after first read - ERE book big idea

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SF
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Post by SF »

So I finished reading the ERE book a few weeks ago and put it on the shelf. This is the type of book I plan to re-read in a month or two, after the first pass has filtered into my brain. (The book deserves this.)
The big idea that sticks with me from this first read is ERE strategy vs tactics. This is really a life lesson, one that I'm surprised I hadn't really fully learned*.
Before ERE, even having read YMOYL, I was focused on tactics, techniques. I was all about good stuff like Quicken, budgets, investing, reducing costs, and ditching expensive hobbies. But I mostly hadn't viewed these as a whole, or how they could work synergistically and be flexible.
Now I'm trying to piece together a strategy. To write it down, to draw out the network. I don't have it all now, but I have a plan to have a plan.
Thanks again for the book Jacob.


jacob
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Post by jacob »

On a slightly related note, I've been wondering whether the book (chapter 5 in particular) would be helpful to business executives. I've thought of reaching out to some management consultants (Peter Senge, maybe?) to see what they think.


AlexOliver
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Post by AlexOliver »

I bought and read the book when it came out, then immediately swapped it on PBS so I would have time to process it. Now, it's here from the library, and I find myself referencing it every hour or so.


Surio
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Post by Surio »

Jacob,

I wouldn't stop you from giving it a try. Since you have an "audience base" going for you, you can wave that at them, so they'll know you're not some stupid upstart with a great 'idea' alone.
OTOH, I'm not so sure if Management Consultants would be willing to listen at this stage! E.W.Djikstra wrote this aptly-titled essay: How do we tell truths that might hurt? as early as in 1975! We now know when or even if those Computing problems got resolved..... It took a Y2K scare before companies moved to even look at old COBOL code!
I heard this podcast from Motley Fool (30 mins long) recently. Go on, give it a listen.
All that woman (Director General of Saga, Dr. Ros Altmann) did throughout the talk was

Conveniently placed the entire UK pension blame at politicians' feet (OK, there's truth in that!)
Argued that people must be prepared to work longer than 65-70 because they are living longer anyway! (I couldn't beat <b>that type of logic</b> even if I tried/could)
Yet more blame at Govt to tackle ageism to promote above proposal
More promotion of the "spend-spend" debt-based economy..... Hilarious logic around eating out in restaurants and getting your hair done in hair-saloon/salon

Well, I don't want to go on and on, her saving grace was emphasis that people must save more (thereby contradicting her earlier restaurant/barbers logic!)
My suspicion is, the current crop are all like her and dyed in the (same) wool consumerism junkies. Although I seriously don't wish for it, we do need a "good" catastrophe before people would be willing to give it a serious listen (Even Vaclav Smil, who starts out painting catastrophe, ends up with "Human beings can solve any problem, they need to be forced into it type of balderdash!", and then goes on to advocate "fracking" as a solution)....
Chances are you might get lip service for ERE, or you'll get lectured about how you have to change your message to "reach a larger audience".
Your call, man.


AlexOliver
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Post by AlexOliver »

This is a little off topic but... wrt "Argued that people must be prepared to work longer than 65-70 because they are living longer anyway!"
When social security was introduced, average life expectancy was somewhere around 55, so a withdrawal age of 62 seems reasonable. At an average life expectancy of 78, it doesn't. So yes, if people want to use SS/a government pension system as their only retirement income, they should have to put up with working longer/withdrawing at a later age.
Wrt reaching out to management consultants, it can't hurt.


ShaneEde
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Post by ShaneEde »

I haven't got a copy any more, as mine was a review copy that I passed along to someone else to review.
Jacob, is there an ETA on the auctions or sales of those copies to benefit Yakezie? I'd like to have a "to keep" copy so have been waiting for those to come up. If it'll be a while, I might try to pick it up on PBS or Amazon.


Surio
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Post by Surio »

Alex,

That's the same kind of "linear logic" that woman in the talk uses too, but if you thought about it, that's not the only factor here...
What about the number of youg people coming to work every year (poulation 6.5 bilion and growing as we write)? Part of their Jobs should be those vacated by the old guard (Back to that ever-growing economy now)? This was the hilarity is suggesting that young people can work in salons/waiters where the working old people can go out and eat/stylise. Also jobs never stay in the same place anymore, something which Obama conceded with these words in the latest state-of-the-onion address:

"Many people watching tonight can probably remember a time when finding a good job meant showing up at a nearby factory or a business downtown. You didn’t always need a degree, and your competition was pretty much limited to your neighbours. If you worked hard, chances are you’d have a job for life, with a decent paycheck, good benefits, and the occasional promotion. Maybe you’d even have the pride of seeing your kids work at the same company. That world has changed. And for many, the change has been painful.”

So where exactly are we going to find 'stable', part-time jobs tailored for the not-so-physically-able-anymore-when-compared-to-a-30-year-old, perhaps-suffering-from-disease-restrictions... old people in this new-age--economy where jobs are travelling all the time (even away from India/China as we speak)?
More questions I have, but shut up I will!
Not to set off consipracy theories, but in the old, the retirement age was actually 70 and *many* never lived that far to collect their pension (Free money for the system, Woo!). When that little truth got out of the bag, they had to lower it a little bit. This is the same as that "home ownership" myth which was promoted mainly in the 1930s because it was found that "home debt incumbent" workers did not go on strike!
Back to the original discussion then!


jacob
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Post by jacob »

@Surio - I definitely got the "you need to change your message to reach a larger audience" already.
@Shane - Currently it looks like that scheme has fallen victim to the "weakest link" on most of the chains I started, that is, many of the books have now been sitting with the reviewer for a few months(*). I'm not going to push it just yet, after all, many have taken a long time to work their way through the book.
(*) In retrospect I should have realized that this would be a likely outcome.


Surio
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Post by Surio »

@Jacob,

Really, really hate to say this, but "I told you so!".
The vast majority are like that Cipher character in the Matrix (For those that think Matrix is "much ado about nothing", the brothers have publicly acknowledged their tribute to Hinduism/Buddhism philosophy for shaping the (original) Matrix story)!
One bad side-effect of hanging out with too many NT types is that I am starting to see only the very worst in each and everything... :-|
@Alex, I replied to you above.


jacob
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Post by jacob »

Getting back on topic, I suggest reading this

http://www.arscives.com/bladesign/harmony.htm
Reading tips is using nikugen to expand tengen (subjective understanding). The erebook is written on the level of egen (intepretative sight or strategizing). I somewhat allude to [personal and cultural goal of] reaching shingen in chapter 7, but I leave this up to the individual reader to avoid sounding too preachy/new=agey (even though this is an entirely rational thing to do).
There are many other ways of seeing these levels. This is just the most recent one I've come across. There's a similar one in chapter 4-5 in the book with the six levels, c-c-c-c-c-c, which parallels this.


Surio
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Post by Surio »

I have to vent it somewhere.... Jacob pointed to me in December where to get the book in India (which I ordered instantly, curiosity killed the cat!), and I am still beset by delays in getting my hands on ERE book.... Blast and Shoot!
Jacob, also thanks for writing about the Book of Five Rings in the blog. That was an instantaneous hit with me (Imported edition! Boo on the price!). Loved it! DW is still scratching her head so we have some 'classes' at times... I am puzzled at how she is struggling. I feel she is rationalising too much? P.S: Was it easy reading for you?


jacob
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Post by jacob »

@Surio - The first time I read the book of five rings (when I was 20-early) it was largely lost on me. Recently I was able to get much deeper into it. It kinda helps a bit when you know a little about handling a sword as Musashi will explicitly discuss fighting tactics from time to time, e.g. (I'm making this up) "If you are faced with a taller enemy stand with your sword in gedan and fix your eyes in the distance as if beholding Fujiyama..."). It's the same with The Art of War. They have to be read in the right frame of mind---egen or better; if not ... "what does having a swamp to the left of my position have to do with my life"-questions pile up.


AlexOliver
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Post by AlexOliver »

"What about the number of youg people coming to work every year (poulation 6.5 bilion and growing as we write)? Part of their Jobs should be those vacated by the old guard (Back to that ever-growing economy now)?"
There are much less people coming into the workforce than leaving it, or that will be the case soon, as the baby boomers retire. Population growth is slowing and will begin to decline soon, which creates a problem for social services that depend on a large number of employed people supporting a small number of unproductive people. The average age of the world is growing.
"So where exactly are we going to find 'stable', part-time jobs tailored for the not-so-physically-able-anymore-when-compared-to-a-30-year-old, perhaps-suffering-from-disease-restrictions... old people in this new-age--economy where jobs are travelling all the time (even away from India/China as we speak)?"
I'm not really sure what you're saying. Baby boomers aren't going to get new jobs all of a sudden, they're going to stay in the ones they have, pushing the younger generation (me!) out of the workforce, as is clear in unemployment statistics. An employer can't force an employee to retire, only fire them, which they can't do based on age because of discrimination laws, or make it very appealing to them, by giving them a large severence or pension or something.


Surio
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Post by Surio »

@Alex,

There's still a lot of linear thought, i.e., my above points were to serve as a wander-off points for you to build-upon the larger crisis in having people being asked to stick on and on, and not for this kind of one-to-one addressing back and forth. If either of us start nit-picking, we can and will do it very effectively, much to the forums' amusement but not to the development of the understanding.
I believe, you will understand it yourself, that it is definitely not as cut-and-dried as you or Ros Altmann puts it if you look deep enough. Briefly I address some points:
1. Population growth: Ahh..very tricky. Grows in some but peters in some others. And that itself causes ths wheel of globalised "I, Pencil" world to jam badly(*). To dove-tail your "social services" comment with population; Japan has negative population growth but they are xenophobic so they've invested robots to look after the elderly. In such scenarios, retirement/pension discussions are non sequiturs, right? :-(
(*) One book title sums it eloquently: "If it rains in Brazil, buy Starbucks stocks"!
2. But where population does grow, employers flock, since they prefer "eager, young minds" (for various reasons). Ahh, the travesty of modern economic models! Personally I refer working with curmugudgeonly folks of some cynical worldview, but then again, I am not even a "cult leader", so who gives a damn about my views!
3. Working in a coal-mine killed you early and differently, pushing papers and not knowing when you will stop this will kill you very differently.... Blood pressure, heart disease, insomnia..... Therefore, it would not be so easy finding part-time jobs either, if the old jobs move to Chile! One example: A heart-disease sufferer can only work part time stacking bread-loaves... they cannot lug the "tins" or other "mega-sized-supermarket-tubs"... So how many supermarket jobs you'll have when the oldies do need to work again? You can find more such thoughts.....
4. AFAIK, when you reach "retirable" age, you will be edged out (and yes all kinds of novel means are used every day to get around legislation, Trust me!), all except in academia where the fogeys stay until you pry the "chair" our of their cold, dead, bum!
Please think of a global scale.... Companies engineer movement of jobs all the time with deliberate intention of keeping workers in a state of anxiety.... "M&A", "outsourcing", "JVs", "synergistic partnerships with offshore collaborators", "virtual office assistants", etc...etc... laws/severance/pension arguments notwithstanding.
And there is only so much faith I put in "market forces" to "create jobs" (as if by magic). Left solely to that we end up with all those looney ideas that young people can work in restaurants/salons and service the old people continuing to work comes from.... Sort of communism but packaged differently...Reminds me of Soviet jokes: (Yesterday:) Comarades, dig a ditch... (Today:) comarades, fill it up.... (Tomorrow@Politburo:) Look at all the work and productivity our system has designed
Also, the lady in the podcast was suggesting to have lotteries thatpay out million quid occasionally for pension fund contributers to keep them "hooked to idea of savings". That antagonised her in my eyes even more.... Lotteries as a concept cause more pain and misery and ruin than society cares to admit!
I think this is getting too long. If anyone with a non-NF background can understand this and word a crisp NT-readable exec. summary, I would be grateful.


Surio
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Post by Surio »

Re: previous post:

One example: A heart-disease sufferer can only work part time stacking bread-loaves... they cannot lug the "tins" or other "mega-sized-supermarket-tubs"... So how many supermarket jobs you'll have when the oldies do need to work again? You can find more such thoughts.....

Question for you: Since 1 in 3 seem to get a triple bypass these days, How many bread-loaf stacker jobs can actually be created ?
One more thing:

Even if people do live longer, the physical condition and health of the large average is severely impaired by several ailments... I know old friends from college working in corporates (at the clueless level) on prescription medicine ofor cholestrol, hormone imbalance and severe stress. I despair to think of them in 45! Imagine them asked to continue working past 65.

Argument 1: They are passionate and want to work, so let them continue: Truth is, Do they may not know any better or any different? I resist Gervais-principle discussions with some of them, because they might just collapse from the realisation!
Argument 2: I think that we are indulging in an insiduous form of "bean counter nazism" by looking at the numbers on the left, the payouts on the right and asking them to grab their shovels and pick-axes once more because they will live longer anyway! I knew when I was 18, and I am in my mid-30s now... I am fitter than many of my contempararians, but not as fit as my 27 year old half-marathon running self!

It would be cruel for someone who was brainwashed into believing when he joined the workforce 30+ years ago, that he "will get a retirement cake" to stop and smell the roses when he is 65, only to be told today that it is not 65 but 72 or 75...whatever! No No No! There's more to this than simple:
"Do you live longer"?

"Therefore you must work longer" Down with the PWE that has caused this mentality in people!


Surio
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Post by Surio »

And for those intrigued by that title, here's "I, Pencil"
"I, Pencil" is written in the first person from the point of view of a pencil. The pencil details the complexity of its own creation, listing its components (cedar, lacquer, graphite, ferrule, factice, pumice, wax, glue) and the numerous people involved, down to the sweeper in the factory and the lighthouse keeper guiding the shipment into port.
And I have written about the PWE in my blog too!


ShaneEde
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Post by ShaneEde »

@jacob Yeah, the book isn't one that you want to rush through in any case. Too bad that it got stopped up though. I'll have to pick up a copy elsewhere. Getting an itch to re-read it at a much slower pace.


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