This is the first blog that I have dictated. I have dreamed of the day that I could really use voice dictation instead of typing. Maybe this day has finally come. I am doing this blog on an iphone 4s and I am dictating with my voice.
Siri
October 16, 2011PSA Testing Debate
October 16, 2011There have been a number of recent articles in the press (most notably at the New York Times) about the advisability of giving men routine PSA tests to detect if they have Prostate Cancer. A government panel has recommended that the practices of giving men over 50 (or over 40 if there is family history) be stopped because it results in needless procedures that are costly and effect men negatively without saving lives. I believe this is a dumb recommendation. The PSA can provided valuable information that can save lives. It is not the PSA test that is the problem it is what is done after the results come back that is the issue. Those of you that are regular readers of my blog know that I have written a number of times about Prostate Cancer, a disease that I was treated for in 1996. At that time I was 51 years old. My PSA was 4.4 and had been gradually increasing. I had a biopsy that showed a Gleason Score of 6. Today, my cancer would have been classified as low risk by most specialist. Many would recommend that I would not be treated by that I would have active surveillance . But many still would argue that I should be treated and depending on their discipline (urologist, radiologist etc), they would have my prorate removed by surgery or radiated either by external beam or implanted seeds. I know that if I knew then what I know now, I would not have been treated at that time and may never have been treated.
I am convinced that most men who have Prostate cancer will not die from it. Prostate cancer is probably not one disease by many and most are slow growing and will not spead. If only we could tell which ones would have the aggressive version and treated only them. But we cannot do that yet. I suspect we will be able to in the next ten years. The problem in my view is not giving PSA tests to men. The test is easy and inexpensive. It is what happens with the data. Doctors are driving to prevent disease and seem willing to treat 100 men that do not need treatment to potentially save one that might. And most men finding out that they have prostate cancer, want it out of their body and sometime in the most aggressive way (surgery). The side effects of treatment are in my opinion not properly communicated to patients. You can read about the effect on sex life here. What is crazy to me is that probably over 2/3s of these men are overweight and they could increase their life expectancy by loosing weigh and exercise. That is what the doctor should be pushing.
My point of view is that PSA test should be given regularly. If the PSA is high or rising quickly over time, a biopsy should be given. If the Gleason Score is high (8 or more), treatment should be considered. The only treatment that makes sense for most men would be Brachytherapy. I believe that there is good evidence that this treatment is both the easiest and most effective way of treat prostate cancer. I can recommend Peter Grimm for this procedure. Peter has a paper that will be published soon on the effectivity of most of the methods of treating prostate cancer which will be published soon. He will share it if you write to him here. The practice of removing the Prostate by surgery should be stopped. It is barbaric. When I first learned that I had prostate cancer, I was told it was the Gold Standard (the most effective method) but I think it was only the Gold Standard in that it put a lot of gold in certain doctors pockets.
Steve Jobs and me
October 7, 2011This is not so much about Steve Jobs but about how Steve effected me.
Like so many, the death of Steve Jobs has played a big role in my thinking since hearing the news on Wednesday. Steve played an important role in my life although he hardly knew me. The first time I met Steve was at the PC Forum in 1982 which was started by Ben Rosen and later taken over by Ester Dyson. There are some great photos of the PC Forum over the years, but unfortunately, they start at 1984. I remember setting next to Steve in the audience and having some discussion. He was 26 years old and I was 36 years old. I wish I could remember what we discussed. At that time Apple was selling the Apple II. I had come to announce the Pro 300 series (I was responsible for that product line at Digital Equipment Company which was the number two computer company in the world then). It is probably hard for those that know me now to imagine that I was probably as passionate tabout product design then as Steve was to become later. Here is the Pro 350:
Here is the Apple II
I will come back to this a bit later because it really has the most to do with what I am trying to express in this blog. It is easy to imagine during my conversation with Steve that he could have asked me to join Apple Maybe I would have but probably not. I doubt that could have seen myself working for someone so much younger than me (ego) and I probably would not have been willing to take the financial risk. At that point, my career at Digital was ascending. I had the strong sponsorship of the CEO (Ken Olsen) and I really thought my efforts with the Pro would change the world of computing. I could hardly have guess that just two years later, I would be the president of an Apple II Clone company, Franklin Computer, and locked in a legal battle with Apple and Steve Jobs.
The evening before the forum, I attended the speakers dinner. It was an amazing dinner and really my first real introduction to the world of PC entrepreneurs. Amongst the attendees were Steve Jobs, Bill Gates (also 26), Don Estridge who lead the development of the IBM PC, and Adam Osborne. Adam I recall said the key to wining in the personal computer market place was building and adequate but low cost product (similar to the net book argument). Steve eventually took the opposite approach. Of these, only Bill is still alive and is no longer active in the computer industry. Don died a few years later at the age of 48. Adam died in 2003 at the age of 64. Steve died just now at the age of 56. These and some of the others attending were really the founders of the PC era. My own contribution(not to be compared to Bill and Steve of course) to creating the computer industry we now know would have to wait a decade more, when I as Vice President of Corp Development at Intel, drove much of the early development of today’s residential broadband networks.
I left Digital Equipment in early in 1983. It was clear to me that my work there was not going to be successful. The Professional 300 series computer that I had developed with so much love and passion was incomplete and two expensive albeit way ahead of their time with the first 5 inch winchester disk, bit map graphics and Ethernet connectivity (all this in 1983). Digital did not have the desire or ability to really market in the developing PC world. So for a while, I considered leaving with a few of my most talented staff and to start a local area networking company (by that time I was in love with networking technology). However, I was too scared to do a start up and when I got the offer to join Franklin Computer, I took it. You can read a pretty funny article about me and Franklin here. Franklin had a clone of the Apple II just as Compaq had clone of the IBM PC. But there were lots of legal differences and Apple sued Franklin in a landmark case. Apple never actually won but the destroyed Franklin’s ability to raise capital. We were growing very quickly and approaching 100 million dollars in sales in a first full year of operations. But without the ability to raise additional cash and with our bank canceling our line of credit the company was headed for disaster. I had joined Franklin to use its momentum and the money we expected to raise in an IPO (were in registration when the appeal court decided to re hear the case) to build a real computer company to fully compete in the market. We tried to work things out with Apple. We offered to pay them a big licensing fee and help develop the market. John Sculley who was then CEO of Apple seemed interested in some possible arrangement and settlement but evidently Steve Jobs would hear nothing of it and wanted us dead. He got his wish. I left a few months before Franklin went into bankruptcy for a brief period in order to wipe out the common shareholders.
A few months later, I joined Intel in 1984. About ten years later, Andy Grove asked me and Les Vadasz to join him and visit Pixar with Steve Job. We went to Steve’s house in Palo Alto. The same house where he died. We sat in the kitchen with Steve and talked for a while. His wife Laurene was there and maybe one or two of the kids I seem to remember. Steve then drove us to Pixar and introduced us to John Lasseter. We learned about the computer automation process they were using. The purpose of the visit was to expose Intel to the high end needs of graphic rendering and the idea of using multiple PCs to do it. I was a bit nervous that Steve would remember me and my role at Franklin. Either he did not remember or he did not care because he was very civil to me. That was probably the last time I actually interacted with Steve. And while that meeting was a good experience, I was no fan of Steve Jobs at the time. And later when he rejoined Apple, I felt his closed business strategy was mistake and I was a strong proponent of the Microsoft/Intel approach which was a very open architecture (as long as it was based on Intel and Microsoft).
The amazing transformation of Apple in the last ten years has been and will continue to be discussed by so many. Frankly, I still do not understand how it could have happened. The combination of insight, marketing and execution under Jobs leadership was exceptional. About three years ago, I became a convert to all things Apple. I am writing this post on a Macbook Air. I read about Steve’s death on my iPhone and later in more detail on my iPad. My email is housed at www.me.com. I can’t wait for iCloud.
I am left feeling sad for his death, admiration for his accomplishment and frankly, disappointment that I was no Steve Jobs. And grateful that I am still alive to love my wife, children and friends.
Steve contributions will stay with us but his greatest gift may yet to come; the book he allowed and helped Water Isaacson to write,”Steve Jobs”. Maybe, we will finally understand. We need to understand.
The future of the world economy as seen from the counter of Avis, Barcelona.
September 25, 2011We went to pick up our rental car at Avis in Barcelona today so we could drive north to the Costa Brava. I am a member of the Avis Chairman’s club and normally get great service from Avis. For instance, they drive us in our rental car to the terminal when we return the car. I did not expect that kind of service in Spain but was shocked that after a long wait, I was told by the Avis person that they did not have the car I had reserved and intact they did not have any automatic cars. We are not use to driving a stick shift car and did not want to practice in Barcelona. The only think he could offer was our going to another Avis location where they had a car for us. We took a taxi there and then after another long wait, we were able to get a car. As the young man behind the counter check us in, he had a number of interesting remarks. He said, this is just the begin of the decline of our civilization. He said companies like Avis where paying the minimum to their staff and had fewer and fewer people doing more and more work. He said workers no longer cared and the person that was suppose to make sure our car was at the original location probably just could not be bothered to enter the data. He said, “the best days are over”. I am afraid he is right.
Introducing the Four Day Work Week
August 14, 2011As some of you know, I plan to run for President via Americans Elect if nominated. I will be posting some of the planks of my campaign platform
Here is one: Introducing the Four Day Work Week
As some of you know, I plan to run for President via Americans Elect if nominated. I will be posting some of the planks of my campaign platform from time to time. Here is one – Introduce the Four Day Work Week.
I hate to be the one to tell you, but the jobs that were lost in the debacle that resulted in part from the real estate bubble, are not coming back. The combination of globalization, increased productivity resulting from technological advances and resource depletion are permanent. Rather than dealing with that reality, we masked it by the using of easy credit. So rather than having growth we simulated growth. That allowed Americans to buy homes they could not afford with debt that they could not pay back. Building these homes created many jobs but those jobs could not be sustained. In the mean time, increasing real estate values allowed the rest of us to feel more wealthy and more comfortable spending our savings or, even worse, borrowing from the equity of our homes. I think you probably already know all this. But our government leaders are telling us (both parties) that we just have to return to growth and everything thing will be ok. The two parties do not disagree with the end objective – growth. They just disagree on how to get there. And they are both wrong.
So if we are going to have 10% unemployment (it’s really more like 20% but we don’t count the people that had given up looking for work), more or less permanently (although will likely get worse), then what does this mean for our country? If so many people are unemployed permanently, things are going to get ugly. Unemployment insurance can not maintain standards of living. And unemployment insurance will not be extended for ever. So many families will find themselves with greatly reduced incomes or even no income. Family not directly effected will fear that they will be next to lose their jobs. This means that in addition to living with great anxiety, they will also be willing to work longer hours for less pay and less benefits which, while increasing profitability for their employers, will have the effect of actually reducing job growth. Not all parts of society will be effected in the same way. For instance young people and in particular young people of minorities will be even more effected. You only have to look to the recent riots in the UK to see how well this works out.
So is there an alternative? Yes, we can go back to the promise of a four day work week, something I was told to expect when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s. If we reduced the work week to 32 hours, after a period of adjustment, everyone could be employed. Yes, we would all be earning 20% less but we would have a full extra day in our lives. This in effect would add increase our days off by 50%. We would stop having to worry about losing our jobs. We would once again have some bargaining power with employers. We would have not to be fearful of gangs of young men who have never found work.
So rather than think about a reduction of your salary by 20%, think about all the great things you will be able to do with the extra day.
Here is a pretty good video talking about this concept.
New Dream Mini-Views: Visualizing a Plenitude Economy from Center for a New American Dream on Vimeo.
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Bridges not Bombs
August 9, 2011It seems like a lot of people, particularly those in government, are confused about the difference between building a bomb and building a bridge. A bomb does not have much function other than to blow up people. I guess you could argue that in the right circumstance it might provide the owner with some protection against an enemy, but I think it would be hard to really make the case that the majority of weapons have a utility. Given that our government is running about a 40% deficit (it takes in revenues that are about 60% of what it spends), we must borrow money to build the bomb. Now, I don’t actually think we should build bridges ( although I think we should repair the ones we have) but I do think there are things that we could do to create value and actually pay back the money and interest we have to borrow to build to such things. A great example would be a national smart grid to improve the distribution of electric power.
It seems that the government and our citizens cannot tell the difference between borrowing money to create value and borrowing money to destroy value. What if we used our soldiers and the industries that provide materials to conduct wars (remember the USA spends more money in defense then all the other countries of the world combined) to actually build things that would pay for themselves over time? This kind of borrowing can be supported by our economy. There is a difference between borrowing money to finance a vacation and borrowing money to get a college education, but it appears our political leaders cannot see this difference.
There is an other example of lack of understanding. Government officials and TV pudents talk about how much money America corporations have in their treasuries. They say companies are not spending this money because their is no consumer demand for more of their products. But there is another reason that seems to escape all these talking heads. So much of the profits of American companies were made overseas and are not subject to US tax until they are brought back. So if an American company wants to use this cash to invest in the USA they first have to pay about 40% in tax. Given our situation we should allow companies to bring this money back without tax- provided they invest the money in creating US jobs or pay dividends to their shareholders. This should get the money in circulation. And speaking of dividends, they are taxed twice. First they are taxed at the corporate level and then at the individual level. Not only should they be taxed only once but frankly, I don’t think they should be taxed at all.
The story of USA Industries and its new CEO
August 7, 2011You have been brought in to run what had been one of the most successful companies in the world, USA Industries. The previous CEO had made a number of strategic and tactical mistakes the resulted in tarnishing the companies brand, reduced revenues, poor relations with strategic partners, and depressed employees. Not only that but this CEO committed the company a number of very expensive project that would be hard to get out of but which would add no value to the companies balance sheet and would in fact reduce the balance sheet. In order to deal with the short fall in revenue and the increase in expenses the previous CEO borrowed increasing amounts of money. The money was spent to keep the company going during this difficult but largely self generated times. They main interest the former CEO had been to keeping his large institutional investors happy. He did that by throwing lavish parties, and giving them discounts on the companies products. He was also concerned with how the top rank of his company saw him. He did not want them to question his actions so he kept giving them bonuses. When the old CEO’s contract was up,many members of the board felt they needed a different kind of CEO. They wanted someone young energetic that would break out of the patterns established by his predecessor. Other members of the board were concerned about making any changes and felt that business would just come back if they just gave it time. But they also felt that there should be substantial cut backs in the companies spending. One of the old guard was also considered for the role. Both candidates presented their ideas to the board. Enough of the board believed it was time to change course and so the young man was brought in as the new CEO.
He moved with his wife and daughters to the city where the company was headquartered. The company dominated the city and it could really be said that it was a company town. The new CEO rapidly found that he knew little about how the company really operated. To make matters worse, he had almost no experience working in the companies industry and had never really run a company before. He was more like a staff person and had spent a many years in academia. He had many ideas about what to do but he lacked confidence in implementing them. Most of the key employees had been with the company for decades and did not really want to change the way the company operated. Some of the department heads were close to members of the board and a number of them had direct relationships with large shareholders.
The new CEO realized that he would have to cut back on expenses and reduce the borrowing or face the possibility of bankruptcy in the future. But he was scared that if he took the actions that were required like laying off many employees, killing off some products that were not profitable and getting out of the very expensive long term projects started by the former CEO, the financial markets would react and both the stock price would go down and the cost of borrowing money would increase. The company was facing ever increasing competition from an other company. This company, Asian Enterprises had been around a lot longer and was going no place for the longest time. But then there was a management transition. A much younger and smarter group came to run the company. They believe that there was great opportunity in the market especially since USA Industries was not really investing in new products and manufacturing processes. They were right.
The members of the board of directors of USA Industries grew unhappy with the CEO they had chosen. The members that had not wanted this man as CEO kept telling the other members what a mistake it was to have brought this inexperienced person on. In the mean time the financial markets began to realize that the company was really in trouble. The stock price started falling. Many employees had their retirement funds in 401Ks with large amounts of company’s stock. Senior people saw their stock options become valueless. There was a growing concern that the company would not be able to continue to borrow money and if it could, it would be at higher rates. The greatest fear was someday the loans would come due and the company would not have the funds to pay them back. So the new CEO began to cut back. He started by cutting R&D even though that meant that the company would not have competitive products in the future. In the past the company was active in bringing in young people and giving them training. This program was cut. He cut salaries and benefits for employees but because he was scared of the senior staff, he exempted them and in fact gave many of the salary increases hoping to buy their loyalty.
Things just got worse. So the CEO sold off some of his factories. He sold the real estate the company owned and leased it back. Over time, Asian Enterprise got even more successful. They were a tough competitor and very focused. Their employees were willing to invest in the companies stock which caused it to increase in value. This allowed Asian to begin to buy other companies and increase its expansion over time. The board of directors of USA Industries began to realize that they had to replace the new CEO. But now they were really fighting in the board room. Many wanted to find someone that could promise to bring the company back to its old position as a leader in its industry. But others knew that this no longer was possible. They wanted someone that could reorganize the company. Give it a new mission that was achievable. Get it scaled down etc. But one major problem could not be solved if the company went in that direction. That was the massive debt that could not be paid off including pensions to former employees. Some members of the board argued that the new CEO should stay. They said he was still the right person for the job. But at the same time the board of Asian Enterprises had agreed on a new strategic objective. It was nothing less than the acquisition of USA Industries. They key to this plan was that Asian would loan money to USA making it easier for USA industries not to deal with their problems. Not only did this make USA less competitive but hasten the day when Asian could call its notes and force USA Industries to sell it massive amounts of the assets of USA Industries and many the corporation itself.
The only thing that could prevent that is if the new CEO can find the courage to act. What could he do? First he could be honest with the board, his employees and his shareholders about the serious problems they face. He could ask all if the employees to take salary cuts and work longer hours so that the companies products will be more competitive. He needs to replace many members of his staff with new people how have different ideas about and talents and can help the company increase its revenues.
What ideas do you have for this CEO?
The USA: A nice place to live but I would not want to invest my money there.
July 29, 2011A few days ago, I had my quarterly visit to JP Morgan to visit my money. Like many of you, I am unemployed but in my case it is by choice although I shudder to think about what would happen if I wanted to get a real job at the age of 66 . This means that I live from the earning of my investments. I am very fortunate in having enough assets to support a very comfortable life style (so far) . Those that are still employed are concerned about how the financial markets may impact their future such as their ability to pay for the children’s education or to eventually retire. For me the future is now since I do not have a way to make up for losses. This means I have to think about the financial markets both tactically and strategically. I thought I would share with you some of my conclusions with respect to the USA.
I believe the USA will continue to decline for the foreseeable future
The USA will no longer be the leader of the world. This mantel will pass to china sometime in the next ten years because they have a government that works. For those that find this hard to imagine, you need to review they history of various powerful countries. Start by reviewing the decline of the Great Britain which is not so great these days. Great wars often lead to these declines. In the case of Britain, WWII really did them in. In our case, we created wars that so that we could waste our treasure and blood.
Unemployment is systemic and will only get worse
The percentage of Americans that are part of the work force will continue to decline because of unemployment, aging population and stupid immigration policies. Unemployment is systemic and will only get worse. Employers are getting more out of employees because employees are afraid to loose their jobs. Unions are weak and represent an ever declining portion of the work force. Government will be forced to lay off works and the private sector will not employee these people. There is a major skills miss match. Technology is increasing output. Outsourcing will continue and increase. Most new jobs that will be created are low paying service jobs that cannot be outsource. The government reports on number of jobs but not changes in total income. But government tax revenues are greatly effected by the actual income levels. Right now 50% of workers pay no income tax (they do of course pay payroll taxes and may pay state taxes). There is an enormous short fall between government spending and revenue. If we borrow we are just creating problems for tomorrow. If we do not borrow we are just creating problems for today.
The government of the USA is broken.
The system is broken creating two political parties that are more concerned about staying in power than doing what is right for the country. If the the US Government was a business, its stock would be tanking (they dollar is the stock) and if there was a wise board of directors, the management would be replaced. But we do not really have a board. We just have shareholders (citizens) and they do not really know how to get a new management team in place. I can understand the rage of the Tea Party although I do not agree with their solutions. I wish those on the left would show some rage. I thought Obama might be leader like JFK but he turned out not to be up to the task.
US Corporations are doing well
Many are having record profits. This is a result of great productivity, cheap money and global expansion. We have a stupid tax policy which causes multinational companies to move much of their growth off shore. When every one talks about how much money an Apple, Microsoft, Intel have for instance (I speak of the tech companies because I understand their businesses better) they fail to understand that much of that money was made outside of the USA and can not be brought back here without paying very high tax. So while I am happy to own large cap US companies, I do so knowing that much of their business is not in the USA (less than half). Smaller domestic companies can also do well depending on what kind of business they have. They can pay employees less and borrow at low interest rates.
Growth the last ten years was an illusion.
Most growth was in contraction and finance industries. This was all driven on debt. The only way for contraction jobs to come back would be if we had a major program to rebuild our aging infrastructure and a crash plan to reduce our dependency on oil. This will never happen in the political climate we now have.
The various debt reduction plans from both the democrats and the republicans are fantasies
They are based on the assumption that the economy is going to start growing again and this will mean increases in revenue. And instead of getting us out of Afghanistan which is were Bin Laden put us, we want to cut education.
If this is all news to you, I am sorry that I had to be the one to tell you.
Stop the world, I want to get off.
July 22, 2011Fifty years ago almost to this day, Anthony Newley’s production of “Stop the World I Want to Get Off” was performed in London. A few months after that Yuri Gagarin as Soviet cosmonaut was the first person to leave the earth behind. A year later, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. In June of 1969, the first human beings stepped onto the moon. Yesterday, the last Nasa space shuttle was retired. America not only has no way of going back to the moon but we can not even put an american in orbit unless we use the rockets of some other country. While we use to race to the heavens we are now engaged in a race to the bottom.
I have been so frustrated and angry about our political situation in the USA. I found myself saying “stop the world I want to get off” and then realized as an American, I am stuck her on earth. We are watching one of the greatest declines of a leading country the world has ever seen. Here is the sequence of events and why I am so pessimistic that there is a way to turn this around.
In the past most politicians wanted to serve their country. They might have different ideas of what was best for the country but they were driven primarily by ideals. However the job of getting elected became more and more expensive. They rationalized that if they did not stay in power, who ever would take their place would not do as good of job as they would so making compromises and selling out to special interests was ok if it meant saying in power. Over time, this began to be their primary objective and doing good for the country was secondary. However, they did need to accomplish somethings to get elected and this would mean some degree of compromise. The results were not pretty but the country continued to function. Now we have people in congress that do not care if they get reelected. We have come full circle except that these people are pretty much insane. The result is that we use to have problems that got solved, then we had problems that did not get solved and now we are creating problems that can not be solved.
Enjoy this performance of some of the songs from the play by Sammy Davis Jr. It might put you in a better mood. It did me.
