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The Regulatory Leviathan [CBD]

telephone.jpg

Conservatives tend to criticize overlarge government on general principles: it is inherently inefficient, it doesn't do a good job at...well...anything, it slows economic growth through its maze of fees and licenses and controls over exactly how things should be done. These are all excellent reasons to eviscerate the state and its control over commerce.

But perhaps the most dangerous of its effects on the economy is what doesn't happen -- innovation.

Here is Coyote Blog in one of his regular and worthwhile rants against the regulatory state. There is a bonus too: he skewers Kevin Drum!.

Here is what regulation, particularly utility-style regulation, tends to do -- it locks in current business models and competitors. It makes it really hard for new entrants to challenge incumbents with innovative new business models or approaches, because regulations have been written based on the old business model and did not take the new one in account. So a new entrant must begin business by getting regulators to allow their new model, which never happens because by this time incumbents have buildings full of lobbyists aimed at the regulatory process. Go ask Tesla and Uber and Lyft about how easy it is to enter a heavily regulated business even with a superior new business model.

I used to pay $.25/minute for a long distance telephone call. And a large fee for my paving brick-sized rotary phone and the line into my house. And service was fine most of the time, except for international calls, which were a crap-shoot.

Now? Since the breakup of the telephone monopoly, telecommunications has exploded into dozens of companies with unbelievable technology and services that are much less expensive and much better than anything available before the AT&T breakup in 1982. Of course innovation would have driven incremental changes to our telephone services regardless of the consent decree, but does anyone believe that we would have what we have today were it not for the opening of the telecom markets to vicious, cutthroat competition between the many telecommunications companies, the hardware makers, the software shops....etc?

The true damage of regulation is not what we can see...it is what we will never have.

Any NY/NJ Morons reading this screed? We are in discussions for a Moron Meet-up in Hoboken for the first week of March. Please e-mail nynjmeet at optimum dot net to express your interest or disgust. And a preference for weeknight or weekend would be helpful.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:00 PM




Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Given that there's no opposition party, there's not a helluva lot anyone can do about Leviathan, is there?

Posted by: Cloyd Freud, Unemployed at February 14, 2015 11:54 AM (qNZ3I)

2 !

Posted by: Ed Anger at February 14, 2015 11:55 AM (RcpcZ)

3 The old telephone buisness model used long distance high rates to subsidize local rates. But the cell industry now beats them all to hell. I don't know how the rates compare because inflation has a big impact on those.

Posted by: Vic at February 14, 2015 11:55 AM (wlDny)

4 Heh. I have that phone. Not in use, but I have it.

Posted by: HH at February 14, 2015 11:55 AM (Ce4DF)

5 The wright brothers would be shit out of luck today.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 14, 2015 11:56 AM (FMbng)

6 I sit on that phone in the Lincoln Bedroom! When it rings I serve the Master!

Posted by: Reggie at February 14, 2015 11:57 AM (gwG9s)

7 Hoboken?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3C0tr9RE-8

Posted by: Bugs Bunny at February 14, 2015 11:58 AM (gN8Q5)

8 I have that phone, in use. Never a misdial, never a dropped call, and you never have to go outside to get a signal. Downside, you can't "Press 1."

I think cell phone rates are higher than hell, but always just presumed they have a lot of payoffs to make. Having them bundled with your TV, computer, and porn service kind of masks it.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:00 PM (xq1UY)

9 Hoboken?

You guys are supposed to be hunting Hobo not Hipster.

Posted by: Garrett at February 14, 2015 12:00 PM (3sV0A)

10 I should jack it in and see if it works. And I doubt anyone under 30 could even figure out how to use it.

Posted by: HH at February 14, 2015 12:00 PM (Ce4DF)

11 Utility style regulation makes sense for a monopoly as the expense of setting up a public utility is huge. It simply can not be done any other way with large central generating plants.


In the early days of electric power local only competing companies was tried and it failed because it was too expensive to build that way.

Posted by: Vic at February 14, 2015 12:00 PM (wlDny)

12 8 I think cell phone rates are higher than hell, but
always just presumed they have a lot of payoffs to make. Having them
bundled with your TV, computer, and porn service kind of masks it.


Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:00 PM (xq1UY)

I have cell phone only through a Verizen discount card. It costs me $30/month. That isn't much higher than my monthly bill from ATT when I finally dropped the hard line.

Posted by: Vic at February 14, 2015 12:03 PM (wlDny)

13 @10 Kid's friends from the neighborhood would ask to phone home. I'd point to the wall phone. They'd pick up the handset and...just stand there. After a while, kids would come to the door and ask to see it.

Companies are lobbying for the "right" to drop copper-line service. China needs that copper. Think of all the jobs it will create, stripping wire. By burning it.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:03 PM (xq1UY)

14 BTW, that old ATT phone will still work to call 911.

Posted by: Vic at February 14, 2015 12:04 PM (wlDny)

15 On the other hand the long-distance leviathan developed advances in:

facsimile transmission
two-channel recording
radio telescopes
speech synthesizer
electronic computing advances
transistor
communications lasers
solar cell technology
UNIX
C++
cell calling
quantum computing



Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:05 PM (z27Ny)

16 Can't say it enough. Fuck Hoboken.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 14, 2015 12:05 PM (FMbng)

17 "We don't... call...9.1.1."

(Can't find "eleven" on the dial)

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:06 PM (xq1UY)

18 Deregulate healthcare.

Posted by: Zap Rowsdower at February 14, 2015 12:06 PM (MMC8r)

19 "18 Deregulate healthcare."

You peons are so cute.

Posted by: John Boner at February 14, 2015 12:07 PM (qNZ3I)

20 Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:03 PM (xq1UY)


Yeah, I've heard some of those stories from my sister about her kids. Sounds like you have a lot of fun with that.

Posted by: HH at February 14, 2015 12:07 PM (Ce4DF)

21 And down with the Traction Trusts!

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:08 PM (xq1UY)

22 Oh, sure! *After* I get done complaining about the idiocy in that in VW bus movie, a thread about the regulatory leviathan pops up. It is, after all, the regulatory leviathan that took the VW bus away from us.

Posted by: Anachronda at February 14, 2015 12:10 PM (o78gS)

23 It's worse than just inherently inefficient. It creates a huge conflict of interest. If you give regulatory agencies power to make or break a company, that company soon realizes it's in its best interest to control the regulator. Hence, corruption. Companies with the cash to buy regulators will break their smaller competition.

Posted by: kartoffel at February 14, 2015 12:11 PM (yPxpt)

24 That old phone, you could throw it across the the room, bounce it off the wall, and then dial up a pizza.

Indestructible.

Posted by: fairweatherbill bucking the wind at February 14, 2015 12:11 PM (EKSPo)

25 Posted by: Garrett at February 14, 2015 12:00 PM (3sV0A)

Hipsters are very easy to hunt. They are loud, have no sense of their surroundings, and can be lured by bright, shiny objects and silly clothing.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 14, 2015 12:11 PM (Zu3d9)

26 I'm so old that I remember when someone asked you for your phone number, you enunciated the first two digits of the exchange by their alphabetical counterparts on the dial. "Sure, it's JT6-2132".

Posted by: Hans Gruber at February 14, 2015 12:11 PM (Dwehj)

27 Stooped Fone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpWeprlFJ1k

Posted by: Zap Rowsdower at February 14, 2015 12:12 PM (MMC8r)

28 All the more alarming in light of the Reds' recent proposals to regulate the Internet, presumably with a view to bring free high speed service to the ghetto (to service all those porn aficionados budding entrepreneurs there), and, of course, to come down hard on all those blogs and news sources that do not toe the Party line.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 12:12 PM (oKE6c)

29 I grew up with the black ATT phone and today I have a smartphone. Things have changed in 40 years. Incredible.

Posted by: dantesed at February 14, 2015 12:13 PM (88xKn)

30 Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:05 PM (z27Ny)

And how much was innovation retarded by the stifling of competition by the monopolistic practices of ATT?

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 14, 2015 12:13 PM (Zu3d9)

31 17 "We don't... call...9.1.1."

(Can't find "eleven" on the dial)

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:06 PM (xq1UY)




Besides which, we don't have the number for 911.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 12:14 PM (oKE6c)

32
I would enjoy a small nod to we who were born analog and dragged kicking and screaming into the Digital Age.

Not an easy transition.

Posted by: irongrampa at February 14, 2015 12:15 PM (jeCnD)

33 Just ponder if the regulatory beast had settled as science on the 56k modem.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at February 14, 2015 12:16 PM (nZNJN)

34 26
I'm so old that I remember when someone asked you for your phone number,
you enunciated the first two digits of the exchange by their
alphabetical counterparts on the dial. "Sure, it's JT6-2132".


And there was that one All in the Family episode where Edith starts dialing (IIRC) the doctor: "KLondike five ... Oh, wait! It doesn't work that way anymore!" hangs up, picks back up "Five five five ..."

Posted by: Anachronda at February 14, 2015 12:19 PM (o78gS)

35 And of course back in the day you could always tell it was a long-distance call by the sort of hollow sound or the delay when speaking. And did anyone ever get a long-distance collect call? The operator would speak to you first, telling you that a collect call was coming from so and so, and are you willing to accept the charges?

Been a while, eh?

Posted by: HH at February 14, 2015 12:19 PM (Ce4DF)

36 And how much was innovation retarded by the stifling of competition by the monopolistic practices of ATT?
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 14, 2015 12:13 PM (Zu3d9)
-----
It cannot be known.

Interestingly the major manufacturing quality control methods commonly used before the TQM revolution (Taylor, Shewhart, Juran) all had AT&T/Western Electric connections. Nothing kept others from making these innovations yet they were all closely associated with Ma Bell.

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:19 PM (z27Ny)

37 @22 That reminds me, WSJ has yet another in a long, long series of articles on the many strokes of business organizational genius that has been the Grateful Dead. Soldier Field has 71,000 seats. There are 400,000 requests for tickets. By mail, in hand-decorated envelopes with fiddle-playing skeletons on them. With postal money orders inside. They may not even go on-line. And they award the tickets to the most sincere requests. One of them was from a broker, who died in the train crash last week. Staff has turned his letter into a little shrine, with "greenery."

There are several custom shops that restore VW micros essentially from scratch. Do you have any idea what a Samba or Westie goes for these days? And I will give you 1000 Ice-Nine quatloos for any one you find without "Truckin" on the 8-track. I have no brief with the Dead; long run, can't say I care for the sound or the scene. Buy my god what an empire they built. And Wall Street notices, oyez.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:19 PM (xq1UY)

38 26 I'm so old that I remember when someone asked you for your phone number, you enunciated the first two digits of the exchange by their alphabetical counterparts . . .

MAfair 3-7411.

Get off my lawn.

Posted by: Iowa Bob at February 14, 2015 12:20 PM (aNzsD)

39 It isn't the business model that is stifled by government regulation, it is new products

Back in the bad old days of the telephone monopoly, you could not hook up your own equipment to the telephone line. There was no regulation to permit it.

When computers were first interconnected, you had to lease a dedicated line from the phone company (Ma Bell), and pay a huge price for it. When computer bulletin boards first started up, you had to register your dial up modem with the phone company, and that was after the old regulations were changed to accommodate the new technology. Before that change the phone company did the hook up. You were not allowed to make the connection.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at February 14, 2015 12:20 PM (JBY3m)

40 Also AT&T was only a long-distance monopoly. They were not a monopoly of phone service - though all phone service was monopolistic.

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:21 PM (z27Ny)

41 28
All the more alarming in light of the Reds' recent proposals to regulate
the Internet, presumably with a view to bring free high speed service
to the ghetto (to service all those porn aficionados budding
entrepreneurs there), and, of course, to come down hard on all those
blogs and news sources that do not toe the Party line.


Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 12:12 PM (oKE6c)

And don't forget the billions in new taxes to pay for the ghetto service. Of course with some skimmed off for worthy friends.

Posted by: Vic at February 14, 2015 12:21 PM (wlDny)

42 Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:21 PM (z27Ny)

The regional phone companies were interconnected monopolies as well.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 14, 2015 12:23 PM (Zu3d9)

43 30
Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:05 PM (z27Ny)

And how much was innovation retarded by the stifling of competition by the monopolistic practices of ATT?


Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 14, 2015 12:13 PM (Zu3d9)


There was a lot of innovation in ATnT but it was primarily in the commercial arena. And Bell Labs which spawned ATnT was one of the most innovative companies to ever exist.

Posted by: Vic at February 14, 2015 12:24 PM (wlDny)

44 Had a party line when I was a kid.

Posted by: Zap Rowsdower at February 14, 2015 12:24 PM (MMC8r)

45 You mean like this 1963 23 window Samba?

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1750005

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at February 14, 2015 12:24 PM (nZNJN)

46 off topic: email from King Snit:

Millions of Americans still need to get health insurance before Sunday's enrollment deadline.

There's a good chance that includes someone you know.

Today, I'm asking you to forward this and remind folks that it's last call to sign up on the health care marketplace for coverage this year.

Anyone can get started right now:

[go look for the url yourself]

It's that simple -- and for the people you care about, it's that important.

We fought for health care reform because everyone deserves to have the peace of mind to know that if you get sick or hurt, you're covered.

Affordable plans are available right now. Nearly eight in 10 consumers can find a plan for less than $100 a month with financial assistance.

[I like the last line. I wonder who's paying for that 'assistance']

Posted by: mallfly at February 14, 2015 12:24 PM (bJm7W)

47 I believe in self-government. A part of that is that the polity has the right to be wrong, or wrong in my view. So while I personally believe big government is bad, inefficient and/or tyrannical by nature, if some polity freely decides to try it, more power to them. Either they will show my thinking wrong, or they will serve as a cautionary example.

What I want to do is limit the geographic reach of government, more than it's size per se. Then citizens can 'vote with their feet'. I will no more care what Massachusetts does than I care what France does.

One size does not fit all, let a thousand flowers bloom and wither, yadda yadda.

Posted by: toby928(C) at February 14, 2015 12:25 PM (rwI+c)

48 17
"We don't... call...9.1.1."

(Can't find "eleven" on the dial)


I had a special phone built that goes to 11.

Posted by: Nigel Tufnel at February 14, 2015 12:25 PM (o78gS)

49 Been a while, eh?
Posted by: HH at February 14, 2015 12:19 PM (Ce4DF)

Whe I was a kid my grandparent's ranch had a party line. Everyone had their own ring so you knew whether to answer the phone. This service came complete with Ida, who liked to listen in on other people's calls.

I can remember Grandma stopping in the middle of conversations to say, "Ida, hang up that phone."

Posted by: Meremortal at February 14, 2015 12:26 PM (lBkn1)

50 Of interest, the other leader for many years in communications technology (globally) was RCA which was also started as a monopoly.

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:26 PM (z27Ny)

51 Nearly eight in 10 consumers can find a plan for less than $100 a month with financial assistance.


80% of consumers need assistance? Doesn't sound like the cost curve is bent down.

Posted by: Zap Rowsdower at February 14, 2015 12:26 PM (MMC8r)

52 you can also sign a Valentine's Day e-card to show Hillary how much you love her. Oh Goody.

Posted by: mallfly at February 14, 2015 12:26 PM (bJm7W)

53 Tesla had a superior business model?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at February 14, 2015 12:26 PM (DmNpO)

54 39 Back in the bad old days of the telephone monopoly, you could not hook
up your own equipment to the telephone line. There was no regulation to
permit it.



There was no regulation but there was a court case. My family was hooking up equipment all the way back in the 50s. Finally Bell surrendered and started selling equipment that you could hook up.

Posted by: Vic at February 14, 2015 12:27 PM (wlDny)

55 There was a lot of innovation in ATnT but it was
primarily in the commercial arena. And Bell Labs which spawned ATnT was
one of the most innovative companies to ever exist.


Posted by: Vic at February 14, 2015 12:24 PM (wlDny)


Yep. Bell Labs was amazing, as was Xerox's PARC, although neither helped the parent company nearly as much as you'd think.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 12:27 PM (oKE6c)

56 I can remember Grandma stopping in the middle of conversations to say, "Ida, hang up that phone."

lol

Posted by: Hans Gruber at February 14, 2015 12:28 PM (Dwehj)

57 Posted by: mallfly at February 14, 2015 12:24 PM (bJm7W)

I read that 53% of Obamacide subsidy receivers have to pay back part or all of last year's subsidy as they got raises or otherwise made more money in 2014 than they predicted when they signed up for the subsidies.



Posted by: Meremortal at February 14, 2015 12:28 PM (lBkn1)

58 Posted by: mallfly at February 14, 2015 12:24 PM (bJm7W)

I read that 53% of Obamacide subsidy receivers have to pay back part or all of last year's subsidy as they got raises or otherwise made more money in 2014 than they predicted when they signed up for the subsidies.



Posted by: Meremortal at February 14, 2015 12:28 PM (lBkn1)

59 The purpose of this thread must be to get some thinking about the new FCC regulations (332 pages) for the interntet. Making it a public utility will generate about 11 billion of new taxes.

Take a look at your current phone bill it must have at least 1/2 dozen different taxes adding to the total.

You can bet there will be some financial justice so the 'poor' will have free high speed service too.

Coming this month, coming soon the federal elections rules on political content. Not joking.

Posted by: Bob from table9 at February 14, 2015 12:28 PM (WNERA)

60 45
You mean like this 1963 23 window Samba?

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1750005


Indeed. If it weren't for the regulatory leviathan, hippie communes could sustain themselves by selling new VW busses lovingly handcrafted from hemp and sunlight.


Posted by: Nigel Tufnel at February 14, 2015 12:28 PM (o78gS)

61 Yep. Bell Labs was amazing, as was Xerox's PARC, although neither helped the parent company nearly as much as you'd think.
Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 12:27 PM (oKE6c)
-----
But the spin-offs and proven concepts were valuable to many others...

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:28 PM (z27Ny)

62 Are you talking about 'the Bus'?

I know the guy who made that film. He's a good guy.

Posted by: Garrett at February 14, 2015 12:28 PM (3sV0A)

63 Wonder sock powers DEACTIVATE!

Posted by: Anachronda at February 14, 2015 12:29 PM (o78gS)

64 Tesla was a crank.

Posted by: Costanza Defense at February 14, 2015 12:29 PM (ZPrif)

65 Terror attack in Copenhagen:

Copenhagen shooting during debate on Islam: live
One dead in shooting at a Copenhagen cultural centre, where a meeting about freedom of speech was being held - organised by a Swedish artist who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad.

More here:
http://tinyurl.com/mnrvjza

Posted by: Blue Falcon in Boston at February 14, 2015 12:30 PM (A1Dcl)

66 Companies with the cash to buy regulators will break their smaller competition.

Yeah, we sure are lucky Silicone Valley broke up that mean old ATT. So that can't happen any more!

I was on an industrial archeology tour in Chicago, and we bussed around the old Western Electric plant, about a mile on a side, it seemed. Abandoned, awaiting demolition. And I thought, if the aliens read that map on V-ger, and show up saying "Take me to your leader," what are we going to tell them? I'm sorry, I cannot make that connec-tion?

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:30 PM (xq1UY)

67 62
Are you talking about 'the Bus'?



I know the guy who made that film. He's a good guy.


That's the one. Most of the film is harmless, but the idiots talking about how green it is to maintain old busses and musing about keeping them going sustainably got stuck in my craw.

Posted by: Anachronda at February 14, 2015 12:30 PM (o78gS)

68 Tesla was a crank.

I think they're referring to the car company (direct to consumer, no dealers).

Posted by: Zap Rowsdower at February 14, 2015 12:30 PM (MMC8r)

69 Hey Anachronda, not sure I want to read this book

http://www.ufunk.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/selection-du-weekend-127-77.jpg

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at February 14, 2015 12:31 PM (nZNJN)

70 Fredo has ruined health care in America, Is aiming to destroy the Military, Creating huge racial schisms, and now is moving on to cripple the Internet.

And a big Fuck you to anyone who voted for him

Posted by: Nevergiveup at February 14, 2015 12:31 PM (rDqRv)

71 'And Bell Labs which spawned ATnT was one of the most innovative companies to ever exist. "

Innovation at a glacial pace. To go from operator assisted calling to direct dial meant the phone company had to rewire/rebuild the 'central office' switching center.

To go from direct dial to tone dialing, they had to rewire/rebuild the central office again. To recover the cost new rates (charges) had to work their way through the regulatory agencies. New regulations had to be written, and that takes a few years short of 'never going to happen'.

It's the same with the internet. To increase bandwidth, new technologies have to be invented. New cables and switching equipment have to be installed replacing the previous generation of new switches and cables.

My local phone company only recently (couple of years ago now) got DSL while most of the big city companies were running fiber optic, and it took a federal grant to rural phone companies, and new regulations and new utility rates to get that! We had satellite internet before the local phone company had DSL.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at February 14, 2015 12:32 PM (JBY3m)

72 Well sheeeit! Plugged in the old rotary, and got a dial tone. Ya' know, maybe I'll just use that for a while.

Oh, and when I was a kid in upstate NY, we too had a party line. I think our house was 3 rings.

Posted by: HH at February 14, 2015 12:32 PM (Ce4DF)

73 Random shooting in Denmark

Posted by: Nevergiveup at February 14, 2015 12:32 PM (rDqRv)

74 That was close. I almost drowned in the tears of libtards who are complaining about student health care sharing fees at Cornell University. Luckily, I have a Schadenfreude setting on my microwave for cooking the popcorn perfectly.

Posted by: Roy at February 14, 2015 12:33 PM (fWLrt)

75 Beechwood 4-5789

Posted by: Fox2! at February 14, 2015 12:33 PM (0uoEL)

76 69
Hey Anachronda, not sure I want to read this book

I'll have to double-check, but I'm pretty certain that's among the things that pounced onto my Kindle last time I turned the wireless on. Since Mrs. Chronda shares my Kindle account, turning on the wireless is like a box of chocolates.

Posted by: Anachronda at February 14, 2015 12:34 PM (o78gS)

77 Ontario, Canada has Liquor Stores where you can buy spirits and 6 packs of beer and Beer Stores where you go to buy beer. Of course, it will never change because, think of the safety of the children.


When I lived in Ohio, I was amazed that I could actually buy beer at the gas station. Even better, I could drive thru a drive through and pick up a case of 12 pack of Labatt's Blue, a 40 oz of Bud and a Hustler magazine. That was freaking amazing.


And then in South Korea, I could also go to the convenience stores and buy beer or soju.


When you taste freedom, you never want to go back.

Posted by: Stateless Infidel at February 14, 2015 12:34 PM (AC0lD)

78 Perhaps someone has the data on this. How many local phone service providers were there in the United States in 1980 (before phone deregulation) compared to such providers today?

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:34 PM (z27Ny)

79 >>That's the one.


Well, he does live in Missoula.

Posted by: Garrett at February 14, 2015 12:35 PM (3sV0A)

80 I still have a 1954 Western Electric "instrument" in my basement workshop. Still startles you when it rings! And, yes, it's quite a hefty piece of equipment. Built to last. When we lost power for eleven days during Sandy, I was one of the few in the neighborhood who still had phone service. I also have a line powered "candlestick" phone as well. I still remember my parents getting our first phone when I was around three years old. A two party line. Yep, I'm older than dirt.

Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguy at February 14, 2015 12:35 PM (TPimP)

81 Palestinians want role in probing murder of Chapel Hill Muslims
After condemning killing of three Palestinian-Americans as 'terrorism', Palestinian Authority calls for involvement of its investigators.

Yeah right. Hold your breath while I think about that.
Fredo will probably agree? Sigh

Posted by: Nevergiveup at February 14, 2015 12:36 PM (rDqRv)

82 You can buy beer at some gas stations here in SC. But liquor is a different story it is regulated to death.

Posted by: Vic at February 14, 2015 12:36 PM (wlDny)

83 A box of chocolates with creamy centres?

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at February 14, 2015 12:36 PM (nZNJN)

84 77
When
I lived in Ohio, I was amazed that I could actually buy beer at the gas
station. Even better, I could drive thru a drive through and pick up a
case of 12 pack of Labatt's Blue, a 40 oz of Bud and a Hustler magazine.
That was freaking amazing.


One of my vivid memories from a trip I took up to Montana to see the eclipse in '79 was seeing a drive through bar in Wyoming.

Posted by: Anachronda at February 14, 2015 12:37 PM (o78gS)

85 83
A box of chocolates with creamy centres?

You owe me a new keyboard.

Posted by: Anachronda at February 14, 2015 12:37 PM (o78gS)

86 But the spin-offs and proven concepts were valuable to many others...

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:28 PM (z27Ny)


They were. Just shows that the scientists and engineers did their jobs at ATT and Xerox, but the business guys whiffed.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 12:38 PM (oKE6c)

87 The wired phone requires heavy investments in cable.
Monthly rentals for hanging them on power poles. I don't know the current investment but it averaged about 2,000 dollars of outside plant per home a couple of decades ago.

Wireless towers pay rental on the land where they sit and monthly power bills. Plus a huge investment in software and plant.

Considering the costs, fraud and regulations I don't know how they operate so cheaply.

Posted by: Bob from table9 at February 14, 2015 12:38 PM (WNERA)

88 In our fair city, the telephone exchange names became geopraphic zones, just like the streetcar/interurban stations before, and ZIP codes after.

You knew somebody in BAncroft, or OXford, or GReenwood, or CHerry...

The phone pictured above was our "new" one. The one I grew up with was dull bakelite, also pretty much indestructible, and still had the exchange-plus-3-digits printed on the dial hub, even after we'd gone to seven digits.

And what do you know, about three years after the "providers" insisted on Ten Digit Numbers for All, they got challenged enough to have to admit that they'd done the numerology wrong, and it was inconceivable that our little region would ever need that many numbers, even before the outmigrations set in. Didn't have to back down, though. Government had approved it, after all.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:39 PM (xq1UY)

89 There was a drive thru bar and fun shop in Flagstaff. Once bought two martini a and two boxes of .357 mag, there.

Very weird.

Posted by: Garrett at February 14, 2015 12:39 PM (3sV0A)

90 71
Innovation at a glacial pace. To go from operator assisted calling
to direct dial meant the phone company had to rewire/rebuild the
'central office' switching center.


When I was a senior in high school, back in '81, there was a note in the local paper about how the folks in Nine Mile Canyon had finally been upgraded from crank phones to rotary dials.

Posted by: Anachronda at February 14, 2015 12:40 PM (o78gS)

91 Fun=gun

Posted by: Garrett at February 14, 2015 12:41 PM (3sV0A)

92 I was just pondering.... How about a national effort to remove excess regulations. Most of them are the result of lobbyists trying to kill off their competition or protect their advantage... and a lot of them are just prog-add-on's, like air bags and curb-cuts. Remove the regulations and let the market work.

I would like it to be a thing for cities, counties, states and the federal government ... all the way... to have a goal to repeal a small percentage regulations. Get rid of some of these rules, like what the IRS says they "have to do" because it's in the code to give illegals tax refunds.... shit like that times a thousand.

Posted by: Yip at February 14, 2015 12:41 PM (84SRe)

93 You mean like this 1963 23 window Samba?

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1750005


Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at February 14, 2015 12:24 PM (nZNJN)


There was one of those at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale last month. I attended, had a good time ogling cars (mostly), and bought nothing but beer and food.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 14, 2015 12:43 PM (WirJ1)

94 Just shows that the scientists and engineers did their jobs at ATT and Xerox, but the business guys whiffed.
Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 12:38 PM (oKE6c)
-----
Didn't apply to their business! I doubt many American firms have enough room in R&D budgets (or shareholder tolerance) today for such inefficiencies.

Perhaps in China.

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:44 PM (z27Ny)

95 Yip, if you took all the out-of-work regulators and gave them jobs at the De-Regulation Board at the same salary, you'd still come out ahead, right? Of course, paying piecemeal or by-the-head bounties would be more...efficient.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:45 PM (xq1UY)

96 Denmark? When is someone going to do something about these radical Lutherans?

Posted by: kartoffel at February 14, 2015 12:45 PM (6Dkpa)

97 well, according to recent emails from Fauxahontis Warren, one of out big problems is not enough money going to the National Institute of Health. Remember, where there's a will, there's a politician with a "common sense" proposal (email from Jan 31):

This week, I introduced the Medical Innovation Act - a common-sense proposal that could dramatically increase our nation's investment in life-saving medical research.

Expanded funding would come from big drug companies that break the law - companies caught defrauding Medicare and Medicaid, withholding critical safety information about their drugs, marketing their drugs for uses that aren't approved, and giving doctors kickbacks for writing prescriptions for their drugs.

When these giant law-breaking drug companies enter into major settlement agreements with the government to avoid going to trial, they would be required to reinvest a small portion of their profits into the NIH.

The Medical Innovation Act serves double duty - requiring more accountability from the biggest drug companies while giving medical research the support it deserves.

Posted by: mallfly at February 14, 2015 12:45 PM (bJm7W)

98 There was a drive thru bar and fun shop in Flagstaff. Once bought two martini a and two boxes of .357 mag, there.

I once legally purchased a revolver and a hero in a sub shop.

Posted by: Hans Gruber at February 14, 2015 12:46 PM (Dwehj)

99 @96 Obviously militants from the Kierke Gaards.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:47 PM (xq1UY)

100 Tesla had a superior business model?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at February 14, 2015 12:26 PM (DmNpO)

Until the New Jersey regulators got done with it.

Tesla was forced to build a brick and mortar dealership to sell their cars in NJ.

There is one a few miles from my house. A multimillion dollar waste, all to protect the dinosaur auto companies and their dealership network.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 14, 2015 12:47 PM (Zu3d9)

101 That's the one. Most of the film is harmless, but
the idiots talking about how green it is to maintain old busses and
musing about keeping them going sustainably got stuck in my craw.



Posted by: Anachronda at February 14, 2015 12:30 PM (o78gS)


I replied to that issue at the end of Weird Dave's thread.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 14, 2015 12:47 PM (WirJ1)

102 oh, actual headline in Yahoo news:


It's not too late to make Vanlentine's Day great!

Posted by: mallfly at February 14, 2015 12:48 PM (bJm7W)

103 82
You can buy beer at some gas stations here in SC. But liquor is a different story it is regulated to death.


Posted by: Vic at February 14, 2015 12:36 PM (wlDny)

And it will probably never change unless there's a huge enough drop in the economy to get rid of the regulators.
My sister in law became a dental hygienist here in Ontario. Some bureaucrat came up with a 'brilliant' new resume that is now the standard way dental hygienists HAVE to do their resumes.
She has to track how many hours she spends learning about dental care and a bunch of other crap. There is even a GOVERNMENT COURSE on how to follow the rules for these new resumes.
The dentists don't care about the resume. There was never a movement for this. It was just some f@cking bureaucrat who came up with this idea to justify her damn job and helped create a few more government jobs in the process.
I can't wait until Ontario burns. And like I wrote last night on the ONT, we have $300 Billion in debt, skyrocketing energy costs thanks to green energy and about 1 million people out of a population of 11 million working for government at some level. California is in great shape compared to us. Oh SMOD, hear my prayer.

Posted by: Stateless Infidel at February 14, 2015 12:48 PM (AC0lD)

104 ...but the sub should have been illegal. Tasted like primers.

Posted by: Hans Gruber at February 14, 2015 12:48 PM (Dwehj)

105 My Grandfather always used to give his Telephone number as Tuxedo3 - 5863. When I was a kid I never understood what he was talking about. Quaint. Now, every number i dial is 10 digits. Has been this way for over a decade. I think MD was the first in the country to require area codes on every number you dial

Posted by: Trunk Monkey at February 14, 2015 12:51 PM (fLKzW)

106 Didn't apply to their business! I doubt many
American firms have enough room in RD budgets (or shareholder
tolerance) today for such inefficiencies.



Perhaps in China.

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:44 PM (z27Ny)


That's part of the problem: viewing RD as an inefficiency, and generally by applying accounting measures in a mindless way. A business guy once characterized RD as an expense, which of course it is per FASB, but in a larger view it's an investment in the future. FASB requires expensing it because no one knows its value.
The same guy - a nitwit - said RD was expendable because it didn't bring in any money. Of course, by that standard, the only part of the company that brought in any money was the sales force; neither manufacturing nor, God knows, this business guy brought in a dime - directly. He was too stupid to take the point.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 12:53 PM (oKE6c)

107 You knew somebody in BAncroft, or OXford, or GReenwood, or CHerry...

The
phone pictured above was our "new" one. The one I grew up with was dull
bakelite, also pretty much indestructible, and still had the
exchange-plus-3-digits printed on the dial hub, even after we'd gone to
seven digits.

And what do you know, about three years after the
"providers" insisted on Ten Digit Numbers for All, they got challenged
enough to have to admit that they'd done the numerology wrong, and it
was inconceivable that our little region would ever need that many
numbers, even before the outmigrations set in. Didn't have to back down,
though. Government had approved it, after all.


Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 12:39 PM (xq1UY)


Weren't the exchange names, in some cases, taken from the neighborhoods they initially served, or from the street where they situated?

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 14, 2015 12:53 PM (WirJ1)

108 Back in the mid-90's there was a plan by a Chinese auto manufacturer to sell cars in the US via retail stores such as K-Mart. Apparently there was a chink in their plan.

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:55 PM (z27Ny)

109 Apparently there was a chink in their plan.
Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:55 PM (z27Ny)
***********
RAYYYYYYYYYCISSSSSSSSSS

Posted by: Trunk Monkey at February 14, 2015 12:56 PM (fLKzW)

110 Back in the mid-90's there was a plan by a Chinese auto manufacturer to sell cars in the US via retail stores such as K-Mart. Apparently there was a chink in their plan.
Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:55 PM (z27Ny)

OFF to the re-education camp for you. And NO SOUP

Posted by: Nevergiveup at February 14, 2015 12:56 PM (rDqRv)

111 I saw Regulatory Leviathan open for Judas Priest at the Cow Palace back in '94.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at February 14, 2015 12:58 PM (OMTVG)

112 Nice post, CBD!

Posted by: Y-not at February 14, 2015 12:58 PM (9BRsg)

113 You could buy cars from Sears Roebuck or Montgomery Ward.

One of Studebaker's great "failures" was that they weren't cold-blooded enough in cutting small, low-overhead dealership franchises, because people in the Fifties decided they could only buy cars in big shiny new mini-mall buildings. Many Studebaker dealers had charters that went back to buggies and wagons, or, for the really small ones, "tack." Studebaker made a lot of tack. There were hardware stores with Studebaker franchises. Two, three cars, or you wrote an order.

In the long run, those big shiny dealerships drug GM under. Huh.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 01:01 PM (xq1UY)

114 well, according to recent emails from Fauxahontis
Warren, one of out big problems is not enough money going to the
National Institute of Health.



Posted by: mallfly at February 14, 2015 12:45 PM (bJm7W)




Hands up everyone who realizes that a major driver of health care costs is innovation in medical care, much of which results ultimately from basic research funded by ... the NIH.


That point is to be distinguished from the leftist crap about how the NIH (i.e., government) is responsible for new treatments, and pharma merely reaps the benefit (usually citing taxol as a rare case in point). That's rubbish. NIH funds basic research that no company would ever fund because no company could ever know if it would benefit them, someone else, or no one, and because the time horizon for commercialization of the results is generational.


Medical innovation lets people hang on for a lot longer than they used to, but at great expense. To really slow the rate of increase in health care costs, cut funding for biomedical research. Let existing technology become generic (i.e., go off patent), and lower expectations that we can cure anything with enough money.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 01:02 PM (oKE6c)

115 Back in the mid-90's there was a plan by a Chinese auto manufacturer to
sell cars in the US via retail stores such as K-Mart. Apparently there
was a chink in their plan.

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 12:55 PM (z27Ny)




More likely there were a whole bunch of chinks in their plan.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 01:03 PM (oKE6c)

116 To really slow the rate of increase in health care costs, cut funding for biomedical research. Let existing technology become generic (i.e., go off patent), and lower expectations that we can cure anything with enough money.
--

Are you advocating for that?

Posted by: Y-not at February 14, 2015 01:03 PM (9BRsg)

117 More likely there were a whole bunch of chinks in their plan.

Denounce yourself.

Posted by: The Speech Police at February 14, 2015 01:05 PM (Dwehj)

118 Healthcare is a collection of products and services, insurance included.

Just get government out of health care and let the market do its thing.



Posted by: eman at February 14, 2015 01:05 PM (MQEz6)

119 @114 My old office partner was a retired supply sergeant. Our office never wanted for anything, I can tell you.

When they tried to enforce 55 MPH with extra patrols and speed bumps, he said we wouldn't need speed limit signs for very long if they just let the roads go to hell.

Like a Liverpool pathway for cars, see. It's an allegory for "health care."

So now, a trillion isn't enough to fix the potholes, and we still need more patrols.
Guess that shows how much better the suspension on cars is!

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 01:05 PM (xq1UY)

120 Really, at the heart of all regulations is freaking lawyers. When you ponder how much lawyers, judges and courts stick their fingers in freaking everything. All the pondering about the good old days and why this or that disappeared... usually gets around to ... well, there was a lawsuit.. or.. well, it no longer was allowed under the new regulations.... etc. Tort reform. Then work on getting regulations cut.

Posted by: Yip at February 14, 2015 01:07 PM (84SRe)

121 radio said there was a mall shooting in Halifax? by a couple?

Posted by: Bigby's Knuckle Sandwich at February 14, 2015 01:07 PM (Cq0oW)

122 And oh yes, you really need to high-tail yourself to the cinema and thoroughly enjoy Kingsman.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at February 14, 2015 01:07 PM (nZNJN)

123 And oh yes, you really need to high-tail yourself to the cinema and thoroughly enjoy Kingsman.
---

LOL, Mr Y-not just this second asked if any of the horde had seen it.

What's it like?

I can't cope with anything too serious or political or violent right now.

Posted by: Y-not at February 14, 2015 01:09 PM (9BRsg)

124 'Hands up everyone who realizes that a major driver of health care costs is innovation in medical care,"

I disagree. The major driver of higher prices in health care is the demand for treatment from people who don't pay for it directly.

(unless it's compliance with government regulations that require health care providers to serve the low income demographic while the government sets the price it will pay for that service.)

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at February 14, 2015 01:10 PM (JBY3m)

125 Here's the problem: whenever you say to a politician, a bureaucrat, or anyone else in government: "We need smaller government. We need fewer regulations"...

...they hear, "We want you to lose your job. Smaller government means fewer of you. Fewer regulations means less need for you."

So, like toddlers, they fight back.

Posted by: Null at February 14, 2015 01:12 PM (xjpRj)

126 I don't know what makes health care so expensive but I do know that banning it would both save a lot of money economy-wide and raise prices.

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 01:13 PM (z27Ny)

127 91 Fun=gun

--

*waggles eyebrows*

Posted by: @votermom DIY or die! at February 14, 2015 01:13 PM (cbfNE)

128 Alberta Oil, ashamed to say I don't know where telephone "exchange names" came from, except that in my town there were some that clearly had no local historical antecedent. There was a joke that somewhere the phone company had a guy who sat around and thought them up -- like the one we have now about the drug companies naming those new compounds.

An inspector from the Post Office Department got stuck on a long propeller-powered flight next to the Bell guy who thought up Area Codes. Got him talking, picked his brain, and came up with the Zone Improvement Plan, and Sectional Center processing facilities. The Department gave him a big bonus and early retirement before he could come up with any more new ideas.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 01:13 PM (xq1UY)

129 To really slow the rate of increase in health care
costs, cut funding for biomedical research. Let existing technology
become generic (i.e., go off patent), and lower expectations that we can
cure anything with enough money.

--



Are you advocating for that?
Posted by: Y-not at February 14, 2015 01:03 PM (9BRsg)


That is up there with the idea of balancing a public employee pension plan by killing off the highest earners until the book balance each year.

Not workable, except on paper. And in fiction.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 14, 2015 01:14 PM (t//F+)

130 Are you advocating for that?

Posted by: Y-not at February 14, 2015 01:03 PM (9BRsg)


You know, I'm not sure. Some days yes, some no. But in any case, we have to realize that health care costs increase in part because we have to amortize the enormous costs of commercializing innovations. The U.S. is the only country that doesn't buy health care products through government agencies on a cost-plus basis, so pharma and medical device companies have to recoup their sunk costs largely in the U.S. (which is why pharma/biotech negotiations always turn on who gets the American market; it's as large as the rest of the world combined). Americans basically pay for biomedical research for the rest of the world.
And there comes a time when one has to accept that we won't live forever, and that no biomedical advances are going to change that. From that, it follows that the increase in longevity will be a logarithmic (or some other asymptotic) function of time, i.e., a matter of diminishing returns, and at some juncture there's no point in expending more effort in that direction. (For example, we don't do research on making better hammers.) The question is, are we at that point? And the broader question is, how do we recognize when we're at that point?

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 01:14 PM (oKE6c)

131 ok looks like cops in Halifax broke up a plot to kill people

one dead, three caught

Posted by: Bigby's Knuckle Sandwich at February 14, 2015 01:14 PM (Cq0oW)

132 ok looks like cops in Halifax broke up a plot to kill people



one dead, three caught
osted by: Bigby's Knuckle Sandwich at February 14, 2015 01:14 PM (Cq0oW)

The news did not call it terrorism, so I figure...ya know, Lutherans.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 14, 2015 01:18 PM (t//F+)

133 I feel for the younger. I think I was 12 when we upgraded the home phone from rotary to digit dial. I don't remember how much more the phone rental was, but it was more. Remember? You didn't own your phone back then... you paid rent on it. Then it all came tumbling down...

Posted by: Yip at February 14, 2015 01:18 PM (84SRe)

134 Do I go to Special Canadian Hell if I note that A Hockey Game Broke Out?

Those are the luckiest wannabe terrorists in the history of stick-sports.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 01:18 PM (xq1UY)

135 If it works well the Government will kill it and tax it

Posted by: Nevergiveup at February 14, 2015 01:21 PM (rDqRv)

136 @130 (For example, we don't do research on making better hammers.)

http://tinyurl.com/k8jum7c

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 01:22 PM (xq1UY)

137 Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 01:02 PM:

Pharmaceutical companies would do more basic research if the NIH did less. There are fine examples in history. Some recent biomedical breakthroughs have also come through start-ups.

A lot of people who do basic research tend to be self-motivated, and will do quality work whether they work for a public or private entity. If not stymied by internal politics.

But in today's regulatory climate, it takes a big company to do the requisite drudge work of safety/efficacy testing. If the government does this kind of testing, you are more likely to get fudged data, since lawsuits and other negative outcomes are not a big concern. The most prominent whistleblower protection outfit of which I am aware started out offering protection to whistle-blowing government scientists.

Glenn Reynolds thinks we may be on the cusp of a different kind of breakthrough which dramatically reduces drug research/development costs. I don't really understand this line of thinking yet, though.

Posted by: KT at February 14, 2015 01:22 PM (qahv/)

138 I just read on FR, that BATF intends to ban AR ammo.

Posted by: Sal Hepatica at February 14, 2015 01:22 PM (3g/a8)

139 I disagree. The major driver of higher prices in health care is the demand for treatment from people who don't pay for it directly.



Posted by: Skandia Recluse at February 14, 2015 01:10 PM (JBY3m)



Yeah, my point was simplistic, but I didn't mean to imply that innovation was THE major driver, but rather A major driver of such increases.


For example, paying for Lipitor (or whatever) cost a lot it went off patent, because the innovator (Pfizer, in this case) had to recoup ca. $1 billion in development costs* for Lipitor, and to also to cover costs of programs that crashed and burned (e.g., torceptapib, which went belly up in phase IV clinicals (i.e., after Pfizer had already sunk a cubic light year of money, and gotten approval for it, but early clinical results post-approval cast doubt on its safety - poof! End of product. Goodbye, $1 billion!).


But once something becomes generic, it's cheap, because the value added is not synthesizing the damned stuff (which is easy), it's figuring out what to make. Think movies: making a movie costs a lot of money, but burning a DVD of an existing movie is cheap.


*(Btw, this is one reason pharma goes after blockbusters; the regulatory costs are the same for drugs with big markets and those with small, but only the former budge the needle with Wall Street.)

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 01:24 PM (oKE6c)

140 I don't see how anyone could rationally claim Tesla has a new business model at all, they just have a new product. Unless "cronyism and heavy subsidies to produce an overhyped vehicle that catches fire" is new to the writer.

However, the rest of the article is pretty solid. And the inclusion of Tesla as erroneous an example inadvertently shows another aspect of government's impact on business and economy: picking winners and losers based on the government's preferences and political ideology.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 14, 2015 01:26 PM (39g3+)

141 >>>
ok looks like cops in Halifax broke up a plot to kill people
<<<

More random cartoonist violence. Probably a fan of Tom and Jerry.

Posted by: Fritz at February 14, 2015 01:27 PM (UzPAd)

142 Hands up everyone who realizes that a major driver
of health care costs is innovation in medical care, much of which
results ultimately from basic research funded by ... the NIH.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 01:02 PM (oKE6c)

And perhaps the major driver is the ridiculous over-regulation of every transaction in health care.

I will accept the huge costs of basic research if physicians and hospitals were allowed to run their businesses without the government's regulators controlling every aspect of the contact between patient and provider.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 14, 2015 01:27 PM (Zu3d9)

143 24 That old phone, you could throw it across the the room, bounce it off the wall, and then dial up a pizza.


Yup. It will survive a nuclear war. And on the other end will be the IRS reminding you that taxes are still due.

Posted by: despair at February 14, 2015 01:27 PM (dcY7v)

144 Y-Not. Well as AlextheChick said its like Rainbow Six. Or even the old Bond flick Moonraker. Rich guy decides the planet needs a culling of humans to save the planet.

Meanwhile you have Eggys. His father died a Kingsman. Since then his life has been slowly spiraling down the loo. In desperation he calls a number and his life turns upside down as he enters training to become a Kingsman. This training is pretty awesome.

The fight scenes are something to behold, especially the massacre inside the Fred Phelps type church.

And Colin Firth as Harry Hart is pretty darn spiffy as he tries to crack who killed Lancelot and mentor Eggsy.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at February 14, 2015 01:28 PM (nZNJN)

145 NOOD gardening

Posted by: Y-not at February 14, 2015 01:29 PM (9BRsg)

146 Pharmaceutical companies would do more basic research if the NIH did
less. There are fine examples in history. Some recent biomedical
breakthroughs have also come through start-ups.



No, they wouldn't, for the most part. (I know this from experience.) Don't confuse applied research with basic research. Basic research is unpredictable, and commercialization is a generation away. Bear in mind that even in applied research (e.g., drug discovery) the time scale for commercialization is the decade, and that's when the drug target is known. To find and validate a new drug target (i.e., an enzyme with a druggable active site) will typically require the better part of another decade.


A lot of people who do basic research tend to be self-motivated, and
will do quality work whether they work for a public or private entity.
If not stymied by internal politics.



But they need to be funded. For a long, long time, during most of which they'll have nothing to show the accountants. That's the problem.


Glenn Reynolds thinks we may be on the cusp of a
different kind of breakthrough which dramatically reduces drug
research/ development costs. I don't really understand this line of
thinking yet, though.





Posted by: KT at February 14, 2015 01:22 PM (qahv/)

I like his blog, and like him too, but he is something of a starry-eyed science groupie (as evidenced by his gushing over nano-technology stuff). It's touching, actually.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 01:33 PM (oKE6c)

147 Yeah Insty gets a bit silly when it comes to scientific topics, particularly his beloved subject of anagathics so he can live forever.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 14, 2015 01:35 PM (39g3+)

148 I will accept the huge costs of basic research if
physicians and hospitals were allowed to run their businesses without
the government's regulators controlling every aspect of the contact
between patient and provider.


Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 14, 2015 01:27 PM (Zu3d9)

Fair enough. That's a rational perspective, as usual, CBD. But it's important for people to think about the issue of how much research, and how much research subvention, is enough. And I say that as having run research for many years.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 01:36 PM (oKE6c)

149 But It's My Religion:
Hard to find a better real-world analogue than NIH for Dr Stadler's State Science Institute in That Book.

Everybody has to pay for The Science, but what The Science will work on, politically endorse, or choose to tamp down is decided by...blank out.

A private science lab was the ultimate status symbol in old business. Not only huge companies but every pissant entrepreneur who successfully marketed a new car wax or oil additive (and yes I'm talking about Westley's and STP) set up an independent research lab. Just for the joy of it. It was why you got rich.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 01:36 PM (xq1UY)

150 anagathics

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 14, 2015 01:35 PM (39g3+)




New word. Thanks!

Posted by: Jay Guevara at February 14, 2015 01:37 PM (oKE6c)

151 Research and Development as an expense, a cost of doing business. If you don't innovate, you'll be put out of business by someone who does. If you pay the expense, more importantly, if you can afford to pay the expense of R n D, you have future business your competitors don't have.

In a minor way, it's like the 'planned obsolescence' of the old automotive industry that gave us tail fins on Cadillacs. To be cool you had to have the newest of the new cars. It proved you could afford the newest, best, most expensive new car. And there was a reactionary movement to end the annual revision of car models. So now everything looks like a Toyota.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at February 14, 2015 01:38 PM (JBY3m)

152 That old phone, you could throw it across the the room, bounce it off the wall, and then dial up a pizza.


I think the classical expression was that you could beat your wife to death with it, and still call the police and turn yourself in.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 01:41 PM (xq1UY)

153 I have one of those old phones, its from the early 70s at latest and brutally tough and heavy. It still works. There's something very satisfying about dialling (a term that likely baffles young people today) a number. When you're angry you can really let it rip. 8 ZINNNGGG!!!! ...4 ZINNGGG!!!!!

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 14, 2015 01:43 PM (39g3+)

154 "And Bell Labs which spawned ATnT was one of the most innovative companies to ever exist."

AT&T (not to be confused with at&t) was the parent company. Bell Labs was a child company of AT&T, as were all of the local operating companies, as was Western Electric, their manufacturing arm, and AT&T Long Lines which laid undersea cables. Ma Bell was a magnificent company, employing more than a million people.

Posted by: despair at February 14, 2015 01:43 PM (dcY7v)

155 I just read on FR, that BATF intends to ban AR ammo.

I cannot imagine what that is supposed to mean.

Posted by: toby928(C) at February 14, 2015 01:47 PM (rwI+c)

156 Never in the wildest dream of avarice could an automotive design department aspire to the level of planned obsolescence attained in the cellular phone industry.

We damn the sins of the old industrial barons, yet it's head-back and glurg-glurg-glurg for our new moderan toys. Same bullshit, bigger barn. Solar roof.

Modern cancer research pretty much began at Sloan-Kettering, whose founding principle was to apply American research methods. And you know who Sloan and Kettering were. So that's why there's still cancer. GM put the cure on the shelf with the water carburetor.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at February 14, 2015 01:55 PM (xq1UY)

157 Okay, google tells me that the ATF is considering ruling the making the previously exempted M855 "armor piercing ammunition" non-exempt because of the existence of AR pistols. Hmm.

Posted by: toby928(C) at February 14, 2015 02:00 PM (rwI+c)

158 To me, the AR and AK "pistols" are really SBRs.

Posted by: toby928(C) at February 14, 2015 02:00 PM (rwI+c)

159 BATF plans to ban common AR-15 .223 ammo:

http://tinyurl.com/odrg9q3

Posted by: ChrisP at February 14, 2015 02:01 PM (Ib3Td)

160 I guess this topic will be fodder for the Gum Thread.

Posted by: toby928(C) at February 14, 2015 02:02 PM (rwI+c)

161 1/2 duplex low fidelity cel phones suck compared to the old Bell handsets.

Posted by: DaveA at February 14, 2015 02:03 PM (DL2i+)

162 The result of the split of the AT&T regional service companies from was to combine AT&T, Continental, and GTE into at&t and Verizon.

Posted by: RioBravo at February 14, 2015 02:08 PM (z27Ny)

163 125 Here's the problem: whenever you say to a politician, a bureaucrat, or anyone else in government: "We need smaller government. We need fewer regulations"...

...they hear, "We want you to lose your job. Smaller government means fewer of you. Fewer regulations means less need for you."

So, like toddlers, they fight back.
Posted by: Null at February 14, 2015 01:12 PM (xjpRj)



Yep. They will fight like hell to keep their jobs, perks, and retirement benefits.

There is no way to fund all that without wholesale confiscation of private wealth.

Which means that we are headed for a war between private citizens and government drones.

Posted by: rickl at February 14, 2015 02:35 PM (sdi6R)

164
CBD, conveying the importance (hell, even the concept) of "opportunity costs" is one of the basic problems of modern societies. We're now dumbed down (well, not the "we" we, but the "them" we) so much that it's next to impossible to do this.

The dominant mindset is that of a 10-yrd old. "Hey, that's neat, let's do that. Let's be nice to people. Let's make it more fair. Let's spend this, do that."

Little understanding of consequences, markets, how things actually work (well).

It's one thing to do a side/side with things in the past that were *better* than now, and get some traction that way (example: public education spending being multiples of what it was 30 years ago, educational outcomes now being clearly inferior to then). Even that's hard, and completely limited to those with a life-span that might give them some "yeah, I remember that" hook to use.

But to make people understand "what never was" due to regulation, rent-seeking, stupidity, etc. - well night impossible. And thus, the spectacle of a largely economically illiterate, extremely irresponsible society still doing OK based on 1) inertia (prior accomplishments) 2) the few engines of growth still allowed to prosper. And even part of this "momentum prosperity" is false, based on our unique/untenable position as the world's reserve currency and least-worst (as opposed to, previously, truly good) refuge for capital.


Posted by: rhomboid at February 14, 2015 02:37 PM (afQnV)

165 What most people don't realize is that blacks are heavily overrepresented in federal government jobs. By about twice their percentage in the population. So any attempt to cut back on the size of government will be instantly met by screams of racism and costing black jobs. Good paying, high end black jobs.

I think deep down everyone knows and agrees that the government is too big, too pervasive, and too powerful. But nobody wants to do what it would take to change that. And since the people who would have the power to make it happen are the very ones who would lose power, prestige, and money by doing so... ain't gonna happen this side of collapse and disaster.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 14, 2015 02:52 PM (39g3+)

166
Christopher, not sure you're right about most people agreeing on govt. size and over-reach. Why I despair over the "lack of Americans in America" - i.e., the American mindset (self-reliance, liberty, risk, govt. in its place) is not completely gone but I'd guess it's 1/3 of what it was when I was growing up.

Per CBD's post and my comment just above, people don't even really understand how a successful economy works. Many that do only are self-seeking and don't care about anything except using the state to benefit themselves (this ranges from many govt. employees to many govt. contractors to even private magnates like the tech tycoons who predominantly support things totally inimical to the broader society and economy but which don't hurt THEM).

Of course we're now on the circle of doom - larger, more intrusive state means you'd better have your a** wired in to the state, for both offense (grabbing taxpayer money) and defense (against regulation or confiscation). So hell with fighting "big govt."- just make sure it doesn't hurt you, or even make sure you milk it for your own purposes (squeezing competitors - Dodd-Frank as a money-center bank weapon now being used to roll up smaller and regional banks, just one of many examples).

The reason I have no (as in, *no*) optimism about this? All the actors are acting rationally (true, in most cases with an utterly despicable absence of public-mindedness, or responsibility). Thus, the "system" can be expected to continue as is.

Just 25 years ago, one of the biggest, most important new private actors in the world boasted about its lack of a Washington, DC office (Microsoft). Ahemm. A few ridiculous anti-trust suits later, and probably a few huge dot.gov contracts later ..... well, it's founder now rarely misses a chance to support the dumbest, most destructive yet fashionable "new" idea to come along (all of them, natch, state-centric).

Posted by: rhomboid at February 14, 2015 03:02 PM (afQnV)

167 165 What most people don't realize is that blacks are heavily overrepresented in federal government jobs. By about twice their percentage in the population. So any attempt to cut back on the size of government will be instantly met by screams of racism and costing black jobs. Good paying, high end black jobs.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 14, 2015 02:52 PM (39g3+)


And thanks to affirmative action, those black government employees have entirely unearned and undeserved power over whites.

I've read that the "black middle class" is almost entirely made up of government jobs, public sector unions, and affirmative action in the private sector.

There are many reasons why both government unions and affirmative action need to be abolished. This is just one of them.

Posted by: rickl at February 14, 2015 03:22 PM (sdi6R)

168 Tesla did try to break the power of car dealers in NJ with direct sales so that is to its credit as "new business model". However they are getting massive government "green energy" subsidies so they are not really a good example.

Posted by: FOAF at February 14, 2015 04:31 PM (eVemY)

169 People always mention the subsidies when writing about Tesla, but that is not a special break that Tesla gets. There is a federal rebate of $7500 to purchasers of electric or hybrid vehicles. Various states offer additional incentives.

But Tesla is a small motor company selling high-end vehicles to a niche market. Who is more likely to be influenced by a $7500 rebate, the buyer of a $100,000 Model S or the buyer of a $30,000 Prius?

The vast majority of these subsidies flow to the major automakers, like GM and Toyota.

Posted by: rickl at February 14, 2015 04:52 PM (sdi6R)

170 Should be no subsidies to anyone that is the point. And $7500 is not a trivial amount even out of $100,000. *Every* Tesla gets this subsidy unlike GM/Toyota etc.

Posted by: FOAF at February 14, 2015 04:59 PM (eVemY)

171 I have three Western Electric 500s like the one pictured above (actually two are an older version with metal dial rings), but the best phone, in terms of audio fidelity, was the earlier WE 302 (the phone you see in I Love Lucy). With today's humless lines, the sound is astoundingly good.

Posted by: Otis Criblecoblis at February 14, 2015 05:11 PM (IAe6t)

172 Tesla has gotten a ton of money from the federal government in more than just subsidies.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 14, 2015 08:01 PM (39g3+)

173 Regulation enables rent-seeking (such as firms that make child car seats lobbying states for child-seat mandates) and the use of regulation as barrier to entry (Uber, Lyft, Tesla, food trucks, etc.). When Jeff Immelt (GE) talks about "doing away with outmoded regulations," what he means by "outmoded" is "no longer confers competitive advantage upon General Electric."

Large firms don't necessarily _lurve_ them some regulation, but they can bear the fixed cost of regulatory compliance more easily than upstarts.

Posted by: A pot of message at February 14, 2015 09:08 PM (LORBg)

174 About innovation: losing Bell Labs means we lost one of the great engines of innovation that ever existed.

Hard to say about better and worse outcomes, but then we cannot know what hasn't been invented since the labs essentially disappeared.

Posted by: RJ at February 19, 2015 10:01 AM (38JRu)

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