Chinese firms are robotizing their production lines in order to compete head-on with rivals on the basis of quality. The automation czar of Great Wall Motors, China’s biggest pickup truck maker, recently told us that a program to automate welding and spray painting for its new models was not a cost cutting exercise, but rather an effort to close the quality gap between its vehicles and those produced by the likes of Toyota and General Motors in China.
Yuchan Li, Gave Kal Research
If China starts competing on quality we (Europe&US) will have big problems because they still have a big the cost advantage & if the quality perception is the same.....
What to do? Build a brand! Despite Lexus is as good as Mercedes or BMW no one in their right mind will buy a Lexus at similar prices. Why? because there is a perception that Mercedes or BMW are much better.
What is the name of that perception? it's a position that only Brands possess. So I strongly advice companies to hire a good marketing guy and put him/she in charge.
No Brand = No profit
How does participation in different types of sport affect the earnings and employment of the working-age population?
Are these effects for the different types of sports heterogeneous with respect to genders and age?
These 2 Questions are answered in the following paper
http://www1.vwa.unisg.ch/RePEc/usg/econwp/EWP-1325.pdf
Conclusion:
.... the results indicate large positive associations of sports participation with earnings, which are largest for fitness and outdoor sports. Furthermore, there is a negative relation with unemployment, particularly for males, which goes together with higher employment rates for younger males and higher retirement rates for older males. Comparing the different sports against each other shows that participation in team sports is more associated with increased employability (but that this varies by age and gender) and that fitness and outdoor activities have higher associations with income.
This doesn't surprise me at all, why it's easier to get a job if you play team sports?
1.You are used to have a role in the team. You do your part, you wait for your time to act. This is Teamwork. (To play in an Orchestra is the same)
2.You are used to lose and next week it's another game! It is never the end...There is always the next game.
3.In a team there is a boss, in companies is the same
4.You make a lot's of friends (networking)
5.If you do serious sports you are used to get the best of your day, you study, you attend school and you train. People who do sports do more!
6.You get a course in Psychology while playing games.You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of
conversation. Plato.
7.You understand the power of effort and hard training In sports you figure out that the person who works more usually wins.
8.You are healthier, and companies like to hire healthy people.
If a country grows there is a natural tendency for income polarization. The Owners of the Companies & the knowledge workers make substantial more money than people that have standardized jobs (Jobs that are thousands of people who do the same thing).
The Kuznet's Curve has the same idea with the following rational (From Wikipedia)
The Kuznets curve implies that as a nation undergoes industrialization – and
especially the mechanization of agriculture – the center of the nation’s economy
will shift to the cities. As capitalism causes a significant rural-urban
inequality gap (the owners of firms would be profiting, while labourers from
lagging industries and agriculture production would be losing income), rural
populations are expected to decrease as urban populations increase, due to
people migrating to cities in search of income. Inequality is then expected to
decrease when a certain level of average income is reached and the processes of
industrialization – democratization and the rise of the welfare state – allow
for the trickle-down of the benefits from rapid
growth, and increase the per capita
income. This was Kuznets’ belief; that inequality would follow an inverted “U”
shape as it rises and then falls again with the increase of income per
capita.
I don't agree with the idea that as inequality decreases at all. My belief is this
For the whole group to get better some of the group will become much better. This is what i see. Every country that tried to promote egalitarian politics everybody get's worse in the end. Equal but hungry!
To improve you have to exit your comfort zone!
In field after field, when it comes to centrally important skills—stockbrokers recommending stocks, parole officers predicting recidivism, college admissions officials judging applicants—people with lots of experience were no better at their jobs than those with less experience.
From Geoff Colvin, Talented is Overrated
What? well in this book the author claims 3 things, 1 The notion that you have to have ‘natural talent’ to excel at something is a myth. 2. Even if you practice many hours at something you improve a bit first but after an initial jump you reach a plateau and experience serves you nothing.3. if you want to get better you have to engage in deliberate practice (in my words Hard Training, not so pleasant ).
To improve at something, and anyone can improve if he/she want, it's Hard Work, you have to exit your comfort zone. You have to experiment, you have to do every week something that you have never done before.
In my bike training i have to do a series at 185 bpm, to change my diet radically, to lose serious weight, try a new drink, drink only water in training, etc... i have exit the usual to improve. That is the key to move forward. To do over & over the same things doesn't get you very far.
Exception: In sales i do believe that someone with 10,000 client meetings is really better than someone with 100 client meetings. In Sales you do get better with the number of interactions because each meeting is different.
http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-World-Class-Performers-EverybodyElse/dp/1591842948
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