White House deep in the muck with drug makers

A former GOP representative, Billy Tauzin, has blown the cover on a back door deal between the Obama administration and big pharma. I wonder how big pharma feels about him going public – is he serving pharma or the GOP?

Whatever his motivations, this deal stinks. It’s Chicago politics. If Bush did something like this Dems like me would have been all over him. I don’t have the heart do to the deed myself, but I’ll look for a good right wing rant to link to. Emphases mine.

White House Affirms Deal on Drug Cost - NYTimes.com

Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion.

Drug industry lobbyists reacted with alarm this week to a House health care overhaul measure that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers.

In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul. The Obama administration had never spelled out the details of the agreement.

“We were assured: ‘We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal,’ ” Billy Tauzin, the former Republican House member from Louisiana who now leads the pharmaceutical trade group, said Wednesday. “Who is ever going to go into a deal with the White House again if they don’t keep their word? You are just going to duke it out instead.”

A deputy White House chief of staff, Jim Messina, confirmed Mr. Tauzin’s account of the deal in an e-mail message on Wednesday night.

“The president encouraged this approach,” Mr. Messina wrote. “He wanted to bring all the parties to the table to discuss health insurance reform.”…

.. In an interview on Wednesday, Representative Raul M. Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who is co-chairman of the House progressive caucus, called Mr. Tauzin’s comments “disturbing.”

“We have all been focused on the debate in Congress, but perhaps the deal has already been cut,” Mr. Grijalva said. “That would put us in the untenable position of trying to scuttle it.”

He added: “It is a pivotal issue not just about health care. Are industry groups going to be the ones at the table who get the first big piece of the pie and we just fight over the crust?”..

… But as the debate has heated up over the last two weeks, Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats have signaled that they value some of its industry enemies-turned-friends more than others. Drug makers have been elevated to a seat of honor at the negotiating table, while insurers have been pushed away…

… The drug industry trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, also opposes a public insurance plan. But its lobbyists acknowledge privately that they have no intention of fighting it, in part because their agreement with the White House provides them other safeguards.

Mr. Tauzin said the administration had approached him to negotiate. “They wanted a big player to come in and set the bar for everybody else,” he said. He said the White House had directed him to negotiate with Senator Max Baucus, the business-friendly Montana Democrat who leads the Senate Finance Committee.

Mr. Tauzin said the White House had tracked the negotiations throughout, assenting to decisions to move away from ideas like the government negotiation of prices or the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada. The $80 billion in savings would be over a 10-year period. “80 billion is the max, no more or less,” he said. “Adding other stuff changes the deal.”

After reaching an agreement with Mr. Baucus, Mr. Tauzin said, he met twice at the White House with Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff; Mr. Messina, his deputy; and Nancy-Ann DeParle, the aide overseeing the health care overhaul, to confirm the administration’s support for the terms.

“They blessed the deal,” Mr. Tauzin said. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House was not bound by any industry deals with the Senate or the White House.

But, Mr. Tauzin said, “as far we are concerned, that is a done deal.” He said, “It’s up to the White House and Senator Baucus to follow through.”

As for the administration’s recent break with the insurance industry, Mr. Tauzin said, “The insurers never made any deal.”

Tauzin is certainly plainspoken.

I wonder how Krugman and Reich are going to respond to this one.

Anyone know of a right wing rant attacking this corrupt deal that I can link to?

Update 8/9/09: Reich responds - this is bad for democracy.

Blogging about NYT journalists – now with an extra level of proofreading

This is not a first tier, second tier, or even third tier blog. It’s an Nth tier blog. Heck, I don’t even have AdWords!

This is a tiny readership (hi Emily) revenue-free all-but-invisible hobby blog with its own peculiar motivations. So when I write of NYT journalists David Pogue or John Markoff (or, of course, Krugman) I really don’t expect them to read the posts.

Wrong.

In the past week I’ve received corrections under both men’s names. I assume it was either them or an admin, but I tend to think it was them.

In one case I wrote of David Pogue’s “relationship to Apple” when I meant to write “association with Apple”. He politely objected, pointing out his work with Apple is no different than his work with other vendors. A few days previously I speculated that John Markoff had gotten some article information via Wikipedia (not a criticism, that’s where I got it), he said it came from an interview.

I don’t think either of these two journalists, both well respected in the geek community, are regular readers. I instead assume that the Times is reviewing blog posts linking to Times articles and flagging items that might merit correction. (Not for Krugman though – that would be a hopeless task.)

I’m impressed. It helps the Times manage its reputation. It’s certainly put me on my toes. I generally write quickly and hastily, but the next time I cite a NYT journalist I’ll be exceptionally attentive. It’s embarrassing to be corrected, even when it’s done so politely.

iPhone users are revolting

And we’re grumpy too.

Usually a PC World article with a title of “Apple Rots” would bring a deluge of flaming denials, but this article is current recommended 217 to 139.

I wonder if even Apple is starting to feel the heat …

As Apple Rots, iPhone Users Revolt - Business Center - PC World

Users are turning against the iPhone. Call it the summer of our discontent, but these hot, sticky months are proving an excellent time to not buy a smartphone. Apple and AT&T have only themselves to blame.

Now, we must wait for the two companies to learn their lessons and, just maybe, for a new iPhone carrier to emerge. If you are thinking about upgrading to a 3GS and can stand to wait, you might find a more attractive option in a few months, especially if the iPhone's downhill slide continues.

What is upsetting iPhone users?

App Store -- Do I really need to keep making the case that having Apple as the only vendor of iPhone apps is bad for customers? The rejection of Google Voice, potentially a killer app for smartphones, should prove that Apple doesn't care about its customers…

… The Apple monopolies must go.

Multitasking -- I did not expect multitasking to become a big deal so soon, but Google Latitude makes an excellent case for it..

AT&T -- I am not wild about Sprint advertising that I am paying $50-a-month too much because I am using an iPhone instead of a Palm Pre. I am not wild that Apple adds tethering to the iPhone but I don't get to use it. I am not wild that I am still waiting for the ability to attach pictures to SMS messages…

… The sense of smug superiority that we iPhone users have enjoyed has worn off. Now, instead of being the ones who've chosen, we're pawns in the games of AT&T and Apple. What used to be mere annoyances have become real pains. And the companies that ought to be our friends are the causes of our frustration…

So do really, really, annoyed geeks matter to Apple? I guess we’ll find out. The fact that Gruber’s recent attack on a dictionary app rejection prompted a response email from a senior Apple exec suggests they developing a bit of sensitivity. (Turns out Apple wasn’t entirely to blame in that one, but Schiller admitted they might have room for improvement).

The App Store monopoly isn’t working for us. We geeks want an alternative source for iPhone apps that’s outside of Apple and AT&T’s control. I’m willing to give Apple some more time on the multitasking if they can provide a location communication API and put Latitude back in the App Store.

I’m not ready to switch, but I am ready to wait some time before replacing my wife’s BB with an iPhone.

Pogue speaks out on the Apple/AT&T Google Voice ban

Phew. The longer David Pogue remained silent on the Battle of Google Voice, the more I wondered what the heck was going on. He’s criticized Apple in the past, so despite his long history of writing about Apple products longstanding relationship to the company I didn’t expect him to stay quiet.

Today he did speak. He didn’t add anything new, but he did make it clear that Apple/AT&T has few journalist or geek allies in its battle with Google (emphases mine) …

Is Google Voice a Threat to AT&T? – David Pogue - NYTimes.com

… AT&T/Apple's logic doesn't even make sense. If the object is to prevent you from making cheap international calls, then they would also have to block Skype and all the other apps (already available) that let you do so. If it's to prevent you from sending free text messages, then they should also block FreeMMS and other apps that already do that.

It's almost as though AT&T/Apple never really cared while the apps in question stayed where they belonged—under the radar. But once big-shot Google got involved… well, we can't have that, can we?...

... In short, what Apple and AT&T have accomplished with their heavy-handed, Soviet information-control style is not to bury these useful apps. Instead, Apple/AT&T have elevated them to martyr status—and, in effect, thrown down a worldwide challenge to programmers everywhere.

"Get around THIS," they're saying.

But guess what? It won't take long. They've put a rock in the river, but the water will just find a way around it.

Already, Google says it is readying a replacement for the Google Voice app that will offer exactly the same features as the rejected app—except that it will take the form of a specialized, iPhone-shaped Web page. For all intents and purposes, it will behave exactly the same as the app would have; you can even install it as an icon on your Home screen.

What's Apple going to do now? Start blocking access to individual Web sites?...

Google can’t really do everything with the web app that they can do with a native app. There’s no getting around the dang startup and authentication delays with a web app – I’ve been using their current web app and it’s a bit of a pain (though GV Mobile was slow too – but that was fixable).

Otherwise, a pretty good commentary. The geek community is working overtime finding ingenious ways around Apple’s block – and that pressure is only going to grow.

Update: As an owner of several Pogue books on Apple products I assume he has an informal relationship with the company, but as he points out in comments he certainly doesn't have a formal relationship with them. I amended my introductory sentence to clarify that. I do think his words carry some weight with Apple.

News: Dowd says something novel

Dowd can be sometimes funny, often grating. It's unusual, however, for her to be insightful ...

Maureen Dowd - Let the Big Dog Run - NYTimes.com

... Bill Clinton will bring back valuable information about Kim’s mental and physical health. If we’d had that sort of information about the snubbed Saddam, we would have known that he was in his own spiral of doom, trying to bluff his neighbors, with no need for our shock and awe.

Hillary and President Obama look bigger when they share the stage with other talented players. And Barack and Bill may have finally started to put South Carolina behind them — without the need for a beer summit photo-op...

So will Bill come on board to push health care? Clearly Dowd's hinting as much. Might enrage the whackos even more, and the more they froth the better Obama looks.

The insightful comment though is about the intel on Kim. Imagine what someone as wicked smart and political as Clinton can figure out from some direct face time.

By their enemies ye shall know them: Great news for health insurance reform

I really want to write about peak oil (for example), tech churn and those alleged Burmese nukes, but I can’t escape the magnetic pull of health care reform.

I’ve had my own doubts about ObamaCare, but the GOP has laid them to rest. Anything that the right wing loons of the (all white) TeaBagger and Birther cults hate this much must be good …

Robert Reich's Blog: Astroturf Along American Highways, and the Republican Plan

On our drive across America, my son and I have spotted spiffy white vans emblazoned with phrases like "ObamaCare will raise your taxes" and "ObamaCare will put bureaucrats in charge of your health." Just outside Omaha we drove close enough to take a peek at the driver, who looked as dutifully professional as the spanking new van he was driving.

This isn't grass roots. It's Astroturf. The vans carry the logo "Americans for Prosperity," one of the Washington front groups orchestrating the fight against universal health…

… FreedomWorks, another group now Astroturfing its way around America, is chaired by former House Republican Leader Dick Armey. Texas Republican Pete Sessions, who chairs the National Republican Campaign Committee, says the days of civil town halls are "now over.” …

… The Republicans' goal isn't ideological. It's power. Republicans smell 1994 all over again. That's when they defeated Clinton's healthcare plan -- and in doing so convinced large numbers of Americans that Clinton and the Democrats couldn't be trusted…

There’s nothing like enlisting the mindless mob to remind everyone how great Obama is …

Managed Care Matters: This is getting ugly - and that's good

… There have been many reports of town hall meetings disrupted by what appears to be carefully organized groups, using an approach scripted by a Washington lobbying firm headed by none other than former Texas Republican Rep. Dick Armey.

Armey's clients include insurers and medical device companies, firms that are terrified of the potential that health reform may actually harm their business models. The disrupt and obstruct model was actually tested here in Connecticut in a town hall meeting held by Fairfield County's Jim Himes (D). Read the memo at the link to see just how disgusting these people are…

The more rabid the GOP gets, the better for the good guys (emphases mine) …

TPM: Best moments so far

I wrote earlier this week that in the unfolding drama of the health care townhall teabaggery, conservatives have developed their series of shout-downs and freak-outs into something resembling a right-wing performance art…

… As our team has reported on at some length already, there appears to be a reasonably well-orchestrated national effort to mobilize teabaggers to go and shutdown these townhall events with raucous demonstrations...

The truth is that there's actually quite a lot of authenticity packed into these events, often a bit more, sometimes quite a bit more than the partisans helping put this stuff together end up being comfortable with …

… even though we're only a few days into the run, I thought it made sense to review some of the greatest moments so far.

High on the list has to be the group of Tea Baggers who hanged an effigy of Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) from a noose in front of his district office a few weeks ago. Then there was the case yesterday where a few folks at a tea bag protest outside a townhall meeting in Hartford called on Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) to commit suicide as a way to cure his recently diagnosed prostate cancer. And even though it lacked any clear appeal to the murder of public officials or even a good suicide joke, I'm still pretty fond of this case on Tuesday where the head of the local Tea Party group up in Rome, New York just started yelling 'liar' over and over at a clearly befuddled and caught off guard Steny Hoyer.

It's hard not to get the sense that the longer this goes on the more cases you're going to have where some of these good folks let slip what they really think of Barack Obama…

The DNC has caught on to what a wonderful job the mob is doing for Obama …

Yes, now that the GOP is on the case I feel a lot better. The only way to improve things would be to enlist Bill Clinton to lash the whackos to new heights of self-mutilation.

Oh, my worries and doubts? Nothing I haven’t written about before, except the very first one ..

• Medicare costs have to be managed with or without “health insurance reform” (good reframing there). It’s still politically lethal to touch Medicare. So it will have to be left for a time when Americans are a bit more reality based (if ever!). Key insight: We’re not going to make the Medicare problem worse by doing health insurance reform, and there’s no political support for fixing Medicare.
• We need a minimum of “good-enough care” for all, including persons who are not employed by large corporate buyers and for people with pre-existing conditions. Delivering this cost-effectively will require radical experimentation, including composition, training and deployment of the healthcare workforce. Government can support that by altering blocking regulations, but this task is politically impossible – only private entities can do that kind of radical reengineering. So in an ideal world the GOP would have something to contribute – a market perspective. Unfortunately that GOP died with Nixon so we have to do what we can with what we have.
• Even the best Tiramisu gets nauseating after the first pint or so. Most things in life have nice utility curve – you can almost always have too much of a good thing. There are exceptions. It’s hard to imagine a trans-Atlantic flight that would go too quickly. Another exception is health care. If you miraculously free up $300 billion in “waste” (doesn’t exist, but that’s besides the point) I’d easily spend it all on better healthcare welcomed by all. Heck, I could spend a trillion. It’s hard to get real about health care provision until you realize that the utility curve doesn’t stop climbing (though it does bend). Spend more, you can do more.

Doubts and worries I may have, but the GOP’s tactics have, as usual, clarified the fog. The rabid foaming loons confirm that we’re doing the right thing.

I’m ready to start sending cash to support “Health Insurance Reform”. Where do I fork out?

Update: Dang. Even the more reliable wingnuts are beginning to catch on.

Two income families and the curious economics of unemployment

Most of us consider involuntary unemployment to be entirely a bad thing. From a macroeconomic point of view, however, things are less clear ...

METRICS - For the Unemployed, the Day Stacks Up Differently - NYTimes.com

... If all we were doing is substituting production at home for production in the marketplace,' said Daniel S. Hamermesh, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin, 'then maybe unemployment wouldn't be so bad.'...

In 21st century America two income families have a very significant advantage. The risk of going entirely without health care and without income is half that of a single income family. Risk reduction isn't the same as economic value however. It might be more efficient for one family member to work for money and another to manage home and health (more sleep, more exercise -> longer life, less disability, greater lifelong income).

From the perspective of the overall economy, being unemployed is not the same as being unproductive -- and it's the productivity over time that matters for some measurements.

The (historic) Battle of Google Voice - Enter the FCC

Bush laid waste to rational government, leaving a largely broken and corrupted mess.

Bureaucracies are hard to kill however. Bush could introduce incompetent or destructive leadership, but eight years wasn't long enough to kill all of the professional core.

I'd forgotten that when I wrote of the impeccable logic of AT&T/Apple’s Google Voice/Latitude App Store rejections...

... AT&T is pushing the antitrust envelope in a fierce and rational fight to stay alive. Apple has more ways to make money, but they’re in the game with AT&T and they too face disruptive threats...

... AT&T and Apple are behaving rationally in the face of a disruptive market entry. The best answer, after all, to the Innovator’s Dilemma is to identify potential disruptive forces and use economic warfare to destroy them – or, in the case of an opponent the size of Google, slow their advance...

... It's ... easy to see, given these precedents, the path AT&T and Apple will (must) take to eliminate competitive threats and maximize their future revenue streams ... It’s no good trying to argue Google/Apple away from their positions – they are entirely logical...

In the Bush era, I'd have been right. In that time the GOP's marketarian mixture of corruption and evangelical libertarianism meant there was no consumer representation in business battles.

I'd forgotten that we're not in the Bush era any more. We're in a fragile interlude where Reason has a voice in the executive branch. A higher power has joined the Battle of Google Voice.

The Obama FCC is no longer a mockery, it has an agenda (emphases mine) ...

Why The FCC Wants To Smash Open The iPhone
Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch.com (Washington Post Online)

Right about now, Apple probably wishes it had never rejected Google Voice and related apps from the iPhone. Or maybe it was AT&T who rejected the apps. Nobody really knows. But the FCC launched an investigation last night to find out, sending letters to all three companies (Apple, AT&T, and Google) asking them to explain exactly what happened.

On its face, it might seem odd to some people that the FCC is investigating the rejection of a single iPhone app. After all, iPhone apps are rejected every day. But the Google Voice rejection caused an unusual amount of uproar, and there is nothing like a high-profile case to make an example out of in pursuit of pushing a bigger policy agenda. The FCC investigation is not just about the arbitrary rejection of a single app. It is the FCC's way of putting a stake in the ground for making the wireless networks controlled by cell phone carriers as open as the Internet.

Today there are two different sets of rules for applications and devices on the Internet. On the wired Internet, we can connect any type of PC or other computing device and use any applications we want on those devices. On the wireless Internet controlled by cellular carriers like AT&T, we can only use the phones they allow on their networks and can only use the applications they approve. This was fine when the wireless networks were used mostly just for voice calls. But now that they are increasingly becoming our mobile connections to the Internet and mobile phones are becoming full-fledged mobile computers, an argument has been growing that the same rules of open access that rule the wired Internet should apply to the wireless Internet.

While Apple and AT&T cannot be too happy about the FCC investigation, Google must secretly be pleased as punch. It was only two years ago, prior to the 700MHz wireless spectrum auctions, that it was pleading with the FCC to adopt principles guaranteeing open access for applications, devices, services, and other networks. Now two years later, in a different context and under a different administration, the FCC is pushing for the same principles.

In its letters requesting more information from all three companies, the FCC cites "pending FCC proceedings regarding wireless open access (RM-11361) and handset exclusivity (RM-11497). That first proceeding on open access dates back to 2007 when Skype requested that cell phone carriers open up their networks to all applications (see Skype's petition here)…

… AT&T responded to this post with the following statements:

AT&T does not manage or approve applications for the App Store. We have received the letter and will, of course, respond to it. Customers can use any compatible GSM phone on our network, not just the ones we’ve approved and sell. And they also can use apps we don’t approve. We don’t approve iPhone applications.

So there you have it. You can use any mobile app you like on AT&T unless it is an iPhone app (that's been rejected by Apple). Does Apple ever reject apps at the request of AT&T though? Maybe they'll give the FCC a straight answer…

As CNN.com/Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech put it "Sometimes you’ve just got to love the government”.

Mobile communication companies lease a public good – frequency. In the Obama era there’s an active government role in aligning the public good with consumer interests through maximizing direct competition.

I recommend reading the 2007 Arrington article Schonfeld cited, particularly this section …

AT&T’s response to Google’s letter was breathtaking in its audacity:

… Not satisfied with a compromise proposal from Chairman Martin that meets most of its conditions, Google has now delivered an all or nothing ultimatum to the U.S. Government, insisting that every single one of their conditions “must” be met or they will not participate in the spectrum auction. Google is demanding the Government stack the deck in its favor, limit competing bids, and effectively force wireless carriers to alter their business models to Google’s liking. We would repeat that Google should put up or shut up— they can bid and enter the wireless market with any business model they prefer, then let consumers decide which model they like best…

Google lost that spectrum auction, but I dimly recall they did manage to get some rules on spectrum use added to the language of the auction.

I know some of my tiny readership felt I’d gone over the top when I wrote of the “Battle of Google Voice”. I even wondered myself if I’d been too dramatic. In retrospect, however, I called this one correctly.

This is big. I think, like me, Apple and AT&T forgot that the Bush era was over, and they foolishly gave the FCC the club they were looking for. They’ll now be turning to their Senatorial pawns, but Microsoft and Google will moving their Senators too.

Who’s to blame for the action and the blunder? At first Apple was leaking rumors that AT&T was to blame, but now AT&T is firmly and publicly blaming Apple. I though both had collaborated, but now I’m thinking Apple may have played the leading role. The timing of Steve Jobs return is obviously curious.

This really is a historic moment. We’ll either get an open competition that will deliver value to consumers in the near term, or we’ll be stuck in a ground war in cyberspace for the next decade.

Update 8/3/09: Al Gore is on Apple's board. I wonder what questions he's asking Steve Jobs now.

Central Park, Sioux Falls and Guns in America

A telling comment. Mr. Thune does not impress.

Gail Collins - Have Gun, Will Travel - NYTimes.com

... John Thune of South Dakota, said that if people from his state were able to go to New York and visit tourist attractions while carrying their concealed weapons, “Central Park would be a much safer place.”

This suggests how much Americans have to learn about each other. Central Park is way safer than South Dakota. There were no murders and three serious assaults in Central Park in 2008, compared with five murders and 341 assaults in Sioux Falls alone...

Of course Sioux Falls is a city and Central Park is, well, a very popular park. Still, it is certainly not the den of crime Thune imagines, nor will it be improved by people carrying hand guns.

The GOP is desperate for a fight over hand guns. They'll try anything to provoke it, including mandating the distribution of hand guns to preschoolers.

They won't get a fight. Rationalists remember Al Gore. Gun limitations in America will have to come from the right, not the left. If Gore hadn't signed on to the Million Mom gun control initiative he'd have concluded a very respected two terms as President of the United States.

It's better to live with guns in the workplace than to get another GWB (or, worse, President Palin).

We Rationalists will slow the GOP's march to universal hand gun distribution, but America is still on the razor edge of sanity (vis. Birthers). The GOP won't get the fight they so desperately want. All Hail the National Rifle Association!

Heck, I bought a ticket from a (hard core Democrat) buddy for the raffle of some monstrous semi-automatic shotgun. If I win the raffle I suppose I'll technically be the owner for the two minutes it takes me to give it to him.

The 100 Iranian dissidents - a telling photograph

This NYT article on a mass trial of 100 Iranian dissidents is headline by a photograph of the men sitting at trial. We see them in profile.

They have, to me, formidable faces.

I can't say why they they should have those faces, or why they appear that way to me. It's a curious thing. It left me with the impression, in a photograph, that this struggle is not yet over.

This does not mean the regime will lose. One sees similar faces in images from the mass trials of the Soviet empire. I don't know nearly enough about Iran to guess how this might go.

The iPhone Google Voice debacle - straight from bloggers to the FCC

So now the FCC is looking into the Google Voice (and Latitude?) iPhone story. AT&T is telling everyone that it was all Apple's doing. This can't be going as planned.

There are a lot of interesting aspects to this story, but one of them is the near complete absence of commentary by media figures like Pogue and Mossberg. Even as geek bloggers like me were appalled at the implications of Apple/AT&T's actions the mainstream media yawned.

Yeah, I mean you David Pogue. I'm not impressed that you spend the last few days writing about answering machine delays.

In the absence of newspaper coverage, the story went directly from "new media" to FCC action. I don't know if blogger outrage played any role -- more likely it was Google lobbyists and lawyers. What I do know is that old media played no role at all, though they'll probably have to write something in the morning.

Noteworthy.

Update: I really should know better than to write a sentence starting with "what I do know". The FCC email reportedly cited a NYT article I missed. My fail.

Maher on the Birthers - and finding the levers on the loons

Maher is right that we can't keep laughing at the Birthers. They're almost mainstream now in the American south, and they claim the allegiance of a very substantial fraction of the broken shards of what was once a respectable political party...

'Birthers' must be stopped - Los Angeles Times

... once these stories get out there, they're hard to stamp out because our media do such a lousy job of speaking truth to stupid. Vietnam, Iraq and the Spanish-American War were all sold on lies that were unchallenged or even abetted by the media. Clinton got impeached and Kerry got destroyed in large part because the media didn't have the guts to say, 'This is nonsense.'

Lou Dobbs has been saying recently that people are asking a lot of questions about the birth certificate. Yes, the same people who want to know where the sun goes at night.

And Lou, you're their new king.

That's why it's so important that we the few, the proud, the reality-based attack this stuff before it has a chance to fester and spread. This isn't a case of Democrats versus Republicans. It's sentient beings versus the lizard people...

So what do we do about it? By definition the Birthers are beyond reason. What do you do when a significant fraction of your nation is crazy?

Maybe we need to start working on the advertisers who are paying the bills of people like Lou Dobbs. A boycott of any advertisers shown during a Dobbs appearance perhaps?

We are in such deep trouble as a nation. I still don't understand how the heck we merited Obama.

Don't count Obama out ...

His numbers are down. Climate change is in worse shape than health care reform, and health care public support is dwindling. Unemployment is rising. The (racist) Birthers are feeling energized. Then Obama sticks his foot in his mouth on race.

He's got to be in big trouble, right?

The Associated Press: Analysis: Obama's rare race foray a positive step

...'The cynic in me wants to shoot holes in it, the critic in me wants to pick it apart,' said conservative radio host Mike Gallagher. 'But I'm sorry, you have two sides, polar opposites in a racially tinged confrontation like this, sitting down with the president of the United States over a beer at the White House?

'This is a great step forward in showing how you can take a confrontation, a conflict, and make a positive out of it.'...

Maybe not so much.

Don't underestimate this guy. He's got the luck of the O'Bamas, and he knows how to make more.

Chill.

Note to Fed: Huh? Back off! Back off! Aiieeeeee …

Timeline Oct 2008 to July 2009 …

 Oct 10, 2008: Gordon's Notes: Dow 9,000 - forget retirement, what about  kid’s college?

… Krugman points out that we're kind of in free fall ...Dow 9,000 …

March 3, 2009: Against the crash - why I'm optimistic

So color me optimistic … Dow 9000 by November 2009.

July 31, 2009: House rushes to rescue ‘cash for clunker’s program (launched @ 7 days ago)

… the … Car Allowance Rebate System …  provides credits of as much as $4,500 for the purchase of a new car when turning in an older vehicle to be scrapped. Lawmakers had expected the program to generate about 250,000 vehicle sales and to have enough money to last until about Nov. 1…

… the National Automobile Dealers Association, which represents about 19,700 new car and truck dealers, came to the Michigan delegation with concerns about the $1 billion being used up, with 40,000 transactions completed and about 200,000 in the pipeline...

July 31, 2009: The U.S. economy: Feeling much better

… The Commerce Department's initial stab at figuring out the gross domestic product (GDP) for the second quarter of 2009, came out at a 1 percent decline, which is lower than economists were predicting…

July 31, 2009: Dow 9178 (+23)

Last March I was feeling contrarian, and bet on 9,000 by November. I didn’t bet on 9,000 by July. If we continued along the course of the past month we’ll be in range of 11,000 by November.

That might help Obama get health care reform through, but, economically, it would be a very bad thing.

In the face of true financial catastrophe the US and China did a mega-mega stimulus package. No, not the trillion dollars in the official US stimulus package, but the Fed’s big moves and the sustaining effect of persistent governmental expenditures and China’s immense internal package.

That averted catastrophe, but it means, of course, that we can tip fast. We may be at the tipping point now. A spending program that was supposed to last over four months sold out in one week. (it would be crazy to renew it of course.)

The Cash for Clunker story confirms there’s a ton of money in the United States, and the American urge to spend isn’t gone. If that money pours out of people’s piggy banks we’re going to blow this bubble up real fast.

Eeeeyikes.

Latitude and Voice: The impeccable logic of AT&T/Apple’s App Store rejections

AT&T/Apple blocked all Google Voice Apps from the iPhone. I’m an extreme case, but if they were fully able to block Google Voice use from the iPhone they’d cost me up to $70-$90/month (frequent long distance mobile phone calls to Canada plus potential SMS savings).

AT&T/Apple also blocked Google Latitude’s location finder from the iPhone. It’s been less remarked that AT&T sells a competing location find app …

Gordon's Notes: iPhone trouble: Apple rejects Google Latitude, possibly Google Voice

… AT&T's Location Finder costs $15/month for a family of five…

That’s a lot of money for a service Google provides for free.

AT&T is pushing the antitrust envelope in a fierce and rational fight to stay alive. Apple has more ways to make money, but they’re in the game with AT&T and they too face disruptive threats.

AT&T and Apple’s behavior is rational and is very likely in the interests of their shareholders, though Apple’s abuse of the affected developers is over the edge. I’m much more offended by that than I am by the blocking of the Google Voice and Latitude apps; Apple should have found a way to keep these developer’s whole.

AT&T and Apple are behaving rationally in the face of a disruptive market entry. The best answer, after all, to the Innovator’s Dilemma is to identify potential disruptive forces and use economic warfare to destroy them – or, in the case of an opponent the size of Google, slow their advance.

Their interests, of course, are not always mine. In this case, our interests conflict strongly. It's very easy to see, given these precedents, the path AT&T and Apple will (must) take to eliminate competitive threats and maximize their future revenue streams.

So the question for me, and people like me, is how best to adapt. It’s no good trying to argue Google/Apple away from their positions – they are entirely logical. My strategy is to draw closer to Google, the disruptive force currently most aligned with my interests.

What’s your strategy?

Update: see also – Lessons from Apple’s rejection of Google Voice and Latitude. The App Store, from a consumer perspective, has a fatal flaw.