the benefit gained from decpit and deception

There is a major driver in the business world toward deceit and a major requirement for honesty and transparency. What we have here is a fundamental conflict that is part of the powerhouse that drives forward the economy and society.

Rambling commentary:

If one is in a car crash, and you know you made a mistake, you are told to lie about your liability. Or at the very least deny by omission. This is to limit the damages you may have to pay. It is also dishonest. The tax department would be very unhappy if you did this to limit your tax liability. So would the police. But it is ok to do it to non-government groups. Maximize your gain. Limit you losses. This is how the business world works. Hidden knowledge is beneficial to the profit statement. Yet this sometimes goes very wrong. For instance when the tobacco industry hid their knowldege of the health effects of tobacco, this can have deadly effects. It is in the benefit of too many people to change the rules. So they deflect the criticism to some bunch of people who are not powerful enough to fight back. For example, I saw a major catholic priest here in Sydney the other day quoted on the front page of a paper to say that we should ignore the problem of bad priests (his problem) and concentrate on another. When in reality we should concentrate on both. It is up to the society to determine what is bad and take appropriate action. But powerful vested interests direct the changes to ares where they are not involved. Another example: the recent slavery issue in China. This is what happens when an authority supresses questioning and say shit like you cannot question what we say and do because you will be considered to be disloyal and persecuted. You need to question and look. Ask the question why. I think the Germans understand only too well the need to question. So there is a force for disclosure, and there is a force saying, do what you are told and maintain deception. Complete disclosure does not work. Complete deception does not work. The trick is to know when which is appropriate and why.

More to come on this topic. It is very simple, yet has very complex results.

A cunning plan

Today, going through my mail there is a letter from Telstra Corporation offering me a dividend reinvestment scheme. These were all the rage a decade ago. Something must have changes because most have been abandoned. However, going against the trend Telstra is offering the scheme. Why? To get rid of all those (17%) future fund shares by stealth. It is quite a clever scheme. Of course if they did not have all these surplus shares, they would not be implementing this scheme. I will not partake as I am rejigging my finances as I buy a new place to live.

"just a minute" by jæms [?]

pol pot syndrome

Well, this is not really about Pol Pot. But a documentary on his regime caused me to have this though. So I will call it Pol Pot Syndrome.

I have been interested by the whole topic of purges and to what purpose they server. Obviously there is an overtly political one, to remove your competitors. But watching the Pol Pot story I was seeing what was presented by the media as a man who was systematically removing his supporters. So here is a simple hypothesis:

1) You have a world view of how people (or economies) should behave.
2) You implement the theories.
3) The results you expected do not occur.
4) You blame and punish those executing the plan as it could not possibly be the plan that is wrong or those who are the victims for being unworthy or not normal.
5) You repeat steps 2 to 4 over and over.

Obviously this is an extreme case, but one would hope that even the most stubborn people see the way out in the end.

prices

I was reading an article and was astonished to see the price of NAND ram has fallen to USD $9.26 for 8GB. Wow. So I wandered off to the web to see the retail price. It comes in at a mere $165 AUD for a 8GB USB stick. This seems to be approximately the price, across about three different web sites.

Chinese Economy II

Previously I discussed the Chinese Economy from the inside. One of the things that is mentioned a fair bit here in Australia is that fact that their economy will soon be bigger that that of the USA. While this is a major milestone, I think it had no great significance. You see, China has approximately 4 times the population. So the Per Capita GDP is quite small. If they caught up on that measure, that would be significant. Anyone who has been to China knows how patchy the economic development is, and just how far they have to go. Also GDP is only one measure. Total wealth is another. There are so many more. And then there is the issue that so much of the existing infrastructure is of such a low quality. I was always amazed that they do such a poor job at plumbing. All of those buildings need a lot of fixing to bring them up to standard of what would be considered good building practice here in Australia. That is not to say that this will not happen, or that it happening is not a good thing, but it will still take quite a long time, even at the break-neck speed that China is growing. What the USA needs to do is keep their eyes on the ball. They have a good track record at this in the last few centuries.

on Vladimir Putin

Previously I mentioned Boris Yeltsin and the Russian view. However, when I was in Moscow, it was Vladimir Putin who was in power. I have always found Putin creepy and scary. After all, he is a KGB man. But on listening to some speeches by John F Kennedy, I formed a different view. I think that Putin is to the Russians, what Kennedy was to the Americans. Tough they are completely different people, Russia and the USA are completely different societies. In this I mean that he is The Man of the Times.

Russia has always had a desire (I think foolishly) for strong man leaders. Also with the tumult of the fall of the Soviet Union, they are now pissed off and lost in a similar, but by no means the same, manner to what I saw in England in the late 1980's. There is a loss of empire. However, the Russian reaction is different. In this way, Putin is a return to the world they knew in the days of the Soviet Empire. They seek a return to the good times, which were not really good, but what they are seeking is a return to the things they know and hence things that they are comfortable with. In a way it is a returning to the hearth.

In a way this may be necessary for the Russians themselves, even though it represents the two steps back in the of three steps forward two steps back scheme of life. They need to reinvent themselves and the direction they were heading was probably wrong in degree and precision. The Russians need to invent a world that works with the way that they view themselves and their place in the world. I think that the creation of mega industries, while a very soviet thing to do, was a mistake. I know that when in China in the early 1990's there was discussion on how to prevent the creation of such monsters and the Chinese as a result were much more successful at avoiding this mistake. Now Putin finds himself having to destroy these monstrosities. But will it lead them out of the wilderness? This I do not know. I must admit that I was surprised by the British response and their success in digging themselves out of the mire. The have been reinventing themselves and their perception of their place in the world, which is much more in tune with the reality of the situation. Perhaps Putin will turn out to be their equivalent of Margaret Thatcher.

Boris Yeltsin

Just a short note: Boris Yeltsin died. One of the things that I found surprising when traveling in Russia is just how much the Russians love the fellow. In fact, the view of Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev in Russian and in Australia are opposites. In Russia, Gorbachev is seen as a traitor to the Russians, he is the man who oversaw the downfall of the USSR. He brought about misery, suffering and a loss of pride. Yeltsin is seen as the man who oversaw a new beginning in a land devoid of hope and pride. I often wonder how the two views of the two men can be so diametrically opposed. Also I wonder about the media outlets that manage to create such appearances. Is one view correct? I wonder. In science they say that if there are multiple, and very different theories then the multiple theories are usually all wrong. This is because a correct theory will prove itself to be reliable in the longer term and the incorrect theories will generate incorrect predictions. However, in this case, I suspect that it is simply the opposite sides of the same coin.