Views & Thoughts
Andrew Lahde
A friend forwarded me a great article, written by Andrew Lahde, a hedge fund manager who predicted a market collapse and benefited from it financially. He writes a general fuck you to the hedge fund industry, but there are two paragraphs that impressed me most.
Capitalism worked for two hundred years, but times change, and systems become corrupt. George Soros, a man of staggering wealth, has stated that he would like to be remembered as a philosopher. My suggestion is that this great man start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man’s interest, while at the same time creating rewards great enough to attract the best and brightest minds to serve in government roles without having to rely on corruption to further their interests or lifestyles.
And
The original American flag was made of hemp fiber and our Constitution was printed on paper made of hemp. It was used as recently as World War II by the U.S. Government, and then promptly made illegal after the war was won. At a time when rhetoric is flying about becoming more self-sufficient in terms of energy, why is it illegal to grow this plant in this country? Ah, the female. The evil female plant — marijuana. It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal? Is it a gateway drug? No, that would be alcohol, which is so heavily advertised in this country. My only conclusion as to why it is illegal, is that Corporate America, which owns Congress, would rather sell you Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax and other additive drugs, than allow you to grow a plant in your home without some of the profits going into their coffers.
But I can just say that you must read the entire article, it is very impressive to say the least..
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/daily-brief/2008/10/17/hedge-fund-manager-goodbye-and-f-you
Lemming hour (traffic jams)
Good Morning Lemmings
This great picture should really motivate you to do something different..
Teacher bias
Small anecdote of something that happened to me at school a few days ago:
A teacher presented me with an 8.5 for a paper I wrote on IBM expanding its services in India in China. It is a good grade, certainly something to be happy with. Except.. I wrote, for the same teacher, an extensive, high-quality paper exactly one year ago. He graded me with a 4.0 and I had to convince him to look at it again before he awarded my efforts wiith a solid 7.0. What is the big difference? Since I know my writing is the same, it should be something else.
Lack of Focus
Lately, I keep wondering if there’s a direction to my current actions. Probably not very uncommon for someone my age and in my position. Last year of studies and no real idea where I want to go..
Sometimes, wondering about this stuff makes me think I’d rather be one of the people that tend not to overthink things. But then again, I tend not to overthink stuff at all. So I gues I’m one of the many people without a direction.
Another then again, what defines your direction, is it work, love or some fun thing to do. I don’t know yet, I’ll tell you all when I find out.
Curves of life, education and leisure
Thinking about how my life and how I spend my time lately. I have to prioritize most of my activities to determine what I would want to do in a week. What are my criteria? Necessity and fun factor. What is necessary for me to do, and what gives me most fun.
Ofcourse, it’s not like I make consious descisions about it, but maybe I should. Let me tell you what I think are the current trends (curves) that influence my life. In the end, let me conclude where the areas of improvement might be.
Education is one of the main things in my life, but the current curve I’m noticing is that, sadly, the education I receive in school is inferior to the education I get purely by following my own interests. A good anecdote would be reading a book by John Gray just before a lecture by the International Sales director of IBM. During his talk I grew more and more annoyed by the statements he was making, since I just read pages and pages of arguments directly confronting these. Which to believe?
The leisure/work curve is changing constantly as well, from running my own business, and having that as one of the main sources for leisure, to working at a bar for the last few months, making my social life again one of the main points of leisure. Which to follow and what would be wise?
Strangely, the moments my life seems good, both balances seem to go start changing, forcing me to find a new balance. In the end, my problem seems to be that I tend to follow my gut in deciding what my passion of the moment is. The causes me to keep changing it around, but change is good and only to be expected.
How often do you change? My estimate of change would be every 2 or 3 years..
Attitude differences between the Dutch and Spanish
As most of you will know, I visit Spain, especially Barcelona and a coastal town near it, quite regularly. Being there, exclusively on vacation for varying amounts of time (long weekend or for multiple weeks), I might not get the most correct impressions but hanging around a lot with locals should counter the vacation attitude I might have and should reinforce my credibility in me stating the following.
The Dutch attitude seems extremely lacking when it comes down to simply enjoying life. Read more…
Who needs ethics
“At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote.”- Emo Philips
This quote really triggered me, because it is exactly what has been happening for some time now. Think about it, oil rules the world, because we all started to feel like ‘we have to move around’. There really is no need for it for our survival, or happiness for that matter, but we prioritize the aqcuisition of it over almost anything else. I am really sure there is a great number of examples found in various products and marketing campaigns all over the world. Can you see it?