Filed under: Random
Yes, let it! The question is why hasn’t it already! It just doesn’t feel right without some sort of snowflake already, when the post-thanksgiving day has been all quiet and the 24 hour christmas song radio station has started. (The street and shops in Hyde Park are totally quiet today, possibly because people have flocked to the city or other shopping places for the biggest sale of the year) I would be okay with even sleet!
Anticipation: I’ll be taking a sleeping aide recommended by a friend. This, unlike the typical ones you get (which is based on the substance contained in allergy medicine), is based on natural herbal substance that works especially at night with the purpose of adjusting your biological clock due to jet-lag or some other problems. According to online reviews, people tend to have nightmares when they take this one. A minority has wonderful wonderful dreams. Regardless, everybody has “vivid, memorable” dreams. I am full of anticipation right now.
Filed under: Music
I suspect Jason Mraz must have extremely high IQ, judging by the style of his songs and the words of his lyrics.
Fantasy until 12/11: singing the following lines on the streets of Sai Kung:
And Oh, just take it easy and celebrate the malleable reality
You see, nothing is ever as it seems, this life is but a dream.
So just take it easy. Live high. Live mighty. Live righteously. Let’s take it easy.
One thing about coding data manually in international economics research is that you are forced to confront a bunch of wierd “countries”, from those peanuts on the world map, to those that changed names several times over the past decades. This is a great opportunity to learn about all these exotic islands in the pacific ocean which I will buy when I grow up and become rich.
For example, there exist a “country” named Northern Marina Islands which is composed of 15 islands, located between Hawaii and Phillippines. According to Wikipedia, “The Northern Mariana Islands have the lowest male to female sex ratio in the world: an average of 76 men to every 100 women. That is due to the overwhelming female majority of foreign workers, especially in the garment industry.”
To be a man trapped in an exotic island outnumbered by females who would weave clothes for them, what is better?
Filed under: Economics
Some academics wrote something earlier in their life, something which they probably didn’t know at the time that will be the precise thing that guide their action many many years later.
A certain academic now is facing such a historical coincidence, placed at the historical moment to apply his own research on the most powerful economy in the world.
I am of course talking about Bernanke, who wrote many papers on monetary policy in times of deflation. Several years ago, he wrote a paper on the monetary policy of Japan during an extended episode of deflation after the burst of a credit boom. His main conclusion is that at times of deflation, the monetary authority should aggressively keep the interest rate at low level for an extended time. He emphasized the aggression part of keep the interest rates low.
Today, he is the chairman of the Fed at a time when the economy is at the end of an extended cycle of credit boom and finds itself teetering at the edge of deflation. Today the CPI reported a 1 percent drop in CPI, the largest for 61 years (excluding energy and food, still 0.1, which is the largest in more than 2 decades.)
But the interest rate is already at very low level. Is the Fed running out of ammunitions?
What will Bernanke do? The next few years would be interesting.
P.S. I did not mention fiscal policy because the US already has an extremely large deficit (even during good times!) and it takes a long time to kick in.
Some weddings are priceless. Although the Chicago-LA plane ticket can buy me a flat screen TV, this wedding — that of an old friend, one of my first friends, and the first person in US who ever gave me a Christmas present — cannot be substituted by any material goods. So I spent four wonderful days in Los Angeles, seeing family and catching up with a lot of old old friends, but most of all going to the wedding.
This wedding is special, because it is the FIRST of all the high school friends, those who grew up with me. I am hard suppressing my tears during the vows, although they tried not to make it sentimental. What with all the reminisces, catching up, picture taking, not the whole experience is thoughtless happiness. With all that brightness is also that glaring wariness. The fact that nearly every friend is followed by a guy and several wearing glittery diamonds and talking about their career reinforce the feeling that everybody is moving on, that I must move on as well. It is altogether a different world from the one which I am living in.
But the wedding was not the only thing in these 4 days of LA that really struck my heart. While the wedding was the bright star of those 4 days, I found out about an extremely depressing news. That my father’s best friend died in July. I had dim-sum with this friend of his just last Christmas! When my Aunt continued to tell me a string of death news from other people, I just could not help to be taken over by this sadness. Of not being able to feel certain that your loved ones will live to see you get married.
If that is one fantasy very dear to my heart, and one that is again rekindled by my high school friend’s wedding, it is a daughter/Dad dance at my own wedding to the following song, which my Dad and I shared since I was young. And I will always get weepy eyes when I hear this song.
Unforgettable (Nat King Cole, and his daughter, Natalie Cole)
Last year, at the height of the stock market — also at the height of my guilt for not having entered the market for the bull-run — a share of Citigroup’s stock was around $50-ish (one more year ago, it would be around $80 something). For some reasons, I had always set my eyes on Citigroup and thought that if I buy anything it would be Citigroup. In fact, last year I was THIS CLOSE to buying Citigroup.
In the past couple months, Citigroup’s stocks fluctuated around $12 to $25. During the worst days of the market, the price of a share was as low as $11.
But today, it hit a new low (as far as I casually know) — $9.6
This financial downturn just doesn’t seem to end. My laziness last year, last month, and last week saved me.
Filed under: Politics
After Obama’s win, I tried to find international reactions. The American media, esp NYT, seemed to report lop-sided international reactions (all joyful). So I sought for the reactions in UK and Chinese media. The reuters UK had this video “postcard” series that are short interviews with people on the street in foreign countries. They asked these people, “What do you think about Obama’s victory and what should he do looking ahead?” The interview with a middle age man on the street of Bejing was hilarious, and very typical of a Chinese – that he had bought a lot of stocks and he wished Obama will restore the value of the stocks.
In Hong Kong’s MingPao, there is a forum open for discussion on Obama’s win. Here is one from 方太
我为我的股票投资重生而喝采。
(translation, “I am cheering for the revival of my stocks.”)
Filed under: Personal
The captain of a broomball team named “The Invisible Broom” (you know, in honor of invisible hands (Smith)).
To see how stupid this sport is, see here:
