I am increasingly convinced that doing a triathlon next summer is a good idea. The exact variant is yet to be determined, but I'm starting to think that maybe a sprint distance at 750m swimming, 40km cycling and 10km running is a good way to get acquainted with the sport. So, why triathlons? The rationalized answer is because practicing the three different sports may in fact be more healthy in the long run when compared to only running, which itself puts a fair bit of pressure on joints and whatnot when running around the pavements in the Helsinki area. But that's not the real reason. The real reason of course is because I seriously want a new roadbike and what better way to rationalize the acquisition than to state that I absolutely need one for a triathlon.
Anyway, cycling and running should not be too difficult. The thing I'm slightly worried about is swimming and the fact that it's about a decade or so since I've last done any swimming. I'm just not that into the whole water business and I've never really liked spending time on beaches and such. You just get sand everywhere and you can't even dress like a human since it's too bloody hot and typically there aren't even shades around. But yeah, swimming is quite relevant from the perspective of a triathlon and fortunately enough it's also the first part of the shebang, meaning that if I happen to drown, at least I didn't waste effort in cycling and running. Fail fast, if you will.
So, swimming then needs to be tackled and naturally you need the appropriate attire to swim, namely the swimming suit. And oh joy, here we stumble on the age old argument about whether or not men can wear swimming briefs ("Speedos") or not, and of course I can't let a fight like this slide by without taking a stance. And of course the answer is that the only appropriate way to dress is with swimming briefs, or "Speedos". Period. End of story. It's as simple as that.
If you think about it, it's in fact quite obvious and I don't understand why there even is such a big fuss about the topic. First of all, swimming is exercising and when exercising, your attire is based on functionality. When training, it doesn't matter if you look stupid or not, the point is that you must dress in a functional fashion. I'm always baffled when you see women in polo shirts and sporting nail polish show up in gyms and pretend to work out. I go to gyms to work out and get sweaty, ergo I dress appropriately and don't really care whether it fits my sartorial image or not. And in terms of swimming, the appropriate and functional way to dress in in swimming briefs: they offer better movement ability and the fact that they are not a tent (unlike the things the Americans wear) you can actually swim more efficiently. And when you're done and leaving the swimming pool, they also dry fast and don't take as much space.
Now, someone will of course start bitching and moaning about the fact that they look ugly when you're on the beach and women will never like you if you wear "Speedos". Those just demonstrate prejudice and small mindedness. And besides, the point is moot since there is absolutely no reason why a civilized person would go on the sand to grill themselves in the first place. So that point is purely hypothetical anyway. Instead of being chavs, civilized men instead will spend their summers doing something productive, like sailing or playing sports, and dress appropriately. And when just lounging around, they shall anyway wear long trousers (preferrably linen or some other lightweight fabric) and polo shirts to look reasonable.
So there you go, the whole argument about briefs or not briefs when going swimming is hereby solved once and for all.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Decoupling and deconstruction
One of my pet theories is that the increasing level of infrastructure (security, transport, capital, ...) will decrease the size of companies. This summer it appears that the oil and gas industry is experiencing a trend of spin-offs and splitting of companies, without even regulator involvement. First Marathon Oil spun off Marathon Petroleum and in today's Financial Times ConocoPhillips announced its intention of splitting itself into two. Interestingly enough after yesterday's announcement the markets rewarded ConocoPhillips with and increase of 7.5% in valuation. So whereas nuclear scientifically fusion energy seems to often fail to materialize in the corporate world, fission certainly seems to have worked in this case.
But of course some caution should be applied before we dive into the theory of infrastructures and company sizes. Without being an expert on oil and gas, my guess is that the industry in itself is in the midst of a turmoil and from an investor perspective I would be careful as my common sense says that peak oil will have most likely already happened and that the industry, at least in terms of oil, will is already declining and buy-and-hold strategy will at this point would only result in tears in a matter of years. But another driver may be increased competition in declining markets and the inability for a large organism to adapt rapidly enough, further held back by the immense amount of effort wasted in internal communication and other functions which spin out of control as a function of company size.
It will, however, be interesting to keep an eye on what is happening and whether or not the benefits of these fission exercises will be sustainable, or whether the markets merely rewarded the companies for making any type of effort.
But of course some caution should be applied before we dive into the theory of infrastructures and company sizes. Without being an expert on oil and gas, my guess is that the industry in itself is in the midst of a turmoil and from an investor perspective I would be careful as my common sense says that peak oil will have most likely already happened and that the industry, at least in terms of oil, will is already declining and buy-and-hold strategy will at this point would only result in tears in a matter of years. But another driver may be increased competition in declining markets and the inability for a large organism to adapt rapidly enough, further held back by the immense amount of effort wasted in internal communication and other functions which spin out of control as a function of company size.
It will, however, be interesting to keep an eye on what is happening and whether or not the benefits of these fission exercises will be sustainable, or whether the markets merely rewarded the companies for making any type of effort.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Don Quijote and EU's fight against credit raters
Amusingly enough EU seems to have been caugh with its trousers down by the credit raters, who have in the past weeks downgraded a couple of more EU members into the junk bond category. And as appears to already be typical for the eurocrats, the approach now is to focus on the annoying smoke by attacking the credit raters instead of addressing the real problem, namely that of the horrible state of competitiveness and finances of its member states.
As part of the latest news today, a couple of EU commissars have been making interesting statements. Firstly there is supposedly a cartel of the top three credit raters, according to Viviane Redding. Well, judging by the past few years, the level of competence demonstrated by the raters in regards to e.g. evaluating the credit worthiness of subprime mortgage CDOs and the whole shebang, one would assume that entry barriers for a new rater wouldn't be very high. That is assuming that a new entrant could provide more credible ratings. I'm not an expert, but I fail to see how a cartel would actually work here. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but in any event I do agree that maybe more competition would be better, but rushing out and calling cartel without credible proof seems somewhat weird.
Secondly the fact that raters will change ratings has apparently caught another commissar by surprise. Well, you know, assessing the situation and changing ratings accordingly is precisely what raters do, as surprising as it might be. And even more surprising undoubtedly is that if raters don't see improvements in the actions and the expected outcomes of the actions, ratings will drop. Perhaps raters could talk with the parties that are being rated about different things, but ultimately I understood that the whole point of having third parties perform ratings was that investors who want more information on which to act could get a somewhat reliable, unbiased and objective assessment of the situation. Interestingly enough, however, it appears that historically the raters, e.g. in the subprime case, may have had conflicting interests and biases towards rating subprime mortgage CDOs higher than they should have, which I think then comes back to the whole situation where I personally would like to see raters remaining somewhat detached and distant from the parties who are likely to gain or lose basing on the ratings.
But all of this is ultimately very much moot as the fundamental issue still remains: the EU has made a total hash of things and it should now focus on fixing the core causes of the whole trouble, i.e. increasing the competitiveness and entrepreneurial activities while decreasing the corruption and inertia in the troubled member states. If this isn't done, then ultimately arranging bail outs and negotiating loan terms is pointless as the loans will never be repaid unless the countries actually get their financial growth back on track. And while this is going on, maybe EU shold resist the temptation of lashing out at windmills...
As part of the latest news today, a couple of EU commissars have been making interesting statements. Firstly there is supposedly a cartel of the top three credit raters, according to Viviane Redding. Well, judging by the past few years, the level of competence demonstrated by the raters in regards to e.g. evaluating the credit worthiness of subprime mortgage CDOs and the whole shebang, one would assume that entry barriers for a new rater wouldn't be very high. That is assuming that a new entrant could provide more credible ratings. I'm not an expert, but I fail to see how a cartel would actually work here. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but in any event I do agree that maybe more competition would be better, but rushing out and calling cartel without credible proof seems somewhat weird.
Secondly the fact that raters will change ratings has apparently caught another commissar by surprise. Well, you know, assessing the situation and changing ratings accordingly is precisely what raters do, as surprising as it might be. And even more surprising undoubtedly is that if raters don't see improvements in the actions and the expected outcomes of the actions, ratings will drop. Perhaps raters could talk with the parties that are being rated about different things, but ultimately I understood that the whole point of having third parties perform ratings was that investors who want more information on which to act could get a somewhat reliable, unbiased and objective assessment of the situation. Interestingly enough, however, it appears that historically the raters, e.g. in the subprime case, may have had conflicting interests and biases towards rating subprime mortgage CDOs higher than they should have, which I think then comes back to the whole situation where I personally would like to see raters remaining somewhat detached and distant from the parties who are likely to gain or lose basing on the ratings.
But all of this is ultimately very much moot as the fundamental issue still remains: the EU has made a total hash of things and it should now focus on fixing the core causes of the whole trouble, i.e. increasing the competitiveness and entrepreneurial activities while decreasing the corruption and inertia in the troubled member states. If this isn't done, then ultimately arranging bail outs and negotiating loan terms is pointless as the loans will never be repaid unless the countries actually get their financial growth back on track. And while this is going on, maybe EU shold resist the temptation of lashing out at windmills...
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