Engineering in Argentina: From Worse to Worst

 We started 600 in the Facultad de Ingenieria of the Universidad de La Plata, Argentina. It was in the sixties. I was the first to graduate in my class. I left immediately for the USA and never knew how did finished at all; I know about 25. Most of the students were not studying nor working but living off their parents, the "eternal student" life suited them.


Clarin writes that today there are 215805 engineering students in Argentina, and that in 2016 a total of 8303 were granted the diploma of engineer. That is fewer than the 8542 graduated in 2014.

Only one in five engineering students graduates, meaning that 80% of the students are wasting their time and the time of the faculty.  In 2010 the Government launched a well-funded campaign to promote the profession and distributed generous scholarships: Judging from the numbers, the campaign had negative effects.

The cause of this absurd situation is that no government in the last hundred years dared to restrict the entrance to the universities. During the Peron era even those who did not finish high school were accepted in the name of "justicialismo", the regime professed that they could not study because of poverty, political affiliation or police repression, but social justice meant that they too deserved to enter the university. 

The student life in La Plata was cheap and easy, so much that I too spent a whole year without attending class (next year I worked double plus hard).  I did not take money from my parents, I worked as lifeguard in the beach during the four month summer vacation and that was more than enough for the whole year.

FollowUp Nov.23 2017: Argentine submarine lost in the South Atlantic. No one knows what happened, but I assume it may be somehow related to the above note. Poor mariners.

Who creams off the prosperity bonanza

Nov 6 Excellent apartment,near shenkin street ! ₪2650000 1br - 48m² - (Heart of TLV)
(= 757000 US$)


 
Enrico Moretti in the New York Times via the excellent MR blog:

Over the past two years, San Francisco County added 38,000 jobs, reaching its highest employment level ever. Yet only 4,500 new housing units were permitted. For all those new families knocking on San Francisco doors, new units are available for less than 12 percent of them. The numbers for Silicon Valley are even worse. This is why the rents skyrocket.
 

The problem is largely self-inflicted: the region has some of the country’s slowest, most political and cumbersome housing approval processes and most stringent land-use restrictions.

…One way to think about it is that the enormous increase in wealth generated by the tech boom is largely captured by homeowners in the urban core who bought before the boom.

In Israel we have the same situation. The sheqel is overvalued and is the second most expensive currency (the first: the yen). Building permits in Tel Aviv are in-achievable, it takes from five to ten years. Two room old apartments sell for a seven hundred thousand dollars (pic). I am selling TASE shares and buying NVIDIA on Nasdaq.

Holy shi'ite!

TEVA near bankruptcy!  Owes 36 billion dollars! We are putting all our hopes in the hands of one Dane, Mr Schultz.

Metamphetamine Pipe

The clip where we see Hillary Clinton fainting and being thrown to the van like a sack of potatoes was the pivotal moment when his candidacy died. I felt it immediately and wrote about it in my former blog. Now it appears that the Democratic Party felt the same but at that point it lacked the balls to present another candidate.

Now they say that the propaganda about her health (Parkinson) was "fake news" originated in the Russian Secret Service. The pic apparently shows a metamphetamine pipe. I never saw one and I cannot judge if it is "real". I do not know, she seemed really frail. If it was Russian propaganda, it certainly was very effective. The bottom line seems to be that her political program was irrelevant, her lack of vitality vs Trump's natural exuberance decided the issue. 

Quark fusion bomb

Prof Marek Karliner from Tel Aviv University calculated the energy released by the fusion of two quarks, and it is greater than the fusion of two hydrogen atoms (the H bomb). He says that the discovery has no military application.

The same was said of Einstein's theory a hundred years ago.  I give fifteen years till the first quark bomb explodes in space.

Kissi Penny Code

Bloomberg says that the total worth the crypto tokens has passed the 100 billion dollars. What do I think?

“I know that once upon a time, a coin was worth $5 if it had $5 worth of gold in it,” Blankfein said. “Now we have paper that is just backed by fiat ... maybe in the new world, something gets backed by consensus.” I think he is wrong, consensus i.e. public opinion, is fickle and cannot for the basis of a monetary system.

The crypto will start to be a serious currency the moment that a stable, reliable bank or a state will exchange the token for "real money" - dollars or better, gold. If a Swiss Bank announces that it will exchange bitcoins for cash dollars or gold coins at a certain rate, that rate will become a basis and people will be able to calculate the risk of variations. A futures market with enforceable contracts would also act to solidify the token.

A solid token would harm the world's government power to manage their currencies. I doubt if they will tolerate it. I also doubt if they can co-ordinate their actions to destroy it. Bottom line: I dont know.

P.S.: In itself, there is nothing exceptional that a block chain is considered money. I wanted to illustrate the concept with a Spartan iron bar money, but none could be found on the net. So the pic shows the kissi penny which was a bundle of small iron bars. One could buy a slave for 300 bundles.

Lykurgus dropped the iron money in vinegar to make it fragile and useless, yet ,most monies had some use. Post stamps were valued by collectors once, cowrie shell could be used in personal decoration. Spartan money was backed by the State. Bitcoins have no use, no one is collecting them, it is backed by nothing.  

Liquidity Fuels Stock Bubble

Every analyst and her cat are warning about the inflation of stock exchange prices. The phenomenon is caused by the availability of cheap money, which is channeled to the stock exchange, because it has shown the fastest growth of all alternatives. Never in human history has been such liquidity anywhere. Gold and silver were always very scarce.

What could cause a reversal of the trend? Higher interest rates? The American Government sucking off money from the economy to pay it debts? How long can this moneymaking machine be maintained? Now the blockchain money inundation is injecting even more liquidity into the economy.


 I would like to be more intelligent to solve this conundrum. Maybe I should drink more.


Ancient Greek drinking games.