Quotulatiousness

May 27, 2020

American passenger trains before Amtrak

Filed under: Business, Government, History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

George Hamlin reflects on the state of the US passenger rail system before the formation of Amtrak in 1971:

… non-commuter U.S. passenger trains can be said to have been under siege essentially for my entire lifetime, beginning not long after the end of World War II. Many railroads spent large sums to re-equip with streamlined lightweight equipment after the war, only to see what was originally couched as an investment turn into essentially a drain on their companies’ treasuries.

And the “rewards” for this? Passengers decamped to the rapidly-expanding airlines, and their personal automobiles. The decisive blow came in 1956, with the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act, which led to the Interstate Highway System.

Quoting from Joe Welsh’s Pennsy Streamliners, The Blue Ribbon Fleet (page 138), “Referring to the challenge, [PRR President] Symes wrote ‘There is such a thing as planning an orderly retreat in the face of superior forces.’ Clearly, the bugle had been sounded.”

In 1958, an Interstate Commerce Commission Hearing Examiner predicted that there would be no intercity passenger trains by 1970; he only missed by four months, effectively (and didn’t count on the Southern Railway, Rio Grande and Rock Island shying away from the government’s largesse). In 1959, TRAINS magazine devoted an entire issue to what was now clearly a crisis; the cover bore the legend “Who Shot the Passenger Train?”, complete with simulated bullet hole.

The 1960s in the U.S. could well be described as the “train-off” decade from a transportation history perspective; get, and read, Fred Frailey’s Twilight of the Great Trains, for a blow-by-blow analysis. The 1970s quickly produced the Penn Central bankruptcy, which proved to be the catalyst for government intervention; less than a year later, Amtrak was on the scene.

And since, it has frequently found itself in a “Perils of Pauline” existence, ranging from lack of funding to buy equipment, in many cases, to several bouts of route eliminations, to micro-management by politicians that don’t seem to be willing to provide consistent operational funding so that the company can make reasonable plans.

PRR E8A 5803 with Train 72, The Red Bird, passing the Hartsdale, Indiana tower and crossing the NYC and EJ&E on November 26, 1965.
Photo from the Roger Puta collection via Wikimedia Commons.

May 23, 2020

QotD: Computer trade show tchotchkes

Filed under: Business, Humour, Quotations, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

[Computer] convention attendees have no […] problem being showered with promotional gifts from all sides as they totter up and down the rows of booths.

You can see them staggering back to their hotel rooms, arms full of corporate-branded freebies, where they have prepared an empty suitcase specifically for shipping it all back to their BOFH Central at the end of the show.

Sure, it’s all crap. It’s usually the likes of childish desk toys, cable tidies that will snap within the week, pencils and logo-shaped erasers (as if you use such items all the time, right?), and Swiss army knives that will be routinely confiscated as you pass through airport security for the trip home. No matter, just turn up to the expo and companies will toss gifts at you like you were the GitHub messiah taking a seaside donkey ride into sysadmin Jerusalem.

Well, nobody tosses any in my direction. No blotchy ballpoint pens for me. No evil-smelling pads of sticky-notes that don’t stick to anything. No spongey stress balls. No smartphone stands. No sharply angular keyfobs that stab into my bollocks when I sit down.

Me, when I visit an IT exhibition stand on the cadge, I have to provide evidence of my media accreditation, two forms of photo ID, an electricity bill, birth certificates of my family going back four generations (originals only, please) and a DNA swab before I qualify to receive a boiled sweet.

Alistair Dabbs, “‘Don’t tell anyone but I have a secret.’ There, that’s my security sorted”, The Register, 2020-02-21.

May 22, 2020

The NFL’s (tentative) plan for the 2020 season

Filed under: Business, Football, Health — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At FEE, Jon Miltimore explains what the league’s officials are thinking based on the announcement earlier this week:

Football fans around the world have been anxiously waiting for signs as to whether the NFL season will kick off in September despite concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.

This week, they got the “burning bush” of signs.

The NFL on Tuesday had a soft opening of sorts, opening a number of facilities around the country to personnel, owners, and players rehabilitating from injuries. But it was in a post-meeting conference call with media that NFL officials delivered a bombshell of sorts.

According to multiple reports, NFL executive vice president Jeff Miller and Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, told reporters the NFL fully expects to have COVID-19 cases during the NFL season, and are planning accordingly.

“We have a task force working very diligently on that,” Sills told reporters. “We fully well expect that we will have positive cases that arise because we think that this disease will remain endemic in society. And so it shouldn’t be a surprise if new positive cases arise. Our challenge is to identify them as quickly as possible and to prevent spread to any other participants. So we’re working very diligently on that, and we’ll have some detailed plans to share about that at a later time.”

It did not take long for reporters to process and interpret what the NFL was saying.

“You didn’t even have to read deeply between the lines,” said Charles Robinson, Yahoo’s senior NFL reporter. “What I just heard from the NFL was, ‘Hey, guess what? We are going to open. There is going to be a season. And we are going to have some people test positive for coronavirus once that season begins. And we’re working on a plan to not stop anything. We’re going to work through it.'”

Terez Paylor, a senior writer who also covers the NFL for Yahoo, concurred.

“He’s saying they’re going to play,” Paylor said in a podcast with Robinson. “Basically [they’re saying], ‘People are gonna get it. We’ll try to deal with it the best we can.'”

To be clear, the NFL has made no official decision yet. That being said, it looks like they are heading in that direction.

While some will say it would be reckless to hold the NFL season during a pandemic, it appears the NFL is making its decision based on some of the same assumptions Sweden used in its unique approach to COVID-19.

Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top infectious disease expert and the architect of its “soft-approach” strategy, said one of the reasons he rejected sweeping lockdowns is because the measures simply are not sustainable, considering COVID-19 is going to be with us for years.

May 20, 2020

Bidding farewell to “the dumbest management fad of all time”

Filed under: Business — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Jessica Stillman hails one positive likely outcome of the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic … the end of the “open office plan”:

Example of an open plan office
Photo by VeronicaTherese via Wikimedia Commons.

My Inc.com colleague Geoffrey James memorably called open-plan offices “the dumbest management fad of all time.” And with good reason. Not only do many workers loathe the interruption-prone, privacy-free spaces, but science shows they don’t even achieve their stated aim of fostering greater collaboration.

The current pandemic is a heart-breaking tragedy of epic proportions, but according to experts, it might at least have one small silver lining. Maybe, just maybe it will spell the end of the hated open-plan office.

[…]

All this means employers will need to find creative solutions to get work done even though far fewer people can safely fit in the same space. Continued work-from-home arrangements will certainly be part of the answer, but creative reconfiguring of your physical office is likely to be necessary too.

That’s a headache for facilities managers and bosses, but better news for open-plan office haters. In a post-coronavirus world, you will almost certainly have more privacy at work. In trade for that personal space, however, expect to submit to measures like temperature checks, half-empty break rooms, and a whole lot of hand sanitizer.

May 19, 2020

Some changes to the working world … when the world gets back to working

Filed under: Britain, Business, Economics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Sean Gabb has some thoughts on the post-lockdown return so … well, not normal, but as the economy reaches toward a new working equilibrium:

Kensington High Street at the intersection with Kensington Church Street. Kensington, London, England.
Photo by Ghouston via Wikimedia Commons.

The Coronavirus and its aftermath of lingering paranoia are the perfect excuse. Decentralisation and homeworking must be done. They must be done for the duration. They must be continued after that to maintain social distancing. No one will think ill of Barclays and WPP for taking the leap. No one will blame them for taking the leap in a way that involves a few deviations from course and a less than elegant landing. A year from now, these organisations will be making measurably larger profits than they would be otherwise. The mistakes will have been ignored.

And other organisations will follow. Whether the present crash will bring on a depression shaped like a V or an L, there is no doubt that, even if slowly at first, the wheels of commerce will continue turning. But they will be turning on different rails. As with any change of course, there will be winners and losers. I have already discussed how I can expect to be among the winners. I will leave that as said for the other winners — these being anyone who can find a market for doing from home what was previously required by custom and lack of imagination to be done somewhere else. I will instead mention the losers.

Most obvious among these will be anyone involved in commercial property. Landlords will find themselves with many more square feet to fill than prospective tenants want to fill. Rental and freehold values will crumble. Bearing in mind how much debt is carried by commercial landlords, there will be some interesting business failures in the next few years. Then there are the ancillary sectors — property management companies, commercial estate agents, maintenance companies. These employ swarms of architects and surveyors and lawyers and negotiators, of builders, plumbers, electricians, of drivers and cleaners. If the humbler workers will eventually find other markets, many with degrees and professional qualifications can look to a future of straitened circumstances.

The lush residential estates in and about Central London will follow. I think particularly of the aristocratic residential holdings in Kensington. Houses here go for tens of thousands a week to senior bank workers from abroad. If the City and Canary Wharf are emptied out, who needs to live in a place like Kensington? It has poor Underground connections. It is close by places like Grenfell Tower. Its residents keep predators at bay only by heavy investment of their own in security and by suspecting every knock on the door and every sound in the night. Many of the shops and eateries that make its High Street an enjoyable place to be will not reopen. Those that do reopen will be hobbled by continuing formal and informal rules on social distancing.

As a result, restaurants and pubs and coffee bars will begin to disappear. All but a few of these were barely making normal profit before they were closed last month. So few are in liquidation as yet only because so few petitions have been lodged in the courts. Most of them will now be surplus to requirement. The same can be said of hotels. Speaking for myself, I used to visit Cambridge twice a year on examinations business. I was always put up there for a couple of nights. I shall now do from home all that I did in Cambridge. I doubt I am alone. Zoom will destroy business travel. In the same way, bigger televisions plus continued social distancing will finish off the theatres and cinemas — also in decline before last month.

May 16, 2020

QotD: Division of labour in the modern world

Filed under: Business, Economics, Quotations, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

… digital devices slow us down in subtler ways, too. Microsoft Office may be as much a drag on productivity as Candy Crush Saga. To see why, consider Adam Smith’s argument that economic progress was built on a foundation of the division of labour. His most celebrated example was a simple pin factory: “One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points” and 10 men together made nearly 50,000 pins a day.

In another example — the making of a woollen coat — Smith emphasises that the division of labour allows us to use machines, even “that very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool”.

The shepherd has the perfect tool for a focused task. That tool needs countless other focused specialists: the bricklayer who built the foundry; the collier who mined fuel; the smith who forged the blades. It is a reinforcing spiral: the division of labour lets us build new machines, while machines work best when jobs have been divided into one small task after another.

The rise of the computer complicates this story. Computers can certainly continue the process of specialisation, parcelling out jobs into repetitive chunks, but fundamentally they are general purpose devices, and by running software such as Microsoft Office they are turning many of us into generalists.

In a modern office there are no specialist typists; we all need to be able to pick our way around a keyboard. PowerPoint has made amateur slide designers of everyone. Once a slide would be produced by a professional, because no one else had the necessary equipment or training. Now anyone can have a go — and they do.

Well-paid middle managers with no design skills take far too long to produce ugly slides that nobody wants to look at. They also file their own expenses, book their own travel and, for that matter, do their own shopping in the supermarket. On a bill-by-the-minute basis none of this makes sense.

Why do we behave like this? It is partly a matter of pride: since everyone has the tools to build a website or lay out a book, it feels a little feeble to hand the job over to a professional. And it is partly bad organisational design: sacking the administrative assistants and telling senior staff to do their own expenses can look, superficially, like a cost saving.

Tim Harford, “Why Microsoft Office is a bigger productivity drain than Candy Crush Saga”, The Undercover Economist, 2018-02-02.

May 14, 2020

QotD: Anti-dumping laws

Filed under: Business, Economics, Government, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The antidumping law is defended as a remedy for market distortions caused by foreign government policies. Yet in actual practice, the methods of determining dumping under the law fail, repeatedly and at multiple levels, to distinguish between normal commercial pricing practices and those that reflect market-distorting government policies.

As a result, antidumping law as it currently exists routinely punishes normal competitive business practices — practices commonly engaged in by American companies at home and abroad. It is therefore not the case that the law guarantees a level playing field for American companies and their foreign competitors. On the contrary, it actively discriminates against foreign goods by subjecting them to requirements not applicable to American products.

Brink Lindsey and Dan Ikenson, Antidumping Exposed: The Devilish Details of Unfair Trade Laws, 2003.

May 13, 2020

Okay, I’ll be careful not to call this “deceptive advertising” in future

Filed under: Business, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At View from the Porch, Tam explains why digital camera terminology sometimes seems to be deliberately deceptive:

The disconnect comes when you run into the “luxury” or “enthusiast” end of the compact camera market, where the physical size of the 1″ sensor in cameras like Sony’s RX100 line or the Canon PowerShot G7/G9 is touted as a selling point.

Because the sensor itself is not physically an inch in any dimension. For that matter, a tiny 1/2.5″ sensor isn’t two fifths of an inch in any dimension either.

Small CCD/CMOS video sensors are labeled based on the size of video tube they replace. These tubes had a rectilinear imaging surface inside the cylindrical glass vacuum tube. Inside a 1″ tube would be an imaging surface measuring 16mm diagonally, or a little less. When solid state sensors started replacing tubes forty years ago, they were labeled according to the tube they’d replace.

So to this day, a sensor 16mm (or a bit less) diagonally is still called a 1″ sensor.

For that matter, “35mm” film is only 35mm if you measure from edge-to-edge, sprocket holes and all. “Full Frame/35mm” sensors are only about 29mm diagonally; there aren’t any digital sprocket holes.

Just like we still “dial” and “hang up” our cell phones, even though phones with dials and handsets that you hang on the wall are a vanishing memory, digital imaging technology is still named after the analog technologies it supplanted.

May 9, 2020

Sidewalk Labs pulls out of their Panopticon-on-the-harbour project in Toronto

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Cancon, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Chris Selley clearly hoped the Google-affiliated Sidewalk Labs would turn out to be a benign addition to the Waterfront:

Sidewalk Labs Toronto demo, 17 April 2019.
Photo by Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Scalable Grid Engine via Wikimedia Commons.

It would be a mixed-income and family-friendly community: 20 per cent low-income and 20 per cent middle-income, with 40 per cent of units two-bedrooms or larger. It would be fantastically energy-efficient. It would discourage waste production using “pay-as-you-throw chutes” leading to pneumatic tubes that would rocket your trash, recycling and organic waste to the proper facilities.

Some of the details seemed a bit far-fetched, and some of the ideas came to naught at the design stage. But the Google family of companies is not known for wretched failure. To many Torontonians, it was a compelling vision.

Unfortunately, a lot of the very people it was designed to impress hated the hell out of it.

[…]

So there is blame to go around — and to be clear, no one is officially blaming the city bureaucracy or the project’s opponents for scuppering the deal. But the fact is, Sidewalk simply wandered into the wrong saloon. Toronto is an intensely conservative city in the strictest sense of the word. Its establishment doesn’t even believe things that work in other cities would work here. It’s why we pilot-project food carts to death, instead of just allowing food carts. It’s why we’re closing parks and crowding people on sidewalks during the pandemic, instead of following other the lead of other cities and dedicating roads to safely spaced pedestrians and cyclists. When Ontario loosened alcohol regulations, many Torontonians predicted tailgate parties and picnics-with-wine would lead to mayhem — and they really, really meant it.

Sidewalk wanted to do something no other city had ever done. You can imagine the terror and confusion it sowed. And that was over 12 acres — six football fields. Toronto has a great many things going for it. I have argued in the past that its conservatism, broadly speaking, has served it very well. But Sidewalk reminded us what we trade for that. If we can’t take a bit of a chance on 12 acres, it doesn’t bode at all well for the many hundreds of other acres in this city that have been begging for redevelopment my entire lifetime — not if we want them to be at all innovative or memorable, anyway.

May 8, 2020

Fallen flag — the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway

Filed under: Business, History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

This month’s fallen flag article for Classic Trains is the story of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway by George Drury:

Pages from a circa 1937 booklet about the Santa Fe trains The Chief and the Super Chief. The railroad was showcasing the streamlined changes made to its main Chicago to California trains. Super Chief had given up its boxcab locomotives for EMC E1 units. Chief was no longer pulled by the “Blue Goose” steam locomotive, but by EMD diesel locomotives.
Wikimedia Commons.

The Atchison & Topeka Railroad was chartered in 1859 to join the towns of its title and continue southwest toward Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“Santa Fe” was added to the corporate name in 1863. Construction started in 1869; by the end of 1872 the railroad extended to the Kansas-Colorado border, opening much of Kansas to settlement and carrying wheat and cattle east to markets. The railroad temporarily set aside its goal of Santa Fe — once the trading capital of the Spanish colony in that area — and continued building west, reaching Pueblo, Colorado, in 1876, just in time for the silver rush at Leadville, Colorado.

In 1878, the railroad resumed construction toward Santa Fe, building southwest from La Junta to Trinidad, Colorado, then south over Raton Pass. It chose that route instead of an easier route south across the plains from Dodge City because of Native American attacks and a lack of water on the southerly route and coal deposits near Trinidad, Colorado, and Raton, New Mexico.

The Denver & Rio Grande was also aiming at Raton Pass, but Santa Fe crews arose early one morning in 1878 and were hard at work with picks and shovels when the Rio Grande crews showed up after breakfast. At the same time the two railroads skirmished over occupancy of the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River west of Canon City, Colorado; the Rio Grande won that battle.

The Santa Fe reached Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1880 (because of geography the city of Santa Fe found itself at the end of a short branch from Lamy, New Mexico) and connected with the Southern Pacific at Deming, New Mexico, in 1881. The Santa Fe then built southwest from Benson, Arizona, to Nogales, on the Mexican border. There it connected with the Sonora Railway, which Santa Fe interests had constructed north from the Mexican port of Guaymas.

Comparison map showing the Santa Fe Trail and the ATSF Railway, 1922.
Map from By the Way – A condensed guide of points of interest along the Santa Fe lines to California, Rand McNally and Company via Wikimedia Commons.

In 1960 the Santa Fe bought the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad, then sold a half interest to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The TP&W cut straight east across Illinois from near Fort Madison, Iowa, to a connection with the Pennsy at Effner, Indiana, forming a bypass around Chicago for traffic moving between the two lines. The TP&W route didn’t mesh with the traffic pattern Conrail developed after 1976, so Santa Fe bought back the other half, merged the TP&W in 1983, then sold it back into independence in 1989.

During the 1960s the Santa Fe explored merger with the Frisco and the Missouri Pacific with no success. By 1980 Santa Fe, which had been the top railroad in route mileage in the 1950s, was surrounded by larger railroads. It was well managed and profitable, and it had the best route between the Midwest and Southern California, but its neighbors were larger, and friendly connections had been taken over by rival railroads. Southern Pacific was in the same situation. In 1980 Santa Fe and SP proposed merger. Approval seemed certain, but in 1986 the Interstate Commerce Commission denied permission because the merger would create a railroad monopoly in New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

The Santa Fe, suddenly the smallest of the Super Seven freight railroads, began spinning off branches and secondary lines and became primarily a conduit for containers and trailers moving between the Midwest and Southern California. In June 1994 Santa Fe and Burlington Northern announced their intention to merge — BN would buy Santa Fe. The deal was consummated in 1995, forming the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, known today as BNSF Railway.

The denied merger between the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe included an eye-catching proposed “Kodachrome” paint scheme for locomotives, as described in the Wikipedia article:

The holding company controlled all the rail and non-rail assets of the former Santa Fe Industries and Southern Pacific Company, and it was intended that the two railroads would be merged. They were confident enough that this would be approved that they began repainting locomotives into a new unified paint scheme, including the letters SP or SF and an adjacent empty space for the other two (as SPSF, the reverse order of the holding company).

The locomotive livery featured the Santa Fe’s Yellowbonnet with a red stripe on the locomotive’s nose; the remainder of the locomotive body was painted in Southern Pacific’s scarlet red (from their Bloody Nose scheme) with a black roof and black extending down to the lower part of the locomotive’s radiator grills. The numberboards were red with white numbers. In large block letters within the red portion of the sides was either “SP” (for Southern Pacific-owned locomotives) or “SF” (for Santa Fe-owned locomotives). The lettering was positioned on the locomotive sides so that the other half of the lettering could be added after the merger became official. Two ATSF EMD SD45-2s (ATSF #7219 and #7221) were painted with the full SPSF lettering to show what the unified paint scheme would look like after the merger was complete. One Santa Fe caboose was also painted with “SPSF” in a similar situation.

This paint scheme, combining yellow, red and black, has come to be called the Kodachrome paint scheme due to the colors’ resemblance to those on the boxes that Kodak used to package its Kodachrome slide film (which was heavily used by railfans of the time). After the ICC’s denial, railroad industry writers, employees of both railroads and railfans alike joked that SPSF really stood for “Shouldn’t Paint So Fast”.

May 7, 2020

Interesting change in shipping patterns … to avoid the Suez canal

Filed under: Business, Economics, Middle East — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Colby Cosh linked to this story at gcaptain.com which would have been an unbelievable one in the pre-epidemic world:

A column of ships along the Suez Canal on 3 December, 2011.
Photo by https://web.archive.org/web/20161022104657/http://www.panoramio.com/user/2433337?with_photo_id=64163879 via Wikimedia Commons.

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) is set to lose over $10m in revenue from container lines routing vessels via the Cape of Good Hope rather than its waterway.

According to new Alphaliner research, “the number of containerships that have opted to use the Cape route and bypass the Suez Canal has risen to a historic peace-time high,” including at least 20 sailings on the Asia-Europe, Europe-Asia and North America east coast-Asia trades.

“A unique combination of a container tonnage surplus and rock-bottom bunker prices has increasingly prompted ocean carriers to avoid the canal – and thus its fees,” the analyst noted today.

“Rather unusually, even three westbound Asia-Europe headhaul sailings have opted for the Cape route, all operated by CMA CGM.

“Carriers very rarely choose this longer route for the time-sensitive headhaul, but the low bunker price and lack of demand in European markets, hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns, have suddenly made such moves viable,” it added.

May 6, 2020

Essential private sector workers and non-essential government workers

Filed under: Business, Economics, Government — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

A couple of articles at the Foundation for Economic Education look at the arbitrary division of peoples’ jobs into two broad categories:

In a recent TV appearance with Dana Perino on The Daily Briefing, [Mike] Rowe made it clear he’s not a fan of the terms “essential” and “non-essential” worker. The problem with such a view, Rowe said, is that such terms have little actual meaning and the economy makes no such distinction.

“There’s something tricky with the language going on here, because with regard to an economy, I don’t think there is any such thing as a nonessential worker,” Rowe said. “This is basically a quilt … and if you start pulling on jobs and tugging on careers over here and over there, the whole thing will bunch up in a weird way.”

Rowe’s message is precisely what FEE president and economist Zilvinas Silenas was getting at in a recent article published at Townhall.

    Allowing politicians to decide which businesses and products are “essential” is an invitation for disaster. If we continue to deny these businesses the ability to do the one essential thing they are best at — providing goods and services to millions of everyday Americans — we risk more than unemployment or recession of stock price plunge. We deprive ourselves of the best resource — our people — during the time of need.

The truth is, all workers are essential.

Unfortunately, all too often what is deemed “essential” is simply what’s convenient to state leaders making the decisions. Few would suggest that liquor store owners are inherently more essential than pizza parlor owners — except perhaps state revenue collectors. No doubt this is the same reason Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer concluded that lottery tickets are essential, but gardening seeds are not.

Liquor stores and lottery tickets aren’t especially “essential” to Americans, just state budgets. But as one Washington State sheriff noted in April, this seems to be the criteria state leaders often use to determine what is “essential” and “non-essential”: whether it helps the government’s bottom line.

When the state picks winners and losers it’s not only unfair, however. It’s also destructive.

In the other piece, J. Kyle deVries points out that government cannot be immunized from the economic harm the shutdown has and continues to inflict on the private sector:

So far millions in the private sector have lost their jobs or have been furloughed — but not many in government have. Many government employees continue to get salaries and benefits despite not working. Their agencies most certainly will not have as much work to do since major portions of the economy are closing down. Many agencies won’t even be needed any longer, but you better believe they will continue to be funded and probably expanded over time. That is outrageous. As we suffer economically, government should not be exempted.

This phenomenon is truly confounding and unfair. After all, government does not exist without taxes and taxes can only come from people who produce and earn a living — in other words, the private sector. The private sector supports government employees who, on average, receive higher pay, better perquisites and much better retirement plans. That should change. As we restructure our economy in the wake of the coronavirus, government should be restructured as well.

Businesses have no guarantee they will remain in business — they must provide their customers with a quality product or service at a competitive price or they will go bust. But government agencies remain in place for life, even if they continue to provide lousy services at outrageous expense. Government needs to show us they are with us during this fight. Part of doing so is to take a hard look at various agencies and departments to see if they can be improved or if they need to be eliminated. Before you say that would be difficult, let’s look at some obvious choices.

April 28, 2020

Robber Barons and the Battle of the Tunnel

Filed under: Business, Government, History, Law, Politics, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 1 Feb 2019

During the gilded age ruthless businessmen fought for control of railway lines. The Albany and Susquehanna railroad was another battlefield in the “Railroad wars.” In this episode, The History Guy remembers “the Battle of the Tunnel”.

This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As images of actual events are sometimes not available, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheHistoryGuy

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.

Awesome The History Guy merchandise is available at:
teespring.com/stores/the-history-guy

Script by THG

#newyork #thehistoryguy #ushistory

April 27, 2020

The NFL may have a problem … everyone seems to have liked the virtual draft better than the “real” thing

Filed under: Business, Football, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

It is usually difficult to muster much sympathy for the National Football League, but the record-setting popularity of the 2020 draft is a huge surprise:

The unique presentation of the 2020 NFL Draft established new all-time highs for media consumption in every category. With over 600 camera feeds from homes across the United States, all telecasts of the 2020 NFL Draft reached more than 55 million total viewers across Nielsen-measured channels over the three-day event, up +16% vs. 2019. An average audience of over 8.4 million viewers watched all three days of the 2020 NFL Draft across ABC, ESPN, NFL Network, ESPN Deportes, and digital channels easily breaking the previous high of 6.2 million viewers in 2019 (+35%).

Each day of the 2020 NFL Draft established new highs as an average audience of over 15.6 million viewers watched Round 1 on Thursday (+37% vs. 2019), over 8.2 million viewers watched Rounds 2 & 3 on Friday (+40% vs. 2019), and over 4.2 million viewers watched Rounds 4-7 on Saturday (+32% vs. 2019).

All seven rounds of the 2020 NFL Draft were presented across ABC, ESPN, and NFL Network – the second straight year that The Walt Disney Company partnered with the National Football League to offer a multi-network presentation of the entire Draft.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the efforts and collaboration of our clubs, league personnel, and our partners to conduct an efficient Draft and share an unforgettable experience with millions of fans during these uncertain times,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. “This Draft is the latest chapter in the NFL’s storied history of lifting the spirit of America and unifying people. In addition to celebrating the accomplishments of so many talented young men, we were pleased that this unique Draft helped shine a light on today’s true heroes – the healthcare workers, first responders, and countless others on the front lines in the battle against COVID-19. We are also grateful to all those who contributed to the NFL family’s fundraising efforts.”

“This year’s NFL Draft clearly took on a much greater meaning and it’s especially gratifying for ESPN to have played a role in presenting this unique event to a record number of NFL fans while supporting the league’s efforts to give back,” said ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro. “The success of this year’s Draft is a testament to the unprecedented collaboration across the NFL, ESPN, and The Walt Disney Co. in the midst of such a challenging time.”

The unique situation of having the vast majority of televised sports activities suspended clearly made a big difference — when you’re the only game in town, you can expect a wider audience — but the online draft seems to have been popular even among people who normally would have tuned in for the event anyway.

April 24, 2020

Prizes, patents, and the Society of the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce

Filed under: Britain, Business, Economics, History, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the most recent Age of Invention newsletter, Anton Howes explains why the Society of the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (now the Royal Society of Arts) wasn’t a fan of the British patent system and preferred to award prizes in areas that were unlikely to generate monopoly situations:

The back of the Royal Society of Arts building in London, 25 August 2005.
Photo by C.G.P. Grey (www.CGPGrey.com) via Wikimedia Commons.

… the Society’s early members had an aversion to monopolies, and patents are, after all, temporary monopolies. But there was actually a more practical reason to not give rewards to patented inventions. In fact, quite a few active members of the Society were themselves patentees, and patents for inventions were not generally lumped together for condemnation with practices like forestalling and engrossing. The practical reason for banning patents was that there was no point giving a prize for something that people were already doing anyway. Patents were expensive in the eighteenth century — depending on how you account for inflation, it could cost about £300,000 in modern terms to obtain one — so the fact that there was a patent for a process was a clear indication that it might be profitable. The Society, by contrast, was supposed to encourage things that would not otherwise have been done.

Thus, when a patent had already been granted for a process the Society had been considering giving a premium for, it purposefully backed down — not because the prize would infringe on the patent, but because its encouragement was no longer necessary. And so the effect of the ban on patented inventions was that the Society received, even unsolicited, exactly the kinds of inventions that there was less monetary incentive to invent. Occasionally, this meant trivial improvements — minor tweaks, here and there, to existing processes. An engineer might patent one invention, but not see it worth their time patenting another — through the Society’s prizes, they might at least get a bit of cash for it, or some recognition. The improvement would also be promoted through the Society’s publications. Or, the Society received inventions that were far from trivial, like the scandiscope for cleaning chimneys [here], but which were not all that profitable: inventions that saved lives, or had other beneficial effects on the health and wellbeing of workers and consumers. And finally, the Society received innovations that could not be patented, such as agricultural practices and the opening of new import trades. In the early nineteenth century the Society awarded its prizes to a whole host of naval officers, including an admiral, who came up with flag-based signalling systems between ships — early forms of semaphore.

Another effect of the ban on patents was that the Society also attracted submissions from different demographics. Many of its submissions came from people who were too poor to afford patents, as well as from those who were too rich — wealthy aristocrats for whom commercial considerations might seem vulgar. The poor would generally go for the cash prizes, and the aristocrats for the honorary medals. And the prizes were used by people who might otherwise be socially excluded from invention. In 1758, for example, the Society instructed its members in the American colonies to accept submissions from Native Americans. It also allowed women to claim premiums (just as it allowed them to be members). My favourite example is Ann Williams, postmistress at Gravesend, in Kent, who won twenty guineas from the Society in 1778 for her observations on the feeding and rearing of silk-worms. She kept them in one of the post-office pigeon-holes, referring to them affectionately as “my little family” of “innocent reptiles”. Unlike other elements of society, the Society of Arts accepted, as she put it to them, that “curiosity is inherent to all the daughters of Eve.”

The Society thus encouraged the kinds of inventions that might not otherwise have been created, and catered to the kinds of inventors who might not otherwise have been recognised. Rather than competing with the patent system, it complemented it, filling in the gaps that it left. The Society operated at the margins, and only at the margins, to the better completion of the whole. It found its niche, to the benefit of innovation overall.

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