I've lived in Singapore for most of my life. I've lived in non-Asian countries for almost 5 years. What I miss most while in Singapore is mainly the weather. I love the 4 seasons, the cold wind that starts to blow against your face in September, culminating into a full blown winter in Janary. The snow that blankets the streets makes you want to walk out at times to feel the numbing sensation, and then hide into one of the corner cafes to bask in the warmth. In Spring, Summer and Autumn, one can sit outside the Cafe with a book in hand and wine glass in the other. I could finish several books in one day and feel very fulfilled. The beauty of Elfrescos is that you can watch people along the Boulevard, and people in turn watch you. It's a two-way thing that becomes a game. The air is much dryer in temperate climates as humidity is around 30 - 50%, unlike Singapore's 80 - 90%, which is causes profuse perspiration. If I feel cold, I can always put on a jacket and still stay outside. But in Singapore, I can't take off my T-shirt and be bare breasted. I have to go into the cafe which is hopefully air-conditioned enough to be comfortable.
But another perhaps more important thing lacking in Singapore is the creative, innovative thinking that leads to invention, innovation and success.While we more than match our ex colonial masters in terms of exams (our O and A Levels consistently beat the Brits), we fail to produce the same brilliance when we leave school. Perhaps it is our school system, forcing us to regurgitate knowledge, passing exams without really understanding what we study. In my CFA class, some of them are good at memorising formula. But when it comes to applying the knowledge on investments, they are not as sharp. There are of course brilliant ones in my class who can apply the knowledge. Perhaps it is the lack of passion in a subject we are studying. The need to pass exams to please our parents. Perhaps it is the need to conform, the fear of standing out apart from our peers. While the pressure to conform is not as great as in Japan, we still fear being singled out, to say things that may be out of the ordinary and not be understood, even if it sheds light on something.
The Chinese culture is still submerged in much myth. Everywhere we go during the Lunar New Year, we wish our friends and family, "good luck, health and wealth". I am ok with wishing one another good health and wealth, but why luck? Don't people know that luck is created? What we don't understand, we call it luck. Luck in business. Luck in investments. Luck in love life. But there are tonnes of research conducted to improve our investments, business and love life. Why not wish one another "better wisdom"? Go read books or something...
The western culture is more individualistic. They pen down their thoughts, monetise it by publishing books, research paper and applying it through investments / intellectual properties. They conduct research to prove or disprove something. They come up with innovative solutions to problems. They try to solve problems a little differently each time. Each little step, each improvement is recorded. Tonnes of literature is compiled about each tiny step. That is how society improves, advances.
We live in a little couped up world where we don't bother to reach out and understand things. It doesn't bother a lot of people why certain things happen. Why stocks rise and fall, what is happening to the world around us, how climate change may impact us some day, why we shouldn't eat sharks fin for example. A close relative of mine, whom I shall not name out of respect, still buys shares out of emotions. If he feels it is right, he will buy it. He doesn't know when to sell, but he will sell it when he feels the economy is falling. When I suggested to him why not read some books, he brushes it off and said that such books are not always accurate. How then, can one improve?
Or the subject of Feng Shui. It is surely a very controversial subject. Some people swear by it, stick golden coins on their calculators, thinking it will bring them luck. But has it been empirically studied? When I ask successful people if Feng Shui matters, most Chinese people said "yes" and most western people said "no". The Chinese believe in investing in houses with good Feng Shui. It could have been mis-attribution because in the first place, these people have a good eye for property investments. In any case, most of their claims of Feng Shui's accuracy is anecdotal.
The world is evolving. The one who can anticipate change ahead of the rest will emerge a winner. The one who sits snuggly on their cheese will one day find it removed. It is this simple. Smell the cheese everyday to find out if it has been reduced, moved slowly or added.
Saturday 5 February 2011
Unemployment Drop May Not Deter Fed from Carrying Out Stimulus
Unemployment Drop May Not Deter Fed From Carrying Out Stimulus
By Joshua Zumbrun - Feb 5, 2011 3:47 AM GMT+0800
The unexpected drop in the U.S. jobless rate reported today probably won’t dissuade Federal Reserve policy makers from carrying out their program to pump $600 billion into the economy, economists said. (My comments: They will pump till inflation hits past 4%).
U.S. central bankers are deemphasizing the unemployment rate and are taking a broader look at the health of the labor market, said Vincent Reinhart, the Fed’s chief monetary policy strategist from 2001 until September 2007. That gives them flexibility to alter their easing program in response to changes in other indicators, including payroll growth, he said.
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said yesterday he needs to see “a sustained period of stronger job creation” before he deems the recovery firmly established. The Fed’s Jan. 26 statement said the recovery “has been insufficient to bring about a significant improvement in labor market conditions,” expanding its focus beyond the jobless rate. (My comments: QE3 until 2012?)
“They shifted their rhetoric because they don’t want to be hung out on the unemployment rate,” Reinhart said.
Unemployment in January fell to 9 percent, the lowest level since April 2009, the Labor Department said today. The drop from November’s 9.8 percent rate represented the biggest two-month decline since 1958.
The drop in unemployment probably isn’t enough to satisfy Bernanke and most of his colleagues, said Roberto Perli, who until July was a member of the Fed Board’s Monetary Affairs Division staff.
Among the indicators that may give them pause: Employers added fewer than 100,000 workers to payrolls a month on average last year, the labor force participation rate has fallen to the lowest level since 1984, and 6.2 million people have been looking for a job for more than half a year.
Job Creation
“It seems to me that we’ve got at least 12 months ahead of us before the Fed feels comfortable in terms of a sustained period of job creation because that’s really what they require,” Bill Gross, manager of the world’s largest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said in an interview today on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene.
“Unless we see that sustained level, that virtuous circle that basically he spoke to, the Fed’s not going to raise interest rates,” he said.
Employment rose last month by 36,000 workers, the smallest gain in four months, after a 121,000 rise in December that was larger than initially reported.
“An employment report like this is a Rorschach test,” said Reinhart, now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Quantitative Easing
Fed officials who want to end the Fed’s program to buy $600 billion in Treasury securities through June will point to the unemployment rate as a justification, he said. Advocates of the program, called quantitative easing, will point to payrolls.
Joblessness rose above 9 percent in May 2009, beginning the longest period of unemployment at that level or higher since monthly records began in 1948.
Revisions to previous unemployment reports showed the economy lost 8.75 million jobs as a result of the recession. For all of 2010, the U.S. added about 909,000 jobs.
In November policy makers expected the unemployment rate to fall to 8.9 percent to 9.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4 percent in January, the highest since November 2008.
Bernanke said yesterday in a speech in Washington that job gains at companies last year “were barely sufficient to accommodate the inflow of recent graduates and other new entrants to the labor force and, therefore, not enough to significantly reduce the overall unemployment rate.”
Several Years
“With output growth likely to be moderate for a while and with employers reportedly still reluctant to add to their payrolls, it will be several years before the unemployment rate has returned to a more normal level,” Bernanke said.
Central bankers likely remain wary about improvements in the jobless rate as other aspects of the employment report, such as the labor force participation rate, remain grim, James Glassman, senior U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said today on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”
“If you’re sitting at the Fed, you’re not going to be happy with this kind of trend because it’s yet another indirect sign that there’s not enough going on in the job market to keep people in or pull people in,” Glassman said.
-- With assistance from Bob Willis, Alex Kowalski and Shobhana Chandra in Washington and Tom Keene in New York. Editors: James Tyson, Christopher Wellisz
To contact the reporter on this story: Joshua Zumbrun in Washington at jzumbrun@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net .
By Joshua Zumbrun - Feb 5, 2011 3:47 AM GMT+0800
The unexpected drop in the U.S. jobless rate reported today probably won’t dissuade Federal Reserve policy makers from carrying out their program to pump $600 billion into the economy, economists said. (My comments: They will pump till inflation hits past 4%).
U.S. central bankers are deemphasizing the unemployment rate and are taking a broader look at the health of the labor market, said Vincent Reinhart, the Fed’s chief monetary policy strategist from 2001 until September 2007. That gives them flexibility to alter their easing program in response to changes in other indicators, including payroll growth, he said.
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said yesterday he needs to see “a sustained period of stronger job creation” before he deems the recovery firmly established. The Fed’s Jan. 26 statement said the recovery “has been insufficient to bring about a significant improvement in labor market conditions,” expanding its focus beyond the jobless rate. (My comments: QE3 until 2012?)
“They shifted their rhetoric because they don’t want to be hung out on the unemployment rate,” Reinhart said.
Unemployment in January fell to 9 percent, the lowest level since April 2009, the Labor Department said today. The drop from November’s 9.8 percent rate represented the biggest two-month decline since 1958.
The drop in unemployment probably isn’t enough to satisfy Bernanke and most of his colleagues, said Roberto Perli, who until July was a member of the Fed Board’s Monetary Affairs Division staff.
Among the indicators that may give them pause: Employers added fewer than 100,000 workers to payrolls a month on average last year, the labor force participation rate has fallen to the lowest level since 1984, and 6.2 million people have been looking for a job for more than half a year.
Job Creation
“It seems to me that we’ve got at least 12 months ahead of us before the Fed feels comfortable in terms of a sustained period of job creation because that’s really what they require,” Bill Gross, manager of the world’s largest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said in an interview today on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene.
“Unless we see that sustained level, that virtuous circle that basically he spoke to, the Fed’s not going to raise interest rates,” he said.
Employment rose last month by 36,000 workers, the smallest gain in four months, after a 121,000 rise in December that was larger than initially reported.
“An employment report like this is a Rorschach test,” said Reinhart, now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Quantitative Easing
Fed officials who want to end the Fed’s program to buy $600 billion in Treasury securities through June will point to the unemployment rate as a justification, he said. Advocates of the program, called quantitative easing, will point to payrolls.
Joblessness rose above 9 percent in May 2009, beginning the longest period of unemployment at that level or higher since monthly records began in 1948.
Revisions to previous unemployment reports showed the economy lost 8.75 million jobs as a result of the recession. For all of 2010, the U.S. added about 909,000 jobs.
In November policy makers expected the unemployment rate to fall to 8.9 percent to 9.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4 percent in January, the highest since November 2008.
Bernanke said yesterday in a speech in Washington that job gains at companies last year “were barely sufficient to accommodate the inflow of recent graduates and other new entrants to the labor force and, therefore, not enough to significantly reduce the overall unemployment rate.”
Several Years
“With output growth likely to be moderate for a while and with employers reportedly still reluctant to add to their payrolls, it will be several years before the unemployment rate has returned to a more normal level,” Bernanke said.
Central bankers likely remain wary about improvements in the jobless rate as other aspects of the employment report, such as the labor force participation rate, remain grim, James Glassman, senior U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said today on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”
“If you’re sitting at the Fed, you’re not going to be happy with this kind of trend because it’s yet another indirect sign that there’s not enough going on in the job market to keep people in or pull people in,” Glassman said.
-- With assistance from Bob Willis, Alex Kowalski and Shobhana Chandra in Washington and Tom Keene in New York. Editors: James Tyson, Christopher Wellisz
To contact the reporter on this story: Joshua Zumbrun in Washington at jzumbrun@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net .
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