] The GOP is also counting on Kerry rhetoric that ticks off
] some techies. The Democrat has demonized "Benedict Arnold
] CEOs" who send jobs offshore and has backed expensing of
] the industry's prized employee stock options. "When you
] tee off on Benedict Arnolds, you probably have to play a
] few rounds before you interest the business community,"
] says John Endean, president of the American Business
] Conference, which represents midsize growth companies.

If Kerry simply reversed his position on expensing options, he'd have all the pieces of the puzzle.

Here Comes Broadband John

The United States is good at two things. Being rich, and being rebellious.

The first is the product of two geographic accidents and one extremely intelligent decision.

We were close enough to Europe to provide an exciting, temperate, and vast destination for the bored and downtrodden of the 19th century, and yet far enough away to keep us from taking much more then a few bruises when the place collapsed on itself in the 20th.

The extremely intelligent decision was to keep the church out of government affairs. Thomas Jefferson accurately predicted that our southern, "priest ridden," neighbors would succumb to corrupt ineptitude for centuries.

We peaked about 1955. The space program, adjusted for inflation, made our present fiscally unilateral adventures in the middle east look like a minor expense.

We're still quite accustomed to being the richest people on the planet and few seem to be aware that we're in decline. If our military expenditures don't suck us dry the coming implosion of Social Security and Medicare certainly will.

In 40 years we're not going to be the richest anymore.

Neither cost should be underestimated. The domestic concern is now quite well documented. On the other hand, Islamic fundamentalism is an ancient, intractable hate that flourishes because it gives meaning to lives that have none.

Can we really replace that meaning with economic purpose? We can't even create economic purpose here at home.

The other thing, besides being rich, that Americans are good at is rebellion. Our culture is the space that exists between the dress codes of protestant piety and the cloud of pot smoke emanating from the local motorcycle bar. You are taught how to be, and they you are taught not to be it.

Our heros aren't the ones who worked together to solve the problem. They're the ones who stepped outside and succeeded. We don't care about the team. Only the star quarterback matters to us.

Americans are good at going off in a garage somewhere and doing something innovative on one's own. Rebellion is at the heart of that. Thats why the hacker scene was so edgy.

Thats the one hope we have that we can really build a future on once our geographic blessings are spent and everyone else gets an education.

And we're killing it. Between the outsourcing, and the attack on options, and the skittish contraction of meaningful technology investment, we're eliminating the dream that you can go out and work on the edges and be successful.

Sure, Steven Levy found people doing innovative things in Silicon Valley after the crash. There are those among us who don't care about taking risks because they could loose almost all of their net worth without having to change their lifestyles. They are bored and have nothing better to do then tinker. Are we really hanging the future of our economy on a few guys who are rich enough to create their own space programs for fun?

One in one hundred are successful and the more we scale this back the more good opportunities will slip through our fingers.

Today technology innovation consists of screwing up the DNS system. And its not just there. We've even forgotten how to make good music. Our endless co-option of the rebels has been too efficient. The rebels don't have anything more to say.

Taxes and Terrorism. Thats all I can see for years to come. And I'm sick of it already. We heading into a Japanese style socio-economic malaise.

There are plenty of modern management techniques which the movement could employ to reinvigorate itself. Has, it, for instance, tried benchmarking itself against comparable movements? If street protest is too arduous for the membership, should it not think of outsourcing its more strenuous activities to the immigrants who already do most of Britain's tougher jobs? Taking that argument further, if domestic apathy is the problem, perhaps the answer is offshoring. A Mayday protest organised in, say, Libya or North Korea would really make a splash.

The finest in British wit, now available worldwide.

And it goes hand in hand with my recent suggestion that the Democrats hire a Bangalore call center to conduct a get-out-the-vote campaign.

From anarchy to apathy

] May 15th to 16th -- Ferrari days at Road Atlanta
]
]
] The Ferrari Challenge, Ferrari's own racing series,
] was created to allow Ferrari customers to enjoy their
] cars in a structured competitive environment, racing
] against other Ferrari owners on some of the great race
] tracks of North America. Spectators get to enjoy a heard
] of these rare and exciting Italian race cars at a track
] near their home.

[ Sweet! This could be pretty fricking rad. -k]

Road Atlanta

] The rovers' lifetimes will depend on factors such as
] durability of their electric motors, cumulative effects
] of severe day-night temperature swings, and the amount of
] available power from solar cells, Naderi said. For an
] added $15 million, the $820-million mission has been
] extended to Sept. 13. Mars will pass behind the sun then,
] Naderi said, cutting communications.

Someone asked me about this a few weeks ago. They are apparently running way longer then expected, and NASA has funded further work with them.

Mars rovers still working...

] U.S.-led forces in Iraq risk being drawn into an urban
] guerrilla conflict they are ill-prepared to fight and
] which will probably cost many more lives, military
] experts say.

Man, the news is just bad bad bad... We have a poor track record with urban guerrilla war (and our enemies know it).

US may be sucked into urban conflict

] A Moroccan man who is the only person ever convicted of
] aiding the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers was freed by a court
] in Hamburg Wednesday pending a retrial.

Well, the "lets detain them without trial" crowd just got an arrow in it's quiver. I hope he really is innocent. Otherwise this is an incredible foul up.

Court Frees Moroccan Convicted In 9/11 Case (washingtonpost.com)

] "Sorry, guys. The pro-expense 'em forces do not care
] about helping investors; they care about discouraging stock options.
]
] "In the modern corporation, intangible assets now
] constitute 70% or so of the value of the company, a shift
] from 25 years ago, when 75% of the value was in tangible
] assets. By using options, companies make the creators of
] these intangible assets into owners, and venture
] capitalists make the creative classes into partners. Options
] are a complicated, but quite creative, solution to a number of
] difficult problems in the valuation of intellect-based assets.
]
] "The idea of making the creative classes into owners is
] not welcomed by old line capitalists, organized labor, public
] employees, and other power centers. Hence the fight to discourage
] options.

[Politech] Jim Delong's dissenting view on stock options expensing

] The information economy is likely to be a volatile,
] cyclical, unstable mess. The problem is not the "creative
] destruction" one would expect in an innovative economy,
] but the structural instability of an economy whose major
] products have very low marginal costs and hence prices,
] but are not low-cost to produce. The notion that an
] information-based economy will be inherently prosperous
] must be revised for a less optimistic scenario.

This connects with Jeremy's observation about the biotech industry having the same problems as the music industry. The work that matters is thought work. Our economy is not designed for thoughts. It is designed for things. Intellectual property is a compromise that allows thoughts to work like things. As more and more of our economy consists of thoughts and not things the compromise becomes more and more strained. Its going to pop. There is no alternative because we trained ourselves to ignore critical thinking about economic systems as a defense mechanism against the communists.

This is a black hole, and the only way to avoid getting sucked through it is to own a lot of real estate.

Eli Noam: Information Economies are inherently unstable

inignoct wrote:
] What are the visible traits a particular political party
] imprints on a county -- school arts funding levels, number of
] trees and parks, wealth, distance from nightlife?
] Fascinating.

I wrote this a few days ago:

Left/right politics in the United States seem to me to have a rather stark urban/rural split. This is fairly clear in the electoral results. (Dennis Miller once remarked that Democrats seem to be attracted to water, missing the obvious connection between big cities and old sea transportation routes.)

People in the city tend to be concerned with things like homelessness, poverty, etc because they are constantly confronted with it. They see guns as things that kill people. They are tolerant of diversity because they are surrounded by it. Furthermore, in general they are quite interdependent with others around them because of the way they live. Thus they tend, statistically, to support welfare, gun control, and the separation of church and state.

People in the country don’t really interact with homeless/poor on a daily basis, so they are less inclined to spent moned on social programs. They see guns as a hobby. They don’t see the problem with teaching their religious values in school because they don’t know anyone who doesn’t practice their religion. In general, people in the country tend to be more independent of others because of they way they live. Thus they tend, statistically, to support lower taxes, oppose gun control, and oppose the separation of church and state.

RE: Mister Landslide's Neighborhood - Red versus blue states isn't the half of it. By Timothy Noah