Did you see the debate on health care at the Blair House today? What did you think? Was there a winner or a loser? How about the people who were not in the room, like you and me? I may sound like a broken record, but this debate seemed to be organized to prevent it from coming to any kind of conclusion or agreement from the beginning. My father used to say that, "you can't learn anything with your mouth open". Now the person who claimed he was going to the meeting to learn something was our President Obama. Now did you notice what percentage of the time he had his mouth open? It was a lot. By my old Oklahoma logic regarding the state of ones mouth, I would say that our President learned the "least" of anyone in that meeting. I have some other comments as you might have expected.
It would seem to me using my normally logical approach to things that the group should have first tried to agree on exactly what the health care problem is in the USA. They did not do that. How would they know if their plans solved or made the situation better or not if they did not first agree on the problem they were discussing. Given that they somehow divined the real problem, they would seem to need an objective, something like fix the problem they had previously agreed on. Logical so far? Now the next step would be for different groups to make proposal on how to get to the objective and put as many logical alternative on the table as they could come up with. Ideally, we would be expecting an exhaustive list and on that list, by definition, we would know that the best ones would be included. Simple logic. If you don't have them all, who is to say the best one is even on the table. Still with me here? These guys did not follow any of this kind of logic. They started right out with their proposals (alternatives) without doing any of the pre decision making setup. I'm sorry, I would have to give the whole group a failing grade.
For some reason that I don't understand, both groups keep injecting "insurance companies" into the mix right in the beginning and keep taking cheap shots at them. The insurance companies are not the problem, they are just the symptom of the problem, whatever that is. They have to keep insurance companies out of the debate and address the basics of the health care system. I think the only problem is "cost". See there I said it. Using old math logic, you take something to the limit and see what happens. With health care and its cost, we first take it to the high cost limit and see what happens. No one has health care except what they do for themselves. This sounds like most of the world and the way it was here for 90% of the people 100 years ago. That is bad, but it is not the end of the world. Now how about the other extreme where health care is dirt cheap? I did not say "free" because many people seem to think if it is "free" then it does not cost anything. There are a lot of people who get "free" health care right now in the USA, but it is not dirt cheap as in the limit. If health cost were dirt cheap, it would in affect be "free" and everyone would be covered without any government programs. Hey, I think we might be onto something here.
Let's say we want to drive down health care cost toward being dirt cheap and with the minimum amount of government involvement. I think that last statement just might be redundant in that if the government is very much involved nothing will be dirt cheap. If you read my Blog on Cost Reduction, then you know where I am coming from. If so, then why did we not hear a single word specifically on how to reduce health care cost. You might have notice the slight of hand trick where the government went out and wasted a lot of health care money and now are going to "save" money by cracking down on cheats. Would your mother give you an "at a boy" for spilling food on the floor due to incompetence and then cleaning it up? I don't think so. How many of you have had to travel and dine on your expense account? Did you eat differently than when it was your own money? If you got a fixed perdiem, did you eat the same way? I did not think so. When it is someone elses money, it seems to spend easier. How about when your grandmother sent you $10 for your birthday? Did you save it or spend it on junk? I don't think many of you saved it. This is human nature and that is what any program has to do and that is to take advantage of human nature and arrange the chairs so that it is the individual's money that they are spending not the government's. That is why the government has to get out of the picture.
The original founders of this country set it up so that each individual had a more or less equal chance at the starting line. It was not perfect, but it was the best that the human race had come up with at that time and is still better than most. That opportunity included health care though it did not say that specifically. It was upto you what you wanted to work toward. You could have a nice car or you could save for health care and retirement. It was and still is your choice. Now if you were to act irresponsibly and opt for the fancy car vs health care and retirement, am I the one who is supposed to give you some of what I had worked hard for? Not me. I just had a long discussion with one of my older children about "tough love" and why I and they had to practice it once in a while. If you know what I am talking about here then you know that "tough love" is what this country needs more of right now, not excuses, blame and free lunches. In the debate today, did anyone even get close the principle of "tough love". As a parent it is difficult and for a politician it is impossible. Do you think we might be getting closer to the real problem here? There are limits on every thing and we are going to have to start facing upto them. If you have read any of my Blogs, you will know what we have to do to make health care more affordable, not free.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Health Care Cost Reduction
The USA now has the best health care system in the world, so why does Obama want to change it? There are basically two problems related to health care in the USA:
* It is very expensive and the costs are increasing rapidly
* Americans are not productive enough to be able to afford it
I am not going to go into this second point at this time. It is a serious factor in the debate, but is too large to mix in with the current debate. I am an old Industrial Engineer and familiar with cost reduction programs. There is a set of principles that most IE's use when they are attacking costs. Here goes.
Before you get started on any cost reduction program, you need to know what the cost elements are. Years ago, I was chairman of the WEMA Industrial Engineering Round Table in the Bay Area. For those of you are not familiar with the association it is the Western Electronic Manufacturers Association in what many call the Silicone Valley. I was also active a group called SAVE, the Society of American Value Engineers. Cute name. The first rule of cost reduction and value engineering when you look at a cost is to, "Eliminated It" not reduce it, but eliminate it. This is by far the easiest thing to do and you get 100% cost reduction for your efforts. Now how many government related programs affect the cost of medical service here in the USA. I don't have a list, but it has to be in the hundreds. Make the list and challenge each one with total elimination. Is usually best to error on the side of eliminating more rather than fewer. You can always reconstitute something that should not have been eliminated and it is much more difficult to have eliminated it in the first place. See what I mean?
Let's try a few items and see how we do. First let's take on the Food and Drug Administration. Do you have a proposal? Well I do. Try this one. We get rid of our complete Food and Drug Administration. That's right eliminate it 100%. What about bad drugs getting into the USA and people being injured? It could happen. Here is how I would deal with the problem. Automatically approve any drug that was approved by Germany. That's right, if Germany approved the drug, then it would be OK to sell here. Do you have any problems with that? If that is not good enough, we could designate certain hospitals and clinics the authority to use unapproved drugs so that testing could go on until Germany approved the this or that drug. AS I showed in a prior Blog, we are killing more people by delaying approval of drugs than we save by testing the drugs "to death". Think of how much this would impact the drug manufacturer's costs? The cost of a drug has to take into account all the cost to test and get the drug approved, plus the actual cost of the drug.
Let's try another one. Did you every wonder exactly what the druggist at your local drug store actually does? 99% of his work is to count pills and type up the label. That's right. He went to regular college and got some kind of degree and then went on to Pharmacy school where he learned the history and chemistry of various drugs. He may have even learned how to manufacture certain drugs with historical significance, but after he has spent all this money, he still just counts pills. If you order some medicine over the Internet, who do you think puts the pills in the box that is shipped to you? It is most likely a high school kid or illegal alien. So where is the Pharmacist? Years ago, I attended a luncheon in Mexico City sponsored by some Mexican medical association and the then President of Mexico, Echevieria was the guest speaker. His basic point for health care in Mexico was that, "drugs are cheaper than doctors and Mexico could afford drugs, but not doctors". At the time I disagreed with his position as did many others, but today, I see that he was ahead of his time and we have to rethink the roll of doctors and pharmacists. In Mexico you can buy any drug you want without a prescription from a doctor and the drugs cost much less. How many people die from lack of drugs than are saved by the requirement to have an expensive prescription? We are killing a lot of people with our system and it is costing more at the same time. Eliminate the need for proscriptions. See how the principle of "elimination" works and I have not even gotten to the other 9 principles.
How about another one? We all love and hate lawyers. I love my brother, but hate the fact that he is a layer, so I guess I am normal. Rather that turn the legal system upside down, why don't we see if we can "eliminate" something? I propose that we eliminate "punitive damages". Punitive means to punish and in civil cases the objective is to make people whole not punish anyone. It is only the state that can punish, so why is punitive punishment money being given to the damaged person? Shouldn't it be given to the state and not the lawyers? On this one, I have three proposals to consider. (1) Eliminate punitive damages completely, (2) Keep the punitive damages, but give 100% of the money to the state, (3) Eliminate the punitive damages and send the guilty person to jail. If you follow the news, it is not uncommon to see presidents of foreign companies going to jail for safety violations and that sort of thing. I like the one where the guy goes to jail, that one does not increase the medical cost. Are you getting the idea now?
I feel like I am on a roll. Let's try one more. We all know it takes a very long time to get thru medical school and for each year it costs more and more and all this cost has to be paid back in the form of higher medical cost. It is kind of like the drug thing. The government seems to want perfect doctors "no matter what it costs". I think many of you also think along these lines, but really have not thought the thing thru. By having perfect doctors vs not so perfect doctors, how many lives do you think we and our government have saved? For sure it has saved lives, but how many has it also killed because they could not afford medical care? I am sure it is a lot more. That is the problem. What can be done about it? Make it easier, cheaper and faster to become a doctor or medical provider. Here goes the "elimination" rule. If you were to ask any doctor what college courses they could have just as easily eliminated in their total undergraduate and graduate training, they would all give you a very long list. If you check list against list, you would find a lot of the same items on every list. I propose we "eliminate" all of these classes along with the cost and wasted time that they caused. My guess is that we could reduce the cost of a medical education by as much as 33% and just think about all the space in colleges for worth while classes and space for more students. This would be a major win win. See how easy it is and you don't have to turn the whole USA medical system on its head.
One of the principle of "Cost Reduction" is to not go on to the other 9 principles until you have exhausted all the #1 principle items of "Elimination". We still have a lot more. Why don't you try to make your own list?
PS, I forgot something. The Food and Drug Administration also takes care of our food too. Now how do I cover that over sight? Let's turn it over to the "Kosher" people. Notice how they have their mark on almost all the food we buy and the Food and Drug Administration doesn't. I don't see too big of a problem not having the "Kosher" stamp on my pork chops since I cook them anyway. The "Kosher" group claims that it only costs a fraction of a percentage to do their work. It looks to me like it is a better value than the Food and Drug Administration. End of problem.
* It is very expensive and the costs are increasing rapidly
* Americans are not productive enough to be able to afford it
I am not going to go into this second point at this time. It is a serious factor in the debate, but is too large to mix in with the current debate. I am an old Industrial Engineer and familiar with cost reduction programs. There is a set of principles that most IE's use when they are attacking costs. Here goes.
Before you get started on any cost reduction program, you need to know what the cost elements are. Years ago, I was chairman of the WEMA Industrial Engineering Round Table in the Bay Area. For those of you are not familiar with the association it is the Western Electronic Manufacturers Association in what many call the Silicone Valley. I was also active a group called SAVE, the Society of American Value Engineers. Cute name. The first rule of cost reduction and value engineering when you look at a cost is to, "Eliminated It" not reduce it, but eliminate it. This is by far the easiest thing to do and you get 100% cost reduction for your efforts. Now how many government related programs affect the cost of medical service here in the USA. I don't have a list, but it has to be in the hundreds. Make the list and challenge each one with total elimination. Is usually best to error on the side of eliminating more rather than fewer. You can always reconstitute something that should not have been eliminated and it is much more difficult to have eliminated it in the first place. See what I mean?
Let's try a few items and see how we do. First let's take on the Food and Drug Administration. Do you have a proposal? Well I do. Try this one. We get rid of our complete Food and Drug Administration. That's right eliminate it 100%. What about bad drugs getting into the USA and people being injured? It could happen. Here is how I would deal with the problem. Automatically approve any drug that was approved by Germany. That's right, if Germany approved the drug, then it would be OK to sell here. Do you have any problems with that? If that is not good enough, we could designate certain hospitals and clinics the authority to use unapproved drugs so that testing could go on until Germany approved the this or that drug. AS I showed in a prior Blog, we are killing more people by delaying approval of drugs than we save by testing the drugs "to death". Think of how much this would impact the drug manufacturer's costs? The cost of a drug has to take into account all the cost to test and get the drug approved, plus the actual cost of the drug.
Let's try another one. Did you every wonder exactly what the druggist at your local drug store actually does? 99% of his work is to count pills and type up the label. That's right. He went to regular college and got some kind of degree and then went on to Pharmacy school where he learned the history and chemistry of various drugs. He may have even learned how to manufacture certain drugs with historical significance, but after he has spent all this money, he still just counts pills. If you order some medicine over the Internet, who do you think puts the pills in the box that is shipped to you? It is most likely a high school kid or illegal alien. So where is the Pharmacist? Years ago, I attended a luncheon in Mexico City sponsored by some Mexican medical association and the then President of Mexico, Echevieria was the guest speaker. His basic point for health care in Mexico was that, "drugs are cheaper than doctors and Mexico could afford drugs, but not doctors". At the time I disagreed with his position as did many others, but today, I see that he was ahead of his time and we have to rethink the roll of doctors and pharmacists. In Mexico you can buy any drug you want without a prescription from a doctor and the drugs cost much less. How many people die from lack of drugs than are saved by the requirement to have an expensive prescription? We are killing a lot of people with our system and it is costing more at the same time. Eliminate the need for proscriptions. See how the principle of "elimination" works and I have not even gotten to the other 9 principles.
How about another one? We all love and hate lawyers. I love my brother, but hate the fact that he is a layer, so I guess I am normal. Rather that turn the legal system upside down, why don't we see if we can "eliminate" something? I propose that we eliminate "punitive damages". Punitive means to punish and in civil cases the objective is to make people whole not punish anyone. It is only the state that can punish, so why is punitive punishment money being given to the damaged person? Shouldn't it be given to the state and not the lawyers? On this one, I have three proposals to consider. (1) Eliminate punitive damages completely, (2) Keep the punitive damages, but give 100% of the money to the state, (3) Eliminate the punitive damages and send the guilty person to jail. If you follow the news, it is not uncommon to see presidents of foreign companies going to jail for safety violations and that sort of thing. I like the one where the guy goes to jail, that one does not increase the medical cost. Are you getting the idea now?
I feel like I am on a roll. Let's try one more. We all know it takes a very long time to get thru medical school and for each year it costs more and more and all this cost has to be paid back in the form of higher medical cost. It is kind of like the drug thing. The government seems to want perfect doctors "no matter what it costs". I think many of you also think along these lines, but really have not thought the thing thru. By having perfect doctors vs not so perfect doctors, how many lives do you think we and our government have saved? For sure it has saved lives, but how many has it also killed because they could not afford medical care? I am sure it is a lot more. That is the problem. What can be done about it? Make it easier, cheaper and faster to become a doctor or medical provider. Here goes the "elimination" rule. If you were to ask any doctor what college courses they could have just as easily eliminated in their total undergraduate and graduate training, they would all give you a very long list. If you check list against list, you would find a lot of the same items on every list. I propose we "eliminate" all of these classes along with the cost and wasted time that they caused. My guess is that we could reduce the cost of a medical education by as much as 33% and just think about all the space in colleges for worth while classes and space for more students. This would be a major win win. See how easy it is and you don't have to turn the whole USA medical system on its head.
One of the principle of "Cost Reduction" is to not go on to the other 9 principles until you have exhausted all the #1 principle items of "Elimination". We still have a lot more. Why don't you try to make your own list?
PS, I forgot something. The Food and Drug Administration also takes care of our food too. Now how do I cover that over sight? Let's turn it over to the "Kosher" people. Notice how they have their mark on almost all the food we buy and the Food and Drug Administration doesn't. I don't see too big of a problem not having the "Kosher" stamp on my pork chops since I cook them anyway. The "Kosher" group claims that it only costs a fraction of a percentage to do their work. It looks to me like it is a better value than the Food and Drug Administration. End of problem.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Toyota/Toyoda
I have been watching the hearings in Washington DC with Mr. Toyoda of Toyota. I have never been more embarrassed for the USA in my life. I have never seen such a collection of grown men asking such stupid questions. Anyone in the world who is watching this must all come away realizing that us Americans are the most stupid people in the world. I actually feel sorry for Mr. Toyoda having to sit there with a straight face watching what is not even a good "dog and Pony show". If you read my earlier blog on Toyota, you might understand where I am coming from.
The problem at Toyota is serious and it is not one that our congressmen who are 95% lawyers and don't know the first thing about technology can solve or contribute to its solution. Have you ever had a job with a boss that was a total imbecile and whose management style was to go around screaming and threatening his employees in order to correct problems? Notice that the boss never contributed to the solutions because he or she was too stupid. That is exactly what our congressmen look like. They are stupid and all they can do is threaten and scream.
If our congressmen had a brain, they would call in help from the military or some other source who had experience with complex computer control systems. The military people would explain how they had to "harden" their electronics so that they would not be subject to electromagnetic interference. They might even explain that the military has developed bombs that can produce high flux electromagnetic pluses strong enough to knock out most of the electronic systems of our enemies. They would ask Mr Toyoda about exactly how they have "hardened" their systems. There is no doubt that the Toyota cars can be made to malfunction if subjected to electromagnetic interference. The only question is how much and what kind of safety margin is needed or justified. Why do you think that for years you could not use cell phones or other types of electronics on airplanes?
Toyota probably has committed all the errors and problems that I proposed in my earlier blog and it appears from Toyoda's answers that he still has not been made fully aware of what his computer programmers have done. In the Japanese society, I don't think anyone wants to be the one who tells Mr Toyoda the complete truth and if they did, I am not sure he would fully appreciate the significance. My guess is that the truth about the computer programs has to be "passed up" thru channels until it reaches Mr Toyoda and at each step it passes thru the hands of a good manager type who know nothing about the details of complex computer controls. It is really predictable.
The next phase with all the lawyers and discovery, I am still not sure anyone will get to the bottom of the real problem. When it is presented to a jury of 12 of our typical citizens, any thing can happen. If you have understood most of this, how would like the prospects of having 12 of our finest sitting in judgement on the contents of your bank account? It is going to be a zoo, but the bottom line is that this whole thing will do more damage to our economy and that of Japan than 9/11. I think it would be a good post audit study to see how these same problems were resolved in Japan as compared to here. Every penny that goes into lawyer's pockets in the end comes out of the pockets of honest hard working people here, not Toyota.
Let's watch this one because there will be a lot more to come.
The problem at Toyota is serious and it is not one that our congressmen who are 95% lawyers and don't know the first thing about technology can solve or contribute to its solution. Have you ever had a job with a boss that was a total imbecile and whose management style was to go around screaming and threatening his employees in order to correct problems? Notice that the boss never contributed to the solutions because he or she was too stupid. That is exactly what our congressmen look like. They are stupid and all they can do is threaten and scream.
If our congressmen had a brain, they would call in help from the military or some other source who had experience with complex computer control systems. The military people would explain how they had to "harden" their electronics so that they would not be subject to electromagnetic interference. They might even explain that the military has developed bombs that can produce high flux electromagnetic pluses strong enough to knock out most of the electronic systems of our enemies. They would ask Mr Toyoda about exactly how they have "hardened" their systems. There is no doubt that the Toyota cars can be made to malfunction if subjected to electromagnetic interference. The only question is how much and what kind of safety margin is needed or justified. Why do you think that for years you could not use cell phones or other types of electronics on airplanes?
Toyota probably has committed all the errors and problems that I proposed in my earlier blog and it appears from Toyoda's answers that he still has not been made fully aware of what his computer programmers have done. In the Japanese society, I don't think anyone wants to be the one who tells Mr Toyoda the complete truth and if they did, I am not sure he would fully appreciate the significance. My guess is that the truth about the computer programs has to be "passed up" thru channels until it reaches Mr Toyoda and at each step it passes thru the hands of a good manager type who know nothing about the details of complex computer controls. It is really predictable.
The next phase with all the lawyers and discovery, I am still not sure anyone will get to the bottom of the real problem. When it is presented to a jury of 12 of our typical citizens, any thing can happen. If you have understood most of this, how would like the prospects of having 12 of our finest sitting in judgement on the contents of your bank account? It is going to be a zoo, but the bottom line is that this whole thing will do more damage to our economy and that of Japan than 9/11. I think it would be a good post audit study to see how these same problems were resolved in Japan as compared to here. Every penny that goes into lawyer's pockets in the end comes out of the pockets of honest hard working people here, not Toyota.
Let's watch this one because there will be a lot more to come.
Simple Optimization Concept
Have you ever thought about how to get or make more of something? Did you ever think that there are some very simple concepts that might guide you? When you look into it further, what you will find is that there are in fact some very simple rules that will guide you on where to put your efforts. Well, here is my take on the subject and I think our old friend Obama could take a lesson on this one.
As you might have noticed from my header on this blog that I am interested in "Gardening". I have a big garden and have a lot of fun growing things and always have. One of my specialties is sweet corn. I grow a good sized crop every year and when it is ready to eat, I invite over about 40 friends for a big corn party. We have a few drinks and BS a little and when everyone is ready, I send a crew out to the garden where they pick the sweet corn and bring it back and husk it. We pop the ears into boiling water for about 8 minutes and butter them up and we enjoy the sweetest corn that you have ever tasted. The secret of good corn is that it has to be picked at just the right time and eaten as soon after being picked as possible. I have been doing this for about 30 years and only give my guests about a 24 hour warning. I call them and just say, "corn is ready and the date". That is all. They all know what it means and they all show up. Now, how about this "Optimization" stuff?
Let's say that I want to grow more corn and I have a limited amount or resources, like fertilizer. I have two fields where I grow corn. One is a good producer where I get, lets say, 1000 ears per acre and another where I only get 750 ears per acre. To get the most corn, which field should I put the fertilizer on? I think you all know the answer and that is the field that was producing 1000 ears per acre not the one that was only producing 750. Now if Obama was the farmer, he would want to equalize the production and thus put the fertilizer on the poorer field. In my test of this concept, I put the fertilizer on the good field and harvested 1100 ears for a net gain of 100 ears. When I put the same amount of fertilizer on the poorer field, I got a total of 825 ears or a gain of only 75 ears. Now you tell me which was the right decision?
Let's try it another way. We have a average high school where there are the full range of smart kids and dumb kids and the similar mix of hard working and lazy kids. We have a scholarship fund that will cover only 10% of the kids. Who should get the scholarships? Obama would say that we should give the scholarships to the dumbest kids to bring them up. Sounds good on the surface, but like the corn example, which will actually produce the most for society? This is really a no brainier. The smartest, hardest working kids should get the scholarships. It seems clear as a bell in these examples, but that is not what is going on. When we allocate our limited resources based on some social formula, we all end up with less. Isn't that what just happened in Russia? It took them about 75 years to totally bankrupt their country. Don't we learn anything from history?
Take another example from physics. If you have two objects going in different directions and have a limited amount of energy to be used to redirect them toward you objective, how do you use your energy and why? If one is going generally in the right direction, it only takes a small amount of energy to change its path and speed it up toward the goal. If the other object is going in the wrong direction, first you have to use your limited energy to stop it and then use what ever energy you have left to speed and direct it in the direction of your goal. This is a real simple minded example, but you can see how universal this concept is. I think you may have read my Blog about the "Head Start" program. It did not work even though it sounded very good to the "arm chair" psychologist. It was a waste.
Here is one from management. If you listen closely, there are a lot of old expressions that are very true. How about the one where the guy says, "if you want to get something done right away, assign it to a busy person". Seems strange, but true. If you give the job to an idle person, you have to think about exactly why the person was idle in the first place. The busy person has a proven track record of getting things done and knows how to work. I am not so sure you can say the same thing about the idle person.
I think you are starting to see the logic of all this. The problem is that it flys in the face of those who want to remake American and made everyone equal. Here is one final point. I think that most of you understand Algebra and have had to solve algebraic equations. Some of these can get very complicated. Did you ever notice how many of them have at least one easy solution and that is for "X" or "Y" to be zero. The point is that with socialism, there is "only" one place where everyone is truly equal and that is when everyone is at "zero" or flat broke. If Obama has his way that is where he is taking this country.
Well, here is the final punch line. How do you think our government should use the above concept that you now clearly understand? We know that the way to produce more and thus get more is to put our money on the winners. Right? If so, how do you do that? The best way that I know is to cut business taxes. Why business taxes? Because they are the ones who create jobs. But wait, what if the business is losing money and does not thus pay any taxes. They won't get anything out of this, only he profitable companies will gain! Yes, that's right. We would be putting our money on the winners, not the losers. Principle #1 in action.
Let's take the auto bailout and see how it stacks up. We gave billions of dollars to both GMC and Chrysler before and after their bankrupsies, but not Ford. If you look at the figures, GMC has been a loser for several years and has not paid any real tax. Ford has made a profit and has paid taxes. If we just gave out business tax cuts then both GMC and Chrysler would not get anything. Da! Isn't that exactly what I have been saying? With tax cuts, it puts our money on the winners better and faster than any other plan that I can think of. See the big difference between the Obama tax cuts where he gave free gifts to people who did not pay any tax and called it a tax cut for everyone. He put our money on losers and that is against the principle that I have been trying to explain here. Tax cuts are fair and they are by far the best way to encourage new jobs. I rest my case. Now you know why tax cuts work and gimics don't.
As you might have noticed from my header on this blog that I am interested in "Gardening". I have a big garden and have a lot of fun growing things and always have. One of my specialties is sweet corn. I grow a good sized crop every year and when it is ready to eat, I invite over about 40 friends for a big corn party. We have a few drinks and BS a little and when everyone is ready, I send a crew out to the garden where they pick the sweet corn and bring it back and husk it. We pop the ears into boiling water for about 8 minutes and butter them up and we enjoy the sweetest corn that you have ever tasted. The secret of good corn is that it has to be picked at just the right time and eaten as soon after being picked as possible. I have been doing this for about 30 years and only give my guests about a 24 hour warning. I call them and just say, "corn is ready and the date". That is all. They all know what it means and they all show up. Now, how about this "Optimization" stuff?
Let's say that I want to grow more corn and I have a limited amount or resources, like fertilizer. I have two fields where I grow corn. One is a good producer where I get, lets say, 1000 ears per acre and another where I only get 750 ears per acre. To get the most corn, which field should I put the fertilizer on? I think you all know the answer and that is the field that was producing 1000 ears per acre not the one that was only producing 750. Now if Obama was the farmer, he would want to equalize the production and thus put the fertilizer on the poorer field. In my test of this concept, I put the fertilizer on the good field and harvested 1100 ears for a net gain of 100 ears. When I put the same amount of fertilizer on the poorer field, I got a total of 825 ears or a gain of only 75 ears. Now you tell me which was the right decision?
Let's try it another way. We have a average high school where there are the full range of smart kids and dumb kids and the similar mix of hard working and lazy kids. We have a scholarship fund that will cover only 10% of the kids. Who should get the scholarships? Obama would say that we should give the scholarships to the dumbest kids to bring them up. Sounds good on the surface, but like the corn example, which will actually produce the most for society? This is really a no brainier. The smartest, hardest working kids should get the scholarships. It seems clear as a bell in these examples, but that is not what is going on. When we allocate our limited resources based on some social formula, we all end up with less. Isn't that what just happened in Russia? It took them about 75 years to totally bankrupt their country. Don't we learn anything from history?
Take another example from physics. If you have two objects going in different directions and have a limited amount of energy to be used to redirect them toward you objective, how do you use your energy and why? If one is going generally in the right direction, it only takes a small amount of energy to change its path and speed it up toward the goal. If the other object is going in the wrong direction, first you have to use your limited energy to stop it and then use what ever energy you have left to speed and direct it in the direction of your goal. This is a real simple minded example, but you can see how universal this concept is. I think you may have read my Blog about the "Head Start" program. It did not work even though it sounded very good to the "arm chair" psychologist. It was a waste.
Here is one from management. If you listen closely, there are a lot of old expressions that are very true. How about the one where the guy says, "if you want to get something done right away, assign it to a busy person". Seems strange, but true. If you give the job to an idle person, you have to think about exactly why the person was idle in the first place. The busy person has a proven track record of getting things done and knows how to work. I am not so sure you can say the same thing about the idle person.
I think you are starting to see the logic of all this. The problem is that it flys in the face of those who want to remake American and made everyone equal. Here is one final point. I think that most of you understand Algebra and have had to solve algebraic equations. Some of these can get very complicated. Did you ever notice how many of them have at least one easy solution and that is for "X" or "Y" to be zero. The point is that with socialism, there is "only" one place where everyone is truly equal and that is when everyone is at "zero" or flat broke. If Obama has his way that is where he is taking this country.
Well, here is the final punch line. How do you think our government should use the above concept that you now clearly understand? We know that the way to produce more and thus get more is to put our money on the winners. Right? If so, how do you do that? The best way that I know is to cut business taxes. Why business taxes? Because they are the ones who create jobs. But wait, what if the business is losing money and does not thus pay any taxes. They won't get anything out of this, only he profitable companies will gain! Yes, that's right. We would be putting our money on the winners, not the losers. Principle #1 in action.
Let's take the auto bailout and see how it stacks up. We gave billions of dollars to both GMC and Chrysler before and after their bankrupsies, but not Ford. If you look at the figures, GMC has been a loser for several years and has not paid any real tax. Ford has made a profit and has paid taxes. If we just gave out business tax cuts then both GMC and Chrysler would not get anything. Da! Isn't that exactly what I have been saying? With tax cuts, it puts our money on the winners better and faster than any other plan that I can think of. See the big difference between the Obama tax cuts where he gave free gifts to people who did not pay any tax and called it a tax cut for everyone. He put our money on losers and that is against the principle that I have been trying to explain here. Tax cuts are fair and they are by far the best way to encourage new jobs. I rest my case. Now you know why tax cuts work and gimics don't.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Decisions Type I and II Error
Here again, I think I have a title that doesn't seem to mean much, but wait. My first introduction to the concept of Type I and II error was back in about 1960. I have been using the concept ever since and it has served me well. At one time I taught Decision Theory at San Jose State University and had plenty of chances to demonstrate the concept to young students (some were older than me). The thing that I have found strange over the past 50 or so years is the total lack of understanding of this very simple concept by the general public and for that matter 99% of college graduates. More than once I have asked professionals who should have been familiar with the concept if they know what Type I and II error was and most said, "yes", but when I pursued it further it was clear they had not understanding at all. If this is not an overdone build up, I don't know what is, so here goes.
For this first example, let's assume you are the coach of a professional football team and are have to make decisions about who to select out of the college draft. I think you use the same method as most coaches and evaluate all the candidates and then make your list of what you think are the best ones. When the draft starts, you go down your list and compare it to what kind of talent you need and then select the top player for that position. Easy, right? What you are doing is avoiding what is called Type I error. Type I error is when you select a player who does not turn out good. Isn't that what we all do every day? If this is type I error, then what is Type II error? Type II error is when you pass over a really good player. That is right, you rejected a good player. How many times have you seen players who were passed over turn out to be some of the best players. It happens all the time. How many hall of fame quarter backs were victims of Type II error? The point is that most people only think about Type I error. If you are a company manager and hire a person who turns out to be a bum, it reflects on you and you might also lose your job. What if you pass over a very good guy? Nothing much seems to happen because your boss never knows about it. Your company loses sales and profit, but the boss never finds out that it is because of Type II error. The point is that there are serious consequences for committing Type II error even if you or no one else is aware of it. That's the point.
Now that you are starting to understand the concept, let's turn to my favorite, politics. It was just announced this week that there is a new drug that will cure certain forms of breast cancer and that with this new drug, at least 10 million lives will be saved. If you are suffering from breast cancer, this is great news. The Food and Drug Administration is putting out all kinds of bulletins touting the success of this new drug and they are pushing the drug company to produce more and lower the cost so it can be made available to everyone who needs it. How great is that? Well, there is another side to all of this as you might have expected. As it turned out, this drug was developed over 10 years ago and has been under test and evaluation by the Food and Drug Administration for 10 years. During that time the Food and Drug Administration has tested and retested the drug until they were 100% sure that it was affective and that the side affects were minimal. It cost the tax payers dearly for this assurance, but I am sure the public would not want it any other way. This, of course, does not include all the testing cost that had to be paid by the developer. The Food and Drug Administration has worked hard to minimize the Type I error and you have to agree that they did. But wait, what about Type II error? What did Type II error cost? I told you before that there is cost on both ends of this. Well if the drug had been approved 10 years ago, it would have by this time saved 100 million lives. That is 10 million a year for 10 years. That is Type II cost.
What we all need to consider is both Type I error and Type II error. This is most true when it comes to politics. Politicians are generally "risk adverse", meaning they do not what to take any chances and since most people are not aware of the existence of Type II error, the politicians completely ignore it. When you hear the expression that, "if government can do every thing for you then they can also do every thing to your", they understand both Type I and Type II error. Global warming is another good case of lack of understanding of Type I and Type II error. They all want to save the planet, but don't understand that they will bankrupt the USA in the process. They are just looking at one side and as I have discussed, you need to balance both sides. If we in fact have global warming, it will clearly not happen for some time and during that time the population of the Earth will have doubled at least 3 times so that we will have 8 times as many people on the rock than we do now. At that point global warming will not be the issue.
I hope this helps.
For this first example, let's assume you are the coach of a professional football team and are have to make decisions about who to select out of the college draft. I think you use the same method as most coaches and evaluate all the candidates and then make your list of what you think are the best ones. When the draft starts, you go down your list and compare it to what kind of talent you need and then select the top player for that position. Easy, right? What you are doing is avoiding what is called Type I error. Type I error is when you select a player who does not turn out good. Isn't that what we all do every day? If this is type I error, then what is Type II error? Type II error is when you pass over a really good player. That is right, you rejected a good player. How many times have you seen players who were passed over turn out to be some of the best players. It happens all the time. How many hall of fame quarter backs were victims of Type II error? The point is that most people only think about Type I error. If you are a company manager and hire a person who turns out to be a bum, it reflects on you and you might also lose your job. What if you pass over a very good guy? Nothing much seems to happen because your boss never knows about it. Your company loses sales and profit, but the boss never finds out that it is because of Type II error. The point is that there are serious consequences for committing Type II error even if you or no one else is aware of it. That's the point.
Now that you are starting to understand the concept, let's turn to my favorite, politics. It was just announced this week that there is a new drug that will cure certain forms of breast cancer and that with this new drug, at least 10 million lives will be saved. If you are suffering from breast cancer, this is great news. The Food and Drug Administration is putting out all kinds of bulletins touting the success of this new drug and they are pushing the drug company to produce more and lower the cost so it can be made available to everyone who needs it. How great is that? Well, there is another side to all of this as you might have expected. As it turned out, this drug was developed over 10 years ago and has been under test and evaluation by the Food and Drug Administration for 10 years. During that time the Food and Drug Administration has tested and retested the drug until they were 100% sure that it was affective and that the side affects were minimal. It cost the tax payers dearly for this assurance, but I am sure the public would not want it any other way. This, of course, does not include all the testing cost that had to be paid by the developer. The Food and Drug Administration has worked hard to minimize the Type I error and you have to agree that they did. But wait, what about Type II error? What did Type II error cost? I told you before that there is cost on both ends of this. Well if the drug had been approved 10 years ago, it would have by this time saved 100 million lives. That is 10 million a year for 10 years. That is Type II cost.
What we all need to consider is both Type I error and Type II error. This is most true when it comes to politics. Politicians are generally "risk adverse", meaning they do not what to take any chances and since most people are not aware of the existence of Type II error, the politicians completely ignore it. When you hear the expression that, "if government can do every thing for you then they can also do every thing to your", they understand both Type I and Type II error. Global warming is another good case of lack of understanding of Type I and Type II error. They all want to save the planet, but don't understand that they will bankrupt the USA in the process. They are just looking at one side and as I have discussed, you need to balance both sides. If we in fact have global warming, it will clearly not happen for some time and during that time the population of the Earth will have doubled at least 3 times so that we will have 8 times as many people on the rock than we do now. At that point global warming will not be the issue.
I hope this helps.
Solar Project in the Mojave Desert
I assume you have been following the news regarding the multi billion dollar solar project in the Mojave Desert. Seems it is being held up by some desert turtle. I guess that is good, because it should be held up based on the fact that it is a worthless economic project. You know that I like to check the facts and do a little math if required to cut thru the spin that all of these types of projects are plagued with. Here goes.
We need a few basic facts to get started with. If you disagree with any of these, then get your won and run the numbers. Here are mine. I got most of these off Government or university web sites. I am going to use costs at the generation sites since they all have to transmitted over the same lines and systems to the end users.
* Coal powered plant---------------------------------$0.025/kwh
* Estimated cost of coal-----------------------------$0.008/kwh
* Non coal cost for coal powered plant---------------$0.017/kwh
Now if we assume that solar will produce 20% of the needed power and the coal fired plant will still be needed to produce power at night or when cloudy, the fixed cost associated with the coal fired plant will still have to be covered, but with a smaller amount of total power produced. That increases the cost of power from the under utilized coal fired power plant. We then have:
* ($0.0170/(.8 )= -----------------------------------$0.021/kwh
* Now add back the cost of coal----------------------$0.008/kwh
* New cost of power from the coal fired plant--------$0.029/kwh
Note that when solar power supplies 20% of the power, it also increased the cost of coal fired power by 16%. I think you could do that math. Surprised?
From my research, the best estimate that I could find for the generation of power by a solar panel system was-----------------------------$0.150/kwh
I know what you are thinking. The power at your home in many locations costs about $0.150/kwh. So what is the problem? You still have to consider all the cost of getting the power from the generating plant to your home and collecting payment from you. What I have done is to compare all the cost at the same place, the generating plant since after that, they are all the same. Now what is the weighted average of the cost of power given 20% from solar and 80% from coal fired?
* Coal fired----------($0.029/kwh)x(80%)= -----------$0.0232/kwh
* Solar power---------($0.150/kwh)x(20%)= -----------$0.0300/kwh
* Total average cost of power------------------------$0.0532/kwh
Compared to plain old coal fired power, with solar power in the picture our power cost goes up by 213%. That is right 213%. You do the calculations and tell me if you agree or not. The scam is so clear that I don't see how anyone could go along with Obama and his Green friends. Everyone seems to agree that we will never get more than 20% of our power from solar so I feel these figures are correct. If we stay with coal fired just like the rest of the world, we can generate power for about $0.025/kwh and we can do it near where the power is needed so that we do not need a grid that can move power from the deserts to where people live. In my figures I did not take into account the fact that we would need a much larger grid to move the power generated by solar and wind to where it is needed. Don't forget that we will still need all the coal fired plants to provide power when the solar and wind are not producing.
If you agree with these calculations, pass them along to your friends. We have a bunch of nuts in Washington and if we don't wake up, they are going to bankrupt the country and us along with them.
We need a few basic facts to get started with. If you disagree with any of these, then get your won and run the numbers. Here are mine. I got most of these off Government or university web sites. I am going to use costs at the generation sites since they all have to transmitted over the same lines and systems to the end users.
* Coal powered plant---------------------------------$0.025/kwh
* Estimated cost of coal-----------------------------$0.008/kwh
* Non coal cost for coal powered plant---------------$0.017/kwh
Now if we assume that solar will produce 20% of the needed power and the coal fired plant will still be needed to produce power at night or when cloudy, the fixed cost associated with the coal fired plant will still have to be covered, but with a smaller amount of total power produced. That increases the cost of power from the under utilized coal fired power plant. We then have:
* ($0.0170/(.8 )= -----------------------------------$0.021/kwh
* Now add back the cost of coal----------------------$0.008/kwh
* New cost of power from the coal fired plant--------$0.029/kwh
Note that when solar power supplies 20% of the power, it also increased the cost of coal fired power by 16%. I think you could do that math. Surprised?
From my research, the best estimate that I could find for the generation of power by a solar panel system was-----------------------------$0.150/kwh
I know what you are thinking. The power at your home in many locations costs about $0.150/kwh. So what is the problem? You still have to consider all the cost of getting the power from the generating plant to your home and collecting payment from you. What I have done is to compare all the cost at the same place, the generating plant since after that, they are all the same. Now what is the weighted average of the cost of power given 20% from solar and 80% from coal fired?
* Coal fired----------($0.029/kwh)x(80%)= -----------$0.0232/kwh
* Solar power---------($0.150/kwh)x(20%)= -----------$0.0300/kwh
* Total average cost of power------------------------$0.0532/kwh
Compared to plain old coal fired power, with solar power in the picture our power cost goes up by 213%. That is right 213%. You do the calculations and tell me if you agree or not. The scam is so clear that I don't see how anyone could go along with Obama and his Green friends. Everyone seems to agree that we will never get more than 20% of our power from solar so I feel these figures are correct. If we stay with coal fired just like the rest of the world, we can generate power for about $0.025/kwh and we can do it near where the power is needed so that we do not need a grid that can move power from the deserts to where people live. In my figures I did not take into account the fact that we would need a much larger grid to move the power generated by solar and wind to where it is needed. Don't forget that we will still need all the coal fired plants to provide power when the solar and wind are not producing.
If you agree with these calculations, pass them along to your friends. We have a bunch of nuts in Washington and if we don't wake up, they are going to bankrupt the country and us along with them.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Archery Logic
Strange title? Not as strange as you might think. I have been interested in archery since high school. I have made my own bows and arrows from wood and materials gathered in the local woods just like the Native Americans. Many of my good friends are avid archery deer hunters and competition archers. If you have followed archery in the past few years, you are will aware of all the changes and new developments in a product that dates back to the beginning of human history. It is not uncommon for experienced archers to win target shoots against police departments who are using their service pistols. The fact is this is quite common. The point is that modern archery and their marksmanship is better than most rifles made before 1850. The point is to put archery in modern perspective.
Now exactly what is "Archery Logic"? If you have been following the Global Warming debate, you have seen "Archery Logic" being used. If you have followed the recent terrorist attempt on Christmas day, you will have seen "Archery Logic". The shooting at Fort Hood in Texas resulted in another case of "Archery Logic". The point is that "Archery Logic" is being used every day right under your nose and you were not aware of it. Now how do you feel? Well, what the hell is "Archery Logic".
Did you notice that this winter we have had record snow storms all over the East Coast. We set records for the most snow fall for a season in many cities on the East Coast. Well, here is how "Archery Logic" applies. First, you shoot an arrow into the wall as in this case the news accounts of the record snow fall. Now that you have the arrow stuck right in the center of the news of the record snow fall, you draw the bull's eye around the arrow and explain that "Global Warming" predicted and is the cause of the record snow fall. That is how it works. All you have to do is to shoot the arrow into what ever debate you are involved in and then draw the target around the arrow and claim victory. Take the terrorist. Shoot the arrow into the news that the kid had a one way ticket and draw the bull's eye around the ticket and explain you have clear irrefutable evidence that anyone should have know the kid was a terrorist. See how easy it is?
"Archery Logic" is a very powerful tool and most people will not catch on that you are drawing the target and bull's eye around the arrow after the fact. They will see you as brilliant and very knowledgeable. They will seek you out to explain all kinds of events that happened in the past. The problem is that you will have to guard against making any prediction. That is what Global Warming did and you can see what happened. They just started to believe their own "Archery Logic" and drifted away from its key principles. Now that you have a clear understanding of "Archery Logic" you will be able to impress Friends and small children. It will, however, lower your respect for most politician. Sorry!
Now exactly what is "Archery Logic"? If you have been following the Global Warming debate, you have seen "Archery Logic" being used. If you have followed the recent terrorist attempt on Christmas day, you will have seen "Archery Logic". The shooting at Fort Hood in Texas resulted in another case of "Archery Logic". The point is that "Archery Logic" is being used every day right under your nose and you were not aware of it. Now how do you feel? Well, what the hell is "Archery Logic".
Did you notice that this winter we have had record snow storms all over the East Coast. We set records for the most snow fall for a season in many cities on the East Coast. Well, here is how "Archery Logic" applies. First, you shoot an arrow into the wall as in this case the news accounts of the record snow fall. Now that you have the arrow stuck right in the center of the news of the record snow fall, you draw the bull's eye around the arrow and explain that "Global Warming" predicted and is the cause of the record snow fall. That is how it works. All you have to do is to shoot the arrow into what ever debate you are involved in and then draw the target around the arrow and claim victory. Take the terrorist. Shoot the arrow into the news that the kid had a one way ticket and draw the bull's eye around the ticket and explain you have clear irrefutable evidence that anyone should have know the kid was a terrorist. See how easy it is?
"Archery Logic" is a very powerful tool and most people will not catch on that you are drawing the target and bull's eye around the arrow after the fact. They will see you as brilliant and very knowledgeable. They will seek you out to explain all kinds of events that happened in the past. The problem is that you will have to guard against making any prediction. That is what Global Warming did and you can see what happened. They just started to believe their own "Archery Logic" and drifted away from its key principles. Now that you have a clear understanding of "Archery Logic" you will be able to impress Friends and small children. It will, however, lower your respect for most politician. Sorry!
Culture
This one is not on my list, but recently I got into a discussion with a local "Do Gooder" who seemed bent on helping the community become more appreciative of "Culture". The thought was that it would make the community more attractive to people considering moving here, like doctors and teachers. The main thrust of this "Do Gooder" was to try to earn or collect funds so that kids from the community could "travel" to where there was "Culture" to observe. There you have it.
Now as you might expect, I take a some what obtuse position related to the above. I start out first trying to define some of the terms of the discussion. For example, exactly what is "Culture"? I think you already know my position on college courses like "art appreciation". When you talk to people regarding culture, they usually mention something like going to a museum or a play. I have been to a few myself and don't really feel much culture as a result. I have some my art work in galleries and have acted in plays. These last set us apart as a "doer" not a "spectator". I feel that "doing" is much more significant than just "watching". First, let's take the museum. I've seen moon rocks at the Smithsonian and the dead body of Pizarro, the Spaniard who conquered the Incas, and neither did much for me. I have dived on the great barrier reef of Northern Australia and climbed in the Himalayas, all of which I could just as easily read about or seen on TV. Now ask yourself how is a museum really different from a pawn shop or junk yard? All are collections of items that were created by or was part of someones life. Is one more "Cultured" than the other? Is what we call "art" really different from what we call "craft" or "engineering". I don't think so. Is a painting more important than a hand made quilt? Is the Golden Gate Bridge art or just engineering? Are the pyramids of Egypt more important than those in Mexico or the Indian mounds in Cahokia, Ill. When you go to the Metropolitan Museum on 5th ave most people are impressed with the collection, but why? This collection is of some of the best works of man. These represent the highest quality of human performance. Would we know that if the item were not on display at the museum? I am not so sure. If one of those pictures were hanging in your grandmother's back hall, would you really feel it represented "culture". The point is that to my way of thinking "culture" needs two parts. First, what ever it is, it has to be the "best" that someone can do or produce. Second, the person seeing, holding or using it has to appreciate the "quality" of what ever it is. What if I handed you a mint condition 1911 Colt 45? Would you think of it as art, craft, engineering? It is all of these at the same time, because they are all really the same thing.
Now I think you are starting to get a feel of what I am talking about. We have "culture", art, craft and engineering around us all the time. The question is not what is out there, but what is inside us. Are we smart enough to see the quality of art, craft and engineering and let's add "nature" to just round things out. I don't see much merit in spending a lot of money traveling to far away places if we don't have something inside of us that first appreciates and understands the art, craft, engineering and nature that is all around us. Further, if we don't see that we have a responsibility to contribute to this "culture" by performing and creating our "best", then what does "culture" really mean? When you have been to a 4th July parade and seen the horse pulled wagons go by, did you ever check out the wooden wheels. Did you notice how small the spokes in the wheels were and how neatly they distributed the weight of the wagon to the rim and hub? This is an example of art, craft and engineer plus nature. The wood is either White Oak or Locust and it is split and not sawed in order to develop the strongest spoke for the weight. People have names like Wheelwright, and Cooper to show their commitment to these trades and the art, craft and engineering that they represent. Hey, this stuff is all around us. We don't need to go see it somewhere else. It is right here, but we have to learn to recognize it and appreciate it the same way that the person who created it took pride in its construction.
This has been a rambling Blog on a very different subject, but now I hope that you see and understand a slightly different take on "Culture". Rather than looking for it in all the right places, we only need to look in the mirror once in a while.
Now as you might expect, I take a some what obtuse position related to the above. I start out first trying to define some of the terms of the discussion. For example, exactly what is "Culture"? I think you already know my position on college courses like "art appreciation". When you talk to people regarding culture, they usually mention something like going to a museum or a play. I have been to a few myself and don't really feel much culture as a result. I have some my art work in galleries and have acted in plays. These last set us apart as a "doer" not a "spectator". I feel that "doing" is much more significant than just "watching". First, let's take the museum. I've seen moon rocks at the Smithsonian and the dead body of Pizarro, the Spaniard who conquered the Incas, and neither did much for me. I have dived on the great barrier reef of Northern Australia and climbed in the Himalayas, all of which I could just as easily read about or seen on TV. Now ask yourself how is a museum really different from a pawn shop or junk yard? All are collections of items that were created by or was part of someones life. Is one more "Cultured" than the other? Is what we call "art" really different from what we call "craft" or "engineering". I don't think so. Is a painting more important than a hand made quilt? Is the Golden Gate Bridge art or just engineering? Are the pyramids of Egypt more important than those in Mexico or the Indian mounds in Cahokia, Ill. When you go to the Metropolitan Museum on 5th ave most people are impressed with the collection, but why? This collection is of some of the best works of man. These represent the highest quality of human performance. Would we know that if the item were not on display at the museum? I am not so sure. If one of those pictures were hanging in your grandmother's back hall, would you really feel it represented "culture". The point is that to my way of thinking "culture" needs two parts. First, what ever it is, it has to be the "best" that someone can do or produce. Second, the person seeing, holding or using it has to appreciate the "quality" of what ever it is. What if I handed you a mint condition 1911 Colt 45? Would you think of it as art, craft, engineering? It is all of these at the same time, because they are all really the same thing.
Now I think you are starting to get a feel of what I am talking about. We have "culture", art, craft and engineering around us all the time. The question is not what is out there, but what is inside us. Are we smart enough to see the quality of art, craft and engineering and let's add "nature" to just round things out. I don't see much merit in spending a lot of money traveling to far away places if we don't have something inside of us that first appreciates and understands the art, craft, engineering and nature that is all around us. Further, if we don't see that we have a responsibility to contribute to this "culture" by performing and creating our "best", then what does "culture" really mean? When you have been to a 4th July parade and seen the horse pulled wagons go by, did you ever check out the wooden wheels. Did you notice how small the spokes in the wheels were and how neatly they distributed the weight of the wagon to the rim and hub? This is an example of art, craft and engineer plus nature. The wood is either White Oak or Locust and it is split and not sawed in order to develop the strongest spoke for the weight. People have names like Wheelwright, and Cooper to show their commitment to these trades and the art, craft and engineering that they represent. Hey, this stuff is all around us. We don't need to go see it somewhere else. It is right here, but we have to learn to recognize it and appreciate it the same way that the person who created it took pride in its construction.
This has been a rambling Blog on a very different subject, but now I hope that you see and understand a slightly different take on "Culture". Rather than looking for it in all the right places, we only need to look in the mirror once in a while.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
NASA and the Space Program
I think you may have seen the news coverage that there are only four shuttle flights left. Many of you will be asking why is the very successful space programs being ended and why we are not planning on going on to Mars? Well, I have some opinions on the space program and what we should do next.
Apparently several thousands of people within NASA will be getting green slips. At this time and the state of our economy, we all have to feel sorry for these people and I do. If the claims are correct, these people are some of our most tallented. The fact that NASA and the space program has consumed so many of our best minds over the past 50 years can't be without some kind of impact on the economics of the total country. Remember that 99% of these jobs are "government" jobs. The total cost of the space program and the pay collected for 50 years by NASA workers has been taken from regular taxpayers. Before I get too far I know that many of you are going to say that, "if it were not for the space program, we would not have developed this or that". If that is the case, I would ask you to tell me one item within the top 10 or 20 items that have an impact on your life that came from the space program. I have gone thru the significant items that affect my life and only came up with GPS and satilite TV and cell phones. Notice that many countries around the world have communication satilites. Most people don't know that 90% of our rocket launches came out of Vandenburg air force base in California, not Florida. With the ICBM program, I feel we would have accomplished 100% of what most people feel came from the space program. How has landing on the Moon affected your life. Is it a "fuzzy feel good" thing or something really significant?
Now let's take the space program from a different angle. First, the USA does not have unlimited resources in money, energy or man power. We are finding that whenever you put resources in one area it is means that you took them from somewhere else. For too long we have not considered the affects of transfering resources from where they would have gone "naturally" to where the government wanted them to go. Isn't that what is pissing off all the Tea Partiers? They have figured out that realocation or transfering wealth results in less for everyone in the long run. Now are you starting to see where I am going? The space program was one of the biggest transfers of our wealth in the last 50 years.
The following is true by definition that the average IQ of the people of the USA is 100. If you don't agree with that, the following will not make sense to you. Now earlier we seemed to agree that the many of the smartest people (resources) in the USA were part of the space program for the past 50 years. That is a big deal. Now what do you think the impact on the rest of the real tax paying economy has been due to shifting many of our smartest people to the space program. How about a little math? If you take even a small percentage of the working and producing population out and put them into government jobs, what do you think the impact is on the IQ of the real producing segment? It goes down. That's right the average of the taxpayer base goes down. Example, if you take out 5% of the population who have an average IQ of 125 the IQ of the 95% that are left will be 98. It is just math. Now how do you think a population with an IQ of 98 will compete in the world? It will have a significant disadvantage. I don't want to hurt anyones feelings, but you have to agee that the smartest people have a much bigger impact on the economy disproportaionate to their numbers. In any population the top 10% will have about the same impact as the bottom 90%. It is my feeling and observation that anything that takes people from this top 10% and shifts them into a government job away from the real economy has a big impact "downward".
Combine this with the decline in our schools and you start to see the impact. During the past 50 years the USA was the benifactor of what was coined "the brain drain". This meant that many of the best minds from around the world were coming here. That had a double impact. It hurt the countries from where they came and helped the countries where they settled. If you have not noticed, the "brain drain" is over. We are getting a few, but losing more. Rather than the end of the space program being a bad thing, in my opinion it is a good thing. If these people are infact some of our smartest people then when they shift back into real economic jobs they should have a large positive impact. If these people have a hard time finding jobs, it will be because they were really not that smart after all. These people going back into the real work force should help the USA to become the "low cost producer" in more areas. I think it is a win!
PS, SAT scores hit their peak about 5 years after the Sputnik launch. The space program did infact motivate a lot of kids to go into technology. Was that a one time deal? What is going to movivate our kids to do a similar thing now?
Apparently several thousands of people within NASA will be getting green slips. At this time and the state of our economy, we all have to feel sorry for these people and I do. If the claims are correct, these people are some of our most tallented. The fact that NASA and the space program has consumed so many of our best minds over the past 50 years can't be without some kind of impact on the economics of the total country. Remember that 99% of these jobs are "government" jobs. The total cost of the space program and the pay collected for 50 years by NASA workers has been taken from regular taxpayers. Before I get too far I know that many of you are going to say that, "if it were not for the space program, we would not have developed this or that". If that is the case, I would ask you to tell me one item within the top 10 or 20 items that have an impact on your life that came from the space program. I have gone thru the significant items that affect my life and only came up with GPS and satilite TV and cell phones. Notice that many countries around the world have communication satilites. Most people don't know that 90% of our rocket launches came out of Vandenburg air force base in California, not Florida. With the ICBM program, I feel we would have accomplished 100% of what most people feel came from the space program. How has landing on the Moon affected your life. Is it a "fuzzy feel good" thing or something really significant?
Now let's take the space program from a different angle. First, the USA does not have unlimited resources in money, energy or man power. We are finding that whenever you put resources in one area it is means that you took them from somewhere else. For too long we have not considered the affects of transfering resources from where they would have gone "naturally" to where the government wanted them to go. Isn't that what is pissing off all the Tea Partiers? They have figured out that realocation or transfering wealth results in less for everyone in the long run. Now are you starting to see where I am going? The space program was one of the biggest transfers of our wealth in the last 50 years.
The following is true by definition that the average IQ of the people of the USA is 100. If you don't agree with that, the following will not make sense to you. Now earlier we seemed to agree that the many of the smartest people (resources) in the USA were part of the space program for the past 50 years. That is a big deal. Now what do you think the impact on the rest of the real tax paying economy has been due to shifting many of our smartest people to the space program. How about a little math? If you take even a small percentage of the working and producing population out and put them into government jobs, what do you think the impact is on the IQ of the real producing segment? It goes down. That's right the average of the taxpayer base goes down. Example, if you take out 5% of the population who have an average IQ of 125 the IQ of the 95% that are left will be 98. It is just math. Now how do you think a population with an IQ of 98 will compete in the world? It will have a significant disadvantage. I don't want to hurt anyones feelings, but you have to agee that the smartest people have a much bigger impact on the economy disproportaionate to their numbers. In any population the top 10% will have about the same impact as the bottom 90%. It is my feeling and observation that anything that takes people from this top 10% and shifts them into a government job away from the real economy has a big impact "downward".
Combine this with the decline in our schools and you start to see the impact. During the past 50 years the USA was the benifactor of what was coined "the brain drain". This meant that many of the best minds from around the world were coming here. That had a double impact. It hurt the countries from where they came and helped the countries where they settled. If you have not noticed, the "brain drain" is over. We are getting a few, but losing more. Rather than the end of the space program being a bad thing, in my opinion it is a good thing. If these people are infact some of our smartest people then when they shift back into real economic jobs they should have a large positive impact. If these people have a hard time finding jobs, it will be because they were really not that smart after all. These people going back into the real work force should help the USA to become the "low cost producer" in more areas. I think it is a win!
PS, SAT scores hit their peak about 5 years after the Sputnik launch. The space program did infact motivate a lot of kids to go into technology. Was that a one time deal? What is going to movivate our kids to do a similar thing now?
Friday, February 19, 2010
Stossel's Show Feb 18
Did you see the John Stossel show on Fox Business last night? He had some new figures on the state of public school education in the USA and it was all bad. He showed that the Washington DC schools spend about $15,000 per year per student and end up with the worst results in the USA. Washington DC had a voucher or charter school program that produced much better education results and cost less than the public schools, but it was scrapped because the "Unions" wanted a program that improved the results for 100% of the children. This sounds to me like on of the top ten ways to stay on dead center without trying. Propose that if the solution is not "perfect" then we have to keep looking for the "perfect" solution rather than implementing a partial solution that we know works. Have you seen this before? The bottom line is that the unions and the Department of Education are the two key impediments to better education in the USA. DA!
It was a great show. He had on a couple of union people who clearly could not defend the need or value of the unions in our schools. Stossel's basic position is that the money should go with the kid. That is, the school tax money should be divided among the kids and the kids and their parents should determine where and how to educate their kids. I agree with this concept, but with a few strings. The money should be handed out as "progress payments" rather than a limp sum and there should be some kind of hold back until a results tests could be given. He showed some school around the world who were doing a better job than us with a budget of one dollar per day per kid.
The other program that he exposed was the "head start program". apparently there have been several detailed studies of this program over the past 30 or so years and all have come back that the program had "zero" impact on improving performance scores. They did double blind studies too. Kids who went thru the head start program seemed better on day one when they started first grade, but by second grade they were doing no better than kids who did not go thru the head start program. I know that to many of you this might seem impossible, but these are the actual results. When you have a beginning mind set from an "arm chair" analysis that something is good or should be good, it is very hard to give up on your wrong thinking. I think this is why we have Democrats.
Stossel did not talk about home schooling as I did in my Blog, but if he had, I am sure he would have come to the same conclusion as I did. He did seem to agree with me that the home schoolers should get a voucher for some of the money going to the public schools. The interesting thing that Stossel also showed was that in many schools in other countries that did better than us for less money, the teachers were no college grads nor did many have special training in education. Sounds familiar. Even in poor countries where schools were free, parents opted to take their kids out of the public schools and send them to private schools where they had to pay.
In the New York City school system, they have charter schools where the teachers do not have to belong to the teacher's union and they produce better results than about 95% of the public schools for less money. To keep it fair, they pick the kids by lottery. He showed very young kids crying because they did not get picked in the lottery to go to the charter schools and had to go to the public schools in their neighborhoods. It really was sad to see these kids and parents crying.
I can't recall many of the points made by Stossel, but he did have sever clips of Obama saying that he was in favor of cutting programs that don't work and putting money in those that do regarding education. Obama, however, has toed the line 100% for the teacher's unions against charter schools and vouchers for education. Sick.
There was a book out about 15 years ago by a guy named Gross who said that not only were teacher's union the problem with education in the USA, but also teachers colleges. School teachers do not get "real" degrees from these teachers colleges. What they learn is so watered down it is little more than high school quality. I don't think England has teachers colleges. They just have regular colleges. I used to teach at a major university at the senior and graduate level and I never had a teaching degree.
Her again, if you want the future of this USA to be better and if you want your kids to share in that better future, them you have to do something about our current education system. I personally push technology, but what we really need for the future are people who are prepared to deal with that future and able to think and come the right conclusions. It is up to you.
It was a great show. He had on a couple of union people who clearly could not defend the need or value of the unions in our schools. Stossel's basic position is that the money should go with the kid. That is, the school tax money should be divided among the kids and the kids and their parents should determine where and how to educate their kids. I agree with this concept, but with a few strings. The money should be handed out as "progress payments" rather than a limp sum and there should be some kind of hold back until a results tests could be given. He showed some school around the world who were doing a better job than us with a budget of one dollar per day per kid.
The other program that he exposed was the "head start program". apparently there have been several detailed studies of this program over the past 30 or so years and all have come back that the program had "zero" impact on improving performance scores. They did double blind studies too. Kids who went thru the head start program seemed better on day one when they started first grade, but by second grade they were doing no better than kids who did not go thru the head start program. I know that to many of you this might seem impossible, but these are the actual results. When you have a beginning mind set from an "arm chair" analysis that something is good or should be good, it is very hard to give up on your wrong thinking. I think this is why we have Democrats.
Stossel did not talk about home schooling as I did in my Blog, but if he had, I am sure he would have come to the same conclusion as I did. He did seem to agree with me that the home schoolers should get a voucher for some of the money going to the public schools. The interesting thing that Stossel also showed was that in many schools in other countries that did better than us for less money, the teachers were no college grads nor did many have special training in education. Sounds familiar. Even in poor countries where schools were free, parents opted to take their kids out of the public schools and send them to private schools where they had to pay.
In the New York City school system, they have charter schools where the teachers do not have to belong to the teacher's union and they produce better results than about 95% of the public schools for less money. To keep it fair, they pick the kids by lottery. He showed very young kids crying because they did not get picked in the lottery to go to the charter schools and had to go to the public schools in their neighborhoods. It really was sad to see these kids and parents crying.
I can't recall many of the points made by Stossel, but he did have sever clips of Obama saying that he was in favor of cutting programs that don't work and putting money in those that do regarding education. Obama, however, has toed the line 100% for the teacher's unions against charter schools and vouchers for education. Sick.
There was a book out about 15 years ago by a guy named Gross who said that not only were teacher's union the problem with education in the USA, but also teachers colleges. School teachers do not get "real" degrees from these teachers colleges. What they learn is so watered down it is little more than high school quality. I don't think England has teachers colleges. They just have regular colleges. I used to teach at a major university at the senior and graduate level and I never had a teaching degree.
Her again, if you want the future of this USA to be better and if you want your kids to share in that better future, them you have to do something about our current education system. I personally push technology, but what we really need for the future are people who are prepared to deal with that future and able to think and come the right conclusions. It is up to you.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Analysis of Obama's Style
First off, I am not an expert in speech or body language, but I am and have been a good observer of people for many years. On that basis, I think I may have something to contribute.
First, a little background. As a kid, I was raised in a God fearing church going family. We attended the Pentecostal Church of God on a very "religious" basis. My grandmother was a very devout church goer and her brother was a church minister. If you have read the book Elmer Gantry or seen the movie, that is "exactly" what my preacher great uncle was like. At a very early age I developed a distinct dislike for him. I guess I was ahead of my time. To my young mind, he looked very dishonest and seemed to be a first class con man. This seemed to be born out by the attitude of the people who he preached to. They seemed ignorant, superstitious and very gullible. The worst part was when they gave him money they could not afford when their own kids need food and shoes. I think you get the idea. He had a hard time keeping his pants up too.
As I watched him clearly take advantage of these church going people I also saw his methods and style. I compared his to other preachers and found that they all had a common trait. No mater what they said or how outrageous it was they said it in a loud voice with the conviction of God himself. I think you have seen preachers like the late Billy Graham hold a stadium full of followers spell bound, so you know it can be done. There is a new guy on the block that is just as good at this type of con and that is preacher Orsteen. I recently saw a clip on TV where he had over 10,000 followers in his mega church at one time, all seemingly spell bound. Getting the idea now? Both Graham and Orsteen claimed to speak to God directly and claim to know what Moses was thinking when he received the tablets on the mount. 100% BS, but presented with such conviction that the followers seemed to eat it up.
In all the churches that I have been in, the preacher sits up higher than everyone else and talks "down" to them. I have never seen anyone challenge the claims of a preacher. There seems to be so much peer pressure among the followers that if anyone stepped out of line, all the preacher would have to do is nod to a few trusted followers to take the person aside and show them the "error" of his ways. You know that this is how it works. Preachers can't stand the light of day shining in on what they are saying or claiming. Given that the preacher is so sure of his position, they see no reason to honestly discuss the opinion of others. They feel deep down that there must be something wrong with the person or he or she would not have such a wrong position. They attack the "person" not the person's position. The church put Galileo in jail because he said the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way around as taught by the church. Notice the parallel?
If in a discussion with the preacher, a follower seems to be drifting away, notice how the preacher wants to "touch" the person. It seems that the preacher's words carry more weight when they are touching the follower. Notice a parallel here?
There is another observation that I am sure you have noticed about preachers and that is the pace and tone of their speech. I notice the significance of this when Rap music first started or when the boxer Clay used to make up poems before one of his fights. In Rap, the rate of the words coming is a little too fast for the average person to analyse and study the content of the speech. The next word comes too fast. The other thing is that there is just enough riming to make your mind try to anticipate the next word. All of this is directed at keeping your full attention. The rapper wants to totally control "you" as you try to listen so that his words have the greatest impact on your mind and without you having to think much about the truth or logic of what is being said. People from New York City speak faster than most of the country and used to get on my nerves when I had to listen too them. It is much the same for southern speech. Notice how you can be manipulated by more than the words in the speech. Have you ever read an Obama speech? How impressed were you?
Notice how different the speech pattern of a preacher is when he is addressing a funeral party? It is slow and low. The art of preaching and conning simple people is one of mans oldest industries. It came right after the first one, but it is almost like the "chicken and egg" argument.
The final point in my observations of preachers is that they have over the years accumulated a whole book full of good sounding almost meaningless platitudes and cliches. You know what these are. Obama's speech's are full of platitudes and cliches that have multiple meanings that are all different between individuals in the audience. Note that Obama attended the Rev Wright church in Chicago for 20 years. I think we all agree that Obama is smart and if so why would you not expect that he picked up on the techniques of his very good friend and pastor, Rev Wright. Martin Luther King was no slouch either. I think you have heard some of his speeches. Read one some time and see if you don't also agree that it is more presentation than content.
Now look at Obama. Does he meet all the point above? He is a tall good looking guy too. Did you ever buy a car from a short ugly person? I did not think so. When you take all this together, you have our President Obama, nothing more nothing less. As I said in the beginning how at a very early age I developed a distinct dislike for preachers so you must know why I distrust Obama. He is the perfect con man. I can only judge him by what I see on the outside. If he is honest on the inside, that is for him alone to know.
First, a little background. As a kid, I was raised in a God fearing church going family. We attended the Pentecostal Church of God on a very "religious" basis. My grandmother was a very devout church goer and her brother was a church minister. If you have read the book Elmer Gantry or seen the movie, that is "exactly" what my preacher great uncle was like. At a very early age I developed a distinct dislike for him. I guess I was ahead of my time. To my young mind, he looked very dishonest and seemed to be a first class con man. This seemed to be born out by the attitude of the people who he preached to. They seemed ignorant, superstitious and very gullible. The worst part was when they gave him money they could not afford when their own kids need food and shoes. I think you get the idea. He had a hard time keeping his pants up too.
As I watched him clearly take advantage of these church going people I also saw his methods and style. I compared his to other preachers and found that they all had a common trait. No mater what they said or how outrageous it was they said it in a loud voice with the conviction of God himself. I think you have seen preachers like the late Billy Graham hold a stadium full of followers spell bound, so you know it can be done. There is a new guy on the block that is just as good at this type of con and that is preacher Orsteen. I recently saw a clip on TV where he had over 10,000 followers in his mega church at one time, all seemingly spell bound. Getting the idea now? Both Graham and Orsteen claimed to speak to God directly and claim to know what Moses was thinking when he received the tablets on the mount. 100% BS, but presented with such conviction that the followers seemed to eat it up.
In all the churches that I have been in, the preacher sits up higher than everyone else and talks "down" to them. I have never seen anyone challenge the claims of a preacher. There seems to be so much peer pressure among the followers that if anyone stepped out of line, all the preacher would have to do is nod to a few trusted followers to take the person aside and show them the "error" of his ways. You know that this is how it works. Preachers can't stand the light of day shining in on what they are saying or claiming. Given that the preacher is so sure of his position, they see no reason to honestly discuss the opinion of others. They feel deep down that there must be something wrong with the person or he or she would not have such a wrong position. They attack the "person" not the person's position. The church put Galileo in jail because he said the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way around as taught by the church. Notice the parallel?
If in a discussion with the preacher, a follower seems to be drifting away, notice how the preacher wants to "touch" the person. It seems that the preacher's words carry more weight when they are touching the follower. Notice a parallel here?
There is another observation that I am sure you have noticed about preachers and that is the pace and tone of their speech. I notice the significance of this when Rap music first started or when the boxer Clay used to make up poems before one of his fights. In Rap, the rate of the words coming is a little too fast for the average person to analyse and study the content of the speech. The next word comes too fast. The other thing is that there is just enough riming to make your mind try to anticipate the next word. All of this is directed at keeping your full attention. The rapper wants to totally control "you" as you try to listen so that his words have the greatest impact on your mind and without you having to think much about the truth or logic of what is being said. People from New York City speak faster than most of the country and used to get on my nerves when I had to listen too them. It is much the same for southern speech. Notice how you can be manipulated by more than the words in the speech. Have you ever read an Obama speech? How impressed were you?
Notice how different the speech pattern of a preacher is when he is addressing a funeral party? It is slow and low. The art of preaching and conning simple people is one of mans oldest industries. It came right after the first one, but it is almost like the "chicken and egg" argument.
The final point in my observations of preachers is that they have over the years accumulated a whole book full of good sounding almost meaningless platitudes and cliches. You know what these are. Obama's speech's are full of platitudes and cliches that have multiple meanings that are all different between individuals in the audience. Note that Obama attended the Rev Wright church in Chicago for 20 years. I think we all agree that Obama is smart and if so why would you not expect that he picked up on the techniques of his very good friend and pastor, Rev Wright. Martin Luther King was no slouch either. I think you have heard some of his speeches. Read one some time and see if you don't also agree that it is more presentation than content.
Now look at Obama. Does he meet all the point above? He is a tall good looking guy too. Did you ever buy a car from a short ugly person? I did not think so. When you take all this together, you have our President Obama, nothing more nothing less. As I said in the beginning how at a very early age I developed a distinct dislike for preachers so you must know why I distrust Obama. He is the perfect con man. I can only judge him by what I see on the outside. If he is honest on the inside, that is for him alone to know.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Toyota and Computers
You may have noticed from my header that I am interested in cars and technology so here goes on cars. Since Toyota is the big news, I thought that I would start there.
Toyota has their hands full with their cars and 99% of it is related to computers in my opinion. We don't have all the facts in yet, but when we do my vote is that their basic problem is related to their computers and computer programs. I am not a real expert on computers, but I contend that no one else is either. Computers are like women, when you think you finally understand them, you realize that you don't understand them at all. Back in engineering school, I got an A+ in Computer Application Engineering. Since then I have tried to stay as far from the details of computers as I could. Looking back, that was a very good decision and as I develop the Toyota story, you start to see why.
I drive a Mercedes and it has worked fine. I also drive a 1964 Ford Mustang. Two very different cars. Toyota is one of the best and most competent car companies in the world and they have a very long history of making some of the finest cars. Their quality is second to none and their engineering in every detail is top notch. If this is so, then how could Toyota get into such a mess? A few years ago, Toyota came out with a car that could parallel park itself. All you had to do was to pull up along side the parking space and them let the car back in and park itself automatically. This was a great feature and had to impress the most skeptical buyer. At the same time Toyota like many other high tech companies found that they could not only incorporate new features using the power of the computer, but they could also make significant cost reductions and assembly simplifications. To do this automatic parking trick, Toyota had to be able to turn over active control of the car to the computer. That meant the computer was driving the car, not the driver. It seemed to work fine and was no big deal. Right? No! It was a very big deal. Seems the Toyota company like so many other great companies had a top notch management team that had all kinds of experience building cars. They had knowledge that you could not put in books or learn at the university. This was the strength of Toyota. With the rapid introduction of computer controls into their cars, the top management had to shift much of the real decision making that required more than book and university learning to many very smart young computer engineers. The problem was that the more they shifted to these young smart computer engineers the more of the control of their companies reputation they shifted there too. In the past, the experienced managers at Toyota could conduct reviews and inspect the cars to see if they met the Toyota standards, but now that so much of the car was inside the computer and controlled by programs, that they had limited knowledge of, they were for the most part "out of the loop". The problem was not with the basic competence of either the seasoned managers or the smart computer engineers, the problem was that the managers could not effectively manage and thus transfer their important and valuable experience to the smart computer engineers. The result was that the long chain of skill and experience built up within Toyota was broken. It was not until the #*+^@ hit the fan that Toyota woke up. Did you know that there is no mechanical connection between the steering wheel in a Toyota and the wheels, nor is there one between the brakes and the tires or the gas peddle and the carburetor. Cars really don't have carburetors any more, but you see what I am talking about.
Toyota can and is fixing the problems with existing cars, but they will have more in the future. Other car manufacturers are using these same kinds of computers and computer programs and do and will have similar problems in the future. Complexity is at the bottom of all this too. Most programs start out to do some very simple things and over time get more and more complicated. This complexity goes up geometrically with time as new smart computer engineers work on the programs and fix "bugs" in the programs. We all have experience with "bugs" in computer programs. We have grown to expect them, but not when driving with our family down the highway at 70mph. That's the real problem. With most of the simple programs that I use, I get "updates" or "fixes" weekly, but they do not involve the my life or that of my family.
In a very complex program there are almost an infinite number of possible states that the program can get into and out of. It is next to impossible to test all these states to be assured that all end safely. Not only do computers have to deal with their own stored programs, but inputs and outputs that may or may not have been anticipated by the programmers. Here again, complexity. It is like the old adage regarding a sharp knife, "it can cut both ways". That is what can happen with computers and it can happen at the speed of light. Many of you are old enough to remember when the "lights went out in New York". Light went out over most of the northeast USA all due to a "bug" in a switching station program someplace near Buffalo, NY. Or how about the "miracle on the Hudson"? The Airbus plane is a very well engineered plane and was designed by very smart computer engineers. What the engineers did was to program the engine controls so that if there was any damage detected inside the engine, it would automatically shut down. This seemed like a good idea because it woulds save the engine so it could be repair easily when the plane landed. The plane could do without one engine since it had two, so what was the problem. The problem was, "what if both engines took birds at the same time?" and that is what happened. The computer shut down "both" engines and the plane did not have enough power to get back to the airport, thus the crash into the Hudson. Now I think you can start to see some of the risk associated with automatic computer controls where our safety is concerned.
All I have tried to do is to let you know a little more about the risk we all have when we trust our lives to computers, computer programs and smart computer engineers. I have looked at the situation in detail and do not see a real solution. The reason is that the technology moves so fast and real life experience accumulates so slowly that the managers get too old too fast compared to the technological growth that it has to be delegated to young smart computer engineers. It is a "round robin" that will just keep going around faster and faster. If you see it differently or have an idea of what the eventual solution will be, please post your comments. I feel sorry for Toyota because it is really not their fault. This is something that many of us knew was going to happen, we just hoped it would not be this soon nor would anyone be killed.
Toyota has their hands full with their cars and 99% of it is related to computers in my opinion. We don't have all the facts in yet, but when we do my vote is that their basic problem is related to their computers and computer programs. I am not a real expert on computers, but I contend that no one else is either. Computers are like women, when you think you finally understand them, you realize that you don't understand them at all. Back in engineering school, I got an A+ in Computer Application Engineering. Since then I have tried to stay as far from the details of computers as I could. Looking back, that was a very good decision and as I develop the Toyota story, you start to see why.
I drive a Mercedes and it has worked fine. I also drive a 1964 Ford Mustang. Two very different cars. Toyota is one of the best and most competent car companies in the world and they have a very long history of making some of the finest cars. Their quality is second to none and their engineering in every detail is top notch. If this is so, then how could Toyota get into such a mess? A few years ago, Toyota came out with a car that could parallel park itself. All you had to do was to pull up along side the parking space and them let the car back in and park itself automatically. This was a great feature and had to impress the most skeptical buyer. At the same time Toyota like many other high tech companies found that they could not only incorporate new features using the power of the computer, but they could also make significant cost reductions and assembly simplifications. To do this automatic parking trick, Toyota had to be able to turn over active control of the car to the computer. That meant the computer was driving the car, not the driver. It seemed to work fine and was no big deal. Right? No! It was a very big deal. Seems the Toyota company like so many other great companies had a top notch management team that had all kinds of experience building cars. They had knowledge that you could not put in books or learn at the university. This was the strength of Toyota. With the rapid introduction of computer controls into their cars, the top management had to shift much of the real decision making that required more than book and university learning to many very smart young computer engineers. The problem was that the more they shifted to these young smart computer engineers the more of the control of their companies reputation they shifted there too. In the past, the experienced managers at Toyota could conduct reviews and inspect the cars to see if they met the Toyota standards, but now that so much of the car was inside the computer and controlled by programs, that they had limited knowledge of, they were for the most part "out of the loop". The problem was not with the basic competence of either the seasoned managers or the smart computer engineers, the problem was that the managers could not effectively manage and thus transfer their important and valuable experience to the smart computer engineers. The result was that the long chain of skill and experience built up within Toyota was broken. It was not until the #*+^@ hit the fan that Toyota woke up. Did you know that there is no mechanical connection between the steering wheel in a Toyota and the wheels, nor is there one between the brakes and the tires or the gas peddle and the carburetor. Cars really don't have carburetors any more, but you see what I am talking about.
Toyota can and is fixing the problems with existing cars, but they will have more in the future. Other car manufacturers are using these same kinds of computers and computer programs and do and will have similar problems in the future. Complexity is at the bottom of all this too. Most programs start out to do some very simple things and over time get more and more complicated. This complexity goes up geometrically with time as new smart computer engineers work on the programs and fix "bugs" in the programs. We all have experience with "bugs" in computer programs. We have grown to expect them, but not when driving with our family down the highway at 70mph. That's the real problem. With most of the simple programs that I use, I get "updates" or "fixes" weekly, but they do not involve the my life or that of my family.
In a very complex program there are almost an infinite number of possible states that the program can get into and out of. It is next to impossible to test all these states to be assured that all end safely. Not only do computers have to deal with their own stored programs, but inputs and outputs that may or may not have been anticipated by the programmers. Here again, complexity. It is like the old adage regarding a sharp knife, "it can cut both ways". That is what can happen with computers and it can happen at the speed of light. Many of you are old enough to remember when the "lights went out in New York". Light went out over most of the northeast USA all due to a "bug" in a switching station program someplace near Buffalo, NY. Or how about the "miracle on the Hudson"? The Airbus plane is a very well engineered plane and was designed by very smart computer engineers. What the engineers did was to program the engine controls so that if there was any damage detected inside the engine, it would automatically shut down. This seemed like a good idea because it woulds save the engine so it could be repair easily when the plane landed. The plane could do without one engine since it had two, so what was the problem. The problem was, "what if both engines took birds at the same time?" and that is what happened. The computer shut down "both" engines and the plane did not have enough power to get back to the airport, thus the crash into the Hudson. Now I think you can start to see some of the risk associated with automatic computer controls where our safety is concerned.
All I have tried to do is to let you know a little more about the risk we all have when we trust our lives to computers, computer programs and smart computer engineers. I have looked at the situation in detail and do not see a real solution. The reason is that the technology moves so fast and real life experience accumulates so slowly that the managers get too old too fast compared to the technological growth that it has to be delegated to young smart computer engineers. It is a "round robin" that will just keep going around faster and faster. If you see it differently or have an idea of what the eventual solution will be, please post your comments. I feel sorry for Toyota because it is really not their fault. This is something that many of us knew was going to happen, we just hoped it would not be this soon nor would anyone be killed.
Vouchers and Home Schooling
It was several year ago when I was anchored with my Passport 40 sailboat at Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas that I saw a very interesting sight. There were several kids swimming around another sailboat anchored a couple of hundred yards away. In the water I could see what looked like a shark fin circling the kids. I immediately jumped into my dingy and motored to the anchored sailboat. When I arrived I saw their mother on deck watching a wild Dolphin swimming with the kids. I started talking to the mother about how it must have been a difficult decision to take all kids out of school to cruse on their sailboat. She said immediately that it was not really a problem at all. The kids were being "home schooled". Being the product of the public school system myself, I was taken back at how casual she was about her decision. I then asked, "just how do you home school a bunch of kids on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean?" She said that it was easy and asked if I would like to take a look at some of their workbooks and school materials. I said, "yes". and was very impressed with the quality of the material having been a former university professor myself. I noticed over the next few days that we were anchored at Green Turtle that I did not see any of the kids on deck before about 1:00 or 2:00 each day. The reason is that the kids could not go out and play until they had completed their school work. I also noticed that the Dolphin did not come around either until the kids were out of school. Smart Dolphin.
This experience gave me some confidence that a family could go on a lengthy cruse with kids of school age and still take care of there educational responsibility. It was several years later when visiting some relatives in the Detroit area, I was surprised to find out that the Scottish wife of a distant relative was home schooling their kids. As it turned out they had one child who was a little slower than the rest of the class in picking up reading and the parent was concerned that her child would drop behind if they did not get extra help so she decided to home school. Things worked out so well that all the kids were switched to home schooling. I challenged her about developing social skills when isolated by home schooling. She said that it was not a problem and that they belonged to a home schooling group that had at least one group field trip every week. These trips would be to local museums and farms or local industries. The Henry Ford "Greenfield Village" was a favorite.
From what I could see these kids were getting a much better education than they could have expected from the public school system. This, of source, was not in the city of Detroit were the high school graduation rate is only 25%, one of the lowest in the world.
I know what you are thinking, "where am I going with this?" The point is, there is an alternative to public education. It may not be for everyone for any number of reasons, but it does work and it works well. I think that many of us watch the "National Spelling BEE" each year and must notice that a very high proportion of the top spellers are home schooled, where as, they are a very small percentage of the total school population. This just points out the quality of home schooling compared to public schooling on average. You can challenge this assertion, but please provide your facts when you do.
I asked the home schoolers whom I have met whether or not they got any tax credit or help from their public schools or school districts. In all cases they said, "no".
This got me to thinking. It costs on average about $10,000 in total tax money to send a kid to school for a year. For every kid that is home schooled, the public school saves this $10,000. It would seem to me that if we want lower taxes, one easy way would be to encourage home schooling. I would go so far as to propose that we give the home schooler a "Voucher" for 50% of what it costs the public schools to teach a kid and thus realize a net savings for the tax payer of $5,000. Sounds real simple to me. I would not see a problem with using this "Voucher" for any nonreligious school. To include religious schools would result in a debate that would never end and thus kill any practical Voucher system. I'm just not prepared to go there.
I think this is correct. John Stuart Mills was a famous English intellectual who was home schooled by his father who worked for the East India Company as some kind of clerk. Young John would go to work with his father and his father would give him his lessons from the edge of his desk while he did his work for the East India Company. I only bring this up because home schooling has a much longer history of success than do our public schools.
Ask yourself why your school district does not provide Vouchers for kids who are home schooled in your area? If not, ask your superintendent why not? If you think we should provide Vouchers for home schoolers, go to your school board and demand that we do. Our schools belong to us, not the teachers or the unions. They are there to help educated our kids and to do the job economically. If home schooling is more economical in some cases, we would be irresponsible not to take advantage of it.
This experience gave me some confidence that a family could go on a lengthy cruse with kids of school age and still take care of there educational responsibility. It was several years later when visiting some relatives in the Detroit area, I was surprised to find out that the Scottish wife of a distant relative was home schooling their kids. As it turned out they had one child who was a little slower than the rest of the class in picking up reading and the parent was concerned that her child would drop behind if they did not get extra help so she decided to home school. Things worked out so well that all the kids were switched to home schooling. I challenged her about developing social skills when isolated by home schooling. She said that it was not a problem and that they belonged to a home schooling group that had at least one group field trip every week. These trips would be to local museums and farms or local industries. The Henry Ford "Greenfield Village" was a favorite.
From what I could see these kids were getting a much better education than they could have expected from the public school system. This, of source, was not in the city of Detroit were the high school graduation rate is only 25%, one of the lowest in the world.
I know what you are thinking, "where am I going with this?" The point is, there is an alternative to public education. It may not be for everyone for any number of reasons, but it does work and it works well. I think that many of us watch the "National Spelling BEE" each year and must notice that a very high proportion of the top spellers are home schooled, where as, they are a very small percentage of the total school population. This just points out the quality of home schooling compared to public schooling on average. You can challenge this assertion, but please provide your facts when you do.
I asked the home schoolers whom I have met whether or not they got any tax credit or help from their public schools or school districts. In all cases they said, "no".
This got me to thinking. It costs on average about $10,000 in total tax money to send a kid to school for a year. For every kid that is home schooled, the public school saves this $10,000. It would seem to me that if we want lower taxes, one easy way would be to encourage home schooling. I would go so far as to propose that we give the home schooler a "Voucher" for 50% of what it costs the public schools to teach a kid and thus realize a net savings for the tax payer of $5,000. Sounds real simple to me. I would not see a problem with using this "Voucher" for any nonreligious school. To include religious schools would result in a debate that would never end and thus kill any practical Voucher system. I'm just not prepared to go there.
I think this is correct. John Stuart Mills was a famous English intellectual who was home schooled by his father who worked for the East India Company as some kind of clerk. Young John would go to work with his father and his father would give him his lessons from the edge of his desk while he did his work for the East India Company. I only bring this up because home schooling has a much longer history of success than do our public schools.
Ask yourself why your school district does not provide Vouchers for kids who are home schooled in your area? If not, ask your superintendent why not? If you think we should provide Vouchers for home schoolers, go to your school board and demand that we do. Our schools belong to us, not the teachers or the unions. They are there to help educated our kids and to do the job economically. If home schooling is more economical in some cases, we would be irresponsible not to take advantage of it.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Crisis In Our Universities
We hear all kinds of commentary on the state of our universities and most of it is bad. If you have your eyes open, you must agree with many authors that they have deteriorated into institutions of liberal indoctrination. Little strong? I don't thinks so. As big a problem liberal indoctrination of our children is, it is not really our universities most critical problem. The biggest problem is that they are turning out graduates for which there are no jobs and there will never be job. Here is an example. I was looking thru the want adds the other day and I did not see one add for a Political Science graduate. I did not see an add for an English major or an Art Appreciation graduate either, yet hard earned money is being taken from tax payers to fund these degrees. Did you know that more degrees in Political Science are granted by the University of Wisconsin than any other degree? As a parent and tax payer, do you want your kids to spend your hard earned tax money plus money borrowed from China that your grandchildren will have to pay back to be used so your kid can have a degree in Political Science? I did not think so, but that is what is going on. How many Political Science graduates do you think the USA really needs? To my way of thinking, Political Science should be a single class, not a major. To get a feel of how important a degree in Political Science is, I checked to see how many of these inspired intellectuals went on for a Masters degree. At the University of Wisconsin, it was not in the top 25. I guess from this, one would conclude that our kids learned all they needed to know about Political Science in just 4 years. I think this also tells you how "shallow" this major really is. If you look at the number of medical doctors produced by our Universities, it comes to only about 40% of what is needed. The other 60% of our new doctors have to be imported. Some additional research showed that we don't import near as many Political Science graduates. I couldn't find any. This must mean we are doing a good job producing Political Scientists.
After all this, exactly where is the crisis? Go back to economics and the first law of economic, "Low Cost Producer". Now how do you think our investment of our tax money and the lives of our children in Political Science causes us to become "Low Cost Producers" in anything? It does not! It is a total waste of both our money and our blood. People seem to understand this when it is a war, but not when it involves economics. This is the crisis. Our universities are not preparing our kids to compete in the world of economics and it is economics that determines our standard of living and our ability to put food on the table for our families. The world is a very competitive place and there is no room for waste of any kind. As in the fable of the "Turtle and the Hare", the Hare wasted valuable time while the turtle plodded along. You know the results. The turtle won the race. This is exactly what is and will happen to us if our universities keep wasting our tax money and the blood of our children. It is our fault as parents and tax payers to have let this happened and it is our responsibility to make it right.
You check out what your kids are taking in school and what types and numbers of degrees your universities are granting and do something about it if you disagree. Check out exactly who the people are on their Boards of Regents and see if they are by degree and experiance qualified to guide the universities and the minds of your kid. If not, do something about it.
After all this, exactly where is the crisis? Go back to economics and the first law of economic, "Low Cost Producer". Now how do you think our investment of our tax money and the lives of our children in Political Science causes us to become "Low Cost Producers" in anything? It does not! It is a total waste of both our money and our blood. People seem to understand this when it is a war, but not when it involves economics. This is the crisis. Our universities are not preparing our kids to compete in the world of economics and it is economics that determines our standard of living and our ability to put food on the table for our families. The world is a very competitive place and there is no room for waste of any kind. As in the fable of the "Turtle and the Hare", the Hare wasted valuable time while the turtle plodded along. You know the results. The turtle won the race. This is exactly what is and will happen to us if our universities keep wasting our tax money and the blood of our children. It is our fault as parents and tax payers to have let this happened and it is our responsibility to make it right.
You check out what your kids are taking in school and what types and numbers of degrees your universities are granting and do something about it if you disagree. Check out exactly who the people are on their Boards of Regents and see if they are by degree and experiance qualified to guide the universities and the minds of your kid. If not, do something about it.
Economics Made Simple
How can anyone make economics simple? Like most concepts, it is not that hard. The first rule of economics is "low cost producer". If you don't think this is the first rule of economics, go out to buy something and see if most of the time you don't come back the item that costs the least. I think you take pride in the fact that you consistently buy the least expensive items. This, of source, assumes that they are of equivalent quality. Now let's think back to where you got the money to buy these least expensive items. You must have produced something of value, but just producing something of value does not mean that your activities have been economical. The only economical activities must meet rule #1 of economics and that is low cost producer. In a functioning economic systems with many players, each will be producing something of value at the lowest cost. What happens if a member of the economic system is not a low cost producer? You don't buy their product and they don't sell their product. Their only choices are to lower their price and thus take a cut in pay or learn how to produce their product at the lowest cost. If you have to cut your pay, you will not have as much money to spend and thus your standard of living will decline to reach the low cost producer balance. Not very complicated is it?
Now that you have a fundamental understanding of economics ask yourself how we are doing here in the USA compared to the rest of the world. In what areas are we the low cost producer? I don't have a very long list. If you go to the market, you will find most of the food is produced in the USA, but manufactured items with long shelf lives will mostly be made somewhere else. As you shop, you will find that some items are all made in the USA and thus you can only select from those made here. These are items that can not be imported for one reason or another. These would be things like:
*Doctors
*Barbers
*Lawyers
*Homes
*Restaurants
Note, 60% of our doctors are imported so we are clearly are not the low cost producers of doctors. Lawyers are a little more difficult to import due to the unique nature of our legal system. It appeas that we do not have a shortage of lawyers.
Now you can analyse the political proposals from our government based on wheather or not they will help us become the low cost producer. If not, then why are spending our tax money and efforts on them?
Now that you have a fundamental understanding of economics ask yourself how we are doing here in the USA compared to the rest of the world. In what areas are we the low cost producer? I don't have a very long list. If you go to the market, you will find most of the food is produced in the USA, but manufactured items with long shelf lives will mostly be made somewhere else. As you shop, you will find that some items are all made in the USA and thus you can only select from those made here. These are items that can not be imported for one reason or another. These would be things like:
*Doctors
*Barbers
*Lawyers
*Homes
*Restaurants
Note, 60% of our doctors are imported so we are clearly are not the low cost producers of doctors. Lawyers are a little more difficult to import due to the unique nature of our legal system. It appeas that we do not have a shortage of lawyers.
Now you can analyse the political proposals from our government based on wheather or not they will help us become the low cost producer. If not, then why are spending our tax money and efforts on them?
Friday, February 12, 2010
Public Employee Union Unfunded Liability
We all know what is happening with the budgets of our state and local governments. Most are bankrupt or nearly insolvent. The main cause is the high cost of public employee labor contracts. The reason that we are all in this situation is that our elected officials who are responsible for these contracts have been gutless when dealing with the unions. It is not their money and their pay is often a function of how much the unions are paid. They clearly have a conflict of interests. The fact that states and cities can't go bankrupt sets up a situation where the unions can bleed the local tax payers and no one seems to be able to do anything about it. When our elected officials agreed to retirement programs they knew at the time that when the payments came due, they would not be in their positions anymore. They like the union members would be home collecting from the tax payers. Most of the officials who negotiated these union contracts for us tax payers were once members of these same unions and most of the members of the unions were former friends and associates. So now you know some of what caused the problem, but how are we going to get out of the problem and bring sanity back to fiscal matters?
Notice how the unions are very careful how they define the bargaining unit. No managers can be in the union. In the case of the teacher's unions, they let the department chairmen into the union bargaining unit even though they are the real managers of the schools. It is kind of unique in these types of unions. Each union member owes more to his department chairman than they do to the school or university. It is like each department chairman has his own little principality and us tax payers to pick up the bill. He has a perfect patronage system with himself the good guy and the tax payers both the bad guy and the one picking up the tab. Nice setup if you can get it and the public employees have it. Now how do we crack this clear monopoly?
Redefine the bargaining unit so that everyone has skin in the game. How do you do that? The school should hire everyone who is in the community that pays taxes to support the school. Hire everyone over 18 who is a voter for $1.00/yr. That is right, put them on the payroll. Now when any contract has to be ratified it will be by people who have a vested interest in the process from both ends. Teachers would be able to vote, but someone who only was paid $1.00/yr would also get the right to vote. It would be like our regular elections where people who pay "no" tax have the same voting power as a person who pays millions of dollars. If it is fair in one situation, then why would it not be fair in another? My guess is that we would get a lot more realistic contracts and pay schedules for our public employees.
I think you can see where I am going with this, but I don't see any other way that we can get control of this out of control situation with public employees. I do have some other ideas, but that is for another day.
Brewmaster
Notice how the unions are very careful how they define the bargaining unit. No managers can be in the union. In the case of the teacher's unions, they let the department chairmen into the union bargaining unit even though they are the real managers of the schools. It is kind of unique in these types of unions. Each union member owes more to his department chairman than they do to the school or university. It is like each department chairman has his own little principality and us tax payers to pick up the bill. He has a perfect patronage system with himself the good guy and the tax payers both the bad guy and the one picking up the tab. Nice setup if you can get it and the public employees have it. Now how do we crack this clear monopoly?
Redefine the bargaining unit so that everyone has skin in the game. How do you do that? The school should hire everyone who is in the community that pays taxes to support the school. Hire everyone over 18 who is a voter for $1.00/yr. That is right, put them on the payroll. Now when any contract has to be ratified it will be by people who have a vested interest in the process from both ends. Teachers would be able to vote, but someone who only was paid $1.00/yr would also get the right to vote. It would be like our regular elections where people who pay "no" tax have the same voting power as a person who pays millions of dollars. If it is fair in one situation, then why would it not be fair in another? My guess is that we would get a lot more realistic contracts and pay schedules for our public employees.
I think you can see where I am going with this, but I don't see any other way that we can get control of this out of control situation with public employees. I do have some other ideas, but that is for another day.
Brewmaster
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
First Blog
To all my coffee drinking friends, this is my first "Blog". I will be publishing many of the same items that I have in the past and topics that we have discussed in fine detail. I have no idea if others will listen in, but we all should have a good time reading and exchanging ideas. Our President and the economy should provide us with plenty of material.
See ya,
See ya,
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)