Is chess non-violent war?

Does the player who doesn’t make the last mistake usually win?

After the game

the king and pawn go into the same box

Italian proverb

The more captured opposing pieces the less risk

and vice versa

Do some football running backs fake left and go right

to mislead the defense to commit in the wrong direction?

All warfare is based on deception

…when able to attack we must seem unable

when using our forces we must seem inactive

when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far…

when far away, we must make him believe we are near

Sun Tzu

Monte Carlo

… a "Monte Carlo" simulation, commonly used in financial planning

estimates the odds of reaching retirement financial goals.

 

Though these tools typically run through hundreds or thousands of potential market scenarios,

they often assign minuscule odds to extreme market events.

 

Yet these extreme events seem to be happening more often.

 

If causes, actions or winners have effects, reactions or losers

and A is caused, allowed, accelerated, held back or prevented

is it better to pre-think what could happen to B, C and D

than not?

 

The questions about Monte Carlo tools

reflect broader concerns about mathematical models

for gauging portfolio risks

 

These models were supposed to help quantify and manage the risks

of...complex instruments

 

If achievement takes less time with a rational plan

can you get farther faster than those without

and vice versa?

 

But given the events of the past couple of years

it appears that the models often gave big institutions

as well as small investors, a false sense of security

 

Critics emphasize that the problem isn't Monte Carlo itself

but the assumptions that go into it

 

If some financial estimates and hypothetical illustrations

assume perpetual levels of varying data

can probability be manipulated?

 

Is the present you the only who

who’s going to care for the future you?

 

 

Since no standard approach exists

one user might plug in a range of assumptions on interest rates

inflation or volatility that is different from another user

 

Some industry participants and academics

are pushing for Monte Carlo tools to more clearly illustrate

the scarier scenarios

 

Eleanor Laise

The Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2009

 

If there are at least 15,000 professional American Economists

and less than 1% foresaw the financial crisis

and many mathematical based financial prognostications

were relatively useless

which if left in place

could negatively affecting the future

should some try to fix what’s probably broken?

Don’t make bets you can’t afford to lose when confronting an opponent with unlimited resources who can arbitrarily change the rules.

I don't care if I follow your rules, if you can cheat, so can I.

 

 I won't let you beat me unfairly, I'll beat you unfairly first.

 

Ender Wiggin

Fictional Military Strategist

Geo-Politics and business is Zugzwang

Zugzwang…describes a situation where one player is put at a disadvantage because he has to make a move – the player would prefer to pass and make no move. The fact that the player must make a move means that his position will be significantly weaker than the hypothetical one in which it is his opponent's turn to move.

A player whose turn it is to move who has no move that does not worsen their position is said to be in zugzwang.

In a chess endgame, being in zugzwang usually means going from a drawn position to a loss or a won position to a draw, but it can be from a win to a loss, or a substantial loss of material which probably affects the outcome of the game.

Zugzwang
Wikipedia

I have studied the enemy all my life
 
I have read the memoirs of his generals and his leaders

I have even read his philosophers…

I have studied in detail the account of every damned one of his battles

I know exactly how he will react under any given set of circumstances
and he hasn’t the slightest idea of what I’m going to do

So when the time comes, I’m going to whip the hell out of him

George S Patton

Was it justifiable for the baby boom and their elders, to promise themselves tens of trillions of unfunded benefits, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, for future generations to pay for?

Why would some of one generation

want to covertly confiscate another’s wealth?

 

It is grossly irresponsible for the baby boom generation

 to expect Generations X and Y

 to be saddled with our national debt,

 our trade debt, and our infrastructure debt,

and the retirement debt created by baby boomers

enjoying long retirements supported by future tax increases

on their children.

 

Rob Atkinson

The Atlantic

If workers earn, pay taxes, spend, save and invest,

while retirees divest, downsize, budget

and draw income and healthcare benefits, 

what’s going to happen when more retirees want

what fewer workers may not be able to deliver?

 

Are Baby Boomers going to get more or less than they think

if the supply of what they want to sell exceeds demand,

as they exchange assets for needed goods and services

at relatively the same time?

 

Loss is nothing else but change,

 and change is Nature's delight.

 

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Roman Emperor

Do erased mistakes replicate faster?

If…the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus
and in reality the result was grossly less,
Winston’s job was to change previous versions,
so the old version would agree with the new one.

George Orwell

Doors

The secret of happiness is freedom.

The secret of freedom is courage.

Thucydides

If life is a room of open doors leading to other open doors,
do what you and/or others do or don’t, determine what doors stay open
or lock you in or out?

When one door of happiness closes another opens,
but often we look so long at the closed door,
that we do not see the one which has been opened.

Helen Keller

If positive thought outperforms negative,
can faith in open doors be better than fearing them closed?

Never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end,
with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.

Admiral Jim Stockdale

Israel, America, Saudi Arabia and Iran: Why do survivors survive?

Are there times when compromise isn’t appropriate?

US battleships cross Suez Canal

According to Al-Quds al-Arabi report, 11 American warships, one Israeli vessel, crossed Suez Canal into Red Sea

Eleven American battleships and an Israeli one crossed the Suez Canal Friday en route to the Red Sea, the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported.

According to the report, traffic in the canal was halted for several hours in order to allow US Navy vessels, which included an aircraft carrier and carried infantry troops, armored vehicles and ammunition, to pass from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.

 It was further reported that eyewitnesses detected an Israeli warship among the vessels. No confirmation has been received from Egyptian authorities.

 The report also noted that fishing activities in the area were stopped during the ships' passage as well as traffic on the bridges above the canal…

Roee Nahmias
Ynetnews.com, June 19, 2010

Should you do what you need to whether you like it or not
sooner than later?

Saudis test clearing skies for Israel to bomb Iran: report

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defenses to allow Israeli warplanes to use its airspace in any bombing raid on Iran's nuclear facilities, The Times newspaper reported Saturday.

"The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way," a US defense source in the region told the paper.

"They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the (US) State Department."

Riyadh denied the British report on Saturday, calling it "false" and "slanderous," the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

…The Times said Riyadh, which views Iran as a regional threat, had agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance in the event of any bombing raid on Iran.

It said that a source in Saudi Arabia said the arrangement was common knowledge within defense circles in the kingdom.

AFP, June 12, 2010

Are there correlations
between currency, debt, natural resources, peace and war?

Profound Obama Gulf Spill Mash Up: Rolling Stone and The New York Times

The Spill, The Scandal and the President
Tim Dickinson
Rolling Stone via Fec

&

Add Government to the List of ‘Fat Cats’
Matt Bai
New York Times

Like the attacks by Al Qaeda, the disaster in the Gulf
was preceded by ample warnings
yet the administration had ignored them.

[Obama] calibrated his response to the Gulf spill
based on flawed and misleading estimates from BP
and then deployed his top aides to lowball the flow rate…

Instead of cracking down on MMS,
as he had vowed to do even before taking office,
Obama left in place many of the top officials who oversaw the agency…

He permitted it to rubber-stamp dangerous drilling operations…
using industry-friendly regulations drafted during the Bush years.

…[Secretary of the Interior] Salazar
put 53 million offshore acres up for lease in the Gulf in his first year alone,
an all-time high…

Salazar did not even ensure that MMS had a written manual
required under Interior’s own rules
for complying with environmental laws…

Scientists were stunned that NOAA,
an agency widely respected for its scientific integrity,
appeared to have been co-opted by the White House spin machine…

…Since 2007…BP has received 760 citations
for “egregious and willful” safety violations
those “committed with plain indifference to or intentional disregard
for employee safety and health.”

The rest of the oil industry combined has received a total of one…

Mr. Obama acknowledged
…in his lone criticism of government’s role in the crisis
that the bureau in charge of monitoring the oil companies
had effectively been colluding with them instead.

…the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan,
…plainly states that the government must “direct all federal, state or private actions”
to clean up a spill “where a discharge or threat of discharge
poses a substantial threat to the public health or welfare of the United States.”…

…What this means for Mr. Obama is that an anxious populace
is now less likely to see his clash with BP
as an instance of government’s standing up to a venal corporation,
but rather as an instance of both sprawling institutions
having once again failed to protect them.

...75 years ago…a relatively small number of corporations,
oil and coal companies, steel producers, [and] car makers
controlled a vast segment of the work force…

…In recent decades...more and more Americans have gone to work
for smaller or more decentralized employers, or even for themselves,
while government has exploded in size and influence.

(It’s not incidental that the old manufacturing unions,
like the autoworkers and steelworkers,
have been eclipsed in membership and political influence
by those that represent large numbers of government workers.)

…voters perceive both business and government
as part of an interdependent system,
and it is hard for them to separate out the culpability of either.

…today’s…populism…is about the individual versus the institution,
not only business,
but also government and large media and elite universities, too.

…You simply have to fear
that large institutions generally exercise too much power
and too little responsibility…

This new American populism
is why the federal deficit has emerged as a chief concern for voters…
…because it signifies a kind of institutional recklessness…

Mr. Obama and his party are probably right to presume
that voters don’t trust…the powerful companies
the president has taken to castigating on a regular basis.

The problem is
that they don’t trust Washington to stand up for them, either.

If an offensive move doesn’t look advantageous,should defenses be reinforced instead?

 

You can’t start over

If nothing doesn’t change

is not making a move moving?

 

Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed,

whatever follies I have witnessed…

have been the consequence of action without thought.

 

Bernard Baruch

American financier, and presidential advisor

 

If big print can give what fine print takes,

can winning the wrong game lose the right one?

 

Does complexity increase the likelihood of complication?

New Year Thoughts VII

Don’t believe everything you think, do what you don’t want to get what you don’t need, criticize if it won’t help, confuse compassion with justice, want what you can’t get, boast, envy, obfuscate, conclude what you want because you want to, confuse effort with result, afflict inanimate objects with conjured meaning, think you need what you don’t, tread on others unless they’re treading on you, cut what can be untied, want more than you need, consciously over-compensate for unconscious doubt, say more than do, catch falling knives, lose your temper unless it would be bad to keep it,

over-sacrifice need for want and vice versa, spend more than you make, or swim with the incontinent.

.

Always and never

are two words you should always remember never to use.

 

Wendell Johnson

New Year Thoughts VI

Don’t lie to yourself, say you can do something you can’t, say you’re going to do something and not do it, be a very good bad example, think more of what could have been than what may be, be unloved, let obsession with righteousness metastasize into hubris, let small mistakes become big ones, lead without permission, rationalize faults by blaming others, over-adore wanted acquisition, think you know what you don’t, do guilt, sacrifice future happiness for an unnecessarily pleasant present, underestimate irrationality, offend many to benefit few, do what you don’t understand, let what you own own you, lend need, owe more than you can easily repay, build monuments, succeed at failure, over think, or give up.

 

Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you, unless you need to.

 

Never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end

with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.

 

Admiral Jim Stockdale

New Year Thoughts V

Wear flip-flops, support locally owned restaurants, get wet in warm summer rain, take alternate routes, promote, participate and attend neighborhood athletics, chew intellectual cud, run a car out of gas on purpose, read by miniature Christmas lights, eat with your neighbors outside, make the mundane entertaining, hope everything happens the way it does, read every book that won the Hugo Award, turn a few options into numerous possibilities, enjoy possibilities of what could be, begin at a goal and prepare backward, slow down, make routine trips adventures, simplify and minimize, forget what you give, value what you get, return what you borrow, replace what you break, own more of what lasts longer and less of what doesn’t, give anonymously and forgive quickly.

 

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

 

William Blake

New Year Thoughts IV

If winning is getting up after falling, and losing is falling and not getting up, win by not losing.

SSP

 

Is it Smart, is it Safe,

and would you be Proud to do it?

 

Robin Hartzman

New Year Thoughts III

Calculate risks, weigh choices, experiment, practice, adjust, protect your flanks, breathe enthusiasm, concentrate resources, respect momentum, anticipate anticipation, bypass irrelevancy, commit, play to win, maximize what works, minimize what doesn’t, and prepare to diversify

to solidify gains.

The whole art of war

 consists of guessing at what is on the other side of the hill.

 

Duke of Wellington

Defeated Napoleon at Waterloo

New Year Thoughts II

Create a higher likelihood of a better present, by securing need and achieving want in the shortest time with the least risk, by thinking of what and when relative to what was, and what could happen after what may happen next.

 

If there’s less risk and higher return in a plan fitting circumstances,

than circumstances fitting a plan, observe, hypothesize, reduce to the least common denominator, find strength in weaknesses, weakness in strength,

and advantage in disadvantage.

Do what you can with what you have,

where you are.

 

Theodore Roosevelt

 

New Year Thoughts

If there was a bank that put $86,400 in your account every day, but only for one day, and what you don’t use you lose, until you get another $86,400 the next day, would you try to spend every penny every day?

 

Do you get 86,400 unredeemable seconds every day?

 

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between Sunrise and Sunset,

 two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes.

 

No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.

 

Horace Mann

On the Downtown Hotel and Soulsville (Posted on July 9, 2009)

County commissioners this week deferred approving a $700,000 investment in the [Towne Center at Soulsville project].

 

The $11 million mixed-use lifestyle center which involved funding from both the city and the federal government, will bring retail, restaurants, and a 24,000-square-foot grocery store to the Soulsville USA neighborhood in South Memphis.

 

…Former county commissioner Bridget Chisholm, a consultant on the project and Jeffrey Higgs…director of the LeMoyne-Owen College

Community Development Corporation…went before the county's budget and finance committee last week to present the proposal.

 

Though commissioners are supportive of the project, they are wary of giving the Community Development Corporation (CDC) what could essentially amount to a blank check.

 

Why is the Soulsville Website still under construction?

 

http://www.townecenteratsoulsville.com/about.html

 

"I think we need to have further conversations about how we structure the county's involvement," says David Lillard, the commissioner who asked to defer the item, "It would amount to the county giving $700,000, basically in cash, directly to the CDC."

 

Should the City of Greensboro risk money it doesn’t have

on a venture involving something it doesn’t need,

during what may be the worst recession since the Great Depression?

 

For the Towne Center project, the city paid for the demolition of existing structures,…and pledged an additional $250,000 to the project.

 

The CDC also secured several federal grants as well as a pending $9 million bank loan.

 

"This is really about economics," says Higgs

 

"It's not about a little nonprofit.

 

This is serious economic development.

 

…all the dollars being put in by the federal government by private businesses, by the city ... [for the Towne Center]is just another cog in the wheel turning this community around."

 

If the proposed $75 million hotel for Greensboro goes bad

who would be responsible for paying back the borrowed money?

 

Would it not be moronic for a city to guarantee debt with its children’s future income for what some may believe is an unnecessary, relatively risky venture, if a few insiders could profit regardless of whether the project succeeds or fails?

 

Soulsville Returns

Mary Cashiola

Memphis Flyer, July 12, 2006

Geo-Politics and business is Zugzwang

Zugzwang…describes a situation where one player is put at a disadvantage because he has to make a move – the player would prefer to pass and make no move. The fact that the player must make a move means that his position will be significantly weaker than the hypothetical one in which it is his opponent's turn to move.

 

A player whose turn it is to move who has no move that does not worsen their position is said to be in zugzwang.

 

In a chess endgame, being in zugzwang usually means going from a drawn position to a loss or a won position to a draw, but it can be from a win to a loss, or a substantial loss of material which probably affects the outcome of the game.

 

Zugzwang

Wikipedia

I have studied the enemy all my life

 

I have read the memoirs of his generals and his leaders

 

I have even read his philosophers…

 

I have studied in detail the account of every damned one of his battles

 

I know exactly how he will react under any given set of circumstances

and he hasn’t the slightest idea of what I’m going to do

 

So when the time comes

I’m going to whip the hell out of him

 

George S Patton

Politics = Chess II

Is chess non-violent war?

 

All warfare is based on deception

…when able to attack we must seem unable

when using our forces we must seem inactive

when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far…

when far away, we must make him believe we are near

 

Sun Tzu

 

If an opponent’s position can be used against them

and the pinnacle of vulnerability is the moment of assault

should attack commence from defended positions?