Tag: trainwreck

The unnecessary decline of Nokia

This is a fascinating essay on the disastrous, and ongoing, collapse of Nokia.  It’s intriguing to see how giving the wrong guy the power to make decisions at the wrong time can prove brutally catastrophic.  Imagine, for example, if Nokia, rather than Google, had embraced Android back in 2005.

This is not complex stuff. If your company has a strategy built on three pillars, and all three are working – congratulations! You are in the rare position of succeeding in all you do, please do promote your head of strategy and give your CEO a big bonus, you may even have a young Steve Jobs in your organization. Your company is grabbing massive market share, you make huge profits and you are growing beyond your wildest dreams. Congratulations, enjoy this, it won’t last forever.

If you have two of your three pillars working in your strategy, but one is failing, then you quietly shift away from the one failing part, you emphasize the two that are strong, and focus there. You don’t fire your strategy guy, he got it more right than wrong, and you celebrate your CEO. You then quietly, behind the scenes, do a ‘recalibration’ of your strategy, where you find a new third leg to replace the failing one, but you do this quietly, behind the scenes. Because most of your strategy is succeeding, its full steam ahead. The CEO is doing a good but not stellar job, keep him, but don’t give him any big bonuses for this performance. This, by the way, is kind of typical of most companies, part of the strategy is working but not all. This company should be profitable and growing. But its likely only to be growing at the pace of the industry, ie it would be holding its own roughly, in market share.

If you have two of your three pillars in your strategy failing and only one working, then its time to do the mea culpa, announce clearly that you are in trouble, and rapidly shift away from the two failing parts but convince your investors that yes, the one good part will keep you alive, please stay with us, this will be turned around. The strategy guy who cooked up this failing mess needs to be reassigned to non-strategy work and the CEO is probably over his head, you probably need a new CEO. But if you really belive the CEO is up to the task, he or she should be a change CEO and at this stage, the existing strategy MUST BE changed, it cannot bring success to the company if two of your three legs are failing. The one succeeding part cannot sustain you for long. This kind of company is in trouble, or on the brink of trouble, it is probably bleeding market share and probably making losses. It may even be shrinking in size already.

If you have three of your pillars in your strategy failing. All three failing, you must IMMEDIATELY STOP pursuing that strategy, as every day in it, brings you closer to death, to yes, bankruptcy, to oblivion, to complete failure, to junk status as a company, to being a takeover target. If your three pillars in your strategy are failing, you must fire immediately the strategy guy and replace not just the strategy head, but your whole strategy. If every leg of your strategy fails, then yes, ANY new strategy is better. Whatever you did before is better, whatever your competitors are doing is better, anything is better than pursuing a strategy that is 100% failing. The CEO who executed a strategy where all three legs fail, is clearly incompetent, and must be fired immediately. If the Board waits, then the Board is either asleep at the wheel, or incompetent, or in collusion with the incompetent CEO. If the Board waits in firing the CEO of a company where the whole strategy is failing – that Board must be fired instantly as well. This is elementary stuff. A company that finds its three pillars of its strategy all failing, is shrinking in size, is losing customers, is losing market share, is losing consumer and investor confidence, finds its share price rated junk, and is obviously generating increasing losses. This company is at least on the brink of bankruptcy and depending on how much cash it has on hand, it may prolong its life a little, but as long as the company pursues a 100% failing strategy – the company will kill itself.

It’s an object lesson how even the most cash-rich, market dominant company can rapidly decline.  I think it will be interesting to see if Apple or Microsoft is the first of the two 80’s giants to follow suit.  My money is on Microsoft, as long as Ballmer is running things there.

5772nd verse, same as the first

The Jews never seem to learn from their own history:

Circumcision is one of Judaism’s most important laws and for
generations of faithful it has symbolized a Biblical covenant with God. But in Israel, more and more Jewish parents are saying no to the blade. “It’s such a taboo in Israel and in Judaism,” said
Gali, nursing her six-week-old son, about the decision not to have him
circumcised.

When I was a kid reading the Bible, I always found it to be inexplicable how the Jews would no sooner be saved by God than they would do something bound to piss Him off and land them in some nasty soup.  Now that I am older and a bit more versed in the perversity of human nature, I merely wonder what the inevitable consequence of their willful disobedience is going to be.

And yet some say religion doesn’t provide any predictive models….

The Laffer Curve at work

An Instapundit reader illustrates both the perils of blindly raising income tax rates and the financial pointlessness of many married women working:

After the election, my wife and I are going partial Galt. We’re in
California, so our state income tax went up in addition to what’s sure
to come out of Washington.

My wife quit her job last week. I increased my participation in a
tax deferment plan offered by my employer to bring my taxable income as
close to $250K as possible. We’ll be cutting back a little, but the
government is going to getting a whole lot less.

My wife’s entire salary barely covered our tax bill – she was 100%
slave to the government, while I was a 10% slave. Now she is 100% free,
and I’ll be a ~35% slave As a couple, 17.5% of our time is slaving on
the government plantation from an astounding 55% previously.

My wife is deliriously happy, our children are delighted to have mom
home, the dog gets more walks, and I find not spending money rapturously
satisfying. 

Statist theoreticians and bureaucrats never seem to understand that humans always modify their behavior in response to prospective stimuli.  And when they finally do, after failing to achieve the results expected, they usually make the mistake of attempting to forcibly limit human options, thereby falling into exactly the same trap.  And the smarter and more productive the individual, the more his contributions are required, the more likely it is that he will figure out a way to refuse to participate.

Here is a trivially easy prediction.  California will collect less tax revenue than estimated in 2013 despite its newly raised rates that theoretically will cause it to collect more.  Moreover, it will probably collect less than it did in 2012, and its budget deficit will rise.

Smells like game over

Despite not being at all a Muslim in any way, shape, or form, so help him, um, Moses, Obama actually managed to lose the Israelis:

Mitt Romney was running for president against Barack Obama in Israel, the former Mass. governor would win in a landslide.
A new poll released by The Times of Israel on Thursday showed that 45
percent of Israelis would vote for Romney, compared to 29 percent for
the president. 

As we saw from the commenter at McRapey’s, when you’ve lost the Israelis, you’ve lost the American Jewish vote.  I’m a little saddened by this tragi-comic ending, as I just don’t think a Romney administration is going to provide even one-fifth the comedic appeal of its predecessor.

VDH describes Krugman and his kind

VDH on the naive and ignorant mindset of the left-liberal elite

In the elite liberal mind, there is instead a sort of progressive Big
Rock Candy Mountain. Gasoline comes right out of the ground through the
nozzle into the car. Redwood 2x4s sprout from the ground like trees.
Apples fall like hail from the sky; stainless steel refrigerator doors
are mined inches from the surface. Tap water comes from some enormous
cistern that traps rain water.  Finished granite counter tops
materialize on the show room floor. Why, then, would we need Neanderthal
things like federal gas and oil leases, icky dams and canals, yucky
power plants, and gross chain saws — and especially those who would dare
make and use them? 

For some, especially those who are well-educated and well-spoken, a
sort of irrational furor at “the system” governs their political
make-up. Why don’t degrees and vocabulary always translate into big
money? Why does sophisticated pontification at Starbucks earn less than
mindlessly doing accounting behind a desk? We saw this tension with
Michelle Obama who, prior to 2009, did not quite have enough capital to
get to Aspen or Costa del Sol, and thereby, despite the huge
power-couple salaries, Chicago mansion, and career titles, felt that
others had far too much more than the Obamas. “Never been proud,”
“downright mean country,” “raise the bar,” etc., followed, as
expressions of yuppie angst. The more one gets, the more one believes he
should get even more, and the angrier he gets that another — less
charismatic, less well-read, less well-spoken — always seems to get
more. 

So do not discount the envy of the sophisticated elite. The unread
coal plant manager, the crass car dealer, or the clueless mind who farms
1000 acres of almonds should not make more than the sociology
professor, the kindergarten teacher, the writer, the artist, or the
foundation officer. What sort of system would allow the dense and easily
fooled to become better compensated (and all for what — for superfluous
jet skis and snowmobiles?) than the anguished musician or tortured-soul
artist, who gives so much to us and receives so much less in return?
What a sick country — when someone who brings chain saws into the Sierra
would make more than a UC Berkeley professor who would stop them.

And lest you think he exaggerates about the inability of the left-liberal to understand concepts as basic as where things come from, consider this recent offering from Paul Krugman, among the most elite members of the left-liberal community.

Both Dean Baker and Josh Bivens weigh in Robert Samuelson’s outburst at the New York Times for saying that the government can too create jobs. (He went so far as to call it “flat-earth” thinking). Sadly, Samuelson’s attitude is widely shared — even, at least rhetorically, by Barack Obama.

So let me not focus on Samuelson’s piece so much as on the general proposition. What can it possibly mean to say that only the private sector can create jobs?

It could mean that government jobs aren’t “real” jobs — presumably that they don’t supply something of value to society. Samuelson disavows that position, I think — and rightly so. After all, the bulk of government workers are in education, protective services, and health. Do you really want to say that schoolteachers, firefighters, and nurses provide nothing of value?

What Samuelson is saying, what hundreds of economists have recognized for literally centuries, is that schoolteachers, firefighters and nurses PRODUCE nothing of value.  This should be obvious, because none of them PRODUCE anything at all.  Think about it.  Suppose that everyone was either a schoolteacher, a firefighter, or a nurse.  How much wealth would be collectively produced by them?  Absolutely nothing.

Schoolteachers, firefighters, and nurses are all societal luxury goods.  They are costs, at most they may allow for the leveraging and development of more efficient productive laborers, but in themselves, they produce absolutely nothing.  Their productive value is zero.  This is something that can be easily observed by anyone who has ever seen someone teaching, firefighting, or nursing.  And yet, the most elite of the elite left-liberals genuinely cannot grasp this.  Nor is he the only one, as Baker and Bivens demonstrate.  Samuelson is too kind when he mocks them as flat-earthers.  At least the flat earthers can reasonably observe that the earth looks flat from their vantage point.

John Scalzi squicked me out too

Sometimes, the world is a vastly amusing place.  It’s at times like these that I think perhaps Dr. Pangloss was right and this is the best of all possible worlds.  John appears to be having some belated regrets about google-bombing himself, but you know, that’s the risk you take when you write “satire”.  If our revered SFWA President doesn’t like to see “John Scalzi is a rapist” floating around the Internet, then perhaps Mr. Scalzi should refrain from writing articles on the Internet in which he rhapsodizes about the pleasure he takes in raping women.  It’s a difficult concept, I know, but I’m confident that our fearless leader will one day figure it out.

I find it particularly funny that he claims I’m flailing about and providing unintentional comedy gold:

Blogger Joé McKen catches one of my regular detractors making a spectacularly dumb move, and then watches him flail about, trying to rationalize his unintentional comedy gold. No, I’m not going to link to the detractor’s site directly, because among other things the site is full of racism, sexism and general ick; McKen’s got the links if you want them, and all the relevant details if you don’t.

Over on McKen’s site, one of the commenters there, who is also a frequent commenter here, wonders about whether my detractor could be on the hook for libel. Certainly the detractor’s headline for the particular blog entry in question (“John Scalzi is a rapist”) is factually inaccurate; the detractor is (now, at least) aware it’s so; presuming McKen’s account of event is accurate, which I have no reason to doubt, it wasn’t published with the intent to be satire or hyperbole nor has much chance of being considered so now; and obviously, being branded a rapist, and having it believed, would be detrimental to my public and private life. So if I had a mind to sue my detractor for libel, he might have to hope I am enough of a public figure that it would obviate all those other factors and he wouldn’t be squashed like a bug.

But why sue? I’m happy to have him leave it up as a testament to his both his credulity while he thought it was true, and his mendacity now that he knows that it’s not. It’s a cogent reminder of what both his opinion and credibility is worth.

Credulous, mendacious, and libelous.  There’s a combination one doesn’t often see.  I’m pleased to know that he’s happy I’m leaving it up, though, because the thought of taking it down had never even occurred to me.  The fact of the matter is that John Scalzi announced to the world that he is a rapist.  He is on record at his site declaring as much.  He can claim that his admission is “satire” until he turns blue if he likes, but the fact of the matter is that you cannot come out and say the sorts of things that he does and subsequently complain that your statements have been quoted at length and taken at face value.  It would certainly be interesting to see him attempt to see me “squashed like a bug”:

“He libeled me, your honor!”

“How so?”

“Well, um, he kind of quoted me….”

“He QUOTED you?”

“Yeah, but he KNEW what I was saying wasn’t true!”

“And how do you know he knew that?”

I most certainly do not know that John Scalzi is not a rapist.  I didn’t know it then and I don’t know it now.  He said he is, now he says his previous statement was factually inaccurate… for all I know, John spends his evenings raping his cats in between making calls on behalf of the Obama campaign in Ohio.

His argument becomes even more confusing since he’s also claiming a) I didn’t understand his satire, and, b) there is no reason to doubt my own post was not published with the intent to be satire or hyperbole.  So, apparently we’re to believe that I knowingly libeled him by quoting him about something I believed to be true.  At this point, I’m left to conclude that John’s best defense against having it generally believed that he is a rapist is that anyone reading his increasingly convoluted thoughts on the matter will assume he is a teenage girl.

Now here is the punchline.  John is amazed how deeply he got into the head of a rapist in writing the piece:

“I wrote it from the point of view of a rapist, I think obviously in
retrospect, because it would have a stronger impact if I did. A couple
of people have asked me (not entirely unwarily) how I could get into the
head of someone like that. The short answer is, folks, fiction is what I
do. I try to put myself in the heads of a lot of different people. I will note that in this case, I was very happy to get out of that particular head as quickly as possible. I don’t often squick myself out writing a piece, but this is one time I definitely did.”

He definitely squicked me out too!  I mean, John is such a good and talented writer that I truly believed he was an actual rapist when I read his piece.  It was a shockingly powerful piece.  It was one of the most hauntingly powerful pieces of writing on the subject I have ever seen.  It touched me in places I have never been touched before, without my consent.  He raped us all with his words and I feel hurt, violated, and confused.  I am still convinced that John Scalzi is a rapist, despite his unconvincing ex post facto denials, because obviously no fiction writer, even a best-selling, talented writer like John, could possibly have made up anything THAT convincing. 

Headline of the day

If it weren’t so wordy, giving away the punchline right there in the headline, it might be my favorite headline ever.  I laughed, I cried, much better than CATS:

Screaming children flee cinema in terror after bungling staff show Paranormal Activity instead of Madagascar 3

And let’s face it, considering the drek that the cinema has been serving up for the last twenty years, this sort of aversion therapy could really be seen as a positive thing.

La responsabilità della scientista

Avanti azzurri!  Much to the shock and horror of the world’s scientists, Italy holds seven “experts” accountable for their criminal negligence:

An Italian court convicted seven scientists and experts of manslaughter
on Monday for failing to adequately warn citizens before an earthquake
struck central Italy in 2009, killing more than 300 people.  The
court in L’Aquila also sentenced the defendants to six years in prison.
Each one is a member of the national Great Risks Commission.

Scientists worldwide had decried the trial as
ridiculous, contending that science has no reliable way of predicting
earthquakes.  Among those convicted were some of Italy’s most
prominent and internationally respected seismologists and geological
experts, including Enzo Boschi, former head of the national Institute of
Geophysics and Volcanology. 

It’s both fascinating and informative, isn’t it.  Scientists are absolutely certain that the science is settled and they are more than willing to declare what laws should be passed, what classes should be taught, and what massive economic interventions and intrusions on individual freedom should be suffered due to the absolute reliability of their scientific knowledge.

But hold them personally responsible for their predictions and declarations?  Well, that’s an outrage!  Science isn’t actually expected to be reliable, after all!  I look forward to seeing climate scientists being similarly prosecuted one day for the complete failure of their predictive models.  The evolutionary biologists should be safe, unfortunately, since they don’t even have any predictive models.

IQ and the Ivy League

One of the interesting things about the self-identified intelligent individuals of the cognitive elite is how they commonly demonstrate that the failure to think results in much the same consequences as the inability to think correctly.

Now, most graduates of Ivy League universities genuinely believe that most highly intelligent people attend Ivy League schools.  But in much the same way that atheists confuse a higher average intelligence with a larger quantity of intelligent individuals, they are confusing a concentration of intelligent individuals with the overall quantity.

Let’s assume that every single individual at an Ivy League school is
Mensa-qualified. That’s absurdly generous, of course, as anyone who has
ever been to an Ivy or conversed with more than a few Ivy League
graduates will know, but just to be conservative, we’ll assume that every single student enrolled at an Ivy posssses an IQ of 132+ and is therefore in the top 2 percent of intelligence. Now, note that the total Ivy
undergraduate enrollment is 59,561.

That is 0.32 percent of the 18,078,672
total U.S. undergraduate enrollment in 2010. That means, by even the most
generous and conservative estimate, (since not all Ivy undergrads are genuinely
Mensa-qualified and because the college-attending group has an average IQ a little above the 100 norm), there are at
least 5.25x MORE equally smart people, about 302,012, who are attending
state universities, community colleges, and other private colleges instead of Ivy League
universities.

I’d have to do a bit more research to come up with a more accurate number, but I would estimate that there are probably between 10x to 15x more smart people who did not attend an Ivy than did attend one.

Europe is SERIOUSLY bankrupt

This award by the Nobel committee strikes me as the equivalent of desperately rooting through the couch, searching for change to pay the repo man:

The European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, providing a feel-good moment for the economically distressed bloc at a time when its post-national vision is losing traction at home and abroad.  The accolade comes as the financial crisis threatens the EU’s signal achievement, the euro, and the rise of powers such as China, India and Brazil challenges the European model of rules-based cooperation with nation-states handing sovereign rights to a central authority.

“This is in a way a message to Europe that we should do everything we can to secure what has been achieved and move forward,” Thorbjoern Jagland, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told reporters in Oslo after awarding the 8 million- krona ($1.2 million) prize. “We have to keep in mind what has been achieved on this continent and not let the continent go into disintegration again. We know what it means: the emergence of extremism and nationalism once again.”

The Peace Prize has always been about mindless optimism.  But it used to concern itself with actual deeds and accomplishments.  Now, with the recent awards to President Barack “Seven Wars” Obama and the Euzis of the European Union, it looks more like the triumph of deranged wishful thinking than anything else.  And it does tend to confirm the opinion of long-time EU skeptics who always believed the purpose of the Union was to leash the German military rather than build a common market.

I found this to be the most cogent take on the absurdity: 

“Giving the EU a peace prize is at best premature, like knighting Sir
Fred Goodwin in the middle of the mad boom. We have no idea how the
experiment to create an anti-democratic federation will end. Hopefully
the answer is very peacefully, but when Greek protesters are wearing
Nazi uniforms, and Spanish youth unemployment is running at 50 per cent,
a look at history suggests there is always the possibility of a bumpy
landing.

Daftest of all is the notion that the EU itself has kept the peace.
It was the Allies led by the Americans, the Russians and the British who
defeated and disarmed the Germans in 1945. The German people then
underwent the most extraordinary reckoning, transforming their country
into an essentially pacifist society. The EU had very little to do with
it. Throughout that period it was Nato, led by the Americans and
British, which kept the peace in Western Europe.”