Another weekend

It was a fun weekend out on in New York City again.  On Friday, I finally met up with Sinan after not seeing each other for over 2 years now in the city.  We met up briefly in the New York Auto Show before heading out for dinner at Max Brenner near Union Square with him and his friends.  Although its been two years, it was definitely great seeing him again and learning that he is working on making things happen for him.  I don’t mind going out of my way to hang out since we both have busy schedules and there is a strong possibility that he may relocate in search of new opportunities.  He is very approachable, level-headed, and can read people.

At Max Brenners, we waited for about an hour while trying out free samples of Mexican Hot Chocolate and caramel chocolates while waiting.  After we were seated, it was generally agreed that we would just run with getting the sweets as dinner instead of a real meal since we are in Max Brenner anyway.  Sinan decided to order a full chocolate pizza pie, which was a cookie dough pie with chocolate for tomato sauce, marshmallows for cheese, and hazelnut bits for the toppings while I ordered a munchies waffle which was waffles mixed with chocolate ice creams, chocolate sauce and chocolate bits.  I think it was safe to say that almost everyone at the table was completely full from eating the sweets despite their seemingly small portions.

I think that although the get together seemed brief, the fact that we were able to pick up where we left off and the fact that both of us were willing to go out of our way to make the gathering happen shows how strong the overall friendship is regardless of other complications.  Its things like this that make friendships real.

Saturday was a day at the NY Auto Show with Bill and later for a night of karaoke with Hiromi, who joined us later.  The auto show was fun while I lost my voice from 2 hours of Karaoke.

Sigh…

I try not to set myself up for disappointment.  Sometimes it happens and it can be avoided for the most part…

Cute!

World: Taiwanese are officially sane again

As of this writing, Taiwan has elected Ma Yingjiu to become the third elected leader of Taiwan against the pro-war candidate Frank Hsieh.  Although the issues of Tibet and the United Nations were made into key issues by the pro-war and pro-independence camps, it was the economy that became the main issue in this election.  The legislative elections in the early part of the year had already brought a 2/3rds majority to the Kuomintang and this recent presidential election has brought them the executive branch.

Many non-Chinese expats often made delusional claims that Frank Hsieh was going to easily triumph over the evil Chinese Ma Yingjiu in the 2008 Taiwan presidential election.  Most of this premature analysis was on the basis of slanted English-language reports from the corporate media or from DPP-affiliated publications like the Taipei Times.  Some of these expats are simply siding with these groups because they bought into the romanticised ideals of Taiwanese independence without understanding the cultural nuances and realities behind it.

One of my Taiwanese acquaintances once told me that these pro-independence expats are no different than so the so-called “Naderites” that brought Bush to power in 2000.  He pointed out that although these people like progressive ideals and reform, their rabid fanaticism and limited knowledge of politics, history and culture turned their movement into a liability and did nothing but create infighting.

Then there are the so-called overseas Taiwanese who happen to be “politically active” on all things pertaining to the island of Taiwan.  These people often pride themselves on not knowing a word of Mandarin, Taiwanese or even writing in Chinese characters all in the name of becoming “pure Taiwanese”.  Ironically, these same idiots would be dismissed as “Americans” and would have serious trouble surviving outside of Taipei should they ever go to Taiwan.  It’s unfortunate that this identity was cultivated due to simplistic influences from their families or to assert a false identity to distance themselves from the perceived backwards “Chinese” (as taught in American history textbooks).

In any event, the average voter in Taiwan cared about the economy.  Although the Chen administration will be remembered for changing the political landscape with notable reforms, increased regional pride, and greater freedoms, they still failed to promote economic growth that would have improved the quality of life for all in the island.  As a result, they have alienated their core business supporters, former human rights supporters, and even the younger generation who are indoctrinated to their beliefs.  In the end, it was the economy that compelled the island to elect Ma Yingjiu by a significant margin to Frank Hsieh.

The pro-war and anti-Chinese bloggers may try to spin the election results or even randomly bring up China when discussing the elections, but the fact is the KMT won both the legislative and presidential elections in a clean election.

A realisation

Sometimes I wonder if I focus too much on myself in conversations at the expense of learning more about the other person or giving the other person space to express themselves…

Free your mind~!

Bernanke is a fucking idiot.

So I have read that JP Morgan is going to buy up what’s left of Bear Stearns for just a nominal $2 a share. Meanwhile Bernanke and his dumb fuck cronies have decided to cut another 25 basis points (0.25%) from the interest rates on Palm Sunday of all days…

I am told that the Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, TAIEX, and the Australian bourses are bleeding as a result of this development. The European bourses will get it just as bad and then the DJIA will be fucked even if Bernanke is dumb enough to cut some more basis points or put out more emergency funds. The exchange rates are only going to get worse and I reckon that the Fed will at least another 100 basis points on Tuesday.

Ben Bernanke is someone who loves inflation so much that he would be willing to have non-stop anal sex with it if he could. If George W. Bush says that we are not in a recession one more time, I swear I am going to go campaign for Hillary Clinton and petition for a movement to investigate if John McCain (born in the Panama Canal Zone, which is technically just US territory) is even technically a natural born American.

And yes; both Ron Paul and Jim Rogers were right.

Update: Bush is indeed a fucking idiot. America deserved to get fucked up by their stupidity for first bringing him to power in 2000 and then keeping him in power in 2004 when all signs point that he should have been replaced by John Kerry.

Here is what this fucktard, idiot grandson of a Nazi collaborator had to say about the American economy:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7297048.stm

President George Bush has attempted to restore confidence in the US economy, amid the deepening financial crisis.

Speaking at the Economic Club of New York the President acknowledged that growth had slowed but said that the economy is basically sound.

He said the economy was “obviously going through a tough time”.

America is now reaping what it sowed. Karma is indeed a bitch. First Iraq and now the entire world is going to pay dearly for 100% American-produced stupidity.

It’s official: The American dollar is garbage

As of this post, the US Dollar is now at parity with the Swiss Franc (CHF) and can buy up to 99 Japanese Yen. On another note the Canadian dollar is once again more valuable than the US dollar, while it will cost $2.02 to buy a British Pound Sterling. Also, the Euro is now equal to $1.56 US dollars.

The Benjamins have gone from heroes to zeros in the 8 years Bush has been in power. This is what happens when you go into a fruitless war in Iraq…

The 500 Euro is what’s happening right now…If it’s good enough for Jay-Z and Giselle Bundchen, then it’s going to be great for the rest of us

People need to understand that the rest of the world is not having stronger economic growth but rather it is the United States ongoing economic decline against the rest of the world that is leading to these exchange rates. At the rate things are going the Chinese Yuan or renminbi is going to be less than 7.00 Yuan to the Dollar by the mid-summer if the Federal Reserve keeps cutting interest rates as I think.

The currency of the 21st century…Will it be all about the Chairman?

Well it is clear that Bernanke may cut interest rates next week anyway regardless of the recent problems. Bear Stearns is just the beginning of many problems for the investment banks and it will only get worse due to the current links between traditional retail and investment banks. I actually thought at one point that Glass-Steagall was a sensible law which kept commercial and investment banks as separate entities, created the FDIC, and other provisions which were designed to curb dangerous speculation. Unfortunately, the provisions which prevented banks from offering financial services was repealed in 1999 when Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

The Glass-Steagall wall was devised to prevent a repeat of the 1920s’ scams, in which banks made speculative investments, turned the debts into securities, and sold them off to unsuspecting investors with the blessing of the bank. With Glass-Steagall, commercial banks were tightly supervised and given access to federal deposit insurance, to keep savings secure and prevent runs on banks. Investment banks, meanwhile, were not government-guaranteed and were free to do more speculative transactions for consenting adult customers. But Roosevelt’s newly created SEC subjected securities markets to much tighter structures against self-dealing and insider conflicts of interest.

If you fast forward to 2000, much of this protective apparatus has been repealed. Regulators who didn’t believe in regulation and a compliant Congress have allowed financial engineers to evade what remains. In the 1980s, regulators began allowing exceptions to Glass-Steagall. In 1999, Congress finally repealed it outright, permitting financial supermarkets like Citigroup to operate any kind of financial business they desired, and profit from multiple conflicts of interest. The scandals that pumped up the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, as well as the most flagrant cases like Enron, and the crash that followed, were the result of the SEC and the bank regulators ceasing to police conflicts of interest. In the scandals of the 1990s, corporate CEOs, their accountants, and stock analysts working for their bankers, all conspired to puff up corporate balance sheets and pump up stock prices on which executive bonuses depended. This is a little harder today, thanks to the honest accounting requirements of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (which the Bush administration hopes to water down). But the same kinds of conflicts and potentials for abuse exist when a mega-bank underwrites a leveraged buyout by an affiliated hedge fund, and then hypes the sale of securities when the fund is ready to sell the company back to the public.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_bubble_economy

It’s time America learned from Japan to deal with their version of the bubble economy and the credit and real estate meltdowns…According to reliable sources America is going to be fucked in in FY2008 for Q1, Q2, Q3, with a slim chance of recovery in Q4 (assuming America is not officially in a recession).

A Clean Slate

I have finally moved on to a new job in New York. It was a career change from what I was doing in the past but it’s for the best and it had to be done. The only drawbacks is the 1 hour commute to the city and the 1.5-2 hour commute back. This is about the time when I would consider searching for a roommate or an apartment around Hudson country or in Brooklyn.

There Will Be Blood

Earlier today, I finally found the time to watch “There Will Be Blood” a film about a silver miner turned oil tycoon’s rise to power during early California oil boom.   Much of the story involves Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, and his efforts to develop an oil empire along with his conflicts with Eli who founds a Church that goes at odds with Plainview’s goals.

The subplots in “There Will Be Blood” involved Plainview’s interactions with his adopted son and his then-brother.  Plainview takes in his son when the child’s real father was killed in a work-related accident and he goes on to raise him as if he was his own son and as a business partner.  Despite the character’s ruthless business practices, he still does genuinely care about his son, HW, especially when he loses his hearing by first trying to find doctors to heal him and then sending him away to learn sign language.  However, the audience learns Daniel’s reason for taking in HW was mostly for business reasons and the emotional bonding was just an afterthought.

Plainview also cares about his family when he finds his supposed brother looking for work.   He takes him on and begins confiding his goals to him in confidence but slowly discovers that the man may be an impostor when the brother fails to remember important locales from his hometown.   Plainview is horrified brutally deals with the impostor when he learns the truth but the audience later sees him weeping when reading his brother’s diary and old family photos.

Daniel Day-Lewis portrays Daniel Plainview as an ambitious man who is willing to go to lengths to achieve success.  He presents Plainview as a man who is willing to lie to gain a better deal, who is willing to convert to a religion simply for the sake of acquiring property, and the way he toys with his enemies.  At the same time he presents some redeeming qualities by the way he cares for his adopted son, despite initially seeing him as a selling point for his oil business, and by the way he treated his “brother” before learning the truth.

In the end, however Plainview becomes consumed by his success which has cost him his family, his sanity, and health despite living in great success in a mansion and achieving his goals he confided to his fake brother.  This is why it was fitting for the character’s final line to be “I’m finished” after realising that he has lost himself and everything he values despite becoming extremely wealthy in the process.