Month 12 Day 13

Notebook entry

Seven reports given, Qais at class Munir nowhere, Salim at drivers, class with Marines

Journal entry

I tried to meet up with Munir in the morning.  He wasn't around. Salim had put himself back into the drivers course, again, so he wasn't around.  Qais was able to make it to class. 

I told Chuck CJ Radin that we didn't have any linguist support.  The LtCol told me to deny the RCT any linguists because they have linguists, but they have not been able to get them to come over because is Ramadan, so they are depending on our linguists.  CJ Radin send the new RCT-5 GySgt anyway.  He showed up and I wasn't going to torture him, so I gave him a linguist and then watched part of his class to see exactly what he needed and provided him with a lesson, maps, and markers.  He did pretty well. 

Qais was pretty engaged.  He did his first trip to the AO since he has been here the day prior and finally, he was able to see some of the things that I have been talking about. I am not going to go chase the other guys down.  I'll just report it, and the XO will have to manage his staff. 

Came back worked on my book query, ate lunch, and worked on some GMAT prep stuff.

At 1400 I had a class for the junior Marines covering mutual funds and real estate. It was a slow start, but they took to it a bit at the end.

Worked on some stuff for turnover, my 'best practices' uploaded some more stuff. 

I sent an E-mail to ATC offering to come help them train other advisor teams while the rest of the advisor team is on leave.

Went to chow.

Came back and watched a good TED with Brian about simplicity.  The guys was talking about the four characteristics of 'simplicity' which Brian rightley pointed out was really 'functional simplicity.'  Things need to be

1. functional

2. low cost

3. reliable

4. stackable

The issue that we then spoke about for about an hour was whether the financial system was simple.  All of the component parts are simple, but together they get mashed together and have unexpected 3rd and 4th order effects that are very dependant on the tiny fluctuations in the constituent parts, opinion leaders, etc. They are also not simple for the rational human being.  Our brains evolved to deal with plains hunting, not risk derivatives.  There are already some saveguards in place that stop us from acting like dumb herd animals and sticking our proverbial spears into one another (e.g. if the market falls far enough it shuts down), but perhaps the system can get too complicated for the average Joe to understand so it becomes increadibly dependant on the finance mavens. I was thinking about the Marines in my financial management class. 

Its great to talk to Brian.