Curt Doolittle

Theme: Incentives

  • “I’M FOR PUNISHMENT” —“Summers told Taleb that he was for more capital, more l

    “I’M FOR PUNISHMENT”

    —“Summers told Taleb that he was for more capital, more liquidity, living wills for banks and procedures to wind them down. “What are you for?” he challenged. “I’m for punishment,” Taleb replied. Taleb outlined a system in which everyone would know which systemically important banks would be bailed out, but would presumably see strict oversight of bonuses and operations afterward. Other institutions would be left to fail, he said.”—

    I’m for punishment too. Without punishment it’s not cooperation, it’s not a market, and it’s not capitalism.

    I have a better punishment in mind and it’s a permanent one: if the government is going to produce liquidity (inflation) then give every citizen a debit card and distribute the money directly to consumers bypassing the banks.

    That will rapidly correct the abuses of our financial sector. Because they will have to satisfy consumers to get their hands on cash.

    Not that I’m in favor of government’s printing money. But if you’re going to print it, at least do it intelligently -without creating fragility, and without creating a moral hazard.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-17 09:52:00 UTC

  • think it’s actually harder to be a female exec over other women, than it is for

    http://clarissasblog.com/2014/05/14/i-dont-want-to-hire-women/I think it’s actually harder to be a female exec over other women, than it is for men. I mean. Not only are we oblivious, but we just don’t care, and women don’t expect us to care. We just do our thing. And go on obliviously.

    I have had very bad luck with women in senior exec positions. In fact, it’s been almost fruitless. I suppose in other industries it’d be different. But in my generation the combination of feminism and craziness has just been impossible.

    But in middle management, it’s been just the opposite. In middle management you’re trying to facilitate – herding cats. In executive management you’re trying to discriminate – apply scarce resources to the best return whether people like it or not. And women are much better at herding cats, and processing multiple lines of communication than men and that’s just how it is. I don’t argue with it. I just accept it. I have found male middle managers to be free riders, and female middle managers to be more effective. I think it’s genetic. I have been on a career long quest to reduce middle management, indeed all management, to the bare minimum wherever possible and to empower the talent whenever and wherever possible. This tends to lead to a project-based company that is often reorganized, rather than a department based company structure, that is rarely reorganized.

    The gossip mill that women create is almost always destructive and the only cure is over-communication. I’ve tried to manage anti-gossip campaigns whenever possible. But the gossip thing is just insanely painful to deal with.

    (My favorite example is the accusation that I was sleeping with my young female assistant, and I simply could not silence it, despite the fact that she was actually sleeping with one of my married business partners from the east coast. )

    Good gossip lifts people up. Bad gossip cuts people down. It’s hysterical how effective this technique is. (I tell people, “if you want to gossip and conspire to make me a more successful person then please do.”) So there are positive ways to channeling negative behavior if you understand the incentives. (As strange as chick-incentives are to us men.)

    It’s really good if you can get all the admin chicks in your company on a gossip containment committee. This turns the problem into an effective means of control because the girls at the lowest level who have the greatest access to gossip become empowered by policing gossip. You try to get them to tell you anything that’s negative. Then you tell the the TRUTH about what you’re doing and let them do the work. The problem is you can never lie to them. And if you screw up you have to tell them.

    What bothers me still, and something I would like to find a way to solve, is the degree of self destruction women practice upon one another. The hen pecking thing is just impossible. And yes (straight) women are much higher maintenance. I hope to improve some of this over the next decade with Oversing. But I suspect that stopping women from trying to social climb their chick-status-ladder by gossip and undermining is freaking impossible.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-16 14:57:00 UTC

  • OF RUSSIA’S STRATEGIC ECONOMIC FACTOIDS: 1) “Russia supplies about a third of th

    http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/04/10/How-Europe-Could-Finally-Call-Putin-s-Bluff#sthash.KHmNFCMK.dpufTWO OF RUSSIA’S STRATEGIC ECONOMIC FACTOIDS:

    1) “Russia supplies about a third of the European Union’s energy but that supply is responsible for 40 percent of the Russian government’s budget,”

    2) “50% of Russians live off income provided by the government”

    TWO DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS

    “Even in Russian speaking areas, a minority want federal ties to Russia. The majority want a unified Ukraine”

    “Only old people who remember communism want ties with Russia. The young want ties with Europe. In ten years the 15% who want ties with Russia will disappear.”

    MY BIAS IN ALL THIS

    I didn’t know all of this because while I live in Kiev, and Keiv is a “Russified” area (meaning everyone speaks Russian), I both associate with and employ young people in their 20’s. All of whom have some sort of extended family ties to Russia.

    Ukrainian’s are very reserved, quiet and gentle people. I rail all the time about how I love them so much. And they sort of think of Russians as ‘rude, drunk people who start fights’ – but they’re cousins so to speak. So they’re like ill behaved family members. And when someone is behaving badly in public (or in my case, starting a fight in a club) you here “It’s Ok. (he is/they are) Russian.” (My favorite weapon is the ubiquitous ceramic coffee mug. Much better than brass knuckles, and less visible than bottles, which also break.)

    So I don’t have a lot of experience with people who look to Russia. Everyone I know looks to Europe for the future, and to Russia for family. And Until I’ve started to see reliable polls, I simply have been using voting data to tell me what people think. And it turns out to be “vote for people like me” just like everywhere else. But only a weird minority want to be something other than Ukrainian. An those that do, too many are part of the gangster-tribe out of Donetsk that knows if they lose their ‘protection’ from the (russian sponsored) government, then the gangster days are over. The older people who were better taken care of under communism I agree with and sympathize with. But the only moral position that I know how to take on this matter is self determination. and the numbers are pretty clearly, universally in favor of “I’m a Ukrainian”.

    Now my personal bias is obvious:

    (a) I have invested a good portion of my worth here and I don’t want to risk it because of external aggression.

    (b) I watched people I care about fight for freedom from one of the world’s most corrupt governments – a vast criminal enterprise that preys on people that I love.

    (c) I believe I must support self determination. In no small part because that is the problem MY PEOPLE face.

    (d) I don’t think to much of the Russian government, and I shouldn’t, but I freaking love russians – more so than I americans. I would rather spend my time with russians than with americans. And I love everything about them. I just am not sure this is a people who are terribly good at self government for very complex cultural reasons.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-07 23:25:00 UTC

  • “How can you have evolution if those who do the right thing have to finance thos

    “How can you have evolution if those who do the right thing have to finance those who did the wrong thing?” — Nassim Taleb

    You cant. But you also cant morally or practically hang those who did the wrong thing out to dry. And you have limit the damage that they can do.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-07 04:31:00 UTC

  • How Would You Respond In This Version Of The “ultimate Game,” A Famous Economic Experiment?

    Half.

    The problem with this particular ‘dilemma’ is that the amount is enough to split.

    RESPONSE
    The question is unclear that the beneficial idea would somehow be hidden. For those of us who work in this field, we know that it is impossible to promote than intentionally hide such an idea.

    Like most moral dilemma questions, the structure of the question is the problem, not human morality.  There are no moral dilemmas.

    https://www.quora.com/How-would-you-respond-in-this-version-of-the-Ultimate-Game-a-famous-economic-experiment

  • How Would You Respond In This Version Of The “ultimate Game,” A Famous Economic Experiment?

    Half.

    The problem with this particular ‘dilemma’ is that the amount is enough to split.

    RESPONSE
    The question is unclear that the beneficial idea would somehow be hidden. For those of us who work in this field, we know that it is impossible to promote than intentionally hide such an idea.

    Like most moral dilemma questions, the structure of the question is the problem, not human morality.  There are no moral dilemmas.

    https://www.quora.com/How-would-you-respond-in-this-version-of-the-Ultimate-Game-a-famous-economic-experiment

  • AS ENEMY COMBATANTS: 250 MAJOR FIRMS LEAVE CALIFORNIA SINCE 2011 “[They have] a

    http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/042914-698893-toyota-moves-from-torrance-california-to-dallas-texas.htm#ixzz30LdXIxBEBUSINESS AS ENEMY COMBATANTS: 250 MAJOR FIRMS LEAVE CALIFORNIA SINCE 2011

    “[They have] a regulatory structure in California that treats businesses, especially manufacturers, like enemy combatants. Joseph Vranich, a California-based business relocation adviser, who has long tracked the migration of companies from California, cites more than 250 major firms that left the state since 2011 through last year. Why? “Today,” he said, “California businesses can reduce costs by 20% by moving to many states and up to 45% in some areas.” One big cost factor: California’s green-energy mandates are driving up electric utility costs to near the highest in the nation.”

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 02:24:00 UTC

  • IS COST A MISSING VARIABLE FROM CRITICAL PREFERENCE? Has anyone done any work on

    IS COST A MISSING VARIABLE FROM CRITICAL PREFERENCE?

    Has anyone done any work on the costs of critical preferences to see if there is an empirical correlation between the costs to pursue a particular choice of one preference over another? I would really like to know, empirically, why we seem to be fairly good at attacking theories. Or whether this is a bias that I can’t seem to see around.

    I suspect that the available field of choices to eliminate at any given time is quite small. And I wonder if we can include or eliminate costs from the logic since we ignore it presently, and all fields other than science do not eliminate it.

    I suspect that there is a causal property of discovery that we do not incorporate in CR/CP. I do not think it has anything to do with induction. But I think there is something that we are missing. I would like to eliminate costs as a variable, since it is the most obvious, because it is included in all other fields of inquiry. It would seem logical that iterating on lowest costs of discovery would produce increasingly parsimonious new theories, while higher cost discoveries would increase the content that must be subject to falsification. This is true in almost every field. I suspect that it is also true in science. And I suspect that while the possibility that we cannot choose between theories is logically true, that empirically it is only true about A vs B, but not true about the sequence of tests starting with A vs starting with B.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 06:41:00 UTC

  • Gender Relations: Gender Strategy: Offspring vs Tribe

    [W]omen are more comfortable with free riding and with charity, and men are extremely conservative about resources. Women happily sacrifice for their children. Men cautiously sacrifice for their tribe. Women advocate for their children regardless of their merits, while men are more parsimonious because they desire the strongest tribe. For men, a woman and his children are just the smallest possible tribe that he can lead. For a woman, it is very risky, especially in the ignorance of youth, to choose just one man upon which to risk her future. While men cannot articulate this set of intuitions and strategies, women often confuse the difference in evolutionary strategies between men and women. And particularly the difference between a woman’s offspring, and a man’s tribe. I’ve seen so many marriages where the woman expects the man to have the same interest toward her and the children, as she has. And there are some men who approach a woman’s sacrifice. But for the majority of us, it is a very bad investment. And with the state making it impossible for us to save for retirement, given our shorter productive life spans, and greater specialization, and greater variation – it’s now an extremely bad idea to engage in marriage. [M]arriage is an artificial construct. For a man, he is best off if he trades productivity (no longer protection) and affection for as many women as he can get attention from. And a woman’s best interest is to form a group with other women and select from different men what she wants and needs. This is how we evolved: everyone having sex with everyone else – some of which was for bond building, and some of which was for the purpose of reproduction. Any society that does not maintain at least the nuclear family will be dominated an exterminated by those that do.

  • Gender Relations: Gender Strategy: Offspring vs Tribe

    [W]omen are more comfortable with free riding and with charity, and men are extremely conservative about resources. Women happily sacrifice for their children. Men cautiously sacrifice for their tribe. Women advocate for their children regardless of their merits, while men are more parsimonious because they desire the strongest tribe. For men, a woman and his children are just the smallest possible tribe that he can lead. For a woman, it is very risky, especially in the ignorance of youth, to choose just one man upon which to risk her future. While men cannot articulate this set of intuitions and strategies, women often confuse the difference in evolutionary strategies between men and women. And particularly the difference between a woman’s offspring, and a man’s tribe. I’ve seen so many marriages where the woman expects the man to have the same interest toward her and the children, as she has. And there are some men who approach a woman’s sacrifice. But for the majority of us, it is a very bad investment. And with the state making it impossible for us to save for retirement, given our shorter productive life spans, and greater specialization, and greater variation – it’s now an extremely bad idea to engage in marriage. [M]arriage is an artificial construct. For a man, he is best off if he trades productivity (no longer protection) and affection for as many women as he can get attention from. And a woman’s best interest is to form a group with other women and select from different men what she wants and needs. This is how we evolved: everyone having sex with everyone else – some of which was for bond building, and some of which was for the purpose of reproduction. Any society that does not maintain at least the nuclear family will be dominated an exterminated by those that do.