The Regulators say Yes!

There are now wild cries about what happened on Thursday in Wall Street when the stockmarket plunged nearly 1000 pts because of a likely error trade that triggered the machines to do the necessary. The stock market went into a tailspin leaving the traders and Regulators terrified but not knowing why and what to do. They are still trying to find out. They may have known the answer but refusing to face the truth. The truth is that the whole stock market system is mismanaged and completely flawed, and is a system of fraud to favour the big crooks. And all because the Regulators say Yes. The Regulators say Yes to the crooks and scoundrels who had them by the neck and telling them or dictating to them what to do. The crooks say we want to play very big and need big limits to trade and the Regulators, say Yes. The crooks say we want to trade very big and with no cost, no commission, maybe a little pittance for the Regulators, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say they want to use machines, high speed computers to do their tradings and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say they want an open trading system to enable their machines to hook to the Regulators machines, to have all the information of traders in the market, the buy and sell orders, etc, and the Regulators say Yes. And the Regulator dismantled their proprietary system and installed an open system for the crooks to play. The crooks say they should not be penalised for using unfair means and unfair advantage against the small traders, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say in such trading they cannot be sure if they buy and sell to themselves which is against the rules and regulations of trading, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say in some of the things they do it could not be transparent, trading in the dark side, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say they want to create plenty of worthless papers like CDOs and all kinds of derivatives to sell to the investors, with no guarantees, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say the investors may not know what derivatives are all about and the Regulators must train them, and the Regulators say Yes. The crooks say if the investors refuse to trade in derivatives, the Regulators must force them to trade in derivatives, and the Regulators say Yes. And the crooks say because they are trading big, they want to have lesser regulations or deregulations, and the Regulators say Yes. And the crooks also want to short the market, sell short, even bringing down prices of good stocks at will, and the Regulators say Yes. But it is against the rules to sell short. The crooks say they can borrow scrips to settle, and technically not shorting. They want the Regulators to create a system for scrips borrowing, and the Regulators say Yes. And the regulators did not know why Dow crashed on Thursday? And the American public suddenly are so much wiser, including the professors, and are crying foul and wanting an overhaul of the system determined by the crooks and approved by the Regulators who say Yes to the crooks.

The Apple is rotten

Have no doubts about it, the Apple is rotten to the core. The superficial skin deep good look cannot hold out for long. The subprime crisis, the toxic notes, CDOs/CDS, the heavenly pay out to the bankers and finance crooks, to the lawyers, the high debt of living on borrowed money, and the whole financial system, are rotten deep inside. The stock market and the financial system need an immediate overhaul. What happened yesterday is not going to go away. It is saying it will come back again and again. The super computers and programme assisted tradings shall rule again. They are the best inventions, together with derivatives for the stock markets. Any silly country that still salivating on how great the American and western system is needs to have a reality check. To continue to ape the Americans in their wayward and irresponsible ways is a sure road to the abyss of financial destruction. What I am saying is pure bullshit. The American system is the best system to be incorporated to all the countries around the world. Then we can have everyone being as rich as the Americans and spending like the Americans. The world needs to support the Big Apple and make sure it remains pretty looking.

China coming down hard to control sky high property prices

There was a report yesterday that a property developer is slashing its prices by 15%. This must be the result of pressure from the Chinese govt to bring down the prices. Wonder if this developer is private or govt owned. If it is a private developer then it is wrong for the Chinese govt to make them slash prices. But maybe they can do it in an authoritarian state. But this will interfere adversely with market forces and market pricing. And developers will not be able to make more grotesque profits. The Chinese govt must understand that private developers are only there to make profits. Making them slashed prices is bad. But if this is a state developer, then there are reasons to do so as the govt has to manage the housing prices to make them affordable to the people. The Chinese govt will have to tussle between making housing affordable or pricing as high as possible as long as the buyers can afford to pay. The latter is obviously good as they will have more money to raise their own pay unless they are contented to be paid lesser than the private sector. At the moment it seems that they are willing to suppress the market forces and sacrifice their own pay for the good of the people. Who says authoritarian govt is bad? When they know what is good for the people and act accordingly, even a dictatorship is good. But when the govt acts against the interest of the people, even western democracy is bad.

Dow plunged 998.5 pts at its worst

Dow was trading weak yesterday but still within reasonable limits until a sudden plunge one and a half hour before closing. This is almost a 10% drop in a day and panic was in the air. It quickly recovered 650 pts to close at 10520, losing 347.8 pts. Though buy orders kicked in after the sharp plunge, the sentiment was badly hit. It was reported that it could be due to a trading error and programmed sell orders just kicked in to complete the massacre. Many people must have lost a lot of money during that 20 minutes. The stock Accenture fell from $42 to 4c but recovered to close losing only $1. Nasdaq has announced that it would cancel all trades between 2.40pm and 3pm on grounds that they were obviously error trades. What we have seen is the destructiveness of programme trading. When machine takes over, they can kill without any qualms. Programme trading in itself is an unfair advantage in favour of those with cash and machines. It is better that this process be curtailed and remove from the system before it inflicts more severe damages to the financial systems around the world. No one is pointing a finger to the possibility of an act of terror, an intentional as opposed to accidental error. Even if it is not a sabo act, a sabo act can still happen one day. This over reliance on the machine must be tempered with human control and not machine control.

The mother tongue debate

This perennial problem is resurfacing again with the MOE sending out signals that the weightage will be lowered. The two camps have their valid arguments. The pro mother tongue group see the emotional and cultural importance of their language and identity being eroded. The pragmatists just would not bother about such 'wishy washy' sentiments. All they are concerned is the utility value of the mother tongue. And if they couldn't see any value in it, and if it is too difficult for them to learn, too high an opportunity cost, do away with it. Lump it and move on. All of us went through this process of learning and schooling as children and as parents or would be parents. Learning something is never easy, especially when the heart is not there, and able to see any value in it. I had my difficulties in learning languages as well but more because of the lack of interest, neglect and not willing to put in the effort. I hardly read anything when young, not even the text books unless compelled to. Under such circumstances you can expect my grades for all the languages, Malay, Chinese and English, all bordering on the red. Eventually both Malay and Chinese were dropped and all I had now is pasar Melayu and fortunately still able to make a decent conversation in Chinese, and able to recognise some words to get by. But I regretted not doing more for these languages as their utility values are much more than I thought. They become very useful and essential when travelling around, Malaysia, Indonesia and further away. How to flirt with the mei meis if one does not know Chinese, or the sayangs if one does not know Malay: ) On the part of mother tongue, the older one gets, the more one gets sentimental and emotional to it. It is part of one's identity, one's root. It can be quite embarrassing and uncomfortable in situation when one is expected to know one's mother tongue. But of course if one has erased the meaning of race in one's mind and make up, then mother tongue is totally irrevelant. And one can stand up tall and proudly proclaim that one does not know any word about one's mother tongue and would not be bothered to know. And my English was just as bad. Nearly failed at O level, or actually failed. That was bad huh. I only picked up when I started to read more and write more. There was an urge to read and a necessity to write when one wants to submit a paper for a grade. And the more one reads, the more one writes, the easier it becomes. Be it English or mother tongue, it is the usage, the constant use of the language that makes it easy to learn. If one is from a home that does not use mother tongue, and does not make any effort to make it a working language, it is tough, sure. Let's see how Eng Hen addresses this emotional and sentimental issue in the face of the protest from the utilitarians.