The reason why trading seems like such a simple concept is that it can be explained in four words, "buy low, sell high" - thus that seems so straightforward that anyone can do it, right? Not really. Sure most people can easily get on any investment platform, buy some stocks and with a bit of luck, sell it for a profit when the price moves in their favour and make a small profit. You can also do this over a range of asset classes from currencies to crpyto to commodities to futures but what a lot of people don't realize is that there is a huge difference between the kind of trading that you might do on your own after work or during your weekends on your laptop vs what the professionals at the investment banks do. To begin with, the traders at the investment banks will have access to opportunities that you wouldn't because of the very high entry level, such as private placement programmes (PPP). I could spend a whole hour talking to you about PPPs but the bottom line is that this is a highly lucrative form of trading and the entry level is prohibitively high for most people. I have embedded a Youtube tutorial below for those of you who are curious about PPPs. You need at least US$100 million to even trade at that level thus PPPs are out of reach for most people - think about it like a special VIP table for the high rollers at the casino where the odds are so much better than all the other games, but you need to place bets of at least US$100 million in order to play at that table. When those VIPs win big, it's not because they are so much better at what they do but simply because they enjoy much better odds - they are playing a totally different game. Of course, the traders at the big investment banks are not trading with their personal wealth, no they are doing it on behalf of the banks so it's not even their money they are using but they are paid a lot of money for what they do. Needless to say, without access to trading programmes like PPPs, then most ordinary people are not going to find trading that lucrative.
Allow me to use an analogy to illustrate my point: imagine you are at a karaoke party and you try to sing your perfect, you know all the words by heart and you're singing with so much passion. Your best friend whips out his phone and films the whole thing. He then sends you the clip later that night and you watch the clip - to your horror, you sound horrible and you think, oh dear, I didn't think I sounded that bad, what's going on? Before you start assuming that you're as tone deaf the the worst contestants on those talent shows, allow me to reassure you that a professional like Beyonce or Taylor Swift have the best studio equipment to make sure that they sound perfect every single time and that even if they did hit a wrong note during the recording, the producer could use a programme like auto tune to correct the pitch or add special effects. So it is not like your voice is utterly terrible, but quite simply you're not working with the same kind of technical equipment when you're just standing there at the karaoke bar trying to sing. Now I'm not suggesting for a moment that Beyonce or Taylor Swift are reliant on all that technical wizardry to make them sound good, I'm just pointing out the playing field is not level at all as you're simply not getting that level of technical assistance at your average karaoke bar - in fact, you're getting no help at all there and that's why it wouldn't be fair to compare yourself to how your favourite singer would perform that song. By the same token, the kind of results that the top traders can produce by participating in PPPs would be the equivalent of Beyonce going to the best production studio in Los Angeles and getting the best producer in the business to remix her latest single - that's why it is impossible for ordinary folks to try to get rich quick doing trading without access to all of the fancy tools of the trade that the professionals use to produce fantastic results.
Thus you need to put yourself in the shoes of one of those genuinely successful traders: you know you can make a lot of money simply by doing what you do best and you have no interest at all in teaching others how to do what you do - however, at some stage, you find that you cannot keep up with all the work that is piling up as your operations expand. You need a team behind you to help to accomplish everything on your to-do list: thus you hire Aaron, Paul and Monica as trainees you teach them how to perform some of the easier tasks so you can focus on the most difficult tasks that you simply cannot delegate. As your operation expands, your team grows and your three trusted assistants Aaron, Paul and Monica start becoming more and more capable over time as you teach them about various aspects of trading so that you can delegate even more complex tasks to them over time. Hence it is through this process that Aaron, Paul and Monica learn about trading working for an expert and one day, they would be able to say, "I'm an expert trader today because I am lucky enough to have learnt from the very best." Note that Aaron, Paul and Monica were probably paid pretty decent salaries whilst working for our expert trader - they did not pay to learn from the expert because they were rendering a valuable service to the expert. Hence this is indeed a win-win situation for all parties involved because Aaron, Paul and Monica didn't have to take time out to pay a university to attend a three-year course, yet what they learnt from our expert trader is far more useful than anything one could possibly learn on a university course. However at the same time, they were helping our expert trader make a lot more money than he would have on his own. No doubt Aaron, Paul and Monica would have already proven themselves in their working lives - you don't usually get to waltz into a position like that with little or no work experience at all. So very few people even within the finance industry get such an opportunity.
The number of people who can end up in a privileged position like Aaron, Paul and Monica are probably few and far in between - even if you do end up in a position like that, there's no guarantee that you will succeed given how complicated it is. You start with one part of the process and you become good at it, then slowly you learn about other parts of the process until eventually you have learnt about every single process but to be able to piece it all together is harder than you may think. It is entirely possible that Paul may end up simply stuck processing one part of the trading process whilst simply unable to move onto other more complex tasks and thus he would be stuck performing that role and supporting other traders whilst others like Aaron and Monica move on to becoming successful traders. This process is far from linear so allow me to explain it this way, imagine if Aaron, Paul and Monica were recruited by an investment bank to this kind of role in supporting the traders, but just how far they progress within the organization would depend on so many factors such as office politics, their ability to get along with their colleagues and management, their ability to outperform their peers, their ability to prove themselves under pressure and so just because the three of them joined the bank at the same time doesn't mean that they would be in the same position in five years from now. How far they get and how long it takes them to get there would vary person to person. Typically it takes a combination of ambition, intellect and social skills to be able to get ahead in such this kind of environment and that's not for everyone. The fact is those at the top of the food chain would only be willing to teach you the secrets of the trade if teaching you would serve them well - like if you could then become the best assistant they've ever had to enable them to make even more money. There is no altruism at all in this process, you have got to make yourself useful to your employers if you want them to train you well.
This reminds me of the movie "The Devil Wears Prada", in this 2006 movie, Andy Sachs (who is a woman despite the name) gets a job at Runway magazine as a junior assistant to Miranda Priestley, the editor-in-chief at that magazine. Despite Miranda being a thoroughly nasty boss who bullies all her staff, Andy decides to put up with the horrific abuse at work in the hopes that the experience at this prestigious company would lead to a better job in the future. Thus in this situation, Andy was in a fully paid job - she wasn't some kind of intern seeking work experience, no she was hired as a member of staff at the magazine and she was put in a position to learn a lot, albeit from Miranda who didn't make anything easy for Andy (hence the title, The Devil Wears Prada). So if you wanted to learn about how the world of women's fashion magazine works, there isn't a course or degree programme at a university that you can take where you can learn everything in the safety of a classroom environment - no, you need to learn from someone just like Miranda Priestly in the real world but people like Miranda would never sit down and take the time to be a good teacher to you, no you're lucky enough to be in her presence, you watch her in action and learn from simply being allowed to observe her work her magic. Would someone like Miranda take a massive pay cut to go teach a media course at a university? Of course not, that would be a totally irrational decision to give up all that money, glamour, power and prestige for a modest teaching position that would pay a lot less. Anyway, in the movie, Andy becomes more and more like Miranda the longer she works at that company until finally she realizes, stop - this is not whom I want to become and quits, but Miranda does give her a very good reference which helps Andy clinch her next job, so that movie does have a happy ending after all.
Thus the reasons why these scammers get away with what they do is because many people don't understand how these scammers simply don't get access to the investment tools that professional traders use. I have actually discussed this in a recent post - there is a trait amongst some uneducated, stupid people (which I have observed in my parents), they tend to oversimplify complex processes in order to make it easier to understand how they work, but in doing so, they completely misrepresent and distort what actually happens to suit their far simpler narrative. The thing is that these scammers do have some knowledge - it isn't some kind of closely guarded top secret in the industry like the recipe to Coca Cola or Pepsi, there is so much information on topics like private placement programmes out there on the internet and that information is mostly quite accurate.That's why a lot of their 'lessons' actually feel legitimate. What they lack however is that crucial access to the most lucrative investment tools like PPPs to make loads of money easily - allow me to give you a simple analogy: if you want to learn how to fly a helicopter, that's a very expensive process as you need access to a helicopter. Thus that makes it prohibitively expensive compared to learning how to drive a car, that's why so few people have a helicopter pilot's license. However, someone could try to teach you all about flying a helicopter by teaching you all about the theories of how helicopters work, what a helicopter pilot does and even offer you realistic computer simulations of what it is like to fly a helicopter - however, without actually getting into a real helicopter to fly, you're never going to get that helicopter pilot's license. Those who are tempted by the cheaper options will find out the true meaning of the saying, "you get what you pay for". Hence I have no doubt that the scammers will have plenty of interesting information to teach you about trading but that's simply not enough to enable you to make any real money if you tried to do it yourself, it's like teaching you how to fly a helicopter without a real helicopter. That's never gonna work.
Why do some people think it is all a fraud then? Well there are some people who actually look at this 'trading' thing, don't understand it at all and dismiss it all as a form of fraud or even a pyramid scheme. But then again, these people have the same attitude towards other things they don't understand such as cryptocurrencies and hedge funds. But allow me to make a simple point on this matter: in a few days, I shall be boarding a plane to travel to Dubai for a business trip - do I know how an aeroplane engine works? No. Do I know how to build one or repair one? Absolutely not. But just because I don't have any knowledge in this field doesn't mean that aeroplanes are myths like dragons and fairies. Likewise, I have an iPhone - I don't understand how the electronics in the smartphone works but that doesn't stop me from using it. In fact what we're looking at here is a case of really poor social skills - I am humble enough to recognize that I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to certain areas and thus there are huge gaps in my expertise and knowledge. Therefore, when it comes to those areas, I would always default to the experts and let them do what they do best. Thus on my flight this Saturday, I shall be a passenger in business class enjoying the great service whilst the pilot and co-pilot will do what they do best. I always think that a bit of skepticism is useful in the modern world, there's so much misinformation out there on the internet that we must always ask the right questions, but this is an example of going too far the other way when you reject anything you don't understand because you are then allowing your ignorance to limit what you can trust and believe., In this case, the logical thing to do would be to place trading into the same category as aeroplanes: just because I am incapable of doing something doesn't mean that others are equally incapable. It would be so foolish to use your own experiences as the benchmark of what humans are capable of, but sadly many stupid people actually make that mistake all the time. Therefore there is an element of sour grapes when some people dismiss trading as just a fraud.
I asked my colleague if he was serious about learning about trading - he said yes. I then laid out some suggestions about how he could start taking on some new projects to gain that kind of work experience to get started and his response was quite telling. "Can't you teach me?" I had to tell him no, I'm not a trader, I can't possibly teach you. I can guess that at that point that he probably wasn't going to follow through with my suggestions about how to actually learn it from a pro. My conclusion is that most people are lazy, frightfully lazy. Allow me to give you an example: those of you who follow me on Instagram would know that I have appeared in a Christmas ad for Sainsbury supermarket and I got paid quite a lot of money for simply saying three words in that ad, "cider glazed gammon". So when word got out in my gym that I was in the ad, one of the gymnastics coaches 'Douglas' (not his real name) asked me how much I got paid for it. When he realized it was such good money, he then asked me, "hey can you get me a part in an ad as well?" I had to explain to Douglas, I'm an actor and model, I don't do casting, it is a casting director that decides which actor or model gets to appear in the ad - the actors and models do not have any influence in that decision making process. In order to get a nice big part in an ad like this, you need an agent who will then submit make suggestions to casting directors when they are given the task of assembling a cast for a project like a Christmas ad. So if he wanted to get a part in an ad like mine, then there are many steps he needed to take before that could happen - he would first need to get some training before gaining some work experience that was for a professional project. So it has to be proper paid work and not just some student project. Armed with a decent CV at that stage, then he will be able to convince a reputable agent to represent him to get him good castings. So all this it was way more complex than Douglas envisioned so when I tried to explain all that to him, he just gave me that look which said, "forget I even asked - I was really hoping for a much simpler answer."
Mind you, this does remind me of something else I witnessed when I was doing the shoot for that Christmas ad - the ad was shot in a gorgeous country club and golf course just to the south of London in Croydon. The security guard there was intrigued by a massive film crew taking over the clubhouse for the shoot and I imagine that he must have a very boring job and so he was naturally quite excited by all this excitement at his place of work. I'm always very polite with everyone, so this security guard found me quite approachable to chat to. He wanted to know how much the actors on the project were paid and at first I thought, here's going to ask me if I could help him get a role in an ad like this but no, he asked a totally different question. I explained to him that the extras were paid a lot less than the main cast who had lines in the ad, the security guard asked me, "so how long do the extras need to do this before they get spotted by the directors to do a bigger part?" I rolled my eyes and I am going to share with you what I thought at the moment but censored myself. I wanted to say to him, "okay so Jeff (not his real name) you are the security guard at this lovely golf course, how long do you think you need to do this job before the management at golf club notice you and think, hey Jeff is a hardworking guy, he has been here for 15 years, let's give him a chance and promote him to be the general manager at the golf club here! No Jeff, it doesn't work like that - if they wanted someone to be the general manager at the golf club, then they would hire someone to do the job, not promote the hardworking security guard no matter how nice he is. You are only fooling yourself that people stuck at the bottom of the food chain would somehow be noticed by the management and given a chance to prove themselves. These extras you see here are never going to get big roles because that us not how the casting process works. But people want simple solutions, they want to believe that they too have a chance to become rich and famous by doing little to prove themselves, that good things would still come to them.
Therein lies your answer - I can see how people like Douglas the gymnastics coach and Jeff the security guard would fall for scams because they are looking for simple answers to complex problems. Such is the nature of scams, it preys on this human desire to find short cuts or loopholes for quick gains. In the case of Douglas, I wondered how he would have reacted if I was a scammer who said, "sure I can get your face on TV, you just need to give me £1,000 in order to set some things up for you with the casting directors in London." Given the kind of person he was, I can see how he can easily fall prey to scams like that. Likewise for Jeff the security guard, imagine if an older guy in an expensive suit turned up and said, "oh yeah, we can promote you to management. I know you don't have a degree or any relevant work experience, but all you just need some more training, just hand over £8,000 for this one-week intensive training course that would prepare you for a more senior role." I can see someone like Jeff losing all his life savings over a scam like that. Thus we go back to the issue of learning something like trading - it's not simple, it's not a fraud, it's just really complicated and difficult without the tools that the professionals have access to. It is frustrating of course when people who don't understand it either dismiss it as a fraud if they cannot figure it out or over-simplify a very complex process to create a much simpler narrative. That's it from me for now, what do you think? What kind of reactions have you encountered when people are presented with a very complex process that they cannot personally figure out? Have you ever met anyone like my colleague or 'Jeff' the security guard? Please leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.
Hey Alex. This is an interesting question because recently I applied to some trading internships. It wasn't hard for me to get an interview, but I was given an online exam before I could proceed that tested me on a few different math topics (mostly probability and statistics). I even had a recruiter from London ask me to apply to an internship that was specifically about modeling the stock market using math/code(not actual trading, just modeling). It's possible to learn these things on your own, but you shouldn't pay $8000 for them. There are cheap data science or statistics books available online for $50-100. After one gets a strong math base (equivalent to a bachelors in physics, engineering, computer science, or math), and the ability to code, then the rest is just about gaining enough "social capital" for these trading firms to consider your resume. For me I'm doing a PhD and have published a few papers in physics and engineering fields. But for the average person in an unrelated field, the only realistic way I could see them gaining social capital is to get really good at coding and develop a few coding projects and post them online, then network like crazy at their local tech scene. Singapore has a few incubators that regularly host meetup events. It's possible, but it takes a lot more work than what an $8000 online course says it will take.
ReplyDeleteYou've made a really good point - the traders who work their magic professionally can use AI to help them figure out what the markets are going to do, that's a whole other level of technical wizardry that allows them to turn a profit and that's why people who claim to be able to trade at home on their laptops simply are not playing the same game, it is not a level playing field. But my point is that you can't throw money at the courses and expect to be given the advantages that these traders have - paying $8,000 for a course does NOT give you access to PPPs, it does NOT give you access to a team of AI expects etc. It simply teaches you that these pros have all these tools that you'll never be able to access and that's why such courses are total scams but plenty of people fall for it anyway.
DeleteTo me private placement is something you can only get through prestige. It doesn't seem much different than being offered stock in a startup that is about to go public 6 months from now, sorta like venture capital. But venture capital also comes with risks. It's just that institutions have enough capital to weather that risk. But yeah there is no way for a person to evaluate the effectiveness of an $8k course. There was one internship interview I got for high frequency trading for a market maker firm, but they were looking to hire talented math people to develop new sophisticated algorithms to find and exploit arbitrage. That's not even a skill to be taught, it's just pure talent to invent a new algorithm from scratch. Also if you win money trading, someone has to lose it. Unfortunately trading is a zero sum game, unlike venture capital where you invest in a new startup that improves productivity and creates value like for example investing in a new green technology since the Ukraine war has sent oil prices through the roof. To be honest, that $8k is better spent learning to code at a coding bootcamp. At least there are in demand jobs for coding that don't require you to gamble away your own money in a zero sum game. Coding at least creates value.
DeleteBtw I'd like to also say that some people would call us "elitist" by saying an average person can't become a trader without going through "the establishment." I don't think we're elitist at all... sure if someone is a genius maybe they can self-study everything, but life is gonna be a lot easier for the geniuses who lucked out in getting to work with the establishment getting access to trade secrets, private placements, and top of the line supercomputers than a genius with only a laptop in a basement. Even for those traders with near unlimited resources, they can still lose big time. I have been following the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX recently, and apparently the exchange was secretly gambling with deposited money and lost billions in customer funds. And the people who lost those billions all went to the top schools and worked for the biggest wall street firms.
DeleteThe people who fall for such scams are not looking to learn anything that complex, they are hoping to be let in on a loophole or a secret that will allow them to get rich quick. That's why schemes like that prey on lazy + greedy people - it is human nature. There was this 'studio' once in the building where I live where it was a scam operation: they claim, "you want your kids to be on TV and ads? Come and sign up with us." They then take a few digital photos of your kids and ask for a registration or enrollment fee, which can be any amount but usually around £1,000 or more - as it is a scam, they try to get as much money out of you as possible. They claim yes it's a lot but you'll earn it back in no time at all once your kid is famous. Then of course, you pay up and never hear back from them ever again as they don't promise results. The trading scams work the same way, they take you through the motions but don't offer results. Anyway, you're talking about having interviews with legit companies who do things properly, I'm talking about scams targeting ordinary people who belong to this lazy + greedy category so your experience is quite different from theirs. It's not even a question of intelligence, it's about having access to the tools of the trade that these professionals use for trading.
DeleteWow that's a terrible scam claiming to be able to make someone's kids movie stars. It's insane how many "get rich quick" scams exist out there. There are legit pathways to being a trader, but like you said it's a long arduous path that many people aren't willing to take. A non-scammer will never use honeyed words to do anything to sell something. Sadly people are lazy/greedy. I would put this scam just one step about MLMs and magic bracelets to attract success. It's an inferior product, but not much different than an online course aside from a massively inflated price and promises of success. When you think of it, would an online MBA from a university lower on the league table also count as a scam? It's similarly priced, possibly even more. An online course from Google to obtain a career certificate in data science is only $39/month, and they also promise you'll be able to find jobs with that, but $39 is very cheap compared to 1000s of bucks.
DeleteThe reason why so many people fall for these 'get rich quick' scams is because they see the world as being inherently unfair - so take kids who get paid a lot of money to be in the movies or ads etc, they're not likely to be the most talented actors but more than likely, their parents have connections within the industry and would thus benefit from a lot of nepotism. So for example, if you had a daughter and I was a big movie producer, I would be like, "hey my buddy Amanda has a daughter who would be perfect for this part, it's not a huge part so I'm sure we can make it work somehow." Then your daughter gets noticed as that kid in this big movie, then immediately, people get the impression that she is something special because she has appeared in this movie and then opportunities start coming her way but that's only because I had used nepotism to give her that first step, to get her foot in the door when most ordinary people would never even get near that door, never mind step through it. So that's why a lot of people want solutions to level the playing field and they fall prey to the language of these scammers. But even a "career certificate in data science" is dodgy IMHO, how valuable it is would depend on how much work it could get you and I roll my eyes and think, yeah right if it was that easy than everyone would do it and everyone would get rich. So why isn't everyone a Google certified data science expert earning millions then? Well maybe nobody actually gives a shit about this certificate, you need a lot more to prove yourself worthy to employers in order to get a great job.
DeleteOh yes, sometimes I feel like scams only work because the bottom 80% doesn't get to see how power works behind the scenes, so they automatically assume someone who is successful is automatically super talented. I like to laugh at the scammers who offer courses online like Dan Lok or Andrew Tate who rent Ferraris and Lamborghinis to show them off. As if real rich people have the time to waste offering these courses and showcasing their luxury cars. Showcasing wealth is considered trashy among actual rich people. Even if they did, they'd be selling a long and difficult path which many people would drop out of. You can send a random person on the street to Oxbridge, but that doesn't mean they have the capability of completing a 4 year degree.
DeleteRegarding Google's data science certificate, I was considering taking it as a box-ticking exercise since I'm not a statistics or computer science major, but then I realized quantitative trading firms have given me interviews without it, even though they require me to analyze lots of data. The career certificate is no substitute for networking + side projects.
Yes exactly, I was going to point that out as well - you're not in the bottom 80% Amanda, heck you're probably either already in the top 5% or well on your way there given the kind of amazing job offers you have been receiving. Let's compare you to 'Douglas' the gymnastics coach who asked me if I could get him a part in an ad or 'Jeff' the security guard at the golf course - goodness me, do you realize how they would never ever in this life time get the kind of job offers you get? No, they're stuck at the wrong end of the food chain and will probably never ever move out of that position. And I don't have any solutions for people like 'Douglas' - he is stuck in a poorly paid job whilst having 3 kids, so there's no way he can go back to school, get a degree to change his career path, he has to keep working to put food on the table. Even his free time is occupied by child-care responsibilities as he needs to help with wife take care of the 3 very young children, so he is stuck where he is with no way out - and that's how people like that fall for scams out of sheer desperation. I don't even have a solution for them, I'm like, "yeah you're poor and you're going to stay poor, the least you can do is not fall for a scam to make you even poorer."
DeleteAs for the Google data science cert, well I compare it to the short courses that RADA run. Now in case you are not familiar with the Royal Academy of Drama Arts (RADA) it is the most prestigious drama school in the UK that has produced a lot of big names - so what they have done is this: they have ran some very short courses (some as short as 1 or 2 weeks) to make some extra cash. Anyone can sign up for these short courses, pay the fees, attend it and can then claim to be a RADA trained actor at the end of it when really, that's bending the truth a bit. Yes they 'trained' at RADA when they took the short course, but that's hardly the same as going through a proper 3-year degree programme there. Of course, they are quickly exposed once directors take a closer look at their CV when they claim to be RADA trained. It's the same with Google - having the word Google in any shape or form on your CV is deemed to be prestigious but if you're simply paying to do a short course online, that's definitely not as respected as say being a Google employee; therein lies the difference. Anyone can pay money to do a course but few are considered awesome enough to be paid by Google to work for them on their groundbreaking projects.
DeleteI suppose I've played my cards right in that I picked a lucrative major which also let me explore emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Btw, I've only gotten these good job offers recently and not 5 years ago. I think it's because I do way more networking nowadays. It's not enough to just be good at math/code, you have to prove to the interviewer you are socially smart enough to understand their needs without even asking(body language reading, so important!) and make yourself feel like a fun person to work with. I did not do any of this till 2 years ago.
DeleteIt is pretty bleak to be stuck in a "dead-end job", especially when the good jobs have such a high barrier of entry. I don't know much about jobs outside of STEM, but although it's unrealistic to promote someone from minimum wage to the top 10% of jobs like quantitative trader, what about the middle 30% of jobs? Surely those don't have a crazy high barrier to entry, but also have some form of advancement? I like to assume that there are some office jobs which don't even require a degree but pay decently even if they wouldn't make someone rich.
Lol that RADA course sounds almost identical to the Google course in terms of business model and marketing. These are big names that don't need to advertise much at all, unlike those scammers renting Ferraris and paying for youtube ads. But like you said, the barrier to entry is very low for these courses so its much harder for employers to take them seriously. I dunno if it's a stretch to call Google or RADA diploma mills then, except that they charge way less than actual diploma mills.
Well don't ever take your privileges for granted Amanda, you're doing exceptionally well and sometimes I think people who are in that position can sometimes forget that there are people like Douglas the gymnastics coach and Jeff the country club security guard who are stuck in low paid jobs but are desperate to escape their poverty. I was at the gym last night and I said to Douglas when I saw him, "did you get caught in the rain?" His reply was weird, it was like "would you like some ham?" At first I didn't realize it, then I realize it was him trying to mimic my line in that Christmas ad which I got paid very handsomely for and he was still going on about me helping him get a part in an ad if acting is that lucrative. He had ignored everything I explained to him about the casting process and just couldn't get past the fact that his friend Alex is currently on TV for the next few weeks until Christmas. Anyway, it's not 'unrealistic' for the janitor or security guard to be promoted to a better job, it's downright impossible. Like it's never gonna happen. As for why poor people stay poor, I refer you to the post I wrote for you some time ago: https://limpehft.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-peanuts-28-fallacy-why-some-of-poor.html I'm not saying that all poor folks are trapped in poverty forever, but the number of them who manage to attain social mobility within their working lives are very few and far in between because the system is rigged against them. The reason is that us humans are selfish, we're insecure and we don't want to share; by that token, that means that we often go out of our way to prevent people like Douglas and Jeff from getting better jobs by erecting barriers to entry for people like them, in order to trap them exactly where they are so they stay poor.
DeleteI'll give you an example in part 2 of how this happens in practice.
Well since we have been talking about acting, allow me to use an example from the world of acting. In the UK, stunt work is quite well paid and it is a regulated industry. You have to pass an exam to get on the stunt register and thus when a casting director picks someone from the stunt register, they know they're going to be hiring a stuntman who has passed a very difficult exam and they're going to be very good at what they do. If you can get on the stunt register and then get work as a stuntman, the contracts are very lucrative. However, there is only a finite amount of work, there are only so many action movies made a year and too many young people want to become stuntmen, so what do the exiting stuntmen already on the stunt register do? Do they try to help these young people enter the industry? No, they don't want to compete against these young people! They keep making it harder and harder to qualify by adding more and more stuff to the stunt exam - so there are a few gymnastics skills which are really difficult on the stunt exam and I'm thinking, okay this is ridiculous, I can't see a stuntman ever performing this on a film set. This is on the exam because someone thought, "if this exceptionally gymnastics difficult skill is on the exam, then not only would a large number fail the exam, it might even deter some young people from trying to start this process!" Never underestimate how wicked and selfish us humans can be. So sometimes, I have adults showing up at my adult gymnastics class and they ask me, "Alex can you teach me how to do this skill please?" And that's when I realize, aha - stunt register exam. Good luck to you, I know how ridiculously difficult it has become. That's just one example of how hard it is for poor people to attain better jobs. I can give you a similar example about pilots - basically, the pilots union want to limit the number of pilots entering the industry, so they raised the number of hours of experience a pilot must chalk up in order to get their commercial pilot's license. That means you need an insane amount of money to fly a plane around at your own expense to clock up those hours to meet that target before being allowed to work as a commercial pilot. The unions claim it is a safety feature to make sure inexperienced pilots don't crash planes but the truth is they just want to stop more people from entering the profession. And if you think stuntmen and pilots are quite ambitious professions, good grief, when you go lower down the food chain, these people who have so-so average jobs are even more terrified of losing what little they have. I could go on, there's a good reason why people like Douglas and Jeff are stuck where they are. Okay they are not intelligent to begin with but those who are doing slightly better than them sure as hell don't want to have to compete with them.
DeleteAs for RADA/Google being degree mills, well any decent employer who knows how to read a CV isn't going to be fooled by an online course cert like that - same with RADA, it takes two minutes or less for a casting director to check if it was a very short course not worth the paper it was printed on or a proper degree. It's not easy to fool people who are in charge. Thus both Google and RADA can claim, "our short courses were never intended for you to create any kind of false impression about your training, we urge all our students to be honest and truthful about what kind of training you have undertaken." But if people really want to lie, heck, then why bother trying to even get the paperwork? I can put anything I want on my Linkedin profile these days and nobody ever checks it. It's more a question of, "can you get away with it if someone actually takes a closer look at it? Do you want to be exposed as a liar under such circumstances?" And that's why most people don't want to lie.
Hey Alex, I think it's very sad that Douglas is desperate enough to think you can get him an acting role like that ham ad, but also I think if he had no children it would have been easier for him to change careers as he would have no dependents. But unfortunately he is married with 3 kids, so the kind of time and money investment into a career change is just out of reach. That reminds me, my best friend told me she wants a career change and asked me how to be a quant. Fortunately for her she is in her 20s and wealthy so her parents can pay her rent and other bills while she is retraining for a new industry. She even asked her parents if they could pay me to tutor her in math, but I feel bad about charging. Then I realized the privilege my best friend has is not just about money, but also knowing someone who can get quant interviews and is willing to share their secrets. Like you said people are selfish, they don't want to share with strangers, but family and friends, definitely. Other people are not so lucky. In America many parents in poverty go into lots of debt to go back to university, but it's usually debt they will carry for the rest of their lives.
DeleteLol my brother told me the same thing about the software industry. He said he's just a regular web coder, but the coding exam he had to pass as part of the interview included other topics like discrete mathematics or optimization which he doesn't deal with on a daily basis at all. Only with your post did I realize that the difficult but irrelevant software test was set by his superiors, who probably didn't want the company to easily hire a younger person to replace them, so they set the bar arbitrarily high. They can't hire zero new people, but they can at least slow the process considerably by making the test sufficiently hard such that the rate is only at replacement level.
Speaking of arbitrary tests, I just had my interview with the big tech firm. The job description was robotics, the coding test was computer science, but apparently the actual job as described by the interviewer was - physics. Specifically simulations/mathematical modeling of a robot. LOL. One didn't even need to know all three fields, they just set the test arbitrarily high because they are a big famous company with so many applicants they just want to weed people out. It's pretty cutthroat out there, you can't just do the bare minimum to work a good job, instead you have to go above and beyond just to beat everyone else.
Sorry for the slow reply, I was desperately trying to get out my TAR post today and at least more or less finish my packing. I am nearly there. I have a good 12 hour before I have to leave my house so time for a good night's sleep but first, here's my reply to you. Well in the case of Douglas, he rushed into getting married and starting a family before he established a career. He might have thought back then, I earn decent money as a gymnastics coach, it's not too bad, it's a fun job. But now he is responsible for 3 kids + his wife, his wife doesn't work as she has to take care of the young babies so now, his earnings certainly isn't enough to pay for the nice things in life. And at least right now, his youngest kids are babies so we're talking buying things like nappies and baby food. Once they start to go to school, they're going to need even more expensive stuff for their education and I just don't see how he's ever going to afford all the things that his 3 kids will need. I know this other coach, let's call him Side (as he is very good at side somersaults), Side is single, he is 28, an experienced coach but more to the point, he only has to earn enough to pay for all the things he wants. So he goes out with his friends, has nice holidays, has a decent lifestyle but that's entirely dependent on him staying single. If Side decides to get married and have kids like Douglas, then his standard of living is going to go right down and that's why he's quite happy being a swinging bachelor. Will Side become Douglas one day? Who knows, but it doesn't look likely in the near future.
DeleteYup, you definitely have spotted a very similar trend - people in an industry arbitrarily setting a ridiculously difficult test to make it a lot harder for young people to enter their industry. It's that human selfishness that is the common theme here whether you're dealing with coders or stuntmen. And that's why poor people stay poor and struggle to attain social mobility.
Oh yeah you're going to Dubai soon. I hope it won't be crowded with the world cup going on soon and tourists flying/busing in and out to Qatar. It's crazy how Qatar only has 10k free hotel rooms but has up to a million visiting fans that they have to sleep in other countries.
DeleteYeah the thing about having kids over just being married is that one or both partners will have to make less money either to spend on childcare or to work less hours to look after the kids. Children are very expensive. I guess a minimum wage salary is not too bad if you're single, but housing costs are much lower too (no 2 or 3 bedroom apartments/houses necessary, no car needed either). I hope if Side does get a partner and wants to get married he considers going back to school and changing careers before his future children are born.
It's not just the test that is hard, but people in lucrative industries are snobby and don't even want to give out an interview unless you went to a school on the right side of the league table. So early success can easily snowball into more success, and likewise early failures means missing out on many opportunities. I think you once did a post on who chose the worst time to fail, a student failing their A-levels or a student at Oxbridge failing their final exams, and you said the person who failed their A-levels was a lot worse off because at least the Oxbridge person can tell employers they were accepted into Oxbridge. I have a coworker who doesn't understand these things and asks "why do schools teach unnecessary things and why do employers ask for unnecessary things for the job?" He fails to realize that it isn't about the technical stuff, but about office politics, in other words the employer wants to make the test as hard as possible, and the university therefore has to make their material harder so their students can get the best jobs and raise university ranking. But then again, he does lack social skills and annoys me often haha.
I am leaving my house in like 1.5 hours. I was so excited I struggled to sleep but finally did, I know cos I had dreams about finding some keys I had lost and then going on a boat ride in a canal in a place which reminded me of Holland or Belgium. I don't think it would have a massive impact on Dubai for a simple reason: I did do my research. I thought, okay I'm going to be in Dubai maybe I can find a cheap flight, budget airlines, to another local destination. Ironically, the cheapest flight I could get out of Dubai or Abu Dhabi was to Vienna for crying out loud and it wasn't cheap. It was cheaper to fly to Vienna and back than to Qatar, Kuwait, Oman or Bahrain. It's all a matter of supply & demand - loads of Austrians want to escape the cold winters for some sunshine so they wanna fly to Dubai hence that regular service exists. But few want to travel between the Arab states to there are few flights and they are very expensive, they are for the mega rich who won't think about paying US$600 for a 45 minute flight whereas for that kind of money, I can go London to Singapore with some airlines. Going to the World Cup is never going to be a cheap experience for anyone but good grief, if you factor in a few thousand dollars for commuting if you cannot get a hotel room in Qatar, then it's going to be insanely expensive. There are no cheap shuttle flights between Dubai and Doha the way there would be a budget airlines like Spirit Airlines flying that route between LA and San Francisco, with that high demand creating a cheaper service for everyone. But imagine if you wanted to fly from LA to a small town in the middle of nowhere in Colorado, that's when you end up paying a lot.
DeleteAs for Side and his future, I have no idea. I did check in with him and he said he is straight, I've seen the way he flirt with women and can confirm that. He's a nice guy but he's not 'husband' material in the financial sense as he's just gonna end up like Douglas, who has little to offer his wife and kids given how little he earns as a gymnastics coach. If he wants to change his career, he'd better start thinking of it now as such a transition can take years whereas if he waits till he becomes a father, then it's too late. I have another friend who is far more middle class and he became a father recently, he has a professional job that pays well and so he doesn't have to worry about his wife not being able to work after she gives birth given that she didn't earn that much anyway so she may as well stay at home to care for the baby in the first few years until you can send the child to kindergarten - they're in a comfortable position, Douglas is not.
OK, let me finish packing as I have to dash soon! Speak soon Amanda!
As for your last point, yeah a lot of employers and industries, even degree programmes at top universities do bung in a lot of unnecessary difficult stuff to deliberately raise the bar when it comes to the level of entry. We are okay I suppose as we have the brain power to cope with such challenges, but think of the poor guy who is an aspiring stuntman - the only thing between him and his dream of getting on the stunt register as a qualified stuntman is this ridiculously hard gymnastics skill he has to learn to pass the test and even I'm looking at him thinking, "with some luck, maybe a year or two? This is seriously difficult and it's not something you can learn in a week or two without having already spent years doing gymnastics." The irony is that he will probably perform that skill at his exam, pass it, then never ever have to do it ever again - much like the way we memorize stuff to pass an important exam, then never ever have to use that information ever again. It's all quite stupid really, but now you know why we do it.
DeleteWhat $600 for a regional flight? That's crazy! I thought Qatar airlines said they would have 200 shuttle flights a day, but I guess they didn't mention they were gonna be cheap. Lol packing is always stressful, especially if you forget the luggage locks and keys, they're so small and easy to lose! They probably shouldn't have held the world cup in Qatar if there were so little accomodations. At least in a city like Paris there is a lot of countryside where people can Airbnb and commute into the country.
DeleteYou can probably call me privileged but I don't think much about how much money a guy makes when I want to date him because I think I'd have enough for myself and dependents in the future if it came to it. Could Side not try to get a woman who works as a software engineer or a quantitative trader in London? Or the women who would like to date Side only make about the same as him?
What is that hard gymnastics skill on the stunt register exam? I was watching some Disney+ star wars show last night and the Jedi do perform a few flips here and there, but that was probably done using invisible wires, even though a skilled gymnast could probably do it but not jump as high. Oh well forgetting information is a small price to pay for being able to comfortably afford a mortgage and international vacations right? It doesn't matter if it's needed for the job, I don't make the rules here but yeah it's to keep people out and wages high. I mean some politicians in the UK are even thinking of scrapping the A levels and all standardized testing and only using per school GPA for university admissions. I say don't do that, because it's gonna cause a lot of tension when two students at the same university have the same GPA but one knows a lot more than the other.
A woman with a good job earning great money would never marry Side. It doesn't work like that. Rich women rarely (I won't use the word never, but rarely) marry a man who earns less than them. Side has to find a woman who earns even less than him (or at least about the same). The most difficult skills are the one and three quarters in tuck bail onto backdrop rebound one and one quarter in tuck with half twist on the trampoline and a Tsukhara vault. Both are very advanced skills.
DeleteHmm, I suppose I posed that question because after I graduate and work in quantitative finance or tech, I would make more than a lot of guys I meet on Hinge. But the men I swipe on are still mostly white collar engineers, even if they don't all crack 6 figures. So in my opinion, I think its more that straight women rarely marry men less educated than them, not necessarily making less. Hmm, would I swipe right on a gymnastics coach? Only because I like gymnastics yes. But if a guy doesn't seem to understand my white collar problems it might be hard to get along. Random question, since you're a gay man, how does money work in gay dating? Is it less of a big deal than in straight dating?
DeleteWow those are hard skills! The tsukahara vault is definitely not a beginner skill at all.
In the gay world, it does matter a lot less in that our gender do not play a role since both parties are men - it then becomes a question of, do you wanna date someone who earns more than you (and can take care of you financially) or do you wanna date someone who earns less than you and you may have to take care of them? Here's the thing: there are two main ways a gay man can attract a mate. The first one is money, sorry to be materialistic but if you're rich, people flock to you and I've experienced that a lot as an older gay man. The second one is looks, if you're very good looking, then everyone wants to have sex with you. So a good looking guy can cash in on his looks and get a rich(er) partner, or a rich old man can get a younger guy. I've also seen two young but poor guys together and two older and rich guys together, so it's not that simple.
DeleteLol, considering how you write a lot about poverty on this blog and how difficult it is to achieve income mobility, I wouldn't say being "materialistic" is a bad thing when choosing between marrying rich versus dying poor. But the two poor guys together or the two rich guys together probably just want someone who would have their back even if they suddenly became ugly or couldn't make money.
DeletePersonally, I've been on dates with either a very fit guy who doesn't make a lot, or an average looking guy who is very rich. I wasn't too surprised about the latter because I also grew up wealthy, but the former really surprised me because I don't look like an instagram model. I had to conclude that some men do try to cash in on their looks too considering the university I go to. I even have a middle class friend who joked there must be many guys who want to marry me just so my dad could get them a good job in the oil industry.
You know when I was in Dubai, I saw a lot of this happening: mixed couples, much older white guy with an Asian (Indian or Filipino looking) lady half his age. It's the same thing, I roll by eyes and am reminded that I am in one of Asia's most expensive cities and money talks. I also think it's sad now that I get more attention from younger hot gay men who think I'm a meal ticket compared to when I was in my 20s, when I didn't get that much attention from anyone (guess I was ugly then?!) but the fact is, yeah you can be rich + ugly and still get loads of attention, or you can be poor + beautiful and cash in on your beauty: just avoid being poor + ugly then you're truly screwed.
DeleteSorry, typo: I roll MY eyes.
DeleteOh I'm not surprised by the mixed couples you observed in Dubai. In fact, growing up in an international private school, some of my friends had parents like that. One of them even moved to Doha, Qatar in fact, which is not quite Dubai but close. Because my parents are both wealthy and Asian, my sister used to ask "what do so and so's parents even have in common with each other? There's such a big age and culture gap." Considering the poorer spouse gets to live in a big house and see their kids have a good education, that's not a bad deal compared to signing up for these online trading or marketing courses and hoping to earn the same kind of money.
DeleteI don't think you were "ugly" in your 20s, since you were an athlete. I do think that charisma and self confidence plays a bigger role in attraction than most people think. And you have more of that today than back then. I mean I couldn't get a single guy in undergrad when I was at my thinnest. I put on a bit of extra weight in my late 20s but I can now get guys with abs which freaks me out. I have to conclude the ability to establish rapport very quickly is crucial to attracting people. I mean rich awkward men/women exist, I observe most of them in the software industry, men/women in their 40s who make a lot but still can't get a girl/guy.
Well thank you. If I was that good looking, I would gladly rely on my looks to get a better life. But instead, I have to use my brains to make a living and it's bloody hard work sometimes I swear.
DeleteYeah who doesn't want to be beautiful? But we get the cards we get and just have to make the most of it. I'm a very nerdy person so I wasn't as fussed not to be pretty and popular.
DeleteHi LIFT, how about courses such as internet marketing? Do you consider that a scam for reasons similar to what you mentioned?
ReplyDeleteEverything is relative - it's not a scam per se but it's totally useless. I can run a course to teach you how to use an iPhone, the very basics about how to use it, download apps, switch between tasks. Is the course useful? It will be, because I am describing something that is indeed run in Singapore for senior citizens to make sure they can take advantage of modern technology available through smart phones, but the average student on that course is a non-very educated Ah Soh / Ah Pek in their 70s or 80s. Is that course a scam? No it is very useful for those elderly folks benefiting from it. But if you're a young person doing that course, can you then expect to get a job with Google or Apple after completing that course? No, of course not again. It's way too easy. Likewise for something like internet marketing, okay if you're a complete idiot who knows absolutely nothing about internet marketing and you wanna learn about it, then you'll learn something from the course the same way an 80 year old Ah Soh getting her first smart phone will benefit from the former course I described. However, will such courses lead to gainful employment? Hell no. In your dreams. Never. It could be a scam if they promise you, "take this very simple course and you will get a super well paid job with our certificate!" If you're dumb enough to believe that lie, then you deserve to be cheated of your money.
DeleteOh and please tell me you didn't sign up for something like that. Tell me you're intelligent enough not to fall for this kind of bullshit and you're just thinking out aloud.
DeleteHey Alex, hope you had fun in the middle east. Do you have any comment on the UK gov announcing that they will only grant student visas for "top" universities?
DeleteBe careful with this kind of fake news - there was a suggestion that this was a move that the government could take, one newspaper ran with it and when the story got reported in the US, it was quoted as if it was already official policy but no, it is not. That's how people fall for fake news, mostly because journalists who are lazy see something written elsewhere, quote it out of context as click bait and then totally distort the story.
DeleteSo no, they won't do it - it's a stupid idea. Even if we accept that the universities beyond the top 50 are not good universities, this is a big industry that contributes a lot of money into the British economy. Foreign students who leave with crap degrees from universities languishing at the bottom of the league tables are not our problem because if they return home to their countries and fail to get a good job, it's their responsibility - the UK government thanks them for having spent so much money on getting a British degree and wishes them the best.
DeleteLol yeah, why should the UK gov care about unemployment in a different country. I read the guardian article closely and it says Sunak's spokesperson mentioned looking at international student numbers and low quality degrees to bring migration down, but didn't announce a bill.
DeleteThe course did not promise a job but a profitable business. You may be surprised both young and old signed up for it. There were also a number of professionals who signed up. I was young and gullible then, did not know any better and I signed up for it. The fact is that all the information in the course can be found online, and the course salesman is very smart by telling us by following their easy to follow, step by step course instructions, we can also be successful internet marketers ( The course salesman is a verified successful internet marketer ) He said he had earned enough money from the business and like to help people like us. Since then, I had promised myself not to be so gullible again.
Delete@Amanda, I looked at that closely and they are not exactly threatening to stop issuing international student visas as that is a big earner for the UK economy. There are some schemes now which do allow students to stay on after they graduate and if the government wanted to be wise about it, they could raise the bar a bit higher to make it out of reach of most 'ordinary' graduates - such as, if you want to stay on in the UK after you graduate, you must get a job with an annual salary of at least £35,000 per annum. Now that's not ridiculously high but that's not your typical starting pay either for most jobs - it then makes it impossible for most students to stay on after they graduate and it solves a problem by moving the goal posts, rather than doing something that drastic to kill off the economy. The politicians want the students here to spend money (we're in a recession, we need their money), but the government would not want them to stay on after they graduate if they're not going to be contributing much. If they're of elite quality, of course we want them here but if they're just average, then we need a smarter visa system for them to be granted work permits only if they're willing to do jobs that no one else is willing to do (such as nursing). This issue can be dealt with in a far more efficient and intelligent way.
Delete@Jon, that salesman was preying on your desperation to find a short cut and I hate to break it to you, there are no short cuts in life. Short cuts are rare and hard to find, there could be lucky breaks - I remember that one time I was walking down the street in Buenos Aires in Argentina and I found a wad of notes. At first I was hesitant to take it (like what if a drug dealer can running up to me asking for his money) but it wasn't like it was hidden in the bushes, it was literally on the pavement like someone dropped it. I picked it up, looked around and thought, losers weepers finders keepers and it was a substantial amount of cash. Yeah, things like that can and do happen but they rarely happen and that's down to just plain luck. Part 2 below.
But in that example when I picked up money on the street, I accept that there's no element of hard work or talent on my part, I was in the right place at the right time, luck was what allowed me to find that wad of cash. (It wasn't in wallet with ID cards etc, it was literally some notes with a rubber band around it - so I thought it was pointless handing it into the police as they're so corrupt in Argentina they'd just pocket it as it would be impossible to identify the owner.) Anyway, the phrase in Chinese for this scenario is 不劳而获 - to benefit the rewards with no labour. Allow me to tweak that a little and coin the phrase 少劳而获 - you want the same results, but you want to put in only a little bit of effort. That's the essence of a short cut: people are always looking for short cuts when they look at the task before them like, "I wanna be thin, I need to lose weight", then they realize, damn it's a hard process of diets + exercise, is there a short cut so I can get the same result without that much effort? So people fall for miracle cures, like take this pill once a day and you'll achieve the results you want with no effort! Yeah the salesman was preying on your desire to find a short cut and there are a lot of people out there who dance close to the edge, what they are offering is a useless product but it's not a illegal to sell you a useless product if you're a willing customer. I was recently shopping in Dubai when I was in an 'art gallery' type shop in a high class mall where there was a painting on sale for the equivalent of $150,000 and I was like, seriously, there's nothing special about this painting to warrant that price. But it's not a scam, I had the choice to walk out of that shop and say, I'm not paying that, let some other person who is willing to pay that price buy it. And if someone is stupid enough to pay that price, then that's their decision - but it's not a scam under those circumstances, which is the same as what happened in your case. It's a very poor decision, your judgment was bad as it was based on looking for a short cut but you were a willing customer at the end of the day.
DeleteThus I'm sorry to be the one to have to break it to you like that - it wasn't a scam, yes the salesman was overpromising and underdelivering (and that happens a lot in the world of business, believe you me), but it is up to us as wise, intelligent, rational adults to carefully evaluate the pros and cons, exercising good judgment in each decision in order to make sure we don't just hear what we want to hear, but we come to our own conclusions about the subject matter after we study all the facts correctly. In this case, I come to the conclusion that the salesman was out to sell you something totally useless (like that very overpriced painting in that shop in Dubai I saw) at a vastly inflated price that doesn't reflect the value you would derive from it, you had every chance to walk away from it and say, "no fucking way, this is dumb" (the way I walked out of that shop in Dubai). But you didn't, you bought it and I'm sorry to be harsh but that's on you mate, you made that poor decision when you could have said no.
DeleteI accepted that, learnt from it and moved on. More importantly, I will not repeat the same mistake.
Delete