How to make a small fortune

It's the lede for an old joke: how do you make a small fortune? The punchline is "take a large fortune and buy an X", where X might be vineyard, sailboat, whatever. Increasingly it seems, that X might be "college education". Now, I'm no college hater -- I'm that particular kind of masochist that soldiered on through grad school to PhD, and in the process may have burned a few dollars in opportunity cost, but I was getting paid to do research in science and happened to learn a few empirically verifiable items along the way. Fortunately for me, the rise of the "studies" major, while certainly present, had not reached its apparent ubiquity, voice, and venom. The problem with "studies" majors is that they are based upon subjective material that's validated in a closed loop of like-minded "academics" which makes any criticism impossible, because if you disagree, you simply don't understand. I am not the only person to make this observation.

The problem lies not so much that they exist -- certain academics will do whatever -- but that they consume (lots of) money to indoctrinate students into a fantasy world mythology, leaving them four (or five (or six (or more))) years later with a mountain of debt and no practical skills or insight into how the real world actually works and how it got the way it is. This most certainly *not* a critique of history, or philosophy, or English majors, which are grounded in the actual world and its experience, though I would caution kids to select these sorts of majors carefully. For those for whom it's a good fit, they can be very rewarding and edifying, and I'd recommend them for consideration of a double major, preferably complementing physics (I am biased). We don't need everyone to be, nor should everyone be, a physics major, major in STEM, etc., but they shouldn't major in "shit people just make up".

Not only are many "studies" majors bogus, they're dangerously anti-social and destructive. Depending on where you fit in the intersectionality hierarchy of oppression, you are simply not able to understand anything related to people in other locations in the hierarchy. If understanding is impossible, then discussion is useless, and there can be no "solution", though it seems some people think revolution is an option.

The Treasury and the Arms

The Treasury and the Arms

A Public Treasury, feeling Two Arms lifting out its contents, exclaimed:

"Mr. Shareman, I move for a division."

"You seem to know something about parliamentary forms of speech," said the Two Arms.

"Yes," replied the Public Treasury, "I am familiar with the hauls of legislation."

- 30 -

I like the double entendré of "Arms".

The Thoughtful Warden

The Thoughtful Warden

The Warden of a Penitentiary was one day putting locks on the doors of all the cells when a mechanic said to him:

“Those locks can all be opened from the inside—you are very imprudent.”

The Warden did not look up from his work, but said:

“If that is called imprudence, I wonder what would be called a thoughtful provision against the vicissitudes of fortune.”

- 30 -

James Comey read his Bierce, I'm sure. And his Princess Bride, too. He knew something that Trump didn't know...

The Politicians

The Politicians

An Old Politician and a Young Politician were travelling through a beautiful country, by the dusty highway which leads to the City of Prosperous Obscurity.  Lured by the flowers and the shade and charmed by the songs of birds which invited to woodland paths and green fields, his imagination fired by glimpses of golden domes and glittering palaces in the distance on either hand, the Young Politician said:

“Let us, I beseech thee, turn aside from this comfortless road leading, thou knowest whither, but not I.  Let us turn our backs upon duty and abandon ourselves to the delights and advantages which beckon from every grove and call to us from every shining hill.  Let us, if so thou wilt, follow this beautiful path, which, as thou seest, hath a guide-board saying, ‘Turn in here all ye who seek the Palace of Political Distinction.’”

“It is a beautiful path, my son,” said the Old Politician, without either slackening his pace or turning his head, “and it leadeth among pleasant scenes.  But the search for the Palace of Political Distinction is beset with one mighty peril.”

“What is that?” said the Young Politician.

“The peril of finding it,” the Old Politician replied, pushing on.

- 30 -

What we have these days are nothing but Occupiers of the Palace of Political Distinction these days. The City of Prosperous Obscurity, well, is largely a theoretical construct as far as modern American politics are concerned above a certain level. Many of the counties in the US are larger than small countries and many of the states are more important on the world scene than many of the middlin' to not-so-middlin' size countries. Hell, all of this damn fool talk of the Russian Bear, our own Golden Bear, Cali-fuckin'-fornia, has about twice the GDP as Russia. Jerry Brown should tell the Italians to get TF out of the G7 and take their place. Russia has nukes, so you got to give them those props, but Italy has great wine, hot coffee (and good!), and, Sophia Loren (thank you, Italy! Really, thank you), but that doesn't mean it can punch with the Golden Bear.

Once upon a time, in a land that never existed, politicians might have cared about stuff like the City of Prosperous Obscurity (I think Marcus Aurelius might have, going with our Roman/Italian thing), but in the age of Trump, he's pushed it up to 11...

Yeah, kinda, arbitrary, but it's a great scene from a great movie, and the YouTube video was posted 11-11-11... Well, the Palace of Political Distinction is all around us now. The Saudis are going to try to squeeze on the Qataris? Well, that's all fine and good, but the Yanks and the Brits like to park their planes at Al Udeid Air Base, which, oh by the way, is in Qatar. They may have stepped in it with this, especially with ISIL/ISIS/Daesh attacking Iran, making clearer (though people are goddamned resistant to evidence) that while Iran may sponsor terrorists (elements of Hizballah, supposedly Muslim Brotherhood, but I suspect that's very tactical as opposed to the deeper ties with Hizballah), they oppose ISIL pretty damn vigorously, and Saudi and their Sunni Gulf state posse are much more responsible for ISIL and the terrorism that people around the world deal with than does Iran. The problem is once poke your head up, some one takes a poke at your head.

Thank you, Ambrose Bierce, for another Fantastic Fable.

The Moral Sentiment

The Moral Sentiment

A Pugilist met the Moral Sentiment of the Community, who was carrying a hat-box.  “What have you in the hat-box, my friend?” inquired the Pugilist.

“A new frown,” was the answer.  “I am bringing it from the frownery—the one over there with the gilded steeple.”

“And what are you going to do with the nice new frown?” the Pugilist asked.

“Put down pugilism—if I have to wear it night and day,” said the Moral Sentiment of the Community, sternly.

“That‘s right,” said the Pugilist, “that is right, my good friend; if pugilism had been put down yesterday, I wouldn’t have this kind of Nose to-day.  I had a rattling hot fight last evening with—”

“Is that so?” cried the Moral Sentiment of the Community, with sudden animation.  “Which licked?  Sit down here on the hat-box and tell me all about it!”

- 30 -

Yep. Poor Moral Sentiment. Invincible absent of Temptation, but remarkably weak in his presence. I don't even mean to make fun of Trump much but I find that picture so surreal and I had to use it. Moral Sentiments far stronger than the ones supposed to live in Trump crumble not only to Temptation, but to Political Correctness. What's much stronger is Immoral Sentiment whose effect is expressed the Political Correctness that works so effectively against Moral Sentiment. I'm sure the faculty of Evergreen who sided with Snowflakes otherwise would have thought an attempt at a civil discourse is something that might be seen as an opportunity to engage and learn in theory, but no so in practice.

Sigh.

How Leisure Came

How Leisure Came

A Man to Whom Time Was Money, and who was bolting his breakfast in order to catch a train, had leaned his newspaper against the sugar-bowl and was reading as he ate.  In his haste and abstraction he stuck a pickle-fork into his right eye, and on removing the fork the eye came with it.  In buying spectacles the needless outlay for the right lens soon reduced him to poverty, and the Man to Whom Time Was Money had to sustain life by fishing from the end of a wharf.

- 30 -

This is some of Bierce at his best. You could almost imagine a scene where Bierce wrote the body and asked Hemingway what the title should be, and Ernest said "The Birth of Leisure". Bierce liked it, but in his obsession with concision went with How Leisure Came. I loved Bierce as a child, and I do mean wee bairn, my appreciation has only increased.

The applicability to the first hundred days, now past, of the current Administration does seem to bear a modern reflection of Bierce's imagery and absurdity. Now, not every member of the Trump administration is unfamiliar with Constitutional law and what Article 2 vests in the President (hint: all executive power), so they should have been swinging at the "travel ban" as a fat, middle-of-the-plate, home run derby pitched ball. And maybe they did. Maybe this is all just virtue-signaling. Ditto "repeal-and-replace". Maybe it's all really just kabuki and no one gives a good goddamn about symbolic shit like "Muslim ban!" or tilting at windmills like promising 72 registered nurses in the health care afterlife that will be after they get the budgeting and exchanges and how it'll all be paid for figured out (I don't *know* the big picture, but there are several dollars devoted to nothing particularly productive in the "defense" budget to be had). It makes for good entertainment, if you have the stomach for it. I will leave you with new take on A Man for Whom Time was Money...

Paul Romer out at World Bank. I think they fired the wrong person.

Via Roslyn Petelin's article (please read), I found the Bloomberg article describing Romer's ouster at World Bank. From the sound of it, Romer didn't like the self-referential, obscure bankspeak bloviation that was being generated by the World Bank economists, and asked that they write more clearly and directly. And, yeah, stop publishing stupid irrelevant journals.

A bunch of insular, bureaucratic careerists happy to keep-on, keepin'-on with no view to effectiveness or relevance, versus someone who asks them to make it clear what the value of their work is by clearer prose and more focused presentations.

Uh oh. I think we know where that is going to go, a priori.

And it did!

I think they fired the wrong person.

PS: Serendipity to me to Petelin's article as the first thing I read after "coining" the Orwellian knock-off bureauspeak and was treated to bankspeak internal bureauspeak gibberish of World Bank economists. It's a symptom of the detachment of academics from public readership and engagement.