Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Saturday, April 26, 2014
On nuclear generators
Despite its controversy, nuclear is safe if it is properly deployed. Learn from Japan's experience.
1. Today's concrete housing (may not be the right term) is far better than before. Japan's problem is not taking these older nuclear generators out of service.
2. You do not want to store the used rods in the same generator. Should build sth concrete and in an isolate islet for storage.
Green energy (solar, wind...) is not economical compared to coal (the worst polluter). Nuclear is a good choice. Gas is in the middle based on cost alone. The rich countries esp. in North Europe afford wind power even it is not economical.
1. Today's concrete housing (may not be the right term) is far better than before. Japan's problem is not taking these older nuclear generators out of service.
2. You do not want to store the used rods in the same generator. Should build sth concrete and in an isolate islet for storage.
Green energy (solar, wind...) is not economical compared to coal (the worst polluter). Nuclear is a good choice. Gas is in the middle based on cost alone. The rich countries esp. in North Europe afford wind power even it is not economical.
On drugs
A post to Seeking Alpha:
One of my 12 ways to cut down the health care system.
...
7. Cut down the expensive drug marketing (such as giving money / goodies to doctors).
Personally I know doctors receiving free golf trips to the most expensive golf courses for the entire family. They also got unlimited lobsters in medical conventions in Boston. Should doctors receive the 'lecture fees' giving phony lectures or sales pitches in return of recommending the drugs or prescribing to their patients?
Guess who end up paying for all these goodies eventually?
-----
We have bribe too here but in a disguised way. How come all those drug pushers are always beautiful and trying to make 'dates' with the doctors? How come there are some many articles against aspirins?
-----
For the next decades, most new drugs will be discovered in China or India. The drug companies will still be US and Europe. It is too expensive to develop a drug here, too many regulations, too many red tapes, too expensive scientists, too few mouses (if not served as food in India and China :)).
This is one of the few industries we have an edge and should not be killed by the government.
Without advertising, how would I know I do not have to call 911 as my plumbing still function endlessly less than 4 hours? :)
------------
The legalized drug would help many such as cancer sufferers to ease the pain. However, it would be damaging to younger generation in addiction. See what happened to China about 300 years ago on the Opium Wars (when Brits were the drug pushers as a nation).
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One of my 12 ways to cut down the health care system.
...
7. Cut down the expensive drug marketing (such as giving money / goodies to doctors).
Personally I know doctors receiving free golf trips to the most expensive golf courses for the entire family. They also got unlimited lobsters in medical conventions in Boston. Should doctors receive the 'lecture fees' giving phony lectures or sales pitches in return of recommending the drugs or prescribing to their patients?
Guess who end up paying for all these goodies eventually?
-----
We have bribe too here but in a disguised way. How come all those drug pushers are always beautiful and trying to make 'dates' with the doctors? How come there are some many articles against aspirins?
-----
For the next decades, most new drugs will be discovered in China or India. The drug companies will still be US and Europe. It is too expensive to develop a drug here, too many regulations, too many red tapes, too expensive scientists, too few mouses (if not served as food in India and China :)).
This is one of the few industries we have an edge and should not be killed by the government.
Without advertising, how would I know I do not have to call 911 as my plumbing still function endlessly less than 4 hours? :)
------------
The legalized drug would help many such as cancer sufferers to ease the pain. However, it would be damaging to younger generation in addiction. See what happened to China about 300 years ago on the Opium Wars (when Brits were the drug pushers as a nation).
-------------
Thursday, April 24, 2014
On Money
Yes Sam, as Einstein said "everything is relative".
We're living in a peaceful time (at least in our world). We should be considered fortunate and those who were born in the US are lottery winners. My parents went thru Japanese brutal invasion and their parents thru China's brutal government, and their grandparents went thru the semi colonization by the 8 foreign devils after the Opium Wars.
My book writing contributes less than 1% of my income but takes up 50% of my time. It is a hobby at best. However, holding of a printed book written by me rewards me more than any gold in the world.
I'm frugal as I went thru harder time. I'm rich when I compare my negative account balance when I started. As I said on China, we should compare ourselves with what we're 10, 20 and 30 years ago. However, money is not the the objective in life and happiness is. After we've the basics, money is not important.
We're living in a peaceful time (at least in our world). We should be considered fortunate and those who were born in the US are lottery winners. My parents went thru Japanese brutal invasion and their parents thru China's brutal government, and their grandparents went thru the semi colonization by the 8 foreign devils after the Opium Wars.
My book writing contributes less than 1% of my income but takes up 50% of my time. It is a hobby at best. However, holding of a printed book written by me rewards me more than any gold in the world.
I'm frugal as I went thru harder time. I'm rich when I compare my negative account balance when I started. As I said on China, we should compare ourselves with what we're 10, 20 and 30 years ago. However, money is not the the objective in life and happiness is. After we've the basics, money is not important.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
On China
A good percent of Chinese GDP is due to infrastructure construction.
China reaches the point that they do not need more new airports, roads
(public transportation should be encouraged), bridges...
What they should do is:
1.
Calculate each project to see whether it is cost effective or not.
Business 101! Projects are not the tools to alleviate employment problem
which could generate social unrest if not successful. The current mega
project in connecting cities in Pearl Delta is too mega.
2. Living standard could be improved without GDP growth such as water quality, air quality, reliable food quality...
3.
More regulations (just opposite to what the US should do) on
construction, corruption (President Xi has been doing a great job), food
quality, stock market... China has been relatively new to capitalist
system. They have been learning fast, but not fast enough.
You learn from what other countries suffer, not from when you have problems.
4.
Settle islet disputes. Obama seems to side with Japan, Philippine... It
would lead the world to another secular bear market. You hear from here
first.
However, if you compare China 10, 20 and 30
years, it grows by leaps and bounds and millions have been lifted from
poverty (i.e. starving to death) which is the first human right above
freedom.
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Reply comments to comments
GDP and its growth are not good yardsticks for a country - a happy meter is (I'm still perfecting its construction :)).
Infrastructure
should grow, but benefit should be calculated. The days of using half
the world's steel and/or cement should be long gone.
BJ
is enhancing its sub way system that could move it to the top of the
world in a few years. All the subway systems in China are clean,
modern and safe. It makes NYC's subway system a stone age structure
(but it still works).
BJ had the first subway in
Asia, I guess. It was not due to solving the transportation problem (a
fleet of 500 buses then would do). It was used for war shelters against
Russia, I guess again.
Tier 3 and below cities
need to start subway system. However, compared to India who had the
first subway system not too long ago in her biggest city, China has
been way ahead, not counting the high-speed trains.
Water
cleaning facilities are not a major problem. They need to control
illegal dumping by the factories that are backed up by local corrupt
governments. Many factories with high pollution should be shut down.
Sam,
I have to disagree with you with Hong Kong's brand of democracy. Some
make sense and some do not. They seem to be a bunch of hippies
protecting in the 60s (the world has not been fair to everyone since it was created).
There must be many 'professional' protesters.
Hong
Kong is part of China and within 50 years it is no different than the
rest of China. China wants to give them some 'liberty' to set up an
example for Taiwan to return to the mother land.
Contrary
to popular belief, minority in China have far better deals. For
example, they do not have one-child policy restriction. So far, they
give more to Tibet than it gets back. When I took the three-gorges
cruise from SH to inland, I saw most minorities' customs, dances,
songs...were preserved at least to us, the tourists.
-----------------
Reply comments to comments
GDP and its growth are not good yardsticks for a country - a happy meter is (I'm still perfecting its construction :)).
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However, it is just a correction hopefully. It may still down for 5% and will bonce back or at least stop bleeding. Personally I have about 55% cash and was starting buying stocks yesterday.
My crystal ball does not see a market plunge for the following reasons :
- Bubble stocks are too few to move the entire market. My last year prediction is most bubble stocks will be half 2013's peaks by the end of 2014; it seems heading the right direction.
- The only trigger I can see is interest rate. I do not believe our dragon lady would raise it when her chair is still cold. Russia's aggression is a noise to me. We're too far away and the benefits to us are too few.
- Economies including EU and even China (debatable but it is my thoughts) are improving.
- The US economy is improving. Seems the economy will recover without the employment recovery as many jobs are outsourced and we cannot really support a US factory for low-wage jobs.
Watch my technical indicators every week as we cannot depend solely on the crystal ball 100% (which is not always right) and yesterday's predication cannot be better than today's prediction (as the weather man finds out).