Category / Job

by Eileen 配仪

Rothschild scale of wealth

I am reading the House of Rothshchild since December – picking it up and putting it down. It’s a boring dull record of all the monies they make and the varied deals and negotiations they had.

Two things struck me. One, it appears impossible to have a well run anyway without some conflict in the running of it. While the father and brothers had this super tight agreement not to split up the business – instead they created their own branches and cross held  shares, there is still conflict in the day to day deal making.

Their willingness to take on risk for the deal. Risk like smuggling, running capital flows during wars. They did not hunker down and avoided risk. They aggressively continued business, taking on larger and larger risk until they were, combined, bigger than any other banking houses. They were never shut down because countries at war were begging for the shipment of gold to fund wars and they were the only merchant banking house willing to do so.

This appears to be the same sort of basis why certain illegal busineses such as drugs growing, manufacturing and  trafficking remain hard to kill off.  (I’ve read elsewhere). Generals with huge resources were able to fund and provide armies for wars in their country. As a thanks, they were undisturbed in their businesses.

Rothschild “assisted” many countries. In addition to having  insider news from politicians, they were largely undisturbed in their deals. They had cultivated many political relationships with bribes. 

Look at their growth

1797: 9,900 GBP 

1807 : 50,600 GBP (10 years)

1810: 72,700 GBP (3 years)

1815: 336,000 GBP (5 years)

1818: 1,772,00 GBP (3 years)

By 1825, they hit GBP4.08m and 1844 it was GBP7.78m.

It made me wonder if the Boglehead theory of 2 or 3 fund for the simple minded investor was really a marketing tool. It was easy to sell and it meant Vanguard could set these funds up easily, earning a small mark up for their troubles (the smallest all the proponents will tell you).  Now with this huge fund invested in the market, globally with big amounts, now wouldn’t that make a guy feel a bit swell? He could influence the companies without owning anything at all. He has an army at his bidding and calling ready for world domination. What would the next step be?

by Eileen 配仪

Sound of Working

I am sure we have all seen situations when people on a team don’t get along. Maybe they compete with each other, vying for the boss’s favor, and in …

When the management team is not a real team

From Norman who writes an audit and risk blog. To be heard and to be seen is encouraged as part of “getting ahead”. A team that is actually working well will just be working without fanfare. Sort of like an experienced artisan just being extremely excellent in their jobs.

Just like end customers, as employees we tend to see management as a single body, working in an orderly manner towards goals they have promised to deliver. That is not the norm really – not even in family business where one might imagine the whole family is working towards more revenue and wealth.

The norm is some volume of “being unsettled” – it could be louder in some places. A management team that is not a real team is the norm because within a team there will be competition to be heard, to be seen. That said, I won’t go so far as to label healthy competition – it’s just the sound energy from working.

Does it ever become dysfunctional? It could when executives try hard at sabotaging each other to the extent that they undermine the firms results as a whole. Yet most firms with a proper scorecard structure can withstand this. A small firm (eg family business) who has less or no support will dragged to a standstill by dysfunction but most founder leaders at this point will sort it out before it goes further by calling it out.

by Eileen 配仪

At 48

I updated the front of my blog with the pictures I painted. It feels fancy – as if I am artistic. My daughter has been very kind, saying that I am so cool, that I can paint so prettily. It feels funny hearing her say that. I immediately deny it, insisting I don’t have any talent. 

When I imagine being 48, I imagine myself single, mostly pay check to pay check in a spartan home. I imagine myself a lousy writer whose always blocked but writing bad novels about Singapore and stuck, not knowing where to sell my book. I imagine that my job requires me to look at data and never talk to anyone. 

At 48, my life is not what I imagined myself to me. I am now squarely stuck in Operational Risk. I might have a called a couple of locations in the past to help them with their troubles. My calls are now daily, clarifying, educating, organising. I am writing a lot more PPT and being “gifted feedback” about my bad PPT.   I can’t imagine myself now – having the kind of immense difficulties with my son. The kind of difficulties that makes me suspect some level of  disorder. That the view from my home begs to be painted. (It’s a Housing Board flat.) That I have learnt to save money. That I have learnt how to do art. That I have a post grad in Finance – astounding, really. I also never thought that my actual friends will be in my office. Just yesterday, I sat with V. at work; the week before I was in the same call as Z.      

It feels like a giant leap for me. No way I would have been able to imagine enough to write this in my 5 year / 10 year / 15 year plan. In case you imagine that I have landed in a place of incredible, eye searing success. Just a leap into a different universe. Strange and amazing. 

I hope this will be for my kids.  The kind amazing giant leaps that makes life interesting.  Hard but not boring.

by Eileen 配仪

I was at a do yesterday. (I can’t think of how to call it other than a do. It’s a casual work related event that requires me to look not too far away from my work self. )

The Very Important Person At the Pinnacle of Our Food Chain came out from some hidden place. He stood and waved at the proletariats hoping perhaps for a roar of approval. Just before he had to go and deliver his speech, he walked over and grabbed a child for a photoshoot. The child did a sad emoticon and reached out for the mom at once.

He returned this child and took another nearby for his shoot. That kid did not cry. I will not be able to just grab and do it. I will have a long conversation of nonsense words with the baby to arrive at some understanding that he or she was amenable to being picked up. I will then cautiously pick the child up while continuing that goobly gook conversation.

It must be the aura of being Very Important.

by Eileen 配仪

挤眉弄眼

On a whim I recorded myself on a call. I imagined myself a dull stone faced worker droning on in rapid mode. I tend to speed along in chaired meetings because I don’t like having meetings but being sandwiched between a rock and a difficult place I have to communicate.

I played back and found everything about myself strange. The way I pulled down on the corners of my mouth to the multitude of facial expressions I pull.

I started my working life as a call centre worker and it is almost as if I never left that first job. Still in a head set after 27 years.

by Eileen 配仪

I just happen to know the answer to this trivia.

Are you superstitious?

Superstition developed as a form of risk mitigation practice. It helps us deal with the unknown & unforeseeable in our daily lives. The rituals are more detailed & elaborate as the sense of risk increases.

Details could be read here and this article describes superstitious  in football.

It is going to be difficult for anyone to denounce superstition totally given most societies have some form of superstitious beliefs. What doesn’t help: our pattern finding brains have a preference for pattern finding.

This means it can be as silly as “making it rain by washing my car ” or as elabourate as a ritual for ancestral worship codified by a Chinese emperor from ancient past.

I’m in risk management. Of course I’m going to veer towards superstitions. As with any other average persons, I will not rank very high, nor very low on such practices. I do have an odd one, due mainly to my scatterbrain than anything else. When I travel, if I missed out packing a minor thing, for instance, floss,  or face wash, it means no bad horrifying thing will happen to me.       

by Eileen 配仪

Work rant

I logged into a free risk seminar on the 2023 systemic risk landscape. The call sounded like a 2023 news events roundup. I logged off soon after – it was not very useful or interesting.

Systemic risk group is an oddity. At the point of a systemic risk event occurring, it will always appear idiosyncratic until it is not. It is also mixed up with potential risk events that might affect the organisation that other organisations face. But that isn’t systemic. Rounding up news events and pointing out this might affect your organisation is not that useful without identifying the kind of organisation that will most likely be impacted.