Here's a conservative Forex trading system I developed, on track to return 60% annually.

This is a super conservative forex trading system that I developed for those who are very risk averse and want to sleep at night.

This is an algorithmic system that is very easy to implement and takes about 20 minutes per day of your time. After that you pretty much leave it alone and let it run. (It does not trade pegged currencies.)

The system will never take more than a 1% loss on any trade. Over the past four months it has executed 167 trades (roughly 42 trades per month) and has returned 18%, on track to deliver close to 60% return for the year.

Not bad.

Interesting References On History Of Public Education In The USA

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

A Giant Takes the World Stage

These slides are from Bill Black's presentation at the Cockefair Chair Lecture held at UMKC. The Lecture topic was the rise of American Industrialism. It was presented on October 28, 2014.

There are 200 slides here. It's long, but there are many interesting reference points.
The most interesting aspect for me is how much these developments parallel similar patterns found in molecular, cellular, physiological and cultural evolution.

Given all the system patterns to be aware of, and consider, you might think that we as a people would be more motivated to use that potential awareness to help guide our national or cultural destiny ... but we obviously never have been very motivated in that regard.

Every example of evolution yet found is incredibly sloppy. Apparently simply because it simply doesn't have to be more focused .... but likely also because it simply hasn't paid off - long term - to try to be more focused. :)

You have to wonder what Friedrich Fröbel, or Wallace & Darwin, would think of current outcomes.

And what'd Abe Lincoln say? Most people are about as happy as they have a mind to be? Well, most evolving systems also are about as focused as they have a need to be, and not a smidgen more.

Winslow Wheeler’s analysis of the ongoing F-35 "LifeCycleCost" Scam: Political Economy & Democracy In Inaction

When you have growing legions of poker players all trying to game the existing system (house rules) .... you don't even need to invoke originally planned fraud.

By their own momentum, such legions of poker players simply lose track of how out of date their targeted system has become, as contexts continue to change, including sheer scale-dependent details. What start as initially weak feedback signals for local or micro management issues, eventually ALWAYS become dominant feedback signals for macro management. It's only a question of when.

That reality is as true of economic policy as it is of of the MICC's beltway-bandit policy. If we don't continuously coordinate interleaved reform of local, regional & national policy .... then we can't survive. It's that simple. We either ALL hang together, or collectively hang ourselves.

If you extend credit to your neighbor, it's your problem. If hundreds of millions of citizens all depend upon neighbors near and far, for distributed credit ..... then it's OUR problem, and a policy issue.

(The following is an email from Chuck Spinney, posted with permission.)

"One of the oldest recurring front-loading scams practiced by the Military - Industrial - Congressional Complex (MICC) is the promise that high and increasing weapons procurement costs in the near term will be more than offset by lower operating (O&S) costs over the long term, thus decreasing the program's total life cycle costs (LCCs). 

The essential scam is to plant the myth that the future cost of supporting increasingly complex weapons will amount to a free lunch: i.e., that the total life cycle costs (LCCs) of increasingly complex weapons will be less than the total LCCs of the simpler weapons they replaced.

This game has been in play since at least the 1960s. 

To wit: In the mid 1960s, the Air Force claimed that the highly complex all-digital avionics of the F-111D would cost less to operate than the far simpler analog avionics of the A-7. 

In the 1970s, the AF promised the F-15 would cost much less to operate than the less functionally complex F-4. 

In the 1980s and 1990s the AF promised the operating costs of the stealthy, supersonic cruising F-22 would be comparable to those of the far less complex, non-stealthy, subsonic cruising F-15. 

Beginning in the 1990s and continuing to this day the AF promised operating costs of its version of the stealth F-35 would be in the same league as those far simpler non-stealthy F-16/A10 aircraft the F-35 was replacing (even though the F-35 system's 20+ million lines of computer software code far exceed those of the F-22!)

Of course the beauty of the "lower LCC" front-loading scam is that by the time decision makers determine what a weapon’s true operating costs are, they will have already invested so much money, reputations, and time in buying the weapon, they are well into the third trimester of the acquisition life cycle, and are too pregnant to abort the program -- which, of course, is the whole aim of the Defense Power Games of front loading and political engineering. 

As a matter of record, the F-111D’s avionics were a disaster that cost far more than the A-7 on a per flying hour basis; the F-15 cost far more to operate than the F-4 once you accounted for variable depot costs per flying hour (see DFOL pages 51 and 99; and the LCCs of F-22 are far higher than those of the F-15. 

For a remarkably candid portrayal of the F-22’s maintenance horrors, I urge readers to examine public releases by the Air Force’s 325th Fighter Wing Public Affairs office -- here and here). Bear in mind, these outcomes did not stop decisions makers from buying the programs -- the scam works!

Today, not enough F-35s have been operating in the fleet for a sufficiently long enough time to ascertain its true operating cost. This, of course, is most convenient for the contractor as well as the military services, because the F-35’s unit acquisition costs are still rising. 

So, invoking the F-35’s lower LCC scam is still a viable front-loading strategy to justify the ongoing growth of F-35s nearer-term R&D and procurement costs -- i.e., the name of the game is to move deeper into the third trimester of the F-35's acquisition life cycle to permanently foreclose the abortion option.

Lest you think otherwise, attached herewith for your edification is my friend Winslow Wheeler’s analysis of the ongoing F-35 LCC scam."

Chuck Spinney, The Blaster

New F-35 Claim: Lower O&S Estimate More than Offsets Higher Acquisition Cost

Winslow Wheeler, Director, Strauss Military Reform Project, April 23, 2014

For Those Who Can't Grasp Democracy - Consider the 2nd Derivative of Disruption

   (Commentary by Roger Erickson)

No Central Planning, No Central Control

There is plenty of evidence that large human "democracies" of this sort existed in multiple sites worldwide, in between cultural "development" cycles.

Evidence: large population or temple sites showing outcome of large-population labor, absence significant, long-term evidence for present-day combinations of agriculture, weaponry and/or warfare - e.g., Stonehenge, Catal Hyuk, Harappa, and many paleolithic & neolithic sites in South/North America, Asia, Africa & Europe.

One simple, unproven hypothesis is that it is our rate tool invention itself that stresses us.

When a subgroup of humans invent a new tool, practice or process ... they invariably misuse it (typically against their neighbors) for a long time, before settling into an optimal pattern of adaptive, distributed use (i.e., common sense slowly becoming common & obvious, through reverberating feedback).

Then another game-altering tool/practice/process is invented, which allows some parasites to bully the system again ... just 'cuz they can ... until we all wise up again.

You'll even hear this from experienced businesspeople: "I finally learned that just because you can ... doesn't mean that you should."

A core question for ORGANIZED systems is how to invent new tools, and AVOID misusing them before adaptively using them. This boils down to be the 2nd derivative of disruption. Just because some entire system has to be rebuilt per an altered design, doesn't mean that burning it down and starting from scratch is ALWAYS the most adaptive procedure. 

Rather than eradicating prior clans and clones before repopulating a new niche, a key advance invented by social species is to RAPIDLY scavenge, rescue and reuse existing populations, for immediate application to new tasks while accelerating exploration of new options in new niches. Whether you call it re-deployment or reorganization doesn't matter.

There are ways to titrate that path which produces the most new options, soonest. That titration method requires FULL-GROUP FEEDBACK, and we call it Democracy. Following that path requires continuous, real-time, statistical evaluation of the complex moment of adaptive power in a distribution of lost-vs-gained, net+local option-exploration.

Such titrated evaluation requires a statistical evaluation of a 2-stage optimization process. Keep the components well fed PLUS grow the net systemic options. Neglecting either stage feeds disparity, but not net adaptation.

How To Usefully Interact With Conservatives .... And Progressives Too

(Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)



Systems do not work in isolation, and the well-being of a person - or a culture of citizens - depends upon the well-being of all the interacting body & cultural systems.

Ya think? So why do we constantly hear liberals/progressives saying that "Conservatives" are at odds with evolution because nothing ever stays the same, while "Progressives" understand we live in a constantly evolving world?

And, why do we constantly hear conservatives saying that "Progressives" are dangerous fools because they don't understand how things work, and want to change everything?

The reality is that there are no unitary Conservatives and Progressives. That is a myth, which too many of us accept as fact, about ourselves. We should know better.

Rather than this myth, the reality is that there is, in every organized system, a continuous spectrum, between those components acting as foundation material, and those components taking the risk of testing what has to start changing as context changes - call them physiological StemCell characteristics, or cultural StemHuman characteristics. Arbitrarily DIVIDING a continuous, undivisible spectrum of complex_component characteristics is senseless and impossible to start with. As Lincoln so aptly noted, a house divided cannot stand.

So why do so many cultures - who are composed of continuous spectra of personality characteristics - so often find themselves pushed and pulled into two, mindlessly opposing and artificial groupings, and then prodded to make civil war, not culture?

Perhaps cultural Civil War is most commonly the result of a 3rd grouping, of cultural parasites, which recruit host components into a cycle of being confused, distracted, divided, and conquered? There are endless tomes written on the topic of social parasites, aka, the "British Strategy" (or simply "politics"), that I'll leave readers to research it on their own.

For now, in the USA, take our conservative/progressive Civil War ... PLEASE!

Have you ever considered simply declining to participate? Instead of being drafted, or volunteering, in yet another senseless war - that benefits no one except various forms of "conflict-industrial-Congressional-complex" social parasites - JUST SAY NO?

The CICC social parasites are the only ones who benefit when you do participate in conflict. Yet we needn't hate them either. Social parasites are simply the consultants that social species hire to search out "bugs" in their social strategies. Cultural evolution is dramatically accelerated by simply regulating resilient defenses against the operational hijacking opportunities that parasites expose. Our job is to simply apply routine patches to our democracy & culture, through timely re-regulation of our own CICC parasites. They don't own us. We own them. We just have to act like owners.

How do we NOT take sides and be drafted into a grouping that breaks up & parasitizes the very affinity that builds Democracy and culture? 

Change your perspective. Once you look at our own situation as though a different context, you can then re-interpret ALL of the same data, differently. Don't accept the paradigm of the CICC parasites.

Here's one alternative to retain affinity and culture, and be able to say ... "I never met a [citizen] I didn't like."

Simply look at the range of the ~320million US citizens, diverse disciplines and many public/private institutions the same way you look at the ~30Trillion cells, ~300cell-types and ~70organs in your own body. None of these grouping need EVER be at civil war! In fact, both aggregates will quite obviously sink or swim together, with the "co-citizens" of their aggregate. The highest return, by far, is the return-on-coordination (teamwork), so all other returns simply don't matter in the long run.

Once you throw off the CICC parasite propaganda, and recover your natural perspective on your own aggregate, a simpler context emerges.

Individual humans are all mosaics displaying both conservative and progressive tendencies as given characteristics in given contexts. If you tally the "yea" or "nay" of an aggregate, on 10,001 topics, you'll find that no two people are equally conservative or progressive on every single topic, nor even consistent on the same topics across different contexts! We are NOT consistent. Instead, we are incredibly diverse. Further, we use that diversity to build the very resiliency that makes both our individual behavior complex and our culture resilient, wealthy and capable. It's an inescapable fact that coordinated diversity drives the success of all social species - whether the social-cells making up  your body, or the social-humans making up your culture.

In may help many people to re-visualize citizens as displaying either Foundation-human or Stem-human characteristics, ON EVERY TOPIC INDEPENDENTLY, not as citizens consistently for or against change on every topic equally.

Once our instantaneous behaviors on every topic are re-described in terms of variable, context-dependent, Foundation-human or Stem-human characteristics, we can picture everyone standing on everyone else's shoulders, ala Isaac Newton - just in interleaved fashion, on all topics simultaneously. That, in a nutshell, is what social species do. ESPECIALLY humans! Human citizens have multifaceted behaviors, personalities and skills, and we all interleave our complex behavioral characteristics together in complex patterns, in real time.

It would surprise no one overmuch to find, say, a religious conservative who plays evenings in a progressive jazz band. Or a social progressive who strictly adheres to conservative diet and lifestyle habits. No single example of mixed conservative/progressive traits would surprise us, for given topics in a given context. We are all mosaics, and change our characteristics to fit context, once altered context is recognized.

Try declining to participate in social frictions urged by CICC social parasites?

So do we EVER need to argue over details? Instead, simply interleave your instantaneous duties, and always help drive Adaptive Social Selection. That's easier if a little patience is applied. Just remember that conservative-tendencies and progressive-tendencies on every instantaneous topic boil down to a simple selection task. For us to thrive as a culture, all our interleaved conservative tendencies on a given subject must simply help select what to keep, from all the progressive inventions offered up by our progressive tendencies.

The Progressive characteristics in all of us take on the risk of standing on the shoulders of Conservatives. Meanwhile, the Conservative characteristics in all of us need only sit back and help select from Progressive inventions. To interleave many selections simultaneously, we invariably practice multi-variate evolution, socially as well as physiologically.*

What could be simpler? Conservatives & Progressives arguing on given topics is pretty much a case of grandparents & grandchildren arguing. It's pointless, and always completely out of context.

###

* There's a simple message - for us as citizens - from all thinking about systems. Namely, that multi-variate adaptation in human aggregates tracks development of diverse perspectives in the electorate. When it comes to developing good citizens, hopefully even our own conservative characteristics can always appreciate the value of a traditional Liberal education.

An electorate can't optimally review data without juggling contexts as well. That's a simple rule of, say, combinatorial chemistry, and multi-variate analysis as well.

If an electorate can't visualize it's own complexity and diversity, it can't leverage it, to explore expanding group options.