Failure by design

 Ok, so we have a new statutory holiday, and it’s called family day. With Monday being the first ever official family day, I thought I would write a post about it. For people that missed the memo and are not Canadian, here is the announcement:

“QUEEN’S PARK — Premier Dalton McGuinty got back to work today on behalf of hard-working Ontario families by confirming that he would create a new statutory holiday this February called Family Day.

“There is nothing more valuable to families than time together. And yet it seems tougher than ever to find, with so many of us living such busy lives,” McGuinty said.”

Well but what is one day going to do? Is it really going to fix the divorce rate or encourage people to spend time with thier kids? The answer to these questions is most likely a blatant no. One day, is not going to change the status of a family. Here is what I see happening, kids on this day will congregate on malls everywhere. Parents will stay home from work just like every other holiday and do things around the house.

I personally think this is just an excuse to add a statutory holiday to the month of February, but I may be wrong. It isn’t a bad thing to make people thing of their family more often, but declaring a statutory holiday surely isn’t going to fix any problems. I think the massive money this holiday will cost in lost productivity and taxes, could be replaced by an ad campaign and subsidizing family events. Think of all the lost income from every single person being off for a day, and where that money could be put to use. I know many of you are going to say, but we get paid on that day… but do you? That money comes from somewhere and it is going to come from your pocket. Either in the form of higher priced goods, or delayed salaty increases.

Really, what happened to Sunday? When I was younger, and even now in many countries everything is closed on Sunday. Nobody works and everyone has the day off. With the spread of 7 day a week shopping and work schedules we seem to have lost that special time… that is the real problem

Well I was reading this article the other day by a Harvard economics professor writing about a woman who after taking a job paying $10000 more, wound up with much less disposable cash. The author goes on to show that the reasons for this are the loss of free health care coverage, child benefits, housing subsidies and tax breaks. (more…)

Traditionally and even in some macroeconomics courses, it is said that individuals act rationally and consider all known information in the decision-making process. Traders today know this is not true. In a world where financial institutions and hedge funds use 200-300:1 leverage and markets swing wildly, there is plenty of emotion and irrational behavior to go around. Winning traders and investors make money by consistently exploiting irrational behavior, whether is it shorting a stock that just got ahead of itself, or by buying dips that happen when people panic sell.

Human emotion is a major factor in the stock market, as you have probably felt all of these:

Hope: I hope it goes back to where I bought in, I just want to break even

Fear: It has gone down everyday for the last week, I don’t want to lose everything

Greed: It just keeps going up, I should double up. How can I lose?

Despair: I just keep losing money, maybe I should quit. (more…)

Every night in this quiet western Indian city, 15 pregnant women prepare for sleep in the spacious house they share, ascending the stairs in a procession of ballooned bellies, to bedrooms that become a landscape of soft hills. (more…)