Central Perk: 7 mar. 2015

sâmbătă, 7 martie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Advice for College Grads: 16 Tips For Those Who Land a Job, 8 Tips for Those Who Don't

Posted: 07 Mar 2015 04:14 PM PST

I was asked by a career placement organization if I had any advice for college graduates that I could share.

Specifically, I was asked "If you were going to give career advice to a fresh college graduate based on your experiences what would it be? Would it be to settle for nothing less than something they are passionate about? Would you tell them to not put too much stock into their first job? Would you tell them to put as much money into their savings as possible?"

I look at this two ways: Advice for those who landed a job and advice for those who didn't.

Grads who land a job should also take a look at the second set of tips. It's easy to find yourself out of a job for any number of reasons.

16 Tips For Those Who Land a Job

Live below your means.
Pay down student debts as fast as you can.
Build a cash cushion in case you lose your job. Ideally, you need one full year's salary, in the bank, in cash, for emergencies, not for trips to Aruba. Six months is a minimum.
Think about bills before you move out on your own.
Consider sharing an apartment with someone to cut expenses.
Consider living with your parents for a while.
Don't buy a new car.
If you buy any car, make sure you understand what insurance, gas, and maintenance will cost
Don't have kids right away, if at all. If you have kids, then understand the commitment in time and money, and be prepared for both. If you have kids, that cash cushion mentioned in point three is even more important.
Don't purchase a house or condo even if your job pays well. Housing is back in a bubble in many areas. Condos are especially hard to sell. Besides, you may decide you do not like your first job and want to move. Take your time. It's easier to find a house you like than get rid of one you don't.
If your job has a company matching investment plan, take advantage, but keep the money in cash or guaranteed funds if offered. Assets are way over-priced here. Wait for a huge dip in the stock market to invest. Recent grads have plenty enough time to dollar cost average. Early mistakes will not cost much. However, it's important to think about valuations, safety, bubbles and other factors as a process now rather than taking the attitude it doesn't matter much now. It will matter eventually, and the quicker one starts thinking about such things, the better off they will be down the road.
Don't think you are special because you show up on time and put in eight hours. Those are a given. Depending on the company you work for, work-life balance may come later or perhaps not all. Few companies are remotely close to Google. Go above and beyond what's expected, every day, without complaint. A strong work ethic is one of the few ways one can stand out and get promotions and raises.
If you took a job you are not passionate about, be grateful you have a job. Keep looking, but don't quit. It's easier to find a job if you have a job.
If you are with a big company and don't like your initial assignment, opportunities can arise in other areas. Talk to personnel after you have been there a while. Give your first assignment a fair chance.
Evaluate your job four ways: Do you like what you are doing? Do you like who you work with? Do you like your boss? Are you happy with your pay?
If the answer to all four questions in point 13 are no, you are in the wrong place for sure. Sometimes one can be so bad you want out. If pay alone is the problem, then please self-assess your skills and what others in your field make. If your boss alone is the problem then talk to your boss or bring up the problem with personnel.

8 Tips For Those Who Don't Land a Job

Purchasing new cars, buying houses or condos, or starting a family are out of the question unless somehow you are independently wealthy or have a spouse that picks up the slack.
Don't go to grad school thinking it will help you land a good job. Most likely, and especially if you are in a low demand field, all you will do is pile on debt.
Be realistic about your job prospects. If you got a degree in history, art, English literature or any other low demand field, face the facts: your job prospects are not that good. You may have to take any job in retail (or elsewhere) that you can find. You may be passionate about art, but don't expect museums to come running to you.
Have a friend interview you and give you honest feedback. If your speech skills are not good, then you better improve them.
Have someone critique your resume. Don't ever lie about your skills, grades, experience, or anything else. The interviewer may figure it out. And if you are hired, it's grounds for immediate dismissal, even if they like you. I have seen it.
What about your appearance? Do you dress properly for interviews?
When you land an interview, find out everything you can about the company. It is imperative to not only understand what the company does, but to also formulate at least one intelligent question about their business that you don't know. Examples: Have you thought about ....? Why do you ....? Why don't you ...? What areas do you seek to expand?
Self-assess. Do you have other issues? Employers are not supposed to take looks and health issues into consideration, but if you are extremely obese, your odds of landing a job are much worse than if you are physically fit.

Good Luck Grads!

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Rush to Judgment Part II: Media Myths Shattered; Whodunit? Four Arrested

Posted: 07 Mar 2015 12:35 PM PST

Whodunit?

It appears my post yesterday challenging conventional wisdom of "whodunit" was fortuitously timed. (See Rush to Judgment and Extremely Inaccurate Reporting). No doubt the anti-Putin conspiracy crowd will start suspecting I was in on it all along.

Please consider Two Suspects Held Over Murder of Kremlin Critic Nemtsov.

Two suspects have been detained over the killing of Boris Nemtsov, Russian officials said, a week after he was shot dead near the Kremlin in the most high-profile killing of an opposition figure in years.

The Investigative Committee, the state body leading the investigation, named the two men as Anzor Gubashev and Zaur Dadayev.

"The individuals detained are, according to our investigation, involved in the organization and execution of the killing of Boris Nemtsov," the committee said in a statement.

Russian state-controlled media reported the two were from the Caucasus, a violent and impoverished region on Russia's southern flank. They were expected to be formally arrested at a court hearing in Moscow on Sunday, the reports said.

"I want to believe that these ones are really the ones who conducted (the killing) and that once in a while law enforcement worked professionally and detained real assassins, and did not make a mistake," Ilya Yashin, the co-chairman of Nemtsov's party, said of the two suspects.

"The key task for investigators is to find and prosecute the ones who ordered this murder. If everything ends with the detention of scapegoats, irrespective of whether they are the real assassins or not, the practice of political assassinations will continue with no doubt."

Yashin and other associates of Nemtsov said that until Saturday they had never heard of the two men detained.

Nemtsov was a liberal who had served as deputy prime minister in the 1990s and later became a staunch critic of Putin. He was shot within sight of the Kremlin walls as he walked home from a cafe.

It was the most high-profile killing of an opposition figure in Putin's 15-year rule.

The killing caused shock among Russia's liberal opposition, but they draw their support only from the relatively small urban middle class. The vast majority of Russians back Putin. For them, Nemtsov was a marginal figure tainted by his role in government in the chaotic 1990s.

SCRIBBLED NOTE

Nemtsov's closest aide told Reuters that the day before his death he clandestinely scribbled a note to her about how he was investigating the involvement of Russia's military in fighting in east Ukraine.

No one has produced any direct evidence the Kremlin had anything to do with Nemtsov's killing.

People from the Caucasus have been named as suspects in other assassinations, including those of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist critical of the Kremlin, in 2006 and of Paul Klebnikov, a U.S. citizen and journalist with the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, in 2004.

Politkovskaya's supporters say the Chechens sentenced for her killing were low-level foot soldiers, and that investigators failed to find out who was behind her murder.

Four Arrested

Although two were the trigger-men, four have now been arrested. KP.RU reports Two More Arrested. Details are scant.

Media Myths Shattered

Media Myth: Nemtsov was a well-liked, high-profile opposition leader.
Reality: The vast majority of Russians back Putin.

Media Myth: Putin had everything to gain by killing Nemtsov.
Reality: Nemtsov was a marginal figure tainted by his role in government in the chaotic 1990s. He was no threat to Putin. Indeed, Putin had everything to lose and nothing to gain by making a martyr out of Nemtsov.

Media Myth: (as originally reported). Putin shut off video cameras, and that makes Putin a prime suspect.
Reality: Cameras were operative and that helped track the killers.

Media Myth: Nemtsov's closest aide told Reuters that the day before his death he clandestinely scribbled a note to her about how he was investigating the involvement of Russia's military in fighting in east Ukraine.
Reality: Perhaps he scribbled a note. Who knows? More importantly, so what? Why Reuters made a big issue in with an all capitalized subtitle is a mystery. It is well understood that Nemtsov sided with Kiev in the Ukraine civil war. The reality is that Nemtsov's position on the war marginalized him and his party.

Conspiracy Theory Number One

The Putin haters will believe this was all some massive, extremely well planned conspiracy in which the police were purposely late to investigate, that Putin ordered the hit because he needed to get rid of Nemtsov because Nemtsov had some huge news on the war in Ukraine.

Conspiracy Theory Number Two

Ukraine, in hyperinflation, having just lost many key battles in the Ukraine civil war, whose government came into power in suspicious means with no one arrested for the sniper attacks that started it all, is behind this mess, needing sympathy from the IMF and weapons from the US.

Conspiracy Theory Number Three

The CIA wants to destabilize Russia and paid for the hit.

Simple Theory One

Someone in Russia or Ukraine wanted to make a martyr out of Nemtsov.

Simple Theory Two

Men from a region of Russia known for taking out prominent political figures had some other grudge against Nemtsov

Assessing the Possibilities

The anti-Putin crowd will cling to conspiracy theory one, and the anti-US crowd to theory conspiracy number three.

I will be the first to admit any of the above five theories is possible. Degree of likelihood is in the eyes of the beholder, but Occam's Razor suggests simple theories over more complex ones.

Regardless, once again I conclude there is no need to rush to judgment.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Seth's Blog : The narcissism of minor differences

The narcissism of minor differences

Really?

You're arguing about that trivial difference between us?

Substantive disagreement is rarely the issue that splits tribes, destroys thriving groups or wastes time at meetings. Instead, it's our desire to carve out a little space for ourselves in a group that seems to agree on almost everything.

The work is too important to sidetrack about the things we disagree on.

Point out this narcissism when you see it and move on to the important stuff, to amplifying the things we agree on.

[HT to Ernest Crawley who has one of the coolest resumes ever. And then appropriated by Freud.]