Month: October 2003

I had the pleasure of seeing Kill Bill Volume 1 tonight. Or at least, I think it was a pleasure. The movie was essentially stylized violence from the opening scene through the breaking point where Volume 1 leaves off for Volume 2. I did enjoy the movie’s fusion of east-west, including the anime segment that fill the backstory of one of the main characters. And the movie played heavily on the theme that violence begets violence, this story being at its most basic level about revenge. And don’t go expect any groundbreaking dialog, as the movie really has only a small amount, and of that amount, quite a bit was surprisingly in Japanese. In fact, this marks the second straight weekend that I’ve seen, in theatres, a major American movie set at least in part in Tokyo. There were the musical “sequences” that indicate a particular scenario, that you will eventually come to recognize as significant. And the juxtoposition of the score with the violence only served to heighten the reaction to the violence on screen. The cinematagraphy, too, was fantastic, with wonderful sequences tied together, and with the looks, expressions, and actions of the chararacters often conveying more than any spoken words.

The only thing about the movie was…the violence. It was extreme, not unexpectedly, this being a Quentin Tarantino movie. But it was taken to a whole new level, far beyond the Once Upon a Time in Mexico I saw just a few weeks back. It was violence pushed beyond the initial disgust through the ridiculous barrier and back in to the horror realm. Desensitized though we may seem to it, the violence will likely ellicit a reaction from just about everyone. It left me wondering if Tarantino is merely ambivalent about it, if not simply enjoying the hacked limbs and spurting blood, as he certainly lets the camera wander over it at times.

Definitely a good movie, but you’ll want to make sure you have a strong stomach before you see it.

In other news, my car is repaired and returned and sitting in my driveway. Who would have known the damage that had been done. Now I only hope NJM can get some renumeration out of the driver who rear-ended me.

Tonight was the approximately monthly board meeting of the RAA, where the most interesting discussion took place around the NJ Higher Education reorganization plan. While much of the attention surrounding the plan has faded from public view, work in the political arena has continued to move forward, leading to a situation where acceptance of the plan as a concept to implement could occur eas early as January 2004 in the state legislature. For those who don’t know, the plan is to merge several higher education institutions in to three regional universities, in Camden, Newark and New Brunswick. There has apparently been an increase in support in both Camden and Newark, while there remain reservations in New Brunswick, given that of all three it has what it considers the stronger reputation.

Rutgers’ concerns come down to funding and organizational structure. Regarding the structure, the Board of Trustee has always had the ability to hire and remove the Rutgers University President. The fear of the university is that under the reorganization, that power will reside instead in a politically-appointed Chancellor based in Trenton, allowing the political administration of the day to use these appointments as political rewards and not necessarily looking out for the best interest of the higher education system in the state. The second concern revolves around funding, with the concern there being that NJ already ranks 41st out of 50 states in providing funds to public higher education institutions, and the price tag for the reorganization may be anywhere from $1 billion to $3 billion, with the funds necessary to then support the new structure on an ongoing basis in future years.

In other RAA news, anyone interested in volunteering time should check out the orientation meeting on November 5th. The RAA’s always looking for new volunteers, and those who attend get to find out the juicy tidbits like the one above.

In other non-RAA news, the repairs on my car are complete so I hope to be driving home tomorrow with my newly repaired old car. And for those who don’t know, Kill Bill Volume 1 is released in theatres tomorrow.

Looking for a new drinking game? Tired of all those non-serious non-thinking ones? Try Slate’s Democratic Debate Drinking Game.

The Christian Science Monitor proposes a single government for the Israelies and Palestinians:

If Israeli settlers want to stay in the West Bank – let them stay! But if they want to stay there and be part of a community built on long-term peace, then they cannot refuse to give equal rights within the whole of an expanded state of Israel/Palestine to all Palestinians who want to be a part of it.

The end of the dream of a monocultural “Jewish state”? Yes. But in the Holy Land, as in South Africa, it could be the start of a hopeful new chapter in human history. For Jewish Israelis, as for Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking South Africans, they could still be living in a multicultural state in which their language, their culture, and their religion would be fully embraced.

If I haven’t been writing very much in here, it is because I’ve been trying to keep up with the media consumption I’ve been feeding on (magazines, movies and tv galore) and trying to complete a half-dozen other things.

Specifically, I’ve been having a grand time configuring my new “Virtual Private Server”, which is neat in theory but difficult to set up. I have to configure my server to run as I see fit, and eventually migrate all my web sites (including this one) to. At least I have full control over the server now. I’m also trying to configure myEclipse, an open source Java IDE, to allow me to develop and debug web projects. Of course, that hasn’t been going swimmingly either. And then there’s the two computers I’ve been asked to try to repair.

So, yes, that’s where I’ve been hiding, when I’ve not been out trying to live a little!

It’s time for the BusinessWeek Analysis & Commentary roundup. Having nearly reached page 40 of this week’s edition, I’m ready to provide my critiques of the commentaries, including where I find flaws or reaches within their arguments.

Drug Prices: This week’s editorial chimes in with the argument that high retail prices for precscription drugs are due in large part to the price controls in regulated economies elsewhere in the world. Striking their bleeding heart note, the writers say that Big buyers such as the government and HMOs can often negotiate low prices that rival those found in Canada. To make up for the discounts, though, the industry charges high retail prices. So those who are least able to pay — the uninsured — are often stuck with the biggest bills.

What this strikes me as is not a failure of the drug companies but a failure of government. For those who believes that one of responsibilities of a good government is to provide a minimum of adequate healthcare to all citizens, the government should be providing some relief in these situations. This strikes me as a social policy failure, and is not because other governments have implemented a solution (thought not necessarily the best one) to this issue. Being able to derive a larger amount of profit overseas does not guarantee that companies will suddenly become generous and lower prices elsewhere.

In fact, let’s follow this simple thought experiment. I’m an executive of a pharma company. I can only charge retail rates freely in the U.S., and elsehwere in the world I am restricted in my pricing. My shareholders are expecting me to deliver strong revenue growth each quarter. Suddenly, the regulatory structure changes, and I can charge my own rates in other countries. Do I lower retail prices in the US, knowing that more than 90% of the people don’t pay those rates anyway, or do I maintain my current pricing strategy in the U.S. and raise prices overseas? My apologies, but if you said scenario 1, you’re obviously unaware of the incredible pressure Wall Street exerts on publically traded companies to demonstrate ever increasing sales and more money that will translate in to profits.

The other issue raised is the migration of European pharma to the U.S. By attempting to blame this migration on lower drug prices in Europe, the writers miss an obvious point. U.S. and European companies service both markets. Where a drug is discovered is entirely unrelated to where it will eventually be markted and sold. The real reason is that public investment in the health scienes is higher here with more well-trained, well-educated personnel able to contribute, providing a higher value proposition. Companies are locating R&D in the major research centers in the U.S. because these are some of the best places for health research in the world, due in large part to the people located there. If corporations truly felt it was necessary to locate manufacturing and research in their largest markets, why would Levi’s be closing its last U.S. manufacturing site to move off to China? Because the two are really unrelated, and this is simply a red herring.

On Wesley Clark: I love it when the mass media labels Howard Dean as a liberal. Granted, he wants that label at the moment to carry him through the Democratic Primaries, but we’re talking about a fiscal conservative, small government, relatively pro-gun rights kind of guy. People hold up the whole “civil unions” bill as an example of his so-called liberal tendancies, neglecting the fact that the Vermont State Supreme Court left him little choice.

In any event, my only real comment on the commentary is to ask the question “when is a tax repeal a tax hike?” If I repeal part of a law that hasn’t taken effect yet, like the idiotic elimintation of the estate tax, would that be a tax hike? I’m just curious how the writers of the papers that influence public opinion would answer that question.

On the China job drain: There’s one aspect of this article that I was struck by more than any other. According to this article, Levi’s is moving its last U.S. manufacturing location overseas. According to my sister, Levi’s is slowly closing its own retail outlets, preferring to sell through third-party retailers like, say, Kohl’s. If all the goods are created overseas and sold by other companies, and very little save the corporate headquarters remains in the U.S. under Levi’s command, would Levi’s still be considered an American company? Technically, if it was still “headquartered” here it would be, but if most of its workforce is instead located in other countries and it does nothing but overhead work here, how could it truly be called a U.S. company?

The only aspect of overseas manufacturing, and more and more design, development and support, is that it has the potential to structurally weaken the U.S. I’m far from a closed-borders person (really, really I am), but if the U.S. allows itself to move more and more of its production and those services eligible, there has to be sufficient innovation to provide the same or even more opportunities to those people who are located here. If there is no satisfactory complement to the offshore movement of providing new opportunities, a gradual decline in quality of life will occur as people find themselves unable to afford the living standards they currently enjoy.

Also, one book reviewer found earlier in this issue that the argument that offshoring and paying criminally low wages so necessary is somewhat bunk:
One of the book’s most surprising findings is that employers who use alternative approaches to compete in low-skilled industries often rely on new labor-market institutions. In industries as diverse as hospitals, hotels, and hosiery, companies band together to train workers, set industry skill standards, and help each other learn how to make strategies such as teamwork really work. Often, local government bodies lend crucial support, with seed money for training and coordination with community colleges. There’s a clear role, the book argues, for government to support management choices that help less-skilled workers.

Here’s a great WaPo editorial on the real issues at stake in the Great File Sharing Debate.