Next time you’re negotiating, don’t offer up a round number. Pick a precise one instead.
Because if you give a specific figure in euros or dollars or yen, you’ll look more intelligent and informed—and likely end up with a better outcome, according to new research from Columbia Business School.
“Precise numbers are these potent anchors,” said Malia F. Mason, one of the study’s authors and an associate professor of management at Columbia Business School. She argues that asking for $52,000 or €95,500, for example, can be far more effective than the more commonly used round numbers like $50,000 or €100,000.
Giving an exact number implies “the state of your knowledge” on whatever you’re valuing and also conveys your confidence that it’s appropriate, the professors report in a study about to be published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
The approach could work whether you’re buying something on Craigslist or even negotiating a new salary, though the researchers did not look at pay in the six studies they did, Mason said in an interview with Quartz.
“It should apply to any negotiation that involves quantity” including your pay rate, said Mason. When you’re being recruited for a job, though, salary is just one part of the discussion, she added. Mason teaches managerial negotiation classes and researches how people understand each others’ attitudes and explain their behavior.
So how precise do you want to be? “Know that the numbers that you use imply something about the state of your knowledge. Be a little more precise than you’d otherwise be,” Mason said.
Overly precise numbers do carry some risks and downsides, and may be perceived as signaling inflexibility or could trigger skepticism if the other party already has doubts about your expertise, the authors say. Still, in six studies involving experienced managers, MBA students and undergraduates, the precise figures generally brought better counteroffers.
Mason got the idea for the research on precision while taking a taxi in Prague. Her cab driver asker her for a 1,000 korunas fare. Though she admits she didn’t know how far away her hotel was from the train station, “it felt like the fare came from no where… like he pulled it out of a hat,” she said. With several cabbies in the area, she found another and recalls paying around 700 korunas instead. “I was with a friend who knows I teach negotiation,” she recalled. So afterward they dissected the experience in detail, and from there the research commenced.
“People love rules and recipes for success in negotiation,” said Mason. Yet many of them are “full of it” because they don’t consider the context and the goals.
If all you care about is getting a very high price, “then it helps if you make the opening offer, and you make an extreme opening offer… It almost exerts a gravitational pull,” she said . Of course, it could also cause the other side to walk away.
Instead, set a high but but slightly less extreme and precise number and you’ll do better in your negotiations.
When you give a precise sum, say $10,500 for the two-month contract, make sure you can explain why you named that number. “Seeming informed is one thing,” said Mason. “Being informed is far better.”
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Getting paid by your employer to be healthy works—except when it doesn’t
When a 2014 portion of the Affordable Care Act comes into effect, employers will be able to use financial rewards and penalties to encourage healthier behaviors. Last week the Obama administration released its final rules regarding these employer-based wellness programs.
Still, critics are concerned that an annual premium adjustment isn’t likely to change behavior, and will just end up penalizing those with poorer health.
According to Dr. Kevin Volpp, Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, it isn’t as simple as just paying someone for doing the right thing. People tend to respond to immediate, short-term rewards (e.g. the satisfaction of eating one more piece of pizza) more readily than to delayed consequences (weight gain). The science of “behavioral economics” has found that when people are offered immediate incentives and penalties to do the healthy thing, they are more likely to make the right decision, sort of like having a swear jar for healthy living.
But not all incentives are created equal, and some behaviors are harder to change (e.g. quitting smoking) than others (taking your kid for a routine check up). The impact of an incentive depends a lot on how it is framed, and the context in which it’s offered.
People also respond differently to rewards and penalties. Volpp studies show how different types, sizes, and frequencies of incentives impact people’s behavior.
In one study, Volpp and colleagues teamed up with General Electric to develop financial incentives to get employees to quit smoking. All smokers received information about smoking-cessation programs, but half were chosen at random to also receive financial incentives. In the financial incentive group, smokers were given $100 for completing a smoking-cessation informational program, $250 for quitting smoking within six months of joining the study, and $400 if they were still not smoking six months after they quit.
The smokers in the incentive group were three times more likely to join a smoking-cessation program, and three times more likely to quit smoking than those who were not offered financial rewards. But when GE rolled these financial incentives to quit smoking to the rest of their workforce, employees complained about rewarding smokers to do something they should be doing anyway. From their perspective, GE turned the program into a penalty rather than reward program.
“If you make it all about rewarding smokers, you’ll predictably get the reaction, ‘No, we shouldn’t be rewarding smokers, we should penalize them,’” Volpp said. But we already are paying for the health consequences of other people smoking, eating poorly or not exercising. According to him, the response to the financial incentive might have been different if GE had done a better job of explaining to its workforce that getting employees to quit smoking would also save money for everyone else.
Volpp also cautioned that you have to be careful about overusing penalties if you are trying to help people improve their health. Penalties can create distrust and drive unhealthy behaviors underground, making them that much harder to tackle.
***
King County, Washington, was one of the first local governments to use rewards and penalties to encourage healthier behaviors. A decade ago, the county panicked as health care costs were growing at a pace of 15 percent every year. Then-executive Ron Sims convened a task force that included physicians, health care policy and legal experts, economists and labor and business leaders to develop a strategy to address health care costs from the perspective of both patients and the employers paying for their coverage.
Sims told the Seattle Times at the time, ”I refuse to sit back and allow the county and its employees to be victims of these seemingly uncontrollable cost increases. Further, I refuse to accept there are only two choices: reducing benefits to our employees and their families, or paying crippling annual increases. Tweaking the edges of the problem will no longer work.”
Out of the task force’s recommendations was borne Healthy Incentives—a voluntary wellness program for its employees and their families. While everyone receives the same medical benefits coverage, their out-of-pocket costs (deductibles and co-pays) vary according to their level of participation in the Healthy Incentives program. Those who choose not to participate receive a Bronze status, with the highest out-of-pocket costs. To attain a Gold status, with the lowest out-of-pocket costs, you need to complete a health risk assessment and complete a personal wellness plan. The individual action plans might include texting in a log of healthy activities, joining Weight Watchers at Work, attending YMCA classes to learn how to prevent diabetes through nutrition and exercise, or working with a Quit for Life coach on the phone to quit smoking. The difference between the Bronze and Gold tiers can make a difference of as much as $2,400 per year for a family of four.
When she started working for King County three years ago, Lynn Argento was automatically enrolled in the Gold tier after completing her health risk assessment. Failing to complete her personal wellness plan, Argento got bumped down to the Silver level the following year. “It was an eye opener in terms of the differences that I was paying for my deductible and co-pays,” she said. “It was a big reminder that my wellness activities had a significant financial connection to what I was paying out-of-pocket.” But Argento wasn’t upset with King County. She was disappointed in herself. “It was pretty clearly laid out to me. I knew what I needed to do, and I didn’t follow through on it,” she said.
Argento resolved to earn back her status. She runs on a treadmill during her lunch breaks at a worksite activity center, where employees can also attend yoga, tai chi, Zumba and kickboxing classes. Argento’s husband is now also on her plan, which means that he too has to participate in wellness activities to earn Gold status. Argento has noticed not only the financial but also health benefits of her wellness activities. “I have a lot more stamina,” she said. “I often have to sprint for a bus because I’m running late, and now I can do that without wanting to pass out when I get to the bus.”
Argento also used to miss a couple days of work or leave the office early each month due to migraines, but the frequency of her migraines has gone down significantly since she started eating regular, healthier meals to complement her training schedule. And the Healthy Incentives program has been self-reinforcing. Argento and her co-workers talk about work-life balance and making space for wellness during the workday.
During the first five years of the program, 38 percent of obese participants lost at least 5 percent of their body weight, and almost a quarter lost at least 10 percent. Smoking rates dropped from 12 percent to 7 percent, which is lower than both national and state averages. Between 2007 and 2011 King County saved $14.6 million due to the improved health of its employees and their families. According to Brooke Bascom with the Healthy Incentives program, “It is so much better than cutting people off and making health care inaccessible. We give them the support they need to make changes.”
The state of Oregon, like King County, saw a need to reign in its health care costs, having spent $1.6 billion on costs related to obesity alone in 2006. The Oregon Educators Benefit Board and Oregon Public Employee’s Benefit Board, which provide health insurance coverage to the state’s teachers and public employees, have also used financial incentives to encourage healthier behaviors. During the first year of the program, they charged employees $17.50 per month if they failed to take a baseline health risk assessment and follow through on recommendations. 70 percent of employees completed their health assessment and took the suggested health actions. With a switch the following year to a reward of $17.50 per month per person for participation and a $100 higher deductible per person for those not participating, 7 percent more employees completed wellness recommendations. Through a combination of these financial incentives and a partnership with Weight Watchers, rates of obesity decreased from 28 percent to 22 percent among the state’s teachers between 2009 and 2012, at a time when rates of obesity were increasing among the general population.
Employers’ interest in using worksite wellness and incentive programs is expanding rapidly, but not all have the resources to develop their own, so some outsource to companies like The Vitality Group, which relies on behavioral economics to structure programs. Vitality might track your gym visits, activity using pedometers and accelerometers and attendance at Weight Watchers meetings, and in exchange you earn redeemable points that can be used to purchase items—movie tickets, iTunes gift certificates, hotel stays—from the Vitality Mall. Your behaviors also earn you points towards your Vitality Status. The higher your Vitality Status, the more prizes you are entitled to win.
Vitality recently partnered with Walmart to offer members a 5 percent credit on purchases of healthy foods that can be used towards future purchases at Walmart — another immediate reward for a healthy action. But one of Vitality’s greatest successes in the U. S. was in partnership with Alcon Labs, which involved not just the incentive program, but creation of a comprehensive wellness program.
A key feature of this program were “Vitality Champs,” employees who volunteered to be trained to lead and encourage their co-workers in wellness activities and to organize events, ranging from 5K run/walks to mobile mammography screening to flu shot campaigns. And those people are the key to these programs. We are influenced by the people around us, and when there’s a culture of health in the workplace, we are more likely to do the healthy thing ourselves.
“Incentive programs are not wellness programs,” said Dr. Ronald Goetzel, Director of Emory University’s Institute for Health and Productivity Research and President and CEO of The Health Project. “That can be a component, when done smartly, of a comprehensive program, but if that’s all your program is going to be, you’re going to fail miserably, and people are going to be resentful,” he explained. According to Goetzel — who has studied worksite wellness programs at large corporations such as Dow Chemical and Johnson & Johnson, and is being funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study best practices in the field—incentive programs can help get people excited about health and keep them on track, but ultimately people’s habits will only change if they are given the resources to change them and if the workplace norms and environments change.
Without the other pieces to facilitate behavior change—healthy cafeterias, opportunities to exercise, flexible work hours, supportive leadership and middle managers, and health risk assessments and coaching—incentive programs will only penalize, not change, those who are least healthy.
Still, critics are concerned that an annual premium adjustment isn’t likely to change behavior, and will just end up penalizing those with poorer health.
According to Dr. Kevin Volpp, Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, it isn’t as simple as just paying someone for doing the right thing. People tend to respond to immediate, short-term rewards (e.g. the satisfaction of eating one more piece of pizza) more readily than to delayed consequences (weight gain). The science of “behavioral economics” has found that when people are offered immediate incentives and penalties to do the healthy thing, they are more likely to make the right decision, sort of like having a swear jar for healthy living.
But not all incentives are created equal, and some behaviors are harder to change (e.g. quitting smoking) than others (taking your kid for a routine check up). The impact of an incentive depends a lot on how it is framed, and the context in which it’s offered.
People also respond differently to rewards and penalties. Volpp studies show how different types, sizes, and frequencies of incentives impact people’s behavior.
In one study, Volpp and colleagues teamed up with General Electric to develop financial incentives to get employees to quit smoking. All smokers received information about smoking-cessation programs, but half were chosen at random to also receive financial incentives. In the financial incentive group, smokers were given $100 for completing a smoking-cessation informational program, $250 for quitting smoking within six months of joining the study, and $400 if they were still not smoking six months after they quit.
The smokers in the incentive group were three times more likely to join a smoking-cessation program, and three times more likely to quit smoking than those who were not offered financial rewards. But when GE rolled these financial incentives to quit smoking to the rest of their workforce, employees complained about rewarding smokers to do something they should be doing anyway. From their perspective, GE turned the program into a penalty rather than reward program.
“If you make it all about rewarding smokers, you’ll predictably get the reaction, ‘No, we shouldn’t be rewarding smokers, we should penalize them,’” Volpp said. But we already are paying for the health consequences of other people smoking, eating poorly or not exercising. According to him, the response to the financial incentive might have been different if GE had done a better job of explaining to its workforce that getting employees to quit smoking would also save money for everyone else.
Volpp also cautioned that you have to be careful about overusing penalties if you are trying to help people improve their health. Penalties can create distrust and drive unhealthy behaviors underground, making them that much harder to tackle.
***
King County, Washington, was one of the first local governments to use rewards and penalties to encourage healthier behaviors. A decade ago, the county panicked as health care costs were growing at a pace of 15 percent every year. Then-executive Ron Sims convened a task force that included physicians, health care policy and legal experts, economists and labor and business leaders to develop a strategy to address health care costs from the perspective of both patients and the employers paying for their coverage.
Sims told the Seattle Times at the time, ”I refuse to sit back and allow the county and its employees to be victims of these seemingly uncontrollable cost increases. Further, I refuse to accept there are only two choices: reducing benefits to our employees and their families, or paying crippling annual increases. Tweaking the edges of the problem will no longer work.”
Out of the task force’s recommendations was borne Healthy Incentives—a voluntary wellness program for its employees and their families. While everyone receives the same medical benefits coverage, their out-of-pocket costs (deductibles and co-pays) vary according to their level of participation in the Healthy Incentives program. Those who choose not to participate receive a Bronze status, with the highest out-of-pocket costs. To attain a Gold status, with the lowest out-of-pocket costs, you need to complete a health risk assessment and complete a personal wellness plan. The individual action plans might include texting in a log of healthy activities, joining Weight Watchers at Work, attending YMCA classes to learn how to prevent diabetes through nutrition and exercise, or working with a Quit for Life coach on the phone to quit smoking. The difference between the Bronze and Gold tiers can make a difference of as much as $2,400 per year for a family of four.
When she started working for King County three years ago, Lynn Argento was automatically enrolled in the Gold tier after completing her health risk assessment. Failing to complete her personal wellness plan, Argento got bumped down to the Silver level the following year. “It was an eye opener in terms of the differences that I was paying for my deductible and co-pays,” she said. “It was a big reminder that my wellness activities had a significant financial connection to what I was paying out-of-pocket.” But Argento wasn’t upset with King County. She was disappointed in herself. “It was pretty clearly laid out to me. I knew what I needed to do, and I didn’t follow through on it,” she said.
Argento resolved to earn back her status. She runs on a treadmill during her lunch breaks at a worksite activity center, where employees can also attend yoga, tai chi, Zumba and kickboxing classes. Argento’s husband is now also on her plan, which means that he too has to participate in wellness activities to earn Gold status. Argento has noticed not only the financial but also health benefits of her wellness activities. “I have a lot more stamina,” she said. “I often have to sprint for a bus because I’m running late, and now I can do that without wanting to pass out when I get to the bus.”
Argento also used to miss a couple days of work or leave the office early each month due to migraines, but the frequency of her migraines has gone down significantly since she started eating regular, healthier meals to complement her training schedule. And the Healthy Incentives program has been self-reinforcing. Argento and her co-workers talk about work-life balance and making space for wellness during the workday.
During the first five years of the program, 38 percent of obese participants lost at least 5 percent of their body weight, and almost a quarter lost at least 10 percent. Smoking rates dropped from 12 percent to 7 percent, which is lower than both national and state averages. Between 2007 and 2011 King County saved $14.6 million due to the improved health of its employees and their families. According to Brooke Bascom with the Healthy Incentives program, “It is so much better than cutting people off and making health care inaccessible. We give them the support they need to make changes.”
The state of Oregon, like King County, saw a need to reign in its health care costs, having spent $1.6 billion on costs related to obesity alone in 2006. The Oregon Educators Benefit Board and Oregon Public Employee’s Benefit Board, which provide health insurance coverage to the state’s teachers and public employees, have also used financial incentives to encourage healthier behaviors. During the first year of the program, they charged employees $17.50 per month if they failed to take a baseline health risk assessment and follow through on recommendations. 70 percent of employees completed their health assessment and took the suggested health actions. With a switch the following year to a reward of $17.50 per month per person for participation and a $100 higher deductible per person for those not participating, 7 percent more employees completed wellness recommendations. Through a combination of these financial incentives and a partnership with Weight Watchers, rates of obesity decreased from 28 percent to 22 percent among the state’s teachers between 2009 and 2012, at a time when rates of obesity were increasing among the general population.
Employers’ interest in using worksite wellness and incentive programs is expanding rapidly, but not all have the resources to develop their own, so some outsource to companies like The Vitality Group, which relies on behavioral economics to structure programs. Vitality might track your gym visits, activity using pedometers and accelerometers and attendance at Weight Watchers meetings, and in exchange you earn redeemable points that can be used to purchase items—movie tickets, iTunes gift certificates, hotel stays—from the Vitality Mall. Your behaviors also earn you points towards your Vitality Status. The higher your Vitality Status, the more prizes you are entitled to win.
Vitality recently partnered with Walmart to offer members a 5 percent credit on purchases of healthy foods that can be used towards future purchases at Walmart — another immediate reward for a healthy action. But one of Vitality’s greatest successes in the U. S. was in partnership with Alcon Labs, which involved not just the incentive program, but creation of a comprehensive wellness program.
A key feature of this program were “Vitality Champs,” employees who volunteered to be trained to lead and encourage their co-workers in wellness activities and to organize events, ranging from 5K run/walks to mobile mammography screening to flu shot campaigns. And those people are the key to these programs. We are influenced by the people around us, and when there’s a culture of health in the workplace, we are more likely to do the healthy thing ourselves.
Without the other pieces to facilitate behavior change—healthy cafeterias, opportunities to exercise, flexible work hours, supportive leadership and middle managers, and health risk assessments and coaching—incentive programs will only penalize, not change, those who are least healthy.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
India’s voracious gold appetite needs trimming
The legendary Indian obsession with purchasing gold has been passed down for generations. Families purchase gold on auspicious religious occasions and, in larger quantities, for weddings. It forms a significant part of savings, particularly in rural areas, and is passed down to future generations.
Today, however, it is also being credited as one of the main reasons for India’s spiralling current account deficit, which has widened to a record 6.7 per cent of GDP in the latest period. A country’s current account is the sum of its balance of trade — in other words, net revenue on exports minus payments for imports.
India imports vast quantities of gold to cater to its local demand and, at a time when the global economy is still sluggish, Indian firms are unable to export as much as they used to. The net result is the spiralling deficit, which is chiefly responsible for the drag on the exchange rate of the Indian rupee.
Since the government cannot do much about boosting exports in a slow global market, the focus is on cutting imports. But as India’s chief economic adviser, Raghuram Rajan, has pointed out, there is not much that the government can do about the country’s vast imports of oil or coal — both of which are essential for the energy needs and ensuring the smooth functioning of the economy. Gold imports, on the other hand, are unproductive investments.
When international gold prices softened earlier this year, many were hopeful that India would spend less on imports, thereby narrowing the current account deficit and strengthening the currency. However, the lower prices sparked a massive buying spree. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, it is estimated that gold imports saw a 130 per cent year-on-year increase in April, at a time when prices were down 10 per cent year-on-year. The staggering rise in volumes has further widened the deficit and brought it to a dangerous high.
Insatiable appetite
The only solution will be trying to curb India’s insatiable appetite for the metal, and the Finance Ministry has been trying every trick in the book. Over the last 18 months, the import tax on gold has been raised from 2 per cent to 6 per cent and the rupee has depreciated as well, both of which drive up the cost to the consumer. As a further measure, the Reserve Bank announced that only jewellery exporters would be allowed to use credit for gold imports.
But even as further measures are expected, the programme has not had a strong impact — demand refuses to slow. Moreover, many argue that tightened restrictions and higher import costs for gold will have adverse consequences.
If demand for gold savings continues to persist, these measures will give a fillip to a dormant smuggling industry that will seek to profit. As many a Bollywood film’s plot from the mid-1970s would suggest, the black market for gold will thrive when there are impediments that keep an Indian family from the yellow metal. But why is this?
The Indian proclivity for accumulating gold is born out of a desire to hedge against rapidly rising costs but also because of a serious distrust in other major financial instruments — such as equities or real estate. The government’s measures may well see a short-term impact but addressing the issue at its root will have to involve offering Indian households a wider, more viable, set of investment alternatives.
Firstly, along with focusing on curbing runaway retail inflation, the government must focus on offering a more robust suite of inflation-indexed financial instruments. This will attract those who are looking to hedge against costs. However, there are also more sophisticated options at the government’s disposal, which will involve strengthening the financial infrastructure around gold-linked securities such as ETFs.
In the current system, units of gold ETFs are backed by physical gold, which is bought and held by the mutual fund companies with their clients’ funds.
International exports
One idea would be to create a regulatory system that would allow mutual funds to lend this gold out, instead of just holding on to it. By lending it within the system, the mutual funds will benefit from earning an additional return on their asset and jewellers can use this supply to cut down on international imports, which are becoming more expensive as a result of government regulation.
This approach would ensure that the gold ETF market functions more productively, but still does not find a more productive use for the thousands of tonnes of gold that lie idle in homes and vaults.
Addressing that issue might be possible with a slightly bolder option — allowing the Reserve Bank to issue gold bonds. This system would allow households to take their physical gold and exchange it for certificates — not only will these be redeemable at any point but they will also be transferable, allowing holders to buy and sell these certificates at prevailing market rates.
It will also be cheaper for households, eliminating their explicit (vaults, bank lockers) and implicit (risk of fire, theft) holding costs. The Reserve Bank can then put these assets to work by lending it out to jewellers and earning a return while simultaneously curbing gold imports.
This latter system can be further strengthened to ensure participation by offering a carrot — gold bond buyers will receive a 3 per cent value premium over the amount of physical gold they turn in and, crucially, there will no questions asked on the origin of the gold. This, in effect, will allow a vast amount of black money that is held as gold to enter the legal financial system. Such a system is likely to not only generate a significant current account surplus, but also to dramatically strengthen the Indian rupee versus the dollar.
However, these options are not without their own set of concerns. Making gold-linked instruments more sophisticated and lucrative for everyone involved may usher in more, and larger, investors who would otherwise have not entered the asset class.
Would this drive up prices and volatility further? It’s a good question that merits study but I’d wager that it is also a risk that the government will have to take for longer-term stability.
http://gulfnews.com/
Today, however, it is also being credited as one of the main reasons for India’s spiralling current account deficit, which has widened to a record 6.7 per cent of GDP in the latest period. A country’s current account is the sum of its balance of trade — in other words, net revenue on exports minus payments for imports.
India imports vast quantities of gold to cater to its local demand and, at a time when the global economy is still sluggish, Indian firms are unable to export as much as they used to. The net result is the spiralling deficit, which is chiefly responsible for the drag on the exchange rate of the Indian rupee.
Since the government cannot do much about boosting exports in a slow global market, the focus is on cutting imports. But as India’s chief economic adviser, Raghuram Rajan, has pointed out, there is not much that the government can do about the country’s vast imports of oil or coal — both of which are essential for the energy needs and ensuring the smooth functioning of the economy. Gold imports, on the other hand, are unproductive investments.
When international gold prices softened earlier this year, many were hopeful that India would spend less on imports, thereby narrowing the current account deficit and strengthening the currency. However, the lower prices sparked a massive buying spree. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, it is estimated that gold imports saw a 130 per cent year-on-year increase in April, at a time when prices were down 10 per cent year-on-year. The staggering rise in volumes has further widened the deficit and brought it to a dangerous high.
Insatiable appetite
The only solution will be trying to curb India’s insatiable appetite for the metal, and the Finance Ministry has been trying every trick in the book. Over the last 18 months, the import tax on gold has been raised from 2 per cent to 6 per cent and the rupee has depreciated as well, both of which drive up the cost to the consumer. As a further measure, the Reserve Bank announced that only jewellery exporters would be allowed to use credit for gold imports.
But even as further measures are expected, the programme has not had a strong impact — demand refuses to slow. Moreover, many argue that tightened restrictions and higher import costs for gold will have adverse consequences.
If demand for gold savings continues to persist, these measures will give a fillip to a dormant smuggling industry that will seek to profit. As many a Bollywood film’s plot from the mid-1970s would suggest, the black market for gold will thrive when there are impediments that keep an Indian family from the yellow metal. But why is this?
The Indian proclivity for accumulating gold is born out of a desire to hedge against rapidly rising costs but also because of a serious distrust in other major financial instruments — such as equities or real estate. The government’s measures may well see a short-term impact but addressing the issue at its root will have to involve offering Indian households a wider, more viable, set of investment alternatives.
Firstly, along with focusing on curbing runaway retail inflation, the government must focus on offering a more robust suite of inflation-indexed financial instruments. This will attract those who are looking to hedge against costs. However, there are also more sophisticated options at the government’s disposal, which will involve strengthening the financial infrastructure around gold-linked securities such as ETFs.
In the current system, units of gold ETFs are backed by physical gold, which is bought and held by the mutual fund companies with their clients’ funds.
International exports
One idea would be to create a regulatory system that would allow mutual funds to lend this gold out, instead of just holding on to it. By lending it within the system, the mutual funds will benefit from earning an additional return on their asset and jewellers can use this supply to cut down on international imports, which are becoming more expensive as a result of government regulation.
This approach would ensure that the gold ETF market functions more productively, but still does not find a more productive use for the thousands of tonnes of gold that lie idle in homes and vaults.
Addressing that issue might be possible with a slightly bolder option — allowing the Reserve Bank to issue gold bonds. This system would allow households to take their physical gold and exchange it for certificates — not only will these be redeemable at any point but they will also be transferable, allowing holders to buy and sell these certificates at prevailing market rates.
It will also be cheaper for households, eliminating their explicit (vaults, bank lockers) and implicit (risk of fire, theft) holding costs. The Reserve Bank can then put these assets to work by lending it out to jewellers and earning a return while simultaneously curbing gold imports.
This latter system can be further strengthened to ensure participation by offering a carrot — gold bond buyers will receive a 3 per cent value premium over the amount of physical gold they turn in and, crucially, there will no questions asked on the origin of the gold. This, in effect, will allow a vast amount of black money that is held as gold to enter the legal financial system. Such a system is likely to not only generate a significant current account surplus, but also to dramatically strengthen the Indian rupee versus the dollar.
However, these options are not without their own set of concerns. Making gold-linked instruments more sophisticated and lucrative for everyone involved may usher in more, and larger, investors who would otherwise have not entered the asset class.
Would this drive up prices and volatility further? It’s a good question that merits study but I’d wager that it is also a risk that the government will have to take for longer-term stability.
http://gulfnews.com/
Middle East’s first Green mosque in Dubai under construction
Dubai: Construction work for the Middle East’s first eco-friendly mosque ‘Khalifa Al Tajer Mosque’ which is set for completion by March 2014, has made 25 per cent headway announced Awqaf and Minors Affairs Foundation (AMAF).
Located on a 105,000 square feet plot near the Clock Tower in Deira, the mosque’s beam foundation has been completed whereas pouring concrete has started for the main ceiling and the mosque’s minarets which are 23 metres high.
The pouring of concrete slab in the ablution block and 40 per cent of the mosque’s outer walls has also been completed, while the electrical transformer room is ready to be set by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA).
“Following the successful completion of this iconic initiative, AMAF aims to integrate green building standards into a large number of mosques in Dubai to make them eco-friendly and thereby contribute to Dubai’s long term sustainable development plans,” said Tayeb Al Rais, Secretary General of AMAF.
The mosque is set to feature the latest green technologies including solar panels and a roof garden for heat insulation, and will incorporate techniques for recycling and purifying worshippers’ ablution water for irrigation and washroom supply.
Taking shape over an area of 45,000 square feet, nearly 60,000 square feet of the development has been allocated for landscaping purposes. The Khalifa Al Tajer mosque will be considered Dubai’s largest place of worship with facilities that can accommodate more than 3,500 worshipers.
Located on a 105,000 square feet plot near the Clock Tower in Deira, the mosque’s beam foundation has been completed whereas pouring concrete has started for the main ceiling and the mosque’s minarets which are 23 metres high.
The pouring of concrete slab in the ablution block and 40 per cent of the mosque’s outer walls has also been completed, while the electrical transformer room is ready to be set by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA).
“Following the successful completion of this iconic initiative, AMAF aims to integrate green building standards into a large number of mosques in Dubai to make them eco-friendly and thereby contribute to Dubai’s long term sustainable development plans,” said Tayeb Al Rais, Secretary General of AMAF.
The mosque is set to feature the latest green technologies including solar panels and a roof garden for heat insulation, and will incorporate techniques for recycling and purifying worshippers’ ablution water for irrigation and washroom supply.
Taking shape over an area of 45,000 square feet, nearly 60,000 square feet of the development has been allocated for landscaping purposes. The Khalifa Al Tajer mosque will be considered Dubai’s largest place of worship with facilities that can accommodate more than 3,500 worshipers.
New accounts system to track how much Dubai spends on health
Dubai rolls out new accounts system that will help draft master plan to achieve the goalsNew accounts system to track how much Dubai spends on health
Dubai rolls out new accounts system that will help draft master plan to achieve the goals
The financial data – collected from health-care providers and insurance companies across the government, semi-government and private sectors, and residents - will help policy-makers understand the country’s health systems.
Dubai: The answer to how much does Dubai spend on health will be provided through the Health Accounts System of Dubai (HASD), which is being implemented by the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) with immediate effect. The roll-out of the HASD was part of a workshop attended by more than 200 participants from the health-care sector on Monday.
The finacial data – collected from health-care providers and insurance companies across the government, semi-government and private sectors, and residents - will help policy-makers understand the country’s health systems.
The HASD will provide a systematic, consistent and complete overview of all relevant information on the health system with a focus on expenditure.
The information will also help develop national health and provide an international benchmark for comparison with other places of similar socio-economic background.The first Health Accounts System of Dubai report is expected by the end of the year.
Several countries like Jordan, Egypt, and Tunisia have adopted the international System of Health Accounts (SHA), a global standard for producing health expenditure accounts, developed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Eurostat (Statistical Office of the European Union).Through the Health Accounts System of Dubai, based on the WHO’s SHA, the emirate too joins this list.
The DHA has a core technical team in place to manage – collect, process and analyse - the financial data. The data received will be displayed at collective and aggregate levels.
During the workshop, senior officials from the DHA and the WHO spoke about the need for health expenditure information against factors like changing demographics, disease patterns, technological advances, and health-care activities in the emirate. They urged the Dubai health-care sector to cooperate with the necessary information.
Engineer Eisa Al Maidour, director-general of the DHA, stressed that from an expenditure perspective, the new accounts system is beneficial for both national and international levels to monitor as well as assess the health-care sector’s performance.
Speaking to Gulf News, Al Maidour said the timing of the launch of the Health Accounts System of Dubai is in line with the emirate’s long-term vision.
“At the DHA, we believe in a master plan to reach our goals and build on our achievements. We need data [health expenditure information] to ensure an evidence-based master plan. Through the data we can improve the health-care sector. Over the years, we can use the data to compare our progress both on a national as well as on an international level.”
About the HASD, Dr Haidar Al Yousuf, Director of Health Funding at the DHA, explained that the new system will look at all the sources of health-care spending and how efficiently an individual and the health-care sector spends on health care.
He told Gulf News, “It is an important tool for decision makers to prioritise utilisation of resources in the health-care sector. The whole cycle of spending is documented. Hence everyone who pays for health - from government to private sectors and pharmacies and insurance companies - has to submit information.”
Towards the implementation of the system, there are around seven dedicated members in the DHA core team, Dr Al Yousuf added.
Dr Cornelis Van Mosseveld, health economist with the World Health Organisation (WHO), told Gulf News that the system is indispensable for a country to track trends in health spending and formulate policies.
He said, “Collecting the data and using it at a policy level will certainly help improve and/or implement new health programmes. The WHO will provide as much support and technical assistance to help the Health Accounts System of Dubai (HASD).”
http://gulfnews.com/
Dubai rolls out new accounts system that will help draft master plan to achieve the goals
The financial data – collected from health-care providers and insurance companies across the government, semi-government and private sectors, and residents - will help policy-makers understand the country’s health systems.
Dubai: The answer to how much does Dubai spend on health will be provided through the Health Accounts System of Dubai (HASD), which is being implemented by the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) with immediate effect. The roll-out of the HASD was part of a workshop attended by more than 200 participants from the health-care sector on Monday.
The finacial data – collected from health-care providers and insurance companies across the government, semi-government and private sectors, and residents - will help policy-makers understand the country’s health systems.
The HASD will provide a systematic, consistent and complete overview of all relevant information on the health system with a focus on expenditure.
The information will also help develop national health and provide an international benchmark for comparison with other places of similar socio-economic background.The first Health Accounts System of Dubai report is expected by the end of the year.
Several countries like Jordan, Egypt, and Tunisia have adopted the international System of Health Accounts (SHA), a global standard for producing health expenditure accounts, developed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Eurostat (Statistical Office of the European Union).Through the Health Accounts System of Dubai, based on the WHO’s SHA, the emirate too joins this list.
The DHA has a core technical team in place to manage – collect, process and analyse - the financial data. The data received will be displayed at collective and aggregate levels.
During the workshop, senior officials from the DHA and the WHO spoke about the need for health expenditure information against factors like changing demographics, disease patterns, technological advances, and health-care activities in the emirate. They urged the Dubai health-care sector to cooperate with the necessary information.
Engineer Eisa Al Maidour, director-general of the DHA, stressed that from an expenditure perspective, the new accounts system is beneficial for both national and international levels to monitor as well as assess the health-care sector’s performance.
Speaking to Gulf News, Al Maidour said the timing of the launch of the Health Accounts System of Dubai is in line with the emirate’s long-term vision.
“At the DHA, we believe in a master plan to reach our goals and build on our achievements. We need data [health expenditure information] to ensure an evidence-based master plan. Through the data we can improve the health-care sector. Over the years, we can use the data to compare our progress both on a national as well as on an international level.”
About the HASD, Dr Haidar Al Yousuf, Director of Health Funding at the DHA, explained that the new system will look at all the sources of health-care spending and how efficiently an individual and the health-care sector spends on health care.
He told Gulf News, “It is an important tool for decision makers to prioritise utilisation of resources in the health-care sector. The whole cycle of spending is documented. Hence everyone who pays for health - from government to private sectors and pharmacies and insurance companies - has to submit information.”
Towards the implementation of the system, there are around seven dedicated members in the DHA core team, Dr Al Yousuf added.
Dr Cornelis Van Mosseveld, health economist with the World Health Organisation (WHO), told Gulf News that the system is indispensable for a country to track trends in health spending and formulate policies.
He said, “Collecting the data and using it at a policy level will certainly help improve and/or implement new health programmes. The WHO will provide as much support and technical assistance to help the Health Accounts System of Dubai (HASD).”
http://gulfnews.com/
Monday, May 6, 2013
How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog
The approach I’ve taken to build a business around blogging has been to build multiple blogs around niche topics. I describe the reasons for this in my post One Blog Many Categories or Many Blogs?but I regularly am asked about how I choose my niche topics to blog about. In this post I’d like to outline a few questions that I tend to ask myself when considering a new topic. I hope it helps:
Are You Interested in the Topic?
A friend of mine explained it this way recently:
“Probably the best place to start thinking about what your blog should be about is to consider what YOU are about.”
Perhaps that’s a slightly awkward way of saying start by identifying your own interests, passions and energy levels for topics. While it might be tempting to start blogs based on what other people are interested in or what makes commercial sense there is little logic in starting a blog on a topic that you have no interest in. There are two main reasons for this.
Firstly if you want to grow a popular and well respected blog it can take considerable time and you’ll be needing to take a long term approach to building it up. As a result it’s well worth asking yourself ‘can I see myself still writing on this topic in 12 months time?’ If you can’t I’d suggest finding another topic.
The second reason is that you readers will quickly discern if you are passionate about your topic or not. Blogs that are dry and passionless don’t tend to grow – it makes sense really as no one wants to read something that the author doesn’t really believe in.
Is the Topic Popular?
While the blogger’s interest is important it’s not enough on it’s own to build a popular blog. Another crucial ingredient is that people WANT to read information on the topic you’re writing on. The law of Supply and Demand is what most business students are taught in their first semester of of studying economics and it comes into play here also. You might be interested in your topic but unless others are also you’ll always have an uphill battle in building a highly read blog.
Of course keep in mind that you are writing in a medium with a global audience of many millions and as a result you don’t need a topic that everyone is searching, just one that some people are searching for because even it’s something that even a small percentage of people have an active interest in it can be a lucrative area.
Is the Topic one that is growing or shrinking?
Also keep in mind that popular topics change over time. Obviously it’s great to get on a topic before it becomes big rather than when it’s on the decline. This is not easy to do of course but predict the next big thing that people will be searching for and you could be onto a winner.
Get in the habit of being on the lookout for what people are into. I constantly ask myself ‘what will people be searching the web for in 6 to 12 months?’
Keep an eye on what people are into and what the latest trends are. Do this online but also keep an eye on TV, magazines, the papers and even the conversations you have with friends.
What competition is there?
One of the traps that some bloggers get sucked into when choosing a topic is to go for the most popular topics with no regard for the competition that they might face in those markets. The chances are if you have identified a niche that you think is ‘hot’ at the moment that someone else will have also. It’s demand and supply coming into play again – for any level of demand for information on a topic there will only be a certain number of sources of that information that will be needed on that topic.
The web is becoming a more and more cluttered place and sometimes it feels that there are no niches that are left open to blog about. While this is true in some of the more popular topics – remember that you don’t have to go for the topic that everyone is searching for. In fact sometimes it’s some of the less popular topics that have little or no competition that are the best earners.
I have one friend who after years of attempting to do well writing about gadgets swapped to ‘ride on lawn mowers’ (a topic he’d been researching for a purchase he was making). He was amazed to find that after just a couple of months of writing on his new topic that it was doing significantly more traffic (and making quite a bit more) than his gadget websites ever had.
As I’ve said many times before on this blog – become a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond.
What is the competition neglecting?
This is a great question that is obviously related to the last one on number of competition. It attempts to find ‘gaps’ that are not yet filled. While your competition might have the advantage of an established audience, you have the advantage of flexibility and can position your blog very quickly to fill a gap in the niche that you might observe – in doing so you create a sub-niche within the larger topic.
Will you have enough Content?
One of the key features of successful blogs is that have the ability to continue to come up with fresh content on their topic for long periods of time. Conversely, one of the things that kills many blogs is that their authors run out of things to say.
Answering the question regarding whether there is enough content can be done on two levels:
- 1. Do YOU have enough content within YOU as an author? This really comes back to the question we asked above about your passion, interests and energy for the topic (so I’ll leave it at that).
- 2. Do you have access to enough other sources of content and inspiration? There are many web based tools around these days that can help you in coming up with content. Some places to check out on your topic to see what news is about include Google News, Topix, Yahoo! News, Bloglines, Technorati and Blog Pulse (among others).
Are there Income Streams on the Topic?
Not everyone will need to ask this question if their intention is not to build a blog that has an entrepreneurial edge to it but as this blog is on the topic of making money from blogs I’ll address it.
If you are interested in earning an income from blogging you will need to also factor in some investigation of whether the topic that you’ve chosen has any obvious potential income streams. As I’ve written previously, there are many ways of earning money from blogs – however the problem is that not every topic is going to be suitable for every potential income stream. For example, contextual ad programs like AdSense and YPN work really well for some topics but hardly earn anything from others (you might like to read my post on finding high paying ads on AdSense to explore this topic). Similarly some blogs do fantastically out of affiliate programs (the key is to find affiliate programs that match your topic closely) and others are better suited to impression based ads (those with high traffic levels).
Choose a Niche
At this point it’s time to choose a topic for your blog. It’s probably unlikely that you’ll find the perfect topic on all of the fronts above. While it’d be great to find a topic that you’re passionate about that just happens to have massive demand and no competition – but the reality is that most topics topics that you come up with will have at least one weakness to them. Don’t let this get you down – there comes a time when you just need to make a decision and start blogging. The key is being aware of what the weakness is so that you can work to overcome it.
PS: An Example
ProBlogger.net itself is an example of the process I’ve outlined above. While blogging is a topic I had (have) a real interest in and which is quite popular the weakest link of this blog is the fact that so many other blogs write on the topic of how to blog better. The other problem was that there were not too many lucrative income streams on the general topic of blogging. There are lots of AdSense ads for different blog tools, but they pay very little.
As a result of this I narrowed my niche slightly to focus upon making money from blogs (something I didn’t see many others writing about a year ago). This narrowed my potential market slightly but meant I could carve out a niche and potentially make a name for myself in the area. The other side benefit of narrowing the topic was that it also increased the income potential of this blog. Contextual ads on this topic pay a little more and there are other potential income streams (like consulting work) that a more general topic of blogging might bring.
About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitterat , Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Rules on Etiquette The Measure of a Lady
| Rules on Etiquette | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Measure of a Lady | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| As most of us know, throughout the Victorian period there were strict codes of conduct that must be adhered to if you wished to be considered a lady or gentleman of good breeding. Light on Dark Corners gives a complete list of do's and don'ts to ensure that you were always on your best behavior, when in the company of others who had also read the book. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hints and Helps on Good Behavior at all Times and at all Places | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1. Cultivate a happy temper; banish the blues; a cheerful saguine spirit begets cheer and hope. 2. Be trustworthy and be trustful. 3. Do not place a light estimate on the art of good reading and good expression; they will yield perpetual interest. 4. Study to keep versed in world events as well as in local occurrences, but abhor gossip, and above all scandal. 5. Banish a self-conscience spirit - the source of much awkwardness - with a constant aim to make others happy - remember that it is incumbent upon gentlemen and ladies alike to be neat in habits. 6. The following is said to be a correct posture for walking: Head erect - not too rigid - chin in, shoulders back. Permit no unnecessary motion about the thighs. Do not lean over to one side in walking, standing or sitting; the practice is not only ungraceful, but it is deforming and therefore unhealthy. 7. If the hands are allowed to swing in walking, the arc should be limited, and the lady will manage them much more gracefully, if they almost touch the clothing. 8. A lady should not stand with her hands behind her. We could almost say, forget the hands except to keep them clean, including the nails; cordial and helpful. One hand may rest easily in the other. Study repose of attitude here as well as in the rest of the body. 9. Gestures are for emphasis in public speaking; do not point elsewhere, as a rule. 10. Look the person to whom you speak in the eye. Never under any circumstances wink at another or communicate with furtive looks. 11. Before introducing a gentleman to a lady, remember that she is entitled to hold you responsible for the acquaintance. The lady is the one to whom the gentleman is presented, which may be done thus: "Miss A, permit me to introduce you to my friend, Mr. B." or :Miss A, allow me to introduce Mr. B." If mutual and near friends of yours, say simply "Miss A - Mr. B." 12. A true lady will avoid familiarity in her deportment towards gentlemen. A young lady should not permit her gentlemen friends to address her by her home name, and the reverse is true. Use the title Miss and Mr. respectively. 13. Ladies should be frank and cordial toward their lady friends, never gushing. 14. A lady on meeting a gentleman with whom she has a slight acquaintance will make a medium bow - neither too decided nor too slight or stiff. 15. If a young lady desires to visit any public place where she expects to meet a gentleman acquaintance, she should have a chaperone to accompany her, a person of mature years when possible, and never a giddy girl. 16. A lady should not ask a gentleman to walk with her. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| A Complete Etiquette in a Few Practical Rules | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1. If you desire to be respected, keep clean. The finest attire and decorations will add nothing to the appearance or beauty of an untidy person. 2. Clean clothing, clean skin, clean hands, including the nails, and clean, white teeth, are a requisite passport for good society. 3. A bad breath should be carefully remedied, whether it proceeds from the stomach or bad teeth. 4. To pick the nose, finger about the ears, or scratch the head or any other part of the person, in company, is decidedly vulgar. 5. When you call at any private residence, do not neglect to clean your shoes thoroughly. 6. On entering a hall or church, the gentleman should always precede the lady in walking up the aisle, or walk by herside if the aisle is broad enough. 7. A gentleman should always precede a lady upstairs, and follow her downstairs. 8. On leaving a hall or church at the close of entertainment or services, the gentleman should precede the lady. 9. A gentleman walking with a lady should carry her parcels, and never allow a lady to be burdened with anything what ever. 10. If a lady is travelling with a gentleman, simply as a friend, she should place the amount of her expenses in his hands, or insist on paying the bill herself. 11. Never carry on a private conversation in company. If secrecy is necessary, withdraw from the company. 12. Never sit with your back to another, without asking to be excused. 13. It is as unbecoming for a gentleman to sit with legs crossed as it is a lady. 14. Never thrum with your fingers, rub your hands, yawn or sigh in public. 15. Loud laughter, loud talking, or other boisterous manifestations should be checked in the society of others, especially on the street and in public places. 16. When you are asked to sing or play in company, do so without being urged, or refuse in any way that shall be final; and when music is being rendered in company, show politelness to the musician by giving attention. It is very impolite to keep up a conversation. If you do not enjoy the music, keep silent. 17. You should never decline to be intorduced to anyone or all the guests at a party to which you have been invited. 18. To take small children or dogs with you on a visit of ceremony is altogether vulgar, though in visiting familiar friends, children are not objectionable. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Etiquette of Calls | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In the matter of making calls it is the correct thing: - For the caller who arrived first to leave first. - To return a first call within a week and in person. - To call promptly and in person after receiving an invitation. - For the mother or chaperone to invite a gentleman to call. - To call within a week after any entertainment to which one has been invited. - You should call upon an acquaintance who has recently returned after a prolonged absence. - It is important to make the first call upon a person of higher social position, if one is asked to do so. - It is proper to call after an engagement has been announced, or a marriage has taken place, in the family. - For the older residents in a city or street to call upon the newcomers in a neighborhood, is a long recognized custom. - It is proper, after removal from one area of the city to another, to send out cards with one's new address upon them. - To ascertain what are the ascribed hours for calling in the place where one is living, or making a visit, and adhere to those hours is a duty which must not be overlooked. - A gentleman should ask for the lady of the house as well as the young ladies, and leave cards for her as well as the head of the household. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Etiquette in Your Speech | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| - Don't say Miss or Mr. without the person's name. - Don't say pants for trousers. - Don't say gents for gentlemen. - Don't say female for woman. - Don't say elegant for everything that pleases you. - Don't say genteel for well-bred. - Don't say ain't for isn't. - Don't say I done it for I did it. - Don't say he is older than me, say older than I. - Don't say she does not see any, say she sees nothing at all. - Don't say he calculates to get off; say he expects to get off. - Don't say he don't, say he doesn't. - Don't say she is some better; say she is somewhat better. - Don't say where are they stopping; say where are they staying. - Don't say you was, say you were. - Don't say I say, says I; but simply say I said. (try that one three times fast) - Don't sign your letters yours etc., but yours truly. - Don't say lay for lie; lay expresses action; lie expresses rest. - Don't say them bonnets, say those bonnets. - Don't say party for person. - Don't say it looks beautifully, but say that it looks beautiful. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Etiquette Between Sexes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I. A LADY SHOULD BE A LADY - A lady should be a lady, and a gentleman a gentleman under any and all circumstances. 2. FEMALE INDIFFERENCE TO MAN - There is nothing that affects the nature and pleasure of man so much as a proper and friendly recognition from a lady, and as women are more or less dependent upon man's good-will, either for gain or pleasure, it surely stands to their interest to be reasonably pleasant and courteous in his presence or society. Indifference is always a poor investment, whether in society or business. 3. GALLANTRY AND LADYISM - should be a prominent feature in the education of young people. Politeness to ladies cultivates the intellect and refines the soul, and he who can be easy and entertaining in the society of ladies has mastered one of the greatest accomplishments. There is nothing taught in school, academy or college, that contributes so much to the happiness of man as a full development of his social and moral qualities. 4. LADYLIKE ETIQUETTE - No woman can afford to treat men rudely. A lady must have a high intellectual and moral ideal and hold herself above reproach. She must remember that the art of pleasing and entertaining gentlemen is infinitely more ornamental than laces, ribbons or diamonds. Dress and glitter may please man, but it will never benefit him. 5. CULTIVATE DEFICIENCIES - Men and women poorly sexed treat each other with more or less indifference, whereas a hearty sexuality inspires both to the right estimation of the faculties and qualities of each other. Those who are deficient should seek society and overcome their deficiencies. While some naturalIy inherit faculties as entertainers, others are compelIed to acquire them by cultivation. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 6. LADIES' SOCIETY - He who seeks ladies' society should seek an education and should have a pure heart and a pure mind. Read good, pure and wholesome literature and study human nature, and you will always be a favorite in the society circle. 7. WOMAN HATERS - Some men with little refinement and strong sensual feelings virtually insult and thereby disgust and repel every female they meet. They look upon woman with an inherent vulgarity, and doubt the virtue and integrity of all alike. But it is because they are generally insincerelly. from http://www.geocities.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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