What do you get when you design a horse by committee?
Answer: You should at least get a camel, but with this situation you won't even get an ungulate.
Today the Obama administration unveils its 'plan' for regulating the financial industry. This looks like the classical closing of the barn door after the horse is out. They are assuming that the economy, and hence the financial basis of that economy, will recover and we will be once again on the borrow-so-we-can-consume track to Nowheresville. Then, once the economy is running again, these regulations will kick in and all will be rosy thereafter.
Perhaps I should smoke what they are smoking in the White house so that I could stop worrying about outcomes and reality.
The proposed regulations look a lot (to me anyway) like what we call a kluge in engineering. You throw together a bunch of reactive solutions to a set of problems in the hope that they will somehow all work together to keep the 'device' working. Complex systems have all these little pesky variables that need to be 'controlled', so you look at each one individually, figure out how to apply some local 'fix', and then go on to the next problem.
Only what too often happens is that the fix for one problem variable causes something else to go haywire. After all, the whole thing is a system. Things are connected. A local fix to one variable doesn't mean you are fixing the whole system. This is what we know as unintended consequences.
The system that was already in place was a huge kluge. So many different agencies with different authorities and different jurisdictions (except that many overlapped in ways making it hard to know who should do what and to whom!)
Now the proposal is to 'patch it up'. Fix it incrementally. Once again I wonder when wisdom will prevail in these decisions.
I have been writing for nearly two years about the need for a more naturalistic approach to governance, one based on hierarchical management with strategic, coordination (tactical and logistical), and operations controls suitably designed and placed, and I still think that is the only feasible way to approach these problems. Instead we limp along trying desperately to make an already proven failed system work. And it is even the wrong system! I have also been writing about the idiocy of our current approach to financial management, banking, liquidity markets, and the like. So now, what I see is that we are going to try to make a bad system work better at being bad for mankind's long-term good!
I need a drink!
NOTE TO READERS: I will be traveling over the next several weeks (I get my summers off you know!) so my postings are likely to be spotty at best. I will try to get some writing done and if I get a chance and a connection, I'll post when I can. BTW: My travels involve meeting people who are working along the lines I've been writing about, so it isn't just for fun.
Have a good (working) holiday George...and thanks for your insightful efforts in this blog.
A personal question; have you any children?
We never wanted or planned any-my wife had been infertile all her life-when at 41 she fell pregnant and produced a perfect healthy boy..hes nearly 2 now. It certainly focuses your mind on the future! From being "ah-well-I-will-be-old-and-decrepit when-it-all-collapses" to being "what sort of world when he be growing up in when he is my age"? and "how can I fulfill my obligations to ensure his greater chance of survival/integration in this new world"?
As the project of total control and domination of nature crumbles before us I suspect there are a growing number of sapient parents haunted by those questions.
Posted by: GaryA | June 18, 2009 at 12:55 AM
Hi GaryA.
I have two boys, one finishing his junior year in college, the other just turning 17. We stopped there. And back in those days replacement reproduction seemed the moral choice.
I too wonder about their future, although at the rate things are happening in the world of net energy and climate change, I am not so sure I will be gone by the time TSHTF! If the latter is the case, I will do my best to help them adapt/survive, of course.
My advice (worth what you paid for it!) is don't spoil, but love, love, love. More than anything our kids will need that.
George
Posted by: George Mobus | June 18, 2009 at 07:44 AM
Have a good holiday, George. I hope I can have a few days off too some time soon, so I can finish that Fritjof Capra book you recommended!
Posted by: Neven | June 18, 2009 at 03:45 PM
Happy travels! After connecting dots, connect people.
Posted by: Florifulgurator | June 19, 2009 at 09:19 AM
What would be a definitive sign that TSHTF ?
From what we know as to be happening around the world...
+ There is lesser Net Energy
+ The Climate has changed
Which has led to...
+ Adverse effects on Food Supplies
+ Huge upheavals in the Global Economic System
Now we are beginning to see early signs of civil unrest and geopolitical conflicts brewing all over the globe...
Mr. Morbus don't you think The Shit Has Already Hit The Fan ?
On a separate note... I will be completing 28 years of existence next month. I get really scared when I meet family and friends who have very young children. It scares mi even more to think of having my own.
Happy travels, may you succeed at whatever you are trying to accomplish.
Posted by: Sudeep Bhaumick | June 21, 2009 at 08:50 AM