On Wednesday 2nd June I attended Real Madrid – Caja Laboral basketball match at Vistalegre. Even in the case of winning, I was not going be able to attend the following match on Friday 4th and I had a gut feeling that it was going to be the last match I watched at Vistalegre since Real Madrid is moving to La Caja Mágica next season. Moreover, I am not sure whether next year I will take the season-ticket again, so I felt like taking pictures to remember the last 3 years of basket experience.
Even though the team has not won a single title since we started attending matches I must say that it has been a great fun. It all started on the late summer of 2007, when my two friends Pablo´s talked about taking those tickets, and I joined them.
We have had the chance to see great teams (CSKA Moscow, Panathinaikos, Barcelona, Maccabi, TAU…) and great players (Navarro, Rudy, Garbajosa, Papaloukas, Jasikevicius…).
Each year we had to learn about the new signings, which all seemed promising then they weren’t that good (Smith, Tunceri, Pelekanos, Tomas, Hosley, Massey, Papadopoulos, Velickovic, Lavrinovic, …) and the team had to rely mostly on the same players than years before.
This last year seemed even more promising than the previous two: we had signed the best coach in Europe, all new players seemed very effective from the start, the speaker of the stadium really cheered the audience, we were doing great in all competitions, the club even reinstated cheerleaders, when we had a setback an even flashier player would come (Jaric), but then, the year has ended as the previous ones.
One of the best things along these years have been the matches on Thursdays, meaning a break in the work week, a chance to meet friends and have a kebab for dinner where to continue talking about planes, the company, etc.
Maybe next year will be a better one, though I’m afraid I won’t be in the North side whistling rival attacks and referees decisions…
Two weeks ago I attended the Toastmasters District 59 Conference, “Springtime at the Beach”, in The Hague. This was the first time I attended such a conference, and I was impressed at the level of the speakers and the organization of the conference itself.
Being an Area Governor, for me the event lasted two days and half, starting on Friday June 4th afternoon with an executive committee meeting, following with the start of the conference, later the evaluation contest and a party with divisions showcase. That wasn’t a slow start.
On Saturday we had some workshops, the elections of new officers and the international speech contest. The way the conference, workshops and elections are held reminded me very much of my time at AEGEE and how there the Agorae were held; even some of the topics covered are similar, the way sometimes the focus is put on the procedure and not on listening at length to what the candidates plan to do if elected, etc…
On Sunday we had more workshops and the training for the new district officers (namely Division and Area Governors).
International Speech Contest. This is the main attraction of the event. We could say that we paid the 135€ fee of it to attend this contest. We had 10 speeches, one representing each division. As I wrote above, the level was very high. I couldn’t see a clear winner; a prove of that is that only one of my 3 favourites came among the 3 first ones. The winner, Na Elom Amouh, told us about his journey from Togo to Munich and how we should never give up in the pursuit of our dreams. A motivational speech. In general, most speeches in these competitions tend to call the audience for noble purposes, inspire good behaviours, etc. I must admit that some of those speeches do get to move you.
Evaluation Contest. Here, the participants had to evaluate a very good speech from former District Gov Christopher Magyar. This is not an easy task, as it is always more difficult to find points of improvement. Even though in this contest the level was very high as well, with very analytical and encouraging evaluations, this time my 3 favourites came in the first 3 positions, the winner being Tara Majumdar.
Miscellanea. There are many small details, side happenings, different situations that contribute to enlarge the baggage the one takes from the conference.
The landscape surrounding the conference letting members to relax.
The music being played in the plenary sessions, especially the banners parade bringing up the spirits of all attendees.
The chance to have meals in the terrace.
The wonderful garden for the gala party and the party at the beach.
The attentive organisers… the continuous availability of stroop waffles, coffees, etc.
The counting of votes behind the scenes… when each one is coming up with a different number!
The entertaining way in which chairs conducted the contests.
The experience of tweeting the event (from @TM_Madrid and @javierirastorza)…
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Learning experience. Overall, the conference is an intense learning experience. You learn how others organise officers’ trainings, set up clubs, give recognition to members, set up workshops, and use different techniques and skills in public speaking… To end this post I wanted to remark two workshops that I attended and especially liked:
Pecha Kucha: this is a presentation technique originally from Japan that consists of preparing a presentation that consists of 20 slides, each one lasting 20 seconds and that will run automatically. You, the presenter, can’t stop it so you need to time yourself to precisely convey your different messages when each slide is being shown. It was very dynamic and I think it’s a nice challenge to try it one day. Check out the calendar of Pecha Kucha nights in different cities around the World.
Youth Leadership Program: this is Toastmasters program for youngsters. A couple of Toastmasters explained how they have carried it in a school with teenagers. From what I saw, it must be a very rewarding experience, a way to give back something to society and at the same time a way to help young students improve their skills. This is also another challenge I might try one day.
Next District conference… in Barcelona; I’ve already booked my place there!
Last weekend, Luca and I went to Casablanca. We had planned this trip together with two friends who could not come in the last-minute. Indeed the trip had been mainly planned by them, so we found ourselves in the plane reading some papers trying to discover what was to be seen in Casablanca (“Casa”), where we were staying, how to get there and so on (by the way, now that I mention the flight, the two Easyjet flights were with 1 hour delay each as have been 90% of the flights I have experience with them… by far this is the least reliable airline that I have ever used). I normally tend to thoroughly prepare my trips, so this was an unusual experience.
Casa is not one of the seven wonders but it is a nice city to spend a weekend out, especially if you have never been to Morocco as was our case.
Out of the comfort zone.
The main attraction is the Hasan II mosque, which is huge, located by the sea and surrounded by a wonderful park. It is very nicely illuminated by night as well. When we got there, guided visits were just finished… but the odds where that we were asking about visits to the right person in the right moment… a worker of the mosque who apparently earns some extra cash by opening the doors discretionarily and making “private” tours at will.
There we were, together with some other 4 tourists, visiting the interior, making pictures and wondering how much this would cost. When we were getting out I left a 20 dirham (~2€) note in the guy’s hand, he saw it and looked at me with smiley face a bit tilted down like saying “Javier, come on, you know this doesn’t make up for it”… well, this was the first experience I can recall of such a situation. I didn’t have a clue of how much I was supposed to give (the official visit cost 120 dirham per person, 240MAD in total) or how much others had given; the only thing I knew is that in my pocket I only had one more note of 20MAD and some others of 200MAD… so I took the 20MAD one, place it in his hand and left without ever turning my head back.
The previous anecdote clearly put us out of our comfort zone. We were out there in some other situations as well. I would say that in many of them you have the feeling that someone out there wants to cheat you. So you end up negotiating for everything which hasn’t got attached a price tag to it. So there I was bringing down prices (in my poor French!): a pair of babouches down 15MAD, a funny camel down 5MAD, a taxi down 7 MAD, another taxi down 30MAD… so much stress, so much effort to save 57MAD, less than 5.7€!! At least you get to practice negotiation skills…
The low prices that make you mad when seeing the outcome of the negotiations, on the other hand, have the positive effect that you can easily afford dining in very good places such as La Fibule and La Sqala, both by the sea; and both culinary experiences being part of the highlights of the visit.
Sightseeing. The other two main attractions for us were walking through the Medina Habous and the Ancienne Medina. We liked it more the architecture in Habous, though we had a deeper “cultural” immersion in the Ancienne one. Before going for dinner the first night, we decided to have a walk around, so we went into the Medina and took one street left, one right, then… we found ourselves walking without any sense of direction, in some crowded streets without any single tourist.
I then made the comment “it feels so safe to walk here without having read in a travel guide that we should not walk here after certain time and in these not well-lit streets”. As I said we hadn’t read anything in advance, and only now I have checked that indeed some sites make the point of it being a dangerous place by night… well, sometimes it may be better not to let that fear get into you by reading such things in advance.
There were plenty of other mosques that you may not visit, but that you notice especially when all of them call for the prayer time at once. Hear their choir recorded from the great terrace that our hotel had at the rooftop.
Finally, we also visited an old Christian cathedral that now is used as an art gallery.
Last weekend, on top of attending family visits and a wedding, I could spare some time in two different fairs: the “VI Feria de la Tapa de Madrid” and the “LXIX Feria del Libro de Madrid”. Both experiences, as it was expected, were a success.
Posters of "VI Feria de la Tapa" and "LXIX Feria del Libro" of Madrid.
In the gastronomic fair I had lunch on Saturday and supper on Sunday, the day it closed. There were 38 restaurants and taverns from the Madrid region represented in the fair, and each one of them brought 4 or 5 different tapas. By chance, while we were there on Sunday evening it was taking place the contest to elect the best tapa… My first thought was “it’s not a bad contest to be judge”, later I thought it better… one thing is to take 6 or 7 tapas at your will and rhythm, and a very different one is to take 38 tapas in a row! Anyway, the judges didn’t look bad at all.
VI Feria de la Tapa.
On Sunday I went to the book fair (I will come more times this year, until June 13th) and I had another please surprise. During the first smooth walk along the stands I stopped by the one of Ecobook bookshop and I asked about a book just to see if they had it by chance, and, they did have it! The book is “Confusión de confusiones” (of which I had already referred to in another post).
This book was written by the Spanish Jose de la Vega and is the first book about the stock market. Once I finish it I’ll write more about it, now I leave here the link of a blog about it.
I remember having seen this graphic in an article published in NRC Handelsblad (Dutch leading newspaper) on November 2007, “Highest house prices in almost 300 years”.
Highest house prices in almost 300 years, published in NRC Handelsblad, 10 Nov. 2007.
Now, some thoughts come to mind:
Once adjusted for inflation, we see the prices have moved during last 300 years in a range from 500k€ – 2.5 M€… so, the highest price is merely 5x the lowest price. In other words, house prices are relatively stable… Should it be otherwise? What worth/assets are extracted from a house?
If you would have put those 500k€ in the year 1650 in some stock or deposit that assured you a 1.5% above inflation, by the time the article was published, end 2007, you would have around 103 M€, 40 times the price of that house at highest housing peak in Dutch history… there will still be people considering houses a good investment.
Not to mention what would have happened to the family who had set up a business back in 1650 and had continued with it all along these 300 years.
Already that summer, in August 2007, we had a warning on the ongoing bubble in the stock markets…
Note: the translation of the graphic was provided by Google and later checked by Luca… (it wasn’t me, not yet).
Como nota de humor en medio de la crisis, y para abundar en el argumento de que las casas no pueden ser un vehículo de inversión, pego el texto de un email que circulaba en verano de 2006 y que a mí me llegó a través de mi amigo Álvaro mientras estudiábamos en Sevilla:
“Me he decidido a coger mi máquina del tiempo y contaros como van las cosas por el futuro:
Afortunadamante no se han cumplido las previsiones de tantos agoreros burbujistas y la vivienda en España ha seguido subiendo un 17% anual durante los últimos 50 años, de este modo nos hemos convertido en el país mas rico del mundo, porque por ejemplo un ático en la castellana cuesta mas que el estado de California y el palacio imperial de Tokio juntos; claro que ya nadie vive en la Castellana ni en ningún otro sitio de Madrid, por que esas casas son para invertir y no para vivir.
Yo por ejemplo aunque trabajo en Madrid me he comprado un piso de 40 metros la mar de apañao en un pueblo del Norte de Burgos, que con la autovía queda a un paso; para pagar la hipoteca nos hemos juntado con otras tres familias: un notario casado con una catedrática de universidad, un subinspector de hacienda casado con una abogada del estado y un magistrado del supremo (subcontratado a traves de una ett) casado con una arquitecta. De este modo destinamos cinco sueldos a la hipoteca y uno para vivir; estamos contentisimos con la compra porque aunque al principio nos está costando un poco luego seguro que ni se nota, además desde que lo compramos hace un año ya ha subido un 17% y por si fuera poco la mujer del notario esta de buena que lo flipas.
Aunque profesionamente no me va mal (soy director general adjunto de una multinacional, aunque también subcontratado a traves de una ett) la verdad es que la inflación que sufrimos al ser el país mas rico del mundo hace que nos tengamos que apretar un poco el cinturón; de todos modos es cuestión de acostumbrarse, cuando tuvimos que empezar a comer chopped de lagartijas todos nos quejamos y ahora se le da vuelta y vuelta en la plancha y tan rico que queda. De cualquier forma, aprovechando que han bajado la edad laboral a los 10 años a ver si saco al churumbel del colegio y lo meto en la ett, que un sueldo mas seguro que ayuda para la hipoteca.
Mi sueldo es de 2.000 tochos netos, el tocho es la moneda que sustituyo al euro cuando nos echaron de la UE a patadas (que fea y que mala es la envidia) y se cotiza a un centimo de euro. En la caja fuerte del banco de españa ya no se guardan lingotes sino ladrillos, que en este país han demostrado ser un valor mucho mas seguro y rentable que el oro.
Tras las guerras atómicas provocadas por los propietarios de vpo de andalucía la población ha quedado reducida a 5 millones de españoles y 50 millones de ecuatorianos trabajando de paletas, se han seguido construyendo 800.000 viviendas anuales (la construcción supone ya el 98% del PIB) y ahora tocamos a unas 20 viviendas por habitante (casi todas vacías porque como dije son viviendas para invertir, no para vivir) . El 90% del suelo esta ya urbanizado y se plantea empezar a construir ciudades en el fondo del mar (no se puede vivir en el fondo del mar, así que serían ciudades solamente para invertir) . Esto es lo que en el mundo se conoce y admira como “el milagro español” y es objeto de numerosos estudios y tesis doctorales en el campo de la psiquiatría. Cada año nos visitan miles de estudiosos de la mente humana de todo el mundo. No me extrañaría que muchos de esos científicos se quedasen porque la verdad es que como en España no se vive en ningún sitio.
Y eso es todo lo que os puedo contar de lo que os espera; voy a ver si cazo unas lagartijas para cenar
In a previous post I commented that in times of crisis it was much better to have your investment in real assets than in government bonds. I gave the typical examples given by Bestinver managers: real assets being portions of an enterprise (stocks), chairs, and pencils, even houses…
While this is true in order to make sure you keep the value of your assets through the crisis period, it is another story when we are talking about investing as in “To commit (money or capital) in order to gain a financial return”. Then I dare to say that buying a house is no investment. When buying a house there are not goods or services produced for others in the hope of a profitable sale; so if someone buys it in the hope of realising some profit that is pure speculation.
After having said this, I wanted to share two graphics from Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for American houses since 1890… In the first graphic you can see that after adjusting for inflation at the end of the 20th century, in absence of crisis and booms the value of a house was nearly the same than 100 years before, merely 10% higher. Why should it be higher if no goods/services are produced? Then you can see the boom that took place in the 2000’s up to mid 2006. That was pure greed and speculation.
Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for American houses, 1890-2006.
In the second graphic you may see the prediction made based on Case-Shiller Home Price Index. The prediction is pretty simple: there is no reason to forecast that homes prices have to stabilise at a higher point than the average of the past 120 years… other way to say that a home does not generate any value (still, it doesn’t destroy value either!).
Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for American houses, 1890-2009 and forecast.
Some weeks ago I had two different conversations with friends. The issue: whether Greek bonds would be a good investment given the yields they are being offered at. I then argued that I didn’t think it was a safe investment, that many countries had defaulted payments, and as a value investor in the making I tried to explain that a much better investment would be to find out there some great stocks at a big discount.
I was also looking for some graphics to send them to prove the point. I had seen those graphics at the annual investors’ forum of the asset management firm Bestinver in different years. They represented how different the outcome of an investment would be for a person living either in Germany in the 1920-30’s or in Argentina in the last 15 years in case this person had invested in the stock market or in government bonds, supposedly safer.
In both cases the investment is much better off when it’s composed of stocks, as they represent a portion of a real company that continues to operate after the crisis and the currency devaluation/hyperinflation period that typically follows. The value of the investment in bonds is suddenly reduced to nearly zero… At that time I didn’t find any of those graphics in the Net, but the other day I found a similar one. Here it goes (note the scale is logarithmic):
Stocks vs. Bonds, 200 years comparison.
Please, note the difference especially between German and Japanese bonds and stocks. But also with US and UK stocks and bonds the difference persists.
The managers of Bestinver year after year repeat the same example: in those situations is much better to be invested in real assets, be it portions of an enterprise (stocks), chairs, and pencils, even houses… all these are assets that once the crisis is over will retain the value they have. However the paper money has no value once the nominal value is devalued.
Some days ago I came across a post in the blog of Randy Tinseth, VP Marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, where he explains the concept of StartupBoeing and invites entrepreneurs to take up the opportunity. StartupBoeing is a website which offers information to entrepreneurs in order to help them build their business plan or run their operations. As it is stated in the web itself:
“The StartupBoeing team assists entrepreneurs in launching new airlines. From concept through launch, StartupBoeing offers guidance, review, analysis, data, resources, contacts, and referrals to qualified startup airlines.”
The first thing I thought was “yes, there is the opportunity to lose your investment”. To be fair, Tinseth points at different moments the difficulty of the business and that it is tough to start-up an airline. Airbus does also have the same concept available to entrepreneurs, in this case is called: Start Me Up.
I looked for the last industry outlook from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the industry association. The figures are appalling (see the table below):
IATA Financial results of the last decade.
Airlines around the world have lost during the last decade 50 billion dollars, with only 2 out of ten years with profits. On average the net profit, loss in this case, was -1.4% of the revenues (over 4 trillion dollars in the decade). Of course, there are airlines making profits, but the industry is not doing well (just remember the last achievements of G. Díaz Ferrán).
“I made the comment that if a capitalist had been present at Kittyhawk back in the early 1900s, he should have shot Orville Wright. He would have saved his progeny money.
But seriously, the airline business has been extraordinary. It has eaten up capital over the past century like almost no other business because people seem to keep coming back to it and putting fresh money in.
You’ve got huge fixed costs, you’ve got strong labour unions and you’ve got commodity pricing. That is not a great recipe for success.
I have an 800 (free call) number now that I call if I get the urge to buy an airline stock. I call at two in the morning and I say: “My name is Warren and I’m an aeroholic.” And then they talk me down.”
So, yes, if you are considering whether to start-up an airline, do yourself a favour: call that 800 number, and put your cash somewhere else where it returns more than -1.4%…
The one thing we should definitely praise from these initiatives is the information resources available to the general public, something commented by readers of Randy’s blog and a purpose expressed in the Startup website as well:
“StartupBoeing.com also has a wider purpose as a resource to pass on information to our customers – and also as a resource for existing airlines, financial institutions, consultants and the leasing community. It’s a place for neutral industry data. We want to help make the industry healthy and make airlines safe, reliable and profitable.”
A couple of Sundays ago I was discussing with my father about Spanish public debt, budget deficits, etc. We both had some figures in mind and I also had some others recorded in the mobile phone, from a conference I had attended at EOI Business School some months before (see the slides below).
Over the table, my father and I were trying to figure out whether the Spanish public debt could reach or not 75% of GDP in two years from now: “given that budget is around 35% of GDP and public debt is around 53% of GDP, then if budget deficit is 12% this would add to the public debt no more than 4% debt over GDP a year”… at that moment I missed having had at hand a detailed view of the Spanish Government Budget of 2010. I wanted to have some TreeMap of the budget like the one I had recently seen from the US 2011 Budget request at The New York Times website.
So I put myself into it. Google docs spreadsheet has among its many gadgets the possibility to draw a Tree Map which is precisely what I wanted to have. First I used some already prepared data from the my job to see how it worked, and, once I saw it was easy, I gathered the data about Spanish Government from the following website (of which I also liked much the way of presenting).
I had seen some treemaps before at the job, but so far not so many outside. So, the main purpose of this post is not to talk about budgets, but to let you know about this gadget which maybe useful in your job. You may see below the gadget I prepared and if you click on it you may see the detailed figures for each one of the chapters, grouped by category.
The one thing I didn’t like much, again, is that WordPress.com is not enabling its users to directly embed this kind of gadgets into the blog… but this has a simple solution that I keep postponing…
The Blog by Javier 