Curt Doolittle

Theme: Incentives

  • WHY NOT BASIC ECONOMICS IN THE CORE? (Re-posted from elsewhere) You know, math a

    WHY NOT BASIC ECONOMICS IN THE CORE?

    (Re-posted from elsewhere)

    You know, math and economics can be taught as very simple stories. As narratives. Why you can get out of school reading Chaucer, but not knowing how to balance a checkbook, the power of compound interest, the basic currency system, and simple macro economics, is just …. completely beyond me. It’s like, they want us to be ignorant. (And no. I don’t mean that. I’m not a conspiracy nut. I just think it’s ideological not practical.) This stuff isn’t magic. The narrative doesn’t even require algebra. You can draw it as pictures without numbers. We’re all slaves to this system and all but a few of us are ignorant of it.

    It’s freaking criminal.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-29 13:51:00 UTC

  • AND GOVERNMENT ABILITY TO ALTER IT: none. This poses a serious problem. To accep

    http://www.epi.org/publication/a-decade-of-flat-wages-the-key-barrier-to-shared-prosperity-and-a-rising-middle-class/INEQUALITY AND GOVERNMENT ABILITY TO ALTER IT: none.

    This poses a serious problem. To accept market outcomes as given, and then try to offset the structural imbalances embedded therein through tax and transfer policy alone, is a fundamentally limited strategy. As those outcomes become increasingly unequal, as has been the case over the last three decades, such a strategy implies yearly increases in redistribution through the tax code and transfer system, something our political system will not support even once we return to functional politics. The uniquely influential role of money in American politics limits this strategy even further.”

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 09:24:00 UTC

  • LIST OF STARTUP RULES (Dated but fun.) 1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at

    LIST OF STARTUP RULES

    (Dated but fun.)

    1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.

    2. Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.

    3. If you don’t have scaling problems, you’re not growing fast enough.

    4. If you’re successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you’re in that position, and hope that you’re smart enough to not fall for it.

    5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that’s really the case, you shouldn’t be doing your startup.

    6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.

    7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.

    8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).

    9. You don’t need business development people. If you’re successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you’re not spending any effort trying to get them.

    10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.

    11. Starting a company will teach you what it’s like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.

    12. Your startup isn’t succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What’s it going to be?

    13. If you don’t pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?

    14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.

    15. You’re doing a web app, right? This isn’t the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor’s most polished software application.

    – Mark Fletcher

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:45:00 UTC

  • FAVOR OF NEPOTISM AND CRONYISM But by and large, financial firms in particular c

    http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/hiring-the-well-connected-isnt-always-a-scandal/?_r=2IN FAVOR OF NEPOTISM AND CRONYISM

    But by and large, financial firms in particular commonly hire people who have certain connections, whether through family or a business relationship. The thinking is that the new hire — and his or her last name — might “help open doors,” Mr. Driscoll said. But, like many people I interviewed on this topic, he did not see a legal issue with such hires. “I don’t think there is a quid pro quo,” such that the hiring of children is explicitly generating business from the parent. At best, he said, “It gets you in the room.” He added: “It’s like chicken soup. It can’t hurt.”

    Actually, I encourage it. The reason being, that I like a) a family to have all the eggs in our basket, and b) it builds more trust – as long as the company is transparent. (And since I only build transparent companies, that’s not a problem.)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-24 02:06:00 UTC

  • I’d feel differently, perhaps, if I had ever met a bureaucrat whose incentives w

    I’d feel differently, perhaps, if I had ever met a bureaucrat whose incentives were to help the customer rather than engage in rent seeking. I haven’t. The people who deal with the tradesmen and permits are much better than the rest. But none of them is anywhere near the service provider of the worst discount store, or the best coffee shop.

    If you spend any time with government at all (I was in the justice department) it’s pretty clear that aside from perhaps judges and short term members of the house of representatives, that everyone’s a rent seeker. Everyone. And they want expansion of powers so they have access to expansion of rents.

    I don’t know yet how I feel about condo and neighborhood associations, but from what I’ve been able to collect (and it’s not easy) a town of ten thousand people is probably the maximum scale where bureaucrats act anything like citizens rather than rent seekers.

    Once you’re out of the city-state, everything collapses rapidly into corruption. In america, corruption is systemic and procedural, and takes advantage of the fact that the voting process cannot correct a bureaucracy. The competition to a bureaucracy is the court, not the vote.

    I actually prefer the corruption here in the east. I dont mind increasing the payroll of policemen and bureaucrats if they provide service for it. I do mind increasing the budget of the bureaucracy when they DONT give service for it.

    Russian friends always told me this was true but I couldn’t put my arms around it. They’re right. It’s MORE CORRUPT in America than in the east. It’s just that the corruption in systemic, not interpersonal.

    The rule of law is good government. Bureaucracy is bad government. The problem of government is bureaucracy.

    If a government wants to conspire to achieve my preferred ends, then it is not a government that’s hired labor. If it wants to conspire to use the products of my labor to achieve ends I disapprove of, then that is not government that is slavery.

    I am having a hard time defining good government. Unless government is hired labor under the law, rather than dictators in charge of the law.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-20 03:34:00 UTC

  • WE NEED MORE PEOPLE? Are children an economic good? No. They are a necessity, pr

    http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2013/08/does-the-world-need-more-people-posner.htmlDO WE NEED MORE PEOPLE?

    Are children an economic good? No. They are a necessity, preference, or luxury.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-19 03:36:00 UTC

  • know its painful to accept, but politics like all other human behavior is bounde

    http://crookedtimber.org/2013/08/18/krugman-keynes-kalecki-konczal1/comment-page-1/#commentsI know its painful to accept, but politics like all other human behavior is bounded by morality more so than ignorance.

    There is too much search for cognitive error in this thread, and too little understanding of morality.

    Austerity worked in Europe. It is working in America. Because it

    is accomplishing moral ends – according to the moral criteria of citizens.

    Humans will suffer greatly to punish the immoral. And that is what they are doing.

    It may be difficult to grasp but morality in the political context is as important as prices and incentives. If people do not think the world is moral, they will not act morally. And they hate the idea that the world might be immoral. Morality and norms are the original human currency. People are masters of its accountancy

    Conservatives place higher value on norms than consumption. And their view is that empowering the government is rewarding immorality. Conservatives understand morality. They speak in moral language and they win moral arguments. And the control the public discourse with moral arguments.

    I have been arguing since ’08 that the only way to push spending through would be to limit it to moral channels. And the progressive argument is always the same: morality doesn’t matter and its all nonsense.

    But its not. Its as necessary as law. More so.

    If you had told me this as a student I would have laughed. But there it is.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-19 03:30:00 UTC

  • LIMITED NUMBER OF WOMEN CEOS AND BOARD MEMBERS I think we know the answer and ha

    LIMITED NUMBER OF WOMEN CEOS AND BOARD MEMBERS

    I think we know the answer and have known the answer for years:

    1) the distribution of IQ at 130 or higher, which is common threshold in CEO’s and board members, and necessary for marginally competitive advantage means that executive participation by women will max at around 30%. Nature does not produce an equivalent number of marginally different women.

    2) board membership is not fun. It is largely hard work. The material is quantitative. And decisions are legal, funancial, political, factional and risky. Appeals to empathy or sympathy are considered rightly to be attemts at deception. Board members usually have little information and what they do have they must treat skepyically. Consensus can be difficult and intractable.

    3) Women will not as willingly play the cost of maintaining unpleasant, argumentative factional loyalty as often or as well as men, so they are percieved as less trustworthy partners on a team. Those that do are paired with men they agree with. And that combination seems to be powerful.

    4) more men prefer to specialize in abstract rules, and devote their time to one specialization. So more men tend to master what organizations value.

    Free from nevessary domestic toil, women dominate the middle of the economy and men the margins, and assortive mating reinforces that distribution. There is no chance it will change and if it did, those companies operation by existing means would rapidly dominate those with less meritocratic orders.

    We are only equal under the law in the resolution of disputes over property and even then not universally so – as males will attest in family court.

    But we are not equal in ability. Equal in value to others. Equal in status ( mating potential). Nor equal in value to mankind.

    Equality is achieveable in kinship matters, but not commercial relations. And commerce under individualism is not kinship outside of a homogenous city state.

    Just how it is and must be.

    We can bend natures laws but we cannot ignore them.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-17 04:22:00 UTC

  • Anarchism: What Becomes Of The Idea Of “job Security” Under Proposed Systems Of Anarchist Living?

    Job security is an interesting term, because I don’t know how to define it honestly.   And I don’t think the term is meant to be honest whenever its used.

    None of us has job security if we participate in the market. The security you have comes from maintaining marketable skills. Business today are temporary, disposable alliances.  And it looks like this trend will continue.  Employment likewise will continue to be driven by rapid changes in the marketplace.

    The people outside of the market have ‘job security’ but those people are in ‘jobs’ only by analogy. Is being a soldier a job? Is being a senator a job?  An IRS Agent?  A job is driven by market. Otherwise you’re just another kind of soldier. If you cant be easily unemployed by changes in the market then you aren’t in a job, You’re a paid soldier of one kind or another.

    If the question is, can we have employment insurance.  I think so. 
    If the question is, can we have create a sort of minimum income scheme. I think possibly.  Can we do this in america? I don’t think so. The country is too big. And people are familial and tribal : they are members of some sort of kinship, and they remain that way for life.
    If the question is, can you be insulated from the variation in the market so that you do not have to constantly maintain marketable skills? No, I don’t think so.

    https://www.quora.com/Anarchism-What-becomes-of-the-idea-of-job-security-under-proposed-systems-of-anarchist-living

  • Anarchism: What Becomes Of The Idea Of “job Security” Under Proposed Systems Of Anarchist Living?

    Job security is an interesting term, because I don’t know how to define it honestly.   And I don’t think the term is meant to be honest whenever its used.

    None of us has job security if we participate in the market. The security you have comes from maintaining marketable skills. Business today are temporary, disposable alliances.  And it looks like this trend will continue.  Employment likewise will continue to be driven by rapid changes in the marketplace.

    The people outside of the market have ‘job security’ but those people are in ‘jobs’ only by analogy. Is being a soldier a job? Is being a senator a job?  An IRS Agent?  A job is driven by market. Otherwise you’re just another kind of soldier. If you cant be easily unemployed by changes in the market then you aren’t in a job, You’re a paid soldier of one kind or another.

    If the question is, can we have employment insurance.  I think so. 
    If the question is, can we have create a sort of minimum income scheme. I think possibly.  Can we do this in america? I don’t think so. The country is too big. And people are familial and tribal : they are members of some sort of kinship, and they remain that way for life.
    If the question is, can you be insulated from the variation in the market so that you do not have to constantly maintain marketable skills? No, I don’t think so.

    https://www.quora.com/Anarchism-What-becomes-of-the-idea-of-job-security-under-proposed-systems-of-anarchist-living