Modern Democratic Ideology in Economic Perspective

American Liberalism

Before understanding the economic agenda of the Democratic Party, it is important to first understand the political ideology of the Democratic Party. Traditionally, Democrats believe in social liberalism.

Liberalism is a political ideology that seeks to maximize individual liberty. Liberalism in the United States is known as social liberalism which should not to be confused with classic liberalism, as referred to in the rest of the world.

Social liberals believe in moral values such as empathy, compassion, trust, and cooperation. Generally, they believe that the State must provide the necessary socioeconomic support such as education and welfare for the poor and the helpless in order to achieve positive freedom and social justice. Such beliefs lead American liberals to support progressive income taxes, regulation of society, and more state enterprises. They support:

• Government spending on education, health care, child care, and often many state enterprises.
  
• National health insurance or universal health care in a variety of forms to address the rising costs of modern health insurance
  
• Regulatory bodies over private enterprise in the interests of workers, consumers and fair competition.
  
• Spending on social security.
  
• A moderate or heavy level of taxation.
  
• Decentralized decision-making.
  
• Internationalism.
  

Centrism, The Third Way

However, as the Democratic base traditionally dominated by labor unions and working class became more diverse to include the intelligentsia and college-educated professionals, the Democratic base today includes a significant number of conservatives in addition to liberals. In recent decades, the Democratic Party has adopted a centrist economic and more socially progressive agenda.

Today, Democrats advocate more social freedoms, affirmative action, balanced budget, and mixed economy. The party believes that government should play a role in alleviating poverty and social injustice, even if such requires a larger role for government and progressive taxation.

Related Links:

• Democratic Party Platform, 2008, PDF
  
• Obama, McCain, and Your Money:
  Where the Candidates Stand on Key Economic Issues
  

American Economy Turning Into Socialism?

If you have paid attention to the news or radio lately, you most likely heard the term socialism a lot over the last couple of weeks. You may be wondering what socialism has got to do with America. My understanding is that people are concerned with the recent intervention by the US government seen by many as socialist measures.

The US government is planning to buy up large stakes in major banks across America. In the traditional American economic system, that was unthinkable. Yet, the economy has gotten so bad that the government has no choice but to take drastic measures.

In socialism, the ruling regime takes ownerships of core capital infrastructure of the economy. The banking system is vital to the economy and can be regarded as economic infrastructure. If the US government takes over major financial institutions, would it be the end of American capitalism? Apparently, the US economy is already disintegrating.

In fact, many economy professors would happily tell you that the American economic system is not perfect capitalism, but indeed a hybrid system of capitalism and socialism. In the current crisis, it may seem that the US economy is shifting toward socialism.

The Presidential Candidates' Economic Proposals @ Yahoo! Video

Related Posts:

• And So It Begins: Suntrust, BB&T Embrace Socialism
  
• Credit Crisis — The Essentials | NYT
  

Investment Tips: Weathering the Financial Crisis

Washington Post has a good discussion section where you can find enlightening discussions on various topics and read helpful advices from experts. I found an interesting business discussion in which Tim Hanson of The Motley Fool answered investment questions dealing with the financial crisis. Some of the key points are as follows:

1. The stock market is a crazy and irrational place that fluctuates violently according to news and rumors. However, in the long term, stocks are much more predictable. If you focus on diversification, smart allocation, and companies with strong brands, balance sheets, and good management teams, you can be a successful long-term investor. Good companies will attain to their intrinsic/fundamental values over the long term.



2. In times of financial instability, do some asset reallocation. Move your funds from small cap funds to large cap funds or bonds.



3. If you are relatively young, it's okay to invest more in stocks. But if you are nearing retirement, invest in high cap stocks or bonds.
   
   
   If you're more than 10 years from retirement, you want to be 80% to 90% in stocks. If you're 3 to 10 years from retirement, you want to be 60% to 70% in stocks. And if you're nearing or in retirement, you want to be about 50% in stocks and 50% in principal-protecting bonds and treasuries.



4. When the market crash causes every stock value to plummet, it creates opportunities for long-term investors to buy normally high stocks at a bargain and diversify their portfolio. Also diversify your investment outside the US. Foreign stocks in China, Brazil, India, Europe and the like provide good value/growth opportunities.



5. Use dollar-cost averaging technique for investments such as Roth IRA. You can get more bang for your buck as the market drops. Make sure you invest in chunks that are big enough to keep transaction costs to less than 1% or 2% of your investment.



6. Generally speaking, if you own an index fund, that's going to be so broadly diversified that owners have no reason to panic. They're generally low-cost, broadly diversified, and offer returns that most well-paid active mutual fund managers can't beat.

Check out the full read: The Financial Crisis And You: Impact on Your Investments

Backing Up Data

Last Sunday, my 320GB hard drive in a USB enclosure crashed. The hard drive makes clicking noise and is not recognized any more. I think the hard disk crashed due to overheat. I am very disappointed. To my relief, there was no critical data lost.

This incident made me realize the importance of backing up data. Here I give my tips on backing up data.

Backup Medium

Since my hard drive crashed, I don't recommend hard drives as backup media. Hard drives are vulnerable to heat, magnetic force, and electric surge. I recommend Compact Discs, DVD±R, DVD-RAM or flash drives.

Backup Software

If you have a powerful CPU, spare time and huge storage, it may make sense to back up the whole thing including the operating system, applications and all the data. This typically involves backing up the whole hard drive or a hark disk partition.

There are many commercial software that are designed for this kind of task. Popular ones are Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image. There's free one, too. I recommend Clonezilla for free disk imaging solution.

Online Storage

The simplest way to back up your data online is saving it in your email server. Some webmail services such as Yahoo! mail provide unlimited email storage. With Zimbra Desktop, you can save your documents or pictures directly in your mail server.

Otherwise, there are many online services that provide backup solutions. I recommend the online service Carbonite.

Outlook on eBook Business

I've been aware of ebooks since long ago. In fact, I was scouring the
Internet for ebooks of all sorts, including literature and technical
books years ago. I haven't been collecting ebooks for quite a while,
but when I checked recently for an economy textbook, I found tons of
ebooks, including various collegiate books. That's intellectual bonanza.



Anyway,
what I am trying to say is, is it reasonably feasible to make profits
from ebooks? Just take a look at all the publications and audio books
circulating in the IRC networks and sharing networks.



When
a publisher sends manuscripts of books in PDF form to a printing house,
some of these manuscripts get leaked to the Internet. Even if the
manuscripts are in encrypted PDF form, it's possible to break the encryption. Years back, there was one hacker who succeeded in breaking the encryption but got arrested by FBI (Poor guy, what about freedom of speech).



However,
if someone becomes successful in selling ebooks for reading on cell
phones or iPods, ebooks can possibly become a profitable trend.



Recent rampant success of Apple iPhone and its App Store
has opened opportunities for many entrepreneurs. I don't own an iPhone,
hence I don't know what's available in the iPhone App Store. But
piggybacking on iPhone madness, developing an ebook reader for iPhone
and making deals with publishers or even wanna-be writers might be a
good business idea.



Anyway, if you are into serious classic literature without much concern for modern recyclable literary garbages, I recommend Project Gutenberg. Gutenberg is a wonderful philanthropic repository of copyright-free literature.

Microsoft Weakening? Upcoming OS Battle

Now that Bill Gates has shifted his endeavors from monopolist Microsoft to his philanthropic foundation, once invincible Microsoft is now constantly threatened by the rise of Apple and Google. With its charismatic leader gone, Microsoft is no longer a leader in technological innovation and trends. Indeed, the Zeitgeist of technology is being dominated by Google and Apple. Microsoft is facing increasing challenges in multiple fronts, one of which is the Internet.

The Internet has become an integral part of modern computing. The Internet has a potential to become a new platform from which applications are delivered on demand. Google is dominating the Internet industry based on its lead in the search market, and expanding to other markets such as cell phone industry. So fascinated with Google, people are willing to follow the trends set by Google, buy the products from Google, and becoming bored with Microsoft. Facing the threat of Google, Microsoft is desperate to take over the Internet for which it has unsuccessfully spent billions of dollars and a decade.

Apple has also stole public spotlight from Microsoft. With the help of public craze over iPods and iPhones, Apple has set out a massive marketing campaign against Microsoft Windows operating system. Thus far, Apple is gaining in sales of Macs and MacBooks.

Microsoft is also facing oppositions from the open-source world. The open source trend has released a multitude of free software whose quality rivals most products from Microsoft. Among the numerous open-source software, we can find many fine software that can be used in place of Microsoft Windows. The main contenders for the operating system market are as follows:

• Microsoft Windows
  
  Microsoft Windows come bundled with most new personal computers. Still, many people in business stick with Windows XP, reluctant to switch to Windows Vista because of many problems posed by Vista.



• Linux
  
  Linux is gaining popularity especially in the network sector. Linux is also seeing increase in its user base who's trying to find alternatives to Microsoft Windows.



• OpenBSD
  
  Another group of contenders for OS market comes from the BSD camp. Besides the popular FreeBSD, I am fond of OpenBSD.



• OpenSolaris
  
  Sun Microsystems was once a dominant player in the network server market. However, after its market share dwindling, Sun decided to release its Solaris operating system free to the open-source community. Now people can experience the stability and solid performance of OpenSolaris. It will be interesting to see if OpenSolaris can become a formidable force in the OS market.

$2 Trillion of Retirement Money Lost in Economic Turmoil

I heard stories of people losing money from their retirement savings like IRA and 401K. Check out this article:

Pensions lose $2 trillion: congressional budget analysts - Oct. 7, 2008

$2 trillion?! Maybe a bloated figure. But I don't quite understand how retirement savings can lose value. My guess is that:

1. Inflation and decreasing dollar value decrease the value of retirement savings,


2. Financial institutions go under depleting money in retirement savings accounts, or


3. IRA and/or 401k can have assets like stocks as its basis and lose its value when the stock value plummets.

Anyway, here's an Washington Post article in which a finance Guru gives some good advices on dealing with the financial crisis.

Hawaii's Renewable Energy Frontier

Under the Hawaii Renewable Portfolio Standards law, Hawaiian Electric Co. is required to supply up to 20% of all electricity for Oahu from renewable sources by 2020. HECO has come up with nine proposals for renewable energy projects that are subject to PUC approval. Now HECO is proceeding with 110-megawatt biomass power plan in Campbell Industrial Park. Among the proposals under consideration are solar, wind and ocean thermal energy.

All this progress toward renewable energy is welcome in environmental perspective. Increasing renewable energy production in Hawaii will reduce its dependence on oil and will be beneficial for Hawaii's economy in the long run.

However, all this transition toward renewable energy doesn't necessarily guarantee cheaper energy cost. I think we'll see high price for renewable energy to cover the start-up cost for the foreseeable future.

In the oligopolistic or monopolistic market of energy, expecting cheap price for electricity may be wishful thinking. Barrier to entry into renewable energy market is so high with requirements of large capital and technological expertise. However, the future of energy market will be promising with the Hawaii government's push for renewable energy.

Links:

• Renewable Energy - Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism
  
• Facilities on Big Isle to tap sea for energy
  

Hawaii's Transition to Green Energy: Ethanol & BioDiesel

As the price of oil has risen so high, Hawaii is seeking alternative ways to replace fossil fuel and generate electricity.

As for replacement of fossil fuel, Hawaii government is moving ahead with a plan to build ethanol plants in Oahu. This plan has some people worried that the use of corn for ethanol production may cause a global famine. Corn is supposed to be imported from Mexico and used to produce ethanol. Ethanol is favored by many people because it burns cleaner with less carbon emission than other fuel.

However, Hawaii doesn't plan to replace gasoline completely with ethanol yet. Ethanol will only be used as additive oxygenator to form ethanol-blended fuel. Mixing Ethanol with gasoline will produce so-called gasohol or E-10 Unleaded which contains 10% ethanol. The current Hawaii mandate requires all gasoline to contain 10% ethanol. We are already using ethanol-blended fuel whether we are aware or not.

Ethanol can be processed as E85 fuel which contains 85% ethanol. E85 can replace gasoline in a flexible-fuel vehicle but is very expensive to produce. Until a cheaper way to produce E85 is found, complete replacement of gasoline by ethanol won't be feasible in Hawaii yet.

I think biodiesel is better biofuel than ethanol. Ethanol is made from sugar cane or corn, but Hawaii has long since abandoned agriculture. Hence, Hawaii will import corn to produce ethanol, which doesn't guarantee cheap costs. Biodiesel can be made from soybean, Jatropha or algae. Especially, growing algae to produce Biodiesel in Hawaii is a very intriguing idea. Tropical plant Jatropha can also be used in biodiesel production but may face opposition in Hawaii due to its poisonous, weather-resistant nature and potential adverse effects on the ecosystem.

Since the gasoline price has risen so much, many people have switched to diesel. Diesel is also used in many trucks, heavy-duty machinery, ships and airplanes, so biodiesel will have further reaching usages than ethanol fuel.

Links:

• Hawaii government site on ethanol-blended fuel
  
• Honolulu Advertiser: Hawaii ethanol law falls short of goals
  
• Royal Dutch Shell ventures into biodiesel algae in Hawaii
  
• Making Fuel from Algae - Shell Plans Biodiesel Algae Plant in Hawaii - thedailygreen.com
  
• Jatropha Plant Gains Steam In Global Race for Biofuels - WSJ
  
• Jatropha Biodiesel
  

Ever Expanding Blogosphere Madness

Technorati just released its annual report, State of the Blogosphere 2008. It's a very long report, as if it was written for a serious audience in a research seminar. I haven't finished reading it, but I wanted to share it with you because it provides thorough insight into a lifestyle both of fun and profit.

As I have written earlier, blog is freelance journalism. Hence, blog provides everybody an opportunity to express his or her own opinion, unlike journalists who are subject to censorship by newspaper syndicates and media conglomerates. In fact, blogs have increasingly become a major force in the online media. However, blog's merit as uncensored free publication can also be viewed as its demerit. With the ever expanding size of blogosphere and its increasing influence, blogs are the main source of information pollution and misled opinion on the Internet. Blogs proliferate unsubstantiated information, biased opinions, harmful gossips and flame wars in an unprecedented speed and effectiveness.

As can be observed, blogs are heavily influencing public opinions in the political scene. Blogs don't hesitate to criticize political figures as traditional media would. In the current presidential season, I am seeing political rants streaming out of two political blogs:

• Huntington Post: Liberal Democratic biased blog


• HotAir: Conservative biased blog

As most blogs are supported and monetized by ads, bloggers are constantly pressured to churn out flashy and inflammatory articles that are often too opinionated and lacking journalistic integrity. The motivation to make profit can degrade the quality of blogs by focusing on flashy articles written to get attention and please mass mindset.

If blogs are abused by malicious people to propagate suspicious rumors and misleading opinions, blogs can be used to mislead the masses in the wrong direction of course. With the swiftness of information spreading on the Web, blogs can be a powerful weapon of public manipulation.

Changed Blogger Template

I changed my Blogger template to Flores em você. It's sort of girlish but I love it. This template fills my heart with mysterious energy.

I removed post paragraph definitions from the template codes because paragraphs were rendered without paragraph breaks. I think that's a serious bug. Other than this flaw, this template is fine.

The original template was designed for 800x600 screen size, and is not suitable for today's bigger screens. So I made the following adjustments:

	800x600	896x672	1024x768
#blog-wrapper width	802px	898px	1026px
#header-wrapper width	800px	896px	1024px
#linkbar width	800px	896px	1024px
#main-wrapper max-width	470px	570px	688px
#main width	460px	560px	678px
#side-wrapper1 max-width	162px	162px	162px
#side-wrapper2 max-width	162px	162px	172px
#sidebar1 width	150px	150px	150px
#sidebar2 width	150px	150px	160px
#lower-wrapper	800px	896px	1024px

I also modified the header background a bit because the original overlapped the title.

Cost-saving Alternative Business Computing

The cost of commercial software is so high that the software expense makes up a big chunk of business operating cost especially for beginning entrepreneurs. For example, Windows Vista Business edition costs $300, Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 costs $450, and Quickbooks 2008 costs $200 or more. In addition, you need to buy good security software to protect your data from virus and spyware. All this can add up to $1000 or more. If you run 3 or more computers in your office, the cost can run up to stunning several thousands of dollars.

Even if you manage to purchase all the software needed for your business, the cost of maintaining and upgrading business software can be costly as well. Every 2 or 3 year, you'll need to upgrade your software.

Thus, finding cheaper or free business software can save your business a lot of money, especially in this bad economy. If you look a little hard, you can find cost-saving alternatives to just about every expensive business software.

The new buzz word these days is so-called "cloud computing". Cloud computing is a relatively premature technology in which software on the Internet is accessed and used by your computer typically via browser. In cloud computing, the software is not installed on your computer, but you access and use it on the Internet. In theory, cloud computing can save businesses money. For example, Amazon.com provides its network of retailers with cloud computing facilities necessary for them to conduct e-commerce. Google Docs can also be considered a form of cloud computing.

Frankly, I don't buy cloud computing because of security concern. Think about it. Running software over the Internet can be susceptible to snooping and data theft. Also, power outage and Internet congestion can pose a serious obstacle. For example, recent glitch in Amazon.com data center caused 8 hours of S3 service outage for Amazon's business clients. That's a serious loss for e-commerce businesses.

A Thin Client by Wyse Technology

Another way to save cost for business is thin-client computing. Thin-client computing involves minimalist computer hardware called thin clients. Thin clients are tiny in size, cute in shape, non-obtrusive, and have little memory and low computing power. They typically come with a minimal set of software such as web browser, telnet, SSH, and Remote Desktop client. Thin-client computing may save cost for business both in hardware and software level and keeps your office clutter-free. You use thin clients to access business software running on the central server over the LAN or WAN. In that sense, thin-client computing is similar to cloud computing except that thin-client computing involves minimalist hardware.

Thin-client computing has several advantages: For one thing, you can buy only one copy of business software and install it in just one computer, the central server, therefore reducing software expense. Second, thin-client computing facilitates centralization of data in the server and prevents duplicate, often incorrect data. If you install business software on several computers and move your data around them, you can end up having duplicate data in several computers, wondering which one is the latest relevant copy. Lastly, thin clients consume less power and emit less heat, thereby reducing energy bill for your business. I find thin-client computing attractive but need further research.

As for the alternative to Windows Vista, I recommend using Linux. Recent breakthrough in technology and usability in the Linux operating system have helped Linux become a sensible alternative to Microsoft Windows. A good commercial-grade Linux distribution is CentOS. Nevertheless, Linux can be a daunting experience for first-time users. For Linux beginners, a friendly Linux expert in your neighborhood will be helpful.

If you are forced to stick with Windows Vista, there are still cost-saving alternatives to the rest of software. As for office suites, there are OpenOffice.org and IBM/Lotus Symphony.

If you don't like office suites, there are free stand-alone applications. Abiword is a fine word processor. Gnumeric is a nice spreadsheet program. For desktop publishing, there's excellent Scribus. For drawing and photo editing, you got fantastic GIMP. For vector graphics, Inkscape is a free excellent choice.

For virus protection, I recommend Avast! Antivirus Home Edition. It's free for non-commercial personal use, though. Alternatively, you can get completely free ClamWin which might do the job.

For accounting, you can use GnuCash or TurboCASH.

My Blogger Adventure

I got my own spot on Blogger. I chose Rounders 3 template as my blog layout. I tried to make both the blog post column and the sidebar wider, but to no avail. Adding gadgets and feeds to the sidebar and the bottom took some time.

I searched for free Blogger templates and found a nice website btemplates. I even downloaded cool templates like Raibow, Bright Side of Life and Notepad Chaos. But when I applied the new templates, they messed up my blog and removed feeds from the sidebar. Obviously, to apply fancy templates, it takes good HTML/CSS skills which I lack. After tweaking for a while, I gave up and decided to stick with the generic template.

Now, the next step is to figure out how to monetize my blog. Blogger provides built-in settings to insert AdSense to your blog layout. But I don't have good traffic to utilize AdSense yet. There's also Amazon Associates program (you receive a referral fee if someone buys a book, CD, etc. via a link from your blog) that's not as obtrusive as AdSense.

Anyway, trying to monetize my blog may deteriorate the quality of my blog. It's common dillema faced by serious bloggers: quality vs quantity. According to a Slate article, lame blogs are characterized by

top-10 lists, recycled ideas, half-baked notions, lots of viral videos, and a general increase in information pollution ... dubious crap.

Hey, that's sort of demeaning for hard-working bloggers.

Anyway, here's a definitive report on the world of blog: Technorati: State of the Blogosphere 2008