Daily Archives: February 16, 2005

Horace & Selling Out

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Dave published an essay today, let’s call it an essay “mini” in keeping with the times, on product development & selling out. Well worth reading.

Dave’s words remind me of past experiences in the large, corporate world. Product A is created or acquired. Over time, the things that made Product A useful, interesting and marketable are slowly taken away (juice content (Pepsi Slice), flavors, quantity) while prices go up. We might refer to this as an MBA approach to product development, though that is too harsh. Perhaps it is more of a corporate vs entrepreneur approach.

In any event, it happens all too often.

Consumer Database Giant Gives Personal Information to Fake Firms

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Bob Sullivan:

Criminals posing as legitimate businesses have accessed critical personal data stored by ChoicePoint Inc., a firm that maintains databases of background information on virtually every U.S. citizen, MSNBC.com has learned.
The incident involves a wide swath of consumer data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, credit reports and other information. ChoicePoint aggregates and sells such personal information to government agencies and private companies.

California is the only state that requires these personal data mining firms to notify people who have had their information compromised. I wonder where our political leaders stand on this?

The Culture of Spending

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Alex Tabarrok:

The political scientist James Payne argued that there is a culture of spending in Congress.  Even people elected on a platform of cutting government become enured to higher spending as week after week they hear witnesses saying how much more money is needed and how many more problems could be solved if only you, the great Congressperson, would use your power to spend.

Posner: Abolish Medicare

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Richard Posner:

As a matter of economic principle (and I think social justice as well), Medicare should be abolished. Then the principal government medical-payment program would be Medicaid, a means-based system of social insurance that is part of the safety net for the indigent. Were Medicare abolished, the nonpoor would finance health care in their old age by buying health insurance when they were young.