Evolutionary Leadership

On what it means to give people space to learn without losing grip on your guidance.

Teamleaders, parents, managers, and affiliated roles must all lead but also personally progress. How do we make sure our subjects learn ánd grow without fearing you lose control of your leadership and personal growth? Control is a prominent attribute in your leadership role, you control the outcome of the employees subject to your leadership. Alternatively you control the actions and consequences of your offspring. However how we exercise control is the defining factor in true lasting success of the subjects. Often today “fear-based” management is a very common and control-facilitator: “if you do not achieve this there will be [severe] consequences”. It works, but that’s all. It works because we have a survival instinct, an innate instinct to listen to the alpha. It has always been fear governing that instinct, we need it to survive.

However as the physical “alpha” becomes less and less important, so must our “fear-based management” since asserting the alpha has evolved. We must redefine our leadership structure to again re-invigorate the reasons why we do what we do but mostly how we do what we do as the preceding is a direct effect of the latter.

“Alphas” must be decided on who knows best, not who fits best in the current (potentially ignorant) situation to continue in an uneventful straight line with (at most) minor bi-yearly changes. It is time to make the operational aspect of the workplace as dynamic as management teams consider themselves to be.

As our society continues to become more educated we must not forget to raise the bar of achievement in the workplace, not only for employees in the name of more and higher targets but especially for our leadership / management roles. As people start to question “why” leaders must be able to answer “this is why” or at least be able to provide the information with which the employee can grapple and find peace.

Obsession with Growth

Times of Prosperity Lead to Times of Demise

What goes up, must come down

A saying that helped me as a kid whilst biking up a hill, however it does seem relevant if we look at economic developments. 

Over the years our western economies have grown at an exponential pace. The exponential element of the curve is caused by our technological and societal developments. Dynamic societies allow for change and development, with prosperous economic times comes the spread of culture and the prominence of a people. The united states has grown from a group of rebels from the United Kingdom to the most powerful and influential economy today. Economic performance is commonly measured through the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). GDP is the value of goods produced in country X over one year. Production output is the most common manner in which to measure a country’s GDP; GDP per capita is the total GDP divided by the number of inhabitants. It is however not to be confused with a person’s income. GDP is a measure of wealth of a country not of individual people’s incomes. It is often confused with GNP (Gross National Product) there is however a dissimilarity. GNP not only measures the production output (much like GDP) but also measures the income from different sources of the citizens; it is the total value circulating within the territory of a nation. Therefore it does not measure accurately the economic strength and/or growth of a country, GDP on the other hand does. Calculating the GDP can be done in three different manners all of which will result in comparable results, the manner in which we calculate the GDP is not truly relevant but the uses and versions of the GDP are. The most important of them is the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP); based around the Us dollars its concept is simple: How much can I buy in a different country with X Dollars and vice versa. It goes beyond the currency exchange. There are several indexes that measure PPP in various countries, these indexes are necessary because PPP is not a standalone phenomenon that can be measured – there is no formula. The solution is to compare not only exchange rates but various products as well. The same way we measure inflation we measure PPP, we have a basket of goods and this basket costs price p in country x the same basket costs price q in country y. Finding goods that are comparable across the spectrum can cause trouble as culture differences will cause differences in goods and services as well, therefore a new concept was developed: the Big Mac index[1]. This index is based on the conglomerates –Mcdonalds’  most famous burger. The reasoning behind this is that the burger will consist of the same ingredients all over the world[2] and thusly the price can be accurately measured and compared[3].

Example:

Price in US: 4USD

Price NL: 4.50USD

Exchange rate: 1.36936

Price of burger NL in USD: 4.50

Variance: 0.50

Price in EUR: 3.2862EUR

Here we notice the discrepancy in the monetary value of the burger in the US a burger costs 4.00USD whilst in Europe the value of the burger is at 4.50USD looking at the exchange rate[4] the burger should cost 2.9211EUR but in actuality it costs: 3.2862EUR with a variance of 0.3651EUR effectively making the EURO a stronger currency as well as giving countries using the EURO a higher PPP. In one quote PPP can be explained as: how much can I buy in another country with x amount of money from my own country – or: Can I buy more or less with x amount of money in another country compared to my indigenous country?

Economic growth is the focus of the western world, without growth we go nowhere. How long can we keep up growth? Where does it end? Eventually we must reach the apex after which everything must slowly recede.

---

[1] The Economist

[2] Exception: Please note there are countries in which there is an exception as to dietary restrictions, such as no cow meat in India.

[3] Please note that the baseline is denominated by the price of the burger in the USA (United States of America)

[4] On 18.05.2014 @ 11:00AM

Evolving Currencies

Isolated cases prove that living without money in today’s society is possible, however it is not practical. Money governs our life, we essentially buy the right to live through payments towards our living quarters, health and safety institutions and taxes toward the government that vows to keep us safe. Are there alternatives to money? Since the concept of liquidity was developed we as a society rely on cash in order to pay for certain items, being liquid is a sign of ghetto affluence. True affluence comes from: reputation, fixed assets, sphere of influence.

If we take as an example one of the largest MNCs in existence today: McDonalds. Their CEO once said: If all of our outlets were to burn down, we would have no trouble to obtain a loan from the bank to rebuild them all (not a direct quote). Mainly due to the strength of their brand, it shows its true affluence (tremendous buying power) through brand recognition en total assets. The strength of a McDonalds lies in its integrity as a selling entity, growing your own burgers, making your own buns, owning your own sauce-making factory. It has become a fully self functioning organism that sustains itself biologically. With an ever growing demand for its product (rampant obesity) its power as an ever-growing biological entity only increases.

Having established what true power in the business world today means let’s look at the buying power banks have. Banks have as a main asset: money. However if money is not true affluence then how come banks have become so large? In the previous section we have consolidated the fact that banks do not simply curate money, they displace capital and charge people for this displacement, which in turn generates revenue for the banks. More on this subject in the next section; Banks curate money, in the world today we have so many different currencies and the value of these currencies alter every day. Changing currencies can earn you money:

09.05.2014 I have 100€

Exchange rate: EUR1 = USD1.38273

I exchange :100EUR to USD on 09.05.2014 = 138.273USD

1 month later the USD has become stronger and thusly the exchange rate on 09.06.2014 is:

New Exchange rate: EUR1 = USD1.2651

I exchange USD138.273 to EUR on 09.06.2014 = EUR109.2980

This means I have made a profit of EUR9.2980.

If we do this with EUR100 it is rather a small amount of profit but relocating capital in this manner can result in serious profits, and it is often an activity the common civilian can undertake. When we look at currencies such as the USD and the EUR (United States Dollar & Euro) we are looking at relatively stable currencies. The USD is a worldwide standard for currencies that is other currencies are valuated against the dollar. Other currencies do not have much buying power, for instance the Japanese YEN, and the Chinese Renminbi are tremendous economies but their currencies are not worth very much and are quite volatile.

Is volatility negative?

A new age, and technology developments bring along many new features in today’s internet influenced world. A well as new currencies: Bitcoin being the most famous. One of the first in its class named the cryptocurrency. This is a new type of currency that gained popularity on the internet truly quickly. It is not controlled by a central bank and is therefore a decentralized currency. Bitcoins are mined; this means they essentially the same as gold. Develop or “find” them and they are yours. Bitcoins are pieces of unique code generated using large processing power of PCs (personal computers). Block chain, a ledger that registers all Bitcoin transaction is an online document stored on servers running Bitcoin software therefore Bitcoins can be spent once in a transaction and a central agency is bypassed because the online ledger automatically registers the payment. A coinbase transaction is the first transaction that validates the Bitcoin that has been mined and consists of a block of 25. This first transaction consists of transaction fees and is validated by the so-called coinbase transaction. All Bitcoins in circulation can be traced back to this initial coinbase transaction recorded in the block chain ledger. This ledger is accessible to all and everybody and is call the Block Chain Ledger, the fact that Bitcoins are extreme public is its strength and its weakness. The volatility of the currency is the reason for its popularity. Bitcoins from the start have been worth around 1000USD, however the fluctuations in its value range from 0.30-1135USD. Meaning that within 1 day of trading your capital can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, etc or decimated.

The creation of Bitcoins is very casual, at a rate of 25 every 10 minutes Bitcoins will be created for the coming 100 years, but is capped at 21 Million. The cap is decided by the combination of different codes that can be created in the mining process. Also the amount of coins that create the block of Bitcoins halves every time a certain number of coins has been mined.

Money

Money:

We use money I our daily lives to purchase the necessary items to comfortably live our lives. We have replaced trade bargain with another payment option, has it however changed the manner in which goods alternate hands? Before we would trade a cow for 2 goats, that is to say the cow had a value of 2 goats. However today we trade a cow for a pile of paper bills, that is to say the cow had a value of a pile of paper bills. As a people we decide to give money value it is therefore tradable for other items. Moreover 2 goats may have a greater value than a cow, but we cannot trade 1 goat and 2/3s of a goat. So the seller of the cow would be better off as he made a better deal. It all depends on your needs and wants, which brings us to the idea of supply and demand.

Consider the following situation:

Someone really needs a goat and has a cow to trade, and you have multiple goats but do not really need a cow. You could perhaps trade one goat for the cow, even though the cow may be worth more than 1 goat. This because the person in question really needs a goat, and is therefore willing to trade below his margin. On the other hand, if you as a goat keeper need a cow, and someone is willing to trade their cow but do not specifically need one you may be inclined to trade 2 goats for the cow even if the cow is worth less than the 2 goats.

This is the basic principles of appointing value to items, not only does the item itself have value, also the situation around it creates value.

If you take our society today:

We live in a world of excess, we buy things we do not really need with money we do not really have

Credit cards, payment plans, mortgages, you name it, all of these are various ways of obtaining valuable objects without paying full price at purchase.

One of the most pertinent problems in society today are the mortgages. In essence there is nothing wrong with a mortgage: Say you wish to buy a house at 150,000€, you have 40,000€ in own capital. The bank will lend you the rest of the money you need to purchase the house (110,000€), given that you have a job that will provide enough funds to make mortgage payments. Mortgages are not per se loans, the bank gives you a sum of money that you can spend at will however there is an interest rate: usually 2-3% above central bank interest policy (annually). We spend (monthly) 434.63€ (real money from our bank account) on our mortgage payment, in order to live in our house.

Where is the money in this situation?

The money is in our bank account, the only true money coming into play here is the 434.63€ we spend every month on the bank. Further on there is no more money, we have a house a very fixed asset to liquidate this asset in today’s market is a very hard thing to do. Furthermore, the web thickens as we look at our second year of the mortgage: Starting Mortgage Year 1: 110,000 The bank charges you 2.5% per annum to provide you with a loan. You have 30 years to repay the loan. c= rP/1-(1+r)^-N r - the monthly interest rate, expressed as a decimal, not a percentage. Since the quoted yearly percentage rate is not a compounded rate, the monthly percentage rate is simply the yearly percentage rate divided by 12; dividing the monthly percentage rate by 100 gives r, the monthly rate expressed as a decimal. N - the number of monthly payments, called the loan's term, and P - the amount borrowed, known as the loan's principal.

Source: Kohn, Robert. "A capital budgeting model of the supply and demand of loanable funds", Journal of Macroeconomics 12, Summer 1990, pp. 427-436 (specifically p. 430).

r = 0.002083
N = 360
P = 110,000
C = 110,000*0.002083(1+0.002083)360 / (1+0.002083)360-1 = 229.13 * 2.115 / 1.115 = 484.61 / 1.115 = 434.63€ p/Month =5,215.53€ P/year We spend this money on our mortgage payment knowing we can live in our house for that period of time.

However if we do the math afterwards: 5,215.53 p/year = 156,465.99€ after 30 years. This means we have spent: 156,465.99 – 110,000 = 46,465.99€ are for the bank. The bank earns (on top of interest) 130€ P/month (true money) for lending us a sum of money.

This example includes low loans and payments, but these mortgages go up to millions. Technically we do not own the house, if we cannot pay the bank the bank will sell the property (or any collateral) to cover the mortgage debt. However the bank does cash in on our non fixed asset with cash. We lose liquidity whilst the bank gains it.

We as a consumer see our cash flows change, we no longer hold cash in our wallet we hold plastic all of our Values are shifting, we are becoming more materialistic as money because less materialistic, to give money value again we must stop buying things we cannot truly afford. Money has become a synonym for value, it is however not a synonym. Whatever you deliver to obtain an item or service be it physical, emotional, monetary, etc decides the value of that object. Thus, money in essence may be completely defunct.

Now, having debunked money to water boy of the football team, it is time to see what it can do and the services it delivers to the team. Money is a exactly like a water boy, it hydrates the team, gives towels to dry off, provides orange slices to keep sugar levels up, cleans the locker rooms, the list goes on. It is super multifunctional. We have based our financial systems and functions to the manner in which money works. We express value in money, or numbers. The more money becomes a number the less value it has; this is happening on our online bank accounts. We log in, see a number, and move on. We no longer have to open our wallet, see bills, count them, and combine it with the money we have in the bank to calculate our spending limit. It is much harder to oversee monthly payments, as we do not notice the outflow of money as much as we do in cash.

- Rogier's Opinion

"Einstein's" answer to: Does Evil Exist?

I came across this the other day; I remember having seen this before. But it’s interesting; it leads to an interesting discussion:

This has a thought provoking message no matter how you believe. Does evil exist?

The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists?

A student bravely replied yes, he did!"
"God created everything?" The professor asked.
"Yes, sir," the student replied.
The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil."

The student became quiet before such an answer.

The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?" "Of course", replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody and every object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have too little heat.

The student continued. "Professor, does darkness exist?"
The professor responded, "Of course it does".
The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor. "Sir, does evil exist?"
Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. "These manifestations are nothing else but evil."
To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love, that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

The young man’s name --- Albert Einstein

In this little preface, I will just say that God is meant to be all around us, and thus there should be no evil. But if you’re the hard core Christian you will say: but you have to embrace him to feel our savior… I say F that. If He is all mighty and all seeing, all forgiving and whatnot then there should be no evil. That is why I say there can be no good without evil and vice versa. I say this because you cannot have one without the other. If there is only good, we would not be able to determine what is allowed by law, because everything we do must be OK, that is, if the notion of evil does not exist, and I mean you have no idea, you have never heard of it. Then there would be no regulations, everything would be good. If you have two superlatives: good & evil, then we can ascertain different levels in between, like satisfactory, or moderate, etc. the same goes with negative and positive, to have a zero we must have both negative and positive because 0 is neither it is in between, what if we had no 0? Nothing would work out the way it should!

Also religious people have no problem admitting God created good, but without evil there can be no good, so he must have created evil as well, very simple.

So therefore I say for many notions there is an opposite without which the aforementioned notion cannot exist.

Evil is not the opposite of God, but it is of good. Thus there can be no good without evil and vice versa, but there can be evil without God, as can there be good without God as long as you have both variables (good & evil). Therefore making god in essence obsolete in this situation.

My point here was to say, you do not need God to be good. Half my high school teachers were atheists and wonderful people. You need to see evil, realize its wrong (we are human we have brains, we don’t need a supernatural being to tell us that its evil) and act against it, there is no need to embrace the savior into your soul to realize there is evil, and be good.

The professor was right when saying god Created evil IF God created everything, to say god is evil is a whole other discussion, then the supposed "juvenile Einstein" went on a rant to prove god exists, which in essence is completely irrelevant to the subject the professor was addressing, the student attempted to prove the existence of god, which the professor never denied.

So to wrap up, both the student and professor's conceptions were flawed, and biased.
The professor was wrong in saying that God is evil

And the student used a false (and irrelevant) argument to prove god exists, and must be loved in order to avoid evil.

The presence or absence of god cannot be explained through rational deduction, simply because religion is not rational. Though I must say, if you read the Bible rationally and closed minded, you will not believe it.

I mean if you see a movie where a person walks on water turns water into wine, turns 5 fish into 500 fish, born to a virgin, controls oceans, and the list goad on. You will walk out of the theater and say:
"Those were some really good special effects" please the whole book is meant metaphorically and is complete made-up BS (bullsh*t), but has valuable lessons in it from which we can learn.

I do believe in higher power, but in a much different way, and this higher power has no prophets, no churches, no popes, no fake people aspiring influence by claiming divinity or special importance.
To this higher power everyone is equal, at least everyone that does the minimum to "belong" in society, the minimum that is required for them.
There is no church to attend, no priests, because if you worship a higher human being (pope for example), this indicates that not all human beings are equal.
There is no book you are required to read.
All this higher power asks of you is to respect it, think of it, thank it, and regard it.

Beyond that it leaves you free to do as you please.

It is a higher power that coincides with the law and what is right and wrong, if you do something that is the correct and humane thing to do at the time, it will respect and recognize this and reward you for it.

It would never have concurred with the crusades, which were in the name of god and all that is holy, we kill and plunder to ensure the belief of god is spread. How the F**K can you rationalize that?

Also relics, religious objects do not exist to this higher power. The conception that you can only reach god if you: pray to a cross, fold your hands during prayer, pray in a church, et cetera, or that this even facilitates the connection to god, is preposterous. Saying that God is ubiquitous and sees then say "oh but use this cross it will facilitate your prayer to god more easily" is simply straight bull crap. If God really is ubiquitous then he should be all around, at all times, meaning you do not need those flimsy objects to reach god more easily or clearly. And this higher power is, there is no name, no discrimination, no nothing, and you reap the same benefits as from any other religion of sorts.

i could go on and on, but ill leave it here for you, and of course the latter is my own vision.

I would again like to remind you, that this is all my opinion. (but be honest, you can’t deny the logic!)

Please feel free to comment freely (please keep it respectful)
or E-Mail me personally at:

rogersopinion@gmail.com

-Roger's Opinion

I told you so...

after a week of writers block, i have finally found something tow write about, it is more an addition to my previous post to support my claims in about Russia and the US. Now i realised mine was a little strongly worded and slightly exagerated and also less politically corrext but (if you click on the title you will see this) the NYTimes came out with an article on Russia and its efforts to claim a sphere fo influence in the world, this is wat i was talking about and hinting at in which way Russia was commencing a new Cold War. Russia is simply doing what any large nation would do and show how independant they can be, even though thez are dependant. What i mean to say is this:
Russia is reliant on its energy exports, and if Western Europe doesn't respect Russia, Russia will turn the other way and sell their shit to Asia, thus Western Europe needs to be careful in its relations to Russia because it could get screwed over.

-Roger's Opinion

Facebook schmacebook?

Facebook has 100 Million monthly active users which basically means they are the shit in social networking terms. MySpace (the former biggest) is lagging behind in developing and matching Facebook’s success. Facebook allows its users to create profiles post current info, upload videos and pictures and much much more to do with social networking. People have to use their real name to sign up for Facebook this would make it easier for members to find long lost friends and reconnect with them, in the beginning people adhered to this requirement but later people started changing their names, and simply providing false names. I have experienced this first hand. Facebook has become another social competition where people are competing with each other over the number of friends they have on the profile. It has been reported that people are complaining about the 5000 friend limit. This is more than 50 times as many friends than I have in my modest inventory. My best friend first made me attentive to Facebook. I had a couple of other social networking profiles: Hi5, Tagged, etc. So I wasn’t very excited to join Facebook as well it was simply too much of a hassle I thought, but my friend told me that it was super duper easy to sign up. So screw it I gave it a shot, selected the nicest picture (sexiest picture) as my profile picture. I had no idea you could adjust so many settings, and the amount of info you can input is just ridiculous. After having updated my profile and inputted the info I was willing to, I soon started experiencing the true magic of Facebook, I was being tagged in pictures all over the place, I looked for people and within a week I had over 100 friends. The “Poke” button is simply magical, I had so many poke wars over the first few months it was ridiculous. Facebook was officially my new addiction. I am now a fully integrated daily user (I like to call myself a connoisseur) I keep up to date with everything happening and new developments on my profile; Though lately I have been using Facebook mostly for reminiscing about the past and recently finished high school career. I also use it to maintain my connections and keep my networks in touch, but it has stopped ruling my life, and it has calmed a lot since all of my friends have moved and there is no more events to take pictures of and share on Facebook.

The new generation has no problem throwing their personal details out in the open: address, phone number, age, sex, full name, family history (in matter of speaking) and in the description they try to make themselves sound the most appealing to their age group. This often means they are not in the slightest bit appealing to future employers. They post their pictures online of the weekend bash, college parties, etc. this will also reflect negatively on the person in question. I didn’t like the fact that my full name was on the listing in the directory, simply because it made me feel uncomfortable to have my entire full name on the website so that anyone could find me and friends me. I felt also increasingly uncomfortable that people could see my profile without my permission, I was even unaware that this was possible until read various articles advising the increased privacy settings. This is why I altered my privacy settings, and anyone who wants to see my profile needs to friend me, I don’t friend anyone that I do not know or have never spoken to in person, I will also accept friends from my friends, as long as I can see the connection to me then I friend them. I do not friend people simply because they are good looking or say something interesting. But with all the screening, and increased privacy I think that my profile is quite safe to future employers trying to pry in my past. Even if I friend my future employer they will still not find anything compromising about me, but there is a certain part of me that wants to keep my professional and social life separate.

Recently Facebook took a leap, and introduced the new version of Facebook. This has come across much resistance from many users, even though I was apathetic at first I am now more supportive though there are certain flaws that need be fixed when browsing photos and other aspects I think it has potential.

This concludes my haphazard article about facebook I hope you nonetheless enjoyed it.

--Roger’s Opinion