Gongol.com Archives: November 2014

Brian Gongol


November 15, 2014

Business and Finance Forecasting consultancy thinks a recession in 2015 is 65% likely

Threats and Hazards Des Moines mother lets her 5-year-old die of neglect
Even the most ardent libertarian should recognize the compelling interest that the state must have in protecting children

Threats and Hazards How serious are we about our eastern-frontier NATO allies?
Russia is aggressively showing off its military hardware around the Baltic (and elsewhere). How seriously should we take these displays, and are we deadly serious about going to war to defend our allies if they are attacked?

Business and Finance Sometimes what kids need for better development...is job training for their parents
If we give lip service to the importance of "education", but treat it as though it's something we do as children and then forget about later, then we're going to be disappointed in the long term. It's no good to think of a diploma as the end of education, particularly in a globally competitive economy. And if kids aren't able to come home to stable home lives, it's much harder for them to learn...which means that we need to address the need for education and job training comprehensively. Post-secondary education costs too much and there are too many barriers to study. That's absurd, considering that we have the Internet at our fingertips and a national interest in raising the quality of our labor force.

Science and Technology "Newsweek" argues that technology is "stuck"
That is: It's creating lots of baubles, but not a lot of real progress. While there are a lot of meaningless, distracting products that are making their way to market, technology is iterative. It has to grow in small steps, in addition to big leaps. And those big leaps are unpredictable and infrequent.

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