Congrats Dr Shan Muk Lam – Respected Writer, Journalist, Outlier

“A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.” – Arthur Miller

When my friend forwarded me the wonderful and well deserved news of Mr. Shan Muk Lam (林行止) being awarded an honorary Doctor of Social Sciences degree, I immediately thought of the above quote.

Congrats Mr. Lam.（Click here for the Chinese version of this article. 這篇文章的中文版在這裡。 ）

Here is an excerpt of the information and citation at HKU (emphasis added),

Dr Lam founded the Hong Kong Economic Journal in 1973 and the Hong Kong Economic Journal Monthly in 1977. For 25 years, he wrote a daily column, ‘Politics and Economics Review’, in which he analysed Hong Kong and international affairs. Dr Lam’s articles are widely acclaimed for being objective, insightful and well-argued. Since 1997, ‘Lam Hang Chi’s Column’ has seen him writing about an even wider range of subjects, including economic theories that interest him, and which he hopes the reading public will find educational and interesting too. His writing has been anthologized into over 100 books in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Mainland. Dr Lam was awarded an OBE in 1991 and an honorary degree from Lingnan University in 1999.

In recognition of his contributions to the journalism sector in Hong Kong, HKU will confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Social Sciences honoris causa.

Citation

I believe that Mr Lam Shan Muk will be the first illegal immigrant to be awarded an honorary doctorate by this University! Since his unconventional arrival, Mr Lam has, of course, risen to become one of Hong Kong’s most famous and respected writers and journalists. Of the profession of journalists, Warren Buffet wrote:

`The smarter that journalists are, the better off society is. For, to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves and the better the teacher the better the student body’.

Through his writing Mr Lam Shan Muk has proved himself a remarkably able teacher and Hong Kong society, together with his Mainland and Taiwanese readers, have greatly benefited over many years from his enlightening editorials and articles.

First Bilingual Chinese & English 2 weeks 1 gather (number 11)「兩周一聚」(十一): 傳統 & 傳統智慧 / Convention & Conventional Wisdom

I proposed the topic for our first bilingual Chinese & English “2 weeks 1 gather (number 11)「兩周一聚」(十一): 傳統 & 傳統智慧 / Convention & Conventional Wisdom”. And now I’ve posted my “傳統 & 傳統智慧 / Convention & Conventional Wisdom” entry.

I took a chance in proposing a topic to be written in two languages by the self-nominated participants but I believe it is a chance that I want to take. The Canadian sensibility in me lead me to give this bilingual idea a try.

You see, in Canada, English and French are official languages and the two languages are being used daily in businesses and in parliamentary debates, etc. Hong Kong and other cities we may have come from may use Chinese & English in their daily lifes, which is why I love to see the participants in this virtual and self-nominated gathering to give both Chinese and English a try. As I mentioned in the topic proposal, even one sentence in Chinese or English is good enough for this idea.

Now, let me share with you a “secret” and please don’t laugh too hard! (smile) I am still waiting for the day when my French is much improved (getting to know a pretty French-speaking lady will help (smile)). I took a French class in Hong Kong years ago but not much of those French are left in my head now. But I think, fundamentally, the willingness to communicate will travel a long way in creating a better world.

So here is my “secret”. My two fluent French sentences are,

“Excusez-moi, je ne parle pas Français. Parlez-vous Anglais?”

which you may have guessed the meaning in English and it is of course,

“Excuse me, I don’t speak French. Do you speak English?”

I believe when I am willing to step into another person’s shoes and try to speak her/his language, then the other person may be much more willing to help even if his/her English is not fluent. (Thinking about it, who said my English is fluent? (big smile))

Making $200,000-an-Hour?

Alice Schroeder shares her insight in “Madoff’s $200,000-an-Hour Beats Tiger Woods“.

Love the “sentence” Alice gave to Madoff.

Play Games

Play games, win Nobel Prize, make movie. One stone three birds.

[HT: Gary]

Death of Living

I enjoy Living Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, etc when they were on CBC (I watched them online). Today, CBC announced their cancellation.

The CBC will also reduce spending on new children’s programming and cancel the Living programs produced in each region.

And I will also miss these shows if they reduce the episodes (emphasis added),

On CBC-TV, investigative programs such as The Fifth Estate, Marketplace and will have reduced budgets, though it’s not yet known whether that will mean fewer episodes.

Canadians can also expect to see more repeats of many prime-time programs, with shorter seasons ordered for ones including:

• The Border.
• This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
• Being Erica.
• Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Other info here.

All these news are sad after the cancellation of Fashion File earlier this month.

Blood Into Gold – Peter Buffett featuring Akon

From their site, “Blood Into Gold is the compelling new song from Peter Buffett featuring Akon, pinpointing the issue of human trafficking and slavery. The poignant video, produced by UNICEF, is a powerful visual representation of the songs message, utilizing moving images and video from around the world that depict the severity of this issue. As a complementary advocacy tool to the song, the hope of the video is to call attention to the issue and inspire others to help bring an end to the atrocities associated with human trafficking.
please visit http://istheresomethingicando.com/“

[HT: Warren Buffett Watch]

Paul Volcker is back

Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker has been asked by President Obama  to lead a team to reform the US tax code in the hope of recouping billions in lost revenue.

I like Volcker’s style of no-nonsense and blunt talk. He talks about China and US dollars here.

Watch a video of Volcker speaking on Charlie Rose in 2008.

Obama’s Op-Ed (The United States is ready to lead)

Obama’s Op-Ed – For the record, here is an excerpt,

If people in other countries cannot spend, markets dry up — already we’ve seen the biggest drop in American exports in nearly four decades, which has led directly to American job losses. And if we continue to let financial institutions around the world act recklessly and irresponsibly, we will remain trapped in a cycle of bubble and bust. That is why the upcoming London Summit is directly relevant to our recovery at home.

My message is clear: The United States is ready to lead, and we call upon our partners to join us with a sense of urgency and common purpose. Much good work has been done, but much more remains.

Our leadership is grounded in a simple premise: We will act boldly to lift the American economy out of crisis and reform our regulatory structure, and these actions will be strengthened by complementary action abroad. Through our example, the United States can promote a global recovery and build confidence around the world; and if the London Summit helps galvanize collective action, we can forge a secure recovery, and future crises can be averted.

Multicolr Search tool from Idée

Here is a really cool Multicolr search tool from Idée.Play with it, I love it and had a great time.

Incidentally, in 2008, I had a chance to interview and chat with two great minds behind Idée Inc.

[HT: BMD]

Authors@Google: Donald Knuth

Donald Knuth, one of best mind in computer science discusses the interactions between faith and science.

Four Economists play If I had $1,000,000,000,000

The following four economists play “If I had $1,000,000,000,000″

• Paul Krugman, Op-Ed columnist, Princeton University
• Simon Johnson, M.I.T.
• Brad DeLong, U.C. Berkeley
• Mark Thoma, University of Oregon

Here is Barenaked Ladies’ If I had $1,000,000. Ah, one million used to be big.

China: Reform the International Monetary System

It is understandable that China wants some reform of the International Monetary System and doesn’t want to see its massive and predominantly US foreign currency reserves to be inflated away and turned into toy paper money. (smile) But the chance is low that there is a politically acceptable solution to the world (in particular US). We have Euro but my gut feeling tells me we won’t have Woro anytime soon. (Update: In a news conference tonight, President Obama rejected the idea of a world currency posted in a question by a reporter.)

Here is a speech by Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川), Chairman, Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China, in both Chinese and translated into English. Mr. Zhou wants to be listened to but will he? We will find out soon when G20 meets.

Chinese:
关于改革国际货币体系的思考

English:
Reform the International Monetary System

Serving Canadians not Eyeballs

Kirstine Layfield, Executive director of programming for CBC Television, wrote in National Post (emphasis added),

“People say the CBC is chasing eyeballs. Personally, I have never met an eyeball. I have met Canadians from across our great country who have eyes — and ears and hearts and minds. They have a thirst to understand their world from a Canadian perspective and a desire to hear their own stories and music. This is the audience of the CBC.”

Very well said Kirstine! While I may not agree with many CBC decisions (including Kirstine’s) in recent years, I am glad to see Kirstine standing up to Minister James Moore’s attempt to systematically dismantle CBC.

P.S. Minister Moore was very “in your face” in attacking CBC on a CTV show. Now, will I be equally politically incorrect and “in your face” to openly wonder why CTV get special access to government of Canada news events (and not CBC)? And why Mr. supposedly-unbiased CTV newsman got appointed to the Senate?

[HT: Inside The CBC]

Public Private Partnership Investment Program

See details here from Treasury.

$1,000,000,000,000 Public Investment Corp.

Few weeks ago I had a few discussions with my economist friend about the ideas of having a combination of private and public funds in purchasing toxic assets (I think, in a distressed price). As a “free market” economist, he was not amused with the idea and don’t think government money should be involved. Looks like my friends may not be amused tomorrow. :) I am looking forward to see what Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has to say tomorrow. In the mean time, here are some selected news about Public Investment Corp. as of now.

From WSJ,

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Sunday, Mr. Geithner said the government cannot fix the financial crisis alone. “Our judgment is that the best way to get through this is if we can work with the markets,” he said. “We don’t want the government to assume all the risk. We want the private sector to work with us.”

Mr. Geithner’s three-pronged program, which will be unveiled Monday, envisions the creation of a series of public-private investments to soak up $500 billion, and maybe as much as $1 trillion, in troubled loans and securities at the heart of the financial crisis. To encourage investors to buy those assets, the U.S. government will offer lucrative subsidies and shoulder much of the risk. Stocks rallied 2% in Tokyo in early trading Monday, on expectations of the Geithner bank plan’s announcement.

Taxpayers will stand to reap gains — alongside investors such as hedge funds and private-equity firms — if the investments ultimately prove profitable.

From Bloomberg (emphasis added),

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who will unveil the Public Private Investment Program today, has crafted an approach using up to $100 billion of bailout money to spur investment funds to purchase — and banks to unload — the illiquid securities and loans that have caused credit to dry up. The Treasury, Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will all play a role alongside private investors in aiming to buy between $500 billion and $1 trillion of troubled assets.

“By providing a market for these assets that does not now exist, this program will help improve asset values, increase lending capacity by banks, and reduce uncertainty about the scale of losses on bank balance sheets,” Geithner said in an op-ed piece published in today’s Wall Street Journal. “The ability to sell assets to this fund will make it easier for banks to raise private capital.” [...]

New Treasury Powers

Geithner will also announce plans later this week to ask Congress to give the Treasury and the Fed authority to step in and more easily tackle problems at systemically important financial institutions that are in danger of failing. Such powers would give the government the ability to limit payments to creditors, break contracts on executive compensation commitments and provide guarantees on particular categories of debt for companies that need bailing out.

From BusinessWeek,

Estimates are that it will take anywhere from $1 trillion to $2 trillion to cleanse the banks’ balance sheets of bad assets. But Treasury has nowhere near that amount of money available and Congress—particularly after the explosion of public outrage over AIG’s bonuses—is in no mood to allocate more funds to save the banks. Treasury is hoping to leverage its dwindling resources by getting private money to invest in the assets, alongside Uncle Sam’s resources.

“There’s no question that some companies have appeared to move irresponsibly with those [government] funds. There is an understandable backlash,” warns Melissa Bean (D-Ill.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee and a key player among moderate Democrats. “It makes it more difficult to get money out of Congress, no question about it.”

So how would Geithner’s plan work? The partnerships he proposes would be run by private sector investment managers. They would take an investment interest, but Treasury would commit government funds for as much as an 80% equity stake in the partnerships. The government would lend the partnerships additional funds to increase their ability to buy assets. Uncle Sam will also put a floor under losses, limiting the risks of buying into the toxic assets.

Will banks and investors perform?

In short, Geithner hopes that by heavily subsidizing the asset purchases—and limiting the downside risk—he will be able to entice private investors into jump-starting the frozen market for bad mortgage loans.

“We’ll essentially have the government trying to drive the market by giving a subsidy to private investors to lower the spread” between what the banks are willing to sell for and what the buyers are willing to pay for the toxic assets, says Daniel Clifton, Washington policy analyst for institutional brokers Strategas Research Partners. “But it’s too early to tell if investors will jump in, or how far down the banks will go in terms of selling the assets.”

From WaPo,

Last fall, billionaire investor Warren E. Buffet, Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and William H. Gross, the managing director of PIMCO, the largest bond fund in the world, approached Treasury officials about an idea to create investment funds, using public and private money, to buy toxic assets from banks, according to former senior Treasury officials. Buffett is a director of The Washington Post Co.

From USA Today,

First Trust Advisors chief economist Brian Wesbury says markets have been rising the past few weeks partly on expectations of a government plan to remove the bad assets from banks.

“If their proposal is seen as weak or inefficient or unworkable, then we could lose what we’ve gained pretty quickly,” he says.

Details of the Public-Private Investment Program were still being worked out Sunday.

UK School attack stopped by Canadian

From CBC,

A student at Montreal’s Concordia University says he was proud to play a role in helping to stop a school attack in the United Kingdom this week.

J.P. Neufeld, a 21-year-old Winnipeg native, alerted authorities on Tuesday

Hello nanoAlberta !

The concepts and ideas in nanotechnology is an area that has fascinated me for many years. I first read about it from Richard Feynman‘s book talking about his 1959 lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”.

So I had a lot of fun attending the THECIS organized talk “Perspective on Nanotechnology in Alberta” delivered by Dr. Gary Albach, Executive Director of nanoAlberta.

Gary was very knowledge and did a great job in sharing his insight in nanotechnology. You see, until I heard Gary’s talk this past Tuesday, I had no idea that Alberta is becoming a world leader in the field of nanotechnology. In fact, in 2007, the Alberta government created a Nanotechnology Strategy announcing a $130-million investment over 5 years. With this as its vision, “Alberta will be a leading contributor in placing Canada amongst the top 5 nations in the world …”.

In the following, let me share with you a few things I learned from the talk.

• Strictly speaking, nanotech isn’t new! Pharmaceuticals (i.e. medicines) are operating at nanoscale dimensions. Some ingredients in cosmetics products (e.g. titanium dioxide) are produced with nanoscale dimensions.
• What’s new is: “our ability to manipulate individual molecules and atoms, our growing knowledge of self-assembling molecular processes, and our ability to manufacture macro-scale nanotech materials, such as nanotube sheets and yarns.”
• Gary thinks nanotech at the moment is like computer science in the 60′s and biotech in the 80′s. To me, if nanotech is really like computer science in the 60s (say 1965) as Gary said, then the game hasn’t even started! (smile) Bill Gates, born in 1955, would have been only about 10 years old and a few years before he touched his first computer at Lakeside School in 1968. So it looks like there are lots of wonderful potentials for business entrepreneurs.
• There are a cluster of about 50 companies in Alberta employing about 600 people. In Alberta, there have been about $500 million public investment in nanotech in the past 5 years. And the province has about 1000 researchers conducting nanotech-related activites.
• The three commercial priorities for Alberta’s nanotech: 1) Energy/Environment, 2) Health, and 3) BioIndustries (Agriculture/Forestry)
• Gary talked about Alberta’s strengths in micro/nano scale tools and systems, nano materials, and MEMS devices, etc
• Nano Materials: Energy-Environment (e.g. separation technologies), Health (e.g. Nano Silver), Bioindustries (forestry) (e.g. Nanocrystalline cellulose (PDF notes), I’ve notes from John Simonsen, Wood Science & Engineering, Oregon State University)
• MEMS devices: Energy-Environment (e.g. sensors), Health (e.g. Home care monitoring devices like i-Stat), Bioindustries (forestry) (e.g. Geomatics)
• Gary ends the talk with an open and frank discussion of the potential health concerns reported by the media. Some are hype and some need further studies and Alberta and Canada can be a leader in this.
• Gary made this insightful observation, “Empirical evidence indicates that virtually every industry will be affected by nanotechnology, with profound impacts on economics, organizational structures, and regulatory agencies.” While I don’t know enough facts and information to be as positive and as certain as Gary, nanotechnology is definitely one area that I am paying close attention to.

Finally, I had a great chat with Gary after the talk and mentioned that I think nanoAlberta, with the expertises in the group of researchers and companies, should try to become the leading voices online in the field of nanotech. I joked with Gary that some online websites are currently thought to be “nanotech experts” on the internet because “in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”. (big smile)

I truly hope nanoAlberta will invest the needed time and effort to have a stronger voice in the nanotech world online. Solid, creditable, clear and easy to understand information are always needed, especially in new field like nanotech. (Note to Gary: I am looking forward to a chat with you over coffee when you are in Calgary.)

I think there are clear commercial benefits to turn Alberta into the de facto online leader in nanotech. I like to dream that Alberta can be the “Silicon Valley” of the North in nanotech. Now, shall we call ourselves “Nano Rockies”?

Presentation (updated on March 27):

You can download Gary Albach’s presentation slides here.

Postscript:

On a serious note, if countries like Taiwan has been looking far ahead and has K-12 Nanotechnology Program (yes K-12!), then may be a cute name like “Nano Rockies” won’t hurt as part of a long term strategy to attract students into the field?!

May be I am wrong, but in the race to become nanotech leader, we truly have to act fast and think fast or countries like Taiwan (which launched a program in 2002, yes 2002!) will be so much ahead of us and making it rather difficult to catch up.

Acknowledgments:

This report borrows heavily from Gary’s presentation notes, thanks Gary! I have added some links to expand on information where I see appropriate. All mistakes and errors are mine and please kindly let me know if you find any.

I like to thank THECIS for letting me attend the talk and special thanks to Martha and Peter at THECIS for their kind help.

In Search of Happiness – Michael Gates Gill finds happiness at Starbucks as it saved his life

Michael Gates Gill, author of How Starbucks Saved My Life, was kind in sharing with us his unique path in search of happiness. For him, at his worst moment in life, it was a chance to work at Starbucks that give him his confidence back. Here is the info from his Google Talk.

In his fifties, Michael Gates Gill had it all. By the time he turned sixty, he had lost everything except his Ivy League education and his sense of entitlement. First, he was downsized at work. Next, an affair ended his twenty-year marriage. Then, he was diagnosed with a slow-growing brain tumor. Gill had no money, no health insurance, and no prospects. One day as Gill sat in a Manhattan Starbucks, a 28-year-old Starbucks manager named Crystal Thompson approached him, half joking, to offer him a job. With nothing to lose, he took it, and went from drinking coffee in a Brooks Brothers suit to serving it in a green uniform.

Michael Gates Gill is the son of New Yorker writer Brendan Gill and he was a creative director at J. Walter Thompson Advertising where he was employed for over 25 years. He currently lives in New York within walking distance of the Starbucks store where he works, and has no plans to retire from what he calls the best job he’s ever had.

This Authors@Google event took place October 1, 2007 at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

[HT: Leona]

Outliers: Book Title Chinese Translation

Book title translation (in this case, Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers: The Story of Success”) is one of the toughest translation task I have ventured into recently (actually, last night). Book title translation is really difficult because the few words in a book title, in a sense, are the most important words in a book. Why? Because a good book title will entice people to pick up the book, check out the book, and may even end up buying the book. So the translator has to really understand what the book is about to come up with a good and fitting title translation.

I am not saying my skill in translating book title is any good. Far from it, I think my suggestion can probably be improved with more time and careful thinking. But the important thing is there are lessons to be learned everywhere. And I am trying to learn them wherever I am.

In this case, I have read the book “Outliers: The Story of Success”, and decided it will be nice to try to engage in a dialogue with Mr. Lam (林行止先生) and see if my insights can move the discussion forward.

Here is my blog entry 與林行止先生談談 “Outliers: The Story of Success” 書名的翻譯. If you read Chinese, I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did in writing it.

Death of a Korean star

According to this blogger’s report with source reference to newspaper articles. The tragic suicide of Korean star Jan Ja Yun was resulted from the following immoral and criminal acts,

“… she was forced to deliver services outside of what those normal actresses would do – entertained “bosses”, accompanied a director to a golf course, drank with him and even forced to have sex with the director; she was beaten with hand and plastic bottle in a locked office by her (current)manager …”