Saturday, March 20, 2010

Tell The Truth And Run

After a couple of years in the business I claim to have seen my fair share. I've seen the good and the bad in the company, and I think I can quite strongly argue which is which. Sometimes that means forcing my colleagues to look to themselves. And most of the time they don't like what they see then... and they resent me for it.

Now if you're a young professional fresh from college, who's just been on the corporate training, who's been looking at everything with an open mind, and loving everything around you, I imagine someone being cynical and jaded telling you otherwise is a cause for concern. And then you turn around, see that you're five years further along, and realize all the experience I spoke of, you now experienced yourself.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Representative Values

The values people have for themselves are driven by the way they are brought up, the experiences they have, the teachings they get. It can be vastly different from person to person, but as long as their interests do not overlap or are not shared, that won't be much of an issue.

In situations where people's interests do overlap, conflicting values become a point of contention. And if people work together in teams on behalf of a greater group, like a works council, a board, a government, the group's overall values may not be covered by that small team. It may very well be that the team's individual values dominate over the larger group's, often to a fault. That's called a dictatorship.

If a small group of people represents a larger group, that small group must set their group values, which may completely differ from one's individual values. If one represents someone else, he should do so regardless of his own personal values. Or else stop representing the group.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Television That Tries To Be A Tweet

Kidnapping and murder is terrible news enough, but I don't need my television newscast to remind as such every two minutes. The whole idea of news is that you broadcast when there's news. Don't repeat that no further news is available every two minutes. I got it the first time.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Derivative Metaphore

I attended a derivatives workshop recently, and saw an overview of the latest and greatest in financial products. I came away with my eyes wide open... wide open with fear. Exotics. Hedging. Swaps. With this stuff going on, I'm amazed the financial crisis didn't come sooner and deeper. Basically you're gambling with borrowed money. On the outcome of the Super Bowl three years from now... and the World Series, and the Champions League.

I was brought up being taught that I can spend money only once. Apparently day traders don't think this way at all.

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Political Priorities

In a democracy the majority gets to rule. Political parties tend to skew that equality toward a select few groups, e.g. liberals, socialists, right-wing, left-wing, christian, muslim, secular, green, black, traditionalist, futurist.

However the modern democracy with the multi-party system makes choosing whom to vote for a harrowing experience. Basically there are only a few fundamental questions that parties can differentiate themselves from, most of them relate to distribution of wealth, which religious values should be held, and who to blame in case stuff goes wrong.

Most of the other issues aren't really issues. No party will say safety is not a priority for them. No party will say job creation is not important. No party will claim education is worthless. It's just a matter of priorities. In the end all parties aim to accomplish the same list of objectives. They only differ in the order in which they want to accomplish them. And of course, the higher up in the list, the more likely they will try for it.

Which means all the political campaigning and debating doesn't make a lick of sense. The standard argument goes that if an issue is not a top priority for a political party, then it must mean they are opposed to it... which is completely ludicrous. It's like claiming I hate children, because I don't have any.

And of course when all the election results are in, and the governments actually get formed, all the false arguments go away to make room for stifling consensus.

No wonder no one gets any work done in governments.