Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
David Foster …well, it will probably take more than one glance, because there is a lot of traffic on the map. This is a near-real-time display of the positions of almost all large vessels and many not so large ships and boats. Easy to zoom in on an areas or search for a specific ship or post.
Link is here.
…in a month with many disturbing things, are these:
—a collection of articles…from ‘respectable’ media…which are basically demanding that individuals stop trying to do critical thinking. Does this represent the start of an extensive media campaign in that direction?
—nihilistic and anti-human tendencies on the part of the new head of a major Federal agency…at least, that’s certainly how I would interpret her statements. And plenty of media people are cited with viewpoints which are basically similar or more extreme.
Four mini-reviews in this batch:
—Splendid Solution, by Jeffrey Kluger
—Red Plenty, Francis Spufford
—Instruments of Darkness, Alfred Price
—The Scarlet Thread, Mandy Rice-Davies
Splendid Solution is about the development of the Salk polio vaccine. The book gives a vivid picture of the devastation wrought by epidemics with no vaccines and without meaningful treatments, both the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic and the successive polio epidemics, and the public health measures used in attempts to control such epidemics. It describes how the Salk vaccine was developed, some of the conflicts among scientists, and the vaccine rollout, including media reactions and early manufacturing problems. Very interesting reading, especially in the light of our present vaccine situation and controversies.
Red Plenty is about Soviet economic planning, as seen from the inside. (I’ve reviewed it previously here, but recently re-read it in conjunction with an online book discussion group.) It’s part fiction and part factual history: the characters include factory managers, economic planners, mathematicians, computer scientists, and “fixers.” Very well-written and also well-researched and footnoted.
Instruments of Darkness is about electronic warfare during WWII, primarily on the European front but also touching on the Pacific war. Covers ‘the battle of the beams,’ in which Britain attempted to interfere with the radio guidance system used by the Germans to support night bombing, and the jamming and spoofing which was directed at communications between night fighters and their ground controllers.
The author was himself an electronics warfare officer with the RAF during the war, so speaks from a position of knowledge.
A Scarlet Thread is a historical novel about Israeli settlements in what was then called Palestine, at the time of the First World War. Faced with increasing exactions and depredations by the Turkish rulers, a group of Jews resolve to support the British war effort by providing intelligence information–if they can find anyone in the British government who is willing to accept such information and take it seriously, that is.
The author became famous (or infamous) as one of the two women involved in the Profumo sex scandal of 1963-64, which brought down Prime Minister Macmillan and the Conservative government. She married an Israeli, moved to Israel, and converted to Judaism–this book (published in 1989) is a pretty decent historical novel, not just an attempt at capitalizing on her celebrity.
President Biden says, in connection with his ‘infrastructure’ plan, that “We’re going to pay for everything we spend.”
Actually, it’s you that would pay for this proposed spending. Exactly how much you would pay, and what forms your cash outflows would take, are dependent on your individual situation, but make no mistake: you would pay.
You would likely pay through higher direct taxes–yes, it is claimed that there would be no tax increases for those earning less than $400K/year (family income), but there are spending increases built into or implied in the ‘infrastructure’ bill that imply much higher spending…and taxing..over time. You would pay, in higher prices, lower wages, and reduced investment returns for those corporate tax hikes, which Biden seems to view as a source of free money. You would likely pay in terms of reduced job opportunities…possibly even outright job loss…as a consequence of a damaged US business climate.
Above and beyond the specific details, the ‘infrastructure’ plan and its supporting tax represent an attempt to redirect a greatly-increased part of the national income generated by Americans into the hands of government and of those whose relationship with that government is key to their finances. Such increases in government scope are of direct financial value to a lot of people, including high-income as well as lower-income people…see my post here for discussion of this point. Increasing the scope of government also represents a tremendous ego and status benefit for many people, most definitely including Biden himself…who actually met with history professors to get ideas on how he could build up his ‘legacy’ and who, I think, is more interested in a legacy of doing Big Things than in what the benefits of those Big Things might be.
Nancy Pelosi, in reference to the ‘infrastructure’ bill, stated that: “The dollar amount, as the president has said, is zero.” This is nonsense. The fact that money for a program will come from somewhere doesn’t mean that the cost of that program is zero. If a division of a company embarks on an expensive project and gets the money from their parent corporation, that doesn’t mean that the cost of that program is zero. Same if the division get the money by raising prices and/or selling more to their existing customers–the program still costs what it costs.
The Biden/Pelosi view seems to be that the United States exists to support the Federal government and that category of people who are most closely linked to that government. Increasingly, government and the ‘extended government’ are acting like medieval robber barons, plundering the surrounding countryside to keep themselves and their retainers wealthy and powerful.
See also this post at Ricochet: Economic Illiteracy on Parade and my post The Logic of Insatiable Centralization.
A lot of businesses are pretty desperate to fill open positions. Pay rates are being increased, and hiring bonuses are being offered. Yet at the same time, the software that frequently intermediates between candidate and company is often structured and configured in a way that does nobody any favors. (except, perhaps, the vendors of such software)
Over-specification of job requirements is a frequent problem…some hospitals, for example, have scanned the resumes of nurses for ‘computer programming’ skills when what they really wanted was someone with data entry experience. Years ago, the WSJ ran an article on overspecification, featuring the quote “Companies are looking for a five-pound butterfly. Not finding them doesn’t mean there is a shortage of butterflies.” As an example, it mentioned a company that makes automobile bumper parts and was looking for a factory shift supervisor. They eliminated all candidates who didn’t have a BS degree, even though many had relevant experience, and also insisted on experience with the specific manufacturing software that was in use at the plant. It took six months to fill this job (during which time the position was being filled by someone who wouldn’t ultimately be chosen for it.) Another company, Wabtec, which makes components for railcars and buses, insisted on knowledge of a specific version of the computer-aided design system it uses, even though the differences between that version and the earlier version were not all that great.
It’s a basic reality of life that you can’t optimize everything at once. So, if you insist on a perfect fit for certain things, you are probably getting less of some other attributesand these may be ones that matter more. I’d personally rather have a salesman who has demonstrated (for example) skill at managing the customer politics in a large and complex sale than one who has specific experience with the Snarkolator CRM system. It’s a lot easier to train for the second than for the first.
Similarly, if a newly-hired mechanical engineer doesn’t work out, the cause will probably not be his lack of experience with the latest version of a CAD system. More likely, it will be a lack of good design intuition…or poor interpersonal skills…or an inability to integrate mechanical design with electrical and electronics aspects of the same product…or fit with the cultural style of the organization. Maybe he comes from an environment where he was closely supervised, and the new environment is more open and requires more self-starting…or vice versa. These things are not easily represented in “checklist” form, as is knowledge of a specific software package and version, but they matter a lot.
But…in addition to the overspecification problem…I think it’s a fallacy to believe that an algorithm, at the current state of the art, can reliably look at someone’s resume to decide whether or not they have a good shot at meeting the needs of the job. (Some programs are even looking at the applicant’s photograph, which opens the door to all kinds of problems.) It’s hard enough for a sharp HR person (some of them do exist) to understand the needs of the hiring manager well enough to screen resumes appropriately, let alone expecting an algorithm to do so.
Someone I know recently applied for a job for which she seems to be an excellent fit. The hiring software used by the organization sucked in her resume, formatted it to meet that software’s standards, and displayed the result. It didn’t really communicate what she wanted communicated…she had published several articles that were very relevant to the potential employer, but whoever wrote the software had apparently never thought about ‘published articles’ as a potential hiring factor, and she had to wrestle with the software for some time to get them included.
Once a resume passes initial screening, there are also some malign trends related to the interview process itself. In an seemingly-increasing number of cases, companies are requiring candidates to be interviewed by an unreasonable number of people…as many as 8 or 10, apparently. Still worse, there are companies which will reject a candidate if any of the interviewers disapproves of them. This is a guaranteed way to enshrine mediocrity and groupthink.
Employers do indeed have a real problem in dealing with the absolute flood of resumes that they get for just about any position–but need to be careful not to throw the babies out with the bathwater. Hiring decisions are absolutely critical in any organization–‘personnel is policy’–and have huge impacts on productivity, innovation, and growth.