions of the Arpanet. We tried several computer manufacturers, some of which have not survived.

One of the non-survivors was the GRiD Compass, one of the earliest laptops, now located at OLD-COMPUTERS.COM : The Museum . It was 38"x29"x5" with a small screen( 25 lines of 80 characters each). While heavy and limited, it had the advantage of being rugged; it was even used by astronauts in space.

One fascinating benefit of the project was observing the ebb and flow of technology company fortunes visible in a small group of buildings in Palo Alto. GriD was housed in four buildings and across a street and parking lot was one smaller building housing the newer SUN Microsystems, with whom we were also doing business. Over what seemed a short time, GRiD's business shrank while SUN's grew rapidly; and SUN would take over one, then another , of Grid's buidings. It seemed to fit their needs for quick expansion or contraction at minimum delay and expense. It also demonstrated the pragmatic adaptability of technology outfits that could both compete and cooperate on reasonably cordial terms.

A conversation with a friend about digital books led me into some nostalgic reflections about older technologies and the difficulty of predicting the future based on current paradigms (or the trap of thinking that New Functionality must follow Old Form).

About 8-10 years ago, smart folks believed that “E-Books” would never come into being until we got light weight high resolution reading devices( at the time, some called these e-books, but they really meant e-readers). Today, one can make the case that those devices still don't exist and their absence delays the widespread adoption of e-books. But that is a mis-perception based on expecting New Functionality to follow Old Form.

The better case is that we have E-Books now as well as E-Magazines (in widespread use) being read on inexpensive consumer-priced LCD screens. They just don't look like print books; anymore than a monk's scroll looked like a Gutenburg-printed book. Reading from a laptop is convenient, the font is selectable, the LCD screen eliminates glare common to glossy printed material, and there is an enormous variety of information available. And the E-Book world is an expanding and multi-faceted one: check out this conference Agenda being held in NYC this April; or visit a digital bookstore located at eBooks.com The World's Leading Source of eBooks , where you can pay for and download a book in several different formats to match your preferences and software; or try out NetLibrary , which claims to be the premier provider of electronic books to various libraries, allowing them to expand their collections without expanding their shelf space.

In the mid1990s, Nicholas Negroponte at the MIT Media lab was excited about the possibilities of e-ink being developed there – it held the promise of high resolution in a form that could be spread like paint or transferred to flexible media ( electronic scrolls or paper). Just carry one of these e-inked books around and you would have a library in your hand. He also thought this technology was critical and that LCD technology could not compete; postulating that an 8”x11” LCD screen with electronics would be several pounds and 8” thick. Today, I'm writing this on a 19” screen that weighs less than that and is a lot thinner. Even with the right vision, forecasting current technology limitations onto future functionality can get the best of us; as can trying to predict the (economic market) path of consumer-scale technology productization.

So we know what LCD's are doing, but what happened to that e-ink technology? Like so many of the Media Lab innovations, it resulted in a company, E Ink, founded in 1997, that is developing very thin film display surfaces and partnering on applications with several large companies. One of their latest products is described in this year old press release about an E Ink Reader developed with and marketed by Sony. It seems to be a large paperback book-sized productization of Negroponte's 1996 vision. I don't know what has or may come of it; but Sony does not seem to have pushed it into the US market.

On the other hand, Sony is pushing its PlayStation Portable (PSP) very hard and the US consumer market is pulling even harder, with some people paying double to get an early model. This device (priced at $250) plays games, movies, and audo files; and some wonder if it will heat up market share competition with the iPod or just become another must have device. The PSP is 6.7"x2.9"x0.9", weighs 0.6 pounds and has a 4.3" (16:9 widescreen format) display. The iPod has a 2"x2" display in a 2.4"x4.1"x0.6" case. The iPod has a lot more memory with 20-40 GB compared to the PSP which is mazimized for fast processing and accepts 1.8GB disks.

These are both very small and very powerful devices that hit the consumer sweet spots of portable access to audio, videos and games at easily affordable prices. Compare them to a standard sized paperback book at 4.5"x7.0"x0.7-1.5" (for about 300-750 pages). They can display text or imagery and have the capacity of many books. Today, people listen to audio books on iPods. If the market were there, both could offer paperback size E-Book reading with lots of software based annotation and sharing capabilities as well as large on-board libraries. Perhaps, Sony will blend the E-Ink's Reader with the PSP if it sees a market for a single portable device that does it all.

I don't think it's the technology that holds this back so much as the perception of consumer market pull and the inexpensive availablity of copyrighted print material. These can change in time and the combining of several functionalities into a common package makes it more likely.

Perhaps, investment is hindered by the existence of the second-hand book market on Amazon.com where one can buy old books for almost nothing, the profit coming from the shipping charge. That's an economic hurdle. On the other side, wouldn't it be nice if children did not have to lug heavy book bags around to school classes; just one small device with lots of books stored along with a variety of educational and information access and manipulation technology onboard. Combined with entertainment access, that's a major convenience market. Of course, teachers might experience problems - "Boys! Stop playing games; this is Study Hall!!" and "Girls! Stop IM'ing those boys!!"

Whatever happens, it's likely that we will see new forms and functionalities emerging together.

With the Hezbollah Beirut rally as a counterpoint to the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, it's time to review the current status of Mid-East transformation there. These three articles provide a good review as well as some background context.

Let's start with this article on Lebanon that asks is Syria, Leaving with a Bang? . It could be subtitled as "Follow the Money and Fear". According to the author the foremost factor is that "Assad is playing for his own survival. In fact if Assad leaves Lebanon, then his regime's days are numbered. He is a desperate man." Moreover, Lebanon is Syria's cash cow, bringing in $5.5Billion per year to Syria whose total exports are only $5.1Billion. Syrian unemployment is about 22% and 500,000 Sryian workers are employed in Lebanon, sending money back home. (How big was that Hezbollah rally in Beirut? Could there have been Syrians workers there?). The author makes a good case that Syria is setting up the arms and forces for serious resistance to anything other than the appearences of cooperation and that Hezbollah is the muscle to provide the "Bang".

This interview with Barbara Newman on Hezbollah is pretty scary stuff. Hezbollah seems to be a mighty tough bunch, even if there are only about 25,000 hard core members : "the A team of terrorism" according to former Deputy Secretary of State Armitage; "they are the best light infantry in the world and can strike the United States any time any where" according to a former FBI honcho. I'd agree that any group of bad guys can strike us most anywhere; it's one of the perils of a free society. As to "best light infantry" - well, that would be a lot more credible coming from a US Marine or Army SOF General than an ex- FBI official.

I do think Hezbollah is very dangerous and probably doubly so with its back to the wall in Lebanon today. This terrorist group clearly can get a very large crowd together for a rally - but does that represent Lebanese speaking out for their own freedom ? Or is it a crowd of the coerced or of foriegn workers as others claim? After all, Hezbollah is the only organized (non-Army) group in Lebanon with guns. Ms. Newman also worries that Hezbollah has a presence in the US , which may well be true, and that it "is a terrorist group whose ideology advocates the killing of Americans." Well, the best way to counter that problem is not to cower from it, but to deal with it directly and engage them where they are the big target - in Lebanon and Syria.

Engaging the enemy on his ground and recognizing the enemy are two key traits always on display in Michael Ledeen's writing and he does not disappoint in this article on Syria . He notes that the Lebanese situation can still go bad and puts it all in the context of the overall Mid-East War or Terror War. The key to winning a war is to know your enemies. As, he reminds us, before we invaded Iraq, "the Iraqis, Syrians, and Iranians (with considerable support from the Saudis) had a precise model for the post-Saddam terror war. Indeed it had already been successfully tested ... against us (and the French) in Lebanon in the mid-1980s." He argues well that we are engaged already in a vital winner-take -all struggle with the Syrian and Iranian regimes.

Fortunately, those regimes are shaky, holding power by pointing guns at their own citizens. Their people see the example of the Iraq and Afganistan elections and hear our call for democracy clearly. But that is not enough and this "is not a moment to bask in glory, or to believe that history is irrevocably on our side. We must press ahead." This article provides considerable detail on and insight into what's happening in those countries and on how we could proceed. I hope the administration is listening. We may be at the "End of the Beginning" in Churchill's phrase, but much can still go wrong before we get to the "End".

Just a great cartoon! A funny, simple, and accurate explaination of the Social Security Trust Fund and the Lockbox idea. Check out ChuckAsaykidlockboxes.gif (GIF Image, 500x366 pixels). Be a "Smart Kid" and get your own personal account lockbox .

This Busines Week article notes that By Raising Its Voice, AARP Raises Questions about its own impartiality and its commercial business interests that may create a conflict with the social security reform postions it is taking. It notes that a substantial portion of AARP's income is derived from fees for selling health insurance, mutual funds and other financial services to its members. Seems like a fair article that points to potentials and does raise questions.

James Glassman at Tech Central Station goes further and thinks that AARP Invests in Hypocrisy in its ad campaign against social security personal accounts. He provides data that indicates AARP's mutual fund business does OK for AARP, but a lot worse for seniors than the proposed SSA personal accounts would do.

This organization seems to be the "Anti-AARP" alternative for seniors : USA Next - Building a Legacy of Freedom for America's Families . It offers a lot of senior services and discounts along with a much less liberal political agenda. Their website has a fair number of social security articles and arguments in favor of reform and personal accounts. I'm not a member of AARP or USA Next; and don't advocate either. I am rather disappointed in AARP's political bias on this issue as well as turned off by their endless junk mail campaign.

Oxford University researchers have some uncovered some bad News: Malaria drastically underestimated . They estimate that world figures for this disease have been underestimated by half or more; and that, in 2002, there were over half a billion cases. They are getting a better handle on where cases are most likely to help allocate resources. They note that drugs " are expensive and difficult to produce".

The call seems to be for more resources to buy effective drugs and insecticide-treated bednets. All good, but no mention of easing up on the world-wide paranoia against the controlled use of DDT, which remains the cheapest and most effective method of reducing both malaria and dengue fever by eliminating mosquito breeding areas as well as by treating homes. Not to mention the fact that most drug treatments are relatively ineffective as well as expensive and that the disease seems to adapt to them.

This particular form of political/environmental correctness has been killing people for 30 years and the problem appears to be considerably worse than realized. There is an abundance of evidence that proves the effectiveness of DDT and of safe methods to employ it; and a substantial paucity of clinical evidence showing DDT causing death or disease to humans. Given the scale of the disease, it seems past time to do a serious risk-benefit analysis and change policies to allow an effective remedy to save lives.

Peter Ferrara writes about what he sees as a Social Security sellout - The Washington Times: Commentary - March 09, 2005 . I certainly hope he is wrong about the Bush administration caving on personal accounts so early in the fight - doesn't sound much like this President's style.
This article cites four seperate personal account proposals that have been scored by the SSA Actuaries; and all show a path to long term fiscal sustainability - something that the current SS system cannot do. It focuses on the benefits of the Ryan-Sununu Bill which would establish very large personal accounts while guaranteeing a minimum SS benefit at least as high as currently promissed for all recipients. Seems like a great deal.

These two charts (in pdf form) S2782.pdf (application/pdf Object) show the impact of going from the current social security funding system to the Ryan-Sununu proposed system under their bills pending in both houses of Congress. The charts were prepared by the SSA Chief Actuary's Office and clearly show how personal accounts do provide long term sustainable SS benefits at least as great as currently promissed. Note the long term difference of a positive balance of $39.8Trillion for the R-S bill versus a negative balance of $12.6 for today's version of SS. That's over $52Trillion in favor of the new bill; more than enough to provide higher benefits AND to allow a substantial future FICA tax cut.

The The Ryan-Sununu Social Security Personal Savings Guarantee and Prosperity Act is the proposed bill which would provide substantial personal accounts while preserving existing promissed benefits for social security, offering these as guaranteed minimum benefits to all. It would be self-financing over the long term and even permit a FICA tax reduction to 5.11% from today's 12.4%. It has been scored by the SSA Chief Actuary. It provides for the "transition costs" by spending reductions and by short-term bonds in the near term amortized by huge savings resulting from the shift to personal accounts. The near term bonds do get paid off from savings within 30 years. This is a major departure from the current system - sort of like borrowing on a house mortgage and then paying it off and having a house plus a lot more free income later. That's a good way to use debt. On the other hand, the current system borrows just to keep paying current expenses; that way leads to bankruptcy for people or nations. .

So why don't we hear more about this? Perhaps, because a key ingredient to this fiscal magic is that it really does force the Federal Government to keep spending growth under control. No, It does not force cuts in any programs; it does require congress to keep discretionary spending Growth below an annual rate of 3.6%, about mid-way between the growth rate of the Clinton and Bush years. Read the bill summary above and see what you think. Once we get everyone to admit there is an urgent SS problem, perhaps we can get the conversation focused on how to solve the problem and use this proposed bill as a starting point for discussion and negotiation.

This article in today's The New York Times : At Heart of Social Security Debate, a Misunderstanding is a Breakthrough in public recognition of the basic facts of Social Security in a Main Stream Media outlet. Congratulations to David Rosenbaum for telling the awkward facts about the illusionary "Trust Fund" and the need to raise real money as soon as the "PayGo" system brings in less FICA revenue than it needs to pay benefits - an event that will occur in 2018.
This article confirms the facts as I've been posting them here. What is new is to see them reported on the pages of the NYT along with a number of revealing quotes. For instance:
* " said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Finance Committee. "The trust fund is a mirage, but I still have Iowans say to me, 'Where's the money?' ""
* ""The Social Security trust fund has produced more bad public discussion than any other budget entity," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, director of the Congressional Budget Office. The truth, Mr. Holtz-Eakin said, is somewhere in between. The trust fund is more than an empty promise, he said, and less than a solemn obligation backed by the full faith and credit of the United States."
* "Its importance, said John C. Rother, the policy director of AARP, the advocacy group for older Americans, is largely symbolic. "It is a symbol of the insurance nature of the program and the social contract that lies behind it," Mr. Rother said. "But it doesn't really bind the Congress," he said, and "no individual's benefits are insured by it.""

These admissions in the NYT should have some serious impact in the debate about reform. The first and key issue for moving to reasoned discussion of Bush's reform proposal is to get people to understand that there really is a Social Security problem and that it is a Now problem; this article helps greatly. It also helps for the AARP representative to admit that the Trust Fund is "largely symbolic" and that is does not bind Congress or insure anyone's benefits. I've been saying the same thing and asserting that as the Big difference between the current trust fund and personal accounts.

Personal accounts are real personal assets, owned by individuals, and not subject to Congressional whims; they are the ultimate "Lockbox", protected as individual property rights under the Constitution. In contrast, the trust fund only holds "special" bonds that are "less than a solemn obligation backed by the full faith and credit of the United States". It's your money and your retirement; wouldn't you like to have a choice between these two options?

My blog post on “Why not Retirement Choice?” was published in my local newspapers and got some comments back that reflected political opposition and substantial confusion and mis-information about the basic facts of the current Social Security system. So I wrote this item to explain the facts and to show why SS Reform is a “Now” issue.

Let’s start by understanding the 2 versions of “PayGo”. In a budget sense, it means don’t spend more than your income and keep debt down – a good goal for national as well as household budgets. Unfortunately, that’s not what it means in the social security system. There it means today’s workers pay taxes for today’s retirees benefits in exchange for a promise that tomorrow’s workers will pay for their retirements. That promise is a huge unfunded obligation (a debt) that keeps growing. This “PayGo” system means pay now and borrow against the future. It creates an affordability crisis now because longevity and demographic trends show we will soon have only 2 workers to support each retiree.

For 20 years, surplus FICA taxes have been spent and special bonds issued to the Trust Fund. There are no assets in the fund; just a record of the size of government obligations (i.e. Debts) due to collecting and spending too much tax. According to SSA figures, that debt is $1.7Trillion now and will reach $3.5Trillion by 2018, at which time we will need $23Billion more than the FICA tax collects to pay benefits that year – and more each year thereafter. At that point, we must raise taxes, borrow more or cut benefits.

That’s part of a real multi-Trillion dollar debt that keeps growing while we delay reform. It’s also why Alan Greenspan recently urged congress to act to reform social security before 2008; that’s right 2008, not 2018. Why then? Because that’s when the baby boom generation can start to retire at 62, beginning a dramatic increase in retirees and social security costs along with a faster reduction in the number of workers to pay benefits. He also endorsed individual accounts as providing real wealth for people while restraining the government from excessive spending. Individual accounts are the only real “lock box”, with no keys in the government’s hands. I think they are an essential part of reform.

Most importantly, they do not create any new debt or require any benefit cuts to existing retirees. During the transition period, they will require earlier funding, or pre-payment, of some of the huge unfunded obligations, an existing debt, already acquired under the current system. These transition “costs” actually reduce the social security debt, since account holders will get less of their future benefits from that source and more from their accounts. It is a matter of paying some existing debt now or paying a lot more later.

There are options and details to be worked to get a viable reform structure. A lot of work has been done already by the SS Bipartisan Commission, which provides the basis for the President’s proposal. But “Delay and Do Nothing” is not a responsible option.