Tech Policy

Kerry Vs. Edwards

If you have not yet made up your mind about the Tuesday's election, watch this. This week with George Stephanopolous has a very good 30 minute segment where Kerry and Edwards take on George Bush and each other. The list of newspaper endorsements for Kerry keeps growing. All in all, it may be very difficult now for Edwards, but if you wanted to make sure that he emerges as a choice for veep, then your vote of Edwards may still count. I wonder which way the Dean people are going. It seems that the Dean office will want them to vote for Edwards, but I am not sure what is actually happening.

Saintly Alan Greenspan

Those who attended the lecture by Chomsky will remember his rile about St. Alan. Greenspan has been in the news this week because of the comments he made about tax cuts, social security and more.
Whiskey Bar takes a serious look at the two faces of St. Alan.

Like the comic book villain, Chairman Al presents two distinct faces to the world --- two different personalities, really. One is the career civil servant who keeps watch over the economy -- raising or lowering interest rates as needed to keep both inflation and unemployment in check -- and regulates (along with the Comptroller of the Currency and the FDIC) the U.S. banking system.

But being Fed Chairman is just Al's day job. His other role is to act as a critical behind-the-scenes player in every major economic decision made in Washington -- and some non-economic decisions as well. This is Greenspan the fixer -- partisan Greespan, enforcer of conservative free-market orthodoxy (unless, of course, a politically well-connected hedge fund and its creditors are in dire need of a federally arranged bailout.)

Billmon ,as usual, does a fine job of dissecting the news story and revealing the bloody guts.

What to do about out-sourcing

Outsourcing seems like its going to be a big campaign issue, with both Edwards and Kerry spending lots of time talking about it. We've discussed it at length on this blog

I wonder, what are the real policy options for dealing with American job loss to workers in poorer countries? My list of options seems pretty wimpy and uninspired.

I'd like to learn what you all have heard or thought about dealing with this.

Let's work from the following assumptions (start another thread if you don't agree with these) :

a. Free trade of goods, services, and labor is a generally positive thing
b. Its important to keep Americans employed in good, high-paying jobs, with an acceptable unemployment rate (say 4 to 6%)

To start things off:

For the recently fired:
- A strong safety net, with unemployment and health benefits
- Strong re-education, training program so people get the latest skills
- Support for helping find new jobs (although I'm skeptical about this because of Monster.com, and that most good jobs are gotten through social networking)

Education and research
- Strong K to 12 education system
- Continue American leadership in its university and community college system
- Strong government support for both basic and applied research to keep America at the leading edge of the technology curve

Keynesian
- Create government paid jobs in slumps

Tax credits??-
Don't give tax credits to firms who outsource. OK... I'll be honest, I've heard this about a million times, but never have seen the underlying facts, can anyone enlighten me here?

Free marketeers
Take no action, allow for lower cost of goods and services in US to create wealth and let the market take its course. (we've seen that, politically, this don't fly)
Recognize that more job loss has happened due to technology, then all the Indians and Chinese put together.

I know there's got to be more then this... this list just doesn't seem to cut the mustard.

Adam Smith-

Letter Rip

Hell, I like this idea. Use the tool generated by the Bush web site for your own purpose and save your time and effort in writing letter to the editor!

Race to the bottom

This is a classic real life example of how race to the bottom evolves. Here is how.

(Congressman) Manzullo (R-IL), also the Chairman of the House Committee on Small Business, told the 200-plus attendants to his "Restoring Manufacturing in America" speech on Monday that today's CEOs are trapped in a culture where they believe outsourcing could cut costs, hence increase stock values of their companies. He warned, however, that such a belief is short-range planning that is leading to long-term losses.

According to the HCSB, the U.S. manufacturing sector has seen 42 consecutive months of significant job losses and unemployed workers number rising to above 2.8 million.

Manzullo suggested that CEOs of U.S. manufacturers--large or small--should "outsource to America."

"There're areas in this nation where people are willing to work $7, $10 an hour," he said. "Outsourcing to America will at least keep the jobs here."

Need I say more?

Pentagon's Abrubt Climate Report

Finally got hold of a copy of the Pentagon's Abrupt Climate Change Scenario Report by Peter Schawrtz and Doug Randall. Same report that Kate and I have posted on before.

This report has been getting a lot of press. It on one hand is a scary vision of what could happen with abrupt climate change. Its also an indication of how hard it is for policy makers to get across subtle concepts to the public: such as scenario planning. This report is not a prediction, but only a scenario... Try telling that to the press. Guardian headline "Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us" Uh, no.

Adam Smith

Hernando de Soto: Poor People Need Formal Property Rights to Get Richer

Saw Hernando de Soto speak at the Kennedy School on Thursday. De Soto is a world renowned development economist. His take-home message is that the poor in developing countries need strong, formal rights to their property in order to get richer. According to de Soto, most people in developing countries do not have formal rights to their land or house. This prevents them from borrowing money against their assets to start a business or pay for anything else.

De Soto runs the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru and recently wrote The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else He worked with Peru's ex-president Fujimori (before Fujimoi ran off to Japan in fear of going to jail for corruption and human rights violations) as a special assistant and now advices prime ministers and presidents of many developing countries. De Soto is a rare bird in that he's praised equally by the left and right - getting accolades from Bill Clinton, Ronald Regan, and Kofi Annan is no small feat.

ILD analysis has shown that 90% of people in Egypt (ILD is currently advising the Egyptian president on development) don't have titles to their land. They estimate that this arrangement keeps US $4.2 billion locked away, that could be used for development. They claim this is a pervasive pattern throughout the developing world.

Part of the reason I like this guy is that he's gotten down and dirty in his research. I've read of how he's gone out in the Peruvian slums and interviewed small entrepreneurs in the "grey economy". He found that in many poor countries it takes a long time, a lot of money, and even more red tape to get the multitude of permits required to operate. Never mind the bribes you need to pay.

Adam Smith

Zigbee: Wireless Home Networking Could Improve Energy Efficiency

There’s a new wireless networking protocol based on IEEE, 802.15.4, nicknamed Zigbee. Its intended to be deployed in home, office, industrial situations where low frequency, low power networking is needed for coordinating and controlling devices.

Zigbee enabled systems could help homes and businesses make more efficient use of energy and natural resources. Sensors on devices (e.g. light switches, furnaces, white goods, computers, electricity meters) would report back to a home computer. The computer can then run any number of functions to better control the devices. This would also help researchers doing energy end-use studies, which has been difficult to do in the past.

Software platforms can be developed to analyze how resources are being used, and suggest, or out right control how they can be used better. Once you have an open-standards platform for developers to work with, it could drive a software powered energy efficiency bonanza (insert skeptical grimace here, of course).

Via BoingBoing:

ZigBee, which operates at 2.4-GHz, is two-way so it'll be able to log your house's electric, water, gas usage, and send it to your computer for analysis. (That way, you'll have documented evidence next time you yell at your kids for leaving the lights on.) Because ZigBee has a range of only about 30 feet, and sends data in infrequent bursts, batteries could last for a couple of years without having to replace them. Light switch and thermostat manufacturers have joined the ZigBee alliance, along with the usual suspects, such as Philips, Motorola, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard.

This also has heaps of consumer related applications, but not that interesting to the energy and environment side of things.

Adam Smith

NRC Climate Change Report

It must be sweeps week for reports.

Today's New York Times has an article about a National Research Council review of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Strategic Plan. Both the review and the report are available from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

Our Global Climate Change TA, Marcus, alerted us that the article was entitled "Panel Urges Bush to Finance Climate-Change Research" last night. The title is now "Bush Climate Plan Rated Somewhat Improved." I guess that is better. I wonder who makes those decisions.

Back to the article.

"This is an issue where the science is pretty clearly telling us that the longer we wait to consider some of these issues, the more dramatic the impacts may turn out to be," said Thomas E. Graedel, a professor of industrial ecology at Yale and chairman of the 17-member panel.

...

In its review of the revised plan, the panel found clearer goals, but saw few signs that enough money would be allocated for new initiatives like improving satellite observations and computer simulations of the changing atmosphere and oceans.

"There is no evidence in the plan or elsewhere of a commitment to provide the necessary funds for these newer or expanded program elements," the panel said.

The panel criticized the Bush Administration's first plan, the Administration went back and revised the plan and the panel likes what they say but wonders how they are going to do it. The revised plan reportedly includes more programs and more research but not the money to do it. The first recommendation in the executive summary is:

The CCSP should implement the activities described in the strategic plan with urgency.

Reading over the review, the plan sounds like it was designed to make action difficult. The language of the overarching goals includes phrases like "improve knowledge" and "reduce uncertainty." The United States needs to develop goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the goals need to go beyond researching the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions.

Tom

Union of Concern Scientists Report

Mike, I've uploaded a copy of the UCS report bashing the Bush White Houses treatment of scientific issues here on our siteThis report is getting a lot of press, and appears to be really damning to anyone who thinks that science based policy issues should be treated with scientic rigour. I'm going to review this today, and post more later.
Adam Smith