BIG DATA? .... Use It EVERYWHERE .... or don't bother applying it anywhere

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

[Serf] hunting is now a matter of ‘big data’ and not how well [serf's] perform at an interview

Is anyone else underwhelmed by this advice? Applying Big Data to achieving even more wealth & income inequality?

There's a puzzle here. Why can't these same logicians apply systems logic to all steps leading to aggregate output? Such as ounces of prevention, not just pounds of system cure?

If they were really capable of a bit more imagination, they might think of applying their BEEG EMPLOYMENT BRAINS and BIG DATA methods to preventing systemic social ills inexpensively, not just hideously expensive ways of supposedly repairing them.

How, you ask? Here's how. To have more novel inventions, and even faster cultural evolution, we could use a LOT more people adequately self-employed, i.e., finding it easier to HELPFULLY generate their own income from their co-citizens. That's better than just helping small numbers of oligarchs maintain a pool of starving, desperate serfs, on hand for whenever the slow-thinking Central Planning feel that docile "workers" are needed.

There's an accumulating list of suggestions for how to maintain cultural aggregates with more distributed net income, and hence far more aggregate agility - and adaptive resiliency.

1) no FICA tax?
2) no medicare tax?
3) significantly lower income taxes on labor
4) cure the monomaniacal fixation on the "deficit in fiat"
5) reduce the micro-regulation of micro-businesses? [Ya think?]

6) And, of course, start prosecuting some of the Control Frauds?

7) And, start regulating at least SOME of the larger banks again.

8) But all that presupposes an electorate that can select at least a FEW intelligent + honest politicians - and KEEP selecting similar ones.

9) So as a capper, we need methods for re-shaping this electorate into one that views aggregate policy as a logical process, and a straightforward science to practice?

10) We have enough people who know HOW to do that, but they're not the same people who know yet HOW to get this electorate to LET us do that. Too many specialists & too little shared context awareness. We need a small-scale skunk works demonstration? Somewhere where it's possible for even a few aware people to QUICKLY allow a local electorate to allow itself to excel?

11) We need specialists who can humble themselves just enough to work WITH people who can and want to get elected, and themselves have enough humility to do whatever is needed. Organizations are defined as collections of specialists who can also look past the distributed inexperience (and egos) of themselves and others, and work for big outcomes, not just settle for Pyrrhic personal victories. Do those who know how to do specific things want their country to be successful ... or do they want people to know that they were right? In a large electorate, EVERYONE is inexperienced about something. That's what diversity means. The good part is that it's so easy to find people to work with and hence for one another. Teamwork works. The bad part? We're all conditioned to criticize - and be impatient with - people who don't specialize in what we specialize in. Teamwork works ONLY if members actively look for ways to cooperate on big outcomes, while patiently ignoring irrelevant details and minor frictions. That means looking beyond personal frictions, as a matter of rote.

   (That's another - simple - subtlety about systems, which we could, in our schools, easily teach to every 10 yr old ... but don't.)

None out of 11? That's bad. So far.

How bad? That always depends on how long does it take a mulish aggregate to reorient to continuously changing context.

'Bout as fast as aggregate 2x4s appear - in the form of unexpected system shocks? Shocks can be very dangerous & violent. If that is the ONLY fallback tool we rely upon to trigger adaptations, one of these days the USA mule may not survive a reawakening.

US & EU Both Pledge "1 billion" ($/euro) Loan Guarantees For Ukraine - While Pledging Nothing More For Their Own Electorates

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

Loan Guarantees For Ukraine

This raises two sets of questions, about what we're doing domestically, and why, compared to what we're doing internationally, and why. Initial questions about why domestic US/EU electorates can't guarantee fiat investment in themselves, and instead submit to austerity ... is exceeded only by the sheer number & depth of half-truths, mis-conceptions and outright lies included in this article.

Example? Reduced tariffs go directly back to the exporter? No, that only reduces costs for the importing consumers (maybe only the intermediary merchants), and MAY increase the volume of exports being extracted from the "beneficiary" country. In reality, look for more EU/US firms to set up subsidiaries in the UK, and move yet more jobs from serfs in receiving countries to even lower-paid serfs in sending countries being looted. Can you say "internal devaluation?"

Where have we heard this story before?

Read on, & decide for yourself what these loan guarantees really imply.

There's a theme to the last 40 years? When electorates cede all governance to their merchant classes, they get what they claim was unpredictable ... less innovation, invention & leadership ... and more risk control, "management" and stagnation.

What, exactly, WOULD the Desired Outcome for national policy be, if we bothered to survey our actual citizens? Can we pick some worthwhile goals FOR OURSELVES, and go for them, instead of merely managing existing risks? Forget defense & offense, the best cultural evolution is an active Adaptive Rate?

Smart Companies? What About Smart Electorates? Smart Countries? Smart Governments?

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

How Investing in Good Jobs Lowers Costs and Boosts Profits

The Good Jobs Strategy ... shows that even in low-cost settings, leaving employees behind with low wages and bad jobs is a choice, not a necessity. On April 4, we’ll discuss how smart companies are turning the Walmart business model on its head by investing in good jobs while earning strong investment returns. Sponsored by UFCW and the AFL-CIO.

These are merely politically correct ways of discussing loyalty in teamwork. 

For Pete's sake! Common sense is no longer allowed to be declared sensible until a photogenic university professor declares to be? And then only for "smart companies" with "strong investment returns."

Unfortunately, the good prof & the AFL-CIO don't define the terms of what constitutes a "strong investment returns." How long will it take until they realize that they don't really agree on the terms of that definition? Yet another generation of stalled labor-capital reforms? Is this the AFL-CIO's way of admitting defeat?

Something subtle is missing here, and it's not clearly apparent until you analyze what they're actually saying. This whole "Good Jobs" approach reminds me of Deficit Doves. They're trying to agree with their masters while also agreeing with the serfs ... at the same time? Doesn't that always turn into groveling?

Smart professors don't miss the point? 

Only clever ones trying to tout the uber-capitalist party line, masquerading as aggregate common sense? Usually in order to get tenure, and maybe a fellowship or endowed chair from an institute set up by some billionaire (non-labor) capitalist.

Can we just skip all the capitalist mumbo jumbo, and get straight to the point? 

Wouldn't a "Resilient Electorate Strategy" represent adaptive reality, and therefore common sense? Can't we just come right out and say that? Apparently not, because ~1% of people hoarding vast amounts of static assets feel that they have too much to lose personally, if they relieve constraints on and control over the rest of the electorate.

Bad move. Always suicidal. It's only a matter of time.

How did supposed capitalists forget that labor-capital is also one of the equal, arbitrary classifications of "capital?" Biasing a system to persistently make some forms of capital more equal in all contexts than other forms of capital is - by definition - constraining aggregate options, draining resiliency and reducing aggregate agility.

Yet that is obvious only if one stops to actually think.

Maybe we need to forget capitalism? And just go back to consistency across biology, anthropology, sociology, democracy and statistical process control? Let the capitalist mysticism go the way of the pythagorean mysticism?