Women Leaders

 

Luck Be A Lady

Luck let a gentleman see
How nice a dame you can be
I know the way you've treated other guys you've been with
Luck, be a lady with me

Luck may be a lady, but ladies do not depend on luck.

Bosses are rewarded when they are effective. Effectiveness is determined on results.  Those results may be random, i.e. based on luck, or they can be because of a strategy  that was followed.  If it is random, then there is a difference between how men and women are rewarded and treated  in the workforce.  A man is not always blamed when he is unlucky, the random outcome was less than effective.  A woman is disproportionately blamed and punished if she was unlucky. Thus if the results are positive, and the question is whether those results were due to luck or strategy, it is more likely that the results were due to luck when those results were  by a man.

Stated another way, if rewards are given to those who innovate, and risk is to be minimized when innovating, it is more likely that the risk has been minimized by a woman..  With a man it is more likely that the results are due to random events, luck, as opposed to innovations or some other strategy.

If you are trying to minimize risk, then this is more likely when a woman is in charge.  This is not just conjecture.  It is based on research.  https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amj.2018.1039.  For more on the subject, listen to the interview at https://www.npr.org/2022/05/24/1101064874/why-women-make-great-bosses

 

Democracy

 

PSALM 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
  He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Shouldn’t our Sovereign be a Good Shepherd?

Sovereigns have subjects. As we learned in grade school, in a sentence there is always a subject, an object, and a verb. If the verb is to serve and the subject is the people, then the sovereign is the object.  Notice the people are NOT the object. The sovereign is NOT served by his subjects, the sovereign SERVES his subjects. That is the definition of a good sovereign. He is a good shepherd.

Throughout much of history, bad sovereigns have tended to forget this. The drafters of the US Constitution wanted to eliminate any possible confusion. The Sovereign of the United States IS the People. Thus the statements, the People serve the People, and the People are served by the People, are both true and there should be no confusion over the role.

There is however a problem when an individual thinks that the President is the Sovereign. He is expressly NOT. The President serves as the elected executive of the Sovereign, but he is not the Sovereign. The President’s power is constrained by the Constitution. The power of the Sovereign is divided among three co-equal branches of government. There are checks and balances among these three branches to control this power.

Thus the United States is much more than a democracy. In a democracy the people elect their Sovereign. In the United States, the People ARE the Sovereign.

Inflation VI

 

Lucky

I’d rather be lucky than good,
Tough than pretty,
Rockin' in the country than rolling in the city.
Spend my life rolling them dice,
Instead living like everybody says I should.
I’d rather be lucky, rather be lucky than good.

But what about governments?

Inflation is suggested to have two components: 1) currency inflation and 2) buyer-seller inflation. Currency inflation seems to be long term and is controlled by the central bank which manages the currency of c county ( in the case of the US, its Federal Reserve Bank). Buyer-seller inflation includes a range of factors, such as: changes in preferences; changes in the cost of production; changes in buyers disposable income; natural or man-made disasters, etc. Only some of these factors are controllable by the government. Some costs of production by sellers may be governed by the interest rate charged by the central bank. Some costs of purchasing/borrowing by buyers may be governed by the interest rate charged by the central bank. However other factors are beyond the control of any government and include changes in the cost of production related to changes in the costs of raw materials, changes in the cost of production due to natural or man-made disasters,  changes in consumer preference, or technological changes affecting either the producer/seller or the consumer/ buyer.

It is reasonable  to expect the government to control currency inflation. It is reasonable  to expect the government to control the cost of borrowing by sellers or buyers. It is NOT reasonable to expect the government to control the weather, any natural or man-made disaster, or  changes in preference or  technology.

The impact of currency inflation can be dramatic. Weimar Germany in the 1930s, Hungary in the 1940s, or Venezuela in the 2020s are vivid examples of what happens when the government produces currency without regard to the actual usage of that currency. In the United States, since the early 1900s, the long-term currency impacts appear to be stable except during economic crashes, when the US currency was on the gold standard, e.g. was a commodity currency; the 1930s when the US currency was no longer on the gold standard, e.g. was a fiat currency; 1944 when the US currency convertible into gold was made the international trading currency; and 1971 when the US currency was no longer convertible into gold in international trading.

When the currency effects are removed, it appears to show only buyer‑seller inflation which seems to be short-term in its effects. As noted, the government has limited ability to impact buyer‑seller inflation.  To expect otherwise is to expect a government to be not only correct but lucky. Anticipating truly random events such as international wars, supply chain disruptions, pandemics, hurricanes, droughts, etc.,  is a hope that those events are predictable when typically they are not. “I‘d rather be lucky than good” may work for sporting events, but it is not an acceptable national policy. Our national government should be good, not lucky.

Experts

 

I Am The Walrus

 

Expert, texpert choking smokers

Don't you think the joker laughs at you (Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, hah hah hah)
See how they smile like pigs in a sty

See how they snide

I'm crying

What is an expert?

Expert witness have been very much in the news  in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial. Having been an expert witness myself a few times, it worked out well once and worked out, IMHO, poorly four other times. Given that I have a pathological aversion to judging or being judged, it was probably inevitable that I had bad experiences. I find it cathartic to blog about my experiences.

A trial is supposed to be about determining the truth. An expert witness is supposed to elaborate on the truth. But how does one become an expert? And if there are experts on each side, and one side is not telling the truth, how do you tell if an expert is telling the truth?

I naively felt that each expert should speak the truth and the court would decide what is the truth. As I said that was naïve. The court does not have expertise on many matters. It instead looks at the credentials of those who are being presented as experts. That was my first experience. The case concerned the use of a computer program, which I had written. The first expert, who I believed had misused my program, testified. When I was on the stand, I was not asked about my program. I was asked if I was a registered Professional Engineer or if I had any other credentials. I did not, and I was dismissed from the stand before I had a chance to discuss my program. I took immediate steps to get a license as a PE. I was eligible to get a license, I just had naively thought the truth was more important than any credentials.

The second court case, (actually a city council meeting)  is where I was prepared to testify when the client came out stating that the matter had been already settled and no testimony was necessary. In this case the truth took a back seat to a back-room deal.

The fifth time as an expert witness ( the fourth time was the one that went well), ironically where the opposing expert was the very one from my first court case a decade earlier. In reviewing his report, I pointed out to my client’s legal team that a fundamental math error had been made. On cross examination of that expert, my client’s lawyer asked him about this. Because of this error the judge struck his testimony and his report from the trial record,  and I did not testify because there was no longer anything to refute. I did get the feeling of Karma in seeing his report and testimony dismissed, but the truth again took a back seat to credentials.

The final time I was an expert witness, I had what I thought was a professional  disagreement with the opposing expert. I was first on the stand and the opposing expert was second. During her cross examination not only was what I thought was an inconsistency pointed out, but her ethics and motives in making her assumptions were questioned. I was so shaken I wrote to the “opposing” expert to apologize.

Experts are not there to present the truth. Their reputations and credentials will be judged to determine whether they are telling the truth. Their motives, which are IMHO irrelevant to the truth, i.e. the facts, will be questioned. It is just as the humorist Carl Sandburg put it” “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you., argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.” A plague on both your houses.

 

Birthday

 Won't You Be My Neighbor

Won't you please, won't you please?

Please, won't you be my neighbor?

Thank you Mister Rogers

Yesterday was my birthday.  It was also the 143rd day of the year.  Mr. Rogers used to say that 143 was code for I love you, because the number of letters in each word in that phase was 1-4-3.  I only learned that yesterday.  143 to you to too, Mr. Rogers and to all of you..

Differences are Normal

 

I’m The Only One

But I'm the only one
Who'll walk across the fire for you
And I'm the only one
Who'll drown in my desire for you
It's only fear that makes you run
The demons that you're hiding from
When all your promises are gone
I'm the only one

You may be the only one, but no man is an island.

Arguably much of today's turmoil is caused by a misunderstanding of the relationship between the individual, the group, and the absolute. While I am not a certified statistician, statistics does offer some insights to help enlighten this issue.

Man is a sexual, social animal. The Group that is Man requires new Individuals to replenish the Group when an Individual dies. Man as Individual and Man as a Group seeks a relationship with an Absolute. If something is an Absolute, e.g. God, then it has no error. Statistics says that the Standard Error is the square root of the Variance divided by the square root of the sample size. An Individual has a sample size of 1. Thus an Individual can not have zero error unless his Variance is also zero. A group can approach zero error with a nonzero Variance, if the sample size, the size of the group, is increased. A uniform normal distribution is considered to be one where the Variance is 1. Thus a normal group can have virtually no error if the size of the group is large enough. Its error can not ever be equal to zero, but its error can approach zero.

The problem is that individuals try to approach the absolute. They can only appear to do that if their variance is zero. However that is not true of a group. To be normal, the variance should be one. If the variance is one and the sample group size is 100,000 then the Standard Error is only .001 which is almost zero. The problem is that a nonzero Variance requires that every value is NOT equal, even if those values are part of the same distribution, group.

In addition to not being normal, (a  statistical term not an ethical term), if a variance is zero on one issue, then it is unlikely to be zero for every issue. While Evangelical Christians and Catholics may agree on Abortion, they tend to disagree on the infallibility of the Pope. So how can an individual approach the absolute and still be a member of a group whose variance is not one. Einstein elaborated  on an answer to this in his General Theory of Relativity. It is possible to have an absolute i.e. the speed of light, and your relationship to that absolute depends on your frame of reference. Your weight, length, time all vary based on your speed in your frame of reference relative to the absolute that is the speed of light.

Humorists have long tried to tell us that reducing error in approaching the absolute does not mean that only one frame of reference is correct. In Gulliver’s Travel Jonathon Swift describes a silly difference, over whether you should break the eggs at the Big End or the Little End that led to deaths, war, and rebellion. Mark Twain said that “Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion -- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight.

An individual man can approach the absolute, but a group of men can also approach that same absolute from a different frame of reference. A group should not expect its variance to ever be zero. In fact if it is normal, then it should have a variance of one.

Thus an individual should not expect a healthy group to have a variance of zero. The fact that individuals require different sexes to reproduce does not mean that an individual can not contribute to a group if that individual does not reproduce. Your sexual preference does govern your ability to reproduce, but your ability to reproduce is not the only way in which you can contribute to a group. A variance of one is normal. The willingness and ability to reproduce should be part of that variance.

Justice II

 

If I Had a Hammer

I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between
My brothers and my sisters
All over this land.

Justice Thomas apparently  doesn’t know it is the Hammer of Justice.

Do we need any more proof that Justice Clarence ”Long Dong Silver” Thomas is the most dangerous man in the United States of America? Admittedly Justice Samuel “ Strip Search Sammy” Alito is giving him a run for the money, but Justice Thomas wins by a nose. The purpose of any trial is to establish the Truth. If the Truth is that there is evidence of innocence, then that is the Truth. In trials for capital crimes, there should be more care that the Truth has been discovered given that execution is not reversible. If the Truth is later found that an executed individual was innocent, there is no opportunity for a Mulligan on that wrongful execution.

Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion in the Supreme Court case of Shinn v. Ramirez. In that opinion he stated that the court ”may not conduct an evidentiary hearing or otherwise consider evidence beyond the state-court record based on the ineffective assistance of state postconviction counsel.”  The court was NOT being asked to rule on evidence. SCOTUS was only asked if the defendant received his constitutionally required representation to discover the Truth, which may not have been part of the state-court record. Justice Thomas is apparently uninterested in the Truth, as he has shown in previous dissents, majority opinions, etc. The Supreme Court does not exist to protect the State, as Justice Thomas seems to suggest. It exist to protect the constitutional rights of individuals from excesses of the State.

The Supreme Court has become political because Justices such as Justice Thomas have made it political. He has  no respect for the Truth, only respect for the State. The call is coming from inside the building. Danger. Warning. Justice Thomas is NOT interested in wielding the Hammer of Justice.