Megan Mcardle | Bloomburg | How Detroit Drowned in a Sea of Troubles

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Detroit’s downfall…

If you listen to the interwebs, the answer is “terrible, Democratic-run urban politics.” Or “union-busting anti-labor policies” in Southern states that transformed solid middle-class jobs in the Midwest into near-minimum-wage jobs in states such as Alabama and Tennessee. Or maybe “racism.” Or “the urban underclass.”

All of these answers are impossibly reductive. The city of Detroit has no one problem; it has a constellation of them. Here, in no particular order, are some of the most important factors.

The fall of geography

The decline of the U.S. auto industry

The rise of the Sun Belt

Industrial monoculture and overbuilding

Crime

Race

Bad government

….
Any political system that has a convenient other to complain about will use that other to excuse the failures of its politicians, and Detroit has been no exception. The city has been plagued by flagrant corruption and plain old bad management. It’s also confronted the same painful math as Rust Belt cities like Buffalo and Rochester: The poor folks in the city want high levels of government services to alleviate their poverty. But if you raise taxes to pay for the services the voters want, the taxpayers will leave.

Megan Mcardle has a way of getting to the knot at the center, this has all been said before but here it is laid out, and as in so many human stories the tragedy was rooted in the heady heydays.

Call it by its true name…which is? Is theft to strong a word?

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Via Defense News : By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESS : Afghan Customs Fines Hike Cost of US Military Pullout
Graft, grease, protection money, semi regulated theft, robbery via paperwork, levy, duty, tax…
All of these in one view or another…But in that culture it’s just the way it’s done.

Uh, Guys, the ‘scope’s pointed in the wrong direction?!

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

An artist’s rendering of the proposed telescope on the Malapert crater on the moon. Moon Express/ILOA

Read more at: Wired: The Private Plan to Put a Telescope on the Moon
So yes you need an Earth link but I think Earth would be below the local horizon and a mast with a laser or smaller high frequency antenna would provide that link. I imagine the picture was marketing/art departments idea and it is cool.

The whole mission concept is cool and seems to make a lot of sense.

One thing we forget in this ‘later’ more ‘modern’ age is that historically science and scientific instruments were private, and they were not inexpensive it was a rich man’s game and often rich patron’s egos that got us to to the beginning of the twentieth century.

Looks like a great application of a ‘striped down’ mod of a SpaceX Dragon vertical lander…

Missionary Creep in Egypt by Adam Garfinkle

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

The American Interest: Missionary Creep in Egypt by Adam Garfinkle
Simply stunning, a revelatory blog on the why the US struggles to make head or tails of what is going on in Egypt and the Middle East. It’s long and has a couple of longer links but it’s well worth it because it explains our bias so clearly, explains the Muslim middle eastern ‘socio-political-theological’ context and then shows the incompatibility of means and ends that have made such a mess of the last decade or more. If you are interested/frustrated by the unfolding mess read this article it’ll give you new context, though it won’t solve the frustration.

Fences MAY improve neighbors but Walls, however ‘great,’ DO NOT

Posted on July 13, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

The Atlantic: The Great Wall of Texas: How the U.S. Is Repeating One of History’s Great Blunders
Great little piece, good use of references to Rome, China and Great Britain’s Empire. The title is a bit ExcelaCorridor sneering but that’s the editors fault. I am proud to have been born in Britain and be a Naturalized US citizen. I’m also a wonk-geek-nerd-intellectual-libertarian I think the sealing of the border is fantasy/pandering/bunk, a channel for more neo graft cronyism.

We need immigration reform and border security but in a nation the size of the US, physical barriers are a boondoggle. Reform immigration and border security becomes easier since the vast huge immense majority of folks coming will want to come through the check points and follow the rules. The guys out in the desert, at sea or in the booneys looking to cross without being checked will be much easier to spot.

Too complex an issue you say? Not so say I:

3 types of entry visas, you to apply in person, provide a little information, name, age, place of birth, current residence, phone/cell phone/eMail address, one or two people of some repute who will vouch for you ( if you apply for citizenship up front it’s a bit more complicated, see below.)
Visitor: One year, do anything you want, report your location via web when you move, pay taxes, work if you want using your visa # in lieu of SSN. SocialSecurity/WorkersComp ‘fees’ held in accounts with no interest, returned to you as lump sum after you exit and apply for it through US consulate in your country of citizenship. Subject to immediate deportation on conviction of a felony, if you are incarcerated in the US in full you are still subject to deportation. You can convert to a work visa or ask for a citizenship review at any time. If you overstay without upgrading it is an automatic felony and deportation, you are not a citizen though basic constitutional law applies you do not get trial by jury.
Work: unlimited stay, once a year report your location in person at any government office state or federal, use your visa number in lieu of a SSN pay all taxes. SS, MC, etc, fees go in a holding account with no interest, convert to regular SS, MC if you retire in the US or if you become citizen, otherwise returned to you as lump sum after you exit and apply for it through US consulate in your country of citizenship. Subject to immediate deportation on conviction of a felony, if you are incarcerated in the US in full you are not subject to deportation. You are not a citizen though basic constitutional law applies you do not get trial by jury regarding deportation. Time on a work visa does not lead to citizenship, you can ask for a citizenship review at any time.
Citizenship: you can ask for a citizenship review at any time, when applying for a visa in your country of origin or once in the US. Once approved for a citizenship track visa you are still effectively on a working visa but after seven years you can apply for citizenship and after a second review (same process as the first one) you will be approved for naturalization. The process is fee based and administrative, you will pay a fee for a background check to be carried out by US Immigration not a contractor. A US state or federal judge will be chosen at random in your state of residence, to review your case and approve disapprove. You can apply more than once, after a one year wait, you always pay the fee. If you object to a negative ruling you can pay for a court hearing with another Judge and a lawyer from immigration (two hours of J&L, a one hour hearing and a letter response, Yes/No), you can have a lawyer as well at your own expense, only one review a year. Have to be eighteen to ask for citizenship in your own right. A minor less than 12 becomes a citizen if one or both parents become one and ask for it. A minor over 12 cannot become a citizen until he/she is eighteen but if one or both parents have become naturalized citizens in that interim the child can ask for and immediately receive citizenship as long as they pass the administrative hurdle

So what about large number of illegals in the US, what have you done to discourage illegals:

make it illegal to be in the us without a valid visa#
Most folks come to work and want to be treated fairly, as a legal you have most of the protections of a citizen
Those already in the US will be able to apply for a work visa and will have limited immunity since it is currently not illegal to be in the US without a visa. However you will be required to return to your country of origin ( or if you are a refugee apply for asylum ) before you can apply for citizenship track
require employers to use eVerify for SSN, Visa#, for employees or contractors, make the system extremely simple to use. For example: as an employer or employers agent, you enter your number, it flashes your picture on the screen and the employee taps in his/her number and their picture flashes up, you hit confirm, you are done.
failure to eVerify is subject to stiff fines and public shaming

What about quotas, dumping, the hoards who will flood in, all those aliens? You wail…and let’s get this right this what helps give zombie flicks their grist these days….

I would get rid of quotas fo awile and see what happens, but keep the quotas for those coming by boat or plane if you must but simply enforce the visa at the land boarders
no this won’t stop all the tramping across the boarder but will make it much less prevalent and industrialized
most immigrants come to work and plan on going home, it was more than a decade before my parent’s realized they didn’t want to go back, and it was near run a few times
Immigrants (other than a tiny fraction of a sliver) want to make a better life for themselves
if they stay it is to make America their home and a better place for their children
make it easier to come and go and you will find the flow goes both ways
population growth drives economic growth, US natural pop. growth is nearing zero even with lots of youngish immigrant, more would be better for us not worse

I’m not sure why a law implementing the above takes more than five to ten pages, the regulation details will be much longer that’s what bureaucracies are for, but with a simple law comes simple administration. In general a WVisa holder should be treated as a US citizen get rid of layers of special rules make it easy to comply, make it worth complying. But over all – KISS – keep it small and simple…

What Me Worry? The Economist puts the problem with NSA, FISA, etc in a clear light

Posted on July 13, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

The Secret police—the NSA, the CIA, et al—are by their very nature antithetical to those ideals, because openness and transparency about rules are essential to democratic public justification, and therefore to the legitimacy of state power. What must be secret cannot be fully democratic. One may well worry whether we can afford such a demanding standard of legitimate government in such a dangerous world. Perhaps we cannot. Perhaps it is foolish to be too good. But in that case we need to be clear-headed about it, and understand that secret police are a straightforwardly anti-democratic concession we make to a dangerous world. And we ought to accept that any strengthening of the powers of the secret police—especially the secret strengthening of the powers of the secret police—is a further blow to democracy and the legitimacy of our laws. The NSA’s digital dragnet is a silent coup. The filibuster is rain on election day.

Is it zeitgeist? Hadn’t seen this when I ranted a bit on MBA’s

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Read more at : MeganMcardle.com: Is the MBA Going Away? 9July 2013

… it is the graduate schools that the collapse has begun. That doesn’t mean that graduate education will go away (after all, neither tulip bulbs nor stock exchanges went away when those bubbles collapsed); rather, the market will get dramatically smaller, with the shakiest programs going bust, others retrenching, and the top ones continuing to draw more students than they can enroll. If it spreads to college, we should expect to see the same pattern: top tier schools surviving and even thriving, while lesser ranked schools pitched into financial crises by declining enrollment.

Also: Don’t Go to Business School! by Megan McArdle at The Daily Beast Jan 9, 2013 10:36 AM

Unless you can get into a top program, professional school may cause more problems than it solves

ViaMeadia // The Miracles Wrought by Price Transparency

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

A surgery center in Oklahoma has started a bidding war by offering drastically lower prices than other providers and posting them online. The center describes itself as “free-market loving”—an unorthodox but welcome branding for a health care provider. The evidence of its success, however, is eye-popping. Where some hospitals charge more than $16,000 for a breast biopsy, Oklahoma Surgery Center charges $3, 500, according to a local Oklahoma news station. And that’s just one of many impressive examples.

Read more at: IndyStar: Abdul: Why our health-care system needs a single-payer – you

The recent move by the Obama administration to delay implementation of the employer mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act means this is the perfect time to have a grown-up discussion about how we deliver health care in this country. As a free market-conservative, social-libertarian political pundit, I am convinced more than ever that it is time in this country for a single-payer health care system.

Get rid of employer ‘health insurance’ go with health savings plans and catastrophic medical insurance AND PUBLISHED PRICING then we at least know what the real price is and stop paying for so many empty suites…

On a very related note, at least in my mind: There is a great debate about the collapse of the demand for lawyers and the issues with ‘Higher Ed’ payoff vs price in general outside of core STEM. But as a practicing engineer, business development type I have to tell you that one of the most pernicious problems in today’s world is an over supply of pure play MBA’s, business school PhD’s, Operations consultants, etc, etc, et-bloody-cettera. I’m not saying that the tech types know all, do all, but when they are ignored the company ( practice, clinic,….. ) in which they work becomes a zombie…and as we all know zombies can win in the short run, even proliferate, but in the end they either rot out or pull down the society (economy) around them.

Rudimentary Liver from Stem Cell, 3D Printed Ear and 3D Printed micro Battery ? What does the future hold

Posted on July 6, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Theres a huge amount of research going on in fields that don’t at first appear to have much to do with each other that could in the next few years to few decades lead to a world where the possibility of building new organs either as replacements or upgrades is possible, even common.

Those worried about the future of employment in America—for themselves or for the country as a whole—should look to this data. As of now, many of the jobs of the future are going to be health care jobs, and that will only become more true if Obamacare stands and the pool of insured patients expands dramatically. To understand what the jobs of the future will be (or to land one), go where the money is: services, and especially, according to this data, health services.
For those unlikely to take up health jobs, this graph might seem discouraging. After all, more doctors and health workers points to more health care costs, in a system that’s already vastly too expensive. As the Atlantic points out on its piece on the graph, “There are a couple stories that branch off from this graph. One is the unchecked growth in health care prices over the last few decades, which has made the medical industry the one truly recession-proof job engine of the economy.”
But there’s also a case of optimism here. The Atlantic notes that the two kinds of health care jobs most likely to grow in coming decades are personal health aides and home health workers. This is good news even on its own; achieving a better balance between hospital care and home care is an important task for health care reformers. Moreover, it means there’s a lot of room for entrepreneurial individualse to come up with new and creative ways to cater to a growing demand for personalized health care.

The American Interest // Egypt, we have no idea…

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

The American Interest /July 1, 2013 / Adam Garfinkle / Abdel Fattah al-Sisi—Memorize That Name
Read more at: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/garfinkle/2013/07/01/note-to-clueless-msm-types-abdel-fattah-al-sisi-memorize-that-name/#sthash.aMzX3wZw.dpuf
Lots of deep insight for those who want it, along with a bit of ‘I told yo so.’

This was an interesting passage and a key to why this whole region is so utterly foreign to many of us who wish for better things:

Years ago a clever and truth-telling fellow named David Lamb devised what he called the IBM syndrome to describe political culture in Egypt and the Arab world. The “I” stands for “inshallah“, may God will it: in other words, fatalism. The “B” stands for “bokr“—tomorrow morning, or just tomorrow: suggestive of an extremely elastic, pre-modern perception of time, vaguely akin to some uses of the Spanish word mañana. The “M” stands for “malesh“, which is untranslatable, but which kind of means “whatever”, “never mind” or “fagetaboutit”: not my job, someone else will take care of it, or not, who cares? What difference does it make?

It is also a bit frightening to realize that there are examples of this sort of mindset in ‘the west’ and that it’s a plague…