All Life Is Problem Solving

President Obama has now released the Justice Department “torture memos,” providing legal opinions approving the use of interrogation procedures that many other observers and legal authorities view as clear instances of torture. In releasing the memos, the President has implemented his commitment to transparency in Government. But, at the same time, in asserting that his […]

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From The Huffington Post and YouTube Nassim Nicholas Taleb says (pp. xvii – xviii) that a “Black Swan” is an event with three attributes. “It is an outlier . . .” in the sense that it is “outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. . […]

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Lately, I’ve been harping a lot on the need for transparency and accountability in the Geithner Plan. Here’s Elizabeth Warren, Chairperson of the congressional oversight panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on the subject. Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy Don’t you wish she was the Treasury […]

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In a number of earlier posts I’ve discussed the alternative to the Geithner Plan of temporary nationalization followed by restructuring and re-privatization of the Banks. I’ve also pointed to the lack of transparency of the Administration in refusing to explain its decision to follow the Geithner Plan in the context of a fair evaluation against […]

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There are three basic policy alternatives for solving the problems of our “insolvent” large banks. We can liquidate them, reorganize them using conservatorships, or provide them with Government subsidization in the hopes that the market value of their troubled assets will rise, and that liquidity and enough asset value to achieve solvency will be restored. […]

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In this post I’ll complete my analysis of Dave Snowden’s seven principles of Knowledge Management. — “Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success. When my young son burnt his finger on a match he learnt more about the dangers of fire than any amount of parental instruction cold provide. All human cultures have developed forms […]

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Some time ago, Dave Snowden offered his Seven Principles of Knowledge Management. I’ve commented on some of them before in the context of a review of a presentation by John Tropea. However, John’s presentation pre-dates Dave’s blog post presenting all seven principles. I’ve not had time to review Dave’s post since it appeared, but I […]

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Still another Gregg beauty is: “This borrowed money is certainly not free. Our children and grandchildren will be hit with the bill. Sadly, in 10 years, we will spend more on interest payments on this debt than we spend on education, energy and transportation combined — almost four times as much.” First, the children and […]

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Gregg’s next objection to the “budget to beggar us” is: ”Instead of tightening Uncle Sam’s belt the way so many American families are cutting back these days, the president’s proposal spends so aggressively that it essentially adds $1 trillion to the debt, on average, every year. ”Except for some accounting gimmicks, the budget makes no […]

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On April 1st Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) the Republican stalwart who changed his mind about serving as Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration, gave us a beautiful example of the surpassing “rationality” of standard Republican reasoning about the pending budget bill in the Congress in the form of a Washington Post op-ed piece, called […]

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