Curt Doolittle

Theme: Productivity

  • You know I couldn’t care less about social justice and equality. I despise the t

    You know I couldn’t care less about social justice and equality. I despise the terms and the feelings that inspire them. But when a young man who is willing and able to work, and work hard, to feed his family cannot find work, and the only reason that he cannot is low trust, no credit, and low economic velocity – that makes me angry.

    I know too many men here who want to work, are willing to work, at ANY work, to feed and house their families, that cannot find it. And they cannot find it while government bureaucrats seek pervasive rents and participate in pervasive corruption.

    And it makes me want to kill every living soul in that government that I can get my hands on.

    We need to bring back the guillotine.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-12 04:49:00 UTC

  • The Ultimate Question of Economic Science? It’s Eugenia or Dysgenia.

    [P]eter Boettke posted an article by Paul Krugman yesterday which referred to the divisions in economics – with derision.

    And it’s been bothering me all night:

    Progressives, libertarians, and conservatives demonstrate an inter-temporal division of reproductive labor in their moral biases and cognitive biases.

    So why wouldn’t economists follow the same moral, inter-temporal division of labor?

    Well, they do. All humans do.

    Austrians represent the conservative long term: accumulation and competitiveness, and new Keynesian progressives the short term: consumption and reproduction.

    The question is whether consumption/dysgenia or accumulation/eugenia is preferable.

    This is the central proposition. And we avoid answering it just as much as our ancestors avoided the question of the existence of gods.

    Until we answer that question all economic debate is just obscurant deception as a means of avoiding the central question of economics: what is it that we are solving for?

    I can answer that question because western history answered it for us.

  • The Ultimate Question of Economic Science? It’s Eugenia or Dysgenia.

    [P]eter Boettke posted an article by Paul Krugman yesterday which referred to the divisions in economics – with derision.

    And it’s been bothering me all night:

    Progressives, libertarians, and conservatives demonstrate an inter-temporal division of reproductive labor in their moral biases and cognitive biases.

    So why wouldn’t economists follow the same moral, inter-temporal division of labor?

    Well, they do. All humans do.

    Austrians represent the conservative long term: accumulation and competitiveness, and new Keynesian progressives the short term: consumption and reproduction.

    The question is whether consumption/dysgenia or accumulation/eugenia is preferable.

    This is the central proposition. And we avoid answering it just as much as our ancestors avoided the question of the existence of gods.

    Until we answer that question all economic debate is just obscurant deception as a means of avoiding the central question of economics: what is it that we are solving for?

    I can answer that question because western history answered it for us.

  • THE WESTERN MISALLOCATION OF INVESTMENT IN THE WESTERN PORTFOLIO (another way of

    THE WESTERN MISALLOCATION OF INVESTMENT IN THE WESTERN PORTFOLIO

    (another way of putting it)(becoming levantines)

    We have over invested in improving the structure of production to the point at which we are causing catastrophic harm.

    We have over invested in government to the point at which we are causing catastrophic harm to the family and civilization.

    We have over-invested in the export of rule of law and democracy to the point at which we have caused harm.

    We have over-invested in the academy to the point at which it causes systemic harm on a daily basis.

    We have UNDER invested in the family, in discipline, in training, and in education.

    This over-investment is the result of fiat credit – and it is not investment at this point -it is merely burning down four thousand years of the west’s accumulated cultural capital. We are becoming Levantines.

    **Do less interference. Consume less. Spend more time on your children.**

    Cultures save because they can. Other cultures don’t save and invest, because they can’t. We created commons because we could. They didn’t because they can’t.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-09 03:59:00 UTC

  • to Austrians: recent minimum wage increases are harmful

    http://www.aei.org/publication/study-minimum-wage-hikes-made-great-recession-worse-low-skill-workers/Obvious to Austrians: recent minimum wage increases are harmful

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-08 13:04:00 UTC

  • The Ultimate Question of Economic Science: Eugenia or Dysgenia

    [P]eter Boettke posted an article by Paul Krugman yesterday which referred to the divisions in economics – with derision.

    And it’s been bothering me all night:

    Progressives, libertarians, and conservatives demonstrate an inter-temporal division of reproductive labor in their moral biases and cognitive biases.

    So why wouldn’t economists follow the same moral, inter-temporal division of labor?

    Well, they do. All humans do.

    Austrians represent the conservative long term: accumulation and competitiveness, and new Keynesian progressives the short term: consumption and reproduction.

    The question is whether consumption/dysgenia or accumulation/eugenia is preferable.

    This is the central proposition. And we avoid answering it just as much as our ancestors avoided the question of the existence of gods.

    Until we answer that question all economic debate is just obscurant deception as a means of avoiding the central question of economics: what is it that we are solving for?

    I can answer that question because western history answered it for us.

  • The Ultimate Question of Economic Science: Eugenia or Dysgenia

    [P]eter Boettke posted an article by Paul Krugman yesterday which referred to the divisions in economics – with derision.

    And it’s been bothering me all night:

    Progressives, libertarians, and conservatives demonstrate an inter-temporal division of reproductive labor in their moral biases and cognitive biases.

    So why wouldn’t economists follow the same moral, inter-temporal division of labor?

    Well, they do. All humans do.

    Austrians represent the conservative long term: accumulation and competitiveness, and new Keynesian progressives the short term: consumption and reproduction.

    The question is whether consumption/dysgenia or accumulation/eugenia is preferable.

    This is the central proposition. And we avoid answering it just as much as our ancestors avoided the question of the existence of gods.

    Until we answer that question all economic debate is just obscurant deception as a means of avoiding the central question of economics: what is it that we are solving for?

    I can answer that question because western history answered it for us.

  • GAMIFYING THE WORKPLACE : OVERSING BRINGS UNIVERSAL STANDING TO THE ENTERPRISE O

    GAMIFYING THE WORKPLACE : OVERSING BRINGS UNIVERSAL STANDING TO THE ENTERPRISE

    Oversing has many uses, and many features, and tries to help the user get work completed, but overall, the idea is to treat your business as a series of weekly (or longer) ‘sprints’, in an effort to teach you to understand your predictive (or non predictive) ability, and therefore posses a more ‘true’ vision of your business, the staff, and yourself.

    And yes, by organizing your company as a dynamic set of projects, it is possible to reorganize your company more easily and constantly, in response to strategic ambitions and market demands. Bureaucracies calcify around rent seeking, but project based organizations cannot so calcify. Like market entities they can perish easily if no longer needed.

    But, Oversing is at its core, a bit of libertarian social engineering: it provides an information system that increases transparency, and decreases if not eliminates the need for (expensive) middle management. Now this saves money. Sure. And it crushes office politics. Sure. But it also empowers the individual employee to speak the truth. And by speaking the truth, build trust. And by building trust build a workplace that better serves employees, customers, management, owners and investors.

    Universal standing in law means that all citizens can take up lawsuits on behalf of any other, or any commons (say, pollution). And he pays the consequences of losing, or enjoys the benefit of winning. The same is true for the workplace. We have found that transparency matters both directions. Management has to be willing to tell employees ideas are stupid and unprofitable, or simply economically impossible. But again this builds trust.

    And yes, there are businesses where trust may be impossible. I just can’t think of any. Or at least, none that are legal.

    It will not take us the three years we had thought to finish Oversing’s core feature set. If we go to market this March as we anticipate, we will be able to get most of the now-known features finished this coming year.

    The most extensive of these is career building – which oversing is uniquely designed for – again, to eliminate management bias. We just cannot get it done this spring. We are six months past our ‘financial’ target date already. Adding products – or at least, product sales, to the product is not challenging. We just cannot get it done this release either. And our CRM functionality (Sales scripting) is somewhat limited, because honestly, I find that kind of work offensive – I hate spam sales and I prefer marketing. We can import and export to accounting systems but I am not confident that we can get the accounting api done before summer if not fall.

    We will have to evolved the features for all of the business processes – but we will have created an application platform that solves the needs of the entire white collar enterprise – front to back.

    And brought liberty and universal standing to the workplace.

    And that is really, really, cool.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-12-01 03:59:00 UTC

  • Dear Budding Entrepreneurs: Smart people have a disease: they are lazy. They thi

    Dear Budding Entrepreneurs:

    Smart people have a disease: they are lazy. They think too much. And they gather too little information. If you’re thinking rather than researching you’re just lazy, not smart. The same is true of Rationalism versus Empiricism: if you’re thinking rather than researching, then you’re just lazy (and not very bright).

    Smart people exhaust all possible knowledge until the answers all come back the same. Talk to people. Get information. Look at details. As advice. Analyze competitors.

    Smart people don’t plan so much as have clear goals, do lots of research, and seize opportunities. And why to some people fail to do this even if they think they’re smart? Because despite the fact that other humans are the source of knowledge and you need to seek to understand others, to empathize with them, and to work with them – and it’s something you’re simply avoiding.

    If you think you’re smart and efficient – you probably aren’t either of them. You’re avoiding work and avoiding social interaction. And the primary reason you avoid social interaction is fear that your bubble will be burst.

    Advantages are found in unpredictable outliers.

    A plan is a bubble to be burst. A goal is merely the end point obtained by seizing identified opportunities.

    Business plans are sh_t. The ultimate business plan? Find customers. Sell them what they need.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-11-30 09:11:00 UTC

  • ECONOMICS: LIES AND DAMNED LIES Growth = Productivity increase Expansion = Popul

    ECONOMICS: LIES AND DAMNED LIES

    Growth = Productivity increase

    Expansion = Population increase

    Expansion is bad, growth is good.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-11-30 02:49:00 UTC