Intel Fab (was China Rising)

re: recent Intel announcement (for 22nm).

Correct, Intel current 22nm work will stay in the U.S. What’s frightening is it was even a close call and in the end was an executive override of a consensus analysis of what arguably was a better economic outcome for the company and shareholders (at least on paper, setting aside politics). Similar words have been heard from John Chambers, the Cisco CEO, as well as Oracle. On the current slope (declining U.S. technical ability, rising Asian), we can kiss it goodbye in 5 or so years. This isn’t Japan in the 80s where they thought they could compete with cartelized industry (and research). Disregarding the dictatorship (which can certainly screw things up – even faster than the U.S. Congress.. but most of the CCP leadership are soviet-style-ruthless but well educated engineers – so they are numerate – and appreciate the difference between science and faith-based non-science, unlike 99% of U.S. politicians) the mostly-independent provinces in China are like the U.S. in the late 1800s, early 1900s. We were pirating IPR from the Brits, growing like crazy, driving for quantity over quality, local fiefdoms distributing power and justice, etc.

Patriotism and love-of-country can have little place in the market (if a society wants to thrive and maximize the wealth and welfare of its citizens). About all that can/should change this is a declaration of war, embargo, or sanctions. We’re attempting to tighten “dual-use” export of high-tech goods to China – which is having the perverse effect of driving decisions for offshore work. Intel could well be criticized for exporting technology to China if they leave any (next-generation) work here. Even though all the process equipment is built offshore. One way to avoid the “deemed export” argument and misery is just not do the work in the U.S.

Yet another domestic agency (Department Of Commerce) that should be asking local communities if they (1) value their product and processes, (2) are willing to pay their bill.

China Rising Video

As in “The U.S. Now Works For Us” (because we lost our faith in the free market while China was encouraging theirs).

Yowsa. That youtube video is going to leave a mark.

China already is more capitalistic in many ways than the U.S. I’ve found copies of Friedman and Ayn Rand on various ministers shelves there (more than I find in the U.S.). And they are actually apologetic when they put the arm on foreign companies for unequal tax and regulatory treatment (v. native firms, and v. our own city and counties who are shameless when it comes to making arguably extra-legal demands on local companies in return for their next building permit). It’s possible to have a free-market without politically free citizens (just look at HK w/ the Brits in charge). And a heavily regulated market like the U.S. has is far from free (where governments and regulators pick winners, often corruptly with the largest of existing businesses.. given Sarbanes Oxley, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see another Google, or an Apple to knock off an Apple or Microsoft).

The slope of infrastructure improvements in China (esp. along the coasts) are all positive in areas where the U.S. is negative. Student quality entering universities. Students earning technical degrees. They sneer at our new-age / Club-of-Rome ill-numeracy and attitudes that have made a faith out of global warming and nonsensical alternative energy schemes that have no hope of competing with fossil fuels at their marginal costs of well less than a penny a kwh (some are plainspoken – they view it as a measure of our societal decay). They have more than twenty universities of the (past) rigor of a Stanford being built, class by class. They are no longer the weak technical partner, and rapidly improving – roughly equivalent today (in the U.S.-sized coastal cities), and if the current slope stands, better in no more than five years. And we tax (regulate and litigate) our high-tech companies to death. They do not (and given that we tax what we want less of, be it cigarettes or (high-paying) jobs, it’ll be no surprise when we do have less of everything related to leading companies).

Guess where Intel will (be forced to – by government tax policy and inadequate U.S. technical graduates limited by immigration policy) locate their next generation (after 22nm) fabs? If they don’t, China Inc (some 1st tier tech company in China, like Huawei) will seize the opportunity and create one itself and put Intel out of business with the strength of the resources they have, that we’ve denied ourselves. To say nothing of the $$ incentives China will provide U.S. corporations to relocate.

I fear for our children. We need to disestablish the central government in terms of all-things-domestic and return these powers and responsibilities to communities of no more than several hundred thousand people and insure they too must compete for the affection of the citizen and their enterprise. Only free-enterprise by a free-people can outperform free-enterprise by a less-than-free people.

Defunding NPR

Re: publicly funded means more accountability (or not) wrt Juan Williams (?)

Should we defund NPR? Turns out this is not what’s needed.

I can’t find the cite on the big business that non-profit radio (and TV) have become as well as the personalities that have lived very high on the hog given their near monopoly status and grants of airwaves / spectrum. Congress exempted them from competition (and fees), which certainly isn’t warranted given the “income inequality” their big-name employees have increased to new highs (for a so-called non-profit).

To restore balance, don’t (just) defund NPR, but force it and the other fat-cat non-profits to compete for the airwaves they currently get gratis. And establish a web-licensing mechanism that automatically grants low-power stations a right-to-operate upon application and agreement to a non-interference provision (and use of suitable technology to insure same), as well as on-line posting of interference complaints.

The amount of diverse media and opinion on the airwaves will increase by factors of 10, and the corrupt legacy “non-profits” will either clean up their act or go out of business or find themselves carried by low-power stations at much lower cost (and much lower aggregate and abusive-of-non-profit-treatment “star” salaries).

Our Bankrupt (Federal, State, Local) Governments

Re: should we punish the profligate communities?

Reflect on WW2 when the last enemy was vanquished. We didn’t crush the citizens there under our boots, rather we lent them a helping hand. I think the same will be needed for the communities (still) in the thrall of the Left. What we can’t afford is a centralized government where 50M+1 dictate to 50M-1 (which forced Reagan to compromise far too much), and it need not be so (national elections need to become much less important in terms of all things domestic). Let the Left rule in areas where they have a large majority (and let them benefit from or suffer the consequences, after all it’s their community, and people can vote with their feet). Ditto for the various flavors of the conservative and libertarian right.

I’m very much in favor of returning all domestic power to communities (and their voluntary associations – both internal and external) of about 300,000 citizens – a typical infrastructure slice that would include a powerplant, 5,000 school rooms, a (small) airport, a courthouse, a few jails and hospitals, etc. It also represents economic power larger than all but a few in the Fortune 50, so there’s little in a civil society they can’t dominate in their own sphere – if they so choose.

And it’s very much a vote of faith in the people, similar to George Washington returning the crown, so unlike the institutions that soil his name today in the what must seem to many like a foreign capital, "D.C."

The ‘pubs must be blind since none of the current leadership has made the simple statement that we are committed to returning power (money) to the people by a few date certains, coinciding with elections so their pledges can be measured. Start by directing all domestic agencies to go to the local communities and ask if they’d voluntarily participate (at various cost levels), and adjust size appropriate to income. Just turning them from masters to employees will fix many ills. Most won’t survive. Which is ok.

And this is not new territory – businesses went thru this phase in the 70s and 80s as information technology made large headquarters’ staff redundant, and boards of directors bought off the exec suite by splitting with them the savings in going from order thousands to hundreds of HQ staff (and exec compensation went from under 7 figures to over 7) and the large companies that remained were basically driven by decisions made at their edges, in their customer facing divisions, so they could match their smaller, fleeter of foot, competitors).

Greg Mankiw on Today’s 90% Marginal Tax Rate

Others have observed that staring at 90% tax on someone’s efforts of today (irrespective of what they did yesterday) makes the question one of morality. As in next-to-slavery. Either my work is worth what it was day one or not. And for others to gain, say, more than those I trade with or am employed by seems right strange. This is where tax policy breaks and falls under its own immorality – and exposes the worst of non-local democratic government (when 50M+1 decide for 50M-1 what could be, should be, local issues). Unsaid is how much more stable and resilient local governance is (for all things domestic). Hard to behead a hydra. Easy to derail DC (foreign, special, and esp. 50M+1 interests).

If the TeaParty folks want an agenda, they should demand a date certain for disestablishing D.C. from all roles domestic, and return governance (responsibility and obligation) to political jurisdictions no larger than, say, 300K citizens – which is a power plant, a couple of water and sewage plants, 5,000+ classrooms, 1,000 hospital rooms, a small airport, etc.. What they can’t do for themselves directly, a voluntary collaboration of nearby communities (deal with the next 90%), and with successive refinement everything that’s embodied in current federal agencies that dictate, rather than collaborate. And then these jurisdictions will be disciplined not only at their ballot box but by competing for the favor of the citizen and their enterprise, and in the competition deliver better governance than anything we’ve seen from what now must appear to be a foreign power to most in that place called “D.C.” George Washington gave the crown back, it’s time for D.C. to do the same.

Schools, Good, Bad And Ugly

re: selection bias, skimming the cream.. (charter v. private v. public)

Reminds me that in any/all classroom situations the most able students must be challenged and discover that they too can fail. An example of how important this is to character development is seen in some of the today’s personalities – W.J. Clinton comes to mind. This need not mean separate classes, nor brutal competition (save for hard-to-mature personalities like his). For some in this category requiring they successfully teach and tutor is sufficient.

Interesting observation about rural v. not schools. My sense is if communities of about 300,000 were sovereign in terms of most domestic affairs (over whatever area is required to establish that number) these things would sort themselves out, and there’d be enough diversity of opportunities in populous areas that citizens could afford to vote with their feet, as well as a ballot. There wouldn’t be one-best-answer, but lots of experimentation (and, the horror, competition). Texas almost has this with their ~1,000 independent school districts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Texas

Granted, these were formed with less-than-the-best intentions (an attempt to sidestep desegregation), but they have kept the "self-government" muscles alive, at least in Texas. And created more than their share of able politicians.

Turns out a decade plus ago I founded a private school to meet some unique needs of prospective (international) employees. My sense is most all of what we value today is dust compared to what we leave behind in children that are happy, motivated and have been taught to love life-long-learning, irrespective of their abilities and eventual vocation. And there’s no one recipe to achieve this so parents must be free to choose, and teachers free to recommend an alternative (including going to work for a few years).

More on Michael Crichton

re: Crichton’s call to put the method back in science, and remove the religion from environmental issues.

Did some more digging. His site still has an area where pointers to the videos of some of his talks can be found, but the text of his articles and the transcripts of his speeches are gone. And there’s a moderator’s note to avoid the topic in his discussion groups. A pity since so much research now is done using web-search tools, especially by the young.

For those interested in his ideas and arguments, see the "Internet WayBack Machine" archive at:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071002031116/www.crichton-official.com/speeches.html

“Science-based” Governance

re: fact and science, AGW, Climate Change, now disruption.

Don’t look too closely but few in leadership are other than lawyers. Who would not understand the scientific method if it bit them in the @$$.

Looks like the Club-of-Rome cabal (which must include Mr. Soros) is finally being exposed for what it is – Hal Lewis calls AGW (climate change and most recently climate disruption “the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.” And of course he’s now being attacked for decades old support for environmental research and the soviet ~ “he’s so old he’s likely demented and needs professional care.”

I also see that Michael Crichton’s passion for getting the religion out of science has pretty much disappeared from his web site. I wonder who put the arm on his descendants (or publisher) to do the lobotomy? Which is a pity since it may well be Michael’s greatest work and contribution to civilization.

Even with a sea-change election I don’t know how to fix D.C. We should disestablish it for all things domestic (so that we don’t ever face again the terrible result of 50M+1 deciding day-to-day issues for 50M-1, and committing the 50M-1 morally to decisions they don’t or can’t support.. and need not support if local communities govern, not a remote, at times what must seem foreign, central government).

It’s not that we conservatives want smaller government entirely, we want a much smaller central government in all things that can/could be managed locally

Information Technology And The Rebirth Of Federalism

The research of Brynjolfsson, Malone and others at MIT Sloan suggest that all we need to do is allow the information-technology enabled natural devolution of governance to local communities and most, if not all, of our current ills will be resolved by the natural diversity and competition between these groups.

Title: The incredible shrinking company. Economist, 00130613, 12/15/90, Vol. 317, Issue 7685

<snip> Computers were supposed to centralise decision-making and produce ever-bigger firms. They seem to have done just the opposite

PEERING into its crystal ball in 1958, the Harvard Business Review said that computers would revolutionise American business. By the end of the 1980s they would ensure that American business would be concentrated as never before. The economy would be dominated by a few giant firms. Within each firm important decisions would be made by a handful of executives with access to the firm’s single, big computer.

The exact opposite has occurred. In America the average number of employees per firm has been falling since the late 1960s; but more and more of those employees have a computer on their desk. Instead of centralising, most businesses have spent the past few decades decentralising. Within big firms all around the world, bosses have been pushing authority down the management hierarchy. Anecdotes about how they have done this abound: most famously in firms like Benetton, Frito-Lay and Toyota, to name but a few. But there is still dispute over why bosses have delegated so enthusiastically. Mr Erik Brynjolfsson of MIT’S Sloan School of Management has now completed some new research on the links between information technology and declining firm size which may explain the "why". <snip>

Wreckovery Summer

re: GDP increases while income stagnates or declines.

Too bad there are no Democrat business owners willing to speak on the record about where the dollars from increased productivity are going. A competitive market insures that their returns are not much better than bank returns – so where is the money going? (into purchasing decisions made by D.C. for the masses – aka regulation. Which lay heavily on the middle class because they don’t consume that much as individuals, and any purchasing decisions made by others for them come right out of their pockets – either directly – like lightbulbs, or indirectly in new costs that their employers must pay in the employee’s interest).

It’s easy to see once you have to manage a businesses’ books. And make a payroll. And pay for benefits. And your local taxes that increase because better test equipment can now see arsenic that was always there but not measurable before.

Since the employees have been voting these fools in for decades, I assume they must want their productivity gains to go towards these “greater goods.” Where at the extreme they are now unemployed because of these arguably unwittingly chosen “purchases.”