| Thursday, February
21, 2008
Things I
Read in my Newspapers
Comments on what I read in the morning papers used to be a
regular feature of my BYTE columns. Of course in those days the columns were
monthly, and took a week or more to prepare in between trips, speeches,
appearances at BYTE editorial events at which I was often the speaker, and
building a new computer every couple of months, and using the newspapers and
mail as a stimulus to thought was one way to try to keep up.
This morning I see:
(1) Successful satellite intercept; to which
I can only say, I told them we could do that. In 1980, when I was Chairman
of the conference that wrote the transition team policy papers on space and
defense for the incoming Reagan Administration, and was part of General
Graham's team on developing the Strategic Defense Initiative.
From Reagan's "Star Wars" speech: "Would it not be better to defend against
nuclear attacks than to avenge them?" That phrase is from our report.
It was originally drafted by Jim Baen, my old friend and comrade who was
publisher of Baen Books.
(2) City to pass the bucks on
sidewalks?
The City of LA, with an enormous budget, cannot provide police and fire
services, nor fill the pot holes; nor can it repair 4500 miles of broken
sidewalks. It can provide "lactation consultation" services to employees of
the Department of Water and Power (yes, I know, a financial case can be made
for that as an investment, but the symbolism is awful). It can provide "anti
gang" services which had demonstrably done more harm than good. It can
provide 600 civil service exempt political employees (when I was in City
Hall we had 81 and I didn't know what half of them actually did for the
city) with full health and retirement benefit. It can give enormous raises
to some of the least productive people on the Earth, But it can't provide
roads, fire and police protection, or the orderly administration of justice.
(3)
Valet wins $318,190 from actor Omar Sharif.
At Masto's Steakhouse (a place I certainly will never go to again) Sharif
offered a 20 Euro note to the parking valet. The valet would not accept it,
and shouted at him, and there was an altercation in which Sharif apparently
called the Valet a "stupid Mexican." The valet was from Salvador or
somewhere else, and calling him a Mexican is a civil offense. It is even a
criminal offense and Sharif was also fined $100 for his hate crime. Sharif
is in Egypt and didn't go to the trial and is in fact unlikely to come back
to the US. . . The immigration status of Juan Anderson, the valet, was not
stated in the LA Times.
(4) California Schools gird for steep cuts.
In the body of the story it points out that the cuts never happen. School
officials say they have trimmed the budget as far as they can, and you must
not balance the budget on the backs of the kids. California schools
spend more and get fewer results than all but 8 or so of the 50 states, but
they intend to do better in future.
(5) The
LA Unified school district has provided incorrect tax return data to
thousands of LA teacher, causing a tax return nightmare.
LA Unified has been unable to pay the correct amounts for years. It has
spent hundreds of millions on computer services and new software. The
software that LA Unified bought was notoriously inaccurate according to web
reports available before the district bought the stuff. No one apparently
bothered to use Google to find that out.
(6) There was an attempt to make LA Downtown habitable again; a loft
building was refurbished and rented, except for its ground floor. The
tenants were hoping for upscale retail or coffee shops or something of the
sort on the ground floor. Instead the city proposes to put a mental health
clinic (yet another, there are plenty) to service skid row denizens and
bring them into the neighborhood.
I don't know how to tell people this, but if you want to increase the tax
base and make downtown areas inhabitable, you will not do so by importing
skid row denizens and making it attractive for them to spread their boxes
and use the area for relieving themselves. Blight is easier to spread than
affluence and civility. And yes, I understand that the homeless have to have
some place to be; but that is an entirely different question.
One can leave city planning to economic factors, or one
can 'plan' politically. Political plans usually work this way: it is
proposed to put 'affordable' housing -- read subsidized housing, read
potential slum housing -- in middle class neighborhoods as a condition of
providing basic city services or allowing housing development. There is then
frantic political activity, accompanied by huge political costs, lots of
money is contributed to campaigns, and there are usually compromises, or
eventually the plan is abandoned for a shakedown scheme in another part of
the city.
And all this just in today's paper.
===================
Competence in
Government
Ten years ago, on the advice of Access to Energy (Box 1250
Cave City Junction, Oregon 97523) I bought some $14 oil futures. Alas, I
didn't go for broke on that investment; I sure wish I had.
From the current issue:
"Subsequently, oil has had a high of $99 per barrel...
Based on current prices our recommendation is up 1100%...
"Assuming combined federal, state, and local taxes of 25%
[he lives in Oregon, remember] the rise is actually 850%...
"The inflation tax must also be considered."
The bottom line is that that spectacularly successful
investment yielded a real return of about 10% annual; is it any wonder that
Americans do not invest much? We fine them for saving money (tax interest);
we fine them for making money (creeping growth of capital gains taxes); we
encourage them to borrow money (artificially low interest rates); we bail
out wild speculators (recall the Keating Five: and now we have the housing
bubbles which are affecting England now; watch for what happens after the
dollar tanks). We hand out low interest money in hopes that the speculators
will borrow even more, speculate even more wildly, and stave off collapse
until someone else is in public office.
The government is going to give you $500 (but quickly take
that back).
By law we must now burn food, and the Edison light bulb
will be outlawed.
Stark, Raving, Mad. Or is it? Our masters, those who have
managed to get on the public payrolls and stay there, are doing just fine.
The politicians are doing just fine. The Legions are underpaid and squeezed
at every opportunity, their families reduced to food stamps, their on base
housing services cut or handed over to speculators and contractors, but the
politicians and administrators are doing just fine, thank you. If you doubt
any of this, visit your local city hall, and go down to District
Headquarters of your school district, and look at the cars, see the office
conditions, and just observe.
Our masters are doing well. And if you manage to make a
spectacularly successful investment -- say $12 oil futures in the 90's --
they will let you keep some of the money you made. Not a lot, though.
One wonders what Washington and his loyal subordinate
Colonel Alexander Hamilton would have made of this? For this did the
patriots bleed at Valley Forge?
=================
Enough. They zap me this afternoon, so I thought I'd get
some of that off my chest.
===================
It never rains but it pours. They start to zap me this
afternoon. I have no idea what that will do to my productivity. Meanwhile,
my Henry Miller Aeron chair, about $800 bucks, needs replacement. There was
a time when that was an annoying but unimportant expense. It may still be:
the problem is what will happen to my upcoming works 0nce the treatments
start?
But it must be replaced. I can't work with my chair slowly
sinking me to the floor every few minutes. Attempts to inject oil into the
piston have not been successful. Clearly there are seals failing, and if
there's any way to work on it I don't know it. I suppose it is repairable,
but that's a lot of bother: getting it taken to be repaired, or bringing
someone in to do it, finding the parts -- easier to buy a new one and put
this out where a visitor can use it.
One more damned thing to worry about.
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