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Volume VII, No. 3 March 2021 Edition Preview Tower Talk carries articles about health and wealth. Three articles discuss the creation and distribution of wealth. There are two COVID- 19-related articles by Peter Hertzmann, one that unravels the mysteries of “95% effective,” and another suggests appraising not only the medical advice itself but also its source. There is also a polemic advocating recall of the San Francisco School Board for its misplaced efforts at renaming 44 schools and failing to operate the schools it has. Of course, there is a predictable argument between Austin and Van Ness. San Francisco School Board President, Gabriella Lopez Few northern cities serve such a small percent of Throw the Bastards Out the school age eligible students as does SFUSD. James W. Guthrie Middle-class parents rely on private and other non-public schools to a greater degree in San In an early draft of A Connecticut Yankee in King Francisco than any other major American city Arthur‘s Court, Mark twain wrote, “First, God made school board members for practice, then outside of former Confederate states. he made monkeys.” The San Francisco Unified While SFUSD enrollments have been shrinking, School District Board of Education and high- school district spending and hiring have been level central office administrators provide added on the upswing. Over the last two decades, evidence of Twain’s derisive observation. enrollments have plummeted by a third, but the It is likely that our city’s school board and district has added one-third more employees. If the central administration represent one of the added employees were classroom teachers, there most irresponsible government agencies in San might be some justification. However, they are not. Francisco’s modern history. Even the City’s left- It is non-teaching staff, mostly administrators and leaning Mayor has said that the school board is central office personnel, that have been added. acting in an unproductive manner and has filed Money cannot be claimed as an issue. Per pupil a lawsuit against the board for not re-opening expenditures are approaching $20,000 annually. the public schools. An interview with the school That is nearly twice as much as the U.S. public board President published in The New Yorker school average. displayed how empty a vessel she is, engaging in double-speak and criticizing Lincoln and other Teacher salaries have not been the beneficiaries historic notables for their flaws rather than of the school district’s profligate spending. The proclaiming their heroic accomplishments. highest possible salary for a classroom teacher is less than the median household income for San While the school board wastes time and money on Francisco residents. personal political agenda items, such as sponsoring reparations for Native Americans, covering up or For the kind of student to personnel ratios and destroying world-class historic art, and thinking per pupil spending that are taking place in of new names for historically labeled schools, they our city, we should have world-class schools. are defaulting on their principal responsibility: Instead, with our school board and central office providing a good education to students. personnel, we appear to have world-class fools. Opinion, Vignettes, Nostalgia 1 Fair & Accountable
One proposed solution is to subordinate the capacity on the face of the earth and has no school board to the County Board of Supervisors comparison in modern human history. and empower that body to appoint school board Genghis Kahn’s empire would be a rival. Spain members. Research fails to reveal differences at the height of its accumulation of Latin between appointed and elected school boards. American treasure or Victorian England with its Thus, more to the point, a recall election is in colonial hegemony might have been equals, but order. If you have an opportunity to sign a recall those were nations, not a collection of private petition, please do so. individuals and corporations. In the San Francisco Bay Area alone, the Wealth and Its Problems aggregate market value of Apple, Facebook, James Guthrie Alphabet, Netflix, Oracle, Uber, Tesla, and Cisco The United States is the World’s wealthiest Systems exceeds the annual gross domestic nation. Our annual Gross Domestic Product of product of modern-day Great Britain, and equals $33 trillion exceeds all other 40% of the GDP Germany, nations, including China, by a Program Note Europe’s wealthiest nation. wide margin. (On a per capita On Fridays at 11:30am turn to It is not simply financial basis, Switzerland, Ireland, and Channel 998 and watch Your capital that is shifting. Norway have higher GDPs than San Francisco hosted by James Demographers have the U.S.) However, U.S. wealth Guthrie and Megan Sullivan. documented the flow of is not distributed equally, advanced and scientific either by geography or by March guests will be: degree holders from the East household, and as a nation, we March 5: Peter Spencer – Social coast and Midwest to the are deeply in debt. Security and San Francisco. western tech corridor. A seismic social and economic March 12: Peter Hertzmann – Wealth of this magnitude shift began in the 1990’s. The San Francisco and food. portends of disproportionate U.S. economic and technical political influence. All of us living centers of gravity began March 19: Adrienne Jonas – her in San Francisco Towers marvel at moving rapidly west. New York unusual path to SF and her and derive investor and consumer remains a major center for interesting business career. benefits from the brilliant finance, and Washington DC is March 26: Paul Sedway – San efforts of our neighborhood’s the nation’s government hub. Francisco City Planning Issues. technological experts. Conventional manufacturing, energy, and agricultural Nevertheless, one must production dominate the Midwest and South. acknowledge that these ambitious, brilliant However, here is the change. entrepreneurs possess the possibility of unduly influencing the political landscape. Apple’s A massive geopolitical migration of high-tech Tim Cook is routinely discussed as a national knowhow, personal and corporate wealth, and political candidate. Facebook’s founder, Mark potential political influence has congregated Zuckerberg, the fourth wealthiest American after within a 25-mile-wide coastal corporate corridor only Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Tesla’s Elon Musk, beginning with Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, and Amazon’s Jeffrey Bezos, is said to harbor Boeing, and Costco in Seattle and stretching a presidential or senatorial aspirations. thousand miles south through Apple, Netflix, Google, and Cisco, in Silicon Valley and Not only do Tech Titans and their corporations continuing downward to the defense businesses have unmatched wealth and visibility that could of Los Angeles and San Diego. This is the largest be converted to political capital, but they also concentration of privately controlled economic have an additional asset never before previously Opinion, Vignettes, Nostalgia 2 Fair & Accountable
possessed. Tech companies have unquantifiable The two institutions maintain a friendly rivalry reams of information about each of us: our and each probably benefits from the competition. assets, our aspirations, our consumer tastes, and Both are academically distinguished, and our preferences. sometimes they also have good athletic teams. This is particularly true of Stanford which for Modern America is characterized by seldom several recent years has had more successful seen wealth concentration. Today’s Tech Titans athletic teams than any other university in the and their peers comprise less than 1% of the total nation. On the academic side, when combined, U.S. population. They control almost 40% of the two institutions have more living Nobel the nation’s wealth. The situation is every bit as Laureates (35) than any nation, except the United pregnant with the prospect of evil as was possessed States. by Gilded Age Titans of a century ago. Key ingredients then were oil, steel, brute labor, and These schools have contributed powerfully to guile. It is now silicon, technical genius, and hubris. the Bay Area’s, California’s, and the nation’s economies. It is no accident that the electronics Gilded Age tycoons were conservative. They used and emerging biotech revolutions owe their birth their partisan political power to protect their in large measure to the scientific R&D activities interests. Some of today’s Tech Titans follow. For of these two schools. Cal and Stanford together example, the Koch brothers, Charles Munger, are estimated to contribute $200 billion annually and Peter Thiel lean right. However, judging by to California’s $3.14 trillion Gross State Product, their contributions to electoral campaigns, a the fifth largest economy in the World after, the majority of tech billionaires are liberal in their U.S., China, Japan, and Germany. outlook and are capable of using their wealth and foundations to further their political views. The University of California, founded in 1868, is the older and by far the larger of the two Solutions to wealth concentration and institutions. It now enrolls approximately 42,000 disproportionate political influence are hard undergraduate and graduate students. Stanford to come by. Breaking up huge companies risks was founded in 1885 as a private university ceding markets to competitors in China and by California’s former governor and railroad Korea. The issue of potentially inappropriate magnate Leland Stanford and his wife Jane. political influence is complicated by recent a The university is actually named for their son, Supreme Court ruling sustaining the right of Leland Stanford Junior, who died prematurely. It corporations to be political actors. Thus, for the enrolls approximately 19,000 undergraduate and moment, there is little to be done but to be alert graduate students. to corporate misdoing. Cal is a public institution, deriving its charter from the state legislature and governed by a Where Wealth Begins: Economic gubernatorially appointed Board of Regents, Engines in Our Back Yard members of which serve extended terms. James W. Guthrie Stanford has a self-perpetuating Board of Wealth formation relies upon land, labor, and Directors. Each of these oversight bodies is capital. It is in the domain of intellectual capital comprised of highly visible business and political that the San Francisco Bay Area excels. The Bay luminaries who are expected to make substantial Area benefits from the presence of two world- financial contributions. class universities: University of California at Cal’s annual operating budget is $3 billion. Berkeley (“Cal”) and Stanford. The 2020 Forbes Stanford’s annual operating budget is twice as University rankings proclaims Stanford as the large, but that includes Stanford Hospital. Even best university in the United States and Cal as though it is a public institution, Cal derives number seven. only a small percent of its annual revenues Opinion, Vignettes, Nostalgia 3 Fair & Accountable
(about 15 percent) from the state. It, like debt, probably, forever. We have borrowed this privately chartered Stanford, depends heavily money from future generations. This effects the on charitable and alumni donations, contract economy because there is less money for each research funding, endowment income, and person to spend on day to day living. student tuition. Most of the debt is held publicly by U.S. Institutional leadership and governance provide corporations and agencies. Japan and China are an interesting contrast. Stanford has risen to the largest foreign holders of treasury bonds. greatness, primarily as a consequence of having This house of cards will collapse if the United brilliant and dynamic Presidents, seemingly States can no longer pay interest on this debt and blessed decade after decade with creative and sacred treasuries are devalued. And that will forceful CEOs. include treasuries in which the Social Security Trust Fund is invested. We are currently lulled Cal certainly has had highly visible and into complacency because interest rates are at dynamic Chancellors. However, Cal’s academic such a low level that the payments are tolerable. prominence, far more than Stanford’s, is due to This will not continue. the comprehensive role in governance played by the faculty. Faculty appointments and The billionaire map on the next page, brazenly promotions, student academic requirements, expropriated from Money Magazine, is evidence and oversight are provided at Cal by faculty of the increasing household income disparity in committees. Stanford’s faculty is active, but it is America. We are now matching and en route to far more advisory and less operational than is Cal’s. exceeding the excesses of the Gilded Age, more than a century ago. These were the “malefactors The two institutions together and their of great wealth” against whom Teddy Roosevelt multifaceted R&D efforts have spawned literally railed and eventually tamed. thousands of Bay Area and worldwide companies and contribute billions to the economy. Boston At the end of the 19th century and into the early has Harvard and MIT, Los Angeles has UCLA and years of the 20th century, the U.S. economy Cal Tech, but no other U.S. city can boast of two was controlled by a relative few oligarchs. powerhouse universities. Rockefeller, Carnegie, JP Morgan, and Vanderbilt were household names, much as Bezos and One worrisome trend, particularly if it Gates are today. While touting the virtues of accelerates, is the hundreds (Hoover Institute capitalism and competition, Gilded-Age Barons claims thousands) of corporations abandoning relied on cartels, monopolies, stock scams, and California over high taxes and crazy politics. So illegal contracts to control more than half the far, these firms include large employers such as nation’s economic assets and exercised vastly Oracle, Tesla, and Schwab. disproportionate political influence. At the time of his death, in 1877, Cornelius J. Vanderbilt Glaring Problems: Debt and Distribution controlled 15 percent of the U.S. economy. In James W. Guthrie today’s dollars, Vanderbilt’s wealth would equal The United States Federal Government has not approximately $210 billion, more than Jeff Bezos. had a balanced budget in a quarter-of-a-century. While not quite as wealthy or powerful as their The national debt is $23 trillion and growing. counterparts from yesteryear, today’s billionaires Per capita debt share approximates $80,000. are adding to their wealth at alarming rates. (A family of 4 owes $320,000) That means we Together, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, have borrowed $80,000 per person from future Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet (the five top-ranked generations, an amount unlikely to be repaid American billionaires) experienced a collective in our lifetime. It matters because our children 85% increase in their wealth since the pandemic and grandchildren will pay interest on that began. This equates to an added $303 billion in Opinion, Vignettes, Nostalgia 4 Fair & Accountable
wealth in a year. In contrast, the median wealth of resort, always purchase their own island and American households is about $121,700, and due to establish their own nation. COVID-19, there has been a rising inability to cover On the other hand, catering to the low-income monthly bills and a risk of losing one’s home. side of the ledger, financial giveaways, such as Another way to view the enormous concentration guaranteed annual incomes, create government of wealth among America’s billionaires is to realize dependency, encourage individual sloth and that the top five, listed above, have more combined criminality, and dash personal dignity. Similarly, wealth than the total of public-school annual elevating the minimum wage serves principally expenditures for all fifty states. Five persons have to eliminate entry level jobs. more wealth than is spent annually on the schooling New, or at least renewed, approaches are needed. of more than 50 million U.S. school children. A multi-pronged approach is in order. Billionaires Something must be done about wealth need added incentives to give their money away inequality. If it continues at the current pace, or direct it toward good causes. (Bill and Melinda the less fortunate among us, perhaps having Gates are model citizens in this regard.) At the lost hope, will withdraw their fealty to the social lower end of the wealth spectrum, we need contract, and further imperil democracy. financial help and renewed lifetime hope for Simple and outmoded solutions are discussed individual workers, poverty impacted families, everywhere. Vastly increased taxes on the super- and small businesses. We need bold ideas, not rich never fully succeeds They find dozens of old political rhetoric. It is time for a modern-day ways to shield their wealth. They can, as a last equivalent of The New Deal or The Great Society. Opinion, Vignettes, Nostalgia 5 Fair & Accountable
Previously, innovations such as Social Security, two doses of the vaccine compared to the number Medicare, space exploration, Obamacare, federal (162) of study subjects who tested positive on aid to education, environmental protect, and a PCR test for COVID-19 after two doses of the ingenious infrastructure projects such as the placebo. The median follow-up time was two Interstate Highway System have resulted from months. The ratio assumes that the number of Presidential Task Forces. It is time to try this subjects in each study group was equal, which it mechanism again. essentially was. Joe Biden should convene a Presidential Task This method of determining effectivity is one of Force focused on “Post-COVID America.” Its convention and is typically used in drug trials. charge should be a practical plan for a revitalized The difference in this trial is that the placebo is economy, debt retirement, and more equitable not expected to have a positive effect. society. It must be perceived as being and indeed A statistician would state the results differently: operate in a nonpartisan manner. It should be Of the 21,720 subjects who received two doses co-chaired by Vice President Harris and Stanford of the vaccine, 8 subjects tested positive on a University’s Condoleezza Rice. It should be PCR test for COVID-19 in a median period of two provided with expert and bipartisan staff and months following injection. This translates to less required to report by November of 2021. It should than 0.04% of the subjects who were vaccinated scour the nation for ideas, hold widespread public hearings and public forums, distill ideas, later contracted tested positive for COVID-19. and issue an understandable report intended to In lay terms, the vaccine administered in the SFT mobilize Congress and state governments and Lounge is probably much more effective than give Americans confidence that hopeful and 95%. But what about the word “contagious”? We peaceful days lie ahead. are hearing news as to how the South African variant of COVID-19 is twice as contagious as the COVID-19 Vaccination: The initial (?) variant. What does this mean? How Significance of Two Little Words contagious was the first variant? Peter Hertzmann From a technical viewpoint, a contagious disease A two-dose regimen of BNT162b2 conferred 95% is a category of transmittable diseases where the protection against Covid-19 in persons 16 years disease is transferred by physical contact with a of age or older. Safety over a median of 2 months sufferer or by casual contact with their secretions. was similar to that of other viral vaccines. Contagiousness is calculated from an entire This is the conclusion stated in the abstract to population model, not a sample. Thus, much of a paper published in the New England Journal of the current publicity is inaccurate. The measure Medicine on December 31, 2020. BNT162b2 is the of contagiousness is R0. If R0 is less than 1, the technical name for the Pfizer vaccine most of us outbreak will become extinct. If R0 is greater than received. Later in the paper, “95% protection” 1, the outbreak will become an epidemic. The is replaced by “95% effective.” What does “95% value of R0 represents the number of secondary effective” mean? infections caused by one infected individual. It does not mean that you have a one-in-twenty There is disagreement in the infectious disease chance of contracting COVID-19 after two doses profession as at how accurate a predictor R0 is of the vaccine, even though this was written since it is only looking at individual transmission in one of the unsigned emails from Covia instead of the population as a whole. Another Headquarters in Walnut Creek. It simply is the way of stating this is that a non-random small ratio of the number (8) of study subjects who sample of the population may not correctly tested positive on a PCR test for COVID-19 after predict how the entire population may react. Opinion, Vignettes, Nostalgia 6 Fair & Accountable
The CDC estimated value of R0 as of last to use a chemical-based approach and surgeons September for the original variant of COVID-19 tend to use an extraction-based approach. Each is 2.0 to 2.5, or one infected person will cause 2 to looks at illness differently. By the time I was 2.5 secondary infections. With the South African entering that operating room, there were three variant estimated to be twice as contagious, its R0 other common types of doctors: psychiatrists, would be between 4 and 5. pathologists, and radiologists. Last month, it was reported that the South The field of gynecology has become a crossover African variant was believed to have an R0 value profession in that gynecologists are surgeons by of 3. This would indicate that either it is not twice training, yet they also tend to be primary care as contagious or that the R0 value of the original physicians for premenopausal, adult women. variant was only 1.5. Other crossover doctor-types include groups like Further inquiry discloses a wide range R0 values interventional cardiologists. Cardiologists, by of all the virus variants. The South African training are physicians, but an interventional variant may be twice as contagious as the cardiologist is trained to perform limited original variant, but what does that mean it is surgery. twice as contagious for us as individuals? Why does this matter? For the past year, we We are willing to accept that the effectiveness of have been listening to advice and counsel a vaccine in a sample population is a predictor from different doctors and public health of how effective the vaccine will be in the entire officials regarding COVID-19. Sometimes their population. Scientists seem to be less likely to counsel are provided in their introduction and accept contagiousness on the same level. sometimes not. The most common group counsel epidemiologists, but there’s also virologists, immunologists, biostatisticians, evolutionary And Your Source Is? biologists, and persons with the three letters Peter Hertzmann MPH after their name. Some of the experts are In 1978, I was awakened by a phone call just identified as holding an endowed chair or instructing me to rush to El Camino Hospital to as being the administrator of a department in witness ear surgery. My boss was scheduled to a university or hospital. One expert commonly observe the procedure, but luckily for me, he felt seen on MSNBC giving advice has both a Master faint upon entering the operating room. I was of Public Administration and a Master of Science called to take his place. That morning was the degree in addition to his medical degree. My start of my future career developing new surgical issue with all these experts with alphabet devices. It was also the first of many mornings overload is that each looks at the same problem where I would learn about the practice of surgery through different types of training. from the many surgeons I worked with in the Another basic facet of medicine I learned is U.S., Europe, and Japan. that for most doctors, the principles of practice One concept that I learned early in career that I have not changed in one aspect since doctoring later taught other non-doctors who came to me was learned by apprenticing: do what you were for training was that there are different kinds of taught. On many occasions when I was talking doctors and each treats human maladies from to surgeons about changes to a procedure I was a different approach. Initially, there were just proposing, I was told that they do what they physicians and surgeons. Although there are learned in medical school and residency and some differences dating back to guild-produced there was no reason to change. I learned that to doctors versus university-produced doctors in introduce new procedures it was often necessary the late middle ages, the primary difference is to find ways of putting market pressure on the how each approaches illness. Physicians tend surgeons before they would consider a change. Opinion, Vignettes, Nostalgia 7 Fair & Accountable
The most common title given seems to be to be some of the most credible people discussing epidemiologist. How many viewers or readers COVID-19. They tend to be fact based and stay know anything about the field of epidemiology? away from both advice and predictions. Their Wikipedia provides this definition: answers are the least sensational and therefore “Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the least likely to be found on news programs. distribution (who, when, and where), patterns Immunology is another branch of biology, and and determinants of health and disease it covers the immune systems in all organisms. conditions in defined populations.” By definition, There is a subset of immunology that study epidemiology is a data-driven science that relies diseases caused by disorders of the human heavily on statistics. Unfortunately, the advice immune system. Every once in a while, when I see given by epidemiologists is based on little real an immunologist being quoted or interviewed. It data or little accurate data, and more likely to be often feels like the expert has been sought by the predictions based on opinion. It’s not uncommon reporter to say what the reporter wanted, rather for modern epidemiological studies, prior to than provide new information. the pandemic, to be controversial and often discredited. Epidemiologists have learned how to The last type of expert we hear from, the one that coax precise conclusions by selectively applying touches each of us most personally, is the public statistics to carefully massaged data. (I learned health official with the letters MPH behind their this from a biostatistician I worked with at name. The letters mean the person has a master’s Stanford.) Advice from epidemiologists has to degree in public health. (In my career I worked always be investigated further. with many people with the title. They tended to also have the initials JD behind their name and Virology “focuses on the following dimensions work as regulatory lawyers.) A public-health of viruses: their structure, classification and masters is a non-thesis degree with a heavy evolution, their ways to infect and exploit host emphasis on regulations and public policy. Most cells for reproduction, their interaction with host public health workers spend their time enforcing organism physiology and immunity, the diseases codes written by others. they cause, the techniques to isolate and culture them, and their use in research and therapy.” As we are pummeled with information about the Virology is a subfield of microbiology. Virologists pandemic each day, it is important understand have masters or doctorates in the field, and a few the source of the information and how the have also studied medicine. I have found that the training and background of the person providing virologists I have heard interviewed on television the information may color it. My wife is blaming me for ruining her birthday. That’s ridiculous. I didn’t even know it was her birthday. Opinion, Vignettes, Nostalgia 8 Fair & Accountable
Entrez Nous graduate? What if by prank, seniors adopt Adolf Hitler High? Austin and Van Ness reside in SFT 1501. They are bickering again. We can listen. Aus: Perhaps there could be a contest for a school’s name? Aus: London Breed said some nasty things about Van: Good thinking. Schools could sell naming the school board; she is even suing them. That rights just like stadiums. Jeff Bezos could offer seems out of line. some pocket change and change Lowell to “Amazon Prime” or Zuckerberg could pay for the Van: As Mayor she can use the bully pulpit on naming rights for Lincoln and call it, “Face Lift matters important to constituents. High school.” How would that suit you? Aus: But why pick on the school board? What Aus: That would be wrong. Private individuals have they done that justifies a Mayor unloading can name their own buildings however they like. on them? Salesforce Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid Van: Perhaps the question ought to be framed are effectively advertising for big business. differently. Has the school board done anything Lowell is a public institution. NOT deserving of criticism? Van: Oh! So names do matter. Maybe they should Aus: You and I went to school in San Francisco. carry names important historically. Washington We did all right. contributed to the founding of the nation. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Van: When we were in public schools, the school Lincoln freed slaves and kept the Union intact. board did not busy itself with irrelevant issues Those seem to me to be significant like recommending Native American reparations, accomplishments and of continuing relevance. destroying world famous Victor Arnautoff murals at Washington High School, or renaming Aus: I think you are missing the School Board’s 44 schools, including your beloved “Lowell.” point. All of these white men had flaws. Washington owned slaves, Jefferson exploited a Aus: What is wrong with renaming schools? Who slave as his mistress, and Lincoln is said to have cares? held Indians in low regard. Van: One group that cares are alumnae. It takes Van: FDR cheated on his wife, Clinton exploited a away a part of their personal history. You went to youthful intern, Martin Luther King was a Cal. What if the name were changed to Ché philanderer. No human, save possibly Mother Guevara U? Teresa, is without blemishes. I think we had Aus: Might it not be good to have schools named better select heroes for their preponderance of after modern heroes rather than those whose good lest we never have any heroes whatsoever. relevance has faded? Aus: Covia could change SFT to “Kevin Gerber Van: Who might those modern heroes be? Senior Self-Fulfillment Center.” Aus: Let students decide. Tower Talk is published by SFT resident James W. Guthrie. Van: Hip Hop HS, Justin Bieber Nursery School, It is known to but neither seeks nor possesses COVIA Snoop Dog Technical High? approval. The publisher is assisted in typesetting by Peter Hertzmann, proofreading by Jennifer Hamilton, and Aus: If that is what students want, let them have archiving by John Darby. On occasion, other authors it. After all, they attend, we do not. contribute substantive articles. Tower Talk is distributed electronically. Recipients should write to sugarcaen00@ Van: With what frequency should a school’s name gmail.com if they wish to be removed from the distribution change, every year? Should high school seniors list. Recipients wishing an enlarged print copy should make a request and it will be supplied. decide what to name the school for the year they Opinion, Vignettes, Nostalgia 9 Fair & Accountable
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