Dana Blankenhorn

Nature in the City

One of my big gripes with the present time, with freedom and democracy on the line, is that it delays consideration of other important issues.

Like that of nature in the city.

We like to pretend that nature has been tamed in the city, that it has no place save what we carve out for it. This is false.

During this century, as exurbs have extended their tentacles to the deepest woods and the tallest mountains, we have seen an unprecedented, seldom remarked-upon, rush of animals to American cities. When I was raising chickens 20 years ago I only had to worry about opossums and raccoons. Now we have coyotes, hawks and falcons. We also have bunny rabbits, deer, armadillo and feral hogs roaming the local landscape.

Re-evaluating J.P. Morgan

The Greatest Progressive of American history was J.P. Morgan. But he wouldn’t be one today.

Let me explain.

Businesses have always talked up the idea of progress, of change. It’s at the heart of the progressive idea, a constant, incremental improvement. Progressives believe in things getting better, and the way they usually get better is by something better coming along. Better products, better services, and better ways of doing things. Today these are all byproducts of competition.

They weren’t always.

Morgan was active from the Civil War through the first decade of the 20^th century. He is usually portrayed as either a colossus or an octopus. He was the man behind the “trusts.” Trusts were evil. He was Teddy Roosevelt’s great nemesis.

But was he? We know the men were close. Morgan and Roosevelt were both Republicans.

What is undeniably true is that, during Morgan’s time, America and the world were short on capital and on basic infrastructure. We couldn’t afford to have several rail lines serving the same point, or several telegraph wires serving the same office. That would mean other points and other offices got no service.

On Net Neutrality

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you no doubt believe that I’m a radical. A liberal. A fanatical criminal. 

In some ways this is true. On foreign policy I’m an internationalist who believes in peace. On social policy I believe people should be free to love who and what they want, and to kill themselves in any way that suits them.

This is not true in economic policy. I still consider myself a liberal here, but business was always a liberal force before the Nixon era. Progress is a business word, still often used in advertisements to denote the aims of oil companies and manufacturers, as well as tech outfits.

My economic beliefs are based on those of Adam Smith, who saw wealth inclining the wealthy toward the common good. I consider Trump and his acolytes to be Nietzscheites. (Ayn Rand is just Nietzsche in a skirt.)

More to the point, I consider them Fascists, and resent that I can’t use the word in public without being condemned.

So, when it comes to the subject of net neutrality, I’m sure you’re thinking, Dana is going to tell us that the FCC is wrong, that Democrats are right.

I’m not.

The Creative Destruction of Moore’s Law Trumps the Age of Trump.

There has always been an intimate connection between market cycles and political cycles in American politics.

The 2008 crash brought in Barack Obama, and the age we’re now living in. But like most people (including me), he thought the crash and his election meant the end of the crisis, not its beginning.

We’ve all learned better now.

One reason is that the 2008 collapse, and its quick resolution, didn’t drive home the lesson about speculation, and how man-made bubbles can cause enormous hurt when they pop, as they always do. The “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke solution of dropping money on the banks, replacing the losses, then regulating the banks’ use of the funds, only took the banks out of the equation during the next bubble.

The cycle of crisis, recovery, anti-thesis, and excess accelerated, as change does in the age of Moore’s Law. By 2016 the markets were ready for a new period of excess.

Beating Fascism in Our Time

Before this era is over there will be a global demand to “eat the rich,” at which point the Kochs, the Mercers, the little Trumps and Peter Thiel expect this nation’s intellectuals to save them from the guillotine.

The rich do have their purpose. Wealthy people supply capital for opportunities that create jobs. They stand by the banks that provide liquidity to the system. But they were amply paid for these services before they launched all-out war on the poor (and middle class), starting with Nixon, accelerating with Reagan, becoming obvious under Bush and climaxing under Trump. 

At Christmas 2017, the day of victory over these forces seems far off. The rich and their castles of money seem as impregnable as the castles of stone were for their 14^th century forebears. Everywhere you look, it seems, fascism reigns supreme. Russia has taken down America, China is “communist” only in name, the Middle East is ruled by the Saud Kings, and throughout the developing world absolute rulers of all stripes know the great powers have their back.

The world is much like it was in 1942, except that democracy and capitalism are being squeezed from above, not from the sides.

But victory is in sight.

Monopoly, Market Advantage, and Mouthpieces

The long-running scam on which this blog was originally based was the AT&T monopoly.

Since the 1984 Bell break-up, AT&T has been recreating itself, like the brooms of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence in Fantasia. What were originally 7 regional Bell companies merged into 2 regional Bells, then those two bought the long-distance operators with big market share in the Internet core. AT&T is descended from Southwestern Bell, one of the original 7, and changed names when it bought the long-distance operation.

AT&T has spent most of its corporate life grifting off government. It won huge subsidies to create “universal service” over a century ago, and it eventually won the end of price regulation on the service. It continued its grifting on the Internet. A “universal service fund,” derided as a “Gore Tax” by opponents, was a subsidy, crafted mainly for AT&T, aimed at delivering broadband service to rural areas and urban ghettoes.

Taking Responsibility for the Internet

Apple CEO Tim Cook angered me recently, complaining loudly about “fake news” on the Internet but failing to say he would do anything about it. Or so it was reported by many news outlets.

The truth is more nuanced. Cook is seeking a technological solution, something that scales, against what he sees as a human problem. Passing along lies may be “your prerogative” but it is the medium’s responsibility to slow the spread of lies and take action against persistent liars.

This is a hard truth the Internet industry is just waking up to, in the Age of Trump.

CrossCheck, a system for flagging fake news in France, which holds a Presidential election this spring, is Version 1 of the emerging solution. It’s important to note, however, that it’s just Version 1. Leading companies must undertake an open source process before a real solution can be implemented.

The big difference between our era in American history and those that came before is that the industry which dominates our economy also created the dominant medium. Most Americans now get their news through social media, through Web sites that deny categorically they are even media companies. 

The result is a media landscape that can easily be gamed. Russia gamed it. Donald Trump is the result.

TechLand vs. Bureaucracy

Technology has transformed most industries beyond recognition, especially since the Web was spun.

It has done this by eliminating friction in how things are bought and sold. The store is now open 24-7. You no longer go to a travel agent. You may not have an insurance agent. Banking is an app. The process has accelerated this decade, with the rise of cloud-based apps. 

But some industries have remained stubbornly resistant to change. The law, health care, and education are all protected, ringed really, by powerful bureaucracies that prevent reform in the name of the law.

Government can produce bureaucracy, but private bureaucracies can be fiercer and more intractable. Once you have people whose jobs are being defined as internal to the organization, you have bureaucracy. Even a one-man band like me has bureaucracy. My accountant is part of my bureaucracy. If I had a personal assistant – if I could afford one – I would have a bigger bureaucracy.

Obamacare Beyond Obama

The Affordable Care Act is based on one assumption and three corollaries. The assumption is:

There can be no unlimited draw from a limited pool

The three corollaries are:

1. Everyone gets into the pool, and everyone has skin in the game.
2. Technology will show the best practices, and best practices should be followed.
3. Competition is good.

The third corollary was put in by Republicans, whose allies have spent the last six years disproving it in their attempt to tear down the other corollaries and, in the end, destroy the Obamacare system.

Competition is good, but its aim is to win, and the prize for winning is market power, which the rules dictate must then be used on behalf of shareholders. Great in theory, but in practice inherently messy, and as subject to corruption as any government-run system.

Once this election is over we’re going to all face the problems of Obamacare beyond Obama, because we’re all getting older. Americans aren’t doing it as fast as Europeans or Asians, thanks to immigration, but we’re all doing it, each one of us.

The Internet at War

I think a lot of historians mistake the point of our periodic political crises.

To me, it’s the point where directions turn that are key. To others, it’s the point at which that turn seeks validation, when it’s challenged, that matters.

So to me 1968 matters more than 1976, and 1932 more than 1940. I think 1896 was a key year for America, and that 1860 was probably the key moment in our entire history.

But others just see directions set in those years. The real crisis, in their view, comes after, when the new assumptions are challenged and things turn really violent. World War II is on The History Channel a lot more than the Great Depression is.