A friend sent me a report on “problems/concerns with the GLD ETF as structured and asked me to comment. I said: GLD is kind of in the same category of ETNs which are promissory notes of the investment house which is guaranteeing performance of the instrument. There are quite a few of those out there […]
Category: Planning
design thoughts
this whiteboard drawing supplements my previous posting on Design
4 Reflections on Design
4 Reflections on “Design” that are guiding my inquiry, inspired by thought provoking article and commentary at the School for Advanced Military Studies, which is engaged in deep think on the entire military decision making model: 1. The challenge of codifying artful design. I am trying to integrate these 2 statements from the article; It […]
The 5 Day Down Failure pattern explained
example of a current short position in Raytheon that has returned %R already, and more coming it seems; shorting the defense industry is a gimme right now
Designing education for uncertainty
Being comfortable with being uncomfortable is turning out to be an essential element of our curriculum. Our officers are routinely being put into situations where their training is not helpful or where it can even be counterproductive. They’ll have to rely on the principles we have educated them on (rather than training) and their own […]
Stimulus plan?! How about reward your friends plan?
with 5% of the 800+B going towards actual infrastructure, the truth is revealed about promises made. The ones that matter are the long standing ones made to supporters early in the process, years ago, behind closed doors. Private promises made by public faces. If you wanted a real stimulous for the economy you would remember […]
PAR Journal entry: initiating the “Force generation” project
this is the text of an info paper I wrote for our Deputy Commandant to send to the 3 and 4 star generals in charge of Army leader education and training. It describes the motivation for and purpose of our inquiry into “the education gap of force generation”, and lays out a methodology and strategy […]
Reflecting on personal learning environments: teacher as model student
At the last CTU residency, on the last day my breakthrough insight was to approach the research question on leader curriculum development at the Command and General Staff College from the perspective of giving voice to the students, who are professional military officers operating at the graduate level and fresh from combat experience in Iraq […]
A Reflection on the political process of defense acquisition
In other places , such as this discussion about acquisition reform, and Dr Paparone’s discussion of The Fallacy of Technical Rationality, we have seen commentary on the nature of the acquisition process. There is a strong case for it being political in nature. In any event, politics plays a large role in creating the process, […]
Edge.org: this should be interesting and challenging
Sigh: because i dont have enough on my plate to keep my attention fully engaged. Still, they have some powerful info from one of my heroes, Daniel Kahneman whose intellect spans the whole globe. “To arrive at the edge of the world’s knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them […]