Money, money, money

A story in Monday’s Globe and Mail life section considers the notion of financial honesty and looks at why people are reluctant to talk about money matters:

We live in a culture of money. Its power is among the first lessons we learn about the world. Those seductive, colourful toys, displayed for our pleasure and consumption, cannot be ours without money. Education is sold as a way to earn more money in better jobs. We invent verbs like “monetize” to describe how to turn every endeavour, even those we do for amusement, into profit. And yet we don’t talk about it – not easily anyway.

I think, though, the author may have missed something. You see, in my experience – and after doing research for an article for This Magazine – talking about money seems very much a generational thing. From an article I wrote for This Magazine (that’s what the magazine is called) last year:

University of British Columbia business professor Nancy Langton, meanwhile, sees young workers’ willingness to talk about income as part of a trend toward greater openness, something that social networking websites such as Facebook have facilitated.

“I think people in their 40s and older were raised to be somewhat more private and discreet,” she explains. “We see much less emphasis by today’s teens and twentysomethings on protecting privacy.”

Kinda like ____ salespeople

Among the comments from Gao Xiginq, who runs the China Investment Corporation during an interview with James Fallows:

About Wall Street jobs, wealth, and the cultural distortion of America:

I have to say it: you have to do something about pay in the financial system. People in this field have way too much money. And this is not right.

When I graduated from Duke [in 1986], as a first-year lawyer, I got $60,000. I thought it was astronomical! I was making somewhere a bit more than $80,000 when I came back to China in 1988. And that first month’s salary I got in China, on a little slip of paper, was 59 yuan. A few dollars! With a few yuan deducted for my rent and my water bill. I laughed when I saw it: 59 yuan!

The thing is, we are working as hard as, if not harder than, those people. And we’re not stupid. Today those people fresh out of law school would get $130,000, or $150,000. It doesn’t sound right.

Individually, everyone needs to be compensated. But collectively, this directs the resources of the country. It distorts the talents of the country. The best and brightest minds go to lawyering, go to M.B.A.s. And that affects our country, too! Many of the brightest youngsters come to me and say, “Okay, I want to go to the U.S. and get into business school, or law school.” I say, “Why? Why not science and engineering?” They say, “Look at some of my primary-school classmates. Their IQ is half of mine, but they’re in finance and now they’re making all this money.” So you have all these clever people going into financial engineering, where they come up with all these complicated products to sell to people.

Like it, love it, question it…

I like this story, about a 73-year old college basketball player. Short and sweet.

Before Sunday’s basketball game, Coach Yogi Woods gathered the junior varsity at Lambuth University. Watch out for 73 on the other team, he said. He did not mean the player’s number. He meant his age.

The visitors, Roane State Community College, had a septuagenarian guard, Ken Mink, college basketball’s oldest player, who has started a second career after his first ended a half century ago with a mysterious shaving-cream incident.

If the 6-foot Mink was good enough to play, he was good enough to be guarded, Woods told the Lambuth players. Then he turned to the freshman Kendrick Coleman and said: “If he goes in for a layup, don’t let him have it. If he scores on you, we will never let you forget it.”

I love this story, about ads on buses that don’t get too holy.

Perhaps you’ve enjoyed the recent run of advertising duels between some of America’s biggest brands — Mac v. PC, Dunkin’ Donuts v. Starbucks. Burger King v. McWorld.

And now, coming to the broad side of a bus near you, God vs. No God.

But Ross Perot, has me wondering, where does it stop. (Bold italics, mine)

How will you respond if Obama puts through the tax increase he has promised, particularly with respect to the capital gains tax increase he has promised?

President-elect Obama appears to be leaning toward a delay in his tax increases for the wealthiest 5 percent to pay for his promised tax cuts for the remaining 95 percent. History has shown that raising taxes in a recession tends to worsen the situation. We would encourage him to delay his proposed increases and implement his proposed tax cuts. We ascribe to the theory that tax cuts boost the economy — and therefore increase total tax receipts — no matter which portion of the tax-paying public receives the tax cuts.

A theory, though, is something that holds true across a range of variables. But, and you don’t have to be a genius to see this, you can only cut taxes so far. To zero, to be exact. And at that point, total tax receipts do not rise, they fall to zero as well. Even at one-per-cent tax, the economy would need to be a lot better than forty times that of today for tax receipts to keep rising. So his whole point is wrong. Unfortunately, it’s a widely held belief.

Breasts!

When you don’t have a job or a TV you notice the weather a lot more. It rained for most of today, confining our Okanagan butts to our apartment. We meant to buy an umbrella. We really did. But we didn’t. We were blessed for the first two weeks of our European adventure with sun and general good weather. I joked that I slaughtered a lamb to buy off the weather gods. By the second week I had upgraded to a sheep. Now though, we’re waiting for the rain to turn to snow – which CNN is promising us this Sunday. In the meantime we’re cooped up in our relatively small apartment with a couple books and one computer between us.

So the first time I left the apartment today to go buy chicken at the local meat store, I got to the bottom of the stairs, poked my head out the door, and quickly retreated back to the apartment. An hour or so later, around 3:30, the clouds finally exhausted themselves I walked a block and a half to the store where I bought two well-portioned chicken breasts. For three bucks.

Which brings us to my point. The corner stores here, which abound and sell everything from booze to sauces to meat, are not more expensive than your big supermarkets. I am guessing that they manage because they can sell relatively healthy quantities of food and snacks – even at low profit margins – because of the density of the population. And the low prices likely help finance the economies of scale by keeping local shoppers in the neighbourhood. Of course in less dense cities like those in Canada that poses more of a problem. Still, as a consumer, it would be nice if I didn’t have to drive to Safeway everytime I wanted some decently-priced quality cheese.

Number munching

Soon, when I speak to a credit card rep over the phone and he or she asks me for my home address, I’ll actually be able to answer truthfully. That’s right, in a month I will no longer be homeless.

After a fitful search we finally found a place a couple metro stops away from downtown Warsaw. The price is about the same as we’d be paying in Vernon and a few hundred less than in a city of considerable size and influence in Canada.

Indeed our search here revealed just how much more affluent Canadians are than Poles, at least when it boils down to comparing dollars to zloty. In Lodz, the second largest city in Poland, you can rent a three-bedroom apartment for around $450. Go to the grocery store and a chicken breast will cost you the equivalent of $1.50 CDN.

The reason is simple. Poles can’t afford to pay the prices most Canadians are used to. When it comes to purchasing power, Canadians can, on average, buy nearly two and a half times more of your basic cart of goods than Poles. Canadians’ GDP per capita at purchasing power parity is more than twice as much as Poles’.  Canada’s was $38,600 compared to Poland’s $16,200. But, Warsaw’s PPP is around $23,000, making it much more expensive, although still comparable to a smaller city in Canada like Vernon.

I guess we’ll put this uninspiring post down as one to consult later for my own purposes.

Let’s Split

Yesterday we explored Split, which boasts a UNESCO World Heritage old town (our third UNESCO site so far) and narrow little streets similar to those of Dubrovnik but with less stairs and fewer tourists. The centrepiece of Split is the 1,700 year-old Diocletian’s Palace, which was built by the old Roman emperor Diocletian as something of a retirement home. I guess he realized that being emperor wasn’t all what it was cracked out to be, particularly when one could build a massive comnplex on the Adriatic Sea and staff it with servants, soldiers and anything else one could possibly need or want or just have lying around.

Split’s waterfront resembles that of Nice, with its palm trees, lit up buildings and bustling activity. A large open space rests between the start of the buildings and the water. The space is taken up by smooth pavement, benches and plants. As Borat would say, “very niiiiiiiiiice.”

We also found the golden toe. That’s right, the big toe of a massive statue near the old town’s gates is gold coloured and apparently, if you rub it, you will receive good luck. Unfortunately we didn’t have a golden toe to rub in Dubrovnik and now are left carting around a 100 kuna (about $20) counterfeit bill. On closer inspection, the background of the bill is orangey-blue, noth the orangey-white of most real 100 kn bills. But what did I know? I think I picked it up from a lady selling bus tickets, which makes the 15-minute bus ride from Dubrovnik’s old city to the stairs below our hostel nearly as expensive as the ride from Split to Dubrovnik.

But beyond counterfeit bills, the trip is going nicely. Of particular note is the fact that both Split and Dubrovnik are concrete jungles with a very personal, and natural feel. I’ll expand upon this later.

And now an update, I managed to trade in the counterfeit bill for a good one at the national bank here. More on our trip to Trogir today later.

Split as seen from the bell tower of the St. Doimus Cathedral.

Said bell tower from the ground.

A vendor at Split’s sprawling market

The ugliest fish I’d ever seen in Split’s fish market

A huge statue of Gregory of Nin rests outside the gates of the Diocletian’s Palace. He’s the guy with the golden toe.