Do your bit for equality and get out there and support this essential initiative

Thanks to Anna Wilkowska-Landowska’s blog for raising this.

When I was younger a lot younger, in fact I was at university, the British Conservative MP Norman Tebbitt told the country to stop moaning and ‘get on your bikes and find a job’. That was great advice and it is as relevant today as it was then (I think early 80′s).

I know that I will get a bit of flack for this post, but look at it as an inspiration please, a motivation if you will to get up and get right back into the thick of things if you suffer from loss of employment.

Unfortunately too often people ‘expect’ to be taken care of, to be provided for – well guess what we are responsible for ourselves – we have to take action for ourselves, so when the axe falls we have to be prepared and willing to get up and get on our bikes and go and seek a new start.

Today the younger generation, in particular, have got great tools for marketing themselves, networking on line, twittering and an abundance of other means – did you know 36% of jobs in Europe go to people, not through external adverts, but via word of mouth, connections to friends and acquaintances. So keep those relations and network like mad.

If you are unemployed – get out of the house every day arrange to meet with someone that can possibly help you – don’t present anything but a positive attitude. Negativity is not something that will attract you to would be employers, so dig deep and be resilient. I know its hard but its essential.

Another key bit of advice to everyone, not just job seekers, is to constantly invest in themselves – invest in training – knowledge is something that shows employers you are serious. Get those external qualifications in Marketing (CIM), auditing (CIA), Accounting (CAA) and HR (CIPD), these qualifications show you are serious about your career.

Keep fit, get outside cycle, run, walk or whatever – but exercise. I don’t care if its minus 27 degrees c. exercise it keeps your mind and body strong and helps you avoid slipping into mild depression.

DO NOT WATCH TV – according to a lady from Manpower speaking at Davos yesterday there are 4 million unfilled vacancies across Europe – get online, be disciplined, only look for jobs, allocate a set number of hours to do this EVERY DAY and send your resume, market yourself, be proactive but do not be a couch potato.

So what is the title about – 3 bikes, 3 flat tires. Every day I cycle about 40 kilometres to clients offices and back, just before Christmas one of my bikes got a flat tire, I went off to Opole so did not have time to take it to the repair shop (I prefer to replace inner tubes than fix them). After Christmas another one of my bikes got a flat tire, it was dark and I didn’t see the glass, duh!! and this morning I went to take out my third bike, which is really an off road trekking bike, but hey make do with what you have right? And guess what it too has a flat tire – I think we must have a mouse having a great time letting the air out of my tires – but I can tell you one thing, flat tire or no flat tire I still get out and do what I have to do – I have to because, even though I have a wonderful supportive family, I know that I am ultimately responsible for me and that’s exactly how I like it.

It’s not what we can do in life that makes a difference. It’s what we will do.

The website (www.FindAnyFilm.com) is free to use and contains records of more than 30,000 films, or roughly seven years’ worth of viewing, and they come in 20 genres and over 60 languages.

The site tells visitors how they can watch the movie of their choice, whether at the cinema, on television, DVD, Blu-ray, online or by downloading it from legal websites.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not floating on hallucianating mushrooms or any other chemical substance – but the serotinin levels in me are delivering a new experience. Is this midlife or the ‘meno-porsche’ as some like to call it?

I doubt it – I believe it has much to do with how I choose to live my life. Positively with enthusiasm and accepting things I can not change.

That does not mean I am a pushover by any means – but it does mean I tolerate more, much, much more than I ever did before. It also means I communicate more openly and honestly – with anyone and everyone.

My choices in my life have much to do with this – I became a vegetarian and then gradually converted to vegan. I gave up all alcohol and learnt to meditate – to think without clutter. I exercise daily and I treat all others equally.

I set about my daily life with enthusiasm – even in the depths of a Polish winter – Emerson said “Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Enthusiasm. One of my absolute favorite words. Did you know that it comes from the Greek enthous “possessed by a god” (theos (God) and en (within))? I love that. So, when you’re enthusiastic, your God (or as I prefer my spirital goodness) is within you. And, equally important, when you are NOT enthusiastic, your goodness has left the building.

People ask me – “Colin do you ever get angry, because I can’t imagine it” – sure things upset me, but anger and frustration are negative emotions that become a vicious circle. Learning to accept is moving towards another level – I like this feeling. It is without question one of the most enjoyable parts of my life and I hope that I am able to pass on much of my enthusiasm to all I meet and they can also benefit in their lives.

So what have I stopped doing, well in addition to my choice of diet, alcohol – the one biggest lesson I have learnt is not to blame others – I leave you with a great quote from Xi Zhi “You should examine yourself daily, if you find faults, you should correct them. When you find none, you should try even harder’

Give it a try and I hope that you find the inner peace I have.

Walk Score

Just drop the arrows to the left and you will get a list of selected local places.

No excuses not to walk….

One of the tools he advocates abolishing is VAR (Value at Risk) this is a tool used by most banks and other financial institutions. A few years ago I called for my then employer to stop using VAR and a financial instrument called CDO’s (collateralized debt obligations), these tools I predicted were a) not reliable and b) too risky and could indeed lead to malpractice – well that employer listened to me and has so far weathered the storm.

Taleb can be seen on this video – go and buy the book and voice your anger at the banks. Don’t think Polish banks are immune they too have used VAR, sorry to be a bearer of bad news but best that we hedge our bets when we can  – see also my posting below.

Estimates are that up to PLN 88bn was lent to Polish borrowers in the form of foreign currency-denominated mortgages. Take a look at this article by Izabella Kaminska writing at the FT –

Another Eastern European meltdown?

Let’s look at the situation – when I was a young student, I was terrified about asking the bank for a loan – bank managers always had a scowl on their face (dark suits, white shirst and maroon ties in short dressed in the most boring manner oh yes and standardised minds) and well you just didn’t feel comfortable asking for a loan. What’s more they were always known as conservative right? Then one day I had a bright business idea and asked for GBP 150,000 (this was many, many years ago) and you know what they said YES, no problem – the point was the loan was backed by the UK governments loan guarantee scheme and the bank was only exposed to about 30% (70% being guaranteed by the government). The day after the bank’s said Yes, a venture capitalist offered me GBP 6 million so I took that instead – no need for a bank loan.

Conservative banks, risk adverse? Well not really.  In the summer of 1982 American banks lost nearly all of their profits since they were incorporated because they got greedy and were lending money to South and Central American countries that all defaulted at the same time – so you see banks are not conservative they just want you to think it then fool themselves into thinking it, they are very well skilled at ‘self-deception’.

Then just a decade later the banks again were nearly bankrupt after the real-estate crash of the early 1990′s which cost the taxpayer in the US a half a trillion dollar bail out. Plus all the personal losses they suffered.

What does this tell you? When ‘consservative’ bankers make profits, they get the fat salaries and benefits, when they screw up through greed, the taxpayer pays the costs!

And here we are again in exactly the same situation. History repeating itself because the big banks got greedy.

So what’s the solution to stimulate the economy?

In simple lay man’s terms I think that the UK will pull it off. The government in the UK is about to unveil a new program to help save businesses and banks.  The UK government will do a few things better than the US.

According to The Times, “The next steps to be unveiled within a fortnight are set to include guarantees for businesses of all sizes and official insurance for banks to attach to new securitisations of mortgages and other loans.” In other words, the worst assets of banks will get a safety net and businesses will have an easier time getting credit.

The business loan guarantees are a stroke of genius, and it is surprising that more of that is not in the U.S. stimulus package. Companies in America are having a terrible time getting access to credit. That leads them to cutting jobs and capital expenditures. When their situations get particularly bad, they cut expenses sharply and fire people. That is hardly a formula for driving any recovery as the recession deepens.

If the UK programs get a strongly positive reception from UK business and economists, it may pay for the other governments to borrow a few pages from their books. Aid that works quickly trumps programs that take months to implement, especially when time is short.

What’s your thoughts?

Caveat – in case my assets go down the toilet I hope I never have to go cap in hand to a bank!

Here’s a taster of some of his witicism and how easy it is for a lay man to understand:

These days it seems like it is our patriotic duty to consume more. And if we don’t choose to spend more money ourselves, the government will do it for us.

But wait a minute. Isn’t it excessive spending that got us into this mess in the first place? Spending more now seems like drinking Scotch to cure a hangover.

That brings us to government expenditure, which is getting most of the press. The danger with this form of stimulus is twofold: First, it takes too long for the government spending to kick in, and second, spending may easily focus on pork-barrel projects that have little inherent value.

 Source Boost Private Investment to Boost the Economy

A link with Hal’s articles on the NY Times is here just look at the headlines to get a feel for the humour.

Another economist I admire is Robert Stavins, here’s an example from him which is solid pragmatic sense:

When I presented Jones’s arguments to Robert Stavins, a professor of business and government at Harvard who studies the economics of environmental regulation, he offered the following analogy: “Let’s say I want to have a dinner party. It’s important that I cook dinner, and I’d also like to take a shower before the guests arrive. You might think, Well, it would be really efficient for me to cook dinner in the shower. But it turns out that if I try that I’m not going to get very clean and it’s not going to be a very good dinner. And that is an illustration of the fact that it is not always best to try to address two challenges with what in the policy world we call a single-policy instrument.

 Source Green Jobs, one goal, two different paths