Wednesday, March 31, 2010

"Thank You Mr. Churchill"


Long-awaited album "Thank You Mr. Churchill" will be released from Peter Frampton who is best known for the huge hit of "Frampton Comes Alive!"
which sold 12 million copies all over the world.

This new album is made to offer his gratitude for Winston Churchill who brought his father back from the Second World War.

The 11-song set, co-produced and co-engineered by Frampton, features the legendary guitarist at his most incisive lyrically as he tackles the battles that wage within us and the outside forces that rage around us. His searing guitar work flows over every song, setting the mood.

Nowhere is this clearer than on Churchill's centerpiece, the evocative, two-part, 8-minute instrumental, "Suite: Liberté."
"This album is very autobiographical," Frampton says. "It starts with my birth, which I thank Mr. Churchill for bringing my father back from the Second World War."


Recorded at his home studio in Cincinnati, Churchill is deeply intimate, weaving tales of loss, love and redemption and the lessons learned along the way. Churchill also includes Frampton's reflective take on troubling world events, including the Wall Street bailout ("Restraint") and even the tragic case of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese girl kidnapped more than 30 years ago by South Korea ("Asleep At The Wheel").

Peter Frampton wrote all the tracks on Churchill, penning many with longtime collaborator Gordon Kennedy.

Guests include Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron, who also played on Fingerprints, and the legendary Funk Brothers, who appear on Frampton's Motown homage, "Invisible Man."

Peter Frampton remains one of the most celebrated artists and guitarists in rock history. At 16, he was lead singer and guitarist for British teen band the Herd. At 18, he co-founded one of the first super groups, seminal rock act Humble Pie. His fifth solo album, the electrifying Frampton Comes Alive!, is one of the top-selling live records of all time.

Buy : Peter Frampton on amazon.com 
          SHM-CD version at http://www.cdjapan.co.jp

What Makes America Great

The Big Apple

Apple ($AAPL) now has a market cap of around $215 billion.  Incredible, and it couldn't have happened to a more deserving company - they've changed the world.

More astonishing than the number itself is the list of companies whose market caps have been eclipsed by the tech king...

Apple is now bigger than Berkshire Hathaway, General Electric, Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Google and JPMorgan Chase

The only companies larger right now are Microsoft, ExxonMobilWal-Mart. and

One other thing to consider - it all started with a device shaped like a deck of cards that was created to compete with the Sony Walkman - The iPod.  Think of how many millions of devices sold as a direct consequence of the triumph and mass adoption of iTunes and the iPod.  The dollar value created on the back of that product pairing is absolutely mindboggling.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

KL Stock -Esso

Is Singapore SWF Reading This ?

Maybe Singaporeans are not as smart as they think themselves to be ? They lost billions in Citi :-




Treasury Will Sell Its Citi Stake -- and Reap Billions in Profit

Citigroup

The Treasury Dept. will sell its stake in troubled banking giant Citigroup (C) over the course of the year, it announced today. This sets up the government to make a substantial profit at the bank's current share price.

Treasury says it will sell the 7.7 billion shares of Citigroup common stock it received in June, 2009, in connection to a $45 billion federal bailout. The government paid $25 billion for the stake, or $3.25 a share. At Citi's current share price of around $4.28, Treasury would book a profit of about $8 billion.

"Treasury intends to sell its Citi common shares into the market through various means in an orderly and measured fashion," the department says in a press release. "Treasury intends to initiate its disposition of the common shares pursuant to a pre-arranged written trading plan."

Banning Land Sales Sending China Luxury Property Prices Through The Roof


Oscar Choi at Citi makes a sharp point -- by temporarily banning the sale of land and declaring that 70% of new land supply be allocated to welfare housing, China has actually restricted the supply of property in the higher end property market. Guess what can easily happen to prices when supply shrinks and demand stays the same. Oops. 

Oscar Choi at Citi:
Less new land allocated to private housing market, especially the high/luxury housing segment. According to the MRL, around 70% of new land supply should be allocated to social welfare housing and low- to-middle end housing construction. It means there will be a sharp decline of new land released for high/luxury end housing segment. In this situation, it is hard to imagine a drop in land prices. This also explains why developers have been so aggressive in recent land acquisitions. Given the insufficient land supply in key cities, land prices should remain at high levels in the coming 2-3 years.

He's being hedged... There's now an even higher risk that luxury Chinese property prices could go through the roof, since supply was just crushed with a regulatory sledgehammer.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Obama Sending His Love To The Supreme Leader




Obama Orders ‘Immediate Stand-down’ After Deadly North Korean Attack
By:  Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
 






Russian foreign military intelligence directorate (GRU) reports circulating in the Kremlin today are stating that President Obama has ordered all United Nations Forces on the Korean Peninsula into “immediate stand-down” over fears South Korea will retaliate against the North for the deadly missile attack on one of its ships that has left an estimated 46 of its Naval Forces dead and warned liable to start a nuclear weapons exchange should tensions escalate further.
Sparking this latest conflict was an “unprovoked” attack on South Korea’s Cheonan warship [photo 2nd left], a Pohang-class corvette (PCC-772), patrolling in neutral waters of the Yellow Sea when it was struck by a Chinese made Silkworm missile fired from a North Korean shore battery. So powerful was the resulting explosion the Cheonan was torn in half and 46 of its 104 member crew were annihilated.
[Note: Western reports show that North Korea has been preparing for this attack since last summer when it began training its Silkworm missile crews for a naval engagement along the Northern Limit Line with the South Korean Navy]
Upon the Cheonan’s sinking, its sister warship Daecheon (PCC-777) also patrolling these waters obliterated the North Korean shore battery that had fired the Silkworm missile with sustained artillery fire, after which no further hostilities were reported.

South Korea in following Obama’s orders not to escalate tensions in this already volatile region is reporting to its people that the Cheonan’s sinking remains ‘mysterious’ and that the artillery fired by the Daecheon was not directed at North Korea, but was ‘mistakenly’ directed at a flock of birds.   
Important to note about this conflict are its origins from the aftermath of World War II when upon the Empire of Japan’s surrender (who ruled over the Korean peoples since 1910) the Korean Peninsula was torn in two between its southern half backed by the West and its northern part by Communist Chinese and Russian forces.

Open conflict between the West and East on the Korean Peninsula began on June 25, 1950 when communist backed northern forces invaded the south and nearly succeeded in capturing the entire country. The North’s plan, however, was thwarted when United Nations forces (mostly Americans) led by US General Douglas MacArthur carried out a successful sea invasion of South Korea’s third largest city Incheon on September 15, 1950.

So successful was General MacArthur’s war strategy that by late October, 1950, his forces had nearly totally annihilated the North Korean troops opposing him and were nearing the Korean Peninsula’s border with Communist China. Unbeknownst to MacArthur, however, was that Communist China and Soviet Russia were not going to allow the Americans to succeed in crushing the North Koreans, and as we can read from the original communications exchanged between Chinese leader Mao Zedong and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin:

1 October 1950, Kim Il-sung sent a telegram to China asking for military intervention. On the same day, Mao Zedong received Stalin's telegram, suggesting China send troops into Korea.




5 October, under pressure from Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai, the Chinese Communist Central Committee finalized the decision of military intervention in Korea.


11 October, Stalin and Zhou Enlai sent a joint signed telegram to Mao, stating:


11 October, Stalin and Zhou Enlai sent a joint signed telegram to Mao, stating:


 1.Chinese troops are ill prepared and without tanks and artillery; requested air cover would take two months to arrive.
2.Within one month, fully equipped troops need to be in position; otherwise, US troops would step over the 38 parallel line and take over North Korea.
3.Fully equipped troops could only be sent into Korea in six months time; by then, North Korea would be occupied by the Americans, and any troops would be meaningless




12 October, 15:30 Beijing time, Mao sent a telegram to Stalin through the Russian ambassador: "I agree with your (Stalin and Zhou) decision."



12 October, 22:12 Beijing time, Mao sent another telegram: "I agree with 10 October telegram; my troops stay put; I have issued order to cease the advance into Korea plan."
12 October, Stalin sent a telegram to Kim Il-sung, telling him: "Russian and Chinese troops are not coming."



13 October, the Soviet ambassador in Beijing sent a telegram to Stalin, saying Mao Zedong had informed him that the Chinese Communist Central Committee had approved the decision of sending troops to Korea


So as the Americans were preparing to celebrate their victory over North Korea the Chinese were preparing to unleash nearly 500,000 of their troops into this conflict, and which on November 1, 1950 they in fact did leading to a crushing defeat of UN Forces and causing the West’s retreat to the 38th Parallel of the Peninsula where the war then broke down into a virtual stalemate after America’s President, Harry Truman, refused MacArthur’s pleas to use nuclear weapons.

[Note: So enraged was MacArthur against President Truman that rumors swirled that the World War II hero general was going to disobey his President’s orders and nuke Chinese forces anyway, and which when heard by Truman caused him to fire one of the arguably most famous generals in the history of the United States.]
By the summer of 1953 both the West and East knew that without the use of nuclear weapons the war could not be won by either side so on July 27th an Armistice Agreement between the Commander-in-Chief, United Nations Command, the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army and the Commander of the Chinese People's volunteers was signed ceasing open hostilities, but not ending the war which continues to this very day.

Important to note is that then South Korean President Syngman Rhee refused to sign the Armistice Agreement brokered between the West and East and, also, to this very day South Korea remains at war with its Communist Northern neighbor.

North Korea’s reason for launching this latest attack upon the South, these reports continue, was its growing anger over reports that the United States and South Korea were preparing to destabilize and then bring down their communist regime, and which this past week US Forces Korea Commander Gen. Walter Sharp in testifying before the American Congress warned of the need for “urgent preparation” for the sudden regime collapse of North Korea’s government and military structure.

North Korea, predictably, did not take kindly to General Sharp’s testimony and through its official Korean Central News Agency warned that “those who seek to bring down the system in the (North), whether they play a main role or a passive role, will fall victim to the unprecedented nuclear strikes of the invincible army”.

Interestingly about Obama in his administrations dealings with North Korea was his decision last month to leave them off of Americas list of countries supporting terror by his stating they “do not meet the statutory criteria” for inclusion that automatically imposes sanctions. Leading one to wonder if the World’s most rogue regime who for decades has supplied nuclear weapon and missile technology to some of the most dangerous Nations on Earth can’t be called a terrorist state then who can?
Former President Bush, on the other hand, had no qualms about calling North Korea what it in fact is, a terror state, when on January 29, 2002 in what is now called his “Axis of Evil” speech before the US Congress he named them along with Iraq and Iran as the three most dangerous Nations on Earth.

Since Obama’s taking office though, what was to Bush the “Axis of Evil” appears to be the new American Presidents “Trio of Buddies” as he continues to protect the Iranians while they construct an atomic bomb, Iraq has essentially become a protectorate of the Iranians, and now North Korea is allowed to attack US allies at will with no fear of retaliation…all occurring at the same time that he has turned his back on one of the United States most stalwart allies, Israel.

To what America has become there can no longer be any doubt, as aside from Obama’s refusing to listen to his own people suffering under the cruel communist regime being erected all around them, Americas once stalwart allies are now being cast aside too.
And to those Americans not believing what is happening to them under their “change” President they should pay closer attention; such as when this past week Cuba’s Communist leader Fidel Castro declared that the passage of Obama’s health care reform was “a miracle” and a major victory for Obama's presidency.

At least Fidel knows a fellow communist dictator when he sees one, too bad the American people can’t see it too.

The 15 Money Rules Kids Should Learn


The 15 Money Rules Kids Should Learn (WSJ)

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Catholic Church is a Criminal Enterprise


The Holy See’s reaction to both stories has been swift. An unsigned editorial this week in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano attacked the New York Times by name, accusing the paper of willfully ignoring the “truth” of Ratzinger/Benedict’s record and of attempting “to instrumentalize, without any foundation in fact, horrible episodes and sorrowful events uncovered in some cases from decades ago.” The media, it continued, showed a “despicable intent of attacking, at whatever cost, Benedict XVI and his closest collaborators.”
Earlier in the week, New York’s archbishop, Timothy Dolan, used his blog to dismiss the New York Times reports and defend the pontiff’s record by arguing that authorities outside the church also are culpable. Stories about sexual abuse by priests were “fair” if “unending,” he wrote. But he condemned the media for portraying child sexual abuse “as a tragedy unique to the church alone. That, of course, is malarkey.”
via A pope with a problem – latimes.com.
Anyone who’s interested in losing his lunch should read the above-mentioned blog entry by New York archbishop Timothy Dolan in defense of Pope Benedict; the archbishop’s incredibly pompous and self-pitying rant is some of the most depraved horseshit I’ve ever seen on the internet, which is saying a lot.
One expects professional slimeballs like the public relations department of Goldman Sachs to pull out the “Well, we weren’t the only thieves!” argument when accused of financial malfeasance. But I almost couldn’t believe my eyes as I read through Dolan’s retort and it dawned on me that he was actually going to use the “We weren’t the only child molesters!” excuse. Dolan must have very roomy man-robes, because it seems to me you’d need a set of balls like two moons of Jupiter to say such a thing in public and expect it to fly. But this is exactly what Dolan does; he bases his entire defense of the Church on the idea that others are equally culpable. The relevant section of his piece:
What adds to our anger over the nauseating abuse and the awful misjudgment in reassigning such a dangerous man, though, is the glaring fact that we never see similar headlines that would actually be “news”:  How about these, for example?
–    “Doctor Asserts He Ignored Abuse Warnings,” since Dr. Huth admits in the article that he, in fact, told the archdiocese the abusing priest could be reassigned under certain restrictions, a prescription today recognized as terribly wrong;
–    “Doctor Asserts Public Schools Ignored Abuse Warnings,” since the data of Dr. Carol Shakeshaft concludes that the number of cases of abuse of minors by teachers, coaches, counsellors, and staff in government schools is much, much worse than by priests;
–    “Doctor Asserts Judges (or Police, Lawyers, District Attorneys, Therapists, Parole Officers) Ignored Abuse Warnings,” since we now know the sober fact that no one in the healing and law enforcement professions knew back then the depth of the scourge of abuse, or the now-taken-for-granted conclusion that abusers of young people can never safely work closely with them again.
The most revolting part of this response is the last bit about how “no one knew… back then” the depth of the scourge of abuse, or the fact that child molesters cannot be allowed near children ever again once caught. Dolan is trying to get us to focus on the 1962 case, but the truth is that as recently as this last decade, the Church’s doctrinal office elected to proceed with church trials for less than 10% of the 3000 cases of abuse reported to them between the years of 2000 and 2010.
And just a few days after this blog entry of Dolan’s, the Times would come out with another story indicating that the current Pope, then a Cardinal named Joseph Ratzinger, seems to have quashed an effort to bring a serial child abuser named Lawrence Murphy to a church trial. The inaction of Ratzinger’s office resulted in Murphy being allowed to die “in the dignity of the priesthood,” which was his wish as expressed in a letter to then-Cardinal Ratzinger in January 1998.
So while schools, parole officers, judges, lawyers and therapists may have been deficient in their understanding of child abuse back in 1962 (although I’m sorry — it could have been 1562, if someone molested my child and was allowed back in the priesthood, I’d be reaching for an axe), the Catholic church is alone among all of them in continuing to not get it since then. Despite massive public scandal over the course of what now is decades, they continue to deflect and shield child molesters as a matter of institutional routine. The ugliest part of the New York Times story wasn’t even the involvement of Ratzinger in this mess but the fact that three successive archbishops failed to do anything about Murphy, a man who apparently molested upwards of 200 children.
(And not only did he molest these children, but he clearly was not forthcoming about his crimes when examined by experts in sexual abuse . In the notes of one such expert there is a telling notation: “Denies sexual contact with anyone not named in outside complaints, i.e. admits to sexual contact only with those accused of!” The expert included that exclamation point, too.)
So this monster who was known to the highest authorities in the church to be a monster was allowed to die an active priest who was allowed to work with children for 24 years even after he was exposed, until the end of his life. For Dolan then to lay all this off on 1962 mores is disgusting all by itself and totally disingenuous.
But even worse — what does Dolan’s whiny deflecting and excuse-making say about the church as an arbiter of ethical values? These pompous assholes run around in their poofy robes and dresses shaking smoke-filled decanters with important expressions on their faces and pretending to great insight about grace and humility, but here we have the head of the largest Diocese in America teaching his entire congregation that when caught committing a terrible sin, the appropriate response is to blame the media and pull the “All the other kids were doing it, too!” stunt!
I was raised Catholic but stopped going to church at the age of 12. I was a complete idiot at that age with regard to almost every other area of human knowledge, but even I knew back then that the church was a scam. There are good and decent people working as individual priests, but the institution as a whole is a gang of cheap charlatans preying on peoples’ guilt feelings (which of course are cultivated intentionally by the church, which teaches children to be ashamed of their natural sexuality) in order to solicit a lifetime of contributions.
When I see a Catholic priest chanting his ridiculous incantations and waving his holy smoke over someone’s gravesite or at a wedding, the vibe I get is exactly the same as the one I get watching a plumber groan and moan and babble gibberish about all the different things wrong with your kitchen pipes, when in reality all he had to do was replace a washer. It’s the same as picking up your car after an oil change and listening to the mechanic rattle off a list of charges totaling thousands for the nineteen extra things he looked at under your hood, just out of concern for your safety… And when you protest, no, there was nothing wrong with my alternator, I’m not paying for that, he tries to bullshit you — oh, yes there was, trust me, if we hadn’ta fixed that, your car woulda died on the highway within a week.
That’s all the church is. They’re a giant for-profit company using predatory salesmanship to sell what they themselves know is a defective, outmoded, basically unnecessary product. They’ll use any means necessary to keep their market share and if they have to lie and cheat and deflect and point fingers to keep the racket going, they’ll do it, just like any other sleazeball company.
But I think it’s time we started considering that what the church is is even worse than that. It’s possible we should start wondering if the church is also a criminal organization that in this country, anyway, should be broken up using RICO statutes.
One of the few areas where I agreed with George Bush was in the notion that a country providing safe haven to terrorists should itself be treated as a terrorist organization. Morally this isn’t a difficult one to figure out; a country that keeps house for a bin Laden and doesn’t assist other countries in trying to catch him is a rogue state, one that should be booted out of the community of nations.
We don’t permit countries that harbor terrorists to participate in international society, but the Catholic Church — an organization that has been proven over and over again to systematically enable child molesters, right up now to the level of the Pope — is given a free pass. In fact the Church is not only not sanctioned in any serious way, it gets to retain its outrageous tax-exempt status, which makes its systematic child abuse, in this country at least, a government-subsidized activity.
Somewhere underneath all of this there is a root story that has to do with celibacy. The celibate status of its priests is basically the Catholic church’s last market advantage in the Christian religion racket, but human beings are not designed to be celibate and so problems naturally arise among the population of priests forced to live that terrible lifestyle. Just as it refuses to change its insane and criminal stance on birth control and condoms, the church refuses to change its horrifically cruel policy about priestly celibacy. That’s because it quite correctly perceives that should it begin to dispense with the irrational precepts of its belief system, it would lose its appeal as an ancient purveyor of magical-mystery bullshit and become just a bigger, better-financed, and infinitely more depressing version of a Tony Robbins self-help program.
Therefore it must cling to its miserable celibacy in order to keep its sordid business scheme going; and if clinging to its miserable celibacy means having to look the other way while children are serially molested by its sexually stunted and tortured employees, well, so be it.
If you look at it that way, the church’s institutional behavior is far worse than is commonly believed. It’s not just a matter of an intractable bureaucracy responding too slowly or too insensitively to some scattered accidents of fate. This is more like the situation of a car company that continues selling a cheap but faulty brake system because it has calculated that it stands to make more money selling the cars than it does to lose in lawsuits. The only difference is, a car company can fix the brakes if it wants to. What the Catholic church is selling is by definition faulty. It can’t change, or it will be out of business. So even if not changing means kids will be continue to be molested, it doesn’t change.
I think Chris Hitchens said this once, and I agree with him; if I were a person that made that kind of moral choice, I think I’d have to kill myself. But these guys not only don’t kill themselves, they go out in public ranting about how wronged they are and how they’ve been fucked over by the evil New York Times for airing out their dirty laundry. Again, I admire the balls, but seriously, they must know the game is almost up. Sooner or later people are going to catch on, the state is going to make a move, and there’s going to be a hell of a lot of church property going up for auction along with the seized Escalades of DEA-busted drug dealers. Or maybe not in this lifetime — but one can only hope.



KCPO:- Bears Back In Command ? 29/3/210




 

The market took out my stop on last Monday. As I was getting ready to go long again with price closed above the lower Bollinger Band and the Stochastic crossing up the 20's signal line on Tuesday, the following day's price failed to confirm the buy by hitting a higher high but instead went back down and closed below the lower Bollinger Band again. A new signal came in on Friday when price went below the lower Band and  lower than the recent low of 2549.

The daily chart is getting interesting as the negative  MACD has gone below its zero signal line. I usually take this as a more confirming sell signal. The D- remains above the D+, and a very interesting item has developed here is the ADX has risen and crossed above the falling D+, which by itself is a major sell signal. A rising ADX means a new trend in emerging, and I would wait for it to cross above its own 20's signal line and with that, I would add more shorts positions. As long as the ADX continues to rise, you can disregard the Stochastic which has fallen back the "oversold" zone. Remember: when there is a strong trend in the market, ignore those oscillators indicators and watch the MACD instead. I will also add on more sell when price breaks below its recent low of 2528. Place stop at 2568.




The weekly chart is finally come in agreement with the Stochastic falling and  the MACD has crossed down. Price has closed below the all important middle band which is the 20 periods moving average. But the D+ still maintain above the D- which is telling us the bull may be dying but still has some breath in it. I notice the Bollinger Band has begun to tighten which is telling us that a new trend is not yet in place. But a weekly closing of below 2445 may see a new trend setting in.

With the current strength of the US Dollars, most commodities will have a more bearish bias. At the moment the USD is near one of its near term upside target and may hover around here before going for its next targets of 83.70/89.60/100.00 (USD Index chart), so KCPO may just imitate that too before seeing a major move.


Saturday, March 27, 2010

FKLI:- It Is Back To Buy Again; But I Remain Unconvinced 29/2/2010


This market is getting tricky again as it broke below the middle Bollinger Band which is effectively the 20 periods moving average , then went back up above that critical level on the next day. And that is followed by a closing above the upper Bollinger Band on last Friday.  With the Stochastic turned positive and rising again, I closed off my shorts and turned long again on Friday. The MACD has also turned positive while the D+ remains above the D-, the current story is back on the long side again. I am placing my stop at 1304, if the market continues to go further up, then I will raise my stop to 1318.

Taking note that the daily ADX has gone flat which is telling us the trend is weak. And as read in the previous week's weekly chart, this market may be caught in a range bound situation (weekly MACD and Stochastic contradicts each other/ falling ADX.) So whatever I do at this stage, I would NOT want to engage a big position in yet, until I see more evidence that a new trend has emerged.








The weekly chart remains uncertain as both the indicators still contradict each other. Though the MACD may has hooked up but it still remain negative. The weekly ADX has stopped falling and becomes flat. We need to watch further whether this would develop into a new trend. But I would watch the Stochastic as it is getting near the overbought zone.

Our market as usual , shows its "resilience" to outside forces. Despite claim of the Greece problem is "settled",  I am getting even more cautious with what is brewing over in the Club Meds , the PIIGs and China. I see very little reason to feel bullish about the equities markets.  Recently a  bank just launched their new China Fund ,  hyping about how "bullish" the China market is
in their marketing news releases. I do not think their boys have been really doing their homework, especially when the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index (SSEC) chart's major moving averages have just done a 'death cross". Buying in at this period is truly irresponsible to their unit holders. And on direct contraction to what everybody is saying these days, my chart reading is showing a potential collapse in the Chinese RMB soon. Thinking that our market can avoid being getting "hurt" is pure naivety.





Friday, March 26, 2010

「谷,你是咱們的哥。」




楊艾琳
2010年3月23日,谷歌正式撤出中國大陸那天,凌晨就有中國網友在推特上發推文:「我在訪問google.cn時,自 動跳轉到google.com.hk,頁面上有一句話:『歡迎您來到谷歌搜索在中國的新家。』」雖然人在馬國,谷歌在哪塊地、買哪棟樓、築哪個巢,大致上 不關我的事,但未雨綢繆的我,難免感同身受。對於將內地搜索用戶轉向至香港分站一舉,即使不知官方下一步會對香港一站怎樣,還是必須贊谷歌你真犀利。


請允 許我深情款款地說一聲: 

「谷,你是咱們的哥。」

山不轉人轉,牆不翻哥翻。於是中國網民測試這一個中國谷歌的新家,嘗試用大陸的IP搜索敏感 詞,結果無法鏈接。如果用國外的IP搜索相同的敏感詞,就能鏈接到完整的結果。有個叫李華芳的網民在他的博文寫道:「今天不是中國打敗了Google,而 是中國被互聯網拋棄的一天。作為一個網民,我無法悲傷地坐在你身邊,只好翻過牆去尋找自己熱愛的世界。」

 


如果你搜索「china service availability」,得到的結果是:除了Web、Images、News、Ads和Gmail打勾勾之外,YouTube、Sites和 Blogger旁打的是紅色的叉,即blocked之意,中文是封鎖,白話是開不到。在Docs、Picasa和Group旁是個扳鉗圖,即 Partially Blocked,白話是看審查局的眼色,他讓你開你就開到,他不讓你開你撬也撬不開。

更有網友戲言: 
「清明時節雨紛紛,陸上網民欲斷魂,借問谷歌何處去,河蟹 遙指香港村。」

 河蟹即和諧,指的是網文被官方審查遭刪除。許多人覺得不可思 議,監控言論其實反而局限了一個社會的發展,然而每築一道牆,就提供了一個網民加深對技術瞭解的機會。撞過牆痛過了,自然懂得翻牆。

中國人也上不了面子書(Facebook)和推特(Twitter),不少博客開了被關,不是開開關關,就是博文被刪。面子書針對審查這一個問題, 曾對美國參議院委員會說:「我們公司太小,無法處理國際上的審查問題。」可是封鎖了網站,卻封鎖不了網民的智慧。推特上仍可以看到數不盡的中國推友,翻過 牆,一片海闊天空。

我曾經抱怨,我們太沒有自由了。但現在我終於明白,我們不止自由,而是非常地自由。如果和中國相比,我們隨時可上面子書上推特,雖說發言要有分寸, 要明事理。我們也可以在自己的博客暢所欲言,只要寫的時候稍微注意措辭得體就是。我心滿意足,難掩心中的欣喜。人家說審查是最後一根稻草,我站在一畝稻田 里,手舞足蹈。

Thursday, March 25, 2010

KL Stocks - AIC, BPuri, Dijacor, Dufu Tech & Htpadu

For People Who Refuse To THINK

An Open Letter to Dr. Laura Schlesinger

In her radio show, Dr. Laura Schlesinger (a popular conservative radio talk show host in the USA) said that homosexuality is an abomination according to the Bible Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, and was attributed to a James M. Kauffman, Ed. D.
_______________________

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination… end of
debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual unseemliness – Lev. 15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev. 1:9. The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination – Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really
necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev. 24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)


I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan,

James M. Kauffman, Ed. D.
Professor Emeritus Dept. of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education
University of Virginia
THE SUPREMES: MEET THE SUPREMES Expanded Edition (2-CD)
LIMITED EDITION


It's been 50 years since a group of four teenage girls calling themselves the Primettes nervously auditioned for Berry Gordy at Motown, then Detroit's new local record company. At first he sent them away, telling Diana, Mary, Florence and Barbara to first graduate high school. They hung around anyway, doing handclaps in sessions, and finally got signed in January 1961 (a few months before graduation). The Primettes were re-named "The Supremes" - but it would be a little while before they became world-renowned superstars.


Meet The Supremes: Expanded Edition, a new 2-CD set from Hip-o Select, tells the story of those early years, as the group evolved from a quartet to a trio, doing their best to gain traction at an fast-emerging label. The set features a newly remastered version of the Supremes' debut album, first issued in 1962, along with rare tracks from their first recording sessions, previously unreleased live shows and much more



You can order this from:-   http://www.soulmusicstore.com/
An interesting China Daily report the gist of which goes basically: A local government applies for a loan claiming it will use the money for high-speed rail (!) it doesn't. Instead it uses it to pay off debt.

Bear in mind, this happened in 2008. It's just now coming to light. It may just be an isolated case and not matters a whole lot, but on the other hand, this could also be one of the many hundreds/thousands similar cases.


Anyway, as Shih has pointed out, local government (who are dependent on a property bubble for finances) may have debts totaling $1.6 trillion. Of course daddy Beijing's huge reserves can still take care of this if/when they need a bailout. But it would be interesting to see how far can that sugar daddy's $$$ go when other bubbles blow up.


Who Will Next Dump Their Gold ?

Everyone is in debt right now!

Which are the  governments around the world that are likely to  dump their gold holdings to pay down their debts ?

The World Gold Council's latest report is now out and it gives insight into who owns how much.

Below are those  countries have the most gold as a % of their reserves :-

15. Venezuela: 360.8 tonnes / 36.8% of reserves
14. Portugal: 382.5 tonnes / 84.9% of reserves
13. Taiwan: 423.6 tonnes / 4.1% of reserves
12. ECB: 501.4 tonnes / 25.2% of reserves
11. India: 557.7 tonnes / 6.9% of reserves
10. Netherlands: 612.5 tonnes / 53.4% of reserves
9. Russia: 641 tonnes / 5.1% of reserves
8. Japan: 765.2 tonnes / 2.5% of reserves
7. Switzerland: 1040.1 tonnes / 27.1% of reserves
6. China: 1054.1 tonnes / 1.6% of reserves
5. France: 2435.4 tonnes / 65.7% of reserves
4. Italy: 2451.8 tonnes / 64.9% of reserves
3. IMF: 3005.3 tonnes
2. Germany: 3406.8 tonnes / 66.1% of reserves
1. United States: 8133.5 tonnes / 70.4% of reserves

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

KL Stocks - TWRREIT & Timecom

Gold - Is The Writing On The Wall ?



Chart


 Citi: ETF Gold Holdings "Slipping", Demand Starts To Wane

Citi's Alan Heap notes that 'Speculators are turning bearish and net longs are contracting.' for commodities overall. In particular, 'Gold ETF positions are slipping from a high level.

Net long positions for gold have come off substantially in 2010, as shown in yellow below:


Chart

Chinese Local Governments Have To Keep The Property Market HOT !

Andy Xie: China's Tightening Is A Joke, Local Governments Are Preparing Another Big Round Of Real Estate Inflation



Andy Xie


China's big effort to cool the property market is nothing but theater, says Andy Xie in his latest column for Caing. 

Proof is in the home prices.

Although a reduction in the discount given to mortgage holders has torpedoed sales, prices remain high, as if developers are certain that tightening is just a passing trend.

Beijing has cashed in big on the property bubble, and they aren't ready to quit.

Caing:

Contrary to Beijing's policy intent, local governments are readying for another round of property inflation. Local governments have been using bank loans to resettle residents, and resettlement costs have skyrocketed since those being moved need enough compensation to buy properties at today's prices. Unless property prices rise considerably, local governments will end up losing money, which they cannot afford.

Such resettlements played an important role in supporting demand for property last year. The overwhelming majority of end-user purchases probably came from resettled residents who used their compensation cash for down payments. Resettlement compensation is the biggest transfer of wealth from the government to the household sector since the privatization of low-cost public housing a decade ago. It is probably the most important government action supporting today's economy.

Dummy, It Is All About SEX !


The household savings rate in China went from about 16% of disposable income in 1990 to over 30% today. The comparable rate in the U.S. was about 3% before the crisis, and 6% in recent months.

The economic consequences are global as the excess savings directly impacts China's balance of trade and current account surplus. Many economists have asked the question - Why do the Chinese save so much?

Some attribute it to a lack of a social safety net on health care, pensions, etc. as well as anxiety over future inflation. Others have cited the high level of savings comes from Chinese corporations rather than households.

While they all could be contributory factors; a recent paper by economists Shan-Jin Wei of Columbia University and Xiaobo Zhangk of the International Food Policy offers a different explanation - SEX.

The two economists suggest that sex selection in China has led to intense competition for brides. Savings rates have shot up as families strive to boost their sons' odds of marriage. (See graph)




Their study hypothesized that the strict 30-plus-year old one-child-per-family plan is the primary driver of the high savings rate. This, coupled with a cultural preference for male offspring, has led to a significant imbalance between the number of male and female children born to its citizens.

Statistically speaking, this translates into about one in five Chinese men out of the marriage market when the current generation of children grows up. The resulting pressure might incentivize men and parents with sons to increase savings in order to have a competitive edge in the marriage market.

Even those not competing in the marriage market must compete to buy housing and make other significant purchases, pushing up the savings rate for all households.

What They Are Good At

French are Finks

Broke? Buy a few warships, France tells Greece

Yes, this is the same country that sold their warships to Russsssia (no that is a not a typo) despite condemnation from her NATO allies. Now you know why Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted to keep them out of the D-Day Operation. With such friends, who needs enemies ?



 (Reuters) - In a bizarre twist to the Greek debt crisis, France and Germany are pressing Greece to buy their gunboats and warplanes, even as they urge it to cut public spending and curb its deficit.
Indeed, some Greek officials privately say Paris and Berlin are using the crisis as leverage to advance arms contracts or settle payment disputes, just when the Greeks are trying to reduce defense spending.

"No one is saying 'Buy our warships or we won't bail you out', but the clear implication is that they will be more supportive if we do what they want on the armaments front," said an adviser to Prime Minister George Papandreou, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity.

Greece spends more of its gross domestic product on the military than any other European Union country, largely due to long-standing tension with its neighbor, historic rival and NATO ally, Turkey.

"The Germans and the French have them over a barrel now," said Nick Witney, a former head of the European Defense Agency.
"If you are trying to repair Greek public finances, it's a ludicrous way to go about things."

France is pushing to sell six frigates, 15 helicopters and up to 40 top-of-the-range Rafale fighter aircraft.

Greek and French officials said President Nicolas Sarkozy was personally involved and had broached the matter when Papandreou visited France last month to seek support in the financial crisis.

FRIGATE PURCHASE

The Greeks were so sensitive to Sarkozy's concerns that they announced on the day Papandreou went to Paris that they would go ahead with buying six Fremm frigates worth 2.5 billion euros ($3.38 billion), despite their budget woes.

The ships are made by the state-controlled shipyard DCNS, which is a quarter owned by defense electronics group Thales  and may have to lay workers off in the downturn.

Greece is also in talks buy 15 French Super Puma search-and-rescue helicopters made by aerospace giant EADS  for an estimated 400 million euros.

The Rafale, made by Dassault Aviation , is a more distant and vastly dearer prospect. There is no published price, but each costs over $100 million, plus weapons.

Bad Moon Rising for China Stock Market

THE DEATH CROSS IN CHINA


The Chinese equity market continues to lag in the New Year and is still in the red while the S&P 500 has now traded 4.5% higher in less than a quarter.  Growing fears of policy tightening and potential bubbles have Chinese investors paring back their risk.  As the fundamentals begin to look more murky there is a potentially foreshadowing technical development occurring in the Chinese equity market – a “death cross”.

Technical analysts are awfully creative in naming their indicators and this one lives up to the hype.  The rare seen “death cross” is currently unfolding in Shanghai.  As you can see in the following two charts a “death cross” occurs when a short-term moving average crosses over a long-term moving average from top to bottom.  It’s generally a sign of a weakening market move.  Figure 2 shows the inverse of the “death cross” – the “golden cross”, which usually foreshadows a continuing or new bull market move.


SSEC2
 THE DEATH CROSS IN CHINA
Figure 1
SSEC1
 THE DEATH CROSS IN CHINA
Figure 2

The implications for China are interesting.  As we’ve previously mentioned, bubbles very rarely pop and then run back to their highs.  In fact, a quick study of history’s bubbles shows that it has never happened in any of the previous major bubbles.  More often, the action is sideways to down for many years as the reality of the bubble bursting takes years to set-in and the massive supply/demand imbalance gets worked off.   

For China, the stars are beginning to align for more difficult equity days ahead.  The last time the dreaded “death cross” occurred in Shanghai was just prior to a 60% crash.   While we’re unlikely to be staring at the abyss again, we could very well be looking at an early warning system of things to come later this year as a potential trade war and Chinese policy tightening put a death grip on the Chinese equity markets.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

KL Stock - Deleum

Red Flags All Over China

Watch Out For China's 10 Big Red Flags



Edward Chancellor of GMO has put out an excellent piece on the Chinese market and the "red flags" for investors.

The paper addresses how to identify the proper "speculative manias" and associated financial crises in the country. Chancellor sums it into key points, breaking down the bare essentials: 
 
1. Great investment debacles generally start out with a compelling growth story.

2. A blind faith in the competence of the authorities is another typical feature of a classic mania. In other words, you can't always trust the numbers that a government is putting out.

3. A general increase in investment is another leading indicator of financial distress. Capital is generally misspent during periods of euphoria.

4. Great booms are invariably accompanied by a surge in corruption. Countrywide, anyone?

5. Strong growth in the money supply is another robust leading indicator of financial fragility. Easy money lies behind all great episodes of speculation from the Tulip Mania of the 1630s – which was funded with IOUs – onward.

6. Fixed currency regimes often produce inappropriately low interest rates, which are liable to feed booms and end in busts.

7. Crises generally follow a period of rampant credit growth. In the boom, liabilities are contracted that cannot subsequently be repaid. The U.S. will ultimately be a perfect example of this.

8. Moral hazard is another common feature of great speculative manias. Greed isn't necessarily good and we tend to act irresponsible during intense periods of speculation.

9. A rising stock of debt is not the only cause for concern. Investments financed with borrowed money don’t generate enough income to either service or repay the loan (what Minsky called “Ponzi finance”).

10. Dodgy loans are generally secured against collateral, most commonly real estate. Thus, a combination of strong credit growth and rapidly rising property prices are a reliable leading indicator of very painful busts.

All the above sounds like China ?

Another Inconvenient Truth

15 Depressing Facts About The Coming Water Crisis


You probably didn't know that today is World Water Day. Americans care very little about water, because for most of our history water has been abundant and good. But problems with infrastructure and supply are growing.

Globally, the water crisis is much worse.

We are fast approaching a world in which the most hotly-contested resource for development and survival is not oil, but water.
This is also why investors have become crazy about it, pouring huge money into water rights, desalinization, and purification projects.

15 Facts About The Coming Water Crisis

America must spend $255 billion in the next five years to prevent deterioration of water infrastructure. We plan to spend half that amount.

Parts of America use up to 80% of their available freshwater resources.

Source: UNESCO

Californians look forward to a fourth straight year of serious drought.

Source: California

Transporting water is impractical, even within the U.S. Just look at the cost of bottled water.

A few exceptions to the economic limits on transporting water exist. Bottled water, for example, is sometimes consumed vast distances from where it was produced because it commands a premium far above normal costs. Growth in bottled water consumption may expand in some markets, but overall, long-distance transfers of bulk water are not likely to become a significant export in commercial markets. Source: Pacific Institute

Globally, 1.2 billion people live in areas with inadequate water supply.

1.6 billion live in areas where there is water, but they can't afford to drink it.

Water use is increasing much faster than population.

Global water demands will increase by 40% in the next ten years.

By 2025, two-thirds of the world will live under conditions of water scarcity.

Two-thirds of the cities in China suffer from water shortages. Clean water is even more rare.

India WILL run out of water in the near future.

"A shortage of water resources could spell increased conflicts in the future. Population growth will make the problem worse. So will climate change. As the global economy grows, so will its thirst. Many more conflicts lie just over the horizon." -- Ban Ki-Moon

Source: Global Policy

MENA maintains water supplies through expensive and non-renewable sources.

MENA maintains water supplies through expensive and non-renewable 
sources.
Source: UNESCO

Desalination is only practical for small countries with extreme wealth. Saudi Arabia accounts for 25% of the world's use.

Green tech may provide a way past peak oil. There is no escape from peak water.

G. Lubin |