Crankenomics 101

Cheat Sheet No. 3

Image by 1820796 from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.  

 

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device

"The complexity of economics can be calculated mathematically. Write out the algebraic equation that is the human heart and multiply each unknown by the population of the world." -P.J. O'Rourke 

 

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

Dana, did I ever tell you about when I was a boss at a hooge, globe-spanning corporation?

{I gather that your nephew's magic mushroom harvest went well this year?}

Seriously, I was one of five assistant warehouse managers at a facility that served the Cleveland market for Toys Я Us back in the 80s, for about three years.

{One of five? Now that I believe.}

In fact, I participated in setting up the Cleveland market, from scratch, after returning from about nine months of training in the New York market. 

{As in New York City?!?}

Yup. I lived out on Long Island (pronounced lon-guy-lund) for a bit as a store management trainee and then on the New Jersey side of the city as a warehouse management trainee for the majority of my stay — at company expense. 

It was the closest I ever came to the experience of having prosperous parents shipping me off to college and picking up most of the tab. It was also the only part of my time with TЯU that I enjoyed.

{Cause New York was cool, and fun, right?}

Meh. There's nothing in NYC that you can't find in any other reasonably large city; there's a lot more of it, but it costs a lot more.  

I've been a boss a bunch of times but that was the only time in my long and storied career that I was a genuine corporate salary slave.

{You had a career?}

Several, and this was before all those predictions that the members of the generations following the Boomers would change careers multiple times. I've always been a man ahead of my time. 

{Wait... salary slave? Do you mean wage slave?}

I define salary slaves as (usually) overworked and underpaid low-level bosses who collect the same salary no matter how many hours they put in, as opposed to their (usually) overworked and underpaid employees (wage slaves) who get paid by the hour. 

{Usually?}

There are notable exceptions. For example, everyone who works for UPS works their bums off, but everyone is well paid. Unfortunately, this is not a common phenomenon. Millions and millions of relatively low-skilled worker bees and their relatively low-level supervisors limp from paycheck to paycheck with absolutely no sense of financial security.

{Who you callin' low-skilled? My UPS man person...}

Has to be very good, and very fast, at his/her/their job. UPS drivers have to drive a hooge step-van in all kinds of weather and navigate up and down all sorts of roads they must share with all kinds of people — any number of whom may be texting with one hand while groping around for the joint they dropped on the floor with the other and steering with their knees. 

And have you ever noticed they're regularly accompanied by another man person in brown with a stopwatch and a clipboard?

Personally, I think an individual that can do all the jobs in say, a fast-food joint, do them well, and not only is nice to the customers but says thank you with (at least apparent) sincerity is a skilled employee. 

Of course, nowadays they're more likely to be called associates because as everyone knows, being an associate is much better than being a mere employee. 

But as far as most economists are concerned since, technically/theoretically, almost anyone could do the job (although not necessarily very well) without obtaining the right credential from an overpriced college, the sort economists graduate from, they're considered low or even unskilled. 

I get it. I wouldn't want to encounter the employees associates from my favorite Chick-fil-A when I was wheeled into an operating room for brain surgery. This is why brain surgeons are, and should be, paid a little better than employees associates who work in fast-food restaurants. 

{Right... Listen, I know that at least you think your "garrulous geezer" shtick is cool but is this going anywhere?}

Why certainly! This is only an introduction. Gentlereaders will have to read the next column or two to discover where I'm going. Not the best marketing strategy in an age of ever-diminishing attention spans I'll grant you, but it's the best I can do.   

I "self-identify" as a (sorta/kinda) wild-eyed free marketeer and libertarian. "I want the playground to have minimum rules and maximum fun. I want just enough rules to give everyone an equal shot at some swing time and neutralize the bullies." -me

I'm a free marketeer and libertarian. A libertarian is "an advocate or supporter of a political philosophy that advocates only minimal state intervention in the free market and the private lives of citizens." For the record, the definition is from Google; Google currently gets definitions from Oxford Languages. 

The sorta/kinda is due to the fact I think that a nation as well off as America is morally required to install a rationally designed effective safety net to catch everyone that fate shoves off the trampoline — many libertarians disagree — but not necessarily for those who deliberately jumped off because they thought it would be fun.  

The devil, as always, resides comfortably in the details.

I would also point out that it's also easy to argue that an effective safety net is a necessary cost of doing business no matter one's moral or ethical beliefs, or the lack thereof. I'd rather pay taxes than be attacked by _______ when I'm out and about, and not everyone can live in a well-guarded, fortified lair in the mountains of Ohio like me and mine do. 

To be continued... 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.   

A.I. Yi Yi!

Image by Andy from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.  

 

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device

"With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon." Elon Musk  

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

For the record, this column has not been written by an artificial intelligence, I pinky swear. 

{Huh. How would they know?}

How would who know what?

{Your readers, how would they know? What's to prevent an artificial intelligence from lying, and claiming to be you?}

Just a sec', Dana, I'll be right back...

Okay, it looks like the existing complex web of national and international standard organizations is already working on this. Obviously, it's gonna take a minute, but they'll eventually hammer out a system for certifying whether or not a given something or other was created by an artificial or meat-based intelligence.

At least I hope so.  

They've got a lot of experience in this sort of thing which is why you don't get electrocuted when you plug in electronic devices manufactured all over the world. For example, at America's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), "Delivering the needed measurements, standards and other tools is a primary focus for NIST’s portfolio of AI efforts."

{Cool, but in the meantime? And what if...}

Funny you should ask. An article (AI Junk is Starting to Pollute the Internet) in the Wall Street Journal, Colonel Cranky's personal paper of record, caught my eye a while back and...

{I thought you were Captain Cranky?}

I've been promoted, Dana. You'll be receiving an invitation to the induction ceremony/party shortly.

Check out the article dear gentlereaders if you're interested in details. Far be it from me to steal content written by a fellow H. sapien, WSJ reporter Robert McMillan. 

{But what if "Robert McMillan" is actually an it and...}

However, I learned something from the article that in retrospect should've been obvious to me given how common a trope it is in science fiction, regardless of format, for a device controlled by an artificial intelligence — robots, computers, spaceships, etc — to choke to death on corrupted or deliberately deceptive input.

The article is primarily about how spammers, and other blackguards and ne'er-do-wells, are using A.I. to execute scams. But the thing that really interested me was reading that slowly but steadily more and more of "the cloud" consists of content that's created by A.I. 

From the article "...researchers worry that the language models will become less useful, a phenomenon known as 'model collapse.'”  

So what's model collapse? Artificial intelligence is based on tech called large language models. A.I. feeds on the content of "public data sets," that is to say, all the internet content theoretically already created by H. sapiens. But our fellow meat puppets, perhaps even you, are experimenting with A.I. for fun and/or profit to create content.  

A given artificial intelligence can eat data faster than Joey Chestnut can eat hotdogs and remember, and use, more data than that kid in Sister Mary McGillicuddy's class that made the rest of us look stupid and was the reason S'tr graded on a curve. 

Artificial intelligence software, like the currently famous ChatGPT for example, regurgitates content created by itself in response to commands/inquiries by H. sapiens. "Experts" predict that this is going to eventually result in the cyber equivalent of what happens when you make a copy of a copy that's a copy of a copy. 

{Oh yeah? Well just wait till, inevitably, some meat puppets start falling in love with his/her/their artificial companions...} 

It's already happening, just wait till they start self-identifying as software, or a robot, and start canceling people for being cyberphobes while waiting for the singularity. 

Anyways... That's model collapse. I hope to live long enough to discover if Pandora can close the box before artificial intelligences (intelligensi?) start killing us in our sleep, or if it turns out that A.I. is going to save the world. 

The law of unintended consequences is always in effect, which I find endlessly fascinating (except for when it negatively impacts me of course). 

Stuff happens...  So I would suggest that it's better to be safe than to be sorry, that a buyer should be wary, and that since life's just one darn thing after another, you should keep your fingers crossed and be careful because you never know what's comin' down the pike.

After all, It pays to pay attention.

A note on last week's column. The voters of Ohio voted down the attempt by the Republicans currently in control of the state to make it much harder for the little people to both get a referendum on the ballot and pass it if they do, a right they've been exercising remarkably responsibly since 1912. 

They were primarily motivated by wishing to make it harder for the people to pass a referendum that will be on the ballot in November, that's being promoted by the Democrats, that will enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. 

Rather than compromising on a law that would make abortion legal, but with restrictions similar to the ones that were included in the Roe v. Wade ruling, WHICH THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS OF ALL STRIPES FAVOR, we might wind up with a constitutional amendment that's so vague and poorly written that it might be struck down by some judge or other before or after the election. 

But it will save the members of the Ohio Legislature from having to craft and vote on a common-sense compromise.

{And yet you...}

Yes, and yet I still think the issue should be decided state by state given the sorry state of the Congress. It should've never been decided by nine unelected Supreme Court judges just because Congress will cross the street to avoid hammering out compromises that might keep a given member from getting reelected and having to get a job in the real world.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.   

   

 

    

Ohio

A Republican State?

 Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.  

 

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." -Unknown  

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

As my regular readers are aware, I live in a fortified lair, Casa de Chaos, in the mountains of Ohio. 

Ohio is a Republican stronghold these days although we do have a token Democrat, Senator Sherrod Brown, our Senior Senator (in more ways than one, he'll be 71 in November) who's been a politician for all but two years of his life since leaving college.

His brother, Charlie Brown, was the Attorney General of West (by God) Virginia from 1984 to 1989 when, according to Wikipedia,  "...he resigned...in exchange for an end to a grand jury investigation into allegations that he lied under oath and into his campaign financial records." And which resulted in a very brief Wikipedia entry.

{Charlie Brown? You're making that up!}

No I'm not, Dana, follow the link.

 

My current official position concerning America's two major political parties can be summed up by Mercutio's famous declaration in Romeo and Juliet, "A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms meat of me."

{Thou wouldst have us believe thou art a Shakespeare fanboy, gentle sir?} 

We studied a condensed version of Romy and Julie in high school and I saw the (in?)famous 1968 movie version that very briefly featured Romy's bum and Julie's boobs. 

The teenage actors, now in their 70s, were so scarred by the experience they sued Paramount — 55 years later — for half a billion bucks, although unsuccessfully. And I'm definitely a Mark Knopfler fanboy whose song Romeo and Juliet is a favorite of mine (but not the kinda dumb video).

But I'm drifting, Dana.

{As is your wont, gentle sir.}  

All things considered, I'd rather live in a state where the Republicans are in charge rather than one in which the Democrats are because California. California reveals everything you need to know about the current state of the Democratic Party.

Big BUT, Ohio, like California, demonstrates what can happen when one-party rule is in effect. 

There's going to be a special election this week, in feckin' AUGUST! (8/8/23) to gut an Ohio tradition that's been in effect since 1912. 

There are elections every year somewhere in Ohio. We not only have off-year elections we have off-off-year elections. This year there will be statewide elections in August and November. The one in August only has one issue (no humans) on the ballot to vote for or against. 

It will cost the good citizens of Ohio about $20,000,000. 

{It can't wait till November?}

Nope.

The powers that be are using the August election to change the rules in the middle of the game to help them defeat a ballot issue in the November election that will expand abortion rights — if the citizens of Ohio agree to do so. 

Currently, the carefully gerrymandered GOP supermajority has decreed that abortions are only permitted for the first six weeks of pregnancy and they don't want to take the chance that the voters might disagree. 

If next week's ballot initiative (initiated by the legislature) passes, come November it will take 60% of Ohio voters to expand abortion rights. Since 1911, ballot initiatives have only required 50% + 1 vote to pass. 

Going forward, not only will it take 60% to pass an initiative, the Rules&Regs for citizens seeking to get an initiative placed on the ballot will tighten dramatically. Bottom line: much harder to initiate, much harder to pass. 

Given how polarized Americans are just now, getting 60% of voters to agree on anything, anywhere, is obviously a tough sell. 

And by the way, since the old Rules&Regs will still be in effect on Tuesday, it will only take 50% + 1 voter to pass the new Rules&Regs, and the taxpayers are on the hook for the $20,000,000 regardless of the result.

Machiavelli smiles. 

A very long story short: At the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1912, Teddy Roosevelt spoke in favor of the creation of the current system. “I believe in the initiative and the referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative.”  

The referendum on referendums passed and it became possible for anybody to start a petition drive to amend the Ohio constitution, propose a new law, or overturn an existing one. Get enough signatures and the proposed statute or amendment will be on the ballot. 

If 50% of the voters, and that nut job from Newton Falls support it (+1), it passes. 

(Irony alert. The referendum that permitted initiatives and referendums passed with 57.5% of the vote. If the proposed new Rules&Regs had been in effect it wouldn't have passed.) 

 

Last January, the legislature passed HB 458, an election reform law. According to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose the bill, among other things, did away with "...August special elections – a costly, low-turnout, and unnecessary election for our county boards to administer – unless it involves a political subdivision or school district that is in a state of fiscal emergency."

(It's a tradition in Ohio for subdivisions and school districts to use August elections to get unpopular levies passed with the help of low voter turnout. F.Y.I., despite allegedly being a Republican state, Ohio has a sales tax, sin taxes, property taxes, local special levies, local income taxes, and a state income tax.) 

 

Last May, they decided that there would be at least one more special state-wide August election, hoping to bump 50% to 60% before the abortion vote this fall, hopefully while no one was paying attention. The good news is that a lot of ones were, and are, paying attention. The Democratic Party, among others, has made sure of that.

{Wait-wait-wait. Aren't you the one that's written about the wisdom of America's founding pasty patriarchs setting up a republic to counteract the downsides of democracy? Couldn't "initiatives and referendums" proposed by Wokies or Normies get ugly?} 

Potentially, sure. Another big BUT: since 1913, only 71 citizen-driven ballot initiatives made it to the ballot and just 19 were approved by voters. That's an average of once every six years or so.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.