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DOES GOOGLE GLASS HAVE A BRANDING PROBLEM? MARKETING EXPERTS MAP STEPS TO MAINSTREAM SUCCESS

Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin wears a pair of Google Glass AR glasses (Click Image To Enlarge)

Still in its test phase, Google Glass may be dorked to death before it gets the opportunity to take off. Here, marketing players from a range of agencies provide their assessment of Glass’s chances and some suggestions for paving the way to mainstream success.

Google’s much-hyped wearable computer, Google Glass, has been touted by the tech elite as one of the leaps forward of recent times, but those same elites may hobble mainstream adoption of the device.

While privacy concerns have blossomed (the device may be on its way to being banned at a number of locations), it may comfort those worried that we are all about to become spies for Google that the early adopters of Google Glass are helping to give it an image problem it might not recover from.

Technology venture capitalists Marc Andreessen, Bill Maris and John Doerr model Google Glass AR glasses (Click Image To Enlarge)

Marc Andreessen, a partner in the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said, 

”You put it on and you’re like ‘Oh my God, I have the entire Internet in my vision. Where have you been all my life?’ ”

Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr noted last month when unveiling Kleiner Perkins’ Google Glass-focused investment fund. 

"For paraplegics and quadriplegics, Glass could be a stunningly useful way to get information and interact with it."

The futuristic-looking headset can augment our everyday reality by putting data in our field of vision as well as allowing us to take pictures, and translating the spoken word on the move. But unfortunately, it also appears to have unintended contraceptive powers, as illustrated by this Tumblr featuring members of its decidedly unhip core fanbase.

Google CEO & Co-Founder Larry Page wears a pair of Google Glass AR glasses (Click Image To Enlarge)

It’s all very well having wearable technology that lets you livestream yourself hang gliding. But if it has all the sex appeal of orthodontic headgear, it’s unlikely to catch on. Google’s Glass Explorer program has put Google Glass in the hands and on the heads of developers and tech pundits who Google has selected to test it and have paid $1,500. Google chief executive Larry Page has indicated that the product won’t be in stores for about another year, by which time it may be hard to separate it from its association with tech fanatics.

Arguably, success in wearable technology hinges on making people look and feel good as much as providing a functional service. Developers might be happy to fork vast sums for the privilege of being a Google Glass owner, but when the product goes to mass market, fashion, or at least some sort of coolness and covetability will be as critical as functionality.

Tech pundit Robert Scoble wrote a glowing review about the augmented reality glasses and said, "I will never live a day without them." He then showed off a picture of himself showering while wearing the glasses.  Google co-founder Sergey Brin looking cool wearing a pair of Google Glass AR glasses onboard a bus (Click Image To Enlarge)

With this in mind, we asked five marketing experts: How would you position Google Glass to make sure it achieves mainstream success?

AFTER NAILING THE EARLY ADOPTERS, FOCUS ON LESS-EXPECTED APPLICATIONS.

Jinal Shah, digital strategy director, JWT New York

Google is embracing its influencers. Make no mistake though--they aren’t just going after the nerds. They are strategic in who they’ve invited to their Glass Explorers program, an influencer program that allows a handpicked group to use the first generation of Google Glass. Google has carefully curated a group of people who sit at the intersection of nerd and celebrity. For example, tech celebrity Soraya Darabi, among others. People like her not only bring their passion for technology but also their massive audiences (500K+ followers in the case of Soraya) into the conversation.

California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, and former mayor of San Francisco, tries the glasses on Current TV (Click Image To Enlarge)

There’s incremental innovation and there’s wow-your-pants-off innovation. Google Glass is in the latter category. We tried it on last week at Google and it was pretty amazing. Mainstream success will happen as it expands the breadth of its audience and also as its simplifies its technology. What we’ll end up with in a few years is just a tiny camera that we’ll be able to attach to any eyewear. To the broader point, wearable technology is the future. Making it as nerdy as possible at the outset is a smart strategic move to get those who will engage most with the glasses to develop their capabilities and advance them to a place of general adoption. It should be no surprise that Google has already developed a partnership with Warby Parker. The aesthetic will change over time, and this will be one of the many norms of wearable tech.

The Google Glass initial approach has focused on driving exclusivity in select communities. And they’ve nailed it. In the next stage, I’d focus on creating desire by introducing a library of plain interesting to bizarre applications of Glass. Think government, music, Hollywood, retail partnerships--maybe even an episode of Family Guy with Stewie touting Glass.

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT NERDS.

Jonah Disend, CEO and Founder of Redscout

When we look at the challenge of extending Google Glasses out of nerdom, we believe that the challenge is first, one of execution and second, one of positioning and targeting.

• First, in terms of execution, Google Glasses inherently plays in two worlds--fashion and technology--and they haven’t created “cool kid” lust in either area.  It is neither an incredible fashion accessory that you would want to wear, nor is it a beautiful or obviously useful gadget that you would want to own.
• Second, in terms of positioning and targeting, today Google Glasses is seen as a barrier to social engagement as opposed to an enabler. While it may make your world more exciting and dynamic (as the promotional video might suggest), it does not currently enhance socialization nor have they shown how the value of the glasses increases with additional users (there is currently no clear Network Effect).

Now for our gross generalization about nerds versus everyone else. Nerds actively look to create barriers to protect them from the world, mitigate social engagement, and connect through virtual worlds (thinkWorld of Warcraft). In this context, Google Glasses are the ultimate tool for nerds to add a layer of protection between them and others and potentially seal the fate of Google Glasses as something that only the geekiest of the geeks would ever want to wear (or even own).

WORK WITH TRENDSETTERS.

Lloyd Salmons, Director of Digital, Saatchi & Saatchi London

I love Google. It gives me convenient access to a world of information and that’s something I want. I don’t love their glasses, because they don’t give me what I want. What I want is my glasses. If you’ve ever chosen a pair of glasses you’ll know how long it takes, how many opinions you seek, how many photos you’ve texted and images of celebrities you’ve looked at, be they fashion, sport or sunglasses. What I want is the Google I love, in the glasses I love. I want Google in my glasses.

Open APIs, products as platforms, and cocreation are the norm for tech companies. There is no way Apple or Android could have brought the level of innovation needed to create so many apps personalized to individual needs. Just because Google Glass is a physical product doesn’t mean Google should change the approach to creating the range of glasses needed to facilitate individual tastes.

To facilitate this, we’d build a platform allowing us to work with a range of individuals and the people who make their glasses. These people would range from well-known celebrities in fashion and sport, to everyday style leaders. The content generated across the journey from inception, build, and trial to launch would provide both broadcast content and ways to engage.

Google in Bradley Wiggins’s glasses: We follow the journey of Bradley and his glasses climaxing at the start of the Tour de France. Google in Elton John’s glasses: No one has more glasses than Elton John; he’s given us a hundred of his best to create a range of Google glasses and we’re going to find the perfect person for each of them. You get the picture. Google in P.Diddy’s glasses. Google in Sven Göran Eriksson’s glasses. Google in Victoria Beckham’s sunglasses.

If you try on anyone else’s glasses, you look like a nerd; that’s just a law of the universe. If you don’t believe me, try it. What I need is Google in my glasses.

IDENTIFY AND EMBRACE THE USAGE SWEET SPOT.

Brian Carley, SVP, Executive Creative Director, Rokkan

It’s a challenge, specifically because of the stigma that was quickly attached to them. Putting aside all flaws in its physical appearance, it would be ideal to tap into how people would realistically use them day to day. Very few people are going be wearing them ALL the time, but there are times when it would be useful to have a device such as this and also have complete use of your hands. We all assume that our mobile devices have no boundaries, but there are instances when we are apprehensive about having them on our person. I think that utilizing those moments is the sweet spot for this product. It’s a more useful Go-Pro and those are wildly popular within their specific usage, which is quite broad. There’s no real need for these beyond enjoyment, and so it would be wise to illustrate the truly hands-free experiences that surround the product beyond the dorkiness we’ve experienced already. At least they’re not as cumbersome as a Segway.

DON’T CHANGE A THING.

Bud Caddell, SVP, Director of Invention and Digital Strategy, Deutsch LA

Yes, white middle-aged men love Google Glass. Is it a problem? Of course not. Wearable tech has hardly fallen down Geoffrey Moore’s chasm. We’re seeing early adoption, and in tech (if we’re not counting Pinterest), white men from the Valley with disposable income tend to be first in, first out. And that didn’t stop iPads, laptops, or the mobile phone from reaching mass adoption. Yes, Robert Scoble in the shower is frightening. But take a breath. Google has already tapped Warby Parker, who I personally trust in putting things on my face, and I think Google Glass (in one iteration or another) is here to stay.

COMMENTARY:    

What Tech Guru's Are Saying About Google Glass

I am discounting by about 95% the positive comments made by most of the above technology pundits, expecially some of the above VC's in favor of what other technology pundits are saying:

Marcus Wohlsen, a tech reporter for Wired, on May 2, 2013, gave some hints that Google Glass could end in failure by making these comparisons: 

“The Segway. The Bluetooth headset. The pocket protector.”  

Rebecca Greenfield of The Atlantic, called the secret photo-taking application a “privacy nightmare,” and she also said:

“The Creepiest Google Glass App Is a Stalker’s Dream.” 

Jason Perlow of ZDNet wrote:

“Google Glass: Let the evil commence."   

Perlow also noted that in the “Explorer” version of Google Glass that shipped in early May to first generation of users,

"There is no recording LED indicator light on the device, so that one could stealthily record without any indication to the subject that they are being captured on-camera.”

Jason Zada, an award winning director, wrote on Twitter.  

 ”White Men Wearing Google Glass. This doesn’t make me want a pair.”

Another person simply wrote that Google Glass looks “lame.”

The Google Glass Is Banned List Grows

Privacy and security have become major concerns and as the list of concerned protesters continues to grow, we began to wonder: Where will we be most likely to see this Glass resistance moving forward?  This is a short list of businesses and places who will ban Google Glass:

• Movie theaters and concert venues - It's interesting to consider what Glass could do for film piracy and that annoying guy in front of you who waved his phone snapping photos through an entire two-hours concert. But these are two of the most obvious examples of places that traditionally prohibit cameras.
• Public schools - Or nurseries, or playgrounds. Really, anywhere with an influx of children is going to be a potential hotbed of legal headaches.
• Behind the wheel - The West Virginia legislators' attempt to ban Glass while driving will inevitably gain favor within other states, which will likely include many of the country's 39 states and Washington, D.C., where texting while driving is prohibited.
• Hospitals - Hospitals house boatloads of some of our most personal data, including medical records and insurance information. A stray paper or tilted clipboard could easily find its way into a Glass photo.
• Banks and ATMs - Similar to the hospital example, it's not unfathomable to imagine a Glass-clad someone hovering a little too close to your left shoulder to peep a glance at (not to mention a photo of) your credit card.
• Dressing rooms, locker rooms, and other rooms with people who are potentially naked - Think everywhere from department stores to your gym to strip clubs.

I might also add to the above list:

• Law enforcement - The police will absolutely hate Google Glass.  They don't want you recording their every move and what they say, because this could be used against them in court.
• Courts rooms - Court rooms often ban photographers from their court rooms, especially high-profile and controversial cases.  This is often necessary in order to protect the identity of the jurors and individuals making testimony.  
• Military bases - Any military personnel on military bases who enter or work in highly classified and secured areas will definitely be banned from wearing Google Glass. 
• Schools and colleges - Google Glass will definitely be banned from the classroom. Instructors will be weary of students who might use Google Glass to teach on tests.

On the other hand, I can definitely see immigration inspectors, airline security, law enforcement and even retailing establishments benefiting from Google Glass, in helping them identify criminals, security risks, people of interest and shoplifters before they commit crimes. Companies that want to protect their valuable intellectual property as a matter of practice will ban Google Glass.    

In my opinion, any technology that raises the high level of privacy and security concerns and could lead to consumer litigation potentially in the billions, has a huge PR image and this has the ability to permanently damage or destroy a brand.  This is what I see happening with Google Glass.  If Google wants to market Google Glass to the masses, they will have to severely limit or block its use in certain situations.  

Google needs to be careful that it does not damage its own brand reputation as the company whose motto is: "Don't Be Evil."   Google Glass has the potential to turn Google into the feared "Big Brother,"  that Steve Jobs warned us about when he tried to portray IBM as "Big Brother" in the famous TV commercial.  The company has to be very careful how they launch Google Glass. The company has a social responsibility to uphold (its motto) and it should not take us for granted.   The small cadre of tech geeks and very early adopters who now love and applaud Google Glass as the next big thing, may later learn to hate if they are not too careful.

I keep hearing that Google Glass represents the next evolution of the social network. Bringing the social network experience into the real world and sharing what we see and do with others.  Is this what Google (and Facebook) really wants?  God help us if this is where social networks are headed.  I don't want that kind of "social media experience" biting me in the butt, and I am sure you don't either.   Left to its own accord, without any controls, I believe that Google Glass crosses a line in the sand where our privacy is not only violated, but completely destroyed.  We lose our individuality as human beings, and we become an open book to anyone and everyone.

So keep in mind the old adage: "What goes around, comes around."       

Courtesy of an article dated May 15, 2013 appearing in Fast Company, an article dated May 4, 2013 appearing in CNN Tech, and an article date May 3, 2013 appearing in The New York Times Bits and an article dated May 15, 2013 appearing in VentureBeat

 

GOOGLE UNVEILS THE FACIAL RECOGNITION FEATURES OF GOOGLE GLASS, BUT LAWS TO PROTECT CONSUMER PRIVACY OR OUTRIGHT BANS WILL BE NEEDED

For those who wish they could better remember names and faces, a new demo app for Google Glass gives you notes on how you know each person.

Although the concept seems perfect for party or networking events, the app — called MedRef for Glass — was actually designed for hospital employees. By using facial recognition technology, staffers wearing Google's high-tech specs can pull up patient folders with photo, voice and text notes.

 

For example, a doctor might want to record that a certain patient likes to be rolled over on one side of their body or is allergic to nuts. And because the data is shareable with Google Glass, other nurses and physicians can have immediate access to this information.

The app was created by a team of computer programmers at a medical hackathon.

Here's how it works: MedRec adds timeline cards and sharing contacts via Google Glass. By saying a patient's name or taking a picture of their face, the device will bring up their records.

Lance Nanek, a computer programmer who worked to develop the app says. 

"Hospitals are full of very busy people — often with their hands full — who work with a lot of information.  Google Glass and making [data] wearable is especially being looked forward to there."

For a full look at how the app works, check out the video above.

Do you think Google Glass and its apps will revolutionize how we use technology across various fields, including the medical world? Let us know in the comments.

COMMENTARY:   So far Google Glass is not illegal, but some businesses have began posting "Google Glass Is Banned On These Premises" signs.  Despite a front page story appearing in the May 7, 2013 issue of the New York Times suggesting that Google is already facing a bunch of legal pushback over its face computer of the future, there are no laws on the books that make Google Glass illegal -- Yet.  

Click Image To Enlarge

A Los Angeles privacy lawyer tells the New York Times's David Streitfeld.

"This is just the beginning.  Google Glass is going to cause quite a brawl."

It's unclear how true that is, of course, because there hasn't been much actual courtroom brawling so far — mostly just Internet whining, really.

The New York Times cites a proposed bill from West Virginia statehouse politicians who "were not joking at all" about a ban on Glassing-while-driving. Except the bill seriously hasn't made it to the house floor yet. And while the New York Times cites the bill's sponsor in saying he's "likely" to reintroduce the legislation, well, Rep. Gary Howell has also said that he will introduce a study resolution to see how dangerous Google Glass really is. You know, in the meantime, and in the reality outside front-page privacy freak-out trend stories:

"If we do that, I would like to invite Google to provide a demonstration and explain if they will have some type of feature that will turn off everything."

Howell has said, in addition suggesting that he's open to other alternatives outside of the anti-Google Glass law.

But even if Howell takes his law back to the West Virginia state legislature and it passes, that hardly makes Google's new device illegal. After all, according to the New York Times,

"This is the most anticipated piece of electronic wizardry since the iPad and iPhone we're talking about here." 

And by the logic of the New York Times's scare tactics, cell phones would be considered illegal in all these states that ban use while driving. Even the group Stop the Cyborgs, which has launched an anti-Glass campaign, doesn't want to outright ban the devices.

"We don't want a total ban but do we want people to limit it's use."

the group insists (in bold), in the About section of its website. While other, logical places — like strip clubs, or casinos — have banned Google Glass, people don't necessarily need laws or formal prohibitions to tell them how to properly regulate their usage of the world's foremost walking computer.  Already a whole bunch of people have written about their inclination to have specific etiquette while using Google Glass. 

However, even Google admits that its much discuss hardware is still in beta — and that the company is open to changes to better suit our apparently myriad privacy fears. That's basically all the Stop the Cyborgs of the world want, anyway. The Cyborgs group has three main points suggesting ways in which Google can build in enough privacy to placate the interests of privacy hawks the tech world over:

• They will never allow any face recognition system or any app which automatically identifies people to work on Google Glass or on any server system connected to Glass.
• They will implement a do not track system which allows people to opt out of being tracked or having information captured about them by Glass. This system should not require the person to identify themselves.
• That all information gathered by Glass will remain the property of the owner or subject and will be encrypted so that it is impossible for it to be data-mined, made available to security services or used for commercial purposes.

Google chief Eric Schmidt sounds equally as open to those kind of changes himself. Schmidt said in response to a question about the scary future of data-tracking that Google will help create. 

"I think you're describing a world of tracking which I think is highly unlikely to occur, because people will be upset about it in the same way you are."  

He continues: 

"Governments won't allow it, and it'll be bad business. And ultimately, in a competitive market, companies want the consumers to be happy. So it's true tracking in this context...you're taking a much broader view of the word ['tracking'] than any I would use. A situation where you go to people and say, 'Oh, here's our phone, and we're going to track you to death,' people are not going to buy that phone. It's just a bad business model."

I am in total agreement with The Cyborgs group recommendations to limit how Google Glass can be used.  We certainly do not want automobile drivers to know the identity of random people by glancing at their vehicle plates.  Individuals have a right to their privacy and preventing the disclosure of their identity to the masses.  Google Glass' face recognition technology opens a can of worms that will become a legal nightmare for Google.  I understand that Google has over 100 attorneys on their staff.  They better get them ready for the onslaught of lawsuits that are likely to come if face recognition and private information about individuals is disclosed without permission.  

Courtesy of an article dated May 13, 2013 appearing in Mashable and an article dated May 7, 2013 appearing in The Atlantic Wire

WHY THE GCV FIGHTING INFANTRY VEHICLE IS NOT A GOOD REPLACEMENT FOR THE BRADLEY -- THE CBO SAYS BUY THE GERMAN PUMA

One of the two proposed replacements for the U.S. military’s iconic Bradley Fighting Vehicle is a gas-electric hybrid that can go into fully electric mode so it can surprise enemies silently at night.

The old M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle has served in the Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan Wars (Click Image To Enlarge)

In just a few years, the United States Army is expected to retire their iconic Bradley troop carrier. The Bradley’s replacement, the proposed GCV Infantry Fighting Vehicle, is a massive, highly modifiable ground combat vehicle that grew out of years of military and defense contractor studies. There’s also a very good chance it could be a gas-electric hybrid.

The Pentagon has a keen interest in hybrid gas-electric vehicles, solar power, and other clean energy sources (Click Image To Enlarge)

Building the Army’s next-gen GVC Fighting Infantry Vehicle with a hybrid gas and electric system is a matter of saving valuable budget dollars during an era of fiscal belt-tightening (Click Image To Enlarge)

The Pentagon has a keen interest in hybrid gas-electric vehicles, solar power, and other clean energy sources. For the Defense Department, building the Army’s next-generation fighting vehicle with a hybrid gas and electric system isn’t a matter of saving the world; it’s a matter of saving valuable budget dollars during an era of fiscal belt-tightening.

The GVC Fighting Infantry Vehicle's electric motor will also provide faster acceleration than the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles (Click Image To Enlarge)

The GVC Fighting Infantry Vehicle can also switch to pure electric mode for short periods of time. This would eliminate significant heat traces from the battlefield and lets the tank operate much more quietly at night (Click Image To Enlarge)

When the next generation of GCVs begin construction--the exact date depends on an elaborate political horse-trading process between Congress, the Pentagon, and defense contractors--they will include parts from a variety of vendors. One of the proposals the Pentagon is considering uses a hybrid propulsion system. BAE Systems, which is partnering with several other firms to create the proposed hybrid system, is adapting civilian hybrid power systems from buses and automobiles to the tank. BAE has worked on various other hybrid systems in the past.

The GCV Fighting Infantry Vehicle will have a 40-year lifespan and can effectively transport troops to the battlefield while providing support fire (Click Image To Enlarge)

The GCV Fighting Infantry Vehicle's hybrid electric drive also means the tank burns half as much energy while idling (Click Image To Enlarge)

BAE Systems’ Mark Signorelli told Co.Exist. 

“The change from switching over to hybrid GCVs is like when the Air Force purchased their first jet fighters.”

If BAE’s proposal is adopted by the military, the Defense Department will save approximately 20% in fuel costs compared to an alternate GCV vehicle with traditional propulsion. The electric motor will also provide faster acceleration than Bradleys, and the tanks can switch to pure electric mode for short periods of time. This would eliminate significant heat traces from the battlefield and lets the tank operate much more quietly at night.

The GVC Fighting Infantry Vehicle works as a tank once a few basic accessories are added (Click Image To Enlarge)

Because of the on-board electricity source, the GVC Fighting Infantry Vehicle can also be equipped with electric armor, jammers, or the experimental energy weapons that the Army is currently researching (Click Image To Enlarge)

Signorelli said. 

“There are several advantages in using a hybrid propulsion system for a military vehicle over a conventional engine.  A hybrid electric drive system would use up to 20% less fuel, significantly reducing fuel costs and the number of vulnerable convoys for resupply. […] There are also 40% fewer moving parts with higher reliability, requiring less maintenance and decreasing vehicle lifetime cost. Vehicle acceleration, handling and dash speed are improved even over fuel hungry turbine systems. Finally, the system’s ability to provide large amounts of electrical power accommodates the integration of future communications and weapons technology for the next 30 to 40 years.”

According to BAE, the team behind the vehicle will include several other defense contractors. Northrop Grumman, Qinetiq, MTU, Saft, L3, and Tognum are all contributing parts to the proposed project. If the military adopts the proposed hybrid vehicle--there is a competing proposal with non-hybrid propulsion, they could roll onto the battlefield in the next decade. BAE representatives claim that the first vehicle could be delivered in 2020 and fielded in 2022 if the Defense Department chooses their proposal.

GCV vs Bradley Fighting Vehicle Dimensions (Click Image To Enlarge)

BAE claims the GCVs will have a 40-year lifespan and can effectively transport troops to the battlefield while providing support fire. Once in action, the GCVs will be powered by a hybrid electric drive that generates almost 1,100 kilowatts of electricity. The hybrid electric drive also means the tank burns half as much energy while idling; this is a significant cost savings for the Pentagon, and can also let troops charge their electronics off the vehicle’s batteries.

Signorelli also stressed the GCV’s “growth and modularity”--the vehicle works as a tank once a few basic accessories are added; the vehicle can also be augmented with accessories including electric armor, jammers, and experimental energy weapons thanks to the in-vehicle electric power source. Some of these experimental energy weapons are being researched by the military for use in the medium future.

However, there has been criticism of BAE’s proposal for a hybrid fighting vehicle. All of BAE’s innovation comes at a price--the hybrid vehicle is significantly heavier than one with a conventional power system. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a critical report in March, which claims both BAE’s proposal and rival General Dynamics proposal would waste government funds. Instead, the CBO recommended purchasing a German troop carrier called the Puma (Developed for the German Army) or a similar Israeli product.

 

The CBO was especially worried about the size of BAE’s hybrid GCV. With armor, the finished vehicle will weigh 70 to 84 tons,  AOL Defense’s Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. reports. There is speculation that the vehicle’s large size would put it at a disadvantage when used in dense urban environments abroad.

Signorelli says that there is a need for increased capacity in the next generation of military vehicles. In the meantime, despite the military’s ambivalence about moving on from the Bradley, they will face an unavoidable choice in the future. As it stands right now, there are good odds that choice might just be a hybrid--and Prius owners will get new bragging rights.

GCV Infantry Fighting Vehicle conception through production timeline (Click Image To Enlarge)

COMMENTARY:   I like the idea of a hybrid armored infantry vehicle like the GCV Infantry Fighting Vehicle, because of the 20% savings in fuel costs, armaments and 40-year life span, but the weight of a finished GCV, at 70 to 84 tons, is just too much when you need speed and manuverability in the battlefield.  

I am a patriotic American, but the PUMA Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicle is an excellent vehicle and it's in production now.  What swooned me is what BreakingDefense.com reported in an article dated April 2, 2013 about what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had to say about the GCV and PUMA.

"The Army’s proposed Ground Combat Vehicle would offer less combat power, at a higher cost, than buying the German-made Puma already in production or even just upgrading the Army’s existing M2 Bradley, according to the Congressional Budget Office. CBO issued a report today assessing different alternatives to upgrade Army heavy brigades‘ infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), tank-like war machines with tracks and turrets designed to carry troops into combat."

"The non-partisan CBO, Capitol Hill’s in-house thinktank, has slammed the Ground Combat Vehicle program before, but never this hard. The office’s analysts took the Army’s own criteria and created a grading system that scored different combat vehicles for effectiveness. Using a scoring scheme that prioritized protection above all, followed by firepower, mobility, and passenger capacity, in that order, the CBO rated the Puma highest, followed by a notional upgrade to the Bradley, followed in distant third place by the GCV. (The Israeli-built Namer came in fourth). Even under an alternative grading scheme that weighted all four criteria equally — putting much more emphasis on the capacity to carry troops — the 6-passenger Puma still edged out the 9-passenger GCV, largely because of its superior firepower."

"Add in the cost and risk of developing a new vehicle, and the analysis swings even farther in favor of the Puma. Since the Germans already have the Puma in production — the vehicle entered Bundeswehr service in 2011 — there’s no untested technology to cause problems. And even after buying 25 percent more Pumas to make up for its smaller carrying capacity, the Army would spend half as much as to develop, test, and build the GCV, according to CBO’s estimate: $14.5 billion for 2,048 Pumas as opposed to $28.8 billion for 1,748 GCVs."

"[Updated: But, as one alert reader pointed out, CBO isn't counting the cost to add three more vehicle crewmen to every mechanized infantry platoon to drive the extra Pumas -- at least 900 personnel Army-wide -- nor the extra maintenance personnel to support five vehicles per platoon instead of four, nor the ripple effects of rejiggering facilities built to accommodate four vehicles to take five instead.]"

"There is room to argue with CBO’s scoring system. To start with, since the GCV does not yet exist, CBO grades the vehicle based on the Army’s 2010 “Design Concept After Trades”; the actual GCV might be better or worse. For example, CBO assumes the GCV will have only a 25 millimeter cannon, rather than the Puma’s 30 mm, but Army officials I spoke to were still hoping for the larger caliber."

"Indeed, in the CBO’s scoring overall, the Puma’s big advantage over the other candidates is its firepower. (CBO scored Puma as slightly better protected than GCV but slightly less mobile). In particular, Puma scored high for its ability to kill tanks and other armored vehicles."

"But the Army deliberately chose not to install an anti-tank missile launcher on the GCV: The US military already has far more ways to destroy enemy tanks — from the M1 Abrams’s 120 millimeter gun to the A-10′s 30 mm Gatling, from the shoulder-launched Javelin missile to the air-launched Hellfire — than there are enemy tanks left to destroy. In the post-Cold War world, the nightmare scenario isn’t a long-range battle with hordes of Soviet tanks on the plains of Germany, it’s a close-quarters slugfest with irregular fighters hiding in crowded cities, where anti-tank missiles are largely irrelevant. So the Army decided it could better spend its money on other things — although the GCV is being designed to be upgraded with a missile launcher if the Army changes its mind."

"The Puma also mounts its massive firepower in an unmanned turret, remotely controlled from inside the vehicle. The Army considered such a design for GCV but ultimately decided it needed the gunner and vehicle commander riding inside the turret, as they do in the current Bradley and M1, able to look through the gunsights directly and clear jammed weapons if the automatic systems break down. A manned turret weighs and costs more than an unmanned one."

"The Army has also insisted, over and over, that it needs the capability to carry nine foot soldiers in addition to the crew: Bradley can manage four to six — seven if they squeeze — and Puma can take six. But more passengers means a bigger vehicle, which means more cost, especially if you have to armor the whole thing to a high standard against everything from anti-tank rockets hitting the top to roadside bombs hitting from below. The Army still thinks it’s worth the price to deliver a full nine-man squad to the same place at the same time, instead of scattering teams over multiple vehicles; but at the prices CBO is quoting, just buying a larger number of Pumas to carry the same number of troops looks awfully attractive."

"One major omission: CBO did not assign a numerical score to one of the Army’s most important considerations, the alternative vehicles’ ability to power new digital radios, command-and-control computers, and other military network hardware. The report does say 'the Puma’s communications and networking capability would be less than that of the GCV or the upgraded Bradley IFV.'"

"On the other hand, there is at least one other factor CBO didn’t include in its scoring that actually would have hurt GCV more to include. The Ground Combat Vehicle, fully armored, would weigh 65 tons, says CBO. (CBO earlier estimated 64 to 70 tons). The Puma, with all its add-on armor, would weigh 47. Strategically, that lower weight, and the reduced gas consumption that comes with it, would make Puma much easier to deploy abroad and then keep supplied with fuel — crucial considerations as the Army pulls out of Afghanistan and tries to revive its capability to deploy rapidly to distant crises."

Clearly, the CBO did not think very kindly of the GCV, ranking it third behind the PUMA and upgraded version of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.  For me the higher weight of the GCV, loss of battlefield speed and manuverability and higher costs are the real bugaboo.  

The German-made Puma provides full protection against mines and anti-tank weapons, at a level previously unavailable to similar systems (such as the Marder it will replacing in service). To maintain high protection levels and air mobility with the future Airbus A-400M European transport, Puma will be produced in a basic "Level A" protection featuring a total gross weight of 31.45 tons. Additional armor protection called "Level C" could be applied after the vehicles are deployed at their destination area, providing increased protection against shaped charge threats, medium caliber guns and heavier mines. Further protection is applied to the vehicle's roof, protecting from top attacks by AP bomblets.

I like the German-made PUMA because of its lower cost, overall design, armor, horsepower, light-weight, manuverability and armaments.  Here are some of the key Puma specifications:  

• New MTU 10V 892 HPD 800 kW high power density turbo diesel engine. 
• Renk HSWL 256 hydrostatic/hydrodynamic shifting, reversing and steering transmission.
• A decoupled drive assembly comprising hydro-pneumatic suspension, improving the smooth cross country traveling. 
• Eliminating the need for torsion bars allows the space under the floor to be cleared for better countermine protection. 
• Lightweight tracks further reduces weight. 
• Unmanned fully stabilized turret, mounting an automatic 30mm Mk30-2 ABM Mauser gun firing standard AP or airburst munitions (ABM). 
• MG4 5.56mm machine gun. 
• The turret is also installed with a gunner's thermal sight, a commander's independent panoramic sight, 400 ready to fire rounds of ammunition and smoke dischargers. 

The PUMA is clearly a nimble, fast, manuverable and well-armed armored fighting vehicle, and the GCV, when fully armored and armed will outweigh today's Abrams A-1 tank. Does this make any sense?

In several past blog posts, I warned readers about the U.S. Defense Department's history of budget cost overruns when it comes to military hardware.  We are quickly approaching a Defense Department budget of $1 trillion dollars per year.    

Courtesy of an article dated May 3, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Exist and an article dated April 2, 2013 appearing in BreakingDefense.com and an article appearing in Defense Update.com

STUDY: STATES WITH LOOSE GUN LAWS HAVE HIGHER RATES OF GUN VIOLENCE, RED STATES LEAD IN GUN VIOLENCE, LOUISIANA NO 1

The National Rifle Association (NRA) and its allies in Congress frequently claim that gun violence is highest in places with the toughest crime laws. But a new study from the Center for American Progress (CAP) suggests something closer to the opposite is true — the states with laxer gun laws tend to be the ones contributing the highest shares of national gun deaths and injuries.

The authors of the report, called “America Under The Gun,” developed a list of ten indices of gun violence, ranging from gun homicide levels to firearm assaults to crime gun export rate (the number of guns sold in that state used in crimes around the country), and ranked each state from 1-50 along each index. They then took the average of each state’s ranking to determine its overall level of gun violence relative to other states. Lousiana was the highest, with an average of fifth-worst across all ten indices, while Hawaii’s 45.4 ranking was the best.

A statistical regression comparing these rankings with strength of gun law found a correlation between weak gun laws and violence levels as measured by the 10-index average. Comparing a state’s relative ranking in strength of gun law (as judged by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence) to a state’s relative gun violence ranking yielded clear evidence that states with looser gun laws contributed more to the national gun violence epidemic:

"While many factors contribute to the rates of gun violence in any state, our research clearly demonstrates a significant correlation between the strength of a state’s gun laws and the prevalence of gun violence in the state. Across the key indicators of gun violence that we analyzed, the 10 states with the weakest gun laws collectively have a level of gun violence that is more than twice as high—104 percent higher—than the 10 states with the strongest gun laws."

Here is the map:

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COMMENTARY:    

10 Indices Used In The Gun Violence Study

The data analyzed in the Center For American Progress' report "America Under The Gun" used the following 10 indicators of gun violence:

1. Overall firearm deaths in 2010
2. Overall firearm deaths from 2001 through 2010
3. Firearm homicides in 2010
4. Firearm suicides in 2010
5. Firearm homicides among women from 2001 through 2010
6. Firearm deaths among children ages 0 to 17, from 2001 through 2010
7. Law-enforcement agents feloniously killed with a firearm from 2002 through 2011
8. Aggravated assaults with a firearm in 2011
9. Crime-gun export rates in 2009
10. Percentage of crime guns with a short “time to crime” in 2009

Sources of Information Used In The Gun Violence Study

In this report the Center For American Progress analyzed data from the following sources:

• National Center for Injury Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 
• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 
• Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) 

Data used in the 10 indices was taken from the years 2001 through 2011.  

Top 10 States Ranked By Highest Levels of Gun Violence

Based on an analysis of the above data, the Center For American Progress determined that the following 10 states ranked the highest for the highest levels of gun violence:

1. Louisiana
2. Alaska
3. Alabama
4. Arizona
5. Mississippi
6. South Carolina
7. New Mexico
8. Missouri
9. Arkansas
10. Georgia

Aggregate State Rankings For Gun-Violence Outcomes

The Center For American Progress determined the aggregate state rankings for gun-violence outcomes for all 50 states to be as follows:

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Out of the top 25 states ranked by aggregate score for gun-violence outcomes, 20 were identified as solid red states.  Four states are classified as battleground states during national elections (Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Florida) and voted blue during the 2008 and 2012 general elections.   Michigan was the only swing state out of the top 25.  

Overall Firearm Deaths For The Year 2010

The Center For American Progress ranked all 50 states based on overall firearms deaths for the years 2001 through 2010.  Here's the list of the 50 states in alphabetical order.  

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Firearm Homicides In 2010

Every day in the United States, 33 people on average are murdered with a gun.  This amounts to roughly one gun murder every 44 minutes   According to CDC data, there were more than 11,000 firearm homicides in the United States in 2010—comprising 68 percent of all homicides that year—with a hugely uneven distribution across the states.

Louisiana ranks first in firearm homicides in the country in 2010, with 9.53 gun murders annually for every 100,000 people—more than two-and-a-half times the national average. This is a staggering number considering that 12 states have a rate of less than two homicides annually for every 100,000 people. Indeed, even the state ranked second on this list—Mississippi, with 6.91 gun homicides annually for every 100,000 people—doesn’t come close to Louisiana’s rate.

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Where did your home state rank in the above study?

If you would like to learn more about gun violence, state gun regulations, and where the U.S. ranks compared to other countries, I urge you to read my blog posts dated December 14, 2012 and December 21, 2012, August 17, 2012 and December 9, 2010.

Courtesy of an article dated April 3, 2013 appearing in ThinkProgress

FAST COMPANY EXCLUSIVE: ANDREW MASON'S LAST INTERVIEW AS GROUPON CEO

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason (Click Image To Enlarge)

One month ago, Fast Company contributing writer Elizabeth Spiers interviewed then-Groupon CEO Andrew Mason for a forthcoming Fast Company feature on the future of Groupon. His performance--at turns, defensive, weary, combative, and naïve--foreshadowed his firing on Thursday.

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason was fired on Thursday. This is a not entirely surprising development given that on Wednesday afternoon, he and his fellow top executives reported quarterly earnings that can only be characterized as disastrous. Revenue was up, but no one expected the losses the company announced, and first-quarter guidance was far below what analysts hoped for. As Mason himself acknowledged in his resignation letter to employees,

“If you're wondering why...you haven't been paying attention."

Mason continued. 

"From controversial metrics in our (initial public offering) to two quarters of missing our own expectations and a stock price that's hovering around one quarter of our listing price, the events of the last year and a half speak for themselves.  As CEO, I am accountable."

Four weeks ago, I saw it coming. And I think Mason surely did, too.

He and I met in Palo Alto on the first of February to have breakfast, a continuation of my reporting on the company for a future Fast Company story. We sat in the dining room at Madera, a Michelin 1 star-rated restaurant in the Rosewood, a luxury hotel that’s partly owned by Stanford University. The Rosewood is located on Sand Hill Road, across the street from legendary venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. (This fall it was the subject of a story on a satirical website called the Silicon Valley Pasquinade alleging that undercover detectives had arrested several prominent VCs for soliciting prostitutes at the restaurant’s famed and very scene-y bar. The story was noted by several prominent news outlets and was often mistaken for the truth, in part because the restaurant’s Thursday night, aka “Cougar night,” crowds allegedly exhibit a certain type of transactional behavior that isn’t restricted to term sheets.)

On this Friday morning at 7:30 a.m., the restaurant was still a good 12 hours away from its weekly influx of glamour, money, and what economists would classify as utilitarian behavior. Only a handful of tables in the vast dining room were occupied, and to a man (literally, there were no women) by people in suits reading newspapers or checking their smartphones.

Mason was not wearing a suit. He was wearing a brown sweater over a gray T-shirt and jeans and he looked like he just crawled out of bed, which given the hour, may well have been the case. (He once experimented with sleeping in his clothes to see if it would allow him to get out of bed later. He immediately deduced that this was a bad idea and the experiment terminated fairly quickly.)

He seemed simultaneously alert and exhausted, in the sense that you would be if you’d been pursued by a bear and turned to find it was gone; you'd remain physically drained but twitchy with the knowledge that the predator could reappear at any moment.

And this was understandable. Mason was nearly eaten alive by the market and the press in the last year. And while there were some bright spots--an analyst upgrade here and there like a daisy in a vast landscape of weeds; a vote of confidence from prestige hedge fund Tiger Management, which picked up a not-insignificant 9.9% stake in the company--for the most part you got the sense that the bear was always there, looming, waiting to maul Groupon--and Mason--at any sign of weakness.

He was four weeks away from announcing fourth-quarter earnings, and the last quarter had not been so great for him. In November the Groupon board met to discuss, among other things, whether Mason should be replaced as CEO. Groupon co-founder and chairman Eric Lefkovsky reportedly stood by Mason at the meeting, but discussion was heated and it was unclear whether Lefkovsky would continue to support him under pressure from other directors.

I asked Mason how often he talked to Lefkovsky.  He said.  

“Every so often.”

Specifically? He snorted.

“No comment.”

When I contacted Lefkovsky’s office, his spokeperson noted that Lefkovsky had decided to pull back involvement with Groupon over the summer and referred me back to Groupon’s head of communications Paul Taaffe for questions. Neither party was inclined to talk about the other.

Mason was defensive, even in discussing issues that were relatively innocuous, as if he suspected that every inquiry was a trick question. I had been heavily pitched on Groupon’s new R&D projects and the interesting technology the company was developing, yet when I asked Mason if Groupon was becoming a tech company, he protested, as if the question was some sort of accusation.  He said.

“What does it mean to think of someone as a tech company?  We don’t have a small division working on a space elevator, if that’s what you mean.”

I clarified that my definition of tech company was very much a business definition, unencumbered by innuendo: a company whose value is primarily defined by its tech-related intellectual property portfolio.

He softened a bit.

“I think in the first phase of our company, we were a glorified mailing list. We had a completely unintelligent email that we sent out once a day and we had a human sales force that was going around and procuring the deals... Absolutely IP is going to be an important and necessary part of our success. I suppose that makes us a technology company. I suppose somebody could ask us, are we a marketing company? Yes. Are we an e-commerce company? Yes. Are we a technology company? Yes.”

Part of Mason’s legitimate challenge was that Groupon was not easy to define at that point. Groupon Goods was one of the company's fastest-growing revenue segments but also one of its lowest-margin businesses. It had acquired interesting emerging technology companies, many of which were promising but were too early stage to yield meaningful numbers. It had seen enormous growth in the international sector the year before only to see it tank on Europe’s macroeconomic woes, integration issues, and problems replicating what Groupon called its “North American Playbook” in international markets.

One of the impressive things about Andrew Mason is that he’s not especially threatened by other entrepreneurs. This may seem like a small matter, but entrepreneurs are a delicate species, with easily wounded egos. They’re not the types that take well to working for other people. It’s very difficult to go from directing operations with no bureaucratic or authoritative friction, no need to ask anyone for permission, to taking direction from someone else. Many of Mason’s staunchest loyalists are entrepreneurs whose companies Groupon acquired. COO Kal Raman describes him as one of the best listeners he has ever known. (Wall Street would dispute that, but I’d wager that Raman might not be wrong. Mason is just selective about who he listens to.)

SVP of product management Jeff Holden bonded with him over a two-day stay at Holden’s house where Holden says they had “one of those conversations where you see the world exactly the same way.” The founder of Breadcrumb, Groupon’s point of sale system for restaurants, Seth Harris, was “a restaurant guy--it’s in your blood” but was convinced to go to Groupon because he liked Mason’s vision for empowering local businesses with better infrastructure and tools. And as Mason put it,

“Whatever you think of me, I have a great team below me that’s had a lot of success.”

To his credit, this is something that many public company CEOs never learn how to do.

But it was Mason’s job to define Groupon not just to a hand-picked team of executives but to the world. And communication, at least in that context, wasn’t his strong suit.

However he connected with people internally, he struggled to do it publicly. In part, this is because Mason was uncomfortable with the spotlight. He attributes some of his legend as prankster to this.  

He said.

“I think that story built up, and part of it was my way of dealing with the lack of comfort of being in public. But it doesn’t reflect reality or the way I behave day to day.  I’m weird. But I’m a pretty serious person.”

Mason never could convince Wall Street of that, and he seemed disillusioned with his experience dealing with it.

“What’s just depressing to me is how--and it’s not just for us, let me generalize it--the moment a company goes public the conversation shifts from how they’re trying to change the world and the product they’re building to how they’re making money.”

“All the coverage around Facebook’s new search tool was a little bit about the feature, and then it gets immediately into how the market is reacting to it. Like, who the fuck cares?”

He said.  

“If you look at a lot of the issues we’ve had since going public, it feels like we’re at Wimbledon and we just keep on double-faulting.  It’s like we don’t even get to play the match.”

He thinks the Street is callously unsympathetic.

“It’s the nature of a four-year-old business that’s trying to get its arms around 11,000 people in 48 countries, a lot of them strung together from acquisition.”

Part of Mason’s downfall was that he’s an idealist. He feels betrayed by a market that does not understand what he’s trying to accomplish or appreciate his good intentions. There is of course an arrogance in that--an expectation that the market should conform to one’s own ideals instead of the parameters in which it has always operated. He seems wounded by the fact that Wall Street doesn’t care as much about the quality and efficacy of Groupon’s products as it does about raw profits.

This is at best naïveté, but then naïveté has plagued Mason all along. In 2012, Groupon filed statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission that had to be restated because Groupon had used an accounting metric--ACSOI (Adjusted Consolidated Operating Income)--in its required filings that suggested a net gain in its operating income. Conventional SEC-required metrics would have suggested a loss.

To be fair, ACSOI is an important metric for Groupon internally. It’s a measurement that helps them think about long-term costs before they spend money on marketing. And considering that they believe their marketing budget is variable, it’s important for them to know what sort of profits they’re looking at without taking marketing into consideration.

But it’s not what the SEC asks for. And it’s rare that a company blatantly flaunts what the SEC wants.  Mason said.  

“Looking at it in retrospect,  like many stupid things that people do, it looks obvious. But at the time, we were in a different world. We were the darlings of the tech world. Everything was and had gone our way, and we thought, we’ll put this metric [ACSOI] in here because we think it’s helpful. And people were like, We think you put this metric in here because you’re evil.”

He continued.

“They were basically like, Here’s the list of companies that have made up metrics and these companies suck. So you probably suck, too.”

Mason admits that it was unsophisticated.

“That was us not realizing what we were getting into in going public.”

When I asked him whether he regretted going public--whether he thought he could have accomplished more without the market pressure--he became incensed.

“I feel like the only reason you could be asking me that question is because you think I’m stupid or because you’re trying to see if I’m going to lie to you.”

Like most reporters—and let’s face it, most human beings--I’m always interested in whether people will lie to me. But it was an honest question. I know entrepreneurs who have regretted exits for precisely that reason. And I sincerely wonder what Groupon would look like if it weren’t a public company now. I suspect Mason does, too.

But Mason fails to see why the market behaves the way it does. It is callous, to be sure, but it isn’t stupid. The Street is not unaware of the fact that it has a regimented system that does not reward eccentric behavior. Mason’s lack of prior experience and personality quirks were at odds with Wall Street’s platonic ideal of a public company CEO: a numbers-driven operator who is experienced, polished, reliably predictable, and predictably reliable. In other words, not the kind of guy who makes jokey yoga videos in his underwear or who nearly presents the mayor of New York with a pony (a GrouPony, to be exact) as a party favor for an office visit. Certainly not the kind of guy who creates an entire room in his corporate headquarters for an imaginary tenant named Michael whose belongings include an exercise bike that plays Sade when pedaled, Cheerio boxes as décor, and a toilet full of Almond Joy bars. All of which Mason had done.

The presentations that public company CEOs have to make to institutional investors are called “dog and pony shows” for a reason. Wall Street knows some of it is superficial and irrelevant. It recognizes that it’s inconvenient and annoying for the CEO to have to trot the company out, brush its hair, decorate it with pretty ribbons, and walk it around the stage. The CEO has better things to do, after all. Isn’t the CEO supposed to be building the company?

Well, yes and no. Mason failed to accept that if you’ve taken money from public investors, you have to acknowledge that you owe them. Or you shouldn’t take the money at all. If you’re a public company, you have stakeholders whose interest in your company is entirely tied to fiscal performance. Mutual funds buy you for individuals who want to invest. Institutional funds buy you because you seem promising. Individuals in Peoria buy you because they think you will perform the way you said you would, even though that fourth quarter miss wasn’t your fault. It’s cold comfort to those people that you’re empowering small businesses if your management policies disempower them by draining their investment accounts. Those people were not investing in an ideal; they were investing in a security.

So it disturbs the Street when a public company CEO won’t do these things. They think it’s disrespectful to institutional investors who have invested in the company and deserve an audience. They think it’s a sign that the CEO is trying to hide something. How hard is it to give a simple presentation about where the company is going with no drama?

Julie Mossler, Groupon’s PR director was upset on his behalf. She mentioned a 60 Minutes episode earlier in the year wherein the show’s staff was annoyed that Mason didn’t present himself as the clownish prankster they had hoped to capture on camera.  SheMocked.  

“Andrew’s not being funny!  Where’s funny Andy?”

To be honest, I was relieved not to see funny Andy, if such a persona exists. As a human being, I’d rather see the sincerity--the irritation, the exhaustion, the frustration of being misunderstood, even if part of the misunderstanding is a function of self-inflicted difficulties that could be remedied by an acceptance of the realities to which Mason has consigned himself by virtue of going public. I’d rather see Mason as a complete person and not a character optimized for amusement. I ask him how his wife would describe him, and he says,

“She’d say ‘I wish he was home more so I was capable of characterizing him.”

It’s intended as a joke but there’s a tinge of sadness to it. Mason doesn’t like talking about himself. It makes him uncomfortable. But even his attempts at self-deprecation fall flat.

Mossler, both by virtue of her role and her longstanding relationship with the company (she has been at Groupon from whatever constitutes "the beginning"), is extremely sympathetic to Andrew. Like several of the other senior executives with whom I spoke, she seemed protective of him, and not simply because it was part of her job. She believed in him.

But the market did not.

Mason is by most accounts a passionate, smart guy who cares deeply about creating a superior product. He hires people who have more experience running companies than he does and finds ways to gain their trust. If he can learn how to tolerate the things that the public company CEO must do for the public market and come to peace with the fact that it entails walking the be-ribboned pony around the enclosure and smiling while doing it, maybe he has the potential to be an effective CEO of another public company.

But I don’t think he’d like it. And I don’t think it would be the best use of Andrew Mason.

COMMENTARY:    I don't feel bad for Andrew Mason one iota.  As many startup CEO's have quickly discovered after going public -- it's not the end of the journey, but the beginning.  As the CEO of a startup, if you are smart, you hire the best people possible, and give the responsiblity to execute the company's corporate initiatives.  Although early and late venture capital investors may exert some influence over operations, they don't call the shots.  Very often the CEO puts himself in the position where he controls the votes on the board of directors, and is somewhat immune from being fired.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg  and Zyngao CEO Mark Pincus have voting control by virtue of holding enough Class A and Class B shares to veto any effort by the board to fire them.  They are the luck few.   Andrew Mason did not have full control over the board, and his longivity as CEO depended on how many bad quarters Groupon had.  

Groupon Inc only had one quarter (Q2 2012) when it reported a profit.  It lost money every quarter prior to that and every quarter after that.  And, I have a feeling it will continue to lose money because of its controversial business model.  Yes, it was only a matter of time before Little Andy Mason was canned, but I am surprised they let it go this long.   Here are the financials and stock prices.  You be the judge.   In a world of stock analysts and institutional investors, there is no room for idealism, just profits, profits and profits. 

Groupon Inc - Profit & Loss Statements - Year's Ending 12-31-09 through 12-31-12

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 Groupon Inc - Stock Prices - 11-11-11 through 3-7-13

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Courtesy of an article dated February 28, 2013 appearing in Fast Company

GUN OWNERSHIP SOARS TO AN 18-YEAR HIGH: 47% OF AMERICANS ADMIT TO OWNING A GUN, WOMEN ARE ARMING THEMSELVES TOO

Americans may be fleeing from stocks in droves, but they sure aren't shy about rotating the resulting meager liquidation proceeds into weaponry. According to Gallup, "Forty-seven percent of American adults currently report that they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property. This is up from 41% a year ago and is the highest Gallup has recorded since 1993, albeit marginally above the 44% and 45% highs seen during that period." Considering the social situation "out there", and the fact that the world is one badly phrased or translated headline away from a complete HFT-facilitated market collapse, this is hardly all that suprising.

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More:

The new result comes from Gallup's Oct. 6-9 Crime poll, which also finds public support for personal gun rights at a high-water mark. Given this, the latest increase in self-reported gun ownership could reflect a change in Americans' comfort with publicly stating that they have a gun as much as it reflects a real uptick in gun ownership.

Not surprisingly, republicans pack more heat than democrats. Perhaps it is best not to piss too many off...

Republicans (including independents who lean Republican) are more likely than Democrats (including Democratic leaners) to say they have a gun in their household: 55% to 40%. While sizable, this partisan gap is narrower than that seen in recent years, as Democrats' self-reported gun ownership spiked to 40% this year.

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Women are more armed than ever. Perhaps it is best not to piss too many off...

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Southerners, yes shocking, are the best armed of all. Perhaps it is best not to piss too many off...

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Gallup's conclusion:

"A clear societal change took place regarding gun ownership in the early 1990s, when the percentage of Americans saying there was a gun in their home or on their property dropped from the low to mid-50s into the low to mid-40s and remained at that level for the next 15 years. Whether this reflected a true decline in gun ownership or a cultural shift in Americans' willingness to say they had guns is unclear. However, the new data suggest that attitudes may again be changing. At 47%, reported gun ownership is the highest it has been in nearly two decades -- a finding that may be related to Americans' dampened support for gun-control laws. However, to ensure that this year's increase reflects a meaningful rebound in reported gun ownership, it will be important to see whether the uptick continues in future polling."

Our conclusion: Buy gold. Buy guns. Buy ammo. Be prepared. It's coming.

COMMENTARY:   If you believe that the U.S. has too many guns and that we need tougher gun regulations, post it here.  I want to hear from gun owners, especially why they have a gun, how they use their guns, and how many guns you own.  I hope you will also read my blog post dated December 14, 2012 which paints a very dark pictue of the gun situation in the U.S. 

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Courtesy of an article dated October 26, 2011 appearing in ZeroHedge.com

THE TRILLION DOLLAR STEALTHY F-35 LIGHTNING II FIGHTER, ANOTHER MISTAKE OR COSTLY PENTAGON BOONDABLE?

 

A new Pentagon forecast showing the total cost of owning and operating a fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters topping $1 trillion over more than 50 years has caused a case of sticker shock in Washington.

And that price tag doesn't even include the $385 billion the Defense Department will spend to purchase 2,500 of the stealthy planes through 2035.

During a Senate hearing this month, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) called the $1 trillion figure "jaw-dropping," particularly when compared with the costs of operating other aircraft.

Said  Senator Cain,

"I appreciate this estimate is still early and subject to change, but we need to know that the program is going to bring that number down".

Tom Burbage, who leads the program for manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp., acknowledged that the 'T' word

"causes a lot of the sensational reaction to it, because no one's ever dealt with 't's before in a program."

The long-range estimate is, by its nature, imprecise because it attempts to forecast factors including inflation and fuel costs decades into the future. And the Pentagon says it will be adjusted as the planes enter operation.

But the figure is bringing new scrutiny to what is already the Pentagon's largest-ever weapon-buying project as its budget comes under pressure. Already, Lockheed Martin has said it was looking for ways to bring down the long-term cost.

 

Christine Fox, head of the Pentagon's cost-assessment office, said in Senate testimony that the F-35 would likely cost about 33% more per flight hour to operate than two of the aircraft it will replace, the F-16 and F-18. But the new aircraft will be much more sophisticated, will be far less visible to enemy radar and will have sensors that allow a single jet to take on missions that now require several aircraft.

The Marine Corps version of the F-35 will be able to hover and land vertically. The Navy model will operate from aircraft carriers, while the Air Force version will be based on land. Developmental aircraft are flying, and the first F-35s—which cost about $113 million each—are slated to enter service later in the decade.

The Pentagon's forecast includes all the possible costs the military might incur over the lifetime of the program, including everything from housing the aircraft to installing replacement parts. Add all those together, and factor in inflation, Mr. Burbage said, and "you trip the trillion-dollar mark."

But, he said,

"The question to ask is, is that a relevant number?"

Retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Emerson Gardner, who previously oversaw cost assessment at the Pentagon, said it wasn't "good analysis" to put that round dollar figure out without a point of comparison—for instance, the cost of sustaining the less-capable aircraft the new plane would replace.

Geneneeral Gardner said,

"You can scare the children with lots of things by projecting out to what it's going to cost in 2065.  It's more useful to us if it's [forecast] five to 10 years."

A more near-term analysis, Gen. Gardner said, might add to a constructive debate about realistic costs and alternatives.

It is normal for sustainment costs to outstrip the basic drive-away cost of a piece of military hardware. But Pentagon procurement chief Ashton Carter said in a recent Senate hearing that the Joint Strike Fighter's projected sustainment bill was on top of an "unacceptably large" bill for procurement.

Still the Pentagon sees no "better alternative" to the F-35 says the general,

"Sustainment seems like years away, but now is the time to face that bill and begin to get that under control." 

The Joint Strike Fighter has long been a troubled program, with cost overruns, military management shake-ups and heightened political scrutiny, but Lockheed says the aircraft is now ahead of schedule on its test flights.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Lockheed Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Stevens said the trillion-dollar figure was derived from a new Pentagon "selected acquisition report" that wasn't developed by the company, and said the company would work to find ways to bring down the aircraft's long-term production and sustainment costs.

Says the Lockheed CEO,

"As big as that number is, there are sufficiently large opportunities to reduce that number by making streamlining decisions along the way." 

COMMENTARY:   Just before leaving office, the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us all when he said, "Beware of the U.S. military industrial complex."  I wonder what Ike would say about the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter program.

I enjoy writing about and exposing U.S. military wasteful spending, and believe me, "The Greatest Miliary In The World,"  is the biggest spender of our tax dollars, which is contrary to what people say is being spent on entitlement programs like social security and medicare.  

If you believe what the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) says the Department of Defense spends each year, then you are very naive.  Did you know that the Department of Homeland Security, CIA and NSA fall under the Department of Defense?  All the U.S. contractors stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan are also included in the Department of Defense budget.  

THE FACT IS:  Nobody really knows the actual amount being spent by our U.S. military because much of the spending is highly classified and the government simply doesn't want us to know.  It's for reasons of national security, and we don't want the other side to know what we are up to. 

THE F-22 RAPTOR PROGRAM COMES TO AN END

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, is a single-seat, twin-engine fifth generation super-maneurable fighter aircraft that uses stealth technology. The Raptor, originally designated the      Y-22, first entered service on December 15, 2005, and was designed for the U.S. Air Force primarily as an air superiority fighter, but has additional capabilities that include ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence roles. 

The high cost of the Raptor, a lack of clear air-to-air combat missions because of delays in the Russian and Chinese fifth generation fighter programs, a US ban on Raptor exports, and the ongoing development of the supposedly cheaper and more versatile F-35 Lightning resulted in calls by the U.S. Defense Department to end F-22 production on April 2009.  A total of 168 Raptors were built out of 187 budgeted with a total program cost of $65 billion.  Total unit costs per plane was $150 million.

On 9 July 2009, General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services his reasons for supporting termination of the F-22 production line.  He believed, most importantly, that Fifth-generation fighters need to be proliferated to all three services, a need that could only be met by shifting more resources to producing the 10-years more advanced, multi-service and multirole F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter jet.

THE F-35 LIGHTNING JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER 

The F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter jet. previously designated the X-35, will be produced by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corp, U.S. Navy and our European military partners The U.K., Italy, Netherlands, Turkey, Australia, Norway, Denmark and Canada.  The number of F-35's to be produced are as follows:

United States:

• US Air Force:  1,763 
• US Navy/US Marine Corp: 680 
• Total:  2,443

European Military Partners:  

• United Kingdom - Royal Air Force and Royal Navy: 138 
• Italy: 131 
• Netherlands:  85 
• Turkey: 100 
• Australia:  100 
• Norway:  48 
• Denmark: 30 
• Canada:   65

U.S. also ordered 14 F-35's for flgiht tests. 

The 2,443 F-35's for the U.S. military are scheduled for production between now and the year 2035 at a total cost of $385 billion.   This averages $158 million per plane (includwa spare parts) before recurring costs like maintenance, housing and armaments.   Individual unit costs are as follows:

• F-35A:  $122 million (average cost, 2011)
• F-35B:  $150 million (average cost, 2011)
• F-35C: $139.5 millin (average cost, 2011) 

The F-35 Lightning II comes in three variants designed to replace aircraft from the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corp and U.S. Navy: 

• U.S.  Air Force (F-35A CTOL)  - Replaces the General Dynamics F-16 Flying Falcon or Viper, a supersonic (1.2 to 2.0 Mach), long-range (2,200 nautical miles) multirole jet fighter designed for dog fighting and attacking ground targets.  Original unit cost: $14.6 to $18.8 million (1998 dollars).  Average flyaway cost: $3 million.  
• U.S. Marine Corp (F-35B STOVL) - Replaces the McDonnel Douglas (now Boeing/BAE Systems Hawker Siddeley Harrier or AV-8A Sea Harrier), a second-generation vertical/short takeoff and landing or V/STOL ground-attack subsonic (662 mph), mid-range (1,200 nautical miles) attack jet.  Original unit cost: $30 to $35 million (1997 dollars).  Average flyaway costs:  NA  
• U.S. Navy (F-35C CV) - Replaces the McDonnel Douglas Navy F/A-18 Hornet, a supersonic (1.8 Mach), mid-range (1,089 nautical miles), all-weather carrier-capable multirole fighter jet, designed to dogfight and attack ground targets ((F/A for Fighter/Attack).  Original unit cost: $29 to $57 million (2006 dollars).  Average flyaway costs: NA   

There are subtle specification differences between each variant as listed below:  

Below is the U.S. Marine AV-8B Harrier jet landing on the deck of the U.S. Navy Amphibius Assault Ship USS Bataan (LHD-5). 

 

The F-35B (STOVL) will replace all four previous versions of the V/STOL Harrier family.

  

According to the Pentagon, the estimated average recurring fly away costs per plane using the U.S. Air Force F-35A CTOL as the benchmark is $65 million per year per plane.  NOTE: U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corp versions of the F-35 would have a different estimted average recurring fly away costs because of differences in design.  

The Pentagon produced the following production schedule for the 2,443 F-35's being ordered based on Lockheed's annual production capacity.  This includes 415 F-35's that will be produced between now and the end of FY 2016, and another 2,028 additional F-35's that will be produced between FY 2016 and FY 2035.    

If you do the math,  the estimated recurring fly away costs for the 415 F-35's that have already been produced and will be produced between FY 2011 and FY2016 are as follows: 

• Test Flight Craft - 14:  $910 million
• Produced FY Prior to 2011 - 58: $26.390 billion
• Produced FY 2011 - 32: $12.480 billion
• Produced FY 2012 - 32: $10.400 billion
• Produced FY 2013 - 42: $10.920 billion
• Produced FY 2014 - 62: $12.090 billion
• Produced FY 2015 - 81:  $10.530 billion
• Produced FY 2016 - 108: $7.020 billion

The above totals for the above 415 F-35's totals approximately $84 billion between now and the end of 2016.  Then you add this to the recurring costs for the other 2,028 F-35's that will be produced after FY 2016, and that's how the Pentagon derived its $1 trillion figure.  In any event, $65 million for maintenance, housing and armaments for the F-35 is damn expensive to say the least.

COMPARISON F-22A VERSUS F-35A

Thanks to nice folks of the Air Force Association, I was able to obtain a comparison of the F-22A versus F-35A.  Comparisons were based on different metrics:

 

Air Force Association - F-22 Versus F-35 Comparison

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What's not to like about the F-22A.  The F-22A was superior over the F-35A in just about every metric except for Unrefuled Combat Radius.  The cost comparisons are a bit tricky because they do not include maintenance, housing and armament costs.  The F-22A unit cost was also based on a much smaller quantity--187 versus 1763.

The U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy have special needs and requirements because they require V/STOL and carrier-based landing capability respectively.  Therefore, the costs for the F-35B and F-35C will probably be higher than the F-35A which is land-based.

The biggest criticism that I have with the F-35 Lightning II is the decision to go with a mulitrole underpowered aircraft that would be designed for three branches of the military. We seem to have put all our eggs in one basket.  The F-22A has far better performance characteristics and would've given us greater ability to go up against both Russian and Chinese Fifth Generation Fighter jets.

If the price of the F-35 Lightning II was supposed to be chaper, it sure as hell has not turned out that way.  I think we need to totally re-evaluate the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Attack jet.  We have no choice.  In an era of huge federal budget deficits, we must find ways of reducing costs in every department, and this includes the defense budget, a department with costs that will approach $1 trillion by 2016.  

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE BUDGET

To make my case for reductions in the defense budget, let's look at the U.S. Department of Defense Budget for the Fiscal Year 2010, 2011 and 2012 shall we.

U.S. Department of Defense Budget for FY 2010

U.S. Department of Defense Budget for FY 2010 - By Branch and Department

U.S. Defense Department of Defense - Program Spending over $1.5 billion - FY 2011

U.S. Defense Department of Defense - FY 2012 (DOD and other departments)

U.S. Department of Defense Annual Budget for the FY1962 Through FY 2010 and Forecasted for 2014 - Adjusted For Inflation

U.S. Department of Defense Per Capital Spending 1962 Through 2010 and Forecasted for 2014 - Adjusted For Inflation

If you look at the U.S. Department of Defense for programs spending in excess of $1.5 billion, the F-35 is prominently at the top of the list.  I think we can assume that the F-35 program will occupy the No 1 spot for a decade and beyond.  In short, the F-35 program will be the single most expensive project U.S. Department of Defense Budget.  

We have to seriously ask ourselves whether it's time for the U.S. government to seriously consider reducing our military budget.  It has gotten completely out of control.  Per capita spending on military spending has risen from $2,500 per person in 1962 to nearly $4,000 per person in FY 2010.  By FY 2014 per capital spending will be $4,100 per person.

CONCLUSION

I believe we would be better served by replacing the U.S. Air Force F-35A with the F-22A because it is just plain and simple the superior plane in just about every performance metric.  It can carry larger payloads, has greater thrust, speed and maneuverability, has a superior flight envelope, and can control twice the battle space of the F-35A.  I don't know who made the decision to go with the F-35A, but in my opinion this was a huge mistake. 

I like the F-35 Lightning II's multiservice role, and what it can do overall, but performance-wise the F-22 is far superior.  Unfortunately, the F-22 is not designed for vertical takeoff and carrier operations.   I am very reluctant to go with the F-35B STOLV and F-35C CV, because the F-35 Lightning II's performance puts our Marine and Navy pilots at a disadvantage in combat conditions.  If we are going to go into battle, I want my Marines and Navy pilots behind the best plane--period.  They should not be second best to anybody.   

My other complaint is the F-35 Lightning II's total production costs per aircraft have skyrocketed to $158 million per plane, and are projected to rise even higher.  Just what the hell is going on here?Lockheed Martin has a lot of explaining to do.  The company needs to provide a detailed breakdown of the costs of production, parts, housing and armaments.  We need to find a way to make the plane much more cost-effective, even if it means that Lockheed Martin has to eat some of those flyaway costs.  

12/16/12 - UPDATE:

For three years (FY 2010, FY 2011 and FY2012), the Pentagon has been postponing orders for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.   Plans to produce 425 of the F-35's have been put on hold.  But Lockheed, the builder of the F-35 has reasons to be optimistic.  According to government officials, the Pentagon is close to approving a deal to produce 29 F-35's during fiscal year 2013.   The F-35's history is full of research and development setbacks, rising costs and mounting criticism of the troubled F-35.  It is now estimated that if the Pentagon builds 2400+ F-35's, the total cost will hit $395 billion.  That's a 70% increase in costs since 2001.   Flight tests have uncovered a number of flaws with the F-35.  Lockheed has agreed to underwrite half the cost of fixing those flaws.  And, the Air Force general who supervises the F-35 program calls the relationship between the Pentagon and Lockheed,

"The worst I've ever seen."

Lockheed launched an online campaign on its website to urge F-35 supporters to sign a petition to prevent the F-35 program from being scrapped.   The F-35 has undergone numerous test flights since 2006, but don't expect the F-35 to appear over the skys of Afghanistan anytime soon. 

 

Courtesy of an article dated May 26, 2011 appearing in The Wall Street Journal, Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, Lockheed Martin F-35 Fast Facts, Air Force Association Comparison of F-22A versus F-35A, Wikipedia, Department of Defense Selected Acquisition Report-SAR for the F-35 Lightning II and an article dated December 10, 2012 appearing in Bloomberg   

ARMED TO THE TEETH: GUN OWNERSHIP IN AMERICA, U.S. LEADS THE WORLD WITH WELL OVER 270 MILLION FIREARMS AND GROWING

 

Gun Ownership - U.S. vs World 

Where are the world's guns - and which countries have the highest rates of firearms murders?

The Aurora shooting has re-lit the arguments over gun control in the US.

How does the US really compare on firearms?  The world's crime figures are collected by the UNODC through its annual crime survey.  It has a special section of data on firearm homicides - and provides detailed information by size of population and compared to other crimes. It is not a perfect dataset - some key nations are missing from the data, including Russia, China and Afghanistan. But it does include the US, UK and many other developed nations.

The Small Arms Survey is also useful - although it is from 2007, it collates civilian gun ownership rates for 178 countries around the world, and has 'normalised' the data to include a rate per 100,000 population.

It shows that with less than 5% of the world's population, the United States is home to roughly 35–50 per cent of the world's civilian-owned guns, heavily skewing the global geography of firearms and any relative comparison

So, given those caveats, we can see which countries have the highest ownership rates for firearms - and which have the highest gun murder rates.

The key facts are:

• The US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world - a total of 270 million guns as of 2007 or an average of 88 per 100 people. That puts it first in the world for gun ownership - and even the number two country, Yemen, has significantly fewer - 54.8 per 100 people.
• But the US does not have the worst firearm murder rate - that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. In fact, the US is number 28, with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people.
• Puerto Rico tops the world's table for firearms murders as a percentage of all homicides - 94.8%. It's followed by Sierra Leone in Africa and Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean

Even China and India, with four time the population of the U.S. do not have anywhere the number of guns owned by Americans.   In fact, if you added all the guns owned by private citizens in the other countries of the world.  It would not match the 270 million guns (as of 2007) in the hands of Americans.  That number is now probably 300 million or very close to it.    

The full data is below - what can you do with it?

Click Image To Enlarge

Click Image To Enlarge

Gun Crime Statistics by State

How bad is gun crime in the US? The latest data from the FBI's uniform crime reports for 2010  provides a fascinating picture of the use of firearms in crimes across America.

In early January 2011 the shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by Jared Lee Loughner in front of supporters in Tucson, Arizona left six dead, including a nine-year-old child. But since then, the issue has been given scant attention.

The FBI crime statistics are based on reports to FBI bureau and local law enforcement. The figures are not complete - there are no stats for Florida on firearm murders and the data for Illinois is "incomplete".  But even so it provides a detailed picture of attacks by state.

Click To View Interactive Map 

Click the above map then click on a state to explore it - or use the dropdown menu to choose different ways of seeing the data

In fact, gun crime, like all crime across the US is going down - you can see how much in the graph above.

In 2010 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,996 murders in the US.  Of those, 8,775 were caused by firearms.

The figures show that California had the highest number of gun murders last year - 1,257, which is 69% of all murders that year and equivalent to 3.37 per 100,000 people in the state. Big as that figure is, it's still down by 8% on the previous year. Other key findings include:

• While gun crime is down in the vast majority of states, it is up in New York, Virginia, New Jersey, Mississippi, Missouri, Arizona, Delaware, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Connecticut and several of the smaller states.
• If you look at the firearms murder rate per 100,000 people, District of Columbia comes out top - with 16 firearms murders per 100,000 man, woman and child in the state. There were 99 firearms murders in DC in 2010, down 12% on 2009
• DC is followed by Louisiana (7.75) and Missouri (5.34)
• DC is also top for firearms robberies per 100,000 people - with 255.98
• If you look at aggravated assaults involving a firearm, Tennessee (129.87) and South Carolina (114.73) come above District of Columbia (99.25)

Gun Crime In The U.S. by State for 2010

States with Extremely High Populations of Gun Owners(more than 50%):

This article lists individual gun owners as a percentage of each state's population, as of 2007.    

This data was very relevant during the 2012 General Election and state elections for governors and U.S. senatorial and congressional races.  The data clearly explains why candidates President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney refused to meaningfully address gun control and ownership issues before the November 2012 election day:  thirteen of fourteen 2012 battleground states have gun ownership rates of 30% or more.

1. Wyoming - 59.7%
2. Alaska - 57.8%
3. Montana - 57.7%
4. South Dakota - 56.6%
5. West Virginia - 55.4%
6. Mississippi - 55.3%, Idaho - 55.3%, Arkansas - 55.3% (3-way tie)
7. Alabama - 51.7%
8. North Dakota - 50.7%
9. Kentucky - 47.7%
10. Wisconsin - 44.4% *
11. Louisiana - 44.1%
12. Utah - 43.9%
13. Tennessee - 43.9%
14. Oklahoma - 42.9%, Iowa - 42.9% * (2-way tie)
15. South Carolina - 42.3%
16. Kansas - 42.1%
17. Vermont - 42.0%
18. Missouri - 41.7% *, Minnesota - 41.7% (2-way tie) 
19. North Carolina - 41.3%
20. Maine - 40.5%
21. Georgia - 40.3% 
22. Oregon - 39.8%
23. Indiana - 39.1%
24. Nebraska - 38.6%
25. Michigan - 38.4% *
26. Texas - 35.9%
27. Virginia - 35.1% *
28. New Mexico - 34.8% *
29. Colorado - 34.7% *
30. Pennsylvania - 34.7% * 
31. Nevada - 33.8% *
32. Washington - 33.1%
33. Ohio - 32.4% *
34. Arizona - 31.1% *
35. New Hampshire - 30.0% *  
36. Delaware - 25.5%
37. Florida - 24.5% *
38. California - 21.3%
39. Maryland - 21.3%
40. Illinois - 20.2%
41. New York - 18%
42. Connecticut - 16.7%
43. Rhode Island - 12.8%
44. Massachusetts - 12.6%
45. New Jersey - 12.3%
46. Hawaii - 6.7%

* Battleground state during the 2012 General Election.  Source - USACarry.com

Interestingly, the top ten states with the highest gun ownership rates (all 50% or more) are considered staunchly Republican-red states.  And nine of the ten states with the lowest gun ownership rates (all less than 30%) are considered staunchly Democratic blue states.  The sole exception is Florida, a battleground state with a 24.5% gun ownership rate.

The South is the most violent region in the United States

The FBI divides America into four regions:

• Northeast
• Midwest
• South
• West 

In 2010, the South accounted for 41.5% of all violent crimes reported to the FBI, but the data ignores relevant issues that tended to inflate violent crime statistics for the South.  

• Between 2000-2010, the South actually experienced a 22.3% decline in its violent crime ra1te, beating the U.S. decline of 20.3%.
• Illegal immigration-related crime tended to inflate violent crime statistics for some of the Southern states, and this had a significant impact on southern states like Texas and Florida.  
  • A 15 year old was charged with nine murders after crashing a van smuggling illegal immigrants near the Mexico border. 
  • Fifteen more illegal immigrants died recently when another smuggler crashed his overloaded truck. Minus the dead driver, that’s 23 more murders in Texas this year, all related to illegal immigration.
  • Houston police officer Rodney Johnson and Dallas officer Brian Jackson were murdered by illegal immigrants.
  • In Florida, a Haitian illegal immigrant with a long rap sheet and deportation order murdered three people in their North Miami home. After Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, the president put deportations on hold, so ICE put him back on the street.

Obviously, illegal immigrants commit violence in other parts of the country.  Simply saying that the South is more violent ignores the impact of policies created by the federal government.  In fact, our elected federal officials have yet to fully address the illegal immigrant problem in the U.S. or ignored it altogether.  Illegal immigration is such a hot issue, that Mitt Romney lost the hispanic vote by a wide margin by supporting self-deportation.

COMMENTARY:   First, I would like to say that I fully support the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gives all Americans the right to bear arms.  Second, I am for nationalized gun legislation and control of all firearms.  I have never fully subscribed to the notion that gun regulation is a "states right."   Here's why.  

• A lack of uniformity in gun ownership laws, with some states requiring background checks, while some have hardly any or none at all. 
• Differences as to who can legally sell firearms.  Many states allow the sale of firearms at gun shows and flea markets. 
• The length of time required for approval to own a firearm.  In Kentucky, I can walk out the door with a gun without a background check, waiting period or registration.
• The types of firearms that can be legally owned.  Some states have no legislation to prevent conversion of a semi-automatic assault-type rifle to fully-automated.  
• The types of firearms that can be legally owned.  

As you can see from the above statistics, there is no direct correlation between gun ownership and reduced violent crimes involving guns.  Compounding the problem are inconsistencies in gun regulations between states and liberal regulations governing acquiring military-style assault weapons   In fact, the reverse is true according to statistics compiled by the FBI:

• Women are 12 times more likely to be killed with a firearm by their husband during a domestic dispute when there is a gun in the house.
• An average of 83 Americans die every day from firearms in the United States. And the U.S. has the highest firearm homicide rates in the developed world.
• More guns has not reduced the number of mass killings, in fact there are now more of them, and the numbers of individuals killed and wounded is increasing:  Columbine High School massacre which killed 13 and wounded 26 others, "The Dark Knight Rises" midnight premiere in an Aurora, Colorada movie theater killed 12 and injured 58, the Virginia Tech student mass shootings killed 32 and wounded 15.
• According to the FBI (see above graph), guns are the overwhelming weapon of choice when it comes to violent crimes.
• States with "shoot first" gun laws, are more likely to result in a death by shooting which could've been prevented, or occurred due to a mistake in judgement or outright error. Shoot first laws expand the right to use deadly force in self-defense beyond the home and eliminate a person's duty to retreat before resorting to use of such deadly force. There are now 15 states with laws similar to those of Florida, and you can bet that here will be more of these unwarranted killings.
• The U.S. ranks No 1 out of 36 top nations in the number of individuals (9,369) imprisoned for committing a murder using a firearm.    
• In the U.S. nearly 40% of all homicides are committed using a firearm.  This ranks the U.S. 7th out of the top 32 developed nations.
• In 33 states, criminals and terrorists can buy military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips from “private dealers” on the Internet or at gun shows without showing ID or completing a background check. No ID, no background check, no restrictions, no detection. It is perfectly legal for private gun dealers and individuals to sell an unlimited number of firearms to anyone, including domestic criminals and international terrorists, cash and carry.  This is complete lunacy and dangerous.  
• In Massachusetts, where we have some of the most effective gun laws, firearms kill three people per 100,000 each year, compared to the national average of 10 per 100,000. Massachusetts is one of the few states to require gun training, licensing and registration, and consumer protection standards for firearm manufacturers, and is one of only 17 states that require criminal background checks for all gun sales. 

UPDATE:   This morning I woke up to the shocking news that as many as 20 children, students at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Connectiut were shot.  Law enforcement officials are very tight in releasing details of the shootings.  This is another example of just how out of control the "Culture of Guns" has become.  President Obama and our Congress must find a solution to this problem.  We are now experiencing mass killings, not just one or two a day, but MASS KILLINGS of innocent civiliants and even very young children as in the ase of Sandy Hook Elementary.  If you are a gun owner, you must properly secure and store those guns where your children or thieves cannot get their hands on them.  If you cannot absolutely secure your weapons, then you should not be owning a firearm.  I know that's harsh, but we must find a way to put an end to these MASS KILLINGS using firearms.  The next victim maybe your children, wife, parent or loved one.  

Courtesy of an article dated September 27, 2011 appearing in The Guardian and an article dated July 22, 2012 appearing in The Guardian and an article dated November 17, 2012 appearing in About.com and an article appearing in the Coalition To Stop Gun Violence and an article dated July 27, 2012 appearing in PJ Media Daily Digest

APPLE CEO TIM COOK SAYS THAT YOUR NEXT iMAC COULD BE MADE IN THE USA BEGINNING IN 2013

Apple CEO Tim Cook visits the Foxconn plant in China as part of the review process to insure working conditions have improved and Apple vendor requirements are being adhered to (Click Image To Enlarge)

When Apple makes headlines for its manufacturing practices, it’s rarely a headline that makes Cupertino look good. The company has come under fire in the past year for its reliance on the manufacturing giant Foxconn, which had a string of suicides at one of its plants, and where there have occasionally been reports of unsafe working conditions. The New York Times, for instance, wrote an investigative report into the “human costs” of the iPad back in January; iPhone manufacture even became the unlikely subject of a controversial, and ultimately discredited, work of quasi-reported theater (see “Mike Daisey, Storyteller,” and “An (Actual!) Look Inside Foxconn”). But for those who thought Apple would continue to exclusively rely on manufacturing abroad, Apple CEO made a surprising announcement on “Rock Center with Brian Williams” today. Starting in 2013, said Cook, a line of Macs would be manufactured in the US. Cook did not elaborate or specify just which line.

The announcement followed recent reports that some of the new iMacs that went on sale last Friday bore the unusual words, “Assembled in USA.” In the past, it has been more typical to see “Assembled in China”–though not uncommon for certain products, like made-to-order Macs.

In a way, Cook’s announcement is not totally surprising; at the All Things D conference in May, he had announced that he wanted a product to be made in the U.S. It would seem like the recent “assembled in USA” lines are a step in that direction, and that Cook is planning to deepen that commitment.

 

A good deal more information about Cook’s thinking in this regard can be found in Bloomberg Businessweek, which published a lengthy interview with Cook this week. Cook pointed out (as he did to Brian Williams) that both the processor and the glass on iPhones and iPads are made in the U.S. (See “Your iPhone’s Brain Might Be from Texas.”) And he clarified that when he says he’d like to “make” Macs in the US, he’s talking about more than assembly:

“It will happen in 2013. We’re really proud of it. We could have quickly maybe done just assembly, but it’s broader because we wanted to do something more substantial. So we’ll literally invest over $100 million. This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people, and we’ll be investing our money.”

A follow-up question on whether Apple had a duty to be patriotic elicited a thoughtful response: Cook said that he felt Apple did have a “responsibility to create jobs.” He appeared to outline a philosophy that suggested that Apple had that responsibility, indeed, wherever it sold its products:

“Over 60 percent of our sales are outside the United States. So we have a responsibility to others as well.” 

He chooses a more hollistic way of measuring job creation, which means that he considers a person who makes a living as an iOS developer to have had a job created by Apple, even if that person is working for herself. (Again in its iEconomy series, the Times has shown how making that living is sometimes easier said than done.) The Businessweek interview is required reading in full for anyone interested in Tim Cook, Apple, and the future of American manufacturing.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg also reports that Foxconn itself will be expanding some of its manufacturing operations into North America, due to demand among customers that more products be made domestically.

COMMENTARY:   It will be a very long time before I trust anything that Apple says concerning its manufacturing vendors in China.  For over a decade, under the steady iron hand of then Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, Apple did everythig to keep the identity of its overseas vendors in China absolutely secret.  Nobody knew who they were until word got out of the numerous plant worker suicides at Foxconn International, the sweatshop conditions endured by its plant workers, and unsafe working environment that hundreds of thousands of Foxconn plant workers were exposed to.  Foxconn is Apple's largest outsourced manufacturer in China, and is responsible for assembling the iPhone, iPod and iPad.  In 2010,when the late Steve Jobs was questioned by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisherabout from All Things Digital about Foxconn in front of a live audence at a D8 conference in San Francisco, he said,

"Oh, sure, yeah.  We're pretty on top of that.  Foxconn is not a sweatshop.  When you go to this place, um.  It's a factory, but my gosh, they got restuarants, and movie theaters and swimming pools.  For a factory, it's a pretty nice factory."

What pissed me off about the Steve Jobs interview is how Jobs discounted the Foxconn suicides, comparing them on a percentage basis to the suicide rates in the U.S.  Jesus, what a heartless punkass.  I didn't hear a single comment of remorse or condolesences to the loved ones and families of those who committed suicide.  His comments were without any emotion, almost unremorseless.  That interview is below:

  

I have written nearly a dozen blog posts relating to Foxconn International, and through my efforts and the news media in general, Apple is finally taking actions and measures to improve working conditions and tightened controls at all of its outsourced overseas vendors.  If you haven't already done so, I encourage you to read all my blog posts about Foxconn International:  October 12, 2011, October 15, 2011, November 7, 2011,  January 31, 2012,  March 3, 2012, March 29, 2012, March 30, 2012, April 2, 2012, August 14, 2012, September 25, 2012, and November 16, 2012.  

In a blog post dated November 16, 2012, I reported that Foxconn International had plans to replace 1.2 million plant workers in China with production robots.  This process has already begun, with 30,000 robots expected to be installed by the end of 2012, and another 200,000 robots to be installed in 2013.  Having said this, it would not surprise me if Apple automates the prouction of an iMac using robots in order to keep costs down.  If Tim Cook is serious about proucting an iMac in the U.S., I wonder if Apple will be a job creator, or job destroyer. 

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Courtesy of an article dated December 6, 2012 appearing in MIT Technology Review

FLORIDA FINISHES COUNTING VOTES AND PRESIDENT OBAMA WINS FLORIDA'S 29 ELECTORAL VOTES, WINS OVERALL WITH 332 VS ROMNEY'S 206

The 2012 General Election is now officially over and in the history books.  Florida finished counting its 2012 General Election votes and as everybody had already predicted two days ago, President Barack Obama won the State of Florida's 29 electoral votes with 49.9% of the total votes, and former Massahusetts Governor Mitt Romney winning only 49.3%.  President Obama also won the popular vote with 50.5% or 61.164 million votes versus 48.0% or 58.159 million votes,  

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Courtesy of an article dated November 8, 2012 appearing in Huffington Post