The KISS philosophy: Forgotten but still needed.

     As an engineering executive/manager, I had a developer once come to me and say "here it is. I have fixed the last bug". I smiled and said "well, I can't wait for the next-to-last bug" recognizing that, if we counted that way, we would never reach the first bug.
     All software has problems (not isolated only to software -- but it is particularly prevalent in software). Even if somehow the program was simple enough and used for a long enough period that all of the problems within the program were fixed, a program does not exist in isolation. It will interact with other programs and the hardware. Change those and problems may easily surface.
     The primary criterion that creates the situation where software always has problems (or "bugs") is complexity. A five line program may eventually get all possible interactions tested and all known problems fixed. A 200,000 line set of programs (or processes) has little chance of even having all the problems known.
     There is an anecdote about Bill Gates talking to a developer at Microsoft. He is said to have said "Don't worry about the size or the amount of memory needed. By the time it is finished, we will have faster processors with greater amounts of memory." A side effect of this (loved by sales, disliked by consumers) is that new programs usually require new software and hardware to perform at their best.
     On the flip side of this issue, Soviet developers used to have a reputation as being very good programmers. They were required to use older computers with much less memory and they had to share equipment such that they had only certain time slots in which they could compile and test their programs. These constraints in equipment forced them to be much more careful in their programming as well as making the programs small and efficient.
     In the world of programming and marketing, complexity is also sometimes referred to as "Creeping Featurism". Marketing and Sales demand new features that can be used to distinguish a program from that of the competition. However, each new feature increases the complexity of the program and the system -- and the complexity does NOT go up linearly -- an increase of 5% in the number of lines of code may double the number of initial problems to debug.
     This might eventually be of general benefit if it wasn't for the fact that many features go unused by most people. They may not even know they exist -- or, if they do know about existence, they don't know how to use it. If this is so, why add the extra features? The answer to this is that word "most".
     Assume that a program has 200 features. Twenty of those features are used by almost everyone. One user makes use of 40 features. Another user makes use of 50 features. But only 1 of the 20 "extra" features of the first user is the same as user 2's 30 "extra" features. The others are used only be the particular user.
     When I was a beginning programmer in the 1970s, all of our courses emphasized using the KISS philosophy. The acronym KISS stood for "Keep It Simple S_____" (substitute your own favorite S-word). It was a reminder of the discipline that was expected (and that the Soviet programmers had to have as a requirement). 100 lines of code that did a function was much better than 300 lines of code that performed the same function. It was easier to debug (and usually had fewer bugs in the first place), faster, and required fewer system resources. KISS fell victim to the expectation that Moore's Law would always hold -- that processor power WOULD continue to increase and that memory would be cheaper and cheaper. But being ABLE to function does not imply that is was written as well as it could have been.
     Although the KISS principle was created in connection with software development, the same holds true for other complicated, interconnected things -- such as laws and regulations or industrial factory processes.
     Do you work with the KISS principle? If so, why? If not, why not?

Going to the robots: a shift of workforce

     People sometimes say that we are "going to the dogs" -- well, I would say that we are really "going to the robots". Robots were named in 1920 by the Czech playwright, Karel Čapek, within his hit play "R.U.R" -- or Rossums UniversalRobots. The word robota initially was used to indicate servitude or forced labor. So, in accordance with the original usage, there are quite a few humans who would qualify. Within the play, the manufactured robots were described as soulless humans -- manufactured biological creatures without access to feelings or independent thoughts.
     Current usage applies to non-living mechanisms (with in-betweens of Cyborg and Android). In the past, it has been primarily used for non-living mechanisms which retain the general shape and capabilities of living humans. It has now expanded to mechanical reproduction of actions previously only possible by humans -- "robot arms", ATMs (replace bank tellers), self-check counters (replace cashiers), "humanoid" (adjuncts to healthcare, services -- huge future potential), and so forth. Robots are classified in various ways -- methods of movement, category of use, versatility (programmed for one use, capable of multiple uses, or adaptive (AI)), and others.
     Leaving out definitions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and potential challenges therein, there are many consequences of a shift of labor to robots. By definition, a robot capable of performing a human duty, or action, displaces the human -- the human is no longer needed for this duty. However, the robot needs to be designed, built, programmed, and maintained. One can put together formulas of sorts. (#Robots * useful lifetime) replace workers (net negative of workers). (#people needed for design, building, programming, and maintenance * time needed) required by robots (net positive of workers). Design, building, and programming takes a finite (limited -- it stops at some point) amount of time and the efforts during that time may create a large number of robots. Maintenance is ongoing but one person might take care of dozens, or even hundreds, or robots.
     The final effect is that robots replace workers but require more highly skilled people for a smaller amount of time. This means that, as robotization of society occurs, people will need more and more education and technical and focused training. And, for each specific number of robots put into the workplace, fewer people are needed for support activities. The more robots, the fewer (but more highly educated and trained) people needed.
     This type of shift of workers occurred in the "Industrial Revolution" (mid 1700s to mid 1800s). Very early robots such as automated looms displaced traditional weavers from their professions. In response, there were riots which were stopped with considerable violence. Eventually, workers learned new trades and shifted up in education to take new roles which developed.
     This same shift will be needed for the new "robotic revolution". Greater amounts of education and training for people but, since fewer people will be needed to attain the same results, fewer hours of work per person. This could conceivably iterate (the process continues with additional, more highly educated, workers displaced) until one has a similar situation as posed by Isaac Asimov in The Naked Sun, where there are plantations of robots with isolated humans having few required tasks.
     I am not ready to anticipate robot plantations as of yet. But, we may very well be entering into a period where active labor is done by fewer and fewer people with higher levels of education and training. If so, there will be a strong need of greater emphasis (and availability and affordability) on continued education, more deliberate labor policy oriented at reducing the number of work hours per worker, and methods of distributing savings and benefits across the entire labor pool.

Going to Waste or Going to Waist: the dilemma of food distribution

     For many in my generation, our parents (usually mothers) implored us to "clean our plates", people were starving (at that time, "in China") and would love to have the food on our plates. Although not inherently a bad thing to not waste food, such requirements often caused problems by teaching us to ignore our body signals as to whether or not we were hungry. And thus, by trying not to waste our food, it often accumulated around our waists.
     Another aspect of this (which occurred to myself and, I am sure, many other children) is how did my finishing up my food help those in other places who did not have enough food? Portion control (especially countering the economics of supersizing) is an excellent goal to achieve -- eating the amount that is best for our health and with the correct composition and nutrition. But portion control only keeps us more likely to have healthy bodies (exercise and general lifestyle still factor in). It does not allocate more food to those who do not have enough.
     Assume that we each eat only what we healthily should. In the U.S., that would mean a net reduction in the average amount of food eaten. Less food eaten means less food purchased and a surplus of food produced. That surplus can be addressed by reducing the amount of food produced or by finding other markets for the food. Reduction of food production hurts the farmers (though many have already been shoved aside by the mass food producers) -- much better to find other markets.
     After correcting our portion sizes, we now have additional (the U.S. is already a net food exporter) food to send out to those who do not have enough. Raw food items, which are globally produced and imported and exported, are considered to be commodities. The price of commodities goes up and down but is about the same all over the world. However, the price of prepared food sold to people varies tremendously around the world.
     On December 31, 2018, the price of wheat in Kansas (in the U.S.) was about $5 per bushel. One bushel of wheat produces about 60 pounds of whole-grain flour or 42 pounds of "white" flour. Each pound of whole-grain flour is about 3 1/2 cups which is about the amount needed to make one loaf. Thus, each bushel of wheat can make about 60 whole-grain loaves and each loaf would have about 8 cents ($0.0833) of flour in it. If you insist on white bread -- it will have about 12 cents ($0.12) of flour in it.
     Eight cents of flour in a whole-grain loaf! Do you pay eight cents for a loaf of bread? Probably not. There are a number of factors that increase that price to what you pay. First, of course, a loaf of bread is not JUST flour. Depending on the recipe, there may be oil (or butter), yeast, salt, sugar, milk solids, and whatever. In addition, there are also equipment, labor, fuel/energy, and time needed to convert the ingredients to the loaf of bread. Second, the price of the raw material is not what you will pay at the market (either used within a product or by itself). There are transportation costs added, profit margins for each person/company which handles it, and storage costs.
     Of these costs, labor is the most variable between countries. Also, the general cost of housing, fuel, and taxes will vary. So, a loaf of white bread in Nigeria will cost about 1/3 the price in the U.S. In France, that loaf of white bread will cost about 40% of that of a loaf in the U.S. In Sweden, the price is about the same as in the U.S.
     Okay -- we have (in possibly overly verbose detail) shown that bread costs different prices around the world. It ranges from 1/3 to the same as in the U.S. We now have to compare world income. Bread costs 1/3 in Nigeria as compared to the U.S. but average household income in Nigeria is 1/28 that of the U.S.. This means that that loaf of bread has an effective cost (amount of household income) of 28/3 (9 1/3) of that of the U.S. In other words, buying a loaf of bread in Nigeria takes the share of average household income as equivalent of those in the U.S. paying $10 to $40 for a loaf of bread (lowest cost white bread is around $1 and higher, fresh-baked, bread may cost $4 for a loaf). On the other hand, average income in Sweden is about 90% of that in the U.S. so the difficulty of buying a loaf of bread in Sweden is fairly close to buying such in the U.S.
     We have now achieved a general knowledge of both cost and affordability of food within the world. How do we transfer that surplus of food from the U.S. to other countries (in particular, to those with low average household incomes)?
     In brief (finally, you may say!), the food must be either sold or given to the people. Selling to people in a higher income country is not a big deal. But those people about whom our parents referred when we were urged to "clean our plates" are much less able to purchase it. Many worldwide charitable organizations donate food to where needed in such cases but the food reaching the people in need usually depends on political stability and honesty.
     So, it is a significant problem. The people most in need have the least capability to purchase and, often, political obstacles to receiving it even if it is given to them freely. Cleaning our plates does not help them. It also does not help us if the portions are not appropriate. The problems and solutions about getting food to those who need it are primarily at the desired receiving end.

Economic reevaluation: From GDP to the donut

     The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been maintained as the holy grail of the world of economic evaluation for around 75 years, since it was given a modern definition by Simon Kuznets in 1934 and then adopted as the primary method for measuring a country's economy at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. Even as Kuznets was making use of the term, he warned against overusing it and making it more important than it really was.
     Alas, humans often prefer to take the easy route rather than more troublesome, but more accurate, methods. Thus, the GDP -- which was relatively straight-forward (although requiring huge masses of data) to calculate became the primary indication of a country's economic health. An increasing GDP was "good", rapidly increasing GDP was "better" and a stagnant, or decreasing, GDP was "bad". An example of such a graph follows ("real" GDP compensates for inflation and graphs according to a certain monetary index at a fixed period of time):

     Many criticisms have been made about the GDP but it was simple, came with an apparently exact number, and there was no alternate proposal to take its place. Complaining about something that is bad is useless unless you have something better that people can agree upon to take its place.

Some of the primary criticisms of the GDP as a primary economic index are:

1. It leaves out a lot of the economic activity of a country -- probably the majority of activity. It only counts activity where "money" (or economic credit) is transferred from one entity (person, corporation, country, ...) to another. This leaves out all of the work done by "non-paid" workers -- including parenting, "housewives" and "househusbands", inter-generational childcare and other family work (such as within a business or on a farm), and so forth. Think that shouldn't count? Think about how many minutes a country would survive without it.
   
2. The model relies on continued growth. Growth of population, growth of numbers of consumers, growth of production, growth of monetary supplies according to GDP status (a bit circular there), and on and on. This emphasis on growth also pushes the economy towards consumerism and nonrenewable wastage of resources. In a finite world, with finite resources, and the need to protect the environment and economy for future generations, the idea is counter-productive and destructive.
   
3. GDP aggregates the economic transfers within a country. Thus, if one company (or individual) controlled all official economic activity, the GDP could be the same as for a country where economic transfers were spread out equally among all the people within a country. Accurate numbers but largely meaningless in terms of economic health.
   
4. Economic credit transfers is a poor indicator of a country's health by itself. There are many other "soft" factors -- "happiness", income distribution, access to food and water and clean air, and so forth. Thus, you can easily have a strongly positive GDP growth rate in a country in which no one wants to live.

     As mentioned above, one objection to discarding the GDP as a primary economic indicator has been the lack of anything "better" to take its place. In this case, "better" means something that, at the least, takes into account the above criticisms of the GDP model.
     Kate Raworth came up with a model that has limits -- the limits are indicated by an "outer" limit where human activity uses up resources faster than can be renewed and an "inner" limit beyond which human activity cannot achieve the minimum needed to live. These upper and lower limits are expressed as two concentric circles or -- in the shape of a donut (doughnut for some).

     So, what does it mean to have a new model? Will this new model solve all of the world's problems? No. However, in order to THINK about a situation, or an idea, it is very useful to have a visualization of the concept. A person must have words, or some other representation (such as images), to properly manipulate an idea.
     One real-life example that has come out of this model is that of reorienting sales from products to services (which is compatible with many business strategies). There is an airport (I believe in Germany) that now pays a company for light -- a certain amount of lumens distributed across certain living areas in the airport. This is instead of paying for light fixtures, light bulbs, and electricity. Thus, since the provider wants to maximize their profits -- it is to their advantage to have the most long-lasting, energy-efficient light production as possible AND to recycle older materials as they are replaced (rather than throw them out). Profits on services makes the provider want to make them as efficient as possible -- and that tends to fit into the donut model better than the continuous growth/consumption GDP model.

The poor are from Earth; the born rich are from Jupiter

     Once upon a time (now over 25 years ago), John Gray wrote a book called "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus". The primary precept was that most men have very different communication styles, history/usage of words, emotional needs, and modes of behavior from that of most women. Of course, the book was only an abridged version -- the full explanation of such is actually a multi-volume series that competes in length with, or exceeds, a set of the old Encyclopedia Britannica and goes out-of-date within weeks.
     Similar to George Washington's "cherry tree", it is highly unlikely that Marie Antoinette ever said "let them eat cake". But the concept that people might not have enough to eat was incomprehensible to her. Food had always just appeared (it was never visibly raised, purchased, transported, or prepared) for her. From the viewpoint of the poor, they felt they were being mocked and could not conceive of anyone being unaware of the pain, and work, needed for daily survival.
     Such a clash brought about the French Revolution and earnest use of the guillotine. The disjoint environments of the lowest class from the higher classes in Russia brought about the Bolshevik Revolution (followed by the Communist Revolution). In the United States, being a division of income rather than social class, it brought about the Great Depression.
     In an explicit class system (such as Britain, or India, or many other areas) each social class is clearly trained in expectation of their eventual roles. Certain language, and usage, is taught from an early age. Clothing has its clear do's and don'ts and has its own (usually unwritten -- but passed along from generation to generation) appropriateness depending on the situation. Most important, accepted behavior within the social class, as well as accepted behavior between levels of the social classes, are firmly indoctrinated. These social class behaviors and expectations are not directly associated with wealth but the lack of sufficient money can sometimes cause situations where it is difficult to properly meet the expectations of the social class.
     Movement between social class levels is very difficult. There is certainly a lot of explicit exclusion ("you cannot interact with them") but much of it is a severe discomfort which results from not having been raised from birth into the sub-societal expectations. Always a "fish out of water" and never fully accepted.
     In the case of income classes, movement is possible -- although presently becoming more and more difficult. Once again, however, if a person has never been an active part of an income class, it is a different world for them. We have heard millionaire politicians make statements very parallel to the mythical "let them eat cake" (in particular, not knowing how much a gallon of milk costs, the cost of rent in a local city, or how living costs are paid).
     If you have never been involuntarily hungry and have never worried about whether there will be food to eat then it is not a concept that is easily understood. If health care has been always available and never questioned then the idea of others not having health care is not understood. In even more severe form, if one has never even wondered how they have food, clothing, vacations, houses, and so forth then the innate assumption is that is true for everyone. Not only is it difficult them to understand -- but many fall back into the false assumption that "it must be their fault".
     Note that people who HAVE moved between income classes ("rags to riches" or "lost everything") can have a direct understanding of those income classes that they have been an active part of. People BORN within an income class have to deliberately self-educate (being part of the Peace Corps for a couple of years might help a lot for the wealthy to have some relevant experience) to understand other income classes.
     In the case of democratically elected governmental representatives, it is important to bypass the advertising, and campaign snapshots, and remember that they are there to REPRESENT you -- born millionaires (or born billionaires) will be severely crippled in the ability to understand, and represent, the general non-wealthy masses. Allowing non-representative people to represent the voters is a CHOICE and must be remembered as such. If you want your representatives to represent you, then you must choose people who understand, and have experienced, the problems that they need to address.

Competition -- the good, bad, and the ugly

     Competition exists in all aspects of our lives. Sometimes it is not obvious -- which apple looks the best to eat? Do I like the green shirt or the red one? What is my favorite subject in school? Choices involve competition even if the things among which one must choose are not actively competing against each other. In these cases, the choice is usually made by our subconscious acting from our personal histories.
     Competition can be eliminated via monopolies -- either regulated or unregulated. An unregulated monopoly is the only source and it can disperse it's products in any way, and at any price, at any usable quality. A regulated monopoly provides the only source but there are outside agencies that determine the parameters of its ability to sell -- quality, price, availability.
      Even if there are two or more sources for a product, competition can be avoided if the sources make agreements between themselves about conditions of each of their production and distribution. Splitting the market, agreeing on certain lower limits on price, active sharing of research, and so forth can give an appearance of competition while the reality is just that the market is shared to enable all sources to maximize their profits.
     If a product is not wanted, there can be no competition. Of course, most new products start as an unwanted entity in a condition of unregulated monopoly. They now have to persuade people that they want or need the product. This establishes the market and the introducing source can take advantage of their situation to establish their association with the product. Once the market has been established, then competition will appear (unless squashed by the introducing, or largest, company -- suppressing competition legally or illegally).
     Each source for a competing product (and the product can be merchandise, services, political candidates, locations, or any other item from which one must make a choice) wants to persuade the buyer that they have the "best" product.  Advertising and marketing attempt to create a specific positive perception -- which may, or may not, be in agreement with measurable, and verifiable, qualities.
     The grand prize for an advertising/marketing division is to establish a brand such that people will choose according to the brand and only minimally (or not at all) evaluate the qualities of the products. On the scales of evaluation, a positive brand image is a heavy weight on the side of choosing that sources products. This can be reasonable, as brands are established by satisfying people with products on a consistent basis. However, if the brand becomes the only criterion, there is no longer any need of any positive qualities. Eventually, a product that has only brand recognition and is a poor product will lose its brand reputation and effectively have to start over within the market.
     During the phase of true competition (no brand loyalty, no monopolies, required by the consumers) between two or more sources, competition can achieve continuous improvement of the products. One source "wins" and the other examines the reasons and improves their product to the point where they start "winning" and then the OTHER source starts improving their product. Once again, this can apply to many different products -- social and business. So, during this phase, there may be a "lesser evil" or "less bad" but making a choice towards that direction still continuously improves the choices from all sources.

"Normalizing" -- when the abnormal is ignored to emphasize the rest

     "Normalization" is spoken of quite a lot these days -- primarily by those criticizing the traditional media. But just what is normalization? Well, not too surprisingly, it is the process of ignoring parts of a person or a situation that would NOT meet the description considered "normal" and emphasizing (usually quite out of proportion to the abnormal portion of the situation or person) what is expected -- or "normal". Distortion of reality -- whether to make it appear "normal" or to make it appear "dangerous" or "oppositional" -- is very dangerous because the reactions that might make sense, if it was real, are normally inappropriate and counter-productive for a distorted reality.
     As an instance of description, attributes of a leader might include diplomatic, patient, assertive, charismatic, hard-working, reliable, moral, stable, competent, mature, respectful, logical, eloquent, honest, responsible, sharing of credit, ... It is rare for a leader to have ALL such desired characterizations but -- if someone in the position of leadership has only one or two of these attributes and these are emphasized while the others that they don't have are ignored -- that is "normalization".
     The following are a couple of historical examples of the general scenarios where normalization took place. In the first, there is an attempt to make someone, or something, which is quite abnormal seem normal by ignoring that which is not desired. In the second, the abnormal is not ignored but it is ridiculed and minimized (it will become obvious to everyone so it's not something about which to worry). There is a third type where the normalization is used to squeeze someone, or something, back into a stereotype when the story, fully described, actually contradicts the stereotype; going into such an example requires a lot of back-story and, perhaps, might be done in a future blog.
     One example from history of the first category concerns that of Benito Mussolini. In 1922, with 30,000 of his "blackshirts", he marched into Rome and declared himself "leader for life" -- that is, totalitarian dictator. He was the leader of the Fascist movement at that time. The press (mostly printed newspapers -- some radio) of the time mostly gave him either neutral or mildly positive coverage. Why? There were two significant factors -- one was that Italy, relatively newly coalesced into a single country, was in turmoil and undergoing both economic and infrastructure chaos. The other is that the U.S., and much of western Europe, was in the midst of the unregulated ultra-capitalism phase which led to the Great Depression. Strong, enforced, control of a chaotic populace seemed to be a generally beneficial thing.
     Yet, there were many parts to both Mussolini's personality and political behavior which were strongly against the declared values of the U.S. and western Europe. He strictly controlled the press and dealt severely with any criticism of himself or his actions. He did what he wanted without regard to any existing written, or common, law and often used violent means to eliminate (murder) anyone in direct opposition.These aspects of his rule were rarely reported (Ernest Hemingway and The New Yorker were a couple of exceptions). By leaving these out, Mussolini was presented as a "normal" leader.
     Mussolini's contemporary -- and part of the World War II "Axis" -- was Adolph Hitler. His treatment by the media was somewhat different from the positive slant given Mussolini, and is closer to the second form of "normalization". Hitler was able to have some of the positive reactions adhere to him as the "German Mussolini" as he was portrayed as being with him and like him.
     However, his actions were so outrageous that the media literally refused to believe them. In addition, they were faced with a situation of a choice between self-censorship and not being able to report at all. This leads to a very important, and difficult, question -- which is more useful -- having to report things that are known to be false or not being able to report at all?
     Finally, they kept assuming that the people of Germany would "soon" recognize what an outrageous monster that he was -- but by that time, his control was so firm that anyone who objected to him or his actions was promptly shot or sent to the concentration camps. The majority of Germans was willing to just do whatever they needed to do to survive.
     They had moved past the point where the general citizenry could easily stop him -- they had probably passed that point in 1933 when Germany's equivalent of the U.S. Congress -- the Reichstag -- gave Hitler unlimited "emergency" powers to bypass the law via the "Enabling Act". Before that, they could have voted out the Nazi party and restored democracy. Instead, we had World War II and casualties of 50 to 80 million people.
    

Those butterfly wings must get tired -- initial conditions and small things matter

     Back in the Dark Ages (pre-WWW), in 1987, James Gleick had a book, Chaos: The Making of a New Science, published. In this book, he introduced people to something called "chaos theory". If you want to know specifically what that entails, you should read the book as I am not qualified to paraphrase it. However, one of the examples in the book (which became rather famous and also associated with various jokes) was that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in one remote region (let's say the Andes Mountains in Peru) may cause a thunderstorm somewhere else (maybe in Texas in the U.S) (that is NOT an exact quote).
     The conclusion that I drew from the book is that it is impossible to know, in advance, whether something is important or not, or how important it is, until much later. Also (similar to trying to pinpoint origination with "you gave me that cold"), it is realistically impossible to try to backtrace events to the beginning. You may trace results back to one event -- but that event has preceding things that led up to that event. At the beginning, it may depend on a butterfly's wings.
     How does that affect the way to approach life, or business? It appears to conflict with the other advice of "don't sweat the small stuff" -- but it actually just amplifies upon a recognition that you really don't know what is the "small stuff" in advance of the future. A few examples from various aspects of life.
     You are driving to work in a stream of vehicles. You allow someone to enter into the stream. That may prevent them from doing something dangerous later when they have reached their limit of patience. Or it may allow them to go through an intersection two minutes earlier and avoid an accident that takes place there. You cannot know in advance.
     Pay it forward. Behavior within a car is one extra level of separation -- but what about just a smile and a greeting when you see someone you know? Or holding the door open for a stranger (or someone you know) that has their hands full? Some little things can multiply as one person's smile carries through to a second smile and a third.
     A lot of small things can make one large thing. In business, creating a foundation that can survive changes and problems makes a huge difference. It is especially useful to allow for, and encourage, growth. If you succeed (which, of course, you hope you do) then retrofitting the needed base decisions and processes may hurt your results or even derail you. That foundation is composed of many "little" things -- vacation and benefit policies, ethics codes, decision processes, approval requirements, and so forth. At a size of 10 people, it is easy to just "wing it" but what happens if you grow to 100 people within a year? So busy and no time to hash out what should be happening.
     One small thing can create a movement. One photo of a plastic straw harming a sea turtle cascaded into an awareness of the specific results of our behaviors and a move to turn back to biodegradable straws and lending support to more general desire to stop littering and polluting.
     Small things can directly compound. Try saving your loose change each week and take it in to the bank at the end of the year. You will probably be very surprised at the total. Or, even more, set aside 5% of your salary each paycheck to put into some type of increasing account (money market, stock portfolio, 401(k), credit union savings) and see how it multiplies (at a greater or lesser rate depending on many different factors).
     I occasionally (maybe too often) play a game called spider solitaire. During the first hand, there are usually multiple possible sequences to start things off -- and it matters a lot to the outcome. If you get stuck at the end, you replay and change the starting sequence. Playing one game, I had to redo it five times before I came across the best starting sequence -- and it was NOT a sequence that played the most cards the first round. Sometimes delaying taking profits at the beginning help to maximize your final achievements.
     What is small to one person may be huge to another (or vice versa). This is another problem with categorizing things, in advance, as "big things" or "small stuff" -- there is no tool that "fits everyone".
     Multiples of small things make a huge impact. I used to watch a program called "Unwrapped" -- which presented videos on how food items were processed. It gave a glimpse of the huge extrapolation from the home kitchen to a food that is eaten by many across the country. About 15 million "Snickers" candy bars are made each day. Think about how many tons of chocolate, sugar, and other ingredients are needed each day. Then think about how much in a year. Even in our small choices, when it is multiplied by a substantial part of almost 8 billion people, the small things can make a huge impact.

Crazy Rich Richard Cory

     People have always been fascinated by how the "rich" live their lives. From "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" to "Crazy Rich Asians" to "Sullivan's Travels" and more (look them up in IMDb or RottenTomatoes if you are not familiar with them), there is a huge appeal to the illusion of being able to peek into the lives of those who just don't seem to have a single financial care in their lives. Of course, there are many different levels of "rich" (and "poor", as discussed in others of my blogs).
     There is one stage of "rich" that has to choose between various excesses -- not enough for all things without consideration. Another yacht or that huge diamond? A private jet or another 6,000 square feet in the mansion? At this stage, the operative word is "or". They have a lot more money than they need, and even have to work at spending it all, but they still know how much things cost to make choices. Although they may not know what a gallon of milk costs, it is very likely that they know how much they are spending on groceries per month (but the total percentage may be insignificant).
     The penultimate stage is only a matter of "and" -- "or" is unnecessary. They don't know how much things cost because it doesn't matter. In a lot of cases, they don't even know how to pay for things because others do it for them; their activities, including purchases, just happen without their awareness of what happens in the background. This is particularly true for those from inherited wealth. These politicians, and other wealthy individuals, couples, and families are truly ignorant of the realities of life for the 98% of the population.
     So, they should be happy, shouldn't they? As Paul Simon said in his song, Richard Cory, written in 1965 and recorded in the album, Sounds of Silence, by Simon and Garfunkel, it isn't quite so straight-forward:

They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,
With political connections to spread his wealth around.
Born into society, a banker's only child,
He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.

.

.

.

He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,
And they were grateful for his patronage and thanked him very much,
So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:
"Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head."

     When an individual, or group, no longer has any survival needs to satisfy, they have to find, or create, anchors to reality. This can be seen by the situation of many famous artists who are catapulted into riches and fame and end up killing themselves via unregulated excesses. I cannot speak to the mind of Paul Simon about how he envisaged the person behind Richard Cory but it is apparent that Richard Cory did not have sufficient reasons to keep going.
      When the great imbalance in income inequality occurred prior to, and precipitated, the Great Depression, many suicides occurred because they did not know how to function as merely "rich" (losing 90% of $100 million still leaves $10 million).
     Some people create anchors that are not particularly healthy -- and which have the danger of being accomplished and no longer sufficient. This includes greater and greater accumulation (of wealth, property, power, ...) which never satisfies and is, at heart, an addiction -- treating the economic system as a game in which they want to come out as "winners" (and create the most "losers"). Sometimes it is internal political intrigue such as happened with the Medicis of Florence (now part of Italy). Many times an income overflow includes visible excesses.
     Healthier options attempt awareness of the lives, and needs, of the rest of the population. This may be anchored via religious, or spiritual, beliefs. It may be from an intellectual recognition of needs and realities. Or it may arise from a conscience which realizes that their fortunes are based solely on the efforts, and labors, of others.
     No matter the basis of the anchor, it is needed to redistribute the excess in order to stay healthy. Foundations, charities, donations, university chairs, inheritance taxes, properly progressive tax structures, and increasing employee wages and benefits to living wages are all part of the pool of methods to relieve the pressures that build up with income inequality and concentration.

The math of gerrymandering -- how, why, and where

     Lots of news articles on the topic of gerrymandering of late -- mostly about political bias and court decisions. But just what is gerrymandering and how does it work? The word was created as a merging of the name of Governor Gerry of Massachusetts and the word salamander -- due to an artist's perception of the way the electoral districts were created (from Wikipedia).

     Gerrymandering is the process of creating boundaries such that one group has the advantage over another group. It is particularly used if the process gives a minority group control over the majority group.
     Districting occurs to divide up larger areas into smaller areas. For federal government in the U.S., it is a result of the Constitution and the periodic census. For the House of Representatives, the number of representatives per state shifts depending on population as reflected by the census. Within that state, districts are created that have approximately the same number of people within each district so that each person can have an "equal representation" compared to others in the state. For state and local districting, the rules can vary from that although the principle of "equal representation" is a common ground rule.
     Note that the representation of the Senate in the U.S. does not follow this general formula. With a fixed number of Senators per state, less populous states have greater representation per person. This was done deliberately to make sure that states had equal say in certain legislation. It carries over into the Electoral College of the U.S., with less populous states having a greater proportional say than the more populous states (although the total numbers are still greater for the more populous states).
     How does it work? Let's say that we have a state divided into 100 districts (I think of it as a 10 by 10 grid). Each box/district has 100 people in it. Thus, there are a total of 10,000 people in the state (10 x 10 x 100).
     Assume that group A makes up 65% (6,500 people) within the state. Group B makes up 35% (3,500 people, there may well be more than two groups but let's keep it simple).
     One method of districting would put 65 people from group A and 35 people from group B in each district. If this is done then, within each district, group A has democratic control (assuming equal voting by each group -- not often the case in real life). Group B has very little direct control.
     Another method would put 100 people from group A in each of 65 districts and 100 people from group B in each of the remaining 35 districts. This allows for proportional representation within the state or federal level but, locally, each group would have a monopoly within its district.
     However, if we put 100 people of group A in each of 35 districts (3,500 people -- leaving 3,000 people) and distribute the rest of group A equally among the remaining 65 districts, we would have approximately (not quite exactly) 46 (3000 / 65) people from group A in each of those 65 districts. Group B would have about 54% of the population in each of those 65 districts. Thus, group A would control 35 districts (35% of the state/federal vote) and group B would control 65 districts (65% of the state/federal vote). The power of the minority is flipped with that of the majority. This is the situation that is often the focus of the term gerrymandering.
     Sometimes, as in the case of Maryland, the term gerrymander is used in shifting of the voters -- according to percentage of registered voters, Party B should have 3 out of 10 representatives; it has 1.
     There is a limit beyond which gerrymandering is not possible. For example, if 90% of the state were in group A, it would still be possible to keep the 90% representation by putting all of group A in 90 districts but it would be impossible to distribute them such that group B would take over control.
     Often, the controlling group determines how the districts are divided. Thus, once gerrymandering has occurred, it is easy to maintain control by the controlling group (even if they are the minority group) unless the total percentage of group A grows enough to preclude gerrymandering by group B (they can try, but it won't work). This is the situation that has been, and probably will continue to be, presented before the higher courts.
     It is fairly easy to determine if the minority is overriding the majority but fair districting is difficult to do to allow proportional state/federal representation and still have local (within the district) non-monopolies of the dominant group in that district.
     One solution would be to dissolve artificial grouping (George Washington hated the concept of political parties) but that is not very likely to happen.
     Although it is usually not called gerrymandering, the same process occurs in the division of a metropolitan area into school districts. The school districts COULD be created such that each district has the same tax revenue base -- ensuring that the schools within each district have the same amount of money to spend per student as in other districts. That is not often the case and the result is school districts with a higher amount per student and other districts with a lower amount per student. This could be avoided by spreading the revenue distribution over the entire metropolitan area rather than per district -- but that is often considered "unfair" by those in wealthier districts.

A level playing field -- the desirability of regulations.

     I am a firm believer that MOST companies want to be a good neighbor. They want to have fair and equitable wages and benefits for everyone. They want to do their share in the local economy so that they give as much, or more, than they take. They want to leave the world in as good of, or better, condition than how they found it. They want to produce safe products than are of benefit to people. The guiding forces of those companies want their children, neighbors, and communities to be proud of them, what they do, and how they do it.
     Alas, within the business world, what is desired is not always what can be done. This is especially true for public corporations which are in the public eye and which are often constrained to a short-term view to the next quarter's earnings. A company must be competitive if they want to continue to enable jobs, give dividends and earnings to stockholders, and continue to grow, innovate, and produce.
     When I was growing up, we had a large lumber and pulp mill as the primary economic force for the town. To the best of my knowledge, they produced high quality goods and treated their employees reasonably well. But one day I neglected to wipe off my glasses immediately after a brief shower. Later in the day, when I was cleaning them, I found that the rain had etched permanent spots in the lenses. The rain was highly acidic. Some of my friends, who had houses much closer to the mill, knew that they would have to paint their entire house at least once a year because the paint would not last longer than that. The town just considered it as part of the side effects of the company but I doubt that anyone, within or without of the company, truly liked or wanted the acid rain.
     Sometimes, doing things, that seem to be more costly, prove to be cost-effective in the long run. Thus, after examination and real-life testing, up front costs sometimes prove to be long-term savings. One example of this is a well-known bulk goods company that has a higher-than-average salary structure as well as better benefits than the general industry. Many would think that this would put them at a competitive disadvantage. However, the long-term result of this has been shown to be higher productivity, much less turnover of staff (which is very costly), and a more welcoming atmosphere for the ongoing customer stream. And all of that saves money and makes the company more competitive and profitable.
     In other cases, doing right cannot save money -- it costs money. One company that dumps all of their wastes directly into the local river or lake will have lower costs than a company which minimizes their wastes and treats remaining wastes such that they do not damage the environment. Unless the environmentally friendly company has other areas in which they are more efficient, they will not be competitive against the toxic company. (Note that the process of minimizing wastes often saves money -- but requires initial investment of time, effort, and money.)
     And this is where regulations come into play. If all the companies have the same positive requirements in place then meeting those requirements does not affect the competitive landscape of the business. All the companies can (and are indeed forced to) do the "right" thing without putting themselves into a poor competitive position.
     The regulations, in themselves, have a net neutral effect on companies' profits and cost of doing business. However, the monitoring and enforcement of those regulations do have a cost and sometimes that is a significant cost. This is the "burden of regulations" that is often discussed in political arenas and in public and social media. It is real and it can hit small businesses harder than large businesses because the gross amount is similar for the small and the large business such that, as a percentage of invested profit, it hits the small business much harder. In other words, if I make $100 profit, and I must use $35 to fulfill the needs of regulations, it will hit me much harder than a company that makes $100,000 profit and must use $5,000 to fulfill the needs of regulations.
     Regulations create a level playing field and are usually of benefit to everyone -- within and without of the company. We need to determine methods to keep that level playing field and that means ways to minimize, or distribute, the costs of monitoring and enforcement.