Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
The Money, Life Balance
Is the love of money the root of all evil?
What is the meaning of money? I don't mean in the general sense... like what is the meaning of life. I mean what does it mean to you?
What is the meaning of money? I don't mean in the general sense... like what is the meaning of life. I mean what does it mean to you?
You would think that the basics are pretty simple right. How do you get money? What do you do with money? How much money do you need?
How do you get money? The vast majority of people work for it. I am going to ignore the people who don't work for money because this is not a general thesis about money but about what it means to most people. Working is really selling or renting. What you are selling or renting is your capacity to do some function for a given amount of time. You are selling or renting this to someone else (company, individual etc). In exchange for providing this commodity you get some number of dollars, rupees, etc. It seems really simple, does this really apply to everyone?
Let's make this idea really concrete. If you are curious and want the unabridged version checkout the following links. They tell an interesting story.
US demographics - wikipedia
Who decides to hire you? Your boss? Who decides to hire her? you can ask this question all the way to the CEO. Who decides to hire the CEO? The board of directors. Who hires them? You. The stock holder (if you are a stock holder that is).
Now let's talk about pay. Your pay. How does your pay get determined? Your boss has some work that she needs to get done. Based on that she knows she has to hire some one with certain ability and competence. How do you or your employer decide how much your capacity to do a particular function is worth? Same way you put a price on a gallon of milk. There are suppliers there are consumers and the price is a balancing between supply and demand. So you come in for an interview and if all goes well, your boss has to negotiate a salary with you. You look at what other people that perform the same function get paid. You boss also looks at the same thing. They make an offer or ask you how much you want. If either she thought you asked too much or you thought she offered too little, you walk away and find another buyer and she will find another seller. The same thing happened to your boss when her salary was decided. This continues all the way to the CEO. What is the CEO responsible for? Making sure that the company as a whole continues to make money. Who decides the pay for the CEO? The board of directors. Welcome to the circle of pay.
But we only covered one part of the circle. How does your company get the money to pay you. By selling products or services of course.
We are still not done with the circle. Now that you have money, what do you spend it on? Things that you need and want. For example a house, food, clothing, cars, gas, banking, electricity, music, movies, cellphones, tvs, sofas, dining rooms , the list goes on and on. Who provides these services? ... the companies and finally you.
That completes the circle of money. So you buy other people's time with your time. So time is indeed money and money is time. A carpenter's time, a banker's time, your time my time. Your time is your life. So that is the meaning of money.
If money is life, then is love of your life the root of all evil?
Friday, December 7, 2007
The new imperialism
The new imperialism
Imagine a world where companies backed by their governments are staking claim to huge territories in foreign lands where they, and they alone, set the rules. Sound like 16th century? It isn't.
In the past few hundred years, Imperialistic nations have used their military, political and scientific superiority to harvest the treasures of the less mature ones. Now we are starting a whole new cycle based on Intellectual Property laws shoved down the throats of the immature countries through
Monopolistic power perpetuates and grows stronger
Instead of staking claim to land and physical resources they are staking claim to vast intellectual areas where they get monopoly stake (ie patent) for several years (a lifetime in internet age). During that time this monopoly/patent will give them pricing power and power to innovate which in-turn guarantees further monopolies. What I mean is, once you as a company have an income stream coming from monopolies, you can then divert that flow towards more IP (Intellectual Property) creating more monopolies for perpetuity.
Why can't companies and governments in the immature countries do this? Any one can. But these young countries and companies are going against companies and governments that already have a great competency in this area. How can a immature organization, that is unfamiliar with this form of imperialism, get it's act together in time to save itself some IP territory?
A lesson from the tragedies of the Native American experience
To give a historical example, the first successful English colony in North America was established in 1607. This was a small colony barely able to survive. From that point in time to the new constitution of North America was less than 200 years. Within that time frame the fate of the Native Americans, as inconsequential minority owners of North American territory, was sealed. There is a lot of similarity between the way the east views Intellectual Property and Native Americans viewed Land ownership. The very concept of ownership of certain things is foreign. Think about something like land. After all how can one own land? It is not created by man. It existed a long time before we were born and will continue to exist long after we are gone. So the native Americans gave up most of their territorial claim without a fight. By the time they grasped what was happening, it was too late.
Similarly people of the east (and many in the west) are baffled about monopoly (ownership) of ideas (patents). How can one stake a claim on an idea or a process or software? Software is just some invisible ordering of bytes on a hard drive. Large mature corporations are encouraging their mature governments to create IP laws that apply to ideas and products of the mind as property laws once started to apply to land and other physical property. They are then urging their governments to cajole, prod and push immature nations to adopt their versions of law. They are holding current trade and economic carrots over the heads of these immature nations. The immature nations then adopt these laws falling for the argument that the local companies will benefit as much as mature western companies from the IP laws. As soon as the laws are passed the mature companies will gobble up IP territory leaving the local companies in dust.
What can we do?
This is much to ask, but corporate and political leadership and people of immature countries have to wake up to this new kind of imperialism. Unfortunately, they have to mature faster. They cannot give up their rights for a pittance. IP laws must be examined and their legitimacy challenged. The often used argument that it promotes economic development must be re-examined. Perhaps certain things should not be allowed to be patented. Perhaps patents should not apply to public domain software (like open source). After all open source software defies the argument that without patents protection, people will not create things. i.e what patent protection did open source software need? Did it not come to exist?
Since fighting the system is hard and long work, fighting within the system must be encouraged. The immature economies should start to stake claim in the IP landscape at a higher pace. They must patent ideas locally and abroad. Government funded initiatives to fund IP defense should be considered. Since many of these economies spend billions on a physical military, perhaps a small percentage of this can be spared to create an IP defense.
What can you do?
Spread the idea. Talk to your friends, and their friends. Educate politicians. Come up with better arguments than mine. Write more. Express you intolerance of injustice in words and deeds. They are powerful.
Think about things
Reexamine carefully the benefit to society of idea monopoly. Reexamine the terms that a society gets for leasing monopoly of an idea (patents) to a company or individual. Should it be shorter? Should there be exemptions for public domain products? Should certain IP territories not be open for this kind of monopoly (like National Parks)? Should certain societies be allowed to mature their intellectual framework so that they don't start from a huge disadvantage? How can we measure the maturity level of a society to see if it can handle the armies of IP?
Thanks for listening.
P.S.
Is all IP bad?
No. IP is essential. There is some merit to the argument that only if we are allowed to own a monopoly to an invention will we risk our time (and capital) to work on it. We must reestablish this balance so that the benefit to the world community and the idea originator is equitable. We must also come to terms with the fact that many people are capable coming up with the same idea when confronted with a problem. Sometimes even when the problem is not the same the great idea is the same. ex. Newton and Leibniz. As the population of the world increases this becomes more and more likely. The cost of disseminating these ideas have dropped to almost zero. So the value derived by society for providing this monopoly to an individual company has diminished a great deal. Yet we keep increasing the value that the IP originator derives from the idea.
Imagine a world where companies backed by their governments are staking claim to huge territories in foreign lands where they, and they alone, set the rules. Sound like 16th century? It isn't.
In the past few hundred years, Imperialistic nations have used their military, political and scientific superiority to harvest the treasures of the less mature ones. Now we are starting a whole new cycle based on Intellectual Property laws shoved down the throats of the immature countries through
- short sighted local politicians
- better organized mature capital
- better political organization of the mature countries.
Monopolistic power perpetuates and grows stronger
Instead of staking claim to land and physical resources they are staking claim to vast intellectual areas where they get monopoly stake (ie patent) for several years (a lifetime in internet age). During that time this monopoly/patent will give them pricing power and power to innovate which in-turn guarantees further monopolies. What I mean is, once you as a company have an income stream coming from monopolies, you can then divert that flow towards more IP (Intellectual Property) creating more monopolies for perpetuity.
Why can't companies and governments in the immature countries do this? Any one can. But these young countries and companies are going against companies and governments that already have a great competency in this area. How can a immature organization, that is unfamiliar with this form of imperialism, get it's act together in time to save itself some IP territory?
A lesson from the tragedies of the Native American experience
To give a historical example, the first successful English colony in North America was established in 1607. This was a small colony barely able to survive. From that point in time to the new constitution of North America was less than 200 years. Within that time frame the fate of the Native Americans, as inconsequential minority owners of North American territory, was sealed. There is a lot of similarity between the way the east views Intellectual Property and Native Americans viewed Land ownership. The very concept of ownership of certain things is foreign. Think about something like land. After all how can one own land? It is not created by man. It existed a long time before we were born and will continue to exist long after we are gone. So the native Americans gave up most of their territorial claim without a fight. By the time they grasped what was happening, it was too late.
Similarly people of the east (and many in the west) are baffled about monopoly (ownership) of ideas (patents). How can one stake a claim on an idea or a process or software? Software is just some invisible ordering of bytes on a hard drive. Large mature corporations are encouraging their mature governments to create IP laws that apply to ideas and products of the mind as property laws once started to apply to land and other physical property. They are then urging their governments to cajole, prod and push immature nations to adopt their versions of law. They are holding current trade and economic carrots over the heads of these immature nations. The immature nations then adopt these laws falling for the argument that the local companies will benefit as much as mature western companies from the IP laws. As soon as the laws are passed the mature companies will gobble up IP territory leaving the local companies in dust.
What can we do?
This is much to ask, but corporate and political leadership and people of immature countries have to wake up to this new kind of imperialism. Unfortunately, they have to mature faster. They cannot give up their rights for a pittance. IP laws must be examined and their legitimacy challenged. The often used argument that it promotes economic development must be re-examined. Perhaps certain things should not be allowed to be patented. Perhaps patents should not apply to public domain software (like open source). After all open source software defies the argument that without patents protection, people will not create things. i.e what patent protection did open source software need? Did it not come to exist?
Since fighting the system is hard and long work, fighting within the system must be encouraged. The immature economies should start to stake claim in the IP landscape at a higher pace. They must patent ideas locally and abroad. Government funded initiatives to fund IP defense should be considered. Since many of these economies spend billions on a physical military, perhaps a small percentage of this can be spared to create an IP defense.
What can you do?
Spread the idea. Talk to your friends, and their friends. Educate politicians. Come up with better arguments than mine. Write more. Express you intolerance of injustice in words and deeds. They are powerful.
Think about things
Reexamine carefully the benefit to society of idea monopoly. Reexamine the terms that a society gets for leasing monopoly of an idea (patents) to a company or individual. Should it be shorter? Should there be exemptions for public domain products? Should certain IP territories not be open for this kind of monopoly (like National Parks)? Should certain societies be allowed to mature their intellectual framework so that they don't start from a huge disadvantage? How can we measure the maturity level of a society to see if it can handle the armies of IP?
Thanks for listening.
P.S.
Is all IP bad?
No. IP is essential. There is some merit to the argument that only if we are allowed to own a monopoly to an invention will we risk our time (and capital) to work on it. We must reestablish this balance so that the benefit to the world community and the idea originator is equitable. We must also come to terms with the fact that many people are capable coming up with the same idea when confronted with a problem. Sometimes even when the problem is not the same the great idea is the same. ex. Newton and Leibniz. As the population of the world increases this becomes more and more likely. The cost of disseminating these ideas have dropped to almost zero. So the value derived by society for providing this monopoly to an individual company has diminished a great deal. Yet we keep increasing the value that the IP originator derives from the idea.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Treatment of terrorist incidents by news media
The quest for truth in news.
What is happening?
When people in the west see news stories related to war or terrorism, the stories are gentler versions of reality.
Who is doing this?
The who is simple. They are our mothers and grandmothers and grandfathers and fathers and brother and sisters and friends and of the folks around us. At least it is the subsection that make up news organizations. Let us start out by making the assumption that most people in the news organizations are good decent folks. Why is this reasonable reasonable you might ask? They are part of the tapestry of our society and mostly the sort of people we would normally interact with. While we think about this topic we should always keep this as part of the background.
Why does it happen?
Perhaps the thinking of the reporters and editors is that the feelings of gentle souls can be spared.
Perhaps it is a reaction from the days of sensationalist yellow journalism. In order to maintain an appearance of non-sensationalist journalism, they have moved in the opposite direction. Sort of like a politician who must eliminate even the look of impropriety.
Perhaps it is the desire to influence the intellectual part of their readership rather than their emotional part. Reason might be better than emotion.
Perhaps it's political. Even editors, and reporters must be affected by the influences of political structure. An incontinent truth must be hard to publish. The political structure in power will resist it. Also people with agenda, knowledge of the news systems, and the right connections can and will try to influence the news. This is just natural. They are doing what they think is the greatest good for society from their perspective.
Maybe it's systemic. Somehow the system of forces in our system conspires to produce this outcome. One might think this is not possible, however we know from the famous Stanford prison experiment that good people can be made to produce bad outcomes because of the way a system is set-up.
Perhaps it is a combination of all these things.
The one thing that does not help, is blaming any set of well-intentioned, smart and good people who work hard to keep us informed. I also happen to know that in many cases they don't get paid very well and do this because of a true love of their profession.
Result
I want to experiment with possibility that these well intentioned distortions of reality will lead us to the road to hell. Democracy has the ability to correct the mistakes of the elected few people. These elected leaders assume the mantle of power and responsibility and move us forward in the direction they promised. However an uninformed (or worse mis-informed) democracy will not be able to make the right judgments about the direction we should take. A small error in direction if corrected early enough will be far less costly than a much larger correction later in time.
Hope
In the quest for truth, reporter and editors are our warriors and priests. My sincere pleading to the willing members of this noble profession is to please bring us closer to the truth. We need the truth to defend our democracy and freedom.
Give us the unvarnished, unpolished, raw and necessary truth. For only the truth can set us free.
What is happening?
When people in the west see news stories related to war or terrorism, the stories are gentler versions of reality.
Who is doing this?
The who is simple. They are our mothers and grandmothers and grandfathers and fathers and brother and sisters and friends and of the folks around us. At least it is the subsection that make up news organizations. Let us start out by making the assumption that most people in the news organizations are good decent folks. Why is this reasonable reasonable you might ask? They are part of the tapestry of our society and mostly the sort of people we would normally interact with. While we think about this topic we should always keep this as part of the background.
Why does it happen?
Perhaps the thinking of the reporters and editors is that the feelings of gentle souls can be spared.
Perhaps it is a reaction from the days of sensationalist yellow journalism. In order to maintain an appearance of non-sensationalist journalism, they have moved in the opposite direction. Sort of like a politician who must eliminate even the look of impropriety.
Perhaps it is the desire to influence the intellectual part of their readership rather than their emotional part. Reason might be better than emotion.
Perhaps it's political. Even editors, and reporters must be affected by the influences of political structure. An incontinent truth must be hard to publish. The political structure in power will resist it. Also people with agenda, knowledge of the news systems, and the right connections can and will try to influence the news. This is just natural. They are doing what they think is the greatest good for society from their perspective.
Maybe it's systemic. Somehow the system of forces in our system conspires to produce this outcome. One might think this is not possible, however we know from the famous Stanford prison experiment that good people can be made to produce bad outcomes because of the way a system is set-up.
Perhaps it is a combination of all these things.
The one thing that does not help, is blaming any set of well-intentioned, smart and good people who work hard to keep us informed. I also happen to know that in many cases they don't get paid very well and do this because of a true love of their profession.
Result
I want to experiment with possibility that these well intentioned distortions of reality will lead us to the road to hell. Democracy has the ability to correct the mistakes of the elected few people. These elected leaders assume the mantle of power and responsibility and move us forward in the direction they promised. However an uninformed (or worse mis-informed) democracy will not be able to make the right judgments about the direction we should take. A small error in direction if corrected early enough will be far less costly than a much larger correction later in time.
Hope
In the quest for truth, reporter and editors are our warriors and priests. My sincere pleading to the willing members of this noble profession is to please bring us closer to the truth. We need the truth to defend our democracy and freedom.
Give us the unvarnished, unpolished, raw and necessary truth. For only the truth can set us free.
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The agreement
There was as recent article in Slashdot about Nielsen outsourcing to TCS. Here is the actual agreement. In there was a short paragraph about overtime. The essence of the clause is that people will not get paid overtime but will be compensated through additional time off.
Here is the relevant paragraph.
What is the problem with this? I believe in capitalism. Why shouldn't two companies make the best agreement between each other? I mean one is buying the other is selling and they agree on the price why should anyone else care?
I think the problem here is that both companies are trying to get something for free. We all know there is no such thing as free lunch. So who is paying and how?
Excees Capacity
Think of it this way. Lets say that you are a company that makes spoons. Currently you produce 100 cases a day. One day you get a large order and the customer wants it right away. Suddenly you need to produce 400 cases a day for a couple of weeks. How do you do this? You already have all your machines and people working at full capacity.
Pay for your lunch buddy
You will probably invest in excess capacity and pass the cost along to the new customer. What I mean is that you have to either buy more spoon making machines or rent more for a short period of time. The machine manufacturer will then decide at what price they will rent or sell the machine to you. You will have to decide is it worth investing in this excess capacity or is it better to let go of this opportunity because the costs exceed the benefits. Since the shareholders will be investing more, they will probably expect the new customer to take on some additional costs for making this sudden large order. Especially if this is one time deal since their investment will sit idle after the order is complete. If this continues to happen, then everyone benefits because the true cost of a large order is then passed on to the person making the large order and everyone is happy.
The free lunch
I think this agreement between TCS and Nielson seems to ignore the laws of free lunch. Not really ignore it but they want someone else to pay for it. Let me explain.
What happens with this no overtime agreement? Lets say you work for TCS in North America. Your manager comes to you and says, can you work this weekend? You can take off Monday and Tuesday next month. So you (being a good team player) say ok. Great. No one had to pay extra, and you got your time off. WRONG.
1) Your weekend, where the rest of your family is free is now taken away.
2) Monday and Tuesday a month from now was probably relatively quiet. So you traded relatively quiet time for a really busy time
3) Management gets free excess capacity without having to pay for it. So they get away with less investment in people and process and resource planning.
4) You had some labor guarantees that were taken away without your permission.
Multiply this times hundred thousand employees working for TCS, guess who paid of Nielsen's overtime cost savings?
A different sacrifice
Not buying the argument? Let's take a different approach. What if you said no? I will not work this weekend. That was not the deal we made when I was hired. I want to spend time with my family or enjoy my leisure in other ways. Of course this is your right and you will be allowed to exercise it (for now).
When you do, you will no longer be a team player. People like you won't get promoted. So the people who will do well under this culture will be people willing to sacrifice their quality of life for the good of the company. In a sense you are penalized for exercising your right.
The bad part of all this is that you never made an explicit agreement with anyone saying that you are willing to give up a better quality of life in exchange for more money. In a way capitalism is not the problem here. You and your employer made an agreement with each other based on free market conditions. You said to each other I am willing to sacrifice X in return for which I get Y from you. But then the equation changed and nobody renegotiated your contract. It changed because your company made an agreement with Nielsen and nobody asked your opinion.
So guess who paid for this agreement between Neilsen and TCS? You.
The cost to you is not time but your Freedom!
P.S. I am not against outsourcing. I think it is a good thing. It allows us to scale as a society and we all benefit from it. I am against giving things away for free or people taking things without consent or paying a price.