Daily Archives: January 30, 2008

Too Many Financial Woes, Almost Too Perfect

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I don’t know about you but it seems there are too many problems in the financial sector that should have have failsafe systems to avoid them. It almost sounds too perfect.

The latest news of Societe Generale’s trader single-handedly putting the company in greater debts then it is worth really makes me wonder if we are being being told the truth and what the heck is really going? It almost seems too perfect. A little bubble implosion in the local lending industry finally makes enough ripples to affect the national economy and now goes as far as disrupting other nations? I understand how it happen on a mathematical level. It just seems to obvious, especially when our so-called leaders and experts where telling us it would be contained.

Are we dealing with such incapable directors, presidents, CEO, Chairman, Owners and leaders who are incapable of containing problems and putting failsafe systems? Surely the problem of this single mid-level trader endangering an entire company should never have happened and definitely stretches the imagination. How could it have been? One person? What does it say about any other companies? Is greed that big we can’t even tell our bottoms from the horizons, to put it colorfully?

It just seems like dominoes have been put into place and someone/something pushed one over and everything falls apart. It just seems too far fetched, almost too well constructed. It has a nasty feel of what happened less than a hundred years ago when the economy crumbled and gave the perfect setting for WWII. Maybe I am paranoid but I know I can detect patterns when I see them. This seems almost too surreal to be natural.

Then again, I believe it is high time we change and stop feuding. I believe it is time to not listen to politicians quarreling and demand more maturity from them. Watching Clinton and Obama fight makes me frightened to think any of those two could lead our nation tomorrow. Is this all they have to offer, fights? Surely we have enough of that. I want more from my leaders, mostly maturity. And anyway, we will have to change sooner or later. It can’t go on like this. Nothing rests, everything changes, everything vibrates. We live in a world filled with yesterdays’ dogmas and rules. Societies evolve and it is time to change the way we think and do business. Maybe it is time to start cooperating instead on acting on the primal competition nerve. I don’t know about you but I am tired of competing. I want to cooperate and move forward now. It’s high time we kick our civilization into higher gears. I am sure those aliens watching us are either laughing or shaking their heads.

Monster Jam Appeals To Some

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Hum, I’m thinking, I’m thinking… Hum, well Monster Jam is.. well, it’s about… it’s really… hum, big trucks, loud noise and running in circles. I think… But wait, there is more.

We went out Saturday night with some Japanese friends of ours who were mystified by the concept of Monster Jam. I also felt we should see this thing once in our life. And indeed, once in my life was enough. Don’t get me wrong, I love cars and racing but I didn’t get the subtleties of trucks with big wheels jumping on broken cars and running in circles.

It was strange. I looked around and I couldn’t relate to the crowd. I wanted a hot dog but knowing what are in them are a turn off. I looked at the field and saw the National Reserve holding our flag walking in mud. There was an attempt to raise our patriotic feeling and a lot of screaming. It was strange and disturbing.

Then the trucks, I guess we shouldn’t call them trucks. In fact, they are huge tubular chassis sporting big polluting engines on even bigger tires. They vaguely resemble current trucks. The first part of the show was two trucks going at it in a one pass circle. That was it. The second part was much more fun, little quad-like machines raced around a more interesting track. It was more like racing. The vehicles were low to the ground but still needed enough clearance to make it across the bumps. There was another race with bigger trucks on the same track.

Those two last races were interesting. It felt like MotoCross. Then it was back to the monster trucks again and this time it was the free-style part of the show. They jumped up and down and went in circle in an inferno of noise.

It was weird, to say the least. It wasn’t about racing, nor about sports. It was about pitting one favorite driver against another. This is the part I don’t get. I can’t get excited about things I can’t or have not participated in. I love Rugby because I played it. I love old cars, because I have them.

The fun parts of the evening was that the girls had the best trucks. They were very creative and funny as heck. They drove them much more subtly than the guys.

It was a very foreign experience for me. I felt I was on another planet. I’m glad I did it once. It also taught me how important it is to observe and remain neutral. Coaching has taught me that. it feels great.