Category Archives: markets

(Partially) Self-Driving Cars

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Christopher Mims had an article in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal that talked about the technology involved in controlling self-driving cars is slowing the introduction of production-ready self-driving cars.  Aspects of that technology are making their way into human-driven cars, obviating the need for computer-run cars.

I have some thoughts on that.  Because opinions are my jam.

Mims led off his piece with this about that technology in a more current car that remains fundamentally human-driven:

It will take over when it thinks you’re making a mistake.

No, it won’t. That’ll be among the first things I disable, right up there with any OnStar-like tracking. I remain smarter than both the average bear and any computer.

Mims then asked about the safety features for which we might look in our next car.  I’ll be looking for better 360 sensing.  My 2013 Fusion Hybrid had pretty good sensing, both to the front and to the rear.  It didn’t have “collision warnings,” but it did warn of obstacles.  Nor did it have automatic, preemptive breaking; that technology wasn’t readily available then.  Thank goodness.  Still, sensing always can get better. I also opted to not have forward sensing on my current Fusion; that has turned out to be suboptimal.  I miss the added data.

Mims also asked whether partial autonomy would be a requirement.  Far from it for me; that will be a deal-breaker, unless I can engage/disengage it at (my) will, like I can my cruise control—which is pretty much all the autonomy my car needs.

What I really want is better displays to facilitate my decision making.  I want a decent HUD that displays in a couple of lines across the bottom left half of my windshield such things as current speed, fuel, engine performance and status (if I’m driving another hybrid, I want battery charge state and per cent of maximum battery power at my current driving speed), and time and distance to my destination and next turn point if I’ve laid in a route on my Nav system.

I also want more flexibility in the organization of those displays remaining on my dashboard.  There’s no reason, in this age of digitized displays, that I can’t make my own choices on what to display on this or that display monitor and move displays (not the monitors hosting them) around to group them according to my preference.

In the end, my car works for me; I’m not along to validate the computer’s decisions, much less to be overridden by them.

Surprise Medical Billing

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The Wall Street Journal recounted one such example and a (partial, I say) solution in Benedic Ippolito’s (of the American Enterprise Institute) Tuesday op-ed.

The example was a man with a broken jaw who was transported, unconscious, to a hospital ER for treatment.  The hospital turned out to be in his medical insurance network, but the treating surgeon turned out not to be.  The latter’s bill was for $8,000, which the insurer refused to pay.  The man was unaware of that fee until after the treatment had been effected.

The solution described by Ippolito (one of three and the one favored by him; the other two were just price fixing in one form or another) is this:

[an] “in-network guarantee,” is a better solution. Hospitals would ensure that all providers treating insured patients are also considered in-network. Some already do this. Doctors at these facilities would have two options: come to an agreement with the insurer (as most already do) or receive payment directly from the hospital. This would eliminate the inflated surprise bills, reduce premiums and federal spending, and leave it to doctors, hospitals, and insurers to work out market prices.

While a good start, this option is incomplete.  All of those prices and fees need to be known to the patient and to the public at large beforehand.  Further, this needs to be the case for all the medical facilities in a region—hospitals, urgent care facilities, clinics.  Such prices and fees easily could be posted on each facility’s Web site, or on the facility’s entrance if it hasn’t joined the 20th century.

The patients and potential patients in the general public need to be in on the working out of market prices.

A Misunderstanding

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…and why a Labour Party government would be a disaster for Great Britain (and not just because of Jeremy Corbyn’s blatant socialism bent).  In a Deutsche Welle piece about Boris Johnson’s move to replace Theresa May as party head (and presumably as Prime Minister, at least until the next general election), the news outlet quoted Labour Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer:

The debate on Brexit in the Tory leadership contest…[n]one of the likely candidates for the top job has a credible plan for how to break the deadlock before the end of October.

Therein lies Labour’s lack of understanding of the situation. The deadlock is Brussels’ manufacture, not Great Britain’s, and certainly not that of their combined effort. It’s on Brussels to offer solutions to its deadlock.

The clearer understanding is illustrated by Johnson.  He’s

not aiming for a no-deal outcome but it is only responsible to prepare vigorously and seriously for no-deal. Indeed, it is astonishing that anyone could suggest dispensing with that vital tool in the negotiation.

Great Britain needs to leave the EU with no further delay.  Delay only increases uncertainty, and uncertainty damages the British economy and harms the British people and their enterprises who must operate within it.  A smoothly done departure would be optimal, but given what the EU has on offer, a no-deal departure is better.

Keep in mind: for all the argument over border control and immigration and the force of European Union regulations within Great Britain, what’s at the core is that the Brits voted for their own economy and their sovereignty, not the continent’s.

The PRC and Facial Recognition

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The People’s Republic of China is moving “beyond” the use of smart phones for making on-the-spot retail payments, starting to supplant that with facial recognition—with personal images tied to personal financial accounts.

Ant Financial Services Group and Tencent Holdings Ltd, rivals that operate, respectively, Alipay and WeChat Pay, China’s two largest mobile-payments networks, are competing for dominance in the next stage of China’s cashless society. Each is racing to install its own branded facial-recognition screens at retail points-of-sale all over the country, marketing the screens as a way to speed up sales and improve efficiency.

Marketing the screens as a way to speed up sales and improve efficiency.  A way to speed up and broaden PRC government knowledge of what its citizens are doing, where they are going, what they’re spending their money on, where they have their money, also.  In fine, a way to extend the PRC’s ability to control, not just the population over which it reigns, or subgroups of it, but down to the individual level.  George Orwell knew about this, and about the debilitation it inflicts on liberty, even on moral and on morale.

This is not an advance over smart phone payments.  Not at all.

Green Cow Gas

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…or something.  The Wall Street Journal opined Monday on the alleged hypocrisy of California’s Progressive-Democrats on the matter of going carbon-neutral in a shade over a decade.

California has plowed billions of dollars into green energy to wean the state off fossil fuels. But now progressives are complaining that biofuel producers are milking government subsidies intended to help dairy farmers cut emissions. Here is another illustration of the left’s anti-carbon contradictions.

The Editors went on in that vein, describing those Progressive-Democrats’ dismay over two companies thoroughly dominating the cow manure and flatulence emissions carbon credits market, even taking advantage of California’s laws governing those emissions.

The Editors closed with this gem regarding those Progressive-Democrat greens:

California dairies have been shrinking due to the high costs of complying with environmental regulation and water restrictions. By subsidizing methane digesters, the state intended to prevent more dairy farmers from leaving the state for less green pastures. But green groups now say the subsidies will encourage farmers to increase their herds, which could cause more water and air pollution from manure….

I have to ask, then: haven’t these editors (and other critics) heard? Sniffing methane develops magical thinking powers.