Steve Jobs RIP; education, space, proscription, and debt. Lots of debt.

Mail 695 Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Steve Jobs

There was plenty to dislike about Jobs but it cannot be denied that he had a major effect on the world that makes him a member of a very small club. And far too many members got there by killing lots of people rather than making things people like.

Jobs’ accomplishments stand as a refutation of the insane tirade recently delivered by Elizabeth Warren. By her philosophy, a Steve Jobs owes it to the world to pay ever higher taxes because he owes everything to the world for having built the roads and other infrastructure to make his business possible. But it is the reverse that is true. Without the drive and talent to create an Apple, what purpose do the roads serve? Where are you commuting to if nobody is creating stuff that leads to employment opportunities? Left to the government, you’d probably live in a barracks on the factory grounds. It’s terribly efficient.

And the contribution to the tax base by a person like Jobs is hugely underappreciated by Warren and her ilk. She again gets it backwards by focusing on all the non-producers the wealthy are somehow obligated to support at even greater levels than they already do. But what of the legion of people who became high earning employees of Apple and companies selling parts and materials to Apple? Warren says nobody ever got rich on their own.

It’s true but not in the way she wants voters to believe. Other than by pure theft, nobody ever got rich without bringing a lot of other people into wealth as well. Trying to determine the volume of people who got rich by working at Apple or just investing in the company would likely take a goodly chunk of time. All of these people in turn pay their taxes in a much higher bracket than the average citizen. No doubt many of those people would have been successful in a world without Apple but I’ve also no doubt that many of them would have settled for doing a lot less without the necessary spark.

A significant piece of the tax base that contribute far, far more more than median earners came into existence because Steve Jobs was a man who lead people to create desirable things that might never have existed or at least never achieved the same quality without him. Leadership really matters. We’ve seen far too many collections of talent that could never deliver to their full potential for lack of the right person turning a talented group into a team.

Eric

Well said,

An Exchange of views from another conference:

The left ought to be asking if Jane Fonda would have been on the list, if there had been a list in 1972 when she visited Hanoi.

And the right ought to be asking themselves quite carefully just how safe they feel, living in a world with such lists. I don’t think Rush has anything to worry about, but as we should all remember, the Department of Homeland Security’s 2009 report on right-wing extremism shows how easily a left-wing administration could criminalize what some of us call patriotism.

. png (Peter Glaskowsky)

I’ve always felt the appropriate treatment for Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden would have been exile. Do what you want but you’re no longer welcome in this country. As it is I find it remarkable there was no crime with which to formally charge her. Or perhaps there was, if she had a different father.

I don’t know how much further into treason she could have gone without committing espionage or taking up arms against the US.

Eric Pobirs

Well, I think Fonda could have gone a lot further without being unambiguously guilty of treason, though she was certainly deep into the gray area and undoubtedly guilty of criminal stupidity and naiveté.

But the question is, if Nixon could have dealt with her by putting her on a list, would he have– and if not, where’s the line, and how comfortable is everyone about the idea of even HAVING a line?

I think I’d just feel better about the whole thing if there was some formal, adversarial process to go through.

I understand the Seventh Amendment carves out a pretty big chunk of lawful authority for the military "in time of War or public danger", but the circumstances of this particular execution aren’t exactly what was meant there.

. png

Which sums it up fairly well. With Nixon and Fonda it was not an option. Would it be now?

On Climate Change

Back to the drawing board… again

But a new study by a University of Michigan paleoclimatologist and two colleagues suggests that the deep ocean was not an important source of carbon during glacial times. The finding will force researchers to reassess their ideas about the fundamental mechanisms that regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide over long time scales.

"We’re going back to the drawing board. It’s certainly fair to say that we need to have some other working hypotheses at this point," said U-M paleoclimatologist David Lund, lead author of a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111003180440.htm

RW Salnick

I do not think our models are sufficiently well validated to justify betting trillions of dollars on their accuracy.

http://www.ktvu.com/news/29385123/detail.html

A cold weather front took aim at Northern California Tuesday, packing a potent punch with as much as 10 inches of snow for the Sierra peaks, the earliest return of winter conditions to Tahoe since 1969, according to weather forecasters

And Winter is coming early in Central California. Are we warming or cooling?

‘Climate change’ comes to Tahoe.

<http://www.ktvu.com/news/29385123/detail.html>

—

Roland Dobbins

FEMA

Here is a message sent to my wife by one of her fellow choir members who lives in the Magnolia community. It is a bit long, but interesting. My comment to friends about it was that FEMA wants (needs?) everyone to be "Grasshoppers" not ants. (Recall the Aesop’s fable) That gives them power.

Here are some stories about the Tricounty fire in Montgomery, Grimes, and Waller County, Labor Day week, 2011.

My neighbor across the road has a sister named Kenna. Labor Day, when she saw the huge column of smoke over our homes, she left a birthday party at my neighbor’s house to meet with her friend Tara at the Baseball complex in Magnolia. She called the owner of the complex and got permission to use the warehouse there as a staging area for donations for the fire fighting effort.

They put a notice out on facebook that they were going to be taking donations on their facebook pages. That night as they were setting up tables and organizing, News2 Houston came by and saw the activity, investigated and left with the phone numbers and a list of suggested donations.

The facebook notice propagated faster than the fire. By dawn they had 20 volunteers, bins, forklifts, and donations were pouring in. I stopped by with my pitiful little bags of nasal wash and eye wash, and was amazed. There must have been 20 trucks in the lot, offloading cases of water, pallets of Gatorade, and people lined up out the door with sacks of beef jerky, baby wipes, underwear, socks, and you name it. School buses and trailers from many counties around were there offloading supplies, students forming living chains to pass stuff into the bins for transport to the command center and staging areas. If the firefighters had requested it, it was there. What do you give the guy out there fighting the fire that might engulf your home? Anything he or she wants. Including chewing tobacco and cigarettes.

Kenna moved on to the Unified Command Post at Magnolia West High school. She looked at what the fire fighters needed, and she made calls and set it up.

Mattress Mac donated 150 beds. Two class rooms turned into barracks kept quiet and dark for rest. The CEO of HEB donated 2 semi trailers full of supplies, and sent a mobile commercial kitchen at no charge to feed all the workers, but especially our firefighters, 3 hot meals a day. An impromptu commissary was set up, anything the firefighters had requested available at no charge.

As exhausted firefighters (most of them from local VFDs with no training or experience battling wildfires) and workers came into the school after long hours of hard labor, dehydrated, hungry, covered with soot and ash, they got what they needed. They were directed through the commissary, where they got soap, eye wash and nasal spray, candy, clean socks and underwear, and then were sent off to the school locker rooms for a shower. HEB then fed them a hot meal and they got 8 hours sleep in a barracks, then another hot meal, another pass through the commissary for supplies to carry with them out to the lines, including gloves, safety glasses, dust masks and snacks, and back they went.

One of the imported crews from California came into Unified Command and asked where the FEMA Powerbars and water were. He was escorted to the commissary and started through the system. He was flabbergasted. He said FEMA never did it like this. Kenna replied, ”Well, this is the way we do it in Texas.”

Fire fighting equipment needed repair? The auto shop at the High School ran 24/7 with local mechanics volunteering, students, and the firefighters fixing the equipment.

Down one side of the school, the water tankers lined up at the fire hydrants and filled with water. Down the other side there was a steady parade of gasoline tankers filling trucks, dozers, tankers, cans, chain saws, and vehicles.

Mind you, all of this was set up by 2 Moms, Kenna and Tara, with a staff of 20 simple volunteers, most of them women who had sons, daughters, husbands, and friends on the fire lines. Someone always knew someone who could get what they needed – beds, mechanics, food, space. Local people using local connections to mobilize local resources made this happen. No government aid. No Trained Expert.

At one point the fire was less than a mile from the school, and everyone but hose volunteers were evacuated. The fire was turned.

The Red Cross came in, looked at what they were doing, and quietly went away to set up a fire victim relief center nearby. They said they couldn’t do it any better.

FEMA came in and told those volunteers and Kenna that they had to leave, FEMA was here now. Kenna told them she worked for the firefighters, not them. They were obnoxious, bossy, got in the way, and criticized everything. The volunteers refused to back down and kept doing their job, and doing it well. Next FEMA said the HEB supplies and kitchen had to go, that was blatant commercialism. Kenna said they stayed. They stayed.

FEMA threw a wall-eyed fit about chewing tobacco and cigarettes being available in the commissary area. Kenna told them the firefighters had requested it, and it was staying. It stayed. FEMA got very nasty and kept asking what organization these volunteers belonged to – and all the volunteers told them “Our community”. FEMA didn’t like that and demanded they make up a name for themselves. One mother remarked “They got me at my boiling point!” and suddenly the group was “212 Degrees”. FEMA’s contribution? They came in the next day with red shirts embroidered with “212 Degrees,” insisting the volunteers had to be identified, never realizing it was a slap in their face. Your tax dollars at work – labeling volunteers with useless shirts and getting in the way.

The upshot? A fire that the experts from California (for whom we are so grateful there are no words) said would take 2-3 weeks to get under control was 100% contained in 8 days. There was so much equipment and supplies donated, 3 container trucks are loaded with the excess to go and set up a similar relief center for the fire fighters in Bastrop. The local relief agencies have asked people to stop bringing in donations of clothing, food, household items, and pretty much everything else because they only have 60 displaced households to care for, and there is enough to supply hundreds. Again, excess is going to be shipped to Bastrop, where there are 1500 displaced households. Wish we could send Kenna, too, but she has to go back to her regular job.

John Pennell

Your tax dollars at work. Bush was fried for what FEMA did in New Orleans. The Obama FEMA has learned nothing and forgotten nothing, but the media don’t notice. Abolish FEMA and restore civil defense.

Letter From England

Quiet week.

"Unter vier augen"–I remember those days. The KGB was working hard to remove demented hands frozen on controls and steering wheels and wondering if they could preserve the Soviet Union. Andropov died unexpectedly, which is why Gorbachev was in charge. KGB analysts were showing up at western research conferences looking for insight into what was going on.

Compulsory retirement abolished in the UK <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15127835>

All cats are grey. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/30/dont_bother_with_it_degree/> A bog-standard computing degree in the UK isn’t worth getting–mostly because it doesn’t teach that much.

—

Harry Erwin, PhD

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." (Benjamin Franklin, 1755)

UK Stories

Nothing exciting. Some interesting.

NHS hospitals coming under fire for poor emergency surgery. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15098114 Death rates about 4xAmerican.

Problems with the student loans system. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15090178

Article on the metal theft problem. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15062064 . Theft of a £50 copper cable can do hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage. Copper pipes used to connect gas mains to gas meters are stolen, resulting in gas explosions.

60 babies adopted last year in the UK, down from 4000 in 1976… The adoption process now takes more than two years. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/29/60-babies-adopted-england-last-year

You want it bad; you get it bad. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=417583&c=1 Current Government policy is to discourage foreign students (and their money).

—

Why I use a Macintosh: Eccl 12:3 "those who look through the windows see dimly" (Crossan’s translation).

Harry Erwin

Buffett and the Ultra Rich

Hi Jerry,

Seems to be a day for sharing stories. Buffett now claims that he’s only talking about taxing the ultra rich (400 richest americans).

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1192505402001

I still don’t understand what’s keeping him from writing a check to the government, and convincing the rest of those folks to do so. It’d take less than a year if he just called 2 of them every day (and they’d probably take his calls).

Cheers,

Doug=

I thought that the alternative minimum tax was supposed to take care of this sort of thing? In any event, I would rather that the super rich had the money than that it go into the pot to keep the 7% annual exponential growth of government spending going. Buffet may not invest wisely, but he does invest; money paid to the government is just spent.

5% surtax on million / year earners

Sounds so reasonable. After all, how can someone earning 1 mil a year notice 50K in more tax? But wait, they just might invest the 50K in someone’s startup. Or, give it to the church, or… In any case, what reason do we have to believe that the federal government will use it wisely? Past performance? Current performance? Crystal ball? I believe the republican strategy should be to starve the beast in any way possible.

Phil

I would prefer that if they are going to take that money they would convert it into hundred dollar bills and drop them from airplanes rather than giving it to the government to continue the out of control spending. It would go for better use if simply thrown into the wind. But I suspect it would be better not to take it at all.

In case you missed this:

Subj: Video: Elon Musk of SpaceX on the future of human space flight

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SpaceFligh

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Elon was at the National Press Club luncheon today

I caught the last half. He was very good. His stance on global warming was reasonable based on his pro-solar bent. There is an animation on the space x website showing how they will reuse all stages of the Flacon 9 / Dragon. Each stage has it’s own re-entry powered descent capability. Since the stages are mostly depleted of fuel and hence weight, they don’t need that much remaining fuel to brake themselves. I have not done the math, but assume space x has. The second stage and the dragon both use a heat shield for the gross braking and then turn over and use their existing boost engines to do the final deceleration. Actually, Dragon does not have a boost engine so it uses side mounted thrusters, which are also the launch escape system.

Elon mentioned that if shuttle like safety is all that is required, then Dragon could carry people on the next launch. A launch escape system is considered highly desirable by NASA and will take 2 to 3 years. Since we flew all of the shuttle missions without it, and only one, STS51L (Challenger) killed the crew due to a lack of a launch escape system (which probably is not true – it was the SRB leak which Falcon does not use), it seems reasonable to not need one in the interest of getting back into space and adding it later.

Phil

NASA’s Ultimate Legacy

<i>"It is probably time to phase NASA out in its present form. There is still talent at NASA, and it is still important to have space science and space research: the question is whether NASA ought to do that or contract for it."</i>

This is the crux of the matter and I happen to agree with you, though with trepidation. I have seen nothing in the last 5 years that leads me to believe that the Iron Law has not subsumed the spirit of exploration at NASA, and that unless they are reduced in number by at least 30% (those most senior being the first to walk) and given firm goals, timelines, and budgets, there is little they can accomplish that will not be unacceptably expensive for the amount of actual exploration returned.

Everything, from robotic explorers to asteroid visits, needs to be put out to bid or (as you have suggested) achieved through a X-prize style cash payment for successful completion.

America needs to admit that adopting a Soviet style bureaucracy for HSF was a bad idea, and that it simply doesn’t work – not if you actually want space exploration.

Best regards,

Bennett Dawson

Mead on Higher Education

Walter Russell Mead has an excellent, brief essay on the role of higher education in modern society.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/09/29/just-because-they-start-doesnt-mean-they-finish/

The essay echoes the reasoned arguments that you and Charles Murray in Real Education have made over the years.

Jim Ransom

Education has this dilemma: most of the students are not a great investment in the sense that their education will result in all that much return to the society. Most innovation and economic growth comes from fewer than 20% of the population, and the highest returns on education investment comes from the top. Raising a 40^th percentile student to 50^th percentile is good for the student, but the effect is not particularly noticeable on the society; while raising a 90^th percentile student to 95^th percentile can change a lot. We all know this.

If education is a right, then it is a duty to pay taxes to support it: but whence came the obligation for a childless couple to pay for the effort to teach a 20^th percentile child and devote as much effort to that child’s education as is given to, say, the 85^th percentile child? Or even the 50^th? The only way people are equal is in the sight of God; does the duty to pay for the special needs of the special education student come from God but is enforced by the tax collector?

Our Courts have said that young illegal immigrants have a right to public education. The argument does not cite any section of the Constitution that mentions education at all. The people of California passed a state constitutional amendment saying that illegal aliens do not have the right to public money but the federal courts ruled that unconstitutional. The exact basis whereby this is a Constitutional right was not made clear. It does not seem to be by consent of the governed.

China’s first space station

Sir,

I thought you might appreciate this news story on China’s preliminary stepping stones towards a space station.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/29/china-space-station-launch

"

China http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/china is preparing to take its building boom into space <http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/space> on Thursday night by putting a first research module – the "Heavenly Palace" – into orbit The unmanned Tiangong-1 laboratory, which will be launched into the skies above the Gobi desert, is a stepping stone towards a bigger, fully-fledged orbiting platform that China expects to be cheaper than the US and European-backed International Space Station http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/international-space-station .

The 10.5m-long cylinder will ride around 220 miles (350km) into space on board a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan satellite launch centre and remain in orbit for two years."

Might be a good time to brush up on your gorram Chinese

http://smallcultfollowing.com/firefly-chinese-slang.pdf

Respectfully,

Brian P.

As Mr. Heinlein was fond of saying, the universe does not guarantee that the language of space shall be English.

German Currency Reform 1948: Summary of the "First Law…"

http://www.cvce.eu/obj/first_law_on_currency_reform_20_june_1948-en-a5bf33f8-fca0-4234-a4d2-71f71a038765.html

Alas, I have not yet been able to find the conversion rate for the subsequent exchange of old money for new.

Is this the approach to currency reform we want to take in the US?

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Probably not. If we can grow the economy, then normal market acts will take care of the rest. But so long as we must every year spend another 7% more of money that we don’t have, there is no way out from the coming crash.

Immediate suspension of regulations would start a boom but nothing else will.

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

I’m largely inclined to agree.

We need *both* to suspend regulations *and* to throttle the growth of government spending.

Suspending regulations — even firing all the regulation-mongers — won’t by itself throttle the growth of government spending, though: only a small fraction of government spending is spending on regulating. It’s the entitlements that are driving the growth in spending.

I doubt we can throttle the growth of government spending before the Federal debt gets so large that the only way to deal with it is by repudiating it. Since outright repudiation would run afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment, the only way we’ll be able to repudiate it is by inflation — about a 1000% inflation, I’d guess.

Of course, that will destroy all the savings of the people like me, who saved for several decades, hoping to start businesses of their own without losing control of them to vulture capitalists and/or lenders.

Only the super-rich will retain enough wealth to finance start-ups.

Will they bother?

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Each of us owes $47,000 on the national debt as of this moment. That’s a lot to be paid off. Economic boom times can do it, but only if we stop the spending. Since we consider a 0 growth budget a drastic cut balancing the budget on the backs of the poor, it may be that – what? Each of us, every single one of us, owes $47,000, and confiscating all the wealth of the super rich will not reduce that below $30,000 – and it sure will eat up a lot of investment capital.

The normal state of mankind is poverty for most: a single set of clothes, one meal a day, poor to no medical services. For most of human history that is the way 80% of the population lived. Read the novels of Dickens and when reading Christmas Carol pay attention to the way Bob Cratchit – lower middle class, almost a gentleman – lived.

We have worked at throwing away what we had. With enough greed and political rapacity we can throw the rest away. But at some point there will be default. Watch Greece for a picture of the future of the United States. Watch the United States spend money to help Greece. Perhaps the Chinese will help us. Or perhaps God almighty will.

At 7% exponential growth each of us will owe about $100,000 twelve years from now. And the beat goes on.