Posts by Ian Coutts

I Should Have Been Patent Lawyer

That is one of the few professions that are inherently recession-proof. Well, that and being a Mortician. Either way you work with a bunch of stiffs.

IOS Upgrade

It's pretty easy to say one should upgrade to the non-flawed IOS, but it's much tougher to actually do it...especially in a large enterprise. IOS roll-out to a network of a few thousand, or even a few hundred, devices might take months to complete. And the roll-out wouldn't start until after the QA team shook it out for a while in the lab. Let's face it, IOS upgrades to plug a relatively esoteric security exposure fall way down the priority list of most companies. They've got far too many Microsoft patches to apply to the desktops and servers without regularly disrupting the networks in between. Live with the IOS bugs and holes until there's a compelling (feature) reason to upgrade.

"Buy American" False Promise

A subtle point that seems to be missing from the "Buy American" argument is that national economies are intrinsically dependent on international trade and commerce. I agree that on the surface at least it would appear that if America buys only American goods, and other nations also buy American goods, then America will benefit.

One trouble is that plenty of goods are assemblies of parts that are themselves made in (perhaps several) other countries. It would be hard to distinguish what parts of a dishwasher, for instance, are acceptable to "Buy American" proponents and which parts must be left behind at the border.

Another problem is that if non-American countries don't benefit in parallel to America then they won't be able to afford to buy American products. They will therefore either buy less of them, or buy equivalent product from less-expensive supplier nations. This would inevitably contribute further to migration of technology development centres outside of America. If we can't sell our stuff to America then we won't buy America's stuff, and we'll sell our stuff to all those other countries who need it but can't or won't buy America's.

I fear the whole concept would extend the developing social, political, and military isolation of America from the rest of the world to economic isolation as well. Britain's experience with "splendid isolation" at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th led to two great wars with a global depression in between, and ultimately to universal recognition that global trade with reduced barriers was fundamental to global prosperity. Those who don't learn from history are destined to repeat it.

Canada has no "Chapter 11"

"The company said yesterday that its US and Canadian businesses were seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but "Chapter 11" is purely an instrument of the USA. Canadian bankruptcy applies quite a different process. Having never been bankrupt in either of those sovereign nations I can't clearly describe those differences. But I do know they are different.