If you’re
not allowed to point out Irony, is that a paradox? Does not admitting something make it go away?
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Are all the wrong people being humble?
My concept of the value of humility was changed by understanding
that one's own humility is powerless in the face of people who have none. "Joey", with his crew, had said they could build a fence; unfortunately,
none of them had ever heard of a fencing tool. Worse, nobody had absorbed
high school geometry, much less vectors.
After Joey had screamed at his teen age son a few times, I told the son
he'd be better off with a different father (so much for MY humility).
Joey's single competent worker; I told: “Get a new boss.”
I guess, paradoxically, I'm saying that some people are humbler
than others, and maybe, they shouldn't be. It just doesn't work.
I’m not saying that it’s me, but just maybe, some of the time, the
wrong people are choosing to be humble; at the worst possible time.
At the so-called Covid19 press briefing in April, Dr. Brix allowed
the idiot, Donald Trump, to look her in the eye and suggest that people should
inject disinfecting products into their bodies, and subject themselves to
ultraviolet light irradiation in order to save themselves from dying from the
virus. THIS was a violation of her Hippocratic
Oath. She chose to “humble herself” before the ignorance,
stupidity, hubris (the opposite of humility), and the misinformation from Donald Trump that killed people.
She should have stood, taken the mic from him and said: "Don't do this; this man is an idiot." No one could have substantively argued with her assessment. She was way way too humble.
If humility is strength, then it has to be exercised.
She should have stood, taken the mic from him and said: "Don't do this; this man is an idiot." No one could have substantively argued with her assessment. She was way way too humble.
If humility is strength, then it has to be exercised.
The wrong people are being humble.
The right people are acting humble at exactly the wrong time.
Is that “IRONIC”?
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Whatever Floats Your Boat
Is not
magic. Two ‘Happy Birthday songs’ (… while washing our hands…) is NOT
magic.” Easy short term answers are almost always too
short, too little, too soon, and are based on assumptions.
The concept of a
minimal response, to change a course, is one of those “economic” principals
that seem to work. Supply and Demand … (
let’s apply a nudge here or a tug there, and we’ll fix all our problems.) They often even have math equations and graphs! All we have to do, is just adjust a few
little tiny, easy to manipulate parameters.
Just a tad; and all will be well (as defined in my Econ Text book).
Our economists
say that the most “efficient” way for
the world to work is for it to allow that wonderful Invisible hand of the Market, with its
ability to “weed out” those “inefficient” things that impede “progress” (or any
other solutions old or new) is economic dogma.
It is the only way to
set policy for the greater good of the greater fraction of mankind; and all because
how much profit made is the only determiner of success.
Man! That invisible Hand is better
than God. Better than logic, empathy,
justice, morality, or anything.
And the guy that
made 1 penny per ton of extra profit on recycled used tires from Indonesia back
in 1985: he was a genius, (forget that
the tax payers spent a 100 million dollar$ getting rid of the dengue fever
epidemic that he brought to our shores with the Indonesian mosquitoes. There was also a Cholera outbreak caused by “cheap
imports”. Cholera had been eradicated here for decades
before the boat brought it to our shores.
The economically posited “genius”,
the infinitely wise and omniscient God-like force that raises all boats (with
its magical invisible hand) is the only way to set policy. If you see the sarcasm here and you disagree with any of this, , Now is the time, the capitalists will scream at you: “Socialist!"
!”
Let us all be
like economists; let us assume that we have a boat. I recall a discussion about a hypothetical
problem discussed between two economists:
It was thus: “You are stranded on
an island and you are desperate to get off ASAP…” one economist asks the other,
“What would you do?” The answer from the
other economist was, “Well, let us assume that I have a boat.” And then he went on at length with lots and
lots of details. The economists at
Goldman Sacks just predicted the unemployment rate for 2021. That’s when the pandemic with be over. Forget that there is no vaccine now, no one
knows how soon there will be one. No one
knows how much of it can be produced how fast, how many people will need it,
how long it might work… But they’ve
assumed we’ll have it.
Now…. “Efficient” as defined by almost all
economists is, the CHEAPEST short term bottom line, corporate, (and now:
governmental) way to run the world and everything in it all the time so as to
$ave money... Shall we quote those who
have said that the USA should be run like a business?
Perhaps by a
successful business man?
That Supply
Chain Problem! I just heard that the
collapse of the supply chain is due to the fact that most (capitalists) ran
their decisions of supply, sub contractors, manufacturing, movement of product,
and retail distribution, based on the bottom line: “WHAT is the cheapest
way to maximize my profit? TODAY.
The invisible
hand of the market somehow (in its infinite wisdom) lifts all boats.
You might have
to assume that you have a boat, though…
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