Sir Tim was speaking at the start of a conference on the future of the web.

"What's very important from my point of view is that there is one web," he said.

"Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find that their piece looks very boring."

The World Wide Web Consortium, of which Sir Tim is the director, believes in an open model.

For example, inequality is much lower when measured by consumption than by income because poorer people now spend much more than they officially report as income.

Income inequality is driven by human capital inequality, and human capital can't be taxed and redistributed. You have to build it at the bottom to ensure maximum fairness.

When you turn your attention to human capital formation, you begin by thinking about job training and schools. But you discover that while learning is like nutrition (you have to do it every day), earlier is better. That's because, as James Heckman puts it, learners learn and skill begets skill. Children who've developed good brain functions by age 3 have advantages that accumulate through life.

That takes us to where the debate is today. How do we inculcate good brain functions across a wider swath of the 3-year-old population? Forty-one states are tinkering with or creating preschool programs. Oklahoma is leading the way with preschool and pro-family efforts. California is considering universal preschool.

That's why I'm grappling with these books on psychology and brain function. I started out on this wonk odyssey in the company of economic data, but the closer you get to the core issue, the further you venture into the primitive realm of love.

ABC News' Polling Director Gary Langer writes, "Public views on nuclear power are decidedly equivocal, sensitive both to positive arguments (about reducing dependence on foreign oil) and negative concerns (on safety and environmental impact). Energy dependence is at the forefront now, and the negatives have subsided from the post-TMI and Chernobyl days, but they remain a strong pull."

"In a Gallup poll in March, 55 percent supported 'expanding the use of nuclear energy,' up from 43 percent in 2003. But questions explicitly about building nuclear plants or providing government support for nuclear power find less support. Indeed in the same Gallup poll 55 percent opposed building a nuclear plant in their own area."

Whatever your position, this stuff is coming, and the Internet is continuing to destroy persistent market inefficiencies.

The service, which was profiled earlier this month on O’Reilly Radar, has an innovative and controversial business model: allowing people to buy and sell their places in line on a waiting list.

The prime market for this is professional sports, where waiting lists to buy season tickets are sometimes decades long. If a team integrates the SuperOyster solution, fans on the waiting list will be able to buy and sell those positions to each other at prices determined by the overall market.

May 25, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

Laid Off and Left Out

By BOB HERBERT

For an unnecessarily large number of Americans, the workplace has become a hub of anxiety and fear, an essential but capricious environment in which you might be shown the door at any moment.

In his new book, "The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle tells us that since 1984, when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started monitoring "worker displacement," at least 30 million full-time workers have been "permanently separated from their jobs and their paychecks against their wishes."

The most provocative question raised by Mr. Uchitelle is whether the private sector is capable of generating enough good jobs at good pay to meet the demand of everyone who is qualified and wants to work.

If it cannot (and so far it has not), then what? If education and training are not the building blocks to solid employment, what is? These are public policy questions of the highest importance, and so far they are being ignored.