Declining Performance Quotes

The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable. If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell it to you again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book." (Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading, Harper's Magazine, February 2008)

Ranger declined the butterscotch pudding, not wanting to disrupt the consistency of his blood sugar level. I had two puddings and coffee, choosing to keep my pancreas at peak performance. Use it or lose it is my philosophy.

People assume that memory decline is a function of being human, and therefore natural,” he said. “But that is a logical error, because normal is not necessarily natural. The reason for the monitored decline in human memory performance is because we actually do anti-Olympic training. What we do to the brain is the equivalent of sitting someone down to train for the Olympics and making sure he drinks ten cans of beer a day, smokes fifty cigarettes, drives to work, and maybe does some exercise once a month that’s violent and damaging, and spends the rest of the time watching television. And then we wonder why that person doesn’t do well in the Olympics. That’s what we’ve been doing with memory.

Three quarters of our intellectual performances are no more than decorations upon a void; I wondered if that increasing vacuity was due to the lowering of intelligence or to moral decline; whatever the cause, mediocrity of mind was matched almost everywhere by shocking selfishness and dishonesty.

A society should not forget that it thrives on the ideas and performance of the talented among its citizens. If you compromise the prospects of the strong, and lean too much towards the interests of the weak, then your society itself goes into decline.

Surely there must be something we can do to combat aging’s normal but corrosive affects on memory performance. These declines in memory creation, retrieval, and processing speed aren’t all inevitable, are they? You’re not gonna like this, but appears the answer is ultimately yes. If you eat a daily diet of doughnuts, only go for a run if someone is chasing you, regularly sacrifice sleep by binge watching entire seasons of the latest show on Netflix until 3 AM, and are chronically stressed, you’ll most definitely accelerate the ageing of your memory.

He himself, on the other hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief that if Providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on earth. With all this difference of opinion as to the cause of his decline, there could be no question of the fact. His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his heart with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain.

Alarm clocks are the bane of humanity. Sleep inertia, the decline in motor dexterity, subjective feeling of grogginess, and impaired state of awareness and mental performance is normal after awakening from even a light sleep. Scientific studies reveal that abruptly awakening from a deep sleep amplifies the severity and duration of sleep inertia.

how does a state manage to achieve, all at once, the highest basket of gas, sales, and income taxes, yet rate nearly dead last in roads and highways, or school performance tests, and have the nation’s greatest number of billionaires, and one-sixth of America’s welfare recipients, and the largest percentage of any state population below the poverty line?

when you get a team size over five or six, the performance of your team will start declining quickly.

A decline in performance should lead to a search for its cause and to a focus on the quality of your recovery. Remember, often doing less is more powerful than training more.

super-agers tend to have stronger social networks on average than people whose cognitive performance declines normally.

Beginning in early adulthood, dopamine levels, which affect both physical movement and reward-motivated behavior (in addition to a bunch of other things), decline by about 10 percent every decade.

The reason why education pays off is because of something called cognitive reserve: people with extra brain power (thanks in part to extra education) can afford to lose more before showing obvious signs of decline. That’s why two people who have brains that look exactly alike—with the same amount of shrinkage—can nevertheless show dramatic differences in how long they remain cognitively healthy. Those who put their brains to better use can withstand greater loss of brain matter.

One of my greatest fears is family decline.There’s an old Chinese saying that “prosperity can never last for three generations.” I’ll bet that if someone with empirical skills conducted a longitudinal survey about intergenerational performance, they’d find a remarkably common pattern among Chinese immigrants fortunate enough to have come to the United States as graduate students or skilled workers over the last fifty years. The pattern would go something like this: • The immigrant generation (like my parents) is the hardest-working. Many will have started off in the United States almost penniless, but they will work nonstop until they become successful engineers, scientists, doctors, academics, or businesspeople. As parents, they will be extremely strict and rabidly thrifty. (“Don’t throw out those leftovers! Why are you using so much dishwasher liquid?You don’t need a beauty salon—I can cut your hair even nicer.”) They will invest in real estate. They will not drink much. Everything they do and earn will go toward their children’s education and future. • The next generation (mine), the first to be born in America, will typically be high-achieving. They will usually play the piano and/or violin.They will attend an Ivy League or Top Ten university. They will tend to be professionals—lawyers, doctors, bankers, television anchors—and surpass their parents in income, but that’s partly because they started off with more money and because their parents invested so much in them. They will be less frugal than their parents. They will enjoy cocktails. If they are female, they will often marry a white person. Whether male or female, they will not be as strict with their children as their parents were with them. • The next generation (Sophia and Lulu’s) is the one I spend nights lying awake worrying about. Because of the hard work of their parents and grandparents, this generation will be born into the great comforts of the upper middle class. Even as children they will own many hardcover books (an almost criminal luxury from the point of view of immigrant parents). They will have wealthy friends who get paid for B-pluses.They may or may not attend private schools, but in either case they will expect expensive, brand-name clothes. Finally and most problematically, they will feel that they have individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and therefore be much more likely to disobey their parents and ignore career advice. In short, all factors point to this generation

Anyway, the Rock Bottom Remainders get together once a year to play benefit concerts on behalf of literacy. You may have noticed that for some time now, literacy has been in a steep decline. I'm not saying the Remainders are totally responsible for this, but we're probably a factor, because as a band, we suck. We routinely play entire songs without ever reaching full agreement on the question of what specific key we are in. So when people hear us perform, their reaction often is, 'Maybe literacy isn't such a great idea'.

Loss of sensory functions, in particular due to difficulties seeing and hearing. Studies have shown that age-related hearing loss is directly associated with cognitive decline, in part because the area of the brain that is supposed to be dedicated to higher-level cognition is instead forced to struggle to interpret diminished sounds.

The black conservatives claim that the decline of values such as patience, deferred gratification, and self-reliance have resulted in the high crime rates, the increasing number of unwed mothers, and the relatively uncompetitive academic performances of black youth. And certainly these sad realities must be candidly confronted. But nowhere in their writings do the new black conservatives examine the pervasiveness of sexual and military images used by the mass media and deployed by the advertising industry in order to entice and titillate consumers. Black conservatives thus overlook the degree to which market forces of advanced capitalist processes thrive on sexual and military images.

One of the most intriguing ideas in the developmental sciences over the past decades is the phenomenon of the “J-shaped curve.”19 While observing children learning to master new skills in dozens of domains (math, writing, the arts), psychologists noticed a surprising pattern: as a learner struggles to master difficult new challenges, there is often an initial decline in skill. Errors are made on tasks that previously seemed easy, and the learner feels more “stupid” than ever before. This is the dip that forms the middle part of the “J.” But it turns out that the “stupid mistakes,” in retrospect, were nothing more than growth errors. Once the learner gets past the dip, performance rises rapidly to new heights.

math performance in Asian American women, built around the stereotypes of Asians being good at math, and women not. Half the subjects were primed to think of themselves as Asian before a math test; their scores improved. Half were primed about gender; scores declined. Moreover, levels of activity in cortical regions involved in math skills changed in parallel.

A disdain for the practical swept the ancient world. Plato urged astronomers to think about the heavens, but not to waste their time observing them. Aristotle believed that: “The lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master.… The slave shares in his master’s life; the artisan is less closely connected with him, and only attains excellence in proportion as he becomes a slave. The meaner sort of mechanic has a special and separate slavery.” Plutarch wrote: “It does not of necessity follow that, if the work delight you with its grace, the one who wrought it is worthy of esteem.” Xenophon’s opinion was: “What are called the mechanical arts carry a social stigma and are rightly dishonoured in our cities.” As a result of such attitudes, the brilliant and promising Ionian experimental method was largely abandoned for two thousand years. Without experiment, there is no way to choose among contending hypotheses, no way for science to advance. The anti-empirical taint of the Pythagoreans survives to this day. But why? Where did this distaste for experiment come from? An explanation for the decline of ancient science has been put forward by the historian of science, Benjamin Farrington: The mercantile tradition, which led to Ionian science, also led to a slave economy. The owning of slaves was the road to wealth and power. Polycrates’ fortifications were built by slaves. Athens in the time of Pericles, Plato and Aristotle had a vast slave population. All the brave Athenian talk about democracy applied only to a privileged few. What slaves characteristically perform is manual labor. But scientific experimentation is manual labor, from which the slaveholders are preferentially distanced; while it is only the slaveholders—politely called “gentle-men” in some societies—who have the leisure to do science. Accordingly, almost no one did science. The Ionians were perfectly able to make machines of some elegance. But the availability of slaves undermined the economic motive for the development of technology. Thus the mercantile tradition contributed to the great Ionian awakening around 600 B.C., and, through slavery, may have been the cause of its decline some two centuries later. There are great ironies here.

The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking. The downside of habits is that you get used to doing things a certain way and stop paying attention to little errors. You assume you’re getting better because you’re gaining experience. In reality, you are merely reinforcing your current habits—not improving them. In fact, some research has shown that once a skill has been mastered there is usually a slight decline in performance over time.

Episodic Memory is your recollection of events. Where did you go to kindergarten? When did you first meet your spouse? What did you eat for breakfast yesterday? And where did you leave the keys? This is the one that tends to naturally weaken with age. In fact, episodic memory peaks in your midtwenties and then slowly declines throughout life. That’s why you still remember the words to songs from when you were a teenager but barely remember the plot of a movie you saw last year.

The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay diet—or MIND diet, for short—was specially designed to improve brain health. Recent well-done studies have found that sticking to the MIND diet helps people avoid mental decline and remain cognitively healthy. One study even showed that people who stuck to the MIND diet cut their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in half. That’s extraordinary. And since no drug has yet been developed to prevent dementia, it’s your only move.

To understand why psychological safety promotes performance, we have to step back to reconsider the nature of so much of the work in today's organizations. With routine, predictable, modular work on the decline, more and more of the tasks that people do require judgment, coping with uncertainty, suggesting new ideas, and coordinating and communicating with others. This means that voice is mission critical. And so, for anything but the most independent or routine work, psychological safety is intimately tied to freeing people up to pursue excellence.

Competition is the spice of sports; but if you make spice the whole meal you'll be sick. The simplest single-celled organism oscillates to a number of different frequencies, at the atomic, molecular, sub-cellular, and cellular levels. Microscopic movies of these organisms are striking for the ceaseless, rhythmic pulsation that is revealed. In an organism as complex as a human being, the frequencies of oscillation and the interactions between those frequencies are multitudinous. -George Leonard Learning any new skill involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases than that which preceded it…the upward spurts vary; the plateaus have their own dips and rises along the way…To take the master’s journey, you have to practice diligently, striving to hone your skills, to attain new levels of competence. But while doing so–and this is the inexorable–fact of the journey–you also have to be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau, to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere. (Mastery, p. 14-15). Backsliding is a universal experience. Every one of us resists significant change, no matter whether it’s for the worse or for the better. Our body, brain and behavior have a built-in tendency to stay the same within rather narrow limits, and to snap back when changed…Be aware of the way homeostasis works…Expect resistance and backlash. Realize that when the alarm bells start ringing, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re sick or crazy or lazy or that you’ve made a bad decision in embarking on the journey of mastery. In fact, you might take these signals as an indication that your life is definitely changing–just what you’ve wanted….Be willing to negotiate with your resistance to change. Our preoccupation with goals, results, and the quick fix has separated us from our own experiences…there are all of those chores that most of us can’t avoid: cleaning, straightening, raking leaves, shopping for groceries, driving the children to various activities, preparing food, washing dishes, washing the car, commuting, performing the routine, repetitive aspects of our jobs….Take driving, for instance. Say you need to drive ten miles to visit a friend. You might consider the trip itself as in-between-time, something to get over with. Or you could take it as an opportunity for the practice of mastery. In that case, you would approach your car in a state of full awareness…Take a moment to walk around the car and check its external condition, especially that of the tires…Open the door and get in the driver’s seat, performing the next series of actions as a ritual: fastening the seatbelt, adjusting the seat and the rearview mirror…As you begin moving, make a silent affirmation that you’ll take responsibility for the space all around your vehicle at all times…We tend to downgrade driving as a skill simply because it’s so common. Actually maneuvering a car through varying conditions of weather, traffic, and road surface calls for an extremely high level of perception, concentration, coordination, and judgement…Driving can be high art…Ultimately, nothing in this life is “commonplace,” nothing is “in between.” The threads that join your every act, your every thought, are infinite. All paths of mastery eventually merge. [Each person has a] vantage point that offers a truth of its own. We are the architects of creation and all things are connected through us. The Universe is continually at its work of restructuring itself at a higher, more complex, more elegant level . . . The intention of the universe is evolution. We exist as a locus of waves that spreads its influence to the ends of space and time. The whole of a thing is contained in each of its parts. We are completely, firmly, absolutely connected with all of existence. We are indeed in relationship to all that is.

Women remained in an underprivileged position under social modernity. The ‘male breadwinner model’67 brought with it new inequalities. Since housewives were not employed, they were excluded from many insurance benefits, or minimally covered by these. The care and reproductive work that women performed in the household was neither paid nor integrated into the official order of social modernity. In other words, while social modernity attenuated the conflicts and risks induced by vertical inequalities (between classes), it reproduced new inequalities on the horizontal level—weighing especially on women and migrants.

The most obvious examples of pathological problems are: uncontrollable negative cash flow, continuous emigration of key human resources away from the organization, unresolved quality problems, rapidly declining market share, and tremendous drops in the company’s capacity to raise financial resources. Organizations with those problems can’t afford therapy because therapy takes time, and time is a resource those organizations do not have. Instead of an organizational therapist, the board should hire an organizational turnaround specialist who can temporarily take on the chief executive officer’s role, and perform whatever “surgery” is necessary.

1. Understanding key ideas. I recently read an article in the Economist on declining marriage rates among women in Asia. I had no immediate use for the detailed statistics in that article, but I thought I might use them in the future to describe how demographic trends affect public retirement plans. So I skimmed it to learn the general trends. 2. Finding specific facts. At the opposite pole is reading closely for facts. When I’m preparing for a board meeting, I carefully look over the memos and reports related to the company’s quarterly performance. I want to be able to remember certain key statistics and substantive points to discuss with the board.

Romanians, however, paid a terrible price for Ceauşescu’s privileged status. In 1966, to increase the population—a traditional ‘Romanianist’ obsession—he prohibited abortion for women under forty with fewer than four children (in 1986 the age barrier was raised to forty-five). In 1984 the minimum marriage age for women was reduced to fifteen. Compulsory monthly medical examinations for all women of childbearing age were introduced to prevent abortions, which were permitted, if at all, only in the presence of a Party representative. Doctors in districts with a declining birth rate had their salaries cut. The population did not increase, but the death rate from abortions far exceeded that of any other European country: as the only available form of birth control, illegal abortions were widely performed, often under the most appalling and dangerous conditions. Over the ensuing twenty-three years the 1966 law resulted in the death of at least ten thousand women. The real infant mortality rate was so high that after 1985 births were not officially recorded until a child had survived to its fourth week—the apotheosis of Communist control of knowledge. By the time Ceauşescu was overthrown the death rate of new-born babies was twenty-five per thousand and there were upward of 100,000 institutionalized children. The

Here are my simple rules for identifying market tops and bottoms: 1. Market tops are relatively easy to recognize. Buyers generally become overconfident and almost always believe “this time is different.” It’s usually not. 2. There’s always a surplus of relatively cheap debt capital to finance acquisitions and investments in a hot market. In some cases, lenders won’t even charge cash interest, and they often relax or suspend typical loan restrictions as well. Leverage levels escalate compared to historical averages, with borrowing sometimes reaching as high as ten times or more compared to equity. Buyers will start accepting overoptimistic accounting adjustments and financial forecasts to justify taking on high levels of debt. Unfortunately most of these forecasts tend not to materialize once the economy starts decelerating or declining. 3. Another indicator that a market is peaking is the number of people you know who start getting rich. The number of investors claiming outperformance grows with the market. Loose credit conditions and a rising tide can make it easy for individuals without any particular strategy or process to make money “accidentally.” But making money in strong markets can be short-lived. Smart investors perform well through a combination of self-discipline and sound risk assessment, even when market conditions reverse.

In one study, a trio of professors from Harvard Business School tracked more than one thousand acclaimed equity analysts over a decade and monitored how their performance changed as they switched firms. Their dour conclusion, “When a company hires a star, the star’s performance plunges, there is a sharp decline in the functioning of the group or team the person works with, and the company’s market value falls.”20 The hiring organization is let down because it failed to consider systems-based advantages that the prior employer supplied, including firm reputation and resources. Employers also underestimate the relationships that supported previous success, the quality of the other employees, and a familiarity with past processes.

Try a cognitive enhancer from the list in this chapter to promote healthy brain function and avoid cognitive degeneration as you age. Here is the short list: •​Piracetam: Reduces cognitive decline with age •​Modafinil: Performance enhancing, not anti-aging •​Nicotine: Low doses (not from cigarettes) can be helpful for aging and cognitive performance •​Deprenyl: Works on dopamine receptors for cognitive enhancement •​CoQ10: Helps your mitochondria produce energy •​PQQ: A powerful antioxidant for anti-aging •​L-theanine: An amino acid that helps with memory and mental endurance •​Curcumin: Improves memory and attention while acting as an antioxidant •​He Shou Wu: Longevity-enhancing antioxidant herb that can also help you regrow and regain color in your hair!

Ed Woolard, his mentor on the Apple board, pressed Jobs for more than two years to drop the interim in front of his CEO title. Not only was Jobs refusing to commit himself, but he was baffling everyone by taking only $1 a year in pay and no stock options. “I make 50 cents for showing up,” he liked to joke, “and the other 50 cents is based on performance.” Since his return in July 1997, Apple stock had gone from just under $14 to just over $102 at the peak of the Internet bubble at the beginning of 2000. Woolard had begged him to take at least a modest stock grant back in 1997, but Jobs had declined, saying, “I don’t want the people I work with at Apple to think I am coming back to get rich.” Had he accepted that modest grant, it would have been worth $400 million. Instead he made $2.50 during that period.

Eva, after this, declined rapidly; there was no more any doubt of the event; the fondest hope could not be blinded. Her beautiful room was avowedly a sick room; and Miss Ophelia day and night performed the duties of a nurse,—and never did her friends appreciate her value more than in that capacity. With so well-trained a hand and eye, such perfect adroitness and practice in every art which could promote neatness and comfort, and keep out of sight every disagreeable incident of sickness,—with such a perfect sense of time, such a clear, untroubled head, such exact accuracy in remembering every prescription and direction of the doctors,—she was everything to him. They who had shrugged their shoulders at her little peculiarities and setnesses, so unlike the careless freedom of southern manners, acknowledged that now she was the exact person that was wanted.

On Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville' - "Much has been written about the fiasco of the opera's first night on 20 February 1816, most of it true: the mockery of Rossini's Spanish-style hazel jacket, the rowdy animosity of the Paisiello lobby, the jeering and the catcalls, as one mishap succeeded another. Basilio sang his 'Calumny' aria with a bloodied nose after tripping over a trap door; then during the act 1 finale, a cat wandered onstage, declined to leave, and was forcibly flung into the wings. According to the Rosina, Gertrude Righetti Giorgi, Rossini left the theatre 'as though he had been an indifferent onlooker'... The second performance was a triumph, though Rossini was not there to witness it. He spent the evening pacing his room, imagining the opera's progress scene by scene. He retired early, only to be roused by a glow of torches and uproar in the street. Fearing that a mob was about to set fire to the building, he took refuge in a stable block. Garcia tried to summon him to acknowledge the adulation. 'F***' their bravos!' was Rossini's blunt rejoinder. 'I'm not coming out'.

The current decline in educational achievement is, like most things, multiply determined. The evidence points, first, to about 50-100 years of genetic decline in ability. It doesn’t take much–perhaps a one-point decline every 30 years–to reduce substantially the percentage in the upper range of IQ. With our present mean IQ of 100, 1 person in 250 would exceed an IQ of 140. If, however, the average dropped to 85, you’d have only 1 in 8,000 who would exceed an IQ of 140. We must suppose that academic standards are much affected by the percentages of high IQ individuals, and that their becoming more scarce will lower academic performance. So part of the remedy for this problem definitely lies in eugenic practices. But there are some environmental factors as well, such as the failure to do “streaming” in schools, in which children of much the same ability level are put together. And I think something in the way of general idleness and slackness has gotten into the system since the 1960s which could account for a part of the decline, particularly in the more precise subjects like mathematics.

What is a “pyramid?” I grew up in real estate my entire life. My father built one of the largest real estate brokerage companies on the East Coast in the 1970s, before selling it to Merrill Lynch. When my brother and I graduated from college, we both joined him in building a new real estate company. I went into sales and into opening a few offices, while my older brother went into management of the company. In sales, I was able to create a six-figure income. I worked 60+ hours a week in such pursuit. My brother worked hard too, but not in the same fashion. He focused on opening offices and recruiting others to become agents to sell houses for him. My brother never listed and sold a single house in his career, yet he out-earned me 10-to-1. He made millions because he earned a cut of every commission from all the houses his 1,000+ agents sold. He worked smarter, while I worked harder. I guess he was at the top of the “pyramid.” Is this legal? Should he be allowed to earn more than any of the agents who worked so hard selling homes? I imagine everyone will agree that being a real estate broker is totally legal. Those who are smart, willing to take the financial risk of overhead, and up for the challenge of recruiting good agents, are the ones who get to live a life benefitting from leveraged Income. So how is Network Marketing any different? I submit to you that I found it to be a step better. One day, a friend shared with me how he was earning the same income I was, but that he was doing so from home without the overhead, employees, insurance, stress, and being subject to market conditions. He was doing so in a network marketing business. At first I refuted him by denouncements that he was in a pyramid scheme. He asked me to explain why. I shared that he was earning money off the backs of others he recruited into his downline, not from his own efforts. He replied, “Do you mean like your family earns money off the backs of the real estate agents in your company?” I froze, and anyone who knows me knows how quick-witted I normally am. Then he said, “Who is working smarter, you or your dad and brother?” Now I was mad. Not at him, but at myself. That was my light bulb moment. I had been closed-minded and it was costing me. That was the birth of my enlightenment, and I began to enter and study this network marketing profession. Let me explain why I found it to be a step better. My research led me to learn why this business model made so much sense for a company that wanted a cost-effective way to bring a product to market. Instead of spending millions in traditional media ad buys, which has a declining effectiveness, companies are opting to employ the network marketing model. In doing so, the company only incurs marketing cost if and when a sale is made. They get an army of word-of-mouth salespeople using the most effective way of influencing buying decisions, who only get paid for performance. No salaries, only commissions. But what is also employed is a high sense of motivation, wherein these salespeople can be building a business of their own and not just be salespeople. If they choose to recruit others and teach them how to sell the product or service, they can earn override income just like the broker in a real estate company does. So now they see life through a different lens, as a business owner waking up each day excited about the future they are building for themselves. They are not salespeople; they are business owners.

The sound woke Adam. He lifted his head from the flank of Feckless and looked around him in bewilderment for a moment; then slowly his eyes, which looked small and wet and lifeless in his primitive face, lost their terror as he realized that he was in the cowshed, that it was half-past six on a winter morning, and that his gnarled fingers were about the task which they had performed at this hour and in this place for the past eighty years or more. He stood up, sighing, and crossed over to Pointless, who was eating Graceless’s tail. Adam, who was linked to all dumb brutes by a chain forged in soil and sweat, took it out of her mouth and put into it, instead, his neckerchief—the last he had. She mumbled it, while he milked her, but stealthily spat it out as soon as he passed on to Aimless, and concealed it under the reeking straw with her hoof. She did not want to hurt the old man’s feelings by declining to eat his gift There was a close bond: a slow, deep, primitive, silent down-dragging link between Adam and all living beasts; they knew each other’s simple needs. They lay close to the earth, and something of earth’s old fierce simplicities had seeped into their beings.

A confidential report delivered in June 1965 by Abel Aganbegyan, director of the Novobirsk Institute of Economics, highlighted the difficulties. Aganbegyan noted that the growth rate of the Soviet economy was beginning to decline, just as the rival US economy seemed particularly buoyant; at the same time, some sectors of the Soviet economy - housing, agriculture, services, retail trade - remained very backward, and were failing to develop at an adequate rate. The root causes of this poor performance he saw in the enormous commitment of resources to defense (in human terms, 30-40 million people out of a working population of 100 million, he reckoned), and the 'extreme centralism and lack of democracy in economic matters' which had survived from the past. In a complex modern society, he argued, not everything could be planned, since it was impossible to foresee all possible contingencies and their potential effects. So the plan amounted to central command, and even that could not be properly implemented for lack of information and of modern data-processing equipment. 'The Central Statistical Administration ... does not have a single computer, and is not planning to acquire any,' he commented acidly. Economic administration was also impeded by excessive secrecy: 'We obtain many figures... from American journals sooner than they are released by the Central Statistical Administration.' Hence the economy suffered from inbuilt distortions: the hoarding of goods and labour to provide for unforeseen contingencies, the production of shoddy goods to fulfill planning targets expressed in crude quantitative terms, the accumulation of unused money by a public reluctant to buy substandard products, with resultant inflation and a flourishing black market.

It's possible to see how much the brand culture rubs off on even the most sceptical employee. Joanne Ciulla sums up the dangers of these management practices: 'First, scientific management sought to capture the body, then human relations sought to capture the heart, now consultants want tap into the soul... what they offer is therapy and spirituality lite... [which] makes you feel good, but does not address problems of power, conflict and autonomy.'¹0 The greatest success of the employer brand' concept has been to mask the declining power of workers, for whom pay inequality has increased, job security evaporated and pensions are increasingly precarious. Yet employees, seduced by a culture of approachable, friendly managers, told me they didn't need a union - they could always go and talk to their boss. At the same time, workers are encouraged to channel more of their lives through work - not just their time and energy during working hours, but their social life and their volunteering and fundraising. Work is taking on the roles once played by other institutions in our lives, and the potential for abuse is clear. A company designs ever more exacting performance targets, with the tantalising carrot of accolades and pay increases to manipulate ever more feverish commitment. The core workforce finds itself hooked into a self-reinforcing cycle of emotional dependency: the increasing demands of their jobs deprive them of the possibility of developing the relationships and interests which would enable them to break their dependency. The greater the dependency, the greater the fear of going cold turkey - through losing the job or even changing the lifestyle. 'Of all the institutions in society, why let one of the more precarious ones supply our social, spiritual and psychological needs? It doesn't make sense to put such a large portion of our lives into the unsteady hands of employers,' concludes Ciulla. Life is work, work is life for the willing slaves who hand over such large chunks of themselves to their employer in return for the paycheque. The price is heavy in the loss of privacy, the loss of autonomy over the innermost workings of one's emotions, and the compromising of authenticity. The logical conclusion, unless challenged, is capitalism at its most inhuman - the commodification of human beings.

Classical liberalism has been reproached with being too obstinate and not ready enough to compromise. It was because of its inflexibility that it was defeated in its struggle with the nascent anticapitalist parties of all kinds. If it had realized, as these other parties did, the importance of compromise and concession to popular slogans in winning the favor of the masses, it would have been able to preserve at least some of its influence. But it has never bothered to build for itself a party organization and a party machine as the anticapitalist parties have done. It has never attached any importance to political tactics in electoral campaigns and parliamentary proceedings. It has never gone in for scheming opportunism or political bargaining. This unyielding doctrinairism necessarily brought about the decline of liberalism. The factual assertions contained in these statements are entirely in accordance with the truth, but to believe that they constitute a reproach against liberalism is to reveal a complete misunderstanding of its essential spirit. The ultimate and most profound of the fundamental insights of liberal thought is that it is ideas that constitute the foundation on which the whole edifice of human social cooperation is Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition constructed and sustained and that a lasting social structure cannot be built on the basis of false and mistaken ideas. Nothing can serve as a substitute for an ideology that enhances human life by fostering social cooperation—least of all lies, whether they be called "tactics," "diplomacy," or "compromise." If men will not, from a recognition of social necessity, voluntarily do what must be done if society is to be maintained and general well-being advanced, no one can lead them to the right path by any cunning stratagem or artifice. If they err and go astray, then one must endeavor to enlighten them by instruction. But if they cannot be enlightened, if they persist in error, then nothing can be done to prevent catastrophe. All the tricks and lies of demagogic politicians may well be suited to promote the cause of those who, whether in good faith or bad, work for the destruction of society. But the cause of social progress, the cause of the further development and intensification of social bonds, cannot be advanced by lies and demagogy. No power on earth, no crafty stratagem or clever deception could succeed in duping mankind into accepting a social doctrine that it not only does not acknowledge, but openly spurns. The only way open to anyone who wishes to lead the world back to liberalism is to convince his fellow citizens of the necessity of adopting the liberal program. This work of enlightenment is the sole task that the liberal can and must perform in order to avert as much as lies within his power the destruction toward which society is rapidly heading today. There is no place here for concessions to any of the favorite or customary prejudices and errors. In regard to questions that will decide whether or not society is to continue to exist at all, whether millions of people are to prosper or perish, there is no room for compromise either from weakness or from misplaced deference for the sensibilities of others. If liberal principles once again are allowed to guide the policies of great nations, if a revolution in public opinion could once more give capitalism free rein, the world will be able gradually to raise itself from the condition into which the policies of the combined anticapitalist factions have plunged it. There is no other way out of the political and social chaos of the present age.

In the 1990s legal scholar and public policy advocate Wendy Kaminer published a brace of books engaged with the New Age cultures of recovery and self-help. She represented an Old Left perspective on new superstition, and although she was of the same generation as the cultural studies scholars, she did exactly what Andrew Ross warned academics and elites against. She criticized the middlebrow, therapeutic culture of self-help for undermining critical thinking in popular discourse. She encouraged the debunking of superstition, deplored public professions of piety. Her books were polemical and public interventions that were addressed to the maligned liberal and more or less thoughtful reader who took an interest in the issues of the day. In some ways, her writing was a popularization of some of psychoanalytic theory scholar, sociologist, and cultural critic Philip Rieff’s and Richard Hofstadter’s critiques of a therapeutic culture of anti-intellectualism.77 She speculated that the decline of secular values in the political sphere was linked to the rise of a culture of recovery and self-help that had come out of the popularization of New Age, countercultural beliefs and practices. In both I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help Fashions and Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and the Perils of Piety, Kaminer publicly denounced the decline of secular culture and the rise of a therapeutic culture of testimony and self-victimization that brooked no dissent while demanding unprecedented leaps of faith from its adherents.78 Kaminer’s work combined a belief in Habermasian rational communication with an uncompromising skepticism about the ubiquity of piety that for her was shared by both conservatives and liberals. For Kaminer, argument and persuasion could no longer be operative when belief and subjective experience became the baseline proofs that underwrote public and private assertions. No speaker or writer was under any obligation to answer his or her critics because argument and testimony were fatefully blurred. When reasoned impiety was slowly being banished from public dialogue, political responsibility would inevitably wane. In the warm bath of generalized piety and radical plurality, everyone could assert a point of view, an opinion, and different beliefs, but no one was under any obligation to defend them. Whereas cultural studies scholars saw themselves contesting dominant forms of discourse and hegemonic forms of thinking, Kaminer saw them participating in a popular embrace of an irrational Counter-Enlightenment. Like Andrew Ross, Kaminer cited Franz Mesmer as an important eighteenth-century pioneer of twentieth-century alternative healing techniques. Mesmer’s personal charisma and his powers of psychic healing and invocation of “animal magnetism” entranced the European courts of the late eighteenth century. Mesmer performed miracle cures and attracted a devoted, wealthy following. Despite scandals that plagued his European career, the American middle class was eager to embrace his hybrid of folk practices and scientific-sounding proofs. Mesmerism projected an alternative mystical cosmology based upon magnets and invisible flows of energy. Mesmer, who was said to control the invisible magnetic flow of forces that operated upon human and animal bodies, built upon a network of wealthy patrons who were devoted to the powers of a charismatic leader, Mesmer himself. Mesmer’s manipulation of magnets and hands-on healing evoked for the French court the ancient arts of folk healing while it had recourse to ostensibly modern scientific proofs. Historian of the French eighteenth century Robert Darnton insisted that mesmerism could not be dismissed as mere quackery or charlatanism but represented a transitional worldview, one that bridged the Enlightenment and the particular forms of nineteenth-century Romanticism that followed.

Burns continued to work, doing a routine with Carol Channing that was short-lived. For a time it seemed that the old sentiment was to be proved true: that Burns without Gracie was a stale act indeed. Then he got a role in a movie, intended for his friend Jack Benny, who became ill and had to decline it. He won an Academy Award as Best Supporting actor in The Sunshine Boys, a 1975 release. His performance in the title role of the 1977 film Oh, God put to rest the “no-talent” argument.

One thing that does appear certain is that consuming less than 1.0 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight results in declines in both lean mass and endurance performance (Phinney et al., 2004).

In this era of instant everything, it is unsurprising that music is a choice stress release for hyperactive Americans. Increasing social isolationism and the decline in traditional family life goads anxious Americans to feel a need to zone out in a musical blur, addictively listening to ear splitting music while performing ordinary activities such as walking, doing the laundry, driving a car, waiting at a bus stop, or fixing and eating dinner. A soundless environment is terrifying to Americans. When we listen to music, we receive absolution from our autobiographical history; we take a temporary reprieve from the grind of daily life.

a declining Dow gives us our chance to shine and pile up the percentage advantages which, coupled with only an average performance during advancing markets, will give us quite satisfactory long-term results. Our target is an approximately ½% decline for each 1% decline in the Dow and if achieved, means we have a considerably more conservative vehicle for investment in stocks than practically any alternative.8 Buffett

Our job is to pile up yearly advantages over the performance of the Dow without worrying too much about whether the absolute results in a given year are a plus or a minus. I would consider a year in which we were down 15% and the Dow declined 25% to be much superior to a year when both the partnership and the Dow advanced 20%. I have stressed this point in talking with partners and have watched them nod their heads with varying degrees of enthusiasm. It is most important to me that you fully understand my reasoning in this regard and agree with me not only in your cerebral regions, but also down in the pit of your stomach. For

A great deal of the American medical community’s resources is geared to addressing the cosmetic needs of both women and men whom fear that by showing the deleterious effects of aging their marital relationship is in jeopardy. The most ethical plastic surgeons decline to perform impetuous work; the less ethical, but often the wealthiest professionals, perform all requested work irrespective of the long-term viability of the services rendered. The plastic surgeon’s sales pitch is predictable: everyone can receive the face that he or she can afford.

That was an inspiring service, Thomas, and I believe it should be followed by an inspiring bit of entertainment.” Kitty clapped her hands. “Oh yes! What a lovely idea.” “What shall we do then?” Nathaniel asked. “Why don’t we have Liza perform for us?” Kitty said. Eliza snapped her head toward her sister. “Me?” Kitty tilted her head. “Yes, like you used to do! I haven’t heard you perform Shakespeare in so long.” Nathaniel sat back down. “I have heard tales of your talents, Eliza. Shakespeare is one of my favorites. It would be a great honor if you’d perform for us.” Eliza turned to Thomas, shooting him a stern but playful glare. “Did you have anything to do with this?” Thomas attempted to smother a telling grin. “Nothing whatsoever.” She turned again toward her sister. Kitty bit her lip and tilted her head farther as if to say “pretty please?” Eliza looked around the room tapping her foot, searching for a reason to decline. The last thing she wanted was to make a fool out of herself. “I’d love to, Kitty, but it’s been such a long time and I don’t have any of my books with me. I really need to freshen my memory before I do anything like that and I’m out of practice on my recitations. I’m sorry, my dear.” “Not to worry.” Nathaniel popped out of his chair again and went to fetch a small bundle by the front door. “It so happens that I’ve brought such a book with me.” Eliza threw an accusatory glance at Thomas. He grinned wide as the horizon, and leaned back in his seat. She couldn’t get out of it now. She was trapped. She pinched her lips and laced her fingers in her lap. Nathaniel came to her chair and held the thick book in front of her. “Your reputation precedes you, Miss Campbell. You must indulge us, please.” Eliza

What has my readers scratching their heads, though, is why advertisers, whose cumulative actions have painted ad agencies into a corner, marginalizing their agencies as partners, do not see any relationship between their poor brand performance and the commoditization of agency services and fees.

Agencies need to initiate the creation of marketing and strategic performance partnerships that see themselves and their clients as co-equal partners, each with specific responsibilities and roles, each of them committed to finding successful, results-generating marketing paths for the advertisers’ brands.

If your moral matrix rests entirely on the Care and Fairness foundations, then it's hard to hear the sacred overtones in America's unofficial motto: E pluribus unum (from many, one). By "sacred", I mean... the ability to endow ideas, objects, and events, with infinite value, particularly those ideas, objects, and events that bind a group together into a single entity. The process of converting pluribus (diverse people) into unum (a nation) is a miracle that occurs in every successful nation on Earth. Nations decline or divide when they stop performing this miracle.

As leaders identify necessary strategic changes or declining organization performance, they respond by launching organization changes. If necessary, they take the plunge on major transformations when triggered by one of the legitimate reasons we discussed above. But short, targeted adjustments can keep an organization on track between major strategic shifts. By making incremental change on a constant basis, leaders can lengthen the time between large-scale realignments.

A group of researchers asked ninety-nine college freshmen and sophomores to think back a few years and recall the grades they had received for high school classes in math, science, history, foreign language study, and English.44 The students had no incentive to lie because they were told that their recollections would be checked against their high school registrars’ records, and indeed all signed forms giving their permission. Altogether, the researchers checked on the students’ memories of 3,220 grades. A funny thing happened. You’d think that the handful of years that had passed would have had a big effect on the students’ grade recall, but they didn’t. The intervening years didn’t seem to affect the students’ memories very much at all—they remembered their grades from their freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years all with the same accuracy, about 70 percent. And yet there were memory holes. What made the students forget? It was not the haze of years but the haze of poor performance: their accuracy of recall declined steadily from 89 percent for A’s to 64 percent for B’s, 51 percent for C’s, and 29 percent for D’s. So if you are ever depressed over being given a bad evaluation, cheer up. Chances are, if you just wait long enough, it’ll improve.

The need for undeserved happiness cannot be satisfied within the current sociopolitical coordinates; the goal of this critique is precisely not reform. In the words of Žižek, a genuine critique “does not wish to stop at merely improving the existing state of affairs.”A Marcusian- Žižekian rejoinder to privilege theory is that it is not enough to democratize privilege, to increase access to the system so that others can also reap its benefits. The needs of privilege theory are for the most part consistent with the “performance principle” (the form Freud’s “reality principle” takes within late capitalism); they are “needs developed and satisfied in a repressive society.” For this reason, the discourse of privilege always risks reproducing the system that it is contesting. In contrast, the need for undeserved happiness reflects an alternative modality of being, or what Marcuse dubs the “scandal of qualitative difference.” This introduced “radical alterity” sabotages the “performance principle” according to which “everyone has to earn his living in alienating but socially necessary performances, and one’s reward, one’s status in society will be determined by this performance (the work-income relation).” This new, utopian complex of needs declines to perpetuate the status quo, to feed the capitalist machine—to desire only that which is efficient, socially useful, and (re)productive.

We are all more than just our bodies, but also our thoughts, emotions, and spirituality, which combine to determine our health.” “Our bodies have a natural wisdom with intrinsic knowledge of how to grow, heal, balance, and regenerate.” “We have the ability to change our own genetic blueprints for ourselves and for our children.” “Your body is more than the sum of its parts; it has an energy, or life force, that goes beyond the mere physical nature of your body or your generation.” “Human health is intricately and inextricably connected to planetary health.” “Water is the life source and most essential component of each cell of your body.” “Learn to live in the moment and tune in to mindful breathing while engaging all of your senses to soak in the universe around you.” “Healthy sleep habits will help you learn faster, get stronger and more fit, and protect yourself from diseases.” “Spiritual awakening is important for the state of consciousness with which you meet the world.” “If you don’t make self-care a priority in your life, you will pay a high price as your health declines.” “Balance is not something you are born with, nor is it something you find. Rather, it is something you must create” “If your body is balanced, your mind will be at peace and your spirit will soar!” “Resilience to injury is not an inborn trait; it must be nurtured and acquired.” “Excessive fear of injury takes away the joy of living.” “Allow nature to nurture a child’s backbone, literally and figuratively.” “Dig deep and find the foundation of your own core to prepare you for all adversity, sustain your health and wellness through all your endeavors, and build the home of your dreams for your mind-body-spirit.” “The shared challenges of despair, hardship, and adversity promote collaboration, and collaboration fortifies the collective consciousness of the international community.” “Learn to live your life from your core, and harness and embrace your unlimited potential for strength, health, and growth.” “Hang loose and fly like a butterfly to withstand all the perturbations and punches life brings your way.” “Get back in touch with your primitive animal spirit and pop some pandiculation into your day” “Cultivating body awareness will help you stand taller, look slimmer, and find your grace against gravity.” “Exercise, outlook, diet, and lifestyle choices actually change the way your DNA is expressed within your body to help you avoid injury, fight disease, and thrive.” “When you substitute negative beliefs with positive ones, you will begin to notice positive results.” “Find what floats your boat and enjoy the journey!” “Do not fear the storm, for you will learn to sail your ship through wind and wave.

The key to this matrix is the symmetry or asymmetry of the performance. Investors who lack skill simply earn the return of the market and the dictates of their style. Without skill, aggressive investors move a lot in both directions, and defensive investors move little in either direction. These investors contribute nothing beyond their choice of style. Each does well when his or her style is in favor but poorly when it isn’t. On the other hand, the performance of investors who add value is asymmetrical. The percentage of the market’s gain they capture is higher than the percentage of loss they suffer. Aggressive investors with skill do well in bull markets but don’t give it all back in corresponding bear markets, while defensive investors with skill lose relatively little in bear markets but participate reasonably in bull markets. Everything in investing is a two-edged sword and operates symmetrically, with the exception of superior skill. Only skill can be counted on to add more in propitious environments than it costs in hostile ones. This is the investment asymmetry we seek. Superior skill is the prerequisite for it. Here’s how I describe Oaktree’s performance aspirations: In good years in the market, it’s good enough to be average. Everyone makes money in the good years, and I have yet to hear anyone explain convincingly why it’s important to beat the market when the market does well. No, in the good years average is good enough. There is a time, however, when we consider it essential to beat the market, and that’s in the bad years. Our clients don’t expect to bear the full brunt of market losses when they occur, and neither do we. Thus, it’s our goal to do as well as the market when it does well and better than the market when it does poorly. At first blush that may sound like a modest goal, but it’s really quite ambitious. In order to stay up with the market when it does well, a portfolio has to incorporate good measures of beta and correlation with the market. But if we’re aided by beta and correlation on the way up, shouldn’t they be expected to hurt us on the way down? If we’re consistently able to decline less when the market declines and also participate fully when the market rises, this can be attributable to only one thing: alpha, or skill. That’s an example of value-added investing, and if demonstrated over a period of decades, it has to come from investment skill. Asymmetry—better performance on the upside than on the downside relative to what your style alone would produce—should be every investor’s goal.

Neither defensive investors who limit their losses in a decline nor aggressive investors with substantial gains in a rising market have proved they possess skill. For us to conclude that investors truly add value, we have to see how they perform in environments to which their style isn’t particularly well suited. Can the aggressive investor keep from giving back gains when the market turns down? Will the defensive investor participate substantially when the market rises? This kind of asymmetry is the expression of real skill. Does an investor have more winners than losers? Are the gains on the winners bigger than the losses on the losers? Are the good years more beneficial than the bad years are painful? And are the long-term results better than the investor’s style alone would suggest? These things are the mark of the superior investor. Without them, returns may be the result of little more than market movement and beta.

Someday, when historians perform their "why the Mayans declined" necropsy on American society, they will marvel at the way that, at a time of high anxiety about energy resources and costs, millions of elderly people took to the road in the clumsiest, most inefficient vehicles ever devised by man. The lunacy of America is all right there, in the RVs.

A certain degree of stress will help you perform at your best. Go beyond that, and your performance declines.

Hormones 101 Hormones are chemical messengers that tell your cells what to do. Your cells have internal or surface-based receptors, which allow them to receive communication from your hormones and to follow the instructions as delivered. The instructions may be to metabolize fuel, rebuild tissue, or perform other tasks that are vital to keeping the machine that is your body in top form. When hormone levels decline because of disease, age, or the menopausal transition, cells and tissues can be left waiting to be told what to do, and essential tasks may not get completed—this is when trouble can start.

THE EVENING before WrestleMania, Vince sent a memo around that instructed his entire crew to convene first thing in the morning at the arena. There were predictable grumblings, with the performers unhappy that their night of pre-show decadence would have to be cut short because of the early wake-up call. The unofficial rule amongst many of the boys was that when it came to doing pay-per-view, having a hangover was a prerequisite because it made you sulky and focussed. Of course, the risk was that someone would go too far and be in no condition to perform come show time, but Vince's meeting made sure there would be little chance of that. Sure enough, everyone was accounted for on that dreary Sunday morning, tired, but for the most part sober.               The boys sat with sunglasses covering their heavy eyes, sipping black coffee from the local Starbucks while wondering what was so urgent that Vince had dragged them out of bed at the crack of dawn. Those who had known McMahon for a while had a good inkling; the meeting wasn't about anything at all. It was simply a front to keep everyone in check and make sure there were no major problems caused by someone having a little too much fun the night before the biggest show of the year. "I betcha Vince doesn't even show," whispered Paul Bearer to no one in particular, and sure enough, he didn't. Instead J.J. Dillon wandered into the room, and told the amassed throng that Vince wasn't coming, but he just wanted to tell them all to have a good show. It was classic McMahon; keeping his troops in check and running things from afar under his authoritarian rule.   THE

When a man helps a colleague, the recipient feels indebted to him and is highly likely to return the favor. But when a woman helps out, the feeling of indebtedness is weaker. She’s communal, right? She wants to help others. Professor Flynn calls this the “gender discount” problem, and it means that women are paying a professional penalty for their presumed desire to be communal.10 On the other hand, when a man helps a coworker, it’s considered an imposition and he is compensated with more favorable performance evaluations and rewards like salary increases and bonuses. Even more frustrating, when a woman declines to help a colleague, she often receives less favorable reviews and fewer rewards. But a man who declines to help? He pays no penalty.11 Because

In the security guard industry, for example, electronic alarm systems represent a potent substitute. Moreover, they can only become more important since labor-intensive guard services face inevitable cost escalation, whereas electronic systems are highly likely to improve in performance and decline in costs. Here, the appropriate response of security guard firms is probably to offer packages of guards and electronic systems, based on a redefinition of the security guard as a skilled operator, rather than to try to outcompete electronic systems across the board.

We are now seeing angels outsourcing due diligence to entities they assume will do it better. In one case, the entity is Y Combinator, the elite accelerator. Yuri Milner’s DST Fund and Ron Conway’s SV Angel fund recently announced that they will invest in every single startup coming out of Y Combinator. The seed rounds will provide $150,000 to every single one of the 40 startups that wants it, without any due diligence on their own part whatsoever. The capital is in the form of convertible debt with no cap and no discount. The loan will convert when and if the startup raises a proper angel or VC capital round at the same valuation that’s set in the round. Most convertible debt has a valuation ceiling and also gets a discount on conversion. The angels are banking on the premise that Y Combinator, in vetting the startups it stewards, has performed satisfactory due diligence. Milner has effectively shut out any other angel investors by offering such attractive terms. It’s almost free money. I’d be surprised if any of the 40 startups in each Y Combinator class decline such an offer.

Got a hot date tonight, Sarge?” Ro chuckled as he handed Syn the next group of Illustra’s entertainers that were being picked up for questioning. Syn flushed but chose to ignore Ro’s smug grin. “Shut up,” he mumbled, and flipped open the next file. He flinched so hard his neck popped. Syn’s breath caught at the image that stared back at him. “Oh yeah. This is the one I wanted to mention, he might be a prime suspect.” Syn threw his hand up, stopping Ro. This couldn’t be happening. “I thought we’d concluded that the killers were women from that crazy-ass men-bashing group, BTNS?” “Yes, we did. But hear me out; there may be more players in this. Starman was definitely taken out by women but he could’ve been set up by others. This guy's name is Furious Gray Barkley. During questioning, the owner of Illustra, Johnathan Mack said that Furious Barkley, who performs as Furious Styles, was scheduled to do a movie with Sasha Pain but declined. Furious’ replacement was our vic.” Ro rubbed his smooth face and kept talking, oblivious to Syn’s inner turmoil. “Kicker is, although this Furious Gray Barkley has no priors, he’s also known as Furious Gray Nicks. Husband to Patrick Nicks. That image there is a photo that was given to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department when Furious’ husband filed a missing persons on him almost a year ago. Furious is on the run and I want to know why. I contacted the husband but had to leave a message. I already sent Jameson to pick him up. He works at a pub in ... hmmm.” Ro’s eyebrows rose. “In your neighborhood.

walk away from its treaty obligations by invoking the doctrine of State sovereignty. This was settled by a decision of the Permanent Court of Justice (PCIJ)10 over 80 years ago. SS Wimbledon Case (Britain v Germany) (1923) PCIJ (Series A) No 1, 25 The court declines to see in the conclusion of any treaty by which a State undertakes to perform or refrain from performing a particular act an abandonment of sovereignty. No doubt any convention creating an obligation of this kind places a restriction upon the exercise of the sovereign rights of the State, in the sense that it requires them to be exercised in a certain way. But the right of entering into international engagements is an attribute of State sovereignty. Implementation

On the other hand, there are a number of cases where economic growth did not produce better governance, but where, to the contrary, it was good governance that was responsible for growth. Consider South Korea and Nigeria. In 1954, following the Korean War, South Korea’s per capita GDP was lower than that of Nigeria, which was to win its independence from Britain in 1960. Over the following fifty years, Nigeria took in more than $300 billion in oil revenues, and yet its per capita income declined in the years between 1975 and 1995. In contrast, South Korea grew at rates ranging from 7 to 9 percent per year over this same period, to the point that it became the world’s twelfth-largest economy by the time of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. The reason for this difference in performance is almost entirely attributable to the far superior government that presided over South Korea compared to Nigeria.

Countries competing against one another in the same array of products and services is not covered by Ricardian trade theory.   Offshoring doesn’t fit the Ricardian or the competitive idea of free trade. In fact, offshoring is not trade.   Offshoring is the practice of a firm relocating its production of goods or services for its home market to a foreign country. When an American firm moves production offshore, US GDP declines by the amount of the offshored production, and foreign GDP increases by that amount. Employment and consumer income decline in the US and rise abroad. The US tax base shrinks, resulting in reductions in public services or in higher taxes or a switch from tax finance to bond finance and higher debt service cost.   When the offshored production comes back to the US to be marketed, the US trade deficit increases dollar for dollar. The trade deficit is financed by turning over to foreigners US assets and their future income streams. Profits, dividends, interest, capital gains, rents, and tolls from leased toll roads now flow from American pockets to foreign pockets, thus worsening the current account deficit as well.   Who benefits from these income losses suffered by Americans? Clearly, the beneficiary is the foreign country to which the production is moved. The other prominent beneficiaries are the shareholders and the executives of the companies that offshore production. The lower labor costs raise profits, the share price, and the “performance bonuses” of corporate management.   Offshoring’s proponents claim that the lost incomes from job losses are offset by benefits to consumers from lower prices. Allegedly, the harm done to those who lose their jobs is more than offset by the benefit consumers in general get from the alleged lower prices. Yet, proponents are unable to cite studies that support this claim. The claim is based on the unexamined assumption that offshoring is free trade and, thereby, mutually beneficial.   Proponents of jobs offshoring also claim that the Americans who are left unemployed soon find equal or better jobs. This claim is based on the assumption that the demand for labor ensures full employment, and that people whose jobs have been moved abroad can be retrained for new jobs that are equal to or better than the jobs that were lost.   This claim is false.

Elite Performance Know your brain. Elite athletes know their bodies and train their bodies; elite mental athletes must know their brains and train their brains. Elite athletes commit serious time to intentional improvement programs, not just haphazard training. They work with a coach, do diagnosis, learn which muscles to work on and how much. Following the suggestions in the book will help you improve your mental fitness. Train your brain. It’s important to train your brain: It will help you personally, not only in your career but also in your later years, by reducing your risk of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline. It will also help your

Alkan even wrote a piece for four feet, called Bombardo-Carillon, in which the player’s legs are likely to get entangled during performance. (When Swiss-American pianist Rudolph Ganz was asked to perform Bombardo-Carillon with a female pianist, he declined on the grounds that he didn’t know her well enough.)

In a medical study, it turned out that obstetricians in areas with declining birth rates are much more likely to perform cesarean-section deliveries than obstetricians in growing areas—suggesting that, when business is tough, doctors try to ring up more expensive procedures.

As Deloitte’s Shift Index shows, the average life expectancy of a Fortune 500 company has declined from around 75 years half a century ago to less than 15 years today.

Since the nineteenth century, the News of the World had been controlled by the Carr family, with Sir William Carr alone holding a 30-percent share. He was oblivious to the paper’s declining performance, said one observer, “because he was invariably drunk by half-past ten every morning, a habit which had earned him the popular alias ’Pissing Billy.

The organizations of fast innovators are structured for ease of coordination and speed of execution. Slow innovators are structured for functional control, cost efficiency, and risk avoidance, a structure that results in a slow and cumbersome development process. With the functional organization come multiple hand-offs that consume time, cause errors to occur and diminish overall accountability. Coordination and control can only be accomplished through elaborate review processes and documentation requirements. Quality seems to decline, not improve. Functions have their firm budgets and manage themselves to their budgets even at the expense of time. To help ensure that budgets are met, performance targets are conservative. Senior management actively participates in program decisions, and, because of their very full schedules, further slow the decision-making processes of the company.

The stock market’s performance depends on three factors: real growth (the rise of companies’ earnings and dividends) inflationary growth (the general rise of prices throughout the economy) speculative growth—or decline (any increase or decrease in the investing public’s appetite for stocks)

Maybe appearing on CNN for two minutes will make your grandmother proud, but if the travel and the preparation and the logistics eat up 20 hours of your time so that your writing suffers [and] you will ultimately not be proud of the result, then maybe it’s not worth it. Often I think the paradox is that accepting the requests you receive is at the expense of the quality of the very work—the reason for those requests in the first place—and that’s what you always have to protect.” TF: This is precisely why I have stopped nearly all investing, speaking engagements, and interviews. Maria shared how famed neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks (RIP) used to put a “piece of paper on the wall by his desk that simply said, in all caps, ‘NO!’ with an exclamation point. It was to remind himself to decline invitations that took away from his writing time.

[I]n Greece, the distinctive political situation that arose beginning around 800 BCE and persisted for at least the next half-millennium was the differentiator that enabled the world of the city-states to perform economically and culturally at a level much higher than the premodern normal, defined by conditions in the Late Bronze, Early Iron, and early modern periods of Greek history - and indeed, at a level that in some respects matched the exceptionally high-performing early modern societies of Holland and Britain. Those conclusions are important to us in modernity, not because Greece was the unique origin of the Western tradition or the spark that ignited a putative 'great divergence' between East and West but because classical Greece is the earliest documented case of 'democratic exceptionalism plus efflorescence' - a historically rare combination of economic, cultural, and political conditions pertaining among developed countries in the contemporary world. Insofar as we value democracy and prefer wealth to poverty, then we have good reason to care about explaining the rise of the society in which the wealth and democracy package is first documented. We have equally good reasons for wanting to explain why the major states within that society failed to maintain their full independence in the face of entrepreneurial authoritarians willing and able to appropriate institutions and technology. In the long run, the loss of city-state independence was coincident with a long economic decline. By the seventh century CE, core Greece had reverted to the relatively impoverished condition of the 'premodern normal.' The world of Greek antiquity was obviously very different from our own, and some of the factors that led to both the rise and fall of classical Greece are unlikely to be repeated. Yet for those who do recognize certain features of our modernity in the history of classical Greece, that history may serve as a cautionary tale.

If leaders, in any profession, place an excess of stress on people to make the numbers, and offer lopsided incentive structures, we risk creating an environment in which near-term performance and resources are prioritized while long-term performance, trust, psychological safety and the will of the people decline.

The merit principle assumes a connection between individual effort and expected reward, and offers criteria as to how this reward should look in terms of income, social position, and so on. But the liberal merit principle has been hollowed out in recent years; instead of this we have a culture of success in which what counts is not effort but simply results. Economic and political elites are treated as high performers, who define performance by their very success. In a monstrous act of self-reference, the key measure of success is now success itself.119 In this way, a manager is a high performer on the basis of his or her position in the social hierarchy, quite independent of their actual achievement. A hospital nurse, who works responsibly and with great personal attention for seven days a week, is not seen as a high performer—because she does not enjoy the same monetary success.

In short, the more a society is based on equality of opportunity, the more unequal it becomes, and the more legitimate its inequalities. Certainly, the validity of the performance principle is being steadily undermined, yet everyone is still supposed to enjoy the same chances: the losers are accordingly those who deserve to lose, and the winners those who deserve to win. Principles of modernity often continue to exist only as empty husks.

Similar phenomena occur in many branches. Frequently, employees with different levels of job security and economic citizenship rights work side by side, and it is even not uncommon for them to perform the same activities. It is above all the younger age groups who encounter worse employment conditions, and manage only very slowly, if at all, to work their way up to the level of their parents’ generation.

Many other things relate also to this production of the Other - a hysterical, speculative production. Racism is one example, in its development throughout the modern era and its current recrudescence. Logically, it ought to have declined with progress and the spread of Enlightenment. But the more we learn how unfounded the genetic theory of race is, the more racism intensifies. This is because we are dealing with an artificial construction of the Other, on the basis of an erosion of the singularity of cultures (of their otherness one to another) and entry into the fetishistic system of difference. So long as there is otherness, alienness and a (possibly violent) dual relation, there is no racism properly so called. That is to say, roughly, up to the eighteenth century, as anthropological accounts attest. Once this 'natural' relation is lost, we enter upon an exponential relation with an artificial Other. And there is nothing in our culture with which we can stamp out racism, since the entire movement of that culture is towards a fanatical differential construction of the Other, and a perpetual extrapolation of the Same through the Other. Autistic culture posing as altruism. We talk of alienation. But the worst alienation is not being dispossessed by the other, but being dispossessed of the other: it is having to produce the other in the absence of the other, and so continually to be thrown back on oneself and one's own image. If, today, we are condemned to our image (to cultivate our bodies, our 'looks', our identities, our desires), this is not because of alienation, but because of the end of alienation and the virtual disappearance of the other, which is a much worse fate. In fact, the definition of alienation is to take oneself as one's focus, as one's object of care, desire, suffering and communication. This definitive short-circuiting of the other ushers in the era of transparency. Plastic surgery becomes universal. And the surgery performed on the face and the body is merely the symptom of a more radical surgery: that performed on otherness and destiny. What is the solution? There is no solution to this erotic trend within an entire culture; to this fascination, this whirl of denial of otherness, of all that is alien and negative; to this foreclosing of evil and this reconciliation around the Same and its multiple figures: incest, autism, twinship, cloning. All we can do is remind ourselves that seduction lies in non-reconciliation with the other, in preserving the alien status of the Other. One must not be reconciled with oneself or with one's body. One must not be reconciled with the other, one must not be reconciled with nature, one must not be reconciled with the feminine (that goes for women too). Therein lies the secret of a strange attraction.

Goethe had actually performed an extraordinary set of experiments in his investigation of colors. Goethe began as Newton had, with a prism. Newton had held a prism before a light, casting the divided beam onto a white surface. Goethe held the prism to his eye and looked through it. He perceived no color at all, neither a rainbow nor individual hues. Looking at a clear white surface or a clear blue sky through the prism produced the same effect: uniformity. But if a slight spot interrupted the white surface or a cloud appeared in the sky, then he would see a burst of color. It is “the interchange of light and shadow,” Goethe concluded, that causes color. He went on to explore the way people perceive shadows cast by different sources of colored light. He used candles and pencils, mirrors and colored glass, moonlight and sunlight, crystals, liquids, and color wheels in a thorough range of experiments. For example, he lit a candle before a piece of white paper at twilight and held up a pencil. The shadow in the candlelight was a brilliant blue. Why? The white paper alone is perceived as white, either in the declining daylight or in the added light of the warmer candle. How does a shadow divide the white into a region of blue and a region of reddish-yellow? Color is “a degree of darkness,” Goethe argued, “allied to shadow.” Above all, in a more modern language, color comes from boundary conditions and singularities.

While states continue to carry out some important functions, two centuries after the French Revolution first enlisted modern mass nationalism, many of them seem to have run out of people who believe in them, let alone are willing to act as cannon fodder on their behalf. Sometimes this appears to have been the result of an unsuccessful war, as in the United States (following Vietnam and 'the confidence gap') and the USSR (where a similar role was played by the failure in Afghanistan). Elsewhere it happened imperceptibly as growing integration with other states caused the sovereignty of each one to be whittled down, as in much of Europe. Whatever the precise processes, almost everywhere they have been accompanied by a declining willingness of states to take responsibility for their economies; provide social benefits; educate the young; and even perform the elementary functions of protecting their citizens against terrorism and crime, a task which at best is being shared with other organizations and at worst simply let go. At the close of the second millennium, and in a growing number of places from Western and Eastern Europe all the way to the developing world, the state is not so much served and admired as endured and tolerated. The days when, as used to be the case during the era of total war in particular, it could set itself up as a god on earth are clearly over.

Fortunes of all major nations have followed specific trajectories of rise and retreat, but perhaps the greatest difference in their paths has been the time they spent at the top of their performance: some had a relatively prolonged plateau followed by steady decline (both the British empire and the 20th-century United States fit this pattern); others had a swift rise to a brief peak, followed by a more or less rapid decline. Japan is clearly in the latter category.

loneliness has been associated with personality disorders and psychoses, suicide, impaired cognitive performance and cognitive decline over time, increased risk of Alzheimer’s . . . , and increases in depressive symptoms.

Three American business school professors decided to find out. In a first-of-its-kind study, they analyzed more than 26,000 earnings calls from more than 2,100 public companies over six and a half years using linguistic algorithms similar to the ones employed in the Twitter study. They examined whether the time of day influenced the emotional tenor of these critical conversations—and, as a consequence, perhaps even the price of the company’s stock. Calls held first thing in the morning turned out to be reasonably upbeat and positive. But as the day progressed, the “tone grew more negative and less resolute.” Around lunchtime, mood rebounded slightly, probably because call participants recharged their mental and emotional batteries, the professors conjectured. But in the afternoon, negativity deepened again, with mood recovering only after the market’s closing bell. Moreover, this pattern held “even after controlling for factors such as industry norms, financial distress, growth opportunities, and the news that companies were reporting.”8 In other words, even when the researchers factored in economic news (a slowdown in China that hindered a company’s exports) or firm fundamentals (a company that reported abysmal quarterly earnings), afternoon calls “were more negative, irritable, and combative” than morning calls.9 Perhaps more important, especially for investors, the time of the call and the subsequent mood it engendered influenced companies’ stock prices. Shares declined in response to negative tone—again, even after adjusting for actual good news or bad news—“leading to temporary stock mispricing for firms hosting earnings calls later in the day.” While the share prices eventually righted themselves, these results are remarkable. As the researchers note, “call participants represent the near embodiment of the idealized homo economicus.” Both the analysts and the executives know the stakes. It’s not merely the people on the call who are listening. It’s the entire market. The wrong word, a clumsy answer, or an unconvincing response can send a stock’s price spiraling downward, imperiling the company’s prospects and the executives’ paychecks. These hardheaded businesspeople have every incentive to act rationally, and I’m sure they believe they do. But economic rationality is no match for a biological clock forged during a few million years of evolution. Even “sophisticated economic agents acting in real and highly incentivized settings are influenced by diurnal rhythms in the performance of their professional duties.

One method that leads to this has also been used to launch new mutual funds. Fund managers sometimes start a new fund with a small amount of capital. They then stuff it with hot IPOs (initial public offerings) that brokers give them as a reward for the large volume of business they have been doing through their established funds. During this process of “salting the mine,” the fund is closed to the public. When it establishes a stellar track record, it is opened to everyone. Attracted by the amazing track record, the public rushes in, giving the fund managers a huge capital base from which they reap large fees. The brokers who supplied the hot IPOs are rewarded by a flood of additional business from the triumphant managers of the new fund. The available volume of hot IPOs is too small to help returns much once the fund gets big, so the track record declines to mediocrity. However, the fund promoters can use more hot IPOs to incubate yet another spectacularly performing new fund; and so it goes on.

US Navy into which young men enlisted during the late 1930s and early 1940s was decidedly white. This had not always been the case. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, African Americans served in a largely integrated American Navy and made up about 25 percent of its enlisted strength. Some thirty thousand African Americans manned Union vessels during the Civil War, with little discrimination as to duties. After segregation was legalized in 1896, African American enlistments declined and black men were increasingly relegated to the galley or engine room. After World War I, African American enlisted personnel declined further as the Navy recruited Filipino stewards for mess duties. By June 1940, African Americans accounted for only 2.3 percent of the Navy’s 170,000 total manpower. The fleet had mostly converted from coal to oil, and the vast majority of African Americans performed mess duties. Black reenlistments in technical specialties were never barred, however, and a few African American gunner’s mates, torpedo men, and machinist mates continued to serve. Amendments to the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 guaranteed the right to enlist regardless of race or color, but in practice, “separate but equal” prejudices consigned most blacks to the Steward’s Branch. Its personnel held ratings up to chief petty officer, but members wore different uniforms and insignia, and even chief stewards never exercised command over rated grades outside the Steward’s Branch. The only measure of equality came when, just as with everyone else aboard ship, African American and Filipino stewards were assigned battle stations. Only then could they stand shoulder to shoulder with their white brothers in arms.13

recognizing a crisis of declining market shares and financial performance, courting new investors, or acquiring new leadership.

if this next wave of innovation follows prior technological trajectories, the technologies will likely experience rapid price declines and significant performance improvements over the next decade.

The following is a quotation from the Mahābhārata that describes our present era and the immediately preceding yuga, revealing a progressive deterioration of humanity’s moral fiber. Again, in the dvāpara-yuga the moral order (dharma) exists [only] half. [God] Vishnu becomes yellow, and the Veda is now fourfold [i.e., the original wisdom is split into the four Vedic hymnodies]. Thence, some [adhere to] four Vedas, others to three Vedas, or two Vedas, or a single Veda, while yet others have no hymns [at all]. Thus, owing to the broken traditions, rites become manifold and creatures, fond of austerities and almsgiving, become rajas-motivated2. Due to ignorance about the single Veda, the Vedas become multiple and because of the collapse of truth, few adhere to truthfulness. Many diseases appear for those who have fallen from truth, and there are desires and disasters caused by fate. Afflicted by these, [some] men perform very severe austerities; others, filled with [worldly] desires or desiring heaven, conduct sacrifices. Thus with the onset of the dvāpara, creatures perish through their lawlessness. In the kali-yuga, O Kaunteya, the moral order (dharma) exists by one quarter only. With the onset of this tamas-motivated3 age, O Keshava [i.e., God Vishnu] becomes black (krishna). The Vedic ways of life end, and so do the moral order, sacrifice, and rites. Plagues, disease, sloth, blemishes such as anger, as well as calamities, sickness, and afflictions prevail. In the course of the yugas, the moral order diminishes increasingly. With the diminution of the moral order, the people (loka) diminish. This description of the kali-yuga is not as daunting as it is in some other scriptures. But the message is clear enough: Ours is a sinister age. What thinking person would not agree? Can we not, by now, fill a whole library with tales of human foolishness, of humanity’s thoughtless interference with the life-world and its almost unbelievable lack of concern for fellow beings, both human and nonhuman? Is there no hope, then, for humankind? Is historian Oswald Spengler’s dark prophecy of the decline of the West (and with it, also of the East) coming true?4 Or are there, today, forces at work that countermand the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age? This latter appears to be the case. It could not be otherwise. Or else our species would have perished long ago, right at the outset of the kali-yuga. The kali-yuga, then, does not signal total spiritual darkness or inevitable doom. Inverting a popular maxim, one can perhaps say that where there is shadow there is also light. Here and there, the present dark age is pierced by shafts of light. It is not without its benign counterbalancing influences.

Although the Parliament has performed well enough in using its now considerable powers over legislation and the budget, the voters’ turnout has declined with each election, from 63 per cent in 1979 to 43 per cent in 2014. One reason is a general trend of declining turnouts in elections within member states. Another is a widespread decline in support for the EU. Yet another may be that the Parliament in particular has been exposed to critical and, particularly in Britain, downright hostile media comment, fastening on matters such as the prolonged failure to establish an adequate system for controlling MEPs’ expenses (largely the fault of MEPs themselves), and the two costly buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg between which it commutes (entirely the fault of governments).

I remember when I first became a believer in Jesus. I somehow thought it was my duty to change people for the sake of spreading the gospel. I would rejoice when people would find hope in Christ but would feel like a failure when someone would decline the invitation to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. It was a little discouraging. But that’s because my understanding of how God works in my life was off. I say this because I believe many of today’s Christians put too much pressure on themselves to bring people to Jesus. It’s our job to love people, not change them. Only the Holy Spirit has the power and authority to do such a thing. Our calling is to simply share the gospel in love and truth, showing the character of Jesus through our everyday lives. When you let yourself off the hook for being solely responsible for somebody’s soul, you will find a totally new sense of freedom: the freedom to love. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to know all the right things to say. You don’t have to have all the answers. And if your message is totally rejected . . . it’s not on you. It’s between that individual and God. Maybe you’ll get another opportunity to try, but it’s not your job to change him or her. Our job is to simply be available for those who are looking to know more about God, take opportunities to be vocal about our personal relationships with him, and continue to point people back to God with every question they may have. I didn’t understand this in the early years of my faith, and I put way too much pressure on myself when it came to people being transformed. Why? Because we live in a performance-based culture, and yes, even pastors have a tendency to fall captive to its pull. Like me, you probably feel pressured from multiple angles. We’re told by advertising that we need to be attractive, by parents that we need good jobs, by teachers that we need good grades, by friends that we need to give more time. Jesus isn’t like that. He doesn’t make irrational demands and point a finger at us for not living up to the expectation. The only thing Jesus wants from us is our love. And when we learn to offer him that love, we long to obey him and live in the better way he has for us as well. It’s a beautiful thing. As we learned from Jesus in Matthew 25, we can love God simply by loving others. Whether that love produces a change in their lives is up to God. We don’t have to stress about it. Only the Holy Spirit has the power and authority to change someone’s heart. Our calling is to simply share the gospel in love and truth, showing the character of Jesus through our everyday lives. This alone is the calling of a Christian. This alone is a weighty yet fulfilling purpose for all who choose to pick up their crosses daily. If we were to scour the Bible, we’d see there isn’t a single passage that states we are called to change people ourselves. Why? Because it’s not our job, and it was never intended to be. We must take a step back and realize that God’s job is to be God and our job is to lead people toward the door that is hope. Once we’ve done this, we must let go and allow the one who created the world to take care of the rest. If we had the power to change people, the transformative love of God wouldn’t be needed. Don’t waste your time trying to change people. Instead, focus on loving well.

Principal Management Corporation, the manager of the LargeCap Value Fund, actually provides no investment management services, focusing instead on “clerical, recordkeeping and bookkeeping services.” Responsibility for the day-in and day-out portfolio management rests with a subsidiary of Alliance Capital Management, Bernstein Investment Research and Management.17 The fee arrangement between Principal and Bernstein involves only a portion of Principal’s take from its investors. For the year ended December 31, 2003, Principal’s no-load Class B shares bore the burden of a 2.51 percent expense ratio, as detailed in Table 8.7. Investors paid a 12b-1 fee of 0.91 percent, other expenses of 0.85 percent and a management fee of 0.75 percent. Principal’s fees all but guarantee that investors will fail to generate satisfactory returns. The management fee arrangement between Principal and Bernstein provides clues to the economies of scale available in the money management industry. At asset levels below $10 million, of the 0.75 percent management fee, 0.60 percent goes to Bernstein and 0.15 percent goes to Principal. As assets under management increase, Bernstein’s fee share decreases and Principal’s fee share increases. At the final break point of $200 million in assets, of the scale-invariant 0.75 percent fee, Bernstein receives 0.20 percent and Principal receives 0.55 percent. The fee structure clearly illustrates scale economies in the investment management business. Bernstein, the party responsible for the heart of the portfolio management process, earns fees that diminish (with increases in assets under management) from 0.60 percent of assets to 0.20 percent of assets. Since Bernstein’s work changes not at all as asset levels increase, the reduction in marginal charges makes sense. It makes no sense that Principal’s mutual-fund clients accrue no benefits from economies of scale. Total expenses incurred by investors remain at 2.51 percent regardless of portfolio size. As Bernstein’s management fee declines, Principal’s management fee increases. For assets above $200 million Principal adds a management fee of 0.55 percent to other fees of 1.76 percent, bringing the egregious total to 2.31 percent for Principal and 0.20 percent for Bernstein. In this topsy-turvy world, Principal earns a marginal management fee of 0.55 percent for performing back-office functions, while Bernstein earns a marginal management fee of 0.20 percent for making security-selection decisions. As scale increases, Bernstein earns less while Principal takes more.

Mitochondrial Dysfunction: Mitochondria are power plants. By converting oxygen and food into energy, they provide the basic fuel for our cells. But performance declines over time. The result is free radicals, a damaging form of oxygen that mangles DNA and proteins and leads to many of the chronic illnesses associated with aging.

»It is generally not possible simply to maintain a level of process performance. A process will tend to erode no matter what, even if a standard is defined, explained to everyone, and posted. […] Any organized process naturally tends to decline to a chaotic state if we leave it alone. […] A process is either slipping back or being improved.«

the Democratic Party, and decades of Democratic control of Congress, the schools have continued to fail minority children? Big-city schools have become increasingly segregated by race and class in the last thirty years. Their academic performance has declined. In addition, the black middle class has joined whites in moving out to the suburbs to get their children away from those schools.