longk

The Law of Unintended Consequences: 20th Century and Beyond

James: as always, thought provoking. a few observations:

1. the political system is hardly simply. In fact it is a very subtle complex social system for accomodating as manny views and opinions as possible in order to avoid violence. Its hard to look ata flow chart for the main processes of any of the 3 branches of government and find simplicity. In fact the system is intentionally complex by design, in order to prevent simplicity which leads to rash bold decisionmaking. See: totalitarianism, which when it gets it wrong, is a disaster

2. In fact, chaos theory and complexity theory lead you to develop simple control systems with rapid feedback loops and adaptive cycles precisely to reflect the uncertainty of outcomes.

3. It is confirmation bias and hindsight bias to find"causality" after the fact in a lot of "unintended consequences". Just because things happened chronologically doesnt mean that happened with causality. Because complex adaptive systems have unpredictable consequences, simplicity and flexibility (a=but mostly humility) should be sought.

4. Complexity IS an argument for distributed government and free markets. In fact, free market theory is a powerful argument that simple systems are best at managing/co-existung with complexity (the infinite variety of dynamic human needs, circumstances and resources)

The Antidote to Economic Malaise: A Culture of Collective Mindfulness

capitalism doesnt create poverty; nature does; Poverty is the state of brute nature, and that's what you get when you are overly greedy. Societies that develop the wisdom to take care of their own, develop effective mechanisms to do just that. The best ones are local: amilies, churches and privately funded civic organizations with local oversight and accountbility.. Societies that give that responsibility to government thereby devalue the tribal and familial virtues and give that mission to the most inefficient and ineffective organization for redistributing wealth: the government.

capitalism is the most dynamic means of effectively deploying capital to meet the needs of the many by rewarding reliable risk taking. the comparison of the world markets to high reliability organizations is flawed, because the free market is not an organization, with a mission and resources; it is an unconstrained gathering place where buyers and selelrs come together. Weick an Sutcliffe's work is excellent and is a call to action for those who would improve the performance of their organizations. I teach these ideas and techniques to my management students; I think theapplication to the markets is flawed though.

the greedy wealthy who had money and didnt know how to ask questions of Maddow to protect the money got what they earned. they should have been more mindful. they should have done their due diligence. If you dont treat money properly, with respect and care, it goes away.

The President of the US is NOT the President of the world. He has no constitutional authority to address world poverty. If he tries to do that he should be impeached for exceeding his constitutional bounds. He has no authority to lead the world; The scope of his responsibilities, and they are slight, are clearly spelled out in the Constitution. If you would change the world, first change your nation, first change your state, first change your village, first change your family, first change your self. The world wwill take care of itself.

So Much for the Bailout

700B = unwarranted exposure of taxpayers to underwrite the failure of awful spculators and is opposed on principle

add 150B in pork, and it saves us all! i wish the the naysayers had just sold out their principles a little more cheaply and spared us another 150B of unfinaced debt.

The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex

Chris B: insightful comments concerning the ROI of the 9/11 operation. The military (M) is simply one dimension of national power in the diplomatic, information, military, economic (DIME) model. Approaching issues of national policy from only one dimension is suboptimal.

Considering the Great Game as if players are identically motivated, unicultural, playing for the same purpose and even keeping score the same way is a recipe for disaster.

Treating policy goals as an endstate or a destination is to misunderstand the complex, dynamic and uncertain nature of the world.

The policy questions of what goals to pursue, the size of the committment in view of other competing options, considerations of risk and reward, the opinions of other players and observers, alignment with core values, all are important aspects of the same wicked problem, as well as the technical debate on how to achieve the stated goals. Sometimes you have to talk about just the individual components in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, but you have to remember that they have to be put back together and understood from a systems dynamics perspective as well.

I found your thoughts thoughtful and balanced, and am glad you took the time to write.


If interested in more dialogue in a different forum, my email is [e-mail]

cheers,
ken

The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex

Jim: thank you very much for a thoughtful article. What you wrote is similar to lectures I give in this area when we are discussing Army and DoD Force Management at the US Army Command & General Staff College at Ft Leavenworth. I will probably have our Force Managment lesson author send you some form letter describing how we would use the article as a reading. The concepts of opportunity cost, and threat based force structure seem foreign to many people. The current DoD policy of "capabilities based" force structure is too easily co-opted into an open checkbook for unlimited technological solutions for mythical potential enemies, especially when linked with a tacit agreement to fund DoD at a fixed % of GDP as argued by our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. You can heat the hogs of war drooling over that.
Force structure must meet the tests of suitable, feasible, acceptable. The current policy goals beg the question of feasibility.

I was pleased to see you quoting one of my heroes David Walker, one of the few adult commentators on the subject of our fiscal posture. His insights into the approaching trainwreck of unconstrained appetite in every dimension of federal spending are compelling.


I commend to you the book "Military Reform" by Winslow Wheeler and Lawrence Korb, James Fallows' National Defense, and Robert Coram's "Boyd", the biography of COL John Boyd. I am quite sure you have already seen the documentary "Why We Fight" which I think does a responsible job of laying out the 2d and 3d order effects of policy choices made without a clear grasp of long term strategy. It also references Ike in the opening moments.

One can concede that there are threats in the world without agreeing with the method, scope, and cost of the current response, and the 2d mortgage we have signed for future generations for our current foreign policy.

cheers,
Ken

Ken Long
Asst Professor
Department of Logistics & Resource Operations
US Army Command & General Staff College
US Army Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027

The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex

Jim: I am trying to reach you for copyright permission to use this article in our curriculum at the Army Command & General Staff College. can u send me a note at [e-mail] please? thanks, ken long