02 October 2018

Apple is not a tech company


Apple is not a tech company. It is a trillion-dollar luxury product (and services) company. This is not meant as an insult, merely an observation and I am not ready to short AAPL any time soon. They cast off metric booty-loads of money -- so much they don't even know what to do with it. Which is why I don't consider them a tech company. My perspective is informed by having help start a software development company and run it until it had become largely a software maintenance company, from tech to products and services.

Yes, Apple traffics in "tech" writ large, but what I'd call a tech company traffics in innovation. Apple was, for a while, a tech optimization company along with its brand. The insight with the iPhone was to mash up the (derivative) iPod with the ubiquitous mobile phone and slap an Apple logo on it. Since then, they've done doodly squat. Except, of course, make loads and loads of cash and addict millions of people to their phones, services, and brand.

What does it mean if they can't think of something to do with that cash? Yes, they pay a dividend and buy back stock, but that's not innovation. That's turning the crank for investors, which is right and proper in its own way. But, if that's all that's left, then, clearly, they've run out of ideas. And if they're out of ideas, they're not a tech company, by my definition.

As I said, I'm not ready to short AAPL, but there are a few things to keep an eye on. First is the competition. Offerings from Google and Samsung are very strong, and the feature-function gap has narrowed to de facto parity. Second, entry level phones are one tenth the price of iPhones and provide access to the same apps and services that connect users to social media, the Internet, and, oh yeah, make calls. Third, phone quality is sufficiently high across the board that people can be reluctant to upgrade. A new release is no longer a compelling event.

Of course, Apple has a lot going for it and it's hard to see it going away. They have a massive installed based who are deeply intertwined with a labyrinth of Apple services that would make it difficult to switch to a cheaper, and perhaps technically superior offering. Moreover, they control access of companies and developers to their installed. They are sitting on a quarter trillion in cash and that's after a buying back a bunch of stock.

No, Apple is not a tech company anymore, and that's fine. But you know who is a tech company? Amazon. And that they are is amazing and a little scary.

01 October 2018

What's a sovereign nation?

Greece wants their drachma back.


What is a sovereign nation? That's not a question I have traditionally spent a lot of time pondering, assuming, naively, that all nations are sovereign by definition. But it's more complicated than that. Originally, the States of the United States were supposed to be sovereign -- or at least much more sovereign than they are today, but that went out the window long ago (thanks Commerce Clause abusing Congress!). And I think that there is a similar process underway in Europe. My proposition is this: if your currency is denominated in Euros and your country's name is not Germany, then you are not a sovereign nation or won't be for long. So, rather than look at what a sovereign nation is, I'll look at what a sovereign nation isn't. Consider Greece. They have been relegated to vassal state status with their monetary policy being dictated by the IMF and the holders of Greek bonds including Germany, France, and others.

What got me thinking about all of this is learning a little bit about Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. There is a lot to MMT and I won't go into it all here, but a key element is that a sovereign state issuing its own fiat currency can never be insolvent. Most macroeconomics are predicated on the government being able to nudge things like inflation, employment, and investment by increasing or decreasing the money supply. When a country's currency is pegged to foreign currencies or is not even under the country's control as with Greece and the euro, the country's monetary policy options are severely constrained. The way the EU is organized is much more problematic than the States since the individual countries are kinda-sorta sovereign in that they have armies and considerable independence over their finances, but those using Euros are much more constrained in their monetary policies than those that do not. It is interesting that the Brexiting UK and other problem children Hungary and Poland don't use the euro. If I were a Swede I'd say you can pry my Kronor from my cold, dead hand. Lather, rinse, repeat the other still fairly sovereign countries. I bet Greece would love to have their debt in drachmas rather than euros. There's not much they can do about the debt today, but there is one plan for how they can get their drachmas back.

The EU much different from the US is that the EU nations are much more different one from the other than the States are in the US. The EU nations have distinct languages, customs, values, traditions, etc., whereas much of the diversity of the US is mixed together and spread out to varying degrees and, for the most part, knit together through the common usage of English. My suspicion is that the only countries in the EU with a real tradition of a Roman-style sense of naturalization are the UK and France and maybe the Netherlands. That is, the French are more likely to see a naturalized French citizen as French (as long as she acts French) than say a Hungarian is to see a naturalized Hungarian citizen has Hungarian.

The most important euro-using country wrestling with its lack of sovereignty is Italy. Unlike the UK, much of the Italian government debt is denominated in Euros, thus leaving the EU much more problematic than the already problematic Brexit. Moreover, an Italian exit of the EU would cause seismic disruptions to the EU and the euro with the loss of the EU's third largest economy that Italy represents. Default by Greece would have been painful for investors, default by Italy might cause a global financial crisis.

Countries and banks are getting too big when the failure of one can bring down the global economy. Banks we can do something about. Countries not so much, but a United States of Europe needs to be built with a lot more care than is being used to run it today. The UK voted for sovereignty. I wonder if they will be the only country to do so.
Trump has catalyzed a watershed moment in our nation's history, and one, if we're not vigilant and careful, may never recover. The "Russia" narrative is an out-of-the-park home run for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex (MICC), both political parties outside the MICC, and the MSM. And no, this is not some grand conspiracy, but an unlikely and unholy alignment of interests which are no longer aligned with the greater good of the American people, or any other people of the world as "people" are commonly understood. What the Russia narrative has done is given us the Mueller investigation. Whatever you think of Trump personally, it's a very bad precedent to authorize a special counsel to investigate wtfever [pdf]:

(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James B. Corney in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:
(i) any links and/or coordination bet ween the Russian government and
individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
(c) If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters.

Some say that this is no different than Whitewater, but it's not even in the same universe. Whitewater was started when a specific individual (David Hale) was the source of specific criminal allegations (claimed Clinton had pressured him into making an illegal $300k loan to Susan McDougal). The specific criminal allegation that launched a thousand ships against Trump and perhaps all future presidents: Russia! Whitewater, in hindsight, was really bad. This takes that mistake up to 11. The opposition at time of inauguration has a shiny new tool, burnished by precedent. Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey will be supplanted by the Quest for the Blue Dress in our cultural narratives.

MICC benefits because a super-majority of the sheeple they herd and fleece are now united in fear and loathing of Russia and are baying for action. And if the sheeple trust the MICC to deal with the Russian (bug)bear, well, they extend that trust to believe the MICC will do what's in their best interest. And our war in Yemen is good for jobs. Yeah, that's the ticket.

And Russian fear and loathing sells. It whips up passions and generates the clicks and the retweets and sustains the monologues. Is there any MSM outlet that is at all skeptical of the Russian narrative. Sure, they have different spins this way and that (no collusion with Trump, but totally tried to whack Skirpal, or collusion, hacked the election, and totally tried to whack Skirpal), but there is some way that Russia is at the bottom of something nefarious that's totally transforming America for the worse. And they're right. Whether the Russians are doing something effective actively, I don't know, but the Cult of the Anti-Russia is creating a bunch of dogmatic zealots whose reasoning is impaired where fact and fiction are indistinguishable.

26 January 2018

Fantastic Fables: The Foolish Woman

A Married Woman, whose lover was about to reform by running away, procured a pistol and shot him dead.

"Why did you do that, Madam?" inquired a Policeman, sauntering by.

"Because," replied the Married Woman, "he was a wicked man, and had purchased a ticket to Chicago."

"My sister," said an adjacent Man of God, solemnly, "you cannot stop the wicked from going to Chicago by killing them."


--

Seems like a pretty effective way to keep the wicked from going to Chicago, not that this recommends the policy. The absurdity of this verse of Fantastic Fables reflects a cultural absurdity that is still with us, namely that many of us are not what we claim to be, but parodies of what we claim to be. Also still with us is the punishment of those who try to do right on principle at the cost of disturbing the status quo.

One of the things that our myths, traditions, and religion did for us was replace understanding with notions and instincts that allowed us to muddle through without having to think. Failing to recognize the purpose, and focusing on the irrationality and inconsistencies and things that are bogus begs people to throw the whole system out and replace it with what they fancy, and what they fancy is generally founded in even more dubious superstition and disbelief and irrationality that has not benefited from thousands of years of an evolution like process which culls some of the poorer notions and reinforces some of the more useful.

One of the more pernicious and anti-scientific notions to come along is categorical negation of entire systems of thought should any flaw or inconsistency or hypocrisy be found. Or, the wrong kind of flaw, inconsistency, or hypocrisy. A founding father had a slave? Chuck the whole damn system. And replace it with what? Even in a socialist or communist society, someone has to shovel the shit and someone has to grow the grains and someone has to fix the pipes. Who decides who does that? And who decides who the decider is?

25 January 2018

Devin Nunes and his memo

What to make of Devin Nunes' memo? There aren't many concrete details out there, but there are some interesting dynamics. Timing is one. Obviously, Nunes could have written the memo a while ago, but didn't until they passed the FISA Amendment Reauthorization with bipartisan support (65-34). Would have kicking up a dust made passing that harder? Certainly folks pick and choose their partisan issues pretty carefully, and it appears that the Fourth Amendment is the red-headed step child of the Bill of Rights in the eyes of most of Congress.

How is it that we don't know jack squat about it contents? Of course, we can guess and speculate, but not a dang detail has dropped. More than 200 Congresscritters have read it, yet no one has leaked a single nugget. Yes, it's classified and leaking classified information is a crime, but Congresscritters are not inured in the ways of handling classified information in the way that folks who work with it every day are. I am surprised that details haven't slipped out on background just by sloppiness. There are certainly broad shapes that could be plausibly leaked as speculation. That it seems likely that it will be declassified (perhaps with redaction), it's likely that the information is not a grave threat to national security, and shouldn't be classified in the first place.

If they're planning to release the memo, why don't they just do it? I've read they want to give the Whitehouse five days to veto the release, but the process could have been initiated last week. Why hasn't it been initiated and what are they waiting for?

Fantastic Fables: The Critics

While bathing, Antinous was seen by Minerva, who was so enamoured of his beauty that, all armed as she happened to be, she descended from Olympus to woo him; but, unluckily displaying her shield, with the head of Medusa on it, she had the unhappiness to see the beautiful mortal turn to stone from catching a glimpse of it. She straightway ascended to ask Jove to restore him; but before this could be done a Sculptor and a Critic passed that way and espied him.

"This is a very bad Apollo," said the Sculptor: "the chest is too narrow, and one arm is at least a half-inch shorter than the other. The attitude is unnatural, and I may say impossible. Ah! my friend, you should see my statue of Antinous."

"In my judgment, the figure," said the Critic, "is tolerably good, though rather Etrurian, but the expression of the face is decidedly Tuscan, and therefore false to nature. By the way, have you read my work on 'The Fallaciousness of the Aspectual in Art'?"


--

I wish I had a TARDIS so I could go back and snarf Ambrose Bierce and bring him to provide some commentary on the state of American affairs post-Trump. Probably would snag HL Mencken and Dorothy Parker, too. George Carlin, of course. Twain, Lord, couldn't forget Twain. I'm sure we can generate a long list of folks who could provide a bon mot or two.

What is simultaneously amazing and demoralizing is the inability of most of the mainstream media to be able to deal with Trump. There are multiple reasons and some that they bring upon themselves and others beyond their control, more or less. With the collapse of the papers classified advertising vehicles with some news thrown in, they've adopted the same sort of click-bait driven business models that drive blogs and the like, so anything that click worthy gets covered almost independently of it's newsworthiness. And President Trump is a cornucopia of click-bait fodder and outlets have to match their rivals tweet for tweet.

Where they go too far, however, is a certain type of reactionary anti-Trumpism where the reporting is distorted by mere animus toward the man. The animus is not the problem, its allowing the animus to cloud the reasoning and corrupt the reporting. This is not a partisan issue and it is not a pro or anti-Trump issue. It's a form of political correctness where facts are less important than virtue signaling. This is, of course, not limited to the MSM, but this is where you see its widest expression.

It seems unlikely that MSM will fix itself. They probably cannot, so, it will be left to us to expand our sources of information and be vigilant in trying to see the facts and reason clearly and objectively to arrive at our own conclusions.

21 January 2018

Fantastic Fables: The Broom of the Temple


The city of Gakwak being about to lose its character of capital of the province of Ukwuk, the Wampog issued a proclamation convening all the male residents in council in the Temple of Ul to devise means of defence. The first speaker thought the best policy would be to offer a fried jackass to the gods. The second suggested a public procession, headed by the Wampog himself, bearing the Holy Poker on a cushion of cloth-of-brass. Another thought that a scarlet mole should be buried alive in the public park and a suitable incantation chanted over the remains. The advice of the fourth was that the columns of the capitol be rubbed with oil of dog by a person having a moustache on the calf of his leg. When all the others had spoken an Aged Man rose and said:

“High and mighty Wampog and fellow-citizens, I have listened attentively to all the plans proposed. All seem wise, and I do not suffer myself to doubt that any one of them would be efficacious. Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking that if we would put an improved breed of polliwogs in our drinking water, construct shallower roadways, groom the street cows, offer the stranger within our gates a free choice between the poniard and the potion, and relinquish our private system of morals, the other measures of public safety would be needless.”

The Aged Man was about to speak further, but the meeting informally adjourned in order to sweep the floor of the temple—for the men of Gakwak are the tidiest housewives in all that province. The last speaker was the broom.

--

The phrase "government school" is overbroad in the way conservative and liberal, left and right, have become. It tells you something, but less than you might hope. However, I am beginning to wonder what fraction of school boards would consider Ambrose Bierce to be politically incorrect.

If the guys in The Broom and the Temple were put in charge of doping out immigration policy, we'd be more or less in the same place as we are today, except the congress critters would sweep the floors instead of tweeting about the dust now that the government has shut down.