The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic

Just finished the first level of CFA exams. The questions and concepts per se are not really that difficult. What is harder is finding the time and discipline to study as well as the stamina of going through 6 hours of nerve-wrecking challenge. Whatever happens next, be it good or bad, life still goes on.

I have learnt to adopt a more philosophical attitude towards success and failure. Even if one fails, life still goes on, just pick up the pieces learn from your mistakes and move on. Disasters strike, tragedies happen almost on a daily basis to different people in different parts of the world. One is neither unique nor alone. It maybe harsh but I never gave myself (sometimes even others) much sympathy or excuses to wallow in past failures.

The corporate world has a terminology for the end result of such instances. It is commonly known as BAU (Business As Usual). No matter what happened yesterday, the world continues to revolve, markets continues to open, businesses need to be made and jobs still need to be done. Sometimes, I wonder to myself since when did I ever become such a cold-blooded creature.

After some thought, I could trace the rationalization back to an event couple of years ago. It was the day of Tsunami on 2004, whereby almost 300,000 people killed with the highest number of casualties coming from Indonesia. From a perspective of a normal human being, it was an unprecedented disaster. However, what surprised me even more, was that the JKSE index unflinchingly rose instead, marching unstoppably forward. That very moment, impounded within me a icy-chilling sense of reality that till today still continue to send shivers down my spine.

Compare and contrast this with the events of the September 11 tragedy, whereby 3000 people died and stock markets worldwide fell sharply. Though both are tragic events, but the relative costs in terms of human lives couldn't be more apparent. One is a hundred times more than the other and yet responses by markets couldn't be more inconsistent.

Capitalism has implicitly placed a price on human lives. What the markets are telling us, despite how unsightly it is, is that the world can't be bothered by people whose lives don't matter. As the saying goes, the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic. It seems Joseph Stalin knows a little more about human nature than we do.