再多一下下

Saw this link from pris' fb. 再多一下下 is a short essay written by 新加坡才子 -- 梁文福。

读了这篇文章格外的感慨，转眼间，我20年的学生生涯就要结束了，不久就要‘投身社会’了。这么多年，读书读得最开心就是在大学的这四年，每日每周每年都在不断的学习，不断的提升自己。这是多么难得的机会啊！所结交的师友给我带来无限的欢乐与陪伴，认识他们让我觉得非常欣慰。

算了，中文打了十分钟也没打几个字，back to English. Over the four years in Uni, I'll always remember the wonderful time spent in E.y.E, and the amazing people that I met there. It was such a delight to work with such dedicated people.I'm sure our paths will cross again in the future.

The other bunch of great people in my life are those accounting pple - if u r reading this you are probably one of them :) . I am seriously biased, cuz i think that SMU's School of Accountancy is the BEST SCHOOL in SMU and perhaps in SINGAPORE!!! hahaha. The high quality people that I met in SOA gives me hope that the accounting profession may have a bright(er) future. The dedicated bunch of Profs that showed me what true PROFESSIONALISM is, continue to inspire me; Prof Pearl Tan, Prof Andrew Lee, Prof JJ, Prof Joanne Tay and all the other professors that put in their 110% to bring much knowledge and wisdom to the students, you have me deepest respect.

The last group of people that brings much joy to my life are my alumni choir people. I can always rely on my Sat practice to meet this joyous bunch of people. Special shoutout to Peiying, Longteng and Gerald for making the arrangements to make our performance come true, Mark - for jeopardizing his exams and leading us in this musical journey, and everyone else who came despite their work, exams (on and right after the performance night...gosh...), and whatever that prevents them from coming (like lazing in bed on a sat morning).

Any organisation is nothing more than the people that makes up that organisation. It is the nexus of relationship that defines an organisation, or a group of people. There is no contract, no obligation, but simply goodwill and the inherent joy of a job well done that keeps me going back. Not sure if I'll still be able to go for choir in the future, cuz my job OBLIGATION demands Saturday morning too, but, the beautiful memories of us making music and creating small miracles of our own year after year will stay with me for time to come.

人生不断的向前迈进，而我们却得在匆忙中寻找那片刻的静，来回味那美丽的回忆 -- 再多一下下。

天冷你就回来别在风中徘徊
哦妈妈眼里有明白还有一丝无奈
天冷我想回家童年已经不在
昨天的雨点撒下来那滋味叫作爱
呜~别在风中徘徊呜~天冷就回来

full lyrics here

Show Choir

Thanks to Aggie for this amazing post! Can't wait for Glee to be back.

Neil Patrick Harris on Glee = Wait for it....awesome!

Glee cast on Oprah! and she invited one of the show choirs to go on her show.



Which reminds me of Annie Lennox's Walking on Broken Glass



And this is still my favorite Annie Lennox's live performance



And how can I forget "Into the West" from Lord of the Rings - Return of the King




定風波 - 蘇軾

莫聽穿林打葉聲，何妨吟嘯且徐行。

竹杖芒鞋輕勝馬，誰怕？一簑湮雨任平生。

料峭春風吹酒醒，微冷，山頭斜照卻相迎。

回首向來蕭瑟處，歸去，去無風雨也無晴。

The Last Lecture

Attended the my last undergraduate lecture EVER yesterday - 走入中国, taught by the amazing Prof 李美勤。

It was one of the most enjoyable modules I've ever taken. The whole course was taught in Chinese and was filled with stories of the history, culture and economics of China. What was especially valuable was the writing of the individual essay. It summarized my learnings from the teachings of 儒道两家.

While preparing for exams, i'm also reading The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch . Read his book and watch his videos online even if you don't have the time. Laugh and cry with this very brave man.

BBC Business Daily is one of my favorite BBC program. Its on BBC Channel - 88.9FM Singapore. The show last night was on "Can Money Buy Happiness?" (05 Apr 10). You can download the podcast and listen to new episodes everyday. One of the points the speaker made was that money only makes us happy to the extent that we are better off than the next person that we know. ie. Absolute wealth does not bring happiness beyond sustenance level, it is relative wealth that matters.

Looking at the recently published SMU GRADUATE SURVEY 2009, assuming that the survey is largely accurate, I wonder if the 75th percentile earner will be happier than the 25th percentile in a few years time.

持而盈之，不如其已。揣而锐之，不可长保。金玉满堂，莫之能守。富贵而骄，自遗其咎。功成名遂身退，天之道也。
《道德经第九章》

故知足之足，常足矣。
《道德经第四十六章》

以上两点是我现在对财富的一种价值观。重点是要做到富贵而不骄傲，知道什么叫功成身退。以及从日常生活中所有的一切己得其乐。

人生能够修得五福，也算功德圆满了。

《书经·洪范》上所记载的五福是：“一曰寿、二曰富、三曰康宁、四曰修好德、五曰考终命”。
　　‘长寿’是命不夭折而且福寿绵长
　　‘富贵’是钱财富足而且地位尊贵。
　　‘康宁’是身体健康而且心灵安宁。
　　‘好德’是生性仁善而且宽厚宁静。
　　‘善终’是能预先知道自己的死期。临命终时，没有遭到横祸，身体没有病痛，心里没有挂碍和烦恼，安详而且自在地离开人间。
Source：http://baike.baidu.com/view/18513.htm#2

希望这辈子能够达到“不自见故明，不自是故彰，不自伐故有功，不自矜故长。夫惟不争，故天下莫能与之争”，逍遥的过一生。

Debate on financial innovation

Read this awesome commentary by Jeremy Grantham at http://www.gmo.com/websitecontent/JGLetter_ALL_4Q09.pdf

" “Beware the Financial Industrial Complex”

It is not often one gets the opportunity to debate a Nobel

Prize winner, but Richard Bookstaber and I went to Wall

Street to debate Myron Scholes and Robert Reynolds

(Putnam’s CEO) on a very topical topic: “Financial

Innovation Boosts Economic Growth.” There are no

prizes for guessing which side opposed the proposition.

Richard Bookstaber, by the way, is an experienced quant

who, despite that, wrote an excellent book, A Demon of

Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils

of Financial Innovation – a title so superb you might think

it unnecessary to read the book, but do."

Mind blowing presentation below. People pays $1500 for the summit.

We get to watch if for free :)

The Letter that I've been waiting for

As usual, the annual letter by Warren Buffett to Berkshire Hathaway shareholder is an awesome read. This letter is particularly good as an Berkshire Hathaway introduction as its target readers are the tens of thousand of new shareholders that got their shares through the acquisition of Burlington Northern.

The letters are available here: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

I love the part of where Buffett advised that for every deal, another investment banker should be employed whose fee will be paid contingent on the deal NOT going through. Haha. Another great section is the part of the letter where he discussed the issue with stock for stock acquisition. To me, this is another instance of Buffett publicly chiding the Kraft-Cadbury deal. I need to learn how to criticize without offending people...

On a personal note, I'm glad that i went to the shareholder's meeting last year, as this year on, Buffett will no longer meet the international shareholders individually. However, the school that i went on exchange in, Richard Ivey School of Business, sent their students in the Value Investing course led by Prof George Athanassakos, to meet Buffett in a closed door session last week!!! How I wish I was there.

------------------------

Reading through Zkai's recent post on real estate makes me realize that this is one asset class that I am totally unfamiliar with. I have no clear idea of what are the economic drivers, and the intricacies of making a purchase (e.g. contract details). However, I believe that real estate as an asset class allow you to measure value in the same metrics that you'd measure an investment in the stock of a company.

We should be able to value the said property's prospective rental yield, potential for growth in the rental, accounting for a relevant financing charges and other maintenance cost; and compare the yield to the actual cash outlay that is required.

However, a property like 'land', will not allow us to subject the asset to the same calculation. This is because like other asset such as gold and silver, there is no inherent cashflow in undeveloped land. Thus its profitability will be fully dependent on the sale price, which is determined by supply and demand.

In my view, buying an asset with no underlying cashflow is much risker than buying an asset with cashflow. So unless prospective return is way higher than other alternative (rental properties, equities) this would be a highly speculative venture.

The following quotes are relevant to our above discussion. It is quoted from John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Chapter 12. The State of Long-Term Expectation. Available here.


...If I may be allowed to appropriate the term speculation for the activity of forecasting the psychology of the market, and the term enterprise for the activity of forecasting the prospective yield of assets over their whole life, it is by no means always the case that speculation predominates over enterprise. As the organisation of investment markets improves, the risk of the predominance of speculation does, however, increase. In one of the greatest investment markets in the world, namely, New York, the influence of speculation (in the above sense) is enormous.

(...)

There are, moreover, certain important factors which somewhat mitigate in practice the effects of our ignorance of the future. Owing to the operation of compound interest combined with the likelihood of obsolescence with the passage of time,there are many individual investments of which the prospective yield is legitimately dominated by the returns of the comparatively near future. In the case of the most important class of very long-term investments, namely buildings, the risk can be frequently transferred from the investor to the occupier, or at least shared between them, by means of long-term contracts, the risk being outweighed in the mind of the occupier by the advantages of continuity and security of tenure.

Basically, It's Over - by Charlie Munger

Charlie Munger - Vice Chairman of Berhshire Hathaway and the right hand man of Warren Buffett wrote a story in Slate Magazine; detailing how "Basicland" grew, prospered and finally declined into "Sorrowland".

I especially love that the good wise man in the story is the fictional character, Benfranklin Leekwanyou Vokker. Sounds familiar, ya? Guess our leader has an admirer in the West.

In my fixed income class, the wonderful Prof Warachka reminded us repeatedly that derivative are not inherently dangerous, it is leverage that is dangerous. It is always excessive leverage that got people and society into trouble.

And in this article, Munger quoted Keynes "When the capital development of a country is the byproduct of the operations of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done."

Imagine if we can unleash all the amazing brains that are currently employed to create ever more complex financial instrument (and the accompanying risk management tools ) to build better bridges, communication systems, vaccines or harness energy better!!! Alas, even in SMU, operations people get far less 'respect' (and pay) than someone who gets a fancy finance job.

Enough of my ramblings, go read this yourself!
Basically, It's Over - A parable about how one nation came to financial ruin. By Charles Munger