Millennials vs. Baby Boomers
June 26, 2019
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
– William Shakespeare
Here We Go Again, Same Old Middle East War Again
After President Trump imposed new sanctions Monday against Iran’s top leaders, President Hassan Rouhani insulted what hurts President Trump most — his mental state. In a televised address Tuesday Rouhani said Trump was “afflicted by a mental disorder.” Trump immediately took the bait, tweeting “Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force … [even] obliteration.”
Rouhani’s comments recalled those made by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2017, when he called Trump a “mentally deranged US dotard.” Back then Trump threatened to destroy North Korea with “fire and fury.” Later the two leaders met for face-to-face talks and made up, prompting Trump to exclaim they “fell in love.”
The president likes to keep his enemies off balance — guessing about what he will do next. But these latest very personal exchanges underscore the dangerous volatility of such a chaotic foreign policy. The present standoff in the Persian Gulf has seen the US commander-in-chief swing between dire threats, and offers of talks without preconditions, while simultaneously ramping up sanctions.
Trump repeatedly suggests his sole concern is that Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear weapon. Iran has said it is ideologically and religiously opposed to acquiring nuclear weapons and only seeks nuclear power for civilian purposes. According to Tehran, the Trump administration spent weeks demanding that Iran match America’s diplomacy. Then it imposed “useless sanctions” on Iran’s supreme leader and its chief diplomat, foreign minister Javad Zarif — in effect closing “the path of diplomacy.”
Now Go Stand In The Corner And Think About Who You Tear Gassed
- The once-exalted reputation of Hong Kong’s 30,000 member police force has been sullied by the way officers handled the June 12 protests over a proposed extradition law. During the protests a number of mostly peaceful demonstrators were tear-gassed, beaten and fired upon with rubber bullets.
- Public fury over those crowd control tactics resulted in officers simply retreating and watching as thousands of young demonstrators besieged police headquarters for 15 hours last weekend. (NYT)
Come Visit Sunny Big Brother, Canada!
- Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, unveiled a 1,300 page plan Monday for a high-tech remake of a run-down Toronto waterfront. The head of Sidewalk cast the plan as “a guide book for a completely new approach to urbanism.”
- The design emphasizes affordable housing and the use of Canadian technology partners. It relies on a vast range of data collection, including sensors to track things like the speed of people crossing streets and park bench usage. It also has features like robots to drop off parcels and pick up trash.
- The agency created to oversee the redevelopment project, which could eventually involve more than 800 acres, has cited a number of concerns including how Sidewalk intends to protect privacy, and conform to existing Canadian laws. (NYT)
Hindsight Is 400/400 Billion Dollars
- Bill Gates was speaking to a venture capital firm and describing his biggest management mistake as when he allowed Microsoft to lose mobile to Android. “Android is the standard non-Apple phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win.”
- As regrettable as Microsoft losing the mobile moment might have been, what Gates said next virtually makes the case for why antitrust laws are important and why platforms should be regulated. “It’s very tricky for platforms…these are winner-take-all markets….There’s room for exactly one non-Apple operating system and what’s that worth? $400 billion that would be transferred from company G to company M.” Gates is describing what’s commonly known as the network effect, which says the value of the platform to users is really created by all the other people on that network. It’s well established that the network effect enables the winning company to achieve massive scale and preclude competition.
- Microsoft was the original platform monopoly. It could have continued as a monopoly, except for that little antitrust lawsuit at the end of last century that paved the way for Google and Android. (Verge)
The New World Order
- What Does Putin Really Want?: Russia is dead set on being a global power. But what looks like grand strategy is often improvisation — amid America’s retreat. (NYT, $)
- Globalization Is Moving Past the U.S. and Its Vision of World Order (NYT $)
- Forget China – it’s America’s own economic system that’s broken: US weakness is inbuilt – the big 500 companies owe loyalty only to themselves and the public is shut out from prosperity (Guardian)
- The Self-Destruction of American Power: Washington Squandered the Unipolar Moment (Foreign Affairs, $)
America Reconstruction in 2019
- On June 1, the Remote Area Medical free clinic was set up in Cleveland, Tennessee. Doctors weren’t scheduled to start seeing patients until 6 am, but by 2 am nearly 300 people from all over rural parts of the South had already lined up in front of the Cleveland High School.
- One couple carried a note from a social worker that read: “Urgent needs from head to toe. Lacking primary care and basic medication. They have fallen into the gap.” This temporary clinic had two days to fix a lifetime of needs.
- In the past decade Tennessee has lost 14 percent of its rural physicians and 18 percent of its rural hospitals, leaving an estimated 2.5 million residents with insufficient access to medical care. The federal government now estimates that a record 50 million rural Americans live in what it calls “health care shortage areas,” where the number of hospitals, family doctors, surgeons and paramedics has declined to 20-year lows. (WaPo)
- Trump’s Plan To Lower Your Hospital Costs: Here’s What You Need To Know (NPR)
Additional USA News
- Republicans Don’t Understand Democrats – And Democrats Don’t Understand Republicans: A new study shows Americans have little understanding of their political adversaries – and education doesn’t help. (Atlantic)
- Blue States Roll Out Aggressive Climate Strategies. Red States Keep to the Sidelines. (NYT $)
- ‘The Black Vote Is Not Monolithic’: 2020 Democrats Find Split Preferences in South Carolina (NYT $) Additional comedy video: Key & Peele – Black Republicans
You Monsters, You Boomed It Up!
- An analysis of a report for the American Enterprise Institute shows a consistent pattern affecting issues such as housing, work rules, higher education, law enforcement, and public budgeting. While cultural values are in rapid flux, political institutions seem frozen in time. What’s responsible for this institutional aging? Arguably, the political ascendancy of the Baby Boomer generation, which brought with it tightening control and stricter regulation, making it harder to succeed in America.
- As a society ages, its politics change. Older voters have different interests than younger voters — cuts to retiree-focused benefits are scarier, while long-term problems such as excessive student debt, climate change, and low birth rates are more easily ignored.
- In a variety of different areas, Baby Boomers created, advanced, or preserved policies that made American institutions less dynamic. This lack of dynamism hasn’t particularly hurt Boomers, but past policies are fast becoming a crisis for younger Americans. (Atlantic)
- Americans getting older, new Census figures show: “The median American was 38.2 years old in 2018, the Census Bureau said, up from 37.2 years in 2010.” (The Hill)
Additional Reads
- Publishers will soon no longer be able to detect when you’re in Chrome’s incognito mode, weakening paywalls everywhere: A growing number of news sites block incognito readers, figuring they’re probably trying to get around a paywall. But a change from Google will again let people reset their meter with a keystroke. (Nieman Lab) Here’s good news for those who hate our links to soft paywall sites.
- Even in incognito mode you can be sure Google is watching you. Check your settings if you don’t want Google tracking every move (USA Today) Additional song (that could be Google and Facebook’s unofficial anthem): The Police – Every Breath You Take (Official Music Video)
- No tech is safe: Warning Issued For Millions Of Microsoft Windows 10 Users (Forbes) and tech companies are blacklisting each other: No Slack for you! Microsoft puts rival app on internal list of ‘prohibited and discouraged’ software (Geekwire)
LAST MORSELS
“The world is violent and mercurial–it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love–love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.” – Tennessee Williams
“Don’t waste your love on somebody, who doesn’t value it.” – William Shakespeare