You've Got To Love The Bureaucracy

"Bureaucracy" is one of those things that you wonder why they even exist. The official definition of bureaucracy is "excessively complicated administrative procedure". Why does it even exist though? One good explanation that I recently came across in Nassim Taleb's, "Skin in the Game", is that it is a system used to shield participants from the consequences of their actions.

Not all traders are the same

So back in the corporate days, i used to trade forex for an oil company. If there's one thing you need to know about oil companies, it's that they are the next most bureaucratic type of organization after Government and the Civil Service.

An example of the bureaucracy i witnessed here is that million dollar trading losses are ok as long as all the necessary steps were taken. Even if a bit of thinking and questioning should have alerted you that the direction of the trade was wrong.

At the same time, we were hounded by management over checking the bank fees we were charged every month. Mainly because it was what senior management in Texas was looking out for. These fees total up to a couple of thousand dollars per year which is nothing for a company that makes billions.

So losing a few million's ok as long as you got the necessary signatures but if you don't verify that $100 on the bank statement that appears every month, you're not doing your job.

Skin in the Game

Skin in the Game was an interesting read and i think it was Taleb's best book since Black Swan. Another interesting observation he had in the book was about the Expatriate assignment in multinational companies and how that was akin to modern day slavery. You become addicted to the overseas posting and lifestyle that coming back home from it results in a reduction in the quality of your life.

If there's a lesson to be learnt from the book - don't take advice from anyone who doesn't have skin in the game!