Parece que se chegou a uma solução intermédia quanto ao terminal de contentores de Alcântara – limita-se a altura a um máximo de 5 contentores empilhados. Retirando da discussão a validade do acordo com a Mota Engil para a exploração para os próximos anos do porto de Lisboa, quanto à questão do impacto visual dos contentores parece que chegámos a uma boa solução. Uma solução que tenta abarcar interesses económicos com os interesses urbanísticos e de impacto visual.
Acho que a sociedade por vezes se esquece de que a indústria é parte fundamental do desenvolvimento de um país. Cria empregos, cria riqueza, cria desenvolvimento. E obviamente produz impactos. E alguns impactos menos bons. E temos de viver com eles.
Se olharmos para o caso da cimenteira da Secil na Serra da Arrábida, junto às praias, conseguimos lembrar-nos de alguns quantos fundamentalistas que acham que aquilo é um atentado ambientalista grave, que cria crateras profundas na serra, que provoca um grande impacto visual e que até é terceiro mundista.
Mas essas mesmas pessoas de olharem para o outro lado da foz do Sado e virem a península de Tróia, terão de se lembrar que os edifícios não são propriamente feitos de ar… que é necessário cimento para os pôr em pé. E portanto, cimento é necessário. Pode-se importá-lo, mas não sei se sairá mais barato aos cofres do Estado, até porque o cimento é daqueles produtos de difícil exportação.
Da mesma forma, os contentores em Alcântara são um “mal” necessário. Claro que era lindo olhar para o rio Tejo e apenas ver cegonhas e espaços verdes. Nenhuma estrada, nenhum carril, nenhum carro, nenhum comboio, nada. Nada que pudesse perturbar a tranquilidade da vista sobre o rio. Mas ninguém se pode esquecer que o rio atravessa uma cidade – a cidade de Lisboa. E que esta, como outras, precisa de se abastecer de uma série de produtos que vêm de barco em contentores. Poder-se-ia criar um espaço para receber contentores fora da cidade mas os custos seriam grandes e a competitividade do porto seria duvidosa. E há cidades lindas, como Hamburgo, que convivem tranquilamente com o seu porto gigante. É, aliás, um ponto turístico de interesse da cidade.
E desta forma, o que eu queria mesmo dizer é que as pessoas têm de se habituar a fazer compromissos. As soluções mais engraçadas podem não ser as mais viáveis. Principalmente do ponto de vista económico.
E para aqueles que adoram frases sensacionalistas como “devolvam o rio à cidade”, advogando que o porto deveria sair de Lisboa, apenas gostava de lhes dizer que isso poderia ter um impacto financeiro grande nas contas da autarquia lisboeta.
E por isso, caso a câmara deixasse de ter meios para gerir em condições a cidade, não se admirem de sem porto começarem a pedir não o rio mas antes a limpeza das ruas, a iluminação pública, a rega dos jardins municipais e tantas outras coisas que poderiam ser postas em causa por medidas insensatas como algumas associações insensatas querem impor.
quarta-feira, novembro 25
sexta-feira, novembro 20
Jogadores de Poker recrutados para Trading - nada de novo :)
arvard Poker Pro Says Texas Hold ‘Em Can Teach Traders to Fold 2009-11-20 05:00:00.0 GMT
By Mason Levinson
Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Brandon Adams, who teaches behavioral finance at Harvard University’s Department of Economics, says some of the best candidates for Wall Street trading jobs are the professional card players at FullTiltPoker.com and similar Web sites.
“They’ve essentially been the survivors in the system, a very difficult system where 95 percent of people lose money,”
the 30-year-old Adams, who plays at the site, said in a telephone interview. “Anyone smart enough and disciplined enough to survive that system is probably going to do very well in the trading world.”
An increasing number of hedge funds and brokerages are scrutinizing professional poker to find talent and analytical tools, according to financial recruiters including Options Group, a New York-based executive-search company. Susquehanna International Group LLP, the Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania-based options and equity trading company, uses poker to teach strategic thinking.
“Someone who has made a successful living as a poker player for a few years would more likely be a good trader than someone who hasn’t,” said Aaron Brown, a 53-year-old former poker pro who is now a risk manager at AQR Capital Management LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut, which oversees $23 billion.
“They know to push when they have the edge and they know how not to bust, and that’s a tough combination to find.”
Skill Sets
Skills that define successful traders -- rational approach toward risk, speedy decision-making under pressure, discipline and a well-trained memory -- are the same ones that separate elite poker players from ones known as “dead money,” financial recruiters say.
After the World Series of Poker started in Las Vegas four months ago, Options Group recruiter Simon Satanovsky said he received a hedge-fund request for online poker players with no financial experience. He wouldn’t identify the client.
“Before, we were asking about GPA or the Math/Physics Olympiad,” Satanovsky, a former Russian national bridge champion, said in a telephone interview. “Now, we’re asking questions about poker successes.”
Satanovsky said Wall Street firms and recruiters have been paying increasing attention to poker players as job candidates since 2003, when amateur Chris Moneymaker beat hundreds of professionals to win the World Series of Poker’s No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em main event.
The Right Game
Adams, who has taught at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, each spring since 2003, said disciplined poker players can be spotted on sites such as Full Tilt and PokerStars.com waiting for particular games, not tempted by those outside their area of expertise or financial comfort level.
Their self-control and confidence would be useful in trading where large profits are possible, the probability of going broke high and the competition formidable, he said. Adams cited as an example a trader who notices a slight imperfection in the way options are being priced, then works to come up with the proper bet per trade.
“In poker, people are used to not sitting back and waiting for the fat pitch,” Adams said. “They’re used to skirting the edge of ruin and they learn the tools of how to do that.”
Susquehanna has been using poker to teach its new traders since it was founded in 1987, said Pat McCauley, who heads the privately held firm’s trader-development program.
College Friends
The company’s founders played the game as college friends at the State University of New York-Binghamton. Susquehanna has held in-house poker tournaments to recruit traders and monitor decision-making skills.
The trainees learn to use information they see in the marketplace to infer what motivates others, helping them make better prices. It’s the same way poker pro Phil Ivey, considered among the game’s greats, makes bets based on what he sees among his opponents, McCauley said.
“What professional poker players are really good at is taking this information that’s relatively subjective, quantifying it and making it objective, and that’s what trading is about,” McCauley said.
The ability to write complex poker algorithms, which either run poker Web sites or try to beat them, will get hedge funds interested, said Todd Fahey, a recruiter who specializes in quantitative finance at New York-based Exemplar Partners.
“There have been a few guys that I’ve placed in the industry that come from the poker software side of the house,”
Fahey said in a telephone interview. “Two Sigma, D.E. Shaw and any of your larger computationally-based hedge funds are going to want to see people like this.”
Two Sigma Investments LLC and D.E. Shaw Group, both based in New York, declined to comment.
Begleiter’s Try
The worlds of poker and finance often intersect. Steven Begleiter, who headed corporate strategy at Bear Stearns Cos.
before its 2008 collapse, earned $1.6 million earlier this month with a sixth-place finish in the main event. Greenlight Capital LLC founder David Einhorn was 18th in 2006. The annual “Wall Street Poker Night,” benefiting Math for America, was started by billionaire James Simons, the founder of hedge-fund firm Renaissance Technologies Corp. This April, the $5,000 buy-in tournament drew 100 entrants -- 90 percent from hedge funds or other Wall Street jobs -- raising $1.3 million.
Even though poker players make good traders, they aren’t necessarily good with their own investments, said Adams, adding that he is almost “famously unsuccessful” as an investor.
“Poker players are lazy and they’re gossipers,” he said.
“If you look at the way they trade, they tend to latch onto other people’s ideas.”
Texas Hold ‘Em
One person who has chosen poker over finance is Joe Cada, who this month outlasted Begleiter and Ivey at the main event final table. Cada, who plays the game professionally, was first among 6,494 entrants and took home the $8.55 million top prize, giving half to financial backers Cliff Josephy and Eric Haber, poker pros with Wall Street backgrounds. The Texas Hold ‘Em contest had a $10,000 entry fee.
“As a little kid, I used to watch the stock markets day in and day out,” Cada, 22, said in an interview. “My parents always thought I was going to get into banking or become a stockbroker because I was really good with math and logic, and I was obsessed with money.”
Cada said he plans to remain a poker pro. AQR’s Brown, the author of “The Poker Face of Wall Street” and a life-long player, long ago gave up the game professionally after a couple years of trying.
“I eventually decided finance was easier,” he said.
By Mason Levinson
Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Brandon Adams, who teaches behavioral finance at Harvard University’s Department of Economics, says some of the best candidates for Wall Street trading jobs are the professional card players at FullTiltPoker.com and similar Web sites.
“They’ve essentially been the survivors in the system, a very difficult system where 95 percent of people lose money,”
the 30-year-old Adams, who plays at the site, said in a telephone interview. “Anyone smart enough and disciplined enough to survive that system is probably going to do very well in the trading world.”
An increasing number of hedge funds and brokerages are scrutinizing professional poker to find talent and analytical tools, according to financial recruiters including Options Group, a New York-based executive-search company. Susquehanna International Group LLP, the Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania-based options and equity trading company, uses poker to teach strategic thinking.
“Someone who has made a successful living as a poker player for a few years would more likely be a good trader than someone who hasn’t,” said Aaron Brown, a 53-year-old former poker pro who is now a risk manager at AQR Capital Management LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut, which oversees $23 billion.
“They know to push when they have the edge and they know how not to bust, and that’s a tough combination to find.”
Skill Sets
Skills that define successful traders -- rational approach toward risk, speedy decision-making under pressure, discipline and a well-trained memory -- are the same ones that separate elite poker players from ones known as “dead money,” financial recruiters say.
After the World Series of Poker started in Las Vegas four months ago, Options Group recruiter Simon Satanovsky said he received a hedge-fund request for online poker players with no financial experience. He wouldn’t identify the client.
“Before, we were asking about GPA or the Math/Physics Olympiad,” Satanovsky, a former Russian national bridge champion, said in a telephone interview. “Now, we’re asking questions about poker successes.”
Satanovsky said Wall Street firms and recruiters have been paying increasing attention to poker players as job candidates since 2003, when amateur Chris Moneymaker beat hundreds of professionals to win the World Series of Poker’s No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em main event.
The Right Game
Adams, who has taught at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, each spring since 2003, said disciplined poker players can be spotted on sites such as Full Tilt and PokerStars.com waiting for particular games, not tempted by those outside their area of expertise or financial comfort level.
Their self-control and confidence would be useful in trading where large profits are possible, the probability of going broke high and the competition formidable, he said. Adams cited as an example a trader who notices a slight imperfection in the way options are being priced, then works to come up with the proper bet per trade.
“In poker, people are used to not sitting back and waiting for the fat pitch,” Adams said. “They’re used to skirting the edge of ruin and they learn the tools of how to do that.”
Susquehanna has been using poker to teach its new traders since it was founded in 1987, said Pat McCauley, who heads the privately held firm’s trader-development program.
College Friends
The company’s founders played the game as college friends at the State University of New York-Binghamton. Susquehanna has held in-house poker tournaments to recruit traders and monitor decision-making skills.
The trainees learn to use information they see in the marketplace to infer what motivates others, helping them make better prices. It’s the same way poker pro Phil Ivey, considered among the game’s greats, makes bets based on what he sees among his opponents, McCauley said.
“What professional poker players are really good at is taking this information that’s relatively subjective, quantifying it and making it objective, and that’s what trading is about,” McCauley said.
The ability to write complex poker algorithms, which either run poker Web sites or try to beat them, will get hedge funds interested, said Todd Fahey, a recruiter who specializes in quantitative finance at New York-based Exemplar Partners.
“There have been a few guys that I’ve placed in the industry that come from the poker software side of the house,”
Fahey said in a telephone interview. “Two Sigma, D.E. Shaw and any of your larger computationally-based hedge funds are going to want to see people like this.”
Two Sigma Investments LLC and D.E. Shaw Group, both based in New York, declined to comment.
Begleiter’s Try
The worlds of poker and finance often intersect. Steven Begleiter, who headed corporate strategy at Bear Stearns Cos.
before its 2008 collapse, earned $1.6 million earlier this month with a sixth-place finish in the main event. Greenlight Capital LLC founder David Einhorn was 18th in 2006. The annual “Wall Street Poker Night,” benefiting Math for America, was started by billionaire James Simons, the founder of hedge-fund firm Renaissance Technologies Corp. This April, the $5,000 buy-in tournament drew 100 entrants -- 90 percent from hedge funds or other Wall Street jobs -- raising $1.3 million.
Even though poker players make good traders, they aren’t necessarily good with their own investments, said Adams, adding that he is almost “famously unsuccessful” as an investor.
“Poker players are lazy and they’re gossipers,” he said.
“If you look at the way they trade, they tend to latch onto other people’s ideas.”
Texas Hold ‘Em
One person who has chosen poker over finance is Joe Cada, who this month outlasted Begleiter and Ivey at the main event final table. Cada, who plays the game professionally, was first among 6,494 entrants and took home the $8.55 million top prize, giving half to financial backers Cliff Josephy and Eric Haber, poker pros with Wall Street backgrounds. The Texas Hold ‘Em contest had a $10,000 entry fee.
“As a little kid, I used to watch the stock markets day in and day out,” Cada, 22, said in an interview. “My parents always thought I was going to get into banking or become a stockbroker because I was really good with math and logic, and I was obsessed with money.”
Cada said he plans to remain a poker pro. AQR’s Brown, the author of “The Poker Face of Wall Street” and a life-long player, long ago gave up the game professionally after a couple years of trying.
“I eventually decided finance was easier,” he said.
sexta-feira, novembro 13
Sexta feira 13
Hoje é sexta-feira, dia 13. Um dia que eu não gosto particularmente. Não da sexta. Apenas do dia 13 numa sexta-feira. Como se costuma dizer que nestes dias há que atrair pensamentos positivos, resolvi propor-me a esse exercício. E decidi procurar quando será a próxima sexta-feira, dia 13. Descobri que ainda vamos ter de esperar algum tempo. Será no mês de Agosto. Ou seja, será no Verão. E então o meu pensamento ficará hoje retido no Verão. Até porque será uma boa alternativa para “aturar” este dia cinzento…
PS – Eu escrevi este post de manhã, pelo que devem relativizar o interesse do seu conteúdo.
terça-feira, novembro 3
Por fim a tranquilidade
Hoje dei por mim a fazer uma tarefa no trabalho com uma sensação de tranquilidade que já há muito não sentia. Parece que ao fim de 2 anos de trabalho numa nova empresa, começo a curar-me do stress que a Deloitte me causou. No mundo Deloitte, que deve ser generalizado a todas as consultoras, todo o trabalho é sempre para ontem. Tudo é avaliado como lento e mal feito. Tudo é feito à pressa. E uma pessoa acabada de sair da faculdade como eu – na altura – fiquei convencido da inutilidade das minhas produções laborais. E portanto, importava ser mais rápido e ainda mais perfeito. Até ao limite. E sempre sem atingir a perfeição. Mesmo que ela tivesse sido largamente atingida. Porque no mundo das consultoras, o objectivo é transformar seres normais em seres imperfeitos, que buscam incessantemente a sua perfeição. Neste estado de insegurança, consegue-se acelerar todos os objectivos que uma chefia nos proponha atingir. E assim, andei 3 anos insatisfeito com a minha performance, mesmo que nessa mesma altura fosse passar a sénior consultant. O que para o tempo passado efectivamente reconhecia as minhas qualidades laborais. Saí desse mundo cão. Fui trabalhar para a Banca. Acho que tenho, neste momento, um trabalho absolutamente normal. Mas em termos de método de trabalho, carreguei bastante o estado de espírito Deloitte. Continuei a ficar atormentado sempre que me davam trabalho. Pelo medo de falhar. Pelo medo de ser lento. Pelo medo de não ser perfeito. Mesmo que o fosse. E agora, depois de largos 24 meses, começo a sentir novamente prazer em produzir coisas. Em valorizá-las. Em sentir orgulho nas minhas produções.
Demorei, mas parece que tudo volta novamente a sorrir-me.
Demorei, mas parece que tudo volta novamente a sorrir-me.
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