Business 682 badass dog-eat-dog open market simulation which will exploit the players’ self-interest and competitive advantage in exchange of higher learning and prep for the real world

The Game

Business 682 badass dog-eat-dog open market simulation which will exploit the players’ self-interest and competitive advantage in exchange of higher learning and preparation for the real world



Presented before Professor Sorensen this Fourteenth of June, 2010

The game will exploit a combination of self interest and a desire for one’s debate team to perform in order to accumulate maximum wealth. Each person is both a selfish player but also a co-owner of corporate stock (a two person debate team). One’s self interest will be directed towards accumulating wealth by collecting bonus bucks but also contributing towards the corporate performance in order to drive the demand for one’s stock and realize a profitable sale. Corporate performance is based on  the quality of one's debate team and as a result - predictable grade received for the debate presentations. The debate grade assigned by Professor Sorensen will play an important role: it will determine the dividend paid back to shareholders of each corporation's stock. Therefore a display of quality debate will both drive the stock price high (in anticipation of a good grade) and pay out higher dividend once the team’s performance is graded by the professor.

Shares in one’s corporation are worthless unless sold on the market. Therefore one will gain by displaying promising corporate performance in order to compel others to seek one’s stock. The same will also compel shareholders to engage in market trading rather than keeping their worthless stock in their own corporation to themselves. Once traded for the first time the stock becomes an open market commodity and can be resold indefinitely, including being purchased back by its original owner.

The final individual grade for the class will be based on total net worth (yes the professor has agreed to the rules). One’s net worth will be the sum of 3 components:

1. Bonus bucks available in one’s account – equivalent to liquid cash in the real world.
2. Value of all stock owned in any corporation – equivalent to equity in the real world. The stock price will be locked based on the last trade before market closes on the last day of class.
3. The sum of all dividends collected from any shares owned in any corporation after debates are graded.

Each corporation (debate team) will be assigned 10 shares. Each debate team member will receive 5 of those shares. As with any IPO the shares have no value until sold for the first time on the market. After that initial sale the shares will bare market price set forth by the forces of supply; demand and company performance. As we will see later in this proposal each share presents the promise of future dividend paid back to the share holder based on current performance.

Game phases -- The game will go though 3 phases consistent with the class syllabus and published schedule on iLearn.

Phase 1 – each individual player is focused on selling a product (class participation) in exchange of accumulating maximum number of bonus bucks:

6/7 Topic: Introduction; Course Overview and Goals.
Topic: Models of Business-Government-Society Relationship
Readings: Steiner and Steiner, Ch. 1
Topic: The Dynamic Environment
Readings: Steiner and Steiner, Ch. 2
Case Study: The American Fur Company

6/9 Topic: Business Power
Readings: Steiner and Steiner, Ch. 3
Case Study: The Standard Oil Trust
Topic: Corporate Social Responsibility
Readings: Steiner and Steiner, Ch. 5
Case Study: The Jack Welch Era at General Electric
Topic: Practice Debate
Topic: Assign Debate Teams and Topics

6/14 Topic: Making Ethical Decisions in Business
Readings: Steiner and Steiner, Ch. 8
Case Study: Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation
Topic: Government Regulation of Business
Readings: Steiner and Steiner, Ch. 10
Case Study: The FDA and Tobacco Regulation

6/16 Topic: Multinational Corporations
Readings: Steiner and Steiner, Ch. 11
Case Study: Union Carbide Corporation and Bhopal
Topic: Environmental Policy
Readings: Steiner and Steiner, Ch. 13
Case Study: Owls, Loggers, and Old-Growth Forests

Phase 2 – each corporation will present its product as part of the debates. The market opens for trading. As each corporation projects the promise for better grade, its stock will trade based on that perception. There will be a direct correlation between the quality of one’s debate and the stock price of that team’s corporation. The promise for better grade will realize higher dividends to those who own that corporation’s stock.

6/21 Topic: Debate 1
Topic: Debate 2

6/23 Topic: Debate 3
Topic: Debate 4

6/28 Topic: Debate 5
Topic: Debate 6

6/30 Topic: Debate 7
Topic: Debate 8

7/7 Topic: Debate 9

For example, Team #6 had presented a good understanding of their material, made an excellent rebuttal and answered intelligently during the Q&A. Team #6 is likely to receive an A for their debate, which means the owners of Team #6 stock will receive a higher dividend. Demand for Team #6 stock is high which causes any owner of Team #6 stock to ask for a higher price per share. Team #6 original stock owners will be unerring in their effort to sell their shares so that they can use the proceeds (bonus bucks) to either buy it back or buy someone else’s stock.

Phase 3 – Debates are graded. Market is closed and no more trading is allowed. The last price at which a stock traded becomes the official price per share for that corporation. The grade each corporation receives is used to calculate dividend which will be paid to the share holders. The following formula is used to calculate dividends:

Debate grade Multiplier
A 1.5
B 1.0
C 0.5
Below C 0.0

Once debate grades are assigned by the professor to each corporation, dividend payments are distributed to each share holder according to their stock volume; the grade assigned to that stock and the stock price.

For example, Team #2 stock last traded at $1.40 per share and received an A on their debate. Each owner of Team #2 stock will receive 1.4*1.5=$2.1 bonus bucks per share owned.

Team #5 last traded its stock at $0.35 per share and received a C on their debate. Each owner of Team #5 stock will receive 0.35*0.5=$0.175 bonus bucks per share owned.


A play out scenario for a well performing corporation follows:

Team #6 had accumulated 22 bonus bucks each during Phase #1. Team #6 debate occurs on 6/28/2010. That team made an excellent presentation and insinuated an A for their debate. After several bids all 10 shares of Team #6 were sold. Each member of Team #6 knew that they need to push their shares out on the market as soon as possible because they are worthless to the owners and because sales should be done before any other team could possibly make even a better presentation which would devalue Team #6 stock price. The members of Team #6 also purchased stock in another corporation believing that those people will perform well and yield a better than 1=1 ROI on the bonus bucks they spent for these shares. Now Team #6 balance sheet looks like this:

Team #6 Opening Sold their stock Purchased Each member
Members Balance Received proceeds Team #9 stock for $1 per share Net Worth
John 22 5*1.2=6 3*1=3 22+6-3=25.0
Jill 22 5*1.5=7.5 2*1=2 22+6-2=27.5

Sadly for Tam #6, the shares they purchased of Team #9 proved bad investment since Team #9 was assigned a C (a dividend multiplier of 0.5) for their debate. Hence the dividend John and Jill will receive is less than $1 for each bonus buck per share spent on Team #9 stock.

Their balance sheet after debates are graded will look like this:

Team #6 Opening Shares of Team #9 stock Received dividend from Total Net Worth
Members Balance Owned Team #9 stock
John 25.0 3 (1*.5)*3=1.5 26.5
Jill 27.5 2 (1*.5)*2=1 28.5

As one can see from the post-grade situation both investors benefited from their investment. Although John and Jill received different dividend on their stock, they were both better off (meaning their wealth increased) investing compared to keeping the bonus bucks for themselves. Conversely speaking keeping the bonus bucks would have yielded 0 ROI (or no growth in their wealth) while by engaging in market activities they both realized an ROI greater than 1 for every 1 bonus buck they subjected to a market risk.

How does “The Game” bring the bonus bucks system of reward to a higher level of competition? Can we reward strategic thinking?

The system of bonus bucks does reward performance. However the total wealth of our class economy is limited by the money supply. That is the total number of bonus bucks injected into the economy by Prof. Sorensen in exchange of class participation. I see this static nature of our economy as a major deficiency resembling a zero sum game. The missing element here is the ability of anyone to engage in value adding activities. The introduction of investment concepts tied to one’s self-interest, I believe, is a major instrument of leveraging risk as a rearguard for balancing supply and demand while opening the door for value adding activities. Tying all this to academic performance absolves the game creator from any suspicion of market manipulation and fraud. Moreover “The Game” provides an important vehicle for creation of wealth, one which is unavailable in the bonus buck system of payment-for-service. The Game also provides another significant vehicle for creation of wealth: the consequences (be it positive or negative) of a debate team’s performance are no longer limited to that team’s members. The entire class now has the opportunity (a choice, not a requirement) to be subjected to the outcome of how other teams are doing via the instrument of stock ownership.

As each team presents their product the potential investors will have first hand opportunity to exercise their judgment and forecast each team’s performance. However if they can also purchase stock for that team a potential investor can now benefit from one’s comparative perception about the final outcome of the debates.

What makes this arrangement unique is that each investor is also an owner of a competitive firm – a firm in the same industry and with comparable resources. The ownership in a competitive firm is what places our potential investors into the unique situation of having indirect influence on the overall market. That influence is exerted by one’s control over one’s own firm, their performance, ideas and willingness to do better than the rest – a classic manifestation of competition. Due to the relativity of the market the end result of this game will be a higher quality product compared to a fee-for-service reward system.

Raise O'windy farmer at the new order of Communism

Once upon a time the communists came and took my grandstander's land. And vast land it was - thousands of hectares of farming lands in the southern part of the country. From Karnobat hills all the way to Bourgass suburbs.

Then many years later the Communists' power diminished and farmers began to repatriate their lands. Due to the lack of public records the repatriation process had been reduced to simply showing up with a surveyor and one whiteness at the court house and obtaining a deed. So my uncle Jelko beat my dad to the court house and obtained a deed over most of my grandfather's land. Whatever was left, which was a fraction of the original parcels went to my father. My father had repeatedly approached uncle Jelko with a request to evenly divide the original land but Jelko had always refused.

You see now that my success of being so effective in protecting myself from the Slavic culture is actually the product of eastern Europeans themselves. I have used the virus against the disease much like vaccine is used to inoculate one against an infection.

If I was never exposed to the disease of being Bulgarian I would have never found a way to beat it. History had given me the gift of wisdom which very few can appreciate. My family disgusting crap from the past is exactly what saves me from following in their footsteps. Of course my shit brother is not just following their footsteps. He is diving head first into each trench of disgusting penny pinching sludge which dilutes the difference between man and animal.

At the end of the day this is just unnecessary aggravation for me. None of the material stuff makes any difference to me because of the extraordinary economic spread in scale between life there and life at home. While I want my rents, one must also ask oneself the question of whether engaging in this dispute actually perpetuates the same culture I so detest. I can easily sign off everything to someone else and my eye would not even blink. The only thing that will haunt me is the taste of garbage in my mouth left over from this horrendous decay of humanity.

Why do people drive like maniacs in Eastern Europe?

Eastern Europe is a peculiar place. The humans seem to exhibit the primary signs of intelligence when it comes to sciences but miserably fail at basic understanding of economics and market order.

However the issue here their driving habits. An unexpected family circumstances made it necessary for me to visit Bulgaria and I was subjected to the most horrifying experience of having to travel by car. People are simply insane on the roads. The road system itself sucks donkey ass and the inventory of available vehicles sucks double so you have the combination of bad cars driven on bad roads by people who should be in straight jacket. Add the complete lack of decent trauma health care (you know, in case you get into a wreck and you hope to survive) and you are basically a moving target trying to stay alive. But why is that? What compels these seemingly intelligent beings to ignore the above-normal risks of even being on the roads and add a personal touch of increasing those risks by practicing suicidal driving culture?

Its the male nature I claim! Every one of us is programmed to compete and seek objectives which are difficult to achieve because we all know that the easy things to get are usually less valuable than the difficult ones. The problem with Bulgarian man is that they are perpetually repressed in every aspect of their lives except when they hit the road. Getting behind the wheel is the only way to express free will. One which is disjointed from their screaming wives; governmental oversight and control; purchasing power parity deficiency and cultural obligations to siblings.

Run those red lights you mighty beasts of testosterone. If it wasn't for the highways you might as well loose those testicles!

I was supposed to be a violinist

I was supposed to be a violinist. That’s right, no shit. I started playing violin at the age of 7 and played up until I was 19 or so. I can speak in great lengths about parental oppression, the traditional pressure to follow in the footsteps of one’s parents but I now realize something profound about their determination to make me a musician: thank you.

Every line of code I wrote as a teenager was a weapon against the stupid violin. Every dollar made from IT projects was a case of ammo. If it wasn’t for the violin I am now convinced I would have been submerged in mediocrity, cranked up few babies and enjoying a dead-end job. May be the occasional Costco flat screen TV (Not a Sony brand) and used Honda would shine as a beacon of success amongst a list of pathetic milestones of lifetime achievement. In other words tick tack. You get the rest! Oh wait, may be spirituality would have absorbed my genetically embedded desire for self-efficacy. All that is easy in the world would be on my list of worship.

Instead the violin was the enemy and my job as a general was to produce the best possible defiance that will not only keep the attacks at bay but rather incinerate the enemy by superior evidence of better life not in exchange of random dispensation of wealth (such as winning the lottery) but as a deliberate effort for superior application of one’s ability. Sticking it to the musicians was not a worthy goal. Showing superior economic status in exchange for fraction of the effort, now that is something else ladies and gentlemen. I recall the time when I came home with a grocery store bag full of cash which amounted to more than my father’s monthly salary – all in exchange of few days of networking consulting for a local looser newspaper desperate enough to seek technological competitive advantage over its rivals.

However this post is not about my career as violinist. It is about my intolerance towards mediocrity. I just spent an hour discussing career choices and other classic time killers with a friend of mine and I am angry at the level of acceptance most people have towards their professional sacrifices and the opportunity cost at which said sacrifices come. Let alone the depth of choices people make about their careers. I recall a Japanese wisdom: choose to do what you love and you shell never work a day in your life. Well said!

Living at home has a negative NPV

Well my suspicion has been validated by number of Jewish friends: Living at home has a negative NPV. Sorry FOBs, your Costco conquests are falling short: you got beat to the bunch in cheapness by a non-Asian race. This is a disgrace for all the cash mattresses and penny jars scattered around the Sunset neighborhoods. All the “free stuff” pick-ups from sidewalks and night raids of the city dump.

For every year of living at home with parents after the age of 21 you forgo five thousand dollars in annual future earnings. So for example if you live at home until you are 30 you have given up 9*5= $45,000 of potential annual salary. That means the moment you finally make that huge leap of faith to move out, likely when you were forced into marriage with a non-English speaker, you are facing life where your annual salary will never exceed 40-50k per year.

Now let’s do the math. Your primary argument is that you live at home so that you don’t have to pay rent but really the true reason is that you have been told you are a looser so many times by your parents that group harmony requires you to believe them and then the story is simple: how could a looser afford an apartment? But let’s get back to the green shall we? You figured $1,500 per month for 9 years is not a bad savings right? That’s a whole $18,000 per year isn’t it – more than 20 cheap flat screen Costco no-brand name flat screen TVs right? Well the problem is that in exchange of those TVs you are prohibited from making decent living until the rest of your days. Now what’s more important? You saving $18k per year for 9 years or forgoing $5k per year for the reset of your life?

The Jewish people know the answer: I will show you the finger today and make $120 per year for the next 40 years and you can take your group harmony you know where? Good work guys. I admire your IQ!

What Urban Dictionary would NOT publish

In the contemporary subculture of trailer park ghetto admirers FOB has crystallized as simplistic slang for what is already described in the other posts. However reducing FOB to primitive instrument of insult is like cracking nuts with a microscope. There is so much more than just the derogatory form of this beautiful word. First a curious mind must describe the behavioral properties of what FOB is and does, then one must ask the deeper questions of cause and affect? Did FOB became the masterpiece of sadistic Asian parenting practices or is there an even deeper, genetically rooted cause for the complete dysfunction of FOBs as normal beings. Yet the answers could lurk on the soil of primitive instincts of jealousy which would answer the fundamental question of why FOB’s parents are so determined to eff-up their kids in such a profound way as to never fear competition from their own?

Clearly seeking a single answer in itself would reduce this discussion to a capacity of how the FOB would approach the challenge hence one must reason at a cognitive level of at least that unattainable to the FOB’s mind.

Another school of though would argue that FOB is the victim of systematic massacre of self esteem; confidence and ability to practice cognitive reasoning for the purpose of some unknown goal. The outcome of such strategy had produced the self-image of weakness and total inability to achieve self-efficacy: the top phase of one’s personal development based on Maslow’s pyramid.

No one is to say what that dark goal could be but one should extrapolate its enormous significance based upon the extend to which FOBs are being subjected to abused (both physically and mentally) by their siblings. I personally favor the victim theory due to my personal exposure to FOB and the tragedy witnessed first hand that creates a sad proximity to the lowest forms of human decay known to mankind: genocide; hate and racism. I am very explicit in NOT comparing FOB’s parents to the animal kingdom because of Nietzsche’s definition which states that the animals are NOT capable of evil, only humans are (Essays on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals): the realization of one’s ability to inflict pain upon another, sadly, is a human property. What a sad undeserved credit to those torturers of the future FOB.

Nevertheless we witness rare cases of rebellion against the genocide of one’s sacred values committed daily by FOB’s parents. Instead of seeking compelling ways to encourage FOB to raise against the repressor we as highly evolved jurisprudence society must alleviate FOB by judicial leniency and compassion. A quick review of French law reveals an interesting interpretation of western punitive penalty code: crime of passion is widely tolerated as exception from the otherwise strict corrective penalties imposed for traditional felonies. Whether we agree with French lawmakers or not, there is something to be said about our own exceptions such as revenge justified leniency and the traditional all-American principle of fairness: eye for an eye. If we stand behind our tradition then eye for an eye it is: create a lenient track record of case law which frees the FOB from the shackles of double repression: one from their parents and another by our judiciary which penalizes one’s quest for emotional and physical freedom.

Good work to you Sir!

I was recently blown away by things that normally initiate the reaction of respect within my very proprietary framework of interpersonal values: the product of extraordinary expertise that comes as a result of effort; superior IQ but above all – commitment to excellence. A college budy of mine had managed to learn Japanese and Korean. Make no mistake, this is not some BS scam which is easy to achieve. The guys is capable of conversing at moderately sophisticated level using both languages. Again I must emphasize that we are not talking about few memorized pickup lines traditionally available as the sole instrument to those Asian-fetished perverted older gentlemen. No surrey Bob, this guy knows his stuff and it did not come easy. It came in exchange of time and mental energy.

Moving on, he approaches a hot Japanese coed studying in our 24 hours library and in about 6 minutes he gets a number. That in itself is immaterial without a careful analysis of the quality of said female. So again we are talking classy, conservative and soon to be well educated traditional Japanese-American target. Make no mistake; this is not some easy Daly City trash: no tats, no piercings, no highlights. The female is so blown away that one can clearly see that rare expression which communicates total obedience and desire to be controlled, told what to do as if the compliance it itself is a source of satisfaction. Talk about the ultimate Shmoo (well defined in Lucky Number Slevin) except this time the Shmoo is a consenting adult female completely free of any chemicals (yes I must make it clear that the usual instruments of the player-type do not apply here. This is the real thing gentlemen).

After admiring my friend I had to put by MBA hat and revisit the effort to product ratio. The objective of such analysis is quite pragmatic. It attempts to answer a fundamental question in business: could the same gain be achieved at a lesser cost?

Sadly the answer is yes. I am not being sarcastic at all. I wished the answer is yes because that will settle forever a question of credibility and meritorious rewards. That means the losers are losers and winners are winners. More precisely a winner can always be a loser but not vice versa.

However the same product can be achieved in exchange of much lesser opportunity cost. What makes this a depressing discussion is that the lesser cost I speak of is also available to the losers which makes the distinction between the two groups of humans fuzzy rather than a concrete divide – one which I would like to have seen in a perfect world.

A resume in juvi, few ghetto tattoos and some facial hair will likely produce the same reaction in said Asian female. The latter appeals to the female’s curiosity and rebellion needs: one which could not be addressed by intellectual superiority and traditional values. Now I ask you all enlightened man out there, why is that? Why a looser has access to the same weapons that highly intellectual, effort driven committed gentlemen has? What is wrong with the world in this picture?

If it’s all the same then we should all go out and do drugs – it is a million times easier compared to NOT doing any!

What is it about human decay that draws females? Take the best fitness for baby production argument. Well constructed scientifically based rational view based upon genetically programmed safeguards against self-termination of the species. As the sperm carrier appears more “manly” the female is chemically compelled to mate. The product then is more likely to survive compared to the product towards which a geek will contribute. It may work for pre-historic times but gee, it has been ten thousand years since then. This programming is not only obsolete, it now has a reverse benefits. The product of the “manly” types is far inferior compared to the baby of those flagged as less-manly according to the pre-historic criteria. The game had changed. It is no longer matter of physiological survival but rather a degree of social integration and intellectual competition. If once a muscle was needed in order to smash a tiger’s head with a rock, today much different qualities guarantee success.

There is good news in all this: the pre-historic female programming will proliferate the growth of ghetto types which makes it easier for those with superior intellect to compete in the world. Imagine if everyone was smart? That would be a disaster. However thanks to females seeking looser-types, producing looser offspring and proliferating the value of mankind’s decay, a small group of intellectual oligarchy can strive safely surrounded by DJs, mall security guards, guests of the penal system, high school drop outs and many more.

Thank you ah mighty for designing the female kind in such mysterious ways. Without this careful crafting the planet would have been a much more difficult place to excel than it is today!