Housing bill to bail out the banks

Last week, the House democrats pushed to pass the "housing bill", aimed at providing financial "help" for the "distressed homeowners". The bill also provides guarantee for Fannie and Freddie's $5 trillion mortgage debt.

As I have mentioned before, there are two major problems that the nation is confronted with: subprime mortgage crisis, and runaway inflation fueled by rising prices of commodities. You might be amazed by the fixation of the politicians on the former one, and scant attention that they pay to the latter. You should not be surprised, because the first problem is the problem of the banks, and the second one is the problem of ordinary folks. Do you really expect politicians to care much about the problem of ordinary people?

While all the media circus is focusing on mortgage crisis, the mortgage delinquency rate (defined as 30 days payment overdue) for the first quarter of the year (latest data available) was only a little bit above 6%. The actual foreclosure rate is less than 1%. Vast majority of the homeowners are paying their bills on time. What the housing bill will do is to reward a tiny minority of those who engaged in irresponsible speculation on the housing market or bought homes they cannot afford, while punishing the vast majority of us who are financially responsible. The true objective of the housing bill is to bail out those banks that have engaged in reckless, fraudulent, or even predatory lending, and the investors who were gambling on the subprime housing market.

If the politicians truly want to help people and the nation's economy, they should do something about the inflation. The bloody fact about inflation is that, it is created by the government's excessive printing of money. As Milton Friedman has pointed out, inflation problem everywhere and every time is a monetary problem. When inflation occurs in Zimbabwe, Sudan, and many African countries, we all know that was caused by the government excessive printing of paper money. But when inflation occurs in US, why all of sudden we are at a loss about what has caused it?

The housing bill essentially will put the $50 trillion mortgage debt Fannie and Freddie owes, on the books of the Treasury department, virtually tripled the amount of debt US government owes. That will put further pressure on the value of US dollar, leading to even higher rate of inflation. If you think the gas price is high now, wait until the housing bill becomes law.

Politicians, democrats or republicans, are crooks. They are fed by big business interests, and do whatever it takes to advance those interests. Sad thing is that the public is so ignorant and gullible. I tell you, I really doubt the so-called 'democratic system". What good doe it to do to ordinary people? You might as well go back to the "benevolent authoritarian" system that China has.

I admit that I am confused.

America's twin financial woes and how to solve them

The current financial crisis in the USA boils down to two problems: subprime mortgage, and inflation. I have argued in my previous post that the more devastating one of the two is inflation. Subprime problem affects largely the Wall Street financial institutions, while inflation affects every single consumer, particularly those in the lower economic ladders.

To solve the financial crisis, we have to address these two problems. My argument is that: if we address the inflation problem first and head-on, other problems will be resolved easily as a result.

So how to solve the inflation problem? First we have to look at the root cause of inflation.

1) Inflation is caused by excessive printing of the dollar
As the great economist Milton Friedman stated: "inflations are always the result of increases in the supply of credit money: it is easy to print paper, and governments that have begun issuing paper money have always eventually fallen to the temptation of just printing and spending new money."

The root cause of inflation is the excessive money creation by the Federal Reserve. As the world's reserve currency, US dollar affects inflation not only in the US, but around the world.

2) Printing money was necessitated by increased government spending

Why did the Fed print so much money to begin with? To finance the run-away US government spending. After Bush took over the White House, he immediately reduced personal and corporate taxes across the board, fulfilling his campaign promise. Then the US entered two wars, against Afghanistan and Iraq. Government entitlement was also expanded during this period (Medicare prescription drug benefits for the seniors, or the Part D Program), plus all those pork barrel spending the congress likes to lavish on their own home states.

Now the common sense dictates that if you increase spending, you have to have the income to pay for it. Not in this case, because the government tax income was greatly reduced by tax cuts. Now what do you do? You print money, that is the only way out.

That is why US dollar has been steadily declining in value since 2001, which led to accelerating pace of inflation.

To stem the inflation, I have the following remedies. But I doubt any politician would have the courage to adopt them:
1) Pull out of Iraq
We went in for the wrong reason, we have to get out, before the war bankrupts USA. I am not suggesting pull-out immediately, but a measured and definitive time table of military draw-down seems to be the only way to get us out of there.
2) Increase taxes on the wealthy
The widening wealth gap in the US is alarming. In this time of war, some personal sacrifices are needed. The poor have sent their sons and daughters to Iraq. It is only fair that the rich need to pay their duties. We have to roll back the Bush tax give-aways to the wealthiest of the wealthy.
3) Adopt a long-term strategic energy policy to reduce reliance on fossil fuel
If it was not because of the oil, we would not have gone to the war with Iraq. That is undeniable truth. Let's not fake it. Imagine how much the US has to spend each year on military to protect the oil trade. The amount is staggering. We have to produce reliable source of renewable energy domestically (such as wind, solar, and bio-fuel). And we also have to conserve energy consumption. Currently the US is consuming 25% of the world's oil production, while the US population is only 4% of the world total.
4) The Federal Reserve has the reverse the excessive money printing process.
How can it do that? By raising the interest rate. I bet if the Fed starts to raise interest rate, US dollar will rise in value and commodities prices will start to fall. That will be a huge shot in the arm for consumer confidence and business confidence. Once confidence is restored, I think subprime problem will be eased as well. Part of the subprime issue is the lack of confidence of investors in the value of those mortgages. Restoring confidence will help the market to clear out all the liquidity excesses and mislocations.

Struggles of Asian Americans

The other day, my son was mimicking the accent of a Chinese lady working in his school cafeteria: " du yu wan a peessa? give me a dolla!" (do you want a piece of pizza? give me a dollar if you do).

I was very upset that he did that. I asked him why he would do that. He said his classmate taught him this and he felt it was funny. And my son is only 11.

This is not a funny matter. Asian Americans (and many other immigrants in America) who have an accent speaking English often feel that they are treated unfairly. Speaking with an accent gives people an impression that the person is poorly educated. Sometime ago, a close friend of mine told me that he could not get promotion or work at a position he felt well qualified, purely because of his accent. Our mouths may speak with an accent, but our brains do not think with an accent, I heard someone once declared.

The trouble is that not every type of accents are treated equally. European accents (particularly of west and north Europe) are treated favorably. On the other hand, Asian accents and Spanish accents do not receive the same favor.

When I was in Cornell many years ago, I read about an undergraduate Chinese American student expressing his feelings about his heritage in a Chinese email forum. He said he was often shamed of being with his parents, because of their accents.

The struggle of our first generation Asian immigrants is enormous. We are a very family-focused culture. We work hard and sacrifice personally, hoping to bring a better life for our next generation. We save a lot, and rarely care about our own outward appearance. We would be very willing to buy a $100 shirt for our children, but for ourselves, we buy the least expensive ones. We speak in accents. We have a lot of feelings, but find it difficult to express them because of the language hindrance.

We thought if we work hard to bring good lives for our children, they would appreciate us, and be grateful to us because of our love and sacrifices. But the sad thing is, we are losing our children. Our children don't feel proud of their parents, and their heritage and cultures. And we the parents, after so much personal sacrifice, are gradually losing the hearts and minds of our children.

You cannot blame our children for that. Our children can rarely find a role model, or a hero, that has Asian background, to look up to. What they can only see in the media make them so conscious about themselves, because the media are black and white dominated (used to be only white dominated).

I have an advice for all our struggling Asian parents: every summer break, bring your children to Asia. Let them witness first hand the vibrant culture there. Bring them to places and teach them the history about those places. Let them have a chance to see the culture programs of our native lands. I am hopeful our children will soon discover the beauty in our own cultures, find heroes in our history and people, and feel proud of being themselves.

Working hard is not enough. Saving lots of money for your family is not adequate. You need to care about the spiritual needs of your children.

Sweet 3G iPhone

As expected, Steve Jobs unveiled 3G iPhone during his keynote in WWDC 08. However, the phone wont be available until July 11.

Apple has abandoned revenue sharing arrangement with the wireless carriers and allow the carriers to subsidize iPhone. That is why the new iPhone will cost as less as $199 for the 8GB version. In contrast, an 8GB iPod Touch costs $299.

IPhone software 2.0 is the central piece of Apple's strategy. The support of third-party software developers is essential to the ultimate success of the iPhone platform. The reason why Microsoft Windows OS became a dominant platform is because the enormous independent software support. Apple is determined to foster such an independent software developers community for its iPhone platform. The PC war is over and Microsoft has won. But the war on mobile platform has just begun, and iPhone is pulling way ahead of the pack, despite its relative late entry.

Mobile platform can be HUGE. Many people in the developing world may ONLY use mobile phones to access the internet. I think MID (Mobile Internet Device) will be as big as PC. On the hardware side, the battle is between Intel's Atom (x86) and ARM's ARM core. On the software side (OS side), it may be between Google's Android and Apple's iPhone. Palm foolishly gave away its software control and solely relied on Microsoft's mobile platform (Palm spun out Palm OS to PalmSource which later was acquired by and withered in a Japanese mobile software company called ACCESS). RIM's blackberry is only an email platform, at current moment, and I would not be surprised it will adopt a similar strategy of Apple's. But it may be too late for RIM to catch up. Microsoft's mobile platform is pretty much dead, I believe.

I would use any pullback in Apple stock prices to buy more its shares.

Disclaimer: I own shares in Apple common stock.

Clinton's concession speech

I watched Clinton's concession speech on youtube (you got to love the Internet). When she was talking about how much she has accomplished and thanking her supporters, her tone was full of excitement and emotion. But when she starts to talk about supporting Obama, her voice turns solemn and mechanical. I would still characterize her concession and support for Obama as lukewarm.
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She made her entire campaign look like a movement about women's rights. I am glad that Obama did not make his look like one about civil rights or minority rights. When Clinton was saying all sorts of things about Obama, none of which was true, such as Obama was less qualified then she or McCain, and Obama was sexist, Obama did not respond in kind. Looking back, I really did not recall Obama said anything bad about Clinton throughout his campaign. Even when Clinton made that outrageous RFK assassination allusion, Obama did not clamor on and attack Clinton. Imagine if Obama made similar comment regarding Clinton, what Bill would say.

I am just glad the whole thing is over. With or without the support of hillbilly, Obama will prevail in November.

Apple WWDC next week. I want my 3G iPhone

Next week, Apple will hold its annual WWDC in San Francisco. The rumor is that the 3G version of iPhone will be revealed. I think more exciting is the software 2.0 for iPhone. Third party software vendors can sell their software for iPhone directly on iPhone. Same functionality will also be available on iPod Touch. I am sure I will get an iPod touch. My son has been begging me so long. As for the iPhone, I have to wait for a few more months.

What other new products are in store for WWDC? We will find out soon.

What should Hillary do next?

Tonight, the democratic primary is finished. It is obvious Obama will get the votes needed to clinch the party nomination. Hillary Clinton held a meeting with her supporters in New York. Still not willing to concede, she asked the crowd: what should I do now?

Hillary, I got some suggestions for you:

First, you should start praying, praying really hard. The month of June is a strange month, as you have pointed out before. Lots of strange things could happen. You never know. Pray. For the desired accident to happen. Obviously, you should pray to the devil in this case.

Second, in case the devil does not listen to your prayers, you have another option. Join the Republican party and run against McCain. You still have a chance to beat McCain. You have done more damage to the Democratic party than McCain did. You have smeared Obama's reputation more than McCain did. More right-wingers support you than McCain. You got Bill O'Reiley praising you every night. Ann Coulter promised to campaign for you. What you need to do is to switch to the Republican party. You style and your character fit that party very nicely anyway.

Lastly, in case this does not work either, you can ran for McCain's Veep. McCain can really use you to woo the support of the right-wingers. You have proven to be more credible to the neo-cons than McCain. You and Macky will be a dream pair made in hell.

Economics of public transportation

A few weeks ago, the Walls Street Journal editorial ran a commentary criticizing government support of public transportation. (Given the reputation of WSJ's editorial board, I am not surprised by its view). One of the chief reasons WSJ did not like public transportation is that the business of public transportation has never been profitable on its own. Public transportation always requires government subsidies. That is true in Europe, and probably also true in Japan and China.

But is profit the only measure we should use here? From the microscopic level, considering only the economics of public transportation as a business, I agree that public transportation is not a good "business". But it does not mean it is not a good public policy to support it.

If you look from the societal level (macroscopic level), the picture is more positive. The cost of public transportation is obvious, government subsidies. But the benefits of public transportation cannot be ignored. First and foremost, it reduces the society's aggregate consumption of energy. More people uses public transportation, less money will be spent to import oil from the middle east. Yes, the government has to spend money to subsidize public transportation. But the money spent by the government remains in this country, creating jobs, and producing income multiplying effect on the economy. Otherwise, the money would have been spent to import oil/energy from foreign countries anyway. That money does not create any job in this country, and does not stimulate domestic economy.

Now is a great time to encourage public transportation and wean the nation off the dependence of foreign oil. Consumers are already cutting back personal driving, and looking for alternative transportation options. We need the government on all levels to lend its support for building a better public transportation infrastructure and implementing sound long term policy to incentivize the public to take public means of transportation. And in a long run, as ridership rises, public transportation may indeed become a profitable business on its own right, without requiring government subsidies.

Big oil companies take advantage of high gas price

I watched a video yesterday on youtube, created by American Solutions, about high gas prices. At first, I thought this was another video complaining about high gas prices. After I finished watching, I realized this is just another propaganda war the energy industry is waging, to convince people that the solution to solving high gas prices is more drilling! I have a hunch, the American Solutions organization (www.americansolutions.com), is backed by the energy industry.

Let's take a look at the root causes of the current energy crisis, if we can call it a crisis. High gas prices are caused by high crude oil prices. Why have crude oil prices gone up some much since Bush took over the White House? "Experts" would tell you that it is caused by increasing demand for oil and decreasing supply of oil. But if you take a look at the demand, demand grew less than 3% per year during this period. Yes, supply has seen some disruption, due to Iraq war. And some oil fields are seeing the production of oil declining. But the true cause of high oil prices does not lie here. We should put the blame squarely on US central bank (the Fed) monetary policy. The Fed has been engaged in currency manipulation since 2001. It was the Fed's deliberate policy to devalue US dollar, by printing excessive amount of fresh paper money, thus lowering interest rates, at one time to an absurdly low level (1%), to fund expanding government spending to support two wars. Since 2001, the Fed has stopped reporting a very important indicator of monetary supply, M3. Because they were afraid that M3 would reveal the massive increase of money supply.

But the market is efficient. You cannot cheat the market. Since 2001, the value of US dollar has been in a free fall against major foreign currencies. Crude oil is priced in US dollar, as are all other traded commodities. When the value of US dollar goes down, naturally the prices of commodities go up.

On top of that, you have gotten the parasite Wall Street bankers, who used the easy money offered by the Fed to speculate on the commodities market. Not only oil prices have gone through the roof, so have the prices for gold, silver, corn, cotton, and any commodity that you can name. The argument that the rise of oil price was only caused by demand/supply imbalance is completely false. Instead of using US dollar to price oil, if you have used gold to price the crude oil, the prices have not gone up much at all!

So what's the solution to high oil prices?
First, stop the Fed! The Fed's monetary policy destroyed the savings of US middle-class. Those who are on fixed incomes, such as retirees, are hit the hardest. Prices everywhere have gone up. Some people start to have problem to even pay for food and utilities! If the Fed is allowed to continue the devaluing of the dollar, middle-class will be destroyed. The US will descended into a third-world country in a few years!

Second, we have to have a long-term energy policy that has substance more than politics. Energy conservation should be the central piece of the new policy! Per capita energy consumption in the US is ten times higher than in India and China. We Americans cannot go on like this. I do not blame the US consumers. The Blame lies on the government, whose policy is NOT driven by public interest, BUT BY THE INTEREST of the energy companies, the automobile industry.

Public transportation is almost non-existent in the US, because the government does not support it. Highways and roads were built for individual automobiles, not for buses loading and off-loading passengers. Railways are limited. Building were built with the mandate to offer ample parking for individual cars.Every government policy here, including the highway bill, is to encourage individual driving and discourage mass transportation! Automobile industry and the energy industry were the primary beneficiaries of the policy. (Even with the support the government, the US auto industry is still failing. I predict in not so distant future, the US auto industry will be completely gone, ceding to the Asians and Europeans, just like the textile and electronic industries).

Hillary Clinton has no shame

Hillary Clinton does not have any sense of shame. It was she who made a senseless comment about RFK assassination in June of 1968. Now she is turning around and attacking the Obama campaign for hyping up the incidence. Obama did not say much about the her comments. He showed his class by accepting the silly explanation and "apology" from Clinton.

Should we make a big issue out of this incidence? I think yes, we should. This incidence, along with many others, such as her comments about dodging sniper's bullets in her 90s Bosnia trip, goes a long way to show her CHARACTER, or lack of. SHE BASICALLY HAS NO SHAME. She cares only about winning. She does not care about the party. She cares less about truth. She has no principle. She will use any means to achieve her ends, which is to win the election. She would rather destroy the democratic party than not being able to win the nomination. That is her.

To say that she did not mean anything evil in her comment about RFK assassination is simply an insult to the intelligence of the voters, particularly of the so called "low-income rural WHITE working class" she has been so carefully pandering to. Mrs. Clinton, we heard it loud and clear. You were hoping some miracle might happen that Mr Obama would all of sudden be assassinated in June as RFK was in 1968. Then you would become the Democratic nominee. Shame on you. You have got no trace of human decency left in you! If God forbidden, some crazy racist would attempt to assassinate Mr. Obama, we would hold YOU accountable for inciting that to happen. You are typical of what a dirty politician is all about!

Mrs. Clinton, why don't you just run as a Republican, so we will have some peace within the Democratic party? Go join McCain. He is looking for a VEEP. He might consider you!

Which problem is worse: housing or inflation?

The congress seems to be obsessed with subprime mortgage problems and the housing downturn. But is it really the biggest problem that ordinary people are facing?

I have done a small-sample survey among people living in my area. It is not scientific, but I think is pretty representative. People are not really worried about housing or subprime at this moment.

There are four groups of people when it comes to housing: 1) Ordinary house owners, who stay put in the current environment. They don't care how the house prices are going. They will stay in the house no matter what. 2) Stretched house owners. These people can't afford the houses they currently have. They can decide to move out, letting the house to foreclose. They may experience some short term hardship. But rentals are plenty. With the glut of unsold houses and condos, I don't think rents will go up very much. This group of people will be OK eventually once they get rid of the houses they were lured in by unscrupulous real estate agents and the greedy mortgage brokers. 3) Speculators. These people are in for making a quick profit, and now are stuck with the houses they can't sell. To this group of people, I would say: good luck. and 4) Renters. These people actually hope the house prices would drop from the insanely high levels to more reasonable and affordable price point.

So clearly, housing problem is not as bad as it is made out to be for consumers. It is certainly bad for the Wall Street financial institutions. The go-go days of mortgage speculation is gone. Their books are chalk full of subprime mortgages. They got only themselves to blame. Now they are asking the government and the Federal Reserve to bail them out. That is precisely what they have been getting. And that is also why the politicians are so eager to rescue them out of the subprime meltdown.

But for ordinary people, inflation is a much bigger problem. Just take a look at the price labels at the gas stations, and go for a grocery shopping. You will see price for almost everything has gone up, from milk to cereals, eggs to vegetables. The government tries to deceive us and themselves by focusing on the completely flawed CPI (Consumer Price Index), saying that CPI excluding food and energy is still below 3% per year. That is just plainly ridiculous.

The whole government policy is favoring the banks, and hurting ordinary people. The Fed keeps printing new dollars to give to the Wall Street banks, just to keep them afloat. That just destroys the value of dollar. That is why dollar is trading like a piece of worthless paper in the foreign exchange markets against almost every other major currency.

When dollar goes down, anything that is priced in dollar will go up in price, oil, gold, silver, platinum, diamond, metals, you name it. The cause of inflation is NOT due to the lack of supply of products, but due to the EXCESS supply of money. (No one has said about short supply of gold or silver. Why the price for gold or silver rose more than five-fold in matter of four years.) When you have more money chasing the same amount of products, prices will certainly go up. So the root cause of the widespread inflation has the Fed to blame! First Allan Greenspan, who flooded the system with money supply by lowering interest rate to absurdly low 1%, which created the housing bubble and subprime crisis. Then Mr. Bernanke did it again, just to rescue the banks and financial institutions who were gambling in the housing market with investors and depositors money (not their own money). These monetary actions, coupled with the irresponsible fiscal policy of the Bush Administration (run-away government spending for the two wars), conspired to destroy the value of dollar, hence the value of our savings and income. Middle-class America is taking the full brunt, while the super-wealthy who own real assets are actually benefiting.

It is about time. About time to have a regime change in the US.

Pull out of Iraq now, and secure our border

Yesterday, President Bush made a comment about the Iraq situation. He claimed that pulling out of Iraq now will put our children in danger.

Politicians understand how to use fear to their advantage, The war proponents have long argued that, if we do not succeed in securing Iraq, Al Qaeda and other terrorists will use Iraq as a base to launch attack on America.

This argument works really well. Because it invokes the worst fear in us. It reminds us of September 11th. But have you paused and ask yourself, is this true? If we pull out of Iraq, is it true the terrorists will follow us home?

I would submit to you that this is ABSOLUTELY false.

The same line of argument was used to justify prolonging the Vietnam war. But in the end, Vietnam was lost to the Communists. But see what is happening in Vietnam now.

Let me give you another example. In 1993, UN peace keeping force in Somalia led by US, was under attack by radical militia. 19 US soldiers died in the conflict in the Capital city Mogadishu. The whole event is depicted in the movie “Black Hawk Down”. President Clinton made a decisive call to pull out of Somalia, to avoid further US military casualty. Since then, civil war broke out in Somalia. Now the country is ruled by radical The Islamic Court Union. But Somalia is never a threat to US homeland security. The terrorists in Somalia did not follow us to the home. Do they want to kill more Americans? You bet they do. But they can't do anything to us if we are not there.

If we pull out of Iraq, will terrorists attempt to take control of Iraq. You bet they will try. But why are we afraid of them. Now they are in hiding. If we leave Iraq, and they resurfaced, our cruise missiles in Saudi, and Turkey can be put in use. We don't have to physically there to fight them. Let them reappear so we can target them. Now they are hiding in the dark, and we are exposed. We cannot win this asymmetrical warfare. We did not win it in Vietnam, we did not win it in Somalia, and we won't win it in Iraq. But we can leave. The more we drag our feet there, trying to save our face, the more damage the terrorists can inflict on us.

The world is huge. There are so many places around the dark corners of the world that the terrorists can establish a base trying to launch attach on us. In fact they are everywhere, in North Africa, Afghanistan, in northeast desert of China's XinJiang Province. Why is Iraq so unique among these many hideout places for terrorists? Can we put our military in everyone of these places, like we do in Iraq? That would be insane.

The Bush administration has a completely wrong and dangerous priorities in fighting terrorists: securing our own borders should be the No. 1 priority. Gathering intelligence information about the terrorists should also be our priority. But Iraq war is draining our resources away from those true priorities. Just recently, Bush removed the border patrol agents in New Mexico and Arizona, and redeployed them to Iraq. If we cannot do our job to secure our home, why fight in Iraq?

The Pentagon created another "Zaqawi" to blame for Iraq mess

Thanks to the US military, an ordinary thug, ruthless killer of innocent people, Abu Musab al-Zaqawi, was elevated to the "hero" status in the Muslim world, particularly among the Iraqis. His death, which otherwise would be just like the death of a pig, now is viewed as martyrdom by the Iraqis. The whole thing is a colossal propaganda failure of the US towards outside world. But it did serve the domestic purpose of the Bush administration: blame Zaqawi for all the mess.

The American people are so gullible, because they watched too many Hollywood movies, in which one "hero" often single-handed beats everybody else. Zaqawi seems to be that kind of "hero", but in a bad sense.

Now Zaqawi is dead, and the mess in Iraq continues. The Pentagon has to create another "Zaqawi" to lay blame on. The Pentagon propaganda machine has started to work. Then the US media will all play a great supporting role. General William Caldwell has already decided on which of the insurgents to be chosen as "Zaqawi successor". This person appears to be Ayyub al-Masri (why their names all start with an "A" and end with an "i"). This may change as the situation changes. But one thing is for sure, that is: the Pentagon needs another Zaqawi.

Apple + Blackberry, sounds delicious

Rumor has it that Apple is working with Blackberry maker Research In Motion to put iTunes on Blackberry, or something like that.

I like the idea. But previous collaboration with Motorola wasn't a big success in any measure. How different will this one be.

Maybe this time, Jobs can pull a rabbit out of the hat. You never know.

McNuts of Sun Microsystems bailed out

Finally, the nutty McNuts of SUNW gave in to the mounting pressure. But the new guy isn't better.

If the company can lose some of the rhetoric, and focus on operation, it might have some future. I have to admit the product portfolio is stronger than ever. The question is can they execute? Hope Mike Lehman can get everybody to quit talking and focus on the basics. The stupid slogan "Sharing is good" got to go. How can they waste money on those goofy ads? SUN has already an image problem. Those goofy ads won't help.

I am still holding to my shares in the hope that it might have a good chance to succeed now they have got some real products to sell.

When will Apple bring out Intel iBook? Late June?

The long awaited Intel iBook (widely dubbed MacBook) was not announced yesterday during Apple's first quarter earnings release, after all those speculations on the Street. Coupled with Intel's pronouncement of its plan to ship Woodcrest, Conroe and Merom CPUs (based on the new Core Microarchitecture) in volume starting Q3, I think Apple will probably wait until these CPUs abundantly available before making the product announcement. I don't think Apple wants to repeat the situation it had with MacBook Pro where people waited months for the notebook to arrive. So the most optimistic estimate of Intel iBook (I still prefer iBook) shipment will be late June to early July (I suppose Apple will get its hands on the new CPUs before everybody else). The high end PowerMac line won't be "refreshed" until 4th quarter (there is no point to release it before you have the native Photoshop for Intel Mac, which may not happen until Q1 07).

It is going to be a long wait for some of us.

Do we need Window's Vista

Last week, MSFT threw a bomb to the tech market: its long awaited OS Vista will be delayed, again. While a lot of analysts lament about not being able to buy a Vista PC this Christmas season, I would like to ask: does it matter at all to average consumers?

What we average consumers want is just a stable and secure operating system. For over a decade, the PC industry has been putting us on a treadmill of constant hardware and software upgrades. Initially, the benefits of upgrading were apparent. But over time, consumers have begun to see very little value in upgrading to the next level of super-powered PC.

This also explains why Intel has been losing market shares in consumer desktop PC. People bought those AMD machines, not because it got 64 bit or dual core technology. They bought them because they are cheaper than Intel's. People have finally figured out, the average PC is good enough for the everyday computing tasks, unless you want to play serious games.

As for business customers, do they really need to have the 3D image capability and fancy multi-media functionalities promised in Vista?

So what if Vista is delayed!

Don't blame labor for the big 3 auto companies' woes

It is very conceivable that GM might have to file bankruptcy protection. I have often heard the TV talking heads promulgating the official GM executives' lame excuse: our labor cost is too high. But I have never heard anybody challenging this assumption.

True, the labor cost of US auto makers is higher than that of Asian car makers. But the financial troubles they are facing are not the result of high labor cost, but rather bad management. European car makers like BMW did not have the advantage of low labor cost. But that company is thriving.

The logic behind the labor cost excuse is that: if we have lower labor cost, we can sell cheaper cars. But the cars made by GM and Ford ARE cheaper than Toyotas and Hondas. The problem is consumers don't want cheaper cars. They want reliable and better-design cars. The problems of GM and Ford are the result of market share loss. The market share loss is due to the fact they make bad cars, not because they don't make cheap cars.

For years, the US auto makers have relied on big SUVs and trucks to generate profits to offset their loss-making passenger car business. Now with oil price record high, the demand for the gas-guzzlers will undoubtedly decline. On top of that, Asian car makers are also encroaching on the SUV market. How would GM survive without the fat profits from its SUV business?

I predict that in ten to twenty years, the US will cede auto business to Asia companies, like they did a few decades ago in the TV and consumer electronics business.

Dismal approval rating of Bush shows American people care

As violence and ethnic conflict in Iraq intensifies, the poll shows Bush's approval rating plunges to the low 30% range, barely better than that of Cheney's.

Although the deaths were the Iraqis, American people still care. We don't want to see our soldiers hurt. We do not want to see Iraqis die, either. American people are not self-centered narrowed-minded unilateralists represented by the Bush administration.

In his speech a few days ago, Bush is shifting the blame of violence in Iraq from Al Qaeda to Iran. Now Iran is public enemy No. 1, replacing Al Qaeda. It seems that Iran is behind the suicide bombing activities in Iraq. That just puzzles me. I thought the insurgents were Al Qaeda-supported Sunis, according our governments just a few weeks, with the western media agreeing in unison. Now how come Iran, supporter of Shiites, turn around to support the Sunis?

But the truth of the matter is the Bush government is trying to play the blame game to evade their own responsibilities.

The Bush government is SO incompetent that it has failed in almost every action and policy it has taken, from Katrina to Iraq, from the handling of Dubai Port deal to handling of Supreme Court nomination, from Medicare prescription drug enrollment for seniors to no-child-left-behind act, and the list goes on. This is an administration that cannot do a single thing right!

Pentagon defending guantanamo detainees right to privacy

Asked why all the secrecy behind guantanamo bay detention system, the Pentagon finally gave a good reason: "the detainees have the right to privacy". Yes, privacy is the most supreme right here. Forget about all other human rights, like right to a fair trial, right to personal freedom, etc. It is the privacy of the detainees that the Pentagon is protecting. The Pentagon has gone all the way to Afghanistan to get these detainees so that their privacy will be better protected here at guantanamo. Hey you journalists, stop nosing around.

In a separate news item, a former guantanamo bay detainee claimed that he was beaten at the detention. Shocking! Preposterous! Outlandish! How could that happen! Responding to this accusation, a Pentagon spokesperson made a funny face: "na na na na na na.... He's got no proof." Now all of you sing along: "na na na na na na, he's got no proof."