Saved by the cab driver

Does everyone who get on a plane feel like they always get stuck with the fatty who snores and smells? And with the entertainment system that fails to work? And with loud babies with over-attentive parentals? And the guy who laughs out loud with no hint of constraint?

Probably. Except, maybe not all at the same time.
To be fair, I was even lucky to make the flight, so perhaps I should be grateful that I’m not stuck at the airport hashing out another £700 for a flight. London Transport threw a huge wrench in my commute to Heathrow, as the bus ride – which usually only takes about 40 minutes, maximum – ended up taking 2 hours.

I look at the time on my laptop and I know there’s still a good nine hours left in the flight. The man behind me is laughing his head off watching a movie I can’t even load on my entertainment system. I had some wine to calm my annoyance but it didn't help (the food, however, did – it’s the only thing that’s currently keeping me from flying a different airline next time). There’s still the snoring fatty and the black screen of death inches ahead of me. My food tray hasn’t been removed so I prop it on the floor; at this point I could care less about how I behave on this flight.

The day had begun smoothly, or so I thought. I left the house several hours in advance and I was firstly greeted by a caring bus driver, who made sure that the elderly got their seats on the one-door bus. There were a few whom she especially took care of, like the overweight African woman in a knit sweater and a knit cap and her shopping trolley. The driver got out of her seat – London bus drivers rarely do – kicked the young chav out of his seat for her and hauled her shopping trolley in the luggage space, next to my suitcase. Impressive.

I was basking in this small miracle at the back of the bus, and noticed that a feeling of community had settled in amongst the commuters. The air was more relaxed, people smiled more and seemed open to conversation with the stranger sitting next to them.

And then, another miracle: Another African woman got on the bus with not enough credit on her Oyster card, and not enough small change. She held up a £20 bill that was useless to this bus driver who had no change. So a lady sitting by the door opened her wallet, produced a £2 coin, and handed it over. The donor smiled, content that she had done her share of good for the day. The African woman smiled graciously, thanking her as she walked past. Everyone felt good.

I try to remember that nice feeling of content as the black screen of death continues to stare at me. I selected “500 Days of Summer” an hour ago and left it loading (or playing? who knows) in hopes that it may decide to work sometime. It has yet to make that decision.

But on that bus bound for Victoria, I had reflected in the greatness of what had just happened – people helping out, not in expectation of much in return other than a polite “Thank you,” and a feeling of charitable accomplishment. The bus was packed to its limits – at one point the driver declined an elderly woman as there was no possibility for maneuvering for seats – but no one complained, and I attributed this rare peace in the middle of London to the bus driver who had done the right thing at every stop.

My day took an undesired turn when the Travel for London (TFL) inspector boarded the bus. He slithered through the bus crowd with his small remote Oyster-card checker, and came across a dark-haired woman with dark khol around her eyes. “There’s no money on this card, ma’am,” the inspector said.

“Well I beep-ed it when I got on the bus,” the woman replied in a moderate, Middle Eastern accent.

“But there’s no money on this card, you see,” the inspector pointed at his remote. “Where did you get on?”

“By the hospital.” And so it went on.

He slithered back up towards the bus driver. “Do you remember that lady getting on the bus at St. Thomas’ Hospital?” The bus stopped and pulled over. All those people who had been so content and peaceful moments before got up in outrage.

While I failed to make out the subtleties of the conversation, I became aware of the lengthy process this woman’s Oyster card was causing, and pulled out my phone to shockingly face “11:15 am”. I had left at nine. My bag was due at the check-in counter by noon, and my flight was at one. And I was still in London. Panic quickly settled in and, seeing another bus approach behind us, I grabbed my suitcase – the woman and her shopping trolley were long gone by then – and hopped on to the bus parked behind.

Being caring and kind to the elderly is great but not when it delays the ride by an hour, and then only to be caught by an arrogant inspector whose sole raison d’etre is to find as many Oyster cards lacking credit as possible, I thought.

I laid my options out. Bus from Victoria to Paddington? No, I can’t trust London buses. Cab to Paddington and then Heathrow Express? No, there’s not enough time for that. It was 11:20 and I frantically jumped off the bus at Paddington.

Right, no time to waste, just get on a cab.

I sped across the bus station, and up to the first cab queuing by the station entrance. “Paddington?” I gasped.

The cab driver – I later learned his name was Alex – pulled his earphones out and nodded. I hopped in. “How many minutes will it take?”

“10 or 15, I’d say,” he replied.

I sighed in desperation. “Can you do it in 5?” The cab was already out the station and onto the road. I liked this driver.

“Where are you off to?”

“Heathrow. My flight’s at one and the bus driver took forever. I have to check my bag in at noon. I’m fucked. I’ve checked in already…” and I trailed off, realising I wasn’t saying anything in a logical order.

Alex looked at me cautiously through the rear mirrors, and stated, “I can get you to Heathrow by 12:05.” Then he looked ahead, as we approached the roundabout by Hyde Park. “Train or cab, miss? Your call but you have to call it now.”

I took a small breath. “Ok go for it. Take me to Heathrow.” The cab wound around and headed away from Hyde Park.

“My satellite thing tells me we’ll get there at noon, at 60 kilometers an hour. I’ll go 75 and we can try to get there by five-to. How does that sound?” He looked up.

“That would be amazing. I’ll give you a good tip if you can actually do that. I’m going to miss an international flight. No pressure.” Panic was back again. “But if you have any doubts, take me to the station.”

“The machine’s telling me noon right now. That’s what I’m going with. Okay?”

“Right…”

£65 and a futile phone call to Virgin Atlantic customer services later, it was 11:55 and I was at Terminal 3 in Heathrow. Getting on the main motorway ate up some nerve-hacking minutes, but while my fighting spirit noticeably deteriorated over the phone with the Indian customer services man, Alex had given me a confident thumbs-up through the rear mirror, conveying that I’ll be making my check-in deadline.

“Oh you’re good. You’re really good. You saved my day,” I said in relief, as we smoothly approached the terminal.

“You gotta trust the cab driver! You’ll have three minutes to get to the counter.” And he went on to explain how I wouldn’t have made it on the Heathrow Express, given the waiting time and the actual time that it takes to Heathrow – 25 minutes, not 15.

I grabbed his card, telling him I’d call him again in times of urgency. Then, dragging the suitcase out I sprinted to the Virgin Atlantic counter.

That was about three hours ago. I barely made it to the gate because the idiots at security didn’t know how to re-channel people into different security gates, causing the line I entered in to double in length by a simple, and yet so stupid, move of one line-divider. By the time I made it on to the plane, I was ready to sit back, relax, watch a movie and finally be at peace.

But, no. Snoring fatty. Dysfunctional entertainment system. Loud babies. What could go wrong now? A crash, maybe. I recalled a joking conversation with my colleague the day before:

“When you choose your seat on the plane, which seat do you go for?”

“I’m a window person. Always. My husband likes the aisle seat, so it should work out, technically. But these days there are three seats, so it becomes a bit of a problem,” she said.

I looked at the browser displaying the seat selection page. “Yeah, I dunno. I like the aisle because I hate waking people up to go to the bathroom.” Little did I know that I would be selecting the one seat in the entire cabin mercy to the black screen-fatty-baby combo.

“What! I hate being woken up. Kill or be killed, come on!” Thinking back, I should’ve opted to kill.

“Yeah but then there are other considerations,” I had pondered. “Like, if the plane were to crash, and split in half, then do I want to be on the back end of the plane or towards the front? And how many rows away from the nearest exit?”

“So many options…” she laughed.

I shiver at the thought.

And the man sitting behind me is laughing and shrieking again. The fatty continues to snore. The bastards.


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Responsible intelligence

It's been over a year since the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (7 September), Lehman (15 September), and Washington Mutual (25 September). In reflecting, I solemnly made a resolution to myself that I would step off the bandwagon and encourage others to do the same.

Approximately a year ago, on a late night in the office, I remember my colleague being on the phone with a trader at one of the large banks, which has since been lucky enough to survive the global downturn. The trader had told my colleague, "This isn't good. Wait. This is very very bad." Similar statements of hopeless fear and utter panic were allegedly heard everywhere that night on Wall Street, in Canary Wharf, and every other financial district in the world.

Who knew that a year on, the markets would be back up and still functional? Sure, there are ample liquidity problems and trading strategies are now more vanilla than ever, but a year ago, the financial services industry thought, This is it. The world is over.

Regardless of whether or not we call the current downturn a recession or depression, no one would disagree that fourth quarter 2008 was some of the most panicky months the world has seen in decades. Emergency measures were taken by several governments and central banks, including an interest rate cut down to pretty much zero. Money has been lent, guarantees were given (albeit arguably belatedly), and now the hottest topic is about figuring out a regulatory framework for the financial industry going forward.

The best thing about time is that it keeps going, and the great thing about that is that we can now look back and think - critically - about what happened and why.

The general media has been horrible about this, in a time when they should be the ones spearheading a more critical approach. One could understand the polemical stance the Times took last October, when one journalist concluded:

The stresses in the financial markets partly reflect bad policy decisions that made sense at the time - such as central banks keeping interest rates low after 9/11, and owing to the effect of Chinese imports in restraining inflation. But this time, there is a justifiable anger at the insouciance of the bankers, who irresponsibly exploited those decisions. The demonology has new life in it.

But recent news about the G20, proposing to regulate bankers' pay, coverage of the Kraft/Cadbury merger, to the private lives of certain bankers, continue to sustain this so-called 'demonology'. And it's not helping the situation, at all.

To be fair, certain media outlets have always been rather sensationalist, because it no doubt brings in the dough. In a time when advertisements are being cut, and less people are spending on superfluous things, most media firms and their journalists are likely to make an extra effort to make news sound more scandalous, more evil, more conspiratorial, and therefore more of a 'must-read' item - a bigger deal - than it actually is. If that's what some media do, then so be it; not every outlet can be a saint.

However, I came upon a rather shocking phenomenon recently, when in conversations with my friends about the financial crisis, they came up with some of the most uninformed, uncritical statements about the causes and who was to blame. According to them, bankers were to be despised, the fault was at the bulge-bracket banks, none of the governments' emergency measures were effective, and so on and so forth.

The shocking part was, although I give them the benefit of the doubt that most of them have done their reading, my friends all happen to be very well-educated, and ambitious, critical thinkers. All of us were brought up and educated that way - to be critical of our sources, the things that we read, hear, and see. And yet a good handful of them had jumped onto the bandwagon in the last year with the rest of the world, pointing accusatory fingers at the towers along Wall Street or in Canary Wharf, or to No. 10 Downing Street or the White House in DC, and all those who dwelt, left, or continue to dwell in them.

But I say: GET OFF THE BANDWAGON. Be responsible about your intelligence. It's been a year now, and it's about time we look at the so-called "Great Recession" with a more critical eye. Look past the headlines and the polemical opinion columns, the supposedly less-polemical editorials, even the blogosphere - yes, even this one, too! - and the likes of Wikipedia. Step back and take a critical - not skeptical - view: What caused the financial crisis?

To point my own finger on one of many broader causes, I will outwardly wonder about what is going through the heads of the CFOs, the CEOs, the top regulators and central bankers of the world, if some of my smartest friends have ditched the recognition that we no longer live in an era where causation is linear. In fact, the human species probably never has lived in an era where causation was entirely linear; we just chose to see it that way. And now, with the tangible effects of globalisation, we can see with our naked eyes that causation is circular, networked, and widespread. In short, there is no one cause to an effect; there are many, many more than we can probably fathom.

No single bank or trader, or hedge fund, could have crippled the entire financial system in the way it was last September. The subprime mortgage crisis preceded it. So clearly, that was a factor. US interest rates were kept low all through out it. That's also another factor. What was once simply hedging instruments became tradable on an exchange - also another factor. The list is endless.

And what are the regulators now going back to? More stress tests, more financial modelling, more scientific and mathematical analysis of trades, companies, and risk. But, do they not see what they're doing? What have they learned? Where is the critical thinking, the investigative spirit? So I will boldly point a finger to one (of many, to be precise) cause, right here and now: lack of critical thinking.

We relied on financial models to tell us how a trade would perform in the future. We have, thus far, relied on stress tests to find out how much stress a bank can undergo before its legs give away and the whole thing comes tumbling down. One can even distill this trend on hiring patterns: most of the financial services vacancies advertised will ask for numerical skills, or some background in finance, risk management, or credit risk analysis.

Clearly, we haven't learned anything. As one market participant recently told me, "Investment bankers have the memory of a dragon fly." But that probably applies more broadly than we'd like to admit. The lack of critical thinking prevalent amongst my peers, goes all the way up to the CEOs and CFOs and CIOs and regulators, central bankers, and to the governments' finance ministers. The exact approach - reliance on modelling and number-crunching - that we thought heralded the credit boom in the mid-2000's, was the exact thing that turned the boom into a crunch, and is now the exact thing that we're turning to once again to bring about a boom. Needless to say, it's more likely that it will simply stretch out the recession, than resolving it.

Most importantly, demonising bankers, or certain banks, could end up hammering the last nail in the coffin, so to speak. The global financial industry currently stands at a crossroads: we can choose to learn from the mistakes, learn from the ways certain financial instruments and their investors (mis)behaved, and rebuild the industry from there, or we can choose to condemn those instruments and all involved in their (mis)behaviour, install rules and regulations, and effectively, start from scratch. Hence, as one regulator aptly put it, the regulations we adopt today will have no bearing on future financial crises. Of course: if we take the latter road, we are effectively reinventing the wheel.

Some of us are educated about certain things in the world more than others. I have no doubt that the ability to think critically about causal relationships - actively asking oneself, what is the cause and what is the effect - is an acquired skill, and a cherished one at that. But for those of us who do have the means to understand what happened, who have the means to read a newspaper article and think twice about it, should. Rights come with responsibilities, and being responsible about your acquired intelligence, is one of them.
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