"Volcker rule" at issue as reform bill nears finale

Paul Volcker, chairman of the newly formed Economic Recovery Advisory Board, attends a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama about Wall Street reforms at Cooper Union in New York April 22, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Natalie Behring

Paul Volcker, chairman of the newly formed Economic Recovery Advisory Board, attends a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama about Wall Street reforms at Cooper Union in New York April 22, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Natalie Behring

 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As Congress got to work crafting a final Wall Street reform bill on Tuesday, new tensions surfaced over the proposed "Volcker rule" that aims to curb risky trading and investing by banks.

White House economic adviser Paul Volcker, in a letter obtained by Reuters, said he firmly opposes exemptions to his rule being sought by banks that say they make only small investments in private equity and hedge funds.

At the same time, some Senate Democrats were moving to toughen the Volcker rule by reducing the latitude given to regulators in implementing it once it becomes law -- a prospect now widely seen as all but certain, likely within weeks.

Conflict over the rule -- which threatens the profits of banking giants such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- came as a congressional conference committee prepared for its first meeting on merging House and Senate reform measures into the biggest bank regulation overhaul since the 1930s.

After days of behind-the-scenes talks among conferees, the committee will hold its first public meeting on Thursday, with the goal of completing its work by June 26, Representative Barney Frank, the committee chairman, said on Tuesday.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi will appoint Democratic members from that chamber to the joint Senate-House committee on Wednesday, Frank told reporters.

Frank and other conference committee leaders will have the difficult job of balancing Democrats' desire for a hard-hitting bill with the need to retain some support from Republicans who have generally sided with Wall Street in resisting changes.

The completed House-Senate package must win passage in each chamber before it can be sent to Obama to be signed.

FRANK, DODD VOW OPEN PROCESS

Frank said conferees will aim to work for six to eight days between Thursday and June 26. He and his Senate counterpart, Democrat Christopher Dodd, said they would make committee sessions as open as possible.

Using the Senate-passed legislation as a starting point, conference members will have to propose changes a day before they are voted on, in an effort to avoid the secret deal-making that has marked past conference committees, Frank said.

"We certainly have no reason to try to keep the public out," Frank said. "We've benefited from its presence, he added," noting that public attention so far has had the effect of making the legislation tougher on Wall Street.

Dodd said the Senate conferees, who have already been appointed, will hold an initial meeting on Wednesday.

The Volcker rule was first proposed in January by Volcker and President Barack Obama, stunning capital markets.

It would curb proprietary trading by banks for their own accounts unrelated to customers' needs; bar them from sponsoring hedge funds and private equity funds; and limit their future growth through a new cap on market share.

The Senate bill, approved last month, endorsed the rule, but subjected it to a two-year study by regulators that critics said left the door open to watering it down later.

The Volcker rule is not in the House bill, but the bill has language that would let regulators bar proprietary trading at institutions that threaten financial stability.

Senate aides said large banks are pressing for "de minimis" exemptions to the Volcker rule that would let them invest in outside funds for marketing or relationship purposes.

VOLCKER "ABSOLUTELY" OPPOSES EXEMPTIONS

"I absolutely oppose any such modification" of the Senate bill, Volcker said in his May 17 letter sent to Dodd.
"Allowing a bank to invest in a speculative fund goes against the very intent of the (Senate) bill as we seek to define those activities that are worthy of government protection," he said in the letter.

The fight over the Volcker rule was unfolding in tandem with efforts by banks to kill another proposed measure that would force them to spin off their swap-trading desks.

Swaps are derivative contracts that allow wagering on the direction of interest rates or the likelihood of a borrower defaulting on its debt, known as a credit default swap.

Credit default swaps were blamed in the 2007-2009 financial crisis that hammered economies worldwide, triggering taxpayer bailouts and a global wave of financial reform initiatives.

The swap-desk measure from Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln could be dropped if the Volcker rule is toughened, some sources said, but the interplay between the two was unclear.

"We should correct the derivatives language independent of the Volcker rule and then try to get the Volcker rule right, which is also a complex issue. I don't think the two should be linked," Republican Senator Judd Gregg told Reuters Insider.

A key factor will be the outcome of Lincoln's difficult primary election race back home in Arkansas on Tuesday.

Analysts have said for weeks that her swap desk "push-out" measure would likely be dropped, something that would be even more likely if she loses in the primary.

MERKLEY: TOUGHEN VOLCKER RULE

Senator Jeff Merkley told Reuters on Tuesday that the Volcker rule is crucial to reform and should be toughened.

He and Senator Carl Levin, both Democrats, want to give regulators less discretion in implementing it. Merkley said he and Levin would meet on Tuesday with Volcker "to discuss the conference committee and how we're going to get this done."

Volcker, in a May 19 letter to Merkley and Levin, expressed support for their proposal, saying it would "clarify and enhance the proprietary trading restrictions" in the bill.

Levin told reporters on Tuesday that he was not linking the measure he and Merkley support to the Lincoln provision. "We're not arguing that it's one or the other," Levin said.

Banking industry analysts estimated last month that the sweeping financial reforms then being debated in Congress, taken together, could reduce big banks' profits in a range of 12 to 35 percent, depending on the institution.

Other banks whose profits could be hit by the Volcker rule, include Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.

On another front, Dodd said discussions were under way about a possible transition period that would help banks comply with new capital standards being proposed in the Senate bill under an amendment by Republican Senator Susan Collins.

"I don't know if it's been resolved yet. We're working very closely with Senator Collins," Dodd said.
Both the House and Senate bills call for higher capital requirements on banks and financial firms as they get bigger and assume more risk. Neither bill has much detail, however, largely leaving that up to regulators -- with one difference.

The Collins amendment would make bank holding companies adhere to the same capital standards as bank subsidiaries. It would also bar bank holding companies from counting certain hybrid securities in meeting a key measure of strength.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan, Rachelle Younglai, Thomas Ferraro and Charles Abbott; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Another Exercise Benefit: You Won’t Fall as Much

Newswise — Remaining physically fit and sticking to a regular exercise routine could lower your risk of taking a tumble, finds a new research study.

About 19,000 people die each year in the United States from falls and about 8 million undergo treatment in emergency rooms. What’s more, although falls are the leading cause of injuries among people age 65 and older, young people fall down just as much as seniors, according to the study.

“We were not surprised that people 65 years and older were no more likely to report falling than younger people, given that younger people are more likely to engage in more risky activities, such as standing on ladders, running and playing sports,” said lead author Kristin Mertz, M.D., at the epidemiology department at the University of Pittsburgh.

Mertz and her colleagues wanted to learn what people are doing when they fall and whether fitness has a part in the likelihood of falling. Their findings appear online and in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The researchers used data from participants in the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study from 1970 to 1989 and who responded to questions about falls during a follow-up survey in 1990.

The survey asked whether the participants had fallen in the past 12 months and, if so, what they were doing when they fell. Were they, for instance, walking, doing sports, exercising or getting out a tub? Participants answered questions about how many minutes each week they did aerobic exercise and they took a treadmill test as a measure of fitness.

Of the 10,615 participants between the ages of 20 and 87 years, 2,110 (or 20 percent) reported falling in the last year. Of those who fell, 15 percent fell while walking. Women were 2.8 times as likely as men to fall while walking, but fitness levels made a difference in men falling while it did not for women. The study found men with low fitness levels were 2.2 times more apt to fall while walking than were highly fit men.


“We were surprised to find that fitness and physical activity seem to have a stronger relationship with walking-related falls in men compared with women,” Mertz said.
The researchers concluded that individuals need about two hours of regular exercise a week to lower the risk of falling. Those who exercised less − or not at all − did not have the same protection.

Debbie Rose, co-director at the Fall Prevention Center of Excellence at California State University at Fullerton, agreed.

“Of all the fall prevention strategies that have been studied over the last two decades, well-designed exercise programs produce the best results, both in terms of lowering fall risk and fall incidence rates,” she said. “Physical activities designed to improve aerobic endurance should be included in any activity program aimed at reducing fall risk.”

Source: Health Behavior News Service, 

 American Journal of Preventive Medicine: Contact the editorial office at (858) 534-9340 or eAJPM@ucsd.edu.
Mertz KJ, et al. Falls among adults: the association of cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity with walking-related falls. Am J Prev Med 39(1), 2010.
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Is the Internet ruining our minds?

Books vs Internet 

Author Carr, shields our brains from distractions: books allows us to focus our mind on one topic at a time, unlike reading on Internet where we skim, browse and quickly scan through torrents of text, photos and video.

"Contemplation, introspection, reflection -- there is no space or time for those on the Internet."

 

We have developed sharper skills at making fast decisions, particularly visual ones, Carr says. Photograph by: Photos.com, canada.com

When author Nicholas Carr began researching his book on whether the Internet is ruining our minds, he restricted his online access and e-mail and turned off his Twitter and Facebook accounts.

His new book "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains" argues the latest technology renders us less capable of deep thinking. Carr found himself so distracted that he couldn't work on the book while staying as connected, as is commonplace.

"I found my inability to concentrate a great disability," Carr told Reuters in an interview.

"So, I abandoned my Facebook and Twitter accounts and throttled back on e-mail so I was only checking a couple of times a day rather than every 45 seconds. I found those types of things really did make a difference," he said.

After initially feeling "befuddled" by his sudden lack of online connection, Carr said, within a couple of weeks he was able to stay focused on one task for a sustained period and, thankfully, able to do his work.

Carr wrote a 2008 Atlantic magazine piece that posed the controversial question "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" and wanted to dig deeper into how the Internet alters our minds.

His book examines the history of reading and the science of how using different media changes our brains. Exploring how society shifted from an oral tradition to the printed word and to the Internet, he details how the brain rewires itself to adjust to new information sources.

Reading on the Internet has fundamentally changed how we use our brains, he writes.

Facing a torrent of text, photos, video, music and links to other web pages combined with incessant interruptions from text messages, e-mails, Facebook updates, Tweets, blogs and RSS feeds, our minds have become used to skimming, browsing and scanning information.

As a result, we have developed sharper skills at making fast decisions, particularly visual ones, Carr says.

But now most of us infrequently read books, long essays or articles that would help us focus, concentrate and be introspective and contemplative, Carr writes.

ARE WE LIBRARIANS?

He says we are becoming more like librarians -- able to find information quickly and discern the best nuggets -- than scholars who digest and interpret information.

That lack of focus hinders our long-term memory, leading many of us to feel distracted, he said.
"We never engage the deeper, interpretive functions of our brains," he said.

To illustrate, he likens short-term memory to a thimble and long-term memory to a large bathtub. Reading a book is like filling the tub with water from one steadily flowing faucet with each thimble of information building upon the last.

By contrast, the Internet is countless fast-flowing faucets, leaving us grasping for thimbles of disparate information to put in the tub and making it harder for our brains to draw connections and have cogent recall.
"What we are losing is a whole other set of mental skills, the ones that require not the shifting of our focus but the maintaining of our focus," Carr said.

"Contemplation, introspection, reflection -- there is no space or time for those on the Internet."

Carr says for centuries books shielded our brains from distraction, focusing our minds on one topic at a time.
But with devices such as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPad, which incorporate eReaders and web browsers, becoming commonplace, Carr predicts books too will change.

"New forms of reading always require new forms of writing," he said.

If writers cater to a society that is chronically distracted, they will inevitably eschew writing complex arguments that require sustained attention and instead write in pithy, bite-sized bits of information, Carr predicts.

Carr has a suggestion for those who feel web surfing has left them incapable of concentration -- slow down, turn off the Internet and practice the skills of contemplation, introspection and reflection.

"It is pretty clear from the brain science that if you don't exercise particular cognitive skills, you are going to lose them," he said. "If you are constantly distracted, you are not going to think in the same way that you would think if you paid attention."

By Mark Egan, Reuters

Hawking: Religion will be defeated by science

There were some techies Monday who believed they experienced a sighting of God somewhere in San Francisco.

Those people might care to hark at deeply relevant news. God will be defeated by science. No, not by faltering Wi-Fi systems at a conference. And, no, these are not my words. This is the considered opinion of someone sometimes referred to as the cleverest man in the world, Stephen Hawking.

In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, due to air Monday evening, Hawking expounded upon the largest questions, those that transcend iPhones and androids: Can science and God live happily ever after?

According to ABC News, Hawking first tried to define God in a way that he, as a scientist, might feel comfortable: "What could define God (is thinking of God) as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," he said.

Indeed, he expressed disappointment at how humans have thought of deity.

 
(Credit: CC Alex Lee2001/Flickr)

 

"They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible," he said.

Perhaps there will be some who might conceive that stranger things have happened. Others will nod sagely, while still secretly hoping there is another life after this one. However, couldn't one imagine a point at which science and religion somehow meet, shake hands and positions and agree on a concord?

Hawking, who has already recommended that we should steer clear of aliens, suggested to Sawyer that this was somewhat less likely than North Korea winning the World Cup: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, (and) science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."

I wish I could live in and with such certainty. Somehow, the more we know, the further away we are from something that feels real.

I cannot help thinking of baseball players, filled to their hat peaks with science's latest creations: HGH, steroids, and all sorts of female hormones. They smite the ball into the nearest river.

Yet, as they stomp on to home plate, what do they do? They look up at the sky and cross themselves. Perhaps they get their HGH from aliens. Perhaps, though, there is still some way to go before we can be sure that science will prove absolutely everything about our weird and occasionally wonderful universe.
I mean, can science really explain the deity that is Justin Bieber?

  By Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 

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Advice For New Graduates

Congratulations New Graduates

Well, it’s that time of year again, but this time nobody asked me to give a commencement address. Wonder why?

I’m full of good advice for those just starting out in the world of work. I’m full of it because neither of my boys took any of it in their time. I can see the married one now, passing some wisdom along to his kiddos, but I don’t think he realizes where it came from. It’s a good thing he married well. I know he did because both his kiddos are smarter than anyone on my side of the family. We’re from the shallow end of the gene pool.

I often tell new graduates the secret to choosing a spouse—particularly a wife. What you do is watch them ride up an escalator, especially a real tall elevator like some they have in the D.C. subway system. What you hope for is for her to take at least a few steps toward the top—a small sign that she isn’t satisfied just moving along with the crowd. If she passes the escalator test, check to see if she checks luggage on a short plane ride. My wife flunks both those tests, but what is it they say? The exception that proves the rule?

Escalators and moving sidewalks are great metaphors for economic progress. You can make pretty good progress just standing still. A rising tide lifts all boats. The good prospects, however, add a little additional effort of their own.

When we think of our entitlement programs, like Social Security and Medicare, the metaphor is how many people we have pulling the wagon versus how many are riding in the wagon. We have more and more riders relative to pullers, and we need to do something about it. We need to get smarter about our immigration policies, for one thing, and invite more good pullers into our great melting pot. I’d welcome really good pullers from just about anywhere, but I’d start looking in Asia. All the Asians I come into contact with seem to be hard workers and are very smart.

The favorable brain drain our country has enjoyed for decades is diminishing, maybe even reversing. We need to reverse the reversal. For starters, get rid of those crazy limits on H1B visas.

It’s standard advice to tell graduates they will need to work smarter as well as harder. That’s not always easy. Our natural inclination is just to pedal faster if we start slipping behind.

I touched on this theme recently when I suggested that standing over BP—boot to neck—demanding that they try harder or else may not be all that helpful. It’s like the SOB behind you honking his horn while you’re trying desperately to start your stalled car. Offer to honk his horn for him if he will start your car for you. (See "Beating On BP Won't Get The Gulf Cleaned Up")

I pointed out that this self-defeating tendency we have to just try harder is common among sports fans who assume their team would win if they only cared enough and tried hard enough.

Tennis is where you find the answer to smarter not harder, and not just by losing yourself contemplating the spin of the ball. Most of us who learned to play tennis as adults never learned to use topspin, which put a low ceiling on how good we can ever be. Top spin pulls a hard hit ball down into the court. Without top spin, it floats, and you have to ease up to keep the ball in the court. After mastering top spin, you can hit it hard and still keep it within the lines. Unfortunately, top spin can’t be taught to adults. I have personal knowledge of this.

New graduates should start planning for your first-born’s first tennis lessons in about three to four years. Start saving your money.

Let me close with a lesson I learned many years ago, but was reminded of again last week. The lesson is that the smartest, most successful people you will come into contact with speak very simply and clearly. It’s the novice on the make who tries to impress you with his newly acquired jargon and fancy talk. They are the ones that form the tight circles at receptions and allow only the few they consider worthy to break in. Actually, by self-selecting, they are doing you a great favor. Keep on circling; you can do better.

I did better this week, benefiting from the generosity of a kind hostess. At a dinner, I had the honor of sitting next to one of my heroes. It was Burton Malkiel, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, the classic on efficient financial markets. That he was the smartest man in the room went without saying. That he could endure the likes of me through a long dinner without looking over my shoulder and without trying to impress me with his smarts was . . . well, impressive.

You know, graduates, that efficient financial markets are sort of a special case of what some economists call rational expectations. They both say, in effect, that new information is useless, largely because it has already been used.

It’s like “Nobody goes to that restaurant any more; it’s too crowded.”

Congratulations graduates, wherever you are.

By Robert McTeer 

Bob McTeer is a fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. He was also President of the Dallas Fed for 14 years. 
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The Economics Of Why American Soccer Lags Behind The World

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The U.S. Men's National soccer team opens its play in the 2010 World Cup against England in a much anticipated matchup Saturday, June 12 in Rustenburg, South Africa.  A rematch of 2 countries that met 60 years ago in group play at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, and the site of perhaps the most glorious U.S. soccer victory of all time.

And though a victory over England in 2010 would not be the monumental upset it was in 1950, and though the American side during the summer of 2009 at the Confederations Cup beat 2008 European Cup champions Spain and led Brazil 2-0 before succumbing in the finals, U.S. soccer is still viewed as a second-class citizen by most soccer experts.


Brazil, Italy, Holland, Germany, Spain, Argentina, France and England are traditionally considered top tier soccer nations.  Most experts would rank the U.S. somewhere among the 10th to 20th best soccer playing nation in the world.

U.S. soccer has made tremendous strides since 1950.  Popular enough to sustain the North American Soccer League from 1968-1984.  Resilient enough to renew pro soccer with MLS starting in 1996, and the league has grown from 10 teams to 18 teams by the start of the 2011 season.  Internationally, we've qualified for 6 straight World Cup trips starting in 1990 after a 40 year hiatus.  And the U.S. will likely be awarded another World Cup in either 2018 or 2022 after successfully hosting the 1994 World Cup.

Despite all these positives, there are various economic explanations why the U.S. continues to languish behind the world soccer powers.  Namely, a lack of TV and corporate money in the U.S., 'first-mover advantages' and socioeconomic differences between the U.S. and many superior soccer playing nations.



TV and Corporate Money

Spaniard Pau Gasol of the LA Lakers plays in the NBA rather than Spain's top basketball league because there's more wealth and prestige in the NBA than he can find in any other basketball league in the world.  Similarly, Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard of the U.S. soccer team play their professional soccer in England because it has far more wealth and prestige than the MLS.

This difference in wealth and prestige stems from international differences in the way TV and corporate money is expended on soccer.  There is a domino effect that continues to hurt the visibility of American soccer leagues like MLS because lower revenue streams from media and corporate sponsorship deals hamstrings the league's ability to offer salaries that will attract the world's best players to America.

If fans aren't watching on TV, then ratings are lower.  If ratings are lower, then MLS can't garner the type of TV contracts that you see in the English Premiere League or the National Football League.  If ratings are lower, then MLS can't charge premium sponsorship and advertising rates.

With a paucity of TV and sponsor/ad revenue compared to other world soccer leagues and other American sports leagues, the league cannot afford to pay top world players in their prime the kind of dollars they can command in the top leagues in Germany, England, Italy, or Spain.

In American sports, the most lucrative playing careers in team sports have been and continue to be found in professional basketball, baseball, hockey, and football.  Since these sports yield a higher rate of return to the professional athlete in terms of a greater likelihood to make more money and not have to travel abroad to do so, these inherent realities - which owe themselves to the popularity of these sports and their subsequent ability to secure significant TV and corporate revenue - further depletes the potential talent base for American soccer since some top-flight amateur athletes may choose more lucrative sporting careers.

'First Mover' Advantages and Socioeconomic Factors

Soccer is England's game, much like hockey is Canada's game and pigskin football is America's game.  Going back to the Cambridge Rules drawn up at Trinity College in 1848 to help standardize the organized rules of 'football' across various English public schools, this highlights the significance and long-run power associated with the  'first mover advantage'.  It was England's sport first, and as such to this day, their nation lives and breathes soccer...and this is reflective in the broadcast rights fees and the corporate dollars the EPL can command.

The historical popularity of soccer in South America and other nations with lower per-capita income levels may owe itself to economic logistics.  Soccer is not an expensive game to play.  You need a ball.  You need space.  And sometimes not even that to grow a passion and skill for the sport.  Pele, often regarded as the best player ever and who came from humble beginnings, juggled oranges in the streets of Brazil as a boy.
For many lower income nations, most other sports are cost prohibitive either in terms of the simple logistics of playing the sport at the youth level (e.g. hockey, American football) or the infrastructural and organizational costs of player development, equipment and facilities and league administration.  As such, soccer is THE sport of many nations where the socioeconomics dictate that soccer is the most financially accessible option to a nation's residents.

Conversely, the U.S. has the wealth and infrastructure to sustain and support leagues in plenty of sports more historically native to North America.  And with more money to throw at players in these sports, there is arguably a financial incentive that may steer the best amateur athletes away from soccer.  In other nations, the main draw both financially and in terms of prestige is soccer.  Subsequently, other nations are more likely to attract their best athletes to the sport of soccer.

As a soccer enthusiast, I'm ever hopefully that the popularity and interest in soccer on a professional level in the U.S. will continue to grow, which is why the U.S. performance in the 2010 World Cup, and in particular their first match against England, is so important for promoting soccer to the casual American sports fan.
Because without higher TV rights fees and greater outlays from the corporate sector, it's hard to overcome first mover and socioeconomic factors which partially explain America's current 2nd to 3rd tier place in the world of soccer.

By Dr. Rishe is the Director of Sportsimpacts and an Associate Professor of Economics at Webster University in St. Louis, MO. 

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Tackling the World Cup

As football madness goes global again, it’s best to relax and ride with the roars. 

I KNOW what some of you out there are thinking. Why would anybody sacrifice free time to watch 22 grown men running around a field in pursuit of a ball? More to the point, why would they rather do that than spend time with ... me?

This is the mantra repeated time and time again throughout the year, but it reaches its climax every four years. And this week, the madness has started again – the World Cup is back.

This quadrennial event pits the best national football teams from around the world against each other in an effort to find the world champion. This year, it takes place in South Africa, where between June 11 and July 11, 32 nations will compete in 64 games in a somewhat complicated tournament format.

More importantly, it is a spectator show that draws people from all around the world to a single focal point.

Ever since the World Cup was first televised in 1954, watching it has become a worldwide phenomenon. The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) estimates that about 2.2 billion people watched some part of the 2006 event, , with a staggering 715 million people catching the final itself.

Given a world population of about 6.6 billion and several assumptions (including the unlikely one that football viewing patterns don’t change significantly after a person is married or gets a boyfriend girlfriend – we’ll just assume that the World Cup is a great exception), we can estimate that four out of nine couples will have one partner who will watch the World Cup.

And taking a cue from the statistic that only 14% of English soccer’s premier league spectators are women, we say that it’s mostly wives and girlfriends who will be wondering what the fuss is about.

So, this is my appeal to all the women out there: Give your man a break. More than that, give your man support.

This is the world’s greatest sporting event and it only happens once every four years. It is a (mostly) non-violent sport, exhibiting artistry and technique, evoking the greatest in commitment and competitiveness from players and spectators alike.

These are all noble ideals, and to all those who have complained that the Industrial Revolution marked a decline in humanism, and a rise in materialism, I will hereby argue that the rise of commercialism in football has demonstrated that the two can dovetail neatly.

There are many benefits to watching football:

* When your significant other invites friends and family to the house to eat and watch a game, it is a reminder that we don’t need an open house as an excuse to get together, and that there are other things besides religion and nationalism that bind us – as long as we support the same team.

* You will know where your man is and what he is doing at all times. And depending on how loudly he cheers, you will also know what he is thinking.

* Allegedly, condom sales increase during the World Cup. This could be a good or bad thing, depending on your situation. Share in the passion, that’s what I say.

There will be a few downsides, too:

* For about a month, the only decent conversation you can have will be related to either a game that had been played, a game being played, or a game that’s about to be played. Instead of fighting this, it is more beneficial to reword your conversations to reflect this. “Remember how you admired Ronaldo the other night when he tracked back to pick the ball up in defence? Well, don’t forget to pick up your anak from tuition afterwards, okay?”

* Set ground rules before the game begins (“Clean up after yourselves”, and “Don’t wake up the baby” are probably the most common). They will probably be pushed to the back of the mind during the game (the limbic system has a tendency to dominate thoughts), but that’s temporary. You will find football fans quite receptive at half-time or after a game. That is, as long as their team is winning, or has won.

* Passion is infectious and uncontrolled, and food and drinks are commonplace at football viewing parties. Remove all fragile items from the living room, and replace all the nice tablecloths and carpets with cheaper versions.

* For this World Cup, some of the best games will be played at 2.30am. Don’t be shocked to wake up in the middle of the night and wonder why the house is about to cave in. You can go to bed early so you don’t lose out on sleep. Or, better still, tell your significant other you want to check out that new boutique hotel in town. Your partner might even pay for your stay.

At the end of the day, it is important to realise that when your partner wants to watch football (even if it is three times a day for a fortnight), what he is doing is particiaptin a global event that brings people together, while catering to the primal need for competitiveness. In the old days, tribes had to go to war to fulfill those basic instincts. Now the war paint has been replaced by coloured scarves, and instead of bile and blood being shed, there are just yellow and red cards.

And once the month is over, so will the madness – for another three years and 11 months. Unless he’s a die-hard Premier League fan, in which case you’ll only have about 30 days.

CONTRADICTHEORY, By DZOFF AZMI

Logic is the antithesis of emotion but mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi’s theory is that people need both to make of life’s vagaries and contradictions.