Good Articles That Don't Deserve Their Own Threads

[Grand Potentate]

this one's for doghouse. make sure to read the comments.

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/09/09/de...-visas-green-cards-to-import-foreign-workers/

Dell-EMC to Lay Off 2,000 – 3,000 US Workers after Requesting 5,000 H-1B Visas & Green Cards to Import Foreign Workers
by Wolf Richter • September 9, 2016
Trying to find efficiencies and synergies to save $1.7 billion.

The ink was barely dry on Dell’s acquisition of EMC, the largest technology deal ever, valued at $67 billion when it was announced in October last year – and already the layoff rumors are oozing from the woodwork.

“People familiar with the company’s plans” told Bloomberg that Dell will cut 2,000 to 3,000 jobs.

Dell spokesman Dave Farmer refused to comment specifically on the report on Thursday but said instead, as sort of a confirmation: “As is common with deals of this size, there will be some overlaps we will need to manage and where some employee reduction will occur.”

On Wednesday, the day the deal closed, CEO Michael Dell gave some clues in an interview: “There are some overlapping functions and that sort of thing – that’s not the primary feature of this, but there is some of that.”

These “overlaps” or “overlapping functions” are terms in corporate speak for real people, and these real people are mostly working in the US, according to the report: supply chain, marketing, and general and administrative positions.

Dell is trying to find some efficiencies and synergies to save about $1.7 billion in the first 18 months after the deal closes, so starting from Wednesday. They’re not dilly-dallying around cutting costs and laying off people.

Combined they have about 140,000 employees. So the trimming might have a long ways to go, especially if the cloud and the Internet of Things are not as fun as imagined. But that doesn’t mean that the headcount will come down – they’re bringing in foreign workers, mostly from India.

Between 2014 and 2016, Dell applied for 2,039 H-1B visas and 256 Green Cards. EMC applied for 2,347 H-1B visas and 453 Green Cards, for a total of 5,095 applications.

These are just applications. Not all of them will be certified, and of those that are certified, not all beneficiaries will be hired. But the data for 2016 isn’t complete yet either.

It’s the hot thing to do for tech companies: laying off existing workers in the US, and bringing it foreign workers on H-1B visas. The Senate has been looking into some of the abuses. In February, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent US Attorney General Loretta Lynch a letter requesting a Justice Department investigation. But the tech lobby will likely get the Senate back on track soon.

But Dell needs to save some money, one way or the other. Dell’s corporate credit rating is at the upper end of junk. It’s loaded to the gills with debt, stemming from when it was taken private. Now the EMC deal has piled new debt on the company, including $20 billion of bonds it sold in May, followed by a $5-billion leveraged loan.




It needed this pile of cash to pay EMC shareholders $24.05 per share. They also got a “tracking stock” linked notionally to EMC’s interest in VMware, but in reality they get no real ownership of anything. Tracking stocks were hot during the dotcom bubble, with disastrous results for investors.

The combined company is also trying to boost sales, which they’ve been trying to do individually for years. All old tech companies, including IBM and Microsoft are trying to boost sales, and particularly those in the withering PC ecosystem are having the hardest time. They need to find a new niche for growth, and so they’re all piling into the “cloud” and the adjacent “Internet of Things” that links even the fridge to the cloud. But this is precisely where Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, and Google dominate.

This is the situation Dell and EMC are in. Both have a large part of their products scattered around the PC ecosystem, Dell with servers and PCs, and EMC with storage devices. A match made in heaven. And so they’re going to innovate their way out of it! As Michael Dell said in the interview:

“We’ve got the ability to innovate at scale and invest – not for next quarter, but we have the agility and speed of a startup, but the scale and reach of the largest company in the industry.”

Alas, Dell became successful by building the same boxes everyone else was building, but it was building them on order, marketing and selling them directly, and getting customers to pay before their computers were even assembled, which was a new approach to supply chain management and working-capital financing in the 1980s: For the first time in history, accounts receivable were a negative amount, and working capital was funded entirely by customers, free of charge. Credit cards made that possible.

That was Dell’s big invention. It gave it a huge cost advantage, until everyone started doing it. But it wasn’t technological innovation. EMC is a different animal. But now it’s under Dell’s control, and they’re carrying a lot of debt, and cost cutting is going to be the big strategy going forward.

Mergers & Acquisitions often just lead to more shut-downs, write-offs, and layoffs. But somebody is making a killing. Read… “Tech” Paid $5 Billion in Fees to Wall Street in 2016, and Look What it Got for it

 

[Fwiffo]

That was an interesting, though sad, read. I don't really buy this "philosophical choice" thing. Most of all, because the decision is not "buy overpriced house" vs. "spend everything on overpriced F&B". I guess it's also more an issue of the respective upbringing.

I was brought up frugally too. My parents never ate out or even went on holiday except they knew they had to save up to take me to the few things all kids go to at least once (Disneyworld, seeing all the Ivy League schools on a road trip in the northeast, etc.). I didn't start spending until after I entered the work force. I guess you could say I was unleashed after that.

That said I do agree with life is short. You could die the next day so live every moment like it's your last and when you elect to do something, do it properly. Somewhere along the line I started thinking what do people remember when they reflect on their past? The 33rd bauble they got from Ikea to decorate their home (that's a cousin of mine), the sixth ring or necklace you bought, or some experience that evoked memories that more often than not tend to stay with you. That's when I stopped chasing for the fastest mobile, television, computer, kitchen knives, wristwatches, whatever. What does it matter if it's not something that generates some memory with some other human being?

 

[fxh]

Anyone who lives with his parents, having "Mom" cook and do laundry for him, into his 30s automatically loses the right use the phrase "philosophical choice," or guiding philosophy as the writer puts it.

You've just maligned 92.5% of any clothing forum members and 100% of any technology forum members.

 

[güero]

You could die the next day so live every moment like it's your last and when you elect to do something, do it properly. What does it matter if it's not something that generates some memory with some other human being?

That is exactly the point. A 200$ bottle of wine does not necessarily generate better memories than a 100 $ bottle of wine. From my experience it matters mostly, with whom you had that bottle of wine.

 

[Fwiffo]

That is exactly the point. A 200$ bottle of wine does not necessarily generate better memories than a 100 $ bottle of wine. From my experience it matters mostly, with whom you had that bottle of wine.

Conversely, do you remember 10 dinners as an experience with 10 $ bottles of wine with said person? Likely not as well as the special occasion. If every moment is your last, you'd want to increase your chances.

As my father always said to me, you can always be ripped off and not get value for money by going for the most expensive, but rarely will you ever go wrong and get a lemon.

In this case perhaps the clothing forum group think has influenced me. Instead of 20 indochino or suitsupply suits, a rotation of 5 quality garments is better than a closet full of disposable ones.

 

[güero]

I agree of course in that a minimum quality is necessary in order to have pleasent experience in the first place. Other than that, in my experience price is only marginally related to memorability. I remember the 3€ wine I had 15 years ago in some cheap prole shack next to the port of Thessaloniki just as fondly as the 16k€ wine (Balthasar, so not thaaat expensive) I had last year at Hospiz Alm in St. Anton. Or rather the respective evenings, not so much the wine. By and large, I just don't have the urge to spend more money just because I can. But what I initially thought was wrong with the article is the alternatives "buy house" vs "consume to the max". That is not all there is.

 

[Fwiffo]

But what I initially thought was wrong with the article is the alternatives "buy house" vs "consume to the max". That is not all there is.

In our overheated real estate market, what property you own and which neighbourhood you reside defines who you are. This wouldn't be as crucial if investments generated a positive return, but now that property is really the only investment vehicle remaining; the pursuit of wealth can be equated to pursuit of property. Otherwise where else would one put their money? It's almost a rite of passage. I tell people I rent and they look at me in shock like I'm saving my virginity for marriage - why didn't I buy a condo, then trade up for a townhouse or rowhouse then flip houses a few times until I get a detached house somewhere in the suburbs with a highly rated public school. Why am I not in the game - I remember a recruiter telling me his past time on weekends was visiting home showings and hanging out with his realtor.

 

[Fwiffo]

Russian porn ban critics urged to 'meet someone in real life'

You have to admire the bluntness of the Russians.

"A decision to block internet users in Russia from accessing two of the world's most popular porn sites has inevitably made some people very unhappy.

...When frustrated free porn fans took to social media to attack the move, Roskomnadzor responded by retweeting one of its own tweets from last year: 'Dear Lyolya, as an alternative you could try and meet someone in real life.'"

 

[viaattovannucci]

In our overheated real estate market, what property you own and which neighbourhood you reside defines who you are. This wouldn't be as crucial if investments generated a positive return, but now that property is really the only investment vehicle remaining; the pursuit of wealth can be equated to pursuit of property. Otherwise where else would one put their money? It's almost a rite of passage. I tell people I rent and they look at me in shock like I'm saving my virginity for marriage - why didn't I buy a condo, then trade up for a townhouse or rowhouse then flip houses a few times until I get a detached house somewhere in the suburbs with a highly rated public school. Why am I not in the game - I remember a recruiter telling me his past time on weekends was visiting home showings and hanging out with his realtor.

Jean-Jacques Fwiffo, one of the finest minds of the eighteenth century.

 

[fxh]

Hitchhiker flew into rage after being stranded in New Zealand

The coastline between Punakaiki and Greymouth in New Zealand’s South Island.

A French hitchhiker who flew into a rage after spending four days unsuccessfully trying to thumb a ride out of a small New Zealand town pleaded guilty to criminal damage yesterday.

Cedric Claude Rene Rault-Verpre, 27, admitted to destroying road signs after being stranded in the South Island tourist destination of Punakaiki.

Locals in the settlement of less than 100 people described him as a “spoiled millennial”.

“Oh, he threw an absolute hissy fit; he was lying prone on the road screaming that New Zealanders were arseholes and he couldn’t wait to get back to Europe,” business owner Neil Mouat told The Guardian.

Fairfax New Zealand reported he pulled one road sign from the ground and threw it in a river, before hurling rocks at another and verbally abusing onlookers.

He pleaded guilty to wilful damage — which carries a jail term of up to three months. Prosecutors said they were simply seeking $NZ3000 ($2905) to cover damage to the signs.

Outside Greymouth court, Mr Rault-Verpre said the signs he damaged were not “even worth $100”. “You should change the name to Nazi Zealand, not New Zealand,” he said.

Asked how long he had been in New Zealand, he replied: “Too long, way too long. I’ve been to 80 countries. I’ve been to the worst parts of the US. The worst American is not an arsehole like a New Zealander.”

He was remanded to reappear on Friday in the Christchurch District Court, on the other side of the South Island. The New Zealand Herald said he planned to hitchhike there.

 

[SodoSEmite]

don't forget about no drugs

 

[Grand Potentate]

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13389592/att-time-warner-merger-breakup-bell-system-chart

Look at this goddamn chart
I’m too tired for the Death Star joke but it works, trust me

by Nilay Patel @reckless Oct 24, 2016, 3:33pa lot of excellent analysis and reporting about the proposed $86b AT&T / Time Warner merger in the days since the deal was announced, but this infographic from the Wall Street Journal really nails the fundamental insanity of the telecom industry. What started in 1877 as the original Bell Telephone Co turned into the great phone monopoly of AT&T, found itself broken up by the government in 1984, and has since slowly reconstituted itself as the massive duopoly of the modern AT&T and Verizon. At the same time, Warner sucked up Time Inc to become TimeWarner, merged with AOL in history’s most popular business punchline, un-merged, spun off Time Inc again, and is now being swallowed by AT&T while AOL is now part of Verizon.

There are a lot of arguments for and against these kinds of mergers, but I just keep looking at this chart and thinking: what did all this really accomplish? How many dollars of value and hours of effort have been sucked up inside these ill-fated remixes of content and infrastructure giants? How many good ideas died because these companies were spending time and money chasing these doomed integrations instead?

Wouldn’t we be better off if the content companies were competing to have their work widely distributed and earning revenue by capturing audience attention on their own merits, and the network companies were competing to deliver faster, more reliable service at lower prices? Instead it seems like AT&T and Verizon have decided that true competition in delivering service is too hard, and the better way to capture customers is by locking up content.

If you thought music streaming exclusives were bad, just wait until Comcast starts windowing SNL sketches to keep people on its pipes while AT&T only streams CNN to AT&T phones, while Verizon keeps wielding mobile access to NFL games like a club against the American consumer.

Look at that goddamn chart.

The Machine

 

[Fwiffo]

I'd like to know what motivated both the boards of Time Warner and AT&T besides monetary gain.

Rewind back to the turn of the millennium and there was a spate of Internet access (yes, that used to be its own business kids) firms who bought traditional and new media firms thinking access and content was the perfect marriage. Fast forward to 2016 and we see mobile telecom firms thinking the exact same thing: Verizon/Yahoo, AT&T/Time Warner.

Why is it a fait d'accompli in this decade? Our Internet is faster? Our content is more banal and there's more of it to consume?

 

[fxh]

fwiffo - i see kids (anyone under 40) watching stupid videos and fillums on the train each morning & evening on phucking phones.

 

[The Machine]

Nilay is by no means Verge's best writer, but I he nailed it here.

Wouldn’t we be better off if the content companies were competing to have their work widely distributed and earning revenue by capturing audience attention on their own merits, and the network companies were competing to deliver faster, more reliable service at lower prices? Instead it seems like AT&T and Verizon have decided that true competition in delivering service is too hard, and the better way to capture customers is by locking up content.

Services and pricing will only become increasingly stagnant as we see more mergers and acquisitions like this.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Leitmotif

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...piles-of-cash-venezuelans-start-weighing-them

Venezuelans Give Up on Counting Piles of Cash and Start Weighing Them

 

[Fwiffo]

Haitch or aitch - letter H

"It marks a decline in class anxiety in speech; attitudes to accents and pronunciations have become much more relaxed. However, there are some pronunciations that do inspire ridicule and prejudice. If you rhyme cloth, wrath and off with north and wharf then you are in a small and declining tribe. "

Cloth, north, wrath wharf - they aren't supposed to rhyme? How do people even pronounce it these days?

Drove me nuts a bit when I started working across the pond: "Aitch R" or "Haitch R"...

 

[fxh]

its not clorrth, wrorth or orrff.

 

[Thruth]

OECD published the latest world rankings of 15 year-olds performance in real world reading, math & science

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisa-2015-results-in-focus.pdf

Countries performing well above the OECD mean in rank order:

At or about the OECD mean:

 

[Fwiffo]

Yes Canada scores high but what does it really translate to?

What is bsjg? These are weird names for countries. I thought it was Macau and South Korea or at least Republic of Korea.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Damn. No wonder hacking in Estonia is so sought after. A bunch of fucking math wizards.

Where's the US?

 

[Thruth]

OECD published the latest world rankings of 15 year-olds performance in real world reading, math & science

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisa-2015-results-in-focus.pdf

Countries performing well above the OECD mean in rank order:
View attachment 20094

At or about the OECD mean:

View attachment 20093

Damn. No wonder hacking in Estonia is so sought after. A bunch of fucking math wizards.

Where's the US?

US is average between Norway and Austria

 

[Grand Potentate]

US is average between Norway and Austria

we're #1!

 

[sirloin]

The big problem with the PISA test, or at least thing you have to know, is that it relies on questions with true or false type answers. This gives in turn a higher placement to education systems stride to towards giving the pupils one set of tools, but on the other hand lacks focus on solving multi faceted problems and invite to indepent thinking.

 

[Thruth]

The big problem with the PISA test, or at least thing you have to know, is that it relies on questions with true or false type answers. This gives in turn a higher placement to education systems stride to towards giving the pupils one set of tools, but on the other hand lacks focus on solving multi faceted problems and invite to indepent thinking.

This is very clearly illustrated with Venezuela not participating as they are all free thinkers who do poorly on standardized exams, right Leitmotif ?

 

[sirloin]

There is no way, that the greatness and wast knowledge of Venuezulas youth, can be scored fairly in a test deviced by the imperialistic OECD!!

 

[Leitmotif]

There is no way, that the greatness and wast knowledge of Venuezulas youth, can be scored fairly in a test deviced by the imperialistic OECD!!

I got a head headache from this bukkake of stupidity.

 

[Scherensammler]

“You should change the name to Nazi Zealand, not New Zealand,” he said.

Seriously? It was already all there. Here you go: Na-Zealand!

Looks like most European countries kind of fail in the PISA test, though not the first time.
Even in national tests some of the German states cheat by preparing their students for the tests to get better results.
But the real problem is that they conduct the tests in the nation's mother tongue, which leaves the majority of the bright minds (all the kids of the immigrating professors, doctors and engineers from the Middle East and Africa) behind.
Since the kids with migration background can make up to 80% of a school class they will soon conduct the test in the native tongue of those bright minds... And I'm sure that Germany will rise to the top, followed closely by the Netherlands, France and Sweden.

 

[Fwiffo]

Is Uber too vital to fail?

"Indeed it does. Across the US, Uber (and sometimes its rival, Lyft) are being used to slowly plug gaps normally filled by public and private investment in infrastructure and services. In Los Angeles, for instance, residents living in some new apartment blocks are given $100 Uber credit in lieu of a place to park."

Is that a recurring credit?

I use Uber quite a bit, but I wouldn't say it's essential to my day to day life. I did have to rely on it to go to some of my cousins' weddings in the suburbs. Mostly it provides the convenience of not having to go to a subway station or get on a streetcar or bus.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Is Uber too vital to fail?

"Indeed it does. Across the US, Uber (and sometimes its rival, Lyft) are being used to slowly plug gaps normally filled by public and private investment in infrastructure and services. In Los Angeles, for instance, residents living in some new apartment blocks are given $100 Uber credit in lieu of a place to park."

Is that a recurring credit?

I use Uber quite a bit, but I wouldn't say it's essential to my day to day life. I did have to rely on it to go to some of my cousins' weddings in the suburbs. Mostly it provides the convenience of not having to go to a subway station or get on a streetcar or bus.

Did you see the complete takedown of Uber's unprofitability on Naked Capitalism. As a numbers man I think you'll enjoy it.

 

[Scherensammler]

Did you see the complete takedown of Uber's unprofitability on Naked Capitalism. As a numbers man I think you'll enjoy it.

So what's the idea behind it? Slowly eliminate competition and then up prices because they have a monopole on personal transport?

 

[Grand Potentate]

So what's the idea behind it? Slowly eliminate competition and then up prices because they have a monopole on personal transport?

yep. or as i like to call it, the Amazon model.

 

[Fwiffo]

As a numbers man I think you'll enjoy it.

I'm a numbers man?

 

[Grand Potentate]

I'm a numbers man?

someone who deals with money

 

[Fwiffo]

Apparently Chamberlain, Kennedy, and Medvedev were mere blips.

 

[Grand Potentate]

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/12/brilliant-tweetstorm-matt-stoller-fake-news.html

Monopolization Is the Problem BEHIND “Fake News”
Posted on December 17, 2016 by WashingtonsBlog
This brilliant tweetstorm by Matt Stoller – who has been a top Congressional Democratic aide for many years – discusses how monopolization is the underlying problem driving the symptom of “fake news” …

(Twitter repeats the last tweet before each new tweet, so read the bottom half with white background and ignore the top portion with the blue background.)

 

[Grand Potentate]

Our famously free press at work

The Regulatory Capture Of The Press

There is a phenomenon called “regulatory capture” that describes how government regulators come to be controlled by those that they are meant to regulate. The same idea applies to the press. And it’s easy to see in action.


Regulatory capture was first put forth as an economic theory in the late 20th century, but it has probably been happening since the invention of regulation. Classic all-American examples would be, say, an energy industry lobbyist becoming the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, or a host of Wall Street bankers and hedge fund guys taking control of our financial regulatory agencies. Needless to say, regulatory capture benefits private interests at the expense of the public, and makes a mockery of the original purpose of institutions that were supposed to be operating in the public interest.

Our vaunted free press is not a government agency, but it is susceptible—and indeed some of it long ago succumbed!—to the same sort of danger. The general mechanism of the overseen taking control of their overseers is similar. The most important job of the press is to inform the public about what exactly the government is doing, thereby keeping the government’s power in check and keeping our leaders accountable to us all. But in a competitive media world, the government can use the promise of access as a tool to subdue the more troublesome aspects of journalism. Once any media outlet becomes more concerned with its position in the pecking order than with what it is doing to serve regular people, it becomes manipulable by anyone holding the ability to boost its prestige. The more dangerous the government, the more dangerous it is to have a press willing to bargain for access.

Which brings us to this fucking picture, tweeted Sunday by DC politician-whisperer Mike Allen, who has built a lucrative career by being uncomfortably close with the people he covers. A bunch of national political reporters smiling happily with Donald Trump at an off-the-record Christmas party at Mar-a-Lago... it looks bad, you know? Not to worry, Mike Allen’s boss, Jim VandeHei, told Erik Wemple:

[My] general take is people get way too deranged about reporters talking w presidents, politicians, sources [off the record]. I am a fan of candid, OTR chats: it’s often the closest you get to truth. In this case, my understanding is the President-elect popped in unexpectedly. Do people really think reporters should run for the exits or stage a protest a few weeks into his transition? Seems dramatic to me. At the same time, the President-elect should make himself more available to press questions and scrutiny, and hopefully very soon. This wouldn’t be much of a story if he had been holding press conferences of late. If he does, then I would root for even MORE OTR or deep background or whatever sessions so a president-elect and a press corp with a hostile relationship can at least better understand each other.

Here—though VandeHei would certainly dispute it—we have the regulatory capture of the press in its purest form. To someone who has been swallowed this completely by the DC media beast, the idea that the White House press corps should be confrontational or aggressive with the newly elected president is absurd, an unserious waste of time. The idea that the press might do something, like refuse to participate in off the record cocktail parties in order to try to force our government to do more things on the record, or the idea that government officials should be expected to tell the truth on the record, is not even within the bounds of legitimate conversation; rather, VandeHei accepts that politicians lie to the press and the public as a normal matter, and therefore off the record chats are the best they can hope for, and therefore he would “root for” more off the record chats between politicians and reporters, so that the two can “better understand each other.” Notice a couple of additional assumptions left unstated here:

• It is important for the most powerful elected official on the planet to “understand” the reporters covering him, because hey, they are people too, and they need selfies with the president. And,
  
• There is great value in the press knowing things they cannot share with the public.

This pathetic mix of a burning need to have access and proximity to power combined with a lack of concern over whether this access will have any benefit for the public (as opposed to just the reporters themselves) defines the spirit of the captured press. For men like Allen and VandeHei, every piece of reporting is a trade; powerful people grant them access, and they grant powerful people flattering coverage. If powerful people grant them any unfiltered truth, they agree not to disclose this truth to the public. This sort of access journalism increases the prestige of the journalist as it decreases the actual value of the journalism. In the end, the reporters get invited to the president’s Christmas party, and the president gets to rest assured that his friends, the press, will not harm him.


Because they understand each other.

 

[Fwiffo]

Iraqi Christians celebrate Christmas

"Father Bashar showed me his primary school, for more than 400 Christian - and Muslim - children (60% and 40% respectively). There was no religious instruction, he told me, 'just to learn to live together, study together, accepting each other.'

Before the 2003 invasion and occupation, there were approximately 1.5 million Christians in Iraq...Now, they are believed to number between 200,000 and 400,000.

The mass of consecration in Irbil was followed by fireworks, a cake baked in the shape of the church with its new red cross on top - and the choir singing a wistful, nostalgic song - Auld Lang Syne - In Arabic. But the same tune, and the same words and meaning, 'times gone by'."

 

[Grand Potentate]

http://www.ianwelsh.net/groups-only-a-fool-trusts/

Groups Only A Fool Trusts
2016 DECEMBER 29
by Ian Welsh

Economists. The vast majority missed the housing bubble.

Intelligence Agencies. Remember Iraq? Also, part of the job description is lying.

Any Army’s PR. Enough said.

Life Insurance agents. I worked back office dealing with agents. About 10% were looking after their clients first.

Politicians. Yes, obviously.

Stock Brokers. As the book said, “where are the client’s yachts?”

Media in general. Most of them are owned by a few conglomerates. They do what’s in the interests of those big conglomerates or their job leaves. And remember the NYT and Iraq.

Private Equity, hedge funders, any senior executive in a large bank. They were all in on the fraud leading up to the financial crisis, and yes, they would do it again.

Any Senior Executive in a large firm. They didn’t get there by being good people. Good people don’t become Senior VPs.

Central Bankers. They either missed the housing and financial bubble or didn’t care, then they bailed out the rich and fucked over the little people. No one will be hired for those jobs who wouldn’t do it again, and again, and again.

Etc…

My friend Charles Green, who co-wrote the book “The Trusted Adviser” loved to say “I trust my dog with my life, but not my lunch.”

Who you can trust depends on what you are trusting them with, and who you are. Charles can trust his dog with his life, I can’t trust his dog with my life.

Central bankers are the dogs of the rich. They can trust them to save their lives, no one else can. But, if you were to fall in front of one of them and injure themselves, some of them would call the ambulance for you. You can’t trust them not take away your house, however, or pursue policies that crush your wages and make jobs scarce.

The point here is that just because someone is good in one part of their life doesn’t mean they’re good in another part of their life. I learned this young, my father was a bastard to his family, but was respected by most of his employees for his loyalty to them.

People are not of a piece, but you need to understand what their jobs are to understand what they can be trusted with.

The job of politicians is to get voters to elect them, then to do things that rich people like, because rich people reward them after they leave office and while in office take care of their families, invite them to parties, give them loans and so on. Rich people pay most of their salary, they work for them.

This is IMPORTANT. So if you want to know if a politician is one of the rare few you can trust you need to see that they don’t take the rich’s money, and they don’t vote with the other people who have taken the rich’s money. And you can only really see that once they’ve been in office for a time.

This is why I trust Corbyn. Because he doesn’t take their money; he barely even accepts money from the government for office expenses AND he has a track record of voting against or for the right things when it was against his personal interest. He has integrity. He is a very rare politician.

When I used to back-office for life insurance agents, I could tell the ones whom I’d recommend because they would sell insurance, often, that earned them less commission, if it was better for their clients. That simple.

For economists, look who they work for and look at their prediction record. Did they come out against the housing bubble early, for example? You can trust Stiglitz because he wrote a book attacking the World Bank that named names and turned other economists against him because he was concerned more about how poor people were being hurt than about what his fellow economists think. He did something against interest, plus he’s been right on most issues. Integrity + competence.

If you happen to have a 100 million dollars or so then you would be justified in saying “I trust central bankers” because they are looking out after your interests, though you might wonder if they are competent enough. Still, they’ll do anything for you, they are your dogs: you can trust them. No one else can.

As for the rest: never trust anyone on commission without doing extensive checks to see if they put their clients first: if they’ll take a hit in pay to do the right thing, and remember, most of them work for firms which, whatever their official policy, strongly discourage getting lower commissions for any reason.

Intelligence agencies. Well, if you’re stupid enough or naive enough to trust an intelligence agency, I can do nothing for you. Even people who work for intelligence agencies don’t trust intelligence agencies.

With respect to the media, people are extraordinarily stupid. For example, I don’t trust the Russia Times (RT) with respect to things that Russia cares about, but they’re very good on things Russia doesn’t care about. What you’re looking for is a media outlet which doesn’t care about the issue in question, which isn’t subject to pressure on that issues, whose owner doesn’t care. American media is useful on America, of course, but it is not trustworthy.

Understand?

There are few things which will destroy you faster in life than trusting the wrong person or people, and the metrics you have for trusting individuals in your life don’t work when scaled up to organizations, professionals and so on: people who are not your friends, or in your social circle, or who are not being dealt with as friends and members of your social circle.

The interests of these people do not align with yours, they do not identify with you, and your well-being does not concern them in any meaningful way. Figure out what their interests are, who they identify with and who they serve, if you want to know what they’ll do and who can trust them.

And if you’re looking for the rare politician or broker or commissioned salesman you can trust; look for the ones willing to go against interest, with a track record of doing so.

 

[Fwiffo]

Life Insurance agents. I worked back office dealing with agents. About 10% were looking after their clients first.

Why would insurance people look after their clients? We're looking out for the firm and corporation first. That's why we have actuaries who calculate the risk of you dying because we need to make sure you pay enough premium before your dead lifeless body cashes out. Same goes for commercial insurance and natural disasters and/or man made calamities. It's called risk management - that is, risk to the insurance firm.