These articles may need updates
and rewrites. Instead of deleting them, I save them here for future revisions.
If this book has a printed version, they will be most likely deleted to save
some trees.
Conspiracy theories are normally formed from
the conclusion / beneficiary and then trace back to the incidents. Most have no
proofs as the proofs could be hidden carefully. I have seen many from articles
and YouTube videos. They may be not true but here are my speculation. However,
you may be able to jump into similar conclusions when you investigate the hidden
agenda and who benefit most from the actions. For example, has we landed on the
moon. The agenda / beneficiary is winning the space competition from the Russia
and it was technically impossible at the time. The TV video could be taken in a
stage with different light source. In addition, the flag was moving and it
should not due to there is no air in the moon. It is more for your entertaining
and do not act on it without further verifying it.
On
Security threat
Security threat is an excuse. Trump wanted to
stop Huawei. If we do not ban Huawei to US, Apple will lose half of the market
value. Is it a security threat?
About 20% of the internet traffic goes thru
Chinese routers. There are many ways to protect our data.
A company from Israel demonstrated they can
spy with any smart phone.
Do you want to be spied by a foreign company
(Huawei or other) OR by your own government? Why Huawei would spend all the
resources to spy U.S. citizens?
German found many backdoors from U.S. phones
but none from Huawei.
It is about stopping China but not about security
threat.
Iran
Russia’s missile system can shoot down the
best of our drone. It is unbelievable. Have Russia and China helped Iran in
these technologies? Iran is a two-edge sword to China. China may not want to
offend us in trading with Iran. China benefits from the cheap oil. It is a
bargain chip for China in the trade war though.
What is the real reason for Iran / U.S.
conflict? It could be protecting Israel OR Iran not using USD as the currency
for trading oil?
Iran
incident
Most likely Iran’s drones attacked Saudi’s
oil field and refinery. It has reduced the oil supply to the world by about
50%. It boosts up the oil price and Iran benefits.
At first one could suspect it was Chinese
behind the attack as China could supply them with military drones or at least
the drone technology. But, not really. Iran has developed its drone technology
to be able to attack.
It could not be a bargain chip in the trade
war. The U.S. does not depend on oil from Saudi as China does. Further attack
on Saudi’s oil facilities could bring to a global recession. The U.S. does not
want to have a war with Iran and Iran understands it.
Karma?
Are the fires of Windsor Palace and Notre
Dame Karma? Now the French and the Brits would feel what the Chinese felt when
they burned down the Summer Palace for 3 days and 3 night after they had looted
all the treasures.
So could be Karma for Japanese killing
300,000 Chinese in Nanjing alone. There was a competition to see how many heads
were cut. The Japanese general said it was unfair as his sword was blunt in the
middle of the competition and started over again. The mayor of Osaka said it
did not happen even there was a museum devoted to it in Nanjing. We need to
learn from history and not to repeat history.
First U.S.
president to visit N. Korea
I bet it was an arrangement with Xi. It is
too smooth and too simple using a tweet. It is Xi’s present to Trump to me.
Trump had gained a lot of votes from the G20 meeting and this meeting.
We have
lost long term in this trade war with China
·
China has allocated of effort and farm land to
grow soybean now. It will take a few years before they can stop import soybean.
·
China is concentrating on core technologies. It
will take years but not a decade.
·
Huawei is ready with new operating system and
other chip components. The chips may not be fast enough but the operating
system running machine code will compensate those chips that are not
state-of-the-art. The problem is Europe depending on U.S. apps instead of
China’s censored apps.
·
From 2020, China’ economy will suffer for a few
years due to the trade war and the high debts.
Malaysian
& Korean airline disasters
U.S. destroyed the air plane with the
captured U.S. drone on its way to China. Similarly, it was speculated that the
civilian Korean airline was shot down by N. Korea due to the spy equipment in
the civilian airline. It was not in the news for long.
Bolivia
When you watch news, analyze and think. The
media reported that Bolivia’s riot was due to the citizens wanting to share the
profits from mining lithium, a major component for battery from mobile phones
to electric cars. I do not have proof who is behind this expensive uprising.
Obviously the beneficiary is our country U.S.A. Bolivia’s governor had signed a
treaty with China to mine lithium in Bolivia which has about 50% of the world’s
reserve.
Corruption,
American style
Unless you live in a cave, you should know
the corruption of both Trump and Biden. What did Biden’s son contribute for
receiving that kind of money? When we accuse corruption of other countries, are
we hypocrites?
Iran
again
Why was the general killed? Trump wanted to
avoid the impeachment. In addition, it will give him a better approval rating
for the presidential election. In past history, many have boosted their
approval rating (one from 25% to 80%) in similar conflicts.
Why did the plane crash? I guessed it right
that it was the missile by Iran. Iranians are not too smart. They should have
stopped all take offs and landings for the entire day after the attack.
Why there were no casualties in Iran’s
missiles to U.S. military sites? It had been long planned/announced and gave
the U.S. soldiers enough time to move their equipment and themselves to safer
places.
The U.S. must been told that the missiles
would not be harmful (similar to fireworks made in China) and please do not use
your defense missiles.
Why both sides do not want to escalate? It
would be bad for Trump for a full-fledged war with Iran and it is not for Iran’s
benefit. Both would declare victory after saving face.
Judging from the actions by Iran, many
terrorist attacks will be carried out by ‘unknown’ sources in U.S. soil and
foreign sites. They have to satisfy Iran’s citizens on the killing of their
hero.
Why does the U.S. attack Iran? It is due to
not using USD in trading oil with China and the nuclear missile
development.
One factor is China as China does not want to
have this conflict. China is the chief importer of Iran’s oil. If Iran’s oil
stops flowing, China would be in very serious inflation.
Some are new and some are newly modified.
They may be fillers in my other books after checking out in English and content
(not to offend anyone). Some may be materials for new chapters or enhancing
chapters. I jot down ideas on what I see without thinking whether they are
politically correct. Do not feel
offended. Most are short and I hope they are thought-provoking. Some YouTube
videos lead to many related videos that last for the entire day.
I am religious and political neutral. At one
time I thought of deleting these posts from my books. I decided not to do it as
my readers can analyze and decide whether they are correct by themselves. You
can send me your opinions to my email pow_tony@yahoo.com. I
may include some here.
I agree that the U.S. has a good political
system. However, our political parties have wasted a lot time in arguing.
With a few bad apples, the religious folks
are generally good and the churches have done a lot of good deeds to mankind. I
respect all religions.
On the
book “The 100 Year Marathon” by Michael Pillsbury
The book and similar books make you feel
better via dumb nationalism. It is good for those who always put the blame on
others but not on themselves. The trade deficit is not a Chinese problem but
ours.
The real fixes are:
1. Improve
our education system.
If
you go to any high tech company or tech institution such as MIT, you will find
many yellow faces and Indian faces. Chinese kids spend at least more hours in
studying every day than our kids.
2. Government
should subsidize in science research to “Make America Great Again”. We
subsidize many sectors (that’s why our milk is so cheap), but we complain China
subsidizing their science research. Does it make sense?
3. Improve
infrastructure.
Our
politicians care about 4 years and hence they will NOT do the above due to no
immediate payoff. Our CEOs care about the next quarter and their bonuses.
4. We
need to save more.
It must be similar that this book would make
folks with my background happy. To these folks, be neutral and seek out the
truths.
On 5G
If we chose not to use Huawei 5G, we may be 2
years behind. It is likely that we would even be behind some developing countries
in Africa.
It happened before in 4G: When the Orientals
were watching TV from the phones during commute, we're reading Kindle books. I
bet books are more educational than movies. However, 5G changes the world and
hopefully for the better.
ATT's 5Gx is just 4G with 'potential' or a
marketing gimmick. VZ's 5G has used a lot of Huawei's patents even they're not
Huawei's products. Huawei asked Verizon to pay 1 billion for the patent use. If
they do not pay for any ‘regulations’ from our government, China and many
countries will not pay royalties on many U.S. patents.
Chicken
feet, lobsters and trade war
Lobsters are literally flown to China for the
rich. The trade war changes all these. Chicken feet, a delicacy for Chinese,
will be thrown to the ocean. I can
finally enjoy a $12 plate of lobster in Boston.
Soybeans and pork are on sale in the US. I
may buy a whole bunch, and cross ship them to China via a country that has no
tariff from China.
Many farmers have been bankrupted as the
banks do not loan them money to buy seeds for next years. Our storage is
over-flowed. Soybeans and pork are rotting. Trump's subsidies will not help a
lot and he is going to lose all the votes from these farm states.
At the
G20 Summit
The reversal is not sudden at all. All the
U.S. chip companies told Trump that they would suffer a lot if they cannot sell
their components to Huawei. In recent years, the chips produced by the U.S.
accounted for about 75% exported to China. Apple said they needed China for
many reasons including China’s market and the Chinese technicians.
Trump's thought he has the trump card but
actually not.
It is globalization under attack. Huawei just
combines the best components from all over the world into a good product that
is better or at least the same as Apple's products at about half prices.
You
have gone a long way baby
U.S. is about 6 months ahead of China in AI research
and China is ahead in AI application in years due to our protection on personal
security.
China is ahead in EV buses. Boston is buying
China's design in subway cars.
China is many years behind US in military
stuffs such as fighter jets, carriers... But they have caught up in several
areas such as military drones and some missiles.
By 2025, China will be the only space station.
China recently visited the moon but I cannot say they are 50 years behind us.
50 years ago, China was behind U.S. in EVERY
sector, and they could not even build a reliable bicycle. Now China is catching
up. They have gone a long way baby.
2025
2025 is a blue plan to achieve a better
China. It turns out to be a target for Trump and the U.S. Every country has its
blue plan for economic growth. China is moving from a labor-intensive industry
to a higher-value products. It has to subsidize some sectors to achieve the
goals for sure. It should not be a bargain chip to me.
We subsidize our farmers and that’s why the
milk is so cheap. We subsidize our colleges and that’s why we have so many new
technology and drug companies. Examples abound.
We can lower the speed of China’s economical
advances, but for how long?
Deng
is smart
Deng did not care what color was the cat as
long as it could catch mice.
We do not care about the political system as
long as it improves the livelihood of its citizens. Millions of Chinese starved
to death in 1950s and today none starved to death! If you are starving to
death, why you care for freedom? I rest my case.
Deng saved millions from starving. Obama got
his Nobel Prize for doing nothing. What a stupid, racist and biased Nobel Prize
committee!
Walmart
and guns
Walmart is the largest gun retailers and
still wants to sell guns after the shooting. It gives one-stop shopping real
meaning. Profit comes first and live does not matter.
The
best complement
My late mother loved Wheel of Fortune. Why it
is the best complement you may ask? She did not speak English.
Why China
acts
About 40 years ago, U.S. took out the embargo
against China. It helped U.S. by playing the China card against Russia and
taking advantage of China’s abundant, cheap labor.
Today the U.S. treats China as a competitor
and sometimes as an enemy. China’s sea route for exporting her products and
importing ores and oil could be blocked by U.S. navy in China Sea. That’s why
China wants to revive the old silk route and strengthen her navy.
Why
Trump reacts to China
Today China’s worker wage has improved by 50
times from my estimate. China is moving to a higher-value products that would
directly compete with us. With a huge population, China is challenging U.S. in
many sectors including 5G technology.
Huawei sells more mobile phones than Apple
outside the U.S. A typical Huawei’s phone depends about 85% on foreign
components and a lot are from U.S. Google’s Android OS are used in most mobile
phones besides Apple’s.
Global
depression
We have been a sucker for too long. To do so
drastic measures in this scale and to too many countries may lead to a global
depression. Some even predict the USD will collapse together with the stock
market. So far, we do not have the 'predicted' earthquake that would destroy
the east coast. Keep on praying.
Go
back to your own country
If Trump’s wife goes first, I will too.
Native Indians and Eskimos were Chinese or Mongolian and I had my genes to
prove it. They crossed the once-frozen Bering Strait due to losing their way
after too many Maotai or escaping from enemies.
Another
shooting
It will not be last until we love our
children more than our guns. We have more guns than the population. Praying for
the victims’ families does not do much for the next shootings. Politicians,
wake up and do something useful and stop counting your donations from NRA with
your filthy hands dripping in blood.
Many countries like to follow our culture via
movies and music, but not our relaxed gun control.
No one
forces you
You do not have to buy any goods made in
China. No CEOs from our corporations are forced to open shops in China.
However, Walton family became one of the
richest families by importing goods from China and made many of their investors
rich. GM and Ford may survive with the profits from China. I bet part of our
market success in recent years is due to China.
Most CEOs in global companies do not really
care about jobs in the U.S. They care about profits for their company and consequently
bonuses and the appreciation for the options given to them.
They saw China had the cheap labor (not any
more) and a potential large market for their products (that has materialized).
China wants the know-hows as part of the deal. They both agree and both
benefit.
Did
China steal our IPs?
Yes. It is common companies steal other
companies’ IPs. There are currently many lawsuits. Hence, what is the big deal?
The big deal is how we have not protected our
IPs especially the government. Chinese routinely comes out with the weapons
similar to us (not similar to Russians’ it used to). It is surprisingly many of
them are more advanced than ours such as DF – 17, which makes our carriers
sitting ducks.
Why do
we accuse Chinese on subsidies?
Every country subsidizes their industries including U.S. If I need to give you
examples, it will take the whole day and I’m insulting your intelligence.
China’s
weapons show-off during the 70th Anniversary parade
DF-17 is ready to protect China from our
carriers. Until there is a real use, we do not know how good it is in a real
situation.
DF-41 is the first time China’s missiles can
travel to our territory with a nuclear missile or 8 smaller nuclear missiles.
Most have not been used in real wars except
the military drones used in the Middle East wars.
Congress
just approved the Hong Kong Law
Is it a joke?
If China does not like our gun shooting to
our fellow citizens, should they have a law against our trade?
In addition, this is what Beijing wants: To
punish Hong Kong due to the riots.
What
is the trade war really about?
It is Trump’s way to stop China from taking
the lead. It will not stop China in doing so. It is my theory on “Investing vs.
Consuming”. China invests heavily in infrastructure while we consume so we have
a higher living standard of living.
But, for how long?
Tiananmen
incident
It has not mentioned inside China. I do not
want to discuss it but I lay out the consequences.
·
China has next 20 years of peace without riots.
When the citizens have better living standard, why should they riot. Chinese
with many former protesters are busy today in making money. Good.
·
Foreign embargo on China esp. on dual purpose
stuffs. Initially bad for China but good in the long run that China needs to
create these products themselves.
·
Chinese students were allowed to stay in the
U.S. Good for U.S. to get the best students from China and good for the
students seeking better lives. However, some students returned back to China to
make China and themselves prosperous.
Is
2019 a good year for the market?
Since WW2, we do not have a down market on
the third year of the presidential cycle. I commented this again after we had a
market correction due to the trade war on 8/4/2019.
If China is not important, why the trade war
negotiation has made a big splash on the market? We have more than 10 years of
bull market. Partly it is due to the corporate profits made in China. Recently
it is due to the low interest rates and tax cut.
Religions
First I like religions judging from the
quality of the followers. If all religions claim they are the only right one,
then all but one must be wrong.
However, it has caused a lot of wars from
Crusade to today. Where in any religious book teaches us to kill? The preachers
who made sexual advances to the altar boys and the Popes who covered it up
should go to the lowest level of hell. When the Church is selling their
properties to pay for the damages, it would be the end of the church? Hope my
comment does not offend anyone.
Afterlife?
There is no afterlife to me. If there is one,
the Chinese ghost and the ghost from the west should be identical but there are
not. No Chinese experiences seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in the
near-death situation. As long as we do not commit crimes, we should not be
afraid of the final judgement.
Objectives
in life
There are more important objectives in life
than seeking wealth such as happiness, health, relationship… With wealth, a
wise man can make the other objectives easier to obtain but an unwise man can
do the opposite. When you lose a lot of money, you’re still smiling then you’re
a winner.
My friend’s friend died of worrying about
losing most of his life saving in the stock market. Eventually the market
returned, but he was dead already. We have to be emotionally detached to our
wealth.
A
win-win toaster diplomacy
If the toaster is made in US, it will cost
$50 instead of $10 but it would last forever. Hence we save the environment.
The trick is made the toaster in China for
$10 according to our spec and QC. Import it, sell it with a trusty brand name
and charge it for $20. It will still last forever too and the middle man such
as Walmart would pocket the $10 difference. That’s why Walmart is so rich.
Chinese
quality
Quality is controlled by the U.S. buyers. Do
you find poor quality in Apple's products that are assembled in China? But you
find products from some U.S. vendors asking for lower quality at lower prices.
Walmart cannot be profitable for so long if
they just import the lowest quality of Chinese products.
If a country can build a space station, the
longest suspension bridge, the fastest computers, 5G network / phones,
high-speed rails..., it has to be supported by quality products / technologies.
Definitions
of ‘ism’
Capitalism is: You do not work, you die.
Communism is: Everyone is paid the same, so there is no need to work harder.
Socialism: As Margaret said, when we have nothing more to give, we all go
hungry like the USA is going to.
Idealism: There is no such word in reality. It only exists in our dreams.
However, many treat this as it is a reality as they're still dreaming.
Feudalism. Like the Tibetan monks in the 50s. Only they can learn and the rest
are slaves.
Not me
Trump told us that he had nothing with the Hong
Kong protest. Thieves always say they have not stolen anything. He always told
us that recent the market fall did not have anything to do with the trade war
with China.
What I
heard
The smart girl wanted to be a president when
she grew up. After going to a circus, she wanted to be a clown. Her smart
father told her she could be a president and a clown at the same time.
The waitress was furious with the small tips
from Gates compared to what she got from his son. Gates told her that he did
not have a rich father.
The anchor lady asked what happened to the 8
inches the weather reporter predicted last night.
The smart salesman asked the customer not to
forget the paper remoter controller with the purchase of the paper iPhone 12 so
they would not come back to get them. Chinese burned them for their dead
ancestors. The salesman also told his customer they had the best teacher to
show them how to use it.
All the above were not created by me. Hope
they will cheer you up.
Incredible
coincidence
My best man met my wife’s bride maid in my wedding and they got married. My
best man is my fifth grade classmate in Hong Kong. He almost did not make it
due to a business trip. Luckily he did not miss it otherwise he may not have
this perfect marriage.
The amazing coincidence is that I met him
unexpectedly in a Greyhound station in Albany at 3 am when I was coming to
Mass. for graduate school from California. He was changing bus on his way to
Toronto to see his college friends before college started. The chance could be
higher than hitting the lottery. I prefer hitting the lottery. LOL.
Ramen
noodle
My college friend got sick from eating too
much Ramen noodles. If you put some frozen vegetables into the boiling soup
with the noodles and only use less than one quarter of the spices provided, it
would be healthier. In any case, do not eat it every meal.
The
ideal program
I'm writing a program named IYBID (in your
best interest, dummy) making all government decisions and to include twitting.
It will be born and made in the USA. Hence no cheat and no national security
violated.
When every country has my program which is free, we will not have wars after
balancing the benefits and risks.
Do not cry for me as I can make some money too. I buy the SPY the day before my
very positive speech or twit and short the SPY vice versa. Is it what our
president is doing today? A land of opportunities!
Airplane
mode
You should move your mobile phone far away
from your bed to reduce radiation exposure. Using airplane mode would save your
battery and less radiation exposure. In addition, you cut down notifications.
You will receive no phone calls until you turn it off.
End of
the world
If all countries followed Vatican, the birth
rate would be zero and hence the end of the world in the next generation. If
the Church paid all the claims on the lawsuits for the lawsuits on the sex
offends, there would be the end of the church.
Misunderstanding
Hong Kong’s protests
I am pretty sure an organization (financed by
the U.S. government) finances or even trains the Hong Kong rioters and so are
many other riots around the world.
Double
standards on human rights
U.S. has used different human rights
standards to fit their political views. Are many countries in the Middle East
violating human rights far more than China? Allowing our citizens shooting each
other is a violation to me. Check out how many citizens are killed by the
police every year and compare it to the numbers in other developed countries.
What is the evidence of Huawei’s spying others using the phones and compare it
to ours? The list is endless.
More
on human rights
The western standard applies to the west and
Chinese standard applies to China.
Human rights come in priority: Food, Clothes,
Housing, Freedom, Education… from my yardstick (everyone’s is different).
Without food, how can you think of freedom; many could argue with me on this as
they have never been starving. When you are freezing to death without clothes
and housing, all the freedom in the world would do you no good.
China had lifted more than 500 million from
poverty and starving to death. I close my case.
China is still not a rich country and it
cannot afford to protect all human rights with her limited resources. For
example, she cannot afford to spend millions in trials such as O.J.’s case.
The social score could be an easy way to
control her citizens. It does not seem workable in our society but it is
effective in China. While we complain our privacy, China has developed the
facial recognition and have been successful in catching criminals.
Tibet
and minorities in Western China
Some argue genocide on Chinese minorities in
these regions. These are all fade news (real fake new). The media print what
you want to hear without checking out the facts. The reality is Chinese
minorities did not have to follow “one-child policy” as the Hans (the majority)
had. How can it be genocide?
So far they have got more than they give out.
Before the ‘liberation’, only Tibetan Monks could get an education and now all
have compulsory basic education. The train to Tibet increases the living
standard of all Tibetans. The generous financial aids to the earthquake in
Tibet is another example.
The high-speed train to Western China will
never be paid back. It is also used to suppress the riots (good or bad
depending on your viewpoint) that destroy the peace of the society. The
minorities in Western China are the chief beneficiaries of the “One Belt, One
Road” Initiative.
China’s
foreign policy
The big difference between the U.S.’s is a
non-interference policy. They just want to trade with you and do not care about
your government policy and/or human rights practice.
If you do not want to trade, it is fine too.
When the Brits found they had nothing to trade with China, they pushed opium
obtained from India as a nation and killed millions of Chinese. The trade was
enforced by battleships and big guns. Later on the eight nations including U.S.
and Japan semi colonized China and changed China history for the worst.
Is
Chinese government or the U.S. government better?
No government is perfect.
China has an authoritarian government. It is
not communist as they do not let you set up shops. For the last 40 years, it
has lifted millions away from poverty. In Mao’s time, millions starved to death.
You cannot conclude which government is good or bad as it all depends on how
the leader governs the country. China does not want to unfriend any foreign
country if you do not follow their ideas. Many developing countries want to
adopt China’s ideas as the results are good.
China’s policy is making both China and your
country both prosperous by investing China’s excess trade deficits with you
such as the “One Belt, One Road” Initiative.
U.S.’s government. One major problem is we
have been wasting time in arguing with each other.
“One man, one vote” is ideal. However, if the
citizens are not educated enough, it would not make the best decisions. The
politicians have to buy votes such as the welfare recipients to satisfy both
objectives. Our politicians look for 4 years, so many big infrastructure
projects will have no payback even our bridges and roads are deteriorating.
If you believe that U.S. government is
democratic and fair, you believe in fairy tales. Anyone can write a good-size
book on this topic.
Teenagers,
If you’re using China’s Tik Tok for fun in
creating your funny videos, you may be harmful to our national security. Give
me a break please.
Too
much control?
We have to relax on privacy, so we do not be
left behind in artificial intelligence / facial recognition from China. So is
stem cell research.
Is
Syria’s oil ours?
If not, why should we send soldiers to
protect the oil?
The
recession is coming
The last one was rescued by China buying our
debts. Not this time I bet.
Land
of opportunities
It is about 50 years after the fall of
Vietnam. First I have to thank the veterans who sacrificed for us even it is
the wrong war at least to some. Have we been threatened by Vietnam today? Why
we protected a corrupt government?
Initially the Vietnamese refugees were the
burden of the society; some were accused of welfare cheaters and some were too
tough (not surprising from what they went through).
The first generation changes the bad image
COMPLETELY. Most are working as respected citizens. Many are professionals and
they rank very high as a racial group in social status in our society.
S.E.
Asia
If you have been to any S.E. Asia country,
you will find the infrastructure and construction projects built or being built
by Chinese. It has improved the living standard over there. However, they also
have to depend on the debt burden from China. U.S. has neglected this market.
It is too late now to do anything. Even if they redirect the factories from
China to this area, China still benefits a lot in years to come and China
eventually have to suffer from their own success with higher wages and stricter
environment control. The “Blue Dot project” is designed to rescue their
financial influence in S.E. Asia. It is too little and too late. It is designed
by folks who have not been to this area lately and/or this is the silly
response to what their boss asked.
Why
Chinese grow so fast
From Ming’s period, China had half of the
world’s GDP. China declined due to her ignorance of the industrial revolution
and the advances from the west.
Now, they learn the lessons and humiliation
for the 100 years after the first Opium War. They had a sign in front of a
Chinese park saying “No Chinese and Dog”.
What will you feel if a foreign country do this to you? Nixon took out
the embargo and Deng had great vision.
Today China’s per capital income is about ¼
of the US and a little more if purchase power is considered. Chinese living
standard has been improved by better infrastructure to start. China’s next steps
should be clean water and clean air. China plows back a lot of income in
research and education. They learn and practice my theory of consumption vs.
investing).
Why
China’s rail develops so fast
There are many reasons. The east coast area
is densely populated. Hence, they have a large market. The air travel is
controlled by the air force. They need to use the rail system to connect the
remote part of the country and the world. It is also a way to reduce the wealth
gap from the richer coaster areas. The land prices (most land are owned by the
government) would be increased along the high-speed rail. Hence, from the
corporation viewpoint, many routes are not profitable but it is profitable for
the entire country.
A day
to remember
The Nazi killed 1.1 M in a concentration camp
in Poland. We have to learn from history to prevent it from happening again.
The Japanese killed 300,000 Chinese in
Nanjing during WW2. They had a competition to see who chopped more heads. In
the middle of it, the general said it was not fair as his sword was blunt and
he had to start all over again.
These war criminals have never be trialed
like the German criminals. Check out the movie Nanjing from Netflix.
Taiwan
politics
All you need to know is there are two major
political parties in Taiwan: one pro-China and one pro-U.S. Pro-U.S. wins in
the recent election.
When the Japanese minister congratulated his
counter-part in Taiwan, Japan is pro-U.S. as before.
The old government wanted to invade the
mainland, and it gives the reason that China can invade Taiwan. The new
generation has less to do with China.
Obesity
and Grammy
After watching the Grammy for the first
minutes in 2020, I have to say we have an obesity problem. So far no one wants
to report it at the risk of being called racist or against fat folks. Hope
someone will compare obesity among developed countries.
Kobe
and Kennedy in common
Helicopters, small plans and hot-air balloons
are dangerous and the accidents can be easily avoidable. We need to learn from
history.
Wuhan
virus
China should be more proactive. Making money
should take a back seat and move public health, clean air and clean water into
the front seat. I believe this virus breakout would wake up the decision makers
there and China will be stronger after this disaster.
It reminds me of the song
“Tomorrow will be better”, Taiwan’s answer to “We’re the world”.
Illogical
logic
My states are giving driver licenses to
illegals. Should they give the info to Immigration department and Social
Welfare department? Illogical logic? This is one of the many examples. For
example, Huawei’s products are banned to sell in the U.S., but Huawei can buy
our chips.
To
trade or not to trade
Today, we use tariffs to reduce trading with
China.
The west wanted to trade with China in 19th
Century. China’s emperor showed the ‘foreign salvage’ that China had everything
and there was no need to trade. The Brits found opium grown in India as a
commodity to trade. They shamelessly pushed opium as
a nation and changed the history of China. China ignored the Industrial
Revolution, the advanced weapons and how they colonized. Will China make the
same mistake again? I bet no.
Police
brutality: Hong Kong and U.S.
Hong Kong police is too tame compared to the
U.S. How often the U.S. rioters throw Molotov cocktail to police stations? It is often during Hong Kong riots. The U.S.
police shoot when the life is threatened – very rare in Hong Kong. There are more guns in the U.S. than the
citizens, so their lives would be threatened easily. Of course as in any
sectors and industries, there are some bad apples. In every country, we need
police to enforce the peace and the laws and there is no exception.
I am
neutral in politics, but I have my observations
I do not like another
billionaire except this time. He does not have to satisfy the special-interest
groups such as NRA as he does not accept money from them so far. All
politicians promise us everything (a.k.a. buying votes) but none tells us how
to pay for the goodies; I can by just ending the endless wars. Taxing more on
the 1% is not a solution as they just give up U.S. citizenship. We, the middle
class, are squeezed by both sides.
From the first debate with
Bloomer, they know Bloomberg is big but they should also know that they are
closing the door for the running VP job esp. for every other candidates beside
Bernie. Yang is not a good candidate for VP as both are wealthy folks. It is
interesting that all the folks against Bloomberg would take away votes from
Bernie and it has the opposite effect.
P.S. Remind myself to take
out political views from my books on investing. About half would oppose my
views.
More than a joke
This is what I heard. What
is 8*3? Eight guys said 24 and one said 23. They argued for the entire day and
finally they let the judge settle it. The judge said the 8 folks were damn
wrong and fined them $3 each for a total of $23. Obviously they asked why. The
judge said, “You guys are stupid to argue with some illogical guy for the
entire day and wasted my time.”
The lesson is: Do not waste
time in arguing with illogical guys and that’s why I never argue with you. LOL.
To Kit, the #1 public speaker in Hong Kong
The summary of the death of To Kit’s father
is brief and touching. It also summarizes the struggle of the last generation
and the easier life in this generation of Chinese. Our easier life is partly
due to the struggle / hard work of the last generation. Most of our fathers in
our age group (65 to 80) in Hong Kong were working hard in the tough
environment and did not spend enough time with their children. To Kit is #1
public speaker in Hong Kong or #19 to his critics. Being in U.S., I have
watched a lot of his YouTube videos (thanks YouTube) but not any of his books
and articles. He has some good ideas. He is more against China from the videos
I watched; I do not agree. He does not have a supporting team I bet. Hence once
in a while he made some mistakes and that were attacked fiercely.
China’s
middle class
It is growing but slower due
to the pandemic and the trade war. It is about the same size as the entire U.S.
population. The internal market is enough to grow the GDP. Many foreign
products and supplies that China do not have will make many foreign companies
rich.
U.S. banning chips and jet engines to China
It will slow China’s growth
TEMPORAILY but no U.S. politicians care about long-term impact.
I bet Huawei will have a
mobile phone with no U.S. chips in 2022. China can cancel all jet orders from
Boeing and switch to Airbus. Also, China can move the jet engine orders to EU
and/or Russia. EU will side with China when the benefits are higher than what
they can get with U.S. When China trade with Yuan, the status of the reserve
currency would be threatened. A cooperation approach will be more beneficial to
U.S. than isolating China.
U.S. still #1 but for how long
Many countries want to be
part of U.S. such as Philippines and many South America countries. Many U.S.
prisons are better than most houses in many countries in the world. U.S. is the
desirable country to migrate to. Most students from India want U.S.
citizenship. Do you blame them? They will not wait for the primitive infrastructure
in India to improve.
Questions on religion
Are most wars in the Middle
East due to the conflict of Christians and Muslims? If so, which religious book
teaches us to kill?
Can religious folks be
scientists and business men?
Should the preachers who
sexually assaulted altar boys be covered up? Should they go to heaven if they
just confess?
Could it be the end of the
church after selling all the church’s assets to pay for the crimes? Will the
victims be the 1% (or 10% after the cut from the greedy lawyers)?
Weinstein
Except for the children of
famous actors and producers, most have to sleep with someone with influence to
move ahead in this career. Hope it will change. However, if you go to a hotel
room, logically I know your purpose. Drugging victims is a different story.
Innovation in China
Three basic steps before
China goes to the next level of innovation: 1. More freedom, 2. Stress more on
basic science than applied science and 3. Enforce IP protection.
If God is fair
Everyone could look the
same. It would take out the fun in looking for mates and hence life is no fun.
In addition, if there is a new virus, it could wipe out the entire population
due to the same immune system.
How to make millions in lottery
It is quite easy if you have
a time machine.
Be serious! You can just go
to the lottery office and tell them to buy all possible combinations when the
jack pot grows to some calculated amount. Judging from my experiences, you
should make millions if not billions. If there is more than one winner, you may
have to skip town. It worked pretty well until they add more numbers (boosting
up the number of combinations). Before you do anything, talk to your financial
advisor and/or your probate officer first.
Be more serious! Buy the ticket
as early as possible. Hence you have more time to dream how to use your jack
pot money. Your $2 (used to be $1) is better than any drugs (legal or illegal)
to improve your health due to positive thinking. If you lose (just in case),
part of your money would be donated to the poor. Not a bad way to spend your
two dollars.
On
Health
This short paragraph will summarize ALL the
health articles. Exercise every day. Quit strong liquor and smoking. Eat more
fruits and vegetables with different colors. Reduce fatty food, bread / rice /
noodles, food with nitrates, deserts and processed food including chips, ice
cream and crackers. Make home cooking your priority.
If you follow the above, you live longer,
need more money to last, and logically you need to buy my book “Complete the
art of investing”. Convenient advertising. You will thank me when you’re not
running out of money at your first 100th birthday.
On
ancient Europe
Why Europe is not over-populated? The Crusade
started more than a thousand years ago has never been formally ended. The Black
Death killed half of the population. Further they did not spoil water at one
time and drinking beer instead of water saves many lives finally. My guesses
only!
Why Europe is so rich? With less population,
the natural resources including farm land is high per capita. In addition, they
enslaved and stole all the gold / silver from the colonies. That’s why the
countries with sea-faring ports are richer than the rest of Europe. Again my
guesses only!
Coincident
or belonging to conspiracy theories
The pandemic spreads to countries that oppose
to our policies: China, S. Korea, Iran and Italy.
Are the whole Korean family sharing soups
with spoons and the close religious meetings the causes of the spreading?
Travel industry is suffering financially
caused by this virus.
Market
timing
It works at least for the last two crashes
ending in 2009, but no one can predict the peak and the bottom. I have a simple
technique to detect market crashes / recoveries described in most of my books
on investing.
One best-seller tells us to exit the market
in 2009 and the followers would miss out the 300% or so of appreciation from
then to 1/2020. My system is well publicized and it is not my idea; sometimes
it is self-prophesized when a lot of investors follow the same technique.
Many predict that a market crash is coming.
Even the broken clock is right two times a day. Some become famous when the
prediction is materialized and publicized. However, most are one-winner pony.
Representation
without taxable
It is worse than taxable without
representation. Should we take out the voting rights for those who do not pay
any Federal income tax?
Trump
I do not like him as a person without moral.
However, he is right in many policies. Being a Chinese American, I even like
his China policy. However, it has carried to such an extreme that would
backfire in the long term. Again, I do
not vote as I am politically neutral.
Richest
folks I bet
More than 5 of the 10 richest folks are Jews
or related.
The richest family is Rockefeller, but their
wealth has not been publicized. The next one is Walton making money by
importing goods from China. Sam Walton miscalculated the profit margins and he
was a patriot. After he died, his heirs imported goods from China and the rest
is history.
The U.S. middle class have better life than
the ancient emperors. So, why you complain?
Adam
and Eve
It seems that every civilization has its own
legend on how the earth and human were created. How did they pass the legend
from day one without language?
Prediction
of the next president
As of 3/2020, there has not been a president
not reelected with the unemployment rate less than 4%. The black swan could be
the corona virus. The economy looked better than it actually was as in most
presidential election year.
Five
Eyes becomes One Eye?
United Kingdom and Canada seems to be letting
Huawei in to install the 5G networks. Economy is more important than politics.
Canada has massive trade with the U.S., so I do not know the above statement is
right. Canada is not in war with any country, so why they care about military
intelligence?
Australia has a strong economic tie with
China, so most likely they will side with China eventually. They need China
more than U.S. for both trade and peace.
The
U.S. and China
To my surprise and with the exception of
Vietnam, most countries think China is friendlier than the U.S. from the many
YouTube videos I watched, and most of these videos were made by Chinese
citizens and some by Europeans.
We have been given China a hard time in many
fronts, and China will if not already do the same to us. The world will be a
better place if the two countries do not fight against each other.
Foxconn
and India
Foxconn has a tough time in India. Labor cost
and tariff are not the only factors. Other factors are the quality of workers
(education and work ethic), infrastructure (electricity and transportation) and
governance.
Many factories are moved to Vietnam with
similar problems even with the help of China in building their infrastructure.
Many basic parts are still made in China and Vietnamese assemble them.
In any case, China will suffer a lot from the
trade war with us and the pandemic.
Globalization
From the pandemic outbreak, we find the strengths
and weaknesses of globalization. The policy “China plus one” resurfaces. Trump
could give negative tariff to some Chinese exports that we need desperately. No
kidding!
Endless
wars
When you see any of the many YouTube videos
on Syria and/or Ukraine, you know what wars have bought. Hope all countries do
not participate in foreign wars and let them fix their own problems / conflicts
locally to reduce the disastrous effects of wars.
I hope China would solve the islet disputes
with her neighbors, and U.S. would let the United Nations to be the global
policeman. Am I just a dreamer?
Bangladesh
Watched some documentation on this poor
country. Hope more Chinese factories will be moved to this country. God is
unfair. Do your part by not wasting food please as many folks in this world are
starving.
Classification
of economies
The world’s economies can be divided into 6
major categories: Finance, Technology, Agriculture, Manufacturing, Entertaining
and Natural Resources (farm land, oil and ores). There are some unclassified or
minor categories such as Military / Offense Industry, Tourism and Education.
U.S. has most. She lacks manufacturing due to
high living standard. She is one of the few countries that can close global
trade and survive.
China is strong in manufacturing and is
moving up to technology. She has a tough time to feed the huge population with
unfair share of farm land. She does not have her fair share of natural
resources. She needs trade more than most other countries.
China’s
donations to many countries during this crisis
These donations include many supplies
including masks, ventilators, testers, methods and in some cases medical
personnel. EU countries cannot depend on the union as many members are fighting
the same problem and U.S. has the same problem too. China will gain a lot of
support from these countries after the virus has been suppressed. It is money
well-spent.
Banning
game food?
Most countries eat games. There is no need to
ban all of them. However, we should have some regulations and enforce the
general safety in wet markets.
Why we
do not save compared to the Chinese
Based on the last 500 years, China is an
agricultural society. It teaches them to save as they farmers suffer from the
unexpected nature of draught or not enough water. We depend on using military
to benefit our economy. It is true to some extent. Our generous welfare is
another reason.
Virus
and the government
Life is the top agenda in Human Rights,
right? If you do not have a life, freedom is nothing.
Genius
Geniuses do not call themselves genius every
day. That’s why I do not call myself genius. See the logic. LOL. The real
genius is the one expressing his professional opinions without offending
his/her boss.
Election
of 2020
As of 2019, I predicted Trump would win as
there was no president not reelected with 4% or less unemployment and a booming
stock market. What a change in 4/2020 with the pandemic. The market fell a lot
and I expect the unemployment would shot up to 15% or more.
Biden is corrupt as his son is making good
money without working. Bernie said that before but not now. Cuomo could beat
Trump but he is not going to run. The Hispanic lady could be running with
Biden.
Hillary lost due to not spending enough
effort in Minnesota.
Quality
of a politician
I like Bloomberg for president. He committed
two errors: 1. Talk like a politician esp. on topics on women and minorities
and 2. Lie like a politician.
Learn from Trump when he was asked whether
economy (or the stock market) is more important than lives. Trump said, “Both
and our citizens agree”. From his
actions in returning to work, economy is more important.
Please do not liberate my country. I understand your energy,
good nature and idealism. I was the same when I was at your age.
First,
thanks to the U.S. government. Now, I’m a naturalized U.S. citizen collecting
generous welfare benefits. You do not understand how my life has been improved
dramatically by living here, in contrast to living on of the highest mountains
year around.
Some people desire to be worshipped and served as kings and queens. They have
their ambitions and revolutionary ideas. The last ones were those who escaped
to India in 1959 after the failed revolt
(also known as the 1959 Tibet uprising) sponsored by the CIA. Please let me
know who sponsor today’s Tibetan movements; it does not seem to be a Mickey
Mouse production. The monarchy does not speak for the common people who just
want a peaceful life.
The
devastating news on Tibet dices and slices our consciences. Accounts are often
grossly and deceptively inaccurate.1 This is a common practice
in news reporting to attract readers in the West, as well as in the East and
where ever news is covered.
The ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), will not give up Tibet--
there is the origin of the major water source for most of South and Central
Asia.2 Our standard of living has been improved substantially under
China as indicated by the much improved literacy rate and life expectancy.
The (Qinghai–Tibet railway) train and the proposed 750 small dams that generate
electricity are recent modernization infrastructure projects. Even though the
Chinese government has lifted Tibet's standard of living, the banishment of Han
Chinese will further improve our living standard further. Comparisons can be
drawn to the U.S.’s permitting the Native Indians to allow the opening and
operation of casinos on Indian reservation:
The benefits outnumber the drawbacks.
China
had been ruled by Mongolians and Manchurians in two of the last three
dynasties, which each, as the Tibetans also are one of the 55 ethnic minorities
in China. Dalai Lama is an outstanding salesman for the Tibetan Independence
cause, as he is able to convince some of most influential celebrities and
politicians to support his “plight”. China must be glad that they do not have
such salesmen for Mongolia and Manchuria.
Everywhere in China, Tibetan cultures have been maintained; different from what
‘reporters’ report. In addition, all the minorities are exempt from China's
one-child policy.
Unless you can convince your Congress to send soldiers to
‘liberate’ us as you’ve been doing for many countries, please do not stir up
our rebellious sentiment towards the Chinese. The more you do, the more our
folks will suffer and ‘disappear’.
Spend your energy elsewhere. The choices are unlimited: CEOs enjoying
outrageous benefits / bonuses from companies receiving bailouts, killing Iraqi
children in a war you cannot afford, etc.
Everywhere in China, you see Tibetan cultures have been maintained. Google
‘Tibet song’, or click the following
Do they look they’re oppressed to you?
It sounds like propaganda. But I want you to know that I have no connection
with the Chinese government. I just want to be realistic and the world at least
my world will be more peaceful without those demonstrations. I wrote the above
from the mindset of the silent majority of Tibetans.
Update 3/2017
Tibet has been improved almost in
all fronts since this article was written. Even the cattlemen have TV and
portable solar panels and drive trucks and motor cycles. The western China has
been recovered after the recent earthquake. The US movie actors/actresses do
not sacrifice their careers by bad mouthing China which is becoming #1 in
global movie revenues. Here is a
YouTube
(in Chinese only) on a series on modern Tibet. Actually China treats the
minorities so good that makes many other Chinese jealous.
Footnote.
1 One Tibetan riot was started when Han Chinese
were murdered but was reported wrongly with photos that were bought and
modified to indicate it was the other way round.
Afterthoughts
·
I am not a Tibetan but ‘I wrote the above from
the mindset of the silent majority of Tibetans’.
It received a lot of resentment from Tibetans in exile. I understand it
and accept it. Please let me know whether the living standard of most Tibetans
have been improved from education to life expectancy.
Surprisingly,
recently I received a lot of good comments from regular Americans. It seems the
sentiment has been changed recently or I did a convincing job with over 350
‘likes’ in a comment to article. However, it sounds very fishy to have so many
‘likes’.
·
Danvercen whom I never met wrote a long reply to
my comment as follows. Most are his actual experience, better than what I could
dream up. I should say the guest is better than the host. I have to totally
agree with someone who agrees with me. J
I completely agree with comment by
“TonyP4”. Leave Tibet alone and let them live in peace. Don’t stir up to cause
unrest in the area just for political reasons. This is good for China, Tibet
and the world peace. The living standard is much better now than before.
Chinese have invested too much there not to mention it is strategic and
national pride for China. China will not let Tibet go independent. Not too many
countries in the world now would let a territory to go independent.
Taiwan’s ex-president Chen Shui-bian wanted independence so he can be a “king”
and took money from Taiwan and deposited in various foreign banks.
I had lived in Tibet area when I was a child. My father was assigned by then
Chinese
Kuomingtang (KMT)
government in Chongqing to that area for one year during WW2. There was not
much in the area; no good road, just trails and rocky paths, no infrastructure,
no government, no toilet facilities, no indoor bathroom, defecation on the
street etc. Dead persons would be fed to vultures so they can go to heaven.
There no education except at the Lama Temples for the monks.
The local Tibetans were really poor. Of course the “outsiders” weren’t that
much better at the same time. Most Tibetan women toiled in the field to provide
for the family, frequently with babies on their back. Often, one woman would
marry few brothers at the same time and provided for all of them. Most men
would go through the Temple for a year or two. Others would stay longer because
it provided a good life without hard work in the first place.
But the place was beautiful with high mountains, clear skies, fresh and crispy
air, cold and clear water, lots of butter from Tibetan Cattle (Yak, called
locally “hairy Ox”), Yak milk, transport by riding horses on rocky paths. There
was gold glistening in the morning sun in the Golden-Sand River. And you need
to pass over the iron-chain wood or bamboo planked bridges swaying left and
right. Then there was local roasted barley powder mixed with yak butter as food
(Tseng-Ba) when you travel. The horses usually would drink from the creeks
first before they were willing to ford the streams. My father often kept a sword
handy just in case a mountain cat would come after you. The monks were
friendly. But local people usually kept to themselves.
The
local people were usually much taller than Han Chinese. I played often at the
beautiful Lama Temple near our house, helping the Head Lama hitting the drum so
monks will not fall asleep reciting Buddhist Bible When I hit the drum; the
recital would get much louder for a short period. There was a missionary family
from U.S.A whose young daughter died sadly when my family moved away back to
Chongqing.
I give an example of Israel to compare. Israel was created after WW2. However,
they were claiming their ancestor land lost many years ago. Iran said Israel
should be eradicated from the earth. But I do not think so. Israel is a well-established
country with prosperous people and good government. Besides, if I have a
choice, I would side with Israel at any time. I would hate to be ruled under
Muslim religion influence. Christian religion nowadays is much more tolerant
and nice. I like Christian and Jewish religions even though I am not religious.
I hope the Muslin countries would be realistic and make peace with Israel. I
don’t think that Israel would ever be defeated.
Lastly, I don’t understand why Dalai Lama got a Nobel Peace Prize for? If this
is not politics, what is it? If Dalai was really for the Tibetan people, he
should have stayed to promote more rights for local people. Dalai and ruling
class in India are history now. The wheel of the history would never turn back
just like the Mao Zedong’s
Cultural Revolution
which is also history. Just imagine letting those upper class serf owners to
again rule over the Tibet people through religious leaders like in Iran?
Nobel Peace Prize. How about give a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize to the late
Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. His policy brought a quarter of the mankind out
of poverty and into some form of prosperity. He was the one who said outright
that only market economy will triumph over centralized and planned economy.
Of course it is to the U.S. interest to have China into many pieces; the
independence of Tibet, Taiwan, northwest Xinjiang, northeast Manchuria, Inner
Mongolia, Hong Kong and Macau etc. Various countries tried in the past but
failed. Chaos in China may affect the world. I quote (forgot who said it): You
can start a war as you want, but you cannot stop a war as you please. I
estimate that China will not attain a super power status in 80 years as compared
to USA and Russian. And look back in history, is China a country who had
invaded many other countries?
·
Since 2009, about 50 Tibetans burned themselves
to death and most were monks. It is sad. It is not part of Buddhist teaching
but ‘life is precious’ is. It is same as the suicidal bombers except it does
not harm others. It is disturbing that no passers-by did anything except
encouraging folks to take pictures.
·
Dali Lama accused Chinese are repressive. Were
the monks before 1950s repressive? No one but the monks could be literate. The
better solution is return to the previous autonomy state but with less religion
prosecution from the Chinese and less governance from religion. Church and
state should be separated. Like it or not, we have to face reality.
2012 is the year of Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Should the
royal families be loved as publicized by the world? No, they're the parasites
of societies to me. They have very few useful functions for any society today
despite their fancy titles. They are sucking up the resources which should be
given to the poor. How dare of they ask for monetary raises in a recession for
doing nothing essential except for tourism to the betterment of Britain. It is
like Robin Hoods in reverse. Who pay for the expensive 'celebration' for doing
less? What an untimely approval of the selfish spending for the rich and
powerful!
Chinese have suffered a lot from the decisions of the 'royal' families from
Britain to Japan (next chapter).
The
Opium Wars.
How outrageous is one nation
pushing drugs to another nation? The Brits had had nothing desirable to trade
with China’s porcelain, tea and silk. They discovered opium grown in India as a
good trade. Queen Victoria stamped the seal of approval. China ignored the
modernization of the
Industrial Revolution
and the advanced weapons / battleships coupled with the corruption of Empress
Dowager
Cixi.
1
The Brits and the French burned
the old summer palace for three days and three nights. They stole treasures,
like uneducated barbarians and destroyed more as there were too much for them
to lift.
Visit the ruins in Beijing for proof. You will be amazed by
the scale and saddened even if you’re not a Chinese. Most of the stolen
treasures are displayed 'proudly' in museums in London and Paris. Even after
many hand changes, loots are still loots. Most Brits would rather forget its
history of pushing drugs as a nation but we can never cover the truths.
This devastation of a semi colonized China bankrupted China, leading to a
century of humiliation. The millions of innocent victims and drug addicts must
have shed their tears from heaven to make the celebration day rain all day long
to echo the injustice and their suffering to the world.
1 who built a marble boat from the fund that was
supposed to build battleships for Chinese navy.
--------------------------------
Afterthoughts
·
It is understandable that the Brits hated this
blog and submitted all kind of excuses. However, those who debated did not have
adequate arguments on their shameful history. They argued that the Queen
attracted a lot of tourists and made billions of pounds for the Brits.
·
However, I have many supporting my argument. I
believe most Brits today do not know anything about the Opium Wars and their
damages to China.
·
The Queen is a sweet, old lady and I wish her
the best. However, we have to learn from history otherwise we will repeat
history. Same for Chinese to learn from history.
I did enjoy the opening celebration in the Olympics.
It was very entertaining with the rich culture of Britain. The Industrial
Revolution innovation developed the advanced weaponry / iron battleship that
were used to enforce the opium trade to China. It is a revolution to end all
revolutions.
·
There are excuses to the Opium Wars and the
United
Army of Eight Nations (or Alliance of Eight Nations). The
Boxers
were rebels to the west and patriotic to most Chinese.
These are the same excuses of how WW2 was started from Japan on China.
·
From Ying.
Just sad and no words can describe how outrageous the
barbarians from the west were.
With this kind of grand palace for pleasure including the
marble boat, I wonder how the regime could be strong to protect its citizens.
Let's hope that the history will not repeat since problems are over our head
again!! Can we ever learn as human?? We always choose destruction to solve our
problems. We do not have much left to destroy…
The Old Summer Palace which was built in the 18th and early 19th century was
destroyed by British and French troops in 1860. It was almost 5 times the size
of the Forbidden City, and 8 times the size of the Vatican City.
There were also a few buildings in Tibetan and Mongol styles, and
European-style buildings reflecting the diversity of the Qing Empire. It had
hundreds of halls, pavilions, temples, galleries, gardens, lakes, etc. Several
famous landscapes of southern China had been reproduced in the Imperial
Gardens, hundreds of invaluable Chinese art masterpieces and antiquities were
stored in the halls, making the Imperial Gardens one of the largest museums in
the world. Some unique copies of literary work and compilations were also
stored inside the Imperial Gardens.
It took 3,500 British troops to set the entire place ablaze, taking three days
to burn.
Charles George Gordon, a 27-year-old captain in the Royal Engineers wrote: “We
went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a
vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for
four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money…I have done well. The
[local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must
after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and
magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in
fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we
could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt,
considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralizing work for an army.”
Some contemporary Frenchmen, such as Victor Hugo, disapproved of the action; in
his "Expédition de Chine", Hugo described the looting as, "'Two
robbers breaking into a museum, devastating, looting and burning, leaving
laughing hand-in-hand with their bags full of treasures; one of the robbers is
called France and the other Britain. In his letter Hugo hoped that one day
France would feel guilty and return what it had plundered from China.
·
From DeWang:
Good article. You should keep that around for distribution,
because as Samuel Huntington once wrote:
The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or
religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.
Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.
History is bound to repeat if present day people do not know the past.
·
Click
here
for the original article this article is based on.
During WW2 and inspired by its ambitious and wicked emperor,
Japanese turned themselves into animals to conquer its neighbors.
Imagine captured young women are forced to be sex slaves for
their army. What kind of monster did the Japanese military become? Is it worse
than the German crimes of WW2? At least they did not rape openly.
There was a contest in which two
Japanese generals competed over how many Chinese heads could be chopped off
with their swords. After beheading over a hundred, one competitor said that it
was not fair as his blade was dull. They continued the utter madness by
restarting the competition all over again! Was there any conscience?
These soldiers are
war criminals.
They killed innocent people by tossing babies, looting and raping. They killed
anyone taking pictures. Many of these criminals are being paid respect by high
officials in the 'shrines'. It is as disguising as paying homage to Hitler.
These war criminals should be tracked down and executed.
Instead, they bragged about how
they raped young girls as described by these soldiers without remorse in the
documentary Nanjing, which you can rent from Netflix. Another teenager 'wanted'
to be raped to save her grandpa. These war criminals should be tracked down and
prosecuted similar to what the Jews are doing to the WW2 war criminals instead
of their bragging openly.
I suggest that one of the atomic bombs should have been dropped on the Imperial
Palace in Kyoto and the other one on the 'shrine' instead of killing innocent
citizens at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even this punishment would be too small for
such crimes. The Tsunami must be formed by the tears of the victims crying for
justice into a killer wave. I feel sorry for the current generation who has to
suffer and who has nothing to do with WW2.
The ignorant Japanese mayor said
Nanjing Massacre never happened. Japanese, young and old, please use Wikipedia
and search for
'Nanjing Massacre'
or read the late Iris Chang's book which the documentary firm was based on. The
government stopped the translation of Chang’s book.
Recently the young major of Osaka
said that the comfort women were necessary. How about capture all the women in
Osaka and let them be raped by the U.S. soldiers and tell the world it is
necessary. I hope he does not represent this generation of youth. He should
lose his job after this announcement in a civilized society.
We should not spread hatred especially from one generation to another. However,
if we do not learn from history, most likely we will repeat history. I wrote
this blog hoping to give a voice to the millions of victims who never have a
voice.
My recent thoughts
Even the Japanese officials do
not acknowledge that Nanjing massacre exits. I do not think this generation of
Japanese have the ability to commit similar crime. It reminds me of the German
lady who did not want our tour to visit the concentration camp. She and her
counterparts in Japan should not be punished for the crime committed by their
parents and grandparents.
Unlike the Jews, Chinese and
Koreans have not prosecuted those who committed the war crimes. They will
repeat history if they do not learn from history especially when they can get
away without punishment. The recent Tsunami could be formed by the fears of the
victims. If so, God has the answer already. As one reader agreed with me,
‘forgive’ is the most powerful word in our dictionary. I will forgive them and
move on.
Afterthoughts
1. This
chapter and the last one illustrate that China is a victim instead of an
oppressor to the world as wrongfully depicted by the West.
2. Japan
does not welcome immigrants even they are having serious problems in their
aging population. Do they believe other races are inferior or they’re afraid of
the revenges from their victims?
3. Most
Chinese would agree with me. Actually most human beings should. I hope the
Japanese especially this generation would find out more about the history not
from their distorted text book censored by their government. I hope at least
one Japanese would respond to my post. We can never learn if we just sweep any
shameful history under the rug.
Let bygones be bygones after we reflect on history. I
adore Japanese’s high education, hard work ethics, public behavior (especially
on how they react to the disaster), culture and food. I have nothing against a
nation but how the war was started, the war criminals and how the Japanese want
to ignore history.
5. I
do not blame some old folks whose families have been killed by Japanese for not
buying any Japanese products for life. Again, we should not pass our hatred to
the next generation.
6. They
had sex tours for Japanese males to countries in Asia. The Japanese women seem
not to object at least openly. Is this part of your shameful culture or better
that silence is golden? Wake up and fight for your rights.
I have never met most of the following folks who commented
to my post.
7. Hklcn
wrote:
TonyP4 has a right to complain @
any perceived wrong done.
I support
TonyP4 point considering the Japanese still maintain that they did nothing
wrong. Unlike Germany that's paid perhaps $1 trillion in compensation to
holocaust survivors, apologized and built monuments to victims, the Japanese cosseted
by the yanks due to anger at the communist victory over the U.S. backed Chiang
Kai Shek, U.S. hatred of Communist China and let the Japanese off the hook on
all counts.
Those people
are still paying homage to their Class A war criminals. Should the Germans
worship Hitler, Goebbels?
Justice shows
leniency for a contrite person. If Japan doesn't think that it did anything
wrong, might it not repeat those actions again?
8. Steve
L:
One thing that I want to point out is that war is a terrible thing that would
turn people into more than an animal.
I have been to Poland, Cambodia, Vietnam, France etc. (visiting those they
called historical places- in reality, people that should not die there). In
particular, I visited the 731 Chemical Unit in Shangtung 12 years ago. Ever
since that day, I do not own any Japanese product except now I still have a
Sony TV that was 18 years old.
Do you know that the Emperor of Japan was spared from prosecution by
General
MacArthur as a war criminal on condition that he handed in the
secret research papers that they performed in China? That is the reason why
Japan and the U.S. are the leading countries in cosmetic surgeries and skin
products. So next time, ladies, if you put on your makeup, please consider that
the blood of the Chinese people may play part of it to glorify your appearance.
I have this “love hate relationship” of the Japanese people. I guess it is
quite difficult to define. I love their patriotism, judo, cleanliness,
royalties, but not their savage way towards Chinese.
It is however sad for us that we had a corrupt government (if we had one), and
everybody was so selfish and cared only for their wealth (Tony: the poor cannot
afford to be nice and patriotic?).
I can never imagine that a troop of 10,000 Japanese marines that can march to
Nanking; and 5,000 British marines could march to Beijing during the Opium War
(Tony: at the end of Ming, the farmer army marched to Beijing with 1 million
soldiers).
Those are the national disgrace that can never, never be repeated. We learned
from history, and trust that the leaders will never follow the previous
mistakes that we made. Most importantly, it should be PEACE that will harmonize
everything.
The
spoiled, fat kid is not rational. Hence I have no rational answers to the
following questions:
1.
Who are the provokers: Group A (N. Korea, China
and Russia), Group B (S. Korea, Japan and US), or all of the above.
2.
Does the fat kid know we have missiles that can
wipe out N. Korea from the map overnight? He is a paper tiger at best.
3.
What actions should we take? More sanctions,
more carriers, missile attacks... No matter what we will not be crazy enough to
start a war with N. Korea. Our resources have been tied up in the Middle East.
We may not be able to handle China and Russia combined.
4.
Does our missile defense system work? Obviously
not this time.
5.
What will China do? China has been the
beneficiary of the conflict. Without China, the fat kid will not bark that
loud.
Give
peace a chance please. At least one tells me that we do have a spoiled, fat man
as our president. LOL.
#Filler: iGeneration
Almost everyone has an iPhone. Folks including myself
in the lower class of the society carry imitators and/or those 'outdated'
iPhones that are several months old.
My grandchild of just over one year old had a good time in playing with the
iPad and it usually kept her busy for hours. Before she could say Mom, she said
“I” for iPad. During my family gatherings, my cousins communicate with each
other via their smart phones even when they sit next to each other. When they
do not text messages, they play games with their smart phones.
Even with one pair of eyes and one pair of ears, they can play iPad, listen to
iPod and text using iPhone at the same time. Thanks Apple for demonstrating
what multi-tasking really is. Chinese and Indian students are leaving us
further behind by spending more time in study. Do you believe those children
spending extra 2 hours every day in games would accomplish the same later in
life? Some parents have a hard time to
explain to their children that their existence was due to the blackout of the
iPad and iPhone caused by the hurricanes.
I do not like the presidential
candidates from both parties. We have to choose the lesser of two devils. I am
political neutral and seldom read articles on politics. You may find the
following refreshing. Most are my original ideas but they are just common sense.
·
The major problem of our political system is
buying votes. The politicians have to satisfy the voters. When 40% of the
citizens do not pay Federal income taxes, their requirements will be satisfied
first.
·
Most politicians do not tell you how to finance
all the freebies such as free tuition. We need to force the government to
balance the budget.
·
We have to ensure the campaign promises are
fulfilled. We still have the two Middle East wars, not as promised. We should
fix our infrastructures and invest with the resources that go to the wars.
Being number one is only important to our leaders.
·
Making illegals legal can buy many Hispanic
votes. The best idea from the politicians is work visas. When they are legal,
it is easy collecting welfare than working on jobs no one want. They will also
burden our entitlement systems by bringing their family members in.
·
It is far more effective to punish the employers
for hiring illegals than building a wall; you can make a small hole of the wall
or build a small tunnel to let the illegals in.
·
The welfare system discourages folks to work.
Why you want to give up free medical delivery (in many states) by taking a job?
·
Gun control has not been discussed much. I know
it is impractical to enforce it. However, we should not let the guns sold to
the mentally retarded, criminals…, especially the semi-automatic weapons. Hope
someday we can send our children to school or see a movie without worrying
about being shot at. Written on 5/2016.
Links to my blog
After Trump was elected, we have
a brief stock market rally. It could be the peak by today (July, 2017). The
market is usually ahead of the economy by about 6 months. However, they have
been non-correlated since 2009. Let’s examine the US economy briefly here.
Reduction of
individual tax and corporate tax
The reduced corporation tax could
stimulate the economy and it could lure some corporations to return their HQs
to the US. The downside is we need the revenues to finance infrastructure
projects.
China
We have been financed by Chinese via selling our treasuries.
China is switching their reserves to the “One Belt, One Road” projects.
Easy money is going
away
CEOs should manage their
corporations instead of boosting the stock prices via easy financing.
Interest rate will be
up
Investors should be careful about
the hikes of interest rate. As long as it is 1% or less for 2017, it should
have little impact. To illustrate this, if the rate hike is 1%, you lose 10%
interest for a 10-year bond. However, you only lose 2% if it is a 2-year bond.
With our recent record-high of margin in buying stocks, the market could crash
when interest rate surges.
Inflation
Historically it is about 3% and
currently it is about 2%. If your CD returns 1% and inflation is 2%, you lose
1% but you need to pay taxes on interest of a 2% CD. Uncle Sam is always the
winner. When too many money are chasing a limited number of goods, we should
have higher inflation.
Bankruptcy & loan
delinquencies
Corporations would bankrupt if they cannot pay back the loans or not
able to pay lawsuit claims. Personal bankruptcies increase if more small
businesses fail. There are two other kind of failing loans: mortgages and
autos. Both would depress the economy and the market.
When I look at the East, Europe is burning.
When I look at the West, China is burning. I’m still playing my mandolin
(actually not looking at my statements from my broker). The majority of the
global economies are connected. When one suffers, the rest suffer too. Let me
review some economies briefly.
The
U.S.
I have to postpone the secular bull market
prediction to 2020 or even later. The market for 2016 is risky. The election
year is the second-best year for the market statistically. I do not bet on this
one as there are too many negatives. The only bright point is the Fed may
postpone interest hike to reduce the risk of this market. In addition, we have
produced a lot of jobs for the last four years even their median wage is far
lower than the one in 2007.
I bet the market will be correlated with the
economy finally next year. They have not correlation since 2009 due to the
excessive printing of money. Obama did NOT save the economy as no one can by
simply printing money. However, it creates more debts for the next generations
to pay.
The tool has been copied all over the world
and it is no longer effective. Our strong USD (less as of 5/2016), our huge war
expenses, strict regulations, high national debts, generous welfare, taxes and
entitlements dampen our competitive edge. The strong USD would reduce the
profits of our most global companies. A heavy blow would be legalizing the
illegal workers by politicians who want to buy votes.
Asia
China is suffering economically. Given
enough time, China’s market-driven economy will work. The current downfall
drags down many resource-rich countries such as Brazil. After a taste of capitalism, no Chinese want
to return to communism, which discourages folks to work hard – who will when
everyone is paid the same?
Chinese are the greatest copycats. If you
believe it is that simple to copy, there should be many copycats beside China
or the U.S. invites the Chinese to copy. Japan, Korea and even the US (not paying
Hitler for using their missile technology…) had been copy-cats at least once in
moving to a developed country.
We need to protect our inventions and
intellectual properties. I am not convinced they can copy our top-secrets such
as the top jet fighter that easy. If they do, there is something wrong with us.
Cybersecurity should be our priority for the corporations and the government.
When the copycat improves their products and sells them at about ¼ our price,
we are hard to compete.
Chinese has been dominated the world in
almost everything for the last 20 centuries except the last three. It has saved
them a lot by copying and stealing. Today, most of their big projects have a
clause to transfer technology. They’re willing to pay handsome fees for technologies
they want such as high-speed train from Siemens. Many companies including the
U.S. give out the secrets which may be paid in large part by the U.S. tax
payers to China for market access. Most of China’s military weapons imports are
from Russia and Russia needs the cash to improve their weapons.
Japan is declining due to the ageing
population and the poor relationship with China. Contrary to popular belief,
India’s demographics do not help. The growing population with a lot of youths
is consuming all the resources that are already proportionally small.
EU
It will be hopeless for at least another
year. Euro is a good concept especially for tourists. In reality, it does not
work. There are too many free loaders such as Greece taking advantage of the unified
currency and foreign loans. The influx of Syrian refugees is a big burden. Tens
of thousands will help to reduce their labor costs but not a million of
refugees. It is hard for the Catholics to co-exist with Protestants (evidenced
by Ireland), so I cannot know how the Christians co-exist with the refugees
with most are Muslims.
What
should we do?
·
Not legalize the illegals.
·
Cut down entitlements.
·
Reduce taxes (both corporate and personal).
·
Reduce the role of the global policeman.
·
Invest in cybersecurity.
·
Think like a terrorist in order to fight
terrorism.
The
reality
Politicians will stay away from most of
“What should we do” as they would hurt election. We have record-high exodus of
corporations and the rich due to high taxes.
Today are we threatened by Vietnam of being
a communist country? If some country does not like how we treat the minority,
should they send soldiers to invade us? If their country men do not want to
fight for their freedom, why we risk our young to fight for them?
With the state-of-the-art weapons, we still
cannot win in the Middle East wars.
Re-think our options. One option is let them resolve their conflicts.
As of 2/2016, investors should be cautious
on the market. However, we may have over-reacted to the problems in China and
the falling oil price. Oil is usually in the opposite direction of the economy.
However, today it flows in sync with the market due to Saudis and Russia’s
dumping of oil via the Sovereign Wealth funds (SWF)
to rescue their economies.
The U.S. unemployment is at 5% (virtually
full employment from the government’s yardstick) although the median salary is
still not comparable to the one in 2007. In 2007, the unemployment is huge. The
recession could be spared at least for now as long as the oil price and the
unemployment are stable.
I have so many bad experiences recently. I
bet their competitors do the same, so I do not want to show the names of the
offending companies if I have an option.
·
My car problem.
I could not take the key from my ignition
switch all the time. It is a new car from one of the two major Japanese car
manufacturers. They honestly acknowledged it was a common problem for my model.
After several unsuccessful fixes and giving me goodies such as free oil change,
I called the service manager and yelled at him it was THEIR problem not mine.
Finally, it was fixed with a solenoid costing
about $5. What a waste of time, theirs and mine. This customer will not be
happy and they still have to spend the $5 plus the oil change and all the free
apples I can pocket. I still have not received my customer satisfaction survey.
·
I received a letter from my one of my funds
asking me to respond so it will not be treated as an abandoned property. The
checks of the dividends and the capital gains must have been cashed by a ghost.
I responded by closing the account.
·
I was lured to another cable company for their
generous offer. I asked my current cable company to match the same deal and
they refused. I switched. Since then and 5 years later, I still received their
junk mails offering better offers I cannot ‘refuse’. Cut down many trees in the
process.
·
My Sunday paper raised the price to $5. It is a
dying industry as I got all my news from TV and the web. I quickly cancelled my
subscription. Since then, they have left many messages and sent me junk mails
almost once a week. If they did not raise the price, I would have stayed with
them. Try to squeeze the last milk from a dying cow.
·
I had a reader telling me to improve my writing
style. I asked him whether he followed the book’s technique to accumulate cash
before the correction in August, 2015. He did not and he is supposed to be a
keen business man. Wrong objective for buying a book on investing!
·
My ‘favorite’ charity called me 8 times for
donations. I will not donate via them again. I hate to be disturbed during
dinner. So are all the phone calls from politician calling for votes and I do
not vote for any of them.
·
My printer needs replacement of inks at least
once every 3 months even I seldom use it. Never buy anything from that company.
·
The ‘new and improved’ upright washers are
problem-prone. My old ones never need repair for over 10 years. So are Yahoo!’s
new ‘improved’ systems. So is Microsoft’s Solitaire – why the ‘improved’ system
takes many, many, many times longer to load as they expect players also own
Xbox. They all lose contact with their own products/customers or their stupid
management tells them to do so.
·
I want to know how all the three market indexes,
oil and gold are doing at least once a day. One major financial web site now
‘hides’ this information in order to show their programmer can do a fancy job
without caring what the customer wants. For me, just switch to another web
site.
·
I almost missed my connecting flight to Boston
in Toronto. First, why I have to clear custom in a foreign country? Second, why
the old process took minutes and this one takes almost an hour. The designer
must have to change the system so s/he can hire more employees or just had too
many drinks during lunch.
·
One luxury hand bag company takes out the logo
on their bags which is why their customers pay premium.
·
Volkswagen, Wells-Fargo and Samsung are recent
examples. They all want to be number 1 and end up last. The first two can fool
us sometimes, but eventually their misbehaviors will come back to harm them.
·
Samsung should have tested their phone longer.
Most companies want to rush their products to the market in order to compete
without all the testing; what happens to beta test and alpha test that are
taught in colleges.
·
Boeing’s 737 Max problem is a typical case of
skinning the goose that lays golden eggs to the max (that may be the reason
they named it Max). It is clear that the plane was not designed for such heavy
engines. Instead of spending the money in research / developing, the greedy
management spent the money in buyouts that would boost the stock price and
hence their bonuses. They thought the deficits would not show up until they
retired with a lot of golden watches. Should these ‘murderers’ be sent to jail?
·
Some generic brands are scarifying qualities for
more profits. I gave up my psoriasis shampoo after I found out it was less
effective as before. I gave up my razors when the blades fell out consistently
now.
Recently
there have been a lot of discussions on China’s rapid development,
industrialization, increased pollution and destruction of environment such as
deforestation.
China, as a developing country, can do so much in protecting the environment.
Jobs are more important than the environment, but by now it should be the other
way round. China has done its share so far. It is unfair to say China is the
world polluter #1 or #2. You need to take out pollution due to the production
of goods for export. Then, you calculate the pollution per capita. From this
calculation, the U.S. is #1 and China is way, way down. Per capita basis and
after deducting pollution due to export, China pollutes less than 1/4 of ours.
Here are developments and facts about the environment in China:
·
China is #1 or #2 in most renewable energy such as solar, hydro and wind energy.
Actually China has turned itself from nothing to pioneer in many of these areas
by heavy investment in research. In most areas, it is the lowest priced
producer. It would have benefitted the world more if its products are allowed
to compete freely with local products.
·
China is blessed with coal, but lacks oil
resource. Coal generates heat via burning the carbon. It can never be clean
even with the best technology from the West/U.S., which can improve less carbon
monoxide and acid-rain-causing SO2.
·
The better quality of coal is in the north east.
Transporting coal from this area to urban cities adds pollution. It is more
effective using barges in coastal regions and the cities on the banks of the
main rivers such as Yangtze.
The
current grid to distribute energy in China is primitive at best. It needs a lot
of technology from the West/U.S. plus its own development to exploit and copy /
enhance the technology. Grid technology ‘Made in China’ is idealistic, but it
is a long way to catch up with the state-of-the-art technology.
·
Hydro and nuclear generators when strategically
located would cut down the grid dependency and transportation of coal to
certain regions.
A wind farm in Mongolia had been idle for a long while due to it was not
connected to the grid. Hope it will not happen again with better planning.
·
China’s nuclear generation program is very
aggressive, but it will still be a small percentage of the total output of
energy. All use foreign technology. China copied and developed the pebble nuclear technology which is promising for safety / cost but its capacity
is very limited. I do not hear much development today.
·
The priority to highways (auto) and some air
transportation should take a back seat to public transportation such as buses,
trains and high speed rails. The recent cut in gas subsidy is a good measure.
China failed to start such a system and discourage citizens from owning cars.
·
How ironic the U.S., the #1 polluter of the
world (based on per capita), accuses China, who does not even make to the top
10 worst polluters?
·
China has transformed some semi desert in a very
small scale to livable land in the Northwestern China. The big impact will be
from the diversion of water from south to north / west. This semi desert will
turn to an oasis easier than the real desert.
Will see the cost / benefit and its impact on its neighbors (India and
SE Asia) who depend on the water from Tibet.
·
My friend Irene provides the best way to fix the
environment. First she lives in a small apartment even though she has millions.
Secondly, she uses public transportation to go to work. Thirdly, her well-built
car (a Prelude) is over 14 years old.
All
our products should be well-built at a reasonably higher price, so they will
last longer and are worth the costs to repair them. Imagine half of the cars junked and the
‘obsolete’ computers and smart phones would not be in our landfills. However,
if we are that frugal, we would drive some car companies and components makers
in the auto business out-of-business. All remedies have some side effects, but
the gains are better than the losses.
My
in-law told me the tools passed from his father are still working fine and of
top quality even his father paid a higher price. Do you prefer a tool lasting
five times and costing double?
China
should build the next generation of products based on quality, innovation and
durability as it has passed that the cheap and copycat stage of moving to a
developed country.
Afterthoughts
·
As of 8/2012, Fukushima’s nuclear problem
actually has helped China:
Fortunately
for China, it is on the east coast. Otherwise, there are more problems to China
with the radioactivity damages.
It
is a wake-up call to China that safety enforcement is important: Better
concrete enclosure and better storage of the used fuel.
Less
nuclear generators will be on-line in the future, so less competition will be
on the nuclear fuels.
Japan
will buy a lot of farm products and energy products from China due to the
Tsunami.
Links
Renewable
energy in China:
Pebble
reactor:
Rising
labor cost is one of the major problems but not the critical one to China. The
labor cost is higher than before for sure. A million or so workers in Foxconn
get big raises and it will affect the rest of the labor wages. The impacts and
the solutions are:
·
Control rising wages.
Higher wages will cause some jobs going to
other countries like Vietnam which has already taken some jobs.
·
Develop local market faster when they lose some
export market.
·
Move faster to higher-value products as China has
been doing.
·
Improve quality.
Making the last quick buck is short-sighted.
China has been improving quality. However, China is so big and someone
especially the smaller companies are still making a fast buck at the expense of
quality. China is learning brand names and protecting their reputation is
important. This will make advertising sector beneficial. Eventually the brand
names will be spread to exports. Food consumer products and their safety should
be in the top priority.
·
Keep the one-child policy to reduce the future
number of consumers of their limited resources.
Population growth for China is harmful. I
know personally the problems of this policy. However, without it, the country
will be tougher facing with less resources / farm land per capita.
It
should not take too long for India or other low-wage countries to copy the
model of China. So far, there are not too many successful stories. China still
offers the best deal besides labor. You need infrastructure, favorable
investment conditions, a stable political system, an educated work force and an
internal market. Besides labor cost, Vietnam and India have few favorable
factors over China.
Will some jobs are coming back to the U.S.? To me, it is an election trick. As
stated many times, a $20 per hour wage never competes with a $2 wage. There are
some higher-end jobs coming back but they're just a drop in the bucket. The
U.S. will NOT gain a lot of jobs. The ‘good’ news of jobs returning back just
makes us feel better and in practice it is nothing to be excited. China's
eventual loss of some manufacturing jobs will be gained by other low-wage
countries.
In
addition, the U.S. unions will not allow excessive and flexible over-time, poor
work conditions and wages not keeping up with inflation. The government will
take away your welfare, housing subsidies, food stamps and the free medical
care if you work. They all ‘protect’ the worker except giving the investors
incentives to invest locally and create more jobs. The government discourages the employers / entrepreneurs
from hiring more via more regulations and higher taxes. Is it their best way to
‘protect’ the worker?
Our
economy is largely controlled by our corrupt and lethargic political system.
All political systems have their strengths and weaknesses.
Use China as an example. In principle, Communism solves the class problem and
reduces the wealth gap. However, it makes folks lazy and managers bureaucratic
as extra effort is not rewarded. The workers do not work diligently as there is
just ordinary compensation, as the union labor in the U.S. That’s why today’s
China is not run by communists but capitalists.
The differences in political systems
The
Maoist1 Communist China allowed folks to have a job just to fulfill the
people's needs. Today, the unions make the United States non-competitive in
high labor industries, such as clothing and textiles; whereas innovative
industries or non-transferrable services thrive here. The unions can only work
when the labor market cannot be outsourced such as climbing up the telephone
pole.
Socialism is a form of an economic system characterized
by social ownership of
the means of production and
cooperative management of the economy, and a political philosophy advocating
such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, or
citizen ownership of equity. For a rich country such as Norway, it works
marvelously. For a poorer country such as Greece, it would be disaster in the
making and today that disaster turns into a reality.
By the
beginning of the 21st century, states controlled by communist parties under a
single-party system include the People's Republic of
China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam,
and North Korea. Communist
parties, or their descendant parties, remain politically important in a number
of other countries2.
Capitalism3, an economic system, is
based on private ownership of
the means of production and
the creation of goods or services. I cannot classify China in one term. The
best I can come to is Capitalism / Dictatorship as it is ruled by a handful of
top party leaders. USA is Democratic / Capitalist / Socialist. We have freedom,
big corporations and generous welfare.
The high
ratios of debt over GNP in most PIIGS (Portugal,
Ireland, Iceland, Greece and Spain)
make them uncompetitive. Those governments need to pay high interest rates on
that debt, and hence in theory, a heavy taxation burden. Because of those taxes
make your production exports expensive and uncompetitive in the global market
where many countries do not have this debt problem.
It seems
that the U.S. is following the same path as Greece to self-destruction. But
this is mostly due to its irresponsible credit-based consumption and generous
welfare.
Changing of political system in China
The last 30 year success in China is due to:
·
The U.S. played the China card against Russia
and lifted the trade embargo against China.
·
Deng's reform utilizing designated specific
areas as low taxation, special economic zone. It has been done before but never at this
scale. It is not possible to modernization the factories and infrastructure to
ship the products in a year in the entire country. But, it is possible to limit
to a small area especially the one that has a sea port. The first one in South
China also takes advantage of the know-how from Hong Kong people and their
financial investment.
The
political system is as good as how it is administered. Another example is how
democratic India is mal governed and remains poor. Democracy is always ideal. I
believe democracy needs am educated and wealthier population to be effective.
The vote from an uneducated peasant cannot count the same weigh as a
sophisticated, educated city dweller.
Do
you remember the Peter's Principle? When a successful manager is promoted to
another position that he has no experience nor qualified for, he usually
performs badly in his new position. Mao is the most representative of this
principle as he was unable to transition from a great revolutionary leader to a
governing one. To be fair, he is well respected by most Chinese in the Mainland
and he contributed a lot to China in his revolutionary days.
As the late Chinese leader Deng Xiao Ping
said, we need some (entrepreneurs and professional managers) to make money and
the 1% capitalists are the ones for China and for the U.S. too. We need them to
invest more so they can hire more workers.
Footnote.
1 Definitions
of Maoism vary. Within the Chinese context, Maoism can refer to Mao's belief in
the mobilization of the masses, particularly in large-scale political
movements; it can also refer to the egalitarianism that
was seen during Mao's era as opposed to the free-market ideology of Deng Xiaoping; some
scholars additionally define personality cults and
political sloganeering as "Maoist" practices. Contemporary Maoists in
China criticize the social inequalities created by a capitalist and
'revisionist' Communist party.
2 The
People's Republic of China has reassessed many aspects of the Maoist legacy;
it, along with Laos, Vietnam, and, to a lesser degree Cuba, has reduced state
control of the economy in order to stimulate growth. Chinese economic
reforms started in 1978 under the leadership
of Deng Xiaoping; since
then, China has managed to bring down the poverty rate from 53% in the Mao era
to just 6% in 2001. The People's Republic of China runs Special Economic
Zones dedicated to market-oriented enterprise,
free from central government control.
Several other communist states have also attempted to implement market-based
reforms, including Vietnam.
Afterthoughts
·
From Elliott. Lee Kuan Yew,
the former Prime Minister of Singapore said that Western "democracy"
would not work in a developing country because of many different
ethnic/religious groups. An "iron hand" government is needed to keep
people who hate one another from killing one another (like Saddam in Iraq or
Tito in Yugoslavia). The other problem for a rapidly growing country using
democracy is "stasis". You can't get enough people to do anything,
like building a railroad or expressway through private land.
·
The Chinese Communist
Party creates jobs to reduce this social unrest. The “tofu” projects are those
bridges and roads which collapse in the first year or two of completion due to
this negligence, incompetency and corruption.
·
With its substantial
foreign reserves, China is in a healthier position relative to most other
countries.
·
Many analyses I read on China using western
mindsets and free market system are wrong and they may be right when China
reaches the same state as the West.
Links
Trade
embargo:
Special
Economic Zone:
The
Chinese central government is rich and can use its wealth to solve a lot of
China’s problems and sometimes the world’s problems. It has not asked the world
to help its natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. In reality, China
has received a lot of offers on foreign aids. Most likely due to a military
consideration, China did not accept the help of the U.S. Navy that could help
the 2008 Sichuan earthquake with the heavy-duty helicopters that China
does not have. From this point of view, accepting fewer donations from foreign
countries is a good thing. However, the
average citizen in China is not as rich at $6,000 (or lower depending on which
statistics you read) per capita. It is about the same as a middle industrialized
country.
The
Government invokes an image of being a victim in its public speeches and how it
conducts China's foreign policy. Like every government worldwide, the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) wants to maintain its dynastic rule over its country,
spreading its influence abroad.
Here
are my random comments about China’s wealth:
·
No 2 in economy does not mean a lot to its
citizens in material terms and only has meaning to its trading partners. A
greater GDP per
capita is what every country should chase for. To me, the average income after
purchasing power adjusted is a better measurement. Norway is #1 per capita in
its group together with the oil-rich countries. So is the U.S. in its
population group.
·
China should compare itself to China 5, 10, 20,
or 30 years ago. Comparing itself to a developed country such as USA has no
meaning. China never declares officially they want to be #1 though its citizens
celebrate its achievements. It is the idea from the media and politicians who have
their own agenda.
For the same reason, China should not compare
itself to the lower Indian standards as we should improve.
·
China will not gain real respect for solely
being wealthy, but on how she deals with the world problems, potential wars,
and how her citizens behave. Even the patents. Corporate secrets and military
secrets are stolen by China (many countries including the USA had stolen
secrets before), the U.S. and the West should not treat China as an enemy. When
they do so, China will become an enemy.
·
The GNP (some distinction from GDP) even adjusted
for purchase power is not meaningful in many cases, but we cannot find a better
benchmark. Even with far less income, the farmer could live a healthier and
less stressful life than the city dweller. We should add a happy meter and a health meter for measuring how their citizens are doing beside wages.
·
Hong Kong has one of the top GNP per capita in the
world. However life may not be that better there because of its high housing expenses,
pollution and temptations for being rich (such as mistresses in China). Many
would prefer the old days when life was simpler and happier though we did not have
many fancy toys and food (most are tasty but not healthy). We need progress but
progress also brings in problems that we are not equipped to fix.
·
China will discover more new drugs in the future
due to their investment in research and the ease to market a new drug compared
to the U.S. and the West. Jealousy is emphasized by the press and the
politicians. Is it important: When you need a drug to cure your
life-threatening disease, do you care where it comes from? So being #1 is only
in the mind of politicians, not in the mind of an average global citizen. A strong
China is good for the world.
Links
Newton's Law: For every action
(bombing the Middle East), there is a reaction (terrorist attacks with low
tech.). Now, the reverse is true. It seems I'm watching a Kung Fu movie with
the endless revenges. Newton covered more than physics.
We have been misinterpreting the teachings in the holy
books. Are all religions supposed to teach us not to kill? Fighting has been
for centuries between Christians and Muslims. One should not be affected if
s/he is neither a Christian nor a Muslim but not in the cruel reality.
We've been dragged to their conflicts by Israel who controls our Congress by
giving them money. Does the Bible predict Israel will be surrounded by enemies?
If so, we should isolate their conflicts by not participating.
When the US sent soldiers to the Middle East, I was among the 30% minority to
oppose it. The young are sent to the front line. Most National Guards
treat them as good exercises and chances of playing some 'toys'. They should
enjoy the best time of their lives in college instead of being sent back in
body bags. Most do not understand the conflicts and the geography.
If we sent the children of our leaders to the front line to fight, there will
not be any one sent to the front line for this war. Being number one is for the
quest for power by our leaders, not for the common citizens.
Although the stock market is good now, the economy is not especially for the
long term. It will take more than one generation to pay back the non-productive
expenses for the wars. That's why many college graduates are still working for
jobs that they do not have to go to college for.
If they do not want to fight for their freedom, why should we do it for them?
Are we suckers?
Our leaders, the Christians, the
Muslims, most citizens from Middle East, the 1%ers… most likely do not agree
with my observations. However, we do not have to agree with each other in order
to be peaceful. “Forgiveness” is the most powerful word in any language. Give
peace a chance, please!
To some, this article should not
be included in a book on investing.
