Re: Blinded By Science - When models FAIL taking all the humans

Posted by Phil Henshaw-2 on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Blinded-By-Science-When-models-FAIL-taking-all-the-humans-tp1345917p1349289.html

I sold enough for my own and my son's security for a time last Nov.... for
what it's worth.  I chose not to sell out to see how it felt to only 'cover
my ass' and not act like leading the kind of 'flight to safety' that would
bring whole systems down if copied.  That did develop, of course, a few
weeks ago.   As I saw the wave building and crashing it constantly felt like
I really should have sold more, and was glad I had not.

Phil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
> Behalf Of Pamela McCorduck
> Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 4:03 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Blinded By Science - When models FAIL taking all
> the humans
>
> I found that Nature article disingenuous.  It  just so happened I sat
> down to dinner with a couple of bigtime modelers on Tuesday night--one
> models mathematically, one heuristically. They hadn't ever talked about
> it with each other, but they found out they'd done the same thing:
> they'd done the arithmetic, saw that whatever was happening in the
> markets was a bubble, and closed most of their positions within the
> last eighteen months. Is Nature asking us to feel sorry for people who
> couldn't do arithmetic?
>
>
>
>
> On Oct 17, 2008, at 12:32 PM, peggy miller wrote:
>
> > Models don't replace ownership and smaller sized business
> > responsibility...unless can figure out a model for Caring.
> >
> > When I was doing bank work in D.C. for Consumer Federation, I ended
> up
> > with the position, due both to intuition, as well as hard facts from
> > studies that were performed by Harvard and other fairly reputable
> > places-- showing that good banking judgement becomes reduced (like
> > with any management) as ownership is eliminated replaced by ever
> > larger scale operations managed by non-ownership managers.
> >
> > Translation -- statistics and common sense verified that the larger
> > the operation becomes, with noticeably poorer decisions happening at
> > the size of business over $1 billion in profits, matched by
> > replacement of ownership/manager with non-owner managers, judgment
> > fails. Caring appears to be a part of ownership. Somethings counter
> > this problem, like profit sharing -- giving workers part of profits -
> -
> > but ownership of business and smaller size seems to be almost
> > irreplaceable. Small banks and credit unions, owned locally, rarely
> > fail. The owner's name, reputation and thus decisions are on the
> line.
> >
> > How many names of the managers of these large failed institutions do
> > we know? a couple? and they get paid handsomely either way ..
> >
> > There was discussion of linking pay of all managers more directly to
> > following of safety standards .. but I don't think that happened.
> Also
> > .. just fyi .. when we went to have a hearing on this before Senate
> > Banking Committee .. with the studies showing that size of
> > institutions relates to poor management  -- when you get over $1
> > billion, management quality noticeable deteriorates -- suddenly the
> > group of professors and academics who performed the studies said they
> > could not testify (they were silenced somehow.)
> >
> >
> >
> > Have a great day!
> > Peggy Miller
> >  ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
> "But this I know: the writer who possesses the creative gift owns
> something of which he is not always master--something that, at times,
> strangely wills and works for itself."
>
> Charlotte Bronte
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org