When I was quite a bit younger I got my fair share of traveling. My parents dragged me and my brother along on many different trips. So in a way I guess you could say that I grew up to be not as much a Finn as something else. But the flip side of the coin was that when we finally returned to Finland from our three year stay in the US, I was quite fed up with traveling as such. And as seems to be the general consensus these days, I still hate flying.
But. Recently I've found traveling again. And lo and behold, it is fun. A week and a half back we were in Milan for a quick weekend trip. Shot in and out in less than 24 hours. Some people have questioned what the point of the exercise was. I guess there wasn't any. It was just a bar hopping trip. Oh, and I did get to meet Micol and hang around Milan for a while. Overall I had a great time and we certainly got a bunch of interesting stories out of the trip too, regardless of the short time.
The problematic thing returning from Milan was that I in fact didn't really want to go back to Finland. And now I'm actually planning a couple of trips for the first half of 2008. We're going to do a nice three day shopping trip to London with Eve early in January (booked the hotel just now) and then there have been some discussions with another friend of mine about arranging an Italian road trip later in the spring; possibly fly to Milan, rent a nifty Alfa Romeo 159, and then drive around a bit before ending up in Rome and flying back to Finland. Anyway, the trip to London will materialize with quite a bit of certainty. Let's just hope that Italy: Redux will also work out.
Oh, and another nifty thing about traveling is that you can finally use Dopplr to brag about your jetsetter lifestyle... ;) (Dopplr seems to still be in closed beta, so feel free to bug me for invitations if you want an account...)
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Assets and liabilities
Last summer's credit crunch and financial market debacle seems to still be going on and volatility seems to be back once again. I guess this, in a sense, is healthier in the long run when compared to the scenario where the bull market would've just continued on and on. Of course it's also annoying in the sense that you can't really make money as easily in a bear market as you can in a bull market. But such is life.
Anyway, the entire credit crunch situation got me thinking about assets and liabilities. And an uneducated feeling would be that very many people can get these two concepts mixed up very easily. Or if not entirely mixed up, at least the focus and perspective on things gets distorted easily. Is a house that is financed with a mortgage considered an asset? According to some definition, and asset is the sum of liabilities and equity. And an asset should generate some sort of value for the holder in order to be considered an asset in the first place. In light of these definitions, a house is of course an asset in rising markets; it keeps on increasing its value and then when you utilize other mechanisms by, for instance, selling it, you can make a nifty profit. Do that, take the money, and then buy a bigger house and start the cycle again with a bigger loan. And as long as things go up, you keep making money and can keep on upgrading houses. But the assumption was that bull markets continue and that thanks to the decrease in volatility and thus risk (via the central banks' recently learned mechanisms of interest rates through which inflation, for instance, can be controlled) leads people to underestimate the impact of the associated liabilities. Credit dries up, rates go through the roof and voilá, liabilities kill you.
And why am I thinking about assets and liabilities? I'm in the midst of a crisis; I've been looking at used cars for the past couple of days and I just want a car. A used Audi A4 or something. But as an investment it's incredibly bad, as cars notoriously only lose value (if you forget some exceptions like some rare vintage cars). Not only that, but buying a car would also require me to finance it partly via debt. And as much fun as a car would be, I'm too afraid of the liabilities and the extent to which they tie me down. Things are going decently well for me right now, but who knows how long this'll last...
Oh, and as an additional note, this is also my 150th blog entry in this blog. Hurray!
Anyway, the entire credit crunch situation got me thinking about assets and liabilities. And an uneducated feeling would be that very many people can get these two concepts mixed up very easily. Or if not entirely mixed up, at least the focus and perspective on things gets distorted easily. Is a house that is financed with a mortgage considered an asset? According to some definition, and asset is the sum of liabilities and equity. And an asset should generate some sort of value for the holder in order to be considered an asset in the first place. In light of these definitions, a house is of course an asset in rising markets; it keeps on increasing its value and then when you utilize other mechanisms by, for instance, selling it, you can make a nifty profit. Do that, take the money, and then buy a bigger house and start the cycle again with a bigger loan. And as long as things go up, you keep making money and can keep on upgrading houses. But the assumption was that bull markets continue and that thanks to the decrease in volatility and thus risk (via the central banks' recently learned mechanisms of interest rates through which inflation, for instance, can be controlled) leads people to underestimate the impact of the associated liabilities. Credit dries up, rates go through the roof and voilá, liabilities kill you.
And why am I thinking about assets and liabilities? I'm in the midst of a crisis; I've been looking at used cars for the past couple of days and I just want a car. A used Audi A4 or something. But as an investment it's incredibly bad, as cars notoriously only lose value (if you forget some exceptions like some rare vintage cars). Not only that, but buying a car would also require me to finance it partly via debt. And as much fun as a car would be, I'm too afraid of the liabilities and the extent to which they tie me down. Things are going decently well for me right now, but who knows how long this'll last...
Oh, and as an additional note, this is also my 150th blog entry in this blog. Hurray!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Jingle bells...
We got our first actual snow in Helsinki yesterday and in the evening I couldn't help but feel more than a bit Christmas-y. The white snow trickling down from the sky and the contrast the darkness creates combined with empty streets and a good day overall created a near perfect atmosphere. For a change it just seemed that things were perfect. At least until reality hits you again and you remember how backlogged you are... But it was a nice feeling regardless. And I'm actually looking forward to Christmas this year...
Monday, November 12, 2007
Emotional wellbeing
I was watching a presentation on YouTube today that brushed on the topic of child mortality and the correlation with GDP and the results were fairly comforting; in the past four decades the child mortality has decreased and the gap between the western countries and third world countries has been steadily decreasing. And I guess it's easy to extrapolate that overall people are living much longer and more healthy than before. This can be seen in the sense that there are movements away from trash food and towards healthier foods and the rapid growth of the wellness/fitness business.
But this lead me to wonder about the overall state of us. This is nothing new but recently I've been hearing lots of stories and witnessing some first hand cases of situations where people feel really bad. The Jokela massacre last week, I believe, was mostly motivated by the bad feelings and anxiety and other psychological issues than from any political ideology, regardless of what the perpetrator stated in his writings. I guess now that we're not dying as much as before, we're becoming worse off in the scale of psychological and emotional wellness. More people are feeling really bad. Which is interesting, becuase by all meters we're wealthier and better off than ever before. And this, again, is nothing new. But it's an interesting phenomenon regardless. And raises interesting questions as to what is causing this and how could this be solved. Even though school shootings might still be considered black swan events (i.e. very unlikely to happen), the problem still manifests itself in many smaller ways.
At work I heard today of a case where a youngster had tried to kill herself. And this was supposedly already the second time. And incidents like these aren't very rare as I've heard of quite many similar ones from just a rather small circle of people. Overall I'm wondering what's the reason behind this sort of behaviour, especially when it comes to younger people. I personally can't really offer an explanation asides from the so typical answers of "the pressure that society places on young people these days through increased cut throat competition" and so on. But I'm not entirely convinced that that's a valid answer. It's too vague. I will, however, admit that the above may play some smaller role as I as a young person will also agree that on some level competition is quite fierce in the academia and work environments. But it still hasn't made me think of giving up my life or harming myself or others in any way. On the contrary, actually. Right now I'm very enthusiastic about some aspects of the world. I'm enjoying my studies and my work even though I have to give quite a lot of energy to be able to handle them to a satisfactory extent. Of course everyone comes across a multitude of problems and issues along their journey, but why do people resort to extremes instead of just trying to find a solution to the problems. Every problem has a solution and even if the solution is so difficult that it can't be found, most problems can be circumvented one way or the other. It just seems that instead of stopping and drawing breath when confronted with a problem, people instead do rash and hasty decisions and just cause more problems. And that's a shame.
But this lead me to wonder about the overall state of us. This is nothing new but recently I've been hearing lots of stories and witnessing some first hand cases of situations where people feel really bad. The Jokela massacre last week, I believe, was mostly motivated by the bad feelings and anxiety and other psychological issues than from any political ideology, regardless of what the perpetrator stated in his writings. I guess now that we're not dying as much as before, we're becoming worse off in the scale of psychological and emotional wellness. More people are feeling really bad. Which is interesting, becuase by all meters we're wealthier and better off than ever before. And this, again, is nothing new. But it's an interesting phenomenon regardless. And raises interesting questions as to what is causing this and how could this be solved. Even though school shootings might still be considered black swan events (i.e. very unlikely to happen), the problem still manifests itself in many smaller ways.
At work I heard today of a case where a youngster had tried to kill herself. And this was supposedly already the second time. And incidents like these aren't very rare as I've heard of quite many similar ones from just a rather small circle of people. Overall I'm wondering what's the reason behind this sort of behaviour, especially when it comes to younger people. I personally can't really offer an explanation asides from the so typical answers of "the pressure that society places on young people these days through increased cut throat competition" and so on. But I'm not entirely convinced that that's a valid answer. It's too vague. I will, however, admit that the above may play some smaller role as I as a young person will also agree that on some level competition is quite fierce in the academia and work environments. But it still hasn't made me think of giving up my life or harming myself or others in any way. On the contrary, actually. Right now I'm very enthusiastic about some aspects of the world. I'm enjoying my studies and my work even though I have to give quite a lot of energy to be able to handle them to a satisfactory extent. Of course everyone comes across a multitude of problems and issues along their journey, but why do people resort to extremes instead of just trying to find a solution to the problems. Every problem has a solution and even if the solution is so difficult that it can't be found, most problems can be circumvented one way or the other. It just seems that instead of stopping and drawing breath when confronted with a problem, people instead do rash and hasty decisions and just cause more problems. And that's a shame.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Target markets
I've previously blogged about the VisualDNA personality thingy and it seems that they have found an interesting venue for making money. Or at least offer value. I was browsing Facebook this morning and stumbled on a similar test as a Facebook application, and what they've done is hooked the personality mapping to Christmas presents. Click on a bunch of pictures that please you and the system will then calculate what sorts of presents you might like. It also gives you a link to buy it. But what's more brilliant than giving people a free personality test and then using the results to find the products that best match your values. And this is actually quite an interesting application, unlike the things done by the blokes who think aliens are attached to your head.
And as a completely separate note, Guinness has a brilliant advertisement:
And as a completely separate note, Guinness has a brilliant advertisement:
Wages and unions and whatnot
The debate concerning the wages in the healthcare industry in Finland has been going on for a while. For any non-Finns who might read this, the union is demanding over 20% increases in wages, whereas the employers were offering 13%. The raise was more than what other fields already got and is also narrowing the wage gap between men and women. But come on, 20%+ raises for a massive group of people! Is it so difficult to understand that a radical move like that can't be healthy for the economy. The solution, I guess, would be to print more money. I bet the nurses would jump with joy if every person were given an additional couple of grands every year. But wait, I guess that's not it. I guess it's the traditional Finnish mechanism of envy at play...
A survey some time ago focused on asking people which scenario they would prefer: a) they would earn 50 000 euros per year and their neighbor 60 000 euros per year or b) they would earn 40 000 euros per year and their neighbor 30 000 euros per year. Legend has it that most took option b). I guess there is some logic to that (maybe overall everyone would get less in option b) and thus you would be in a better off position as money is more scarce). Or then maybe it's just that it's so much more annoying when your neighbor earns more. Maybe this is the reason for the reaction that the nurses are having right now. Who knows.
Another interesting argument is the wage gap between genders. A commonly held view is that in the job market, if a male is paid one euro, the equivalent female will get something like 76 or 80 cents. There was recently an interesting blog post on a blog under Kauppalehti (a Finnish newspaper focusing on economic matters). It presented the view that whereas men might earn more, they also pay more taxes. Then men also typically have a shorter life expectancy, meaning that men get less back in pensions. Which leads to the situation that men don't really get the aforementioned one euro, but instead we get 70 cents. And maybe the supposed wage gap is a reflection of the fact that most women are away from work for a few years when they have children. And then another go when the next one comes along. So, why not just not have children and go full steam ahead with the career? The tax records that were published recently for 2006 showed that quite many women were earning seven digit figures in Finland. Not too shabby. And because Finland is a free country, the last time I checked, nobody is forcing anyone to become a nurse. Why not instead study a bit more and hit the higher salaried jobs if money is really the issue.
And that brings us to an interesting aspect again; offshoring is a real bogeyman in the US. Jobs are being shipped to lower cost countries. And I guess American salaries are in fact quite generous and the tax levels quite low. Compared to the US, the salary gap in Finland between the highest and lowest paid employees isn't really that large. People performing blue collar jobs are pretty near to the white collar jobs. And in some situations blue collar jobs pay even better. The low wage levels in Finland are one reason why Finland isn't really part of the losing team in the offshoring battle. In fact, because Finland is so cheap, I would imagine that Finns would be getting some of the jobs being offshored from other countries. And that means more jobs for Finns and more taxes for the government and more overall wealth. Doesn't look too shabby.
And to end up, I just want to suggest that everyone at least once in their life would actually try to take a realistic view of the world. It's not that shitty a place to be in, actually. And if it is, maybe you can do something about it. But if you do decide to do something about it, try not to wreck the entire place (e.g. the economical landscape as in the Tehy case) and maybe also keep in mind the simple thought that maybe you can get a lot more ahead in the game by just making sure that you're moving. I know, that's not fun because in a case like that you're the one doing the grunt work and you can't really freeload that much. And it seems that these days taking responsibility for one's self is becoming a rarer thing in general. Everyone keeps on blaming everyone else for their misery. I for one plan to just keep thinking up of plans and new plans and executing them while trying to work towards my personal longterm goals. And I'm not really assuming that any unions or any other entities will be helping me. I'm actually betting that they really won't, which just means that I'll have to just take that into account and carry more responsibility. But that's what makes this life so interesting.
A survey some time ago focused on asking people which scenario they would prefer: a) they would earn 50 000 euros per year and their neighbor 60 000 euros per year or b) they would earn 40 000 euros per year and their neighbor 30 000 euros per year. Legend has it that most took option b). I guess there is some logic to that (maybe overall everyone would get less in option b) and thus you would be in a better off position as money is more scarce). Or then maybe it's just that it's so much more annoying when your neighbor earns more. Maybe this is the reason for the reaction that the nurses are having right now. Who knows.
Another interesting argument is the wage gap between genders. A commonly held view is that in the job market, if a male is paid one euro, the equivalent female will get something like 76 or 80 cents. There was recently an interesting blog post on a blog under Kauppalehti (a Finnish newspaper focusing on economic matters). It presented the view that whereas men might earn more, they also pay more taxes. Then men also typically have a shorter life expectancy, meaning that men get less back in pensions. Which leads to the situation that men don't really get the aforementioned one euro, but instead we get 70 cents. And maybe the supposed wage gap is a reflection of the fact that most women are away from work for a few years when they have children. And then another go when the next one comes along. So, why not just not have children and go full steam ahead with the career? The tax records that were published recently for 2006 showed that quite many women were earning seven digit figures in Finland. Not too shabby. And because Finland is a free country, the last time I checked, nobody is forcing anyone to become a nurse. Why not instead study a bit more and hit the higher salaried jobs if money is really the issue.
And that brings us to an interesting aspect again; offshoring is a real bogeyman in the US. Jobs are being shipped to lower cost countries. And I guess American salaries are in fact quite generous and the tax levels quite low. Compared to the US, the salary gap in Finland between the highest and lowest paid employees isn't really that large. People performing blue collar jobs are pretty near to the white collar jobs. And in some situations blue collar jobs pay even better. The low wage levels in Finland are one reason why Finland isn't really part of the losing team in the offshoring battle. In fact, because Finland is so cheap, I would imagine that Finns would be getting some of the jobs being offshored from other countries. And that means more jobs for Finns and more taxes for the government and more overall wealth. Doesn't look too shabby.
And to end up, I just want to suggest that everyone at least once in their life would actually try to take a realistic view of the world. It's not that shitty a place to be in, actually. And if it is, maybe you can do something about it. But if you do decide to do something about it, try not to wreck the entire place (e.g. the economical landscape as in the Tehy case) and maybe also keep in mind the simple thought that maybe you can get a lot more ahead in the game by just making sure that you're moving. I know, that's not fun because in a case like that you're the one doing the grunt work and you can't really freeload that much. And it seems that these days taking responsibility for one's self is becoming a rarer thing in general. Everyone keeps on blaming everyone else for their misery. I for one plan to just keep thinking up of plans and new plans and executing them while trying to work towards my personal longterm goals. And I'm not really assuming that any unions or any other entities will be helping me. I'm actually betting that they really won't, which just means that I'll have to just take that into account and carry more responsibility. But that's what makes this life so interesting.
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