Your Slice of the Pie July 17, 2006March 4, 2017 AH, THE PRESCIENCE These quotes in Paul Krugman’s current column could make you cry: Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits for the region. …Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart, and our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced. — Vice President Dick Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002 Peacekeeping requirements in Iraq might be much lower than historical experience in the Balkans suggests. There’s been none of the record in Iraq of ethnic militias fighting one another that produced so much bloodshed and permanent scars in Bosnia. — Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy secretary of defense Feb. 27, 2003. A GRAND TIME But it was his previous New York Times column I wanted to highlight. (What? You still don’t subscribe to the Times on-line?) Left Behind Economics By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: July 14, 2006 . . . Here’s what happened in 2004 [the latest year for which data is available]. The U.S. economy grew 4.2 percent, a very good number. Yet last August the Census Bureau reported that real median family income – the purchasing power of the typical family – actually fell. Meanwhile, poverty increased, as did the number of Americans without health insurance. So where did the growth go? . . . even if you exclude capital gains from a rising stock market, in 2004 the real income of the richest 1 percent of Americans surged by almost 12.5 percent. Meanwhile, the average real income of the bottom 99 percent of the population rose only 1.5 percent. In other words, a relative handful of people received most of the benefits of growth. . . . Even people at the 95th percentile of the income distribution – that is, people richer than 19 out of 20 Americans – gained only modestly. The big increases went only to people who were already in the economic stratosphere. . . . the real earnings of the typical college graduate actually fell in 2004. In short, it’s a great economy if you’re a high-level corporate executive or someone who owns a lot of stock. For most other Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport. LITTLE OLD LADIES Bob: ‘You write: ‘Those clipping services employed little old ladies (one assumes).’ Just for the record, I recently finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Author Betty Smith was hired by a clipping service at age 14 (she told them she was 16). She says her fellow employees were relatively young because their eyes would eventually go bad from the constant reading.’
Save July 29 July 14, 2006March 4, 2017 YOUR OWN CLIPPING SERVICE In the old days, it worked like this. (Really, it did.) Your company – or, if you were an author or a movie star, your publisher or Paramount – would pay a monthly retainer to a clipping service that subscribed to virtually all the newspapers and magazines in the land. Those services employed little old ladies (one assumes) to read it all and snip any mention of you or your company or its products. To those snipped out clippings would be affixed a little label with the name of the newspaper in which it had appeared and the date . . . and each week a stack of clippings would appear in your mail and the mail of all their other clients. Now, you just click here and get it all free and instantly as it happens. (If you were on TV, a company would call you and offer to sell you an audio recording it had made. Today, you just TiVo it.) WMT Douglas Hutchison: ‘Shares of Wal-Mart have slid this week. Are you still bullish?’ ☞ If we have an uneventful economy and markets – yes. But never forget that economic and financial hard times recur periodically, so you should never borrow to invest in the stock market, nor invest with money you might need in the next few years. RELATIVE VALUE Joe Cherner: ‘Once again we find Pfizer and Philip Morris with similar market caps, similar dividends, and similar P/Es. One kills hundreds of thousands of people a year and one cures hundreds of thousands of people a year. Never underestimate the power of addictive drugs.’ ☞ When I consider how web boggle has taken over my life, without even altering my body chemistry (so far as I can tell), I can only begin to imagine what a curse a real addiction is like. A POSITIVELY GRAND TIME Don Rudolph: ‘Please read a copy of Class War in America by Charles M. Kelly. It should be required reading in every Economics classroom.’ ☞ ‘The most appalling thing,’ writes Amazon reviewer Robynne Williams, ‘is that the book was published in 2000, BEFORE the installation of the most rapacious Administration since the 19th century.’ She calls it a ‘superb and succinct account of the rise and rise of the plutocracy.’ Comments another Amazon reviewer, Jack Lohman: ‘Even as a life-long Republican, I find it hard to disagree with many of the arguments in this obviously Liberal writing. I highly recommend [it].’ Meanwhile . . . while you’re at it . . . consider Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich of the New York Times. In a Publisher’s Weekly nutshell: Determined to find out how anyone could make ends meet on $7 an hour, [Ehrenreich] left behind her middle class life as a journalist except for $1000 in start-up funds, a car and her laptop computer to try to sustain herself as a low-skilled worker for a month at a time. In 1999 and 2000, Ehrenreich worked as a waitress in Key West, Fla., as a cleaning woman and a nursing home aide in Portland, Maine, and in a Wal-Mart in Minneapolis, Minn. During the application process, she faced routine drug tests and spurious “personality tests”; once on the job, she endured constant surveillance and numbing harangues over infractions like serving a second roll and butter. Beset by transportation costs and high rents, she learned the tricks of the trade from her co-workers, some of whom sleep in their cars, and many of whom work when they’re vexed by arthritis, back pain or worse, yet still manage small gestures of kindness. Despite the advantages of her race, education, good health and lack of children, Ehrenreich’s income barely covered her month’s expenses in only one instance, when she worked seven days a week at two jobs (one of which provided free meals) during the off-season in a vacation town. Delivering a fast read that’s both sobering and sassy, she gives readers pause about those caught in the economy’s undertow, even in good times. SAVE JULY 29 Turn your angst into action? Click here to find or host an event.
One Other Movie (And Bjorn Lomborg) July 13, 2006March 4, 2017 I’ve been writing a lot about ‘the movie’ – An Inconvenient Truth. I even made up my own little tag line: If they made a movie about YOUR HOUSE, would you go see it? Well, they have. Many of you have seen it by now and I hope that this weekend the rest of you will. I am not alone in feeling this way. David Denby, in The New Yorker: ‘Every school, college, and church group, and everyone else beyond the sway of General Motors, ExxonMobil, and the White House should see this movie, and, with luck, they will.’ And Roger Ebert, syndicated everywhere: ‘In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.’ I know some of you see this as a liberal plot to rob you of $10. But once people see the movie, they generally feel differently. Which may be why so many people (our President, for example) don’t want to see it. How inconvenient this would be if we actually had to open our eyes to it. The good news, of course, is that if we come to grips with this inconvenient truth, we can probably solve the problem – just as we did when chlorofluorocarbons were destroying the planet’s ozone layer. The world actually came together and solved that. The further good news is that solving this huge threat can be a terrific business, filled with jobs and profits for those nations that take the lead. We are already doing our best to discourage high-paying American jobs in stem cell research; we’ve already ceded most of our auto industry to other nations (what was Detroit thinking?). Do we really want the same head-in-the-sand approach to our giant environmental challenges/opportunities? Several of you forwarded a piece from the Wall Street Journal about a famous and brilliant Dane named Bjorn Lomborg (who hasn’t seen the movie), who thinks all these calls for action are silly. Bob Price: ‘Even granted everything in the movie is correct and not exaggerated, Lomborg’s point still stands (and yes, he says he hasn’t seen it).’ ☞ This would seem to be the key paragraph: In 2004, [Lomborg] invited eight of the world’s top economists – including four Nobel Laureates – to Copenhagen, where they were asked to evaluate the world’s problems, think of the costs and efficiencies attached to solving each, and then produce a prioritized list of those most deserving of money. The well-publicized results (and let it be said here that Mr. Lomborg is no slouch when it comes to promoting himself and his work) were stunning. While the economists were from varying political stripes, they largely agreed. The numbers were just so compelling: $1 spent preventing HIV/AIDS would result in about $40 of social benefits, so the economists put it at the top of the list (followed by malnutrition, free trade and malaria). In contrast, $1 spent to abate global warming would result in only about two cents to 25 cents worth of good; so that project dropped to the bottom. I don’t buy it. The ‘cost’ of our moving to 125 mpg flex-fuel plug-in hybrids (basically, Priuses that you can plug in at home) is NO cost, over the long run. Quite the contrary. The economic and environmental and national security benefits of consuming one-fifth the gasoline we now do are enormous – and would go a long way to reducing our CO2 emissions. (The electricity and biofuels that would goose mileage from the Prius’s current 40mpg to 125 mpg do not come free. But they can come a lot cheaper, all things considered, than gasoline.) And what is the ‘cost’ of not giving people tax incentives to drive Hummers? The ‘cost’ of switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs? The ‘cost’ of building energy-efficient homes and office buildings? See the movie . . . and then see one more: Who Killed the Electric Car. You will not be bored for even one second, and you will leave the theater understanding the world far better than when you went in. At least I did. I was amazed at how much of this I didn’t know. And as with its perfect companion, An Inconvenient Truth, I think you will find yourself doing what I am: urging everyone you know to see it.
One More Movie and Frozen Peas July 12, 2006March 28, 2017 Okay: Which do you want first? The movie or the peas? FROZEN PEAS Picture it: You’re playing racket ball or squash – with me, it was squash, but this is not a recipe about squash – and you lunge toward the front wall for the ball, pushing with enormous force off your right foot . . . and just as you do, your opponent angles his racket not flat on but edge on and smashes you in the middle of your stretched calf as hard as he can. The pain is unbelievable. ‘F–k!’ you cry. ‘F–k! F–k! F–k! F–k!’ (You are hopping, trying to grab hold of the flat wall for support. You could not possibly lower your right foot back to the ground – the pain remains unbelievable.) ‘What did you do that for?’ Your partner has been watching, astonished. ‘I didn’t do anything. What happened? What are you talking about?’ ‘You hit me!’ ‘I didn’t hit you!’ ‘You hit me!’ ‘I’m over here!’ And – through the pain – you have to admit he is several yards away, in the far corner of the court. Your screams apparently brought him up short and kept him from retaking key after making his shot. The pain remains excruciating. You are hopping and sweating and wondering what could possibly have happened. ‘You hit me!’ you say again with a little less conviction, as you start hopping toward the door to find a doctor or an ambulance or someone to just kill you, which right now would be a plus. Your friend summons the pro who asks, ‘Did it feel as if someone shot you in the back of your calf with a rifle?’ ‘Yes!’ you try not to shout. ‘Exactly!’ (How did he know?) ‘You split your plantaris. Basically, you tore your calf muscle. Put some ice on it, get crutches for the first two or three days, take an anti-inflammatory like Advil. Lie down for the first day and keep your calf elevated higher than your heart.’ So you hop to a vehicle, you are driven home – the pain remains acute and your calf, not small before the accident, is now the size of Alaska. And here is where we get to the peas. The way to ice your leg (or any other body part that may one day need icing) is to take a bag of frozen peas . . . smash it against the floor so they are all separated . . . put a thin towel around it, or a T-shirt or something . . . and put that under or atop the afflicted limb. The peas will conform to whatever shape is required. Real guys don’t cook peas. But having a bag around can come in handy.*† *You should be able to walk with a cane in about three days, with a limp in about a week, with an ache for about a month, and with an undying memory of the word plantariseven 34 years later. † You are wondering: Why peas? Why not frozen cherries? That works too – until you start to eat the cherries. Go with the peas. Tomorrow (clickable today): One More Movie (and a word about Bjorn Lomborg)
How My Cell Phone Battery Could Save Medicare $100 Billion July 11, 2006March 4, 2017 So I finally succumbed to Amazon’s pleas that I join A9, some kind of search engine that, if I use it a couple of times a week, will give me yet 1.57% more off my Amazon purchases. I went to A9 and, to try it out, searched for a Sony BP-T24 replacement battery. I had used Google to find it here for $9.95 plus $5.98 UPS shipping (total: $15.93), and here – a sponsored link – for $15.44 plus $4.24 Priority Mail shipping (total: $19.68). The first of ‘about 985’ hits on the A9 list was here – $1.99 plus $1.95 first class mail. So the total was $3.94 instead of $15.93 or $19.68. And because the vendor takes PayPal, I didn’t even have to give them my credit card info, whoever they are. I’m not saying this kind of price variation is typical, or the result of using A9 versus Google – just that, as always, it pays to shop around. If only the Republicans had thought of that when they forbade Medicare from negotiating prices with the drug manufacturers. It’s one thing to overpay by $15 on a battery, another to overpay by $100 billion a year on prescription drugs. Nor need the negotiation have been punitive to the drug companies. I’m out of my depth here, so you will correct me if this is stupid. But what if Medicaid were allowed to negotiate? Rather than ultimate brinksmanship – where if a deal couldn’t be reached on some lifesaving drug the patients would just die – the dance could have gone this way: ‘Hey, this is a great drug!’ ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ ‘We want to buy 100 million of these pills a year.’ ‘Great. They’re $7 each.’ ‘Ouch!’ ‘Well, for you, and in quantity like that, maybe $6.’ ‘But you charge the Canadians $1.40, and your cost of production is only 7 cents.’ ‘That’s true, but it costs us billions to develop these drugs. We need to make a profit commensurate with our investment and our risk, or else why would we continue to advance the frontiers of medicine.’ ‘You have a good point. How about we pay double what the Canadians pay?’ ‘Triple.’ ‘Double.’ ‘Triple.’ ‘Double.’ At this point – and here’s where I was heading with this – there is an alternative if a compromise can’t be reached. At least with some drugs, I should think, Medicare could say, ‘Well, look: if you make us pay triple instead of double, we’ll buy it – but with a high co-pay that discourages sales. We’ll probably need only 70 million pills.’ Or if it’s truly a life-saving drug with no alternative to prescribe, they could say, ‘Well, if you make us pay triple, we’ll do it – we have no choice. But if you let us pay double instead, we’ll commit to purchasing it for at least a year after an alternative therapy comes on the market.’ Or: ‘If you don’t cut us a better deal on this life-saving drug, we’ll beat you up harder on the statins, where there are lots of competitive drugs.’ My point isn’t to get the details right; only to suggest that there could be creative ways to negotiate, short of having to threaten to eschew a lifesaving drug altogether. (‘But if you don’t buy it, 50,000 people will die!’ ‘Well, that’s tough, but that’s our position. Do you want that on your head?’ ‘Do you want that on your head?’) I have nothing whatever against the Canadians or the Brits or the Swiss – but maybe some of this would lead to their being charged a little more for drugs so that we can be charged a little less more. And to think: all this started when my phone battery died. Of course, it is just pie in the sky. The law, hard as the Democrats fought this part of it, specifically says Medicare may not negotiate on the price of drugs. It is a good time to buy batteries in America, but it is a grand time to be rich and powerful. Tomorrow: One More Movie (and a word about Bjorn Lomborg) And coming soon: Frozen Peas
Extreme Cinema July 10, 2006March 4, 2017 EXTREME WEATHER My friend Bryan Norcross’s Hurricane Almanac 2006: The Essential Guide to Storms Past, Present, and Future comes out tomorrow. For less than ten bucks, you can buy it today. After you read it, give it to your kids – what an engaging way to learn about science. Bryan, as some of you know, is CBS News’ hurricane guru. NBC made a movie of his extraordinary performance during Hurricane Andrew. EXTREME DEFICITS The lead headline in yesterday’s New York Times: Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Is Curbing Deficit. But even though it now looks as of the deficit may be reported as $300 billion this year versus $318 billion last year, neither number reflects the true deficit, because neither includes the $200 billion or so we are borrowing from Social Security. (It’s confusing, but not that confusing: if your take-home pay were $950 a week, plus your daughter gave you her $50 in babysitting money each week to put into a college fund, so you had $1,000 coming in each week . . . and you spent $1,000 each week, including that $50 she had entrusted you to set aside . . . would your budget be in balance? What if you were embezzling the extra $50 from the Church collection plate, planning to pay it back when you could? Still in balance? What if you were taking it out of your elderly parents’ retirement fund without their fully understanding what you were up to. The two differences are that, first, it’s not $50 a week we’re talking about, it’s $200 billion a year. And, second, even with that $200 billion, we’re still falling $300 billion short. Not that we need to balance the budget every year. Over the long-term, it would be fine if the accumulated national debt just grew slower than, or at least not faster than, our economy as a whole. Unfortunately, under Reagan, Bush and Bush, that’s not been what’s happening: ‘The long-term outlook is such a deep well of sorrow that I can’t get much happiness out of this year,’ said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and a former White House economist under President Bush. That quote comes well along in the story. But it may be more telling than the headline. SUPERMAN SUCKS Okay, Kevin Spacey makes a great villain. And the Superman music, borrowed from the ‘originals,’ is terrific. The rest of the movie . . . well, there is an awful lot of him flying underneath impossibly heavy falling objects just in time to toss them out of harm’s way. Not to mention all the savior and resurrection imagery. (And hey! Look at this! In what may have been a nod to the Da Vinci Code, it turns out Superman did have a child with Lois Lane.) But overall, at least for those of us who grew up with all this stuff in black and white TV and then with Christopher Reeve, this sequel was a disappointment. Which is amazing, because it looks as though it should be so good. If you go expecting Batman Begins, which did click, skip it. The movie you want to see is The Devil Wears Prada. Yes, it is a chick flick, and yes, I continue to compile recipes for Cooking Like a Guy™. (Grape Sorbet: identical to Frozen Grapes, with a little fib I supply to enhance the experience.) I am tough. My calluses have calluses. But Meryl Streep will get yet another Oscar nomination for this, and the only reason she might not win is that she’s won so many already. And then, of course, there is THE movie. Which climbed from #13 to #12 this week, handily outgrossing both The Da Vinci Code and Jennifer Aniston’s The Breakup (both of which opened about the same time) on a per screen basis, with $2,065 on each of its 562 screens, versus $1,383 and $1,394, respectively, on their 1,012 and 1,180 screens. Kenneth Nolan (who does not suffer boredom gladly): “I went to the movie worried it might be hard to sit through. I could not have been more wrong. It is completely compelling.” If they made a movie about YOUR HOUSE, would you go see it? Well, they have. Tomorrow: One More Movie (and a word about Bjorn Lomborg)
A Constellation of Pies July 7, 2006March 4, 2017 AN OCCUPATION, NOT A WAR George Lakoff has it right. Click here. BUT A PROFITABLE ONE Click here. (Thanks to Arianna Huffington for these two links.) MARRIAGE From the ACLU: Today we lost our effort to open marriage to same-sex couples in New York State. It was a 4-2 decision at the state’s highest court, where four different marriage lawsuits had been consolidated, including ours and Lambda Legal’s. The majority opinion said that there were at least two reasons the state could rationally exclude us from marriage. First, it adopted a rationale advanced by NYS Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Pointing out that stable relationships between parents are important for children, that straight couples can have kids by “accident,” and that gay couples must plan their children in advance, the court reasoned that straight couples who parent are less stable than gay couples who parent and therefore need the stability of marriage, whereas gay couples do not. So all of the anti-gay stereotypes we’ve been living with for so long have now been turned on their head — suddenly we’re responsible parents in stable relationships with no need for the stability that marriage could bring. Second, the majority said that the legislature could think that kids will do better with a mom and a dad. Amazingly, this is precisely the argument that the Arkansas Supreme Court rejected last week, recognizing that the social science makes crystal clear that kids do just as well when raised by gay people as when raised by straight folks. Who would have thought that New York was behind Arkansas on this issue? CSPLF With the stock at $11.72, we’re well past a double. The latest tender offer is for $9.50, which management recommends taking. I sold the shares in my tax-sheltered account at $10.64 – no one ever went broke taking a profit – but am holding the rest. FMD . . . . . . dropped $8.85 a share yesterday, to $46.75, giving back roughly half our profit in a single day. ‘I thought I might hear from you,’ replied my guru when I e-mailed in distress. He has a good chunk of his considerable net worth tied up in this stock, so the price drop got his attention, too. ‘Having no inside information, my take is as follows:’ 1. FMD has consistently been a highly volatile stock for the last 12 months, as the market tries to discern the true durability of what might appear to be an overly rich business model. As we’ve discussed, the bears would say this will either 1) invite aggressive competition, or 2) encourage larger clients to take their private Student Loan business elements provided by FMD in house. We’ve been over this debate ad nauseum at this point. 2. One month ago, the stock was at 45 and had subsequently gone up 12-13 points (before today) based on strong fundamental evidence: 1) the company raised their earnings guidance, 2) the company completed two securitizations that delivered fatter margins than anticipated (an indication of pricing power and advantageous contracts) and diminished client concentration, and 3) the company announced several new, long term partnership agreements, GE being the most prominent among them. All in all, a very, very good month for the bulls and strong factual validation of the investment thesis. 3. Today, FBR (a chronic and exaggerated bear that has made several very wrong calls on this stock over the last year) reiterated the bear case with a new bit of relatively arcane and unquantified information: BOA, FMD’s largest partnering relationship, is testing an alternative underwriting and servicing provider, EduCap, a not-for-profit company located in D.C. (information is very sketchy around the elements and degree to which this is proceeding). FBR also mentioned that they believed Chase was also testing keeping some of their new private student loans on their balance sheet, rather than securitizing them with FMD (not sure I got that part right, but it goes something like that). 4. In response to FBR’s report, FMD has gone on record to say that BOA has the right to test with other providers if they so choose, but they expect no change to their current relationship. BOA has gone on the record to say that they maintain a good relationship with FMD and that they do “from time to time” test working with alternative providers. 5. Bear Stearns (a chronic bull, and consistently right, on this stock) apparently countered that (paraphrasing here, second-hand) they don’t believe there is any material business risk in the near term, and that EduCap, while qualified, doesn’t have the scale or experience that FMD does. Also, they traditionally operate in a higher risk space of the private student loan market where FMD may not be interested in playing. 6. There have been at least two other short term “precipitous drops” of 15-20% over the last nine months – most notably in last November and December. These have proven (at least until now) to be extraordinary buying opportunities. The stock has generally recovered in a matter of weeks, if not days. Both of these drops have been provoked by unsubstantiated bear arguments and aggressive short selling. 7. If I were not so heavily invested right now, I would be adding to my position. BOREF The last person to buy this stock yesterday paid $9.50 a share. The last person to buy a share in its Roche Bay iron ore subsidiary (RCHBF) paid $10.60. Since BOREF is divided into 5 million shares and owns 5 million shares of RCHBF, the person who paid $9.50 got – indirectly – one $10.60 RCHBF share . . . and was thus paid $1.10 to take the rest of Borealis. Not to say one should read too much into this. If the testing of the iron ore formation disappoints, or required Canadian government approvals do not come through, or the price of iron ore collapses, RCHBF could be worthless. This company’s logo should be a constellation of pies. (Get it? In the sky?) But what pies! There’s the Chorus Motors subsdiary (CHOMF) that owns the WheelTug subsidiary that made an electric motor the size of a watermelon that – according to Boeing and Air Canada’s chief pilot who was in the cockpit – drove a fully loaded 767 around a desert tarmac like a golf cart. (I know. I know. But you try doing that trick. So maybe they’ll never be able to exploit this technology. Certainly, one would have hoped for more visible progress in the year since that test succeeded. Or maybe it will one day be worth a small fortune.) And there are the Cool Chips subsidiary (COLCF) and the Power Chips subsidiary (PWCHF) – in each case, your $9.50 share of BOREF represents a share of these, too. Last week – not sure which subsidiary this fits into, or whether it will spawn a new one – the company claimed to be patenting a possible breakthrough that just might reduce the cost of solar panels by 90%. A long-time BOREF holder – and at seven years, we are by no means the longest – rolls his eyes. (That was me rolling my eyes Wednesday.) But could they actually have something viable here? Presumably not . . . but if they can move a plane . . . And now, for the nanotechs in the crowd, we get this, regarding yet another subsidiary you are paid $1.10 a share to take (if RCHBF is actually worth $10.60 and you can buy BOREF for $9.50): Avto Metals plc Chairman’s Letter to Members 14 June 2006 Fellow Members: Materials are important. While we take them for granted today, unique materials have defined the age in which they were prevalent. We know of the stone age, the bronze age, the iron age. The 19th century was driven by steel, a material which made it possible for railroads and engines and a host of other transformative technologies to rise to the fore. Materials are now more important than ever. We use custom-engineered materials in everything from roofing materials to prosthetics, from probes in deep space to those under the sea. But arguably the most critical new material technologies today are found within electronics. As others have said, we now live in the electronics age, and so much of what we are technologically capable of depends on the capabilities and limitations of the electronic materials at our disposal. Massive research budgets are devoted to finding ways to maximize what can be achieved with the materials we have, and indeed, to try to find new materials. One key problem is that there are a finite number of possibilities. The periodic table gives us all of the elements there are, and for well over a hundred years technology has sustained itself by learning about the elements, and novel ways in which they can be combined with other elements to form alloys, electronic junctions, or any number of other things. The search continues. There are lots of things we would like materials to do that we cannot do today. For example, there is always interest in finding a harder or stronger or lighter or cheaper material to replace the ones we now have. Within electronics, there is a hunt for better electronic materials to replace silicon. We’d like electrons to be able to move with less resistance, making electronics run both cooler and with less waste. There are so very many things that we can imagine but cannot yet build because we lack the material. Within the technical world, there is a name for the material which would be perfect, if only it existed: unobtanium. Today’s materials explorers have a new landscape to explore: the nanoscale. It turns out that while a bulk material has a mechanical strength of X, or an electrical conductivity of Y, those very same atoms in clusters of just a few atoms, or spread very thinly across another surface, can demonstrate very different properties. Gold is an excellent conductor. But nanoclusters of gold can be insulators. Soot is a nuisance which we try to eliminate, but if you look closely, the nanotubes and nanorods and graphene contained within soot have astonishing material properties. The mind boggles, for example, at the potential of nanotube fibers forming a single foot-thick cable which stretches from the earth’s surface to an anchor in orbit. While nanotechnology is undeniably attractive, we think that most of the interest around nanoelectronics is hype. Nanomaterials today are not found in electronics, but in products which use nanopowders, such as golf clubs or sunscreen. Nanoelectronics are much harder to build, because they are quite complex and extremely difficult to fabricate. The more complicated a nanomaterial or structure is, the more unlikely it is that it will ever get out of a laboratory. This problem with nanotechnology is completely sidestepped with [Borealis subsidiary] Avto Metals, a nanotechnology which is both extremely useful and easy to manufacture. An Avto Metal is a thin film of material which has a simple corrugated pattern on it. The pattern seems to alter the electronic energy levels within the material, and as a result, electrons emit more easily than they otherwise would. This is known as a reduced work function, and it is quite handy. It means that a material canemit electrons at a lower temperature and/or with a lower applied voltage. This may seem like arcane trivia, but the fact is we already know where Avto Metals should come in handy because we know where today’s cathodes are used. The list includes: Technology ( Application ) Cathode Ray Tubes ( TVs and monitors ) Cold cathode displays ( Flat-panel displays ) Vacuum fluorescent ( Displays on laptops, others ) Power Tubes ( Triodes, rectifiers, pentodes, tetrodes, etc. ) Field Effect Transistor ( For FETs and MOSFETS Power electronics ) Klystron: convert electron beam energy into radio frequency waves, often with significant amplification ( Radar, satellite and wideband high-power communication [very common in television broadcasting and EHF satellite terminals], and high-energy physics [particle accelerators and experimental reactors]. ) Travelling Wave Tubes ( Space communications ) X-Ray generation ( Imaging, including for industrial analysis ) Microscopy: SEM, TEM, Surface Analysis and Metrology ( Scientific and industrial instruments ) Lithography ( Semiconductor manufacture ) Electron Beam welders ( Advanced fabrication ) Free Electron Lasers ( Experimental laser ) Thyratron ( Pulse drivers for pulsed radar equipment, high-energy gas lasers, radiotherapy devices ) Krytron [not to be confused with Klystron] ( Igniting exploding-bridgewire detonators and slapper detonators in nuclear weapons, either directly or by triggering the higher-power spark gap switches. They are also used to trigger large flashlamps in photocopiers, lasers and scientific apparatus, as well as firing ignitors for industrial explosives. ) Magnetrons: Radio waves at high power. ( Used in low power applications like microwave ovens, as well as specialized high power applications such as military radars. ) For each of these markets, an improved cathode would be welcome. And this is just a short list of markets which already exist — history has shown us that when a new material is discovered it is put to work in a host of markets and applications which the initial inventors had not considered. After Dr. Avto Tavkhelidze first conceived of Avto Metals, it was a back burner project within Borealis for a number of years. The biggest reason for this was that we were not entirely sure how to make them; the small structures required have dimensions which were not easily achieved using conventional techniques in the late 1990s. We did some work which showed enough results to keep us interested, and looking for potential partners who had the technology and expertise to make the structures Avto Metals requires. And we started finding them in 2004; we are working with some select suppliers and consultants within the nanotechnology sphere. We have also teamed with leading physicists at three universities to consult with us on our Avto Metals, Power, and Cool Chips (AMPCC) research efforts. After considerable work, our team was sufficiently confident of the early results to submit a paper for presentation at the 2005 International Vacuum Nanoelectronics Conference (IVNC) at Oxford University last summer (this paper can be found on our web page). The results showed that the idea of wave interference for electrons had experimental support, and we could indeed modify the work function of a metal (in this case, gold). These results proved the concept, and we have been working since then on optimizing the effect in order to have a commercially valuable product. This year we plan to complete a sizable number of Avto Metal samples and hopefully to commence sales of cathodes to some of the above markets. At the same time we continue to explore other applications and markets as we learn more about this new materials class and seek to maximize the return to our shareholders. We thank you for your continued support! Avto Metals plc Rodney T. Cox Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Isaiah W. Cox President and Chief Operating Officer ☞ What to make of all this? I haven’t a nano-clue. But if someone wants to give it to me for free and throw in $1.10 a share to boot, I’ll take it. (Though only, of course, with money I can truly afford to lose.) Note: If you began reading this column Friday morning, and read that Lakoff piece and watched the Iraq trailer, it is now Sunday noon. (Sorry.) Still time to see the movie.
Free Bumper Sticker, Your First-Class Dog July 6, 2006March 4, 2017 Yesterday’s column somehow disappeared mid-day. If you missed it, click “July 05” at left. (Borealis thinks it may have solved the global climate change problem, yada, yada, yada.) ZAZZLE Shouldn’t your dog’s face be on a First Class stamp? Has there ever been a cuter face? A more loyal friend? Or how about my book jacket? Wouldn’t that make a good First Class stamp? Would your granny not totally freak to see her wedding picture on a First Class stamp? Well, now all this is possible, even if it adds a few bucks to the cost of postage. This site lets you design your own stuff. Until the novelty wears off, the postage, I think, is truly neat. FREE GOP BUMPER STICKER Get one and drive with it proudly.
Give Me a Break (Through) July 5, 2006March 4, 2017 SEE THE MOVIE You can see its 92% rating and read reviews here. Or check out its progress here. When the movie opened in just four theaters in New York and Los Angeles in late May, its $70,332 per-screen average was nearly eight times what ‘The Da Vinci Code’ averaged the same weekend. By last weekend, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was showing on 514 screens nationwide and had earned more than $9.5 million. It was scheduled to open at more theaters this weekend. Fueled by its dark conclusions and the former vice president’s historic brush with the presidency, the film is provoking commentary across the political landscape and the Internet, and in bars, restaurants and family rooms throughout the nation. Gore’s paperback by the same name last week inched up to No. 1 on The New York Times’ best-seller list. More than 400,000 people have agreed to participate in a ‘virtual march,’ an online protest organized by a group called stopglobalwarming.org. I’ve gotten a lot of very smart people emailing me to debunk the movie. To each, I always answer: have you seen it? And in each case the answer has been: no. The feeling of many – certainly of the Republican leadership – is that so long as there is some chance we are not doomed, we should not act. It’s just possible, they believe, that 6.5 billion people burning hundreds of billions of gallons of gasoline and trillions of pounds of coal into the atmosphere each year will have no effect on anything. Or maybe even a good effect – there’s no water shortage in Houston this year, that’s for sure! And it’s easier to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro without snow. But the feeling of most who go see the movie is that everybody else ought to see the movie. Wondering what patriotic thing you could do in the spirit of yesterday? See it. GIVE ME A BREAK (THROUGH) So now Borealis says ‘it appears that we have made a major breakthrough’ in solar cell technology that ‘if the theory is correct’ could lower the cost of solar-panel manufacture by 90%. Yada, yada, yada. They will be testing it ‘in probably less than 90 days.’ Blah, blah, blah. (That, in turn, would solve much of the global climate change problem, as most electricity could come, pollution-free, from the sun.) I continue to think this stock is a great speculation. But one thing we can know for all but sure: years from now, this breakthrough will be even more promising . . . and its pay-off, just over the horizon.
Let Freedom Ring July 3, 2006March 25, 2012 At 3:59:30 pm Friday we began clapping from the podium overlooking the stock exchange – yes! that was ME! in the back on the left! – and at 3:59:45 one of the twelve of us pressed and held a button for 15 seconds that set the bell to clang-clang-clanging to close out the day’s – and the month’s – trading on the New York Stock Exchange. It was Gay Pride Month, and a group called Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays – P-FLAG – had been invited to ‘Ring the Closing Bell on Homophobia.’ Would that it were that simple. Homophobia, like racism, does not disappear with the passage of a law or the ringing of a bell. Even so, it was a nice milestone in the nation’s journey toward a more perfect union, with all men and women created equal, enjoying their inalienable rights. The wonderful singer Barbara Cook was on the podium – she has a gay son and is part of P-FLAG’s ‘Stay Close’ campaign (Ben Afleck is another member of that campaign). Sam Thoron was there. An insurance man. He is President of P-FLAG – it was his finger on the buzzer. Sam’s general attitude toward those who would make life difficult for his daughter: ‘Don’t mess with my kids.’ Walter Schubert was there. His family have been New York Stock Exchange members for three generations and he was the NYSE’s first openly gay member (since joined by traders at Citibank and Goldman Sachs). It was he who had arranged with the President of the New York Stock Exchange for this honor. Congressman Barney Frank, ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, was there. He is not one for maudlin sentiment, so as the clanging stopped he leaned over to the Exchange President, out there on the podium with us, and said, ‘Let the after-hours trading begin.’ The event, and its swank antecedent lunch at the Downtown Association, were sponsored by, among several others, American Airlines, Chubb, the Citigroup Foundation, Dow, IBM, and Pfizer. The country’s has come a long way from the days when, with best intentions, our founding fathers reserved voting rights to white . . . male . . . property owners. Some try to lean against that progress – failing to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act last week, for example, or pushing Constitutional Amendments last month designed to restrict rather than protect or expand individual freedoms. But they won’t succeed. America is better than that. And it is that fundamental goodness and fairness that we celebrate tomorrow.