I recently had this questionnaire forwarded to me (cough cough Michelle). I was bored, so I thought, why not?

 

A   If you were an ANIMAL, what would you be?

That would be a Lion most definitely. They are awesome and go Rawr! Plus now I can finally use the word “rawr!” and it would be the correct response!

 

B   BOOKS: What’s on your reading list?

This post is a short, unedited, raw, opinionated, free flowing, recitation of my thoughts. I thought I’d change it up a bit. Be warned!

Apple, you little fruit! You had the world in the palm of your manipulative hand. You pulled the strings of the puppet we call technology. You had tech journalists adoring your every move, jealous business leaders envying you, and fan boys people showering you with love and compliments, willing to bash the competition without any deductive logic or reasonable causation. Un-rightfully and prudently so, you were walking on water, and your stockholders- walking away with cash. A utopia of clever advertising, marketing, and brand loyalty. If you were a grade 4 student, you’d have the most golden stars, the most smiley faces, you’d be the teachers pet. Heck, you wouldn’t even need a washroom pass.

So what in the world happened Apple!?

We’ve all heard this line placed on us, provoking us into feeling guilty about shopping at big box retailers. You know the typical line such as, “buying goods and services at major retailers is feeding the devil.” OR “By purchasing your goods at retail giants you’re drowning out the American Mom and Pop shop stores.” ………Well I’m here to tell you, It’s a load of crap!

Sweden has had tremendous economic growth that started from the late 19^th century until the 1970s. Delivering low unemployment, low inflation, and an equal welfare distribution system that is unparallel to any other structure had resulted in Sweden having the second highest economic growth during that period.  According to British newspaper Giant Guardian, “…it was the most successful society the world had ever known”. However, the once sought after capitalist model of a country went into a profoundly deep recession in the 90s, and has faced significant economic hardships over the last two decades. Only remnants of the powerhouse can be seen through dust traces of what was once a glorious power economic train. What happened?

Cap and Trade System

In 1988, an initiative was made at a world conference held in Toronto. This conference consisted of hundreds of leading biologists, climatologists, and engineers. Leading experts were called upon to address the rising concerns regarding to the increase in global temperatures. Changes in global temperatures is believed to be caused by such factors as chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) which are found in items such as paint sprays and refrigerators, the burning of fossil fuels, land abuse such as deforestation, and methane gas. As of November 2007, a collaborative global effort consisting of 175 nations agreed to initiate a pact to fight changing temperatures. The Kyoto Protocol is the agreement made between these nations to commit to reducing their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 5.2% from their 1990 emissions level. The main objective is to accomplish a stabilized set level of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere which would not affect the global climate system.

#1) The GG’s Speech of Throne exemplified the need to reduce barriers of entry in our Canadian oligopoly markets, to allow greater ease of foreign investments.

#2) It will bring labour/capital/jobs to Canada directly/indirectly, help correlated business, act as an incentive for old firms to reinvest $ to compete.

#3) However, we have no control over foreign ownership, capital and profit transference, so our economic health will rest in their hands.

(PLEASE NOTE: This article is a joke article) Confused about the vast amount of mobile operating systems out there in the market? No worries, I have you covered. Read on…

Android O/S –  The 1337 operating system. If you don’t know what that means, you’re not nerdy enough to use this operating system. Go wait in line for the next iPhone. These people code linux in their sleep and get a boner when Google releases the newest development kit. The bargaining of money for sex is a reality with these geeks.

BlackBerry O/S -  Ahh yes, the Blackberry O/S. People who use blackberries are either affluent businessmen, hard working middle management, or complete tools that are addicted to BBM like its crack cocaine wrapped in bacon, laced in more crack cocaine wrapped in bacon with a side of bacon wrapped in crack cocaine. Must… BBM……*twitch*

iPhone O/S – I’ll use these words; asshole, tool, sheep, douche bag, granny panties, Kanye West. Those words have nothing to do with anything. Your welcome, as I just wasted 4 seconds of your life. Yes, iHerders are people who drink way too much $8 Starbuck lattes, don’t know the first step on how to setup a router or open up a port yet want to seem like they be in the now with technology, word up. They are a strong breed of hipsters, sheep, and liberals… and are willing to die for their leader Steve Jobs, metaphorically at least, in the game of Angry Birds, that isn’t there save profile. You can find iHerder working on a amateur script or a book in your local douchebag shop. I mean coffee shop…

Palm’s Web O/S- Had promise, it did things that no other OS did, kinda like that Las Vegas stripper you partied with last year. They don’t have the market share nor the strategic savy nor the capital to generate a strong product line to really compete against the big boys. It is/was the little train that could… except this little train is running out of coal and will be coming to a stop at the nearest  iPhone and Android beat down station. Not to worry, our health care system is wonderful.

Symbian O/S- No not the sex toy, it’s an actual O/S albeit an extremely outdated O/S. It’s also THE most common operating system in almost all ‘dumbphones’. You know, those phones that can only play Snake and make a call. It’s the kid you knew in elementary school who had been dropped one too many times on his head as a baby. He now wears velcro shoes full time. People call him Timmy. Say hi Timmy!

Microsoft Mobile 6.5- Remember when Travis took Old Yeller into the backyard and shot him dead. That was sad, but not nearly as sad as Windows Mobile 6.5. Just imagine being shot in the face, the pain and suffering you would go through, sadly that wouldn’t even be close to the pain Windows Mobile has given its customers. S&M pervs even revolt in disgust. Now that’s bad.

Intel and Nokia’s joint venture, MeeGo O/S – They thought they could team up and combine both the Maemo and Moblin operating systems together, but its like combining a monkey with a human; you’ll end up with human monkey boy.  According to my pokemon index, human monkey boy is half monkey and half retarded, and he’s named MeeGo ironically.

Linux and Unix- The founding fathers of mobile O/S. Nuff said. Oh, and they liked little boys. That is all.

Japanese style flip phones

Since the explosion of social media in the last few years, a lot of public figures, attention seekers, scare lobbyist groups, and so-called  ”professionals” have been taking stances on whether or not the excessive use of technology is really damaging our society. They argue that the recent and excessive use of technology has created social problems that are becoming more widespread overtime. Social problems such as lower grades, decrease in work productivity, hindered vocabulary and grammar.

Some of these problems are in fact laudable concerns; I’ve noticed particularly, the alarming lack of proper grammar and the limited vocabulary in formal writing. However, we should look at other possible variables that could play an integral role in the causation of these problems. Music, particularly rap music and its exemplified use of slang terminology could have a role in our youth’s weakening grammar and vocabulary skills. The increased use of slang is now unfortunately common place in North America, with many websites developed solely created to define slang; a dictionary for slang per say.

So my concern is, can one really attribute all of these problems directly to technology, or is it a natural necessary evolutionary by-product formed strictly due to the future we’re headed into; a more technology reliant world. The use of technology has increased our productivity tenfold, in every area of business, manufacturing, electronics, communications, schools, and everyday life. We NEED technology to continue moving forward.

Cellphones in a landfill

In the 50′s we saw a breakthrough that changed the world and the way we lived life, the creation of the automated assembly line and the boom in economic growth we saw thereafter directly as a result of our ingenuity, a period which we now call the golden age. Efficiency skyrocketed, efficacy rates soared, production increased, profits rose, and our economy boomed. The excess of material goods like the V-8 Chevys, fridges, microwaves, the colour television, phones, and even frozen dinners were all made possible by the ingenious idea of the automated assembly line. The assembly line in the 50′s is to the electronic device in the twenty 10′s, in terms of the magnitude to which it has and will help the world, the only question is; in 30 years when we look back at the twenty 10’s, will the twenty 10’s be viewed as another period of economic boom OR the turning point of where it all went wrong?

The phone from the past woooo

When I was just a young lad (pause for cliche moment) I remember my parents having one of those old rotary phones. I was fascinated with the device because dialing was so fun to do. Yet in awe, because I couldn’t imagine a time when rotary phone were in. In awe of how much longer it took to dial a number. Fast forward 20 years later and it all but seems landlines are going the way of the dinosaur (pause for cliche number 2) well over 3/4 of new young households are foregoing the landlines option and instead opting for the cellular phone counterpart. So just think the generation growing up right now will look back in 20 years time and say, “geez I can’t believe people used these huge bulky phones, mom what are these things called?…l-a-n-d-l-i-n-e-s? Uh, ok. I’mma go play on my Playstation 7 now.”

The principle idea of diversification is that by investing in more than two different stocks that are not positively correlated you reduce the overall risk of your portfolio. You can lower your overall risk further then an individual investment could. By choosing stocks that are more negatively correlated or uncorrelated you lower the risk you take on.

The analogy of not to put all your eggs in one basket relates heavily to the concept of diversification. Positive stock are anything that have some relationship with each other, both can be affected by externalities in similar ways. So for example, Intel processors and HP computers might be positively correlated. If demand falls for HP Computers and HP computers use Intel processors, than Intel stock could be directly affected by the fall in demand for HP computer. Uncorrelated is just that, Hp computers and Boat engines for example.

Negative correlated stock could be Apple and Microsoft. Both compete for roughly the same market share and both are trying to appeal to the same youth generation, especially since the release of Windows phone 7 series. When one gains traction by releasing a blockbuster gadget or new software, the other company will be negatively affected. So why is it good to diversify by broadening your negative stock? Because it helps offset variance or in other words helps decrease your risk in these stocks.

If you buy both Apple and Microsoft shares, and Apple releases a product that gets underwhelming responses by the public, the shares of Apple might decrease. To help offset that loss, your Microsoft shares might increase because investors will be looking at competing firms with similar or better products and invest in Microsoft. Microsoft might use that opportunity to release promising devices/software to dampen Apple even further. By diversifying your portfolio with negative or uncorrelated investments you are cushioning your fall if one of your investments has a negative return. The positive performance of some of your other investments can dampen the effects of a negative return investment.

—————————————

Here is an mathematical example, don’t get turned away because its math and math is scary, its relatively straightforward

To show algebraically how diversification using negative correlated stock can reduce risk, consider this 2 Asset example:

Assume total shares are divided between these two stocks. Assume given variance. Assume expected return is known.

Your portfolio is made up of 2 stocks, X1 and X2.

Asset X1= .6

Asset X2= .4      where X1+X2= 1

Your variance for both stocks are; V1= 100, V2= 100  so with that, we know the standard deviation which is the square root (S) of variance, so S1=10 and s2=10.

Your expectations of your rate of return for both stocks are:

E1= 30%

E2= 20%

Therefore, we know the expected yield of your portfolio using the following equation:

Ep= X1E1+X2E2

Ep= .6(30) + .4(20)

=26%

So you expect a 26% return.

Did you get all that? If not, that’s OK. Just know that basically in the above, we’re just setting up the equation with information we need to calculate the variance (aka risk associated with a positive, negative, and uncorrelated stocks).  Lets continue to whats important…

The portfolio risk equation is: Vp = X1²V1 + X2²V2 + 2X1X2√V1√V2P12

The equation above will tell us have much risk would be associated with a positive, negative, or uncorrelated stocks. The P12 at the end of the equation for portfolio variance will be replaced with either 1 (positive), 0 (uncorrelated), -1 (negative). Here are the equations below:

Thus a portfolio with 2 assets that are uncorrelated (0) and/or negatively (-1) correlated can reduce the overall risk moreover than a positively correlated (1) and/ or individual asset.

The uncorrelated and negative investments lower the standard deviation from 10 (risk) to 7.211 and 2 respectively. The positively correlated and individual assets remain at standard deviation 10. This interestingly shows that by investing in different assets that have a positive correlation is ineffective at reducing risk, and one would be just as well off by investing into an individual asset. So even if your anti-Microsoft, it would be beneficial in buying Microsoft stock to offset the potential loss in value from Apple stock.