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What's New?
What's New Lately?
4/12/07
Jobs & 'Trade' Data Update Jun08, 6/21/08, National, Colorado, & Colorado Springs Mfg & IT job losses have been a disaster, especially for Colorado Springs. National Job "Growth" is negative with 601,000 fewer jobs than in Nov 07. Official unemployment rose from 4.8% in Feb to 5.5% in May, but real unemployment is 13.8%. The Advanced Technology Products "Trade" Deficit went from a $38.4B surplus in 1991 to a $53.5B deficit in 2007 with a continuing downward trend (month-to-month chart added).
Trade Truth #3: 'Trade' Talking Points, 6/12/08, Here are concise responses for those who wish to oppose "free trade" rhetoric.
Jobs & 'Trade' Data Update May08, 5/24/08, National, Colorado, & Colorado Springs Mfg & IT job losses have been a disaster. National Job "Growth" has leveled off. Official unemployment rose from 4.8% to 5.1% in March and 5.0% in Apr, but real unemployment is over 13%. The Advanced Technology Products "Trade" Deficit went from a $38.4B surplus in 1991 to a $53.5B deficit in 2007.
Ignore Externalities, 5/24/08, Some libertarians admit there are positive and negative externalities, but complain that taking them into account would create more harm. That's wrong. They don't believe that in a democracy we can decide what, if anything, to do about them.
Objection to 'Explaining Liberal Principles', 5/20/08, A great example of "conservative" denial of reality that proffers the "simple" as truth and points out the "depth of depravity of liberal 'logical thinking' when it comes to principles."
Petroleum Prevarication, 5/10/08, U.S. petroleum exports are about 10% of imports. Want to increase U.S. oil supply by 10%? Stop exporting it. Drill in ANWR? No; that oil would likely be exported.
Trade Truth #2: The Dollar & The Deficit, 4/27/08, The falling dollar did not increase the rate of goods export growth as pro "free trade" advocates maintain it should. The trade balance was less negative by $50B in 2007 because of increased growth of services exports and decreased growth of goods imports. Oil is a problem, but it's less than 20% of the trade deficit. The petroleum deficit fell in real dollars by $4.6B in 2006 and $3.9B in 2007 despite rising oil prices. There's a major structural problem driving the U.S. toward economic collapse.
Trade Truth #1: The NAFTA Nemesis, 4/18/08, After NAFTA, exports have suffered relative to imports no matter how one looks at the data. "Free trade" fundamentalists totally ignore that imports have slammed exports on all counts: absolute level, growth, and acceleration. The result? Destructive debt that's sinking the dollar and the U.S. economy.
Jobs & 'Trade' Data Update Apr08, 04/06/08, National, Colorado, & Colorado Springs Mfg & IT job losses have been a disaster. National Job "Growth" is negative. Unemployment is up. The Advanced Technology Products "Trade" Deficit continues to dive.
Collectives, 4/2/08, Libertarians say that any idea of a collective dimension of reality is the ridiculous creation of a "socialist mind" and that anyone who thinks otherwise is a common fool. Hardly.
Libertarians: Unbalanced & Deranged, 3/31/08, The commentary, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness," presents a laughable caricature of what it is to be liberal. Its dream: a grand, idealized libertarian, nightmarish, dystopia that creates hardships and inflicts wounds. This is dangerous, tragic, and sick.
Fascist "FreedomWorks", 3/20/08, "FreedomWorks" promotes the Alice-in-Wonderland idea that liberals and the "left" are fascists. Organizations like "FreedomWorks" are irrational to an extent that makes them, quite literally, insane. The root of that insanity is that they don't believe this: The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This means that, at times, taking individually-logical actions can be collectively (for the whole) irrational. Tragic and dangerous.
The Invisible Hand, 3/25/08, This "invisible hand" is the core of what's known as "Economics 101."
Invisible Hand Drops Ball & Economics 101, 3/24/08, "Conservative" economic policies deliver dysfunctional results. They should have the courage to admit that's what they want.
Employment & Unemployment, 3/19/08, Unemployment is much greater than officially reported. Job growth has not kept up with population growth. US job growth has stopped.
Denver Post 'Trade' Deception, 3/3/08, The media doesn't allow the unbiased facts to be presented about what "free trade" is doing to our economy. It isn't in their corporate interest. "Free traders" talk about the glory of export growth, but not about the overwhelming growth of imports, the high-paying jobs lost, and the impact of those losses.
'Free Trade' and the Environment, 2/28/08, What's called "free trade" has enormous negative effects on the environment.
The Plunge Protection Team, 2/04/08, It manipulates U.S. markets. The economy & the dollar may possibly "hang on" through 2008 due to this market manipulation, but they will surely be allowed to collapse once a Democrat is elected.
Albert Einstein on Socialism, 1/24/08, Einstein reflects on capitalism, on socialism, on what he calls the "economic anarchy of capitalist society," and on what to do about it. I add comments.
Heresy, 1/24/08, The origin of the word, heresy, is "choice." That's not allowed.
'Cliff Oil', 7/10/06, They call it "peak oil," but the decline will feel more like "cliff oil."
John Edwards on 'Trade' - Why We Need Edwards for President, 1/18/08, Of the top three Democratic candidates John Edwards is the only one who understands the "trade" problem and has appropriate policies.
Are Poverty Wages for Ag Workers Necessary? No. 12/13/07, Corporations maintain agricultural workers must be paid poverty wages and therefore we "need" illegal immigrants to do this work. It's false.
Beyond Six Sigma: Systems Thinking and Six Sigma Shortcomings, 11/30/07, Is it possible to go beyond Six Sigma? Well, yes. Use systems thinking.
Principles of Economic and Workforce Development, 11/29/07, A systems thinking perspective is necessary for understanding the dynamically complex challenges that face our organizations, our community, and our society.
The Death of the Middle Class, 11/3/07, Response to DLC Democrat Stephen J. Rose's WSJ commentary on "The Myth of Middle-Class Job Loss."
"The Problem is Bigger than the Loss of Manufacturing", 8/28/07, Contains updated charts on the U.S. "trade" deficit and Colorado jobs through July 2007 plus a summary of the main points on what to do about 'trade', taxes, and health insurance.
The 'Fair Tax', 8/21/07, The "Fair Tax" isn't. It would require a 56% sales tax to be revenue neutral promoting a hyperactive black market. It's class warfare with the primary goal of eliminating taxes on dividends and capital gains.
Market Failures: Health Insurance & TABOR
Website Traffic Increasing at a surprising rate.
Response to a Conservative on economics, 'trade' & jobs.
Populism, 'Trade' and Jobs recent data on 'trade' & jobs and the need for populism ... updated 8/28/07.
What's New?
Employment & Trade Papers
5/05/05
Presentation on "Offshoring and Trade" at the Magellan Center on 11/9/06 posted at The Trade Deficit and the Fallacy of Composition
Manufacturing Task Force material on "trade" and jobs: Manufacturing Task Force on Loss of Manufacturing 6/3/06, KZNT 1460: Business Initiative Show
Material covered in Labor Market 4/1/06, KZNT 1460: Business Initiative Show.
A report on The State of Colorado Employment. The job backlog as of Jun 05 is between 140,000 and 228,000 jobs. New data added showing Dec 05 U.S. job backlog and realistic measures of unemployment ... the "official" U-3 is a vast understatement.
The 5/5/05 Manufacturing Task Force presentation on The Trade Deficit and the Fallacy of Composition and the Magellan Center's Magellan Explorer magazine article: "Is Our Trade Deficit Sustainable: A Systems Thinking Perspective on Trade." Page updated on 5/4/06 showing the Advanced Technology Products trade balance trend and deficit associated with petroleum. Also added a link to a pdf of Warren Buffett's Fortune article on what to do about this.
This Site
What's This Site About?
5/17/06
I've been told that it's difficult to figure out what this site is about. Here goes.
It's about applying systems thinking to organizational and social issues. OK. But what does that mean?
It means examining the "structure" of the system in order to understand its "behavior," where "structure" means the feedback loops in the system ... positive and negative ... or reinforcing and balancing. Nothing grows (or declines) without a reinforcing feedback. And nothing grows forever, there's always a balancing feedback that will (eventually) limit growth. And long-lived systems have an overwhelming number balancing feedbacks that make the system stable ... and resist change. Even when we want to improve behavior, these balancing loops will "rise up" to oppose change. So we'd better understand them or change initiatives will fail.
Unless we understand these feedbacks we really don't know what policies to adopt or what actions to take to change the system's behavior. I was told recently that changing policies doesn't necessarily change behavior. While that may sometimes be true, we're more driven by the systems around us than we tend to think.
In our society we've adopted a false belief: that of radical individualism. It's a myth. The fact is that, while we're both individuals and members of a collective (... it's not "either-or," it's "both-and"), the influences of structure (including policies) and the collective is more powerful.
The idea is to expand the boundary of the system until we can identify structures that create observed behaviors. This describes a theory of the system for comparison against the data of reality (... that's the scientific method). Note that "data" is more than numbers in a database, it includes "mental models" that determine how we humans interact with and influence the system (soft data).
If we implement policies and actions that be believe should act on the structure to produce the desired change, and it does not, then we've either got some more work to do on the theory or we need to examine the validity and appropriateness of the data. It's just like science ... it's social science.
So you'll find papers here on organizational behavior, on social behavior, and on economics ... and on the structures that are responsible what's happening.
It's an amazing lens through which to examine the world and understand what's going on ... a necessary precursor to figuring out what to do.
Organizational Basics
Start Here: What is Systems Thinking?
6/30/04
Click on the link above for an essay on what systems thinking is about, but first read the insightful quotes below.
Systems thinking is seeking to understand system behavior by examining "the whole," instead of by analyzing the parts. That the whole is greater than the sum of its parts isn't just a "slogan;" it impacts our lives in a very real way. That's because living beings, organizations, and societies are systems. We need systems thinking to understand and improve the behavior of organizations and social systems. This article explains why we need it.
Insightful Quotes:
The power of "the whole": "The compatibility between the parts and their reinforcing mutual interactions create a resonance, a force, which will be an order of magnitude higher than the sum of the forces generated by the separate parts. Systems Thinking, Jamshid Gharajedaghi
If the systems approach seems unnecessary, please keep in mind: "Acceptable ideas are competent no more, but competent ideas are not yet acceptable. This is a dilemma of our time." Stafford Beer
"Conventional wisdom is like an old guard; it would rather die than surrender." Systems Thinking, Jamshid Gharajedaghi
On mental models: "The inertia of culture is manifested by public and private images acting as filters, developing a selective mode of reception. This tunes the receptors for particular messages. Those consistent with the image are absorbed and reinforced, while contradictory and antagonistic ones have no significant effect. This phenomenon, although an impediment to change, acts as a defense mechanism and structure maintaining function. Furthermore, since truth is commonly identified with simplicity and comprehensibility, what one does not understand is simply rejected as false." Systems Thinking, Jamshid Gharajedaghi
If this seems complicated, please keep in mind: "My worry when executives say, 'Keep it simple stupid,' is that they're underestimating the complexity of their own organizations and environments." From "Sense and Reliability, A Conversation with Celebrated Psychologist Karl E. Weick", Harvard Business Review, April 2003.
Organizational Basics
Next Here: The Pain. The Practical Remedy.
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| Organizations can greatly improve performance. We make it look easy; & it's fun, too! [And talk about performance! Here Scuba plays Frisbee.] |
Organizational behaviors drive us crazy (see some of them when you click on this article link). We can overcome them if we "learn how to learn" using both single- and double-loop learning.
Systems thinking is extremely practical, even though to many it appears academic and theoretical. It's practical because systems thinking helps us deal with dynamic complexity (multiple feedbacks with delays) ... a challenge as great as detail complexity (to which we invest billions of dollars).
The materials on this site explain how we make it practical ... and creative ... and fun. They show specific applications of this approach to common and important organizational challenges; and they describe structures responsible for organizational behaviors.
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| ... for policies that work! |
Picture this: A
Gary Larson “Far Side” cartoon shows two horn-helmeted Vikings looking ahead from the dragon-headed prow of their armored vessel. Behind them there are four rows of oarsmen, two per row. On the left side of the vessel are big, burly men; on the right, slight skinny guys. One says to the other, “I’ve got it, too, Omar -- a strange feeling that we’re just going in circles.”
The Point? Many organizations have a Mission that explains why they exist and a Vision that describes where they want to go, but that’s not enough. The organization must understand its structure to understand the observed behavior. Understanding structure allows the organization to change its structure and redesign its policies to create the desired behaviors and outcomes.
For an example of structure using the causal loop language that describes "stories of structure," click on "Reading Systems Diagrams" for a story about a popular restaurant.
Organizational Basics
Why ST? Professionals Rank It: Very Important!
2/1/03
Here's how project managers, quality professionals, and business students have ranked the importance of systems thinking relative to other considerations.
Organizational Basics
Reading Systems Diagrams
Here's how to read the diagrams.
About
Why Exponential Improvement?
We chose the name "Exponential Improvement" for this site because feedback produces exponential behavior.
About
Contact Bob, About CIA
1/1/03
Continuous Improvement Associates uses the lens of systems thinking to facilitate exponential process improvement and strategic alignment.
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Why Use CIA Consulting?
2/1/03
Looking for fundamental, long-term organizational improvement? We can help.
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Client & Workshop Comments
2/12/03
Client and workshop comments.
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Website Traffic Increasing
4/12/07
Website Traffic has been increasing at what is, for me, a surprising rate.
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