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In a Nutshell

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:28:17 -0500

Joan Walsh in Salon nails it, the essence of the Republican Party: vulture finance capital empowered by white male anger.

(Gingrich) told his cheering audience, “we want to run not a Republican campaign, we want to run an American campaign.” He pledged allegiance to “American exceptionalism…the American declaration of independence, the American constitution, the American Federalist Papers.” Get the point yet? Newt’s an American, and the other guy isn’t.

Thus the new Newt became the old Newt – in fact, he became Richard Nixon. The House speaker turned wealthy corporate “strategist” turned insurgent GOP hero has promised to make his campaign about the American-ness of Barack Obama. Because folks, that’s all he’s got.

In fact, that’s all his party’s got. It’s a sign of the GOP’s political bankruptcy that the race has come down to Gingrich v. Romney. The Republican primary is laying bare exactly what the party’s 40-year divide and conquer strategy has accomplished. Mitt and Newt are the two faces of the modern GOP.

Romney, the man from Bain, provides a case study in how finance capital has hollowed out the middle class and enriched the top one percent over the last 30 years. Gingrich personifies the GOP’s politics of resentment, often fired by racism, that let the top one percent do that, driven by fear that government was favoring the undeserving poor. Instead government began to favor the undeserving wealthy.

Barring the unlikely, one of these two men will face a president whose approval numbers have been rising since he stopped placating Republicans and began talking regularly about income inequality and the nation’s jobs and opportunity crisis. In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, on the very same day that Romney released his scandalous but perfectly legal tax returns, Obama called income inequality “the defining issue of our time.” He hammered away at the need for millionaires (including himself) to pay a higher share of taxes, and for the U.S. to return to the post World War II ethos of government creating opportunity for everyone. One of his guests in the gallery was Warren Buffett’s secretary Debbie Bosanek, made famous when Buffett declared that wealthy folks like him – and Mitt Romney – shouldn’t pay a lower tax rate than his secretary. Bosanek earns a reported $60,000 a year and pays about 30 percent in taxes; Romney made $21 million in 2010 and paid 13.9 percent.

“That’s not right,” Obama said, talking about the wealthy’s tax breaks generally, of course, not mentioning Romney by name. “Americans know it’s not right. They know that this generation’s success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country’s future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility.” He adapted Elizabeth Warren’s big campaign applause line — “No one in this country got rich on their own” — to say “No one built this country on their own. This nation is great because we built it together. This nation is great because we worked as a team. This nation is great because we get each other’s backs.”

Clearly Obama is happy to pit his version of American values against Gingrich and Romney’s, and if he keeps highlighting the contrast, he’ll win in November. Especially if the GOP primary tears the party apart like it threatens to.

I don’t see how Romney or Gingrich can win alone, without one another. They represent the contradictions the party has successfully contained since the days of Nixon. The wealthy Romney is getting killed by his unpopularity with middle and working class Republican primary voters. Steve Kornacki laid the divide bare: In all three GOP primary contests so far, Romney won hugely among voters who make over $200,000 – and lost those who make less than $50,000 a year just about as decisively. They went for the angry Gingrich overwhelmingly.

So Romney has a problem. He’s denouncing Democrats for fomenting “the politics of envy,” but his political problems start with non-wealthy Republicans, and the issue isn’t jealousy, it’s justice. People don’t begrudge his wealth. They have questions about the way he’s earned it, and the way he and his friends have rigged the tax system so that he keeps far more of his money than the rest of us do.

Romney is the gift that keeps on giving to Democrats. Releasing his tax returns the same day as Obama’s populist State of the Union speech makes you wonder if he has a Democratic mole high in his campaign. The problem with the documents wasn’t his wealth. Yes, he made $21 million each of the last two years, even though he didn’t have an actual job. (Remember when he himself told voters “I’m also unemployed.”) But we already knew he was fabulously wealthy. His taxes became an issue, whereas they weren’t in 2008, because the country is newly sensitive about issues of tax and wealth inequality, and Romney’s returns exposed the largest inequity of all – the way investment income is taxed at a far lower rate than income earned from working.

Because his income came mainly from interest and dividend payments, he paid an effective tax rate of only 13.9 percent, lower than the rate paid by cops, teachers, firefighters and Warren Buffett’s secretary, and far lower than the 35 percent marginal rate that’s supposed to apply to people who make more than $350,000 a year. But you’re only taxed at that rate if you work for your money; if your money works for you, you’re paying 15 percent, or even less, as Romney’s returns show. The great reporter David Cay Johnston called that two-tiered tax system “separate and unequal” on MSNBC today, and he’s right.

Romney’s work at Bain Capital provides another case study in the sources of American economic inequality, spotlighting the way finance capitalism has helped dismantle the American middle class. There’s no fair way to measure how many jobs Romney’s work created, or destroyed. But job creation was never the point of Bain Capital; making money for its partners was. If a company lost jobs, even if it went bankrupt, Romney and his colleagues still earned millions in fees, which were taxed at the 15 percent rate. So Romney mostly invested other people’s money, but got taxed the same as if he’d invested his own money. How’s that for fairness?

The Unexpected

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:51:21 -0500

No one expected the 49ers to win a shootout. Explosive offense was not in their repertoire. No one could even imagine Alex Smith joining the pantheon of great forty-niner quarterbacks. But happen it did. Here’s the final touchdown. Coverage by Fox was superb.

Concussions and Football

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:57:46 -0500

Part of a continuing series:

“A concussion is not a bruise. It is not a sprain. There is no bodily metaphor for what happens when the Jell-O of cortex accelerates into the skull. Although the brain is surrounded by a cushion of cerebrospinal fluid, a severe impact or abrupt change in head speed can push those three pounds of meat straight through the fluid, so that it crashes into the cranium...In the milliseconds after a concussion, there is a sudden release of neurotransmitters as billions of brain cells turn themselves on at the exact same time. This frenzy of activity leads to a surge of electricity, an unleashing of the charged ions contained within neurons. It's as if the brain is pouring out its power.
The worst part of the concussion, however, is what happens next, as all those cells frantically work to regain their equilibrium. This process takes time, although how long is impossible to predict: sometimes hours, sometimes weeks, sometimes never...

“The healing also has to be uninterrupted. In the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury, the brain remains extremely fragile. Because neurons are still starved for energy, even a minor "secondary impact" can unleash a devastating molecular cascade. All of a sudden, brain cells that seemed to be regaining their balance begin committing suicide. The end result is a massive loss of neurons. Nobody knows why this loss happens. But the loss is permanent.
Teenagers are especially susceptible to these mass cellular suicides. This is largely because their brains are still developing, which means that even a slight loss of cells can alter the trajectory of brain growth.”

Fools And Bankers

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:45:58 -0500

Atrios asks, “Is water wet?” and concludes that only fools would think that mass poverty is the solution to a bad economy. From the Washington Post:

“Deeply indebted and nearly bankrupt, this Mediterranean nation was forced to adopt tough austerity measures to slash its deficit and secure an international bailout. But as Greece’s economy slides into free fall, critics are scanning the devastated landscape here and asking a probing question: Does austerity really work?

“Unemployment has surged to 18.8 percent from 13.3 percent only a year ago. Overburdened public hospitals are facing acute shortages of everything from syringes to bandages because of budget cuts, with hiring freezes forcing the mothballing of operating rooms even as more unemployed are relying on the public health system. Rates of homelessness, suicide, crime and HIV cases from intravenous drug use are jumping.”

I would add that our rulers are the bankers and what they want is the money they foolishly lent and gambled away back somehow and damn the economy and the 99%.

In a related item: “Germany's economy contracted slightly in the fourth quarter, raising questions about how much longer Berlin will continue to shoulder the burden of rescuing fiscally wayward euro-zone members.
Germany's statistics office said GDP slid around 0.25% in the fourth quarter from the third, ending a two-year expansion.

Ultimately making your trading partners poorer by demanding they pay back their debt doesn’t help your own economy.

The Meaningless Sideshow Begins

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 22:04:57 -0500

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone: The 2012 presidential race officially begins today with the caucuses in Iowa, and we all know what that means …
Nothing.

The race for the White House is normally an event suffused with drama, sucking eyeballs to the page all over the globe. Just as even the non-British were at least temporarily engaged by last year's royal wedding, people all over the world are normally fascinated by the presidential race: both dramas arouse the popular imagination as real-life versions of universal children's fairy tales.
Instead of a tale about which maiden gets to marry the handsome prince, the campaign is an epic story, complete with a gleaming white castle at the end, about the battle to succeed to the king's throne. Since the presidency is the most powerful office in the world, the tale has appeal for people all over the planet, from jungles to Siberian villages.

It takes an awful lot to rob the presidential race of this elemental appeal. But this year's race has lost that buzz. In fact, this 2012 race may be the most meaningless national election campaign we've ever had. If the presidential race normally captivates the public as a dramatic and angry ideological battle pitting one impassioned half of society against the other, this year's race feels like something else entirely.

In the wake of the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, and a dozen or more episodes of real rebellion on the streets, in the legislatures of cities and towns, and in state and federal courthouses, this presidential race now feels like a banal bureaucratic sideshow to the real event – the real event being a looming confrontation between huge masses of disaffected citizens on both sides of the aisle, and a corrupt and increasingly ideologically bankrupt political establishment, represented in large part by the two parties dominating this race.

Let's put it this way. What feels more like a real news story – Newt Gingrich calling Mitt Romney a liar for the ten millionth time, or this sizzling item that just hit the wires by way of the Montana Supreme Court:
HELENA — The Montana Supreme Court restored the state's century-old ban on direct spending by corporations on political candidates or committees in a ruling Friday that interest groups say bucks a high-profile U.S. Supreme Court decision granting political speech rights to corporations…
A group seeking to undo the Citizens United decision lauded the Montana high court, with its co-founder saying it was a "huge victory for democracy."
"With this ruling, the Montana Supreme Court now sets up the first test case for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its Citizens United decision, a decision which poses a direct and serious threat to our democracy," John Bonifaz, of Free Speech For People, said in a statement.

The Iowa caucus, let's face it, marks the beginning of a long, rigidly-controlled, carefully choreographed process that is really designed to do two things: weed out dangerous minority opinions, and award power to the candidate who least offends the public while he goes about his primary job of energetically representing establishment interests.

If that sounds like a glib take on a free election system that allows the public to choose whichever candidate they like best without any censorship or overt state interference, so be it. But the ugly reality, as Dylan Ratigan continually points out, is that the candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time in America.

That damning statistic just confirms what everyone who spends any time on the campaign trail knows, which is that the presidential race is not at all about ideas, but entirely about raising money.

The auctioned election process is designed to reduce the field to two candidates who will each receive hundreds of millions of dollars apiece from the same pool of donors. Just take a look at the lists of top donors for Obama and McCain from the last election in 2008.

Obama's top 20 list includes: Goldman Sachs ($1,013,091), JPMorgan Chase & Co ($808,799), Citigroup Inc ($736,771) WilmerHale LLP ($550,668), Skadden, Arps et al ($543,539), UBS AG ($532,674), and Morgan Stanley ($512,232).
McCain's list includes: JPMorgan Chase & Co ($343,505) Citigroup Inc ($338,202) Morgan Stanley ($271,902) Goldman Sachs ($240,295) UBS AG ($187,493) Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher ($160,346), Greenberg Traurig LLP ($147,437) and Lehman Brothers ($126,557).

Obama's list included all the major banks and bailout recipients, plus a smattering of high-dollar defense lawyers from firms like WilmerHale and Skadden Arps who make their money representing those same banks. McCain's list included exactly the same banks and similar lists of law firms, the minor difference being that it was Gibson Dunn instead of WilmerHale, etc.

The numbers show remarkable consistency, as Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup all gave roughly twice or just over twice as much to Obama as they did to McCain, almost perfectly matching the overall donations profile for both candidates: overall, Obama raised just over twice as much ($730 million) as McCain did ($333 million).

Those numbers tell us that both parties rely upon the same core of major donors among the top law firms, the Wall Street companies, and business leaders – basically, the 1%. Those one-percenters always give generously to both parties and both presidential candidates, although they sometimes will hedge their bets significantly when they think one side or the other has a lopsided chance at victory – that's clearly what happened in 2008, when Wall Street correctly called Obama as a 2-1 (or maybe a 7-3) favorite to beat McCain.

The 1% donors are remarkably tolerant. They'll give to just about anyone who polls well, provided they fall within certain parameters. What they won't do is give to anyone who is even a remote threat to make significant structural changes, i.e. a Dennis Kucinich, an Elizabeth Warren, or a Ron Paul (hell will freeze over before Wall Street gives heavily to a candidate in favor of abolishing their piggy bank, the Fed). So basically what that means is that voters are free to choose anyone they want, provided it isn't Dennis Kucinich, or Ron Paul, or some other such unacceptable personage.

If the voters insist on supporting such a person in defiance of these donors – this might even happen tonight, with a Paul win in Iowa – what you inevitably end up seeing is a monstrous amount of money quickly dumped into the cause of derailing that candidate. This takes overt forms, like giving heavily to his primary opponents, and more covert forms, like manufacturing opinions through donor-subsidized think tanks and the heavy use of lapdog media figures to push establishment complaints.

And what ends up happening there is that the candidate with the big stack of donor money always somehow manages to survive the inevitable scandals and tawdry revelations, while the one who's depending on checks from grandma and $25 internet donations from college students always winds up mysteriously wiped out.

Thus the guy like George W. Bush, who dodged the draft and lied about his National Guard Service, steams to re-election, while a guy like Howard Dean – really not any kind of real threat to the status quo, whose major crimes were being insufficiently pro-war and finding an alternative source of campaign funding on the net – magically falls off the map and is made a caricature after one loony scream before Iowa.

The reason 2012 feels so empty now is that voters on both sides of the aisle are not just tired of this state of affairs, they are disgusted by it. They want a chance to choose their own leaders and they want full control over policy, not just a partial say. There are a few challenges to this state of affairs within the electoral process – as much as I disagree with Paul about many things, I do think his campaign is a real outlet for these complaints – but everyone knows that in the end, once the primaries are finished, we're going to be left with one 1%-approved stooge taking on another.

Most likely, it'll be Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama, meaning the voters' choices in the midst of a massive global economic crisis brought on in large part by corruption in the financial services industry will be a private equity parasite who has been a lifelong champion of the Gordon Gekko Greed-is-Good ethos (Romney), versus a paper progressive who in 2008 took, by himself, more money from Wall Street than any two previous presidential candidates, and in the four years since has showered Wall Street with bailouts while failing to push even one successful corruption prosecution (Obama).
There are obvious, even significant differences between Obama and someone like Mitt Romney, particularly on social issues, but no matter how Obama markets himself this time around, a choice between these two will not in any way represent a choice between "change" and the status quo. This is a choice between two different versions of the status quo, and everyone knows it.
The real fight against the status quo is coming in places like the Supreme Court of Montana, which with this recent ruling correctly identified the real battle lines in the upcoming political season by boldly rejecting the concept of unlimited corporate campaign spending.

It's coming in places like the courthouse of federal Judge Jed Rakoff, who recently rejected a dirty settlement deal between the SEC and Citigroup. It's on the streets in the OWS protests and even in the Tea Party, which in recent years unseated countless Republican party lifer-stooges over their support of the bailouts (like Utah Senator Robert Bennett, who was hounded at a party convention with chants of "TARP, TARP, TARP!").

This widespread and growing movement against the twin corrupting influences of money on our politics and state patronage on big business is going on everywhere – on the streets, in these courthouses, in the homes of people refusing to move after foreclosure, even in the antitax movements and the campaigns against state pensions.

The only place we can be absolutely sure this battle will not be found is in any national presidential race between Barack Obama and someone like Mitt Romney.

The campaign is still a gigantic ritual and it will still be attended by all the usual pomp and spectacle, but it's empty. In fact, because it's really a contest between 1%-approved candidates, it's worse than empty – it's obnoxious.
It was always annoying when these two parties and the slavish media that follows their champions around for 18 months pretended that this was a colossal clash of opposites. But now, with the economy in the shape that it's in thanks in large part to the people financing these elections, that pretense is more than annoying, it's offensive.

And I imagine that the more they try to play up the drama of these familiar-but-empty campaign rituals, the more irritating to the public it will all become. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, before the season is out, the campaign itself will become a hated symbol of the 1% -- with the conventions and the networks' broadcast tents outside the inevitable "free speech zones" attracting protests the same way the offices of Chase and Bank of America did this fall.

Or maybe not, we'll see. In any case, it all starts tonight. It's the same old campaign ritual, but I just don't think it's going to fly the same way this time around.

The Case Against Obama

Mon, 2 Jan 2012 16:55:51 -0500

Glenn Greenwald: He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient.

He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever.

Most of all, America’s National Security State, its Surveillance State, and its posture of endless war is more robust than ever before. The nation suffers from what National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh just christened “Obama’s Romance with the CIA.” He has created what The Washington Post just dubbed “a vast drone/killing operation,” all behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and without a shred of oversight. Obama’s steadfast devotion to what Dana Priest and William Arkin called “Top Secret America” has severe domestic repercussions as well, building up vast debt and deficits in the name of militarism that create the pretext for the “austerity” measures which the Washington class (including Obama) is plotting to impose on America’s middle and lower classes.

Election Season In America

Mon, 2 Jan 2012 16:31:38 -0500

Glenn Greenwald: As I’ve written about before, America’s election season degrades mainstream political discourse even beyond its usual lowly state. The worst attributes of our political culture — obsession with trivialities, the dominance of horserace “reporting,” and mindless partisan loyalties — become more pronounced than ever. Meanwhile, the actually consequential acts of the U.S. Government and the permanent power factions that control it — covert endless wars, consolidation of unchecked power, the rapid growth of the Surveillance State and the secrecy regime, massive inequalities in the legal system, continuous transfers of wealth from the disappearing middle class to large corporate conglomerates — drone on with even less attention paid than usual.

Because most of those policies are fully bipartisan in nature, the election season — in which only issues that bestow partisan advantage receive attention — places them even further outside the realm of mainstream debate and scrutiny. For that reason, America’s elections ironically serve to obsfuscate political reality even more than it usually is.

This would all be bad enough if “election season” were confined to a few months the way it is in most civilized countries. But in America, the fixation on presidential elections takes hold at least eighteen months before the actual election occurs, which means that more than 1/3 of a President’s term is conducted in the midst of (and is obscured by) the petty circus distractions of The Campaign. Thus, an unauthorized, potentially devastating covert war — both hot and cold — against Iran can be waged with virtually no debate, just as government control over the Internet can be inexorably advanced, because TV political shows are busy chattering away about Michele Bachmann’s latest gaffe and minute changes in Rick Perry’s polling numbers.

Then there’s the full-scale sacrifice of intellectual honesty and political independence at the altar of tongue-wagging partisan loyalty. The very same people who in 2004 wildly cheered John Kerry — husband of the billionaire heiress-widow Teresa Heinz Kerry — spent all of 2008 mocking John McCain’s wealthy life courtesy of his millionaire heiress wife and will spend 2012 depicting Mitt Romney’s wealth as proof of his insularity; conversely, the same people who relentlessly mocked Kerry in 2004 as a kept girly-man and gigolo for living off his wife’s wealth spent 2008 venerating McCain as the Paragon of Manly Honor.

That combat experience is an important presidential trait was insisted upon in 2004 by the very same people who vehemently denied it in 2008, and vice-versa. Long-time associations with controversial figures and inflammatory statements from decades ago either matter or they don’t depending on whom it hurts, etc. etc. During election season, even the pretense of consistency is proudly dispensed with; listening to these empty electioneering screeching matches for any period of time can generate the desire to jump off the nearest bridge to escape it.

Then there’s the inability and/or refusal to recognize that a political discussion might exist independent of the Red v. Blue Cage Match. Thus, any critique of the President’s exercise of vast power (an adversarial check on which our political system depends) immediately prompts bafflement (I don’t understand the point: would Rick Perry be any better?) or grievance (you’re helping Mitt Romney by talking about this!!). The premise takes hold for a full 18 months — increasing each day in intensity until Election Day — that every discussion of the President’s actions must be driven solely by one’s preference for election outcomes (if you support the President’s re-election, then why criticize him?).

Worse still is the embrace of George W. Bush’s with-us-or-against-us mentality as the prism through which all political discussions are filtered. It’s literally impossible to discuss any of the candidates’ positions without having the simple-minded — who see all political issues exclusively as a Manichean struggle between the Big Bad Democrats and Good Kind Republicans or vice-versa — misapprehend “I agree with Candidate X’s position on Y” as “I support Candidate X for President” or “I disagree with Candidate X’s position on Y” as “I oppose Candidate X for President.” Even worse are the lying partisan enforcers who, like the Inquisitor Generals searching for any inkling of heresy, purposely distort any discrete praise for the Enemy as a general endorsement.

So potent is this poison that no inoculation against it exists. No matter how expressly you repudiate the distortions in advance, they will freely flow. Hence: I’m about to discuss the candidacies of Barack Obama and Ron Paul, and no matter how many times I say that I am not “endorsing” or expressing support for anyone’s candidacy, the simple-minded Manicheans and the lying partisan enforcers will claim the opposite. But since it’s always inadvisable to refrain from expressing ideas in deference to the confusion and deceit of the lowest elements, I’m going to proceed to make a couple of important points about both candidacies even knowing in advance how wildly they will be distorted.

More Middle Class Squeeze

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:40:07 -0500

The above chart shows the monthly hours of work required by a median worker to pay median rent. The seventies begin the period of falling real wages and rising costs, in this case I would say primarily due to the influx of boomers into the housing market. (And I would bet if the graph was adjusted year by year the greatest rate of increase would begin in the latter part of the seventies.) Nevertheless the most boggling element is the rise in the last five years which equals the rise of the three decades prior. If anyone thinks tax rates don’t matter, here is another piece of evidence.

Update: The average age of cars and light trucks on the road today has risen to 10.6 years, Jenny Lin, senior U.S. economist at Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford Motor Co., said on a Dec. 1 conference call. That’s above the seven-to-7.5 years Ballew says is the long-term average.

If you don’t have money, you can’t buy things. But rich americans don’t care, their fortunes and income aren’t dependent on the middle class as they once were. They don’t need a healthy economy for all, they’ll still get their checks from bonds, equities and other capital investments.

California Winter

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 12:30:51 -0500

Drove up the coast on State Highway 1 this last weekend. Has to be the most beautiful stretch of road in the US. I have some great photos in the gallery.

Does The Constitution Allow This?

Mon, 5 Dec 2011 11:52:12 -0500

And what does this say about ourselves:

Many former US intelligence officials and Iran experts believe last month’s explosion at a military base near Tehran was part of a covert effort by the US, Israel and other states to disable Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

The huge explosion ripped through the Revolutionary Guard Corps base on November 12, leveling most of the buildings and killing 17 people, including a founder of Iran’s ballistic missile program, General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam.

The newspaper said the goal of the covert effort is to derail Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapons capability and to stave off an Israeli or US airstrike to eliminate or lessen the threat.

“It looks like the 21st century form of war,” the paper quotes Patrick Clawson, who directs the Iran Security Initiative at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as saying. “It does appear that there is a campaign of assassinations and cyber war, as well as the semi-acknowledged campaign of sabotage.”

Many Western experts are convinced that American and Israeli engineers secretly fed the Stuxnet computer worm into Iran's nuclear program in 2010. The virus reportedly caused centrifuges used to enrich uranium to spin out of control and shatter. Neither the U.S. nor Israeli government has acknowledged any role in the apparent cyber-attack.

Nor did anyone claim responsibility after two senior nuclear physicists were killed, and a third wounded, by bombs attached to their cars or nearby motorcycles in January and November last year.

Why The Middle Class Is Shrinking

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:49:18 -0500

In conjunction with an earlier graph that shows how the top wage earners are shirking their civic responsibility, here’s the evidence that corporations are getting away with the loot as well. This chart, by the St Louis Fed, shows the percentage of corporate profit paid as income tax has been on a steady downward trend since the 1950s. Meanwhile, Republicans will be happy to plunder social security, government pensions, and medicare. Greed is good. To them it does not matter how many millions of people live below the poverty line or are medically uninsured. They want people to barter with their doctors with chickens and shop around for cut-rate angioplasties. Basically, they think that people who can't afford to buy Congress or expensive health care don't deserve their pensions or health care.

Newt Surges

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:57:27 -0500

Charles Pierce: “This is a real brawl you have on your hands now, Willard. Rick Perry's a malfunctioning android, and Herman Cain is a clown, and the rest of them are polling somewhere below the earth's crust. But, to win this nomination, Willard, it now looks like you're going to have to go through Newt Gingrich, a man who literally believes he can justify almost any action to himself, and do so without demonstrating the conscience god gave a Gaboon viper, because Western Civilization has been waiting for millenia for Newt Gingrich to set its rules and to lead it to glory. His lies are always righteous, and his deceit is always sanctified. No politician in history ever has set himself so assiduously to the task of encasing himself in marble. Your going to have to beat him under rules he invented, and you're going to have to do it in places like South Carolina. So, if I were you, Willard, I'd find out who's got the jar with your balls in it this weekend, and ask for it back.”

Today’s Graph

Wed, 9 Nov 2011 10:40:24 -0500

I’m going to throw a curve ball here. One of the main reasons we had a conservative revolution starting with Reagan is the effectiveness of hippie punching. Reagan and the conservatives rode to political power by using the turmoil of the sixties and seventies to demonize the liberal values and policies. I remember when I was in Berkeley, I warned the political action committees that they were risking long term failure and marginalization if they continued to tolerate violence. Ah, but they knew better. You can’t have a revolution without breaking eggs. Well, the revolution they got was conservative hegemony.

The iPhone Gallery

Sat, 5 Nov 2011 13:41:31 -0400

Seems like everyone is showing an iPhone image gallery these days. So let’s go for it!

A Tribune for the People

Thu, 3 Nov 2011 23:14:32 -0400

Andrew Leonard of salon.com writes, “according to a blockbuster new report put together by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 37 of the United States’ biggest corporations paid zero taxes in 2010.... “Most Americans can rightfully complain,’ the report notes, that they pay more federal income taxes than General Electric, Boeing, DuPont, Wells Fargo, Verizon, etc., etc., all put together.’

“In an era of crushing government deficits and mass unemployment, corporate America is not only skating free of its civic responsibilities, but continues to complain that it is paying too much in taxes. Even worse: listening to our politicians talk, you would imagine that corporate America’s neck is permanently under the tax man’s steel-tipped boot. When, in fact, the exact opposite is the truth.

“The list of companies that paid zero taxes is only the beginning. The authors looked at the tax filings from 2008-2010 of 280 of the nation’s biggest, most successful corporations. These companies reported $1.4 trillion in profit and their average effective tax rate — what the companies really paid after government subsidies, tax breaks and various tax dodges were taken into account — was only 18.5 percent, less than half the statutory rate. Fully a quarter of the 280 companies paid under 10 percent.”

The middle class and poor need a tribune for the people to protect their interests, otherwise the oligarchy might become a permanent.

Obama To Big Oil

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:49:38 -0400

Don’t worry, I’ll protect your interests:

The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.

Iraqis Kick US Out

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 10:36:01 -0400

President Obama’s speech formally declaring that the last 43,000 U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year was designed to mask an unpleasant truth: The troops aren’t being withdrawn because the U.S. wants them out. They’re leaving because the Iraqi government refused to let them stay.

Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq but had instead spent the past few months trying to extend it. A 2008 security deal between Washington and Baghdad called for all American forces to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but the White House -- anxious about growing Iranian influence and Iraq’s continuing political and security challenges -- publicly and privately tried to sell the Iraqis on a troop extension...(however) recent interviews with officials in the country provided vivid evidence of just how unpopular the U.S. military presence there has become -- and just how badly the Iraqi political leadership wanted those troops to go home. Rest of the story from The National Journal.

Nevertheless, there are varying estimates as to how many Americans will remain. There are some reports of 5,ooo private security troops to “protect” the largest US embassy in the world, while the Washington Post reports that there will be an estimated 16,000 civilians under the American ambassador — the size of an Army division. So folks despite the mostly good news, we’re still going to be there doing what we can to make sure “cheap” oil keeps flowing to Western corporations and consumers.

Cause and Consequence

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:16:29 -0400

The correlation between wealth and income and political polarization appears to be inescapable, but are roll call votes the proper gauge of polarization? Absent a more definitive quantitative measure, it is certainly better than nothing. Anyway here’s a link to the book that examines this hypothesis.

Whew!

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 10:54:46 -0400

As part of my ongoing coverage of cellphone use and cancer: “Danish researchers can offer some reassurance if you're concerned about your cellphone: Don't worry. Your device is probably safe.

“The biggest study ever to examine the possible connection between cellphones and cancer found no evidence of any link, suggesting that billions of people who are rarely more than a few inches from their phones have no special health concerns.

“The Danish study of more than 350,000 people concluded there was no difference in cancer rates between people who had used a cellphone for about a decade and those who did not.”

Not So Pretty Pictures

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:59:49 -0400

“The (economic and social) problem in a nutshell is this: Inequality in this country has hit a level that has been seen only once in the nation's history, and unemployment has reached a level that has been seen only once since the Great Depression. And, at the same time, corporate profits are at a record high.
“In other words, in the never-ending tug-of-war between "labor" and "capital," there has rarely—if ever—been a time when "capital" was so clearly winning.”

Great graphs of what is going on in America.

Inside Apple

Fri, 7 Oct 2011 09:06:38 -0400

So how does Apple do it? What is their management structure and process? Can it last after Jobs? Here is a good peek, and peek is all it is, at how Apple is operates. From a Fortune article a few months back:

Apple doesn't often fail, and when it does, it isn't a pretty sight at 1 Infinite Loop. In the summer of 2008, when Apple launched the first version of its iPhone that worked on third-generation mobile networks, it also debuted MobileMe, an e-mail system that was supposed to provide the seamless synchronization features that corporate users love about their BlackBerry smartphones. MobileMe was a dud. Users complained about lost e-mails, and syncing was spotty at best. Though reviewers gushed over the new iPhone, they panned the MobileMe service. Steve Jobs doesn't tolerate duds. Shortly after the launch event, he summoned the MobileMe team, gathering them in the Town Hall auditorium in Building 4 of Apple's campus, the venue the company uses for intimate product unveilings for journalists. According to a participant in the meeting, Jobs walked in, clad in his trademark black mock turtleneck and blue jeans, clasped his hands together, and asked a simple question: "Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" Having received a satisfactory answer, he continued, "So why the fuck doesn't it do that?"

For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. "You've tarnished Apple's reputation," he told them. "You should hate each other for having let each other down." The public humiliation particularly infuriated Jobs. Walt Mossberg, the influential Wall Street Journal gadget columnist, had panned MobileMe. "Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us," Jobs said. On the spot, Jobs named a new executive to run the group.
Jobs' handling of the MobileMe debacle offers a rare glimpse of how Apple (AAPL) really operates. To Apple's legion of admirers, the company is like a tech version of Wonka's factory, an enigmatic but enchanted place that produces wonderful items they can't get enough of. That characterization is true, but Apple also is a brutal and unforgiving place, where accountability is strictly enforced, decisions are swift, and communication is articulated clearly from the top. (After Jobs' tirade, much of the MobileMe team disbanded, and those left behind eventually turned MobileMe into the service Jobs demanded.)

Apple's ruthless corporate culture is just one piece of a mystery that virtually every business executive in the world would love to understand: How does Apple do it? How does a company with more than 50,000 employees and with annual revenue approaching $100 billion grow 60% a year? How does it churn out hit after hit? Those are questions Apple has no desire to answer. This past January, when a Wall Street analyst asked Tim Cook, Apple's low-key chief operating officer, how far out the company conducts long-term planning, Cook replied with an artful brushoff. "Well, that is a part of the magic of Apple," he said. "And I don't want to let anybody know our magic because I don't want anybody copying it."

Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on March 2, 2011, emerged from a medical leave of absence to introduce the second generation of the iPad.
Just because a magician doesn't want to reveal his tricks doesn't mean it's impossible to figure them out. Fortune conducted dozens of interviews over several months with former Apple employees and others in the Apple orbit to try to explain the phenomenon of life inside Apple. Few agreed to speak on the record; the fear of retribution persists for years. Once they get talking, however, the former Appleites paint a picture of a company that time and again thumbs its nose at modern corporate conventions in ways that let it behave more like a cutting-edge startup than the consumer-electronics behemoth it is.

Whether Apple's startup ways are sustainable or the result of the sheer will of Steve Jobs is the great unknown in explaining how Apple works. Every conversation with insiders about Apple, even if it doesn't start out being about Jobs, eventually comes around to him. The creative process at Apple is one of constantly preparing someone -- be it one's boss, one's boss's boss, or oneself -- for a presentation to Jobs. He's a corporate dictator who makes every critical decision -- and oodles of seemingly noncritical calls too, from the design of the shuttle buses that ferry employees to and from San Francisco to what food will be served in the cafeteria.

But just as Jobs sees everything going on at the company, he's not blind to the fact that things will be radically different without him at the top. Jobs currently is on his third medical leave in seven years -- he survived a rare form of pancreatic cancer and later received a liver transplant -- and his absence has only fueled the fascination with him. Jobs is still heavily involved in Apple, of course. He personally took charge of Apple's response to the recent Locationgate, for example, granting interviews to several news outlets to answer accusations that Apple is tracking the whereabouts of iPhone users. On a more strategic level, these days he's especially focused on institutionalizing his ways of doing business. His mission: to turn the traits that people most closely associate with Jobs -- the attention to detail, the secrecy, the constant feedback -- into processes that can ensure Apple's excellence far into the future.

Accountability From Jobs On Down

So exalted is Steve Jobs that often he is compared, metaphorically at least, to Jesus Christ. (Exhibit A: Alan Deutschman's revealing 11-year-old book, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs.) True to form, the shepherd to his Apple flock often teaches in parables. One such lesson could be called the "Difference Between the Janitor and the Vice President," and it's a sermon Jobs delivers every time an executive reaches the VP level. Jobs imagines his garbage regularly not being emptied in his office, and when he asks the janitor why, he gets an excuse: The locks have been changed, and the janitor doesn't have a key. This is an acceptable excuse coming from someone who empties trash bins for a living. The janitor gets to explain why something went wrong. Senior people do not. "When you're the janitor," Jobs has repeatedly told incoming VPs, "reasons matter." He continues: "Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering." That "Rubicon," he has said, "is crossed when you become a VP." (Apple has about 70 vice presidents out of more than 25,000 non-retail-store employees.)

Jobs indoctrinates a culture of responsibility by hosting a series of weekly meetings that are the metronome that sets the beat for the entire company. On Mondays he meets with his executive management team to discuss results and strategy as well as to review nearly every important project in the company. On Wednesdays he holds a marketing and communications meeting. Simplicity breeds clarity, as Jobs himself explained in a 2008 interview with Fortune. "Every Monday we review the whole business," he said. "We look at every single product under development. I put out an agenda. Eighty percent is the same as it was the last week, and we just walk down it every single week. We don't have a lot of process at Apple, but that's one of the few things we do just to all stay on the same page." It's one thing when the leader describes the process. It's another thing altogether when the troops candidly parrot back the impact it has on them. "From a design perspective, having every junior-level designer getting direct executive-level feedback is killer," says Andrew Borovsky, a former Apple designer who now runs 80/20, a New York design shop. "On a regular basis you either get positive feedback or are told to stop doing stupid shit."

The accountability mindset extends down the ranks. At Apple there is never any confusion as to who is responsible for what. Internal Applespeak even has a name for it, the "DRI," or directly responsible individual. Often the DRI's name will appear on an agenda for a meeting, so everybody knows who is responsible. "Any effective meeting at Apple will have an action list," says a former employee. "Next to each action item will be the DRI." A common phrase heard around Apple when someone is trying to learn the right contact on a project: "Who's the DRI on that?"

Apple's core: Who does what

Simplicity also is key to Apple's organizational structure. The org chart is deceptively straightforward (see link above), with none of the dotted-line or matrixed responsibilities popular elsewhere in the corporate world. There aren't any committees at Apple, the concept of general management is frowned on, and only one person, the chief financial officer, has a "P&L," or responsibility for costs and expenses that lead to profits or losses. It's a radical example of Apple's different course: Most companies view the P&L as the ultimate proof of a manager's accountability; Apple turns that dictum on its head by labeling P&L a distraction only the finance chief needs to consider. The result is a command-and-control structure where ideas are shared at the top -- if not below. Jobs often contrasts Apple's approach with its competitors'. Sony (SNE), he has said, had too many divisions to create the iPod. Apple instead has functions. "It's not synergy that makes it work" is how one observer paraphrases Jobs' explanation of Apple's approach. "It's that we're a unified team."

For Apple the result is an ability to move nimbly, despite its size. "Constant course correction" is how one former executive refers to the approach. "If the executive team decides to change direction, it's instantaneous," this ex-Apple honcho says. "Everybody thinks it's a grand strategy. It's not." As an example, Apple's management has been known to change its pricing 48 hours before a product launch. When it misses a seemingly obvious idea -- such as not anticipating the need for an App Store to satisfy the third-party developers who wanted to create programs for the iPhone -- it shifts gears quickly to grab the opportunity.

One of Apple's greatest strengths is its ability to focus on just a few things at a time, an entrepreneurial trait difficult to imagine at a corporation with a market value of $320 billion. Saying no at Apple is as important as saying yes. "Over and over Steve talks about the power of picking the things you don't do," says one recently departed executive. Obvious? Perhaps. Yet few companies Apple's size -- and very few of any size -- are able to focus so well and for so long.

Jobs himself is the glue that holds this unique approach together. Yet his methods have produced an organization that mirrors his thoughts when -- and this is important -- Jobs isn't specifically involved. Says one former insider: "You can ask anyone in the company what Steve wants and you'll get an answer, even if 90% of them have never met Steve."

Apple's Elite: The Top 100

There is a small group at Apple that most certainly has met Steve Jobs. It's called the Top 100, and every year or so Jobs gathers these select few for an intense three-day strategy session at a proverbially secure, undisclosed location. Everything about this Top 100 meeting is shrouded in secrecy, starting with its very existence. Those tapped to attend are encouraged not to put the meeting on their calendars. Discussing their participation is a no-no, even internally. Attendees aren't allowed to drive themselves to the gathering. Instead they ride buses that depart from Apple's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters to places like the sumptuous Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz, Calif., which satisfies two Jobs requirements: good food and no golf course. Apple goes so far as to have the meeting rooms swept for electronic bugs to stymie snooping competitors.

The Top 100 meeting is an important managerial tool for Jobs. He and his chief lieutenants use it to inform a supremely influential group about where Apple is headed. The elaborately staged event also gives Jobs an opportunity to share his grand vision with Apple's next generation of leaders. The Top 100 meeting is part strategic offsite, part legacy-building exercise.

Jobs generally kicks things off personally. Each session is as well crafted as the public product debuts for which the CEO is so famous. For presenters the career stakes are high, and the pressure is nerve-racking. "The Top 100 was a horrifying experience for 10 or so people," recalls one former vice president, who took the stage some years ago. "For the other 90 it's the best few days of their life." Jobs sometimes uses the occasion to unveil important initiatives. "I was at a Top 100 when Steve showed us the iPod," says Mike Janes, who worked at Apple from 1998 to 2003 and remains close to Apple executives. "Apart from a tiny group, no one knew anything about it."

To be selected for the Top 100 is to be anointed by Jobs, an honor not necessarily based on rank. Jobs referred to the group, but not the conclave, in an interview several years ago with Fortune. "My job is to work with sort of the Top 100 people," he said. "That doesn't mean they're all vice presidents. Some of them are just key individual contributors. So when a good idea comes … part of my job is to move it around [and] … get ideas moving among that group of 100 people." Privately Jobs has spoken even more strongly about the Top 100's importance. "If he had to recreate the company, these are the 100 people he'd bring along" is how one former Apple executive describes Jobs' characterization.

Though its name isn't to be uttered, the blessed nature of the gathering creates a caste system at Apple. Inclusion is by no means permanent. According to Jobs' whims, attendees can be bumped from one year to the next, and being kicked out of this exclusive club is humiliating. For those left behind in Cupertino, chattering begins as soon the chosen few have departed. "We'd tongue-and-cheek have a Bottom 100 lunch after we were done preparing the people who'd left," recalls one nonparticipant. Says another: "We weren't supposed to know where they were. But we all knew."

Still A Startup At Heart

Apple is now 35 years old, an extremely mature company by Silicon Valley standards, and there's a grownup atmosphere at headquarters: You won't find a lot of people dressed in board shorts and flip-flops, or zanily decorated cubicles. The vibe is the opposite of the jocularity that Google (GOOG) -- with its wear-your-pajamas-to-work day and all-you-can-eat cafeterias -- has fostered. There literally is no free lunch at Apple -- though meals are subsidized and generally quite good.

Yet Apple also consciously tries to behave like a startup, most notably by putting small teams on crucial projects. To wit: Just two engineers wrote the code for converting Apple's Safari browser for the iPad, a massive undertaking. In a 2010 interview at a technology conference, Jobs verbalized Apple's do-more-with-less mentality. "Apple is a company that doesn't have the most resources," he said, referring to Apple's response to a technical debate raging at the time. "And the way we've succeeded is by choosing which horses to ride very carefully." On the face of it, the statement is absurd. Times certainly once were tough at Apple, breeding an underdog culture. Today, with $66 billion in the bank, nothing could be further from the truth, yet Apple continues to behave like a scrappy upstart. "We've always fought for resources," says a former executive. "Steve and Tim in general want to be sure you need what you're asking for."

Apple insiders say the notion of scarce resources has less to do with money than it does with finding enough people to perform critical tasks. Once Apple moves, though, it spends whatever it takes. It contracted the London Symphony Orchestra to record trailer soundtracks for its latest iMovie software. Years ago it sent a camera crew to Hawaii to film a wedding for a demo video; then, to get a different take, it staged fake nuptials in a San Francisco church, with Apple employees playing both guests and the betrothed.

Learning to work at Apple takes time. To echo its own famous ad campaign, Apple thinks differently about business. Often as not it simply ignores traditional notions of business opportunities. An executive who has worked at Apple and Microsoft describes the differences this way: "Microsoft (MSFT) tries to find pockets of unrealized revenue and then figures out what to make. Apple is just the opposite: It thinks of great products, then sells them. Prototypes and demos always come before spreadsheets."

Specialization is the norm at Apple, and as a result, Apple employees aren't exposed to functions outside their area of expertise. Jennifer Bailey, the executive who runs Apple's online store, for example, has no authority over the photographs on the site. Photographic images are handled companywide by Apple's graphic arts department. Apple's powerful retail chief, Ron Johnson, doesn't control the inventory in his stores. Tim Cook, whose background is in supply-chain management, handles inventory across the company. (Johnson has plenty left to do, including site selection, in-store service, and store layout.)

Jobs sees such specialization as a process of having best-in-class employees in every role, and he has no patience for building managers for the sake of managing. "Steve would say the general manager structure is bullshit," says Mike Janes, the former Apple executive. "It creates fiefdoms." Instead, rising stars are invited to attend executive team meetings as guests to expose them to the decision-making process. It is the polar opposite of the General Electric-like (GE) notion of creating well-rounded executives.

Such rigidity -- coupled with the threat of being called on the carpet by Jobs -- would seem to make Apple an impossibly difficult workplace, yet recruiters say turnover at Apple is exceedingly low. "It is a happy place in that it has true believers," says a headhunter who has worked extensively with Apple to hire engineers. "People join and stay because they believe in the mission of the company, even if they aren't personally happy." Many of Apple's rank-and-file technical employees have dreamed of working at Apple since they got their first Macs as children. "At Apple you work on Apple products. If you're a diehard Apple geek, it's magical," says Andrew Borovsky, the former designer. "But it's also a really tough place to work." In short, it is an environment that shuns coddling. "Apple's attitude is, 'You have the privilege of working for the company that's making the fucking coolest products in the world,' " says one former product management executive. " 'Shut up and do your job, and you might get to stay.' "

For years Steve Jobs was uninterested in the human resources department at Apple. Then, three years ago, just before his second medical leave, he hired Joel Podolny, dean of the Yale School of Management, to head something called Apple University. Podolny had been a widely quoted management guru. Yet when he joined Apple, typically, he vanished from sight. No one even seemed to notice when he was named vice president of human resources a couple of years later.

It turns out that Podolny has been busy working on a project that speaks directly to the delicate topic of life at Apple after Jobs. At Jobs' instruction, Podolny hired a team of business professors, including the renowned Harvard veteran and Andy Grove biographer Richard Tedlow. This band of eggheads is writing a series of internal case studies about significant decisions in Apple's recent history. It's exactly the sort of thing the major business schools do, except Apple's case studies are for an Apple-only audience. Top executives, including Tim Cook and Ron Johnson, teach the cases, which have covered subjects including the decision to consolidate iPhone manufacturing around a single factory in China and the establishment of Apple's stores. The goal is to expose the next layer of management to the executive team's thought process.

All this raises the question of whether Jobs has adequately prepared Apple for the day he isn't around anymore. It's an impossible question to answer. According to one person who knows Jobs, he acknowledges his dictatorial powers but insists he's not the only one who can wield them. "Single-cell organisms aren't interesting," he told this person. "Apple is a complex, multicellular organism."

Those who believe Apple can't survive Jobs' departure -- and there are many -- would call this wishful thinking. Apple may be a multicellular organism, but its life source is Jobs. For now this is all in the realm of opinion. Jobs himself believes he has set Apple on a course to survive in his absence. He has created a culture that, while not particularly jolly, has internalized his ways. Jobs even is ensuring that his teachings are being collected, curated, and preserved so that future generations of Apple's leaders can consult and interpret them. It's about all a savior could possibly ask for.

A Walk In The Woods

Fri, 7 Oct 2011 08:19:44 -0400

A new Gallery for your enjoyment.

The 1985 Playboy Interview

Thu, 6 Oct 2011 08:29:23 -0400

“He is on a mission, preaching the Gospel of salvation through the personal computer... He is an engaging pitchman and never loses an opportunity to sell his products, eloquently describing a time when computers will be as common as kitchen appliances and as revolutionary in their impact as the telephone or the internal-combustion engine...The Apple offices are clearly not like most places of employment. Video games abound, ping-pong tables are in use, speakers blare out music ranging from The Rolling Stones to Windham Hill jazz. Conference rooms are named after Da Vinci and Picasso, and snack-room refrigerators are stocked with fresh carrot, apple and orange juice. (The Mac team alone spends $100,000 on fresh juice per year.)”

Playboy: If there’s any one individual who can be either blamed or praised for the proliferation of computers, you, the 29-year-old father of the computer revolution, are the prime contender. It has also made you wealthy beyond dreams‐‑your stock was worth almost a half billion dollars at one point...

Steven Jobs: I actually lost $250 milion...when the stock went down. [Laughs]

Playboy: You can laugh about it?

Jobs: I’m not going to let it ruin my life. Isn’t it kind of funny? You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, because it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that’s happened to me in the past ten years. But it makes me feel old, sometimes, when I speak at a campus and I find that what students are most in awe of is the fact that I’m a millionaire. When I went to school, it was right after the Sixties and before this general wave of practical purposefulness had set in. Now students aren’t even thinking in idealistic terms, or at least nowhere near as much. They certainly are not letting any of the philosophical issues of the day take up too much of their time as they study their business majors. The idealistic wind of the Sixties was still at our backs, though, and most of the people I know who are my age have that ingrained in them forever.

Playboy: It’s interesting that the computer field has made millionaires of‐‑

Jobs: Young maniacs, I know.

Playboy: We were going to say guys like you and Steve Wozniak, working out of a garage only ten years ago. Just what is this revolution you two seem to have started?

Jobs: We’re living in the wake of the petrochemical revolution of 100 years ago. The petrochemical revolution gave us free energy‐‑free mechanical energy, in this case. It changed the texture of society in most ways. This revolution, the information revolution, is a revolution of free energy as well, but of another kind: free intellectual energy. It’s very crude today, yet our Macintosh computer takes less power than a 100-watt light bulb to run and it can save you hours a day. What will it be able to do ten or 20 years from now, or 50 years from now? This revolution will dwarf the petrochemical revolution. We’re on the forefront.

The entire interview here.

Walt Mossberg’s remembrance.

1994 Rolling Stone interview.

And once again, the 2005 Stanford commencement speech.