Womenomics

Why Put a Ring on It?

In America, women are waiting longer to wed than ever, and many are choosing not to do so at all. The freedom to pursue high-powered careers and sexually diverse lives without fear of pregnancy or stigma has turned marriage into a choice, not destiny. By 2009 nearly half of all American adults younger than 34 had never married, a rise of 12 percentage points in less than a decade. Unmarried women outnumber married ones for the first time ever.

Single women are reshaping politics. As women tend to worry more about reproductive rights and fair pay, they have favoured Democrats for president since 1988. But the overall women’s vote hides a divide: in 2012 Mitt Romney narrowly carried married women, while the unmarried rushed to Barack Obama in their millions, giving him a 36-point margin. Single women cast almost a quarter of the votes, nearly guaranteeing his re-election.

Delaying marriage is also having economic effects: women aged 25 to 34 are the first generation to start their careers near parity with men, earning 93% of men’s wages. Single women now buy homes at greater rates than single men, a big step in independent wealth-building.

These trends have some conservatives fretting about the decline of the family. The divorce rate rocketed in the 1970s and 1980s, as women who had rushed into unhappy marriages discovered they could make their own way. The boom in divorce encouraged many in the next generation to abstain from marriage rather than enter a flawed one. Now that marriage is simply one option among many, fewer women are exchanging vows, but those that do tend to be in happier, more co-operative relationships.

The divorce rate, now falling, has plunged fastest among those who stay single longest. Despite the stereotype that high-achieving women are doomed to spinsterhood, the truth is that these women are now the most likely to tie the knot, and can afford to hold out for the right match.

Not all women are celebrating. For some, singlehood is less a choice than bad luck. Outside big cities, women who are unmarried into their late 30's are often pitied. For those who hope to become mothers, biology imposes harsh deadlines – though breakthroughs in fertility treatments have raised the number of women giving birth after age 35 by 64% between 1990 and 2008.

In particular, poor single women face a different landscape. Not all are unmarried by choice: America’s high incarceration rate has shrunk their pool of men. Single parenthood is strongly correlated with poverty. Conservatives duly push marriage as the antidote: the federal government has spent almost a billion dollars on pro-marriage programmes, to little avail.

Source: economist.com

Read More

Musings & Amusings

The gender pay gap persists almost everywhere – and has done so since pre Victorian times.

 

On average, women earn 18% less than men, according to analysis by Korn Ferry Hay Group, a consulting firm which looked at more than 8m employees in 33 countries. The pay gap is largely explained by a lack of women in highly paid roles. Women make up 40% of the global workforce for clerical jobs but only 17% of executive roles.  However, the pay gap shrinks when comparing males and females working at an identical level and function within the same company (but still favours men by 1.6%).

In Britain, more than four decades after the equal pay act was introduced, the headline difference between men and women’s pay is still high. A pledge made in 2015 by David Cameron, Britain's prime minister, to “end the gender pay gap in a generation” is an ambitious one. Women only make up around a third of senior management roles there. Workers at the same level but in different companies still face an average pay gap of over 9%.

The United Arab Emirates, on the other hand, has a reverse pay gap. Women at the same level, company and function actually earn 2% more than their male counterparts. This is partly because fewer women participate in the labour force, and those that do tend to have higher levels of education. In 2014 women made up 13% of the labour force; in Britain the share was 46%.

Source: The Economist

Read More

Musings & Amusings

Unclouded vision

Forecasting is a talent. Luckily it can be learned.

Human beings cannot resist trying to scry the future. If soothsaying is not the oldest profession, it is certainly one of them.

The Chinese had the I-Ching; the Romans peered at the entrails of sacrificed animals. These days, anyone wanting to know what the future holds can consult everything from telephone psychics to intelligence agencies, bookies, futures markets and media pundits. Their record is far from perfect. But it is difficult to say just how imperfect: for all the importance people attach to forecasting, hardly anyone bothers to keep score.

Superforecasters are clever, on average, but by no means geniuses. More important than sheer intelligence was mental attitude. Borrowing from Sir Isaiah Berlin, a Latvian-born British philosopher, Mr Tetlock divides people into two categories: hedgehogs, whose understanding of the world depends on one or two big ideas, and foxes, who think the world is too complicated to boil down into a single slogan. Superforecasters are drawn exclusively from the ranks of the foxes.

Humility in the face of a complex world makes superforecasters subtle thinkers. They tend to be comfortable with numbers and statistical concepts such as “regression to the mean” (which essentially says that most of the time things are pretty normal, so any large deviation is likely to be followed by a shift back towards normality).

But superforecasters do have a healthy appetite for information, a willingness to revisit their predictions in light of new data, and the ability to synthesise material from sources with very different outlooks on the world. They think in fine gradations.

Most important is what Mr Tetlock calls a “growth mindset”: a mix of determination, self-reflection and willingness to learn from one’s mistakes. The best forecasters were less interested in whether they were right or wrong than in why they were right or wrong. They were always looking for ways to improve their performance. In other words, prediction is not only possible, it is teachable.

Talk of growth mindsets, statistical fluency and a complicated world may sound dry and technical. It is not. Mr Tetlock’s thesis is that politics and human affairs are not inscrutable mysteries. Instead, they are a bit like weather forecasting, where short-term predictions are possible and reasonably accurate.

Source: The Economist

Read More

Musings & Amusings

Can’t say I was a fan of Leaning In so loved Lucy Kellaway’s comments (didn’t read the whole book I confess):

Stop leaning in at once. It isn’t a comfortable position to adopt, and I’m not at all surprised to hear that after 18 months you are suffering in body and soul. Forget Sheryl Sandberg and try my three easy rules for leaning out which I have been perfecting for the past quarter of a century.

1. Never ever go to any evening events for work unless you think they would be a) enjoyable, b) useful in a specific way, or c) not going would do you harm. In my experience so few things fall into any of the categories; it means only turning up to things once or twice a year. This has the advantage that when you do present yourself you are such a novelty that everyone will want to talk to you. It’s called scarcity value. Choke off the supply of yourself, and watch the price go up.

2. Try to work out what you are measured on. If you are a fund manager, presumably you are measured on whether you make any money for your clients. This isn’t directly related to the amount of time you spend, so do it as well as you can — and then go home.

3. Stop caring quite so much. That doesn’t mean performing worse, it means worrying less. This is one of the main advantages of having children. They are a reminder that work only matters up to a point. Most mothers get this wrong by feeling full of guilt — when they are in one sphere they look over their shoulders worrying about what they aren’t doing in the other.

Source: Financial Times

Read More

Musings & Amusings

South Asia is one of the worst places in the world to be female

India’s bachelor leader, Narendra Modi, struggles with the opposite sex. For a man usually so eloquent, Mr Modi occasionally lands his sandalled foot in his mouth: on June 7th he made an especially crass comment during an otherwise successful visit to Bangladesh, praising his host, Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, for being tough on terrorism “despite being a woman”. Critics back home accused Mr Modi of having retrograde views, typical of those who revere the country as “Mother India” but who treat women atrociously. Yet such attitudes are widely shared, not just in India but across South Asia. The whole region fails to grant women equal respect or opportunities.

That may seem odd, given how prominent a role women play in South Asian politics. China, Japan, Russia and many other countries have failed to produce a female prime minister or president. South Asia has had several. If Hillary Clinton is elected next year to lead the world’s most powerful democracy, it will be a full half-century after Indira Gandhi first led the world’s largest one. Sri Lanka’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike pipped her to become the world’s first female head of government, in 1960. In that country, uniquely, both a mother and her daughter have held the highest political office. In the late 1990s Chandrika Kumaratunga even served as president at the same time as her ageing mother, Mrs Bandaranaike, completed a third, mostly ceremonial, term as prime minister.

Women prosper at the top of South Asian democracies partly because they are propelled by dynasties that long formed the core of political parties. In Bangladesh the two battling begums have ensured that no other politician gets a look-in.

But if South Asia is one of the best places on Earth for elite women who aspire to a political career, it is one of the worst places to be an ordinary woman. The occasional chauvinism faced by females at the top pales beside the burdens heaped on those at the bottom. South Asian women fare terribly in a “Mothers’ Index” put together in May by Save the Children, a British charity. It ranks 179 countries according to the well-being of their women, using indicators such as maternal mortality, the survival of young children and women’s involvement in politics. Subcontinental nations come out the worst in Asia. Women in India and Pakistan (ranked 140th and 149th) have a quality of life only a little brighter than those in Afghanistan (152nd) and far behind those in China (61st), who are far more likely to survive childbirth, or see their offspring spend a long time in school.

Let money do the talking

Yet South Asia will need to spend a lot more on women in order to see further improvements. The region devotes barely 1% of GDP to public health (China spends 3.1%).This puts a heavy burden on those who give birth and take most responsibility for child care.

The resources spent on women in South Asia are shared more unevenly than in most places. Among the richest quintile in Delhi (it is a similar story in Dhaka and elsewhere), women can enjoy maternal and other care close to first-world standards. By contrast the poorest quintile in the same cities, especially in slums, endure conditions as bad—or worse—than in far poorer villages: in Delhi only 19% of such women have someone skilled present when they give birth. Barely half of their children have had a measles jab and nearly three-fifths are stunted. Reducing such inequality would be one way to make existing resources go further in South Asia. But that is likely to happen no quicker than changing old-fashioned attitudes to women.

Source: The Economist (Asia)

Read More

Musings & Amusings

What Do Millionaires Know That We Don’t?

5 Surprising Facts About Millionaires

Most Millionaires Don't Feel Rich

When Spectrem researchers asked people with a net worth between $1 million and $5 million to put themselves on a sliding scale ranging from 0 (poor) to 100 (wealthy), the average response was 63.91 — or just above the middle. In reality, those with at least $1 million are wealthier than about 92 percent of American households.

Hard Work and Education Are Keys to Success

When asked how their wealth was created, a whopping 94 percent of millionaires surveyed by Spectrem credited hard work. The number two factor? Education, cited by 87 percent. That ranked it ahead of smart investing (83 percent), frugality (78 percent) and risk-taking (60 percent).

They Get Help From Experts

Millionaires typically don't see themselves as experts in investing. Only one in five considered themselves very knowledgeable. Another one in five admitted they weren't knowledgeable, while the majority — 60 percent — said they were fairly knowledgeable but still had a lot to learn.

Only one in four millionaires Spectrem surveyed said they were self-directed investors with no assistance from advisors. The other three-quarters said they were either "advisor assisted" (26 percent), "advisor dependent" (14 percent) or "event driven" (32 percent), meaning they hired financial advisors to help them deal with specific events in their lives such as impending retirement or divorce.

They’re Hands-on With Their Money

Even though most hire help, the majority remain hands-on with their money, Spectrem found. And the more money they have, the more involved they want to be.

The Wealthiest Households Enjoy Saving More Than Spending

Seven out of 10 of the wealthiest households — those with a net worth above $25 million — said that saving and investing their money gave them greater satisfaction than spending it.

 Source: Dailyworth

 

 

Read More

Musings & Amusings

Have just read the Athena Doctrine. Looking forward to observing wisdom and fairness from our business leaders and governments.

We live in a world that’s increasingly social, interdependent and transparent. And in this world, feminine values are ascendant. As John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio’s proprietary survey of 64,000 people around the world shows, traditionally feminine leadership and values are now more popular than the macho paradigm of the past. The most innovative among us are breaking away from traditional structures to be more flexible, collaborative and nurturing. And both men and women from Medellin to Nairobi are adopting this style, which emphasizes cooperation, long-term thinking, and flexibility. Informally, and in countless ways, they are following the Athena Doctrine, named after the Greek Goddess, the warrior whose strength came from wisdom and fairness. All over the world, people are deploying feminine thinking and values to make their lives, and the world, better.

Read More

Musings & Amusings

Discrimination persists in the workplace and it isn’t necessarily intentional or overt, experts on gender and negotiation say. But it can emerge when women act in ways that aren’t considered sufficiently feminine; like asking for money, and, when women advocate for themselves, these experts say, some people find it unseemly. Women can risk being perceived as overly demanding and unlikable. 

Here are some strategies for approaching negotiations at work:

Groundwork

Be careful about how you present information asking for a salary increase - in a performance review might be more effective.

Fact-Finding

The next time a headhunter calls, talk to them because they are the one who knows what you are worth on the open market. Women need to speak with men about salaries, too. If they network only with other women, experts said, they are more likely to come up with numbers that are systematically less.

Specific Language

Women should also frame requests from the employer’s perspective.

Negotiate in Person

Negotiation by email can backfire.

Outside Offers

Receiving an offer for a more lucrative position may seem like a prime opportunity to negotiate. But this tactic may harm women because it can be perceived as a threat.

Role-Playing

Keeping all this in mind isn’t easy, which is why experts suggest role-playing the situation with a friend or partner.

Source: NY Times

Read More

Musings and Amusings

Behavioral Resolutions for Behavioral Investors

The essence of being a psychologically aware investor is self-control. 

Uncertainty in a Modern World

Generally people make two sorts of investing mistakes. Firstly we make mistakes in analysis: we’re busily forecasting in a world in which the future is at best shrouded in uncertainty. We can’t possibly get all decisions correct. Secondly we make psychological mistakes: our minds betray us into making decisions in which the balance of probable outcomes lies against us. 

I Will Not Sell Winners To Buy Losers

Our number one stupid behavior is selling winners to buy losers. One of the most famous pieces of research ever done in the area, by Brad Barber and Terrance Odean, showed that overwhelmingly the stocks that internet traders sold went on to outperform the ones they purchased to replace them, an outcome of overconfidence.  

I Will Track My Returns

It’s a remarkable fact that most investors don’t know whether they’re making money or not. 

It can only be done through the simple expedient of keeping proper records. 

I Will Treat All Money As Equal

Our hatred of taking a loss and our unwillingness to track our returns means that we play mental games with our money. To be precise we allocate different sorts of money to different sorts of mental accounts, and we then use these accounts to hide away losses. 

I Will Not Listen To Fake Gods (or Experts)

In an uncertain world such as that of investing there’s not really much prospect of anyone getting short-term forecasting right on a regular basis. 

I Will Not Fall Victim To Temptation

We are all, to some extent, hobbled by our inability to stick to our resolutions. Real life keeps getting in the way. 

But There Is More To Life Than Money

Finally, though, remember that money does not make us happy. What we do with money can make us happy. Investing is a means to end. Just make sure you understand both the means and the end.

Read more about this in my book Money, Money, Money Ain't it Funny.

Source: Psy-Fi Blog

Read More

Musings and Amusings

"EVEN if we grade on a very generous curve, many Americans flunk when it comes to financial literacy. Consider this three-item quiz: 

• Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2 percent a year. After five years, how much do you think you would have if you left the money to grow? More than $102, exactly $102 or less than $102? 

• Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1 percent a year and that inflation was 2 percent. After one year, would you be able to buy more than, the same as or less than you could today with the money? 

• Do you think this statement is true or false: “Buying a single company stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund”? 

Anyone with even a basic understanding of compound interest, inflation and diversification should know that the answers to these questions are “more than,” “less than” and “false.” Yet in a survey of Americans over age 50 conducted by the economists Annamaria Lusardi of George Washington University and Olivia S. Mitchell of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, only a third could answer all three questions correctly. 

This is particularly troubling given the inherent complexity of our modern economy. Whether in taking out a student loan, buying a house or saving for retirement, people are being asked to make decisions that are difficult even if they have graduate training in finance and economics. Throwing the financially illiterate into that maelstrom is like taking students currently enrolled in driver’s education and asking them to compete in the Indianapolis 500."

A similar story to that of the UK!

Source: NY Times

Read More

Musings and Amusings

This article should be widely disseminated. Made me rethink my view of the man.

Losing my religion for equality by Jimmy Carter.

"So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries."

Nearly 5 years after this was written we are still seeing the schism in the Anglican Church, the atrocious behaviour of many Islam adherents towards women and the results of the skewed celibacy rules of the Roman Catholic Church.

Read More

Musings & Amusings

For decades, women have battled for equality, but what if equality was not the end point? What if we are heading for a future of female dominance?

So runs the thesis of what promises to be one of the year’s most sparred-over books. In The End of Men, the American journalist Hanna Rosin says that males have ruled the roost “since, well, the dawn of mankind.” Now, she argues, the balance of power is shifting “with shocking speed.” From one perspective, the decline of the male is his own stubborn fault, a result of his bewildering failure – or refusal – to adapt to a shifting global economy. Men, says Rosin, have become casualties of the end of the manufacturing era. They used to hold macho labour-intensive jobs. In the post-industrial world, where “thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as the keys to economic success,” they are floundering.

“The attributes that are most valuable today – social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus – are, at the minimum, not predominantly male,” she says.

As Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, put it last year: “A hundred and ninety heads of state; nine are women.”

Economists Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson have shown that women are less happy today than they were in 1972, both in absolute terms and relative to men.

Even the author is concerned about the ramifications of change. “A lot of women in America are now going it alone,” she said.

“They are not finding men who are suitable marriage partners, so they are raising children, working,  carrying the whole burden in ways that are exhausting.”

Source: Sunday Star Times

Read More

Musings and Amusings

Evolution has given humans a huge advantage over most other animals: middle age – who would have thought?

We are used to dismissing our fifth and sixth decades as a negative chapter in our lives, perhaps even a cause for crisis. But recent scientific findings have shown just how important middle age is for every one of us, and how crucial it has been to the success of our species. Middle age is not just about wrinkles and worry. It is not about getting old. It is an ancient, pivotal episode in the human life span, pre-programmed into us by natural selection, an exceptional characteristic of an exceptional species.

Compared with other animals, humans have a very unusual pattern to our lives. We take a very long time to grow up, we are long-lived, and most of us stop reproducing halfway through our life span. A few other species have some elements of this pattern, but only humans have distorted the course of their lives in such a dramatic way. Most of that distortion is caused by the evolution of middle age, which adds two decades that most other animals simply do not get.

An important clue that middle age isn’t just the start of a downward spiral is that it does not bear the hallmarks of general, passive decline.

Excellent news for those who were worrying about the impending doom and gloom of old age.

 Source: The Washington Post

Read More

Musings and Amusings

A fascinating new study out of Australia knocked the stereotype of selfish, single, Sex & The City-style women on its head this week with findings that it’s not career ambition that’s keeping young women from settling down, but rather a long list of reasons outside of her control. First and foremost, a lack of a willing, able—and kid-friendly—partner.

Housing ranked highly, too, with women wanting to reduce a mortgage, to renovate or to move to more suitable accommodation before having a child.

For centuries women have married without giving a thought to love, searching instead for financial security, stability and a father for their children simply because they were ready to have children.

The modern women is looking to build her life so she can make a decision when the time is right financially, pragmatically and emotionally—so she doesn’t need to find the man to make it happen, but the man she can enjoy life with while everything else falls in line.

Read More

Musings and Amusings

One of my favourite writers Kay S. Hymowitz suggests that the conflict between parenting and career is hardwired in the female brain.

In the struggle for equality between the sexes, it keeps coming down to motherhood, doesn’t it?

If there’s one part of evolutionary thinking that spells bad news for the feminist worldview, it is parental-investment theory, an idea originally proposed by Harvard professor Robert Trivers. Trivers was attempting to clarify Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, which went something like this: females of most species are more particular about their mates than males are. That means males must compete for female attention; hence the colourful tails of peacocks and the lovely songs of many male birds.

But why should females be pickier than males? It is also mostly females who feed and guard the kids. In fact, females do nearly everything that increases the survival, and eventual reproductive success, of their offspring. Trivers concluded that females, as he put it, “invest” more than males—and that includes being cautious about their sexual partners, the fathers of their offspring.

In fact, as neuroscientists and geneticists piece together the human brain’s evolution, it’s becoming clear that, if it’s natural for a woman to go crazy over her babies, it’s also natural for a woman to run the State Department. The same human female brain that’s primed with oxytocin is, like the male brain, a fantastically complex machine, capable of reasoning, innovative problem solving, and manoeuvring through hugely varied social environments.

And so in the twentieth century, the big-brained female—Femina sapiens, ready to use her brain in new ways, coincidentally at a time when the intellectually gratifying jobs of an advanced economy were becoming more plentiful. Men invented the antibiotic and the washing machine; today, women in economics departments calculate the benefits of these discoveries for their sex. Better yet, they themselves can make future discoveries in labs and R&D departments.

If human society can sometimes reconfigure biology—by curing polio and increasing athletic stamina, for example—could it reconfigure sexual selection so that fathers and mothers made equal investments in their young children? We don’t have much evidence for thinking so. Until the mid-1990s, Swedish parents got nine months of leave after the birth of a child. By 2004, only 20 percent of fathers were taking the two months. By contrast, a large majority of mothers made full use of their leave. Iceland launched a similar effort to equalize parental investment; fathers there are doing more, but nowhere near as much as mothers.

How do we make it easier for working women who want more time to invest in their young children to work part time, or to return to their jobs after an extended leave? What is the proper role of government in all this?

Read More

Musings and Amusings

It was not amusing to read of Saudi Arabia’s decision to ban voting for women – it’s outrageous.

It did however cause me to muse upon the flagrant disregard not just for women’s “rights” but the failure to see women as beings with intelligence, the ability to think, and to be at least equal to men.

I suppose that here in the West at least chauvinism is fairly covert and some effort is made to allow women to join the ranks of voters and workers. Still, women at the top as a matter of course seem to be a couple of decades away.

Read More

Musings & Amusings

Marriage is a “public, formal, lifelong commitment to share your life with another person,” as Andrew J. Cherlin defines it in The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today. In the American view, marriage remains the ideal state: only 10 percent of Americans endorse the idea that the institution is outdated, compared to, say, in France, where a third of people think it is. On the contrary, America is seeing a sort of Marriage Renaissance, the impetus for which comes in part from the gay marriage movement, which in itself reflects our reverence for weddings. All the usual explanations for the marrying nature of Americans seem good enough: marriage is seen as a haven in a rough world, an antidote to rootlessness. Marriage says Cherlin is unneeded by people in smaller, more comfortable societies, it developed in response to other historical factors including patterns of life and religion in Colonial America and on the frontier; if is not an innate biological impulse but a socially determined convenience for raising children.

By the time they’re forty, 84 percent of American women have been married, a higher percentage than in other Western nations; and more than half (54 percent) of marriages will have broken up within fifteen years. About the same percentage of “cohabiting relationships” will have broken up even sooner. Americans divorce more often than others do and have more partners, more children out of wedlock, and more abortions.

Along the way, a total of 90 percent of women, almost all of them, will have one partner or more during their lives, and some many, many more. If hypocrisy, as some suspect, is our most salient national quality, Cherlin finds lots of examples in the inconsistency of American religion and law, the one urging us with increasing shrillness to fidelity in sickness and health, the other extending legislation for no-fault divorce.

Cherlin believes that the fragility of the American family is the result of an evolution—an “upheaval”—since the late 1950s, from earlier traditions governing property, progeny, prestige, duty, and God, to a new view that marriage is a “right” on the path to personal fulfilment.

While this an American survey it certainly mimics the Kiwi experience.

Read More

Musings and Amusings

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to welcome you aboard Veritas Airways, the airline that tells it like it is. Please ensure you seat belt is fastened, your seat-belt is upright and your table is stowed, as your safety is our first priority. Actually, that isn’t quite true. If it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, as they are safer in an emergency landing. But then nobody would buy tickets and we would go bust.

The flight attendants are now indicating the emergency exits. This is where you should pay attention. Knowing where the exits are makes a huge difference to your chances of survival if we have to evacuate the aircraft. Also, please keep your seat belt fastened when seated. This is to protect you from clear-air turbulence, and extremely nasty form of disturbance that can cause severe injury. Imagine food trolleys jumping through the air and bashing into overhead lockers, and you will have some idea of how unpleasant it can be. A life-jacket can be found under your seat. In the event of landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in aviation history the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have successfully done this is zero. The aircraft has inflatable slides. Please remove high-heeled shoes before using the slides. We could add that space helmets and anti-gravity belts should also be removed, since to mention using the slides as rafts is entering the realm of science fiction.

Please switch off mobile phones, as they interfere with the navigation systems. Well, that’s what you’ve always been told. The real reason is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn’t sounds so good. On channel 11 you will find a video showing some exercises you can do to reduce the risk of deep-vein thrombosis. We are aware that this video is tedious. It is not meant to be fun, but to limit our liability in the event of lawsuits.

Once we are at cruising altitude you will be offered a light meal. This is partly to keep you in your seats where you cannot harm yourselves or anyone else. Please consume alcohol in moderation so that you become mildly sedated. Or we can always turn the air-quality down a notch or two to ensure that you are sufficiently drowsy. So please sit back, relax and enjoy the flight. Cabin crew, remember to close the doors. Sorry, I mean “Doors to automatic and cross-check.: Thank you for flying Veritas.”

From The Economist

Read More

Musings and Amusings

Is this too good to be true?

Men Having it all in Sweden
Mikael Karlsson owns a snowmobile, two hunting dogs and five guns. In his spare time, this soldier-turned-game warden shoots moose and trades potty-training tips with other fathers. Cradling 2-month-old Siri in his arms, he can't imagine not taking baby leave. ''Everyone does.'' 85 percent of Swedish fathers take parental leave. Those who don't face questions from family, friends and colleagues.

In this land of Viking lore, men are at the heart of the gender-equality debate. The ponytailed center-right finance minister calls himself a feminist, ads for cleaning products rarely feature women as homemakers, and preschools vet books for gender stereotypes in animal characters. For nearly four decades, governments of all political hues have legislated to give women equal rights at work -- and men equal rights at home.

Profound social change.
Women's paychecks are benefiting and the shift in fathers' roles is perceived as playing a part in lower divorce rates and increasing joint custody of children.
In perhaps the most striking example of social engineering, a new definition of masculinity is emerging.

The share of fathers on leave was stalled at 6 percent when Mr. Westerberg entered government in 1991.

Women continued to take parental leave not just for tradition's sake but because their pay was often lower, thus perpetuating pay differences. Companies, meanwhile, made clear to men that staying home with baby was not compatible with a career.
''Society is a mirror of the family, the only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve equality in the home. Getting fathers to share the parental leave is an essential part of that.''

No father was forced to stay home, but the family lost one month of subsidies if he did not. Soon more than eight in 10 men took leave.

Among the self-employed, and in rural and immigrant communities, men are far less likely to take leave. That a mother’s future earnings increase on average 7 percent for every month the father takes leave.

While Sweden, with nine million people, made a strategic decision to get more women into the work force in the booming 1960s, other countries imported more immigrant men.

The trend is, however, no longer limited to small countries. Germany, with nearly 82 million people.

That was a marker of pretty significant change. If Germany can do it, she said, ''most countries can.''

Yet Sweden looks well balanced: at 2.1 percent and 40 percent of G.D.P., respectively, public deficit and debt levels are a fraction of those in most developed economies these days, testimony perhaps to fiscal management born of a banking crisis and recession in the 1990s. High productivity and political consensus keep the system going.

Source: NY Times

Read More

Musings and Amusings

It amazes me that so many Kiwis are reluctant to write financial plans – only around 30% of us do so. Perhaps my profession needs to take a more creative approach. Consider the following as a base for your plan:

Write a mission statement for your life. What are you dedicated to? What can people count on from you? Leave this exercise for a day or two, then re-read it. Did you learn something about your goals and dreams? Can you incorporate what you have learned about who you are, and where you want to go, into an action plan that begins today? Keep the notes you make in response to this exercise – they will be a great source for you to refer to when you come to write your financial plan. Your goals will already be established.

Imagine your future – think about your goals, dream about your goals. The philosopher Henry David Thoreau writes in Walden, “If you built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Read More