Marty Manley on economics, politics, technology, and culture

Economics

Is Amazon Inside Apple’s OODA Loop?

John Boyd was a legendary US fighter pilot during the Korean War who later became a fighter pilot instructor. He had a standing bet with his students: he would meet you in the air at 30,000 feet and you would get on his tail. He would reverse the positions and get you in his guns in [...]

Lenin’s Rope: Universities Help Disrupt Universities

Lenin famously bragged that “Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” It would surely gall him to learn that the art of destroying capitalists with their own products has been mastered not by a militant, vanguard-led proletariat but by entrepreneurial capitalists. It appears that even universities, finally, are getting the hang of [...]

Draw This…

Henry Blodget is the former head of Internet research at Merrill Lynch. (Background: once upon a time there was something called Internet research. And once upon a time there was something called Merrill Lynch).  NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer convicted Blodget of touting stocks in public while sending emails disparaging those same securities. Spitzer was [...]

Peak Apple: Understanding the Foxconn Deal

Apple has quickly raised worker wages to address the highly publicized problems with working conditions in its supplier network. The decision protects Apple’s pristine brand and costs the company next to nothing. It cleverly exploits the high-minded principles and low-level economic literacy of those of us who are its devoted customers. A series of well-researched [...]

Will Technology Burst Higher Education’s Bubble?

Imagine a market with incumbents whose core processes are unchanged since medieval times that is held together by huge federal subsidies and protected by a system of self-accreditation designed to exclude rivals. Imagine that the resulting enterprises exploited their monopoly power by overcharging customers and wasting the revenue that resulted on guaranteeing senior employees lifetime [...]

Whatever Happened to the United Farmworkers?

On New Year’s Day, a friend mentioned that Frank Bardacke had published his long-anticipated history of the rise and fall of Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers. It was worth the wait, he assured me and “completely stunning. Just get it and read it. You won’t put it down.” He was right. Bardacke, a respected [...]

Protection That Makes You Weaker

I have taken up running and, like boomers everywhere, I worry about hurting myself. Data suggest that between a third and half of runners get hurt running every year, making running a surprisingly high risk exercise. Why is this? Journalist Chris McDougall wondered why he was getting hurt when humans have been running for two [...]

Seven Forces that Doom Bookstores and Publishers

During the past few years, the music industry has been hammered. As music went digital, it was pirated, deconstructed, and mashed. As music stores and labels disappeared, their lobby, the RIAA, screamed bloody murder. But amidst the carnage, a funny thing happened: the music industry grew larger even though it had fewer labels and far fewer retailers. Revenue [...]

The GOP Raises Interest Rates. China Cheers.

As of tonight, it is not at all clear when the US debt ceiling will get extended or when the entirely artificial crisis caused by Republican House members will be resolved. But one thing is now very clear: the ham-fisted GOP tactics will raise interest costs for every American family and business. It is the [...]

Amazon.com: America’s #1 Tax Evader?

== Update: On September 7, Amazon relented and made a deal to pay sales taxes on shipments to California (no doubt the trenchant analysis that follows persuaded them to do the right thing). For details of the deal see http://goo.gl/kNwjQ. Now every other state in America needs to make a deal with Amazon — even if they [...]

“We are Going to Pass” -10 Reasons VCs Turn Down Startups

Every few years, Silicon Valley grows strong, flies high, makes beautiful music and then, like the Phoenix of ancient myth, burns to ashes and starts the cycle again. At the moment, the Valley is a frenzy of startups. The rest of the country may be in the economic doldrums, but dozens of technology companies are being [...]

Kwik Fixin’ Oakland

I love Oakland. It is immigrant, black, and blue collar. The town has a great history and a solid soul. Ours were among the first neighborhoods in America where all of the whites did not move out when blacks moved in. Of course, along with a heart of oak, the town also has a brain [...]

Toujour L’Audace

In early 1997, Steve Jobs spoke at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. At the time, he was an advisor to Apple CEO Gil Amelio, who had just bought Next from Jobs. (That July, Jobs pushed Amelio out in a boardroom coup and regained control of the company he had founded). I embed Jobs’ fascinating talk [...]

Public Unions 5: Can Unions Innovate?

This post concludes a five part series on public sector unions. The opening post argued that political attacks on public sector unions are more likely to worsen fiscal or political problems than solve them. The second article asserted that low public sector productivity is primarily a management failure. The third article noted that efforts by unions to [...]

Public Unions 4: Preventing Labor Capture

This is the fourth of a five part series on public sector unions. The opening post argued that political attacks on public sector unions are more likely to worsen fiscal or political problems than solve them. The second article asserted that low levels public sector productivity relative to pay is primarily a management failure. The third article noted [...]

Public Unions 3: The Price of Job Security.

This post is the third of a five part series on public sector unions.The opening post argued that political attacks on public sector unions are more likely to worsen fiscal or political problems than solve them. The second article asserted that low public sector productivity is primarily a management failure. The third article notes that efforts by unions to [...]

Public Unions 2: Management, Productivity, and Pay.

This is the second of a five part series on public sector unions. The opening post argued that political attacks on public sector unions are more likely to worsen fiscal or political problems than solve them. The second article asserts that low public sector productivity is primarily a management failure. The third article notes that efforts by unions [...]

Public Unions 1: Scott Walker’s Gift

This post commences a five part series on public sector unions. It argues that political attacks on public sector unions are more likely to worsen fiscal or political problems than solve them. The second article asserts that low public sector productivity is primarily a management failure. The third article notes that efforts by unions to [...]

Beliefs vs. Preferences vs. Facts.

Most of us spend much too little time separating our beliefs from our preferences from facts about reality. We tend to think that our beliefs are grounded in facts, despite repeated evidence that they rarely are. Beliefs get us into more trouble than preferences, or as pioneering blogger Mark Twain put it “It ain’t what you don’t [...]

Michael Lewis: When Capitalists Try to Destroy Capitalism

If the global financial collapse has a silver lining it’s the Vanity Fair accounts by Michael Lewis of how three different European countries responded to the meltdown. We can only hope that Lewis adds to these reports and turns them into another best-selling book. Lewis (Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short) is [...]