“RHR International Sponsors Award For Best Student Paper In I/O Psychology” plus 2 more |
- RHR International Sponsors Award For Best Student Paper In I/O Psychology
- Psychology of Copper
- Pythia Peay: Creativity Analyzed: Psychology of the Artist
| RHR International Sponsors Award For Best Student Paper In I/O Psychology Posted: 16 Jun 2010 09:23 AM PDT  Main Category: Medical Students / Training Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry Article Date: 16 Jun 2010 - 6:00 PDT The Canadian Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology recently announced that Stephen D. Risavy is the recipient of the 2010 RHR Kendall Award. Stephen is a Ph.D. candidate in the Industrial/Organizational Psychology program at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Sponsored by RHR International, a world leader in executive and organizational development, this award is presented for the best student paper of the year in Canadian I/O Psychology. It is named in honour of Dr. Lorne Kendall, a Canadian psychologist and member of the Canadian Psychological Association whose work on job satisfaction and various psychometric issues contributed greatly to the field of Industrial/Organizational Psychology. The winning paper was announced at the CPA Conference held in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Stephen's paper, entitled "Decision Making in Personnel Selection Using Personality Assessments: Implications for Adverse Impact and Hiring Rates," looked at the influence of different ways of using personality test data to make hiring decisions and found that depending on how the data were used, adverse impact and hiring rates were affected. Submissions were judged by the following criteria: 1) Quality of conceptual background, 2) Clarity of problem definition, 3) Methodological rigour, 4) Appropriateness of interpretations/conclusion, and 5) Clarity of presentation. "The RHR Kendall Award was designed to acknowledge talented individuals in the area of Industrial/ Organizational Psychology at the very start of their careers," said Jeff Durocher, Vice President of Market Development for RHR International. "Stephen's paper is a welcome contribution to the field's body of knowledge and proves him a worthy recipient of this recognition." Contact Our News Editors For any corrections of factual information, or to contact the editors please use our feedback form. Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
| Posted: 16 Jun 2010 10:29 AM PDT
| Global Money Trends newsletter Copper is often referred to as the metal with a Ph-D in macro-Economics, since it finds its way into so many industrial applications, including automobiles, appliances, airplanes, pipes, wires, and even computer chips, to mention just a few of its uses. As such, it acts as a top forecaster of where the global economy is heading next, especially China, Asia's economic locomotive. Copper is a favorite tool for speculators in the commodities markets, given its cyclical nature and volatility. "It may be possible to use fictitious arguments for or against a certain trend in a commodity market; but success will be only temporary, for in the end, the facts are bound to prevail, so that a trader gets dividends on study and observation, as he does in a regular business. He can watch and weigh conditions, and he knows as much about it as anyone else. He does not indulge in guesses about a dozen things. It always appealed to me trading in commodities," Livermore added. However, the copper market wasn't observing the basic laws of supply and demand in 2009, when it gained 140-percent. Instead, copper dealers found it profitable to focus solely on the demand side, while largely ignoring the supply side of the equation. After-all, "the market value of any commodity is only worth, what the highest bidder is willing to pay." Nowadays, what matters most is China's demand for the red-metal, since it single-handedly buys about 35% of the global supply. Commodity traders are questioning whether Professor Copper has actually earned his college degree in Economics. Copper prices soared by 60% to as high as $7,700 /ton in London in the second half of 2009, despite a simultaneous build-up of supply in warehouses in London and Shanghai's Futures Exchange. Typically, rising inventories are a sign of supply outstripping demand and is taken as a bearish signal for prices. Yet the build-up of supply couldn't put a dent in copper's mettle. Copper traders said the bullish view was justified, because of a new phenomenon, called "contango financing," in which the warehousing of base metals, and the financing of miners, has become increasingly intertwined. Investment bankers discovered a new way to earn millions of dollars, by buying the metal cheaply in the cash market, and selling it at higher prices in the forward market, - thus earning the difference. Much of the copper stored in LME warehouses was linked to "contango financing," and was already earmarked for future delivery to bona-fide end-users. Copper supplies in Shanghai warehouses were also growing rapidly, hitting a six-year high of 188,000-tons in April. Yet mounting supply couldn't deter the red-metal's explosive surge to 63,300-yuan /ton. Instead, the increasing supply of copper in Chinese warehouses appears to be acting like an indicator of the amount of open interest in the metal, by speculators betting on strong demand. China bought 3.9-million tons of copper in the first 11-months of 2009, up 67% from a year earlier, to feed the Politburo's $586-billion spending spree on infrastructure projects. However, copper prices began to turn sharply lower in April and May, linked to worries about the Euro zone's debt crisis, and a gutsy decision by the People's Bank of China (PBoC), to lift reserve ratios for the country's largest banks to 17-percent of deposits. In addition, the PBoC has drained nearly 1-trillion yuan out of the Shanghai money market, through open market operations. Speculators began to dump the red-metal into the cash market, and the supply of copper held in local warehouses began to fall to 139,300-tons last week. On June 10th, the Chinese authorities revealed to the public what many dealers already knew, - Chinese imports of copper had fallen 9.1% in May to 436,345-tons, after a monthly fall of 4.4% in April. Beijing wasn't interested in stockpiling the red-metal, at prices above 52,000-yuan /ton. As Jesse Livermore used to say, "The market will tell the speculator when he is wrong, because he is losing money. When he first realizes he is wrong, it's the time to clear out, take his losses, study the record to determine the cause of his error, and await the next big opportunity. Chances are that you will not become acquainted with that reason until some time in the future, when it is too late to act on it profitably," he said. First Cracks in the Copper rally, The parabolic rally in the copper market began to show the first signs of fatigue on Jan 11th when Chile's mining chief Santiago Gonzalez warned that copper prices could see an "important" downward correction. "We are worried that stock levels are climbing higher. We are at 700,000-tons at the moment, while prices remain high. This means that at any minute we could see a violent change and prices could fall," he warned. Gonzalez noted that Chile's state-run Codelco, the world's top miner of copper, had just reached a record-high output of over 1.7-million tons in 2009. Gonzalez's crystal ball had the benefit of pure luck. Two-days later, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) shocked the world markets, by suddenly shifting gears to "Quantitative Tightening (QT), or hiking bank reserve ratios a quarter-point to 16%, effectively draining 300-billion yuan out of the Shanghai money markets. The PBoC's shift to QT was prompted by a surge in bank lending that was flooding the economy with yuan, inflating a bubble in real estate, and risking a surge in inflation. The Jan 13th hike in bank reserve ratios was the first of three PBoC tightening moves that eventually lifted the ratio to 17% on May 3rd. The copper market remained defiant however, in January, February and March. Copper flexed its muscles for one last fling to $8,025 /tons on April 12th. China's economy was booming at a 12% annualized clip, and few traders could conceive of a bearish reason to sell the red-metal, beyond the inclination to grab profits.
"A trend in motion will stay in motion, until some major outside force, knocks it off its course." Finally, King Copper tumbled more than 20% in a span of two months, - its biggest sustained loss since the height of the global financial crisis in late 2008, after receiving a powerful jolt from a thinly traded market linked to Greek bonds, called credit default swaps (CDS), - largely absent from traders' radar screens. Traders in the volatile CDS markets had exposed the truth about Greece, - that it's technically insolvent, and can't repay its €300-billion of debt, without a bailout. When S&P downgraded Greece's bonds by three-notches to BB+, or junk status on April 27th, Greek bond 2-year yields soared to 26-percent. The copper market began to crumble in a knee-jerk reaction. European banks hold $272-billion in Greek public and private debt, and the extreme volatility in the Greek bond and CDS markets sent a signal to copper traders that it was time to "sell now, and ask questions later." The EU's equivalent of "shock and awe" – a €750-billion rescue package of standby funds and loan guarantees, for heavily indebted Euro-zone governments that can't raise funds cheaply in the capital markets, - enabled the Euro-zone banks to survive another near death experience. Still, on May 31st, the ECB warned that Euro-zone banks would face a new wave of potential loan losses - up to €195-billion over the next 18-months, from loans extended to the private sector, that are going sour. Thus, although the specter of a Greek bond default is postponed for a later date, another lethal phase of the European debt crisis began to erupt, - a frightful situation where European banks become unwilling to lend money to the private sector. There were latent fears of a Euro-zone "credit crunch," looming on the horizon that could suffocate the $14-trillion Euro-zone economy, and in turn, weaken the demand for industrial commodities, including copper and other base metals. Euro-zone banks are hoarding a record amount of cash, and buying German, French, and Swiss government bonds, and Gold, rather than lending Euros to the private sector. As liquidity dries-up, the credit default swap for the Euro-zone's top-50 junk bond index, of lesser credit worthy companies, became a key benchmark for measuring the risk of a "credit crunch." Each upward surge in Euro-zone junk bond CDS rates ignited a knee-jerk sell-off in the copper market. Conversely, each decline in CDS junk bond rates has given a boost to the red-metal. The Euro's slide against the US-dollar to a four-year low at $1.1850 also began to exert downward pressure on the copper market. The European Central Bank (ECB) has vowed to print vast quantities of Euros, in order to monetize the debt of financially weaker Euro-zone governments. The ECB's lack of clarity over the size of its printing operations left the Euro vulnerable to speculative attack, and a loss of confidence among central banks, that hold more than $2-trillion of the currency. However, in the aftermath of copper's 20% slide from its recent highs, to as low as $2.75 /pound in New York, bargain hunters and contrarians, began to wade into the long-side of the market, betting on a rebound for copper, on ideas that the Euro would ultimately stabilize above the psychological $1.20-level. In the commodity and currency markets, trader sentiment is fickle and can turn on a dime. Fears that Beijing was dumping Euro from its $2.25-trillion FX stash were alleviated on June 10th, when Dai Xianglong, manager of the China's National Security Fund said, "I think it is quite normal for the Euro to be experiencing swings because of the European debt crisis. However, I do believe the Euro will gradually stabilize and survive the crisis." Within minutes, Dai's soothing remarks lifted the Euro towards $1.2100, and in turn, the copper market hit bottom at $2.75 /pound. Over-extended short sellers in the Euro began to panic, after Dai indicated he was more concerned about a slide in the value of the US-dollar. "The US fiscal deficit is still big, so there is a risk that the value of China's forex assets will contract," Dai warned. Nowadays, currency fluctuations are used as an excuse to make speculative trades in industrial commodities. Along with the Euro's rebound to $1.2350, the copper market jettisoned 10% higher to $3.02 /lb. Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold, FCX.N, the world's largest publicly traded copper miner, tumbled 32% from its highs set in mid-April, closing tracking the slide of the copper and Shanghai red-chips. It was all downhill for FCX, even after posting stellar earnings of $897-million in the first quarter, and doubling its dividend to $1.20 /share. One key catalyst behind FCX's slide to $57 /share was an announcement by Beijing on April 16th, to clamp down on the property market, by hiking minimum mortgage rates, restricting pre-sales by developers, and tightening controls on purchases of second and third properties. But suddenly, seven weeks later, on June 8th, speculation of a debilitating "credit crunch" in Europe, and worries about the bursting of a housing bubble in China were touted as overblown. Instead, the speculative appetite for risk was revived, as evidenced by a sharp rebound for the Australian dollar. Highly volatile markets tend to overshoot on the downside and the upside, and markets don't travel in a straight line. There are zig-zag's along the way, typical of normal ebb-and-flows of a market. FCX is a crown jewel among metal miners, and a speculative favorite, because it's a hybrid between a copper and gold miner. Its fourth-quarter mining costs for copper averaged 62-cents per pound, a big reduction from $1.04 per pound a year earlier. For 2010, FCX expects sales of about 3.8-billion pounds of copper, 1.8-million ounces of gold, and 60-million pounds of molybdenum. Freeport is investing $1.8-billion in its Tenke Fungurume project in the Congo, which is set to produce 250-million pounds of copper and 18-million pounds of cobalt a year. At-the-end of the day, Copper, the metal with a Ph-D in macro-Economics, is a great place for wagering bets on cyclical swings in the global economy, the whims of G-20 central bankers, gyrations in the US-dollar, and the direction of Shanghai red-chips, all intertwined within a hotbed of speculation. This article is just the Tip of the Iceberg of what's available in the Global Money Trends newsletter. Subscribe to the Global Money Trends newsletter, for insightful analysis and future predictions about the (1) top stock markets around the world, (2) Commodities such as crude oil, Gold, copper and base metals, (3) Foreign currencies, such as the Australian and Canadian dollars, Brazil real, the Euro and Japanese yen, (4) Central bank interest rates and global bond markets, (5) Central bank Intervention techniques (6) and key Credit Default Swap markets.
GMT filters important news and information into (1) bullet-point, easy to understand reports, (2) featuring "Inter-Market Technical Analysis," with lots of charts displaying the dynamic inter-relationships between foreign currencies, commodities, interest rates, and the stock markets from a dozen key countries around the world, (3) charts of key economic statistics of foreign countries that move markets. subscription to Global Money Trends, click on the hyperlink below, Gary Dorsch,
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| Pythia Peay: Creativity Analyzed: Psychology of the Artist Posted: 16 Jun 2010 06:34 AM PDT An interview with Larry Staples, second in a series of interviews with contemporary Jungian analysts. When I embarked on writing a memoir about my father seven years ago, I thought I'd be finished in a year, maybe two. Yet as time passed, putting Joe's story into words turned into its own kind of saga. Each memory led to a deeper memory, stirring excitement and also dread that I'd never finish. Not long ago, I reached "the end." Until I came across the work of Jungian analyst Larry Staples, I hardly had the words to describe my creative odyssey. Staples himself knows what it's like to go against convention. At 50, he left a secure position with a Fortune 500 company, and spent the next nine years training at the Zurich Institute to become a Jungian analyst. Today he practices in the heart of Washington, D.C.; among his clients are artists, writers and even politicians. Proving the axiom that with age comes wisdom, Staples wrote his books, Guilt With a Twist, and The Creative Soul, at 76. The following is an excerpt from our conversation on the psychology of creativity, and it's shadows: sin, guilt and anxiety. Pythia: In Guilt With a Twist you write that creators who do something new suffer a burden of guilt. Why is that? Larry: We feel guilty anytime we do something that's unacceptable according to some authority -- whether it's religious, secular or parental authority. The French Impressionists provoked shock and outrage, and were told by the French Ministry of Culture that they couldn't show their art. Thomas Wolfe was anathema after he wrote Look Homeward Angel, and could never return to his hometown of Asheville. Darwin was a Presbyterian; introducing his theory on evolution presented a huge conflict, and he suffered guilt all his life. Pythia: A lot of creative dreams might get crushed under the weight of such guilt. Larry: Many people are afraid to show their art, as it arouses childhood memories of showing a drawing or poem to their parents or teachers and being criticized, rejected or met with indifference. If this happens when we're young, it takes courage to continue, as these early experiences can stop us from creating. But guilt also causes fear because deep down we're really afraid that when we create something that's met with disapproval, we're a bad person. And feeling bad causes us to feel anxious. The source of much of the anxiety we feel in life is the "unacceptable" thing that's trying to find it's way into consciousness: We want to do something selfish, or say something that we shouldn't. If we're creative, we want to write, paint or make something that we shouldn't. But to be alive and to be creative, we've got to experience and bear guilt. Pythia: In fact, the message in your books seems to be that to sin is not such a bad thing. You write that you wrote Guilt With a Twist "to comfort us in the 'sins' we inevitably need to commit in pursuit of personal growth," and you point to the lives of many "sinners" who produced great good for their societies, such as Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Betty Friedan and others. Larry: Well, we have to! The only way we can't sin is if we're dead. It's hard for me to imagine any human development based on righteousness, without ever doing something unacceptable or offending someone. Pythia: Some might say we need guilt to keep us from doing evil things. But you point to the way guilt prevents us from living more authentic lives -- that by trying to please our parents and society, we "sin against our self." Larry: At the deepest level we break the world down into the opposites of good and evil. But there is as well an imputed value of better or worse to all things: There's cold and warm, dark and light, masculine and feminine or rational and irrational. Usually one of those opposites is more preferable or acceptable. In fact, the things we feel guilty about often have very little to do with the Ten Commandments. We can feel guilty over whether we're assertive or not assertive enough, whether we work too hard or too little, or whether we're too fat or too skinny. So guilt always arises out of the conflict between two different actions, or thoughts or feelings. Pythia: You also say guilt has a surprisingly useful function. Larry: It's as if we're wired to feel guilty, because the tension that results from the collision of opposites creates energy that is essential to creativity and life. We always think that the "good feeling" comes from one side of the polarity. But it's really the contrast between the opposites -- like going from zero degrees in Canada to seventy degrees in Miami -- that gives us life. It's like the electrical energy that comes from the charge between the positive and negative poles. Pythia: How can therapy help manage guilt and tension around creativity? Larry: Most of us grew up with parts of ourselves that weren't allowed. In analysis, the therapist mirrors these unacceptable parts back to the client; this helps a person become more comfortable expressing their repressed feelings. In the same way, when a writer is blocked, it's because they've come to material they want to write about -- their family, for example -- but they just can't do it. Yet in order to write, paint or sing something authentic, we can't just express those parts of ourselves that were acceptable to our parents or society. We have to be our whole selves, and therapy can help with that. Pythia: What other fears besides guilt hamper creativity? Larry: When we really start creating, something lets go and begins to flow. It's like something takes over, and all these things that we didn't know we had inside come pouring out. But this "letting go" can be scary. A lot of people worry that they might go crazy. When we let go of the ego we may feel as if we don't have any control. But eventually the flow will stop, and the ego will come back. It's like a cork that bobs down, and then bobs back up. The same thing happens when we dream: the ego goes to sleep, and the unconscious begins to flow. Writers and artists literally dream while they're awake by diminishing the ego. The only difference between the creative process and insanity is that the ego leaves and never comes back. Meditation practices in which we experience transcendent moments when the ego drops away can help us become comfortable with these creative experiences. Therapists who know about the dynamic between the unconscious and conscious can also help. Pythia: In The Creative Soul you write that the artist risks loss of love. It seems that loneliness often comes with being creative. Larry: Withdrawal is yet another source of guilt for the creative person: the artist refuses invitations, or won't return calls. This can make people mad because they don't understand. But in order to do creative work, an artist has to tolerate a lot of uncomfortable feelings: criticism; anger from loved ones; rejection; loss of control when some unknown "scribe" takes over; and ambivalence around the creative act: should I write this, or that? Pythia: And yet you also write that writer's block and "lover's block" are the same. Can you say more about what you mean by that? Larry: I often see clients who are in relationships where they can't show their anger or selfishness, but can only say nice things. But we can't have relationships in which only half of ourselves is expressed. It's just not real. If we can't have a relationship with someone else's negative stuff, as well as their beautiful stuff, then we can't have an authentic relationship. Likewise, in order to write or create authentically, we have to express the unacceptable parts of ourselves, otherwise we're only writing from half of ourselves. Often we're afraid that we're going to lose our loved one, or, if we're in politics, our constituency. We're even afraid we might lose God. Pythia: Maybe that's the biggest fear of all -- that if we do what we want, we'll be completely alone. Larry: Aloneness is much more than the presence or absence of others. We can be in a crowd, or with another person, and feel lonely. Overcoming loneliness is much more about getting in connection with ourselves. We're lonely because there's a part of ourselves that we keep "in the dungeon," so to speak. When we feel loneliness, it's that "jailed" part of ourselves that we're feeling. But we'll always be lonely if we think someone else can solve our loneliness. Pythia: You also write that when we're in the act of creating, we don't feel lonely or guilty. Larry: That's because when we're being creative the lonely parts of ourselves come out for air and join us. The main process by which we become whole is to bring the (inner) orphans out of the orphanage, and the (inner) prisoners out of the prison. This is the way authentic, creative work makes us whole. For more of my interview with Larry Staples, please visit my blog, "The Writer's Desk," at pythiapeay.com. And please feel free to share your creative experiences! Follow Pythia Peay on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@pythiapeay Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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