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iPhone 3.0 event today

Event ended a moment ago. Bottom line: a yawn. RIMM, PALM and others can sleep safely tonight.

Here are two of the highlights:
1. In one of the demos, the guy on stage was unable to spell correctly while typing on an iPhone. And he was an American, presumably educated, and an experienced iPhone user.
2. They highlighted a new app where the theme is "virtual play date for dogs" in which you can buy virtual sweaters (!) for dogs (!!) for some $0.99 each. Then watch these cartoon dogs "play" with each other. It is becoming easier every day to understand why over 60 million Americans voted for Obama. In related news: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are rolling over in their graves.

General George Patton would have sent these people to the front.

One more thing: The iPhone will soon be getting copy/paste. Welcome to a feature the Blackberry has had since inception 10 years ago, 1999.

All these things available this Summer (when the 3rd generation iPhone is launched) as a software upgrade to the previous iPhones and iPod Touches. Presumably, this will be right about the time of the launch of the Palm Pre, as well as many new Blackberries, perhaps operating on OS 5.0. Then add a long list of Google/Android devices by September/October.

Talking To Our Enemies

64 years ago this morning, the largest military operation in history was unleashed from the British Isles onto Normandy, France. As the sun rose on Omaha Beach, ten thousand vessels carrying over a million soldiers approached the German-controlled and fortified beaches. Within two days, these brave men had established a defensible beach-head, marking the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime. The war in Europe would end eleven months later, only days after Hitler's suicide. D-Day was a majestic triumph for Generals Eisenhower, Montgomery and Patton - as well as the political leadership of Winston Churchill and F.D. Roosevelt. Unprecedented in history, most of Europe has since seen a lack of traditional military conflict for over 63 years.

Only months after D-Day, the US fought a fully-fledged naval battle against Japan outside the Philippines. It remains the last such battle fought, and will likely remain so for the rest of history. Technology has made it impossible to launch not only large invasions in secret (such as D-Day), but also to have a naval battle that's basically not over before it's even started.

What does this mean? It means that information technology and the dispersion of destructive power have made wars particularly expensive. Sure, you can always win a war, but they may not be worth launching, even if you win. Witness the high cost to the US of removing one of our contemporary Hitlers, in the form of the Butcher of Bagdhad, Saddam Hussein.

This leads to the present problem of how to depose today's most destructive and dangerous regimes, who threaten the survival of the free world. Regimes in North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela engage in some combinations of enslavement of their populations and aggression against their neighbors and other countries. Left unchecked, these regimes are on paths to kill millions of people, perhaps many here at home.

Military options against these countries carry high risks and costs. North Korea could wipe out South Korea and perhaps other countries with conventional weapons alone. Nuclear weapons could kill 10 million New Yorkers in one second. Iran may be as little as a year or two from developing those weapons as well. It is starting to look like these situations resemble the cold war, when the US had no military power to take out the Evil Soviet Empire: Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

So how did we take down the Evil Soviet Empire? Apart from the fact that it collapsed under its own Obama-nomics weight, we - or rather, Ronald Reagan - engaged in a very public diplomacy to embody our moral superiority over the enemy. Speaking of Obama, it now looks like this is the one limited area where he is actually taking a book from the Reagan playbook, and suggesting we talk to these dicators without preconditions. This is opposed by the Clintons as well as McCain and many others.

The recipe for potential success here is for the current and future US Presidents to realize - just like Reagan did - that we have moved into the TV mass media age, and that it is time to stop hiding. Instead, the US President should fly immediately to Iran and insist on a debate with the leadership - live broadcast on TV for everyone to see.

The point here is that we are now talking to these regimes, but only at lower levels of government, through back-channels and behind closed doors. This is useless. Our enemies can lie, continue to make preposterous claims and break any promises made. It does not help their own peoples to get the courage to depose their oppressors. Obama may have proposed the idea in principle, but McCain may be better in pulling it off, in the form of his most-beloved town-hall debate format. Now, if he only could support the idea to begin with...

This tactic may work in Iran, where there is TV and people have some knowledge of the rest of the world. It would probably not work in North Korea, where until earlier this year a cell phone call carried the death penalty via hanging in public. There is no TV.

No, when it comes to North Korea, a very different form of US Presidential diplomacy is needed. Specifically, the kind employed by an ex-President. And I'm not talking about Jimmy "The Naïve" Carter, who screwed up the North Korean situation to begin with, in 1994. No, rather I'm talking about Bill Clinton.

Former President Clinton needs to take Mr Party Boy leader of North Korea - Kim Jong Mentally Ill - to a weekend in Las Vegas, focusing on the more expensive late-night establishments. Think Eliot Spitzer's preferences, $5,000 an hour. Lots of them. I say, spend $100 million on the weekend. A long weekend.

Then, at the end of that long weekend, Bill Clinton needs to whisper in Kim's ear: "Look, either of the following two things will happen now: We will take a risk and remove your country and its residents from the face of the Earth. Cheney will press the button himself. Or we have option #2 for you."

Kim: "What's option #2?"

Clinton: "That this weekend will never end. We have made available an island in the South Pacific, where we have built a copy of The Playboy Mansion. Hef himself has made sure to guarantee a rotating staff of 500 of his finest friends and acquaintances. I have the pictures and videos of all 500 on this iPod Touch right here, so you can see for yourself right now. We will ensure you will live out your dreams for the rest of your life. All we require is that you never leave the island or have any outgoing communication to the rest of the world. Deal?"

Kim: "Beats a nuclear bomb falling down on my head. Where do I sign up?"

Clinton: "Just follow my lovely friend Monica into that oval room. She will help you use the pencil. Here is a cigar, too."

Conclusion: Deadly world crisis averted.

Alrighty, so it may happen slightly differently, or he may be more suicidal than interested in a good time. But it's worth trying, no?

Nixon turned Red China from foe to friend by going to see Chairman Mao in Peking 1972. Reagan took General Secretary Gorbachev to task in the mid-late 1980s, with several personal TV-broadcast meetings, and stood personally at the Brandenberger Tor gate in Berlin demanding that Gorbachev "open this gate" and "tear down this wall."

Where is Reagan when we need him yet again?

Talking to our Enemies

64 years ago this morning, the largest military operation in history was unleashed from the British Isles onto Normandy, France. As the sun rose on Omaha Beach, ten thousand vessels carrying over a million soldiers approached the German-controlled and fortified beaches. Within two days, these brave men had established a defensible beach-head, marking the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime. The war in Europe would end eleven months later, only days after Hitler's suicide. D-Day was a majestic triumph for Generals Eisenhower, Montgomery and Patton - as well as the political leadership of Winston Churchill and F.D. Roosevelt. Unprecedented in history, most of Europe has since seen a lack of traditional military conflict for over 63 years.

Only months after D-Day, the US fought a fully-fledged naval battle against Japan outside the Philippines. It remains the last such battle fought, and will likely remain so for the rest of history. Technology has made it impossible to launch not only large invasions in secret (such as D-Day), but also to have a naval battle that's basically not over before it's even started.

What does this mean? It means that information technology and the dispersion of destructive power have made wars particularly expensive. Sure, you can always win a war, but they may not be worth launching, even if you win. Witness the high cost to the US of removing one of our contemporary Hitlers, in the form of the Butcher of Bagdhad, Saddam Hussein.

This leads to the present problem of how to depose today's most destructive and dangerous regimes, who threaten the survival of the free world. Regimes in North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela engage in some combinations of enslavement of their populations and aggression against their neighbors and other countries. Left unchecked, these regimes are on paths to kill millions of people, perhaps many here at home.

Military options against these countries carry high risks and costs. North Korea could wipe out South Korea and perhaps other countries with conventional weapons alone. Nuclear weapons could kill 10 million New Yorkers in one second. Iran may be as little as a year or two from developing those weapons as well. It is starting to look like these situations resemble the cold war, when the US had no military power to take out the Evil Soviet Empire: Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

So how did we take down the Evil Soviet Empire? Apart from the fact that it collapsed under its own Obama-nomics weight, we - or rather, Ronald Reagan - engaged in a very public diplomacy to embody our moral superiority over the enemy. Speaking of Obama, it now looks like this is the one limited area where he is actually taking a book from the Reagan playbook, and suggesting we talk to these dicators without preconditions. This is opposed by the Clintons as well as McCain and many others.

The recipe for potential success here is for the current and future US Presidents to realize - just like Reagan did - that we have moved into the TV mass media age, and that it is time to stop hiding. Instead, the US President should fly immediately to Iran and insist on a debate with the leadership - live broadcast on TV for everyone to see.

The point here is that we are now talking to these regimes, but only at lower levels of government, through back-channels and behind closed doors. This is useless. Our enemies can lie, continue to make preposterous claims and break any promises made. It does not help their own peoples to get the courage to depose their oppressors. Obama may have proposed the idea in principle, but McCain may be better in pulling it off, in the form of his most-beloved town-hall debate format. Now, if he only could support the idea to begin with...

This tactic may work in Iran, where there is TV and people have some knowledge of the rest of the world. It would probably not work in North Korea, where until earlier this year a cell phone call carried the death penalty via hanging in public. There is no TV.

No, when it comes to North Korea, a very different form of US Presidential diplomacy is needed. Specifically, the kind employed by an ex-President. And I'm not talking about Jimmy "The Naïve" Carter, who screwed up the North Korean situation to begin with, in 1994. No, rather I'm talking about Bill Clinton.

Former President Clinton needs to take Mr Party Boy leader of North Korea - Kim Jong Mentally Ill - to a weekend in Las Vegas, focusing on the more expensive late-night establishments. Think Eliot Spitzer's preferences, $5,000 an hour. Lots of them. I say, spend $100 million on the weekend. A long weekend.

Then, at the end of that long weekend, Bill Clinton needs to whisper in Kim's ear: "Look, either of the following two things will happen now: We will take a risk and remove your country and its residents from the face of the Earth. Cheney will press the button himself. Or we have option #2 for you."

Kim: "What's option #2?"

Clinton: "That this weekend will never end. We have made available an island in the South Pacific, where we have built a copy of The Playboy Mansion. Hef himself has made sure to guarantee a rotating staff of 500 of his finest friends and acquaintances. I have the pictures and videos of all 500 on this iPod Touch right here, so you can see for yourself right now. We will ensure you will live out your dreams for the rest of your life. All we require is that you never leave the island or have any outgoing communication to the rest of the world. Deal?"

Kim: "Beats a nuclear bomb falling down on my head. Where do I sign up?"

Clinton: "Just follow my lovely friend Monica into that oval room. She will help you use the pencil. Here is a cigar, too."

Conclusion: Deadly world crisis averted.

Alrighty, so it may happen slightly differently, or he may be more suicidal than interested in a good time. But it's worth trying, no?

Nixon turned Red China from foe to friend by going to see Chairman Mao in Peking 1972. Reagan took General Secretary Gorbachev to task in the mid-late 1980s, with several personal TV-broadcast meetings, and stood personally at the Brandenberger Tor gate in Berlin demanding that Gorbachev "open this gate" and "tear down this wall."

Where is Reagan when we need him yet again?

Eight Economic Problems and Eight Solutions

In recent months, numerous people have asked me: What's wrong with the economy, and how can we turn it around? This essay I educate you, once and for all, about the eight main economic problems of today, and their eight solutions, so save this piece and forward to your friends - especially those who are running for office.

There are several problems with the economy. Some are short-term, others are long-term. Some have painful fixes, and some fixes are painless:

1. The falling value of the dollar. Long-term, the value of anything is a function of only three factors: supply, absolute demand, and relative demand to hold. In today's case, the two problems are with supply and relative demand to hold. The supply side is straightforward, with the US central bank simply creating too many dollars. It does so to finance the US Federal budget deficit as well as lending the money to banks and other credit institutions. Relative demand to hold (dollars) is a function of expectations of future economic and political developments. In brief, the market is believing that the US will suffer from higher taxes and more regulations, leading to less goods and services produces, and thus lower demand for dollars.

2. Higher prices on energy and other commodities. This is a similar case to the dollar, but in reverse: Supply is not growing much, but both real demand and relative demand to hold, are both going up. Supply is constrained because it's almost impossible to profitably increase the quantity of things such as energy. Regulations and litigation have caused the US to build not a single on-shore oil refinery or nuclear plant in about 30 years. Demand is growing because countries such as India, China and Russia are growing rich following low taxes, relatively low regulation in many areas, and privatization. Besides, didn't many Americans - including many environmentalists - argue for sharp increases in energy prices so that people would use less energy? At least according to them, $4/gallon gasoline must be a big improvement over 10 or 20 years ago, when the price was close to $1. You can't have it both ways...

3. Too high taxes. All sorts of businesses are leaving the US, incorporating anywhere from Macao to Ireland and Latvia because US taxes have become some of the highest in the world. US corporate income taxes are the second-highest in the world, after Japan. Many countries have zero capital gains taxes, whereas the US is at 15% and Hillbama proposing increases to 28% or 39.6%. The top income rax rates in Albania, Estonia, Hong-Kong and Russia are 10%, 13%, 15% and 17%. If you live in Manhattan, federal+state+local income tax is 49%. Small wonder the US economy is depressed with people fleeing abroad. Tax revenue has gone up for almost all of the last 67 years, with the biggest increases in the last 5 years. 70% of income taxes are paid by the top 5% of income earners. 50% of all taxes are paid by the richest 1% of taxpayers. In other words, the vast majority of taxes are paid by a few people at the top, who in some cases are in the process of moving their money abroad following the (recent and expected future) tax increases here at home, in combination with tax cuts abroad.

4. Too much government spending. As high as taxes have gone through the roof, they have not kept pace with spending. This year, the Federal budget is $3.1 trillion, or over over $10,000 per American. Of this amount, approx 20% goes to the department of defense. Most of the other 80% goes go social security, medicare and medicaid, plus gigantic government bureaucracies that make up new rules and new forms to fill out. The government employs literally millions of bureaucrats, whose jobs are to make it as difficult as possible to start and operate a business.

5. Too many regulations. Many US industries are very heavily regulated. It is illegal for FedEx and UPS to deliver first-class (i.e., regular) mail. Affirmative action laws add bureaucratic cost. Sarbanes-Oxley adds billions in cost and forcing companies to list their shares in London and Hong-Kong instead of NYSE and NASDAQ.

6. Too many lawsuits. US corporations spend more money on legal fees than on research and development. Do you think this is the case in India, China, Ireland and Lithuania? Of course not. A doctor's insurance is now over $300,000 per year. And you wonder why health care - and many other things - are expensive?

7. Too little savings. Americans save a very small portion of their income. Investment can only come from postponed consumption, so to make up for the difference we must borrow or receive direct investment from abroad. Americans don't save enough money because they believe that the big government welfare state will bail them out when they have a problem (social security, medicaid, medicare, disaster relief after a hurricane). In addition, we tax savings more than in other countries with higher rates on capital gains, interest and dividends. This party is all coming to an end as foreigners may become unwilling to lend to Americans or fail to invest here. Hence a key reason for the fall in the dollar's value.

8. Too much property owned by the government. Why is 92% of the land in America owned by various levels of government? Who owns most forests? Who owns 40 miles of beachfront between Orange County and San Diego? Who owns the three airports in New York? The US Post Office? The US is normally considered a capitalist country, and the US President is the leader of the free world, but fundamentally the US economy has more in common with the old Soviet Union and Red China under Chairman Mao, than most people realize. High taxes, high spending and high regulations are measurements of the degree to which a country is a socialist country, but so is the degree of government ownership of the most basic means of production: land.

The solutions to these eight problems are as follows:

1. How to stop the value of the dollar from falling? Print less dollars.

2. How to stop energy and other commodity prices from increasing? See (1) plus allow for new/more supply of energy by allowing people to build nuclear plants, oil refineries and drill for oil. But then again, some have been arguing for higher energy prices for decades, so...

3. How to deal with people and companies fleeing the country to lower-tax places? Cut taxes here at home. We should not have higher taxes than Albania, Estonia, Hong-Kong, Russia and Ireland. In addition to cutting taxes, make them simple by abolishing deductions and not more difficult to figure out than the tip on your restaurant bill.

4. How to deal with runaway government spending? Combine medicare, medicare and social security into one simplified - and much smaller - program called "welfare" which will be there to keep people from starving and perhaps freezing to death (simple solution: put people on buses to Florida, where it's warm and there are plenty of oranges growing on the trees). This would cut government spending by more than half, from $3.1 trillion to just under $1 trillion, cutting the tax burden on a family of four from $40,000 per year to approximately $12,000.

5. How to deregulate? Abolish all laws that don't interpret and enforce private property rights.

6. How to get rid of costly lawsuits? This one isn't lacking in complexity, but basically one key part of the solution is to have the losing party in a lawsuit pay for the other party's legal fees. That alone would probably cut over 90% of lawsuits.

7. How to get people to save and invest more? Cut taxes on saving and investments to zero. Also, by abolishing most forms of welfare programs, people would have a greater incentive to save. This would also attract foreign capital.

8. How to get rid of too much governmnent property? In the finest tradition of Margaret Thatcher and Boris Yeltsin, privatize! They turned two extremely poor economies into economic powerhouses not only by cutting taxes (which was extremely important) but also by selling/giving government property to the public. The US just privatized $20 billion worth of radio spectrum for wireless Internet in March 2008. Bravo! Now go sell most of the 92% of land it owns in this country, the US Post Office, airports, etc.

In summary, all of these cures to our eight economic ills are mainstream Economics 101. Generally, no serious economist disagrees with any of this. It's just that politics itself has its warped biases to do all the bad things. That's why so many economies around the world are operating at dramatically sub-par levels of performance. We may never get the optimal economic system installed - unless I am given dictatorial powers - but I still hope that someone will listen and do at least something in the right direction. The eight points above would do most of the trick.

How Socialism Is Anti-Green

On the one hand, it is remarkable that despite the sharp increase in energy prices and the global warming concerns, the major candidates for the highest office are not proposing meaningful solutions. On the other hand, it's not surprising at all - this is the way almost all issues of seriousness are treated in Washington, DC.

Sometimes, the obsacles to renewable, cheaper and cleaner energy reside not in Washington, DC, but in state and local governments. Ted Kennedy's opposition to wind power on Martha's Vineyard is one famous example.

Another good example is solar power, at least in the state of California. It takes 69 signatures from 8 different state and local bodies in California, in order to be allowed to install a solar panel on one's roof. This process takes an absolute minimum of 6 months to complete. And solar power is an alleged top priority to the California government?

Installing a few solar panels on the roof should be a no-brainer decision for most people, but who can take 6 or more months off from work to chase down 69 bureaucratic signatures from 8 government bodies? The solution to this problem is of course to deregulate: No government permit or signature should be needed in order to put up a solar panel on the roof.

As Ronald Reagan said about the socialist prescription for the economy: "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it."

Another thing that's been impossible to do for not only 6 months, but 30 years, is to build a nuclear plant in the U.S. It is widely known that nuclear energy is the most efficient technology available today on a sufficient scale to be able to substitute all coal-fired energy plants as fast as we can build them. We could build so many of them that we would make plug-in hybrid and all-electrical cars practical, reducing our dependence on oil dramatically.

But we haven't built a single one of them in 30 years. Why? Because the government has allowed people to file lawsuits against those interested in building them. In other words, the government has given the trial lawyers total veto power to prevent a cleaner environment and lower energy prices.

Again, the solution here is simple: The government needs to cease putting up this total obstacle against the building of clean energy. It needs to inform the trial lawyers that, sorry, a cleaner environment and the most rapid reduction in dependence on oil is a top national security priority, and you can't sue to stop it. In other words: John Edwards, you're out of business - go do something useful instead.

Interestingly, there are several very small U.S. communities, ranging from 50 to 5,000 people, who have continued to see nuclear plants being built to serve them, even in the last 30 years. They're called ships and submarines of the U.S. Navy. Speaking of 30 years, a U.S. aircraft carrier is not only 4.5 acres of sovereign U.S. territory, but its two nuclear plants can also operate for 30 years without refueling. They've been running like this for at least approximately 50 years now, and never an accident. And never a lawsuit.

Cleaner and cheaper energy should be a national security imperative. The ways to get there are to abolish the crazy socialist government policies of making it as difficult as possible to deploy solar power and nuclear power. In addition to lowering energy prices and improving the environment, this would have the additional side benefit of getting the Abdoullahs out of the Mercedes and onto the camel again.

Political speeches are filled with rhetoric about "hope" and "change" but never a sentence about abolishing the socialist obstacles to solar power and nuclear power. This is why it is so sad that the next President of the U.S. looks to be just another politician, as opposed to a businessman who has experience from the real world.

Oh, How Easy To Forget...And How Quickly Priorities Can Change

Times go by, and even within a generation, people forget major events.

16 years ago, Yugoslavia was in the middle of a civil war that broke up the country into at least a half dozen countries.

26 years ago, the United Kingdom declared war on Argentina and sent the Royal Navy to war over The Falkland Islands.

36 years ago, Arab terrorists took the Israeli Olympic delegation at Munich hostage and proceeded to murder all of them. A year later, all of the countries surrounding Israel including Egypt and Syria, proceeded to attempt the invasion of Israel.

46 years ago, the US failed its attempted invasion of Cuba at The Bay of Pigs, which was followed by the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world came minutes away from total war.

56 years ago, the US and the UN were fighting a Chinese-assisted invasion by North Korea of South Korea, and General MacArthur threatened to drop a nuke on the enemy, at which point President Eisenhower fired him.

66 years ago, the US had just declared war on Germany, Japan and Italy, and proceeded to go all the way to victory after 450,000 Americans fell.

76 years ago, Adolf Hitler was leading the election campaign for the German National Socialist Workers' Party (Nationalsocialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP), in which he won and became head of the government. The only major world leader who protested and warned that this was bringing destruction to the world was Winston Churchill, an obscure right-wing back-bencher.

86 years ago, the US was experiencing unprecedented economic growth, but the German government thought it was harmless to increase the money supply, so it started printing money, which generated hyperinflation, followed by a depression and 40% unemployment.

96 years ago, the US government was debating 3 new policies that were implemented the following year: (a) prohibition of pot/drugs, (b) introducing the income tax, which previously had not existed and (c) requiring the use of passports for international travel.

Sen. John McCain's very vigorous mom Roberta was born 96 years ago, when drugs were legal, there was zero income tax and passports didn't exist.

Many Americans have conveniently forgotten these historical events. What's more surprising is that some Americans now also see September 11, 2001 - only little over 6 years ago - as a fading memory.

In this context, you may have missed it in all the coverage of Super Tuesday, but Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell gave his annual national security threat assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee last week.

For anyone who still doubts that the United States and our allies are in a fight for our existence, Director McConnell's testimony should put those doubts to rest.

Here's part of what he said:

"Al Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.: the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an attack in the Homeland. While increased security measures at home and abroad have caused al Qaeda to view the West, especially the U.S., as a harder target, we have seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas since mid-2006. We assess that al Qaeda's Homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population.

We judge use of a conventional explosive to be the most probable al Qaeda attack scenario because the group is proficient with conventional small arms and improvised explosive devices and is innovative in creating capabilities and overcoming security obstacles. That said, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are attempting to acquire chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and materials (CBRN). We assess al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ these weapons and materials -- some chemical and radiological materials and crude weapons designs are easily accessible, in our judgment."

What priorities will change after the next terrorist attack? Who will be blamed for failing to stop it? Will we blame our unguarded borders against Mexico and Canada? Will we blame the lack of biometric IDs? Will we blame the insufficient ability to wiretap suspected terrorists? Will there be calls to do what we did with the Japanese during World War 2? (internment camps)

I don't know what will be the precise dynamics in the media spin, but what I do know is that the political debate will shift dramatically at that point, and instantaneously, suddenly reminding us of 9/11 and various other turning points in history. We will be "shocked" to find out that we had become complacent and hadn't urgently addressed so many "obvious" holes in our security, such as our unguarded borders and lack of terrorist tracking.