April 14, 2004

This explains a lot.

"Suppose that you are a middle manager in a big company that faces a problem that requires an innovative technical solution. Two firms come to you, one offering to solve the problem for $300,000 and the other offering to study the problem and produce a plan for $500,000. Which do you recommend to senior management? I can say, based on personal experience, that the only career-enhancing move is to recommend hiring the firm that will study the problem. That is Churchill's "strange paradox" as it applies in the corporate bureaucracy. Fortunately, I learned my lesson inside a large firm, before I started my own business. It taught me that when you pitch a product or service to a big company, you should position your offering as a tool for analysis rather than as a solution. I know many bitter entrepreneurs who have clever solutions and no profits to show for it, because they failed to appreciate the strange paradox. What Churchill found is that when a group of leaders is confronted with a problem that makes them uneasy, they take out their frustration on those who suggest ways of dealing with the problem. Discomfort with a problem leads many people to develop a passionate hatred for the solution .. ". More ARNOLD KLING.

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January 26, 2004

Social Scientist Robert Rector does it again, exposing the government's intellectually debilitating misuse of the word "poverty". (No, things haven't changed under Bush II). Quotable:

Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes...The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe... Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family�s essential needs.

(via EconLog)

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January 06, 2004

Zogby poll -- there are two Americas, divided by culture, politics, morality and religion. All you ever wanted to know about America's "Red State" / "Blue State" divide.

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December 29, 2003

August 05, 2003

Worth quoting:

If a veterinarian visiting a Montana ranch should conclude the dead cattle there had died of mad cow disease, who would know first: Congress, or the cattle futures market?

-- Pat Buchanan

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June 03, 2003

Sometimes great teachers are also great scientists. This is the case with U.W. professor Rodney Stark. Stark is now giving a good kick in the pants to sociologists of religion, point out how they have failed to come to grips with the fact that people truly believe in their Gods, and this belief has made a difference to world history. Stark's new book is For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery

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