There’s an intriguing post on CNNMoney on how Google’s business model undermines not just newspaper advertising, something that’s been pointed out for a long time, but advertising itself:

“You buy a commercial in the Super Bowl, you’re going to pay $2.5 million for the spot. I have no idea if it’s going to work. You pay your money, you take your chances.”

On the topic of pay per click, Karmazin concluded:

“That’s the worst kind of business model in the world. You don’t want to have people know what works. When you know what works you tend to charge less money than when you have this aura and you’re selling this mystique.”

If that’s right the success of Google doesn’t just spell doom for paper newspapers. It’s the end of newspapers, radio, television, and any other medium that depends on “selling this mystique”. It’s the end of mass culture, the growth of which is what really ended the Great Depression.

In the future we may be able to delineate sharp boundaries between epochs. From 1920, the year of the first commercial radio broadcast, to 1998, the founding of Google, may be distinguished as the age of mass culture. From 1998 onwards, as we sit in the middle of it, we can only think of it as the age of Google.

There’s an interesting post at The Physics arXiv Blog on the work of neuroscientist Giulio Tononi in coming up with a rigorous characterization of consciousness. Here’s the nugget from the post:

The central part of their new work is to describe the mathematical properties of a system that can store integrated information in this way but without it leaking away. And this leads them to their central proof. “The implications of this proof are that we have to abandon either the idea that people enjoy genuinely [integrated] consciousness or that brain processes can be modelled computationally,” say Maguire and co.

Since Tononi’s main assumption is that consciousness is the experience of integrated information, it is the second idea that must be abandoned: brain processes cannot be modelled computationally.

One of the virtues of rigorous description is that it defines the limits of the possible. They become tautological. If Tononi is right, machine consciousness is not possible. That includes computer programs to implement machine consciousness.

Bill Schneider’s column includes a quote from Joseph Stieglitz that points out something important:

Growth and inequality are not separate issues. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote, “Politicians typically talk about rising inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena when they are in fact intertwined. Inequality restrains and holds back our economic growth.”

There’s something else that income inequality and economic growth have in common: our present crop of politicians have very little idea of how to promote either one.

I think that these are subjects on which intelligent people can differ but we shouldn’t confuse posturing with solutions. I see no reason that increasing nominal tax rates without increasing effective tax rates will reduce income inequality. Quite to the contrary I strongly suspect it will increase it.

I also see no reason that decreasing nominal tax rates will produce economic growth. The devil is in the details. If taxes are cut for the wealthiest, something we should not be surprised at since the lion pays the lion’s share of taxes, and they take the money and spend or invest it overseas, it will produce very little in the way of domestic economic growth.

Simply abolishing corporate income taxes without taking other steps to ensure more spending and investment here won’t do the trick, either.

I favor eliminating inefficiencies but that’s painstaking, unglamorous work rather than the masterstroke solution that most politicians prefer. I also think that a lot of our problems are a consequence of currency manipulation by our trading partners but that’s another subject.

I see that the editors of the Washington Post have gotten on the tax reform band wagon:

THE HOT read among policy wonks these days is “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” by French economist Thomas Piketty. He warns of a long-term trend toward ever-concentrated wealth and urges a global wealth tax to prevent it. While that might be a bad idea even if it were politically feasible, there is merit to the broader notion that industrialized countries could better coordinate taxing wealth, corporate and otherwise, that flits around the world in search of the lowest rates. Case in point: U.S. drug maker Pfizer’s $106 billion offer for Britain’s AstraZeneca, which could enable Pfizer to flag itself as a British company and pay taxes at Britain’s 20 percent rate rather than this country’s 35 percent.

Reforming the corporate income tax without reforming the personal income tax is impractical, either from a political or fiscal standpoint. One of the things I find most troubling about support for the corporate income tax is the strong anti-business stand its supporters frequently express. I wonder how they think we’re going to produce economic growth or reduce unemployment and beat down business at the same time?

What we’re seeing on the international scene with large multi-national companies pulling up stakes to seek more felicitous tax environments in other countries is the same thing we’ve been seeing among the various states for some time. Whether international or interstate that’s a zero-sum strategy rather than a growth strategy.

The solution is obvious and I’m not really sure what alternative supporters of the corporate income tax have in mind.

While we’re on the subject of what’s green and what isn’t, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexandar has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal opposing the re-introduction of the wind power tax credit:

This giveaway expired in December. Yet on April 3 the Senate Finance Committee gave it new life by approving a $13 billion, two-year renewal within a package of 55 “tax extenders.” Once again, Washington is proving Ronald Reagan’s observation that “the nearest thing to eternal life that we’ll ever see on this Earth is a government program.”

The wind-production tax credit was first enacted in 1992. At the time, wind-power was considered a kind of “infant industry,” needing help to bring its technology up to speed and lead to lower costs. The tax credit has since been reborn eight times, even though President Obama’s Energy Secretary Stephen Chu in 2011 said that wind power is a “mature technology.” A mature technology should stand on its own in the marketplace.

I suspect that this explains the large windmill farms in midstate Illinois:

The 2.3-cent tax credit for each kilowatt-hour of wind-power electricity produced is sometimes worth more than the energy it subsidizes. Sometimes in some markets, for example in Texas and Illinois, the subsidy is so large that wind producers have paid utilities to take their electricity and still make a profit.

He offers three reasons not to support the subsidy

1. It wastes money.
2. It gives windmill operators a competitive advantage over other power generators which in turn makes it more likely that they’ll reduce capacity.
3. At best wind power can only supplement other power sources rather than replace them.

Certainly #2 is the intention of the subsidy. If wind power doesn’t reduce power generation from coal, oil, or gas and does it at higher cost, what good is it?

I think that #3 is the really damning issue with wind power.

Here in Chicago the preponderance of electricity is generated using nuclear power and that has been the case for well over a generation. I honestly don’t see how any serious environmentalist can not support nuclear power and recently there appears to have been some movement in that direction. Luddites, yes.

I can also see how people who live in tectonically unstable parts of the country, e.g. California (or even Memphis) could be wary of nuclear power. One size does does not fit all and a solution that works in the upper Midwest might not be as prudent in the Southwest or Southeast.

Outdoorsman and outdoor equipment magnate Yvon Chouinard takes to the op-ed page of the New York Times to make a pitch for removing dams:

VENTURA, Calif. — OF the more than 80,000 dams listed by the federal government, more than 26,000 pose high or significant safety hazards. Many no longer serve any real purpose. All have limited life spans. Only about 1,750 produce hydropower, according to the National Hydropower Association.

In many cases, the benefits that dams have historically provided — for water use, flood control and electricity — can now be met more effectively without continuing to choke entire watersheds.

I think he’s on the strongest ground when opposing new dam-building:

New dams are a bad idea. We’ve glorified them for decades, but our pride in building these engineering marvels has often blinded us to the environmental damage they cause. The consequences run the length of the river and beyond. Our many complex attempts to work around these obstacles would make Rube Goldberg proud. Interventions like fish elevators and trap-and-haul programs that truck fish around impoundments don’t lead to true recovery for wild fish populations or reverse the other environmental problems caused by blocking a river’s flow.

But that’s a battle that’s already largely been won. My best efforts have failed to reveal any large new dam projects waiting for regulatory approval. We’ve been removing dams at a pretty fair pace. Some dams are being refurbished to allow them to generate hydroelectric power, generate more power, or generate it more efficiently.

I note that he doesn’t mention one of the issues with dams: they aren’t particularly green. The impound reservoirs behind large dams are substantial sources of methane, a greenhouse gas. That’s something to keep in mind the next time someone pontificates to you about how China is going green. The Chinese authorities have decided to de-emphasize wind and solar power in favor of nuclear and hydroelectric.

That highlights something I think that many Americans, especially Americans serving in Congress, have not yet come to terms with. In a developing country infrastructure spending is necessary to build new infrastructure. In a developed (or over-developed) country like the United States infrastructure spending is necessary to optimize infrastructure which is likely to include removing obsolete infrastructure. That’s a much less glamorous project than building new roads, bridges, dams, etc.

What’s the single largest impediment to dam removal? I strongly suspect it’s waiting for environmental impact assessments.

In closing this post I feel that I should reveal my immediate reaction to this op-ed. It takes a lot of chutzpah to get your message out using a medium whose server farms are probably worse for the environment than most dams. Environmentalists should oppose moving to the Cloud rather than supporting it.

Lately I’ve been binge-watching Australian television. I’ve watched a couple of police procedurals, one naval drama, and a period mystery drama. Right now I’m watching a medical drama. On deck is a legal drama, Rake, which was adapted into a drama of the same name on American television.

By and large I find the writing and acting in Australian television superior to their American counterparts. I find just too much mugging among young American actors. I think the better writing might be attributable to how American television is written. In general network American television programs are written by committee. That’s something that goes back to radio days.

I learn something in practically every show I watch. There’s the local color, of course. Some of their problems are the same. For example, they have a problem with illegal immigration. However, unlike ours most of their illegal immigration is apparently from East Asia or East Timor. They have their own Vietnam veterans with many of the same problems as our Vietnam vets live with.

Their medical problems are a bit different. For example, cystic fibrosis is apparently much more prevalent in Australia than it is here. I suspect that’s because of the Irish population—about 1 in 19 Irishmen carry the trait, the highest rate in the world.

The real difference is a consequence of the difference in their healthcare system. They have a national health system somewhat similar to Britain’s which coexists with a private system. If the show is any gauge, “Do we have the funding to treat this individual?” is as important a question as “How do we treat this individual?” and hospital crowding is chronic.

I’m still looking around for a good Aussie sitcom to cut my teeth on. Maybe someone can offer some suggestions. Humor may not translate as well as drama.

One more thing: so far in my watching I’ve seen exactly one lead actor of aboriginal descent. My, but he was a good-looking guy! You can see how he made it.

Here’s a finding which should give us some pause. Just about every system in a hospital is insanely easy to hack:

When Scott Erven was given free rein to roam through all of the medical equipment used at a large chain of Midwest health care facilities, he knew he would find security problems–but he wasn’t prepared for just how bad it would be.

In a study spanning two years, Erven and his team found drug infusion pumps–for delivering morphine drips, chemotherapy and antibiotics–that can be remotely manipulated to change the dosage doled out to patients; Bluetooth-enabled defibrillators that can be manipulated to deliver random shocks to a patient’s heart or prevent a medically needed shock from occurring; X-rays that can be accessed by outsiders lurking on a hospital’s network; temperature settings on refrigerators storing blood and drugs that can be reset, causing spoilage; and digital medical records that can be altered to cause physicians to misdiagnose, prescribe the wrong drugs or administer unwarranted care.

Erven’s team also found that, in some cases, they could blue-screen devices and restart or reboot them to wipe out the configuration settings, allowing an attacker to take critical equipment down during emergencies or crash all of the testing equipment in a lab and reset the configuration to factory settings.

“Many hospitals are unaware of the high risk associated with these devices,” Erven says. “Even though research has been done to show the risks, health care organizations haven’t taken notice. They aren’t doing the testing they need to do and need to focus on assessing their risks.”

This highlights something I’ve cautioned my clients about from time to time. You can’t take security for granted. It’s an attitude. If you don’t insist on and maintain system security in a systematic manner, your systems won’t be secure.

That applies to every organization from a retail store to a hospital but hospitals are a particularly horrifying example. I stopped doing business with Target flat when their security problems were revealed last year. When it turned out that the breach was due to malware having been injected into their point-of-sale systems, it was clear that the organization was simply not security-minded.

I’ve just published a foreign policy-related post at Outside the Beltway:

“Scumbag Woodstock”

How’s our intervention in Libya turning out?