Change around us – Page 14

Regulation of marijuana sales in Washington State – 2

This is the second in a series of posts providing background on regulation of recreational marijuana sales.

An article in The Telegraph provides more info – Dopeless in Seattle: legalised cannabis prompts pot shortage.

Focus of the article is on small number of shops opened on the first day of legal sales and the limited supply. That is a transition issue that will quickly resolve itself. This post will look at some comments in the article on the regulatory requirements.

The article describes the rules as

…a labyrinthine licensing system…

Continue reading “Regulation of marijuana sales in Washington State – 2”

For-profit college, Corinthian, pushed into closing by feds

I’ve been trying to sort out the situation with Corinthian Colleges. Under pressure from the Department of Education, the business agreed to sell off all its schools and close its doors. Here’s some articles and a few thoughts as I process.

7/4 – New York Times – College Group Run for Profit Looks to Close Or Sell Schools – Corinthian Colleges, which owns 100 different schools, will be winding down over the next six months.

Continue reading “For-profit college, Corinthian, pushed into closing by feds”

Regulation of marijuana sales in Washington State – 1

I’ve been following the state-legal, federal-illegal sales of marijuana in Washington and Colorado. I’m looking at legalization in those two states as a natural experiment in the heavy hand of regulation.

So you know my perspective and can filter my comments accordingly, my hypothesis is the heavy regulation imposed in each state will severely restrain, if not cripple, the new industry of legally selling banned pot. The legal infrastructure for sales is developing as regulators outline what is required.

Update: Full disclosure is a good thing. That should even apply to the opinions of journalists writing articles. That is the reason I just described my perspective. You know where I’m coming from so you can filter my comments and coverage accordingly. I sincerely recommend you do the same thing with every news article and opinion piece you ever read.

You can see my posts in the regulation experiment tag. My very first post on Washington was here.

I’ll look at three articles in this series. The first, from The Seattle Times on 7/5/14: State’s retail pot gets rolling Tuesday, provides a summary of regulation in Washington State and some indicators of prices.

A few tidbits on regulation:

Continue reading “Regulation of marijuana sales in Washington State – 1”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 7/7

A few articles on the open frontiers of space and technology that are worth a read and a brief comment.

Space

6/14/12 – Popular Mechanics – Tapping the Riches of Space – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 7/7”

Accident rates for military drones

The Washington Post has started a major investigative series on drones. First article describes losses in the military. Check out When Drones Fall From the Sky published June 20.

Looks to me like the implied conclusion the authors want you to reach is that drones are insufficiently reliable and unsafe for operation in U.S. airspace.

Several reasons for high loss rate come to mind. Institutional learning curve for brand new technology. Intentionally nonredundancy for an unmanned weapon system moved into use during combat. Not as much safety margins are designed in for unmanned systems in combat zone. Tradeoff of redundancy for reduced cost, increased range, and higher weapon payload.

Some great research from the article:

Continue reading “Accident rates for military drones”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 6/25

I read the news and see wide open frontiers in the worlds of publishing, technology, space, and energy. In terms of opportunities and growth, this reminds me of the wild west and homesteading days in the late 1800s.

Here’s a few of the articles that stretched my understanding of this amazing world we live in.

Perpetual Malthusian foolishness

4/25 – Wall Street Journal – The World’s Resources Aren’t Running Out – Ecologists worry that the world’s resources come in fixed amounts that will run out, but we have broken through such limits again and again – There are constant shouts of fright that we will run out of some resource in a decade or two. Maybe the day after tomorrow. Such predictions are as foolish as they are wrong. Matt Ridley points out that innovation, human creativity in other words, blasts through those limits over and over and over again.

Here is part of the blindness: Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 6/25”

Don’t complain about disappearing mom-and-pop record stores as you download an MP3 of your favorite song

Keep an eye out for the idea of creative destruction. That’s the idea that a new way of doing business will replace the old way and consumers reap huge benefits.

Many people bemoan Wal-Mart destroying lots of small shops. I understand the damage since that phenomenon affected friends of mine.

Before Wal-Mart, the large chain grocery stores wiped out lots of small neighborhood markets.

Don’t forget what happened in the music industry.

John Bredehoft, writing at tymshft, reminds us What goes around comes around – the record industry.

Continue reading “Don’t complain about disappearing mom-and-pop record stores as you download an MP3 of your favorite song”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 6/6

Just like the wild west and homesteading days in the late 1800s, the frontiers of publishing, technology and space are wide open. Here’s a few of the articles that stretched my understanding of this amazing world we live in.

Publishing

6/5 – Daily Beast – Amazon is NOT the Vladimir Putin of the Publishing World – Until now, I’ve not tried to sort out the spat between Amazon and Hachette. Who is Hachette, I hear you ask? They are one of the big publishing house. They are not an issue in my life because they would never, ever talk to a little bitty author with sub-microscopic level of sales like me.

The visible part of the dispute is Amazon posting a higher price on Hachette books, allegedly removing the ‘you can order weeks in advance’ button, shipping slower than arrive-first-thing-tomorrow-morning, and suggesting someone else on the ‘net may have a better price.

Article above explains Hachette wants you and me to pay more and Amazon wants you and me to pay less. What Amazon is doing as a negotiating strategy is offering books at the terms, availability, and prices Hachette wants.

The horrible, cruel, cut-throatedness of Amazon is amusingly described: Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 6/6”

I’m not the only one who thinks there is danger of major inflation – chairman of the Philadelphia Fed thinks so too

There is a huge amount of excess reserves just sitting in bank vaults (actually on deposit at the Fed). By huge, I’m talking around $2.5 trillion. That amount is from Charles Plosser, chairman of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank.

Marketwatch reports on 5/20: Chalres Plosser thinks there’s a ticking time bomb at the Fed.

Look at it a different way. Here is the M1 money stock, which I pulled from the Fed’s database:

See that huge increase in M1 from the start of the latest recession? Continue reading “I’m not the only one who thinks there is danger of major inflation – chairman of the Philadelphia Fed thinks so too”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 5/28

A few articles on technology, education, energy, and publishing that are worth a read. The frontier is wide open in those areas. Just a brief comment from me.

Innovation, inside the box

7/1/13 – Wharton – How LEGO Stopped Thinking Outside the Box and Innovated Inside the Brick – LEGO started losing money when their innovations needed a completely new set of parts for every innovation. They regained their 20%+ growth curve and 40% profit increase when they innovated new toys using existing pieces. Their outside-the-box innovation almost sank them. Staying inside the box returned them to growth and profits. Hat tip: Emproprise-BI: Structured innovation, via LEGO.

Lesson from my grad school classes: stay inside your competencies. LEGO makes bricks, not video games, TV shows, or bendable action figures. They thrive when they do what they do best.

Education

4/30 – Wall Street Journal – With Free Web Courses, Wharton Seeks Edge in Traditional Programs – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 5/28”

14 hour delivery from Amazon

Wow.

I ordered two items from Amazon at 8:11 Thursday evening. They promised Saturday delivery. Sounds fine to me.

Shipped out of the San Bernardino warehouse at 3:59 a.m. on Friday. Delivered by UPS at 10:07 a.m. Friday.

Next day delivery. Fourteen hours.

No extra charge with a Prime subscription.

Very cool.

How to summarize half a dozen developmental economics books in one sentence

You want to boil down hundreds of pages from several books? I came across one sentence that does a good job:

…poverty is a symptom— of the absence of a workable economy built on credible political, social, and legal institutions.

I’ve been reading a lot of economics books lately. (Okay, okay, you can pray for me – a CPA reading economics books for relaxation and learning and growth.)

(Cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

If we can figure out how we on this planet have gotten to the place where we have the highest wealth, best health, and longest life expectancy in history, we can keep going on the same path. Likewise, we can maybe figure out how to bring along those people groups that don’t share in the abundant bounty.

Here is the ache in many hearts: How do we ‘solve’ poverty and suffering?

Continue reading “How to summarize half a dozen developmental economics books in one sentence”

More good stuff on surveillance – 5/13

We are past the day-by-day dribble of compromised companies and products. The daily revelations of vaporized integrity have slowed to weekly or monthly. What is appearing now is a gradual realization that the companies running the tech we use every day just can’t be trusted, no matter what they say.

Here is my twelfth list of good stuff on our surveillance society that I’d like talk about but only have time to recommend with a quick comment.

3/31 – Schneier on Security – The Continuing Public/Private Surveillance Partnership– Public posturing by tech giants is merely that – posturing. The surveillance continues. There are 4 major sources of authority for the government surveillance.

When a federal player says a particular action isn’t taking place under a particular law, it is probably a true statement. How can that be?

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 5/13”

More good stuff on the open frontiers in space and technology – 5-5-14

More good stuff on the space and technology open frontiers – SpaceX trying to get some of the military launches, drones in agriculture, and criminals using tech to steal pot and poach rhinos.

Space

More good stuff on the open frontiers in energy & education – 4-29

It’s a wide open frontier in energy & education: why shale unlikely to boom elsewhere, U.S. getting greener because of shale, & one stat to show why higher education is in economic distress.

Energy

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers in energy & education – 4-29”