The bullish prices recently should not be confused with a bull market. I’m convinced that, like the guy pulling the rope to control the ride and influence the rider’s reaction in the photo above, we are just getting jerked around. Until total transparency exists in the market, democratization (or equal chances of success) is impossible.
For a modern day example of why you should believe this, consider the internet. Have you ever seen the stats of types of sites viewed and queries made? Porn is always at the top, right? How is that information obtained? Via computer, right? The volumes of visitors and even personal information is obtained AND ACTED UPON by marketing departments all over the world. The exact same thing happens on the exchanges.
While consumers continue to make voluntary contributions to their qualified plans and self-directed accounts, large corporations run trades against you. Even the one that “matches” your contributions could be taking it back by selling what you bought when the price warrants it. As selling pressure exceeds buying pressure, they also have the potential to sell through your cost basis (placing your investments at a loss). Solutions? I’m working on it…
His views on the economy were published in Forbesyesterday and his obit is in BusinessWeek today. To me, he was the embodiment of a contrarian extraordinaire. It takes nerves of steel to buy into a panic, but it also takes considerable judgement to call the bottom on the price. In essence, he believed that Wall Street was always wrong, and he consistently cleaned house on that premise. Here is a watch list I created as a tribute to Sir John Mark Templeton. I’ll bet that these issues were the types of plays he would be watching today. The screenshot comes from www.prophet.net, the brainchild of another exceptional contrarian, Tim Knight.
“A new SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) project, ‘Early Warning Indicators for Preventive Policy’, was launched at the end of 2002. The project, which combines a monthly expert survey, selected statistical data sets and Internet technology, breaks new ground in the field of early warning indicators. Processing survey and statistical data using a well-designed statistical indexing database will allow the creation of indicators that reflect negative national and regional, social, political and economic developments. The results will be made available on the Internet in the form of country-specific and regional reports. The pilot projectwill focus on West Africa. It is funded by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and will involve regional partners and organizations.”
Dear Swedes and UN affilliates, please stop using the internet to spy on people in the West Saharan Desert. This region has inconsequential internet connections per capita and unstable existing policies that are unworthy of prevention or intervention. If, however, you are actually screening messages from the EAST Saharan Desert (Iran, Iraq, etc.), by all means, carry on.
Like the title? No, I didn’t steal it from a tabloid with the title: “Miraculous Weapon Saves Community from Alien Attacks!” Fine, maybe I did, but it doesn’t matter, the pic is legit and the 100% original invention works perfectly. I set it up last night, and this morning there were 1/4 as many bees guarding the top and side entrances from ants (which gives them more time to focus on making honey for me!).
A few months back, my older brother called to pat me on the back (he’s always good like that). He had just watched a very positive segment on CNN about farmers making bank locally and abroad. Knowing that I was in negotiations for a big dirt patch, he was happy for me.
He then related a story about a young farmer in the mid-west that sold his farm and moved operations to Brazil. The move promised to nearly double his returns. My rather pessimistic response to that story was, “good luck to him in controlling the political risk.” My bro said, “yeah, I wondered about that too.”
Lo and behold! Look what Argentina did! That 44% export tax on ag goods pretty much gobbles up any extraordinary profits. Granted, this is only one country, but if I were that kid in the mid-west, I’d start executing my exit strategy. Here’s my guess, if he was rash enough to sell the farm in the U.S. to invest in property elsewhere, he doesn’t have an exit strategy.
After some research, this is what I came up with: The Monsoor Jug (in honor of Mike Monsoor. May his courage be in all of us and may this solution preserve those like him).
It is a semi-firm flexible drinking water container. It replaces the personal water bottle (as seen below), should be kept within reaching distance (as seen below), and can save the life of a hero and his/her friends. To reach, grab, and cover may be a fraction of a second slower than the sprawl, but with a little training, I think the times could be matched. Another benefit of the reach method is that it gets the vitals (heart and brain) within the v-shaped cushion zone of the explosion.
For those who lack the means of acquiring the plastic version in the pic, the alternative is a leather water container (bota) like these:
The grenade on the ground senario has always bugged me. Why in the hell hasn’t the military devised a better solution to the simple grenade than the life and body sacrifice? Mythbusters suggests a 2-gallon plastic bucket of water does the trick. Another guy mentions “dragon skin” body armor. If nobody else has a realistic solution, I guess I’ll join the military and figure it out myself. This has gone on too long.
Excellent summary and I couldn’t agree more. In my experience, item #3 was the failure point. Change management at the leadership level was far more difficult (in fact, it ended up terminal) than training the front lines to contribute best practices commonly/collaboratively.
In retrospect, here is what I think I observed. Leaders work long and hard to climb the ranks of corporate cronyism, and it usually isn’t mastery of job skills that get them there. As such, nothing is a greater threat to middle/upper management (the original implement for identifying and developing improvements) than abdicating control of genius generated by the lesser ranked to a collaborative system. Tell me if you’ve ever heard this, “I pay you to work, not think. Now get back to work.”
If acknowledged, well in advance, that any aspect of democratization is a potential threat to the structure of traditional corporate dictatorships, strategists can draft a strong plan for overcoming the resistance that has its roots in ignorance and fear. One incentive for managers/supervisors that I found was best received was reduced work load. In essence, if an employee complained that a change needed to be made to such and such, the retort could be “let me show you how you can fix that,” instead of “okay, I’ll put that on my list of things to do.”
Again, great write-up. The content here is king - but still democratic, a powerful combination.
Brian
By way of follow up, I first investigated their capabilities when shopping for an internal enterprise search. What I found blew me away. The comprehensive intelligence encompassed in their search methods, combined with their ability to make the best results so obvious, puts Google searches to shame. Here’s a vid with the highlights.
Yeah, yeah, I know, who am I to criticize their spelling and inability to keep track of time when I can’t even get this image to load without it blurring. Sorry to wear out your clicker fingers, but to see this image, please click it.
Tommy: Did you hear I graduated? Richard Hayden: Yeah and just a shade under a decade. All right. Tommy: You know a lot of people go to college for seven years. Richard Hayden: I know, they’re called doctors.
That about sums it up for me. Catch a few more funnies from this film at this 00:01:48 youtube clip.
“It’s a betrayal as deep, perhaps, as that of Wall Street.” is the statement that caught my interest. It made me wonder, when was Silicon Valley ever not Wall Street? Which intellectual or physical property was ever created in Silicon Valley and not “monetized?”
Okay, even though there are several flaws in this man’s assumptions (click here to read them all), I’ll try to discern his intention. It is either to solicit the best solutions for the highest demand problems and exploit them for his personal gain, or to encourage an intellectual reformation. Before any brilliant problem solvers send him an e-mail, they would be wise to see this man’s track record of contributing to the common good. I mean, seriously, does anyone really want the best solutions for global problems in the hands of a potential warmonger/dictator/diabolical genius?
Like the naive that approach him with their ideas, I’ll join that group of exploitables with an idea that cannot be used for personal gain, or against the poor, and which I suspect he will not publish or support because he cannot capitalize on it. Drum roll please…
The NNNN index. Definition: National Nice to your Next-door Neighbor Index. It begins with adding three niceness questions to national censuses globally. An off-the-cuff example is: How many acts of service from your next-door neighbor have you received in the past _________ (insert time frame).
The implementation of this inquiry will create acts of goodwill the same way that Wikipedia gets contributions. The correlations drawn between the most giving areas of the earth and their relative peace, prosperity, health and well-being will give new direction to well-intended government, religious, and ancillary interests. The brain work and heart work that goes into increasing these positive metrics will bring strength and stability to the entire Earth.
APGAR: 9.9
(yeah, he had 10’s from every nation until the French judge posted a 9.9. I guess we’ll settle for another silver metal. This is like the fifth silver in a row. Has anyone every gotten a perfect 10? )
We look forward to thanking all of our friends and family members individually for their gifts of each kind, but between now and then, please accept this one: THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
