Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Lean and truth

It's review time again, being Thanksgiving, which is a secular American holiday.

As noted in the banner, posts here concern 'being' (small t) and its importance; basically, trends, such as Lean, have removed being out of the modern mindset which may explain a whole lot of trouble.

But, let's start our analysis with Lean, as there will be more culprits. For those who don't know, Lean is an initiative that removes waste from a process, thereby reducing cost. It can help improve quality, too.

But, Lean deals with processes, not being. Process foci lead to protocols. As said before, protocols deal with averages. The world of being is not average, anywhere. Or, we could say that being is everywhere dense. Yet, we have been allowed to stumble along with our averages.

Until, that is, we see things like the 787 project and the current economic mess. These two have problems with similar etiologies.

The questions need to be analyzed and addressed under a Truth Engineering framework. That is our work for the coming year.

Remarks:

09/02/2009 -- Lean assumes a current framework which can be improved. That the process is still effective during the change can be checked easily. However, if it is not still effective or we do not have a stable framework, then we were, by necessity, in the undecidable state.

Modified: 09/02/2009

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Islamic Finance

As we watch things unravel due to influences, such as leveraging and gaming, and observe discussions about how to get stable, we might consider that the big 'T' issues might bear some of our attention, at some point.

In the meantime, we might learn something from Islamic Law which does deal with banking (and finance). Speculation is verboten as is usury.

Business Week (11/24/08) wondered if "Islamic Finance may be on to something." But, the focus of the article was on how Islamic banks fared in the current situation of toxic debt. Well, "excessive debt" is not allowed.

One has to wonder how the western mind came up with the notion that leveraging was creative. Clever it may be; yet, stupid is another way to characterize the propensity to gamble away one's future.

Sharia-based methods do not mean not-modern, witness the debit-card offered by Mastercard that is compliant.

By the way, search at Business Week on 'Islamic Finance' and read more, if you are interested.

The current set of oops that is due to mis-cues, poor thinking, mathematical-malfeasance, greed, etc., cannot be other than a lesson on how not to do it. We do know how.

Remarks:

11/21/15 -- Why-does-the-Islamic-banking-system-not-charge-interest-on-loans-and-advances-What-are-their-alternative-sources-of-revenue?

10/17/2011 -- If we're to challenge Harvard on its duty, then we'll need to beef this up. For one, is education only operationally important, measured in bucks? Ah, so much to discuss.

06/20/2009 -- The Economist reports on an attempt to build a "truly global Islamic bank."

02/03/2009 -- It would do well to consider how the Islamic culture can add to the capitalism/socialism debates. One start might be to read about Islamic Economics, such as this insightful look at command versus free enterprise, albeit with other influences at hand.

01/18/2009 - We even need to look at why we need finance.

12/18/2008 -- Leveraging, in and of itself, is not bad.

12/01/2008 -- AME Info asks: Are Islamic banks the financial institutions of the future? There are two attributes of importance, elsewhere covered in these posts: asset-based system, closer to the real economy. The former pertains to the leveraging issue, in part. The latter has to do with the abstraction-phile leanings of the western mind as well as the fictional flavorings.

Modified: 11/21/2015

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Computer and being

While talking about pseudo-science at CalTech, the late Michael Crichton mentioned that one problematic issue is thinking of computational output as data. Posts in this blog have ragged about that type of thing, to boot.

In one case, a claim might be made that erroneous outcomes in both design and planning are directly related to too much reliance on the computational framework. Where things can really go awry is during a long computational chain where results from one step are fed into another.

We'll have to look at this issue from several angles, as things may not be as clear as they may seem to certain viewpoints, including looking at the being of money.

Remarks:

06/20/2009 -- Yes, rent can go to labor (new look at capitalism), and finance can have a higher calling.

11/18/2008 -- One thing that engineering can do is test against reality. The better the effort in this regard, the more understanding of the underlying theory can improve. Unfortunately, financial engineering is handicapped from the beginning.

Yet, we can do it right.

Modified: 06/20/2009

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Casino capitalism

Yes, sounds like the 'fictitious capital' idea of Marx. The phrase in the title was used in recent Congressional inquiries about the mess of the economy (but worse than casino, see Remarks on 01/29/2009). And, who was there? Fat cats and CEOS!!

Why can't we hear discussions about the hard stuff in regard to modeling, decisions, etc.?

Naturally, power has its ways and means. But, consider that the future may very well require in-depth and continual assessments on more than just what the suits like to see. Yes, we have to get technical.

It's like this: Hey suits (you know who you are) , your role has always been mostly ceremonial. What? Yes, the game (not that gaming is necessary) has descended to rewarding those whose greed can best be compared to that of an infant's for milk. Is that flattering or what?

So, this'll be a regular topic, as Truth Engineering is directly related to those technical issues of truth that are gamed by power, that are confounded by computer, and that are not easy in any regard since our best efforts are limited quasi-empirically.

Yes, that money has being has somehow been lost in the shuffle.

Remarks:

03/22/2011 -- It's spring, and the garble uses gambling metaphors.

01/27/2010 -- It's really ca-pital-sino.

10/06/2009 -- Discussion has gone over to FED-aerated.

07/17/2009 -- China's bucket is 2+ trillion. Ours, over here - the analogous thingee - is a growing deficit. You have to hand it to the Marxists who beat us at our own game of casino capitalism.

06/20/2009 -- Yes, rent can go to labor (new look at capitalism), and finance can have a higher calling.

01/30/2009 -- Corrected, in part (see 1/29/2009). Why? Well, CBOE-driven and other changes to market technology are ontologically game-centric which the 'casino' delimits well as a concept. That hedging leads to speculation and ponzi comes out of dynamics (see Minsky) that we need to understand better in order to control. And, that cannot be done without reigning in the misuse of mathematics (and malfeasance allowed due to the confounding). We'll have to look at this issue further.

01/29/2009 -- The Economist in its review of the current mess and the 'future of finance' makes an interesting point. We use 'casino' to deride the improper capitalistic bent. Yet, it's worse. "The numbers on a roulette wheel never change, but markets offer no guarantee that yesterday’s odds will be the same tomorrow." So, we stand corrected.

01/18/2009 - We even need to look at why we need finance.

12/01/2008 -- We need to learn what we might be taught about money by Islamic Finance.

Modified: 03/22/2011

Monday, November 3, 2008

Greek to many

As mentioned before with the topics of fiction and leveraging, there needs to be some time occasionally where things lay quiet during a catch-up activity, such as looking more deeply into the recent advances (if one could call them that) of finance. Given that the gaming behind the market is mathematically colored and given that we need to get technical, some time will be spent immersed in details of the CBOE and related efforts, such as Options Monster.

Today, volatility was the theme that has a few interesting twists in its influence on the pricing of options. So, to look at that, we need to start with "the Greeks" and the related etiology.

All one has to do is consider the strategies related to option trading (pages and pages of tables) to see the relation to gaming.

Our future, in general, requires better than that albeit that many do support themselves quite well through the auspices of CBOE, et al.

Remarks:

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

08/18/2009 -- As promised, FEDaerated is here.

02/18/2009 -- We can look at why securities become toxic, almost by necessity.

12/18/2008 -- Leveraging, in and of itself, is not bad.

Modified: 11/21/2010