On narcissism of politics and Obama...

I was out for the two summer months overseas, and I'm still working off that piles of magazines that I meant to read regularly. Not that Forbes is my favorite (I'd rather have Fortune and BusinessWeek for lighter read), but it has its moment.

Forbes has this section of Other Comments, in which it quotes a passage from Charles Krauthammer in Washington Post. It's marked Me, Myself and I. It's about Barack Obama, and it's sooo funny that I have to quote it here in my journal to give myself a chuckle when I need a chuckle. And here it goes:

"...There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself..."

It's so true about Barack Obama. It's no wonder that the young crowd loves him. He exemplifies this me-generation so perfectly.

On the $700 federal bailout of the financial industry...

I don't know why George W Bush and Nancy Pelosi should sound so surprised at the collapse of the $700 billion bailout plan put forth by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to help prop up the financial industry.

This plan remains a hard sell to the public. The only supposedly most compelling argument from Paulson is that, if the federal government does not put taxpayer money on the line, Armageddon is at hand and the whole industry is going to collapse. As some House rep rightly pointed out, there is no plan B; there is no healthy debate on the subject; there's no measurement of success (or failure); there is no reassurance that the plan would work. All that Bush, Paulson and Bernanke can conjure up is that, we have to throw more good money to these bad investments. I'm appalled that Paulson that he had even initially resisted the call for curb on executive payout in the failing firms, noting that these executives would decline to join. I'd join, sure, let them fail, and let them see what the alternatives might be.

Sometimes I wonder if high-minds like Paulson is so wrapped up in their own worlds to think out-of-the-box. The Bush administration has only helped by pushing for more deregulation for the past eight years, only to see the walls closed in on them now, and that in order to defy another horrondeous legacy (of another meltdown economy in 2008 after stock market implosion in 2000) under Bush's watch. Unlike 9/11, this is well within the control of our government, and yet Bush and those stupid GOP's let Wall Strett have a free hand to run amok.

I know it's not going to be easy to have the financial industry collapse at our door steps. The writedown of more than $400 billion by various banks, bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, hasty buyout of Bear Stearns, sellout of Merrill Lynch, bailout of AIG, and more, are just part of the painful process for the market to readjust itself back to some kind of normalcy. If the GOP and like-minded Democrats believe so firmly in the magic of the invisible hands of the free market, they should have let the invisible work this mess out, no matter how painful and tough it would be.

On the verdict of first presidential debate 2008...

I don't have a TV, so I watched the first presidential debate of 2008 between John McCain and Barack Obama belatedly.

I don't know how anyone could have argue who the winner was. If those talking heads were thinking/basing their conclusions on who won the debate solely on the TV votes, they would, without a doubt, get a winner in Obama. It's natural, because it's highly unlikely to get older voters to participate TV votes like this, which is a fancy gimmick of the younger generations.

As I see it, Obama has better debate skills, but he didn't answer alot of questions that were posted to him. On one question about handling foreign powers, Obama even brought up Joe Biden (his veep pick) as the answer, meaning Obama himself has nothing to offer.

McCain surely came across as the guy who's ready to hit the ground running on day one, the same way Hillary Clinton would have been, should she have been the Democratic nominee. Both camps have succeeded in demonstrating the big gulf of differences between the two candidates, where we have a younger guy who talks well but offers nothing else, and an older guy who's been-there-done-that and who more than a few occasions asserted how naive Obama is and that Obama simply doesn't understand the situations.

I don't understand people would count it against McCain, given his age. I have little doubt that he's going to be the guy who can get the job done. Even if I don't agree with all the positions of McCain (and Clinton would have been my choice, if she's on top of the ticket), I have made up my mind to vote for McCain in Nov.

On eating well and dieting...

I grew up in Asia. You don't see alot of obese people in Asia. It's true in Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and beyond. That's quite a stark contrast, after I moved to United States. Probably one in 10 people (maybe higher percentage) I see on the street is obese. From time to time, I would wonder why there is so many more people who are obese in America than Asia.

My mother, a retired housewife, goes further than that. When she has nothing to do and lots of time to spare, she would go to the mall, sit by and watch obese people moving about. She said she finds it amusing watching them moving around with difficulty. I don't think she says it in a mean way, but she's genuinely fascinated by how obese people live their lives, with all the troubles and difficulties that come with it.

Albeit without conducting any scientific research, in the back of my mind, I know it has alot to do with food and diet (the food they eat, the way they eat). Japanese don't normally binge. While they're big on MSG (did you try their ramens?), their food use surprisingly little oil (except maybe teriyaki). They eat alot of raw ingredients (like sashimi). And they drink green tea.

Chinese food can be very greasy. And while home-style cooking doesn't use much MSG, you'll be loading yourself with the stuffs. You still don't see that many obese people, even in wealth part of the country like Hong Kong where they can afford all the proteins they want. Ah, but they don't normally binge-eat either, and they drink green tea.

Ditto with Korean food. Very greasy Korean BBQ, but you have small potions of a la carte type of condiments on the table. And they drink green tea too.

I don't think Asians are that big on exercise, at least not the older generations anyways. Maybe it's in their gene. I have fast metabolism. I can eat more than a 200-pound guy, and be ready to poo within an hour of a meal. I just don't retain.

So then, it's always interesting, reading about eating well, dieting, and what-have-you. I guess Americans can do much with the gene. Given that they have much bigger potions, and possibly slower metabolism, they have to eat less of the greasy and carb, and/or more of those that don't give them that much fat (eg. veggies). And they should start trying to drink green tea.

But judging from the same way that everyone's been complaining about, that Americans just don't save enough and spend too much, and that they know the problems in their gut but do nothing about their saving/spending habits, I have very little faith to believe that they are capable of changing their eating habits any time soon.

On contamination of baby formula in China...

It should come as no surprise at all, hearing yet another contamination in the food chain from China. This time, it's contaminated baby formula sold in China.

It's quite sad, since the issues first showed up back in March, reported formally in August, yet the Chinese officials continue to refuse to take actions, until the New Zealand parent of the baby formula company in China discovered the issue and pressed for product recall on the governmental level. If foreigners have not been involved in the issue, no one will take any action in China and more babies will get sick and die.

The same is true for the tainted pet food from China that caused thousands of animal pets die in United States.

Initial reactions from China is always the "No," followed by accusation that Western countries are being condescending and patronizing to China. It's quite true that Chinese these days lack any moral compass, after Chairman Mao and the communist party have so successfully in eliminating these good traits in the Cultural Revolution. The only thing that the bygone generations were thought was, believe in the party. Now that the party fails them, people have nothing to turn to or look up to, but money. A lot of Chinese (particularly those from mainland China, if I might come across as sounding too harsh on them) are like that.

Truth be told, I don't believe in any words coming from China or Chinese authorities (government officials or commercial corporations). They seem to be in lack of shame or guilt.

On the high costs of a wedding...

I always read articles that features high costs of weddings, with amusement. Spending $10,000 is considered on the cheap side; what with average costs of wedding in the range of $29,000.

Don't get me wrong: I always, ALWAYS, enjoy going to weddings. The arrangements, the flowers, the merry, jolly air, although "fairy tale" is probably something furthest from my mind. It's almost like watching cooking shows, or perusing furniture and home decor catalog. I love enjoying the moments of appreciation, to all the work that goes in, to make something beautiful, perfect even.

But perhaps, I'm too lazy a person at heart, to help myself in elaborate, prolonged arrangements of an event. Or that I like denim jeans more than evening wear. Most importantly, I don't think wedding dresses go well with my spectacles. (I'll pick my glasses rather than the wedding dress, for pragmatic reasons.)

So, there goes my own wedding. A civic one. All we needed was two witnesses. My family wasn't around. My father-in-law attended. That's about it. My husband is a no-fuss, no-nonsense kinda guy. He grew up in America, but in a way, he clings onto traditions (or so he thinks are Chinese traditions) in his own quiet, fierce way. He said he doesn't care for a wedding (or so he said back then), but he wants it in Chinatown. So we looked up the phonebook, and found this JP called "Peter Wong." He asked what date/time, told us his fees. That's about it.

On the day, I wore a usual dress I would have worn for work, a jacket. My husband sported a white shirt and slack, and off we went. I must say, we (my husband, in particular) were quite sorely disappointed in "Peter Wong." When we got to his dingy office on the second floor in Chinatown, he dug out a form from a drawer, signed it, and told us to pay. My husband asked, "Don't we need to take the vows?" He said "Oh," then dug some more in his drawers to find a very crumpled piece of papers with vows in English. He had to read it for instructions, at when to tell us to say yes (or no, just in case), and when to exchange rings, etc. It's very disgraceful. Our two friends (the witnesses) shot us this quizzical look. My in-law just stood there and had this smirk on his face. At the time I didn't understand what the smirk was for. I would understand later, that he probably knew all Chinatown establishments are like this, but he didn't tell his son (my husband) about it, lest ruining his fancy for anything Chinese. The whole process (vows+rings) took less than 15 minutes.

The only fiasco was probably our rings. We ordered them in Hong Kong, since my husband wanted Chinese names to be inscribed inside the ring. Turned out, his was one ring size too big, and mine, one too small. During the process, he had had trouble squeezing the ring on my finger, and I had to take it, and did it myself. We were all giggling and cracking up. Ah, but it's just a civic ceremony. No one cares too much about formality anyways. Definitely not Peter Wong, who cared mostly about the fees that he's collecting at the end.

Hmm, how much had our "wedding" costed? We had to do medicals for the marriage license, pay for the medical tests and the license itself. Some small fees for Peter Wong. And we went dim sum lunch after the ceremony, which should be less than $200. I don't think you can beat that.

So, it is under my circumstances, that I pity those young folks who have to go through all these wedding business. I never fancy any of the fairy tale weddings, or any pretty things that go with it. (For goodness sake, it's one big, whole industry surviving on wedding support!) My parents and family live overseas, so none of mine was around. I know my parents (my mom, in particular) were disappointed. Mom told me so. Every so often, she would urge me to go take some wedding pictures in studio. I don't really fancy that - I'm still wearing glasses (and they still don't go too well with wedding dress), and I'm not doing lazik any time soon.

For a long time, my husband insisted he doesn't mind or care for a wedding of his own. But then, we attended some weddings of our friends. One time, he finally admitted, "it would have been nice (to have our own wedding)." Oh well, what can I say. I told him it's too late now. :)

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I felt particularly strongly against holding our own wedding particularly after my (third) sister's wedding in Australia. She was so stressful planning our everything. She's even paying for most everything herself. (I can't say too much kind things about her soon-to-be husband back then, but he's an over-ripe, immature, bump. As of this date, he's still an over-ripe, immature, bump. Everyone in the family was against the marriage. Ah, but, that's another story for some other time.)

To save up on the costs, she bought a second hand wedding dress (which is a sound decision to me since there's no real purpose of buying a brand new wedding dress to wear only once unless you're planning to pass it down the generations). A seamtress tailed it for her, but the side of it ripped on the day and we had to hold it together with sellophane tape. All the siblings flew in, and we the sisters were all busy doing the flower arrangements, flower pins, and folding the church wedding agenda, and the lunch menu, on the wedding morning. She arranged to have a beautician to come do her make-up and hair that morning, so she couldn't help out much. For Christ sake, she's even paying for the dresses of the bridesmaid. I offered to rent my own dress, so long as it's in the color scheme that she wants, it should be fine. But my sister has got herself a "bitch" (the younger sister of her soon-to-be husband), who INSISTED that my sister paid A$500 to buy her a crimson silk dress which she can save for future evening dinner purpose. Talking about skimming off on someone else's back (and hard-earned cash).

It's thankful that everything went well. It's a beautiful wedding. I swear to myself, though, that I would not go through something like that myself.

I'll hold the same principles to my kids, boys or girls.

On the demise of Lehman Brothers...

I feel sad seeing Lehman Brothers going down like this. I've endeared myself to Lehman, not the least due to its last-in-the-line-as-independents status in the investment banking world, but that I've spent time there, once upon a time. My old boss has even got a recent promotion to go conquer a brave new world. I've reacquainted with him after a number of years, me doing my own things, and watching from afar him in the news doing news things at Lehman. I'm quite proud of him having persevered in the business. I don't think I would have enjoyed it, if I were him. Still, persevere he did...and look what happens now.

I wonder what would happen next. I hope there would be some kind of LBO to spin off the investment banking side, and keep the Lehman tradition alive. To see Lehman going down due to the subprime mess is like letting a kid driving a Ferrari at full speed right after he's mastered riding a bike. He should have stuck with the bike until he's old enough to get a driving license before test-driving a race car. Oh well, but it's too late now, after the car crash. Now we'll have to write off the Ferrari, and wheel off the kid to the morgue.

I hope my old boss will survive it. But judging from the number of layoffs (in tens of thousands) just on Wall St alone, it won't be an easy task. It'll take at least 1 - 1.5 years before everything stablizes. Now that everything's in full retreat, including private equity, hedge funds, and banks, it won't be easy to find another nice, cushy job.

On McCain's poll bounce after naming Palin as veep...

I've (sort of) promised myself I don't want to write anything that has concerns with Obama, but the latest twist in the campaigning has me very amused, and I feel obliged to put in a word.

Well, where to begin? How about Obama, the supposed "agent of change", losing the mantle of the change agent, after McCain, the maverick in Washington, did the one-up by naming not only a relative newcomer in politics, but a woman, no less, to be on his ticket? That compares to Obama's unimpressive veep pick of long-time Washington insider of Joe Biden.

Palin's clean slate in politics, while still impressive with experience in being a governor, would be a big problem for Obama/Biden campaign, if they are to find faults in order to attack her. Obama would have no right to criticize Palin as (1) he himself has much less experience than her, and (2) attacking Palin would further alienate the women voters behind Clinton that Obama has been so desperately trying to woo. Palin's humble upbringing and rise to power also appeal to the working class voters too, another achilles' heels of Obama.

McCain's naming of Palin as veep is brilliant. It's amusing to see how Obama camp squirms and tries to wriggle some room to attack. After all, would you rather have the experienced guy as the chief, and the newcomer as sidekick? That would be a most logical choice, wouldn't it?! But the Obama/Biden ticket completely reverses that logic. Obama would have us believe that it's better to have the guy who knows nothing much really, to be the chief; and have himself be propped up by experienced hands like Biden. It's just plain ridiculous.

So, it comes as no surprise at all, that while there's no obvious bounce in poll for Obama after his yet another big rah-rah speech at the DNC in front of 70,000 props or his high-profile celebrity-circuit tour overseas, but McCain gets notable bounce in polls after naming Palin, even though the RNC convention was interrupted by Hurricane Gustav?

It's also worth noting that Clinton has refused to Palin, a fellow pioneer in being the first woman on a GOP ticket. At least, that shows Clinton has her conscience with her.

Ok - no more Obama in my journal. I'm sick of this guy, to the bone.

On the first day of school...

There's always this mixed feeling when summer holiday ends and school starts. It's no difference, now that I'm a parent rather than a student. It's probably high time that I should take stock on what's been happening, and what is to come.

Right now, I'm relishing the chirping of cicada in the trees outside our windows in night time. I'm still cherishing the memories of going away for the two summer months overseas to catch up with all the friends and family, what with all the rush to fly out only in June, and now we're safely back home.

Everything always seems to be in a rush in Hong Kong, with one of the main activities being to plan for which restaurant to eat out in the next meal. As for the kids, I'm sure they have more than enough stimuli to just FEEL busy, in particular, in August when most every Olympic games were covered on TV in Hong Kong.

In a way, I'm glad we don't have a TV back home. I have no doubt that they'll become coach potatoes in no time. It's a major distraction even for me, and I couldn't seem to focus on doing any reading.

If it has not been the kids' summer vacation, I would not have stayed in Hong Kong over the summer. By jove, it's so hot and humid. On a particularly bad day of air pollution, even I (a healthy adult) found difficulty in breathing. The A/C from high rise (and more high rise), and numerous double-decker buses certainly don't help. I don't know how people could cope.

Business wise, we learnt quite a fair bit, and make some sale. I really look forward to the next marketing push (though things won't come cheap).

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Now that school starts again for the kids, everything seems to be getting back to its regular rhythm. I guess my own eagerness (to pick up the speed on accomplishing things) is matched by the anxiety level of the kids going back to school.

It's going to be a good year.