What I'm Reading 07.18.15

Hello, I'm lounging around in Bali as of now, enjoying the Eid break. Here are a few things I've been reading that are interesting:

1. John H. McWhorter on "How Dare You Say That! The Evolution of Profanity" (WSJ)

I can get a bit foul-mouthed at times, so it's interesting to see how our culture developed profanity over time. Swearing began through the influence of religion, where people use it as a form of sacred oath. Eventually, sex-related (f*** bombs) & excretion-related (s*** bombs) topics also became part of this culture, due to stark stratification of classes. Linguistic choices were made to distinguish the nobles from the peasants. Nowadays, race become part of profanity (yes, n*gg**), and interestingly, it's appropriate for black to use but not white. Really interesting discourse on the origins of our favorite curses.

2. John Hussman on "Greece and the King of Asteroid 325" (Hussman Funds)

What? Another article on Greece? Aly, haven't you said enough on this topic?! Okay, calm down guys. This article written by Hussman, a fund manager, is a fantastic review on what's wrong with the Euro system. Basically, in accordance to the economic theory of adjustment variable, when countries of differing economic strengths trade, they adjust to each other via exchange rate, interest rate, and price level. These mechanisms provide a buffer for economic differences and price shocks. So, by imposing the Euro on weaker economies, the stronger EU economies are effectively asking the impossible - for these weaker economies to "get on their level". Yikes.

3. Ann Friedman on "The Disapproval Matrix" (Tumblr)

Like Taylor Swift says, "Haters gonna hate". But sometimes, you gotta figure out which negative feedback actually are constructive. Friedman presents an awesome matrix that divides up criticism into four categories: critics, lovers, haters, frenemies. Use to your own advantage!

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On a totally unrelated note, J.K. Rowling says Hogwarts is FREE of tuition.... EH MA GERD, get me to Hogwarts... FAST!

What I'm Reading 06.07.15

I just turned 22, yay yay yay. Lots of good stuff to be found this week, so let's begin!

1. John Cassidy (The New Yorker) on Greece’s Debt Burden: The Truth Finally Emerges

Thoroughly enjoyed Cassidy's thoughts & analysis on the consequences of the referendum. There isn't a realistic outcome where Greece will come unscathed, it's either adopt a new currency through Grexit defaults, or debt forgiveness the size of Germany post-WWII. 

2. Charlie Warzel (Buzzfeed) on Reddit Moderators Are Fed Up: “I Thought It Couldn’t Get Worse”

Warzel compiled the Reddit saga that went on in the forum. I'm a big redditor myself, so I was surprised to see lots of my favorite subs decided to go private. Moderators were really fed up with the management, and the deciding moment was when a key employee, Victoria Taylor, was laid off with no future transition arrangement. To be honest, I thought this was a PR disaster in action. Pao, Reddit's CEO, did a terrible job of keeping the community happy - whether it is on the transparency of management's decision or the attention put on making reddit community as functional as possible. 

3. Dacher Keltner and Paul Ekman (New York Times) on The Science of 'Inside Out'

I absolutely loved the new Pixar animated movie "Inside Out", with Amy Poehler (who is one of my favorite actress and role model) starring as Joy. No spoilers, but the movie takes us into the head of Riley, an 11-year old girl, as she is moving from Minnesota to San Francisco. Absolutely breathtaking, but even more so, the degree of accuracy in the movie in portraying emotions. Reminds me a lot of my days as a psych major! And I love that they had Paul Ekman, leading psychologist in the study of emotions, work as a scientific consultant from the movie. Mad props to the Pixar team.

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Quote of the week is from an economist I met yesterday, Mr. Faried Harianto, special advisor to former VP Boediono, "Net Interest Margin is like the difference between the returns of chasing a girl to the investment you make to chase the girl" #lifeadvice #yass

What I'm Reading 03.23.15

1. Emily Nussbaum on The New Yorker "Candy Girl"

In case, people don't know, I love TV comedies (a problem caused by severe insomnia). I just finished watching an entire season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schimdt, a Netflix show that recounts a girl who navigates New York City after being kidnapped for 15 years by a doomsday cult. Kimmy's optimism is so effervescent, and this piece perhaps capture what I believe is the essence of the series. We are more than our worst days, in fact surviving is more than just existing - it is a freedom within ourselves.

2. Aswath Damodaran on Musings on Markets "Illiquidity and Bubbles in Private Share Markets: Testing Mark Cuban's thesis!"

The valuation guru has spoken! This time, he talks about the tech bubble, specifically the one that Mark Cuban (Shark Tank dude) believes come from the private market due to the absence of liquidity. I think Damodaran is completely spot on with regards to the private market taking a discount of liquidity. Just think about PEs and VCs all aiming to get IPOs. Why in the world would they do it, if they do not believe in the value of liquidity premium? In fact, the private market limits the impact of the bubble, by limiting the effect to only institutional players. We would be protecting many of the passive and/or retail investors. Props to the valuation guru for using good data to come to this conclusion.

3.  Seth Mydans on New York Times "Lee Kuan Yew, Founding Father and First Premier of Singapore, Dies at 91"

Through my interactions with many Singaporeans, I have learned to garner respect for the founding father of Singapore. I am still amazed by how much of an improvement he brought to Singapore: the political stability, the economic development, the human capital investment, and the social security structure. I won't say his reign was perfect; at times, he could be authoritarian especially with regards to gay rights and freedom of press. But indeed, the efficient, developed Singapore of today only existed due to his founding contributions, and for that, I think it is high time we pay our respects.

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On another note, Kygo and Ke$ha is headlining this year's Spring Fling (which is Penn's big annual concert tradition - we had Tiesto & David Guetta last time - YEAH, BE JELLY PEOPLE). So yeah, here's my favorite song by Kygo to celebrate:

Firestone | Listen for free at bop.fm

What I'm Reading 02.05.15

Sorry for the long hiatus! I guess this is what happens once school starts rolling in, and you're trying to do a million things at once. I'm currently back in Philadelphia, and working on lots of exciting new projects. Here are some things that I've been reading recently!

1. Adam M. Grant (New York Times) on Raising a Moral Child

I have nothing but praises for my organizational behavior professor, Adam Grant. This op-ed is about how to raise caring children, and what research says about it. We know a lot about how to raise successful children, but not as much about how to raise caring children. To summarize, here are some of his practical advice: 1) praise children's good character rather than behavior, so they internalize the values as part of their moral identity, 2) parent's anger cause two emotions in children - shame (a bad reflection upon character) & guilt (a bad reflection upon behavior) - and it is better for children to feel guilt so they are willing to fix the mistake, 3) modeling works better in the long run than preaching the choir. Amazing piece of parenting advice, backed with scientific research and data.

2. Scott Long (The Paper Bird) on Why I am not Charlie

In light of the Charlie Hedbo massacre, I have nothing but my condolences to the victims. However, turning Charlie Hedbo through the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie into a propaganda for freedom of speech is a different matter. Journalism is free (especially the right to communicate satire, or shall we say, estee de la bourgeouis), however when a satire is directed towards a religious minority that is already prosecuted by the mass, that is when it is no longer an appropriate medium to poke fun and discriminate against. Long talks about it better than I do, criticizing the movement arising from the massacre.

3. New York Times List on 52 Places to Go in 2015

I like to travel, so finding new places to go is always an exciting thing for me. While I'm surprised at the number of "exotic" locations that the New York Times have chosen this year, I'm still quite happy with outcome. Adding quite a few places to my travel destination list (yikes!!)

4. John Cassidy (The New Yorker) on Why Greece And Europe Can Still Reach A Deal

I'm a big nerd, so when I saw that the new Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, plays DOTA, I admit I gave a little cheer. In addition, I love how he made a comment on how reviving the Greek economy is like playing a losing game in DOTA (pwned gg). In this article, John Cassidy talks about how "there still is room for a deal that benefits Greece and the rest of Europe, Germany included". There is no scenario in which Greece is kicked out which benefits anyone, but on the other hand, the problem of interim financing and Greek austerity is another thing to be handled. It's all a matter of time, and with Greece's new rock star finance minister settled on pwning the economy... Well, let's just say this may be a good game for the win.

What I'm Reading 01.04.15

First one of 2015! I have been in Singapore this week on a family holiday, but thank goodness for Internet. Also, some of you may be wondering on why I've been reading lots of Financial Times. It's because the hotel we were staying delivered Financial Times every morning to our room, so conveniently many of the articles ended being really good. Here are things that I have been reading this week:

1. Erik Holm and Anupreeta Das (WSJ Moneybeat) on "Buffett Reminds His Top Managers: Reputation Is Everything"

It's no secret that Warren Buffett is one of my favorite value investors. In this article, Buffett sends a note to his top Berkshire Hathaway managers on the importance of reputation. As he puts it, "we can afford to lose money - even a lot of money. But we can't afford to lose reputation - even a shred of reputation."

2. Saadia Zahidi (The Financial Times) on Muslim Womenomics

Women in the Muslim world are often missing from the narrative - both in the stories of Muhammad (check out Khadijah, one of Muhammad's spouse, and her flourishing business) and today's stories. Many progress in education, and workforce equality are discounted, but they have been contributing to the development of the area.

3. John Cassidy (The New Yorker) talks about Twelve Lessons For 2015

Here comes another BuzzFeed-style list of things that happened in 2014 and what we learned. Except, this one does it with refreshing candor (in a liberal bias, duh, it's the New Yorker). Take it with a grain of salt, but it does summarize major political & economic events in the year well.

4. Monavar Khajav (The Financial Times) on Iranian women drug addicts

We often stereotype drug addicts as the scary, rough, violent men that we often see portrayed in television. The truth is very far removed from that stereotype. Take for instance, the young educated women of Iran. Trapped in between of increasing opportunities and conservative Muslim strictures, they have taken refuge in the use of drugs as an escape. This hits pretty close to home for me, since I have seen numerous people my age using drugs as a means of escaping - be it tedium, lack of parental attention, academic pressure, or social enforcement. The funny thing is that the people you would think are drug addicts (or users) are highly educated people from good social standing with enough money to spare. It's time that we break that stereotype and realize that drug addicts are not a marginalized community separate from us - they are part of our community and a result of our society's side effects.

Side note: This just represents the articles I've been reading. I've also been reading some books on the side too, amongst them:

• Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (still slowly making progress... At this rate, I might take a couple of months to finish this book)
• The Shifts and The Shocks: What We've Learned - and Have Still to Learn -  From the Financial Crisis by Martin Wolf
• Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton