On Television’s Sunset: Thinking outside the Box

Sometimes I think the human mind is like a train in being limited to the tracks that have already been laid. We are habituated to think it sufficient that we can turn off the main line on to another at the next signal. We think this is change because it involves turning onto a different track, but is it really change if the train is still on track?

A while back, someone thinking outside the box suggested  to me that because many watches and clocks were already computerized as of 2012, we could have sunrise pegged at 7am and sunset at 7pm every day of the year. The number of seconds in a minute would be adjusted accordingly. During the winter, a minute during daylight would have less than sixty seconds and a minute at night would have more. During summer, it would be the reverse. The inventive mind behind this idea was trying to obviate the problems involved with when to go on and off daylight savings time. As it stood in 2012 in the United States, the two dates were not symmetrical with regard to the amount of daylight (going on daylight savings time during the second week in February would match the first week of November). Of course, there is nothing magical about 7, except perhaps in Judaism. Under the inventive scheme, the time of sunset could be extended even to 10pm during the summer (each minute during daylight would have less than sixty seconds), going back to 7pm during the fall, winter and early spring.

Besides the fact that time itself does not change, at least as experienced by us, one problem with “fixing” the times of sunrise and sunset as envisioned by the inventive mind is, as one critic said, “the power of television.” We are habituated to TV Guide, and thus would not want to see 60 Minutes scheduled for fifty minutes one week in one season and seventy-five in another season. Being of a certain length of time, a given television show would be scheduled for different durations, as per the number of seconds in a minute. “Television would never stand for that,” so said one detractor. Absolving myself of responsibility, I replied, “It was all his idea, not mine.” Even though I thought of the idea as a thought experiment having value in stretching the human mind beyond the existing tracks, it occurred to me that the assumption that television has too much power is too narrow. The thought experiment can have value in getting us off the tracks (rather than off track) of our usual way of circumscribed thinking.

 Larry King, formerly of CNN, embraced online programming.      CNN

On March 12, 2012, Ora.tv was announced. Financed by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú and co-founded by Larry King of New York, the planned internet television network “will have a slate of television shows of varying lengths and will stream them via the Internet to computers, phones, and television sets . . . by bypassing traditional television distribution systems."[1] Viewable on laptops, ipods, ipads, and smartphones, “television” shows could bypass the overpriced cable systems.

Even without Ora.tv, TV Guide was being relegated by the existence of video on demand, available on a laptop, ipad, or phone. Beyond video on demand, Ora.tv could only have an “irregular” schedule, given the differing lengths of the various programs. Having programs taped at varying lengths, it would not matter how long they run in real time even if there is a schedule (i.e., were the number of seconds in a minute changed so sunset would occur at 7pm year-round). So much for the power of television.

As early as 2010, people had told me they had disconnected their cable and were using their television screens to watch movies on DVD from Netflix or an already-antiquated video store. Television programs, like that which Larry King had on CNN and was planning for Ora.tv in 2012, do not benefit from a big screen as much as does a film like Avatar or Titanic. Hence Larry decided to discontinue his series of specials at CNN so he could turn to the internet venture that he had co-founded. Regarding his decision to depart CNN, King said, “When the train gets to the last station, you know to get off.”

What if technological change itself can outstrip even going onto another existing track? What if we have reached the last station with tracks? Might the human mind be able to travel trackless? Absent a way to rid Earth of its tilt, we are stuck with changing lengths of daylight. I mention proposal as a thought experiment to show how unnecessarily limited our way of thinking typically is (e.g., “television would never allow it.”). The context or paradigm itself can be thought of as variable in nature, rather than static. The human mind can indeed think up changes within a paradigm while simultaneously shifting the paradigm itself. We need not think only in terms of whether to shift the track ahead. Remember the train in one of the Back to the Future films taking off from the track? The human mind can do likewise, if we do not hold ourselves back out of sheer habit. We have only ourselves to blame if we don’t start thinking outside the box, or over yonder from the rusty tracks. It might be that the twenty-first century will be known as the century when weeds started growing through the tracks. We have only ourselves holding us back from getting off track.

1. Brian Stelter, “New Internet TV Network to Feature Larry King,” The New York Times, March 12, 2012.

Justice as Fairness: Writing Down Greek Debt

In 2012, 80% of Greece’s private creditors agreed to “voluntarily” convert their Greek debt into debt of a bit less than half the face-value (plus a lower interest rate). With such a proportion having agreed to the swap without triggering credit default swap insurance payouts, Greece could get the E.U. to agree to force the remaining 20% to involuntary write-downs. That would trigger the credit default swaps, at least in theory.

Because any write down of Greek debt by other E.U. states or the E.U.’s central bank (equivalent to the Federal Reserve) would be tantamount to additional aid to Greece, the E.U.’s basic law would again need to be amended (which must be unanimous). So the E.U. (and the international IMF) exempted themselves even as they pushed for “voluntary” write downs by private debt-holders. This hardly seems fair. Moreover, any pressure from the E.U. could have been sufficient for the credit default swaps to be triggered. To be truly voluntary, the write downs would have to have come from the private bondholders themselves rather than from governmental pressure. Even so, that 80% agreed, it is only fair that the remaining 20% be forced to capitulate. Otherwise, holding out could be a strategic competitive advantage financially. Refusing to compromise while other similar parties do is unfair whether between private creditors or governments.

In my view, Greece should have secured the E.U.’s approval on instituting the collective bargaining statute in order to get all of the state’s private holders of Greek bonds to take a write down. It would have triggered the credit default swap insurance claims, so the bondholders might actually have preferred being forced even if more of their Greek debt was written off. Furthermore, E.U. officials should have subjected the E.U. states to join the private bondholders. At the time of the 80% voluntary agreement in 2012, Greek debt in 2020 was forecasted to be at 120% of Greece’s total economic activity.[1] This is still quite high, particularly given the recessionary impact of the continued Greek austerity. Unfortunately, the (excessive) power of state officials at the E.U. level meant that a conflict of interest interfered with amending the E.U.’s basic law to permit the state governments and the ECB to take write downs.

In terms of ethical theory, one could apply John Rawls’ Theory of Justice here. In this theory, there is a veil of ignorance concerning where one will be in the system for which one is making rules. Not knowing whether one would represent a government or private bondholder, for example, one would not be likely to add the rule in which only the private bondholders write off their Greek bonds. Not knowing which E.U. state one would represent, one would not add a rule favoring Germany and France over Greece. Not knowing whether one is an official of the E.U. Commission or a member of a state legislature such as the Bundestag, one would not make a rule allowing the states to protect their interests at the expense of the E.U. Rawls adds that because of the veil, any rule would see to it that the position of the least well situated is improved. So it would not be the case that Germany could dictate to the E.U. or so successfully protect German interests at the expense of Greece. Indeed, the bias would be in seeing that the people least well off in the least well off state are not further downtrodden as a result of any proposed rule. This might be part of Rawls penchant for redistribution, however. At the very least, we could say that the rules enacted under justice as fairness would be in the interest of the system itself rather than any particular part thereof. In terms of the writing down of Greek debt, the E.U. could have been fairer in how it went about designing its rules. There was not exactly a veil of ignorance on the vested interests that were in a position to protect themselves at Greece’s expense.

1. Charles Forelle, Stelios Bouras, and Alkman Granitsas, “Greece Passes Key Debt Test,” The Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2012.