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?

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!!!!!)

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!!!

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

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.

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.