The Great Debate

Scientists like to think that true measures of our understanding are our ability to predict something, and, in experimental physics, control something. This year’s Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to Serge Haroche and David Wineland for controlling the quantum world in ways that, not so long ago, were simply unthinkable. When I say “controlling the quantum world,” I mean controlling not just the physical motion of a single atom, but also the internal state of the atom. It is the difference between being able to set off an avalanche, and being able to control where every snowflake goes once the avalanche is in motion.

This level of precise control allows us to use the internal states of atoms, ions and photons as information carriers, similar to bits in today’s computers. That means that certain calculations that have been impossible until now can become a lot easier. Soon, thanks to quantum computing, we’re going to be inventing things we never thought to invent before.

Ultimately, quantum physics research is about the pursuit of control—a pursuit that has a long history. Technology, after all, is at its most base form an attempt to better understand and manipulate nature. The first steam engines, for example, were the products of inspired engineering, based on very little understanding of heat, energy, pressure and temperature. The desire to produce more powerful steam engines with higher efficiencies drove us to research, develop and understand more about this aspect of nature. With that understanding came control, in this case over the thermal behavior of groups of atoms and molecules.

The next revolution, and one that is already upon us, is driven by absolute control of individual electrons, atoms, light particles and ions. This year’s Nobel Prize recognizes the latest achievement in humanity’s attempts to control and predict the natural world. I’ll eschew a deep dive into scientific detail—you can read that kind of thing here—but to understand what Haroche and Wineland have done, picture a swing. Swings have a certain rhythm to them that make them very predictable. But the quantum swings that Haroche and Wineland play with are very delicate, and the slightest passing breeze will disturb them. In short, these swings are, left to their own devices, unpredictable and short lived. That is, a quantum swing, once set in motion, quickly stops again.

Haroche and Wineland have worked on ways to keep their quantum swings in motion. Indeed, not just in motion, but predictable for long periods of time.

This is an excerpt from Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, published this week by Penguin Press.

Pittsburgh was one of the smelters of America’s Gilded Age. As the industrial revolution took hold there, Andrew Carnegie was struck by the contrast between “the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer.” Human beings had never before lived in such strikingly different material circumstances, he believed, and the result was “rigid castes” living in “mutual ignorance” and “mutual distrust” of one another.

The twenty-seven-story Mumbai mansion of the Ambani family, rumored to have cost a billion dollars, is just seven miles away from Dharavi, one of the world’s most famous slums, and the gap between these two ways of life is even wider than anything Carnegie could find in the Golden Triangle. So, for that matter, is the difference between Bill Gates’s futuristically wired 66,000-square-foot mansion overlooking Lake Washington, which is nicknamed Xanadu 2.0 and whose library bears an inscription from The Great Gatsby, and the homes of the poor of Washington State, where unemployment in 2012 was slightly above the national average.

The United States has been unable to develop a clear national policy about the Arab Spring largely because Washington does not fully understand what’s happening in the Middle East.

The term, “Arab Spring” is itself misleading. The changes over the past 20 months have produced a fundamental transformation of the region – but not in the way most outside observers anticipated: They reflect the replacement of the dominant Arab national identity by a more Islamic identity.

This change has been evolving for more than 40 years and did not begin in January 2011 with the demonstrations across the Middle East.

The price of sequencing your whole genome is dropping so rapidly that it soon may cost about $1,000 to know your entire genetic blueprint. Our whole genome sequence data can reveal predispositions to diabetes, cancer or psychiatric conditions. It can even help a doctor prescribe the right dosage of certain medications. It will soon be less expensive to sequence your entire genome – to know its more than 20,000 genes and 6 billion DNA building blocks – than to perform some individual genetic tests for cancer or metabolic diseases.

Doctors and researchers believe that this achievement will revolutionize medicine. The ability to link variations in DNA with health and disease could mean radical new ways to predict and treat not just cancer but also heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia.

The issue is that these potentially lifesaving discoveries depend on large numbers of people sharing their private information to enable researchers to compare large genomic databases with relevant disease states, and sharing data is still far from risk free. Individuals are not likely to have confidence in the system until we develop and enact state and federal laws governing the use of genomic sequencing data.

The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a long-standing racial controversy – without any reverberations on the presidential campaign.  This reveals a lot about emerging racial politics of the Obama era.

The court is deciding whether public universities can consider race in their admissions process, and a broad ruling here could make affirmative action illegal across state and federal governments. That means, among other things, less diversity in the halls of power.

The solicitor general for America’s first African-American president cautioned against that fate. The United States needs affirmative action, he told the court, because it helps groom “effective leaders in an increasingly diverse society.”

In every U.S. presidential election, the major party candidates vie to see who can appear tougher on China. Once the election is over, however, the substance of U.S. policy toward China usually changes little and is far more pragmatic than the campaign rhetoric. There are ominous signs, though, that things could be different this time.

The accusations have been among the most caustic ever. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has denounced the Obama administration for being “a near-supplicant to Beijing” on trade matters, human rights and security issues. An Obama ad accuses Romney of shipping U.S. jobs to China through his activities at the Bain Capital financier group, and Democrats charge that Romney as president would not protect U.S. firms from China’s depredations.

In large measure these jabs resemble a quadrennial political ritual. Ronald Reagan repeatedly criticized President Jimmy Carter for establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing. Bill Clinton excoriated the “butchers of Beijing” in the 1992 campaign and promised to stand up to the Chinese government on both trade and human rights issues. Candidate Barack Obama labeled President George W. Bush “a patsy” in dealing with China and promised to go “to the mat” over Beijing’s “unfair” trade practices.

Credit access remains a challenge for millions of Americans, leaving them with limited options to meet their financial obligations. Payday loans are just one form of short-term, small-dollar credit that bridges this gap, ensuring access to cost-competitive, reliable and transparent credit when faced with periodic financial challenges. Unfortunately, this service is often misunderstood and misrepresented, as demonstrated by a recent “Great Debate” piece, “Is the payday loan business on the ropes?” (September 21, 2012).

Fifteen years ago, the payday lending industry emerged because of consumers’ need and demand for access to affordable small-dollar credit – credit that wasn’t readily available to many consumers or offered by many traditional financial institutions. Today, according to the Consumer Federation of America, nearly 40 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, with less than a third feeling financially comfortable. The short-term-credit landscape has evolved over the years, as exemplified by the overwhelming popularity and rising cost of competing products like overdraft programs and bank deposit advances.

Advance America offers payday loans in its 2,400 centers around the country. Before choosing any lender, consumers should carefully weigh their options, including bank and credit union advances, overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees, and missed-payment and utility-reconnection charges. To help inform consumers’ choices, we disclose our one-time, flat fee – typically around $15 per $100 borrowed – as both a dollar amount and an implied annual percentage rate (APR). While most consumers make their credit decisions based on the real cost, we disclose the implied APR to help them compare products and make smart borrowing decisions. However, our loans do not accrue interest: Whether customers repay their loan in three days or 30 days, they pay the same fee. For many, a payday loan makes personal and economic sense – it may actually be their least-expensive option.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney gave his “Mantle of Leadership” speech Monday – his third major attempt in a year to outline his views on foreign policy.

In a speech filled with rhetoric rather than substance, and with repeated and false accusations about President Barack Obama’s national security record, Romney once again talked about how he would “strengthen our partnerships” – and once again failed to explain how he would manage relations with our friends in Europe, with whom we work closely on every major global challenge.

One central thesis in Romney’s speech, and in his criticism of the administration overall, has been that under Obama the U.S. has abandoned its allies. In addition to providing no evidence to support this claim, Romney barely mentioned the closest U.S. allies: our North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners. In fact, this neglect has been a consistent theme throughout Romney’s campaign.

As the District Attorney of New York County, my office, time and time again, finds its criminal investigations thwarted by an absurd system of secrecy whereby criminals can hide their money without even breaking a sweat — or the law.

Welcome to the bizarre world of anonymous shell corporations.

The average American likely knows very little about them. But your average terrorist, drug-trafficker, tax evader or money launderer is well versed in the art of legal anonymity. Every day they make or move illicit money, and America’s lax incorporation laws make it easy to hide the money behind anonymous shell companies and launder it through U. S. and foreign banks and their branches.

Take, for example, the case of Michel De Jesus Huarte, who defrauded Medicare of more than $4.5 million using a fake AIDS clinic in Miami and 29 other anonymous shell companies. It took years for law enforcement to cobble together the web of fraudulent companies that was spread across several states, and it confounded investigators.

Mark Twain labeled the late 19th century the Gilded Age – its glittering surface masking the rot within. This term applies today for the same reasons: The rich get richer; most everyone else gets poorer. And the public thinks corruption rules.

New technologies similarly transformed the economy in that era and boosted productivity even as life for many Americans grew worse. Bloated tycoons? Desperate workers? A threatened middle class? Poverty amid the sweeping progress? Check, check, check and check.

But the silver lining of our current Gilded Age redux is that we left this stunning income inequality behind once. We can do it again. Americans eventually escaped the Gilded Age because they also made it a period of reform that ushered in the Progressive Era.