As we move into the knowledge era, some old ideas still dominate. One of them is that innovation is brought about by very smart individuals or small teams.
In fact, the more accurate way of understanding this is that invention usually comes out of the work of individuals and teams working together. But invention and innovation are not the same things.
Invention is what we think of when we cross our fingers,hoping that tech will solve our problems. It is the “next big thing”. Innovation is the flow of value that arise form the first step. So, the invention of the internal combustion engine was a cool thing. But its innovative value only took hold when lots of people started buying, using and upgrading cars
And there is a problem here. Often folks seeking to accelerate innovation, spend money to accelerate the rate of invention. We may well get more inventions out of this, but the value added that these things provide is limited. Worse still, the inventors are not tied to the community. They often move away to finance hubs like London ro New York or perhaps Silicon Valley.
So the question arises — can we promote locality based innovation? That is, a flow of ideas that comes from a community? That is the topic of Dan Breznitz’s book “Innovation in Real Places“.
I am digesting this book now, and will be presenting it soon.
Yes, I know. It is not 100% certain that Trump will be convicted. BTW, we may well see a verdict next week. But for purposes of this article, let’s assume that he is. What next?
“The 34 charges Donald J. Trump is facing in a Manhattan courtroom are … are Class E felonies, the lowest category of felonies in New York, and each count carries a maximum prison sentence of four years.”
Most likely Judge Merchan would impose jail time for each conviction. If he does, the sentences most likely would be “concurrent”, meaning they are served at the same time. And the judge could impose a less onerous punishment, even probation.
Let’s assume Trump is convicted and Judge Merchan imposes jail time. Will Trump immediately set his fanny down in the pokey? Perhaps. But it is not improbable that he will be allowed to go free pending his appeals. If so, he will be able to continue his presidential campaign. And his appeals are not likely to be resolved before the election.
So let’s assume that Trump can stay out of the pokey at least until after November. Will that enable him to continue as a GOP power broker and viable presidential candidate?
MAGA die hards will stick with him to the very end. But it is likely that MAGA will find itself more isolated within the party. At least some officials and candidates will start wondering whether it is wise to go down with a sinking ship. And after a conviction, the odds that the ship is sinking are increased. So, we can be fairly confident that a Trump conviction will stir the pot for conflict within the GOP.
Could Trump still get elected? Theoretically, yes. But as a practical matter, the revelations about his conduct are as likely to turn off mainstream GOP and independent voters. Keep in mind that Trump was a loser already iin 2020. In 2024, he will face a tsunami of resentment from women voters over Roe’s reversal, AND Trump’s obviously poor regard for women.
So my best guess — we are setting the stage now for a massive GOP disaster come November. Trump’s convictions in Manhattan would not be the end of his candidacy, bu it would be one more step towards GOP disaster. Yes, the GOP is falling apart before our eyes in slow motion.
Now that the media hype over Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine from the north has ebbed, we can more sensibly ask, WTF is going on?
To start off, we can be assured that Russian strategy is NOT to take Kharkiv. The brute fact is that they have not deployed enough men or equipment to do that, or even to come close to it.
We are also fairly clear that the Russians have not been able to penetrate Ukraine’s first line of defense south of the border. The odds are that things will remain that way – attacks will continue and they will be repulsed.
The new mainstream thinking is that Russia has launched this attack in order to stretch Ukrainian defensive lines. As Ukraine draws reserves to defend in Kharkiv, its other defensive lines will be weakened, and vulnerable to a summer offensive surge. The argument is laid out here.
How realistic is this?
The assumption behind this is that Russia sees that its main advantage in the fighting is in available manpower. It can keep sending more and more units to the front line, while Ukraine’s access to new troops is limited. And if so, sooner or later, Russia will overpower the Ukrainians.
There are a few problems with this
First, the Ukrainians are starting to receive more deadly western weaponry. Thus, as Russian attacks gear up, the Russian casualty rates will spike. And the calculus is not just our (Russian) men versus your (Ukrainian) men. It is our men versus your capacity to wipe our men out without sacrificing very many of your men.
Second, you cannot keep throwing more and more men to the front lines if your logistics cannot support them. And we already see determined attacks by Ukraine to disrupt Russian logistics. Precision western munitions make this possible — and the Ukrainians now have the green light to use US precision munitions against targets in Russia. It is not yet clear whether the Ukrainian attacks on Russian logistics will take the air out of the bag, so to speak, but it has a good chance of doing just that.
Third, the Ukrainians are well of the above plan. The odds are that they are developing their own counter plans. What are they? Who knows. One possibility is an assault across the Dnipro in Kherson. That may well be the “soft underbelly” of the Russian defensive line. It is also the most remote area for Russians to move reinforcements to. And it offers a direct line to Crimea.
Fourth, if it appears that Russian manpower is becoming too menacing, we can be fairly sure that Ukraine’s neighbors will start moving troops into rear guard and logistics positions in Ukraine, freeing up more Ukrainians to fight at the front. And we will see more Ukrainian efforts to compel people to fight.
Fifth, the Russian economy is sputtering. The kremlin is spending like a drunken sailor to finance the war, and the costs will only go up. Sooner or later, that means the sovereign wealth fund will run dry. That will be sooner than Russians thought as oil sales to India are drying up due to secondary sanctions.
Finally, any Russian offensive will rely on its artillery and air power. Western assistance in artillery may be able to negate Russian artillery effectiveness. And F16’s may prove to be a formidable defensive weapon to counter Russian jets delivering glide bombs.
In sum, my sense is that the Russians will indeed attempt a summer offensive along the above lines. Will it work? My guess is that it will not succeed. And if it fails, this will open up the next chapter in this god damned war.
Pete Buttigieg makes an interesting point below — GOP gaslighting vulnerable groups may indeed be a tactic to avoid addressing serious policy issues.
He decries the old “there’s a monster in the closet” political strategy. That is, we must protect ourselves from the monster whether there is a monster or not.
Robert Reich goes a step further. He argues that if people do not believe that the US system will make life better for them, it is inevitable that people start thinking “every man for himself”.
This hearkens back to a message that Sir Kenneth Clark delivered back in 1969. Civilization is most threatened by a loss of confidence in the systems that uphold it.
If you think about it, this helps to explain the so called deep political divide in the US. So called conservatives believe that excessive catering to marginalized groups threatens American prosperity. Hence they lose confidence in public sector institutions that they believe heighten that risk and they bow down to private sector institutions that they believe generate prosperity (at least for them). Progressives believe that wild west capitalism accentuates inequality, and threatens the American way of life. Hence, they are less confident that the private sector has a sufficient moral compass to protect that way of life. They insist on robust public sector protections.
In other words, neither side has confidence in the orientation of the other. As a result, there is less room for debate and compromise in the political arena. And over time, there is a loss of confidence in the system that both sides operate under.
Is there a way out of this, or are we trapped in a downward spiral?
Steve Kotkin proposes that we take a fresh look at ourselves in comparison to other societies in the world. The US commitment to freedom and democracy is something that many peoples can only dream about. In other words, the system that Americans rely on — not its impact on wealth generation or social justice — is our strength.
From this perspective, the various arguments we engage in about prosperity and protecting marginalized groups are less important than the underlying value that holds us together. And if there is peril in our political climate of today, it is a diminishing trust in that value.
My own sense is that confidence requires a belief that the “pie” is expanding. That as time goes by, there will be more and more opportunities for our kids. On the other hand, if we see the future as a “zero sum game”, we aspire to be among the winners — not the losers. This weakens the system.
Looking back several hundred years, we can detect a major shift in thinking on this issue. Going back to the early 1800’s (when the industrial revolution was still in its early stages), progressive thinking was justified as a matter of ethics and sympathy. And btw, reforms were pushed mainly by people who enjoyed significant economic security.
More recently, the thinking shifted to embrace the potential that expanding the middle class offers for increasing prosperity. Ethics was displaced by materialist aspirations as a driving force for change. These days, with the dislocations in legacy institutions due to more rapid innovation, that confidence has been shaken.
Whether one finds this obsession with materialism to be optimal or not, one cannot ignore it. And for that reason, our thinking about how to move forward should start from a more nuanced understanding where prosperity comes from.
If I am right, we may ask ourselves how well we understand what enables the pie to grow? How does our entry into the knowledge era affect this? And what institutional arrangements do we need to max out the opportunities that are arising? Sadly, I do not see these questions prominently on display in our political dialog.
BTW, Putin’s political orientation is profoundly “zero sum game”. For him, there are winners and losers, and he has no empathy or respect for the losers. Unfortunately, this attitude is echoed in Donald Trump’s comments about “winners and losers”. This may explain why Mr. Trump has an affinity for Putin and other autocrats.
So before you consider where you stand on the issues of the day, you might look in the mirror and ask yourself, do I see the future of the US as a “zero sum game”? If you do, you might ask yourself why you think so. Because if you think so, your own confidence in our values and institutions may be at risk.
One last thought — various thinkers have commented that periods of rapid change are usually accompanied by conflict. Why? Those who have benefitted from legacy institutions feel the threat of losing power, status and wealth. At the same time, new standards that are needed to optimize the value added we can get from collaboration in a new set of circumstances are not yet in place.
We are in such a period these days and so we should not be surprised that we experience turbulence in our political dialog. We can maximize our minimize the ensuing conflict via our own choices.
There was a time when the US Supreme Court was one of the most respected institutions in the world. The Court held this exalted position because folks believed that its justices were committed to a principle – upholding the rule of law. And while the justices may have brought their individual biases to the Court, they did not allow their biases to affect their commitment to the rule of law.
Sadly, those days are over. A line of thought emerged that there is a political element to understanding the rule of law. In other words, there is a thing called “conservative justice”. It was pitched as a way to reign in the courts. In fact, it was a ploy to inject politics into judicial decision making.
We can thank Mitch McConnell for doggedly fighting to inject the Supreme Court and lower federal courts with justices and judges who hold these ideas — that justice is political. Most important, McConnell succeeded in installing a so called “conservative majority” on the Supreme Court. And here we are. The Court now issues decisions that are distinctly political in nature. Alternatively, the Court refuses to enable lower court decision making when it suits its political agenda.
The most stark example of this came recently when the Court gutted the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment so that Donald Trump could appear on the Colorado ballot. It is a sloppy piece of legal writing, and has no basis in legal thinking. Worse still, we now know that at least 2 Supreme Court Justices who took part in the decision should have recused themselves for conflicts of interest.
Justice Thomas participated even though his wife actively participated in the Jan 6 insurrection.
Justice Alito participated even though we now have evidence that he himself actively supported the insurrection.
Sadly, the impact of the above goes way beyond having a sloppy and dangerous legal precedent. The Court as it stands can no longer claim to be a beacon for protecting the rule of law.
People are still scratching their heads over Putin’s removal of Shoigu as Minister of Defense and Patrushev as Head of the Security Council. Below is one possible explanation — Putin needed to bring a certain level of competence to defense ministry finances (translation – Russia is not in great shape financially), and Shoigu was the problem there, not the solution.
And there is more. Putin is thinking ahead to situations where he may need to hold out against forces that would replace him in his last moments.
In other words, the moves were completely defensive in nature.
For the last several days, it was not clear what was going on after the Russian invaded the Kharkiv region. There were various reports that Ukrainian forces were in retreat, and even that a breakthrough was imminent.
Nonsense. As described below, the Ukrainian defensive strategy was for border guards to slow down the initial border crossings to give time for reinforcements to arrive at the first defensive line. The border guards did their job as planned. Russian forces are now largely stalled at that first defensive line.
No. You do not need this car. Nor is it practical. It is a whimsical bow to the past, when car designs had more personality and charm. It is the Morgan, Midsummer — Morgan’s first collaboration with a design partner.
This is a car that you would love to have for a country drive to a manor house. On a thrill seeking ramble in Tuscany. Or perhaps the car you might drive with your partner to dine with George and Amal on Lake Como.
Buzzography 