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Art, Politics, Science

Tocqueville’s Democracy in America – As a Framework for The Future

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It’s the most important work on American democracy and the US in the 1830s. Democracy in America is a very long book 1000 pages though. The truth is that every American and every Political Scientist should read it.

Two ways to look at it:

  1. It’s a historical artifact: it’s historical.
  2. Work of political science and sociology.

The French Revolution ruined the de Tocqueville family wealth. The author studied, Voltaire, Rouseau, Pascal. In the 1830 July Revolution , Tocqueville takes the oath for the new Burbons. Tocqueville wanted to try looking into the US for prison reform. However, he wanted to identify lessons from US democracy, it’s inclination; what should we fear or hope for in this new democratic movement emerging in the US? The Trail of Tears occurred in the 1830s….Also the Nullification Crisis. There was also slavery; bu Tocqueville observed a ‘classless’ society.  

Funny Associations:

  • The Voluntary Association / Local Sovereignty
  • American Bible Society; Temperance Society;
  • The Lady’s Association for the Benefit of Gentle Women of Good Family Reduced In Fortune Below the State of Comfort To Which They Have Been Accustomed.
  • Voluntary Associations: don’t rely on the government to solve their problems.
  • Democracy at the local level then is far more robust. Tocqueville and his co-author won a cash prize for their research.
  • The federal government was very small; voluntary association was central and patriotism is evident.

  • The Hierarchies of Power could be crushed as long as we are all being treated free and equal….and meeting up to talk about it.
  • Freedom and Equality are mutually re-inforcing. But then we asked;
  • Freedom and Equality seem to pull in different direction….
  • Locke wanted to separate powers; but it’s an institutional device.
  • How to combine popular rule with political wisdom?
  • “1835 Democracy in America”
  • America is a blank slate. Tocqueville thought that France would become like America: democracy is likely to revert back to monarchy.
  • Equality of conditions: this is the equality of conditions (equality of opportunity). It’s a gradual spread of the concept.

Features of American Democracy:

I) Local government: localism: local democracies are the cradle of civil society in townships. The institutions of putting the democracy in the reach of all the people were not that expensive to build. The people are legislating and organizing. Alexis de Tocqueville told his readers to read Rousseau every day;

The township format itself is Aristotelian. The township exists by nature. There is the old Polis character described by Aristotle which Tocqueville believes is very important for a democratic society.

II) Civil Association: these voluntary groups are immensely powerful and energizing. There is the mother science concept; uniting in associations. Trying to fix common goals; civic association.

Robert Putnam: happy for social capital. The decline in association is the Bowling Alone phenomenon. These are not natural times; It’s a learned activity; the Civic Society goes into decline as our isolation cripples our Civic Associations.

Are we in a couch potato crisis? Yes, in 2018!!

III) Spirit of Religion: America is primarily a puritan democracy; early Puritanisms. Religion will not disappear because of the decline of faith; it’s rather a shift in faith. We can’t separate faith: dignity of the individual. Tocqueville looked at religion purely for social effects.

Increase the number of factions in order to prevent anyone from being the dominant one.

The idea of democracy does claim that this idea that political correctness is a danger.

Moral of the State:

  • Compassion, restiveness,
  • Democracy has made us gentler: broadcast tv has made us indifferent to others in our group.
  • Bill Clinton “I feel your pain.”

Political Educator: – There is a divine

  • Restful. We want to ask what kind of people we create.
  • What is the democratic statecraft? A new political science; it’s based on a novel history of human agency; as any reader knows there is a power in history.
  • It’s like we are part of an immense process. 
  • Certainly the pendulum has swung away from civil society in many ways. But generally online interactions are positive.
Business, Science

Business Management Relies on Financial Sciences | Ratios in Finance

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Challenges of finding a Pure Play: it’s not easy to find a firm that is exactly like the other firms you are comparing. Loblaws & Metro: Outlets like No Frill (Loblaws). But what is days o inventory different at Metro: their days of inventory is shorter.

  • Loblaws
  • Joe Fresh
  • Shoppers (long shelf life)

Product Mix is different for Loblaws than Metro.

Risk and Profitability Analysis

  • Analyze Firm’s operating profitability and risk
  • Compare performance over time (Time Series Analysis)
  • Compare performance across firms (Cross-Sectional Analysis)
  • Look at the components of profitability
  • Look at different kinds of risk.

Principles of Ratio Analysis

  • Focus on the inputs
  • Importance of prior analyses
  • Be aware of events that can affect comparability –M&A, accounting changes, changes in strategy (e.g., Loblawsvs. Metro)
  • Consistency in approach
  • Use Ending Balance Sheets
  • Most common, fits the data availability in most cases
  • Use Average Balance Sheets
  • Most economically meaningful as Balance sheets are snapshots
  • Use Beginning Balance Sheets
  • Beginning assets/liabilities used to drive the operations
  • Useful for forecasting and valuation
  • Do not rely on 3rdparty ratios
  • Calculate all ratios yourself

Measures of Short-Term Risk

  • Working Capital = Current Assets –Current Liabilities
  • Would we prefer a positive or negative amount of working capital? A.) Positive B.) Negative

Working Capital = Current Assets minus Current Liabilities.

Positive working capital: CA – CL > 0 is the ideal.

Ratio #1: Current Ratio

  • Current assets / Current liabilities
  • Current Ratio = Current Assets/Current Liabilities
  • Measure of ability of the firm to pay short-term liabilities on time

Ratio #2: Quick Ratio

  • Current highly liquid assets / Current liabilities
  • Current highly liquid assets (i.e., cash, marketable, account receivable) – no inventory or prepaid expenses.

Prepaid expenses = the rent. Which firm might have a current and quit ratio that differ dramatically?

  1. A big 4 auditing firm: very little prepaid, no inventory
  2. Airline: no inventory, provide services with a fixed asset.
  3. Dell: eRetailer movement inventory trying to be just in time. Small amount of inventory.
  4. Loblaws: it has a problem where inventory is in fact liquid: they have a high turnover.

Ratio #3 Inventory Turnover

  • Inventory Turnover = COGS/ Average Inventory
  • Days Inventory = (Average Inventory / COGS) x 365

Indicated how fast firms sell merchandise. If inventory turn over twice a year, then they average one-half of a year in inventory (and a days inventory of 182.5). Why do we typically want a higher inventory turnover?

For what sort of firm might a higher days inventory be preferred.

  • Wine Makers you want a higher days inventory
  • Grocers for fruit you want it to be shorter.
  • Fashion retailer there is the potential for fashion obsolescence.
  • Apple Inc: technology obsolescence. (you don’t want the iPhone to be in your inventory).

Raw Materials

RW                                                      Work in Progress

|_____________|________________________________|______________________| Finished Goods

Picked                  Grape Juice

CA/CL (4)                            C+ A/R+M/S < .19

CL                                         highly illiquid assets

You don’t sell in a pinch, not very liquid. You might have some short-term obligations to the bank.

Ratio #4 Accounts Receivable Turnover

  • Accounts Receivable Turnover = Sales

Average Accounts Receivable

  • Days Accounts Receivable = (Average Accounts Receivable/Sales) x 365

Measures how quickly a firm collects cash. If A/R turns over twice a year, then days accounts receivable is 182.5 or on average one-half of a year to collect receivables. High turnover and fewer days to collect A/R is generally preferred.

For what sort of firms might it be normal to have higher days accounts receivable:

  1. Lemonade Stand no extension
  2. Consumer goods companies that allow customers to pay in instalments
  3. Companies that only accept cash or VISA
  4. Companies whose suppliers do not extend them credit.

If you are extending credit: you would need a line of credit if your suppliers have no extension of credit.

In 2011, Apple $108 Billion in sales

(Average Accounts Receivable/Sales) x 365

5.36B + 5.5B =

2

108 billion x 365 = 18.38. Apple has perfect just in time inventory

Ratio #4.5: Turnovers to “Days”

Payables turnover = Purchases / Accounts Payable.

Where purchases = COGS + Change in Inventory

  • Accounts Payable
  • where purchases = COGS + change INV
  • Turnover tells us how many “cycles” there were in a year.
  • If Inventory Turnover = 3, that means over 365 days, I “churn” my inventory completely 3 times.
  • Hence at any time, I have 365/3 =121.7 days of inventory

In general

  • Days Inventory = 365/(Inventory t/o)
  • Days Receivable = 365/(Receivables t/o)
  • Days Payable = 365/(Payables t/o)
  • Cash Cycle = Days Inventory + Days Receivable – Days Payable
  • The smaller this is, the less the need for working capital
  • Other people’s money

Days Inventory + Days Receivable – Days Payable

Days Inventory + Days

|____________________|___________________|

 

Days Inventory + Days Receivable

|____________________|___________________|

35 Days                               45 Days

Example of Dell

Dell has a negative cash cycle. Dell always have cash and don’t need financing. General contractors get paid by customers and then collect interest. If this is negative, this mean you do not have external financing opportunities.

Example of Bug in a Rug

Shipping from France means you will need a line of credit. Example Rug Canada Inc. Bug in a Rug toys.

Days Inventory + Days Receivable – Days Payable

Days Inventory + Days Receivable

|____________________|___________________|

  • Days 45 Days

Days Payable

60 Days

You need a line of credit because you are shipping from France. And you have to make payments to France BEFORE you even get paid from customers.

Ratio #5 Fixed Asset Turnover

Only include tangible assets (no goodwill).

Fixed Asset Turnover = Sales

Average Fixed Assets

  • Measures the relation between investment in long-term or fixed assets (such as property, plant, equipment) and sales. Note fixed assets refer to tangible assets (i.e., no goodwill or patents).
  • Efficient use of fixed assets would be associated with high sales.
  • If fixed assets turn over every four years, then each dollar invested in fixed assets is generating a quarter of a dollar in sales per year.
  • A high turnover is preferred to a low one.

For what type of company might a high fixed asset turnover ratio simply be a function of the industry the firm is in, as opposed to efficient use of capital assets on management’s part?

  • McKinsey fixed assets are low Sales high
  • Air Canada High Fixed Assets
  • A Construction Company: high fixed asset, fixed assets, maybe it’s customer assets. Intangible impacts performance. Have stars, better reputation
  • A Supermarket: fixed asset tells you about performance

Ratio #6: Total Assets Turnover

  • Total assets turnover = Sales

Average total assets

1.) its accounts receivable turnover, inventory turnover, and fixed asset turnover have increased.

2.) The beginning and ending balance for all assets in year 1 were the same.

3.) Sales and COGS were the same in year 1 and year 2,

Year 1                                  Year 2

Sales                     =             Sales

COGS                    =             COGS

Sales                                    Sales

A/R                       >             A/R (down)

What must be true.

COGS                                   COGS

INV                       <             INV (down)

Sales                                    Sales

FA                          <             FA (down)

 

What are some possible explanations as to why total asset turnover decreased year-over-year?

  1. A) accounts receivable has increased year-over-year
  2. B) Cash has increased year-over-year
  3. C) inventory has increased year-over-year
  4. D) Goodwill decreased year-over-year
  5. E) Prepaid expenses have decreased year-over-year

Total Asset Turnover

  • What transaction might account for an decrease in total asset turnover without being inconsistent with the other ratio changes from the previous page?

Has the firm:

  • Sold some land for its value on the balance sheet
  • Collected more cash this year than last year from customers who bought products on credit
  • Declared but did not pay a dividend
  • Took out a loan
  • Depreciated some equipment

You will need to do this with your group projects. No more debt lead to higher interest

Leverage and Risk

Should firms with volatile operating profitability finance their operations with debt as opposed to equity? A.) Yes B.) No

No, more debt leads to higher interest

Given the points above, which firm should be most likely to finance with debt as opposed to equity?

  • A utilities company
  • An airline: has sticky wages, operating leases, lots of fixed costs. Air Canada debt is large.
  • A tech start-up: no debt on capital, all financed.
  • A junior mining company: financed by Equity = stock exchanges. Not with Debt.
  • A utilities company: inelastic demand, cost +5% profitability is regulated.

Ratio #7: Debt-to-Equity Ratio

  • Debt (long term, short term, cap. Leases)

Total Equities

  • Percentage of total financing provided by creditors (debt) as opposed to owners (stock)

Manchester United: net income $137million

$160 million why?

It look like a massive interest expense.

Revenue

Cost

Op II                     160

Interest               -279

Net Income        -137

Ronaldo was sold. Measures of Long-Term Risk

Ratio #8: Interest Coverage Ratio

  • Earnings Before Interest and Income tax /interest expense
  • This is the number of times interest is covered by income
  • Indicates the relative protection that operating profitability provides to debtors
  • Really should be higher than 1, if not much higher than 1

Which of the following transactions or outcomes do not ultimately increase the D/E ratio?

  1. A firm issuing a bond
  2. Issuing dividends: Debt/Equity DOWN
  3. A net loss for the period
  4. A firm repurchasing its share
  5. All of the above increase the D/E ratio.

Imagine a firm has a strict debt convenant that forbids the D/E ratio from going above a certain point. How would this effect the transactions listed in A – E?

Debt convents shift to existing debt holders.

 

Ratio #9: Return on Assets

  • ROA disaggregates into the product of two ratios:
  • ROA = Profit margin ratio x Total assets turnover

ROA = Net Income           x             Sales

Sales                                    Assets

ROA tells us something about the firm’s operating strategy.

Profit margin ratio = Net Income

Sales

Total assets turnover = Sales

Average total assets.

ROA = NI/Sales x Sales/Assets

 

  • Operating Strategy
  • Profit Margin Ratio = NI/Sales
  • (Tell us about the market monopoly higher rates)
  • Total Asset Turnover = Sales/Total Assets
  1. Costco NI/Sales (DOWN ALL) x Sales/Assets (UP ALL)
  2. GM NI/Sales (DOWN ALL) x Sales/Assets (DOWN ALL) so they improved cost structure
  3. SPACEx NI/Sales (UP ALL) x Sales/Assets (DOWN ALL)
  4. Microsoft NI/Sales (UP ALL) x Sales/Assets (UP ALL)

 

  • ROE = NI/Sales x Sales/Assets x Assets/Equity
  • ROE = ROA x Leverage Ratio

The leverage ratio tells us something about the firm’s financing strategy

ROE = L (Up) + E

E

  • Causes the numerator to go up: it depends on what happens to equity.
  • Leverage ratio = Ata/AE
  • Financial Strategy is revealed.

Example HOME

H                           EQ                         ROA                      ROE

1M                        1M         1.1M      100k/1m = 10%

1M                        0             1.1M      100k/1m = 10%

900K      -10%                     -10%

1M                                                      infinity – 0%

ROE

ROA is negative amplified it to negative infinity.

ROE > ROA

Ratio #10: Return on Equity (ROE)

ROE can be disaggregated into 3 ratios:

ROE = profit margin X total asset turnover X Leverage Ratio

ROE = ROA X leverage ratio

The leverage ratio tells us something about the firm’s financing strategy

As a firm’s debt increases, what happens to its ROE?

A.) it increases

B.) it decreases

C.) it depends

Business, Science

Lessons from Peter Munk – Canadian Entrepreneur

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Start A Company In An Emerging Industry You Are Familiar With (Some What)

(November 8, 1927 – March 28, 2018) Hungarian-Canadian Peter Munk moved to Canada 1941. He was of Jewish decent and Studied Engineering in the 1950s at UofT. There were no women in engineering in the 1950s….Peter Munk was interested a radio technology and his uncle was in that space. He was interested in radio tubes; with $3000 dollars he establish Clairtone: it was a Canadian success company. Largely, due to innovating in the cooling of the cathode tubes needed to project images on the TV. It was the BlackBerry (another Canadian startup) of the late 1950s – 1960s. Canada was mostly resources, so people didn’t believe that something that sold at $500 from Canada(?) could be sold at Bloomingdales.

Create Your Product in a Jurisdiction That Protects The Rare and Cool

The Canadian government was very interested in protecting industry and Clairtone became a natural darling of Canadian federal governments and consumers generally. The company scaled across the Canadian market. Most Canadians will remember the Clairtone product line. It was the first company to use transistors in the television.

It was a Canadian Watch this commercial from over 50 years ago. “Smart people won’t settle for something new.”

Do Not Get Sucked Into Relocating Via a Government:

The Clairtone company transitioned to Nova Scotia thanks to incredible government grants. Munk wanted to help Nova Scotia’s shipping industry. Premier Stanfield successfully attracted Peter Munk’s business into moving to New Glasgow in Nova Scotia. Why? Job creation + the Nova Scotia shipping industry skill set could be transferred to technology. However there were bond payment defaults, workers in Nova Scotia went on strike. As a result, the Government of Nova Scotia bought the TV company in 1970. Peter Munk walked away with a lot of capital.

Re-Invent Yourself Where Necessary (Too Much Knowledge is Bad)

Munk built a television set prototype with transistors rather than vacuum tubes in hi sbasement. Munk thought that too much knowledge can be dangerous: he was driven to be number one. He didn’t know transistors because he hadn’t taken that class yet. Peter Munk had to re-invent himself but reallocating his capital into hotels. Created South Pacific Hotel organization in Fiji etc. Munk sold that and then started in Natural Oil in 1979, he lost a lot of money and had a good board. So he pivoted to mining. Munk worked with Joseph Rotman and had a few lucky breaks. He founded Barrick Mining company. Barrick Gold is now the largest gold mining company. They bought CanFlo: they had diversified by they moved to coal, oil, therma all of that collapsed; the Bank wanted Munk to rescue the company and then merge CanFlo with Barrick. They had amazing management miners; outstanding in geotechnology, metallurgy.

Acquisitions: Bought Texaco mining; double the production, half the overhead. Bought GoldStrike, BlackMinerals. As the stock improved they exercised their magic and into all the mines. Mining is about evening out the cycle. Barrick Gold would use it’s shares to buy companies.

Why Does Canada Struggle at Business? And How Can We Get It Back?

Munk wonders out load: Why there are so few global leader companies from Canada. For example, a tiny country like Denmark has 6 major success stories: Phillips, Shell etc. Even BlackBerry, Nortel. Canadians are the best but we screw-up; Seagrams, the Wrightman brother owned Canary Wharf, Cadillac Fairview.

If I could provide an answer. 1) it’s easier to move to the US and test your idea in that market and then stay there, even if the standard of living etc is not as great as Canada’s. 2) tyranny of distance: doing business across a vast underpopulated country is costly, 3) government is selectively protectionist; helping certain companies who support the various political party leadership a) get re-elected, b) fundraise etc etc. The answer to getting it back is a billion dollar question.

Peter Munk: Give Back to Your Country

Peter Munk is extremely patriotic of Canada. The immigrants to Canad were given security, free healthcare, etc etc. He believe that where you come from matters, but it’s where you are going too. Money is a token to recognize success, do not hand that money over to your kids, it’s better giving them education, values, and tell them how to live a life. As a result Munk believes in redistributing the funds. Money should go back to the society: Canada in Peter Munk’s case.

A Successful and Happy Life

Money is a token of success. It is not the success itself. Money is a measure. George Soros who is also from Hungary broke the Bank of England and caused the pound to collapse. It led to John Major’s failed leadership. That is one way to make money by Munk believes these speculators are not the ones to aspire to. After you did get that money, it’s what you do with the Money. You need to look at the second side, you should not horde it. If you do the achievement part + the second part. You can’t do much better than that.

Business, Politics, Science

How Mainstream Publications Overlook Their Own Weirdness and Just Blame Facebook…

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[Disclaimer this is a non-partisan publication]
And I am no Facebook apologist, but I thought it was worth raising awareness about the following:

[Transcript] Hey, I had to talk about this because I noticed, this morning, something really interesting, and I mean, more interesting than your standard cat video while you’re scrolling through Instagram. I was on Twitter and I clicked on a link to a really cool story called “Watch a Robot ‘Hen,’ Robot Chicken, with some chicks, flock of chicks.” And when you scroll to the bottom of this article, you’ll notice some moderately spooky or weird links from Outbrain and I think we need to look at Outbrain, but let me just show you on my phone what it looks like.

So, on my phone, I don’t know if you can see here, but the link at the bottom… Where’s my… Yeah, there’s my finger. The link at the bottom, one of them says, “Justin Trudeau about to legalize something controversial.” You click on that link, it takes you to this web page, which I will provide a link to in the video. You can see it right now probably. So I’m just voicing over what I see. Now, isn’t it kind of interesting this content is basically false or low-quality news? It’s not from the CNN website. If you look at the top URL, it’s not from CNN. It’s from something called insiderentertainment.com, and Outbrain is promoting it. At the bottom of the page, you can see what it’s really about. It’s about bingo. Fair play. I know that Wired is a reputable publisher and I know that Outbrain is really reputable as well, and so they post this in order to draw traffic to commercial interest.

Now, imagine if this was actually not true (which it obviously is not true): Justin Trudeau has legalized gambling to cover costs. It’s, basically an attack on the current liberal government in Canada. So this is Outbrain directly on Wired magazine, a reputable technology publication, which has probably seen hard times. Why are they seeing hard times? Facebook is eroding their revenue. YouTube is eroding their revenue. PewDiePie is getting 2 million hits per video and “The Washington Post” is only getting 1 million hits. This isn’t fair. So, what do we need to do? We should be attacking Facebook as publications. We should be criticizing them in particular and there’s some legitimate arguments. There are very legitimate arguments regarding Facebook, but what’s being overlooked is this hilarious Outbrain and Taboola redirection network.

So what they do is, as you can see at the bottom of the article, there are sponsored stories from third parties. You click on it and it’s about driving traffic from Wired, as reputable site, to, you know, whatever you wanna sell these folks on the internet. Now, why would Wired work with them? Because ad revenue, they need the money. They’re desperate actually in many cases because people don’t wanna pay for what they feel is free even though 10 years ago, 20 years ago you’d have to buy Wired Magazine to read these great articles. So you’ve got Outbrain, they are reputable, they look at the content, they tie the articles to that content and boom, it’s great.

They have to vet their publishers, but it’s a chicken in the end. They need the publishers and at the same time, they need the suppliers, the actual companies that will publish articles to drive traffic. And it’s this weird situation where they might not necessarily vet and approve of every story and say, “Oh, valid. This is a legitimate story.” They’re happy to take the money and run, and Wired magazine is complicit in this. Now, another company that is even more famous for ingenuity for sure, for having that ability to create a click worthy the article is Taboola, and they’re based in Europe, Israel, in the US and they publish articles on places like “Huffington Post.”

So, when you scroll down to what appears to be, you know, a reputable website, “HuffPost,” sure, you read this article about Cambridge Classica or Analytica, whatever it’s called, and then you scroll at the bottom and you have “You May Like” a bunch of ads for things that are like. Some of them are pretty dubious. You click on “Forget Lithoium. We’re advocating You Buy Electric Cars.” Fine, I suppose. It’s not pretending to be CNN, the website, but it’s interesting what’s going on here. So the media isn’t actually going after these two publications and the other publishers that redirect people from these websites to often questionable, sometimes questionable, not all I’d say, you know. Let’s just pretend it’s 20% ballpark, a number I made up, but it’s clearly some of these publishers are dubious and are not legitimate. But let’s look at “Wired Magazine’s” business model, let’s look at “Huffpost” business model and analyze what’s really going on here.

These companies are under duress, you know. What, with me, you could say, but they’re going after Facebook and no publisher, mainstream publisher, will go after what’s directly on their own web pages, again, because that’s how they make money. And this speaks to the broader problem of what I call $ad Revenue. So that’s ad revenue that is clickbait driven, that is about intensity of the viewership, about entertainment over factual information, the goal of which is to drive traffic to their sites, CNN or Wired or whoever other…Fox News, whatever.

They’re all in the game of eyeball collection and then redistributing those eyeballs or selling those people off to various business commercial interests, which is fair play. But they’re not auditing the quality and the veracity of the claims on these click-worthy, little, crazy articles on the bottom because they need the money. And these content redistributors don’t have the time to vet everything themselves, so we all point at Facebook. Facebook this and that because Facebook’s a multi-billion dollar company. It should be able to solve this, but we don’t look at the Taboola and Outbrain. So, I guess, even the reputable publishers are saying things like, “Donald Trump is about to cause World War III. Click on this link. Find out more about his evil and crazy actions, and while you’re at it, look at the bottom. Take a look at this weird article and try some bingo.” So thank you very much. I thought that’d be kind of a cool thing to share.

Business, Science

Weapons of Math Destruction an Important Insight

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Math is Logic, Math is Beautify, Math is Abuse-able:

Math is logic and it should be ported to social discussions. O’Neil worked with Larry Summers and O’Neil says that the trick of the economic downturn in 2008 was that everyone trusted the math nerds who were actually lying and engaging in mathematical abuse. But there is more to this story….

Data Science determines who are the Winners and Losers:

The algorithms are opinions embedded in code. It takes past data and builds a predictive model of what your goal as a company is in the future. You impose your algorithmic goals, we train our algorithms for success. There is no objective algorithm. We were marketing these things as if it is being mathematical but they are corrupted as well. Three areas of concern for Kathy O’Neil are:

  • Widespread: where the less well off get a loan, scoring systems are not appropriate for real people.
  • Mysterious: these algorithms are like secret laws that are not held accountable for anything.
  • Destructive: they ruin people’s lives, opportunities are getting taken away from people; there is a negative feedback loop; just thinking about university grades as a feedback loop itself.

Teach Assessment Problem:

Standardized test performance in order weed out bad teachers has failed according to O’Neil. If you have a test system the statistical scores it is hard to know how the kids did well. The error sample of their students (the hot and cold room) is significant. O’Neil said she was not allowed to understand how these people were evaluated. They shamed the teachers, but they couldn’t get the testing model. It wasn’t meaningful analysis. Teachers were punished for the previous year’s students if the teacher’s from the previous year were cheating on the tests for those kids: in essence passing the problem forward. I remember teaching swimming to a kid that had extreme ADHD, I failed her and their parents wanted the kid to progress to the next level  anyway so they tried to pressure me; their argument was that they had spent the money….I didn’t pass that kid up the chain. But if my job was at stake, I might have….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personality Tests for Jobs:

They do systematically discriminate for jobs using an algorithm. Algorithm’s basically codify the past practices, therefore, they basically want more males in power. So one kid’s dad was suing 7 companies for creating personality tests that filter out mentally challenged people. Human resources is also a huge problem, these folks think they are filtering appropriately but they are biased towards certain attributes.

Algorithms are Value Laden Decision Making Processes: Predicting health outcomes: doctors having it is great, but insurance companies and companies discriminate against people who have high health risks. 

Solutions:

  1. Hippocratic Oath for Data Scientists.
  2. Mathematical Models need to be Improved because We are Hiding Behind Data to Perpetuate Past Patterns of behaviour.
  3. Anonymity doesn’t help this problem because you can categorize people using other markers to determine their race extra.
  4. Learn more….