Cheng's Corner - 钟氏角落

How to Enable Education?

2010-04-10T10:04:00.001+08:00

Well, I must confess that pretty much of the following has been written well in advance and kept in my archive unpublished. However my view has not changed in such a way that invalidates their contents. So here you go...

What is the difference between education and going to school? Let's hear from Frank Lloyd Wright...

Education has been unrealistic.
Education has not seen the nature of the thing we needed as a people.
Education has not provided enlightenment. It’s provided conditioning
By way of books, by way of what has been, by way of the past,
By the habituation of the human species to date.
And it hasn’t taken the views of the men who are capable of looking beyond
and seeing what the nature of the thing was.
What is the nature of this thing we’re in.
Now that’s the grace(?) of seeing in, not seeing at.
And all education today is a seeing at.
- Transcript by Lila Rajiva

In education, there is more to mere literacy (i.e. reading, writing and counting). It includes within its contents the way of life, beliefs and spirituality. It could be as practical as how to maintain one's cleanliness; or as abstract as adopting cleanliness as a way of life, as exhibited by Shinto. Through education, one obtains the tools - skills - and the ability to yield control over them. The lack of the latter probably explains why there are people who are very smart but nevertheless commit themselves to white collar crimes. But it could be as subtle as one's being blinded by "logic and reasoning", instead of realizing that it is a tool that one can choose to heed or disregard.

The scope of education is wide indeed. To make things complicated, different people have different beliefs and capabilities. My religious practice may be different from yours; I may be bad at drawing which is your forte. The possible combination of these qualities is almost limitless.

How to educate people under these circumstances? Centralization is the norm today, but it is evident that there are problems due to its one-size-fits-all nature. Besides, telling people what God to pray (or whether to pray at all), as in some "official policies", or what language to speak, are hardly conducive to peaceful coexistence of different kinds of people. Pacifists are likely to be concerned with nationalist teachings that exist in virtually all "national syllabi" that puts undue emphasis on "pride".

This is the non-economic problem of centralized education that I'd like to bring out. I don't have to cover the more comprehensive and economic side of the problem, since Milton Friedman has poured his talent over decades into analyzing the problem, and this article summarizes his points. My specific points on his article is available here. There are many ways of committing education to the forefront of national priority, while still leaving freedom for parents to decide and participate in the education of their children. Here's what I've thought up a couple of years ago:

The Ministry of Education will be substantially dissolved. Its existence is substantiated only be several new programs that will be instituted, as described below.

Separation of Government and Educational Institutions
The Constitution is to expressly prohibit the Government, at any level, to operate educational institutions and to promote non-objectively verifiable subjects such as moral-civic education, and history. The Government is liable to dissolution upon such a breach.

In preparation for the dissolution of the Ministry, government-operated schools and other educational institutions will be corporatized. The ownership of the institutions will be transferred from the Government to the Boards of Trustees of the respective institutions. Along with the dissolution of Central Bank and the Sovereign Wealth Fund, some of the proceeds will be distributed to these institutions as endowments.

Council of Education
A national council pertaining to basic education will be set up and named “Council of Education”. The Council will deal with basic education, i.e. education that a person undertakes to achieve functional literacy, and includes first undergraduate degree.

Any registered society or company with a substantial business in education, or interested person, is welcome to join the Council, although not compulsory. The Council itself operates as an incorporated, non-profit organization, with the state and federal Governments providing some financial support, but otherwise is financed by the civil society.

One of the most important agenda of the Council is to coordinate national educational effort. These include inter-alia organizing regular dialogues and special workshops towards such an effort, setting of standards and examinations, reaching out to such interested parties as parents and foreign educational institutions, and coordinating the country’s educational project with international organizations.

The Council will also undertake the collection of statistics, both to support its effort and to the benefit of the public; …

Education Voucher
Financially, the largest program administered by the new Ministry of Education is the Education Voucher (EV) program, which represents well over 90% of its planned expenditure.

An EV entitles the holder to spend on education in various ways. The most common way is to use EV to pay for tuition; shortfall would have to be borne by the holder (or his guardians), and unrealized value of EV can be carried forward by placing the EV into Edusave Account. Other permissible expenditures include, but not limited to, purchase of books (subject to certain limits), paying tuition of foreign educational institutions (ditto), and attending enrichment courses.

A table of apportioning entitlement is drawn up for the purpose of distributing EVs. The entitlement is apportioned to a pre-determined rate, typically expected expenditure of a primary school student. The apportionment schedule is as follows:

Let the Standard Rate be $2,500. Hence, a 13-year-old student will receive 100% of entitlement, or $2,500 per year; a 19-year-old student will receive 75% of full entitlement, or $1,875 per year; and a 35-year-old worker will receive 10% of full entitlement, or $250 per year; and so forth.

Using the population structure from 2001 to 2008, the expenditure on EV would be as follows (amounts in $ millions):

The expenditures are comparable to what the Ministry of Education has actually spent over the years. However, the Ministry did not cover adult learners in its budget, nor senior citizens. A comparatively large bureaucracy is needed to administer the existing system, adding considerable overhead to total expenditure.

Does Najib Need Economics Revision?

2010-04-03T02:02:00.001+08:00

Does Najib need a session of economics revision? I can't help but to laugh upon seeing his wish of

a Malaysia that would make a quantum leap from the current US$7,000 (RM23,100) per capita annual income to US$15,000 (RM49,500) in 10 years.

His intention is indeed noble enough. I'm not looking down upon Malaysia's ability to get itself into the US$15,000 per-person annual income league, nor belittle-ing Najib's making this his important goal. What is dubious is, in fact, the level of US$15,000. Why that figure instead of some others?

There's a good thing about modern economy. It grows over a long period of time. You don't see that in an agrarian economy; the farmer son is going to do just as well as his farmer father (and no more), and both of them are under the complete mercy of nature (and perhaps invading army). Not so for the past 300 years; in the 20th Century alone, the world economy grew at a rate of, perhaps, 2% per year. Or shave a bit off and settle for 1.5%. For the 2% case, the annual income perhaps grew seven-fold over the century. The 1.5% case still afforded a respectable 4.5 times growth in income over the century. Certainly not bad compared to the relative stagnation since the dawn of human civilization!

Do not forget that within that hundred years a lot of things happened. There were plenty of wars - from the two World Wars, the Chinese Civil War, the "Cold War"... right up to the Persian Gulf conflict. There were genocides. There were nuclear explosions. We have plenty of natural disasters. Yet in the end, we see that tremendous growth in income and more importantly, the standard of living.

So I won't look at the recent recession too pessimistically. We'd probably get over it (and some say it's over). The economy will grow. The Asian economy will grow. The European economy will grow. And of course, the U.S. economy will grow.

Do I miss something...? Yes, they will grow! With economic growth, income will increase. (Of course, how to divide the economic pie is another question, and I won't say anything about it, here.) Yet the PM is setting a static target!

You might say, well, perhaps our PM, being an "economist" (an economics major is ipso facto an economist huh?), has already taken growth into account. He is projecting into the future using an appropriate growth rate. So leave it at that lah. Why make so much noise?

Well, in order to answer this, we must first be clear of something. The PM uses a dollar figure. Have you heard of something call "inflation"? Inflation distorts the sense of income (and a lot of other things) because the currency, being a unit of measurement, loses value over time. (The ruler gets shorter over time!) Now you have to be clear about the difference between "price" and "value". In Warren Buffett's words, "Price is what you pay, and value is what you get." He's using it in a different context, but I hope you appreciate the difference between the two terms.

Income has value. Prices itself has not. When we refer to our income as being "2,000 ringgit a month" or "5,000 dollars a month" we are just expressing the value of our income in terms of "ringgit" and "dollar", respectively, the two being units of value. You might as well say "700kg of rice per month". Since everyone understands 2,000 ringgit and you are also being paid in ringgit, it makes much more sense for you to express your income in terms of ringgit, naturally.

What can you say now? Oh, inflation eats away my purchasing power; I spend more this year compare to the last, but my living standard is about the same. But if I suggest to you that for the same amount of money you can buy a much more capable PC next year compare to this, you would probably say "yes". It is also possible that something that is completely impossible today can be made next year, and you are going to buy it in huge quantities!

We can see at this point that the measurement of income is not a straightforward process. It is rather nasty, if you like. The terms "income" and "inflation" are actually abstract concepts! If you think this is rather confusing and difficult (due to the nature of the problem and not, I hope, my inability to express the ideas clearly...), you are not alone. In fact, that explains why there are so many economists around and there are so much arguments within the fraternity. If the issue is settled, a lot of economists would be out of a job.

How do we measure income over time, then? Economists devised something call price indices ("indices" is the plural of "index"), and that could be used to provide a better measure of purchasing power in terms of ringgit (or other currencies). An index can be as simple as expressing the series of numbers in terms of a starting year; this is done by dividing the number in the series by the starting year's figure. So if I have a series (100, 200, 300, 400, 500), and I let 100 to be the base figure and "normalize" it to 1, the corresponding index would be (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). There are also weighted indices; there are a number of measurements for a given year, and some are given more importance compared to others.

This might sound very confusing, but the idea is simple. You see all the indices in action on a day-to-day basis! The Consumer Price Index (CPI, a measure of inflation), the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI), the S&P 500, the Human Development Index... are all indices. They provide a more meaningful measure of a subject in question, be it the general price level, inflation, general level of stock market, or standard of living. (This is a good point of explaining why I use "corresponds to" when it is convenient to use "is". Abstract concepts - "income, price level" - and measurements - "CPI, dollar" - are not one and the same! So it is better to set things straight, rather than to ignore the subtle difference, only to get hopelessly confused.)

We have covered the issue of growth and measurement in some detail, albeit very crudely; let's get to the PM's point. He hopes for a per-capita income level of US$15,000, isn't it? Now, what is the current per-capita National Income for U.S. today? Roughly $40,000 in 2009, using 2009 as base Consumer Price Index; so this corresponds to "real income", with adjustment to inflation, rather than "nominal income", or just by stating measured income as-is. We will use 2009 as base CPI throughout our discussion. This is very crude and imperfect, because the component used in calculating the CPI actually changed over time. But this is better than no yardstick at all. I'll also tell you how I get those figures later.

(If you still can take it, or are still confused, take note of this: "National Income" is a term used in the National Income Accounting System, where Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Product (GNP) and National Income are lines in the financial statements. So "national income" is actually not the same as "Income", but corresponds to it!)

$40,000 is nearly 6 times Malaysia's per-capita income, if you haven't figured out! It's quite a while ago that U.S. per-capita income is $7,000, and even $15,000. The table below will tell you when.

(Click the image to enlarge.) It's between 1941 and 1951. I have no idea when the U.S. per-capita National Income is exactly $15,000, but we do know that the corresponding figure in 1951 is $16,000, and that was surely a long while ago!

Time to pause and tell you where those figures are from. The National Income figures are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, under the U.S. Department of Commerce. The national population figures are from the U.S. Census Bureau. The original (1982-4 = 100) CPI series are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. What about the CPI (2009 = 100) and per-capita income figures? For the former, I just normalized the 1982-4 series so that 2009 shows a value of 100. The per-capita figures are just, well, the U.S. national figures divided by the corresponding U.S. national population figures. Strictly speaking, what I do with the original statistics are not permissible if serious analysis is to be done further. But since we are not doing any serious analysis, but only to get a sense of perspective, we might as well loosen our belt and have a bit of fun!

Can the sense of 1950s America be taken seriously? Well, we can appeal to the condition of an average American family in the 1950s. The family may have a two- or three-room house, often in the suburb, with at least a bathroom. Telephone, radio, fans, refrigerator, washing machines, ovens and other like appliances were a-plenty, though television, computer and the Internet were still unaffordable and in the case of the Internet, non-existent. The husband works and the wife looks after the domestic household and her three children. Her children were expected to live 68 years. The husband may afford a car. Socialization were mainly gatherings in the house, or dinner and movie outside. Of course, discrimination were still rampant (Brown v Board of Education was in 1954) and a lot of things and culture have not yet been introduced. But by now we have a pretty good sense of the quality of life of an average U.S. person. (Oh, how good if one can take the average of a gentleman and a lady!)

The Americans have since gone far. Information about their standard of living today is widely available, and I won't repeat it here, other than the per-capita National Income figure above. And true enough, the gap between the standard of living of Malaysia, and the United States (and pretty much of the developed nations) is wide today. Now figure this: the world economy is going to grow for the next ten years, and the developed economies are surely not going to be left out. By then what would be the U.S. per-capita National Income? $45,000, $60,000 or $80,000? We would not make an estimate here (for obvious reasons) and in my opinion it is not worth making.

So, what's is our PM's sense of $15,000? Real term or nominal term? What is the base year? What would the rates of inflation and technological progress would be?

Only he or his advisers could answer those questions. Instead, I would conclude by showing you a few propositions of differing enormity.

The first is the growth rate we need to have in order to attain a per-capita National Income of $15,000, starting from 2008 till 2020, in nominal terms and today's ringgit. We assume that the ringgit-USD exchange rate is going to be constant all the way till 2020. The per-capita Gross National Income of Malaysia in 2008 is $6,970. By doing some math, you will get a required growth rate of 6.6% per annum.

However, if we were to attain a per-capita national income of $40,000, or roughly the U.S. standard today, and other things being the same, the Malaysian per-capita National Income would have to grow at 15.7% per annum. This is even better than the Four Little Dragon's during the heydays of 1970s and 1980s!

Now the more sobering one. If the U.S. per-capita National Income does grow at 2.5% all the way to 2020, the figure would be $52,500 at 2020. If we do play catch-up, our per-capita National Income would have to grow at 18.3% per annum. Anyone?

Now, I would have to tell you that the $6,970 figure I used is the nominal figure. This is pretty close to the PM's suggestion of $7,000. The Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) figure (see the Big Mac Index for an idea; I have also made similar suggestions when discussing about fuel subsidy two years back.) is about $14,000. Well, well -- where is there to grow if the figure is already at $14,000? $1,000 surely is plenty of room, and for a good ten years!

So what is the point of the idea that our PM is selling? There is growth, but apparently the end product is far behind the standards of developed economies; ambiguous wording that sounds grand and inspiring, but will be dampened upon close examination; and I suspect his vision would get even more unpalatable when equity of income is taken into account. What an un-exciting ending huh?

Live Long and Compound Decently

2010-03-23T01:59:00.000+08:00

It is a shame that I could have forgotten this blog - but I did eventually return! Since I do not have something ready to write, might as well pick something that I already have...

If you're not in a hurry, then the graph finds you well. It is a graph linking initial and final capital in terms of investment period and compounded rate of return. (Click the image to enlarge.) On the horizontal axis is the required number of years, and the vertical axis, the required compounding rate. The various curves indicate various final capital amounts in terms of multiples of initial capital.

How to read this graph? Let's say you'd like to triple your capital. So, you look for the dark blue line, which is 300%. If you want triple your money in a year, you'd have to earn 200% per year on your capital (with the initial 100%, you'd have 300% of your initial capital). If you need five years, the required return rate would be about 25% per year compounded, and so on.

The graph is rather hard to read, so I'd appended the table below that is used to construct the graph.

Click on the table to enlarge. As you can see clearly, the figures are very large when the required period is short, but drop off dramatically as the time frame gets longer. In fact, most of the figures are attainable by just holding on to low-return assets and a reasonable time frame.

Combined with the stylized fact that the greater the amount of capital employed, the lower the return it could be achieved, i.e. diminishing return; we could see that that a high absolute return rate and a short period of time is not conducive to a successful investment program. Instead, it is more favorable to have an above-average return rate compounded over a long period of time. Indeed, a single-figure compounded return can build up a respectable amount of capital over a long period!

It is fitting to end by quoting Ben Graham, that "[t]o achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior investment results is harder than it looks." A key to successful investment program is that one establishes the two conditions - above-average compounded return rate and long periods of time - from which he could work.

An Interview with the Mayor of Brunei (1)

2009-09-19T01:59:00.000+08:00

Interviewer: Good morning, it is my pleasure meeting you. Thank you for granting us an interview.

Mayor: Good morning! I hope you enjoy your stay in the State of Brunei, and that this interview may satisfy your curiosity concerning the working of Brunei.

Interviewer: Brunei is certainly the most pleasant place to stay; where else could I find skyscrapers in the midst of a forest? However I am not quite used to the food...

Mayor: [laughter] I understand; this is not the first time people say this to me! To address your first point, once upon a time Brunei was just like any other city in your country right now, with lots of roads, concrete and all that - trees were scarce! But as we developed the Integrated Land Transit System (ILTS), it gradually reduced the demand for road, so much that we removed most of the roads and plant trees in place of them!

Concerning the food, well, I do understand that life without meat can be hard for foreigners, as they had lived with it for so many years. But it is our principle that animal life is on an equal footing with human's, and there should be no discrimination between the two.

Interviewer: But life is surely less enjoyable without eating meat...

Mayor: [laughter] I can't comment on this as I had not tasted meat before. However, I think enjoyment is a matter of tastes and preferences. We tend to think of things foreign to us as absurd and false, or at least presumed to be so; and attach all sorts of connotations to it. Perhaps the absence of such a presumption enables Brunei to grow much faster than the rest of the world - 2.7% per year for the past 600 years - as we do not cling to unjustifiable ideas! To be specific, I had heard of the claim that not eating meat weakens one's body; but I'd have to plead the fact that Bruneians are the world's longest-living people by a considerable margin!

Well, Bruneians are generally guilty of not responding to such claims as 'meat encourages health' - such responses are not integral to our prosperity!

Interviewer: But surely extending the prohibition of eating meat to foreigners in Brunei is detrimental to your economy?

Mayor: Well, I'd have to admit that it reduces opportunity to trade with the rest of the world. But so much of Brunei's demand can only be met internally; the rest of the world is, pardon me if you would, too primitive to produce most kinds of goods and services Bruneians demand. On the contrary, the rest of the world is greatly hurt by failure to trade with Brunei, since it fails to grab the fruits of Bruneian research and ingenuity.

Sorry if I appear to be snobbish, but I'm not sure if that addresses your question.

Interviewer: [laughter] I don't mean to criticize you in return, but you say that in the face of Bruneian prosperity. Let's say if Bruneians are not that prosperous, would the ban on eating meat on foreigners still be enforced? Or you would trade the ban for more trade?

Mayor: If you do a little math using the growth rate I talked about earlier and the present per-capita annual income of Brunei, you would see that the corresponding figure 600 years ago is less than $10. That is very low indeed, compared to its contemporaries! But nevertheless the ban was maintained, and most Bruneians remain vegetarian. There were quite a few who left, though, and we felt sorry for them.

We prospered in the face of this. It's not an overnight process; it took us decades to catch up with the rest of the world, Bruneians being slow learners. But we never looked back since then. Today our average family is quite a bit wealthier and more productive than some nations on earth.

It is a matter to generate wealth, but another to keep it. I believe humans generally are not lacking in the former, but it is the latter that differentiates Bruneian approach from the rest of the world. The key is discipline and self-restraint. The two qualities are imparted upon us mainly through our practices of not eating meat. I'm sure you understand the urge to eat meat is hard to resist indeed!

Interviewer: That all sounds very well; but why Brunei still maintains weapons of mass destruction? Isn't that contradictory?

Mayor: Yes, and we are sorry. But one does have to remember that he is living in a world with other irrational people. It is plausible that one day, we may see situations that it is far worse to survive than to die. Think of enslavement, for example. We would rather die with the rest of the world than to see ourselves in the kind of situation I mentioned earlier. In any case, the weapon is in the form of our fusion reactors, which upon release of reaction control, would release energy sufficient to destroy the earth several times over. So there should be no worries!

Interviewer: But it is very paternalistic that Brunei gains an upper hand in determining the fate of human race!

Mayor: It is also possible to interpret the situation the other way around: by failing to develop, the rest of the world has forfeited its right share in determining the fate of human race! [laughter] Well, I am just joking. But we have nothing to gain and all to lose if the weapon is ever to be used.

By the way, you'd have to realize something, that reasoning does not work in all situations!

[To be continued...]

Two Cabinets Side by Side

2009-05-13T01:05:00.007+08:00

	Malaysia	Singapore
Prime Minister	Bachelor's degree in industrial economics, University of Nottingham [1]	Master of Public Administration, Harvard University
		Diploma in Computer Science, University of Cambridge (equivalent to a Master's degree)
		BA (First Class Honors), University of Cambridge [2]

Deputy Prime Minister	Bachelor's degree in Economics and Malay Studies, University of Malaya [3]	(1) MBA, London Business School
		BA (Hons), University of Singapore
		Diploma in Business Administration, University of Singapore [4]

		(2) Master of Science (Computing Science), Imperial College of London
		Bachelor of Science (First Class Honors), UMIST [5]

Minister for Finance	Bachelor's degree in industrial economics, University of Nottingham [1]	Master of Public Administration, Harvard University
		MPhil (Economics), University of Cambridge
		BSc (Economics), London School of Economics [6]

Minister for Education	Bachelor's degree in Economics and Malay Studies, University of Malaya [3]	Master in Medicine (Surgery), National University of Singapore
		M.B., B.S., National University of Singapore [7]

Minister for Defence	PhD in Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia	Master of Science (Computing Science), Imperial College of London
	BA, University of Malaya [8]	Bachelor of Science (First Class Honors), UMIST [5]

Minister for Foreign Affairs	Bachelor's degree in "philosophy, economics and law", University of Buckingham [9]	MBA, Harvard Business School
		MEng and BA, University of Cambridge [10]

Source:

http://www.pmo.gov.my/?menu=page&page=1926

http://www.cabinet.gov.sg/CabinetAppointments/Mr+Lee+Hsien+Loong.htm

http://www.silobreaker.com/biography-for-muhyiddin-yassin-5_2260541707743395840_4

http://www.cabinet.gov.sg/CabinetAppointments/Mr+Wong+Kan+Seng.htm

http://www.cabinet.gov.sg/CabinetAppointments/Mr+Teo+Chee+Hean.htm

http://www.cabinet.gov.sg/CabinetAppointments/Mr+Tharman+Shanmugaratnam.htm

http://www.cabinet.gov.sg/CabinetAppointments/Dr+NG+Eng+Hen.htm

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/10/18/nation/20081018171015&sec=nation

http://www.kln.gov.my/fm/

http://www.cabinet.gov.sg/CabinetAppointments/Mr+George+Yong-Boon+Yeo.htm

Some Thoughts

2009-05-05T04:00:00.003+08:00

Do you believe in fate and destiny? Some believe fate is pre-determined, hence logical determinism will run its course, and we just have to live along. Some believe spontaneity plays a part in the course of determination, that one's decision over time will pre-dominantly determine eventual outcome.

It is very tempting for one to delve into such philosophical a topic and find the answer. More often than not, however, one gets lost along the way, leaving oneself worse off than before one began. Moreover, it might be that one need not understand such a topic to live a good life.

Some thoughts have led me to the latter conclusion. Many people figured correctly that I like to get philosophical. However the truth is that I am not good at philosophy. My reasoning ability, contrary to public opinion, is basic at best. Conviction, rather than strict reasoning, drives me more often than not. Whether by course of nature or deliberate action, my efficiency in learning has been slowly declining.

However, I have no fear to reading. I do know that I can always better myself, albeit slowly over time.

Now, compare the down factors and the up factors. It is immediately obvious that, if length counts, odds are against my favor. I have no luck.

But reading can do many good things. First of all, by reading others' works, I can let others think for me. I do not have to go through the same painful process of expending much energy to get the same conclusion and corollary. Secondly, reading begets reading. Reading a material, one inevitably comes across pointers that say "there is such and such a work worth exploring further." Going after that work, one will find pointers again. And so forth.

Of course going after the pointers requires effort. Sprints won't do. Marathon is the key. It is easy to exhibit interest in reading, but hard to maintain. Being slow is not an impediment in reading. Knowledge compounds. One maintains his pace, and invariably he will understand more and more over time. The process is geometrical, not linear. And that is a big plus.

And so is accumulating capital. Knowledge is but one form of capital. In a monetized economy, one needs a commodity known as money to purchase material needs, so money is important. However money is not everything. Many people had basic understanding concerning this tenet, but not profound understanding.

The best way to achieve such profound understanding is reading and thought. There is no substitute I can think of.

But are reading and thinking substitutes? To some extent I think so. Reading reduces one's need to think intensely. However, "annealing" is always up to oneself.

On another note, I can't help but be skeptical about my ability to predict the future. How I would thought such and such things happened within the span of a year? In this respect, I must demonstrate no symphathy for extensive forecasting.

However, comparing present situations of different parties is useful. One needs only existing information, not conjectures. Discrepancy between the situations signals the need for action or inaction, depending on the case.

One very good application of this technique is Ben Graham's "margin of safety" principle. One needs to ascertain not future performance but present states. Note though, that the current situation incorporates conjecture. Again applying the principle, the key is conservatism. Conservatism is the "discrepancy" concerned. Generally, the greater the discrepancy the better.

Which brings us back to the question whether to delve into "philosophy". Though not exceptionally good at reasoning, basic logic applied well goes a long way. Reading helps, so does compounding. These are excellent leverage, and one can use those to his advantage.

You might wonder why I painted such a gloomy picture. The truth is (now I'm speaking about the truth, hmm) it is always a good policy to know one's limit and stay within the boundary. Pushing one's limit is good, but going over it is not. Confusion of the two brings disaster most of the time. I can't help but be wary of preachers that declare there is no limit to what one can do.

Romantic Insurance and Finance, Inc.

2009-02-15T16:02:00.001+08:00

Warning: You don't seriously believe this, do you? :P

Prologue
There is almost unanimous agreement that we live in an era of innovation, fast change and considerable volatility. This is true in the field of romance, marriage and family. New forms of romantic relationship are emerging. Divorce rate has increased. Financial aspects of life has taken on greater significance.

Despite such trends, financial innovations failed to cater to this area. It is with considerable vision and courage that a group of people, armed with degrees in financial engineering, political engineering and social engineering, decide to enter this field, and revolutionize romantic and domestic relationship through technology and finance.

Marriage Insurance
The idea of marriage insurance is not new; its history traces back to Elizabethan England, but had not been underwritten since. Capitalizing on the improved technology, actuarial techniques and ready availability of statistics, XYZ's insurance division offers a range of marriage insurance for a wide range of clientele, from the orthodox to the flamboyant. There are two types of marriage insurances: straight policy and reverse policy.

Straight policy is targeted at married couples, and in the event of their divorce, the company will pay the charges and alimony, in return of premium prior to the breakup. Its operation is similar to other insurance operations. However, a major difference is that governments will comprise the majority of customers. Not that governments will engage in marriage, but that countries with low marriage rates can engage the company to offer nationwide coverage and a reasonable per-couple premium rate. This could provide greater incentives for people in such countries to marry.

Reverse policy is targeted at parents and children. The insurance company will offer reduced premium for children's life insurance in return for children's promise not to enter marriage and conceive children; failure to do so will result in substantial liquidated damages and a loss of reduced rates. The parents would act as trustees, which is believed to provide strong incentives to prevent their children from engaging in undesirable behavior. In addition to profit-generating activities, the company enhances social welfare.

Securitization of Marrying Agents
Marriage is currently a protracted and time-consuming process, not to say expensive. Business dealings have to be interrupted. Significant value of dowries change hand. Families literally engage in barter. In other words, marriage carries significant transaction cost.

Securitization of marrying agent - the bride and the bridegroom - substantially eliminates transaction cost. A special type of legal person would be created on behalf of the client and be listed in the primary market; in addition to the client, the legal person could incorporate such dowries as shares, houses or cash. Such arrangements could be made well in advance, even before the client's birth (but after conception). The asset management company also offers various funds instruments for parents to save and invest dowries for their child, and to engage in advertising campaigns.

The legal person could be reconciliated with the marrying agent upon marriage; the dowries would be accordingly transferred and other pre-arranged transactions made. The client could also retain the legal person shall he or she find marriage a convenient but temporary arrangement, for such purposes as tax minimization or other governmental benefits. A secondary market of legal persons is expected to be lively considering such activities. When the client no longer desire to remain associated with his or her existing spouse, he or she could list the legal person on the secondary market.

Relationship Futures and Other Derivatives
Well wishes are well intentioned, but are nothing more than intangibles. So does jealousy arising out of romantic rivalry. With such advanced instruments as marriage swaps and other derivative instruments, such wishes, well or ill alike, could be reduced to material form, to the benefit of couples, well-wishers and ill-wishers.

The XYZ marriage instruments division will underwrite derivative contracts for such wide range of clients. The most basic form of derivatives use married state of a couple as underlying asset. The contract could originate from either the well-wishers or the ill-wishers. It is cash-settlement only, and has no notional value. More sophisticated contracts have such features as pricing points. The wishers could then actually engage materially in backing their wishes through purchase of such instruments. It is the most visible way of supporting or threatening the couple, in line with capitalistic concepts of profit and loss.

A Basket of Spouse(s)
Some people would not want to get married for various reasons: inexperienced and too shy; unwilling to remain committed for a long time; afraid of being cheated; in perpetual search for strategic marriage; and so on. The gospel of diversification will cater to these people well. Although they had no chance of "beating the neighbors", risk and statistically-significant unhappiness will be eliminated.

The marriage with a basket of spouse(s) serves such diversification effort well. It is not as simple as purchasing a mutual fund, but nevertheless still simple relative to the process of orthodox marriage. An entity call "Special Relationship Vehicle" will be incorporated for the client in need of diversified marriage. The client could choose from a wide variety of baskets, ranging from an all-encompassing basket, in which every kind of people is represented, to the more exotic kinds of profile, such as spendthrifts or even non-humans.

The purchase entitles the client to a timeshare of certain services, such as childbirth and romantic undertakings. However, the client would have to have at least 1.0 unit of the former, or 0.5 hours of the latter, before he or she could redeem the actual commodity. Nevertheless, clients who have preference for such activities could still utilize this instrument as an attractive short-term arrangement while looking for longer-term ones.

Prospects for XYZ
The company faces a very bright future. There is presently no operator in the field in which XYZ desires to operate, nor it anticipates in the immediate future. Liberation and liberalization of mindsets will substantially aid the company's undertakings. Conservatism of most businesses will afford the company a significant and sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore and in addition to its strong financial capability, the company does not intend to invite external investors, although is willing to engage in join ventures, both with private and public sector operators.

Workers Need a Minimum Wage Now?

2008-12-09T00:41:00.001+08:00

It's available here. Anyway, I'll reproduce it in full below. Haven't done a critique for a long time!

THE POOR do not need perpetual handouts that make us feel good about ourselves, but which do nothing for their next generation, and the generation after them. We need policies that work for them.

No comments about that. Just a remark: "Policy" is just another word for "government intervention".

One such policy, which I believe is long overdue, is a minimum wage framework. Because when we allow companies to pay pittance, we demean the work of another’s hands.

Who allows companies to pay pittance? Which company? If you do know which companies pay pittance, you have the right (and perhaps self-imposed duty) to boycott their products.

It's worth repeating the last section here in order to see more clearly what the author has "argued". Let's see:

One such policy, which I believe is long overdue, is a minimum wage framework. Because when we allow companies to pay pittance, we demean the work of another’s hands. By allowing it to go on for as long as it has, we have inevitably demeaned their personhood. And we continue to scorn their dignity by saying that they are not worth that much. We say to them that they are negligible. That they are of little, or no value at all.

In the first place, the author originally wants to demonstrate why a minimum wage policy works for the betterment of the poor. Towards the end, however, the author "concludes" that "We say to them that they are negligible. That they are of little, or no value at all." I think that's a very far cry from what the author originally wants to argue.

Secondly, let's analyze the author's argument structure. "When we allow companies to pay pittance", it does not follow that "we demean the work of another's hands" - there is no proximity between the two events. Following that, the author introduces a new premise on our behalf - that we are "saying that they are not worth that much", so on and so forth. In the end, the author concludes that "They are of little, or no value at all".

In short, the passage is not admissible as a piece of argument. It is a piece of rhetoric.

Minimum wage is not an "ideal policy". It is a necessary policy that must be put in place to act as a check and balance on capitalism, which left unregulated will and has manifested in uncontrolled greed, where the poor cannot afford a RM3.50 meal, and the rich pay RM200,000 for a two-seater sofa set.

What does "ideal" mean? I'm not trying to unduly criticize the author, but to point out to you that "ideal" is a slippery concept. In economics, when one speaks of an "ideal" policy, he normally means one which does not distort people's behavior. The most quoted example is a lump-sum tax.

Secondly, the notion of a "necessary policy". The author claims that minimum wage is a necessary policy, but does not proceed to justify that claim. I'll do some homework for the author. Consider the statement "If minimum wage is not implemented, some undesirable outcomes will result." I take this to be the author's position. In order to demonstrate that minimum wage is "necessary" to prevent undesirable outcomes, the author must proceed prove the above statement. Unfortunately, the author did not do this in the article. As of the above, the author too did not demonstrate convincingly that a minimum wage policy works for the betterment of the poor.

So, I say to this government and to the Human Resources Ministry: For goodness sake, if you want to regulate something, regulate the right things. Impose a minimum wage now, because relying on the conscience of big business isn’t going to take the thousands of lowly paid workers out there very far.

Again, "right" and "conscience" are very slippery concepts. Again, the last statement is not an argument, but a piece of rhetoric, because the author does not demonstrate sufficiently the causality that "Impose a minimum wage now" follows from "relying on the conscience of big business isn’t going to take the thousands of lowly paid workers out there very far". If you are unsure why this is so, apply the analysis above in this case without loss of generality.

And please, stop mouthing ridiculous statements like "Implementing minimum wages is not feasible." Not feasible for whom? The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers? The Malaysian Employers Federation?

Is there an argument, anyone?

Jerit, an NGO that has been petitioning for a minimum wage since the 90s, recently launched a cycling campaign starting from Alor Star on Dec 3, culminating in the handover of a memorandum to the prime minister on Dec 18. Their goal is to raise awareness on the need for a minimum wage policy along the way. If you can’t cycle, go adopt a cyclist now at www.jerit.org .

It’s time to empower the poor, and to restore their dignity by affirming the worth of their labour.

That wraps up the article. Now it's time to have a little bit of economic lesson! Is it true that minimum wage will "empower" the poor by raising their wages?

What is true is that, when minimum wage is first imposed, the poor who are working will see their wages rise. The poor who do not work do not see wage increase (in fact, some in the group might have no income at all!).

What will happen after some time? Most people think that minimum wage will cause the poor to become richer, and that's all. If you're business-minded, or have done managerial accounting, you should know that cost will rise as long as the minimum wage is above the prevailing wage. Will you do nothing if you run a business? That's hardly sensible; you will start to look for ways to reduce cost - hire better educated and more productive workers, substitute machines for labor, or worse, go underground - hire illegal immigrants. Or perhaps move overseas; after all, China and Vietnam is nearby and their markets are far larger than Malaysia.

To put this in a graph of labor supply and demand, here it is (click to read the Wikipedia article):

The prevailing wage is the point marked "equilibrium", where supply and demand curves for labor intersect. If a minimum wage is set, demand for labor will drop, supply of labor would be greater as a result of higher wage, and unemployment would result.

Who will be left behind, in the end? The poor, who minimum wage is suppose to help! You might want to see this sad story in real action in the United States. It's nice (though unpleasant in reverberation) to wrap up with a video:

Institutionalization

2008-12-06T13:49:00.000+08:00

Well, forget about definitions as offered in journals or textbooks,

He’s just institutionalized…The man’s been in here fifty years, Heywood, fifty years. This is all he knows. In here, he’s an important man, he’s an educated man. Outside he’s nothin’ - just a used-up con with arthritis in both hands. Probably couldn’t get a library card if he tried…these walls are funny. First you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em. Enough time passes, it gets so you depend on ‘em. That’s ‘institutionalized’…They send you here for life and that’s exactly what they take, the part that counts anyway.

Succumbed to Temptation

2008-12-02T00:23:00.001+08:00

Well, normally I don't feel obliged to reply to tags, save for limited circumstances which coincidentally further my political objectives. Maybe today is such a case :P

RULE: Each player of this game starts off with 15 weird things / habits / little known facts about you. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 15 weird habits / things / little known facts as well as state this rule clearly. At the end, you need to choose 10 people to be tagged and list their names. NO TAG backs!

Strong warning: Read until the end! Half way through and you might lose a friend! :P Nevertheless, you might lose me even if you keep on reading anyway :P

My ambition was to become a Philosopher King.
That's a very long story, but I'll try to keep it short. The first novels I'd ever read all concern battles and domination of one over another. (Maybe two names will give you a hint: Water Margin and Three Kingdoms.) And the principles of life I perceive, unfortunately, to be that the superior has the duty to 'civilize' the inferior, and to eliminate evil people from this world, even this means the majority.
So I proceeded to read about nuclear weaponry, supposedly the most efficient way of killing people, and particularly that of neutron bombs, which kill people but leave physical resources intact, enable a hardened forces to capture these materials to manufacture even more weapons, effectively serving as force multiplier. From there, I studied existing companies that manufacture such weapons (e.g. Westinghouse Nuclear), and means to acquire them. Not too bad for a 10-year-old. And needless to say, my parents were not very impressed when I discussed production-line liquidation techniques over dinner.
Fortunately all such dreams of mine did not come true. But it might be, someday. *laughs evilly* :P
I didn't think Saddam Hussein is as bad as many people thought him to be.
I still don't think so.
My such subliminal motivation motivates me to do some seemingly incoherent things.
Warfare? Physics? Economics? Demography? Yea. You need to know all that to wage a total war. After all, knowing which kind of viruses to use against a certain stock of people ensures the most effective elimination.
I'm very good at rationalization.
No? Read the above again. The fact is, I'm interested in almost anything mechanical, not just weapons, but things from Apollo mission to my own A-TRV G4. And oh, what does set theory, logic, linguistics and investment share in common? Set theory is the foundation of mathematics, logic and mathematics are inseparable (if you believe in Russell the philosopher), linguistics is the study of rule-based language, and investment is one of the fields which reasoning plays a paramount role!

And I love to exaggerate, which unfortunately, almost always backfired. Why, last time, I told my friends, there's a rape case around here, and they screamed, without allowing me to continue, "the hill has been stripped of her trees, and shamelessly molested." T_T
There's in my opinion a more extreme case. Not "a", but "many". When I was 10, I used to sneak out of home and went around the island, which takes about four hours, under the pretext of "photocopying a textbook". Then upon return, I'll say, it's too bad but the machine broke down. .___.
By now, you should know what word to substitute for "rationalization" - l-y-i-n-g.
I want to be a recluse.
I had been criticized many times over my such (real) ambition, that I would become a social parasite. Sorry, but in my opinion, comparatively speaking, a socially active person might be more a parasite than a recluse. What's wrong in spending more time thinking and working rather than socializing and having fun? And, if you are too naive to believe that a recluse is someone who lay around and have nothing better to do: being a true recluse, who stays far away from the urban area, would spend far more than an ordinary urbanite to obtain a similar standard of living. It's a bit extreme, again, but consider Howard Hughes. I'm referring to the real one, not the "The Aviator" character.
无为, 非无所不为, 乃明诣天地之造化, 可守颜渊之贫, 亦可乘子贡之富而济世也!
Although I appear to admire nobody, but I do admire many heroes.
Perhaps that's so because, being like Frank Lloyd Wright, I am so narcissistic that I could never acknowledge my idolization of someone. But I do. Search my Facebook profile for some hints :P
I am very rebellious.
Huh? Yes, that's true. I appear to be a good boy because there's not much need for me to be openly rebellious these days. But I'm ready to flex my temper when needed to. As a certain philosopher said, we are compassionate people, but if needed, we will kill without blinking an eye. *winks*
The last 'war' lasted from 2003 till 2006, and its effects had been terrible. We still have not quite gotten over it even today. The source? Outright incompatibility in beliefs. The excuse? Something over my head.
Now everyone knows where to stop when talking with me. Period.
Well, it's much more than hair, just in case you wondered. That's just one of it. Remember how the British forces the rulers to accept "advisers"?
I don't have a driving license.
That's despite having driven bus at an age of 12, and got into my first accident at an age of 15, and designed comprehensively my first car somewhere in between.
Why? Well, the philosopher king will tell you, you don't have to get an ATP even if you own an AC-101. I will say frankly that it's a direct consequence of the 2003-6 war I mentioned.
Until now I still have no intention of falling in love.
Sad, but I'm sad to report that it's true. Maybe I'm too preoccupied by all the non-romantic undertakings; or perhaps I'm abnormal and need some estrogen therapy. [No~ Estrogen therapy will cause impotence! :P ] But just let me finish all the important stuff. If you're like me, you won't have mood to fall in love. Or the hormonic surge.
Perhaps this is strong enough to clear all the inquiries generated by my change of status in Facebook. I do know many people care for me, and I really appreciate it! :P
I am a vegetarian.
No, that's not why I have no desire for falling in love. These are some reasons. I asked to be a vegetarian by the age of 10, and over half in my family voted "Aye".
Sorry if my conviction has caused you much inconvenience! But sometimes, you just have to have the gut to uphold your conviction. Even more so over well-reasoned conviction.
Still believe I'm a Philosopher King? :P
I want to be a capital allocator and protector, but would only selectively discuss it.
Selectively, in the sense that I will selectively discuss with (i) people and (ii) the subject proper of investing. Not many people concur with the philosophy I'm having, but it doesn't matter. Nor does it matter whatever your thoughts towards my belief be, if it could not be conveyed to me through facts and reasoning. And speaking from experience, too many people just don't get the point even though it's very simple. And if you see I'm not interested, please stop prompting me for reply. I'd be obliged to hear from you though, if what you have to share is not too long.
I personally know a billionaire.
More than 'know', in fact.
Despite having said much, there is still much I wouldn't say.
Maybe it's my life experience that develops my tendency of "keeping something away". Aside from such facts as bank account password, there are still things I would not say. To my best belief (but I can't add "knowledge"), such withholding of information should not impede your full understanding of me. But asymmetric information always imply something I guess?
I'm still yet to get over it. I hope I can.
The last point means, even if I cherish friendship a lot, you probably won't notice it.

Now the climax. I fear two things.

Hello, anyone still there? True to my belief, rules are made to be broken, and I am glad to break it. I choose not to nominate anyone to continue this, for the time being :P

This and That

2008-11-27T15:10:00.003+08:00

Mark Twain is dead, Frank Lloyd Wright is dead, Bertrand Russell is dead, Benjamin Graham is dead, Milton Friedman is dead, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is dead, and I don't feel so well myself.

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Can Penang regain its former glory? 'Even' Singapore did it...

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国贼猖狂, 今虽有王以制之, 岂为长久之计耶!

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How to cure the economy?

Thanks to CD and Division of Labor for the cues :P

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If one does not understand something, and is aware of his lack of understanding, then according to Occam’s razor and principles of sound argument, one should say “I don’t know.” This is applicable to even someone wuth a Ph.D. in economics and is asked to comment about economic matters which his scope is too limited.

State of Eng Aun - Continued

2008-11-06T16:40:00.003+08:00

It is true that the Eng Aun ten years ago is not the same as the Eng Aun today. Perhaps it is for the better, but there is plenty of evidence that it is for the worse. Or perhaps not in terms of better or worse, but in degree of conforming with the norms.

Here are some evidence. After completed their major exams or received university admission results, what will most bloggers do? They will blog about it. I guess this is almost without exception. What did I do? Here's a sample of my blog titles:

November 2005 [during/after STPM]

Light Pollution [okay, this one has scant remarks about the exam]
Parent Renting and Absent Letter Trading Co. [this one is absolute nonsense :P ]
Tan Sri, Do You Hear Me? [dreaming about Loh Boon Siew -.-" ]
Little Words over Many Subjects [rantings on psychology, economics etc.]

April 2006 [NUS admission results announced]

A Recall and Reflection [about investing]

July 2006 ['moving' to Singapore - or 'coming' or 'going' depending on your point of reference]

'State of Brunei' Detailed Description [apparent nonsense :P ]
New Books... [again, just scant remarks]

August 2006 [classes start]

Three Little Questions and Their Arguments [some nonsensical questions]
A Self-Defeating Realm? [worshiping the past -.-"]

In fact if you go on and inspect all the blog posts, almost none concerns things people would consider 'personal', such as career, study, stresses, etc. Having read a number of my friends' blogs, I am indeed the (only?) one not conforming to the norm.

What could explain such abnormality? Naturally, it is a hard question for me; I would presumably not be in my current state if I can answer that. But I do have a somewhat simple model to explain this. There are three important things in this model: My world view, my prejudices and my personal history. I know it's going to get unreadable again but do give me a chance...

My world view is radical. I tend to divide events or activities into two categories, namely 'mortal human affairs' and 'matters of great importance'. Mortal human affairs are those things that (appear to) have no lasting value, or do not contribute to lasting value; eating, having fun and gossiping are such examples. In contrast, 'matters of great importance' are those things that prove to be of lasting value. Principles or understanding of Nature, for example.

After some reflection, it appears to me that, although I tend to deny this fact, my upbringing and my exposure to a certain categories of books (and perhaps people) are instrumental in the shaping of my such world view. Maybe due to the fact that our family is not that materially resourceful (a.k.a. poor :P ), they tend to degrade the material side of life, while at the same time trying to let me have a sound knowledge foundation. Somehow, I managed to acquire a literati's view that one should not be concerned with wealth and possessions, but knowledge and understanding of Nature. Being a kid, so it seems.

The implication of such a view is that I behave very differently from 'the rest of the world'... Well, in this case, my peers. I never knew what is the best selling album of the time, or who is the Olympic medallist for such and such sports - in the latter case, my primary teacher obviously had a very hard time trying to make me memorize some of the names in preparation for the general knowledge competition - I managed to get something without memorizing names anyway... I did know the performance of AIM-54 Phoenix or the sayings of the Sixth Patriarch, though. Obviously one who dreams to be a benevolent despot of the world had to have an olive branch on one hand, and a bunch of arrows on the other :P

But such a vision came to a 'tragic end' around 2001. I'll let you find out more. Suffice to say that I had finally been awakened from the sleep, although until now I had never left the bed -.-" But I did rationalize and share Ben Franklin's view that economic success is a reflection and a by-product of spiritual success, and that I could comfortably accommodate both objectives.

So far things still had not gone on track. Even after the havoc wrought by the 2003 incident had not been cleared, and its effects linger on strongly. [Click 'find out more' above and scroll to the bottom; alternatively, contact me for details~]

Hmm, when will things go on track then? Or it is just a steady state that could not be reached?

State of Eng Aun - October 2008 - Continued

2008-10-29T20:15:00.003+08:00

This is a peculiar way of writing a blog - I actually wrote the following on paper, and then type it. The reason is one of preference and another of necessity - preference, that I decided to try out writing as a way of organizing my thought; necessity, that I am in the Chinese Library and there is no computer around :P

You might have noticed that I had locked the previous post. Actually, my reason of locking the post is not because I do not want you to read it. I did it to explore the 'hurdle rate' of my posts. If you are not familiar with CAPM and consequently the term 'hurdle rate', well, it refers to the rate of return an investment must generate to make such an investment worthwhile; otherwise, one might as well put the money in the general stock market. Put it in my context, locking the post might be too high a hurdle rate; so I decided to lower it a bit by giving you the password, "churchill". Let's see what will happen :P

To turn to the topic proper. My experience of the past few months makes me feel regret of not listening to wise men's words, particularly Ben Graham's. He said that an enterprising investor must view his investment operation as a quasi-business. A business must be paid full attention if it is to have a chance of success. Although being interested in investing, I was half-committed - until a few months (weeks?) ago which I started to devote considerably greater attention. Time is the ultimate constraint, of course; I find that even though I can live a thirty-hour day (15 hours awake follow by 15 hours of sleep), this won't allow me to make my day 'longer' in any meaningful sense. In fact it could make me worse off, which it did.

How much time I must spend to engage in this business? First of all, I would spend at least three hours a day reading news and reports. Reports are much more comprehensive and in-depth than news items, so one report a day is a considerable achievement. The sources are extremely diverse - just figure out how many reserve banks are there in the United States! Economic and commercial reports are but one area in which attention is to be paid; there are other equally important fields, such as legal and accounting, local and international politics, and if you want, mathematics and science. By now you might think, or ask whether, all those reports are useful in its form. The usual situation is that I will find one useful reports out of ten, or twenty. In other words, it is good not to miss out any relevant information, although some might ultimately proved to be useless.

So much about news and reports. Despite all of the above ranting, news and reports actually form only a minor portion of the reading. The bulk of the reading is on the tools of investment - the requisite knowledge. It is anything from accounting to management. Why do not I attend a business course instead? After all, such materials are studied in business course. I could not directly answer the question, but I can give some of my ideas regarding this. I'm not someone who maintains a 'balanced' or 'neutral' point of view; I buy into an idea wholeheartedly, or not at all. I would rather learn an idea thoroughly on my own, than to learn two ideas in passing, under someone. These are incompatible with prevalent 'balanced education' view, and I had been 'materially' hurt by my conviction (think of my grades). Nevertheless, I think my idea would stay with me for quite some time. Return from the digression; reading also requires me to compile to-read list and to seek other sources of references. The growth of items in the list is exponential, and I am quite skeptical about my ability to finish studying the materials within my lifetime. Nevertheless, this task I carry on at some five hours a day.

So far the two tasks had taken me at least eight hours a day. Now on top of that, add another heading call "reading company filings and reports". Sourcing for reliable information takes time. Reading the materials takes time. Making appropriate adjustments takes time. Deciding whether something is worth putting on a watch list takes expertise, meaning more time to perfect the skill. But after going through all that, when Mr Market knocks the door and proposes a term to buy or sell, it takes less than five minutes to make a decision. So much for that five minutes!

By now it is apparent that I had to do investment full time (if I had not been so convinced). There are a number of problems to be solved, though. First I had to learn enough and had the requisite skills. Alongside that I had to get capital to start off - cold hard cash, no borrowing. I too had to pay off any outstanding loans I have right now. Next I had to establish (or find my way to) the mechanisms and connections - know who to find when need to buy something, or get complicated stuff done, or when get into trouble. I had to keep my self alive, well clothed and fed, obviously - so far I had neglected this! Not to mention putting in place an effective internal control and supervision of capital, solving problems arising out of international operations (taxes, registration, ownership of asset etc.) etc.

Hope to hear a comment from you!

State of Eng Aun - October 2008

2008-10-20T21:01:00.000+08:00

The post is only available in Wordpress. Click here to read - thank you!

The Wealthy 100: Food For Thought

2008-09-27T18:02:00.000+08:00

Taken from The Wealthy 100: From Benjamin Franklin to Bill Gates, the afterword:

Afterword: Who Are the Wealthy 100?

These portraits offer a view of the diverse panorama of American wealth - from the merchants and landowners of the Revolution to the robber baron industrialists of the turn of the century to the whiz kids of Silicon Valley. The only rule for creating an American fortune is that there are no rules. Fortunes are not made by simple recipes, but there are some common characteristics of these individuals and their empires.

Most of the Wealthy 100 found their fortunes on the frontiers. It is there, rather than the clear and well-worn paths, where wealth is discovered or created. Some, like Elais Hasket Derby and other New England merchants, made perilous sea journeys to trade with China. Some, like William Andrews Clark and the Silver Kings, found wealth on the geographic frontiers of the mining camps of Montana or Nevada. Others, like James J. Hill or Wiliam Aspinwall, cut across unbroken territory to build the railroads or span the isthmus of Panama. Some built wealth by extending the frontiers of knowledge or invention - creating automobiles, aluminum, software, or computers. Some also pushed the limits of moral frontiers, stretching law and ethics in pursuit of fortunes. On each of these frontiers, they recognized opportunities. They drove forward brashly into these territories, for they knew wealth is not found by following the herd, but rather by finding a new direction.

Some of the great fortunes came from invention, but invention alone was not enough, as Eli Whitney, Charles Goodyear, and others learned. The Wealthy 100 often rode to success on a new innovation - the sewing machine, the automobile, the spinning mill, the personal computer - but many were not inventors. They were, instead, able to turn the inventions into commercial successes. It is clearly not enough to create the better mousetrap. The key is to find a way to capture the value generated from the invention - to get the world to beat a path to your door. This was the genius of marketing. Nowhere is it more apparent than in the story of Charles W. Post, who appeared to draw much of his early inspiration from his visit to the sanitarium run by the Kelloggs, and then beat them to the punch in taking healthy cereals and beverages to the market.

Once the frontiers are broken, when the footpaths became superhighways, the opportunities to create great wealth no longer existed. Once the cities such as New York, Cincinnati, or Chicago grew up, the opportunity was gone for an Astor, a Longworth, or a Field to buy farmland that would become the downtown. So, with each succeeding generation, old frontiers are civilized and new areas have to be found to conquer.

One characteristic almost all of the individuals in this book share is driving ambition. Sometimes this ambition was just to accumulate as much money as possible. At other times, it was directed toward accumulating power or building a successful enterprise. But it was this ambition and audacity that allowed them to pursue their goals and to survive the inevitable failures on the road to success. Also, this ambition allowed them to trample rivals, exploit employees, and ransack national treasuries.

They had extraordinary determination. Nowhere is this seen more vividly than in the story of Frank Woolworth. He suffered failure after failure as a salesman in retail stores. He couldn't even gold down a decent job. He was discouraged and broken. Yet he rebounded to create the five-and-ten and found one of the most successful retail chains in the nation. Then there is Samuel Colt, a talented inventor, whose concept of a revolver was turned down time and again by the military. But he didn't let go of the idea, and his six-shooter, with the encouragement of the Texas Rangers, became the standard issue in the West. This determination in the face of setbacks is a quality seen in almost all of the Wealthy 100.

Driving ambition was often linked to a broad vision or a daring plan. Some of the plans were nefarious, such as Jay Gould's scheme to corner the silver market or Rockefeller's plan to consolidate the oil business into his own hands. Others were just bold. Robert Dollar saw a worldwide shipping line, Edward Clark saw a sewing machine in every home, and Bill Gates envisioned personal computers transforming life and work.

One might think that these visionary, ambitious individuals would be loners, and a few were. But many of these fortunes were the result of effective collaborations. There were, of course, financial backers. There also were organizations that included a balance of personalities to realize the vision of the founder.

It is intriguing how many of the fortunes are the result of a combination of talents. Brothers such as the Mellons or the Dodges were like Siamese twins, living and working together, reading each other's thoughts. There were also the vinegar and water combinations such as the bohemian Isaac Singer and the button-down Edward Clark, or the lyrical Richard Sears and the practical Julius Rosenwald. There were quarters of partners such as the Silver Kings in Nevada or the Big Four railway builders in California, with each member contributing a distinct capability. Sometimes it was the chemistry of diametrically opposed characters that reacted to produce great wealth.

Some, like Andrew Carnegie, established even broader organizations - organizations that combined many talented individuals and produced many great fortunes. As Carnegie commented, his greatest talent was surrounding himself with "men far cleverer than himself." Loyal lieutenants such as Henry Frick and Henry Phipps earned a place among the wealthiest Americans for their services.

Others, like J.P. Morgan, built institutions that have far lasted their founders. These companies continue to grow, and are a source of wealth and employment to this day.

The only woman on this list is Hetty Green, who plated the man's fame of Wall Street investment, building a $10 million inheritance into $100 million. Because of the way this list was defined, with a bias against inheritance, it is natural that there should not be extraordinarily wealthy women on it. Many women play a prominent role in the stories of these fortunes - Marjorie Merriwether Post, the Astors, Vanderbilts, and others. Even today, their opportunities are often less than those of men, with very few women other than inheritors at the top of the Forbes 400.

This situation is slowly changing, and will do so even more rapidly as women entrepreneurs continue to expand their firms. Oprah Winfrey and other women are beginning to move into the ranks of the wealthiest Americans based on their own fortunes.

Where Their Money Came From and Where It Went
Half or more of the members of the list started out with nothing or almost nothing. Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Astor, Girard, and Carnegie - the first five - all were born to families of modest means, and some immigrated to the United States with little more than the clothes on their backs. One, Stephen Van Rensselaer, gives us a glimpse of a different kind of old-style American wealth, with huge land grants from Europe that were given away at the start of the nation. Other members of the Wealthy 100, such as Howard Hughes, inherited millions of dollars, but then built their fortunes larger.

Some lived in splendor, others held on to every cent. Remember that Nicholas Longworth dressed so shabbily that when he stopped to mop his brow on a hot Cincinnati street, a passerby dropped a quarter into his outstretched hat. (Longworth replied with good humor that it was the easiest quarter he had ever earned.) Hetty Green used to carry stale sandwiches in the capacious pockets of her black dress, a dress that had turned a greenish color from neglect. Russell Sage pilfered fans and other small items from his Western Union board meetings, which he attended punctually to receive his free lunch.

Others built extraordinary pleasure domes - fabulous marble mansions that lined Fifth Avenue, ornate carriages, beach homes, and private railway cars. William Randolph Hearst managed to spend an estimated $15 million per year. Others indulged in horse racing, yachting, and other hobbies. Some were as visible as the Vanderbilts, and others as secretive as Howard Hughes.

Many - either directly or through their heirs - demonstrated generosity commensurate with their fortunes. The names of the founders of these great fortunes are also the names of some of the most prominent foundations in the world - the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and Packard Foundation, among others. Some of the Wealthy 100 contributed to charity after their deaths, in spite of themselves - thus there is even a Russell Sage Foundation, named for a notorious tightwad who was uninterested in philanthropy.

For many families, the great wealth was not a blessing but a curse. The Singers, the Dodges, the Gettys, the Dukes, and others suffered from the burden of being born into wealth. They also struggled with the often challenging personalities of the men who built their fortunes. Some couldn't get rid of the family fortune fast enough, while others carefully managed and built it.

Where Will the Next Wealthy 100 Come From?
The next great American fortunes will likely be derived from some of the same combinations of vision and ambition as in the past. But the details will be different. There will be some new technology that will launch its owner into the financial stratosphere, as the fortunes of Bill Gates and Harry Ellison were made in the past. There will be new opportunities for future Warren Buffetts, investors who can read opportunities in the market and capitalize on them. Every time a frontier closes, a new frontier opens up. And every new frontier offers the possibility of a new American fortune. The question is not whether these fortunes will be created, but rather by whom?

Price and Value

2008-08-17T18:17:00.001+08:00

Was flipping through Security Owner's Stock Guide just now. (Since when I started a sentence so improperly!?) Suddenly this notion of price and value just dashed itself across my mind, and after some walk in Orchard, it would be guilty for me not to write it out :P

What is market capitalization? The most common definition is "share price times number of shares" with allowance for dilution. Let's do some dissection.

What is "share price"? Most commonly, it refers to either the day's closing price of a share, or average price for the day. Stocks are traded, with such and such prices; when a deal is done, the price is reflected in the record. From there spawns a common notion that "the company is worth a certain price as determined by the market".

But how true is that? Of course, it is true that how many dollars and unit shares had changed hands, under such and such terms. But can it be construed as representing the value of the firm? Can you buy the entire company at that price? Can the entire business interest changes hands at that price? I doubt so. Nevertheless, many people still view it this (or these) way.

If you want, the entire picture is very simple if supply and demand is introduced into the picture. But there is another common misconception here as well. Many people believe that supply and demand is continuous; in fact, in the case of stock market, it is not. I can play around by buying a stock at, say, $50 and sell it at $1 one second later; if the deal materializes, the change would be -98 percent and would be duly reflected in the record. This is obviously absurd I guess?

If you think about the aggregate measure, I have nothing to say about it. My business is not in determining aggregate supply and demand, and perhaps not even individual supply and demand - depends on how you interpret it. But I won't tell you what it is at this moment :P

What is value? Value, like all terms, is more or less misused. Well, misused is quite a strong word; let's say, the sense of value is broadly represented. Sometimes price is equated with value; sometimes it's intrinsic value; sometimes it's liquidating value; so on. I'm not saying any of these are wrong; these are right on their own right, but not on others rights :P It is important to see clearly what sense is value referred to when it is used in a certain context.

To me, value seems to be in the eye of the beholder - there is not a figure that can precisely describe everyone's value. Moreover, there are some 'basic' items which value is assigned arbitrarily. Although it is not meaningful to decide at what figure the whole things start, we can derive some comfort that prices are relative - which gives hint to how people value things relative to others.

As the subject moves away from such a base, however, relativity assumes greater importance. At a certain level (well, the boundary is not really that discrete) and above, such values tend to center around certain figures, driven by logical relations.

There are two figures which one is called price and another value. Price is what people say - whatever they are willing and able to pay. Values arise out of relations - that's why the higher the level [up to the point where one just have enough ability to digest the information he is receiving :P ], the more certain one can say about something's value.

Such certainty arises out of stability as a result of a diversified variables [e.g. a complex machine is made of a great amount of diversified components - however the prices of individual components change, the price of the machine is not going to be as volatile], Relation of values, fortunately, is logically connected. Therefore, arbitrary though prices of certain things are, values can still be ascertained with reasonable confidence.

However, reasonable confidence does not mean reasonable precision. It is hard (to me, it's impossible) to determine value with precision. What's the point of assigning figure to value, then? The key is 'so obvious that it goes without saying'. If the discrepancy between price and value of something is very large, it is so obvious that it goes without saying that something is under- or overvalued, and can be taken advantage of. This is the principal concept of 'margin of safety'.

Let's continue some other time...

Myths that Conceal Reality - an Alternative Version

2008-08-13T15:02:00.000+08:00

Remember Milton Friedman's Myths that Conceal Reality lecture? [That's 28 years ago by the way...] Perhaps I am unlucky enough to find another few to add to the list...

It's better to stay in business than to go out of business.
It's better to remain in university than to drop out.
It's better to recycle than to throw away.
It's better to buy our own food, oil, you-name-it etc. than to import it.

What else?

鱼与熊掌

2008-07-24T18:07:00.003+08:00

Hahahahahahahahahaha...

Great!

There is a saying that 长安虽好, 非久恋之家.

From what I know, the '家' refers to other's home, and not one's own home.

However my situation demands an entirely radical interpretation of this term; indeed, it might be well be paraphrased as

故乡虽好, 非久恋之地.

何名家? 家者, 归宿也, 为身心之寄托. 古今游子, 每逢艰苦抑或佳节, 何不向往归家团聚. 时提归家, 兴奋之情洋溢于表; 所谓 "归心似箭" 者, 正为此也.

然余命异, 从生至今, 未尝如此. 家者, 为虎穴龙潭, 险恶之地也. 非余亲属邪恶, 实为有奸人入, 进献谗言. 百年基业, 荡然无存; 血肉之情, 危在旦夕. 万般脑筋使尽, 奈何单丝一线, 孤掌难鸣, 唯有逃于外国, 权且保身; 待兴业之时, 再行反攻, 亦未为晚.

三过家门而不入者, 非吾无情; 实乃鱼与熊掌, 为义而舍家, 蹉乎!

For the benefit of non-Chinese readers, here's a rough translation - do note that due to my linguistic deficiency, the full meaning is brought out in Chinese version only:

Though a wonderful place, home is not a place to be remained for long.

What does "home" entail? Home connotes origin, a place to be returned. Across time, wanderers alike thought of home whenever festivities draw near or when they face difficulties. They would feel ecstatic whenever thinking of the prospects of going home. The saying 'the mind racing home as fast as a dart' just depicts such a scenario.

However, my life is different; I had not experienced anything like this since I was born. To me, 'home' is infested with snakes and beasts, a place fraught with danger. Not that my family is evil; the reality is that there are too many outside hypocrites penetrated this institution, poisoning the scene with lies. There goes generations of hard work and productivity; family relations, so closely weaved, are now at stake. Tons of thoughts and efforts had been poured into the saving of this institution, but individual effort is far too little. It is with great reluctance that I had to leave this country for the time being, just as to preserve myself to fight another day; it would be of far greater good if I could leave but eventually muster effective forces to purge those evils. Financial strength is a necessary though not sufficient requirement for such a purge.

I had had the literal experience of passing through home's gate for three times but cannot enter. I am not bloodless and emotionless. But facing a dilemma, I had to make the "best" choice, even that means losing something. What a situation!

But I will treasure all these very much. Who had the chance to experience something that different, and get trained under such situations? :P

Transportation in the ‘State of Brunei’

2008-07-22T13:12:00.001+08:00

Note: 'State of Brunei' refers to a city in SimCity... :P

Brunei has a highly developed transport and network system. Among the features that distance Brunei's system from the rest of the world are the four integrated systems, Brunei Airport System and its sub-system, Brunei SpacePort, Integrated Land Transit System (ILTS), Brunei SeaPort, and Vertical Transportation Protocol (VTP); Fluid Delivery System (FDS); and the Load Balancing Protocol (LBP).

Brunei Airport and Spaceport Systems
Brunei Airport System consists of five airports that are under a single control. The individual airports are known as fields. Two such fields, Fields 1 and 2 are located in Western Island, and Fields 3, 4 and 5 in Eastern Island, with the latter two forming part of Brunei Spaceport. Fields 1 and 2 caters for commercial flight; 3 for private aircraft, and 4 and 5 for extra-planetary flight. All the fields are located underground to conserve land space and increase the efficiency of noise reduction system. There are two runways for each field, with individual entrance and exit. The cavities of the fields are among the largest in the world, with over 500 million cubic meter of volume each.

The cavities are each equipped with two Aircraft Launch and Capture Systems (ALCSs), which are basically very large three-dimensional wind tunnels. Upon entering the runway, ALCS delivers air that matches the relative indicated airspeed of the approaching plane, and decelerates the plane over a very short distance without causing discomfort to passengers through the use of artificial airflow. ALCS also propels an aircraft into flight. The system enables planes such as AC-101 to take off and land over less than 750 meter while create just 44dBA of noise.

A high-speed start-stop train system links all the five fields to form an integrated airport. The train system is running alongside, though separate from, the Integrated Land Transit System, and the two uses the same mechanism. The link between the two systems is in the form of a cargo processing center, which also services the Seaport.

Aircraft and spacecraft movements are handled from the Airspace Control Center, north of City Core and 16km from the airport. The 553-m control tower is the tallest in the world, and handles more than 99% of Earth's annual spacecraft movements. In 2006, the Airport system handles 2.41 million movements, which handily beats the runner-up, Atlanta's 965,000.

Integrated Land Transit System (ILTS)
The ILTS comprises a comprehensive network of high-speed start-stop rails, passenger and cargo entrance-exit points, and mechanisms that handle the traffic, passenger and cargo. All the three components are seamlessly integrated through compatible hardware, communication and coordination systems.

The 3,130-km underground rail network is owned by various private companies, observing compatible technical standards and protocols. The rails form a grid across the entire Brunei city, consistent with land plot pattern. This enables every plot to have at least one access to the rail system; in one-access case the plot is being referred to as a 'one-quarter unit cell'. Most plots have two accesses, being known as 'one-half unit cell'. Each access serves not only passengers but also cargo. Each access is served by at least two pairs of double-track rails; two pairs make a 'strand'.

The rails are run using hybrid compressed-air/maglev propulsion in low-pressure tunnels. For much of the time the strands are fully operational; however upgrades can be performed through partial shut-down of rail-pairs. Currently the rails are thoroughly upgraded every thirty years. The upgrade costs an average of $60 billion per annum, in 2006. In comparison, most mass transit systems in the world had never been built with such possibility of upgrading in mind.

Industrial estates in Western and Eastern Islands are complemented with an additional network of surface rails, which serves every industrial plot. The rails are compatible and seamlessly integrated with the underground system; as such, cargo can be delivered from manufacturing facilities directly to commercial and residential establishments, without the need of human intervention and packaging need is minimal. Trains can also travel from underground to surface network.

The trains consist of two sections. Passenger section is located on the forward section of the trains while cargo section is on the rear. The movement of cargo is handled in each station by the Cargo Handling Machines, not dissimilar to tunnel boring machines. The machine could transport cargoes from elevators, sort the cargoes following the command of Vertical Transportation Protocol and Load Balancing Protocol, and load the cargoes onto the trains. There are also dedicated machines in the cargo processing center for inter-modal freight transfer.

Brunei SeaPort
The Brunei SeaPort is traditionally being viewed as the lifeline of the Bruneian economy, as the existence of the port greatly accelerated Brunei's development during its formative years. The first Port of Brunei was located by the shores of Brunei River, currently the West Bank and East Bank commercial districts. As the commercial land demand surges and the city expands itself, the port was moved to West Bank Downstream and an area of reclaimed land, Arm of Brunei located in East Bank downstream. The current, third Brunei SeaPort is located in the entirely-reclaimed Western Island, adjacent to the cargo processing center and the International Transport Hub, where a large number of transportation and logistics companies are located. The SeaPort handled 3.84 billion tons of cargo in '2006'. In comparison, the Port of Singapore takes 15 times more land, but handled only 1.15 billion gross tons of cargo during the same period.

Vertical Transportation Protocol (VTP) and Load Balancing Protocol (LBP)
The VTP was formed as vertical transportation within buildings becomes increasingly important and traffic capacity rapidly approaches possibility frontier. The protocol comprises guidelines covering such areas as design ratios, acceleration standard and synchronization of elevators' timing with that of other transportation systems, especially ILTS's. Of these, the last is arguably the most important. Elevators in the State are equipped with control systems capable of decentralized communication and arrangement with other transportation systems. By taking into account such parameters as elevator-subway station linkway capacity and distance, pedestrian velocity and freight traffic requirements, the elevators can be arranged to provide near-seamless commutation of human and freight traffic from one system to another, such as elevator-train, seaport-elevator or even multi-modal arrangements such as elevator-train-spaceport. LBP collates the location, volume and velocity of loads and coordinates the delivery of such loads. Waiting time is nearly eliminated and acceleration rate is minimized to provide maximum comfort and efficiency while minimize stress and waste.

Fluid Delivery System (FDS)
Mainly utilizing the magnetic technology derived from the ILTS, the FDS is capable of delivering a wide range of fluids using just a uniform set of connections. Such fluids range from liquid oxygen to urine; however, usually the system delivers industrial gases and chemicals, as other systems cater for fresh water and sewer. Fluids are delivered in time slots; users could replenish their supplies at the given time slot of the day by connecting to the pipeline. A rigorous system of checks and redundancy is in place to prevent errors which could be disastrous. Drawing parallelism with ILTS, the FDS features multiple strands, with the greatest bandwidth catering for industrial users, follow by commercial and residential users. The system has a conventional, tank-based delivery backup to minimize chances of disruption.

Hypocrisy Continued

2008-07-06T00:45:00.002+08:00

Here I am writing again :P The last post might had given an impression of my being hopeless and negative. I can assure you this is not the case. Rather, I wrote that with a sober overtone; think of it as a report of an experiment. And to try out some new writing styles as well :P

Anyway, is Nature fair? Nature is fair. There is no value (value and quality are two different things) that associates with Nature. It is not good nor bad. Values arise out of our tastes and preferences. Sometimes, as a matter of convenience as well.

To use scientific fact as an illustration, scientific fact per se is not good nor bad. Things those facts could do per se is not good nor bad. Those outcomes are afforded following the principles of Nature. It is our perception of good or bad that colors our observation as good or bad. The perception of goods and bads too, are within the confines of Nature.

Is my thought conform to Nature? I'm certain mine is not. There are still way too many inconsistencies to be ironed out. I had gone through many years of unexamined acquisition of knowledge and methods of reasoning.

Well, one example is this... F=ma, so if a mass of 1kg is accelerated at a rate of 1m/s squared, the force would be 1N. Well, come to think of it, the reasoning is not quite right. Is it because of the equation F=ma that causes the mass so accelerated to produce such a force? Or that acceleration causes force, or force causes acceleration? I don't think so. The cause is not the equation; the relation is at work long before the equation comes into being. Yet the example suggests such a cause-effect relation.

If you do not think in this manner, congratulations! I envy you. I had lived in such a distortionary environment for too long. That's why some happenings following some reasons can be rationalized into another, then evolves into social norms and mores.

I think it's time for me to break with such norms and mores and to continue on my own. Hard it is, but it's definitely worth a try. Economics offers an exciting opportunity for me, not because its future is bright, but because accepted 'principles' are fraught with fallacies and outright falsehoods! :P

Hypocrisy

2008-07-04T17:11:00.002+08:00

Hypocrisy - norm of our day.

Knowingly or not, most people I've met around here are hypocrites. Preaching a set of beliefs but practicing another.

Perhaps hypocrisy is not so bad a thing. Maybe it's one of the mores of the so-called modern society. But I don't want to involve in judging other people's ethics. That's something I want to confine to myself. My ability to look at complex problem is too limited.

But does that mean I should deliberately abstain from advising others and let them self destruct?

Advising others without sufficient ability to protect oneself is plain stupidity. In the end, such a situation is going to lead to mutually disastrous outcome. While hypocrites may mislead himself, I would be misled by such hypocrites. Preserve my strength to fight another day, when I have greater ability, seems a better choice.

I had been stupid for a long time. I've been preaching too, but without sufficient ability to practice my beliefs to the full. I am actually a hypocrite too. A hypocrite that plays the game with other hypocrites, aiming for superiority.

How not to play the game, then? Deliberately abstain from advising others and look apathetically upon their destruction? Let Nature work its way through these people?

Seems like I'd have to play the game with greater care. Or to define certain limits. I can't find a way to improve myself without helping other people.

While let those I'm not able to help wither away.

p/s: See this, for example. It's something offensive but empirically true...

Submission of Being Tagged II

2008-06-12T16:22:00.002+08:00

Following this one, hehe...

If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?

If you can have a dream to come true, what would it be?

What will your dream wedding be like?

Frank Lloyd Wright

Are you confused as to what lies ahead of you?

What’s your ideal lover like?

Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?

What do you see yourself as?

If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?

Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?

If you had a choice, what kind of family you want to be born into?

Is being tagged fun?

How do you see yourself in ten years time?

Who are currently the most important people to you?

What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?

Gail

Would you rather be single and rich or married but poor?

What's the first thing you do every morning?

Would you give all in a relationship?

Do you live to love, live to hate or live for the sake of living?

What type of friends do you like?

What type of friends do you dislike?

Academical Rhetoric?

2008-06-07T21:38:00.005+08:00

In the Malaysiakini.com article "We need a more caring, innovative government", Stanley Koh said,

"Bear the pain, short-term. In the long term, it's good for the nation," a typical imagined reaction from any top professional decision-maker.
It is easy for the highly paid - PhD economists, self-claimed "think tank" experts and ivory-towered academicians who in typical fashionable "high-flown" rhetorical arguments taking the side of the government's decision on the price hike.
Harsh realities
But these can be "thinking tanks with out-hearts." The harsh and cruel socio-economic realities of the sudden hike will further impoverish the low and middle income Malaysian families and lower their standard of living.
The economic realities can be hard-hitting and are indeed real - the 'pain' is beyond intellectual and partisan arguments.

As someone who has written an analysis on this fuel subsidy issue, supposedly in the "academic" way, I must reply to such a claim, point to point, and then some.

"Bear the pain, short-term. In the long term, it's good for the nation," a typical imagined reaction from any top professional decision-maker.

We must first distinguish between "processes" and "side effects." Take healing a disease as an analogy. Someone contracted a cold and would have to take the medicine. But the patient is told that by taking the medicine, he would feel drowsy. He took the medicine, feel drowsy, and recovered.

Look at the processes and how it could be interpreted? One way is that the patient takes the medicine, the medicine takes effect, he feels drowsy first but eventually recovered. Another way is that the patient takes the medicine, feels drowsy and that heals his cold. Yet another is that the patient takes the medicine and recovered, but he must feel drowsy. It is apparent enough, but nevertheless, I should stress that each of these three ways of interpretation is completely different from another.

Similarly, I would like to know how the writer interprets the statement "Bear the pain, short-term. In the long term, it's good for the nation." The statement per se is useless; it does not form a complete argument. There are more than three ways of interpreting the statement, depending on the premises employed and flow of the argument. However, the statement, isolated, could be used to great rhetorical effect by painting a very distorted picture of the intention of the fictitious "top professional decision-maker."

It is easy for the highly paid - PhD economists, self-claimed "think tank" experts and ivory-towered academicians who in typical fashionable "high-flown" rhetorical arguments taking the side of the government's decision on the price hike.

I have no comments about the feeling of the "PhD economists, self-claimed "think tank" experts and ivory-towered academicians," since I do not qualify as one of them. But let me describe my economic situation right now. My father is ill and unable to work. My mother earns a three-figure income, but since we 'operate' a restaurant, we can have our meals for free. I had a 93-year-old grandfather who I think is reasonable that he is not working. And I am studying in Singapore.

Now, is that easy for me? I won't say it's easy, but still manageable. In spite of my situation I conjecture that all the subsidies - not only fuel but education, food, you name it - must be abolished. I also conjecture that we must let our currency float and the purchasing power be fully reflected. This is a tried-and-true method of ending our endless series of problems resulting from greater and greater government intervention as one intervention after another fails - look at Chile in 1970s, the United States in early 1980s. And of course, compare our case with that of Venezuela.

Now to "rhetorical arguments". From what I understand, "rhetoric" means "the art of harnessing reason, emotions and authority, through language." Of course academics can make rhetorics - on their personal capacity. Our constitution guarantees freedom of speech. But academics' speech does not amount to logical argument - a quality "academic arguments" is supposed to have. If I'm not wrong, the writer asked "Did the government "listen" only with their "eyes and ears" (without the heart) to cronies, bankers, economists, "think-tank" rhetoricians?" Well, I would like to question whether the writer equates "what economists say" as "academic arguments"? If the writer disagrees with the viewpoints of some academicians or economists, he should address them directly, instead of hastily generalize academics' speech as "academic argument", "rhetorical arguments" and then attacking a strawman. It is ironic that by apparently arguing, the writer himself is writing a rhetoric.

Oh, before I forget, let me share with you an "academic joke" - "rhetoric argument" is actually an oxymoron. "Rhetoric" connotes "lack of logical force", and argument connotes "logical structure." It is nice that these two contradictory terms can co-exist!

But these can be "thinking tanks with out-hearts." The harsh and cruel socio-economic realities of the sudden hike will further impoverish the low and middle income Malaysian families and lower their standard of living.

Aside from the first sentence, which I had attempted to refute above, I agree with the rest of the quote. However I did offer a solution - by letting the ringgit float and its purchasing power be fully reflected. Imports would be bought with full purchasing power, instead of at an inflated price caused by undervaluation of ringgit, as our current situation is. However, this is not a nice context of discussing such a float - perhaps I will write another article about this.

The economic realities can be hard-hitting and are indeed real - the 'pain' is beyond intellectual and partisan arguments.

My limited knowledge prevents my knowing methods that could quantify "pain". However, in economics, losses and gains are quantifiable, and many reports have applied methods of quantifying losses and gains to ascertain whether such and such policies have achieved its intended outcome. Quantifying losses and gains may be far less ideal than quantifying pain, but it is something achievable, and the most consistent way of ascertaining whether harm or benefit has occurred. The pain is indeed beyond academic discussion, so far as I'm concerned - but the losses caused by distortionary policies and economic mismanagement is not.

Something about the title itself - I'm not in need of a caring and innovative government. I simply want a government which does what it is supposed to do - to ensure rule of law exists in the country, and let the people do what they want.

I would like to end by talking a little about my situation. I have encountered too many people who advised me that "you have the potential to go to better places, just leave this country for good and make a better life for yourself" - indeed this is consistent with economic theory, that similar resources tend to agglomerate, and that leads to the brain drain problem. Instead of making a better life for myself, I am participating in such discussions, which, while does not earn me a single penny, has incurred myself an opportunity cost of lost income - clearly not in the best of my self-interest. Yet it is my conviction that such discussion is crucial in preventing the situation of our country from getting worse. My intellectual ability is limited, but nevertheless, I seek to utilize it to the best I could. I believe you too can contribute to the effort of saving the country (now I'm making rhetoric!)!

p/s to the writer: If you're reading this I hope you're not angry over me. I'm certainly feeling the same way over some 'academics' who misused their capacity in making spurious claims, which appears to be 'academic arguments'. My aim here is to correct some of your views, to the best I can. It might be convenient to shoot all of them at once, but it's logically fallacious. There is no free lunch indeed - if we want to advance, we have to work hard!

诗四首

2008-06-03T21:57:00.000+08:00

偶有感而发提诗云:

人生苦短数十年,
辛酸苦辣在其中,
欲愿欢愁与爱恋,
泰山鸿毛善恶终.

娶妻生子乃平常,
甘贫守节为不易,
可叹世人为财困,
生为鸡鸭死为猪.

勾心斗角为权力,
百般殷勤盼名位,
不知人生数十载,
来时孤单去时空.

我叹世人为财困,
自身不敌阎王召.
何时更能晓大义,
落得中庸图自在?

A Checklist and Review

2008-06-01T10:33:00.002+08:00

It's been a month into the vacation (since when I started to write about things like this in my blog!?) but it seems that I've done little...

What I've done? Moved my room; gotten ill and recovered; reviewed the Money and Banking text; been to Kuala Lumpur, Penang :P , Ipoh and Taiping; read Milton Friedman's Two Lucky People and The Money Mischief and the Malaysian Economic Report 2007/2008; watched the various recorded lectures by Milton Friedman, as well as his series Free to Choose and the book bearing the same name.

What am I doing now? Reading the physical copy of Berkshire's Annual Report 2007 (again), Churchill's The Second World War - The Gathering Storm; straddlling the thin ice of domestic politics T_T; tending to the Forum; designing houses that aren't suppose to exist...

What am I suppose to finish by the end of the vacation? Read Security Analysis 1951 Edition, The Theory of Investment Value, Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960, the six volumes of The Second World War, and accounting texts numbering some 400 .___. ; prepared for and got the level-4000 UE -.-", written about the government and monetary policies of Malaysia; as well as explored the various possible arrangements for continuing my course of study after graduation, assuming I physically survive till then :P

One month has gone, and if I continue to work at my current pace, it would take ten more vacations to finish all those stuff T_T And if you like, you can consider all my writings above as an excuse, or filling, for not having writing something useful resulting from my laziness...

*** *** *** *** ***

Every person have his/her own unspeakable problem(s), and I am no exception. The difference lies probably in that I choose not to keep secret. It's rather dumb to save face while hurting oneself emotionally (or whatever else you want to call it); you gain an edge at the expense of another. The importance of the things lost is different; to me, being rational is more important than losing face, hence my preference. It's good to bear in mind that, while sometimes the tradeoff may seem to be equal, it is not because we forget to assign weights! :P

What's my biggest problems then? Finance is a problem, intellectual difference with mainstream ideas is a problem, being a vegetarian is a problem, but those are no cause of concern because I believe my fundamentals are right. But being involved in domestic politics is not, because I don't think the fundamentals are right. In fact, it is because of the wrong fundamentals that I got into trouble for many years, and still in the middle of it. The situation may seem amicable, but this is because nobody crosses the out-of-bounds marker; the existence of such un-threadable territory virtually guarantees disaster. The only question is when such disaster will happen.

Such a disaster had happened once, and lasted some two years. The conflict was across all fronts - finance, intellectual, and dignity. Recalling the series of event now, it was almost nonsensical that the entire confrontation erupted because of someone demanding that I must keep my hair behind certain length, that I must forego tertiary education, and I resisted. [It would be unimaginable if my school had such a requirement! :P ] Simple and easy to understand right? Yet I must stress that the confrontation culminated after years of such suppression. The moment was best expressed by Reagan's 1964 speech and I quote, that "there is a price we will not pay and there is a point beyond which the enemy must not advance." The cost was dear and the experience painful, and everyone seem not quite recovered from it. I must admit that I am lucky because the surrounding was not so complex then; everything was quite autarkic then.

But now the situation has changed. The domestic realm has got into contact with ever more agents, and there inevitably had been interactions; the agents unfortunately were also involved in catalysing the previous disaster; and they too understood the subjects that are out of bounds, and observed such a taboo. But there is no guarantee that the status quo will be maintained indefinitely. All it takes to trigger another round of conflict is a simple statement of outrageous demand. I believe the damage would be irreparable if such a conflict happens, because (i) I am no longer that dependent, especially from a financial point of view, (ii) there is an old wound not healed, and (iii) trust between the two parties that is already so delicate would be destroyed all together. Just to give you an idea of the seriousness of the situation, last time I contemplated a deed unilaterally severing my relations. There is no guarantee that such a thing won't happen, under a much more adverse circumstances, with odds much more unfavorable towards reconciliation.

Okay, maybe it's time to update my little story :P

*** *** *** *** ***

To me, such an event is not a shortcoming; it gives me a good preparatory course in handling such problems in the future. I also won't be so soft; it never stops to amaze me to observe how youngsters nowadays are being over-indulged by their parents, and placing an unduly heavy emphasis towards material achievement. But I learned how dangerous this approach can be. It is never prudent to grow complacent by placing too much trust on someone without understanding fully the fundamentals of such a trust. Of course, if you could understand why you can trust someone, you trust him/her wholeheartedly, without reservation. I regret that many people misconstrued what I said as 'you should diversify by not placing too much trust on a single person' :( Regret, but not disappointed. Such misunderstanding is too common in the world we live in.

*** *** *** *** ***

Although I am aware of all the shortcomings of this world we live in, I am ever optimistic of the future. Logic and reasoning does not sound attractive, but offers the best hope in which misunderstandings and arguments can be resolved. Linguistic skills are also very important. [Ever heard of Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman and Winston Churchill? :D ] Only these two combined can a logically solid argument be embraced by the people. Unfortunately, as of the current moment, I lack both T_T... Hopefully the writings can give me some training, hehe...

Btw, I had shifted the focus of this post quite a lot huh? :P

Thinking About Malaysia

2008-05-17T09:06:00.001+08:00

I feel tired, not due to my examination and preparation, but rather the intellectual and political battle that was going on between myself and my country. It's something implicit; we are not literally going to war. But the long-term consequences, in my opinion, could be far worse than that.

There are too many things, in fact too much, that I do not know. [In fact, as you might conclude later, that this article should be more appropriately titled "What I Don't Know"] I don't know whether Malaysia is ready for freedom. I don't know the exact details of the government budget, and its development since independence. I don't know whether the kind of 'harmony' we are so used to talking about is a reality or outright myth. And so on.

I don't know whether Malaysia is ready for freedom. People had done so much violence to English language that the word democracy has been deprived of much of its original sense. Democracy is the rule of people; but there are many loopholes nowadays. Is a majority oppressing a minority considered democratic? Who is the people? Don't think this is a trivial question; in the old days, slaves are not considered as people! The same happens to liberal. What connotes freedom has evolved, in fact, to conformity. Fortunately, freedom remains largely true to itself. Although it has been stained by various negative connotations, such as the sense of rebellion and radical for the sake of being radical, the fundamental meaning of the word still remains close to us.

I am particularly disappointed by one episode Milton Friedman recalled, and I quote:

[In 1962] I visited the University of Malaya and gave a public lecture under its auspices. I do not have any records of the lecture, but I remember it very well because of its ending. The chairman was a Malay professor at the university. In my lecture, I contrasted the development of Japan in the early decades after the Meiji restoration, when it was compelled by international agreement to practice free trade (no duties above 5 percent), and did practice nearly laissez-faire in economics, and the development of India since it achieved independence and practiced detailed central planning. The contrast is highly favorable to a free-trade policy and unfavorable to central planning. The applicability of my comparison to Malaysia was obvious. At the end of the lecture, the Malay professor in the chair could contain himself no longer and burst out with something like, "If we followed the policy you recommend, the Chinese would dominate the country. We Malays are not going to stand for that."

Has this kind of sentiment receded? I hope so, but I don't know. If it has, so much the better; then we could all work for the betterment of the country jointly and severally. If it has not, the situation becomes more complicated, at least for me individually. That complications stem from two considerations: that whether (i) the majority of Malaysians wants to practice freedom as their way of life, and (ii) whether my belief is compatible with the Malaysian thinking.

Firstly, do the majority of Malaysians want to practice freedom as their way of life? If you ask orally the reply would probably be 'yes'. But what matters is practice. Do you have effective freedom of press, and do you really want it? Do you want ISA, and if you are in power, do you want to abolish it? Do you want to abolish subsidies, even though it might mean a much visible increase in petrol [or whatever essentials like rice, that are subsidized] prices, not withstanding the invisible benefits that follow along, such as higher productivity, leaner bureaucracy and lower real taxes? I conclude after reading all the opinion pieces in the newspaper that the answer lies to the negative. Of course, it is hard to ascertain whether the pieces reflect fairly the opinions of Malaysians.

Secondly, is my belief compatible with the Malaysian thinking? Again, I hope so, but I don't know. If my belief is compatible with the Malaysian thinking, then there is at least a point for me to help the country, and it will benefit from it. I am well aware that it would be a tiring and taxing process, but at least the results would be worthwhile.

But, let's say, what I believe is not compatible with the Malaysian thinking. Nature is the ultimate democracy - why? Nature never stops you from doing something, but does ensure that you bear the consequential reward or burden in full, visible or invisible. (The humanly domain seeks to approach this as closely as possible - but not always successful - or always not successful :P) If Malaysians vote with their practice not to be democratic, there's perfectly all right - after all, in most of human history, people voted with their practice not to be free - imperial China, Europe and so on. In so doing they did bear the costs and benefits. So if I believe in freedom and if Nature is indeed the ultimate democracy - ought not I let them be free to choose the course they want to embark? The most I can do is to advice - not violent actions. If I had approached such a point that my advice renders more harm than good to the country, in the sense that it incites irrational behavior and violent actions, the best thing I could do is to leave - not to save my own skin, but to save the country and its people from unnecessary hardship that arises because of my action.

I don't know the exact details of the government budget, and its development since independence. Maybe you thought I am knowledgeable all along since I take great interest in such economic inquiry; but in reality, I am not. Hopefully during the course of the next few weeks or months I can embark upon such study and draw some conclusions from it. Only then I could have a better knowledge, and in a better position, to ascertain the big questions above - whether Malaysia is ready for freedom and whether my thinking approximates that of my fellow citizens.

I think I better stop for now, if not I'd become even more tired :P But hopefully, you'll think over some of the questions...

Conspiracy Theorists, Beware!

2008-05-04T20:23:00.000+08:00

Bravo Buzz! :D

It's strange though... There were people who gave up their lives to prove that the Moon is indeed fit for human visits, but I've yet to see people giving up their lives to disprove that fact... Hmm...

On Friedman's "What's Wrong with Our Schools?"

2008-04-24T20:43:00.002+08:00

I refer to Milton Friedman's "What's Wrong in Our Schools?", pp. 167-8, in his book Free to Choose: A Personal Statement. Specifically, I wish to add to his arguments, which I quote below,

One feature of the voucher plan that has aroused particular concern is the possibility that parents could and would "add on" to the vouchers. If the voucher were for, say, $1,500, a parent could add another $500 to it and send his child to a school charging $2,000 tuition. Some fear that the result might be even wider differences in educational opportunities than now exist because low-income parents would not add to the amount of the voucher while middle-income and upper-income parents would supplement it extensively.

This fear has led several supporters of voucher plans to propose that "add-ons" be prohibited.

Coons and Sugarman write that the
freedom to add on private dollars makes the Friedman model unacceptable to many, including ourselves... Families unable to add extra dollars would patronize those schools that charged no tuition above the voucher, while the wealthier would be free to distribute themselves among the more expensive schools. What is today merely a personal choice of the wealthy, secured entirely with private funds, would become an invidious privilege assisted by government... This offends a fundamental value commitment - that any choice plan must secure equal family opportunity to attend any participating school.

Even under a choice plan which allowed tuition add-ons, poor families might be better off than they are today. Friedman has argued as much. Nevertheless, however much it improved their education, conscious government finance of economic segregation exceeds our tolerance. If the Friedman scheme were the only politically viable experiment with choice, we would not be enthusiastic.

This view seems to us an example of the kind of egalitarianism discussed in the preceding chapter: letting parents spend money on riotous living but trying to prevent them from spending money on improving the schooling of their children. It is particularly remarkable coming from Coons and Sugarman, who elsewhere say, "A commitment to equality at the deliberate expense of the development of individual children seems to us the final corruption of whatever is good in the egalitarian instinct" - a sentiment which we heartily agree. In our judgment the very poor would benefit the most from the voucher plan. How can one conceivably justify objecting to a plan, "however much it improved [the] education" of the poor, in order to avoid "government finance" of what the authors call "economic segregation," even if it could be demonstrated to have that effect? And of course, it cannot be demonstrated to have that effect. On the contrary, we are persuaded on the basis of considerable study that it would have precisely the opposite effect - though we must accompany that statement with a qualification that "economic segregation" is so vague a term that it is by no means clear what it means.

The prohibition of add-ons hardly contribute to equality of opportunity. Affluent parents are not wrong if they wish to spend a greater amount of money in educating their children, whether the amount is absolute or relative. If the affluent parents are prohibited from spending more money in their children's education merely because they are people who are unable to spend that much, how consistent is the argument that individual should not be stopped from doing things they like, and unleashing their potentials?

There are also numerous rent-seeking opportunities in prohibiting add-ons, in effect imposing a price ceiling. How should one view such spending as after-school tuition and educational supplements? What incentive there remains to deviate from the maximum price if there is a price ceiling? And how does one address such problems as changes in price level, both across the economy and within the educational sector?

I can personally testify for the accusation that poor parents can not spend more money in educating their children. By all measures, I come from a not-so-well-to-do family. Nevertheless, my parents have done all within their means in supporting my education - in purchasing numerous books (relevant to my study or otherwise), the various equipments, and even an overseas tertiary education. I believe parents from the advanced countries, even the less wealthy ones, can understand that education remains the best, though far from certain, passport of leaving poverty. Such accusations that poor parents can not spend more for their children's education are outright insult, as in Friedman's words.

As a final remark, intentions should be measured against outcome, as always. While the intention to enable everyone to receive as good an education as possible is noble, the way which the bureaucrats advocate is not the best way (if it is a way at all) of achieving it. It is surprising indeed that the problem is still around and being argued, though there has been progress. Political will is very important in overcoming the obstacle of reforming to a voucher-based education system; I guess veto and a lot of persuasion is needed in achieving this...

On the Concept of Investment

2008-04-18T22:15:00.002+08:00

Normally I would prefer not to publicly discuss the subject of investment, as (i) I am not a proficient investor and (ii) I am very likely to get annoyed over the prevailing definitions and views of investment of this day.

Ironically, it is the second point that prompts me to write this post today. In any case, it would be of excellent service to me, in the sense that I would be able to explore the concept of investment explicitly, and to express the findings in a concrete fashion.

I find the linguistic approach of analysis very useful in determining the true sense of the word. In case you are not aware, meaning and interpretation of words do change over time. By engaging in linguistic analysis (especially in that of etymology), we would be able to understand how a certain word has come to its current form of usage.

As for our subject matter, Investment and its main morpheme Invest, there are several meanings being provided in the Oxford English Dictionary, and I would selectively list some of those which are relevant to the discussion.

The first sense of invest is “to clothe or endue with attributes, qualities, or a character.” Although this seemingly has nothing to do with investment, it suggests a nature of seriousness and dignity.

The second sense of invest is “to clothe with or in the insignia of an office; hence, with the dignity itself; to install in an office or rank with the customary rites or ceremonies.” Here the nature of dignity is made explicit. Investment, in the financial sense, involves the exchange of consideration and the creation of relationship, which does not necessarily be limited to legal one. The business behind the security is the rank-bearer, so to speak, and is a renderer of service to the shareholder.

The third sense of invest is “to establish (a person) in the possession of any office, position, property, etc.; to endow or furnish with power, authority, or privilege.” This is the direct sense of investment pertaining to this discussion. By purchasing a fraction (or whole) of business interest, the shareholder is investing the business the rights to use his capital and be entitled to profit so derived. There is a relation between the business and the (part-) owner; of a legal as well as social sense. To establish someone with such right to use the shareholder’s capital, it must involve trust. Trust in integral to the formation of contract, legal relationship, and the conduct of business in general.

Personally, I view investment in a serious and solemn manner, consistent with the practice of investing someone with rights and privilege. Therefore, it is imperative that such activities be carried out upon thorough study and analysis, and its frequency sparingly.

By understanding such sense of investment, one would be able to get a more logical understanding of the workings of business and that of financial market. Business involves people rather than legal entity; the latter is merely a conduit which facilitates the conduct of business. Hence, it is of utmost importance that one (read ‘I’) should invest his money in business run by people of utmost integrity. (However, this is only a necessary, but not sufficient, condition in evaluating the attractiveness of an investment proposition.) Likewise, financial market is a mechanism (or congregation) which facilitates transaction of such instruments as currencies and securities. Real wealth is not generated in financial market; it is generated by the industriousness of the workforce and efficient allocation of resources. Financial market merely reflects such wealth, and its effect is impressive as the scale of congregation is large. It is very dangerous to perceive that real wealth is made or destroyed in financial markets, and the larger the number of people who subscribe to the idea, the more likely it is to have a financial market that impedes, rather than enhances, the efficiency of capital flow.

There are a great many propositions that is contrary to my reasoning. Many of such propositions rely on rigorous mathematical deductions and study of trends. There are also such statements as “a share does not recognize you”, “you can beat the market by such and such”, or what-have-you. I am not proficient in mathematics beyond arithmetical level, and perhaps never will; nor do I find the reasoning of the latter propositions understandable. Therefore, it is prudent that I do not attempt to do things that are beyond my comprehension.

By grasping the etymology of investment, one can derive many logical and reasonable conclusions that are of tremendous aid in the course of investment. Only after understanding the term can one study the conduct of investment, which in my opinion is best established by Benjamin Graham, that investment operation is

one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and a satisfactory return. Operations not meeting such requirements are speculative.

Submission of Being Tagged

2008-04-01T23:04:00.002+08:00

I'm going to skip posting something that's already in my Wordpress... It's exactly 6,060 words, so if you're curious, just click the first hyperlink. The following is, as usual, a transcription of what was posted in Wordpress...

At what age do you wish to marry?
What will you do when you feel really emo?
Describe the current situation of your life at the moment.
Where is the place that you want to go most?
If you have one dream to come true, what would it be?
Do you believe in seeing the rainbow after the rain?
What are you afraid to lose the most right now?
What cheers you up for the rest of the day?
If you meet someone you love, would you confess to him/her?
List out three good things of the person who tagged you.
What are the requirements that you wish from your other half?
What type of person do you hate the most?
What would you do if you won a million dollars?
What is your ambition?
What would you wanna be after you're dead?
If you have a chance, which part of your character would you like to change?
What is your favourite colour?
What do you think is the most important thing in your life?
If there’s one thing in your life you want to do but yet unable to, what would it be?
What would you do if tomorrow was the last day of the world?

No obligations, just do it if you want to!

Bach's Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould

2008-03-02T16:49:00.000+08:00

The Cost of Defending False Reputation

2008-02-18T01:56:00.002+08:00

If you have read A Little Story, you would probably understand the following rants better. It is, by all measures, of no relevance to you; but I elect to write this and put it here because I believe that there are morals to be learnt from the story.

First of all, some backgrounds about the title. It is said that, reputation is very important to an entity, in a world of imperfect information. People would be likely to project the future course of action of somebody by studying what he has done in the past. A lot of desirable deeds are classified as reputable, and the converse is disreputable. Quite a lot of people make decisions based on the assumption that past behavior affects that in the future.

On top of that, there is a saying that "humans have reputation as trees have bark" (人有面皮, 树有树皮). Humans can't live in disrepute forever isn't it? That kind of life wouldn't be meaningful, or livable perhaps, but somehow there are people who managed to live that way...

Such were the values someone had been brought up in, and he believes those were true. Of course those still remain true, but there may be problems defining what constitutes valid reputation and what is not. Live an honest life constitutes valid reputation. Maintaining a wrinkle-free appearance while one ages is not. (Some may disagree, though. As an ultra-conservative descendant of the Yellow Emperor, I still believe that I should not name my son after someone I greatly respect (i.e. the concept of 避讳), and pray for the avoidance of hair loss, for hair is one of the ancestral gifts :P )

Alas, it is the mis-recognition of the kind of reputation worth defending that got him into trouble. His parents, upon seeing bespectacled kids, told him, without exception, that it must be the consequence of bad practice - watching too much television and gaming too much. This statement was made without consideration to those said kids, and the fact that their son was actually reading far too much (not even stop during eating - serious!).

Perhaps his parents were trying to use the tactic of deterrence. They might think, look, if I told this kid this, perhaps he would not game so much and watch television so much. The outcome was right, he did not watch too much television and play too much game. But the reason behind such behavior is not what his parents envisaged - he was merely more interested in reading and drawing than watching TV and gaming. So his parents were deemed superior in reasoning for the time being.

In the meantime, while he build up his stock of knowledge, his eyesight deteriorated. This became noticeable in 1995. Well, that's when the stupidity of this little kid started its engine - in the name of defending his reputation, he did not reveal this to anyone. He was quite sophisticated in the power game early in his life.

Perhaps it is desirable to have a graphical depiction of the demand and supply of knowledge over those years. Don't fret - I'll try to explain those in as plain a term as possible :)

Common sense suggests that a person would (in all probability) accumulate knowledge over his lifetime. In the process, he would forget some, and needs to get it back by revising. And he needs to learn more advanced stuff as time goes by, as sort of building on top of his existing knowledge. The graph just captures this whole thing, in graphic.

The green curve represents the 'real' amount of knowledge he learns at a point of time. Real, in the sense that revision is not counted as really learning. The area represents the knowledge 'stock', or intellectual capital stock, that he has accumulated over time. The red curve is the amount of knowledge that a person is expected to learn at the period of time, plus all the revision he needs to recall the forgotten stuff, and updates to replace those obsolete knowledge. And the area below the red curve is the amount of knowledge one is expected to have up to that point of time (e.g. by now you should know how to write and do multiplication, etc.).

The profile of the red curve (i.e. the shape) is thought to be representative with respect to the kind of schooling kids receive nowadays. Knowledge will be learnt, at quite fast a pace as one is still young, and gradually slows down as one matures. And at some time, probably some time into employment, the demand would begin to decrease. Hence the concave shape. However, the green curve varies from person to person, as different people learns with different style, and at a different speed.

This green curve belongs to that someone. As you can see, early in his life, he proceeds fast, and school work is of no work to him. Has enjoyed a great surplus, learning far more ahead than what he is supposed to know. However, there was a great disruption when he started to suffer from short-sightedness. The rate of learning decreases fast, but still respectable, until 1997. That's the year when he reaped most of the visible achievements, as analogous to the state of the British Empire in 1922 (1/4 of world's population and land area, most powerful navy, bla bla bla).

From there, things deteriorate fast. Although he did tell his parents about this for many times, he was promptly silenced. He could not do anything appropriate to straighten the injustice. So much about intellectual ability, indeed.

I should just quote the section of A Little Story, since it more than adequately describes the situation:

Nevertheless the momentum kept him going. He had his best academic performance in 1997, and have won a consolation prize at the state-level general knowledge competition. He did not regard this as meager in view of the circumstances.

But the ballast was too heavy. He simply could not sustain himself with that limited pool of knowledge. Moreover, he did not excel in mathematics. So he slid, from ‘first-tier’, to ‘quasi-first-tier’, and to ’second-tier’.

Gone were the desire to organize super-states.

Gone were the desire of designing airplanes.

Gone were the ability to write great passages and poems.

Gone were his mastery in history and geography.

Gone were the ability to argue at length in just about any subject.

Gone were his ability to socialize.

Gone were his confidence.

Gone were his reputation.

...

(Anything that I missed?)

In the end, it's British Empire again, but in 1970. Those were, as people said, remnants of a once vast empire, not even have the ability to solve its own problem, let alone to lead the world.

Perhaps it is Nature's punishment of that someone who wants to make a better world. Or it is simply a sin to out-perform his ancestors intellectually. Or whatever, it doesn't really matter. Since it has passed.

And now that person does not have a choice but to live within his modest means of accumulating knowledge, and enjoy less-than-satisfactory outcome. After a lost decade of 1995-2005, he would have acclimatized anyway. But perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. Without those disruptions and loss of pride, he couldn't have learnt the importance of being independent at all cost, physically, intellectually and spiritually. He couldn't have known a great man known as Benjamin Graham. And he couldn't have gone to an island off the tip of Malay Peninsula. And he wouldn't take the importance of this quote to his heart:

In war: Resolution. In defeat: Defiance. In victory: Magnanimity. In peace: Good will.

After all, UK doesn't seem to be in too bad a shape :P

I hope you can see not the negative aspects of this story of someone, but the positive ones. Do think independently and make your decisions carefully. If you know something is wrong, avoid it at all cost. If you have done something wrong, correct it at all cost. Don't defend something wrong just for the sake of preserving false reputation. If not, you may one day be the one writing the story, and I will be sorry to hear that.

Some Remarks...

2008-02-11T03:08:00.000+08:00

On Plagiarism

Compare this, from Rapid Penang...

Sometimes, two buses of the same service arrive at the same time with one bus being overcrowded and the other almost empty. Why?
The reason for this is largely due to adverse traffic conditions on the road and other conditions such as road closure, diversions, weather, accidents etc. Indeed, more than 70% of our delays or bunching are due to these reasons.

For example, assuming 3 buses started out being 20 min apart which was sufficient to cater to the demand along the route:

... ...

And this, from SBS Transit...

Sometimes, two buses of the same service arrive at the same time with one bus being overcrowded and the other almost empty. Why?
The reason for this is largely due to adverse traffic conditions on the road and other conditions such as road closure, diversions, weather, accidents etc. Indeed, more than 70% of our delays or bunching are due to these reasons.

For example, assuming 3 buses started out being 10min apart which was sufficient to cater to the demand along the route (see below).

... ...

Similar?

An advice to Rapid Penang: You have done a stellar job in improving the public transportation system of Penang. Please don't let something as trivial (I mean, mistake easily avoidable) as plagiarism ruin you. Intellectual property is an important aspect of business and you should observe it.

On Complexity

Looks like I'm really great in making simple things grow complex. What started off as a simple house design had expanded into the house, a library-cum-office tower, an aboretum, and possibly a set of water catchment infrastructure comprising drains, a reservoir and power generation system. The 3.0-meter wide elevated road may also be widened to 5.5 meter, along with a yet-to-be-tested tension bridge design, all within a 3,000 hectare campus (20 times the area of NUS Kent Ridge Campus)... What kind of house is this?

(to be continued...)

Some Jottings

2008-01-22T01:09:00.000+08:00

Now I understand what does asymmetric information mean, and its implication.

Many people believe that asymmetric information favoring oneself is very advantageous. Not really. It would be real advantageous if the agent wants to take advantage of others; otherwise, it might be very harmful. Not only the good will of the agent may be impaired or discounted by third parties, but upon the agent's exercise of good will towards others, the very situation of asymmetric information will cause the receiving party to misinterpret the action, triggering protective measures and cause negative externalities that may adversely affect the agent. The agent may even have to write off the good will partially or entirely; but it is better to consider such good will as sunk cost in the first place. Not only it is a more accurate representation of the agent's practice, it affords a more conservative estimate when calculating strategic interactions.

However, good will is not inexhaustible nor inherently sustainable. The agent may find the marginal cost of reserving his earning as good will exceeds his rate of accumulation of capital. In that case, the agent would have to abolish good will accounting altogether and value other entities at face value, a very apparent and highly quantitative measure. Although the concept of intrinsic value and altruism is desirable to have, the agent must at least enable himself to remain in steady state.

If you happen to understand this, well, all said and no more. Otherwise, just forget about it. It's very likely that you won't make that far if you are not understand, though :P

*** *** *** *** ***

My 'eyesight' is rather bad lately. My field of vision is so limited, that I'd have to approach someone close enough to recognize the person. I believe there are two main factors behind this: (1) I got an irregular sleeping pattern lately, sometimes as much as 13 hours and at times only four hours; and that (2) I'm so consumed by my residential design that I had to spend at least five hours a day on it, including weekdays. Drawing a 16-meter by 33 meter, four-storey cantilevered house is not quite an easy business!

So, if you had seen me while I failed to see you when I pass by you, or had given you a blank stare from a distance, I'm truly sorry.

By the way, I forgot which room I'm staying in. When being asked, I said I am staying in the room beside my actual one -.-"

*** *** *** *** ***

A sum of money was stolen from my cluster. I won't say it's a lot in nominal terms, but it may be so in real terms, from a poor student's point of view. I happened to be in the cluster when the incident happened. So if I suddenly disappeared, you know what happens la :P

A Trip Up Penang Hill

2008-01-13T17:15:00.001+08:00

(This is a very long and overdue post...)

First of all, some background information: If you want to know more about Penang Hill, you can refer to this article in Wikipedia, which I had written a substantial portion. Simply put, Penang Hill is not a hill but a range, with a number of peaks. The "Penang Hill" people normally say refers to Strawberry Hill, the one with the restaurant on the summit.

I had conceived of writing something like this for a great many years, but the lack of equipment frustrated my undertaking. I hope you won't find the many pictures boring, though you are likely to feel so...

I took the route I normally use: From Hye Keat Estate to 84, then from there to the summit, interrupted by a detour of Viaduct Road.

The funicular railway from the foot-hill. Many people thought this is the entire section, but it is just the first half of the railway. There is another half not visible here.

The trail starts here. It is relatively easy and gently sloped compared to other trails that lead to Penang Hill. It is also well used by the residents.

The distant summit is Bukit Penara, accessible by Jalan Tun Sardon, a winding road that leads to Balik Pulau. Kek Lok Si is also visible.

A view of Air Itam valley, Farlim new town and Paya Terubong housing estate. It can be seen clearly that the housing development is not well planned, and that the development has been creeping up the hill slope.

Middle Station of the funicular from a distance. Only the lower slope is visible from the foot-hill.

By now I had left the residential area and the path had narrowed. It just allows a moped to pass through. A few years ago I had cycled down the path from the summit of Penang Hill, and the wheels were severely damaged -.-

Small streams and cascades can already be seen. Cool though the water is, it should not be drunk or used because the water may be contaminated by pesticides used by the orchards up the slope.

The shrine is a good place to rest, since it marks the end of paved path. From here, it takes less than 30 minutes to reach 84.

The path diverges just steps away from the shrine. The left trail leads to Middle Station while the right leads to 84. I had travelled both, but the one to 84 is more frequently used.

The water flow of this cascade is particularly rich because of the rainy season. The volume is much smaller from March to about October.

The path leads to a seasonal stream, as witnessed by the rocks covering the distance. It has probably become 'dormant'. It is not difficult to negotiate, even with my heavily-loaded Crumpler and 1.5-kg of water :P

The next section of the path is overgrown, but there are no thorny branches. Such branches are more common at higher altitude.

Another shrine, this time a Hindu. Beyond the shrine, the path meets the one from Youth Park and Moon Gate.

The path is well used and very easy to walk. By now 84 is less than a minute's walk away.

Finally reached 84! 84 is the name of a hillside kiosk for hikers to rest. The number is taken from the number of chains from the foot-hill, one chain being 66 feet (20.11 meter). The straight-line distance from foot-hill at Botanic Gardens to the summit is 168 chains (3.4km); the tarred roads to Penang Hill (i.e. Jeep Track, visible in the above picture, and New Waterfall Road) combined is about 5.5km.

Jeep Track, looking towards Botanic Gardens. The track was developed during the 1960s. The road is not gazetted, meaning that if something happens to one's car (or possibly himself) on the road, he could not get compensation from insurance!

84, looking from the road at a higher position. The road is quite steep.

Maybe I should say very steep, evident from one of the many bends along the road. Normal cars are not able to use the road due to the steepness; only 4WDs and motorcycles are able to travel the road. Occasionally heavy vehicles, such as trucks, also use the road.

I am not an admirer of modern education system... One set of belief is taught in the school, but when comes to practice, it is another!

This is one of the more gentle sections of the road.

The hairpin bend looks steep no matter how I hold the camera (or handset?)...

Can you see a villa hidden up the slope?

End of Jeep Track. The right branch is New Waterfall Road which leads directly to the summit, while I would take the one to the left, Viaduct Road East. The suffix East denotes the eastern section of the road, as delineated by the funicular railway.

One of the many drains crossing the road at intervals...

Is this a piece of organic architecture? :P I guess this is the so-called man-made cave...

The eastern section of the road is paved, level and easy to walk.

I think this 'Orchard Road' is more appropriate than the existing one :P

One of the flower gardens along the road. This one is near the Turf Club Bungalow.

Why build two when one is enough? More is not necessarily better...

Hmm, what's that...?

The funicular! :D

There are many stops along the railway, Viaduct Station being one of those. It is meant to serve the residents living near Viaduct Road.

The viaduct, built in late 1910s...

A close-up look of the rails and pulleys. The pulleys slope to the left because the viaduct turns right higher up the section. Note that there is only one pulley with cable through; one of the trains is below the station while one is higher.

Looking down the slope and Hye Keat Estate, where I started the hike...

And looking upwards, towards the summit. The road that crosses the viaduct is Viaduct Road.

Now the train descends...

And you see two cables!

From there I continued my journey on Viaduct Road West. There are many pictureque scenery of eastern Penang Island along the road; Farlim is hidden in this picture, behind the vegetation. There are a number of monasteries along the road.

Here the road is still in reasonable condition, although the log is not cleared.

Farlim and Paya Terubong valley below, taken from a Buddhist monastery.

George Town, from the same location.

One of the many hill-side cultivations visible from the plains below.

By now the path had degraded into an undergrown one.

This landslide cut the paved road, beyond the undergrown section, into two; and delayed my hike for some four hours. It's partly due to my need to 'overcome' this section, and also that I am so tired after this section, I had to literally drag myself towards the summit...

My first attempt failed miserably, with mud covered the lower part of my legs. I had to drag myself to a farm nearby to clean the mud off my shoes and legs...

My second attempt is much better than the first, evident from the decrease in mud stuck to my shoes :P

Firstly, I had to follow the side of the road, where the mud is not so thick. It's indeed good to follow others' footsteps sometimes!

After that, I had to cross the landslide, using the fallen branches and uprooted plants as support. They were sufficiently strong to support my sub-50-kg body, hehe...

In return for my effort, I was rewarded with the view of George Town .___.

I did not realize the magnitude of the landslide until I took this picture -.-" Lower Tunnel Road is just visible in this picture, being cut into half...

From there it is nice paved road leading to the top of the ridge. It is very steep, in view of my exhaustion...

The canopy walk from the 'forest floor'... I'm at the forest floor level, isn't it?

Upper Tunnel Road East... By now you should know how the East originates...

Summit Road! But I'm still an hour away from Upper Station of the funicular railway T_T The hut is the entrance to the canopy walk.

The canopy walk... I don't know how it compares to other such walks, since this is the only one I've been to :$ The person-in-charge is kind enough to let me enter free of charge, after I talked with him about higher education :P

"This is where I come from..."

Looking down the forest floor...

Another view...

Coincidentally, I met my friends there... I was quite lucky, otherwise I would not have completed the 'walk'...

Moving on... Summit Road is easy to walk, still true in view of my exhaustion... I should have brought some food T_T

It's no longer necessary for me to tell you what place is this...

Quite a boring post right? Haih...

Self Contradiction

2008-01-10T23:48:00.001+08:00

Finally I have something to rant. Actually, this is more of an explosion, since I already wanted to say this for quite some time. Perhaps the title is not that right; after all, I hope I could use such phrase as blardy fool, moron, or something like that.

Take this:

TUARAN, Dec 30 (Bernama) -- Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said on Sunday that the country will become bankrupt if the government reduces oil prices, which were skyrocketting in the world market.

"Throughout the world oil prices are rising, it's not possible for the opposition to bring fuel prices down. It simply does not make sense ... they (opposition) are just trying to make fools of the people of Sabah."

Actually, both are making fools. On the one hand, if the government is really that visionary (visionary would be an exaggeration - wise is just about the right word), the subsidy would not be instituted in the first place. Countries like Norway and Singapore did (and do) not have it, but they are doing fine. In fact, its absence make their economies more competitive, as they readily adjust to the market condition, letting price as the signal, instead of having the private sector turning to the government like a boy running to his mother. The government should just do the job it's supposed to do - enforcing laws, ensuring physical safety of its citizens, and make sure that no one starves to death - just feed the starved, and let the private sector take care of job creation. When the government goes beyond that, you can be sure that the country is drifting away from democratic principles.

On the other hand, the opposition has not a consistent set of principles to contend with the incumbent party. Have you heard any member of the opposition party saying something like "The government should not do this because it is not consistent with the principles of democracy or logically contradictory in such and such a way" or "The government has done the right thing, but on the wrong reason"? I don't think so. Warren Buffett likes to highlight the difference between goal and promise, and I think it is good that we examine their differences here. To put simply, goal is something one tries to achieve, based on a set of plausible arguments and supports; promise is something that must be accomplished however the circumstances. Influential and resourceful though the government is, there are many factors which are out of its control; this is especially true of a small and open country. Political promises are probably as good as the prospect of someone being older than his father; goal of governance would be something worthwhile to be drafted and implemented instead.

Our people do not learn an important principle of double-entry bookkeeping. The principle is that the accounts must balance; debits must equal credits. The fallacy that the subsidy can stay in place without having some source to pay for it is an evidence of the lack of appreciation of the principle among the people. Elimination of the subsidy before the oil revenue runs out would be a meager but necessary remedy (it's too late to talk about investment). However, it's not elimination of a tax - elimination of subsidy would certainly cause the oil price to go up, converging with the world price. However, there are so many complaints about this. Why there was no complaint when the subsidy was instituted? (Perhaps there were, but I had not been born then :P) Don't question the special rights now; the subsidy is in effect a special right conferred upon all the people, from an economic point of view.

Perhaps the goal of being a developed country in some years time is too ambitious; the more realistic to do, for now, would be to 'straighten the logic' that has distorted the view of so many people over the years...

Please do not think that I'm complaining about other people because I have nothing to lose from this. My family does use petroleum-based fuel, and we would be affected as well. The following quote from my earlier article (also about the fuel subsidy, but on a more subsided tone) would serve as a good conclusion of this ranting:

... the government terminates the subsidy. This may be done one-shot or gradually. If the case is former, there results an adverse supply shock (prices of petrol and diesel increase dramatically). The economy may contract in the short run, or face instability. The government, anyway, would need to finance the ’smoothing’ expense in helping the economy go to the track without subsidy.

But as PM Lee of Singapore said, “Is it better to take your medicine sooner or stretch it out? Take medicine once or two times? I prefer to make my medicine early, why? This is something we need to do, once we have done it, we can move on…”

I humbly admit that my knowledge of economics is unsatisfactory and not being the brightest soul around, however I can’t help but to say, “It’s time to think rationally!”

p/s: One note about the taking of medicine sooner or later. It does make a lot of difference taking it either sooner or later. For the former, the country would have accumulated a surplus and would not have to borrow and service loans. The latter will sink the country into more debt, and this is definitely not a good thing when an economic downturn struck.

Looking Back

2008-01-06T13:16:00.000+08:00

"So you thought this is your home?"

I think this question (or implicit statement) aptly summarizes the situation in Penang. Confirmation of the hypothesis made in late 2003. Need I say more?

I think luckily, however, the core is still there; what was lost is the substance (think of a heart without a body). Perhaps it will re-emerge someday - maybe 10, 20 or 30 years later. I just don't know the precise moment, being limited in foresight. Perhaps if I'm good enough I can dispense with this institution altogether. Why discriminate between internal and external?

*** *** *** *** ***

At last I can appreciate an architecture being organic. True to its Nature.

*** *** *** *** ***

There were (and are) many detractions along the way to Omaha... But it must be done at all cost and as soon as possible!

Two Questions

2007-12-09T00:37:00.001+08:00

By right, the government exists because of the needs of the people, and not in spite of the needs of the people. However, the word "government" connotes that, instead of receiving directives from the people, the government "governs over" the people. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following explanation on "government":

The governing power in a state; the body of persons charged with the duty of governing. This may be viewed in two aspects, giving rise to two distinct senses of the word, which however often coincide in use.

a. As a permanent entity (cf. ‘the Crown’, ‘Parliament’, etc.), irrespective of the changes in the persons who hold office. Hence often practically equivalent to STATE, esp. when used attrib.

b. As constituted afresh by the appointment of a number of persons to certain official positions; in England, synonymous with ministry or administration. Often used without article.

"Governing", in turn, means

To rule with authority, esp. with the authority of a sovereign; to direct and control the actions and affairs of (a people, a state or its members), whether despotically or constitutionally...

The word "governing" connotes "direct" and "control." However, what is the referent of such "direction" and "control"? Is it the affairs of the state, or the people?

*** *** *** *** ***

Under a democratic arrangement, the people is supposed to tell the government what it wants, and ways of accomplishing it. The government, in turn, must disclose the cost and benefit of such action, and to get its master to agree upon the action.

However, a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for the above arrangement to work is that, the people is to tell the government what it wants. Does the people know what it wants in the first place?

A phenomenon adds negative pressure to the above question. The people, especially the younger generations, are told to excel in their studies and "things will take care of themselves": financial success, honor to the family, domestic stability, etc. But can one tell the government that he wants those things and expect the government to deliver it? Or shall tell the government to establish the necessary environment for him to succeed in life, and not just financially? Or can he just expect the government to take care of him?

Bye...

2007-12-08T18:48:00.000+08:00

It's quite cruel... Only days after the calamity ends, I need to be separated from 'someone'...

You know, the most enjoyable time in the library is when everyone leaves and the library is all yours. This typically happens during vacation. During the 3-months vacation in 2007, I spent nearly (read 'merely') a month in Singapore just to be in the library (and read the books, of course). I hope to do the same thing year after year, but time is the ultimate constraint. I need to do something else...

Does that mean that I had degraded the status of 'reading' and 'library' in my heart for something else? I hope not. Of course I can borrow the books I want and be away, but nothing beats physically browsing the collection and read at will, only to find that the sky turns dark so fast. That I had to stay away for such a long time (some 20 days!) is quite a terrible thing to imagine...

I better look at this hard... Since I'm gonna be away... Bye :(

Stealing a Nation

2007-12-01T14:59:00.000+08:00

More information:

My Regret

2007-11-22T18:52:00.001+08:00

Nowadays, a lot of my Malaysian friends paid a lot of attention in the field of so-called 'politics'. Being one who is perpetually attracted to this subject (or perhaps my disappointment that stems from it), I cannot claim to have paid more attention to it. The BERSIH rally and the resultant police action had of course produced a lot of publicity.

But what does BERSIH claim? BERSIH aspires to have free and fair elections in Malaysia. That's a very noble goal, and certainly not an extreme one. In fact, it is something that most democratic countries had taken for granted. However, such aspirations, manifested in the rally that had taken place on November 10, had caused the police to take such drastic actions as to use force against the citizens, their fellow countrymen. This is very alarming; we should perhaps revise some of the writings by John Locke regarding the role of the government, and that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, concerning social contract.

There is a social contract in Malaysia, formed and agreed upon before the Federation of Malaya gained independence in 1957. It dealt with such matters as the rights of Bumiputera and the citizenship of the immigrants. It was subsequently woven into the present Constitution of Malaysia. However, fifty years down the road, the questions that arise regarding to the such special status, in my observation, had become one of a quite different nature. Instead of discussing the relevance of the social contract, formed fifty years ago, in today's context, the argument had gone to such areas as the policies of affirmative action and the chauvinistic ideas of the superiority of one race over the others.

The result is a lot of arguments, with lots of irritations, but with little constructive meaning. The attacks on the flaws are diffused and inconsistent. There has been a lack of a central principle which guides the attacks on a consistent line. This is especially so given our (or perhaps my) education on democracy, social contract and political process. Government is being seen as the patriach, the planner; and the citizens, the servant, the children. I doubt this is a proper framework of a democracy as practiced effectively in other areas of the world (read the United States and Switzerland). Of course, upon saying the preceding statement, I would be immediately rebuked on the grounds that we have a different culture and that kind of democracy cannot suit our needs. My question: How many kinds of democracy are there? How many kinds of freedom are there for the humanity to choose? Is my desire for freedom different from, say, the people of Africa or the people of the United States?

Well, the following is quoted from the U.S. Department of State website; I believe it's true. The way to solve a disagreement, instead of shutting up the opponents, is by encouraging more freedom of speech. There has been a lot of claims by some authorities that traditional values and virtues are perverse in the lives of the society. However, some matters are deemed intolerable, sensitive, and groups of people are not able to take it. What, then, is the benefit of such traditional values? Is not that a contradiction that, a society with a lot of humanly traditional values and virtues cannot engage in arguments in a logical, tolerant, and an open-minded manner?

The need of education to resolve this issue is as great as ever. However, in the situation where the majority of students enrol in government-sponsored schools, I doubt the proper concept of democracy can be introduced in the curriculum at all. Reaching out to the society in general is very desirable, but in the presence of heavy self-sensorship and governmental oversight, what can be done?

But, gloomy though the picture is, the standard of living of the people has been rising, and they had become better off than ever. But the sphere of life is more than economic affluence. Whether the society wants to be more open and more boisterous is eventually up to the people themselves to decide. A minority who finds his or her opinions not acceptable to the majority can always go elsewhere, where his or her aspirations will be satisfied. In this globalized world where resources and people of similar kinds tend to congregate, this is more true than ever.

Paying for Bad Service

2007-11-19T02:08:00.000+08:00

Is the following my emesis of frustration and dissatisfaction? I hope not, and if it is, I hope it is a constructive one :P

I shall first tell a story. Somebody wrote a research paper on monetary policies of Malaysia and Singapore, and originally measured nearly 60 pages with some 30 graphs. However with the clever editing of his research partner the paper was managed to be cut to a neat 26 pages. Along with the reduction of pages is the reduction of file size: 9.05MB to 8.61MB. The statistics Excel file, which forms an integral part of the research, adds another 95KB. After finishing all the work he happily visited the IVLE page and intended to submit the paper through the workbin. To his horror and dismay, he found that the maximum file size is 5MB. He then proceeded to email his professor and partner concerning this matter.

The next day he received an email from his partner, informing him that the professor failed to reach him by email and had to contact him through his partner. Still horrified, he checked his school's email account and discovered that his email account had been closed. He felt strange that he had cleared his emails prior. Upon investigation he found that the Deleted Items COUNT towards the mailbox quota limit, a miserable 30MB (actually only some 27,000KB).

Of course he cleared the Deleted Items folder and tried to send the mail again. This time, for redundancy purposes, he also sent the mail through Gmail. He succeeded in sending the mail through Gmail, but here's the reply he got:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

[Email address]

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 16): 552 [mail server address] your message size exceeds maximum inbound size of 10240 kilobytes

There's no need to guess what happened to his mail sent using the school's email account, since the two are virtually identical.

Hello, what is the era we're living now? IS REALLY 11MB THAT MUCH?

He then sent the mail again PATIENTLY, submitting the Word document and the Excel file separately. He was still yet to receive a machine-generated reply.

*** *** *** *** ***

Now I'm wondering... Do you have to actually pay and use the service (Exchange Server) from Microsoft, and on top of that, to provide your own dedicated servers? I've been using free email services for ages and had never been aware of such problems... Hmm...

p/s: Moral of the story: Nothing beats a book! Although it cost me nearly $20 to print one, the result is much more satisfactory than the supposedly high-tech way of delivery :)

Monetary Policy of the 'State of Brunei'

2007-11-18T18:36:00.000+08:00

Note: 'State of Brunei' refers to a city in SimCity... :P

'Brunei's' monetary policy is unique in the world. In 'Brunei', the objective of the conduct of monetary policy is not to ensure price stability, but to ensure efficiency (i.e. reduction of impedance) of transactions. Therefore, the tools used by the Government of 'Brunei' is markedly different from the rest of the world.

Money Supply
The people of 'Brunei' maintains that a party shall not be held responsible, and influence, matters which is not within the capability of that party. Based on this principle, the government is not held responsible for maintaining monetary and price stability as such functions effectively rest on the private sector; the private sector can maintain a turbulent price fluctuations if it so wishes. The government is responsible for the issuance of hard currency however, and as such the function is tightly controlled to maintain the greatest level of certainty. The Currency Ordinance of 1323 provides that the government is obliged to increase the hard currency by three percent of the same kind already issued. The government is given discretion, through the Central Bank, to vary the percentage by a window of 1.5 percent either way. The currency is not backed by foreign reserves; in fact, the 1323 Act prohibits such backing by the Central Bank. However, 'Brunei' in fact holds more than one-third of world's foreign currencies' reserve: The reserve is maintained by the private sector for the clearing of international transactions.

There are two units of currency in Brunei, namely Simoleon and Bruneian Dollar. One simoleon is equivalent to 200,000 Bruneian Dollars. The government account is kept in Simoleon, and the real estate market also uses Simoleon as the official unit of account. However, since the value of Simoleon is very high relative to the rest of the world (i.e. 1 simoleon = US$250,000), the Bruneian Dollar is created to facilitate transactions and to make prices better understood by the rest of the world. The Simoleon managed to keep much of its purchasing power over the centuries, and in fact increased it, because the money supply increases very slowly while the economies expanded at a much higher rate, much analogous to companies which expands fast but never split its stocks.

Exchange Mechanism
The exchange transactions of 'Brunei's' money is carried out entirely by the private sector, primarily through the Exchange Clearinghouse of the downtown Financial Market, and even the government had to seek the service of the private sector to carry out foreign exchange transactions. There is no government restrictions of exchange transactions.

Relation of Government with respect to monetary policies
The government has very limited role in the conduct of monetary policy other than those prescribed above. The government dedicate resources to develop information technology to enhance the efficiency of monetary transactions over the years, and collaborate with the private sector in this matter. The government also provides real-time information on market information; or rather, information on the Financial Markets and enterprise transactions are provided to the government for consolidation. As a result, the government had access to the state of finance of any company at any time of the day, and the businesses do not have to file financial statements to the government. A strong and efficient judiciary, along with effective check of powers, ensure that privacy is respected.

The government is prohibited from borrowing money and maintaining debts; however the government is permitted to be granted a credit line which does not exceed its financial reserve (not to be confused with foreign reserve). The government, therefore, had to run a balanced budget, or to finance budget deficit using existing reserve. The government must be dissolved in the case it had accumulated debt, and a new government would be formed to succeed the one dissolved. Such stringent terms meant that the government's accumulating debt is a virtual impossibility, and it had never done so since its inception nearly 700 years ago. Instead, the government now maintains a huge financial reserve worth 75 million simoleon, or 15 trillion Bruneian Dollars, equivalent to 199 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or 34 percent of Gross World Product (GWP), and 83.5 times of current annual governmental expenditure.

(To be continued...)

Some Fragmentary Notes

2007-11-11T15:25:00.000+08:00

On Internal Shuttle Service
Well, to put it lightly, the availability of the service is equivalent to its absence. Not only I failed to catch any BTC1 services on the time prescribed on the timetable, I'd had to fork out eight dollars for a cab ride, and five minutes late. (This is not my first time, and I obviously failed to learn from mistakes...) Talking about efficiency indeed.

On Writing
There's no new posts on my blog because I'm busy preparing for some writings concerning politics. Unfortunately, many of those got deleted before the drafts were completed. I had a hard time organizing my thoughts; and it was complicated by the need to express it in a non-cluttered manner, as well as to make it 'interesting'. I know I'm not obliged in any way to complete those, but I shall try.

On (Personal) Study
I'm rather contented that I was able to finish reading a number of books, mostly biographies, over the past few months. I hope I can go for more, but am bogged down by the absence of such books in the library and my unwillingness to pay for it (finally! :P ). Perhaps I should consider visiting the National Library at downtown more often.

On My Blog
I had been contemplating of shutting down this blog for quite some time because it seems to have no longer served its purpose, and there has been barely, if any, deliberations going on. (Care to see the number of comments?) Of course, popularity is not my objective, and so does the number of comments. However, as one saying goes, the greatest risk a politician could ever have is not being unpopular, but being ignored. (Not trying to be a politician tho! :P ) My point is that, at the very least, I would like to know others' opinions concerning the topics as well as my responses. ~~Well, I'm not going to ask for opinion about the shutdown because I know for certain that no one is going to respond anyway.~~ And I still have ongoing writings!

On Politics
Believe it or not, I just realized that I don't understand democracy at all, even though I had spoken like a political expert for... ...many years. I know many of us had studied at least a little about governance during schooling years. However, upon reading John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and Madison et al's The Federalist Papers, I know that I had to start learning all over again. Just think about this: Why teach politics in the school? What is the supposed reason? What is the real reason? Who write the syllabus and books? We are told that we need to be loyal, need to maintain harmony, need to contribute to the country, so on and so forth. These seem plausible, but after reading the papers I mentioned, and also the videotapes of Milton Friedman's lectures, I know that those are plausible no doubt, but those are just rhetoric, and they can't form a logical argument (I'm taking Logic this semester! :P ). For a citizen of democracy will be loyal to nobody other than the principle of freedom, and a democratic government is nothing more than an enforcer of contracts, including laws mandated by its citizens. Anything more than that and suspicion is warranted. Okay, since I mentioned that I'm currently writing several articles concerning this, I should put it to an end :P

Some Thoughts...

2007-10-29T18:48:00.001+08:00

Note: This post has something to do with politics and religion (again), so if you're not comfortable about these, leave while you can! By the way, inductive reasoning is dangerous: I never say who 'someone' is!

Looking back the years of someone, it has been really tumultuous. It's nice to write an extension to A Little Story since there's still some time before I want to have dinner...

Changes in belief of a viable political system, and in relation to his world view
It may seem deeply contradictory to someone's belief today, but he was originally a believer of monarchism and imperialism. When he was still small (i.e. around 10 years old), he was convinced, by way of reading, coming into other people's lamenting of old colonial days, and possibly some other means, that it is good and especially efficient for a nation's administrative power to concentrate on a benign despot, of the likes of Yao and Shun. The behavior of the gahmen leaders of the day (and the accompanying 'news') further strengthened his belief that this was to be the case. It is therefore natural for him to get interested into something like this and ways of doing it successfully. It is frightening indeed that a primary school kid was convinced over things like that! Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately :P ), due to his lack of ability and his young age, he never got into the stage of planning for an actual 'something', although serious study was already underway, on ways of raising physical force and its sustenance, ways of claiming legitimacy, and political models. Such was the beginning of someone's exposure to politics as the study of power.

It is of interest to me on the degree of influence such study has on someone's world view (and its development on his later stage). His belief has led him into a sense of perpetual struggle, and, in later years, of perpetual vulnerability. That someone even got to the stage (q.v. A Little Story, section 2) where he has disposed of his trust towards his family, and the preparation towards eventual severance. It remains to be seen how things has worked out since, although the reconciliation has gone well.

In recent years he studied the thinking of John Locke and other thinkers. He also learned a number of valuable lessons, seemingly inappropriate and useless to other people, but essential to his survival.

*** *** *** *** ***

Changes in the view of investment
This can be summarized nicely in a few sentences. He originally favored the accumulation of commodities and technology: raw material being, well, raw material for production, and technology enables something to be produced more efficiently with less input. In addition, he favored such 'strategic industries' as energy and defense companies, business which he can easily put into good use for the achievement of his 'purpose'. As said earlier, (luckily) it did not materialize. He now subscribes to a more 'normal' thinking, that with Ben Graham being his primary source of enlightenment, and with meaningful returns as primary motive for investment, not with strategic reasons. The story between the two stages can be read from A Little Story.

*** *** *** *** ***

He was lucky in that he did not end up being labeled as insane. However, while he got the wrong start, he was lucky to eventually get into the right track, after years of struggle and near ruin. What did he learn?

Policies may be big words in politics, but is something practical to someone. It is good to write down, in actual words, the policies someone intend to practice, practice it, and revise it from time to time. Dump it when it is no longer useful.

Force is not the way to solve problem; self restraint is. It may seem strange to many people to associate self restraint with democracy, but the two go together. One can do whatever one wants without coercive interference from others; more importantly, one cannot stop others from doing whatever others like insofar as one's personal space is not threatened.

He should observe strict separation of his 'self' and affiliation with other beliefs related to politics, religion and world view. This arises not out of mere personal belief but more of necessity, from his (rather 'weird') social position. Especially, he should take full advantage of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion and thought to protect his personal space. He of course could discuss such matters freely, but should observe neutrality and the use of reasoning. He also learned in classes that he should not throw undue onus upon himself when it comes to these issues.

Always remain prepared to lose something 'big', not only physical possessions, but including his family and acquaintances. He has (well, nearly?) done it once. Of course, the loss shall not be caused deliberately!

What else shall he learn? What else is there for him to learn? Hmm... It's not something normal, but essential for him to remain normal... So he shall continue to refine his thinking and policies.

Well, time to have dinner :)

Wawasan 2020 - An Economic Consideration

2007-10-20T15:14:00.000+08:00

Well, someone said...

With regard to the establishment of a prosperous society, we can set many aspirational goals. I believe that we should set the realistic (as opposed to aspirational) target of almost doubling our real gross domestic product every ten years between 1990 and 2020 AD. If we do this, our GDP should be about eight times larger by the year 2020 than it was in 1990. Our GDP in 1990 was 115 billion Ringgit. Our GDP in 2020 should therefore be about 920 billion Ringgit in real (1990 Ringgit) terms.

Obviously that certain someone is kinda like me: Being born as the only child in the family. Being the only child, I do not have to scramble for toys, so I just have to be concerned about the total amount of toys daddy or mommy bought for me. But the same is not applicable to those who had sisters and brothers. The appropriate question is, obviously, "How much do I have relative to my siblings?" If you had two brothers and your parents bought three toys (to be distributed equally), there should be not much of a problem. But if the amount of toy bought is reduced to two, a large chance is that there will be trouble.

Now... How many people are there in Malaysia? There are more toys to play with, obviously, but still, there may be problems...

*** *** *** *** ***

This thing just somehow got into my mind, so I might as well grab it to do some mathematical exercise. Suppose that currently a developed economy has a nominal per-capita GDP figure of (US)$40,000. (The corresponding figure for Singapore is $31,000, the United States $42,000, and Luxembourg $68,800.) The advanced economies grow at an average of 5 percent per year (of course, the range is significant, and assuming that inflation is accommodated in the case). There is still thirteen years to 2020 (okay, I'm being lenient). Put these together, the nominal per-capita GDP for an advanced economy in 2020 would be:

($40,000)(1.05^13) = $75,426

The nominal per-capita GDP for Malaysia, at the current moment, is about $5,700. The desired growth rate of Malaysia, so that this figure can be matched within 13 years, can be found by equalling the per-GDP figure for an advanced economy with that of Malaysia, in 2020:

($5,700)(x^13) = ($75,426)

Rearranging,

(x^13) = (13.23)

Take log for both sides and after simplification, the equation becomes

log x = 0.08628

The growth rate is simply

x = 1.2197
Desired growth rate = 22.0% per annum

Now, give me (or rather, the gahmen) some magic prescriptions to achieve this result...

p/s: Correct me if I'm wrong... My maths is weak :(

post p/s: Why I use nominal instead of real GDP, whereas that someone used real terms? If Malaysia does not trade, of course it would be perfectly alright to use real purchasing-power comparison. However, as the Malaysian economy is open, exchange rate is extremely important in determining the purchasing power of the currency, that is, the proportional amount of goods the money we hold in our pocket can buy. As Malaysia needs to use Ringgit to purchase foreign goods, Malaysia need to sell Ringgit for foreign currencies. Currently, the purchasing power of the Ringgit is nearly at parity with the U.S. Dollar, but the exchange rate does not reflect this fully (i.e., Ringgit is undervalued). Therefore, Malaysian exports are cheap while imports are expensive, resulting in a comparatively depressed standard of living. Taking this into account, the use of nominal, rather than real, value corresponds more fully to the implications of the economic as well as monetary development Malaysia has to undergo in order to reach the status of a fully-developed country. But this seems to be out-of-scope for the purpose of the article huh? :P

What a Failure...

2007-10-13T22:20:00.000+08:00

Note: This post may be offensive to some people, as I am going to write about arguing politics and religion (or rather, my view of it). If you do not feel comfortable, please do not proceed, k? ;) (I hope you will take the preceding note literally, rather than as an implicit invitation to read further... :P )

I'm a bit afraid of arguing impromptu with others about politics and particularly, religion. My mind turns slow and, after I went to the Logic classes, I just realized that I've been somehow 'tricked'. There are two pitfalls which I am prone to suffer from, namely (being the victim of) wrongly shifting the burden of proof, and (being the victim of) creating a false burden of proof.

Wrongly shifting the burden of proof is essentially this. If there is someone who wants to argue for something 'incredible' (or seemingly defy common sense), he bears the burden of proof. That is to say, it is his responsibility to present the arguments to the other parties, not the other way around. However, there are a great many instances where the person, who tries to argue for something 'incredible', is shifting this responsibility to others. Here's an example from the Logic note:

A: "The moon does not circle the Earth. It just sits there in the sky."

B: "What? You must be joking. Why do you say that?"

A: "Well, why do you believe that the moon circles the Earth? Have you ever seen the moon do it?"

B: "No, but this is common knowledge. You will find it in any encyclopedia."

A: "That doesn't really establish much. Do you believe everything you read?"

B: "Of course not. But an encyclopedia is not a magazine. It is a reliable source of information."

A: "Reliable, but not infallible. The people who write encyclopedias are human beings. They sometimes make mistakes."

B: "Yes, but that is very unlikely. Look, any astronomer will tell you that the moon circles the Earth."

A: "Well, has any astronomer told you this? You don't really have solid grounds for believing that the moon circles the Earth, do you?"

You see what happens? A is the one who tries to argue for something, but B ends up trying to defend himself! It's incredibly efficient for A to 'argue'. Sadly, I'm not that different from B... What B should do is...

A: "The moon does not circle the Earth. It just sits there in the sky."

B: "What? You must be joking. Why do you say that?"

A: "Well, why do you believe that the moon circles the Earth? Have you ever seen the moon do it?"

B: "Sorry, but the more pressing question is why you believe that the moon does not circle the Earth. Yours is the more incredible proposition."

Hopefully I'm fast enough in getting out of this pitfall (or, being the victim of it)...

The second pitfall that I'm so good at being preyed is creating a false burden of proof. It means that someone who does not bear the burden of proof is being placed into a position that he apparently is. An example will illustrate, also from the note:

Theist: "God exists."

Agnostic: " There is no evidence for that proposition. You should not believe any such thing."

Theist: "Speaking of evidence, what is the evidence that God does not exist? People go around criticizing my faith, but no one has shown me any good evidence that He does not exist. Can you show me some? Otherwise, this question of evidence is pointless, isn't it? You ask me for my evidence, but I can just as well ask you for your evidence."

Agnostic: "Well, some people say that there is evidence from the sciences and the theory of evolution. The God-hypothesis just seems to be unnecessary in order to explain the nature and order of things."

Theist: "Well, that what everyone says, but there are also many things that science cannot explain. Science cannot explain consciousness and the mystery of death. Science cannot explain the existence of miracles and the power of prayer. Science does not have an explanation for everything. What rush to conclude that the God-hypothesis is unnecessary?"

Agnostic: "Yes, but we should give science some time to mature. In a few hundred years, you may see that the God-hypothesis is unnecessary. We may be able to explain everything through the laws of science."

Theist: "That is just wild speculation. No one knows what will it be like in a few hundred years."

(But wait, isn't that agnostic is one who neither believes that God exist nor do not exist?) Haih, the agnostic should just say...

Theist: "God exists."

Agnostic: " There is no evidence for that proposition. You should not believe any such thing."

Theist: "Speaking of evidence, what is the evidence that God does not exist? People go around criticizing my faith, but no one has shown me any good evidence that He does not exist. Can you show me some? Otherwise, this question of evidence is pointless, isn't it? You ask me for my evidence, but I can just as well ask you for your evidence."

Agnostic: "I'm sorry, but I never say that God does not exist. I have no idea whether God exists. But you positively believe that God exists. So tell me again, what is your reason for upholding that proposition?"

I finally know why I admire Lee Kuan Yew so much: He is incredibly good at avoiding getting into such situation. Should I make you watch at the video again?

Dawning of (Another) Crisis?

2007-10-06T23:55:00.000+08:00

Hmm...

Yea, laugh all you want... But my skepticism leading to my earlier article remains: is that the really right way of going around marking the essay? What's the point of teaching language then? Hmm...

Dawning of a Crisis?

2007-10-01T19:56:00.000+08:00

It’s not really so propitious a moment for me to contemplate such a matter as long-term health problem, yet I had to, for I am one that can never sleep well when I know that great problems are waiting for me, even those are far into the future. It is good also, that I at least have the chance of acting early. Before I start, consider the following two scenarios, in my usual third-person tone…

He looked at the assignment and got panic in a sudden, because he thought the date was due and he still had not started to write the essay, let alone completed. Therefore he rushed to the library and started to write, hoping that he could at least scramble some things to pass up. However, upon calling the lecturer and the tutor, he was told that the due date was two weeks ahead. Apparently his memory had misled him.

Now the other one…

He reached the seminar room, where his discussion group is conducted, early. The time was 3:30pm. He had a presentation to do during the discussion. Since he thought that the discussion group starts at 5:00pm, he figured that he was better to wander around, since there were no where better to go. So he strolled in the vicinity of the seminar room until 4:22pm. He looked at the timetable he took along and to his horror, the discussion commences on 4:00pm. So he entered the room hastily, while guessing that people would think him crazy, since he was strolling outside the room while he was suppose to attend the session! Luckily there were still fifteen minutes left, and he used all of it to present his case. And to his relief the result of the essay was satisfactory.

Clearly, any people would advise me that I had some problem, but strangely, no one did. Being deprive of money to carry out an MRI scan for myself, I can only keep on convincing myself that these things happened because of a lack of sleep. Here are some of the facts I observed…

I could effortlessly memorize things which others would think as inconsequential, such as the specifications of airliners and the economic statistics of nations, some times in a series (i.e. for multiple years). I am also good in recalling the call numbers of books. An even weirder thing to remember is the location of a particular footnote in a book (this greatly aided me in the Labor Law exam)!
Last time, I could very well remember people that did bad things to me, but this is eroding to a negligible level.
I could not recognize other people’s faces well. Even if I could recognize, for much of the time I would need a long response time to realize this.
The same can be said for my memorization of other people’s names, and even titles. I could recall last time, when I nearly called one of my relative, whom I am very familiar with, ‘uncle’ (I am not supposed to call him uncle since there is a proper title in Chinese!).
I frequently confuse time and date (examples had been given).
The last and the worst. Sometimes I will take in possession of something but forgot what I want to do with it. When I want to recall what I want to do with it, I forgot the context I am in. Let me give you another example.

He wanted to fill in a form, so he got himself a pencil. But upon grabbing the pencil he forgot what he wanted to do. So he sat down and thought hard, but still could not get a hint. In the end he was confused what he was doing actually, so he got out to do something. Only hours later that he recalled, “Ah, I wanted to fill in the form!”

The divergence (between my ability to remember and my ability not to remember) has gone greater and greater, and it had manifested itself in such a manner upon me. I wanted to find this out scientifically, but such a prospect is poor. And the last example is really a worrisome phenomenon for me, and it refuses to go away. For my friends who are knowledgeable about this, any advice?

A final consolation for myself: I know Benjamin Graham did worse than I in this respect. He can drive his son to the park for a stroll, and take a subway back, since he forgot that he actually drove there! :P

Visiting Library - A Perilous Journey

2007-09-12T21:25:00.000+08:00

Consider (okay, read) the following story...

One day someone went to a library. As he browse through the books, he was struck by one of them. He picked up the book and read, and in the end, he got thrilled so much that he noted down the title of the book, and headed towards the nearest book store to get a copy for himself. It was such a sin not to buy a good book that he come across, especially one that he can afford to buy.

Can you guess who that person is?

And how familiar the story is to that person?

If you figure out the two questions above, you know how to break that person.

...

(Yeah, finally I got to write something short! :P )

Some Random Jottings that Happened to be Statistically Significant in Some Ways

2007-09-07T15:05:00.000+08:00

It's a rather wordy title, but I can't think of any other alternatives. Nor is it normal for me to write something of this nature in my blog, although the purpose of a blog is for one to record and share one's life and itinerary with friends and acquaintances. I'd normally consider social issues and other matters that interest me as something personal, hence worthy of getting the topics written and shared in my blog. However the string of events that happened lately provides me with some fresh directions of writing (whether I want to take it as a curse or a blessing).

Okay, that seems enough justification before I start to rant...

Many people had told me that they are being unfortunate, or 'unlucky' lately. Judged from what had happened to me lately, I may classify myself under this group, but I do want to say something about the word 'luck', for it is imprudent to use a word without knowing its literal meaning and connotation, and I risk myself of getting into some sort of vicious cycle, where I will end up with problems compounding and without solutions.

Before proceed to the ambitious task mentioned I wish to tell some stories first. As usual, I will use a third-person tone.

Someone went to HSSML, 60 minutes before the lectures commence, to print notes. But upon reaching the printer he was told by A that A was printing 90 sets of notes (yes, PRINTING and not xeroxing) and told him to f*ck off. He complied since he had learned, in a painful manner that nearly cost his life, that he would be late if he enters a quarrel. So he f*cked off for Central Library. Reaching the Library, he booked a computer and did everything again to print the notes. However, after paying 60 cents for the service, he discovered that what came out of the printer were some blank sheets, and no more. He proceeded, with some wild thoughts, to LT9, and in the end, he was five minutes late and with an empty stomach.

On a more joyful note, he picked up something useful during the lecture, and his sweat dried up. The lecture ended 45 minutes earlier than expected, and that allowed him enough time to have a lunch before heading for Bukit Timah Campus to attend a brown-bag lunch talk by the former Thai finance minister. After having lunch, he headed back to his room to pick up his jacket, and waited for the bus BTC1 at the PGPR ISB terminal. The time was 11:40am. He waited for some 20 minutes, yet no such buses arrived, although the timetable displayed clearly noted that there should be buses arriving at 1140 and 1142. Weighing the marginal benefits and marginal costs while taking sunk costs out of account, he decided to go to HSSML again to write this piece of crap.

Well, there are some sets of stories that are starkingly similar to this, happened for a few times prior to that, but it is obvious that I'm going to scare you off if I proceed to tell you the stories (that's if you've made it here, congrats and thanks ;-) )

(Actually I have something to add here. In the midst of typing all this suddenly the browser got into error and my session was abruptly ended. Luckily WordPress automatically saves my draft at some pre-determined intervals, and that prevents further damage from being done. I'm being thankful again :-) )

You can see that all those things that happened to me were not exactly benign in nature, and it did cause me to feel tired, though not really stressed. (Can you imagine on top of those things, I have to climb and descend a ridge a few times a day with a full bag and a tight schedule?) And all those things happened one after another.

I think it's far from scientific to say so, but I can't help but admit that the not-so-benign things are really statistically significant over these few days. (Hence the phrase 'statistically significant' in the title.) But I've yet to concede that I am plagued by bad luck, because I have no concrete reason to tell whether it is really caused by this so-called luck, or just mere coincidence.

An analogy would be in the measurement of economic activity. Can you say that the economy grows just because GDP goes up over a certain period? On the aggregate level, yes; but on the personal level, not quite. Sometimes the economic 'fortune' of the people may just follow a random walk, and yet on the aggregate level, the figure increases. So it is really imprudent to assume that economy inevitably grows in the long run.

The same applies to my case. Bad things and good things happen, but for the moment, the bads exceeds the goods. And it may just be the result of some 'random walk', or some other pre-determined variables, of which I have no way to ascertain which one is the source. And I don't think now is a good time to find it out because bad things had happened anyway, and there are problems that remain to be solved.

However, I shall be grateful that at least, I still have the chance to sit here and type at my will, and that's something I could not ask for more...

(Well, I wonder who ever read this sentence... Anyone made it?)

On Reading

2007-08-13T19:48:00.000+08:00

Reading has multiple meanings, ranging from the simple act of recital (which some machines are capable of) to the concept of perusal and interpretation (the domain thus far solely reserved for human being). A range of reading-related activities, also commonly referred to as simply reading, can be fitted into the spectrum, such as reading for the teaching of language, reading for the teaching of a specific subject, reading for pleasure, reading as a result of peer pressure, etc. The style which reading is conducted can be described in two qualities, viz. intensive reading and extensive reading. Taking into consideration the interplay of these factors, we shall be able to find some interesting as well as problematic areas of reading, a supposedly simple activity.

Firstly I would like to discuss the various meanings of reading. From the Oxford English Dictionary Online (available through subscription only), a range of meaning can be found, of which those relevant to the current discussion are presented:

The action of uttering aloud the words of written or printed matter.
This is supposedly the explicit part of reading. It refers to the ability of the reader to interprete the symbols (i.e. alphabets or words) into the correct phoneme, or in simple terms, converting words into sounds. However, that mere action does not connote the reader is literate, for a literate person must be able to assign a (sufficiently large range of) word the meaning correspond to the one commonly accepted by the society. A literate person should also be able to dispense judgment to the materials he read, as of the fifth point below.

Ability to read; the art of reading.
The ability to read suggests not only the role played by the faculty of senses during the course of reading, but the faculty of thought as well. Reading is a process of give-and-take; a reader needs to give up his presuppositions to examine the author's expression so as not to mis-interprete what the author is trying to convey; yet he needs to equip himself with a critical mind so as to dispense judgment as regards fallacy and alternative explanations, after the process of perusal.

The action of perusing written or printed matter; the practice of occupying oneself in this way.
The action of reading can be induced out of coercion, persuasion or voluntarism. One can be coerced to read, for example, as part of school work or as a result of peer pressure (to follow "fashion"). One can be persuaded to read, as a result of parental advice or campaign. One can read voluntarily out of curiosity, or to the quest of knowledge, or simply for pleasure. In most cases the three elements are likely to be present simultaneously, for one may be coerced to read some materials, be persuaded to read another set, yet be voluntarily reading another set.

The extent to which one reads or has read; literary knowledge; scholarship.
The "extensiveness" of one's reading is the extent which a reader reads. Some may be very good in a single subject and ignorant of others; some may be good in a large number of fields but does not excel in a particular one. There are also cases where one has excellent knowledge in many fields (so-called polymath), for example, Zhang Heng, Thomas Jefferson and Ernst Mach. However, it is not assumed that all the knowledge that one acquires derives solely from reading alone; however reading is considered a primary means of acquiring knowledge, especially before one is able to create knowledge out of the existing pool of knowledge.

The interpretation or meaning one attaches to anything, or the view one takes of it; in recent use esp. the rendering given to a play or a character, a piece of music, etc., as expressing the actor's or performer's point of view.
This has some pertinence to point 2 above. Premature judgment is dangerous, since the reader is at risk of obtaining a distorted context and partial information, and so misinterpreting the text. However, the lack of interpretation defeats the purpose of reading (as give-and-take), and is nothing more than the mechanical task as defined in point 1. Therefore it is important that a reader be equipped with the correct 'art of reading' so as to make the process a meaningful one.

Having discussed the various meanings of reading, I now turn to the two qualities of intensive reading and extensive reading. In contrast to the widely accepted meaning of the two terms, I refer to intensive reading as a reading method emphasizing depth over breadth from the start, and extensive reading is the opposite. Even though the time frame taken to study the same subject may be the same with the two approaches, the outcomes may have been radically different. In order to give a more concrete example of intensive and extensive reading, it is useful to include two quotes which I believe highlight their respective qualities. As regards intensive reading, a quote from the article In Search of an East Asian Identity in Mathematics Education demonstrates its quality:

From the literature, it is found that the curricula in these East Asian countries are content oriented and examination driven. Teaching is very traditional and old fashioned. Teachers in these countries seem to be ignorant about the latest methods of teaching, and think that competence in mathematics alone is sufficient for an effective teaching of the subject. Classroom teaching is conducted in a whole class setting, and given the large class size involved, there are virtually no group work or activities. Instruction is teacher dominated, and student involvement is minimal. Memorization of mathematical facts is stressed and students learn mainly by rote. There is ample amount of practice of mathematical skills, mostly without thorough understanding. Students and teachers are subjected to excessive pressure by the highly competitive examinations, and students do not seem to enjoy their study. (Brimer and Griffin, 1985; Biggs, 1994; Leung, 1995, 2000; Wong and Cheung, 1998; Wong, 1998)

Of course, by quoting the passage, I do not mean to highlight the deficiencies of the method, but rather to highlight the features of intensive reading in a subjective manner. The features of intensive reading, more or less, can be summarized as:

Fulfillment of a clear goal;

The presence of a time limit; and

Form is stressed over function.

Fulfillment of a clear goal. In intensive reading there normally presents a goal the reader should achieve, be it the understanding (or ability to imitate) of certain topic or mere memorization of text. The goal can be set by other people, and more uncommonly the reader himself.

The presence of a time limit. There is usually a prescribed time limit in which the reader needs to complete his reading. This implies, to a considerable extent, that he must at least progress with certain speed so as to finish his reading on time.

Form is stressed over function. This is rather a generalization of a series of descriptions. In mathematics, it means that theories and working are presented with little or no regard to its application. In languages, it means memorization of rules is stressed over the practical use of the rules. Again, I wish to emphasize that the above statements do not carry any negative connotations. The effect depends on a person's stage of learning; those who know little or nothing about a certain subject may find it helpful that the reading method quickly builds up his competency in that subject, and so to achieve a level of sustainable self learning; those who is already reasonably competent in a certain subject may find the method not so fruitful when it comes to such purpose as reading for pleasure and reading as a preparation for writing a topic which a good understanding over many fields is required.

As regards extensive reading, there is not a single, readily available definition that is satisfactory for the purpose of this article. However, the Oxford English Dictionary has suggested the quality of being extensive:

Far-reaching, large in comprehension or scope; wide in application or operation; comprehensive; also, lengthy, full of detail.

Far-reaching, large in comprehension or scope. In contrast to intensive reading, which text is selected, limited in length and highly focused, the text for extensive reading covers a wider range which at times may not appear to be relevant to the subject studied, however may form a useful 'auxiliary' knowledge. Of course, in studying a specific subject, reading something entirely out of scope and without any reasonable justification is not considered to be in the realm of extensive reading. Therefore, in adapting the approach of extensive reading, the reader shall have a certain level of maturity and sensible judgment so as to read in a fruitful manner, and not to read indiscriminately.

Wide in application or operation. The reading of materials of certain subjects, especially those related to technology, should in theory incorporate a great degree of emphasis on practical application of knowledge. This, of course, is true to all kinds of reading in general. However, again, the reader needs to have a good understanding of the relevant subject before he can embark on such a course. For example, in order to study linguistics through extensive reading, the reader inevitably needs some understanding, at least, about a language and good foundation in grammar. Without having the prerequisite skills and merely reading indiscriminately could only produce marginal understanding of the subject at best, and the materials could even be misleading to the reader. With the necessary skills in hand, the reader could conduct self study in a sensible and sustainable manner, and with interest he may immediately put what he learned into good use.

Lengthy, full of detail. This is not an exclusive feature of intensive reading; it is a feature of extensive reading as well. The word lengthy connotes not on an absolute basis, but rather on a relative one. That is to say, a reader practicing extensive reading may read a number of materials, which has overlapping elements among each other, but overall provides a greater coverage of the subject.

Function is stressed over form. In contrast to intensive reading, real-world example and application are more important than formalized rule under extensive reading. Hence, the introduction of examples shall precede that of formalized rules, and the former shall be in some ways relevant to the experience of the student. This notion is best illustrated by the cognitive linguistics movement. According to the article Cognitive Linguistics in Wikipedia,

In linguistics and cognitive science, cognitive linguistics (CL) refers to the school of linguistics that understands language creation, learning, and usage as best explained by reference to human cognition in general. It is characterized by adherence to three central positions. First, it denies that there is an autonomous linguistic faculty in the mind; second, it understands grammar in terms of conceptualization; and third, it claims that knowledge of language arises out of language use.

The teaching of grammar makes a rather controversial illustration. In the field of language grammar, specifically that of English, there has been intense debate whether grammar is worth teaching. Ann L. Warner (1993) surveyed nearly a hundred secondary school educators (teachers) throughout West Virginia, United States, to find out "why, when, and how often they teach traditional grammar [i.e. formalized grammatical rules]", and "how grammar instruction affects instruction in writing." To quote directly the result,

Most (61%) responded that they teach traditional grammar as a unit separate from literature or composition study and spend more than 30% of their total instructional time teaching grammar.

Of those who teach a grammar unit, 56% use sentence diagramming in their instruction.

By a 3:1 margin, teachers reported having a written curriculum in use for the teaching of grammar. (However, discrepancies in responses from teachers in the same school system suggest that while such a curriculum may exist, it is not necessarily in use.)

Of those who reported teaching grammar as an isolated unit of study, by a 2:1 margin, the majority indicated that their students do not seem to retain knowledge of grammar study and that much instruction is reteaching of concepts not learned in the previous years of study.
One respondent remarked, "I believe something must be done in regard to writing and grammar. Students are not retaught the times tables in math; they are taught it once and then held accountable. Why can't this be done in English grammar?"

Of those who claimed awareness of current research, 71% felt grammar should be taught as an adjunct to writing, if at all. Of those who did not claim awareness of research, 76% felt grammar should be taught as separate unit of instruction.

Of those who taught grammar as a separate unit, 60% spent more than 30% of their instructional time teaching grammar. Of those who did not teach grammar as a separate unit, 74% spent more than 30% of instructional time teaching writing.

Of those who spent more than 30% of instructional time teaching grammar, 34% spent less than 15% of their time teaching writing; another 53% spent 15-30% of instructional time teaching writing.

Most teachers were satisfied with the amount of time they spent teaching grammar. Of those who weren't, 62% felt less grammar should be taught.

Of the 18% who felt we should teach more grammar, 60% claimed not to be aware of current research on this subject. Of those who say we should teach less grammar, 79% claimed to be aware of current research.

A significant majority (81%) felt more writing should be taught.

To summarize,

Most teachers felt that more writing should be taught;

Those who were aware of current research in the teaching of grammar clearly favored the reduction of the teaching of grammar to an optional role, not to mention the former point.

While there has been much dispute concerning the means (whether grammar should be taught), it is nearly unanimous that the end itself is the ability to write. Much of the current research favors the 'natural' learning of grammar rather than through formalized rules, and it lends the approach of entensive reading some respect.

Which approach is the best when it comes to reading? Unfortunately this is not within the scope of this article to reach such a conclusion. However, as the third (and last) part of this article, I would like to describe my personal experience in reading from my childhood until the current moment, so as to perform a self-evaluation regarding my reading, as well as to verify the statements laid in the preceding sections.

Concerning my family background, I had been born into a family which practices little reading except for newspapers. I am fortunate that my parents and grandfather encourage me to read, and have dedicated considerable financial resources for this purpose. However they are unwilling to devote too much money towards the purchase of books, which is understandable considering our financial position. For many years, I would have to combat for increase in budget for books, and at times our relation was strained because of the matter. I am again being fortunate as I recently had obtained sufficient amount of money in the form of bursary, dedicated mainly for the purchasing of reading materials.

I would like to say that their early encouragement (to read) has a tremendous amount of influence upon me, and I started to read various materials not within the school syllabus when I was in Standard Three and has continued since. (I marked this approach as extensive reading earlier in this article.) My venture out of the syllabus is both beneficial and harmful from the purely academic point of view. Benefit wise, the wide range of reading equips me with a breadth of knowledge not obtainable from the school syllabus alone. The prevalence of voluntarism (out of enthusiasm and personal interest) over coercion means that I am able to memorize and understand what I read well, as well as to make good use of it. On the harmful side, I would have to contend with other subjects in the syllabus over the amount of reading time, and frequently I would have to dedicate more time for my own reading than other subjects. This inevitably has some negative effect over my grades, however over time, say several years, my overall understanding about the subjects has been far better than the range of topics covered by the syllabus. This is because I tend to read widely, and so can only study a limited amount of subjects, sometimes only one, at one time. (It resembles intensive reading in this respect.) Working over years at my own pleasure and with the materials that I select myself, it often strikes a greater impression upon me compared to the materials recommended by the syllabus. Of course, I am not hinting that the school syllabus is not good; without the solid grounding of the various languages and mathematics, I could not possibly venture far in the quest for knowledge. However, as my study progresses, I would appreciate greater freedom in reading and learning. I believe the process of learning is not complete if one is to read without first asking questions and subsequently looking for the answers himself.

Experts have debated over the preferable method of teaching, either for extensive reading or for intensive reading. I would say that due to the widely disparate preference of learning method, it is impossible to create a one-size-fits-all reading (and teaching) method in school. It is not economical too in creating a truly personalized teaching method, since the best a school can get economically is to reduce the student-to-teacher ratio down to a certain figure, and certainly far from one-to-one. It is therefore important that the student should not be overly concerned over the achievement measured by grades, but rather how well the material he read serves him, and whether he can make good use of the knowledge. Only then the enjoyment and purpose of reading is not diminished or even destroyed.

Reference

Ambigapathy Pandian: Reading in Malaysia

Steven C. Scheer: The Art of Reading

Frederick K. S. Leung: In Search of an East Asian Identity in Mathematics Education, in Educational Studies in Mathematics 2001

Ralph R. Williams: Extensive Reading versus Intensive Study of Literature, in The School Review 1929

Robert B. Weaver: The Relative Value of Intensive Study and Extensive Reading in United States History, in The School Review 1931

Eleanor F. Brown: An Experiment in Poetry Appreciation, in The English Journal 1938

Ann L. Warner: If the Shoe No Longer Fits, Wear It Anyway?, in The English Journal 1993

The Oxford English Dictionary Online

AC101 - The Fifth Anniversary

2007-07-16T03:26:00.001+08:00

2007 marks the fifth year since the concept of AC-101 was conceived, in 2002. The concept, after went through three years of refinement, came to a halt in 2005, and has since been shelved. However it had left a deep legacy within myself, as I would never embark on my current course without involving myself in this project.

A project precedes this one, and the said project is to build an airplane capable of sustaining a flight. I had in mind a monoplane built of aluminum frame, with a pair of canvas-and-plastic composite wing. The engine is of own design too, using aluminum cylinder and iron head, and alcohol as fuel. I once thought of an oxygen injection power augmentation but the reason of dropping the plan is too obvious: The excessive weight of an oxygen cylinder. Naturally, I thought the school might be interested in such project, but when I submitted a proposal, the teacher was not interested at all, and even hinted that the project, along with myself, were products of problems. I had problem of financing the project on my own capacity, so the design stops on the paper.

Then came the AC-101. The project was born largely because of one aspect of plane design: cross section. Most, if not all, of the larger supersonic airplanes had round cross section, since it is the best known configuration to withstand the enormous pressure difference (between the cabin and the stratosphere). However I had another idea, that not dissimilar to the Typhoon class submarine (and the Channel Tunnel). The cross design of the aircraft comprises three compartment built of longeron arrangement, a centrally-placed main cabin with two compartments by its side, mainly used to hold fuel. The compartments are hold together by a larger frame, which assumes some external force generated by the flight. The outer shell is mounted on the frame as well. The compartments are not hold together rigidly; they are allowed to 'breathe' to certain extent. Between the outer shell and the compartment, there is a layer which air is admitted at a lower speed, raising the pressure within, so decrease the pressure difference between the layers; the air is also used to cool the aircraft and is mixed with exhaust air prior to ejection.

The engines are mounted within the aircraft's wing, with the variable intake-area air intake on the top. The air intake also doubles as speed brake during deceleration run. The exhaust can be pivoted around the horizontal axis (i.e. up and down). A very strong sub-framehold these components together; I thought of the (sparing) use of tungsten and steel. The entire top surface of the wing is to be used to cool the engine so as to achieve greater thermal efficiency. Each of the four engines onboard should be able to generate 538kN of thrust dry at sea level, and is to consume 850-kg of fuel per hour during long-range supersonic cruise.

The components, when assembled together, is an 'aerodynamic body' as opposed to most of today's aircraft design, which major components does not 'blend' well into each other. While at low speed the advantage of the latter exceeds the arrangement of AC-101, at supersonic speed the opposite is true. Overall, the design has several advantages: The multiple structure is reasonably simple in design, but works better since the stress is distributed among the layers, rather than to let a single component withstand it all; the design is efficient, since it uses 'configuration' to achieve the design objective rather than 'brute force'; and the ease of manipulating and modifying the structural design since it allows for plenty of space and flexibility. There are still many details which I would like to describe, but for the purpose of this article, I believe what has been said is far more than sufficient.

The project still suffers from a lack of attention then. I am fortunate that the project, or rather I, received kind attention from a teacher. Even though it does not amount to tangible aid, it significantly maintained the pace of the conception. I even wanted to reach out and go to other countries, but as ever, a lack of financial source and relative ignorance of of others impeded further progress. It is strange that only until then did I finally realized the importance of financial backing in the field of scientific research. And by coincidence, I learned of how the Boeing 2707 project was killed, and how nearly so for Concorde. While the educational institutions are capable of carrying out scientific research to an appreciable extent, the large-scale projects are in the realm of governments, because governments have the ability to coordinate, or rather, to consolidate the various financial resources and pour it to a project. Just imagine how a university is going to carry out such projects as Project Manhattan or the Apollo project. Therefore, it is desirable to have a financial source to fund bona fide projects, without needing guarantee of success or desired outcome. This is an important point which drives me away from involving in research projects since I would like to pay more attention to the matters of finance.

The hardest part of the story is over, and it is easy enough to continue the story... I am fortunate again that the works of Benjamin Graham caught my eyes earlier than anyone else did, even though then I had come into contact into several interpretations of the working of investment. But most of the stories are untold, and even unseen - so when I suddenly gave up science to learn something about the 'dismal science', people were amazed!

There's fate playing me again, and I would like to touch this only briefly, since it is something out of topic. Even though I am officially studying the dismal science now, I am so naive that I assume what was taught in the field 50 to 70 years ago is still the same today, not too different from that of fundamental science and mathematics. I have been proven wrong, and very wrong. I am glad, though, I can get some protection and shade from the teachings of Ben Graham, even though he is no longer around. And I am studying it in a place where I can have easy access to the developed world, more specifically the U.S. and the E.U., which I considered ideal in committing my effort (and money) in applying Ben's principle, while remain reasonably distant from the daily chit-chats and rumors concerning investment.

The Analogy

2007-06-24T02:31:00.000+08:00

I am always interested in the transitional period of modern China, i.e. the from the change of dynastic to 'democratic' regime, and to what we see as the current, 'modern' China. However, it appears to me lately that my interest has turned into some kind of foresight: While the scale of the characters is disparate, the story line progresses quite along a parallel line, up to the present moment, for 'someone'. (The parallelism is that of China and that certain 'someone'.) So, how does the story of that certain someone corresponds to that of China actually? To begin with, I want to write a bit about the history of the transitional China, in an overly simplified way...:

"After decades of domestic unrest and foreign intervention, the Sin-Hai Revolution finally topples the Qing Empire and establishes the Republic of China. The new regime is weak, however, and warlord soon rules over the land. A soon-to-be 'faction' springs up in 1921, taking the name CCP. In addition to the local unrest, China has to face two imperialist powers in the north, notably the ambitious Japan. The future is not really bright, and it is not an exaggeration to use the word 'grim'; however the various local forces manage to stick together to confront the common adversary. Massive relocation of productive facilities and a military build-up takes place while the Japanese invades the North-eastern China. After years of fighting (and lack of progress), the Japanese surrenders. The problem is far from over; the two major factions soon fight each other for supremacy and in the end, one controls the mainland while the other retreats to somewhere else. The United States Seventh fleet is largely responsible for warding off an imminent attack from the mainland."

Of course there's a long way to come to recent times, but the above coverage is sufficient for our purpose. Want to read further about the story of that certain someone instead?

"After years of friction, the confrontation finally frees someone from the control of E. The position of someone is weak and he lacks a viable base, so he is quite lost for some time. While he is free from the control of E, he is still under its shade of influence, and its agents are still overwhelming him. That someone mitigates the problem by avoiding contacts with the agents while seeking ways of building a base. His progress is fairly rapid, and soon that someone has found an anchor in the form of an idea, as well as a reserve of resources. Despite lacking close support over his ideas, he nevertheless believes in it, and soon he gains a better understanding of the principles. Since he could not satisfactorily build up two unrelated ideas at the same time, he has to abandon one in favor of the other. He is fortunate, later, in being found a base that is reasonably close to his location, while offers means of getting his resources elsewhere. He is unfortunate, rather, that the ideas he favor are no longer 'in vogue' (perhaps it never had), and conflicts await him there. Nevertheless he manages to maintain a 'stalemate'.

The situation takes a turn not long thereafter, and he finds himself in a losing position, having no bargaining power. The constituents are still there, but the parent entity, from which his surname is derived, is apparently heading towards destruction, threatening to drown its constituents along. While the situation seems to be unrecoverable, he attempts to minimize his loss. He has to retreat instead of put up a fight."

*** *** *** *** ***

And soon that someone will find around himself a large number of things salvaged from his place, to his self-proclaimed 'base'. What will happen next? Will the story line be parallel? Will 'c revolution' happen on one place, while developments take place on the other? Hmm...

State of the State of Brunei

2007-04-28T19:45:00.001+08:00

Haih... Do me a favor - Telephone no. of Psychiatry Department, SGH: (+65) 6321 4344...

Wish-List

2007-04-23T04:49:00.000+08:00

It is unimaginable that, in the midst of the exam craze, I'm sitting in front of my laptop computer, sipping coffee and fantasize over such items normally people associate with antiquities and luxuries. I am going to fail some of the modules, and it is better to plan for the future rather than cry over spilled milk. In economic terms, one should not consider about sunk cost when making decisions...

Enough babbling, so what's inside my wish-list?

Common stock of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (either Class A or B)
All the unabridged writings by Benjamin Graham:
- Security Analysis series (Editions 1934, 1940, 1951 and 1962)
- The Intelligent Investor series (Editions 1949, 1954, 1959, 1965, 1973)
- The Interpretation of Financial Statement series (Editions 1937, 1965, 1975)
- Benjamin Graham: The Memoirs of the Dean of Wall Street
- Various published papers; retrievable from such databases and journals as JSTOR
All the books in Library of America Series (261 titles overall)
The Compact Edition of The Oxford English Dictionary, Complete Text Reproduced Micrographically (in slipcase with reading glass)
《四库全书》影印本 - 文津阁、文渊阁

Yeah, I'm crazy, but it is not of my interest to indulge in gadgetries that give immense pleasure in the short run, but wear off eventually. Of the books, the above listing is still far from what constitutes a satisfactory collection for a reference. (A great many primary texts and compilations are missing!) Also, I've comparatively read far too many success stories, while too few on failures. Hmm...

I can fast for the sake of these books, at least. I mean it literally.

(to be continued...)

Some Thoughts...

2007-04-11T16:48:00.000+08:00

Suddenly, in the middle of the (very) early morning I conceived of writing something. By most measures, it befits a ranting; however it is also akin to an expression of thoughts. If you’re in a mood of finding something light to read, I’d suggest you read something else. (Sorry if this sounds rude...)

Cultures and Customs; Its relation to freedom.
The subject is one prone to dispute. To me, the existence of culture and custom, to use a rather crude example, is like a cage; every person born to this world are made aware of its existence and qualities, and is subject to its pressure. At the same time, comfort, lack of questioning (in Socrates’s word, examination) and peer pressure are largely responsible for the ready acceptance of culture and custom and apathy against it so exists in many people. Very occasionally, some people realize this and try to examine the culture and customs that surround them; depend on the nature of the culture and customs, some people are more fruitful in the examination than others. Of course, the examination does not depend solely on the surroundings; the intellect that one applies to the examination is equally crucial.

Case study on the propositions.
Maybe that’s a bit incomprehensible, therefore I shall quote ‘someone’ as an example. The (not quite completed) text which explains one’s experience in sufficient detail is available here, but for the sake of this article, a condensed version in put here instead.

One grew up in a considerably conservative family. The family, and some party (to be touched in detail later) has instilled ‘values’ and ‘beliefs’ on oneself, not atypical to what any other parents will do. Later, it is the ‘examination’ that led one into dispute with his family and the party, which, collectively, exerts great influence over oneself. The confrontation was a bitter one; the areas which affected one were, among others, finance, education, faith, and perhaps the most important of all, system of beliefs. Although the dispute ended within 27 months, one emerged with a set of beliefs drastically different from what he was told to be right and goes without saying. It was sad that the relations of the parties involved could not be smoothened to the pre-dispute level, even to this day. This is the single most daunting challenge one has to solve in the immediate future.

The legacy of the dispute is huge. Besides the inherited problem as mentioned above, one has moved away from ideology to pragmatism. One has learned that self-sufficiency is crucial in the long term, even though laws of comparative advantage proves the contrary. (This is taking into account the existence of risk and uncertainty.) One has dispelled the infallibility of age-old beliefs and rely on logic and argumentation for scrutiny instead. (It may sounds crazy to doubt even your spouse, for example; but even Penal Code states that wrongs conducted in good faith may not be wrong at all; at least this has some justification.)

Discussion.
The propositions and arguments advanced above does not imply that all beliefs should be discarded. In regard to the need of scrutiny, I’ve written this somewhere:

...attaching soundness with respect to a person is potentially fallacious. For example, if Satan says, "Do not lie," is it sound to deduce that what Satan has in mind is bad, therefore the opposite is true, and we should practice lying? On the other hand, reasoning may be a way of avoiding this risk, since it is impersonal. However I doubt whether this is applicable when value judgment is involved.

The notion that beliefs should be discarded is unsound and self-contradictory, since that particular notion is a set of belief itself. Rather, the point I am driving is that no beliefs should be shielded from the need of scrutiny.

A pressing question is that, should one protect himself from destruction by denying the factors that can lead to one’s destruction? (One such question in liberalism would be: Should toleration tolerates intolerance? – From PS1101E lecture...) One’s confidence on forces that may limit these destructive factors may play a crucial role: Such practice is clear in politics – Dissenting opinions are allowed, to a considerable extent; however no regime would allow itself to be toppled if the variable concerned is power. My reply, in this case currently would be: While I can see problem exists in this area, I am not able to propose a solution. So there’s something for me to think about from now...

Would wealth and power give one advantage when confronting such situation? The answer is tentatively ‘yes’, but it may be the result more from coercion than acceptance. The instruments which utilizes coercion is not likely to be successful in the long term, but whether people will be shaped by the forces exerted over a long period, I don’t know. It seems to me that, as in the case study above, the outcome is determined by whether personal determination or external influences predominates. It should be noted that personal determination itself may be the result of external influences that run against the forces it intends to counter. So in the end, it may well be the interplay of beliefs within oneself; the person provides the platform for the beliefs to interact, while the person suffers.

Conclusion.
I think I’d better stop before I went crazy :P. A very famous poem written by a Zen patriach Huineng (惠能) may provide a reflection to my thoughts...:

菩提本无树，
明镜亦非台；
本来无一物，
何处惹尘埃！

Which translates to:

Bodhi is no tree,
nor is the mind a standing mirror bright.
Since all is originally empty,
where does the dust alight?

Transcriptions...

2007-04-05T01:02:00.000+08:00

/heləʊ/ /ɒl/! /aɪm/ /taɪpɪŋ/ /jɪʊziŋ/ /ðe/ /ɪntənæʃənəl/ /fəʊnætɪk/ /ælfəbət/, /aɪ/ /pɪ/ /eɪ/ /fɒ/ /ʃɒt/. /ɪf/ /ɪʊ/ /ʌ/ /ə/ /frikwən̩t/ /dɪkʃenerɪ/ /ɪʊze/, /ɪʊ/ /wud/ /hef/ /prɒbəblɪ/ /spɒtət/ /mænɪ/ /mɪsteɪks/ /aɪf/ /meɪd/ /hiər/. /ðæts/ /ɒl/ /fɒ/ /naʊ/!

Well, can you figure what I'm trying to say...? If you can't, that means something is very wrong with me :(

Some Ranting and Self-Confession

2007-04-03T10:26:00.001+08:00

It's time to show you how BAD a person I am...

Q: You must be feeling lonely since you are the only child of your parents...
A: ~~Of course not! I can inherit everything and nobody's going to divide it! Muahahaha!~~ No lah... At least my books won't get damaged so easily. I love reading.

Q: Your house is on fire!
A: ~~Ah, is my account passbook and stock certificate safe?~~ Oh no, did anyone get injured?

Q: The gahmen is so bad! KNN le!
A: ~~Good la, easier to overthrow!~~ Ya la, really dunno what to do!

...

Okay, I am not really that bad, but if this test is applied on me once upon a time, the response would be well different. Human nature is really something undependable, because its foundation is imperfect information and whim, not logic and calmness.

Ah, what am I talking about...

p/s: Thanks to Confucius for inspiring me about the house on fire story and consequently the self-reflection...

VisualDNA?

2007-03-29T22:49:00.000+08:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Is this fairly representative of my self? Hmm...

-Phobia...

2007-03-28T01:15:00.000+08:00

Am I mentally sick for a long time? It seems that I've been 'disturbed' a number of -phobia, some 'cured', some persisted. I'd like to put some pictures, but, considering that I still want to access my blog and do not want to be warded off because of the pictures, I think better not.

Astrophobia, fear of outer space. This feeling still lingers on within me, for reasons I could not explain... Maybe it's caused by my early reading of the book that one would lose his life when he is suddenly exposed to outer space (loss of pressure, temperature extreme, etc...). Maybe that's the reason I never enjoyed my science course during primary years, since, apart from the 'c', at the height of the phobia, I don't even dare looking on the pictures. I gave some of my books to other people because of that certain pictures. Luckily, now this has gone...

'Tickle-phobia', fear of being tickled. It's not fear actually, but the reactions I display after being tickled is rather 'extreme'. If you don't believe me, ask my secondary school friends for evidence. (Just don't test me out.)

Astraphobia, fear of lightning and thunder. I still have no way out of this, especially when I'm alone... It's extremely distressing, though I feel safer when other people is around (because I dare not shout).

'C-phobia', fear of 'c'. I don't know why, I am all right with rats and other insects (ok, not really), but this one is really disproportionate. Again, the presence of others help, but that's because I dare not shout. (I did, once, in a bus when one c fell on me... Shame you stupid dirty bus company!)

Any advice from psychology majors? And please, don't stay away from me... :P

Self-Determination

2007-03-19T11:20:00.000+08:00

Well, this title may sound edgy for the purpose of this post... Namely to say that I give up on canteen food and want to try preparing my own food instead. Nevertheless, this seems to be one big step forward to me - cut costs to accumulate capital, better control over what I eat and prevent myself from going too lazy.

Firstly what's the cost incurred? It's not a very definite thing to say, but I'll try. Besides the non-stick pan and cutleries I brought over from Penang or bought in Singapore, I spent S$134.60 to obtain the following (not exhaustive listing):

Zojirushi's Mr Bento tiffin carrier
An 1.0-liter rice cooker
Naturel sunflower seed oil, 1kg
Kikkoman soy sauce, 500ml
A week's worth of foodstuff (vegetables, tofu, eggs, 20 pieces of hash brown, bread and spread, salt etc.) - some of these last longer... I don't think I am able to consume a packet of salt in a week :P

All these seems good enough for me. As of time for preparing meals, I think I have more than enough (I still have time to blog, online etc., and I don't have time to prepare one of my life's necessities!?). Let's see how this work out over the next week... I hope it will not fail.

I want to mention something special: The Mr Bento. It's special in this 'project' not because of its extravagant price, but due to the role it plays: Source of motivation, greater mobilization, so forth. This is the package (no advertising btw):

Complete with a chopstick and user's manual. Quality is as expected from a Japanese company, although this one is made in Thailand.

The main rice container, holds 450ml.

The leak-proof soup container, holds 280ml. The valve (the little white dot on the center of the cover) is for releasing 'water vapor pressure' (not chemistry) to the surrounding and helps keep other containers warm.

The dish containers. The large one (right) holds 300ml while the small one holds 200ml.

The outer container, which interior is coated with Teflon and exterior made of stainless steel.

Close-up look of the chopsticks and its dedicated container. Looks like a pencil box.

Fully packed Mr Bento. It's just like a large water bottle, like the one I use currently.

Just think of what the containers can hold makes my mouth water :P

What's 'secondly' then? As I've said, let's see for the time being...

Ranking Again

2007-03-17T18:12:00.001+08:00

So Penang has made the list huh?

SINGAPORE, March 15 (Bernama) -- Georgetown, the capital city of the Malaysian state of Penang, has moved up in the list of best locations in Asia for Asian expatriates, a latest survey shows.

The city, ranked 12th five years ago, is now ranked 10th in the Location Ranking Survey conducted by ECA International, a leading knowledge and solutions provider for international human resource professionals.

The Malaysian capital city of Kuala Lumpur is in ninth position, down from seventh five years ago.

Undertaken annually, the survey compares living standards in 254 locations globally according to categories including climate, air quality, health services, housing and utilities, isolation, social network and leisure facilities, infrastructure, personal safety and political tensions.

Source: Bernama and ECA International

Impressive!

Natural heritage - second to none

'Law-abiding' citizens - Thou shalt use the route with the shortest distance

Public transportation - A new level of sophistication

Highly developed telecommunications system

The difference that an additional zero presents is great indeed...

And lesson of the day: Looking at the figures without taking the real situation into account is fallacious...

打击...

2007-03-15T00:44:00.000+08:00

这几句话都是从这里引用的...

I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour.

一针见血...

Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live- that is, keep comfortably warm- and die in New England at last.

虽说我的情形是恰好相反, 但也没甚差别...

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers.

希望没有教授读到这句话... 不过读到也无所谓, 这句话不是我说的, 就扪心自问吧...

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit?

We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcee, but Fashion.

不错, 现代人的确是太注重物质了... 这几句话是十九世纪时写下的!

Granted that the majority are able at last either to own or hire the modern house with all its improvements. While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. And if the civilized man’s pursuits are no worthier than the savage’s, if he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaining gross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a better dwelling than the former?

...

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have.

至少这不是我要的...

At Cambridge College the mere rent of a student’s room, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each year, though the corporation had the advantage of building thirty-two side by side and under one roof, and the occupant suffers the inconvenience of many and noisy neighbors, and perhaps a residence in the fourth story. I cannot but think that if we had more true wisdom in these respects, not only less education would be needed, because, forsooth, more would already have been acquired, but the pecuniary expense of getting an education would in a great measure vanish. Those conveniences which the student requires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost him or somebody else ten times as great a sacrifice of life as they would with proper management on both sides. Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made. The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme- a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection- to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation, and he employs Irishmen or other operatives actually to lay the foundations, while the students that are to be are said to be fitting themselves for it; and for these oversights successive generations have to pay. I think that it would be better than this, for the students, or those who desire to be benefited by it, even to lay the foundation themselves. The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. “But,” says one, “you do not mean that the students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads?” I do not mean that exactly, but I mean something which he might think a good deal like that; I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics. If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not pursue the common course, which is merely to send him into the neighborhood of some professor, where anything is professed and practised but the art of life;- to survey the world through a telescope or a microscope, and never with his natural eye; to study chemistry, and not learn how his bread is made, or mechanics, and not learn how it is earned; to discover new satellites to Neptune, and not detect the motes in his eyes, or to what vagabond he is a satellite himself; or to be devoured by the monsters that swarm all around him, while contemplating the monsters in a drop of vinegar. Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month- the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this- or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the meanwhile, and had received a Rodgers penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers?… To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation!- why, if I had taken one turn down the harbor I should have known more about it. Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.

我没有勇气再读下去了...

怎么办... 我该怎么办? :'(

How Much Poison Can I Take Still Before My Buffer Runs Out?

2007-03-07T17:44:00.000+08:00

Link to the post

Founding and Maintaining a Library: Easier Said than Done

2007-03-01T04:37:00.000+08:00

How difficult can it be to found and maintain a library? Well, apparently not, just find a building, buy the books and furniture, and it's ready! If things were that simple, I would be really grateful. But...

A building that houses a library should use mainly steel and glass as building materials. These materials are not able to absorb moisture, and is fire resistant.

Humidity and radiation must be carefully controlled. Humidity is best maintained at 35% and the room temperature must be maintained at 17 degrees Celcius. This is a very low temperature, as the temperature inside a typical lecture hall is around 24 degrees Celcius and it's already freezing cold! The library should have alternative power sources and HVAC system, and access to the library should be limited at all times.

Ultraviolet and gamma radiation should be eliminated within the library. These rays accelerate the deterioration of paper quality. That means, no fluorescent light and sunlight is permitted within the rack area. Alternative forms of lighting, such as LED, should be used instead.

A library should have a 'book first-aid' team ready at all times (24/7), to deal with such emergency as spilling of water on books to relocation of collection to pre-designated safe places in the event of intrusion, e.g. warfare. The team should be dispensed with such tools as carton and freezing chest. The maintenance of such team and the accompanying equipments is not cheap!

The velocity of book circulation should be monitored, and books that are frequently used should receive correspondingly greater care and upkeep. All library users should be given a course on handling and maintaining books and materials, and be tested, before they are given access to the books and materials.

And the list goes on...

The steps may appear excessive, but those are all the proper steps that a library should be able to carry out. I believe not a lot of libraries can fulfill all these requirements.

Want to read more?

On Vegetarianism: Some Considerations

2007-02-14T22:55:00.000+08:00

I am glad to say that I have not made a bad decision to become a vegetarian. This is what I had said in one forum:

Question
What's your reason to be a vegetarian?

Reply
One interesting question that I've been asked many times. Perhaps it's better for me to elaborate in stages?

In 1996, I would say, "I am a vegetarian because of health needs." FYI I contracted eczema which requires me to abstain from seafood. Other than that, my grandpa was advised by his physician that he better not to eat oily food, so he figured that be a vegetarian wasn't too bad. So there it goes.

In early 2000s, after some conversations with some other people (not religious figures btw), I was convinced that being a vegetarian helps the environment. (Check out the book by Chang Yung-Fa!)

And now, after reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau, it has taken yet a whole new meaning to me. (It's available at Wikisource for free!)

A few days ago I had been very fortunate to had a (really) small talk with Dr Joel Cohen on humanitarian aid and development projects. We agreed that economic costs, i.e. accounting costs as well as externalities shall be fully accounted for in planning and implementing the aid. Although these terms are frequently used in textbooks, in reality they had yet to become a common practice. More about that later. (We also discovered that we share something in common: we both practice vegetarianism!)

Earlier in his speech "Human Population: Past, Future and Implications" Dr Cohen recognizes the fact that only sixty percent of the grains produced went into feeding the human population. The remaining forty percent went into poultry's mouth. If all the grains were to be used for human consumption, it would be enough to provide vegetarian meals for 10 billion people. (That's huge surplus indeed!) He added that upon leaving poverty, the first demand people normally make is wanting more meat in their meals. This seems absurd to me; but it wouldn't be too surprising in other people's eyes.

The above situation clearly represents inefficient use of resources (food). Worse, I argued, in delivering humanitarian aid and development projects, those agricultural developments deemed to be inefficient (e.g. pastorial agriculture) has been given a disproportionately large allotment, where the money could be better spent on other areas that could deliver bigger bang per buck.

I am clearly displaying bias by saying so, but I do not feel regret. (I have never regret for being a vegetarian either, although situation may be difficult sometimes.) Isn't it a cruel joke that we raise poultry by feeding them human food, then slaughter them to feed human, whereas the food could make better use by delivering it into the mouths of those starving?

This is not the greatest worry. The ultimate of the dilemma is that whether it is wise to donate money to support projects that are merely alleviating the food crises, only to create even greater problem in the future. (That's accounting cost vs. economic cost.) It may seems unethical to refuse assistance to those who are in need, but how ethical could we be in supporting projects that are similar to a calm before the storm?

There has been progress in the problems mentioned, but so far there has been no serious determination in solving the problem. Perhaps you may want to consider making the first step (by eliminating your consumption of 'the inefficient resources')?

A Rethink IV

2007-02-12T02:27:00.000+08:00

In the last post, I said, "It's time to think rationally!" I have been fortunate (or rather, unfortunate) that a series of events triggered my curiosity to pursue this so-called "rationality" further. There are two things which caught my attention, among others.

The first concern is my account in Friendster. I opened this account with the intention of keeping myself updated with my friend's condition so as not to lose contact. Lately, the situation has been quite to the contrary. Instead of receiving updates from my friend, I kept receiving a large number of forwarded messages, which in my opinion is of no utility. To illustrate this with figures, of 1,600 emails I received since October 2005, 532, or 33 1/4 percent, came from Friendster notifying me of 'messages received'. My daily routine has become sorting messages into folders and deleting the messages from Friendster inbox. These movements with no utility has contributed to the friction of information flow, as Bill Gates said:

The problem, really, is twofold. The first is information overload. Faced with the endless deluge of data that is generated every second of every day, how can we hope to keep up? And in the struggle to keep up, how can we stay focused on the tasks that are most important and deliver the greatest value?

The other problem is something I call information underload. We're flooded with information, but that doesn't mean we have tools that let us use the information effectively.

Companies pay a high price for information overload and underload. Estimates are that information workers spend as much as 30 percent of their time searching for information, at a cost of $18,000 each year per employee in lost productivity. Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeley predicts that the volume of digital data we store will nearly double in the next two years.

Read the full version here.

Therefore, I think it is the best of my interest to terminate the account. Apart from the underload, the account no longer serves its purpose and it has done me more harm than good, so to speak. I apologize if I have caused you inconvenience.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

The second concern is my Windows Messenger account. Of the first side of the problem, while I added many friends' account to mine, some of these were added on behalf of the other party's request. However, due to some technical glitch of the prior version of Windows Messenger installed on my computer, some accounts were not added properly. Last night, when I updated the software to the latest version, suddenly all of them got added, which some I have never heard of, and all of them inevitably flooded me with one question, "Who are you?"

I apologize to those I knew but the account did not added properly, as my introduction has faded from your memory and it is understandable for your asking the question. However, some of them, whose name I do not wish to reveal, insisted that I had added them unilaterally without notifying them in advance, and so asked me who I am. I hereby offer my response once and for all,

I am regret to inform you that due to the nature of the question, I may not offer an appropriate answer. I may tell you whose son I am, which country's citizen I am, which race do I belong to, which telephone number I have registered to, and so on, but these do not answer the question "who are you", for the responses, in combination, give you an image of 'me' the person, but not 'me' my self. I am still searching for the answer for the latter.

Nevertheless, I thank you for your insistence upon my giving a response, as it propelled me to think of the question properly. Hopefully, I may provide you and myself with the 'correct' answer some day, if the question is deemed sound.

The other side of the problem is that the 'status', which supposedly reflect the state and activity of the account's owner, is largely not adhered to. Sometimes, I received message when I was away and my status has stated me as such, or I was online but my status suggested otherwise. I personally feel that this is highly corruptive. Sometimes the status may be inappropriate because of negligence, I understand; however I have sunk into this deeper and deeper. I don't think the long-term effect of this is good.

My email account of which my Messenger account is registered is suffered from the problem of forwarded messages too. It has drained some of my time which could be put to good use.

My response is to this problem is: halt my use of Windows Messenger. This could cause a great deal of inconvenience to many, but I am still reachable through email, mobile phone and of course, this blog. I will log in to Messenger again if you could clarify all the above confusions to my satisfaction. Otherwise, I will let the account lapse into expiry.

Regards,
Eng Aun

Petroleum vs Budget Surplus: Some Implications?

2007-02-05T00:43:00.000+08:00

This article is also available here.

I have abstained from commenting on topics 'like this' for some time. I shall continue doing it henceforth, since the reason of my abstinence seems unjustifiable.

Following is a table showing production and consumption figures of various countries, as well as the income and expenditure of their governments. The data is obtained from The CIA Factbook.

Country	Petroleum (million barrels/day)			Budget (US$ billion)
Country	Production	Consumption	Surplus (P-C)	Revenue	Expenditure	Surplus (R-E)
S Arabia Russia Norway Canada UK Malaysia	9.745 9.4 3.22 3.135 2.075 0.770	1.845 2.5 0.2443 2.294 1.827 0.515	7.900 6.9 2.976 0.841 0.278 0.255	189.2 222.2 195.8 183.5 973 31.63	107.6 157.3 133.1 181.8 1040 37	81.6 64.9 62.7 1.7 (67) (5.37)

What can be told from the table? Most of the countries show both petroleum production surplus and budget surplus, except the United Kingdom and Malaysia.

I could not tell the precise reason of the deficit of the UK and Malaysia. However, it is known that the United Kingdom has a large defense outlay (US$42.8 billion as of 2003), and the oil profit may possibly be erased by the spending. The other spendings, such as welfare bills, may have a similar effect.

However I could see no sensible reason why Malaysia, despite the oil profit, has produced a deficit budget. Is there any huge military spending? Research and development? The answer may be a comfortable "no"; there is no nuclear stockpile nor synchrocyclotron. Where did the oil revenue go then?

I could say nothing conclusive about the last question, for I do not have any prima facie evidence. However I think it is sensible to completely eliminate the petrol and diesel subsidy within a specified period (say, 5 or 10 years). This proposal may enrage many people, I understand; but to complacent ourselves in the status quo is the worst option imaginable. For those of you who uses car as primary means of transport, I said the above without the slightest remorse. My father will get 'hurt' either.

Well, to speak in economic terms, there may be two situations after the country runs out of petroleum:

First, the government continues to bear the full brunt. The subsidy is financed through government securities, such as bonds. The government may need to find ways to pay the debt, which roughly equates to raising taxes and reducing spending. Does this sound good (by the way, it's not like something the Clinton government did!)? Is it beneficial to the economy when a large pie of the earnings of private sector go to the government just to finance the consumption, and not capital investment (e.g. infrastructure)?

Second, the government terminates the subsidy. This may be done one-shot or gradually. If the case is former, there results an adverse supply shock (prices of petrol and diesel increase dramatically). The economy may contract in the short run, or face instability. The government, anyway, would need to finance the 'smoothing' expense in helping the economy go to the track without subsidy.

But as PM Lee of Singapore said, "Is it better to take your medicine sooner or stretch it out? Take medicine once or two times? I prefer to make my medicine early, why? This is something we need to do, once we have done it, we can move on..."

I humbly admit that my knowledge of economics is unsatisfactory and not being the brightest soul around, however I can't help but to say, "It's time to think rationally!"

A Rethink III

2007-02-03T16:32:00.000+08:00

This article is also available here.

The last Rethink article that I could recall was the post on November 1st, 2005. Since then, I wrote virtually nothing of that sort. Today I shall try to write something like that. Hopefully you will not get bored...

The principle of diminishing return is taking place. When I first started this blog, I could write many articles in a day, sometimes three. However, nowadays my productivity is two knots below that level. That is to say, instead of three posts a day, I write three posts a month.

To be precise, it's the urge to write a post against time la...

What factors cause this trend? I have no answers to offer, however I have some clue. As I blog I develop 'maturity'. I get some feel of what is 'blogworthy' and what is not. You might ask then, how long did I blog that I dare say I'm 'mature' bloglitically. It's not long, by relative means; however this is not my first blog. The first was the one in MSN Spaces, however I closed it down more than a year ago since a particular incident has faded, and that I have no pressing need to continue blogging on that issue. The issue has since made a 'comeback' in this blog as I tried to incorporate it into a little story, as to reminisce into the past.

Another factor is that I need more time to write an article. When I started to blog, things are easy to write as I have accumulated opinions over the years and, topics are not hard to find. Over the years, however, my scope of interest and reading becoming more and more limited, as a result of in-depth study towards a particular topic. For instance, I like to talk philosophy when I first started this blog, but lately investing has been my topic. However, I tried to incorporate the disciplines into one broad field, as I believe it will do me good. Diminishing stock of opinions aside, I need to cite and find sources to support my claims within the articles. Sometimes this is easy; sometimes hours over hours of searching and roaming in the library and search engines may be necessary. The latter case is predominant nowadays.

So much about blogging.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

What about I myself? Looking back the past ten months, I have the feeling of being fateful. What can be said, considering the fact that I made the decision of abandoning engineering in favor of economics within ten minutes, in front of the computer screen at my friend's house? (Side story: I submitted my application of university admission using my friend's computer, and he was unaware that I put Arts and Social Sciences as my first choice.) I believe everyone was shocked with my choice, but after I read The Intelligent Investor, it took me five minutes, if at all, to realize what I want to do for the rest of my life. (The concept of investment has made great progress in my head since.)

The matter of reconciliation was no less important. True, we can live without each other; however no one could sleep very well with a thorn in the flesh. Moreover, I would regret for the rest of my life if the decades-old relation was to be severed 'like that'. The process of reconciliation was by no means easy. I consider it remarkable that we could resolve the problem without prior deliberation of any sort; we just meet each other at the 'premise', smile, and the confrontation was over. No fault finding, no accusation, no delegation of responsibility. I still wonder the magic behind the mechanism.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

This is long enough, shall I continue next time? :)

A Brief History of 'His' Time

2007-01-29T02:51:00.000+08:00

Last updated: January 29, 2007

Suddenly in a mood of writing a 'fictitious' story...

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

This is where somebody's everything started...

It was exactly 45 years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

He lives in a flat.

He has been told that he has a knack of memorizing and recalling car's name when he was very young. It has not been documented, but it left him a feeling that he should become an engineer when he grown up.

He was raised largely by his mother and later, his grandfather. He was obedient when he was really young. Nothing big happened, although he once 'destroyed' a clock that his grandpa loved the most. He wishes to extend a sincere apology.

[No photo yet, paiseh]

This is the kindergarten he has attended. His mother said to him that the headmistress was kinda 'looking down' people, as they walked to the kindy everyday, and not utilizing the van service. At that time he is too young to understand the feeling :'(

He loved English during his kindy days. He believe that is because English is easier to learn and write. So much that he requested that he should be sent to English school (He has no idea that only Sekolah Kebangsaan existed at the time... Too young for politics).

蝴蝶

But his perception changed because of these two words. His grandpa (and he) strove hard to get him learnt how to write the words. It did came out during the exam, and he passed well. This got him some boost over self-esteem and ceased to resist learning Chinese language.

His grandma passed away in December 1991. He should really punish himself everytime he recalled the moment. How could he perceive relatives weeping as something funny? (He thought that crying is reserved for children...) And worst of all, he played music out loud.

Roughly by that time he suffered from asthma. Apparently the close contact with cats in the kindy caused that. He received treatment from a child specialist clinic, and need to commute daily from his home to KOMTAR and back.

That's when he first developed his love: on Penang Yellow Bus. (日久生情,正为此也。)

Later he was transferred to the hospital, again. Admitted for three days. After that he was told not to involve himself in active sports. It has an adverse effect on him till this day, not just physically, but also, the shaping of his personality.

Straight up

During his lower primary years he was perceived by others as an arrogant person. He didn't know why, perhaps it is because of the way he speak and give information. He will tell everything he knows unreservedly. Does not sound too good for some people.

Balik Pulau town center, at night (2006)

He started to get adventurous around that time. After he visited Balik Pulau for the first time in 1995, as his family would need to get the old ICs replaced and brought him along, he decided to revisit there by himself. He did not know what is so attractive about that place but he just wanted to go there.

That's where the friction starts. His parent would not allow him to go out. To make things worse, he read The Legend of Water Margin at that time. Do you know the theme of the story?

杀去东京，夺了鸟位...

Kids have excellent imagination, mind you.

Blur blur...

That's not all. He started to suffer from short sight. It's no big deal actually, but the problem was exacerbated by the refusal of his parents to get him a pair of glasses. So he had been virtually crippled by 1997.

Nevertheless the momentum kept him going. He had his best academic performance in 1997, and have won a consolation prize at the state-level general knowledge competition. He did not regard this as meager in view of the circumstances.

The secondary school he attended

But the ballast was too heavy. He simply could not sustain himself with that limited pool of knowledge. Moreover, he did not excel in mathematics. So he slid, from 'first-tier', to 'quasi-first-tier', and to 'second-tier'.

Out of frustration, he started to vent himself through poems and proses. That's when a lot of people started to heard of his getting rebellious and written all that not-so-straight thingies. He know it is not good to do so.

《妖三年之少年时代》

But what could he say to the teachers, who were busy writing the notes on the whiteboard, while everyone was busy copy the notes on the note books, and he was sitting there in desperation, keeping a watchful eye with a blunt sight trying to borrow the note books from his friends who were considerate enough?

Sam Seng Hang, literally "Gangster's Lane"

To add to the insult, he was not asking for tuition whilst everyone did. His parents should have set up some sort of funds for him so as to accumulate the money he did not pay for the tuition. But not only such funds were absent, but they have cut back his spendings on books. Reverse engineering indeed.

This was his survival at stake. It is no surprise to see him admiring such people as Lee Kuan Yew. They have went through the course called 'survival'. And he need that lesson.

His trough was in 2002. The year before, he tried to draft a proposal for a crude airplane, hoping to find sponsorship. But not only the teacher was lacking interest but tacitly teased him. He shall never forget that. But he is now thankful that the teacher taught him the importance of finance. Till that moment he still has the attitude that money and wealth is unreal and will fade away as he die. Engineering was still very much a part of him.

"You saved his skin"

He got his glasses finally in 2002. His grandpa paid for it. The damage done to his eyes were quite severe: at the time of prescription his left eye was "575" and his right eye was "625". How did he managed to live so many years without a spec under such circumstances? He doesn't know. But the damage that hurts him most is that of academic and socialization. He was displaced academically and socially by that time, so to speak. And why did his parents insisted that he do not need a pair of specs? Again, he doesn't know. (But this series of incident fuels a later series of events.)

Then come the AC-101. It was a concept design of a supersonic airliner. (Guess that he ventured too far that time.) It was not a success, but it gave him a lot of encouragement. The design remained active until the end of 2005. Special thanks to one of his English language teacher for all the support.

Form Five block

Then come a change in 2003. He was assigned to a class where he had few friends. His destiny was taking a turn. With that, he could focus more on his studies, and his ranking jumped. Of course, he did socialize, but not much.

As his secondary education was nearing an end he was presented a dilemma. Where should he pursue his studies?

You know what freaking answer he said?

This is a painful answer to give, but... that's what he thought. Goodness, why could he fell in love with a hypothetical design named AC-101 with such a hopeless intensity?

With the family relations already tense, such propositions pushed the limit of both the parties.

He resorted to Balik Pulau. That was the only place where he could find some peace and contemplate. He commuted to his school for the SPM examination every day via Balik Pulau. That's a 33-km journey through steep and winding mountain road, one-way. And November is a rainy season.

No wonder he fell ill for the last few days of his examination.

He recovered within three weeks. But he could never imagine that signifies the start of another crisis...

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

The date was December 21, 2003, a day full of tension and emotion. His limit over the questions of righteousness, conscience and ultimately, his future, was stretched to the limit.

The tension has built up for a few months prior. The party concerned, apart from him, was a powerful family. Traditionally, their relation was cordial and exchanges and visits were frequent. He, being brought up under such environment, naturally shared a close family-like tie with the other party.

Things started to change in 2003. His contemplation, and thoughts of pursuing his studies produced unexpected opposition from the other party. The suggested course was unacceptable: to terminate studies after secondary education. The underlying reason was similarly opined by him. The question of conscience was brought into question. The course of development was too complex to be prescribed in this limited frame.

During the absence of the other party, exchange of words ceased, but the thinking has not. This cease-fire, apparently soothing, was in fact detrimental.

The next meeting between the two parties was December 21. There was a function in the afternoon, so there has been no exchange initially. However the encounter between the two at the lounge after the function ended the state of appeasement.

He argued, with great vigor and humility, for fifty minutes over such topics from the rights to exercise discretion over his grooming, to pursue tertiary education, to determine his future course, to the question of conscience and right-or-wrong.

His hands are still feeling cold when he recalled the event.

In the end of the civilized argument, there were no understanding nor resolutions. He suppressed his mixed feeling of anger and disappointment and left the premise. He was still hopeful of a follow-up that may solve the division of opinions.

The hope was indeed a fiction. The final visit to the premise was particularly bitter. The two encountered each other, in the kitchen, without a word spoken. He left, gaze at the premise for the last time, knowing that they would never meet again. He headed towards Burma Road, boarded the bus, leaving all his philosophy on knowledge, wealth, conscience and friendship behind.

It would take a long time for him to reconstruct the things left and broken.

(to be continued...)

Misfortune or Inauspicious?

2007-01-23T02:26:00.000+08:00

Whew, finally the basic book repairing kit was assembled, amid much hurry and frustration...

Most of these items were bought from Page One. I guess these items need no introduction.

I was particularly frustrated when I wanted to buy the things below...

The sticks are called the bone folder or simply the "bone". This is an essential tool in binding books and (more or less) wrapping the covers. However, instead of getting the stuff easily and without fuss, as I anticipated any good bookstore would be, I was met with a blank stare from the staff of the aforementioned bookstore and the one in Ngee Ann City...

So, the only option I have is to place an order from the United States. The best option IMO is (B) which costs US$9.45 (ard. S$14.70). (C) is coated with Teflon, and is the most expensive at US$24.50 (S$38.00) (!). A bone is more expensive than a text book... What do you think?

Well, this is just a start. The tools are there, but the consumables isn't. The variety of the tapes are virtually numerous, and I should, theoretically, get at least Scotch tape, spine-repairing cloth and acid-free adhesive. I don't really think I am so well-endowed to buy the more sophisticated things...

3M Scotch C-27 tape applicator, US$66.99 (S$103.80).

Light meter, US$215 (S$330).

Hygrothermograph, US$1,200 (S$1,860).

Mass deacidification chamber... Millions of dollars.

In fact, book-repairing and library is inseparable; at least, it is to me. The last time I operated a library (1997-98), I failed miserably... Over a quarter of my books were, in decent terms, not returned, so I incurred a loss of some RM300.00. It was a huge amount of pocket money for a primary school student! :'(

Hope that the misfortune today (yesterday actually) was not a bad start for the revival of my 'career'... As there are several books in my home, dating back to 1910s, that are currently awaiting restoration and repair...

Superstition

2007-01-12T19:37:00.000+08:00

Having made my new year resolution, I started to wonder whether this phenomenon is a superstition. Indeed, are all the relations to date and time superstitious?

Well, one could say that the lack of discipline, or more generally, a dysfunctional biological clock due to long period of negligence is the main reason that humans assign a disproportionate amount of importance to date and time. Citing myself as an example, I believe that I should finish reading the book The Intelligent Investor before I reach twenty, and this commitment driven me to act as if I am crazy for some time. Well, most people would justify this act by saying "An appropriate amount of stress is good and makes you a responsible person," but could we say conversely, "The quality of irresponsibility is the source of your stress?"

The overemphasis on date, time, and even numbers is fallacious. What is the difference between 9.99 and 10 (besides the number of significant figures)? And yet, when people see $9.99, most would say "Oh, nine something nia" instead of a plain (and more appropriate) "Ten." And some people would mourn if the stock market indices drop by one-tenth of one percent simply because the drop in index figures appear large. (Having understand that, you could appreciate why Buffett does not need a calculator, let alone using higher mathematics.)

Even the laws of nature appears fuzzy; there is no clear boundary between disciplines and outcomes. Yet, the overemphasis on assumptions drove people crazy. Some laws are sound; the flaw is that people had given emphasis on the wrong variables. And keeps on digging for the wrong direction just produces more disappointment and disillusionment. For example, does patterns constitute the base of a sound theory? The answer, in my opinion, is a flat "no," for the underlying reasons and logic, if any, forms the "solid" base. And I still wonder how to build castles in the air that is capable of sustaining itself.

From where did I realize all these? I think the credit goes to Ben Graham... Thanks Ben!

New Year Resolution?

2007-01-08T02:02:00.000+08:00

I hope to conceive resolutions that are sensible and achievable in view of all my shortcomings and constraints. Three Cs summarizes it all: Concentration, Conservation and Complete(ness).

Concentration, focus of mind and resources. Last year was marked by a series of events (failures actually) where the lack of concentration is the causing factor. Diversification is good; but not when it comes to the mind. Living parallel lives is agonizing, as the Clinton case shows.

Conservation, protection of valued resources. The resources comprises concrete as well as non-concrete types, e.g. water for the former and time for the latter. As of the moment of typing, I am breaching this commitment as I am practicing bad time management... (Hint: Refer to the time stamp) However, it seems that I was getting (a bit) less impulsive when it comes to book purchases.

Complete(ness), finish something. I should just be less impulsive and get to pursue the long-term goals... But this is easier said than done. Twenty-years lack of persistence implies that the habit is hard to shake off... But it's better to do so before it does me harm, which, it seems, is already happening.

There goes my resolutions assembled in a hurry. As with all good principles, they should stand the test of time well, and I hope all of them are still alive by the end of the year. Alas, it is of no use that I hope, for I am really the one who should get the things moving...

Shopping (!)

2006-12-08T03:01:00.000+08:00

I went to shop. Yes, it's something unheard of in my entire life until a few days ago.

December 4
My friends and I went to Golden Mile Complex to buy Penang-bound bus tickets. It's a relatively trouble-free affair, just to compare prices amongst the reputable companies, and was quickly done. After having lunch we headed for Bugis, where we went to Kuan Yin Temple for prayer (That proves I am not an atheist while being a freethinker). Before that, we were in Bugis Junction, mainly browsing for books in Books Kinokuniya. I got interested in the book My Life by Bill Clinton, but too bad, they have only Volume I of the book, and not that of the complete edition. Therefore I suggested to go to the main outlet at Ngee Ann city to check out the book, which my friend readily agreed.

The decision signifies the start of 'financial disaster' for me. I found the book but alas, other books captured my attention as well. And so my wallet was unloaded, a rather hefty S$137.50. I shall now present to you one of the most expensive books, in terms of price-to-page ratio, that I've ever bought.

This is it - The Interpretation of Financial Statements by Benjamin Graham and Spencer B. Meredith.

You can see how small the book is by comparing it with my palm. In addition, the 122 pages attributes further to the small volume of the book. Yet, it costs...

A whopping S$53.07 (ard. RM124)! That's over S$0.43 (RM1.02) per page! The technique of producing this book may be the main factor behind the price, as described in the book Security Analysis:

This... was photographed by hand from the original pages... A customized vertical camera, designed to minimize distortion and to prevent damage to rare books, was used.

And there goes my fifty bucks... :'(

Notwithstanding the price, the purchase was pretty fruitful. I had bought the book The Federalist Papers, a reading recommended by Dr. Alan Chong of FASS PS Department. Although the semester has ended, my reading has not. I think it's good to keep this habit, always. Also on the bill were Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, a book by Philip Fisher. I can see the content is very good, so it's a guilt not to buy it. Forgive me...

When my friend and I decided to return to the Residence, we got lost... And it was my fault. Apparently, I could just get to the other side of the road and get a bus back, but instead I walked a few blocks. I guess my orientation has been compromised by the excitement of the purchase...

December 5
Originally I intended not to go out on the day as I wanted to pack my belongings. However the things I wanted to bring home, primarily the new books, were too voluminous and simply could not fit the simple school bag of my Form Six years. I had to buy a luggage of appropriate size. My friend suggested that we go to HarbourFront to check it out, and I agreed.

Apparently there are some spillover effects from the get-lost incident the day before. I ended up at...

PSA Building, 460 Alexandra Road, some distance away from HarbourFront. I only realized that I boarded the wrong bus after it turned into Alexandra Road. Trying to save my very face, I pretended that nothing happened and disembarked the bus 'in style' (It's a new Volvo!)... Shameless...

The opportunity was not wasted. I took some photos, hopefully I can present them to my grandpa on the latest development in Singapore shipping industry. Just that I was very careful when taking photos, lest the security guard misunderstood me for some fundamentalists...

We couldn't find a good-enough deal at HarbourFront. Sure, the prices are all very reasonable, but not in packages suitable for us. Moreover some of my friends suggested to go to Orchard for more 'extensive' research. So we didn't buy any luggages there, just some trivial household stuff to bring home as gifts, (stingy) human nature being what it is.

I think from now on it's best that I leave the pictures to speak for themselves...

In the end we met a large group of MSL fellow. The details have been documented by lots of friends so I do not want to go further. I think that wraps up the story for the time being. And I am really sorry if I made you feel bored, since I am not adept to writing this kind of 'account'...

Blogging Experience du jour

2006-12-07T22:57:00.000+08:00

What a traumatic experience I had during the past week, it almost got me out of blogging. Perhaps that explains why I did not update my blog 'properly' during the past week. Besides having an examination, the sensation has something to do with it. If you do not know already, you may find it out here.

I have done enough contemplation and I guess it's time for me to continue. You may have noticed several changes in this blog. Among them,

Image links have been removed. Obviously I need to be considerate towards the readers who are using dial-up connection. I also do not want to eat up too much bandwidth, although I do not have to pay for it.
Visitors' tracker has been removed. I hope now you can browse with peace of mind, without having to worry about somebody (probably not me) constantly 'watching your back'.
The blog has been delisted from Blogger's list. You can still access it, as you are doing now, but it will not be promoted in any way. This is in line with one of the policies.
RSS subscription counter has been removed. I think this is redundant. If you like to subscribe to my blog, and you are using Mozilla Firefox, you may click the orange button on the right-hand-side of the address bar. (Thank you! :P) The RSS subscription for Internet Explorer 7.0+ is located below the address bar.

In addition to the removal of those features, I would like to keep myself adhered to the policies described in the aforementioned blog (first paragraph). Hopefully it may help me to have a positive blogging experience, rather than the contrary.

I will return to Penang in December 9, and therefore may not update often (I don't have an Internet connection!). I have posted well over 100 articles, some still left unpublished (This is the 101st article). I have saved the unpublished articles on my laptop computer, and hopefully I can utilize the time offline to write something with more depth. When it is ready I shall publish it post-dated so it will appear on top of this blog.

I guess I'd better stop now, and not forget to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

'State of Brunei' - Latest Figures

2006-11-30T04:02:00.001+08:00

Just some filler... Figures in the square bracket denotes ranking in the world. Reference: CIA Factbook. Pictures please refer to my Friendster profile. Thanks!

GDP (purchasing power parity) : US$261 billion [38]
GDP (official exchange rate): US$260 billion
GDP real growth rate: 2.05% [172]
GDP per capita (PPP): US$146,300 [1]
GDP composition by sector: agriculture 0%, industry 20.3%, services 79.7%
Unemployment rate: 1.0% [7]
Budget: revenues US$16.95 billion, expenditures US$13.94 billion
Public debt: 0% of GDP [NA]
Current account balance: US$89.47 billion [5]
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: US$1.314 trillion [1]

A Response to the Matter of Equity and Malaysia Boleh

2006-11-17T13:58:00.000+08:00

I refer to the article While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunities are running dry.

Concerning the Matter of Equity Held According to Races
I would like to say that the economic policies pursued by the gahmen is absurd from the outset. This is clearly against the more efficient and fair free-market system as maintained by the United States and Singapore. There could be tons and tons of arguments supporting this position, but I don't feel like elaborating here as I have grown tired about this matter over the years.

The proportion of equities held by the various races is not the only major concern. It extends to the matter of employment too. Again, there are many arguments behind this and I don't want to go further.

The best thing that could happen is, the government helps all the people. We only got one Bangsa Malaysia, so what's the point of assessing the proportion of equity held according to races?

It seems that the term 'Bangsa Malaysia' is used selectively. When we confront external issues we would use the term extensively, while when it comes to 'family matters', well, you can see all the above arguments appear. Not a single phrase of 'BM' at all.

Don't believe me? Try google 'Bangsa Malaysia' and see the results.

Concerning Malaysia Boleh
It appears to me that the nation-building method of Singapore and Malaysia are very different. Singapore adopts a bottom-up approach: Perpetual sense of vulnerability, move forward or die, etc. Whereas Malaysia adopts top-down approach, creating a sense of superiority, or at least equality, against the developed world.

I'm not saying that the method is not good. Certainly, it is better than the cult culture of Stalin or Hitler. But I still struggling hard to see the reason we could feel proud when the nation possesses the tallest office building in the world, or we could send a person to the space by using other people's technology.

Those so-called achievements are baseless to me. I would applaud if we reach some kind of status in the CIA Factbook, or in terms of economic power, war-making potential and so on. Of course, by saying 'war-making potential' I do not mean that the country needs to mobilize itself to go to war. The potential serves as a deterrent against aggression. And again, I don't see how those achievements could serve the people well, or to deter any aggression against the country.

Miscellaneous
Singapore is still being fearful of not able to sustain itself perpetually. But Malaysia do not see such prospect, although this is applicable to the country too. The world is more and more globalized and the law of comparative advantage is vindicating itself. China and India is rising. The country could march forward to tap the markets, or to continue those blunting policies.

Enough said...

References

p.s. Sorry for acting schizophrenic lah... I said I no longer want to comment on the policies, but I just could not tahan...

Topic: Super Long Posts

2006-11-16T03:08:00.000+08:00