Evita has grown bigger and stronger in 10 days

Amazing!

Her motor skills have improved unbelievably fast. She can now manage complex manouvers such as walking along the thin chair frame. She balances herself on my shoulder while I'm walking.

She's also responding to her name. She's getting very good at hiding and not letting us find her. ]
[[[[[[





"ghbbbbbbbbbJH

and she can even type the keyboard.... the above was her contribution.

Meet Evita!

We have Evita for 5 days now. She’s such a darling.

Treating 'myopia'

I realised that ever since I left university and started working, I lost grip on current affairs and general knowledge. All I had managed to get were some local news in Singapore, which were not exactly exciting (e.g. murder cases involving a foreign maid, the latest mall opening, etc.). Time was also a factor. Work was hectic. In fact, work was robbing my life. What good is work taking up all your precious hours when you could have used it wisely to acquire knowledge. Even if you don’t intend to invest your time, you could have at least use it for pleasure. The problem exists among many workacolholic Asians. On hindsight, it was such a waste to spend more than the optimal 8 hours at work as I have observed the diminishing marginal returns on productivity.

What I really yearned to do when I missed my personal time was reading and acquiring general or technical knowledge. I have always wondered how much can I learn. I often said to myself, if only I could understand how this complex universe of financial system actually works. How did banks and markets come about ? How do we get ourselves in financial crises ? What are the dynamics of all possible financial instruments in this giant universe ?

When you work in a financial sector, your participation probably involve only 1% of the whole system. Your knowledge base and state of mind become so limited that you become myopic. Very often, friends from outside of the financial sector ask you what you think of this and that, and especially the crisis. I think that most of us (including myself) who deal with so many narrow tasks at work, shamelessly not having much real contributions to the discussion. We could offer our two cents but it’s all speculation. How worthy is our opinion then ?

I can’t emphasise enough that we should read, especially now that we have super access to the vast web of information on the internet. The problem is, there’s too much information. It can be quite overwhelming, really. To my surprise, there exists many discussion papers on financial crises. Both the practitioners and academia have rather interesting opinions and findings from the past and recent events. I find that particularly useful to understand the mechanism of banks and why it is susceptible to failures. So, are these informations relevant to a layman ? I would say yes, if you are curious in the matter. Some of the models proposed in academic papers can appear to be intimidating. If you find that so, try to get as much from the introduction and the conclusion.

I golf to forget how boring my job is

When you have no way of escaping the agony of a boring job,  you can at least try to forget it the second you step out of the ‘prison’. Doing something that occupies your wandering mind helps too. Some people do meditation, cooking, yoga and playing a musical instrument. I play golf. Even the thought of the golf course soothes my soul. I find golfing very effective. When I’m out in the open air, I can’t think of anything else but focusing my eyes and mind on the beautiful greenery (and sometimes the animals ; I just saw a fox in the St Quentin golf course last Sunday), and of course the target. In any circumstances in life, having targets keep distractions and depressions away. The mind is a curious thing. It wonders and wanders, and for many people, too often aimlessly. So, lets golf to stay fit and sane !

Waiting for kitty

I’m so excited ! We’re about to bring a kitten home. I can’t stop thinking about it.

Monday blues

Every morning, I say o God, give me strength. I know that I’m very blessed. I have a job that pays all my bills. I find my freshly-laundered bras and panties in my drawers (thanks, mon petit mari). I don’t have an annoyingly gossipy MIL. I’m a house-owner. I have eliminated hypocritical people from my ‘friends list’ during my 20s. Basically, I’m left with the good stuff.

 

Except one thing. I dread going to work.

 

The Words are very wise. We’ll never be happy if we don’t count our blessings. In some ways, I’m still surviving because I do that.

 

It’s easy to forget that once I’m sitting at my workspace. Like a friend describing work stress, it could envelope your whole body. You don’t feel sick, but you just don’t feel well. You feel as if bad energies are encircling you.

 

Am I being trapped? Not exactly. But sort of. I’m not in a battle to climb the management ladder ; I’m not interested. I’m fine in my position but it comes with a price. I can’t do my work in tranquility. I can’t sit quietly. I have to pretend that I’m overworked. I have to shout to be made known my presence. I have to beg for my bonus and pay raise. I have to come up with the best possible small talks. The thing is, if you behave like an adult, your career would be doomed. It’s a circus here.  

 

Let me describe how the job is. It’s like taking medicine or locking your car. One pill each time, three times a day. Press once on the remote control to lock the car. You must have once in a while asked yourself a stupid question. Just five minutes after walking away from your car, you asked yourself “have I locked the car?”. Or “have I taken my medicine during lunch time?”. The action becomes so routine and automatic, it’s being incorporated into your reflex. You stop thinking about doing it. Basically, you stop thinking. Does it bother you if you stop thinking to do your job? Oh, yes.

 

It’s Monday again. Déjà vu.

 

 

No demand, no supply

I was reading some articles from my course on banks and capital markets. I just started this module this week and the course materials provide a broad picture of the subject, I was just touching on the beginnings of the financial sector, on why banks and capital markets exist, why the divergence, its different development progress in different industrialised countries.

 

One interesting point that made an impression on me is the fact that the French financial markets were stagnated between the 1930s and 1980s. There were two theories which attempt to explain (not particularly about the stagnation of the French markets, but in general) what caused the advancement in financial markets. The first one says that it was the legal system that advance or impede the markets while the second theory suggests that there were industrial incumbents that hinder certain countries’ market development.

 

The first theory says that it was the civil legal system being the reason why the French markets did not advance as well as the anglo-saxon ones. Recall that the French uses the civil legal system which is based on laws made by thinkers/scholars who spent their whole life doing just that. The common law system, on the other hand is applied in the anglo-saxon worlds and it is collection of laws made by judges. So, the writers of the first theory found (with empirical evidence) that the financial markets in countries using the civil legal system are less developed than those that adopt the common law system. But the theory couldn’t explain why that is so.

 

The second theory proposes another reason for this phenomenon. The authors say that there are industrial incumbents who are powerful enough to manipulate policy-making in relation to financial market development. It means that the existing industry players who were already there in the first place; have interests in not making money (through the financial markets) available for financing new start-ups. These players have sufficient retained earnings to finance their new projects, so they don’t need banks’ or outsiders’ money. It’s simple economics; when there’s no demand for the product (i.e. money), there won’t be supply.

 

I ask myself, why no demand? Entrepreneurship is perhaps the driver of demand. When I first arrived in France, I have noticed almost immediately that there aren’t many small or start-up enterprises here compared to Asia. An easy example is food. If you want to do food business in France, it’s restaurant or nothing. In Asia, you can start a hawker stall and it’s relatively easier to do that than to start a restaurant from the beginning. Any business needs some kind of financing, even a small food stall. So here you are, a potential borrower.   

 

French people are also reluctant to get out of the comfort zone to venture into entrepreneurship. Those who do, are motivated, brilliant and well-rewarded. The average people are usually quite happy to be employed by big enterprises and the public service. The workforce in the public service is huge. Perhaps it’s just the culture. Or it’s just that they are not hungry enough. Or perhaps there’s just too much bureaucracy involved. What are the other hindrances to entrepreneurship in France?