Kudos to CNN for using holographic imagery for the first time in TV reporting.
35 high definition cameras surround Jessica Yellin in a tent in Chicago at the massive Obama rally as she is beamed live to the CNN situation room to talk with Wolf Blitzer.
The imagery is imperfect but of a high enough quality to suggest we’ll be seeing this tool used more and more as a virtual meeting environment.
Good job CNN !
Election Day 2008
Voting is still underway but the outcome is already clear – Obama will win our US presidency by either a modest or large number of electoral votes and probably about 54% or more of the popular vote. Many Americans are breathing a sigh of relief that the outcome today is clear and uncompromised by the many flaws of our counting system.
Election and electoral irregularities, negative campaign strategies, and the flaws of Democracy aside, all Americans should be very proud that our nation will once again make our qaudrennial peaceful transition of executive leadership from one administration to another after a national vote.
The Obama victory, combined with large gains in congress for the Democrats, will likely be viewed for centuries as one of the most significant transformative events in American history. This will be one of the largest swings from “conservative Republican” to “liberal Democrat” leadership in all of history.
In a decision based overwhelmingly on political rather than racial considerations, Obama’s rise to the US Presidency will also demolish the pervasive-but-misguided mythology that has suggested for over a generation that America could never transcend our history of prejudice and elect an African American to the highest office.
Yet Americans can transcend the challenges of our past.
We just did.
Speaking in London Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales made an obvious but important observation: the collaborative aspect of the internet – what many would call a key aspect of “Web 2.0”, is still in its infancy.
Although Wales seemed to focus on video collaboration and how that could improve I’d suggest that the real power of the online medium will *not* be video – rather we’ll find that many different combinations of photos, videos, and community will evolve into the next key style of web interaction.
This could be along the lines of a more powerful and more ubiquitous Flickr, acting within loose alliances of connected niche sites connected by Facebook and Myspace and Google Social and Open ID.
The niche aspect of the internet is already clear in Politics, where you find blogs and commenters and social networkers sticking pretty close to home, preaching to their own choirs and repeating the same themes throughout loosely connected social networks dominated these days by either Obama supporters or Obama bashers (who generally are McCain supporters but almost never talk about McCain!).
Obviously there are many, many exceptions, but if you look at many of the most successful major blog efforts it is interesting how partisan they are and how uninterested they are in providing more than ideological fodder consistent with what their readers already think: DailyKOS, DrudgeReport, Huffington Post, WorldNewsDaily are a handful of commercially successful sites that add little to an informed discussion but remain more popular than the far more balanced views you’ll find elsewhere. It’s encouraging that CNN and other major news outlets are looking more to interactivity and blogging, though I predict they’ll find it very challenging to monetize these social media assets in the amounts to which they are accustomed. As with Yellow Page websites, I think major media blog sites may struggle with the difference between advertising costs and expectations online and off.
Today on Zakaria GPS we have Robert Rubin, Citibank and Wall Street megamoneymeister and Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury.
Rubin is always one of the most impressive observers of the economy, and distinguished as one of the few Secty’s of treasury who presided over a Federal balanced budget. He articulates complexity well and also avoids the partisan nonsense that clouds these debates. For example he was complimentary of Paulson’s efforts
Main point was that we need to do more to address mortgages at home and bank level to stabilize things and that he wanted a *huge* stimulous package – probably not in the form of tax rebates because they don’t tend to hit economy fast enough and are often saved.
Rubin is Obama’s economic advisor (along with Volker, Buffett, Summers). Rubin was very complimentary of Obama’s style and intellect, pointing out that at the meetings Obama is always quick to divorce the campaign considerations from the economic solutions, and to listen to those who agree and disagree.
The bad news is that Rubin sounded like he was not willing to go back to Washington and take the position of Secretary of the Treasury again even though many (certainly I) would like to see him there again.
Although I’m a political junkie I’d hoped to try to stay objective in a race I knew would be clouded with the usual nonsense of our American democratic experience where marketing and the politics of personal destruction *always* trump an intelligent discussion of the issues. However I’ve been especially alarmed by the very personal and deceptive attacks on Obama’s character and personal history. Thanks to some huge comment streams this blog has become mostly political for the past week so I should let readers know where I stand.
Barack Obama for President.
Like Christopher Buckley I’m normally a small government low tax fiscal conservative, but also like Buckley I think more than anything right now the country needs a “first class mind” in the oval office. The world faces the greatest fiscal crisis since the great depression, and global terrorism remains a critical threat around the world. Perhaps the John McCain of the 1990s would be a good man for the job now, but that John McCain is not running for President.
Obama, unlike any other prominent American leader, will send a signal to the world that the USA remains both the shining beacon of prosperity we have always been but also is asserting an entirely new approach to internal affairs – an approach characterized by flexibility, compassion, and intelligent reflection rather than the knee jerk ideological responses that have compromised our reputation and standing in the global community for much of the past 8 years.
Obama is the right choice for these challenging times despite some flaws. I’ll keep hoping that the economic challenges will force Obama into more realistic ideas about how the economy and personal responsibility. I hope Obama will soon come to realize how the national debt and deficit are ticking time bombs that pose a greater than the current looming financial crisis, and work hard towards a balanced federal budget.
But trumping those concerns for me is that the country will benefit from Obama’s ability to galvanize support and bring people together. Some will choose to fight Obama and to continue the smears and personal attacks, but in the same way that approach has failed in the campaign I hope that approach fails with America as we move forward to the great challenges that we all must face together, like it or not.
The future is uncertain and potentially very perilous. Major changes and challenges are coming at us with each passing day. We need inspired new leadership.
Obama for President.
Anyway … the cooler logo should win this thing
Fareed Zakaria, one of the best observers of the global landscape, suggests that if we curb some of our bad borrowing and spending habits we may emerge better and stronger from the current fiscal crisis:
If we wanted a bigger house, a better TV or a faster car, and we didn’t actually have the money to pay for it, no problem. We put it on a credit card, took out a massive mortgage and financed our fantasies. As the fantasies grew, so did household debt, from $680 billion in 1974 to $14 trillion today. The total has doubled in just the past seven years.
I’m not as optimistic as Zakaria that after the current crisis ends we’ll return to the what appeared to be a vibrant economy because of the other issue he discusses – failing to address the herd of elephants in our finanacial room – a 10 Trillion and growing budget deficit with an annual deficit that continues to skyrocket after the disasterous spending recklessness of *every administration* since Reagan with the possible exception of Bill Clinton (when we did not borrow nearly as much as we had been, I think largely thanks to the huge increasee in Tax revenues that came from the positive investment climate.)
My take is that our economy has been challenged for some time, with prosperity manufactured to some extent by simply pushing expenses forward to our kids. McCain’s call for a balanced budget in four years is admirable in this respect, and it is unfortunate that so few truly think that is realistic. It is actually realistic but would require massive cuts in military spending- the sacred cow of fake conservatives who are (correctly) willing to slash entitlements but (stupidly) think that military money is spent wisely (news alert fake conservatives – it is NOT spent wisely and this is *totally* well documented). Not only have we been living on debt as individuals, but we’ve been living on debt as a society. This is not sustainable for the long term, and we may be seeing the early signs of the massive challenge we’ll face if the world starts to lose faith in the US economy.
That won’t happen anytime soon, but unless we bring debt and spending into focus both individually and collectively it’s going to happen eventually. It’s easy to predict we won’t change our habits all that dramatically, but hopefully enough for a soft landing as we come down from our lofty heights as the world’s key economic and power player.
A new study suggests Googling is good for your health. Mental brainpower health that is. Researchers measured brain activity in online searchers and noted that it was much higher when people were using search engines.
More about why YOU are smarter for hanging out online so much. Congratulations!
Hedge fund manager George Soros is one of the world’s richest and most successful market watchers (and market manipulators?). Zakaria reports that Soros’ recent plays have netted him over 2 billion. He’s very controversial for his political views though my take is that great business folks can easily separate their politics from their business decisions.
Consuming more than you produce:/ That game is over.
Houses as piggy bank, instead of savings. [BAM! We are seeing this obvious but profound observation coming up a lot]
Misconception: Markets will correct themselves. They won’t. We have reached the end of a bubble cycle started in the 1980s when massive global markets and deregulation frenzy began.
Mortgages as the “detonator” of the nuclear bomb that is the current global crisis. Stock market in capitulation phase that has followed credit problems.
Can’t predict future because it depends on decisions. He says he was wrong in 1998 to predict some sort of climax to the bubble.
“The cost will be greater, the damage will be greater”.
“You need a government that believes in government”
Paulson bailout plan as ill concieved – same kind of financial engineering that got us into the mess. Paulson as behind the curve “all the way” because he buys into market fundamentalism.
The authorities have lost control of the situation.
Soros recommends: Mobilize private capital to buy into distressed banks and lift minimum reserve requirements to free up lending.
Reduce number of foreclosures by renegotiations to sound mortgages that will not exceed 85% of house value. Loss to be absorbed by mortgage owners (banks?). Govt will then guarantee mortgages to 85% value, which would encourages renters to buy. Some losses, short recession.
Soros: I understand the flaws which allows me to profit, but as a citizen I want better regulation. Markets and Govts are flawed. Less regulation, better regulation.
Soros (like Gates and Buffett?) believes the anti-tax positions are false because supporting infrastructure with taxes is so critical to wealth formation.
Soros said he does have inordinate influence as a rich person on politics but , unlike many other rich folks, does not use it to improve his financial positions. He thinks market fundamentalism abets power abuses in politics.
China built assets while we built debts. Tremendous power shift. But America will remain a leader and could be *the* leader with some changes.
After Yahoo turned down Microsoft’s offer of over $31 per share there has not been much good news for a troubled Yahoo, with a price now right about *half* what Microsoft offered. However it does appear that Yahoo will merge with another struggling internet empire: AOL. Time Warner’s merger with AOL years ago will probably go down as one of the most misguided corporate marriages in history leading as it did to nothing but heartaches and lowered TW values, but the Yahoo deal actually seems to make a lot of sense to me if Yahoo can get it’s management act in gear. With AOL Yahoo will control even more valuable internet items such as about half of all the email accounts in the world. Some reports suggest that Microsoft may have even more interest in a combined Yahoo AOL. In today’s challenged fiscal environment it seems unlikely Yahoo could refuse another MS takeover even at a reduced cost per share.
Disclosure: Long on YHOO
Fareed Zakaria continues his amazing series of interviews on his CNN GPS show with Bill Gates.
Like Warren Buffett, a close friend of Gates, Gates will give away almost all of his wealth over the next decades via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which focuses on global health and education initiatives.
Gates supports “some” inheritance taxes because we are all beneficiaries of the education and stability provided by the US infrastructure.
His preference for foreign development investment seems to be based on the idea that the need is much greater there, the return on the charity giving is much greater, reducing infant mortality wll *decrease* birth rates [this is a profoundly important observation that is well documented but poorly reported – many think helping the poor tends to increase births when this is false]. They talked about the book “The Bottom BIllion”.
On the future of computing and the Internet:
Shape of computers will change. VIrtual wallpapers, tablet computing.
The whole economy is using software simulation, which makes development less expensive.
China as largest broadband market – probably for the rest of the century. He seemed to think India was unlikely to catch up to China.
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He’s focusing more now on how to create visibility for issues like malaria prevention.
When asked how he’d be remembered – as a software pioneer or philanthropist – Gates didn’t answer but I think the answer is increasingly clear. Gates more than any other person has brought a new era of Innovative huge scale development work that could turn back the tidal wave of poverty in our generation. He’s helping to make it not only fashionable, but somewhat obligatory for the rich to pay a lot more attention to those in need.
Joe Duck 