Comments on Matthew’s “Income Gap”

Matthew’s journal stated that there is a significant gap between male and female professionals. For the same position, women usually make less then men. With a relatively lower income, women tend to put less contribution to their 401K plan. Matthew also pointed out that large amounts of people who live in poverty are elderly women.

It is sad to see many elderly women live in poverty. How can we improve the situation? Government regulation should help elderly women get out of the poverty situation. For the other potential retirees, they need to realize that women tend to live longer and have more expenses than men, and they need to maximize their retirement savings decades before they retire. Women should also start investing more, just like men do. Women are generally more conservative and risk adverse, which means most women wound not invest their money on potential assets. That needs to change. Women can become wealthy if they do the right thing like men do.

San Francisco Protest

On April 9th, 7,000 Anti-China protestors protested as the Olympic torch was being passed by. I was shocked to see the protest on the news. As a matter of fact, I was a little bit angry about this protest.

As a Chinese immigrant, I love Chinese people and I love Americans. I am proud of being Chinese. I deeply adore my culture and my people. The Chinese government has been struggling with issues in Tibet since the 1940s. Tibet, a part of China that is mainly isolated from the rest of the mainland, is fighting for its independency. It all comes down to the freedom of religion. The fact is, most Chinese people don’t have a religion. The Chinese government has allowed Tibet the freedom to worship its religion and most Chinese people think it is the right thing to do. Give Tibet its freedom of religion. We did. Apparently, it is not enough. Monks from Tibet are using the media attention to get the world to intervene in their issues. It created so much terrible publicity for China’s Olympic event. Freedom of religion doesn’t equal to claiming its independency.

Another aspect of the San Francisco protest that bothers me is that the people who are Anti-China, are mostly Chinese. A lot of those Chinese people were born and raised here in the United States. They have never been to China before. They learned about the Chinese government from their parents or grandparents, who left China decades ago. Things have changed so much. China is not like it was 50 years ago. I would tell those Anti-China Chinese people to go visit China and see it for their own eyes.

Now, the President has decided not to go to the Beijing Olympic Ceremony’s opening. What a bad move. The entire world is watching. China and America need to stay friends.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080410/ts_alt_afp/chinaunresttibetrightsoly2008bono_080410000129

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2003/03/20/protesters.DTL

Take actions to get off oil dependency

Oil prices have hit another record high today. Today, gas it is about $3.40/gallon. It is out of control. We need to start improving our dependency issues immediately. I wonder what the government is waiting for.

EX mobile, Shell and BP have spent millions of dollars in lobbying. They are not interested in investing new technology to get liquid fuel. With the large amount of oil reserves available, oil companies are happier than ever. I did some research on it, and I found out that oil scarcity is not the problem. The problem is we can not produce oil fast enough. The oil plants are already at 100% capacity. Oil plants can charge whatever price they want because they know people in the States will pay for it.

Why not use coal to get oil? Nazis Germany invented in this technology in the 1920s to get liquid fuel from coal. The process is very simple: put coal through gasification to get carbon and hydrogen. With carbon and hydrogen, we can make any liquid fuel we want. Why not start doing it. The United States has the largest oil reserves in the world. We have enough oil reserves to last the nation 250 years. Montana was able to produce liquid fuel from it back in 2005. The oil made from coal will have a cheaper price.

Some people argue that coal-derived-liquid fuel will produce more carbon dioxide than other energy. It is true. However, that amount of carbon dioxide is not enough for us to worry about. For now, since we don’t have any other solutions available, we should use coal for a short-run. Perhaps the reason this is not being done is because of the lobbying money the government receives from oil companies. We need to our government to take actions on behalf of its citizens needs.

http://www.energybulletin.net/1253.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/20/60minutes/main1225184.shtml

Comments on Jason’s “Doles Food”

I read Jason’s article today. I am surprised to hear that Dole Foods is in a bad financial situation. Doles Foods is selling its land in Hawaii to pay off its debts.

First of all, I don’t exactly know what was DF’s problem. It could be the management team, market strategy, or other operating issues. What are some opportunities that DF is facing? Just like the Delta Beverage case we did in class, DF is facing the future of being bought out and shut down. If DF decides to announce its bankruptcy, DF will shut down its production lines and no cash flow will be generated at all. However, if DF can be bought out, it might be able to pay off its debts and survive through this. Another issue that I have noticed is that DF owns land in Hawaii, which is outside the United States. Shipping costs is a big part of DF’s debts. In order to lower its cost, DF can sell its land in Hawaii and purchase land nearby in the United States.

Comments on Matthew’s “Tighten Global Market Regulation”

I agree with what Matthew said. It is time for the entire globe to learn a lesson from our US mortgage market default crisis. Lenders here in US have been recklessly approving and lending money to borrowers who are not capable of paying it back. Just like what we learned last week in class, there are many regulators in the current market, from FED, FIDC to Security Exchange Agents. As a matter of fact, all the regulators seem to perform their obligations well. The issue is that at the bottom of the regulation chart, mortgage brokers are taking advantage of the system and lending money to consumers with bad credit. People on top of the chart might not even know what is going on inside the lending department until mortgage fraud starts to taking over the market.

I think the new way of 3 major regulators should work better. The new 3 major regulators eliminate all the unnecessary departments and people who are not involved. Fewer steps mean more accuracy and more efficiency. More importantly, when there is a problem, the signs are taken early and seriously. It is time to tighten our regulation.

Mitts!

You can do research, study the market, plan carefully and still lose a fortune. This is a scary fact that many investors face when gambling in the stock market. There is now a financial instrument called “MITTS”, tailored by Merrill Lynch that allows a respectable return with zero chance of loss.

“MITTS” hedges the risk of options based investments with Zero Coupon Bonds to create an investment portfolio that is both secure and potentially highly profitable. An example of a “MITTS” investment would be as follows; 80% of your money could be invested in Zero Coupon Bonds and 20% could be invested in options. Under this type of scenario, an investment can be created that will return the full value of your investment through the Bonds portion of the investment. You can gamble with your options and make a fortune, or at the very least, break even if the options become worthless. The reason why is because the Zero Coupon Bonds are bought at a discount to “Par” value. If they are for sale at a price of $16 today and at some point they will mature and be worth $20, this part of the investment is a guaranteed return. If the options become worthless at the due date, you would still have your investment back.

In conclusion, MITTS trades like an ordinary stock on the NYSE and can be purchased through any broker. This type of investment is an excellent tool that can be used to eliminate the risk of loss while still seeing a nice return on one’s investment.

http://fintrend.com/ftf/Stock_Market/Mitts.asp

MicroSoft Bid for Yahoo!!

Microsoft Corp has given Yahoo Inc. a three week deadline to accept a $31-a-share offer or it will take their bid directly to the shareholders. The Microsoft bid to buy Yahoo is valued at more than $40 billion and would mark the largest takeover in the high-tech industry.

Yahoo inc. had declined Microsoft's original offer, saying the bid undervalued it’s true worth. Microsoft argues the economy and the market for Internet stocks have declined and that Yahoo's share of Web search and advertising business has also declined and referred to industry market reports. In addition, a Yahoo investor said the deal with Microsoft involved regulatory risks that would reduce a merger's potential value.
The board of directors at Yahoo has adopted a strategy that would make a merger with Microsoft more costly. For example, Yahoo has provided a severance plan to all employees if the company was sold that is commonly known as a “golden parachute.”

In conclusion, the acquisition of Yahoo Inc. by Microsoft Corp is heightened by tensions of market risk and perceived value by both parties involved. The time sensitive acquisition proposal by Microsoft Corp for Yahoo Inc. is underlined by the declining value of the market for internet stocks. In addition, adopted strategies by the Yahoo board of directors have made the proposed acquisition a costly objective to achieve.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23958838/

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=adbTBkawpo9I