Carnival of the Capocracy Democritalism Capitalists

Fortunately, I still like carnivals. Because I am not too high on capitalism right now. I just saw Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and the not-so-wonderful connections he makes between big business, the administration and the war in Iraq are a bit disconcerting. I am also running Spybot Search & Destroy, Ad-Aware 6.0 and Hijack This for the 3rd time each, to no avail.

The good news is, however, that I visited France for two days this week and everyone I met, loves the US and --more importantly-- loves the people in the US. Even those of you that rallied around Freedom Fries.

So, as I sit to prepare this week's version of the COTC--while sipping a French aperitif--GWB is still president, civilians and our service-men and -women are still dying in Iraq, and popups, automatic downloads, and browser hijackers are still invading my computer...all in the name of democracy,
freedom, and the almighty buck.

And while pondering whether this strange cocktail of democracy and capitalism is actually working to make our lives better, here are some somewhat related thoughts.

Without further ado, I am showing my love to this week’s submitters to the Carnival of the Capitalists. Because, at the end of the day, "Love is all We need".

Barry Ritholtz of the Big Picture Blog ponders whether Bush is slipping in the polls among the Capitalists...

Here's my favorite quote of a quote from Barry's post:

"I can testify to the extraordinary destruction of 'American Brand Value' accomplished by this administration, from Europe to Hong Kong to Shanghai to Tokyo, and beyond ," he wrote in a recent e-mail that he widely distributed. "If any CEO of a global multinational had accomplished this for his enterprise as quickly and radically as George Bush Jr. has done for the U.S., he would be replaced by the board in no time."

Update: David Tufte has an interesting reaction to Barry's post.

Meanwhile, goobage, doesn't think that it is the stupid white men that run the government that is the problem. It is the whole idea of government budgets based on tax revenue that is the problem. So, instead of letting the government auction off give-away contracts, make them roll up their sleeves and do the actual serving. Goobage proposes Capitalist Government and asks the question:

Why can't governments support themselves with capitalistic principles rather than extortion?

Not a bad idea. Not likely. But well-intentioned. At least until they figure out that serving the less profitable segments of the markets ghetto is a bad strategy in maintaining a strong balance sheet.

For instance, how would health care work if the government ran it like a business?

I am not sure, but here is a bit of what happens when they do what they are doing now:

The Treasury recently waived some of the requirements of the Health Savings Account rules until 2006, allowing HSAs to be set up in states with rules mandating low-deductible or no-deductible coverage, at least for some health conditions. These state provisions conflict with the requirement that HSAs be used with high-deductible health insurance plans.

After reading that post 10 times and still not understanding what is going on, I think it might be easier to just let the government run health care?

Update: Martin Lindeskog of the Egoist blog has an answer for the question above about government run health care.

Anyways, I think they could get some help with this whole running-of-a-business concept with some handy number crunching by David Tufte at the voluntaryXchange blog. David points out that the WSJ reports that Hollywood makes 40% of their revenue in the summer months, which as David's calculator tells us also works out to be 40% of the time. I checked his math and can confirm.

So, Mr. Capitalist Government, we don't recommend outsourcing your business plan to Hollywood. They may be good at packaging pretty faces in romantic cheesy war movies, but they don't know how to pick a summer money-maker that actually says something about war, when they see it.

Mr. Capocracy Democritalism, I also recommend reading this post by David Masten at the Catallarchy blog for another lesson on how not to spend the people's money wisely. Contrary to George Bush's thinking that spending money on Mars Exploration is good for the public, David summarizes:

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that the space program is economically a public good, NASA creates public bads and unintended consequences.

In some more bad news for the incumbent... although that economy is BOOMING (yep, we're almost believing that one.), employee morale is low. John Drake of the Drakeview Blog, reports:

Recent survey by NFI Research reveals that despite economic improvement, morale among employees is still low. There appears to be a growing disconnect between economic conditions and employment satisfaction. This Drakeview post suggests that the nature of work and workers is changing and the uncertainty causes low employee morale. And further that the people who recognize what the changes mean to the nature of work and employment will take advantage of the opportunity.

Well, a Carnival with all this advice for the incumbents and the other party that kinda-matters, wouldn't be complete without some advice for the Libertarians. Here's some at the Calico Cat blog. Michael Kantor talks about the consequences of switching back to the Gold Standard and why Libertarians shouldn't support that.

To complete our government and business section and smoothly transfer into "blogging for business", I recommend you check out one of my recent posts calling for a new presidential debate platform on the web[log]. Two candidates- one blog: Read this and think about it.

And if JFK and GWB decide to do it (my debate idea), I recommend they read this post on the Crossroads Dispatches weblog by Evelyn Rodriguez entitled: David and Goliath Corporate Blogs.

She compares and contrasts a small software company that was just acquired by Oracle last week - they've been using a corporate blog for about 2 ½ years) on the same day as Jonathan Schwartz, COO of Sun, starts blogging. How big and small company outward-facing blogs uses and challenges are different. (I'm gearing up to write more on "evangelistic blogging" for Global PR Week, July 12-16.)

More on Jonathon Schwartz's blogging, that I just happened to read today.

Ok. Ok. What kind of carnival is this anyways? We've bashed the government, capitalism in general, big companies that blog, even the libertarians. Who have we missed? "Ooh Ooh. Pick me. Pick Me", says the press! Arnold Kling has written a piece on how productivity gains in the US economy are ignored by the press. And makes a case that the press' liberal bias is the reason. I'll spare you my opinion on the whole bias in the press thing for today.

Suffice to say that Productivity is a Good Thing. But, Craig Henry argues that it is bad Bad for Innovation. Especially, as less and less people are around to do the same job (that is how we achieve higher productivity, right?), and they focus on day-to-day operations, they have less down time to focus on creatively creating the products and processes of the future.
Update 7/7/04: Stephen Carlson's take on this productivity vs creativity in the academic setting.

What carnival bitch session would be complete without a little Oracle and big consulting company bashing? Thankfully, we have two posts by Frank Scavo weighing in on how the big consulting firms peddle software vendors' wares to clients for a fee. They are titled, “Consulting firm bias toward software vendors” and “Influence Peddling?”

With all this bashing, I think I am starting to get a temperature. I must have a case of google backlink and pagerank fever. Luckily, as we switch to our tech news for the Carnival, Wayne Hurlbert of the venerable Blog Business World, (the guy that introduced me to the COTC) has a cure for me. And all those SEO's that get afflicted when google decides to update their db. He says stop fretting, just create good content and get incoming links (from other people).

And while you are at it, optimize your header tags without cramping your style (using CSS) with this handy how-to from the OSCommerce blog.

So, if you’ve made it this far and you haven't formed a team of lawyers to sue me for libel, I recommend you read this post by Michael Lauher, in his blog, Junk Drawer, and create your own mini-blogger-bio.

Here is what that is:

Bloggers should offer “Blogger Bios” for other bloggers to copy and paste when they reference their blog. Blogger Bios do two things. First they would help provide a little more insight into the person the writer is referencing. Second, it is an opportunity for bloggers to obtain links to their business or company that they may not have received otherwise.

If you like my blog and you want to link to the this post, here is my blogger bio… Copy and Paste Away.

<b>Peter Caputa’s Blogger Bio:</b> Pete uses his blog, <a href="http://worcester.typepad.com/pc4media">pc4media</a>, to network with cool people, to get the word out about new innovations in the online software space, get feedback on his ideas, and to evangelize his event promotional and social networking company, <a href="http://www.whizspark.com">WhizSpark.</a>

And finally, hop on over to Steve Garfield's blog, OffOnATangent. Enjoy the idyllic little made-for-weblog movie, called Micro-Machines and learn how to make a made-for-weblog movie yourself, in the process.

Update: Pick your best weblog post about bizness/politics/tech and send next week's submission to capitalists at elhide dot com.

Udpate: Michael Moore has a blog. I figured since I linked to him so much in this post, and his movie shaped the 'grumpiness' of this post, I'd throw up a link. (Found on Rick Bruner's blog about business. So, I am not the only one mixing business with politics.)

Comments

[Slick]

What I read in your economic out look is that you must live on the east coast - You believe that the growth that is happening now is all smoke and mirrors? Interesting that during the 90's everyone was on cloud nine making a ton of money, never believeing that it was indeed just a bubble that burst in the 2001, that is, in the light of reality. That's real growth!!

Real growth that is taking place now is built on production of inventory and actual sales. Demand for raw materials is so great now that lead times are out to months. That means manufacturing as well as sales and services is on the move. We are growing at better than 4%. Sustained growth!!! Unemplyment nation wide is down lower that it was during the fantastic old days of the bubble years of the 90's! Jobs are being added by the tens of thousands ever month, but you say there is no real growth!? The market is over ten thousand again and no bubble - No real growth!!! How can that be -

Your attitude of taking the power to inovate and take risks away from the individual is a return to the dark period of 90's with the bright lights in our eyes and the abis just inches from our feet!

[Jonathan]

I have no idea how you ended up hosting the "Carnival of the Capitalists" (instead of the "Carnival of the morose, anti-American Capitalist-hating Michael Moore sycophants") but I've got a pretty good idea why the French like you so much.

If this is where the bar is set, I should get a weblog and offer to host.

[Alex]

Honestly - if you despise capitalism and capitalists so much, why the everloving fuck are you hosting CotC?! Do you think you're going to get some sort of "message" across with this immature stunt? Do you get that much of a woodie from pointlessly antagonizing people? Why not do something constructive and, rather than hijacking CotC, start your own "carnival" network - Carnival of the Self-Deceiving Socialist Dupes or something? CotSDSD - it's catchy! No charge!

Oh, and take a fucking Econ 101 class already. Or are you too busy waiting for the government and the business world to take care of you while you relentlessly bash them? Think about this: who wants to do business with someone who so implacably hates businesspeople? Your time spent spouting nonsense would be better spent, if not doing something constructive, at least lobbying for subsidies for idiot-run e-business...

[peter]

Wow. Thanks for such constructive feedback, ya'll.

For the record, you 3 have me all wrong.

I won't bother to address your actual criticism, because it is mostly ill-founded and name-calling.

You might bother to understand that most of what was submitted and what I wrote about was not my opinion... I simply laced it in a bit of sarcasm and a common theme of 'criticism'.

Maybe you are just pissed that I linked to Michael Moore. But, you'll notice that I actually didn't provide any opinions about him or his opinions, nor did I say much that was resolute other than to question capitalism. Which I think is a healthy part(questioning things) of our system of democracy and capitalism.

And anyone that has run a business, will know that there are always questionable practices and consequences to the pursuit of money. So, a bit of questioning, is in order, I believe.

Regarding the economic rebound, I don't follow macro-economic trends closely enough to really know what is going on. I hope the economy grows and remains strong. And I believe it will because of the entrepreneurial spirit that people in the US have and the lack of goverment and societal barriers to starting and even failing in business. Not because of government tax relief. Nonetheless, I am not an expert, and anyone that has read more than this post on this weblog, will know that I generally do not comment on these issues.

I am more interested in building and growing my business. Of which, I will succeed, regardless (and maybe because), of the fact that I am willing to criticize the status quo and question
the way things work.

Lastly, I think it is pretty rude that people would criticize me, personally (and 1 person did it anonymously). If anything, the criticism I delivered or merely passed-on, was meant towards a system or a behavior of a group, or a very public figure. In other words, it wasn't personal.

And really lastly, if the people that are actually involved in the COTC are offended by my post, I truly apologize. I did not intend to destroy or diminish the hard work that they have put into this. If a public apology is in order, in their opinion, I am willing to make it.

I am generally a very constructive and positive person. Although I question and like to probe deeper than the average person, I am generally very positive.

Nor was this a stunt. I simply wrote what I was thinking about - with the material I was provided.

Anyone that thinks they can do better, should step up. I am sure the COTC would welcome you. You are right, there isn't much you need to do to qualify.

And yes, I am from the East Coast. Massachusetts to be exact. Good guess.

[conrad]

There is nothing more stupid than for stupid white men to groan and complain about "stupid white men."
We blacks have long been amused by the tendency of some white men to try to hold themselves aloof from the rest--perhaps to escape guilt of some sort?

[peter]

atleast we are getting constructive, now. thanks a lot, Conrad.

[Sandy P]

So, W is slipping in the polls among the capitalists?

Why do I interpret those posts as I'm supposed to accept that I and my family are to be cannon fodder so Big Business can continue to expand?

Kerry's coalition of the bribed, frankenreich, isn't going to change a darn thing.

[Sandy P]

And now that I actually read the WSJ thing, for that to come out of the gaping hole of NYC is disgusting.

Buffet what a surprise - not.

So how many Americans will have to die before they decide they're going to have to protect America so they can continue to promote the American brand/value? What's acceptable losses? Where's the cost/benefit analysis? And in their calculations, do they ever consider it's going to be them or their families instead of mine?

[Alex]

You're just in love with the sound of your own (writing) voice, aren't ya, kid? (A sampling of other posts on your blog certainly bears out that impression) Well, hope you enjoy trying to run a business in the Democrats' America...

(incidentally, it's painfully obvious that you didn't even READ many of the articles you linked to them - a good choice on balance, as the actual contents of the articles would have been much harder to shoehorn into your bitchy moonbat rubric...)

...Or is it all a cynical marketing ploy...?