Well There Goes My Hope for a Gold Encrusted Office Chair

 

 ...and my hopes for a series of ornate, wooden thrones for dining room chairs, and my office desk that doubles as an aquarium for sharks. These are all things that, if I had just an insane, inordinate amount of money, I would like to partake in. I read an article on Bloomberg the other day titles "Why Rich People Feel Poor". When I started reading, I laughed to myself. The hypothetical couple had two children! (Every Chinese person knows you should cap at one, max. It's just more efficient that way.) They lived in New York! (You can't live there. C'mon... unless you're on a consultant stipend...just don't bother.) And the hypothetical couple makes $450K a year! I know, I know, by New York standards you're living in a one bedroom above a really good shwarma place, if you're lucky. The inside me mocked at the poor choices this couple had made, and the fact that they made so much money and still "felt poor". 

Then I found out that for a hypothetical couple to have two children and, I don't know, send them to college, they would need to save $2 MILLION DOLLARS. And have next to no emergency fund.

 

How can this be?! Well, they rely less on social security than lower income households, they get Medicare but have to cover the gaps that Medicare leaves, they have to pay for college, they get taxed to death (effective tax rate is close to 50%) and they have to pay for long term care to prepare for their old age. Absolutely insane. 

As I look into the future and think about how I'm going to live in San Francisco soon, arguably one of the most expensive cities to live in the country, I'm suddenly very nervous about my financial future. Ramen it is then.

Bitcoin Has Started a Conversation That Is Long Overdue

Bitcoin mining, the process of solving problems for bitcoins, was always a slow-moving and low-gain system. It turns out that the "bitcoin-rush" is slowing even faster than we originally expected and that mining is increasingly becoming less profitable (especially when you factor in the money that people pay to buy "mining equipment").  But this shouldn't really be a surprise, considering that Bitcoin is setting itself up as a new form of currency.

I mean, we know that money is and probably always be a big focal point of any news system. People like money, we kind of need it to buy things that we want in a consistent way, and any time something new comes along that might disrupt what we normally expect to be the "normal" course of events, we really don't like that and we tend to question and analyze every little facet of it until we are content. The same thing happened with the mobile payments/mobile banking boom that happened in the early 2010-2012s, yet, we know that the US is not really into the mobile options afforded to us (at least compared to other countries). In fact, even some emerging economies, such as China, are not really excited about the mobile payments revolution. For the US, it's really an adoption and standardization issue-- if it was easy to use and consistent enough (from the user perspective and the merchant perspective) so that it was accessible, then it would gain more popularity than it has. But we live in an era of Google wallets, fabled Apple wallets, ISIS, PayPal, LevelUp and just about a million other private, white label options for mobile payments. The standardization is just not there yet.

On the other hand, China is putting a stop to the whole money thing because they realize that many of the biggest mobile payment firms (such as Alibaba and its payments arm Alipay) are responsible for moving a lot of that hard-earned Chinese currency abroad.

But we should really thank Bitcoin (intro to Bitcoin here) and all the mobile channels for bringing this to the forefront of the discussion. A discussion about money is long overdue! So let's start that conversation. Money as a thing will always have some commonalities: it's usually relatively rare (shells, gold, etc.), it gets increasingly rare as it gets adopted, it's usually something physical, something easily divisible, and something that is seen as valuable by multiple people. Bitcoin, according to these requirements is different because the physicality of it is based on a couple lines of code. The world's response to this very big difference will ultimately determine the success of Bitcoin in the long run.

Chicago Is No Longer Chiberia!!

It was a beautiful day today. Days like this remind me that it's actually kind of awesome to live in Chicago, because eventually, the winter will end. Went to brunch and then had a fantastic walk around the lake. I'm going to miss these days.

Trolling for the Common Nerd

Ahhh....the internet. It's kind of a magical place because of the sheer amount of emotions that it can inspire. It can bring up the awkwardness of having friends ask you to help them fill out their online dating profiles (which, I'm happy to do, but I'm going to be honest and you might not want to let everyone on the internet know just how much you like tea because apparently that's not sexy enough nowadays-- also, do you like long walks on the beach? Do you really like "staying up to date on the news"? Do you? Really? No seriously, really? Because what I really want to write about is why I love you as a friend, and that includes how impressed I am by your collection of Terry Pratchett books). It can bring the excitement of finding that perfect tee that asks you to "Ask about my zombie disguise". It can bring hope, like when I lurk in the archives of Humans of New York. It's helped me find a job, it's taught me how to paint my house without getting paint on the inside of my shirt (true story) and I've used it to fact-check pretty much everything (no, seriously like everything, from financial regulation status to how old Catherine Zeta Jones is to the drinking age in India) so it has arguably made me smarter.

No, but really the internet would not be complete without people trolling. If I were to define it, trolling is basically just being an ass on the internet. Wikipedia (see what I did there?) defines it as,

"In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,^[1] by posting inflammatory,^[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog), either accidentally^[3][4] or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response^[5] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion^"

 And I have seen some damn-fine examples of trolling this week.

First up, an innocent Bloombergian who argues that school-sponsored loans might be a good option for students.Which, honestly, is not that crazy of an idea, but does kind of miss the point about how not all schools are created equal, this still doesn't fix the underlying problem of why higher education is increasingly economically discriminatory and how the types of things students are learning at these "prestigious" schools aren't really preparing them for the job market. So then of course, people speared the guy. Digitally.

Second of all, and this is probably kind of niche because I really like reading SeekingAlpha though I know most people don't even know what that is probably, I read this awesome opinion analysis titled "Kill the Microsoft Tablet". In which, the author summarized his argument by saying, "1.) The Apple iPad sets the pace for the tablet market, 2.) Releasing office for iPad literally renders the Surface obsolete and 3.) Microsoft may unlock shareholder value after killing the Surface tablet line". Okay, I am an Apple fan, so I understand where this guy is coming from. I'm not saying he's wrong, but it could be a dramatic oversimplification. But his dedication to his Apple products (which I strongly support) and his disregard for other benefits of using a Surface tablet is... awesome.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the power of social media (and how it can even lead some people to getting fired for remarks they thought were private) and the effect that the internet has had on the communication styles between (not of) people nowadays, but I think the advent of "trolling" and the sheer popularity of it cannot be undermined. The internet is truly turning into not only a channel of communication, but a type of communication all in itself. It says something when you decide to broadcast your feelings on the internet through articles or, hell, even blog posts-- it implies a lot when you slam someone through social media and the repercussions are probably much farther-reaching than we can even imagine. As someone who currently works in a small startup, I don't think it's crazy to say that, now more than ever, it almost depends more on how you say things than what you're saying. Particularly when working with younger people, who are used to multi-channeling all the time, there's a lot to be considered before pressing "Send". Do you want the nonchalant implications of a text? The presence that comes with a phone call? Do you want to convey the BAU-ness of an email? Or do you want to whip out the big guns and do it in person? IRL is still the preferable method because of the relationship ties that can be built but too much of that and (particularly younger) workers I've noticed get burnt out-- they don't quite know what to do in an in-person meeting, unsure of quite how to behave or if it's proper (from an etiquette perspective) to multi-task while you're talking (as they would be if you were having this conversation over email). So use it wisely. Don't be an IRL troll.

Why Technology Is Awesome: Part 184

I feel like the daily deluge of information from newspapers (always digital (except for the WSJ), sometimes important things, depending on which one I've been reading), internet (omg cute cat pictures and more videos of otters doing adorable things? Yes please.) and magazines (always in paper, wtf is wrong with me?). But every now and then I get really excited about all the interesting things that I'm reading. And every now and then I get really excited because instead of reading about terrible things (gunmen killing innocent people, the unemployed people trying to get by) I find some truly inspirational things in the news that assures me that other, more positive things are still happening. Which reminds me not to be depressed about the way that society is going. So I got that going for me...

• We're trying to help the environment. As a society, we're moving toward meatless meat according to The NY Times, which is interesting (I watched a TedTalk about the upside of moving from meat (cows, chickens, pigs) to insects (that's right) as an alternative form of protein since it takes an inordinate amount of (increasingly) scarce water to produce even a pound of meat. Meatless sales have hit $550M market volume, which is impressive. Additionally, a lot of the new players are not only trying to move away from meat, but to make something that's actually better than meat by taking out saturated fats and lowering total fats. Maybe we won't end up like the fat people wheeling around in Wall-E after all...
• What. The. Hell. People. So Brendan Eich contributed $1,000 to Proposition 8 (anti-gay rights). When this was found out, some two weeks into his new tenure as the CEO of Mozilla Firefox (yup, that Firefox) people went on rampage. OkCupid put up a landing page that asked users to switch browsers if they tried to access using Firefox, developers clamored for him to rescind his donation and bloggers lit it up like New Years Eve. I can see one side of this-- it's actually no one's business who he decides to donate money to in his personal life. It's actually kind of an infringement of his privacy for people to be going through his personal affairs like that. However, on the other hand, you are a public figure Brendan Eich. If you really want to donate, make your donations anonymous. Particularly if it's a hot-button issue. Particularly if you live in California, a traditionally more liberal state. Particularly if you're located in Silicon Valley, where your reaction to Proposition 8 is almost a foregone conclusion. I mean hell, even my mom doesn't support Proposition 8. I'm not saying you can't do whatever you want in your private life, but please, for the love of, take precautions to make sure that you do them privately. If you did, you wouldn't have needed to step down
• Amazon announced the Amazon Fire TV, which will be $99 and will be there move to basically put a cash register in every person's living room. This isn't a surprise. I feel like the TV craze has been going on for awhile now and although Apple entered to small amounts of excitement, all the buzz after the CE show in Vegas that focused on the amounts that could be made through the TV from people at home (my generation's version of the home shopping network, pretty much) pretty clearly shows us what the future holds. Strangely, Bezos wasn't on hand for the announcement (very different from the era of Steve Jobs-esque announcements). However, TV as a cash register won't be successful until access is easy (that means integration from multiple sources, much like what any, say, PS3 does now, except better), content is deep and varied (that means sports-- c'mon Amazon, you know your demographic. At least get your offerings up to the number of sports options that are available on Roku) and it's got to be affordable. So they got that going for them
• Rumors continue to circulate about Apple moving toward mobile payments. Passbook and a given group of established customers that are used to the user interface already through iTunes make a convincing argument

And finally... I forgot that Dita Von Teese existed. I also love that she was married to Marilyn Manson. Don't ask me why, but I was Googling her the other day because I kind of forgot she was a thing, and I stumbled on a bunch of her quotes. They made me laugh. I posted my fave up above. Though I like to imagine her saying, "You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world... and there's still going to be somebody that just fucking hates peaches." (insert shrug)

That's It. Japan Wins.

I realize, in hindsight, that this title might not be popular among some veterans. For that, I apologize. But you should take solace in the fact that, it's obviously not true. Although there are rumors of an island where the inhabitants (Japanese) still don't know that WWII is over or that there are soldiers who have refused to surrender until very recently. Like, very very recently. As in, not until January of this year. And even then, he really surrendered to death more than anything else. Just saying. Not to be dramatic or anything.

Anyway. I've been reading a lot recently-- just in general, because I've been a hermit due to all my other commitments until now, the last quarter of my business school career, at which point, I've realized I'm just on the cusp of deciding that I want to tell everyone that they're lucky I'm wearing pants and that class participation, especially if it's in the morning, is pretty much out of the question. Also, they should seriously consider using presence as a measure of class participation if the student is a last quarter-about-to-graduate-b-school-student. Just sayin'.

Anyway.

I bring to you: exciting words I've learned recently.

Kintsugi: the art of repairing broken pottery with gold to celebrate the beauty that arises out of imperfection

and

Wabi-Sabi. I'm not as articulate as Wikipedia, so, put simply (or in the words of Wikipedia): represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete".^[1] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三法印 sanbōin^?), specifically impermanence (無常 mujō^?), the other two being suffering (苦 ku^?) and emptiness or absence of self-nature (空 kū^?).

Why Bitcoin Terrifies Me

And I'm back!! Apologies for the disappearance internets, but I was up to some shenanigans. There were trials, there were tribulations, and there was not-very-pretty open weeping. So there's that. So Bitcoin. People are loving this bitcoin business huh? Even though there has been multiple crashes  and the true identity of the Bitcoin founder has been released, people are lovin' it. (Like a digital McDonald's version of crypto-currency.)

I get it. There is definitely a need for some sort of digital currency to pay for the digital things that we do in this digital age. There is an additional bonus for the fact that it's a pretty anonymous platform, where I don't have to tell people that I'm working with my real name and my real identity and all of this is secured pretty well in some server that may or may not be penetrated any minute. Overall, there's security concerns-sure, but there's a lot here that I like because it's providing a freer version (more anonymous, faster, more flexible) of currency. But whatever this futuristic currency is going to be, I have very large doubts that it's going to be Bitcoin.

Because then they decided to accept DogeCoins.  What's Doge? This is Doge. I rest my case.