Step mothers – wicked?

We were watching a cartoon after a long time, and my sibling commented “step-mothers are always depicted as wicked people, arn’t they?”

Do any of you recall any children’s book, which had a loving and caring step mother?

This leads to another question – are children conditioned to expect and believe that step mothers are evil? and how would one behave (as a child) when one knows that a friend has a step mother?

Surprised myself

I take pride in “knowing” myself. But the other day, I surprised myself; negatively.

Its like this: my group of close friends (including me) generally takes a ball in organising a dinner once in a while (reason:birthday +/- a few weeks). Nothing difficult – just need to make sure everyone is free and that we have a place to go and chill.
The group has grown with people finding a better half, some getting married – and getting pregnant (allegedly) – so we do have timing issues.

Anyways, i managed to arrange a date for Wedneday (as Thursday is a Poya). The date was almost agreed upon – but a friend of mine was going to be out on Wedneday (but available on Thursday).

Anyways, i ran in to her and her better half and when i asked about Wedneday, as i wasn’t sure whether she could come or not, she asked:
“shall we do on Thursday, if others are free?. Else, you guys carry along”

My mind would have been working at quite a speed for the first thing that i said was:
“aiyo, that means no drinks!”
(Thursday is a poya day, will not serve alcohol; and even if it did, the next day is a working day)

So, was i about to choose a bottle over a friend? a friend that i truly adore?
Well, i seemed to have chosen the bottle in the first few seconds (and minutes) but later on obviously changed my mind. But that was a surprise.

Free education, government money and words

Words are important. We use them to convey messages, thoughts, feeling etc. Unfortunately, people misuse (or abuse?) words.

Free education: there is nothing free about it. Someone pays – and it is the tax payer. All of us pay tax either through income tax, VAT, credit card tax, debit tax etc.

government money: Hon Bandula Gunawardena claims that the government spent xx amount in subsidising the “poor” – what he actually means is that the tax payers did it.

Words are important, and should be used with care. Excuse vs reason; intervene vs interfere; private contractor vs mercenary;  are some of the words that can be used to hide the truth, albeit in a subtle way. After that, we have downright lying.

Falsely labelled a communist

I am a capitalist. But I have a different version of what capitalism is about and how it should function. One of them is my thoughts of cooperatives.

To cut a long story short, I was speaking with a colleague and the conversation shifted to cooperatives (which i said is a good idea): What I meant by a cooperative was a profit seeking business venture owned by employees* (rather than the providers of capital), to which my colleague promptly said that I am a communist.

A cooperative would have its CEO etc and they would be paid very high salaries – in line, or above market rates if the skill set justifies it – just like a “normal” company, the only difference being that the workers themselves own the company. So, they benefit in two ways, salaries (which will be fixed) and dividends. Arguably, unless they want to game the system, they will work harder and more efficiently thus they and the society would benefit as a whole. However, a few bad eggs may want to game the system by working less because they will be entitled to dividends based on ownership: but this can be solved easily by tying dividends away from ownership and fine-tuning.

What ticked me the most was the prompt labelling of me as a communist without letting me explain my proposition. Well, the MR administration labels those that criticise the government as being unpatriotic, so i guess labels have its uses.

*Employee Share Options (unfortunately, sometimes abused by management) do give a minority stake of the company to employees and I think it is widely practised in western countries: wasn’t there some issue of backdating share options at Apple?

Investing in the LK stock exchange (one year duration)

According to financial theory, investors should be compensated for risk. The risk free rate is the rate at which the government borrows from you – currently it is 17.3% for one year; so you will need more than 17.3 % to compensate for the risk when investing in shares (or other businesses) with an investment duration of one year.

Got extra money?
So, if you have money that you do not need at the moment (say you have saved for your education, but will need in one year’s time) will you gain more by investing in:

a) shares (listed in the CSE)
b) lending it to the government (which has zero default risk) and no with holding tax
c) Investing in a one year FD at a private bank?

Let me twist it further: If you already have money in the stock exchange (which you bought a few years ago), would you:

a) let it lie in there and do nothing
b) withdraw and lend it to the government?

Google shares “breach” $600 level – BBC

I wonder why the reporter chose the word breach to describe the share price appreciation of Google. Was there a mental “level” the share price should reach?

And how do you value a share? we are taught that the better method is a discounted cash flow. Well, if that was how it was derived analysts and people would have been way off the mark to only offer USD 85 per share in August 2004. At USD 615 as at today, the share price has grown by around 93% a year (i.e. 85 x (1+93%)^3) – another way of looking at it would be, that investors were willing to pay only 85 for a share that would be worth 615 in about three years; which could mean :

Either a) people were really not that confident of Google and its business model or b) the share price is grossly over valued today c) they really didn’t understand (or able to forecast) the business model – it was a pure search provider then, now Google offers Gmail, Google Docs etc which they may be able to make money of.

So how much would i pay for the share? i don’t know. There are plenty of growth opportunities as the world adds more screens, and access to the internet becomes faster and cheaper: Google will increase its retail space (which should drive their advertising revenue). But technology is a funny thing. And as Google grows, it will attract a number of critics and probably later on, the watchful eye of the regulator.

All in all, i am not a rocket scientist, but i would eat my hat if revenues and profits continue to grow at Google over the next five years (to state the obvious). But i will not venture to make a comment on the share price – best left for people who deal in that sort of thing. Market watch has some stats and recommendations for anyone who is interested.

The Sandwhich Factory – Sri Lanka

A very good product. Unfortunately, they should have chosen another name, and put up a web site so that we can see and choose the products.

As far as i know, they do not have an outlet, and you can order over the phone. I have ordered twice, and at both times the delivery was punctual – friends at office order from them, and they seem to be punctual. Sandwiches are not cheap (the minimum non-vegie cost will be around LKR 200 for a 6 inch sandwich) – and you have to pay for delivery; but believe me that the stuff is good.

One more thing that i like about them is that they do not fake the product -when they say that the sandwich is 6 inches, that is exactly what you get: it looks small because they don’t try to hide the quantity with just plain old bread (and try to hoodwink me). The stuffing more than makes up for the apparent small size and it is filling. as far as i know, only one guy ordered a 12 inch one, and he saved some of it for the evening tea.

Call 5666550 and let me know when they have a website!

Interfere / Intervene – Burma

I do not want to get involved in semantics, but a number of governments (except for the western countries) seem to be of the opinion that what happened in Burma is a domestic sovereign issue and not something that they should intervene (interfere) in.

But what should people do, when someone does something wrong? especially in this age where we can actually see what truly happens? (lets not forget Abu grab too.) Couldn’t they at least, give lip service and condemn these atrocities committed by the military in Burma? all in all, sadly, everything seems to boil down to simple ole economics.

Love and women

Oscar Wilde apparently said “A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her” (The Picture of Dorian Gray – another book i should perhaps get my hands on).

I will drink to that!