I am taking a short break from reading non-fiction books while I reload my book stack.  I discovered (perhaps rediscovered is a better word) that my wife had purchased Dan Brown's 1998 first book, Digital Fortress, a few years ago.  Digital Fortress was one of three books published by Brown before he hit the big time with The Da Vinci Code.  Since I like all of Brown's later books I decided to read Digital Fortress.

Even though Digital Fortress was written over 15 years ago it fits right into today's headlines.  The book is based on the activity within the National Security Agency (NSA) and the efforts of some of its people to gain access to all encrypted digital communication.  The supposed goal is to gain the capability to protect innocent citizens from the "bad guys" of the world.  However, the supposed "good guys" do some bad things in their efforts to protect all of us.  Human flaws are exposed at the top of our national security leadership. 

In the past few years there has been a lot of discussion concerning the NSA's efforts to combat terrorism through its extensive digital surveillance systems.  Is the NSA spying on innocent citizens conducting their personal business or truly working to root out terrorists?  In an increasingly interconnected digital world more and more of our activity is traceable through electronic records that can be accessed through passwords in many computer systems or by those that can hack through the passwords.  Some of our young people have their entire life history digitally interconnected among their smart phones, the cloud and those organizations handling their financial transactions.  Some of these youngsters don't know how to write a check and seldom use cash.

Are there effective limits that can be placed on NSA or any other agency?  I doubt it.  The only way individuals can protect themselves is to limit the amount of information about themselves that is stored in computer systems.  In this day and age that is extremely difficult to do.  We are all exposed to digital investigation by "good guys" or "bad guys", if we can tell the difference.  It extremely difficult to go off the digital network.  Every day we hear about a new company or new technology that is determined to more fully interconnect us and our information in the digital world.  They want to make our collective lives easier and productive.

Digital Fortress is a bit out of date from a technology perspective.  But its fundamental story line is right on the money for the world we live in today.  Do we fully trust the NSA and other intelligence agencies?  Probably not.  However, there are some really bad people in the world that will inflict damage on the US in any way they can, if they find a way to do so.  Cyber warfare is no longer in the future, it is a reality today. This is a really tough issue to govern and manage but we must find a way to do so while we protect ourselves from the "bad guys".

TPM

Sometimes we read books and when we are finished we ask ourselves a question, what was the real point of the book.  After reading Angus Deaton's recent book, The Great Escape - Health, Wealth and the Origins of Inequality, I asked myself this question.  Mr. Deaton is the Dwight D Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.  He has a big time position at a big time university and has apparently written a number of books.  Hopefully, this book was not his best.  The Great Escape is a random compilation of data and commentary that doesn't address the fundamental issues that drive much of the information that is presented.  However, I actually agreed with some of the his points relative to government-to-government foreign aid that are made in the final chapters of the book.

Mr. Deaton presents many charts on life expectancy, infant mortality, happiness and economics and how they vary by country and change over time.  In general his conclusion is that people living in countries that are wealthier live healthier and happier lives.  What a shock!

The book contains an interesting discussion of the definition of poverty.  The bottom line is that poverty is not easy to measure because it varies dramatically by country and culture.

One of the major topics of The Great Escape is income inequality.  This book is just one of many sources to comment on economic inequality in the US and globally.  For me the bottom line is relatively simple.  Nations, cultures, families and individual people are not equal. We have different genes; lived in different cultures; worked harder, or not, to educate ourselves and worked harder and smarter, or not, throughout our lives in our effort to differentiate ourselves from others.   Each of our lives have been buffeted by the actions our governments historically and during our lives. There can not and should not be any reasonable expectation of anything other than major divergence in economic outcomes. I have met many people that have gone to extraordinary means to improve their lives by leaving the comfort of their home culture to work hard in a completely different and unique environment. I have met others that essentially refuse to do the minimum necessary to elevate themselves on the global economic ladder. The United States was built by people that were aggressive in taking personal risk to improve their economic status. Some won, some lost, tens of millions of people were given the opportunity to succeed. The same opportunity exists today in a different form. 

I also believe that actions taken by western governments and central banks in recent years has helped the rich get richer at the expense of the middle class and the poor.  The irony of this outcome is that the actions were supposedly aimed at helping the middle class and the poor, which is unfortunate. However, we are each responsible for our own actions and life outcomes. 

The subject of foreign aid from rich nations to poor nations is discussed toward the end of the book.  The author makes the point that a high percentage of foreign aid doesn't accomplish a lot of good and may be harmful to the receiver in some circumstances. From my perspective the best aid one nation can give to another is an open trading market. If we give the opportunity to compete to everyone in the world everyone will have the opportunity to improve themselves over time.

The Great Escape and other sources attempt to oversimplify the issues of economic inequality and growth rates and the resulting outcomes that result in different economic circumstances for individuals or groups on a national or international level. The most anyone can ask for is the opportunity to use their individual talents and energy to achieve their goals. Individuals must remove the perceived obstacles in their paths.

In the end we are all unique individuals and we must accept personal responsibility for our actions and outcomes. The responsibility for making The Great Escape lies with each one of us.

TPM

During my recent cruise I read a book that was mostly about trees, yes you read it correctly, trees.  The book is American Canopy - Trees, Forests and the Making of a Nation by Eric Rutkow.  The book is fundamentally about the development of major elements of the US economy based on trees and forest products from the very beginning of the our country to the present day.  The last section of the book deals with the environmental movement in the US and around the globe.  Mr. Rutkow is an environmental lawyer and his personal views toward global warming are clearly presented in the final chapters of the book.

I received American Canopy as a gift and it is unlikely I ever would have bought it myself because of the title. However, the book is extremely interesting and a learned a lot about our nations history that I have never read in any other source. I think everyone understands that trees and wood were critical to our nations early economy. Mr. Rutkow explains in fair amount of detail how the US economy developed based on harvesting and utilizing wood and its impact on our forests. For example, during the colonial period selected tree trunks were exported to England to become masts on English war ships. I really enjoyed reading how Frederick Weyerhaeuser became a forest products industrial giant after coming to the US from Germany with nothing. He also explains how and why Central Park in New York City was developed.

Mr. Rutkow also explains the development of the US Forest Service, the National Park Service and other US government agencies created to protect our nation natural resources from devastation by over zealous industrialists.  He also discusses the evolution of the environmental movement from its very beginning.  I think he does a good job of explaining the evolution of people's thinking on these issues as the national and world economy evolved over decades.  It is clear that politicians struggled to find an appropriate balance between all interests.  We should not be surprised it is taking many years to solve today's issues.

The end of the book is focused on the extensive harvesting of the world's rain forests and the movement to address global warming.  Mr. Rutkow explains his views on these issues without really getting into the details of the various perspectives on the issues. These issues are very complex and deserve a book of their own.

I read a book about trees, really.

TPM

My wife and I just returned from our winter Caribbean cruise.  Check out my updated article on cruising, http://www.thepurplemuse.com/id35.html.

TPM