Useless Opinions

Energy Marketing

---

 ~ Have you ever bought something that turned out to be useless? Perhaps you had a real need or a strong desire, and the thing you bought seemed to perfectly satisfy it. The magic of the marketing and its well-timed and well-targeted message got you to buy it. The need may have been real, and the thing purchased properly functioning, but the marketing created a poor match. What you bought didn't meet your actual need.

Our economy needs abundant and cheap energy. It also needs jobs. Big Oil and its sycophants in government and the media relentless argue that we should be doing more to "develop" our oil and gas resources in the US. That message is getting traction with the public as the price at the pump rises. But it is only a very slick piece of marketing designed to convince us that fulfilling their industry wishlist will solve our problems. Many are buying the political blather, but the results are destined to be disappointing at best, if not mostly useless.

Best Efforts on Jobs

Picking the Right Targets

---

 ~ I remain astonished at the hullabaloo drumming up support for the JOBS Act. Many people I know and respect, and legions more, are posting, tweeting, updating LinkedIn status and so forth to urge me to call my Senator, sign another petition, and spread the word.

How many are taken with the bill's title and the me-too tsunami and have not even read the bill? Despite its name, the bill will not create jobs, at least in startups and small businesses. It's a bill that makes investors wet, but won't make it rain for beleaguered entrepreneurs toiling to generate positive cash flow. And it opens a Pandora's box in crowd funding that will not end well.

Meanwhile, legislative alternatives, like renewing the Production Tax Credit, that are proven to create jobs remain in danger of dying, in part due to neglect from the same entrepreneurial community that so uncritically champions the JOBS Act.

Who Speaks for the Muppets?

On Small Government

---

 ~ David Rothkopf, ex-Clinton Administration official and Seattle WTO attendee in a Grist interview:

I love it when Ron Paul says, “If we get rid of government, freedom will sweep right in.” That’s just not what happens. What happens is that a bunch of elephants stampede in because they’re in a position to take advantage of it. Meanwhile, if you get government out of the way, the people who need government, they don’t have it.

There’s this myth that government doesn’t belong in the marketplace. If that were true, there would be no canals, no railroads, no highways, no internet. The government was a critical partner in many of the biggest innovations in U.S. history.

But if you buy into that for 20 or 30 years, and you say, “smaller government, smaller government programs,” who gets squeezed by that? It’s the cities. And the problem is that, as that happens, it accelerates. Kids drop out of school. Neighborhoods decay. Businesses leave. The tax base goes down. Cops get fired. Teachers get fired. It’s a cycle of pain.

The small government types don't like the comparison, but the question begs an answer: how does what they propose differ from Somalia?

Jobs Kabuki

The Appearance of Action

---

 ~ Last week the US House passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act (HR 3606). Sadly, the bill will do little to help early startups, and even less to create jobs.

The media seized on this as a bipartisan success story, a rarity in an election year and especially in this one, after the past 3+ years of shamelessly party-first demagoguery.

The bill may be bipartisan, but it's no success. It has almost nothing to offer startups, unless your definition of startups is limited to enterprises already measured at close to a billion dollars, or the investment and financial professionals that work with late stage companies preparing to go public.

What does the JOBS Act do?

Climate Change Satire

Ignorance is Bliss

---

 ~ Click for larger image.

Source.

Muzzle Gun

I Want One

---

 ~ Researchers in Japan have created a speech muzzling gun. When pointed at a speaker it replays what is said 0.2 seconds later. The slightly delayed echo interferes with the speaker's ability to make anything but unintelligible sounds. They are rendered speechless!



Dear Japanese industrialists: Please, please put this into production immediately. We are in the throes of another rebarbative election marathon and the need is desperate. You could probably sell millions of them.

Researchers' paper here [PDF].

Where's It Wednesday—LXXIV

Where in Seattle is this?

Answer next week.

Details on the weekly Where's It Wednesday puzzle here.
Other weeks' puzzles here.
Answer to last week's puzzle, after the jump.

Political Calculus

Supporting the Right Jobs

---

 ~ Renewables and the environment are leading the economic recovery. You might think our national politicians would pay attention and move to encourage and support this industry.

You would be wrong:

The renewable energy industry's hope of extending a slew of federal programs was easily defeated on the Senate floor Tuesday.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., had introduced an amendment to a transportation bill that would have, among other things, extended the Production Tax Credit for one year and revived the expired 1603 Treasury grant.

But that amendment fell far short of the 60 votes required as Senators split 49-49, according to a message sent by the Solar Energy Industries Association on Tuesday afternoon.

Job Growth

Strongest in Renewables, Environment

---

 ~ If Republicans were serious about creating incentives for job creation and real "job creators" they would swiftly enact legislation favorable to the renewable energy industry. While the pace of economic growth and job creation has been difficult for a few years, it isn't uniformly bad, as these analytics from LinkedIn show:

Renewables and the environment are leading the recovery.

Fostering this leading sector wouldn't be hard; they could just continue what has already been proven to work. Examples include permanent Production Tax Credits, restoration of the 1603 Treasury Grant program, and a national Renewable Portfolio Standard.

Sadly, until a Republican is in the White House, they appear to care less about supporting job creation than about supporting so-called job creators, i.e. by passing yet more vague tax cuts for the wealthy with little demonstrated benefit to the broader economy.

Energy Lies—XI

"Renewable Energy Mandates Raise Electricity Rates"

---

 ~ A common trope among defenders of fossil energy is that mandating renewable energy punishes ratepayers by forcing utilities to pass on increased generation costs.

But there's no truth to the charge:

Upon examining electricity rate data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration spanning the decade from 2000-2010, a Center for American Progress analysis found zero statistically-significant difference in how renewable electricity standards affect changes in rates.

Leadership is Action

Kicking It

---

 ~ Teddy Roosevelt:

In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Better to make a decision that has a poor result than to make no decision at all. Observing, thinking, planning are all important, but no leader can make things change without taking action.

Acid Redux

Oceans in Trouble

---

 ~ The amount of carbon in the atmosphere is increasing and the ocean is becoming more acidic. It may be an "experiment" that the Earth has run before, but it's not the same this time.

The world’s oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time period.

Boulder, Braver

Stillness

---

 ~ To succeed, entrepreneurs need balance between observing, thinking and acting. It isn't easy.

The father of my wife's youngest son died unexpectedly, and too young, so we've been in Boulder, Colorado the last couple of days making arrangements. Today was tough, especially going through his apartment, his things, his papers.

Later, I went outside our hotel and watched the full moon rise huge and orange. I was joined, abruptly, by this rabbit:

Where's It Wednesday—LXXIII

Where in Seattle is this?

Answer next week.

Details on the weekly Where's It Wednesday puzzle here.
Other weeks' puzzles here.
Answer to last week's puzzle, after the jump.

Periodic Tables

Many Elements in Common

---

 ~ The periodic table is a useful way to organize the natural elements based on their chemical and physical properties. While all such tables have the same logical organization, their actual display can be quite imaginative.

For example:

Here's a video showing the periodic table as a piece of furniture, with embedded samples:

Bootstrapping

A Necessity for You or for your Business?

---

 ~ Initially, most of us learn to ride a bicycle with training wheels. Most of us can’t wait to get the training wheels off, and many take them off too soon. Sure, we all want to look like the cool kids, whipping along apace like we were born with the 27-speed as an extension of ourselves. Greg Lemond and other top riders capture our attention and admiration, but who saw Greg Lemond learning the basics of riding through trial and error on his bike? We know of him only as the consummate expert; his ascension to the top tier of competition was mostly unseen and unknown.

If we ride, we all aspire to be Greg Lemond, or some other world-class cyclist who makes the exhausting hill climb and the later leisurely triumph down the Champs-Élysées look easy, even effortless.

Learning to build a startup is much like learning to ride a bicycle; you need to start with the training wheels.

Who Cares About Carbon?

Merely the Living, Really

---

 ~ Climate change deniers cannot dispute the evidence that carbon concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing.

Instead, they argue that it doesn't matter because it's happened before. Indeed it has, and that history should give us all pause.

Geologist Bryan Lovell explains:

Irreconcilable Differences?

Two-Party Dysfunction

---

 ~ Why can't they get along anyway? They seem so much alike... Disgusting.

Gas Price Blame

Whose Fault Are High Gas Prices?

---

 ~ Gas prices always go up in spring (why?) and this year they are rising faster and farther than ever before. Especially since it's an election year, the GOP wants to blame Obama.

Crowd-Sourced Investment

Frenzy, then Funk

---

 ~ There's some plans afoot to allow crowd-sourced funding of entrepreneurs, something like a Kickstarter for startups. Instead of helping non-profit causes and getting something of nominal value in return, these ideas would allow very small investments by hundreds or thousands of people in high-risk, for-profit fledgling businesses.

It's a bad idea.