Sold!

Well, that was fast.

Our house sold in just 7 days. In this market? Well, we must've been under-priced. By a LOT. Still, it meets our financial goals so everything works out.

All that's left to do now is...

• Fill out our applications for long stay visas
• Confirm our apartment in Paris (which is looking quite nice, actually)
• Buy health insurance
• Buy one-way airline tickets
• Collect our financial information
• Sign letters saying we will not work while living in France
• Fly to San Francisco to submit our applications in person
• Say goodbye to my wife's daughter and my brother and sister in law
• Buy a long term storage location
• Close on the house
• Manage the money so we can live overseas
  
• Drive to the south coast to say goodbye to my father and younger brother
  
• Move the few things we'll keep into aforementioned storage location
• Sell or give away everything else that needs to find a new home
• Pack and ship the few pieces of art and tools we like and need
  
• Land in Paris
• Perform a walk-through of the apartment with the owners so we can all confirm it's current condition
• Submit our request to be seen by the immigration doctors
• Wait for our long stay visa sticker
• Start the search for a long term apartment (something closer to what we can afford forever)
• Receive our long stay visa sticker for our passports
  
• Move to the new apartment before Bastille Day
• Unpack (again) and settle in
  
• Integrate into French culture and society
• Live like we're actually fully retired. Finally. After 30 years of work.

That's all that's left to be done. Really not much, eh?

Have I mentioned how tired I am just thinking about it? Have I also mentioned just how exciting it is to actually begin a new life in such an amazing city?

Impact of Corporate America's Myopic Focus on “Profit”

Here is one last display of the Digit of Mischief as I leave America.





This Digit of Mischief is once more directed toward corporations chartered in the USA. Corporations that incorporate portions of their businesses off-shore. Corporations that lay off millions of Americans. Corporations that hire millions of Chinese. Corporations that reap huge profits on Wall Street. Corporations that ensure the US Government does the bidding of Big Business.

Big Business leaders don't care that intellectual property developed in the US is being transferred to China. Big Business is only concerned with profits.

Big Business leaders don't care that it took well educated American workers to develop technologies and products that enable corporate profits. Big Business is only concerned with profits.

Big Business leaders don't care that the People's Republic of China is sponsoring computer network exploitation of company computer systems, extracting peta-bytes of valuable intellectual property. Big Business is only concerned with profits.





Occasionally the western press reports that Chinese-based computer network attacks are disrupting US government, military, and commercial systems. Seldom is the topic tied together in a coherent discussion of the risks to US incorporated commercial interests. Yet, with a little digging and a few discussions with government agencies, it's very easy to see how disruptive coordinated state-sponsored theft of product design and manufacturing process information is to a company's ability to generate revenue long term.

Take a close look at private equity firms and roll-up companies. These kinds of companies are the worst offenders of a long list of corporate profiteers. If you're paying attention what you'll see is that companies narrow focus on revenue has put them at risk for two things. First, moving product development engineering and manufacturing to China opens a company directly to the risk of theft from the inside. While the immediate effect of this is a loss of jobs in the US, the longer term effect is that these kinds of companies either naively or willfully transfer intellectual property and manufacturing process knowledge directly into China.





Second, these companies deliberately resource-starve functions tasked with protecting company intellectual property. Information Technology (IT) departments have recently take the brunt of mass layoffs, while trying to resource these functions out of India. Understaffed, corporate executives place important revenue generating intellectual property at risk of being stolen.

The People's Republic of China attacks computer network systems for two reasons. The first reason is based on recent military doctrine changes. The Chinese feel that successfully disrupting open networks could stall the movement of resources and material long enough for the Chinese military to again the position that target before the US has had a chance to sort out it's disrupted information flows. To support this, the People's Liberation Army has over the past 15 years formed many battalions dedicated to computer network exploitation and computer-based warfare. The Chinese place such high value on military-based CNE that it currently ranks number two in importance behind nuclear defense.

The second reason the Chinese are using CNE is to actively extract intellectual property from US corporations. They intend to reach scientific and industrialization parity with the US by 2020, and to become a world leader by 2050. To accomplish this, the Chinese government has sponsored technology initiatives. Widely known efforts, such as the 863, 973, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and numerous military-industrial partnerships have failed to meet government directed technology-industrialization goals. Due to these widespread research and development failures China has turned to stealing as much IP from the West as they can.





What this means is that the Wall Street economy is at serious risk for it's ability to compete long term. Companies have turned a very blind eye to these revenue impacting risks. The level of Big Business leadership irresponsibility can not be understated.

It was recently reported that two to three peta-bytes of information has been extracted from just 70 US companies in over the past five years. The shear size and success of Chinese IP theft is breath-taking. Yet, Big Business continues to shift as much engineering and production into China as it can, as fast as it can.

If I were invested in equities, I would be very concerned about private-equity and roll-up company management and their long term ability to generate sustainable revenue. If I were a shareholder, I would be very concerned that these companies are actively aiding and abetting a foreign economy at the direct determent of the US economy.





References ~ all found in the public domain

US-China Economic and Security Review Commission

Government Computer News

The Hacker News

Network World

Annual Report from US-China Economic and Security Review Commission to Congress, October 29, 2010

Annuals of National Security, The Online Threat, Should we be worried about a cyber war? By Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, November 1, 2010

Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation. Prepared for The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Project Manager Steve DeWeese, Principal Author Bryan Krekel, Subject Matter Experts George Bakos and Christopher Barnett, October 9, 2009

China’s Program for Science and Technology Modernization: Implications for American Competitiveness. Prepared for The US-China Economica and Security Review Commission. By Micah Springut, Stephen Schlaikjer, and David Chen. CENTRA Technology, Inc. 4121 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 800, Arlington, VA 22203

Fiscal Year 2010 Report to Congress on the Implementation of The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002. Issued by the Office of Management and Budget.

Hearing on Research and Development, Technological Advances in Key Industries, and Changing Trade Flows with China. Briefing Paper by Dr Charles W. McMillion, President, MBG Information Services, 385 Russell Senate Office Building, July 16, 2008

Targeting US Technologies, A Trend Analysis of Reporting from Defense Industry, 2010. Issued by the Defense Security Service

Guojia Zhongchangqi Kexue he Jishu Fazhan Guihua Gangyao (2002-2005), February 9, 2006 -
(translation into English from Chinese required – use Google)

The United States Congress, House Report 105-851, Report of the Select Committee on US National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China, PRC Acquisition of US Technology – submitted by Mr. Cox of California, Chairman -


The China Business Review – Can China’s Government Procurement Market be Cracked? By Jason Matechak and Brett Gerson, 2010


Two chip scandals set back China’s IT industry, by Wu Zhong, China Editor, Hong Cong, Jul 4,2006

Next Significant Step...

The house is now on the market. The proceeds of the sale of this house will augment our investments which will be used to live overseas.

60 days after the house has a firm offer (we already have people coming to view the property), we should be install in Paris. Which means there is a LOT of things that need to fall into place. Airline tickets, apartment, health insurance, and bank account verification letters all need to be in hand prior to visiting the French Consulate.

May we live in interesting times, eh?

Getting Away From The Insanity

I quote a fair number of facts and figures in the following piece. All of it comes from various well-know sources. If there's any question about what I say here, the true to back these claims can be quickly uncovered.





In the USA 37% of the citizens are living in poverty and over 50% live in poverty or with low incomes. The top 1% own 60% of everything and, even worse, the top 0.1% own 40% of everything in the US. 6 million workers have left the labor force due to the lack of jobs. One in four children are at risk for going hungry every day. The Wall Street economy has left the Main Street economy far behind with S&P500 CEO compensation reaching more than 1500 times their average employee's salary.

All of this comes from the supposed "job creators." They need everyone to believe anything but the truth to keep this scheme of moving money upwards into the hands of the already rich in motion. They require we look the other way as our jobs move overseas and our earning and wealth drop. If we saw the truth, we the people might rise up. The rich can't have that and do everything the feel they need to to keep such feelings surpressed.






The truth is, deregulation of business and industry in the US has led a series of economic crises over the past thirty years. Trading houses were deregulated in the 1980's which led to the junk bond debacle. The lack of limits on executive staff “compensation” led to the collapse of Savings and Loans in the early 1990's. The lack of even minimal oversight of investment bankers and venture capitalists led directly to the .com bubble of the late 1990's. The lowering of barriers between financial advising divisions and accountant auditing led to the corporate financial debacle of the early 2000's. Deregulation of the mortgage banking industry during the 2000's led to the worldwide banking crisis that is, even now, still unfolding.

Yet many times I feel I must have lived in a different time and place than many Americans. Listening to the Republican Party debate over who should be crowned the next President, one could be led to believe that US Government regulation was the cause of the current economic mess the country remains floundering in. When I hear any of the current contenders to the throne speak, I'm told that unfettered unregulated business is the One True Way to economic salvation for the country. Get government out of the way, they say.





What universe do these people live in? The Government has deregulated just about everything corporate and banking interests have asked for. What more could the US Government give corporate interests that they have not already given? How can NAFTA and GATT not give the already rich all the means they desire to move money and resources anywhere around the world? Where haven't corporate lobbyists help prepare the laws that have completely freed up the US capitalist system?

The only group of people to not benefit from all this unfettered free-wheeling capitalism is the bottom 99% of Americans.

Wages, earning, and wealth for the bottom 99% has stagnated since 1970. To keep any semblance of earning and wealth in play has meant people work two, sometimes three jobs. We've been told that corporate profits benefit everyone and that CEO's are gods to be worshiped for the amount of wealth they generate. Citizens are bombarded with strange campaigns to dismantle social systems (like "privatizing" Social Security).





One of my favorite sentences, in it's opening definition of the word “fascism”, says that corporate interests pay for access to, and in turn control, a government. Italy during the Mussolini era fits that definition. With the Supreme Court granting unlimited First Amendment “freedom of speech” rights to corporations and with the recent passing of the NDA which grants the military the power to indefinitely detain citizens (completely by-passing any Habeus Corpus rights), does not this very same definition now apply to the United States?

No. I want to leave the country where the only public discourse and argument to be had is for how much more must be spent on armament and how abortions must be stopped. I want to live, at least for a short time, in a country where citizens can argue over how much money should be spent on public art and where people can move freely about the countryside by rail and public transportation.

The house goes on the market very shortly. I hope it sells soon. We'd sure like to be in Europe by Springtime.

Political Reasoning

When the US Supreme Court declared George W. Bush the victor in the 2002 elections, I became worried. I was concerned that the US was suddenly no longer a democracy. I worried that entitled interests could place into power whom so ever they chose and damn the citizenry! I worried that the Supreme Court was irreversibly politicized to the far Right. I had forgotten that the USA is not a democracy, rather, it is a republic.





What I didn't see coming were two disastrous occupations of foreign nations, the legalization of spying on US citizens, the revocation of Habius Corpus, the signing into law legislation that enabled a huge mortgage bubble, and the emptying of public coffers in the 11th hour of George's Presidency as a means of refilling the bank vaults after they experienced stupid, self-initiated economy faltering losses. I hadn't foreseen the successful implementation of the privatization of corporate profits and socialization of corporate losses. Nor had I foreseen the realization of a long-time rich man's dream where the top 1% “own” 90% of everything available in the US.

It was difficult to sit through two election cycles where serious substantive questions were raised regarding the legitimacy of power taken by George W. Bush and his fellow elites. I swore I would move away from the US. Alas, I felt it important to remain here and participate in creating a different way of being and engaging culture and society. I wanted to create beauty in the face of persistent ugliness.

Hope is an ephemeral thing.






With the election of Barack Obama in 2008, I had hope that the precepts of the Magna Carta would be returned to US law and the Bush law revoking the right to fair representation and the right to be held innocent until proven guilty would be overturned. I had hope that the US would pull back from two long, costly occupations, close the Geneva Convention countering Guantanamo Bay prison and would turn it's attention to repairing a very long list of wrongs.

Hindsight and wishful thinking have proved me wrong. Again.






Obama insisted on legislation that allowed the US Military to detain US citizens with no rights of any kind for as long as they chose . This worsened anything George the Dumber and a Republican Congress were able to force upon the American people.

My wife recently asked a very good question: Would we be smart enough to know when it was time to leave?

It is easy to rail against an unjust system of politics. It is easy to see how the rich 1% exploit the 99%. It is easy to be angry that the 99% do not stand up for themselves, rather, continually vote against their own self interests. It is sad to know we are leaving one of the most progressive cities in the USA. It is deeply moving that now is the time to act on our ideals, our concerns, and the movement of our hearts desires.

It's time to leave before someone closes the gates.

Ideological Reasoning

When I took French at the university, we read Sartre's “Les Jeux Sont Faits” as well as of Simenon's “Maigret” detective mysteries. I loved the way the language expressed thoughts and feelings.

Certainly, there is the way French is written which can be quite beautiful and used to express passionate emotions. There is also the fact that the French tend to be rather intellectual. These things appear to be freely expressed amongst themselves, which I find rather refreshing.

I love that the French have no compunctions about talking about sex and politics. I am amazed that French schools still teach philosophy and reasoning. I was surprised to see posters all over Paris when we visited in the Fall of 2011 for a series of lectures by a German philosopher.





That the French laughed at certain Americans for making such a big deal out of President Bill Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky brings a smile to me. Who, but America, could care about who a President is playing with? Only in America would the media and certain sectors of society demand a saint of a simple human while searching, diligently, for their every fault and short-coming.

That the French still teach philosophy tells me they must feel there is more to life and living than making money. Using the mind to engage and interpret the world seems to be important to the French. After all, wasn't it they who developed hydraulic power, demonstrated the use of steam locomotion, the world the fine art of movie making, and spend large sums of money each year on procuring art for public places?

Iam very much looking forward to finding a way into French culture. I would like to hear what people think and feel about a few of the mysteries of life. I'd like to begin to understand how philosophical ideas inform and guide French culture.





In reading “60 Million French People Can't All Be Wrong”, I learned that politics are used as a conversation starter, much in the same way sports is used in the US. This fascinates me. In the US, politics is a full time circus of flim-flam hucksters shilling self destructive policies as a means of improving the upward movement of money to the top 1%. In France, it looks like politics can be seriously discussed and issues carefully examined. Am I being too naive?

Before our recent trip to Paris, I recorded a discussion off Radio France Info. The topic was socialism vs democracy vs capitalism and the role of China in world economics. Four people were actively engaged in a roundtable talk of the place of capitalism in culture, society, and how it seems to be ruining economic systems throughout world. The thing that sticks with me from the discussion is how the speakers felt there is no relationship between democracy and capitalism. Such is thing would be viewed as a heretical statement in the US, even if the statement could be made in the first place. Rather, in the US there would typically be a shouting match between participants who spew nothing more than carefully rehearsed "talking points" (or should I say "shouting points"?).





There is one thing, however, that has me stumped. What I don't yet understand is why the French can't talk about money. Maybe it will become one of Life's Mysteries? Or, perhaps, I'll get to the bottom of this after we spending time in France? Either way, it'll be interesting, educational, and fun.

I hope living in France will prove to engage my mind in ways I find more discrete than the continual bludgeoning it receives any time I turn on a TV in the US.

Deeper Reasoning

I want to say just a little more about why we are choosing to leave the US. Particularly at this time. There are economic aspects to the decision as well as ideological and political reasons.

I touched on one of the economic reasons for leaving in a prior post to this blog. That is, the cost of healthcare in the US is astronomically high.





What I find striking and financially exhausting is that healthcare costs twice as much as any First World country which, at the same time, providing a level of care ranked 37 amoung 191 countries around the world. The clear reason for this is that healthcare in the US is a for profit business.

Insurance company and hospital executives feel entitled to their greed and have no legal, social, or political impediments placed on them that limit their profits. Making money takes precedence over providing services at all levels. In fact, services are routinely denied as a means of improving profits for the already rich 1%.






I get quite angry thinking about the fact that 50% or more of my insurance premium is acting as a direct contribution to executive profit for which I will never see service nor benefit. Unless one counts helping make someone rich as a privilege.

I might as well take at least 50% of my very high healthcare insurance premium out to the back 40 and drop it into a burn barrel.






By contrast, the World Health Organization ranks France's healthcare number one in the world. This, at 50% cheaper than anything the US has to offer. The US healthcare system is clearly broken. This matters to me because as I age I know I will need medical support. Staying the US would mean I face a great risk of being denied services. Or, worst yet, by remaining in the US I would be one serious illness away from needing to declare bankruptcy.

As an ex-patriot, I know I will be funding my own healthcare. I won't be able to take advantage of France's support of a basic human right directly. Even though it will be on my dime, by paying appropriately sized insurance premiums I will, however, have access to a finest medical system in the world, at a fraction of the cost of what I'm currently paying in the US.