Got the quote of th day from an escape pod pod cast. Since I walk to college and generally think while walking (truth be told I do a lot of my thinking during my walks to school) and since starting work, doing my thinking during my daily commute podcast was not really an option for me since if I had my headphones on and my normal absent mindedness while walking I was bound to die early.
I started getting addicted to podcast because of TED talks, and the various pod casts that the Bayesian Heresy blog links to. I must say that I find it hard concentrating on one task alone, I usually can concentrate when I am ignoring another task.
Enter podcast, since last week I’ve been working in a no internet access mac mini and doing lots of work, my only source of distraction is the podcast. The pod cast acts as the thing I am ignoring and its done wonders to my productivity. That said It’s not that I am not able to listen while working rather i seem to like thinking of two things at once, a light thinking task (listening to podcast) and a heavy thinking task (work/studying stuff). I suspect that this is the reason that I am not a good exam taker, except when they allow you to bring an mp3 player, or you can sing to yourself while taking the exam.
That said , specially for people who do not have full internet access at their terminals podcast may give you enough information to give you a sense of learning some things beyond what you are doing. Helps you develop orthogonal skills that may be useful in another future situation.
I’d even burn you a cd of some of the podcast in my machine if you ask me.
LifeStyle Changes
NOTE: This was what I was thinking of writing before my previous post turned into another musings post.
Just got a raise, Its not big but in the high inflationary environment we are in coupled with the growing pains of adulthood I’ll take what I can.
I’ve been very vocal with my urging of friends to not change lifestyles after a pay raise and the like. I still remember last saturday when Rain and I somewhat ganged up on Jizelle for her “lifestyle changes”.
Well dishing out advice is one thing following it is totally different.
I got a pay raise and the first thing I did was splurge on food, 2 DVDs, a book , and a few trinkets. I think I have this feeling that I deserve to spend because I’ve felt I’ve deprived myself lately.
There is nothing wrong with this, almost everything in moderations is not wrong, somethings in excess is not wrong, it is the everything or somethings in excess all of the time that is the problem.
My way of handling this is incorporating things with my life in such a way as I barely think of these things.
Hmm another way of saying this is that we create rules of thumb and this helps us making quick decisions that are rational. The operative terms here are QUICK and RATIONAL.
Remember that most salesmen, people who want to take/borrow money from you, this ranges from events , experiences to things like cameras, computers, and others want to tap a less ratioanal more primal part of you. Just read the marketing guides of consumer goods companies and they essentially try to make you think that need and want are the same thing. If we do not have good defenses against these things we end up getting suckered into trading our time for these things.
The thing is that we should always try to live by our own rules, not the expectations of society, not the lives other people want to live through us (I’m a little guilty of this counseling a friend to try for an Ivy League institution because this was a secret desire that may or may not come to fruition for me and at least ….. ). Our lifestyle must reflect this, this is why salary increases or decreases should not be the main determinant of our lifestyle. Personally I value simplicity and the life of the mind but that’s just my cup of coffee, If yours is the fast life of glitz and glamor then good for you. Always try to simplify and integrate the life you want to live with the person you are. This reduces friction and increases happiness.
I still have a few thoughts on related subjects for another post:
- Creating Rules Of Thumb
- Basic Decision Making
- Time For Money Trade
- Dirty Secret of Working People
Learned Today 2008 09 08
sad to say this is quite revealing, (of how little I know)
from mark thoma here:
September 07, 2008
On Dividend Taxes…
Greg Mankiw says that if your goal is to keep dividend taxes low, you should vote for Obama:On Dividend Taxes, It’s a Post-Partisan Race, by N, Gregory Mankiw, Economic View, NY Times: …Before 2003, when a person received dividends from his stock holdings, this income was taxed at ordinary income tax rates. That is, a dollar of dividends generated the same individual income tax liability as did a dollar of wages.
But many economists have long argued against taxing dividends this way. Dividends are a stockholder’s payment from corporate profits, and these profits have already been subject to the corporate income tax. Any tax on dividends represents a second tax on essentially the same income.
One can question whether this double taxation of income from corporate capital is fair. But fairness aside, there is also the problem of incentives. Taxing dividends twice substantially raises the overall tax burden … and distorts various decisions. Whenever taxes, rather than true costs and benefits, drive the allocation of resources, the economy shrinks below its potential. …
Policy wonks like me have long hoped for changes in the tax code that would eliminate, or at least mitigate, these problems. In 2003, President Bush proposed that all dividends paid out of income that had already been taxed at the corporate level should be exempt from tax at the personal level. …
Although Congress did not give the president exactly what he sought, it gave him a large chunk of it. The top tax rate for dividends was cut to 15 percent, less than half the top rate for ordinary income. The adverse incentives of the tax … became much smaller. …
Senator Obama … has not been coy about wanting to use the tax code to redistribute income… But for dividend income, Senator Obama has proposed only a modest increase in the top tax rate, to 20 percent from 15 percent. …
In light of Senator Obama’s stand, the politics of dividend taxation may take some surprising twists. Senator John McCain wants to maintain the current tax rate of 15 percent on dividends…, but it is a good bet that if Senator McCain is elected president, while Congress remains Democratic, Congress won’t give the Republican president what he wants. They would instead let the Bush tax cuts expire, returning the dividend tax for high-income taxpayers to about 40 percent.
By contrast, if Mr. Obama is elected, Congressional Democrats will be less likely to balk at his proposed 20 percent dividend tax rate… On the issue of dividend taxation, Barack Obama may be the candidate with the best chance of preserving George Bush’s legacy.Update from Dean Baker:
Greg Mankiw Promotes the Myth of Double Taxation, Dean Baker: There is an old myth developed by rich people at some point in the distant past that paying taxes on dividends amounts to “double-taxation.” The argument is that profits are already taxed at the corporate level, so taxing money when it is paid out as dividends to shareholders is taxing the same profit a second time. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard University professor and former top economist in the Bush administration, pushes this line in a column in the NYT.
The trick in this argument is that it ignores the enormous benefits that the government is granting by allowing a corporation to exist as a free standing legal entity. The most important of these advantages is limited liability. If a corporation produces dangerous products or emits dangerous substances that result in thousands of deaths, shareholders in the corporation cannot be held personally responsible for the damage. The corporation can go bankrupt, but beyond that point, all the shareholders are off the hook, the victims of the damage are just out of luck.
By granting corporate status, the government has allowed investors to shift risk to society as a whole. In exchange for this and other privileges of corporate status, the corporation must pay income tax on its earnings. We know that investors consider the benefits of corporate status to be worth the price in the form of the corporate income tax, because they voluntarily choose to form corporations. If investors did not consider the benefits of corporate status to outweigh the cost of the income tax, then they are free to form partnerships which are not subject to corporate income tax. In this way, the corporate income tax is a completely voluntary tax. Anyone can avoid the tax by investing in a partnership, or alternatively, any corporation can be restructured as a partnership.
The complaint about double taxation is an effort to get the benefits of corporate status for free. It is understandable that rich people would want to get benefits from the government at no cost, just like most of us would prefer not to pay our mortgage or electric bill. But, there is no reason for government to be handing out something of great value (corporate status) for free. If rich people don’t like the corporate income tax, they have a very simple way to avoid it — don’t invest in corporations. The problem is that the rich are just a bunch of whiners.
Posted by Mark Thoma on Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 12:24 AM in Economics, Politics, Taxes
Catching Up With Life
Scarcity is rearing its ugly head once again. It seems that to the online and the physical lives or at least mine is not that integrated and it simply a case of not wanting to make a choice. Its oktoberfest friday, WordCamp Philippines Saturday Whole Day and Alumni HomeComing Saturday Evening. I’ve got around a thousand things to read in my feed reader and about 80 tabs of very long articles that I’ve decided I wanted to learn, a couple of books to read for fun, a couple of books to learn from for fun and a couple a whole lot of friends I’d like/love to hang out with. The thing is choices are choices and if choosing life means clicking mark all read or forgoing less important events , we have to choose.
We have set our lives in such a way as to maximize our choices creating the paradox that we actually create less choices for ourselves. I often hear people almost saying I’d like to do that, I’d like to try that. Too often that those words have turned into valueless words for me, they signify nothing, I don’t know at least I haven’t given up on people, When I hear those words I still try to help people if I can to help them towards something they want. I’ve just learned to keep my emotions in check because I used to get so frustrated by the lot of humanity who complains a lot but seems to never have enough to do anything about their predicament. Truth be told I was and still am part of that sorry lot, I constantly try to remove myself but it is something that is extremely hard to wrench out of your system.
I love the Choices taht I have, I owe them to God, My Parents and my Family, My Friends, My Teachers and the Lot of people who have done so much to open doors, to enrich me, to expand my horizons, to finetune my views and all in all make me a much better person.
CAST AWAY the shackles of choice and realize that choice is FREEDOM or ENSLAVEMENT, and its all up to us. And this is the RUB “YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE FREEDOM”
Learned Today 2008 09 02
Relics like lectures have to give way to the advances in cognitive sciences specifically, we must account for the fact that we know a whole lot more on how we learn (ok, not that much but enough). This means that we must have more interactive classes, more lab and less lectures. The sad thing is that I think that only a few people specially from my alma mater try to buck these relics of the past. I long for the day when instead of lectures we have coaches. If the academic programs can learn something from the sports programs its that coaches are also good teachers and its mainly due to how they teach.
from Brad Delong here, do read the whole thing:
Why Are We Here? (In a Big Lecture, That Is)
Why do we still have big lecture courses in universities? It is somewhat of a mystery…
The Pre-Gutenberg University:
- Universities have their origins in the medieval need of the powerful to train theologians (for the church) and to train judges (for the emperor and the kings of France, England, Castile, and other kingdoms.
- A manuscript hand-copied book back in 1000 cost roughly the same share of average annual income as $50,000 is today.
- Hence if you have a “normal” college–eight semesters, four courses a semester–and demand that people buy and read one book a course, you are talking the equivalent of $1.6M in book outlay. Can’t be done.
Hence you assemble the hundred or so people who want to read Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy in a room, and have the professor read to them–hence lecture, lecturer, from the Latin lector, reader–while they frantically take notes because they are likely to never see a copy of that book again once they are out in the world administering justice in Wuerzburg or wherever…
Choosing
On a personal note since graduation I’ve noticed people getting gym memberships and the marked improvement in their self images. I feel that its the fact that when you really start to choose for yourself , choosing becomes easier and its self reinforcing. I read somewhere that we have a limited amount of self control but as we practice more self control this limit expands. I feel that this is the same thing, after finally deciding to improve and bit by bit trying to improve we expand this self control.
So if we could get people to exercise more, would they become more risk-loving, want less insurance, make more aggressive investments, and induce faster economic growth? Would this be a good thing?
That’s Robin Hanson, the basic empirical result is that physically weaker people are more risk-averse in a wide variety of settings.
from Overcoming Bias blog here.
In The Face Of Changes
Just got a raise, Its not big but in the high inflationary environment we are in coupled with the growing pains of adulthood I’ll take what I can.
I’ve been very vocal with my urging of friends to not change lifestyles after a pay raise and the like. I still remember last saturday when Rain and I somewhat ganged up on Jizelle for her “lifestyle changes”.
We were just doing those things for fun. Its nice (and quite entertaining) to make people conscious of the changes they undergo. Oft times when they are not too mindful of a majority of the moments of their lives people change a lot without realizing it. This happens often enough that the change comes too fast and in a relatively short time we sometimes no longer recognize who we already have become. This is somewhat problematic for people who do not take great pains on being true to themselves at almost all times because sometimes we become or have turned into a something who we (or at least our former selves) do not like.
This is one of the challenges of adulthood trying to find your center what some people call “wal” where we retreat to in times of distress, Where although almost everything around and most definitely about us is changing , this is what stays the same.
I’ve always lived mindfully and have suffered a constant battle within because of this. When lying/lies are the one of the most potent of tools to use against a lot of the pain, doubt , questions, and the tragedies that we encounter losing the capability or at least the knee jerk reaction of not facing reality becomes a stake unto itself.When one can only see too well into ones own lies, One becomes naked to self-examination, and when one sees who we really are we may or may not understand what has become of us.
But the Sorrow of Truth is the Happiness of Reality, For one can only love something when you know that thing, If not know at least have an Idea what the essence of that thing is, and in this place of Sorrow and Happiness one can truly love ones self.
I’ve made my choice and its A choice I’ve long made and have never regretted. I try to live as someone who knows who I am warts and all and have suffered through it. I look at myself in the mirror and do not regret the image that I see. I am who I am by the force of my environment but also by the force of my will.
In The Face Of Changes the one that can change and not change at all is the same person.
rePost: Filipino teachers continue to fly to US for higher pay
A recession bound USA offers probably more opportunities for enrichment than our small country the Philippines. Sad but there are tens of thousands of teachers from the Philippines without work. I remember a conversation I had with the Filipino Couple we had met on the hotel in Thailand a couple of years back. They had two house helps who graduated as Education Majors , or even the feature in a GMA documentary of a Domestic Helper working in Hong Kong who also graduated with a degree in education, or I could go on and on. The problem is not how many teachers our country has but that the best are leaving to educate the young ones of another country. A country that could at least pay them a higher percentage of what they really are worth. That’s modernday international trade for you. Welcome to the Philippines the No Exporter of Human Resources.
Filipino teachers continue to fly to US for higher pay
By Cynthia Balana
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 17:51:00 08/28/2008
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MANILA, Philippines—More and more competent Filipino teachers are flocking to the United States where they are paid more, according to the Philippine Embassy in Washington.
The embassy, in a statement, said that only last week, 93 Filipino teachers arrived in the US and were welcomed by Philippine Ambassador to Washington Willy Gaa.
The new arrivals attended orientation seminars organized by the embassy where they were also given “practical advice” to ease their transition into a new teaching environment.
The 93 teachers will be teaching special education classes, focusing on Mathematics, Science and English subjects in public schools in Prince George’s County in Maryland.
Gaa said the new recruits followed a group of 115 teachers who were also welcomed by the embassy last July.
The first batch of Filipino teachers moved to Maryland in 2005. As of the fall of 2006, 400 Filipino teachers were already in Baltimore City alone.
Just Start Just Right Just Write
I have been on a self imposed blog diet. I am supposed to not post in anything for a few days and reasses. That’s why I had a somewhat longish post for my last post. And I think I finally got it.
I’ve been telling friends to start, start anything and the fact is that advice lacks its other half.
It’s not simply “Start, just start anything” , the advise should read “Start and continue for at least two weeks”.
The thing is, at least for me Two Weeks is enough to form a habit. Two Weeks daily is enough to destroy good habits or create new ones. And of course I am referring to blogging but not only to blogging or writing. In most any thing I do If I do something obsessively for one week and enjoy it enough to continue doing it unobsessively for another week its already a habit for me.
How do I know that its a habit for me? Short answer is that when eats at you inside when you are not doing it.
The long answer is that it when doing something obsessively for a even a few days its starts to change you. You if what you do produces at least within hour after effects, you begin to yearn for those stimulants or at least actions/reactions. Then if the action is within power to be done these stimuli results in sating this need. What happens next depends on two things the feedback effect and the longterm effects.
How the Feedback affects habit formation is determined by two things; how strong the sensation/stimuli is , how much of this strength is back propagated soon and how tiresome is it to do the habit. If something is so enjoyable yet is extremely hard to do or is enjoyable yet only after a long period of time , or if something is easy to do and provides feedback instantaneously but is just not that enjoyable; The habit will just not be formed.
The secret is finding the perfect mix of these things and you would would probably be able to form the habit.
Even if an habit is formed early on if it is just not sustainable through a multitude of means or reasons primarily due to scarcity or even worse adverse effects. Actions produce unintended consequences and ones actions now may prevent us from continuing a habit like lack of money , or time or for some activities maybe have helped end what you use to enjoy. Like maybe over fishing a small pond till you eventually leave a population of fish non-existent.
Well the personal part of this post is that I’ve been having this feeling that I am irritating a few people whenever I go about telling them or more accurately urging them to start blogging or writing or do something as a hobby, or do something to enrich their lives , their view or whatever. I get that “just agree” look that people give to those people trying to get them dupe in the lates pyramid/ponzi scheme
(Aside: In a poor country like the Philippines these schemes are a dime a dozen; and I’d bet you would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t know within about two to three degrees of separation someone who has been duped by a ponzi scheme)
(Follow up Aside: In poor countries ponzi schemes or any get rich quick scheme is bound to be effective. Just look at some countries in africa where albinos are being killed because some body parts are said to bring someone great luck. I pray we do not reach that point. )
Continuing… I have all but learned to ignore that look ang continue trying to get them to do something just through a different way because I assume my present stance is just not convincing them. Its what friends do. I I may not be able to help everyone but hell I’m going to try to at least help someone. I may not be very effective in my advocacy but damn it I will try. I grab what I can get, even if its just convincing someone to start updating their resumes, or getting someone to smile more often, I don’t care or more accurately my mind,psyche, heart can take the extra stress so why not.
Just start. Just Right Just Write or Just Do Something Anything.Please. For You. For Me, but Especially For You!
Call Center Provincial Expansion and Unintended Consequences!
(March 19, 2008)
I’ve been recently going around call centers recently trying to polish my interview skills.
Because of this I’ve been to a lot of websites, local sites and job fairs where call centers have booths.
A welcome trend is emerging. The trend is the constant trickle of jobs to places outside of the Makati Central Business district, the Ortigas Area, Eastwood Libis Area, Alabang Area that probably comprises the center of the Philippines BPO/IT/Call Center Industry. New sites include (from memory not meant to be comprehensive) Angeles, San Fernando Pampanga, Baguio, Antipolo, Cebu as a region, Subic and Clark.
I can think of reasons that necessitate this (okay I cheated, called some friends who worked in call centers mostly middle managers, not the decision makers but at least in the loop.)
More Permanent Reasons
- Lower Cost – Salary
- Lower Cost – Rent
- Local Government Subsidies
Less Permanent Reasons
- Lower Turnover
- Smaller Number Of Competitors
In the Philippines the minimum wage is set by the local regional wage boards. The wage boards consist of representative from the government, business and the labor sector. In the Philippines NCR generally has the highest wages followed by neighboring Regions, then followed by Cebu , and Davao. This pattern fluctuates depending on the economic health of a regions, although the NCR has the highest wages by at least 5 percent has been true since I started following the regional wages.
This means that barring tremendous growth in economic activity and productivity the cost advantage of provincial call centers are here to stay. I was actually surprised when I found out that the starting salaries of call centers for the same position had around 40-50% difference. Yes I didn’t mistype, Provincial call centers are paying only half of what they are paying to their NCR agents. Another surprising thing is that even with this difference call center jobs in the province are considered high-paying, because anecdotally only the big companies offer salaries that are equal to the regional minimum wage.
The lower turnover is mainly due to the lack of job mobility, there just isn’t any other to go to. One call center is largely the same as another and with the still small number of call centers outside of NCR and Metro Cebu lower turnover for considerable.
The smaller number of competitors is mainly a function of competition. The best paying, best workplace call centers definitely get the best people to work with, which means that a lot of other call centers have to settle with whats left. Call centers that have provincial sites tend to either pay lower or have less benefits.
The need to reduce cost is mainly due to the overall weakness of the dollar. We must understand that most of these contracts were negotiated during the time when the Peso-Dollar exchange rate was around 55-1 whereas currently (updated as of August 25, 2008) the Peso-Dollar exchange rate is hovering around 45-46 pesos per dollar. For companies that have razor thin margins , the exchange rate is really devastating financially. Moving to places where costs are much lower becomes a necessity especially when it is hard to forecast where the US economy and the Dollar-Peso Exchange rate would be in the near future.
All these factor combine to make provincial expansion a short to long term trend.
Of course if the overall weakness in the US economy continues nobody knows definitively if it would cause a contraction or expansion of Philippine call center industry.
The influx of disposable cash is important because it is transformative in a way, through unintended consequences will be followed up in a different post.
Some Ideas on what local government units or local groups could do to help this process will be followed up in a different post.
Some problems this may possibly cause will be followed up in a different post.