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http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/opposing-stimulus-republicans-party-its-1

Does it always have to be black and white with the republicans?

They vote as if they share a brain.

I think that any group of thinking individuals, even if they all share the same religion and values, would on occasion disagree with each other on a complex issue.

But not the US republicans. It’s almost as if they have a big meeting before every bill comes to the house/senate and vote on whether they will accept it or reject it as one.

I hope that they will someday realize that times are changing and that their rigidity will not get them anywhere in modern society.

I have been studying a little bit of Pennystocking by Timothy Sykes of timothysykes.com who turned $12,415 to over $1.6 million in 4 years.
His teaching style is brief and fun and he doesn’t come off as a know it all, which is both good and bad I guess.

He openly admits to not being an economist or a technician but suggests the use of technicals only to find trades in micro cap stocks.
I enjoyed his material and think that it is definitely worthwhile because he focuses on how regular people without million dollar portfolios can make good returns without the use of leverage.

His strategies are a little bit presumptious and like everything else to do with the markets, not always right, but I think that it is worthwhile to learn some of his techniques for the occassions when they are right.
What I found beneficial about his material are some of his personal chart patterns. Prior to learning those, I was always confused about how to play big stock moves and how to detect when a correction was going to take place after a huge rally.

I recommend his product because it falls in line with the philosophy of “see what others see, but do what others won’t”, which is a decent way to earn money in the markets.

I was just reading a few interesting posts by Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist.
She is a very gifted writer who posts interesting articles about work and life.
Near this time of the year, every year, she posts a little rant about Christmas holidays and work.
I happen to agree with her when she says:

Given the nothingness of Christmas to most Jews, it is absurd how much Christmas cheer that Jews partake in just to fit in at the office.

Vendors send Christmas cards, co-workers say “Happy Holidays,” clients expect Christmas gifts. Jews partake in all these moments because the best way to succeed at work is to fit in. The bottom line is that Jews are forced to be what they are not in order to fit in, and that is never good when you’re trying to promote the diverse expression of ideas.

I am not Jewish, but you can substitute any other religion its place with the same effect.
It is true that people of religions other than Christianity feel outcast in the workplace during this time of the year. We receive gifts and cards reading anything from “Merry Christmas” to “Happy holidays” – both of which are generally un-inclusive for us, and we grin and bear it.
This year, I received small gifts and cards from my coworkers and even though the gesture was plesant and it created some kinship, I felt inclined to purchase something for them in return.
I ended up giving everyone a small gift, but I delivered them un-wrapped and without a “Happy Holidays” card, because I wanted them to be accepted as tokens of reciprocity and generosity instead of as “Christmas gifts”.
It was not a great feeling having done that because it was almost as if I had been thrown in a melting pot. I felt that being who I am, by not celebrating Christmas, would have alienated me and interfered with my career. 

Another negative aspect of Christmas at work is that all employees have paid holidays during Christmas, but have to take a vacation day to celebrate our own religious holidays. Sounds a little unfair doesn’t it?
A good work-around and more indepth coverage of this issue is covered in Penelope’s articles.

Take a read through her three articles about Christmas at work here:
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/12/24/my-annual-rant-about-christmas-at-work/
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/12/03/five-things-people-say-about-christmas-that-drive-me-nuts/
 http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/12/14/christmas-at-the-office-is-bad-for-diversity-2/

P.S. only constructive criticism as comments please, I have read all the comments on Penelope’s blog and since most of them are not friendly, so you can be certain that  I have heard it all.

The word engineering is thrown around a lot these days. It is used in every context to try to exaggerate the purposefulness of a subject. A few examples of this are social engineering and political engineering. Does it not also make sense that there would be an application in business with which the principles of engineering could be applied usefully?

“Professional art of applying science to the optimum conversion of the resources of nature to the uses of humankind.” – Britannica

By this definition, a business person that applies the very general and logical scientific method to solve their problems is an engineer.

Where is this leading? Well recently, I saw a special hour long show on CNBC about Harvard Business School. It dealt with issues of admissions, costs and most importantly – curriculum.

It described HBS as a place that teaches would-be business leaders skills such as problem solving, creative thinking and data analysis. The workload is described as very rigorous.
The students are assigned case studies which feature real life business problems faced by real companies. They are asked to identify the problem, and basically solve it. The difficulty in this is the plethora of information they receive and ambiguity of the problem. With large amounts of data and no clear problem statement, a business person can be left up creek without a paddle. The ability to create a problem statement, analyze data and create a solution that meets some criteria is engineering, and that is what business schools are teaching.

Now, I don’t want to flatter those business students by calling them engineers, but one can quickly see the resemblance between their curriculum and that of any engineer. The key difference that many of you may point out is that engineering deals with physical/chemical/electrical things and business doesn’t. It is a good point, but not one with much solidity. An engineer learns the relationships between things. There are variables in the world such as weight and speed and there are equations linking those. In school, engineers learn to identify the variables in a situation and the equations to manipulate them. For example, when trying to figure out how fast an egg falls to the floor, the variables are the height off the floor and the weight of the egg, and the relationship is how far does something with the weight of an egg drop per unit of time.

The same method can be said to be applied by schools such as HBS. When trying to determine a sales forecast, for example, variables such as consumer demand, price and availability are put together in an equation. A good business person can identify all the key variables involved in a situation, and because of their previous training, can use the relationships between those variables well enough to accurately make a conclusion. The purpose of their training then is that through case studies they learn to identify the variables involved in many situations and the relationships between those variables. Are engineers any different? They take classes to learn the variables and relationships between electrical or thermal or environmental components. The principles are basically the same.

So when can we expect to start seeing Business Engineering programs pop up at colleges across the country?

My guess is that the professional engineering societies of the US or Canada will not issue certificates to economists anytime soon, but I hope that the colleges and univertisites might see the benefit to their students of having to complete an engineering design course or two as part of their business curriculum.

Full Disclosure
The person who wrote this article, me, is an engineer.