Want to get rich? Are you in the right field and in the right position?
At Forbes, Robert Lenzner in a somewhat dated but surely still "current" article, writes that The Top 25 Hedge Fund Managers Earn More Than All the 500 Top CEOs Together.
And, we might add, those CEOs are already vastly overpaid.
Why does society permit these gross inequalities and what does it gain us?
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
New York Times Editorial Board Wrong Once Again As Regards Apple, Inc. Failure to Abide by Court Order
What is it about the current New York Times Editorial Board that they sometimes seem so demonstrably misguided in their main editorials?
What has happened to the common sense of this group?
They have done it again in their editorial about Why Apple Is Right to Challenge an Order to Help the F.B.I.
One of the reasons that we do not subscribe to the NY Times is because we do not want to support this kind of errant thinking and surely well-meaning but clearly misguided newspaper publishing and editorializing.
What is the argumentative basis for the editorial? Is there any?!
In fact, the Editorial Board has a very weak position in thinking that it is UNREASONABLE to require Apple, Inc. to abide by the court order. The Editorial Board alleges that it would place an undue BURDEN on the giant commercial profit-making company that is rolling in cash.
Really? a BURDEN? More unreasonable than when the government compels a normal citizen to do any number of things ? that we do not list here, because everyone knows good examples of government compulsion.
Are the big guys exempt from obeying court orders? Not in our book.
We have read over past years in the mainstream media that Apple has more cash in the bank than even the U.S. federal government, which is no surprise. Apple pays virtually no domestic taxes, exploits labor overseas which would be contrary to child and other labor laws in the USA and stores its profits overseas, so that taxes do not have to be paid into the U.S. Treasury. Rather, the company is systematically plundering the nation.
All of that has not prohibited Apple at the same time from shamelessly using American legal infrastructure profusely to further its own profit-making ends, a costly endeavor paid for by your average and we think quite clueless taxpayer.
Just what "unreasonable" BURDEN is the Editorial Board talking about?
In fact, the editorial board has NO IDEA AT ALL how easy or difficult it would be for Apple, Inc. to abide by the court order, a fact which does not keep the writers of the editorial from engaging in all kinds of idle speculation about what Apple would have to do to abide by the court's order.
NONSENSE.
We think it very likely that Apple already has the technical means and knowledge on hand to obey the court order virtually immediately, but they refuse to do so, for greedy profit-making motives, that is all.
People do not sincerely think that companies on the scale of Apple, Inc. devise encryption methods that even they themselves do not know how to break, and even to accomplish that quickly. They know its ins and outs.
Obviously, any encryption method has to be tested thoroughly by a company before it is implemented. They know where and how to bypass the encryption, if necessary. There is always a back door -- in case something goes wrong, and a back door has to exist during software and hardware development, otherwise they would lock themselves out and could not finish the project.
Why not ask point blank just how much time it would take to comply with the court order and what it would cost -- with an honest answer demanded, and with perjury as the penalty for lying.
An "unreasonable burden" for Apple, Inc.?
Not on this planet.
Besides, a strong President of the United States could easily issue an executive order and nationalize the company Apple, Inc. for as long as it takes to comply with the court order, thus putting the company under government auspices and rendering any private Apple, Inc. contrary arguments moot. A strong executive has that power -- courts and legislatures notwithstanding.
There is a reason why outsiders are dominating the Presidential election process thus far. People are fed up with our weak political leaders and with a legal system that has lost all semblance of common sense.
What has happened to the common sense of this group?
They have done it again in their editorial about Why Apple Is Right to Challenge an Order to Help the F.B.I.
One of the reasons that we do not subscribe to the NY Times is because we do not want to support this kind of errant thinking and surely well-meaning but clearly misguided newspaper publishing and editorializing.
What is the argumentative basis for the editorial? Is there any?!
In fact, the Editorial Board has a very weak position in thinking that it is UNREASONABLE to require Apple, Inc. to abide by the court order. The Editorial Board alleges that it would place an undue BURDEN on the giant commercial profit-making company that is rolling in cash.
Really? a BURDEN? More unreasonable than when the government compels a normal citizen to do any number of things ? that we do not list here, because everyone knows good examples of government compulsion.
Are the big guys exempt from obeying court orders? Not in our book.
We have read over past years in the mainstream media that Apple has more cash in the bank than even the U.S. federal government, which is no surprise. Apple pays virtually no domestic taxes, exploits labor overseas which would be contrary to child and other labor laws in the USA and stores its profits overseas, so that taxes do not have to be paid into the U.S. Treasury. Rather, the company is systematically plundering the nation.
All of that has not prohibited Apple at the same time from shamelessly using American legal infrastructure profusely to further its own profit-making ends, a costly endeavor paid for by your average and we think quite clueless taxpayer.
Just what "unreasonable" BURDEN is the Editorial Board talking about?
In fact, the editorial board has NO IDEA AT ALL how easy or difficult it would be for Apple, Inc. to abide by the court order, a fact which does not keep the writers of the editorial from engaging in all kinds of idle speculation about what Apple would have to do to abide by the court's order.
NONSENSE.
We think it very likely that Apple already has the technical means and knowledge on hand to obey the court order virtually immediately, but they refuse to do so, for greedy profit-making motives, that is all.
People do not sincerely think that companies on the scale of Apple, Inc. devise encryption methods that even they themselves do not know how to break, and even to accomplish that quickly. They know its ins and outs.
Obviously, any encryption method has to be tested thoroughly by a company before it is implemented. They know where and how to bypass the encryption, if necessary. There is always a back door -- in case something goes wrong, and a back door has to exist during software and hardware development, otherwise they would lock themselves out and could not finish the project.
Why not ask point blank just how much time it would take to comply with the court order and what it would cost -- with an honest answer demanded, and with perjury as the penalty for lying.
An "unreasonable burden" for Apple, Inc.?
Not on this planet.
Besides, a strong President of the United States could easily issue an executive order and nationalize the company Apple, Inc. for as long as it takes to comply with the court order, thus putting the company under government auspices and rendering any private Apple, Inc. contrary arguments moot. A strong executive has that power -- courts and legislatures notwithstanding.
There is a reason why outsiders are dominating the Presidential election process thus far. People are fed up with our weak political leaders and with a legal system that has lost all semblance of common sense.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Experts and Expertise: How Much Does an Expert Really Know? As Knowledge Increases, So Does Overclaiming of What is Actually Known
You Don't Know as Much as You Think: False Expertise is the title of an article by Jessica Schmerler at Scientific American reporting on a study by researchers at Cornell University and Tulane University published in Psychological Science.
The study found that people with a self-perceived "knowledge" of a subject tend to "overclaim" their actual knowledge in that subject. The more they know or think to know, the more they overclaim what they actually do know.
That research explains a phenomenon we have encountered repeatedly in our own research work, which is the vast overclaiming of knowledge in archaeological disciplines and related historical fields by so-called mainstream "experts". After all, who can check them for things that happened in the past?
One can see this overclaiming demonstrated particularly in so-called historical TV "documentaries", where much of the material presented often consists of nothing more than pure guesses and unsubstantiated suppositions and "overclaims" of knowledge. Things are presented as if they were "true", whereas much of what is communicated is simply the fantasy of the experts.
Given the findings of the Cornell study, one might conclude that this phenomenon of overclaiming applies to all fields of human knowledge and activity. We see this particularly among "Presidential candidates".
The "free" Abstract of the study by Stav Atir, Emily Rosenzweig and David Dunning is titled "When Knowledge Knows No Bounds: Self-Perceived Expertise Predicts Claims of Impossible Knowledge" and is found at Sage Journals at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/14/0956797615588195.abstract
The price to download the full article ($35) seems to be "anti-knowledge". The next step from a study of "overclaiming" might be a study of "overpricing", and whether the same human psychology is at work in both cases.
The study found that people with a self-perceived "knowledge" of a subject tend to "overclaim" their actual knowledge in that subject. The more they know or think to know, the more they overclaim what they actually do know.
That research explains a phenomenon we have encountered repeatedly in our own research work, which is the vast overclaiming of knowledge in archaeological disciplines and related historical fields by so-called mainstream "experts". After all, who can check them for things that happened in the past?
One can see this overclaiming demonstrated particularly in so-called historical TV "documentaries", where much of the material presented often consists of nothing more than pure guesses and unsubstantiated suppositions and "overclaims" of knowledge. Things are presented as if they were "true", whereas much of what is communicated is simply the fantasy of the experts.
Given the findings of the Cornell study, one might conclude that this phenomenon of overclaiming applies to all fields of human knowledge and activity. We see this particularly among "Presidential candidates".
The "free" Abstract of the study by Stav Atir, Emily Rosenzweig and David Dunning is titled "When Knowledge Knows No Bounds: Self-Perceived Expertise Predicts Claims of Impossible Knowledge" and is found at Sage Journals at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/14/0956797615588195.abstract
The price to download the full article ($35) seems to be "anti-knowledge". The next step from a study of "overclaiming" might be a study of "overpricing", and whether the same human psychology is at work in both cases.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Native American Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs
Deciphered as Land Survey & Astronomy by Andis Kaulins
paperbacks in color print
Volume 1, 2nd Edition, 266 pages
ISBN: 1517396816 / 9781517396817
Volume 2, 2nd Edition, 262 pages
ISBN: 1517396832 / 9781517396831
Sky Earth Native America Volume 1-----------Sky Earth Native America Volume 2
by Andis Kaulins J.D. Stanford by Andis Kaulins J.D. Stanford
(front cover(s))
------
(back cover with a photograph of the author and book absract text)
