"Lord Voldemort of the Orient"

China!

2010-08-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time…

There is a young equestrian, who had a very bad experience of riding a horse. He fell from the back of his first horse, severely injured and bled.

However he didn’t give up and finally got back to his horse. His skill improved greatly while he grew cautious. After 10 years, he had become a well skilled equestrian, has mastered swimmingly with his own horse.

Until one day he saw this very hot species called “Anihc”, a handsome, gallant, wild and dangerous un-tamed steed. He cannot stop thinking about riding on it, the feeling of taming it, conquer it, and become its master really excites him.

He is very confident of his skill, but he cannot get rid of the psychological shadow from his bad experience. So he invented many kinds of protection, some extremely creative…

What will happen to our horse rider?
Ending 1: He got on the horse, fully armed, rode on rigorously screened dates and location. Strangely, the handsome steed looks like a donkey under him…he was laughed at by other Anihc horse riders.

Ending 2: He took off his overly heavy protections and dressed just like other Anihc horse riders. He did fell again, but that only makes him learn faster of how to master “Anihc”, until one day he gallops freely on the prairie…

Ending 3: He went back to his own horse, stopped thinking about riding “Anihc”…

This story is too extreme of course. But my opinion hasn’t changed: When in Rome, do as Romans do. This is the risk we cannot afford not to take…it is painful, but it’s growing pains.

But the question is: what is the limit of this pain?
We cannot know, because we cannot calculate the limit for a market like China.

When in doubt, stick to principal. My boss always says. He would just stick to his principle, and his principal is: everything has to be under control (for banking business).

But what if the principal does not apply in China? And…which economic theory or rule has actually worked in China?

The problem is, China is, for lack of stronger words, just too big. I’d call it “factorial effect”: the word “China” itself is like a factorial notation (China!), when anything attached with it, it will generate millions, trillions of possibilities…

Worse…when taking into the “flexibility” into consideration, it’ll triple the trickiness.

Flexibility is a philosophy; it has become a subconscious of Chinese. If we want a clearly defined working plan or policy fully considered from every aspect, it will look like a donkey instead of a handsome steed. That’s why almost all the documents were written in so vague language, and every government policy has its “local versions”, when the government implemented the closed-end lending for real estate mortgage in 2003, it actually didn’t apply in SZ. As for banks’ credit policy, in such an enormous market, huge differences exist from Tianjin to Guangzhou, trying to control everything in every scenario is tying our own hands.

BTW, “Ok, Ok…””Good, good…””Let’s have lunch together next time…” doesn’t really mean he’s taking your offer or he’s offering you an appointment, things could happen, schedules may change… treat it as an “expression of friendship”, and please don’t think too much…

You say it’s system failure, we call it flexibility.
You say it’s breaking words, we call it flexibility.
You say it’s no principle, we call it flexibility…
You say tomato, I say tomahto, let’s call the whole thing off…oh….

Is it good or bad? There’s no judgment, it is just the way it is. No matter how good you are at Thai boxing, in China, the game is Taiji. It does not happen on you, you chose…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFkaIIFj7kU&feature=related

Name...name!!!

2009-12-05T04:40:00.000-08:00

A well qualified candidate just finished a 30-minute intensive phone interview with an Ibanking firm HR, both of them seemed quite satisfied with each other…until the last little question: “I see you are fluent in Mandarin, can you tell me how to say ‘Goldman Sachs’ in Chinese?”

A question that completely frosted him in just a second…

Almost every foreign brand will have a totally new name once they enters China, most of the time the new name will be based on its pronunciation, matched by the characters that sound similar but with some special meaning related to the brand, the company, or the product. Yeah…sounds a little arrogant and unnecessary, but NAME is kind of important in China, back to x,000 years ago, before the army generals from 2 sides started fighting, they would shout at each other: “来将通名,宝刀不斩无名小卒...!! (announce your name!! my glorious sword will not cut the head of no-name beadles)” you can not even get killed in the battlefield if you do not have a NAME…

So…here I summarized a few brands:

Goldman Sachs 高盛 gao sheng (high and prosperous)

Citibank 花旗 hua qi (flowery flag- too gaudy with all those stars and strips)

JPMorgan Chase 摩根大通 mo gen da tong- ((roads) broad and smooth)

FitchRatings 惠誉评级 hui yu ping ji (good reputation)

Coca cola 可口可乐 ke kou ke le (yummy and happy)

Pepsi 百事可乐 bai shi ke le (reason unknown)

P&G 宝洁 bao jie (clean, preciously clean…)

... ...

we are such a creative nation... -____-''

Absolutely No Absolute

2009-10-07T03:07:00.000-07:00

I’ve never seen Australia so “orange” before. The terrible dust storm happened last week in Australia reminds me of my visor at home, which I have to use it every April, for the off and on “sand bath”. The sand storm is even serious up north till the border against Mongolia, where in the most serious case pours hundreds of thousands of tons of sand into the atmosphere.

The dust storm is the evil, the repellent, the ugly scar of human morals and the teeth marks on the Mother Nature’s feeding hand. There never was a doubt abut that.

Until today I read this from the Nature:
“Scientists are only beginning to understand their many, complex effects (of the dust storm). Saharan dust may help nourish the upper canopies of South American rainforest. And dust blown from China out over the Pacific Ocean tends to provide the micronutrients — especially iron — needed to cause phytoplankton blooms, which ultimately remove some carbon from the atmosphere”

The dust storm suddenly became a blessing in disguise, maybe it’ll be the ultimate weapon for some of the trickiest environmental issues. We could even use it “to combat poison with poison”, like in JIN Yong’s Gong Fu novel.

I now believe even firmly of the basic principle of Philosophy: there’s “No Absolute”.

It also helps us to understand unexpected situations, or to find excuses to comfort ourselves when being mistreated. Especially when dealing with the most mysterious counterparties like China the Scissorhands. After blocked ALL blogs being hosted on the “blogger.com/blogspot” domain last May, they now went personal against some blogs like “ChinaBizGov” who had went to the trouble to buy their own domain in the hope to migrate away from blogspot.

However, it was not only the bloggers who suffered; readers inside China were complaining as well. But they’ve kind of getting used to it and become jittery yet backing down. Last month, FT Chinese posted the bold article “Hu Jintao’s Heir Apparent Fails to Win Military Post” (http://www.ftchinese.com/story.php?lang=en&storyid=001028839 )with some very true but very trouble-seeking comments. This article was immediately bombarded by the fan readers’ “complaints”: “is FT Chinese intent to make our lives difficult by letting us climb the wall to access your website from now on?” Sounded like the frightened Mom who hastily cover the kid’s mouth after he offended the school Headmaster.

Those blogs are really excellent and resourceful ones. They thought they were just “an innocent victim of the Party’s paranoia”, and the regulator should not have been “afraid of little guy like me”. But now all they could do is asking recalcitrantly: “So, Comrade, tell me: why did you censor my website?” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/06/china-internet-censorship-danwei )

Well, what can I say…there’s absolutely no absolutes.

p.s. Had just used Google Dic to look up “齿印”, and got the answer: “tooth india”. LOL…

The dialogue between Dr. Anuja and Dr. Sathit

2009-09-21T00:39:00.000-07:00

This is my favorate read of everyday's bank email, the dialogue between Dr. Anuja and Dr. Sathit. Today's topic, two things that form human beings: greed and fear.

It's amazing how easy it is for us human to forget the lessons we just learned. We seem to have the gift to upset our teachers. We returned what we've learned from school back to our professors, and we returned what we've learned from our mistakes back to ourselves. I wonder, how many new lessons we would actually learn throughout our entire lives...or we just keep reviewing the old subjects again and again and again??

To keep updates of the Chinese stock market, I could just call my Mom and pay attention to the first sentence she would say.

"I should've listened to you...". Today's headline: "Market hit hard, 70% down from peak"

"I've analyzed myself, the Chinese stock market is special...". Today's headline:"Index back up 3000, risk-taking emotion turned on"

"Those were all political talking...they never really care about investors...". Today's headline:"Index slump inspite of new stimulate scheme, trend turns bear"

She just refuses to learn something out of these up and downs...

And even my Dad never seems to learn the lesson from my Mom's emotional cycle: When market crashes, go out and fix the lunch somewhere else...

**********************************************************************************
The dialogue between Dr. Anuja and Dr. Sathit

American equity investors appear to be in an extreme anxious mood – fear of market collapse again.

American equity investors are now extremely anxious. Very uncomfortable about the market recovery by about 40 PC. While they are getting a bit richer again, they are now worrying about what rich people worry the most – losing what they got (again). When the market goes down too fast, the fear of losing wealth attacks our judgment and thinking and most of us run around like headless chicken. When the market starts to go up, the greed of profit drives out all logic as we plunge in fearlessly.

Curiously, the current situation reminds of the two things the writer learned from an old American commodity trader, teaching commodity trading. He asked his students one thing to always remember, even he expected to immediately forget everything else he said – market is driven by fear and greed.

After saying this, he explained to the confused class one more thing – an experienced man, teaching the young, is like casting valuable pearls to feed the swine in a pigsty – they never know the difference between the muck around them and the pearls and have to learn themselves the hard way – their own very bad experiences.

During the past year, the fear and greed are pretty apparent.

When the market pauses and deciding what to do next, we are highly anxious on what will happen next. Naturally, this is all pure emotion – the herd instinct.

At the moment, the herd of investors in America is completely confused – what to do next? Buy, sell or hold. Probably something not planned (unless you are Warren Buffett).

The herd instinct operates in the credit market as well, last year, when Lehman Brother went bankrupt and triggered the worldwide panic, freezing the entire global credit and interbank market into a massive crisis of confidence and flight to quality (USD and US Treasury in the sophisticated Western economies, while less sophisticated ones carried on almost normally).

This brings out one other interesting point – all the sophisticated and mathematical models and computerized system worth less than a pile of horse manure in times of financial crisis (they are designed to operate in a serene and orderly world known as risk position within 95 PC confidence level).

The credit rating agencies did not help either. They are completely confused. Today, S&P is announcing new methodology - re-calibration of their analytic for CDO's rating and will downgrade about USD550 billion of asset out there. Not much help for the investors already stuck with toxic assets of previously highest credit rating. Guess re-calibration can always be done again after the next financial disaster as well. A sort of a moving target, so to speak.

The world markets, equity, credit, commodity, currencies etc. now seem to operate as much as they used too, when global trading was first invented by the Dutch and the English centuries ago – driven mostly by pure human herd instinct.

So, the next time some smart blue suit men try to sell you something, remember the reality. Best Regards. Anuja

Can’t blame them!!

The crisis depressed +50% of equity value. From then (September 2008) to now the US stocks have recovered 78% of its lost wealth, while the entire economy is still struggling for survival at the bottom of the troubled waters. Yes, the stock market has outrageously surged far ahead of it basic fundamentals (the economy). That is the reason for anxiety.

Naturally, a strong baseless rally like this is bound to hit the wall of adjustment sooner. A lot of people are still optimistic, but a growing number of academics and investors are also talking more often about the second dip, following the W-shape recovery pattern. The situation is literally confused, and it’s no good. Under this obscured market condition, investors’ fear and nervousness could easily drive the market off the cliff swiftly with a mere small piece of unexpected incidence or bad news. Remember the herd instinct works much more effectively in panic. -- Sathit

China's Great W

2009-09-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

THIS Great W… is not the Great Wall; it is the shape “W”- double-dip recession, or W-shape recovery.

Evidences collected:
From Roubini: “The risk of a double-dip recession is rising”
From Andy Xie: “New bubble threatens a V-shape rebound”

Here is the letter games, chose one from V, U, L, W...

Roubini likes “U” and “W”. Here are his several arguments for U:

1. Employment is still falling sharply in the US and elsewhere in advanced economies, unemployment will be above 10% by 2010, this is bad news for demand and bank losses, but also for worker’s skills, a key factor behind long-term labor productivity growth.

2. This is a crisis of solvency, not just liquidity, but true deleveraging has not yet
begun because the losses of FIs have been socialized and put on government BS. Meanwhile, the releveraging of the public sector through its build-up of large fiscal deficits. The effects of the policy stimulus, moreover, will fizzle out by early next year, requiring greater private demand to support continued growth.

3. Policy makers’ exit strategies from the massive monetary and fiscal easing: they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they take large fiscal deficits seriously and raise taxes, cut spending and mop up excess liquidity soon, they would undermine recovery and tip the economy back into stag-deflation (recession and deflation). But if they maintain large budget deficits, bond market vigilantes will punish them. Then inflationary expectations will increase, long-term government bond yields would rise and borrowing rates will go up sharply, leading to stagflation.

4. Finally, oil, energy and food prices are now rising faster than economic fundamentals warrant, and could be driven higher by excessive liquidity chasing assets and by speculative demand. The global economy could not withstand another concretionary shock if similar speculation drives oil sharply towards $100 a barrel.

Andy Xie has picked “W” since April. Andy is one of my favorite economists; he usually gives out very logic reasons, worth reading:

As early as last year, he had expected a big bounce in global stock market in spring 2009, and a first half global economy rebound. He’d also warned that the economic pickup was due to inventory cycle and stimulus, and that the global economy would experience a 2nd dip in 2010.

He reasoned with strong logic, simply summarized as:

Normal economic cycle: inventory-led recovery→ corporate capital expenditure→ employment expansion→ consumption growth→ higher profitability and more capex.

Current scenario: inventory cycle & government stimulus→ bubble & misallocation of resources→ bubble burst, mismatch of supply and demand.

He then gave out some very interesting arguments:

1. Data shows a recent sharp increase in the household savings rate in US, it rose above 5% from -2% over the past 2 years. However the current level is still below the historical average 8%. If normalization remains on track, it should rise above 8% up to 10% to bring debt levels down to the historical average.

2. Suppose this argument is accepted, then emerging economies must decrease their savings rates, increase investment, or decrease production, because unless the US household sector is willing to borrow and spend again, emerging economies will not be able to revive the export-led growth model. The best choice is to decrease savings rates, which is hard to change. Therefore the quickest way is to create an asset bubble that inflates household wealth and decrease savings.

3. China’s exports are down by roughly 25%, it needs the national savings rate to fall by about 6% for the economy to function normally. Otherwise, the economy will experience either a recession or a bubble. China’s stock market is cooling because the Chinese government is jawboning it down, based on fears of a big bubble downside. And the economy is beginning to slow. As China’s market recovered 4 months before others, it adjusts before others as well.

He then read out his crystal ball: financial markets will turn down again when investors realize that the global economy will have a 2nd dip in 2010; and that the US Fed will raise interest rates soon. The turning point may well come sometimes in the 4th quarter. By then, it would become apparent that China has slowed, US unemployment not has improved; consumption remains stagnant; and production data cool.

Why central banks will raise interest rates before the recovery is on solid ground? Answer: Inflation.

Then why inflation will occur in a weak economy? Answer: see oil price.

Oil is the most likely commodity to lead an inflationary trend. The reason why it is uniquely suited as an inflation hedging device is because not only its supply response is very low (as more than 80% of global oil reserves are held by sovereign governments that don’t respond to rising prices by producing more); but also the demand of oil does not fall quickly against rising prices (oil is essential for routine economic activities). All of these mean it is uniquely suited to absorb excess liquidity and reflect inflation expectations ahead of other commodities.

So, if central banks continue refusing to raise interest rates during these weak economic times, oil prices may double from the current levels. Andy then predicted that central banks especially the Fed will raise interest rates slowly and behind the curve, so that the inflation could rise faster than interest rates, which the indebted US household sectors need to see. Just fool the market.

Final conclusion: the second dip could send asset prices down- and keep them down for a long time.

Lesson learned: Prepare to run.

Financial Crisis Crib Sheet

2009-02-04T20:54:00.000-08:00

Financial Crisis Crib Sheet
(By Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff; published on Wed. WSJ, Feb.4)

The parallels with past experiences are nothing short of stunning.

Let’s start with the good news. Financial crises, even very deep ones, did not last forever. Really. In fact, negative growth episodes typically subside in just under two years. If one accepts the NBER’s judgment that the recession began in December 2007, the US economy should stop contracting towards the end of 2009. Of course, if one dates the start of the real recession from September 2008, as many on Wall Street do, the case for an end in 2009 is less compelling.

On other fronts the news is similarly grim, although perhaps not out of bounds of market expectations. In the typical severe financial crisis, the real (inflation-adjusted) price of housing tends to decline 365, with the duration of peak to trough lasting five to six years. Given that US housing prices peaked at the end of 2005, this means that the bottom won’t come before the end of 2010, with real housing prices falling perhaps another 8%-10% from current levels.

Equity prices tend to bottom out somewhat more quickly, taking only three and a half years from peak to trough- dropping an average of 555 in real terms, a mark the S&P has already touched. However, given that most stock indices peaked only around mid-2007, equity prices could still take a couple of years for a sustained rebound, at least by historical benchmarks.

Turning to unemployment, where the new administration is concentrating its focus, pain seems likely to worsen for a minimum of two more years. Over past crises, the duration of the period of rising unemployment averaged nearly five years, with a mean increase in the unemployment rate of 7%, which would bring the US to double digits.

Perhaps the most stunning message from crisis history is the simply staggering rise in government debt most countries experience. Central government debt tends to rise over 85% in real terms during the first three years after a banking crisis. This would mean another $8trillion or $9trillion in the case of the US.

Interestingly, the main reason why debt explodes is not the much ballyhooed cost of bailing out the financial system, painful as that may be. Instead, the real culprit is the inevitable collapse of tax revenues that comes as countries sink into deep and prolonged recession.

Needless to say, a near doubling of the US national debt suggests that the end- game to this crisis is going to eventually bring much higher interest rates and a collapse in today’s bond-market bubble. The legacy of high government debt is yet another reason why the current crisis could mean stunted US growth for at least 5-7 years.

Yes, there are important differences between the current US crisis and past deep financial crises, but they are not all to the good. True, for the moment the US government is in the very fortunate position of being able to borrow at lower interest rates than before the crisis, and the dollar has actually strengthened. Still, deep financial crisis in the past have mostly been country-specific of regional, allowing countries to export their way out.

The current crisis is decidedly global. The collapse in foreign equity and bond markets has inflicted massive losses on the US external asset holdings. At the same time, weak global demand limits how much the US can rely on exports to cushion the ongoing collapse in domestic consumption and investment.

For far too long, official estimates of the likely trajectory of US growth have been absurdly rosy and always behind the curve, leading to a distinctly underpowered response, particularly in terms of forcing the necessary restructuring of the financial system. Instead, authorities should be prepared to allow financial institutions to be restructured through accelerated bankruptcy, if necessary placing them under temporary receivership, and only then recapitalizing and reprivatizing them.

This is not the time for the US to avoid painful but necessary restructuring by telling itself it is different from everyone else.

Now, what is it to do with China?

2009-01-28T02:08:00.000-08:00

(…continued from yesterday’s blog…)

Now, what is Obama to do with China?

We don’t care about who will be the President, what color and which sex is the president; if he is loved as a rescuer of new hope or has been targeted by shoe-throwing. The only thing we care about is whether he will be a trade-protectionism.

Bad news, China has just been “m-ed” by Tim Geithner…which means it soon may appear on the “currency manipulator list” published every 6 months by the US Treasury. It sounds serious and dangerous enough to make Chinese government and many investors more nervous in the middle of the current crisis. But to me, this is just another start of a seesaw game.

I had been exposed to terms like “Sino-US trade friction” and “human rights issue” since I was in high school, had got really tough time in dealing with the debate questions with this topic in the exam. Our teacher had asked us to keep updating the latest situations from the news, so that we could have a proper conclusion at the end of our question answers. When the relationship is warm, the right ending should be “the US can not live without China and China cannot live without the US, we should be able to see the long-term bi-benefit in spite of the current dispute…”; but when they need someone to cushion the blow of their internal problems, the answer would only be scored if we include words like “the US is obviously abusing its power and has double-standard for the human rights, and/or single-sided trade protectionism…”

We were trained to be able to sail with every wind. But it had made me immune from any current threatens from the US. The tennis ball is just with them now.

Inside China, the debate of whether the new president will bring up again this issue has already begun right after Obama had taken the oath. This is some interesting opinions from Caijing website:

“上帝属于信仰上帝之人的上帝，美国总统属于选举总统之人的总统，因此，上帝只感召其信徒，美国总统只尽责于子民，而非我们。更重要的是，奥巴马正是一位信仰上帝的美国总统，上帝说，人要遵守承诺，所以奥巴马必然要兑现自己购买国货之诺言，如果未能兑现，我们无所谓，但其难以向其信仰交待罢。。。”the God belongs to his believers, and the American president belongs to his supporters. The God only saves his followers, and the president only takes care of his people, not us. More importantly, Obama is a president who believes in God. The God calls for word-keeping, Obama will sure honor his promise about purchasing domestic goods. If he breaks his words, it’s OK for us; it’s just that he will not be able to face his God again…

“博弈是双方的。不是单方面的一厢情愿。这一点美国最实际。美国从来不做对自己不利的事情。我的看法是：美国会用贸易保护的口号来向中国和世界要好处。但是不会轻易启动贸易保护。”The Gaming is bilateral, not a wishful thinking. The US is most practical user of this idea, as it never did and will never do anything that would harm its interests. It will make noise for more bonuses from China and the world, but will never really bring it into play…

O…O…Obama

2009-01-26T20:26:00.000-08:00

The following is just the opinion from a people who’d just finished 188 pages of his first book.

He is born special, no doubt about that. The first reaction I had when somebody told me about this new candidate for the President, was: “O…O…what was his name again…?” I simply just never thought a people with a middle name “Hussein” could run for the big boss of the country who just killed a “Hussein”.

But anyway, he made it. A person with such a background is destined to become somebody who is able to make a change. There are a lot of African-Americans with the same origins, background, education, or the same desire to make a change; however, nobody has the ambition to make an unneglectable revolution by directly becoming the King. This people just deservesto be written in the history book.

But this doesn’t make him a God. From his several appearance recently on TV, including his inauguration, great speech after taking the oath, first new policy signing, and several public talks after the became the boss, I saw something that make me easily be aware of how young he still is. The feeling poked me from watching how he walked out of the curtain to the speaking platform, downstairs to meet the media. It seems like he had great conscience of every of his step. I can imagine how he talked to himself in his mind when he made the first step towards the oath-taking stage: “this is it, I AM the first black president of America, I AM going to make a change” in other words “I AM special”. Maybe I am being too harsh, after all this DOES never happen before. But I couldn’t help thinking he still has that “it-is-all-about-me” awareness with him.

As he wrote in his book: (Regina) “You wanna know what your real problem is? You always think everything’s about you”…”the ally is about you. The speech is about you. The hurt is always your hurt. Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Obama. It’s not just about you. It’s never just about you. It’s about people who need your help. Children who are depending on you. They’re not interested in your irony or your sophistication or your ego getting bruised…”

But this is just a tiny minor problem compared to those ones he’s going to solve. And everything is so far so good, actually so far so very good (except a little “faithful problem”). He has chosen a dream “basketball team”( most of his people are tall…). But there’s still a long long way to go, because this time it’s the American people’s turn to ask what their country can do for them.

P.S. About his middle name “Hussein”, I’ve found a very interesting reading from Salon.com:
“Now let us take the name "Hussein." It is from the Semitic word hasan, meaning "good" or "handsome." Husayn is the diminutive, affectionate form.
Barack Obama's middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a secular resident of Nairobi, Kenya. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph. There have been lots of Husseins in history, from the grandson of the prophet Mohammed, a hero who touched the historian Gibbon, to King Hussein of Jordan, one of America's most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the beloved American novel "The Kite Runner" is Khaled Hosseini.
But in Obama's case, it is just a reference to his grandfather”

From history book

2008-12-08T23:35:00.000-08:00

I give up the hope to receive this week’s issue of the Economists. Last night, I was still arguing about the difference between Thailand and China, it is still a democratic country literally, superficially, ostensibly...whatever, I still have reason to believe how much free can people’s ear and mouth be in Thailand; while in China you just don’t bother to check mailbox this week

I have been in Thailand for as short as only 2 years, and I am deeply drowned by the flood of Thai people’s love for the king. I do not know anything about him, but I love him. I do have some doubts, some questions, naturally, but I shrug them off every time until I read this week’s Economists.

This mess reminds me more than once of some familiar words appeared in my high school history book. Proletariat, or the dictatorship of the proletariat, or any Civil War-related vocabulary. Mr. Taksin (let me skip here 200 pages of his evils first) seems to represent the low classes, just like Mao Zedong is the saver of all our suffering proletariat brothers and sisters; PDA , Democratic Party, and dozens of other parties are like the local power and Guomin Party during the Civil War; the monarch? PuYi (well, KangXi in PuYi’s body). The result depends on where this country wants to go:

- To become communism, Mr Taksin’s power need to win the Civil War, capitalists and middle class’s surplus wealth need to be wiped out, big fat family business riches need to be soundly thrashed, their treasures need to be divided equally and returned to the workers they once exploited. (Highly unlikely).
- To become a real democracy…I have absolutely no idea what to do, I was not educated with this as an option in my class.
- To come back to a Kingdom again, the king needs to become younger and younger, and make people believe he never dies…

As I was writing this blog, my colleague informed me that the whole department has already forwarded to each other the Thai version of this article. And her opinion: no body is perfect, everyone has in him goods and bads, but as long as his goods is more than bads, we should accept and still love him as a good person, shouldn’t we?

I just love Thai people…

This is just so funny

2008-10-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

This Hedge Fund Manager Tries to Short Himself: Michael Lewis

The first time I sensed the alarming change in my soul was when I caught myself, five minutes after the market open, reaching for a reefer.
Trust me, I didn't amass legacy wealth (underestimated by Forbes magazine in the high eight figures) by smoking weed during trading hours. Exhaling that first hit I thought and might even have moaned aloud: ``Whoa, dude! Why are you even running a hedge fund?'' The markets were collapsing, and so was my passion.
Bloomberg subscribers have come to know me as a seriously successful hedge-fund manager who tries to serve society in more ways than one. Not only have I made as much money as possible, and proven the natural inferiority of the little rich-kid idiots from Harvard and Yale who went to work for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. I have also freely shared my thoughts and opinions with you.
As the trading room filled with smoke, and acquired that only sweet smell I know that is not success, I realized it was time for me to share more. To go deeper. I needed to re-examine honestly who I was, and why.
What could possibly have caused me to doubt my own value? I cannot say. But with my lungs stretching to the bursting point I felt a sudden urge to make the argument for shorting myself. I looked for weaknesses. I found three:
Misplaced Trust
1) I trusted America to do the right thing.
My fund may be an offshore entity, but I trade in U.S. markets. When they move from ``God Bless America'' to ``Take Me Out to the Ballgame'' at Yankee Stadium, I keep my hand over my heart. And I trusted my government to preserve one of man's most basic rights: the right to short Morgan Stanley.
Six weeks ago I was right where I wanted to be: short not only Stanley but also Goldman Sachs Group Inc., in real size. Both were going to zero, and I was going to have another Merry Christmas. Then the Goldman alums at Treasury jump in and force the Securities and Exchange Commission to ban short selling.
The short squeeze forces me to buy back everything at prices that would make a Japanese investor blink. How did I feel? Imagine how it would feel to be Michael Jordan in mid-air, three feet above the rim with no one around you, when the ref blows the whistle. Dunking is now illegal, he says. The league fines you for trying to dunk; the media lambastes you for trying to dunk. Barney Frank subpoenas the dunkers.
I'm not saying I'm the Michael Jordan of hedge-fund managers. Others say that. I'm saying that for the first time in his career the Michael Jordan of hedge-fund managers feels like picking up his ball and going home. Which brings me to...
Love What You Do
2) I hate my job.
When people ask me what it's been like making hundreds of millions of dollars for myself I always try to smile as if to say: ``It's no big deal. Some people are just built to win in the financial markets.''
The truth is nothing comes naturally in the financial markets. Winning is so much harder than you know. It comes with this huge opportunity cost: not winning at something else. For example, I think I could be one of the best ever at finding meaning in life. But I have to put that to one side, to help keep markets efficient. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a whiner and I'm not a quitter. I'm not writing a letter to my investors to tell them why I'm too good for their money and my own Blackberry. No, I'm no Andrew Lahde. (Though he has a point about pot.) I'm just underutilized. Which leads me to...
Wrong Man
3) I was rocked to my core that I -- or one of the few people like me -- wasn't put in charge of the bailout.
If you haven't figured it out by now, America has hired the wrong Paulson. There are two of them, Hank and John. Hank turned Goldman Sachs from an investment bank into a busload of tourists going to a casino, with borrowed money.
Goldman might have been the smartest investment bank but you only needed to see Dick Fuld testify before a congressional committee to know how much that means. No pun intended, but Dick didn't know dick.
Astute observers will note that every time they run across a party of midgets, one is tallest, and his name is usually Goldman. Suffice it to say that while Hank's shop was creating subprime mortgage-backed bonds, John's was shorting them. Hank wound up working for the government, John wound up making $3.7 billion. For himself.
Wake up America! The teacher has just asked the class to send one member to the chalk board to figure out a problem. You just reached past the A student in the front row and plucked the guy in the middle who's working hard for a B-minus. And he's confused!
To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to do next with my life. But the more I think about it, the weakness I'm feeling isn't mine. It's yours.
(Michael Lewis, author of ``Liar's Poker,'' ``Moneyball,'' and ``The Blind Side,'' is a columnist for Bloomberg News and an imaginary hedge-fund manager. The opinions he expresses are his own.)

Always looking for the bright side

2008-10-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

It’s never been worse and the worst seems never comes.

I started my career at a wrong place (for my dream career), and it’s just never been right till now. I gave up the chance to build my career in the most booming place in the world, but choose to stay in an economically sluggish and politically turbulent country. I missed the opportunity to make up my mind to hop to countries with more advanced system and learning opportunity, but continue to struggle to get anything I can learn from a slow and conservative organization.

However, I am experiencing something that few have the chance to witness. I have been in a state of emergency, violence conflict; I have met Tibet protesters during the Olympic torch relay, and stood right across the road of a big group of organized people full of hatred of China; I have walked side by side a Falungong promoter; and I am right now in maybe the biggest scale of global financial crisis and economic recession ever.

What a miserable life. But thank god I am going through all these in a young age. I can afford to sacrifice, and I will rebound.

It’s a bless in disguise, there’s never been a better opportunity to witness and record a revolutionary structural change, and there’ll never be a better chance to take all the lessons to avoid huge mistakes in my later career.

The golden question

2008-08-29T03:01:00.001-07:00

The golden question: if you have all the money in the world, what would you be doing with yourself?

1. Get on the plane (but not a private jet, I like to be around by people from different cultures), go to all the places whose cultures I have long respected;

2. Rent a local apartment, live a completely local life;

3. Make appointments with all the famous and intelligent people, smart minds of the country (I have the money to make the offer they could not refuse), drinking wine and hold long talks;

4. Bought a cozy little fairytale style cottage in the most beautiful countryside, sit in the sunlight under the window;

5. Have all the great authors alive in the world read for me while sharing the deep ideas in their book, as well as their most valuable life experience with me;

6. Give everyone I care the life they want;

7. Make sure I can live as long as possible or pass away as comfortable as possible once I want to…

No wonder it is college level of FX trading

2008-08-26T01:52:00.000-07:00

Russian troops have withdrawn from Georgia!!
So what..?

So BP would resume its oil passage through Georgia
Oil price would fall…
Interest rate would go down
SWAP trader who paid on Friday would call me on Monday morning and cry…

The End of the chain, I hope…More severe “nexts” are happening, I know. A junior trader’s confidence may completely be crashed…

There’s another one:
Yesterday Credit Suisse released a report about AIG.
Then:

CS predicted AIG will post a further huge loss
AIG’s stock price fell to a 13-year low
US stock market went down..again
Investors uneased and withdrew from carry trades
Yen jumped
……

This is kind of fun if you are not involved in any link of the chain, no position, no betting. You can get a favor of how closely related the world is. But if you want to make a living out of FX trading, and your strategy is pure news trading, you need to be more than a fortune teller to nail it. You need to be equipped with the extremely quick reaction and the most imaginable mind, the moment you saw the word “Georgia” on Friday Bloomberg, your hand should already place on the mouse to click the buy of USD for Monday, or receive on SWAP...
This is kind of ridiculous to me… no wonder the news trading is in the last chapter in some FX trading textbooks.

I Know What I'm Good at

2008-08-24T23:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve really got to change, I found myself such a good adviser for other people’s problem, almost as good as a fortune-teller, I could analyze very objectively the trouble he or she is facing, most of the time be able to give a plan B, even all the way to an exit strategy. But when it comes to my own problem, I can not even decide the time for a slight change!!! While, I mean, I can not even decide the time for a slight change??? (I should not let it become a real weakness)

However, thank god, I still know what I like to do, or maybe what I’m good at. I really, really like presenting…for some unknown reason, I just know that I can present an idea or a dull concept in a funny and unique way, I know I can make people laugh and pay attention to me, and I enjoy that very much. But when the hell is that opportunity gonna come…? All I want is simply a chance to stand in front of any listeners who react to jokes…and begin my show.

I guess the genes are from dad, when he stands on the stage waiting for his show time, and the moment when the stage light spots him, he is “the king of the whole universe”. (I really miss that man…but since when he became a nutty old grandpa...?)

While things are not getting totally desperate, back to the classic quota again, and “let’s…move to the mountains”.