A 50 state, $50 billion, job strategy

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Sunday November 18, 2012 · 5:01 AM PST

2012/11/18 · 05:01

The government could give every state $1B to spend within a year. The money should be granted to startups that focus on developing state-specific, local, resources and technologies. So, fund a thousand startups per state, with a million $ per startup. No big players allowed!

pwax

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Tuesday November 29, 2011 · 4:54 AM PST

2011/11/29 · 04:54

Wikipedia: "A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public. Pyramid schemes are a form of fraud."

Something like: I get an email encouraging me to send $5 dollars of my money and 1/2 of everything I get from forwarding the email. It sounds good: as soon as I get more than 2 people forwarding the email and sending me $5 I break even. Money flows up the pyramid. The earlier I am in the chain letter the more $$ I get back. But then the thing runs its course and people who are last in the chain send their $5 but cannot find anyone to reply to their email. The people at the bottom are left holding the bag.

Now, it looks like this is what happened with housing prices...

pwax

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Thursday November 17, 2011 · 7:17 AM PST

2011/11/17 · 07:17

I went out to hold a sign in downtown Concord MA to support the Thursday protests. I was there for an hour and a half. Alone. I am ashamed that the birthplace of the American revolution (and also the birthplace of Thoreau's non-violent protest concept) is so little involved in these historic actions to restore Democracy. I was thinking of going to stand on the north bridge and was imaging telling the (Minuteman Historic) Park Rangers that they are today's "redcoats" and royalists.

I had several reasons for going out.
- To support today's global protests
- To show that an older, reasonably middle class looking person supports the movement (it is not all DFHs).
- To get people to experience a couple of seconds of awareness. Perhaps they'll encounter "99%" again later in the day.
- To represent my town as not entirely soulless.

My sign just said "99%" but after standing there a while I added the word "Honk!" in smaller letters. I figured people would know what this means and there was no point in elaborating. But off hand I would say from peoples' expressions that lots of them do not know what "99%" means. Here is how it breaks down in the commuter population going through this prosperous (wannabe "1%" town):
- most people just drive bye, many on cell phones.
- many people get a faintly guilty look, if you meet their eyes
- most non-Anglo faces take on faintly puzzled look, and act as if they are having trouble reading the sign (which was in pretty simple easy-to-read letters)
- a small fraction (<10%) smiled and gave me a thumbs up. Some of them honked.
The "honkers" were mostly young people, or older women. Only a few older men honked.
- One guy in a blue pickup leans out and says "Idiot!".

So I spent a few minutes looking for a witty rejoinder. First thought was "f*ck you". Second though was to call him a fool. Then I started thinking about what kind of "information" leads this guy to be insulting to someone with a simple message? What does he know that leads him to thinking about and then calling me an idiot? I would bet this guy is FOX "news" viewer. Low information and largely misled by his sources. In the end, the right word for someone who has given up having their own thoughts is "slave". Should we not try to create a well-understood name for such people? The Republicans are good at creating branding and memes. So I think a concerted effort should be made to pick some good answer when we are called Idiots.

Suggestions are welcome.

Organization as an evolutionary process - a rant

pwax

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Friday October 02, 2009 · 2:35 PM PDT

2009/10/02 · 14:35

Something Darwin seems to have missed in the discussion of evolution was the process by which organisms of a given type can start to work together in an organized way - with division of labor and division of reward. And that this higher level of organization then becomes like an organism - subject to the laws of survival of the fittest (or luckiest). This kind of organizing evolution has happened over and over again in earth's history as atoms got together to form molecules, molecules got together to form complex molecules, molecules started replicating themselves and invaded fatty bubbles, to carry on in a stabler enclosed environment which became the cell. Cells getting together to form multi-cellular organisms, some of which became human, who then organized governments and corporations. Others became ants and bees and organized themselves into colonies and hives.

And at every stage, at every level of the organizing, a kind of bargain is struck between the component and the higher level collective whereby the whole works for the benefit of the components, with no sacrifices of the components except in the direst situation. Without that bargain there is no long term viability of the new type of organism.

pwax

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Friday March 27, 2009 · 4:37 PM PDT

2009/03/27 · 16:37

Let's say that usually the value of the dollar is elastic - it is subject to inflation and deflation. You can buy more with it, or you can buy less with it. In principle if it is an elastic fluid then you can send waves through it - waves of compression and rarification. Imagine what kind of ripple through the economy is possible, what with one thing and another.

So they say that the government has reduced interest rates to near zero and I wonder if this doesn't freeze the value of the dollar in a kind of pathological state where now it is an incompressible fluid and we can no longer send waves through it in the usual way. In this situation maybe it does not matter if huge numbers of dollars are being printed by the Fed.

pwax

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Saturday September 27, 2008 · 3:53 AM PDT

2008/09/27 · 03:53

I was appalled at Obama's lack of preparation for last night's debate. Without even discussing the lack of content in his answers, here are some things that should have been eliminated during training for the event.

Update: Well obviously I was wrong.

pwax

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Friday February 22, 2008 · 10:43 AM PST

2008/02/22 · 10:43

We are all well familiar with polls of the form Pi=% of voters preferring candidate i. Then later we always wonder why the actual vote tallies are different - sometimes quite different - from what was predicted by the poll. There are plenty of discussion of uncertainty in the polling, sample size, margins or error, etc. Also there is plenty of discussion of people lying to the polster or changing there minds. Sometimes the analysis gets quite mathematical. Did I miss it where they talked about voter turnout? It seems pretty obvious that voter turnout is one of the most important factors.

pwax

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Thursday October 05, 2006 · 2:30 PM PDT

2006/10/05 · 14:30

For example, suppose at the last minute they turn up a Democrat who is as much of a pederast as Foley. So the Dems are tarred with the same brush and this scandal does not help them enough in the next election and the Republicans eek out a meager victory, cutting their losses at Denny Hastert and a few others. Meanwhile the public is not paying attention to Iraq and the White House is out of the spotlight.

What is up with Air America?

pwax

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Wednesday September 06, 2006 · 4:10 PM PDT

2006/09/06 · 16:10

I am sorry if this violates comment rules but I think it is an important question.

Have you listened to Ed Schultz? He was loudly pro-Lieberman before the primary and just this afternoon was talking about how we have to consider nuking parts of Pakistan and its border with Afganistan. And this is called "progressive talk radio" or a "liberal voice". What is up with that? Who are these Air America people really? Are these what MyDD calls "Bloomberg Democrats"?

And then Al Franken, who is pretty funny, did not even know about net neutrality until it was explained to him by a guest on the show. That means Franken is shockingly poorly informed about the topics he expected to be able to discuss.

It is really a pity because Air America should really not be calling itself "Liberal" or "Progressive". I wish they actually were.

The healing power of Katrina

pwax

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Thursday November 10, 2005 · 3:08 PM PST

2005/11/10 · 15:08

Katrina was the turning point. Look at the various good things the Democrats/Liberals have been experiencing lately:

- Libby indicted
- Karl Rove distracted and perhaps on the run
- defeat of drilling in the Arctic, and of the whole bill
- polls going way south for Bush
- Harriet Meyers coming and then going

and many other things you can list better than I can. But none of these things is the central "sea change". It might have been a subconscious comparison between Katrina and Sept 11... Read More

Rights and Responsibilities of Corporations

pwax

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Tuesday October 11, 2005 · 4:21 PM PDT

2005/10/11 · 16:21

Kos writes about the Democrats having their own Contract with America. This is being spearheaded by Nancy Pelosi and appears to contain the basic platform we have come to expect and desire - here on the liberal side of things where liberal policies will need to be offset by cleanup efforts directed at the current mess the Republians have made of things.

I want to add one more piece to the desired platform: the Democrats are going to have to set out the rights and responsibilities of the corporate "citizen". I think a complete message requires addressing this topic. For example: What does a company have to pay for in our society? What minimum standards do we hold it to in protecting its employees? how much does it have to pay for employee health care? how much monopolizing can it pursue? What is the corporate equivalent of the "social contract"? I want to hear about that from out Democratic leaders.

How much of the oil do we use when commuting?

pwax

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Thursday September 15, 2005 · 2:50 PM PDT

2005/09/15 · 14:50

Consuming oil to heat a home in winter is one thing. But if it is for driving a car thirty miles, sitting by yourself while thousands and thousands of other people are also sitting alone driving a similar distance, then that starts to seem stupid and wasteful. Should the whole basis of our American life and foreign policy be simply to empower us to drive in solitude to work? Why not live privately but commute publicly?

It would be nice to have a government that could step up the incentives for solving the problems of energy efficiency in transportation, in the home, in agriculture ...

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A 50 state, $50 billion, job strategy

A little something about Pyramid Schemes

Occupy Concord and Outing the FOXSLAVES

Organization as an evolutionary process - a rant

When dollar value stops being elastic - the growth of a Luxury Economy

3 rhetorical blunders and a few other mistakes

Modelling Voter Turnout

What if the Foley scandal is a Rove fake-out?

What is up with Air America?

The healing power of Katrina

Rights and Responsibilities of Corporations

How much of the oil do we use when commuting?