Marty Manley on economics, politics, technology, and culture

Archive for April, 2006

We Know What You Want – So We Know You

Confirming my suspicion that JK Rowling had Google in mind when she created the Mirror of Erised, the current Cal Alumni magazine has an outstanding cover article on The Future of Search by Forbes Silicon Valley editor and Berkeley faculty member Quentin Hardy. Hardy works with the Jamwife, who tipped me to an earlier piece [...]

"Kill us, but you won't enslave us"

Iraq, The Model, is a brilliant, lively, often funny blog from "Mohammed" in Iraq (hey, if you need a nom de plume in Iraq, that’s gotta be the right one). He patiently explains the ins and outs of Iraqi politics that are, well — Byzantine. He is a warm guy who readers quickly trust and [...]

Ed Koch: Better with Age

Former NYC mayor Ed Koch hits the right notes over at RCP. Play close attention to Hizzoner’s link: if you know your webs software, you
can see that the article was initially titled

Jeff Skilling: Guilty! Guilty. Guilty?

Every few years a criminal trial comes along that features a defendant
that we all love to hate – usually a rich one. We subject the person not
only to criminal prosecution but to public persecution because they
symbolize our frustration and disgust. It is always hard to feel sorry for
these folks in the middle of their Shakespearian fall from grace. In the
90s we had OJ Simpson. Three years ago the princess in the public
pillory was Martha Stewart – caught dumping ImClone stock along with
CEO Sam Waksal on an inside tip that the FDA would withhold approval
for its cancer drug, Erbitux. (Paradox: Erbitux is now in clinical trials and
appears to work, based on the experience of a friend whose life it is
saving). Today the man in the witness box is Jeff Skilling, former Master
of the Universe brought low by the fall of Enron. Skilling’s tale is told not
only in daily headlines, but in more than a dozen books dedicated to his
spectacular corporate collapse. Some of these are the “I told you so”
tracts by quacks or scholars, (including

Virtual Daughters

A conversation at work today with a colleague who is adopting a Chinese girl, reminded me of the strange issue of China’s gender imbalance – and how
it may be supporting China’s most valuable Internet company. The Christian Science Monitor has reported that 17% more boys are born in
China than girls and the imbalance may as high as 50-60% for couples permitted to have second or third children. Although the bias is reduced in cities, China
remains an overwhelmingly rural country. The resulting demographic imbalance has no precedent in history: tens of millions of men, perhaps 15% of the
male population and growing by about 2 million men annually, will never find wives. China, knowing a revolutionary tinderbox when it sees one, has outlawed
selective abortion and ultrasound — and now pays bonuses to parents of girls. As the Monitor notes however, ultrasound is available on the black market.
Couples allowed only one child, frequently insist that it be male. If you want to continue the family lineage, or just have grandchildren, this is not an
optimal choice (as Marginal Economics&nbsp

Remembering 1906. And 1918.

Well it’s the centennial of San Francisco’s Big One, but it’s not 1906 that the feds are thinking about — it’s 1918 when a flu pandemic killed a half million Americans and 40-50 million people worldwide. Having been humbled by Katrina, the federal government is busy attempting to lower expectations that they will be able [...]

Why Hillary Needs a Third Party Candidate

We have had two presidents during the past 15 years and both were elected thanks to the efforts of third party candidates. Will it happen again? If so, will the
major parties quietly encourage third party candidates that draw heavily from their opponents? For a third party candidate to get political traction, they need is an
issue about which Democrats and Republicans agree but a significant portion of the electorate has a meaningful and passionate alternative view. In 1992, Perot
used NAFTA as his wedge issue. Today, the obvious issue is for a third party candidate is immigration. Hillary Clinton would be incredibly well served by say, Lou
Dobbs running as modern Pat Buchanan on immigration and a modern Ross Perot on trade. Knowing this, why would she not make sure that he is well funded?
Likewise, nothing would serve the interests of John McCain more than a well financed campaign by Russ Feingold or even Ralph Nader running on a neo-
McCarthy peace platform. Here too, Republicans are surely clever enough to make sure that a credible candidate from the anti-war movement has the

Women: "the most powerful engine of global growth"

HALF THE SKY, DEPARTMENT The Economist reports here that "…girls now do better at school than boys, more women are getting university degrees than men are and females are filling most new jobs. Arguably, women are now the most powerful engine of global growth. In 1950 only one-third of American women of working age had [...]

All Ballots Secret, All Contributions Anonymous

In corporate and regulatory matters, transparency is regarded as a
universal antiseptic. Worried about crooked managers? Increase
disclosure requirements. Concerned about administrative rulings taken
behind close doors? Require open hearings and allow for public
comment. Want to know who is paying for your Congressman?
Require full disclosure of all campaign contributions. Sunshine Laws are
all based on the belief that in the bright light of day, government and
markets tend to self-regulate. But we don’t always want market behavior
in public life. For example, voting by secret ballot was unheard of until
Tasmania introduced it in 1856. It remained highly controversial for
many decades thereafter and was known in the US as the “Australian
Ballot”. No US President was elected by secret ballot until Grover
Cleveland in 1892. One suspects that our portly President promptly
noticed that nearly every voter he met assured him that “I voted for
you” and learned to take such statements with a grain of salt. Secret
ballots made campaigns fair because they eliminated unsavory market
behavior: the buying of votes with cash. Once votes were secret, vote
buying

Chris Anderson on demand you thought you'd never find

Caught up with Chris Anderson this morning. Chris runs a terrific blog and left me with a sneak preview of his forthcoming book: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. The book is an ode to niche markets and is exceptionally well written (it also has a couple of [...]

The Remarkable Ted W. Hall

Today’s Wall Street Journal ran an op ed politely suggesting that the British give up pound sterling and switch to greenbacks. It is the kind of strange idea that is so counterintuitive that you are prepared for satire or possibly a rant by someone still upset about the gold standard. Instead, you get this: "There [...]

"If we’re not stupid, and we don’t quit, we can win this thing"

Excellent piece here by George Packer in the New Yorker about how the Army is learning effective counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq. The essay
profiles the experience of Colonel H. R. McMaster and colleagues in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar. Those who have been keeping score at
home know that Tal Afar is one of those towns that we reconquer periodically, but is otherwise a hornet’s nest and a transit point for Syrian and Iranian bad guys.
McMaster, a West Point grad who did a PhD thesis on the failures of senior military and civilian leadership in VietNam, summarizes what the Army is learning:

Posner: smashing and rebuilding national culture

Posner, on why the French are so…French. So culture is habit writ large and is difficult to change because habits are difficult to change.

Is Immortal Immoral?

Check this from the London Times. In a world where advances in biology may permit humans to live forever, “the defining political conflict of the 21st century
will literally be the battle over life and death”.

Who's the Leader of the Club That's Made for You and Me?

THE MICKEY KAUS CLUB On the immigration debates, one blogger has been more provocative, more contrarian, more feisty, more original than all others. If you
have not indulged the wonders of Mickey Kaus on the topic

BEATNIK TRAINING: Caen Would Laugh, Ginsberg Would Howl

NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW

Ready for the Worst

The centennial of the Great San Francisco Earthquake, recent FEMA
hearings, and our recent run of catastrophic tsunamis, earthquakes, and
hurricanes remind us that disaster preparation can be a matter of life and
death. So why do so few of us take disaster preparation seriously? Avian
flu is believed by many scientists to be one inevitable mutation away from
becoming a really unpleasant pandemic. According to ABC, “Secretary of
Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recently recommended that
Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds
as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United
States.

Silicon Valley Bank: We Need a Million More Immigrants Each Year

Jim Anderson, Chief Economist at Silicon Valley Bank, (disclosure: SVB banks Alibris) reveals 

Synch or Swim

Do you work from multiple computers and want to keep your files and
bookmarks synchronized on both machines? I have tested two solutions
for
several months that are simple, reliable, and free.

Audacious. Daring. Artistic. Insanely Great. 30 years old.

CNET wishes Happy 30th Birthday to the company that won our minds by knowing our hearts. They recall that the founders used to go "door-to-door at the UC Berkeley dorms selling "blue boxes"–electronic devices that tricked the telephone network into allowing free long-distance phone calls". One of the scofflaws was Steve Jobs, easily America’s most [...]