GOOG: Insider Information with Sizzle

Robert Epstein, a credentialed psychologist, is publishing research about the potential threat of Google manipulating elections.WaPo's What If Google Were Evil?

This story line is old hat:  every time a high growth company dominates a market segment with a compelling product, we are faced with market concentration issues:  Standard Oil, AT&T,  IBM, and Microsoft. 

Despite Epstein’s puerile motives in going after Google, he raises a plausible question.  Happily, there are sensible answers that preclude the need for regulation. 

It is sensible with rapid technodrift to be alert to vulnerabilities and to get that potential vulnerability into public awareness.  I think Obama’s recent statement about the need for discourse on standards for cyber security for public companies is a rational example of being alert but not reactive. 

Google publishes an annual video slideshow highlighting the biggest search queries of the year.  They offer public service information exchange in times of local crisis.  The point is that their power has much less to do with manipulating elections than it does with access to real time unfiltered market sentiments and wants.  The macro knowledge that they and their e-commerce brethren have is potently able to forecast attractive market opportunities.  It represents a paradox:  aggregated anonymous personal information is essentially “freely available” inside information of the finest kind. 

In five years, it will be interesting  to see Google’s patrimony in spin-offs and alumni enterprises.  

Same sex unbundling

You have likely seen the theme of “unbundling” in the last couple of years.  News delivery is unbundled from sheets of paper, education is unbundled from classrooms, and cinematic storytelling is unbundled from gathering places like theaters.   The same-sex marriage debate has created yet another unbundling, I think.  The previous bundle was a civil, religious, and social institution called “marriage.”  The driving public forced the hand of highway administrators in reinstating the 70 miles-per-hour speed limit on interstate roads.  Similarly, the general public’s de facto choices have forced the hand of jurists to unbundle marriage into its constituent parts:  the civil piece for property and custody rights, the religious piece for sacred promises, and the social piece for celebrating household formation. 

This is a watershed moment for the United States.  We are on the verge of acknowledging the gray instead of the straight jacket of the black-and-white.  The Founders were neither saints nor villains.  They had good ideas that were meaningful in their day and were formed by the circumstances of their day.  One of those ideas was accountability to a higher authority than self in making profound choices like forming a government.  Religious ideals were an important part of our headwaters.

The gray that we confront is the means by which we define the difference in our internal moral compass (religion, if any,) and our collective social contract (the judicial system.)  Our social contract is based on individual liberty to the extent that it does not harm the greater good.  The preamble to Robert’s Rules of Order justifies  parliamentary procedure:  for a minority to live according to the rules of the majority, the majority must show respect for the minority’s views.  With abortion, pornography, alcoholic beverages, and flag-burning, we have demonstrated that we can abide peacefully amidst the dichotomy of law and religion.  As a society interested in promoting national self-determination for other democracies, we openly long for them to achieve secular governments.  This is our moment to live by this standard in our own behavior. 

With lifetime power vested with the Supreme Court, it is surprising when the pundits speculate that the Court would like to find a way to dispense with Prop 8 and DOMA without making a sweeping declaration of rights.  Many are saying that the Court would like to remand based on proponents’ lack of legal standing, theorizing that this would buy time for public sentiment to evolve sufficiently to harmonize with a broad rights declaration.  One wonders about the numbers game – presumably, the Court will divide ideologically with four each on the right and left, leaving Justice Kennedy as the fence sitter.  If he is the only fence sitter, and he is angling for remand as a way to buy time, I can imagine the torment in his soul.  Not wanting to play the role of god in adjudicating a dispute over a radical divide, he seeks the company of his fellow man to gather around him and signal readiness to move forward.   

Little wonder that he seeks company – the only certainty surrounding this bridge to the future is that we will not be able to anticipate every consequence.  At times like this, to enable action, we seek the comfort of our culture: 

 With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

David Jones: Who Is Really Shaking a Fist at God?

Op-Ed, May 13, 2012, Charlotte Observer

Like David Jones, I am eager for a new social paradigm between gay and straight people.  Unlike him, I am not an attorney.  “Discredit the witness” is a tactic so prevalent in political discourse that it has become repugnant. 

This tactic is part of a strategy to gain emotional influence over the listening audience.  Like most advertising that attempts to persuade, the ability to press the listener’s emotional buttons is the holy grail of public communication.  Our culture believes that, in order to persuade another to take action or change an opinion, the listener needs to be wrapped in a warm blanket of emotional congruence with the speaker’s aims.  

This is emotional manipulation, pure and simple.  I reject it as a basis for decision-making, yet its predominant role in politics, fundraising, and consumer advertising is growing.  Are we saying that the modern light saber of leadership and influence is the ability to manipulate?  Let’s call the bluff:  if this is really what we value as a society, then let’s stop spending so much money teaching our children to think.  If not, proceed immediately to reconcile beliefs and behavior. 

Go ahead,  be the voice in the wilderness that encourages others to make decisions and sell ideas based on the merits.  I hear that emotional manipulation is how street gangs recruit tweens to join up.  Please, please, leaders in the US, stop teaching our young people that manipulation is the path to power.

People say that the volatility in the stock market after the mortgage debacle had everything to do with investors not trusting either the government or corporations to tell the truth. 

There it is:  if people trust you, manipulation is not necessary.

Get an education appraisal before you mortgage your future

The article in today's Charlotte Observer (link here: Even after bankruptcy, trapped by student debt) about the 2005 law that prohibits borrowers from wiping out student loans in bankruptcy prompted this idea. 

1.  Colleges give every degree a dollar value. This would equal the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) database average earnings for someone with that degree, multiplied by seven.  This amount is a proxy for the student’s projected earnings over the next seven years.

2.  The value of a degree is online at the university’s website with their admissions information about the majors and degrees they offer.

3.  If the value of a degree is overstated and the university cannot substantiate their claims with BLS data, the student has a cause of action against the school.

4.  If a lender extends student loan credit (cumulatively) for an amount exceeding 50% of the value of the degree, then the debt in excess of the 50% ceiling can be discharged in bankruptcy.

Say tuition at Queens totals $120 thousand for four years.  Say new elementary education teachers earn $28 thousand per year for seven years, totaling $196 thousand.  Half of that is $98 thousand, so the maximum student loan would be $98 thousand.  If a lender grants credit in excess of the $98 thousand, say $120 less $98 being $22 thousand, the $22 thousand could be discharged in bankruptcy, and the rest could not. 

This method places the “caveat emptor” burden on each party to the credit transaction.  It is similar to getting an appraisal on a house in support of a mortgage loan. 

Willing Suspension of Belief . . . Until January

Alas, we are on the front end of a presidential election year, and are confronted by an array of dismal choices for the office.

Obama is the nicest Socialist ever elevated to the Office, but likeable though he may be, I remember top marginal tax rates of 70%.  I have not heard anything definitive from Mrs. Obama about the nature of "fair share."  If she would be willing to cap it somewhere, say 50%, I would be calmer about the looming centrally planned economy. 

The talking heads in last night's Republican debates are tragically disconnected from any semblance of Presidential timbre.

Gack . . . this is all too gloomy.  AND, it is time for Christmas cheer because my sons will soon be home from school for the holidays.  While Coleridge suggested willing suspension of disbelief, that tonic is not restorative for me, because I believe only too much in our present political quagmire.  With a modest tweak, it can evolve to willing suspension of belief, and permit, just for a moment, an optimistic, cheerful outlook to last for the duration of my sons' time at home.  When they head back to school, I will dutifully return to hand wringing and weighing the lesser of the evils.

To apply this suspension-of-belief tonic, , one only needs to draw up a list of one's heartfelt political desires that will be disregarded in the months leading up to the November election.  After creating the list, proofread it and streamline it as if you were going to publish it.  Then, share the list with someone possessed of respectable political judgment.  The moment you hit the "send" button, you will feel the serenity wash over your person as if you had just been acquitted of a crime.  In truth, the tonic lasts for two short weeks, and that is probably beneficial.  (Perish the thought of joining the masses in the consoling opiate of not rocking the boat.)  Herewith, my list.

ESTEOPY's TEN-STEP TONIC ACTIVATION LIST

 WILLING SUSPENSION OF BELIEF

1. Term limits for executive, legislative, and judicial branches of state and federal government.

2. Campaign finance reform:

                    100% of elections will be publicly financed

                     only individual (natural person) contributions are legal with a $100 maximum

                     PACs are only allowed for single issues, not for candidates

                     No soft dollar contributions

                     Candidates cannot donate their own funds to other candidates

                     Television advertising is prohibited

                     mandatory online disclosure of campaign contributions and campaign
                               financial statements by national, state, and local elected officials

3. Establish a voter ID system based on a single fingerprint captured by poll judge and with the ballot

4.  Deconsolidate industries: banking, energy, oil & gas (remove TBTF risk)

5.  Derivative contracts must be standardized, disclosed, and exchange-traded

6.  Any securities trading firm

          may not accept federally-insured (or the equivalent) deposits, and

         must be constituted as a general partnership with GP capital at risk, and

         must register as such and must disclose, in the aggregate, derivative contracts, and

          may not borrow money from commercial banks that accept insured deposits

          may raise capital with commercial paper

7.  Privatize K-12 education to be modeled after our network of colleges: some public, some private.

           Recalcitrant students will attend work-study schools where they learn as if an apprentice
               to an artisan, craftsman, or skilled tradesman – learning by doing, with 5 to 1
               student/teacher ratio.

           Extremely recalcitrant students will be placed on a farm to learn animal husbandry, farming
              and organic gardening.

            Drop out age is increased to 18.

            As of age 13, truancy can lead to loss of civil liberties.

8.  Break up the federal government.

         All functions shall be returned to the states except for a skeleton crew allowed for Departments of State, Defense, Elections, and Currency Regulation.

          The federal government shall be financed by an assessment on the States, allocated proportionately based on tax revenue and population.

            The assessment rate can only be changed by a vote of all the people during a national election.

            The aggregate assessment must rise and fall based on underlying economic conditions and population.

            The assessment is only for annual operating expenses and does not include social engineering, income redistribution, or economic incentive monies.

             Wars may only be financed with the sale of savings bonds for which an individual state is the obligor, not the federal government.

               Transfer all US Treasury debt to the states based on proportional ratios of state GDP, population, and number of state-dependent citizens. Each state becomes the debtor to the lender (China, Japan, etc)



             This has the effect of

                     subjecting spending to a balanced budget constitutional provision at the state level.

                     eliminating earmark spending,


                     eliminating the Internal Revenue Code

                     letting each state mediate class conflict rather than the whole nation at one time, and

                     letting each state decide how and what to tax (capital gains, carbon emissions, water)
           
9.  Eliminate marriage as a civil construct. Make all matrimonies a civil union in the eyes of the government and judicial system. Relegate the idea of “marriage” to religious organizations. Require enforceable pre-nuptial agreements for all civil unions.

10.  Establish mandatory DNA paternity identification for every child born in the USA (except IVF).



Video violence: devil or angel?

The Supreme Court justices must have a copy of the Constitution without the Preamble. My copy includes “insure Tranquility, and . . . promote the general Welfare.” I cannot reconcile this with inuring children to violence. Last week, my friend told me that the most dangerous response call for police is a domestic dispute. Maybe we could ask a cop to double check whether the version used by the Justices included the Preamble.


By influence peddling, I lost faith in Congress. By WMD lies, I lost faith in the Presidency. By the CT eminent domain decision and this one on violent videos for kids, I have lost faith in the Judiciary. When you bludgeon your citizens into loss of faith in government, soon after it becomes “every man for himself.” Our last shred of cohesion becomes lack of a better alternative. Oust these Tyrants living inside the Beltway.

Wasilla contemptitis?

Leonard Pitts: Don't Know Much About History?


The antipathy for Sarah Palin is a fine lens into motives of pundits and power brokers. My feeling about Mrs. Palin is that she will be like a Ross Perot – will give voice to a certain constituency, and then move offstage. Would I vote for her? Sadly, it has been a long time since I had the luxury of voting for a candidate. Usually, I have had to decide whom to vote against. However, it is fascinating to watch and listen as her fanatical enemies yank one chain after another to get anti-Palin propaganda in the news.


Her intelligence: Apparently she attended a couple of colleges and bolted together a college degree. Alas, these schools do not impress the east coast elite. Nor are these elite pleased with her choices of news outlets.

Her malapropisms: The elite will not tolerate her factual goofs or naïveté on certain policy issues. Odd how newspapers are respected for their “Clarifications and Corrections” columns, but it is their sole privilege to elucidate, rectify, retract, or explain why an error was made.

Her faith and family values: The conspiracy theories and Vanity Fair spreads have been guilty pleasures for her enemies. All of these have been calculated to discredit her as a slick marketing package. Dis is reeelly funny. Are not the pages of Vanity Fair and the ad slots of CNN replete with slick marketing packages? What’s not to like about a slick marketing package if it is your bread and butter?



It is beyond comprehension why all these commentators give a hoot about her. Why do they go to the trouble to elevate her into national focus as if she were a contender, and not the pretender they so confidently proclaim?

As an olive branch to Palin haters, let’s amend the Constitution, (Article Two, Section One):

a. No Person except graduates of exclusive colleges shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the average IQ or GPA of journalists, and been fourteen Years a public servant approved by the media within the United States.

b. The Media may determine the acceptable faith practices for Candidates, and the practices shall be the same throughout the United States.

c. Before entering upon the Execution of such Office, the President-elect will take the following Oath:--"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President, and will defend the Constitution, except that citizens persevering in support for candidates with inadequate intelligence, education, secularism, or newsfeeds, shall be denied 14th Amendment rights.”