Some Employment Numbers

Over the past ten years we have been following the employment numbers. In early 2009 we had the Romer curve for which we were told by some economist how things would get better. Well, not quite, and the economist went back to Berkeley. I do not think I would send anyone there but then again I am an engineer by training.

I will go backwards. The above curve depicts the unemployed and the workforce participation as referenced to 2006. What I find interesting and not noted anywhere is that during the past administration it stayed flat and with the new administration there is a continuous rise. This to me is the most critical data message.

The summary data is shown above is also insightful. The unemployment is less than 4% but with the higher participation rate is is just above 5%. In our prior analysis the peak was well above 12%.

The above is the gap from max employment and it is now just above 1 million. includes growth in population.

The final curve shows the growth in both metrics.

Graduation Speeches

In 1971 I had my doctoral graduations and I went to the MIT one. Now 1971 was not a great year. There were no jobs at all posted in the NY Times, no one came to campus to recruit, really, and my only firm offer was to work as an electrician for my father. I had a $20 bill in my wallet, a dead VW bug, threw a rod, a bunch of degrees and well it was challenging. The good news was graduation was short, no speaker, no awards, no free degrees, just show up, shut up and get your degree. Then clean out your living quarters for the next group. Vietnam was still going wild, the Pentagon Papers were just on their way out, Nixon got us off the gold standard, he raised tariffs on imports, and overall the economy was a mess.

But the issue here is commencement speakers. In my humble opinion they are a waste of time. They seem all now to bring some political position to the fore, advocate their own interests, and overall miss the mark for what this day is for, the graduates, and for many, their parents who may have paid for this. As for awards, well you got a degree, what else is there. MIT in my day never had cum laude etc, just graduating was a statement in itself, we were not Harvard, they needed the distinction to identify those who really worked.

The list of some recent speakers included:

2018    Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook

2017    Tim Cook, Apple

2016    Matt Damon, Actor, Filmmaker

2015    Megan Smith, Chief Technology Officer of the United States

2014    Ellen Kullman, DuPont

2013    Drew Houston, Dropbox

2012    Salman Khan, Khan Academy

2011    Ursula M. Burns, Xerox Corporation

2010    Raymond S. Stata, Analog Devices, Inc.

2009    Deval Patrick, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

2008    Muhammad Yunus, Managing Director, Grameen Bank

2006    Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve

2005    Irwin Jacobs, QUALCOMM

2004    Elias Zerhouni, National Institutes of Health

2003    George Mitchell, Former United States Senator from Maine

Now I am certain that they are all fine folks, interesting speakers and the like, but after lost of time and effort all most students want is the piece of paper and finding a job. Are speakers a benefit to the Administration, more contacts and the like. They are little if any benefit to the graduates, at least short term.

I am very happy that Prof Wiesner decided to just make it short and sweet. Then again there were always those bomb threats from the anti-War types. I thought that bomb threats from anti-War protesters were a bit of an oxymoron. But we had a few. They did keep the speakers away though!

IP Voice: I Long for The Old Days of Copper

Voice communications is getting worse by the day. Back before say 1990 telecommunications used analog voice over copper lines. The Old Bell System, for better or worse really worried about voice quality and a voice communications was generally good, even to far away locations.

Then came digital voice. The two drivers were wireless and lower data rates and usage and also the introduction of IP communications. In the early 90s when I was at now Verizon Wireless, we moved to introduce digital and this meant voice codecs, which compressed voice. From 64,000 bps we went down to 4,000 to 9,000. A real drop. We did such things as MOS or mean objective scoring to show that it really was not that bad. It really was.

Then along came IP and we then put these codecs modified on IP nets. Again I did this in 1996 along with a company called VocalTec. I ran a network using IP and voice codecs. We actually got voice to work, in Poland and Russia. But our networks were fine tuned and dedicated. Others used the Internet, which along with the codecs made everyone sound like Donald Duck.

Then along came Customer Services out of India. Add to the IP problems and the codec problems the accent and language problems and you have what we have today.

A mess.

Most of the younger folks do not make phone calls. They have no knowledge of a great long distance call with a friend, talking as if you were having a truly private conversation. Today the quality, well stinks, yet we also have God knows how many people listening in on these conversations.

Technology is not always a great leap forward. We still buy hard copy books.

Can I Still Holiday in Canada This Year?

The National Post reports:

During a testy phone call with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. president Donald Trump reportedly cited the War of 1812 in order to justify seeing Canada as a security threat.“Didn’t you guys burn down the White House?” he told Trudeau. Trump uses War of 1812 to justify Canada as security threat. Some men from Canada did burn down the presidential mansion in 1814, but they were all technically British.

 Picky, picky, picky. I will have to travel on my Irish Passport, yet at times the Brits still have a thing for us, but my lovely wife is descended from Canadians directly, and tracing back they may have been down in Washington at the time the President noted, one also was at Waterloo, so the French get a bit out of whack.

Well this will be a great holiday! I love the New York sense of humor! Happy D Day, also this is the day the US took Saipan and Tinian, a battle comparable to Normandy but less covered.

Someone Has Seen My Measurements, I Think...

This is three hours later, same IP address, same system. 65+Mbps down, up from 600Kbps at best. Look at up speed as well. Nothing has changed except the speed! Where is the throttling, I can make several guesses.

A Business Model and Amazon

In 1980-81 I became head of the the Warner Cable Interactive Services Business. At the time we had a two way system called QUBE which was limited to some video on demand such as boxing events and the like. My task with my team was to develop a two way fully interactive system to sell anything as well as do banking, games etc. Thus the name, TIES, Transaction, Information, Entertainment Services. I have to thank Greg Shapiro for this and he was a brilliant young marketing type on leave from American Express.

From the Plan we noted: 

This plan describes the implementation of a business that uses cable television and interactivity to provide services to the home. The business is called TIES (Transaction, Information , Entertainment Services) and is defined as: providing distribution capability , local marketing and customer support to facilitate the delivery to homes of a bundle of goods and services offerings , and is available to subscribers on demand via enhanced videotex in an entertaining format. 

 Enhanced videotex differs from traditional videotex systems by providing full motion video segments in addition to text and graphic displays. The services offered ( applications ) are in the following areas: 

Banking and Investment Services 
Games and Entertainment 
Travel, Ticketing and Real Estate 
Merchandise/Packaged Goods Shopping 
Information/Education and Electronic Mail
Local Services and Classifieds

TIES builds naturally on the existing Warner Amex role , leverages the Warner Amex cable investment, and readily interfaces with the existing businesses of American Express and WCI. TIES responds to emerging trends i n the marketplace by providing an innovative electronic in-home marketing distribution channel in the marketplace by following: (i) supplier expansion into direct marketing, and (ii) consumer demand for choice and convenience, coupled with consumers' growing acceptance of electronic delivery of transactions , information, and entertainment. The strategy in this new marketing and distribution channel is : (i) to build on local presence,  (ii) to bring together suppliers and packagers into what is termed a local electronic shopping mall, (iii) to ensure consistent and high quality service.

Now the problem was that we saw that the Shopping Mall Operator strategy was better because vendors knew better, we were intermediaries. This is the Ali Baba approach. Amazon took on the role of the store, no shopping mall, they were to be the store. This seems to have stopped. Now more than half of the sales seem to bevia some unknown third party. The goods may be knock offs, the delivery scheduled haphazard, the quality questionable. As the Mall Operator one had the duty to ensure quality. In my most recent experiences this is failing on the Amazon side.

Does this open the door for a new competitor. I believe so. I hope so. I liked to old Amazon, the new Amazon not so much.

It is like Google. All my searches were on Google, now, not so much. As for Facebook, that went the way of my Grad students. I saw its flaws a decade ago or even more. Possibly or possibly not.

Here is the composite video of our first system in 1982. This was displayed on an Atari 800, our home platform of choice, Warner owned it then. The videos were done by Richard Veith a great innovator at the time!

 also

and

Note the paradigm of spatial participation. It is worth noting that this now almost 40 year old construct focused on quality and trust. AMEX was a key driver there. Again one must ask where is Amazon wandering, hopefully not astray.