As we all know, the City of Manchester Duo: Manchester City and United are out of the Champions League and England are left with Arsenal and Chelsea to carry their pride. We can feel the pain of it especially in England with English press exaggerate the misery of English football in Europe this year and also in Malaysia where most football fans here can't name more than 10 players playing outside England.
However, you may wonder why such miserable feeling exist? I mean they still have 2 teams to carry their pride. Spain, Germany and France, they all have 2 teams in the knockout stage as well (Real and Barca for Spain, Leverkusen and bayern for Germany, Lyon and Marseille for France). Only Italy have more team in the knockout stage than England (3 teams). So it perfectly ok to say England are on par with teams from other prestigious leagues in Europe
Nahhh. For English football fans, they are better than everyone in Europe and should have more representatives than any league in the knockout stage of the highest level European football tournament. Such pride and ego started in the 1970' with clubs such as Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa that dominated European Cup in 7 of 8 seasons from 1976/77 to 1983/84 season. After that, Heysel incident stopped English football momentum and they did not recover until 1998/99 with the amazing win of United over Bayern. During that period, Italian football were king of Europe and world. From 1988/89 to 1997/98 (10 seasons), Italian club only missed 1 European Cup final (1990/91). All the world's biggest football stars were playing at Serie A and it was deemed the "mini world cup"
The success of Italian clubs in Europe and fierce competition of Serie A killed Italian football (in my opinion). Serie A clubs did not take European competition seriously and often sent their second team to play in Europe while their best were reserved for domestic competition. Clubs such as Milan, Inter, Juve, Fiorentina, Roma, Parma and Lazio made Serie A the absolute best of Europe and the world. As a result, after the 1997/98 season ended, their performance sunk. Their ignorance toward European competition coped with their ego to become bigger caused them to financially failed. Domestic competition alone couldn't generate enough revenue to offset their huge wage expenses needed to attract the best football players. By the time they realized this, it was too late.
Similar case may be developed in the case of England. Before this, lets face it, English Premier League were not competitive. ( I am sure most English football fans are either very mad now or straight away leave the page lol but let me explain.) English Premier League had less league winner in the past 15 seasons than any prestigious league in Europe including La Liga, Serie A, League 1 and Bundesliga. Only 3 clubs managed to snatch the EPL trophy in the past 15 seasons. Even Spain with the dominance of Barca and Real produced 4 league champions during the period.
The relatively less competitive domestic league enabled English clubs to focus all their firepower towards European competition and as a result, they managed to play some of the best football in Europe for the last 10 seasons. However, even with such conditions, they still didn't manage to dominate Europe. (1 more time EPL fans will probably be very angry). Yes, I know, English clubs had good performance in the knockout stage of Champions' League but they did not dominate the UCL finals like Italy did 10 years prior. In the last 10 seasons, they managed to be featured in 6 finals (less than 9 for Italian clubs) and of that 6 finals (although 2007/08 they had 2 clubs in the final: Chelsea and Man United, it is counted as 1 as it was in the same year), they only managed to win it twice. Clubs from Spain (4 wins) and Italy (3 wins) are more successful than English clubs.
So here we are, 2011/12 season, the strong rise of Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur make the English Premier League more competitive than ever (in my opinion still not as competitive as Italian Serie A in the 1990's) and immediately we can see the effect. Top 2 teams are out of European top football competition and had to play in Europa League. It shouldn't surprise us as even with ideal conditions for the last 10 seasons (less competitive domestic league, financially successful, 100% focus in European competition, right mentality, fans support etc.), the English clubs couldn't dominate Europe. It's no surprise why their play so mediocre in Europe this season. Unless Chelsea or Arsenal sacrifice their domestic competition, I don't think Chelsea and Arsenal can go very far. (well Arsenal may do so since they are 12 points behind Man City).
Only 2 clubs in the world can dominate a competitive domestic competition and Europe: Barcelona and Real Madrid. Many football fans claimed that Spanish La Liga isn't competitive. Well when you have Barcelona and Real Madrid in the same league, any league will have similar scenario. Put these 2 teams in English Premier League and you will have Barca and Real dominate EPL as well. Fact is Spain are more competitive than EPL. Look at where are Villareal this season (4th last season, currently at 15). How bout Levante (14th last season, currently at 4th). That's the sign of competitive football: all teams have equal opportunity of finishing in any position (with the exception of Barca and Real of course as they are by far the 2 best clubs in the world).
So will English football follow the footstep of Italian football 10-15 years ago and left behind in European competition caused by fierce competition in domestic league? only time will tell. In the mean time, it's time to wake up for all English fans and media. Put aside your ego and pride. Watch other football leagues and discover their beauty. You are not a true football fans if you know nothing about football club competition except for English Premier League. To prove my point, here's a question for all the English football fans: Manchester City were eliminated by Bayern and Napoli and both of them are big clubs in their country. Can you name 5 players currently from Bayern and Napoli? If you can't? What? Football Fans? LOL
8.12.11
Ministry of Tourism Malaysia (Kementerian Pelancongan Malaysia)
Currently terribly busy with my work and study. Wrote so much articles (all at half way) but do not have time to finish them. Anyway I have a great story to share with all of you as I think it's a joke to our beloved nation, Malaysia.
Was dealing with my eductional matter at Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), Putrajaya and found out that Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia is just beside MOHE so went there for some tourism brochures and materials for my next holiday.
Went to the main entrance of the Ministry of Tourism, asked the security guard for direction, greeted by a surprised looking guard that direct me to the customer services counter directly in front of the main entrance.
So went to the counter and greeted by few Malays that speak very poor English. Asked for tourism maps and brochures. Again these receptionists showed surprised expression and did not answer anything at first. Then after few minutes of clarification in Bahasa Melayu, finally they understood and told me to go to first storey. However before I could go, I had to get a visitor pass by putting my driving license there (what if someone doesn't have one?).
Went to first storey and found out that it was the wrong floor. There was nothing there except for few counters dealing with licensing matters.
Went down again to the main entrence counter and re-asked those receptionists and they told me to go to second story this time.
So went to second storey. Came out of the lift and there were 2 doors: the one on the right (door A, I think) was locked and the one on the left was wide opened. Seriously, take a guess: which door is the correct one?
Wrong! The door on the left was the entrance to the library of Tourism Ministry. Went to the librarian. Again greeted with surprised expression. Asked by the librarian to scan my visitor pass on a scanning machine on the side of the locked door (door A).
Once scanned, the door unlocked and there was another person there, responsible for all the tourism brochures and maps. So took some and went out of this miserable place.
So let's make everything clear: to get tourism brochures and maps at Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia, I need to walk into the building, hand over my driving license (wonder what happen if I don't have 1), deal with few receptionists who don't know much, go to the second floor of the building, scan my visitor pass on a machine next to a locked door with no instruction at all from those receptionists, then finally ask for them at a counter. I wouldn't call it user friendly.
How bout just put those brochures and maps beside the main entrance? Why make it so difficult for tourists to get tourism informations at the Ministry of Tourism? Does it make sense that people will go to Ministry of Tourism of a nation to get some tourism information? Or are they intend to purposely create a fun maze for tourists to enjoy?
Nevertheless, do you all (Malaysian) have similar story? if so, why not share......
Was dealing with my eductional matter at Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), Putrajaya and found out that Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia is just beside MOHE so went there for some tourism brochures and materials for my next holiday.
Went to the main entrance of the Ministry of Tourism, asked the security guard for direction, greeted by a surprised looking guard that direct me to the customer services counter directly in front of the main entrance.
So went to the counter and greeted by few Malays that speak very poor English. Asked for tourism maps and brochures. Again these receptionists showed surprised expression and did not answer anything at first. Then after few minutes of clarification in Bahasa Melayu, finally they understood and told me to go to first storey. However before I could go, I had to get a visitor pass by putting my driving license there (what if someone doesn't have one?).
Went to first storey and found out that it was the wrong floor. There was nothing there except for few counters dealing with licensing matters.
Went down again to the main entrence counter and re-asked those receptionists and they told me to go to second story this time.
So went to second storey. Came out of the lift and there were 2 doors: the one on the right (door A, I think) was locked and the one on the left was wide opened. Seriously, take a guess: which door is the correct one?
Wrong! The door on the left was the entrance to the library of Tourism Ministry. Went to the librarian. Again greeted with surprised expression. Asked by the librarian to scan my visitor pass on a scanning machine on the side of the locked door (door A).
Once scanned, the door unlocked and there was another person there, responsible for all the tourism brochures and maps. So took some and went out of this miserable place.
So let's make everything clear: to get tourism brochures and maps at Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia, I need to walk into the building, hand over my driving license (wonder what happen if I don't have 1), deal with few receptionists who don't know much, go to the second floor of the building, scan my visitor pass on a machine next to a locked door with no instruction at all from those receptionists, then finally ask for them at a counter. I wouldn't call it user friendly.
How bout just put those brochures and maps beside the main entrance? Why make it so difficult for tourists to get tourism informations at the Ministry of Tourism? Does it make sense that people will go to Ministry of Tourism of a nation to get some tourism information? Or are they intend to purposely create a fun maze for tourists to enjoy?
Nevertheless, do you all (Malaysian) have similar story? if so, why not share......
22.9.11
Economic Crisis???
Recently I am superbly busy with my works and my PhD thesis. Just finished couple of researches and a seminar as speaker. Finally have some time to rant about some of my thoughts and understanding especially on the subject of economic crisis.
Now, with just 10 - 20% retracement in the those tradable financial markets, we are all doom!!!!! There is no tomorrow!!!!! US will be recession!!!!! Economy is going south!!!!! Sell sell sell!!!!!
Furthermore, did economy recover compared to 2008?
Unemployment is worst (in most developed economies) now compared than 2008, output did not increase much compared to 2008 due to high level of umployment (deflationary gap). monetary expansion does not yield any quantitative and/or qualitative improvement other than inflation. Productivity did not improve as well. The only change that we have is the liquidity in tradable financial markets due to the significant aggresive monetary expansion from central banks and fiscal expansion that cause governments around the world to have budget deficit problems. So I wont be surprise if stock markets visit their september 2008 low.
WAIT?
Most investors / specualtors / trades do not like to listen to economics stuff. What they want is that how to gain profit in such economy condition (at least that's what my asset management client ask all the time).
Well, if you listen to what I said in 2008 (invest in commodity market), I am sure you have gain at least 200%. Furthermore, investment is always long term. It's much better to buy a good firm at fair price than fair firm at good price. If you own shares of good and profitable firms, keep it. Warren Buffett will not be the (second) richest man in the world today had him sold Coca cola or Gillete during the US recession of 1993.
Another question that I often get from my client is that how do I earn profit during bearish market sentiment? Well, how bout put option, put warrant, Bear contact, short derivative etc. Investing in safe instrument such as money market and bond market can also maximise the return. Furthermore cash is king now. Lower loss = higher gain.
Unless economy improves (ie lower unemployment and more stable positive economic growth), do not rush into the market. This is probably the best time for us to find a good firm with fair price. (KO maybe lol.)
3-4 years ago, we all know what happened. Burst of subprime market cause the economy to went south and we experienced then greatest economic crisis since Great Depression.
After that, everybody started talking about recovery and stimulus as well as quantitative easing. Everybody was optimistic about the future including all those central banks, investment bankers and investors / speculators. Asset prices started increasing and profit was running wild in derivative markets, commodity markets, stock markets and other tradable financial markets. Majority stock markets rallied more than 100% compared to their September 2008 low. Some even managed to rally more than 200% (Latin America SE).Now, with just 10 - 20% retracement in the those tradable financial markets, we are all doom!!!!! There is no tomorrow!!!!! US will be recession!!!!! Economy is going south!!!!! Sell sell sell!!!!!
Furthermore, did economy recover compared to 2008?
Unemployment is worst (in most developed economies) now compared than 2008, output did not increase much compared to 2008 due to high level of umployment (deflationary gap). monetary expansion does not yield any quantitative and/or qualitative improvement other than inflation. Productivity did not improve as well. The only change that we have is the liquidity in tradable financial markets due to the significant aggresive monetary expansion from central banks and fiscal expansion that cause governments around the world to have budget deficit problems. So I wont be surprise if stock markets visit their september 2008 low.
WAIT?
Most investors / specualtors / trades do not like to listen to economics stuff. What they want is that how to gain profit in such economy condition (at least that's what my asset management client ask all the time).
Well, if you listen to what I said in 2008 (invest in commodity market), I am sure you have gain at least 200%. Furthermore, investment is always long term. It's much better to buy a good firm at fair price than fair firm at good price. If you own shares of good and profitable firms, keep it. Warren Buffett will not be the (second) richest man in the world today had him sold Coca cola or Gillete during the US recession of 1993.
Another question that I often get from my client is that how do I earn profit during bearish market sentiment? Well, how bout put option, put warrant, Bear contact, short derivative etc. Investing in safe instrument such as money market and bond market can also maximise the return. Furthermore cash is king now. Lower loss = higher gain.
Unless economy improves (ie lower unemployment and more stable positive economic growth), do not rush into the market. This is probably the best time for us to find a good firm with fair price. (KO maybe lol.)
2.8.11
Well Done US Congress
Predictably, US Congress have approved a new debt ceiling, more than $ 2.1 trillion over the initial debt ceiling and hooray, US can start spending again.
Wait, according the the deal, tax won't be increased but spending will be cut starting from defense spending. Wow, what a superb plan, at least on paper. US is not defaulting their T-bill / note / bond, spending will be cut, tax won't be raised, finally US could be doing the right thing...... or is it?
Well, not really......
Spending cut won't be implemented at least until 2013 which mean from now until the next presidential election in 2012, Obama, Geithner and other government official and still spend like hell. That's probably the reason the deal said more than $ 2.1 trillion. BTW, how much is more than $ 2.1 trillion? $ 100 trillion? Well, it all depends on how much US government want to spend.
Furthermore, although the deal seems like there is government spending cut (by more than $ 2.4 trillion over god knows how many years), in reality, US government is not cutting spending nominally, but in percentage of growth. In other words, US government spending will still increase by a smaller margin in the coming years.
Politicians are politician. Some are wise and know economics but most aren't. Some oppose with cut in defense spending and others oppose any cut in US government spending at all claiming the action is going to take money out of the economy.
Well, there is a term in economy called crowding out effect. Cutting government spending actually does not harm economy at all as resources used in the public sectors will shift to private sector. As long as there is demand, supply, whether from public or private sector, will be there. Ricardo Equivalence explains the same concept as if government spending increases, sooner or later, tax would increase as well (according to bloomberg, US tax rate will be increased after 2012). In other words, consumers, one way or the other, have to finance government spending. Since government is never a efficient and effective economic agent, government spending should be eliminated and all public spending will be shifted to private sectors.
So, as usual, US government and Treasury department manage to fool everyone just like what they did previously (2001-2003 and 2008-now rapid monetary expansion fueled by enormous spending from government). Well done US congress!
Wait, according the the deal, tax won't be increased but spending will be cut starting from defense spending. Wow, what a superb plan, at least on paper. US is not defaulting their T-bill / note / bond, spending will be cut, tax won't be raised, finally US could be doing the right thing...... or is it?
Well, not really......
Spending cut won't be implemented at least until 2013 which mean from now until the next presidential election in 2012, Obama, Geithner and other government official and still spend like hell. That's probably the reason the deal said more than $ 2.1 trillion. BTW, how much is more than $ 2.1 trillion? $ 100 trillion? Well, it all depends on how much US government want to spend.
Furthermore, although the deal seems like there is government spending cut (by more than $ 2.4 trillion over god knows how many years), in reality, US government is not cutting spending nominally, but in percentage of growth. In other words, US government spending will still increase by a smaller margin in the coming years.
Politicians are politician. Some are wise and know economics but most aren't. Some oppose with cut in defense spending and others oppose any cut in US government spending at all claiming the action is going to take money out of the economy.
Well, there is a term in economy called crowding out effect. Cutting government spending actually does not harm economy at all as resources used in the public sectors will shift to private sector. As long as there is demand, supply, whether from public or private sector, will be there. Ricardo Equivalence explains the same concept as if government spending increases, sooner or later, tax would increase as well (according to bloomberg, US tax rate will be increased after 2012). In other words, consumers, one way or the other, have to finance government spending. Since government is never a efficient and effective economic agent, government spending should be eliminated and all public spending will be shifted to private sectors.
So, as usual, US government and Treasury department manage to fool everyone just like what they did previously (2001-2003 and 2008-now rapid monetary expansion fueled by enormous spending from government). Well done US congress!
30.7.11
$14,300,000,000,000
$14.3 trillion debt ceiling. What a magical number. Who would thought that $14.3 trillion will be reached?
US gross domestic products of 2010 was $14.7 trillion in nominal term and who knows the percentage of phony output growth stimulated by rapid monetary expansion especially in the finance and banking sectors.
$14.3 trillion debt ceiling or almost 100% of US gdp of 2010 has been reached in May of 2011 and technically, that means US is unofficially bankrupt. To Repay the debt, they have to sacrifice 1 year of national output. That would be ok provided US has high international reserves to finance their spending. According to treasury department, as of 29/7/2011, the official US international reserves is around $145 billion or less than 1% of gdp. In other word, US can only finance their import for just around 14 days (2010 data). Compared to international standard of 8 months, US is not as wealthy as we think.
Furthermore, US government is terrible in managing their budget. Around 40% of government spending is financed by debt. Most debt are foreign debt sold to country like China, Japan, Russia, middle east countries etc. In other words, US debtor now own 40% of US economy and US resources (since debt / gdp = 100%). How about if US GDP figure did not include the phony banking and financial sectors junk loan and fake transaction, we could be looking at around 50% of US economy is foreign own.
Combined with terrible data in labour market (unemployment rate of almost 10%) and fake general price level (low inflation according to treasury and feds), US economy is at the worst level ever (even worst than ww2 and Great Depression era).
To make things worse, Fed funds rate is kept at 0-0.25% which encourage more borrowing and leverage. Since money is free in US, debt financing activities will keep going. In the short run there are no visible way US could improve on their deficit and overspending problems.
To make things worse, nobody seems to understand the problems and US congress is it the process of adjusting debt ceiling to a higher level. At the moment, no agreement is reached yet but I guarantee at the end, everything will be sorted out and debt ceiling will be lifted.
Using simple logic, if our income is much lower than our spending and every month, 40% of our spending is financed by debt (credit card). There are only 2 solutions: increase income or decrease spending right?
Wrong!
US government can't increase their revenue (ie taxes) as tax rate is already at such a high level and Obama would risk public support if he choose to increase tax rate. So the best way should be decrease US government spending. Start with military spending which cost US trillions of dollar every year.
Wrong again!
US try to use the third way: negotiating term with banks to increase the credit card limit so that they can borrow even more money and pile on the debt that got them into trouble in the first place. Remember, US was in subprime crisis because of too much debt, and their solution to deficit spending is...... more debt?
So, to all American, you still think your country is the biggest economy in the world? You still think America is the wealthiest country in the world?
US gross domestic products of 2010 was $14.7 trillion in nominal term and who knows the percentage of phony output growth stimulated by rapid monetary expansion especially in the finance and banking sectors.
$14.3 trillion debt ceiling or almost 100% of US gdp of 2010 has been reached in May of 2011 and technically, that means US is unofficially bankrupt. To Repay the debt, they have to sacrifice 1 year of national output. That would be ok provided US has high international reserves to finance their spending. According to treasury department, as of 29/7/2011, the official US international reserves is around $145 billion or less than 1% of gdp. In other word, US can only finance their import for just around 14 days (2010 data). Compared to international standard of 8 months, US is not as wealthy as we think.
Furthermore, US government is terrible in managing their budget. Around 40% of government spending is financed by debt. Most debt are foreign debt sold to country like China, Japan, Russia, middle east countries etc. In other words, US debtor now own 40% of US economy and US resources (since debt / gdp = 100%). How about if US GDP figure did not include the phony banking and financial sectors junk loan and fake transaction, we could be looking at around 50% of US economy is foreign own.
Combined with terrible data in labour market (unemployment rate of almost 10%) and fake general price level (low inflation according to treasury and feds), US economy is at the worst level ever (even worst than ww2 and Great Depression era).
To make things worse, Fed funds rate is kept at 0-0.25% which encourage more borrowing and leverage. Since money is free in US, debt financing activities will keep going. In the short run there are no visible way US could improve on their deficit and overspending problems.
To make things worse, nobody seems to understand the problems and US congress is it the process of adjusting debt ceiling to a higher level. At the moment, no agreement is reached yet but I guarantee at the end, everything will be sorted out and debt ceiling will be lifted.
Using simple logic, if our income is much lower than our spending and every month, 40% of our spending is financed by debt (credit card). There are only 2 solutions: increase income or decrease spending right?
Wrong!
US government can't increase their revenue (ie taxes) as tax rate is already at such a high level and Obama would risk public support if he choose to increase tax rate. So the best way should be decrease US government spending. Start with military spending which cost US trillions of dollar every year.
Wrong again!
US try to use the third way: negotiating term with banks to increase the credit card limit so that they can borrow even more money and pile on the debt that got them into trouble in the first place. Remember, US was in subprime crisis because of too much debt, and their solution to deficit spending is...... more debt?
So, to all American, you still think your country is the biggest economy in the world? You still think America is the wealthiest country in the world?
29.7.11
Harry Potter and Deathly Hollows Part 2 Review
WOW!!!
This is my first feeling when I walked out of the cinema. Definitely one of the best movie in 2011 and together with part 1, I would say one of the best movie ever.
Movie always starts with story regardless of the genre and part 2 has one of the best story i've seen. Of course we should give all the credit to Ms Rowling but either you have read the book or not, you will like the story of this movie nonetheless.
Then the directing. Many felt that the movie is too action oriented and pace is too fast. However this is part 2 of a 5 hours movie and combined with part 1, I think David Yates did a fantastic job in setting the pace and set up one of the greatest climax in recent movie history.
Acting is not perfect but very good nonetheless. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have matured so much since the first movie and it's a very nice feeling seeing them grow not only as the characters they portraying but their acting as well. Supporting casts play a fabulous role too. Neville Longbottom rocks!!!
The action scenes is well done especially the Hogwarts battle scene as it managed to avoid the common problem of crappy action movies such as 2012, clash of the titan or transformers (all 3) which is too much actions. Action scene in an action movie, similar to horror scene in a horror movie, should not be overused. Otherwise the suspense elements will be lost. Deathly Hollows part 2 incorporate great transition period within action scenes to maintain the suspense.
The duel between Harry Potter and Voldemort was great. After 7 movies and 10 long years, it is superb too see the epic "good vs evil" and I guarantee if you've watched all 7 movies prior to this one, you will have goosebumps running all over your body.
Other elements such as dialogue and editing were done superbly too. Of course they are not as good as the first Deathly Hollows but great nonetheless.
Small problem such as too little characters development and stupid epilogue aside, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 2 is a fantastic movie and definitely one of the greatest movie of 2011. Either you are a action movie lover, a movie lover or movie hater, you should not miss this movie. Together with Deathly Hollows part 1, this is one of the greatest 5 hours in cinema history and to me, on par with other great movies such as Indiana Jones series, Back to the Future Series, Lord of the Rings series, Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind....... and more recently, The Dark Knight and Inception.
9.5/10
25.7.11
Teoh Beng Hock RCI Report Analysis
Found an article on Malaysiakini analyses the RCI report into the death of Teoh Beng Hock.
The article is very nicely written and cover all important facts about the case. Analysis part is well done and thorough. Check it out HERE.
The article is very nicely written and cover all important facts about the case. Analysis part is well done and thorough. Check it out HERE.
22.7.11
WTF TBH LOL
Let me get this straight:
1) He suicides because he can bear the pressure of being interrogated for the alleges of somebody else?
2) He suicides although he did not bear any alleges?
3) Although physical difficulty, his keen desire to suicide help him squeeze through the tight window?
4) He suddenly forgot about his wife and coming child?
5) He was declared suicide despite the world renown forensic pathology, Pornthip Rojanasunand, mentioned about he was more likely murdered than suicide?
6) He suicide despite having no sign or history of depression or mental illness?
Wow, what a story. It's better than any literature by JK Rowling or JRR Tolkien. Where can I buy this story book?
1) He suicides because he can bear the pressure of being interrogated for the alleges of somebody else?
2) He suicides although he did not bear any alleges?
3) Although physical difficulty, his keen desire to suicide help him squeeze through the tight window?
4) He suddenly forgot about his wife and coming child?
5) He was declared suicide despite the world renown forensic pathology, Pornthip Rojanasunand, mentioned about he was more likely murdered than suicide?
6) He suicide despite having no sign or history of depression or mental illness?
Wow, what a story. It's better than any literature by JK Rowling or JRR Tolkien. Where can I buy this story book?
17.7.11
Economics Joke
A man receives 4 letters. He opens the first letter and it's from the firm he is working at. His superior has terminated his service and he becomes an unemployed.
He then opens the second letter. It's from his wife and it's a divorce letter.
Next, the third letter. It's from his doctor and it's a confirmation that he is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and he will die in a week.
Finally, the man opens the last letter and it's from a lottery firm confirming that he won the first prize of the jackpot.
After all the letter, he jumps in joy and happiness. He loudly says assume that everything else being constant, ceteris paribus, I am happy I won the lottery jackpot. Hurray!
He then opens the second letter. It's from his wife and it's a divorce letter.
Next, the third letter. It's from his doctor and it's a confirmation that he is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and he will die in a week.
Finally, the man opens the last letter and it's from a lottery firm confirming that he won the first prize of the jackpot.
After all the letter, he jumps in joy and happiness. He loudly says assume that everything else being constant, ceteris paribus, I am happy I won the lottery jackpot. Hurray!
2.7.11
IGN Top 100 Modern Games
1 Mass Effect 2
2 Bioshock
3 Red Dead Redemption
4 Super Mario Galaxy 2
5 Portal 2
6 Fallout 3
7 Uncharted 2
8 Assassin Creed 2
9 Batman Arkham Asylum
10 Super Smash Brothers Brawl
11 GTA 4
12 Half Life 2 Ep. 2
13 Pac Man Champs. Ed. DX
14 Halo Reach
15 New Super Mario Bros.
16 Heavy Rain
17 Left For Dead 2
18 Elders Scrolls 4
19 COD 4 Modern Warfare
20 Dead Space
The rest of the list can be seen here.
Well, some very bad choices such as why Gamespot's game of the year 2010, Demon Souls, is at last place (100th), why Dragon Age Origins is at 91th and where is Metal Gears Solid 4?
Well for the last question, I think IGN only allows 1 game per Franchise. Since MGS 3 already in the list, well MGS 4 will not. This is a great move to avoid Mario from dominate the list too much lol.
However, from my point of view, top ten games absolutely deserve their spot there in their respective orders. Mass Effect 2, Bioshock and Red Dead Redemption should be the top 3 modern games. Great job IGN!
2 Bioshock
3 Red Dead Redemption
4 Super Mario Galaxy 2
5 Portal 2
6 Fallout 3
7 Uncharted 2
8 Assassin Creed 2
9 Batman Arkham Asylum
10 Super Smash Brothers Brawl
11 GTA 4
12 Half Life 2 Ep. 2
13 Pac Man Champs. Ed. DX
14 Halo Reach
15 New Super Mario Bros.
16 Heavy Rain
17 Left For Dead 2
18 Elders Scrolls 4
19 COD 4 Modern Warfare
20 Dead Space
The rest of the list can be seen here.
Well, some very bad choices such as why Gamespot's game of the year 2010, Demon Souls, is at last place (100th), why Dragon Age Origins is at 91th and where is Metal Gears Solid 4?
Well for the last question, I think IGN only allows 1 game per Franchise. Since MGS 3 already in the list, well MGS 4 will not. This is a great move to avoid Mario from dominate the list too much lol.
However, from my point of view, top ten games absolutely deserve their spot there in their respective orders. Mass Effect 2, Bioshock and Red Dead Redemption should be the top 3 modern games. Great job IGN!
30.6.11
Critics Review vs Anonymous Review
Hot topic: Critics Review vs Anonymous review. Which one is the better evaluation for movie?
Recent release of Transformers Dark of the Moon has spurred many disputes. Most anonymous or so called "amateur" reviews favor the movie (at the moment, 6.1/10 on metacritic, A- on yahoo movies and 6.9 on IMDB.). However most Critics do not like this movie (42/100 on metacritic, C on yahoo movie and 36% on rotten tomatoes).
So, which one is more accurate?
Well, it depends on what you want and know about movie in general. If you think movie is just one of the many forms of entertainment similar to music, video games etc. and you prefer action more than anything else, then you will find this movie interesting.
However if you think movie is different compared to all other forms of entertainment, and you want a total package in a movie (ie. action + acting + characters + directing + plot + story + pace + audio + dialog etc.), you will not like this movie.
This is the reason why most people think that critics are wrong every time. Critics look at multiple dimensions and give a complete evaluation while most anonymous reviewers look at single dimension and focus at it (from what I see so far, most people praised the movie for the action scenes).
That's why many bad movies reviewed by critics are considered good by anonymous reviewers. Most notably the Transformers series.
Personally, I prefer critics review as the more I watch movie, the more I want from it. I do not want movie to just entertain me. I want movie that can entertain me with multiple aspects that make movie different than other forms of entertainment. If I want mindless action with explosion, I will watch "Mythbusters". If I want the trill of moving very fast, I will either drive very fast or go for a roller coaster ride. If I want robots fighting each other, I will watch cartoon or play video games.
Of course everything should be based on moral judgement. However if you think Transformers 3 is the best movie of the year, I will say, you do not know movie.
Recent release of Transformers Dark of the Moon has spurred many disputes. Most anonymous or so called "amateur" reviews favor the movie (at the moment, 6.1/10 on metacritic, A- on yahoo movies and 6.9 on IMDB.). However most Critics do not like this movie (42/100 on metacritic, C on yahoo movie and 36% on rotten tomatoes).
So, which one is more accurate?
Well, it depends on what you want and know about movie in general. If you think movie is just one of the many forms of entertainment similar to music, video games etc. and you prefer action more than anything else, then you will find this movie interesting.
However if you think movie is different compared to all other forms of entertainment, and you want a total package in a movie (ie. action + acting + characters + directing + plot + story + pace + audio + dialog etc.), you will not like this movie.
This is the reason why most people think that critics are wrong every time. Critics look at multiple dimensions and give a complete evaluation while most anonymous reviewers look at single dimension and focus at it (from what I see so far, most people praised the movie for the action scenes).
That's why many bad movies reviewed by critics are considered good by anonymous reviewers. Most notably the Transformers series.
Personally, I prefer critics review as the more I watch movie, the more I want from it. I do not want movie to just entertain me. I want movie that can entertain me with multiple aspects that make movie different than other forms of entertainment. If I want mindless action with explosion, I will watch "Mythbusters". If I want the trill of moving very fast, I will either drive very fast or go for a roller coaster ride. If I want robots fighting each other, I will watch cartoon or play video games.
Of course everything should be based on moral judgement. However if you think Transformers 3 is the best movie of the year, I will say, you do not know movie.
29.6.11
Laddaland Review
Went to watch Laddaland last week at my home town of Melaka and have to say: it's better than I thought.
First of all, it's not a good horror movie. The director seems to have problem deciding the direction of the film whether it should be like traditional Asian horror movies involving "ghosts", or like western horror movie involving "psycho maniac killer, or even like M Night Shyamalan's "the Village". As a result, this movie has them all, but poor version of them (well maybe not as bad as the Village lol.)
However, as the movie progresses, it starting to become good in non-horror department of the film. The problems faced by characters in this movie, mixed with very good writing and excellent acting, we have a really good and engaging drama that truly like a reflection of most typical family's problems.
The director knows that and as the movie progresses, it leans more and more away from horror into drama and even end with it. From time to time, we have some good shocks and very little horror but that may not be a bad thing after all.
Story wise, this is no Inception. It has many lovable characters and interesting plot but quite poor main story. However the implementation and pace of the whole movie is nonetheless good.
Overall, this movie is terrible if you want something similar to Insidious. However, why should we limit ourselves to horror for a horror movie. This movie shows us that a horror movie can have so much more than just plain horror it excels at that. No wonder it achieves such a success in Thai's box office. A good movie.
8/10 for me.
p/s: based on the reviews from metacritic and rotten tomatoes, Transformers 3 is no Inception either but who cares, it will still top the box office anyway. Wonder why people like to kill their brain cell by enduring 150 minutes of mindless action lol.
First of all, it's not a good horror movie. The director seems to have problem deciding the direction of the film whether it should be like traditional Asian horror movies involving "ghosts", or like western horror movie involving "psycho maniac killer, or even like M Night Shyamalan's "the Village". As a result, this movie has them all, but poor version of them (well maybe not as bad as the Village lol.)
However, as the movie progresses, it starting to become good in non-horror department of the film. The problems faced by characters in this movie, mixed with very good writing and excellent acting, we have a really good and engaging drama that truly like a reflection of most typical family's problems.
The director knows that and as the movie progresses, it leans more and more away from horror into drama and even end with it. From time to time, we have some good shocks and very little horror but that may not be a bad thing after all.
Story wise, this is no Inception. It has many lovable characters and interesting plot but quite poor main story. However the implementation and pace of the whole movie is nonetheless good.
Overall, this movie is terrible if you want something similar to Insidious. However, why should we limit ourselves to horror for a horror movie. This movie shows us that a horror movie can have so much more than just plain horror it excels at that. No wonder it achieves such a success in Thai's box office. A good movie.
8/10 for me.
p/s: based on the reviews from metacritic and rotten tomatoes, Transformers 3 is no Inception either but who cares, it will still top the box office anyway. Wonder why people like to kill their brain cell by enduring 150 minutes of mindless action lol.
23.6.11
Can CAPM and APT used for forecasting?
Capital asset pricing model and arbitrage pricing theory are probably the greatest and most popular asset pricing theories of 20th century. They have gone through numerous changes and modifications in the past 50 years since their existence in the 50's. Can they be used to determine asset prices correctly and accurately?
Recently a research has been done and published based on such questions on stock markets of Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and US. The results shows that CAPM does not even exist in all markets except for Japan as the linear relationship between market beta and asset return can't be accepted statistically. Similar result for APT as well for these markets.
Although CAPM and APT do exist in Japan, their forecasting ability using constant beta and time varying beta are terrible especially during economic crisis of 2007/2008.
So the question is why do we need to study these asset pricing theories? Why CAPM and APT are so popular and basically learned by all finance / business / economic / accounting students? Can we even call them as theories as they are numerous research on similar topics disprove the availability of CAPM and APT in the past.
Using simple economic theory, prices are determined endogenously (provided no government intervention) by market forces of buyers and sellers. The same concept can be applied in financial assets as well. Stocks, bonds, currencies, commodity futures share the same characteristics. Higher the demand, higher the market price, ceteris paribus.
CAPM and APT are not effective tools in predicting and forecating the tradable financial assets (mostly stocks) as they are not used by stock market investors (especially retail investor). Since nobody use CAPM and APT in the decision making process for stock buying, they cannot spur demand and thus, ineffective in such uses.
Most investors (retail or institutional) use technical analysis tools (RSI, Bollinger bands, Stochastic, Macd etc.) and financial analysis tools (PE, ROA, ROE, Profit margin etc.) in determine the buying and selling opportunity in tradable financial assets thus making them much more effective tools in forecasting than CAPM and APT.
So, why don't we introduce technical analysis in tertiary education instead of CAPM and APT? (as far as I know, no university include technical analysis tools in their syllabus, correct me if I'm wrong)?
Or how bout random walk? can asset price be predicted correctly and accurately everytime using certain indicators?
Well, Economists have been discussing this for centuries and answer is yet to be found. Econometricians try to use modelling techniques to form unbelievably complex models and in the end, we still do not have a standardised model in determining asset price. Probably Austrian economists are correct: human being are unpredictable and cannot be estimated using econometric modelling.
Recently a research has been done and published based on such questions on stock markets of Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and US. The results shows that CAPM does not even exist in all markets except for Japan as the linear relationship between market beta and asset return can't be accepted statistically. Similar result for APT as well for these markets.
Although CAPM and APT do exist in Japan, their forecasting ability using constant beta and time varying beta are terrible especially during economic crisis of 2007/2008.
So the question is why do we need to study these asset pricing theories? Why CAPM and APT are so popular and basically learned by all finance / business / economic / accounting students? Can we even call them as theories as they are numerous research on similar topics disprove the availability of CAPM and APT in the past.
Using simple economic theory, prices are determined endogenously (provided no government intervention) by market forces of buyers and sellers. The same concept can be applied in financial assets as well. Stocks, bonds, currencies, commodity futures share the same characteristics. Higher the demand, higher the market price, ceteris paribus.
CAPM and APT are not effective tools in predicting and forecating the tradable financial assets (mostly stocks) as they are not used by stock market investors (especially retail investor). Since nobody use CAPM and APT in the decision making process for stock buying, they cannot spur demand and thus, ineffective in such uses.
Most investors (retail or institutional) use technical analysis tools (RSI, Bollinger bands, Stochastic, Macd etc.) and financial analysis tools (PE, ROA, ROE, Profit margin etc.) in determine the buying and selling opportunity in tradable financial assets thus making them much more effective tools in forecasting than CAPM and APT.
So, why don't we introduce technical analysis in tertiary education instead of CAPM and APT? (as far as I know, no university include technical analysis tools in their syllabus, correct me if I'm wrong)?
Or how bout random walk? can asset price be predicted correctly and accurately everytime using certain indicators?
Well, Economists have been discussing this for centuries and answer is yet to be found. Econometricians try to use modelling techniques to form unbelievably complex models and in the end, we still do not have a standardised model in determining asset price. Probably Austrian economists are correct: human being are unpredictable and cannot be estimated using econometric modelling.
20.6.11
Some Jokes on Economy and Economist
Found some jokes about the economics and economist. All of it are hillarious and some of it is actually correct. Enjoy!
A mathematician, an accountant and an economist apply for the same job.
The interviewer calls in the mathematician and asks “What do two plus two equal?” The mathematician replies “Four.” The interviewer asks “Four, exactly?” The mathematician looks at the interviewer incredulously and says “Yes, four, exactly.”
Then the interviewer calls in the accountant and asks the same question “What do two plus two equal?” The accountant says “On average, four – give or take ten percent, but on average, four.”
Then the interviewer calls in the economist and poses the same question “What do two plus two equal?” The economist gets up, locks the door, closes the shade, sits down next to the interviewer and says “What do you want it to equal?”
An economist is a trained professional paid to guess wrong about the economy. An econometrician is a trained professional paid to use computers to guess wrong about the economy.
Bentley’s second Law of Economics: The only thing more dangerous than an economist is an amateur economist!
Berta’s Fundamental Law of Economic Rents: The only thing more dangerous than an amateur economist is a professional economist.
Three econometricians went out hunting, and came across a large deer. The first econometrician fired, but missed, by a meter to the left. The second econometrician fired, but also missed, by a meter to the right. The third econometrician didn’t fire, but shouted in triumph, “We got it! We got it!”
Economics is the painful elaboration of the obvious.
An economist is someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about – and make you feel it’s your fault.
A woman hears from her doctor that she has only half a year to live. The doctor advises her to marry an economist and to live in South Dakota. The woman asks: will this cure my illness? Answer of the doctor: No, but the half year will seem pretty long.
I asked an economist for her phone number and she gave me an estimate.
Economists have forecasted 9 out of the last 5 recessions.
An economist is someone who gets rich explaining others why they are poor.
“I’m thinking of leaving my husband,” complained the economist’s wife. “All he ever does is stand at the end of the bed and tell me how good things are going to be.”
There are two things you are better off not watching in the making: sausages and econometric estimates.
— Edward Leamer
On the first day God created the sun – so the Devil countered and created sunburn. On the second day God created sex. In response the Devil created marriage. On the third day God created an economist. This was a tough one for the Devil, but in the end and after a lot of thought he created a second economist!
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
The First Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.
The Second Law of Economists: They’re both wrong.
We have 2 classes of forecasters: Those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.
— Laurence J. Peter
How can you tell when an economist is lying?
His lips are moving.
They say that Christopher Columbus was the first economist. When he left to discover America, he didn’t know where he was going. When he got there he didn’t know where he was. And it was all done on a government grant.
Economics is the only field in which two people can share a Nobel Prize for saying opposing things.
A mathematician, an accountant and an economist apply for the same job.
The interviewer calls in the mathematician and asks “What do two plus two equal?” The mathematician replies “Four.” The interviewer asks “Four, exactly?” The mathematician looks at the interviewer incredulously and says “Yes, four, exactly.”
Then the interviewer calls in the accountant and asks the same question “What do two plus two equal?” The accountant says “On average, four – give or take ten percent, but on average, four.”
Then the interviewer calls in the economist and poses the same question “What do two plus two equal?” The economist gets up, locks the door, closes the shade, sits down next to the interviewer and says “What do you want it to equal?”
An economist is a trained professional paid to guess wrong about the economy. An econometrician is a trained professional paid to use computers to guess wrong about the economy.
Bentley’s second Law of Economics: The only thing more dangerous than an economist is an amateur economist!
Berta’s Fundamental Law of Economic Rents: The only thing more dangerous than an amateur economist is a professional economist.
Three econometricians went out hunting, and came across a large deer. The first econometrician fired, but missed, by a meter to the left. The second econometrician fired, but also missed, by a meter to the right. The third econometrician didn’t fire, but shouted in triumph, “We got it! We got it!”
Economics is the painful elaboration of the obvious.
An economist is someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about – and make you feel it’s your fault.
A woman hears from her doctor that she has only half a year to live. The doctor advises her to marry an economist and to live in South Dakota. The woman asks: will this cure my illness? Answer of the doctor: No, but the half year will seem pretty long.
I asked an economist for her phone number and she gave me an estimate.
Economists have forecasted 9 out of the last 5 recessions.
An economist is someone who gets rich explaining others why they are poor.
“I’m thinking of leaving my husband,” complained the economist’s wife. “All he ever does is stand at the end of the bed and tell me how good things are going to be.”
There are two things you are better off not watching in the making: sausages and econometric estimates.
— Edward Leamer
On the first day God created the sun – so the Devil countered and created sunburn. On the second day God created sex. In response the Devil created marriage. On the third day God created an economist. This was a tough one for the Devil, but in the end and after a lot of thought he created a second economist!
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
The First Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.
The Second Law of Economists: They’re both wrong.
We have 2 classes of forecasters: Those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.
— Laurence J. Peter
How can you tell when an economist is lying?
His lips are moving.
They say that Christopher Columbus was the first economist. When he left to discover America, he didn’t know where he was going. When he got there he didn’t know where he was. And it was all done on a government grant.
Economics is the only field in which two people can share a Nobel Prize for saying opposing things.
15.6.11
X Men First Class & Super 8 Should (& Hopefully Will) Kick Transformers 3's Butt
Recently watched X-Men first class and Super 8. No they are not perfect but yes, they are way better than many of the action movies of this generation. Although they are not on the level of The Dark Knight or Inception, They are good action movies nonetheless.
We all know no matter how bad Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon is, it will still top the box office chart but it's like breeze of fresh air to have some good action summer blockbusters.
Both of these movies done exceptionally job of acting, directing and pace. It managed to make us feel involved with the overall story, sub-plots and characters. This is exceptionally true for Super 8 which done a remarkable job in characters development and sub-plots that truly link us to the glorious day of ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
I admit I love X Men but I don't like the first 3 movies as they suffered the same problems of most action / superhero movies: weak story, no character development, bad directing and overused of action scenes. X-Men origins: Wolverine was better but still have some problems faced by its predecessors. X-Men first class shows a vast improvement of all categories such as directing, acting, dialogue, character development, action scenes, jokes, story, pace...... It's not perfect by any means but it's great.
For me, both movies are somewhat too long and something sub-plots dominates the main story. 90-100 minutes would be better for these movies.
Well, based on past experiences, Transformers Dark of the Moon will be a bad movie. I am certain I will not contribute to its box office success but who cares, it will still win the summer blockbusters list.
IMO, action movie is similar to horror movie. In a horror movie, the more you see the "ghost / demon", the less scary it becomes and hence the worse the movie it becomes. Similarly, the more actions you see in an action movies, the worse it becomes as it lose all the suspense.
Movies industry is dying not because of poorly-made movies or piracy, it's because "people who watch movies no longer know what a good movie is"
We all know no matter how bad Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon is, it will still top the box office chart but it's like breeze of fresh air to have some good action summer blockbusters.
Both of these movies done exceptionally job of acting, directing and pace. It managed to make us feel involved with the overall story, sub-plots and characters. This is exceptionally true for Super 8 which done a remarkable job in characters development and sub-plots that truly link us to the glorious day of ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
I admit I love X Men but I don't like the first 3 movies as they suffered the same problems of most action / superhero movies: weak story, no character development, bad directing and overused of action scenes. X-Men origins: Wolverine was better but still have some problems faced by its predecessors. X-Men first class shows a vast improvement of all categories such as directing, acting, dialogue, character development, action scenes, jokes, story, pace...... It's not perfect by any means but it's great.
For me, both movies are somewhat too long and something sub-plots dominates the main story. 90-100 minutes would be better for these movies.
Well, based on past experiences, Transformers Dark of the Moon will be a bad movie. I am certain I will not contribute to its box office success but who cares, it will still win the summer blockbusters list.
IMO, action movie is similar to horror movie. In a horror movie, the more you see the "ghost / demon", the less scary it becomes and hence the worse the movie it becomes. Similarly, the more actions you see in an action movies, the worse it becomes as it lose all the suspense.
Movies industry is dying not because of poorly-made movies or piracy, it's because "people who watch movies no longer know what a good movie is"
6.6.11
QE3
QE3 or quantitative easing 3 is the latest hot topic that everyone is talking about especially after the gloomy outlook in the labour market in US as only 54,000 jobs were created last month compared to the projected number of 150,000. As a result, fear of recession come back and they (as usual) look at government to provide "free lunch".
So, til today, we have TARP or troubled assets Relief Program which worth US$ 700 billion and QE2 which worth 600 billion. These however do not include the trillions and trillions of US dollar "printed" by FEDS and created by commercial banks.
Federal Funds rate on the other hand has been keep at record low of 0-0.25% since December 2008. So, technically, money is free in US as the price and cost of money (interest rate) is zero. This situation is dangerously similar to Japan in the 1980's after the burst of real estate bubble. As a result, Japan has been in a liquidity trap for over 2 decades and still recovering.
US is dangerously close to either have hyperinflation, liquidity trap, or worse, both, depend on the sentiment of consumers. Another round of QE will almost guarantee liquidity trap as consumers and investors will not be stimulated by the easing of monetary policy. Zero interest rate policy implemented by the Feds certainly does not make the situation any better.
On the other hand, although consumer do not invest as illustrate by liquidity trap, they may spend more as more easy money come in. Unexpected increase in consumption may lead to inflation or even hyperinflation.
Either way US economy is looking gloomy now and QE3 will only end with a massive failure. It's crazy to expect different results with same method. So if TARP and QE2 did not work, how can QE3 work?
22.5.11
The Death of Motion Picture Part 2: 3D
Nowadays, almost 50% of the motion pictures are in 3D. Everybody seems to dig this 3D magic especially after the infamous Avatar which (almost) perfected the technology that started around 60 years ago. Now we even have 3D handheld gaming device called Nintendo 3DS where glasses are history.
However I think 3D will kill motion pictures.
First of all, the glasses. It is unbelievable that after 60 years, we still cannot watch a 3D movie without the stupid 3D glasses that are ridiculously pricey. A good pair of it will cost us more than US$150. Sure we can rent one for 2 hours in the cinema but it is unbelievably uncomfortable. Why can't they design the shape of 3D glasses according to human skull?!
Next, the existence of 3D increase the significance of visual effect and graphical quality in making and watching movie. The viewers demand more on the graphic and the movie makers try to fulfill it. However that's the problem: they concentrate so much on graphic and (usually) ignore the other (more important) aspect of a movie: directing, plot, story, acting, dialogue, audio, character etc.
Furthermore, many viewers can't distinguish between 3D and CG. Take Clash of the Titans for instance. The 3D effect in that movie is superbly crappy and few and far in between. Most action scene in that film is computer-generated graphic and not 3D. However, many people including some movie-reviewing media wrongly considered CG as 3D.
It's actually very easy to distinguish 3D from CG (and i know most of you know). Take off the glasses and if you still can see clearly, it's CG.
With that small amount of 3D effect in most films, the price of ticket increase significantly from their 2D counterpart. Without improvement in other aspects of film mentioned above, slight improvement in graphic department can't offset the increase in ticket price and eventually viewers will lose interest.
Nowadays almost everything is in 3D. Animated movies and action movies in particular. Do we need toy story, Shrekor How to Train a Dragon in 3D? How bout action movie? Clash of the Titan, The Last Airbender, or Piranha 3D. The 3D effect in these movies is added in post production and it's very crappy. Worse, these movies completely ignore other aspect of motion picture making them unbelievably bad.
How bout the amazingly overpriced 3DTV? Few thousand bucks and all we get is a TV with few crappy glasses and few movies? Is this a scam? Nintendo can make a glasses free handheld devices so why we still do not have a glasses free TV?
Yes, it's cool to have 3D movie and Avatar really let us know 3D can be good for movies but until they improve the overall quality of motion picture, 3D will kill the motion picture we love.
However I think 3D will kill motion pictures.
First of all, the glasses. It is unbelievable that after 60 years, we still cannot watch a 3D movie without the stupid 3D glasses that are ridiculously pricey. A good pair of it will cost us more than US$150. Sure we can rent one for 2 hours in the cinema but it is unbelievably uncomfortable. Why can't they design the shape of 3D glasses according to human skull?!
Next, the existence of 3D increase the significance of visual effect and graphical quality in making and watching movie. The viewers demand more on the graphic and the movie makers try to fulfill it. However that's the problem: they concentrate so much on graphic and (usually) ignore the other (more important) aspect of a movie: directing, plot, story, acting, dialogue, audio, character etc.
Furthermore, many viewers can't distinguish between 3D and CG. Take Clash of the Titans for instance. The 3D effect in that movie is superbly crappy and few and far in between. Most action scene in that film is computer-generated graphic and not 3D. However, many people including some movie-reviewing media wrongly considered CG as 3D.
It's actually very easy to distinguish 3D from CG (and i know most of you know). Take off the glasses and if you still can see clearly, it's CG.
With that small amount of 3D effect in most films, the price of ticket increase significantly from their 2D counterpart. Without improvement in other aspects of film mentioned above, slight improvement in graphic department can't offset the increase in ticket price and eventually viewers will lose interest.
Nowadays almost everything is in 3D. Animated movies and action movies in particular. Do we need toy story, Shrekor How to Train a Dragon in 3D? How bout action movie? Clash of the Titan, The Last Airbender, or Piranha 3D. The 3D effect in these movies is added in post production and it's very crappy. Worse, these movies completely ignore other aspect of motion picture making them unbelievably bad.
How bout the amazingly overpriced 3DTV? Few thousand bucks and all we get is a TV with few crappy glasses and few movies? Is this a scam? Nintendo can make a glasses free handheld devices so why we still do not have a glasses free TV?
Yes, it's cool to have 3D movie and Avatar really let us know 3D can be good for movies but until they improve the overall quality of motion picture, 3D will kill the motion picture we love.
17.5.11
What is Going On, PM Najib??
First, I am totally agree that economically, subsidy is inefficient in resources management. It artificially reduce the market price of goods and services and cause inequilibrium. Increasing fiscal spending in subsidy may also caused deficit in government budget and temporarily boost national output and may cause inflation in the long run.
Because of that, our PM policy make perfect sense. However, yesterday, our deputy prime minister announce that government will adjust the wages of certain teachers in Malaysia. These are the senior staff in teaching profession which mostly consist of principles in secondary school. Their wages will increase by RM 2500 to RM3000.
WHAT???
WHY???
First, RM 2500 to RM 3000 is around the average wages of a fresh degree holders in Malaysia. Furthermore, these beneficiaries are all senior staffs in which their wages already at such a high level. Increasing their wages will only causing inefficiency in teaching profession.
Besides, increasing wages of these senior staff will not increase welfare of population as they are minority with incredible level of wages.
Increment in fiscal spending by adjusting wages will have the same effect from macroeconomics point of view as subsidizing petrol. Increase in government spending will cause inflation in the same way.
When we further analyze the situation, more questions surface.
Subsidizing petrol will cause petrol price to stay low and since this is subsidy (and not price ceiling), quantity demanded and quantity supplied will not differ. So inequilibrium may not happen.
Furthermore, maintaining petrol price at low level will have positive effect on supply as cost of production for firms decrease. Increase in production, thus, increase in aggregate supply will cancel off certain portions of demand pull inflation (caused by subsidy) and inflation will be under control.
So, since we know that inflation will be a big macroeconomics problem, subsidy will moderately contributing to inflation while temporarily boost output while wages adjustment will contribute more to inflation and also temporarily boost output. It seems like an easy choice, isn't it?
Furthermore, maintaining petrol price will contribute more to the welfare of Malaysian than wages adjustment since only around 400,000 of teachers in Malaysia and of this 400,000 teachers, only around 1228 of them will get wages adjustment. However we have around 19 million vehicle in Malaysia. Assume some of Malaysian own more than 1 car, it is safe to assume we have at least 5 million car owners.
So, there we go. Subsidy vs Wages increment. Subsidy is better in efficiency and equality. It is more efficient in economy and better welfare in economy as well.
16.5.11
Petrol Price Analysis: The case of Malaysia
Petrol price is the headlines of today as our deputy PM mentioned about the rise in subsidy and hint on the hike of oil price. This will be the headline of Malaysia at least until the end of the year. Air Asia also started the oil surcharge a week ago.
However, very few people in Malaysia seems to understand this problem and will just complain about any adjustment in the petrol price especially petrol price hike. Because of that, I will try to analyse the scenario of petrol price in Malaysia and try to justify the subsidy spending of our government.
As of 11.30 AM today (16/5/2011), the WTI crude oil price is trading at US$98.78 / barrel.
So what's that in Malaysia RM/litre petrol price?
Since 1 oil barrel = 158.99 litres and RM / US$ = 3.0385 as of the same time, crude oil price in Malaysia is at:
(98.78 / 158.99) x 3.0385 = RM 1.888 / litre.
Currently the RON 95 petrol is sold at RM 1.90 / litre while the RON 97 is sold at RM 2.90 / litre.
So, what's the problem when crude oil price is below the selling price of RON95 and RON97?
Of course there are processing and refining costs of crude oil but these costs are fixed costs and are minimally affect the actual costs of per litre petrol. The variable costs of labour is also way too small to include in our estimation.
Since Malaysia is a oil producing country, and when crude oil price is below petrol selling price, why do we need a price hike?
The significant costs of petrol firms in Malaysia such as Shell and Caltex are non-operating costs such as marketing costs, advertising costs, etc. They spend way too much on marketing and advertising that caused their total costs and average costs to rise beyond crude oil price. Subsidy therefore will rise as well.
So back to our question: should petro price rise in Malaysia?
No.
Instead of lowering subsidy and increase the petrol price, government should control or eliminate the marketing and advertising costs of oil firms. By doing so, per litre petrol cost will drop significantly and the current petrol price can be maintained.
The fear and threat of inflation has forced Bank Negara Malaysia to have a rate hike of our Overnight Policy Rate by 25 basis point to 3 percent. This is undoubtedly increase the saving rate as return of saving increase.
Since the equilibrium of Macroeconomics is all about Expenditure = Saving or Injection = Leakages, with the increase in saving, the public expenditure (subsidy) will not be a big problem now as compared to inflationary force.
In the end, using economic analysis or simple mathematics calculation, I think petrol price should not be rise and the opportunity cost of increasing petrol price surpass benefit of reducing subsidy.
However, very few people in Malaysia seems to understand this problem and will just complain about any adjustment in the petrol price especially petrol price hike. Because of that, I will try to analyse the scenario of petrol price in Malaysia and try to justify the subsidy spending of our government.
As of 11.30 AM today (16/5/2011), the WTI crude oil price is trading at US$98.78 / barrel.
So what's that in Malaysia RM/litre petrol price?
Since 1 oil barrel = 158.99 litres and RM / US$ = 3.0385 as of the same time, crude oil price in Malaysia is at:
(98.78 / 158.99) x 3.0385 = RM 1.888 / litre.
Currently the RON 95 petrol is sold at RM 1.90 / litre while the RON 97 is sold at RM 2.90 / litre.
So, what's the problem when crude oil price is below the selling price of RON95 and RON97?
Of course there are processing and refining costs of crude oil but these costs are fixed costs and are minimally affect the actual costs of per litre petrol. The variable costs of labour is also way too small to include in our estimation.
Since Malaysia is a oil producing country, and when crude oil price is below petrol selling price, why do we need a price hike?
The significant costs of petrol firms in Malaysia such as Shell and Caltex are non-operating costs such as marketing costs, advertising costs, etc. They spend way too much on marketing and advertising that caused their total costs and average costs to rise beyond crude oil price. Subsidy therefore will rise as well.
So back to our question: should petro price rise in Malaysia?
No.
Instead of lowering subsidy and increase the petrol price, government should control or eliminate the marketing and advertising costs of oil firms. By doing so, per litre petrol cost will drop significantly and the current petrol price can be maintained.
The fear and threat of inflation has forced Bank Negara Malaysia to have a rate hike of our Overnight Policy Rate by 25 basis point to 3 percent. This is undoubtedly increase the saving rate as return of saving increase.
Since the equilibrium of Macroeconomics is all about Expenditure = Saving or Injection = Leakages, with the increase in saving, the public expenditure (subsidy) will not be a big problem now as compared to inflationary force.
In the end, using economic analysis or simple mathematics calculation, I think petrol price should not be rise and the opportunity cost of increasing petrol price surpass benefit of reducing subsidy.
14.5.11
The Death of Motion Picture
Today, in my opinion, motion pictures, aka movie, is dead.
Not dying but dead.
The reason is simple. People do not watch good movies anymore. They prefer garbage over good movies. As a result, our cinema is flooded with tons and tons of garbage and only handful of good movies.
The main reason this phenomenon happens is because of obsession to action for those who watch movie. For some reason, action is the most important element in a movie and they willing to pay their hard earned money to watch anything with action, crappy or not.
They totally ignore other (more) important aspects of movie, such as acting, directing, pace, dialogue, story, character development, detail linking main plot etc.
As a result, nowadays we are flooded with movies like Transformers (1 and 2), green hornet, 2012, clash of the titans, G. I. Joe and other superbly crappy movie that have nothing but action scenes which I personally do not think they manage to excel at.
A good action movie does not have to be flooded with action scenes. Look at some great action movies such as die hard, star wars or Indiana Jones. The action scene in these movies are few and far between which will create suspense and excitement.
Of course in the last 5 years, we do have several great action movies such as Avatar, The Dark Knight, Inception, kick ass etc. but the ratio of bad action movies and good action movies is at amazingly high level.
Nowadays, the only way a movie can make the box office list is either action movie or animated movie. The rest, although they may receive critical acclaimed, will never get anywhere near the top. Movies such as The Way Back, 127 Hours, The King's Speech and social network did not really shine in the ticketing department.
Looking ahead, I do not see anyway this scenario will change. Action movies (no matter how crappy they are) will rule the world of motion pictures. With the release of Transformers 3, X-men first class, pirate of the Caribbean 4, and captain America, let just hope that they will not be that bad!!
Not dying but dead.
The reason is simple. People do not watch good movies anymore. They prefer garbage over good movies. As a result, our cinema is flooded with tons and tons of garbage and only handful of good movies.
The main reason this phenomenon happens is because of obsession to action for those who watch movie. For some reason, action is the most important element in a movie and they willing to pay their hard earned money to watch anything with action, crappy or not.
They totally ignore other (more) important aspects of movie, such as acting, directing, pace, dialogue, story, character development, detail linking main plot etc.
As a result, nowadays we are flooded with movies like Transformers (1 and 2), green hornet, 2012, clash of the titans, G. I. Joe and other superbly crappy movie that have nothing but action scenes which I personally do not think they manage to excel at.
A good action movie does not have to be flooded with action scenes. Look at some great action movies such as die hard, star wars or Indiana Jones. The action scene in these movies are few and far between which will create suspense and excitement.
Of course in the last 5 years, we do have several great action movies such as Avatar, The Dark Knight, Inception, kick ass etc. but the ratio of bad action movies and good action movies is at amazingly high level.
Nowadays, the only way a movie can make the box office list is either action movie or animated movie. The rest, although they may receive critical acclaimed, will never get anywhere near the top. Movies such as The Way Back, 127 Hours, The King's Speech and social network did not really shine in the ticketing department.
Looking ahead, I do not see anyway this scenario will change. Action movies (no matter how crappy they are) will rule the world of motion pictures. With the release of Transformers 3, X-men first class, pirate of the Caribbean 4, and captain America, let just hope that they will not be that bad!!
10.5.11
6 / 2 (1 + 2)
Recently such a mathematics question suddenly becoming a hit on and off the internet. Everybody seems to have the answer and everybody is confident of their answer. Various mathematics experts commented on it and it continues to be a hot topic.
The biggest problem with this question is the answer, 1 or 9. Some say 9 is the answer as:
6 / 2 (3) = 3 (3) = 9
which follows the order of operation, BODMAS which stand for branket, order, division and multiplication, addition and subtraction or PEMDAS which stand for parentheses, exponential, multiplication and division, addition and subtraction.
However, from my point of view, which I am certain I am correct, the answer should be 1.
WHY???
The reason is simple. Let me first tell you why 9 is incorrect. Most people think that since 2 is not in a parenthesis with (1+ 2), then we should do 6/2 first before multiply by 3 in the parenthesis but this is incorrect.
Any number before a parenthesis is called coefficient or parameter. In mathematics, we should solve the parameter first before solving other operation. To better emphasize my point, let's replace the (1 + 2) with (x), so the problem will be:
6 / 2 (x)
Now since 2 is the coefficient of x, so we should solve 2 (x) first which equals to 2x and then solve the rest which is
6 / 2x = 3 / x
Since x = 1 + 2 = 3, so
3 / 3 = 1
The biggest problem with this question is the answer, 1 or 9. Some say 9 is the answer as:
6 / 2 (3) = 3 (3) = 9
which follows the order of operation, BODMAS which stand for branket, order, division and multiplication, addition and subtraction or PEMDAS which stand for parentheses, exponential, multiplication and division, addition and subtraction.
However, from my point of view, which I am certain I am correct, the answer should be 1.
WHY???
The reason is simple. Let me first tell you why 9 is incorrect. Most people think that since 2 is not in a parenthesis with (1+ 2), then we should do 6/2 first before multiply by 3 in the parenthesis but this is incorrect.
Any number before a parenthesis is called coefficient or parameter. In mathematics, we should solve the parameter first before solving other operation. To better emphasize my point, let's replace the (1 + 2) with (x), so the problem will be:
6 / 2 (x)
Now since 2 is the coefficient of x, so we should solve 2 (x) first which equals to 2x and then solve the rest which is
6 / 2x = 3 / x
Since x = 1 + 2 = 3, so
3 / 3 = 1
8.5.11
Singapore General Election 2011: Good Job Singaporean!!
Finally, after more than 4 decades as a nation, Singapore residents realize and show their government how they feel which is something they did not manage to do for the last 15 times.
Singapore government is not a bad government. There are countless governments that are way worse than them.
However that's not the point. The point is government is inefficient and the smaller the government, the better that nation will be.
We all know that Singapore government is among the biggest government in the world for their nation and the closest to socialism for a democratic government. They control most of the resources of Singapore through their massive state owned firm called Temasek group which hold most of the blue chip firms of that nation. As a result, Singapore government spend around 75% on operating spending and the rest on development spending since 1965 (the last budget, budget of 2011 - 73.8% on operating spending and the rest on development spending).
This scenario can happen primarily of the "amazingly" high wages received by Singapore public servant. As we all known (look at my previous post), Singapore prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, is the highest earning executive political leader in the world with US$3,122,982 ( S$/US$ = 0.807 as of today) which is ridiculous for an economy that only has an annual GDP of US$ 245 Billion (2010). That is especially ridiculous when that data is compared to the wages of other political leader around the world (refer to my earlier post).
Furthermore, Singapore economy are not as well maintained as many people thinks. Refer to the Macroeconomic objectives, we can see why:
1) Stable economy growth.
Singapore economy are growing fast but not stable. Refer to subprime crisis of 2007/8, their economy shrank more than 10% which is an indicator of poor and unstable economy (compare to their nearest economy, Malaysia, which only shrank by 3.5%). This is mainly due to their dependency to international trade and amazingly high labour and capital mobility which may be good during healthy economy scenario but not during crisis.
2) High employment.
Singapore unemployment rate in 2010 was 3.1% which is around the same Malaysia (3.4%) and much lower than unemployment rate of 8.9% for US during the same period.
3) Price stability
Singapore inflation rate in 2010 was 2.8% which is slightly higher than most economies during the same period but not significantly. (Malaysia = 0.6%)
4) External Balance.
Singapore is excellent in international trade. The Balance of Payment of Singapore for 2010 recorded a surplus of around S$57 billion. The current account excel with surplus of more than S$67 billion. This is an indicator that Singapore net export is superbly contributing to their economy.During the same period, balance of payment of Malaysia is around RM80 billion surplus.
Equally distribution of wealth, high productivity, sound currency do not yield excellent result for Singapore too. Singapore is not particularly good with Gini coefficient (indicator of income gap) of 42.5 which is the highest in Asia beside Hong Kong (higher Gini coefficient = higher income gap). Malaysia has Gini of 37.9 which is way better than Singapore. Amazingly 42.5 is even worse than many poor third world nations such as Trinidad and Tobago (40.3), Sri Langka (41.1), and cambodia (40.7).
High productivity of labour also does not shine for Singapore as one third of Singapore population are foreigners and majority of that are from Malaysia. As a result, productivity of labour in Singapore is insignificant.
Sound currency. Singapore dollar is a resilient currency against major currencies in the world including USD, Euro and Pound but it is not particularly brilliant compared to major asia currencies such as Ringgit, Rupiah and Baht. From January 2006 until May 2011, SGD appreciates between 0-6 percent against China RMB, Malaysia Ringgit, Cambodia Riel, Indonesia Rupiah and Thai Baht.
So, Singapore economy are not particularly and significant better than their neighbour such as Malaysia but yet the Prime minister of Singapore receives 40,700 percent higher wages than Malaysia prime minister (US$ 7640). This is clearly the sign of socialism or communism where Government control majority of resources and private sectors are discriminated.
TO CONCLUDE, WELL DONE SINGAPOREAN IN THE LAST GENERAL ELECTION. WHETHER YOU DECREASE THE MAJORITY OF THE RULING PARTY BECAUSE YOU SEE THE PROBLEM FACED BY SINGAPORE IS NOT IMPORTANT. THE POINT IS PAP NOW KNOW THAT SINGAPOREAN STARTED TO CHANGE. THE PROCESS MAY TAKE TIME BUT EVENTUALLY THE RULING PARTY WILL NOT ACT AS A SOCIALISM GOVERNMENT AND THIS WILL SURELY BE A POSITIVE CHANGE FOR SINGAPORE
5.5.11
Malaysia & Hong Kong(or probably world)'s Highway Drivers!!
I am terribly dissapointed with the drivers on highway of Malaysia and Hong Kong (since I used these 2 only). Their on the road attitutes are unforgiving and downright crazy. They complain all the time about collisions are caused by external factors (such as road condition, weather etc.) but in reality, majority of the collisions are caused by drivers themselves. Since I used the services of highway all the time, here are the top 5 reasons why collisions happens.
Number 5: headlight off during rain.
From my observation, majority of drivers on highway do not turn on their headlight even when we have heavy rain and darken environment. Even worse is when they turn on their dashboard light and not the headlight. What's the point? saving electricity? or just too plain stupid to notice that other cars (especially cars in front of you) may not be able to see you clearly?
Number 4: reckless heavy vehicle drivers.
This one is directed to heavy vehicle drivers such as lorry drivers. Do you know you are relatively slower and bigger than everything else on the highway so can you stay on the left all the time? What's the reason to overtake? Save few minutes? Besides, for bus drivers, do you know that buses are considered as heavy vehicle as well? can you do what lorry drivers should do?
Number 3: Signals lights
It's ok to overtake when the situation is safe but can you give some signals to other vehicle by flashing you signal lights. How hard is it to push the black cylinder on the back of your steering wheel? Based of my observation, more than 95% of overtake in highway of Malaysia and Hong Kong do not flash their signal lights when they are overtaking.
Number 2: Overtaking
It's not ok to overtake when the situation is not safe (safe to overtake = no vehicle is 2 seconds in front or behind of you on the right/outside lane). It's not ok to overtake from the left. It's not ok to overtake and block ambulances. However, highway drivers do it all the time. How much time can be safe by overtaking a car? How sure are you that you can overtake safely? Why gamble lifes of you, your love one and other drivers simply to save 5 minutes?
Number 1: Speed
Everybody knows higher speed = lower reaction time = more likely to have collision = more likely to have more severe collision. You may think that your reaction time is fast and relatively safer when drive fast but you can always do better if drive slowly. Which one is more important, save 5 minutes or safe arrival? altough the chance of collision may be small but why take the chance? the opportunity cost of driving fast is too high that probably only stupid people will choose to do it.
Of course other attitute problems not mentioned here can also cause collision but these are the 5 that happens most often from my observation. The biggest problem for highway safety is attitute problem can be on everyone regardless of their race, religion, education background, work, gender etc.
So did you do any of those actions and if you do, ask yourself, it is worthy?
28.4.11
How Long Does It Take?
How long does it take before Ben Bernanke realise that inflation is the main concern of world economy for the next 10 years. How long does it take before Ben Bernanke realise that US is getting close on the famous "liquidity trap" that hit Japan around 2 decades ago. How long does it take for Ben Bernanke to realise that prices of everything around us are heading for the sky? How long does it take before Ben Bernanke understand the concept of "artificial demand" and scarsity?
How long does it take, Ben?
The answer?
Never!
Why?
Well Bernanke is a Phd holder in Economics. Although he is a full-blooded Keynesian, I am sure he heard one thing or two about classical, neo-classical, monetarist and new-classical theories of potential GDP and Ricardo Equivalence etc.
He announced yesterday that FED will keep the stimulus going indicating that the key interest rate will be held at 0-0.25% range for god know how long.
He also said "if inflation persist or if inflation expectations begin to move, then there's no substitute for action....... we will have to respond"
Well Mr. Bernanke, why do you think gold prices rise above $1530/oz? why do you think silver rise above 48.50/oz? Why do you think every commodity (marketable or not marketable) rise at least 50% from their low (most even exceed the previous high and historical high) eventhough economy is going marginally better (well according to Bernanke, at least)?
Inflation expectation has been going up to the moon. US dollar is going to thru the floor. All the signs you need for an outbreak of inflation.
However, the smart people in the Federal Reserve do not think so. They still think inflation / inflation expectation is under control and each month they announce inflation rate using their "formula" that only insane people will believe.
So what should we do to protect ourselves from the rage of inflation, liquidity trap (in US) and the insanenity of Bernenke?
Well historically, when a nation is experiencing hyperinflation (or very high inflation), financial assets tend to rise faster than the inflation rate.
So, put your money on inflation protected assets. precious metal is the number one choices (as mentioned by me many many times already). Gold can't exceed 5000? silver can't exceed 500? Let wait and see!
Besides that, choose commodity that their demand has been artificially increased yet the supply is going nowhere. Grains such as wheat, corn, rise and barley would be nice choices as well.
Manage you money well or get trap in the dead sea of inflation!
Most Eventful Month In My Life!!!
April of 2011 will go down as the busiest and most eventful month in my life. Good, bad, happy, sad, busy, pain...... everything!
Finished 4 papers in which 2 of them will be published, 4 comprehensive examination (in which one of them going to the dustbin as garbage already), learned superbly hard and amazingly boring theories, studying econometrics methods that are complicated as hell (anybody who is expert in nonlinear panel analysis please help me), preparing for 2 more seminar in the month of May which require more fine-tuning, and had an motorcycle accident 2 days ago.
Anybody can beat that? I am interesting to know!
Anyway, the accident kinda slow me down little bit as both of my legs are bruised and in quite severe pain. The right one has been burned by the exhaust pipe result in second + third degree burn.
Since I can't move around so much, finally I have time to write something here after abandoning it for so long.
Hopefully the coming months will be full of exciting stuffs and less of the bad stuffs (No ADVANCE MICROECONOMICS PLEASE!!!!!)
28.3.11
A Week in Hell
Last week was hell for me as i suffered a terrible illness. Fever, cough, joint paint, flu, sore throat and ulcers. Everything else is ok except for ulcers. I had sore throat and throat ulcers (2 of them) at the same time. Those ulcers were killing me. A relatively small ulcer was at the right side of my throat and a much bigger one on the left side. They caused some pain in my ears too. When i went to a doctor, he told me that those are not throat ulcers but rather just mouth ulcers at the back of the mouth. There are no solution as they were caused by virus infection and antibiotics won't do. The only thing that I can do is let my own immunity system take over and heal by itself. Since those ulcers were at the back of my mouth and I can't touch it, it's impossible to apply any medical gel such as Bonjela to them. I tried everything: various herbal teas, Ribena, milk, salted water (gargle or drink), magic powder, drink crazy amount of plain water (> 20 litres per day), various lozenges (from cheap $3 dollars per half dozens to expensive $40 per half dozens), various cough syrups, honey (pure honey and diluted with water), vitamin C, B12 and B2 supplements, various gargle solutions, listerine etc. but nothing work at all Well it took me 4 days and 3 nights to recover from those damn ulcers (although everything else went away in the first day). I count not eat anything for the first 2 days and able to take some chowder in day 3. Very minimum sleep during that period as well. I just realize that such as small problems (mouth ulcers way down in the throat) can cause such an immense pain that turn my life upside down last week. THANKSFULLY they are gone and healthy life could not be sweeter. Health is probably the most undervalued assets in mankind history. A small health problem and immediately everything collapse in from of us and that's it. Wish everyone a healthy life ahead and forever!!!
17.3.11
What A Game!!!!!
Recently I am busy as hell. 4 researches paper pending!
However I still took the time to watch yesterday UCL and all I can say is WHAT A GAME!!!
Who said Italian football is doom? Who said Italian football is boring? Who say Italian football is all about defense?
Bayern Mucich vs Inter yesterday was one of the best match in UCL history and perhaps, football history.
First half belonged to Bayern and second half belonged to Inter and they took their chances. Eto'o was fantastic. Although his first goal was offside, he scored one and set up 2. Bayern got tonnes and tonnes of chances and they could easily score five or six but they blew it.
In the end, it was a hell of a football game and any football fans should watch it and here's the highlight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLOU5YWzok0
However I still took the time to watch yesterday UCL and all I can say is WHAT A GAME!!!
Who said Italian football is doom? Who said Italian football is boring? Who say Italian football is all about defense?
Bayern Mucich vs Inter yesterday was one of the best match in UCL history and perhaps, football history.
First half belonged to Bayern and second half belonged to Inter and they took their chances. Eto'o was fantastic. Although his first goal was offside, he scored one and set up 2. Bayern got tonnes and tonnes of chances and they could easily score five or six but they blew it.
In the end, it was a hell of a football game and any football fans should watch it and here's the highlight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLOU5YWzok0
28.2.11
The Death of Italy Football???
is 2011 the year which Italy football die?
Italian clubs perform very poorly during the season with all their Uefa Europa League contenders eliminated (last surviving club was Napoli which was defeated by Villareal). All 3 of Italy representatives in Uefa Champions' League, AC Milan, Roma and Inter lost their home game and are expected to be eliminated. Italy serie A is officially ranked number 4 in Europe behind Spanish La Liga, English Premier League and German Bundesliga. There are speculation that Serie A will fall behind French Ligue 1 soon.
I started watching football since 1990 and 1990's was the decade where Italy football is the king of the world. Some call it "world cup league". The greatest and best football player played there.
From 1990 to 1999, European football was dominated by Italian Clubs. Uefa Champions' League (previously called European Cup), Europa Cup (at the time it was called Uefa Cup) and European Cup winners' Cup (now cancelled) were superbly dominated by Italian teams. Of the 10 UCL finals during that decade, Italian clubs played in 8 of them (only 1991 and 1999 saw no Italian representative).
Domestically, Italian serie A was the most watched and most exciting football league in the world. During the time, there were 7 giant clubs that controlled the serie A and any of the 7 teams could win it. Juventus, Inter, AC Milan, Fiorentina, Parma, Lazio and Roma were all giant teams in Europe winning multiple championships. Competition in serie A at the time was fierce and colourful. Player like Zinedine Zidane, Gabriel Batistuta, lothar Matthaus, Roberto Baggio, Ronaldo, Alessandro Del Piero and countless others pushed serie A to the top of the football world by substantial margin.
Today, serie A is just a boring and lifeless league full with teams that have no chance of competing in Europe and heavily in debt. Even the big teams like Milan and Juventus failed to keep up with the rest of the world especially clubs from Spain, England and Germany.
Inter is the only good team in Italy, winning last season UCL. However since the departure of Jose Maurinho, Inter, under the hand of Rafael Benitez and Leonardo, is slowly move towards mediocre European club.
So how can Italian Clubs improve?
1) Financial Management. The main reason Italian football fell into today's slump is poor financial management. Teams overspent every year and eventually, they did not money to even pay the wages of players. Invest wisely for players, focus more on player development and most importantly, attract foreign investors that can inject large sums of money (remember how Chelsea become a giant today).
2) Balance domestic league and European competition. Italian clubs generally focus more on domestic league. Focusing on European competition can attract fans outside Italy and ultimately increase number of viewers for Italian football.
3) Constantly changing. teams in Italian football need to change constantly to keep up with the pace of Spanish and English football. Tactics, technique, skills, mentality etc. need to have constant changes.
4) Marketing. Football need fans and Italy alone do not have enough fans. Marketing will attract fans outside Italy and revenue from sales and TV rights will improve. English football is the prime example of excellent marketing. Before mid 1990's English football was far inferior compared to serie A but now, they are wee superior.
5) Winning matches. Ultimately, football is about winning and winning is the best way of attracting fans.
Can Italian football overcome their recent slump or will 2011 be the death of italy football? I favor the first.
24.2.11
What really cause the fall???
Recently financial market take a big hit. Except for certain commodity markets (energy, precious metal), markets around the world tumbling significantly. We all know about the Egypt problem, China rate hike issue and currently Libya issue. However are these issue the reason market take such a big hit?
NO!
Markets have been rising constantly since the crisis 2007/2008. US markets are around 15% of the high in October of 2007. Some markets even surpass the 2007 high with significant margin. Since we know stock market is the reflection of real economics, one must wonder are we near the economic condition of 2006 or even better than 2006?
NO!
We are nowhere near 2006. We are not even close to it. In fact global economy today is worse than 2001 or 1993. So the question is why global financial markets keep on rising?
HOT MONEY!
Markets rising are not caused by improvement in real sector or monetary market, but only caused by hot money generated by unresponsible central bankers and hugely leveraged commercial and investment banks.
So why now?
We had similar problem before this. Greek debt issue, Dubai default, China inflation concern...... none of these caused any problem to the overall markets. Markets merely sniffed and continue higher. So why Egypt and Libya can cause such a big fuss?
Markets responce significantly on such issues shows that there are weaknesses in the bullish trend that we are having in recently run. The Egypt and Libya issues are just a need "the straw that broke the camels back". Markets are heavily overbought in monthly scale with RSI of over 80 for most of stock markets. Dividend per price for stocks are at historical low. VIX index just had a double bottom indicating risk incoming and volume of hot money is in trillions. Real portfolio investment data around the world shows that increment of 100% since 2009.
So, even without the Egypt and Libya problems, it is very likely that markets will have a U-turn. At the moment it is unclear whether the middle east political problem can cause any significant contraction to financial markets globally but the reality is there: we will have a huge contraction or at least, a significant retracement that will bring us back at least 30% of current level.
NO!
Markets have been rising constantly since the crisis 2007/2008. US markets are around 15% of the high in October of 2007. Some markets even surpass the 2007 high with significant margin. Since we know stock market is the reflection of real economics, one must wonder are we near the economic condition of 2006 or even better than 2006?
NO!
We are nowhere near 2006. We are not even close to it. In fact global economy today is worse than 2001 or 1993. So the question is why global financial markets keep on rising?
HOT MONEY!
Markets rising are not caused by improvement in real sector or monetary market, but only caused by hot money generated by unresponsible central bankers and hugely leveraged commercial and investment banks.
So why now?
We had similar problem before this. Greek debt issue, Dubai default, China inflation concern...... none of these caused any problem to the overall markets. Markets merely sniffed and continue higher. So why Egypt and Libya can cause such a big fuss?
Markets responce significantly on such issues shows that there are weaknesses in the bullish trend that we are having in recently run. The Egypt and Libya issues are just a need "the straw that broke the camels back". Markets are heavily overbought in monthly scale with RSI of over 80 for most of stock markets. Dividend per price for stocks are at historical low. VIX index just had a double bottom indicating risk incoming and volume of hot money is in trillions. Real portfolio investment data around the world shows that increment of 100% since 2009.
So, even without the Egypt and Libya problems, it is very likely that markets will have a U-turn. At the moment it is unclear whether the middle east political problem can cause any significant contraction to financial markets globally but the reality is there: we will have a huge contraction or at least, a significant retracement that will bring us back at least 30% of current level.
31.1.11
VIX
This is the weekly chart of VIX or volatility index. Every indicator on this chart (Macd, Stochastics, double bottom etc.) shows a bullish outlook. So if VIX is bullish, chances are stocks are bearish. Lookout!
30.1.11
3 Great Movies
Watched 3 movies this weekend. 1 at cinema and 2 on DVD. All 3 are great movies so I plan to share my thought here. Btw as predicted market is going south (with or without the Egypt problem). Commodity had a great rally thought (slv!!!)
1. The Way Back.
The way back is a great movie. IMO it excel in 3 areas: directing, acting and story. I think this is Peter Weir best work ever and he done a fantastic job of turning The Way Back into one of the must-watch movie.
Acting is also superb. Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan and rest of the cast are all amazing. It is their acting that make this fictional story believable.
Story is also another superb element of the film. The main storyline is good but the real clever part of the story is the interaction between characters.
However, they are some "not-so-good" part in the film. The opening part is boring and too long. There are some unnecessary characters and the ending is pretty stupid. (spoiler alert! go back to Poland after 1989? lol)
Great movie, 8.5/10.
2. Buried.
I didn't go to watch this at cinema and it was a bad decision. The movie is great in its genre. The real clever part of this movie is the originality of it. 1 actor, 1 location, 1 simple story. That's it.
Ryan Reynolds I think did a good job. Although he is overreacted in some parts, overall his acting is believable. Director Rodrigo Cortes manage to turn this into something exciting and suspenseful.
For me the best part is the ending. Although many critics and viewers criticize the ending, I think it is great. Spoiler alert! When the guy said sorry they found Mark White instead of Paul Conroy, it is a dagger to the heart and will leave a much longer memory on the viewers than simply a successful rescue.
There are some flaws with this film like the snake part is really stupid and the joke about voice mail is dump as hell. Still a great movie. 8/10
3. 127 Hours.
Unfortunately in Malaysia, this movie still hasn't screened yet. This is a fantastic film based on a true events. Most elements of this film are superbly done. James Franco is amazing. He deserves the oscar this year. His portray of Aron Ralston is both funny and merciful. Unbeatable performance.
Director Danny Doyle is great and manage to keep the 90+ minutes movie entertaining with only 1 actor.
The beginning of the film is probably the weak part of this film and the inclusive of that 2 females is bad and boring.
The film should get 8 or 8.5 but because of Franco I will give it 9/10. One of the best movie of the decade for sure.
Next movie for me (at cinema) is probably sucker punch (kick ass trailer!!!).
1. The Way Back.
The way back is a great movie. IMO it excel in 3 areas: directing, acting and story. I think this is Peter Weir best work ever and he done a fantastic job of turning The Way Back into one of the must-watch movie.
Acting is also superb. Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan and rest of the cast are all amazing. It is their acting that make this fictional story believable.
Story is also another superb element of the film. The main storyline is good but the real clever part of the story is the interaction between characters.
However, they are some "not-so-good" part in the film. The opening part is boring and too long. There are some unnecessary characters and the ending is pretty stupid. (spoiler alert! go back to Poland after 1989? lol)
Great movie, 8.5/10.
2. Buried.
I didn't go to watch this at cinema and it was a bad decision. The movie is great in its genre. The real clever part of this movie is the originality of it. 1 actor, 1 location, 1 simple story. That's it.
Ryan Reynolds I think did a good job. Although he is overreacted in some parts, overall his acting is believable. Director Rodrigo Cortes manage to turn this into something exciting and suspenseful.
For me the best part is the ending. Although many critics and viewers criticize the ending, I think it is great. Spoiler alert! When the guy said sorry they found Mark White instead of Paul Conroy, it is a dagger to the heart and will leave a much longer memory on the viewers than simply a successful rescue.
There are some flaws with this film like the snake part is really stupid and the joke about voice mail is dump as hell. Still a great movie. 8/10
3. 127 Hours.
Unfortunately in Malaysia, this movie still hasn't screened yet. This is a fantastic film based on a true events. Most elements of this film are superbly done. James Franco is amazing. He deserves the oscar this year. His portray of Aron Ralston is both funny and merciful. Unbeatable performance.
Director Danny Doyle is great and manage to keep the 90+ minutes movie entertaining with only 1 actor.
The beginning of the film is probably the weak part of this film and the inclusive of that 2 females is bad and boring.
The film should get 8 or 8.5 but because of Franco I will give it 9/10. One of the best movie of the decade for sure.
Next movie for me (at cinema) is probably sucker punch (kick ass trailer!!!).
21.1.11
Beginning of the End?
Yesterday was a significant day in financial markets. Although stock markets across the globe weren't badly affected (Europe markets were the relatively underperformer).
However commodity markets were severely affected. energy decreased more than 2% and precious metal decreased more than 1%.
The most important indicator, copper, gave up more than 2% as well.
Bearish sentiments are all around every corner. Although firms' earnings are good, they are past data. Quantitative easing 2 (QE2) is not likely to save the economy from going south.
From technical, financial and economics point of view, there is no way the stock markets can maintain at current level. The contraction or at least correction that were predicted by many analyst last year is still pending. All we got last year was some small downs and mostly marginally increases.
Unemployment stay high across the developed nations, China inflationary pressure and artificial expansion of monetary aggregates. All of these can only lead to lower stock markets.
So, can we gain from all these?
(1) Hold as many money in risk free (or minimum risk) assets as possible.
(2) Invest in dividend yield firms in minimum exposure markets (such as New Zealand or Indonesia).
(3) Short the over inflated markets (almost every markets lol)
(4) Wait to buy any commodities when the prices are reasonable (I prefer silver and sugar)
Just think for a second: markets around the world has risen at least 100% from their lows and at most 40% of their high in 2007 but the economy are going nowhere in the past 3 years (at least for developed nations). How can stock markets keep getting better??
17.1.11
Private vs Public Universities, The Case Of Malaysia
As a part time lecturer in one of the private universities in Malaysia, I get this question all the time. Generally students think that private universities are better than public universities. I disagree so here are my brief analysis on private and public universities in Malaysia.
In Malaysia, public university are non-profit organisation partially funded by central government and private university are profit based non-government coorperation. The followings are (for me) the advantages of public university:
(a) Academic stuff. Since 2010, public university have over 80% of their academic stuff are Phd or Phd candidate while less than 20% of private university academic stuff fall under that category. Phd graduates academic stuff may not be the best lecturer / tutor, but they are most likely to be better researcher.
(b) Research. Just look at the thesis done by private university student and public university student and you'll imediately know why public universities is better. I have the access for Master level thesis of some private universities in Malaysia and most of them are worse than undergraduate level thesis for public universities.
(c) Facilities. Since public universities are non-profit organisation and partially funded by government, their facilities are much better than private universities'. The library and database of public universities are incomparable.
(d) Students. In Malaysia, generally we have a tradition: The very best high school / secondary school graduates will study oversea in foreign universities. The next level of graduates will study in public universities and the rest will end up in private universities. This is happening as private universities tends to accept weaker students for higher profit. Because of that, public universities have much better competition among students and the environment of study is better too.
Private universities are catching up to public universities but they have a long way to go before they reach the level of public universities. As long as they can't improve on those areas, they will never surpass public universities.
9.1.11
A Freeman is captured
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