Federalist No. 14

In Federalist No. 14, Madison returns to the helm to answer objections to the proposed constitution from extent of territory.

The first thing Madison notes is that, in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region. Hence, any objections to the loss of democracy should be refuted by this statement alone as a republic can extend government by the people over a much larger territory.

Then he goes on to note that, in the first place it is to be remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic,
but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any. The subordinate governments, which can extend their care to all those other subjects which can be separately provided for, will retain their due authority and activity. Hence, any objections to the government amassing too much power should be dealt with as the government gets no more power than the people give it.

In addition, he notes that if some distant states should derive less benefit, therefore, from the Union in some respects than the less distant States, they will derive greater benefit from it in other respects, and thus the proper equilibrium will be maintained throughout. So while some states may have to send representatives further than others to take their seat on the government, they will benefit from the greater protection offered by the union.

So while objections can be made as to the potential strength of a union, versus a loose confederacy, they can also be countered. In this piece, Madison echoes Hamilton and again conveys the argument that united we stand and divided we fall.

PDF? PDF? You call that e-Invoicing?

Over on the TradeShift website, a recent post highlights “the downsides for enterprise” of PDF invoicing. I know that SI has been preaching going “e” at all costs, but, where Supply Management is concerned, PDF is not really “e”. It’s just paper being sent over the wire.

When your buyer’s organization gets a PDF invoice, the accounts payable clerk has to print it out and then manually enter the information in the accounts payable system. And yes, they typically do have to print it out as they are usually given a single monitor setup and the entire display is usually taken up by their AP program so they have to print it out. So all you’ve done is shifted the task of printing out the paper (and killing a tree) to them.

And, more importantly, you haven’t increased the speed at which they can process the invoice, or the accuracy, and have sacrificed the benefits you get when going electronic. If you use EDI, XML, or another standard, open, document format, then the buyer can import it into their AP system automatically with 100% accuracy — and you get all the benefits that go along with faster, 100%, accurate processing. These benefits could include getting in the queue in time for early payment discounts (should you want a quicker payment) and a buyer who can more quickly detect who the active, relevant, suppliers are as your transactions get in the system faster.

So don’t replace paper with PDFs that just get turned into paper. It doesn’t help anyone. And don’t trust anyone who claims they have software that can “automatically process PDF invoices”. There are so many different invoice formats that there is no software that gets, or even comes close enough to, 100% accuracy that you know, at some point, your invoice is going to get totally messed up and you are going to get 201,211.13 for that Million dollar invoice (when it thinks the date stamp, 20121113, is actually the total amount due).

Federalist No. 13

In Federalist No. 13, after addressing the utility of the union in respect to commercial relations and a navy in Federalist No. 11 and the utility of the union in respect to revenue, Hamilton then approaches the broader subject of the advantage of the union in respect to economy in government. Since we all want a more economical government, this is definitely one of the series’ must reads.

Hamilton starts off by noting that, if we have an efficient government, the money saved from one object may be usefully applied to another, and there will be so much the less to be drawn from the pockets of the people. Is it just me, or have governments around the world forgotten this? Let’s look at North America. Every state and province has their own Department of Motor Vehicles, and every state and province issues their own licenses. And while this is probably as it should be, they all use their own, custom, systems instead of using one, common, system (or at least one system that uses the same APIs and same protocols) so they need to do extra work to get driver history data from drivers who move into the state or province. In addition, many are not able to automatically suck the basic information of the individual in from a Federal database, and we have a duplication of data that leads to propagation of errors. One system, individually administered by each state, would be much more efficient. As prove, look at multi-tenant SaaS, which is gaining traction in enterprise software. Every improvement is able to be immediately leveraged by all for one development cost. But I digress, back to one of Hamilton’s key points:

If the States are united under one government, there will be but one national civil list to support; if they are divided into several
confederacies, there will be as many different national civil lists to be provided for. The whole point of a union is strength and efficiency. Since it is true that when the dimensions of a State attain to a certain magnitude, it requires the same energy of government and the same forms of administration which are requisite in one of much greater extent, efficiency can only increase with size and scale (provided such size and scale is properly administered). The advantage of civil power is that properly organized and exerted, [it] is capable of diffusing its force to a very great extent; and can, in a manner, reproduce itself
in every part of a great empire by a judicious arrangement of subordinate institutions.

Hamilton’s final words deserve to be etched in stone:

If, in addition to the consideration of a plurality of civil lists, we take into view the number of persons who must necessarily be employed to guard the inland communication between the different confederacies against illicit trade, and who in time will infallibly spring up out of the necessities of revenue; and if we also take into view the military establishments which it has been shown would unavoidably result from the jealousies and conflicts of the several nations into which the States would be divided, we shall clearly discover that a separation would be not less injurious to the economy, than to the tranquillity, commerce, revenue, and liberty of every part.

Walmart is Supposed to have been the Retail Leader since at least 2002

… when it was listed for the first time as America’s largest corporation on the Fortune 500 list, and it’s only now understanding that if you want a sustainability initiative to take hold, you have to focus on the people and give them the right incentives.

As per this recent piece over on Bloomberg which notes that “Wal-Mart’s Green Performance Reviews Could Change Retail for Good”, Walmart’s efforts to green its supply chain are about to get much more effective because sustainability will now play a role in its merchants’ performance reviews, which help determine pay raises and potential for future promotion.

If you really want to be green, you have to put your money where your mouth is and pay for it. You have to give buyers incentive to consider sustainability, suppliers incentive to be sustainable, and everyone incentive to encourage sustainability. And, as SI has written many times, while their might be some up front costs to switch to sustainable sources, over time, sustainability will generate double-digit ROI any way you look at it.

Why The Republican “Trickle Down” Platform Won’t Fix the U.S. Economy

While a recent video uploaded to Youtube on Why Obama Now didn’t do the greatest job of explaining why you should vote for Obama, it did do a great job of why you shouldn’t vote for any republican who still believes that if you lower tax cuts for the rich, the “trickle down” effect will save the economy. This is one video worth checking out for that reason alone!