LOATHSOME POS

 

In Praise of Abundance

 

In Praise of Abundance (Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson — Avid Reader, 2025)

3 Comments / Uncategorized / By David ZILBERMAN / April 6, 2025

Abundance is a timely and insightful book offering a fresh perspective on the developments that led to the Trump revolution while presenting a vision for the future. Its outlook on economics and politics is both creative and, I must say, one I strongly share.

The authors begin with the premise that crises often precipitate paradigm shifts in policy—shifts that both political parties typically embrace. The Great Depression and World War II led to the New Deal: the creation of social safety nets like Social Security, investment in public goods such as highways, and major funding for public education and research. The upheavals of the 1960s and the stagflation of the 1970s resulted in an era of greater freedom and environmental awareness—bringing about civil rights legislation, deregulation, same-sex marriage rights, the founding of the EPA, and the Endangered Species Act.

By the late 2010s, however, frustration was mounting in Middle America, driven by growing inequality, income disparity, the pandemic, the perceived incompetence of the state (as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan), and anxiety over China’s rise. This discontent fueled political polarization and led to extremism on both the right and the left. Trump claimed that America was overextended and exploited by immigrants and foreign nations. Meanwhile, Bernie argued that oligopolistic practices and economic exploitation were to blame and called for broader opportunity-sharing. Despite their differences, both advocated for rebuilding America’s strength. The public, yearning for confident leadership, responded. Obama captured this spirit with “Yes We Can.” Biden emphasized, “Build Back Better.” Trump’s version was, “Yes, I Can.” In contrast, Kamala Harris remarked that there was little she would have done differently than Biden—a comment that failed to inspire. With some hesitation, a narrow majority elected Trump. Many now express buyer’s remorse.

Klein and Thompson argue that the current dysfunction is the product of flawed decisions made by both parties. Republicans embraced the mantra that “government is the problem” and “cannot pick winners.” At the same time, Democrats pushed regulatory agendas focused on equity and environmental impact—efforts that, while well-intentioned, often stifled innovation and entrepreneurship.

However, history shows that public research and policy have been powerful engines of growth. DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) laid the groundwork for technologies such as weather satellites, GPS, drones, stealth technology, voice interfaces, the personal computer, and the internet—technologies that gave the US a significant edge. The public sector funded research, development, and initial commercialization in these cases, while the private sector deployed and scaled the technologies.

The National Institutes of Health financed the Human Genome Project and research on mRNA vaccines, gene editing, and other medical breakthroughs. Public investments enabled the development of these technologies, which were later scaled by private firms, often with continued public support. This public-private partnership has also driven the introduction of penicillin and many other transformative innovations.

The authors stress that innovation is a continuous process. A breakthrough—typically credited to an individual scientist—is just the beginning. Progress requires sustained support and development. Unfortunately, in recent decades, the US has excelled at discovery but struggled with deployment, while other countries have taken the lead in scaling innovations. For example, US scientists invented solar cells, but China now dominates its production.

As the nation faces the dual challenge of combating climate change and overhauling its infrastructure, its ability to build is hampered by overregulation. A striking example is California’s high-speed rail project, which has repeatedly failed while similar projects move forward in Europe and China.

The central message of Abundance is that we need to rethink our approach to economics and policy. Economists and policymakers must better understand the innovation-to-deployment pipeline, recognize the importance of investing in education, research, and development, and work to reduce bureaucratic obstacles that hinder progress.

Similarly, streamlining regulatory barriers will enable entrepreneurs to implement new technologies. Streamlining is not easy—many regulations were introduced for good reasons: to ensure scientific rigor, protect the environment, and maintain quality of life. However, excessive caution comes at a cost, and these constraints can become paralyzing. We need thoughtful and timely regulatory reform. Policy evaluation must include a benefit-risk assessment and be done periodically. 

We must also trust and empower young scientists, providing them the resources to explore bold new ideas. Rethinking zoning laws, allowing for increased housing density, and accelerating the permitting process are key steps toward enabling infrastructure development that fosters growth and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

We need to develop institutions and mechanisms that allow all members of society to enjoy abundance. Harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence and leverage new insights from psychology and education may revitalize the education system and ensure broader inclusion in the modern economy. Creativity and ingenuity must be devoted to reduce inequality and alienation, and these efforts may require significant transfer of wealth towards the less fortunate, not tax reduction. Openness to the world remains essential. The US has long benefitted from its extraordinary capacity for research and innovation—driven by talent from across the globe attracted by the American education system. That pipeline must remain open and strong. US industries rely on global knowledge and collaboration, and those ties should be deepened, not weakened. Rather than succumbing to fear and scarcity, we should lay the groundwork to cultivate Abundance here and abroad. 

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Who will tell Trump he’s naked?

 

Who will tell Trump he’s naked?

The president’s advisers are falling over themselves trying to excuse tariffmageddon.

 

April 8, 2025 at 7:00 a.m. EDTToday at 7:00 a.m. EDT

 

Who will tell the emperor he’s buck naked? Not his Cabinet. Not his donors or corporate executives. And certainly not Congress.

 

After President Donald Trump launched his multifront trade war — leading to one of the worst market massacres since World War II — his closest confidants and aides have been unwilling to call him out or rein him in.

 

Worse, some have egged him on.

 

During media appearances, every Trump underling agreed that his “Liberation Day” rollout was brilliant — even as they offered contradictory stories about the supposed purpose of the tariffs or the administration’s plan.

 

On Sunday, economic adviser Kevin Hassett said the tariffs were a temporary negotiating ploy, to be lifted as soon as countries acceded to Trump’s (unspecified) demands. “More than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation,” he said. On another network, at virtually the same time, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested the tariffs would be permanent, because Trump needs them to revive U.S. manufacturing.

 

Elsewhere, trade adviser Peter Navarro endorsed the permanency part, adding that Trump wants the revenue from perpetual tariffs to pay for his plutocratic income-tax cuts. Navarro told Fox News the tariffs would generate “$6 trillion to $7 trillion over the 10-year period,” citing widely debunked figures that he appears to have pulled from thin air.

 

When asked to reconcile these conflicting explanations, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins declared that the real rationale is that Alexander Hamilton once endorsed tariffs … in 1791. She conveniently omitted that back then, 90 percent of Americans were farmers, and everyone was much, much poorer than they are today.

 

The most damning performance arguably came from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the supposed adult in the room who was hired because he “understands” markets. He declared that tariffs were already successful because stock market infrastructure didn’t disintegrate despite the “record volume” (i.e., huge turmoil and volatility) of trading on Friday. He cheered that fired federal civil servants are now available to work in U.S. factories. Best of all, he declared, interest rates and oil prices have fallen!

 

His first two points are somewhere between wrong and irrelevant. (Cancer researchers’ skills are probably not best deployed by sewing sneakers.) His second two observations are actually huge warning signs.

 

Interest rates initially fell because investors were dumping stocks and plowing their money into bonds (which pushes those bonds’ interest rates down). But by Monday, those rates had climbed back up again. This is highly unusual during a stock market rout. It might signify investors are worried about tariff-driven inflation — which in turn could lead the Federal Reserve to raise rates — or that capital is rapidly fleeing the United States.

 

Meanwhile, oil prices are falling because of worries about a downturn. The last time oil was this cheap was during the covid-19 pandemic, for good reason: There’s less demand for fuel when factories shut down and people don’t have jobs to drive to.

 

In other words, recession fears tanking oil prices is not exactly the victory Bessent claims it to be.

 

Bessent surely knows all this. Yet he said it on TV, encouraging Trump to repeat these incoherent talking points on Truth Social. That was just before Trump doubled down on the stupid and threatened even higher tariffs on Chinese goods.

 

Emboldened by the sycophants and cowards who refuse to speak the truth, Trump insists Americans should “hang tough,” swallow his “medicine” and stoically endure the pain he is inflicting. But calls for collective sacrifice ring hollow when voiced by a guy who went golfing as the economy melted down.

 

Meanwhile, corporate executives and Trump donors are too terrified to criticize him publicly. “I am not willing to go public yet but I will say this: I don’t know if I would be this worried about what will happen to the economy if Bernie f---ing Sanders were president,” one major donor told Rolling Stone. “That’s how bad this is.”

 

Indeed, this anonymous critic is correct: Trump has effectively achieved a decade’s worth of the socialist Vermont senator’s wealth tax — but without collecting any revenue, and all executed within the span of mere days.

 

Over in Congress, which the Constitution granted “the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations” (read: trade), GOP lawmakers have been falling all over themselves to excuse tariffmageddon. A few have signed on to a bill that would very mildly curb Trump’s tariff power, but it looks unlikely to even get a vote in the House.

 

“Let’s hold tight and have patience,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said. “The president is engaging in a strategy right now.”

 

Patience might be a virtue. Cowardice is not.

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Are You a Leader or an Obstacle? 

Whether it’s sales or migrating customers to a new technology, sometimes your job as CEO is to get out of the way and let the team execute.

 

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

APR 8, 2025

 

Entrepreneurs are terrible control freaks – very often for good reasons – but, just as frequently, they hang on too long and too tightly to all the reins and end up unintentionally holding their businesses back. I understand that many of the relationships a CEO has to confront and manage are complicated. Stepping aside or back to let others handle a given situation can sometimes be very tough and close calls. And to be clear, in many cases, only the “boss” does know best.

One typically hard decision is determining when the CEO should stop making every sales call. In the early days, and while the product or service itself is still finding its way to market fit, it’s essential that the CEO be in the field because he or she is the only one with the power and authority to make choices, representations, and commitments regarding changes, features, and deliverables that: (a) can make or break key early adoption and critical bell cow sales and (b) can positively influence and alter the direction and development of the offering itself.

The most powerful and direct feedback you ever get is straight from the customers and prospects themselves, and the buyers’ voices need to be heard and heeded. So, while, as the leader, you might need to be there in the early days, you also need to know when to step aside.

Sometimes the boss needs a shove

In some cases, it’s absolutely essential that senior team players and sometimes board members and outside advisors pitch in. They need to help pry the CEO away from the front lines and from other early fixations, which can get in the way of growth and, even more importantly, profitability. As startups grow and the number, variety, and specific demands of their customers change and expand, the nature of the company’s connection to each individual client, user or buyer needs to change as well, even if the CEO doesn’t necessarily agree.

Maybe if your product is a mass produced, inexpensive widget you can get away with a “one size fits all” approach, but that won’t cut it in most instances. And it’s psychologically hard for the founders and early team members to step back from the “high-touch, hands-on, 24/7, always there” philosophy, which they believe is what made the business successful in the first place.

They’re not wrong. But what worked in the early days simply doesn’t scale economically in most businesses. The trick today is to maintain the “personal” connections, but to also control and contain the costs of service and delivery. This is never easy when customers want Four Seasons service at McDonald’s prices.  

How SaaS changed customer management

The delicate and often touchy migration away from face-to-face and on-premises interactions with clients and customers to remote services has largely been driven by cloud-based software and other technologies that were championed early on by Salesforce. Remember  the company’s “The End of Software” campaign in 2000?  Its signs, buttons and even dressed-up cartoon characters declaring “No Software” with a big red slash were suddenly everywhere you looked at tech conferences. The clear message was “you didn’t need to own and operate the cow (servers and other computer equipment) to enjoy the milk”, and further you also didn’t need your own IT department.    

In truth, even though companies took a while before they made substantial SaaS adoptions, it was fairly easy to virtually move an end user’s computer activity from a mainframe somewhere in their building to software located in the cloud because – as long as the service wasn’t interrupted – the person sitting in some office at a computer terminal absolutely couldn’t tell the difference.

The more challenging transitions were in the next stage of the technology migration toward DIY: when other service vendors started to pull their people from the field and – immeasurably assisted by the fact that everyone had a phone – began to educate and train their customers to do more of the “work” involved in the service themselves.

Taking complexity out of photography

A simple example is event photographers. In the old days, photographers would spend hours moving through a crowd with expensive SLR cameras snapping shots which would be delivered to the event’s host some weeks later and eventually the physical copies of the photos would find their way to the attendees if they were lucky. The photographers were expensive, the photo preparation and delivery costs were considerable, and the delays – in a world of instant gratification – seemed interminable.

Today, employing technologies from firms like Spot My Photo event participants are told to load the vendor software on their phones, they register their face and phone with their first photo, people in the photos taken during the event are identified in the cloud by facial recognition tools, and — in real time — copies of the photos are sent to the phones of the individuals pictured in every shot. Spot My Photo’s tagline is “Let Your Photos Find You.” The company receives a fee per event from the host organization and basically has no marginal costs.

Even more importantly, there are enormous flywheel and follow-on advantages and benefits to the vendor because the installed software on each phone remains live and active and additional photos from other events or subsequent occasions can be directed to the user’s phone automatically.   

The final step in the typical vendor’s migration is to step away entirely from the individual events or other activities on site and simply license the software for a fee to third party providers who then assume all the costs and responsibilities involved in sourcing, servicing, supplying and supporting end users. Each step in the migration away from the field – done properly – increases the main vendor’s margins and profitability, reduces its headcount and overhead burdens, and simplifies the business.

Simple steps from service to SaaS to ultimately a hands-off attitude of “so what” are initially difficult for diligent and conscientious CEOs to manage emotionally–but easy for their CFOs to love.

 

LUNATIC WANNABE DICTATOR

 

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LOONEY TARIFFS

 

One Simple Question

 

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Learn How to Be a Better Reader 

The major newspapers have failed in their mission. We need a new format that does everything they once did–curate, inform, educate–without the baggage.

 

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

APR 1, 2025

The major newspapers simply aren’t getting the job done any longer. Apart from the fact that the printed paper is outdated before the press run is even finished, they aren’t telling us what we actually need to know in an effective manner. Smaller local papers continue to disappear, and the three leading national papers cower, cave and collaborate with the demands of the Orange Monster and their own corporate masters – joined these past few weeks by several of the largest law firms and major universities.

We are largely left to our own devices to find alternative sources of substantive news, serious thought, and opposition to the onrushing autocracy.

Newspapers today – even with unlimited online space – are opting for fluff, filler, and a lot of nice-to-know nonsense instead of substantive coverage of pressing national affairs. Many local papers are now dropping editorial pages entirely. And, as they shrink in size and shirk their obligations, they look like unfortunate jugglers trying to catch the wrong end of a bunch of plummeting knives – painful, pathetic, and painted red with the blood, sweat and tears of departed staffers.

The most immediate result of layoffs, buyouts, and bizarre dictates by billionaire owners like Patrick Soon-Shiong of the Los Angeles Times and Jeff Bezos of the Washington Post is the continued flight of major talent. Readership is disappearing, too.  Many of the best writers, editors, and reporters have abandoned the major rags to set out on their own to tell their stories and honor their callings through social media, YouTube videos, podcasts and new digital forums. But it’s an enormously difficult task to find an audience and make a living while you’re at it.

The Best Journalists Are Leaving Newspapers Behind 

Online digital channels like Substack, which provide a forum for opinions, reports and longer articles, are the prime beneficiaries of the writers’ exodus, for example, Jennifer Rubin of the Post. I also like Joyce Vance, Heather Cox Richardson, Shelly Palmer, Charlie Sykes, and Frank Bruni. Other new services like Bluesky and Threads — which unfortunately followed the constricted Twitter model best suited to short slander, right-wing hate, and trolling — haven’t really offered much of a viable alternative, despite building substantial audiences.

You can’t really say much of value if your message needs to be truncated into a dozen little squibs. And literally millions of new users signed up for these services without a clue as to what they were likely to find, or which other users and contributors might be on any given channel.

But these new forums, channels and writers face a much bigger obstacle that is likely to financially doom many new authors seeking a viable audience. What you say or how well you’ve said it doesn’t matter if (a) no one can find your work and (b) if, as a result, no one is reading or listening to it. Even if you think you know what you’re looking for, without a specific name in mind, there’s virtually no way to find anything of value among the thousands of returns that a typical Google search might generate. There are no editors, curators or guideposts to manage the constant stream of new material.

How Substack Hurts Its Own Users

Substack makes life even more challenging for its authors to build a sustainable audience by the utterly stupid step of automatically unsubscribing anyone suspected of forwarding a post to a mailing list. In other words, while their own offers litter every column with pitches to subscribe at various fee levels (including free), Substack punishes anyone for aggressively sharing a particular piece with a larger audience of potential subscribers by kicking them off the author’s page. This even includes articles which have been served for free by writers trying to get their message shared as widely as possible.

As if finding new materials and writers wasn’t tough enough, the Substack idiots penalize people for providing free marketing for their authors.

With Trump and his flunkies now threatening to effectively limit access to Social Security and privatize the United States Postal Service, online services may soon be the only effective channels that remain for most of our population. As they envision their brave new, tech-first world, the MAGAts never bother to mention the millions of older, rural and poor people, including their own supporters, who still lack access to online internet services or cellphones.

There are still important and critical nuggets of information regularly buried among the gross amount of garbage we get online. Today we all live in various degrees of fear of missing something critical from a friend, family, bank, litigant, government agency or other correspondent. And we regularly do miss messages directed to us at infrequently visited sites.

How To Be a Better Reader

Given this cluttered context, the scarcity of our time, and the fractionalizing of our attention, you need to selectively invest the energy in finding valuable new information sources, intelligent and informed writers, and news feeds that anticipate important events and prepare you to respond.  That’s in contrast to those that merely regurgitate the same tired factoids we see in dozens of different posts across the web.

You can start by finding out where some of your favorite columnists moved and follow them. But this process is too often frustrating. Medium does a decent job of collecting your interests (very generically) and then provides a long list of suggested writers who might be relevant. But it feels like a complete crapshoot, and you’re required to subscribe and pay a fee to proceed. Plus, much like those of us who presently subscribe to too many streaming services for no good reason, it quickly becomes a fairly expensive proposition to spend $50 a pop to support a dozen of the newspaper columnists you used to follow in one or two places.

Interestingly enough, this process of aggregation, validation and assembly of select writers, educators, scientists and other professionals used to be one of the primary functions of major newspapers. Your favorite paper was basically a one-stop shop, a convenient, well-organized and edited, and relatively painless delivery system especially when compared with the absolute drudgery that discovery on the web today represents. Those were the good old days.

Bottom line: we need a trusted online aggregator, or maybe a linking service more tailored than Apple News, where users can find and designate the content, authors, commentary and topics that interest them and have those delivered in a single, morning submission. Sorta like the newspaper you used to find on your doorstep.