The deep philosophy lessons in Avengers Endgame and Infinity War movies.

The Russo brothers must have had a good time building up to the great philosophical question that is Thanos’ mission in the Avengers: Infinity War. The big philosophical question is that of sacrificing lives to save the species.

We have all heard of the saying “cut off the arm to save the head”, Thanos’ mission is similar but on a Universal scale. Beyond the philosophical conundrum of killing some to save the whole, goes a lot of philosophical and psychological literature about wars and destruction and being part of human psyche and even necessary for continuity of life on this planet.

In the early 1930s, seeing the horrors of the First World War, Albert Einstein wrote to the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud to ask his thoughts on how further war might be prevented. Freud wrote that Thanatos “is at work in every living creature and striving to bring it to ruin and reduce life to its original condition of inanimate matter”.

The way I see this in The Avengers Infinity War and Endgame movies is the real way Thanatos presents itself to those that carry it out. Not as destruction, but as salvation like the way Thanos sees it. This destructive drive convinces its perpetrators that it is the right way of preventing something even more catastrophic. Adolf Hitler wanted to fix the world from his own perspective.

Same way Thanos uses the space stone, Thanatos can be everywhere. Thanatos is the unconscious psychological urges towards self-destruction, manifested in the kinds of inexplicable behaviour.

Bottom-line, even though the avengers movies are fiction, their creators have come up with real ideas from deep psychological and philosophical basis and may be, just may-be, this is why Infinity War resonates with our reality as humans and the audience.

In fictional story telling, there is a lot more meaning to the audience when it comes from the basis of the nature of reality. People’s Imagination is stretched but they still find a way of understanding, even though not agreeing with the villain’s point of view. The audience is forced to consider either side of the fight and know why each side is fighting with full resolve.

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Watch the Avengers Endgame Trailer here:

Outlook For 2016

I remember, the so-called days of future past. I am not talking about watching X-men as a kid, but watching the build up to the past Global financial meltdowns. I wasn't always a bear. In the mid-2000s like most newly self-proclaimed "students of the markets", you couldn't find anyone as bullish on the stock markets as I was. I could see a bright economic future for Nigeria and I thought with that, the stock market would follow suit. I was right, at least at first.

Back then, while we were out for an evening stroll, I was pitching a friend, whom would be my future boss, about the prospects of the Nigerian stock market. Following up to that, the stock market made me a millionaire, briefly on paper (and in Naira). And faster than one could ever imagine, my "networth" in the stock markets fell to around 10% of its peak. I waited for it to go up thinking it was a temporary crash. It looked like it would, but it went down to less than 5% of it's peak. There was it. My first lesson as an investor. What I am now just realising, it was the beginning of a long bear market.



only crooks win all the time in investments

It's very hard to guess the direction of stocks, based on sentiment, or even data. This isn't limited to investing in stocks alone, it includes forex and commodities like oil.

And speaking of Oil.....

Mistake by the Saudis?

With oil hovering between $26 and $32, I just hope the Saudis are sure of what they are doing, if not, it could sink the world. I hope they have the end planned out because the rivalry between the Saudis and the newly opened oil taps of Iran if not anticipated and calculated for by the Saudis could spell serious lost revenues for all OPEC nations and other oil producers. A competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia could make the oil glut last longer than most analysts expeced and may in the long run be bad for many growing economies.

India which just surpassed China's economic growth rate may stand to gain a lot from the above scenario. I should just move to Bangalore. ;)


Soros sees another 1930s

In the George Soros's World Economic forum interview that has been repeated lots of times on every business news TV channel and has lots of articles written about, he mentions similarities between todays economic uncertainties and the lead up to the great depression. Well, Soros is probably the only authority that can make such comparisons.


China

From an investment and infrastructure driven economy to one driven by consumption and services. Everyone claims this to be good, but where does it leave the commodity producers that are so reliant on China's production growth that is supposedly ending now.

China has been the engine of Global growth I believe not just because China has been growing 8% but because production and investment in China drives 6% and 7% economic growths elsewhere in the World. China drives the Global economy by buying from commodity producing EMs whom have been growing and now risk slowing with China's shift from production growth.


The Bears vs the Bulls

The bears think we are heading for a recession while the bulls think it's just a correction. Both sides make compelling arguments and back them up with data.

Nobody really knows, unless it's past then we look back at history and think "it was so obvious" like the dotcom crash. Many are worried about the slow down in China while others argue that after the recent economic data out of China, it's not that bad as Chinese economy shifts into a services and consumer driven one.


The Superstitious

Personally, I believe it's been 8 years since the 2008 meltdown and we are ripe for another one. Many look to history or some other indicators to suggest if we have the conditions ripe for a slowdown. This is just superstition because it's slightly always different every other time.


Nigeria's year

Hopefully, as the Nation kicks out corruption successfully, Whether oil is performing or not, we have to have other revenues sources to set up the foundation of a better economic future. Present administration's economic policy may be sound or otherwise, but the best thing to happen to Nigeria will be a "real" anti-corruption war.

The massive budget is probably an early sign of steroid shots to kick off a fast economic growth. Who knows?..

Forex strategies: How I Shorted the Naira

[Disclaimer: This post is just a case study. I am not writing it to claim that I got rich from some currency short or to encourage any aspiring short sellers on how to make trades or deals that will affect the value of the currency of our beloved country].

It was early 2015, around January, February to be precise. The value of the Naira had just taken a beating against the greenback and our Elections were nearing. Few anticipated that oil prices would keep falling all through the year.

In 2007 and 08 I thought the oil price of around $100 per barrel was just a temporary high but it stayed up there longer than we most anticipated. Then the world became used to high oil prices. It was a lost opportunity to a country like Nigeria I believe as the government went an unnecessary spending spree while the foundations of the economy were still shaky. Fast forward to 2015, there I was, a self-proclaimed student of world economic trends with a chance to play real life "short selling" with the little that I had or didn’t have.

I first read about short selling in 2008, I was just beginning to take an interest in the stock market and I tried to buy around 300,000 Naira worth of stocks. I got just a few bucks out of that as the stock market in Nigeria collapsed the following year. I wondered if someone read a little more and analyzed a little more of the capital market situation in the country back then and found a way to short most of the overvalued stocks (most stock prices were supported with credit from sometimes the banks that are issuing the stocks). I never found a way to short the stock market, so I gave up.

Early 2015 I had a trip planned. I was terribly worried about the fall of the Naira and I was scared the Naira could fall even further. Then it hit me, this is a situation I could short and make a profit. But before I attempted a short I realized with nervousness of the coming elections, the Naira could fall more and if oil prices keep falling, it could fall even further. So I used the excuse of the trip I was going on to collect a Naira loan which I then changed into Dollars at a rate of around N185 to the dollar and I kept the money.

After I came back from my trip and it was time to pay back my loan, I sold the Dollars at the rate of 220 each. I made a profit of N35 on every dollar I bought at N185. I paid back the loan and kept the N35 profit on every N185 I borrowed.

At today’s rate, a day after the U.S Fed raised interest rates, I would have doubled my profits if only I kept the loan long enough. I would have kept it till next year as I anticipate an oil price fall to follow the U.S. Fed rate hike.

 

"We just wanted to build the market, so we burned through our money," Unknown.

Many high flyers are flying straight into a banner with the words of the headline above written on it. It's not totally dumb for a startup to try to burn through a pile of cash and create a new market that it will turn into a future cash cow. It takes though, a lot of vision to achieve, and, of course, very patient investors.

Jet.com is the highest of these flyers, it is trying to take "some" of Amazon's business by spending it's way to growth in a span of a few years. As crazy as it sounds, these guys have vision. I must say. But there is a difference between vision and desperation, and the smaller "wanna be' flyers that I am seeing are more of the latter.

Selling stuff so cheap that a company shifts it's losses to it's investors is just the tip of the "losses for growth startup" icebergs we've been sailing through lately. Now startups give away money to users to have them sign up. You read that correct. You sign up with them, you get paid!

Not to pass any naive judgments here, many believe this is now the secret to building big startups fast, by losing money very fast in order to have growth. Uber, Airbnb, and many more are all doing this. My gut tells me this is not the right way, the Facebooks and the Googles where not built this way.

The main reason for this is probably the cheap money that is about to dry up in the coming months as credit is tightened with the coming rising interest rates. Then the market will get a reality check and we'll see if this strategy has worked or if it will backfire and then we'll see the ones saying - "We just wanted to build the market, so we burned through our money,"

App That Finds Your Birthday Mates Launched by Nigerian has the potential of going Viral.

Launched by a Nigerian, the app that helps you find other people with the same birthday with you I believe is both exciting and has the opportunity to go viral and engage users with new exciting birthday activities and connections. Here is how..

Find My Birthday Mates is an app launched by a Nigerian Kanayo O. that connects to social networks and finds those with the same birthdays with you and connects, it also looks for those in the same area as you so you could organize a collective celebration, may be dinner or even a party.

Apps like these are very exciting especially when used for the first time, they are fun to try. Discovery is fun and so is connecting with new people and almost everyone will be tempted to give them a try when the first use them. Any app that gives you the opportunity to connect also gets the opportunity to go viral in return when you invite new people or try to reach your network using the app.

But we have seen apps that go viral quickly without any utility use (they are only fun the first time) and then disappear quickly. www.birthday-mates.com can thank their lucky stars that birthdays don't just happen once in a lifetime, it's a yearly occurence. And, if they can build out more features, like help users organize birthday events and have notifications when a new birthday mate moves to your city, they can be as useful as the apps we use daily and can't imagine living without.

How Sustainable is The Startup Ecosystem in Nigeria

Always launched with much fan fair and a long guest list of celebrities and media people. The Nigerian startup ecosystem may be already partying too much, like it's 1999. Except for the biggest media companies and some fast cash burning big ecommerce sites, I doubt if any of the startups have much revenue or even profits to be dropping these launch parties. Yeah, launch parties and events, By "launch" being pre-revenue, pre-sales and sometimes even pre-product.

I'm sure it's nice to mix business and partying like Jordan Belfort even before the first sales start coming in. And I am open to the claims that these PR events are essential for press coverage and early realeases. For example, SlotMobileApp that launched recently, is already at the top of high traffic Nigerian ecommerce sites. But What's the main difference between them and Huntella Gadgets, a similar site that has been around for a while and which in a sustainable way acquire much of it's business through social media and search traffic. Which of the two is profitable and which will outlive the other?

Think of Nigerian music apps that sponsor weekly events with big name celebrities, Are they profitable or will they run out of cash? This is all debatable.

Noise isn't always performance. just take a look at SHOPA. The fast growing $11 million venture funded ecommerce startup that just closed it does after a high profile party attended by models and clebrities and then follow-up campaigns featuring the same class.

Seems we have forgotten the importance of Organic growth. We have no retrospect of how Startups like Instagram and even Facebook and Google got to where they are. They grew by lowering their costs of acquiring new users. Sometimes that cost is brought down to zero with their viral marketing.

Seriously, if you have to pay celebrities to acquire new users (and you are not even an entertainment company) how long will you be in business without again raising a lot of money to keep paying these celebrities and again and again till the funding surpasses your actual business or we hit a funding crunch and you are out of business.

Lastly, I forget where I saw this quote, but the saying goes like this "If you wanna survive in business, be a cockroach." I know investment is good in a booming market to grab as much market share and as quickly as you could, but being wasteful is equally bad and can kick you out of the market. 

4 Things That Helped Win World War II Which Are Unthinkable Today.

World War II was a deadly conflict, it killed millions of soldiers and innocent civilians. It was a war that had to be won at all costs. Some of the tactics employed are unthinkable in this modern day but they were what needed to be done in order for the allies to come out victorious over the axis.

1. Countless Human Sacrifice in the Front Lines: The Soviet's red army lost more than 10 million men in the eastern front. It was the necessary cost of stopping Hitler's troops march to Moscow with powerful weapons like the German machine guns and the Panzer tank. Endless ground troops were sent to face the advanced German weaponry. They were basically marched into a slaughter.

2. City Infernoes: A number of cities were completely set ablaze with air raids and fire fights when they were contended by opposing troops. Including Italian cities, the German city of Harmburg and the Russian cities of Kursk and Stalingrad. Thousands of civilians burnt in the blazes.

In modern day, Unless for military and communication targets, Cities are not indiscriminately targeted in warfare.

3. Poor Working Conditions in Weapons Assembly Lines: In the assembly lines of war hardwares in the US, workers worked very long hours in order to out manufacture and out supply the Germans in weaponry to the front lines. When the workers tried to unionize and strike, President Roosevelt threatened to enlist them in the army unless they returned to work.

4. The cost to animal rights: I'm not sure if there's an existing estimate on the number of horses killed during the war in Europe. The Soviet used specially trained dogs to deliver IEDs on a suicide mission to moving German vehicles.

5. Use of the Atomic Bomb: The US used the atomic bomb, twice, in order to take Japan out of the war. Atomic warfare is unthinkable today as it may lead to a full blown Global destruction.

The World today has many rules to conventional warfare that classify so many things as war crimes including the use of chemical or biological weapons. In the day of politically strong workers unions, PETA and the Hague, can desperate wars be won?