On overindulgence

I came across the following article on Slate's The Big Money site. It's a very fascinating overview of how not to run your resource-rich country. Hint #1: don't have a one-note economy.

Hell in the Pacific 

Disappointment & Collusion

My midterms are awful; the only shining line - dare I say, a sun that illuminates at the risk of burning my flesh - is that my midterm scores only apply if they help my final exam grades. Let's just say that this is an unlikely event in both of this term's courses.

What's the problem? I'm not a quant. I can follow the theories and takeaways, but the underlying arithmetic is a hedgerow maze of mathematical transformations. I understand the fundamentals of supply/demand curves and statistical analysis, I just seem to get the basic math wrong. I've spoken with both professors and obtained guidance on my weak spots, but still, it's hard not to feel a little daunted. 

One thing though - one prof makes continuous references to the "Stern curve", as if to chuckle and say, hey it doesn't matter, you're all going to be fine in this program. He's made comments to the effect of us being yuppies. Yuppies? Generous curve? Success no matter our interim failures? I find that hard to believe, or at least hard to take heart in. 

All things considered, I am paying more attention now, not only in class (I was paying attention before! I swear!) but in devoting an entire day on each weekend to study. I want to do well, even in my weak areas.

Spring Eternal

What's an MBA Candidate supposed to write about? Certainly not existential questions such as that. It's been quite a while since I posted here. Spring midterms are next week; Winter intensives seem to be forever ago.

So, math is hard. I am enjoying my courses conceptually, but the math itself is hard. Perhaps not hard, but detailed. Initially I found statistics to be more difficult, if only because it is more rigorous, but both classes are demanding. When your professor says "There are two ways to do this, one for those who like calculus and one for those who did not" . . .well, maybe that's a sign that I should have just taken the LSAT again instead of the GMAT.

In the meantime, real world lessons learned: one cannot hang up the phone in impatience, and when a business manager talks shit about one's service offering, one shan't sass back.

The Spring of Things

I'm back in class. This semester, Statistics, and Firms & Markets, which I am told is macroeconomics.

The Winter Intensives were aptly named. I don't know that I could run on that schedule year-round, not effectively anyway. Also, while I am glad that I took Strategy I and Strategy II together, I see the wisdom of spacing them apart. I will probably forget most of what I learned by this time next year.

It is nice to have the weather warming, even if just for a little while. marching downtown through the ice and the wind was not conducive to learning.

Winter of Discontent

So, it's been a long winter.

I got Bs in my first classes; one was a B+ and one was a B-. Now I'm in Winter Intensive Strategy classes. I love them, maybe because they're all about concept and there's no real responsibility. I'm not sure I'd love strategy so much if I had a stake in whether or not my strategy would work.

Our instructors for Strategy I and Strategy II are very different from each other. Our Strat II prof is very real and blunt about the motivations and goals of firms. It's nothing I disagree with; I've always thought firms were about making money, and ultimately, innovating ways to make money. Certainly, the firms we've studied have been very innovative (DeBeers, Pepsi, Google).

It is a dismal time to be eying the corporate world though. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and firms can't get capital to float their projects. Now the debate is turning to the mass bonuses certain financiers received; hand-in-hand with that is the observation that Bank of America overpaid for Merril Lynch because the top talent left the firm with their bonuses.

So that was interesting. 

This week we finish up Strategy II, and next week start regular Spring term classes: Firms and Markets, and Statistics.

Psych

Yesterday in my management class we watched a short clip on YouTube, a series of experiments with an elevator. Basically, a group of people associated with the experiment would get on with one subject. Typically, they would stand facing the back of the elevator, and within seconds the subject would turn and face the back wall.

In the funniest clip, the group changed facing, took off their hats, then put their hats back on, and the subject did the same. It was uncanny. With all of the subjects, there was an initial moment of confusion, a squinting of the eyebrow, but they all followed the lead.

This was all by way of supporting our study of groups and culture and conformity. It was interesting to me, for with my background, I've always been the subject, looking around me, trying to determine the correct and appropriate behavior.

You're Telling Me Now?

Here are some interesting - and very telling - stats from an article in hte NYT today about Michigan's reaction to the proposed auto industry bailout:


"The unemployment rate is 9.3 percent — tied with Rhode Island’s for the highest in the country — and the safety net of social services is stretched beyond ability to care for all of those in need. The total of Michigan residents who receive some form of public assistance, like food stamps or home heating credits, is now 1.82 million, or close to 20 percent of the population, a record for the state."