Back To It: The Conversion Economy

Ok, I slacked off yesterday. Got my work done and had a kid home, so we went and grabbed some tacos at a local taqueria (La Michoacana) and ran errands. Good tacos. And most of the other stuff look very good as well. Hole in the wall, but great stuff.

I'm sure I was missed.

Anyway, two stories that grabbed me yesterday:

This one that is a very interesting explanation of why it's taking so long to get out of the economic slack time.

Essentially, it posits that the cloud is replacing capex (capital expenditures) spending. This would be huge, considering on significant indicator of an improving economy is rising capex spending since if a business begins to hire, add more office and production facilities, grows it computer needs and network, jobs are created across the economy.

But what is happening now is modeling and computing are reshifting the way companies are recovering. They don't need the manpower they did previously and when they retool, they can keep a lot of that cash for other things. Like stock buybacks and acquisitions.

This was an epiphany for me since it is an elegantly simple reason why this recovery has dragged on, so many people have been left out of the workforce, income inequality has grown, wages are stagnant  - and the US is supposedly leading the world in recovery.

I would contend we're leading the world in transitioning to a new economy. That mulitnationals are having to completely retool from a human-focused workplace to technology focused one.

This explains why it's taking so long to get back up to speed. And why layoffs are on rise in most industries, including tech. And commodity prices remain in the toilet. It's not about steel and copper, it's about AI, supercomputers and cloud computing.

That also means we need to look at new metrics on how to measure this 'conversion economy'.

And yes, at some point we'll need people and material to do things like build trains and road and apartment buildings. But we'll need less. And one architect and/or engineer with a computer is as powerful as an entire firm was back in the good ol' people days.

The implications here are significant. And I'm not going to spend my Saturday discussing it. But I think I'm right. I'm sure I'll be revisiting this regularly. For now, read the article and tell me what you think.

Help, It's The Police!

Another interesting story I saw yesterday is about a new FBI report that reveals that there is no 'war against police' and thus, begs the question why we continue to think our society is on the brink of social breakdown and it's necessary to kill unarmed people who have done little to merit getting shot for being an asshole.

Look in the old days, the theory was, no one is faster than radio. Meaning, if someone runs from you, you just get on your radio and have them caught. If you know their name and number, you wait for them to return home and then get them and rough them up for the effort. You don't draw down on them as they run and take them down for an outstanding warrant on a traffic violation.

Drawing your weapon was the last option, not the first. And the whole 'well things are different now' just doesn't cut it. Guns - in a growing number of circumstances - have replaced other policing methods. And when cops can shoot and get away with it, they'll continue to shoot instead of think.

This isn't a cop thing as much as it is a cultural thing.

Just like the fact that cops patrol poor neighborhoods differently than they patrol middle class suburbia. There are just as many drug deals and violence going on in both neighborhoods, but one has residents that are easier to engage, arrest and prosecute than the other. I know of crack houses in one of the nicest areas of Old Town Alexandria. But middle class people don't want cops in their business and will hire lawyers to keep them out; until ordered like a Domino's pizza. And expect faster delivery.

Bottom line: policing and politics are far too tied to one another these days - mandatory minimum sentencing, etc. Let the cops do what they think needs to be done and police how they see fit and get the politics out of it. Only then can we start to move forward. Once again, making policing political has distorted the real challenges on the street, and puts both cops and citizens at risk.