about

Stephen Herrington

The Monday Morning Economist
Prologue:

Economies are systems, with what may seem scant organizing principles. Economics is not a science. As it is, it is rather more a collection experiential notions. And we all have notions of how things work, some better, some worse. The purpose of this web site, and the writings herein, is to encourage the public to participate in the debate over the proper direction of public policy on economic matters, and to inspire trust that ones own experience is as good an observation, in part at least, as any other. You own it. At this time in history, the country is in dire need and your understanding of economics may prove critical to how you vote and therefore determine our collective fate as a nation.

Politics is about little more than economics. The great debate of the last century was between two competing economic systems, socialism and capitalism. Even with the demise of the Soviet Union, the debate continues, changing only slightly. It is now a question of how much of either socialism or captialism is necessary and appropriate in a modern nation and global economy. This new level might be a little more comfortable, not involving nuclear standoffs, but remains intractable. This website, therefore, is political from the standpoint of exerting influence on a resonable outcome to this debate. It is partisan to the extent of attempting to achieve balance in the political climate.

In more colorful days the author has been a horse wrangler, construction laborer, cowboy, oil field roughneck, aircraft worker and a computer technician. In 1979 made a decision to go to early Silicon Valley. Founding engineer at Cromemco, Symantec and Visicorp. Senior Software Engineer at Apple Computer.

Technological achievements:

The first credit card magstripe reader, Texas Instruments 1979
One of the first word processors, Cromemco 1980
One of the first multitasking operating systems, Dictaphone 1981
One of the first hard disk drives, Dictaphone 1982
One of the first printer sheet feeders, Dictaphone 1982
Some of the first columnar editing software, Dictaphone 1983
One of the first spooling printer servers, Nestar 1984
The first virtual networks in the world, AppleTalk Phase 2, Apple 1986
Network File Systems between PC and Macintosh, Macintosh and Unix, Apple 1987
First commercial high speed point to point communications using ISDN, Apple 1989

Management record:

Development Manager for Office Automation Products, Dictaphone 1981-83
Network Products Development Supervisor, Nestar Systems 1984-86
Senior Development Manager for Emulation Products, Attachmate 1994-1999

Education:

Equivalent of a Masters in Psychology

Associations:

American Mensa