The Long Road Out

I saw a short thing on a parental leave discrimination settlement with JPMorgan on the Bloomberg  news feed today… It said that US in only major country without mandatory paid parental leave…strike one for USA.  We're special all right. And that 36% of companies have any paid leave.   Most are gender neutral  (29% are gender neutral and the  remaining  7% of more generous companies are female only)…so says SHRM.  (My company has paid gender neutral leave...fairly similar to JPMorgan's policy.  We often have to cajole the dads to take it.) So, since the investment bank is on the side of the angels with this policy, how did JPMorgan get the ACLU after them?   A recent dad filed a claim…yes, the firm had a gender neutral policy, but guys who tried to claim it were routinely refused.   So the policy and the practice were different. This cost JPMorgan a $5 million settlement, to be distributed to...

Progressives warn of intrusions into human and civil rights all the time.   It's their job.   Even Adam Gopnik agrees in his newest book--and he's just a nice liberal. Trump and the MAGA folks set off far more warning bells than the more bellicose Republican administrations that preceded them.   Reagan and the two Bushes did tragic domestic damage--but the people they really wanted to hunt and kill were always overseas (weirdly, the same "overseas" thing can be said for Obama, and Johnson, though both professed differently).  J Edgar Hoover really owns the title for worst domestic enemy ever--and you can't blame him on any of the last seven presidents. Trump isn't a militarist, but here's why he may have no choice other than to try to "grow" into one of his predecessors.   Albeit, no one has turned the military loose on US citizens yet, though the "Handmaid's Tale" scenario feels plausible and palpable enough that this book/TV t...

Our latest false pretense in international business relations requires that we see Huawei as a bad actor.   Every one is piling on, offering hyperbole after hyperbole.   The major themes are: Huawei has oppressed the Chinese people, keeping them dumb and isolated, because they can't see Google or Youtube! Huawei is competing unfairly by selling switches at cheap prices. Huawei's leaders are criminals. Huawei wants to invade your privacy!!!! I'd like to at least record a fifth option, which I believe to be true:   Huawei owns nearly all the patents on the next generation of cell technology, 5G.  (As far as I can tell, Ericsson and Nokia own a smattering that brings us to 100% of the 5G IP--but they don't have the advantages of low cost production, so they can't compete.) So...if you let the cell technology market take its natural course, Huawei would displace the 4G players to become the "sole source" over the next 12 months.   Every tech player...