David Foster

VALKYRIE–Brief Review

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Went to see the film last Tuesday, and I agree with Lex that it is well worth seeing. Cruise does a credible job as Stauffenberg, and most of the acting is well done, although the mix of accents…a lot of American English and various flavors of English-English, plus a bit of German…was slightly bizarre. I was particularly impressed with Halina Reijn’s portrayal of a minor character, Margarethe van Oven (secretary to the conspirators.) She had almost no speaking lines, but has a wonderfully expressive face, and uses it well to portray her character’s emotions.

One aspect of the film, though, seems to me to be unjust and historically inaccurate.

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Oster, Stauffenberg, and Valkyrie

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I haven’t yet seen “Valkyrie,” but I’m pretty familiar with the relevant history, and will be interested to see how accurately it is reflected in the film.

It appears that–as is the case with almost all writing/video dealing with the German military conspiracy against Hitler–the film is strongly focused on the activities of Colonel Count Stauffenberg. It’s easy to see why filmmakers would want to emphasize Stauffenberg’s role and story–with his aristocratic lineage, his good looks, his attractive wife, and his love of poetry (he was a devotee of Stefan George), the man makes a fine dramatic hero. Stauffenberg was a complex individual and a man of many quirks, some of them likeable–like his habit of lying on the rug with his wife and reading English novels together, each waiting for the other to finish the page–and some not so likeable, like his tendency to lose his temper if his boots weren’t lined up precisely by his adjutant. One can see why he would be attractive to writers and movie-makers.

However.

There were quite a few German officers involved in the plot against Hitler, and some of them committed themselves much earlier than Stauffenberg did. Hans Oster, in particular, could reasonably be considered as the driving force behind the whole enterprise. It’s interesting to note that no one playing the Oster role shows up in the cast list for “Valkyrie”–there may be legitimate dramatic reasons for this, but I hope that the movie at least gives credit in some form to Oster’s very important role.

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New-Age Earmarks

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Yesterday, Joe Biden was holding forth on how the Obama administration will ensure that earmarks are kept out of the various economic-stimulus bills that the administration will be introducing.

It’s actually possible that he means what he says, as far as the traditional kind of earmark goes–that is, a provision for specific spending, in a specific geographical area, at the behest of a particular Congressman.

But in a broader sense, much of the economic policy of the incoming Obama administration seems to be centered around earmarks, albeit earmarks of a different kind. Instead of Congressional-district-based earmarks, we will have SIC-code-based earmarks (SIC code=standard industrial classification), providing benefits to particular industries, and reverse-bill-of-attainder earmarks, directed in favor of particular named companies or small groups of companies.

Traditional earmarks tended to politicize certain kinds of businesses, such as local construction companies. The new-age earmarks will tend to politicize all types of business, throughout the entire national economy. Your business success if you are an executive or business owner–your employment if you are a worker–your returns on investment if you are a shareholder or bondholder–will increasingly depend on the political rather than the business astuteness of company management.

A Truly Diabolical Monetary Policy

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In Goethe’s Faust, Mephistopheles desires the introduction of paper money. At his instigation, courtiers approach the emperor at a masked ball and get him to sign the following document:

To all it may Concern upon Our Earth
This paper is a thousand guilders worth
There lies, sure warrant of it and full measure
Beneath Our earth a wealth of buried treasure
As for this wealth, the means are now in train
To raise it and redeem the scrip again

In the bright sunlight of morning, the now-sober emperor observes hundreds of pieces of paper, each bearing his signature and claiming to be equivalent in value to gold, and demands to know what is being done to apprehend the counterfeiters.

Treasurer: Recall–Your own self signed it at the time,
Only last night. You stood in Great Pan’s mask
And with the Chancellor we approach to ask:
“Allow yourself high festive joy and nourish
The common weal with but a pen’s brief flourish.”
You signed: that night by men of a thousand arts
The thing was multiplied a thousand parts
So that like blessing should all accrue
We stamped up all the lower series too
Tens, Thirties, Fifties, Hundreds did we edit
The good it did folk, you would hardly credit.
Your city, else half molded in stagnation
Now teems revived in prosperous elation!
Although your name has long been widely blessed
It’s not been spelt with such fond interest
The alphabet has now been proved redundanct
In this sign everyone finds grace abundant

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Regulatory Overkill?

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The legislation to protect children from lead in toys and other products, however well-intentioned, is likely to cripple and even destroy hundreds of companies–especially small, home-based companies–whose products are perfectly safe. This from Evolving Excellence, who points out a number of practical problems with the legislation.

Problem #1: certification testing must be done by a lab on a “certified list”. This list isn’t exactly long, and their are hundreds of thousands of products. Guess what is happening to those labs: the waiting list for lab work extends out months and the cost per lab workup has gone from $200 to as much as $6000… per sample.

# Problem #2: testing must be done at the product level, not the component level. So a common component used in multiple types of products must be tested multiple times. What does this mean? Each SKU must be tested separately, even if they are virtually identical. One pair of jeans and a slightly different pair of jeans, both using the exact same raw denim, must be tested separately. See the video below, where a manufacturer of science kits has 40,000 SKU’s… and is looking at a $20 million dollar cost for initial certification testing. This is why many products, and companies, will simply cease to be sold.

These are only the first 2 of the 5 major problems that EE identifies with this legislation. Read the whole thing.

February 10, when this law take effect, is being referred to as national bankruptcy day.

Congresspeople talk endlessly about the need to “save good American manufacturing jobs”–but at the same time, they often pass legislation which is extremely damaging to the manufacturing sector, without bothering to take the trouble to understand what they are actually doing. And when it comes to small manufacturing companies whose employees do not represent substantial voting constituencies and whose managements do not represent a substantial source of campaign funds–there are many in Congress who do not really even care what happens to them.

Here’s an example of a toy which will no longer be available in the U.S. as a consequence of the new regulations. (via Glenn)