TCS Daily : May 2000 Archives
James K. Glassman sits down with Rep. Chris Cox
When you think about tech-friendly politicians, the first name that usually comes to mind is Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA). Cox was the co-author, with Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), of 1998's Internet Tax Freedom Act, which created a three-year moratorium on...
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Will Justice`s Controlled Burn of Microsoft Also Torch Silicon Valley?
The Department of Justice plans a controlled burn of Microsoft. At a hearing last week, Judge Jackson showed his eagerness to strike the match. And, just like the U.S. Park Service at Los Alamos, neither Justice nor the judge seems...
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Break the Car Dealer Monopoly
Would you like to buy a car directly from Ford, GM or Honda, instead of buying from a car dealer? Would you like to shop on the Internet and cut out the local middleman? Sorry, you can't. In almost every...
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The Trouble with Lawsuits
As high-tech becomes an increasingly popular target for trial lawyers, it's worth taking a serious look at the legal system and its flaws. In this 1999 Manhattan Institute lecture, Harvard's Kip Viscusi brilliantly describes the failures of our civil justice...
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Keep Buying!
Will NASDAQ close the year at 5,000 or 1,500? Will the Fed raise rates again in 2000? Will this year follow the pattern of previous Presidential election years and be kind to investors? You can't possibly know the answers to...
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Who Asked the FTC to Regulate Online Privacy?
The Federal Trade Commission wants new powers to regulate online privacy, and that's bad news for online consumers. After conducting surveys of consumer websites, the agency has determined that the free market has failed, because too few sites uphold the...
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Disney vs. The Internet
Recently we criticized Disney for getting political help from Washington in its business dispute with Time Warner. Now, Disney is waging a nationwide campaign to regulate high-speed Internet access -- a misguided attempt to help itself by hobbling other...
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Dead Cats Dont Always Bounce
At TechCentralStation, we're extremely bullish about the transforming power of information technology. Still, it's interesting to read a bear's take on the markets, especially when it's as entertaining as the offering from this week's guest columnist. Furthermore,
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Hands Off My French Fries!
Recently in this space I criticized the campaign against genetically-modified foods. I pointed out that modern biotechnology was simply a more efficient breeding tool, and that farmers had been altering genes for centuries. Apparently, this process may have begun e
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Joy, to the World
Since its earliest days, Wired magazine has always had a genius for publicity. It lost its edge somewhat when Condé Nast took over two years ago and the new crew replaced Wired's Bay Area techno-exuberance with the New York publishing...
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When It's Time to Sell
Regular readers of this column know that I rarely miss an opportunity to preach the buy-and-hold approach to investing. History shows that if you save and invest every month in a diverse group of stocks, which you hold for the...
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End the Telephone Tax
Hey, kids! It's time for a U.S. history lesson and in the process, we're going to test your reading comprehension skills. Please read this chronology of the Spanish-American War and tell us which line doesn't make any sense: February 24,...
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Metallica Rocks - and the Band Owns Intellectual Property, Too!
Pop a CD into a computer and any of several programs (the most popular is called RealJukeBox) can convert the music into a format called MP3 and allow it to be replayed, either over the computer or after download to...
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Laboratory Rats
Back in 1988, when Democrats and faddish business pundits believed in a "Massachusetts Miracle" created by state economic policy, "reinventing government" guru David Osborne published a book called Laboratories of Democracy. It argued that activist governors were c
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You Have Zero Privacy...Get Over It!
Do you own the story of your life? Is information about you part of your personal property? Well, you might wish that it were. But in our free society, despite what you may hear from politicians, there is no broad...
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My Favorite Dot-com
One reason that I urge investors to buy shares in great companies and then hold them for several years is that short-term swings in the market are unpredictable - and unavoidable. Today's fad in the e-commerce "space" will be tomorrow's...
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Time Warner Gets a Bad Rap
It's funny the way Washington works. The most ridiculous ideas can be taken seriously, if repeated often enough by brand-name lobbyists. Take the "open-access" argument, which states that the owners of high-speed data networks should be forced to share them...
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An interview with David Malpass, Chief International Strategist for Bear Stearns
Is Washington strangling the new economy? And what about overseas? Which countries are pursuing tech-friendly, investor-friendly economic policies? For the answers to these and other fascinating questions, Jim spoke to David Malpass, Chief International Strategist
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Take a Look at Microsoft`s `Crimes`
Even before the government launched its complaint against Microsoft in May 1998, the company`s business rivals were busily promoting "remedies" to hobble Microsoft or expropriate its intellectual property. But how could anyone presume to remedy problems without a c
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Washington Whacks Silicon Valley
Is Washington strangling the new economy? In case you missed it, here's Michael S. Malone's excellent piece from the May 4th edition of The Wall Street Journal: Copyright © 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Buried amid last week's ruckus...
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Weird Science
Sometimes, it's easy to tell when someone's trying to con you. You get an unsolicited email promising enormous wealth for doing almost nothing. You click delete because your knowledge and experience tell you that it's bull. But what do you...
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Investing in Online Banking
Online banking should be one of the killer applications of the consumer Internet. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, it hasn't worked out that way -- yet. Banks have been slow to seize the opportunity, most consumers haven't seen a...
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Forget Trying to Design a Good Internet Tax
I have good news and bad news about Internet sales taxes. The good news is that Congress is largely ignoring the worst idea to emerge from this debate. That was a plan from the National Governors Association to allow state...
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Glassman interviews Charlene Barshefsky, United States Trade Representative
Jim's guest for this week's Big Shot Interview is Charlene Barshefsky, United States Trade Representative and the author of the new trade deal with China. Ambassador Barshefsky tells us why free trade with China is a win-win for US companies...
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Access Excess
As we filed out of a Capitol Hill hearing room on February 9, Web accessibility expert Judy Brewer stopped me and said she was sure I wouldn`t want to spread misconceptions about our subject. I`d just warned members of the...
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How to Respond to Web Attacks
Two weeks ago, Canadian law enforcement officials arrested "Mafiaboy," the fifteen-year-old alleged author of February's wave of web attacks. The kid has since been charged with two counts of "mischief" for the February 8th attack on CNN.com. He'll be tried...
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Rendering Unto CESA
It was September 28, 1999. Some officials from the Clinton administration were briefing the Congressional Internet Caucus, and Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Penn.) was getting visibly angry. The officials were outlining the White House's new policy on encryption, the practic
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How to Invest in Tech Stocks, Part Deux
Last week I told you about one way to invest in technology - buying into an index fund that mirrors the performance of the NASDAQ 100. It's now available as its own publicly traded security with the ticker symbol QQQ....
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China trade: "It's a no-brainer."
There are tough calls in American political life. There are tough votes on Capitol Hill. Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) for China is not one of them. As U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky tells us in this week's Big Shot...
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