Jim Manis on Most Anything

Jim Manis can formulate an opinion about a good many things, including those about which he has little knowledge. (And some dude named "Lazlo.") Visit The MagicFactory.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

"Outsourcing Comes Home"

Looking for a job? Indian companies that specialized in the outsourcing boom are beginning to relocate to the U.S. and other countries, moving their employees and hiring local employees, to man the phones in cities closer to their customers. What goes around … and so forth. (See The Washington Post story.)

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Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Myth of Capitalism:

Private run businesses are always more efficient than public run services, right? That's capitalisms great myth. Government workers have no profit motive to drive them toward efficiency.

Well, think again. One of the big scams of recent decades has been that privately run prisons are more efficient than publicly run ones. The truth is that this is simply not true. The only thing that private prisons are efficient at doing is redistributing the public wealth by funneling it into a few private hands.

In Arizona, a beacon of Republican mythology about capitalism, studies show that housing a prisoner in a private facility costs the same as doing so in a public one at best and sometimes as much as $1,600 per year more (Richard Oppel).

The truth is that those who advocate privatization of traditionally publicly run services have no interest in efficiently running these programs. Their sole interest is in moving taxpayer dollars into private pockets.

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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Red States Have Red Books:

Harold Meyerson makes the argument that the Republican states should put their money where their mouths are. The ten states causing the biggest drain on the national budget are all Republican strongholds: New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, South Dakota, Kentucky and Virginia.

These states receive far more in federal tax moneys than they pay in. Naturally, they're the ones demanding a balanced budget. Go figure.

Hint: The little boy crying wolf ain't playing a joke. He's trying to distract you from the fact that he's got his hand in the cookie jar.

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Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Decline of the West:


For years, Americans have bragged and taken solace in the belief that at least college education in this country was the best in the world. Those on the inside, however, have realized that "the best" moniker actually referred to graduate school, not the undergraduate departments at state and private schools of higher education around the country.

While grade inflation is rampant and the work an undergrad is required to do in order to receive a B+ grade in all courses is about half in terms of time alone, ignoring quality, the two most important words in a college administrator's vocabulary are "recruitment" and "retention."

Employee growth, by the way, at nearly all colleges and universities, has been in staff and part-time teachers, not in full-time faculty.

Most college presidents, who are often paid like CEOs of Fortune Five Hundred companies, will tell you that the increased cost of education is a result primarily of increased benefit costs for faculty.

But consider that, while faculty numbers have remained at best stable at colleges around the country, the number of staff employees, who are both well paid and receive the same benefits as faculty, have tripled in number. In the meantime, the challenge of teaching the increasing enrollment at colleges has been met with more and more part-time teachers, who are poorly paid and receive no benefits.

You might remember the days when undergraduates lived in dorms that resembled a cell block and ate in cafeterias where the food was tasteless and served on metal trays. Today colleges offer amenities that more closely resemble those of Club Med, with the harshest environmental component being a disagreeable roommate.


And on the Other Side of the Pond: A Gun for Hire

Erik Prince, the Bush administration's pet toy and billionaire private army organizer, is reportedly organizing a private army for the United Arab Emirates, a country ruled by autocrats and awash in oil money. The rulers of the country are afraid that the Arab Spring might invade their little nation and their military force is too small to handle such an uprising, especially if backed by arch nemesis Iran.

Prince and his employees have been facing increasing scrutiny by the justice department in this country. Maybe Prince has found his way out of these troubles and a way to make another billion or so.

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Update on the Skype Purchase:

Ted Schadler makes the argument for why Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for a service with no business model. He's got some good points.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Skype Business Model – Sheer Genius:

I love Skype. What's not to like about free phone calls and messaging? But just how do you make money out of it if you're an investor or founder? Wait till Microsoft finds itself looking foolish in front of Apple and then sell it to Steve and the boys for $8.5 billion! Works for me! Or it would had I been smart enough to invent the service. Sheer genius. Now let's just hope that Microsoft doesn't screw it up for us little folks who just like the good service and low cost. (You still have to have some sort of device and an IP.)

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Saturday, May 07, 2011

Breaking News:

The number of people who now believe President Obama was born outside the U.S. has plunged to half the number who believed it before the release of his "long birth certificate." The remaining number of doubters are on the extreme right of the Republican Party. (See The Washington Post story.) In other words, the party of Lincoln is now the most racist group in America. There is no evidence he was born anywhere other than where he says he was born. But he doesn't look like the face of America, according to the right wing of the Republican Party.

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Thursday, May 05, 2011

Demagogue on the Rise:

The press is agog over the rise of David Barton, a collector of old texts who promotes himself as an authority on the "Christian" nature of the nation's founders. Barton, a graduate of the Oral Roberts religious institution, has been praised and sought after by Republican wanna be's as a messiah for the religious right. He was an important player in bringing out the southern right wing vote for George W. Bush.

Barton is proud to show off his massive collection of old texts housed at his Texas ranch, but, as The New York Times points out, the fact is he's read very little of them. He admits as much. (See the quote in the Times.) Barton spends most of his time and energy giving speeches. One suspects much the same speech over and over. Barton appeared on the May 4th episode of The Daily Show, where he seems to be auditioning for a position as snake oil salesman. You be the judge.

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Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Time Bomb:

While the media is filled with awe over the death of Bin Laden, the real story of this century is buried deeper in the news: the world's population is exploding. Projections have increased to ten billion within the next ninety years.

The usual question raised by a discussion of population growth is will we be able to feed everyone. Currently the answer is yes. But is just feeding everyone enough?

Nearly every issue we face today throughout the world is affected in one way or another by population pressure. Can the planet withstand such growth? God may be happy with this mob of miserable souls murdering one another and passing on infectious diseases while driving up global temperatures, but one suspects Mother Nature is not.

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Sunday, May 01, 2011

How America Shot Itself in the Foot:

"The nation’s unnerving descent into debt began a decade ago with a choice, not a crisis." - Lori Montgomery.

That's right. The Bush tax cuts, extended by Obama, account for most of the indebtedness. And then there are those two unnecessary and unpaid for wars, one of which was begun with fabricated information.

Back in 2000, the nation's economy was booming and the outlook was rosy beyond imagining today. Of course, an economy that was based on a housing bubble and credit default swaps was bound to bust anyway, but it needn't have been so painful.

So why did Republicans work so hard to bring the nation to this state? Easy, Republicans find their base among those who want weak government. For them, "government" plays no part in a definition of what it means to be American.

Keep in mind that the top 10 percent of Americans remain rich. The problems with the economy haven't harmed them any more than rampant inflation ever hurt the wealthy elite in Latin American economies. When politicians like Nuke Getrich start talking about Americans needing to make sacrifices, they are not talking about themselves and the wealthy elite who own the political parties. They are talking about the bottom 90 percent.

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