The Frustrated CFO

Why Do I Stay Subscribed to Quora Digest?

The truth is I have no idea why I receive Quora Digest emails.  I don't recall subscribing to the feed.  Of course, nowadays one can passively "accept" electronic deliveries of bullshit by failing to unclick some hidden option box.  I am certain, however, that  I'm not registered on Quora website.  I wouldn't.   

Quora, as in plural of Quorum - in the same way as Data is plural of Datum. It is basically a blogging hub masked as a Q&A platform: one registered person posts a question and all other registered contributors are invited to answer.  Strictly speaking, this unrestricted invitation to participate clashes with the name, which refers to "select groups."  Maybe the founders confused it with fora (the Latin plural of forum).  I don't know and I don't care: The whole concept reminds me of Coffee Talk with Linda Richman, when Mike Myers would get "all verklempt" and invite us to talk amongst ourselves by providing a discussion topic.        

Moreover, many things about Quora simply creep me out.  For instance, Quora's T&C state that contributors retain the copyright to their content.  Well, it's great that they threw that in, however, the enforcement appears to be highly problematic.  Questions posted to the site are open for editing by everyone.  This includes official editors and all registered users.  Users can also submit unlimited number of suggestions for editing the responses.  Therefore, the possibilities for modifications of the original material are endless.  The apparent absence of a solution for the copyright sharing basically nullifies the notion of IP protection.

It's weird that the site demands its users to register with their real names instead of handles and go through email verification.  It's not that I think people should hide, but they must remember that Quoara automatically releases users' names to the search engines.  We don't know whether the site gets some sort of fees in return, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do.  Just like it wouldn't surprise me if they intend to sell the subscribers' lists to other marketers as well.  But these are just my speculations.  In the absence of a clear mission statement, that's the only thing one can do - guess.  

In reality, the fact that Adam D'Angelo (CEO) doesn't seem to be interested in generating revenues makes me very suspicious of his actual intentions and motivations.  It seems only logical to suggest that they are spying on the contributors, studying their interests, behavioral patterns, and tastes in preparation for eventual commercialization of the site.  Or is it something even more sinister?  How the hell did they get a $900 million third-round valuation?  What sort of potential revenue this number is based on? 

As I said, it's creepy.  I don't even open Quora Digest emails.  But I'm not unsubscribing either - because of the subject line, which always shows the top question of the day.  I don't want to give up the opportunity to glance at it.  Most of the time, what I see reeks of laziness.  I mean, we live in the Internet age - go on Wikipedia or just google this banal crap!  But once in a while some amazing shit pops up. 

The other day I read: "How can you maximize your happiness in life?"  Wow!  Is this person for real?  60,000 antelopes just died in Kazakhstan for unknown reason and half of Europe is covered in water and mud, but this human is not only happy, he wants to bring the bliss to the next level!  Even crazier, he expects to receive constructive instructions from his fellow Quora members?!  Well, good luck with that!

Actually, it's not this kind of oddities that keep me looking.  I am more interested in patterns and trends.  For instance, recently I've noticed an increase in frequency of the questions concerning material self-sufficiency and economic survival.  Well, it's surprising that people on Quora don't talk about their inability to support themselves all the time.  I'm guessing that most of them consider bringing it up under their real names in front of the strangers embarrassing.  Nevertheless, the number of such queries is apparently spiking. 

Below are three questions I found to be most typical; with my brief comments (remember: I'm not subscribed, so I don't know the answers that followed; I can only provide my own):

1.  "What kind of salary guarantees comfortable living in NYC?"  What a terribly formulated question!  It should've come with a separate note explaining what "comfortable" means to the inquirer.  Cause, what's comfortable to a person fresh out of Idaho who has never spent more than $100 on a pair of shoes and considers a $350 Michael Kors bag a chic statement may mean financial misery to someone with a different background. 

For the sake of argument, let's assume that the questioner is single and actually meant comfortable, but not extravagant, i.e. a good one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan with no roommates; year-round pleasant climate control; full range of cable and streaming entertainments; cell and land phones; a car kept in a garage; designer coffee in a favorite shop; going out for drinks at least once a week; eat out twice a week; cooking with high quality ingredients; good cheese, wine, and fruit in the fridge; mid-range ($800-$1500) outfits; 2-3 new pairs of $500 shoes a year; one new $2000-$3000 bag a year, at least one annual vacation; a play and a concert once in a while.  And the answer is - $250K annual salary should do it, assuming the drinking is actually limited to once a week. 

And you thought that those who made $250K a year are rich?!  Not in this town, baby!

2.  "At Facebook and Google, why are many new CS graduates offered 120K+ with a 30-120K signing bonus while those with a few years experience are offered a baseline salary with no bonus?"  Well, the direct answer to this question is simple: Computer Science, in a sense, is like Medicine and Pharmacology - they continuously undergo major changes and developments.  I mean, double-entry bookkeeping was created 600 years ago and it will remain fundamental as long as accounting records will be needed on this planet.  On the other hand, today's standard surgical techniques were experimental only 5 years ago.  It happens even faster in high-tech where innovations occur pretty much on a monthly basis. 

While doctors never stop studying and researching, most (not all) computer engineers and programmers are not as motivated to stay on top of the game.  Those in training are taught the most up-to-date techniques and methods; they are subjected to the most recent trends.  And that's what Facebooks and Googles want - the newest and the freshest; in order to keep ahead of the rat race.  So, it's not about whether you graduated this year or five years ago - it's the set of skills you put on your resume.  Veteran coders who can match the knacks with 22-year-olds can demand pretty much the same level of compensation. 

But what interests me the most in this inquiry is its fiscal aspect.  There is no way the $120K/year new hires of Facebook and Google will be able to enjoy the comforts similar to those listed in point 1.  These companies operate largely in San Francisco Bay area, which, according to my observations of exactly 2 years ago, is even less affordable than NYC.  Of course, high-tech nerds of both sexes go to work in khakis and polo shirts and don't carry Prada bags to the office.  On the other hand, they buy more electronic devices than any other human and their coffee is far more expensive.  So, some corners will need to be cut.  

Obviously their lower-compensated older co-workers have even harder time (hence, the exasperation and the bitterness).  Let's hope that they are smart enough to share expenses with their partners/spouses and don't plan on having any kids.

3.  "I'm unemployed, broke, balding, living with my parents, about to turn 30, friendless, depressed, and miserable.  How can I possibly turn it around?"

Ah, and here we come to the reality of the vast majority.  This boy probably forgot to mention that he has a degree(s) in Liberal Arts and no practical skills.  The horde of young people in similar situations is ever-expanding.  They are so far removed from the idea of "comfortable" living that a $120K salary seems just as fantastic to them as a $3 million book advance or a $20 million per movie compensation package.

They were brought up on the illusion that in this Land of Opportunities they have the freedom of pursuing their interests in humanities and, "as long as they work hard," their "rightful" place in the economic system is guaranteed.  They failed to realize that this clinically dead ideal has been kept on life support by the tuition-hungry education institutions for years.  They probably still don't know that the economic system in question has been deformed and became unrecognizable, just like the sociopolitical structures, environmental conditions, and human relationships.

I can just imagine the answers elicited by this question.  They probably fell into two categories: the ones from the peers ("Dude, you are totally fucked!" or "I hear you, bro!") and the ones from the middle-aged politically correct deniers of reality ("It's okay, things will get better" or "There is nothing wrong with being bold").    

As for me, only a few years ago I would've still tried to be motivational and push my entrepreneurial agenda, urging this person to crystallize his aptitudes into a small business idea and work hard on making it happen for himself.  I used to say that if misplaced children of my peers went into landscaping, housekeeping, and maintenance businesses, it would've solved both the employment and the immigration problems in one sweep.  But now we operate under the most severe government interference in the small-business matters (minimum wages, Obamacare tolls, US Treasury restrictions on borrowing, etc.) and the number of illegal immigrants became unmanageable.  So, giving such an advice would be adding insult to injury.  All I can say is - you are totally fucked, dude!                            

World Economy News Flash: Practical Application of Greece's Bailout

This morning, as soon as I entered Citibank's online trade-finance services, the following message jumped into my face:

Notice on Greek payments

Please be aware that Capital Controls have been introduced in Greece, as a result international transfers from Greek bank accounts to bank accounts outside Greece will not be processed until further notice.  Domestic electronic payments are expected to be processed, but are dependent on the local market factors and beneficiaries' banks.  Securities settlements are suspended.

Apparently "Capital Controls," accepted by the Greek government as one of the German government's bailout conditions, means freezing pretty much everyone's bank accounts - large and small companies, individuals, trusts, etc.  I have no doubt that this harsh measure adds fuel into the engine of Greece's newly-formed leftist anti-bailout party.  They must be having a field day with this - such a perfect agitation tool!  But an important lesson for everyone around the world to learn is that, in case of a "national emergency," your government will find a way to separate you from your money. Remember this!       

Quote of the Week: No Retirement in Your Future

  "Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous.  When I was sixty-five I still had pimples."

           George Burns

           1896 - 1996

 The Frustrated CFO's Comment:  At this point, the best my generation can do is to look for humor in our situation.

The Wealth of the Nation: Observation #3

Just like every other New Yorker, I have experienced the rush of LIE's giant billboard ads coming at me on the way out of and into the Midtown Tunnel on numerous occasions.  You cannot really avoid the experience - there are just too many possibilities that can draw you that way: JFK, LaGuardia, US Open at Flushing Meadows, its next-door neighbors the Mets, your relatives in Queens, your suburban friends with their Near Long Island homes, and maybe even rich acquaintances with summer residences in the Hamptons.  Hey, it's possible you just like sitting in traffic for hours.  Whatever is the reason, the majority of people who live in or visit NYC have been exposed to the visual calls of various brands, upcoming movies, TV seasons' premiers, etc. strategically positioned on that particular spot between the boroughs.

Liberal extremists and snooty hipsters unconditionally reject all forms of commercial publicity as the front-end of consumerism (yet, they all support it by the sheer fact of having facebook accounts and iPhones).  But I'm no hypocrite - I don't simplistically dismiss advertising and even consumerism itself as evil.  In full honesty: quality objects are quite necessary in my life for aesthetic, utilitarian, vain, and psycho-therapeutic reasons.  Quality being an operative word, of course.  Unfortunately, the majority of contemporary promotions target general public that cannot afford quality anymore.  And it has been reflected on the ever-changing billboards.

Over the years I've experienced a broad spectrum of reactions to the images coming into my view on LIE.  At worst, they've ranged from "Who the hell is this ad for?  Billionaires?" to "God, that's just cheap and ugly!"  And at best, I have been pleasantly surprised by the resurrection of a high quality classic (Longines); awed by the first digital installation (FreshDirect); excited by the success of a small business (7 for All Mankind - unfortunately, they sold out to a global conglomerate VF within a couple of years); inspired by the social changes we have witnessed (Queer As Folk).    

Sadly, in the last couple of years my reaction range narrowed to one very intense sliver of irritation, but at least the billboards were largely occupied as recently as four months ago.  Imagine my surprise last weekend when I saw that less than 50% of the boards were actually covered by promo bills.  I don't think I've ever seen them like that.              

No, wait!  There was a period back in, I believe, 2012 when a lot of ads had to be taken down and boards dismantled due to the strict enforcement of the billboard laws related to the size and distance requirements.  But it is safe to assume that both the space owners and advertisers overcame the regulation hurdles, since, as I said, I just recently saw practically all billboards occupied.

So, that's not it.  What then?  Two things, really - the national impoverishment and the incurable social-media degeneracy.

You see, the billboards are not cheap.  It's not Super Bowl prices ($4.5 million for a 30-second spot this year), but still - an LIE billboard rents for about $30K per month.  And that's at the time when every single company that targets the consumer market with its goods or services MUST make room in their advertising budgets for GoogleAds (which also owns YouTube), iAds, facebook, Twitter, etc.  

Multiply that consideration by the wavering consumer confidence (I don't care what the "official" numbers are showing) compounded with the dwindling buying power and you come to the point when even the companies selling the highest volumes of consumer goods have to start making tough choices: whether to allocate $300K per year to a physical spot with a maximum of 210,000 possible views a day (LIE's 2014 auto throughput) or to a virtual spot tied to some viral YouTube video that generates 5 million views in 5 days. 

The empty spots along the expressway testify to the choices the companies are making.  It's totally opportunistic, of course.  Moreover, from my POV it's also totally short-sighted - there are so many existing and potential problems with online advertising, I intend to write a separate post on the subject.  It is possible that we are yet to see the times when advertisers will be fighting for the physical publicity spaces.  But for now, more and more billboards along the highways and on the City's buildings will go empty. 

I have a feeling that even the famous and fabulous digital screens at one of the most visited places in the world (50 million visitors a year), Times Square, may end up going dark at some point.  After all, nowadays the tourists and locals alike are mostly looking down at their electronic devices, not up.  So, it would be only fiscally prudent for the consumer-oriented companies to spend $1M-$4M a year (2015 rates) some place else.

And I find it very telling that the most gigantic (the whole block, 77 feet tall by 323 feet long, 20 pixels big) and the most expensive ($2.5 million for EVERY 4 WEEKS) LED advertising screen was taken by the company that makes billions on online advertising - Google.  They can actually afford it easily. 

Of course, the blank billboards are good news for graffiti artists like Rambo - more real estate for them! There is a poetic justice in that: the promotion of consumerism gets replaced by the guerrilla art.  Historically, the explosion of street art always went hand-in-hand with the economic downfalls.  That's why in the past it frequently (and expediently) turned into Prop Art - going from philosophical expressionism straight into political activism.  People should remember that as a valuable lesson in social science. 

In my opinion, it's not accidental that the crumbling of our ecological and socioeconomic environments coincides with the aesthetic degradation we are experiencing right now - when people bow to false idols and nepotistic, masturbatory garbage is passed as the "contemporary art" by the pushers from auction houses and big-name galleries.  I can only hope that real artists will fulfill their soul-changing mission and force people to look away from their little crack-emitting handheld displays and up at something awesome and powerful.          

WTF, Greece? Or The Luxurious Arrogance of Poverty

The funny thing is that I went to Greece precisely in the last moments of their Euro-backed temporary prosperity - in August of 2009.  By the end of that year, the Greek government had no choice but to come clean and admit that they "slightly" understated their national deficit, by like... 112%.  After that it all went down the hill and now we know where Greece really is - in deep shit.

It's a beautiful country!  Very beautiful and very proud of its history and culture, its ancient glory.  Sometimes to a fault, but that's another story.  Meanwhile, in this one I must say that, while our own Greek experience was nothing short of fantastic, we just knew that the shit will hit the fan pretty soon.  There were signs, both metaphorical and tangible.   

Towards the end of our trip, massive wildfires broke out in several areas.  On the morning of our drive to the Athens International Airport for the flight home, the vile smell of the scorched earth was already clinging to everything in the capital and its suburbs.  It felt as if we were escaping a cinematic doom, with the burning forests chasing us away.  Greeks and their theatrics! 

My fiscally attuned mind picked on far less dramatic, more subtle hints.  Small, but significant things; especially peculiar for a country that has an official status of "developed" and boasts "a high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living."

For example, practically every person we've met there had relatives in the US; and not second or third generation immigrants, but people who left in a past decade or so.  Since Greece has been a stable democracy for at least 35 years and it is pretty homogeneous racially, these people are obviously not political refugees.  Like for the majority of immigrants, their underlying reason for leaving the homeland is economic.

Also, there were scores people in their 50s and 60s who have already retired.  That actually could've been considered a sign of wealth, indicating significant personal savings.  Except that was not the case - all these people were relying on substantial government pensions.  Speaking of wealth, quite a few of more or less prosperous Greeks have businesses locally but reside in the US, Canada, Australia, and Germany, pulling substantial chunks of their capital out of their home country (Greece readily allows dual citizenship). 

The brand new (opened only two months before our arrival) Acropolis Museum, standing right next to the undergoing massive restorations Parthenon, simply blew my mind.  It is extraordinarily impressive!  With data from several sources I was able to estimate that,  between the museum and the archeological site, their owner, the Ministry of Culture, had spent $320 million (at the Euro/USD conversion rate of the time).  I wondered how a country of 11 million people with 2008 GDP smaller than Exxon Mobil's annual revenues could possibly afford such undertaking!  Well, it couldn't - the Greek government dipped into Eurozone lending pool to finance these projects.  And that brings us to the current stalemate.    

God!  There are so many economic, political, and social reviews out there on the subject of the Greek disaster, it would be just a waste of time to try to stick another two cents into the cacophony of bullshit prediction and "analytical" speculations.  Moreover, most commentators seem to be focused on the problem I've noticed back in 2009 and already pointed out above - the youngish pensioners.  So, what else there is to say?  Yet, I know a thing or two about countries that de facto belong to the third-world realm, but delude themselves into believing that they are big international players!  Hence, I may offer some additional insights. 

You see, average citizens don't get ideas of grandeur and prosperity out of thin air.  Every Emerald City has its own Wizard of Oz.  And those are always people of power with national (and international) reach; invariably they are all liars. 

With some nations (e.g. Russia) it's enough to bluntly smack green glasses of absolutely empty, never-ever fulfilled promises straight onto the noses of the countrymen and they will believe that they are surrounded by jewels.  In other countries, like Greece, the illusions must be more finessed - you actually have to give something tangible to people to make them believe that their lives can be no different than, let's say, in the Netherlands, or Sweden.  

As I said, it gets tricky:  In Scandinavian countries, citizens themselves are charged with an obligation to fund their state benefits through heavy income taxes.  But Greek politicians who rode to power on social programs have no resources like that - there is not enough domestic income to tax.  The national wealth is not real, it's just pretend.  What to do then?  Not to worry - it's all thought through: If your country is a Eurozone member, you have a shortcut - you can qualify for member loans (Acropolis, pensions, welfare - everything from the same Euro pot). 

The Prestige of this magic trick is this: in order to qualify the Greek government lied to everyone internally and externally - they falsified data, facts, statements and whatnot, obscuring the fact that the national wealth is not really there.  And no matter what people who benefited from thusly financed cushy social programs think, these opportunists had only their own personal interests and political aspirations in mind.

Of course now it is difficult to take any benefits away!  Greeks don't want to give them up.  Oh the luxurious arrogance of the poor!  They want to keep all their benefits and their pride intact at the same time - get their debts forgiven, receive more money.  They feel entitled! They are one of the oldest members of the Eurozone!  If their European comrades want to keep the Union intact, they will bite their tongues and save their Greek brother, no matter what!  Plus, no terms and conditions! 

This attitude manifested itself on 07/05, when 60% of the country voted in support of saying "No" to the bailout package that was on the table at the time.  The CNN Breaking News I've received that day said that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras hoped that

"this will force Europe to hand over more money with less austerity attached, and cancel some of Greece's enormous debt."

For a hot second there it seemed that pride will become the top priority; that they'd rather starve standing up then eat kneeling.  Greeks were celebrating in the streets of Athens.  Where is all that pride coming from amidst all the lying and data falsification?  And who can afford to be proud when your national economy is in a state commonly known as a "free fall" and your banking system is in a virtual shut down due to empty vaults?  I don't know.   

But then, only four days later, they retracted and accepted the original offer:  zero old debt forgiveness; the bailout in the conventional form of loans; compulsory pension cuts and tax increases to make sure that the Greek government can serve this new debt and the old debt, i.e. pay interest to the lending Euro-brothers.  And now Mr. Tsipras says "YES, PLEASE" and is willing to battle his own MPs to ratify the requirements into laws! 

Doesn't it all sound like some sort of a kindergarten (aka political) game of delusional children?  But hold up!  The conditional bailout is not a guarantee.  Will Greece pass all those mandatory economic reforms as laws?  Will the PM be able to pull through?  The 6 million Spartans may still have a chance to keep their grand stance instead.         

The unspoken truth is - if that what happens tomorrow, it will be the best possible outcome for the European Union.  I mean, none of the members can really afford this bailout (Remember? France wants to sell Mona Lisa to cover exactly 0.1% of its own national debt).  It would be a much better fiscal option for other countries to let Greece follow that Exit sign straight out of the Eurozone.  

Post Scriptum to Pseudoscience Post: Michael LaCour

A week ago I posted my comments on pseudo-economics  and a couple of days later someone drew my attention to Michael LaCour's mess.

That's right, I am not up to date on my bullshit news!  And if some of you are not either:  Michael LaCour is a political-science PhD aspirant at UCLA.  Last year, he successfully pushed through academic approvals and straight into mass media his research, which "empirically proved" that voters' opinions on gay marriage could be positively shifted based on a single 20-minite conversation with an LGBT person relating his/her story. 

Of course, it was a fake!  Not only the results were falsified, the entire study was a fiction.  As I was trying to explain in the previous post, there is a lot of this shit going on, especially in social sciences.  Surprisingly, it got exposed as a fraud within just one year!      

Oh, my!  What a case in point!  Or rather a case in multiple points I've been addressing from time to time.  Here are a few:

Point 1.  Nowadays, you can literally fake anything - data, documents, careers, personae and personalities, talents, beauty, courage, loyalty, honesty, news, finances, science, art, national histories, even entire lives, as long as you wrap it in an impressive package and  your lies hit the right spot in the target audience. The gullible, superficial, ignorant, and plain stupid majority of contemporary humans make terrifically fertile soil for all kind of schemers and fakers to sow their poisonous seeds.  What used to be a crime of skillful con artists and corrupt governments has become a way of life for quite a few people; many of them very successful and well known.        

Point 2.  Nobody is doing their job and/or paying attention.  It is impossible to count how many times I brought up this issue, both in writing and in conversations.  LaCour's blatant fakery passed with flying colors through multiple stages of mandatory academic, "accuracy-liable" reporting, and widespread public assessments.  Faculty advisers, peer reviewers, editors of research journals, social justice non-profits, mass-media reporters and their respective editors - they all accepted and approved the study's premise, methodology, findings, and conclusions.

Even LaCour's "co-author," Columbia University political science professor Donald Green didn't bother to check the validity of the data presented to him.  (This is how it works, by the way, in academia in all countries - you need some professor's name on your papers to get them published).  I can vividly see all these people, too impotent to engage any critical reasoning, speed-reading the first and the last 10 pages of the paper and being bedazzled by colorful charts and tables of numbers. 

Point 3.  Media and public perception will always prevail over reason and truth.  Because for the past several years gay marriage has been one of the hottest topics on the journalistic radar, publication of the study in Science magazine worked like a spark for the international print media engine.  As the result, the research was headlined in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Los Angeles Times, and This American Life. 

Because people read about it in these "respected" newspapers and magazines (oh, they've failed us so many times - but people don't want to learn), nobody questioned the fact that the study contradicted the times-proven concept that the vast majority of people tend to hold on to their social and political opinions regardless of what they read or hear.  Moreover, everyone's daily personal interactions are miniature studies in people's staunch stubbornness and inability to absorb opponents' arguments; alas, that was also ignored.

It takes an extraordinary power of persuasion of some very special people who possess illuminating brilliance of the mind, impressive oratory skills, and innate guruship (all of it at the same time) to alter minds and souls.  And I don't think you can find 100 of those in Los Angeles, or the entire state of California, or any single nation.  Hell, let me be honest - I think it would be hard to find 100 people like that on this entire planet.

Yet, the confused liberal do-gooders got so excited about the "scientifically proven" possibility of influencing potential voters through a simple tool of a 20-minute conversation, many of them shook their donors' wallets and scraped their budget barrels in order to fund multiple LGBT canvasing projects.  Are you ready?  Ireland's Yes Campaign publicly connects the successful legalization of gay marriage in that country six weeks ago to their use of LaCour's paper as a template in targeting conservative voters with personal stories' recounts.  Not the years of political struggle, constitutional law reviews, tremendous cultural shifts of the past 20 years affecting generations of people in many countries, but one single (and short) conversation!      

Point 4.  Common sense is all you need to see the truth.  (It's getting to be my mantra, isn't it?)  David Brookman, another graduate student at University of California (only in Berkley, not LA) took a quick look at some of the input data presented in LaCour's research and went like, "What the fuck?"  Or something to that effect - I wasn't really there.  He didn't need any heavy investigative machinery or extensive computer modeling - just simple arithmetic in his head: 10,000 of "recorded" contacts at a disclosed incentives of $100 a pop, that's... $1,000,000!!!  Who the hell funded this scientifically uncertain PhD research in the first place?  (The fact that nobody, not even the co-author, has put two and two together before Brookman did literally makes my blood boil.)  And was it some highly reputable survey organization that handled this substantial sum?  Nah, the name didn't ring any bells, like at all.  After that it was just unspooling the lies.  

Point 5.  The unrepairable damage of pseudoscientific bullshit.  They come in different shapes and forms, and they can manifest themselves right away or in the distant future, but there is no question about it - nothing good ever comes out of pseudoscience and falsified research.  Whether it's Nazi's eugenics providing foundation for racial extermination, or "medical cures" of homosexuality destroying lives, or pulp sci-fi replacing healthcare and education for millions of people around the world - some terrible fallout always follows. 

Without getting all preachy and embarking on a rant about the amorality of LaCour's con, let me instead mention its two more tangible negative outcomes.  

As soon as the fraud was exposed,  The Wall Street Journal (one of the original heralds of the "revolutionary" findings), in a typical swing to the other extreme, gave its editorial page to some conservative "scientists" to vent their righteous indignation.  These theoreticians, of course, couldn't possibly miss the opportunity to denounce all of social science (I guess, that includes Economics) as unscientific and nothing more than "liberal wishful thinking." 

Because so many civil-rights advocacy groups associated themselves with LaCour's bullshit and, as I mentioned before, spent gifted, bequeathed, and granted funds replicating the experiment that never was, they discredited themselves as organizations and people who didn't know what they were doing.  Even staunch supporters feel embarrassed by those leaders who succumbed to someone's unscrupulous methods of advancing their academic careers.  I am guessing, a few non-profit heads will roll.

And truthfully I cannot possibly feel sorry for these fools.  Just like I didn't feel sorry for Bernie Madoff's victims.  These people want to hear the "good news" so badly, they become eager and willing participants in these not-so-clever schemes.   

Graphic Quote of the Week: Pseudo-Economics at Its Worst

Before I go any further let me first declare that I don't believe in abstract economic research.  I never did.  Even when I was working on my PhD, I concentrated on Applied Economics, developing large-scale cost models for the industrial sector.  

Come to think of it, I don't believe in studies for the sake of "pure knowledge" in mathematics and the entire spectrum of natural sciences either.  I think that the virtue of abstract thoughts is affordable only in Philosophy, her sister Poetry, and Fine Arts.  After all, the creation of original ideas is the entire purpose of the imaginative process; and all it needs is one genius mind. 

Yet, humans as a species are so fucking insecure and self-centered!  They constantly need reassurance that they are smarter than they really are.  So, they "study" everything there is because they simply "must know" and not because it can help our planet to survive or make a single thing better in this world.  As a result, vast resources are spent on absolutely irrelevant bullshit and poor trees are cut down to bear endless dissertations, monograms, articles in fat journals, etc.  Nobody, except the assigned reviewers, reads, and, more importantly, can possibly put to use any of that crap.   I would like to ask these people, "So, you've discovered, dissected, and analyzed this.  Now what?" 

And that's assuming the actual "discovery" is made and proven, which is, as you can imagine, is not a frequent case.     

Enters the graph above.  My friend texted it to me.  I stared at my phone's screen for two seconds and was like, "Hmm, this is fascinating!"  Seeing that the graph was posted by Economist.com, I looked it up.  It turned out to be a part of a "research" paper Forbidden Fruits: The Political Economy of Science, Religion, and Growth (no less!) collectively conceived by a Princeton "scientist" and his two Italian colleagues out of the IMT Institute for Advanced Studies.

[FYI (so you don't have to look it up):  IMT Institute for Advanced Studies is a research establishment and a graduate school located in Lucca, Italy.  It primarily specializes in various branches of economic and computer sciences.  Note, this is where Princeton and Italy's highest ranked institution for economic studies allocate their grants.  I mean, right now!]

The paper was published by American National Bureau of Economic Research and, according to the Economist's note accompanying the graph, the authors explicitly claim to find "a strong negative correlation between innovation, as measured by patents, and religiosity, measured by the share of a population that self-identifies as religious."    

Huh? What? Where? And WHY? Are you looking at your own graph, gentlemen?  Well, I am.  And if I had to focus my disbelief in just a few most problematic areas, I would have to holler:           

1.  How is this research in the subject of Economics?  By definition, Economics as a branch of social science deals with structures and forces that drive production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.  While religiosity is definitely a factor in consumption patterns, innovations by themselves (especially the number of filed patents per capita) do not necessarily have direct or even indirect correlation with production and distribution.  In fact, in isolation this statistic doesn't mean much at all.  More on this below. 

2.  How did these people even come up with the idea for this research?  With all social, political, and economic problems this world is facing, this was deemed crucial  - to find if religious people can produce as many, more, or less patents as atheists?  More importantly, what was the thesis?  That religion is invariably bad for innovations and economic development? The commentary to the chart in The Economist states that "the authors do not claim to prove that religion causes an innovation deficit."  No?  Then why the said commentary is titled No Inspiration From Above?  Such, liars!  I think that's exactly what they were trying to show - that being religious stuns one's creativity; that every political leader who believes in God will force anti-scientific polices.  Such unscientific absolutism!  I wish I could ask them face to face: Do you know anything about the history of innovations?  The majority of the greatest innovators from 1400's through early 20th century were believers of various degrees.  Even the Man of Proof and Reason himself, Leonardo, did not deny God's existence.   

3.  Whatever cockamamie tangent cross-sectioned sub-sub-branch of science these  narrow specialists are trying to plow, what were the purpose and application of this exercise?   What were they trying to achieve with this research?  How did they plan to impact the world?  Let's assume for a second that they've found an undeniable inverse correlation between a country's religiosity and level of innovation.  What's then?  Cancel religion?  Some countries already tried that, as students of history know.  Agitate people to overthrow their governments for the sake of scientific progress?  There are more important causes to start revolutions.   

4.  You realize, of course, that, in spite of the declining straight line, obnoxiously and arbitrarily drawn through the graph to force their point of view, these pseudo-scientists actually did not prove their preposterous thesis.  There is nothing wrong with that per se, of course.  The prevalent majority of well-financed research projects end in disproving the original theories and hypotheses.  That's how science works.  By its standards, negative results are just as important as absolute proves.  The problem here is that these particular researchers lie to themselves believing that they came to a positive conclusion.  Well, not to my eye.

According to the graph, the least religious country in the world (and the most populated), China, has the same number of patents per capita as the unspecified cluster of Central & Eastern European countries, whose overwhelming majority of citizens (over 95%) believe in God, and Iran (!).  India (nearly 80% religiosity) and Vietnam (less than 40%) are on the same level of "innovation"; so are Egypt and Uruguay.       

But, of course, the country that completely throws this bullshit study into garbage is the United States of America.  Our patents rate is in the third place after Japan and South Korea (even I was surprised to see that we lead Germany and UK), while, judging by the high percentage of believers, our closest peer should've been Guatemala.  

The truth is that if some diligent scientists actually wanted to model the major influences affecting, not innovativeness, which is too broad of a concept, but such specific parameter as the number of government-approved patents, they would have to consider an interwoven complex of factors: social and political structures, distribution of wealth, percentage of GDP re-invested into scientific research, specifics of university systems, extent of fundraising and philanthropy, the existence of entrepreneurial culture, economic mixture (particularly industrial vs. agricultural ratio), the percentage of people who can be motivated on the higher levels of Maslow hierarchy of needs, etc.  And, of course, religiosity, but only as a part of the synthesis.

And one cannot ignore the mundane fact that in some of the sampled countries the patent laws are outdated and the processing bureaucracy is unmanageable.  There might be thousands of applications in those countries that will not see the light of day for decades. 

In all objectivity, though, I cannot dismiss this illustration as completely useless.  As a compilation of data it piqued my curiosity about a few items of information. 

The position of Russia on the chart, for example, shocked me - and not because of their closeness to France and Australia in the number of patents per person, but because of their level of religiosity.  How the hell this country that spent 74 years exterminating God and his devotees with fire and blood, destroying 99% of places of worship and executing priests, rabbis, and imams like mad dogs, in just 24 years since the fall of the Soviet Union shot itself into the 75 percentile of population identifying themselves as religious?         

By the way, all those patents registered in that country (a lot considering its population) mean absolutely nothing in terms of both macro and micro-economics.  Russians are famous for inventing new stuff at their kitchen tables and building prototypes.  None of it ends up in the production because everyone over there, including the entire government, lives for a quick buck, not long-term investment of resources.     

Another thing that kept teasing my attention was the apparent strong potential for innovative achievement in the US; and that despite the pervasive nepotism and escalating irrelevance of merit.  Can you imagine what we could've accomplished here if we continued to uphold the fundamental principles of the original American Dream ethos? 

Joke of the Day: Are You Fracking Kidding Me?

One of the walls in the lobby of the building where my office is located is entirely covered by multiple monitors.  Together they work as one giant HD screen.  This is what techies call a video wall.  To the best of my knowledge its primary feed is CNBC.

Most days when I leave the office I see in passing Jim Cramer still going Mad about Money. But today I had to leave a little earlier and the only money manager ever to tell the general public not to use their retirement and college funds for stock-market speculations wasn't on yet.  

I have no idea what was on, but from the corner of my eye I saw flashing on the screen

EARTHQUAKES ARE LINKED TO FRACKING?

Eh, dah!  Are you fucking kidding me?  Is that even a question?  Who the fuck told these people that they could rape the Earth every each way and not to hear her scream?

I am glad, though, that it was there, hanging on the wall for a minute - at least someone in the prime media is talking about this abhorrent crime.    

Musings Over People's Deficiencies, or the Division of Labor Extreme

A few weeks ago, this young artist I know went to a party - a sort of a mingling of, let's say (trying to be as vague as possible), people in creative fields.  Afterwards, I asked her how it went and the first thing that I got back was actually a rhetorical question: "Why do people suck so bad at organizing things?"

Turns out the party was arranged by a couple of guys who were "minglers" themselves and volunteered to spearhead the process; apparently, with an unsatisfactory result.  I can hear some of my readers saying with all-knowing intonations, "This is why you outsource to professional event-planners or employ support staffers with event-organizing responsibilities."

And they are correct.  I rarely go to parties myself, but the last two I attended were a huge Gala (over 700 people) and a small Gala (250 people).  The former was put together by a "big-name" event-planning firm and the latter by the event chairman's personal assistant.  Well, those were pretty large affairs with complicated programs and minor celebrities in attendance.  But a regular cocktail and/or dinner party? 

To tell you the truth, every time people start calling expensive coordinators to manage some itty-bitty occasion I have the same mental image: Steve Martin's remade father of the bride questioning his wife (Diane Keaton) on why two people who successfully run independent businesses need any help in putting together a wedding; let alone help of some guy with an unidentifiable accent (Martin Short) and his smug assistant (BD Wong, which is uncanny, cause he was one of the celebrity guests at that big gala I mentioned above).  

You probably think, "Why don't you try it yourself?"  So, let me assure you that I do have experience of rolling up my sleeves and stepping into party-planning when nobody else around is up to the task; most recently for a celebratory corporate festivity for my company with 80 guests.  And, yes, I am a control freak (at least I admit it) and sometimes it is a contributing factor into my taking charge of things, but honestly it was either doing it myself or wasting thousands of dollars on outsourcing. 

Let me remind you that I am a career CFO with multiple interests - I don't do parties, professionally or as a hobby.  Yet, 18 months later people are still talking about it.  And I promise you I didn't do anything out of the ordinary - I simply approached the problem in a logical and systematic way.  That was the very reason the project fell into my lap in the first place - people always rely on my common sense.

But that's a rare commodity nowadays, common sense, isn't it?  And the lack of it causes the trend of ultra-narrow specialization we observe today.  I am not surprised at all that those artistic types couldn't organize a decent party.  Haven't you noticed?  The majority of people around you are good primarily at one thing (if they are good at anything at all): performing their paying jobs, or looking pretty, or being social, or shopping, or cooking.  A person who is "good with people," usually sucks with numbers.  The hard-working breadwinners are mostly useless in their households.  Overwhelming number of people don't even have hobbies these days.  And those with fun-and-leisure faves are too preoccupied to do well at work.

And don't even get me started on the narrow professional specialization cultivated by headhunters and HR specialists too limited to comprehend the concept of adaptable competence!  They perverted the idea of "transferable skills" into exact matches of specific employment in a specific type of company of a specific industry.  Instead of assessing whether an applicant is capable of applying his expertise to ANY business situation they go through a checklist of specialized tasks.  You may be the strongest professional they've ever met, but if you don't collect enough check marks on the roster of narrowly defined projects, you will not be considered.  

How can we be surprised then that people are losing their capacity for systematic thinking both at work and life when they are stuck doing the same shit over and over again?  I'll tell you a secret: I never hire anybody whose resume shows 20 or even 10 years of static employment, no matter how "prestigious" it is.  Adaptability is one of my top 10 key factors of the value assessment.  I like my Renaissance people!             

The scary level of targeted specialization we have reached at this point is not evolutionary or revolutionary; and it's not economically beneficial and "progressive."  This is the aftermath of the intellectual (and physical) laziness that spreads into larger and larger segments of the general population like a pandemic.  The spoiled brats from all kinds of walks of life don't want to do elementary things themselves; they demand to be served, and, the shrinking minority of  enterprising people take the opportunity to supply such services - the natural laws of supply and demand are still struggling against nothingness.

On the opposite side from the utmost lethargy, but causing exactly the same regressively narrow results, is the other extreme - that glorified "focus" on your job and the job only.  Well, mental health specialists define the intense preoccupation with a narrow subject or activity as one of the main characteristics of Asperger syndrome.  And that's a mental disorder! 

Evolutionary speaking, we were never supposed to be this labor-differentiated, because  diverting the responsibilities for all your needs to others humans undercuts your personal chance for survival.  I am not talking pro-level pilotage in every task of life, of course, but there is basic shit you should be able to do yourself! 

And yes, that includes coordinating a simple gathering of people to everyone's satisfaction if the need arises.  I am not saying "Met Gala" with spectacular celebrities, but an ordinary function for 100 regular schmucks should be pretty manageable.

The same goes, as another example, for vacation planning.  One should be capable of tailoring his own decent vacation without paying for some generic package thrown together by an absent-minded leisure-industry professional who knows nothing about you and your companions.

And you should be able to make your place of residence livable without paying $300K fees to a "professional decorator" who will additionally charge you $50K for each made-in-China table lamp that you can buy at Lamp Warehouse in Brooklyn for $3K.  I am not saying Architectural Digest spreads, just a tasteful arrangement of furniture and some tchotchkes that make you feel at home.

And there is no need to call a handyman for bulb-changing, or picture-hanging, or installing a new toilet seat.  Unless, of course, it's a multifunctional state-of-the-art accessory that you've got yourself from Japan via Amazon.  I am not talking about using dangerous power tools to carve a brand-new lock into your door either - such types of amateur endeavors are reserved for very special people, but at least buy yourself a screwdriver.

And I am sorry, mathematically challenged people, but it is not funny anymore that you cannot (and don't want to) balance your checkbooks.  In the age of electronic payments, smart-phone deposits, massive hacking attacks, and readily available devices that can remotely override the security of every plastic item in your wallet, it is really dangerous not to reconcile your cash ins and outs with the bank records.  It's not a goddamned Newton's binomial theorem either!  Just pure arithmetic!  

And green thumb or not, one should be able to plant a seed and tend to it with sufficient care and persistence until it flowers or bears fruit.  Nobody is expecting award-winning roses and pluots here, but carrots, tomatoes, and onions can be managed by a child.

And not being able to cook a simple meal for yourself?  That's just pathetic!  What the hell are you going to do in the absence of the online orders and take-outs?  Chew raw pasta?

Yet, we hear all around us:

"I am totally retarded when it comes to cooking.  I can't even boil an egg!"

Or, "I wouldn't be able to sew a button to save my life!"

That "save my life" turn of phrase is not accidental, by the way.  The day may come when it can have a very literal meaning. 

"Civilized" Overpopulation and Epidural

Some time ago, I posted here a video quote of the Gates Foundations' family-planning message.  I mean, you say "family planning" and I will acknowledge your efforts, no matter how feeble, superficial, and confusedly motivated.  Yet, it's important for me to clarify that my own position on family planning is a bit stronger and much wider than those of the philanthropists behind the cute video.  Essentially, the title I chose for the animated citation intended to hint on my personal focus - after all, I did use words like "Key to Economic and Social Survival."

You see, the majority of charitable efforts and government aids are focused on the prevention of unwanted births and directed at either the "third-world" countries or our own domestic lower-income classes.  This is because the predominant idea behind these undertakings, granted too radical for Catholics and the conservative right, is still incredibly human-centric and terribly inadequate with respect to the ecological and other planetary concerns. 

It is basically limited to one straightforward notion that those who cannot afford to provide multiple children with sufficient sustenance, housing, clothing, education, and information technology shouldn't have them (the children).  So, disadvantaged people in poor countries and counties should stop reproducing (and they should, no question about it!), so that the emissaries of the bleeding rich hearts would stop sending to their bosses the unpleasant images of starving, sick, infested, and dying children.  Meanwhile, nobody is paying attention to the violent overpopulation crimes committed against our precious Earth not in some far away land but in so-called centers of "civilization."  

12 years ago my place of residence, a Manhattan high-rise, was famous for having more pets than children.  Today, the building is flooded with infants, toddlers, preschoolers, preteens, and teenagers.  Only after midnight you can pass through the lobby without stumbling into well-off pro-choice parents with the broods of two, three, even four children.   

Practically every single business owner I ever worked with has three children (I swear!).  How about the democratic billionaire couple that cares so much about the family planning in underdeveloped countries, i.e. Bill and Melinda Gates?  How many children do they have?  You guessed it - three! And their philanthropic cohort Warren Buffett?  Also three!  It's some sort of a magic fucking number!  And the funny thing is, they probably think that they are doing right by the Planet - they can afford a whole school of children, but they limited themselves to "just three!"  

So, now let me tell you what I think.  It is my firm believe that in the current state of ecological deterioration, unstoppable depletion of natural and fiscal resources, exponential mental and emotional degeneration of an average human, complete disappearance of merit principles, and overwhelming crumbling of social liberties - it is nothing short of a crime for anybody (and I mean, ANYBODY) to have more than one child!   

This is simple arithmetic, folks:  Why the hell my one child must share air with these endless triple offsprings?  Use your imagination for a second and replace those triples and duos with ones - how much air, food, resources, personal attention, and devotion would we have per each individual child then?  I don't know about you, but this mental picture seems like a much healthier and somewhat less doomed present and future to me. 

I cannot even begin to describe how angry these fucking people with multiple children make me, regardless of who they are - those with sufficient household wealth and those who keep popping them out because our federal and state governments throw our taxes at them (the more dependents, the higher the welfare payments); those who claim that they do it for God and those who "cement their marriages" using babies as cinder blocks. 

And, of course, I always fumed at fertility doctors endlessly pollinating multiple eggs with abundant sperm to ensure successful fertilization, thus exponentially increasing the probability of twin, triple, and even quadruple births.  But, as it turns out, the doctors, who take upon themselves the appalling task of correcting Nature and giving children to people who were meant to have none, are not the worst of medical offenders against our Planet. 

The whims of my life spared me from being exposed to child-bearing and births for the past 20 years.  As a result, I was sheltered from the macabre reality of what I can only call a large-scale bolstering of "civilized" overpopulation.  Until the last year that is, when one of my subordinates got pregnant for the first time.

We are fairly close and she frequently asks for my advice on matters outside of our professional relationship.  So, in the last trimester she approached me with the following: "My doctor asked me if I wanted Epidural." "Why?" I asked innocently, "You are not having a C-section."  She shrugged her shoulders, "Well, they give it to everyone who doesn't want the pain now.  And they've been doing it for years.  But I've read it's not good for the baby."

What???!!!  They give it to everyone?  Even to healthy young women who are built to go through natural labor without any complications?  No wonder these people think nothing of having one child after another.  Why not? But do they ever dwell on a pretty obvious concept that there might be a reason why Mother Nature intended for the birth of a child to be a labor of pain and love?  And don't even get me started on what all these drug-induced and anesthetic-aided infant extractions (you cannot seriously call them labors at this point) do to these newborn humans. 

Obviously, these parents don't care much about the future of their children.  And it's not shocking to me that the drug-pushing doctors and their sponsors, i.e. big pharma, don't care about the survival of their own descendants either.  It should be, but it's not.  The opportunism has become the blinding principle of everyone's existence and it always prevails - all they care about is their bank accounts' balances today!  As they say in French, Apres Moi, le deluge (After me comes the flood)!

And here is another angle.  The conveyor birthing and ballooning families are among the main causes for the perpetually increasing health insurance rates.  Do you realize that in addition to the terrible effect they have on the global environment and economics, these multi-child families are basic larcenists?  Daily they steal hard-earned money from single individuals and one-child parents who are forced to pay exorbitant premiums inflated by these thieves.

I thought that I would never align my interests with those of any big public organization, but in the fight for our Planet's survival any allies count, even those who take the right actions for the wrong reasons.  In their unyielding pursuit of stock "value" inflation, health insurers do whatever they can to assist those who want to stay childless or keep their families small: a vasectomy is covered 100%, so is a once a year abortion performed by a network provider.  Obviously, in the long run these procedures are far more economical than prenatal care, birth, child healthcare, etc., etc. 

Thus, inadvertently, the insurance companies actually contribute to the fight against overpopulation.  But they can do more!  How about they stop covering the goddamn epidural administered to absolutely healthy women?  The last I've heard, each shot costs about $2,000.  So, c'mon HMO, let them feel it, both in their pockets and, as Nature intended, in their birth canals.  Maybe this will make at least some of them to stop at #1.