Bailing out of mortgage contracts

Reason can't seem to win in this country:

"A recent Federal Trade Commission study revealed a third of mortgage borrowers didn't know what interest rate they were paying, while half didn't know how much they borrowed. Tougher disclosure standards may well make sense. But, in the end, it simply isn't the government's job to convince people that some financial risks aren't worth taking, or that housing prices can go down as well as up."

Unfortunately, legislation and government intervention will not stop stupid people from being stupid. The same type of raw deal is occurring every few minutes at your local car dealership lots.

All of us know someone who buys that expensive SUV that he/she shouldn't buy, only got talked into it because of an attractively low "monthly payment of $199." At the end of loan length, some 5+ years from now, the buyer ends up paying twice the sticker price for that car. Shouldn't government regulate how people buy their cars too?! In fact, the most effective way of educating people about financial risks is to cut them off from taking out loans all together.

For that matter, people these days finance anything and everything. From vacations, wedding, home renovation, to major appliances, LASIK and child adoption. It's only a matter of time until we hear those who failed at assessing associated loan risk on CNN: "oh, I didn't think financing that $50k Vera Wang wedding gown was going to come back and bite me in the ass later on!"

Of course, home ownership is inseparable from the "American Dream". Many are considered losers in our American society if they are not owning a home by the time they are 40.

However, the efficiency increase resulting from poor people moving from apartments into homes does not counter the added cost of intervening with the free market. This cost has a snowball effect and is an externality imposed on others who can assess the financial risks.

From my personal experience shopping for a home, I do admit looking at the mortgage numbers can get confusing. However, as consumers in a free market, we all need to be thinking about those numbers long and hard before jumping onto the homeowners' bandwagon. Markets afford convenience, efficiency and possibility, but there is a cost.

Bad stuff is down the road if the government gets its tentacles wrapped around the mortgage loans now. And to be honest, it'll hardly alleviate the sub-prime burden from the ordinary consumers' shoulders. Sorry, no support of government intervention in the mortgage industry from me.

Consumerism is so sad

The real toy story. Michael Wolf documents his journey is collecting second-hand used toys in the US (easily and cheaply acquired), creating an art piece from those toys and then heading back to their source, China, to document the toy factories.

LINK here

The fact those girls wear masks makes me think the media wouldn't have a single article if a dozen of them got sick or died from toxic fumes or lead poisoning working in the factory. One infant dying from those toys in the US makes headlines in major media outlets.

Life has a price, doesn't matter what the amnesty international says. What is the price of your life? I'm still thinking about mine. ;)

I love the Economist

A page full of rankings from the Economist website. Free to non-subscribers and full of rankings only one click away.

Denmark achieves #1 in Business Environment Ranking. Hooray!

China fact of the day - milk

I still eat meat, albeit I'm trying to stop eating beef all together. Pork on the other hand will be hard for me to give up, so tasty. Plus pigs can feed up leftover human foods, less damaging to the land, no grazing needed. I could care less for chicken, but I usually get chicken or vegetarian burritos at Chipotle.

"In China, for instance, people are eating double the amount of meat they used to a decade ago."

Link to article here.

Another thought, dairy cows also pollute a lot. I don't see environmental groups targeting the Milk ads? Fact, humans are the only mammals that consume milk on a regular basis in adulthood. In the US, Americans are milk faithfuls, drinking several gallons a month.

Other than calcium, what other benefits of drinking milk are there? Calcium pills are abundant and affordable these days. It seems obvious that the dairy farmers and milk industry boards sponsoring the Got Milk? ad series benefit the most from us consuming more dairy.

I'm not saying drinking milk is bad, but a glass a day is probably over-rated and driven by commercial interest, not health. It leaves a huge carbon footprint when a cow is generating methane and eating up perfectly nice grasslands.

Don't even get me started on the stupidity and short-sightedness of celebrity endorsements in environmental causes, diseases, Toyota Prius and world-poverty issues. The talking heads sure haven't been hesitant to promote milk drinking either!

Some interesting facts about milk via MR blog. One particular comment:

"2. In some parts of the United States, milk is more expensive than gasoline."

This is true where I live. However, I don't think it should be a cause for concern. If anything, we are drinking way too much milk. More importantly, gasoline prices have a lot of catching up to do. The market price of gasoline, without US meddling in the middle east, government subsidies and interferences from OPEC, etc, world-wide gas price should be a lot higher. And it will only get higher as fossil fuels are finite resources. Quit whining you polluters! (me included)

Globalization and New England apple season

As September rolls around, apple picking is fast approaching. Some early harvest varieties such as Ginger Gold are ready to be picked right now. Later ones, including my favorite variety, Fuji, won't be ready until late October.

Last October, Kristian and I took a fall foliage trip through NH and VT. We stopped by Green Mountain Orchard in Putney, VT on the way back to Boston. After loading up on MacIntosh apples in our tummies and bags, we took a hayride with the kids around the 128 acre orchard.

Chul messaged me this morning about apple picking up here. I was surprised to find out there are actually apple farms within 40 min radius of Boston as well. According to this Globe article, Nashoba Valley area used to the apple growing center of New England.

Interesting stats:

"In 1947, Massachusetts had 23,000 acres of apple orchards, according to Robin Helrich, an agricultural statistician with New England Agricultural Statistics, which is part of the US Department of Agriculture. Last year, there were 4,100 acres of fruit-bearing apple trees in the state, she said."

I also didn't know Chile exports apples to the States since grapes were a lot more commonly labeled Product of Chile. I reckon if carbon footprint labeling was to become standard on foods and durable goods, local grown fruits and veggies would regain popularity quite fast.

Way to go for the local orchards to adopt, and apply algorithms of hayriding, cider and donut shops to keep their businesses running though.

Christian Studies

Yahoo! Mail ad seen on my login page:

Yes, you may pursue a degree in Christian Studies according to this ad. Better yet, if I were the pretty young lady above, I'd want to get my Master's degree in it in 10 months! What is Christian Studies anyway. It's obviously not a divinity degree. I'm guessing it's for reborn Christian stay-at-home moms who are bored out of their mind?

I personally don't know any nursing, marketing, technology (note: it's a nice and generic technology), business that's accredited by a trustworthy institution that lets you finish a Master's in 10 months online.

I wonder if those ads actually get a lot of clicks and have fools signing up at their website. Would be interesting to do a study on the ROI of Free-College-Info.com alumni, wouldn't it?

This American Life

I sat in the parking lot of Super 88 Market in Malden, MA to finish listening to today's This American Life episode on WBUR. The weather was extremely pleasant, sunny, very breezy perhaps even windy, low humidity, early fall like weather. I rolled down the windows, sat behind the steering wheel of Trogodor and listened. It was hilarious. Hilarious in the sense that life is so silly, reality is entertaining.

Since my car radio wasn't turned on until 3:30pm or so, I was able to catch the last part of the program. It was about the host Ira Glass tagging along a private investigator named "Jonathan" around Chicago suburbs. "Jonathan" was working on a cheating case that the husband was paying him $50/hr for surveillance on the wife.

Ira and Jonathan encountered a few things that you and I might find interesting in the world of the private eyesb. The wife left to meet her lover an hour late; she never noticed the PI's car following her even though it was quite a long drive and they were right behind her car; she took her time to reach the restaurant, a very un-romantic, large, family oriented place; and the guy she was meeting had rude table manners that made him not so attractive. Hmmm. Then it took Jonathan another 5 days to finally catch them going home together, completing his case. Of course, the husband was calling his wife "that lying bitch" when Jonathan confirmed his suspicions. Ira made this scene so satisfying with his cool and articulate delivery.

The best part was the demographic of this couple. They are like in their mid-20's! I was certain that, from all the PI scenes in the movies, people who hire PI's to spy on their spouses are almost all mid-aged couples who have been married for a while. Perhaps their marriage was getting dull, things weren't as exciting and one or another was looking for some fun outside of the marriage. I'm not sure why I found it so funny but perhaps I was entertained because it surprised me. Ira definitely made a note of that.

Listen by clicking on the link above if you want to hear it for yourself.

Lost and Found works!

Icelandair has moved up in my "Airlines to Fly or Avoid" book. I left my camera on their flight from Boston to Iceland about a month ago. Yes, it was the 3rd camera I've lost in the last 3 years. Doh! (I need a bionic camera)

So I emailed them 2 weeks after flying with them, via a generic email address found on their website. The Reykjavik Airport police wrote me back within a day and said they had my camera!

"Hello,

Your camera is here at Lost and Found keflavíkairport. If you want it to be sent to you by mail then we will need your address, full name and a mastercard number.

Kv. Daði H. Kristinsson
Iceland Police
Lost and Found

"

I did have to pay $32 in shipping charge but hey, it sure beats buying a new camera! It arrived in an international shipping box yesterday. With a population of 309,699 total, Iceland perhaps functions much more efficiently compared to large nations like the U.S.? Everyone probably knows everyone else and each other's business. I'd think it'd be hard to commit heinous crime too.

At any rate, I'm a big fan of IcelandAir. Hooray!

~ Cecily

Have you had enough of the Minneapolis bridge collapse? Me too.

Minneapolis bridge collapse. So far 5 people had died; 8 missing. Numerous cars fell into the river when the bridge collapsed. Maximum possible death toll: 13. Yes, 13, ok? How many people are dying in Darfur or Iraq on a daily basis?? Do they get an instant 250m dollars, heck no! Substance, please.

I just don't get it. Since day one of the collapse, we were informed structural engineers from state had raised questions about this bridge, more than once. It was not on the list to be fixed because the state simply didn't allocate enough money to maintenance.

The problem lies in where the money gets spent. Transportation bill hasn't been small, to be fair. However, large amounts of the money from those bills fund new constructions: building bridges leading to nowhere, highways facilitating more suburban sprawling and more vehicular traffic. It is politically popular to do new projects: it creats job; it makes places look like an American dream, concrete lanes diving up green space, packed with shiny roads and cookie-cutter houses. The existing transportation infrastructure, including roads, bridges, railroads and subways have been neglected as a result.

So explain to me why the hell do I need to be listening to breaking news such as these: "the governor is calling state wide inspection of all bridges", 'Massachutes transportation department is also inspecting our bridges per the Governor's request'. First, this is too little too late. You can't fix the briges tomorrow. Second, the fundamental problem was and is not, if and how we do inspections. In fact, we do a fine job at it. The problem is the fricking money. The money is not going where it should be. More money needs to go to maintenance and less needs to go to new construction projects. And of course, unless people start dying, pork barreling is business as usual. In this case, it's bringing home the concrete instead of the bacon, that's of high interest to the local politicians.

Even better yet, that CNN article says our politicians are going to pass a bill up to $250m just to fix this one bridge in Minnesota. If we already know hundreds of bridges, roads in the country may be in need of fixing due to years of neglect, why spend so much on one single bridge? Why not explore options such as building bridge at a different location, a tunnel or even a rail line on the bridge instead of car lanes? Minnesotans, are you ready to stuff your faces?

Chinese men vs. endangered species

Tigers, bears, reindeers, leopards, wolves, cobras and boas, and now the African rhinos (Economist subscription required) are on the list too.

What do those animals have in common? They are probably all endangered to some degree, and most of them are protected by international laws against poaching. Additionally, all of them are also being hunted because a huge underground Chinese market demands paws, antlers, bones, organs and other parts from those animals. The afore-linked Economist article talks about the African rhinos being sold in China despite regulations sought to protect them.

Of course the claimed medicinal benefits all have something to do with the male sexuality. The Chinese believe the animals parts either have aphrodisiac effects or can cure/alleviate male impotence.

This is obviously no old news to most of us but I hear it so much now that I feel ashamed that I'm Chinese. China, a rapid advancing society with a long civilization is still fascinated with stupid myths and beliefs. How is this possible? Did Confucius have impotence problems too??

I recall at a very young age, images of tiger parts soaked in rice alcohol being sold at morning's farmer's market. My mom used to tell me how those "tiger bone medicine wines" were fake. The sellers apparently used cow bones, glued on dyed cowhide to make them look like tiger bones.

Are Chinese men more genetically prone to sexual dysfunction and impotence? This really puzzles me. I haven't been able to find any scientific studies on this. It does seem to me that whatever the problem those guys have, they sure make a big deal out of it. To the degree that they want to stuff themselves with exotic animals.

People who are always talking about why Asian girls date white guys in the US. If Chinese men have problems getting it up, why shouldn't Chinese women marry non-Asian men? I don't pity those guys at all if innocent animals are being slaughtered in vain.

Another amazing entrepreneur under 30

While poking around on Wikipedia today, I started reading the page on facebook. I vaguely remember being invited to join the site in 2004 while in graduate school at U of A.

It's funny that something seemingly so amateur and collegiate to me then has spung into a mainstream media outlet with million dollar deals involved in keeping it running. I felt the same way about LinkedIn when my classmate Srini first invited me to join, circa 2004 as well. There were only 2 people that I knew on that site! These days, I'm averaging a new contact almost every day.

What really amazed me was the profile of a major player currently at thefacebook, Matt Cohler. (see LinkedIn) I found his page on Wikipedia and started reading it immediately. It detailed Matt's adventures betweens getting Yale degrees, launching marketing plans at a pioneer IT company in Beijing, playing Jazz professionally as well as being a consultant at McKinsey, funding LinkedIn and now strategizing for Facebook. And all that accomplishment before the age of 30, I reckon? Holy crap!

I guess it did make me feel severely underachieved. This happened before trust me. Most recently it was stumbling upon Steve Jurvetson's Flickr account after being captivated by an interesting photo. I later realized he was a million dollar venture capitalist! In his 40's perhaps, he's lived almost a lifetime of an industry.

I gotta leave work now, but had to write down those thoughts before driving. Time to figure out my lifeplan after 30. Too little too late and/or not even possible with today's economy and success stories?

Econ stats from China

As usual, I was glossing over my favourite econ blog Marginal Revolution this morning. I came across this article on the validity of econ analyses and statistics from China. Can I just say "wow!" It gave backings to my frustrations with the western world's Chinese infatuation really nicely.

It is hardly surprising that corruption and nepotism plague most developing countries. China, even after drastic reforms in the market, it is still a very artificial kind of place to do business. Many of the economic principles don't apply directly. The author notes that the statistics western economists are collecting under the restriction of not offending the Chinese Communist Party are not reflective of the true nature of the economy. The sentence about high-up party cadres' children controling a large of the commerce is no news either.

I'm pretty happy to stumble upon this, an educational read.

The Ethanol Buzz

Renewed interest on ethanol, a grain alcohol, dominated the news coverage of President Bush's visit to Brazil recently. It was on NPR every 15 minutes during All Things Considered when I drove home

Is ethanol green? Is ethanol good for us? The answer largely depends on what you consider to be part of the equation. The primary economic motivation of ethanol fuel is to rid of dependency on oil, mostly the imported portion in the United States. Ethanol is also touted as "clean burning" because of its low pollution.

However, the environmentally challenged drivers should think twice before jumping onto the ethanol bandwagon. As I have understood it, producing ethanol can be quite an ethical dilemma.

Brazil, the largest producer of ethanol in the world, makes ethanol from fermented sugar. Where does sugar come from? Sugar canes. Although the majority of the Amazon Rainforest deforested has been turned into grazing land for cattle, I would not be surprised if the same is and will be done to clean out land to grow sugar canes. According to Wikipedia article, ethanol releases 30% less energy than gasoline per volume.

This means we need to grow more corn and sugar cane in order to produce enough ethanol to fully replenish the current consumption of gasoline. There just simply isn’t enough land for growing those crops right now.

Obviously, deforestation has had a dramatic effect on earth climate. It also has had a positive effect on the rural economy of Brazil. It’s just funny to see the media jumping on something “cool” just because it seems like a nice alternative to gasoline fuel. The harsh fact of going true green is you simply cannot accomplish this without an implicit negative effect on the environment while also steering clear of negative economic effects. It is a give-take dillema politicians don’t want to talk about and that the media has a hard time conveying.

Ethanol may give us a buzz in the head, but it is still not worth the hangover for me.

Tour Groups Wanted

My boyfriend, his sister and I are going to Washington, DC for a weekend trip in April. So naturally, I started looking to see if we could get tours of government buildings while visiting the capitol.

Back in 1995, on my first day of immigrating to the U.S., my Dad and I visited the White House. It was a great day. I hadn't even had a chance to eat at McDonald's and yet I was already inside the building where the American president worked and slept.

Fast forward 12 years, things aren't as simple. According to the White House website, tours are only given to groups of 10 or larger. Plus, I have to contact a congressman 2 months prior in order to get a reservation to go in. Not going to happen for us.

I then checked the Pentagon website to see if we could go inside. Its website states you must be in a group of 5 and larger, and with an educational, governmental or military institution. And get this, also church groups? Anyone up for joining the Church of Cecily? I'll be glad to take my parisoners on a tour inside the American military headquarters.

When did government buildings become so inaccessible to the common people? My guess is 9/11. Is it because the government functions more efficiently with less "disruption" from the outside? Sounds awefully untransparent to me. I feel now I have less chance of seeing the American government in action as a U.S. citizen compared to a decade ago when I was just fresh off the plane from China. Weird? Definitely.