Civilization, in fact, grows more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. -- HL Mencken
"If at first you don't succeed, you're running about average." - M. H. Alderson (courtesy Chart of the Day)State lotteries are a tax on people who don’t understand mathematics. -- George Johnson
The rewards in business go to the man who does something with an idea.- William Benton
The Gold standard for seeking truth is to formulate testable hypotheses and then try to refute them, not confirm them. -- Karl Popper.
Ritholtz says, “It’s like what Hegel supposedly said: The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” [James Surowiecki, New Yorker, May 3]
"Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune." - Jim Rohn
Ideas in politics, as elsewhere, are forced to fight a grinding battle with circumstance. - AP Thornton
Quote of the Day "What experience and history teach is this--that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it." - Georg Hegel
Warren Buffett says it's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked. --- Investors Guide Daily
Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one young woman and another. -- George Bernard Shaw, "Major Barbara"
Harry Truman's observation "The only thing new under the sun is the history that you don't know,"
Any task can be completed in only one-third more time than is now estimated. N Augustine
The Small Business thought from Giovanni Coratolo, Director, Small Business Council: "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." -Sir Winston Churchill
No problem is so complicated that you cannot make it more complicated. [Andy Grove]
Writing is God's way of showing you how sloppy your thinking is. [Tony Perkins, editor Red Herring quoting a cartoon]
The best decision is the right decision. The next best decision is the wrong one, because you'll soon learn what the right one was supposed to be. The worst decision is no decision at all. - Scott McNealy - seems to work for Sun.
Never make forecasts, especially about the future. - Sam Goldwyn
Definition: a laboratory rat is an animal which when injected with a new chemical produces a scientific paper.
In 1996 handguns were used to murder two people in New Zealand, 15 in Japan, 30 in Britain, 106 in Canada, 211 in Germany, and 9390 in the USA... No matter. Many Americans have already come to the remarkable conclusion that the best route to a safer America is a better-armed America. [The Economist, Apr 4]
Alas, there are all too few Americans left who don't ask the government to subsidize their businesses and their hobbies and ban all of their neighbors' annoying habits. [David Boaz, Cato Policy Report, J/F98]
An economic policy needs to be within the competence, however limited, of those available to administer it. [J Galbraith, Economics in Perspective] SBIR administration, too.
A view on containing Iraq or anyone else: Containment is putting a big dog on a leash. You get to yank the dog, but the dog also gets to yank you. [Peter Feaver, former NSC staffer.
"Life improves slowly and goes wrong fast, and only catastrophe is clearly visible," said Edward Teller.
Not all the little companies we feature are doing things right, but they are all doing things differently. [Tom Post, senior editor, Forbes]
Never use a big word when a diminutive expression can be substituted.[Anonymous]
I wish I could believe the old theory that "if you build a better (fill in the blank), they will come." But everything I've seen in today's crowded marketplace tells me it just ain't so. [Tom Peters, Fast Company, D97/J98]
What you've got with most medical IPOs is a prescription for wealth burn. [I DeGraw, "Good Science and Good Investing", Barrons, Dec 1]
Will Rodgers once said, Nothing you can't spell will ever work.
BE REALISTIC - DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE. Sign above TJ Rodgers's desk
An observer once asked J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, if he understood relativity. "You never understand relativity," Oppenheimer replied, "you just get used to it." Ditto software. [InformationWeek Daily, Jun 26; to subscribe free informationweek@emailpub.com
every time Andy makes a faster processor, Bill uses more of it N Negroponte, Wired, July 97.
Wired's Jargon Watch Anacronym: An acronym so old that no one knows what it stands for anymore. ASCII, SPQR, NKVD. DOD-land. Hint: SPQR is ancient.
Four guys get together, tip a few glasses. Talk grows loud, grievances spill over, bosses are slandered .. and soon everybody is hunched over the table and your best buddy puts a pen to napkin and begins sketching curves shaped like a hockey stick .. an F-16 taking off .. up, up, and to the right. The very next morning your best buddy has reproduced the same idea on his Excel spreadsheet, lots of numbers, rows of numbers, each ballooning as they travel rightward along the page. Next thing you know, you have mortgaged your houses and buttered up an angel or two. The proceeds fetch ten computers, three employees, and 2800 square feet in the Mountain View marshes. You are off to the races, American style, praise the Lord! And damn Microsoft! Then what? R Karlgaard, Forbes ASAP Apr7, 1997
Investors who haven't been tested by a bear market talk like infantrymen who've never been shot at. J Grant, quoted in The Red Herring, Apr97 By James Coates, Tribune Computer Writer February 28, 1997
My advice: instead of desperately seeking the next management hype-o-rama, go back to the eternal verities of business. Better yet, next time you're in a bookstore, buy a novel instead of the latest hot business tome. And put down this fine business magazine - and call a customer, a competitor, or a colleague and ask what's going on. [T Davenport, Prof UT, Fast Company, FM97]
Memo to [subsidiary] President Your company has a terrible record in developing new products. In my 20 years of R&D, I have discovered that having a written commitment with details in it is the only way to break through the typical smoke and bullshit that excuses lack of new product performance. Of course, you have binning distribution problems which are nobody's fault. You have set up a system which allows people to blame their problems on that nebulous area perched between groups. Until you start following more rigorous development methodologies, you haven't a chance in hell of producing a moderately complicated product like the DRAM controller board. [quoted in TJ Rodgers, "No Excuses Management", Doubleday 1992].
The intrinsic capacity of every fiber thread, as thin as
a human hair, is at least one thousand times the capacity of what we
call the "air". One thread could carry all the calls in America on the
peak moment of Mother's Day G Gilder, "Fiber Keeps Its Promise, Forbes
ASAP, Apr7,1997
In a world where science is treated as a branch of magic,
the rewards go to those who behave as illusionists, using sleight of
hand and distraction to create the impression that difficult problems
have easy answers. LR Wiener, Digital Woes, 1993
Peter Drucker is phenomenal. At his age coming up with such great insights! The idea that industries never break even is one I've held since I was at the WSJ editorializing on the energy crisis. In fact, more money has been spent looking for gas and oil than has ever been recovered from the sale of the stuff found so far. This is because in a thriving capitalist system, there is more failure than success. Jude Wanniski, Wired, Jan 97.
This bubble is quite possibly the biggest the country's ever seen. Some of the craziest things are going on in the high-tech area because it has a fair amount of romance and appeal. But once it gets insane, it only gets more insane. W Fleckenstein, quoted in The Red Herring, Apr 97
[Arthur] Clarke's work reflects his personal odyssey from math-and-physics major to penniless writer to well-rewarded visionary in a secluded paradise [Sri Lanka]. While he still has a firm grip on life, Clarke has already composed his epitaph: "He never grew up; but he never stopped growing". Clarke's ideas have helped civilization grow. Engineers will be mining his works for years to come. Brull & Gross, Business Week, Feb 24
Investment genius is a short memory in a bull market. D Dreman, Forbes, Mar10
>in 1916 the richest man in the country, John D Rockefeller, could have paid off the American debt all by himself. In 1997, William Gates and Warren Buffet together could not pay two months' interest on it - about $50B - without going broke. JS Gordon, "Hamilton's Blessing"]. Could that mean that wealth is more evenly distributed now than it was in 1912?
Japan's bureaucratic bust amounts to one more trauma for those who want to believe that mandarins can outperform markets."[P Gigot, WSJ, Jan 31]. This ex-mandarin agrees.
Look for the Public to Play a Much
Bigger Role in IPO Insanity
My first reaction to the Morgan Stanley/Dean Witter deal was
something like, ``Uh, oh -- now individual investors will get a crack
at some of Morgan's initial public offerings.'' After all, Morgan will
now have a big channel of gullible individuals through which it can
pawn off deals the institutions don't want. And let's not forget, most
academic studies have shown that IPOs in general turn out to be
lousy investments.
However, thanks to the Internet, the playing field is becoming
increasingly level. Individuals are getting more sophisticated. They
can now sit at home and get access to real-time stock quotes and much
of the same research and data that until recently was the sole purview
of institutions. And increasingly, companies want their stock to get
into the hands of individuals rather than institutions. In recent
years, Intel has gone out of its way to boost its stock ownership by
individuals.
What about individuals being taken as suckers? Oh, sure, it'll
happen -- especially if we get into another IPO frenzy, when both
brokers and their customers are likely to get overzealous and overly
greedy. But hasn't that always been the way on Wall Street? [Herb
Greenberg, SF Chronicle Feb 6, 97]
Scientific apparatus offers a window to knowledge, but as they grow more elaborate, scientists spend ever more time washing the windows. Isaac Asimov Note: However necessary, such washing is not SBIR was intended for.
Information isn't always power - just ask a librarian. D Brake
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
I had one client recently who said, `We don't need the cream of the crop -- can't you just send me some generic programmers?'' complained Sherry Epley, director of account management at Bedford Consultants in San Francisco, SF Chronicle story on Bay area shortage of computer people.
I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world... perhaps you've seen it. {thanks, Brian Shiffman, Minnesota Project Innovation). Maybe a politician or two will try to take credit for the collection or for the sunrise.
| Wired's Jargon Watch | PEBCAK - tech support shorthand for "Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard", the user is clueless. | Hose and Close - a pattern of behavior exhibited by phone tech-support people who spout a bunch of jargon you don't understand, ask you to perform a bunch of procedures you don't follow, and then abruptly hang up | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Grove's Rules in a Horizontal Industry: 1) don't differentiate without a difference [to your customer's advantage]; 2) be a first mover; 3) price for what the market will bear [simple economics, and be ready to ride the price down]. A Grove, Only the Paranoid Survive, Doubleday, 1996.
Well, you know when you're rocking in a rocking chair, and you go so far that you almost fall over backwards, but at the last instant you catch yourself? That's how I feel all the time. [cabin humor from Brian Shiffman, Minnesota Project Innovation.] If that's not what your high-tech business is doing (feeling), you're not playing the game the way the winners do.
Wired's Jargon Watch: Salmon Day - the experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end.
How many Web developers does it take to change a lightbulb? Four - one to print the business cards, one to futz with the server, one to run a Lycos search, and one to program a CGI script that generates a new lightbulb joke every ten seconds. www.crc.ricoh.com/~marcush/lightbulb/random.cgi Wired, Apr 66
It will always be difficult to appreciate how much trouble we are not having. LR Wiener, Digital Woes, 1993
Leadership is finding out where everyone is going and running like hell to get out in front.V Cerf
Pessimists got that way by financing optimists quoted by John Gardner, "Renewal" San Jose Mercury News Dec 15, 1996
The budget must be balanced, government indebtedness must be reduced, the arrogant authorities must be moderated and controlled, people should learn to work again instead of living off the public dole. Marcus Cicero, (106-43BC). (No, the Romans didn't count years backward.) Quote from Graham Molitor, Fast Company Dec-Jan97
Over the years I have learned that every new management buzzword brought to the boardroom reduces shareholder value by 10%. Last year's buzzword was paradigm shift, which basically says that everything we did before is wrong now, but it isn't our fault. J Rutledge, "Dancing with gorillas" Forbes Dec 2, 1996
Until you've sold the market on your vision, success is only in your own mind. J Garber [CEO, American Rocket Co], Forbes, quoted Dec 2, 1996
As small business owners like to say: "You work 24 hours a day, but at least you get to choose which 24." The Economist,Aug10
In practice technology arises from trial and error by practical people going about their business, and the speed of discovery is determined largely by the extent of economic freedom. [T Kealy, paraphrased in The Economist, Sep 14, 1996]. Kealy published The Economic Laws of Scientific Research
I am a 54-year old female EE that made the transition from defense work to the commercial sector. It took me over two years of rewriting my resume, going to job fairs and networking to get a job. I was willing to take any type of a job in the commercial sector, anywhere. I got an offer from Baynetworks to be the head of a small testing lab for network switches... Skills: Most of my general skills were transferable but I had to learn new ones... Retraining: I did not get any from the government.... Work Hours: actually fewer hours here in the commercial sector. It is not the rat-race it has been touted to be. (It may be for some, especially startups.) In fact there is a shortage of qualified engineers and they are very concerned that people will burn themselves out. Letter to IEEE newsletter.
Just a few years after high tech was declared near death in the US, Silicon Valley, the technology wellspring, has never seen more wealth. Wall St Journal, Oct 8, 1996. Remember the hand-wringing of the 80s about becoming a satellite of Japan? The political fear (and thus opportunity) helped give birth to SBIR.
Professor Sir Harry Kroto won the chemistry [Nobel] prize for discovering a new form of carbon. With the grace we have come to expect of famous scientists in Britain, he celebrated his prize by denouncing the government for not spending more taxpayers' money on his research.. T Kealey, The Sunday Times, Oct 13, 1996
We're living through the greatest miracle in the history of our species - the doubling of life expectancy since the Industrial Revolution - but we prefer to believe that our troubles are growing. J Tierney, New York Times, Sept 29, 1996
Talk to heads of companies that do business internationally and they'll tell you that the US is the best place in the world to do business and that the US government, whether run by Republicans or Democrats, is the best in the world. P Merrill, "Are You Better Off", The Washingtonian, Aug96
What people vaguely call common sense is actually more intricate than most of the technical expertise we admire. Marvin Minsky. which is why, even at the end of the 21st century, there are still no robot plumbers. P Krugman, reporting from 2096. The New York Times, Sept 29, 1996
People who think they know it all are especially annoying to those of us who do. Anon
Weighing up the lesser evil. Real GDP has grown 2.7 % per year on average since Clinton took office, 1.2% under Bush.... Non-farm payrolls have risen 10.7M since end 1992. ...difference between average worker and average voter...young people have been much worse affected but less prone to take their frustrations out on politicians.... His skill at putting voters first rather than, as he promised in 1992, people in general .... The electorate has traditionally turned to Democrats at times of economic insecurity.... Inflation under the two parties has been almost identical since 1947, 4.0 v 4.1% ... real stock prices have grown more rapidly under Democrats, 5.3% compared to 3.5% under Republicans... Republicans are seen as guardians of the bondholders and big business neither of whom has risen in public estimation during the 1990s. S Flanders, Financial Times Oct31, 1996.
America, poor America. ... The playing field must be level, we say. ... Foreign countries pour billions into subsidizing [shipbuilding], so Americans don't stand a chance. So for six long arm-twisting years American negotiators hammered away at this supposed inequity, and a deal was within a whisker of being ratified. But then some people suddenly said, "Oh, you mean this applies to us, too?" A level playing field is one thing but not being able to help your local shipbuilding friends was just not acceptable, and the deal unraveled." New York Times, Oct 9, 1996. Would the Massachusetts and California delegations (who share about 40% of SBIR money) like to see such a leveling of the innovation playing field that SBIR would no longer be "necessary"?
[Since] well over half of Federal spending - other than that on national defense and debt interest - goes in one way or another to retired people, ...something is bound to give. Will retired boomers - who will have even more political clout than today's retired voters - accept a sharply reduced standard of living? Will younger voters accept huge increases in tax rates to support the boomers in the style they have been promised? Or will the government try to square the circle by simply printing the money it needs, creating runaway inflation? One or more of these unthinkable thing will happen. Paul Krugman's New York Times Oct 20 review of Peterson's book Will America Grow Up Before it Grows Old? and Morris's The AARP. As Conan Doyle put in Holmes's mouth "when the impossible has been eliminated, the improbable must be true".
a bunch of babies, two au pairs, a dog and a houseful of interesting guests - all presided over by Danny [Hillis] and his wife Patty. I sat in the living room with Danny and evolutionary biologist Steven Jay Gould as they discussed the effect of massively parallel computers on evolutionary theory. Meanwhile, Danny's mentor, computer scientist Marvin Minsky , played Mozart sonatas on the grand piano in the adjacent room.J Brockman, Upside Nov 96. Great minds at play.
The single largest group [of the Forbes 400] are those who earned their money the old-fashioned way - they inherited it. Alan Abelson Barron's Oct 7, 1996
Why swings in stock high-tech prices? One ounce of emotion equals one pound of facts. , says fund manager Jim O'Shaughnessy. Alternating greed and fear, and the shorter term to focus, the wilder the swings.
The old timers convinced me that the three things that matter are cost, cost, and cost. Gear-heads are price insensitive about technology but cost is what the rest of the country cares about. Steve Perlman, quoted in The Red Herring, Oct 1996.
most of AT&T's Bell Labs managers had to have their e-mail printed out and typed in for them by their secretaries for lack of skill says a Bell Labs technical type. Wonder why young tech entrepreneurs have a culture gap with senior (older or higher) management? But why not? White American males born in the 30s learned their engineering with slide rules, graphs and tables in the 50s and rose easily into management for lack of competition. There just weren't that many of us.
.. we have all changed utterly, therefore nothing that is handed down from the past is of the slightest use. This myth is fostered by politicians of all sorts. Modern Conservatives, as Evelyn Waugh once said, don't believe in conserving anything. J Mortimer, The Sunday Times Aug 18. (Mortimer created Rumpole of the Bailey and She Who Must Be Obeyed). American self-labeled Conservatives want to keep an ancient candidate while changing everything else including a 60-year social compact. Their first attempt last fall ended in a bloody nose. (Who ever thought pioneers would be honored in their generation?)
the over-management of research by a Government intent on efficiency ran the risk of changing the character of the work and losing its greatest strength - its spontaneity. Look at the laser, for example. When it was invented people sat around and said, 'is there ever going to be a conceivable application of this curious phenomenon'? R Oxburgh, The Times, Sep 9, 1996. SBIR companies may well feel the straight-jacket of efficiency in SBIR contracts with mission agencies. Well, you thought it was a grand idea that the agency's topic sounded like what you wanted to do. Now, you just have too much of a good thing.
More than 50 percent of 1989 university graduates were working in civil service jobs four years later. Where? In what dynamic entrepreneurial country often offered as an example for American industry and industrial policy? Germany. H Henzler, Wall Street Journal Europe Aug 27, 1996.
Stuck with an out of date scheme, the Commerce Department does not count software purchased by businesses, whether shrink-wrapped or custom, as part of [GDP] final output. As a result the output numbers undercount the impact of the software industry on economic growth. Business Week, Sep 2. What an insult! And a resulting serious understatement of national growth that politicians rattle on as though the numbers were real.
The only sustainable competitive advantage today is the ability to learn faster than your competitors. A DuGeus, Royal Dutch Shell, said decades ago.
Our solution is to declare the death of Internet mania. It will require the cooperation of everyone involved. VCs and entrepreneurs will need to remember that the goal is to build sustainable business models based upon realistic expectations of market growth, not just to blow stock out the public door. AB Perkins (ed), The Red Herrring, Sep96
The US is blessed with four elements missing in Europe: entrepreneurs, commercial banks looking for loans, large pools of venture capital, ad outstanding capital markets. In the last 4 1/2 years, 3000 US companies have come public through initial public offerings raising more than $150 billion. This compares with fewer than 150 companies coming public in Europe in the last 6 1/2 years. I don't know if 3,000 companies have come public in Europe since Charlemagne, and he became king of the franks in 768. Peter Lynch, Wall Street Journal Sept 20, 1996. Any up and coming new-tech company see Europe as a threat (other than a policy to keep the last tech generation alive as long as it has present workers who vote and strike)?
On July 11, a spectacular bubble burst and a score of improbably overvalued public companies with scant profits, little cash, modest revenues, and unproven business models found themselves worth very little. The Red Herring, Sept 96, "The IPO Bubble"
if Bill Clinton holds on to his lead and if history repeats itself, small caps will outperform large-caps over the next few years by a substantial margin, says Liberty Financial [Barron's Aug 26] small caps rose 17.2 percent a year under Democratic administrations versus 10.2 percent under Republican ones. Now, who's the friend of small business?
vapid sound bites, sleazy attack ads, ritualized TV debates that pass for political communication ... Clinton will no doubt suggest that modest government initiatives will help bring prosperity. Dole will answer that government is obnoxious, that the private sector can do just fine on its own. But unless a miracle happens, both men will simply echo threadbare homilies about economy and society - idea that made sense 30 years ago but no longer speak to urgent problems that ordinary folks understand perfectly well ... The absurd posturing of the 1996 campaign points to a political system that has developed an immune response to the intrusion of serious issues. . L Winner, Technology Review, A/S96. What's next? The death penalty for poverty? A tax-credit for capital gains? A poll on the time of day? Move the White House every month to a another state which voted for the President coupled with 50% tax surcharge on states voting for the loser? Final exams in the Electoral College?
"How will the anti-big-government Republicans fight terrorism while opposing things like taggants to trace bomb-powder? Establish a 'blue ribbon' commission. Nothing scares killers like a panel of experts." The New Republic, Sep 2
The reason to read [Michael] Lind [Up From Conservatism] is that he is an apostate, one of the millions of young, well-educated, and well-off people who joined the GOP in the 1980s to build a new mainstream conservatism, only to see the party taken over by extremists in the 1990s. Their inclusionist dreams were replaced by exclusionist hatreds. Their Burkean deals were displaced by yahoo racism, contempt for the poor, and immigrant-bashing. B Nussbaum, Business Week, Sep 2. As both parties discover, extremes lose general elections, no matter how morally compelling they think their message. The mainstream is live-and-let-live, a bed-rock American virtue.
em>"the platform states, 'Research and development is our commitment to the future.' It then endorses 'de-emphasizing the role of government' - that is, cutting spending - on R&D" The New Republic, Sep2
The essence of strategy lies in creating tomorrow's competitive advantages faster than the competition can mimic the ones you possess today. Prahalad & Hamel, 1990.
Technology may be a liberating force, but what it unleashes resists and often defies those who create it. R Steel, NY Times, July21
If you look at growth, the US is running away from the rest of the world. Our growth, especially in intellectual property, is explosive and is not measured by any standard chart of accounts. The US is the only country in the world with 50 million college grads. We are the only country that graduates 200,000 hard scientists and engineers every year and sends 60% of our college-age population to college. P Merrill, "Are You Better Off", The Washingtonian, Aug96
Intel's DRAM crisis became resolved when Grove went to see CEO Gordon Moore and asked him what a new management would do if he and Moore were replaced. The answer was clear: Get out of DRAMs. Grove then suggested that Moore and he go through the revolving door, come back in, and do it themselves - a forced way to put distance betwen present and past. RA Burgelman, AS Grove, "Strategic Dissonance", California Management Review, 38(2) Winter 1996, p8-28.
This year's Republican platform calls for seven constitutional amendments - on abortion, a balanced budget, victim's rights, school prayer, flag burning, term limits, and citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. There may be a modern day James Madison in San Diego, but he's not at the platform deliberations. AR Hunt (liberal pundit), WSJ 8Aug . If Conservatives want to radicalize a 200 year old institution, what do anti-Conservatives want? Only two of the seven are about the structure of government - one unworkable and the other anti-democratic.
Capitalism is nothing if not surprising. Self interest leads to social wealth. Bad actors create good jobs. Today's bankrupt is tomorrow's profit machine. B Fromson, Washington Post, Jul 21, 1996.
In 1912 the telephone was going to "bring peace on earth, eliminate Southern accents, revolutionize surgery, stamp out heathenism, and save the farm by making the farmer less lonely". Radio, TV, and Internet?
In the semiconductor industry we sell real estate on the wafer a billion dollars an acre. G Moore, Daedalus, Spr96
The lifting of the Iron and Bamboo Curtains has added a billion low-wage workers to the West's labor pool. Thus P Braverman, The Sunday Times, Aug 18, argues that inflation is not a threat.
"Technophilia is back. In truth the return began in the late 80s after a decade of doubts and criticism sometimes bordering on technophobia", says J Lears, Wilson Quarterly Summer96, reviewing Tenner's "Why Things Bite Back".
This year's Republican platform calls for seven constitutional amendments - on abortion, a balanced budget, victim's rights, school prayer, flag burning, term limits, and citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. There may be a modern day James Madison in San Diego, but he's not at the platform deliberations. AR Hunt, WSJ 8Aug .
It is not easy to change human behavior. Notwithstanding this fact, the premise of this [welfare] legislation is that the behavior of certain adults can be changed by making the lives of their children as wretched as possible. This is a fearsome assumption, in my view. It is certainly not a conservative one. DP Moynihan, quoted New York Times 4Aug96. Should the same logic of breaking welfare dependency apply to small business welfare like SBIR or even to large business corporate welfare? Not as long as they can organize politically.