Random thoughts & jokes

Some are for your entertainment, so do not take the jokes in this article seriously. It reflects my recent thoughts.

Employment

Mathematically incorrect, 5% is full employment with many not seeking employment. It is hard to find qualified candidates when it dips below 4%.

Employment is up with the increase in average wage but the economy may not be. Today could be one of the few times that correlation between the employment and the economy is not happening. We still have high debts and unfinanced entitlements.

The rosy employment report today is due to tax cuts, both at the corporate level and individual level. The extra tax incomes from the growing economy would not compensate for the loss of tax revenues and hence a larger Federal budget gap. It is another example of buying votes (more employment) at the expense of long-term benefits (the economy).

USD

Last year USD was at the peak. It came down and now headed up inches.

Yuan has been up against the USD for the last 5 years at about 20% from my rough estimate as a tourist.

A strong dollar may not be good for investing:

·         Our products are more expensive overseas.

·         The profits from overseas would be reduced when converting to USD.

·         It is good for us as tourists, but bad for attracting tourists to US.

Tariffs

The tariffs would lead to price hikes on commodities if they are imported to the US. It is a good revenue to the government. Our finished products if depending on the imported commodities would cost more and would be less competitive in the global market.

With tariffs, banning some trades from China and the rising interest rate, we will expect inflation.

China’s impact

Commodities will rise due to demand such as from "One Belt, One Road" projects and the wealthier Chinese. For example, we used to enjoy $15 for twin lobsters in Chinese restaurants and now it is $40 as many lobsters literally fly to China.

Trump and Newton

Trump should learn from Newton on his "No more Mr. Nice guy policy": For every action (tariff), there is an equal and opposite reaction. Silly? Somehow, someone has to take no action to an action. Otherwise we are watching a Kung Fu movie with the endless revenges (tariffs and counter tariffs).

Patriot shoppers

A patriot shopper only buy stuffs made in USA. It is hard to find products purely made in US. Some may be assembled with foreign components. Check out the components under the hood of your car.

Sam Walton was a patriot. When he passed away, his children started selling Chinese stuffs as they found out Sam calculated wrongly for the margins. They become the richest family of the world - yes richer than Buffett and Gates as a family.

EU

Europe is still burning. Euro is a good idea especially for tourists. Greece took advantage of it. Italy and Spain had been warned a few years ago. Importing refugees to do jobs their citizens do not want has its consequences. Deng’s “Fresh air and flies come in when opening the window” applies here too.

Political systems

Each has its merits and weaknesses. They differ from each other on how to share the wealth. Socialism is good for rich countries such as Norway.  

China today is not communism which does not allow their citizens to open their own shops for example. The major weakness of communism is there is no incentive to work harder as everyone is paid the same - similar to our unions?

India is democratic and the wealth gap is huge. Democratic system needs educated citizens and good governance. Most countries in Asia beside Japan and some extent in Singapore are corrupt.

Why drunk violators got the out-of-jail card

Most likely the judge and most of the jury members are drunks in one time or another.

Another shooting

It is a norm until we love our children more than our guns. Do not pray but take action NOW without worrying their contributions to your campaigns. The children cannot vote, so the politicians do not care about what they demand.

Legalized drugs

Yes, everything comes back sooner or later. As a nation, the Brits pushed opium to China when they had nothing better to trade. It led to bankrupting China. Now the addictive drugs are hurting the US and the West.

As an investor, do not invest in companies in this 'legal' drug. Do not count money with your hands dripping in blood. The parents have more work to do: Children are curious and they will follow what their friends do.

They expect the state and many will profit with no regard to the social problems and consequences. What kind of society we're coming to?

Defeating Facebook

We can defeat Facebook, a survey company, by giving them false info. If they're not useful, they will not use them. Here is mine.

I am a female born in April 1, 1800, living in 1 Main Street, graduated with a B.S. (real BS) from University of Lies and am working as the assistant to Trump being his sister-in-law. The only true info is I spend too much time in blogging and have written a best seller in investing; it is more effective by mixing false info with true info. What's yours?

Facebook provides a valuable service to me at no cost. Why should I complain? For my potential employers, all my info are false and all my pictures were taken after my two drinks, so I am not responsible.  

Sex & top 1%

If one can make $130,000 in one hour service, one should be in the top 1% and pay a lot of taxes together with the altar boys, victims from the many sex offenders who surfaced every month now. Just jealous!

Oh!Roseanne

RIP to where you belong.

”Roseanne says she was under the influence of Ambien."

All these sex offenders say they were under the influence of Viagra. LOL.

I like the show and agree some of the contents. Hope they have a similar show without Roseanne and it would save over 200 jobs. The hard work and talents are appreciated.

She does represent a good slice of the population: Stupid, biased and big-mouthed.  Her good side is her honesty. True or false?

Nobel Prize material

If we can pass the sterile feature from seedless watermelons and seedless oranges to hum beings, we would have solved the over-population problem.

Discrimination (jokes)

The black here discriminate folks from Africa because they have darker skin.

The black can say racial jokes against their own race, but not the white dudes. Reverse discrimination?  Similar to restrictive college admission for Asiana.

The Chinese are baked right, not too white and not too dark. Thank God. If so, why there is no yellow Jesus and Chinese not chosen?

Wonder why Adam and Eve had belly button and how the creation of earth (or universe) was recorded before language and paper were invented.

We have full time of prayers on world peace for centuries. Is God not listening or God wants us to solve our own problems?

I would be attacked by the black and religious folks. Relax, just joking. If I were a public figure, I would have lost my job by now.

Jets & the preachers

Is it stupid for the preachers to ask for jets on the argument that Jesus would not ride a donkey? It is more stupid for folks to donate money for the jet. Are the jets more important than the poor? Please think before you answer this question. It is not an IQ test.

Starbuck incident

If I see the homeless folks, I will not go to that Starbucks again. I try to avoid addicts...

It is an unfortunate incident esp. with racial discrimination. As a business, you do not welcome folks to come in and not order anything. It should set up a fair policy like ordering something within 5 minutes and enforce it.

Closing all the stores will cause the company money but gaining free publicity. There are many better ways to train employees such as by small groups, in-store, on-line...

Trump and oil

Trump has a habit to ignore all agreements signed by the previous president who does not belong to his party. What happens if he does?

I can see the problems of our political system. The flip flops and the associated costs waste too much money plus their endless disputes.

I hope it will be signed and make amendments and enforcement later.If not, we will see a further surge of crude oil (even I own some). In addition, we will become more isolated globally.

Repeating history

French failed in Vietnam before us.

Russians failed in Afghan before us.

Why we think we can succeed in these wars? When we do not learn from history, we will repeat history.

Guillotine

Guillotine is the greatest invention. It scares folks to hell.

I was in Austria 2 months or so ago. The spirit of Antoinette was still there every where. Europe was ruled by the family via marriages.

It is similar to Chinese controlling the 'barbarians' for peace. However, the typical Chinese emperor had many wives and many princesses.

Starbucks

The Starbucks in China and Hong Kong are quite different than the ones here. They offer more choices, more classy, more suitable to local tastes... They are run efficiently.

The coffee is the same every where, just double the dosage to make it addictive... What you're selling is image.

My social standing is higher than yours if you are drinking a local brand. For the same reason, Victoria's Secrets can never be successful in China unless they wear the underwear overwear (my silly term).

Unexpectedly our US culture (thanks to Hollywood and NBA) help them sell the brands. That's why China will have very few global brands in the next few years.

Permissive society

Unfortunately, they look at profit from the new, legalized drugs but not at cost. How many accidents caused by addicts, how many birth defects, how many dropouts due to drugs, how many crimes by the addicts....

What is the next illegal drug to be approved?  Sigh :{

We're the victims of our success and lack of control. We're in a permissive society. We need instant gratification and FUN.

I bet our high rate of birth defects is due to these drugs; my suspicion came from the high birth defects of the children of athlete. The government should have done more research on this subject that is better than finding the mating pattern of bees

On Brits

If the Brits were not too greedy, we could be speaking the Queen's English.

To me, all kings and queens are parasites except Princess Di for her beauty, charm and good deeds.

On education

Our education system is a mess. It is not the money. Education should start at home. With so many single parent families and teenage mothers, do we have a future?

Our kids are playing video games all day long (a Trojan horse from Japan).

Do not live in denial. For proof, visit any top-notch college on STEM and/or high-tech company, you can find more foreign faces (belonged to new immigrants and/or the first generation) than 30 years ago. Sigh :{

 

I'm better than most politicians

For the record, I'm a very casual drinker. I have a lot of hot stuffs due to gifts... Some have been over 35 years. They evaporate faster than I drink. My flat belly is the proof of not drinking too much beer.

For the record, prostitutes have a higher social standing than politicians esp. the entertainment value (just an observation).For a good laugh,
http://bit.ly/1vHsW29

ZTE, a bargain chip for Trump

ZTE is one of the top high-tech companies in China.

It has 74,773 (2017) employees (compared to 72,900 in Cisco.

I watched Youtube and some articles describing their impressive high tech research. Most likely after this incident, Chinese high-tech companies will build their own core technology instead of depending on US companies like QCom. It has done so in computer CPUs.

 

"Founded in 1985, ZTE is the world’s fourth biggest supplier of telecommunications network equipment and a top-10 vendor of smartphones, with operations in about 160 countries."

 

"He said ZTE was focused on innovation, backed by its 12.9 billion yuan (US$2 billion) in research and development spending last year, as well as some 30,000 researchers."

 

"It also ranked second in the world last year in patent filings, with 2,965 applications submitted under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, according to the World Intellectual Property Organisation. That was the eighth consecutive year for ZTE to be among the top three companies in the world with the most patent applications."

 

The long version of the article from South China Morning Post:
www.scmp.com/...

Judge a city or a country by its transportation system

Compared to the subway system in Boston and NYC to any Tier I city in China and HK, we're the third-world country.

They are clean and clearly displayed with info. China is building an assembly plant for the subway system in Boston. Supposed to be free for seniors in Shenzhen. I used taxi in Shenzhen all day long due to laziness, comparatively cheap and time constraints.

One Youtube video compares China and India in rails. It is either tie or better in India. Must be made by an Indian with dumb nationalism. India has zero mile of high-speed rail and subway is just started a few years ago.

The high speed rail service in China is exceptional. Since the first fatal accident, I do not hear any accident (tough to cover up). I rode it twice in China and it is very convenient, fast, with decent food I paid... The ladies were slim and beautiful compared to our fat, old stewardess (most of them, sorry for being so shallow). We're really in a third-world country!



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The above is from my book "Can China Say No?". Click here for more info in Amazon.com.

Limited by space in Hong Kong

The limit of applications is due to the limited land and expensive office space.

The research is top-notch for a city of 7 millions (4 millions 50 years ago). Being English speaking in HKU, they have more citations of the research papers more than any Chinese universities (but the trend should be reversed).

One example, the founder of DJI (drone) graduated in HK Tech. U., got a small grant from the u and went back to Shenzhen to start his business (this is the application), where all the components are readily available next street.

Many of HK talents are in finance, health delivery, real estate, international trade... where the city has an edge.

Not looking good

Malaysia is a mess. They did attract some Chinese investment. They could be another Chinese economic colony if they are not careful. As I posted, most Asian countries are corrupt. A human nature?

Argentina is even worse than actually is. In the black market you can almost far more your peso (used to be double before the currency floating) from USD.

The economies in Italy and Spain have been bad for a long while. Some thought they would be the next Greece.

Turkey is just a turkey. Without enough tourists, the economy is really bad. I want to go but not at the risk of my life.

Cook, Xi and Trump

Tim Cook and Xi sleep in the same bed while Trump sleeps in the sofa in the family room.
 
Apple needs rare earth elements and the huge market in China. China needs jobs. The profits Apple, Ford, GM, QCom made in China are not included in the import from China, so the deficit is exaggerated - I do not know how much exaggerated. Did the Chinese negotiator point out the obvious?

Rare earth elements

In reality, many countries have rare earth elements including the US. They do not want to mine them due to the environment damages. NK will not care much as eating is the top priority.

Samsung does not sleep with China. They have big plant in Vietnam using recycled rare earth elements. I do not know how effective that could be esp. if we do not change phones every year or two. This is also the problem of most mobile phones when the urge of upgrade is reduced.

China's modern history

China has over 5,000 years of civilization. Starting with First Emperor of China (about 259 BC) or even earlier, almost all Chinese emperors had an official historian (of course with favorable bias towards the current government). With few explanations, most recorded texts (carved on bamboo until paper was invented) can be understood today as the traditional Chinese language has very minor changes until recently. Traditional Korean and Japanese adopted Chinese written language.

China’s long history indicated she seldom colonized countries even China had the power to do so. In recent history, many times China has been a victim from foreign invasions. The modern history affects our current life and many of China’s actions today.

This article is very concise for easy reading with my comments. Click the link or use Wikipedia to explore specific topics that are interesting to you.

1800

In 1800, China was the richest country on earth. The country included Tibet, Mongolia and Xinjiang with a population of about 328 million. It also accounted for about one quarter of the world output. The emperor showed the Brits that China had nothing they needed from the west. Qing (1636-1912) is the last dynasty of China under Manchurian rule.

First Opium War (1840)

I define the First Opium War as the start of China’s modern history and everyone’s definition is different.

The Brits had nothing to trade but opium they found in India. Opium killed millions of Chinese addicts. In the revenge of burning chests of opium by Chinese hero Lin Zexu, the British East India Company sent gunboats to Canton with a victory.  Brits received vast compensation and five more ports were opened.  Hong Kong was ceded to Britain.

Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) was a civil war against Qing under Hong Xiuquan. It further weakened Qing even the rebellion was suppressed with millions killed.

Demanding more ports, the second opium war was started and lost to Britain and France. The emperor fled from Beijing.

During the Second Opium War (1856-1860), the French and Brits looted and set fire to the Old Summer Palace. The loots are displayed in these two countries’ museums to remind us of their crimes. China opened Tianjin as a treaty port, legalized opium trade, and a good chuck of Manchuria was given to Russia.

It woke up China. China wanted reform in her military, but paid less attention to other areas such as politics, government, etc.

China did build a remarkable fleet. However, it was demolished by Japan, a country had been looked down by Chinese in her long history. It really woke up China. Radical reforms were started but were suppressed by Empress Dowager Cixi. Ironically, Cixi followed some of the reforms.

The Eight-Nation Alliance suppressed the Boxer Rebellion, semi colonized China in the name of opening trade and bankrupted China. Chinese called this “century of humiliation”.

Oct., 10, 1911 Wuchang Uprising

The revolution was led by Sun Yat-Sen marking the end of Qing Dynasty and beginning of ROC (Republic of China). Sun’s interim government could not control the country which was divided by war lords. Sun gave up his power to Yuan Shikai who controlled the northern China. Yuan wanted to be an emperor. Ten years of bloody wars between the war lords followed. Sun fought successfully against these war lords. When Sun died, the leadership was passed to Chiang Kai-shek. In Oct., 1928, China was united under ROC. With the fall of Qing, Mongolia declared independent setting up a buffer zone between China and Russia.

The May Fourth Movement (1919) marked the first important protest started with students against the government allowing Japan to receive the territories in Shandong.

Rise of Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

CCP was founded in 1921 under the leadership of Mao Zedong. Chiang had purged many communist members. WW2 forced the two parties united to fight against the Japanese, who committed a lot of war crimes against Chinese including the Nanking Massacre.

After the war, the two parties fought against each other. Mao won with the famous Long March and drove Chiang to Taiwan. People’s Republic of China (PROC or PRC) was formed in 1949.

Mao’s poor governance (1949-1978)

Mao was a great revolutionist but a poor governor. During these years, China had major setbacks as evidenced by Big Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. Millions starved to death and many more suffered. It marked the end of tough times in modern China. Mao is still respected by most Chinese.

Deng’s reform (1978-2008)

US played China card against Russia. Deng led the real and fruitful reform in her modern history. China took off under his guidance by turning a fishing village in Shenzhen into a special economic zone.

Hong Kong and Macau were returned to the motherland with his famous “One Country, Two Systems”.

Tiananmen protest by students was caused by the parity of benefits from the rich and the poor in general. After this, US and EU banned arms sales to China. Chinese students in US were allowed to stay resulting a mild brain drain, and later some returned home with working knowledge learned in US.  From then on, students are concentrated in their studies and citizens on making money in this authoritative and capitalistic society.

China today (2018)

After years of unprecedented, double-digit growth, China becomes the second largest economy. She is moving from “Made in China” to “Designed in China” as described in this book.

China Xi has been a great leader. He proposed “One Belt, One Road” Initiatives. He assures China’s rise is peaceful and beneficial to the world. As of 2018, he has been keeping his promises. Hopefully China will diplomatically resolve the disputes and conflicts with her neighbors and US.
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The above is from my book "Can China Say No?". Click here for more info in Amazon.com.