Dana Blankenhorn

The Creativity Economy

The Creativity Economy is why Trumpism won’t win.

Technology created the Creativity Economy. Creativity is now the gating factor to economic growth. America has more creativity than any other country, thus more growth.

This means more than having talent. Lots of places have talent. But the Creativity Economy has needs that go beyond having talent. Talent must be taught, and it must be free to learn. It must be mentored. Most importantly it must be empowered. Anything, or anyone, who says “no” to a creative person is harming the economy.

Creativity has many dimensions. The Creativity Economy draws from all of them. Whether your talent lies in organizing, in selling, in technology or explaining it, in music or art, the Creativity Economy needs you. Many business leaders don’t have degrees in business. Part of nurturing the Creativity Economy is giving people the freedom to change their path.

The Bresch File

If there’s an identifiable villain in America’s health care cost crisis, it’s Heather Bresch. 

If you have a kid who might die from food allergies, or if it might happen to you, you have an EpiPen. If you have asthma and worry about a sudden attack, you have one. It’s a necessity, an insurance policy against sudden death.

The EpiPen contains epinephrine, more commonly known as adrenaline.  Adrenaline is a hormone that can increase your blood pressure and heart rate. If you’re scared, or highly energized, your body releases adrenaline and performs better. It can stop the shock from food allergies. It can stop an asthma attack. 

During most of the last decade, Bresch was the CEO of Mylan. As CEO, starting in 2011, she pushed huge price increases on EpiPens. She made small changes to the injector to win patent protection. She called epinephrine generic to avoid having to pay Medicaid rebates. Mylan bought the rights to make the EpiPen in 2007 and had a 95% market share in 2016, increasing the size of the market five-fold. By this time, Mylan was selling two-packs of the pens for $608. 

In response to the scandal, Bresch stonewalled Congress. She claimed price increases were the result of research costs. They weren’t. She pretended not to know key details on pricing or the company’s policies on patient assistance. Eventually, market pressure forced Mylan into a merger with Pfizer’s generic drug business, which is now called UpJohn. When the UpJohn deal was done, Bresch “retired.” At age 52.

Any prosecutor who couldn’t make a criminal case out of this isn’t worth their law degree. So far, no one has. Wonder why?

Mini-Kitchen

About 25 years ago, we re-did our kitchen.

Technology is now making that re-do look obsolete.

Kitchens are still being built as ours was. They’re energy hogs. There’s a big oven, a four-burner cooktop, and a dishwasher standard. These are built into the walls and counters. They take up a lot of space.

Meanwhile, there are a host of new mini-appliances that can replace all that. It’s going to be a hot niche this Christmas. We’re talking about air fryers, sous vide devices, “Instant Pot” devices and grill-griddle-air fryers. Plus, there are those ubiquitous Keurig machines and multi-purpose microwaves.

Two things are happening. One is that counterspace is now at a premium. So is shelf space for that matter. The other is that people are saving both money and energy. An electric oven like my Dacor can cost $3,000. All the devices I’ve mentioned above cost $1,000, total. They also use a lot less electricity.

Clouds Rule the World (For Now)

Some Friday thoughts on the clouds and the Cloud Czars.

America’s economy rules the world, and the Cloud Czars rule the American economy. Rather than celebrate this, we seem more interested in ending it.

The Czars seem happy with the status quo. They shouldn’t be.

Our measurement of tech’s impact is completely wrong. We measure it by market cap. We should be measuring it in productivity, which thanks to tech is growing worldwide. When productivity takes people out of the middle class, they turn against tech. Tech needs to be wary of that.

How can they be wary? Instead of just asking what government asking what we can do to tech, we should be asking how government can help tech toward more useful innovations.

Will Rogers Was Right

“I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”

Will Rogers’ saying of a century ago is just as true now, even though the political positions of the parties have reversed.

Republicans are united. Once you’re in, all you need do is follow the leader. They make it easy. You never have to think. It doesn’t matter if the leader is a madman, or you’re taking the country off a cliff. That’s why Joe McCarthy wasn’t fatal. Neither is Trump.

Democrats remain a collection of interests. Instead of ethnic machines and southern whites, it’s a rainbow of McGovern-era complainers.

Democrats make it very hard to be a Democrat. Liberal elites are constantly creating new red lines, and anyone who crosses one crosses them all. Anything that goes wrong, whether large or small, is a sign of the apocalypse, a sign to surrender rather than attack.

The Past is a Sad Country

Of all the songs on Jason Isbell’s breakout 2013 album Southeastern, it’s Relatively Easy that holds up best.

“You should know, compared to people on a global scale, our kind has had it relatively easy.” But people are still unsettled. A brother is on a church kick, “just another form of dope sick.” A man’s wife takes his kids away and he takes Klonopin, “enough to kill a man of twice his size.” The narrator tore up his loft and is now on parole, alone.

Everyone wants more, and prosperity doesn’t change it. We all think it was better back then, that it’s all terrible and about to get worse.

It isn’t. The past wasn’t good. We live longer than ever if we’re not getting ourselves shot, overdosing on drugs, or refusing vaccines. Middle class Americans are richer than anyone in the history of the world, thanks to technology and the creativity economy. We have nothing to complain about.

The Inflation Scare

Politicians, and those with political motives, want you to believe inflation is back to stay. They call inflation “theft,” and harp on the size of the national debt.

This is bullshit, and there’s an easy tell.

Markets rose after the government announced prices rose 6.5% in the month of October. Not only did markets rise, but Bitcoin fell. If Bitcoin were the great inflation hedge that’s claimed, it would have skyrocketed.

Prices are up because the pandemic is ending. This created a sudden rush of demand, in areas where demand had been slack. This is especially true in the case of oil and natural gas. I thought they would rise with the pandemic’s end and indeed they did.

The Iron Triangle

For 200 years, since the Monroe Doctrine, Latin America has been ruled by an Iron Triangle of economic oligarchs, religious extremists, and militarists, backed by the veto of the U.S. government.

Democracy and liberty never stood a chance. Even when “leftists” took power, as in Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela, they simply adapted the system. The party became the religion, and the party leaders the oligarchs. The military rules. Power flows from the barrel of a gun.

We teach our kids that America never adopted that system, but we did. In the American South, from 1876 until roughly the mid-1950s. The KKK was the military, the Southern Baptists were the religious, and local landowners were the oligarchs. Textile manufacturers moved south and adapted to it. It was the refusal of northern businesses to go along after World War II that led to its breakup.

People Aren’t Stupid

What upsets me about politics, more than anything else, is the assumption that people are stupid.

Republicans think they can tell their voters anything and they’ll buy it. Democrats think Republicans can steal the system and no one will object. Washington pundits are the worst of all, with their charts and graphs proving beyond any doubt that the system can be easily and permanently rigged.

If Americans are stupid, we have always been stupid. The tension was obvious in 1788, when only white property owners were allowed to vote. Then it was just white men. Then just men. Then just whites. In each case the assumption was that if “those people” chose our leaders, they would choose poorly.

Sometimes they did. The American Plan of John Quincy Adams was rejected in favor of the racist populism of Andrew Jackson. The 1876 election was stolen on behalf of southern racists, with the connivance of Republicans. America has always had urban political machines, who bought votes and engaged in all sorts of shenanigans. We’ve had suburban and rural machines, too.

Americans today are more educated than we have ever been. We have more access to information than we ever have. Yet the assumption that we’re all idiots is the one thing that seems to unite every political speaker – left, right and center.

It’s true that people can be manipulated by propaganda techniques. If we’re inclined in one direction, we can be pushed further in that direction. Any algorithm built on engagement will lead you down a rabbit hole. Even if the rabbit hole is filled with pictures of cute kitties.

 

The Countryside

When Democrats think about rural America, they think about poor farmers and empty towns.

The towns are empty. But the farmers aren’t poor.

If you own farmland in America, you are wealthy. By definition. Agriculture is manufacturing. Making it work takes big, expensive machines. If you’re actively farming, you also own the machines. If you just own the land, someone else owns the machines, leases your land, while you sit around town enjoying the benefits.

There are poor people in rural America. Most are grifting. They’re getting welfare, which they call entitlements. We’re talking Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ payments, disability. Urban America makes and rural America takes. It’s been that way for a generation. You just didn’t notice it.

Rural Americans don’t take responsibility for anyone but themselves. They spend their time imposing their values on the rest of us. Their religion, their ignorance. Also, their patriotism. Military bases are all in rural America. They provide an enormous additional subsidy, and a place to send any excess kids. Prisons are another rural industry.