I heard some comparisons of former prime minister Harper to Richard Nixon.  Some say this led to his downfall and dragged the party with him.

The similarity to Nixon is based on the senate fiddling, what he did know,did not know and the belief he lied about his involvement. However unlike Nixon, the Harper allegations were never proven.

How big a factor is the leader?

Are elections won or lost based on the populations trust and respect for the leader or is it the parties platform.  Probably a mix of both things.  That being said for Canada’s latest election clearly the lack of trust in the conservative parties leader led to the downfall.

Over time those with positional power can become arrogant.  Years of people trying to please you can lead to a false sense of security and a sense of omnipotence.   In democracies, once the majority of the voters percieve the leader has become arrogant and untrustworthy they toss them out.

This is what happened to Harper.

Will life in Canada change significantly

Many of the things that impact most of us,  job,  the economy, inflation are impacted by a wide multitude of factors and although governments have impact and influence on these things there is a limit to they ability to effect change.

Trudeau and his collegues in the liberal party have been offered the opportunity to create change, which was one of their platform promises, now it will be interesting to see how much they can change and how fast.

Personally I am looking forward to the legalization of marajuana and the associated government tax revenues.  But I am not holding my breath.

I recently discovered a large number of articles claiming that babysitting ones grandchildren reduces the likelihood of developing alzheimers disease or dementia.  It appears most were funded by OPAC (over worked parents association of Canada).  This does make me skeptical of the findings but my daughter insists she is doing us a favor.

It’s for your own good

I guess what goes around comes around but every time our daughter leaves her offspring with us for a day or two saying “It’s for your own good” I get a sense of deja vu.

But really

Spending time with our grandaughter actually is a pleasure and if there is health benefit, all the better.

While I am not sure there is solid evidence, our experience is the challenges and learnings we gain from spending time with the young generation do keep us sharp.

We are looking for years more of babysitting – albeit in snall doses.

Are we born with an innate disposition to respect others (nature) or is it learned (nurture) or some combination of both.

Psychology studies/experiments, over the years, indicate it is a combination of factors but certain traits favour nurture while others nature.

The desire to steal  is a behavior that can be stongly influenced by culture and upbringing.  On a recent trip to Japan I was surprised to note none of the bicycles, whether outside a home business or store, were locked.

This is because the cultural taboo to steal a bicycle is reinforced so strongly from early childhood.

Probably a large driver of the strength of cultural norms in Japan is due to the limitations on immigration.  That is, as a percent of the total population there are very few non Japanese citizens.  As a result of the stable population mix,  cultural norms remain constant over many generations and are very difficult/slow to change.

Large Population/Small Area

With almost one hundred and fifty million people living in an area slightly larger than Canada’s Vancouver Island the country has developed strong cultural norms around respecting each other.  These have developed slowly over time to their present state, to the extent you can feel very comfortable in leaving your bike unlocked.  It is very unlikely it will be stolen.

We all have needs.  Maslow was a  physchologist who wrote a paper proposing a heirarchy of human needs which could be used to help explain  motivation and behaviour through our life cycle.

On a macro basis this grouping and prioritization into basic categories seems intuitive and applicable in most cases.

On a more specific level needs can be very subjective and contextual ( much like the value equation I posted about the other day)

Need versus Want

Do we need what we want?  Arguably wanting something is a key aspect of need and motivating in and of itself.  Wanting on it’s own does not establish need but need usually won’t exist without want, that is a desire to aquire.

Maslow argues the basic heirarchy of needs are things intrinsic to the human condition and that there is a default need for these things for all of us.

Back to the concept of subjectivity

In any given situation, whether need exists depends very much on the eye of the beholder.   A simple argument against this could be that we all need food and that is not subjective.  Actually, I could choose not to eat,  perhaps my need to starve, for a political reason or just to pass peaceably to the next world is my choice.

This would of course be an exception case but it does occur.  Some might argue the need still existed and not eating was not natural behaviour. The question then becomes what is natural behavior and who decides that.

A bit of a continuing theme for me, today’s post is about a discussion I had the other day about the nature of value

Eye of the beholder

Determining and measuring value can be very elusive.  Consider diamonds versus water.  (This not an original idea on my part but was rather shared as part of the discussion.)

Diamonds availability is limited.  They are considered by many to be worth possessing, although their main function is decorative.  So typically we think of diamonds as valuable.  Water is relatively readily available often obtained free ( e.g a glass of water in an eating place). So on the whole of medium to low value in terms of normal supply and demand.

In the desert,  water is scarce.  If you did not bring a supply with you on a trip to the desert obtaining water would trump finding diamonds and so would be more valuable. On the other hand if you had brought water you might focus on finding diamonds in the desert as the more valuable commodity.

Value is contextual

The example of diamonds versus water illustrates your personal view of how important a commodity or service determines it’s value.   This value assesment can can change with time and context.

On the whole things that affect value (supply and demand being two key ones) can be predicted and used to help assess how likely a thing may retain or even grow in value.  (or drop in value, consider a used versus new car).

And the point……..

Today is really just a random musing about the nature of value.   I will continue to muse on this topic on and off,

A group of people in defined geographic proximity,  with regular contact and some association (e.g. same country, city, workplace, etc)  form cultural norms.   That is behavioral standards for interaction with others.

At any time an individual may belong to overlapping cultures with somewhat integrated standards but the level of detail can vary according to the context of the environment (work,  country).

Cultural Sterotyping

At the country level cultural stereotyping can be quite common.   For example: Canadians are polite, Americans self centered, Germans industrious and so on.

This attributes are not necessarily universal across all the citizens but on the whole the sterotype often defines the behaviorial expectations of people from those countries.

Some interesting  examples I have experienced

As a Canadian in Japan I learned that generally people do not wear shorts in fall and winter months. Even though mid day average tempurature in October can be in the mid twenties degree celcius. This is a dress code that is understood to be the norm even though it is not really comfortable nor logical.

In the work place some companies expect male employees to wear a business suite or a uniform.  This can vary within the company depending on the role.  Except for saftey equipment mandated by law the dress code is just a cultural norm set by the organization. In general,for the purpose of not standing out we follow these cultural norms.

 Follow or be considered strange

Not following the norms can lead to lables such as that person is strange or an exhibitionist.  In reality though often these non conformists are some of the most important contributors to our culturals by keeping them vibrant and alive.

Recently had a couple of flights on no frills airlines.  Interesting things I noted:

• All had names that were colors (rouge, peach, jet blue)
• Flight attendents and pilots were all very young (cheaper salaries I guess)
• Saftey demonstration was not on video but actually walked through Vana White style
• leg room is not really enough for a tall person.

I was also told that myth busters TV show had demonstrated that loading by zone was faster than by seat number or fully random. Not  sure my experience bore this out about faster loading, although for this recent experience I had, I will say all flights left on time.

Does the business model make sense?

Clearly there is a market for inexpensive travel.  Of course it must appear safe, be efficient and although you pay for each service the quality of services must be acceptable.

If your personal air travel goal is to simply get from a to b at the lowest cost with minimal or no value add services a no frills airline is probably a good choice for you.

Are full service airlines at risk.

Its probable the air travel market for full service airlines (which currently have the largest market share worldwide) will continue to be strong and will remain the largest with value airlines serving a smaller but important segement of air travellers.