Win and lose

It's been said that some want privatization of profit and socialization of loss. That is, the gains go into the pockets while the payouts require a handout. We've seen a lot of this the past year.

However, we also see that the current rally makes, for some, an argument that we need to get into the gaming in order to have a future. A recent article out of Silicon Valley (newspaper) had such a message (usual equity/debt issue) essentially saying that stocks were necessary.

Well, that story is not quite right, however we need better support to show why. We'll work on getting that.

But, knowing about Harvard and Yale can help, as they both have lost this past year. And, their earlier success made others follow suite. We'll look for more analysis there.

In the meantime, here is a summary of references in this blog to those paragons of everything.

• Oops and more oops (Sep 08) -- A Remarks to this post mentioned how Harvard's success, and its being highly touted, caused jealous bones to try to duplicate. However, that is human nature. But, you would think that those running organizations, like CALPERS, would have a better foundation. Oh, why would I say that since there is no good foundation?
• Lessons to be learned (Jan 09) -- By this time, Harvard was waking up to the problem and crying poor. Well, they did recognize the issues early. Can't fault them for that?
• Hedge funds (Jan 09) -- By this time, we knew a little more about Madoff's shenanigans. He was still free, though. But, the issue is that any return beyond something reasonable is by necessity the result of things that stink, categorically. Why? Near zero! One would think that the brains of Harvard, et al, could figure out a way to help lead things to other than perdition.

We'll be getting back to this as things unfold.

Note: Of course, how public is all this? But, wasn't this an example of some best-and-brightest making oodles? Didn't one even leave to start some other endeavor? Claw back comes to mind. When will that ever be? Too, though, over the years of the big returns, these organizations were spending a lot besides building their nest egg. So, to see the real lost, it's not the case where we look at only one year; actually, there needs to be some balance across a lot of time. Yet, even though that would reduce some of the notions about the losses this year, the fact remains that you win and you lose. The maturity is to not lose more than what you've gained. That is true growth. But, experimentation ought to be lab-based.

Remarks:

05/17/2011 -- Hedge funds need some of our attention.

02/05/2010 -- See Lehman's guy report (toxic shock) on Harvard losses.

10/11/2009 -- Discussion has gone over to FED-aerated. Note the 10/11/2009 Remarks about the Business Week article on India's progress' inhibitors. 'Near zero' recognizes that some always suffer more than others, especially in win-win situations, as the whole notion of characterization minimizes visceral reactions by diminishing the real in favor of the abstracted (ah, the modern world, you say?).

09/13/2009 -- Need to pause for a bit, to look at Bookstaber's work.

09/12/2009 -- Sandbox was used without definition. Let's discuss that concept.

Modified: 05/17/2011

Econoblog II

Well, we've done the econoblog, FEDaerated, for awhile. Actually, we're starting the second month.

One thing is clear. In Economics, we have 'dismal' since we have very complicated systems that include humans. In Engineering, on the other hand, it's a little better. Why? Well, for one thing, engineering has nature as a lab, and it can (or try to) bend humans (or make them a collection of idiots - oh, by the way, isn't that the role of the fat cat CEO?) to meet the system, and machine.

In economics, we have people running off, like Ben, with decisions whose ramifications are unknown at this time. Oh, yes, call that undecidable. Get it? Thanks, Vienna school.

And, Engineering needs to wake up to the fact that the computer exacerbates the problems, except that one can look for certain types of stability in numeric processes, even those with PDE equivocations.

So, one finds major projects having problems. Their blaming things on the program management is only half-right.

Perhaps, it turns out, the dismal science may be of use, in a micro sense. After all, even heavily numeric processes require decisions. Message to the managers: these glorified computational resources need major adjustments to assumptions in the beginning, then they need to use heuristics for control during processing, and the after-the-fact analysis is definitely something that requires expert opinion.

One thing that the alluded-to program did wrong? Feed computer model data back in as if it were equivalent to a test in nature, or so it looks from the outside. Tsk, Tsk.

So, managers, if your techies tell you other than the following, they're leading you astray: there is no magic, no overarching theory, and definitely no wizard with the clue.

That is, manager, your techies are as clueless as is yourself.

Having said all that, there are things that lead to success. We all know about this and see it all the time. What was one comment? (quick, quiet, and early)

Quasi-empiricism needs to be added to the focus, to constrain the potential for hubris.

Note: One thing to discuss will be that we're dealing with a 'possible world' situation where these worlds are not disjoint. That is, you have fan-in and fan-out as things unfold along the line of time. And, we get a huge increases in potential due to computational models and their ever-growing-ness. This is an NP situation as we saw with de Kleer's ATMS (1986). But, the necessity for handling these matters can be easily shown, therefore the continuing interests in coping mechanisms.

Remarks:

11/04/2010 -- Big Ben is still putting us at risk and trashing the savers.

09/09/09 -- We'll need to look at UUUN, as a framework.

Modified: 11/05/2010