Bill's Notes

One thing we're all starting to realize is that the rules have fundamentally changed, economically, for the U.S. What happened to the lower classes in the 70s and 80s happened to the middle classes in the OOs. But this decade looks like the big squeeze, no matter who is president and which party is in charge.

We have issues related to globalization -- both parties are in favor of it -- and automation. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/why-the-united-states-will-never-ever-build-the-iphone/251837/?google_editors_picks=true

We moved from hunter-gatherers to subsistence farmers to agrarian economies to the industrial revolution. In each case, despite severe dislocations, we moved from one to the other. But what's next -- a service economy? I think we all know that low-paid service sector jobs won't allow for a middle-class lifestyle. I'm afraid -- yes, afraid -- that what's happened to the cities is going to happen to the country as a whole. Even the nation-state is under attack -- from the massive Wikileaks to globalization to terrorism.

Where are we heading? That's actually pretty easy -- we are headed into severe dislocation, followed by a highly distributed network. The nation state will continue to exist, but it will create false boundaries on a network that knows virtually no boundaries. Individually, we are nodes on a network. You can live anywhere -- and will, if you can afford it.

Let's do the thought experiment, and I don't know the answer. I am thinking out loud here. Suppose a freak of nature is born with 10,000 orders of magnitude more intelligence than anyone else. He invents robots capable of all agriculture, all manufacturing and all ordinary services -- the entire supply chain from drilling oil out of the ground to raise cows to packaging them and selling them to automated checkout. Say he can do this extremely cheaply. A house can be manufactured for $1,000, capable of generating its own power indefinitely, creating water from air (dehumidiers) and handling its own garbage and sewage. There really is no need for anyone to do anything.

Now, here's been my bugaboo with economics, and the limits of my thinking: Who can afford that $1,000 -- because none of us have real jobs. Say he can product enough food for everyone in the world for $1,000 per year, too. Who can buy his food? The guy's robots are so smart and powerful we can't even hold a gun to the guy's head.

So it's lose/lose. He doesn't have much of an economy to sell into, and we don't have the cash to pay his very small invoices.

What goes on with globalization and automation is like that. If people can't afford the products they make, then the people who can afford to buy the products are steadily undermined, until, logically, no one has any money and thus there can be no payment for these great services.

We have to hope the smart guy just flat-out does it on his own ... with no hope of renumeration for his work.

The only industries left will be entertainment and creative services, artisan work, illegal drug distribution, gambling, that sort of thing. We'd have to be a world of artisans and monks and very disciplined family types.

But knowing human nature, we'd have idle hands. Not good.

I can't understand how globalization is supposed to work. The people who build the products can't afford them, and the people who buy them are sitting in quicksand because there's less and less need for jobs like theirs.

That's why I can't see the future, except dislocations, which if we don't blow ourselves up, will be followed by an extremely automated world that's inhuman, has little to no need for us, and will likely impoverish us.

But again, I'm at the end of my thinking ...

Mom's recovering nicely. Haven't decided what to with the father, but need to decide soon. He's still in the hospital.

I will say attempting to take care of an Alzheimer's patient who has done the things he's done and left the mess he's left is the most onerous burden I've ever faced in my life -- endlessly distracting, a giant, sucking black hole of need that if you aren't careful can utterly destroy you and even the people around you.

And during my visit, my family made sure not to make it clear they didn't want to hear a word about my father, because you know, it's not enough that I suffer. I have to keep quiet about it, too.

Hi. I flew down to Florida Friday. My mother had another stroke-like episode, but so far is recovering well. Just some eyesight issues at this point, but considering how much she's recovered so far it's good news. She went from a paralyzed side to a paralyzed left arm to full use of everything — nothing's frozen. Just a vision problem in one eye. Best we could hope for. Praise God.

Meanwhile, Friday morning as I got off the plane I got a text message from a healthcare worker. My father flipped out in the nursing home for the second time and once again is in the "older behavioral health unit" at a hospital back in PA. He is officially thrown out of the nursing home for good. They handled him even less time than I did. Not sure where he's going next, but I'm not going to worry about it now. He's not coming back to my house. A social worker is on the case and says there's a place that will handle this.

Meanwhile, I had a second client who wanted some work for me and now that's delayed. It seems any time I get my business up and running, my father creates another emergency. He's just shown that he's willing to anything, including violence and attacking staff and patients, to get his own way. Plus, he didn't do what he needed to do to make handling his affairs easily.

The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a district court's temporary ruling enjoining the government from enforcing Texas' sonogram law.

The law, which will require doctors to show sonograms and describe fetal development, is clearly designed to show women that they are killing a fellow human. Because they are.

First victory in a long time. Good news. Praise God.

Robert Samuelson says our politics are failing here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/12/26/russian_roulette_with_americas_future__112528.html

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Apparently there is a scientific term for attributing your values to others. We apparently vastly overestimate how much other people share our views. No surprise here. But I didn't know that there was a scientific term.

It explains a lot. Apparently, liars overestimate how much other people lie. Thieves overestimate how much people steal. So that explains why criminals have this "you're naive -- everyone does it mentality" and why decent people have such a hard time understanding criminals.

The nature of this effect is that it affects everyone.

Adding Jere Burns as evil psychologist Anson Fullerton has fixed the lackluster series lately. He's a villain worthy of Michael Westen and his team. However, so far, it seems that Michael's ethics have gotten screwed up. The ethics of the show have become problematic.

Michael is risking allowing Anson to reformulate his evil organization by giving him access to time and resources, all to save IRA terrorist Fiona. The risks, thus, go way beyond Fiona. Sure, if Michael kills Anson, Fiona goes to jail.

But ... but ... in the course of trying to figure out a way to save Fiona, he is risking a lot of other people. Already, numerous people have died while Michael figures out his plan. Every person who dies at Anson's hands adds to the cost of saving Fiona. From a strictly utilitarian viewpoint, the battle is already lost. Innocent people are already dead just by allowing Anson to walk around.

On the other hand, it adds a nice dramatic tension.

Yes, I know it's just a TV show. Really, I know that.

I am not pleased with those parts of the GOP debates I've seen so far. It's too demagogic and unthinking.

Just for the record, I am not in favor of:

* militarism
* militarization of our police forces
* torture (that's a change -- I didn't see waterboarding as torture; now I do)
* endless, open-ended wars to change the world (I was in favor of short f
* refusing to treat uninsured people in emergency rooms, and
* an electrified border fence.

I am also not in favor of:

* Socialism for the rich. That's what the bailouts amounted to when there were no prosecutions or accountability for needing the bailout. It's crony capitalism and class warfare and it has to stop.

* Socialism for anyone else.

I am also against:

* Treating any people as property.
* Occupy Wall Street and other mindless protests, and
* Demagoguery in lieu of solutions.

Finally, I am against:
* getting rid of the Post Office, and other necessary, Constitutional federal offices. I don't consider "privatization" is an unqualified good any more than I believe "tax cuts" are an unqualified good. There are times and places for both. Do we know what they are?

I'd like to see a better articulation of conservative values than I'm seeing. Not good so far.

Hookay, ignoring the Gingrich episode (God help us if the GOP nominates him ... I will not vote for him -- I'll go third party), Romney gets nominated by the GOP. As I said in a previous post, that means six of seven elite scions.

2012: Mitt Romney, son of Gov. George Romney.
2008: John McCain III, son of Admiral John McCain, Jr., son of John McCain, Sr., also an admiral.
2004-00: George W. Bush, son of President George Bush.
1996: Bob Dole, son of a creamery merchant.
1988-92: George H.W. Bush, son of Sen. Prescott Bush.
1980-84: Ronald Reagan, son of alcoholic.
1976: Gerald R. Ford, adopted son of a varnish salesman.
1960, 69-82: Richard Nixon, son of a failed family rancher.
1964: Barry Goldwater, son of a prominent Arizona businessman.
1952-56: Dwight Eisenhower, son of an engineer.
1944-48: Thomas Dewey, son of local newspaper owner.
1940: Wendell Wilkie, son of a local lawyer.
1936: Alf Landon, son of a Kansas oil man.
1928-32: Herbert Hoover, son of blacksmith.
1924: Calvin Coolidge, son of a farmer/teacher/state rep.
1920: Warren Harding, son of a doctor.
1916: Charles Evans Hughes, son of an immigrant preacher.
1908-12: William Taft, son of a national politician and scion of a political family.
1904: Theodore Roosevelt, born to a political family.
1896-1900: William McKinley, son of pig iron manufacturer.
1888-1892: Benjamin Harrison, grandson of President Wm Henry Harrison, son of Congressman.
1868-1880 -- generals from the Civil War were nominated (Grant, Hayes, Garfield)
1860. Lincoln, born in a friggin' log cabin.

OK, see a pattern?

From 1868-1880, the GOP picked Civil War generals, usually from Ohio.

From 1888 to 1912, with the exception of McKinley's two terms, the GOP nominated people from politically connected families.

From 1916 to 1984, the GOP nominated exclusively people who had succeeded on their own merits, and in many cases succeeded despite great obstacles.

But since 1988, with the exception of Bob Dole, it's pretty much scions of politically connected families.

Something's wrong. It's the old claim against the federalists -- it's aristocratic.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have nominated scions of privilege only intermittently -- only Al Gore (son of a senator) in recent years, but from 1924 to 1960 the Democrats had a nominated sons of the rich and the powerful, while claiming to be the voice of the people: JFK (his father bought the nomination), Adlai Stevenson (grandson of VP, son of statewide politician), and FDR (blue blood). Only Truman and Al Smith succeeded on their own merits, and Truman was an accident.

There's also an Ivy League bias in both parties: McCain, Dole, and Dukakis are the only non-Ivy Leaguers. And McCain was Naval Academy (a legacy invitation) and Dukakis (Swarthmore) went to high-powered schools. Dole and Ford were athletes at Kansas and Michigan, respectively. Romney will also be an exception, at Brigham Young. But he started at Stanford.

Who gets into the Ivy League, especially Harvard, Princeton and Yale? In the past 30-40 years, it usually boils down to some sort of political connection: legacies, minorities and athletes comprise the vast majority of the successful applicants. Slightly below that are regional candidates, chosen for where their application is from. Also, rich candidates are often successful. One admissions officer I know explained that if they can get a building out of it, they'll let 'im in.

Too much privilege. Ike, Nixon, Ford and Reagan all succeeded on their own merits. Ditto Bill Clinton and Carter.

LBJ succeeded on his own merits, sorta, but he was corrupt -- he cheated his way into the Senate. Both LBJ and Truman were "machine politicians" -- Truman to a particularly nasty Kansas City outfit, LBJ was beholden to an equally malevolent Texas one. And Obama is of course both a Chicago machine politician and an Affirmative Action hire.

While I usually choose to take people as they are, I'm usually in favor of those who know what the world is like outside a privilege bubble, or who succeeded through underhanded methods.

I think that's one reason I liked Clinton, Reagan and Carter. I didn't like the rest from my lifetime (i.e., since JFK).

So, if I seem less than enthusiastic, it's because seeing another scion go up against an Affirmative-Action candidate just doesn't get me too enthused. I'd rather see people who worked their way up. YMMV.

Let's hope this is a good sign:

Unemployment drops to 8.2 percent. This is an albeit small sign of increased confidence (see below) and reduced investor uncertainty.

If things continue to improve, and I believe they will, keep an eye both on the unemployment rate and the the total number of hires. Remember that "discouraged workers" aren't included in unemployment figures. If these uncounted, discouraged workers see a more robust job market, they will enter in larger numbers. That may cause a slowing of the unemployment rate as the total number of workers goes up. However, also remember that the United States possesses a huge economic engine. It may be able to add total jobs and reduce the rate.

Politically, divided government seems to be working. It has in the past. Setting faction against faction, the genius legacy of our founding fathers, may bail us out again.

In any case, it's good news. We can use it.

Who is to blame for the current economic situation? Is it a partisan affair? Is it all the Republicans' fault? Is it the Democrats' fault?

No. The economic collapse was:
* delivered by both parties, i.e., a bipartisan affair
* caused by both regulatory, governmental cultural issues, a morally corrupt overclass, and demographics, and
* caused by a technological revolution.

Right now, we have issues with Globalization and the Internet. Both have deeply disrupted the American way of life and the latter represents the greatest technological disruption since the Printing Press. They have disrupted individuals' lives and expectations, making hard-fought skill sets utterly obsolete, or too expensive to compete with overseas labor.

And worse, they have left many people, myself included (and I've successfully started a business in this mess), unsure of the next step. It's very difficult to plan with so much uncertainty.

Basically, what do you do? How can an American compete in a global economy? What do you need to learn? Where can you find customers?

Right now, I can only speak of the extreme micro-, namely, my life. It involved belt-tightening, which included paradoxically investment in money-saving technologies (e.g., a wood stove), and creating a job instead of looking for one. Bully for me. But five years from now -- no idea.

Right now there is uncertainty -- people don't know what to expect. And uncertainty is the enemy of investment. Hiring people are investments.

They look at a busted federal budget (and it's busted) and think, some day perhaps soon, that bill will come due. Plan for it. But how?

They see their retirement savings, the 401(k)'s that were supposed to provide, stagnate for 10 years. They've seen a government blow bubbles, one after another, for two decades.

And they see massive federal and state regulatory changes, and wonder what the rules are. When people don't know what the rules are, when crony capitalism becomes the rule, they don't invest. And hiring is an investment.

And they see technology misused for individual purposes, empowering individuals to impact their fellow citizens in horrific ways. And let's face it, there's the dark threat of nuclear terrorism, cyberattacks, individual surveillance technologies, etc. The future looks ominous and that depresses us and the economy. People who are hopeful about the future, invest. People who are not, don't.

We need clear rules and to stick with them for a while. We need to rein in the federal budget so the deficit isn't at third-world levels. We need cultural changes that disincentive a something-for-nothing mentality and reward steady, skilled, creative work and not so much the big score. Get rich slowly needs to be the message. And we need to stop consuming one another in partisan strife, as St. Paul said.

And even then, we have the technological revolution and the grave threats to liberty that technological empowerment of criminals and terrorism represent. The former we could work out in hopeful times. The latter, I don't know.

These are evil days. Together, we can get through them. In fact, only together can we get through them.

I didn't so much join the Republicans as leave the Democrats. It was a little degrading to join the Stupid Party. But alas, Crazy and Stupid? OK, still better than Evil, but discomforting nonetheless.

The Republicans are going crazy. Mitt Romney is the nominee; everyone knows it, and the Republican Party normally doesn't nominate governors of Massachusetts, and certainly not ones who implement socialized medicine in their state. Kinda hard to run against Obamacare when there was RomneyCare.

So they're desperately looking around.

Sarah! She bowed out.

Michelle! Um, crazy.

Hermann Cain? Good! Oops, he sexually harassed the hell out of his staff.

Rick Perry! Yes, he's the guy! Um ... well, he sounds like Duyba. Gaffe prone. Got his lunch eaten at debates. Let's see ... maybe someone else.

OK, Newt! Newt is a fine man, an excellent thinker and speaker, and absolutely, batshit crazy. Not weird and creepy crazy like Obama. Imagine a very smart hamster with ADD and a wicked temper.

OK, Ron Paul! No, no, we're just kidding. Ron is Very Smart and Very Good and Very Right about a lot of things, such as the whole, how about we try following the Constitution and just-how-many-countries-are-going-to-invade? But we're not going to nominate him.

Thus, Romney. Republicans will fall into line, and in all likelihood, elect him the 45th president of the U.S.

Who is he?

Well, he's the son of former auto exec/governor/presidential candidate George Romney. So for the sixth time in the past seven elections we're nominating the son of an elite. Not a good trend.

Romney was a so-so student who went to fancy private schools in his later grades, attended Stanford, spent two years in France as a Mormon missionary (and remains a Francophile), and finished college at Brigham Young. He was a successful investment-fund manager as cofounder of Bain Capital, making money out of money. He straightened out the scandal-plagued Salt Lake City Olympics, and then became governor. Of Massachusetts. His signature legislative achievement was creating a statewide healthcare plan, which included an individual mandate.

So, scion, mediocre student, history of privilege, private school, Mormon, Francophile, Wall Street investment banker, northeastern governor, liberal healthcare plan, and individual mandate. This is from the populist party that believes in meritocratic success, is running against Obamacare, thinks the individual mandate is a gross violation of individual liberty (but less odious at the state level), is suspicious of Yankees and loathes France, thinks Joseph Smith was a whackjob, and believes in small business.

You see why there's a bonding problem between the GOP and Romney. But Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. Republicans held their noses and supported Mr. Magoo McCain. Now, Romney.

Reading around the Internets, have concluded that we all talk too much. Recommend a national day of silence. Imagine -- everyone being perfectly quiet. No TV, no radio, no film, no media at all. No updated blogs.

Just silence. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here. Always had trouble understanding this when I think of it in my head. However, it's easy to understand graphically and easy to prove with a spreadsheet.

For those who forgot, the Monte Hall problem is thus:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1 [but the door is not opened], and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

I think the problem with this problem is it overloads the brain's working memory. There's a cognitive failure that occurs, like voting for Obama or choosing Palin as a running mate, making us all look like douche bags ... oh wait, this isn't political.

Anyway, the key to keeping this in working memory is to forget that Monte opens one door. Keep it closed. Now, consider that Monte is essentially asking if you want two doors to one.

You choose Door One. Instead of Monte opening Door Three and showing you a goat, pretend that he's asking if you'd like to exchange Door One for Door Two AND Door Three. Of course you'd change. That's what he's doing.

That's because if you switch, you only lose if you guessed right the first time. Since there was a two in three chance you lost the third time, you're better off switching.

I was told this weekend by my semi-significant other that I have "very limited life experience" -- and that I "haven't been exposed to many different types of people."

I had asked her why, in social settings, particular just casual situations with strangers, I never know what the heck other people want and other people always seem to. She said it was (see above) caused by this lack of life experience.

She once said this to her children about me, too.

Now, given this is a retarded thing to say about me, why would this bother me so much that I'm thinking about it a week later?

Part of the reason: I've always sensed that my life experience is very limited. Other people were living parts of life that I was not living and seemed to have no access to. Usually this involved families and communities. There were many others areas of life I thought I was missing, but I expended efforts and was able to pursue and succeed in several of these other areas.

So, giving her the benefit of the doubt, that is, that she was making a point that was inelegantly (OK, tactlessly) expressed (or even incorrectly expressed), what was she saying? Usually people talk in generalities when they mean particularities. I have at times been excessively candid (OK, tactless) about some people in her life. I think what she said was arguing back at me for that.

Vanity vanity all is vanity.

Dwight Longenecker,a former Episcopal priests, explains three of the key forces in today's Dictatorship of Relativism: sentimentality, utilitarianism and politics. In any case, read the whole thing.

Still the best riposte to atheism. God's existence is a fact, not an argument to be won.

The Democrats should try to do better.

Recently, a person that's gone through an extremely painful time mentioned that she'd questioned her faith and wondered why things worked out the way they did from a spiritual perspective.

I didn't catch the beginning of the conversation, as I sat down with it in progress. It was quickly apparent she had no interest in discussing the topic with me. I offered a comment or two and was immediately cut off.

Which was fair enough. It wasn't my conversation, and I was clearly not invited to join in, even if I thought I had something helpful to say. However, I still wanna talk about it, and so I will here on this blog, where no one can handwave my comments.

The two questions that came to mind:

1. Do you know there's a God or not? Since Descartes, educated people must start from scratch and explain the steps of why they believe or don't believe in God. Or anything else. You start with an assumption of ignorance — I don't know — and what can I prove from there.

2. Why didn't God intervene in such-and-such-a-way as to prevent suffering? Now, this is not a question I answer to someone who is suffering. And someone who is suffering or has suffered asks this kind of question. The answer to suffering is to comfort, sometimes merely by staying with the person ... it's not the time for a debate about the nature of suffering. It's about grieving with the grieving, and suffering with those who suffer.

My answers were:

1. Yes, we know God exists. Descartes was wrong. We do in fact have the knowledge of God written on our hearts, and we don't need to apprehend Him via our intellect to say we "really" apprehend God. We don't need to prove the existence of God; it's enough that our heart leaps for joy, Abba, Father, sometimes, to know there is a God.

2. I have no answer to theodicy, and believe that any answer potentially subjects me to God's judgment. I cannot tell you why others suffer and I will not justify their suffering, not out of rebellion, but out of fear of God. I believe God calls us to comfort, love and heal the suffering, to carry the sufferings of others, and that's all. He wants us to accept this lack of answer. Remember, the Book of Job ends the OT in the Jewish version, and then comes Christ. Christ's love is the answer to suffering — God never answers the problem of evil, except to say that it's above your pay grade and love one another.

Why did something evil happen? Because physical, social or natural causes set in motion events so they happened that way. God is like a Father who watches us learn to swim in the deep end — He suffers and rejoices with us, and perhaps throws us a life raft, but also, perhaps not. Perhaps we swim until we are exhausted. Perhaps we drown. Why? I don't know.

I have never been one of those people who say, "God has a plan" or "Everything happens for a reason." It's not that those things are not true, it's that they are simultaneously true and false. (And also, when someone is suffering real pain at the time, it's a monstrously detached thing to say.)

Maybe God's plan involves you dying upside down on a Cross. Getting stone to death. Being beheaded. It's been known to happen, you know. God is a radical.

I believe, as painful as this sounds and with all humble fear and trembling, that whatever God is up to, it may be so radically different from what we want as to be unrecognizable to us. But God is God; He suffers and rejoices with us. But He's also not playing around.

And of course, if you can manage to laugh and love and praise God in the midst of sufferings, if you can join your sufferings to Christ's, if you hold to your faith while carrying the Cross, that's following Christ.

Jesus said, "Take up your Cross and follow me." He didn't say, go to the right schools, go into debt, get a mortgage, dedicate your time to a job ... He said, Take up Cross and Follow. This way.

Which way? That's the question we should have been asking. Not, why did this happen? But — which way was I to tug this cross thingy so that I'm still following you?