Apple Falls

I love Apple computer, I have been all Apple all the time since 1984, with two regrettable exceptions when I had something PC too.  When I think of the time and money I saved because I was on a Mac and not a PC, well, the mind boggles.  For those of us who actually have to produce or lose, Apple is the only way to go.

Apple won a billion dollar patent suit against Samsung.  The fight will go on worldwide.  Here are some comments from both sides:

“Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies. Consumers have the right to choices, and they know what they are buying when they purchase Samsung products.

Just so.  Samsung has it exactly right.   Note Samsung is arguing consumer choice.

The lawsuits between Apple and Samsung were about much more than patents or money. They were about values. At Apple, we value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. We make these products to delight our customers, not for our competitors to flagrantly copy. We applaud the court for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right” 

O! Please!  This from the company that stole graphical user interface from Xerox.  Note Apple is arguing victimhood.  Samsung loses a billion serving customers, and Apple is a victim?

Your products delight customers, Apple, mission accomplished.  Those who buy Samsung instead are not your customers, thus they are literally none of your business.  Samsung "costs" Apple nothing because because no one buying Samsung would have bought Apple.  And Apple produced nothing tangible that Samsung sells, and in natural law, property is tangible. And since it is almost impossible to buy a phone without comparing phones, Samsung has it right: consumers know what they are buying when they purchase Samsung.

The reason I am not in charge of Apple is because this is what I would do right now:  I'd announce that all of the patents Apple "won" in the case were henceforth open-sourced, and Apple would not be collecting on the billion that Samsung workers, who poured their heart and soul into making whatever Samsung sells, had earned.  And announce every patent Apple owned was now open-sourced.

Why not?  IBM has done something similar, to good effect.

Then let market competition reign, until capitalism does finally crash into chaos, and the spontaneous order of anarchy emerges without intellectual property rights.

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Mish On Robots

Mish has a two part series on robots taking over the workforce.  He is optimistic, as long as the state stays out of the way.  I agree.

What area could robotics benefit us more and allow our economy to recover and grow our way out of our problems than to unregulate transportation.  If all levels of Government got out of funding and regulating transportation, we'd see a renaissance in transportation, most likely with mag-lev.

When man travelled by horse, this new motorcar, train and bicycle, bicycle makers in USA and France began making airplanes, something no Government had any part of.  Eventually The state arrested development of this technology, but there you have it.

People would not be put out of work with robotics, we have instead of 10,000 man hours experimenting with lab cultures, printer technology has been adapted to 10,000 microexperiments done in an hour in a lab.  Faster cures for more diseases is the result, if medicine were unregulated.

Kropotkin railed against the division of labor, for fear people would be stuck for life making one thing, a horrifying prospect.  But Kropotkin never saw a robot.  The division of labor is precisely what we need, with say a specialist in bacteriophages.  This is more possible the more we have robots doing repetitive, programmable work.

I met a fellow who had an irrigation system that reduced water usage by 60%.  That would be a boon.  Except, use it or lose it.  Water is a very valuable right in a capitalist society.  If you cut water usage by 60%, then the rights to the water will revert back to the State.  In a free market unused water would be homesteaded by new farmers.  Econony'd grow.  Our problems always et back to the state.

Night soil is nasty business, but think of robots handling it and processing to to put on fields.  We'd reduce synthetic fertilizers and lessen oil use and all sorts of nasty industrial toxins.  State says no, because the state is owned by big biz.

Our water systems are poisoned by synthetic drugs that get peed into swimming pools and our lakes and streams.  Govt in charge, and EPA refuses to test for hormone levels, except in relation to dairy wastewater.  Far more women taking estrogen than cows.  Robots could monitor this stuff.

The modern luddites are the bankers and usurers who trap people so they can not give us innovation, given the power of robots...  and the IPR people who block innovation.  Unregulating banking and IPR would help.

We need much freedom becuase there is much to do, or undo. Here a doctor explains why when you think you are eating healthy cracked wheat whatever, it is closer to crack-wheat.

Note that I said "modern" wheat, because I would argue that what we are being sold today in the form of whole grain bread, raisin bagels, blueberry muffins, pizza, ciabatta, bruschetta, and so on is not the same grain our grandparents grew up on. It's not even close.

 Freedom will give us better food for all, better medicine for all, housing, clothes, everything.  Instead, the Government has bought five illegal bullets for every American.

An election will change nothing.  Time for sack-cloth and ashes.

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Internships and an Education

So widespread is the abject evil of the idea that an education is about getting a job, that I told my daughters I would punish them if they enrolled in college with a view to employment.  An education is a terrible thing to waste on a job.  Education comes from the Latin ex+ducere "to lead out," presumably from darkness into the light.  I will never know how education became the means to become a wage slave and lifelong organ harvest subject (employers do take your heart and guts and lungs and spleen and so on) and in some cases people are zombified having traded away their very souls.  But this is not for my daughters.  The point of an education is to be enlightened, not to be trapped for life.

One of my daughters defied me (house rules: you can defy me, but never lie to me) by getting an AA in  fashion from a community college before she finished high school, technically meeting my requirements while obviously breaking the rules.  The punishment is in abeyance until I can get my head around actions by a kid who is smarter than I am.

Otherwise, my threats have paid off: my eldest is a religious studies major, the middle is a classics scholar, and the youngest, God bless her, is an English major.  None owe a dime in students loans (like me), all are on track in (or graduated from) better Universities and each has more job offers than they can stand.  Their father may be a neanderthal, but he knows the point of an education.

Other parents ask me what my kids plan to do with their putatively risible educations, and my reply is always "be happy."  They do not like this answer.

Other kids graduate and look forward... umm.. working for nothing.  Here are words from a security expert:

The employment prospects for recent college graduates today remain, on the whole, pretty bleak. And while some firms predict an uptick in the near future, that has yet to materialize. Youth unemployment in American isalmost as high as it is in the Middle East, where unemployment sparked revolutions last year. Beltway dysfunction could use young blood to break the hold of the entrenched interests, but there are ever-increasing barriers of entry for new applicants.

Wait.  Because kids cannot get government jobs they'll be rioting in the streets?  Maybe this is why the state need 5 illegal bullets for every American.  This is one way to solve unemployment.  As Stalin said: no man, no problem.  Maybe half will be given government jobs that entail shooting the other half.

In any event the author notes that in some industries, employers depend on unpaid interns to stay alive.  "Some?"  Name an industry that does not.  And this problem is not new, it is so old legislation has been passed to forbid it, except for lawyers and politicians.  But the writer makes a good observation:

there are a huge number of eager, ambitious young people all scrambling to get a very small number of jobs. While understandable, the result is a class system where those wealthy enough to afford to live without income in an expensive city (and Washington is an expensive city by any definition) get experience and access to jobs. Young people in the middle class or from more modest backgrounds are shut out – the economics simply don’t work.

Yes,  Joe Biden's wife pulls down $80k per year as a community college english "professor" while people who wish to teach are working for a few thousand a year as adjuncts.  She calls herself doctor, but a "doctor in education" takes exactly 2 courses beyond a masters to earn.  Most people who earn a  DE have not the temerity to call themselves "doctor."

Still, the internization of America’s college graduates should prompt us to ask: If going to college doesn’t improve your job prospects, why bother going?

Believing college is to improve job prospects is the problem.

And what does it mean when access to government jobs is increasingly limited only to those applicants who can count on their families for financial support?

There you go, and the real world the ideal is government jobs, of course.

We don’t have the answers to that question. Not yet, at least. But the growing inequality of American workers – white and blue collar – is deeply troubling.

What do you mean "we"?  If YOU are ignorant, then we all must be?  If your frame of reference is so narrow that college is about work, so you can be soul & organ-harvested, and the only real job is a government job, then of course you have no answers.  The reason you are a "fellow" at a think tank is because you have no answers.  The reason you have soap box rights on NPR is because you have no answers.

There are answers, and they are being effected, but there is no way they will ever enter your field of vision.

Self-employment.  No government necessary. There is the revolution in a nutshell.

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Five Bullets, Part II

The SFGates has a fine story on FBI duplicity and they bring down a Bay Area icon.  This is like when   Gloria Steinem was outed as a CIA operative.

I am naturally nonviolent, but as a practical matter, any time any one advocates violence rest assured they are doing so at the behest of our Government.  Every single time.

Update:  I had an article in .pdf I thought was authentic, but it was merely a legitimate fictionalization.  So I deleted it.

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Five Bullets for Every American

A retired general has some concerns about DHS and the Ecology Dept and NOAA buying millions of rounds of bullets banned by the Geneva convention, clearly to be used on Americans.  Says the general:

Were I the JCS, and if I wasn’t already fully briefed on this matter, I’d stop the purchase of hollow point bullets, ask the secretary of Defense why all this ammunition is being purchased and spread around the country? If I got answers like the ones Congress got during the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious – I’d start tracking all ammunition deliveries nationwide to find out what organizations and units are using them, for what purpose and, if it is not constitutional, prepare to counteract whatever it is that they are doing.

This is a deadly serious business. I hope I’m wrong, but something smells rotten. And If the Congress isn’t going to do its duty and investigate this matter fully, the military will have to protect the Constitution, the nation, and our citizens.

Jerry Curry is a decorated combat veteran, Army Aviator, Paratrooper, and Ranger, who for nearly forty years has served his country both in the military and as a Presidential political appointee.

Wait, what?  A military takeover?  How about not?  How about USA citizens are already armed, and if a crew from NOAA decides to move on citizens, let the citizens deal with NOAA administrators.  Just let Americans arm themselves more fully.

The problem here is election fraud is so widespread that they people have no means to effect change they desire.  This is due to the problem Immanuel Kant spotted when the USA was being formed.  Kant noted we have checks and balances, bit allowing lawyers, members of one branch of government, to serve simultaneously in another branch, the executive  and legislative, is an inherent conflict of interest.

Well it is worst than that, instead of securing our freedoms, the lawyers have so hamstrung the populace with Pharisaical rules we cannot effect change or amelioration.  There is a simple fix: forbid lawyers from serving in either the legislative or executive branches of Government.  We do not need a law, if we all simple never vote for a lawyer, we can do much to avoid civil war.

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Hong Kong & Corruption

Under British rule, corruption in Hong Kong got out of hand.  In the 1970s a senior police officer was discovered to have hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed in bank accounts around the world.  When called to account, he simply hopped a plane to London to what would have been the end of the story.

But the people of Hong Kong wanted better.  So an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was formed that reported directly to the governor.  It was a difficult task, but it eventually resulted in Hong Kong, 40 years later, being widely regarded as the least corrupt city in the world.

Now that the British are gone, the ICAC reports to the Communist Chinese government in Beijing.

Whereas even a 3rd rate mayor in the United States expects a solid stream of income for himself and his, and a young politician, like Paul Ryan, who has otherwise never worked in the private sector, is also a millionaire, life is dicey for the corrupt in Hong Kong.  Ryan credits his personal integrity for his success.

One aspect of the ICAC rules is anyone in public office who appears to have assets incommensurate with income is presumed guilty of corruption and dealt with accordingly.  Whereas even low level decision makers in USA government are "upgraded" when travelling to millionaire style vacations, in Hong Kong that could result in jail time, while you prove you did pay for it and could afford it.

I would say the ICAC goes too far when it investigates private companies.  I've been privy to family arguments in which threats of calling in the ICAC are thrown around.  Whereas this is unlikely, in fact the ICAC does intervene in free market corruption when it is likely not necessary.

For example, a famous contretemps erupted when the newspaper Hong Kong Standard was caught by the ICAC falsifying its circulation numbers, which in turn is in effect stealing from advertisers who pay based on circulation numbers.  Such falsification is widespread in USA.

In the case of the Hong Kong Standard, a couple of mid-level managers were prosecuted, but surely after being exposed by the ICAC the ICAC could have simply stepped back and let the Hong Kong Standard's customers exact a penalty agreeable to all parties.  Contemplating prosecuting the owner and throwing a couple of midlevels in the slam hardly addresses the issue.

And finally, Hong Kong is one of the freest economies in the world, and one of the cleanest.  It has a government, an exceedingly weak one, that became quite corrupt.  Nothing new there, as far as governments go.  It took an independent commission to clean Hong Kong up.  It took an outraged populace to force the clean-up.  If your government is corrupt, don't blame the government.

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USA Reshoring

Bloomberg is reporting that more and more USA companies are coming back to have the products made here.  The article is light on facts and heavy on opinion.  But here are some anecdotes:

As costs in China rise and owners look closely at the hassles of using factories 12,000 miles and 12 time zones away, many small companies have decided manufacturing overseas isn’t worth the trouble. American production is “increasingly competitive,” says Harry Moser, founder of the Reshoring Initiative, a group of companies and trade associations trying to bring factory jobs back to the U.S. “In the last two years there’s been a dramatic increase” in the amount of work returning.

I wish it were true, for most of what we import is often matter money laundering and tax avoidance, except at the small business level.  Every instance in the article features a small business that went overseas without doing due diligence and then finding out they made the wrong choice.

For LightSaver, the decision was simple. Neither of the founders has ever been to China, which made communicating with manufacturers difficult. Components that were shipped from the U.S. sometimes got stuck in customs for weeks. And Anderson had to spend hours on the phone to explain tweaks in the product. “If we have an issue in manufacturing, in America we can walk down to the plant floor,” Anderson says. “We can’t do that in China.” Anderson says manufacturing in the U.S. is probably 2 percent to 5 percent cheaper once he takes into account the time and trouble of outsourcing production overseas.

You did not check out their communications capabilities before you started working with them?  This is why agents are so important in int'l trade.

Since 2008, Ultra Green Packaging, one of Olson’s clients, has used manufacturers in China to make compostable plates and containers from wheat straw and other organic materials. By yearend, Ultra Green expects to start producing the bulk of its wares at a plant in North Dakotato cut freight costs and protect its intellectual property. “They’re infamous over there for knocking [products] off,” says Phil Levin, chairman of the 10-employee company. “All anybody needs to do is find a different factory and make a mold.”

And then what?  Steal your market?  Is it that easy?  The won't it be even easier here in USA?

Although the company used Chinese manufacturers for earlier offerings, syringes preloaded with medications are subject to stringent U.S. Food and Drug Administration rules. So in March 2011, Unilife began making its syringes at a $32 million, 165,000-square-foot plant it built in York, Pa. “The very thing in the U.S.A. that oftentimes we complain about—the complexity of the rules and the regulations—works for us,” says CEO Alan Shortall. “FDA compliance is the main reason we’re here.”

So in this case the FDA creates a barrier to entry that can be used against the USA consumer?

Pigtronix’s move back, completed three years ago, has helped improve cash flow. While manufacturing pedals in the U.S. can cost anywhere from three to six times as much as it does in China, Bethke says Pigtronix benefits from not having capital tied up in products that spend weeks in transit and then pile up in inventory. “In China, you have high minimum quantities you have to order, so you’re building a couple thousand of every guitar pedal,” Bethke says. “Your carrying costs start to get huge.” Today the company only makes those pedals it’s confident it can sell quickly.

That should have been figured out before you went to China.

The interesting thing will be to see if any of these companies do any better once they re-shore.  I doubt it.  If they fail to do due diligence on something so fundamental as sourcing, I imagine the problem is congenital.  China and outsourcing got a longer term view here...

Thanks to Anthony for the heads up...

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Tolstoy On Anarchy

After 25 years of teaching on the side, I am more convinced than ever self-employment is also about personal transformation.  That transformation is best advanced in proportion that there is no state.

Tolstoy:

In the 1900 essay, "On Anarchy", Tolstoy wrote; "The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power ... There can be only one permanent revolution—a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man." 

It keeps coming back to 1 Samuel 8.

¹⁹ But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. ²⁰ Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

As long as you want someone else to fight your battles, you are trapped.  As long as you want a state, you want others to fight your battles.  This is a distortion of the free market, in which others gladly provide for your needs, for which you trade your skills.  But with a state, there is no need for personal transformation, and we are all denied the good of your native talents.

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