On Greed and Jealousy

Greed is good. When met with a definiteness of purpose, bounded by integrity and self-confidence, greed is good. To put it in simpler words, knowing how much money you want is not important; knowing what you want to do with that money, for what purpose and how to get there are more important questions to answer. Money is simply the price tag of achieving that goal in mind and accumulating money is only a part of a 20 miles journey.

The purpose, no doubt, is guided by your wants; not just needs, but wants. Now, needs are basic comforts of life: food, clothes, shelter, leisure and mobility. And wants will dictate the level of luxury that you desire before setting out. These are your goals in life; the benchmark of your success. Now, the next step is, once you get to where you are and beyond, what would you do with the surpluses? Would you care to make a positive difference to someone else's life? Such as providing the less fortunate with the same creature comforts without any ulterior motives? In the end, all we want in life is to make ourselves happy while helping others to do so whenever we can. And after this journey is done; after we give ourselves a pat on our shoulders, we will want to move up. Therefore we start on a 50 miles journey on top of our previous one: start planning and accumulating funds for the next bigger project, keeping in mind that any surpluses beyond our new goal will again contribute to helping others kick start similar journeys of their own.

Greed, is key; moving up in life, wanting to do more is key. But moving up in the right direction is even more important. Throughout corporate history, I have seen too many times when greed, met with a definiteness of purpose and self-confidence but ill-guided by flawed values, led brilliant people to waste. Take Enron and Worldcom in the wake of the Dot.com bubble burst for example; take Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup at the start of the collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) saga for example. Unchecked greed was at work each and every time: smart people wanting to move up for their own good, paying no regards to what their actions might do to others. The latter incident was one that I knew all too well. How? Because I was there. I was on Wall Street last March interviewing with Merrill and Citigroup and I saw first hand what greed, unchecked by integrity, can do to people and companies:

Knowing that poor people do not have the cash to pay off debts, mortgage companies enticed them with cheap loans with no down payment requirements. Poor people, uneducated people, do not understand complex interest payment schedules so no money out of the pocket for a house that they always wanted was god-sent. But these financial companies knew that one day the business and real estate boom will come to an end. That one day, housing prices will fall and no one will be able to refinance their mortgages. That legions and legions of poor people will declare bankrupt and end up losing more than they'll ever gain from the loans they received. But did they care? No. They didn't care where the money to lend came from, who they are lending to or who the loans are then passed on to. As long as the imminent bad loan is not on their balance sheets, these financial companies are happy. So, they went about their rounds tricking poor people into putting their names on the line and bundled these loans into complex securities and sold them to unsuspecting buyers. Without a doubt, these buyers are arguably more sophisticated than the poor, but they are greedy and naive all the same. These investors wanted higher yields and larger fixed payments and they just could not care what will happen in the future. They were told by the mortgage, fixed income and credit rating industries that "Rome will last for a thousand years" and foolishly chose to believe them. In a nutshell, everyone was "cheated" by the greedy loan and fixed income companies without morals. And look at what is happening now? Jobs are gone, poor people are sleeping on the streets since their houses and cars are levied, and "blood" is all over Wall Street. I am thoroughly convinced that even though greed can be good, given the right conditions, unilaterally beneficial greed in the long run is inevitably destructive.

So, a definiteness of purpose and integrity are necessary conditions for mutually beneficial greed to work, but they are not sufficient. Self-confidence, the antithesis of jealousy and insecurity, forms the third leg of the stool. The trick here is to learn how to handle your inner judge. How do we get jealous in the first place? We form images of ourselves and others, especially our peers, all the time. And your inner judge will always be critical of how well you have performed as compared to others: how you are slowed down by your integrity, by others, by circumstances, and by your own shortfalls. You begin to blame everyone but yourself. You start to wonder if you would reach your goals faster if only you have relaxed your moral criteria; to doubt the realism of your goals and the plan you have laid out to accumulate the money you need. Concurrently, you compare your shortfalls with others who have arrived at your goals and start to feel relatively small, helpless and insecure. Your helplessness angers you and you curse your comparable peer for making you feel terrible.

And then comes the crucial question: what do you do next? If you give up on yourself, all your prior efforts will be in vain. You prophecies of being small and helpless will be fulfilled. You have lost. On the contrary, if you pause and start to think about how much your peers must have sacrificed and how hard they must have worked to get to where they are today, then maybe there are some tricks out there that you may not know. So, why not reach out to these successful people and learn some lessons on how to move along faster, get things done quicker and ease yourself back onto the journey towards your goals?

Life is not a race, you are not in it for a trophy that has only one winner. And that's the source of self-confidence: knowing that your inner judge will have nothing to judge you with when there are no one to compare against. You are unique; you live the life you want. And if you do not attain what you have set out to do with your initial effort, do not give up. Go back to the drawing board to dice and slice goals up into manageable pieces and try to work with many smaller goals the next time. Celebrate achieving each small goal with mini rewards to know that you've done something important, and it is important! A journey of a thousand miles is made up of small steps, and as long as you know the direction and the ultimate goal you are after, every small step and lesson along the way will get you that much closer to your destination.

Greed is good. When met with a definiteness of purpose, bounded by integrity and self-confidence, greed is good.

Who am I?

People change, that's a fact. But the tricky thing is: how can we change positively, while remaining ourselves? What is "ourselves" in the first place? What defines who I am and how do I know that?

A discussion with my girlfriend makes me wonder about these questions suddenly. I told her that the things that define me are my moral values and ethical perspectives of this world. That regardless of how I look, the manner with which I speak, or even how I walk, laugh and sing, my integrity and allegiance to my outlook in life remains the same. To add to that, I think my written retirement statement, my sole purpose in life, also defines who I am. Without that written statement, and without allegiance to it, I think my life will be entirely void of meaning.

Therefore, I can safely say that there are three things that define who I am:

1. The past was a dream, the present is reality, and the future is mine to shape. Learn from and forgive the past, live the present, and build for the future is what I believe in. Living in the past is like living in a self-constructed prison. So why not let it go and enjoy the freedom of today and excitement of what tomorrow can bring?

2. Do what is right. I imagine myself as a self-made multi-billionaire like Warren Buffett and ask myself this: if I am Warren Buffett, with a US$40 billion personal worth and a whole legion of reporters chasing after my ass, what will I do in a given situation? If I do something that will get me on the front page of dozens of newspapers worldwide for the wrong reasons, then I better stay well clear of that action or thought. Even if it was a Grey-area question, I would still not touch it with a ten feet pole. Integrity is everything because my reputation is what will live on, beyond money and status, long after my death.

3. I believe that I can achieve the definite purpose in life, and will do anything within legal boundaries to attain it. My life is wasted if I do not retire from business and start a career in novel and play writing by age 45. This is my life and I am going to live it the way I want to.

Therefore, people can say whatever they want about me. They can impose their idealized personality on me; they can deem me as arrogant and they can distrust my beliefs in life. But as long as I remain true to the three things that define me, I believe success is inevitable.

But wait a minute, why are these three definitions of me so hardcore and cold? Why are there no emotions attached to them? Why is there not a single picture of love and softness?

Therefore, I think there is another side of me that I would have to learn and reveal to myself and those around me. These include trusting others and letting them into my world readily, because I have nothing to hide. Honestly, I think I have a problem in this area because I picked up some bad habits from my parents. My folks never showed compassion openly and never truly trusted each other. My dad in particular buried his own emotional self so deep inside that I have given up trying to open him up to love and trust.

I hate to cook up excuses but a parent's actions and words can really have a profound effect on his child. The interactions between my dad and me have been emotionally void, business transaction type talks, instructional monologues and awkward silences. And this uneasy relationship begun ever since my dad realized that I was growing out of my childhood self into a man. Basically, back home, it's me who wears the pants, ties the family together emotionally and financially. So maybe he felt threatened, kind of like being replaced by a son that grew out of his shadow, and tried unsuccessfully to rein me in.

Nevertheless, he eventually knew that I have outgrown him when I chose a different path at every major juncture in life, and have achieved success despite his constant timid dissuasions. For example, when I chose to go to Raffles Institution instead of Chinese High for my secondary education despite my strong mandarin background; when I chose a Singapore Airlines scholarship over a Singapore Armed Forces Merit Scholarship; and when I chose to invest my own money in the Singaporean equity market instead of putting it conservative life policy insurance the way he did. Each decision I made was a calculated one that challenged my comfort zone and allowed me to grow and profit. But if I have listened to my dad, I think today I will be a very unhappy person with few meanings in my life.

However, I still carried his emotional reservedness in me. So my girlfriend is right, I am emotionally cautious at a sub-conscious level, and I am thankful to her for pointing this out. I will have to work on trusting others emotionally. And most importantly, learn how to love and relax and just be myself. This emotional void in me is something of an inner demon for me, and I'm glad I'm facing it squarely now. I don't know yet how I can defeat it, but if by conquering it means that a better me will be revealed, then I think I'm going to try my best.

So, the next time you catch me not being myself; talking in detached, disengaged manner, please, point it out to me and I'll do my best to relax and be more engaging.

The Business of Public Governance

Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York and founder of the financial data service provider Bloomberg, Inc., said candidly during his speech at Google, "The role of a government is to transfer resources from the most successful areas to the not so successful ones, but business is the other way round." After 6 days here at Barcelona, and 6 days of immersing myself in the culture and history of Spain, I began to doubt if Bloomberg is telling everything about public governance. I believe Bloomberg has gotten it right governing cities like New York and Barcelona. But when it comes to a country, I hesitate to agree with him.


However, Bloomberg's success in business goes beyond doubt. Armed with an electrical engineering degree from John Hopkins, Bloomberg ended his salary man career as a top executive at Salomon Brothers. After he was fired, he took his shares in the company, liquidated it, took his understanding of system engineering and finance and started a fledging database business for financial professionals. With a keen eye for exploiting successes and a healthy bottomline, Bloomberg turned his namesake company into one of the world's largest private companies and made himself a billionaire. Success in corporate strategies is clearly a trophy he has won for himself.

Moving beyond business, Bloomberg has a vision for the dilapidating city of New York. With a simple, clearcut view of governance, Bloomberg set out in 2001 to fight crimes, improve America's largest public school system and reverse its $6b budget deficit. To date, crime rates in New York are among the lowest among big cities, more students are enrolling into postsecondary education from public schools and New York state now enjoys a $2.4b budget surplus.

So clearly, detractors who said that Bloomberg's business approach for governance makes a recipe for disaster have been proven wrong. The reason why the business approach works for public governance is because it is not about the bottomline per se. This approach focuses on building sound systems and values that marshal and deploy resources and capabilities to support a vision. In business, the vision is clear and simple - to maximize profits for owners. In public governance, the vision is also clear and simple - to promote equality for all citizens. But I think equality should mean more at a local level than at state level.

The idea of equality is a confusing concept in public governance. Within a city or state, where citizens are united by a shared cultural or moral background, equality refers to equal chances to pursue the following three fundamental states of freedom:

1. Freedom from uncertainty and danger
2. Freedom from the scarcity of physiological needs
3. Freedom of choice, association and competition

As risk averse individuals, we want to know that there will be a tomorrow, and that tomorrow will be more alike today than otherwise: injury free and comfortable. To be comfortable, we will need all the basic items such as a shelter over our heads, food to eat, water to drink, electricity to power our machines and transportation to get to places. Also, no one likes being alone. So, after we get comfortable, we will need to associate with friends while necessarily competing with others to sharpen our skills and knowledge, and in so doing, attain a status among our peers. Therefore, a great state or city to live in will focus on creating equality for all its citizen to pursue their three fundamental states of freedom.

However, the same governance yardstick can be applied only sparingly at the national level. Thomas Friedman once said that the world is flat. I would think that cities and states, based upon a shared cultural and moral background of its citizens, ought to be flat or equal, but communities and regions larger than states will never be flat. Bloomberg succeeded in New York because he created equality in chances to pursue freedoms. But at a national or federal level, public governance takes another twist. Equality is not the top priority here. Unity among states and the pursuit of open policies and good relationships with trade partners are more important. States form a nation because when their cultural and historical backgrounds are taken together, they form an intangible asset greater than the sum of its parts; one that can benefit every citizen in the country. This intangible asset is a national identity. This national identity is like a consumer brand, such as Louis Vuitton for handbags or Ferrari for cars, that builds solidarity among citizens and attracts foreigners from outside the nation. Meanwhile, a focus on open trade policies allows states within the country to exchange their competitive advantages by exporting their best produces to each other and to other countries. This open exchange also allows ideas to flow freely and further reinforces a citizen's freedom of choice.

Therefore, if Bloomberg is elected the President of United States tomorrow, his reverse business approach to public governance will inevitably fail. Let's see why this is so in the context of the state of freedom from uncertainty and danger. A nation can protect an individual's pursuit of freedom from uncertainty and danger by providing a national army to guard against external aggression. However, if a nation is to ensure security at a local level, it runs into the risk of standardizing moral values, too much micromanagement and bureaucratic red tape. Therefore, Bloomberg would only allocate security elements to the extent that national security, not local security, is achieved, since it is relatively ineffective to go any further. Also, a nation's identity is based on the social values and cultural history that states share, and this goes beyond Bloomberg's business approach to create overnight. The only thing that a national leader can do is to let states run their own history, applying force only to gently mold each region's culture into the nation's identity.

Consequently, national governance should focus less on its allocative goal than on its pursuit of unity, open borders and trade relationships. This higher level focus will grant local government the fiscal space it needs to build equality within its jurisdictions, and to accentuate their competitive advantages and exchange them with other states and nations for mutual benefits.

If history is a beacon for the future, Spain's tumultuous history offers a lesson in public governance to be learned. Here in Barcelona I am constantly bombarded by the history of the Spanish Civil War, and I was truly astonished that the civil unrest really ended just 29 years ago with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, and the country's transition to democracy. The current economic success of this colorful nation masked the painful process of getting there. Walking (or biking really) on the streets of Barcelona I see high end retailers such as Massimo Dutti, Gaudi's magnificent architectural masterpieces and great transport networks. But who would have thought that Spain experienced a monarchy, a dictatorship, a socialist republic, an autarky, a democratic free market all in the space of the past 76 years. Spain's history is a story of a nation trying to find its national identity while coping with the various meanings of equality.

It all started when the Spanish working class grew conscious of aristocratic and bourgeoisie exploitation and demanded absolute equality from the Second Spanish Republic. As it turns out, revolution is not good for everyone when it is forced down the throat. Sweeping policy changes against the rich and powerful, such as taking away their land, closing down Catholic Schools etc are generally bad ideas. Equality, taken to extreme, hurts everyone. Spain eventually broke into factions which built coalitions only to pursue their selfish purposes. In the end, civilians in Madrid were bombed by the Germans (The Germans! Those bullies.), Barcelona was sacked by the nationalistic Spaniards and all works by Antoni Gaudi were burnt in Sagrada Familia.

And now, the country is a socialist republic pursuing free market under a monarch. If you wonder what that means, don't ask me, because I don't know either. Nevertheless, this system appears to be working because its 17 autonomous communities have equal chances of pursuing their own potentials, although unified by a shared history, currency, language, and central head of state (a rather powerless monarch - King Juan Carlos I). The ability to provide ample fiscal space for each community (kind of like the states in US) to make independent governing decisions is the cornerstone of success of the central government of Spain (and federal government of US) . This form of national governance grants rational governors, such as Bloomberg, the space needed to allocate resources in support of a regionally shared vision of equality at a gradual, socially acceptable pace.

Spain's rise to prominence can be attributed to its strong national identity and provision of equality at various governmental levels. The country is now the sixth largest economy and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Its vibrancy is a direct reflection of the passion Spaniards put into their leisure and its economic prowess draws strength from the entrepreneurship of its people, who have now attained the three fundamental states of freedom. During the past seven days, I have met many well-traveled tourists who have been all over Europe, and everyone unanimously agreed that Barcelona and Spain are absolutely the finest in the world. That, to me, indicates successful public governance.

Courtship Poker and the 27.5 Rule

If you have never played poker before, you should definitely try. Beyond the money and cards, it's also a game of acting, statistics and psychology. And the key here is that you have to do anything quick and with credibility, even if you are not 100% sure that it is the right move, because your display can instill fear and create doubts, tilting reactions in your favor.

With an unbelievable good hand, you should play the field on the double or more since you will be guaranteed at least 50% return on your bet even with just one other player in the game. And if he follows you stupidly till the bitter end, then you'll effectively double your money and finish him off, assuming that everyone starts off with an equal amount of money. What's more, if you are playing a fantastic hand with two other players, you will double your bet if they all fold and quadruple it if they all follow and needless to say, the more players in this situation, the better. But acting also helps. Everyone loves to be the hero to catch a bluff, and that's the only way they will continue with you till the bitter end and make you a very rich man. Hence, arrogance on this hand will work in your favor. However, it is also important to raise the stakes in amounts that others can follow, thus enticing them to grow your pool of returns.

However, when faced with a bad hand and the cards are stacked out against you, what do you do? The game is not as straight forward here but this is also your chance to build for the next better hand. You have essentially three options: (1) be realistic about it and fold early, protecting your capital (2) make the bluff and get caught intentionally, displaying arrogance in the process to support your next good hand or (3) do the bluff all the way with outstanding calmness and poise, totally different from the display you put on with a good hand earlier, and count on the stats to win. Which plan you choose will depend on how much capital you have at the moment, how many rounds more to go in the game and whether it is possible to switch to another table and start all over again.

Basically, you would want to fold early if there aren't many rounds left and you have a tidy sum that you don't want to lose. If you have already amassed a tidy sum before and the game is till young, then to win big you should let a bluff go and lose a bit. And if you think this table is getting a hang on what your strategy is after this bluff, then you should totally put every bit of acting into that last bluff and hopefully pull it off before moving off to another table if possible.

I wouldn't say that my above strategy will work with everyone but it has certainly worked against pretty smart people, which is one of the reasons why I have enjoyed poker. But lately I have also realized that it'll work in relationships too. This came a little unexpected because it suddenly dawned on me while chatting with a friend that there are certain 'variables' in BGR that would influence the outcome of one's love life making it very much like poker.

Picture this: The floor consists of many poker tables with a fixed female dealer each and the players are all guys. Now, each guy has just one aim: to beat the competition at a selected table after a certain number of rounds and win over the house with their available capital. The dealer then deals out a set of community cards and ‘Courtship Poker’ begins. There are two key variables here for a start: the capital and the two cards that each player possesses per round. In a BGR, the former is made up of obvious assets, like looks, physical abilities and wealth; and the latter obscure, consisting of human traits like intellect, ambition, narcissism, lust etc. The obscure cards can either complete a certain suit or combination with the dealer's community cards or not at all; a metaphor for criteria matching between a man and a woman.

Now, the first twist is that each player's gaming capital is uneven at the onset due to discrepancies in looks, physical abilities and wealth, either inherited or self-made. And this makes 'Courtship Poker' slightly less interesting than the original Texas Hold'em because the more capital one has, the more bluffs he can pull off by jacking up the stakes, making the round riskier and causing his poorer rivals to fold. This is obviously unfair and not a good way to play a game. But a courtship with multiple guys going for a girl's hand is never a fair game in the first place. Everyone has their own level of disposable capital and it is not surprising that rich boys have it easy most of the time. This is largely because the spare capacity they have to splash around scares off competitors as one has to risk a large proportion of his capital to catch the bluff - the lack of positive obscure traits to bring into a relationship, which is obviously an issue. With uneven capital at the onset, wouldn't the rich boys always win simply by dumping his chips in? Well, that would indeed be the case for earlier rounds of the game; a metaphor for the school-going period of a man's life. At this point, only those as rich as the rich kid; may it be any other players, or maybe even the dealer herself, can comfortably call his bluffs (if the girl catches the bluff, then she'll remain single). If not, the rich kid will certainly win the round and walk away with the girl (Be mindful that this is not equal to winning the game, it's just a round). And that is most likely the case since one has to be sure that his/her hand (traits) will combine with the community cards to a better suit than the bluff before risking capital to catch it, which forms a doubt one has to fight when the stakes are high.

To solve this seemingly injustice, we have the second twist: each player will gain or lose some capital relative to his rivals with the hand he has per round. Should a player have a fantastic hand in this round, let's say he is clever, confident and has solid ambitions, the next round he will receive more capital since he is more likely to improve his wardrobe, toughen up and succeed in his career. On the contrary, if a player has a real lousy hand this round, let's say he is lazy, proud and stupid, then he will not be very productive and his capital will be increased at a slower rate than his rivals, or maybe reduced as well. Therefore, the capital of each player will vary as the game proceeds.

The third twist, unfortunately for the ladies, is that as the game proceeds, the dealer's capital will be unavoidably reduced. Remember that capital consists of obvious assets such as looks, physical endowment and wealth. The inconvenient truth here is that all ladies have a ticking physical clock within their wombs and that clock gives rise to the fact that beauty fades as time goes by, which then accounts for the reduction in their capital. Of course, with great hands in every round a lady can still cover that loss with accumulated wealth, via spending on cosmetic surgeries, botox and what not. But eventually, and sadly, the clock runs out and it will become prohibitively expensive to maintain existing capital. This thus gives rise to the 27.5 rule, which is the age that an average girl living in a developed society will start to experience a fall in capital, like the parabolic curve depicted below.

Of course, some girls are able to prolong this turning point till somewhere later like 35 or something but 27.5 is the most reasonable turning point. This is because girls within a developed society will like to have both career and family and most will prefer a baby or more before 35 due to the fact that (1) any older and there will be an insurmountable age gap between mother and child and that (2) their careers will not be moribund because of frequent maternity leaves and school problems. From here, a girl will then prefer to get married before 29 so that there are at least two years of couple-hood before the first born. And since most girls would also like a proper courtship prior to marriage as well, which requires a reasonable 1.5 years, we have 27.5 as the turning point - the age that many girls will reduce their desires to win rounds since their abilities to do so (capital) are permanently declining.

With this set up, it seems logical for the rich guys to do nothing but bluff in the earlier rounds, leaving the poor guys, albeit with good hands, behind in the competition since they have limited capital to call bluffs at a table in these early stages. So, good but poor guys fold, while lousy but rich guys bluff and win unless the dealer calls the bluff. In this case, most bidders are always poisons in disguise. This is a typical lemon’s problem and the only way to resolve this for an average girl with average capital is to do a show hand and try to call the bluff. However, most girls will rather be bluffed since the average person is more likely risk-averse, hence getting into relationships that they’ll find unsuitable and not worth the effort eventually.

However, the dynamics of the game will change as it progresses since the comparative capital of the dealer and guys that have nothing but bluffs will decrease and that of guys with good hands will increase as depicted below.


Let’s assume two players, one capital rich and lousy, one capital poor but good at a table with a female dealer all of the same age. At the height of her capital curve, the average female is bound to call bluffs since she has the required capital to match the rich but lousy player. At age 27.5, the poor but good guy should already have a certain career path and will also be able to call bluffs with accumulated capital. Hence, we will see a relationship shakeout during this round as the rich but lousy players are taken out of the picture. Of course, the Lousy Hands curve depicted above may have underestimated many rich but lousy guys out there, though the prediction of a relationship shakeout is still valid when the Lousy Hands curve intersects with the Good Hands curve as time progresses.

This means that players with lousy hands should simply jack up the stakes earlier on to support bluffs and players with good hands should wait out and then call bluffs during later rounds with more capital. Nonetheless, even though players with majority lousy hands will eventually suffer a drop in comparative capital, they could still hold on to their prizes from earlier rounds for as long as they can combine acting and statistics and use them to support his bluffs, especially if he had one or two good hands in the past and had used them wisely as per the normal poker strategy outlined in the beginning of this article. This will effectively push out the Lousy Hands curve, allowing him to delay the shakeout (and possibly lock in the relationship with a family). Ladies at the later stage of the game, unfortunately, will be totally dependent on a white-knight and guys with majority good hands should maintain their grounds during these rounds and not be afraid to call bluffs if the table offers a healthy sum in the pool i.e. the girl is worth your effort.

Regardless, the central tendency of humans is to be cautious. Some shun risks all together while others take calculated risks. This is why a white-knight is no guarantee for many ladies, especially those manning tables with low pools of money not high enough to compensate white-knights for their risks towards the mid to late rounds. However, ladies can unilaterally ensure that stakes remain high when they able to reduce the rate of their permanent capital decline. Therefore, capital effective vanity is a necessary skill that ladies should acquire after their turning point at 27.5 years old. This means that girls should establish a decent paying career that can help fund a certain style that’s cheap to maintain and yet appealing to guys. Easier said than done, and that’s the pain of being a woman really.

After reviewing the variables of ‘Courtship Poker’ and the three twists it has, it is my belief that (1) rich and lousy guys must bluff with conviction and normal poker strategies after jacking up the stakes fail to work in the later rounds (2) poor but good guys must wait out till they establish their careers and not be afraid to call bluffs towards the later rounds and (3) ladies should stay single if they could earlier on but most importantly, they should acquire capital effective vanity skills which will then assure a rescue from a white-knight later on in the game.

Since I'm a poor guy (good or not is not for me to say), I'm afraid I'll have wait out till 27.5 at least. My poor and good fellas out there, stop tormenting yourself with wasteful BGR problems and move on! However, if you like challenges, I would say go to a table without much rich kids and you'll probably stand a chance there. And if you don't trust this analysis, let me just put up some statistics here that support the above conclusions:

As of 18 August 2007:

Agree:

Guys - 5
Gals - 1

Disagree:

Guys - 1
Gals - 0

Please feel free to cast your vote under comments.

A New Hope

We just rented out a room to this highly qualified IT consultant from Malaysia. Apparently, he holds a bachelor's degree from Arizona State, US and a masters from London. And boy didn't he offer a high premium for our modest spare master room: $650 fixed with $70 variable per month! Now that's way more than the market right now. Other rooms are going at $550 and $600 and I must say this guy is really generous with his cash. For his sincerity, we offered broadband internet FOC.

From the start, it seems like we have found the right tenant. He's polite, mild-mannered and very attached to his girlfriend, which means that he'll not make funny designs about my sis, who's also staying at home. Plus, he is willing to put 3 months' rent as deposit, which more than covered the risk of him breaking our contract due to job-instability. This tenant is perfect! And we welcomed him with opened-arms.

It's indeed a small miracle that things moved so fast since I last broached the idea of renting out our spare capacities for extra family income in June. The plan goes like this: the rental income will be invested in unit trusts for additional growth and will be drawn down in two years' time to finance my parents' trip to US for my graduation, while the rest will be kept untouched for their retirement further down the road.

I have always wanted a comfortable retirement for my parents, for I know that they have not spared any thoughts on that and have been spending too excessively on traveling and home improvement. Without a source of steady retirement income, it is ultimately the children that will fend for their twilight years, and I am very uncomfortable with that. Firstly, I totally subscribed to the view that 'feed a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach him how to fish and he'll feed himself forever.' I have been well-trained in investment and wealth management and there's no reason at all why my parents should be deprived of the knowledge that I possess. Knowledge is power and I intend for them to become as savvy as I am eventually. Second, the liability of fending for my parents, my family and perhaps my gf's parents might prove too much a dent to my personal retirement dreams and I will never compromise that. But filial piety dictates that I look after my parents when they are old, so I resort to knowledge and I shall see to it that it pays off.

So, renting out this first room is a fine step forward. It builds confidence about the future for my parents and with the extra cash, their standard of living should improve. However, there's still a risk to the idyllic picture: my dad's temper and my mom's headstrong character. The two loggerheads have yet to resolve their outstanding issues and with the noise that they generate everyday, I'm afraid the tenant will not stay for long, which will then scuttle our well-thought out plan. So, I thought of a second plan to address the risk, and to rescue their marriage: 50 cents fine.

You see, my parents like to bad-mouth one another in front of my sis and me, and I'm very disturbed by that. That's not what a married couple with children do to each other. Sure, couples have their relationship problems, but when it comes to kids, it's a whole new dimension. My parents have to practice restraint, or they can say goodbye to us kids giving them any respect down the road, the same way that so many families fell apart. Therefore, after an extended counseling session with each of my parents, we struck a deal: my dad will not raise his voice or act like a hooligan, or it's a 50 cents fine by the piggy bank. Each time he felt provoked, he'll go straight to his room and write his feelings down onto a piece of paper and put it on the other party' table in private. The other party then has the option of reading or ignoring the note, which is of course better than listening to yells involuntarily; my mom will not bad-mouth my dad anymore in front of my sis and me or it's a 50 cents fine too by the piggy bank. Any grievances will be similarly put into words on a note and sent in private. The choice to change for the better in each other's perspective is totally voluntary because no one should be forced to change. The key here is simply to reduce the amount of noise in this family everyday.

It took a lot of effort to simply convince my parents that this is the way forward to mend their marriage and make this rental thing work. It is going to be rough going but I think at this point, we need all the commitments that we can get from both parties or it's really au revoir to this family unit. I still have about a month to go before I go back to the States and I hope this new tenant will be a catalyst for us to really correct all our past mistakes and irritating behaviors.

Sometimes I get really tired of being the moderator all the time in this family, with little help from anyone. But I figured that with my past experiences and training, I'm the best person for the job. I don't know if I will give up if this plan doesn't work, but I think I'm already giving it my best shot. It's brave new world nowadays, and if things still do not work out, I think the best solution for my parents is still to go their separate ways. That's the cane I proposed to them and I meant it, so they better use this chance to improve themselves or things will turn real nasty very quickly. Let's hope that this tenant is really the new hope that we've been wishing for all along.

Farewell, Freedom's Friedman

Milton Friedman passed away last night. I held a moment of silence and decided to write down my thoughts about him.

1912 - 2006

It was a rather sad moment for me when I came to know about his passing from Wall Street Journal. Friedman was a great champion of intelluctual curiosity. He refused to yield to establishment and seeked out truths where they matters. Because of his bravado, our economic universe is a better, safer place today than it was half a century ago. He will probably be most remembered for his "theory before fact" Expectation Augmented Philips Curve, the IS-LM, AS-AD model for Mid-run equilibrium, and his famous words, "Inflation is anywhere and everywhere a monetary phenomenon."

I remember watching Friedman receiving his Nobel prize in CBS's "The Commanding Heights", how he was shamed by the audience as he stood up upon the pedestal to deliver his prize winning-speech, and how he replied with cool silence, knowing all-too-well that truth speaks louder than hurled abuses and cream on his nose and shirt. He is such a small man, yet his great belief in his work and values made him a giant above all else in his field, and he still is today, in mind and spirit, and in the textbook of every student learning about macroeconomic in college.

Thanks to him, and many of his friends, macroeconomics is a better understood beast and can indeed help save lives. Farewell Friedman, you will be missed.

Game Over

Well, guess what? After such elaborate analysis in the previous post, the game ended even before it started. Less than 10 encounters and I've realised that A is attached. That's something totally unexpected and un-factored in my assumptions. I don't think I want to be a jerk, so I guess the game has to end on round one.

One good thing came out of the entire ordeal though. I've got her on MSN, so we can still be friends. Let's see how things go. Maybe I need not be a jerk after all. =P