Book Review: Norse Mythology

Neil Gaiman has recently released a new book entitled Norse Mythology.  This book, per the introduction, is a labor of love on Gaiman's part and he is trying to share his love of story as well as demonstrate how many stories are really very old, they are just retold in slight variations with new names for the characters.  However, I fear this ends up being his "Silmarillion": bookish, pedantic and missing the crafting required to have made it a whole rather than a collection of parts.

Between Muspell and Niflheim was a void, an empty place of nothingness, without form.  The rivers of the mist world flowed into the void, which was called Ginnungagap, the "yawning gap".

Gaiman has tried to piece together a set of myths into a whole story.  In my opinion, this does not work terribly well.  There are a bunch of episodes, almost like a sitcom that nearly resets at the end of each episode.  A few events have consequences later in the book, but relatively little.  I kept having flashbacks to a rendition of "You're a good man, Charlie Brown" as one parallel to this book.
More fascinating are the characters of Thor, Loki and Odin.  Thor is powerful, but yet makes bad choices and falls victim to his hubris (actually reminds me a lot of a certain current politician).  Loki causes trouble simply because he is bored.  He lies so well to people he does so just to see if he can get away with it.  Odin is wise and thoughtful but somehow never seems to lead action:  Thor and/or Loki are always taking care of the business at hand.  We also have a lot of giants of different types that are involved in the stories and as a result few humans.  But in many ways the gods (the Vanir and Aesir) and the giants are of recognizable human archetypes.  If one thinks of these as stories told to children, then adults who would exhibit the behaviors in the story could appear to be giants, so in a way it fits.
I found it to be disjointed, fairly pedantic (I mean at a few points, family history was being explained to the extent I thought I was reading Deuteronomy), and a struggle to keep my interest.  The end where Ragnarok was explained, (and this is the point: it was explained rather than it being a story told) it seemed a list of unrelated events.  Your mileage may vary and perhaps if you have already been submersed into this ethos, his re-telling might be splendid.  Gaiman has made a brave try, but unfortunately, I have to give it a C.

Executive Order 13784:Opioid Crisis

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13784 is entitled "Establishing the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis."  This EO was originally issued on March 29th, 2017 and it has 9 sections.

Section 1

This section defines the policy as combating drug abuse, including opioid abuse.  There is a mention of 50,000 deaths due to this "public health crisis".  It is unclear whether this means drug abuse in general or just opioids.  On the commission website, it mentions 33,000 deaths due to opioid overdoses.

Section 2

This section establishes a commission.  The commission is chaired by Chris Christie and will closely coordinate with Jared Kushner according to the website.  The website has a statement to "check back soon for updates regarding the Commission and its upcoming meetings."  There is also available a commission charter document.  This document was created April 24, 2017 and is quite vague although its unclear whether that is by design or because no work is being done.

Section 3

This section makes vague statements as to the membership of the commission.  In a May 10, 2017 press release the intent to appoint individuals to the commission was announced.

Section 4

This section defines the mission of the commission.  There are 6 subsections.  In summary the mission ends up being to summarize where we are and recommend where we should go from here.

Section 5

This section defines that the commission should work under the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).  The commission members will not be paid other than travel expenses.

Section 6

This section defines that spending by the commission will come out of the ONDCP budget.  I have not read the recently released President's proposed budget to see if ONDCP is up or down next year.

Section 7

This section defines the requirements for reports.  First, within 90 days an interim report is to be issued and by Oct 1, a final report is to be issued.  The 90 day deadline is coming up fast.

Section 8

This section provides a sunset clause for the commission such that it is dissolved automatically 30 days after submittal of the final report.

Section 9

This section includes the necessary legal fine print to ensure the constitutionality of the EO.

My commentary

The drug abuse problem is a real tragedy.  It is disgraceful that so many people ended up being addicted to pain pills and from there moved onto other drugs while making large profits for drug manufacturers and other entities in the health care sector.
It appears that the proposed members of the commission are relatively serious people.  I imagine that the commission will not come back with a recommendation to build a wall along the Mexican border as has been proposed during the presidential campaign.
While Opioids, especially synthetic variants, are relatively new, I don't see that there is anything that fundamentally changes what we have been doing for the last 30-40 years (or longer) with regards to fighting drug addiction.  There is both a demand and a supply side.  On the demand side is education, treatment and just getting people not to use drugs.  On the supply side is cracking down on the manufacture and distribution of drugs.  Actions taken on either side have unintended consequences on the other side.  The problem is complex and often drug addition is just a symptom of other underlying problems such as physical/sexual abuse or undiagnosed mental illness.  Also, there are proponents of legalization vs. prohibition to consider along the lines of when alcohol was prohibited for that short time in American history.  There will not be a magic bullet and therefore the solutions are difficult to craft, effectiveness will be difficult to measure and all of this will leave an impression in the general public of civil servants arguing over minutiae that really does not matter.
It is disappointing that this problem and the commission are not getting the attention, budget and urgency of what is probably one of the most significant social problems facing the USA.  I am still hopeful that some good will come out of the commission, but it could certainly also result in nothing.

Executive Order 13785: Enforcing Antidumping Duties

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13785 is entitled "Establishing Enhanced Collection and Enforcement of Antidumping and Countervailing Duties and Violations of Trade and Customs Laws" and it has 6 sections.  This EO was originally issued on March 31, 2017.

Section 1

This section defines the policy of the administration.  It notes that there are $2.3 billion of duties owed to the government that are uncollected.  It does not specify whether this is current accounts receivable or if this is just what has been written off as bad debts.  Also, to put it in perspective, compared to the trillions of dollars of imports annually, this is a rounding error.  The section goes on to mandate risk based bonding requirements.

Section 2

This section provides definitions for "importer" and "covered importer".

Section 3

This section directs that the Secretary of Homeland Security provide a plan within 90 days for implementation of risk based bonding requirements on covered importers.

Section 4

This section discusses cracking down on violators of trade and customs laws generally, but specifically with regards to "knock-off" products.  It also promises to share information with rights holders regarding violations that occur.

Section 5

This section directs the Attorney General to give prosecution of trade violations high priority.

Section 6

This section includes the usual fine print to ensure the constitutionality of the EO.

My Commentary

I do not know how much resources were allocated to detecting and pursuing trade violations including those regarding "knock-off" products prior to the issue of this EO.  My opinion is that adding to these resources is not value for money although large corporations who have trademarks and those industries who have been battling with lower priced imports may feel better because of the issuance of this EO.
First, there is a process already for filing for a review of whether something is being dumped on the American market.  If you search in the Federal Register for "antidumping", there are thousands of notices of investigations that are in process and have been performed for specific products.  Of course these are all initiated after the fact once the goods are already released through customs.  Application of duties or penalties on the importer after the conclusion of the investigation is where some or all of the mentioned $2.3 billion comes from.  If the importing company has little or no assets and if the exporting company does not have a presence in the US, then there is nothing that the government can do to collect the money, it just shuts down that importer.  You can see how this might end up in a game of whack-a-mole.  I do not imply that this kind of behavior does not cause harm.  Certainly any anti-competitive behavior can harm small businesses.
Second, focusing enforcement efforts here will likely not yield significant results and if the risk-based methodology that is adapted is overly broad it can result in being a deterrent to trade and could be perceived as a reason for retaliation against US exports by other countries.
Finally, the end result of success with regards to the actions being initiated by this EO will result in higher prices paid by consumers and end users of the goods that end up in the dragnet.  Higher import tariffs mean higher prices.  The argument that would be made is that it will stimulate domestic supply, but in many cases, such as stainless steel pipe and tubing, new production is capital intensive since you have to first build a steel mill.  It may certainly allow domestic production to rise a little, but my opinion is that there have been a lot of costs to be able to get to that point which would outweigh any benefits.

Executive Order 13786: Trade Deficits

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13786 is entitled "Omnibus report on significant trade deficits" and has 3 sections.  This EO was originally issued on March 31, 2017 and there have been several additional EO's regarding the topic of trade since then.  In the commentary I will do a bit of a review of the subsequent EO's and try to summarize and critique the theme that is being pursued by this administration.

Section 1

This section outlines the policy of the current administration.  They feel that the trade deficit needs to be eliminated.  Some of the perceived benefits of this include more domestic manufacturing and hence more well-paying jobs.  The causes of the deficits include perceived unfair trade practices by other countries.

Section 2

This Section mandates that a report is produced to determine the causes of the trade deficit and identify specific countries which may be using unfair trade practices that are exacerbating the trade deficit.  Also, the report needs to review the defense industry to assure that trade practices are not creating national security vulnerabilities.

Section 3

This section has the usual fine print to assure that the EO is constitutional.

My commentary

To start, I want to throw out a disclaimer.  I am not an economist, so I may well have some of this wrong, but I have tried to think it through to the best of my ability.
The stated $700 billion trade deficit represents about 3.5% of GDP.  To eliminate this, either imports have to drop or exports have to rise.  If you are going to reduce imports, that can be accomplished in one of two ways.  Either prices paid by consumers have to rise to a level such that domestic manufacturing of those items is profitable, or domestic manufacturing has to be subsidized or labor costs have to be reduced to the necessary extent so that it is price competitive with imports.  Raw material cost is assumed to be equal for both domestic and foreign manufacture because markets for materials are largely global and variances in costs are due to local taxes.  If you let prices rise, this is inflation and correspondingly, it will create pressure to raise wages...there is danger there that it could spiral out of control.  If you start to subsidize industries that are not competitive, this starts a trade war and is antithetical to the concept of a free market.  Subsidies have to be paid by taxes, so here you end up with a tax hike.  Trying to raise exports runs into similar problems, so there is no magic bullet in terms of policy that can shift the balance without suffering in some way.  Perhaps some measures for both sides can result in some shrinkage of the trade deficit, but any attempt to capture the full 3.5% in a short period will be an economic shock.  There is an article in the Economist Magazine of May 12th that discusses this at some length.
One of the knock-on effects of the trade deficit is that foreigners are trying to find a safe place to stash all the US dollars that they are earning.  This has resulted in foreign ownership of a large part of the bills and bonds by which the Federal government has financed the budget deficits over the past 20 years.  If this in-flow of money were to stop, interest rates paid on US Treasury bills and bonds would rise significantly leading to a budget crisis and potentially hyperinflation.
Innovation and productivity growth appear to be the best ways to address the labor cost imbalance between the US and other countries.  However, this is trending towards automation of manufacturing processes (for example using robots) and the net result of that is a loss of jobs.  Without government intervention, the trend will be towards a two-tier society of have's and have-not's.
This topic has been the subject of several other subsequent EO's and this was a theme of the election campaign for the current administration.  I've written about these here, here and here.  Creating jobs through the government's levers of action is difficult, short of just directly hiring more people, but the President also has to fight the headwinds of the conservative movement who want to stop government intervening in the economy.  Clearly the President's team has no real underlying policy plan nor even an underlying philosophy that would inform the generation of a policy plan.  The ideas that have been floated have come from across the spectrum of thought: leaving NAFTA, reducing taxes, infrastructure stimulus but using other people's money.  It is incoherent populism signifying nothing and now with the political turmoil paralyzing Congress, unlikely to achieve anything either.

Update on previous post

Update regarding EO 13800 on Cybersecurity: I received and email from the Social Security Administration (SSA) that they are adding a second method of 2 factor authentication for logging into the SSA website.  Now you can select either a cell phone text message or as of June 10, 2017, a code sent to your main email address.  Of course, using the email message method, people need to realize that they should use different passwords for pretty much every single account.  Keeping track of all the various passwords can become a hassle and there are various methods I have seen.  One is to have a notebook to write all this stuff down in.  Some browsers have add-in password managers.  One person I know has a password protected and encrypted XL sheet that they keep all their passwords in.  Nonetheless, this is a good step forward and if you have not done so, you should turn on two factor authentication.

Executive Order 13787:

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order 13787 is entitled "Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Justice" and has 4 sections.

Section 1

This section further defines the order of succession for the position of Attorney General and lists 3 specific US Attorneys who would be in the line of succession.  These are the US Attorneys for the Eastern District of Virginia, Eastern District of North Carolina and Northern District of Texas.

Section 2

This section lists three exceptions, one being that if a person is in an acting capacity, then they cannot become the acting attorney general.  The second being that the person also has to meet the requirements under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998.

Section 3

This section revokes a previous EO (13775 to be specific).

Section 4

This section includes a legal caveat to assure the constitutionality of the EO.

My Commentary

This is the kind of thing that EO's are appropriate to.  Who these specific people are is a matter of Republican party internal politics.  I have included this in my blog for the sake of completeness.

Executive Order 13800: Cybersecurity

What the Executive Order says

Executive Order 13800 is entitled "Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure."  It has 5 sections and is unusually long, running 7 pages in the Federal Register.

Section 1

This section defines the policy which is described in the first subsection as risk management at both the agency and department level as well as at the overall executive branch level due to the interdependent nature of the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure.  The next subsection defines the rationale for needed action.  This consists of relatively vague criticisms of how poorly it has been done in the recent past.  Point (v) though is a good statement and this really should have been part of the policy statement.

1(b)(v) Effective risk management requires agency heads to lead integrated teams of senior executives with expertise in IT, security, budgeting, acquisition, law, privacy, and human resources.

IT exists at the nexus of technology, privacy and service delivery.  The listed aspects have all need to be balanced in a suitable way.  When something happens, it often generates scary headlines and there is a communications function to this EO to provide confidence to citizens that there is seriousness in government to assure that systems work and that they and the data they handle are secure.
The next subsection is entitled "Risk Management".  This provides some direction to heads of Agencies, first and foremost stressing that they are responsible for assessing risks and assuring that adequate resources are provided to be able to reduce the risks to acceptable levels.  There is a requirement for each Head to provide a risk management report within 90 days and then goes on to describe what is required to be in the report.  Upon receipt of the report, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of the OMB shall review the report to see if the risk levels and mitigation plans are adequate.  A summary of the agency reports will be compiled into a report to the President.  This applies to classified systems as well as unclassified ones. 1(c)(vi)(A) implies that solutions need to be selected with the potential to deploy them across multiple agencies if possible.  1(c)(vi)(B) requests a second report to the President on whether we can just simply buy and deploy a new set of computers on a single huge network based on the assumption that newer is always better.
1(c)(vi)(C) gives "National Security Systems" an allowance for being exempt from the requirements of the EO if it can be justified in some way.

Section 2

This section discusses cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, for example the electrical grid and power stations.  This directs that it is considered how Government can support private industry and provide that in a report and update the report annually.  Subsection (c) calls for a review of policies and practices and the report could well suggest additional regulation.  The next subsection focus on Distributed Denial of Service attacks and a separate report on these is requested.  The next section specifically looks at vulnerabilities in the electrical distribution system and requests a report on that. The last subsection focuses on defense industries, their supply chain as well as military systems and yet another report is requested.

Section 3

This section starts with a policy statement that internet availability for all is good.  It then goes on to look at options for deterring adversaries, international cooperation and workforce development.  Various reports are generated on these topics.

Section 4

This section provides definitions for "appropriate stakeholders", "information technology", "IT architecture" and "network architecture".  It is not clear why this was not at the beginning of the EO and got stuck at the end.

Section 5

This section contains the usual legal fine print to assure the constitutionality of the EO.

My commentary

Reading through this, it strikes me that there is no one that has a big picture view of where we are.  I feel that a lot of what is mandated for reporting is fact-finding, but the kind that is trying to substantiate hunches which might be the kernel of a different plan already hatched but realized to be sufficiently controversial such that justification needs to be generated.  In the press, there has been much discussion of exploited vulnerabilities, often situations where it was the users rather than some system flaw that was exploited to gain access, read files and wreak the ensuing havoc.
Having or creating an overarching IT strategy for the government and using the tools available to government, including regulation, to have sufficiently secure, reliable and usable IT systems is a laudable goal.  However, reaching that goal, and if we are to infer things from this EO and media headlines, is going to take money, people, time and enforcement of rules to a much greater extent than what one might believe from the messaging so far: "It will be great, we'll get it done quickly and you will never have to worry about it again."
While diversity can be an obstacle in some senses, it also has to be recognized as a part of defense in depth for IT systems.  Common-mode failures can affect the entirety of a homogenous system.  If the interfaces can be constructed adequately, having a granular network structure that has firewalls between segments which contain some amount of diversity, diversity could be an effective way to contain issues provided the overhead of implementation does not break the usability or maintainability of the systems involved.
It seems to me that consideration should be given to the establishment of a new department of the Executive branch with overarching responsibility for IT deployment and support.  There is mention in the EO promoting information sharing.  This could be made unnecessary through a central function.  Ultimately, if no such Department of IT is established, it should be a major agency within one of the existing departments but with a branch level mission and sufficient authority to guide and direct all IT activities in the Executive branch, if not all three branches.
Dialogue and cooperation with the private sector, whether that is critical infrastructure or defense industry does have some risks.  For example, does it create moral hazard in private companies getting free consulting from the government on IT systems design, deployment and maintenance?  Alternatively, close cooperation with a large software or hardware firm can lead to corruption and the appearance of bias or favoritism for procurement.  Hopefully the appropriate people assure that these concerns are addressed during the report writing stage when they look at recommendations for any proposed cooperation with the private sector.

Executive Order 13799: Election Integrity

What the Executive Order says

Exective Order (EO) 13799 is entitled "Establishment of Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity."  It has 7 sections.  This Executive Order establishes a commission to look at the election process "to promote fair and honest Federal elections".

Section 1

This section is simply a statement that the commission is established.

Section 2

This section defines the membership of the commission.  It is chaired by the Vice President.  up to an additional 15 members can be added to the commission by appointed of the President.  Essentially anyone whomsoever is deemed appropriate by the President can be appointed.

Section 3

This section defines the mission of the commission and there are three aspects relating to the areas of voter registration and the voting process for Federal elections.  The report to be submitted to the President is advisory and as such any and all recommendations made by the commission can be ignored without any justification.  The three aspects to be considered include what the rules are which "enhance the American people's confidence in the integrity of the voting process"; what rules undermine that confidence; and what vulnerabilities there are in the registration and voting systems that could lead to fraudulent registration and voting.

Section 4

This section defines 4 terms: improper voter registration; improper voting; fraudulent voter registration; and fraudulent voting.

Section 5

This states that the commission shall hold public meetings and will be staffed, although it does not state out of what budget, but likely it is to be inferred that it is the budget of the Executive Office of the President.

Section 6

This section states that the commission will be disbanded 30 days after the submission of the report.

Section 7

This section includes the usual legal fine print to ensure that the EO is constitutional.

My Commentary

As many readers know, the whole idea of this commission was spawned from the debacle of some early morning tweeting about how 3-5 million fraudulent or improper votes were cast and this was the only reason the President lost the national popular vote in the November 2016 Presidential election despite willing a  majority of electoral college votes.  No known evidence has ever been put forward that would substantiate that such a large number of fraudulent or improper votes were cast.  There have been proven isolated cases, but to the best of my knowledge these total less than 100 votes across the nation.
Months ago, there had been discussion of the establishment of this kind of commission and in fact, the Vice President had been named as the chair some time ago.  This EO is only making the entire exercise official.  There have been sporadic press reports on the non-progress of the investigation.  It is assumed that there will now actually be some activity on the subject.
There is a balance that needs to be achieved between making voter identification sufficiently rigorous to prevent fraud and preventing citizens who are entitled to vote from doing so.  One option is to have adequate government records of people, especially poor and indigent people who often do not obtain or keep any kind of identification documents.  This tends towards intrusion when attempting to be as inclusive as possible.  The other option is a policy where if the voter does not possess certain kinds of official documents, they are unable to exercise their right to vote.  This can be crafted to target, in a political way, certain populations either for enhancement or for suppression.  Any form of ID that is acceptable also has to be evaluated for the possibility of fraud.
Each state administers their voting system differently and the votes for Federal elections are implemented by each state.  Changes to voter laws may be impossible to do at the Federal level.
An opportunity is presented to this commission which is to review the voting processes in each state and to gather best practices that best balance between verification and empowerment to vote.  Conversely, it can be cynically supposed that the commission will look for ways that successfully impede the ability to vote of certain demographics in the populations.  It will be determined by whether the focus is on the Republic or the Republicans.