Entries for March 2009
Leno and Cleveland
This past wednesday when I was in hospital, I saw the Tonight Show of Jay Leno while channel surfing. I saw the segment called Jaywalking, in which he said LA has more talent Cleveland, and asked people walking on the street to exhibit talent, the talent show that followed was pathetic and ridiculous.
I want Jay Leno to come to Cleveland in early summer so he can enjoy Cleveland Orchestra perform at Blossom, enjoy local talent perform on the steps of Rock of Hall of Fame along with gentle splashing of waters of Lake Erie, spend wednesdays at Wade Oval, attend the Baroque Orchestra or Jazz Orchestra or any number of orchestras in town. He can also stop at Cleveland Institute of Music or Oberlin College to listen students perform.
He can go to plays at Cleveland Play House or Great Lakes Theatre Festival, both these places have launched careers like Alan Alda and Tom Hanks.
Gallery Hopping can be great idea at Murray Hill, Downtown and Tremont.
Last but not the least he can watch Cleveland Cavaliers led by local talent James beat LA Lakers to win NBA title.
Visit to Cleveland will change his notions of talent
I'm Bewildered
I saw groups of people marching against stimulus and throwing tea bags.
I was wondering how come some many people with jobs and spare money managed find each other and get together? (There are with jobs because they are against stimulus spending and have spare money because they were throwing tea)
Newspapers
It's a moment in history where a decision has to be made about the future of the newspaper industry. Certain notions about newspaper shifting to web sounds ridiculous to me. I read two newspapers and surf web to comment on this
Reading a newspaper one gets a whole picture, surfing web one gets few headlines, forcing the reader to develop worldview on few headlines that are sensational.
My calculation is reading a newspaper for 15 minutes is equal to reading a web based newspaper for 2 hrs, and also time spending reading 10 classifieds in the web can be used to read 100 classifieds in newspaper.
So the newspaper is good way to gather information and also time efficient.
Having squawked about newspaper, I have to talk about the newspaper industry, one thing is for sure newspaper industry is not going to give Wall Street pleasing returns, so it is time to look at NPR model.
The newspapers should be converted into non profits, with a $1 paid as sale price to current owner and also by 2 cent royalty for each copy sold in perpetuity to owner.
Reduction in newsroom staff is fashionable owners should realize it is a vicious circle, soon readers will realize there is no value in newspaper because it is too shallow and no effort went into news
Readers should be encouraged to buy long term subscription which can be tax deductible 100%, with changes in ownership pattern and providing an incentive to readers I think the newspaper industry should be viable
Billing at VA
Gen. Shinseki, Secy VA testified that some expenses incurred at VA hospitals will be billed to private insurers if the veterans had an insurance. It triggered usual noise in the senate, with a senator saying the proposal will be dead on arrival.
The government doesn't require an enabling legislation to do this, it will only be carrying out mandate of the congress, which is 42 US 2651, which imposes strong subrogation rights on the government.
I am surprised by the fact senator doesn't know the laws of the land, it is not surprising that Justice O'Connor lamented on the lack of civics education in US.
Veterans group are using scare tactics saying that this measure will increase insurance costs and make it difficult for veterans for getting employment, anybody who has worked with insurance companies all pre existing conditions are used in pricing of insurance. This scare tatics should be taken with a bag of salt.
I think one common thread thru all this is thce insurance lobby, we all know what they are capable of.
Detroit
Soon taxpayers will write a cheque to Detroit 3 to save themselves. Opponents of bailout say free market should prevail.
I am surprised by the fact that there are people who believe that car industry is subject to free market forces. Japanese government thru its Ministry of Industry and Technology has invested in its car makers for decades including the development of Prius. This method of goverment supporting was copied by Korea. The resources were used to develop efficient cars especially under the guidance of Deming.
If Deming built Japan's car industry, a congressman by the name of Dingell (D-Mich), maintained the status quo in US car industry by blocking rules for increased fuel standards and enhancing safety features.
So in an industry were the foreign competitors have access to their home countries' treasury and also where US congress played a part in shaping a bad car industry in Detroit, it is only natural US govt. support Detroit.
Talent Wars
Kauffmann Foundation has recently put a report saying 100,000 Indians and equal number of Chiense will return to their countries from US taking with them expertise and business skills.
Let us be very clear many of the people who return will be doing so with a shining new US passport (just in case), and go and work for American corporations local operations. They willl have the best of both worlds, comfort of homeland and familiarity of their previous career. The net effect will not be as painted by the report, that is the erosion of American competitiveness.
The next question is how to reduce the dependence on foreign manpower either techical or otherwise, the answer is sending as many US citizens to college as possible and reduce the dropout rate from current 50%. The US students should be encouraged to major in engineering and sciences rather than liberal arts, even Case which has strong tradtion of CIT is a liberal arts school now.
I think US will be better off not expecting the talent to be delivered by Air India or China Air