America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century-Why America’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come

The authors blog at ChicagoBoyz.  They look at how America has changed from a 1.o agrarian-shop keeper society to America 2.0-big institutions, both corporate and government and how the new America is being born right before our eyes.

They have started a companion blog, Americathreepointzero, that goes with the book. I encourage you to sign up for it.

I have often thought about how the internet is changing things.  The development of it is changing things in ways that you might not have thought about.  The nature of the internet allows the little guy to take on the big guy and win.  It allows the little guy to find and access niches previously unattainable so they can make a living.

The changes in the internet are being embraced by big corporate institutions today.  They are changing their internal business models ever so slowly.  But Big government hasn’t embraced the change.  Those institutions ignore it at their peril.  The internet will make government that doesn’t heed it’s macro trends irrelevant.

Tennessee Law Professor and blogger Glenn Reynolds said,

To me, the leitmotif for the current decade is supplied by Stein’s Law, coined by economist Herb Stein: “Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.” There are a lot of things that can’t go on forever, and, soon enough, they won’t. Chief among them are too-big-to-fail businesses and too-big-to-succeed government.

But as Bennett and Lotus note, the problems of America 2.0 are all soluble, and, in what they call America 3.0, they will be solved. The solutions will be as different from America 2.0 as America 2.0 was from America 1.0. We’ll see a focus on smaller government, nimbler organization, and living within our means — because, frankly, we’ll have no choice. Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. If America 2.0 was a fit for the world of giant steel mills and monolithic corporations, America 3.0 will be fit for the world of consumer choice and Internet speed.

Ironically, in places like Spain and Greece where government has become irrelevant to the common man, the internet is finding a voice. Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on that phenomena.

Venture capitalists like those at Union Square Ventures have taken this trend and turned it into an investing thesis.  They have made a lot of money through their insight.   Two days ago, one of their companies, Tumblr.com was purchased by Yahoo ($YHOO) for $1.2 Billion.

Back when I was graduating from college, all I heard was how it was time for America to step aside from world leadership.  The Japanese would run the show.  Today’s college students hear how the American experiment has failed, and the Chinese will step in to fill the void.  No doubt, China will be a force in the 21st Century, but America will be too.  There is something in our DNA as a country.  America 3.0 defines that core competency America has.

America 3.0 will give you great insight as to how America can change, should change, and how to be an active participant in it. Pick it up and read it today.

The post America’s Best Days Are In Front of Her appeared first on Points and Figures.

In tough economic times, education gets a different focus and scrutiny.  When I went off to college in 1980, the country was still in rough economic shape.  I was committed to getting a business degree and took required classes in other fields just enough to get a BS. I didn’t partake in them with the same fervor I did a business school class.

My mistake.

Post college, I read the book The Closing of The American Mind by Allan Bloom and found myself agreeing with a lot of it.  As I told one of my daughter’s professors, I felt like I wasted four years of my life.

My daughter chose Davidson for the Humanities core.  At Davidson, they teach humanities how they ought to be taught.  As President Quillan said, the school offers the most rigorous undergraduate academic experience in the nation.  The kids didn’t come to party.

Too often, liberal arts professors and advocates sell themselves short.  Professor Quillan in her address touched on some of the themes that make a liberal arts education grounded in Western civilization the most useful in this day and age.

Too often, the academic community gets wrapped up in social justice, and other themes that prevent the power of education to be released.  As soon as constraints are applied, ideas get tougher to generate.

Liberal arts understood correctly teach the thinker to be vulnerable.  That vulnerability allows them to take risks.  Taking risks is what America used to be about.  It’s how the country was founded, and how it thrived.  Without risk takers, countries don’t innovate and grow.

Who knows where kids that graduate today will go.  Many will start down a path only to find that it twists and turns.  Life isn’t like it used to be.  Macro economic forces worldwide will force them to renew themselves over and over again.  There won’t be a hierarchy or stair step path.

That’s why seeing more and more kids avoid the tough road of a Humanities core, and also seeing that path being politicized by faculty, gives me pause.  America needs homegrown creative out of the box thinkers.  That’s what my daughter really learned while she was studying St. Augustine.

There is a place for colleges devoted to liberal arts like Davidson.  But, they need to add a twist to their curriculum.  They need to relate it to entrepreneurship.  More kids will be attracted to it, and we all will be better for it.

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The scandals we are talking about in Washington today are not tied to the individual of Barack Obama. While there’s still more information to be gathered and more investigations to be done, all indications are that these decisions – on the AP, on the IRS, on Benghazi – don’t proceed from him. The talk of impeachment is absurd. The queries of “what did the president know and when did he know it” will probably end up finding out “just about nothing, and right around the time everyone else found out.”

The IRS was deliberately trying to derail the First Amendment; freedom of speech.

Peggy Noonan says to stay shocked.  I agree, but would go further.  Stay or get engaged on this issue.  Just because you are a liberal and the IRS was on “your team” doesn’t make it better.  Reverse the roles and imagine what you would think if George Bush used the IRS to target unions, liberal organizations and liberal think tanks.  If this precedent by the Obama administration is okay, and stands, then when the other side gets power the first salvo will be to use the IRS to attack.

Going after someone’s money when they are in power steps over every line.  That government tyranny should be reserved for socialist, communist, and monarchy states.  Not a republic.

Upon ending deliberations over the founding documents of the country, Ben Franklin was asked outside Independence Hall what we had, a monarchy or republic.  He said, “we have given you a republic if you can keep it.”

It doesn’t make sense to point fingers at what has gone on before.  Other Presidential administrations may have used agencies to trample the opposition to their political policies.  It needs to end now and for all time so other Presidents don’t utilize the same machinery.

With the gerrymandering that has gone on(by both parties), the vote fraud, the expansion of big government(by both parties), and now, the government of the United States tramping on the individual rights of it’s people, we’re in danger of losing that republic.

That’s why we need to focus on the long game.

The post It’s A Continuous Game: Individual Rights and Freedom Will Win appeared first on Points and Figures.

One reason the IRS is so powerful is that it can invade every nook and cranny of your personal privacy.  Dodd-Frank also gave the agency more power.  If they perceive you to be a risk to financial markets at all, they can look at every single financial transaction that you have engaged in. Line by line on your credit statement, questioning you like some Stasi interrogator.

One quick way to make the IRS less relevant is to enact a personal flat tax.

No write offs.  No exemptions. What ever you make, send 15% off the top in.  This simple change in tax laws will shrink a lot of big government.  The US will need less people to staff its most powerful bureaucracy.  Because of the tax law change, it will be much tougher to use the IRS as a weapon against people that the President isn’t tolerant of.

Flat taxes end special interest lobbying. Flat taxes are emblematic of what America is about, treating everyone the same no matter what.  Flat taxes give people better economic incentives to make more money and be more productive.  The next dollar they earn isn’t subject to higher tax.

Hauser’s Law says no matter what the tax rates are, people pay about 19% of their income to the federal government.  It’s time we started writing behavior into the code.

thanks for the link Eddy!

UPDATE

I thought Peggy Noonan put it very well here.  This isn’t a run of the mill partisan trumped up scandal.  This IRS scandal put in motion by the Obama administration is something bigger.  Is this the straw that breaks the market camel’s back?  Watergate did.

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(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It will be interesting to hear what the speaker says.  Steve Jobs gave a famously great graduation address to Standford students.  Dick Costolo gave a great talk to Michigan students this year.  Each in it’s own way tells them to be in the moment, and follow their path.  Have pride in being an individual.

Being an individual is under attack these days.  In President Obama’s graduation address to Ohio State, he talked about being wary of people who criticize big government.  Big government doesn’t respect individual liberty, or hold high individual rights.  We have seen that played out in several scandals this week.

Education is an evolving industry.  It seemingly is resistant to change.  But, as others have chronicled in the past few years, there is an undercurrent of sea change in education.  It’s not just virtual, or companies like Udacity.  There is a lot going on at the entrepreneurial level that I have been exposed to.

In the last year, I have had lunch with a women that is marshaling forces together to create change in the educational system in an entrepreneurial way in Illinois.  I have supported her in every way that I could, and hope to be a big supporter of hers as she moves forward.  She has been incredible with the energy she brings to the cause.

Friends of mine are creating innovative startups that re-imagine the classroom in very different ways.  They have launched in beta, and are working the kinks out.  Other people I know are trying to grind through their ideas to bring them to reality.  They are in the education industry and know the pain points.

Others that I know have invested their time and treasure by building a school, or by starting the KIPP movement in Chicago.  They are passionate and trying to make the world a better place.

Years ago, I invested in a company that made student loans more transparent.  That same company is now engaged in identifying and bringing high achieving students to American colleges through an sticky and engaging process.

The stumbling block for all of the above is the government bureaucracy, and the teacher’s union.   It is a monolithic roadblock on the education highway.  But, entrepreneurs are digging trenches right now to create a path around them.

Unfortunately, to create that path the initial target market is often the very wealthy.  The wealthy can afford to pay for innovation.  The poor who need to have access to the innovation the most, can’t.  Just like with things like school choice, the government bureaucracy and militant teacher’s union stand in the way.

But, the good news is if the entrepreneurial company makes it and establishes a beachhead in their initial target market, the technology can become commoditized and work its way down from the wealthy and upper classes to the middle class and then lower classes.  If one is snarky, you might call it “trickle down innovation”.

My kids were very lucky.  They had access to an excellent public school education in the first part of their lives.  In the second half, they went to one of the top private schools in the United States.  They each chose their own paths to college.  My oldest went the classic small liberal arts college route-and did a humanities core-which if taught correctly is an amazing experience.  My youngest enrolled in the top Chinese program in the country and is fluent in the language after her sophomore year.

If the nation’s educational bureaucracy would embrace technology and innovation, every single kid in the United States would have equal access to tremendous resources that would change their lives.  The change in their life, would change the country.  Individuals acting on their own, thinking for themselves, being creative and making life better in the world.  Isn’t that the purpose of education?

thanks for the link Instapundit.  

The post Education’s Next Stage appeared first on Points and Figures.

Mock-up of the expanded National World War II Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of course, we don’t want to ever have to fight a war to innovate.

But, it’s important to learn the hard lessons of World War Two so we can try to keep from getting involved in similar situations in the future.  These middle school age kids learned those lessons while also learning about robots and how to innovate at the museum.

Presented with Home Front-related challenges, the teams scored points on the WWII-themed playing field by completing missions like scrapping metal by placing a tin can in a collection bin, collecting crops from a Victory Garden by moving plastic vegetables and building equipment for the war effort by placing the turret on a Sherman tank model.  In addition to building a robot, each team devised a modern conservation public relations campaign based on the scrapping efforts on the Home Front during WWII.  Teams created a contemporary propaganda poster, a commercial and a press release to describe their campaign.

As a trustee of the museum, it really warms my soul when the museum undertakes events such as this.  I believe it warms the souls of those old soldiers that are still with us as well.  Our volunteers down there love speaking and interacting with children.  It’s why I donate my time and money to the museum, and encourage others to do the same.

Nothing could be more important than teaching our children the history of our country, while simultaneously teaching them how to use innovation to make their country better in the future.  Next year, why not get your local middle school involved.  There are plenty of other ways for kids to interact with the museum from afar as well.  It’s not a stagnant place, but a living breathing memorial to those that have gone before us-and brings their memory home to our time.

Click over and read the whole piece.  See the photos of the kids from several states having fun.

The post Robotics Challenges Bring Yesterday’s Lessons to Today appeared first on Points and Figures.

One of the dumbest ideas ever, Bureau of Homeland Security (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Thiel 20 under 20.

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Don’t embarrass the Prez, otherwise there are consequences.

Department of Homeland Security freezes Bitcoin payments between Dwolla and Mt. Gox.  The watchers are watching.  Who’s watching the watchers?

Think your exit is Google?  Think again.

Hmmm, I guess they call this giving equal opportunity?

You could play this after just about every White House presser.

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Image via CrunchBase

They recently just closed another round of financing.  They brought in a new investor from across the pond.  Reed Elsevier Ventures is located in England.  They also own the news research site Lexis Nexis.

Ycharts was started in Chicago by Shawn Carpenter who is still the CEO. It’s a classic investment for a place like Chicago, since their business is associated with both big data and financial services.  They have a new platinum product which is finding an audience with the mid tier of finance.  Consultants, wealth managers, family offices and asset managers really love the data they get, the way they can manipulate it, and the fact that Ycharts is very powerful for the cost per month.

Ycharts becomes an indispensable decision making tool that costs pennies when making decisions on allocating assets for growing wealth.

Not only does Ycharts have the best stock and ETF data on the market, but it has excellent macro economic data as well.  They also have top flight contributors that write and compile information to make doing financial research easy.  In the past year, they added an Excel feature so users can blend research seamlessly with existing documents and programs they already have on file.

The Bloomberg snooping scandal broke in the last few days.  If you don’t want someone looking over your shoulder as you do research on the internet, why not give Ycharts a whirl?

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The post Why Let Bloomberg Snoop on You?: YCharts Has A New Look appeared first on Points and Figures.

The paid no attention to the fact that the Gore family was also a Washington dynasty and had plenty of money to try and buy an election.

Then 9/11 hit and for a short moment, all was forgotten.  When Bush made the ill fated decision to enter a war, the gloves came off and the left manufactured crisis after crisis.  The Bush administration used groupthink and shoddy intelligence to take action in a way they never should have.  The left turned Dick Cheney into the “Dark Lord” and summed up Bush’s leadership with “Bush lied, people died”.  Except, Colin Powell must have lied too then.   By the way, I haven’t seen a Code Pink march since 2008.  There was a lot of hyperbole designed to stir up emotion for political gain back then.

The real crisis of the Bush administration was his failure to reign in government spending, expansion of government, and the economic collapse of the banks.  Of course, the wheels were already in motion on bank failure prior to him getting in office thanks to Phil Gramm, Robert Rubin, Barney Frank and Bill Clinton-but he certainly didn’t do anything to stop it.  In fact, he created the “ownership society” and threw gas on the fire.

While not even close to the top of the pantheon of Presidents, at least Bush’s administration was generally above board.

In the past few days, American’s have been inundated with news about the actual out of step ethics of the Obama administration.  These points are case and point why large government is tyrannical and needs to be stopped.

1.  Obama used the IRS to attack opponents.   Top officials knew about it.

2.  Obama wiretapped AP news reporters.  Then tried to cover it up.

3.  Obama failed in leadership and covered up the Benghazi attack for fear of losing an election.  Obama, Sec. Clinton and others have lied to the Congress and American public.  Americans died.

Some questions come to mind.  What else is the administration doing that is against the law, and against the Constitution?  How much is he over reaching in expanding the power of the Presidency, and what kinds of consequences does that have going forward?  What’s the difference between Obama and former disgraced President Richard Nixon?

Even liberals are upset.  They were on the receiving end of this from Nixon.

Outraged Bay State Democrats are blasting President Obama for exhibiting a Nixonian abuse of power after the stunning news that the Department of Justice secretly obtained Associated Press phone records and the IRS targeted conservative groups — new scandals emerging against the backdrop of heightened Benghazi criticism.

“There’s no way in the world I’m going to defend that. Hell, I spent my youth vilifying the Nixon administration for doing the same thing. If they did that, there should be hell to pay,” U.S. Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Somerville) said about the IRS scandal.

Clearly, the Constitutional law professor has no respect for, nor doesn’t understand the American Constitution.  He has no respect for the common individual to control their own life.

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.

Combine all of the above with the profligate spending, horrible economic policy, terrible management of the economy and you have a Presidency even worse than Bush.

He is not one of us.

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