Source: U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. James M. Bowman

“If the Taliban were still here, that rapist would have already been executed by now. It would have been a lesson for all,” she says. “If there is no law, and the government does not listen to people’s complaints, then it is better to go back to the Taliban era. At least then we had justice.”
- An Afghan woman, reported by TIME

One should hope that we have not yet forgotten our campaign for the hearts and minds of the Middle East. And although I hate to simply add to the pile-on of criticism for what is occurring in the military campaign there, overall, what we have seen is a resounding failure.

Afghanistan’s version of the the “Sahwa” or Awakening movements in Iraq, where the indigenous people fight alongside the U.S. against insurgents and terrorists, is the alliance between NATO forces and Afghanistan’s warlords. Unfortunately, instead of respected tribal heads (or, at least, leaders who can pass as that), we have lawless tyrants who were part of the very reason the Taliban gained support from regular Afghans—at least, before the religious movement imposed its own brand of tyranny once in power.

As a wonderful result, the current government, headed by Hamid Karzai, is riddled with corrupt warlords who are too valuable to get rid of—we need their militias to keep order—but too lawless to continue relying on, if we want any sort of happy conclusion to this entire venture.

The Need to Step Up

One of the primary problems in Afghanistan is that coalition forces are mainly those of the warlords, who provide local police and militia support, and the United States. Although there are a few other countries who maintain a strong contingent in Afghanistan, all are basically dwarfed by the U.S.’s commitment, which is basically four times that of the second most committed nation, Britain, who itself dwarfs the next most committed, Germany.

Each of these countries can, although not happily, commit more troops to the battle. The United States only has so much political will, and has to still deal with the quagmire of Iraq, even though there is improvement. Afghanistan is a far more worthy cause, in terms of legitimacy and importance to future international security. However, that doesn’t seem to be encouraging too much help from the other nations as of yet.

Without this help, we will continue to rely on the warlords to patch up what security holes there are, slowly becoming more and more indebted to them—and further alienating an angry population that helped throw them out of power in the first place.

One would hope that President-elect Obama’s influence can get more attention to Afghanistan, as he’s consistently pushed for the cause. However, so far, we’ve seen far more disorder and stubborn—even self-destructive—insistence on not coordinating internationally.

Just as it was our downfall in the financial world—turning a bad situation into a catastrophe—it will be in the very “real” world this time, if nations that like to consider themselves “Great Powers” still do not step up to take the responsibility bestowed upon the title.

Blaming the United States does not, in fact, solve a pressing problem that affects everyone. Let’s hope the European countries have learned that lesson by this point with the financial crisis.

Related Posts

• Resurgent Russia? Try a Distracted U.S. Instead

Related posts:

1. Resurgent Russia? Try a Distracted U.S. Instead A Curiously Sudden Resurgence Georgian sniper taking aim at Ossetian...

Source: Colin Gregory Palmer

Although some might argue that the point is moot at this point, it appears that the broader financial analyst/reporter community has suddenly decided to adopt collective amnesia and paint financial regulation as the boogeyman that brought the financial industry to its knees. Of course, this is the same community that happily declared the beginning of a “new era” in investment and stocks during the tech boom (which busted), along with enthusiastically invented reasons why the real estate market could never go down even though it has gone both up and down throughout all of human financial history.

Overall, I suppose it shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise, given that track record and the relative ease that one can blame recent changes in the regulatory framework. Especially given that it comes with a very easily swallowed “us versus them” story of greed, corruption, and all those bad things. However, they’ve been wrong before, and I’m going to relatively confidently say they’re wrong again about the reason for the financial crisis—and why, ultimately, all of this hubbub about regulation, for better or worse, is mostly hot air.

But why does it matter?

But first, why bother with this question at all? After all, the credit markets have already frozen, and lack of liquidity along with massive bank runs/shorting have already driven under some household names, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, and—among the high-rolling investment banks—Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

The problem with just ignoring this now is that the bailout plan and future regulatory framework is being based on the erroneous assumption that it was purely deregulation that, coupled with the ever-popular “Wall-Street greed,” blew up the markets.

Putting aside the fact that economic markets and companies in that market are supposed to be pursuing profit and the most efficient ways of allocating their resources (given that it’s how our economy as a whole functions effectively), it simply isn’t the whole story.

Financial deregulation played a proximate cause to the entire crisis, but is only the final chapter in an industry that was spinning problems for itself because lawmakers had distorted its incentives.

The Regulation that Came Before Deregulation

The public loves easy explanations. Politicians love it even more, because it allows them to feed it to a receptive public who promptly turns into a mob that demands that heads roll—a demand that is far easier to fulfill than actually solving anything.

So what was the beginning of this story of financial disaster?

One can argue that the very beginning was in 1988, in Basel, Switzerland after a series of global financial disasters throughout the entire world. Central bankers convened and by 1992 had created a global framework of risk management for banks (at least in the G10 countries) that threw the first bit of tinder that would one day turn into the conflagration that now engulfs the U.S. financial market (and Europe’s, but they haven’t written it down yet—watch for even more financial turmoil in Europe to come), and is spilling over onto the rest of the world.

It did what seemed so logical at the time. It put risk management policies into place which classified various assets on a bank’s balance sheet and regulated the amount of reserves banks had to hold to make up for it.

Although there were some changes in Basel II, the essential idea was intact. Sarbanes-Oxley put together even more tinder under the financial powder-kegs that the banks and “non-banks” would soon pile up on top of it.

But what’s wrong with risk-management?

Nothing. Except when it’s forced upon an institution and regulated in a competitive market.

The problem with expecting these regulation to really reduce any appreciable risk in the market is that laughable idea that banks and other financial institutions can simply sit back, reduce risk, and not have any negative consequences come about it.

It’s blindingly obvious enough for other types of companies. What happens if one day, an auto manufacturer decides that it is simply going to stop investing as much into new models and cut customer service, for instance? Obviously, it’s going to lose business and eventually either go out of business, or get bought up by another company for cheap. The company that becomes complacent, when there is competition, is simply not going to survive.

The same is true with banks and other financial institutions.

Their input and output, however, is money. If you got paid a lower interest rate on your savings deposit, or got a higher interest rate on your loan, would you do business with that bank? It’s all the same concept.

By imposing reserve requirements, the reserved money is essentially sitting around doing nothing. Thus, the bank would effectively be slacking off. The bank that does this the most either goes out of business, being out-competed, or bought out by a rival. No bank is going to sit around and just take the fact that it has now been severely regulated—not if it wants to survive.

Thus, upon this happening, it was a free-for-all scramble to invest in any many assets that weren’t under regulation, and couldn’t be—because they didn’t exist when the regulation was made. Hence, in large part, complex derivatives, mortgage-backed securities, and other packed financial products, which didn’t have to be put on a balance sheet forcing institutions to have to leave reserves for them.

It’s impossible to regulate everything, in large part because the only way to do so is to forbid everything except a few selected financial products—in essence, doing the same thing as forbidding the technology industry from creating anything new.

Given that it is their job, the highly-paid bankers, most picked out of the cream of America’s college crop every year, will always be able to find some way to work around the inadequate regulation set up by overworked, hourly regulatory employees. Unfortunately, the way they find ways around this regulation might be far riskier than the original investments. Like with this current crisis, and the previous quickly-forgotten by foreshadowing crisis in SIVs (structured investment vehicles). Regulation drove banks away from the safe investments.

Deregulation also brought us to our financial knees, of course. Why? Simple, now that banks are pursuing these incredible risky investments, the SEC and other financial regulatory authorities suddenly removed many of the hampering regulation that prevented them from diving even deeper into these “financial weapons of mass destruction” as Warren Buffet’s now popular quote termed them.

That was the nail in the coffin and what brought us to our sorry situation now.

Permanent Restructuring in Regulation? Please.

Now comes to the crux of the problem: regulations trying to clamp down on everything will not succeed.

Admittedly, it is true that given the nature of any regulation in distorting incentives in the market, such as the previously mentioned Basel requirements driving financial institutions into pursuing risky investments, you either choose to not regulate much at all, or regulate extremely heavily to prevent all the disastrous consequences of your regulation from occurring.

So what’s wrong with regulating now?
Nothing, of course, as long as Congress is willing to accept America losing its status as the world’s foremost financial superpower and see its banks bought out by the rest of the world, most likely Asia’s, since Europe’s banks are also in quite a bit of trouble (though they refuse to admit it/write it down for the most part).

Suddenly, in the current crisis, everyone seems to have forgotten the original reason there was such a push towards deregulation—because the rest of the world was beating our financial system with their looser rules and consolidated banks! America’s banks failed miserably in competition with the rest of the world because of the U.S.’s arcane rules and stifling restrictions on financial institutions. We had tiny, regional, high-cost and inefficient banks trying to compete with multinational conglomerations that came in and easily stomped our own quaint money-lenders and depository institutions.

Regulating now will still have a competitively deleterious effect now if we institute tight regulations, as have been floated currently. In case Congress failed to notice, the rest of the world is not following suit with the regulations. It is mouthing regulation, and will probably pass it, with massive concessions to the financial industry due to lobbying connections, but immediately upon it being politically convenient, will scramble to reverse it to keep the financial industry competitive globally.

Though, probably not before doing some sort of damage to incentives and setting us up for the next financial crisis. If you want the solution to financial crises and these boom-bust cycles once and for all, it’s simple: give the media and regulators a longer memory than roughly a decade.

Given the fact that the previous sentiment is more or less even more difficult to pricing these exotic derivatives, I suggest one watch what will be happening within the next year. My wager is that this “death of Wall Street” and this new “age of regulation” will be short-lived, at most.

Most Commented Posts

• Google Being Evil: Knol and Beyond
• Why the Media is Wrong About Chinese Democracy
• A Failing Mission in Afghanistan?

No related posts.

For at least the first part of the program, my internet access has been on-and-off, and for at least a period of time, dePolitik was blocked by the Chinese government firewall.

Given the limitations, I’ve decided to try to at least post short segments, if not the long articles I normally do, just to comment on the rapidly developing/devolving situation in the U.S. financial market.

Most Commented Posts

• Google Being Evil: Knol and Beyond
• Why the Media is Wrong About Chinese Democracy
• A Failing Mission in Afghanistan?

No related posts.

Source: Tricia Ward

It should have been easy to check (and find out) that Bristol was pregnant. It should have also been easy to notice that Palin was in the midst of a controversy in her home state of Alaska, which has the potential to develop into a huge scandal.

Finally, the McCain campaign should been alarmed that although Palin delivered a rousing speech to the Republican base, it was one that was ridiculously easy to tear apart and fedd to moderates who would promptly flee from the party in its wake—at least, if Obama cared to do so.

In a campaign now run extremely professionally by veteran campaign staff, and characterized by meticulous planning, it was more or less impossible that the McCain campaign didn’t know about all of these problems beforehand. This is especially true, even for Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention, given that Palin’s speech was almost completely pre-written, without excessive veering from the teleprompter.

Only one conclusion seems to make sense. She was meant to be attacked.

This may seem counterintuitive, but given the media’s sudden care in stepping around issues involving Palin, while tearing into Obama for being “sexist” this act of political judo seems to have worked.

Previously, Obama has steadfastly refused to descend very negative. Most of the “negativity” has been accused and inflated by the McCain camp. However, even then, McCain couldn’t get voters to think that Obama was altogether that slimy—at least not to those who weren’t already predisposed to doing so one way or another.
Enter Sarah Palin.

Double-Kill

Palin becomes a perfect case of a “forced” negative attack, drawn out by leaving open so many obviously juicy morsels. After all, if Obama’s campaign doesn’t pounce on the opportunity, then his gleeful unofficial surrogates will—and so far, McCain has successfully conflated the two when convenient. But it goes beyond this: it is a choice, now apparent, that targets the exact segment that seems most vulnerable in the Democratic camp: former Hillary Clinton voters.

Not only does McCain fire up his own base with the choice of Sarah Palin, he depresses Obama’s.

While Obama himself doesn’t attack Sarah Palin very vigorously, sticking for the most part to his promises, McCain’s campaign has seized every single tiny implication that Obama is attacking her, and has attributed attacks from Obama supporters to Obama himself. Meanwhile, the media is mostly ineffectual in this situation, since not only does the Republican base not trust the media anyway, the media is compelled to denounce Obama according to McCain’s script if it wishes to avoid charges of sexism.

It seems to be a perfect hole-in-one as a choice for Vice President, and could also be the choice that wins the war for McCain. After all, it’s hard to say how much effect that “discomfort” over a black President will discourage voters from actually casting ballots for Obama—as this sort of phenomenon has not exactly been common throughout recent (and all of) American history. We have absolutely no concrete data beyond opinion surveys on what sort of impact this will have, though preliminary surveys of opinions show that a large percentage will “consider” race (roughly around 20% from various surveys). Of course, very few mentioned to surveyors that they would outright refuse to vote for a black candidate, but few would say that to another person’s face. Instead, one can almost take “consideration” of race as, “We don’t want to say it, but we’re either not voting for Obama, because of race, or are waiting for him to prove somehow himself in spite of his race.”

In a situation like this, it’s not hard to see how a few more Republican base voters encouraged to sit in, while a few Democratic base voters encouraged to sit out could very swing the election in McCain’s favor.

The only potential problem would come if the ethics investigation in Alaska finishes before the election (which it is scheduled to do so now), and something amazingly incriminating about Palin reveals itself. However, given all of this careful strategizing so far, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if what comes out will be too little to late that close to the election date. After all, given the track record of McCain’s new staff so far, they probably already know for the most part what will come out and are either preparing distractions, counters, or have already dismissed various findings that will come out as acceptable losses already.

Given this and the landscape we’ve seen so far, it seems that McCain will almost certainly come out of this choice netting a good number of percentage points—and this from a pick that so many thought was a terrible idea when it was first declared. Most thought that Palin was to draw women to McCain, when in reality it was meant to drive them from Obama. Brilliant.

Well played, McCain. Very well played, indeed.

Related Posts

• The End of Hillary’s Victory Celebration

No related posts.

Georgian sniper taking aim at Ossetian soldiers.
Source: Jonathan Alpeyrie

The media has recently been abuzz, in the aftermath of the Georgian invasion by Russia, about how Russia is now resurgent and (suddenly) one of the great challenges ahead for the next president.

As if, of course, Russia was not before this. While the next president does have to deal with Russia—a great-power, at the very least—this certainly isn’t a new occurrence. The only difference is the level of brashness that Russia is now willing to display in international relations. We, or rather, many pundits and the media, thought that Russia was weak and cowed just because it was hesitant to cross the America’s path. After all, not only was it reluctant to be defiant towards the U.S., it offered its wholehearted support on various diplomatic issues and in America’s “War on Terror.”

Despite all of the buzz now, though, the only significant factor that has changed between then and now is how much military and diplomatic power the United States has to deploy. What changed was that the United States invaded Iraq.

A Debate on Georgia

I recently had a debate with some friends about Russia. A few of them asserted, quite strongly, that they believed that Russia would have invaded Georgia, regardless.

One expressed his disbelief that the Georgian conflict would have played out any differently if the Iraq War had not happened.

Certainly, if he meant that if Russia had invaded anyway? Of course not.

However, I assert that that it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. While Russia wasn’t exactly happy about its former client states forming closer ties to the West before the Iraq conflict, that didn’t stop it from trying to form stronger ties to the U.S. itself.

We saw this entire spectacle in international theater with Putin visiting and sharing stories with Bush to become “friends,” and offering one of the strongest pillars of international support for the War on Terror once it began. The United States had enough power that Russia wanted to come to it, and benefit economically, since it was not only pointless to even saber rattle, it didn’t even have the symbolic significance that it used to when Russia was the Soviet Union.

A Changing Tide

Now, the situation is completely different. The U.S., diplomatically, is not on terribly strong footing anymore, even just based on relations with other traditional allies. Even beyond that, however, it has been expending its military strength—its military capacity—in Iraq, and trying its best to hold off Iran getting nuclear weapons, try to forge a solution between Israel and Palestine—along with attempt to maintain its interests

The U.S. can’t simply accomplish any military goal it wants to anymore without regard to international opinion—not without serious repercussions to its ability to even defend its essential interests. It has to rely on others, since its previous unilateral feats are no longer repeatable, given the diplomatic and military situation it now finds itself in—not to mention the state of public opinion at home.

Russia holds cards now. It is one of the key negotiators with Iran, has ties and sales to various Middle Eastern countries and groups, and has the ability to veto various resolutions that the U.S. would strongly prefer not to be veto’ed—given that the U.S. no longer has the political and physical capital to just ignore the entire U.N. facade anymore. Even now, Russia is trying to solidify their advantage in the region, as per their recent talks with Syria.

Making a Bad Trade

The United States drove itself into a hole. It was already trying to do too much—then it dropped another monumental task on its laps.

I’ll pass on making a judgment on whether or not Iraq was justified or not, and simply point out that the U.S. traded its soft power—the big stick that its potential military deployment gave it—for hard power in perhaps the wrong place. In doing so, there is no longer a strong enough disincentive for various nations to alter the status quo in international relations (set up for the U.S.’s benefit as the dominant power) for their own benefit.

No, I don’t think that the Georgian military would have been miraculously stronger if the United States hadn’t go into Iraq. I think the Russian military wouldn’t have been in Georgia.

Related Posts

• A Failing Mission in Afghanistan?

Related posts:

1. A Failing Mission in Afghanistan? An Abundance of Lawless Lawmen Source: U.S. Air Force Master...

The Olympics have ended, but that doesn’t mean that the hopes and dreams that came with it have. At least, not the hopes and dreams that the “West,” or at least the western media had for China.

Yes, the Olympics have ended but that doesn’t mean that the population has suddenly “awakened” or is now “agitated” or any other of the popular descriptions that the press is using to say why it must be “inevitable” that democracy must sweep across China, or at the very least, the Communist Party would have to make concessions—after all, if memory serves, isn’t that what they used to say about China even before the Olympics?

The fact of the matter is that the Chinese population, upon the end of the Olympics, now feels a sense of pride and confidence that they did not have before. Beyond that, they feel proud of their achievements and what they showed the world during the Olympics—compare that to before when even the population was scared that upon China’s grand entrance into the world stage would be marked more by embarrassing laughter instead of crowning awe.

No, it’s not likely right now that the Chinese are very angry or “agitated” against their Communist “masters.”

Mistaking the Horse for the Rider

Though addressing that, can one actually call the Communist Party the absolute master of China?

Fareed Zakaria and other somewhat more informed commentators have noted that the Chinese population is actually not all that discontent with their government—and that polls show that the Chinese government has higher approval ratings by the people than most European (and certainly the American) governments.

Although one might want to try to write that off as coercion by the government, the argument is weakened by the fact that looking at the same polls across time, the approval rating started low and only became to rise to the levels it is at now after the economic boom. It isn’t all fiction. In fact, it’s probably mostly true, given that the polls also include candid complaints about corruption in the government. Generally, if the government is controlling what the people say, the greatest complaint would probably not be listed as corruption.

The reality is that the Communist Party and its ruling head, the Politburo, rule only at the pleasure—or at least apathy—of its population. While one might want to imagine some sort of Hitler or Stalin-esqe totalitarianism in China, the conditions on the ground are actually one of the government’s fragile hold.

Using the particular examples of democratic agitators, by far a minority in the country, the Western media paints a picture of an oppressed people, just waiting for some breath of air, some savior to lift them into democratic bliss. They fail to mention that most of these persecuted individuals are persecuted in large part because few others care very much about their persecution, and fewer still have any desire to join them (or care about their cause).

If you actually look at what has happened during every period where some uprising by the people has occurred—during Japanese visits to the Yasukuni shrine, for instance, or the accidental U.S. bombing of a Chinese embassy—the people have by far been the more violent component of the Chinese nation. The government is left attempting to calm the tiger without having it turn on them and rip it to shreds.

The reality is, if anything, the Chinese are farther than they were from democracy than before.

A Bittersweet Victory

Though, I, at least, have to question whether or not the West actually wants what its media and intellectuals seem to want so badly to happen.

The advent of China’s economic boom only brought more approval to the government. The rise of the internet only united mobs that felt surrounded by the rest of the world and spew virulent nationalism—and are often the more dangerous persecutor of democratic dissidents.

So what has to happen to have the Chinese government fall?
The exact opposite of what the media has predicted each time.

It will not be rising prosperity or the technology that will bring and end to the Communist party’s rule.

It will be poverty—or at least economic turmoil—or, again, ironically, a greater friendliness by the Chinese government towards the West. Again, as said, the exact opposite of what the media has been predicting.

It’s only when the Chinese people actually become dissatisfied that the government will fall. The media has made the mistake of thinking the Chinese people are already dissatisfied, and that the government is simply too strong.

But upon these terms, the fall will come if the economy sputters, and thus the government loses its mandate to rule. Or when the government embraces the West too much, or at least becomes too favorable to the Americans and Europeans (certainly something that these countries want) and instead take a less hard line stance towards certain hot-button issues, say the stance against Japan’s war memorial, or the independence of Tibet.

The media has consistently made the comforting error that the Chinese people also want more comfortable relations, and a free Tibet, when the insurmountable challenge to negotiations by the Chinese government is the intractable, uncompromising population itself.

Given this, if we see the Chinese government fall, the most likely replacement will not be a liberal, democratic government friendly to the West. More likely, it will be an ultranationalist monster that will truly bring to life Napoleon’s warnings centuries ago about a rising China. Cliché, perhaps, but maybe the West should be careful what it wishes for.

Related Posts

• To Rouse a Dragon

Related posts:

1. To Rouse a Dragon The Wisdom of the Protesters The recent Tibet protests have...

Source: Wikimedia Commons

There’s been quite a bit of discussion on the blogosphere about Google’s recently launched service, Knol.

Basically, Knol is meant to be a Wikipedia-like site where users post articles. The difference is that these articles feature authors (who have a persistent identity on the site) prominently—thus encouraging authorities on various subjects to write about them.

However, the current complaints about Knol have primarily been some variation of these two:

1. Knol is a Wikipedia killer, and is meant to start knocking wiki results off of Google top searches.
2. Google is attempting to self-promote and is placing its own Knol content above other, longer-standing, and more authoritative content in searches.

I have little doubt, personally, that the first point is true.

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted.

This is a direct quote from Google’s official blog post about Knol. More or less, the comment is aimed straight at Wikipedia, where article authors are anonymous, distributed, and almost always unattributed. While Knol’s official, stated goal is certainly noble, I don’t find it very hard to question the motives for launching the service.

This brings me to the second point.

It’s hard to say whether or not Google is strongly favoring its own content, but based on some tests run by Aaron Wall on SEOBook regarding Knol’s page rankings on Google, it does seem to be very possible. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Search Engine Optimizers, or SEOs, are individuals who help clients appear higher on search results—the term can also refer to taking steps to appear high on searches. Regardless, SEOs are understandably angry about this, since ranking is their livelihood and Knol seems to undermine their profession and their current way of doing things.

However, SEOs adapt. It’s part of their job, and if Knol has some algorithmic preference over other content, they’ll figure out a way to game the system, as they always do. I’m not really worried about SEO’s ability to put food on the table. I expect they’ll manage.

Instead, what I’m more concern about is the dangerous attitude that Google has taken towards web content, and its proven willingness to leverage its near monopoly position on search for its own benefit.

Google Doing Evil

I think it is generally accepted—for those who actually stop and think about it, anyway—that Google holds a very powerful position, which can easily be abused, given its influence over web traffic and habits. It’s this recognition, after all, which is the source of their famous motto, “Do no evil.”

However, one should note that this is not the first time, if these allegations about Knol are true, that Google has targeted a popular service with their own counterservice, or that Google has boosted the rankings of its own content.

For the latter, take YouTube. It’s been so long that I expect many have forgotten that YouTube was, in the past, not owned by Google. It was already popular before Google. But after Google bought the site, it seems that YouTube videos suddenly skyrocketed in Google results. This one, while still controversial, was relatively well-documented in Google’s aggressive push to promote the site and make good on their massive investment of $1.65 billion. Maybe it was simply that the site was made more optimized and therefore there was no (unfair) boost to YouTube in Google’s search results. But then again, maybe not.

As for launching counterservices, there are actually multiple examples of Google doing this. One of the more recent one was Android, which almost seemed to be meant to counter the sudden popularity and buzz around the Apple iPhone.

The other one, which is far more near and dear to Google’s financial heart, was Facebook—which was challenged with Google’s OpenSocial push.

The Walled Garden vs. Google’s Open Web

Don’t get me wrong—competition in these realms is, in the end, a good thing. But one should realize that all of these pushes are ultimately in Google’s self-interest.

The case is point, as said, is Facebook.

Where does Google’s money come from? What is their business plan, at the end of the day?

It’s ultimately getting people to use their search service, and selling statistics about search, along with, most importantly, selling targeted ads via their Adsense program.

With the widespread popularity of Adsense and the dominance of their search engine driving people to their adsense-enabled sites, you can say that Google’s “turf” is almost the entire internet. People searching and browsing the web, on an aggregate, make Google money—thus, as expected, Google wants as many people as possible searching and browsing the internet.

That is, of course, why Facebook is such a danger to Google. It’s a site where many users spend a great deal of time, purely inside of the facebook.com domain. No Google ads, little outbound traffic, and no searching on Google.com. It’s basically a nightmare scenario for Google. Hence, enter OpenSocial. If users can pick up their information and go anywhere, it destroys concentration, and it forces them to have to use a third-party tool to try to navigate this now extremely distributed network. By definition, these third-party tools for navigating the wide expanse of the web are search engines—which mostly means Google.

At the end of the day (or fiscal quarter), despite all of the hype and protestation to the contrary, Google is looking at it’s own bottom line.
If you need even more evidence of this, you just have to look at Google’s counter to Yahoo.

Yahoo’s primary strength, ever since Google eclipsed it as a search engine, is its portal functionality. A portal is start-site where you can see news, weather, and whatnot, and where you can then browse further into the web—but in a rather controlled fashion by the portal. Yahoo is the biggest web portal and has extremely valuable web real-estate on its network to keep it afloat.

One day, relatively recently, Google suddenly started popping up some sort of “iGoogle” page for its users, where you can “Create your own homepage in under 30 seconds”. Maybe it’s overkill to mention the even older occurrence where one of Yahoo’s most valuable portal elements, Yahoo Finance, suddenly found itself facing “Google Finance.” In any case, I think we can see the trend that’s been established here.

From “What You Want to See” to “What WE Want You to See”

I’m not blaming Google for paying attention to their bottom line or for competing against other services. As a company, and especially now as a public company, that’s actually what they should be doing.

However, Google has two things that worry me in their calculated conquest of the entire web.

First is that Google has a fundamental conflict of interest as a publisher of content and as a search engine. If it publishes its own content (like now), Google has an obvious incentive to abuse its position as the dominant search engine—pushing its own sponsored content above everyone else’s. This particular worry is the one behind Google’s insistence that it isn’t a media company. But ultimately, with Google books, scholar, etc. it had already become one. Now, with Knol, it is even more of a media company and publisher of content.

The first is already treacherous waters, with how reliant the internet is on Google’s search—simply witness the transformation of “google” into a verb. The second, however, is even more critical for the web as a whole.

I credit, in large part, Google for cleaning up the web. In the past, there was a veritable menagerie of useless content from Angelfire, Geocities, FortuneCities and whatnot flooding the web, and for many search engines, their results.

Google changed that.
With its algorithm actually being very good at figuring out what was quality and authoritative content and what was junk, most of the “trash” sites were cut off from traffic and slowly died a well-deserved death.

Now, however, with the internet being used for so many purposes, and with Google becoming even more influential, it has, perhaps, moved from the stage of providing, “What you want to see” to instead providing, “What WE want you to see.”

Imagine if all content that you could find and could see on the web was owned, or affiliated (through their paychecks from ads) with one single company. One can, I expect, imagine that the freewheeling spirit and entrepreneurial expansion would at least slow down if not stop. Google is the one company, by virtue of their position, which has the potential to make that scenario into a reality.

With network effects in effect on the web, where users tend to use the service that has gained the most users, whatever Google actually ends up controlling more totally won’t actually have any significant competitors.

However, it seems that so far, at least, Google has shown little restraint in lashing out against potential reductions of its own influence. Usually, I’m not against companies expanding into other industries and economies of scope—again, as said, it’s what they should do. However, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the concept of something that is now as crucial to free expression, commerce, and daily life as the internet slowly falling into the hands of one single controlling party—no matter how much they claim to “Do no evil.”

Addendum: I found an interesting satire about the same topic from someone else who seems to have views similar to mine on the matter.

Most Commented Posts

• Google Being Evil: Knol and Beyond
• Why the Media is Wrong About Chinese Democracy
• A Failing Mission in Afghanistan?

No related posts.

Google Analytics tells me that a surprising number of people (more than I expected, anyhow) are actually visiting and reading this blog, so I feel that I should let everyone know that I’m trying to do some major sitework at the moment, so posting has been slow.

Overall, my main goals in this overhaul are these:

1. Make it easier to find interesting articles, especially I write more. This is my overarching goal in this rework.
2. Create a front-page with major categories, recent articles, and featured content. This goes along with the first point, though is more specific.
3. Update the sidebar to be more useful in navigation and finding interesting articles. Perhaps have Adsense be less prominent or deemphasized, especially since I’m not looking to make much off of it (originally, I was hoping it would offset some hosting costs).

After this, I expect to be posting at a far more rapid clip, especially since I’m deliberately designing the site in a way where it will look very odd if I do not. Think of it as self-motivation, on my part.

Regardless, I’ll try to continue to add content during this time, so I can justify a place on your RSS readers. Let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions. Speaking of which…

New Comment System

I enabled a new comment system on the blog in place of my original self-hosted one. It’s called Disqus, and is meant to connect with other blogs in a social-network/media manner using persistent commenter identities and forum-like comment format.

Overall, I think it’s an interesting idea, and if nothing else, I had nothing to lose since I haven’t exactly had extensive pre-Disqus commenting at this point. Also, the interface with this is, I expect, far cleaner than my own cobbled-together solution—which is not altogether surprising, since I’m creating this site’s theme from scratch and am still in the process of learning how to use Wordpress.

Let me know what you all think, and do comment, if you can. I appreciate any and all feedback—if nothing else, it makes blogging a little bit less lonely, even if I do know you are all out there browsing through thanks to Google’s all-seeing statistical eye.

Most Commented Posts

• Google Being Evil: Knol and Beyond
• Why the Media is Wrong About Chinese Democracy
• A Failing Mission in Afghanistan?

No related posts.

Source: Steve Keys

CNN recently posted an article about the head of a prominent cancer research institute issuing a warning to his faculty and staff to limit cell phone use because of potential cancer risk.

So? Does this mean that we should start limiting our cell phone use as this expert who should know best says? One of the problems in American society is that we don’t trust our experts enough. Even though we have among the best engineers, scientists, and thinkers in the world, Americans tend to give equal credence to both real experts (PhDs, researchers in the field) and individuals who simply appear with the real experts on “panel discussions” on T.V. (who range from religious fanatics to average joes who simply declared themselves experts).

However, this ridiculous fearmongering makes it almost understandable to me why Americans have this chronic mistrust of people with fancy titles and degrees. Although no other cancer institute or respectable doctor has declared anything of the sort, Dr. Ronald B. Herberman and his compatriot, Dr. Devra Lee Davis has taken it upon themselves to inform the public about the dangers of cell phones.

The Claim

What exactly is the problem here?

“The issue that concerns some scientists — though nowhere near a consensus — is electromagnetic radiation, especially its possible effects on children.”

Electromagnetic radiation.

A fancy word for everything from radio waves to visible light to x-rays. Although some types of electromagnetic radiation is dangerous, if electromagnetic radiation alone is the cause of concern, everyone in the world should be entering panic mode in avoiding the light emitted from their lamps, neon signs, and yes, cell phones.

According to Dr. Davis:

“‘The question is, do you want to play Russian roulette with your brain?’ she said from her cell phone, while using the hands-free speaker phone, as recommended. ‘I don’t know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don’t know that they are safe.’”

Basically enough, she has no convincing evidence that it does harm, so she is simply pointing out that there doesn’t seem to be enough convincing evidence that it does not. This is tantamount to me declaring that strawberries are dangerous, because even though I don’t have a definitive study showing this, no one has done a study that has proven that they aren’t.

As any scientist can tell you, this isn’t how science works. You can’t definitively “prove” anything, but you can at least find convincing evidence through doing an experiment isolating all other potential causes of a particular phenomenon (i.e. cancer). The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute seems to be attempting to drum up some media attention rather than actually do real research.

Unfortunately, there have been some endorsement for this, but I’m guessing for reasons rather than the soundness of their conclusions:

“She said 20 groups have endorsed the advice the Pittsburgh cancer institute gave, and authorities in England, France and India have cautioned children’s use of cell phones.”

One would guess that if someone called you up on the phone and asked you, “We have evidence that use of cell phones causes life-threatening cancer. Would you endorse advice to children to limit the use of cell phones?” that you would say yes.

It’s a relatively low cost solution to a potentially dangerous problem, even if it is ephemeral. Of course government authorities are going to issue advisories, in this case. If the cancer risk is not real, oh well, who’s going to care? If it is real, well, they would be in some trouble if they didn’t issue the advisory, wouldn’t they? It’s more a game of avoiding blame rather than actually looking at facts.

The Reality

“Cell phones emit radiofrequency energy, a type of radiation that is a form of electromagnetic radiation, according to the National Cancer Institute.”

For my two cents, according to Dr. Robert Muller of the Physics Department of the University of California Berkeley, cell phones emit radiation in the “microwave frequency zone.” As such, it’s basically the same thing that’s emitted by radars, and, of course, microwaves. Let’s put aside cell phones for the moment. Science has not determined any physical way for microwaves to cause cancer at this point, let alone cell phones.

Microwaves are a wavelength that make water molecules move faster, thus heating things with water in them up (in other words, you cannot heat something in the microwave that has NO water content). For living things, like humans, you can be blinded, burned, and otherwise have nasty things happen to you in high enough concentrations, but this is a different issue altogether from getting genetic mutations (which is the cause of cancer).

It’s like saying that heat causes cancer (or more specifically, hot water causes cancer). Tanning causes cancer because UV rays hit the genetic material in cells and mutate them potentially into cancerous cells. Putting hot water bags in your blanket in the winter does not cause cancer.

This simply goes to show that you cannot put your absolute trust even in “respectable” media outlets and have to always keep in mind to question what is said, even from experts.

Although this particular case seems to have justified this existence of this blog, it seems to have utterly torn apart my previous gripe that Americans don’t trust their experts enough.

It looks like they may have a point.

Most Commented Posts

• Google Being Evil: Knol and Beyond
• Why the Media is Wrong About Chinese Democracy
• A Failing Mission in Afghanistan?

No related posts.

This is a repost of an article I originally posted in the notes section of Facebook.

One of the reasons I’m usually quite disdainful and hostile towards most grassroots protesters is they have a nasty tendency to make whatever they are trying to protest against worse rather than better. Movements with a leader and an overarching strategy, like those led by Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, that’s one thing. The recent Beijing protests are an example of another.

I’ve seen an outpouring of utter ignorance by ideologues who have no idea what they are doing or what they are talking about. Take the head of Darfur Now! who wrote an opinion piece for CNN—she was wondering why there wasn’t a global “raising of voices” against China for all of its sins. Though she sounded somewhat dismissive of the Chinese people themselves (in a patronizing, dare I say, racist way?) I still think she was mainly referring to the Chinese people themselves. Ironically, in the same article, she was praising the attempt of protesters to storm a little disabled Chinese girl in a wheelchair and douse the Olympic torch she was carrying at the time.

Perhaps I might suggest that this particular event might be part of why there isn’t more outrage in China? It’s just like the protests against the Japanese embassies before—the Chinese government attempts to stir the population into a response, but the population was already willing and, in fact, wanting to respond—and thus, ultimately, react far more violently than the Communist Party itself intended for them to react. Just like I predicted, as some of you who I’ve talked to personally know, these protests against the Olympics and calls to boycott it have had the exact opposite effect that the protesters were hoping for.

The Fury of the Crowds

The Communist Party, with all of its failings, corruption, and plain incompetence, has never had so much grassroots support behind them than now. The Chinese people themselves, fascinated by Western goodies, have never had such a nationalistic pride and belief in the conflict between “Chinese vs. the imperialist West.” The internet chatrooms and blogosphere in China is abuzz (far surpassing the state-controlled media) with anger and pure righteous outrage at the “western media bias” against China that has become the new catchphrase of the youth of China.

That “new generation” that was supposed to demand democracy, rights, and overthrow the government? It’s being driven into the government’s arms and has become one of its strongest pillars. That little girl in the wheelchair? That’s for all the rest of the Chinese. It really isn’t terribly difficult to have a little disabled girl being attacked (or attempted to be attacked) by a mob of angry, violent protesters suddenly deify the girl and demonize the Western protesters.

This isn’t helping matters for their grand cause. The leaders of the world know this. They have firmly said that they will still attend the Olympics, the exception being France’s Sarkozy, who is more image than realpolitik to begin with anyhow.

The Fragile Superpower

China’s history as a colonized and, in its own eyes, exploited nation does contribute to how it perceives the world reacting to it now. These do-gooders utterly fail to grasp this, and ignorantly plod on with types of protests that they use against the former colonial great powers and America. A hurt and wary nation does not act the same way as a waning or current world power. There was an article in TIME magazine once that mentioned that Americans were often skeptical about the “fragile” part of the name often given to China—fragile superpower. The Chinese were usually skeptical about the “superpower” part.

If the protesters want to see some effects on Darfur, Burma, and Tibet, this is not the way to do it. The Communist government wants to endear itself to the west and make concessions on these—it just is waiting for the best time and political scenario to do so. The true dragon that the west should fear now, with the foolish and destructive actions of these protesters, is the Chinese people. As the protests against Japanese refusal to acknowledge WWII war crimes, and the accidental U.S. bombing of a Chinese embassy show us, time and time again, it certainly isn’t the government that’s the party that’s unwilling to compromise and cut the west some slack: it’s the furious, angry, and previously colonized people themselves.

In those cases, the government has no choice but to be swept along in the tide of hatred and anger, or risk being turned upon and destroyed by the “oppressed” people who think that it isn’t doing enough against the West. In that case, I think the rest of the world will vastly prefer the Communist government over a true democracy of the people—who, especially at this particular moment in time, believe that the West’s only interest in China is to destroy it.

Originally posted April 9, 2008

Related Posts

• Why the Media is Wrong About Chinese Democracy

Related posts:

1. Why the Media is Wrong About Chinese Democracy The Shrill Voice of False Western Hope The Olympics have...