_______________________________________________
- THE FRIDAY LETTER -
(emailed weekly,
from Gilder Publishing,
for friends and subscribers)
_______________________________________________
| http://www.gilder.com/ | Issue 365.0/December 5,
2008
SIGN-UP A FRIEND FOR FREE!
HEADLINES:
- NEW Book of the Month / The Age of Entanglement
- Friday Feature / Ivan and Boris Again
- Friday Blogger Bonus / Supply-side Spirituality
- Readings /
The Week / The Age of Entanglement
Bryce
Christensen, Booklist, starred review: [Louisa] Gilder has taken to heart
Heisenberg’s declaration that ’science is rooted in conversations.’ By recounting
decisive conversations between researchers, she illuminates the tortuous path
of quantum mechanics.
Readers
eavesdrop, for instance, on Schrödinger — sick and bed-bound — as he challenges
Bohr’s dismissal of pictorial thinking. They listen in as Einstein pauses on a
train platform to urge de Broglie to press his quixotic fight against quantum
orthodoxy. Gradually, the realization dawns that the formulas of physics come
from cross-grained personalities, animated by unpredictable emotions.
The literal-minded may question the imaginative liberties Gilder takes in converting passages from letters and memoirs into face-to-face exchanges. But most readers will relish the psychological interplay she depicts. The character of the brash young John Bell emerges in such interplay, as he disputes the reasoning of a colleague smugly certain that no ‘hidden variables’ inhere in quantum events.
For
in reacting against that smugness, Bell launches an epoch-making inquiry into
the way subatomic particles remain linked — entangled — after separation.
Lamentably, Bell dies before his findings open exciting new vistas in quantum
computing. But this compelling history of his accomplishment will
stimulate more of the seminal conversations that generate new science. No book
more fully delivers the creative excitement of science.
Harvard Book Store Appearance (Cambridge, MA), Friday December 5 at
3:00 pm:
http://www.ageofentanglement.com/events/
More on The Age of Entanglement:
http://www.ageofentanglement.com/about-the-book/
Order Your Copy Today:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400044170/gilderpublish-20
|
The Gilder Telecosm Forum To
learn how to join this powerful network of talented, tech-savvy investors and
thinkers online daily to debate, discuss, and decode new and emerging
technologies and share valuable and actionable investment advice, visit www.Gildertech.com today. |
Friday Feature / Ivan and Boris Again
George Gilder, Gilder Telecosm
Forum (11/26/08): This piece
by Sowell sums up the theme of my book about Israel.
Thomas Sowell, “Ivan and Boris
Again”, Jewish World Review: There is an old Russian fable, with
different versions in other countries, about two poor peasants, Ivan and Boris.
The only difference between them was that Boris had a goat and Ivan didn't. One
day, Ivan came upon a strange-looking lamp and, when he rubbed it, a genie
appeared. She told him that she could grant him just one wish, but it could be
anything in the world.
Ivan said, "I want Boris' goat to die."
Variations on this story in other countries suggest
that this tells us something about human beings, not just Russians.
It may tell us something painful about many Americans
today, when so many people are preoccupied with the pay of corporate CEOs. It is
not that the corporate CEOs' pay affects them so much. If every oil company
executive in America agreed to work for nothing, that would not be enough to
lower the price of a gallon of gasoline by a dime. If every General Motors
executive agreed to work for nothing, that would not lower the price of a
Cadillac or a Chevrolet by one percent.
Too many people are like Ivan, who wanted Boris' goat
to die.
It is not even that the average corporate CEO makes
as much money as any number of professional athletes and entertainers. The
average pay of a CEO of a corporation big enough to be included in the Standard
& Poor's index is less than one-third of what Alex Rodriguez makes, about
one-tenth of what Tiger Woods makes and less than one-thirtieth of what Oprah
Winfrey makes.
But when has anyone ever accused athletes or
entertainers of "greed"?
It is not the general public that singles out
corporate CEOs for so much attention. Politicians and the media have focused on
business leaders, and the public has been led along, like sheep.
The logic is simple: Demonize those whose place or
power you plan to usurp.
Politicians who want the power to micro-manage
business and the economy know that demonizing those who currently run
businesses is the opening salvo in the battle to take over their roles.
There is no way that politicians can take over the
roles of Alex Rodriguez, Tiger Woods or Oprah Winfrey. So they can make any
amount of money they want and it doesn't matter politically.
Those who want more power have known for centuries
that giving the people somebody to hate and fear is the key.
In 18th century France, promoting hatred of the
aristocracy was the key to Robespierre's acquiring more dictatorial power than
the aristocracy had ever had, and using that power to create a bigger bloodbath
than anything under the old regime.
In the 20th century, it was both the czars and the
capitalists in Russia who were made the targets of public hatred by the
Communists on their road to power. That power created more havoc in the lives
of more people than czars and capitalists ever had combined.
As in other countries and other times, today it is
not just a question of which elites win out in a tug of war in America. It is
the people at large who have the most at stake.
We have just seen one of the biggest free home
demonstrations of what happens in an economy when politicians tell businesses
what decisions to make.
For years, using the powers of the Community
Reinvestment Act and other regulatory powers, along with threats of legal
action if the loan approval rates varied from the population profile,
politicians have pressured banks and other lending institutions into lending to
people they would not lend to otherwise.
Yet, when all this blows up in our faces and the
economy turns down, what is the answer? To have more economic decisions made by
politicians, because they choose to say that "deregulation" is the
cause of our problems.
Regardless of how much suffocating regulation may
have been responsible for an economic debacle, politicians have learned that
they can get away with it if they call it "deregulation."
No matter what happens, for politicians it is
"heads I win and tails you lose." If we keep listening to the
politicians and their media allies, we are all going to keep losing, big time.
Keeping our attention focused on CEO pay— Boris' goat— is all part of this
game. We are all goats if we fall for it.
More from Thomas Sowell:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell1.asp
__________________________________________
Friday Blogger Bonus / Supply-side
Spirituality
Tony Woodlief, World Magazine (12/1/08): The best way to test
economic theory is to go to Wal-Mart. Do people buy more of something when its
price drops? Just ask that guy in front of you with a six-pack of toilet
plungers in his cart. Will people ever be selfless enough for communism to
work? Probably not so long as they’re capable of trampling someone to death in
their quest for a cheaper pair of underwear.
It’s
in Wal-Mart as well where I finally got George Gilder’s point. Gilder was
perhaps the most famous proponent of supply-side economics, a catchall phrase
that came to mean all that liberals perceived to be evil about the Reagan
years, and likewise all that Wall Street bankers and other market-minded folks
loved about that era. Gilder argued that the demand side doesn’t drive markets,
because the innovations that fuel an economy are rarely foreseen, let alone widely
demanded. Instead, innovation—and hence economic growth—is driven by the supply
side, by entrepreneurs offering new products and services that people didn’t
realize they wanted until they saw it. The path to economic strength, then, is
in crafting policies that reward, rather than punish, entrepreneurs who develop
profitable innovations.
This
came home to me as I stood in Wal-Mart this weekend holding a measuring cup. We
already have a measuring cup, but it’s a two-cupper, and sometimes I just need
the one cup. And sometimes I need measures of different liquids, which means I
have to add something from the two-cupper, and then go fill it with the other
ingredient, and then add that one. It seems so much more Food Channelly to have
all my ingredients at the ready, each in its allotted cup.
This
is no proof of supply-side economics; in fact, it may well be the opposite. But
what made me pause was a nearby baking tray, the kind that has some kind of
fancy air-cooling layer, or some such thing, that is supposed to make your
cookies all the fluffier. I didn’t know they had something like that. And I
wanted it, too. Even better, on the aisle I’d just left was one of those
hand-held mixers, the kind you put into whatever bowl or cup you’re mixing. At
a reasonable price, I should add.
That’s
when it hit me, that Gilder was right. I didn’t ask for any of these things,
but now that someone had supplied them, I was sorely tempted to load up my
cart….
Read on:
http://online.worldmag.com/2008/12/01/supply-side-spirituality/
__________________________________________
Readings /
Apple’s Security Paradox
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/12/03/apple-security-hackers-tech-security-cx_ag_1203apple.html
Andrew Odlyzko talk
http://iptv-research.blogspot.com/2008/11/andrew-odlyzko-talk.html
__________________________________________
Friday Letter Editor: Mary Collins George / mcollins@gilder.com
ADVERTISING INFORMATION
The Friday Letter is mailed each week to more than 40,000-plus
subscribers and friends of Gilder Publishing, including industry leaders,
financial professionals and individual investors. For information about
advertising, contact Lauren Klopacs at lklopacs@forbes.com.
PLEASE NOTE: The appearance of an advertisement in the Friday Letter
does not indicate an endorsement for the product and/or service by George
Gilder, Gilder Publishing LLC, or the Friday Letter staff.
FEEDBACK AND PROBLEMS
For technical problems, or to send letters to the editor, please
e-mail info@gilder.com.
MAILING ADDRESS
Gilder Publishing, LLC
ATTN: Friday Letter
291A Main Street
Great Barrington, MA 01230
_______________________________________________
The Friday Letter is published weekly for subscribers and
friends of Gilder Publishing. If someone you know would enjoy it, please feel
free to forward a copy.
Gilder Publishing makes the Friday Letter available for free. To
help defray some of the costs of producing this information on a weekly basis,
we will from time to time be sending you offers from companies we think you'll
be interested in. These offers will not come more than once a week. If you do
not wish to receive this related information, please opt out of this process at
the link below and we will not share your name with companies outside of Gilder
Publishing.
To SUBSCRIBE please visit http://www.gilder.com/
To UNSUBSCRIBE please go to http://www.gilder.com/fridayletter/unsubscribe.php
Trouble subscribing or unsubscribing?
Email info@gilder.com
http://www.gilder.com/unsubscribe/specialproducts.php
To SUBSCRIBE please visit http://www.gilder.com/
To UNSUBSCRIBE please go to http://www.gilder.com/fridayletter/unsubscribe.php
Trouble subscribing or unsubscribing?
Email info@gilder.com
_______________________________________________
Copyright 2008 Gilder Publishing LLC