Why this Site?

This may be a tad circular, but good conversation is remarkable.

As journalist, lawyer, radio producer, policy director, and adviser, I’ve talked with a lot of fascinating people to elicit information. Then came the business of organizing, simplifying, and publishing the information, whether for readers, viewers, listeners, clients, or government officials. As a press secretary, my job was finding out what reporters wanted to know and tracking it down; as a reporter, it was finding out what editors thought readers wanted to know and tracking it down; as a lawyer, it was finding out what might come back to bite my client and protecting them. In every case, delivering the facts and suggesting policies and rules to apply to the facts was relatively easy. The more challenging parts were ascertaining facts in the first place and convincing people to deal with them.

That’s conversation’s highest and best use. The first half or so of my career was pre-Internet. The second half has been during the development of the Internet. Some say we’re in the post-Internet era. Conversation was by far the predominate tool of the first half. It’s been the most productive tool in the shed (or the most powerful weapon in the arsenal) in the second half of my career, too, but the Internet changed how conversation happens, and it’s changed how people deal with facts, too.

In short, while the Internet has made delivering the facts easier, it’s created new challenges in ascertaining them them and dealing with them.

Writing without an editor can be a risky investment of time, particularly when it comes to reputation risk. Good writers know you’re only as good as your editor. I’ve been saved countless times by some of the best. Fortunately, the investment of money is modest, since Web tools are close to free. The opportunity cost becomes an opportunity benefit when one derives satisfaction from writing. And thanks to the comment process (go ahead — try it), anyone can be an editor. All comments welcome.

So what might be topics of conversation? The menu is unlimited. A few things on my mind include:

• With debt financing dramatically increasing in importance relative to tax financing, does the question of how to “pay for a tax cut” make sense anymore (if it ever did)? Might a better idea be to set the right level of tax and debt first, in the context of a tax and debt base of 300 million people competing for scarce resources with six billion others around the world, and then allocate that scarce financing where it adds the most value?
• How do we balance economic security at home (is this what they used to call the “social safety net?”) with the goals of global safety, security, and growth?
• Economic policy in the last century centered on fiscal and monetary policy. In the information era, how fast can improvements in “business process policy” contribute to economic growth?
• How do I get my new avocado trees to start producing?

Thanks for visiting the site,

Paul