Does this man have editors? Did he ever?

A high profile journalist, Walter Shapiro, bemoans the death of privacy (Politics Daily via Instapundit). Apparently for this man, the expectation of privacy only applies to the left wing cabal of journalists of which he was a member and of which he hopes will find a new home.

And they wonder why the public doesn't trust journalists (Gallup, 2004). Expect that these numbers have gotten worse and will continue to plummet. May these journalists continue to get what they deserve.

It's time to break out the world's smallest violin to play the world's saddest song...

Updated (June 29, 2010): From Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism:

The fact that 400 journalists did not recognize how wrong their collusion, however informal, was shows an enormous ethical blind spot toward the pretense of impartiality. As journalists actively participated in an online brainstorming session on how best to spin stories in favor of one party against another, they continued to cash their paychecks from their employers under the impression that they would report, not spin the agreed-upon “news” on behalf of their “JournoList” peers.

China's (Great?) Readjustment

ChinaStakes takes a big picture view of recent changes as executed by China and what it means:

A series of recent events, i.e. significant pay rises triggered by labor disputes in the Pearl River and Yangtze River Deltas, RMB appreciation from re-decoupling of the yuan to USD, the cancellation of 406 different export tax rebates, with particular influence on the steel industry, has posed significant questions for investors about what this means to the future Chinese economy. [...]

Chinese government began its economic restructuring, as lip services, in the 1990s, but external and internal imbalances intensified, caused by the factor pricing failure and the distorting macro-control. The nature of the market mechanism is in response to price signals. This time, changes in wages, exchange rates, and taxes show that the Chinese economy is undergoing a true transformation, which will also help China adjust both internal and external imbalances.

As far as investment is concerned, the near-future trend is from external demand to domestic demand, from manufacturing to services, from investment and exports to consumption, from cheap low-end products to quality brands. Companies able to manage this wave will grow rapidly, and finding and investing in such companies will create China's next wave of billionaires. China's largest wealth will increasingly turn into the ability rooted in this land, people, and systems.

Read the whole thing. Personally, I suspect that while these are significant policy changes, implementation will happen slowly lest they jeopardize economic growth. The message from China's government is however clear on the direction in which they want to lead their economy. It should also be clear that China intends to make changes at its own pace and its leaders will continue to act in their own interest.

G8 and G20: Much Ado about Nothing

Holding the G20 in downtown Toronto was stupid to begin with. Bill Easterly from AidWatch pulls a passage from Alan Beattie in the Financial Times describing G8 summits:

…at which ministers from around the world gather to wring their hands impotently about the most fashionable issue of the day. The organisation has sought to justify its almost completely fruitless existence by joining its many fellow talking-shops in highlighting whatever crisis has recently gained most coverage in the global media.

By making a big deal out of the fact that the world’smost salient topical issue will be placed on its agenda …it hopes to convey the entirely erroneous impression that it has any influence whatsoever on the situation.

Add to this the completely foreseeable trampling of civil liberties not to mention the simple ineptitude of the police. Someone I knew from highschool in a younger year than I had their house raided and they were even detained at gunpoint when the police raided the wrong apartment (National Post):

Two Toronto veterinarians say they were woken up at gunpoint this morning by police officers who thought they were the anti-G20 protesters who live in the apartment downstairs.

Dr. John Booth said the officers forced their way into their High Park-area home at 4 a.m., turning their home into chaos for about 45 minutes but were unwilling to show their warrant.

Dr. Booth, 30, said he was handcuffed, and spent about 15 minutes on the curb outside the home in cuffs before his identity was cleared up. The officers said they were looking for an activist named “Peter,” who apparently lived downstairs.

As Walter Russell Mead notes, the efforts are simply pointless with any agreements are non binding with little to no expectations of agreements on anything as journalists breathtakingly report on the mess (The American Interest):

Yet, in a striking demonstration of the idiocy and futility with which our world is governed, as the G-8 morphs into the G-20 and becomes ever less likely to produce any meaningful result, it is getting more coverage and not less.

There are several reasons for this. First, the word ‘news’ is derived from the word ‘new’, not from the word ’significant’. Even the sclerotic world of serious journalism and diplomatic convention was beginning to weary of the G-7/G-8 story. With every passing summit, the vapidity of these events became harder to ignore; we were reaching the shark-jumping moment when not even bureaucrats could pretend to care. But now we have new characters and new plot lines. There is almost no chance that the G-20 meetings will accomplish more than the G-7 meetings, but what does that have to do with anything? Evidently, not much.

More what the National Review is calling Toronto's Keystone Kops.

Quote of the Day

Walt Disney (via Daring Fireball): "We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies."

I love the quote because it's the basis of great businesses - not the pursuit of money but the pursuit of a passion. That you make money is just a recognition that your passion meets a real need that people are willing to pay for.

It's all about your perspective on time...

Jeffrey Ellis calls it "the Best Video Ever". I'm not sure about that... but it's definitely worth your time:

Not Surprising, Just Sad

From a Zogby poll of 5000 people, does it really surprise anyone that self identified "liberals" have the poorest grasp of economics of any ideological group (WSJ via JeffreyEllis)? Of course, what's just sad is that these are the same people who would claim they and governments are more efficient and effective at planning and running the economy.

The arrogance of trade "activists"

On Chinese Factories (TJIC via Jeffrey Ellis):

Say that we had first contact with some super (economically) advanced aliens.

…and pretty soon they set up factories here.

…and I was offered a job in one of these factories, doing software engineering.

The pay is $400k/year.

The work week is 20 hours long.

The work environment is far better than I’m used to – great internal decoration, well tended plants, a zen-like water garden near my desk, massages every other day.

…and then left-wing alien “sentient being rights activists” started protesting, because I was being forced to work for less than a quarter of the prevailing wage in Alpha Centauri, and my work hours were twice as long as the legal norms in Alpha Centauri, and I didn’t have every mandatory benefits like “other other year off”, and “free AI musical composition mentoring”.

…and then left-wing alien “sentient being rights activists” wanted to make it illegal for my employer and I to contract with each other at mutually beneficial terms.

…then I would be rip shit that some elitist who had never visited me, or knew of my actual alternatives on the ground presumed to decide that I shouldn’t have this opportunity.

Which brings me to my core point: Chinese factory conditions may not be the exact cup of tea for a San Francisco graphic designer or a Connecticut non-profit ecologist grant writer … but they’re, by definition, better than all the other alternatives available to the Chinese workers (or the factories would find it impossible to staff up).

Butt out, clueless activists.

A must for all drivers: Laptop Steering Wheel Desk

For those of you who have a warped sense of humor - Check out Amazon's Laptop Steering Wheel Desk. Be sure to see the user added pics and the comments.

PSA: You are what you eat (and fighting cancer with food)

Just popping in. Sadly, work has been soul crushing though I've made a bit of time for a few small but personal trips here - and while fun, has made life a bit busier. Anyway, here's a pretty compelling look at "antiangiogenic therapy" and a possible "answer to cancer"/and even being fat:

A Case for Optimism

Despite what I think are pretty miserable economic policies being implemented around the world and for which we'll be paying for - for many years to come, I happened to stumble across this video by Steven Pinker on TED.com looking at the history of violence for which there's great cause for optimism:

Quote of the er, Day

Yes, it's been a while since my last post. I'm alive and relatively well, battling jetlag again, but given what's been happening in the world, I thought this quote was all too true (and double edged) - from G.E. Anderson (ChinaBizGov):

Democracy has a well-documented downside: an irresistible urge to vote oneself a share of the spoils disproportionate to one’s economic contribution.

Of course when it comes to China economic contributions are arguably outsized on the upper end of the spectrum by constraining the bottom but I think his concluding paragraph is also true while countries like the US struggle with the deciding where the line should be:

Whether through democracy, or by some other means, China’s leaders have to figure out how to give their most successful citizens a stake in the future success of the poor.

Oh and er, happy May, er Communist day - it's also a good day to take pause in "remembrance of the victims of history’s bloodiest ideology" (Volokh Conspiracy).

A Growing Menace

A public service announcement on a growing threat to all of us. These people are becoming increasingly desperate. And as they get laid off, largely unemployable as a result of positions that fed their delusions of grandeur, there's really no telling what havoc these people could wreak on society. Read on here (Iowahawk).

Oh and Happy Easter!

On the Project that Just Won't Die

From today's Dilbert:

I'm still working at the user interface for a website that has been ongoing on and off for the past few years and hopefully almost about to move into testing... so I found today's Dilbert particularly funny.

Hope you're all having a Happy April Fool's! My posting has slowed and may continue to be slow as I re-acclimatize and try to get things done after getting back to China.

Quips

Both (via JeffreyEllis) that get to the heart of human nature and political realities:

“When you remove the ability of people to fail, you remove their need to have good judgment, to work hard, to plan for the future - in essence, you remove most of the qualities that create successful adults.”
– Peg Kaplan

Putting any part of the economy into the hands of politicians is like putting the space program into the hands of astrologers.
– Don Boudreaux

Heh - Ellis's comment on the second one - "Zing! Two critical thinking-impaired groups, smacked down by a single bitchslap."

Possibly the most disturbing blog I've ever come across...

This blog is probably enough to give anyone thinking about having a kid pause: Raising a Psychopath:

http://raising-a-psychopath.blogspot.com/

I guess I've had something of a fascination of psychopaths for quite some time and have wondered if I'd even recognize one (though I feel fairly confident that I'm not one). Sort of like monsters in the closets except these are real. From another article on Hacker News: "Psychopaths among us - Dr. Robert Hare claims there are 300,000 psychopaths in Canada, but that only a tiny fraction are violent offenders like Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olsen. Who are the rest? Take a look around" (Hare)

Critical Thinking and Politics

I've been evaluating a new blog to add to my blog reader and I'm finding it more likeable more and more. It's called "The Thinker: Swimming Upstream in a Raging Current of Stupid" by Jeffrey Ellis. I like a recent post of his where he not only quotes Hayek but reconsiders his view on the intersection between libertarians and politics:

If politics were just a matter of egalitarianism versus Judeo-Christian traditionalism versus libertarianism, I would say that critical thinking has no judgments to offer. But in practice, this isn’t what politics ends up being about. In practice, it’s the big-government do-gooders versus the morality police versus the libertarians. And as Hayek’s words show, the libertarians are the only ones who seem to get the need for intellectual humility in government.

Mock Outrage or Justified Scrutiny?

Dan Pallota viciously attacks Senator Chuck Grassley for "undermining the humanitarian sector" (via Beata):

Senator Grassley and Wolf Blitzer want to frame this as a moral issue. So I do. It's immoral that in one 24-hour news cycle these leaders have manufactured a massive public relations and fundraising nightmare for the Boys and Girls Clubs, without the slightest effort to evaluate the CEO's compensation in the context of the value she is providing. Any first-year business school student who tried to make a case against an executive salary without a shred of cost-benefit analysis would be laughed out of class. [...]

It is time for us to turn the moral tables. Time to right the moral analysis. Time to call this destructive sanctimony by its real name. Senator Grassley has just dealt a sucker punch to the Boys and Girls Clubs, its CEO, and the millions of kids it helps every day in his own self-interest.

I'm not so sure I'm nearly as convinced or outraged. The problem with not for profit institutions are that in practice they're far more difficult to measure and evaluate. Surely the fact that the US government gave $41M to the Boys and Girls Clubs despite their significant current deficit suggests that Grassley does have a right to question the salaries of the organization just as much as they might for any given defense contractor. Further, Pallota is unfair in not pointing out some of the other objections that were made (AP): "They also questioned why in the same year officials spent $4.3 million on travel, $1.6 million on conferences, conventions and meetings, and $544,000 in lobbying fees."

Grassley also suggested that "changes Congress' original intent--providing initial seed money to providing a perpetual source of funds to sustain the Boys and Girls Club" (WSJ). It should be questioned why the organization didn't reach out to find more sustainable donors for their mission than the government.

While I can respect that you need to pay these people something and that organizationally it is important to attract good people to ensure operational capacity, if they accept funds from government they should accept that their salaries are also subject to political scrutiny. Further, a look at Charity Navigator rates them significant below comparable organizations and gives them only a 2 star rating largely for their organizational capacity though significantly below other comparable organizations.

Happy Pi Day

from Greg Mankiw: "Fun fact of the day: MIT releases its undergraduate admission decisions at 1:59 pm today. (That is, at 3.14159)."

Startups and Growth

While it comes a day late from my little guest speaking gig in my old high school economics class - I've long believed that building businesses that solve problems is the best vehicle for change for those who want to make a difference in the world.

It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine that some people label and elevate certain problems over others with the label of "social" entrepreneurship. Using the label more insidiously also causes some to reduce expectations of performance of their business as if profit must be sacrificed to achieve a social mission when the reality is profit comes from fulfilling a social mission.

My sister (thanks Beata!) forwarded a blog post by Ben Casnocha on entrepreneurs - pointing out that all entrepreneurs are social as he quotes from Carl Schramm in the Stanford Social Innovation Review:

...regular entrepreneurs create thousands of jobs, improve the quality of goods and services available to consumers, and ultimately raise standards of living. Indeed, the intertwined histories of business and health in the United States suggests that all entrepreneurship is social entrepreneurship. [...]

Entrepreneurs typically generate a surplus benefit above and beyond the profits they reap, finds the...economist William Nordhaus. Nordhaus has calculated that entrepreneurs capture only about 2 percent of this surplus, with the remainder passed on to society in the form of jobs, wages, and value.

To this end, one thing that I worry about is that the US - one of the leaders in entrepreneurship, will kill the seeds of ambition and innovation in the guise of social reforms and regulated rigidity. On the other hand, there are efforts like this: visas for foreign entrepreneurs (BusinessWeek).

The Price of "Doing Something"

It's become a common refrain for those who defend the Democrats and the Obama Administration that one year not enough time to judge their respective performances especially after the mess that the previous administration left behind with wars and bailouts. Didn't Obama have to "do something" after all?

One defense is that it was Bush's budget that was implemented in 2009 though the Obama transition team played a significant role in crafting the response by the government to the financial crisis after the 2008 election (Wall Street Journal). Another argument is that the Bush Administration 'borrowed money to pay for tax cuts to the rich' which has resulted in significant deficits. As of this year, the Bush tax cuts have 'expired' - so presumably the deficits should be gone or at the very least considerably reduced? Besides, how much more could Obama possibly spend more than Bush given that the Iraq war seems to be winding down and the engagement in Afghanistan is much smaller by comparison?

From the Washington Post - Projected Deficits, as of March 21, 2009:

Of course, a lot has changed in the span of a year. From The Hill (emphasis my own): "Annual deficits under Obama’s budget plan would be about $976 billion from 2011 through 2020, according to a CBO analysis of Obama's plan released Friday. [...] The independent CBO and Obama expect a similar amount of government spending over the next 10 years -- about $45 trillion. But the CBO expects Obama's policies to bring in $35.5 trillion in tax receipts, less than the $37.3 trillion expected by the White House." And yes, this data includes all war spending.

But what of "stimulus spending". Presumably that had an effect? Ignoring for a moment the numerous documented bizarre earmarks and spending under the guise of stimulus, at least insofar as 2009 goes, from a study by Joshua Aizanman and Gurnain Kaur Pasricha (Marginal Revolution) - the effect on the economy has been "close to zero":

This note shows that the aggregate fiscal expenditure stimulus in the United States, properly adjusted for the declining fiscal expenditure of the fifty states, was close to zero in 2009. While the Federal government stimulus prevented a net decline in aggregate fiscal expenditure, it did not stimulate the aggregate expenditure above its predicted mean.

Things will only get worse with the mounting unfunded liabilities because of retiring baby boomers and doesn't include any healthcare plan that they're hoping to pass. Definitely not fun times for US taxpayers. Any equivalence to deficits during the times of the Bush Administration (which I also disagreed with and were largely the result of wasteful spending) should and can be rejected on their face and with extreme prejudice. The current administration very much owns their recovery plan and response to the financial crisis upon which I believe they've used as justification for significant spending on a much larger and arguably radical agenda.

Update (March 17, 2010): "Over the last five decades, most forms of government spending have grown. The main exception is military spending, which fell after the end of the Vietnam War and the cold war." (NYT)