Ira Stoll

From The Future Of Capitalism: ‘Jamie Dimon’s Annual Letter’

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Post here.

Click through for more.

‘JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is out with his annual shareholder letter, and, as usual, it is an interesting read. The section focused on broad public policy issues, while broadly optimistic, raised these concerns:

Something is holding back the strong recovery of the great American economic engine. It is not lack of access to capital or loans, but it might be a combination of some of the following factors:

• Concerns around excessive regulation and red tape – I travel around the U.S. all the time, and this is a loud and growing complaint that I hear from businesses, small to large, across virtually all industries.

• Whether you were for or against “Obamacare,” when massive changes to such an important part of the American economy are made, it does create uncertainty for many businesses.

• The inability to face our fiscal reality is a concern. I believe that if we had adopted some form of the Simpson-Bowles plan to fix the debt, it would have been extremely beneficial to the economy.

• Entitlement spending – which now is 60% of federal spending and is growing – is crowding out infrastructure spending and spending on initiatives like research and development and training.’

Perceptions And Reality-The News Business And Obamacare Overruns

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Via Ira Stoll-Marc Andreessen: The Future Of The News Business: A Monumental Twitter Stream All In One Place.

If you’re in the information gathering and sharing business, you’d probably better understand how information is now being gathered and shared in order to broadcast it to as many people as possible (if you’re looking to make money and retain authority).

Many outlets still haven’t figured that out in the new landscape:

‘My take is that the rise of objectivity journalism post-World War II was an artifact of the new monopoly/oligopoly structures news organizations had constructed for themselves. Introducing so-called objective news coverage was necessary to ward off antitrust allegations, and ultimately, reporters embraced it. So it stuck.

But the objective approach is only one way to tell stories and get at truth. Many stories don’t have “two sides.” Indeed, presenting an event or an issue with a point of view can have even more impact, and reach an audience otherwise left out of the conversation.’

Are we back in an age of yellow-journalism, pamphleteering, and voices shouting from the rooftops? A period of unique opportunity before new and different monopolies form?

Check out an oral history of the epic collision between journalism and digital technology, from 1980 to the present, from the Nieman Journalism Lab.

Good for a laugh:-Who reads the newspapers?

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Don’t worry, the current ideological and political interests running our government are on the cutting-edge: Peter Suderman at Reason: Healthcare.gov Cloud Computer System Cost Five Times As Much As Expected:’

‘Asked about the increased cost, a federal health official tells NextGov that “if the additional services were not added urgently, the exchanges would not function as designed and citizens would continue to have issues using the marketplace.” In other words, the original plan had been for a system that wouldn’t work.’

Remember, the winners are many of Obama’s political and ideological allies and some previously uninsured people, not necessarily everyone else.

Suderman’s wife: Megan McArdle At Bloomberg. ‘Latest Obamacare Delay Is Probably Illegal‘

Still Looking For Alternatives-Charlie Martin At PJ Media: ‘Obamacare vs. Arithmetic’

Avik Roy At Forbes: ‘Democrats’ New Argument: It’s A Good Thing That Obamacare Doubles Individual Health Insurance Premiums’…Megan McArdle At Bloomberg: ‘Health-Care Costs Are Driven By Technology, Not Presidents’

From The Volokh Conspiracy: ‘CAP’s Glass House’

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Full post here.

That’s the Center For American Progress.

‘The Center for American Progress and its affiliated 501(c)(4) Center for American Progress Action Fund often attack conservative and libertarian organizations for as tools of corporate interests.  The latter’s Think Progress blog, for instance, has often suggested corporate donations undermine the credibility of CAP’s ideological adversaries.  This makes a recent report andfollow-up in The Nation on CAP’s own corporate support quite interesting.  CAP claims to not be influenced by its receipt of corporate money.  That may well be true, but it would be easier to credit such claims were CAP and its affiliates more willing to give others the same benefit of the doubt.’

But it’s the glass house of the People!

Many will think that David Horowitz, red-diaper baby and (Former Leftist cum anti-Leftist) crusader is a bridge too far, but making foundations and constantly agitating is what he knows how to do.

He has a new book out entitled: ‘The New Leviathan, How The Left Wing Money-Machine Shapes American Politics And Threatens America’s Future‘

Horowitz argues that such foundations as Ford (which donates to NPR) have become vehicles for the interests of political activists, always portraying the matter of as a fight between capitalism/anti-capitalism and/or socialism.  He mentions the Tides foundation here.  They are big money, he points out, and Obama’s political career was largely made possible by activist political organization, and the money and manpower behind them:

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There’s the narrower progressive/Leftist problem, and the broader changes going on in our society, like the steady growth of government and the cultural drift towards multiculturalism, for better or worse.

I’ll let Ira Stoll, formerly of Reason and currently of the Smarter Times and the Future Of Capitalism have the last word:

‘Indeed, if there is a single fact that sums up the state of American political economy at the present moment, it is this: the Boston office building once home to Inc. Magazine and Fast Company, which chronicled and celebrated small and fast-growing businesses, is now the headquarters of a publication called “Compliance Week.”’

Ira Stoll At Newsmax: ‘America’s Culture Of Compliance’

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Full piece here.

Living off the grain in the silo can’t be the best way forward.  To some people who get in the silo, it must seem like they won’t have to eat again.  Many others are following the incentives created:

‘Indeed, if there is a single fact that sums up the state of American political economy at the present moment, it is this: the Boston office building once home to Inc. Magazine and Fast Company, which chronicled and celebrated small and fast-growing businesses, is now the headquarters of a publication called “Compliance Week.”’

Related On This Site: Mead takes a look at the blue model (the old progressive model) from the ground up in NYC to argue that it’s simply not working.  Check out his series at The American Interest.

Once broader ideas of the public good take hold, they tend to lead to greater claims of the public square, and view market activity as an animal to be harnessed: Amartya Sen In The New York Review Of Books: Capitalism Beyond The Crisis

Tom Palmer From Cato@Liberty: ‘Crony Capitalism’

From World Affairs Via A & L Daily: Jagdish Bagwhati’s ‘Feeble Critiques: Capitalism’s Petty Detractors’