Three Sigma Systems

A Letter to George Soros

The following link is to an excellent article by George Soros, one of the great marketists of our time. Read his article and then my letter of reply to George.

The Crisis & What to Do About It, By George Soros

Dear George,

I enjoyed your very interesting article. It was refreshingly clear in its discussion of a subject that is intentionally obfuscated by most pundits. Your discussion of market "reflexivity" is quite good, though it is no revelation. You manage to strip away the veil of impersonal market forces, but you leave in place a veil that euphemizes the inherently destructive amorality of the marketplace. In the final analysis, marketism, whether fettered or unfettered, if a poor foundation for any social enterprise. It panders to the basest instincts of the human species. In a Darwinian sense, it selects for the lowest common denominator.

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Greenspan’s Tooth Fairy

Alan Greenspan, the financial guru who engineered our current economic disaster, admits that he was not guided by theory. Instead, he explains that he was guided by the tooth fairy of a free marketist ideology.  As with people who are driven by ideology, he was unable or unwilling to listen to the simple illogic of his greed-is-good model and the abundant evidence of impending disaster produced by the policies he advocated.  

(Double-click to play Quicktime movie)

Institute Leadership

The value of a philosophy–a grand theory–is measured in terms of it’s predictive power and coherence in explaining how things work. Deming’s philosophy was expressed as a running commentary on the conduct of human enterprise and encompassed the nature of reality (systems and flux) and the nature of human knowing (There are not true facts).

Explanations of current events are being proffered by the media–very complicated and uniformly WRONG! The first step is to abandon the idea of a FIX. The system and the philosophy (ideology) that sustains it, must be "dynamited out".

The first step is to "institute leadership" that eschews ideology in favor of theory and AIMS "to make a better world".

We have been sold an ideological bill of goods that postulates the inevitability of relations of inequity and constant conflict based on the intractable evil of so-called "human nature". This has become a self-fulfilling prophecy that sustains those in power, but belies the abundant evidence that the human species is intensely collaborative by nature.

For over thirty years, leadership in the United States has been rooted in an ideology of human greed and cutthroat competition. Might that begin to change tomorrow? Probably not.

Then again…

Marc Hersch
Three Sigma Systems

Time to Act

We are in the midst of a perfect storm that Deming presaged. This is the CRISIS he foresaw when he titled his book, "Out of the Crisis"

- Two ongoing war’s of of adventure and still counting

- Unprecedented national deficits

- Deconstruction of service and manufacturing enterprises dedicated to creating substantive value

- Meltdown of money churning financial institutions

- Nationalization of banks

- Bailout of insurance gamblers

In one week you will be called upon to take action. Consider Deming’s words when you cast your vote.

"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory."

"Does experience help? No! Not if we are doing the wrong things."

"A system must be managed. It will not manage itself. Left to themselves in the Western world, components become selfish, competitive. We can not afford the destructive effect of competition."

"We are here to make another world."

Obama’s Turn at the Helm

The storm has been brewing for a long, long, time. Fantasies of uncontested empire have been steering our ship of state into perilous waters for many years. Like Ahab, the captain of the hapless Pequod, our captains of the past three decades have been obsessed with the white whale of easy money and irresponsible power. They turned a blind eye and steered a course that ignored the most basic principles of good seamanship. Despite glooming skies and a rising swell, they failed to make the course adjustments that might have saved us the misery a thousand miles ago. Now we’re in the thick of it and in for a serious blow.

If Obama is elected come November 4th, he must wrest the helm from the current administration on November 5th and swing the ship of state hard over onto a new tack. Though he won’t officially become captain until 2009, there is no time to wait. Clear the decks of political cargo and batten down. It’s time to pipe all hands on deck!

There’s no guarantee, but with a steadfast captain and willing crew, we may yet avoid a fatal broach as we bring her about to run amid the tempest.

"Sailors, with their built in sense of order, service and discipline, should really be running the world."

- Nicholas Monsarrat

The Naked Underbelly of Free Market-ism

During a recent Daily Show interview (10/16/08) , John Stewart asks Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, about the destination of the $750 billion dollars allocated by congress to save our economy. Reich gave two answers, both were simple and to the point.

1. The "official" line, is the money is necessary to reinvigorate banking institutions so that they can restore the system to "normal" operation.

2. The second and real answer is that the money is destined to go to the pockets of bankers and finacers in order to make them feel better about lending the immense wealth that they are currently hording, lest that wealth be diminished.

In short, the money doesn’t go to institutions, it goes to wealthy market manipulators so that they can refill their churns.

via videosift.com

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Preserving Free Markets

In today’s bailout announcement, President George Bush proclaimed that the taxpayer funded purchase of equity in insolvent banks is, "…not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it."

In other words, taxpayers will foot the bill to return the American economic system to the status quo of the rampant and unfettered market forces that brought us the so-called "crisis" in the first place.

Do you feel better now?

Stampede!

The past few weeks mark the biggest churn in the history of the stock markets. First investors were stampeded to sell, sell, sell, resulting in a decline of 2400 points. Now they’re stampeded to buy. A run up of almost 1000 points. The game is afoot.

Churn, churn, churn. Brokerage houses are making money going both ways. The big guys are drooling as they jocky for position to harvest their trillion dollar windfall from the taxpayer. The rest of the herd are fighting each other to get in line for their own slaughter.

Clearly, even those who understand history are still doomed to repeat it. The logic of the unfettered marketplace is not difficult to undertand. In the long run, it always shakes out as a pyramid game. The markets rely on one truism. In the immortal words of P. T. Barnum, "There’s a sucker born every minute".

Note: A stampede is an act of mass impulse among herd animals or a crowd of people in which the herd collectively begins running irrationally toward or away from some stimulus.

Financial Crisis not a Mystery - Churning your Money

Recent news of the imminent collapse of the US financial system is providing plenty of grist for economic pundits. On both sides of the political spectrum, the story being woven is about incredibly complex financial instruments that “even CEO’s didn’t understand”. Like earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires, the picture is one of unfathomable and unforeseeable machinations of the free market. The implication is that current events are all a part of the natural cycles of business. Today’s crisis, they say is the mother of all cycles… and unpredictable hundred year flood. God works in mysterious ways.

If you believe that bunk, I have a bridge to sell you!

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Transformation Strategies

It’s true that most kings are hardened in their ways and unwilling to change, though I have met a few… very few…who were genuinely good kings—wise, willing, and filled with caring.

Individual traits, inculcated, acquired, and habituated over the course of a person’s lifetime (their psychology) are often barriers to transforming how a person understands the world. Systemic barriers created by the characteristics of our method of enterprise will ALWAYS confound transformation until we change that system, irrespective of an individual’s understanding and desire for change.

What approaches are available for a teacher/mentor to go about initiating a transformation of people’s understanding of how the world works?

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