RE: Where to now?
OK, you found someone with a Nobel prize to follow. Why not the score of Nobel prize winners who don't believe in the gold standardsand wasn't he a cowinner of the prize with someone with strongly differing views. :-) Are you really that big a fan of deflation? An, how can you explain that the 30 year T-bill and gold are both at all time high prices. :-) Believe it or not, actual debate with living people is a good idea too. :-) Dan M. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Where to now?
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 2:25 PM, Dan Minette wrote: > And the suceeded for 60+ years. Ha, hahaha, ho ho ho. Very funny. > You would benefit by occasionally listening to other people. How about Hayek? The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. --Friedrich Hayek ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
RE: Where to now?
-Original Message- From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On Behalf Of John Williams Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2012 4:06 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: Where to now? On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 2:01 PM, Dan Minette wrote: > You change the regulations of the parasites on Wall Street... > ...You should read more. >If only it were that simple. Regulators have been trying to manage things for decades. And the suceeded for 60+ years. The repeal of Glass-Stengle (sp) had unintended consequences. One of which was giving banks a workaround of the reserve rule...by bluring the line between banks and investment houses. >Between regulatory-capture and the law of unintended consequences, creating regulations to accomplish a >certain goal is exceedingly difficult. And, when something has worked for >6 decades, be careful when you remove it. There is a reason we didn't have financial panics like 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 between the Great Depression and the Great Recession. The regulations worked. Would you like me to compute the odds of this being random chance for you. :-) >You should think more. Certainly, I often miss things. But, I'm lucky to have brillient friends and family who I debate these issues with. It helps me find my stupid mistakes fairly quickly. Now,I know this is radical for you, you should contemplate the idea that you are not 4 sigma smarter than everyone else in the world. You would benefit by occasionally listening to other people. Dan M. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Where to now?
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 2:01 PM, Dan Minette wrote: > You change the regulations of the parasites on Wall Street... > ...You should read more. If only it were that simple. Regulators have been trying to manage things for decades. Between regulatory-capture and the law of unintended consequences, creating regulations to accomplish a certain goal is exceedingly difficult. You should think more. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
RE: Where to now?
I didn't see this, so I'm resending it. Apologies if others had: -Original Message- From: brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com [mailto:brin-l-boun...@mccmedia.com] On Behalf Of John Williams Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2012 3:42 PM To: zwil...@zwilnik.com; Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: Where to now? On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Kevin O'Brien wrote: > OK, I'm not at all clear on how you got "top-down" management out of > what I said. >I'm getting tired of correcting all this nonsense, but I thought I'd respond to this at least. >You are the one claiming you know better how to allocate resources than >the millions of people who are >currently handling it themselves. If that is not an attempt at top-down management, then I don't know what is. Oh, I know the answer to this one, as do most ecconomists and business school faculty. You change the regulations of the parasites on Wall Street so they can't have leverage more than 40-1, can't hide toxic assents, can't pay off folks who assign ratings to give junk bonds AAA status, and can't be so big that they'll cause the whole system to crash if they fail. Don't you remember what happened when Melon followed your suggestions. The name of it is "The Great Depression", as I've been reminded by my buddy at HBS. The Great Recession is not so bad, compared to this. And, it's been shown that filtered leaders are easily replaced and do not add much value. The analysis involved includes calculations that rigorously show a 4000 to 1 odds of the results being due to random fluctuations. And, they are very robust. You should read more. Dan M. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
RE: Where to now?
>> BTW, my doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan involved >> banking and monetary issues. One of the best lessons I learned was >> that people who really understand what they are talking about can say it it plain English. >Which makes it ironic that you are potentially misleading people with the absurd concept of "money on >the sidelines". John, differing from you does not mean one is automatically misleading people. I've seen that phrase from folks who write on the stock market all the time. It's a phrase with a meaning that's well understood. Proving pedantic points is, by a definition that goes back to the time before Tommy Aquinas, sophomoric. Dan M. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Where to now?
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Kevin O'Brien wrote: > OK, I'm not at all clear on how you got "top-down" management out of what I > said. I'm getting tired of correcting all this nonsense, but I thought I'd respond to this at least. You are the one claiming you know better how to allocate resources than the millions of people who are currently handling it themselves. If that is not an attempt at top-down management, then I don't know what is. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Where to now?
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Kevin O'Brien wrote: > > BTW, my doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan involved banking > and monetary issues. One of the best lessons I learned was that people who > really understand what they are talking about can say it it plain English. Which makes it ironic that you are potentially misleading people with the absurd concept of "money on the sidelines". ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
RE: Where to now?
>BTW, my doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan involved banking and monetary issues. One >of the best lessons I learned was that people who really understand what they are talking about can say >it it plain English. Well, that just makes you as suspect as the non-financial faculty of HBS. :-) Don't you know that those who are educated in a subject are very suspect, just look at all the biologists who promegate that leftist propaganda: evolution. Actually, it's sad that folks like Mario Rubio have to bow to creationists by likened teaching anything that makes what's taught at home look foolish" to Castro having kids spy on their parents. On a more serious note. I don't know anyone who can explain electroweak theory in plain English and be accurate. I've tried for years to explain parts of QM as clearly and simply as possible, and find myself going over the heads of folks. It's frustrating. Dan M. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Where to now?
On 11/20/2012 2:12 PM, John Williams wrote: On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 5:45 AM, Kevin O'Brien wrote: Right now, there is a ton of cash that is mostly on the sidelines because the people who have it do not see opportunities for productive investment. "Cash on the sidelines" is a useless concept, and perhaps worse than useless, actually misleading. It works quite well for what I am describing. I did not see the point in going into a long analysis of where the money is, since the main point is that it is most definitely *not* going into anything that remotely creates jobs. Neither will giving those people even more money in the form of a tax cut. Top-down management of a $15 trillion economy is virtually impossible, and despite constant claims to the contrary by politicians, the best that can be hoped for is to provide incentives that might possibly, in some indefinite amount of time, nudge some parts of the economy slightly in the direction some people might like. OK, I'm not at all clear on how you got "top-down" management out of what I said. I'm pretty sure I never used the phrase. My only point is that people who have a lot of money now and do not invest it productively are not likely to suddenly discover productive uses for the money if you give them more of it. Another dollar in the hands of an average person is likely to result in another dollar worth of spending, which goes to products that a company must produce. In addition, if producing that product requires additional labor, there is a multiplier effect. Take that same dollar and give it to someone whose main interest is in feeding Cayman Island bank accounts, and you get bupkis. And if you find that dollar to give them by taking it away from someone who would have spent it, the result is actually negative. This result is not purely theoretical, either, since Europe is proving it on a daily basis. Anyone who keeps up on the news can see that Europe is having a much worse time of it than the U.S. right now. I don't really want to see us emulate that policy. BTW, my doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan involved banking and monetary issues. One of the best lessons I learned was that people who really understand what they are talking about can say it it plain English. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien zwil...@zwilnik.com A damsel with a dulcimer in a vision once I saw. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
RE: Where to now?
>Perhaps the patent equivalen of GPL? >Because the answer to "why can't we apply the wiki idea to publishing information?" was "copyrights and >licenses" until GPL became a viable solution .. There is a difference. I have an unused trade secret in my back pocket. When I came up with it, it was a solution to an unsolved problem that was costing millions of dollars. I didn't patent it because it would have just been copied. And, unless you have millions in a war chest for legal, large companies will sue you for scores of patent infringements for things you've never heard of and you will lose your retirement trying to defend yourself against these lawsuits that are not technically frivilous. (I know someone who was the coinventer of the first bioengineering patent and when a large company copied the idea, they took the life savings of his coinventer who invented the patent when he aske for royalties). But, I still have hope that a company with a legal fund and good lawyers will be interesting in an agreement to own my IP, so I can make money on it. What you are asking is for millions of IP to be given awayand the people who will use the Wiki will be large corporations who will hire engineers and tell them "copy it." So, why work hard to hand over your work to a big multinational for free? Dan M. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Where to now?
On 11/19/2012 4:56 PM, D.C. Frandsen wrote: But I also have a problem with the idea that creating new customers by which I guess, Kevin, you mean demand, is the only solution. I believe our problem has been that we have been fixated on creating demand only, not on the type of demand we are creating. I only wish we had been fixated on creating demand. Instead, everyone is fixated on something they call the "fiscal cliff", which is largely a non-issue. We had budget surpluses as recently as 2000, and there were people back then who worried about what happens the the bond market when the federal government is paying down debt. Would it reduce the supply of bonds to the point that it might destabilize the bond market? Then Bush came along, put a huge amount of money in the hands of the wealthy, then started a couple of wars without any provision for paying for them. Changing the situation is mostly a matter of returning to the sensible policies we had before Bush came along, when adults were running the show. The problem is that doing it all at once is going to cause serious economic problems. Right now, there is a ton of cash that is mostly on the sidelines because the people who have it do not see opportunities for productive investment. The Republican answer is to give those people even more cash on the grounds that they are "the job creators". That is complete hogwash. There is already tons of investible cash out there now. It will get invested only when there is demand for the products that could be produced. I would prefer that these products be the "right" kind, which for me would include renewable energy, efficient transportation, etc. because that global heating problem is still out there. But as Keynes pointed out, whether the right products are produced is irrelevant to the problem of getting the economy going again. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien zwil...@zwilnik.com A damsel with a dulcimer in a vision once I saw. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Where to now?
On Nov 19, 2012, at 1:58 PM, Klaus Stock wrote: >>> We need a black swan. >>> >> Maybe we already have it. The wiki model is working for editing >> wikipedias (not only _the_ Wikipedia, but many other clones, parodies, >> porn sites or just silly stuff), It began with IMDB and if they hadn't >> been such stupid jerks IMDB would have turned itself into what >> Wikipedia became. > >> Why can't we apply the wiki idea to _engineering_? > > Patents. Perhaps the patent equivalen of GPL? Because the answer to "why can't we apply the wiki idea to publishing information?" was "copyrights and licenses" until GPL became a viable solution .. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Where to now?
On Nov 19, 2012, at 1:55 PM, Klaus Stock wrote: > And...we got the iPad, where you actually have > to flip pages the old way. FYI -- you *can* turn pages the "traditional" way, but you can also tap the right edge of the page to turn it, so in effect, the whole right edge of the page is a "next page" button. (Likewise with the left edge for "previous page".) We could have an angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin debate about whether it's better to use up CPU cycles doing the page-turn animation, but I personally find it a useful visual cue, your mileage may vary considerably. That is true of iBooks, at least. Don't know much about the Kindle's GUI. I'm not sure the iPad has enough CPU moxie to be able to run eye-tracking yet. It's theoretically possible, but it would involve some high-efficiency coding. Or server-sourcing, which I'd just as soon do without .. it's annoying enough that Siri does it. And without a *very* good implementation of it, it could be extremely irritating with pages turning unintentionally or not turning when expected. *Lot* of tuning involved in that problem, and everyone's eyes move differently and the way our eyes move changes subtly over time and when drinking, etc. So it's very much a non-trivial problem with regard to several variables .. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
