Pro Commerce

Airborne laser, does it matter?

International affairs often turn on military equipment.  When North Korea started firing long range missiles over Japan the US moved 49 Patriot missiles into range of the North Korean launch pads. The U.S. assuaged Japanese government anger at the time.  But the U.S. never launched any Patriots and has since lost Japan as an ally.

U.S. sales of weapons to Taiwan is always a big part of U.S.-China politics. U.S. sale of military weapons to Arab nations is always a critical element in Israeli-US relations.  The same holds for a ground based U.S.-Israel joint laser weapon. Sale of shoulder fired missiles to the Taliban was a key issue in the American-USSR battle in Afghanistan.

A similar diplomatic battle raged over American missiles in Europe in 1984 and in 2009. 

We never know the real details of the weapons issues.

Strangely the U.S released details on an airborne laser anti-rocket weapon this February.  This is a weapon designed to fire over a 200 mile radius from a 747 flying at 40,000 feet. It will presumably ignite a liquid fired rocket from launch moving at +5 mach.  It is a chemical laser and will be replaced with a solid state laser when one is ready.

How much is true? Is it only good for one firing?  Will it destroy a solid state rocket? Can it be defeated with mirrors?

My late friend Sam Sternberg always said that the American anti-missile weapons were a farce. He argued that they were always tested against cardboard dummies.

Whatever the case.  America's foreign policy of Iran containment seems based on this airborne laser.  Israel doesn't have much confidence in it.  How do you feel?

About business

This blog is primarily about business.

I want to give you a heads-up on three points that I will write about in the future, but are relevant right now.

* The first and most important comes from Gordon Crovits in Monday's Wall Street Journal.  Gordon reports that in the uproar caused by Google's announcement that they will no longer censor Google searches, it was the Chinese government that suggested a multi-face-saving option.  Google took that option and has moved their search engine operations to Hong Kong. 

Three cheers for Sergey Brin, a true American, who knows Russian censorship and tyranny. 

Four cheers for China.  China knows that over the long term it needs good relations with American entrepreneurs,(forget the hostile Democrats) the source of much commercial innovation in the world. (Other sources include Japan and Israel).

* The second was an announcement by ancient Congressman Henry Waxman that he will cross-examine three major corporations, later in April, because they charged-off several $ billion on their balance sheets due to future costs of ObamaCare.  The charge-offs are mandated by FASB (Financial Account Standards Board) and enforced by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission).  This is an ugly act of politics that justify  high CEO wages.  Waxman is being particularly ugly. (See photo above.)

* The third notice is that the very same FASB is considering ways to bring back 'mark to market' for banks.  You may recall that in an earlier blog, more than a year ago, I identified mark-to-market as a prime force in the financial melt down.  We need to keep our eyes open and follow this matter.

Was this simple ignorance of history?

I went back an re-read President Obama's speech in Cairo last year to see how he treated Israeli-Palestinian history. Here is what I found:
He begins by quoting the Koran: "to speak the truth as best I can"

Then he says about the Israel-Palestinian issue: "it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.  For more than 60 years they've endured the pain of dislocation.  Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.  They endure the daily humiliations -- large and small -- that come with occupation.  So let there be no doubt:  The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable."

This is not "the truth".  Palestinian Muslims and Christians can not be lumped together. (1) Palestinian Muslims have driven Arab Christians out of formerly majority Christian cities of Arab Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth in the past two decades. Arab Christians comprise three times as many Israeli Palestinians (120,000) as they do West Bank and Gaza Palestinians (35,000).

Humiliation from occupation?  No, humiliation from Arab hatred of Palestinians. (2) Palestinian emigres to Europe, the U.S. and Latin America (6 million) have fully integrated as citizens while there are over 1.5 million still in refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

He added: "The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security."

This ignores the simplest historic reality: Neither the Palestinians in the West Bank nor the Gazans will recognize the state of Israel. They never have and never have done anything to take one step towards recognition of Israel in 60 years.

Delicate matter

So how does a Jew who voted for Obama handle the Passover (Last Supper) seder next week?

This is a problem because the Passover dinner has an important portion dedicated to a statement that has been made by Jews every year for 2,000 years.  That is a statement made more than a billion times by Jews. 'Next year may we be in Jerusalem!' 

A Democratic president has said what parts of Jerusalem HE and Hillary Clinton believe Jews can't build in.  So how will Jews who voted for him respond?  Will they plan to bring tents to Jerusalem?  Will they accept an Arab sector that doesn't let Jews enter?

I have a bias in this matter.  When I was in Israel in 1958 and 1959 the Arabs would not permit me, any Jew, any Israeli or any American to enter 3/4ths of Jerusalem and especially the Old City that was founded and built by David and Solomon.

I'll never forget that any more than I'll forget the Shoah and European Jew -hatred.

Maybe there is a conflict between having voted for Obama and calling yourself a Jew.

Poverty and the heartlessness (2)

I know people who are considered heartless because they treat poverty as the subject of an imaginary Lefty polemic.

I told one story about poverty in the last blog.  Here is another.

I visited a town and castle called Fatehpur Sikri in India.  It is near the Taj Mahal.  The castle was built by Akbar the Mughal who ruled from his castle between 1571 and 1585.

A brief aside. Akbar built the castle based on the advice of the Al Gore of his day, Salim Chishti, who claimed to be a seer.  Trouble was that there was plenty of rain and water when the castle was conceived, the end of the Medieval Warming Period. After it was built the world entered a long cooling period (called the Little Ice Age) and water dried up.  The castle and surroundings could not support much population and had to be abandoned.

After doing the tourist thing and looking through the marvels of Fatehpur Sikri, I went outside the gate to wait for my traveling companion (usually half hour to and hour wait).  As in the rest of India, I was swarmed by beggars, most who whom were trying to sell me rugs from the nearby shops or other knickknacks. They were between 14 and 17 years old. One particular beggar stood out.  He was a hunch-back with no legs.  He propelled himself on a wheeled cart.

I told them all to 'beat it, leave me alone'.  They withdrew out of sheer surprise at the force of my voice. They slowly ventured closer and started to ask questions.  I asked back and we got into a long conversation.  I did pay for a coke from Abir, on the wheelie, who owned the coke concession. Abir turned out to be the boss.  The rest of the gang all had a share of the businesses they promoted and they all went to school, had families and most importantly.... they were happy kids, having a wonderful time with each other when they weren't looking sad and dour for the tourists.

We had a wonderful time together, kidding, laughing and teasing.

When I hear a tirade on the horror of poverty, I remember Abir and my beggar friends from Fatephur Sikri in India.

Poverty and the heartlessness (1)

I know people who are considered heartless because they treat poverty as the subject of an imaginary Lefty polemic.

I have two stories to tell about poverty. This blog and the next.

From 1978 to 1981 I created, built and operated a park for street people at 6th and Minna in San Francisco.  Everyone called the location Drunk Park, since most of the regulars there were winos.  After 1981 this class of people were called 'homeless', based on the terminology developed in New York City. The term was erroneous because most of the winos had an indoor place to stay if they wanted to, but few wanted to.

I got to know many regulars well, knew their families and their lives.  I built the park so this bottom class would have a safe place to hang out and visit with their friends.  It worked beautifully on that level. In fact, many regulars did business from the corner of the park.  A fellow would drive up to the park, signal a friend and tell him he needed a color TV or an auto tire of a specific size.  The next day the same fellow would drive up and the order would be filled.

The Lefties who work in the field of homeless have created a whole fabric of phony stories about these street people (most were males, black). Many, if not most, loved drugs of any kind.  None that I met were in mental trouble and all had chosen the lifestyle because they rejected normal lifestyles.  All knew how to use social services effectively and at their own convenience. No one was ever hungry... they got food for each other, daily. 

Moses, a giant black man, had a large coat, with 20 pockets inside.  Every day, several times, he went to McDonald's after meal times and was given left over burgers and sandwiches to fill all his pockets.  Which he brought back to his friends.

So why was the park for this large poverty group closed?  You guessed it, Democrats in government (Diane Feinstein was mayor), do-gooders of every stripe, harassed this group of comfortable, satisfied men to 'get sober, get jobs and move inside. I was pressured mercilessly to close the park. The residents were all chased away.

How bad can it get?

Your local newspaper is having trouble. 

Total ad revenue for U.S. newspapers last year was $27.6 billion which would be half of the revenue in 1986 in inflation adjusted dollars. 

Half the ad revenue that newspapers got in 1986? 

And during the past two years the Wall Street Journal has seen its ad revenue increase, sucking up even more from local newspapers.

That tells me that the business of America is business. 

The anti-business party in power in Washington right now is a temporary blip.

Yesterday's joke

Yesterday many economists and financial types were joking about several corporate bonds (Buffett's and Proctor & Gamble) that were selling for more than the same 2 year U.S. government bonds. 

That was funny because, on the face, it meant investors considered corporate bonds more likely to pay off their debt in 2 years than the Obama government.

Today we know what is really happening. 

The Euro is falling fast and buying U.S. bonds, corporate and Treasury is a safe haven. 

Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland look shaky and so does Europe.

Our model for unionization, healthcare and Jew-hate isn't a very appealing model.

Small business policy recommendations (2)

I don't think small businesses needs help from the government, except to reduce the barriers to starting and operating.  But when I work as a consultant for one of the most important small business organizations in the U.S. I have to come up with a few ideas.  These, and the group in the next blog below, have not all been used in my client's policy recommendations:

f) Create a  small business import/export support office

Such an office would offer letters of credit with Federal guarantees and provide career officers assigned to each business client. Many small businesses would do well in the export business but the bureaucracy is much too complex.  The same is true in the import world where expenses can be reduced appreciably.

g) Eliminate minimum wage for small businesses for the first 18months of a new employment

Hiring teenagers is helpful to small businesses and to teenagers.  The Federal and local minimum wage is too high in many regions and part time work is often too time consuming to administer with many minimum wage employees. More jobs, more small businesses if we can waive the minimum wage where it is clearly counter-productive.

 h) Small business tax form as simple as 1040EZ

Once a small business registers and provides core back-up data, it should only need to file a one page annual tax form thereafter. The waste and bureaucracy of new long forms every year is irrational and untenable.

i) Expand commercial districts

Use Redevelopment programs and other Federal housing edicts to provide model zoning codes that expand commercial and retail districts. Existing narrow activist opposition to business severely restricts small business in most of the country (NIMBY).  The most awful and ugly element of communist and socialist countries is the miles and miles without any retail business.

j) Preserve old redevelopment districts as run-down areas

Use Federal redevelopment districts and closed military bases for 'as is use' by small businesses and exempt the new businesses from zoning restrictions; also provide temporary special start-up protections. 

Old run-down redevelopment districts and closed military bases are good locations for small business storage and experimentation in new forms of enterprise. See an earlier blog on this subject.

Small business policy recommendations (1)

I don't think small businesses needs help from the government, except to reduce the barriers to starting and operating.  But when I work as a consultant for one of the most important small business organizations in the U.S. I have to come up with a few ideas.  These have not all been used in my client's policy recommendations but you may be interested in the things I recommend:

a) Federal Loan Insurance Corporation

Create a Federal loan guarantee for all bank loans to business for the face amount, for an indefinite period so long as the assets covering the loan have not declined in value. The purpose is to disconnect banking and finance problems from the business world. 

Currently, a small graphic designer gets her loan removed because the bank has lost money in Greek bonds. People lose jobs.  The bank must guarantee the loans to small businesses.

b) Create Small Business Administration Loans on one page

Modest sized loans, secured by assets, for any business with 4 years of Federal Income Tax records should only face a one page loan application form. The current SBA process is burdensome, irrelevant and bureaucratic.

c) Organize a regional start-up clearance center

Regional centers or websites would be helpful to anyone starting a business. The start-up novice could find all the local rules, zoning, fees and regulations that pertain to a new business start-up.  Currently this is a universal nightmare.

This kind of regional center would be similar to what current payroll payment companies do for small businesses: they provide all accounting for payroll that covers the tax issues of all locales.

d) Generate a small business bond market

It might be helpful to have a government insured market for small bonds that are issued on a business to a new buyer on the sale of a business. Such small business bonds would be designed to make businesses easier to sell at the retirement time for the founder.

e) Exempt the sale of small business from any capital gains tax or any tax at all

This policy is designed to help small business owners sell their business. Most small businesses are not sold they are closed and almost everyone loses.

Do you know this about the Internet?

The FCC commissioned a superb study of American usage of the Internet and related media.  It was superb because the sample was drawn mostly from cell phone interviews with call backs.

Here are some of the findings that interested me:

* 85% of Americans have and use a cell phone. 80% use a computer. Three-quarters of Americans have computers with Internet access at home. Nearly all of these are Internet connections --- high-speed. Nearly 60% of those Internet connections are via cable.   Those numbers are surprisingly high.

* One third of the Americans with a computer have 3 or more computers at home, almost as many have 3 or more cell phones.  Sounds like me.

* In order of usage, the Internet is used to: buy online (78%), get news (75%), visit government websites (75%), do finance or banking (63%).  Then in the intermediate usage range are, in order: deal with a potential job or job information (57%), social networking (52%), write a review (52%), download music (47%) upload photos (45%). All of these are surprisingly high to me.

* The main reason any American recently started using the Internet: to deal with emails from family and friends. No surprise there.

* Cell phones are used, in order, to: send and receive text (66%), send and receive photos (52%) and access the web for multiple reasons from email to maps (28%).  Photos are the surprise to me.

* The median cell phone bill is estimated at $75 per household. A third of the bills are over $100. Mine is $150.

If you read the entire survey you will find there is no strong policy that supports a national broadband policy.  People will use higher speeds, but they are not currently dissatisfied.

Rest assured, such wise use of this information will be ignored by Congress and the FCC.

How does science work, really (2)?

I have seen two scientific problems up close, that suggest science doesn't work the way scientist or technologists think it does.

Let's begin with a major $5 million research project by Donald Glaser, a Nobel physicist who became a biologist.  Glaser found that bacteria changed their shape in reaction to their environment.  He used a mechanized system to grow and identify a million bacteria at a time.  He was able to correlate the bacterial shape with solutions of hundreds of fluids from diseased patients.

In one experiment he used urine drops from 30 members of a Stanford team (Glaser's lab was at U.C. Berkeley) and detected over 31 common diseases. 

 Glaser never got re-funded by the Federal agency that supported him.  Why, because he found a way to detect disease but no one knew the connection between the effect on the bacteria and the emergence of disease. None of the 30 men showed signs of disease. Also, the machine was too expensive to produce in abundance.

Next, I met an interesting scientist at a Tokyo resort who invited me to his lab at Hitachi.  When I went to the lab he showed me a newly operational x-ray scanning microscope operating at a wavelength previously never used.  The lab had many images of different molecule sizes from metallic elements. The problem was the images didn't connect with any known atomic surface patterns.  Basically the question was 'what are we seeing at the atomic level?'  Comparisons were made to other atomic level microscopes, but there was no connection. The answer was not found over the next few years so the research was terminated.

It looks to me like technology is regularly investigating the Real World and finding unexpected phenomenon for which the preceding (intermediate) steps of research don't exist.  So the research remains in limbo.  Much like the work of Mendel who applied math to pea reproduction with astounding results but wasn't understood for forty years.

True biblical justice

On Monday, the Israel-hating White House tells Israel that it can't build housing in Jerusalem.  The first openly Israel-hate act by America in 50 years. ( Israel hate is when Jews are told by the U.S. government that they can't build in their own capital ...imagine telling the French they can't build in Paris, the Canadians can't build in Ottawa.)

On Friday the official Russian government spits in the face of the U.S. for the first time in 50 years.  "...Putin spent six minutes rattling off a number of complaints he has with the United States. He barked about trade and scolded her (Clinton) about the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment. 'Reporters were surprised at the length of Putin’s list of issues and the fact that he did it in front of the Russian and American press corps, a pool reporter noted.' In other words, Putin went out of the way to bully the U.S. Secretary of State in public. Just to show who is boss? And this follows the announcement that, instead of cooperating to isolate Iran, Russia will build a nuclear power plant for the mullahs — an announcement issued to 'greet' Hillary."

Justice only took four days.  The U.S. spews the first official Israel hate in 50 years and Russia does the same to the U.S.

'So how is this hopey changey thing work'in out for yah?'

How does science work, really (1)?

I have seen three scientific problems that suggest science doesn't work the way scientist or technologists think it does. This blog describes the first.  The next blog describes the two I have personally seen.

My main annual check-up doctor, a famous UCSF internist, is strongly opposed to full body, 'just-to-find out' body scans.  He is less concerned by the 50 to 500 times increase in radiation exposure; greater than from an annual X-ray (source Landro WSJ 3-2-2010).  His concern is that a full body CT scan often reveals a wide range of anomalies about the individual scanned that deals with the complete unknown.  Clusters of muscle and fat appear in the wrong places, dark spots occur that don't connect to any known problem and lesions of all sorts are found that don't connect to any known symptom.  A whole can of worms is opened with worms that may or may not be important but lead to worry and further probing expense.

I am reminded of the book How We Die by Sherwin B. Nuland.  He is a doctor who was disturbed by the number of prostrate tests that came out positive and led to surgery only to find benign tumors.  So Nuland paid for eleven autopsies of Harvard men who died of old age and found that the majority of them had prostate tumors but hadn't died of prostate related cancer. (Here is a similar study.)  

CT technology has shown that much of the internal human world looks threatening but because its existence was formerly unknown the relation to health is also unknown. New data, no theory, too bad.

Venture Cloud in San Francisco

Most of my readers have only a tourist interest in San Francisco.  Half live outside the U.S. and most who do live in the U.S. have an IP address outside of California.  At most a small percent, under 1,000 people who read my blog live in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

 Nevertheless, I mention San Francisco occasionally because it can be a good example of some commercial endeavor or a unique example of anti-commerce politics. In this case both.

Today's blog is just to point out that a vast floating cloud hovers over San Francisco, much like a cloud of marijuana smoke. This cloud, according to San Francisco Business Times is venture capital.  Most venture capital in the United States is located in Palo Alto, a large part of that is in a few blocks on Sand Hill Road (not a road anymore). 

But San Francisco, about thirty minutes away from Palo Alto, has a goodly share of venture capital.  The top seven firms hold $9 billion in capital.  That is quite a bit of money that could finance one hell of of a lot of start-ups.  

I call it a cloud because a venture capital firm has few employees, but can generate a vast amount of business. 

Fortunately for our clouds, no current taxes invented by our political vampire class will drive away these efficient office operations.  Thank god, they are too cloud-like to be vulnerable to the canons, mortars and bombs that the political class is always aiming at commerce.

I trust him and he says: 'nightmare'

 I am currently reading Lee Smith's The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations.  I'll write about it after I leisurely finish reading it.

Of course I am deeply upset to see the nazi level evil treatment of Jews by the Jeremiah-Wright-Obama White House. That is only part of the disaster at hand.

 I will let my authority's (Michael Totten) favorite authority say what needs to be said: 

"Of course, Washington shaming Israel will please the Arabs—even U.S. allies like Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Cairo, Egypt, that cheered on Jerusalem when it took on Iran’s assets Hezbollah and Hamas. Remember, the Arabs have been compelled by the American strong horse to swallow their pride for decades. But given that Arabs do not air their own dirty laundry for fear it will make them look weak, our public humiliation of an ally will earn us only contempt.

 

"But here’s the most important thing: Even if you discount the centrality of shame and honor as operative principles in the Middle East, the Obama administration has blundered by jeopardizing not Israel’s stature but our own regional interests and the Pax Americana that has been ours over the last 35 years. Our position in the region depends on every actor there knowing that we back Israel to the hilt and that they are dependent on us. Sure, there are plenty of times we will not see eye-to-eye on things—differences that should be resolved in quiet consultations—but should any real distance open up between Washington and Jerusalem, that will send a message that the U.S.-backed order of the region is ready to be tested. And that’s exactly what the axis of resistance is seeing right now."

In simple English. President Obama has wasted the lives of thousands of Americans since Gulf Storm in 1990. He has made a colossal historic mistake. We are in a Middle Eastern "nightmare." 

The computer and superstition

 I had an Olivetti-Underwood Programma 101, which was first on sale in about 1965.

This is a cute story. The extent to which it deals with superstition is minor.

I ran the marketing research department at the Bank of California in the late 1960s. I had many calculators.  I had no hesitation in buying this programmable computer when it first went on the market.

It had four memory registers and was programmable in a very simple machine language. I don't know how many kilobytes the four registers could handle but it is trivial by any standards.

I programmed the machine to intake a number consisting of the current date and the client’s date of birth. The machine would then use the input number and  the square root of three to generate a random number. That number, limited from 1 to 40, was then printed out.

The user then looked at 40 page set of astrological forecasts that I had copied from some astrology books.

Presumably, this office computer was making astrological forecasts based on the date of birth.

I put the machine and the 40 page booklet at the front of my office so that any employee in the building could come in and use it.

There was a line from nine in the morning until six in the evening, of people waiting to use the machine. After five months, of perpetual lines, I moved the machine to a place where it could only be used for office work.

I think that is a cute story.

New book review magazine

I received a subscription offer and a copy of the first edition of the Jewish Review of Books.

The publishers probably bought my name from two other Jewish publications I subscribe to: Commentary and Azure.

 I carefully read the entire first edition to see if it appealed to me or offended me.  The list of editorial board members is largely academic, with several distinguished intellectuals.

What I was most looking for was new and fresh thinking, without that I was looking to see if the magazine opened new doors not covered by the two magazines I currently get on the subject.

The Jewish Review of Books failed on both counts.  It didn't offend me but there were two irritating items.  In one article by Shlomo Avineri he was critical of the neocons democracy efforts in Iraq and said the effort failed.  What has he missed about the myriad elections in Iraq and the fairly stable government?  Should I value his Lefty blinders? Or should I consider him a moral degenerate for lacking appropriate gratitude to George W.Bush, the greatest friend of Israel in human history?

Another article by Lance Sussman, a reform rabbi, was a review of a book on the state of American Jewry.  Sussman never mentions the core problem that faces Jewry.  The same problem that destroyed mainstream Christian denominations in America over the past 50 years: turning liberal religion into Lefty Fundamentalist dogma and driving away most of their members. Methodists, Lutherans and Presbyterians are almost non-existent.

Nearly all of Reform Judaism and most of Conservative Judaism have done the same thing and turned their backs on the core vitality of the Jewish world: Israel.  For 2,000 years of Jewish exile Jews have said: "Next year, may we be in Jerusalem".  Now that we are there, the Lefty Jews have changed that phrase into "Next year, may we be in the French countryside reading the Herald Tribune."

This magazine fills a niche.  It should be an insert in the Sunday New York Times.

You won't believe

 You won't believe it because I don't believe it.

Three weeks ago I put up my book Commerce on the Scribd.com website.  It got 55 purchases in the first 24 hours.  Now it has 116 purchases at $2.00 of which I get 80%.  

Other books are $1.00 and a few are $3.00.

I was so shocked that I had the rest of my books (excluding Marketing Without Advertising) digitized and I put them up online too.

After one day, my other nine books have sold nearly 100 copies.  Here is the site of my books for sale for reading online or downloading.

How will history remember Obama?

 I have often commented on the way history will record George W. Bush as the greatest friend of the Jewish people in 3,000 years. 

The current imbroglio between Obama and Israel has brought forward several people who think about history like me. The following comes from Yehuda Avner who was in the room in 1975 when Henry Kissinger was negotiating with Yitzhak Rabin over Sinai and they had reached a serious impass:

"At the height of the confrontation between the two men, Kissinger told Rabin: “You will be responsible for the destruction of the third Jewish commonwealth,” and Rabin replied, “You will be judged not by American history but by Jewish history.”

I love that.

As for the current situation, I have an unsupported observation.  We will know by Friday if this was pique.  

If the problem was that the White House on Monday March 15th knew for sure that they couldn't pass the ObamaHealth Care bill and the out pouring of jew hate was just the kind of jew hate that has come out for a thousand years when leaders are frustrated and angry.... or if the ObamaHealth Care bill passes, then we know the circumstances were jew hate of a more international relations kind.  Like we find among 147 UN member nations.

 

If you are a Jew and you voted for Barack Obama, you may have some serious soul searching to do in either case. 

Columbia University rates a D-

A friend of mine who works at Campus Watch was discussing the subject of the worst Universities for Middle East Study Departments.  The fact is Columbia University is among the worst in the U.S. in Jewish Manhattan, largely because the Marxist-lying-jew-hater, Edward Said, was a professor there and left a legacy of blind hate.

If you are looking for a college or university that doesn't actively promote jew hate, you would do well to look at the Campus Watch list of professors who are competent and don't teach jew-hate. 

You won't find the University of California system on the decent list (UCLA and Irvine are particular schools for Jews and Jewish donors to avoid and the same is true of the California State Colleges).

We have a Make-Work class

To understand what the Make-Work class is you need look no farther than the nearest graffiti.  Graffiti artists are members of the Make-Work class.  Out of sheer love of public displays these young people create their graffiti which makes work for a paid class of city workers who cover up the graffiti.  The same is true for arsonists who love their work and create plenty of work for home builders. 

The make-work class includes car thieves, most of whom don't earn money from their efforts, rapists (who generate jobs for the justice and penal system and therapists) and fall down drunk homeless (plenty of work for ambulance and hospital personnel).

My friend Marius tells of a swindler who worked three years on a $110,000 swindle.  He could have earned more at McDonalds.

I'm not happy that so many criminals work for free and the rest for below minimum wage, and create so much unhappiness, but I do see the benefits in the GNP.

Samizdat America

Most of my readers know what samizdat means.  Samizdat refers to the system, in communist and other totalitarian countries, where the government and media suppressed literature and news. Literature, articles and news was clandestinely printed and distributed.

It is obvious that we have an extensive samizdat in the U.S. and have had for a long time.  Richard Nixon was hated by every Lefty, every academic, every journalist and every public media; yet Americans gave him 520 electoral votes over the Left's beloved McGovern's 17 votes in 1972.  The same with Ronald Reagan who got 525 electoral votes over the Left's beloved Walter Mondale in 1984. Again the same with George W. Bush who beat John Kerry and Edwards by 31 states to 19 in 2004.

So how have Americans been getting their news and information for the past 45 years?  Samizdat.  And what constitutes samizdat: word of mouth until roughly 1993 when it became talk radio.  After 2000 it became talk radio, Fox News and the Internet.

When is some sociologist going to be non-Lefty enough to do research on this amazing phenomenon?

Take a walk in a mall

I wish more local politicians from San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Seattle, Santa Monica and similar anti-commerce villages would take a walk in a mall.  They might learn a few lessons relevant to the vitality of their small town businesses and business streets:

* A main big box store and big box chain restaurants support dozens of smaller specialty stores, shops and restaurants. 

* Two or three shoes stores and two or three jewelry stores can operate successfully close together and pull in more shoe stores and jewelry stores. 

* A good flow of pedestrian traffic generates a market for many incidental stores such as Apple stores, mobile telephone stores, food courts and dozens of min-cart stores.

* The incidental stores generate even more foot traffic. Foot traffic needs places to sit down, a center of gravity and bath rooms.

* You need good parking for good business. 

These are facts of life. Sentimentalists and eco-nuts: eat your bicycle seats, your Nike shoes and a big black crow.

Disability law created disabilities

I've seen several instances where the Americans with Disabilities Act has created disabilities.

The first was a  severely disabled man who got full coverage for attendants, two per day.  Over several years I watched two of these attendants become disabled as they figured out that it was a good racket to get out of working.

The second was in my favorite coffee shop; the service counter was lowered during a recent remodel for disabled customers.  The consequence was that two tall baristas were forced to quit before their backs were badly hurt from bending over.

I actively supported ADA before it passed and was active in its implementation and promulgation.
The way legislatures are supposed to work is that they make modifications for many years after legislation is enacted.

But I was dumb enough to believe that Congress would do its job and modify the law and regulations after it saw some of the harmful consequences.  I was dumb.  Congress is even dumber, more irresponsible and very incompetent.

We need a word or image

A restaurant I walked past every day was sold to a new owner.  I didn't try the food under the new owner I just watched the prices go up every week and the number of customers go down.  Finally, on a warm day when the owner was sitting out front and the restaurant was empty I asked the owner why he kept raising the prices.  He said: ' I have to cover the overhead'.

In economics this is called an elastic demand curve.  Raise prices by 10% and lose more than 10% in revenue.  That is too complex for ordinary people and particularly for politicians, with half their IQs under 100, to understand.  Our local and state governments keep raising prices expecting revenue to increase on buses, parking meters, hotel rooms... everything. Unions do the same thing with wage contracts every day.

The restaurant owner was Luigi, but Luigi's Folly doesn't really ring a bell. Neither does Jack & Jill, the Three Little Piggies nor Little Red Riding Hood work either.

Give this ubiquitous stupidity a name or image.  Please.

I'm optimistic

On a number of fronts I'm optimistic. 

* The absurdity of human caused global warming is nearly gone and it generated great destruction to the mainstream media, the EU, UN and American governments.

* Government meddling in the economy has proved counter-productive in stimulus, autos, housing, healthcare and the environment (cap and trade) and we will never hear of it again in my life.  The elected class has their tail between their legs, tight.

* The U.S. State Department now has many informed opponents.  With Obama, the State Department got their wet dream and it pee'd all over them with failure.

* I realize that Iran doesn't really matter.  No aggressive act by Iran will go unmet by Israel or the U.S.  The U.S. has nearly 200,000 troops and mercenaries on Iran's two borders and the most powerful military force in world history. Any and all U.S. presidents will strike back.

* Government unions, the outrageous parasite class that makes CEO executive compensation look reasonable, is now in the sights of the cognoscenti. Nearly every local government and state government knows the deficits that these parasites have wrought.

We get to watch five of these nightmares self-destruct. They are all products of Lefty Fundamentalist 20th Century wet dreams.

Trees and grass

Sometimes metaphors work. I have a biological metaphor that seems to help Lefty Fundamentalists and their hangers-on to understand why we have big companies and global giants.

Think about the vast numbers of single blades of grass we have.  Think about the few shrubs and bushes we have.  Think about the fewer ordinary trees.  Think about the rarity of giant trees.

That is the distribution of sole proprietors, small shops, retail stores, chains, large companies and giant global companies.  It is a natural biological order.

Biology is good.  Now you can see why commerce is good too.

Merit versus value

Is Shikha Dalmia, over at Reason Magazine, trying to pick a fight she is certain to lose?

Dalmia argues that President Sarkozy is wrong when he says that financial services' outrageous executive bonuses should be eliminated because they don't measure and respond to merit as we expect the free market to respond. Dalmia says that the market rewards value not merit and executives are probably producing some value in some market niche.

First, Sarkozy is right, outrageous executive bonuses are unrelated to merit.  I have proposed the only viable solution to this problem (setting out public compensation packages that everyone can understand and which are tied to performance).  The reason we don't have a rational connection, that Sarkozy and I want, between compensation and merit is that these complex issues take decades to sort themselves out.  Also, the cozy little love nests of CEO's and their boards of directors are too incestuous to seek solutions.

Second, value is a broad self-referential term.  Anything people will buy has value.  They might buy more if the price is lower. 

Nobody has the choice to buy the corporate stock XYZ or corporate product XYZ with more or less outrageous executive compensation built into the stock or product.

Merit is not built into every part of commerce.  It is a general direction of commerce. 

Plenty of companies survive with the idiot brother running the purchasing department, even with the founder's daughter being CEO.  But 99 out of 100 companies are more profitable, more likely to survive if they hire based on merit and reward merit.

I can't define merit, it is entirely content and niche defined; but it is not nepotism and not political favoritism. 

Sarkozy is right, Dalmia is wrong.

No truth in Landsburg

I read one of Steven Landsburg's books.  Landsburg's main thesis is that math is true and that math, in its virgin purity, existed before the universe. 

Landsburg is astounded by the way we keep discovering how the universe works with the marvelous tool of math that seems to exist in the form of pure truth.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Math does not exist independent of human beings.  It is a human conception that does stand outside the universe in the same way nearly all metaphors, concepts, images and ideas exist outside of the universe.  Math is true only in the sense that syllogisms are true. They are logical constructs; the connection to the real world is accidental, arbitrary and irrelevant.

The universe has nothing to do with math.  Most important physical constants are irrational numbers: pi, e, the speed of light, the gravitational constant, Plancks constant and nearly every other constant (here is a list of the main constants of science and engineering).

For humans many of the most important measurements are not math: the median, the top tenth percentile, 95% confidence interval (you need a table to look it up) and our non-metric measurement systems (inches, hours, angles and weights). None of these are mathematical, they are all empirical constructs.

I may never forget that Mars orbiter that crashed in 1999, crashed because some engineers used English measurements while others used metrics (here is a list of similar errors).  I'm sure Landsburg doesn't find that list funny.

That many rich cigar smokers?

I received a wonderful Christmas present: Cigar Aficionado magazine. It is a high gloss, expensive, thick periodical with ads for expensive watches, cars and resorts.

I personally like tobacco in many forms (though smoking cigarettes interferes with my swimming).  I have, over a lifetime found the cigars I like (a dry Dutch brand, Vasco da Gama).  I smoke other cigars when they are given to me.  I tried all the top cigars on a trip to Havana and didn't like the chlorine taste of the last 2 inches of pure Havanas.

So what would be of interest to my readers?  Cigar Aficionada Magazine advertises that it has 1,949,000 readers based on an  MRI Spring 09 survey.

Can there be that many rich cigar smokers in America who read a magazine heavy with glossy expensive ads? 

I can't believe it, but if it is true we have many more defiant happy Americans than I ever thought possible.