On 12/29/2014 8:10 PM, Ed Huntress wrote:
thread getting too long...snip

The Japanese had no reputation for quality at the end of WWII.

Thanks to W. Edwards Deming, they woke up fast, and set a new quality
standard for the world. The Chinese are still mostly bottom-feeding in
international markets.


And you expect this to remain the same for forty years?

I just can't project that far ahead.

It's not rocket science. It's simple math.
The first order approximation to ANYTHING is to assume
the current trend continues at the same slope.
If you don't like the trend, saying you can't predict is not
helpful.
The correct course of action is to decide where you want to
be in 40 years and take affirmative action NOW to point the
trend in the direction you want. Any correction is better
than none. Watch the result. If conditions change, or you picked
wrong, just reassess the situation and adjust the vector.
You must anticipate your competition will to whatever they think
necessary to readjust the trend back to their preferred direction.
The wind will change direction. You must keep a firm hand on the
tiller.

In a sea of independent democratic (and non democratic) societies, or on
a smaller
scale, the US congress, you can't get agreement on anything.
Can't get a majority vote on positive change, but you can sure
get enough votes to kill any and all proposals. There ain't
no leadership with cojones plus a willingness to admit they were
wrong and the authority correct the course continuously in real time
without continued infighting for control of the tiller.

Another result of multiple societies competing for dominance
is that
any change by one results in a knee-jerk cascade of changes
to the forces on the vector. The system is rather sensitive
to small changes in initial conditions. There are a bunch of
societies wanting to control the vector to their advantage.

I've heard it said that if you're behind a wreck on the racetrack,
head for the crash. You don't know where the cars will head,
but you can be pretty sure they won't be where they are now
and you might get out alive. Some action, any reasoned action,
is statistically better than none.

If it were me, I'd put Snow White in charge of the economy.
She's got at least seven people she can trust.
That alone puts her miles ahead of anybody else you could name.
Learning all about economics from scratch is far easier than
getting seven economists to agree.

I'd also assign Santa Claus to her team.
He's very good at nosing around to see who's naughty and who's nice.
He's also got high-volume manufacturing and distribution experience
well tuned to understand and respond to demand down to the individual.
And a propaganda machine second to none. Few even
realize there's a birthday in the mix.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz