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  • Ruminations – 8may12

    George Rebane

    VEdayHappy VE Day!  On 8 May 1945 the Rebanes were in Liederberg – a small German farming village that just a few days ago was firmly brought under the control of Patton’s Third Army (more here) – and ready to be carted off to Augsburg and four years of internment in post-war displaced persons camps.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the world the battle for Okinawa was raging with Marine and Army divisions locked in a no-quarter-given combat with Japanese forces that had only one mission, die as slowly as possible while killing as many Americans as possible.  Okinawa was bigger than D-Day, but in America people were too busy celebrating Hitler’s downfall to notice.  That August the world would again change.

    Newly elected Hollande promised to tax France to growth and balanced budgets.  And the French believed him.  Now nothing like that will happen, but what the hell, the French could frolic in the streets for a couple of days before they double down on their loudly proclaimed misery.  The French government’s spending already accounts for more than 50% of the country’s GDP and it doesn’t generate any wealth.  All it is capable of doing is buying votes with tribute exacted from its private sector whose top marginal tax rates are now going to go above 70%.  The same silly people there as here believe that someone will actually risk their euros to build/expand businesses from which, if successful, the government will leave them 30 cents of every euro they earn.

    Some writers view this latest installment of socialist failure in Europe as a golden opportunity for America (here).  They argue that America will be the only place left in the world for entrepreneurial and investment opportunity.  To me it seems that not everyone is paying attention to what Team Obama has accomplished, and what more they have in store for us should they win in November.  America’s crosshairs are focused squarely on being able to replicate the European toilet economy.  And some independents on this side of the Pond still ask, ‘why would we do that?’

    The answer is that the socialist on both shores see none of this going on in Europe.  The EU and its subsequent eurozone are instead seen as triumphs in governance.  Happy dancing in the streets as national healthcare systems go broke, retirement ages are lowered (Hollande will return France to 60 from 62), endless vacations at every turn, can’t-get-fired jobs, minimum wages pushed above $20/hr, austerity measures reversed (no more spending cuts), … what’s there not to like?

    No one there or here remembers nor has been taught that when governments have taken over the means of creating the country’s wealth, they have created the sorriest places for human existence on earth.  It has always started with taxing the bejeesus out of ‘the rich’, until everyone who earned a private paycheck found themselves suddenly designated as ‘the rich’.

    This is also graduation season and our colleges are in the process of disgorging another million or so of young people (the entire US education system releases 4.3M onto the economy each year).  They are of the ‘Me Generation’, and the great part of them will land in the job market without marketable skills, and dumber than the proverbial 2×4 with a face painted on it.  Bret Stephens in the 8may12 WSJ writes the Class of 2012 a sobering letter; it begins –

    Allow me to be the first one not to congratulate you. Through exertions that—let’s be honest—were probably less than heroic, most of you have spent the last few years getting inflated grades in useless subjects in order to obtain a debased degree. Now you’re entering a lousy economy, courtesy of the very president whom you, as freshmen, voted for with such enthusiasm. Please spare us the self-pity about how tough it is to look for a job while living with your parents. They’re the ones who spent a fortune on your education only to get you back— return-to-sender, forwarding address unknown.

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  • ‘… to shift the burden of hardship to the rich …’

    George Rebane

    That promise is resounding worldwide as socialist/communist politicians promise to ease the long overdue payments for profligate government spending in countries facing financial ruin.  Today France elected Francois Hollande to be its new president.  How did Hollande beat Sarkozy?  by promising to shift the burden of hardship, naturally.

    Hollande
    The rich are already paying more than the lion’s share, and could not supply the spending spigots if their earnings were confiscated in toto.  But none of this matters while the other half pays nothing into those tills, and still demands more.  No one among the sheeple is aware of the greater problem that has nothing to do with ‘the rich’ who are prominently dangled to fill their attention spans.

    The same thing is happening in Greece, and soon in Spain, Italy, Portugal, …, and, of course, the United States which is already in the lead bringing such policies to the fore with messianic force.  In California, we have been ahead of that curve for years, and show no inclination to let slip our position of leadership.

    How have you prepared for this future?

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  • Fair Division 101

    George Rebane

    It’s usually tough to divide up a set of assets when a partnership breaks up, spouses get divorced, or any set of in/divisible assets or resources must be allocated between multiple parties.  The study of fair division algorithms has seen a considerable amount of research and it isn’t over yet.  A good fair division algo that is adopted by negotiating parties will go a long way toward achieving a mutually acceptable outcome.  I have found Fair Division: from cake-cutting to dispute resolution (1996) by Brams and Taylor to be an excellent survey of such algos.

    We all know how two people should divide a cake into equal pieces so that neither would have a reasonable complaint – the algo prescribes that one cuts the cake, the other chooses his piece.  But what happens when there are three or more people who want to divide the cake equally, or even to divide the cake into agreed upon portions?  You can see how things can get complicated very quickly.

    In this edition we will consider a simple yet powerful algo – let’s call it FD01 (developed by Bronislaw Knaster) – that allows two parties to divide up a disparate set of indivisible assets, one of which consists of cash.  The entire schema for FD01 is shown in the spreadsheet figure below.

    FairDivision_FD01
    The left column lists the six assets (the cash asset is not required).  Parties A and B agree that their split is 40-60 respectively as shown.  Each party has the assets appraised.  This step is not required, and may be completed mutually if desired, or the two appraisals may even be shared.

    Both parties, using all the information available to each that may include tax considerations, future plans, and knowledge of the other’s propensities, will now place a ‘bid value’ by each asset that represents his own assessment of what he considers to be the dollar value of the asset to be used in the subsequent calculations.  Each party submits a sealed bid list for all assets to be divided.  The bid values for each are listed in their respective columns.

    (more…)

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  • edX – ‘a revolution in education’ (addended)

    George Rebane

    MIT and Harvard have announced the launch of edX, a “disruptive” initiative in worldwide online education that will leverage the best teachers with interactive learning technology.  The promise of this newest of such initiatives that follow in the footsteps of the Kahn Academy is that it could well disrupt the careers of incompetent teachers, and maybe even the teachers unions.  MITnews reports –

    EdX brings a “possibility of transformation through education to learners across the globe,” (Harvard president) Faust said. “We are privileged to be here today to mark the creation of a new partnership between two of the world’s great universities, a partnership that will change our relationship to knowledge and teaching for the benefit of our students, and students and would-be students everywhere.”

    Anant Agarwal, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and president of the newly formed edX, called the new initiative a “historic partnership.” Online education, he said, is creating a “revolution” driven by “the pen and the mouse,” adding that edX is “disruptive, and will completely change the world.” The new possibilities afforded by today’s technology, he said, have created “the biggest change in education since the invention of the printing press.”

    And that’s the good news, that we can leap over our dysfunctional (especially in STEM subjects) public education system and their cadres of union stultified deadwood ‘educators’.  Imagine how such course work will serve both home schooling and integrate with the full spectrum of brick and mortar schools.  I predict that the course certification processes adopted with online education will compete well with the diploma and degree programs now in the mainstream.  By ‘compete’ I mean compete in the job markets.

    The bad news is how many American kids will tackle the offered course work, because it is hard and we know that worldwide kids from less developed countries will.

    [Addendum]  Not to defocus the topic of online learning too much, but it seems to me there will be another benefit to the funders and consumers of k-12 education.  When the quality of teachers and teaching in public schools is criticized, left-leaning teachers leap to the fore with all kinds of denials and excuses.  The denials are not worth wasting bits to address.  However, the excuses for poor performance need airing.

    Two obvious causes for poor performance in a classroom comprised of a cross section of students are 1) the out of control classroom due to bad behavior of kids whom the teacher cannot (may not?) control, thereby destroying the learning situation for everyone regardless of the teacher’s talents; and 2) the poorly prepared or incompetent teacher in a classroom of normally controllable kids – i.e. the learning environment is totally controllable.

    From the national statistics on student performance and the fraction of uncontrollable classrooms in the country, it should be clear that the overwhelming source of student dumbth is due to #2 above.  There are no statistics indicating that ‘the blackboard jungle’ is the norm across the land.  Yet the (almost entirely leftwing) apologists for the state of public education overwhelmingly hide behind #1 as the reason for why our students don’t perform well, and why almost all of them going beyond high school have to be taught remedial basic skills in reading, writing, and math when they get to college.  (Their deficiencies in other subjects like history, economics, social studies, … are just ignored and the resulting ignorance is visible anywhere you see younger adults open their mouths in public.)

    Therefore, there is reason to hope that as online education spreads through the land we will see lessening of the impact from #2 above.  And because more students can study in environments other than the classroom, there may also be a reduction in #1, the impact from disruptive students.  The dynamic this imposes on the legacy cohort of ‘professional’ teachers will be hard to predict because of the presence and power of their unions.  Thoughts?

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  • The Bayes Surface and more (updated 19jan13)

     George Rebane

    [This post continues the numeracy series on the Bayes contribution to our civilization.  For more background and examples, please see ‘Making Medical Decisions’.]   

    BayesSurface2
    What you see here is a 3D graphical illustration of the celebrated Bayes Theorem (or formula).  I have not seen this beautiful surface presented in the literature, so I wrote a little program to do just that.  In this representation the Bayes formula (seen above the surface) is expressed in its likelihood form.  We are reminded that the Bayes Theorem is the correct and most powerful process by which we take existing uncertain knowledge, combine it with new data or observations, and update that knowledge.

    Today the Bayes Theorem underlies the operational principles embedded in so much of what makes our modern world.  It is safe to say that most new technologies in fields that include medicine, energy exploration and production, finance, communication, space exploration, transportation (land, sea, air), defense, the internet, manufacturing, distribution of goods and power, … would be handicapped beyond belief were we to remove their Bayesian components – we would literally be thrown back into the technological age of the 1950s, and our modern world would cease to exist.

    To the above list we add artificial or machine intelligence (AI for short), all forms of which are now based on Bayesian inference and its newest offspring, the new calculus of causality.  These applications focus on learning from the real world, a world which presents itself ambiguously within confounding frames of uncertainty.   As critters, our brainbones have evolved to make Bayesian kinds of decisions within a utility that ranks survival highest.  Many of our neural structures appear to have parts of the illustrated surface hardwired into what Daniel Kahneman (Thinking Fast and Slow, 2012) has identified as our intuitive ‘System 1’ cognitive processor that lets us come to rapid conclusions.

    (more…)

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  • Education, teacher meritocracy, and our national future

    George Rebane

    RR has long promoted the idea that education in wealth producing/sustaining fields is the ONLY solution to America’s economic and social problems.  Former SecState and now distinguished senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, George Shultz co-authors ‘Education Is the Key to a Healthy Economy’ with Eric Hanushek in which they acknowledge our broken K-12 public school system, and make the argument that quality STEM (Science, technology, engineering, math) education correlates strongly with and is a causal factor promoting economic growth – see nearby chart.  Their conclusion is that “An improved education system would lead to a dramatically different future for the U.S., because educational outcomes strongly affect economic growth and the distribution of income. … (And) if we fail to reform K-12 shools, we’ll have slow growth and more inequality.”

    GDPgrowthPISA

    The authors point out research that shows how per capita GDP is affected by STEM proficiency, and that –

    Current U.S. students—the future labor force—are no longer competitive with students across the developed world. In the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings for 2009, the U.S. was 31st in math—indistinguishable from Portugal or Italy. In “advanced” performance on math, 16 countries produced twice as many high achievers per capita than the U.S. did.

    Continuing on this path, as is the current strategy promoted by the nation’s teachers unions, will guarantee to nail us to a slow growth future in which all the catastrophes from our indebtedness and unfunded liabilities will come home to roost in spades.  We will quickly become a second rate nation and all that entails in our ability to remain as the world’s most salutary and beneficent hegemon in history.

    (more…)

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  • Socialism as predicted …

    George Rebane

    Thousands of businesses are paying their ‘fines’ to opt out of Obamacare as they terminate their healthcare packages and leave their employees to fend for themselves.  Wait until they see how much money they’ll be saving sailing steerage class on this Titanic2.

    In the meantime, Mercatus Center’s Veronique de Rugby has published the graphic below that illustrates the updated report from the Social Security trustees as to when SS will go bust.  Remember how the know-nothing leftwingers were screaming at anyone who dared question that SS was ‘fully funded into the indefinite future’ because of all those ‘Lock Box’ IOUs (aka Treasurys).  The more interesting thing to note is how much louder they scream next time when their butt stupid understanding of economics is pointed out to them as being the basis for the last disaster they promoted.

    SStrustfund

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  • Ruminations – 1may12 (updated++)

    George Rebane

    It looks like getting your college education subsidized will now become a new ‘right’ across the land.  Neither party is willing to let student loan interest rates increase automatically as they were supposed to.  As a taxpayer, I want the government out of the student loan business (among many other businesses they are in), but as long as they want to play lenders (recall the last time they tried that in real estate) with my money, I want to be able to have a say what areas of study that I and fellow taxpayers will fund.  Most certainly I don’t want to be on the hook for defaulted loans by people whose majors only qualified them to gainfully ask ‘… and would you like fries with that?’ after graduation.

    On the whole, our post-high school education system is a mess, which is just a continuation of the mess our high school system is in.  Both secondary and post-secondary school systems are scam operations on the national weal, each costing an arm and a leg, and delivering little brains.

    But the President has now made student loans one of his campaign issues since he cannot run on his record.  Speaking of which, the latest poll has 49% of Americans wanting to overturn Obamacare, and 38% wanting to keep it.  The latter have no idea what’s in the legislation, and don’t really care because it just adds on to the other freebies that they already get from taxpayers.

    The other big item brought up by the President is to garner the Hispanic vote by demagoguery on the illegal alien issue.  As I have repeatedly argued, the tragic mislabeling of the illegal entrants as illegal immigrants has totally muddied the debate and allowed the leftwing to bamboozle the lightweights with statements like Sen Dick Durbin's (D-IL) recent wail that the Republicans (especially in Arizona) are “considering people as criminals just because of their immigration status.”  Well hello Dick! We should consider them criminals because according to our laws, illegal entrants and aliens are.  And that sumbich regularly raises his hand to uphold the Constitution.

    All of this doesn’t seem to be playing as well with the Hispanics because as of yesterday 45% of them support Arizona’s legislation to allow it to enforce federal law on illegal aliens.  43% don’t support it.  When all of our citizens are tallied, the support goes to 62%, and opposed are 27%.

    Finally, on the anniversary of the Bin Laden hit we are still not allowed to see the photos that the Seal Team took of the raghead after they dispatched him.  Why?  Because it "may offend" some sensitive Muslims.  No one stops to consider that the willing exercise of power is the ONLY thing that the Islamists understand and respect.  And no one in the administration cares about the ongoing assaults and atrocious murders of Christians and Jews that continue wherever Muslims dominate.  No one checked to see how sensitive I was to the pictures of Danny Pearl’s decapitation, and I suspect that no one cares to this day.

    But we are told to celebrate the “gutsy decision” the President made to take down the world’s foremost terrorist leader and accomplished enemy of the United States.  I am still puzzled about what part of that decision was gutsy, save the consideration of his political ass had the mission failed.  Last I saw, the man was still holding the title of our Commander-in-Chief.  Under the circumstances, what was he supposed to do?

    However, the bottom line on this issue in this political season is President Obama's declaration that he won't politicize the Bin Laden killing, while at the same time claiming that Romney changed his mind and is now telling people that he too would have authorized the assassination raid.
     
    Meanwhile, let's all enjoy the display of socialist solidarity that the Occupiers have promised us across the country on this annual celebration of international collectivism.

    [update]  The news is in about California’s April revenues – state socialists surprised (again).  Turns out that corporate and personal income revenues have come in with a substantial shortfall from Moonbeam’s predictions.  The ‘rich’, on whom the state depends and promises to punish even more, are disappearing in greater numbers than anticipated ($2B fewer dollars last month from them alone).  Those who stay are reconfiguring their accounts to avoid confiscatory taxation.  The numbers on corporations are not in yet, but they have done all they can to either vamoose or move their earnings across the state line.

    This sideshow is a continuing illustration of the progressive stasist mindset – raising taxes doesn’t matter, nobody will change their behavior.  RR readers have been advised of and discussing the realworld for the past five years, so no one here should be surprised.  Review assignment – Joel Kotkin’s ‘The Great California Exodus’.  But all said and done, don’t you wonder who are these faithful dumbasses whom the Sacramento Democrats continue to target with their BS?

    [updated, one mo' time]  The Occupiers across the land, no matter how misguided in their protests, appear to protesting peacefully, and for that they are to be commended.  They have every right to get out there and proclaim their message.  It would be heartening to see them get a clue and put some people in front of the Capitol and the White House.  In the meantime, I'm showing my solidarity with the working man (with or w/o external plumbing) by doing some serious shopping this afternoon at local establishments so that they can continue providing jobs to these nebishes.

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  • ‘Why the technical stuff?’

    George Rebane

    I was asked that question recently by a regular RR reader.  He went on to opine that not many of my readers would make the effort to understand all that high falootin’ stuff and just skip over it.  In short, I’m wasting time and effort in offering up such posts.  And, of course, he may be right.  When you’re selling, you never want to discount what a customer tells you.  And make no mistake about it, I am selling my little heart out here on RR.

    As I later reflected on the reader’s question, it occurred to me that it’s been some years now since I posted anything on the larger purpose and objective(s) for flogging the keyboard and debating various esoteria with RR commenters.  Being a rewarded lifelong teacher has provided some intrinsic impetus to this enterprise – first in the Army, then with my kids and grandkids (no claims of success there), as a professional engineer/scientist/academic, and now again working with high schoolers.

    RR is structured to continuously build on what has been written and discussed before in its pages.  I attempt to back-link all of its pieces to their appropriate ancestors, in addition to the usual outside references.  To the extent that this is successful, RR is an accumulating body of thought offered by me, and subsequently expanded and critiqued by the blog’s commenters.  Relatively few pieces here start out of whole cloth.  I make a considerable and not always successful effort to circle the barn as few times as possible; previous orbits on any given topic are always available by searching RR through its built in function or with an engine like Google (just add ‘rebane’ to the keyword list, and voila!).

    Ideologically I am a conservetarian, promoting a careful and hopefully coherent amalgam of conservative and libertarian thought as seen through the Austrian lens.  For good or ill, I am an elitist.  I know I cannot reach everyone with all possible ideas/notions through my heartfelt diatribes, so I just try to target and contend with a small number of interested readers, all of whom should evince that they have at least three solid digits in their IQ.  In that and other things, I am terribly incorrect according to the dominant political perspective of the day as spouted by both Republicans and Democrats.

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  • The Dangerous Sleaze Runneth Over

    George Rebane

    ObamaChange4President Obama is now going after private citizens in a manner not seen since Nixon attempted something that was just a shade of what’s going on right now.  Kimberly Strassel in the 28apr12 WSJ writes in ‘The President has a List’ that  –

    He’s targeted insurers, oil firms and Wall Street—letting it be known that those who oppose his policies might face political or legislative retribution. He lectured the Supreme Court for giving companies more free speech and (falsely) accused the Chamber of Commerce of using foreign money to bankroll U.S. elections. The White House even ginned up an executive order (yet to be released) to require companies to list political donations as a condition of bidding for government contracts. Companies could bid but lose out for donating to Republicans. Or they could quit donating to the GOP—Mr. Obama’s real aim.

    The White House has couched its attacks in the language of “disclosure” and the argument that corporations should not have the same speech rights as individuals. But now, says Rory Cooper of the Heritage Foundation, “he’s doing the same at the individual level, for anyone who opposes his policies.” Any giver, at any level, risks reprisal from the president of the United States.

    Socialism ascendant – those who have given to or plan to give to Romney should keep an eye on their six.

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