Student Loan Forgiveness

 

Busted.

I went to my brother to ask for a loan I was busted
I hate to beg like a dog for a bone but I'm busted
My brother said there ain't a thing I can do
My wife and my kids are all down with the flu
And I was just thinking of calling on you I'm busted!

Are you too busted to make or forgive a loan?

I received a Pell Grant to attend college and my household income is below the White House's threshold so I should be eligible for student debt relief.  But I have no dog in this hunt. My own student loans have long ago been repaid, which is hardly surprising because back in the 1970s, tuition at the Ivy League college I attended was only $1600 per semester, not the current over $25,000 per semester. However my children’s student loans have also been repaid.

An educated work force is an unpriced raw material that is required by most producers in a society. Public education has long been considered a public, government, function. Exceptions have been when religious or racial discrimination made public education not available to all members of society. This is why there are the parochial schools I attended before college or Historically Black Colleges and Universities. But, in general, public education has long been considered a proper government function. The fact that any of this education occurred after high school, does not make it any less a public unpriced  good. If it is an unpriced public good, there is no reason why there should have ever been any debt incurred by individuals to acquire this public good.

To those, including Evangelicals, who are disputing the wisdom of forgiving a mere portion of this debt, remember Jesus’s teachings

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

I am planning on asking to be last myself. How about you?

 

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Rejection

 

All I Really Want To Do

Now I don't want to meet your kin
Make you spin or do you in
Or select you or dissect you
Or inspect you or reject you
All I really want to do
Is baby, be friends with you
Baby, be friends with you

Rejection can be a good thing

24 years ago I joined the consulting firm, Cambridge Systematics. I applied for a position not only because I was impressed with the firm, but also because it was founded in 1972 by MIT professors. It was primarily to promote on research on how choices were made, particularly in my chosen field of transportation. I had applied to MIT as my first choice as an undergraduate in 1969 and for  graduate school in 1974. I was turned down both times and had to settle for my second-place school each time. (Since those second places worked out well for me, I thank MIT for turning me down,) 

Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx once said, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.” I subsequently learned that the decision to hire me at Cambridge Systematics was hardly unanimous. After several years, I was considered for promotion to principal. On my first consideration, I was rejected. This was consistent with  the narrative that I had developed for myself.  I only want to belong to a club that would reject me as one of its members.

Odds

Chances Are

Chances are 'cause I wear a silly grin
The moment you come into view
Chances are you think that I'm in love with you

What is the chance of observing the mean?

What is the probability of observing the mean in a normal distribution. You have a 68% chance of observing the mean plus or minus one standard deviation from the mean. ONLY 68%! What if I want to improve my chances to 100%. Can I decrease the standard deviation?

This is the problem with a normal distribution. Decreasing the standard deviation does NOT increase this probability. You can decrease the standard deviation to almost zero, but that does not change that probability. That is why a campaign to reduce deviation, like the Spanish Inquisition or book banning will never work. It is like the old math puzzle.

“Think of a number, double it, add six, divide it in half, and subtract the number you started with. The answer is three. “ 

The math is such that the answer will always be three, because what you are effectively doing is dividing six by two. All of the rest is a distraction, an obfuscation. The effort to decrease the standard deviation is an obfuscation.  You can’t increase the odds of observing the mean unless you can accept something other than a normal distribution. However since any distribution can be expressed as the sum of normal distributions, what you are effectively doing is saying by not being normal, you are creating more than one normal distribution within the total group distribution. And each of those other normal distributions will only have a 68% change of observing their own, not the group, mean. Is it any wonder that those who try to reduce deviation are also trying to exclude others from their group?  That is not how the Force math works.  That is NOT playing the odds, that is BEING odd, abnormal.

Political Socialists?

 

Dazed and Confused

I've been dazed and confused for so long it's not true
Wanted a woman, never bargained for you
Sweet little woman, say what you will
Tongue wag so much when you end up in hell

When you call someone a socialist in a political campaign, are you confused?

Communism, socialism, or capitalism are descriptions of economic beliefs, not political beliefs.  A political belief is between various forms of democracy and authoritarianism.  If group, political, decisions are made by everyone, such as at a New England Town Meeting, then this is the purest form of a democracy.  If the people elect representatives to act for them, such as at a representative New England Town meeting, or most government legislatures, this is called a republic.  If the leader of the group makes decisions for everyone in that group, it is called authoritarianism.  That leader may be installed after a physical battle, or by electors, as in the Holy Roman Empire.  If the leader’s heirs are the children and other relatives of the leader, this is called a dynastic monarchy.  The leader of the group may be an individual or a party, for example the National Socialist Party, Nazis, or the Communist Party of China.

Economic beliefs concern who controls the production of goods in an economy.  The production of goods requires capital, priced raw materials, unpriced raw materials, and labor. It results in the production of goods for sale.  If the goods, and their production, are unregulated by the group, it is often called pure capitalism.  If the unpriced raw materials controlled by the group are corruptly awarded to specific producers, it might be called crony capitalism.  If the final products, or their production, are regulated by the group, such as: controls on the contents of the good; controls on the labor used, e.g. minimum wage, overtime, etc.; or controls on the use of unpriced public goods, e.g., air or water pollution controls, fishing quotas, etc. it is called regulated capitalism.  If some, but not all, e.g. steel but not shoes, of the products, or the components used to make a product, belong to the group then it is it a socialist economic system.  If all of the products, and components of their production, are owned by the group, then it is a communist economic system.  You can have a communist party in a democracy, e.g. the Communist Party of Italy, or the communist party can rule as authoritarians, e.g.  the Communist Party of North Korea.  Calling someone a communist or a socialist provides no indication of their political beliefs. They can be democrats, with a lower case “d”, or authoritarians. You don’t say that someone follows the Tampa Bay Lightning football team.  That is confusing sports teams.  Saying that  someone is a socialist in a political campaign is just as confusing.

Third Parties

 

It Takes Two

One can have a dream, baby
Two can make that dream so real
One can talk about being in love
Two can see how it really feels

Maybe it takes three.

The United States has three parties. What’s that you say? You understand that there are Democrat and Republican parties, but what is that third party? The US Constitution and the voters in the United States are that third party. Often in what appears to be a two-player game, like a baseball game, a football game, a chess match, or elections, there is an implicit third party. A professional  baseball game happens because there is Major League Baseball to administer the rules of the game and provide the umpires. Similarly professional American football games happen because there is a National Football League, college games happen because there is a National College Athletic Association, chess matches are sanctioned by the Chess Federation, etc. Even though there are only two political parties, they vie for elections under the US Constitution, etc. These third parties may have no stake in the outcome of those two-player contests, but they are important because they are the administrators of the rules for those contests and want to ensure the success and continuation of those two-player contests.

According to games theory, there are different strategies for winning a two-player game, than a three or more-player game. In a three-player game, not only individual behavior, but also behavior that continues the games and benefits the group is rewarded. In a two-player game, only individual behavior is rewarded, not the continuation of the game or the benefit of the group. I have argued that two-player games are only an illusion. There are only two players if there is no group that administers the rules of the game. If that third party is doing its job correctly, it should not even be noticed, but it is still there. Acting as if there are only two parties may be why we have a problem. In a two-player game, there is no incentive for the players to abide by the rules of the game. Winning is the only thing, even if you cheat to win. But it is winning for the group, not winning for the individual, that matters in the long run. It takes three, not two.

 

Resilency II

 

Be Prepared

I know it sounds sordid
But you'll be rewarded
When at last I am given my dues
And injustice deliciously squared
Be prepared!

It is smart to be prepared!

A hundred year flood does NOT mean that a flood will only occur every hundred years.  It means that there is a one in one hundred chance of experiencing that flood each year.  Every flood is independent of each prior flood.  A flood does not know that you just had a hundred year flood and it shouldn’t flood you for another hundred years. That is not how probability works.  Each event may be, and probably is, independent from previous events. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOwLEVQGbrM

Knowing that  sh*t will hit the fan, means that you better have a plan for when the sh*t hits the fan, which better NOT be that the sh*t will never hit my fan.  That is why good engineering balances efficiency with resiliency.  It does NOT try to increase efficiency by decreasing resiliency.  Resiliency is figuring how likely it is that the sh*t will it the fan, what are the consequences when the sh*t hits the fan, and what to do when the sh*t hits the fan.  Counting on the sh* t never hitting my fan and maximizing my system might make for have an efficient system, but it will not make for a very resilient system.

When you board an elevator there is typically a weight limit posted.  It does not mean that if you exceed that weight limit by one ounce, then the elevator will fail.  That limit lets you know that you are experiencing an unacceptable risk if you exceed that amount.  This might be called a safety margin, a design standard, or…. resiliency.

In queuing there is an amount where the queue starts rapidity going to infinity.  This generally happens if the arrival volume exceeds 80% percent of the service volume, capacity.  If you exceed this point, then if the system fails, you will have an extraordinary problem recovering from that failure. In traffic engineering this point is typically Level of Service “C” or “D”.  In rail operations it is called a parametric capacity, which is also about 80% of the physical capacity.  It might seem very efficient to be at 100% of capacity, but that is NOT a very good idea.  That is why there are guardrails, design standards, safety systems, etc., so that you don’t sacrifice efficiency for resiliency. That is also why well engineered systems have redundancy, so that when one item fails, another item can pick up the load.  It is also why females have two mammary glands even though when they only have one offspring.  Nature is resilient, not just efficient. Let’s learn from nature.

Thinking about sh*t hitting the fan is not very pleasant. Why do you think that insurance companies have cute mascots like geckos, emus, Snoopy or ducks. My favorite is the AFLAC Duck getting confused by Yogi Berra. “When you’re hurt and miss work, it doesn’t hurt to miss work”,  “Huh?”  Don’t be confused yourself.  Efficiency at the expense of resiliency is bad.

Messages

 

Razzle Dazzle

Give 'em the old razzle dazzle
Razzle Dazzle 'em
Give 'em an act with lots of flash in it
And the reaction will be passionate
Give 'em the old hocus pocus
Bead and feather 'em
How can they see with sequins in their eyes?

Don’t be fooled by the Razzle Dazzle.

The medium is NOT the message, no matter what Marshall McLuhan might have said.  Yes, Nixon was sweating during the Kennedy-Nixon TV debates, but his appearance is not why he lost.  Barry Goldwater might not have been as crazy as the infamous mushroom cloud and the little girl picking daisies TV commercial made him appear, but that was not why he lost.  The message is the message.  The rest is Razzle Dazzle.  Ronald Reagan might have said he paid for this microphone, but that microphone wasn't Reagan’s. It was a Bob Molloy microphone. "One of the many," says Molloy, who had been doing sound and video contracting for New Hampshire events since 1976. https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2015-12-05/meet-the-microphone-ronald-reagan-paid-for-at-the-famous-debate-in-nashua.

That Ronald Reagan bent the truth, gave us the Razzle Dazzle, should not be a surprise.  He started in show business by creating play-by-play accounts of baseball games using only basic descriptions that the station that employed him received by wire as the games were in progress. He appeared in movies and TV, make believe, long before he entered politics.  He was a union leader and pretended to be a friend of the unions, before he broke the union of air traffic controllers.  He embraced what was called “voodoo” economics by his rivals, particularly George H.W. Bush, who then sold his soul by becoming his vice president.  The Reagan Tax Cuts and “Reaganomics” were the beginning of a long con that saw a decline in the growth of the US economy and a shift of wealth and income to the very rich.   The only two countries that saw a marked increase in the inequality of income over this period are the US and the UK which also embraced “supply side” economics under Margaret Thatcher.  At least the British appear to have reversed that trend in the 1990s.  The US  shows no sign of abating.

The long con has been aided by inflation.  When inflation is not considered it appears, according to Census reports, that the mode, most common, income has been increasing or stable.  Stated in 2019 US Dollars, and considering inflation, the mode of income has been decreasing.  It is long past time to separate the Razzle Dazzle from the message.