Creative Jobs Versus Financial Stability - Is Creative Ambition Enough to Get Financial Stability

Son

Didu told me a story when I would read books rather than study. It was about a man who gets down from a big expensive car wearing a suit and bumps into a woman. She is his old gf who had dumped him as he never could show determination to do something in his life. Always lost in books and dreams. After a coffee, they parted ways. The gf is kicking herself for having let him go. And then the next scene is of the man who lives in a little pokey room on top of a garage. He is a driver. Still reads books but also drinks. 

That stayed with me and still does. I could have been that man son if luck/god/whatever hadn't intervened. So do have a creative side. Paint. Write. Sing. Teach. Photograph. But only after you have financial security. I'm proud of your saving habits. When you told mamma that you will buy your phone from your own money, I was so proud. Seriously. That's my boy. 

Keep on it son. I love you. 

Baba

Creative Jobs Versus Financial Stability - Is Creative Ambition Enough to Get Financial Stability - ELLE
http://www.elle.com/life-love/society-career/creative-ambition-versus-financially-stable-job

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When I was 26, my then roommate was a great scavenger of furniture. One day, she came home with a daybed frame: a twin-size wooden box with only three legs, which is likely why someone had left it on a curb in the first place. The frame sat propped against our dining room wall for the next year, until I moved in with my boyfriend (now husband), and she let us take it. My husband made a fourth leg out of salvaged wood, and we found a cushion that more or less fit the frame in the “as is” section of IKEA. The back was constructed from a mattress pad rolled up and stuffed into a homemade pillowcase, and the whole ensemble was eventually covered with some black corduroy fabric that we bought for $10. All told, I think we spent about $40 on the “couch.” That was six years ago. At the time, I thought of our jury-rigged furniture as a temporary arrangement, a way station on the path to adulthood. Now it serves as a reminder of how slow and grueling the road to financial security can be.

Which brings me to a second anecdote, one that occurred about a year ago. Over a plate of pasta one night, my husband told me that I needed to make more money. I don’t remember what prompted it, whether we were discussing saving for a down payment or planning a vacation, but regardless of the topic, it was hard to argue with his point. If I really wanted the things I said I did, we’d need more than we were bringing in, than I was bringing in, because, as he implied, I was the one who wasn’t really holding up my end.

Grameen Foundation and other charitable bits and bobs

Its been a long time that I updated this blog. How time flies. And fruit flies like bananas.

So I have now joined up this Bankers without Borders outfit. Its a fascinating place started by the Grameen Foundation..famous organisation in its own right. The basic idea is that bankers with particular qualifications can help charities with various tasks such as finance, administration, recruitment, strategy, cash management, transformation, recovery, etc. etc. Usually for few months in some wonderful out of the way places. I applied to one outfit in Ghana who wanted a recovery piece (a charity which was facing problems and needed a bit of recovery…got some experience of that) but well, wasn't selected. So looking forward to the next opportunity.

Home Start Hillingdon is going well, well, as well as it can in these financially constrained times. But good news, the Mayor of Hillingdon has decided to join our summer event where we celebrate the wonderful work our volunteers do. So chuffed about it all.

Every month, I manage to get into a real funk, when I hear about some of the family situations we have to handle, its just crazy. I sometimes feel that before people can become parents, they need to go through exactly the same level of scrutiny that adoptive parents have to go through. The level of cruelty and pain and suffering and and and that kids go through is just amazingly painful. Through no fault of their own, they suffer so badly when their parents are made redundant, get drug addicted, imprisoned, etc. etc. sighs. hate hearing but also love hearing how we recover these families. each year we help up to 100 families. Brilliant work our staff and volunteers do.

On the Animal front, not much action, did potter around with some financials but haven't really managed to make as much of a difference as I wanted. But hopefully would be able to help raise some funds soon and also put my camera to good use with the munchkins. Every time I go there and see the mute hopeful look in the eyes of the dogs, it rips my heart out…sighs. cant wait till I retire and then have my own dogs :)

Helped out with some lectures to some educational trusts and foundations, hosted a group of students from the USA, that was fun, I actually got a T-Shirt out of it. Its very cool, pale blue..very nice. But cant wear it till I lose another 10 kilo’s, heh, so there’s a good incentive.

University lectures are proceeding apace. Am going to my old alma mater in 2 weeks time :) will be good

Enough already…

Resort Of Last Resort

Here's an example of where the bottom feeders live. People who are escaping Islam. Poverty. They are desperate to get away from the bastards who have ruined countries such as Pakistan Afghanistan and Iran. And more will come. The history of Islam tells us that Muslims kill more Muslims than any other religion. And this sad story has a long way to run. Till Muslims manage to box Islam into the civilised box rather than the shape fundamentalists have put it into. 

Ironically you see one of the sets of idiots, Saudis, who are responsible for this desecration of Islam coming to Indonesia to get their rocks off. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. The Saudis piss over their co religionists in India Bangladesh Pakistan Indonesia Egypt Lebanon and in return these guys fawn over the Saudis and lick their feet. Only place there where I faced in your face racism. Bah. 

But there you go. It's a sad view of one of the sad spots of the world. As an economist you need to consider why nations hate and love immigration. Freedom of capital is allowed generally but of labour? Nope. Think about why this is so son.

Love

Baba  

Resort Of Last Resort | The Global Mail
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/resort-of-last-resort/585/

Fear, corruption, boredom, smugglers, extortionists, Saudi sex tourists and temporary wives: such is life in the Indonesian resort town that has become limbo for asylum seekers.

Night is enveloping the hills of Cisarua, a resort town high outside Jakarta, and the area’s evening rituals are beginning. Rainwater thunders down from nearby mountaintops along hundreds of canals and rivulets that go whooshing on into the polluted sink that is Indonesia’s capital.

Across the bowl-shaped valley, dozens of mosques begin booming the call to prayer, all merging together into an asynchronous whine. In hillside villas, groups of men from Saudi Arabia — some in traditional white thawb robes, some in baggy track pants – load up on the evening’s stock of alcohol, which is banned in their home country. On motorbikes and in cars, pimps begin ferrying in the men’s other vice — Arabic-speaking Indonesian women.

(See the photos behind the story: Barat Ali Batoor’s series from Cisarua, In Between Persecution And Asylum.)

In other rented houses, hundreds of asylum seekers sit with little to do. Many have become near-nocturnal out of sheer boredom, and are just starting their day. Over the past decade, the town has become the unofficial haven for asylum seekers heading to Australia. For some, it is a brief stopover before they jump on a smuggler’s boat. For others, it is a limbo that can last for years.

Haider — not his real name — is sitting in a living room with half-a-dozen other men who, like him, are Hazaras from the Pakistani city of Quetta. All appear drawn and exhausted. One of the men, Ghulam Reza, sits with his foot extended because of an untreated, bloody gash.

Terror Group Recruits From Pakistan’s ‘Best and Brightest’

Kannu

I've written much about Pakistan before. It's a classic example of the worst that can happen when religion gets mixed up in state matters. Despite encouraging signs like the first democratic govt since independence able to complete its term of office, the state and religious nexus isn't broken and is actually getting stronger. 

For example some of my Pakistani friends on fb are showing an increased religiosity. One prayed to Allah to get Imran Khan elected. This fellow is a blithering nincompoop. He talks absolute rot but to listen to his supporters, the sun shines out of this backside. So to tease, I asked if other Pakistani religious minorities will also be praying to Jesus and Ram and Guru Gobind Singh to get him elected? No response but it was amusing. 

This is one of the reasons why I detest religion in politics and overwhelming state power. The combination is even worse.

These 200000 estimated jehadis in this group are with us, the group is growing and not only I but you will be dealing with this over the next 30-50 years minimum. Joy

Love

Baba

Terror Group Recruits From Pakistan’s ‘Best and Brightest’ - ProPublica
http://www.propublica.org/article/terror-group-recruits-from-pakistans-best-and-brightest/single#republish

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Terror Group Recruits From Pakistan’s ‘Best and Brightest’

Imagine a terrorist group that recruits tens of thousands of young men from the same neighborhoods and social networks as the Pakistani military. A group whose well-educated recruits defy the idea that poverty and ignorance breed extremism. A group whose fighters include relatives of a politician, a senior Army officer and a director of Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission.

That is the disconcerting reality of Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the world’s most dangerous militant organizations, according to a study released today [1] by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. The report helps explain why Pakistan has resisted international pressure [2] to crack down on Lashkar after it killed 166 people in Mumbai — six U.S. citizens included — and came close to sparking conflict between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India.

The Hell of American Day Care

Here's an interesting problem son. Govt's around the world are actually trying to reduce taxes and spend as the current level of spending is clearly unsustainable. More debt, borrowing from the future to spend in the present is starting to hit limits. So should we fund child care? The author talks about France but France is struggling with awesome amounts of debt. And it's social system creaks. Furthermore with such a great system France is useless at getting its people into work. 

Second aspect to remember is that having children is considered to be a choice. If you have children its expected that you are able to take care of them. Why should somebody else pay for your choices? I can understand low income, divorce etc etc but just like you wouldn't expect somebody else to pay for your vacation, the argument is that you have to have funds. 

But life isn't that simple and people will still have babies without the ability to pay or look after them. In my charity we find so many parents just useless at parenting at best and a threat to the kids at worst. 

So some element of child care has to be setup. Not a good choice. 

Love

Baba

The Hell of American Day Care | New Republic
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112892/hell-american-day-care

M

Mire looked down at her baby girl, Kendyll, who was curled up tight on a foldaway crib. “Night, night,” Kendyll had just murmured in her quiet, serious way. At 20 months, she was picking up all sorts of words, like “baby,” the name of the doll she kept nearby, and “Bryce,” the name of her big brother. She hadn’t slept much that night, and Mire thought about calling in late to work so Kendyll could get more rest. But it was only Mire’s second day at a new job she badly needed, as a receptionist at a Houston oil company. Mire, who was 30, with an open face and wide smile, was intent on making a good impression. The best she could do was give Kendyll an extra hour to nap and prepare some warm milk for her breakfast.

When Kendyll got up, Mire dressed her in a purple shirt that matched her own—purple was Kendyll’s favorite color—and put a pair of purple-striped stretch pants in her backpack. It was a challenge to get Kendyll to sit still for the hour it took to unbraid and re-braid her dark hair, and on such a hectic morning, Mire didn’t even try. At around 7 a.m., they got into the car and drove to Kendyll’s new day care.

The place was called “Jackie’s Child Care,” but there wasn’t anyone named Jackie who worked there. The proprietor was Jessica Tata, an energetic 22-year-old registered with the state of Texas to look after children in the wood-paneled house she rented on a quiet, middle-class street. Her regulars included Elias, a chunky 16-month-old with a bowlegged walk, and 19-month-old Elizabeth, who always jumped into her mom’s lap when it was time to drop her off. As Mire walked back to her car that warm February morning in 2011, she noticed Kendyll hovering at the entrance—a little sleepy, a little curious, gazing at the scene inside. Mire felt uneasy about leaving, especially since it was only Kendyll’s second day there and she didn’t know Tata that well. Shortly after, she called Tata to check in, and Tata reassured her that Kendyll was doing just fine.



Just after lunch, Mire’s cell phone lit up. The number was Tata’s, but she didn’t recognize the voice. “There’s been a fire,” a woman said. “They’ve taken all the kids to the hospital, for smoke, as a precaution.” Mire tried not to panic; she clutched at the word “precaution.” Her phone buzzed again, this time with a text message from a friend: “What day care did you say Kendyll goes to?” Mire called the friend, who was watching live TV coverage of a burning Houston day care. Black smoke was billowing from windows and holes in the roof; firemen were running out of the house, cradling limp babies in their arms. One little girl had braided hair and a purple shirt, her friend told her. She looked like Kendyll. Mire ran to her car. I can’t panic, she kept telling herself as she drove through heavy traffic and later past ambulances and fire engines. I just have to get there.

Trusting your child with someone else is one of the hardest things that a parent has to do—and in the United States, it’s harder still, because American day care is a mess. About 8.2 million kids—about 40 percent of children under five—spend at least part of their week in the care of somebody other than a parent. Most of them are in centers, although a sizable minority attend home day cares like the one run by Jessica Tata. In other countries, such services are subsidized and well-regulated. In the United States, despite the fact that work and family life has changed profoundly in recent decades, we lack anything resembling an actual child care system. Excellent day cares are available, of course, if you have the money to pay for them and the luck to secure a spot. But the overall quality is wildly uneven and barely monitored, and at the lower end, it’s Dickensian.

The Human Use of Human Beings: A Brief History of Suicide Bombing

A nice little overview of this rather interesting phenomena of suicide bombing. It's a very complex situation and cannot be reduced to simplistic solutions. All one can do is to keep an open mind, not easy to do when every body else around you - both on your side and their side has either lost their minds and/or have a closed mind. The lesson here is to stay flexible, resolute and to be brutal about it a bit. And one more thing, don't muck around in foreign adventures. The USA hasn't learnt from history. Take the uk. In the past 3 centuries, we buggered around the world. Leaving our dead in most corners of the world. We got terrorism and and and millions of our young men dead around the world. For what? 

The Human Use of Human Beings: A Brief History of Suicide Bombing | Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective
http://origins.osu.edu/article/human-use-human-beings-brief-history-suicide-bombing

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On February 1, 2013, a suicide bomber killed himself and a security guard at America’s embassy in Ankara, Turkey. This attack, carried out more than a decade after 9/11, reveals a great deal about the phenomenon we have come to know as suicide bombing.

First, a radical left-wing group with a vaguely Marxist agenda (The Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party in Turkey) claimed responsibility, demonstrating that suicide bombing is not the exclusive domain of religious fanatics.

Second, the bomber detonated his explosives before he had the opportunity to enter the embassy complex. This shows that individual initiative and fallibility are important aspects of the organizational process of suicide bombing—a process that requires expertise and practice to be truly effective.

Finally, the attack confirms that suicide bombing will continue to be a dangerous security nuisance for the foreseeable future.

Princeton's Marriage Market Theory Worked for Me

From an aesthetic and romantic perspective it sounds cold blooded and far too planned. But there is truth in this article. Human behaviour can be modelled. Even if you are not interested in economics, your behaviour and the way society and fellow individuals act behave and are structured are based in economics. 

The benefits of marriage are many and are well known. So in terms of maximising your life's happiness, be on the lookout for a good partner at LSE or Oxford or Cambridge wherever you go. This is the best population for you to find your partner. After this, the chances drop dramatically. It's simple statistics and macroeconomics that you will never come across such watering holes with such high density of potential mates. Don't rely on blind luck son. 

So find a mate by the time you graduate in 20-22 years in uni. This doesn't mean you become celibate. Far from it. Explore. But when you find the one and the point is to find the one in uni. Be with them. Marriage around 25-28 and life will be good. Any changes to this timeline and your lifetime happiness will be reduced or be suboptimal. Simple economics. 

Of course shit happens but plan and aim for the best and prepare for the worst. 

Love

Baba

Princeton's Marriage Market Theory Worked for Me - Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-03/princeton-s-marriage-market-theory-worked-for-me.html

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Most of my research deals with the economics of cities, but I have a smattering of knowledge in the minor field of spouse-meeting at Princeton.

There is usually little demand for such arcana — the American Economic Association has never held a symposium on the topic — but the blogospheric explosion after an alumna’sletter to the Daily Princetonian advising female students to “find a husband on campus before you graduate” led my editor to urge me to weigh in.

While I don’t feel I can provide advice to young women, I am comfortable, based on both personal experience and the infallible majesty of economic theory, urging young male Princetonians to view your female classmates as prospective long-term friends and spouses (the qualifications for the two roles having much in common), rather than short-term amorous encounters.

The letter writer, Susan Patton, is surely right that for many people, college years provide the high point of intense exposure to a wide range of prospective life partners.       

However, my own finely tuned algebraic simulations of an optimal spousal-search model find that while college provides an ideal time to accumulate a large stock of good friends (prospective spouses), it is typically suboptimal to wed at age 21 because of preference uncertainty and the benefits of continuing to meet alternatives.

How to Save American Finance from Itself

In a previous email Kannu, I told you that we are living in a complicated world which is getting even more complicated. The grand poobahs recognise this. Instead of simplifying they decide to add to complexity by adding giant rafts of regulation. Adding much more complexity. And that's just now. 

Here's an economics Nobel prize winner talking about his student who is the fed chief and asking for a more complex set of instruments to manage the economies and financial markets. And taking a gratuitous swing at hedgies. 

The result? Another crash is coming. Guaranteed. Before you are 25. So what can you do? Avoid debt son. As much as possible. Have your investments in good solid sectors and companies who will keep on operating despite downturns and crashes. Have a technical skill son that will always give you a job. Or if you are running a firm, then be in one which will always have demand. Keep an eye on your cash flow. Or marry a rich girl :) 

But the article is interesting from a macroeconomics perspective. It's people like these who will be running the world when you graduate and start looking for work or are working. It takes time for macroeconomic prescriptions to work it's way through the economy and hit individuals. So decisions taken today will impact you in 3-5 years time. 

I studied wave theory once. Ocean waves. The science is poorly understood even now. Which wave will just give you a ripple or give you a dunking or a great surf is difficult to know. The ocean interacts with temperature, wind, continental shelf topology, currents, gravitation, climate, seashore landscape in poorly understood ways. So what does a surfer do? Understand as much as possible. Be prepared. Take chances. 

Love

Baba. 

How to Save American Finance from Itself | New Republic
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112679/how-save-american-finance-itself

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Other stories from April 27, 2013

BOOKS APRIL 8, 2013

How to Save American Finance from Itself Has financialization gone too far?

BY ROBERT M. SOLOW

Central banking is not rocket science, but neither is it a trivial pursuit. Excellent books have continued to be written about the art and craft of central banking, from Walter Bagehot’s Lombard Street in 1873 to Alan Blinder’s Central Banking in Theory and Practice in 1998. Running a central bank is in one way a little bit like flying a plane or sailing a boat: much of the time standard responses and small adjustments will do just fine, but every so often a situation arises in which fundamental understanding, knowledge of history, and good judgment can make the difference between riding out the storm and crashing. There was no such person in charge in 1929, and the result was disaster. There was one in 2008.

In his earlier scholarly life, Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, had been a careful student of the general interaction between the financial system and the real economy and especially of its working out in the Great Depression of the 1930s. So he had done his homework. His decisive and innovative actions at the Fed saved our economy from free fall with a possibly catastrophic end. I once non-joked that Bernanke was the Captain Kirk of central banking: he had loaned where no man had loaned before. In a life before turning to government service, first as a member of the Federal Reserve Board, then briefly as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and then returning to the Fed as chairman in 2006, Bernanke was a well-known and highly respected academic economist. (The reader should know that I was one of his teachers in graduate school at MIT, and have remained a friend.) My opinion is that, after a briefly hesitant start as Fed chairman, probably still under the considerable aura of Alan Greenspan, Bernanke rose admirably to a difficult occasion and has been generally right in his judgments and his decisions, and in his willingness and his ability to explain both.

In March 2012, George Washington University invited Bernanke to give four lectures as part of a course devoted to the role of the Federal Reserve in the economy. The lectures are now reproduced in book form, apparently from lightly edited transcripts. Each lecture ends with half a dozen questions from anonymous “students” and Bernanke’s answers. Some of the questions are smart, some less so, in which case Bernanke exhibits the professorial skill of seamlessly answering a slightly different question. We are not told anything about the audience. I imagine a lot of people wanted to hear about the Federal Reserve and the financial crisis from the chairman himself. It’s rather like hearing Admiral Nelson reminisce about the battle of Trafalgar.

Search for the USS Thresher

A fascinating account of the search for a sunken submarine son. Put yourself in the seat of the commander of the operation. So many difficult decisions to take. 

April 10, 1963: Search for the USS Thresher | Naval History Blog
http://www.navalhistory.org/2013/04/10/april-10-50th-anniversary-of-the-loss-of-the-uss-thresher

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This article was published in the May 1964 issue of Proceedings as “Searching for the Thresher” by Frank A. Andrews, Captain, U.S. Navy.

The Thresher search was very much an ad hoc operation. On 10 April 1963, the day of theThresher‘s loss, there was no real search organization, no search technique, nor specific operating procedures for locating an object lying on the ocean bottom at 8,400 feet. In the first frantic hours after the Thresher‘s loss, a full scale search effort consisting of 13 ships was laid on with the aim of scouring the ocean for possible life or floating signs from the Thresher. Within 20 search hours, all hope for survivors had passed, and the entire Thresher project began to change character from that of a standard Navy search and rescue opera­tion to that of an oceanographic expedition. This special expedition soon consisted of three ad hoc elements, which, as later events were to show, combined in a most successful and harmonious manner in support of searching out the Thresher‘s hull.

Review of Rachel Duffett’s The Stomach for Fighting: Food and the Soldiers of the Great War

Kannu

Hope you liked the omelette of last night. Perhaps too many greens in there but have them son, it gives you a nice high protein diet with tons of vitamins and minerals. 

This is a great book review about food. Food for soldiers. Remember I told you the quote? Amateurs talk about tactics. Professionals talk about logistics. In whichever field of work son, you have to have a firm grasp of logistics. Most activities are won or lost due to logistics. In the business world as well. That's what is going to give you the reputation of competence. As and how you rise through the ranks, your job is to ensure that men materials and money are available in the right time at the right place at the right amounts. Alexander said, if I lose a battle I come back and kill my logistician. 

Details son details. That's the key. Think of the logistics of feeding a million soldiers in the middle of wartime. 

Love

Baba. 

Canadian Military History – Review of Rachel Duffett’s The Stomach for Fighting: Food and the Soldiers of the Great War by Matthew Walthert
http://www.canadianmilitaryhistory.ca/review-of-rachel-duffetts-the-stomach-for-fighting-food-and-the-soldiers-of-the-great-war-by-matthew-walthert/

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Rachel Duffett, The Stomach for Fighting: Food and the Soldiers of the Great War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012). 269 pages.

Reviewed by Matthew Walthert (Carleton University)

Anyone who has studied the First World War has read about the food. Complaints about bully beef, alternate uses for rock-hard biscuits, and generals fattening themselves behind the lines while the troops suffered from ration shortages at the front are common features of many Great War histories. Despite these oft-repeated stories, the enlisted man’s relationship with his food (official ration and otherwise) has not been the subject of a scholarly, book-length study, until now. Using the diaries and memoirs of the rank-and-file soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), Rachel Duffett has put together a detailed review of ordinary soldiers’ experiences with food on the Western Front.

In The Stomach for Fighting, Duffett exposes truisms –  such as the enlisted men having better diets in the military than in pre-war, working-class England – which have crept out of sometimes self-congratulatory official statistics and histories, or overly-optimistic army ration scales. In The Last Great War, Adrian Gregory explored some of these clichés, particularly as they related to the British home front. Here, Duffett turns to the actual soldiers, whose caloric needs were being met, but were often less-than-thrilled with their food. Using a variety of published and unpublished letters, diaries and memoirs, she breaks new ground in looking not only at what (and how much) enlisted men ate, but also their reactions to their food.