First Blog

China cheats.   This is a fundamental fact all have learned.  In the trade talks they are loath to give up all their forms of cheating, from assuming foreign corporate ownership, to hacking for information and innovation, to lying about economic data, to usurious borrowing to corrupt countries.  China not only cheats, but they love to cheat and need to cheat.   They cheat even when they don’t have to. For their leaders, cheating is akin to an addiction. It’s virtually genetic. I believe the power brokers in China, especially Xi Jinping, will be unable to agree to any deal that stops cheating altogether. One approach the US trade negotiations could do is make an agreement with that allows them some cheating, but subtly controls it efficacy.   This is an update to my previous blog at https://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2019/01/pig-latin-and-chinese-checkers.html

If you cheat to enter a college, you’ll cheat when you get there. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Economists make fortune tellers and astrologers look good.   - Author unknown /////////////////// Never underestimate the power of a well-made argument.   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ To be the best you can be is a journey – of both you and the term.   Your “best” at age 20 is different from your   “best” at age 40 or at age 60. “Best” is at best a moving target when it comes to you and me. /////////////////// Life’s journey is taken in steps, giant, tiny, sideways, backward , forwards, up, down, and stationary. You’ve heard the expressions, all about the steps you take Going Nowhere. Going somewhere. Going Backward. A giant leap... Heading up. Going in circles.

Cheating for college admission is just another form of free stuff. Many young students and millennials have already signed onto the free stuff agenda, supporting any and all. This supports all they think and all they do.   Getting it for free is OK, cheating included. As a college math professor with four decades of experience, I can note today’s students are among the third generation of cheaters. This means they were raised by parents who were cheaters and these raised by parents, themselves cheaters.   Today’s cheater feels no guilt whatever about cheating.   For them it is merely the business of getting ahead.   Their parents and their parent’s parents did suffer some guilt but not enough, in a diminished curve. Make no doubt, the kids of these cheating parents are already in the cheating game.  The parents were caught, but happily they are excused even though most kids knew the system was pay-rigged in their favor. Yet, to their view, cheating for...

CHINA and President XI We know Chinese President Xi Jinping has an appointment for life.   This is good news and bad for Xi.   Who doesn’t like a life-time job?   Following Machiavelli, this puts Xi in another category as dictator or king who is quietly and covertly challenged by the nobles in China.   The nobles are the super rich and super powerful players within China who see themselves in the same position.   They covet his power. They wait silently for Xi to make a mistake, one big enough to take him out.   And out he will come.   Xi is thus vulnerable and remains so, not having a cult-like following as did Mao, who was immune from any mistake. Trade by China may cause a Xi mistake.   The world is now openly talking about how China has taken advantage of all countries in trade, IP theft, high interest loans to poor countries, and the like.   This wholesale exposure indicates that it seems likely that China will be forced to...

There are two infamous publications in the world of scholarly activities, "The Journal of Irreproducible Results" and "How to Lie with Statistics."   One is a spoof on science truth published regularly (http://www.jir.com/); the second is an actual book.   The journal is interesting and funny.   But the book is well known to all practitioners, and the best of them know how to use statistics as needed to make a point, a claim, or a theory.    In a recent NY Times article by George Johnson (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/science/new-truths-that-only-one-can-see.html) the veracity of many publications are taken to the veracity task.   It is claimed that up to 80% of all publications are in error or just plain false. To quote from the article "It has been jarring to learn in recent years that a reproducible result may actually be the rarest of birds. Replication, the ability of another lab to reproduce a finding, is the gold standard of science, rea...

Jobs?  "I don't want one," is the response from 34.3% of people.  This is the latest statistic from the Wall Street Journal, where it is noted this is up from 30% just two decades ago.   In a recent paper, Declining Labor Force Attachment and Downward Trends in Unemployment and Participation, by economists Regis Barnichon and Andrew Figura divided those out of the labor force using a simpler standard: whether or not the person says they want a job.  the paper is rather technical, but understandable.  But it does render a couple of questions.  (1) How much unemployment by those not wishing employment can a prosperous nation absorb - and remain prosperous?  (2) What is the critical mass whereby this "don't want a job" attitude toward work becomes epidemic in society?  The answer the the second question is unexplored. There is another population out there not yet analyzed.  This group, those people employed by in totally non productive venue...

I teach at a large university here in middle America.  We give an online math placement test to all incoming students.  It was the thought that by giving the test online, while the students are still in high school, their math skills would be better than if they took the test in the summer when they come to campus to enroll.  Theory sounds good?  Yes, I thought so. We advise them over and over again that cheating on this test is basically cheating on themselves.  Now we have some evidence that their teachers may be helping them on this exam.  This is absolutely incredible for a number of reasons.  The foremost is that it is not in the interest of students to be placed in a course for which they are unprepared.  The second, and surprise reason, is that teachers are abetting this process.  Just what sort of message is conveyed by this?  Is the teacher gaining gratification their students are admitted to a more difficult course?  Doe...