tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2169330069367558582024-03-05T10:26:36.035-06:00Joel StevensUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-34561796875688184032020-01-06T15:30:00.003-06:002020-01-06T15:31:57.310-06:00Rational Enlightenment Essay: Life Investments<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoTitle">
<span style="font-size: 28pt;"><a href="https://t.co/9amZjgC8qR?amp=1">Life Investments</a></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Watering
the Flowers and Cutting the Weeds<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">My favorite things in life don’t cost any money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s really clear that the most precious
resource we all have is time</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Steve Jobs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
the game of Go, stones can be played at any open location on a large grid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of this openness and flexibility, a
Go player is never locked into any particular position on the board.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was learning to play, my uncle
observed that wherever you focus your attention is where the game develops—many
times a player can shift the outcome of the game dramatically by simply playing
in a new area rather than continuing to “fight it out” in one particular are of
the board.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This lesson also applies to life—whether
we realize it or not, we have choices as to where we invest our energy and time,
and it is worthwhile to evaluate the performance of those investments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To that end, some of the wisdom from great
capital investors may also be useful in improving our life investments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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What to avoid<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Mathematician Carl
Gustav Jacobi’s approach to solving problems was to </span>“Invert, always
invert”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Charlie Munger often relies on
this technique in investing and living a good life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, rather than initially focusing on how
to invest time and energy well, it may be easier to prune out the poorer
choices. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Warren Buffett has often talked about avoiding investments
in struggling companies, particularly ones attempting to “turn around”
operations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Both our operating
and investment experience cause us to conclude that turnarounds seldom turn,
and that the same energies and talent are much better employed in a good
business purchased at a fair price than in a poor business purchased at a
bargain price.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">While
people are capable of changing, by and large, it is rare for someone to have a
major shift for the better, hence the oft-quoted aphorism: “When people show
you who they are, believe them.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus,
one of the easiest ways to get better outcomes is to avoid relationships with
people that consistently take energy, but give little or nothing back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, avoid toxic personal
relationships that are a constant emotional drain, CYA managers that neither
make decisions nor delegate authority, low-competency employees that
nonetheless require constant attention, or the like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, a host of bad outcomes can be avoided
by cutting out addictive habits that take up significant time but provide
relatively low enjoyment or personal growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although these habits may differ for different people, common examples
include excessive drug usage or dependency, obsession with social media, news,
or politics, arguing with strangers on the Internet, video games designed to
occupy as much time as possible, or watching videos with few or no redeeming
qualities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Although
avoiding these relationships and activities may seem simple or obvious, simply
avoiding bad decisions can have outsized results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Charlie Munger explains the success of
Berkshire Hathaway by saying: “It is remarkable how much long-term advantage
people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of
trying to be very intelligent.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="SubHeading">
Where to Invest<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Although pruning the
worst relationships and activities can yield strong outcomes on its own, pairing
it with even a few good ones can add a multiplier effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately, great investments are usually
fairly obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buffett and Munger have
discussed this a few times over the years:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The difference
between a good business and a bad business is usually the good business throws
up one easy decision after another, whereas the bad business throws up awful
decisions time after time after time.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Find
the relationships and activities that consistently give at least as much reward
as the energy they take, e.g.: the friendships that get stronger and better the
more time and energy you put into them; the job that rewards your hard work;
the activities that make you a better person; and the relationships that enhance
your best attributes while helping correct your worst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="SubHeading">
Water the Flowers, Not the Weeds<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This
is not to say that time and energy should only be invested in things that are
easy or that everything that is difficult should be avoided—grit and hard work
are important, but it is critical not to over-commit to people or activities
that consistently yield bad outcomes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Peter
Lynch was one of the greatest mutual fund managers of all time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He noticed that investors often sold their
best companies and continued to hold or even invest more in the worst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He likened these to flowers and weeds: “</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">You won’t improve results by pulling out the
flowers and watering the weeds.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We must remember to water the flowers and not
the weeds</span></b><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">.</span><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="background: white; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">December 26, 2019</span></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-67418382136573520682018-09-28T07:28:00.000-05:002018-09-28T22:41:32.785-05:00Rational Enlightenment Essay: Building Social Wealth<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EeBUXv3UnOpcmkMaHPB01k0W4zBy7hvy"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Building Social Wealth</span></a></h2>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
How to Win Friends and Cultivate Relationships</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>You must be the change you wish to see in the world.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Mahatma Gandhi</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I don’t have many original ideas, and this essay isn’t one of them. I’ve always tried to synthesize the best ideas from other people, and over the past few years, I have shamelessly cloned the shameless cloning espoused by Mohnish Pabrai. In that vein, this essay is almost entirely a combination of ideas from Peter Kaufman (editor of Poor Charlie’s Almanack) and Guy Spier (author of The Education of a Value Investor) regarding how to build social wealth. <br />
<br />
<h4>
Negativity Bias and the Elevator</h4>
<br />
The term 'negativity bias' refers to the notion that negative experiences have a greater effect on a person’s psychological state than those that are neutral or positive. It isn’t clear exactly how much more a negative experience affects a person than a positive one, but there seems to be some consensus that a 3:1 ratio (positive:negative) allows for flourishing. John Gottman famously studied marriages and found that successful marriages had a ratio of 5 positive interactions to 1 negative interaction. Daniel Kahneman (author of Thinking Fast and Slow) found that people had a loss aversion ratio of between 1.5 and 2.5, meaning that a loss that is identical to a gain is valued between 1.5 and 2.5 times more than the gain. <br />
<br />
This bias has a pervasive effect on how we interact with each other. Peter Kaufman uses a story about an elevator as an example, which goes like this: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You’re standing in front of an elevator. The doors open. And inside the elevator is one solitary stranger, you’ve never met this person before in your whole life. You have three choices for how you’re going to behave as you walk into this elevator: choice number one you can smile say ‘good morning’; choice number two, you can scowl at this stranger; and choice number three, you can do nothing. </blockquote>
The most likely outcome for each of these choices is a mirrored or neutral response: if you smile and say ‘good morning’, then it is likely the stranger will do the same; if you scowl, then the stranger will likely make a weird face or ignore you, and if you do nothing, the stranger will also likely do nothing. However, in the instances where you smile and say ‘good morning’, and the stranger ignores you or scowls at you, the negativity bias comes into play. While this uneven response may not happen that often, psychologically, it has a much more negative effect than the times when the stranger mirrors back positivity. As a result, to avoid this negativity, we default to being neutral, rather than positive. <br />
<br />
<h4>
Peter’s Solution</h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
Peter likes to say: “When you do as everyone else does, don’t be surprised when you get what everyone else gets.” Thus, to get a better outcome, you have to do something different and better. If 90% of the time, positivity would yield a positive result, but 10% of the time it doesn’t, our psychological biases are making us miss out on the 90%! This is not rational behavior. Peter talks about this beautifully, so I’ll let him speak for himself (from a transcript provided by Richard Lewis at Latticework Investing, with minor editing for brevity):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Now let me tie this to your lives. I’m going to do a psychic reading of anybody in this room. What’s your name? (Answer: “Emily”) Emily, your entire life you’ve been on a quest, an odyssey, a search for that individual that you can 100 percent absolutely and completely trust. But who’s not just trustworthy, but principled, and courageous, and competent, and kind, and loyal, and understanding, and forgiving, and unselfish.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I’m right aren’t I? (Answer: “Dead on”) You know what else? If you ever think you may have encountered this person, you are going to probe and probe and test and test to make sure that they are real, that you’re not being fooled. And the paradox is that it looks like you’re probing for weakness, but you’re not. You’re probing for strength. And the worst day of your life is if instead of strength you get back weakness. And now you feel betrayed. You know why? You’ve got to start your search all over again. It’s the worst thing in the whole world isn’t it? Does everybody here agree with me on this? Look how simple this is.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Here’s your 22 second course in leadership. That’s all it takes. All you have to do is take that list that’s in Emily’s head, and every single other person in this room, every single other person in the whole world, has this list in their head – trustworthy, principled, courageous, competent, loyal, kind, understanding, forgiving, unselfish, and in every single one of your interactions with others, be the list! </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Have you all heard of opportunity cost? Here’s the classic illustration of opportunity cost. You have a finite number of something, it’s important. If you’re doing ‘A’ with it, it means what? It means you’re not doing B or C or D or E. What do you have to do? You have to evaluate all the different alternatives and pick the one that’s most optimal. Is that fair? So you’ve got one lifetime. How do you want to spend your one lifetime? Do you want to spend your one lifetime like most people do, fighting with everybody around them? No. I just told you how to avoid that. And in exchange have what? A celebratory life. Instead of an antagonistic fighting life. All you have to do is go positive, go first, be patient enough. You know we have to be patient for a week with a puppy. Do you know how long it usually takes for a human being to do all the probing and testing that Emily was going to do and to find out that you’re for real? It takes six months. This is why nobody does it. ‘Oh it takes too long.’ Compared to what? Look at the plan B that everybody uses. It’s terrible! It doesn’t work. They spend their whole lives fighting with everybody. </blockquote>
<h4>
Cultivating the Right Relationships</h4>
<br />
Peter’s solution is excellent for being the person that deserves good relationships, but it doesn’t address the selection process. Charlie Munger (Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway) has said: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The difference between a good business and a bad business is that good businesses throw up one easy decision after another. The bad businesses throw up painful decisions time after time. </blockquote>
<br />
I believe this sentiment also applies to relationships, but identifying whether a relationship will be good or bad at the outset is difficult. In his book, The Education of a Value Investor, Guy Spier talks about an interesting, and I believe effective, strategy to quickly identify high-quality relationships.<br />
<br />
First, Guy casts a wide net: he is typically open to conversation from strangers, and he sends thank you notes to an incredible number of people that he interacts with. Additionally, when he meets someone, he tries to do something nice or helpful for them, which could be as simple as a sincere compliment or an introduction that might be beneficial. It is important that whatever is given is done freely and without an expectation of recompense; in other words, follow Peter’s advice: be generous and go first! Once he has given something, Guy watches to see how the person responds. Some people are takers, who take whatever help is given and do not reciprocate; clearly, these relationships are asymmetric and not worth pursuing. Some matchers, who will try to match whatever they have received; these relationships are perfectly good for acquaintances. And finally, there are the givers, who will more than match whatever they receive; these are the relationships to pursue, as they cultivate a virtuous cycle of giving. These relationships will improve the lives of everyone involved and will yield one serendipity after another. As Guy puts it: “What I’m trying to do is simply create an ecosystem for myself in which everybody is the type of person who wants to find ways of helping others.”<br />
<br />
This method has a lot of positive side effects, which Guy describes in his book:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The crazy thing is that, when you start to live this way, everything becomes so much more joyful. There is a sense of flow and alignment with the universe that I never felt when everything was about what I could take for myself. Again, I don’t want to make this sound like I’m some kind of saint. But this experience of finding ways to serve others has been so overwhelmingly positive that I now find myself looking for more and more opportunities to help. </blockquote>
<h4>
How to Build Social Wealth</h4>
<br />
Putting these ideas together: <br />
<br />
<ol>
<li> Be the person you are looking for and go first.</li>
<li> Be generous with people you meet, and observe their response.</li>
<li> Prune the takers, keep the matchers, and cultivate the givers.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
<b>September 27, 2018</b><br />
<b><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EeBUXv3UnOpcmkMaHPB01k0W4zBy7hvy">PDF</a></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-17428636101729752822018-09-28T07:18:00.001-05:002020-01-06T14:42:13.039-06:00Financial Essay: A Few Thoughts on Banks<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/16UBWUGlZlk7fapa2-dbH11Tt3RFJNhwj/view?usp=sharing">A Few Thoughts on Banks</a> - Joel Stevens, June 7, 2018<br />
<div style="margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;">
This essay discusses the current state and potential returns for the large four U.S. banks.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-72851792427580800402018-01-05T16:48:00.003-06:002018-01-05T16:50:18.132-06:00Rational Enlightenment Essay: Seeking Wisdom<h4>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<div class="MsoTitle">
Seeking Wisdom<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Better Behavior and
Interpretations<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Any year that passes in which you don't destroy one of your best loved ideas is a wasted year. </i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Charlie Munger<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Every
so often, I think about my former self, and there’s always at least one
behavior or assumption that just makes me think: “How could I have been so
stupid?”. Of course, at the same time, I
usually think that now I’ve got it mostly figured out, and I won’t have a nasty
surprise later—except that somehow, the same cycle repeats the next time. Sadly, it took me quite a few iterations to
realize that I’m pretty much always doing something stupid; I just haven’t
figured out what it is yet. Clearly, the
trick is to be self-aware enough to identify the current idiocy now rather than
waiting to figure it out later! Given that the new year is upon us, I thought
it might be helpful to review some of my own past mistakes, as it might be
helpful to others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="SubHeading">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Interpretations<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">For
most of growing up and even into my early adult life, I assumed my behavior and
language would be interpreted by others in a fairly specific manner. First, I
assumed that those who did not know me would interpret me in a neutral or
slightly negative manner. For example,
if I were to say or do something rude, then these people would judge me to be a
rude person. Perhaps more subtly, if I
were to say something that could be interpreted negatively even when that
wasn’t my intention, then it would likely be interpreted in the more negative
manner. This assumption still seems to
make sense to me, as in my experience people do not tend to give the benefit of
the doubt except to those that have shown they deserve it. So this first assumption seems to be fairly
well founded at this point in my life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">For
those that were close to me, it seemed logical to give them the benefit of the
doubt and interpret them as positively as possible, and since this was my
underlying belief, I assumed they would also interpret me in the same manner. Said another way, I assumed that those I was
closest to would always interpret my behavior in the way that it was intended
rather than the neutral or negative lens I assumed for strangers. This line of thinking seemed to make sense to
me at the time, since they loved me, and shouldn’t love include interpreting
someone in the best possible manner?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Over
time, I’ve realized that while this assumption is true to some extent, it
doesn’t always hold. As usual, reality
is more nuanced—the interpretations I received depended on many factors, such
as the type of relationship, the psychological health of the people involved,
whether they were having a good day or a bad day, whether they were distracted,
or even if they were in the dreaded ‘hangry’ state. Moreover, this faulty assumption resulted in
some strange behavior on my part, in retrospect. For strangers or acquaintances, I put effort
into interactions, trying to be careful of how I said things, how my behavior might
be interpreted, and how my behavior might make them feel. For my loved ones, this effort did not seem
necessary—why waste all that energy, since they would interpret me positively
anyway? As some more extreme examples:
if my best friend came up with a business idea that I didn’t think was particularly
good, I’d say that bluntly, similar to how I would think to myself. If my dad said something I didn’t think made
sense, I’d argue until it was resolved—after all, I don’t tolerate internal
inconsistencies in myself, so why tolerate them with him? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">The
results of both the assumption and the resultant behavior are probably obvious
to the reader at this point, but they were confusing for my younger self. Many times I hurt people’s feelings without
knowing why, or I would try to do something positive, only to be interpreted in
a bewildering way. As I reflect now, I’m
surprised at the extent to which this behavior was tolerated. The reality is that those I was closest to
were more affected by and more sensitive to my unfiltered behavior than the
strangers I tried to protect. Thus,
while my loved ones probably did interpret me in a more positive way, I had
reached the wrong conclusion—more care
and consideration should be taken for those you are closest to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="SubHeading">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Being Better<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">On
interpretations, I believe even more that it is important to interpret loved
ones as positively as possible—presumably those that are closest have earned
that spot, and positive interpretations only make everyone’s life easier and better. With regard to behavior, I think it is
important to be kind to everyone, but doubly so for those that are closest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">On
the broader point of rooting out poor behavior, I started with a Munger quote
and finishing with his comments on destroying bad ideas seems fitting—to quote
him yet again, “I have nothing to add.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoQuote">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Well I've
done so many dumb things that I'm very busy destroying bad ideas because I keep
having them. So it's hard for me to just single out one from such a multitude.
But I actually like it when I destroy a bad idea because...I think it's my duty
to destroy old ideas. I know so many people whose main problem of life, is that
the old ideas displace the entry of new ideas that are better. That is the
absolute standard outcome in life. There's an old German folk saying...'We're
too soon old and we're too late smart.' That's everybody's problem. And the reason
we're too late smart is that the stupid ideas we...already have, we can't get
rid of!...in most fields you want to get rid of your old ideas. And it's a good
habit, and it gives you a big advantage in the competitive game of life since
other people are so very bad at it. What happens is, as you spout ideas out,
what you're doing is you're pounding them in. And so you get these ideas and
then you start agitating and saying them and so forth. And of course, the
person you're really convincing is you who already had the ideas. You're just
pounding them in harder and harder…The price we pay for [not] being able to
accept a new idea is just awesomely large. Indeed a lot of people die because
they can't get new ideas through their head.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="background: white; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">December 31, 2017</span></b><o:p></o:p><br />
<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aVf_-i1VBKivwgadErgeh0tmN9DZptUB/view?usp=sharing">PDF</a></div>
<!--EndFragment--></h4>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-21994962938524820912017-10-30T18:36:00.001-05:002018-01-05T13:58:04.955-06:00Financial Essay: Evaluating Performance<h4><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxTPR9eP5nWeNTJWOF9lUm1uOFU/view?usp=sharing">Evaluating Performance</a> - <span style="font-weight: normal;">Published by Joel Stevens on October 30, 2017</span></h4><div style="margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;">This essay discusses the drawbacks of using trailing returns to evaluate performance and proposes a different statistical method instead. This method is then applied to the investment records for a variety of famous value investors.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-3241077834138356732017-01-05T17:41:00.001-06:002017-06-13T20:41:58.523-05:00Financial Essay: Measuring Returns<h4><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxTPR9eP5nWeaVJKNHQyTkd0UGs/view?usp=sharing">Measuring Returns</a> - <span style="font-weight: normal;">Published by Joel Stevens on January 5, 2017</span></h4><div style="margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;">This essay discusses various methods of calculating returns--simple rate of return, time weighted rate of return, and internal rate of return. In particular, the essay shows how each return is calculated, discusses common uses of those returns, and provides illustrative examples.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-75125076705586082802016-12-26T10:01:00.001-06:002017-06-13T20:49:03.337-05:00Rational Enlightenment Essay: No Will<div class="MsoTitle">
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<b>No Will</b></h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-weight: normal;"><i>A Path to Right View</i></span></h3>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.</span></i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Reverend John Watson</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Free Will</i>, Sam Harris does an elegant job of dispelling the illusion of free will, which I have taken the liberty to dub ‘no will’ for the sake of brevity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Primarily, Harris presents arguments against our having any conscious control over the actions we take as well as the societal implications of the recognition of that fact, particularly on our penal system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although he briefly mentions the positive impact of the framework of ‘no will’ personally, I believe that fully embracing this understanding causes a sea change in how we view the world, akin to the ‘Right View’ teachings of Buddhism.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<h4>
Summary of No Will</h4>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There are three main arguments against free will, each strong enough to dispel it alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, there is experimental evidence that consciousness only reflects decisions that have already been made at a lower level in the brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Harris is a neuroscientist, I believe his summary is better than one I can provide:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The physiologist Benjamin Libet famously used EEG to show that activity in the brain’s motor cortex can be detected some 300 milliseconds before a person feels that he has decided to move.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another lab extended this work using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): Subjects were asked to press one of two buttons while watching a “clock” composed of a random sequence of letters appearing on a screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They reported which letter was visible at the moment they decided to press one button or the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The experimenters found two brain regions that contained information about which button subjects would press a full 7 to 10 seconds before the decision was consciously made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More recently, direct recordings from the cortex showed that the activity of merely 256 neurons was sufficient to predict with 80 percent accuracy a person’s decision to move 700 milliseconds before he became aware of it.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Thus, it appears that the decisions we make are not decisions at all, but instead the recognition of decisions other parts of our brain have already made</span><span style="background: white; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">However, even if we ignore this finding or it is later refined in some manner, we are still left with the fact that our current state is the result of previous causes and effects outside of our influence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is telling that psychologists have argued whether our behavior is the result of nature or nurture, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">neither of which we control</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do not have any choice over who our parents were, the particular set of genes we inherited from them, or the manner in which we were raised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also have little or no control over the external events that impact our lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can we then say we have any influence over the current state of our bodies or minds, which results in the behaviors we undertake?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Finally, borrowing again from Harris, ‘no will’ can be understood simply through paying close attention to our own conscious experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is the next thought you are going to have?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where will that thought have come from?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take a moment to try to control your thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How did that go?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s take it one step further—try not to think about Dumbo for the next minute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you have control over my mentioning a flying elephant?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Were you able to stop yourself from thinking about him?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we are unable to predict or control our conscious thoughts, how could we be in control of the decisions we make even if we assumed our consciousness were in charge of the decision in the first place?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<h4>
A Tragic Example</h4>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Charles Whitman was born in Florida in 1941, the eldest of three children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was intelligent, having an IQ of 139 at age six, proficient at piano, and earned the rank of Eagle Scout by age 12.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His father was an authoritarian and often physically and emotionally abused him, his mother, and his siblings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After high school, he joined the Marine Corps and was reportedly well liked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During his service, he earned a Good Conduct Medal, a Sharpshooter’s Badge, and an Expeditionary Medal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, he married his wife and enrolled as a student at the University of Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At some point during this time, a tumor began growing in his brain and he became increasingly aggressive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems clear that he was ashamed of this behavior—two of his friends reported that he had told them of striking his wife on two occasions and was “mortally afraid of being like his father”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He admonished himself in his journal and wrote a daily guide for himself that included: “CONTROL your anger…Don’t let it prove you the fool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>SMILE—It’s contagious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>DON’T be belligerent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>STOP cursing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CONTROL your passion; DON’T LET IT lead YOU.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also visited a psychiatrist to discuss his issues and reported urges to “start shooting people with a deer rifle”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, this urge was not seen as an imminent threat—he then killed his wife and mother and climbed the tower at UT, killing 14 people and wounding 32 others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before doing so, he wrote the following (emphasis added): <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I don’t quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><u>I don’t really understand myself these days</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><u>However, lately (I can’t recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These thoughts constantly recur, and it requires a tremendous mental effort to concentrate on useful and progressive tasks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In March when my parents made a physical break I noticed a great deal of stress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I consulted a Dr. Cochrum at the University Health Center and asked him to recommend someone that I could consult with about some psychiatric disorders I felt I had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I talked with a Doctor once for about two hours and <u>tried to convey to him my fears that I felt some overwhelming violent impulses</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After one session I never saw the Doctor again, and since then I have been fighting my mental turmoil alone, and seemingly to no avail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><u>After my death I wish that an autopsy would be performed on me to see if there is any visible physical disorder</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have had some tremendous headaches in the past and have consumed two large bottles of Excedrin in the past three months.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight, after I pick her up from work at the telephone company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love her dearly, and she has been as fine a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><u>I cannot rationally pinpoint any specific reason for doing this</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know whether it is selfishness, or if I don’t want her to face the embarrassment of my actions would surely cause her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this time, though, the prominent reason in my mind is that I truly do not consider this world worth living in, and am prepared to die, and I do not want to leave her to suffer alone in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I intend to kill her as painlessly as possible.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">After the local police killed him, an autopsy was performed, and a tumor the size of a pecan was found in his brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Experts at the time concluded that “the relationship between the brain tumor and … Whitman’s actions … cannot be established with clarity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the … tumor conceivable could have contributed to his inability to control his emotions and actions”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More recently, some have proposed that the tumor pressed against the amygdala of his brain, which could explain some of his erratic behavior. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">How much control did Whitman have over all of this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did he have any choice in the tumor growing in his brain?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did he have any choice in his father’s abusive behavior while he was growing up?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is obvious that he desired to behave in a different way and repeatedly attempted to address his own issues, but how could he do so if he couldn’t stop his own “unusual and irrational thoughts” or “overwhelming violent impulses”? <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Despite his horrible actions, I have a great deal of empathy for Whitman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is not to say, of course, that he is not responsible for those actions—as the entity that performed them, he clearly is. However, this assertion rings rather hollow if he had influence over neither his stimulus nor his responses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that case, what is left?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whitman’s consciousness, which most would characterize as ultimately who he is, appears to have been held hostage in a body and mind that generated irrational and violent impulses—ones that he apparently tried, but ultimately failed, to stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It must have been truly hellish to experience.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<h4>
We Are Automata</h4>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">My college roommate majored in computer science and had a great number of complex projects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of my favorites was on Artificial Intelligence, where he used genetic algorithms to determine the configuration of computer entities for competition against others designed by fellow class members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These entities competed on a two-dimensional grid that used the trained configurations to determine behavior and outcomes in the grid, which could watched on a screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I found most fascinating was that you could watch the behaviors of these algorithms and how they changed over time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Initial algorithms might get “stuck”, or generally behave inefficiently, and might not grow to fill up the space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others might show promising growth in the space, but had little or no defense against attacking counterparts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some might attack well, but might ultimately be outnumbered, losing the competition in the long run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, some entities might do very well against most competitors, but fail miserably against a select few.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, the outcomes for each entity depended on the values stored in its configuration, the rules governing the competition, and the other entities involved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I find it difficult to see any real difference in humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same factors are at play, but amplified to a mind-boggling complexity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are unlikely to ever know the exact rules that govern our behavior in any given situation nor the environment and series of actions and reactions that got us to that state in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">However, this increase in complexity does not change the reality</b>—we have as little control over our outcomes as the simulated entities at war with each other.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<h4>
A Path to Right View</h4>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">At first, these conclusions seem disorienting and depressing, but they can lead to deep compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we can truly accept that everyone is at the mercy of their own neuroses and environment that they do not control, then it is difficult to remain angry or upset with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, we are not typically upset with the weather or even natural disasters—we may wish they didn’t happen or that we weren’t around, but it is nonsensical to be angry with the weather patterns themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, we recognize that a hurricane is simply the natural result of a complex series of interactions <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of air pressure and temperature that have fed back on each other, so we may be sad when it destroys a beach and hurts the people who live there, but do not have the need to punish it for having caused the damage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus it is with people, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">we are all just weather patterns</b>—sometimes a gentle breeze and other times a raging hurricane, but never in control.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">So if we take the same attitude towards people that we take to the weather or the simulated entities at war, our anger and desire for retribution dissipates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, instead of being angry at the jerk who just cut you off, you can have compassion for him and recognize that he is not truly to blame for his actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps he had a terrible day or was distracted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or maybe he is just an unhappy person because he happened to have genes with a high inclination towards depression and might be at a bad point in his life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, just as you might seek shelter from the rain, you may then avoid being around him in the future.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Similarly, we can have compassion for ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone has done something they regret, but were they put back in the same place at the same state, they would do it again—how could they not?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, rather than blaming ourselves using the belief we could have acted differently, we have the option to look back with compassion, knowing we could not have done otherwise, and hopefully learn and improve going forward (though we do not have control over that either!).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Thus, if we can embrace ‘No Will’ fully, we are able to have ‘Right View’ by understanding things as they truly are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With this view, there is no need or even the impulse for anger to arise in the first place, and we can naturally be kind to everyone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxTPR9eP5nWeZkRZVVlXYjcxR3M/view?usp=sharing">PDF</a></o:p></span></div>
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</style>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-28440236215355221462016-10-22T18:35:00.000-05:002017-06-13T20:44:02.505-05:00Financial Essays: Price and Returns and Cost of Leverage<h4><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxTPR9eP5nWea0kwWnM4ZnJ0amM/view?usp=sharing">Cost of Leverage</a> - <span style="font-weight: normal;">Published by Joel Stevens on October 11, 2016</span></h4><div style="margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;">This essay relates to the "Cost of Leverage" of various different leveraged vehicles for investing in common shares, such as using margin or purchasing calls or warrants. Additionally, the essay explores the relationship of Cost of Leverage as the degree to which the call or put is in or out of the money.</div><br />
<h4><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxTPR9eP5nWeZWVid2M5Zi05SG8/view?usp=sharing">Price and Returns</a> - <span style="font-weight: normal;">Published by Joel Stevens on December 31, 2016</span></h4><div style="margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;">This essay relates to the relationship between price and returns. In particular, the essay explores how returns develop over different holding periods, underlying value growth, and prices paid relative to that underlying value.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-74566135347000238182016-06-08T13:02:00.000-05:002016-06-08T13:02:54.847-05:00Book Review: Good for the Money<a href="http://amzn.to/1ZyrLwT">Good for the Money: My Fight to Pay Back America</a> - Bob Benmosche<br />
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As an investor in AIG since 2011, I was very interested in this book, which provides the inside scoop (at least from Benmosche's perspective) of the recovery and payback of the bailout money in AIG. I was impressed with Benmosche during his tenure as CEO as an investor, and after reading this book, I am even more. <br />
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Benmosche goes through his career, in a fairly abbreviated form, as a guy that is rough around the edges, but <i>gets shit done</i>. That characterization seems a perfect synopsis for the AIG recovery, where the government and the press might not be too happy with him, but he got everyone paid back his way. Although I'm sure it was difficult to see at the time, it does appear that his much slower approach to realize the value of assets as AIG was much better than the originally planned method of selling everything as fast as possible, which likely would not have yielded enough money to pay back the loan from the government. <br />
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As I was originally, I was again saddened by his cancer and eventual death. Benmosche's effort at AIG throughout that period was impressive.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-82369191648117278212016-04-10T08:59:00.001-05:002016-04-10T08:59:54.605-05:00Another Slew of Book ReviewsStill falling behind on both reading and writing book reviews. Hoping to have more time soon.<div>
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1RMtKMJ">The Spider's War</a> - Daniel Abraham</div>
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This is the final conclusion to the Dagger and the Coin series, which was overall pretty enjoyable. Pretty good story with fantasy and financial engineering, so how can I complain really?</div>
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1SHH55n">Shadow & Claw</a>/<a href="http://amzn.to/1qBEt2e">Sword & Citadel</a>/<a href="http://amzn.to/1SHH5SX">The Urth of the New Sun</a> - Gene Wolfe</div>
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Gene Wolfe has been recommended to me several times over the years, so I thought I would give this series a shot. It was very interesting, but a pretty frustrating experience. Supposedly, it is Science Fiction, but it is written like Fantasy (the reader is left to use his imagination as to how the magical descriptions can be explained by science). It also uses an unreliable narrator story telling mechanism, and many details are left out all of the time. Often, I had to figure out whether I missed something or if the story teller had purposefully left me in the dark. Usually it was the latter. I didn't enjoy having to work so hard to just try to understand what was happening.</div>
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1SHHapx">Calamity </a>- Brandon Sanderson</div>
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Fun ending to a fun series (The Reckoners)</div>
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1SHHdBS">Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life</a>/<a href="http://amzn.to/1qBECTh">It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness</a> - Sylvia Boorstein</div>
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Both of these were quite good, but of the two, I'd definitely recommend <i>It's Easier than You Think</i>. </div>
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1qBEDqo">The Trauma of Everyday Life</a> - Mark Epstein</div>
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Yet another Epstein book whose premise and beginning is amazing, but who's content is very frustrating. The beginning and the title are such a good concept for a book, but somehow Epstein spends 33% or 50% of the book talking about how the Buddha was traumatized from his lost mother and pre-memory traumas, rather than focusing on the trauma of "everyday life". As usual, I wish he had condensed down to a chapter or two. I don't think I'll bother reading any more of his books, as it is almost always the same situation.</div>
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1RMu8dX">When Breath Becomes Air</a> - Paul Kalanithi</div>
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This book is essentially an autobiography of a neurosurgeon who pushes himself incredibly hard throughout his medical training, gets cancer, and dies before he can finally "get" the life he was working towards. While there are many touching segments, and of course, many sad moments, and while he does have some good thoughts about the interplay of doctors and patients, I can't say I got much out of it. While dying may teach you quite a bit in a short span, I feel that there is more to learn from the wisdom of a 90 year old than a 36 year old who spent his whole life pushing himself through medical training.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-42211743262565865112015-12-26T08:23:00.002-06:002017-06-13T20:44:35.531-05:00Rational Enlightenment Essay: You Are Not Your Feelings<h2 style="text-align: center;">You Are Not Your Feelings</h2><div class="MsoTitle"><o:p></o:p></div><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">or Growing Up, Phase II</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Now, one who says, 'Feeling is my self,' should be addressed as follows: 'There are these three feelings, my friend — feelings of pleasure, feelings of pain, and feelings of neither pleasure nor pain. Which of these three feelings do you assume to be the self?' At a moment when a feeling of pleasure is sensed, no feeling of pain or of neither pleasure nor pain is sensed. Only a feeling of pleasure is sensed at that moment. At a moment when a feeling of pain is sensed, no feeling of pleasure or of neither pleasure nor pain is sensed. Only a feeling of pain is sensed at that moment. At a moment when a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain is sensed, no feeling of pleasure or of pain is sensed. Only a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain is sensed at that moment.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">Now, a feeling of pleasure is inconstant, fabricated, dependent on conditions, subject to passing away, dissolution, fading, and cessation. A feeling of pain is inconstant, fabricated, dependent on conditions, subject to passing away, dissolution, fading, and cessation. A feeling of neither pleasure nor pain is inconstant, fabricated, dependent on conditions, subject to passing away, dissolution, fading, and cessation. Having sensed a feeling of pleasure as 'my self,' then with the cessation of one's very own feeling of pleasure, 'my self' has perished. Having sensed a feeling of pain as 'my self,' then with the cessation of one's very own feeling of pain, 'my self' has perished. Having sensed a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain as 'my self,' then with the cessation of one's very own feeling of neither pleasure nor pain, 'my self' has perished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Thus he assumes, assuming in the immediate present a self inconstant, entangled in pleasure and pain, subject to arising and passing away, he who says, 'Feeling is my self.' Thus in this manner, Ananda, one does not see fit to assume feeling to be the self.</span></i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background: white; color: #1f1f1f;">Buddha</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Like many children, I loved water and swimming. When I was young, a friend of ours had a pool, so naturally I begged to go as often as possible. On one of those happy summer days that my mom took me, after some endlessly entertaining underwater acrobatics, I came up for air. Unfortunately for me, there happened to be a bee inhabiting that particular spot on the surface of the water, and I was promptly rewarded with a sting to my eyelid. As you might imagine for any young child, my reaction was loud and traumatic—I was pretty sure my world was going to end, and for several minutes, it really felt like it had.</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Later, as an adult, I was playing as a bassist in a jazz trio. The venue had an outdoor patio looking over the hills of Austin, which was particularly nice at sunset. After finishing “All Blues”, I reached down to take a sip of my beer (compliments of the house). In another unfortunate happenstance, a bee had decided to take his own drink! Mid-swallow, I was alarmed to feel movement in my mouth and, very quickly, a burst of pain. After successfully removing the bee from my mouth, I soon realized that my discomfort was not yet over. A bit of oral exploration later, I discovered that the stinger was still firmly lodged in my tongue. Of course, as soon as I began to pull it out, even more of the toxin was released. Needless to say, it was not a very pleasant experience; however, I knew that the pain would pass, so after a bit of quiet cursing, we moved on to the next song and finished the set. </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">What was the difference between these two incidents? Why was the first a seemingly earth-shattering event and the second a fleeting bit of pain that left me with a memorable story? As we mature from children to adults, we almost universally come to the conclusion that most physical pain is not a significant life-event—we no longer react to it in the same way we did as children. <b>In other words, we understand that we are not defined by our physical sensations</b>; instead, they are simply passing experiences of the body.</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">This same realization is not commonly applied to emotions, and particularly those that are negative. In the midst of anger or sadness, we typically identify ourselves as those emotions—we feel that we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">are</b> that emotion and express it as such (e.g., “I <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">am</b> sad” or “I <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">am</b> angry”). While we experience them, it is hard to even remember not feeling that way or imagine that they will end. Indeed, we may often prolong or amplify the feelings by telling ourselves stories about what is happening. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Imagine a friend dismisses you abruptly, or perhaps you overhear a colleague disparaging your work—for almost anyone, feelings of hurt or anger instantly arise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even worse, we might add to these negative emotions by thinking, “How could he have done that to me?”; “She must not like me anymore”; “I don’t deserve this”, and the like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, there is no reason for us to self-identify with the emotions we feel, in the same way that we do not identify with the temporary physical sensations we experience. For example, if we stub our toe, we know that the pain will pass, and our identity is not wrapped up in that physical sensation. The same can be true for emotions: compare the stubbed toe to the hurt feelings—is either a new permanent aspect of our lives? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The painful sensation of the stubbed toe mostly goes away after a few minutes, and the tenderness is usually gone in hours or days. In the same way, absent rumination feeding our emotional pain, our unpleasant feelings will soon dissipate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">As an experiment, take a moment to remember the last time you were upset and how long the original feelings actually lasted; in most cases, it probably was not all that long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may even have trouble remembering what happened the last time you were upset!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, if you were upset for a long period of time, were you continuously thinking about what how you felt or replaying the event over and over in your mind?</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">The next time you are feeling sad or upset, consider approaching it the same way you might approach a minor physical mishap: think, “I’m experiencing sadness, but it will pass” in the same way that you might think to yourself, “My toe hurts, but it will be better tomorrow”. Thus, rather than despairing in a seemingly never-ending emotion, we can understand that it is temporary. We can also choose not to prolong or amplify the feeling by telling ourselves stories about the emotion itself, the injustice of its cause, or its ramifications in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember the advice the sage gave to the king seeking wisdom, “Whatever happens, before you call it good or bad, think ‘This too shall pass’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That way, you will always be at peace.”</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxTPR9eP5nWeaXY0S2xyelF1NEk/view?usp=sharing">PDF</a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-39695516902163173192015-11-07T10:00:00.001-06:002015-11-07T10:01:21.149-06:00Book Review: Radical Acceptance<div class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://amzn.to/1QaEuV0">Radical Acceptance</a> - Tara Brach</div>
<br />
Happily, <i>Radical Acceptance</i> focuses on the reality of life, outside of the monastic environments that seem like an underlying requirement of most Buddhist books. I found this one to be somewhat similar in scope to Mark Epstein's book, but in a format and style that was much more relevant to me--or at least easier to relate to. Tara litters the book with poignant stories, her own or those she has encountered in her clients and students, that help drive her points home. By the end, and perhaps by my own confirmation bias, she indicates that relationships with others is where the fruitful path unfolds. Speaking for myself, it is relatively easy to create an illusion of tranquility by simply isolating from unpleasant interactions or stimuli, but maintaining equanimity in the face of anger, pain, sadness, etc. is an entirely different matter.<br />
<br />
A few quotes from the book:<br />
<blockquote>
Eventually I would find that relating wisely to the powerful and pervasive energy of desire is a pathway into unconditional loving. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
In teaching the Middle Way, the Buddha guided us to relate to desire <i>without getting possessed by it and without resisting it</i>. He was talking about every level of desire--for food and sex, for love and freedom. He was talking about all degrees of wanting, from small preferences to the most compelling cravings. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Eric frequently found himself feeling distant and detached when Julie would tell him how she had nothing to look forward to, nothing to give her any hope. He cared, but as he put it, "I wasn't able to be in the trenches with her. I couldn't really relate." At those times, when his body felt lifeless and his heart hard, his mind would struggle to come up with how to make things better. </blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-36387483189052897262015-10-01T15:25:00.000-05:002015-10-01T15:34:05.697-05:00Book Reviews!I suffered from a concussion in June and have been recovering ever since. As a result, my reading rate has gone down a bit. Here's what I've read over the last few months, most were pretty good.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767902351/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0767902351&linkCode=as2&tag=joelstev-20&linkId=ZMUSB3THBP7FNXK2">Going to Pieces without Falling Apart</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=joelstev-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0767902351" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> - Mark Epstein<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521636450/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0521636450&linkCode=as2&tag=joelstev-20&linkId=MDYYKRZVJWMYCAPQ">Nietzsche: The Gay Science</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=joelstev-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0521636450" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> - Friedrich Nietzsche<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446603708/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0446603708&linkCode=as2&tag=joelstev-20&linkId=AJMWJ4RYDL4IUFC7">Clay's Ark</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=joelstev-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0446603708" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> - Octavia Butler<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446361887/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0446361887&linkCode=as2&tag=joelstev-20&linkId=BG5CW3SLRN7NP4OF">Mind of My Mind</a> - Octavia Butler<img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=joelstev-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0446361887" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0861719069/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0861719069&linkCode=as2&tag=joelstev-20&linkId=V45HUWOE52IO2G24">Mindfulness in Plain English</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=joelstev-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0861719069" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> - Henepola Gunaratana<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400077303/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1400077303&linkCode=as2&tag=joelstev-20&linkId=66CSHEQFSRME3U5V">Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=joelstev-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1400077303" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> - Ron Chernow<br />
<br />
I'm going to try to get writing again soon. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-78267308894823040852015-05-28T15:39:00.000-05:002015-05-28T15:39:34.631-05:00Book Review: The Great Crash of 1929<a href="http://amzn.to/1ez2hxP">The Great Crash of 1929</a> - John Kenneth Galbraith<br />
<br />
After finishing <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1c4Y8jk">A Short History of Financial Euphoria</a></i>, I decided to go ahead and read this one, particularly since I was somewhat disappointed with the treatment of 1929 in the short history. While this one does provide many more details and descriptions of the period leading up to and just after the crash, I found myself again disappointed. <br />
<br />
In particular, Galbraith repeats almost <i>ad naseum</i> the mantra that 1928 and 1929 were a "speculative orgy", but fails to back up this assertion with any real evidence that the valuations of the stock market were out of line. For the most part, Galbraith simply gives the prices of various stocks without ever providing any underlying earnings or asset values for those stocks, rendering the prices meaningless to a reader. The one time valuation is discussed is in regard to GM on March 24, 1928, when the CEO said that "G.M. stock should be selling at not less than twelve times earnings", which implied a price of 225, whereas it was trading at 187. Thus, at this time, GM was selling for 10 times earnings, which I have trouble characterizing as a "speculative orgy". Most investors would call this multiple cheap in current markets.<br />
<br />
From Shiller's website (http://www.multpl.com/) and from other sources, the valuation of the overall market was not exorbitantly high, somewhere around 20, which has been reached many times over the last century without resulting in a large crash. It seems that the major reason the stock market ended up being overvalued was based on underlying productivity decreasing rapidly and Galbraith actually emphasizes that this depression could not have been easily forecast. The only metric I'm aware of that indicates a large overvaluation is the CAPE; however, this high value is largely the result of huge increases of productivity in the 20's from the last recession. <br />
<br />
Thus, based on my current understanding, it does not seem clear to me that the market was obviously overvalued or speculative <i>using the data at the time</i>. Instead, most commentaries appear to judge the data using hindsight bias.<br />
<br />
That being said, the book did reveal quite a few weaknesses present in the system at the time, which certainly destabilized once the stock market began to crash, including the high degree of margin amongst investors, huge leverage in the investment trusts at the time, and a weak banking system without insurance. <br />
<br />
As usual, here are a few quotes from the book that I enjoyed:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But there is here a basic and recurrent process. It comes with rising prices, whether of stocks, real estate, works of art or anything else. This increase attracts attention and buyers, which produces the further effect of even higher prices. Expectations are thus justified by the very action that sends prices up. The process continues; optimism with its market effect is the order of the day. Prices go up even more. Then, for reasons that will endlessly be debated, comes the end. The descent is always more sudden than the increase; a balloon that has been punctured does not deflate in an ordinary way.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A whole generation of historians has assailed Coolidge for the superficial optimism which kept him from seeing that a great storm was brewing at home and also more distantly abroad. This is grossly unfair. It requires neither courage nor prescience to predict disaster. Courage is required of the man who, when things are good, says so. Historians rejoice in crucifying the false prophet of the millennium. They never dwell on the mistake of the man who wrongly predicted Armageddon.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In Montreal, London, Shanghai, and Hong Kong there was talk of these rates. Everywhere men of means told themselves that 12 per cent was 12 per cent. A great river of gold began to converge on Wall Street, all of it to help Americans hold common stock on margin. Corporations also found these rates attractive. At 12 per cent Wall Street might even provide a more profitable use for working capital of a company than additional production. A few firms made this decision: instead of trying to produce goods with its manifold headaches and inconveniences, they confined themselves to financing speculation. Many more companies started lending their surplus funds to Wall Street.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The member firms of twenty-nine exchanges in that year reported themselves as having accounts with a total of 1,548,707 customers. (Of these, 1,371,920 were customers of member firms of the New York Stock Exchange.) Thus only one and a half million people, out of a population of approximately 120 million and of between 29 and 30 million families, had an active association of any sort with the stock market. And not all of these were speculators. Brokerage firms estimated fro the Senate committee that only about 600,000 of the accounts just mentioned were for margin trading, as compared with roughly 950,000 in which trading was for cash.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As already so often emphasized, the collapse in the stock market in the autumn of 1929 was implicit in the speculation that went before. The only question concerning that speculation was how long it would last. Sometime, sooner or later, confidence in the short-run reality of increasing common stock values would weaken. When this happened, some people would sell, and this would destroy the reality of increasing values. Holding for an increase would not become meaningless; the new reality would be falling prices. There would be a rush, pellmell, to unload. This was the way past speculative orgies had ended. It was the way the end came in 1929. It is the way speculation will end in the future.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Speculation, accordingly, is most likely to break out after a substantial period of prosperity, rather than in the early phases of recovery from a depression. </blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-64681760723528061472015-05-20T11:37:00.006-05:002015-05-20T11:37:50.572-05:00Book Review: A Short History of Financial Euphoria<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://amzn.to/1c4Y8jk">A Short History of Financial Euphoria</a> - John Kenneth Galbraith</div>
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Although I've enjoyed many quotes and anecdotes from Galbraith, this was my first book of his. As usual, I enjoyed the histories of prior euphorias and of course agreed with the inevitability of manias and crashes. At the same time, however, I was somewhat disappointed with his cursory review of each period of euphoria, particularly that of 1929, which did not discuss valuation at all. Additionally, I found the tone to be somewhat disdainful. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but it was a bit too conclusory for me (though this was implied by the title, so perhaps I expect too much).</div>
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Some quotes I enjoyed:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
And thus the rule, supported by experience of centuries: the speculative episode always ends not with a whimper but with a bang.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
In practice, the individual or individuals at the top of these institutions are often there because, as happens regularly in great organizations, theirs was mentally the most predictable and, in consequence, bureaucratically the least inimical of the contending talent. He, she, or they are then endowed with the authority that encourages acquiescence from their subordinates and applause from their acolytes and that excludes adverse opinion or criticism. They are thus admirably protected in what may be a serious commitment to error. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
The rush to invest engulfed the whole of Holland. No person of minimal sensitivity of mind felt that he could be left behind. Prices were extravagant; by 1636, a bulb of no previously apparent worth might be exchanged for "a new carriage, two grey horses and a complete harness."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
In 1837 came the inevitable disenchantment and collapse. A period of marked depression again ensued. This episode did, however, have two new features--one of them of continuing significance today. It clearly left behind the improvements, notably the canals, which had been the source of the speculative enthusiasm. And it introduced a distinctly modern attitude toward the loans that were outstanding: in the somber conditions following the crash, these were viewed with indignation and simply not repaid. Mississippi, Louisiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Michigan all repudiated their debts, although there was some mild later effort at repayment. Anger was expressed that foreign banks and investors should now, in hard times, ask for payment of debts so foolishly granted and incurred. A point must be repeated: only the pathological weakness of the financial memory, something that recurs so reliably in this history, or perhaps our indifference to financial history itself, allows us to believe that the modern experience of Third World debt, that now of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and the other Latin American countries, is in any way a new phenomenon. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
But not all of the excesses of leverage were in the West. In these same years, in the more conservative precincts of New England, a bank was closed up with $500,000 in notes outstanding and a specie reserve of $86.48 in hand.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
The only remedy, in fact, is an enhanced skepticism that would resolutely associate too evident optimism with probable foolishness and that would not associated with the acquisition, the deployment, or, for that matter, the administration of large sums of money.</blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-77215464522000010202015-05-14T19:40:00.003-05:002015-05-14T19:40:53.308-05:00Book Review: How to be Rich<a href="http://amzn.to/1JiIQ85">How to be Rich</a> - J. Paul Getty<br />
<br />
In <i>How to be Rich</i>, which was interestingly published by Playboy, Getty covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from autobiographical stories on how he made his money (starting as a wildcatter in Oklahoma), various desirable behaviors and traits of executives, his views on non-conformity and culture, a quick guide to investing in stocks, real estate, and fine art, and his thoughts on money and values. While many portions were fairly straight-forward and mostly common-sense, I did enjoy his anecdotes and the history involved in his stories. <br />
<br />
Here are a couple that I particularly enjoyed, the first one habit:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There was a time when I was a fairly heavy cigarette smoker. Then, several years ago, I was on a vacation and motoring through France. One day, after driving for hours through some particularly foul rainy weather, I stopped for the night at a hotel in a small town in the Auvergne. Tired after the long and difficult drive, I had dinner and went up to my room. I undressed, got into bed and quickly fell asleep.<br />
<br />
For some reason, I awoke about two A.M., acutely aware that I wanted a cigarette. Switching on the light, I reached for the cigarette package I'd placed on the nightstand before retiring. It proved to be empty. Annoyed--but still wanting a cigarette--I got out of bed and searched the pockets of the clothes I had been wearing. The search proved fruitless, and I went on to group through my luggage in hopes that I might have accidentally left a pack of cigarettes in one of my suitcases. Again I was disappointed. I knew the hotel bar and restaurant had closed long before and guessed that it would be worse than useless to summon the crotchety night porter at such an hour. The only way I could hope to obtain any cigarettes was by dressing and then going to the railroad station, which was located at least six blocks away.<br />
<br />
The prospect was not very pleasant. The rain still pelted down outside. My car was garaged a considerable distance from the hotel and, in any event, I had been warned the garage closed at midnight and did not reopen until six o'clock in the morning. The chances of getting a taxi were nil.<br />
<br />
All in all, it was clear that if I was to have the cigarette I wanted so badly, I would have to walk to the railroad station--and back--through the pouring rain. But the desire to smoke gnawed at me and, perversely, the more I contemplated the difficulties entailed in getting a cigarette, the more desperately I wanted to have one. And so I took off my pajamas and started putting on my clothes. I was completely dressed and reaching for my raincoat when I abruptly stopped and began to laugh--at myself. It had suddenly struck me that my actions were illogical, even ludicrous.<br />
<br />
There I stood, a supposedly intelligent human being, a supposedly responsible and fairly successful businessman who considered himself sensible enough to give other people orders. Yet I was ready to leave my comfortable hotel room in the middle of the night and slosh a dozen blocks through a driving rainstorm for no other reason than that I wanted a cigarette--because I felt that I "had" to have one.<br />
<br />
For the first time in my life, I was brought face to face with the realization that I had developed a habit so strong that I was willing--automatically and unthinkingly--to let myself in for a very great deal of personal discomfort merely to satisfy it. Instead of simply enjoying the pleasure of an occasional smoke, I'd allowed myself to form a habit that had grown completely out of hand and was obviously operating contrary to my best interests, producing no commensurately beneficial results. Suddenly sharply aware of this, I rebelled mentally. I needed only a moment to arrive at a decision. I considered it an excellent idea--and an ideal time and place--to rid myself of a habit that was certainly doing me no good.<br />
<br />
Having made up my mind, I took the empty cigarette packet that still lay on the nightstand, crumpled it up and tossed it into the wastebasket. Then I undressed, once more put on my pajamas and got back into bed. It was with some sense of relief--even triumph--that I switched off the light, closed my eyes and listened to the rain beating against the windows of the room. In a few minutes, I drifted off into a sound and contented sleep. I haven't smoked a cigarette--nor have I felt any desire to smoke one--since that night.</blockquote>
And another on labor negotiations:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Some years ago, for example, representatives of a labor union sought to negotiate a new contract with a company I owned and I met with them at the bargaining table. Their demands centered around an hourly wage increase which I knew the company could not afford to grant in full. I did, however, believe we could meet the demands halfway and felt that such an increase was justified. <br />
<br />
Before the negotiations began, my labor-relations "experts" urged me to give no hint of this in the early bargaining sessions. "Play it close to the vest," they advised. "Offer nothing at all until the last possible moment, when the talks reach an apparent impasse--as they doubtless will. Then start low and edge the offer up slowly, raising it only as much as is absolutely necessary."<br />
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To my way of thinking, this approach smacked strongly of bazaar haggling. It seemed to me that such a strategy was beneath the dignity of the company and an affront to the union representatives' intelligence and could only serve to cause lasting bitterness on both sides. As I owned the company outright and thus would not be taking risks with the interests of other stockholders, I had no compunction about following my own, and in my opinion, wiser, counsel. I decided to try an experiment. <br />
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I went to the initial bargaining session armed with a few simple--but accurate, informative--reports. These showed the company's production costs and output, its profit-and-loss statement for the previous year, and reviewed its over-all financial situation and the outlook for the immediate future. I listened patiently while labor stated its position and demands. Then I handed the documents I'd brought with me to the union spokesman and took the floor.<br />
<br />
"I suppose we could be here for days, arguing back and forth," I said. "But, as far as I'm concerned, it's more sensible to start off where we'd have to end up in any case. The company is unable to give you all you're asking--the reports I just handed you will prove that. You can have half the wage boost--and that's the absolute limit at present time. If production and profits rise in the next year, I'll be glad to talk seriously with you about the other half."<br />
<br />
Having said my piece, I glanced around the table, noting with considerable amusement that my aides looked horrified, and the union representative appeared astounded. I thereupon suggested a recess--a suggestion the labor side seized upon gratefully. We adjourned the meeting, agreeing to resume it in the late afternoon.<br />
<br />
My assistants were glum. They were certain I had taken the first steps toward giving away not only my company, but my shirt and theirs as well. They were convinced I'd handed the union the proverbial inch--and that it would consequently insist on taking its mile. At best, they expected the union to double its demands; at worst, they feared a long, costly strike. <br />
<br />
When the meeting resumed, my aides filed into the conference room with the air of men being led to the tumbrel.s I said nothing, but grinned inwardly at their discomfiture. I still believed I had assessed the situation correctly and had followed the right course, a belief soon verified by the union spokesman's opening remarks.<br />
<br />
"To tell you the truth, we thought we were in for a long, tough fight," he declared. "But you laid everything on the line and gave us all the facts at the beginning--so there's really nothing to argue about." He paused and reached across the table to shake my hand.<br />
<br />
"Mr. Getty, you've just gotten yourself a new contract," he announced with a broad smile. The remaining details were quickly agreed upon and the contract duly signed. My "experiment" proved to be a success that had long-lasting and beneficial aftereffects.<br />
<br />
Within the next 12 months, production and profits rose sufficiently to justify granting an additional wage increase. A lasting bond of mutual respect was established between management and labor. To this day, any disputes are still discussed and settled in the same sort of atmosphere, and the company has been singularly free of labor strife. The straightforward approach backed by facts worked--just as it has in most similar situations I've encountered during my years as a businessman and employer.<br />
</blockquote>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-48427049272737902402015-05-12T21:42:00.005-05:002015-05-12T21:42:47.800-05:00Book Review: The Female Brain<a href="http://amzn.to/1KHjuyS">The Female Brain</a> - Louann Brizendine<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
At the recommendation of my partner, I read this in one four-hour sitting while on the plane. The book provides an overview of the hormone changes that occur over the lifetime of a woman (spoiler alert, there's quite a few more than for the males). I found it to be quite informative and a great wealth of knowledge to have available, particularly when dealing with the opposite sex. </div>
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The stages include: Fetal, Girlhood, Puberty, Sexual Maturity, Pregnancy, Breast Feeding, Child Rearing, Perimenopause, Menopause, Post Menopause. In addition, hormone levels change constantly throughout the menstrual cycle. Overall, I'm pretty sure I'd have a lot of problems with that many hormones changing all the time.</div>
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Since I was reading it in printed form, I didn't mark down as many quotes, but here are the few I did:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
During times of physical separation, when touching and caressing is impossible, a deep longing, almost a hunger, for the beloved can set in. Some people don't even realize how bonded or in love they are until they feel this tugging at their heartstrings when the beloved is absent. We are used to thinking of this longing as only psychological, but it's actually physical. The brain is virtually in a drug-withdrawal state.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
Louise was hurting--literally--from the loss of love. Until recently, we thought that phrases like "hurt feeligns" and "broken heart" were simply poetic. New brain-imaging studies, however, have revealed their accuracy. Rejection, it turns out, actually hurts like physical pain because it triggers the same circuits in the brain. </blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-58488252017009267122015-04-26T18:03:00.000-05:002015-04-26T18:04:02.046-05:00Book Review: Open to Desire<a href="http://amzn.to/1buEltt">Open to Desire: The Truth About What the Buddha Taught</a> - Mark Epstein<br />
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In <i>Open to Desire</i>, Epstein discusses desire and its potential use along the path of enlightenment, the so-called "left-handed" path. In this path, a practitioner may use desire, and its inevitable failure to provide the satiation of its purpose, as a mindfulness practice. The best parts of this book, in my opinion, are the introduction and a few chapters at the end. I enjoyed those sections quite a bit. I may be a little too concrete for Epstein's abstractions and metaphors. I was also quite frustrated with various portions where Epstein attempted to assert various Biblical stories, Indian myths, and tantrics could be reinterpreted to support his narrative. Overall, I think the message would have been better served in a much shorter, less convoluted form.<br />
<br />
Nonetheless, I've provided quotes below that I found intriguing:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">As my Buddhist teacher, Joseph Goldstein, always makes clear, as an object of desire, that which we long for causes suffering, but as an object of mindfulness it can lead to awakening. The trick, as far as Buddhism is concerned, is to accept the fact that no experience can ever be as complete as we would wish, that no object can ever satisfy completely. In the right handed path, the Buddha's followers turned away from the pursuit of sensory pleasure, but in the left handed path, they allowed themselves to come face to face with the gap that desire always comes up against, as well as any pleasure that it might bring.<br />
<br />
Allowing ourselves into desire's abyss turns out to be the key to a more complete enjoyment of its fruits. By experiencing desire in its totality: gratifying and frustrating, sweet and bitter, pleasant and painful, successful and yet coming up short, we can use it to awaken our minds. The dualities that desire seems to take for granted can be resolved through a willingness to drop into the gap between them. Even living in the world of the senses, we can be free.<br />
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Desire teaches us, not just by gratification, but by constantly undercutting itself, by never being entirely satisfied. It rubs our faces in reality by always falling a bit short of its goal. This is desire's secret agenda, to alert us to the gap between our expectations and the way things actually are. In so doing, it shows us that there is something more interesting than success or failure, more completing than having complete control.<br />
<br />
Jack's revelations while meditating in the Thai monastery were spurred on by a very important insight, one that Buddhism always stresses in its approach to alleviating suffering. By observing his mind so closely, Jack zeroed in on a central self-image that was unconsciously ruling him. "There is something wrong with me and I will always be rejected," he found himself thinking. This core belief about himself was structuring much of his experience of the world. It was his own self that felt flawed, and much of his eroticized desire was prompted by a wish to make this imperfect self disappear. Once he could see that there was nothing <i>ultimately</i> real about this particular view of himself, it began to lose its central dominance in his psyche. The experience of such a core belief dissolving into clear space freed him of a burden that he had been carrying since childhood. The Buddha taught that all self-images are empty in this way and that the residual loneliness that we feel even in the midst of love is caused by attachment to these self-representations. <br />
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Like Freud's friends, most of us are conditioned to look for fulfillment for our desire. When it is not forthcoming, or not lasting, we tend to withdraw. Rather than rejoice in our lovers' evasion of our attempts to control them, we feel dejected. In the face of unreliability, we retreat into our known selves. Our mourning paralyzes us, and our desire gets derailed. Freud proposed an alternative, one that in the East is personified in the path of desire. It is possible to be in a state in which desire is valued, not as a prelude to possession, control or merger, but as a mode of appreciation in itself. "Doing," as Winnicott would say, becomes balanced by "being."<br />
</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-40296976922564576622015-03-21T10:53:00.001-05:002015-03-21T10:53:10.619-05:00Book Review: Flash Boys<a href="http://amzn.to/1CIgqTL">Flash Boys</a> - Michael Lewis<br />
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In <i>Flash Boys</i>, Lewis mostly focuses on the story of Brad Katsuyama, starting from a trader and ending with the establishment of a new stock exchange, IEX, which supposedly removes the ability of HFT to profit from investors. As he tells it, when investors submit a stock order, it is typically sent out to the various different exchanges for execution. The first exchange that receives the order may execute it at the current price. However, HFTs, which have small outstanding orders on virtually every stock, may infer a size of the order and that it is likely to arrive at the other exchanges in short order. Since these HFTs can get to the other exchanges more quickly than the order can, they may be able to purchase the stock on the other exchanges at the current price and then sell it to the incoming order for slightly more (e.g., pennies or fractions of pennies) than the current price. By doing this over as many stocks as possible, as many times as possible, HFT can extract millions of dollars from trades. <br />
<br />
This is the third Lewis book I've read (the other two being <a href="http://amzn.to/1DIlWpp">Liar's Poker</a> and <a href="http://amzn.to/1LFgeZI">The Big Short</a>). While I've always enjoyed his stories (who doesn't like an underdog story?), I have been increasingly getting the impression that they are fairly one-sided and do not represent the whole truth. If unaugmented with the other side of the story, readers can be led to dangerous conclusions (e.g., see Fox news). With all that in mind, I do have trouble seeing any serious benefit of high frequency trading to the stock market or the economy. Even if the example above isn't entirely accurate, 1) I believe that investors as a whole should be trading far less than they are and HFT is increasing trading; and 2) I find it hard to believe that entities that apparently take no risk (e.g., having streaks of years without losing any money on any day) are providing a needed market making service that doesn't amount to a tax on investors.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-41622694320119295022015-02-19T11:24:00.002-06:002015-02-23T19:40:01.422-06:00Book Review: Steelheart, Mitosis, Firefly<a href="http://amzn.to/1Et3dea">Steelheart</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/1A235hh">Mitosis</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/1whWFjq">Firefight</a> - Brandon Sanderson<br />
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Dear Brandon Sanderson, never stop writing. <br />
<br />
Once again, I devoured this book. Unlike his others I've read, this one is situated as an alternate future in the U.S. (Newcago) and almost feels like Sci/Fi rather than Fantasy. It's fast-paced and easy to read, though perhaps lacking a little in depth. I think this one could make an excellent movie.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-46971870531112796742015-02-06T13:21:00.000-06:002015-02-06T13:21:28.920-06:00Book Review: Business Adventures<a href="http://amzn.to/1CBKuj6">Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street</a> - John Brooks<br />
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Overall, this was a mildly entertaining book. I enjoyed several of the tales, including those on insider trading, the sterling pound crisis, trade secrets, and communication at GE, but found a few of the others quite dry and not terribly interesting. <br />
<br />
As usual, here are a few quotes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Any board-room sitter with a taste for Wall Street lore has heard the retort that J.P. Morgan the Elder is supposed to have made to a naive acquaintance who had ventured to ask the great man what the market was going to do. "It will fluctuate," replied Morgan dryly.<br />
<br />
On the Stock Exchange floor itself, there was no question of any sort of rally; it was simply a case of all stocks' declining rapidly and steadily, on enormous volume. As de la Vega might have described the scene--as, in fact, he did rather flamboyantly describe a similar scene--"The bears [that is, the sellers] are completely ruled by fear, trepidation, and nervousness. Rabbits become elephants, brawls in a tavern become rebellions, faint shadows appear to them as signs of chaos."</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-4171411929151023312015-02-04T19:51:00.002-06:002015-02-04T19:51:24.155-06:00Book Review: The Dude and the Zen Master<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://amzn.to/16iXLi8">The Dude and the Zen Master</a> - Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman</div>
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Sometimes rambling, sometimes pithy, <i>The Dude and the Zen Master </i>was a fun read. It was interesting to shed more light into the inner workings of Jeff's life, while at the same time, getting Zen lessons in a conversational and western manner from Bernie. Not a terrible lot else to say on my end, but I'll leave some quotes from a few of my favorite sections.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Bernie: But you know what your story reminds me of? Those dolls that are full of sand at the bottom. You push them and they oscillate quickly from side to side, and then come back to center. So as you practice, you're filling up with sand. At first, even a weak force hits you and almost knocks you over, but you oscillate in big arcs till you come up standing again. As you practice more and more, it takes a stronger and stronger force to get you knocked over, and even then the oscillations aren't so big, and before you know it you're back to center.</div>
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Bernie: When you first start doing Zen meditation, we give this instruction: <i>Thoughts will come; the brain's job is to produce thoughts. Don't try to stop them, and also don't ollow them. Pretend it's an open door; let the thoughts come in and let them go. Don't try to manipulate them because you'll get into trouble.</i></div>
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Bernie: People hear that the practice is to live in the now, and they feel like a failure that they can't do that. I give lots of talks, and almost always at the end somebody raises his hand and says, "You know, I've been trying to practice this for so long, and I still can't be here now". At that point I always say, "Whoever is not here now, please stand up". Of course, nobody stands up because we're all here now. Where else can we be?</div>
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Bernie: I tell people that when stuff comes up and at a certain point it feels like it's too much, move on. It's not going anywhere and there'll be a time when you'll be ready to work with it. For now, listen to yourself. If it's not the time, don't push it. <i>Gently down the stream.</i> Some people say you have to work with everything, but there's a time and a place. If it feels like a knot, wait. It will come up again when you and the universe are ready.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-67440426960207402362015-01-09T10:18:00.000-06:002015-01-09T10:18:08.506-06:00Book Review: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<a href="http://amzn.to/14CGFvP">The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</a> - Mark Twain<br />
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A few months ago, I watched Ken Burns' Mark Twain and decided it might be a good time to revisit <i>Huck Finn. </i>Interesting side note, the "Mark Twain" pseudonym comes from his days as a steamboat captain. "mark twain" is the first depth indicating safe waters (or in the reverse direction, heading to unsafe waters) for the boat. Here are the glossary of terms:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Quarter Less Twain</b> - ten and one-half feet<br />
<b>Mark Twain</b> - twelve feet (two fathoms)<br />
<b>Quarter Twain</b> - thirteen and one-half feet<br />
<b>Half Twain</b> - fifteen feet<br />
<b>Quarter Less Three</b> - sixteen and one-half feet<br />
<b>Mark Three</b> - eighteen feet (three fathoms)<br />
<b>Quarter Three - </b>nineteen and one-half feet<br />
<b>Half Three - </b>twenty-one feet<br />
<b>Quarter Less Four </b>-twenty-two and one-half feet<br />
<b>Mark Four (or Deep Four)</b> - twenty-four feet (four fathoms)<br />
<b>No Bottom</b> - over twenty-four feet</blockquote>
Because I had left over audible credits, I decided to listen to it as an audio book. Among the multitude of choices, I ended up picking Elijah Wood's, mostly because he sounded the youngest and the other narrators used a very slow, old man, southern drawl. I was pretty entertained by Wood's accents when imitating a southerner, imitating a British accent (when he himself had never actually heard one).<br />
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All in all, it was entertaining to listen to, though it seemed to get a little long by the end. Since I wasn't reading it visually, I didn't get to highlight as I usually do; however, this section was definitely my favorite:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It warn’t no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I warn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger’s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie—I found that out.<br />
<br />
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter—and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.<br />HUCK FINN.</blockquote>
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ’stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.<br />
<br />
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“All right, then, I’ll GO to hell"—and tore it up.</blockquote>
It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn’t. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-2206350850414575302014-12-23T23:01:00.004-06:002014-12-23T23:01:58.777-06:00Book Review: The Slow Regard of Silent Things<a href="http://amzn.to/1zSKebD">The Slow Regard of Silent Things</a> - Patrick Rothfuss<br />
<br />
This was an odd book, but I enjoyed it. I couldn't remember quite where it fit in the Kvothe story, but it probably doesn't matter too much. It is about Auri, a strange girl hiding/living in the underground tunnels below the school. <br />
<br />
Rothfuss really pulled out all the stops on vocabulary use this story, and I had to look up quite a few words. Lots of literary gems though. Here are some sections:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But all the world around her was still storm. All tumbledown. All crumble pale and ache.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You did not want things for yourself. That made you small. That kept you safe. That meant you could move smoothly through the world without upsetting every applecart you came across. And if you were careful, if you were a proper part of things, then you could help. You mended what was cracked. You tended to the things you found askew. And you trusted that the world in turn would brush you up against the chance to eat. It was the only graceful way to move. All else was vanity and pride.</blockquote>
And from the author himself:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The truth is, I'm fond of Auri. I have a special place in my heart for this strange, sweet, shattered girl. I love her more than just a little...I know how she feels...It wasn't until I started gathering feedback that I realized how common this feeling is. I've had person after person tell me that they empathize with Auri. That they know where she's coming from. I didn't expect that. I cannot help but wonder how many of us walk through our lives, day after day, feeling slightly broken and alone, surrounded all the time by others who feel exactly the same way.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216933006936755858.post-41193888551164524642014-12-23T17:02:00.002-06:002014-12-23T17:09:35.873-06:00Meditation Retreat: ReflectionsI got a lot out of this experience. Here are some:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1) Found a meditation posture I could sustain relatively well<br />
2) Found a level of focus I hadn’t had before<br />
3) A sense of peace/serenity I’ve never felt<br />
4) Unwound a knot in my stomach I may have had for more than 10 years<br />
5) Discovered the voice in my head was really an ok guy—I think I’m luckier than most in this regard<br />
6) Improved body image and self-worth (although that was already in a pretty healthy condition)<br />
7) Accepted some areas where I need to forgive myself<br />
8) reinforced the temporary nature of thoughts and emotions<br />
9) increased meditation toolkit<br />
10) retreats are rewarding, but a lot of work</blockquote>
<b>Links in this Series:</b><br />
<a href="http://www.joelstevens.net/2014/12/meditation-retreat-arrival.html">Arrival</a><br />
<a href="http://www.joelstevens.net/2014/12/meditation-retreat-second-day.html">Second Day</a><br />
<a href="http://www.joelstevens.net/2014/12/meditation-retreat-third-day.html">Third Day</a><br />
<a href="http://www.joelstevens.net/2014/12/mediation-retreat-fourth-day.html">Fourth Day</a><br />
<a href="http://www.joelstevens.net/2014/12/meditation-retreat-fifth-day.html">Fifth Day</a><br />
<a href="http://www.joelstevens.net/2014/12/meditation-retreat-sixth-day.html">Sixth Day</a><br />
<a href="http://www.joelstevens.net/2014/12/meditation-retreat-seventh-day.html">Seventh Day</a><br />
<a href="http://www.joelstevens.net/2014/12/meditation-retreat-eighth-day.html">Final Day</a><br />
<a href="http://www.joelstevens.net/2014/12/meditation-retreat-reflections.html">Reflections</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com