Posts Tagged ‘America’

From Wikipedia,

A single point of failure (SPOF) is a part of a system which, if it fails, will stop the entire system from working. They are undesirable in any system whose goal is high availability, be it a network, software application or other industrial system.

The assessment of a potentially single location of failure identifies the critical components of a complex system that would provoke a total systems failure in case of malfunction. Highly reliable systems may not rely on any such individual component.

Though CIRCLE’s main ‘beef’ with large, centralized governments is the high risk (and historical precedence) that they turn against individual freedom and towards tyranny, another issue high on our list is the very idea that the centralization of action produces the most efficient results.  It’s  illogical at its core, at least to us engineers.  That idea of centralization leads to a design flaw called a single point of failure.  As defined above, SPOF’s are bad for any high reliability system.  They are to be avoided at all costs.

To design a large system that is to 1) run under all conditions, 2) be stable no matter the input, and 3) react in deterministic ways, with a single point of failure is ludicrous.  Just think about this hypothetical,

Imagine if we had a communication company that built their business around one cable that went between New York and San Francisco.  Let’s say they expanded their presence up and down the coasts but had all calls routed from one coast to the other over that one cable.  Would that be smart?  What would happen if a ditch digger in the Midwest hit and cut it by accident?  It wouldn’t be good.  The company’s repair crews, of course, would be on the East and West Coast as that is where the customers are, but the cut in the line would be in a small town in Indiana, or a rural stretch of Route 66 in North Texas.  Days would be required to get there and then more time needed to repair it.  No communication between the left and right sides of the country until it got repaired.  The media outlets would scream about how the company was unprepared for such a catastrophic event.

The media would be right but for the wrong reason.  It wasn’t the response that was the issue, it was the design.  They set themselves up for a relatively minor accident (incorrect placement of hole) to result in a complete outage.  Poor design trumps the poor response.

Yet, that is the path our elected officials in the federal government, and many in society, continue to follow.  Every issue is met with the need to centralize the solution.  It’s why the downturn in house prices resulted in a global financial crisis (don’t believe me?  Read The Big Short, The Devil’s Casino, and On The Brink, then get back to me).  Our federal government endorsed 3 ratings agencies, implicitly guaranteed over 50% of mortgages, and instituted policies within the banking system that resulted in a system with a single point of failure.  Nationwide decline in real estate prices?  Kaboom!

It’s the desired route by many when it comes to healthcare.  Instead of reducing the barriers of entry, allowing more to offer healthcare services (state certificates of need for new hospitals and clinics, high compliance costs, etc), the proposed solution is a single payer system.  One group, making decisions on what is allowable, determining treatment prices, providing best practices.  How sturdy do you think that system would be?  Not very, if you ask me.

Reaction to the gulf oil spill?  One central command that approves all offers of international assistance and course of action.  Yet, he doesn’t have the ability to communicate with everyone.  He doesn’t own the resources needed to collect the oil.  But hasn’t he (Thad Allen) been anointed by our president as “in charge”?  SPOF.  We have 4 governors waiting for various federal government agencies to approve things.  We have companies around the world capable of helping but sitting on the sidelines until EPA, Coast Guard, White House officials give the a-okay to act.  This actually isn’t one SPOF, it’s many.  And they are all connected to one basic assumption that central planning and centralized action can solve complex problems. [Don't get me wrong, coordination is needed and useful but that is absent in this instance.  It's the difference between an orchestra conductor and a puppet master.  We need a conductor, we have a puppet master.]

Want another example?  How about the water main that ruptured in Boston a few months ago?  We wrote about it here.  In the infinite wisdom of someone that appears to have very little to spare, it was decided that one mother of a pipe should handle all the water for 2 million people north of Boston.  SPOF.

And just last night, NPR reported on the ongoing issues with school lunches in the Boston Public Schools.  They want one provider for all schools within the system.  They spent much time writing the request for proposal only to get one response.  The problem is so complex that only one company felt willing to take on the challenge.  SPOF.  [ To make this even more entertaining, it turns out that the biggest issue is with 60% of the schools and that a nice solution exists for that segment, but the COO of BPS wants only one provider for all the schools.]

Either by luck or skill, our founding fathers appeared to be quite smart design engineers.  Understanding the risks of single points of failure, they came up with a great idea that respected the complexity of life, handing the responsibility to act in the hands of the individual, leaving the federal government in charge of defending borders and individual freedom.

Mr. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.  There has been a lot of talk about if it was deserved, if politics played a part, etc.  I don’t care.  What the whole thing has stirred up in me is the question, Is it more noble to be wanting peace at any cost versus to fight for the mistreated? Am I crossing the line on Libertarianism by suggesting that we should look upon ourselves as those fortunate enough to help others in time of need?  Maybe.  I really don’t care.

From my very limited understanding of the current brewhaha over this announcement, it appears that he is getting the prize for wanting to find peace by finding “shared values”.  I may be a closed-minded warmonger but I find it really hard to believe that I have much in common or share anything of interest with those that believe they are superior to women, that believe that marrying off children to old dirty pervs is a good idea, that blindly follow something which was written over a thousand years ago.  I know I have much more in common with dogs than with those mullahs and their cronies (rub my belly and my leg actually twitches).

I have no idea what the answer is as I am conflicted in my desire to have our country (which stands for personal freedom at its core) help those that are in need of it yet not wanting to impose that belief onto others.  With that said, I’m not conflicted in thinking that it’s a bad idea to continually award prizes to those that want to perpetuate a system that is destructive to personal freedom.

I’m not an athlete but I do know that the best way to slow down during a race is to turn your head and look at your competitor.  I hear many say that, in the end, it is a race against yourself so push hard and focus on the finish line.  I wish someone would give that advice to our current government.  From our Supreme Court Justices referencing international laws to our current administration looking to Europe for healthcare reform, I see so much time being spent looking at those behind us.

Did I offend anyone?  Sorry, but for those readers outside the US, I hate to be the one to tell you that your nation’s progress toward individual freedom lags the US (there may be argument from Singapore, Australia, NZ, and a few others, but I feel comfortable in defending my statement).  I can’t take credit for it, it’s just a fact that the US fought for independence from tyranny in the late 1700′s and has led the movement against oppression since.  This is the part of the world where those desiring freedom of expression, freedom to succeed or fail, freedom to think as an individual, freedom to pursue unlimited success, etc have come for centuries.  The US has grown to be the largest economy very quickly due to the relatively low barriers placed in our way by the whimsical acts of authoritarians.

So, why is our current administration looking to those that lag for ideas on how to advance our society?  Does Tiger Woods look to the golfer in 30th place and try to copy his swing?  Does Bill Gates try to copy the strategy of the executives of Kodak, Digital Equipment, NCR, or Unisys (for those that aren’t into technology history, those are all failed tech companies)?  No, they are the laggards, the losers.

Whomever was the one to propose the single-payer healthcare plan (aka the government-option, aka co-op plan, aka socialized medicine) should have been laughed out of the room immediately for suggesting something that those that are losing talent (brain drain of UK in the 80′s), that grow much slower than us (Europe GDP has been anemic compared to ours), and that offer little in advancement of personal freedom (class segmentation in UK, France, India) have adopted.  The response should have been “Are you nuts?  Why do we want to go backwards?  We (the nation) have fought long and hard to obtain and maintain our individual rights and you want to suggest we take a step back?  Oppression is oppression no matter what name you give it.  Get Out!”

So, my recommendation to our government, look forward, not backward.  Advance freedom, don’t rescind it.  Leverage the skill and knowledge base that collectively makes up our healthcare society rather than alienating it and risk losing it.

From the WSJ:

Liberate America’s Other Economy

June 12, 1990

In 1984, Mario Cuomo of New York electrified the Democratic Convention with his tale of America as two cities, one rich and one poor, permanently divided into two classes. He talked about the rich growing richer and the poor becoming poorer, with the conclusion that class conflict, if not warfare, was the only result, and redistribution of wealth the solution.

With all due respect to Gov. Cuomo, he got it wrong. America is not divided immutably into two static classes. But it is separated or divided into two economies. One economy — our mainstream economy — is democratic and capitalist, market-oriented and entrepreneurial. It offers incentives for working families in labor and management. This mainstream economy rewards work, investment, saving and productivity. Incentives abound for productive economic and social behavior.

It was this economy, triggered by President Reagan’s supply-side revolution of tax cuts in 1981 that generated 21.5 million new jobs, more than four million new businesses, relatively low inflation and higher standards of living for most people. This economy has created more jobs in the past decade than all of Europe, Canada and Japan combined. And according to the U.S. Treasury, federal income taxes paid by the top 1% of taxpayers has surged by more than 80% to $92 billion in 1987 from $51 billion in 1981.

There is another economy — a second economy that is similar in respects to the East European or Third World socialist economies. It functions in a fashion opposite to the mainstream capitalist economy. It predominates in the pockets of poverty throughout urban and rural America. This economy has barriers to productive human and social activity and a virtual absence of economic incentives and rewards. It denies black, Hispanic and other minority men and women entry into the mainstream. This economy works almost as effectively as did hiring notices 50 years ago that read “No Blacks — or Hispanics or Irish or whatever — Need Apply.”

The irony is that the second economy was born of desire to help the poor, alleviate suffering, and provide a basic social safety net. The results were a counterproductive economy. Instead of independence, the second economy led to dependence. In an effort to minimize economic pain, it maximized welfare bureaucracy and social costs. 

- Jack Kemp

Please look here for the full article.

Courtesy of Freelance Photography

I just had to point out this article.  It talks about violent rallies that occurred yesterday in various countries (those mentioned were all in Europe).  This is so perverse that it needs to be called out.  Those rallying were all anti-capitalist groups; the Greek trade union GSEE, the French union CFE-CGC, the French Socialist Party.  They were rioting, demanding the government do something to get them jobs.  Please remember that all of these countries practice socialism, not capitalism. 

They all have government meddling in their daily lives.  The rioting yesterday shows the depth of their belief in socialism as they were out demanding that the government GIVE them jobs or FIND a solution to what ails them. 

It’s funny to think back 2 weeks to the United States Tea Party rallies where hundreds of thousands came out to show their frustration WITH government involvement.  Let that soak in for a few minutes.  ( One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, three hippopotamus…).  People in socialistic countries demonstrate to force their governments to find solutions to problems.  People in the United States (an almost capitalistic country, at least in the past) came out to demonstrate for the government to lessen its impact on the Individual. 

I find that poetic.  To state the obvious, the United States has many, many problems that need to be solved.  But what was evident from the Tea Parties were Individuals wanting to control the process to find solutions.  In socialist countries, they rely on groups to demonstrate for a new tit to suck.

To find my happy place, I usually pick up an Ayn Rand book. (No jokes please).  So, yesterday, I was in a really bad mood and picked up Ayn Rand’s Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

The book is a collection of essays by Ayn and a number of her followers (including the great Greenspan who, ironically, wrote about the need for a gold standard so that our nation didn’t go about printing money willy nilly). There are over 20 essays in this book with at least 18 of them pertinent to today’s discussion of expanding governmental powers.  This book alone will provide me with loads of blog content.  Lucky you!

In this post, I wanted to highlight her essay entitled “Let Us Alone” which starts with this:

“Since ‘economic growth’ is today’s great problem, and our present Administration is promising to ‘stimulate’ it – to achieve general prosperity by ever wider government controls, while spending an unproduced wealth – I wonder how many people know of the term laissez-faire?”

Interesting, no?  She could have written this yesterday (if she was alive, of course).  She opens the essay describing seventeenth century France under the rule of Louis XIV and then goes on with the following.

“Colbert, chief advisor of Louis XIV, was one of the early modern statists.  He believed that government regulations can create national prosperity and that higher tax revenues can be obtained only from the country’s ‘economic growth’; so he devoted himself to seeking ‘a general increase of wealth by the encouragement of industry.’  The encouragement consisted of imposing countless government controls and minute regulations that choked business activity; the result was dismal failure.

“Colbert was not an enemy of business; no more than is our present Administration.  Colbert was eager to help fatten the sacrificial victims – and on one historic occasion, he asked a group of manufacturers what he could do for industry.  A manufacturer named Legendre answered:  ‘Laissez-nous faire!’  (‘Let us alone!’)

“Apparently, the French businessmen of the seventeenth century had more courage than their American counterparts of the twentieth, and a better understanding of economics.  They knew that government ‘help’ to business is just as disasterous as government persecution, and that the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.”

Timeless observations.  Do you think the banks and auto companies are rethinking their pleas for help?

We don’t need to confine this to the past 6-9 months’ financial crisis we are currently experiencing.  It has been a trend of this country and its government for the past century.  I believe the current breaking of our banking system is the evidence of excess/improper/corrupt/whatever regulation and does not serve as an example of our need for more.  And yet we find ourselves asking for more.  Global Climate Regulation.  Universal Health Care.  More Social Security.  No Child Left Behind.  Prescription Drug Plans.  The list goes on and on.  I’m afraid it only stops when, as many have stated many times before, no one will take our promissory notes and we will be sitting there with “great ideas” and “great needs” and no money or skills to execute them.

But there may be a happy ending…  Refer back to the last paragraph of Ayn Rand’s that I presented above where she mentions government help is no better than government persecution.  The two are attached at the hip as we see in the current environment.  Bonuses for bailouts show how government help can quickly move to persecution, mostly of the innocent as the corrupt sit hand in hand with the politicians doing the persecution.  That, my friends, is what gives me hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  The faster we can have individuals realize that the helping hand of government quickly turns into the heavy hand of coercion, the faster we will see individuals strive for self sustaining private solutions.

From my perspective, he bowed.  And he bowed deep and long.  It doesn’t matter if he was mistaken in protocol or was in awe of meeting a king.  To me, it shows a lack of regard for his position and a lack of understanding of America’s foundation.

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or… The 7 Deadly Sins, all in moderation.

There are two primary materials needed for making sausage, the meat and the sausage maker. If you want to make chicken sausage, yet all that comes out of the machine is pork sausage, what do you change out? The machine? Or the meat that you stuff into the machine? Does this sound like an easy question? It is, it’s not a trick. You stop stuffing pork into the darn machine and replace it with chicken. With a little bit of luck (actually, none), you will get that heavenly morsel of meat called chicken sausage. If you’re still reading, you must be asking what the heck am I talking about. Well, please read on.

We are at a point in time when elected officials are wanting to replace the machine rather than looking at the meat that is being stuffed into it.  Politicians are on the TV, in the paper, and on the radio telling us how “the system” has failed the American public.  We have bad, nasty, greedy corporations that make seats too small on planes.  Slick, puppy-dog eyed mortgage brokers that tricked us into buying a house at the top of the market with nothing down and cash back mortgages.  And worst, that devil plastic that taunted us into buying the 52″ plasma TV for our 52 sq. ft. family room.  Curse them all!  In response, they want to “protect” us and “help” us by changing the system so that those greedy individuals that made money off of mass stupidity get what they deserve;  higher taxes (in order to redistribute wealth), new regulations, mandatory healthcare, and… hybrids.  In other words, capitalism hasn’t worked so let’s get rid of it.

What ever happened with owning one’s actions?  Why has it become wrong to say to a fat person complaining about the size of an airline seat, “you’re grossly overweight, stop eating so much”.  Or to the person that RECEIVED $10,000 when they signed a document giving them a house, “you did realize that you have to pay that back, right?”

We have become a society that has taken the seven deadly sins; Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Hubris, and turned them into rights. Some feel entitled to material possessions rather than feel ashamed for being jealous.  Some excuse criminal behaviour as genetic rather than curse criminals for exhibiting greed and wrath.  Our politicians think so little of individuals that they have the hubris to believe we are unable to choose right from wrong.

Now, before you say that I’m heartless.  That there are people who did it right and fell on hard times and all I want to do is tell them to pound sand, let me set the record straight.  THAT IS WHY WE HAVE CHARITIES.  Americans are the biggest charitable contributors in the world with over $300 Billion given in 2007.  (To put that in context, that is about the same amount spent by the government for “charitable” causes).  As a percent of GDP, we are double the UK which ranked second.  The list falls dramatically after that.  I am a big believer that having local charitable organizations that focus on stopping the downward spiral that some see is so much better than continuing down the path of giving up rights in order for the many to serve the few.  Because, we all know that, with time, the few will support the many.  I’m a relatively good person and capable (as are most) of determining where my money, time, and sympathy should be best focused.  Charity starts at home and should never end with government.  (I’m not preaching that you have to give to charities.  I’m also not telling you that you’re wrong if you choose not to, I just think less of you.  It’s your prerogative to do with your money how you see fit.  It’s my prerogative to think less of you.)  But I digress.

Capitalism is the only economic system that allows individuals to be free.  Free to succeed.  Free to fail.  Free to decide how best to help their neighbor.  It is the only system that actually thinks of individuals as capable, good natured beings and rewards efforts rather than intentions.  If there are some that have abused the system and gotten caught by it, it’s not the system’s fault, it is the individual’s.

With all the negative, fear based headlines and all the scare being thrown around by our government, I thought it would be worthwhile to write something happy.  So, I selected the 9th grade writing subject “What does America mean to you?”  A lot of my beliefs in individual freedom stem from the environment I was raised in.  Not all, mind you, but a lot.  My wife deserves a lot of the credit, too.

I was raised in a very small town in rural Indiana by, what I believe to be fact, the best parents ever (that’s for Mom if she is reading).  Relatively large and close family.  One side’s ancestry is from Northern Europe and came to this land in the early 1700′s.  They were farmers from what I can tell and active in the fight for freedom.  Low key, understated, and hardworking.  The other side’s ancestry came from Italy in the very early 1900′s, 200 years later.  My Italian grandfather came over at the age of 16, leaving his parents back in Italy.  His travel was paid for by his older brother who came to the US a few years before.  He worked hard to provide for his family and succeeded in providing his children a good foundation.  Though differences existed between them (those from Italy are a little more loud and kiss on the lips when they see you), they shared the same desire; the right to pursue a life of independence, succeed based on their actions, and not to be subjected to the whims of the few.
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