News Stories

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by LynnieS

I'm expecting 2011 to be the start of the bust cycle for China, though. There is a lot of money going into that country now for it to drop this year.

Thinking of shorting China? Think again

By Thomas L. Friedman

READING The Herald Tribune over breakfast in Hong Kong harbour last week, my eyes went to the front-page story about how Mr James Chanos — reportedly one of America’s most successful short-sellers, the man who bet that Enron was a fraud and made a fortune when that proved true and its stock collapsed — is now warning that China is "Dubai times 1,000 or worse" and looking for ways to short that country's economy before its bubbles burst.

China's markets may be full of bubbles ripe for a short-seller, and if Mr Chanos can find a way to make money shorting them, God bless him. But after visiting Hong Kong and Taiwan this past week and talking to many people who work and invest their own money in China, I'd offer him two notes of caution.

First, a simple rule of investing that has always served me well: Never short a country with US$2 trillion in foreign-currency reserves.

Second, it is easy to look at China today and see its enormous problems and things that it is not getting right... In the last few days, though, China's central bank has started edging up interest rates and raising the proportion of deposits that banks must set aside as reserves — precisely to head off inflation and take some air out of any asset bubble.

Brains and bridges
And that’s the point. I am reluctant to sell China short, not because I think it has no problems or corruption or bubbles, but because I think it has...a political class focused on addressing its real problems, as well as a mountain of savings with which to do so (unlike in the United States).

...Ten years ago, China had a lot bridges and roads to nowhere. Well, many of them are now connected. It is also on a crash programme of building subways in major cities and high-speed trains to connect them. China also now has 400 million Internet users, and 200 million of them have broadband... America has about 80 million broadband users.

Now take all this infrastructure and mix it together with 27 million students in technical colleges and universities — the most in the world. With just the normal distribution of brains, that's going to bring a lot of brainpower to the market or, as Mr Bill Gates once said to me: "In China, when you're one-in-a-million, there are 1,300 other people just like you."

Equally important, more and more Chinese students educated abroad are returning home to work and start new businesses. I had lunch with a group of professors at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who told me that this year they will be offering some 50 full scholarships for graduate students in science and technology. Major US universities are sharply cutting back.

Vast hinterland
...Finally, as Mr Liu Chao-shiuan, Taiwan's former prime minister, pointed out to me: When Taiwan moved up the value chain from low-end, labour-intensive manufacturing to higher, value-added work, its factories moved to China or Vietnam. It lost them.

In China, low-end manufacturing moves from coastal China to the less-developed western part of the country and becomes an engine for development there. In Taiwan, factories go up and out. In China, they go east to west. "China knows it has problems," said Mr Liu. "But this is the first time it has a chance to actually solve them."

Taiwanese entrepreneurs now have more than 70,000 factories in China. They know the place. So I asked several Taiwanese businessmen whether they would short China. They vigorously shook their heads no, as if I'd asked if they'd go one on one with LeBron James.

But, hey, some people said the same about Enron. Still, I'd rather bet against the euro. Shorting China today? Well, good luck with that, Mr Chanos. Let us know how it works out for you.

- THE NEW YORK TIMES

======

Originally Posted by LynnieS

The legal age of marriage for guys in Japan is already 18, so this change just makes both equal.

I was just cracking a facile joke. In any case, legal age of consent to marriage isn't the same as legal age of consent to sex.

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

My understanding of it is currently wives must take the surname of their husband and children must take the surname of their father. Opposite of "restricting" surname options, the new law would allow children to take the surname of their mother (and for wives to keep their surname name).

No, it's a "restriction" in the sense that all children of a couple must share the same surname, even if their parents don't. This is apparently one of the various aspects of the Bill that Justice Minister Keiko Chiba had to let go because of pro-family opposition.

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Is this a law in search of a problem? What surnames do the children of Japanese parents with different surnames use now? If Shinohara-san and Ikezawa-san marry, would their children have surnames like Hamada?

Hyphenated surnames became popular in the States as women entered the professional ranks and married later. Is this law designed to rule out the equivalent of hyphenated names? Is there even an equivalent in a language based on graphical characters?

I think LynnieS has already explained the "law in search of a problem" part pretty well, since the Bill's primary impact would appear to be on Japan's inheritance laws.

But I like the story, small and seemingly innocuous though it is, because of all the various sociological insights and questions it poses:

1) The very fact that a Cabinet minister saw the need for a law to allow women to keep their maiden surnames after marriage illuminates the extent to which the status of women in Japan has changed relative to men.

2) The fact that Japan is debating how children should be named suggests profound demographic shifts in the country, especially in terms of the stability of marriages. More likely than not, divorced couples have become an established norm, just as in many developed countries, along with the associated effects this would have on children.

3) That this demographic trend is occurring in a country with a long, Confucian-inspired, tradition in family values ought to raise concern for other similar countries in East Asia. The West has come to accept failed marriages as a norm — this is not yet the case for many East Asian countries.

4) Finally, the story says interesting things about how the Japanese would identify themselves in the future. Things have become more complicated as the traditions that their society has lived by for centuries dissolve in the face of diverse sociological changes. The story may also have particular resonance for Singaporeans, as my country has just passed a law this week allowing children of a mixed-race marriage to take on a double-barrelled race.

Most Singaporeans are likely to appreciate the change even though they recognise it to be a mere paper formality. It says a lot about the increasing diversity of ethnicity in a country swamped by a massive influx of immigrants in recent years, and about its people's increasing open-mindedness about how ethnicity — and, hence, personal identity — should be defined.


So, it's a simple story, yes, but as the saying goes: "Journalism is the first rough draft of history." It's the little things like these that future historians would one day be poring over in some dusty archive.

[ClockWorkAngel]

Ah yes, short sellers, the worst kind of "investors" ever. Making a profit, and not even contributing to the economic cycle; fuck yea, totally helpful.

I don't think that China is going to burst anytime soon, like India, its an economic powerhouse, and is progressively improving quickly, but possessing a large population (And eventually a large highly qualified and highly educated population) it's not by any means liable to some risks other countries may have (Like how all of the skilled workers in Canada moving down South). It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

[Shadow Kira01]

Hundreds of thousands feared dead in Haiti quake

International relief activities got underway with foreign governments and aid organizations starting to send aid workers and resources to Haiti after the 7.0-magnitude quake, the most powerful ever recorded in the country, devastated its capital Port-au-Prince.

In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama vowed maximum efforts to save lives in Haiti in response to what he called an ''especially cruel and incomprehensible tragedy.''

The United States will respond with ''a swift, coordinated and aggressive effort'' to rescue people in the Caribbean country, Obama said.

''There is no doubt that we are facing a major humanitarian emergency and that a major relief effort will be required,'' Ban told a news conference on Wednesday.

The U.N. chief said, ''I urge all members of the international community to come to Haiti's aid in this hour of need.''

[Irenicus]

^I heard this on the news today. Pretty shocking. The preliminary reports on the damage are immense.

Here's hoping that relief efforts will begin in earnest, especially to rescue those still trapped within the ruins of Port-au-Prince and other places.

[Nerroth]

The Governor-General here in Canada, Michaëlle Jean, is originally from Haiti - and she was tearing up as she spoke about the tragedy.


It's gonna be a long road to recovery...

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Nerroth

The Governor-General here in Canada, Michaëlle Jean, is originally from Haiti - and she was tearing up as she spoke about the tragedy.


It's gonna be a long road to recovery...

It's tragic, but recovery isn't going to be on the horizon for decades, not without massive international support. Economically, Haiti ranks as one of the worst off nations in the world. Education is nonexistent. Poverty is rampant. With the quake, what little infrastructure the country had is decimated. There is no government, no power, supply lines are almost nonexistent...it's bad.

While everyone is pushing to get relief in, the real problems are going to involve picking up the pieces of a roughly 9 million people nation that just lost what little it had. Who picks up the tab for rebuilding? Who will stay involved with helping them get back on their feet? Those are going to be tough questions with even tougher answers after the end of the week. Search and rescue efforts are going to turn into corpse retrieval in a few days, but what nations are going to stay and help and what nations are going to scale back after the immediate relief has been handled?

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Solace

It's tragic, but recovery isn't going to be on the horizon for decades, not without massive international support. Economically, Haiti ranks as one of the worst off nations in the world. Education is nonexistent. Poverty is rampant. With the quake, what little infrastructure the country had is decimated. There is no government, no power, supply lines are almost nonexistent...it's bad.

While everyone is pushing to get relief in, the real problems are going to involve picking up the pieces of a roughly 9 million people nation that just lost what little it had. Who picks up the tab for rebuilding? Who will stay involved with helping them get back on their feet? Those are going to be tough questions with even tougher answers after the end of the week. Search and rescue efforts are going to turn into corpse retrieval in a few days, but what nations are going to stay and help and what nations are going to scale back after the immediate relief has been handled?

The absolute practical solution for this, as always, is free euthanasia. No I am not joking, what is the point of living if all of it has always been in agony?

What investors can actually do, is to build factories and homes. Both sides win because it create jobs and shelter at a relatively low cost, which means larger profits for the factory-owners and their companies. With the ground already leveled, costs can be saved for de-ruralisation, and I am sure the locals would be happy to welcome new homes and a place to work in rather than picking through rubbish piles for scraps everyday.

Container homes/schools are fast to put down and can last for quite some time, they just need interior refurbishment. So instead of pitching tentages like every other retarded disaster relief force, while not better the lives of these people who have never had a stable luxury of a proper shelter?

Disaster relief in poor countries are long term endeavours, as compared to developed/ing ones. Tackling it in a different strategy might yield gains.

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

The absolute practical solution for this, as always, is free euthanasia. No I am not joking, what is the point of living if all of it has always been in agony?

What investors can actually do, is to build factories and homes. Both sides win because it create jobs and shelter at a relatively low cost, which means larger profits for the factory-owners and their companies. With the ground already leveled, costs can be saved for de-ruralisation, and I am sure the locals would be happy to welcome new homes and a place to work in rather than picking through rubbish piles for scraps everyday.

Container homes/schools are fast to put down and can last for quite some time, they just need interior refurbishment. So instead of pitching tentages like every other retarded disaster relief force, while not better the lives of these people who have never had a stable luxury of a proper shelter?

Disaster relief in poor countries are long term endeavours, as compared to developed/ing ones. Tackling it in a different strategy might yield gains.

The market for labor there may well be cheap, but allow me to ask one question. Factories producing what exactly? I agree that de-ruralization costs are going to be quite minimal, and demand for labor will be cheap but supply for labor isn't going to come as quickly as it can be said it will. Haiti is poor and it's poor for a reason. There's nothing there, even water is scarce. Work conditions there are likely going to be harsher than they were before the industrial revolution, considering how tough life was over there.

It's true that if investments there are successful, things would be much better for the population. They would have shelter in the form of company housing, medical care, you name it. But it's going to take a miracle and more funds than even Bill Gates in the 90's could imagine. Who'se going to supply that money? Especially now when the vast majority of world super powers are in debt? Most people will be reluctant to chip in what they have.

[Tiberium Wolf]

I think Haiti now is at stone age. Whatever they had is gone. I heard they don't have forest anymore because they chopped all down for wood. X died from initial earthquake. Y will die because of injuries since no hospitals of what so ever. Z will die from disease because whatever infrastructure to prevent it is gone.

[jsieczkar]

Originally Posted by Yoko Takeo

The market for labor there may well be cheap, but allow me to ask one question. Factories producing what exactly? I agree that de-ruralization costs are going to be quite minimal, and demand for labor will be cheap but supply for labor isn't going to come as quickly as it can be said it will. Haiti is poor and it's poor for a reason. There's nothing there, even water is scarce. Work conditions there are likely going to be harsher than they were before the industrial revolution, considering how tough life was over there.

It's true that if investments there are successful, things would be much better for the population. They would have shelter in the form of company housing, medical care, you name it. But it's going to take a miracle and more funds than even Bill Gates in the 90's could imagine. Who'se going to supply that money? Especially now when the vast majority of world super powers are in debt? Most people will be reluctant to chip in what they have.

Who is going to invest in a nation that hasn't had a stable political system in 200 years. The Duvalier family provided the most stability but François "Papa Doc" Duvalie was a grade A whack job and his son was a playboy who didn't bother to run the country. The US has tried at least three times and France even more times all have been unsuccessful at stabilizing the nation. The UN has been in Haiti for five years lead by Brazil with 7,000 troops and Brazil is saying they needed more to keep order.
In 206 years Haiti has had:
2 Emperors
1 King
64 Presidents, almost none were elected in fair elections and even fewer served their entire term in office.

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by jsieczkar

Who is going to invest in a nation that hasn't had a stable political system in 200 years. The Duvalier family provided the most stability but François "Papa Doc" Duvalie was a grade A whack job and his son was a playboy who didn't bother to run the country. The US has tried at least three times and France even more times all have been unsuccessful at stabilizing the nation. The UN has been in Haiti for five years lead by Brazil with 7,000 troops and Brazil is saying they needed more to keep order.
In 206 years Haiti has had:
2 Emperors
1 King
64 Presidents, almost none were elected in fair elections and even fewer served their entire term in office.

Exactly the point I'm trying to make. Look at my first paragraph. There are no resources there in the first place, so much that even water is hard to find. Because there's nothing there, nobody cares about it from an economic perspective. It has nothing it can contribute to world economy. If someone else invests on a country, they will expect a return on investment. Investment isn't charity. And during this time where the most powerful countries are in debt, they will be very reluctant to make investments on what they see as a lost cause.

[Shadow Kira01]

S. Korea foreign minister calls for 'harmonious' Futemma settlement

South Korean foreign minister Yu Myung Hwan said Thursday he hopes for a ''harmonious'' settlement of a spat over relocation of a U.S. military base in Okinawa that has strained Japan-U.S. relations.

''(South) Korea and Japan have the common goal of pursuing stability, peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia, and also have forged alliances with the United States,'' Yu said.

[Frenchie]

Originally Posted by npcomplete

Google To Cease Censorship in China, Might Close Google.cn
(source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/...-to-china.html )


Google To Cease Censorship in China, Might Close Google.cn
(source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/...-to-china.html )

edit:
latest from http://wikileaks.org/ via http://twitter.com/wikileaks

-------
if true, I wonder what the source repo attack implies. Planting modified code?

edit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...rship-firewall

maybe locals can comment? (btw I had no idea sites like facebook and youtube, etc were blocked)

Yeah, I documented myself a bit on the whole thing.

Google has some serious balls, and I for one, am appalled at the Chinese government. This is why we fought revolutions for democracy.

No free elections, propaganda, censorship.

I can't believe I even wanted to live in China, once upon a time. Not on my dead body.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Yoko Takeo

It's true that if investments there are successful, things would be much better for the population. They would have shelter in the form of company housing, medical care, you name it. But it's going to take a miracle and more funds than even Bill Gates in the 90's could imagine. Who'se going to supply that money? Especially now when the vast majority of world super powers are in debt? Most people will be reluctant to chip in what they have.

I was really taken aback by Obama's decision to send an entire brigade worth of troops, including part of the 82nd Airborne to do S&R in Haiti. Deploying half a division is going to blow a hole in the US Treasury, and despite the fact that the country is in serious debt, he went ahead anyway.

Originally Posted by El_Frenchie

Yeah, I documented myself a bit on the whole thing.

Google has some serious balls, and I for one, am appalled at the Chinese government. This is why we fought revolutions for democracy.

No free elections, propaganda, censorship.

I can't believe I even wanted to live in China, once upon a time. Not on my dead body.

Any China Chinese or Taiwanese here? I would like to hear some views from the other side.

The Google.cn issue seems to be rather marginalised and tilted towards the Western world.

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

I was really taken aback by Obama's decision to send an entire brigade worth of troops, including part of the 82nd Airborne to do S&R in Haiti. Deploying an entire division is going to blow a hole in the US Treasury, and despite the fact that the country is in serious debt, he went ahead anyway.

Well that was a stupid move. What's a search and retreive mission going to do if those people have nowhere to go? Is Obama going to bring them to America? Can Obama guarantee them jobs and shelter if he does? Especially when the US most of all is in debt? Find out next time on "Politicians & Ignorance" at 8pm tomorrow!

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

I was really taken aback by Obama's decision to send an entire brigade worth of troops, including part of the 82nd Airborne to do S&R in Haiti. Deploying half a division is going to blow a hole in the US Treasury, and despite the fact that the country is in serious debt, he went ahead anyway.

I guess this is the response from the bad PR that US got for being too slow to react (Hurricane Katrina '05) or too stingy (SE Asia tsunami '04) when it comes to natural disasters.

[Haruka_Kitten]

Originally Posted by mg1942

I guess this is the response from the bad PR that US got for being too slow (Hurricane Katrina '05) or too stingy (SE Asia tsunami '04) when it comes to natural disasters.

I still don't assume the upkeep for such an operation is going to materialise out of nowhere, is it? It'll be interesting to see how much further the US digs itself a hole, but when I think about it, how much did it cost the American Taxpayer for each day US troops spent in Iraq?

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by Harufox

I still don't assume the upkeep for such an operation is going to materialise out of nowhere, is it? It'll be interesting to see how much further the US digs itself a hole, but when I think about it, how much did it cost the American Taxpayer for each day US troops spent in Iraq?

I lot of people in the US believe that the money spent on Iraq was justified for the sake of liberating the people there. The same for Afghanistan and the "war on terrorism." There's a lot I can say about it, but I'll just say one thing to avoid unneccessary discussions. It was the US who put Saddam in power in the first place, and the US fought alongside Osama to kick the Soviets out of there. What a twist of fate, right?

Anyways, if anything, the money spent on the troops sent to help the Haitians can be viewed as being more constructive than the events above, but in the end, what will happen to those people that the army did find? Where will Obama send them? The US is already suffering from severe unemployment and debt, and with the Haitian population being as undereducated as it is, they don't stand a chance.

The way I see it, from Obama's pov, he's standing on the tip of a knife here. If he hadn't done anything, people would've complained for acting just as stingy as the govt had during Katrina. Since he has rushed to do something to help them, it can make him look more benevolent than the previous office, but I can see people still bringing up Katrina saying "you people acted so fast for people in Africa who have virtually no hope for surviving but you didn't for your own people?" That's another problem with the US. It involves itself to much with other countries that it often ends up neglecting its own. But that's another matter entirely. Let's face it. No matter what Obama did, he was bound to get bad press. The problem isn't with Obama, but with the media who likes to put everything in a negative perspective and give people something to blame for something.

[Haruka_Kitten]

Originally Posted by Yoko Takeo

I lot of people in the US believe that the money spent on Iraq was justified for the sake of liberating the people there. The same for Afghanistan and the "war on terrorism." There's a lot I can say about it, but I'll just say one thing to avoid unneccessary discussions. It was the US who put Saddam in power in the first place, and the US fought alongside Osama to kick the Soviets out of there. What a twist of fate, right?

Anyways, if anything, the money spent on the troops sent to help the Haitians can be viewed as being more constructive than the events above, but in the end, what will happen to those people that the army did find? Where will Obama send them? The US is already suffering from severe unemployment and debt, and with the Haitian population being as undereducated as it is, they don't stand a chance.

The way I see it, from Obama's pov, he's standing on the tip of a knife here. If he hadn't done anything, people would've complained for acting just as stingy as the govt had during Katrina. Since he has rushed to do something to help them, it can make him look more benevolent than the previous office, but I can see people still bringing up Katrina saying "you people acted so fast for people in Africa who have virtually no hope for surviving but you didn't for your own people?" That's another problem with the US. It involves itself to much with other countries that it often ends up neglecting its own. But that's another matter entirely. Let's face it. No matter what Obama did, he was bound to get bad press. The problem isn't with Obama, but with the media who likes to put everything in a negative perspective and give people something to blame for something.

Media has a funny way of working. We get used to hearing a pack of lies every time we turn on the TV. Every man and his dog is going to cover a story like this, and each article is going to detail some things and ... well "sugarcoat" whatever seems bad. Maybe papers in America will detail Obama as a hero, maybe the Herald Sun of Melbourne will add a paragraph of how someone from our Government would call it "a risky move" (with a sidebar on the recall of myki or something ), but all will document on the actions taken by the President and its affects on its economy, as it is probably the other biggest talked about hype in media.

Speaking of, I can't see what the big problem is. Not one person I know has been laid off as a result of this "recession". Were still shopping, and people are still getting paid.

[MeoTwister5]

Originally Posted by Yoko Takeo

I lot of people in the US believe that the money spent on Iraq was justified for the sake of liberating the people there. The same for Afghanistan and the "war on terrorism." There's a lot I can say about it, but I'll just say one thing to avoid unneccessary discussions. It was the US who put Saddam in power in the first place, and the US fought alongside Osama to kick the Soviets out of there. What a twist of fate, right?

Anyways, if anything, the money spent on the troops sent to help the Haitians can be viewed as being more constructive than the events above, but in the end, what will happen to those people that the army did find? Where will Obama send them? The US is already suffering from severe unemployment and debt, and with the Haitian population being as undereducated as it is, they don't stand a chance.

The way I see it, from Obama's pov, he's standing on the tip of a knife here. If he hadn't done anything, people would've complained for acting just as stingy as the govt had during Katrina. Since he has rushed to do something to help them, it can make him look more benevolent than the previous office, but I can see people still bringing up Katrina saying "you people acted so fast for people in Africa who have virtually no hope for surviving but you didn't for your own people?" That's another problem with the US. It involves itself to much with other countries that it often ends up neglecting its own. But that's another matter entirely. Let's face it. No matter what Obama did, he was bound to get bad press. The problem isn't with Obama, but with the media who likes to put everything in a negative perspective and give people something to blame for something.

This is why I don't bother watching American news channels on cable anymore. Sometimes I'd rather watch BBC or Al-Jazeera.