2011: Taking stock, and looking ahead...

I hardly have the time to write in my journal this month, but as the last day of the year rolls by, I must do a year-end review to wrap up.

I always read my year-end review last year, and see how things compare. At least on the economy front, the downward trend of US seems to be abating. Contrast with the high unemployment of 9.8% in 2010, we have 8.9% in 2011, which is still terrible, but at least there's some reduction. It's cold comfort for those millions of people who are unemployed and can't find a job. There was much talk of the green job pipe dreams of Obama who hopes that the green energy is going to be the new job creating industry in US, much like the IT sector did in the last decade. In a big democracy, doing that kind of government-backed initiative is always messy, sometimes even scandalous. Three years on, that stands in stark contrast with the rise of the solar industry in China which looks to be eating everybody's lunch, including US and Germany, driving down prices and picking up market share. But what would happen to the Chinese solar manufacturers when customers disappear, like the coming exit of the solar subsidies in Germany in 2012?

Which brings us to the topic of China's economy. The US economy is on the mend, though painfully slow. China has been trending down throughout 2011, and more still in 2012. The slow train wreck in Europe is going to roll into 2012, ensnaring Italy too, which is the third largest economy in the Euro zone. France doesn't look so strong now, and I've never been too impressed by Sarkozy who is more apt at grabbing news headline with his supermodel wife or tries to look like the boss when he's not it. Everyone looks to Germany to do something - anything - which is to say, everyone wants Germany to pay up, and pay up some more. I almost feel bad for Germany for such terrible bind since she wants Euro to stand, but they would not have been able to do so without committing yet more resources in bailouts and firewalls for the weaker economies in the euro zone.

As I don't go to China that often, I look to Hong Kong as a good proxy indicator of its health since the Hong Kong economy and markets are so inexplicably linked to those in China. The property market in Hong Kong has been trending down throughout 2011, with transaction volume going down, albeit no major crash in property prices...yet. Hang Seng Index has been off its high. There's been much talk of the softening of economy in China, with commodity prices trending down too, dragging commodity-heavy currencies like AUD and CAD down off of their highs. China will go down for sure, though it's anyone's guess if it's gonna be 2012 or pushed out to 2013. No doubt the Chinese central government is going to mobilize its trillion-dollar reserve to prop up the economy, the question really is, how long they can do so, without triggering inflation, building up the bubbles in properties and stocks some more, and depleting its reserve. The rising economy, and by proxy, the political power that comes with the economic heft, is the only thing that legitimates the continual rule of the communist government which will do whatever it takes to prop it up. For a chance, I'm sure the governments in US and Europe are going to be happy to see the Chinese government continue to play its part.

Japan is in its usual path of muddling along, so we can forget about that for a bit. (Yes, yes, there's been much talk about the impact of the tsunami and earthquake, but let's face it, Japan has been in the doldrums for so long now that no one really pays too much heed of it anymore.)

It's a low-key turning point on the personal front. I finished my masters degree this year, and almost right after, work with a startup starts while holding down my regular job. It's a lot of work, but it's fun. I can't ask for more, and more perfect timing.

Stock trading strategy continues to evolve. There's no more easy money to be made, like we saw in 2009 when everything - yes, literally everything - bounced from its low, and you could easily get 20% return just by going in the stock market. 2010 got tougher, and by 2011, you can see the charts of almost all stocks are trending down. I don't even feel like being in the market because the gut feel is telling me that something bad is going to happen. It might not be a flash crash one-time event in 2010; nay, it's going to be something bad that is more sustained. Don't ask me where this gut feel comes from, but I always trust my gut feel. (The only few times I dismissed my gut feel, I turn out to be wrong and I should have trusted my instinct on those occasions.)

Kids continue to grow, and parents' health continue the slow decline. I don't really want anything major to happen on these fronts.

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As a side note, there were people passed away in 2011, but Steve Jobs was the one who moved me. The worldwide outpouring was swift and powerful, overwhelmingly positive, with negative ones sprinkled here and there, mostly on how he was such a prick and jerk and in treating people badly. But what moved me was his personal narrative, the way he had handled his rise and fall and rise again, how he had loved what he did throughout. There is no mention of money which looks to be the overarching goal of entrepreneurs and IT startups these days. Jobs took the Silicon Valley baton from the pioneers of HP, but there are very, very few in the Silicon Valley who truly can take the baton to pass it on. It's such a shame.

On the milestone of 7 billion world population...

Oct 31 came and went. Yes, it's mostly symbolic, for it marks the date when the world population was established to have reached seven billion. It's a rather scary thought, seven billion mouths to feed.

It's taken humans millennia to reach the first-billion mark. But with the advance in technology and medicine, population growth has accelerated at a much faster clip. Still, we're always told, there is more than enough food on earth to feed 8 or even 9 billion population. With the current growth projectile, it won't take too long before the earth reaches the mark of 9 billion population, and oil would probably run out by then, together with the extinct species. What are we do to? Even if we don't have to deal with that today, somewhere down the road, our future generations will have to face the music. I can't say I relish the thought of kicking the can down the road for our future generations to deal with.

Population growth is a sensitive issue. It's a good thing afterall...or is it? One measure to measure how well a country is doing, is infant mortality rate. The lower, the better, for obvious reason. Modern medicine prolongs the lives of many elderly too, some even against their own will, all in the name of humanity. Natural disasters have to be dealt with. Wars are to be avoided. Human lives are to be saved at all costs, again for obvious reasons.

Sometimes, though, in the dead of night when sleep would not come, I would look up and wonder if those are really such good ideas. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a nazi or anything close to that. Of course we need to save lives, even though it runs counter to nature. There are people who would have died of strokes. There are harsh weather and elements like drought that would have naturally prevented population growth from going out of control (eg. Africa). But no one wants to see anyone dying. I can resolutely say, I don't. So, we save as many lives as we can, rather than seeing innocent children dying in front of our eyes due to preventable illnesses or lack of food. It's all for good causes.

And then, we have seven billions...

Perhaps I'm just one helpless lowly individual who don't deal pressing world issues. On a personal level, population growth sounds like a good thing to me. It sounds good on a macro-economic level too. But it doesn't sound right from an environmental perspective. There is one Chinese saying that goes something like this: If China continues to rise, the Chinese would one day eat all the exotic animals and seafood to extinction. While you might find that saying racist or discriminatory, except that it's not. The Chinese themselves know it, but with 1.3 billion others out there, the extinction threats to species is always someone else's problem. Or so the thinking goes....

I probably won't see the next billion in my lifetime. I certainly hope not.

But then, if we should help one another for the sake of humanity, what are we to do to upkeep our duty as the custodian of Mother Earth? On this, I do know the answer, which is population control.

The Chinese saw it coming, and had it right. While the western countries did all the condemning they want, China implements its one-child policy with gusto. Sure, it's harsh. But then, isn't it better to limit pregnancy and childbirth, rather than to wait for the babies to arrive, only to smother them to death or give them up for adoption, as India would often do? When the general populace is educated enough, they would realize that a controlled population (in numbers) is a much better option that having too many mouths to feed. Just ask the ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong, who decades ago used to have the same mentality as the mainland Chinese in having as big a family as one can have. These days, the Hong Kong Chinese would more than willingly limit their family size to 1-2 children at most, or even no child at all. If the Chinese in rural areas do not see the reasons in that, the the central government will impose its will on them. That sounds harsh, but the Chinese has it right on this: If it has to be done, it has to be done; and it might as well be now.

Along the same reason, I find it maddening for the self-righteous conservative right-wingers like GOP and the Vatican, rejecting the notion of birth control. While I feel uncomfortable about full endorsement of abortion (particularly full-term abortion), I don't see any issues in birth control at all.

If only the rest of the world, like Africa and the Middle East, and even India and China, would see reasons in practicing birth control voluntarily, our future generations might not face as dire a consequence in the depleting and dwindling natural resources that Mother Earth would provide us.

On Greece, and the slo-mo train wreck of the Euro debt crisis...

Quite often, watching what unfolds in Europe and how the Euro bloc deals with the sovereign debt crisis is like the watching an unavoidable train wreck in slo-mo. Every few weeks, Germany and France would present some sort of plans, the markets would get a boost for a day or two and then they'll tank again.

The latest plan is supposed to be a triumph for Merkel and Sarkozy, wrestling a 50 per cent haircut from bondholders. Markets seem to like it. It's announced on a Thursday, with a boost for a day on Friday. And then, the markets tank again the following Monday when the news came out that the Greek prime minister intends to call for a referendum for the public to decide whether they want to accept this latest bailout plan and to stay with Euro as their national currency or not.

Germany and France must be furious, having worked so hard, wrestled so many arms to get to this deal in order to try to save Greece from default, only to have Greece seemingly reneg'ed on it. But I see it a little differently. The call for referendum is such master stroke.

The Greek general public has been staging protests and riots to vote their disapproval of the austerity programs and budget cuts that must be pushed through in order to pay down the sovereign debt. The public generally loves staying with Euro, and Greece in general has benefited greatly from joining Euro, with borrowing rate going down substantially in the past decade. That allows its economy to grow without really addressing the underlying issue of poor productivity and required reforms to make the country more efficient and productive. With the recession in its third year now, Greece can delay the pain no more.

The public blames the government for bringing on the pain from necessary austerity measures, but is the government really the only one to blame? Everyone has been drinking the Euro kool-aid, thinking the money spigot will never run dry. Nobody wants to check the worst-case scenario in which the government can no longer borrow, nor can the private sector. The money has to come from somewhere.

The Greek prime minister must have realized that this latest bailout plan will only last for a short period of time, and then the next batch of sovereign debts are going to come due, and then Greece will have to go begging to Germany, France, and maybe even China, again. Rather than having the ruling party take the blame for all things ill, this referendum is going to put the onus back on the people. Do they really want to be rescued, and with that, tightening their belts drastically? Do they really want to stay with Euro and endure all these pains? If the vote is yes, then they're all in it together. There's no more blaming of the Greek government alone in forcing the austerity measures on its people, because the people have voted 'yes.' There is no more blame of Germany either, for imposing harsh terms on them either, because they have accepted the fate. But if they vote 'no,' then the current Greek government will go down.

In a way, it's probably fitting, that we should see such thermonuclear option. Afterall, it's the ultimate democratic gesture, in a country where all western democracy found its seeds. The people have to decide. The ruling parties are no smarter than the collective wisdom. No one should be imposing anything on the people. If you ask my opinion, I'd say, the move is brilliant.

Obviously, the outcome is likely to be messy, with huge uncertainty and overhang. But, hey, democracy is messy. Nobody expects democracy to be clean and neat. If they do, they would all go to China where the elite Politburo decides everything in the country. Most analysts and governments disagree with the proposed referendum because they want more certainty, and they don't want to hear the possibility that a majority of Greeks would rather risk leaving Euro than to suffer under the austerity measures for years (even decades) to come. As Arab Spring and even the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown us, sometimes what the people want do not necessarily equate a political palatable solution to foreign governments.

Greece is not alone in the mess. Italy and Spain are scarier and much bigger version of the sovereign debt mess. Germany and France would want (and need) to save Greece and beyond since the banking and financial systems in the countries are so intertwined and connected so tightly with the government debts. If Greece defaults or Euro breaks up (with some of the countries quitting the Euro currency), the ramifications would be huge for the global markets.

I'm not sure how it'd play out, but I don't feel like being in the stock markets right now.

On parenting et al...

I was profoundly moved by the opinion piece in New York Times today about a mother whose child suffers a genetic disorder with no cure and which is certain to see a premature passing. Sometimes, as Steve Jobs had famously noted in his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, as was the Last Lecture Series by the late Randy Pausch, knowing that death is imminent can be the most powerful catalyst to jolt one into focus and set the life priorities straight. As in the case of the mother whose focus is on yo here-and-now on the well-being of the child, without any possibility of hopes, dreams, and future that regular parents would have expected from their children.

In a way, it's almost like committing to a pet like dogs and cats, that you know for certain that you'll outlive the pets. In a finite amount of time (maybe 12-15 years), you'll have to say farewell to the beloved pets, sometimes even having to make the painful decision of putting the animals down in order to lessen the animals' pain. I know, because I used to have a dog when I was little. I love my dog, even though I had not done a good job training him. As a result, he's a wild one, even biting me on numerous occasions; though I never came to blame him. My love for him is irrevocable. Talking about blind puppy love...

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Incidentally I was talking to a colleague this morning. She was bemoaning how she and her husband spend $40k a year for each child on private school. Given that they have two kids in high school now, it's alot of dough. She's essentially working just so they can pay for the tuition. Don't get me wrong; she's tremendously proud for both kids getting in this private school which is apparently über-competitive, not just in admission, but in staying alive/ahead in school.

When I talked to her a while back, she's glowing about their Ivy League prospect, plus the chance for their kids to start networking - yes, networking! - when they start middle/high school. I thought at the time, Omigod, is this really happening; parents pushing for kids to do that? She makes that Tiger Mom in Amy Chua sounds lame. Having both coming from Asian backgrounds, there must be something in there somewhere.

This time around, things sound a shade different. Sure, there's still the glowing remarks of difficult schoolwork and assignments, critical thinking, and what-not. But in an arms race when every other kid in the school would look for some competitive edge, any competitive edge, it's not enough to just let people know your kids getting admitted to the school. The kids used to be straight A's in regular classes; they now suddenly realize that they are B+, at best, when they get in advance placements. Sure, they play some sport; but every kid in school play sports. Same goes with playing musical instruments. The kids feel bummed-out in the advanced classes because the other kids obviously are either super-smart, or they have had outside tutorials that have already taught them all the materials in the advanced classes.

These days, how do you stand out in a crowded, highly competitive field for Ivy League when straight A's + sports + music + community service + working on school newspaper, are no longer enough. And now, they can't even guarantee their straight A's anymore. The kids are stressed out; as is her husband. But she perseveres. Afterall, they have sunk so much money and time in this private school, they can't possibly quit at this point. Last but not least, her argument (more to herself) is that, it's such a tough school to get admitted, they can't possibly just give it up.

She cited some anecdotal evidence that some Ivy League schools might be within reach. Afterall, there was one kid who was in an Intel finalist, that got early admission to every schools that he applied, except Harvard. (He flunked the interview.) He ended up going to MIT. But how many Intel finalists did this school ever have? (She didn't say.)

And then there is the networking aspect which was considered valuable to her. Here, she cited one of the snobbish kids who, on prompt of where he lives, emphasized that he lives in a specific part of town that is most exclusive part, in case anyone hasn't already noticed. Such snobs are the ones that her kids are to network with. Surely there are nicely and more civil ones, but to think of a school populated by rich, entitled kids, it's not very inspiring.

Long story short, she and her husband will just have to stick with it for the long haul, and so will their kids (I truly feel sorry for them). As she has rightly noted, if the kids have not gone to this expensive private schools, she can probably retire by now. That might be so; but such was a path and journey that she embarks on, just as Amy Chua has noted in her stupid Tiger Mom book. She can't possibly expect much sympathetic words. (I can't come up with any.)

Oh, by the way, she has already whitelisted some of the professions that she doesn't want her kids to take on. Just thinking of the mental list that she has to keep score with is already too exhausting for me.

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Looking at the juxtaposition of the conversation with my colleague's parenting decisions and woes, and the New York Times article of a mother mentally and physically preparing for the eventual death of her child, the effect is chilling to me.

While regular parents like us can't be letting the kids do whatever, with abandonment, I'm always mindful of not imposing too much of my hopes and dreams on my kids. They have their lives to live. I remember there're times when they ask me what I would like them to be. I told them, it matters not what I want, and I turn the table and ask them what they want to do instead. While basic life skills and discipline have to be imposed upon them, if they are independent and mature enough to make wise choices, and to pursue their dreams with conviction, I would have considered my job as a parent complete.

On the passing of Steve Jobs...

I was saddened today when I got in to my computer this evening, and saw the news that Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder and former CEO, has passed away. His rise and fall, and rise again in his personal history was truly phenomenal, which coincided with bursts of innovations in more industry than one. Most people feel a personal connection to Jobs since he had come to personified all the Apple products that he brought to users and consumers. From Apple II, to the Mac, iPod and iTune, iPhone, iPad, to Pixar, even the spartan concept of retail Apple store, his reach and influence has reached not only the computing industry, but music industry, telcos and communications industry, the entertainment industry, and breath fresh air to the retail space as well.

Although there were anecdotal stories of his mercurial temper and micromanagement style, his vision is equally remarkable. While he might not have been true pioneer in each of the industry, he was able to turn around existing industry norms and gadgets that users have come to know, and deliver something that is so new, easy to use, yet so very elegant in product design, that his products have all become must-haves. With his ability to integrate everything in his head, from the kind of user experience that he wanted, to product design (what features to be in, and what not), to execution and marketing, he's the one linchpin that holds everything together. Jobs was, in short, Apple.

I have been immensely moved by his 2005 Stanford commencement speech which is truly inspirational. (Actually, reading it in text feels even more powerful.) Jobs had defined a generation of pioneers and leaders that came out of Silicon Valley, along the tradition of the greats in the past, like David Packard and Bill Hewlett, the co-founders of HP.

To reminisce the passing of Jobs, I was watching some of the videos, including the 2007 on-stage interview of Steve Jobs and his contemporary Bill Gates. (I just wish that the female interviewer in that video had been ejected from stage. She's so clueless that she reflects so poorly on all female peers. Stupid woman.)

RIP, Steve.

On the fate of USPS...

Changes can be hard to swallow sometimes, in the face of technological and cultural shifts. It's particular so, for long-standing services and habits. Examples abound, and we need to look no further than LP albums, to cassette tapes and walkman, to CD, then mp3 players, and now tunes in the cloud (hello, iTune) that renders all predecessors obsolete.

Not everyone listens to music, but most everyone gets mails. Even with overwhelmingly junk mails, there is certain comfort in seeing something as regular as daily mail delivery in the mailbox. Alas, at least something stays constant in life...but not for long. Judging from the way that USPS is hemorrhaging, I'm not sure how long it can stay afloat.

Sometimes I find it rather bizarre, looking at the way that public/private services are in US. Much like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the USPS provides a very public civic service. In the case of Fannie and Freddie, they pretty much underwrite the secondary mortgage market with a quasi-government backing, even though they are "private entity" in name. I've always found that disingenuous, if only so that Americans (particularly the GOP cohorts) want no government in life or business enterprise. Yet, those markets and everyone who has a mortgage or a hand in the financial markets all have a hand in seeing to it that Uncle Sam's hidden role (as the guy backing Fannie and Freddie) stays hidden but is kept alive.

The same is true with USPS which is turned into a private entity, yet its finance and operations are largely hamstrung by public policy. Without change in regulations, they can't raise prices, they can't cut service, they can't even cut much staff, not to mention those generous pension. That's a terrible way to run a business.

I can't fathom a country without a postal service. Even though there are alternatives (eg. FedEx, UPS), postal service would and should remain public entity. On the other hand, regardless of whether it's public or not, one can't simply run it as if resources and funding are unlimited; to do otherwise is unconscionable.

I don't USPS that much these days. For my incoming mails, almost all the bills that I receive, I've ordered electronic bills and statements; so, there goes 80% of my mails in thin air. There are a few other billers who still can't do e-bills (eg. property taxes from county), but it's just a matter of time before they do. I still have only one journal (namely, Fortune magazine) that I still like it in print form. Everything else I get from the web and online subscription. The rest is all junk mail that goes to recycle bin. As to my outgoing mails, I pay all bills online. (How many billers can't receive online bill-pay these days anyways?!) So, I hardly need to send any mails at all. Those first-class stamps are gathering dust on my desk.

If my case is any indication of the impact to the USPS mail volume, it'll indeed be a very worrisome sign. And if USPS is to rely solely on the revenue on mail volume, then sooner or later it's going to go bankrupt. There's simply no other way.

Truth be told, USPS has had some innovations in recent years, including partnering with vendors like eBay to make it easier for merchants to ship packages, and stamps.com. They are not sufficient to ramp up revenue fast enough to compensate for the rapid decline of the physical mail volume.

I buy stuffs quite often on the web, and those packages are probably the times when USPS comes in most handily. I hope USPS will live on, but I don't think its current course is sustainable, with Congress behind its back (for whipping, not for much financial backing).

On remembering 9/11, ten years on...

Whenever it comes to memorable events, time seems to stand still. Most everyone has a story to tell, or remember where they were when it happened.

I'm one of those ordinary citizenry who is not even remotely connected to what happened to 9/11. I don't know anyone who died in the plan attacks to the sites. I don't know anyone connected to the illness from the rescue in the World Trade Center. I'm only affected by it only as a result of all the rules and regulations changes in the aftermath of 9/11; mostly in the airport checks, long lines of waiting, and delays. That's about it. I'm pretty much a spectator in the whole chains of events.

But I remember it well on that day.

I was working in office in a suburban office building. I went about it like any other regular mornings. And then my colleagues called out to me, saying we need to go to the conference room. We thought it's some ad-hoc all-hands meeting. Since there was a few rounds of layoffs already (as a result of the 2000 tech bubble burst), we thought the most that could come of it was another round of layoff announcement. We were walking in there, along the corridor in single file. We were even chitchatting, joking and had a few laughs. The big conference room had a very large TV, and it's on when we walked in. It's tuned to CNN news live, but at the time, I didn't realize it's news. The first picture I saw was the first World Trade Center tower in smoke. I remember asking one of my colleagues, "what is this?" And then, one of them realized what's going on, and said the WTC was burning. No one even knew that it's hit by a plane. The newscast was somewhat confusing, and none of us was watching the TV before we filed in to the conference room. That picture on the TV was so picture-perfect, we couldn't believe it's real. Another colleague commented that, it looked like a perfect Hollywood movie, with the perfectly clear blue sky in the background, all the details of the bellowing black smoke from the building came out so starkly clear on the high-def TV. Some of us were talking about factual details of WTC, like one of them talking about how many floors WTC had; that one of the brothers of her best friend worked there; etc etc. So, the some twenty of us, standing around the room, watching the TV for maybe 30 minutes or so, with not much details from the news, decided that we've watched enough; and we went back to our cube.

It's never occurred to me at the time the enormity of the event. A little while later, someone yelled out, the second tower was hit. This time, we rushed back to conference room, and saw smoke AND fire coming from the WTC towers. And then, we realized, "oh my God, it's real." We stayed on for some more time. This time, our boss came in, and said, we can't be standing here watching this. So, we went back to our cube one more time.

Even though we knew it's real, it's so surreal that our senses and emotions did not kick in. It's only until the next day, when the news of events of that day had settled in, that I realize how bad it was. A few days later, we filed back to the same conference room for the third and the last time, for the sake of 9/11 during lunch (and our boss didn't say anything this time - it's just lunch time afterall). The images from CNN were those from the ground. The towers were coming down and collapsing; people on the street were yelling, screaming and running away from it; huge clouds of dark dust and smoke in their wake. It's when I saw those images, that for some reason, my tears started coming down. People were dying; this was not a Hollywood movie afterall; and there's nothing I could do about it.

That's what I remember of 9/11.

In the aftermath, I learn from some colleagues, who learnt from their customers, that anyone in the IT field who had the first inkling of someone amiss is the hot link of backups between the financial firms (those with offices in the World Trade Center) and a major IT tech firm (who manages their hot backup) started having red lights flashing everywhere. That's when the original site's system is down, and hot backup is requested/required. It's more than coincidental that all the firms are having problems at the same time. The staff was thinking it must have been power grid failure or something. No one would even remotely think that the whole buildings were gone.

Sometimes, I try to empathize and re-imagine how it's like on the other side of the terrorist's jihad. The muslims were angry at the west for bombing and killing their own people. Even to this day, in the name of the war on terror, soldiers from the west were bombing and raiding different middle eastern countries like Afghanistan. Their people are sometimes taken or kidnapped for questioning and subject to torture practice, with no recourse. Sometimes I imagine myself in their shoes; I have to say, I'll probably get very angry too. Those are the times when militant groups and extremists like Osama bin Laden are able to exploit the underdogs' emotions, to recruits people to join their jihad against the west.

To that end, even though bin Laden was now killed, he had largely succeeded in dividing the muslim public (and their public opinion), and the western world. He had also succeeded in terrorizing the western world, making it looking its shoulders at every turn. And he had succeeded in making his name a legend for evading capture for so long; and a legacy (almost a blueprint) for future jihadist to model after. It's tremendously sad that this would be what 9/11 has amounted to.

I'm not too well-versed in the long history of Israel and Muslim. Perhaps this would be the time, post 9/11, for the Israelis to tell us all, that this is exactly what they've been living with, the constant worry and fear of bombs and destruction, and the forever vigilance that they mount against the muslim countries around Israel.

It's taken decades for the terrorist activities in plane hijacks back back in the 1970s to recede. Sometimes I wonder if the current sentiment ever comes to pass.

On another Plan B on housing from Obama...

Sometimes, you can see nonsense right when it shows up. The latest proposal from the Obama administration, on providing government-backed help to homeowners to refinance their homes, is one of those.

There are appealing aspects to that, to be sure. It won't need Congress approval. It won't have immediate impact on the budget deficit shit-hole that this country is already in. It prevents more homes falling into foreclosures. It allows homeowners to unlock additional cash from their homes, so that they can use the new cash to continue their buying habits funded on debts, and more debts. At the proposed low rate of 4%, everyone would love it.

It gets me really peeved when I sees proposals like that. The main reason for the subprime crisis that started in late 2008, triggered by the collapse of Lehman, was due to unchecked mortgage lending to those who should never be qualified for a mortgage. When the economy goes down, when the prices start its free fall, these folks can no longer count on periodically refinancing the properties to take money out of this pseudo-piggybank. The market - the Invisible Hand, if anyone still believes in free market - is supposed to check this kind of reckless behavior. The credit is supposed to get tightened - as it is happening now - and these low-quality borrowers are supposed to get squeezed out of the system, allowing the system to slowly grow back to life again. For those who have diligently play by the system, who save up religiously hoping to get a chance to buy into the market, they are supposed to get rewarded by lower properties and lower mortgage rate.

All those are out of the window, when 2012 election is coming into focus, and Obama needs to do something fast, to fix the economy. The fix is supposed to be jobs - yes, job growth - so that unemployment can go down. When regular people start having regular, steady income again, they are supposed to be able to buy again. Naturally, that is much harder to do, given the intense competition (particularly in manufacturing) from other countries like China. Given its inability to grow jobs, Obama instead looks at housing...again.

For what it's worth, the proposal is essentially guaranteeing those low-quality borrowers, once again, that they would be underwritten. All they need to do, is to stop paying their mortgage, and wait for Obama to refinance their mortgage at 4%. It does not matter anymore, whether these folks can even pay for mortgages for 4% or not. Obama (and Congress) just wants to stop these properties from showing up on foreclosure statistics. In other words, it's government-funded private housing. In Asia, there's a term for that - it's called, public housing. No matter, Americans won't call it that because it's politically incorrect. They want government out of their life and off of their backs when it comes to taxes, but they want government help when it comes to financial difficulties.

Those in Obama administration know full well that, two years into this recession, those who can afford to (and qualified for doing so) refinance, have already done so. Those, like me, who never bought into the buying frenzy in properties before property market started crashing in late 2008. Those, like me, who refinancing in the succeeding two years, given the historical low rate. To put it another way, those who can't refinance now are the one who should not have qualified for it. However way you look at it, it's effectively free money and handouts from government to these folks. And that makes me quite angry.

And then there're talks, and more talks, of supporting the property market. I've ranted before in my journal, that there's no point in supporting the market, because when folks have jobs and money, when they need a place to stay and it becomes cheaper to buy than to rent, they will buy properties again. Obviously, we're not there yet - quite far from it, in fact. While property prices have come down alot (some as much as 50-60%, in some regions), there are other places where prices never crash, per se, and where they have gone back up again already. I'm one of those too, who bought a new place for investment.

In short, I'm slowly saving up, and investing in a limited scale, while ensuring that I have sufficient buffer to cover an extended period if things turn south (eg. job loss, rental units not renting out, etc). Sure, if Obama wants to help, I'm all for getting some free money. But all the government policies and regulations I see so far have been about protecting and even extending the reckless behavior that should not have happened in the first place. (That reckless behavior includes the much screwed-up compensation structure on Wall St, by the way.)

I don't think I'll vote for Dem or GOP in 2012 at all. Tea Party is too loony for me. For a change and to make a statement, if Ron Paul is in, I'll probably vote for him.

On the (un)importance of cubicles, telecommuting, et al...

How important is it, or how attached are we, to a cubicle? I've always asked myself that question, though I never really sit down and formulate my thoughts on that. The article in NYTimes today, on the rethinking of office workspace and cubicles, comes quite timely. I might as well add a few thoughts on that.

I've been telecommuting for more than eight years now, long before telecommuting becomes hot topic, work/life balance a vogue, and offshoring of work becomes prevalent. Most people express such envy for me when they hear how I can organize my work and life with much more ease.

I must say, the kind of flexibility is really valuable, particularly if one has kids at home. As long as the work is task- and goal-oriented, it should be relatively easy to allow workers to switch to telecommuting. Afterall, there is little point for companies to waste money in real estate, tie up the space, tie down the workers to the assigned cubes, and do the work that they could well have done anywhere else. It saves money, and it makes sense. Or so we thought...

But things do not always turn out so easily. My telecommuting path hasn't taken such straightforward path. Even though my work has always been task- and goal-oriented, the management of my last employer didn't let anyone telecommute. The office was quiet as graveyard (since little interaction is needed) since no one needed to collaborate often in order to get their job done. Everyone could have turned themselves into Dilbert and work at home in their pajamas. But the old-fashioned management wants to see bodies physically at their desk whenever they want by (even though it rarely happened). It doesn't make sense.

Having telecommuted for so long, I must say, I enjoy the flexibility, but I miss my cube. Even though I don't need to interact with others much while I'm doing my work, I still like to feel - yes, to feel - that I'm part of a larger community. For a long time, even though I telecommute, I still maintain my cube at work, albeit rarely used. My cube is my last hanging thread with a physical community that I used to call office. But since my telecommuter work status is officiated, I have given up my cube. The good thing is, I don't need to force myself to go back to office for a few days a month for no good reason. The bad (or good too) thing is, everything is now virtual. I do my work whenever I want, as long as I get it done, as per schedule.

Yes, that is quite quite nice. When kids are sick and have to stay home, or I need to attend PTO meeting for school, or when cars need to go to repair shop, or when I need to pop out to some grocery or run errands, or if I simply need to take a power nap, and some such, I can easily squeeze that into my day, and continue doing my work at night. I can get to continue building my career without sacrificing my family or personal life.

But - and there's always a but - I'm always on. Even though I don't need to be around, 24 x 7, I feel the compelling need to be online for work purpose. It's as if I feel the need to show others that, yes, apart from my assigned work, I can do more. Yes, it's all psychological. Telecommuters feel the need to justify their existence. In this day and age, when work can easily have been done 50 times cheaper by some no-name guy in India or China or Russia, the feeling of job insecurity is palpable.

Naturally, having a cube is definitely no guarantee any job security at all. But like I said, it's all psychological. It's as if the cube justifies our own existence. If you want to telecommute, you'd better be darn sure of your own self-worth. If you are an insecure person to start with, I can tell you that you won't feel good telecommuting at all, losing that opportunity to connect to someone and something physically.

Coming back to the topic of workspace, do I really miss my cubicle? Deep down, I know I still do. Cubicles (and rooms) are one very physical and powerful way to measure one's importance in the company's hierarchy. If I get my window or corner cube or room, if I get a cube or room twice the size of the guy next to me, I know instantly where I am in the pecking order. When everything is virtual in a telecommuting world, there's no way for you to tell, unless you're very sure of where you stand, in the large scheme of things.

So, while everyone's complaining about their cubes, and how they're tied down to it, they should be careful of what they ask for. Once you become virtual, your employer can get rid of you much more easily (as long as the next guy can pick up whatever work you're doing). That next guy can be in India, or China, or Ukraine, or Philippines, or Chile.

On poor economy and help to homeowners in mortgages...

The so-called policies put forth by GOP normally don't make much sense to me, but they're right about one thing: Obama shouldn't be pushing for mortgage modifications to help homeowners who are underwater, with big mortgages worth more than the underlying property. As it is, liberal media like NYTimes is advocating exactly that, that federal government should help struggling homeowners by forcing banks to modifying loans.

I'm no economist, but the policy makes little sense to me. What's more important to the economy is jobs and the income generation, and not wealth protection (ie. protecting the value of the property). Albeit all the reports that property prices have come down alot, in some states, significantly lower than the peak at 2008, the price level is still considerably higher than what it used to be. Those artificially inflated prices were propped up by outsized leverages that needs to be rid from the system. The market has its way of finding its equilibrium by having prices come down (and supply increasing) to a level where demand can meet. It's unreasonable to expect the government to step and get banks to artificially lower the outstanding mortgage or interest rate on the loans (thereby forcing banks to eat the losses), in order to allow the carpetbaggers to stay in their properties. In the logic of the government, doing so would provide much needed support to the property prices. When people feel wealthier, they'll spend again, so the thinking goes.

There is also the push to get banks to lend again. Given that general financial conditions of the populace are still rather dire, it's only fair and prudent that banks don't want to lend. I don't see much problem with that. Obviously, if banks are getting effectively free cash from government, with an obligation to lend, it could be a different matter.

To be sure, it doesn't matter how low the property price level goes, any sane person won't jump onto a 30-year fixed mortgage if s/he is not sure whether their job is safe. Afterall, that's the prudent and right thing to do. As the contemporary thinking goes, people should buy properties again, if it's low enough. If you ask me, I'd tell you, that is but one of the many factors that I would consider long term fixed investment like real estate.

In this respect, both GOP and Dem/Obama are suspects, in pushing for mortgage help to underwater homeowners. It amounts to a move to appease voters to buy their votes. I don't buy that. I don't want the burden and responsibility to get push down to the future generations.

On the faded glamor of air hostesses...

There will always be things that one can look back with nostalgia, yet at the same time, quite happy to see their passing. The high glamor of air hostesses yonder is probably one of them.

There was a time, decades past, when air travel is high drama and luxury. It was so expensive and inaccessible that only the rich and famous can afford it. The exclusivity of it has lent prestige of all flight crew (pilots and attendants alike), allowing them not only the chance to fly to other parts of the world (woooow...), but the chance to dress up to serve the rich. It matters little that there's so much sexism and discrimination that was inherent in it. Air hostesses had to be single, tall and beautiful, skill and talented.

While I'm no hardcore feminist, I'm happy to see the liberalization of that profession. Come to think of it, flight attendants (as they are called now) are but there to serve customers and to maintain order inflight. Why should it matter if it's a man or woman; or, if s/he is single; or, if s/he is 5'7" or 5'1"? With the liberalization of air travel, it's become so cheap to fly coach that passengers are mostly just cheapo.

The loss of civility among airline passengers is probably one for nostalgia; but the loss of glamor for flight crew isn't.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I was little, I once dreamt of being an air hostess too. I'm glad that little passion didn't last very long, and that I haven't followed that longing. These days, I mostly just feel pity for flight attendants (particularly the female ones), some of whom are still required to wear makeup, tight outfit, pantyhose, heels, while serving meals to customers. I see no glamor in it at all. In fact, I would find it more like torture, if I were to dress up like that, serving meals.

On the foreign students walkout from summer work program...

I was reading the news this morning, about the students walkout from a chocolate factory that is part of their J-1 summer work program. I don't mean to sound mean or crude, but I'm not sure if I'm totally sympathetic.

For all we hear, these foreign students from different countries, pay a handsome fees to come to America for a summer work program. They expect too earn handsomely, have fun jobs, do traveling, experience the culture, make friends. Instead, they get crappy factory assembly jobs, work night shifts, hardly have time or make enough money to go out or make any friends or experience the culture. They are not happy, and I won't be surprised if they want their money back.

The first thing that comes to mind when I read the news was, they got what they're coming here for. This is the American culture. We work till we drop. These foreign students can't ask for anything more accurately reflecting what's really going on in America. If they think, by paying $6000 for a J-1 visa fees, they would come in, get a cushy white-collar job that pays them (enough to cover the medical school tuition, as one foreign student has put it), they must be either dreaming, or smoking god-knows-what.

And, hey, they can make friends in the factory too. I remember fondly of the summer jobs in factories that I used to have when I was in high school. Sure, it's long hours and it's tough, but it's also fun since they're all in it since students made up half of the workforce in the factory during the summer months.

Sometimes, I don't know about the kids and young people these days, who would not (and could not) handle even low-paying or boring work that might be transient or entry level. Everyone expects to make quick bucks in a hurry. Everyone expects to become the next Bill Gates after a few years. Oftentimes, I get tired just hearing the whining of the younger generations, simply because they are asked to put in the sweat.

Yes, yes, I know I sound very unsympathetic, and I'm over-generalizing. Of course there are honest, young students who would do what it takes. But it's often those who aren't, who would scream the loudest for "their own rights." The Chinese factory workers are getting good at it. Maybe they should be sent back to China to get their summer-work program.

On a truly relaxing vacation...

As is often the case, workdays and school days are more rhythmic and easier to handle than vacations. We can keep at the schedule and activities. It's busy, but manageable. It's usually that sick days, or school holidays, or vacations, are much more stressful.

I haven't had a truly relaxing, real vacation for quite a long time. In fact, that has ceased to exist since our firstborn which was years ago. When the kids were younger, it's hard to get any vacations at all. Afterall, they're growing so fast that their schedule, needs, taste and preferences are changing every few months; it could be hard to keep up. Their attention span is short, and physically they don't last for more than half a day before they crash. It's when the kids get to maybe 9-10 in age that things can get easier to handle.

It's under this pretext that I experience a truly relaxing vacation for years. The kids are getting bigger now, that they don't want to do summer day-camps anymore. (They say it's boring.) I can understand it, since alot of day-camps are more like babysitting pen for pre-teens. Granted that they try to organize different activities for kids, it's often just touch-and-go. But I don't want to organize those educational camps for the kids in the summer, where they would drill on life or academic skills. Summers should be the time for kids to chill and have fun.

So, for a change, this summer, we took two different trips, one to a big city, and one to rural country.

We did the usual in the city. Visits to museum, water park, lots of restaurants. I love museums, but kids' attention span is still rather limited. At least they're at an age where they can go off on their own periodically to check out exhibits, and we would meet up again. And the water park was a blast, and help to kill off their excess energy, fast. We would bathe in the shade on sunny days while the kids ran off from one game to another, and we wouldn't have to be the doting parents, for a change. Decision which restaurants to go to is easy. Kids actually don't give much thoughts about which restaurant we're going to, as long as it has lots of meats.

And then, we have the country trip with a totally different experience. We slaughtered a sheep; built our own fire for bonfire and BBQ; camping out; milking and herding cows; feeding pigs and chickens; even playing in creek and stream. There's alot of home cooking, with all the fresh ingredients from local produce. I even got my wish to see another shooting star (since my first/last time when I was little), and found Big Dipper for the first time on my own (no, I'm not very good at identifying constellation). In hindsight, it's not a bad thing that we're totally cut off from the world, given that there's little to no internet access. That's how we can enjoy the here-and-now. I can't ask for more.

The good thing about it is, we don't need to plan out our day. We'll check the weather at the start of day, and do whatever that Mother Nature would allow us. I haven't relaxed like that for years now. It's awesome.

On inter-racial marriage, and other thoughts...

Sometimes, it's hard to imagine ourselves in someone else's shoe. Granted that interracial marriages (particularly those involved white men and women from other races) were taboo in the bygone days, I have - perhaps rather naively - expected that most urban dwellers, in particular, those who are professionals, should have overcome most, if not all, of the obstacles. Apparently, that's not the case.

Or perhaps, it's not really a taboo for Asian women. In fact, alot of them still consider marrying a white man as a classy act. This is in large part a remnant of the colonial and post-colonial days, when white men living in Asia were predominantly well-off expatriates who live large. Just ask Wendi Deng, Rupert Murdoch's ambitious third wife, who was able to literally springboard herself from poor coastal China, stealing one husband 31 years her senior in LA to get a green card, then stealing Murdoch to become the rich wife that affords her the money and fame to fix with the other celebrity, rich and famous. As Deng Xiaoping once put it, "do not care if the cat is black or white, what matters is it catches mice." For Wendi Deng, who cares if the meal ticket is 30 or 40 years her senior - as long as she gets the money and fame, that's good enough. Even if it means doing cat-fights in public on camera, like those rural peasant women do in China, what matters is, she needs to protect her meal ticket. If Murdoch kicks the bucket today, she could end up having peanuts (instead of the reportedly $1 billion payout to Murdoch's second wife from their divorce).

Ah, but I have digressed...

But the point is, for Asian women like Wendi Deng, there is no taboo in the interracial marriage. It's actually a status symbol.

It's an interesting read, of the article in Wall Street Journal on black professional women's plight of insufficient qualifying black men to marry, resulting in a surprisingly high ratio of black professional women remaining single, or "marrying down" (ie. marrying men of professions that pay substantially less). Perhaps the most surprising findings in the article are that, there are so many little details about black women and their thought process, that has never occurred to me. Topics like, hair, chocolate babies, even sticking with black men as a political statement. The other interesting note in the article is the suggestion to these professional black women, that they should seriously consider marrying out of their own race. Not only would that reduce the number of black women (ratio 2-1 in professional circles) pursuing available black men, but it would reduce the "power" in which black men have traditionally held all the cards in choosing whichever black women of their choosing.

I must admit, I was rather surprised by how I feel about the reports in the article. I feel sad to the plight of those black professional women who might feel trapped (even subconsciously) by their own history and culture. I would bet you, there won't be as much odds stacked against a Chinese woman, should she want to pursue a man of another race. Again, go ask Wendi Deng.

To put things in perspective, some of the plights are not unique to black women. Traditionally, professional women of all the other races face the same issue of not having enough available professional men to choose from, as mates and partners. Not sure where all the eligible and available men have gone. For the blacks, the article could argue that a large number of black men are incarcerated. But that's not the case with professional men of other races. Perhaps a good number of them have come out of the closet and declare themselves gay.

I'm still trying to figure this one out.

On 3-D movies...

Recently, I brought the kids to watch a few movies. It's one of the summer must-do's for them. Thankfully, there are a few that they would jump to go (Harry Potter final installment, Cars 2), while others aren't so hot (Kung Fu Panda 2).

I must say, though, going to the movies is getting pricier these days. On top of the actual ticket price increase, now theaters are charging hefty premium for the same movies, but in 3-D. My only response is, who cares.

Sure, sure, you can always find some of those people who value highly of their movie experience. I'm guessing, those must be the same people who must have home entertainment and home theater system. I'm a rather complacent person, when it comes to that. I want a good movie, and good movie to me is more than just CGI. In other words, I'm not one of the willing crowds who pay to see extra visual effects. My kids don't care much either.

And then there are those annoying 3-D glasses that get in the way of my own spectacles, mostly just giving me dizzying headache. I would in fact pay extra to not see 3-D.

I don't think I'm alone though.

A few weeks ago, I went to see the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 with the kids. I picked the 2-D schedule. Granted that it's a very popular movie, I had not expected the theater to be completely full. (In fact, that was among the few times when I sat in a theater that was full house.) The movie was good, well-rounded on all fronts, 2-D notwithstanding. Throughout the day, there were only two screenings for 2-D, everything else in 3-D. I found out later that the 3-D showing (which was about half an hour later than the 2-D show that we're watching) was less than half full. That in itself should be a good indicator and a tell-tale sign.

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson does have a point, in pushing for lower 3-D ticket prices. But of course, if movie studio and theater owners can get away with charging audience more, they would; hence the dissing of Spielberg and Jackson's position by Jeff Katzenberg in that same article.

Perhaps it's just too bad, that Katzenberg doesn't get it. If he or anyone thinks that they can keep raising the prices, even by doing a little more in showing some 3-D effects (however well made it might be), they're quite wrong. I, for one am more than happy to wait for the DVD on netflix. Afterall, I'm not one of those who must have the first edition of everything - iphone, anyone? - and I don't need 3-D to make me love a movie. To be, 3-D is just sugar-pop.

On Yao Ming and the China pride...

Yao Ming has been the China pride for quite a long time. Ten years, to be exact.

It must not have been an easy feat to have a whole nation's pride and glory in the sport front resting on his lone shoulders. For Asians who generally have shorter, slimmer build, the tall poppy of Yao Ming who breaks away to join the NBA league is something of an anomaly. Surely, there must be another Yao Ming lurking amidst its 1.1 billion population. Even statistics should give it a higher probability to find another Yao Ming....right?

But the Chinese establishment has a way to beat even the remote statistics of Yao Ming. In ten years, China fails to produce another Yao Ming. Now that he's retiring, there is no one he can past the torch to. It's a true pity, that the rigid Chinese establishment has failed to produce more heroes in sports that its denizens so sorely need, in order to hold on to the Chinese pride.

No matter, China can now turns its star-gazing to another sport - tennis. Li Na, the newly minted champion of Australian Open, the first Chinese from China (nope - Michael Chang is technically more American than Chinese) to win any majors, provides the much needed relief for the mainland Chinese populace to feel that they can make it too in the sports arena.

But if the Li Na story is any guidance, it is that her success comes in spite of her breakaway from the official Chinese sports establishment. That says volume about the competence and effectiveness of that establishment. China's 1.1 billion people need better than this, and deserve better than to wait for another 10 years to see if it is capable of producing another Yao Ming or Li Na.

On paper calendars and their electronic equivalence...

Earlier today, I was reading the New York Times article today on paper calendars with interests and amusement.

No doubt there is powerful trend for pushing calendars to the ether virtual world. Most people do that out of convenience which is hard to disprove. Once the calendar is set up online (eg. Google Calendar), you can access any time, anywhere. You can access it with your browser, or smart phone, even regular phone that has online access. You can expose your calendar to privileged few (eg. families and friends). Even in the pre-cloud days, when mostly corporate calendars reside on proprietary servers like emails do (Blackberry, anyone?), you can quite easily sync your PDA with servers. You won't have to worry about losing your Filofax, hence the whole year's worth of your life. No more writing; just typing. Sweet, right?

But of course, when there is push, there is always some pull. Although it's not easy found these days, there are still quite some people who hang on to their paper calendars and address books and alarm clocks, even though you can easily get all these functions in any basic smartphones. There is something to be said, about holding something in your hand, that you know it's real, that this is my calendar and it belongs to me and me alone (rather than some bits and bytes in binary on some no-name servers tucked in some dark corners of who-knows-where the datacenters might reside).

I have to tell you, I too have tried to hang on to paper calendars, for my private reasons. I have soft spots for leather bound journals and diary and address books. I love to touch and smell of leather. I like the physicality of writing in notes and entries with my pen. I really do.

Unfortunately, the goings with electronic calendars are just too strong to resist. I used to use leather-bound yearly calendars, and I hate to have to shelf them once the year is over. There's when I switch to using organizers. But I have to lug the deadweight of my 2-inch thick organizer (with address book, calendar, with journal papers and notes) with me everyday. I have to worry about losing it (yes, I've lost mine before, and it's a royal pain). It wastes papers (thereby, cutting down more trees) and money too for buying inserts. I don't share or expose my calendars to anyone, but now I can plan my calendar forever, rather than one year out. I can set up alerts and reminders of events. And although it takes longer to login and check calendars online than flipping pages, it's worth the efforts.

These days, I've decided to do my own haphazard version of mix-and-match of online and offline calendar for myself. I want the convenience of online calendars (eg. I don't want to have to copy and paste all the important birthdays and anniversary dates at the beginning of each year from one paper calendar to another), but I equally want to use my brain a bit more, lest my brain gets lazy with delegating all the remembering to computers. So, every day, I login to check my daily schedules, plus cursory check on how the weekly and monthly schedules in the coming weeks/months look like. Then, I would write down the daily things to do on a scrap piece of papers. At the end of the day, I can cross what I've done, and I can simply throw out the scrap paper to recycle bin. I can also jog down what's new on the paper, then transpose them to my online calendar at day's end. The semi-automatic calendar updates work for me because I want to force myself to remember some events, rather than delegating to computers totally.

I still miss my leather bound calendars, organizers, address books and all other stuffs that I have now rolled online or in one single gadget. I guess I'll have to live with it. Those previously used (and loved) journals and calendars on my shelf will simply become part of my relics for nostalgia, when I get the time for it.

On the elusive housing recovery...

There are often enough times when I get bored reading business news and market news. You see, I do trading as a side interest, and I read a few newspapers from a few different countries to start my day. You can get an overall picture and a sense of where things are going. To me, it's a much better gauge than the mumble-jumble of those so-called market analysts who would try to find some reasoning - more like excuses - to justify the events of the day as the day wraps up. You see, that's not a very difficult thing to do, since there are always some news that are good, and some news that are bad. All they have to do is to pick and choose which ones fit in the pattern of what has already happened in the market movement during the day. I often find it laughable how business news would follow what has happened in other markets (Europe, Hong Kong and Japan), and say, our markets in US is going to up (or down) because of x-y-z happening in the other markets. So, they say, futures are going up (or down). And then, things in US would blow up in their face, shattering whatever predictions they have made at day start. By end of day, they would wrap up the day and say, no, the market today is actually focusing on something else than we have predicted. In short, they would always have a 50-50 chance to come up with something that can make them look smart ("see, that's what we have predicted!" or "markets look the other day because they are nervous!").

For all that, I prefer to look at the raw data, rather than the gummed-up analysis from these mediocre analysts.

Quite often, raw data are confusing on their own right, depending on what raw data the main media wants to report to the audience (ie. us).

Take the unemployment picture. There's the short term number in unemployment benefits claim (which doesn't look good). There's the longer term number (which looks very weak and wobbly). And then, there is the number of long-term unemployed (ie. those who have exhausted the unemployment benefits and are on their own; in short, they don't count anymore) which everyone seems to suddenly stop reporting on.

And then, there is the number of new jobs created, particularly by private sector. But no one dares to talk about the kind of shitty jobs being created now, in place of the relatively good paying jobs that were lost in this Great Recession. Politicians in Washington don't even want to talk about the number of shitty jobs created. Afterall, there is a natural limit in how much spin doctors can spin a story. So, instead of talking about bad things with no prospects of improving in sight, they would rather stop talking about it.

Barring the dismal employment picture, this recession is all about housing. No one has a freaking clue which industry would emerge from ashes and rise up to take the place of tech (in the go-go days of late 1990s) and housing (in the subsequent years after the tech bubble burst in 2000), and provide the kind of jobs and pay and prospects to the lower strata in society. Everyday, the business and market news cover the same-old, same-old on the foreclosure numbers, price trends of cities and nation wide, new housing starts, existing home sales, yada yada. The way it's going now, you can easily skip 3 months' worth of news, come back in the fall, and the news reports (on these very same topics) would still look the same. *yaaawn*

Don't get me wrong, those raw data have to be collected in order to study the longer term trends. But I don't see how talking repeatedly on the same subject matters and numbers are going to move the needle.

To me, it all comes down to simple math. If you have a property that, over a 10-year period has gone up by 300%, does a downturn of 50% from the peak mean it has come down far enough to become affordable again? This is not a number that I just threw out from a hat. This was how much I have bought (in late 1990s) and sold (in late 2007) my property for in the Northeast.

I like to look for patterns and trends. Nowhere have I seen such fantastic growth in prices (of properties), with little to no support from fundamentals (eg. rental growth) during that same period. The whole housing boom was based on one ponzi scheme, more akin to a big casino gamble.

I don't flip properties. In fact, I've kept property that I sold in 2007 for close than 7 years because I like it. I would still have held on to it, had it not been my husband who was getting tired to the monthly upkeep for a physical property. It doesn't really mean or change a thing for me, because there's no mortgage left on the property. Sure, if you ask me whether I'm glad that I've sold it, I'd tell you I'm glad to have made a 300% profit on that property. It doesn't negate the fact that I still miss the place due to sentimental value. I don't want to sound schmuck about it, for cashing out before the market crash, because I'm no genius. It's all pure chance. Bottomline to me is, while I'm better off now with the proceeds from the sale, I would have been no worse off if I had held on to it.

No one is going to argue against the sweetness of turning 300% yield on an investment. Truth be told, I don't think the place is suddenly worth 300% more than what I'd paid it for. Given the growth of economy over that same period, perhaps a price growth of 50% would have been considered fantastic already, so that a 20-30% downturn in the recession since then would have returned it back to equilibrium. But that would be blasphemous to alot of people who are used to outsized price growth. No one wants to lose the capability of turning their property into a piggybank and a ready ATM machine.

But...nothing of what I said is new. It's just that no one wants to admit to it. No one wants to say outright, that the property market, as depressed as it is now, should still fall another 20-30% or more in some places in order to go back to a more normal curve. Politicians can't tell the emperors (voters) that they have no clothes on. It's downright suicidal.

And so, what do we get? Let's switch off the discussions on unemployment (nothing new); let's not talk about housing (nothing new either); let's forget about market reforms (because no one can fight the lobby groups and big corporate money); don't worry about the wars (which are still raging on); public education does not matter for now. Suddenly all eyes are on deficit and spending.

I can only tell you, I'm very sick and tired of all these ping-pong games between Dem and GOP on the budget talks and possibility of a default. The whole Washington establishment - Congress and White House alike - is so inept to achieve anything remotely useful (except with the focus of scoring political points), it's so freaking disappointing. Such a shame.

But if you must ask me of an opinion, I'd say, spending and entitlement have to be scaled back. Taxes have to be raised somehow. I don't like the idea of the raising the debt ceiling without any serious talks of scaling back. To be sure, there are so many low-hanging fruits of corporate tax subsidy (ethanol, anyone?) that simply don't make sense and should have been rid of long long time ago. While I don't fancy Dem getting any moral high grounds, I simply don't see how GOP could keep singing the moral high tunes of cutting spending while defending their corporate backers of all the subsidy and loopholes. It's truly despicable.

On children's noise level, et al...

I don't normally read much of those news of children-not-welcome stories, like the one about banning young children from restaurant. It's a balancing act between keeping a young child engaged and entertained, while trying to minimize the nuisance to others.

I've been on both sides of the fence. While my kids are getting bigger now, they have been young once. It can get apprehensive, hoping and praying that my kids would cooperate and don't cry or scream in movie theaters or on long-haul flights. When I look at parents or families bringing in very young kids or babies in those situations, I can get apprehensive too, hoping and praying that those kids won't just cry or scream their guts out, and the rest of us would have a bit of quiet time. But then, you can't blame the babies, infants and toddlers for doing for they're doing, when they don't have the ways and means to tell the adults that they don't want to be restricted to the confined space for a prolonged period.

Restaurants and parks, on the other hand, are somewhat different. They are not confined space. And there are plenty of options for parents to bring their kids too. If the kids start acting up in restaurants, one of the adults/parents can always bring the kids outside for a walk to calm the nerve or for distraction. That's what my husband and I always did, and it worked out quite well. So, if a restaurant puts out children-unwelcomed sign, I don't see what the big deal is for the families to bring their business elsewhere where tolerance level for their kids is higher. In short, this kind of stories is not news-worthy to me.

And then, today I read about some Sydney residents complaining about the noise level of children playing in parks. I must say though, that this is getting a bit out of hand. I understand that some people simply can't stand children's crying or screaming. Afterall, that's one of the reasons some adults quoted as rationale for not having kids of their own. Surely, if a park is designed with structures and playthings for kids to kill their energy, can anyone blame the kids for having a blasting fun time and scream their guts out? Honestly, I can't say I do. How does one define the playthings and structures in a park that would limit the kids to play more passively, so that they won't make that much noise? Kids are fairly straightforward animals; they either have a good time, or they don't. If the kids don't enjoy playing in that park, they simply won't want to come. And if the residents have been so worried about it, they should have voiced their concerns before the park was built and/or during the design stage of the park.

You're quite right, in that, I don't have alot of sympathy in the complaints about kids having too much fun in park (hence making too much noise). No doubt, people want more parks and green space; that enhances the environment, thereby boosting property value. There are gives and takes, and times like this, you can't have it both ways, wanting the pie and eating it too. They should have been happy that kids and families are utilizing the parks, rather than thugs and criminals (as alot of idle park space can attract).

On schools stop teaching cursive...

Not until I listened to the Diane Rehm Show on WGBH earlier today did I realize that some schools are planning to stop teaching kids cursive. I must admit, I was flabbergasted when I heard of it.

Many so-called arguments were put forth to support that notion, some of which come straight from fantasyland. It's said that kids need to learn typing more than writing cursive, in order to compete in this digital age. It's said that kids can print and don't need cursive. It's said that kids' learning cursive is a waste of time, during budget crunch time, schools can ill-afford to spend resources on. It's said that with increasing use of electronic media in schools and work environment, kids need to adapt. It's said that some kids simply find it too hard to learn cursive, and they should be left to pick whatever way to write or type. It's even said that in this day and age, when electronic signature is widely accepted, kids won't even need to sign their name anymore. And so on, and so forth.

Thank goodness counter-arguments are abound. It's argued that kids have plenty of opportunities to learn typing (texting, anyone?). It's argued that kids would at least need to sign their name physically with a pen. And while digital media is all around us, it must be recognized that there are many more students who do not have ready access to computers or electronic devices, and who would need to still resort to pens and papers. But the more important and valid point was raised by one of the audience callers to the show, which is that, learning cursive is one important way for kids (at around the age of grade 3-4) to master the fine mortar skills while they are formulating thoughts in their heads. In fact, the last argument was recognized even by the cursive-abolishing proponents that kids have been having increasing difficulty in both thinking and writing/typing at the same time.

The topic of learning cursive hits home to me at this particular juncture, since my kids have showed so much interests in it, and even more pride too in mastering cursive so that they can sign their name!

To be sure, their teachers haven't actually spent that much time in teaching them cursive anyways. Cursive, as an art of writing, is such an integral part of civilization that it would be such a shame and incredible disservice to kids by not teaching them cursive at all. I resent the argument of cursive being too hard for kids. So much of what kids are taught seem to be based on convenience, catering to the kids' liking. If something is deemed too hard for the kids, they should be spared of it. In fact, isn't that the very same argument that alot of parents shy away from pushing their kids to master math and science?

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Incidentally, yesterday I read another article, about a high school teacher getting suspended (but was later reluctantly reinstated) for dissing her own students for being "lazy" and "frightfully dim". I have no doubts that there are students to that caliber. More surprisingly is how some readers' comments from supposedly parents saying that they would pull their kids out from the class, should this teacher be teaching. Sure, parents should be the best champion (our princes and princesses) for their own kids, but have we, collectively as parents, got to a point where we cannot accept potentially truthful comments about our kids?

As another fair-minded reader noted in the forum, kids these days have become so used to entitlement, that everyone has to have a trophy for just being present in a soccer or baseball game. Parents have to understand that, at some point (most likely when kids start middle school), kids are going to get used to the increasingly competitive world. If kids do not master the basic skills and discipline and attitude before they reach grade 5, they would have had serious problems catching up. If parents continue to foster that an entitlement mentality in kids, that they deserve to have good grades just by being there or putting in a less-than-average essay, even if schools and teachers cave in and give them all straight A's, these kids are going to have more problems when (and if) they get to college, or when they start working in the adult world.

On the housing needs in Hong Kong, et al...

I was reading this CNN article about the so-called coffin homes in Hong Kong. This came in close succession with the Wall Street Journal on the same topic just couple of days prior.

I grew up in Hong Kong, and I have my opinion on the issue. To be sure, the wealth gap in Hong Kong has always been big which accounts for one of the priciest in terms of real estate in the world for a very long time. If you think the coffin home phenomenon is new, you're quite wrong.

The lower strata of the society in Hong Kong has always tried to scrap by. In the post-WWII era, there had been lots of squatters who built their sheds on hillside. These squatters suffered various safety concerns, not the least fire hazard (since illegal utility cables were put in to steal electricity from main powerlines), but also the elements (including typhoons and landslides). Over the years, the then colonial British Hong Kong government had tried various means to dismantle these squatters, but they always sprang back to life. Afterall, these people had nowhere to turn to. During the push to build affordable public housing for lower income families, most (if not all) of these squatters were immediately relocated to public housing estates. Even to this day, getting in public housing in Hong Kong is like winning a lottery ticket, because unlike those in US, the public housing projects are very well run in Hong Kong and is very affordable to lower income families. The decent public housing, plus public education, has allowed them pathway to move up the food chain in economic ladders. Indeed, I view this as one of the achievements of the colonial British government in Hong Kong.

One would ask, why the sudden focus on the topic again, decades later now?

There is truth in the statement, that the wealth gap in Hong Kong has become wider. One could say too, that the challenge to the current Hong Kong government (the SAR - Special Administrative Region - that is now part of the greater mainland China) is bigger. The SAR Hong Kong government has tried to maintain the status quo, following the same playbook as the previous colonial British government for Hong Kong. It doesn't quite work out that well though.

There are now influx of immigrants from mainland China to Hong Kong that it's unable to say no to. For its small plot of land, Hong Kong has grown from some 5.5 million in population around 1997 (when its sovereignty was handed over to China by Britain) to more than 7 million now. The huge influx of wealth from mainland China has also created opportunities, but headaches as well, to this old British colony. As the mainland Chinese can pay, property developers would obviously want to cater for them, racing to build more bigger luxury units in Hong Kong. The overall wealth effect that jacks up property prices of almost all real estates further pushes the low income families to the fringe.

You normally would not hear much of the Hong Kong native locals complain too much about it, because they know this has always been the case. The new immigrants from China, some of those who are used to getting help from the government, are not so sanguine about it. They expect to find gold in Hong Kong, and surely they would be sorely disappointed.

I have first-hand observations of this, because when I was small, my mom used to own a building which is subdivided into a number of 1-bedrooms to individual tenants. Obviously these 1-bedrooms were considerably bigger and better than these coffin homes. Afterall, they are 70-100 square feet per, and usually singles or childless couples rented them. Rents were low, but it's a roof over their heads, and it allows them a way station to save up for something better. I remember there were times when I would go with my mom to the building and collect rents at month end. The tenants were decent, honest, working-class folks, and my mom dealt with them with respect. Although my mom had since sold that building, I still have fond memories going there from time to time.

These days, I have no doubts that new immigrants from China would regard those 1-bedrooms with distaste. They would say, they are not treated humanely. They would say, Hong Kong government does not do a good job helping them. They would say, it's not fair for them to have to work so hard, and still live in a tinny-tiny home, when someone else has a mansion. If they think waiting three years for a public housing unit is long, they should ask the locals to see how some had waited for 10+ years for one. Nothing is a given in Hong Kong.

I know I would sound like a Tea Party or even GOP fundamentalist for saying this, but you know what, the government in Hong Kong (before '97) had never given more handouts to its citizens than it is now. In fact, the way that current Hong Kong SAR government bends over to win public approval is sometimes quite laughable, its giving away of HK$6000 for free is a case in point. The colonial Hong Kong government would take decisive actions and push forward with the effort; the current SAR government would take whatever actions that either Beijing, or main media, or poll numbers, would want them to take. It's pathetic.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not really in the Tea Party or GOP camp on principle. Quite far from it, I do believe that the government does have moral responsibility to provide certain safety net to the poorest in society. Providing decent public housing to some of the poorest is desperately needed. For others who simply think, "we want to pay less for housing, and the government should for that," I'd say, m'am, I'd like that too, but that's not what a government is for. Along the same line, I don't agree with the Obama's push to delay or stop foreclosure, in order to keep people in their homes (???). I'd say, dude, if you can't afford it, it's not your home, to start with, and the government has no business keeping you there, just so that you can live there, rent free.

On the Gates philanthropy on education, public school system, et al...

A small disclaimer is in order. I have not been a big fan of Bill Gates, nor most Microsoft software(not the first version of anything anyways). (I'm more in the Steve Jobs' and Apple camp, in terms of innovation.) But one thing that Microsoft has exhibited, that inherits from its founder, is its perseverance and tenacity in pursing something, and the trial-and-error in mastering the execution.

My opinion has since turned around quite some on Gates after his retirement from the commercial world, turning his focus on philanthropy. Although Gates Foundation is still very much a work in progress, I've been impressed by the passion and effort that go with it, even if the impact of success is still oft elusive.

Another plus is Gates' candidness on his foundation's impact to improving the schooling system.

I'm not an educator. I'm a parent with young kids, hence my vested interest in the subject matter. I'm schooled at various stages in four continents, including Asia, Europe, Australia and US; as such, I have my own opinion as a student myself in this domain. Granted that I never pay as much attention to the area of education until I have kids of my own, all the nitty-gritty little details over the years have come back to me.

To compare those various systems that I was exposed to, with what's in US now, I can't help but feeling exasperated by how dysfunctional the US system is.

Before I even get to that, I must say, I never have any preconceived notion on labor unions. I understand how they work; I understand their need of existence, particularly in the turn of the last century when the little people need to band together in order to stem exploitation and to improve their collective bargaining ability. That's especially true for traditionally grueling work like coal mining. I get that.

But what strikes me as particularly dysfunctional in the whole debate of standardized testing students, or measuring/evaluating teacher performance, or the No Child Left Behind Act, is how backward the teacher's union (and other labor unions who chime in to this subject) has handled the whole debate.

I must admit, I can get pretty worked up - angry, even - when I hear all those statements from teacher's union countering the need to measure students performance, that teachers' profession is really different, that you can't simply measure students performance or dream about linking teacher's performance with what students have learnt. Whenever I hear anyone say to me "oh, this is different," like the way analysts tried to justify the ridiculous IPO price for outfits like Webvan that turned out to be big flame-out. The underlying argument for not wanting to measure their performance - Webvan or teachers - is really the same. Although past performance is never a sure thing to measure future success, history does provide a good guidance of what works and what doesn't, and a decent indication to weed out alot of bottom feeders.

To me, all those debates and discussions really come down to this: What is the function of a teacher? Teachers are there to do a job, and that job is to educate the young minds of students. Teachers are not there just to babysit kids and let kids stay in school for 6-8 hours a day doing nothing. That inexplicable link between students performance and teachers performance cannot be explained away, saying it does not matter. Yes, it does matter, hugely.

Granted that there are many exterior and intrinsic factors that impact on students performance too in which teachers cannot control. Parents involvement and expectations on students matter 95% of the time. One cannot expect a student to learn all that s/he can within the 6-8 hours while in school, then stop the learning outside of school. It's indeed unrealistic. That, however, does not remove the need to evaluate teachers' performance. Do we stop measuring the teacher's performance simply because students' family is not helping? The answer is obviously no.

As it is, for all that I hear, that's exactly what teachers' unions are advocating. Their argument is that, since there are other factors that go in to a student's performance, you cannot blame the teacher for not doing his/her job when the student performs poorly in tests. So, the students should not be tested (so that no one would know that the student hasn't learnt anything at all); instead, students should either be moved swiftly up or out of the schooling system. Out of sight; out of mind, and it becomes someone else's problem. And if the students' performance is not measured, neither should the teachers. In short, teachers and school administrations can do whatever they want. All they need (and care about), is their mandatory pay raises, benefits, sick and vacation days.

I have been lucky enough not having to subject myself to failing school systems like those dropout factories mentioned by Gates or the documentary Waiting For Superman. I've had more than enough second hand accounts of such failing schools to get the picture. Whenever I think of such ailment, it's maddening and sickening to me at the same time.

How could teachers' union protect its weakest members who oftentimes have no right to be a teacher at all? How dare the unions risk students' and kids' future by protecting and preserving its self-interests, all in the name of helping the kids. It has nothing to do with the kids, and everything to do with the adults (bad teachers). The position of the unions is that, they don't want to measure teachers' performance because they don't want to distinguish bad teachers from good ones. They don't want the good ones to be rewarded, because it would mean the bad ones would invariably have to be dropped, and then the union membership (and coffer) will drop.

Gates has it absolutely right. No one in their right mind can support the argument that, multiplication in Massachusetts is different from multiplication in Alabahama or New York and others. But that's exactly what's happening now. As public schools fail to educate kids on basic skills like math and reading/writing, they would rather dumb down the standards instead, hence all the push-back of standardized tests for kids (mandate of No Child Left Behind), teachers' evaluation, or even resorting to cheating to juice up the test scores.

Thing is, there are many good teachers, or at least reasonably decent ones. And the advocacy of Gates for standard core curriculum makes alot of sense to me. One way or the other, students and teachers need to be tested on what they have learnt and how well they have taught. I would not accept any argument lesser than that.

What about those students whose family can be so uncooperative that teachers can't do anything about it? Truth be told, there will always cases like that. In some areas like inner city, a large majority of student body falls in that category. How do you help the teachers to help the kids? Teachers can't deal with that alone. School admin and state have to step in.

To be sure, for all those comparison of student test scores between US and Asia and other countries, it probably has ingrained this impression to most Americans or westerners that there's nothing ailing public schools in Asia. That's far from truth. Take the case of Hong Kong, for example. Public schools are categorized into Band 1 (best) to Band 5 (our inner city equivalence of the terribles and our dropout factories in US). It's a nightmare to teach in Band 5 schools. There are even studies about it. Most teachers in Band 5 don't and can't do much teaching. It's discouraging, it's frustrating, sometimes it's even life-threatening (eg. knifes in schools). But mostly, all we hear is the exemplary straight-A students from Asia who are out to take our jobs and the future of our kids. That only shows half of the picture.

It's laudable to have someone as high profile as Gates to push the subject of and the need to improve our public schools, looking at it from all angles (basic research, the financing, alternative schooling avenues like charter schools and parochial schools, the core and variations in curriculum etc). The kind of public debate from politicians, with such near-sighted focus on school vouchers (thereby pretty much giving up hope of ever repairing public schools). Then again, no one wants their kids to be the guinea pigs for any experimental projects, as the Waiting For Superman documentary has rightly pointed out.

I can only hope, that Gates and others who have ambition to do good in this area do not get so discouraged that they would give up on it in the end. The idea of just throwing money (and more money) to the current system, without any change and real reform, is not going to work. It's going to only line the pockets of bad teachers, and kids in bad schools are going to be the ones holding the bags. We can't be complacent to just let it happen. As a society, we simply can't afford to have future generations all falling through cracks like that.