Some Speculations about the Geo-Political Landscape in the Trump Administration

Asia-based freelance journalist Francesco Sisci points out in this article that the 15-year distraction of the so-called War on Terror has diverted US attention from China, which is America's most significant rival.  The Peoples Republic has consistently gained ground in the nonce.

As I have repeatedly argued,  terrorism is principally a policing problem.  When we think of it otherwise, we risk our civil rights and civil liberties in the name of a false notion of national security. (Consider how many police departments are armed and armored these days.)  Only our energy dependence upon the Middle East has any legitimate claim upon a strategic geo-political status for that region.

Now comes a president who is likely to promote exploitation of America's own carbon energy resources.  We have an historic opportunity for energy independence: a combination of clean carbon energy and infrastructure development that includes developing green energy alternatives.

Finally breaking the oil dependency that has chained us to the Middle East will enable Washington to focus on China in a meaningful way for the first time in a decade and a half.

I highly recommend a close reading of Sisci's analysis, linked above.

And to my academic-admin colleagues: if you are investing in political science faculty, it's time to reorient your programs to Sinologists.  (A Russia specialist or two sprinkled in for leavening might not be a bad HR investment, too.)

Do robots take manufacturing jobs?

     I have suggested as much on a number of occasions in this blog and elsewhere.  This morning I read a blog entitled " Don't blame the robots for lost manufacturing jobs."  Going straight to the bottom line, the authors conclude, "Industrial robots are a disruptive technology, and as disruptive technologies take hold some workers benefit while others are hurt. But to suggest, as some in popular media have, that the use of robots is a causal factor in the decline of American manufacturing employment is factually wrong and misses a broader point. As the productivity figures suggest, robots are increasingly essential to the competitiveness of a country’s manufacturing sector. The fact that countries like Germany, Sweden, and Korea are deploying automation technology at a much faster rate than the United States points to serious competitive challenges—and further debate about the use and impacts of automation."

       Of course, like their headline, these Brookings brainees' conclusion is exactly the over-simplification they critique in the body of their blog.  Neither they nor I nor any other thinking observers dispute the existence of multiple causes of lost  manufacturing jobs.  These guys list globalization and off-shoring (is there a difference?) and skills gaps.   No doubt they --- and robots --- are contributing causes of lost manufacturing jobs.  And, since it's pretty hard to control for all other causes and tease out the impact of any single cause is probably impossible, we might best be satisfied with knowing that all these factors combine to erode what once was the economic sector serving as the gateway to middle-class status for average working stiffs.

     Their mention of skills gaps brings to my mind an interesting assumption that we here in the US have embraced as an article of faith.  The Bush-era "No Child Left Behind" Law is the federal embodiment of this secular Ism.  There's a pretty good summary of the NCLB Act in Wikipedia.  The law, combined with other conservative policies on K-12 education have placed many public schools in a double bind:

Schools are expected to bring 95% of their student populations up to standards, whether or not students' low IQs and/or disabilities, eg, autism, make this goal a practical impossibility.

Meanwhile, wealthy conservatives --- such as billionaire Betsy DeVos, Trump's choice for Education Secretary --- favor charter schools and vouchers.  The effect is to siphon the best and brightest away from these same disadvantaged public schools.

Thus, as the NCLB bar keeps rising, the quality of the student body keeps declining.  Do you detect a fixed game here?  A self-fulfilling prophecy?  See, say the Betsy DeVos's of education, the public schools and their unionized teachers can't measure up to free enterprise, aka, charter schools.

These same folks, who profit from robotics, will tell you that robots help workers.  And perhaps it's true that those workers who have jobs controlling robots enjoy a cleaner, safer, more comfortable work place than those who labored on the assembly lines of old.  But, just as common sense says you can't siphon off the best students and expect under-funded public schools to meet NCLB standards, it also says to me every day that you can't keep automating and also create sufficient good jobs for everyone as well.

First of all, which of the kids who are mentally incapable of meeting NCLB standards will be mentally capable of taking the more sophisticated tasks that come with managing robotics?

Second, just look around you.  My wife and I drove to a Christmas party two days ago.  We took the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  When we got off, we used Easy-Pass.  Only a couple of the toll booths were set up for cash with a toll taker on duty.  Convenient for us?  To be sure.  But every automated booth was a tombstone for a toll taker no longer needed in that once well-paid government job.  That's just a quick example of automation all around us.

Mr. Trump criticized monthly job stats on the ground that many Americans have simply given up and dropped out of the quest for employment.  I don't think he's wrong.  The alarming increase in heroin overdoses would seem to reflect this loss of faith in the middle-class dream.

As with the loss of manufacturing jobs, drug overdoses have many causes, and teasing out loss of faith or hope probably can't be done.

America's problems are multiple and many-layered.  And this presents a big problem for Donald Trump, the first president to try to reduce every issue to a 100-word Tweet.  Most who voted Democratic or Green this year will never accept him as their legitimate president, especially since Clinton won the popular vote by such a wide margin.  Meanwhile, many who voted for him inevitably must be disappointed because he can't possibly deliver on his promises... due in no small part because of robotics. In other words, if he does fulfill his promise to bring back manufacturing jobs, who will get them... his supporters or robots?

And here comes the really scary part:  What does a demigod give the people when he's caught in this kind of dilemma?

Answer: War.

War usually has the "beneficial" effects of creating many jobs while dramatically reducing the workforce.  Unless of course it's fought using only robots, while sparing the population centers.  But I wouldn't count on either of those two things.

I think Mr. Trump is already positioning himself for the likely shortfall of his economic program by the saber-rattling that has already begun.  We were darned lucky to get through the Cold War without a nuclear exchange between or among the so-call Great Powers.  We might not be so lucky this time around.

Perhaps the robots will take over after we are gone, ala the Terminator saga.  If that happens, then I will agree with the Brookings article's headline (at least in part):  "Don't blame the robots."

The pot calling the kettle black: Tweets in lieu of truth in a new Dark Age

     Even overshadowing the  killing of the Berlin Christmas Market terrorist in Italy, this morning the big news was Trump's Tweet, threatening Russia with a new nuclear arms race.

      And, so, on this morning's Today Show, Matt Lauer dusted off his journalist's cap and interviewed Trump's future press secretary.  Lauer tried to get him to admit that such Tweets might be dangerous.  Never mind that some might see a tweeting president as a somewhat frivolous and undignified personna on a world stage.

      But why would this trouble Lauer?  My wife and I can remember when the first hour of the Today Show was devoted to reporting real news and Lauer thought of himself as a real newscaster... maybe even a real journalist.  But the Today Show, like so much else on TV, has sold out to infotainment.  That he, a once serious reporter, is reduced to interviewing the future president's future press secretary about a Tweet is emblematic of the depths to which political discourse has sunk in 21st century America.  It would all be hilarious if it weren't for those thousands of nuclear warheads.

      And, yet again, the so-called news media and the so-called politicians prove the point I have been repeating since the turn of the new century:  it falls to higher education to seek and disseminate the truth.  Universities must be the guardians of civil rights and civil liberties.  Most of the news media have abrogated this role, like Lauer, for the bigger ratings and paychecks that infotainment has to offer, while Trump and his Twitter account have taken lying by politicians to an all-time low.

      Our campuses must be the monasteries of the new Dark Age.

Despite all the hand-wringing in higher ed about Trump's election, administrators may find a lot to like about the new administration.

Here's what the Chronicle of Higher Education has to say on this subject this morning:

"If you’re a college leader who feels micromanaged by federal regulations, a university trustee who thinks that the U.S. Department of Education has been overly intrusive in overseeing colleges’ handling of sexual-assault and discrimination cases, or a would-be education provider that is not a traditionally accredited college, you may well like some of the approaches of the coming administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress."

A New Website will Counteract Fake News

        The great thing about the Internet is that everyone who can access a computer can have access and exercise the right of free speech.

        The worst thing about the Internet is that everyone who can access a computer can have access and exercise the right of free speech.

        Everyone who teaches knows the pitfalls of Google:  students doing research will grab the first ten hits and those will be their research sources.

       Worse yet, the ignorant and the malicious are equally able to initiate and propagate false news.

       Now a professor, who was himself victimized, has started a website intended to identify and deflate phony news, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

        Hoaxy is the brainchild of Filippo Menczer of Indiana University, who uses key words to help users track how fake news stories spread across the social networks.

       I tried it out with "New Air Force One will cost four billion."  I selected "Recent" over "Relevant" and got a long list of stories, most of them --- though not all --- on point.  The most recent story was dated December 8th: "Donald Trump Says He Will Personally Negotiate Price of Air Force One Price with Boeing." I was told there are 37 Tweets and 209 Facebook posts... not a lot, really.  A related December 5th story, by contrast, boasted nearly 3,000 Facebook posts.  Neither was at the top of the list, which was dominated by a a September story, "How the US Became ISIS's Air Force," which seems to miss the mark.

      So maybe there's room for improvement?

      Anyway, I'm not entirely sure how helpful Hoaxy will be.  Will it really help identify false news stories?  And if, so will use it.  Probably not our students... but it's a start.

For -Profit Higher Education remains on the Obama bull's eye, even as Trump names a pro-profit secretary to the DOE

             As Jill Stein demanded recounts and as Change.org circulated its quixotic petition to subvert/convert the Electoral College for Hilary Clinton… and as President-elect Trump names his cabinet members… the biggest story of all may get submerged in a sea of babble.  On December 12th, U.S. Secretary of Education John King announced that his Department has denied the appeal of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools.

            Back in September the DOE decided to strip the organization, which accredits some 250 for-profit colleges and universities, of its powers.  The ACICS  appealed. Yesterday’s denial of that appeal would seem to be its death knell.  If so, what would this mean for the for-profit sector of the higher ed industry?  Quite simply, it means that the schools currently accredited by ACICS will no longer be qualified to partake of the $150 billion federal student grant-and-loan cornucopia.  And, since such federal funding is the lifeblood of most of these organizations, they are likely to go bankrupt, as did two major for-profit players, Corinthian Colleges and ITT, earlier this year.

        The ACICS came under fire two years ago, when it continued accreditation of Corinthian Colleges.  At the time, despite having numerous campuses and thousands of students, Corinthian was under investigation by some 20 federal and state entities regarding allegations of defrauding its students.  When the DOE cut Corinthian off from the federal student-loan spigot, the company quickly collapsed, leaving thousands of active students scrambling to pay off loans and find berths at alternative institutions.  Earlier this year the DOE provided many of them with relief, such as deferred-payment options.

        Meanwhile, the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, reportedly at the instigation of the DOE, voted back in June to yank ACICS’s authority.  The DOE acted on that recommendation in the early fall.  In denying the appeal, Secretary King cited “a profound lack of compliance with the most basic Title IV (student loan) responsibilities of a nationally recognized accreditor,” such as assessing student achievement, determining licensure standards, and monitoring troubled schools.

       For his part, ACICS Interim President Roger Williams decried the decision, warning it will “result in immediate and meaningful harm to hundreds of thousands of students currently enrolled in ACICS-accredited institutions.”

       Will it indeed?  Under the decision, schools will be eligible for “provisional” status up to 18 months, during which time they can still take in grant and loan dollars.  Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has announced his choice of billionaire Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education in his cabinet.  DeVos is an avid advocate of privatizing the K-12 education system via vouchers and charter schools, as is Trump himself.

        And, while DeVos has literally no track record in the higher ed environment, her strong commitment to private, for-profit players in the public school realm strongly suggests sympathy for similar for-profit participants in post-secondary education.

        Thus, some reasonable assumptions: first, if we assume that the Electoral College won’t go rogue and Stein’s recounts don’t alter the November election’s outcome --- both eminently reasonable assumptions --- then Donald Trump will be the President on January 20^th.  Second, if we assume prompt Senate confirmation of the Trump cabinet, then it follows that Secretary King’s action of yesterday will be reversed or nullified post haste following DeVos’s swearing in.

         On the other hand, nothing about the presidential election and its aftermath has been kind to reasonable assumptions.  So, perhaps, we shouldn’t assume anything about the ultimate impact of this unprecedented bureaucratic initiative, made quite literally at 11:59 PM on the Obama Administration’s clock.

Purdue University,under President Mitch Daniels, leads in offering ISAs.

What's an ISA, you ask.  Income-Share Agreement.  According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, conservatives really like the idea.  Former Indiana Governor, now university president, Daniels started offering such agreements to Purdue's students this year.  Under such an arrangement, an investor helps pay a student's college costs in return for which s/he gets a percentage of the graduate's earnings later.

Earlier this month the Purdue Foundation signed a letter of intent with Vemo, an outfit that specializes in designing ISA programs.

Liberals reportedly don't think much of the idea.  But conservatives do, since it uses free-market forces to finance higher education.  The concept looks a lot like a plan that Jeb Bush rolled out during the presidential primaries last year.

While liberals don't much like this notion, some support a similar arrangement under which the states would become the investors.

Under Purdue's program, students will get a $50,000 line of credit.  Repayment after graduation will be tied to the alumna's earnings.  The investor presumably shares the grad's risk.  If one prospers, both prosper.  If the grad falters, so does the return on investment.

Some conservatives call this model "elegant."  The student invests in her/himself.  It acknowledges the right's view that college is mainly about making more money later in life.

For liberals the objections may be more philosophical than economic.  First, some say that education is about more than money.  Second, many believe that the obligation of paying for college is not the student's.  Rather, they argue, society should shoulder the burden of educating its citizens... thus Hillary Clinton's campaign promise of free college.