Oh, Legal doesn't report to the Sales VP. [Heh, could you imagine?] Back to work. Have you agreed to the prospect's unlimited liability request yet? What's the holdup? Can my Director approve?
Hey, we're showing openings in London and SF (lovely HQ by the Bay).
Ok, I know I joked about this before with my new [work] Macbook Pro... but seriously, is there a way to stop Apple Music from randomly opening? It's not in the Open on Start list.
Google tells me it automatically opens whenever there's a bluetooth connection? Can this possibly be true? Is my polycom phone speaker activating Apple Music? And it can't be disabled or uninstalled?
Exactly, we could take the day off -- heck in sales we can kinda take *any* day off (and we do) -- but those meetings don't set themselves and pipeline doesn't get created by anyone other than you, and there's no shift worker to do your proposals when you're not on the line, so... It's the benefit and cost of doing sales.. complete freedom to be judged everyday by what you've done lately.
But yeah, I feel for all the folks who have other dependencies and deadlines as part of an ongoing business process that doesn't stop just because the boss wants to go to Catalina for the weekend.
Not working! No, not THAT kind of not working... One of the nice things about white collar sales from a remote office at a company with strong growth is that the remote working big SVP of NA sales will often use his "All Hands" call two days before a three-day weekend to give us all the FRIDAY off making it a FOUR DAY WEEKEND.
What this means in practice is that I do my morning emails/reports, join the weekly customer status calls, maybe a few more emails, and that proposal that has to get out right away... then stop working at lunch. Which is EXACTLY what everyone in Sales including the big SVP was going to do anyway with a 3-day weekend. Technically it prevents that 'one guy' (you know the one: Lumbergh) from scheduling an internal Friday afternoon before a long-weekend meeting... So that's nice.
Not really complaining, just chuckling at the transparent morale generator... and heck, it works... I'm about three hours and two more meetings away from a guilt-free FOUR DAY WEEKEND.
"Most notably, a poll last month showed Americans disapproving of Biden’s handling of unemployment, a statistic that is at its lowest point in years."
One of the simple truisms of modernity(tm) is that we're very, very slow to update our metrics. So, employment is a 'good' metric in that it's better to be employed rather than un-employed. But what it fails to measure is whether people are satisfied with their compensation.
People on this very site will point out how gains from productivity are shifting upwards at rates not commensurate with past metrics (and I agree!) -- but that's a big part of how you can see employment as a metric no longer tracking with satisfaction with the economy.
Increasingly, employment is seen more as a lottery system and not as what we might call meritocratic solidarity. There is a very real phenomenon where people slide 'backwards' in their employment prospects even as they become more skilled and experienced. We used to chalk it up to outsourcing, but three or four decades later? It's not simply outsourcing. And it's honestly kinda terrifying to a lot of people. A lot of employed people.
A real Bidenomics would look at this and build a message/program/plan around it... instead it's easier to cobble together [old] metrics in new graphs in a .ppt and have shiny happy lottery winners tell us how its all good.
[Bracketing the other aspects pointed out above about any question is simply a referendum on the name Biden, and not necessarily a well reasoned Economic Theory about Wealth and Labor].
It's not that the dinky ones suck, it's that the Baumol Cost Disease of Teaching is real at the bottom of the scale.
At the top of the Scale the grand irony is that the faculty didn't capture the full Baumol effect, but were instead bought off and/or threatened by the Adjunctification and others ate their lunch.
Strangely, I don't think the 'value' of a degree is the driver or fulcrum of the issue.
It's much more simple... Universities hit a bubble period of financial growth and it became very clear that spending those $$ was worth the effort of gaining control of those $$ so you could direct where the $$ would be spent.
The cause of the financial bubble is one discussion, the spending and control of the financial bubble is another one that is only tangentially (usually) related.
Honestly, the proper word for the Education bubble is Grift... we throw it around alot for the other side, but Grift is what Grift does.
The 'popping' of the bubble may or may not happen -- from the folks I know in Higher Ed Administration, there's no particular fear the Harvard, all the well endowed (tee hee) privates with fancy names, or even WVU will go under... but the demographic and financial turns could nuke quite a few small to mid-sized colleges and universities. Which is just to say that the grift will continue and that the consolidation will perhaps make it even worse.
I've seen and discussed the economics of Higher Ed at the simple Tuition = Faculty scenario... and let me tell you, it's a terrible business model. An almost unsustainable model. Fantastical financial fiascos that we're seeing with the endowed Universities? Purely an example of too much money available for use outside of the core mission. Or, put another way, a grift of changing the core mission because you have the $$ to do so.
Comment in moderation, but for Michael Cain, I can't see any trigger words, links, or edit hyjinx for why it would have beeen flagged? Maybe inconsistent capitalization? Maybe for slightly criticizing Brando?
I once, non-ironically, turned Marc Antony's speech into a power-point.
I'm no expert on how Shakespeare ought to be dramatized, but in translating it to .ppt it felt much more subdued and ironic -- where Ambition is juxtaposed to Honor and the meaning of both inverted.
In my head, it delivers like a drumbeat... 'For Brutus in an Honorable Man' is the drumbeat of war... uttered methodically such that the crowd eventually accepts the subversion of honor and ambition. But to me, at least, it feels better done as a funeral oration, not the rabble-rising approach taken by Brando.
I wouldn't contest if told that I'm totally wrong in how Shakespeare experts dramatically view the scene... but the 'translation' exercise gave me a new perspective on it.
As far as I can tell, the State did not charge him for using campaign donations... he used a Personal HELOC and was reimbursed by Trump Corporation directly.
He plead guilty to 'coordinating' with the campaign... but the summary implies that the campaign he coordinated with was Trump himself. So, BAU.
Of course money is fungible, the candidate is also the campaign, and everything and anything is related to the project of the candidate getting elected.
Which is why campaign finance laws are probably not the thing you want to beat candidates with for things that are not financed by the campaign.
Sure, I'm not saying that he wasn't guilty of a bunch of stuff he agreed he was guilty of.
Just putting dampers on the bias confirmation that 'convicted' of something means other people who might mount a vigorous defense of the thing might ironically demonstrate that the person who plead guilty to crime plead guilty to something that, in court or in appeal, others agreed was *not* a crime.
I think the 'issue' with the Daniels thing isn't the sex (that's another issue) but in this era of branding and monetization, then anything is a campaign finance violation... endorsements, public appearances, use of logos/brands and locations, etc. Everything is basically contribution in kind. George Cluny may be exercising his first amendment rights to endorse someone; but let's be honest, we know what George Cluny is paid to endorse things... so on the books it must go.
I mean, will no one consider the value of Four Seasons Landscaping to the Trump Campaign?
Michael Cohen plead guilty to the campaign finance charges. In that sense, the legal theory of whether he violated Campaign Finance laws wasn't contested or therefore tested.
Mostly it seems he was pleading guilty to his IRS crimes, which seem rather cut and dried.
But a vigorous defense against the theory that they were campaign finance violations was never mounted, so we'd be extracting too much from his subsequent conviction -- which also was not appealed. So there's no 'precedent' that such a thing is the correct use of the law.
Just another guy who took discretion as the better part of valor in our legal system.
And that returns us to my original comment which is questioning whether the inability to do #3 is really a signal of the inability to ever hold the imperium accountable.
I think there are a few things here that we're rolling together that's making us talk about different things:
1. Grand Strategy: Nation building
2. 20-yr Military Tactics on the Grand Strategy
3. Executing the withdrawal.
In reverse order, my position is that #3 requires particular accountability as bad Military Execution.
#2 isn't in scope... heck, some things we did in #2 we did really well -- it depends on what you're measuring in terms of Military Tactics/Strategy vs. Grand Strategy.
#1 a sort of 'Vietnam' reckoning over our entire raison d'etre for asking the Military to do things in Afghanistan? Sure, but that's yet another thing.
I suppose there's even a #4 that Jay talks about... how bad was our assessment of the execution of our Strategy that it fell apart in days, not weeks, months or years?
Doing the little thing (#3) is the bare minimum... anything after that? Well...
I think this leads to a slightly different conclusion that might be equally troubling: we want to have Military sandboxes to test things: Men, Metal and Machines. Budgets and promotions are built on a sandbox that is 'live'.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Doing the Fair”
Oh, Legal doesn't report to the Sales VP. [Heh, could you imagine?] Back to work. Have you agreed to the prospect's unlimited liability request yet? What's the holdup? Can my Director approve?
Hey, we're showing openings in London and SF (lovely HQ by the Bay).
"
Ok, I know I joked about this before with my new [work] Macbook Pro... but seriously, is there a way to stop Apple Music from randomly opening? It's not in the Open on Start list.
Google tells me it automatically opens whenever there's a bluetooth connection? Can this possibly be true? Is my polycom phone speaker activating Apple Music? And it can't be disabled or uninstalled?
"
Exactly, we could take the day off -- heck in sales we can kinda take *any* day off (and we do) -- but those meetings don't set themselves and pipeline doesn't get created by anyone other than you, and there's no shift worker to do your proposals when you're not on the line, so... It's the benefit and cost of doing sales.. complete freedom to be judged everyday by what you've done lately.
But yeah, I feel for all the folks who have other dependencies and deadlines as part of an ongoing business process that doesn't stop just because the boss wants to go to Catalina for the weekend.
"
Not working! No, not THAT kind of not working... One of the nice things about white collar sales from a remote office at a company with strong growth is that the remote working big SVP of NA sales will often use his "All Hands" call two days before a three-day weekend to give us all the FRIDAY off making it a FOUR DAY WEEKEND.
What this means in practice is that I do my morning emails/reports, join the weekly customer status calls, maybe a few more emails, and that proposal that has to get out right away... then stop working at lunch. Which is EXACTLY what everyone in Sales including the big SVP was going to do anyway with a 3-day weekend. Technically it prevents that 'one guy' (you know the one: Lumbergh) from scheduling an internal Friday afternoon before a long-weekend meeting... So that's nice.
Not really complaining, just chuckling at the transparent morale generator... and heck, it works... I'm about three hours and two more meetings away from a guilt-free FOUR DAY WEEKEND.
On “How to Make People Care About Democratic Achievements”
Dude, I don't think the Republican Party has *any* good economic proposals.
Leave me out of it.
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/28/2023”
Heh, not saying I haven't put farm animals in a vehicle myself... but usually they are the size of large dogs.
On “How to Make People Care About Democratic Achievements”
"Most notably, a poll last month showed Americans disapproving of Biden’s handling of unemployment, a statistic that is at its lowest point in years."
One of the simple truisms of modernity(tm) is that we're very, very slow to update our metrics. So, employment is a 'good' metric in that it's better to be employed rather than un-employed. But what it fails to measure is whether people are satisfied with their compensation.
People on this very site will point out how gains from productivity are shifting upwards at rates not commensurate with past metrics (and I agree!) -- but that's a big part of how you can see employment as a metric no longer tracking with satisfaction with the economy.
Increasingly, employment is seen more as a lottery system and not as what we might call meritocratic solidarity. There is a very real phenomenon where people slide 'backwards' in their employment prospects even as they become more skilled and experienced. We used to chalk it up to outsourcing, but three or four decades later? It's not simply outsourcing. And it's honestly kinda terrifying to a lot of people. A lot of employed people.
A real Bidenomics would look at this and build a message/program/plan around it... instead it's easier to cobble together [old] metrics in new graphs in a .ppt and have shiny happy lottery winners tell us how its all good.
[Bracketing the other aspects pointed out above about any question is simply a referendum on the name Biden, and not necessarily a well reasoned Economic Theory about Wealth and Labor].
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/28/2023”
I feel like this is really going to throw his alignment out-of-whack.
On “The Maleficent Gordon Gee and His Malfunctioning Money Machine”
It's not that the dinky ones suck, it's that the Baumol Cost Disease of Teaching is real at the bottom of the scale.
At the top of the Scale the grand irony is that the faculty didn't capture the full Baumol effect, but were instead bought off and/or threatened by the Adjunctification and others ate their lunch.
"
Wisdom.
"
Strangely, I don't think the 'value' of a degree is the driver or fulcrum of the issue.
It's much more simple... Universities hit a bubble period of financial growth and it became very clear that spending those $$ was worth the effort of gaining control of those $$ so you could direct where the $$ would be spent.
The cause of the financial bubble is one discussion, the spending and control of the financial bubble is another one that is only tangentially (usually) related.
Honestly, the proper word for the Education bubble is Grift... we throw it around alot for the other side, but Grift is what Grift does.
The 'popping' of the bubble may or may not happen -- from the folks I know in Higher Ed Administration, there's no particular fear the Harvard, all the well endowed (tee hee) privates with fancy names, or even WVU will go under... but the demographic and financial turns could nuke quite a few small to mid-sized colleges and universities. Which is just to say that the grift will continue and that the consolidation will perhaps make it even worse.
I've seen and discussed the economics of Higher Ed at the simple Tuition = Faculty scenario... and let me tell you, it's a terrible business model. An almost unsustainable model. Fantastical financial fiascos that we're seeing with the endowed Universities? Purely an example of too much money available for use outside of the core mission. Or, put another way, a grift of changing the core mission because you have the $$ to do so.
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/21/2023”
Sometimes you have to use the windows you have, not the windows you wish you had.
On “Sunday Morning! “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare”
Oh well, thought I'd try to sneak that one in.
"
No worries, as long as I can safely write 'shit' all's good.
"
Comment in moderation, but for Michael Cain, I can't see any trigger words, links, or edit hyjinx for why it would have beeen flagged? Maybe inconsistent capitalization? Maybe for slightly criticizing Brando?
"
I once, non-ironically, turned Marc Antony's speech into a power-point.
I'm no expert on how Shakespeare ought to be dramatized, but in translating it to .ppt it felt much more subdued and ironic -- where Ambition is juxtaposed to Honor and the meaning of both inverted.
In my head, it delivers like a drumbeat... 'For Brutus in an Honorable Man' is the drumbeat of war... uttered methodically such that the crowd eventually accepts the subversion of honor and ambition. But to me, at least, it feels better done as a funeral oration, not the rabble-rising approach taken by Brando.
I wouldn't contest if told that I'm totally wrong in how Shakespeare experts dramatically view the scene... but the 'translation' exercise gave me a new perspective on it.
On “For Republicans, It’s Time to Panic”
As far as I can tell, the State did not charge him for using campaign donations... he used a Personal HELOC and was reimbursed by Trump Corporation directly.
He plead guilty to 'coordinating' with the campaign... but the summary implies that the campaign he coordinated with was Trump himself. So, BAU.
Of course money is fungible, the candidate is also the campaign, and everything and anything is related to the project of the candidate getting elected.
Which is why campaign finance laws are probably not the thing you want to beat candidates with for things that are not financed by the campaign.
"
Pretty sure it's the sequel to Veep.
"
Sure, I'm not saying that he wasn't guilty of a bunch of stuff he agreed he was guilty of.
Just putting dampers on the bias confirmation that 'convicted' of something means other people who might mount a vigorous defense of the thing might ironically demonstrate that the person who plead guilty to crime plead guilty to something that, in court or in appeal, others agreed was *not* a crime.
I think the 'issue' with the Daniels thing isn't the sex (that's another issue) but in this era of branding and monetization, then anything is a campaign finance violation... endorsements, public appearances, use of logos/brands and locations, etc. Everything is basically contribution in kind. George Cluny may be exercising his first amendment rights to endorse someone; but let's be honest, we know what George Cluny is paid to endorse things... so on the books it must go.
I mean, will no one consider the value of Four Seasons Landscaping to the Trump Campaign?
"
Michael Cohen plead guilty to the campaign finance charges. In that sense, the legal theory of whether he violated Campaign Finance laws wasn't contested or therefore tested.
Mostly it seems he was pleading guilty to his IRS crimes, which seem rather cut and dried.
But a vigorous defense against the theory that they were campaign finance violations was never mounted, so we'd be extracting too much from his subsequent conviction -- which also was not appealed. So there's no 'precedent' that such a thing is the correct use of the law.
Just another guy who took discretion as the better part of valor in our legal system.
On “Columbia Up And Left Kabul”
Yes, very promising if France declines their option on it.
"
And that returns us to my original comment which is questioning whether the inability to do #3 is really a signal of the inability to ever hold the imperium accountable.
"
I think we're still in the market for a new Sandbox... I don't think Ukraine quite fits the profile... too much risk. Africa, though, looks promising.
"
I think there are a few things here that we're rolling together that's making us talk about different things:
1. Grand Strategy: Nation building
2. 20-yr Military Tactics on the Grand Strategy
3. Executing the withdrawal.
In reverse order, my position is that #3 requires particular accountability as bad Military Execution.
#2 isn't in scope... heck, some things we did in #2 we did really well -- it depends on what you're measuring in terms of Military Tactics/Strategy vs. Grand Strategy.
#1 a sort of 'Vietnam' reckoning over our entire raison d'etre for asking the Military to do things in Afghanistan? Sure, but that's yet another thing.
I suppose there's even a #4 that Jay talks about... how bad was our assessment of the execution of our Strategy that it fell apart in days, not weeks, months or years?
Doing the little thing (#3) is the bare minimum... anything after that? Well...
"
I think this leads to a slightly different conclusion that might be equally troubling: we want to have Military sandboxes to test things: Men, Metal and Machines. Budgets and promotions are built on a sandbox that is 'live'.
'Fixing' Afghanistan? Please.