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Tech

My Tweets from Eric Schmidt’s Talk with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher

Tweets from Eric Schmidt’s Talk with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher

Storified by Newley Purnell · Wed, Oct 10 2012 19:37:54

Another evening, another interesting event.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, chatted with the Wall Street Journal‘s Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the 92nd Street Y here in New York tonight.

Their conversation touched on the so-called “Gang of Four” (Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook), the importance of the mobile sector, technology in education, patent wars, quality journalism,  and — yes — PSY.

Here are my Tweets, in reverse chronological order.

To sum up, Schmidt @ #92YDigital: Gang of Four persists. Huge potential in mobility. Innovation key. "Patent wars are death."Newley Purnell
Schmidt says future biz might involve celebrity driven news brands. In online world, people care what celebs think. #92YDigitalNewley Purnell
Schmidt: promise in digital-1st approach like @ Politico and HuffPo. And established brands like WSJ and NYT will survive. #92YDigitalNewley Purnell
Summing up: Schmidt at @ #92YDigital: Ailing newspapers means less investigative journalism. That’s bad…Newley Purnell
@EricSchmidt says @HuffingtonPost and @Politico are innovative news models of journalism’s future. #92YDigitalKhadeeja Safdar
Talk over. Will share a few final thoughts from Eric Schmidt on quality journalism…Newley Purnell
Asked if Google would buy Twitter: Schmidt says can’t comment on M&A. But bullish on Twitter. It’s “place where news breaks fast.”Newley Purnell
Schmidt: Next big thing: more mobility. Innovation possible w/ devices is incredible. Also: big data. Getting closer to true AI.Newley Purnell
Schmidt: we don’t talk about future products and services specifically but “we have a lot of stuff coming.”Newley Purnell
Schmidt on self-driven car: better to think of as autopilot. Will have button to disconnect. Doesn’t say when thinks cars’ll be mainstream.Newley Purnell
Schmidt on tech in ed: massive online courses are just version 1. Very little innovation and competition in K-12. Hopes can change.Newley Purnell
Schmidt on @Google cars: “it’s an error that we drive cars. A 100 year old error.” Likely scenario: car companies use some features.Newley Purnell
.@ericschmidt says @Google’s goal is to be at the center of the information revolution. #92YDigitalSree Sreenivasan
Schmidt on PSY and Gangnam Style: he is “truly expression of a new form of celebrity.”Newley Purnell
Schmidt: “Patent wars are death.” Bad for innovation. And annoying.Newley Purnell
Schmidt: survey shows there’s 4x as many Android phones as iPhones. Mobile is where it’s at. Bigger than PC industry and growing.Newley Purnell
Schmidt: “Apple should have kept with our maps…what Apple has learned is maps are really hard.”Newley Purnell
Swisher: w/ Facebook’s stock struggles, is it Gang of 3.5 now? Schmidt: No, 4. FB has 1 billion users. You can make money off that.Newley Purnell
From 8 p.m. EST I’ll be sharing tidbits from 92nd St. Y talk w/ Google exec. chairman Eric Schmidt, @waltmossberg, & @karaswisherNewley Purnell

Categories
Misc.

Notes from Tonight’s Presidential Economic Advisers Forum

Here are my Tweets, in reverse chronological order, from the Presidential Economic Advisers Forum 2012, which took place at Columbia University here in New York tonight.

On hand were Mitt Romney’s Senior Economic Adviser, R. Glenn Hubbard, and Jeffrey Liebman, who holds that position under President Obama.

Columbia president Lee Bollinger made some introductory remarks. Reuters’s Chrystia Freeland moderated, and the panelists included Joseph Stiglitz, Sharyn O’Halloran, and Michael Woodford.

My overall impression: Both advisers were, naturally, measured in their remarks. Those familiar with the business and economics arguments involved in the presidential race probably won’t find much surprising here. But it may be interesting to see how the campaigns continue to frame the issues.

Categories
Misc.

The U.S. Economy and the Presidential Election

Update 2: I’ve replaced the final chart with one that shows long-term real GDP growth per capita.

Update 1: I’ve corrected the debate kickoff time, below.

The U.S. economy is, of course, at the center of this year’s presidential race.

As the first 2012 presidential debate approaches tonight (it begins at 8 p.m. 9 p.m. eastern), pundits and voters — not to mention, ahem, business journalism students — have been examining U.S. economic issues and the positions taken by President Obama and Mitt Romney.

To sum up: Romney and his team say that Obama’s economic policies have failed to adequately lift the U.S. economy out of the 2000-2009 recession.

Among other data, they point to the ongoing high unemployment rate, which is currently at 8.1 percent:

Obama’s critics also note the U.S.’s slow economic recovery in terms of real GDP.

The American economy expanded by just 1.3 percent during the second quarter this year:

2012 10 02 us gdp

In the debate tonight, Romney will also likely focus on the U.S. deficit. He says Obama would need to employ tax increases to pay down the debt in the years to come.

Obama and his supporters, meanwhile, have been pointing out just how severe the “Great Recession” was. They say the recovery is happening (albeit slowly).

The recession was, indeed, the worst downturn since the Great Depression in terms of unemployment and GDP.

Here’s the GDP data for the last few years a look at long-term per capita real GDP growth from the 19th century through 2009. Check out the dip after the Great Depression and the downturn after 2008:

2012 10 03RealGDPperCapita

(Graph via the excellent VisualizingEconomics.)

Team Obama notes that private sector jobs have been on the rise for 30 straight months.

The president will likely point out this evening that the auto bailout saved more than one million jobs.

As it happens, in my business seminar class, we recently discussed notions of the economic consensus. While many economists have many different opinions, there’s actually a lot that most agree on.

Here’s an interesting 2009 blog post from Harvard economist Greg Mankiw called “News Flash: Economists Agree.”

A few points from his post:

Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)

Obama will say taxes need to be raised on the very wealthy; as part of the supply side argument, Romney will argue that tax cuts for most voters are the way to go.

How about this one? I doubt Obama will mention this as he criticizes Romney for outsourcing jobs:

The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)

And here’s one for Romney:

A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)

That’s it for now. More on some of these topics in future posts, I’m sure.