Talent Grab - New Yorker

Why do we pay our stars so much money?

Malcolm Gladwell

11 October 2010

Alan Fiske - UCLA Anthropologist - Four ways we interact with one another.

1. Communal Sharing - Group of roommates that share everything
2. Equality Matching - If I drive your kid to school, you drive mine to school.
3. Market Pricing - terms of exchange are open to negotiations or subject to supply and demand.
4. Authority Ranking - Hierarchical system in which superiors appropriate what they wish.

Marvin Miller takes over players union in 1966

Reserve clause - club owned the rights to a player forever and the player has no choice in where they play---Authority ranking. Players didn't see themselves as exploited.

Mid 1970s - Equity managers Teddy Forstmann and Henry Kravis pioneered the charing of "two and twenty" for managing their clients' money. - 2% of asset management and 20% of profits--these two guys placed themselves on the same level as their investors.

George Lucas owns the rights to all Star Wars sequels so he didn't have to work for the studio.

Marvin Miller brought trade unionization to the world of Talent--to a class with great social and economic resources and who couldn't be easily replaced.

Was Talent now just another new authority structure?

Pay is not determined vertically--according to the characteristics of an organization that an executive works for but rather horizontally---through the characteristics of the peers. This is not a market system.

The problem with the authority system is that it is based on arrogance--the assumption that the world is ordered according to Capital, but now Talent tries to get whatever it can extort.

The Benjamin Button Election - New York Magazine

Rage, powerlessness, magical thinking--why is how we think about politics increasingly mirroring the mindset of a small child? - Jennifer Senior

8 Novmeber 2010

• Progressives who pinned high hopes on Obama to marshal the government are now devastated to discover that he is far from perfect. The decisive figure who radiated adult authority couldn't deliver.
• This magical thinking belonged to the Tea Party in 2010 and their solution is to destroy the existing government.

We are thinking in fanciful, binary choices.

The candidates ran grass roots campaigns that made participants feel like they were empowered to enact those dreams whether they were about electing a superhero or destroying one.

Acts of rebellion in childhood comes from a sense that they are in total control and a sense that they aren't. The current situation makes everyone feel disempowered. We're hard wired not to think clearly when we are scared.

The Narcissism Epidemic - Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell

• Argues that we are much more narcissistic today than in the 70s, for example.
• Exploding number of vehicles our culture provides to promote feelings of entitlement and self-regard.
• Kardashians are promoted as much or more than Meryl Streep.
• Success is disentangled from talent and suggests that we are all potential celebrities.
• A plethora of personal broadcasting systems like Twitter and Facebook which leads us to believe that whatever we have to say has value.
• The Internet becomes less of a portal into other worlds as it is a mirror of our own.

We feel that we are up against lobbyists and big business.

• When people become more powerless, they become more distrustful of those that have power so they want systems that protect them against someone else---and that paradoxically disempowers them even more.

Voters also want identification with their candidates.

• Christine O'Donnell is exactly what you get when you have a culture that promotes self admiration, encouraging everyone to think as a giant.
• Passion and a few principles is all you need now to run for office.
• Not experience, sound judgement, intellect, humanity, or leadership skills.
• It is a misguided notion that desire equates to competence.

The successful modern campaign best appreciates a voter's sense of self-importance and vulnerability.

• Obama's campaign made supporters feel as if they were part of an important movement through tweets, emails, and Yes, We Can slogans.
• This has yet to translate into passionate interest in every day governing.

Mario Cuomo - We campaign in poetry, but govern in prose.

"We are the ones we have been waiting for" is kind of a less challenging quote than "Ask not what your country can do for you, but for what you can do for your country". It's a way of saying that there are limits that one guy can achieve, so help out.

Obama was supposed to offer the same promises of a third party--an intellectual and generational break from how business was done----which is what the tea party is promising now.

We expect quick fixes to the economy without sacrifices and if this isn't possible, we don't want to know about it.

A Special Report on Gambling-Economist Briefing

10 July 2010

Shuffle Up and Deal

• Gambling's widespread appeal comes as much from the hope of imposing order on the fundamental randomness of the world as from the expectation of economic gain.
• Blaming a bad result on an offended spirit or a good result on divine favor is more comforting than accepting the cold indifference of probability.

The Risk Instinct

• W.I. Thomas--early 20th Century sociologist; Taste for risk is essential to human development; Gambling instinct born in all humans.
• Similar to faith in that both express a need for reassurance, order and salvation.
• Alec Roy, a psychiatrist, found that chronic gamblers had a low level of norepinephrine and people gambled for the thrill of action.

At War with Luck

• More experienced player feel that poker is not about luck.
• A 2009 study analyzed 103 million hands of Texas Hold Em played at pokerstars.com and found that over 75% of them were decided before a showdown--indicating that outcomes were determined by people's betting decisions prior to cards being dealt.
• Similarities to chess in that chess players focus on finding the right moves, rather than having fun or stroking ego.

Cutting off the Arms-Slot Machines

• Slots keep 5% of your money.
• Over time, the amount the machine pays back to the customer will approach its average rate, but at least in regulated markets, each spin is independent of the previous one.
• Important branding for slot machines---Wheel of Fortune is the most popular one.

When the Chips are Down

Las Vegas-In 2009, 13% of visitors said gambling was first priority

The Dragon's Gambling Den

• Chinese Macau's casino rejects hub and spoke casino design that forces guests to pass through the gaming floor on their way in or out. Separate entrance to restaurants and rooms. This could be a benefit to Chinese officials who may not be photographed gambling.
• Macau is the world's biggest gambling market.
• Not as much interest in poker or blackjack---more interest in bacarat.
• Mainlanders need a visa to go to Macau---but there are still enough visitors to go.

Come, All ye Gullible - Lotteries

• American lotteries generated 17 billion in revenue.
• One in 176million to win Mega Millions; 1 in 750,000 to get struck by lighting.
• Poorer people spend a higher percentage of their income on the lottery than wealthier, so it's not as effective if looked at it from a tax perspective.
• One in Five Americans think a lottery ticket is a sound retirement plan.
• Much of lottery ticket purchase comes from social security, unemployment, and disability benefits.

Sure Thing

• Possibly $380 billion spent on illegal betting.
• Crime and pathological gambling happen near legal casinos. Problem gamblers tend to be unemployed and more likely to commit crimes.
• Gambling coalitions argue that state sponsored gambling like lotteries are anti-democracy in that they trick people into thinking they will be rich but are really just getting taxed.
• Customers are at risk today, not from betting on line, but from betting through unregulated sites located in foreign jurisdictions which leave customers no recourse when cheated---Properly overseen and regulated, online gambling can become as safe as e-commerce.
• Ensuring people aren't cheated requires regulation, rigorous oversight and a commitment to an open and competitive market.

The Volcker Rule - New Yorker

Obama's economic adviser and his battles over the financial-reform bill.

John Cassidy 26 July 2010

• Paul Volcker - former chairman of the Federal reserve
• Volcker Rule - barred banks from speculating in the market, a practice known as proprietary trading, and from operating and investing in hedge funds and private equity funds.
• Volcker Rule restores the legal divide between commercial banking (issuance of credit to households and firms) and investment banking (issuing and trading securities).
• Volcker believes that commercial banks like Citigroup and Wells Fargo are worth of receiving federal assistance and even taxpayer bailouts. In return for this protection, they refrain from risky activities like proprietary trading and hedge funds.
• Actual bill that was passed allowed banks to increase their investment in risky investments up to 40%. Volcker is a little disappointed by this concession.
• Keys to reducing risk

1. Raise the amount of cash that banks are required to hold helps them survive when their risky investments fail.
2. Volcker wanted to restrict banks' risky speculative activity.
3. Break up big banks so that no financial firms are so large and connected to others that their failure means systemic catastrophe.

• The Dodd-Frank legislation contains elements of 1 and 2. If another crisis ensues, stricken firms would be taken over and wound down instead of rescued.
• With Lehman and AIG, they reached a certain size where they were to big to be allowed to fail. With all of them regulated in the same manner, imposing capital requirements would be a better way to reduce risk taking than prohibiting proprietary trading - Githner and Summers held this view.

• If "too big to fail" enters into the equation, who are we going to protect? The banks. What is a bank? The Volcker Rule defines a bank by saying it doesn't invest in speculative activity.

Economist Briefing : China's Labor Market

The Next China - 31 July 2010

• The strikes, stoppages, and suicides that have afflicted foreign factories on China's coast in recent months have shaken the image of China's workers as docile, diligent, and cheap.

• According to UNC-TAD, foreigners have invested almost 500 billion in China's capital stock. Their affiliates employ almost 16 million people. For a decade, this formula has dominated global manufacturing growth producing cheaper goods from China.

• As pay goes up, China's domestic market will become more lucrative.

• The worker's new assertiveness may reflect a labor law that gave more rights to the worker in January 2008. The strikers at Honda were better educated than typical migrant workers and were trained together which might have given them the glue to socially organize.

• China has the world's largest manufacturing work force of 112 million and generally cost about 2.7% of their American counterpart.

• Some think that China has exhausted its supply of surplus labor. Others think that the labor market may be segmented so that a surplus of labor on the countryside can coexist with a shortage on the coast. China's land policy where villagers lose their land if they don't tend to them may have an affect on unwillingness for people to leave to work in the factories.

• As China's villagers grow older, coastal factories will have to offer higher wages to tempt migration.

• China's sea coast ports are impressive, but it still lacks national trucking services which leaves them at the mercy of local provinces.

• The rise of inland provinces for industry will push labor demand higher, even as China's baby bust reduces supply. As a result, wages will rise at the expense of profits.

• China cannot rescue the world economy on its own. Its consumers spend only 13% of American GDP. And only some of the stuff it buys come from rich nations. But, some say if Chinese consumption rose by 20% and 25 billion were spent on US goods, it might create more than 200,000 American jobs.

Annals of Innovation - Small Change

Why the revolution will not be tweeted.

Malcolm Gladwell - 04 October 2010

During the elections in Iran, most of the people tweeting were almost all from the West.

Nobody seemed to notice or care that most people were tweeting in English instead Farsi.

Revolutions built around Strong Ties

• Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964 - registered black voters in the South, raise awareness.
• People that kept with it had a strong personal connection to the movement, so they knew people directly involved.
• The sit-ins at Woolworths worked because all the people sitting there knew each other, and in a way, nobody wanted to lose face.

Revolutions built around Weak Ties

• Activisms associated with social medias are all weak.
• Effective at increasing participation by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires.
• Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.

Civil rights movement was a military precision style campaign.

• Plans were made - Training sessions were held.
• The Greensboro 4 were all a part of this network and belonged to the NAACP.
• Civil rights movement was high risk and hierarchical.
• Non-violent confrontations are high risk strategies because if even one person deviates from the script and responds violently, the moral legitimacy of the tactic is compromised.

Facebook can build non-hierarchical networks.

• It's difficult to reach consensus and define goals without centralized leadership.
• It's a strategy that shifts from strategic and disciplined activity towards those which promote resiliency and adaptability.
• It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that activity to have any impact.

India's Surprising Economic Miracle

Economist - 02 October 2010

Two reasons why India will start to out pace China.

1) Demography

China's workforce will start aging and won't be replaced as fast because of their

one child policy.

India is younger and mostly English speaking.

2) India's democracy

Ideas flow freely since it lacks China's secrecy and censorship.

China's rampant piracy should encourage most companies to invest in India.

Economic reforms from the 90's have unleashed commercial potential

lower taxes and easier to start business.

India's growth will start to out pace China in 3-5 years.

The Empty Chamber - The New Yorker

Just How Broken is the Senate

George Packer - 09 August 2010

Max Baucus, of Montana, the manager of the bill for the Democrats, rose and said, This is the first time in recent memory that a reconciliation bill has all the amendments on one side only. These are clearly amendments designed to kill the reconciliation and, therefore, kill health care reform.

The Republican goal during the vote was to embarrass the Democrats wile appearing to suggest useful changes; the Democratic goal was to prevent any changes to the bill so it wouldn't have to return to the House.

History of the Senate

1. Post Civil War- Senate was captured by wealthy and sectional interests--ending the more high minded debate of Webster, Clay,etc. The Senate was controlled by an alliance of Souther racists and Republican shills and served as the chief obstruction of the federal government.
2. 1958- New class of liberal democrats like Muskie, Eugene McCarthy, and Hart began to produce reforms.
3. 60s-70s - Southern conservative control was broken by a coalition of left of center Democrats; Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 and Medicare passed in 1965. Every major initiative--voting rights, open housing, environmental enjoyed bipartisan support.
4. 1978-Senate's modern decline with the election of a new wave of anti-government conservatives that weren't there to get along with Democrats. 1981 was the arrival of Dan Quayle and those that thought and looked like him.
5. 1979-C-Span leads to more posturing by Senators being on TV.
6. Democrat Metzenbaum and Republican Jesse Helms used the Senate rules for tying up business for ideological reasons. Number of filibusters shot up in the 80s.
7. 2004 - Older senate members were perturbed when Rep Majority leader, Frist, went to South Dakota to campaign against Daschele, the minority leader.
8. Clinton vs Gingrich
9. Bush years--Republican minority did not check executive power.

After the Republicans lost the majority in 2006, filibusters became the norm; there were 112 cloture votes in 2007.

Seventy-six nominees for judges and executive posts have been approved by committees but because of blocks, haven't come up for votes so courtrooms and jobs remain unfilled.

The deepest source of the Senate's problems is not rules and precedents, but people who have created a culture where lofty thoughts and generous impulses have no place.

Briefing : The Future of the Internet

A Virtual Counter Revolution - Economist Briefing - 04 September 2010

The internet has been a great unifier of people, companies, and online networks. Powerful forces are threatening to balkanise it.

1. Governments are reasserting their sovereignty. Countries have demanded that law enforcement have access to emails sent from smart phones.
2. Big IT companies are building their own digital territories where they set the rules and control or limit connections to other parts of the internet.
3. Network owners would like to treat different types of traffic differently, in effect creating faster and slower lanes on the internet.

Devotees of a unified cyberspace are worried that the online world will soon start looking as it did before the internet took over: a collection of proprietary islands reminiscent of AOL and Compuserve.

Net Neutrality - every packet of data, regardless of content is equal, and should be treated the same way and every effort should be made to forward it.

1. If operators were allowed to charge for better service, then those not willing to pay would be forced to crawl in the slow lane. Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would undermine the principles that have made the internet such a success.
2. Opponents say that this could discourage operators from investing to differentiate their services. And given the rapid growth in file-sharing and video, operators may have good reason the manage data flows, lest other traffic be crowded out.

America has a relative lack of competition in broadband service. In Europe and Japan, open access rules requires network operators to lease parts of their network to other firms on a wholesale basis, thus boosting competition. Countries with such rules enjoy faster, cheaper broadband service than America because the barrier to entry for new entrants is much lower. And if any company starts limiting what can be done, they will just defect.

American operators have insisted that open access requirements would destroy their incentive to build new and faster networks since they would have to share them. As a result, America has a small number of powerful network operators, prompting the concern that they will abuse power unless compelled by a net neutrality law to treat all traffic equally.

Rather than trying to mandate fairness, it makes more sense to deal with the underlying problem of lack of competition.

Prodigal Son - New Yorker

Is the wayward Republican Mike Huckabee now his party's best hope?

Ariel Levy - 28 June 2010

At 15, Huckabee encountered alternative take on God. A young couple offered Bible Study and for them, Christianity was not a cultural expression, but a personal relationship with God.; Huckabee was attracted to the emphasis on love over fear.

• Evangelical essentially means people who have a belief in the authority and veracity of the Bible.
• Fundamentalism tends to but the focus on God's judgement.
• Evangelical is more about being "grace" centered--we're all sinners, we're all screwed up, and we all need help--that's why we keep Jesus.

In the Seventies, disappointed with President Carter and faced with the legalization of abortion, the visibility of the gay-rights movement and women's lib, and the dissociation of sex from marriage, the Christian right became politically galvanized.

Huckabee doesn't have the money to mount a serious bid for office and has failed to cultivate many of the people who do.

In the Right Thing, he writes: "To be truly pro-life means that we should be just as much concerned about the child who is eight years old and living under the bridge or in the back seat of a car.

According to Huckabee, a person who believes God created man has a world view that is absolutely irreconcilable with that of someone who believes man created God. And either by numbers or persuasion, one side of this polarized culture will defeat the other in setting public policy. The is the defining paradox of Huckabee: his adamant resistant to being branded a zealot paired with his insistence that faith defines character and, consequently, has an essential place in government.

Before 1967, marriage was defined in much of the US as a relationship between man and woman of the same race.

The Price of Freedom

A Special Report on South Africa

05 June 2010

The Price of Freedom

Since embracing full democracy 16 years ago, South Africa has made huge strides. But, says Diana Geddes, not everything has changed for the better.

• Most blacks still live in shoddy shacks with poor sanitation in crime ridden townships.
• Bad schools and hospitals.
• Most blacks don't own a car and public transport is bad.
• South Africa - 24th biggest economy, but 129 of 182 on the UN's Human Development Index.
• Contains 90% of world's known platinum, 70% of chrome, 40% of cold, yet 43% of its populations lives on less than $2 a day.
• On the bright side, its cut its murder rate in half, eradicated severe malnutrition among kids, increased enrollment in schools, provided welfare to 15million, and set up the world's biggest AIDs program.

Your Friendly Monolith

The ANC remains powerful

• Everyone loved Nelson Mandela, whites as well as blacks, for his calm dignity and generous spirit of reconciliation. But he was more of an idealized figurehead than a leader and chose to go after just one five year term.

Jobless Growth

The economy is doing nicely--but at least one person out of three is out of work.

The reasons why the region's leading economy, so rich in mineral resources, is failing to keep up with other emerging markets such as India and China:

• 1) South Africa is relatively small without a huge domestic customer base.
• 2) South Africa has a low rate of saving and investing, partly because of political uncertainties.
• 3) Long and inadequate educations system resulting in shortage of skilled manpower.
• 4) Strong and volatile currency, which deters investors and makes its exports less competitive.
• 5) Its infrastructure suffers from severe power shortages.

A New Kind of Inequality

Black economic empowerment has had unintended consequences.

• ANC introduced the black economic empowerment (BEE)
• Instead of benefiting the masses, it ended up benefiting a few individuals.
• BEE came from white business leaders, mostly as an attempt to ward off nationalization.
• It ended up creating a wealthy black class of unproductive crony capitalists.
• 1913 Land Act-blacks not allowed to own land.
• 1994--87% of land owned by whites.
• The new black majority planned to redistribute 30% of white owned land to poor blacks, but just 6% has been handed over. Many of the new owners don't have the skills to run large farms, so some of the land remains fallow.
• Currently, there is talk of having white owners transfer 40% of their land to black shareholders, and possibly capping the amount of land that an individual can own.

Hold your nose

The smell of corruption

• The removal of apartheid-era old guard was understandable, but had disastrous consequences.
• Most qualified engineers, financial officers, doctors, nurses, teachers, scientists were in short supply.
• The terrible shortage of human capital is now the single most important reason for questioning South Africa's ability to move forward - Azar Jammine (head of consultancy Econometrix)

The great scourges

A black middle class is emerging, but poverty and crime blight millions of lives.

• The World Competitiveness Survey rates South Africa worst out of 133 countries for crime--50 murders, 100 rapes, 330 armed robberies, and 550 violent assaults a day.
• Why is South Africa so violent?

1. Legacy of apartheid
2. High unemployment
3. absence of a father in 66% of black households.
4. Alcohol and drug abuse

Last in class

Education needs to take a giant leap

• Spending per pupil is now the same for black and white, yet black children generally continue to fare worse then whites because most of them attend inferior schools.
• Public education was desegregated in 1994---most former black schools remain mostly black because they are in deprived black areas, whereas the former white schools have a good mix of black and white---Catering to just 10% of all pupils, these schools are better endowed, better run, and more disciplined.

Don't get Ill

Or if you do, go private

• Shortage of staff as doctors and nurses have left the country because of bad pay.
• AIDS affects one in eight South Africans

Still Everything to play for

The case for optimism--and the many caveats

• Vast numbers of South Africans live in poverty while the rich get richer
• Hundreds of thousands suffer from HIV and tuberculosis.
• Violence is high
• The economy needs skilled workers, yet millions remain unemployed.
• University dumb down courses to boost pass rates.
• The government seeks to woo foreign investors, but as de Tocqueville noted, revolutions tend to start with rising expectations, not when conditions are at their worst.

War by Other Means - New Yorker

Is it possible to negotiate with the Taliban?

Steve Coll - 24 May 2010

Vice Admiral Robert Harward.

Led missions to capture and kill Taliban and Al Qaeda commanders.
Now, he is overseeing the release of these people; his task force aims to reintegrate Taliban fighters into the community as part of a broader American policy of promoting Afghan political reconciliation.

Pashtuns

Ethnic group that accounts for 40% of the country's population.
Most Pashtuns aren't part of the Taliban but most Taliban are Pashtuns.

Obama and Clinton have made public declarations of talks with Taliban leaders but aren't in direct contact themselves because the Taliban haven't completely denounced Al Qaeda.

Since 2001, the US remains undecided about whether the Taliban can be reformed and unable to conclude whether Karzai's government should ultimately seek to defeat the Taliban or learn to share power with them.

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaef

Joined Taliban in 1994, was an ambassador to Pakistan and was imprisoned in Guantanamo after 2001.
After his release in 2005, the Obama administration regard him as an important intermediary with the Taliban.
In his opinion, American policy unnecessarily excluded the Taliban from political participation after September 11th and by doing so, fed into the insurgency.

Iraq - the state purged high ranking officials of Sadaam's Baath Party---policy of de-Baathification was misguided, but at least it was clear.

Afghanistan - Bush's policy was less clear--rewards were offered to capture and kill Taliban leaders.

Richard Holbrooke

peace talks in Afghanistan must be preceded by efforts to win defections from mid-level commanders.

This district by district strategy requires leadership and support from the Afghan government.

In mid-May 2010, Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Program was introduced which dedicated 160 million dollars to reconcile mid and low level Taliban fighters--an attempt to erode the Taliban from the bottom up.

In the mid 90s Karzai lived in exile among Taliban leaders when the mujahideen took power in Afghanistan.

As president, Karzai has suffered political insecurities and relies upon southern Pashtun tribes as part of his political base---since some of these tribes identify with the Taliban, Karzai needed to adopt a softer stance towards them.

Peace Step by Step - zigzagging series of negotiations between Afghan government and the Taliban, supported by the US where nobody is fearful of being arrested.

Former Taliban leaders have submitted peace plans to NATO, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. But Karzai has been unable to respond because he can't speak for Western powers.

Although, the Taliban haven't publicly renounced Al Qaeda, last September, Mullah Omar, or someone writing for him, issued a statement that described the Taliban ad an Islamic and nationalist movement which is a distinction from the international agenda of Al Qaeda.

Bagram Air Field in 2002 - two Afghan prisoners died there because of abuse by American guards and this has fueled Al Qaeda propaganda. Harward replaced it with a new facility that meets international humanitarian standards.

Obama can approach the Taliban through Pakistan who has long supported the Taliban to project influence in Afghanistan and help control its own large Pashtun population.

All the maneuvering between the US and Pakistan has created an atmosphere of mistrust and confusion in which Afghans feel a new political order might be constructed without their consent.

If the Americans stay, the Taliban will fight

If the Americans leave, the internal fight will begin.

Wall Street is from Venus; Obama is from Mars

Pschoanalyzing one of America's most Dysfunctional Relationships

John Heilemann - 31 May 2010

Good Relationships with Wall Street

• In the early days of the Obama campaign, Wall Street was more important than his grass roots fundraising.
• By election day, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan were three of the top seven institutions that funded him.
• February 2009 - Geithner's stabilization scheme wasn't meant to punish Wall Street, but to save them by pouring money and restoring confidence with them.
• A bigger question was whether to nationalize the weakest banks which were thought by many to be insolvent.
• As Paul Krugman said, there's a good case for nationalizing, but it will cost trillions and you have to guarantee everything--Obama went with Geithner's plan instead.
• By the spring, big banks had paid back almost all the TARP money they received, and the cost to taxpayers was less than the S&L crisis from the nineties.

Good Relationships with Wall Street go Bad

• After the AIG bonus announcements in March 2009, Obama summoned the banks and laid out conditions for passing the stress test, raising funds to bolster the balance sheet, and showing restraint on bonuses.
• Once the banks recovered, Obama made a speech that Wall Street must remember the debt it owes to taxpayers, but he didn't feel that Wall Street was thankful enough.
• On 60 Minutes, Obama unveiled a tax on the biggest banks that would raise 90 billion over 10 years to cover bailout losses.
• Wall Street feels like they paid back their debt and should be left alone.

Tea and Sympathy - New Yorker

Who Owns the American Revolution?

Jill Lepore - 3 May 2010

• Parliament passed the Tea Act, in May of 1773, in order to bail out the East India Company, which, with a surplus of tea and stiff competition from smugglers, was facing bankruptcy.
• Ironically, by eliminating duties on tea in England and lowering th import tax to just three pence. the Tea Act actually reduced the price of tea in the colonies.
• Originalism - the idea that the original meaning of the framers is knowable and fixed and the final word.
• The history that tea parties want to go back to is fictional.
• 10th Amendment - "The powers not delegated to the US by the Constitution, nor prohibited by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
• Tea partiers want these powers because they feel disenfranchised since they didn't vote nor do they like Obama.

For Want of a Drink

A Special Report on water

22 May 2010

For want of a Drink

• It takes twice as much water to grow a kilo of peanuts as it does a kilo soya beans; Four times as much to produce kilo beef; Five times as much to produce a glass of OJ as a cit of tea.
• Of 2.5% of unsalty water, 70% is frozen in glaciers or permafrost.
• China and India, with over 1/3 or the world's population, have less than 10% of the water
• Water is local and since its heavy, it's expensive to move.
• Surface water, like rivers and lakes, will not flow from one basin to another without artificial diversion.
• Upstream water may be useful for irrigation, but as it nears the sea, the only real uses are to sustain deltas and wetlands.
• Mexico City, Bangkok, Buenos Aires and Jakarta are all overdrawing from their aquifers.
• All humans need a minimum of two liters of water in food or drink each day--which is why some people see water as a basic right

Enough is not Enough

• The biggest cause of child death is diarrhoea.
• Without piped water, 800 million people with access to primitive plumbing, as well as open air defecators, are carriers of disease.
• Yamuna River in India - 95% of sewage that pours into this river is untreated.
• Peepco-personal single use biodegradable bag can also be sold as fertilizers.

Business begins to Stir

• Industry generates 70 times as much value from one liter of water as agriculture.
• Desalination involves boiling and distilling the water or reverse osmosis where water is forced through a membrane; both methods use a lot of energy and is expensive.
• The hope is that solar power makes desalination more affordable.

Making Farmers Matter

• Cut the use of irrigation water by 10%, and apparently you would save more than is lost in all the other evaporation.
• India draws more groundwater than anywhere else accounting for over 25% of the world's total.
• Some of this water is often salty with high natural occurrences of arsenic, fluorides, and uranium.
• Waterlogging - poorly drained soils is over irrigated which results in plants' roots being starved of oxygen, knocking some 20% of the field's productivity.
• Farmers are being brought together to calculate how much water to use, decide which crops to grow, etc.
• Bananas, rice, and cotton which need the most waters have yielded to peanuts and lentils.
• Chemical fertilizers are being replaced by compost.
• The upshot is that although incomes have not risen, most of the crops are eaten, not sold for cash, and are thus sustainable.

Trade and Conserve

• Countries with sustainable systems all use water rights that involve the allocation of supply by volume.
• Property rights can be traded to reallocate water from low-value to high-value use as they are used in the American West, Chile, and South Africa.
• Virtual water content will vary according to climate and agricultural practice.
• Virtual water is not to give precise figures, but to alert people that might be better off growing different crops or moving manufacturing to another country.

To the Last Drop

• International river basins extend across borders of 145 countries.
• Congo, Niger, Nile, Rhine, and Zambezi are shared among 9-11 countries
• Cooperative approach to water sharing--Thailand helped Laos build a dam in return for power.

A Glass Half Empty

• Governments need to share their information about river flows and water tables.
• Non-water policies also help solve water problems where good roads let farmers become commercial since they can transport foods year round.
• Scarcity of water is not reflected in price other than transport--this won't last long.
• The difficult problem lies getting higher yields from food crops without a rise in water loss through evapotranspiration.
• Genetic modification can produce drought resistant crops.
• Until some break through in desalination comes through, the best hope is a happy marriage between supply and demand comes from much greater restraint among water users.

After Stevens - New Yorker

What will the Supreme Court be like without its liberal leader?

Jeffery Tobin - 22 March 2010

September 9th, 2009 Citizen United v. Federal Election Commission

• Dealt with the video about Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primaries.
• Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold) forbids political advartisements paid by corporations in the weeks before a primary--Citizen United challenged this law saying freedom of speech was violated.
• The Court seems open to the notion that corporations had the same rights as individuals.
• January 21, 2010 - Kennedy, along with four conservatives, overturned earlier precedents and said corporations have the right to free speech like individuals and that this did not give rise to corruption.

Stevens's History

• Stevens signed up for military service the day before the Pearl Harbor attack
• Spent most of 1942 in Washington learning to analyze enemy transmissions, before being transferred to Pearl Harbor where he served until 1945
• His time in the military probably explains his 1989 position, where he dissented from the decision that protected the right to burn the American flag as a form of protest.
• If those ideas are worth fighting for--and our history demonstrates that they are--it cannot be true that the flag that uniquely symbolizes their power is not itself worthy of protection.

1948 Ahrens v. Clark

• Wartime detention of German born US residents being held on Ellis Island in 1948.
• Should these detainees be allowed to challenge their detention.
• Stevens was the clerk for the Supreme court judge William Rutledge and thought they should be allowed to challenge their detention, but were on the losing side of this case.

2004 Rasul v. Bush

Stevens wrote for a 6-3 majority that detainees did have a right to challenge their detention in American courts.

2006 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

Stevens wrote the opinion in a 5-3 majority that rejected the Bush administration plans for military tribunals at Guantanamo, on the grounds that it was a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions.

WWII was a defining experience of his life and since no one can challenge his patriotism, he was the right person to take on the Bush administration.

Stevens vs. Scalia

• Stevens believes that constitutional decision making is conducted through the interpretations and balancing act of a mix of various sources.
• Scalia - sees the role of the judge to read the text and apply it.
• In contrast, Stevens thinks that the law is more of a living thing and so he takes text and history and applies it in a way that he things serves the purpose of the framers, not necessarily their exact words.

2008 Baze v. Rees.

• Both Stevens and Scalia thought lethal injections was permissible.
• Stevens - State sanctioned killing is become more anachronistic; thought deterrence and retribution failed in practice; "I have relied on my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the.....death penalty represents the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purpose."
• Yet he felt bound to uphold lethal injections due to precedents.
• Scalia - "purer expression can not be found of the principle of rule by judicial fiat." Feels that Stevens just acts on his own whim.
• Stevens - the original intent cannot be the final answer. the world changes.