Rant: We Live in Amazing Times

I hate the way some people chide developments in technology, as if progress were something to be feared. Multi-player video games? “What about exercise?,” they scold. Email? “Makes things too impersonal,” they say. Facebook? “What about the quality of the relationships?” they shrill. iPhone? “But we’ll be glued to our phones at the expense of real life,” they argue. Each and every one of the naysayers reminds me of Victorian England–a place where people yearned for fixed rules and regulations designed to ostracize newcomers and entrepreneurs.

Every time a new communications invention occurs, we should be ecstatic. Google is apparently working on a phone that will automatically translate languages. Do you realize that within five to ten years, we might be able to call anyone on the planet and have a conversation?

Also, the internet is a godsend for people who are better at writing and reading than speaking and small talk. What’s wrong with a medium that gives an advantage to people who excel at spelling, writing, and grammar? What's wrong with being able to instantly broadcast your ideas to the world for free? Yes, there are some downsides to giving everyone a microphone, but why not focus on the gems we wouldn't have discovered if Big Media (GE, Disney, News Corp, Viacom, CBS) were still in total control of mainstream media?

Overall, the pace of innovation over the last fifteen years has been amazing. We can watch movies and television shows online (Hulu); sell anything directly to millions of people (eBay); talk to people worldwide for free (thank you, Skype); text message anyone (VZ, T); and keep in touch with friends and acquaintances with minimal effort. I realize we're in a recession, and the unemployment picture isn't pretty. But if you ask me, what we've accomplished over the last fifteen years is much more useful to the average person than going to the moon. Yet, almost all Americans loved the idea of space travel and were rightly proud of the Apollo missions. It is sad today to see most Americans not as openly appreciative of our more recent inventions. As far as I'm concerned, what we've done over the last fifteen years is just as good, if not better, than going to the moon. I'm just sayin'.

Sample Letter to Congressperson re: Hearing Aid Tax Credit

If you saw my review of Plantronics recent shareholder meeting, you noticed that Congress is considering a hearing aid tax credit. Unfortunately, the House bill doesn't cover most hearing-impaired working adults. In contrast, Senator Harkin's version of the bill--S. 1019--covers all hearing-impaired persons. If you would like to write your Congressperson and support Senator Harkin's bill, I have included a sample letter below. Just fill in the name of your House Representative, your own name at the bottom, and paste it in an email to your Rep. Your House Representative can be located here.

Dear Honorable NAME OF REPRESENTATIVE:

I am a long-time resident of your congressional district. I am writing you regarding HR 1646 (The Hearing Aid Tax Credit bill.)

I understand you are a co-sponsor of this bill. Unfortunately, this bill limits the tax credit to hearing impaired people who are 55 and older and dependents. The bill completely ignores working people who are under the age of 55.

Without well-functioning hearing aids, hearing-impaired workers will not have full access to the workplace. Thus, they will be unable to compete with other workers.

Expanding the tax credit to all ages will ensure that hearing-impaired workers will be able to compete in the workplace. Accordingly, I ask you to support an amendment to this bill which was ensure that credit would be extended to all regarding of age.

This amendment would be similar to the S. 1019, which covers all ages.

In closing, thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME

Plantronics Annual Shareholder Meeting (2010)

Plantronics (PLT) held its 2010 annual shareholder meeting on July 27, 2010. About ten shareholders were treated to tea, Peet's coffee, and bottled water. When entering Plantronics' headquarters, you will see a small (about 50 yards) museum on your right-hand side. This museum chronicles Plantronics' accomplishments since 1960, including its work with NASA and the Apollo shuttle launches. One of the most interesting museum pieces is an autographed picture from Buzz Aldrin to Plantronics' salesperson Steve Spragens. This space-age theme seems to heavily influence Plantronics ambiance--its building sections have names like Apollo, Cosmos, and Quasar.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into Plantronics, other than the mini-museum, was the pleasant vibe. The employees seemed happy and productive, and Investor Relations personnel made me feel very welcome. I was surprised, because the previous day, when the company reported what seemed like good earnings, Wall Street still punished the stock by 10%. (Note: over the past two years, PLT stock has soundly beat the S&P 500.)

Plantronics' CEO Kenneth Kannappan delivered most of the formal and informal presentation using a slideshow. Plantronics seeks to deliver unified communications ("UC") to corporations, positioning itself as the primary communications integrator for a company. The goal of UC is to integrate a company's voice, data, and video-based communications systems. Although Plantronics creates the majority of its software internally, Plantronics works with Cisco (CSCO), Microsoft (MSFT), and IBM (IBM) to implement UC programs (10K, page 3).

CEO Kannappan said he wanted to make communicating "simple and enticing" so that the return on investing in Plantronics' products would be justified. He also discussed Plantronics' focus on improving the "fidelity of the conversation."

Speaking of improving conversations, Plantronics owns Clarity, which makes phones and devices for the hearing impaired. I happen to be hearing impaired, and I use a Plantronics' Ameriphone XL-50 telephone. It is a big, clunky device, but it has served me well for the past decade. Without it, I'm not sure I'd be able to run my own business as a solo practitioner. The Clarity division doesn't significantly add to Plantronics' bottom line, but it still helps--in the first quarter of fiscal 2010, Clarity contributed $4.1 million to Plantronics' overall $141.2 million. More recently, in 1Q fiscal 2011, Clarity revenue was $5.1 million out of a total corporate revenue of $170.7 million.

Perhaps Clarity isn't doing as well as it should. As Americans get older, more and more them are losing their hearing, so it's surprising not to see a larger demand for Clarity products. I believe the low sales comes from a lack of attention and marketing of the Clarity brand. For example, when I was writing this post, I tried to log on to Clarity's website to view more products. The website was down. Earlier, when I had a chance to view an ad for the Clarity amplified C4220 telephone on Clarity's own website, the word "intelligent"--a word most elementary schoolchildren can write--was mis-spelled. (Note: I bought the C4200 and hope to use it soon. It is apparently a significant upgrade over the much older XL-50.)

Also, how many people would be happier with a higher maximum volume of their cell phones? I own a Palm Pre Plus (HPQ), and although I am happy with it overall, I rarely use it to talk, because its amplification isn't very high. When I was shopping for cell phones, I assumed I had no options for a good conversation and focused on comparing text messaging features. It turns out that Plantronics offers a cell phone--the ClarityLife C900--for senior citizens (a code word generally used in corporate-speak to refer to people who are hearing and/or visually impaired). It would have been nice to be able to walk into a store and try the C900 before buying a smartphone.

Anyway, I'm not surprised at the lack of attention given to hearing impaired professionals--society is used to children and senior citizens being hearing impaired, but not anyone in between. How else can we explain why the recent House bill (HR 1646) on a hearing aid tax credit only covers children and senior citizens? Boo to Reps. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Vern Ehlers (R-MI). My family had to spend thousands of dollars for hearing aids when I was growing up with no government support. Now that a bill might be passed to help ease the burden of spending 3,500 to 10,000 dollars on hearing aids, the House wants to exclude hearing impaired adult professionals like me?

(Kudos to Sen. Thomas Harkin (D-IA) for sponsoring S. 1019, which covers all age groups. It's hard not to love Iowans--the state has a low unemployment rate, moderate politics, and basketball star Ali Farokhmanesh.)

Anyway, back to the meeting. The Q&A session was brief. Another shareholder asked, "Are you hiring?" CEO Kannappan said the company was hiring in UC, firmware/software, software support, tech support, and field sales agents, and the increase in hiring would be "gradual."

I asked about Plantronics' decision to shut down and sell a 200,000+ square foot building in Suzhou, China. Plantronics had decided to move its Bluetooth headset manufacturing operations from Suzhou to Weifang, China. (See 10K, page 14.) CEO Kannappan said the new supplier in Weifang, China is in a better position to offer Plantronics "cost-savings."

Disclosure: I own an insignificant number of Plantronics (PLT) shares.

Criminals, by the Numbers

The American justice system, by the numbers:

1.7 million criminals behind bars.
4.3 million people on probation.
700,000 people on parole.

From Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2010, page 74, citing, American Interest, March/April 2010.

Bonus: "California's prison guards have become the state's largest personnel expense, creating a situation in which the government's cost to house each prisoner is an astounding $45,000 per year." More HERE and HERE.

Goldman Sachs' Report on Immigration

In 2008, Goldman Sachs issued an excellent report on immigration and the American economy. You can read the report HERE. The paragraph below is probably one of the most interesting parts of the report:

Immigration is probably a small net positive for the federal budget, because incremental tax revenues outweigh the limited services allowed to immigrants. States and localities often pick up the slack in providing social services to immigrants, and therefore incur considerable costs, particularly in states with a large share of unauthorized migrants.

The costs immigrants pose to the federal budget are probably relatively low. The welfare reform passed in 1996 stipulated that states could not use federal grants to finance benefits such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Medicaid, etc. to non-citizens, though they could still offer such assistance with their own funds. However, the American-born children of immigrants (whether authorized or not) are citizens and thus entitled to benefits.

At the same time, immigrants do provide tax revenues to the Treasury. Even illegal immigrants pay federal taxes: in order to demonstrate eligibility for employment, undocumented workers often use fake Social Security cards with numbers “borrowed” from others or simply made up. When federal payroll taxes and income taxes are withheld from their paychecks, funds accumulate in the Social Security trust funds with no parallel entitlement. Since the Immigration Reform & Control Act went into effect during the late 1980s, inflows into the ‘Earnings Suspense File’ have increased dramatically (Exhibit 8). The cumulative taxes held in this account are $463 billion...

The situation at the state and local levels is very different. According to a ruling of the Supreme Court, these jurisdictions cannot withhold public education and emergency medical services from either legal or illegal immigrants residing in the United States (Hanson, p. 13). As states generally foot the bill for these services, outlays for immigrants likely outweigh the corresponding tax revenues.

Like I said, very interesting stuff. Overall, it sounds like Goldman Sachs is saying that the federal government receives benefits from illegal immigration while states and local governments do not.

Political Polarization

From Chris Hedges’ book The Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle:

What counts today isn’t engaging the other side with reasoned arguments; it’s building a rabid fan base by demonizing the other side and stoking the audience’s collective sense of outrage and victimization. And that’s a job best performed not by serious thinkers but by hacks and hucksters. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Joseph Farah, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin: they adorn the cathedral of conservatism like so many gargoyles.

Hat tip to Not a Potted Plant.

Bonus, from same author and book:

We are a culture that has been denied, or has passively given up, the linguistic and intellectual tools to cope with complexity, to separate illusion from reality. We have traded the printed word for the gleaming image. Public rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to a ten-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. Most of us speak at this level, are entertained and think at this level. We have transformed our culture into a vast replica of Pinocchio's Pleasure Island, where boys were lured with the promise of no school and endless fun. They were all, however, turned into donkeys -- a symbol, in Italian culture, of ignorance and stupidity.

I find myself both awed and saddened by Hedges' summary of American public discussion.

On Family

I had a conversation recently with a friend who discussed the difficulties of child-rearing. Then I read this:

The truth is that, with the birth of the first child, marvelous changes take place. From that moment on, mama is no longer the center of attention; the baby is. Mama and papa will give—-and willingly-—and the baby will take. They will assume responsibility, earn money, employ their energy, change their lives, if necessary—-all for the baby. This is no light undertaking, but the business of life is starting now, and every day of mama's life proves it to be so. And here her struggle starts. She wants to give everything to the baby; she wants equally to hold on to herself, her intelligence and uniqueness, while the baby constantly tries her patience, her strength, her nerves, and roots out of her the deepest emotions she has ever known in her life. This is a whole new process, and not one that provides built-in security.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Fascinating Atlantic article from 1961 HERE.