The Doomsayers and the Retirees

How can opposite sides of a debate both be right?

Doomsayers insist that Social Security has no 'trust fund' and will run out of money sooner than 2037, the new date listed in this month's official new projections.

Optimists say Social Security is well-funded and can continue with little additional money, if any.

They're both correct, at least partially so.

The doomsayers have latched on to a concept few media outlets understand: we're spending the Social Security surplus, and that means there's no 'trust fund.' Currently, Social Security takes in more money than it spends; that will change as we get more retirees per worker. Most news sources then report that the extra money Social Security has taken in - including this year and last - can then be spent to cover the gap until 2037.

But since we're spending that money now, there isn't any 'saved.' The surplus money goes into the general fund, which is spent by Congress on defense, education, and the like (see 'Where do your Taxes Go?').

It's as if you give $100 to your best friend in exchange for an I.O.U. while he or she then spends that cash. When you turn in your I.O.U., your friend needs to get that new money from someplace, since it hasn't been saved.

For Social Security, the I.O.U.'s are notes from the Treasury Department (or technically, they're an accounting entry made in the ledger for Social Security). To pay them off, the government will either need to borrow more (by issuing Treasury Bonds), or raise the income through taxes. There just isn't any saved. Really.

Optimists say the Treasury Department never defaults on payments, and that's true, too. Next week, we'll see why they're right: even though there isn't money saved, Social Security is not in crisis.

Words are Terroristical

Surprise! Barack Obama is a fascist, say GOP commentators, bloggers, and even politicians, including ex-presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Unless, of course, Obama is a socialist, as claimed by many of the same people, including Ron Paul and other folks at the first link above. Saul Anuzis, a contender for GOP party chair, explains that party supporters weren't getting enough traction from 'socialist,' so they're trying the new 'fascist' tag.

'We've so overused the word 'socialism' that it no longer has the bad connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10,' says Anuzis. 'Fascism - everybody still thinks that's a bad thing.'

Or maybe President Obama is a Communist - people still hate Communists, right?

That link, like the previous one, comes from FreeRepublic.com, which used to be my favorite amusing conservative site until they kicked me off for offering opposing views. (Really! That's why you'll never read a dissenting opinion there. They don't allow them.)

Even if you can't ignore such trash (the above article states a KGB agent admits Obama is a secret Communist), you can use your head. Can he be all three at once?

Remember that it was the Communists who fought the Fascist government in Spain, and that makes sense. They're at opposite ends of the political spectrum; they combine no better than the Yankees and the Red Sox. Those pundits are just spouting play-yard taunts, and they might as well call Obama a 'poopy-head.'

We've seen this before, most recently with abuse of the word 'terrorism,' which has devolved into meaning only, 'something you don't like.' As you know, 'war is terrorism,' as is ignorance. Hate is terrorism, as are global warming, and of course - of course! - taxes.

Such word-napping aside, it's actually useful to have a word that describes the deliberate targeting of civilians. War is awful, of course, but there's a moral chasm between shooting an armed assailant and planting a bomb on a school bus. Equating the two elides an important distinction, and when we muddy the words, we cloud our thinking.

So don't believe the name-callers when they toss around the 'fascist' label, nor the 'socialist' one. You know the difference, or if you don't, you still know there is one.

After all, you're no poopy-head.

Handling Obama Derangement Syndrome

When conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg recently praised Barack Obama's handling of the Somali pirate incident, his email inbox overflowed with "snark and bile" from readers unable to stomach the good words.

Of course, there was nothing wrong with the actions themselves.

If Ronald Reagan had taken the same steps - sending Navy forces to the area and ultimately rescuing the American ship captain after killing his captors with astoundingly accurate sniper fire - conservative magazines would feature the Gipper on Mt. Rushmore.

What better response from the conservative perspective? We used military might to rescue an American hostage. You'd think that would win cheers from everyone without tie-dyed sheets, yet Republicans still sneer (see 'Obama Derangement Syndrome' in the Economist).

'There's no pleasing some people' takes on a special significance today, as the phrase has more literal meaning than in the past. The radical right will be pleased by nothing, absolutely nothing, undertaken by Barack Obama or his party, just as the radical left refused to endorse any action by George W. Bush (even such liberal-friendly acts as increasing AIDS treatment funding for Africa).

So why try to make the radicals happy? A better option is to ignore them completely.

No more trying to please the opposition. No more making tax cuts the single biggest part of the stimulus package, because the other guys will still hate you. No more resisting calls from both sides of the aisle to nationalize banks, because the opposition will still call you a socialist or a fascist or a communist... or even all three at once. (See the Economist article above.)

In fact, that's the very topic of next week's post, Words are Terroristical.

Microsoft Hobbles the Fun

Microsoft plans to limit your use of its next operating system, if you own a netbook.

Windows 7 may see limited release as early as this week. See my blog from earlier this month on why you may not get too excited, especially given its continued incompatibility with the tens of thousands of programs written for XP.

And now there's a new twist: Windows 7 will come hobbled for use on netbooks and other inexpensive computers, allowing use of only three applications at a time.

It's easy to get up to three applications at once, as I'm doing right now (my browser, a text editor, and Microsoft Word). If I go to site that opens Windows Media, I'd need to close one of the others, as I would to listen to music in the background, or to use a calculator, or open Excel tables or a Outlook/Mail.

While netbooks and small laptops have limited computing power, that's not the trouble here. Though Windows 7 is still bloated (using about the same memory as Vista. The 'improvement' is that it uses no more), it's still capable of running more than three applications, or at least it was, until Microsoft introduced this lock.

Why the change? Microsoft says it has a narrow profit margin on netbook operating systems, and while I have a hard time picturing it being as small as the $15 they claim, I do believe they should make money on their sales. We're used to demanding things for free - free shipping, free upgrades - but Microsoft has to pay developers to make a new OS, and by paying for our purchases, we support those improvements.

But it's one thing to offer additional features for a cost, like a modest charge for improved releases, and another to disable features that already exist. Apple's Quicktime is a good example of the former: the basic program comes free with a computer, and advanced users can buy and download expanded editing tools.

Running multiple applications isn't an improved feature; it's a basic offering for any current operating system, and paying more to get it feels like a shakedown.

Saving More Gas than a Prius

Hybrids are popular, hybrids are hip. A Toyota Prius can get an impressive 50 m.p.g., prompting California to give them special driving exemptions: they can use the carpool lane with nothing more than the driver.

But that's not the road to big savings in gasoline.

It sounds like it - 50 mpg is double that of most passenger cars - but the measurement itself is misleading, as you can see from this little quiz:

     Which saves more gas?

• Replacing a 10 mpg S.U.V. with a 20 mpg station wagon?

or

• Replacing a 20 mpg sedan with a 50 mpg hybrid?

Surprise! It's the first option.

The S.U.V. uses 10 gallons to go 100 miles, while the station wagon (and sedan) use 5. The hybrid uses just 2, but that's a smaller savings than replacing the S.U.V.. If you drive a 200 miles a week, moving from the S.U.V. to the station wagon saves you 10 gallons, while moving from the sedan to the hybrid saves you 6 gallons.

It's the low mileage vehicles that add up. Moving from 10 mpg to 20 mpg saves a lot more than from 20 mpg to 40 mpg or even 50 mpg.

This would be easier to see, argue authors Richard Larrick and Jack Soll, if we replaced mpg with "gallons per mile," a measure that better shows the cost and savings of improved efficiency. You can read more about their idea or try a mini-quiz on the topic.

Next week's blog will address Microsoft's newly announced strategy for Windows 7: Microsoft Hobbles Your Fun.

Microsoft: No Worse than Before

From the headline reviews of the forthcoming Windows 7, you'd think Microsoft has a hit.

Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal titled his preview 'Even in Test Form, Windows 7 Leaves Vista in the Dust.' He found it 'very promising' and 'a pleasure to use.' Could Microsoft have turned the corner?

Hold that thought.

Look more closely, and you see we have the same giant company with the same huge problems. 

What were those problems with Vista? Mossberg sums them up for us: an operating system that required huge amounts of memory, one that wasn't really compatible with the countless programs written for Windows XP.

How does Windows 7 compare? It uses the same amount of memory and also lacks compatibility with Windows XP.

What Microsoft proclaims, and Mossberg accepts, is that Windows 7 is no worse than Vista. Microsoft proudly touts that this operating system upgrade is fully compatible with the previous one, the one everyone hates, but it doesn't actually expand compatibility as hoped.

Nor does it reduce the memory costs. It doesn't make them any worse, says David Pogue of the New York Times, who calls Windows 7, 'Vista, Fixed.'

But what does it actually fix? None of the problems that Pogue notes made users 'beg, plead, and sign petitions to bring back the previous version of the product.' It just doesn't make matters worse.

Same system requirements. No improved compatibility with XP programs. And, like Vista, it will apparently be sold in six confusing versions, rather than a single, simple package.

That's progress?

This post is going up early, as I'll be away on Monday. Next week will go up as usual, and it will be on The Modern Gas Mileage Mystery.

Copyrights, Music, and 100 Percent of Nothing

Is Apple now the biggest music retailer on earth?

A memo leaked this week suggests they may have passed Wal-Mart in global music sales, and whether or not that's so, they earn quite a lot from MP3s, even as the music industry screams about declining sales.

There's a lesson there about the danger of over-zealous guarding of copyrights.

The music industry so jealously combats anything that might lead to copyright infringement that they missed the biggest source of music revenue in the world today. When Napster introduced the ability to trade songs, it quickly attracted millions of users, and instead of seeing this as a potential source of revenue, music labels fought to shut it down.

Then they offered half-baked 'rental' schemes through monthly subscriptions, and relatively few people took the bait. It wasn't until Apple offered the right to buy a song for around a dollar that online music stores became viable. Sales rose even further when Apple offered the songs without DRM copyright protection.

DRM protection is a hassle, requiring computer confirmation at best and phone-in verification at worst (as with the maligned DRM scheme for the popular game 'Spore'). Since the whole point of MP3s is convenience - they don't sound better than CD's, but they're easier to use - anything that complicates their use is unwelcome.

So here's a plea to the music industry: please, just let us buy the songs and leave your electronic policemen out of our homes.

Posts this month are on technology and society. We'll return to economics in May.

If you think the music industry is out-of-touch, please see next week's post on Microsoft: No Worse than Before.