Some of the most fascinating topics covered this week are: Investing (Lessons from investing in 483 companies; ESG brings distinct value to developing nations), Parenting (Working-class parents are becoming more like middle-class ones), Space Tech (Cloud computing is betting on outer space), and Sports (Game of Life: Lessons we can learn from sports)
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At Ambit, we spend a lot of time reading articles that cover a wide gamut of topics, ranging from zeitgeist to futuristic, and encapsulate them in our weekly ‘Ten Interesting Things’ product. Some of the most fascinating topics covered this week are: Investing (Lessons from investing in 483 companies; ESG brings distinct value to developing nations), Parenting (Working-class parents are becoming more like middle-class ones), Space Tech (Cloud computing is betting on outer space), and Sports (Game of Life: Lessons we can learn from sports). Here are the ten most interesting pieces that we read this week, ended October 09, 2020- 1) Charlie Songhurst – Lessons from Investing in 483 Companies [Source: The Investor’s Field Guide]2) Laughing at work should be a norm [Source: The Economist]
A sense of humour is necessary in life. A study of undergraduates found that those with a strong sense of humour experienced less stress and anxiety than those without it. But, how important is it at work? Humour can be a particular source of comfort at work, where sometimes it can be the only healthy reaction to setbacks or irrational commands from the boss. The healthiest kind of workplace humour stems from the bottom up, not from the top down. Often the most popular employees at work are those who can lighten the mood with a joke or two.
Everyone can appreciate a quip about the cramped commuter trains, the officious security guard, the sluggish lifts or the dodgy canteen food. In that sense, workers can feel they are all (bar the security guard) “in it together”. This helps create team spirit and relieve stress. Work is a serious matter but it cannot be taken seriously all the time. Sometimes things happen at work that are inherently ridiculous. Perhaps the technology breaks down just as the boss is in mid-oration, or a customer makes an absurd request.
Satire should not just be applied to other people. Perhaps the most important thing is not to take one’s own work too seriously. As the late, great gag-writer and comic Bob Monkhouse recalled at the height of his career, “They laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well, they’re not laughing now.” Though a sense of humour is necessary at work, one needs to understand that it shouldn’t demean anyone.
3) Tidjane Thiam: ESG brings distinct value to developing nations [Source: Financial Times]
The author of this article, Tidjane Thiam, chair of the audit committee of the Kering Group, member of the Group of 30, and the African Union’s special envoy on Covid-19, highlights how important ESG investing is. Suddenly everyone is thinking about ESG investing. Funds that invest according to environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles have attracted net assets of more than $70bn from April to June, pushing their assets under management to a historic high of $1tn.
The fact that investors are now increasingly supporting and rewarding responsible corporate behaviour is good news for all countries but never more so than for countries with limited resources, as is often the case in lower-income countries and in Africa. Many leaders of companies are increasingly embracing ESG. This new focus by business will over time have a significant, positive impact on the growth prospects of less-developed countries. Particularly important in emerging and developing economies is the G — governance. Why? Because companies will invest and create jobs in countries with good governance and where corruption is not tolerated. The first victims of corruption are always the poor who end up paying more for basic services and goods.
Corruption and poor governance are both morally wrong and economically inefficient. Civil society and non-governmental organisations have a key role to play to denounce abuses and drive change. In 1Q2020, 94% of ESG funds outperformed their parent benchmarks. This owed something to the fact that ESG funds were not exposed to oil and gas, carbon-intensive industries that suffered a slump in demand as a result of the pandemic. However, it seems that the outperformance continued in Q2 2020, after these stocks recovered. ESG also looks at how companies treat their employees, including their approach to health and welfare benefits. Companies that have treated their employees well since the pandemic started, made working from home easier and mitigated the impact of furloughs, did better financially than those that did not.
4) Working-class parents are becoming more like middle-class ones [Source: The Economist]
We all have thought of the way that we want to raise our kids. Many a times, the child-raising habits of middle class such as habits endlessly pointing out new things and answering children’s questions with other questions are mocked. Across the rich world, parents expect more of their children than in the past, and treat them differently. Gradually, they have adopted child-raising habits normally associated with middle-class parents. That largely unheralded change has probably mitigated the harm done to poorer children by covid-19 and the school closures it prompted. Unfortunately, some damage has been done anyway.
In 2003 Annette Lareau, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, published an astonishing book about child-raising. “Unequal Childhoods” showed that working-class parents—whether they were white or black, poor and welfare-dependent or with steady jobs—thought and behaved differently from middle-class ones. Most assumed that their children would develop naturally, and that their job was to keep them happy and safe. Middle-class parents, by contrast, engaged in what Ms. Lareau called “concerted cultivation”, stimulating, stretching and scheduling their progeny to within an inch of their lives.
In the mid-1970s highly educated and thinly educated mothers alike spent little time interacting with their children. Over the following decade the highly educated changed their behaviour, opening a large lead over everyone else. The less-educated then closed the gap. Two scholars, Sean Reardon and Ximena Portilla, have shown that in America the gap between the test scores of the most privileged and least privileged children upon entry to nursery closed slightly between 1998 and 2010. Working-class parents have learned to bring up their children in a more stimulating way. The next thing they need to learn from the middle classes is how to nag their children’s teachers.
9) A portrait of a market in India run solely by women [Source: NY Times]
The travel and tourism industry has come to a standstill (though slowly reviving now). Travelling is how you learn about different cultures, traditions, cuisines and more. Though there are many hidden gems in India, the author of this article visits Imphal, the capital city of Manipur, and talks about how women have headed the social and political activism in the Indian state if Manipur. And the centre of attraction of Imphal is the Nupi Keithel, or Women’s Market. Every shopkeeper in sight is a woman. Collectively, around 5,000 of them here in the Indian state of Manipur constitute one of the largest markets run solely by women in all of Asia.
One incident that brought the place to limelight occurred in 1904. Traders from Nupi Keithel protested the colonial administration’s use of forced labor. Other Manipuri women joined the movement and stirred public outrage with several demonstrations. Eventually, the forced-labor policies were revoked. This was the first Nupi Lan, or women’s war, a crucial milestone marking the political awakening of the people of Manipur led by women traders of Nupi Keithel. In 1939, the market spearheaded a second Nupi Lan against the King of Manipur. In the wake of both movements, the market emerged as the dominant voice of resistance against oppression and injustice — and the women emerged as the sentinels of a more equitable Manipuri society.
The vendors in this market are spread across three buildings and a massive open market. The shops are separated from each other by various goods. There is only enough space to display a small fraction of wares; the rest are bundled away in trunks and bedsheets that flank each seller as she sits cross-legged in her shop. Among the towers of surplus goods, the author spots perfectly camouflaged placards with slogans like “We won’t stay silent” and “We demand justice.” “We don’t speak the language of silence here,” says Laishram Mema Devi, who has sold handmade jewelry at the market for more than three decades. “It doesn’t matter who we are up against; if what they are doing is not in Manipur’s best interest, they will hear from us.”