Legalization

This week the cover of The Economist boasts “How to stop the drug wars” and shows a witty little picture of a skull outlined by guns and a cannabis leaf. The image is jarring and the subject thought provoking. How do you stop the drug wars?

The British newsweekly concludes that the least of all evils is to legalize drugs … across the globe.

They make some excellent points and their overall argument sounds reasonable, and, I must admit, I have given thought about the legalization of certain illegal things as viable options – prostitution and marijuana are two examples. Legalized prostitution would, in theory vastly improve the lives of prostitutes – they could unionize, get benefits, arrange for proper healthcare and disease prevention/treatment, there would be extensive regulation etc. Marijuana is already legally used for medicinal purposes and is arguably a safer drug than either alcohol or tobacco, yet it remains illegal.

The problem that I run into with the legalization of “drugs” in general is that, while some drugs may be fine for general consumption, I can’t really picture the safe use of drugs like heroine or LSD. It can be argued, though, and is, that legalizing all drugs will allow for several positive things.

First is that drug abuse would be treated as a medical issue instead of a criminal issue, a huge benefit to drug abusers and the legal system. Legalization would also allow for the regulation of drugs, stopping the practice of lacing street drugs (already dangerous by themselves) with pharmaceuticals to boost profit. This regulation would also eliminate a black market and organized crime from the mix (mostly. There is still a large organized crime presence surrounding tobacco and alcohol, so it wouldn’t disappear completely). Drug education could also become much more mainstream in schools, warning kids of the negative effects of drugs (like we already do with tobacco and alcohol) in the hopes that education will reduce drug abuse.

Perhaps the most beneficial reason for legalizing drugs in light of the world’s economic woes is the huge influx of cash from the inevitable drug tax. Tobacco and alcohol already have hefty taxes imposed on them (tobacco especially) and people still buy booze and cigarettes in droves. The amount of users that a tax would scare away would likely be offset by the amount of new users that legalization would bring to drug stores (ha!).

But therein lies another issue. Do we want to invite drug use? It’s a measured risk, really. New drug revenue could fund drug education and treatment for abuse, and a more educated public, in theory, would use drugs in moderation, the assumption already used for alcohol consumption.

It’s a thorny issue, legalization, and there is no easy answer. But as The Economist and most every statistic I could find shows, the War on Drugs is not going well. The solution will not be easy, and it likely will not be unanimously loved, but who knows, maybe legalization really can be a viable option. I mean, look how successful prohibition was in the US…

E-Readers - The End or Future of Publishing?

I have recently become an owner of, dare I say, an electronic book reader – the Sony Reader, complete with a plethora of electronic books to read. Now, I am a book person. I work in publishing, I read books both for pleasure and for work. I devour print news from as many sources as possible, and I fancy myself a writer.

Publishers appear to fear for the future of books, magazine, and newspapers.

But I’m not sure that they should be. Books, magazines, and newspapers are tangible, real. They’ve been around for centuries. They bring people together, they tear people apart, they teach us, entertain us, enlighten us, provide us with opinions, they allow us to lose ourselves in a story … oh, and books look great on a shelf.

The Sony Reader is incredibly convenient … but possibly unnecessary. It holds upwards of a thousand books, which is nice, except why would I regularly need even ten books on me at once? The Reader is great for public transportation and presumably an extended vacation with lots of reading planned, but for sitting down for a nice read in the park or on the couch, I just can’t see myself picking up an electronic book.

At least not right now.

The future of devices like the Sony Reader can definitely be bright. The Ipod started as a device that only played music – already cooler and more practical than an electronic book – and helped people store not so portable music into a super portable device. The Ipod has continued to dominate the market and change the face of portable electronics because it continues to do more and more.

Electronic books like the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle can revolutionize the publishing world … once they become more than just book readers, that is. I imagine a device that, for a fee, can bring you magazines and newspapers electronically, as well as your books (and the Kindle 2 is starting to do this). Publishers can charge per book – ebooks are already out there (obviously), the trick is being able to keep margins up.

E-readers can actually save news publications, I think, if publishers embrace them. More people are reading news dailies online than in print, and most large papers offer online readership for free. I can’t speak for all people, but I would pay a fee to subscribe to a news daily on my electronic reader. Perhaps a portable, convenient reader is just what the newspapers need to increase subscriptions and boost their revenue.

Portable electronic readers can be a convenient device for people in urban centers that regularly use public transportation, but without modifications and multiple uses, the readers will never replace books. They have the opportunity to have an impact on all aspects of publishing, and I think it can be for the better. And for all those book people out there, books will still be around. But you might want to clear a spot on your shelf for your electronic reader.

Housing "Hope"

When the news constantly speaks of doom, gloom, your shrinking 401(k), job losses, the end of the world as we know it, and your bills seem more and more ominous, the prospect of the government stepping in and helping out Middle America sounds like the break everyone seems to be waiting for.

The economy is suffering from a great many ailments, and one of them is a complete lack of hope in, well, everything. Lenders don’t trust borrowers, borrowers don’t trust lenders, consumers don’t trust producers, the East doesn’t trust the West, and nobody trusts Wall Street. People have no hope. President Obama hopes (ha!) to curtail this hopelessness with the new housing bill.

This country has, for its entirety, firmly believed in the American Dream, the belief that anyone can make it big or strike it rich, that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps. The housing crisis is taking away hope in the American Dream. If you borrowed more money against your house than it’s worth and can’t make your payments, you’re at risk of foreclosure, and you didn’t make a very sound financial decision. If your mortgage payments are incredibly high and you can’t afford them, you either made a bad financial decision or you’re getting screwed by your lender – either way you’re not in a good way.

These people seem to be the real victims of the housing crisis: the homeowners that continue to make their mortgage payments, but struggle, either due to increasing mortgage rates, housing value deflation, or just the state of the economy in general. This new housing bill likely will not help these people out too much.

Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan explains that “there are no 'flippers,' investor-owners or scammers that are eligible for this program.”[1] That’s great, but something about this bill doesn’t sit quite right with me. Although the administration touts the bill as helping millions of Americans that are stuck with mortgages worth more than the value of their home, it will only allow mortgage restructuring for these kinds of loans backed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, a relatively small amount. There are also a host of other limitations (valuation cap, rate floor, etc) for being able to refinance your mortgage if you’re struggling to make payments.

With all of the money going into insolvent banks that made poor financial decisions, where the government threw hundreds of billions of dollars at the problem, one would think that giving all homeowners a helping hand here would be doable. Why not offer refinancing opportunities to all homeowners? It seems absurd that next door neighbors, both struggling, could receive vastly different amounts of help for the same (or at least an incredibly similar) problem.

This country (for the most part) is an equal opportunity meritocracy. Shouldn’t a plan to help homeowners offer equal opportunity aid?

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/22/obama.housing/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Cell Phones in Schools? For Learning?!

Mobile Learning ’09 is a conference held in Washington, DC this week that focuses on using mobile communications technology in education[1]. Yes, that’s right, this conference revolves around the idea that cell phones not only should be used in schools, but that used properly, cell phones can improve student performance.

Outside of teachers and those of my generation, the use of cell phones in schools was never an issue. Even for me, I never had a cell phone until I had a car, and even then, my parents controlled my plan, and it was paltry – I really could only use the phone for emergencies … and that seemed about right.

I spent some time as an assistant teacher in a public elementary school in NYC, and some of my students had nicer cell phones than I did. I mean, what does a ten year old need with a BlackBerry!? What can he possibly be doing that would add to his educational experience? This is the question that CITA, a cell phone trade group, is trying to answer with research funded by Qualcomm (a cell phone chip maker).

The gist of their argument is this: smartphones can provide a cheap alternative to laptops as mobile learning devices in the classroom. Basically, makers of smartphones want to score a contract with the education system to provide students with handheld computers (smartphones) to help with their studies.

The Qualcomm study gave test 10^th grade students smartphones with applications designed to help them with their algebra coupled with a private social networking site that allows them to share tips and solutions with other students in the class. Apparently, students that used the smartphones and social networking scored 25% higher on the end-of-the-year algebra exam than students that didn’t use the smartphones[2].

That’s all fine and good, but I can hardly think that a smartphone could ever replace computers as learning tools. Laptops can help teachers show students to use the internet for research, to write papers, to teach more than one student at a time, and can even be used for educational games. Sure, they’re more expensive, but wouldn’t it make more sense to have one or a couple roaming laptop (with enough computers for one or two classrooms to use at a time) cart for a school than handing all of the students smartphones? I just can’t see phones not being a distraction for students, especially if the students can use the smartphones as actual phones or for texting.

Potentially my biggest issue with the use of smartphones is the way that text messaging and social network sites are killing writing ability. Internet acronyms, as I call the shortcuts used in texting and instant messenging like lol or omg or ttyl, may well be the downfall of civilization and culture as we know it.

Ok ok, that’s overly dramatic and hyperbolic … maybe. I can’t imagine a smartphone used in a classroom could possibly improve students’ writing skills or help a student research and write a paper. Sure, the students would have incredibly agile thumbs, but is that enough? It seems to me that the cell phone industry is really just promoting the next generation calculator, and that’s something I can get behind: smart calculators that help students solve problems and share solution tips with each other.

But the idea that cell phones could replace computers as learning/teaching devices in classrooms just makes me laugh my ass off, or, if you prefer, LMAO.

 

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[1] http://www.mobilelearning09.org/index.html

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/technology/16phone.html?ref=technology

No Sympathy Here

Apparently, a $500,000 a year salary is barely enough to survive. According to Allen Salkin of the New York Times, after taxes, private schools, nannies, chauffeurs (salary range: $75,000 - $125,000 a year), mortgages (on their Upper East Side condo and million dollar homes in the Hamptons), vacations, galas, expensive clothing, and other life essentials, the $500,000 is all but completely gone.

The editorial goes on to say that top bank executives more or less have to spend that kind of money – because of peer pressure. When you work in a field where the culture relies on heavy spending to denote success, “it’s like the same thing that goes back to high school peer pressure. It’s about fitting in.”[1] Well forgive me for not sympathizing with your plight.

You know, I live in NYC at roughly one fifteenth of that salary and I am able to sustain myself fairly well, although clearly not as luxuriously as some. Really, it almost makes me feel bad for the mega rich, myself, and the future of the country. If the people put in charge of running the financial system can’t properly manage their own financial lives on $500,000 every year, then how are we supposed to have faith in the industry?

Sure, many intelligent and decent people work in banking. And yes, I imagine that the pressures and demands placed on you are pretty great, but let’s put them in perspective for a moment. Do you deal with life and death on a daily basis? Are you sent off to fight a war you may or may not support? Do you work your ass off at three jobs and still barely manage to scrape by because you’re paid $8.50 an hour? Will you be losing your home because a bank hooked you up with god awful mortgage rates?

I mean, your job is mostly about crunching numbers, in a completely oversimplified definition. You run the banks that fuel the economy through credit. You make tough decisions and determine the fate of companies and individuals alike. Your jobs are difficult and demanding, but hardly the stuff of life or death.

When a complaint goes out from executives earning more money in one year than most Americans won’t make in twenty, don’t expect those complaints to fall on sympathetic ears.

Note to bankers: if you make $500,000 a year, you’re hardly struggling. Make some tough decisions in your own life. Pull your kid from that private school and enroll them in public education, then use some of that political leverage to get public schools some of the funding it deserves. Take public transportation. Use your collective real estate clout to bring housing prices in NYC down to a realistic level. Fly coach. Move to Harlem.

The American public might start to take that stigma away if the financial industry fell back down to earth. Now we’ll just have to wait for entertainers and athletes. Here’s hoping in a few years I’ll be able to afford concert, films, and ballgames again…

[1] Salkin, Allen. "You Try to Live on 500K in This Town." The New York Times 6 Feb. 2009. 9 Feb. 2009 .