Wharton: Statistics are guilty til proven innocent

After reading the post title, I know you're shocked to hear of actual measurements being influenced by the agenda of those doing the measuring. Here's the nut graph:

K@W: ...a key to minimizing the misuse of statistics involves intuitive plausibility, or understanding the researcher's approach and the interplay of forces. "It's important to know what the drivers are behind the variables," he says. "Once that is established, an observer can better understand and establish causality."

Intuitive Plausibility. Sort of a fancy way, I think, of saying buyer beware the bald man selling hair tonic, and watch out for the bushy-headed one, too.

Wouldn't "Motivational Spelunking" have been more descriptive and useful? The "interplay of forces" and variables so blandly referenced do tend to have some real teeth. "Forces" like what? Maybe how much heat you're getting from marketing to show the new BrainMaster 3000 really does improve cognitive skills? Or perhaps, how some primary states do or don't count and why Crown Royal is really akin to Jim Beam?

Yeah, lies, damned lies and whatnot. But, is this always nefarious? Depends, doesn't it? Often, on whether your compass is the Boy Scout Oath or the job that cuts the paycheck that in turn puts braces on your kids' teeth. Yeah, everyone wants to go to heaven, but the ticket price is hell. Maybe more interesting is, Is this inevitable? And, what does it cost us?

Well, here's a questionable stat cobbled together by yours truly:



For the purposes and the point I needed to make with this slide, I did a bit of guessing, reading, Googling and extrapolation to come up with an 1850 number, presuming small town America. (Impressions x Channels + Social & Work Interactions x Venues, etc and so on). The bigger 2007 number is cobbled together from various modern, presumably more statistically rigorous sources like the American Marketing Association and the Better Business Bureau. Still, I disclaim it as guesswork, however educated. But the point I was making was implicit in the gueswork, and had the feel of "truth" to the hearers because it provides an "intuitively plausible" answer for their vague anxiety:

• Why are we so numb to change indicators?
• With so much info, why aren't we making smarter choices?
• How did we get to the place where emotion plays such a large part in seemingly rational people's decision-making?

More graphic junk



Yes, the stuff in the beige can is often empirically sound. But there's just so damn much of it, all claiming Grade-A quality analysis. Who has the time to sort out it's inevitable Bell Curve of actual quality? Likely, none of us. So, we go with the best friend, longest-term mentor and referee we've got--our gut, our limbic bullshit meter. We go with what 'feels' rightest and bestest. (Mike, of Spooky Action can tell you about Lovaglia's Law on this count.)

Sometimes the collected experiences of that "gut" have done enough and are fearless, humble and secure enough to yield wisdom. Sometimes, it's the experiential equivalent of a 16-year old saying "been there, done that." Moretimes--is that a word?--the hailstorm of information causes a fantastical pinch in the middle, our bell curve becoming an hourglass turned on its side. We are intimately engaged and familiar with the fantastical and the fearsome, the wildly idealistic or the aberrantly grotesque--but, with the practical and pedantic, not so much. We've been there and done that, earned that and deserve that--whatever that is--even when we haven't.

Geez, I started out scribbling on statisticians pointing at the open manholes of statistical analysis and now we're at the edge of pondering it's much older analogue--the effectiveness of cognitive assessment filtered through the clouds of self-image and self-interest or, whadayacallit... Intuitive Plausibility.

Double geez. Time to call in a Pro. Here's Grant McCracken, friend of this blog, spelunking condo buyer expectations for today's New York Times:

“As the old line goes, once you’ve been to Paris, it’s hard to go back to the farm,” said Grant McCracken, a cultural anthropologist affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of eight books on consumer culture.

“Once our choice set has been expanded to include things that we never dreamed of that are gloriously better than what we have, it’s very tough for us to be content with the things that used to give us pleasure. And in Manhattan, where people have always had to kind of hold their noses and learn to live with constrained circumstances, I guess this is almost a natural impatience waiting to happen.”

Yeah, I see the Moon, therefore I want it.

Derbyshire on Ben Stein's Expelled: FAIL

John Derbyshire is a conundrum - uncommon broad-swathe sense wrapped in occasional fits of pique that make him go unsensible when the topic turns to things like Immigration or Race. If you step back, one can see that his good and bad come from the same place, a reverence for Western Civ. Attack its achievements, and he makes sense as he whittles a hole in the attacker's bucket. Ponder too long it's failures or compare and contrast too much with other cultures and he teeters on the abyss. Here he is being ruthlessly sensible...

National Review Online

The “intelligent design” hoax is not merely non-science, nor even merely anti-science; it is anti-civilization. It is an appeal to barbarism, to the sensibilities of those Apaches, made by people who lack the imaginative power to know the horrors of true barbarism. (A thing that cannot be said of Darwin. See Chapter X of Voyage of the Beagle.)

And yes: When our greatest achievements are blamed for our greatest moral failures, that is a blood libel against Western civilization itself. What next, Ben? Johann Sebastian Bach ran a slave-trading enterprise on the side? Kepler started the Thirty Years War? Tolstoy instigated the Kishinev Pogrom? Dante was a bag-man for the Golden Horde? Why not go smash a few windows in Chartres Cathedral, Ben? Break wind in a chamber-music concert? Splash some red paint around in the Uffizi? Which other of our civilizational achievements would you like to sneer at? What else from what Waugh called “the work of centuries” would you like to “abandon … for sentimental qualms”? You call yourself a conservative? Feugh!

Hillary Clinton. Worst. Brand Manager. Evar.

They don't say PA is Pittburgh, Philadelphia with Alabama/Kentucky in between for no reason.

There's a basket of cultural and demographic holdovers that translate quite well through many regions, as we've all been noticing. Hell, my state, VA, is worlds apart when you compare Valley and Ridge with the Piedmont/Tidewater zones. Huckabee kicked McCain's ass in the Shenandoah Valley, Hillary clocked Obama. Two factors are plain as day and quite clearly stated when you talk to people on the ground: Color, Faith, and to a degree, Age. Some are more blunt, some more evasive, but the code is clear. Difference = Danger, no matter how you define cultural and socio-economic angst (Bitter? Angry? Frustrated? Mildly Perturbed? Pissed off?)

That said, the chasms are not insurmountable, but you do need two things: 1. a message that relates to Human Universals filtered through the prism of American Exceptionalism. And 2., the common sense to not cannibalize your own Corporate brand to sell a few more tubes of New Improved toothpaste as line extensions. Hillary is the worst of Brand Managers, the "new broom" that disses and dismisses all efforts at previously building affinity and brand character in order to realise her own narrow professional ambition. She wrote a book. The title now will be adjusted in the history books: It takes a village to destroy a village to save it.

HRC fans will sneer, but they shouldn't. There is little difference in the short term destructive narciscism and failure-fear of a Gen Westmoreland circa VietNam and the Abu Ghraib mission-creep desperate search for "information," and the grasping scorched earth denegration of the progressive brand and ideals that Clinton is engaging in. Fighting dirty is what Leaders do when they've not been diligent and observant of their markets changing under them; not noticing their particular management style becoming outre. So, they play catchup in the only way that makes them seem, in their minds at least, more effective and worthy: they chop internal challengers and contenders off at the knees to appear taller themselves. It's obvious to some, not so much to others too vested in the system and the "guild" to see. It is the final act of desperation in some of the corps that I've worked with and have been asked to help resurrect once the smoke clears--if there's anything left worth resuscitating. Maybe you've experienced it too.

George Bush has wrecked "conservatism" with plenty of help from his brethren. HRC is in process of a similar thing, completing what Bill began, the neutering of a muscular and proud liberalism (FDR, LBJ, JFK) in search of a few incremental vaporous gains in market share. Quite the bookends for Historians to debate.

Attack of the 50-foot Negro

Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report has a bit on how the narrative against Obama has devolved to it's ultimate Hollywood-Kryptonite form: He's a Commie-Socialist-Pinko. From Mars.

Benen rightfully observes a few things. ONE, how in fair cricket it just isn't done to suggest that avid uncritical melding of pro-military, pro-corporate views may accrue fascist-sounding and -appearing trappings and behaviours like, oh, monolithic definitions of "patriot" and flags on everything including the NYSE and big aircraft carriers named for still-living politicians related to the current boss. And TWO, how this accusation of soulless socialistic monsterdom is not supposed to rile the sensibilities of leftward leaning types, what with it being patently obvious like how women are just awful drivers and Polish people are really dumb.

Wait, those last things aren't true? Next, someone will tell me liberals don't cheer aborted babies and may, just may, actually love their own children. As if.

Yes, the Commie meme is especially dear to this blogger what with it being a perverse driver of so much of the last 50 years' triumphs and trainwrecks and an endlessly evolving project about Moonshots and (Red Menace-like) Tsunamis. The short exposition is the fact that thinking is damn boring, and that feeling, well, that's what some intelligent designer™ designed us for and here we are, feeling to the max. 21st C. American life is an orgy of sensation, the Friday the 13th franchise or the endless parade of bad 50s sci-fi all rolled up. Spooky stories enliven us, no matter how ridiculously stretched the telling has to get. And hey, I have slides to prove it...



So now, we have the main feature. Obama the alien being, a Muslim in reel one, a radical Christian in reel two, a liberal non-bowling elitist in reel three and, next, now, the ultimate culmination that only sputniks, UFOs, mushroom clouds and Rosa Parks could deliver. Attack of the 50 Foot Negro. There goes the galaxy.

Does it make sense? Hah. Sense would be Hillary Clinton realizing she's fragging one of her own and her legacy in her quixotic search for relevance and its last gasp cartoon of Boomer consultant-solution-speak, all the while making John McCain appear like a breath of fresh air to a GOP-fatigued electorate. Sense in this age of hyperreal, with adults displaying the appetites, patience and judgment of children is as rare as Iridium, something I hear scientists say we find on Earth mostly because asteroids deliver it from outerspace with big cataclysmic booms of their own.

I digress. Benen points out the odd idea that comparisons to Joe Stalin shouldn't trouble a sturdy liberal head but calling a conservative fascist is somehow akin to calling one a pedophile and just beyond the pale. There is nothing so complicated here as the "I'm rubber, you're glue" model of 7 year old debate. But Andrew Sullivan thinks he sees more.

[Kristol's] calling him a lying, Godless communist.

You could argue, as Kristol and others hilariously will, that Lou Dobbs has no base,
that fundamentalist Christianism has no problem with "the other" in a globalized world, that dozens of state constitutional amendments banning civil marriages that had never and would never have taken place were just spirited forms of civic engagement, rather than scapegoating or politicking on resentment. You could also argue, as others legitimately will, that spasms of economic distress and social discontent are unconnected. Hey: Weimar had nothing to do with Hitler. But Kristol is doing something much more pernicious: he is saying that Obama is faking faith, that his very profession of faith is a "mask" that is slipping, and that Kristol is the person to determine whose faith is genuine and who is a fraud.

A non-Christian manipulator of Christianity is calling a Christian a liar about his own faith. That's where they've gone to already. And it's only the middle of April. What are they so scared of?

What? Something so scary, so alien it makes them quake. Something William James would call a 'novel idea,' too novel and too discombobulating for comfort. They are scared of a black man who tilts their understanding of the machine, one whom many of their fellow Rs actually liked before he started getting the Michael Rennie treatment from Hillary and Mark Penn. They are scared of a 6-foot, 1.5 inch man, who is liked almost regardless AND because of his color. But it's his invocation of intrinsic goods, of the things we'd like to believe about ourselves collectively as Americans, that's what makes him seem 50-foot tall.

Leave be those small-town voters who may or may not be "bitter" about getting the shaft for the last 30 years. It's Hillary and Kristol who are apoplectic that their particular Boomer projects straddling two American centuries just haven't been the Moonshots they'd hoped for. They've got nukes. And Flag pins. And the 50-foot Commie-Alien with a real map to the moon must pay.

Credit Markets: "Complexity" is French for "I got mine."

Remember the old saw about the Chinese symbol for crisis being a hybrid of the icons for Danger and Opportunity?



It's bullshit borne of some business consultant looking for a profound-sounding moment or 'take-away."

Likewise, the Securitization of Debt and it's hoary babysitter, Hedge Funds, have little to do with Fiduciary Responsibility mated with Risk Management and everything to do with a different, old combo thing that gets us into trouble: Boredom and Greed. And it's yet another example of the search for feeling boost of Hyperrealism because the actual realism thing seems so damn stodgy what with it not having CGI and a crescendo-building soundtrack by Celtic waifs or chanting Monks or, by Nickleback.

Damn, I'm such a cynic. Too many boardrooms. But Tanta, of Calculated Risk, ain't buying it either.

Wharton on the Future of Securitization:

"The lurking concept here is 'leverage.' You want to make the big bucks investing in MBS? You leverage them. That's where those CDOs came from. A whole lot of this complexity is driven by the 'need' to goose the yield, not by some essential opacity of the underlying credits or the failure of originators to retain residuals--which, in fact, they actually did quite a bit of in there. The complexity came in because you can't get a tranche paying 12% out of a bunch of loans that pay 8% unless you create complex cash-flow structures hedged by complex rate swaps leading to re-securitization of tranches in new vehicles (parts of the MBS become CDOs, for instance).

So are all the rest of you convinced that market participants are going to give up on the chase for mo' better yield without regulation?"

One of my favorite clients wants me to believe this (Credit Swaps, SIVs, Bear Stearns, the whole thing) is about liquidity. No, it's about runaway human nature fire-walled from accountability by over-complicated jargon and 'cleverness,' and practiced by people who love to tell other people they just don't understand complex systems.

"Complexity" is, too often, French for I don't really understand it myself, but it helps me make a buck and it hasn't hurt my interests yet, so we'll worry about it later.

Why do I get so animated about this shit? Because me and mine, we're the clean-up crew once the "pros from Dover" get done self-actualizing themselves into others' oblivion. Yes, we try to fix the damage. And we get paid something for it. But I much prefer the other side of our business, where we deal in hope, humility and curiosity and opportunity. Because it's a sorry day when a Child Protective Services worker hopes for more customers.

Does up need a down, hot a cold, to have useful meaning?

Do extreme opposites of position serve a useful or net-plus function?

A good commenter discussion happening at Chad Orzel's ScienceBlog, Uncertain Principles: The Cost of Not Framing.

The thing begins with whether Dawkins and PZ meyers and other science advocates hurt their cause and appeal by snorting at the faithful so, umm, zealously? Orzel sez yeas, others chime in.

Don't you (forget about me.) John Hughes' enduring influence

Los Angeles Times

The king of 1980s comedy, Hughes now qualifies as something of a Howard Hughes-style recluse -- he doesn't have an agent, doesn't give interviews and lives far away, somewhere in Chicago's sprawling North Shore suburbs where most of his films were set.

But he has an entire generation of fans in the industry who grew up infatuated with his films, especially a string of soulful mid-1980s teen comedies that helped capture the eternal drama of modern teenage existence. They include "Sixteen Candles," "Pretty in Pink," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "The Breakfast Club"...

The payoff:

Brian Johnson: Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...
Andrew Clark: ...and an athlete...
Allison Reynolds: ...and a basket case...
Claire Standish: ...a princess...
John Bender: ...and a criminal...
Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question?... Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

I was 23 years old when that movie was released. How about you? Any particular memories that go with it? I remember singing along to Simple Minds "Don't you..." in the car that summer and busting the steering wheel in my Rabbit as I beat the drum riff out--hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Video stores had mushroomed up all over the suburbs, mostly mom-and-pops, and some like Erols, that had more ambition. So much new (and old) stuff suddenly available; a wonderland compared to cable. A million movie buffs birthed overnite and some, like Tarantino, were walking on sunshine.

In no time I had to spring for a premium membership because a limit of 2, then 3, rentals at once was torture. I needed six-at-time because, well, who cares about sleep when you can watch Vanishing Point, Electra Glide in Blue and Sullivan's Travels then dip into stuff you probably missed the first go-round, like Solaris or All that Jazz or They All Laughed.

Or, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink. And Bueller.

I think I saw maybe three Hughes movies in a theatre: Mr. Mom, Planes-trains, and Vacation. The rest, the "teen stuff," all on VHS first. I was too chicken, too "old," to buy the ticket, but not for the feeling. That's my sense of it today anyway. That Hughes has chosen the camouflage of suburban Chicago, however upscale his coordinates seems, well, perfect pitch.

Sullivan's Mythology: Obama needs more Cowboy

Andrew Sullivan has been dreaming and droning about Obama Republicans--and they are there. But he's taken the Reagan Democrat mythology and spackled it onto the man from Illinois without understanding, I think, how mythology works.

Let's have a look-see.

Peggy Noonan, semi-admiring Obama's Wright Speech here, channels Ronnie Reagan as is her custom, teeing it up for Sullivan. Andy then attempts a heroic bank shot off the gnome, the fiberglass rhino, and into the door of the windmill:

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan: That's why I think Pennsylvania is an opportunity for him. The most tired element, and the least refreshing aspect, of his message so far is a resort to left bromides about the grim facts of American life in the last twenty years or so. There are problems, real problems. Inequality, fostered by globalization, has left many Americans treading water at best. But the vitality of the economy, the astonishing creativity of American industry, especially in tech and pharmaceuticals, the miracle of the Internet, the relative cheapness of items like food and clothing that once consumed far more of the average American's expenses - these are also integral to the picture. Obama hasn't conveyed this complicated picture - perhaps because of the primary season. But he should. America needs hope. But it is not currently hopeless. And its recent past, despite the disasters of the past eight years, has had as many highs as lows.

Yes, the "left bromides about the grim facts of American life" are, well, grim, aren't they? But "if you can't say anything nice..." only goes so far here. A big part of slaying dragons and earning the hand of the fair maiden requires actually being in the company of, well, dragons. If dragon-breath, dragon-wreckage, and dragon-droppings make you queasy, maybe you've picked the wrong gig?

Andy is an unenviable position. Several really. He's actually trying to reconcile some of the metastatic misjudgments he's made in the last 8 or so years, most based on supremely magical thinking and mythic projection (Go to this Slate post of his look into the abyss.)

But, with his support of Obama, he's in a double bind. On the face of it, a vote for Obama offers psychic atonement and a public display of--what?--Hope? Practical open-mindedness? Atypical-white-personness? Probably some of each. But, and big but here, the Democrat's appeal to and via Kantian Intrinsic Goods such as Hope and Courage, Prudence and Charity have direct opposites in the concepts of Wrath and Fear, Sloth and Avarice. As Lakoff is noted for pointing out, orientational metaphors and concepts are meaningless without their opposites. Down needs an Up. Wrath demands Justice. Avarice evokes and revivifies Charity.

In a way, that's what this fight is about--Hillary versus Obama, I mean. He is tuned to Intrinsic and immutable concepts, she is aligned with the tired professional toolkit of "I'm about solutions™," otherwise known as Instrumental Goods. He compels others to consider self-sacrifice and Hope, she offers her time and energy and body as a Warrior, a sacrifice for our good - We Can versus I Will. Hers is truly a Martyr archetype versus his Sage or transforming Magician. Think about that for a moment. Hillary freaks over his ascendence because she, like certain others, can't hear the frequency of Obama's tune; can't understand how "words, just words" deserve any respect in a world of Men and Women of Action--in a world framed and formed by "Leaders" like her, each proud of their formulae and instruments. "Leaders" who misunderstand their job and turn it instead into "management," forgetting or never learning that actual leaders don't so much inspire others as they seek to catalyze those others to self-inspire. The reason this latter, truer definition makes sense is supremely practical -- you can't really do it alone, despite your admiration for Die Hard's John McClane or GE's Jack Welch. Leadership is a sort of 50 State Strategy for the heart and mind where everybody gets to fill their own big chair in ways large and small.

So, Andy, like a surprising (to some) cross-section of Americans are responding viscerally and behaviorally to their idealised self being reflected back at them by Obama. Andy likes liking Andy and believing the best of himself, as do we all. But, as guys like Jung and Boree tell us, the "Self"we're talking about here is the transcendence of opposites--the accommodation of higher and base elements within our psyches--not the banishment of the less savory bits. And there's the problem. Okay, the problems...

There are problems, real problems. Inequality, fostered by globalization, has left many Americans treading water at best.

Damn, "treading water" is what you do while waiting to be rescued, Andy. Or, while waiting for your asshole brother in law to come back around with the boat. It's hard to be charitable and philosophical when you're snorting in water every couple of breaths. Reports from the field suggest most are praying the lifeguard gets to them quick. But I digress. What advantages should diminish the impact of Sullivan's tiring cultural swim test?

the vitality of the economy, the astonishing creativity of American industry, especially in tech and pharmaceuticals, the miracle of the Internet, the relative cheapness of items like food and clothing that once consumed far more of the average American's expenses

Do you see it, or is it just me? A vital economy that has many treading water. A sleek American socio-economic clipper deserving of awe from its "many" citizens, who, while treading water should find the time to admire it's astonishingly creative form as it glides past them on its weekly jaunt to Asia. (Their dream jobs in it's cargo hold one way and returning with those "relatively cheap items" that they tread some extra-more to afford.)

Now, I'm just a stupid business consultant, so take this for what it's worth, but there aren't many middle managers I've met who can muster sustained interest, never mind bliss, when asked to contemplate the trails blazed by pharma science and process materials patentry. Most are consumed with their own variety of dog paddle.

I'll stop parsing with "recent disasters" equaling some imagined "highs" since my overworked prose doesn't do justice to such easy sport as Andy presents. He does deserve some credit for tiptoeing up to that abyss: Sullivan's trying where others remain soulless and unapologetic cowards, armchair dragon-slayers, pretend warriors. But Andy's not going to find his absolution, his clarity (and nor would others), until he lets go of the a la carte method of characterizing the dragons he's really trying to slay.

He's not going to succeed in his apparent mono-mythic journey if he insists on making its requirements conform to him rather than the necessary other way 'round.

The mythology here is really the truest way to explain Andy's temporal battle. Myths are gathered collections of meaning holding immutable lessons played out by people with funny names doing alarming things. They are fantasy or fabrications on the outside, true and sustaining in some way at their core. But it's easy to get them muxed. Noonan's and Andy's Reagan, as history shows, was less their beautiful Achilles and more the mythical three-part Chimera defined - A persona that said one thing, an ego that did another, and a self that believed there was no dissonance between the two.

REAGAN (3/4/87): A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true. But the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

And so it goes; archetypes need not observe gravity and other laws if they feed some latent or damaged need in those who have the mass, the mouth or the money to sustain them.

Still, the Reagan Chimera, draped over the country as a whole, offends the sensibilities of people who are asked to agree that it is, in fact, a beautiful Pegasus-like steed at all times. It offends people whose mythology and reality are equally alarming: 20 year-old men hanging from trees and set afire is unbelievably horrible imagery fresh in the minds of now-70 year-old men who escaped alive that particular chapter of American White-Horse Exceptionalism. Likewise, 35 year-old workers told to get tech jobs to replace their disappearing factory ones now find, at 50, that the shiny economy they're to be so proud of rewards market sentiment and derivatives--a tea leaves-reading priesthood--not guilds of crafting or coding.

As a self-described clear-eyed man, Sullivan continues to take Myth to childish extremes. And to twist it's utility. He looks for the Perfect Hero, ignoring Achilles' heel, ignoring the flaws of the actor-president he adores; ignoring the necessary qualifications of "Hero." Andy wants Obama to heavy up on the Greek, and go easy on the Tragedy. He wants fantasy within the fantasy, a Gyro, not a Hero.

But, left to their own interpretive devices, grown-up Americans seem quite game to accept the truth within their ideal, to attempt an honest, unvarnished appraisal of at least one national dragon.

CBS/NYTimes National Poll: 70% Approved of Obama's Speech
by rashomon

And so, in order that Andy's cosmology can suffer least damage, Andy prescribes that Obama contort himself to the wrong kind of fantastical storytelling, falsifying the depth of lesson-learning and fact-acknowledging that underlies Obama's outward appeal. Andy wants Obama to make it all better by ignoring what made it "worse." But that is a recipe for another fabled tale, the continued Sisyphean boulder-pushing many sense of life in these 21st Century times that were supposed to be "better."

-----

Since we mention the Kant stuff above, an update for those following along: M&T has its legs and has had some rudimentary presentations to some hardcore political and finance types last week. The reaction was pretty good and our explanation of OODA, category/event, and the leverage of R-Complex was a hit; clarity achieved. More work to come, but great news.

Sub-prime and Alt-A. Much funnier in the Queen's English

Bird and Fortune of Britain's South Bank Show, doing 9 very funny minutes on market sentiment, Sub-prime, the importance of good fund name and more.



And below, boingboing brings on Australia's Clark and Dawe, doing, yes, a similar bit on Subprime. Shorter, slightly less funny, but the accents... well, even malignancy sounds a little less grim when you say it "kanesuh."



Finally, no audio/accent, but the well-traveled Stickman Theatre take deserves a link for detail and all-star Wall Street-quant cynicism...

My Parents invested in Bear Stearns and all they have now is this lousy T-shirt

Well, no surprise, today seems like a terrible, awful, no good, very bad day in the aptly named FIRE sectors. Let's make the best of it by adding a few new tees and a category, Disaster Capitalism, to CafeFouro...

First is obvious:



Next, a tee with a story. Give one as a warning gift to your next broker...




Wolkenkuckucksheim. The Germans have a word for everything, don't they? And the Greeks have the stories.

Aristophanes wrote a play called The Birds. The main "Birds" are actually two dudes, Pisthetairos (loosely meaning "Mr. Trusting") and Euelpides ("Mr. Hopeful"). These two were bored and frustrated with reality and wanted to create a fantastical place where the rules of gravity, complexity and pain don't apply. They got some wings, made friends with the birds, and they built a big wall to keep others from harshing their mellow. It was a place Aristophanes named Cloud-cuckoo-land; in the groovy German, Wolkenkuckucksheim.

Most likely, it too was financed with Structured Investment Vehicles and Special Purpose Entities.

Disaster Capitalism at CafeFouro. Where depressing doodles go to dye™

Army @ Love: Moonshots & Tsunamis Battallion

Via Boingboing comes Sergeant Rock: for the Hyperreal Age.

Amazon customer reviewer Joshua Koppel gives us the sit-rep:

What happens when an unpopular war goes on too long? How do you manage to enlist? Rick Veitch shows a possible future where these issues have to be dealt with. Simply put, the Army finds a way to dress combat in a way that will appeal to young folks. This is done with the creation of MOMO, or Motivation and Morale. Young folks have become addicted to adrenaline thanks to their usual entertainments. The Army can meet that need through combat. It also supplies top secret "retreats" which are really bacchanalian orgies of booze, drugs and sex.

The story is told in two parts. One part is that of the director of MOMO and how he keeps the product moving. The second part is told through a combat squad and some of their family members. How do married couples handle issues that could arise if word got out about what is really going on at the front? High-tech gadgetry keeps the troops mostly safe so that they can enjoy the post-combat parties.

Well-realized characters populate this view of the future that looks like it could be very possible. This is an excellent start to a good-looking series. This is a Vertigo title so consider it R-rated at the very least. Although billed as a combination of a war comic and a romance comic it does not suffer from the lack of dimensionality these two genres are often associated with. Instead this is a fresh new approach. I can't wait to read more.

Social Theory gets it on with Disaster Capitalism and 4th Gen Warfare and births, what, a fiction? We-eeell, the dictionary says that a Chimera is "an illusion or mental fabrication; a grotesque product of the imagination." Some might say that about Army @ Love.

Me? I prefer the original, courtesy of Homer (not Simpson): "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire."

A thing of immortal make. A mythical something that won't die. Gotta love that; gonna have to get this.

Choice Paralysis: General Motors, meet General Xiang Yu

I think we've all heard the saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Call me goofy but I've always interpreted that as meaning "when you're done lying to yourself and making excuses, you'll drop the bullshit and get on with all those amazing plans of yours." The student and the teacher is us.

NYT - The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors

Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships.

He explained this was to focus them on moving forward — a motivational speech that was not appreciated by many of the soldiers watching their retreat option go up in flames. But General Xiang Yu would be vindicated, both on the battlefield and in the annals of social science research.

He is one of the role models in Dan Ariely’s new book, “Predictably Irrational,” an entertaining look at human foibles like the penchant for keeping too many options open. General Xiang Yu was a rare exception to the norm, a warrior who conquered by being unpredictably rational.

Most people can’t make such a painful choice, not even the students at a bastion of rationality like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Dr. Ariely is a professor of behavioral economics. In a series of experiments, hundreds of students could not bear to let their options vanish, even though it was obviously a dumb strategy (and they weren’t even asked to burn anything).

Might have to get this book (after mine's done, no excuses, remember?). But like so many books lately, there's really a simple theme that modernism and b-school insularity needlessly over-complicates at every turn (How else to keep those bonuses and WACC charts viable?).

Options. Keeping them open. People cutting their own OODA loops. Hmmmm, vaguely familiar framing....

Cash means comfort and options. And time. And, when you're already the victim of really insular choice-making, defined by who you think you are rather than by why you do, more options is not what you need. Nor more time. You end up being very proud of all your options. You invite folks over to look at them. And you tell everybody who'll listen how hard you've been working on your collection; and that you really must get around to sorting it one day.

Then they ask "which is your favorite?"

And you do not know.

Then, they ask "why'd you start collecting?"

You don't have an answer.

Tom [Guarriello] wanted to know why I keep saying GM has too much money in the bank. Well, 125,000 pensioners and Wagoner's pleas notwithstanding, money is not GM's problem. It's their excuse. Cash is not their bane.

Soul is. And GM's has wanderered off.

I once wrote somewhere that the problem with Daimler's and Chrysler's merger was that they hadn't lived in sin together. Not to any meaningful degree anyway, and, without a simple requirement: Once enough hot, rough, draining and sweaty rapid prototyping had steamed up the windows and, uh, "preferences" were known (Dirty Secret Soulmates!), the marriage (we don't do "deal" here, baby) should have been signed in blood, on a dog-eared 1969 copy of June Autoweek. Maybe cigars or Don Shermans afterwards. But definitely Jaeger. Lots of it. And Strohs. And Moet. Shooken up and sprayed wildly. Then a wild orgy of kimono-opening top to bottom with get out jail free cards from accounting and PR.

And then, something really good: Let's make catalytic converters obsolete in 20 years. While cranking out the baddest, sexiest rides since, since.... well, forever. Now go!

And no, that last paragraph wouldn't have been optional. Nor Extra, neither.

Air is for closers only. Waterboarding as Sales Management

BLAKE: We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, First Prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anybody wanna see second prize? Second Prize is a set of steak knives. Third Prize is you're Fired. [Link to awesomeness of full scene dialogue]

Like many, I always loved the "motivation" scene in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. Alec Baldwin as Blake, the owners' corporate hired-gun on a drop-in, was Stuart Smalley compared to this tool if the story plays out...

Salt Lake Tribune

Employee's suit: Company used waterboarding to motivate workers

A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe.

In a lawsuit filed last month, former Prosper, Inc. salesman Chad Hudgens alleges his managers also allowed the supervisor to draw mustaches on employees' faces, take away their chairs and beat on their desks with a wooden paddle "because it resulted in increased revenues for the company...

The suit claims that Hudgens' team leader, Joshua Christopherson, asked for volunteers in May for "a new motivational exercise," which he did not describe. Hudgens, who was 26 at the time, volunteered in order to "prove his loyalty and determination," the suit claims.

The best part?

Prosper "provides executive-level coaching for individuals," according to its Web site. Personal coaches offer mentoring that focuses on business and finance.

"Our mission is to provide our students with the education and hands-on experiences they need to achieve their personal and professional goals," the Web site claims. "We strive to make the road to personal achievement meaningful, rewarding, and enjoyable."

Yeah, yeah. That's what the Khmer Rouge brochure said, too.

The Artisan Economy

Institute for The Future: Future of Small Business Project

IFTF has a an interesting study sponsored by Intuit. (Yeah, can we say "SO/HO" as Hero?) Still, there's some interesting findings and conjecture past the feudal twist. A snip of the intro to the concept...

The next ten years will see a re-emergence of artisans as an economic force.

Like their medieval predecessors in pre-industrial Europe and Asia, these next-generation artisans will ply their trade outside the walls of big business, making a living with their craftsmanship and knowledge. But there will also be marked differences. In many cases, brain will blend with brawn as software and technology replace hard iron and hard labor. Yet in many respects, the result will be the same as it was centuries ago: artisans will not only craft their goods, but shape the economy with an effect reaching far beyond their neighborhoods, even their nations.

Kewl. Coupla things. I like the Craft precedent and it's well along to re-evolution since, ohh, maybe back to Altairs, Pagemaker, MJ Designs, MS Word, nano-brew kits and Whole Earth catalogs. Still, the precedent for reclaiming control over our time, space, energy and meaning is picking up. We'll see how the meme fares among the shiny-happy-flighy peddlers of conventional and establishment wisdom, though. (Soaking wet and emitting gurgling noises is a lousy way to discern waves.) For those that missed it, the Artisan premise reminds of piece CSM did years back

Christian Science Monitor: Return of the trades

With technology jobs tarnished and more careerists now searching for 'meaning,' specialized, hands-on work gains new allure

Finally, how bout those medieval references, eh? Maybe it's time to roll this out again and see how we're doing....

Short History and Future of Man & Commerce


(Click image for complete chart, 2350 x 2150, 136kb)

Zen and the art of innovation cycle maintenance

Metacool's Diego has a tasty bit of horizontal mind-expansion: Stanford grad students changing NASCAR slicks.

What's the juice? His bullets below, thoughts for 1, 2, 3 click the link.

1. Mind your modalities

2. Seek out constraints

3. Organize for information flow

4. Learn by Doing: I'm entering broken-record mode here, but the teams that did the best in this class challenge were those that dove in and started changing tires. Instead of arguing over who would be the CEO of rickybobbytirechangers.com, and who would be leading the war for talent, these teams got down on the ground and got their hands dirty. By the wail of the air gun, thee too shall witness one's strategy emerge. And so it happened -- the best way around a NASCAR wheelwell can't be thought through in one's head, but has to be iteratively solved with hand and heart and brain. In other words, strategy that makes your hands bleed.

"Strategy that makes your hands bleed." Beautiful.