‘Losers’
Had a recent trip to Canadian
Rockies with my Hong Kong classmates. We have so many doctors and Ph.Ds. I am
the black sheep of the class. There could be some ‘losers’ not joining us or
not even in our mail list.
Well, I could be one of them if I
stayed with my job as a waiter with attractive tips and happy life then. Well,
the success in life is not making money and/or having prestigious jobs. Our
objective in life today is maintaining good health.
We had shark fin soup several
times in the trip as Canada does not ban it so far. I do not want to eat them
into extinction but I believe they’re not in that danger yet.
Is stuffing good for education
Judging from the high percent of
Chinse science graduates in US, Chinese education system is not that bad. It
forces us to memorize and study hard. The creativity is achievable later in
college.
Recently we had a reunion of 18
high school classmates and their spouses from Hong Kong, about half of us have
doctor degrees. We all came from the Peking-Duck education. I rest my case.
Officer & by-stander gunned down
Mentally challenged + Gun =
Innocent folks killed
Which deal better for my camera
Need a spreadsheet to find my
out-of-pocket prices for a new camera.
Amazon: Add Sales Tax. Minus 2%
credit card credit.
Target: Minus 5% Target credit
card discount. Add gasoline (20 miles from my house) to drive to tax-free New
Hampshire. Plus my time (negligible cost as I’m making a penny an hour on my
book writing).
Life could be tough for penny
pinchers or quarter pinchers if you’re richer.
Universal basic income in Chicago
Does it get us closer to
communism? Even the rich Scandinavian country abandoned it after trial for 2
years, why the poor Chicago can afford it? Druggists and addicts will flog to
Chicago.
When the host die (actually died
already), the parasites will die too.
Laziness is a human nature. If
you have enough money to live by, will you work hard?
If you take a job and find you
would lose all the freebies, would you take a job? Jul 18, 2018.
Joke of the day: MGM is suing the victims
Does it include the dead? If so,
how to collect damages from the dead?
Is MGM a victim herself? If so,
how can you sue yourself.
Why?
Why we help Britain to create a
space company to compete against our own? We have plenty of engineers /
scientists; personally I know several are out-of-work. Jul 16, 2018.
.
China collapse
I heard the "China
collapse" many times from 20 years ago to even today. It has not collapsed
so far.
Many are from the media business
trying to sell what you want to hear and/or make controversial issues that sell
sometimes better than sex.
Some are from politicians who
cannot fix our problems. China is an easy scapegoat.
Some are losing competitors to
China. Some argue China will collapse due to vast investment on infrastructure
- really bad argument.
Some are Chinese 'experts' trying
to make a name or sell books.
If they go to China in any Tier I
(or even Tier III) cities, they would get some senses and close their mouths.
China has her problems, so are
most countries.
Politics system in China
"Authoritarian
socialism" is a better description than "Socialism with Chinese
characteristics".
It is not easy to be admitted to
CCP, Chinese Communist Party. When admitted, your chance to enroll in privilege
universities is higher and so is job opportunity. So "intelligence
elite" for the party makes sense too.
CCP
China is communism by name only.
Communism does not allow folks to start business and make profits.
It is a one-party system vs. our
two-party system. We spend our time in arguing who is on top. Most Chinese
leaders are engineers while most of ours are lawyers. I do not want to argue
which system is better as both have strengths and weaknesses; it also depends
on the stage of development of the country and how educated are the citizens.
Our politicians cannot look long
term otherwise they cannot get reelected.
Chinese look long term today. In
the past they did not and suffered very bad consequences. We can learn from
their mistakes even they're our fierce competitors.
Chinese restaurants
A lot of time I wonder why a
Chinese restaurant offering better value for similar price does not attract
more business than McDonalds next to it.
At one time (40 years ago), most
Chinese restaurants were family business and they bet all in the business.
Hence, you do not see too many failures and most take the Monday off. It has
changed to a larger enterprise today.
Social media
Social media such as Facebook and
Twitter has social responsibility. It is a tool to spread fake news.
AI is being improved to scan the
billions of messages. Human will take a back seat.
Joke or fact
While China is working on “One
Road, One Belt” projects, India is proposing “One Street, One Toilet”
Initiative. I heard this from the comment on the mega China project described
next. Why Indians and Chinese are unfriendly? Most likely China sides with
Pakistan who is the enemy of India. The friend of an enemy is an enemy.
Spreading hatred is not my purpose in life.
Hong Kong, Macau, Zhuhai Bridge
This bridge
is the longest in the world cutting the driving time from 3 hours to 30
minutes. It has 2 man-made islets so a tunnel is built under water. There are
many technical breakthroughs to build this bridge and management issues. Hong
Kong and Macau are driving in the opposite direction of China. Handling custom
is another one. It has been delayed so I guess there could be some problems;
most Chinese projects are on time.
China’s mega projects
Click here for the bridge
described above.
Click here for China’s mega
projects.
·
Starting in 2007, today China has about 60% of
the high-speed rail in the world. It is building HSR in many foreign countries.
·
The new airport in Beijing will replace the
current airport that was opened in 2008 for the Olympics.
·
Water redirection from South to the North.
Lobsters and the trade war
Great for the consumers like
myself and bad for Chinese consumers. One restaurant has a promotion of $10
per lobster and the local market has a sales of $5 per lb.
Chinese consume 20% of total US
export of lobster. Chinese like to have the whole lobster instead of the frozen
lobster tails shipped elsewhere.
Their middle class in China is
expanding fast. One lobster for a Chinese in a year translates to 1.36 billion
of lobsters. Canadian lobsters in the East coast are about the same as the ones
in Maine.
In the old days, lobsters were
abundant and they were fed to prisoners as a punishment.
Never aged
Princess D prevented aging
successfully. Have you seen an aged face of her?
Lie of the century
"The stock market is better
than sex" is the biggest lie of the century!
Africa problems
The basic problem of most African
countries is the lack of control of population growth.
On the contrary, our donations
make many countries weaker. How can their own farmers compete with freebies?
It is similar to our large
families in welfare recipients: the more children you have the more money you
get.
During a major natural disaster,
a leader in exile wanted to return home. He expected to skim some money from
foreign donations.
Food recall
If you die, your spouse and/or
your children would be in the top 1%. LOL.
Joke or human nature
The crack is special effect to
the pressure of the footstep. It would attract serious lawsuits here.
Who is the handicapped
@Tony Pow, don't know you but
think we would have a great time hanging out, like a lot of your posts. I have
MS and currently walk short distances with forearm crutches and longer
distances in a wheelchair. My neurologist was begging me for years to stop
working and file for disability, I refused and continued. I got my home and 58
acres paid off, the children's college funds taken care of, enough funds for
the wife and I to live comfortably saved. My neurologist finally threatened to
pull my driver's license if I didn't stop. Point being people must take
personal responsibility for themselves and their families to the largest extent
possible for society to function, then your restricted socialism becomes
possible. Greece should serve as a warning sign as the oldest Democracy run
away with social entitlements.
My reply
Thanks! That's the only reason I
write. I'm the most boring guy to be with and my wife can prove it. Your post
is from a real person and what you are doing is very inspiring. We can learn a
lot from you.
When we’re poor
When we're 'poor', we will not
give 'welfare' to EU, Japan...
When we're 'poor', we do not
force other countries to follow our culture, standards...
When we're 'poor', there will be
no body bags from the Middle East...
When we're 'poor', we will not
give generous welfare to our able poor...
When we're 'poor', no refugees
come here asking for handouts...
When we're 'poor', we cannot
afford to buy guns to shoot each other...
When we're 'poor', we do not eat
and drink to our deaths...
When we're 'poor', we cannot
afford to buy all those foreign stuffs to jack up our trade deficits...
The list seems to be endless.
Poverty fixes many of our
problems. Sounds good to me!
It seems to be a poem and at
least music to my ears.
Basic income pilot canned
The idea is dumb, the evaluation
is dumber and the implementation is dumbest.
Capitalism encourages folks to
work hard and communism encourages folks to be lazy. Socialism lies in between.
I prefer 'restricted socialism' described next.
We should help the poor to have
the basics but not the able poor. If they are addicts, we have to fix the root
problems. If they are mentally disturbed, they need medical help.
Our welfare system has been too
generous and it does not encourage folks to work and attracts economical
refugees from all over. Common sense has not taught in colleges. Aug 1, 2018.
----
The above is from my book "On Business News 2018" available from Amazon.com. 415 pages (6*9).
Click here for more info.
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