When you say "scalable," I hear "I don't value your work"

It's completely natural. When a particular process within a business expands rapidly, the business tries to reduce or eliminate the most human-resource-intensive aspects of that expanding business. Because if a process takes individual attention from smart, well trained humans, that shit be way expensive, yo.

So, businesses cut corners. They replace individual attention with standardized processes that can be handled more quickly, handled by computers, or outsourced to Mumbai.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's my job to make it work, and I'm not too bad at my job.

But more often it fails, and things just don't run as well as they ought to.

If the business is, say, a huge computer and mobile device manufacturer, failure to scale just isn't that bad. Maybe some customers are upset. Maybe the bottom line loses a couple percents of a percent of a percent from last quarter's billions.

But if the business in question is a bank, and the process in question is signing a legal affidavit about a foreclosure, failure can equal a miscarriage of justice. And if it's as widespread as this MoJo article suggests, it could also be another blow to our fragile economy.

img: Mr. Burns, by Johnny Tirita

Here's a plan that doesn't cost $700 billion

PFNC doesn't intend just to build shelter. It wants to build communities, and McCarthy said the group expects to have the first pilot community on the ground late next year.

"That was our goal, more than just four walls and a roof but to kind of raise the standard of living in Juarez and other places," Nava said.

The shipping containers, which can be hauled by truck, rail or ship, are designed to stack. PFNC envisions a cluster arrangement, eight side by side and four high, with apartment-type balconies and staircases in the corners.

Clusters could be arranged into squares, creating "a safe little plaza in the middle where we hope to build a soccer field or a playground, some safe area for families to be," Nava said.

PFNC wants to set up programs with maquiladoras to offer housing as an employee benefit, helping cut the high rate of worker turnover, now between 7 percent and 10 percent a month, McCarthy said. The company is working with a Mexican law firm that has handled work-to-own housing programs.

"This is not a rental-type situation or free housing while you work here," McCarthy said. "Rather, the employer takes on some of the burden in setting up the financing program to transfer ownership to the employee."

That's important because PFNC needs large orders to keep costs down so low-wage workers can afford the home. The incentive for employers: Studies show housing for employees dramatically increases retention, and having more workers in a given area will reduce the number of buses maquiladoras run to take people to and from their jobs. |CNN|

Gotta say, I can't quite decide whether or not to be horrified by this story. I mean, there's obviously something sketchy about snapping your finger and saying, "I've got an idea, let's house the Mexicans in shipping containers!" On the other hand, the present living conditions of those workers are abominable.

Predatory bailout?

The defense of the Paulson Plan, as I understand it, is that the assets the government is planning to buy are going to appreciate in value and so this isn't just a trillion taxpayer dollars given away to the investor class, but is also a great opportunity. In other words, the idea is that the market has undervalued these assets and that whoever buys them will make a handsome profit down the road.

And that all sounds great, but you have to ask why the assets are undervalued. Krugman rejects the plan on the grounds that it only makes sense if you assume that the problem is a liquidity problem. I think his point is that Paulson seems to think that demand for mortgage derivatives has collapsed because of a lack of investment capital rather than because of a fundamental problem with housing stock.

And, of course, if that's what Paulson thinks then the Fed Chief is off his rocker, because there clearly is a fundamental problem with housing stock. There was a bubble. It collapsed.

My guess is that Paulson's assumption is a little bit different. He's merely assuming that the debt will be collectable. In short, the plan makes the government the collection agency of last resort. I can think of reasons why Norquist and Rove would approve, but the rest of us should question whether this is the best or only place where leverage could be applied.

And another thing: How much would it cost to make the paper good? $700 billion will pay a lot of bills. In 2006, the average mortgage payment was about $1600. To make the math easy, let's assume the figure is now $2000. On that assumption, the $700 billion could be used to make 350 million monthly mortgage payments. That works out to five mortgage payments per home-owning American household. As long as the plan is to throw money at the problem, why not pay everyone's mortgage through the final day of the Bush Administration?