I recommend this book for anyone who is embarking on their own gap year! Rather than being a book on toxic productivity, the book provides a unique perspective on our relationship with time and the need for rest. Many of the points resonated with me and helped me to reflect on my sense of anxiety around time. At the end of the book, the author also provides a list of guiding questions to ask of significant decisions in life - e.g. “In which areas of your life are you holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing? How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?”.

The author plots a unique chart on how different cultures communicate, give feedback, lead and more - across things such as high-context or low-context communication. Interesting point: They found that the largest challenge was when people from two different high context cultures tried to communicate, but there would be misunderstandings as the communication was not direct yet the two parties would not be able to understand each other’s hidden context given their difference in background. In such a case a low-context communication method should be encouraged. The US work culture is the lowest context in terms of communication, and sometimes other cultures can feel annoyed if they perceive the US counterpart of constantly stating the obvious. This book provided some revelations on my past work experiences. The chart for this can easily be found online for a quick view!

I always find it interesting to read about the recent past - in this case the growth and development of the field of quantitative finance through the experience and life of Edward Thorp. I enjoyed reading about his delinquency and pranks as a child, and how that sense of curiosity and experimentation continued into his future career. The book reminded me of a few things - first, the importance of Mathematics, with probability being used to crack the game of Blackjack. Second, that the ways of the work we do are not set in stone, there are opportunities to innovate and ask questions - the finance world as we know it today is actually very very new. Third, to continue to think and question, something that I actually done much less of in the past few years as I learnt to navigate workplaces and their politics.

This book is a long one and took me quite a stretch of time to complete. I read this book upon my return from South Africa, as I felt it would be important to my understanding of the Apartheid, the country’s history and the important figures that shaped its development - including the man that the Johannesburg airport was named after, Oliver Tambo.

On blockchain, crypto and the future of the internet. “Two distinct cultures are interested in blockchains. The first sees blockchains as a way to buld new networks. I call this culture the computer. The other culture is mainly interested in speculation and money making. Those of this mindset see blockchains solely as a way to create new tokens for trading. I call this culture the casino because at its core, it’s really just about gambling”. While we hear a lot on the second perspective in the news, the author helped to build my understanding of the computer culture instead. Stepping away from the bitcoin hype, the author describes why blockchain is being developed and why it is needed.

To quote from the author:

• The read era of the Internet was defined by the website, which encapsulated information. The read-write era was defined by the post, which encapsulated publishing, making it easy for anyone, not just web developers, to read broad audiences. The internet’s latest phase - the read-write-own era - is defined by a new simplifying concept: tokens, which encapsulate ownership

• Money and computer networks are social technologies

• Blockchains can make strong commitments about their future behaviour - that any code they run will continue to operate as designed

• Blockchain networks turn “Don’t be evil” into “Can’t be evil”. Their architecture provides strong guarantees that their data and code will forever remain open and remixable

• The next big thing often starts out looking like a toy. This is one of the main insights of the late business academic Clayton Christensen, whose theory of disruptive technology starts with the observation that technologies tend to get better at a faster rate than user’s needs increase

• The way to set the internet back on course is by creating new networks with better architectures. Blockchains are the only credible, known architecture for building networks with the societal benefits of protocol networks and the competitive advantages of corporate networks

In my previous role, we often talked about the growing need for critical minerals in achieving net zero, and the conflict of that with biodiversity and sustainability. This book allowed me to do a double click into metals, and to gain a better understanding around the supply of copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium.

• China mines most of the world’s rare earth ore, processes almost all of it regardless of where it was mined, and manufactures the majority of rare earth-powered permanent magnets that make windmills and electric cars work. China today outsources much of the polluting work of mining to Myanmar, who is now among the world’s top producers of rare earths and supplies nearly half of China’s heavy rare earths.

• The world’s current number one producer of raw copper is Chile, which had the world’s biggest reserves and supplies nearly 1/4 of all the world’s raw copper. The new frontier for copper in Central Africa, especially from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

• Stainless steel consumers the lion’s share of the world’s nickel output, but batteries and gaining fast. Several companies are developing batteries that use even more nickel than earlier generations, because corporations want to cut usage of another key battery metal with an even worse reputation.

• More than 70% of the world’s supply of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

• Today, nearly 3/4 of all lithium produced worldwide goes into batteries. Concerns around overdrawing of brine (one hundred thousand gallons of brine to produce a single ton of lithium).

The link between these minerals e.g. copper and unrest / violence was new to me. When we talk about power instability e.g. in Africa, my impression had always been that it was due to infrastructure challenges. I never realised it was because copper in grids was being stolen, given the high demand and high price that the metal could fetch. “All mining causes some environmental damage, but copper stands out for the violence that often accompanies it”.

The book went into depth on the environmental and social implications of mining. It also touched on the emergence and issues around deep sea mining, as well as challenges in recycling for a “reverse supply chain”.

On a country basis, China has a strong prominence in the area of critical minerals, and refines most of the world’s cobalt, nickel, manganese and graphite. China also manufactures around 70% of the world’s lithium ion batteries.

I read this book upon my return from Central Asia, partly as I was sick and couldn’t do much else, partly because I wanted to convince myself that travel was educational.

This book was MASSIVE to read but no regrets and definitely recommend to others. The book covers such a huge range of topics, from the Mongol empire, to the European powers of Italy, France, Germany and the UK, and to the current state of things. It even covered World War I and II, definitely recommend the book to others interested in an overview of the history.

Visiting Europe made me realise how recent a lot of history is, visiting Central Asia made me realise how far back history actually goes.

[Ok book is long and I am tired and not done with this summary so TO BE CONTINUED when I have more time post trip]

• The creation of the silk road: Under the Han dynasty, silk was used alongside coins and grain to pay troops. Silk became an international currency as well as a luxury product

• Xiongnu, better known as the Huns, in the 4th century

• The book talks of religion, including the spread of Christianity and subsequently development of Islam in the 7th century. The relationship of mutual understanding between Islam and Judaism - followers of both religions pledged to defend each other in the event that either was attacked by a third pay

• Golden age for Central Asia in the 8th and 9th century: “While the Muslim world took delight in innovation, progress and new ideas, much of Christian Europe withered in the gloom, crippled by a lack of resources and a dearth of curiosity”

• The prevalence of slave markets - “it was the sale of slaves that paid for the imports that began to flood into Europe in the ninth century” “and it was not only the Viking Rus’ who profited from the almost insatiable demand for slaves

  • All over Italy, when they meet, people say to each other, ‘schiavo’, from a Venetian dialect. ‘Ciao’ as it is more commonly spelt, does not mean ‘hello’; it means ‘I am your slave’.

  • There were others who viewed the bonding of Christians into captivity and their sale to Muslim maters as indefensible. This sensibility was not shared by all - Venetians were accused of willingly selling the subjects of neighbouring lands, whether Christians or not.

• In the 11th century, Jerusalem fell to the knights of the first crusade. The start of a new era - an age dominated by Western Europe

• The rise of the Mongols from the late 11th century

• “Fundamental to European expansion was the stability that the Mongols provided across the whole of Asia. Despite the tensions and rivalries between the different branches of the tribal leadership, the rule of law was fiercely protected when it came to commercial matters.

• As well as being home to livestock and nomads for thousands of years, the Eurasian steppe also forms one of the world’s greatest plague basins. Plague spread rapidly in the 1340s as the outbreak moved out of the steppes through Europe, Iran, the Middle East, Egypt and the Arabian peninsula. The trading routes that connected Europe to the rest of the world now became lethal highways for the transmission of the Black Death

  • Venice was all but depopulated: accounts agreed that no less than 3/4 of its citizens died during the outbreak

  • Europe lost at least one-third of its population to the plague

  • The plague finally began to peter out in the early 1350s

  • Empirical data shows that urban wages rose dramatically in the decades after the Black Death (shortage of workers). The empowerment of the peasantry, of labourers and of women was matched by a weakening of the propertied classes as landlords were forced into accepting lower rents for their holdings. With wealth now more evenly distributed through society, demand for luxury goods soared. Already less disposed to saving because of their close shave with death, the new up-and-coming generation set about spending their wealth on things they were interested in - not least of which was fashion. This in turn stimulated investment in and the rapid development of a European textile industry

  • The rise in wealth led to better diets and better general health. Statistical modelling suggests one of the effects of the plague was a substantial improvement in life expectancy.

• Ragusa, modern Durbovnik, saw extraordinary levels of prosperity in the 14th and 15th century. Disposable wealth quadrupled between 1300 and 1450; the city was so awash with cash that steps were taken to partially abolish slavery

• The world changed in the last 15th century: a series of long range expeditions setting out from Spain and Portugal connected the Americas to Africa and Europe and ultimately Asia for the first time. The new dawn propelled Europe to center stage. Columbus set sail in 1492.

  • The African slave trade exploded in the 15th century. There was considerable demand for manpower to work on farms and plantations in Portugal

  • 1494 signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas, which established a boundary 370 leagues beyond the Cape Verde islands. Everything to the west would belong to Spain, and everything to the east to Portugal

This fiction book felt more like a non fiction one, as the story felt very much real and plausible. It depicts how climate change might play out, and responses as we get more desperate. A few items that particularly stuck with me: the description of heat waves and its impact on the population, the pushback when they tried to implement the carbon coin as a mechanism and how blockchain is used to track money in the future.

(WIP to be completed)

(WIP to be completed)

WIP

WIP

This book would have been useful to read while in my previous role. It highlights how countries in Asia and the corporations that we know today developed over the past century.

According to Studwell, economic transformation is achieved through three interventions:

1. Household farming: Maximising output from agriculture

2. Export oriented manufacturing: Building up manufacturing and industrial policy

3. Closely controlled finance to support the above two sectors: Intervening in the financial sector to focus capital on intensive, small scale agriculture and on manufacturing development

(Note that the book does not cover Hong Kong and Singapore which as port offshore financial centres, which specialise in trade and financial services with lower structural overheads, and thus have different considerations from other states)

Interesting overarching points:

• The evidence of positive correlation between total years of education and GDP growth is weaker than one might expect (the argument is that most critical learning takes place inside firms instead)

• Lack of clear pattern between democracy and economic development

On intervention 1 - agriculture:

• When market forces are left to themselves, agricultural yields tend to stagnate or fall as demand for land increases faster than supply. What is key in some states in East Asia is that after WWII, they made radical changes to land distribution through land reform programs. This happened in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan

• Yields of smallholders (gardening approach) were higher than plantations, although more labour is required. Plantations are more efficient in terms of profit but not necessarily yield. —> In China, the shift from household farming to agricultural collectives in the late 1950s led to famine, and the country shifted back to household farming

• States beginning to develop need more foreign exchange, and so producing food reduces the amount of foreign currency needed to be spent on importing food (sugar was the dominant foreign exchange earner)

• In Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, post-independence governments inherited plantations and scale agriculture from colonisers. The British view of agricultural efficiency: Colonial banks only dealt with plantations, amounting to hefty subsidy to plantation sector. However, there was a fallacy about plantain efficiency. Small scale farms actually had higher yield and peasants were also more resilient than plantations to global commodities depression because they intercropped foodstuffs with rubber. The rubber market in colonial Malaysia is a case of higher yield family farmers subsidising lower yield business

• Land reform in places like the Philippines did not succeed, partially due to loophole mechanisms. Landlords were able to negotiate directly with tenants. Indonesia also failed to change its landholding pattern.

On intervention 2 - manufacturing:

• Manufacturing is critical to rapid transformation of poor countries: (a) manufacturing uses machines and overcomes shortfall of productive human skills (b) advantage over service sector is that manufactures are much more freely traded in the world

• Global market in manufactures is natural conduit for quick technological learning process

• (a) International sales are the feedback mechanism by which governments know whether the manufacturing businesses are approaching global standards. Export discipline: policy of testing and benchmarking domestic manufacturers given subsidies and market protection by forcing them to export and face global competition (e.g. Korea became the most export dependent developmental state the world had seen, with government giving subsidised credit to any firm that sold abroad. Korea’s chaebol were compelled to lead the export campaign. vs in Taiwan, SMEs with fewer than 300 employees accounted for 65% of exports in 1985, but there was a failure to make big private firms export. Taiwanese state enterprises today underperform Korean corporations. Today, Taiwan’s exporters do more low margin manufacturing as suppliers to American and European multinationals and less higher margin manufacturing under their own breads)

• (b) Culling firms which did not measure up: Weeding out losers rather than picking winners - also explains existence of large businesses which grew without significant direct state support such as Sony and Honda in Japan, Acer in Taiwan

• (c) States provided assistance in technology acquisition e.g. in 1950s Japan told IBM they would be blocked unless they licensed their tech to local firms at a mix 5% royalty

• We are taught that wealth is the product of competition, but every economically successful society has had some form of protectionism in formative stages (including Europe and North America). “Outside of the anomalous offshore port financial havens such as Hong Kong and Singapore, there are no economies in the world that have developed to the first rank through policies of free trade”. Most historians agree that protectionism has been the ticket to industrial development as it makes possible the acquisition of strategically vital knowledge at a cost that is only temporary. Friedrich List (Germany) “contended that the free market evangelism emanating from Britain was motivated largely by opportunism based on the country’s global technological leadership”. He “maintained that free trade should be a country’s ultimate goal. But that goal was only feasible after manufacturing capacities were first raised up through protection.” “At the industrial policy-making level, what stands out with benefit of hindsight is that there was almost no role played in Japan, Korea or Taiwan by economists.” “More often, the economic advice came from the World Bank and the IMF, which were ready with their free market prescriptions for development, despite the fact that these prescriptions have never produced a successful industrial state.”

• One of the most interesting country comparisons is between Korea and Malaysia. (Korea is used as its industrial development experience is fresher than Japan and it has strong export discipline.) In Korea, infant industry protection combined with export discipline, plus competition among multiple entrants, made manufacturing policy highly effective in securing technological upgrading. In Malaysia, industrial policy without export discipline and with insufficient attention to the need to foster competition came unstuck.

• Among different industrial sectors that provide useful comparisons for developing states, the most fundamental one is steel making. The capability to make steel efficiently has historically signalled that a country will go on to make other things efficiently. Success in steel making depends on scale, on organising a limited number of inputs, and on constant incremental improvements to technology. In Japan, Korea and Taiwan, governments initially owned steel plants. Japan and Korea eventually privatised their steelmakers. In Malaysia however, delivering a public sector steel champion came up short.

• Korea’s success with POSCO: (a) combination of huge scale with a step by step approach (b) constant checking of techinical advice received (c) relentless application to learning everything about a steel plant, refusal to employ control systems if not fully understood

• Car making business: In Korea, government attracted many businessman with subsidies, eventually whittled down to Hyundai-Kia over 30 years. Malaysia tried to enter with a single state owned firm. Commonality of developing states in terms of manufacturing policy: in most large scale businesses the critical variable is the relationship between state and private entrepreneurs.

• Development is a political undertaking. Businessman granted concessions should have developmental strings attached, to contribute to the developmental objectives of the country. In Korea, businessman were arrested (1961) and made to agree to pursue investments in industries in line with plans for Korea’s development

• In the 1980s, Mahathir announced a ‘Look East’ policy to emulate northeast Asia, but failed to grasp the prerequisites of export discipline and sanctions for failure.

• Malaysia: (a) neglect of export discipline was the first error. Government increased foreign debts for investments, but unlike Korea export earnings from goods grew slowly engendering a balance of payments problem (b) by picking winners (not licensing more entrants in businesses), there was no power to cull losers and the only option was to change management of state enterprises. (c) mixing up of industrial policy with affirmative action meant Malaysia’s established Chinese and Tamil private sector entrepreneurs were not pushed into manufacturing or exports

• Steel making: Malaysia accepted a Japanese proposal to produce DRI, skipping blast furnaces. Nippon Steel had zero operational experience of the technology it was selling, and many industry experts concluded it was Japan who learned about a new techlogy on Malaysian dollar which stalled the development effort

• In car making, Proton Mitsubishi was an example of how equity JVs fail to impact adequate technological learning

On intervention 3 - finance:

• Financial system management: the governments must use their control of money to lure and cajole leading entrepreneurs into concentrating on manufacturing and international markets

• Financial policy frequently accepted low near term returns on industrial investments in order to build industries capable of producing higher returns in the future

• The alternative would have been for financial institutions to encourage more consumer lending, which tends to produce higher profits and is the focus of financial systems in rich countries. However, herein lies a far from attractive equilibrium for an emerging economy in which banks become very profitable and industry remains technologically backward.

• The idea that finance had to be shaped by state led development policies was consistent with the 19th century European and American experiences

Concluding remarks

• The message that East Asia sends to economists is that there is no one type of economics. At a minimum there are two. The economics of development require nurture, protection and competition. Then there is the economics of efficiency applicable to a later stage of development

• It is quite unlikely we will see an economic transformation like Japan, Korea, Taiwan or China again without effective land reform

• “The rich world cannot be expected to save poor countries from bad politicians” “What seems most wrong in all this is that wealthy nations, and the economic institutions that they created like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, provided lousy developmental advice to poor states that had no basis in historical fact”