Matt Taibbi Exposes The Great College Loan Swindle

Authored by Matt Taibbi via RollingStone.com,

How universities, banks and the government turned student debt into America"s next financial black hole...

On a wind-swept, frigid night in February 2009, a 37-year-old schoolteacher named Scott Nailor parked his rusted "92 Toyota Tercel in the parking lot of a Fireside Inn in Auburn, Maine. He picked this spot to have a final reckoning with himself. He was going to end his life.

Beaten down after more than a decade of struggle with student debt, after years of taking false doors and slipping into various puddles of bureaucratic quicksand, he was giving up the fight. "This is it, I"m done," he remembers thinking. "I sat there and just sort of felt like I"m going to take my life. I"m going to find a way to park this car in the garage, with it running or whatever."

Nailor"s problems began at 19 years old, when he borrowed for tuition so that he could pursue a bachelor"s degree at the University of Southern Maine. He graduated summa cum laude four years later and immediately got a job in his field, as an English teacher.

But he graduated with $35,000 in debt, a big hill to climb on a part-time teacher"s $18,000 salary. He struggled with payments, and he and his wife then consolidated their student debt, which soon totaled more than $50,000. They declared bankruptcy and defaulted on the loans. From there he found himself in a loan "rehabilitation" program that added to his overall balance. "That"s when the noose began to tighten," he says.

The collectors called day and night, at work and at home. "In the middle of class too, while I was teaching," he says. He ended up in another rehabilitation program that put him on a road toward an essentially endless cycle of rising payments. Today, he pays $471 a month toward "rehabilitation," and, like countless other borrowers, he pays nothing at all toward his real debt, which he now calculates would cost more than $100,000 to extinguish. "Not one dollar of it goes to principal," says Nailor. "I will never be able to pay it off. My only hope to escape from this crushing debt is to die."

After repeated phone calls with lending agencies about his ever-rising interest payments, Nailor now believes things will only get worse with time. "At this rate, I may easily break $1 million in debt before I retire from teaching," he says.

Nailor had more than once reached the stage in his thoughts where he was thinking about how to physically pull off his suicide. "I"d been there before, that just was the worst of it," he says. "It scared me, bad."

He had a young son and a younger daughter, but Nailor had been so broken by the experience of financial failure that he managed to convince himself they would be better off without him. What saved him is that he called his wife to say goodbye. "I don"t know why I called my wife. I"m glad I did," he says. "I just wanted her or someone to tell me to pick it up, keep fighting, it"s going to be all right. And she did."

From that moment, Nailor managed to focus on his family. Still, the core problem – the spiraling debt that has taken over his life, as it has for millions of other Americans – remains.

Horror stories about student debt are nothing new. But this school year marks a considerable worsening of a tale that ought to have been a national emergency years ago. The government in charge of regulating this mess is now filled with predatory monsters who have extensive ties to the exploitative for-profit education industry – from Donald Trump himself to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who sets much of the federal loan policy, to Julian Schmoke, onetime dean of the infamous DeVry University, whom Trump appointed to police fraud in education.

Americans don"t understand the student-loan crisis because they"ve been trained to view the issue in terms of a series of separate, unrelated problems.

They will read in one place that as of the summer of 2017, a record 8.5 million Americans are in default on their student debt, with about $1.3 trillion in loans still outstanding.

In another place, voters will read that the cost of higher education is skyrocketing, soaring in a seemingly market-defying arc that for nearly a decade now has run almost double the rate of inflation. Tuition for a halfway decent school now frequently surpasses $50,000 a year. How, the average newsreader wonders, can any child not born in a yacht afford to go to school these days?

In a third place, that same reader will see some heartless monster, usually a Republican, threatening to cut federal student lending. The current bogeyman is Trump, who is threatening to slash the Pell Grant program by $3.9 billion, which would seem to put higher education even further out of reach for poor and middle-income families. This too seems appalling, and triggers a different kind of response, encouraging progressive voters to lobby for increased availability for educational lending.

But the separateness of these stories clouds the unifying issue underneath: The education industry as a whole is a con. In fact, since the mortgage business blew up in 2008, education and student debt is probably our reigning unexposed nation-wide scam.

It"s a multiparty affair, what shakedown artists call a "big store scheme," like in the movie The Sting: a complex deception requiring a big cast to string the mark along every step of the way. In higher education, every party you meet, from the moment you first set foot on campus, is in on the game.

America as a country has evolved in recent decades into a confederacy of widescale industrial scams. The biggest slices of our economic pie – sectors like health care, military production, banking, even commercial and residential real estate – have become crude income-redistribution schemes, often untethered from the market by subsidies or bailouts, with the richest companies benefiting from gamed or denuded regulatory systems that make profits almost as assured as taxes. Guaranteed-profit scams – that"s the last thing America makes with any level of consistent competence. In that light, Trump, among other things, the former head of a schlock diploma mill called Trump University, is a perfect president for these times. He"s the scammer-in-chief in the Great American Ripoff Age, a time in which fleecing students is one of our signature achievements.

It starts with the sales pitch colleges make to kids. The thrust of it is usually that people who go to college make lots more money than the unfortunate dunces who don"t. "A bachelor"s degree is worth $2.8 million on average over a lifetime" is how Georgetown University put it. The Census Bureau tells us similarly that a master"s degree is worth on average about $1.3 million more than a high school diploma.

But these stats say more about the increasing uselessness of a high school degree than they do about the value of a college diploma. Moreover, since virtually everyone at the very highest strata of society has a college degree, the stats are skewed by a handful of financial titans. A college degree has become a minimal status marker as much as anything else. "I"m sure people who take polo lessons or sailing lessons earn a lot more on average too," says Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice, which advocates for debt forgiveness and other reforms. "Does that mean you should send your kids to sailing school?"

But the pitch works on everyone these days, especially since good jobs for Trump"s beloved "poorly educated" are scarce to nonexistent. Going to college doesn"t guarantee a good job, far from it, but the data show that not going dooms most young people to an increasingly shallow pool of the very crappiest, lowest-paying jobs. There"s a lot of stick, but not much carrot, in the education game.

It"s a vicious cycle. Since everyone feels obligated to go to college, most everyone who can go, does, creating a glut of graduates. And as that glut of degree recipients grows, the squeeze on the un-degreed grows tighter, increasing further that original negative incentive: Don"t go to college, and you"ll be standing on soup lines by age 25.

With that inducement in place, colleges can charge almost any amount, and kids will pay – so long as they can get the money. And here we run into problem number two: It"s too easy to find that money.

Parents, not wanting their kids to fall behind, will pay every dollar they have. But if they don"t have the cash, there is a virtually unlimited amount of credit available to young people. Proposed cuts to Pell Grants aside, the landscape is filled with public and private lending, and students gobble it up. Kids who walk into financial-aid offices are often not told what signing their names on the various aid forms will mean down the line. A lot of kids don"t even understand the concept of interest or amortization tables – they think if they"re borrowing $8,000, they"re paying back $8,000.

Nailor certainly was unaware of what he was getting into when he was 19. "I had no idea [about interest]," he says. "I just remember thinking, "I don"t have to worry about it right now. I want to go to school." " He pauses in disgust. "It"s unsettling to remember how it was like, "Here, just sign this and you"re all set." I wish I could take the time machine back and slap myself in the face."

The average amount of debt for a student leaving school is skyrocketing even faster than the rate of tuition increase.

In 2016, for instance, the average amount of debt for an exiting college graduate was a staggering $37,172. That"s a rise of six percent over just the previous year. With the average undergraduate interest rate at about 3.7 percent, the interest alone costs around $115 per month, meaning anyone who can"t afford to pay into the principal faces the prospect of $69,000 in payments over 50 years.

So here"s the con so far.

You must go to college because you"re screwed if you don"t.

 

Costs are outrageously high, but you pay them because you have to, and because the system makes it easy to borrow massive amounts of money.

 

The third part of the con is the worst: You can"t get out of the debt.

Since government lenders in particular have virtually unlimited power to collect on student debt – preying on everything from salary to income-tax returns – even running is not an option. And since most young people find themselves unable to make their full payments early on, they often find themselves perpetually paying down interest only, never touching the principal. Our billionaire president can declare bankruptcy four times, but students are the one class of citizen that may not do it even once.

October 2017 was supposed to represent the first glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel. This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, one of the few avenues for wiping out student debt. The idea, launched by George W. Bush, was pretty simple: Students could pledge to work 10 years for the government or a nonprofit and have their debt forgiven. In order to qualify, borrowers had to make payments for 10 years using a complex formula. This month, then, was to start the first mass wipeouts of debt in the history of American student lending. But more than half of the 700,000 enrollees have already been expunged from the program for, among other things, failing to certify their incomes on time, one of many bureaucratic tricks employed to limit forgiveness eligibility. To date, fewer than 500 participants are scheduled to receive loan forgiveness in this first round.

Moreover, Trump has called for the program"s elimination by 2018, meaning that any relief that begins this month is likely only temporary. The only thing that is guaranteed to remain real for the immediate future are the massive profits being generated on the backs of young people, who before long become old people who, all too often, remain ensnared until their last days in one of the country"s most brilliant and devious moneymaking schemes.

Everybody wins in this madness, except students. Even though many of the loans are originated by the state, most of them are serviced by private or quasi-private companies like Navient – which until 2014 was the student-loan arm of Sallie Mae – or Nelnet, companies that reported a combined profit of around $1 billion last year (the U.S. government made a profit of $1.6 billion in 2016!). Debt-collector companies like Performant (which generated $141.4 million in revenues; the family of Betsy DeVos is a major investor), and most particularly the colleges and universities, get to prey on the desperation and terror of parents and young people, and in the process rake in vast sums virtually without fear of market consequence.

About that: Universities, especially public institutions, have successfully defended rising tuition in recent years by blaming the hikes on reduced support from states. But this explanation was blown to bits in large part due to a bizarre slip-up in the middle of a controversy over state support of the University of Wisconsin system a few years ago.

In that incident, UW raised tuition by 5.5 percent six years in a row after 2007. The school blamed stresses from the financial crisis and decreased state aid. But when pressed during a state committee hearing in 2013 about the university"s finances, UW system president Kevin Reilly admitted they held $648 million in reserve, including $414 million in tuition payments. This was excess hidey-hole cash the school was sitting on, separate and distinct from, say, an endowment fund.

After the university was showered with criticism for hoarding cash at a time when it was gouging students with huge price increases every year, the school responded by saying, essentially, it only did what all the other kids were doing. UW released data showing that other major state-school systems across the country were similarly stashing huge amounts of cash. While Wisconsin"s surplus was only 25 percent of its operating budget, for instance, Minnesota"s was 29 percent, and Illinois maintained a whopping 34 percent reserve.

When Collinge, of Student Loan Justice, looked into it, he found that the phenomenon wasn"t confined to state schools. Private schools, too, have been hoarding cash even as they plead poverty and jack up tuition fees. "They"re all doing it," he says.

While universities sit on their stockpiles of cash and the loan industry generates record profits, the pain of living in debilitating debt for many lasts into retirement. Take Veronica Martish. She"s a 68-year-old veteran, having served in the armed forces in the Vietnam era. She"s also a grandmother who"s never been in trouble and consid?ers herself a patriot. "The thing is, I tried to do everything right in my life," she says. "But this ruined my life."

This is an $8,000 student loan she took out in 1989, through Sallie Mae. She borrowed the money so she could take courses at Quinebaug Valley Community College in Connecticut. Five years later, after deaths in her family, she fell behind on her payments and entered a loan-rehabilitation program. "That"s when my nightmare began," she says.

In rehabilitation, Martish"s $8,000 loan, with fees and interest, ballooned into a $27,000 debt, which she has been carrying ever since. She says she"s paid more than $63,000 to date and is nowhere near discharging the principal. "By the time I die," she says, "I will probably pay more than $200,000 toward an $8,000 loan." She pauses. "It"s a scam, you see. Nothing ever comes off the loan. It"s all interest and fees. And they chase you until you"re old, like me. They never stop. Ever."

And that"s the other thing about lending to students: It"s the safest grift around.

There"s probably no better symbol of the bankruptcy of the education industry than Trump University. The half-literate president"s effort at higher learning drew in suckers with pathetic promises of great real-estate insights (for instance, that Trump "hand-picked" the instructors) and then charged them truckfuls of cash for get-rich-quick tutorials that students and faculty later described as "almost completely worthless" and a "total lie." That Trump got to settle a lawsuit on this matter for $25 million and still managed to be elected president is, ironically, a remarkable testament to the failure of our education system. About the only example that might be worse is DeVry University, which told students that 90 percent of graduates seeking jobs found them in their fields within six months of graduation. The FTC found those claims "false and unsubstantiated," and ordered $100 million in refunds and debt relief, but that was in 2016 – before Trump put DeVry chief Schmoke, of all people, in charge of rooting out education fraud. Like a lot of things connected to politics lately, it would be funny if it weren"t somehow actually happening.?"Yeah, it"s the fox guarding the henhouse," says Collinge. "You could probably find a worse analogy."

But the real problem with the student-loan story is that it"s so poorly understood by people not living the nightmare. There"s so much propaganda that blames the borrowers for taking on the debt in the first place that there"s often little sympathy for people in hopeless situations. To make matters worse, band-aid programs that supposedly offer help hypnotize the public into thinking there are ways out, when the "help" is usually just another trick to add to the balance.

"That"s part of the problem with the narrative," says Nailor, the schoolteacher. "People think that there"s help, so what are you complaining about? All you got to do is apply for help."

But the help, he says, coming from a for-profit predatory system, often just makes things worse. "It did for me," he says. "It does for a lot of people."

How The Elite Dominate The World – Part 5: The Endgame Is Complete And Utter Global Domination

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Do you want your children and grandchildren to grow up in a global socialist “utopia” in which everything about their lives is micromanaged by bureaucrats working for a worldwide system of government instituted by the elite?  To many of you this may sound like something out of a futuristic science fiction novel, but the truth is that this is exactly where the elite want to take us.  This is their endgame.

Their agenda has been quietly moving forward for decades, and if we don’t take a stand now, future generations of Americans could very well end up living in a dystopian nightmare with none of the liberties or freedoms that we enjoy today.

Bill Clinton’s mentor at Georgetown University, Dr. Carroll Quigley, wrote about this network of elitists in a book entitled Tragedy and Hope…

In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960’s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments…my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known…because the American branch of this organisation (sometimes called the “Eastern Establishment”) has played a very significant role in the history of the United States in the last generation.

In other parts in this series, I have discussed the tools that the elite are using to achieve their goals.  In part I, I talked about how debt is used as a tool of enslavement, and in part II I explained how central banking is a system of financial control that literally dominates the entire planet (Part III and Part IV here)  Professor Quigley also mentioned this system of financial control in his book…

“The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.”

Today, a system of interlocking global treaties is slowly but surely merging us into a global economic system.  The World Trade Organization was formed on January 1, 1995, and 164 nations now belong to it.  And every time you hear of a new “free trade agreement” being signed, that is another step toward a one world economy.

Of course economics is just one element of their overall plan.  Ultimately the goal is to erode national sovereignty almost completely and to merge the nations of the world into a single unified system of global governance.

The United Nations is the apex of this planned structure, and the globalists are always looking for ways to transfer more power to this institution.  For example, that is what the Paris Climate Accord was all about.  Since the climate affects everyone, it gives the globalists a perfect excuse to argue that the world needs to “work together”.  The following comes from the official UN website…

To address climate change, countries adopted the Paris Agreement at the COP21 in Paris on 12 December 2015. The Agreement entered into force less than a year later. In the agreement, all countries agreed to work to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and given the grave risks, to strive for 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Implementation of the Paris Agreement is essential for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, and provides a roadmap for climate actions that will reduce emissions and build climate resilience.

“Protecting the environment” sounds like a reasonable goal, right?

Well, when you click on the link for the “Sustainable Development Goals”, it sends you to a website where you can read about the 17 pillars of the plan to “end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all” that were agreed to by all of the members of the UN in September 2015.

This plan is also known as “Agenda 2030”, and when you dig into the details of this plan you quickly realize that it is literally a blueprint for global government.

Sadly, most Americans don’t realize this, and neither do they understand that this has been the goal of the elite for a very long time.  For instance, during an address to the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1992, President George H.W. Bush made the following statement…

It is the sacred principles enshrined in the United Nations charter to which the American people will henceforth pledge their allegiance.

Say what?

Once you start looking into these things, you will see that the elite are very openly telling us what they intend to do.

One of my favorite examples of this phenomenon is a quote from David Rockefeller’s book entitled Memoirs…

Some even believe we are a part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty and I am proud of it.

As David Rockefeller openly admitted, they are “internationalists” that are intent on establishing a one world system.

Candidates for Congress are not supposed to talk about this stuff, but if I am elected I am promising to fight the globalists on every front.

We are literally in a battle for the future of our children and our grandchildren.  If the globalists have their way, American sovereignty will continue to erode and the United States will slowly but surely be merged into a one world system.

But that isn’t going to happen on our watch.  Those of us that love liberty and freedom are going to take this country back, and we will never stop fighting the insidious agenda of the globalists.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

RIP, Monty Hall: The Time Everyone "Corrected" The World's Smartest Woman

Monty Hall, the genial host and co-creator of “Let’s Make a Deal,” the game show on which contestants in outlandish costumes shriek and leap at the chance to see if they will win the big prize or the booby prize behind door No. 3, died at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Saturday. He was 96.

In memory of the great entertainer, we present:

The Time Everyone “Corrected” the World’s Smartest Woman

Authored by Zachart Crockett via Priceonomics.com,

By all accounts, Marilyn vos Savant was a child prodigy.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1946, the young savant quickly developed an aptitude for math and science. At age 10, she was given two intelligence tests -- the Stanford-Binet, and the Mega Test -- both of which placed her mental capacity at that of a 23-year-old. She went on to be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the “World’s Highest IQ,” and, as a result, gained international fame.

Despite her status as the "world’s smartest woman,” vos Savant maintained that attempts to measure intelligence were “useless,” and she rejected IQ tests as unreliable. In the mid-1980s, with free rein to choose a career path, she packed her bags and moved to New York City to be a writer.

Here, she caught a break: when Parade Magazine wrote a profile on her, readers responded with so many letters that the publication offered her a full-time job. Shortly thereafter, she established “Ask Marilyn,” a now-famous weekly column in which she answered (and continues to answer, to this day) a variety of academic questions and logic puzzles. It was in the body of one of these columns that vos Savant ignited one of the most heated statistical battles of the 21st century.

When vos Savant politely responded to a reader’s inquiry on the Monty Hall Problem, a then-relatively-unknown probability puzzle, she never could’ve imagined what would unfold: though her answer was correct, she received over 10,000 letters, many from noted scholars and Ph.Ds, informing her that she was a hare-brained idiot.

What ensued for vos Savant was a nightmarish journey, rife with name-calling, gender-based assumptions, and academic persecution.

The Monty Hall Problem: A Brief History

Imagine that you’re on a television game show and the host presents you with three closed doors. Behind one of them, sits a sparkling, brand-new Lincoln Continental; behind the other two, are smelly old goats. The host implores you to pick a door, and you select door #1. Then, the host, who is well-aware of what’s going on behind the scenes, opens door #3, revealing one of the goats.

“Now,” he says, turning toward you, “do you want to keep door #1, or do you want to switch to door #2?”

Statistically, which choice gets you the car: keeping your original door, or switching?

If you, like most people, posit that your odds are 50-50, you’re wrong -- unless, of course, you like goats as much as you like new cars, in which case you"ll win 100% of the time.

Loosely based on the famous television game show Let’s Make a Deal, the scenario presented above, better known as the “Monty Hall Problem,” is a rather famous probability question. Despite its deceptive simplicity, some of the world’s brightest minds -- MIT professors, renowned mathematicians, and MacArthur “Genius” Fellows -- have had trouble grasping its answer. For decades, it has sparked intense debates in classrooms and lecture halls.

Historically, the Monty Hall Problem was predated by several very similar puzzles.

In Joseph Bertrand’s box paradox (1889), three boxes are presented -- one containing two gold coins, one containing two silver coins, and the final containing one of each. Assuming the participant draws one gold coin from a box, the problem then asks what the probability is that the other coin in that box is gold. Bertrand, who concluded that the probability was ?, was lauded for his ability to look beyond the obvious.

A second iteration of this paradox, the Three Prisoners Problem (1959), presents a statistically identical scenario, with the same outcome. “[It’s] a wonderfully confusing little problem," its creator, Scientific American columnist Martin Gardner, later wrote, smugly. "In no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in probability theory."

First presented in a letter to the editor of The American Statistician in 1975, the Monty Hall Problem was also counterintuitive. In this letter, Steve Selvin, a University of California, Berkeley professor, splayed out the situation in the intro of this article, and contended that switching doors yields a ? chance of winning the car, whereas keeping the original door results in winning only ? of the time. 

Over the next decade or so, the Monty Hall Problem made several appearances, first in a Journal of Economics Perspectives puzzle by Barry Nalebuff, and subsequently in a 1989 issue of Bridge Today, by Phillip Martin. Neither man’s logic was refuted, and the problem generated relatively little attention.

Then, after 15 years without incident, the Monty Hall Problem was resurrected by Marilyn vos Savant -- and an absolute shit-storm ensued.

Marilyn vos Savant’s Debacle

In September 1990, Marilyn vos Savant devoted one of her columns to a reader’s question, which presented a variation of the Monty Hall Problem:

“Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say #1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?”

“Yes; you should switch,” she replied. “The first door has a 1/3 chance of winning, but the second door has a 2/3 chance.”

Though her answer was correct, a vast swath of academics responded with outrage. In the proceeding months, vos Savant received more than 10,000 letters -- including a pair from the Deputy Director of the Center for Defense Information, and a Research Mathematical Statistician from the National Institutes of Health -- all of which contended that she was entirely incompetent:

You blew it, and you blew it big! Since you seem to have difficulty grasping the basic principle at work here, I’ll explain. After the host reveals a goat, you now have a one-in-two chance of being correct. Whether you change your selection or not, the odds are the same. There is enough mathematical illiteracy in this country, and we don’t need the world’s highest IQ propagating more. Shame!

Scott Smith, Ph.D.
University of Florida

 

May I suggest that you obtain and refer to a standard textbook on probability before you try to answer a question of this type again?

Charles Reid, Ph.D.
University of Florida

 

I am sure you will receive many letters on this topic from high school and college students. Perhaps you should keep a few addresses for help with future columns.
W. Robert Smith, Ph.D.
Georgia State University

 

You are utterly incorrect about the game show question, and I hope this controversy will call some public attention to the serious national crisis in mathematical education. If you can admit your error, you will have contributed constructively towards the solution of a deplorable situation. How many irate mathematicians are needed to get you to change your mind?
E. Ray Bobo, Ph.D.
Georgetown University

 

You made a mistake, but look at the positive side. If all those Ph.D.’s were wrong, the country would be in some very serious trouble.
Everett Harman, Ph.D.
U.S. Army Research Institute

 

You are the goat!
Glenn Calkins
Western State College

 

Maybe women look at math problems differently than men.
Don Edwards
Sunriver, Oregon

The outcry was so tremendous that vos Savant was forced to devote three subsequent columns to explaining why her logic was correct. Even in the wake of her well-stated, clear responses, she continued to be berated.

 “I still think you’re wrong,” wrote one man, nearly a year later.

 

“There is such a thing as female logic.”

Yet, the numbers behind vos Savant"s conclusion don"t lie.

Debunking the Monty Hall Problem

Since two doors (one containing a car, and the other a goat) remain after the host opens door #3, most would assume that the probability of selecting the car is ½. This is not the case.

“The winning odds of 1/3 on the first choice can’t go up to 1/2 just because the host opens a losing door,” writes vos Savant. Indeed, if you map out six games exploring all possible outcomes, it becomes clear that switching doors results in winning two-thirds (66.6%) of the time, and keeping your original door results in winning only one-third (33.3%) of the time:

Another way to look at this is to break down every door-switching possibility. As we’ve delineated below, 6 out of the 9 possible scenarios (two-thirds) result in winning the car: 

These results seem to go against our intuitive statistical impulses -- so why does switching doors increase our odds of winning?

The short answer is that your initial odds of winning with door #1 (?) don’t change simply because the host reveals a goat behind door #3; instead, Hall’s action increases the odds to ? that you’ll win by switching.

Here’s another way to visualize this. Imagine that instead of three doors, Monty Hall presents you with 100 doors; behind 99 of them are goats, and behind one of them is the car. You select door #1, and your initial odds of winning the car are now 1/100:

Then, let’s suppose that Monty Hall opens 98 of the other doors, revealing a goat behind each one. Now you’re left with two choices: keep door #1, or switch to door #100:

When you select door #1, there is a 99/100 chance that the car is behind one of the other doors. The fact that Monty Hall reveals 98 goats does not change these initial odds -- it merely "shifts" that 99/100 chance to door #100. You can either stick with your original 1/100 odds pick, or switch to door #100, with a much higher probability of winning the car.

Still, while the math and numbers back up vos Savant’s assertion -- that the odds of winning increase to ? when you switch doors -- one must consider other factors she doesn’t address in her answer.

The Psychology of Rationalization

Monty Hall, host of "Let"s Make a Deal"

In 1992, while the controversy over vos Savant’s answer brewed, Monty Hall -- the game show host, and namesake of the problem -- sat down for an interview with the New York Times.

Hall clarified that things worked a bit differently than the scenario presented by the Parade reader in vos Savant’s column. In the real show, for instance, he retained the authority to offer the contestant cash NOT to switch. Details like this, he said, altered the contestant"s mindset:

"[After I opened a door with a goat], they"d think the odds on their door had now gone up to 1 in 2, so they hated to give up the door no matter how much money I offered...The higher I got, the more [they] thought the car was behind [the other door]. I wanted to con [them] into switching there. That"s the kind of thing I can do when I"m in control of the game. You may think you have probability going for you when you follow the answer in her column, but there"s the psychological factor to consider."

The “psychological factor” Hall mentions carries over from the show’s rules to the variation of the problem we’ve presented in this article. For contestants and problem-solvers alike, the Monty Hall Problem causes cognitive dissonance, a term psychologists use to describe the “mental stress experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.” 

When people are confronted with evidence that is “inconsistent with their beliefs” (ie. the odds of winning by switching doors being ?, instead of ½), they first respond by refuting the information, then band together with like-minded dissenters and champion their own hard-set opinion.

This is precisely the mentality of vos Savant’s thousands of naysayers.

***

More than 25 years later, arguments over the Monty Hall Problem’s semantics and vos Savant’s response still pervade -- mainly centering around the intricacies of the host’s actions. 

“Our brains are just not wired to do probability problems very well, so I"m not surprised there were mistakes,” Stanford stats professor Persi Diaconis told a reporter, years ago. “[But] the strict argument would be that the question cannot be answered without knowing the motivation of the host."

Eventually though, many of those who’d written in to correct vos Savant’s math backpedaled and ceded that they were in error.

An exercise proposed by vos Savant to better understand the problem was soon integrated in thousands of classrooms across the nation. Computer models were built that corroborated her logic, and support for her intellect was gradually restored. Whereas only 8% of readers had previously believed her logic to be true, this number had risen to 56% by the end of 1992, writes vos Savant; among academics, 35% initial support rose to 71%.

Among the new believers was Robert Sachs, a math professor at George Mason University, who’d originally written a nasty letter to vos Savant, telling her that she “blew it,” and offering to help "explain.” After realizing that he was, in fact, incorrect, he felt compelled to send her another letter -- this time, repenting his self-righteousness.

“After removing my foot from my mouth I"m now eating humble pie,” he wrote. “I vowed as penance to answer all the people who wrote to castigate me. It"s been an intense professional embarrassment.”

"Forget Terrorism": The Real Reason Behind The Qatar Crisis Is Natural Gas

According to the official narrative, the reason for the latest Gulf crisis in which a coalition of Saudi-led states cut off diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar, is because - to everyone"s "stunned amazement" - Qatar was funding terrorists, and after Trump"s recent visit to Saudi Arabia in which he urged a crackdown on financial support of terrorism, and also following the FT"s report that Qatar has directly provided $1 billion in funding to Iran and al-Qaeda spinoffs, Saudi Arabia finally had had enough of its "rogue" neighbor, which in recent years had made ideologically unacceptable overtures toward both Shia Iran and Russia.

However, as often happens, the official narrative is traditionally a convenient smokescreen from the real underlying tensions.

The real reason behind the diplomatic fallout may be far simpler, and once again has to do with a long-running and controversial topic, namely Qatar"s regional natural gas dominance.

Recall that many have speculated (with evidence going back as far back as 2012) that one of the reasons for the long-running Syria proxy war was nothing more complex than competing gas pipelines, with Qatar eager to pass its own pipeline, connecting Europe to its vast natural gas deposits, however as that would put Gazprom"s monopoly of European LNG supply in jeopardy, Russia had been firmly, and violently, against this strategy from the beginning and explains Putin"s firm support of the Assad regime and the Kremlin"s desire to prevent the replacement of the Syrian government with a puppet regime.

Now, in a separate analysis, Bloomberg also debunks the "official narrative" behind the Gulf crisis and suggests that Saudi Arabia’s isolation of Qatar, "and the dispute’s long past and likely lingering future are best explained by natural gas."

The reasons for nat gas as the source of discord are numerous and start in 1995 "when the tiny desert peninsula was about to make its first shipment of liquid natural gas from the world’s largest reservoir. The offshore North Field, which provides virtually all of Qatar’s gas, is shared with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s hated rival."

The result to Qatar"s finances was similar to the windfall that Saudi Arabia reaped from its vast crude oil wealth.

The wealth that followed turned Qatar into not just the world’s richest nation, with an annual per-capita income of $130,000, but also the world’s largest LNG exporter. The focus on gas set it apart from its oil producing neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council and allowed it to break from domination by Saudi Arabia, which in Monday’s statement of complaint described Qataris as an “extension of their brethren in the Kingdom” as it cut off diplomatic relations and closed the border.

In short, over the past two decades, Qatar become the single biggest natural gas powerhouse in the region, with only Russia"s Gazprom able to challenge Qatar"s influence in LNG exports.

To be sure, Qatar has shown a remarkable ability to shift its ideological allegiance, with the FT reporting as recently as 2013, that initially Qatar was a staunch supporter, backer and financier of the Syrian rebels, tasked to topple the Assad regime, a process which could culminate with the creation of the much maligned trans-Syrian pipeline.

The tiny gas-rich state of Qatar has spent as much as $3bn over the past two years supporting the rebellion in Syria, far exceeding any other government, but is now being nudged aside by Saudi Arabia as the prime source of arms to rebels.

The cost of Qatar’s intervention, its latest push to back an Arab revolt, amounts to a fraction of its international investment portfolio. But its financial support for the revolution that has turned into a vicious civil war dramatically overshadows western backing for the opposition.

As the years passed, Qatar grew to comprehend that Russia would not allow its pipeline to traverse Syria, and as a result it strategically pivoted in a pro-Russia direction, and as we showed yesterday, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund agreed last year to invest $2.7 billion in Russia’s state-run Rosneft Oil, even as Qatar is host of the largest US military base in the region, US Central Command. This particular pivot may have also added to fears that Qatar was becoming a far more active supporter of a Russia-Iran-Syria axis in the region, its recent financial and ideological support of Iran notwithstanding.

As a result of the tiny nation"s growing financial and political "independence", its neighbors grew increasingly frustrated and concerned: “Qatar used to be a kind of Saudi vassal state, but it used the autonomy that its gas wealth created to carve out an independent role for itself,” said Jim Krane, energy research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute, quoted by Bloomberg.

Furthermore, Qatar’s natural gas output has been "free from entanglement" - and political pressure - in the OPEC, the oil cartel that Saudi Arabia dominates.

“The rest of the region has been looking for an opportunity to clip Qatar’s wings.”

And, as Bloomberg adds, "that opportunity came with U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, when he called on “all nations of conscience” to isolate Iran. When Qatar disagreed publicly, in a statement the government later said was a product of hacking, the Saudi-led retribution followed."

To be sure, in a series of tweets, Trump himself doubled down on the "official narraitve", taking credit for Qatar"s isolation (perhaps forgetting that a US base is housed in the small nation).

So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017

...extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017

The cynics may be forgiven to assume that if Trump is tweeting that the reason for Qatar"s isolation is "to end the horror of terrorism", even as the US just signed a $100+ billion arms deal with the single biggest supporter of terrorism in the world, Saudi Arabia, then indeed the Trump-endorsed "narrative" is to be dismissed outright.

Which again brings us back to nat gas, where Qatar rapidly emerged as the dominant, and lowest cost producer at a time when its neighbors started demanding the commodity on their own, giving the tiny state all the leverage. As Bloomberg adds "demand for natural gas to produce electricity and power industry has been growing in the Gulf states. They’re having to resort to higher-cost LNG imports and exploring difficult domestic gas formations that are expensive to get out of the ground, according to the research. Qatar’s gas has the lowest extraction costs in the world."

Of course, with financial wealth came the need to spread political infludence: "

Qatar gas wealth enabled it to develop foreign policies that came to irritate its neighbors. It backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and armed factions opposed by the UAE or Saudi Arabia in Libya and Syria. Gas also paid for a global television network, Al Jazeera, which at various times has embarrassed or angered most Middle Eastern governments.

And, above all, "gas prompted Qatar to promote a regional policy of engagement with Shiite Iran to secure the source of its wealth."

And here the source of tension emerged: because as Steven Wright, Ph.D. Associate Professor at Qatar University told Bloomberg, “you can question why Qatar has been unwilling to supply its neighboring countries, making them gas poor,” said Wright, the academic, speaking by telephone from the Qatari capital Doha. “There probably was an expectation that Qatar would sell gas to them at a discount price.”

It did not, and instead it took a step backward in 2005, when Qatar declared a moratorium on the further development of the North Field that could have provided more gas for local export, adding to the frustrations of its neighbors.

Qatar said it needed to test how the field was responding to its exploitation, denying that it was bending to sensitivities in Iran, which had been much slower to draw gas from its side of the shared field. That two-year moratorium was lifted in April, a decade late, after Iran for the first time caught up with Qatar’s extraction rates.

As Qatar refused to yield, the resentment grew.

“People here are scratching their heads as to exactly what the Saudis expect Qatar to do,” said Gerd Nonneman, professor of international relations and Gulf studies at Georgetown University’s Doha campus. “They seem to want Qatar to cave in completely, but it won’t call the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, because it isn’t. And it isn’t going to excommunicate Iran, because that would jeopardize a relationship that is just too fundamental to Qatar’s economic development.”

* * *

Whether nat gas is the source of the Qatari isolation will depend on the next steps by both Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates and Egypt - are all highly reliant on Qatari gas via pipeline and LNG.

According to Reuters, traders startled by the development, have begun to plan for all eventualities, especially any upsets to piped gas supplies from Qatar to the UAE. The UAE consumes 1.8 billion cubic feet/day of Qatari gas via the Dolphin pipeline, and has LNG purchase agreements with its neighbor, leaving it doubly exposed to tit-for-tat measures, industry sources and traders said.

So far flows through Dolphin are unaffected but traders say even a partial shutdown would ripple through global gas markets by forcing the UAE to seek replacement LNG supply just as its domestic demand peaks.

With LNG markets in bearish mood and demand weak, the UAE could cope with Qatar suspending its two to three monthly LNG deliveries by calling on international markets, but Dolphin piped flows are too large to fully replace.

"A drop off in Dolphin deliveries would have a huge impact on LNG markets," one trader monitoring developments said.

And since it all boils down to who has the most leverage as this latest regional "balance of power" crisis unfolds, Qatar could simply take the Mutual Assured Destruction route, and halt all pipeline shipments to its neighbors crippling both theirs, and its own, economy in the process, to find just where the point of "max pain" is located.

When Will The Left Come For You?

Via JC Collins of Philosophy of Metrics.com,

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—
And there was no one left to speak for me.

– From the Postwar War Anti-Nazi Lectures of Protestant Pastor Martin Niemöller.

From a philosophical perspective I dislike breaking topics down into left and right ideologies. It minimizes and degenerates meaningful conversation into well rehearsed diametrical talking points which do little but entrench and promote ongoing political and social conflict. There have been some articles published which both use and explore these opposing positions, but the focus remains on the semi-engineered outcomes which are expected from such a left vs right political and socioeconomic paradigm.

The term semi-engineered is used for the first time here and is reflective of an allowable and flexible margin related to an unpredictable human quality which exerts itself on all events and situations. The intent is to ensure that the actions and reactions of the electoral body remain predictable. The semi-engineered aspects take these human nature qualities into account and prepares strategies which flow to “natural” and “organic” outcomes. These join other terms such as “grassroots” to make up the talking points of the modern political lexicon.

The Western systems of governance and education hammer the left and right ideologies through the use of mainstream media and alternative media, while using the bricks and mortar institutions of wisdom and learning as a degenerative weapon meant to promote and perpetuate the continued fragmentation and division of the electoral demographic composition.

The argument can be made that this semi-engineering is a product of both extensive conspiratorial planning as well as the human predisposition to avoid change and stick with the known. Conspiratorial planning is not as difficult to define and accept as we have been conditioned to believe. The socioeconomic and geopolitical strategy of “divide and conquer” has been a part of the worlds history as much as anything else. It is more probable that conspiratorial groups of likeminded individuals have directed and shaped the course of human history than it is that all has simply been a result of chance or happenstance.

In the book The Anglo-American Establishment by Georgetown University Professor Carrol Quigley we find that such groups have been defined and have in fact shaped the Western world through its use of the British Empire and subsequently the American hegemonic empire.

Professor Quigley states the following in Chapter 9 titled The Creation of the Commonwealth:

“The evolution of the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations is to a very great extent a result of the activities of the Milner Group. To be sure, the ultimate goal of the Group was quite different from the present system, since they wanted a federation of the Empire, but this was a long-run goal, and en route they accepted the present system as a temporary way station. However, the strength of colonial and Dominion feeling, which made the ideal of federation admittedly remote at all times, has succeeded in making this way-station a permanent terminal and thus had eliminated, apparently forever, the hope for federation. With the exception of a few diehards, the Group has accepted the solution of imperial cooperation and “parallelism” as an alternative to federation.”

This paragraph defines for us the function of conspiratorial planning as well as its response to the unpredictable human quality, which in this case, supported Dominion over federation. The plan and strategy of the Group was adjusted and the engineering of the Western governance structures continued. These historical realities are indisputable and provide conclusive evidence of the existence of such conspiratorial groups and sub-groups.

Subsequent groups from that defined above, which have continued the engineering of Western civilization and governance frameworks, have further developed the political left and political right ideologies as fine tuned “weapons of the weak”, which are meant to further erode civil liberties and consolidate power. This is the same objective and scope of work which the Milner Group was tasked with in its attempts to implement a federation but settled on the Dominion for the integration of sovereign regions under the Commonwealth of Nations.

The left position has been established as existing in the progressive spectrum, while the right has been established as existing in the regressive spectrum. The natural and historical tendencies of the electoral population have been positioned on the traditional right. The political left has been attempting to push and pull the mass population and its demographic ideals towards the left spectrum. This is considered progressive and resistance to this program of engineering is labeled as regressive.

From this basic setup the political tension we are experiencing today has developed. Those wanting to remain in the past, or the place from which we have been pushed and pulled, or any attempt to go back to that place, is regressive, while everything which is transforming the past and pulling our civilization further from that past is progressive.

The consideration that everything progressive is not necessarily productive and aligned with the natural demands of homo-protoculture traditions is never considered. Everything left-progressive is positive and everything right-regressive is negative.

The case is now being made by the disorganized mass of the electoral demographic that the left has become regressive while the right is now expressing the qualities of a progressive society. The core argument that the left is now regressive is best expressed in the spread and abuse of political correctness and social justice.

The left-liberal ideology promotes so-called equality and human rights for all. On the face this would appear to be extremely reasonable and honourable. In the first years of this agenda no one could argue with its mandates and goals. It started with equal rights for women, which included voting and other legal alignments which had not before been in demand or expected.

Those few who disagreed with these social objectives were rightly labeled as “chauvinist pigs” and promoters of misogyny. It was the first real movement from the traditional spectrum of the right. It is only in hindsight that we can see this, a rational social movement, as the first step towards a “progressive tyranny” and at the time it was only looked upon and considered a change for the betterment of Western civilization.

The next phase of this progressive social justice built on the ending of slavery which re-manifested as the civil rights war. Like the origins of the feminist movement, the arguments were rational and no ethical and honourable citizen could disagree with equal rights for African-Americans.

It was in the 1970’s that we first began to experience the open social expressions of the marginal segment of the population which represented homosexuality. Television programming such as Three’s Company began to condition and engineer the acceptance of the electoral demographic “right”majority.

In the show Jack, played by the late John Ritter, pretended to be gay so he could live with two women in an apartment. The “homophobic” and “regressive” landlord Mr. Roper would only let Jack live there if he was gay and not straight, as his old school traditional ethics considered a man living in sin with two women as immoral. Hilarity ensued as Jack went through a series of challenges and obstacles to live a normal heterosexual life while maintaining the illusion of homosexuality to fool the simple and backwards Mr. Roper.

Evenings as a child was spent watching Three’s Company and the humour of John Ritter with my family and laughing. It was considered good quality time and I remember laying on the carpet in front of the television with feelings of guilt as I knew late homework waited elsewhere.

It is only now that I look back and see that the show was an early weapon used to marginalize a majority into accepting a social mandate which wasn’t very popular. Nobody wanted to be a fool like Mr. Roper, so we laughed and shut up about our own personal opinions and went about our business of school and work.

The progression of the regressive-left continued through the decades with similar tactics and methods of social engineering. Everything from movies, music, and additional television programming pushed the mass population further away from the traditional roots where Western civilization began. The pendulum swing has gone so far to the left that equal rights for all has now morphed into anti-Christian, anti-white, anti-traditional, anti-male, and anti-Capitalism.

For decades already movies have imagined every mastermind criminal as an evil Capitalist who wants to enslave and control the world. This social engineering is now so rampant that discussions supporting the Capitalist system turn into serious arguments with the liberal-left making accusations of identity politics for the purpose of demeaning and minimizing both the position and character of those promoting Capitalism.

The same methods and techniques are now used on anyone who disagrees with the left ideology and its stated goals and mandates. The mass immigration which has been happening for decades already has taken on a new sense of urgency and panic as migrants and refugees from Islamic nations flood into the West. The differences in culture and beliefs between the West and Islamic cultures is obvious to most but open discussions and analysis are not permitted.

It is beginning to appear that this so-called “Islamophobia”, which has built on the resentment surrounding the labels of Homophobia and Xenophobia, among others, is being established as a benchmark on hate and hate speech. Members of Academia, which have hijacked and used our Western educational institutions to promote the liberal-left agenda, are coming in force to condemn anyone who disagrees with mass Islamic migration and open borders.

It was evenly recently stated that a database, or register, of those charged with hate crimes should be kept so the rights of those individuals can be restricted. The comparison is made to the databases which keep track of sexual offenders. The difference between hate crimes, which often, like Islamophobia, is not clearly defined and can be used to demonize unwanted behaviour from the right, and the actions of sexual offenders such as pedophiles and rapists , are massive. To marginalize a majority as Islamophobic and hateful because it does not want to lose its cultural identity to the onslaught of a culture who, by its very expressed purpose, wants to spread and take over the host culture, is one of the greatest travesties of our modern world.

Creating and maintaining a database of such “offenders of the left” is a horrible suggestion and is reminiscent of the registries which Nazi Germany utilized to track and manage the “undesirables” such as Jews.

There is a concerted effort to criminalize the behaviour and opinions which the liberal-left find undesirable. This is a serious threat to our civilization and the methods by which we ensure the continuation of freedom of speech, electoral voting, and the perpetuation of cultural segregation and division.

A man who recently burned a copy of the Koran was charged with blasphemy. How is this even possible? Our governance system which has become dominated by the left, is using that very same system to restrict the rights of varying demographics. It is ironic that the liberal-left mandates, which were born in seeking equal rights for all, like women having the right to vote, is now attempting to restrict the rights of those who do not agree with its transformed goals and objectives.

First they came for the traditionalists. Few said anything. Then they came for the Christians. Still, few said anything. Eventually they started coming for the males. Nothing. After males they started coming for the whites. Even this couldn’t get everyone to stand united against the tyranny. Now they are using a regressive ideology to take rights away from anyone who disagrees. Finally, some are speaking louder and beginning to be heard. But is it too late? When will the left come for you? Will you now speak out?

Trump Nominee For Navy Secretary Withdraws

Another Trump nominee for a critical government role has decided to withdraw. After two prior Trump nominees,  Army Secretary choice Vincent Viola and Labor nominee Andy Puzder, both removed themselves from consideration for their appointed role in recent weeks citing insurmountable opposition or conflicts, moments ago financier Philip Bilden, a senior advisor at HarbourVest Asia and President Trump’s pick to lead the Navy, was said to become the third Trump appointee to withdraw his nomination.

"Philip Bilden has informed me that he has come to the difficult decision to withdraw from consideration to be secretary of the Navy," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement Sunday evening. He added that "this was a personal decision driven by privacy concerns and significant challenges he faced in separating himself from his business interests."

Bilden"s vast financial holdings, many of which he earned in Hong Kong, would have made it difficult for him to survive the scrutiny of the Office of Government Ethics, USNI News reported.

Bilden, who built his career in Hong Kong with the investment firm HarbourVest, was a surprise pick for the Navy post but had been Mattis’ preferred candidate. Yet like billionaire investment banker Vincent Viola, who withdrew his nomination to be secretary of the Army earlier this month, Bilden ran into too many challenges during a review by the Office of Government Ethics to avoid potential conflicts of interest, the sources said.

Bilden"s withdrawal leaves Mattis with just Air Force Secretary nominee Heather Wilson, a former New Mexico Republican congresswoman, in line for a top political post. Her Senate confirmation has not yet been scheduled.

Bilden served as an intelligence officer in the Army Reserve from 1986 to 1996 and is on the board of directors of the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation and the board of trustees of the Naval War College Foundation.

Some background. According to USNI, Financier Philip Bilden has withdrawn himself from consideration to be the next Secretary of the Navy.

Sources in the White House and the Navy told USNI News that Bilden’s extensive financial holdings would likely not meet the Office of Government Ethics standards to serve in the position. In order to serve he would have to divest much of his foreign holdings, USNI News understands.

The White House is scheduled to make the announcement this evening. Bilden was formally nominated as Navy Secretary on Jan. 25 after back-and-forth reports in the media as to whether he or former congressman Randy Forbes would get the job. The White House called Bilden “a highly successful business leader, former Military Intelligence officer, and Naval War College cybersecurity leader [who] will bring strategic leadership, investment discipline, and Asia Pacific regional and cyber expertise to the Department of the Navy” in its statement announcing Bilden’s selection.

Bilden served as a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1986 to 1996 after attending Georgetown University on an ROTC scholarship. In 1996 he moved to Hong Kong for business and resigned his commission.

In recent years, he had been involved with the Navy through serving on the Board of Directors of the United States Naval Academy Foundation and the Board of Trustees of the Naval War College Foundation. Additionally, one of his sons graduated from the Naval Academy and another is currently a midshipman there, and the White House statement noted that he comes from “a military family with four consecutive generations of seven Bilden Navy and Army officers.”

In a statement, Defense Sec Mattis added that he"ll make a recommendation in the coming days to Trump for a leader who can guide Navy and Marine Corps.