BUSINESS - By US. Buy U.S.

"President-elect Joe Biden is pledging to use the power of the federal government to buy American goods and jump-start domestic manufacturing. Some companies say rules that are too restrictive could raise their costs and complicate supply chains for items not made in the U.S.", says a January 4th Wall Street Journal article. Having the U.S. government buying American goods is not enough. We must have the whole country buy American. The government cannot force Americans to buy American, but they can make Americans buy American in their own free will. On Madison Street, they call it marketing.

The U.S. government will certify two labels - the gold label "Manufactured By Us. Buy U.S." and the silver label "Assembled By Us. Buy U.S.". The manufacturers can only put those labels only in products that are either manufactured or assembled in the U.S., using American labor force. These products can cost more than say, made-in-China products. Some manufacturers will make only "By Us. Buy U.S." products to distinguish theirs from the low-cost importing competitors. Some manufacturers will straddle, and have made-in-China products at a lower price for the general population, and have limited quantities of "By Us. Buy U.S." of the same product at a higher price. For example, Apple can have most of their iPhone made in Asia, and builds a smaller manufacturing factory in the U.S. that makes the same iPhones. The "By Us. Buy U.S." phones will have a distinctive color that the regular iPhones do not have, thus giving their owners a special status of either a patriot, or one that supports the American workers, or one who has money. If you are a celebrity, which iPhone will you use?

Besides the certification, the U.S. government will need to have programs to counter counterfeits.

HEALTH - Healthcare Rights

While reading on The Amazon-Berkshire Hathaway-JP Morgan healthcare joint venture ending, I wonder if healthcare can be a right to be guaranteed by the government, like defense. If defense means the right for the citizens to be safe from external threats, then healthcare is the right for citizens to be defended against illness. Healthcare can be a right but not a limitless right. This is a DocNgu doodle, so what comes next is what crosses my mind while reading the article. I did not do any deep research to see if this is a viable idea, or if somebody has proposed it already. From general revenues, the government can give everybody say $5000 a year. Whatever the money is, it will cover basic health insurance. However there is still a big private insurance market. Anybody who wants "better" treatment will buy the supplemental insurance. Companies can still offer insurance benefits, but the benefits are only for the supplemental insurance. Rich people can also buy the supplemental insurance on the market to get into posher hospitals or be treated by more renowed physicians. As the country gets richer, the base money increases to cover more procedures.

SOCIAL - Gun Rights and Gun Responsibilities

The Ohio governor just signed a gun bill and declared that "he was disappointed lawmakers didn't add the measures he sought for more than a year that would toughen background checks and boost penalties for felons committing new crimes with guns". Now there are two measures. The first one, on background check, is about the right to own guns. The second one, on crimes with guns, is about the responsibility of owning guns. The gun control side is currently too focused on limiting the gun rights. Obviously the gun rights side has to push back. To limit the harm of gun usage, the gun control side should be totally focused on gun responsibilities. For example, if you use guns to commit crimes, more penalty (like the Ohio governor proposed). If you let somebody borrows your guns to commit crime, also penalty to you. If you own a gun and does not lock it and an accident happens, also penalty to you. If your gun is stolen, you are responsible to report it. If you don't, and later a recovered gun is traced back to you, penalty to you. Basically the idea is that you can own as many guns as you like, but you are responsible about your ownership. This message is a law-and-order message since you are responsible to prevent your guns to be misused. Who does not agree to that?

SOCIAL - PRO CHOICE and PRO LIFE

There is a section on "Abortion Divide" in the Abortion, Guns and Trump: A Church Group Tries to Navigate America’s Divisions 12/19/20 article in the Wall Street Journal. I don't know exactly what is the abortion law in this country. So this doodle may be already the law of the land. This doodle is a proposal that the US Congress pass a law that says pregnancy is a continuum, starting from a cell in one end and a baby at the other end. On the first portion of the continuum, abortion is legal without restriction. This is fully pro-choice. On the third and last portion, abortion is illegal except for the ? of the mother. This is the pro-life position. In the second (middle) portion, abortion is legal if the woman has gone through counseling and illegal if the woman has not gone to or has not gone through the full counseling program. The counseling program purpose is to show the woman options to keep the pregancy to birth. The congressional law will leave it up to the states to define when or how the first, second, and third portions of the continuum start and end. Liberal states may have the first portion longer to stretch out the pro-choice duration, and conservative states may have the third portion longer to lengthen the pro-life duration. The states will also decide what is the contents of the counseling program. Non-controversial things like adoption options are no brainer. However things like forcing the woman to look at the ultrasound picture of the fetus will have to be voted by the people in the state.

SOCIAL - Whistleblowing On Drug Usage

On December 8, there is an article on the Wall Street Journal about "Whistleblowers Worry SEC’s Interpretation of ‘Independent Analysis’ Could Discourage Tipsters. Although the whistleblowing is on corporate frauds, I wonder if the US can combat the drug usage by focusing on the consumption side by offering tipsters rewards. The "war on drugs" has 2 sides, the production side and the consumption side. The US tackles the production side by attacking the drug cartels in their countries and by limiting the drug trafficking into the US. This doodle is about the consumption side. If there are still people using drugs, if the US can have a drug kingpin arrested, a new one will take his place, since the money is still there. If people stop taking drugs, there is no money on the table, and the smart drug dealers will find something else to do. People continue to take drugs because this activity is mostly inside homes, not in the public. The US can have a whistleblowing program for drug usage like this. Anybody of money who is captured on camera taking drugs will not go to jail, but will have to go to rehabilitation AND also be penalized with say 10% of his networth. The money will be divided into half. One half will go to the government to pay for drug rehabilitation for people with and without money. The other half will be given to the tipster. For example a movie mogul with a networth of 100 M, will have to pay 10 M, with 5 M going to the tipster. Can the mogul still trust people around him when he takes his shots, especially now that everybody has a cell phone with camera?

BUSINESS - Warner Bros. to Release All 2021 Films on HBO Max and in Theaters Simultaneously

On Dec 3, 2020, Warner Bros. studio announced that they will release their whole slate of 2021 movies simultaneously in theaters and on its HBO Max streaming service. Movie theater owners, from the biggest chain to the mom-and-pop single cinema, decried that this strategy will kill their business. Who will go out to the movies if they can watch at home?

Instead of looking at this as an existential threat, movie theater chains should look at this as an opportunity to expand the film industry into a new horizon. Let's call this strategy the Theater Only Release (TOR) / Streaming Only Release (SOR) strategy. Instead of passively waiting for the studios to give them movies, the theater chains will work with the studios to customize movies in production for theater release only. The TOR movies may have extra or different scenes; they may have extra or different secondary characters; they may even have somewhat or totally different creative endings. In other words, for each movie, the studios will release a TOR version exclusively for movie theaters, and a SOR version exclusively for streaming services. The additional cost for versioning is not exorbitant since scenes that used to get cut during editing will now have good use; and dissimilarities can be planned as part of the script to reuse the actors, crews and locations.

Fans who cannot get enough of a movie will see both versions, lessening the cannibalization effect that the chains fear. With the TOR/SOR strategy, the traditional studios will differentiate themselves from streaming-only services such as Netflix. In addition the TOR/SOR strategy will help the DVD business since it is only on DVDs that one can find both versions in the same place.

Streaming is not the death knell of movie chains. The TOR/SOR strategy will be the carillon of a bright future.

POLITICS - 2020 First Presidential Debate

A DocNgu Doodle is my raw take on an issue or event. I may come back to this doodle, especially if there are supporting or opposing comments that interest me to refine or modify my original take.

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The first 2020 presidential debate was a contentious one, with President Trump talking over his challenger, Mr. Biden, and the moderator, Mr. Wallace. If I were in Mr. Biden's position, I would go on my own social media channels on the next day, and re-answer all of the Mr. Wallace's questions, straight to the American public, with substance and without obnoxious interruptions. For each answer, I would stay within the 2-min requirement as in the debate. I would say to the American public that the questions were important enough that they deserve substantive and measured answers.