Why President Biden Cannot fix Problems

One Foot in the Gravy

Why President Biden Cannot Fix Problems

He does not believe in the existence of complex systems.

This will be tedious and pedantic, but there’s no other way I can see to explain the issue. The problem is neither that he cannot see the forest for the trees, nor that he cannot see the trees for the forest. The problem is that he doesn’t believe there’s a forest at all.

I first found the need to explain basic complex systems operations to a supplier consolidator who was attempting to enroll a small-town manufacturing plant in a program that would pick suppliers for indirect materials and services. Those are things that do not go into the product, such as cleaning supplies, office equipment, machine maintenance and so forth. He was proposing that the plant no longer choose their own suppliers, but that they use his selected suppliers and save money.

Complex Systems

In a complex system, there are multiple actors. Each interacts with every other actor, directly or otherwise. The most famous example is The Butterfly Effect, wherein a butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing, eventually causing a rainstorm in Alabama. At its base this situation had only three actors: Company Management, company workforce, and local suppliers. Management gave the workforce the authority to select suppliers. In return the workforce gave management loyalty and acceptance of mutual interest in making a profit. The workforce directed buying to the local supplier base, and in return the local supplier base gave their spouses jobs. The supplier base charges the plant at a discount rate for goods and services, and in return the supplier base received loyalty from the plant.

Interrupt any one of these connections and all connections change.

The proposed change would affect every relationship in the complex system. How? No one is ever 100% sure. There may be actors that are not evident. And, the system itself is subject to change from outside. In the small-town manufacturing example, weather, or local regulatory environment, or even an epidemic of some sort can affect the system.

Michael Crichton

The effects are rarely linear. Michael Crichton wrote a great essay on complex systems. He notes that humans have a terrible record when it comes to making predictions about them, in large part because we think in a linear measure where If I do A, that causes B. That may be correct, but then B affects everything else in unpredictable ways. And A rarely only causes B.

He goes on to note that if we approach complex systems with hubris, as the Biden Administration has done to date, certain that it is correct because it only listens to people who tell them they are infallible, the only thing certain is that predictions will be wrong. Further, he uses common language to support his claims, which follow this:

1.      Complex systems consist of a large number of elements that in themselves can be simple.

2.      The elements interact dynamically by exchanging energy or information. These interactions are rich. Even if specific elements only interact with a few others, the effects of these interactions are propagated throughout the system. The interactions are nonlinear.

3.      There are many direct and indirect feedback loops.

4.      Complex systems are open systems—they exchange energy or information with their environment—and operate at conditions far from equilibrium.

5.      Complex systems have memory, not located at a specific place, but distributed throughout the system. Any complex system thus has a history, and the history is of cardinal importance to the behavior of the system.

6.      The behavior of the system is determined by the nature of the interactions, not by what is contained within the components. Since the interactions are rich, dynamic, fed back, and, above all, nonlinear, the behavior of the system as a whole cannot be predicted from an inspection of its components. The notion of “emergence” is used to describe this aspect. The presence of emergent properties does not provide an argument against causality, only against deterministic forms of prediction.

7.      Complex systems are adaptive. They can (re)organize their internal structure without the intervention of an external agent.

In my estimation, this explains the Administration’s inability to fix any of our significant problems:

Racial tension

 He believes the narrative of those around him, that white supremacy is the cause of problems. In truth, this is not factually supported. The number of unarmed black men shot by law enforcement every year is about ten to twenty. Higher percentage of black deaths is due to black-on-black crime. He is sure that racial problems are Trump and Republicans’ fault. In fact, race relations began deteriorating badly during Obama’s second term. An internet search will bring up a Gallup Poll confirming this.

Supply chain problems

These are responsible for shortages and somebody else’s fault. They in fact are due to a long-developing problem of interstate truck drivers and the West Coast’s anti-business culture. After we gave away intellectual property to China and outsourced manufacturing there, we had to order our own inventions back from there. California, in particular, is so onerous on regulation of businesses that independent truckers refuse to enter the state. They don’t need to do so to make a living.

Immigration

This one is actually inexplicable. Everybody agrees we need immigrants. They start businesses at much higher rates than US-born citizens. They supply workers we need. With declining birth rates, we need a younger work force to support our outsized population of retirees. This problem dates to 1986, when President Reagan agreed to an historic compromise. He would OK one-time amnesty, and Democrats agreed to strengthen border controls so we knew who was coming into the country. Reagan came through on amnesty; in the intervening 36 years Democrats have been too busy to get to implementing their part. Being older than dirt I am cursed with inconvenient memories.

The root cause of uncontrolled immigration is documented by the St Louis Fed. The most valuable export for all of the Northern Triangle countries is people. They go to the US, earn money, and send a lot of that home.  This accounts for 20% of all three countries’ GDP. All three are members of the CAFTA-DR free trade treaty.

Inflation

Biden is blaming everyone but himself. Reagan endured two years of mass hatred for letting unemployment reach scandalous highs to drive inflation out of the economy, recognizing it as the scourge of the lower and middle class. Every President since then has worked hard to maintain inflation control. Until Biden. He refuses to acknowledge that any number of his policies have caused a boost in inflation, from profligate spending through paying people not to work to forcing businesses to lay off people for refusing to be vaccinated against a disease with a near-zero death rate for anyone under 70. This is combined with a coup by far-left elements in Congress, whose hypocrisy knows no end.

The far left has always had a problem recognizing the existence of complex systems, for reasons as petty as they are in the pile of “Too hard to do” things, to their proof that we act based on headlines rather than data.

I’m not smart enough to know how to get through to the Far Left that its authoritarian approach to governing is counterproductive and making life worse for all Americans – except themselves and their cronies.

God Save the Queen and God Bless America. That’s all we have in the face of the authoritarians.