The Haiku of Finance for 05/31/22

Everything normal

Successful business career

Great to be alive

The Haiku of Finance for 12/31/17

Ending one more year
Measuring progress so far
Still some way to go

The Haiku of Finance for 08/17/16

Terminate meeting
Other party brought nothing
Stop wasting my time

The Haiku of Finance for 05/24/16

Working very hard
Long time since last haiku post
Need a longer day

The Haiku of Finance for 03/09/16

Finding the right price
Negotiate some mid-point
Offer on table

The Haiku of Finance for 01/12/16

Reception venue

Deal makers get drunk all night

Really immature

Mentor-Protege Relationships Now Include Mentees

I always try to use language properly. Words adapt when dictionaries catch up to real world descriptions. One way to describe working relationships in the real world has always included connections between mentors and their proteges. In recent years, some business writers have gotten sloppy by referring to the junior person as a "mentee" rather than a protege. I shake my head at this unfortunate trend.

The word "mentee" is of recent vintage, according to Merriam-Webster. It appears to modify the word "mentor" when no such modification is necessary. Read the dictionary definition of "mentor." The word originates with a Greek character and defines a teacher. Read the dictionary definition of "protege." It originates from French and defines a learner. Read the Wikipedia description of mentorship. It clearly describes the relationship between mentors and proteges. There is no need to create a new word for protege that modifies the word mentor.

I prefer to use traditional language. I lament such changes to the English business lexicon. Calling someone a protege worked perfectly fine for a long time until some writers decided not to pay attention anymore. I have mentored people in the past and may do so again. I do not need to be anyone's protege; if I were for some reason, I would never call myself a mentee.

The Haiku of Finance for 01/10/16

Waiting for meeting
Big shots are last to arrive
They waste so much time

The Haiku of Finance for 11/18/15

Pay to get along
Friendship should not cost a thing
Such bizarre business

The Haiku of Finance for 11/01/15

Business icon choice
Moral qualities matter
Reflecting judgment

The Haiku of Finance for 10/28/15

Billing cycle end
Notify all customers
Payment is due now

The Haiku of Finance for 09/28/15

Attend reception
Do not network with people
Just grab the free food

The Haiku of Finance for 09/17/15

Deliver value
Small segment in big market
Find someone who pays

The Haiku of Finance for 08/12/15

Big shots bloviate
Impress clients by lying
People eat this up

Culture Can Impact ROI

Some cultures are just made for good business.  Countries with Anglo-Saxon common law and Protestant work ethics have high per capita GDP, like the good old USA.  Japan and South Korea manage to do well economically.  The rest of the world makes me wonder about the connection between culture and ROI.  Richard Lewis' When Cultures Collide explores the relationship between culture and business in some depth.  I'll just throw my own thoughts about the subject onto the Interwebs.

I would like to find some Big Data on cultural habits.  Searching Google doesn't help much at this point.  Big Data practitioners are forming their own professional cultures but they have little to say about data on national or sub-national cultural traits.  The most immediate waypoint I have found is a description of the Big Five personality traits and their measurement across cultures.  One NIH NCBI paper on cross-cultural personality studies offers more formal models that are more relevant for psychiatric diagnoses than business case studies.

High-functioning cultures should generate reliably higher GDPs and project ROIs than more primitive cultures.  It's an a priori conclusion supported with deep dives into global indexes for corruption, economic freedom, and other measures of well-being.  Countries in Scandinavia, the Pacific Rim, and North America tend to cluster at the top of most global rankings.

Culture has implications for common currencies and economic unions.  The tightest unions (like the EU and euro) are only viable with very closely linked cultures.  Looser unions (like the managed trade areas the US is trying to forge with Europe and Asia) work if they only involve business elites whose common outlook will facilitate large projects.  Transnational elites have more in common with each other than they do with common citizens in their own countries.  

The EU and euro became nonviable when the common market grew so large that too many ordinary citizens from incompatible cultures were required to interact.  I have long believed that a "Holy Roman Euro" of former Franks, Gauls, and Germanic tribes is the only viable future for Europe's common currency after the periphery explodes.  The former Hapsburg countries are better off having their own common market.  Poland and the Baltics need to go their own way.

The Alfidi Capital thesis offers the US as the most viable geostrategic link for loose common markets that would otherwise include incompatible cultures.  The US's long coasts with natural ports are the geographic links to European and Asian traders who would otherwise transit unfriendly waters (yes, China, this means you and your lack of commitment to freedom of navigation).  American business elites include many upwardly mobile Asian and Latin American immigrants with cosmopolitan outlooks.  We figured out the winning formula for linking culture and economic success right here at home.

The Limerick of Finance for 06/21/15

It's impolite to bounce a check
Correlates with a credit score wreck
Plan all cash outlays
Pay them without delays
Bill collectors will hunt for your neck

The Haiku of Finance for 05/16/15

Convention conflict
Two events in same time frame
Business one wins out

Financial Sarcasm Roundup for 04/27/15

This particular burst of sarcasm draws inspiration from the Commonwealth Club's "Week to Week" political panel.  I attended because I had some rare white space on my calendar.  Yeah, folks, I really have been that busy lately and that's why I only had time to blast out haikus last week.  Anyway, the Club panel covered the topics below and the usual brain-dead losers in the audience thankfully remained silent.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement is still controversial among people on the far Left and Right who flunked both math and economics.  Knitting our largest trading partners together is a no-brainer.  Two decades of economic data from the success of NAFTA ought to convince naysayers but some people just prefer illiteracy.  President Obama remains well-liked among his base and probably has the political capital to spend on fast-track approval authority if he so desires.  I concur with the Club's panelists that he was never as progressive as his early rhetoric led some to believe.  He has governed like a center-right President for most of his tenure (much like Ike or JFK in their time).

The Club's panelists are political junkies and watch every turn in the 2016 Presidential race as if it matters.  Folks, nothing matters at this stage except fundraising and the "invisible primary" of early party endorsements.  The serious candidates are obvious, and the unserious ones are usually corporate executives who have never spent time in Washington, DC.  Launching a Presidential campaign as a stalking horse for a Cabinet position makes no sense.  Presidential transition teams have their own vetting process for those jobs, and said process has everything to do with sending a message about governance priorities.  It has nothing to do with rewarding primary season opponents.

It makes little sense for our local pundits to lament the influence of money in politics.  America has always been a stealth plutocracy and the Founders were the wealthiest people of their time.  Billionaires don't always get what they want out of elections.  Gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson backed Mitt Romney in 2012 and got nothing for the money he spent.  The Koch brothers' influence is similarly overblown.  I can't take the Kochs seriously when their family patriarch's first political project was the John Birch Society.

Local ballot measures promoting bond issues for BART and school districts are in danger of stepping all over each other.  Voters can never remember how much they approved in previous bond issues.  Read what I wrote about some recent transit studies that debuted at the Commonwealth Club to see just how much voters need to know before they pull the lever for more bonds.  I see no solution to the funding problems facing Bay Area public schools that does not involve eventually winding them down.  The various gifted programs for Sacramento public school students worked fine for me, but that was the 1980s.  The public school era in our nation's history is probably closing as MOOCs offer vast course arrays free of charge.

Finally, someone mentioned a new local initiative that landlords have launched to give military veterans a break on market rents.  These breaks are supposed to go where they do the most good.  Homeless veterans should be first in line.  I need to remind my readers that not all veterans are homeless.  I am a veteran, and I pay my rent and taxes just like the rest of you.  I was never issued a begging bowl in the Army.

Have fun next time, Commonwealth Club kiddos, and don't forget to play my "Commonwealth Club Matching Game" available on the Special Reports page of my Alfidi Capital website.

The Haiku of Finance for 04/10/15

Presenting report
Boss asking budget impact
Wait until last slide

The Haiku of Finance for 03/01/15

List business online
Rich snippets across platforms
Ubiquitous brand