Schneier on Security

JonKnowsNothing • September 3, 2022 9:51 AM

@Clive, @Winter, All

re: Water, Water Everywhere but None for You

Water Rights in the USA is a mine field bigger than a hot potato on 115F day. It drives more of our politics than oil, although oil might get more headlines. It’s part of our Ag and MegaAg business which dwarfs both oil and high tech. It’s something that “we know about” based on where we live. It’s also something not often understood by others.

Generically: You can split water rights views down the Mississippi River Line: East and West. Diametrically opposed views and not much going to meet in the middle.

The West side is arid. Not a lot of water. The East side has good rains and the US American Rain Forest. (yes the US has a rain forest).

So those living where they have a natural over supply of water, they have different agendas than those on the West side where water is limited.

I live on the West Side. Here you need to be mighty careful about any water that’s falling or puddling or ponding or running off. Lot of non-native-Western-inhabitants get into loads of trouble when they decide to build a koi pond…

Every drop of water that falls from the sky is owned by someone somewhere in the west. Whether you can “borrow” it temporarily to build that koi pond is a local, regional issue and rules vary by state.

In some western states, you can dig as many water wells as you have funding for, but you better not touch a drop of runoff flowing in the ditches.

Currently one battle is in Northern California. It’s an arid area where building developers created subdivisions but didn’t provide water or actually build out the division. You can buy a ready to build out sub for Not Much $$ but there isn’t any water. People moved there because the cost was cheap and live in what is called a Dry Camp. They have no wells, no city piped water. They either carry water drums down to a filling spot or spigot or they pay a water delivery truck to bring them water which they hold in cisterns or tanks. (1) The local police and city council has decided they don’t like these folks living in their county and have passed laws prohibiting the trucking in of water or carrying more than 100gals of water over the roads. The No Water No Truck Water Law is enforced in this area but not so much in other areas. There is no question about the safety of having cisterns or tanks (2) for water storage. No issue that the water is stolen (3). It’s all about the people who live in that area and only in that area.

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1) If you live on top of the mesa area of the Grand Canyon you have dry camp and cisterns. There are no wells. Something to do with the depth of the Grand Canyon to reach the water table of the Colorado River at the bottom…

2) In my area, in the rural sections, one is required to have 2,500 gallon tank or cistern just for the use by the fire department. Another 500 gallons is required for sprinkler systems in new housing. So you need a minimum of 3,000 gallons of dedicated water ONLY for fire department use. Water for personal uses is in a different tank.

3) People steal water. They can back up a water tanker to your Fire Tank and drain out 3,000 gallons of water in quick time. They can also steal the well head, pumps, wires, connections, solar panels from the wells.

JonKnowsNothing • September 3, 2022 5:10 PM

@Winter @All

re: But America is also experiencing a labor shortage that will only intensify

Let me challenge that statement with a slight alteration.

There isn’t a “labor shortage” anywhere. There are lots of people on the planet. The vast majority of them working at “something”

What there is a “shortage of” are 2 parts of the labor force:

1) Highly Educated, Highly Technical people that have degrees in “something” deemed useful. Like, High Tech or Medicine. This group generally gets a significantly above average pay scale. In general, neocon-economies do not produce enough of these people to fill their needs. This is mostly because of sieving “funds and access” to educational programs. In order to make even a small dent in their requirements, they poach people who get better education and better access in their home countries and entice them to leave. Most often the neocon countries do not compensate the home country for the full costs or even a portion of the costs, or for the loss of a highly valued person, while at the same time charging the incoming “immigrant” exorbitant fees for VISAs, applications and all sorts of tack-on charges effectively rendering this class an indebted-bondsman to the new country.

2) Low Educated, Manual Skills, Stoop Labor. No one wants to do this work, not even the folks that do it want to do it. It pays poorly, its subject to all sorts of exploitation. The costs of the applications for “field labor” render the person debt-enslaved. In a fair number of countries their laws prohibit the person from leaving-at-will and confiscate their passports and documents to make sure they cannot leave no matter what the conditions.

So when statements such as “labor shortage” get tossed out, take a good look around you and check for yourself exactly what labor shortage they are talking about.

• Would you have gotten a PhD or Medical Degree if you were not shackled with $250,000+USD of debt?
• Would you have gotten a better education if your GPA was just .02 higher? Or your GMAT GRE score was 500pts more?
• Would you have have pursued a technical vocational program if it didn’t require extensive funding and extensive UnPaid Labor for n-years?
• Would you have had a better work outcome if you didn’t get that Dear John letter: “All placements have been allocated.”

The so called labor shorted is manufactured and maintained by the very people who need the labor and maintain the system.

In the USA we are having a neocon C2J moment. We have forgotten that, previously, our education system did not require extensive funds nor did it shackle students with life long debt. It was designed to turn out the very people desired in Group 1. The system was redesigned to the current format of PAYMEPAYMEPAYME under the concept that Everything Must Be For Profit. (1)

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1) I do not think it is true any more but not too many decades past in France anyone who had qualifications to University could enroll in The School of Medicine. It was a 6 year program leading to an MD degree (general practice). The competition once admitted was brutal but didn’t need to be that way. At that time, there were no restrictions on access. The French decided to sieve the number of MDs by winnowing out percentages of each year’s admissions. It was tough to get to year 6 and get booted in the final rounds.

JonKnowsNothing • September 4, 2022 9:41 AM

@Winter, @All

re: Demographics and the True Cost of Neoliberal Economics

1) The demographics of the global population are changing. There is no doubt about it. Your worry of that older people will cause problems in the economy has been tabled under COVID Triage and the Bank of Mom and Dad (1) and is Self-Limiting. At some point along the life line people die. COVID has knocked that down 2-3 years for some groups and 5-6 years for others: Self-Limiting.

It’s also another upcoming catastrophe for Neoliberal Economies: Once the majority of older people (that big boomer lump) die, all the people involved in Health Care for them will be SOL. This goes from the farmers growing special allergy free crops for special diets, to the people who do the laundry at the hospitals, to the ambulance manufactures buying truck tires, all the way up the line. The old folks have funded what you are enjoying now, once they are gone, those behind will have to sort out a new option.

2) Construction Workers. For the construction problem, I have my own theory on this: It is the rise of Google and demise of The Yellow Pages. (2) It isn’t a labor shortage it’s a “Discover who is doing the work” shortage. When you pop phrases in the search box you get all sorts of crap results because Google’s AI doesn’t connect with what people are really looking for.

I too, have struggled to find contractors but it isn’t because they are not there, it’s because I cannot find a phone number and the YPages on the internet are … a joke … when it comes to finding reliable contractors.

My own recent examples of contractor hunting: House Painter, Roofer, Drapery Cleaners, Gardeners, Small Project Builders, Agricultural Fencing Contractors, Building Material Delivery.

Once I found them, by making many phone calls to near-related businesses and chain referrals, these companies had all been in business for decades, some were family businesses of multiple generations. They were there all along. No shortages. Just bad search results.

3) Restaurants and their labor problems. This is a very broad brush area and the restaurant industry is a huge spectrum of providers. One isn’t the same as another. One chain franchisee isn’t the same as another franchisee even though the corporation promotes “its the same thing” concept. (3) If you wish to delve into the labor problems of this industry it might be best to spec the parameters a bit more. A locally owned taco truck doesn’t have the same profile as a high end 3star restaurant. They have similar critical paths of how to provide food service but not the same scope or financial profiles.

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1) Exchanges detailing the economic benefits and costs of the deaths caused by COVID may be found in the archives or perhaps the wayback machine under titles of The Bank of Mom and Dad.

2) Yellow Pages was part of a physical telephone book listing that was delivered 1x or 2x a year to every house. The White Pages listed residential phones by name. You wanted to look up your friends number, you looked up their name in the White Pages. The Yellow Pages were dedicated to businesses and commercial enterprises. This was sorted by category. If you needed a roofer, you looked under roofing. The books listed people within your own geographic area. If you live in San Francisco, the book held listings for that area. If you live in Muskogee Oklahoma you got listings for that area. A physical book may still be delivered but is far from the previously extensive listings.

3) For a humorous view of “It’s the same thing” see the comedy routine on the topic by George Lopez.

JonKnowsNothing • September 5, 2022 7:19 AM

@Winter, All

re: Shifting Economic Goal Posts

I doubt we can connect up on the issues because they are rather slippery and perhaps I am less able to communicate my insights.

Demographic shift in Age is quite real. Within a short time the large lump of Boomers is going to die off. The WW2 folks are gone except for a small remainder. The Boomers are next on they die off listing; with a bit of help, they will die off faster. So what’s “faster”? At the upper end the boomers are 80yo. At the bottom end 70yo. Of course that depends on the where you start and end the Boomer period. So SWAG that has you like.

The neoliberal economies are worried about the costs of this time frame: 10-20 years. The biggest part of the boomers will be gone in 10yrs or perhaps less. Being in that age group makes you vulnerable to all sorts of conditions, so it’s possible the lump will start contracting in 5yrs.

5yrs is a long time but not in economic policy modeling.

Immigration issues from both Global Climate Change and Economic and War conditions is also real. However I was not referring to any of these issues in my posts.

Localized Economics and Downshifting. A good number of people are downshifting out of the economy and also out of high tech. It is perhaps a blind spot for those of us who have made our careers out of high tech that there are actually lots of people who cannot use it because they cannot afford to use it. There are certainly aspects of this downshifting that intertwine with many other aspects. Not everyone has ditched their smartphones, but a lot of people can no longer afford them and so have ditched them. It is an irony for this group that having a smartphone is nearly mandatory to access Official Assistance Programs.

Like many dystopian novels, those on the one side never see what’s going on with the other side until they find themselves on the other side too. No manner of warning kicks in until the reality hits the protagonist hard.

If your view is that $10/month is a snap, I doubt you’re near ready to see that it is not.

Our discussion of the costs of finding a contractor on the web vs finding a contractor by word of mouth is an example of downshifting. There are several economic forces at work: the cost of tech, the cost of the middleman, the cost of layered fee scraping. Until a person has experience with how this impacts every aspect of economies, it’s hard to get the idea across.

The small contractor and the gig worker and the zero days worker and the no pay worker all are part of the downshifting.

It isn’t that they are not working, it’s that they are invisible as individuals.

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Search Terms

TRONC scheme
A tronc is a separate organised pay arrangement sometimes used to distribute tips, gratuities and service charges.

JonKnowsNothing • September 6, 2022 8:01 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, @ Ted, Clive, ALL

re: Popcorn Time in Sept

While you are nuking up a batch of popcorn (don’t forget you can season it many ways: salt, sugar, spicy, herby or make fruit balls by rolling it together with chopped dried fruit) keep track of the different pathways that will be discussed.

While for us on the outside, it might seem All The Same it’s not. Each nuance may lead to a different setting and different outcome.

SEC is not a Criminal Court and is not a Contract Court. They are 3 different courts and 3 different lawsuits may find their way to them.

US Congressional Investigations are “investigations”. They are not criminal courts but they can uncover criminal activity. Such activity is passed along to the Dept of Justice and/or the FBI for evaluation. Dec37 proceedings are an example.

There are prescribed accounting and reporting systems used by the SEC and by the different stock exchanges. They have rules and these rules may differ one exchange to another. In the USA we have 3 sets of rules that may be invoked. Accounting or GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles), Stock Market Regulations and Taxation Laws. There is overlap but not necessarily.

GAAP rules are about how to account for stuff on reporting documents. Every business, even hobby businesses, may have these. Cash flow, Income Statement etc. In broad terms: ((sum of debits) minus (sum of credits) == zero). Not every country has these rules and some countries have no rules at all.

Taxation Laws are about paying the Federal, State, County, City levies from the proceeds of business operations. The rules on how the accounting is done, differs from the normal GAAP rules. In general (net proceeds from operations * tax rate = amount to transfer to the government). What constitutes net proceeds differs from the standard GAAP rules.

Stock Market Regulations are about providing a public accessible online auction system to qualifying businesses with enough supporting documentation and funding determining authenticity (not a fake business), so they can exchange paper for paper (certificates for money). Stock Markets are nothing more than auction houses, although great sums of money passes through them daily. The rules are intended to keep the auction bidding and selling at a transparent level. It is also tied directly to gambling systems, such that people are enticed to think “they can make more money on resale” and will bid against The House.

If people do not make more money on resale and it’s discovered that the company fudged some “material aspect” of their GAAP reporting, there are penalties that can apply. If it’s also found that the fudged number reduced the amount of funds paid into the taxation coffers, a taxation case may result. If it’s determined that there was a criminal aspect to the fudged number then a criminal case may follow.

Generally: In the USA, there is no way to clean ownership-title to something that was illegally obtained. Other countries do have wash-it-clean laws, that allow stolen items to become the legal property of a new owner, but not the USA. Any monies earned from such stolen goods and reported as legal goods would have serious GAAP issues and also legal problems galore.

So, while the news rolls along, tick the different boxes being reviewed. There will surely be efforts to misdirect people and of course, influence the court, about what is before that jurisdiction. Keep in mind, that there are multiple avenues in play. Keeping box scores will help sort out what’s being discussed for the different venues.

JonKnowsNothing • September 6, 2022 12:14 PM

@Ted, @SpaceLifeForm, Clive, All

re: Organizational Size as Yard Sticks

It is useful to know which yardsticks are being used in the run up to the court cases but there isn’t much it does in real terms.

Each side will have their own yardsticks and saying the other side’s version is not correct. The yardstick that matters is the one in the regulations.

Businesses fit into classes by size or by revenue scope. A small high tech firm can make huge amounts of money with nearly no staff (btdt). Huge employers with an enormous payroll base may struggle to make a reportable profit (btdt2). Both groups will minimize their profit statements regardless of the number of employees, to minimize their taxes.

For GAAP, profit is just a number based on addition and subtraction of different categories. There isn’t any GAAP rule that says a business has to be profitable or earn a ROI or have any particular employment stance. The only thing any business needs is CASH or CASH FLOW. You can run a zero-profit, negative-profit company for years and years, as long as you have Funding/Cash to pay the bills. If you do not score a profit within certain time frames, you may run afoul of taxation laws about if your business model: is it a hobby or does you business have a chance of making money sometime in the future. If your business is declared a hobby, you will fall into a different tax code section. If your business has no chance of ever making a profit you may fall into the fraud section of the tax code. Sometimes called the 2in7 rule but it’s flexible depending on the business. ex: a vaccine research company might go 20-30years with no profit, still have ample funding to pay the bills and employees, and IF their product is realized and successful, the profits (and future tax revenues) will more than offset the 20-30yrs of no-taxable income.

The size of the company does play a part in which stock exchanges it can be registered with. Tiny companies are called Penny Stocks and trade on a different exchange than NASDAQ. A company who’s profits are in terminal decline, will get “delisted” from the bigger exchanges but can relist with the smaller exchanges.

Operational concerns do relate to the number of employees, the cash/cash flow situation and the management of the company. The level of what is “material” can vary with size. A 100 person company generally does not have the resources of a 100,000 person company.

• Having virus checkers for all employees, all contractors, in every venue and location maybe material, but it may not be depending on what the concerns, challenges, law suits allege happened or didn’t happen and the rebuttal may deflect those concerns. If deploying such a virus checker is illegal in other countries or jurisdictions it may not be a problem at all.

Then there is the allegation that 5% of X is too low a number and 10% is a better count. Does that make any difference in the operational scope of the business?

• If a company downgraded their sales by -5% in order to diminish their tax liability and they do not have a legitimate GAAP ruling for that change, that could lead to a problem with the IRS tax code.
• A company that added +5% and puffed their earnings up by that amount, and paid taxes based on the puffed numbers, might be in trouble with the SEC and criminal agencies for fraud.(1) It may not rise to any of that at all. 5% is quite a small number (2). There are plenty of statistical methods that could lead to that much flex and as long as it was consistently applied across the entire accounting structure it might be allowed without any negative consequences (see percentage estimates of field plantings, growth, and harvest).

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1) Search Terms

The Billion Dollar Bubble

Equity Funding Corporation of America

2) 5% as a small number

see the statistical counts and rebuttals over the deaths, cases and on going illness for COVID.

JonKnowsNothing • September 7, 2022 5:00 PM

@SpaceLifeForm, @Clive, @Ted, All

re:Proxy Fights Rounds of Controlling Shares

The proxy fight is sure to be entertaining. HP-Compaq, HP-Autonomy were both scintillating as well as instructive that it isn’t the best idea or the best tech that wins in the end. It’s the political aspirations of the CEOs and their connections to massive funds, banking and finance and the political movers and shakers that wins the fight. Ordinary shareholders are well… ordinarily ignored.

Shareholders get a copy of the meeting agenda, often there is an exit line: Non Binding Recommendation. It’s quite a common tack-on. I dunno if that’s part of this vote.

We may get to see some of Musk’s Saudi backers although they have recently backed off the MSM scope. We may also get to see who is backing TheT. What will be more interesting is what the Saudi Bankers are expecting to gain. It may be an indicator of future litigation (years).

RL tl;dr

Years in the rear view mirror ago, I went to a Stockholder’s Public Meeting. I’d already filed my proxy and voted on items before the Board. I was exercising an educational opportunity.

There is a pro-forma layout to such meetings, if you live in an HOA (USA) you get this monthly and annually. It’s not what is looks like in the movies and there is no TomC screaming at JackN as in the legal dramas. It’s flat, structured and non-participatory.

An investor showed up who owned a fair quantity of shares and wanted to change some aspect that was in front of the BoD. Turned out he had only an insignificant number of shares compared to what was held by the Directors, the Company Officials and all the proxy votes that were assigned. He did not get his change accepted. It was out voted long before he arrived. In fact he was out voted when he bought his shares but didn’t know it because the back end structure of such systems is hidden.

So hopefully we will get to see some of the deeper innards of both M and T as they line up on the scrimmage lines.

And Deutsche Bank is just a txt msg distance away.