On the conspiracy theory around Bin Laden's killing...

We all know about the killing of Bin Laden's by the SEAL team, censored by the White House. I have to confess, the news of his killing felt and still feels good to me. Not that I'm bloodlust, but this is the big-bad that had brought us 9/11 and thousands killed on that fateful day some fourteen years ago. George W Bush bungled the hunt of this guy, and it's a good thing that Obama finishes the job, but at least we should be glad that the job is finally done.

And so, when I read the New York Times article alleging that the "truth" about the Bin Laden killing might be more than meet the eye, I thought it's just about how everyone might be trying to fine-tune their position for and against going in for the kill, particularly those like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton in this pre-election season. I have not expected the Rashomon type of split reality, with different people now peddling their stories (books, essays, movies, public statements, you name it) while challenging the versions of reality from others' stories.

I knew about the couple of memoir books (like the ex-SEAL's first hand account of the events) and movie (Zero Dark Thirty). But I was not aware of the 10336-word essay from Seymour Hersh about some conspiracy theory behind the Bin Laden killing. For what it's worth (and I'm glad the publishing of this essay was done online so that it has not wasted any papers that the essay is printed on), all the supposed lies and deceit, the conspiracy theory and the alternative "story" that the essay is trying to spin, is decidedly underwhelming.

Where should I begin...

No doubt that, with four years of his life spent on digging stuffs up, Hersh is more than eager to juice us every little minutiae details, inconsistency, half-truth, and outright lies about the official version from the White House. Cover-ups make even better story, and usually that sells. It is thus that I'm surprisingly uninterested in the minor details of this whole operations.

Do I really care how America came to locate Bin Laden, that it's supposed to be from some walk-in informant interested in the $25m bounty, rather than painstaking intelligence gathering by CIA? Not really.

Do I really care if Pakistan knows about the operations? No, I don't.

Do I really care if the SEAL's have standing kill order of Bin Laden that would take no prisoner? I'm glad they did the kill. That should have been the first goddamn goal of the whole mission because, heck, why would we want to take Bin Laden captive and then having to attend to all his needs with some five-star treatment since doing anything otherwise would have brought all those human rights lawyers jumping up and down, all while wasting taxpayers money on it that can be better spent elsewhere.

Do I really care how the body of Bin Laden was disposed? Well, if I don't care if he's killed (and yes, I want to see him killed), then why should I care if he gets a proper burial or not (which I don't)?

Do I really care if the White House juice up the story? Everyone loves a good story, and the White House version isn't as dramatic as the one in Zero Dark Thirty anyways. So, maybe Obama isn't that bad a screenwriter when it comes to wanting to look like a courageous leader making gutsy choices (that George W Bush failed to make), but one would argue that anyone in Obama's shoes would have done the same.

Everything else, like the corroboration with the Pakistanis in ISI, is just business as usual (horse trading in geopolitics). No one is interested in those either.

All in all, that very long, very verbose essay from Hersh just feels tiresome, all with the hope of finding a story behind something that no one really cares much about anymore. The main objective to kill Bin Laden was achieved, that's what everyone is focused on, and that's what matters. There might be differences in accounting for the how, but never the why. 

Hersh argues so much about the truth. but his essay's heavy reliance on conjecture and accounts from "one retired official" and not much validation is not that confidence-inspiring. Maybe some days more details will filter out, but we have to ask ourselves, if we don't care about it now, not even the supposedly "shocking" truth from Hersh, do we care for much else (eg. whether Pakistan has tipped off US on this operation and the whereabouts of Bin Laden)? I highly doubt it.

On Chinese medicine and Nobel Prize...

I'm sure anyone who has used Chinese medicine in the past would pay particular attention to the Nobel Prize this year to the first Chinese (from mainland China) whose discovery of an ingredients forty years ago has become the mainstay to standard malaria treatment that has benefited countless lives.

It's easy to see why proponents to Chinese medicine construes the Nobel Prize as an endorsement of its significance, cue from "clinical trials" from its two thousands years of history. Equally curious is how opponents of it can quite easily find fault in Chinese medicine too, the most obvious ones is Dr Tu Youyou herself who made her significant finding forty years ago, but was never able to replicate the success since then. It's not hard to see why.

When a Chinese medicine doctor is effective, he can be really effective. But there's no "quality control" at all. As a patient, you can't automatically assume that one Chinese medicine doctor is just as good as the next because - surprise surprise - it doesn't.

A lot of criticism rests on the fact that the way Chinese medicine is learnt and practiced, is very much a one-on-one person-to-person knowledge transfer. Traditionally the trade-craft was only passed to male heir in the family. Secret recipe was always guarded jealously like top national secrets. (Sadly this is not just in Chinese medicine, but also in other trades practiced by Chinese, like famous chefs in restaurants.) You can call it self-preservation, you can call it selfish. Regardless, the result is the same: Knowledge is never meant to be assimilated or spread, otherwise success cannot and will not be guaranteed within the family, or so the thinking goes. Hence the criticism of Chinese medicine being so unscientific because it's so unrepeatable.

Some would argue that's not the case, exhibit A being the classical texts that contains all the medicinal details. Yes, that would be indeed the case, but traditionally those medicine books and texts were not meant for public consumption, they were meant only for apprentice or designated heirs of those famous doctors of old.

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I observe this in a rather first-hand way. Some years ago, my dad suffered from intense back pain that he could never find an effective cure. He tried all options, including western medicine (drugs), therapy, and even some chinese medicine doctors in Hong Kong and Australia, all to no avail. Western doctors proclaimed that the only thing left to be done, is a major operation to fix the eroded disks which was no guarantee that it would not recur. And then some acquaintance referred him to a supposedly famous doctor in a coastal Chinese region near Hong Kong, who was (and still is) the head doctor of the provincial hospital.

As a last-ditch effort, my parents went there to seek treatment. Due to concerns of hygiene and lack of facilities, they had to bring all the medical supply themselves, including syringes and even gauze pads.

Miraculously after an intense regiment of treatment of a month, dad came back with a back all cured. There was no more pain or discomfort. The issue had not recurred either in the years since. More curious was the fact that the doctor could never offer an actual diagnosis, all just a notion of "weak back." Everyone marveled at this chinese doctor's skills. Since then, my dad had personally referred countless other patients (friends and acquaintance of his who had a garden variety of ailments) to him and his hospital, and he loved my dad for it. And why not? After the cure, he solicited personal donations and gifts from my dad (cars and vans, meals, gifts, money) in the years since, and my dad willingly provided, though my mom had grown resentful of how this doctor could so shamelessly ask for all these personal gifts to benefit himself. It's highly unethical, to say the least.

Perhaps as an semi-indictment on how chinese medicine is practiced, this doctor is a particularly good case in point. He was very good at it, skill wise, and he's benefited hugely personally since he solicited personal gifts from all his patients. That seems to be the "norm" that all his cured chinese patients have come to expect to cough up, on top of the huge fees that his hospital would charge to all these overseas patients.

One would expect he would start some R&D to expand his reach, but that can't be further from reality. Instead of any R&D, he passed all his knowledge to his only son who, when he came of age, was appointed by him to be the head doctor of a new wing of this provincial hospital, while the father continued to be the head doctor of the old wing of this same hospital. The son was sent to Beijing to pick up some new skills. He's busier than ever taking in new patients, easily seeing hundreds of patients in a day. Yes, you might find that implausible, but I've visited that hospital once and saw how he would get his patients all lined up, literally, and he would do the procedure on each of them like an assembly line in factory, all of these patients would pay his fees personally. Again, there's no R&D, there's no residents in training to learn his craft. All the skills retained between this father-and-son team. Period.

You can call me cynical but I see it as it is. These doctors who might be otherwise skillful have absolutely no interests in teaching others the skills or promotion Chinese medicine for the benefits of all. All they focus on, is to concentrate the knowledge among themselves so that no one can replicate their success. Sadly to say, they are hardly alone, I've seen other chinese medicine doctors behaving the same way too.

As anyone would know, some of the basic premises of science include the study of a subject matter through scientific methods, test of hypotheses, to ensure the repeatability of results. One can hardly find such vigorous body of study in chinese medicine. Perhaps it's little wonder the Nobel selection committee specifically puts out the disclaimer for this Nobel Prize to Dr Tu that this is an endorsement of her contribution, but it's not meant to be an endorsement of chinese medicine.

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As a side note, some years later, it's almost quite certain that the doctor (the father) who treated my dad had quite decidedly led to the hastened death of one of my sister's friends. Incidentally she had had migrant headache for many years. My dad, out of his good nature to want to help, recommended this same doctor to her. She obliged and went back for treatment over the course of three weeks.

His diagnosis of her was some vague notion that she's "weak" in female anatomy. His prescription? She needed to eat more good food (chinese herbs) that would dramatically encourage her blood flow and protein. (This doctor almost always feeds his prized patients with placenta collected from the delivery room of the hospital.)

She stayed the course, came back, and died within a month. It was not known until the autopsy that she had suffered a growing brain tumor (that caused the serious migrant headache). Apparently she never suspected that, and this doctor, for all his skills, pulse reading and such, never knew it either. The conclusion was that, the changed diet could very well have hastened her death by providing all the nourishment that her brain tumor needed.

My dad was sorrowful about her death and the eventual finding of the brain tumor that even a mediocre western doctor might have suspected and found out from a CT scan or MRI. Other chinese medicine doctors had mentioned that the pulse readings should have shown irregularities as well. No matter, that doctor never even noticed or suspected it. After her death, my dad stopped referring anyone to that doctor. It's a painful lesson to learn, and it's such a shame that our friend should have to die from it.

On an outsider view of the FDA approval to opioid use on young children...

I read, with feelings, the recent report on the FDA approval of powerful opioid use (on drugs like OxyContin) on young children.

Thankfully I don't have any personal experience opioid use, or from any immediate families or friends. There has been such explosive increase in use of drugs of any kind on young children on ailments like depression and ADHD that I don't doubt at all the very genuine and real concerns from opponents of this FDA approval. Substance abuse from opioid drugs like OxyContin has approached epidemic scale in some communities that drug abuse will take hold from all demographics that can spread like wild fire.

This has brought back memory of one incident, perhaps my closest (however remotely) encounter of such dilemma.

~~~~~~

Years ago when my son (firstborn) was born, he's suffered high fever two days after we checked out from postpartum. We rushed to the ER of the regional hospital (one of the best in the nation). Since he was less than a week ago, ER mandates him to stay overnight for tests and observation for four days. The doctors, and particularly the nurses, had been very kind and helpful who set up a bed for me to stay with my baby at all times. (Thankfully all tests came back clear, and it's suspected that he's probably just very dehydrated since he's not getting enough breast milk from me which we have since moved to formula and he thrives on it since.)

We were in a room at ER with two beds, one for my son. The second bed laid a child probably less than two years old. On my first night, I called the nurses' attention to that kid whom I worried she might be having trouble breathing, as I heard very strong wheezing sound from across the curtain petition. The nurses checked on the kid accordingly, and assured me that she's doing fine. Or so I thought.

The next day, I saw the family of that young child streaming in at various hours of visitation to see how she's doing. There were a lot of flowers, they stayed until the visiting hours were over, they were obviously a loving and caring family to her which is always a comfort to know. The family also talked to the doctors when they made their rounds, and checked on how she's doing. They were assured repeatedly that she's doing fine.

It wasn't until the very early morning of the day after, that I realized that the child was not doing fine. A team of more experienced doctors and their residents came in. There must have been at least twelve of them, scrambling for the standing room around the bed of the child. The curtain petition was pulled open during the day, and I got to observe from the sideline.

It turned out, the prognosis was not good. I never heard what the actual ailment was, apparently there seemed to be a foregone conclusion that the illness was terminal, hence there wasn't even any discussions among the doctors and residents what the underlying cause might be. No matter. The doctors were more concerned about pain management (that seemed to be their focus on her palliative care at that point). They knew she's in pain, at all hours. She's immobile, and seemed to be in some semi-comatose state. There was only one argument remained for debate, which was "how to manage her pain."

One group of doctors suggested the use of some strong painkillers to ease her pain, while the rest of the group raises very serious concerns that she would become addicted to the painkillers (which was almost a certainty that all of them agreed). The residents didn't say much, probably because they were still in training and were not experienced enough to voice any opinions, one way or the other. They had discussed long and hard, but eventually, the proponents won out. They decided on giving her the very strong painkillers to ease her pain because, as I recall quite clearly what one doctor said, "she most likely won't live to see her teenage years," hence the subsequent issue of lifelong addiction would almost be moot.

The discussions and debate were spirited, but one thing I came away with it, was that, none of the doctors knew the absolute answer. No one ever could. All they could do, was to choose the lesser of two evils. In short, they really had no idea what the eventual addiction might be like for this kid, should she be so lucky to live a longer life than expected.

When the kid's family visited that afternoon, one of the doctors who was in the morning discussion group broke the news to the family that they (the doctors) had decided to use the powerful painkiller on her. This would alleviate her level of pain, and she'd be more comfortable. The family did not object.

What I find rather surprising, is how sure that doctor sounded when he delivered the chosen course of action to the family. He did not voice any concerns or apprehension to the family about any doubts of subsequent addiction. I suspected the family might never know or find out until years later. I couldn't recall if this doctor was the proponent or opponent of the painkiller use, but his deliverance of the news, his I-know-best attitude leaves no room for anyone to remotely doubt that this doctor might ever have any slight doubt at all.

For the next two days when I stayed in that same room with my son and the sick girl, when I continued to hear her wheezing breath (particularly at night), and to this day, I often wonder if that's really "for the best" or not. Is it really a better option for the family (and the kid too, if she ever had a say in all this matters that concerned her so deeply) to be happily ignorant about the consequences? Nonetheless it's a turning point for me, that I can't take a doctor's word for it anymore, that I would always get a second opinion, that I always do my own research. The illusion that "doctors know best" has all but completely shattered.

Those were the days before OxyContin burst onto the market, but the debate about the use of powerful addictive drugs on patients, particularly young children, remains the same. It's easy to have a blanket statement on preventing the use of such highly addictive drugs on children, as a matter of course. But as I think back on the intense debate by those doctors, all of whom were debating with the best interest of that child in mind, yet they could come away with such opposing conclusion, even though the facts that they used were all the same, one can only conclude that there's no one right answer to all situations. Whether one focuses on the immediate short term pain relief, or longer term adverse side effects of addiction, is all a matter of where one draws the focus. It's a question of what kills you first.

In that sense, this FDA approval would have given the green light to doctors who might come down on the proponent side, though it should never be construed as the first line of defense or course of actions that any doctor should prescribe to all young children, without so much as a spirited debate as those doctors that I'd observed in that ER room did.

I do truly believe, that the family has a right to know about the pros and cons of that recommendation (of the use of opioid). Being happily ignorant should not be the default option for patients and their families. I never talked to that girl's family during those four days, never mind telling them about the doctors' debate on their child's pain management options. Sometimes I wonder if I should have uttered a word to them, to let them know that they might want to research a bit more on the option before agreeing to the doctor's recommendation. But then, I would be trampling on their privacy which is not something I would want to do.

I'm generally skeptical toward pharmaceutical companies' push of any particular drugs. Again, debates among doctors should be a default option, rather than relying on just one doctor's decision, particularly on treatment that can eventually lead to lifelong addiction. The doctors know best attitude is simply not good enough for me anymore.

On peak-earning age...

I've known this for quite some time in my gut, and am almost surprised to see the topic is finally mentioned in print, which is the age of peak-earning being in 40s, and then there's mostly nowhere to go but down. I'm somewhat disappointed at the lack of follow-up analysis on this article, given that studies have validated the fact that for most folks, their peak earning years arrive in mid 40s, and then it pretty much plateaued before the decline starts due to inflation and a stagnant salary level.

My own journey is probably a typical one. My salary rises rapidly when I started out with my career. Thanks to the boom times in economy, I was able to effectively double my salary with a few job change in the first couple of years. That was not hard since the starting salary was relatively low, and my sector was in demand. And then, I was able to get rather substantial pay raise every time I changed employers, mid career. Times were good, with six-figure salary, when I reached my mid 30s. We did a lot of traveling, though we remain mostly frugal, never falling for trappings like new cars or fancy homes. We saved religiously. Things were looking up and quite rosy.

Somewhere along the line, things change. Yes, recession has hit but it actually didn't do much to us personally. (*touch wood*) Maybe my focus has changed somewhat. Our first kid came, and I didn't push that hard on the career front. I had even declined two promotions along the way because I didn't (and still don't) feel like managing people. And my salary has almost stopped rising.

I sometimes ask myself the question, of whether the stagnant salary rise has anything to do with my disinclination to move up the management ladder. But is the reason really just that simple?

For every position, in every company, there's a pay scale. It's universally true. Some years ago, I read it somewhere (it might have been Fortune, but I can't recall now) that one has to continuously move forward. In short, treading water and staying put will not do. There's even a benchmark for it, which is that, if you have been in the same company, in the same position for seven years, and you didn't get a promotion, you don't have a future in that company, and it's about time to get out. At that point, I looked around me at a few managers and directors, and realized there's truth in that. Obviously that seven-year rule might be shorter in more dynamic sector, but you get my point.

Perhaps my problem has always been that, I'm not that much into title. When I was younger, my notion of promotion is more a title change, which I didn't have much care in it. I still don't. But these days, I realize that if there's no promotion, there won't be any salary raise, particularly when you have reached the salary cap of your current position, which in that sense, says something about that seven-year rule.

So then, I have a family, I have kids now, but my salary is not going up at all. Yes, it's sad to even admit it, but the company wouldn't even bother explaining to employees why no pay raise is forthcoming, which once upon a time, they had feigned some non-response like "it's the economy" or some such. In recent years, they have stopped pretending to care. Is there any surprise? They might even be looking forward for employees to actually leave so that they can hire someone cheaper (albeit much less experienced) or maybe even outsource or offshore the jobs altogether. It's all the better if you leave on your own accord since there's no need for severance package. Companies are playing the long game. Who has more staying power? The company, or the employees?

Now, you might say, go look for another job, dude. And maybe I should (and would).

But I'm more interested in creating opportunities for myself. What could be better if I have my own startup, have my own business, and be my own boss? That's exactly I've been doing for the past few years, but of course if you know the success rate of startups in general, you should not hold your hope up too high. For me, I mostly see this as a skill acquiring opportunity, rather than a desperate attempt to generate extra revenue.

In the meantime, what am I to do with the stagnant household income? For one, I do not value job changes as highly as I once was. With a family, mortgage, and kids in tow, stability with sure coverage of healthcare can be a very powerful option for one to stay put.  There's some comfort in that six-figure salary.  Sad, but true.

In a way, I don't really blame the employers too deeply for this predicament. Heck, if I were employer, I might even be doing the same thing myself. It makes sense to the company, though it can hurt employees, but what would employers care anyways? I don't expect unions to come to the rescue, actually in my sector, no one wants union. The sector is too dynamic to be constrained by work rules and collective bargaining. Everyone is their own man, as the saying goes, particularly in the high tech sector.

When I look on the web on current salary level, and the sector (even if it's booming again is abysmal). Would I really be doing any better changing jobs, I'm starting to wonder.

And then I realize something.

I'm focusing on the wrong thing. At this point in life, I'm interested in steady revenue over the long term, even after I retire. If that's my goal, I shouldn't be looking at just my job for that anyways; in any case, that point is moot upon retirement. And then what?

If I do not leverage, if I only rely on the savings (however much I put away from salary), hoping the stock market portfolio might give me sufficient yield to at least cover inflation, I would never retire comfortably. All the while, I'll have to pray too that my stock market investments would not get wiped out, like it did to so many others in 1987, then 2000, and then again in 2008/09. One could argue that such market downturns are a once-in-a-century black-swan event, but in my lifetime, when I have seen this three times over, they don't look so black-swan to me. Those downturns are what I have come to expect. Sad again, but true.

Oh, don't give me those craps from those financial advisors about target-date funds, yearly draw-down, and such, all of which are just simulation anyways. With my family history of long life, can I really expect my funds to afford me a comfortable life well into my 90s and beyond? I kind of doubt that. Conventional wisdom is always telling us to expect a reduced income level upon retirement; I'm sorry, but that's not enough for me, because I actually want to earn more, not less.

And I realize too that I can leverage on my good credit and savings. Yes, property investments are a long game, but good properties with reliable yields can be hard to come by. I am never one that chases the markets, so I never touch properties during those boom years between 2001 to 2007. We bought our homestead before boom time, and we're satisfied with that. I was happy enough to do short term trading because I want to stay liquid. Yes, I want to keep cash. I don't limit myself to day-trading but I can't afford to buy one stock and stay with it for two decades, hoping it might be a GOOG or AAPL in the making. I generally stay with tech stocks and this is particularly true. What's in now might very well be gone in five years. What's the point of holding them long term? The only thing that has staying power, if one has to insist on buying long term, is low-cost index funds that are not stock specific. That's one reason I don't view stock market as my savior to my revenue generating goal, even though it's a good way to generate short term returns far superior than money market accounts or bonds.

As it happens, the Lehman crash in 2008 and the Great Recession (six years and running thereafter) is godsend to me. I have the cash, I have the good credit. Properties tanked in 2009/10, and I was able to scoop up a number of properties in excellent locations that I could never dream of buying during boom times. Rentals and neighborhoods have held up in those good locations, even in the worst of times. With interest rate so low, the Fed is effectively sponsoring my purchases. What's not to love?

Surely, annual yield of 10% might not sound that much in a bull market in stocks, but if you can lock in that kind of yield in properties, with the upside of capital gain from rising property prices, it's one of the best investments, both for regular portfolio and for retirement (which is far better than annuity). If that kind of yield is locked in, over the long term, things would pretty much just go up instead of down, it beats stock market any day.

Obviously no one can profess the ability to time the markets, and if anyone tells you they can, they're lying through their teeth. Timing really can make all the difference. No doubt those who bought at the top of the market right before 2008, in subprime locations, will attest to that, and they will probably be stuck for a very very long time.

Maybe luck is on my side. As a small-time retail property investors, there's obviously a natural limit on how many properties I can take on, even with my savings and good credits. Thank goodness I got a few during the down market in the past six years, and everything is going way up now, both in rental yield and capital value. I could easily have replaced all my salary income with my rental income, going forward. I can't ask for more.

But as Warren Buffet once so famously says, when everyone's heading to the exit, that's where the opportunities are, but when everyone's rushing in, it's time to get out.

Almost seven years now, I'm cashing out some of the properties in my portfolio, re-balancing it to keep only the best ones and cashing out the relative weaker ones (which still command very good prices in an up market). Afterall, if I don't cash out, all those unrealized gains are just that, paper profits, nothing more. Plus, I want to cut my leverage now, particularly since the Fed is about the raise the rate again (finally). After going on binge buying in the recession, it's time to stay lean again when everyone is rushing back in. Yes, it's a game of musical chairs.

All that being said, a steady six-figure job can come in handy for all those mortgage applications, in building a portfolio with the help of leverage. But as those portfolios of mine stabilize, I'm itching to finally consider a job change, the work of which has become so mindlessly boring to me that I can do it with one eye closed.

The lesson I've learnt from all these is, I'm no longer under the illusion that my salary will continue to rise forever (perhaps rightly so). By branching out in investments, I've come to realize that it presents a much better chance for me for a steady income stream in the future, well past my working years and well above my current salary would ever give me.

My colleagues might wonder why I don't complain too loudly about the stagnant salary growth, and I never bother to elaborate to them what I do for my personal investments. Perhaps if they have known, they would understand.

I can only hope to say to others out there (as I have preached to my kids too) that there's no point expecting the world from your job, particularly when you're way past your peak earning years (in mid 40s), that your employer will continue do good to you, raising your salary religiously every year as if it's a matter of course, because - surprise, surprise - it just won't happen...unless of course if you're moving up the ranks all the way to the corner office and can be master of your own destiny. But that's a story for another day.

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PS -- I know, my story and experience ignore quite a large swath of population who might never even see anything close to "peak earnings" that they wish to ever see in their lifetime. It's indeed sad to sometimes read that $50k or $60k is now considered a comfortable middle-class salary when that salary level is lower than what I earned when I started out two decades ago. Is there any surprise why the younger generations suffer? But have we come to a point where there are simply too many people chasing too few good jobs?

PPS -- If there's any takeaway, it is that young people need to be a lot more aggressive in their career building because, guess what, once you're pass mid 30s, you'll mostly settle into a pattern, and your "peak earning" salary level will taper off at a much lower level than you would otherwise wish it to be. If you're unable to get the rapid rise before you reach mid 30s, you're somewhat doomed. Yes, sad, but mostly true.

PPPS -- Managing properties is not hassle free, and it's not for everyone. Some people hate that. More people delegate it to realtors which I don't do because no realtors or management agent will really care about the properties except tenants complain or roof collapse or something. No one will give a damn about the well-being of the properties better than the owner.