From the Weekend FT, Simon Kuper (If you have to sign just one paper the FT is the best, plenty to read and really bright people writing)
One day this summer, while we were watching our kids play together, an American mother told me her child-rearing strategy. Her children’s school cost more than $30,000 in tuition a year. Its raison d’être was to get pupils into brand-name colleges. To boost its chances, it encouraged kids to repeat grades. This woman’s daughter was performing well at school but only with intense after-hours tutoring. The girl was therefore going to repeat fifth grade. The mother’s endgame, as I understand it: the children become doctors or lawyers earning top 1 per cent incomes.
Of course, game plans like hers are now common. As the 1 per cent keeps getting richer, more parents want their kids to join it. Recent findings on happiness seem to support their thinking: most researchers now believe that happiness keeps rising with income. There is no satiation point beyond which money doesn’t matter, as was previously thought.
I like money plenty. However, I’ve decided not to try to push my kids into the 1 per cent — a group whose lives seem to be getting worse. While the rewards of membership are rising, so are the costs. Instead, I’ve devised my own child-rearing strategy for happiness.
I think it's really difficult to be in the 1% but it pays big time. balanced people are poor! This is the world we live in. However i don't think the way for the 1% is trough studying & going to work for a lawyer firm or Goldman Sachs.
What get's you in the 1% is to be an workaholic and really putting the hours in anything. You have to do more than most of the people. you have to know your stuff you have to study, investigate, try etc.... For this you need FOCUS & work this will put you in the 1%. To get into the best colleges and the best firms will give you a very difficult life because there are thousands of mothers that have the same child-rearing strategy.
"Everything in moderation, including moderation."
Julia Child
No One who rises before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich
Chinese Proverb
More about the same
International
Students in the United States
Top 10 sending places of origin and percentage of total international
student enrollment:
Rank
|
Place of
Origin
|
Number of
Students
|
Percent of
Total
|
1
|
China
|
274,439
|
31.0%
|
2
|
India
|
102,673
|
11.6%
|
3
|
South
Korea
|
68,047
|
7.7%
|
4
|
Saudi
Arabia
|
53,919
|
6.1%
|
5
|
Canada
|
28,304
|
3.2%
|
6
|
Taiwan
|
21,266
|
2.4%
|
7
|
Japan
|
19,334
|
2.2%
|
8
|
Vietnam
|
16,579
|
1.9%
|
9
|
Mexico
|
14,779
|
1.7%
|
10
|
Turkey
|
13,286
|
1.5%
|
|
All Others
|
273,426
|
30.9%
|
My main idea during the last few years is that Emerging markets are not going to Emerge at all. On the contrary most of the best students want to move to the US, Germany etc... Most of the best jobs are also in the G7 countries, these countries have money to invest in R&D etc....
Nothing worth a good value is going to be invented in the EM countries because now it's necessary to have thousands scientists with Phd's etc....
There is one exception which is Singapore that did catch up. I think China might be also a surprise.
Why? They build the infrastructure, they work big time, there is almost no crime (always a distraction), no politics (big distraction ) and they send their students outside and back(Yes many go back)
I thing China could be a good surprise. All the other EM and countries in the middle will probably lag the G7 countries. People want the best and the best is not in EM.
More about the same:
Almost all good
businesses engage in ‘pain today, gain tomorrow’ activities.
— Charlie Munger
Government does not abide by this rule of course, Kick the can down the road is the policy of Government.
the best phrase to describe Government is also from Munger
Some people seem to
think there’s no trouble just because it hasn’t happened yet. If you jump out
the window at the 42nd floor and you’re still doing fine as you pass the 27th
floor, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a serious problem. I would want to
address the problem right now.
— Charlie Munger
Since Government gets bigger and bigger, regulation, laws & more laws, etc... that is the reason the world is sick.
I feel ex communist countries have the best chance to do well in the future, why? People don't believe in gov.
The distrust of government in
former communist areas is many times as much of what you will find in
Europe or North America, and indeed the majority rather than a minority. This
will greatly insulate those regions from the worst decline compared to Europe
and North America.
Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets – and can be lost in a heartbeat.
— Charlie Munger
From the FT
Volkswagen makes a monumental blunder
No one accidentally installs software designed to fool the regulator
The
phrase “cutting corners” does not do justice to the gravity of the charge. What
German carmaker Volkswagen stands
accused of is closer to outright deceit. VW has admitted
to fitting half a million diesel cars with code that tricked regulators into
under-recording noxious emissions. Usually when a company runs foul of
environmental law, the crime is an accident, stemming from some combination of
irresponsibility or inattention. But no one installs software as clever as this
by accident.
You can have supervisory boards , you can have general counsel, you can have Compliance, auditors , Lawyers, Risk department etc... but what you need in any company is a top guy that is a good person and don't cut corners.
it's as simple as this!
VW is going to pay a heavy price for this and they deserve it. All the board and the CEO are going to go. It they new it they should go if they din't know they should know and also have to go.
In my country Portugal we had a PM, prime minister that was a crook and we are paying a heavy price for that. In life we should always choose the top guy a person that should know the difference between right and wrong and that attitude spreads in all the organization. I work in an organization that never cut corners and i like that.
