Missing The Point On Expertise

Expertise is tricky because there are lots of levels of experts.  Ski areas have gone to black diamonds and double black diamonds as one obvious example.  On Bridge Base Online (BBO) where we play during the pandemic BBO asks you to self-describe your bridge skills from the following list: Novice, Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert, and World Class.  A CPA certificate might be a way to identify an expert accountant but accountants would be more specific; you might be an expert in international tax.

One sine qua non to expertise is work.  But, because there are different levels of expertise work is not the only determinant of where you end up.  So we wondered why when Sara Kiley Watson said this in Popular Science:

Anyone can be the next LeBron James, Yo-Yo Ma, or Celine Dion as long as they can devote enough time to honing their craft.

We are not suggesting that LeBron, Yo-Yo, or Celine don’t work hard at their craft. They do.  To look at sports, all the college players and anybody that remains in the soccer academies puts in the 10,000 hours of practice that Kelly mentions.  They are expert players.  But only a tiny percentage of those become pros.  And only a tiny percentage of the pros become dominant in their sport.  Practice is why Michael Jordan, a dominant basketball player could not get out of the minor leagues in baseball.  You might practice as much and as hard as Lionel Messi but you are unlikely to reach his level of dominance unless you have the skills of Cristiano Ronaldo.

So we agree that almost everyone can become an expert with enough practice.  We knew a student with severe dyslexia that became a CPA.  She worked extremely hard to be highly successful at her craft.  Yet she isn’t the Lionel of accounting.

What Kelly and everyone else need to understand is that to reach the highest echelons of expertise requires elements beyond practice.  Coaching might be one attribute.  Did Bill make Tommy great or vice versa?  Physical attributes can be important.  Long arm are great for basketball players but don’t matter much to soccer players except goalies.

Practice is really important.  You can’t become good without it.  So if you put in your 10,000 hours you will be really good at that.  But you still might not get a Division I athletic scholarship or play for a major symphony.  You will learn that you need to work hard to be good at something.

Fighting The New Scams

Eugene Scalia is very kind in his WSJ opinion piece.  He says that investors are concerned about the environment, social factors, and corporate governance (ESG):

Many investors understandably want to do good while also doing well. But the standards for ESG investing are often unclear and sometimes contradictory.

We don’t understand but we are capitalistic orphans so we care about returns.  In one of the huge non-surprises:

Other studies show that when investments are made to further a particular environmental or social cause, returns unsurprisingly suffering

Let’s be honest.  It is a scam.  Entities promise to maximize something other than returns so that investors won’t leave because of low returns.  And, of course, it is very difficult to measure ESP as Eugene documents.  A simple question: Are wind farms good for the environment?  Are the dead birds and the rare earths used worth the returns to the electrical grid?

The excellent news is that The Donald’s administration is not buying.  The US Department of Labor says that fiduciaries have a primary responsibility to current and future retirees:

The department’s proposed rule reminds plan providers that it is unlawful to sacrifice returns, or accept additional risk, through investments intended to promote a social or political end.

Individuals can fall for ESG investing.  It is their money.  We support folks being able to sell ESG investing.  We would never recommend buying such products but if folks want purchase them then we won’t stop them.  What we want to do is stop folks from being forced to invest in ESG.  One of the things the proposed rule will do is help to give the fiduciaries some backbone when the activists come for them.

We never suggest that The Donald is anything more than a net positive compared to the alternative in 2016 and The Frontrunner.  Lots of folks point out The Donald’s negatives.  We are reminding you that Eugene and Betsy are part of that net positive.

Our Favorite Statue

The local barbarians have torn down the statue of Hans Christian Heg, the immigrant abolitionist who died in the Civil war trying to free the slaves.  Sigh.  And, of course, we have the suit for a governor so there will be no leadership.  Reading such sad news led us to reading the Atlas Obscura for a little escapism.  Here is the website.  They will tell you about the book if you go there.  We found our favorite statue at the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility (SPI).

And what, you might ask, is the SPI?  It is the point on Antartica farthest from the ocean.  In simple terms, it might be the hardest place to visit in the world.  It also has an average temperature of minus 73 degrees (that is F not C if it matters to you).

And what is the statue?  The notorious Communist dictator Vladimir Lenin.  It, actually a bust on a box, was put there by the Soviets in 1958 when there was a USSR and it was Communist.

It is our favorite because of the combination of subject and location.  Any of the barbarians that what to tear down statues of white men will have a challenge getting there.  Any of the fools that think socialism is a good idea will surely freeze getting there to appreciate it.  It is close to the perfect statue for this day and age.

 

 

Poirot, Bolton, And Johnson

We watched the David Suchet version of Murder On The Orient Express recently.  It reminded us that Hercule Poirot is perhaps the most conservative character in fiction. He is a rule of law guy.  Even when the Islamist mob stones the adulteress, he says it is their law.  He is a traditionalist in everything he does.  If he knew baseball he wouldn’t like the DH.  The show is about a challenging situation for Hercule’s support of the rule of law.  Can a conservative make exceptions?  Suchet creates an excellent version of an interesting story.  It is as good as the movie versions, 1974, 2017.

Having just seen Hercule, we saw how it applied to Scott Johnson’s PowerLine takedown of John Bolton.  Scott had supported John in the past but John has come into conflict with The Donald and he, John, might not vote for him this year.  Scott says:

I was wrong. I find Bolton’s publication of his new memoir deeply dishonorable. In my opinion, it reflects poorly on his character.

Two things.  First, using the character argument to support The Donald seems ineffective.  Second, and more important, nobody is perfect and nobody is perfectly consistent or perfectly conservative.  Not John, Scott, The Donald or even the fictional Hercule.  We are all imperfect creatures.

What does our imperfect nature mean?  Three things that we see but they are all negatives.  First, don’t spend your time trying to denounce folks.  It is so leftist.  We can’t help but notice the byline but we still need to consider the argument.  Josh Hawley could be right about something.  He has much to say so the probability is that he has been right already.

Second, it doesn’t mean we should all get along.  We need to debate to try to get to good solutions.  One of the reasons for the failure of our cities is the lack of debate about city policies.

Third, don’t take November off.  The Donald is an imperfect choice but your choice in November is binary.  Make the right choice.

The Accomplice By Joseph Kanon

We continue our Joseph-fest with his most recent (2019) novel, The Accomplice.  It is not quite changing genres but Joseph does an excellent job changing his viewpoint in his new novel.  Joseph usually mixes Communism, WWII, McCarthy hearings, Jews, and dangerous women to provide us with an interesting read.  He keeps the dangerous women and the Jews but changes his focus to the other bad boys: Fascists.  It is largely about hunting Nazis after WWII but the Nazis are being protected by the other fascists like Juan Peron  in Argentina.

Our hero Aaron is visiting his uncle Max, a Jewish Nazi hunter, in 1962 Hamburg.  Max says he sees Otto, a notorious doctor at one of the Nazi camps.  Max has a heart attack but before he dies he helps Aaron with locating Otto.  Aaron, a desk jockey at the CIA meets Fritz, a German writer, Nathan a Mossad agent, and Hanna, Otto’s daughter.   Aaron chases Hanna to Buenos Aires while all the men chase each other.

In other books Joseph sometimes moves too slowly but The Accomplice moves briskly between organizational conflicts, mostly CIA versus Mossad but there are also Aaron’s conflicts with those organizations, and personal conflicts.  Aaron loves Hanna.  Does Hanna love Aaron?  Will she love him when he outs Otto?  What will happen to the two of them after the Otto situation is resolved?  Will Otto be killed by the Mossad, used by the CIA to spy on Juan Peron, tried in Germany, escape to Brazil or….

These conflicts tie into the moral questions that Joseph loves.  The question is what should we do with Nazis almost twenty years after the war ended?  Should we bring them back for trials?  Which ones?  Kill them?  Use them for other purposes because we have leverage?

It is brisk story with interesting characters and interesting places. It has something to think about on the ethics side,  It has interesting details  He has done it before but we like that there are bodies to carry and hide.  We often wonder how bodies get moved in lots of mysteries.  Joseph reminds us that it is not easy. And, unlike most of Joseph’s books, it keeps you thinking about the plot and the twists.

There is much to like about The Accomplice.  It might not be a great book but it is pretty darn good.

 

Eight More Cheers

A recent article in The National Review was, “Four Cheers For Capitalism.”  Paul Mirengoff at PowerLine has reason for eight more cheers: four for Idaho and four for the Department of Justice.  We are well versed in the battles for girls and women’s sports.  It appears to us that Idaho has got it just right.  Of course you should read the whole thing and check the links.  Paul tells us about the Idaho law:

First, covered athletic teams shall be expressly designated as one of the following based on biological sex: (a) Males, men, or boys; (b) Females, women, or girls; or (c) Coed or mixed.

Second, “[a]thletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open to students of the male sex.” The Act does not contain a comparable limitation for biological females who wish to participate on a team designated for biological males.

The Act was promptly challenged as unconstitutional.

So four cheers for Idaho.  They have gotten about as close to exactly right as it is possible in making a law.  The US Department of Justice has come in on, gasp, the side of justice.  Paul quotes Attorney General Barr as saying:

Allowing biological males to compete in all-female sports is fundamentally unfair to female athletes. Under the Constitution, the Equal Protection Clause allows Idaho to recognize the physiological differences between the biological sexes in athletics. Because of these differences, the Fairness Act’s limiting of certain athletic teams to biological females provides equal protection.

Then Paul nails it with:

So obvious are these points that it’s distressing the Justice Department needs to make them. But the DOJ does.

Four more cheers for the Department of Justice.  We know that folks get upset with The Donald and his behavior.  Other folks love it.  We ignore it.  Our point is that The Donald’s administration does numerous good things.  This is one of them.  Do you really want The Frontrunner as president?

 

 

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COVID-19 And Capitalism

Of course we know that capitalism works better than the command and control systems in socialism.  It is nice to seeKen Langone of Home Depot details examples at NRO. You should read the whole thing several times.  Here is a taste:

It was individual Americans who started socially distancing in March, as COVID-19 took hold in Italy and many mayors and governors were still calling fears of contagion from China overblown, if not bigoted. By the time our leaders came around to the crisis, millions of American workers and their employers were already taking steps to keep each other safer. And while Republicans and Democrats in Washington played politics with financial aid aimed at blunting the great economic pain necessitated by shutdowns, thousands of businesses, trade associations, and patrons were starting relief funds for the most heavily impacted. [Emphasis added]

Capitalism is nimble.  Command and control isn’t nimble and it relies on the controller being right.  Our only quibble with Ken are the words in bold.  Those folks in elected offices are not our leaders.  They are our employees.

COVID-19 As A Minimum Wage

The second part of Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt reminds us of the problems that COVID-19 and even a post-peak COVID-19 world present to the less skilled and particularly young people.  It is not the COVID-19 is dangerous to them.  It is usually not.  Locally we are seeing most of the new COVID-19 cases as young people:

Below is a list of establishments and the date in which the infected person or persons visited:

• Legends/Twisted Moose (June 7) [two downtown bars]
• The Library (June 6) [another downtown bar]
• The Crow (June 7) [another downtown bar]
• Brothers (June 6) [another downtown bar]
• Broncos (June 6) [another downtown bar]
• Blue Moon Restaurant in Onalaska (June 6-7) [on the river]
• Pettibone Beach (June 5) [in the river]

Health officials said that these establishments have been listed because of the difficulty of contacting everyone who may have been there on the same days, and in-turn possibly exposed. It does not mean that other establishments or any public place does not also have a risk of spread.

During the weekend, the area confirmed 24 new cases, all of them in their 20s or teens. Since June 8 — two weeks after Memorial Day weekend — roughly 75% of the area’s cases have been in people under 30.

So young people are going to the downtown (we would say student but the colleges are closed) bars and spreading COVID-19 amongst themselves.  Like Jim, we are more worried about their human capital rather than their health.  Jim talks about lost caddying jobs.  From Francis Ouimet to Caddyshack (yes we know the latter is fiction) caddying has been an opportunity for the less wealthy to develop skills and met people.  That is, to develop human capital.   Here is Jim’s summary and his quote:

Summer jobs are not glamorous and usually don’t pay all that well, but for a lot of people, they’re a key first step on the path of their careers. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wrote in From the Ground Up, “the value of early work experiences can exceed the amount of a paycheck. Work done well — building a house, helping a customer find the perfect new shoes, earning a promotion by serving cups of coffee — imbues us with a sense of self-worth as well as a sense of purpose. With dignity. And if you’re a lost young person with little proof of your potential, work can provide a window into yourself.”

We would emphasize the skills rather than Howard’s self discovery but we recognize that the two are related.  Bad choices like Antifa and gangs become more likely when there is no obvious route to success.  COVID-19 is working like a minimum wage.  It is preventing people from discovering and developing their skills.  And, of course, the penalty will fall more heavily on the less fortunate.  Like many of the important questions, this one doesn’t have an obvious answer.

 

Crash Landing On You

What would happen if a mad social scientist hired a mad scientist to combine the DNA of Crazy Rich Asianswith The Lives Of Others and then had the creature raised by two soap operas: One Korean and one American?  You would end up with something like Crash Landing On You.  It is about 24 hours (in 16 episodes) of romance, comedy and intrigue against the backdrop of the contrast between the North Korean police state and South Korea.

The main plot is about the love story between Se-ri and Jeong-hyeok.  She, Se-ri, is heiress, entrepreneur, and dragon lady from the south who goes paragliding and ends up on the North Korean side of the DMZ where she meets Jeong-hyeok, a captain in the North Korean military.  True to its soap opera parents there are lots of conflicts and back stories.  Both forgot they met in Switzerland when Jeong-hyeok was doing his piano prodigy thing and she was thinking about suicide.  He has an arranged marriage to Sam coming up.  Fortunately, for us non-Asians, the creators always have Sam wearing something in her hair so nobody confuses the two young, tall, skinny women.

There are lots and lots of other side plots.  Our count on Wikipedia was four main characters and thirty supporting characters.  There is Se-ri’s family in Seoul that is trying to pick a successor to her dad and all the conflicts between her two brothers, two sisters-in-law, mom, and dad.  There is the con artist that shows up in North and South Korea. There are the folks that work for Se-ri, Jeong-hyeok’s platoon, the women in Jeong-hyeok’s village, and the folks in Pyongyang.  There are villains and  lovable people on both sides of the DMZ.

For a rom-com, Crash Landing is a reasonable depiction of North and South Korea.  The living standards are starkly different and the nature of police state in the North is made clear but there are good folks in the North and evil doing in the South. There are some great villains in the story as well as really funny scenes.  We see humanity, good and bad, operating in both political systems.  In the first episode Se-ri escapes Jeong-hyeok’s platoon in the DMZ because Ju-muk is watching South Korean dramas.  Of course, his knowledge of South Korea through dramas becomes important later.  Man-Bok, the North Korean wire-tapper helps us see the pressure that the police state puts on ordinary people.

It is an epic love story.  North and South Korea make the conflicts between the Montagues and Capulets or Sharks and Jets look tame.  It is beautifully shot on location in South Korea, Switzerland and Mongolia.  Obviously, they couldn’t go to North Korea.  The subtitles are well done but you need to keep the remote handy because sometimes they are hard to read against the changing backgrounds.  We would have cut the running time substantially but there is more than enough to keep you interested.

We highly recommend Crash Landing On You.

 

Derek Chauvin’s Pension

Derek Chauvin in the former police officer charged with murdering George Floyd.  Zachary Evans at NRO has a CNN report with the headline: Officer Charged With Killing George Floyd Still Eligible For Pension Worth More Than $1 Million.  CNN’s first sentence tells us that the headline is incorrect:

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin could receive more than $1 million in pension benefits during his retirement years even if he is convicted of killing George Floyd.

So it is not worth $1 million but Derek might get that much if he survives prison and lives a long life.  It is like the “million dollar” lottery games where you can win $50,000 a year for 20 years.  There is usually an alternative to get a much smaller amount in cash now or there are folks that will do it.  We remember ad and found the organization that does it.  It is basic present value.  A dollar today is worth more than a dollar at some later date.

Let’s ignore legal niceties and convict Derek.  Should he still receive his pension?  Here is some background from CNN:

The laws governing whether pensions can be stripped from police accused of misconduct vary depending on the state. Less than half of states have laws that allow for pensions to be taken away from police who were convicted of any kind of felony, while some other states allow pensions to be taken away for specific crimes like corruption or sexual crimes against minors but not for the conviction of an officer for using excessive force, according to 2017 research published in the Journal of Law, Economics and Policy.

Pensions are different than entitlements like Social Security.  Public pensions in states like Minnesota are often underfunded but they are real obligations.  If we wait to fix Social Security we will almost certainly see a reduction in benefits.  Will they be across the board or means tested is the real question?  Pensions, on the other hand, are real obligations.  Derek has earned his.  He is entitled to receive his pension based on the almost 20 years he has worked on the police force.  There are choices but basically his pension is  computed as salary (usually average of highest three) * years (19 for Derek) * a multiplier.  We no longer have access to that data but our recollection was police in Wisconsin got 2.2 percent.  We are going to use that figure for our rough calculations that follow.  As a comparison faculty in Wisconsin got 1.6 percent for some years and 1.8 percent for others.  So 30 years on the force got you 66 percent of your highest salary.  It is hard and dangerous work but a nice pension.

Derek will get a decent pension for work he has already done.  He also leaves an enormous amount on the table by getting fired.  He had 11 years to age 55 retirement.  That would add 24.2 percent to his multiplier.  If he got a average raise of 3.1 percent his salary would be up by 40 percent.  And, often in their last few years folks work lots of overtime to boost their salary average even more.

Sidebar: Here is something CNN reported that we didn’t know and can’t confirm:

Officers also usually pay some of their own salaries into the funds and typically receive their pensions in lieu of Social Security.

It would be another reason to meet the obligations to Derek.  End Sidebar.

So Derek has earned his pension.  There are lots of reasons to be concerned about state and local pensions but Derek isn’t one of them.