Daily Archives: Aug 22, 2011

Mail 689 Monday, August 22, 2011

A mixed bag of items on many subjects. I can’t publish all the interesting mail I get, but I try to keep up.

‘It would be an even more dreadful outcome if all we have done by intervening militarily in Libya is to advance the Islamist wave now sweeping the Arab and Muslim world.’

<http://www.nationalreview.com/david-pryce-jones/275180/where-responsibility-lies>

Roland Dobbins

That has always been my concern. I remember when President Carter abandoned the Shah hoping for a liberal democratic regime in Iran. We have regretted that ever since.

Jerry

Subj: STRATFOR:Friedman on Libya and the Arab Spring

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/georgefriedman/2011/08/22/re-examining_the_arab_spring/page/full/

Jim

A decent summary of the possibilities and perils in the “Arab Spring.” We seem to have learned little, and our State Department professionals have never studied actual strategy. I am now told that to become a Foreign Service Officer one’s qualifications, say degrees in history and mastery of Mandarin with business experience in China is insufficient: you need to go join the Peace Corps and spend time delivering blankets in West Africa. One does not build a Diplomatic Corps of any great ability that way. God help the Republic.

One should build golden bridges for one’s enemy to retreat across; but of course that never occurs to those shouting for justice though the heavens fall.

Ernest Rutherford

Apropos an annual variation in radioactive decay rates. I do not know how good the evidence is for this, but I am sure that Rutherford would have been fascinated or thrilled by the evidence rather than shocked.

Peter D Morgan

Yes, I completely agree. Rutherford would have been thrilled.

Do understand, some dispute the evidence, but last time I looked the data were pretty solid: the variance in decay rates with seasons is small, and hard to detect – you have to be looking for it—but repeatable. There is so far as I know absolutely no acceptable theory that allows this. (The reference is the last bit of mail in https://jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=1559)

The Man Who Sold the Moon gets the last laugh.

Over the last several months, SpaceX has been hard at work preparing for our next flight — a mission designed to demonstrate that a privately-developed space transportation system can deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has given us a Nov. 30, 2011 launch date, which should be followed nine days later by Dragon berthing at the ISS.

Would they name it the Heinlein?

From the FYEOD group

Letter from England

The following paper applies to a lot of issues in public policy, not just information security: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/econ.pdf

Latest on the phone hacking scandal: http://tinyurl.com/437de2z It’s not going away for the Government, Police, or Murdoch.

UK running low on university places: http://tinyurl.com/3opfj6y

Corruption in India. Police have to back off attempted suppression of the protests: http://tinyurl.com/3p2qjhy

It looks like recession: http://tinyurl.com/3eb7xn3

—

Beware Outside Context Problems–Harry Erwin, PhD

Unemployment in the UK

It’s starting to take off, and the Government is now retrying failed solutions from the past.

See http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-stimulation-good-intervention-bad-2339456.html

—

Harry Erwin, PhD

"If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning." (Catherine Aird)

Tony Blair has a prescription for what ails the Brits

Wait for it…

More government intervention.

"By the end of my time as prime minister, I concluded that the solution was specific and quite different from conventional policy. We had to be prepared to intervene literally family by family and at an early stage, even before any criminality had occurred."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/20/tony-blair-riots-crime-family

A case worker in every living room, and all will be well. Government can fix every problem.

Steve Chu

It looks like the global downswing when the Great Depression got worse after it was thought there was a way out. Look for more floundering.

"How dare you hire H-1Bs when there are so many unemployed Americans out there that fit the job description better?"

<http://www.pcworldme.net/2011/08/16/outsourced-and-fired-it-workers-fight-back/>

Roland Dobbins

Intimidation of Lawyers

<.> The attorney-client privilege assuring confidentiality between the two parties is one of the most cherished rights of the American law system, but according to internationally recognized lawyer, author and professor Francis A. Boyle of the the University of Illinois-Champaign, government agents violated that privilege in a jarring summer 2004 visit.

Speaking to The Arab American News, Boyle confirmed recent reports that he was visited by two agents from a joint FBI-CIA anti-terrorist fusion center located about a 90-minute drive away in Springfield, Ill. in his office in Champaign, who attempted to persuade him to become an informant on his Arab American and American Muslim clients.

He said he repeatedly refused their requests to violate his clients’ constitutional rights, only to find himself placed on the U.S. Government’s terrorist watch list.

"There’s five or six of them, and my lawyer informed me that I’m on all of them," Boyle said

"I filed an appeal but they told me, sorry, I would stay on the watch list forever until the agencies that put me on there took me off." </> http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/08/21/antiwar-com-vs-the-fbi/

I have nothing constuctive to add here; my wry comments are probably in everyone’s mind anyway so I won’t repeat the obvious.   —– Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC Percussa Resurgo

I have no confirmation of the story. Clearly no comment beyond the obvious is needed if this be a true account.

RE statement you made about Soc. Sec.

Jerry:

In a response to an email, you wrote: "Those who paid into Social Security have both legal and moral rights to what they were promised in return." I can only agree with that statement in part — the "moral" part. And I disagree not because I want to, but simply because I don’t think that’s how it works (though it ought).

Check out the Supreme Court case "Flemming v. Nestor". There’s a Wikipedia write up on it. I would assume more information is available around the web. If I understand the ruling, it comes down to the unhappy fact that people do not have a legal right to their Social Security pay-outs. If I’m wrong … well, here’s one instance in which I’d really be happy to be wrong.

Cheers.

–rick grehan

Perhaps I should have said “moral and political” right? I do not believe any government could survive that asserted a right simply to confiscate Social Security.

Jerry,

Remember when Bernanke said that he could not tell you where the money went? As an aside, I lack the time to find the video; the uniformed can find the video on Google.

Here is where 1.2 trillion of it went: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-21/wall-street-aristocracy-got-1-2-trillion-in-fed-s-secret-loans.html

Bank of America (BAC) may be insolvent; that was news more than a year ago now and it is not news now. It seems only a matter of time. Even with the 91.4 billion U.S. Dollars (USD) in bailout funds — BAC’s market capitalization is only 70.64 billion USD — BAC remains in danger of collapse in 2011!

But, we no longer have free markets in the United States — the concept of a "bailout" defeats the purpose and implementation of such markets. So, who knows? Maybe Santa will keep giving away bags of money to losers who still trade shares and do business with a neoclassical model that is largely irrelevant in 2011. I believe the so-called "Global Financial Crisis" proved that, but you won’t get that story from the corporate media. Why?

The corporate media want you to tune in. If you can do your own trades and fiscal thinking then why would you tune it to see some hack like Kramer — literally (I mean it, tune in) — screaming and squealing and hitting things with mallets like he’s on Looney Tunes? He reminds me more of a clown I saw at a circus when I was a kid than a real person, but most people on TV are clowns and their audience seems to be mainly clowns as well.

You won’t get any truth from the corporate media because the truth sets you free and they want you to remain heavily invested in their company by tuning in and generating ratings. The beat goes on… But, thankfully, we have more than one beat.

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The decline of US manufacturing

Can we reverse it? I’d say it is doubtful, because to do so will require substantive changes, both in society and in government.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/

RW Salnick

can’t make a kindle in the US

Jerry: Three part article on the results of outsourcing, and the destruction of manufacturing capability in the US.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/

Chris C=

See also http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/20/does-it-really-matter-that-amazon-cant-manufacture-a-kindle-in-the-usa/

Regulations and decrees

I saw this coming for years, and so did others.  The President likes to use federal regulations as if these were laws.  The State Department can for several pages of documents and asks several pages of questins to get a passport now — the letters the come with these requests site federal regulations; not United States Code. 

Obama planned to close the power plants; and offer GE a greater hold on the market.  Who is advising the President, isn’t it a GE guy?  Well, smack me in the head with a brick.  I think I see a conflict of interests and if government was on the other side of this thing you would probably see an investigation.  Well, the President will wait to implement a carbon tax after he beats Perry or whatever hack the GOP runs this year. 

But, what Obama does now is reduce our power and take more of our money viz. financial power.  The government is literally taking your power and not just the kind that comes in little black wires.  But, the kind in the little black wires is the kind I want to talk about:

<.>

Two state utilities said this week new federal pollution rules will lead to higher electricity costs come January.

</>

http://www.jsonline.com/business/128109718.html

Prices increase even as I type this email:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-18/u-s-july-consumer-price-index-report-text-.html

It could strain Texas’ already lackluster grid:  http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/08/19/3301808/new-epa-rule-could-lead-to-rolling.html

<.>

Over the next 18 months, the Environmental Protection Agency will finalize a flurry of new rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. Mercury, smog, ozone, greenhouse gases, water intake, coal ash—it’s all getting regulated. And, not surprisingly, some lawmakers are grumbling.

Industry groups such the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, and the American Legislative Exchange Council have dubbed the coming rules “EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck.” The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. Given that coal provides 45 percent of the country’s power, that means higher electric bills, more blackouts and fewer jobs.

</>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/getting-ready-for-a-wave-of-coal-plant-shutdowns/2011/08/19/gIQAzkZ0PJ_blog.html

Well, the President created one job — my research project vis-a-vis living elsewhere.  If you like, I may write a small technical summary of my findings for the community.  I am not sure when I would do it, but I might be inclined to work on it if enough people want real solutions.  I’m convinced that Wall Street will continue to rip us off, the politicians will continue to lie to us, and the media will continue to whore to anyone it can. 

Thank you for ruining this country, Mister President.  Yes we can!

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I remind you that despair is a sin. Cheer, for the devil is none so black as he is painted…

Wisdom of Pournelle

I have done a new series of quotes from the last year and a half of Chaos Manor http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2011/08/more-political-and-economic-wisdom-of.html

and also added it as an update to the previous one.

http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2010/02/economic-political-wisdom-jerry.html

Regards

Neil Craig

Mail 688 Sunday, August 21, 2011

End of the Cold War (post 2011-08-20)

Hi Jerry,

In these times of bickering over important economic issues and generally depressing other news, I’ve been reminding myself that it’s not _all_ bad news: we did survive the Cold War, which at the time provoked much depressing news also. (With an even then biased media: Regan got terrible coverage here in Australia, and as a teenager I’d not read your "Strategy of Technology" for background understanding. Didn’t find that work until the web came along.) So thanks for your post of 2011-08-20 reminding us of the fall of the USSR: painful for many I am sure — I have a Czech friend who says it was "interesting" — but pain that so far as I can tell was unavoidable.

Similarly looking for a silver lining (as you sometimes say, despair is a sin) debating the USA debt problem looks to me like progress: even if the recent brouhaha didn’t give anyone anything they wanted the issue has been raised and isn’t likely to go away quietly. The first step to solving a problem is to recognise that you have it.

Best regards,

Giles

P.S. Bunny inspectors. :sigh: I’m sure I could come up with local examples, but they’d just raise my blood pressure for no value. Should you ever want an Australian example, let me know and I’ll find you one. I’ll bet it would not be hard …

Giles Lean

It is well to remember and count our blessings. For thirty years and more we lived in fear that a madman would take power in Moscow, with its 26,000 nuclear warheads, and thousands of intercontinental missiles; with our young men and women on Christmas day down in the silos, hoping they would not hear the blare of the Klaxon and the dread words, Emergency War Orders, Emergency War Orders, This is no drill, this is no drill. I have a message in ten parts. Tango. Xray. Alfa.

I think that if we can keep things together until November 2012 we will see improvements.

The economy would immediately improve if they adopted some of the measures I have advocated.

Once again

Consumers Create Jobs

Jerry,

I noticed one of your correspondents took issue with that statement. I try to control my logic to the extent that I don’t allow it walk me off the edge of a precipice. It does not matter what the product might be, how finely and precisely it is crafted, nor how efficiently it is produced; if there are not sufficient buyers, there is little to no profit. If there is not sufficient profit, there are no additional workers hired. Doubtless you can call a number of examples to mind?

It is not at all obvious that “demand alone creates little”. While capital and intelligence and efficient production are important, without demand they are little more than a wad of money and ‘smarts’. One need look no farther than the personal computer. IBM certainly had the capital and intelligence, but was not, it would seem in retrospect, keenly aware of the demand. On the other hand, Jobs and Wozniak seemed to have a handle on the demand side of things, did they not? There are some who might say that “consumer appeal” is the driving force that has made Apple what it is today.

Ask some of your “Mac” friends.

Bruce

I am clearly unable to explain to you that I understand that without demand there is no trade; but we have tried stimulus valiantly, close to a trillion dollars, and the result is that unemployment holds high and steady. Demand alone cannot create a boom: the US for years enjoyed an economy of which a major portion consisted of opening cargo containers from China, and paying for them with money borrowed from China. There need to be jobs in the US, and those jobs have to pay enough to let the workers buy products. Demand will take care of itself. Henry Ford understood this.

Demand alone creates nothing. I can wish mightily that I had a new car, and if I wish hard enough and have the political clout I may be able to get a tax collector to take the money from you and give it to me: but when I buy my new car from China I won’t have created anything. Creation takes application of labor to materials. Perhaps I was unclear as to what I meant by creation?

I understand that too many goods chasing too little money can cause deflation, and that this was one component of the Great Depression; but it has not happened here in this cycle. Fortunately we have little inflation so far, but I would think inflation a larger threat than deflation. Our problem is not that people do not want stuff, it’s that too many either don’t or won’t work to get it. But for them to work to get what they want there must be someone employing them. And, I fear, I weary of talking in such elementary terms, and I am sure you weary of hearing them.

As to the history of the personal computer, I saw most of it happen through booms and busts, and I don’t know of any simple description of its history. I have some insights into why some companies succeeded and some failed, why Apple almost went out of business while Microsoft thrived, and the competition between IBM and everyone else; I told that story as it was happening. Is it necessary to point out that competition involves creative destruction and some companies thrive until they stagnate?

My Response To Buffett And Obama

Amen, and pass the savings account!

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576516724218259688.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop&mg=reno-wsj

“What gets me most upset is two other things about this argument: the unfair way taxes are collected, and the violation of the implicit social contract between me and my government that my taxes will be spent—effectively and efficiently—on purposes that support the general needs of the country. Before you call me greedy, make sure you operate fairly on both fronts.

“Today, top earners—the 250,000 people who earn $1 million or more—pay 20% of all income taxes, and the 3% who earn more than $200,000 pay almost half. Almost half of all filers pay no income taxes at all. Clearly they earn less and should pay less. But they should pay something and have a stake in our government spending their money too. “ <snip>

Phil

I repeat: I am willing to discuss restructuring taxes as a means of equalization and fairness, but that is not what is at stake here. What the government wants is more revenue so that the 7% exponential growth of government can continue. We do not want the government to have the money. I’d rather Warren Buffet had to give more money to the Gates Foundation than that he had to give money to the government. My suspicion is that if the government isn’t going to get the money, it won’t be interested in raising taxes. Fairness demands that the money be well spent. We all know it will not be.

: Bureausclerosis

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/06/human-capability-peaked-about-1975-and.html

—

"The past, while much studied, is little read."

– M.M.

"In the first and in the final analysis, so-called multiculturalists are simply Western radicals, in the Western radical tradition, with the most imperial, dogmatic, and absolutist aspirations of all."

– Alan Charles Kors

James

Perfect illustration

This image:

http://a57.foxnews.com/www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/0/0/qaddafii_20110821_211632.jpg

illustrated this article on Fox News’ front page:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/08/21/explosions-rock-tripoli-amid-reports-rebel-advances-in-capital-116547133/

How UTTERLY UTTERLY appropriate – the left hand half of the front page picture

for this article showed a man with a shaved head giving a Nazi salute.

Mohammedanism and Nazism go hand in glove. They worked together in WW-II, with

the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem traveling to Berlin, living there for some years,

helping Hitler plan the extermination camps and raise troops in Mohammedan

dominated areas of Europe.

Read more:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/08/21/explosions-rock-tripoli-amid-reports-rebel-advances-in-capital-116547133/#ixzz1ViooojSl

This is what Obama is empowering in Libya. I have a bad feeling about this.

{O.O}

I do not know what will happen in Libya. It will certianly cost us less than Iraq did.

$3 million worth of busses

On 15 August, you wrote, “and the president buys $3 million worth of busses to take a political tour”.

Remember Gabby Giffords [D. Ariz.]?

Several reputable news sources have quoted the following:

“The buses are multipurpose vehicles, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said Thursday, and won’t just be used by Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other presidential candidates on the 2012 campaign trail. He said any government dignitary going on a bus tour or heading to a remote area will use the buses.”

The armored buses you referenced were not purchased by Mr. Obama for his personal use. They were purchased by the Secret Service. The Secret Service has been tasked with protecting our elected officials and major electoral candidates.

You are not citing an example of profligacy, as much as how life threatening it is to be, or want to be an elected official of the Republic in these uncertain times.

Charles

Charles Watanabe

I have seen no evidence that the President objected to any part of this, and he is, after all, the President; it’s not as if the Secret Service is part of the national defense. I am not at all sanguine about the increased cost of the Presidential bodyguard; to the Athenians any public official who insisted on a personal security bodyguard was thought to be a tyrant, and the Roman tried to regulate the bodyguards to specified numbers of lictors: when the Consuls began to be accompanied by Praetorians things changed. Harry Truman insisted on walking the streets of Washington, even on the day after the Puerto Rican Independence people shot up Blair House in an attempt to kill him and his family.

No, I do not begrudge the President his guard; but I do wonder about the ever increasing needs, shutting down Pennsylvania Ave., closing entire Los Angeles neighborhoods while the Presidential entourage goes through, and the rest of it.

And I do not so much consider it profligacy as arrogant foolishness, and political blindness to boot. I suspect that candidates who put walls of troops between them and the people will not fare well at the polls. But we will test that in a year.

As Harry Truman said when he insisted on taking his walk among the people of Washington, “Comes with the job.”

Private eye rescues kids in night-time missions

Jerry,

I thought that given your opinion of the public employees unions that dominate the public schools, you would find this interesting.

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=334233

My own probable response to such a seizing of my children would be nuclear.

Jim Crawford

Why are they “your” children?

I understand this is a strange question, and I have not time to write an essay on parental powers in an egalitarian republic. Under the Roman Republic the Pater familias had pretty near absolute power over his children; one Roman matron walled her daughter into a room to starve because of her moral transgressions. We would not concede such a “right” to any parent today (although we do insist that women have that right until the child has been born, but not afterwards); but what rights of control do people have? We seem to have conceded that the state knows better than the parent how to raise children, particularly with regard to punishments. We seem to believe that experts know best and expert opinions can be enforced by force even in family matters. This has not bee discussed very openly. Perhaps it should be.

Re: Regulations, Parkinson’s Law Mail 20110819

Parkinson’s book "Evolution of political though" is apparently out of copyright and is freely available in Kindle, PDF, TXT and other formats from http://www.archive.org/details/evolutionofpolit00park

Igor

I have several messages to this effect. Alas, the file is awful. The formatting is bad and the scan is bad. The book is out of copyright – apparently the Parkinson estate did not renew the copyright. I have tentative plans to put together a properly formatted copy, add a forward and some observations, and make it available at a nominal fee on Amazon Kindle. That would be a labor of love: I have some feeling of indebtedness to Parkinson. His book is readable, and the subject tends to be dull if not properly presented. He does sometimes make it a bit hard to tell when he is being serious and when he is being droll, but it’s usually pretty clear; and he knows his subject. It remains a great introduction to the history of political philosopy as well as a good read. But, alas, not in this free edition, which wasn’t proof read at all.

radiation variation

Hi Dr Pournelle – I just "found" your piece about the small, but possibly significant annual variation in the radiation rate of moderately radioactive materials. It came to me that the intensity of radiation of neutrinos from the sun would be inversely related to distance from the sun, and as most neutrinos pass right through the earth unimpeded, a direct hit by a neutrino on an atomic nucleus in a vulnerable quantum state to induce radiation would be a possible candidate for the variation. One way to test it would be to check the radiation rate of satellites containing appropriate samples as they moved further out into the solar system. It might also be a way of checking the origin and history of space rocks. A complicating factor is the propensity of nuetrinos to alter their type whilst on the move. regards Sandy

Sandy Henderson

I have no qualifications in the matter; I just know that it is very curious, and would have shocked Rutherford.