A new (2009) Start

Today we will start the process of making this blog coherent. After 38 blogs, it is time for structure. Let's start with a summary of where we are.

The first few blogs focused on the global financial crisis and the fact that policymakers are not aware of or utilizing the best tools available by which to detect and resolve such crises.

Models which have been available for decades could have headed off and mitigated the current crisis if policymakers had had the wisdom and foresight to use them.

These models are being used in places like Santa Fe, Champaign, Ann Arbor, and Boston to solve deep problems. As opposed to the simplistic assumtions used by the Fed and Citibank, these models use the mathematical and computer structures developed in the most complex analysis being done, those being utilized in the area of particle physics.

Rather than assuming a simple world of normal curves and linear relationships, these models can allow reality to define itself. What we find is that much of reality is nonlinear and nonnormal. (As Dick Cheney might say, "Big time non normality and non linearity").

Not that we want to eliminate the use of Modern Portfolio Theory and its components like Black-Scholes and CAPM. Nor do we suggest that traditional econometric modeling has no place. It's just that without the refining power of complexity and actuarial science, they are pretty worthless, as recent and not so recent events have shown.

The next few blogs are kinda fun. The lack of logic used by talking heads and politicians is subjected to a case study, the (hopefully) successful nomination of Caroline Kennedy for New York Senator. The hypocrisy of the political class, particularly Republicans (and their spiritual leader, Tim Lehaye) in expanding government debt and obligations without paying for it is chronicled.

The Great Conversation from Plato to Pirsig is discussed in the context of recent findings in string theory and quantum mechanics. Saintly figures like Martin, Gibran, Jesus, Gandhi, and Wiesel (can you believe Madoff ripped HIM off?) are quoted for their wisdom.

Above all, this initial set of blogs is meant to show that the search for truth, beauty and justice is not only still alive, but well, and that we are closer than we have ever been to the true understanding which is needed for the ultimate unity to become manifest.

The next few blogs will provide structure for the ongoing conversation. We will look at education and how it can be reconstituted to provide real wisdom. We will do the same for politics, sports, and economics.

Then we will begin the journey to truth as laid out in Harmonious Universe...see paradigmactuaries.com.

Lee

2008 in the Rear View Mirror

Goodbye to 2008...8 years of W...Iraq...Global Economic Crisis...Madoff...Spitzer...Blago...When will they ever learn?

Starting with Reagan, Republican Administrations have quadrupled the Federal Budget Deficit, even accepting government (versus reasonable) accounting rules. From Washington to Carter, the US government had run up "only" about $900 billion in deficit. (Yes, less than a trillion $)

By 1992 (Can you say Bush Sr?. Where is Hunter Thompson when we need him?) it was $4 trillion. After a break during a Democratic Administration, the deficit began to explode again.

Now it is "officially" about $10 trillion.

People who actually understand economics and accounting are actually putting it in excess of $50 trillion if we count deficits in "entitlements" like Social Security, Medicare and Veterans Benefits.

The reasons for such treasonous Republican management of the American economy are painfully transparent. They never met a war they didn't like, or a tax they did. And they couldn't care less about waste in government spending.

The results are as disgusting as they are real. Our children and their children will be saddled with a financial burden at the same time they are coping with declining resources and increasing human dependency.

They will face a world of danger with military resources drained by senseless wars.

(Does it really matter if we turn Iraq over to Al Sadr, a Shiite, from Hussein, a Sunni?

Of course, Republicans aren't concerned about the future because they are about to float naked up to heaven in the presence of people like Tim LeHaye.

Luckily, there is hope. America has elected a true leader who has a vision and integrity. He can take our country back to the principles of the Founding Fathers.

Yes he can!

See my model at paradigmactuaries.com

Lee

Bailouts and Stimuli for Paradigm Actuaries

Paradigm Actuaries is an actuarial consulting firm and think tank devoted to the application of advanced scientific thinking to the resolution of deep commercial and governmental problems.

The true U.S. government deficit is approaching $60 trillion. Bailout and simulus packages totaling trillions of dollars will be needed to put America back on the path to prosperity.

Here's what I could do with $4 million, a mere 4/10000 % of $1 trillion, using a team of geniuses currently left unemployed by an Administration which rewards ignorance and punishes competence and integrity:

1. Solve the healthcare crisis by building an Agent Based Model which shows the optimal flows of funds and services.

2. Solve the budget crisis by showing optimal flows of revenues and expenditures over time probabilistically.

3. Stimulate the economy by showing where bailout and stimulus money in conjunction with existing government expenditure, would have the most impact on long term national welfare.

4. Resolve the global economic crisis by introducing financial models based on complexity and actuarial science which replace the standard failed models of the past.

5. Bring about a harmonious universe by demonstrating how expenditures on the deep sciences will uncover the deepest secret of life, that everything is connected in a web of unity.

For more, go to my website, paradigmactuaries.com.

Lee