There is a new conventional wisdom beginning to emerge from the stock market these days and it says that there’s no way you can make money in a bear market unless you have the good fortune to be an expert market timer and bet against the recovery of the broad market. While it is true […]
Month: December 2008
Wired magazine on: networks and the future of warfare
In a thoughtful article about technology and modern warfare, Wired magazine traces the birth of network warfare, its promise and its reality, which from their perspective was a near failure in OIF/OEF in the nation building phase because of technology’s inability to engage thesocial networks that are crucial to stability operations. The article contributes to the […]
Madoff: a matter of scale
a nice meta-insight from Lew Rockwell, that puts Madoff in perspective as representative of the direction we were heading as a nation. His opinion: the difference between Madoff and the government: a matter of scale Madoff’s scheme played into the belief that wealth was not something to work for, but something to scheme for. It […]
The path to mastery, with emotional intelligence
The studies in the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance describe the path to mastery as: (1) Deliberative Practice (2) Time spent at Deliberative Practice (3) Assistance from a mentor. Deliberative practice can be broken down to: (1) Identifying a long-term outcome (2) Breaking down the skills that lead to that outcome into its […]
Straddling the fence: the challenge and rewards of the practitioner-scholar
here is a snippet from the author’s preface to the CIA’s Psychology of Intelligence Analysis. It is an excellent free resource from our CIA. He captures for me the essence of the challenge of being the practitioner scholar: being the transmission gearbox between the world of rigorous, focused, research-oriented scholarship and the broad, immediate world […]
“Paying” for bailouts as if they were taxcuts
I am surprised not to see a suggestion from either side of the aisle, that suggests “bailouts” should be paid for in the same way tax cuts: by identifying dollar-for-dollar tradeoffs. By government standards, the Big 3 bailout is a rather modest sum when you stack it up against the Department of Defense budget. Republicans arguing on principle […]
Farmers and automakers; remember the crucial difference…
I am trying to appreciate the difference between paying farmers not to grow crops and to prop up their prices with government subsidies and the outrage expressed by conservatives at paying automakers not to make autos (as canada joins the team in shoveling money at the Big 3) This time its different though, because the […]
Market Health Check, Dec 22, 2008
Upgrade from Intensive Care to Critical market has been hammering out a bottom here. The slope of the 50d MA and the 30d Rline have turned positive. Volatility has dramatically reduced. The large candle days in the last 30 have been up not down; the 20 and 50dMAs are coming together. The next “easy” upside […]
In this thoughtful posting, Dr Jack Kem examines the strategic and conceptual changes in the publication of the new FM 7-0 Training the Force. here is a highlight: Conceptually, the band of excellence was intended to provide a training focus so that there wouldn’t be wide variance in unit proficiency – train on the essential […]
Obama’s genius in selecting Clinton as Secretary of State
Obama’s true brilliance is revealed in his choice of HRC for SecState. Clintoons MUST report their secretive list of contributors to the shadowy library, the modern technique for laundering money to public servants. It’s revealed today that $500M has been shoveled at Bubba Inc from foreign interests, and the Clintons will never be able to […]