Dogs are animals of integrity. We have much to learn from them.
Category: People
A gift from a friend of the Blog
Some of you may have noticed that at the head of the right-hand column on the Blog we have a new image. This arrived the other day and is from the ‘drawing board’ of Neil Kelly who is one of nature’s more creative fellows. Anyway, here’s the image in a slightly larger format. Thanks Neil!
By Paul Handover
Sometimes we think that we know nothing and feel that we having nothing to contribute; then, on reflection, we realise that, in fact, we do know something and that maybe it is worth sharing. This is perhaps the opposite of the paradox that the more we know, the more we realise that there is to know. Is a little knowledge a dangerous things? Possibly, if used with a cavalier attitude. In the end you, the reader, will decide.
A couple of months ago, Paul Handover described on this blog some details of his Piper Cub aircraft. Although I knew of his post, having skimmed it at some time, I had missed a coincidence which now triggers me to think about my limited knowledge and experience of the Piper Cub!
This makes me proud to be human!
As their website explains:
Operation Migration has played a leading role in the reintroduction of endangered Whooping cranes into eastern North America since 2001. In the 1940s the species was reduced to just 15 birds.
Operation Migration is a founding partner of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP), the coalition of non-profit organizations and government agencies behind the project to safeguard the endangered Whooping crane from extinction.
Want to get involved? Here’s how.
Remember the film ET? Just look at this next picture …
Red-letter weekend?
Dimitry Medvedev, President of Russia, hitherto regarded as something of a stooge for “Czar” Vladimir Putin, recently made an extraordinary attack on those trying to rehabilitate Josef Stalin, who has strong claim to be the greatest mass-murderer and originator of human misery in history.
On the face of it, it seems extraordinary that anyone in their right mind could possibly seek to rehabilitate such a monster, but for many Russians he represents “the good old days”, when Russia was “great”, and in particular the dark days of WWII, when he is supposed to have “saved” Russia from the Nazis.
This last of course ignores the small detail that those who saved Russia were mostly young boys in Red Army uniforms who faced down the Wehrmacht in Stalingrad and elsewhere in unimaginably-terrible conditions.
However, despite being an “international communist”, Stalin “saved” Russia by appealing to nationalist sentiments. As this great country is once more going through tough times, the Russian conservatives, headed by Putin (“the loss of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of my life”) have been seeking to play upon nationalistic sentiment by rehabilitating Stalin.
Now, nationalism is the most destructive of forces (apart perhaps from those inspired by “God”), and so we have a lot to fear from the extreme Russian version. But Medvedev has pricked the bubble in an act of considerable courage, for many enemies of the Kremlin have died for less – witness Alexander Litvinenko in London …
So, hats off to Medvedev.
Is he deliberately distancing himself from Putin? We should follow these events closely. We need Russia as a friendly partner on the world stage, and not just because of her resources.
By Chris Snuggs
Debt stress in Middle Class America – how may this play out?
On Saturday, October 24th Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism ran a Post on her Blog about an anonymous couple who were over their heads in debt. (Yves has given me written permission to reproduce the Post.) The story of this couple then generated a huge response of comments. Read the comments, each and every one of them.
Then ask yourself 
where this is all heading? These comments may, almost certainly are, just be the tip of the iceberg. Seems a long way from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address in which he was reputed to have used the words: “… government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Some days I worry; worry a lot!
The extract from Yves Post about this couple is reproduced below but far better is to go and read the whole Post and all the comments.
UPDATE: Since writing this Post Yves has published a further Post on the topic again generating a huge volume of comments. That was Sunday, November 1st. Then bright and early on November 2nd James Kwak of Baseline Scenario weighs in with his version, Do smart, hard-working people deserve to make more money? 150 comments (at the time of writing) for that one. Interestingly, as the days have gone on the mood of the commentators has become more reflective and thoughtful thus partly negating the theme behind this Post.
Another quick look at Riverford Organics and a lesson for all.
Further to my post on Guy Watson of Riverford Organics, in the mini-series on remarkable people:
A couple of Saturdays ago (October 24), we had a great time out at Wash Farm, the home of Riverford Organics.
Our five year old son enjoys eating sweetcorn. Recently, having carried the weekly veg box from our doorstep to the 
kitchen calling “Riverford coming through!”, he was then delighted to report: “there are three sweetcorns”, there having been two in previous weeks!
On Saturday, he marched into a field of sweetcorn and, as if he had done it for years, went straight to a plant and, explaining what he was doing, tested the crop for size and ripeness and picked it by breaking it off like an expert. He then handed it to me and proceeded to pick many more of them. When I asked him how he knew what to do, all was revealed: “I saw it on the telly!”.
As luck would have it, I encountered Guy Watson at the event and it was great to shake his hand and offer a few words of congratulation on what he has done. Of course, he has no idea who I am!
Their customer service is great; and now they are embarking on more market research to understand better how their customers use their products! [See the relevant edition of their newsletter here!] [The subject of a Post on Market Research coming out soon. Ed.]
Although I am not an expert, I know enough to know that this is remarkable. To think about how customers are using the product, to measure it, to go into customers homes and find out what they are really doing with your products: this is at the pinnacle of good customer research!
No doubt there are others, but I have only ever heard of one other company who paid so much attention to customers in their homes. It was Intuit, the highly regarded US software vendor which, for decades, has consistently beaten Microsoft at providing accounting software. Their representatives would wait in a shop for a customer to buy their product and then request permission to travel with them to their home to record exactly what experience they had with installing and using it!
Final report from the day at Riverford: the event on Saturday was “Pumpkin Day”, its primary purpose being to buy (and have carved) your pumpkin for Hallowe’en. There was a competition to guess the weight of a (largish) pumpkin; I guessed by comparative lifting of the pumpkin and of said five-year-old son, and based my estimate on information from his mother about his most recent weight! Guess what? I have just heard that I won! So a case of (organic, of course) red wine is now expected to materialise alongside this weeks box of vegetables!
By John Lewis
P.S. The Riverford Blog is a good read
A Post published today by John Lewis raises the question of why not consumer protection for financial ‘products.
Sherry’s reply.
A great question, John: why do we not have a threshold level of safety for financial products, as we do with cars and toys?
Well, for one, if a financial product “fails,” the consequence is purely financial – it is not injury or death. A financial product simply represents a financial investment today in exchange for financial payoffs tomorrow.
The less certain those payoffs, the higher the minimum required return on that investment. If the returns were certified or regulated in some way, risk would be reduced, and the required return would also fall. Limiting risk exposure throws out the baby with the bath water: less risk means lower returns on the investment. Look at the real returns to U.S. Treasury Bills – they are almost zero!
There is a role for regulation in financial products and that is for disclosure of relevant information. When we invest in a financial product, we are putting our money at risk in exchange for future expected cash flows. We forecast those cash flows on the basis of material information about the firm, its products or services, and its management and strategy.
Even here there is a fine line between the right to know and proprietary information that enables a firm to invest its own funds in the hope of generating a large return in exchange for taking risks.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s requirement for a 20-day window between the time a bidder makes a tender offer for a target and the time the target shareholders must decide whether to accept the offer or not is an example of a regulation that crosses the line, in my view.
In a misguided attempt to protect shareholders from fly-by-night tender offers, the SEC has created an environment where multiple competing bids can arise, driving down the return to the original bidder and limiting the incentives for firms to productively redeploy assets through tender offers.
By Sherry Jarrell
Are we missing a lesson that has been applied for years?
I have resisted any temptation to comment on the economic situation on Learning from Dogs. The contributions from others are based on far more knowledge and understanding of the subject then I will ever have.
However, I feel obliged to ask humbly for some clarification about something that bothers me. Are we putting the cart before the horse? Are we ignoring the relationship between provider and consumer in finance?
The regulatory regime applied to the vast majority of products which are allowed to be sold to the public is such that 
there are probably more stringent safety standards for an electric toaster than for most, if not all, financial products!
Much of the talk of regulation and restraint, in the current climate, seems to relate to remuneration of people working for financial organisations. But, why does it matter what they receive? In other fields, success is rewarded and the shareholders, admittedly fairly indirectly, have some say on the policy in that area. Why should they not pay what they wish?
On the other hand (to coin an economic phrase!), the minimum standards of the products are set by regulators.
In other fields, if a supplier cannot demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the regulators, that its product meets specified safety standards, then that product is not allowed to be offered.
It is very simple! I am not referring to contracts, customer service, compensation and so on; I am referring to a threshold level of safety below which the product is not allowed to be sold or operated. Think: “cars”, “aeroplanes”, “electrical appliances”, “children’s toys”, and … well anything else!
To be even clearer, this is not about “perfect safety” which is, of course, not available at any price. This is not about blame. This is not about guarantees. It IS about inspection, testing, certification, regulation … oh and policing!
Can anyone explain why this approach cannot be applied to financial products? (Sherry attempts to here.)
By John Lewis
p.s. as chance would have it the image of the toaster at the head of this Post was taken from an article talking about a recall of the Viking Toaster – point made rather well, don’t you think?
“Don’t chase the money! Chase personal development and let the money chase you!”
This was the parting shot that came to my mind a couple of years ago, at the end of delivering a one week training course to a group of new graduates.
In general, my approach to training is less well suited to people at their stage than it is to people who are motivated by the need to get a job done. However, that is, of course, my “problem”.
Nevertheless, at the end of that particular course, I felt the need to pass on something from my years of supposed experience, however irrelevant that experience might seem to a group of young, newly minted, investment banking people.
Cause and effect
Although I do not remember the source of the quote, it seemed quite apt. I liked the way in which the opening exhortation seemed completely opposed to their motivation. That woke them up! Then the second part gave them a different entry point and restored the connection with that original motivation.
Perhaps the strongest aspect of the quote is, of course, that it attempts to clarify the direction of causation between money and personal development.
It seemed neat at the time, and it still does!
By John Lewis
An ancient idea may have run it’s course?
What is the purpose of “Daylight Saving”? [Interesting history of Daylight Saving on Wikipedia. Ed.]
This week we are in a particularly interesting situation as we are in the middle of a one week separation between the dates when Europe and US change their clocks back to “normal” winter time. I.e. Europe changed their clocks back at 2am last Sunday and most, but not all, US States change their clocks back at 2am this coming Sunday.
This is even more confusing than normal. But why are we doing this at all?
Is it to save fuel, to save lives, to save time or to save something else?
In my humble opinion it is all nonsense!
“Time management” is a myth
Time is time! People say that they do not have enough time to do this or that, as if they have ways to make some more; and, of course, there is much talk about “time management”. Yet we all have the same amount of time and no amount of management will change that!
We are certainly able to manage the things that we try to fit into the available time. That is, we can manage tasks, effort and so on. But, in everyday (Newtonian rather than Einsteinian) regimes, time is an inelastic independent variable. Fiddling about with the clocks and trying to “manage time” have no effect on the stuff whatsoever. Let it be!
There must be a better way!
Yes, I know! Some people make claims of wasted daylight or of the dangers to schoolchildren walking to or from school in the dark. These are valid areas of concern. If adjusting the times of business operations or schooling helps to deal with them, then by all means do so. But, for goodness, let’s not pretend the time is different.
By John Lewis
Learning from Dogs 