Tech Policy

Outsourcing Bogeyman: Dan Drezner's take

New stuff from Daniel Drezner, formerly of BushII's Treasury Department. Dan's blog here.

Fantatsic article in Foreign Affairs this month: The Outsourcing Bogeyman. Great hard nosed analytical take on this topic.

Here's Daniel's contribution to our list of what to do about outsourcing:

a. sit on our hands.

b. expand the scope of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which currently only helps manufacturers affected by import competition.

c.

Another option would be to help firms purchase targeted insurance policies to offset the transition costs to workers directly affected by offshore outsourcing. Because the perception of possible unemployment is considerably greater than the actual likelihood of losing a job, insurance programs would impose a very small cost on firms while relieving a great deal of employee anxiety. McKinsey Global Institute estimates that such a scheme could be created for as little as four or five cents per dollar saved from offshore outsourcing. IBM recently announced the creation of a two-year, $25 million retraining fund for its employees who fear job losses from outsourcing. Having the private sector handle the problem without extensive government intervention would be an added bonus.

Adam Smith

Track Job Openings with an RSS Aggregator

Many of you are now looking for jobs. Keeping track of all the online sites where jobs are posted can be a pain and its easy to lose track of whats out there.

A new service RSSJobs.com greatly simpifies this task. They have a free trial, and then you pony up $5 per month.

It works using a data publishing technology called RSS, or Really Simple Syndication. Its a "push" technology, similar to email. When data is published whether news, a blog entry, or now a job posting - the information is "pushed" into your RSS aggregator's inbox.

Using an RSS aggregator (Tom and I both use SharpReader) you can keep track of all new jobs that are posted on different sites. You set up the criteria you want sent to a particular folder based on keyword, job location, and job source (i.e. Monster.com, WSJ Careers, etc), and RSSJobs sends them as they're published.

Hope this helps

Adam

Rumsfeld Talking Points Memo Found at Starbucks

The Whitehouse Spin Machine Papers (Download PDF)

One of Donald Rumsfeld's staffers was getting ready at Starbucks to brief his boss on how to spin the Richard Clarke affair. Fortunately for us, he left them on the table. Someone found them and passed them on to the Post and Center for American Progress. This is another inside look at the Bush Whitehouse .spin machine

This via the ever amazing Center for American Progress

And as the Washington Post reports today, one of them – obviously readying himself to prep Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld – left his notes on the table. Talking points, hand-written notes on spin tactics, and a hand-drawn map to the Secretary's house were found by a resident of DuPont Circle, who made them available to the Center for American Progress. The name of said resident is being withheld at his request, as he fears that he may be accused on national television of being “disgruntled.”

Outrage for the day

I have never understood America's obsession with taxes. I was just watching Bush's new TV ads which criticize (I suspect stratigically misrepresent) Kerry's tax ideas. A progressive tax system which taxes rich significantly more can be really healthy. At what point will the American people wake up to the fact that you can not pay low taxes and not have the costs of healthcare go up or see social security go down the drain? I am not blaming GWB's ads. They are just exploiting the psyche of the american people who run away faster than Carl Lewis at the mention of taxes. Don't want taxes, Don't want regulation, but we want the best medical help to come for cheap, best transportation system in the world to stay cheaper than most of the developing world. We can live with the fact that the top 1% of the population controls 15% of the wealth, top 20% controls about 55%, but higher taxes? NO!

P.S.:

“That was a great speech. Every thinking American will vote for you.”

“That's not enough. I need a majority.”--Mo Udall

Guided Electric Highways

MIT Alumni Bruce McHenry, is looking to start a company to design "the dominant e-guideway design" for electrified guideways for electric (and hybrid) cars. A radical, and pretty cool idea.

Bruce will be giving a dry-run of his Business plan presentation (ppt 6MB) tomorrow at the MIT Entrepreneurs Club . 6-7PM in Room 56-114

His write-up of the idea is here in the MIT Alum newsletter.

Claims that this design will be fast (100MPH) , cheap (marginal cost, not capital cost), clean (energy generated from clean, efficient point sources vs. dirty, small internal engines), and safe (this is like a ride in an amusement park - on tracks so little risk of accident).

A big claim from the article

... Though transmission and electric motor losses may cut the gain from 100% to 50%, the running efficiency gains will provide an overall gain of three to six times in miles per gallon equivalent. At $0.11 per kWh, the cost to travel 100 miles at 100 MPH in a mid-size vehicle would be $2 to $4 depending mostly on its aerodynamics.

I don't know anything about Bruce, but I plan to go to hear what he has to say.

Adam Smith

The Future of Nuclear Power

I have always had mixed feelings about the Nuclear Power. On one hand, it remains a solid option to produce energy from a non-carbon source at a cost that is not too expensive. The hydrogen hype is also drawing attention to nuclear energy as a means of producing hydrogen, resulting in an almost ZERO carbon emission scenario. Thus nuclear energy is relevant beyond just the electricity sector.

On the other hand however, safety and proliferation remain a real concern. The critics of nuclear power say that use of nuclear sources for creating energy is just the first step towards developing nuclear weapons, differences in technology notwithstanding. The real costs of getting in to a nuclear arms race for countries like India or Pakistan are extremely serious. Of course, as with many important issues in the world, the position of the US on the issue matters.

How is this Nuclear Puzzle to be solved? On the 25th Anniversary of the Three Mile Island incident, I ask for the opinions of TechPolicy experts on this critical issue.

Chomsky Blog Launched

Noam Chomsky, MIT Prof of Linguistics and famous political commentator launched a blog this week.

adam

Great Website for Polling Data

Check out PollingReport.com for a treasure chest of polling data. They collect polling information from lots of sources and group them topically. Great way to get the pulse on what Americans are thinking.

Tom, check out the Energy and Environment sections.

adam

Brain-Computer Interface

I wasn't even going to write this one up because its rather wacky, and the policy implications are a little too forward looking. But its good for a Friday evening.

Ever wanted to find your car keys by Googling them? Or copy and paste something your reading from a book?

There are serious people working on the Brain - Computer Interface

This is a nice overview article on the topic and an editorial from the TechReview from last year.

Both say that we might actually see the day where you can Google your car keys.

Or wonder... "who won the 1975 Formula One racing championship?"

and have google tell you: Lauda.

"Who"?

Lauda!...

"Who"?

Lauda!!! (read outloud or your guarnteed to miss this one).

Believe it or not, there's actually video games out there today that you control directly with your mind. First heard of this in Steve Johnson's book Mind Wide Open : Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life where he tells a story of playing a game, designed to help ADD kids concentrate, directly with his brain. You see a bike on the screen, when your really concentrating the bike moves forward. When you lose focus the bike stops.

Now the BBC reports of another video game that you play with your brain. In this one you actually concentrate on turning left or turning right.

Not sure where the policy bits are here... but I find this fascinating.

Adam Smith

Laugh, It's Funny

It really is Funny!