Our daily bread

All sorts of thoughts and discussion could occur under this topic. For one, in light of the season, one could think about 'daily bread' as a gift. That is, even if one works, the 'bread' that one earns to buy one's bread depends upon, in part, the largess of the one for whom one works. Do not managers always tell workers that their job is a gift (subject to withdrawal and outsourcing, we need to acknowledge that we have a 'gift economy' as far as jobs are concerned - with fingers still being ground to the bone, to boot, though)? Of course, we all know the babe and others, who may be incapacitated, cannot work.

For a bit, let's use 'bread' for that which flows in the economy that has several purposes; one of these uses is obtaining that which nourishes the body; also, we're using 'bread' for the thing that cannot buy you love (apologies to J,P,R,G - not necessarily in that order).

Therefore, the gift of bread is not an uncommon occurrence. We ought not even consider too much that those with too much bread might be problematic from several viewpoints (these are large T issues). This would lead to thinking about the relative amounts of bread that different folks may have.

For instance, the daily bread of some (a very few) is in the 100,000s (perhaps, even in the millions). Others may have cents (in the US currency sense - see IMF rating for Liberia) daily. Others are without - if not zero bread, approaching that.

The largest set has some dollars (10s and 100s) in their daily bread; we'll look at those ranges.

First, though, some words about motivation. In other areas, focus is on an OEM program that has an unbounded set of interesting issues. Guess what? Many of those involve bread, from all sorts of angles. Too (or second, if we were counting), bread has become a measure and goal in itself (see earlier post on If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?). As well (...), people who are past their prime need some set of bread whose cardinality depends upon a number of factors (see The Number book, etc.); yet, for many their set was pilfered in many cases; or, if still intact, the set is of uncertain value (many senses here).

Taking that last example, thinking of 'daily bread' is far better for thinking of retirement bread-needs than some extrapolation on current earnings. Why? Well, it maps well to expenditures which is a better basis for starting the proper analysis (and, we're not talking zero-based budgeting so much - rather, that gradients at this level have a whole lot of meaning). Of course, then one could categorize bread (in better ways than we've seen).

You see, those with too much bread usually do not have sufficient respect for it for several reasons (which we can go into eventually); if they do, they are the exception; having a good feel for all the issues involved is not an abstraction thing required for handling large oodles (not googles); rather, it has to do with the function of bread as it maps to what-the-bread-buys is for (see post on 7'oops7 in regard to the abstract and the function in terms of how we need to deal with complications and difficulties - relating to number one, above).

These types of posts may lead to another blog; for now, an engineering economist part of the mind will be ruminating about some strange characteristics about the world, many of which have come out of the woodwork in the past 30 years.

You see, with an emphasis on youth, where does the sense of arms-around-time come from? It cannot, despite the amount of brilliance (which we see grows by time - see IQ and PIQ).

Guess what? Any supplier just starting is like a youth in many cases; yet, we can probably clone out (in a sense like horticultural grafting) pieces of an organization where they are not starting from ground zero (perhaps, that is how the Wichita outgrowth from Boeing ought to be characterized).

Finally, we've developed a culture of youth, as if the young minds who are coming out of their academic experience or who are being let loose to fly freely due to a seemingly better intuitive grasp of things virtual and computational or who are just starting their efforts without the baggages that can accumulate through time are the key; in some types of realms this is called green field.

Well, let's look at it this way, as discussion of the phenomena behind that youth thrust will be important, nature revitalizes every spring; is that necessarily a new generation for all types in nature? Of course not.

Well, we know that bread is not sufficient, but it can be a starting point for building a model with better functional support for what needs to be done than what we've seen the past few decades.

No mention of bread and what it buys would be complete without a nod to Maslow.

Remarks:

11/21/2010 -- Three years ago, it was said: Computational foci raise miraculous need. Still applies.

11/04/2010 -- Big Ben is still putting us at risk and trashing the savers.

08/10/2009 -- As promised, FEDaerated is here.

06/17/2009 -- A fresh look will be needed.

01/19/2009 - We need to remember that people matter more than finance.

11/20/2008 -- Boon and bust, the way of fairy dust.

11/12/2008 -- Well, things feel apart fairly quickly, starting in September of 2008. By N0vember, there was general spooking. Starting in September, movements toward nationalization sped so fast that it was easy to forget that a Republican administration was still in the White House. Talk about rewarding hubris and moral hazardness!!!!

08/01/2008 -- It's not enough to rant and spout off. So, let's start something constructive by looking at money and what it is.

06/01/08 -- Humans like to play with their bread, we know. Yet, maturity is accompanied with an appreciation for the values of hedging (see Minsky). At some point, we get to more speculative thinking, yet that too ought to have some constraints which we have seen evolve into risk management schemes. The question then comes up, how do we keep out the froth (that is, the inevitable Ponzi-ness)?

Well, folks, the WSJ had an op-ed on 5/30/08 dealing with the Feds actions this past spring in which they opened up the discount window to investment banks among other things.

In other words, we the taxpayers are being allowed the tremendous opportunity of putting our bread behind what might essentially be junk. You see, 'leverage' is no longer suspect. No, leverage yourself to the hilt; expect that Ben and crew will bail you out. Oh, if only this were so for the rest of us!

So, speculation's access to our bread ought to be seriously constrained. Ponzi-ness? Well, perhaps only some minor percentage that is considered gaming and entertainment would be allowed.

So, we'll have to look at intrinsics and more.

01/18/08 -- Reinventing the wheel seems to be a continually present phenomenon in the work world despite several issues. For instance, each reinventing sets back to zero the 'truth' clock. Science does not allow proof via an infinite collection (that is, no large set of successes guarantees continuance thereof), yet that is no argument to throw out what is working in order to try something new whose value has to be proven through time.

Modified: 11/21/2010