KONDEGBILY

Hello, everyone! Welcome to Kondegbily  ( Kondegbily.com) , my blog about accounting and finance.
I’m Abdoulaye Bangoura. Currently, I’m pursuing an accounting program at Ryerson University in order to get my CPA (certified public accountant) license. At the same time, I’m undertaking an investment baking microdegree with Financial Edge. In my spare time, I go to the gym and watch soccer. I’m a big Liverpool F.C. fan and tirelessly tease my friends by talking about the club ( my future wife has an obligation to support Liverpool – otherwise, there’s no wedding). 
Business is my passion, as I sincerely believe that it’s one way to impact society positively and bring about solutions to many social issues. I therefore decided to create this blog, where I can contribute my knowledge and understanding of certain business and financial concepts to interested readers.
What is kondegbily? To understand the meaning of this word and my reason for choosing the name, journey with me through my background of linguistics, which starts in Conakry, Guinea. Like most people, my first contact with language as a baby was non-verbal, but progressively, my family and immediate environment nurtured me first in Susu, then in French. I spent a major part of my life between these two amazing languages. I’m still relatively new to English, and 2021 marked the first year when I decided to study at an English-speaking university and settle in Toronto. However, Kondegbily is a tribute to my culture and my mother tongue of Susu, which is spoken in West Africa – mostly between Conakry and Sierra Leone. “Kondegbily” means “baobab” in French and the same in English. In many West African cultures, the baobab tree plays a pivotal role. It alleviates hunger by supplying tasty food, it remedies some diseases, and it even offers the opportunity for clothing. Moreover, the social role of the baobab goes beyond this materialistic world; people believe it hosts the souls of dead ancestors, so it also has great spiritual importance. Baobab is therefore extremely useful, generously providing numerous services to people both in this world and after. Like the baobab, my aim with this blog is to share some knowledge about a wide range of topics in accounting and finance. In other words, I aim to provide my own small contribution to society by writing and posting articles every 2-3 months.
Now let’s talk briefly about the first article I wrote on this blog, titled “Stock: An Alternative Means of Survival in a Modern World.” This article is also published in the newspaper Kapital Afrik March 07, 2022. It discusses the core concept of stock, compares it with other traditional methods of investment, and talks about how it’s able to confront some of the crises of our era.
If I told you that I knew the secret of people who run the world, you would likely think one of two things: that I’m a huge liar or that I’m a member of some secret society. However, the secret of powerful people isn’t hidden from the likes of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or Warren Buffet. The common point between these people isn’t that they’re rich or famous – it’s that they hold the best stock in the world. Therefore, the first paragraph of my article points out the amazing return of stock over other kinds of traditional investment. Historically speaking, stock outperforms bonds and cash. After deep observation of the average return of stock and other traditional investment methods, Peter Lynch, manager of the Magellan Fund at Fidelity Investment, states in his book Beating the Street as principle two: “Gentlemen who prefer bonds don’t know what they’re missing.”
The second paragraph of my article invites you to think like a fireman. Firemen know that there are three components that spark fire: heat, fuel, and oxygen. Similarly, there are two things that feed the power of stock: time and compound interest. Time is literally money, while compound interest is the nourishment that money needs to live. As Warren Buffet once said, “My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest.” Compound interest behaves in an exponential manner. Thinking in terms of what’s exponential is difficult for human beings, so I invite you to watch Josh Brown’s CNBC video, “How to double your money.”
Is stock riskier than bonds? The third part of my article focuses on the risk relative to these assets. The easiest answer is that stock is the riskiest asset among traditional investment methods. I’m talking about traditional investment because under this scope, I exclude hedge funds, private equities, and infrastructure. I don’t want to give my readers only fairy tale impressions about investing in equity. Stock has its downsides, and some people have gone broke due to their equity investments. Sir Isaac Newton, a genius in physics, lost his fortune by investing in the South Sea bubble. People generally see stock as risky because it fluctuates much more than bonds or cash.Further, it’s more difficult to assess the intrinsic value of stock, as the equity market is driven by irrational behavior, among a myriad of other uncontrollable factors. Economist John Maynard Keynes once said that “The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” However, beyond market risk, investors should be aware of inflation, as this affects the real value of your stake. In this context, stock is actually less risky because it produces positive real returns during high inflation, whereas other forms of investment generally fail.
The final part of my article examines stock in terms of issues of retirement. In many countries, social security was built to ensure generational solidarity. This system works well when we have few old people. Unfortunately, a much larger number of people are now aging while the younger population has become increasingly scarce , and this is an upward trend. Can we reasonably expect to have a golden retirement? Will our retirement benefits recede in comparison to prior generations? These are some of the questions raised by this section of my article. The paragraph also invites readers to think about alternative solidarity – mainly, private solidarity. Although we can use many lenses from which to view this question, I choose to focus on weddings. Weddings are a social construct that people can use to express their love and kindness, but they also allow people to receive financial support from one another. However, based on the short length of the modern marriage, can we expect this to genuinely tackle the problems surrounding our current social security model?