Gov't , economics and technology (was Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL)

[Jeff Kinz]

On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 09:40:50AM -0800, Kuni Tetsu wrote:
> --- Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org> wrote:
Several paragraphs of agreement deleted :-)

> > One example - still not much known today, the great crime rate drop of
> > the 80' and 90's was caused not by burgeoning economic times or great
> > social programs.  They were caused by the women suddenly being able to
> > freely obtain an abortion. (Freakonomics, Levitt & Dubner, 2005.)
> 

> Um. That is not the sum total. Freakonomics is hardly real science, let alone

The book is written for the general public who are not economists or
mathemeticians.  The studies which generated the conclusions discussed
in the book are real science and well enough thought of that Levitt was
given a highly sought after fellowship at Harvard.  Levitt, while
unusual, and a popular author (very unusual for an economist) is a real
economist.

> good data. Yes, I have read it. I have also read what real economists thing
> about it. That is a whole other thread and I will not bring it in here.
> 
> The rise of technology is definitely a factor, especially in the 90's. There,
> we are at least back on a tangental thread.
> 
> During the 90's most companies were putting computers on the desks of their
> administrators, and that helped efficiency a great deal. Although is it
> anathema to mention it here, add to it the fact that most of said computers
> were pretty monocultured, and all had the same interface. People could now move
> from job to job or even company to company and not have to relearn a lot of the
> tools used in their jobs. As such, they significantly reduced the amount of
> time it took them to spin-up to speed at their new job and thus were more
> efficient. 

The best thing about governments use of technology is the incredibly
improved productivity rates have reduced the cost of running government
services so much that the government has reduced our tax rates to a
minor fraction of what they used to be.


Oh, excuse me, I must have been sleep-typing there for a moment.   :-)




-- 
Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.
speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail