I just installed the latest maintenance update to Mac Office 2001.
This is the fourth revision to the 2001 R1 update which was called “Office X” (A port of Office 2001 designed to run natively on Apple’s then new operating system OS X.)
It’s been ten long years, but I am happy to say this is the most stable and responsive version of Mac Office 2001 yet.
They call this latest revision “Mac Office 2011” and like the previous minor updates it is only distributed on disk and invokes a hefty fee. It also requires entering a registration code.
Once again, there are no significant feature additions to report.
What’s been fixed in this release?
- The horrible bug that appeared in R3 (sometimes called Office 2008) where Macros/Visual Basic would refuse to load and Macros would be stripped out of files is now repaired.
- The temporary hang at launch bug which would delay application access for an unnecessary extra 30-45 seconds is finally fixed. Opening the app no longer requires taking a coffee break before getting to work.
- Disk thrashing that caused a frequent spinning beach ball occurs less frequently.
- Annoying screen redraw issues that would cause toolbars to detach and “float” thereby obscuring access to the document are gone.
- Entourage lag times largely eliminated. Clicking on buttons and making menu selections actually does things now.
- Email data is no longer locked in single giant corrupted vault file.
- Can work in email for several hours now without crashing or being forced to rebuild data file.
New bugs:
Entourage project manager refuses to load, and corrupted(?) resource file continually shows the application name as being “Outlook.” Does not seem to affect performance or reliability.
Inherent productivity gains:
The $800 spent on maintenance updates since 2001 is equivalent to cost of airfare to fly my wife and I to Maui. This loss of a distracting diversion has enhanced my productivity greatly.
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For many (collectivist) armchair economists it’s great fun to sit back and talk about examples of “market failure” while cherry-picking examples where government proves oh-so efficient in providing services. This exercise is generally used to “prove” how it would really be better for all of us if we just ask the really smart people in government to take more control of how we allocate goods and services. I mean after all, those CEOs are paid “too damn much!”
These are often the same types who believe “the government is us” and hold other romantic misconceptions that were refuted by Public Choice Theory scholars long before these wordsmiths were born. (Also quickly refuted by spending a little time in Olympia watching how the sausage is made…)
Public Choice Theory? What the heck is that?
Wikipedia offers a solid definition (emphasis mine:)
In economics, public choice theory is the use of modern economic tools to study problems that are traditionally in the province of political science. From the perspective of political science, it may be seen as the subset of positive political theory which deals with subjects in which material interests are assumed to predominate.
Public choice theory is often used to explain how political decision-making results in outcomes that conflict with the preferences of the general public.
They even offer classes in it! Here are the two (recent incarnations) of the courses I took when getting my Econ degree at the University of Washington:
ECON 490 – Comparative Economic Systems (5) IS
Study of resource allocation, growth, and income distribution in capitalist, market socialist, and centrally planned economies. Prerequisite: 2.0 in ECON 301.
ECON 450 Public Finance: Expenditure Policy (5) I&S
Application of normative microeconomic theory to analysis of government expenditures. Rationale for government economic activity, collective choice, public goods, and externalities, income redistribution, public sector pricing, and specific expenditure programs. Prerequisite: 2.0 in ECON 300.
They have textbooks they make you read and everything. You can even get a PHD in it if you want to(?!)
I’m no expert, a rank amateur really, as I only dedicated about 200 hours to this — and it was many years ago. That being said, here is the kind of passage I remember encountering over and over again from those courses and texts (emphasis mine:)
The key question raised by this discussion is whether goods and services are provided more efficiently by the public or the private sector.
For the production of purely private goods and services, such as steel, telecommunications, or banking, it seems abundantly clear that private production is more efficient. Correspondingly, a large literature finds that when state-owned companies are privatized, efficiency improves dramatically, and a smaller company is required to produce the same level of output. Mueller (2003) lists 71 studies that compared the performance of state-owned companies: in only 5 of these studies did state-owned companies outperform their counterparts in terms of efficiency.
And regarding the “Government is us” thinking:
In reality, government doesn’t simply aggregate people’s preferences; rather, the governing is done by politicians, judges, bureaucrats, and so on. These players have their own objective functions.
I can go on all day with passages like these. Or — you could just read the texts too. It’s full of the accepted models and theories that often fly in the face of what the collectivists “know” as they sit hunched over their keyboards.
As you can suspect, with this kind of education, I tend to yawn and look at my watch when I attend the beret-laden discussions in the Seattle lofts and the conversation turns to how the government could do much better than the market at providing “just” outcomes and prices. Plus the bongo drums drive me nuts.
Naturally the Government is better at providing some things like public goods, and worse at others, like providing iPods. But let’s be real here. When you go to a supermarket, you pick what you want off the shelves one-by-one, and put things back when you discover their price is too high (or quality too low.) When you elect a politician you are choosing between two gigantic shopping carts full of different stuff, and many/most of the items are obscured. Price? You have little to no idea. Gee, I wonder which system is better at providing “Public Choice”?
Two things going on here that come straight out of the pages Thomas Sowell’s book A Conflict of Visions.
One is how Unconstrained/Utopian thinkers tend to believe they have unique knowledge/insights and historical (old) thought is less relevant. This is exemplified by a quote from William Godwin cited by Sowell (p81):
…in order to decide the course before them, to no code but the code of reason. They would feel the absurdity of other men’s teaching them what they should think and pretending to understand the case before them before it happened, better than they who had all the circumstances under their inspection.
In that instance, Public Choice thought from scholars in 1948 may be only slightly more relevant than say, a dusty old Constitution from 1787. That is to say, not relevant at all in today’s “modern world.”
The other is the thought that evolved systemic coordination by the unintelligent masses (markets) is easily trumped by the specifically articulated rationality of our wise politicians. Constrained thinkers–on the other hand believe:
The special wisdom or virtue of moral-intellectual exemplars is far less important than the mass experience of the generations (embedded in traditions) and the current experiences and economic preferences of the many (embedded in prices).
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My friend Steve on his blog offers up a bet sure to serve as red meat for the class-warfare contingent:
The Sky-Is-Falling Crowd says that 1098′s income tax will be immediately extended to lower earners.
If you’re so sure, here’s a chance to make a buck on your certainty. Fifty bucks, actually.
Here’s the bet:
If, as of April 15, 2014, Washington-state taxpayers with incomes below $200,000 (individual filers) or $400,000 (joint filers) are paying Washington state income tax on their income, I will pay you $50.
If they are not, you will pay me $50.
I will take up to ten of these bets with ten different individuals.
It’s a killer bet. Love it. I like it so much I am not only offering up the same bet, you should do it with me instead, as I will pay you 1.5 to 1!
Disclosure:
It’s a really bad bet to take. Deck is stacked. If you take the bet, and 1098 doesn’t pass on Nov 2, you lose(!) In addition, assuming there is inflation, there is a 100% chance the tax will hit those below 200/400 and that isn’t covered here.
Also, 2014 is just too soon. All good bureaucrats and collectivists know you can’t warm up the water the frog sits in too fast or he’ll jump out.
Here’s the bet I’d take if I were you:
* It has to pass!
* Move it back to 2108
* make it 200k/400k in 2010 dollars (we know that inflation creep is the collectivist’s favorite stealth method for moving tax brackets)
Ideally I’d add a clause that we don’t see any more teacher strikes, as it’s a good benchmark that funding has been addressed — but we know no one will take that bet, because whatever this tax raises, it just won’t make any material difference.
I have to cut Steve some slack (bless his idealistic heart,) as he wasn’t here in 1982 when the state lottery was sold to us as a way to “fund education.” Many of us still have those commercials running through our heads. Here’s the reality of 2010:
Lotto tickets are $1 and Jackpots start at $1 million. Lottery revenues benefit stadium debt reduction for Qwest Field and Event Center. Proceeds also support stadium debt reduction for Safeco Field, as well as education construction, economic development and problem gambling prevention and treatment.
Well, at least education is now in great shape! Oh, wait — it isn’t.
Straw man: “The Sky-Is-Falling Crowd says that 1098′s income tax will be immediately extended to lower earners.”
No, the anti 1098 crowd claims it CAN be extended in two years. That’s simply a fact. What’s scary is this.
Check out the brackets for all other states and connect the dots.
The bet isn’t if it will be moved down below the $200k level, the question is when. If we get double-digit inflation, an overt move may not even be required.
Besides, I thought the the Sky-Is-Falling Crowd are to busy for this. They have their plates full just trying to “hide the decline“…(?)
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The Economist has provided us with a persuasive, well-documented, logical, data-driven(!) essay that aligns with the accepted models of modern economic theory. Their conclusion is unmistakable. To speed recovery, Europe needs to think more like Ronald Reagan, and less like Barack Obama.
The Economist (and OECD economists, McKinsey, University of Groningen, and the Bank of France) contradict the convenient untruth that in advanced economies not enough regulation is a primary cause of economic pain. I am hopeful that this may help some realize that regulation is a true cost that shifts supply curves leftward. (Next I’ll be working to teach the politically active economic “deniers” that supply curves are not vertical lines…)
The piece Smart Work is a component of a set of articles in the Oct 7, 2010 issue focusing on productivity and growth. Below are excerpts (emphasis mine) that provide the logical progression through to the conclusion that the lack of a Regan-esque philosophy toward regulation is stifling European recovery.
1) Productivity is key to recovery:
“Productivity growth is the closest economics gets to a magic elixir, especially for ageing advanced economies.” “As the rich world emerges from the financial crisis, faster productivity growth could counteract the drag from adverse demography. But slower productivity growth could make matters worse.”
2) Government meddling to try and force productivity is not helpful:
“…the politicians’ current focus on fostering productivity growth via exciting high-tech breakthroughs misses a big part of what really drives innovation: the diffusion of better business processes and management methods. This sort of innovation is generally the result of competitive pressure. The best thing that governments can do to foster new ideas is to get out of the way.”
3) The United States has done far better in this arena than Europe:
“Over the past 15 years America’s underlying productivity growth…has outperformed most other rich economies’ by a wide margin…the improvements were extraordinary…”
“The recent history of productivity in Europe is almost the mirror image of America’s. …the main reason for Europe’s disappointing productivity performance was that it failed to squeeze productivity gains from its service sector.”
4) Europe’s problem is regulation and micro-managing of market forces to social ends:
“As the McKinsey report notes, many European countries are rife with anti-competitive rules. Such restrictions limit the ability of efficient newcomers to compete for market share, cosseting incumbents and raising costs across the economy.”
I know what the Utopian Thinkers are saying at this point. Steve, you must be forgetting the the Workers Paradise that is Sweden! It’s a dream world with a nanny government, yet their economy is not that bad at all.
The Economist specifically addresses Sweden. The reason it’s “not that bad” is because they, they, (wait for it…) deregulated.
Sweden is the bright spot, thanks to a Reagan-esqe deregulation campaign:
“Sweden offers a more encouraging lesson. In the aftermath of its banking bust in the early 1990s it not only cleaned up its banks quickly but also embarked on a radical programme of microeconomic deregulation. The government reformed its tax and pension systems and freed up whole swaths of the economy, from aviation, telecommunications and electricity to banking and retailing. Thanks to these reforms, Swedish productivity growth, which had averaged 1.2% a year from 1980 to 1990, accelerated to a remarkable 2.2% a year from 1991 to 1998 and 2.5% from 1999 to 2005, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.”
What some may find the most amazing is how de-regulating the banking (yes, banking!) industry contributed to Sweden’s performance:
“The restructuring of retail banking services was another success story. Consolidation driven by the financial crisis and by EU entry increased competition. New niche players introduced innovative products like telephone and internet banking that later spread to larger banks. Many branches were closed, and by 2006 Sweden had one of the lowest branch densities in Europe. Between 1995 and 2002 banking productivity grew by 4.6% a year, much faster than in other European countries. Swedish banks’ productivity went from slightly behind to slightly ahead of American levels”
PROBLEM: Uh Oh — “The Logic is Simple”??
“The logic is simple: more efficient lawyers, distributors or banks enable firms across the economy to become more productive.”
Sadly my whole argument falls apart here. We all know that “common sense” and “simple” are anathema to those who view these issues as complex and “nuanced.” Brings to mind the old bromide that “Economics is common sense made difficult.”
One Conclusion: Supply curves (as predicted by economic literates) are affected by regulation:
“All this suggests that for many rich countries the quickest route to faster productivity growth will be to use the crisis to deregulate the service sector. A recent study by the Bank of France and the OECD looked at 20 sectors in 15 OECD countries between 1984 and 2007. It found that reducing regulation on “upstream” services would have a marked effect not just on productivity in those sectors but also on other parts of the economy. “
“A smart innovation agenda, in short, would be quite different from the one that most rich governments seem to favour. It would be more about freeing markets and less about picking winners; more about creating the right conditions for bright ideas to emerge and less about promises of things like green jobs. But pursuing that kind of policy requires courage and vision–and most of the rich economies are not displaying enough of either.”
And because I can’t resist:
“Even in America there would be benefits. But, alas, the regulatory pendulum is moving in the opposite direction as the Obama administration pushes through new rules on industries from health care to finance.”
I’ll close with a quote from the Gipper himself. May it serve to inspire our European friends:
“Together, we have cut the growth of new Federal regulations nearly in half. In 1981, there were 23,000 fewer pages in the Federal Register, which lists new regulations, than there were in 1980. By deregulating oil, we’ve come closer to achieving energy independence and help bring down the costs of gasoline and heating fuel.”
– Ronald Reagan, First State Of The Union Address January 26, 1982
Where’s my data? I don’t have any. I’m not a researcher. I refer to other people’s data. Here it is.
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