Who didn't see this coming?

Judge Denise Cote and the US Department of Justice, apparently.

"Hachette is not the only imprint to find itself under Amazon's thumb as the online retailing giant has begun turning the heat up on smaller publishers in the U.K., demanding terms that one publishing executive likened to a 'form of assisted suicide for the industry.' 

Perhaps emboldened by its victory by proxy over rival Apple in the U.S., Amazon has been 'bullying' U.K. publishers to accept its terms, a representative from one shop told the British broadcaster."

You don't say. This won't stop until the judiciary overturns Judge Cote's decision, or the publishing industry is turned into a wasteland.

Analysis 101: Does the Answer Match the Question?

In my last blog post, I used New York Times columnist Timothy Egan's essay attacking Walmart as a destructive economic force to illustrate a principle of good analysis. After a bit of thought, I decided that it would only be fair to take a look at one of Walmart's counter-argument. (Check out the previous post for links to Egan's editorial and Walmart's cheeky response.)

I promise that this lesson will be shorter than the last one.

Principle of Analysis #2 — Make sure the answer given matches the question posed. 

In response to Egan's claim that "Walmart is a net drain on taxpayers," Walmart retorts that "We are the largest taxpayer in America. Can we see your math?" That's a gutsy claim since Walmart doesn't show it's own math — according to Forbes, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Apple, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan Chase all paid more taxes that Walmart in 2013, so what's the basis for Walmart's claim? How is Walmart defining "taxpayer"? That's the kind of problem I addressed in my previous post and anyone who studied it will know which questions to ask about Walmart's claim there.

But there's a different problem with their answer that I want to address, which is: the answer they gave didn't match the "question" that Egan posed.

Even if Walmart is, by some formulation, the biggest corporate taxpayer in the US, it's still possible for the company to be a net drain on taxpayers. "Paid the most in taxes" and "received more in subsidies than paid in taxes" aren't mutually exclusive. So is Walmart a tax leech? Walmart could've said "no" and showed some math the prove it. Instead, they went for the cheeky answer, offering a statement that makes the company look good — "we pay a lot of taxes" — but they didn't provide evidence that Egan was wrong.

Any politician will tell you that one of the basic rules of debating is "don't answer the question you're asked, answer the question you wish you were asked." That's what Walmart did, essentially. It's a good tactic for the debater but it deprives the audience of the answer they probably wanted to hear.

So the next time you're following a debate and someone gives an answer that seems a little too pat, think hard about whether it actually addresses the question at hand. If it doesn't, the person giving it might be trying to hide something.

Analysis 101: Question the Numbers

New York Times columnist Timothy Egan posted an editorial on June 19 criticizing Walmart, and other corporations for alleged sins in the treatment of their employees. Walmart's brilliant response offers a great opportunity to teach a lesson in basic analysis.

Principle of Analysis #1: Always question the numbers.

You can't follow policy debates very long before someone starts throwing numbers and statistics around. Numbers sound authoritative and most people, lacking strong math skills, tend to blindly swallow them as fact, which let's the numerically-armed control the discussion. The mathematically challenged end up on the defensive because math makes the other guy sound like he's an expert (or at least knows more about the subject).

When someone offering a critical opinion starts tossing out statistics, the first thing any good analyst should do is evaluate the credibility of those numbers. You don't have to be a mathematician or statitician to do it; common sense is enough. Just ask these simple questions.

1. What's the source for the numbers? You'd be surprised how many people just make up numbers out of thin air or repeat numbers they've heard (or think they heard) without knowing their real origin. Don't be afraid to ask for a citation or Internet link. The inability to show you the primary source is a big red flag.

Take a look at the third paragraph of Egan's editorial where he calls Walmart a "net drain on taxpayers." That's a conclusion that must be based in math — "Walmart pays less in taxes than it receives in subsidies" — but Egan doesn't show his math and never offers either Walmart's tax bill or the total number of subsidies the company receives. Without those numbers, readers can't do the math for themselves.

So where does Egan get his numbers? He doesn't say. Later in the piece he references this April 2014 report published by Americans for Tax Fairness, so let's assume he found them there. What follows is a pretty ugly path back to the numbers' original source.

Americans for Tax Fairness says Walmart got $6.2 billion in tax subsidies in 2012. What's their source? This May 2013 report written by the Democratic Staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Where did the 2013 Democratic Staff get their number? By updating this 2004 report from the same committee staff (which I had to dig to find) which asserted, "one 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a cost to federal taxpayers of $420,750 per year."

Where did the 2004 Democratic Staff get their number? By asserting that Walmart's "low wages result in the following additional public costs being passed along to taxpayer..." followed by a list of expense totals from several federal programs like "free and reduced lunches" and "Section 8 housing assistance." But none of the 2004 report's 111 end notes is a citation showing where they got the raw numbers to calculate those totals.

Egan ⇒ Americans for Tax Fairness ⇒ 2013 Democratic Staff ⇒ 2004 Democratic Staff ⇒ ?

In other words, we (and Egan) don't really now where the numbers originated. So Egan's assertion that Walmart is a tax leech likely is grounded in numbers that are at least a decade old and have no cited origin. (We'll quickly see that they're also updated using a questionable methodology).

If Egan knows any of this, he doesn't say it. I'm sure his columns have a word-count limit and he probably doesn't want to chew up column inches with methodological matters; but the omission leaves readers with the impression that he's using current numbers drawn from primary sources, not 10-year old numbers with unknown sources. If Egan hasn't done what I just did, he might not realize it himself. He might've just assumed that Americans for Tax Fairness know what they're talking about...a classic case of the logical fallacy know as "appeal to authority." More on that in a future post.

2. Are the numbers raw or calculated?  When numbers are derived from or adjusted by a mathematical operation or algorithm, there's always the possibility of computational error. Does the person citing the numbers understand how they were calculated? If not, you might offer them a copy of this classic tome.

In our case study, Egan's assertion is based on simple subtraction: subsidies received minus taxes paid equals a positive number, therefore Walmart is a "a net drain on taxpayers." Simple enough...except that it turns out that's not the only mathematical calculation being attempted in that trail of numbers we just tracked. The 2013 Democratic Staff couldn't just use the same numbers in the 2004 report -- almost ten years had passed after all. How did they update them? They extrapolated subsidies data from a single state (Wisconsin), took the medians, and applied them to the other 49 states to come up with an adjusted total for the whole country. 

That's a pretty lousy approach and they know it -- the Democratic Staff admits in its report that "because of varying program eligibility requirements across states, extrapolating taxpayer costs for Walmart stores in other states based on the Wisconsin data is difficult." Difficult isn't the worth for it — "absurd" would be a better term. Add in the disparities and 10-year changes among the 50 states' demographics and any final estimate they could possibly offer would be highly questionable. Neither do they explain that some federal programs impose unfunded mandates on the states, leaving the reader to imagine that the federal government is paying the full 100%. That's not true -- for example, the US government splits Medicaid funding about 50-50 with the states. Do the 2004 or 2014 numbers adjust for that 50% split? We don't know. They don't show us the math.

So even if the 2004 total is solid (which is unconfirmable), the adjusted 2014 number from which Egan must be subtracting Walmart's tax bill is almost certainly bogus.

3. How are the variables defined? When arguing over assertions based in math, one way proponents and opponents shape statistics to their liking is by shaping the definitions that determine which numbers get included in the calculations. So always ask where the lines are drawn.

For example, in our Walmart case study, the 2004 and 2014 Democratic Staffs both tried to total Walmart's government subsidies, but how did they define "subsidies"? Are they just talking about federal subsidies or are state and local subsidies folded in? The 2004 report says "one 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a cost to federal taxpayers..." (emphasis mine), implying that only federal subsidies are included in the tally, but they only list six. How can that be? There are hundred of low-income federal subsidy programs, so did they really only use six in their total? If so, how did they choose those six? Did they use more but not list them? We don't know either way.

The 2014 report compounds the problem by trying to use one state's data (Wisconsin) to update the 2004 number but their list of subsidy programs is slightly different than the ones used to calculate the original 2004 total -- Medicaid is one example that appears in the 2014 report but not the 2004 report. So the 2014 number Egan relies on uses a different definition of "subsidies" than the one used to calculate the 2004 number that it "updates."

Confused yet? If not, good for you. If so, there's no shame in it -- that confusion is what some "experts" count on. I don't know whether any of these groups are trying intentionally to confuse the audience, but the end result is the same either way. They throw out a blizzard of numbers that appear to support their argument, the audience throws up its collective hands in despair, and everyone just assumes credibility.

Don't assume that. Spouting numbers doesn't make someone credible. Some of Egan's other assertions in his piece might be right (and some of Walmart's counterpoints might be wrong)...but given how many problems there are with his first conclusion in an editorial full of conclusions ostensibly drawn from quantitative data, I wouldn't count on it.

Always question the numbers.

Why There's No Profanity in My Books

Some readers have noticed that there's zero profanity in either of my novels and questioned why. After all, foul language seems as common as nouns and verbs in military/espionage thrillers these days, so it's odd to come across one that doesn't have a single curse word in it.

My short answer to the question is: "because my mother reads my books."

My long answer is a bit more involved.

1. I wasn't raised to talk that way, so I don't write that way. I literally cannot remember my father ever uttering a single curse, which is all-the-more impressive given that he was a sergeant in the US Marine Corps and doubtless had heard some choice ones. I can recall my mother cursing exactly once and it was aimed at me — I was a rebellious, whiny teenager who upset her so much one morning that she finally snapped, ordered me to travel on to my eternal destination, and directed me to the less desirable of the two major options. That left a bit of a psychic scar.

Still, despite having better examples before me and like most teenagers do, I experimented with my vocabulary and let some ugly words fly on occasion. That phase lasted for a year or so, but never in front of my parents until the inevitable day that I slipped up. Rather than reaching for the disinfectant, my mother reached for the most potent weapon in any loving parent's arsenal — the expression of disappointment. I don't remember exactly what she said, but I do remember a quote she shared: "profanity is the sign of a weak mind trying to express itself forcefully." That nailed me where it hurt and I've resisted cussing from that day to this.

Some readers of this blog will disagree with that maxim (one friend of mine disagreed and used salty language to tell me so); but this is my blog. Feel free to start your own blog to explain why I'm wrong, but after much thought, I've concluded that that quote was absolutely right. Thus...

2. I believe that profanity is usually a sign of weak writing. Profanity has become so common in modern media that I feel its inclusion almost never adds anything to an artistic work. Profanity has lost its shock value, rendering it useless as a literary device for character development or delivering emotional impact. Think about it -- why is Rhett Butler's profane dismissal of Scarlett O'Hara's desperate plea at the end of Gone With the Wind so cutting? Because it's the only profanity in the entire movie. It might've been the first profanity in a major US film (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Cursing was almost non-existent in film in 1939, so hearing Rhett tell Scarlett in profane terms that he doesn't care what happens to her was so devastating, so shocking, so powerful that the American Film Institute declared it the #1 line of film dialogue of all time.

Compare that to, say, the 2014 movie The Wolf of Wall Street which deployed the f-bomb alone over 500 times (reviewers disagreed on the final tally but the highest reported was 569) which averages to one use of the ugliest word in the English language every 20 seconds ...and that's not even counting the other 120+ non-f-bomb profanities. Think about that -- almost 700 profanities in a 180-minute film, or one every fifteen seconds. If the average person talks at an average rate of ~2.5 words/second, then profanities make up almost 3% of The Wolf of Wall Street's entire dialogue. Throw that much coarse language at viewers and they're so numb to it by the end that it has no ability to move them emotionally—"familiarity breeds contempt." (And that's assuming they weren't totally desensitized to the f-bomb already by the modern media's constant barrage of it.)

With profanity now so nearly useless as a literary device, why use it? Any literary agent will tell you that they reject out-of-hand manuscripts filled with cliches precisely because it's a signal of weak writing, a lack of talent and creative ability to come up with more creative descriptions. Abundant profanity is a symptom of exactly the same problem -- in 99.9999% of the cases, writers who spew profanity on the page are, in my opinion, reaching for the easiest expression to express a character's frustration and anger instead of trying to find a more creative use of the language. A few authors are skilled at using creative cursing as a way to develop characters, but most profane expressions are nothing more than cliched turns of phrase now.

Don't believe me? Since cliches add nothing to a story, try this exercise -- pick up a thriller you know is full of profanity, go through it with a marker, and black out all of the curse words. Then re-read the book critically and see whether the story really loses anything. I'm pretty confident that you'll find it loses a lot less than you might think. If you're an author and you're tempted to throw in some cursing, try taking it as an opportunity to flex your creative muscles and come up with a different way to express the emotion.

This leads to my next reason...

3. But, Mark, people use profanity in the real world all the time. You have to include it if you want to be realistic. Well, no. First, it's not always realistic. When is the last you time you heard the f-bomb 500 times in three hours outside of a movie theater or on cable TV? Maybe there are people who talk like that in the real world, but I don't know any of them and wouldn't associate with them if I did (more on that later).

In any case, everything in a movie, television, show, or book is completely fake. Take a look at any scene in any movie -- barring outdoor shots, the sets are fake. The production crew designed, revised, redesigned, re-revised, and built it *just for that scene* and there's not one object in the frame that someone didn't put there on purpose. The lighting was set up by professionals who do nothing but study lighting so they can achieve a particular look. Screenwriters revised and edited the dialogue dozens, maybe hundreds of times. The director planned, blocked out, reworked, and choreographed the actors' movements.

Sometimes this is all done to produce a highly realistic effect. For example, realism is the raison d'être of documentaries and the less of it present, the less valuable the documentary. But for pure fiction stories, it's often done to create a highly unrealistic effect (The Matrix, anyone?) and in almost any case, realism is completely (and brazenly) at the mercy of the story. Ask any movie director — they will happily dispense with realism if they think it will give the story more impact.

If every other realistic aspect must bow to the story set in this fictional world, then why do such fictional worlds always have to be populated with characters who spew profanity at an appalling rate because "that's realistic"? Why can't we make that fictional world a place where people don't use coarse language?

It's the same with books — there's not one word, sentence, scene, description, etc that the author didn't put there on purpose (okay, stuff slips through the editorial cracks, but, in theory, that stuff would be excised if found). Every single word serves the fake creation of the author's mind carefully crafted to elicit a particular emotion or deliver a specific message to readers. Well, I've already established (I hope) that swearing has become pretty useless for the purpose of emotional delivery. What about as a vehicle for some other message? How does profanity help convey a political, social, or any other kind of message?

I can't recall a single case where I ever thought it did. Even if it can, the utility rate doesn't appear high enough to make it worth keeping in my literary toolbox.

4. Profanity turns off many readers. Friends occasionally ask whether I read reviews of my books. I do. My favorite review of all time was this one, posted on Goodreads by a reader named Jackie about my first novel, Red Cell:

"Another one of those almost 4 star (but not quite) books. Although I should, by all rights, give this an extra star just for being clean and devoid of foul language. Thank you, Mr. Henshaw for providing an entertaining read without offending those sensibilities."

Jackie only gave Red Cell three stars out of five, but I think she represents a quiet group — maybe even a silent majority — who just don't appreciate having foul language thrown at them. I've heard a lot of people say they didn't like a movie or a book because it was full of profanity. I've never heard anyone say, "it would've been a better book (or movie) if it just had a lot more cursing in it." I'm writing for the former because I don't think the latter exists and I think most of the rest really wouldn't even notice a lack of profanity if the story was told well enough to sweep them away.

5. I want to live in a more polite society. The fact is that our society (I'm speaking about the United States here) has become far more coarse and far less civil in my lifetime. Our federal government is grinding to a halt because our leaders can't figure out how to disagree on issues and maintain personal respect for each other at the same time; but that's just a symptom of what's happening among the body politic. We've decided that people who disagree with us aren't just misinformed or mistaken; such people must be downright evil, or at least so stupid that we don't have to respect them.

When did I have that epiphany? On Friday, June 25, 2004. (warning: there's profanity in the linked article and audio soundbite).

Do we really want to celebrate our national leaders verbally attacking each other like that?

I don't think so; but can we realistically expect our leaders to behave any better when the citizens who elected them talk to each other the same way? That's the beauty of and problem with democracy — the people get exactly the kinds of leaders they deserve. Swearing in public used to get the speaker shunned as crude and uncivilized. Now we elect leaders who insult each other in open view of the media and celebrate it, and then get frustrated when those leaders can't work together to solve serious problems. Well, it's our fault for putting them there and for creating a climate where those leaders think such behavior isn't merely okay but actually a sign of strength.

I have no expectations that my books are ever going to radically change society; but I don't have to contribute to that climate.

6. Because I'm a Mormon and faithful Mormons don't curse. Enough said.

That's my long answer. I'm sure that some will say that I'm judging others unfairly, being naive, self-righteous, etc. I hope not. I know that others weren't raised as I was and/or don't believe what I do and don't respect them less when they let an ugly word fly on occasion. I simply believe that profanity adds nothing to the language and detracts plenty. If we want a courteous and respectful society we have to change the ways we think and share our thoughts. We'll never get there if we settle for resorting to the crudest words we know instead of looking for higher ways of expression.

Apple, DoJ Reach e-Book Antitrust Settlement Agreement

"In a court filing on Monday, an attorney representing the plaintiffs in a class action suit seeking damages from Apple's e-book price fixing scheme informed federal Judge Denise Cote that the company has agreed to settle."

This was going to be a separate proceeding from the ongoing anti-trust trial — with Judge Cote having declared Apple guilty of anti-trust violations, she was going to determine whether Apple should pay almost $1 billion in punitive damages. Having settled, Apple will avoid the maximum penalty in the event that its appeal of the original verdict fails. We don't know yet how much the company would pay out in that event, but you can bet it will be a lot less than $840 million.

This isn't an admission of guilt. I don't think there was any question Apple would settle the class action suit. Companies settle such cases more often than not if they think there's any chance they'll have to pay the judgment—and, seriously, did anyone think Apple had a prayer of Judge Cote not hitting them with an almost-$1 billion dollar judgement?

The Weed Agency

Full Disclosure: Jim Geraghty is a friend.

If all comedy is borne of tragedy, then we should lament that Jim Geraghty's The Weed Agency is so funny that it hit the Washington Post's Top Ten Bestsellers list (well deserved) last week. But here's the rub: It hit the nonfiction list. Think about that for a second -- Jim's book, while technically a parody billed as "a comic tale of federal bureaucracy without limits," is such an insightful dissection at how our government works that the Washington Post decided it should be listed on the nonfiction list.

Unfortunately, sometimes you can only tell the truth through fiction and and Jim certainly does that. With fifteen years of federal service under my own belt, I wish I could dispute anything he highlights in the tale but Jim knows whereof he speaks. While he exaggerates for effect as all good satire does, he not exaggerating nearly as much as we should hope. After spending fifteen years in federal service, I can say that his story dredges up more painful memories of bureaucratic sausage-making than I would like.

Jim's a conservative -- he writes for the National Review -- but don't let that steer you away if you're not. Anyone with a vested interest in efficient government -- which should be everyone -- who reads The Weed Agency will find themselves wondering whether they should laugh or cry.

Beating up on Time Warner?

"The Everything Store is shrinking again. Amazon customers who want to order forthcoming Warner Home Video features, including 'The Lego Movie,' '300: Rise of an Empire,' 'Winter’s Tale' and 'Transcendence,' are finding it impossible to do so.

The retailer’s refusal to sell the movies is part of its effort to gain leverage in yet another major confrontation with a supplier to become public in recent weeks...Amazon started refusing preorders for the Time Warner movies in mid-May."

Time Warner is one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world. If Amazon prevails, proving it has the muscle to twist their arm behind their back, it'll be time for the Justice Department to take a long, hard look at Mr. Bezos.