The Next Big Thing

A few weeks ago while sitting around, my wife and I started discussing the Next Big Thing. My new smart phone is simply an improvement over the last one – that isn’t it.

I will tell you what is the Next Big Thing – driverless cars.

I had heard about them a few times before reading America 3.0, and they are mentioned in that book. I send Lex links about testing and we have both come to the conclusion that the big hurdle with them won’t be the technology – it will be regulatory hurdles. But this is coming faster than we all think – and there really won’t be much anyone can do to stop it since the demand will be intense.

I imagine the cops will be trotting out “safety” issues when the real reason will be that their days of writing dumb speeding tickets will be over. That revenue train, along with the DUI industry, will take major hits. I imagine they and others will fight this to the end. Insurance companies will likely see damage done – as crash rates go lower, they will be forced to drop premiums, or people will just go to a simple liability policy and chance the crash.

As for me, I lose 70 minutes a day of productivity sitting in my car. All isn’t lost since I listen to Bloomberg business news, however if I could have that 70 minutes to catch up on email, or to simply further myself by reading a book it would be a huge plus in my life. How about being able to have more than one glass of wine with dinner with my wife at a nice restaurant or at a wedding reception and not having to worry about a DUI?

Elon Musk says that we will be ready, tech wise, in five to six years:

Mr. Musk expects autonomous driving to be safer for riders and pedestrians by a factor of 10.

I absolutely believe this. In addition, when the computer gets traffic reports, it will choose the quickest way to the destination, and will choose the speed to use the least amount of fuel.

This article is interesting from CNBC. Here is a quote:

But for some mass market brands like Chevy, Honda or Volkswagen, Winterhoff says it will tougher to compete and win in a world where self-driving cars usher in the idea of mobility on demand.

“Autonomous drive vehicles will mean many families will need fewer cars and if you only have one car instead of two, you will likely make it a premium brand,” he said.

Imagine having only one car for a family of four. In my life, it would drop me off at work, head home and transport the wife if she needs to go somewhere, pick up/drop off a kid at school, head to the market where my groceries will be loaded by a clerk there that I have already paid for with Google Wallet, etc. etc.

When you get talking heads speaking about winners and losers, you can feel that it is on the way. I just can’t wait.

Rauner’s budget-Is any of this going to happen ?

An interesting take on the new Illinois governor’s shot across the bow.

The Sun-Times doesn’t like it.

If we thought Gov. Bruce Rauner’s first proposed state budget stood a chance of becoming reality, we would be appalled.

Talk about cold. Rauner wants to eviscerate dozens of programs that serve the poorest and most defenseless among us.

C’mon, cutting tuition aid to orphans?

If the Sun-Times is anything like it was the last time I lived in Chicago, a long time ago, this is no surprise. It defined limousine liberal then with Marshall Field the owner.

Marshall Field III (September 28, 1893 November 8, 1956) was an American investment banker, publisher, racehorse owner/breeder, philanthropist, heir to the Marshall Field department store fortune and a leading financial supporter and founding board member of Saul Alinsky’s community organizing network Industrial Areas Foundation.

I don’t know if things have changed the last 50 years.

But the governor’s fiscal year 2016 budget has zero chance of being passed into law by the Illinois General Assembly, as he well knows. Its real value then, which we’d like to believe is by design, is to sound the alarm like never before that Illinois is sliding fast toward becoming an economic backwater, a failed state among the 50 states. Time is running out. Hard and painful measures must be taken now.

If Rauner’s draconian plan has achieved that much, we’d say it’s about time.

That sounds promising. Maybe 50 years of economic stagnation has made a difference. Chicago is doing fine as far as the “Near North” part of it although a woman was raped in broad daylight across the street from my niece’s apartment two weeks ago. She is a nurse on the transplant team at Rush Medical Center and should carry a gun but we all know about Chicago and guns. Only gangsters are allowed guns.

Following that, we would expect to see a hard but healthy give-and-take, like nothing we have seen in decades, between the executive and legislative branches. And, in the end, Illinois might finally settle on a long-term spending and revenue plan that puts the state on a path toward solvency and growth for decades to come.

Hey, we can hope.

This sounds more realistic than I have ever heard from the Sun-Times. Is this progress? The little I know about the Tribune these days is not any more promising.

And Wisconsin lefties thought Walker was bad !

I’m sitting out here in La La land with Jerry Brown and 1/3 of the illegal immigrants in the US watching Los Angeles implode.

My wife needed to renew her drivers’ license on her birthday, January 13. Unfortunately, January 1, was the day that illegal aliens were eligible for drivers’ licenses. As a result, the first day she could get an appointment, as opposed to waiting all day in line, was today more than a month later. Unfortunately, she had pneumonia last week and came home Sunday. Today she felt too weak to go to her DMV office and called to reschedule. The next date she could get an appointment was in April.

I’m not sure Illinois is any better but at least somebody is trying to do something about it.

Book Review: Rockets and People

Rockets and People, by Boris E Chertok

Boris Chertok’s career in the Russian aerospace industry spanned many decades, encompassing both space exploration and military missile programs. His four-volume memoir is an unusual document–partly, it reads like a high school annual or inside company history edited by someone who wants to be sure no one feels left out and that all the events and tragedies and inside jokes are appropriately recorded. Partly, it is a technological history of rocket development, and partly, it is a study in the practicalities of managing large programs in environments of technical uncertainty and extreme time pressure. Readers should include those interested in: management theory and practice, Russian/Soviet history, life under totalitarianism, the Cold War period, and missile/space technology. Because of the great length of these memoirs, those who read the whole thing will probably be those who are interested in all (or at least most) of the above subject areas. I found the series quite readable; overly-detailed in many places, but always interesting. In his review American astronaut Thomas Stafford said “The Russians are great storytellers, and many of the tales about their space program are riveting. But Boris Chertok is one of the greatest storytellers of them all.”  In this series, Chertok really does suck you into his world.

Chertok was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1912: his mother had been forced to flee Russia because of her revolutionary (Menshevik) sympathies. The family returned to Russia on the outbreak of the First World War, and some of Chertok’s earliest memories were of the streets filled with red-flag-waving demonstrators in 1917. He grew up on the Moscow River, in what was then a quasi-rural area, and had a pretty good childhood–“we, of course, played “Reds and Whites,” rather than “Cowboys and Indians””–swimming and rowing in the river and developing an early interest in radio and aviation–both an airfield and a wireless station were located nearby. He also enjoyed reading–“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn met with the greatest success, while Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin gave rise to aggressive moods–‘Hey–after the revolution in Europe, we’ll deal with the American slaveholders!” His cousin introduced him to science fiction, and he was especially fond of  Aelita (book and silent film), featuring the eponymous Martian beauty.

Chertok remembers his school years fondly–there were field trips to study art history and architectural styles, plus a military program with firing of both rifles and machine guns–but notes “We studied neither Russian nor world history….Instead we had two years of social science, during which we studied the history of Communist ideas…Our clever social sciences teacher conducted lessons so that, along with the history of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune, we became familiar with the history of the European peoples from Ancient Rome to World War I, and while studying the Decembrist movement and 1905 Revolution in detail we were forced to investigate the history of Russia.” Chertok purused his growing interest in electronics, developing a new radio-receiver circuit which earned him a journal publication and an inventor’s certificate. There was also time for skating and dating–“In those strict, puritanical times it was considered inappropriate for a young man of fourteen or fifteen to walk arm in arm with a young woman. But while skating, you could put your arm around a girl’s waist, whirl around with her on the ice to the point of utter exhaustion, and then accompany her home without the least fear of reproach.”

Chertok wanted to attend university, but “entrance exams were not the only barrier to admission.” There was a quota system, based on social class, and  “according to the ‘social lineage’ chart, I was the son of a white collar worker and had virtually no hope of being accepted the first time around.” He applied anyhow, hoping that his journal publication and inventor’s certificate in electronics would get him in.” It didn’t–he was told, “Work about three years and come back. We’ll accept you as a worker, but not as the son of a white-collar worker.”

So Chertok took a job as electrician in a brick factory…not much fun, but he was soon able to transfer to an aircraft factory across the river. He made such a good impression that he was asked to take a Komsomol leadership position, which gave him an opportunity to learn a great deal about manufacturing. The plant environment was a combination of genuinely enlightened management–worker involvement in process improvement, financial decentralization–colliding with rigid policies and political interference. There were problems with absenteeism caused by new workers straight off the farm; these led to a government edict: anyone late to work by 20 minutes or more was to be fired, and very likely prosecuted. There was a young worker named Igor who had real inventive talent; he proposed an improved linkage for engine and propeller control systems, which worked out well. But when Igor overslept (the morning after he got married), no exception could be made. He was fired, and “we lost a man who really had a divine spark.”  Zero tolerance!

Chertok himself wound up in trouble when he was denounced to the Party for having concealed the truth about his parents–that his father was a bookkeeper in a private enterprise and his mother was a Menshevik. He was expelled from the Komsomol and demoted to a lower-level position.  Later in his career, he would also wind up in difficulties because of his Jewish heritage.

The memoir includes dozens of memorable characters, including:

*Lidiya Petrovna Kozlovskaya, a bandit queen turned factory supervisor who became Chertok’s superior after his first demotion.

*Yakov Alksnis, commander of the Red Air Force–a strong leader who foresaw the danger of a surprise attack wiping out the planes on the ground. He was not to survive the Stalin era.

*Olga Mitkevich, sent by the regime to become “Central Committee Party organizer” at the factory where Chertok was working…did not make a good first impression (“had the aura of a strict school matron–the terror of girls’ preparatory schools”)..but actually proved to be very helpful to getting work done and later became director of what was then the largest aircraft factory in Europe, which job she performed well. She apparently had too much integrity for the times, and her letters to Stalin on behalf of people unjustly accused resulted in her own arrest and execution.

*Frau Groettrup, wife of a German rocket scientist, one of the many the Russians took in custody after occupying their sector of Germany. Her demands on the victors were rather unbelievable, what’s more unbelievable is that the Russians actually yielded to most of them.

*Dmitry Ustinov, a rising star in the Soviet hierarchy–according to Chertok an excellent and visionary executive who had much to do with Soviet successes in missiles and space. (Much later, he would become Defense Minister, in which role he was a strong proponent of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.)

*Valeriya Golubtsova, wife of the powerful Politburo member Georgiy Malenkov, who was Stalin’s immediate successor. Chertok knew her from school–she was an engineer who became an important government executive–and the connection turned out to be very useful. Chertok respected her professional skills, liked her very much, and devotes several pages to her.

*Yuri Gagarin, first man to fly in space, and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman.

*Overshadowing all the other characters is Sergei Korolev, now considered to be the father of the Soviet space program although anonymous during his lifetime.  Korolev spent 6 years in labor camps, having been arrested when his early rocket experiments didn’t pan out; he was released in 1944.  A good leader, in Chertok’s view, though with a bad temper and given to making threats that he never actually carried out.  His imprisonment must have left deep scars–writing about a field trip to a submarine to observe the firing of a ballistic missile, Chertok says that the celebration dinner with the sub’s officers was the only time he ever saw Korolev really happy.

Chertok’s memoir encompasses the pre-WWII development of the Soviet aircraft industry…early experiments with a rocket-powered interceptor…the evacuation of factories from the Moscow area in the face of the German invasion…a post-war mission to Germany to acquire as much German rocket technology as possible…the development of a Soviet ballistic missile capability…Sputnik…reconnaissance and communications satellites…the Cuban missile crisis…and the race to the moon.

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Liberty Rising — In Illinois

Matt Besler

Great post entitled Liberty Rising by Matt Besler of the Illinois Opportunity Project.

Matt is talking about the newly elected reform-minded Republicans in Springfield, Illinois.

They are currently a minority within a minority. That is a start. It’s a beachhead.

It took decades to wreck Illinois. It will take a long time to turn it around. There is no quick fix.

There is a danger that people elected with great aspirations will get coopted, lose their way, forget what they wanted to do when they got involved in politics.

So, to our political leaders: Ask yourself why you ran for office. Know your own values and principles. State them. Lead with them. Apply your principles at every decision point. Knowing exactly who you are and who you represent will allow you to lead with a clear vision and strong voice on any issue.

Yes.

As I recently said to my pal C. Steven Tucker (literally the world’s foremost expert on Obamacare and real health care reform), some politicians who are supposedly on our side are like the guy in the Matrix who ratted out the revolution because he wanted to eat the steak again.

They can’t — we can’t — let that happen.

To be elected as a reform politician at this critical time cannot be about a cozy job, or even an assuredly steady job.

It is — it must be — about changing our state and our country for the better.

It is about confronting serious opposition to make that happen. That opposition offers the allure of various “carrots”, and wields the threat of various “sticks”, to try to compel assent to the current, supposedly “normal” state of affairs. We need leaders who disdain the carrots, don’t flinch from the sticks, and who do not forget why they sought and won office.

Our politicians need an internal compass, as Matt calls for here.

And they need external accountability, as Matt also calls for in this article.

Also, when they do the right thing, they need approbation and encouragement.

We can all help, especially with the latter.

This is a protracted struggle. Be prepared for the long slog.

But the future for Illinois can be — will be — great.

And the future for America will be very great indeed.

How To Fix the State of Illinois

In a previous post I discussed the high probability of there being some sort of major fiscal calamity in Illinois in the next two years. Here I propose how to solve the issues in the state. I realize that the chance of any or all of these solutions to be put into place is near zero without unthinkable changes, but in fact they are all obvious and will likely be part of the ultimate solution.

Consolidate Governmental Entities – Illinois has over 8400 governmental entities, the highest in the USA. These entities need to be drastically curtailed and likely should number in the hundreds, and each should have professional management, strict caps on borrowing capabilities, and an inability to sign up for long term unfunded obligations (pensions, retiree health, etc…) without stringent oversight.

Eliminate Pensions and Defined Benefit Plans and Move to Defined Contribution Plans – Illinois’s pension and benefits woes are myriad and well documented and extend through every city and county due to firefighters and policemen and governmental workers. Regardless of the one time pain, strikes, protests, and society-shaking impacts of these moves, these unfunded obligations are an impossible burden on the state and it must move to a 401k-like plan (similar to what Nebraska did)

Reduce State and Local Employee Compensation Pay by 25% or More – The government faces a simple choice between paying its employees what they think they deserve (ever more) and the government’s obligation to provide services to its citizens at a price that does not drive excessive taxation. This deal is broken and a large part of the burden will have to rest on governmental employees. If they do not like this solution they will be free to find employment in the private sector where it is unlikely that they will be able to match the same package of benefits and compensation. We will know that the model is in balance when the turnover rate of government is equal to that of the private sector.

Outsource 33% or More of Governmental Jobs – There are large opportunities for efficiencies in the governmental sector, through use of the Internet, changes in processes, and injection of competition into areas traditionally done by the government. Even within areas that are generally governmental functions (like the police), a significant portion of the functions such as administration could be done by third-party or online vendors.

Reform Purchasing By Use of Modern Techniques and Focus on Outcomes Not Political Concerns – Our procurement systems in Illinois are riddled with favoritism, opaque decision methods, and a focus on aiding politically connected firms. In addition, payment of vendors is very slow which rules out many smaller and less capitalized vendors. We need to focus on market based outcomes (quality of service, cost reduction, speed to market), and reward vendors with consistent and timely payments rather than focusing on political connections and long term relationships which favor a few incumbents.

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