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Anonymous (Just in time for Halloween, here is some guest content from a professor, friend, and mentor. See also, this author’s memoir) I remember the first time I heard the footsteps. I was alone in the house, sitting at the … Continue reading
John Lett (Lessons) (Book Sessions)
I call all of this part of my “$5, half-an-hour, and red potatoes” lifestyle. (I say red potatoes because I believe they are a bit healthier than your standard baking potato.)
If you’re paying down a debt, not earning as much as you’d like to, saving for a house, saving for a trip or the like, some minor adjustments in your day can really accelerate your plans. It’s nice to do this without tying up or risking the money.
We are often taught to be ashamed to seem tight or chintzy, but little lifestyle adjustments can buy you additional freedoms.
What I have seen, if you’re in the stock market for the long haul, it is claimed that you’ll average 10% gross annual returns. Sometimes you can reach this 10% yourself without having to punt up or risk your money in investments. The $5 part is to make a few minute comparisons throughout your day to save about $5.
If you bake potatoes and eat a few in lieu of having a lunch out, you’ll save about $9. If you spend a few more minutes comparing items and save $5 throughout your day, you’re really rolling! Assuming you make even just $10 an hour and work half an hour longer each day, that is $19 made or saved per working day. If you work the standard approximate 250 days per year, that is $4,750 gross saved, which could be a very nice vacation by most standards. You can also sometimes pocket between $150-200 by signing up for credit cards and utilizing a certain amount within 90 days (my referral link to Chase for such an offer, which I gladly participated in in 2016 and gained the $150 from ordinary, daily purchases plus quarterly categories that give back up to 5% on qualified purchases).
At the present norm of having a 4% annual return on a CD/certificate of deposit, term deposit, one would have to have $118,750 in a CD to get the same return, or about $47,500 invested in the stock market, not considering any dividend potential. With the average bank interest savings rate at around 0.25%, you would have to have $1.9 million sitting in the bank to create this $4,750 – minor habits can turn things around a lot!
If you have over a million dollars invested in the stock market, the challenge is steeper, because it would be hard to save $100,000 a year in lifestyle adjustments, but working this extra half an hour a day would take you a good, long way towards that assuming that you have earned significant enough to sock away $1 million – at $100 an hour you would still earn an additional $12,500 a year this way. The more time that you are engaged in some kind of work, the less time there is to spend money in most circumstances (unless it requires more maintenance of vehicles, clothing), so further savings may ensue.
These are just a few thoughts to make minor adjustments pay off, turning not-very-much into something.
John Lett (Lessons) (Book Sessions)
I think there is a plot to short the US dollar going on. The increased interest rates have made servicing debts nearly impossible and added to the absurdity of the system, so many countries will be enticed into other arrangements that are presented as less onerous. I cannot see a perfect escape plan from any of this except that there are three things that can ameliorate the situation:
John Lett (Lessons) (Book Sessions)
I recently joined TikTok for a little bit of a low-tech participation. One of the questions I asked was how the audience has been affected by the war in Ukraine. I was absolutely stunned to find that such a huge number of Americans believe Putin’s version of why Ukraine was and is being attacked. As someone with some ties to the area and with friends and contacts in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland, of all kinds of backgrounds, it’s total nonsense reasoning that this was a liberation operation. If you see the chain of comments, I did take the time to respond to everyone with the reasons why. This does not mean that the US, EU, or Ukraine counterparts are totally virtuous and have done things correctly but none of these parties have done wrong on the scale that the Russian military was ordered to do.
@manic_tarotworldtour HOW is the War Affecting YOU? #Ukraine#Poland#Biden#Support#War#Inflation♬ original sound – manic_tarotworldtour
John Lett (Lessons) (Book Sessions)
I have had the joy of working with Chinese students online and in person for many years and have great admiration for the general aspirations and work ethic found from there. In the last couple of years, I have had some students give very strong negative feedback of the direction of their country, though it is important to keep in mind that these are a) people who are able to converse almost fluently in a second, outside language after studying for a while, b) sometimes people who are willing to cooperate with some of the policies but not all.
Some of the comments and scenarios I have heard from students have been:
A young mother student:”I used to be able to open this website before but now I can’t under THIS president.”
A child student: “Someone a few houses down tested positive for COVID and a white van came and took them away.” “Have they come back?” “How would I know?!”
A university student: “We come to the campus in August and can’t leave again until February during Chinese New Year.”
Same university student: “During our quarantine period, the authorities come pounding on the door at 5 a.m. for a daily test. We can’t say anything to them to complain, it’s just their job. The university had to put nets on the windows because some students were trying to jump out of the window to escape.”
A stay-home-mom: “We have to scan a code everywhere we go now.” (She also has to show her Hong Kong ID card or passport in order to go to church)
An IT professional student: “As you know, our president gave himself a third time as president. We don’t know how long he will continue.”
The general sentiment is that people are royally pissed off that they were sort of pushed into over investing in real estate, the competition for university spots and subsequent careers is really tight, they can’t trust the safety standards of their food (it is overall cheaper there but if you want high quality items, it’s much more expensive than the west), and the state control of innovation and IT sectors is frustrating to say the least.
We must find some way to bring China back into the fold and to lead by example of a just, equitable country with freedom of expression, but one that also shows moderation and the measured, thoughtful communication that should come with that. Stability and trustworthiness bring the more open social approach extra value. So that harsh control regimes don’t get the upper hand, it’s important to find some common ground and stability in western societies.
John Lett (Book Sessions)
I believe one of the factors driving high inflation, high turnover, and labor shortages is more intangible than stimulus money or interest rates. Many of us first feel lucky to have survived the pandemic. Many of us observe climate change and other disasters going on, and if we are not impacted, we feel more grateful for where we are (at the moment). It is true that being paid to stay home influenced many, but all of these things combined did something to our collective psyche: what is everything really worth? What is my value in this?
The answer is that except in insurance adjustment terms or even with price discovery, it is all rather illusory and constructed. We have some notion that human life is priceless, at least where our own interests are concerned, so therefore it is going to be harder to get people to work and it’s almost impossible to assign a value to anything, so that naturally makes the price of everything go up! The last major crisis in 2008-2010 was more about convincing people that they had no worth and they had better watch their backs and perform well, or quickly be replaced. This crisis is more abstract or existential, and will be harder to contain unless it is tempered by bartering, favors, and generosity.
Every time I get in a car and can go a few miles for something like 50 cents, I am astounded – this is actually still an undervaluation in the big picture, even if it hurts us now.
The questions around fairness, justice, and distribution of resources are going to pile on at such a remarkable pace that there are going to be some major upsets in valuation but appreciating things and a balance of self-respect and willingness to fulfill roles to make society work will start to balance things out in a few years’ time.
John Lett (Book Sessions)
John Lett (Book Sessions)
By no means are all of us guilty of this at all times, but after a steady inundation of polarization and identity politics, the collective exhaustion from COVID and inflation have made a lot of people incapable of absorbing any kind of information that is inconsistent with his or her worldview or comprehension of a situation.
A very good technique I am sure many business textbooks suggest is to occasionally repeat back what you have understood to have been said or suggested to show that you have understood correctly. Many people fortunately do this, but you have noticed that what they are repeating back to you is not what you said or meant and even after you get your point across, within days the same people have resumed their former position on an issue and you must start over.
I would suggest that this means for some matters we need to fall back upon well-crafted messages to our colleagues and friends that have very simple bulleted points when we want to get a particular message across. The requirements of English manners show that we must make it a bit more flowery at times and for younger recipients, adding friendly emoticons is a good idea to seem less severe, but there will, in the near future, be many situations where it is required to refer back to short, unambiguous messages with action points that can easily be pointed back to in a dispute.
The lack of introspection issue is something we also must be cognizant of when assessing our own thoughts and actions in order to avoid hypocrisy. It is clear that the bar is going to be raised ever higher when it comes to avoiding being a hypocrite.
John Lett (Book Sessions)
John Lett (Book Sessions)
The Itaewon, Seoul tragedy (referred to in the media as a stampede, but more like an avalanche of people) is one case in point that breathing space will be one new key luxury.
I recently read The New Megatrends by Marian Salzman, who is a kind of prognosticator of trends with a big track record. Among her claims is that, quite catapulted by the pandemic, we are going to be placing a higher value on space. This really has opened my eyes further and put my surroundings in a different light after many years of placing a high value on city life.
Psychically and logically, I can tell you we are going to see more situations like this if we don’t get more breathing room built into where we live. These innocent victims in Itaewon had been cooped up for two years in small apartments and once they were free to get out, there were very limited venues and neighborhoods to go see. Their living spaces are too small to congregate in. They were not raising Hell on the streets or frantically pushing but merely toppled.
The social contract in every country, in every community, is being rewritten before our eyes. The concentration of entertainment and of capital, both financial and human, has to get somewhat decentralized so that people can have a better life and enjoy the social connection that previous generations enjoyed.
John Lett (Book Sessions)
John Lett (Book Sessions)
So many people I work with across the globe are emerging socially again after two years of reduced social contact. With this re-emergence, we are not totally used to being immersed in the energy and agendas of others and it takes a lot to stay focused. I keep seeing people kind of being swept … off, down, under, and in need of finding enough time to react and reassess. It is as if events move twice as fast as they did in the past and the people are capable of handling half what they could before.
For the time being, it seems the simple response is to:
It seems like we will be moving into more intentional, pared down social situations with higher success rates and richer outcomes.
John Lett (Book Sessions)
John Lett (Book Sessions)
A few people have been writing to ask me where I see things going in the coming weeks and months, partly because I have close contact with things going on in Eastern Europe. In short, I do not see any possible scenario for things to get better this year, partly because it’s in the interest of a few running things to seize opportunities in chaotic situations.
Now, more than ever, it’s about being nimble and unexposed, but yet quick to help others. If you want to help the effort to stop the war (not “the war effort,” which is kind of contradictory semantics and manifesting the opposite of what we want!), the best thing to do is to reduce your daily energy use and to consume the services of others more than commodities.
If you’re going to move around for the short-term to avoid some discomforts due to the war, aim for warmer places but ones that simultaneously have enough water but that are not flood zones.
It is important to not completely follow the herd because in the coming months, it will seem like we should run this way or away from that way, but those who are operating these things will respond in kind. Be very careful not to assume that an existing trend will remain this way.
That said, a lot of how we respond to things is really going to depend which life stage we are in and what kind of mobility we can afford. If you want to work with me on an individual analysis in all of this, please reach out to me for my new services, the 20-50-40 plans.
Stay safe and keep your operating costs down in any way you can!
John Lett (Book Sessions)
Tarotworldtour 