The NYTimes has an article about the canceling of a old school Washington social scene column, with some interesting insight into how the way our leaders interact has changed and polarized over the last 50 years:
…The Washington that Ms. Quinn covers, one governed by convivial elites who battle by day and clink glasses at night, no longer exists. In the old paradigm, people with different points of view would assemble in various salons of Georgetown and set aside their differences over an Old Fashioned before the coq au vin was even served.
Now the butter knife has been replaced by a machete. People with opposing political points of view are less likely to eat with the loyal opposition at night than to try to dine on them in a quick hit on MSNBC or Fox News. And even once that is accomplished, there is the endless peering into the BlackBerry to observe the day trading in political capital that goes on in blogs, on Twitter and in e-mail newsletters.
From a research paper on international management practices and their effect on firm success:
One interesting group are the family firms, defined in our research as firms owned by the descendants of the founder… Those that are family owned and family managed (“Family, Family CEO”) have a large tail of badly managed firms, while the family owned but externally managed (“Family, External CEO”) look very similar to dispersed shareholders [are managed better]. The reason appears to be that… the eldest son becomes chief executive officer, regardless of talent considerations. Many governments around the world also provide strong tax subsidies for family firms; for example, the United Kingdom has many more family-run and -owned firms than the United States and Germany, which is likely to be related to the estate tax exemption for inherited business assets in the United Kingdom. [Emphasis added]
The Republican base is being supplemented by older generations shifting away from the Democrats, which might have some interesting ramifications for republican policy:
In a way, these figures should make small-government conservatives a lot more nervous than they make partisan Republicans. After all, you can win an awful lot of elections just by mobilizing the over-65 constituency — they’re well-informed, they turn out to vote, and there are more of them every day. But the easiest way to do it, as the Democrats proved for years and years and years, is to defend Medicare and Social Security like McAuliffe at Bastogne. This means that while the energy of activists may be pushing the Republicans to the right on size-of-government issues, the concerns of their central constituency could end up pulling them inexorably leftward on entitlements. (There’s a reason that even South Carolina’s Jim DeMint, in the midst of a CPAC stemwinder, paused to allow that one of the things government “has” to do is “keep our promises to our seniors.”)
4.) I’m surprised how unimportant estate and gift taxes are to the overall scheme of things. Even before the generous estate tax credit of the last few years (essentially exempting estates worth less than $3.5 million), estate and gift taxes are remarkably unimportant from a total revenues perspective. It’s obvious they serve another purpose such as the theoretical prevention of dynastic wealth transfer.
Like Mr. Brown, Ms. Snowe said she did not think the measure went far enough, and she also protested the Democratic decision to bar any Republican amendments. But the senator, who was particularly supportive of some business-oriented provisions in the measure, said those concerns were outweighed by the need to show Americans that Congress was acting. [Emphasis added]
So Olympia doesn’t think this legislation is good, but is going to vote for it anyway just to show that congress still does stuff now and then. Really good problem solving Congress, really good. No wonder your work product always shows such attention to detail and quality.
Imagine a world where when you leave a job, instead of telling you to pack your desk, they tell you to:
… deposit your ideas at the door before passing through the brain scanner to make sure you aren’t taking any ideas with you. And don’t forget to leave any thoughts you brought with you from home this morning; they are now company property.
For those not in the know, the creator of the very popular Bratz doll thought up the idea while working at Mattel (producers of Barbie). At the time, she was under an employment contract that made any ideas she had property of Mattel. As an aspiring entrepreneur who has signed a similar (though more limited) contract myself, the idea is scary. In fact, the fight between employer and employee for intellectual property might be the legal battle of our time.
Good overview on what buzz is, what it isn’t, and what to watch about it. Most perspective shifting part for me:
Q: Could Buzz become bigger than Twitter?
A: It already is:
While we can’t pinpoint an exact number, Twitter has probably around 18-25 million users worldwide. Heck, let’s say there are 30 million to be generous. Gmail has over 38 million uniques in the U.S., and that was back in September 2009. Worldwide, that number is simply larger.
Bruce Bartlet is one of the writers of Capital Gains and Games, an excellent policy analysis blog, with writers who can provide great insight from their time as Washington insiders, but always rise above the talking points you hear on TV.
My favorite contributor there is Bruce Bartlet (bio). Bruce is best described as a member of the Reagan White House, who has left and now publicly criticisms the Republican party for its sharp turn right and towards style over substance.
Every time I read one of his articles, I feel like I learn a little something about the issue at hand – and you really can’t ask for more than that.
Interesting talk about the technology revolution’s ability to remake government, from the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party.
What really strikes me looking around the world today is that information technology has remade retail and remade media consumption, but there are still huge industries it hasn’t begun to touch – Finance, Health Care, Energy, Education, and Government. Those also happen to be the more complex and heavily regulated industries – coincidence? For examples, compare Kayak.com to Bankrate.com, and searching for answers on turbotax.com to irs.gov (The IRS doesn’t even bother to define the jargon in its answers, so if you are confused about what a term means, you need to consult an expert).
For those budding entrepreneurs out there, think of ways to remake those industries with good information technology, and you might have a winner on your hands.
The result of Moderate legislators combining the worst of both parties proposal
The Bayh’s , Lieberman’s and Snowe’s of the world are moderates, in that they muddle together proposals of each side to make bastardized policy proposals that meet in the middle (legislative man-bear-pigs). As long as they remain moderates, patching together existing proposals, they will remain an obstacle, with only the limited utility Schaller [the author of 538] outlines.
What we need are Independents who come up with their own policy solutions rather than just trying to make the best out of the crap the Democrats and Republicans come up with. A majority of voters are registered Independents or “centrists” because they can’t get their mix of policy preferences without supporting both parties. If a candidate or party mirrored their preferences, providing them what they like about the left and what they like about the right, that candidate could rise to a new level of electoral success. There is a massive opportunity for a party to redefine itself, or an independent to eschew party, and provide a “third way”, with its own fully realized policy prescriptions, catering to the median voter.
