The 79th Oscar Awards is on TV now. When The Departed won the award for the best screenplay, the narrator said it is based on the Japanese movie Infernal Affair. That's a mistake (idiot). The Inffernal Affair is a Hong Kong movie.
不到一分钟，一个朋友打来电话，“为什么说是日本电影？”我说, “搞错了。接下来肯定文学城上会有人说此事。” 说不定，就此起又因此引发网友的抗日情节。
Now Al Gore is on stage for best documentary movie. I think he may have a chance to enter Hollywood.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Thursday, January 11, 2007
BECKHAM HEADS TO HOLLYWOOD
When I first read the news headline, I thought Beckham was going to join the entertainment industry. Then I realized that he is going to Los Angeles Galaxy, a team which I have never heard before.
AP News--
"LOS ANGELES - Bend this, TomKat and Brangelina: Becks 'n' Posh are coming to Hollywood. And David Beckham didn't even have to audition to become the next American Idol. The most recognized soccer player on the planet — fashion icon, tabloid fixture, marketing giant — announced a deal Thursday to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy."
[more]
Now my questions is who he will be playing with/against. Soccer, esp. professional soccer, is not the major sport in the States. Here, the most popular sports are American football, baseball and basketball. Though soccer is popular among kids of certain ages (about 8-12), MLS doesn't have a big audience here in the States. I wonder how the team will be able to get enough money to pay his $250 million contract. Maybe in the future, we will see Beckham's commercials?
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Milton Friedman Dies
Today's top news：Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three U.S. presidents, died Thursday at age 94.
As I recalled my micro/macro-economics classes, Friedman's free market theory was one of the important economics theories that the professor taught. We once watched a video illustrating Friedman's theory. In the video, Friedman illustrated his free market theory. One of the example he used is Hong Kong economy, which gave me deep impression.
In tribute to Friedman, I include below an article about him from Wall Street Journal.
Milton Friedman: In His Own Words
November 16, 2006 2:52 p.m.
[A free economy] gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the "rules of the game" and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on. What the market does is to reduce greatly the range of issues that must be decided through political means, and thereby to minimize the extent to which government need participate directly in the game. The characteristic feature of action through political channels is that it tends to require or enforce substantial conformity. The great advantage of the market, on the other hand, is that it permits wide diversity. It is, in political terms, a system of proportional representation. Each man can vote, as it were, for the color of tie he wants and get it; he does not have to see what color-the majority wants and then, if he is in the minority, submit.
It is this feature of the market that we refer to when we say that the market provides economic freedom. But this characteristic also has implications that go far beyond the narrowly economic. Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated -- a system of checks and balances. By removing the organization of economic activity from the control of political authority, the market eliminates this source of coercive power. It enables economic strength to be a check to political power rather than a reinforcement.
Capitalism and Freedom 1962
* * *
The two ideas of human freedom and economic freedom working together came to their greatest fruition in the United States. Those ideas are still very much with us. We are all of us imbued with them. They are part of the very fabric of our being. But we have been straying from them. We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else. We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good reasons…
We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good reasons. Fortunately, we are waking up. We are again recognizing the dangers of an overgoverned society, coming to understand that good objectives can be perverted by bad means, that reliance on the freedom of people to control their own lives in accordance with their own values is the surest way to achieve the full potential of a great society…
When the law contradicts what most people regard as moral and proper, they will break the law -- whether the law is enacted in the name of a noble ideal ... or in the naked interest of one group at the expense of another. Only fear of punishment, not a sense of justice and morality, will lead people to obey the law. When people start to break one set of laws, the lack of respect for the law inevitably spreads to all laws, even those that everyone regards as moral and proper - laws against violence, theft, and vandalism…
Self-interest is not myopic selfishness. It is whatever it is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue. The scientist seeking to advance the frontiers of his discipline, the missionary seeking to convert infidels to the true faith, the philanthropist seeking to bring comfort to the needy -- all are pursuing their interests, as they see them, as they judge them by their own values.
From Free to Choose, book 1980, PBS series
* * *
Responding to 2004 Journal interview question about the argument that the Bush tax cuts favor the rich.
The tax cuts did favor the rich because the top 1% of taxpayers pay a disproportionate amount of taxes. You can't give tax relief to those who don't pay a lot of tax. This is not a bad thing. What in fact do the rich do with their money? They can only consume a limited amount. In practice they end up either investing it or giving it away.
Some people say that those in the middle and low tax brackets are more likely to spend any tax relief they get, giving the economy a stimulus.
Well, that's a different argument and I do not accept it. It's very dubious. The tax cut may lead people to spend more, but that is offset by those who have less to spend because they buy the bonds to finance the deficit. In my opinion, we had a mild recession not because of the tax cuts but because of the Fed. Its expansionary monetary policy is the primary reason for the shallow recession. I do not believe that fiscal policy played a big role.
My support for tax cuts is not only on the supply side. I think the real problem is government spending… Where did you get the Clinton surpluses? They were the result of less legislation and less spending. When that gridlock was broken, many items had accumulated on the agenda and were put through.
Wall Street Journal interview 2004
* * *
I have sometimes been associated with the aphorism "There's no such thing as a free lunch," which I did not invent. I wish more attention were paid to one that I did invent, and that I think is particularly appropriate in this city [Washington], "Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own." But all aphorisms are half-truths. One of our favorite family pursuits on long drives is to try to find the opposite of aphorisms. For example, "History never repeats itself," but "There's nothing new under the sun." Or "look before you leap," but "He who hesitates is lost." The opposite of "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is clearly "The best things in life are free."
And in the real economic world, there is a free lunch, an extraordinary free lunch, and that free lunch is free markets and private property. Why is it that on one side of an arbitrary line there was East Germany and on the other side there was West Germany with such a different level of prosperity? It was because West Germany had a system of largely free, private markets - a free lunch. The same free lunch explains the difference between Hong Kong and mainland China, and the prosperity of the United States and Great Britain.
1993 Washington speech
As I recalled my micro/macro-economics classes, Friedman's free market theory was one of the important economics theories that the professor taught. We once watched a video illustrating Friedman's theory. In the video, Friedman illustrated his free market theory. One of the example he used is Hong Kong economy, which gave me deep impression.
In tribute to Friedman, I include below an article about him from Wall Street Journal.
Milton Friedman: In His Own Words
November 16, 2006 2:52 p.m.
[A free economy] gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the "rules of the game" and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on. What the market does is to reduce greatly the range of issues that must be decided through political means, and thereby to minimize the extent to which government need participate directly in the game. The characteristic feature of action through political channels is that it tends to require or enforce substantial conformity. The great advantage of the market, on the other hand, is that it permits wide diversity. It is, in political terms, a system of proportional representation. Each man can vote, as it were, for the color of tie he wants and get it; he does not have to see what color-the majority wants and then, if he is in the minority, submit.
It is this feature of the market that we refer to when we say that the market provides economic freedom. But this characteristic also has implications that go far beyond the narrowly economic. Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated -- a system of checks and balances. By removing the organization of economic activity from the control of political authority, the market eliminates this source of coercive power. It enables economic strength to be a check to political power rather than a reinforcement.
Capitalism and Freedom 1962
* * *
The two ideas of human freedom and economic freedom working together came to their greatest fruition in the United States. Those ideas are still very much with us. We are all of us imbued with them. They are part of the very fabric of our being. But we have been straying from them. We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else. We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good reasons…
We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good reasons. Fortunately, we are waking up. We are again recognizing the dangers of an overgoverned society, coming to understand that good objectives can be perverted by bad means, that reliance on the freedom of people to control their own lives in accordance with their own values is the surest way to achieve the full potential of a great society…
When the law contradicts what most people regard as moral and proper, they will break the law -- whether the law is enacted in the name of a noble ideal ... or in the naked interest of one group at the expense of another. Only fear of punishment, not a sense of justice and morality, will lead people to obey the law. When people start to break one set of laws, the lack of respect for the law inevitably spreads to all laws, even those that everyone regards as moral and proper - laws against violence, theft, and vandalism…
Self-interest is not myopic selfishness. It is whatever it is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue. The scientist seeking to advance the frontiers of his discipline, the missionary seeking to convert infidels to the true faith, the philanthropist seeking to bring comfort to the needy -- all are pursuing their interests, as they see them, as they judge them by their own values.
From Free to Choose, book 1980, PBS series
* * *
Responding to 2004 Journal interview question about the argument that the Bush tax cuts favor the rich.
The tax cuts did favor the rich because the top 1% of taxpayers pay a disproportionate amount of taxes. You can't give tax relief to those who don't pay a lot of tax. This is not a bad thing. What in fact do the rich do with their money? They can only consume a limited amount. In practice they end up either investing it or giving it away.
Some people say that those in the middle and low tax brackets are more likely to spend any tax relief they get, giving the economy a stimulus.
Well, that's a different argument and I do not accept it. It's very dubious. The tax cut may lead people to spend more, but that is offset by those who have less to spend because they buy the bonds to finance the deficit. In my opinion, we had a mild recession not because of the tax cuts but because of the Fed. Its expansionary monetary policy is the primary reason for the shallow recession. I do not believe that fiscal policy played a big role.
My support for tax cuts is not only on the supply side. I think the real problem is government spending… Where did you get the Clinton surpluses? They were the result of less legislation and less spending. When that gridlock was broken, many items had accumulated on the agenda and were put through.
Wall Street Journal interview 2004
* * *
I have sometimes been associated with the aphorism "There's no such thing as a free lunch," which I did not invent. I wish more attention were paid to one that I did invent, and that I think is particularly appropriate in this city [Washington], "Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own." But all aphorisms are half-truths. One of our favorite family pursuits on long drives is to try to find the opposite of aphorisms. For example, "History never repeats itself," but "There's nothing new under the sun." Or "look before you leap," but "He who hesitates is lost." The opposite of "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is clearly "The best things in life are free."
And in the real economic world, there is a free lunch, an extraordinary free lunch, and that free lunch is free markets and private property. Why is it that on one side of an arbitrary line there was East Germany and on the other side there was West Germany with such a different level of prosperity? It was because West Germany had a system of largely free, private markets - a free lunch. The same free lunch explains the difference between Hong Kong and mainland China, and the prosperity of the United States and Great Britain.
1993 Washington speech
Sunday, November 12, 2006
饺子的回忆三则
天气渐渐凉下来了，又到吃饺子的时候。 最近想起以前在北京吃饺子的两三事。
一， 白菜馅饺子
和我年纪差不多的北方人可能都记得，小的时候,大白菜是老百姓的“当家菜”。 那时候，大白菜是政府补贴，各家限量，所以一斤大白菜才4、5分钱。一入冬，家家户户便开始准备冬储大白菜。一般的家庭一买就是一，二百斤。居民楼楼道里，阳台上都放满了大白菜。那时我家算是买的少的，也买一百斤左右。放在阴凉通风的楼道里晾干，然后再用报纸抱上，这样就可以吃上大半个冬天了。说了半天大白菜，那该说饺子了。既然大白菜是冬天的“主菜”，当然少不了白菜馅饺子。记得以前一到周末，楼道里就听见好几家“铛铛铛”剁白菜馅的声音。真是好不热闹。
二，饺子皮
提起饺子皮，就想起父亲擀的饺子皮。父亲擀饺子皮的技术是文革时到平谷下放期间跟当地的老乡学的。他擀的饺子皮十分标准，中间厚，边儿上薄。更为难得的是，父亲在准备面团时，尽量把每个面团切的差不多大小，最后剩下的面就均匀的加在之前切的面团上。这样，每张饺子皮大小， 厚薄基本上一样。由于父亲擀皮儿的技术娴熟，家里每次包饺子，一般都是由他擀皮儿。那时候，我们一包饺子便包一百多个，一顿吃不完，便放在冰箱里，第二天再做炸饺子。现在想起来，那时候的日子真是一种简单的幸福。不幸的是他去世后，他擀饺子皮的手艺在我家便失传了。
三，饺子屋
前几年，我家附近开了个饺子屋。 有时，父亲去世后，我们有时就去那里吃饺子。这家饺子屋的饺子皮薄馅大，经济实惠。饺子都是手工包的，馅料品种丰富，有普通的白菜馅，茴香馅，扁豆馅，三鲜馅，还有西红柿的，西葫芦等。加上小菜也很美味，每次去，都吃的十分开心。小店生意也十分红火，有时高峰时间，还要等座。只可惜前两年小店租期届满，房子被原本的副食店收回开了超市。
Saturday, November 04, 2006
The Game
Yesterday, my company announced an organization restructuring. Restructuring is probably one of the most frenquently used words in Corporate America culture, along with words such as "merger", "probe" or "scandal". A lot of times, restructuring also has an extended meaning of lay-off people.
The re-org annnouced yesterday was supposed to eliminate positions too---but the number of VPs,not ordinary employees. It is said the company got too many VPs throught out the years. Now it is time to lose those unused fat. But when the announcement came out, my impression was that there are some new people named as VPs, of which some postions are newly created. For those "losers", their names are not mentioned and are supposed to leave the company quietly.
Thus,in the end, the restructuring is like a game in the daily corporate culture. For those who win in this game, they come on board, create new organization structures and adopt new strategies ("strategy", right, they love this word). If things work out, everyone is fine. Otherwise, after a couple of years, there will be another restructuring with whatever purposes. What's more important is there will be new VPs, new structures and new strategies. ---Another new game.
The re-org annnouced yesterday was supposed to eliminate positions too---but the number of VPs,not ordinary employees. It is said the company got too many VPs throught out the years. Now it is time to lose those unused fat. But when the announcement came out, my impression was that there are some new people named as VPs, of which some postions are newly created. For those "losers", their names are not mentioned and are supposed to leave the company quietly.
Thus,in the end, the restructuring is like a game in the daily corporate culture. For those who win in this game, they come on board, create new organization structures and adopt new strategies ("strategy", right, they love this word). If things work out, everyone is fine. Otherwise, after a couple of years, there will be another restructuring with whatever purposes. What's more important is there will be new VPs, new structures and new strategies. ---Another new game.
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