At last a good idea from Venezuela

Wednesday, April 29, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

Venezuela says it will cut the working day for public sector workers to five-and-a-half hours to conserve energy, down from eight to nine hours.
The initiative is part of a nationwide electricity rationing plan.
Vice-President Jorge Arreaza said there had been a surge in energy demand due to extremely hot weather. He said state employees would now work from 07:30-13:00 to save on air conditioning.
On Monday, local media reported blackouts across the country.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-32506572


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UBER was suspended in Portugal !

Wednesday, April 29, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

I use it just once. I paid 3,6 euros for a short ride inside Lisbon. The driver had a tie and open the door for my wife. His name is Hugo. The car was very clean. Mind that 3,6 euros is below the minimum fare you pay just for entering a normal cab.

In Portugal the Taxis Union and the Courts decided that Hugo does not have the right to work.

It's a real pity because with UBER you can send a car to pick your kid in the night and you know where the car is and at what time it arrived at your door.


Portugal isn't reforming at all, we are a communist country with a right wing government. In Portugal even the right think as communists.



Onecartoon:

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It makes me go VEGGAN !

Wednesday, April 29, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

From Quartz, 

Tyson plans to minimize antibiotics in its chickens.

 The largest meat US meatpacker by sales says that by the the end of September 2017, it intends to largely eliminate the use of human antibiotics for chicken production (paywall), citing a growing increase in health concerns. Last month, McDonald’s, a major buyer of Tyson chicken, announced it wouldstop serving its US customers antibiotic-fed chicken within two years.

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61 million I-phones sold in a quarter!!!!!!

Tuesday, April 28, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

Apple said that it had sold 61.17 million iPhones, compared to a StreetAccount consensus estimate of 57.26 million. Apple CFO Luca Maestri said demand for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus "has remained incredibly strong

If the bigger guy doesn't screw up and invest back in the business i guess big get bigger it's a trend. Apple is going to kill Samsung etc.... More money, more budget, more research & of course a better product.

More
http://thoughtmeme.blogspot.pt/2014/07/to-me-they-are-short.html


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everything in one graph

Thursday, April 23, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments


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The Bull market could go further

Wednesday, April 22, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments



























Source Federal Reserve

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When rates start rising sell all you stocks

Wednesday, April 22, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments



























This graph & comments were taken from a very good presentation from David Einhorn

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What is the problem with the world?

Wednesday, April 22, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

Seven years after the financial crisis, central banks are still keeping interest rates at historically low levels. Low interest rates help finance governments' debt and lower funding costs, as well as support growth. But such policy actions cause financial repression. This comes at a substantial cost for both households and long-term investors such as insurance companies and pension funds, according to a new Swiss Re report Financial repression: The unintended consequences.
With continued increases in bond prices, expensive stocks and relatively low volatility, the impact of financial repression on markets is undisputable. Meanwhile, the impact of foregone interest income for households and long-term investors has become substantial: in the US alone, savers have lost about USD 470 billion in interest rate income (net) since the financial crisis (2008-2013).

Current high levels of financial repression create significant costs and lower long-term investors' ability to channel funds into the real economy, a new Swiss Re study shows


26 March 2015, Zurich 


There are many problems in the World

excess supply of everything
Automation
Role of man in an automated world
People who learned things that are useless
Everything that is going to be invented is going to be invented in some big countries
The distance between rich & poor will widen
etc...

But for the Economy the zero rates are a big drag on demand. savers don't make enough money and so they don't spend

i see deflation.

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Today is my birthday!

Monday, April 20, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments







































Just noticed that one of my eyes is half open! I guess it's the age. however i have big plans for the year ahead. I plan to do a comeback on the competitive Mountain biking. I feel great.


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Sometimes you go looking for motivation. Sometimes motivation finds YOU!

Monday, April 13, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments



From 

Mitchell Weiner

Founder, Chief Happiness Officer & Owner, FSO

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First Driving lesson!

Monday, April 13, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments























With the car parked ! Police is getting crazy in my country and they could fine anyone anytime.

beware of the Goverment

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1 year long hiring process

Monday, April 13, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

From FT

I remarked on how much easier and less competitive life becomes as you get older. Once you have got on the ladder you can go on climbing, no further questions asked.

........... 

Instead, it would be wiser to be more lackadaisical about handing out jobs at entry level, and then letting the only test that works — how people perform — decide who stays and who doesn’t. 

Luck Kellaway


This is very true. Companies spend too much money picking entry level employees, dozens of tests & interviews. They shouldn't. They should pick candidates with a minimum of requisites and then try them for 1 year. After one year the bad ones should be let go.

We used to run a program where if we have 6 positions to feel we would hire 12 and let go (compulsory) half of them after year 1. It was a 1 year interview.

The results were very good . I can attest to this method. I agree with Lucy the way people real perform is the only test that matters.


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Hard Physical work = Good Brain

Monday, April 13, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

From WSJ, Ahead of Paris-Roubaix, Cycling Fans Strive to Keep Bumps in the Road


Samuel Lefebvre, a landscaping instructor, demonstrates how to replace cobblestones in France along the Paris-Roubaix route. Trying to reuse as many of the original 100-year-old stones as possible, he lines them up before filling in the gaps.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-france-cycling-fans-strive-to-keep-bumps-in-the-road-1428682270


More and more people chose to have a Manual  Hobbies. It's the best way to relieve stress.

When you are pushing yourself you cannot think a lot and the best thing for the mind is to stop thinking. I think meditation is really to try to stop thinking and relax.

To me and to many people what works is to do manual things where i get really tired. It's good for the brain and for the body!



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One good Idea!

Friday, April 10, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments


From FT, LinkedIn is to acquire the online learning business Lynda.com for about $1.5bn, as the social network expands offerings for its audience of professional users.
Lynda.com, a California-based company, has created hundreds of thousands of video tutorials in multiple languages, helping people to learn “software, technology, creative and business skills to achieve personal and professional goals”. Users pay a subscription of up to $375 a year to gain access to online courses that have been created by more than 1,000 authors. 

I think when you want to learn statistics this is going to be the way to do it. You can have the best statistics teachers in a day that they did a great class, they get taped and the students can run the tape over and over until they get it.

To pay a huge amount of money to go to a College to hear some Statistic teacher that is not the best in the world and you can only hear it once, no recording and you have to take notes at the same time. it's a waste of money.

The only reason to go to College is to socialized with equally smart people that could help in the future.

To really learn i guess on-line is the wise choice.

USD 375 a year is a very good deal


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Let's be more Japanese !

Friday, April 10, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

The Japanese term kodokushi, or “lonely death,” refers to a person who dies alone, their absence unnoticed for weeks until a neighbor notices. As Japan’s elderly population expands and more Japanese live alone, the term is tragically being used more often.

http://qz.com/380685/photos-cleaning-up-after-japans-lonely-deaths/


It's sad to die alone. My guess is that Japanese people don't want to bother their family and prefer to die alone.

I was just once in TOKYO but it was the most impressive visit ever made. They are so civilized, so polite and so clean.

The way Japanese behaved with the fukushima disaster and the way they respect the other people is the way the world should move. 

Sashimi is the most clean and well designed dish ever. 

I would love to visit Japan more deeply and slowly. I will make that one of my goals in life. perhaps doing japan by bike i would do a 2 in one!


In Japan, I was immensely impressed by the politeness, industrious nature and conscientiousness of the Japanese people.

1502_hirosaki_main

Hirosaki Castle and its cherry blossoms are known as one of the best scenic spots in Japan, listed in the “100 best spots for cherry blossoms in Japan” selected by the government

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one idea

Thursday, April 09, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
English novelist (1775 - 1817)   

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It's better to be young!

Wednesday, April 08, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments





So, yes, demographics matter to equity market returns, as the Japanese have come to realise. The biggest equity buyers are the middle-aged (the 40-49 year olds in particular), and it is no coincidence that the great equity bull market has coincided with the baby boomers going through their middle ages............................

....

The biggest equity buyers (the 40-49 year olds) are being outnumbered by the biggest bond buyers (the 60-69 year olds), pushing bond valuations up and equity valuations down. Importantly, that trend is likely to continue until at least the mid-2020s, which raises another question and one that I won’t attempt to answer in this paper. How much of the recent strength in various bond markets should actually be attributed to QE and how much is due to demographic factors? Nobody really knows the answer to that question, but I suspect that the significance of central bank policy has been overestimated.


Niels C. Jensen, From the Absolute Return Letter, one of the best


This is very true, only young people buy stock's but if deposits pay zero,  the 60 to 69 would still do deposits???  








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My Son First Spinning class

Wednesday, April 08, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments


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The only number i still recall is my mother's!

Monday, April 06, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.



From Lucy Kellway, FT- The ability to remember people strikes me as a bigger asset than emotional intelligence at work. Most of us don’t especially want empathy in the office, but everyone wants to be remembered. The more someone is able to recall chapter and verse of all small talk exchanged at previous meetings, the more you are inclined to like and trust them. It is not just a skill for politicians: it’s for everyone.
One day, probably very soon, wearable technology will do the job for us by recognising faces and connecting them to a database of trivia. But by then it will be worthless. The reason we want people to remember us is because it is so hard to do so. 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0416a3f4-c74f-11e4-9e34-00144feab7de.html#axzz3WXhDfBBN


Everything else you can look at Google and your Outlook/Agenda, you don't need to remember almost nothing you can check when you need. I only remember my mother Cell number it's the only thing i still recall!

But as Lucy Kellaway says to recall people and be nice is very very important these days and one cannot replace that with a computer. When i see someone i know if we met before, sometimes i don't recall the name asap and that is a shame. I don't ever forget a face and that is very good.

I would like to have a trick to recall names. 

Be nice or be fired!





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Sorry, Sin is a Good Business !

Monday, April 06, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 1 Comments

The fact that many investors don't touch Tobacco, Defense, beverage & Gaming makes this industries cheaper and as a consequence the return on investing in them is much bigger than in the normal market.

My take is that when your client is addicted you can charge more and that is the main reason for the big return these industries show.





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A bit less Democracy please

Thursday, April 02, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

A great leader takes his or her society from where it is to where it has never been — indeed, where it as yet cannot imagine being. By insisting on quality education, by suppressing corruption and by basing governance on merit, Lee and his colleagues raised the annual per capita income of their population from $500 at the time of independence in 1965 to roughly $55,000 today. In a generation, Singapore became an international financial center, the leading intellectual metropolis of Southeast Asia, the location of the region’s major hospitals and a favored site for conferences on international affairs. It did so by adhering to an extraordinary pragmatism: by opening careers to the best talents and encouraging them to adopt the best practices from all over the world.

March 23


Henry A. Kissinger was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977.


Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.



A teacher should have the aim to raise the average level of the class. To improve them on average that should be the main objective. However sometimes the teacher wants to 

level everyone
spend more time with the weaker students
move slow because some students are not up to it
make everybody study even if they are more suited to arts or to a technical job

and the class stops progressing.

The Government these days are worried about the distribution of income and twists and turns the economy with taxes & stupid rules to ensure that no one stays behind. The Government in my country charges 55% Income tax (Marginal above 50,000 euros) , 24% vat, tobacco, car, and many other taxes including a Property tax. The country is big time indebted.

Portugal doesn't grow for 15 years since the year 2000.

Yes income distribution (after taxes) is better because everybody is lower and the middle class has been killed. 

If income compression is a Goal Portugal is doing a good job, kill the rich and everybody levels off at a lower level.

“Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
Ronald Reagan



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Better than an MBA

Wednesday, April 01, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments


I agree with Steve Jobs, however what i think makes sense is to hire a speech coach and train the way you speak. I don't know if there are these kind of specialists in my country (Portugal), i guess acting is about the way you speak......... The way you say could be more powerfull that what you say.

From WSJ, Scientists are tuning in on the power of the spoken word, seeking the secrets of charisma.
By analyzing the harmonics of pitch, frequency and timbre, researchers at University of California, Los Angeles are discovering how charismatic public speakers use their voices to dominate, rouse and influence a large audience. They are finding that successful politicians in various countries, including Italy, France and Brazil, all share key vocal qualities that strongly affect how people respond to them, independent of the meaning of the words they say or the ideas they express.

Steve Jobs.jpeg

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Unfortunately you can't “vote yourselves rich.!

Wednesday, April 01, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor Charles Munger faulted Greek citizens for their notion that you can “vote yourselves rich.”
“It’s an idiotic idea,” Munger, 91, said Wednesday during the annual meeting for Daily Journal Corp., a Los Angeles-based newspaper publisher where he serves as chairman.
Munger, better known as the vice chairman at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has long been critical of Greece, saying in 2011 that the bailed-out nation has been hobbled by insufficient contributions from its citizens. Greek politics were shaken up in January when Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza party was voted in on a pledge to ease austerity and negotiate a writedown of some of the country’s debt.
“The Greek solution is idiocy,” Munger said Wednesday. “If we’re going to prosper, we have to work.” 

9:01PM BST 31 Mar 2015
Warren Buffett, the billionaire chief executive and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, has said a Greek exit from the eurozone could be constructive for the region.
"If it turns out the Greeks leave, that may not be a bad thing for the euro," Mr Buffett told CNBC. He said that member countries could come to better agreements about fiscal policy if Greece left the single currency.
"If everybody learns that the rules mean something and if they come to general agreement about fiscal policy among members or something of the sort, they mean business, that could be a good thing," Mr Buffett said.

More about the same:



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Excess Supply = Prices go down

Wednesday, April 01, 2015 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

From Quartz- Decades-old quotas limiting milk production will be lifted, opening up the market for export to countries like China. Ireland is set to produce 50% more milk by the end of the decade. The Netherlands and Germany are also increasing production by 20%.

With global production rising and energy use subdued, worldwide production of crude oil is now exceeding demand by about 1.5 million barrels per day compared with consumption of 93 million.
A Gary Shilling Insight, April 2015

The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people
― Karl Marx


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