Tickercon 1

Karl Denninger thinks the proverbial fan is about to get messy.

Tickercon 1 Does it need anything more? Sure does -- an explanation. The sell-off today is the start. Not the end. And it's also the end of the rope for our Congress, if they don't get off their butts, which I do not expect them to do. Therefore, I hope you're ready. I bet you're not.

Koch's MBM

The Science of Success: How MBM built the world’s largest private company, by Charles G Koch.

An ambitious name, no doubt. “How MBM built the world’s largest private company”

So, is it worth it’s salt?

The book starts off with a brief history of the Koch’s including their immigration, history, business background, education and current achievements. It’s a very fortunate list, and definitely a very attractive appeal to the rhetorical ethos. He tells the story of entering into the family business after earning advanced engineering degrees from MIT. After restructuring the business, adding complimentary services, and expanding the customer base; turning the company profitable again. From there, the rest is history.

The Koch’s business is astoundingly massive. Easily in the top ten on the billionaires list, Charles and his brother David each are worth north of $30B. Growing the family business to a 2000-fold increase since entering it in 1961; a chart of the growth looks like an exponential function graph. Currently employing 60,000 people, and generating nearly $110B in revenue or approximately $18.3M/employee. Not too bad. The products owned vary widely in industry, and size. Of note: Georgia Pacific, Stainmaster(formerly of DuPont), and lycra. They are active in mining, forestry, paper, oil, refining, and agriculture.

Now, I know he’s probably smart. But there is no way he is top-dog-know-it-all in all those fields. Which means Charles’s talent in his ability to navigate to profitable ventures, and management of staff. That is where this book comes in. It also lends credence to his ability to instruct on the subject matter.

The formulation for MBM is rooted into Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek's most famouse works in Austrian economics. Often quoted and always apparent.

The gist of the principle is to create a thought process for employees and to align their motivations with that of the corporations, and the cultivation of talent. MBM is specifically broken down into these components Vision, Virtue and Talents, knowledge processes, decision rights, and incentives.

Vision is the most obscure in nature. I don't believe this can be helped, as it is a strategic element that is going to be very industry specific. The rest of the principles are better explained, and more insightful. Even then, there is a large amount of vagueness throughout the book. It does a good job of creating a framework of management, but it is hardly weatherproof. However, to go much deeper, the book would have to get much more technical, and resources regarding those particulars are readily available. Once again, the book lending itself to the policies and procedures, and less towards the mechanical aspects of ROI, P&L, capital allocation, and risk management. In fact, rubrics are only used in passing, and never elaborated on.

It is thought provoking, and challenges alot of norms seen in todays business. Especially that of the tyrannical CEO micro-managing the minute details of each facet of the business. However, the framework Charles is trying to established seems lost at times in the lack of some detail.

Ultimately, if you're in management, whether public or private, the this book can probably serve you in some form. It's also not a very long read, maybe 200 pages, making eat fairly easy to digest. At worst you'll gain some insight, if not appreciation for the world's largest private business, and at best it may help you become the next Charles Koch.

The Koch's stay fairly active politically and philanthropically through various foundations and publications including Cato, Charles Koch Institute, and various other activities. They are some of the more famous libertarian leaning individuals involved in politics, and a great asset in the promotion of liberty. We need more men like the Koch's, active in politics, with a foundation in libertarianism and the Austrian business cycle.

The physics of Musk Part 1

This post was originally going to start out as a brief expose regarding electric vehicles/solar technology. One topic led to the next, and now I've compiled a significant amount of data, some of it being quite interesting. It will probably become several posts, discussing several topics.

This started with a youtube of Tesla Motors/ Space-X CEO Elon Musk. The South African entrepreneur who's talent for physics and business gives Tom Perkins a run for his money on being the closest individual akin to Tony Stark. The competence Elon convey's is quite remarkable, and seems quite logical.

In the video, Elon elaborates that one day he'd like to see all domestic transportation being conducted by EV. Well, that shouldn't be a surprise, he does run an electric car company; but is it possible, and does it make sense?

There are a dizzying amount of ways to generate electricity, we are going to start with solar, as his involvement in Solarcity tends to make me believe that he sees that as the most immediately beneficial

The sun produces around 1330 watts per hour of energy delivered to earths atmosphere. Of that, approximately 30% is reflected back away from earth. The net is approximately 1000W/hr at the surface of earth, without cloudcover, based on the sun at zenith. The energy will follow a gradient up and down to it's maximum values, but we will use all maximum values for the purpose of this article.

So, if we absorb 1000W/hr of direct sunlight, how much does that translate to?

Quite a lot actually. If we took every single family household in the US, somewhere around 114,761,359 homes, and outfitted them with the as yet un-invented 100% efficiency solar collector array with average roof of 1500sq ft; we would collect 1.6x10¹³Watts/hr, Or 16,062.57GW/hr sunlight.

Current daily average electricity production in the USA is approximately 11,234.67GW.

So, the sun can provide more energy in 1 hr, than we consume in an average day? That's what the data says. It also merits this as an energy source worth investigating.

In order to get that energy you would need 100% roof coverage, 100% panel efficiency, 100% inverter efficiency, no cloud cover and have all systems up an operational. You would also need zenith light production for the the entire day to maintain that production rate.

But it all can't be that good. Solar panels on the north side of a standard pitched roof anywhere north of Mexico are do not have full exposure, they'll never collect the maximum value. The eastern and western faces will only have partial exposure, one in the morning, one in the afternoon--let's assume 60% total exposure. Most cities in the US fall between 25 and 75% sunlight exposure due to cloud cover, further reducing yield. These values cannot be altered, we cannot change our orientation to the sun, we can construct new homes to cater to it, but correction of existing is not immediately possible. This yields values between 2,400 and 7,200GW/hr. Still an astounding amount of energy.

So why hasn't this been invented? One of the inherent difficulties with sunlight is the spectrum. The light we absorb is approximately 52% IR, 44% Visible, and 3%UV. Current technology has been reasonably successful at collecting different parts of the spectrum, but doesn't yield much in comparison of the whole spectrum. An average panel can collect around 13.9W/sqft/hr, or approximately 14% efficiency. They also lose their ability geometrically with any shading or cloud cover. Inverters, friction loss of the wire, storage of the energy all present inefficiencies in the system.

The most detrimental issue they face though is the installed expense. At $2-3,000 per installed KW they are cost prohibitive, and do no serve any other function. If at some point in the future they can be engineered to collect a greater margin of power, and provide a secondary function, say that of the actual roofing material. They then may become economically feasible.

Stay tuned, more to come. Especially covering EV efficiency, drawbacks, the grid, other production and storage methods.

Book Review: A Throne of Bones

The first book that I've completed reading since the unceremonious inception of this blog has been A Throne of Bones by Vox Day. The book is a Christian SF/F novel printed by the newly minted Marcher Lords Hinterlands. The press, from my admittedly limited understanding of the publishing industry, was created specifically for this book, and has since expanded to Vox's other works.

This book is monumental. The sheer size of the hardback version is simply staggering. On the cover, there is an intricate array of bronzed scrollwork surrounding a skull. Its quality, finish, and attention to detail are readily apparent. It sits on my bookshelf and carries a commanding prescence that is only rivaled by Webster in mass, and very few in quality. Each chapter has a header using the skull and some artwork, it's a nice touch.

But you don't buy the book for its cover, so onto the details. The book uses multiple points of view throughout the book highlighting and interlocking web of storylines. Based in a timeframe that would be very similar to the Roman Republic. There are a dizzying number of characters, both overtly talked about and viewed in their own perspective, as well as substantial covert character array that I can only imagine will work it's way out in future installments. The book to me was initially very complex, between the characters, terrain, alliances, politics and military strategy. During the first 10 chapters I found myself spending more time than I'd liked to find out some basic Roman Republic terminology, study the map of the world, and re-reading certain sections to be clear on their meaning. Not a large complaint, but it was something that mildly annoyed me. By midway through the book, it really didn't seem to be an issue. There is no predictability for the first 2/3 of the book. I had absolutely no success in predicting future events. When you think you would know how something was going to go, or how you expected it should go. A significant change of course would send you reeling back from what you thought you know. This happened on more than one occasion, and although startling, it was entertaining.

The characters are well developed, accurately portrayed, and are consistent in their portrayal. Their variances are far and wide, from the rebellious teenage girl, the gruff dwarf, the crafty mage, the honorable general, the savy politician, and the child prodigy.

The ending of the book is a little coarse, with no real closure to any aspect of the storyline. It's been confirmed that there will be future installments in the series, and for most readers this probably won't be an issue, but if your a single serving type of reader, don't expect closure.

I read an advance copy of Vox's previous work A Magic Broken. At the time I assessed it as on par with the quality of work to which this book will be most commonly compared to, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. Many will know Martin's series has been converted to a successful HBO series. I stand by my previous assessment of the author's work. If the author can successfully complete at least a trilogy from this world he has created I think it can stand to become one of the great SF/F series's, and garner him accolades along with Martin, Tolkien and other fiction greats. I would recommend this book, without reservation.

Favorite character: Marcus

Favorite event: Corvus speech at the naturalization debate

Favorite quote: “You can bargain with everything but trolls and devils. Trolls are too stupid, and devils are too damn smart.”

My prediction is that Corvus was based on one Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.

Zero Sum

The first sentence is always the hardest. At least for me it always has been. I've never been a comfortable writer. Although there have been days in my past when I've felt that I've written something noteworthy. I've always felt more comfortable in the reasoning. Following and idea from origin to destination. To establish, to contemplate, to expose to criticism, to conclude. Saturate, incubate, illuminate; to borrow from the book The Mission, The Men, and Me. The blog is intended to be a place to expound on ideas, to expose them to criticism, and to reach conclusions. My fascinations, and henceforth topics for this blog, have been and are: Business, economics, physical fitness, philosophy, current events, automobiles, history, diet, and random conflagrations of other topics. Ciphra Summam, the latin translation of this blog being Zero Sum, is a concept I've used commonly in evaluating ideas. The concept is simple prima facie. The use becomes more complicated. The concept is that if there is a credit, there should be a debit to match. If there is a gain to be had, there is a debt to paid elsewhere. If there is an intended consequence being achieved, there is an unintended consequence that will surface. Zero Sum is not the answer to any question, it is only a tool, a tactic if you will, to reach the conclusion. Logic must dictate the conclusion. I'm the master of my logic, the captain of this blog.