Month: May 2020

Categories
advice and tips finance

Industries got disrupted

The recent pandemic hit some industries particularly hard, for example, airlines, hotels, cruises, casinos, car rental (enterprise layoff), car dealer and other hospitality and sport venues. The impact will be more wide spreading when we saw even the healthcare industry (for the lack of good word) is doing layoffs (BJC; SSM, Mercy), because one of the revenue stream elective surgery were cancelled in the COVID-19 world. Many laid off workers were hoping for a quick come back though, I sympathize with their thinking, but I also believe “hope” is not a strategy.

Over the time US industries go through a lot of changes, some grow, some shrink. A good example is Uber / Lyft are taking a lot of market share from the taxi because of lower price / smart phone integration. I worked for Arch Coal and Mercy between 2011 and 2015, and I can see both industries were not on a solid footing due to various reasons (both internal and external, mostly external forces). For example, Coal is replaced by natural gas in many power plant. For healthcare, government regulations is not helping providers financially. Because I work in IT / software world, I can switch between industries: I feel lucky in that sense.

Another industry is shrinking in recently years is the media esp. the newspaper. They were disrupted by Google News, Facebook news feed and twitter. People get news in new and different ways from the traditional newspaper. I think both Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger said similar things about that. Traditional cable TVs were on that trend too, as streaming and other over the tv top devices are getting more popular. So think about working for Netflix, Disney+, Roku instead of the local news paper or local tv station. It’s a trend and it usually take sometime for the complete or big shift, but we are getting there.

One thing I am interested to see, is how the grocery store, and Costco plays out. In the near term, I felt people are going to Costco less. And going to local grocery store (Schnucks or Aldi here), or using Instacart more. I am the former group.

And colleges too. I am not sure how fall semester will play out.

Last but not least, I am interested to help out any one (IT, software) who were impacted by the pandemic and I can do job referral or mock interview. Just let me know. My twitter handle is @stlplace

Categories
advice and tips finance

Leadership failure and control things we can control

The handling of #pandemic in the USA is unthinkable a few years ago. But at the same time, it’s not totally uncharted territory as in my last 20+ years here in the US, I have seen at least 3 major incidents or economy crisis following it.

One is the dot com bust, then followed by 9-11-2001, those two are not directly related, but it’s a transition between Clinton administration to Bush administration, things fell through crack. I recall the 16% layoff at my company on 10-11-2001 (a month after 9-11), and the cry from my coworker that being laid off that day. Again the bigger layoff was due to the fact our company acquired a competitor, thus the redundancy. Note the air travel become much more strict since 9-11, before that I can go to airport terminal to send off or to greet family or friends. Now we need to take out laptop, iPad, take off coat, belt, and shoes. Basically the implicit trust between people were lost.

Anyway, Bush administration handled the initial crisis fairly decent, until it started invading Iraq, which has huge legal, moral, economy and human cost. But the US economy largely recovered and grew under Bush with a few glitches such as the handling of Hurricane Katrina, etc. Then in 2007, 2008, the housing crisis started to unravel, as shown in the documentary / movie: too big to fail starred by Hank Paulson. I watched it again recently and it reminded me of the days when CNBC does this crisis show in the evenings, and some weekends / Sunday were mostly working sessions for big guys in Wall Streets, and Fed / Treasury dept, and then some banks either went under or got bought. The most recent event reminds me some of that too.

But the #pandemic mismanagement is another level. Basically the US has about 2 months to prepare, and the federal government lost all this due to poor judgement and shear stupidity. Also unfortunately some people in the US has similar IQ as the guy in the WH. So basically politics got in the way, and the society suddenly stopped schools, and office work in mid March. And the unemployment, and pain to people in hospitality and small business is unimaginable (36 million people unemployed). The only thing that alleviate the pain a bit is the government (esp fed) realized the issue and basically started flood the money to the system, and the stimulus from congress esp. on PPP (payroll protection plan), bail out of airlines (similar to PPP, basically pay airline employees through the end of Sept).

Now, back to us, things we can control. No. 1 is still social distancing, good hygiene (hand washing, hand sanitizer, mask, social distancing). On personal finance side, if we don’t have a lot of spare cash, we need to manage our cash flow carefully, and be creative. The goal is get fed, be healthy (mind and body). Don’t raid the 401k or IRAs, if possible. Apply unemployment or PPP (small business owners). Contact the food banks if needed. Sell unused items on eBay or other sites. Cut cable TVs if applicable. There are still jobs at Amazon, or Walmart, just make sure you have enough PPE (mask, hand sanitizer) etc. Also, it’s never too old to learn about personal finance. My sense of people lack of saving is two fold: 1) The income is low, paycheck to paycheck; 2) The math can be improved. So focus on that, see if one can save $10, or $20 a month. If it’s $30 a month, it will be $360 a year, and there was a report saying 40% of Americans don’t have $400 in bank. So basically one can beat almost 40% of the people by saving $33 a month.

For me personally, this is the first financial crisis since I have two kids. I am older, and have a little more savings (due to the sale of condo recently). I am earning a bit more from work too (that part is not given). And personally I felt more confident on stock market (this is not given either, as I usually only long stocks. I have some winners such as $OKTA, and losers such as $DIS). Surprisingly I am not overly worried. Probably due to the fact I had been through layoffs and etc. Probably because I am older and wiser 🙂

Control things we can control

This is actually from my former CIO at arch coal, Dave Hartley. Arch Coal was in a pretty bad financial situation when I was there, 2011 to 2012. The company was cutting cost and our CIO was using that motto to encourage us. And I think it’s very much applicable today. I also recall Warren Buffett famously said “don’t bet against American”. My takeaway is majority of Americans are fair minded, decent, willing to work hard given opportunity, some have good entrepreneurship, and so on. I don’t want to put an cliche here: together we can win. But the reality is we are dealt with the cards we were dealt with. We can make the most / best out of it. We cannot change the cards.

Bonus read: so in summary, for 9-11, I think both President Clinton and president Bush bear responsibility. For 2008 financial crisis, President Bush. Pandemic, we know who to blame (hint: not China or Bill Gates 🙂

Categories
advice and tips

Stereotype II and racism

(Wrote some more after seeing Breonna Taylor news): I was watching the PBS Asian American series. A few comments pops out in my mind: I did not realize there is discrimination against Indian American before watching this. Then an Indian American commentator said: basically the new immigrants wanted to be seen as “white”, or as minimum they want to be in between the white (I guess the ruling class), and the black (African American). This reminds me Joe Biden once commented on Barack Obama (this guy is clean). I know Joe likes to put his foot into his mouth, but what does mean?! Maybe Joe just said “politically incorrect” thing in a lot white people’s mind? Also please note Obama is mostly raised by his mom (white) and his maternal grandma (and grandpa, both white). || So my point here is while the United States always like to criticize other people / other countries’s human rights record, what about the African Americans at home?! Caging the immigrants children is another level.

(Original) I wrote about this a while ago in Chinese.

In light of the Ahmaud Arbery’s killing, I like to add more. 2 or 3 minutes read below.

Years ago I was in Rolla, driving my first car, a run-down Toyota Celica 1984 black, my American friend (graduate student, caucasian) joked I could be pulled over by police because of my car. He said his good old American Buick or Pontiac would do fine with police. I did get pulled over a few times, some are my own fault, such as my tail light was not working, or I did not drive straight (I was new driver, they think I was drunk). But I agree with some of things he said. Then in 2006, I talked to my roommate (young professional, caucasian too), and I said John Edwards may have the best chance break out from the Dems presidential primary because Hilary is woman, Obama is African American, and people here are not ready for them yet. I was wrong: I still remember the election night Nov 2008 I was on the way from Little Rock to St. Louis, I took the delta flight transfer in Atlanta which is unnecessary because the Southwest has direct flight. At Atlanta airport it looks like Obama was going to win (McCain is a good guy though).

I also remember Eric Holder (Obama’s AG) said he got pulled over from state highway patrol for no reason. I think things changed somewhat after Ferguson, black lives matter, but obviously took a step back in recent years too. I can see similar kind of racism in China too (against Africans live and work in Guangzhou).

Overall, over the time though, I do see two things: 1) Majority of people are decent, and they can tell right or wrong, and be on the right side of the history (in the US, that means civil war, women’s voting rights, the civil rights, etc), in the current pandemic they believe in science, wear facemarks when needed, and respect the frontline workers, and when possible, support the less fortunate. 2) In tough times though, we also see both the best and the worst of human beings, for example, I can see people calling Bill Gates the globalist (elitist), call for punish China or incite violence in Hong Kong, the armed militias storm the state capitols etc. Those are on the wrong side of the history, and they are minorities.

A bit off topic, the bottomline is racism is stupid and has no place in our world… (now you know, you don’t want me to say something 

Categories
fun kids

Family photos

Family photos of my grandma, my father, me, and my 2 older brothers. This was taken by my father’s friend in middle 1970s (1976?). It appears both my 2nd brother and myself did not start school yet, as we did not have the red collars on our necks: a bit like boy scouts and girl scouts here. It was in the courtyard of our family home in Xiaomeng, Ningbo, Zhejiang province. I stayed and studied in the village elementary school until the very beginning of grade 5. My grandma passed away when I was in the senior year of high school (late 1988). My mom was not in the picture because she was working. Photography was a luxury at the time as China was an impoverished nation at that time. Bicycle, sewing machine and watch were the 3 luxury items young couple like to have when they getting married at that time. Now it’s the house (apartment, which is unaffordable in Shanghai, Beijing and other major cities). I am guessing I was 5 at that time, my brothers were 7 and 9 years old. Now I am probably more than 15 years older than my father on the picture.

I think the first picture is 1976 (they are one picture, I snapped the original picture using my iPhone a few years ago when I visited my childhood home). I added another picture which is June 1961: I saw my uncle there (mom’s big brother, he passed away 2 years ago, he was 87 years old). I found that picture online (https://www.sohu.com/a/243472385_467312) when I searched for my uncle’s name and the school he was the head (Baifeng middle schoo. He was 30 years old in that picture).

My uncle / my mom’s big brother, Hu Jinyu 胡金雨, is shown in the second row (counting from left, the fourth person, I can see some resemblance with my mom / maternal grandma). He is the first head of Baifeng Middle School.

Categories
advice and tips

Layoffs

This piece is a continuation of the piece I wrote last night about the economy and the mass layoff. Layoff is just a way of life in corporate America (note this includes non-for-profit org as well). There are couple things in the US about layoff that makes life harder: 1) The health insurance is usually associated with employment for lots of white collar jobs, losing a job also usually means the loss of health insurance of the employee, let’s say if that employee is the breadwinner of the family, that also means the family will lose health insurance. This is both costing money and inconvenient. 2) Unemployment insurance: usually it pays between $350 to $600 per week (depends on the state, living cost etc), the duration (usually 6 months) usually depends on state too. These are practical things or consequences, some employers do offer some severance pay (but usually most US employers don’t have generous severance pay). So in this scenario, the money let’s say $2400 a month is not enough to cover both health insurance for a family and a mortgage (or rent), not to mention food and car payments. Please note there was a survey last year that 40% of American does not have $400 in the bank.

Manage Emotion

There is other factors that come to play as well, in many cases those factors are actually more significant compared to the money side of the things. Let’s assume this person or family has enough money to survive before the impacted employee finds a new job. Let’s just say the other spouse brings enough bacon home. The main thing I want to say, from my personal experience is the stigma, or the rejection feeling from the layoff experience. I have seen in couple cases, grown up coworkers, cannot stop crying when they were asked to leave. I think maybe it’s the first time they experience this. Fortunately for me, I have seen these movies before personally experiencing something like this. There could be signs (looking back), such as the announcement of potential layoffs from CEO, or the secretary (admin assistant) looking away when I looked at her a few days before layoff (again this was a small company, and they did not do things large orgs do: their ways of orchestrate is more sophisticated, and usually not given away quickly. It’s very hard to overcome the rejection feeling, my personal experience this is a bit like dating a girl, and being rejected. Usually only time can heal to some extent, one may say “move on to next girl friend or next job”, but for some people I think this feeling never truly or 100% goes away. But it’s something we need to manage or control. Because those ill feeling is not good for health. One bible verse I like on this topic is: And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us (Mt 6: 12). I recall seen a passage on a friend’s desk the day after I found out my contract ended earlier I thought: I was expecting to convert to full time employee after certain time.

My suggestion

The most useful advice I received once is the lady who is a consultant hired by the employer, and her job is help transition (polish resume, job search strategy etc). I actually did not go to their sessions. But on that fateful day, the thing left me impression is “take care of yourself first“. Basically step back, recoup, take some rest, before restart. Usually I was not in that type of fortunate position (again the breadwinner role in my family). we usually do have some savings but don’t want to burn the cash too fast. I recall in 2011 when I experienced this the first time, I still went to the Bread Co. for dinner (to go), and I think we had about 40k in the bank, but feel a bit uneasy about spending $20 or $30 for family dinner: myself, my wife and one year old daughter. In the most recent experience, due to my age, I feel the age discrimination is prevalent (it’s illegal in the US, but many places practice this anyway, because it’s hard to find evidence for candidates). Another reason in the job search situation, it’s usually buyer’s market, unless the labor market is unusually tight or hot.

Ironically, due to my new job, I have interviewed (mostly tech screen) many candidates for developers, or architect position since last July. I will write up some job search strategy, and interview tips in my next series. Do remember another tip: this is something I heard from a wise gentleman (law professor), he said “it may not necessarily a bad thing for you, as it gives you some new perspectives and look for new things otherwise you don’t proactively go out and search”. So there is that: a wise perspective.