A Basis for Global Optimism

I'm optimistic on the U.S.; I'm even more optimistic on the world.  Remember I grew up when colonialism was ending, and the West was becoming aware of the sad state of affairs the ebbing of imperialism was leaving behind.  (And ignoring some of the benefits.)  And through much of the first half of my adult life we flailed around, struggling with how to help the Third World, finding that many of our prescriptions didn't work as we intended.  So that's the background when I read this in a  Technology Review piece:

But by far, the technology that is likely to be most transformative in the long term is the cell phone. The growth of this technology in sub-Saharan Africa has been phenomenal. By 2007, there were more cell-phone subscriptions than people with access to sanitation. Today, there are more than 850 million subscribers across the entire continent, bringing penetration to roughly 74 percent. Phone-based technology is already helping to create digital health records, track medical supply levels, improve supply chains, and map out areas already covered by vaccination.

Proof of Identity--All Things Change

Once upon a time, the signet ring and the seal, as in the Great Seal, were the proofs of identity, and were the means of authenticating a legal transaction.  Then, as literacy spread, the signature was added, eventually replacing seals and signets for all but the most official transactions.  (Go to have a document notarized and she has a seal and will emboss your document.)  But all is changing.  From a Timothy Lee Vox post, on how Europe does debit cards better than the US:

Unfortunately, signatures are practically worthless as a security measure. If you don't believe me, try scribbling randomly next time you're asked to sign a credit or debit card receipt. I've been doing this for years and I've never had a store clerk decline the transaction because my signature didn't look authentic.
The rest of the world is way ahead of us on this. Over the past decade, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia — just to name a few — have switched to PIN-based authentication, in which customers identify themselves with a four- or six-digit code.

We've Come Far in 70 Years

"This does not mean that I want to see us grow into a flabby country, with men who are unable to defend it physically. We might as well face the fact that defense in the future, as well as aggression, needs mechanical equipment and scientific research.
I think, too, that we need to devote our energies to better health, stronger, finer people, better educated, better fed and, above all, better disciplined. If democracy is to succeed, we need well-disciplined citizens who use their citizenship with intelligence."

This is Eleanor Roosevelt, fromBrad DeLong's blog, writing in 1946.  Note the emphasis on strength and discipline.  Wouldn't see that in any current opinion writer.

Bonds and Prisoners

This is one of my posts linking apparently disparate things:

• Donald Trump has gotten some press with his statements on the national debt and how he would handle it.  Apparently he's finally settled on the idea that if conditions are right, we should buy back some debt.  The conditions would have to include running a current budgetary surplus, which seems unlikely.
• Here's a post attempting to explain why, given a big drop in crime over recent years, we still have so many people in prison.  "Most prison sentences in the United States are for more than one year. Thus, even if crime goes down, and the number of new incarcerations goes down, the total prison population can still increase — because most of those incarcerated in previous years are still behind bars."  One graph of the first point.
• 
• The writer says changes in the rate of incarceration will track closely with the crime rate.

 The hangup is stock and flow. In both cases--the total US debt and the total US prison population--we're talking a "stock",  a reservoir, the level of which changes if the inflow doesn't match the outflow.

With the debt, the Treasury is selling bonds on a regular schedule, and redeeming bonds as they mature.  If taxes aren't enough to pay the bills, it sells more bonds; if taxes pay the bills, it sells fewer bonds.  So there's no surplus which a President Trump could use to buy back debt. 

With the prisoners, assume the justice system is catching, convicting, and incarcerating criminals (and on average the convict has committed the same number of crimes before capture) at a fixed rate.  (Assumptions always wrong--sometimes the jails are full and criminals are diverted from the system.)  Now you have to assume something about length of sentence.  If sentences served get longer, the stock of prisoners will increase.  If sentences get shorter, the stock will decrease (all else being equal, which it won't be).  The writer fails to make this clear.

In Defense of Government Jobs

Megan McArdle at Bloomberg View had a post on what causes of inequality the government can remedy.  Apparently it's the initial post in a series at Bloomberg.on the subject. McArdle is always worth reading, though her posting has grown less frequent recently.  But she included this paragraph:

" Government is also not well suited to creating a lot of satisfying and remunerative jobs. It can contribute to productivity and help companies to flourish, for example through basic research and by maintaining a competent legal and regulatory system. And it can directly create a few jobs providing government services; these have been, for many communities at many times, a stepping stone to the middle class."

I think this is wrong.  I understand the last sentence as being a nod to the role of the Postal Service in nurturing a black middle class.  But many government jobs include the idea of "service".  "Service" used to be big in the world.  We had the "civil service" and the "military service" or the "uniformed services".  Service was to the community, to the "commonwealth".  I live in the commonwealth of Virginia, though most Virginians would have a heart attack at the idea of "common wealth". The term evolved from the idea of common well being.

The importance of "service" is that it can be the basis of a satisfying job. Remuneration is another issue.  Some jobs, like college football/basketball coaches, some of whom are technically government, jobs, are overpaid. 

Travelling This Week

Slow blogging ahead.

Some People Really Don't Like Donald

Professor Bernstein at Volokh says he'd vote for Hillary over Trump.

He's a libertarian; within the context of the current and former bloggers on the Volokh Conspiracy he's  on the right.

Community Service: the Limits of Sacrifice

Malia Obama is off to Harvard, after a gap year.  This despite her father's suggestion that a great education could be gotten at many colleges and universities, some off the beaten path.

I'm not going to fault her choice.  It's true that if she had gone to Franklin Pierce College (to name a struggling college and the alma mater of Temple Grandin) she might have set an example to her peers of focusing on the essentials and disdaining reputation.  But very few do that.  Her parents didn't: instead of sending their daughters to DC schools like the Carters did with Amy, they chose Sidwell Friends, probably the most prestigious school in the area. So Ms. Obama is simply following her parents' example.

It's all well and good to praise community service and sacrifice, but few normal people will sacrifice themselves to the ideal, much less their children.

"The Great State of Alabama,...."

One of the fun things I remember from listening to political conventions (started in 48, but first I really remember was in 1952)  was the roll call of the states.  Each state's vote would be announced, leading off with some usually brief description of the state or the significance of the vote.  Thus, the first was always the "The Great State of Alabama is proud and happy to cast its xx votes for the next Vice President of these United States, the Honorable John Sparkman..." or some such.

I'm glad the Republicans aren't going to change that tradition--at least one wise decision.

What Is America--the Biggest Slave Revolt

We write as if the definition of America is self-evident, thus the adjective "American" is self-evident as well.

Not so fast.  I tried, and failed, to become a professor of American history.  It's a hard term to define.  Is it the history of the people who live or lived in America?  Sounds like a good starting point, but do we include the history of the Native Americans? Does that make them more American than Americans, or less, or different? 

Maybe we just limit the term to the history of the people who lived in America after 1492?  Does that exclude the Spanish who settled in Florida and the Southwest, or the French who settled in New Orleans and Louisiana?  Or do we say that they only became American when the US gained sovereignty over the land, so their history begins with acquisition?

The other related question is whether there are degrees of Americanness?  Asking the question brings up, for those of us of a certain age, the divisiveness of the McCarthy times.  But it's a good question, at least for the way we usually write.  But it often excludes such groups as Native American tribes, the Amish/Mennonite community, the Hasidic Jewish community, etc. who don't fit neatly into generalizations about American.

This post was prompted by this piece, discussing the biggest slave revolt on soil now claimed by the US.