Provided with no commercial (or scientific) interruptions

Hank, Hank, Hank...

I just finished reading Hank Paulson’s “On the Brink”, and though the book was a boring, blow-by-blow recount of the events, it shed some light on the near collapse of the global financial system in the fall of 2008.

It did help me answer the question of whether TARP was necessary: it wasn’t.

TARP in of itself was pretty harmless; most of the funds have or will be paid back, with interest, to taxpayers. Toxic assets turned out not to be a real problem: it was a good-old-fashioned run on the bank; a global run on all the banks.

TARP never lived up to its name: It never purchased any “Troubled Assets”. It simply played the role of “lender of last resort”. A role typically reserved for the Federal Reserve, and as such avoided some short term pain. We will never know what could have happened.

But the story does not end here.

TARP opened Pandora’s box and enabled the US Government to do or attempt to do things that a few months prior would have been unthinkable.

TARP changed the American psyche so talk of “hundreds of billions” became acceptable in polite company.

TARP led to the Stimulus, GM bailout, $13T budget deficit, red ink as far as the eye can see.

TARP forced us to cross the Rubicon. Led by the unwavering self-confident, never-doubt-myself-for-a-minute but willing-to-change-my-mind-at-my-convenience Paulson, we moved into virgin territory. And the damage caused will take decades to undo.

Moral hazard on a slippery slope! We could and should have done without TARP. Libertarians and House Republicans were right after all.

By the way, Hank portrayed John McCain as a bumbling idiot, unable to grasp the situation let alone formulate a cohesive plan. Maybe my faute-de-mieux theory was right?

I Opine on the iPad

It has been quite a long time since I was excited about an Apple product announcement. Their tack to being a media company took them out of my sphere of interest for a decade now. Apple technology had become a fashion statement, rhetoric notwithstanding.

The tablet was another story; I always thought it to be the natural evolution of the laptop. I was involved in early attempts at creating a tablet computer by Grid Systems, stood in line for hours at MacWorld in Boston to buy a Newton, plunked over 1G last year on UMPC, bought an OLPC (you can rotate the screen and turn it into a tablet) and have been a Kindle fan from day one.

The main problem with the early attempts was CPU and storage. That was solved by about 2003, leaving two main problems: software and screen technology.

In today’s world software is no longer an issue: there is a number of options out there from Win7, to Chrome OS, to iPhone OS. The thornier problem of screen technology remain unsolved.
You see a tablet needs to be lightweight, rugged, viewable in any lighting condition and run un-tethered for a long time. Present screen technology is just not up to snuff.

• e-Ink comes closest but suffers from lack of color and inability to address individual pixels which makes it unsuitable for media applications. Besides, it’s as unsexy and an IBM PS/2.
  


• Backlit LCD displays are power hogs and not daylight readable. Fragile as a champagne flute, these displays are just not meant to be dropped.
  


• OLED technology is promising, but suffers from shorter life (display dims and looses color over time), and higher costs.
  

Power consumption in non e-Ink devices necessitate larger batteries and therefore tend to weight 1-3 lbs. It is simply not comfortable to hold that kind to device for an extended period of time.

My prediction is that the iPad (after the fanboys buy two each) will not garner enough of an audience to be counted a success. It’s too much of a compromise: too heavy for a book reader, too large to be an iPod (imagine going to the gym), too limited to replace my laptop (VPN anyone?), not enough connectivity for TV viewing.

Unlike Microsoft, Apple does not have a history of investing heavily in non-homerun products. 50% chance, iPad will die on the vine.

The 8%-92% Rule

I was planning a blog on this subject, but then I decided to simply post the chart and allow folks to come to their own conclusion.

To me, this clearly explains the logic and reasoning driving presidential actions. When our President and 92% of his advisors have never earned an honest dollar in their life, what do you expect?

Editor & Publisher is dead

It should not have come as a surprise to any insider that Editor & Publisher, a venerable 125 year-old publication that focused on the newspaper industry, was shut down by Nielsen its parent company.

The writing was on the wall, inked circa 1996 when the internet burst on the scene, and E&P took pains to ensure the industry held on to its outdated business model. E&P even fought AP’s effort to supplement its revenue stream by reselling technology to member newspapers.

They fought against digital cameras, they fought against AdSend. They were purist (in the bad sense of the term) and died as purists.

EditorandPublisher.com dropped off the net on Friday December 11th 2009. Last headline exalting user response and trashing the Washington Post for running a Sarah Palin op-ed.

Chrysler Aghast!

I am flabbergasted that a US car company with middle-americans as primary customers and a stack of retro muscle cars and full-sized trucks equipped with Hemis V8 is deploying the above ad as a way of rescuing sales.

Is this a flavor of things to come under FIAT's leadership? Can someone tell them that the emperor has no clothes?

Exactly how many political activists will be interested in a Chrysler 300? Seven is my guess, 11 if you include Cash-for-Clunkers.

Afghanistan: Bush had it right

I must admit that I’m quite conflicted when it comes to the war in Afghanistan. On the one hand, the current situation is untenable, on the other hand I doubt more troops will provide a solution.

Afghanistan is a more difficult problem than Iraq and the prospect of a strong central government, army and police to whom we will hand control is a largely a fiction.

At the end of the day Bush had the Afghanistan strategy right: smaller footprint, mostly counter-terrorism mission, and a long term commitment to stay to prevent Taliban take-over.

Having boxed himself in during the campaign, Obama rode in with his ‘new strategy’ and in March upped the troop level by nearly 100%.

Having stirred the hornet’s nest he has no choice but to double down in November.

Nothing I heard this week gives me confidence that Afghanistan will end well. I we can only roll back time.

Federalism and the Surrendering of our Strength

I often wonder what makes American unique. Is it the sheer size of this country? Or is it the immigrant nature of the population? Maybe our geographic isolation is what helped?

Perhaps it is because, as a country, we have a system of government that, unlike anywhere else in the world, continues to experiment on a vast scale. We have 50 states and 50 experiments in government and the ultimate mobility to choose between them.

What should we do to raise revenue during an economic downturn? New York and California think they should raise tax on the rich, while Texas Florida and Alabama think tax incentives for businesses is the way to go. Are unions good for the middle class? Michigan says yes, Tennessee says no. Are guns dangerous? Utah and New York have different opinions. It is physically impossible to build a new road in Connecticut, while Alaska is willing to pave over the whole state if necessary.

People, companies and products can vote with their feet as to which system works best for them. In the first half of the twentieth century people moved to the northern states in droves in search of economics opportunity. Now the reverse is happening, with most Northern and Eastern States experiencing declining populations (hint – it ain’t the weather that’s driving people south).

It’s that flexibility that has allowed us to reinvent ourselves repeatedly over the last 200 years. Keep that in mind as you watch the Federal Government grow and take over sector after sector of our economy ‘streamlining’ laws into a cookie-cutter one size fits all.

We shouldn’t surrender our strength so readily.

Waking up to a nightmare

This maybe unfair, and I might still regret this rush to judgment, but it seems that the longest election night has ended with a nightmare.

A vast majority of the population is experiencing a pleasant dream tuned dark. A post-partisan, post-racial promise revealed as a hoax. A supremely eloquent and confident leader that is deeply insecure and not so presidential. An outstanding campaign political machine that is made up of amateurs unable to adapt to the role of governing.

This might be an unfair assessment. But either way, the night is over and we now know what we have picked. So, the centrist turns out not to be so much so. Was it a popular mandate or faute-de-mieux?

Faute-de-mieux, cowboy up America.

Healthcare Reform Simplified

I've tried to reduce the complex health care issue into a single slide while removing all the lies/distortions that have crept into the dialogue (including last night's Presidential Speech). Here's what I have:

Democrats are selecting "Universal Coverage" and perhaps "Cheaper Premiums" over "Deficit Neutral". Republicans are picking "Cheaper Premiums" and "Deficit Neutral". Libertarians like me are simply interested keeping the government from getting involved in making the choice