Grantcoulson's Blog

      More on government organizations.

from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:

Making research into effectiveness irrelevant

    Since effectiveness is not required, increased effectiveness is not required. Research  is not necessary into things which don’t have to work.
    The current state of the social sciences is this: Most of the applications take place in government agencies or in government funded agencies where there is no economic consequence for success or failure. These practitioners are trained in government-funded schools, universities and community colleges where there is no economic consequence for success or failure and teaching nonsense is endemic. Consequently, the practitioner is trained by, and works within, a succession of cults making arrogance and failure inevitable.

    These cults are not noted for their perspicacity. Universities abound with doomsayers who are constantly being proven wrong. For example, Paul Ehrlich of Stanford predicted disaster from overpopulation, global cooling, then global warming (first the sunlight was filtered, now the heat is trapped). or “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." or losing a bet, by a wide margin, by predicting that the price of commodities would rise. None of these horrors has come to pass, but his credibility remains high with fellow, university doomsayers who, as always, lay the blame for disastrous,  hypothetical future events at the feet of “capitalism”. and, strangely, are not discredited by continuous predictive failures.

    Cults must respond to two kinds of attacks. The first is criticisms of the cult. These can always be dealt with hysteria, lying and other sound public relations activities. The second is anything that removes current or potential members from the cult. This is the more serious attack and is met by a more serious counterattack including the most virulent attacks on the personal attributes of those proposing and operating alternatives especially if those alternatives are reducing cult membership.

    Don’t forget that most of the discussion about evidence and method in the social sciences involves “THE SHOW”, a theatrical-like presentation of half-truths, unsubstantiated theories and drama.

    Another kind of government behavior is similar to the confidence activity of “cooling the mark out.” When a con man separates someone from his money, there are two main ways to minimize victim reaction. One is to flee and hide to put distance and anonymity between the con and the aggrieved party. The other is to convince the victim that the loss was not only unavoidable, but virtuous. Unending propaganda about the merit of programs is a way of “cooling the mark out” while remaining in place, able to con again.

       The nature of this nonsense is vast in scope and unbelievable in nature. Much of it has as much supporting evidence as UFOs or the Canals of Mars. Categorizing it is fun, but a task without end because of the lack of responsibility produces endless nonsense.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

     The newest “theme” in education seems to be the push to eliminate corporate advertising from polluting schools. Meanwhile, dogged, continuous,  indoctrination in socialist dogma, on my dime, is OK.

    Thanks to anti-positivist, Jim Fedako,  for pointing out that “public schools” do not “belong” to the public, except in a metaphorical sense. They are government schools and access to the physical plant, operations, finances and philosophical stances are the opposite of “public”. Give us the money and stay away, we’ll take care of things. By the way, we need more money.

    More from the consequences of Government operations.

from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:

Crowding out

    When faced with a choice of a “free” government service or one for which one must pay, most will choose the government service. Governments in the Western World pursue any hint of monopoly in the private sector with prosecutorial zeal but constantly set up their own such as the post office and public education. “The lesson learned and applied through the deregulation of industries is that the deadweight loss produced by monopoly cannot be regulated or legislated out of existence. It can only be competed out of existence.” (Schlomach, p. 4)   

Inefficiency

    Although efficiency is a ratio of output to input, since the output of most government programs is close to zero, efficiency of most social sciences programs is zero or close to it.
Hidden Costs

    One of the most amusing occurrences of hidden costs comes about when the official public school system costs are used to determine the value of vouchers for private education given to students in failing public schools. The “official costs” are always a pale imitation of real costs. All public enterprises are adept at hiding expenditures because they have no bottom line. They need not know real costs and political reasons to hide them.

Strikes

    Once a union is in a monopoly position, it will impose its will by withdrawing service. One of the many socialist paradoxes is that necessary services are periodically withdrawn.

Coercion

    When a government service becomes mandatory, coercion must occur in many forms. Coercion is used to garner the taxes for the service and maintain a monopoly situation favoring certain groups. In one of the dozens of paradoxes of government control, high standards are required, but results are not. For example, The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education requires a long and involved process to achieve “accreditation”. The learning of students taught by the teachers anointed by this procedure are no better than that from non-accredited teachers–all  on the INTEND-IS and nothing on the DOES. Qualified and competent are not synonymous.

Production of a powerful, counterproductive lobby to maintain the status quo

    The situation has created an interested and rich group, the union, which is able to mount strong lobbying movements to maintain and improve its status. This, of course, reduces the ability of any system to become or remain efficient.

Schlomach, R. (2005). An Education Monopoly: The Calculable Cost to Texas--Policy Perspective January 25, 2005–Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

     “An army is like a great machine, and in putting it into battle it is not enough for its commander to merely issue the necessary orders. He should have a staff ample to supervise the execution of each step, & to promptly report any difficulty or misunderstanding.” (p. 236). Edward Porter Alexander. Alexander, among his other duties, was the quartermaster-in-chief of the Army of Northern Virginia who kept it supplied under difficult circumstances. Alexander knew a fair bit about organization. In government organizations, such as a school, no one bothers to "supervise the execution of each step" and in most cases are prevented by the union from doing anything resembling something sensible.

Porter, E.P. (1989). Fighting for the Confederacy: the person recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:

When a government agency takes over any function, it pursues it with relentless inefficiency and good buzzwords. Here are some words from an Ontario government report on higher education; leader, higher expectations, stakeholders, innovation, commitment, input, integrated, reform, and diverse. This leads to the conclusion that implementing these innovative, integrated, world-class outcomes will require, no kidding, more money, but, since these words are so nice, it will be money well spent.

    Whenever a government agency takes over any function, whether power generation, coal mining, automobile production or teaching, economic and psychological analysis tells us a number of undesirable events inevitably occur. These include, but are not limited to, union activity, co-opting, crowding out, inefficiency, hidden costs, strikes, coercion, production of a powerful, counterproductive lobby to maintain the status quo, and suppressing research into effectiveness.           

Union Activity

    A union will do many things to “further” the interests of its members in the short term. In the long term, these activities always work in the opposite direction to effectiveness and the opposite direction to client service.

Co-opting

    A government organization will always have more resources to employ those who would be more efficient working in the free market and can recruit people who are better employed elsewhere.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

     The following is a comment about flu shots in general which are motivated by the desire for the barren pageantry of politics. The H1N1 epidemic was not what was hoped for and the dire predictions did not come true. This was based on the same set of assumptions which leads to urging “more rehabilitation beds for drug addicts” when the programs are not better than no programs but the INTENTION is pure.

“If you want to know the truth about flu shots, all you need to do is look at what happens when the vaccines fail. And here’s what happens: Nothing.

It’s easy to sort science from scare tactics on this one… because every now and then the flu vaccine doesn’t match the strain of the flu that ultimately breaks out. And when that happens, there are no noticeable surges in deaths from the flu or its complications.

As recently as 2004, there were severe shortages in flu shot production, and vaccination rates fell by nearly half. Remember all those widespread flu deaths? Of course you don’t–because they didn’t happen!

Back in 1989, just 15 percent of seniors received flu vaccines. Now, more than 65 percent are tricked into rolling up their sleeves. Yet flu-related fatalities aren’t dropping any. By some measures, they’ve even risen a bit.

The flu shot is hokum, plain and simple–a desperate attempt to sell you more meds you don’t need.”

    On a totally unrelated note, my adventure with Linux, in my case Ubuntu 9.10–nicknamed Karmic Koala–continues to go well. The only thing left is to learn how to run my teaching programs on it and my adventure with Microsoft is over. Linux is free, based on non-coercive cooperation and goodwill and represents the internet at its best. It’s much more user-friendly, virus free and doesn’t nag about updates.

from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:

        Riding on Rhetoric

     “Some ideas sound so plausible that they can fail nine times in a row and still be believed the tenth time. Other ideas sound so implausible that they can succeed nine times in a row and still not be believed the tenth time. Government controls in the economy are among the first kinds of ideas and the operation of a free market is among the second kind.” Thomas Sowell.

    There will be no change in the social sciences until the contingencies of practitioners are changed. Billions of dollars will continue to be wasted, absorbed by the inefficiency and corruption inherent in government operations. Little of the power of social sciences to make life better can be used as long as most of the practitioners are employed by government organizations. People read a “mission statement” of a polgram and rejoice in its cloying language which describes the wonderful things the polgram intends to accomplish. The intention becomes the result and the program rides on rhetoric. The Law of Contingencies is unchanging, like the Law of Gravity. One can rail against the Law of Gravity, but still land with a thud when attempting to parachute off a garage roof with an umbrella. One can talk about responsibility, but without the proper contingencies it will only be the usual governmental responsibility–responsibility without consequences.

    All effective programs will take place outside of government agencies. When the provider is responsible to the customers, customers generally do not pay for ineffective practices. Anyone who needs anything dependent on knowledge of behavior, rehabilitation and learning will greatly increase the probability of success by seeking it outside the auspices of any organization which has any connection with government funding. He should seek out someone he pays directly so that he can directly affect the service he gets.

    This is not an argument against state control and attendant economic inefficiency, corruption and stagnation. It is solely an argument against government agencies in the social sciences. The endless arguments about more money, the proper jurisdictional boundaries among various educational bodies, the relationships among parents, teachers, and educational administration, are overwhelmed by the Law of Consequences. When consequences are absent and the distance between customer and service provider is filled with non-responsible people, no amount of tinkering will fix ineffectiveness because the ineffectiveness is the inevitable result of Human Nature.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

     Nickel here, a dime there, and soon it adds up. The Ontario government of big-L Liberals, facing a record deficit, is starting all-day kindergarten, a program which will cost billions. That’s responsible. We’ve been inundated by the propaganda about how this is a good idea. Apparently the system that fails for 12.5 years just needs another half year to become effective.  This cartoon is a little fuzzy, but it makes the point that each American starts life $176,000 in debt.

    Homer Simpson to Lisa, “So Global Warming can cause cold. Aren’t you the Queen of Crazyland?” When pop culture starts poking fun, the concept is in trouble.

     "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as we do when the baby gets hold of a hammer. It’s just a question of how much damage he can do with it before you take it away from him."- Will Rogers.

from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:

       Where Contributions Can Be Made

    If the social sciences were evolution, the vast majority of practitioners have not climbed from the primordial ooze. Here and there an advanced form appears, only to be ignored and regarded as a noisome anomaly, soon to be reabsorbed. We have seen that the emphasis on process, what looks reasonable rather than outcome, what the program accomplishes, has impeded progress.

1. Any social service must be provided in a situation in which results count. If the salaries of the providers do not depend of the results,  what is provided will be a program in name and a polgram in reality. You get what you reinforce.

2. Any successful program will be an combination of successful techniques.

3. A program must concern itself with the motivation of clients, therefore, it must contain powerful techniques of reinforcement. You get what you reinforce.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies