How Government In The UK Pushed Women Out Of Tech

In computing’s early years, when it was considered women’s work, all six programmers of America’s first digital computer, Eniac, were women

See The First Women in Tech Didn’t Leave—Men Pushed Them Out by Christopher Mims of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Sexism in the tech industry is as old as the tech industry itself.

Memos from the U.K.’s government archives reveal that, in 1959, an unnamed British female computer programmer was given an assignment to train two men. The memos said the woman had “a good brain and a special flair” for working with computers. Nevertheless, a year later the men became her managers. Since she was a different class of government worker, she had no chance of ever rising to their pay grade."

"The history of computing, in the U.K. in particular, backs up one of their central conclusions—that simply educating more women and other minorities to be engineers won’t solve the problem.

At its genesis, computer programming faced a double stigma—it was thought of as menial labor, like factory work, and it was feminized, a kind of “women’s work” that wasn’t considered intellectual. Though part of the U.K. government’s low-paid “Machine Operator Class,” women performed knowledge work including programming systems for everything from tax collection and social services to code-breaking and scientific research, using punch cards on a vacuum-tube computer.

Then they were systematically pushed out of the field, says technology historian Marie Hicks, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wrote about it in her recent book, “Programmed Inequality.”

Government leaders in the postwar era held a then-common belief that women shouldn’t be allowed into higher-paid professions with long-term prospects because they would leave as soon as they were married. The result was absurdities such as “retirement parties” for talented women coders still in their 20s.

Instead, the government sought to develop a class of career-minded and management-bound young men.

But replacing experienced women with male novices didn’t go as government bureaucrats planned, according to Dr. Hicks. “They were just hemorrhaging money and time to try and train and recruit this ideal young man, this technocrat who will manage people and machines,” she said.

Not only were the male recruits often less qualified, they frequently left the field because they viewed it as an unmanly profession. A shortage of programmers forced the U.K. government to consolidate its computers in a handful of centers with the remaining coders. It also meant the government demanded gigantic mainframes and ignored more distributed systems of midsize and mini computers, which had become more common by the 1960s and would eventually give rise to the personal computer, Dr. Hicks says.

As a result, the U.K.’s computing industry imploded. By 1968 there was a single firm, ICL, the result of a merger of three other firms. Even with its lock on government contracts, it too struggled."

A Democratic commissioner at the FTC says the sky will not fall with the repeal of net neutrality

See Everybody Calm Down About Net Neutrality by Jon Leibowitz. Excerpts:

"Just as the sky did not fall when the FCC imposed its current Title II version of net neutrality in 2015, it also won’t fall if the FCC reclassifies broadband as an information service later this week—that is, if it follows through with the repeal of so-called net neutrality that has so many up in arms."

"the FCC plan would restore power to police the internet to the Federal Trade Commission."

"It protected internet users from unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive practices for the two decades before the FCC’s 2015 rule, which removed its jurisdiction.

Consider the core principles of net neutrality, which I have long supported: unfettered access of the entire (lawful) internet and transparency about broadband providers’ practices. The FTC worked on those issues for years. In 2000, it conditioned AOL’s acquisition of Time Warner on the combined company’s commitment to treat competing internet providers operating on its network fairly.

Since then, the FTC has defended the rights of municipalities to provide broadband competition and helped drive the public debate about the importance of neutrality rules, even taking action in 2014 against AT&T Mobility for allegedly slowing down the bandwidth of mobile users with “unlimited” data plans.

With its authority restored—and assuming the agency prevails in a challenge to its power pending in a federal appellate court, as is likely—the FTC can hold internet providers to their public promises to maintain an open internet. Every major broadband provider has committed not to block, throttle or unfairly discriminate against lawful content. The FCC’s plan would compel providers to give customers clear and detailed information about their practices—commitments both the FTC and state attorneys general will be able to enforce, since false public disclosures violate the law.

Further, the FTC has used its enforcement authority to bring actions against other corporate practices that harm consumers. It has already done so against many of the biggest companies operating online, including edge providers (Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter), broadband providers (Comcast, AT&T) and distributors ( Dish Network and DirecTV).

The FTC and the Justice Department can also prohibit unfair competition by enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act—a formidable hammer against anyone who would harmfully block, throttle or prioritize traffic.

Perhaps most important, the plan to restore FTC jurisdiction is good for consumers because it puts the nation’s foremost privacy cop back on the beat after a two-year absence. The FTC brought more than 500 privacy and data-security cases against companies large and small. It used this authority against broadband providers selling sensitive personal data without permission or failing to protect customer data from hackers and cyber criminals. The Obama administration called for the FTC to be the sole federal privacy enforcement agency as part of its much-vaunted 2012 Privacy Bill of Rights."

Death By Regulation

By JAMES BROUGHEL of Mercatus. He is a research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and coauthor of the new study "Death by Regulation: How Regulations Can Increase Mortality Risk" with W. Kip Viscusi.

"President Trump and numerous states are following the lead of countries like Canada and the United Kingdom by scaling back regulations that have accumulated over the years.

That's not especially controversial when it comes to ordinary, outdated regulatory clutter. But what happens if these efforts target regulations that originally sought to save lives?

To answer that question, we need to acknowledge an uncomfortable reality: that it's also possible for certain regulations to inadvertently take lives.

The idea sounds controversial — even conspiratorial — but there is evidence to back it up, as my new research shows.

Some policies clearly do save lives. Take the successful phase-out of lead from gasoline decades ago. Some estimates suggest this policy postponed thousands of deaths a year in the 1980s, in large part by lowering male blood pressure levels.

On the other hand, not all policies work as we hope. Fuel efficiency regulations, despite similar good intentions, have led to smaller cars on the road that are more dangerous in an accident.

Beyond unique circumstances like this, there is another, more general, way that policies can increase mortality risk. When the government addresses risks publicly through regulation, people curtail their own spending on things that keep them safe and healthy.

How? Businesses have to spend money complying with regulations, leaving less take-home pay for workers and business owners, as well as higher prices for customers.

A wide swath of people winds up with slightly less income to spend on healthcare, safer products for their kids or housing in a secure neighborhood.

Strange as it may sound, there is a point whereby otherwise life-saving laws and regulations cause private health spending to fall enough that they increase, rather than decrease, mortality risk.

In a new study, Vanderbilt University professor Kip Viscusi and I attempt to determine that point.

The key question is how much of an economy-wide income drop will lead to one expected death.
Using data on what people are willing to spend to reduce their own risk of death, as well as their overall propensity for new health spending, we estimate that number to be around $99.3 million.

Therefore, we should be especially wary of policies that cost more than about $100 million for each life saved. We can expect these policies to cause more deaths than they prevent.

Identifying who pays the price is tricky, as costs are often spread across the American population. The poor and young people, especially children, are groups for whom health spending goes the furthest to reduce mortality risk.

This line of research is not new. For decades, academics and even federal analysts have been aware that a counterproductive cutoff for life-saving policies exists. The Office of Management and Budget, for example, used similar analysis in the early 1990s.

So how can we apply this in practice? Consider Affordable Care Act (ACA) regulations and programs, long subject to claims about lives taken or saved. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for example, said that "thousands will die" if portions of the ACA were repealed.

Evidence from several pre-ACA Medicaid expansions suggests they reduced mortality for between $327,000 and $867,000 per life saved, well below the roughly $100 million cutoff. So one part of the ACA may indeed have potential to lower mortality risk.

Yet other parts of the ACA make consumers spend more on similar (or worse, by their own judgment) health insurance coverage than they previously had.

Subjecting those provisions to close scrutiny is likely to show increased mortality risk for some segments of the population. Determining which effect on mortality is bigger remains an important open question.

More research can help to identify and weed out regulations that are counterproductive with respect to mortality. In general, they will be extremely costly relative to their benefits, or they will target very small risks.

Nine major Obama-era air quality regulations cost an estimated $18.6 billion, which translates into 187 expected deaths. According to studies relied on by the EPA, the rules will delay thousands of deaths — but a 2015 study in the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis showed that there is so much uncertainty surrounding these benefits that the rules could realistically save no one.

Senator Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va., recently echoed the sentiments of Sen. Sanders and other lawmakers when she said, "I did not come here to hurt people."

Yet all laws help some people while hurting others. This unavoidable truth is why policymaking is so controversial.

Acknowledging these tradeoffs involves carefully assessing the outcomes we can expect from policies — outcomes that unfortunately include death."

Washington Post Fact-checker Gives Senate Democrats Four Pinocchios On Tax Claims

Senate Democrats falsely claim GOP tax plan will raise taxes for most working-class families by Glenn Kessler. 

"“On average, middle class families earning less than $86,000 would see a tax increase under the Republican ‘tax reform’ plan.”
— Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), in a tweet, Oct. 27

“The average tax increase on families nationwide earning up to $86,100 would be $794.00”
— Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), in a tweet, Oct. 24

“Under GOP plan, U.S. families making ~$86k see avg tax increase of $794.”
— Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), in a tweet, Oct. 24

A reader asked whether Harris’s tweet was accurate. But when we looked into it, it turns out that many Democrats were tweeting the same talking point — that middle-class families would face an average tax increase under the GOP plan. The three tweets below are just a sampling.

On average, middle class families earning less than $86,000 would see a tax increase under the Republican “tax reform” plan.

— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) October 27, 2017

The average tax increase on families nationwide earning up to $86,100 would be $794.00

— Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) October 24, 2017

Under GOP plan, US families making ~$86k see avg tax increase of $794. This could pay for 1mo of child care & 8.2mos of electric bills in OR

— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) October 24, 2017

It turns out this Twitter blizzard is the result of a bad game of telephone.

The Facts

We traced the talking point to a document put out by the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, essentially the communications arm of Senate Democrats. That document laid out a series of statistics, tailored for each individual state, that purported to show how damaging the evolving Republican tax plan would be for middle-class Americans.

That document had this line on each state page: “The average tax increase on families nationwide earning up to $86,100 would be $794, a significant burden for middle-class families.”

This factoid in turn was sourced to a report by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee. So we tracked that down.

That report had this line: “If enacted, the Republican tax reform proposal would saddle 8 million households that earn up to $86,100 with an average tax increase of $794 — a substantial expense for working families.”

Note the difference. The original report referred to 8 million households receiving a $794 tax increase. Somehow, when it got communicated down the line, that nuance was lost and it was translated into a talking point referring to all working-class families.

Latoya Veal, spokeswoman for the JEC Democrats, explained how the number was calculated. The staff took an estimate by the Tax Policy Center, based on the GOP’s “Unified Framework” released in September. The staff then focused on the households (technically “tax units” in the TPC document) making under $86,100 — the bottom three quintiles of taxpayers — that would face a tax increase. Weighting the tax increase by the number of people in each quintile, the staff came up with an average tax hike of $794 for the people receiving a tax increase.

(Tax Policy Center)

But notice the funny thing about this calculation: Only a small percentage (6.5 percent) of the nearly 122 million households in the bottom three quintiles will actually face a tax increase.

Meanwhile, more than 97 million (80 percent) will receive a tax cut. Doing the math the same way the JEC staff did, we come up with an average tax cut of about $450 for those 97 million households.

Indeed, at the far end of the chart, you will see that every quintile on average receives a tax cut — not a tax increase.

In any tax bill, there are going to be winners and losers. The top quintile receives the biggest average tax cut, both in dollars and change in after-tax income — but also has the largest percentage (32.3 percent) of households that will face a tax increase.

“There are different ways to approach the TPC estimates,” Veal said. “Key Republicans have been asked whether they could guarantee that no middle-class family will get a tax increase under their plan. Our calculation shows that some households — 8 million — making under $86,100 will receive an increase based on TPC’s estimates.”

By the time we contacted the DPCC about the error, The Fact Checker’s questions must have circulated.

“Once we realized that the original report could have been clearer, we updated it immediately,” a spokesman said. Now the updated report makes clearer that 8 million households could face a tax increase — though again it fails to acknowledge that most people would have a tax cut.

The inaccurate tweets remain.

The Pinocchio Test

In their haste to condemn the GOP tax plan, Democrats have spread far and wide the false claim that families making less than $86,100 on average will face a hefty tax hike. Actually, it’s the opposite. Most families in that income range would get a tax cut. Any Democrat who spread this claim should delete their tweets and make clear they were in error. [Update: Harris and Casey deleted their tweets after this column appeared.]"

Setting the Record Straight on Chairman Pai’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order

From the FCC.

Myth vs. Fact

Setting the Record Straight on Chairman Pai’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order

MYTH:  This is the end of the Internet as we know it.

·       FACT:  The Internet was free and open before the Obama Administration’s 2015 heavy-handed Title II Internet regulations, and it will be free and open after they are repealed.

MYTH:  Startups will not be able to compete without Title II regulations.

·       FACT:  Entrepreneurs starting new businesses online thrived long before Title II regulations, and they will continue to flourish with more opportunities to innovate once those regulations are repealed.  Indeed, companies like Google, Facebook, Netflix, and Twitter all started and experienced tremendous growth under the previous light-touch rules.

MYTH:  Internet service providers will block you from visiting the websites you want to visit.

·       FACT:  Internet service providers didn’t block websites before the Obama Administration’s heavy-handed 2015 Internet regulations and won’t after they are repealed.  Any Internet service provider would be required to publicly disclose this practice and would face fierce consumer backlash as well as scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, which will have renewed authority to police unfair, deceptive, and anticompetitive practices.

MYTH:  Investment has flourished under the current regulatory framework.

·       FACT:  Following the adoption of the Obama Administration’s 2015 heavy-handed Internet regulations, broadband investment has fallen for two years in a row—the first time that’s happened outside of a recession in the Internet era.

MYTH:  Broadband providers will charge you a premium if you want to reach certain online content.

·       FACT:  This didn’t happen before the Obama Administration’s 2015 heavy-handed Internet regulations, and it won’t happen after they are repealed.

MYTH:  The current regulatory framework is good for competition.

·       FACT:  Title II regulations are bad for competition.  They disproportionately burden the small Internet service providers and new entrants that are best positioned to introduce more competition into the broadband marketplace.

MYTH:  This will result in “fast lanes” and “slow lanes” on the Internet that will worsen consumers’ online experience.

·       FACT:  Restoring Internet freedom will lead to better, faster, and cheaper broadband for consumers and give startups that need priority access (such as telehealth applications) the chance to offer new services to consumers.

MYTH:  Internet service will be provided in bundles like cable television as has happened in Portugal.

·       FACT:  The Obama FCC itself made clear that the current rules in the United States permit bundled offerings—or “curated” services, as they called it.  So the law regarding bundled services will not change.  Furthermore, the Portugal comparison is false; Portugal has net neutrality rules, yet plans are still offered there that allow consumers to supplement their mobile data plans with additional data packages containing specific bundles of apps.

MYTH:  Title II regulations are good for innovation.

·       FACT:  President Obama’s 2015 heavy-handed Internet regulations have deterred companies from introducing new services and features.  For instance, one major Internet service provider has stated that it put on hold its plans to build out its out-of-home Wi-Fi network because of the uncertainty surrounding the rules.

MYTH:  Reversing Title II regulations will compromise consumers’ online privacy.

·       FACT:  Repealing the Obama Administration’s heavy-handed Internet regulations will promote consumers’ online privacy.  Those regulations stripped the Federal Trade Commission of authority to protect Americans’ broadband privacy.  The plan to restore Internet freedom, by contrast, will put the federal government’s most experienced privacy cop back on the beat.

MYTH:  Repealing Title II regulations will make it harder for disadvantaged Americans to get online.

FACT:  Restoring Internet freedom will lead to greater investment in building and expanding broadband networks in rural and low-income areas as well as additional competition—leading to better, faster, cheaper Internet access for all Americans, including those on the wrong side of the digital divide.

MYTH:  The Federal Trade Commission is not well equipped and has far fewer powers to protect consumers from misconduct by Internet service providers.

·       FACT:  The Federal Trade Commission has broad authority to police unfair, deceptive, and anticompetitive practices online and has brought over 500 enforcement actions to protect consumers online, including actions against Internet service providers and some of the biggest companies in the online ecosystem.  And unlike the FCC, the Federal Trade Commission can order consumer redress (such as refunds) for violations of federal law.

MYTH:  More than 22 million people have filed comments with the agency.  They overwhelmingly want the FCC to preserve and protect net neutrality.

·       FACT:  The commenting process is not an opinion poll—and for good reason.  For example, one third of all comments consist of a single, pro-Title II sentence: “I am in favor of strong net neutrality under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.”  These 7,568,949 identical comments, however, are associated with only 50,508 unique names and street addresses.  Indeed, 7,562,080 of these comments come from 45,001 “individuals” using email addresses from fakemailgenerator.com and submitting the same comment more than 90 times each.  In another example, over 400,000 comments supporting Title II purport to come from “individuals” residing at the same address in Russia.  In any case, as required by federal law, the Chairman’s plan is based on the facts and the law rather than the quantity of comments.  You can see this for yourself at http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db1122/DOC-347927A1.pdf.

MYTH:  You can’t abandon the court-approved Title II rules without a change in circumstances.

FACT:  The Supreme Court has reviewed and upheld only one framework for the Internet—the light-touch framework that the FCC is returning to.  And court precedent makes clear that the FCC can return to that framework without any change in circumstances.

###

Office of Chairman Ajit Pai: (202) 418-2000

Twitter: @AjitPaiFCC

www.fcc.gov/leadership/ajit-pai

This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action.  Release of the full text of a Commission order constitutes official action.  See MCI v. FCC, 515 F.2d 385 (D.C. Cir. 1974).