Good stuff, albeit understandably similar to Ryan’s speech last night, right down to the setting and studiously soft-spoken delivery. Even so, I want to promote it as a way of patting him on the back for floating his proposal for $500 billion in cuts this year. That plan is dead on arrival, needless to say, but passing it isn’t what Paul is after. What he’s trying to do with that eyepopping number is communicate the magnitude of the problem to the public in hopes of moving the Overton window on spending — because if this new Gallup poll is right, it’s going to need a lot of moving. And not just among Democrats, either:
Not a single point’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats on Social Security despite fiscal responsibility having rocketed to the top of the conservative policy agenda over the past two years. I don’t know how else to account for that except as a near-catastrophic failure by prominent Republicans to explain even to their own base that eliminating earmarks and cutting NPR’s funding and canceling a pie-in-the-sky defense project or two isn’t remotely equal to the task of guaranteeing sustainability. Case in point: Not only didn’t Ryan squarely address Social Security and Medicare last night (“the politics of evasion,” Ross Douthat calls it) but even a fearless deficit hawk like Paul, speaking only to an online audience, didn’t go after them here. Anyone who’s serious about balancing the budget long-term must support entitlement reform, no matter how unpleasant the prospect might be, but rarely does the public hear that point made by a prominent politician. And the entirely predictable tragedy of last night’s SOTU, as Tom Coburn argued in his op-ed this morning, is that only leadership from the most prominent politician of all is realistically capable of moving public opinion on this — yet that leadership was almost entirely absent last night. Writes Yuval Levin of the missed opportunity, “This speech was worse than bland and empty, it was a dereliction of duty.” And here’s Matt Welch:
[T]he president, though he is much more serious on this issue than a huge swath of his political party, is nonetheless not remotely serious about this issue. Vowing to cut $400 billion over 10 years (a plan that, judging by the two people clapping when he proposed it, will likely be cut to ribbons if it survives through Congress), at a moment when the deficit for this year is more than three times that, indicates that Democrats (and a helluva lot of Republicans as well) are hunkering down in our awful status quo–half-heartedly tinkering around the edges of spending, making incremental changes this way and that, then launching new moonshots and redoubling old impotent efforts. Politicians have put us on the precipice of financial ruin, and they show no indication of doing a damned thing about it.
And I think they know it. Look at the plaintive, semi-desperate, Stuart Smalleyesque mantra Obama kept repeating at the end: “We do big things.” By his insistence his anxiety shall be revealed. We don’t do big things, America, not in the moonshotty Marshall Plan way of speechwriters’ cliche box. Increasingly, we don’t do little things, either–like keeping libraries open five days a week in California. What we do is snarf up ever-larger portions of your grandkids’ money for purposes that are usually obscure and often criminal.
Read his whole post, including and especially the concluding line. Just as I’m writing this, and as a prelude to Paul’s video, the AP is across the wires with news from CBO that its projections for Social Security were wrong: They used to believe that the program wouldn’t start running permanent deficits until 2016, but it turns out the deficits will begin this year. (We’ll likely have a separate post on that later.) Like Paul says, the day of reckoning is at hand.
Evan here. Please check out our daily blog at www.theasiachronicles.com where we will have more posts than those that appear here. Today, for example, we have this post and also a post from Alexis Lamb regarding the Singapore market – “Singapore Swing.”
Please note that Robert Kinney and I will be working from our Hong Kong offices for a few weeks later this month and can be available for meetings with our readers then. Alexis, of course, is based permanently in Hong Kong.
Three Quick hits of the day (a new feature at theasiachronicles.com): One US firm in Hong Kong now has an expat / cola allowance of over $90,000 for single associates and over $100,000 for married associates; Almost every strong US cap markets practice in HK / China is hiring lateral associates now; It has recently become more common for US and UK firms in Singapore to offer an expat / cola allowance, albeit much smaller than in HK (for years, most firms offered no allowance in Singapore).
While interviewing for a US associate position in Asia can be quite different from interviewing for a spot down the street in New York or another major domestic market there are also some similarities to a job search in any domestic market. The key determining factors on whether you will have a chance at interviewing are top firm experience and impressive law school academics. The other obvious factor determining whether you will be asked to interview, at least for most positions in Asia, is language skills (Mandarin, Korean, Japanese).
However, once you are in an interview, whether by phone, VC or in person, your stellar resume is not going to help you as much as it would in an interview for a US position. Overseas partners are looking for the right personality fit much more so than in a large domestic office. A major reason for this is because the offices are much smaller overseas, making it harder to hide a misfit (even a junior associate can be the face of the firm), but there are other reasons as well.
At a basic level, the factors that are especially important to demonstrate in an interview overseas are these:
• you have an entrepreneurial nature;
• you have a high level of maturity for your experience level;
• you have an outgoing personality (not overly “academic” in nature);
• you are able to fit in with different cultures;
• your personal presentation is generally positive; and
• you are a team player (no prima donnas need apply)
• you have a demonstrated interest / connection to your target market
These are obviously all factors that are relevant in any interview at least as “plus factors”, but these particular factors are especially important in Asia.
Keep in mind that within minutes of your first interview, most partners can pretty much figure out whether you have these attributes. Any of us at Kinney Recruiting can figure this out about candidates we speak to in minutes as well.
There is a much less structured environment for associates in busy overseas U.S. practices (at the smaller offices or newer practice groups it can be similar to working in a exciting start-up company, albeit one extremely well financed).
The market is such in Asia, especially in China, that firm clients are not nearly as institutionalized as in the major US markets. Sure, many US firms in Asia opened offices there initially to follow major clients. Nevertheless, the pitch environment is much more of a free-for-all in Asia, especially in China. A firm not being on the preferred vendors list at an i-bank, fund or other entity often does not even prevent representation from happening in Asia (while it is more difficult, a series of one time waivers for a firm by a client are not uncommon). In China especially, considering all the state run enterprise business, the vast majority of the IPOs being handled by PRC banks, and many emerging companies and funds, there is a lot of pitching going on by firms for this work. Further, while in New York deals are done mainly over the phone, in Asia there are a lot of in-person meetings throughout the process.
Needless to say, there is a lot of client contact for even junior associates, especially when in China a non-Chinese partner may be leaning heavily on his Mandarin-fluent associates for a lot more than due diligence. Mid-level associates in Asia are typically running their own deals.
In many instances in Asia your training is one-on-one mentoring from a partner or two, quite commonly with no senior associates in between.
Maturity is especially important in Asia because associates are given as much responsibility as they can handle. Simply put, a mature person can balance his or her workload between competing demands more than an immature one. There can be a lot of travel to meet with major clients and each associate, no matter how junior, is usually a vital part of their office’s overall practice and client development and retention. Each associate is also expected to be a self-starter and figure out things on the fly much more than is the case in a domestic office of the same firm.
The smaller offices of course make personality fit and personal presentation more important, for obvious reasons. As an associate at a top U.S. practice in Asia, you are more of a vital piece of the entire office’s practice and your personality is going to directly affect the firm’s practice. Senior partners overseas, especially those that moved to Asia from U.S. offices, have in many cases put a tremendous amount of effort (and some career risk) into building their book of business and reputation in a foreign country. Thus, they can take a lot of pride in their accomplishments, as they should. Understandably they want to avoid placing their reputation and practice in the hands of an associate with whom they do not have a strong personality fit or who cannot be counted on to be at his or her best every day.
As an associate in a large New York (or other major US market) office, with hundreds of attorneys, you surely know a number of very impressive young associate colleagues who are perhaps a bit over academic, but perform just fine in that large office environment. However, being too academic and not well rounded will not serve well in an entrepreneurial and less structured environment of a busy small overseas US corporate practice of a top firm. We have seen countless cases where the less impressive candidate on paper wins out over the more impressive resumed candidates, due to being better rounded and the right personality fit.
Most US partners who have been in Asia for a few years or more have experienced a hire gone bad simply because the US associate ultimately could not commit to the geographic market. Asia, especially China, is hot now and is considered “the place to be.” There are many very well intentioned and able young professionals in the US who believe they would like to relocate there, but ultimately find out later that the region is not for them. Thus, many US partners will take a jaded approach into an interview with a US associate who does not have an obvious connection to the particular target Asia market. Of course, a connection to the market is not a requirement to land there (if it were, most partners you are interviewing with would never have landed there to begin with), but the lack of a strong connection will need to be dealt with in an interview. It is ok to want to be in Hong Kong, for example, because it is an exciting market, has great deal flow, and you have visited there a few times, but the message has to be conveyed loud and clear in an interview and you need to be prepared to take on this elephant in the room early.
Keep in mind that U.S. firms have more risk with hires they make overseas, due to the high level of responsibility each associate has, and also because associates are simply less fungible in small, busy overseas offices. The past two years of economic downturn in the West caused full and partial hiring freezes at firms globally, even during most of the recent 20 months boom in China. Many U.S. practices in Asia have found themselves to be severely understaffed when just one or two associates leave, combined with increased deal flow. In a busy and competitive lateral hiring market in Asia, it can easily take a U.S. practice up to six months to replace a key associate that has not worked out.
Further, there is the added cost a firm takes on when hiring a U.S. associate lateral, especially if from the U.S. markets, such as annual housing / expat packages (which can run from $40,000 to $140,000 depending on the Asia market and firm) and international relocation costs, which includes up to two months in a luxury serviced apartment. Some firms even handle private school tuition for associates’ children.
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That means news organizations will be incentivized to convert customers they already have relationships with — a.k.a. print subscribers — into tablet-only or tablet-also readers. If you're a newspaper and you can convince your 20-year ...
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted in Egypt - From <b>...</b>
CBS says Logan was the victim of “a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating” while covering the events in Egypt last week.
bench craft company reviews
What Apple's new subscription policy means for <b>news</b>: new rules <b>...</b>
That means news organizations will be incentivized to convert customers they already have relationships with — a.k.a. print subscribers — into tablet-only or tablet-also readers. If you're a newspaper and you can convince your 20-year ...
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted in Egypt - From <b>...</b>
CBS says Logan was the victim of “a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating” while covering the events in Egypt last week.
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