Speculation on the man/woman, nature/nurture debate from an entirely unqualified man.

Speculation on the man/woman, nature/nurture debate from an entirely unqualified man.

Men are simple.  To fulfill our role in the propagation of the species, we were required to hunt, fight, and fuck.  Dangerous and stressful sometimes, but simple. 

Women are complex.  They had to manage as many as a half dozen of the most vulnerable offspring in nature.  They confronted a profoundly more complicated task and evolved the brain necessary to cope with it.

Men were designed for immediate physical action.  Women had to be problem solvers.  One is not better than the other.  Each evolved to address different, essential functions.

Being simple, selfish creatures, men would not engage in reproduction deliberately.  If men thought about the consequences of sex (providing for a family), and had a choice about our sexual behavior, the species would die out.  Evolution demands that men have an irrational sex drive deliberately designed to forestall thinking about consequences.

Physicality was important during the twentieth century.  Men went to war and worked in factories.  Spreading peace, automation, and globalization have eroded those roles.  The escalating complexity of our society requires problem solvers.

Women now dominate universities.  The men are a sorry lot of video gamers. 

The marijuana investment bubble

Marijuana and the old law

When considering new regulations to govern the marijuana market, little heed has been paid to the fact that the existing enforcement effort doesn’t have the slightest impact on the broad pot smoking public and never has.  During the fifty years that I have been a daily marijuana smoker inflation adjusted prices are down by half, quality has improved dramatically, and any high school student in the country can score a joint at lunch.  The law’s only effect has been to create criminals, pad police budgets, enrich lawyers, and senselessly ruin tens of thousands of lives.

On the upside, given the abject failure of the existing law to have even the most trivial impact on pot smokers, there is no reason to assume that the new law will increase the number of people driving while high.  Neither of the people who want to smoke pot but don’t because of the law are the sort to drive irresponsibly.  The concern about stoned driving comes from the same people who deemed OxyContin or tackle football in junior high coached by priests safe. 

Marijuana and the new law

The government cannot fix price or control the production of marijuana because it cannot restrict new entrants.  A 100 plant grow-op producing three twenty-five kilo harvests of top quality weed annually can be set up in a big suburban basement in less than a month for $25,000.  The cost of entry to the market is so low that marijuana can’t be a regulated oligopoly.

Statscan discovered that the current street price for good pot is $7.65/g compared to the $10 the finance ministers agreed on.  The price of pot is like a soufflé.  It is kept high by the heat of police risk. That price impact is the only actual consequence of the current marijuana law.  Premium BC greenhouse weed costs $1/g to grow.  The existing industry produces 700 tons a year according to the Globe (not counting the substantial export market).  Why should they quit unless there is a massive increase in enforcement budgets to protect investors?  Without such an increase, competition means pot price will fall like a cold soufflé.

Existing unlicensed growers can cut prices well below what licensed producers (LPs) can match and use the established, unregulated distribution system to serve the largest part of the market, the young, who have no reason to start obeying a law teens have been ignoring for decades.  The LPs’ only hope to play a role in the market is to be competitive on the basis of price, quality, and convenience.  This will savage their margins.  The wonder of free markets.

Price is the least of the LP’s worries.  The weed offered by the licensed producers is dreadful crud.  Unregulated marijuana is not only cheaper, it is much, much better.

The only way straight investors can make a buck in this market is a hedge fund shorting marijuana stocks.

Marijuana is not a new industry

The law is not creating a new industry.  It is attempting a hostile take-over of an existing industry that may be as big as softwood lumber (according to a 2004 Fraser Institute report (https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/MarijuanaGrowthinBC.pdf).  BC marijuana dwarfs the economic impact of BC fruit.  The government is offering no compensation to investors in the existing production and distribution infrastructure and does not appear to grasp the massive cost, quality, and goodwill advantages of the incumbent industry.

During the 1980s Cannabis indicus seeds transformed the Canadian marijuana market.  Cannabis sativa is a tropical plant that flourishes best in Jamaica or Columbia.  Cannabis indicus is Old World pot from Afghanistan and Nepal where the climate is more Canadian and less Caribbean.  After marijuana crossed $1,000 / lb. for Canadian home grown (Cannabis indicus based, not the crud from old Mexican sativa seeds), a lot of investment and talent was attracted to the business.

Nobody imports pot anymore.  Fifty years later, the “commercial Mexican” of my youth ($25 / oz. in 1968) is no longer available in Canada.  Grow-op knowledge and technology has improved so much that there is no longer a market for even high end domestic outdoor pot.  These days, the best marijuana is the world is indoor pot grown in Canada.  Canada is a major exporter of pot to the U.S. market (although the gravy days are over as legalization in many states erodes the extravagant prices Canadian quality marijuana once commanded).

The licensed producers are selling the cannabis equivalent of Niagara box wine for ice wine prices.  The unregulated market is offering premium pot at 75% of the cost of the crud the LPs sell.  The Canadian pot market has been dominated for decades by the cannabis equivalent of good French wine.  Why would already satisfied consumers pay elite prices for lousy weed?

It is clear from reading the marijuana news in the Report on Business that the analysts, report writers, and investors don't smoke much pot.  Peak silly was achieved in a November ROB story suggesting Canopy Growth Corporation intends to export to Jamaica (I laughed uncontrollably for nearly a minute – best high ever from Tweed).  There was a great picture of a worker tending to pot plants in a haz-mat suit.  They are approaching investors with the premise that a Canadian in a plastic burka can sell Tweed weed to Rastafarians accustomed to premium ganja.  The Canopy product might be accepted in the Caribbean as compost but trying to sell it for recreation on the streets of Kingston will get you shot.

The new LPs will not be able to compete with the established industry which has no reason to surrender market share in a massive, lucrative business even if margins shrink a bit.  Investors in the “new” marijuana business may understand spread sheets, but they don’t understand the product, the customer, or the market.  They are going to get skinned and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving gang of parasites. 

The future of medical marijuana

Medical marijuana started as a ruse to evade a senseless law.  Over time the anecdotal folk medicine stories – appetite stimulation, nausea relief, epilepsy control, sleep aid – accumulated.  The hope of medical cannabis investors is not folk medicine but rather the potential to compete with Big Pharma for the anxiety market.  Skip the Prozac, Valium, or Xanax – smoke a joint.

The medical market (meaning access to health insurance plans) will take years of testing to be viable.  The recreational market is a fait accomplis.  The war on marijuana is over.  The hippies won.  Deal with it.

Marijuana - Waiting for the law

A Globe editorial said the recreational smoker just “has to wait” (March 13).  Why should we kneel to an absurd and ineffective law while those that gave us OxyContin whine about safety and conspire to take the money?  Dream on.  How will the overburdened criminal justice system cope as a flood of new demands for a jury trial swamp the courts?

In a just world, they would simply admit that the marijuana laws were an idiotic mistake in the first place.  The problem demonstrated by the residential schools financial settlement, is that when government admits that people were grievously harmed by its own nitwit policies, the thousands who suffered from that daft mistake will demand compensation.  Now the gay community is following the aboriginals into court for redress of gross injustice. 

The law ruined tens of thousands of lives and did much more damage than the drugs.  Compensation for that damage is required.

Letter to Thomas Mulcair on NDP Energy Policy

 

 

The NDP has not even one tiny shred of credibility left on the environment

I have had to leave the NDP after forty years because its advocacy of cheap energy is the worst possible environment policy.  Pollution and global warming are energy issues.  Making energy less expensive always leads to increased emissions.  

The core of an awful position

• Advocating cheap energy by removing the HST on fuel and electricity.
• Opposing any carbon tax.
• Rejecting Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard for cars (Honda and Toyota build fuel efficient cars in Ontario that could easily meet any sound CAFE standard but they are non-union.)

For the NDP to express concern about greenhouse emissions and oppose the tar sands development while promoting low energy price and slack automotive standards is disingenuous.

The Ontario NDP is even worse

The announcement last year by Andrea Horwath that an NDP government would turn back the restructuring of the electricity industry and effectively resurrect Ontario Hydro defines the gold standard for dumb.  They seem to have forgotten that the process of restructuring the electricity business was started in 1993 when the NDP appointed Maurice Strong to run Ontario Hydro. 

Under the ONDP government, Ontario Hydro was at first run by former Broadbent staffer Marc Ellison.  Their Demand Management effort was run by Bob Rae’s friend Norm Simon.  They offered coupons for cold-water Cheer and distributed low power light bulbs that burned out quickly.  It was a pathetic farce.

Social ownership may appeal to the left caucus but historically it has resulted in terrible energy policy.

The NDP position effectively advocates subsidies for the oil companies

The easiest way to increase sales of a product is to lower the price.  It’s easy, but it costs the company money.  NDP policy would increase sales for the oil companies by reducing the public share of the revenue from energy instead of the oil companies’ share.

Increased oil consumption leads to increased emissions, and inevitably to increased price.  Demand driven price increases will wipe out any fleeting benefit to the consumer from cutting the HST on fuel.   Increased demand will also promote tar sands development.

Demand driven price increases will provide substantial windfall profits for the owners of existing conventional oil reserves.  Big oil makes more, while the taxpayers get less.

Instead of subsidizing oil exploration and production, the NDP wants to subsidize consumption.  This alters the structure of oil industry subsidies without actually eliminating them.

The ONDP position effectively advocates corporate tax cuts

Electricity in Ontario is used mostly by the industrial and commercial sector.  Single family homes account for less than one quarter of electricity use.  In those homes, electricity is a small part of the household budget.

Cutting electricity prices is effectively a corporate tax cut in populist clothing.

If the NDP wants to subsidize business, it would be better for the environment for them to promote a straight forward corporate tax cut and not use electricity price as a disguise.

Can the NDP makes gains if the environment movement is openly hostile?

Having an argument with David Suzuki about the carbon tax during the BC election campaign was a gift to both Liberals and Greens.  It may have cost Carol James the election.  Jack Gibbons (Clean Air Alliance) has attacked the ONDP demand to exempt electricity from the HST.

How would labour react if the NDP suggested improving economic competitiveness with right-to-work legislation and corporate tax cuts instead of lower energy prices?  How would women react to abandoning pay equity and opposing abortion?

Advocating lower energy prices has the same impact on environmentalists.  You may argue that this is not reasonable or fair if the discussion interests you.  The facts on the ground will remain.

For those of us that see environment as the ballot question, the NDP has become the fourth choice (fifth in Quebec).

Entrepreneurs can do a lot of good for the environment using business approaches and proper price signals to improve the economic productivity of energy (and create a lot of jobs in the process).  For an ideologically obsessed NDP, the very idea that investors can efficiently perform a socially useful function is heresy.  For the Liberals it could be a cornerstone of their recovery.

If Harper offers CAFE (which costs Alberta nothing) and carbon tax (supported by the CD Howe Institute), both market friendly mechanisms, he would own the environment vote.  If the Conservatives ever figure that out, the environment vote could be the key to the urban ridings in Ontario and BC necessary to keep or expand their majority.

The environment vote is up for grabs

A lot of environmentalists (including me) abandoned the NDP for the Green Party.

In 2008 the Liberals agreed not to run a candidate against Elizabeth May, and adopted the “Green Shift” based on a carbon tax.  The Greens had forced carbon tax into the realm of credible public debate.  It’s the most important and useful thing the Greens have ever achieved.

Elizabeth May didn’t win a seat but the Green Party got 6.9% of the vote.  If one is primarily concerned about the environment as a political issue, the massive success of the 2008 campaign was undiminished because no Green members were elected.

For some Greens this substantial achievement was not enough.  The most talented organizers in the Party concluded that the best thing to be done for the environment is to elect ME.

Green politics shifted from talking about an issue to electing individuals.  The Greens now downplay the issue that made them relevant in the first place because they don’t want to be a single issue party.  The Greens don’t want to be an environment group.  They want to be the NDP without the unions.   The second half of “Vision Green” (available on the Greens national website) reads like a collection of resolution books from NDP youth conferences.

Green Party leadership became so pre-occupied with trying to be a grown-up political party addressing a broad range of issues that they took the environment vote for granted.  

And it left. 

In two elections in 2011, the Green Party was savagely beaten about the head, neck, and shoulders with a blunt instrument.

Vote share

Ontario Provincial 2007 – 8%

Federal 2008 – 6.9%

Federal 2011 – 3.9%

Ontario Provincial 2011 – 2.9 %

In percentage terms the national Green Party vote in the Federal election of 2011 declined (6.9 to 3.9), more than the Liberal vote (26.3 to 18.9) or the Bloc vote (10.0 to 6.1) compared to 2008.

The environment vote needs a home.

You can welcome it to the NDP or force it to the Liberals or even the Tories.

Restructuring in the Ontario Electricity Industry – 1989 - 2002

Why did Restructuring happen in the Ontario electricity business?

The trend that sees infrastructure monopolies such as highways, telephone systems, and gas pipelines, becoming common carrier, open access facilities, and not the delivery systems of a monopoly supplier has been ongoing for many years. 

It was only natural that this trend would be expressed in the electricity industry.  It is happening at an uneven pace throughout the world as different jurisdictions come to accept that past practice is not the best way to go forward.

Nuclear Power was more expensive than forecast

“Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter.”.

Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss, Chair, US Atomic Energy Commission, as reported in the NY Times, Sept. 17, 1954

Three Mile Island proved that nuclear power was safe for bystanders, but very dangerous for investors.  It may have been the worst nuclear accident to ever occur in the West, but nobody was hurt and there was no downstream radiation damage.  Under extreme and unpredicted stress, the containment held.

However, General Public Utilities Treasurer John Graham wrote in The Journal of Commercial Bank Lending, May 1980, ( in an article describing the re-financing of GPU after the TMI accident),

“The discussion of whether to recommend a moratorium on new nuclear plants in the Report by the President’s Commission on Three Mile Island is somewhat irrelevant.  I do not believe that there is a board of directors of an electric utility in the country which would now approve a nuclear plant as a new initiative.”.

A major revenue producing asset had become a major unfunded liability overnight.  Even if there were no casualties, no private sector utility could ever accept such a financial risk.

Across the U.S., nuclear stations faced huge cost over runs and long delays.  Utilities abandoned half finished nuclear facilities because of costs.  Performance targets were not met.  Maintenance costs were higher that expected.  Capacity factors were lower than expected.  Nuclear utilities came under financial pressure. 

In Ontario, the Darlington nuclear project had many delays. The cost of a new generating station is not reflected in the rate base until it is “commissioned”.  Before commissioning, interest on construction costs accumulates.  Delay adds to costs by increasing interest accumulated before start-up.  The longer it takes to build a station, the more it costs.  With a capital intensive technology with long lead times, such as nuclear power, this can be a lot of additional debt.

When the first Darlington unit was brought on line, important problems surfaced about rotor design (it cracked) and pump design (vibrations were shaking fuel bundles apart).  More delay, more costs.  For a brief period, concern was expressed inside Ontario Hydro that the entire project might have to be written off.

If there were any economies of scale in the modern electricity business, they have been overwhelmed by the long lead times and inflexible operations of the mega-projects. Forecasts of long term demand were unreliable.  This was a special problem for very large projects given the unpredictable construction times and costs.

History of Restructuring in Ontario

December 1989 - Ontario Hydro launched its 25-year Demand / Supply Plan (the DSP), to spend $60 billion, mostly on new nuclear plants.

January 1992 - Hydro announces the "Update" to the DSP - basically a repudiation of the original plan. 

February 1993 - the DSP is withdrawn from the Environmental Assessment Board. Hydro Chair Maurice Strong releases "Hydro 21", initiating the process of fundamental redesign of the Ontario electricity business.  The separation of generation from transmission is considered.

May 1996 - Report of the Macdonald Commission recommends a competitive electricity business.

August 1997 - Ontario Hydro releases the Andognini Report harshly critical of the management of Hydro's nuclear program. Hydro president Alan Kupcis resigns.  Hydro Chair William Farlinger criticizes Hydro’s “nuclear cult”.  Seven reactors (Pickering “A” and Bruce “A”) are scheduled to be "laid-up" so that Hydro can devote its resources to improve the operations of the remaining reactors. 

November 1997 - The provincial government releases "Directions for Change" that mandates the creation of "The Ontario Electricity Market Design Committee" to provide input for drafting new legislation.

Friday, February 13 1998 - First meeting of the MDC.  The MDC was a stakeholder body including representatives of generators (both Hydro and independents), transmitters, retail utilities (both large and small), consumers (large and small), marketers, gas suppliers, a coalition of environment groups, lawyers, and academics.  This pattern of stakeholder involvement has been a hallmark of the entire Ontario electricity design process.  The IMO Board and Technical panel (sets the Market Rules) are stakeholder bodies.

October 1998 – The Ontario government passes Bill 35 “The Energy Competition Act”.

April 1, 1999 – Launch of the successor companies to Ontario Hydro. Ontario Power Generation Incorporated (owns the generation assets – immediately dubbed OPiGI), Ontario Hydro Networks Corporation (owns the wires – quickly dubbed OiHNC – now called Hydro One), the Independent Market Operator – the IMO, Ontario Electricity Finance Corp (OEFC is a creature of the Ministry of Finance and manages the provincially guaranteed debt).

July 2000 – Government delays the start of the competitive market (original target - fall 2000).

May 2002 – The Market opens

December 2002 – The Market closes

The Ontario Electricity Business Before Restructuring

Ontario Hydro was a self-regulating Provincial Crown Corporation that had a legal monopoly on the generation and transmission of electricity in Ontario.  It was permitted to enter into Power Purchase Agreements with Non-Utility Generators (NUGs), but was under no obligation to do so. 

The physical system was controlled by the Clarkson Control System (now the Independent Electricity System Operator) west of Toronto.

The Local Distribution Companies (LDCs) served the end use customers.  The bulk of these were owned by the municipalities as Municipal Electrical Utilities (MEUs).  Ontario Hydro Retail served low density rural and remote communities

MEUs and industrial customers connected directly to the high voltage transmission system bought wholesale electricity from Ontario Hydro.  The MEUs retailed the electricity to consumers.  Ontario Hydro dictated both the wholesale and the retail price.  Hydro’s rate proposals could be reviewed by the Ontario Energy Board, but the OEB had no mandate other than to comment.

Ontario Hydro had very substantial debt resulting from its nuclear construction program.  That is perfectly normal for a large utility – Ontario Hydro was not exceptional.  In general, the greater a utility’s reliance on nuclear power, the greater the debt problems.  The MEUs were largely debt free at the start of restructuring.

The New Structure

On April 1, 1999, Ontario Hydro was split into “successor” companies.  The transmission system had always been the delivery asset of Ontario Hydro’s generation.  Its function was to serve the needs of the generators.  The single most import aspect of the new structure was the separation of the generation from the transmission and to open the possibility that other generators could use the transmission system to bring power to market.

Ontario Power Generation (briefly known as Ontario Power Generation Incorporated until people started calling it OPiGI) owns the generation assets of Ontario Hydro.  The transmission system is owned by Hydro One (once know as Ontario Hydro Networks, or Servco) that has a separate Board of Directors.

Both are wholly owned, provincial corporations, but they have been incorporated as businesses and given mandates to behave as if they were commercial companies.

What changed?

The Clarkson control centre became the Independent Market Operator (now the IESO).  It still controls the physical system. In addition, it administers the financial settlements system resembling a commodity or stock trading market that allows competitive electrical generation.

Under the monopoly, generation dispatch was set by Hydro’s maintenance outage schedule, internal management issues, and environmental limits.  When the market opens, dispatch order will be set by a bidding process (adjusted for transmission limits). 

The commodity price for wholesale electricity will be set in the market operated by the IMO.  To participate in the IMO controlled market, you need a licence from the OEB.  Participants can be generators, transmitters, distributors, or marketers.

The rates for transmission, distribution, and system operation will be expressed separately on customer bills and regulated by the OEB. 

The IMO Board of Directors represented the same stakeholders as the MDC.  The Market Rules for the IMO controlled market are set by the IMO Technical Panel (another stakeholder group).  Market Participant behaviour is supervised by the IMO Market Surveillance Panel.

There will also be retail competition.  Customers will be permitted to choose their electricity supplier.  Customers also have the right to ignore the market completely.  In this case their LDC will provide them with a standard offering.  This is the “smoothed spot pass through” – an average of the spot market price over a period of time. The LDC is also required to provide a billing and settlements system for the competitive retail market.

The LDCs are required to separate into non-competitive (regulated by the OEB – manages the wires, provides default supply, sends the bills) and competitive (un-regulated – provides fixed price contracts and other energy services such as hot water heaters and meters) companies. 

Finalizing LDC preparations for retail competition is an important factor in delaying the opening of the market.

Carbon tax v Cap and Trade

1 - Full cost accounting

Under current conditions, the price of energy reflects supply and demand, the costs of discovery, transportation, refining, and retail.

The use of fossil fuels has other costs to society (pollution, economic insecurity) that are not reflected in current markets - environmental externalities.

For markets to work properly, there must be an accurate and comprehensive accounting of all costs associated with any energy purchase choice.  It will be necessary to describe and monetize as many of the costs in energy consumption as possible in order to send appropriate signals to consumers.

Full Cost Accounting is a necessary development for long term energy policy.

Carbon Tax and Cap and Trade are the two most commonly cited mechanisms to effect Full Cost Accounting.

2 - Carbon tax

A carbon tax would be applied to fossil fuels at the point of sale like a sales tax.  The objective of a carbon tax is to use markets to reduce fuel consumption by increasing the price of the fuel.

2.1 - Pros

·         It’s fast.

·         It provides revenue for government.

2.2 - Cons

·         It’s arbitrary and political.

·         It’s regressive.

2.3 - Where does the money go?

·         Conservative - debt retirement

·         Liberal - reduce income tax - the Green Shift

·         NDP - social programs

·         Best environmental practice - invest in improving energy productivity

Establishing a carbon tax is a political process (rather than a market process) driven by experts and interest groups.  It is an imperfect but useful first step in attaching a market cost to emissions.  It is a stop gap pending the development of a market that can attach a tradable value to emissions credits.

Revenues from any carbon tax should be spent locally to improve the efficiency and productivity of the taxed fuel.

3 - Cap and Trade

Government sets an upper limit (Cap) on the total amount of permitted emissions.  The total allowances are divided among the emitters.  A firm that produces more emissions than are permitted must either make investments to reduce emissions or buy credits (Trading in permission to pollute beyond the cap).

A carbon credit can be created by a company reducing emissions below the cap.  The difference between the allowed emissions and the actual emissions becomes a “carbon credit” that can be sold to a company that must reduce emission but faces very high costs to do so.

3.1 - Example

Company “A” is required to reduce emissions to come under the cap.  It can make investments to reduce its own emissions, or it can buy someone else’s surplus reductions.  If company “B” can reduce emissions below the cap, at a lower cost than company “A” can, those surplus reductions can be sold by “B” to “A” at a profit. 

3.2 - Pros

A fully liquid market in carbon credits is the Holy Grail of energy efficiency and emissions management. 

Carbon credits become a product that can be manufactured by improving energy efficiency and sold at a profit.  Energy management is funded by institutional investors driven by profit, not by regulation and subsidy.  Huge amounts of investment capital will develop emissions reductions, least cost first.  Cap and Trade is less regressive than a carbon tax.

Cap and Trade is a great idea and it should be supported.  It is a longer term alternative.  As the market develops, it may replace a carbon tax.  A functional cap and trade market can bring vast amounts of money into improving energy efficiency and doing so at the lowest cost.

3.3 - Cons

For this to happen, there will need to be a credible regulator, a market with stable rules and clearing systems that will allow institutional investors to have confidence in the legitimacy and liquidity of carbon credits.  There has to be a way of certifying credits so they can be traded in multiple markets.  There has to be enforceable caps. Will the caps be by sector? by country?  Will industry be treated the same as consumers?  What will be eligible to be an internationally traded credit?

Since emissions know no borders, there must be an international market.  Who runs the central bank of carbon credits?  Who decides (and can make stick) the levels of the Cap?  Is this ultimately going to the UN?

A fully liquid global carbon credit market will take years to develop. 

The General Theory of Bureaucratic Relativity (GTBR):

“The Boss is always right.”

  

The HeisenBoss Uncertainty Corollary to the GTBR:

“The position of the Boss cannot be limited by published documents, past practice, or logic." 

Any such limit creates a possible conflict with the GTBR.

This is not permitted (it’s like the lightspeed constant). 

Absent such limits, it is impossible to predict the position of the Boss in time or space”.

The importance of embracing HeisenBoss is in its impact on morale.  The consistent inability to correctly anticipate or make any sense of the position of the Boss might lead to frustration or a sense of inadequacy. 

With abject submission to HeisenBoss, the employee abandons all hope that the position of the Boss can ever make the slightest bit of sense. 

Predicting the position of the Boss is accepted as a game of chance not skill.

Once one recognizes that the position of the Boss is effectively random, it becomes possible to participate in a positive and effective way in “The Process” (best understood as competitive endurance trivia). 

One is fully protected from aggravation and frustration.

One simply no longer cares.

 

HeisenBoss may be restated as,

"Don't worry.  Be happy." 

If you don't understand, it’s not your fault. 

It's impossible by definition. 

Understanding is not required - only obedience.