Mark Watson's opinions on Java, Ruby, Lisp, and AI

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Perplexed by the U.S. economy? You're not alone. Law professor Michael Greenberger joins Fresh Air to explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis, credit defaults, the shaky future of other types of loans and what we can expect from the U.S. financial markets.

Greenberger is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and the director of the University's Center for Health and Homeland Security.

This is a long listen (39 minutes), but is the sort of thing that if every voting American listened to, and if every politician in Washington knew everyone listened to, that a lot of the future corruption in Washington might be avoided. Professor Greenberger also gives very solid advice on what we must do as a country to avoid having Asian countries "eat our lunch": emphasize science and technology and build companies that produce real products - and don't idolize people and companies who make money speculating instead of producing. I liked that he seemed to think our problems are fixable, but only with positive action. Listening to this interview, and then emailing your 2 senators and your representative in congress regarding this material would be a good start.

Labels: economy, politics

I am going to loan my copy of The Millionaire Next Door to my kids and nieces as a guide for long term wealth building - this entertaining book is a road map for building wealth instead of living a consumption based life style.

Since many more economists are now warning about the serious structural problems in our economy (that the war in Iraq is keeping out of the public consciousness), it occurred to me that Stanley and Danko's advice on money management and life style also apply to protecting you and your family from economic downturns. I am old enough to have lived through several economic "boom and bust" cycles, and one thing that has always caught my attention is that during "boom" economic times, a lot of people seem to believe that the good times will never end. In fact cycles are natural, should not be feared, and should be planned for.

Labels: economy, politics

I just sent this link to my family and friends with the joke that the news media, in this case the New York Times, feeling guilty for not doing their proper job during during the run up to the Iraq invasion has finally decided to tell the truth about food :-)

This article on food and nutrition strikes a cord with me for another reason: I have friends who worry about future shortages of potable water and energy. I believe that the solution to future resource problems is simple: let the free market determine the costs of the food that we eat. A case in point: why should Congress give the beef industry about $40 billion a year in free water subsidies?

Raising meat for food rather than plants does the following:

• Uses 10 times the water
• Uses 10 times the energy
• Generates horrendous pollution of the air and underground water supplies
• Raises health care costs caused by unhealthy eating habits

I think that it is fine to eat meat, but we only need tiny portions each day to augment a primarily vegetarian diet.

It all comes down to a personal choice not to be a glutton, be it gluttony for food, buying large fuel inefficient vehicles, or houses larger than your family needs for comfortable living that you will never be able to own (i.e., pay off the mortgage). I believe that water and energy resource problems are solvable with free market economics and raising our collective consciousness concerning the downside of gluttonous life styles.

Labels: economy, health, nutrition, politics

I believe in a world economy, so if safeguards are in place that penalize corporations for unfair treatment of workers in areas with much lower cost of living, then I definitely support the concepts of off-shoring "white color" jobs and manufacturing jobs. I would like to financially penalize corporations for moving work to take advantage of a lack of local environmental laws. Business should be done in the least expensive and most productive way possible, but we need to factor in the importance of maintaining good working environment and environmental standards.

Although I support, with some small caveats, off-shoring work when it makes economic sense, I am very much against greatly increasing the number of allowed H1-B visas. I have heard too many stories of abuse of imported guest workers. For those H1-B workers that we allow in to the US every year, I think that they should be free to job hop, and try to maximise their salaries as can US citizens. Unfairly treating H1-B guest workers also has the effect of artificially lowering salaries for US workers - a bad thing. It might not seem fair, but I would allocate H1-B visas based on excellence - with the view that it is likely that many of these people will eventually become citizens and why not attract the very smartest people?

There is one thing that I would like to see done to help US workers, present and future: during the Bush administration we have seen a huge shift of wealth to the very richest via tax cuts and some sectors of the economy to support the war in Iraq. I would very much rather have seen most of this money not spent at all (smaller deficits!) and a little of it (perhaps 30%) spent for more effectively preparing our country for dealing with 4th generation war (nation state vs. organized groups) and to provide more scholarships and extended education funds for US workers.

Labels: economy

Long term, it is bad news that North Korea has had a successful nuclear test. Short term I am more concerned about the unstable government in Pakistan with their existing nuclear weapons (General Musharraf took control 8 years ago in a military coup, has never faced an election, and is unpopular in his own country - a country with few natural resources, increasing population pressures, etc. - who gets these nuclear weapons if the Musharraf government falls?) Also, many people in the Middle East and Europe are concerned with Israel's nuclear weapons. I believe that it is time for our government to start one-on-one negotiations with countries like Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Public "negotiations" are seldom effective - we need closed door sessions with top level diplomats (private, so egos do not get in the way).

On happier news: Japan is "officially" recovered from its severe 15 year economic slump. Less happy is a comparison between the assets that Japan had to survive economic hard times that we in the USA do not have (and make no mistake, a severe economic downturn will hit us in the future):

• Personal savings: citizens in Japan had relatively large personal savings that they could rely on for living expenses (consumer savings in the USA is close to zero, considering people who increase their debt with second loans on their homes, etc.)
• Japan had low defense costs (the USA spends as much money on defense than the next 24 countries in the world combined)
• Japan had healthy industrial infrastructure with modern factory equipment (the USA is way behind the curve in updating basic infrastructure like factory equipment and our road and highway systems)
• The government of Japan did not have the huge deficits that the government in the USA has.
• The government of Japan did not have the huge foreign debts that the government in the USA has.

Labels: business, economy, politics

I had to laugh a bit this morning while enjoying my coffee: I was reading responses on Slashdot to Tom Yager's optimistic article on Apple's market share growth. While I am a Mac fan (I am writing this blog on a Mac and I have been writing Common Lisp code on a Mac since 5:30 this morning), I think that so many people miss the point of operating system dominance in the future:

Step outside of pure technology for a minute, and think about the global economy and were the buzz is right now: the US is educating a very small fraction of engineers and scientists as places like China, India, Europe, etc. The largest growth will be in what are now poorer countries, but expect a more level playing field in the future. There is a good reason why high technology companies are increasingly setting up research labs outside of the US: less expense and a good supply of highly motivated and educated talent.

Using Linux in developing countries makes the most sense: computer science students get free access to source code and end users can run on much cheaper hardware using free software. As more creative work is done outside of the US, scientists and engineers will naturally use what they have used in school: Linux.

Long term, I expect to see an upswing in technology in the US: with the amount of perceived (fake) wealth in the US (from people pulling $400 billion a year in equity from their homes for a higher lifestyle, etc.) many young people simply lack the motivation to work at science and engineering in school when they see lucrative careers in real estate and other fields that require training but not too much education. Who knows when the crash in the US economy will come, but when it does occur it is likely to make the "comfortable" recession of 2001 look like a picnic. Usually success requires education and hard work, and in the future when we in the US are climbing out of what I think will be a very long economic downturn, I also believe that poorer economic conditions in our country will motivate both student and workers. During the upcoming economic slump in the US I would not be surprised if Linux becomes more popular with end users for the same reasons that Linux is gaining in popularity in developing countries right now: families trying to hold on to their homes and meeting other mandatory expenses might look favorably at $200 Linux PCs.

Labels: economy, IT