ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

Why do financial markets rise and fall with every announcement of how a country's economy fared? Why does the media consult economists for their views, and why do views invariably differ, sometimes by quite a lot? Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry forecasts the Singapore economy to grow between 1- 3% for 2016. Is this information useful? A 2% admission of possible margin of error is a lot. 2%  of Singapore's GDP of about US$300 billion is US$6 billion. Enough to give each of our 3.27 million citizens US$1,834.00 So what is the value of economic forecasting particularly when it is always being revised up and down as the situation changes? Rationale for still coming out with forecasts: 1. No matter how unreliable macroeconomic forecasts are policy makers still need to have forecasts for decision-making and planning. They cannot rule out the uncertainty but they can do Scenario Planning viz. if scenario A, then do this scenario B then do that. 2. At leas...

THE ZEN OF EATING salted fish pickled greens plain rice porridge slowly i savor every molecule less is more the Zen of eating my dinner.

In Ochanomizu a district of Tokyo, Japan, is a street that has probably the greatest concentration of guitar shops in the world. This is the guitar enthusiast's Heaven where the widest range of guitars are  displayed: With prices from those that cost US$50.00 to US$10,000.00 and more. Of special mention are the dozens of Japanese made brands with astonishingly high quality. The spirit of lawsuit Ibanez, Grecos and Tokais still exist. With workmanship and attention to details much more superior than even Custom Shop Fenders and Gibsons, some of these guitars are not cheap. Indeed they are even more expensive than for example American boutique brands. They have strange names like: Combat, Freedom, History, Bacchus, Momose, Moon and so on. Its a pity that such beautifully-made guitars have names that make a player cringe or hair to stand on end. And these strange names on the headstock are  obstacles to their being accepted by players. Only after decades are the vintage Grecos, T...

In evolutionary biology, convergent evolution is the process whereby organisms not closely related genetically; independently evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar environments or ecological niches.  Another way of putting it: In Nature, similar problems will generate similar solutions, which are robust and optimal for the species. Whether it be shape or coloration or special features. The accompanying photos of examples of convergent evolution each have a description.   The Shark's ancestor was a fish. But the ancestors of the (now extinct) Ichthyosaur was a reptile. And the porpoise's ancestor was a land mammal. But they evolved to have fish-like shapes in order to live in the water. But still the porpoise is warm- blooded and does not breathe the way fishes do-with gills.   The East African lakes of Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi, although physically separated have similar environmental conditions. So you see that some spe...

Common quotes of FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE- the philosopher who may have spawned Nazism, Fascism and Anti-Semitism that you may recognize.. " Without music, Life would be a mistake." " That which does not kill make us stronger." "God is dead" " Love is blind." " Woman was God's second mistake." On Democracy: " the counting of noses." On the English people and their Mercantilism " Shopkeepers, women, cows, Christians, and democrats belong together." Nietzsche's philosophy has had a profound influence on Western philosophy in being an antithesis to the philosophy of rationalism and logic of Kant and Hegel who came before him, and a refinement of the romantic pessimism of Schopenhauer. He was not only a thinker but also a poet (the epic "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"), and a composer of music. Even if you have never read Nietzsche you may recognize some of his famous quotes above: The cont...

As Singapore faces a possible economic technical recession, many are hoping that the government will unleash a slew of measures that will stimulate the economy, and hopefully keep it from falling into a recession. But like medicine, economic stimuli only treat the symptoms and effect a temporary cure. Also, like medicine, economic stimuli (especially of the loose monetary policy kind) will have side-effects. China's bold economic stimulus in 2008 is an example of what can happen with loose monetary easing, which the Americans euphemistically call 'quantitative easing'.  In 2008, the world faced a financial crisis as the fall-out from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis caused a liquidity crunch in the global credit markets. Over the years the world, and all financial markets- debt, equities, forex, commodities- had become increasingly intertwined due to the instantaneous flow of information made possible by advances in communications technology. At the onset of th...

The statistical distribution known as the Pareto Power Law is a probability distribution that manifests itself in many human economic and social phenomena, as well as many geophysical phenomena. It is characterized by a few large values and a long tail of many smaller values. Some of the phenomena with evidence of being Pareto-like are: * The size of cities and towns * Income distribution in a capitalist economic system * Returns on the stock market * Sizes of sand particles * Numbers of Species in a Genus of animals * Internet traffic and demand on servers * Earthquakes and other natural disasters. Here I plot the number of page views on my blog by country. As you can see, it follows a Pareto distribution.  This shape still exists despite the fact that I know for sure, Ukraine in 2nd place cannot be due to humans visiting my site, but Bots. And Israel looks suspicious too. The rest of the results are logical. US has the largest English Internet po...