International Economics

As a college senior, I read some chapters of this book by Paul Krugman and Maurice Obstfeld. While I aced the basic economics class the year before, I only received average marks for this course. I found it difficult to understand some of the theoretical chapters so I ended up having some knowledge of international trade and finance, but not any intuitive understanding of its concepts. Last year, six years after college, I finally read this book from cover to cover. I doubt I can explain comparative advantage to someone else anymore than I could when I was in college, but I feel I have a better grasp of the economic headlines today - the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the impact of foreign exchange on the Philippine economy, and recurring fears of another global recession.

I once seriously considered taking a master's degree in Economics. After taking a couple of graduate subjects in Political Science, I realized there was not much new to be learned from my professors so I planned to enroll in the School of Economics. But life happened. I became a father at 22 and my career in IBM just kept on growing that I finally gave up on graduate school.

As a manager in the BPO industry, I actually see how currency exchange fluctuations can frustrate my attempts to reduce cost. This is international economics in practice.

After Dark

After Dark describes a night in Tokyo, but I can hardly remember the plot. The focus is less on the narrative, but more on the setting and the mood, on how an entirely different world exists when the sun is out. I wonder how Murakami would have written this had he been in Manila instead.

In Manila, the world after dark is brimming with life and energy. Not just from the usual centers of night life such as red light districts, but almost every concentration of tall buildings has probably more people working at night than during the day. After all, Manila is now the number one outsourcing destination for voice services. With most of the BPO companies still operating out of Manila, most of the half a million people working for this industry make Manila after dark vastly different from Tokyo or any other city after dark.

Here, workers who hardly see the sun start their day after sunset. Usually waking with a nasty headache, they usually head to Starbucks before reporting for work at 9pm. They then answer calls and emails and process transactions for the next nine hours or so. They usually spend their breaks drinking more coffee and smoking outside the lobbies. On a Friday or on any weekday they feel like it, they start happy hour at 7am and will drink until late morning.

I was once a call center agent myself. I am now in a senior manager role and start work in the afternoon, but it is exactly midnight as I write this. This is Manila after dark.

How the World Came to Be What It Is

Steve Hagen invites us to see the world as it is, unmediated by concepts. This was tough reading for me even though the Buddhist thoughts being explained were quite familiar. I remember reading this book at the airport while waiting for my wife to arrive from her US business trip. I went to the airport really early, around 5am, and I waited for over two hours. I was really tense while waiting as I did not inform her beforehand I would be there and there was a chance I might not spot her among the crowd.

I actually almost missed her. For some reason, I was certain she had already passed by so I started running past the barricades to the area on the other side of the gates where the taxi cabs were waiting. And I found her there, pleasantly surprised to see me. It was the first time we had been apart for two weeks so it was great to give her a surprise welcome. I also did it because I once came home from abroad really hoping to see her at the airport but it was not to be.

So how is this personal note related to Steve's book? I do not know. This is how I saw things when I was reading. So this is what I wrote about.