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To MAGAs, The Constitution Isn’t The Point

1.     January 6 was a shocking aberration. ...

Resilience: Debunking The Debunker

Sarah Green Carmichael, in a Bloomberg News item titled “You don’t need more resilience, you...

There’s DEI, And Then There’s DEI

A job interview, some years back, at No Name University (NNU). I was the candidate. The diversity...

The Economics You Were Taught? Dead.

This is a companion piece to “Enough: Toward A Sustainable Economics” https://www.science20...

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Fred PhillipsRSS Feed of this column.

After a dozen years as a market research executive, Fred Phillips was professor, dean, and vice provost at a variety of universities in the US, Europe, and South America. He is now Visiting Professor... Read More »

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Fallen Tech Heroes Miss Chance At Redemption

Fallen Tech Heroes Miss Chance At Redemption

Dec 24 2023 | comment(s)

Jobs. Gates. Berners-Lee. They opened our worlds to wonders: Graphical user interfaces, PCs, the World Wide Web. They were my heroes, and probably yours, deservedly so.

What Should College Presidents Do?

What Should College Presidents Do?

Dec 18 2023 | comment(s)


Enough: Toward A Sustainable Economics

Enough: Toward A Sustainable Economics

Aug 25 2023 | comment(s)

We're no longer surprised that so many people bow down to the Invisible Hand of economics, worshipping its messenger coins and notes, and attending its oracles, the Wall Street analysts. Adam Smith, the 18th-century originator of the invisible hand metaphor, took pains to affirm its workings should be tempered by moral considerations and should not be interpreted as the will of God. Those emphases have been lost.

COP Meetings – 27 Of ‘em! – With Still No.…

COP Meetings – 27 Of ‘em! – With Still No.…

Nov 24 2022 | comment(s)

And back at home, Congressman John Curtis (R Utah) tells National Public Radio that the “conservative climate caucus,” which he chairs, seeks climate solutions that “don’t demonize fossil fuels.”*

Now, as many of you know, I’m a political centrist at heart, but because the country has drifted so far to the right, I’ve resolved to be a knee-jerk leftist – a flaming liberal, a yellow dog Democrat – until things come back into balance.

Culture Wars

Culture Wars

Nov 24 2022 | comment(s)

Count the times the word “culture” came out of reporters’ mouths last week, and you’d think they were anthropologists. Usually in this context: “The culture of white supremacy has gone fully mainstream.* “The bedrock idea uniting right-wing communities…  is that white Christian men in the United States are under cultural and demographic threat.”**

Want To Buy A Tech Company?

Want To Buy A Tech Company?

Nov 24 2022 | comment(s)

If you’ve drunk the MBA kool-aid, you believe VCs and M&A bean-counters rationally price their investments. If an honest professor has confessed to you that company valuation is a black art, i.e., that there’s a heavy dose of intuition involved, you’ve been ahead of the game. The Twitter cockup now shows valuation to be a total dice-roll.