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Started by Doktor Howl, July 25, 2013, 03:13:16 AM

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LMNO

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 26, 2013, 01:32:12 AM
I think it's time to shift our thinking away from our punishment-fetishist "who is to blame" thinking, towards the solution-oriented question, "what is to blame".

This needs to be tattooed on people.


At least, a large stencil and a can of spray paint is needed on a dark night.

McGrupp

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 26, 2013, 01:32:12 AM
I think it's time to shift our thinking away from our punishment-fetishist "who is to blame" thinking, towards the solution-oriented question, "what is to blame".

Raaaawwwwrrr!  But Hulk not able to SMASH abstract concept!

Hulk smash CEOs! Hulk smash politicians! If bees not make food then, Hulk smash more!

Hulk not want solution oriented questions!

                               /


Pergamos

As seems to happen to me fairly often the fact that Dr Howl is infuriating blinded me to the fact that he is wise.  This revelation about the first to sit at the table (who are also among the first to rise) is almost certainly going to alter my views as the great tragedy of our national (and international) looting by the wealthy continues.  I don't think I have processed it properly yet because part of me is still infuriated and busily screeching for answers.

Salty

Quote from: McGrupp on July 26, 2013, 01:25:55 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on July 26, 2013, 01:32:12 AM
I think it's time to shift our thinking away from our punishment-fetishist "who is to blame" thinking, towards the solution-oriented question, "what is to blame".

Raaaawwwwrrr!  But Hulk not able to SMASH abstract concept!

Hulk smash CEOs! Hulk smash politicians! If bees not make food then, Hulk smash more!

Hulk not want solution oriented questions!

                               /


:lulz:
The world is a car and you're the crash test dummy.

Left

Quote from: Pergamos on July 26, 2013, 08:15:20 PM
As seems to happen to me fairly often the fact that Dr Howl is infuriating blinded me to the fact that he is wise.

...The people who piss you off the most often have a lesson for you.
When the student's ready, the teacher appears...
...Mainly because there's teachers all over the place. 
Often in the form of insufferable assholes.
Hope was the thing with feathers.
I smacked it with a hammer until it was red and squashy

Cain

Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 25, 2013, 09:28:04 PM
As far as I can tell from first hand observation, the problem is a combination of inertia and disinformation.  As noted above, the decision makers are not given good information, both out of fear and also out of agenda-driven underlings.  Bad decisions are therefore made.

Repeat this process many, many times, and recognize that each bad decision gets a ball rolling.  The balls keep rolling even after attention is shifted to new decisions.  The decision makers may or may not know that any given "ball" is still rolling.  Later decisions not only have their own ill-effects, but combine with the earlier "balls".

People can see and recognize this.  As a result, CEOs are not chosen for their abilities, but for their charisma and their disposability.  The board, on the other hand, is composed of survivors who are too busy trying to maintain their position by setting the CEO up for failure to actually try to avert catastrophe.

Now add into this venture capital and banks.  THIS is where you find the psychopaths. 

Imagine that there is a huge banquet.  This is a corporation.  A number of people sit down to eat at this banquet.  The suckers think the winner is the last man sitting at the table.  The bankers and the venture capitalists understand the truth; The winner is the guy who eats first.

This attitude, of course, is what leads to short range thinking (helped along by the disposability of the CEO, who has to turn a growth every quarter or be removed), and leads to taking "cost-saving" shortcuts such as seen on the BP oil platform that, you know, devoured the Southeast coast.  The capital investors from the project were long gone.  The CEO, a certifiable moron by the name of Tony Hayward, was left holding the bag.  To give you an idea of why he was chosen as CEO, his response to the disaster was to sail around it in his yacht, complaining about the inconveniences he was suffering in his personal life as a response to the disaster.

This happens in EVERY industry, with the industries with the highest gross margin being the ones most effected.  You see the CEO, you blame the CEO, but the actual villain - if there is one - is long gone by the time you look, with all the serious boodle in hand.

This is ESPECIALLY true of most banks, who themselves are looting other industries.  Paul Cassano is the best example I can think of.  He was the CEO of AIG Financial Products, and he presided over the complete and utter rape of AIG by Goldman-Sachs, resulting in the 2008 meltdown.

So, the CEO may in fact be a bad guy.  He may in fact be a psychopath.  But he isn't THE bad guy.  You never heard of the bad guy before.  Until the bad guy gets put in charge of "the recovery".

And, often, there are either a myriad of bad guy, or none at all (sometimes sheer stupidity can look just like evil...And disinformation can look like conspiracy).

BUMP.

I was asked to comment on this.  Unfortunately, I've been busy lately, which is why this has taken me a while to get to.

I would, firstly, add the tendency to groupthink into any decision-making body.  Corporations are certainly not immune to this and, in fact, the prominence of certain faddish styles, such as New Age "positive thinking" and similar, suggest that at least some corporations may already be prone to irrational assessments of reality.  Remember, at one point, a toad controlled over $10 billion in financial investments in Tokyo (link).

CEO's often suffer from a particular bias which afflicts people who are gambling with other people's money.  Their loss aversion becomes much decreased because, although their position relies on bringing in ever increasing returns, they personally have very little at stake.  In theory, this should make them more impartial when assessing risk, however in practice it tends to cause them to underrate risk and overstate the advantages of their chosen course of action.  CEOs do tend to be good at shifting blame onto others, meaning even if their gamble does fail badly enough for the board to dismiss them, they are usually not out of a job for long.

There's also the case of shell corporations, and CEOs and their allies playing the better known company to help line their own pockets.  Recall Enron, where "special purpose entities" were created, transferring billions in Enron assets to their personal control under the guide of external contracting.  Special purpose entities are most commonly used however, to hide debts and inflate the worth of the company...like one would do if, as a CEO, they had undertaken a risky gamble and it failed to pay off.

If CEOs were the principal evildoers, they wouldn't need to do this.  But CEOs answer to higher powers...the board.  And the board themselves answer to higher powers...private equity firms. 

Who are the world's major private equity firms?   The Carlyle Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Goldman Sachs Principal Investment Group, The Blackstone Group, Bain Capital and TPG Capital, to name a few.  You'll likely know some of these, but not all of them.  And when a CEO's failure is exposed, when the company looks set to fail and flounder...they're the ones who will come in and purchase their assets, often at a significant markdown.  Of course, they can also help capitalize successful companies...but success doesn't last forever now, does it?  And when it doesn't, their lawyers and investment analysts will be waiting.

Doktor Howl

VERY nice.

I submitted my entry to bitter tea.  I'd like to add yours, as a "dialogue".  My initial statement, and your clarifying statement.
Molon Lube

Cain

Yes, feel free.  Usual attribution.

McGrupp

Quote from: Cain on July 31, 2013, 10:45:36 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 25, 2013, 09:28:04 PM
As far as I can tell from first hand observation, the problem is a combination of inertia and disinformation.  As noted above, the decision makers are not given good information, both out of fear and also out of agenda-driven underlings.  Bad decisions are therefore made.

Repeat this process many, many times, and recognize that each bad decision gets a ball rolling.  The balls keep rolling even after attention is shifted to new decisions.  The decision makers may or may not know that any given "ball" is still rolling.  Later decisions not only have their own ill-effects, but combine with the earlier "balls".

People can see and recognize this.  As a result, CEOs are not chosen for their abilities, but for their charisma and their disposability.  The board, on the other hand, is composed of survivors who are too busy trying to maintain their position by setting the CEO up for failure to actually try to avert catastrophe.

Now add into this venture capital and banks.  THIS is where you find the psychopaths. 

Imagine that there is a huge banquet.  This is a corporation.  A number of people sit down to eat at this banquet.  The suckers think the winner is the last man sitting at the table.  The bankers and the venture capitalists understand the truth; The winner is the guy who eats first.

This attitude, of course, is what leads to short range thinking (helped along by the disposability of the CEO, who has to turn a growth every quarter or be removed), and leads to taking "cost-saving" shortcuts such as seen on the BP oil platform that, you know, devoured the Southeast coast.  The capital investors from the project were long gone.  The CEO, a certifiable moron by the name of Tony Hayward, was left holding the bag.  To give you an idea of why he was chosen as CEO, his response to the disaster was to sail around it in his yacht, complaining about the inconveniences he was suffering in his personal life as a response to the disaster.

This happens in EVERY industry, with the industries with the highest gross margin being the ones most effected.  You see the CEO, you blame the CEO, but the actual villain - if there is one - is long gone by the time you look, with all the serious boodle in hand.

This is ESPECIALLY true of most banks, who themselves are looting other industries.  Paul Cassano is the best example I can think of.  He was the CEO of AIG Financial Products, and he presided over the complete and utter rape of AIG by Goldman-Sachs, resulting in the 2008 meltdown.

So, the CEO may in fact be a bad guy.  He may in fact be a psychopath.  But he isn't THE bad guy.  You never heard of the bad guy before.  Until the bad guy gets put in charge of "the recovery".

And, often, there are either a myriad of bad guy, or none at all (sometimes sheer stupidity can look just like evil...And disinformation can look like conspiracy).

BUMP.

I was asked to comment on this.  Unfortunately, I've been busy lately, which is why this has taken me a while to get to.

I would, firstly, add the tendency to groupthink into any decision-making body.  Corporations are certainly not immune to this and, in fact, the prominence of certain faddish styles, such as New Age "positive thinking" and similar, suggest that at least some corporations may already be prone to irrational assessments of reality.  Remember, at one point, a toad controlled over $10 billion in financial investments in Tokyo (link).

CEO's often suffer from a particular bias which afflicts people who are gambling with other people's money.  Their loss aversion becomes much decreased because, although their position relies on bringing in ever increasing returns, they personally have very little at stake.  In theory, this should make them more impartial when assessing risk, however in practice it tends to cause them to underrate risk and overstate the advantages of their chosen course of action.  CEOs do tend to be good at shifting blame onto others, meaning even if their gamble does fail badly enough for the board to dismiss them, they are usually not out of a job for long.

There's also the case of shell corporations, and CEOs and their allies playing the better known company to help line their own pockets.  Recall Enron, where "special purpose entities" were created, transferring billions in Enron assets to their personal control under the guide of external contracting.  Special purpose entities are most commonly used however, to hide debts and inflate the worth of the company...like one would do if, as a CEO, they had undertaken a risky gamble and it failed to pay off.

If CEOs were the principal evildoers, they wouldn't need to do this.  But CEOs answer to higher powers...the board.  And the board themselves answer to higher powers...private equity firms. 

Who are the world's major private equity firms?   The Carlyle Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Goldman Sachs Principal Investment Group, The Blackstone Group, Bain Capital and TPG Capital, to name a few.  You'll likely know some of these, but not all of them.  And when a CEO's failure is exposed, when the company looks set to fail and flounder...they're the ones who will come in and purchase their assets, often at a significant markdown.  Of course, they can also help capitalize successful companies...but success doesn't last forever now, does it?  And when it doesn't, their lawyers and investment analysts will be waiting.

Damn, now I have to go read and  learn about private equity firms. It's interesting that I've always thought of the executives and CEOs as the top of the foodchain.

So, how much are CEO's and the boards pawns to the private equity firms in terms of decisionmaking? Or is it more that the private equity firms themselves are simply playing the game based on the economic pressures of the system* in general?

I'm sure its not that cut and dry but it still makes me curious.

*sorry for the vague term of 'system' I suppose I mean capitalism in general or the rewards society gives for pursuing profit and assets over all else. I'm not sure what the best term for that is. I'd also bring up game theory but I don't know enough about it to use it correctly although it seems like it might apply to capitalism.

LMNO

Cain, thanks for the response. It's good stuff.

P3nT4gR4m

an aside and, IMO, one of those crux isues that appears (at least to me) insurmountable.

There are two courses of action available when dealing with individuals or groups who are so powerful.

Phase1 - The appeal to humanity*.

This doesn't work because they appear to have no humanity. This makes the decision to escalate matters to...

Phase 2 - Heads on spikes

This decision is made easier given the nature of our desperation and the fact that our enemies are not deemed human. However, in doing so, we lose our humanity

* any nonviolent action, protests, petitions, politics, strikes... etc

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark