This is Why The Academy is a Mess!

 In the NY Times, the writer from some Business School notes:

With Medicare and Social Security, older Americans are taking far more out of the system than they paid in. Consider how much lifetime Social Security and Medicare benefits have grown. For a typical 65-year-old couple, those benefits, adjusted for inflation, are worth over $1.1 million today, compared with $330,000 in 1960. Benefits rise as each generation lives longer and receives amounts that grow with the cost of living and as medical prices rise and expensive medical treatments proliferate. Yet the lifetime taxes this couple pays into Social Security and Medicare amount to about $650,000.

In a paper I wrote some 12 years ago I did a detailed analysis of Medicare returns. Namely those working to 75 will over pay into Medicare almost twice their resulting benefits. In fact Medicare is a system benefiting the poorly employed. However the longevity of that class is lower so the net effect is minimal. Thus the write fails to note the time value of money. It is NOT the total you invested over 40+ years but the Net Present Value of that money. Namely the money plus imputed interest! 

One would have expected this educator at some Business School to have at the very least considered that. 40+ years of interest is a significant number. A loaf of bread was $0.35 then and now $3.50! That is a significant difference. 

Sloppy student, gets an F!

SATs and Family Income

 The NY Times reports that family income is a predictor of SAT scores. They note:

New data shows, for the first time at this level of detail, how much students’ standardized test scores rise with their parents’ incomes — and how disparities start years before students sit for tests. One-third of the children of the very richest families scored a 1300 or higher on the SAT, while less than 5 percent of middle-class students did, according to the data, from economists at Opportunity Insights, based at Harvard. Relatively few children in the poorest families scored that high; just one in five took the test at all. The researchers matched all students’ SAT and ACT scores for 2011, 2013 and 2015 with their parents’ federal income tax records for the prior six years. Their analysis, which also included admissions and attendance records, found that children from very rich families are overrepresented at elite colleges for many reasons, including that admissions offices give them preference. But the test score data highlights a more fundamental reason: When it comes to the types of achievement colleges assess, the children of the rich are simply better prepared.

 In 1959 I took the PSAT at a Catholic HS in NYC. No one told us this was important. It was a Christian Brothers school and the education was directed at allowing students to become police officers, ConEd techs and the like. No one said this was important. Just show up and when you finish you get the day off. Thus I just rushed through for a day off. Needless to say my performance was poor. My father was a police officer in NYPD and we had at best an upscale lower income life style.

Fortunately for a variety of reasons instead of playing basketball at the CYO I spent time at the Jewish Community center. There I found that these tests were critical. Furthermore that like a Regents exam one could get a Barron's book to study for them.

Thus from my small wages I purchased a Barron's regents exam book and did every math question 3 times and memorized every vocabulary word. Just as I had my Latin as an altar boy. As a lifeguard, I carried my Barron's around like a Bible. I then took an SAT prep course paying for it with some earnings as a lifeguard. So each Saturday I awoke at 4:30, took a bus, a ferry, a train to start at 8 AM in the Commodore Hotel. 

Then in December 1960 I took the SAT. Finished in half the time and got well above 1400. In fact I even documented errors in problems to the College Board. 

The conclusion is not that it is income, it is drive and awareness. It is a desire to achieve and take risks in doing so. The more wealth a family the more aware, possibly. But the counter is that the children of the more privileged may fail to have the drive, fail to have the necessary instinct to achieve and take those risks.

Unfortunately in today's world, it is the collection of many other factors that determine one's ability to get a better education. It is impossible for many to now overcome those social delimitations.

The World Has Changed

 The last major plague in Western countries was in 1348-1349. The Bubonic plague, transmitted by fleas on rats. That century is bookended by two writers, Dante and Chaucer. Both wrote in their local tongues, Italian and English. Yet each are dramatically different. Dante bemoans the top figures in Florence and their generally evil characteristics, at least in Inferno. Chaucer for the first time speaks of the common person, Widows, Friars, etc. We go from being amused by the highest to being entertained by the lowest. In a sense, that was reflective of the change during the plague years.

 Now a reflection of the most recent plague. Clearly there was an increase in authoritarian rule, plague bad, ruler good. Individual choices were decimated at best or eliminated at worst. Furthermore a generation, the young, were brought up in their most impressionable years by the process of inhuman isolation and social networking with the most influential albeit distorted characters. It will take almost eighty years to clear society of these poor creatures and their impact will needless to say reduce our individuality and freedoms.

 In Europe after the plague we saw characters like The Black Prince, son of Edward III who rode through France on horses with his knights butchering women and children, taking from towns in Gascony and northward. His infamous chevauchee, the use of knights on massive horses pillaging and slaughtering the common folk, was in a sense a grossly immoral act, albeit not commented upon by the Pope in Avignon. Unlike the current slaughters of the innocents, the fourteenth century was driven by the then rulers, not set aside terrorists.

 However in France we had the Jacquerie and the Peasants revolt in England, the revolt of the masses against the ruling class. Neither were anywhere as brutal as that of the Black Prince. Is there a parallel between then and now? Is Russia a Black Prince 700 years later and is the Middle East a “peasants” revolt? The former has certain characteristics, the letter is more akin to the Battle of the Trench in the seventh century. Butchery seems to be a part of the bad seeds of humanity.

 Do we have symptoms of the decay in our society that are pervasive and are putatively signs of things to come? I believe so, and let me lay forth some examples.

 Let me start with an example of a parking lot. One would hardly consider this of any import but it contains all the elements of the changes that are afoot. Our local train station has a parking lot owned and operated by the local town. There are two classes of parking. One is for those in the town who pay a substantial fee for annual parking. That had not changed. Then there is the class of now town drivers, not allowed to get any permit, and required to pay on a per day basis. Before the recent plague one could find a spot for day parking, and then deposit $5 in the box which was then collected. Simple, it worked, all you needed was money. During the recent plague they were approached and what I believe were seduced to move to the 21^st century, namely using a smart phone. The entity providing this service demanded that you have a smart phone, get their app, give them your information and credit card. But there were NO further instructions, classic present day computer morons, not telling the customer how to use the system. To add insult to injury the town has a sign saying you need to have used the app to park in the spots. However that is deceptive, not only do you need the app but you must get a reservation and seek parking in a distant lot only, not where the town says you can. Furthermore the reservation is not a reservation but a first come first serve situation. Again more confusion if not outright deception. Yet you pay whether you get a spot or not. This is paradigmatically an example of our current society. Going from a simple cash and carry basis to demands for any user to have a smart phone, give up your personal information to some entity seemingly incompetent and municipalities having no idea how to communicate. This is not just bad to worse; it is good to evil! It is however generational, the new, “we know what is good for you” crowd who are slowly destroying our civilization. This is the simplest but most telling of all events. None of the participants understand no less care for those paying for the services. The arrogance and ignorance of the Governmental officials for deceptive advertising and discrimination of those not in the town, even for a means of interstate commerce.

 Now the next example if the Postal Service. The USPS now offers the ability to track deliveries. If they let us know then they should let themselves know. Over the last few years, during the plague especially, online shopping took over with a vengeance. This meant many packages were delivered by USPS. What was a simple process became an observable clown show of packages bouncing around, back and forth, until hopefully delivery. The gross inefficiency in this system is a classic example of governmental incompetence. I have watched packages go thousands of miles around and around until delivered, just a 200 mile trip! During the recent plague, the USPS exhibited the nadir of service. They refused to deliver demanding that customers come out to the Post Office and collect the mail there. Further the staff at the USPS demonstrated near hatred for customers, as if the customer was annoying them.

 The third example is the electric vehicle. Here we begin to step on toes. I have been discussing this with friends and family, owners of such vehicles. The classic example is traveling from Austin to New York. This is some 1800 miles. One can average 60 mph in a gas powered auto stopping every 300 miles, five hours, and then to refuel in say five minutes. In contrast the EV goes only 200 miles in 3 hours and then spends one hour recharging. It thus takes almost twice as long to get from one place to another. Now add to this the grossly defective electric grid. A system designed for hierarchical, tree and branch, networking. The transformers are inadequate and it suffers from single points of failure.

 The fourth example is the elimination of anything but electric, especially natural gas and gas powered engines. There appears to be a religious cult who seeks to eliminate natural gas anything. Thus they want stoves and the like replaced by the already strained system of electric appliances. Creating the ultimate single point of failure. One should not that we use natural gas generators to take over from a constantly failing electric grid in New Jersey. Take that away and massive numbers of people will be harmed. But religiously they will be forced to comply. The other leg of this religious cult is the elimination of gas powered engines for property use, like a lawn mower. Yes the leaf blowers make noise. Yes I use my electric lawnmower to mulch the leaves and then compost. But that is a choice. Again the cult seeks to remove the choice.

 The fifth example is the explosion of thought control at our universities and the delimitation of trans-generational communication. Here is the greatest change. Universities were always hot beds of extreme thought. I recall my own experience trying out Columbia University. I was told in a four page letter by Dean Barr that as a Catholic educated student I should go elsewhere. Yes, Columbia was a hotbed of Marxist (also Communist) thought and we Catholics would not fit in. Guess they had not met the Jesuits yet. But alas MIT did not check out you political bona fides in 1960. But today, I could most likely never be admitted. In fact some administrator even locked to front doors at 77 Mass Ave preventing even alumni from entering! Add to that the addition of political Commissars, DEI Deans added to each school, along with their staff, to insure compliance. Think In Search of Red October! Marxist thought has clearly invaded all nooks and crannies of higher education, and people really have not noticed. Today MIT does not praise its scientific and engineering accomplishments as much as the expansion of social justice warriors. And this is just one example.

 A sixth example is food shopping. Before the plague, one could enter a store and purchase goods. At the checkout there was a person bagging your goods in a paper or plastic bag at your choice. There was a pleasant checkout person. Now, you must bring your own bags, do your own bagging, the checkout person is showing the total despise of your annoying them by having them work. Not to mention prices have nearly doubled from before the plague. Overall the workers truly show their abject hatred for customers despite the fact that we are the source of their income. It is not clear what this is due to but it seems like it also is some form of pandemic.

 The seventh example has been insurance companies. Typically you just register an auto, pay the fee and that’s it. But not anymore. One pays the fee and then if one makes a change you get a new policy and the fees start again even if you have already paid the fee! This cycle continue so that after a month you owe four times the normal fee. Then try and get them to fix their accounting system! They state it must be done manually and they can’t seem to find anyone who knows how! This is an example of a growing problem of gross incompetence in a workforce.

 An eighth example is New York City and its transit system. Each subway car has one or more “homeless” urine soaked bodies stretched out on the seats. Then there is the collection of potential assaulters looking you over to see if you are a potential victim. Finally the absence of police. However there are clusters of police all checking the social media on their cell phone totally lacking any awareness of the environment that they are to be protecting! NYPD has collapsed, its leaders are political hacks and the police seem to be in their own cocoon.

 The ninth example is the most compelling. It is the assumption on the part of the ruling class that the country and rely solely on electricity. First the arrogance of high level politicians who have no comprehension or competence in electrical generation or distribution but pontificating on the demand that we accept their unrealistic world view. The distribution network is based on century old technology. It is a hierarchical network with balancing of power in a regional grid. As attempts are made to add “clean” sources such as solar and wind, the backhaul network is just not there. Furthermore single point failures can bring down millions of customers who if the ignorant politicians have their way will be helpless with no Plan B! Then the security issues comes to play. Transmission lines are highly vulnerable. Interruption of one major line at one point can cut power to hundreds of thousands. Wishing and believing in all electric will not work.

 Our society seems to be driven by the will of a few, who firmly believe that their world view is the only world view. We have many historical examples of this type of behavior and what it results in, regrettably.

 All of these changes have been accelerated during the recent plague. We seem to lack leaders, namely those who have a philosophy which can be communicated and motivational which supports the rights on the individual. Class warfare is a Marxist approach to reorganizing society, get the folks to battle each other and come in at the end to control all.

 Back to Dante and Chaucer. In contrast we have gone from Hemingway and Camus and Kafka, to Libraries offering the most extreme in bodily functions for the young. Just a thought.

SW Designers should be isolated from a working product

 Mozilla released Thunderbird Supernova. You know you are going to have a problem because of the cute name. The SW folks managed to destroy the simplicity of the old version. Nothing works! They moved everything around and worse. This is a class SW geeks nightmare product. They took a great working email reader and turned it into a frustrating and defective piece of software junk!

I guess that is what happens when the new generation firmly believes that whatever they think is right and damn the users. 

I went back to an old version and blocked updates! Pity.