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Over the past few months, we have heard numerous times in the media that the Federal Reserve and the other central banks have a choice between economic growth and rising prices (wrongly defined as inflation). In fact, most investors have been brainwashed into believing that the policies that stimulate strong economic growth automatically result in higher prices within the economy. For example, in our current situation, it is now widely believed that by slashing rates and adding liquidity to the financial system, the Federal Reserve is opting for strong economic growth in the United States. which in turn is causing the consumer price levels to rise. In other words, most people are being hoodwinked into believing that the prices are rising due to strong growth. In my view, the above assessment is totally incorrect. After all, any student of economics will be able to tell you that if the money supply was constant, strong growth would not lead to higher prices. On the contrary, strong econ...

We are sitting here this morning, in our office, looking at a fat woman – stark naked – sleeping on a couch. Of course, how rich people spend their money has always been a source of interest and entertainment. That an apparently sane and sensible man like Roman Abramovich spent $33,641,000 for the painting of the “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping,” must also be a comfort to the poor. At least, they don’t have to look at it. But the world of money is a world of wonder...today, as everyday. We could begin today’s reckoning wondering why the rich are so eager to part with their money, for example...or why the poor are so eager to have it; they can see that it clearly impairs one’s judgment and degrades one’s tastes. Instead, we will wonder why those who constantly praise the virtues of capitalism seem to have so little faith in it. What brings this wonder to mind is the latest legislation to clear the Senate Finance Committee. Congress is preparing to improve the way capitalism functions, by ...

Buffett began by welcoming the students with an array of Coca-Cola products. ("Berkshire owns a little over 8% of Coke, so we get the profit on one out of 12 cans. I don't care whether you drink it, but just open the cans, if you will.") He then plunged into weightier matters: Before we start in on questions, I would like to tell you about one thing going on recently. It may have some meaning to you if you're still being taught efficient-market theory, which was standard procedure 25 years ago. But we've had a recent illustration of why the theory is misguided . In the past seven or eight or nine weeks, Berkshire has built up a position in auction-rate securities [bonds whose interest rates are periodically reset at auction; for more, see box on page 74] of about $4 billion. And what we have seen there is really quite phenomenal. Every day we get bid lists. The fascinating thing is that on these bid lists, frequently the same credit will appear more than once. He...

作者：汕头人民饲政府 提交日期：2008-4-6 12:54:00 　　范蠡三迁三成名，却垂史无传；西施“莫须有”，然芳名永垂。何以铸就了这么一桩奇案，还望能者释之! 　　范蠡，原本是个谋略过人的军事家，治国有方的政治家，理财得道的企业家，然而，他却被后来的舞文弄墨者们，特别是当代影视剧的炮制者们歪曲了。留在一般人心目中的范蠡，总和那位“中国第一美人西施”联系在一起，认为他不过是在吴越之战中使了条美人计而已，他之能流传千古，完全是沾了西施的光。这样的歪曲，让一些认真的研究者们大抱不平。长篇传记文学《范蠡》一书的作者夏廷献先生，在该书里就颇为不平地指出：兴一国，灭一国，号称“兵圣”的孙武没有做到，号称“智圣”的诸葛亮也没有做到，这两位都是“出师未捷身先死”，但范蠡做到了。他不仅创造了以弱胜强的光辉战例，还善于保存自己，直到古稀之年寿终正寝。夏先生还进一步指出，范蠡之所以被后人歪曲，是因为任何一部正史上都没有他的传记，连司马迁这样伟大的史学家，也只在《越王勾践世家》和《货殖列传》中附带提到了范蠡的一些事迹。范蠡无传，因为他犯了古人为官的三大忌：一是他不愚忠，功成之后便甩手不干，离开重用他的越王独个儿逍遥去了；二是不清贫，倘若功成之后要逍遥就如张良那样当个隐者也行，但他偏去做生意，“士农工商”，干了文人最不耻的商业一行，就连大文豪苏东坡论及此事时，也遗憾而又激愤地认为范蠡实在不该去经商；三是生活不检点，居然把大美人西施弄跑了，独享艳福，虽然这位西施在任何一本正史上都查不到，是个不知何时何地冒出来的其真实存在要打疑问号的人物。 　　那么，范蠡是个什么样的人呢?夏先生的书虽然全面却多了份文学性，就让我们根据司马迁老先生留下的蛛丝马迹，再参阅其他的史料来追寻他吧。 　　范蠡，字少伯，由于正史无传，生卒年月不详。但有作者认为，范蠡出生于鲁昭公六年、楚灵王五年，即公元前536年。他是春秋末期楚国宛(今河南南阳)三户(今河南淅川西北)人。范蠡虽是楚人，而且在楚颇有贤才之名，但当时楚国政治腐败，范蠡不被重用，有贤才又不被重用，为了逃避可能的政治迫害，范蠡便假装疯癫，直到楚平王时，宛令(当时未置县，相当于宛县县令)文种才看重他的贤才。文种也是个极有本事的人，但在楚国只当了个宛令，就好比后来的刘备初不识庞统，而让庞统去当了一个小小的县令一样，文种自然不安于楚国对他这样大材小用的待遇。范蠡自...

THE DAILY RECKONING - 07/04/2008 You don’t have to be a rabid libertarian or Marxist historian with leather patches on his jacket to look at the current world banking crisis and ask "Cui bono...?" "Who benefits?" as the criminal lawyer demands of the jury. And curiously enough, at first glance at least, the lawyers look set to clean up once more. "Investors and their lawyers filed 70 securities-fraud class actions in the first quarter," reports Conde Nast's Portfolio.com, "almost the same number that were filed in the first half of 2007, according to NERA Economic Consulting, which tracks the filing of these complaints." Twenty-six of the 70 new cases in 2008 to date are linked to the sub-prime disaster, with Bear Stearns cited alongside J.P.Morgan, Lehman Brothers, T.D.Ameritrade Morgan Stanley and 14 other firms. "The increase in filings continues a trend that began in the second half of last year," says Portfolio.com, quoting NER...

THE DAILY RECKONING - 26/03/2008 Yesterday, markets in Europe were closed. But in America, they kept doing what they are supposed to do - separating fools from their money. What is really remarkable - and entertaining - is that some of the biggest fools are the very same people who claimed to be Masters of the Universe, the hustlers who work for the financial industry. That is to say, the separators are being separated from their money too. And the more you look into it, the more you discover that they are not masters of the universe at all - but slaves to it; nothing but clowns in the great human circus…just like us. Last week, Bear Stearns' shareholders were separated from a lot of money; in a panic, they agreed to sell out for $2 a share. We wondered how these accountants, lawyers and market-savvy traders could have been so wrong about what they had. When the market closed on Friday they still had billions. When it opened again on Monday, they had almost nothing. How could it be...

By zhiliangh Let us remember today. The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BSC) is the parent company of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., which is one of the largest global investment banks and securities trading and brokerage firms in the world. The firm's main businesses include capital markets (equities and fixed income), investment banking, wealth management, and global clearing services (prime brokerage). The company was founded in 1923 by Joseph Bear, Robert Stearns, and Harold Mayer as an equity trading house. It serves corporations, institutions, governments ,and individuals. The company's business includes corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, institutional equities and fixed income sales, trading and research, private client services, derivatives, foreign exchange and futures sales and trading, asset management and custody services. Through Bear Stearns Securities Corp., it offers global clearing services to broker dealers, prime broker clients and other professi...

THE DAILY RECKONING - 13/03/2008 How to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs? "Steer clear of the new gold rush," urges Jason Zweig, a senior columnist at Money Magazine. "Don't give in," says Janice Revell, another senior hack at CNN's glossy monthly. "Step out of the stock market, even temporarily, and you may miss the whole point of owning stocks." "Aw, just lend! Lend! LEND!" screams the Federal Reserve. Sporting its usual crystal-meth grimace, it's stumping up $200 billion in Treasury bills for desperate New York brokers to kick-start the world's capital markets. And now they can use flakey mortgage-backed bonds as collateral. Stepping in "to address liquidity pressures" like this – and getting your chums at all the other top central banks to do the same – looks the next-best thing to buying mortgage-backed bonds altogether. But while central banks don't surely want to become "home buyer of l...

FN ARENA NEWS - 13/03/2008 President George Bush provided a rare television interview on US television last night. We can only surmise as to why such interviews are rare. On the question of whether the US was in a recession Mr Bush answered in the negative, while admitting that times were nevertheless tough. Said Bush: "[The US is not recession] because there's a definition for the R-word, and we haven't reached the definition." Comforting indeed. What Bush is referring to is the fact the long held economists' official definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. The fourth quater US GDP growth figure came in at an annualised +0.6%, which means both the first and second quarters would have to be negative before a recession can be officially declared. As it then takes a while to compile the GDP numbers, it would be August before the truth could be known. The first quarter numbers would provide a clue if they are, indeed, negative, but s...

明報副刊周日話題　林奕華 　2008年2月17日 A is for Angel / Adult / Apologize 天使是來自西方的觀念。他是男性的使者。人們把天使轉化成女性，本身已具有「性」意味 ，就像肥皂泡出現在洗碗盤中與音樂影帶裏是兩回事，一個的產生是基於化學反應，另一個是借化學反應的視覺來比喻容易破滅的美麗。 雖說阿嬌的「天使(純潔)」形象在陳冠希照片風暴中被徹底粉碎，但若從「天使」為何由男變女的本質問題上來看，「她」的角色其實就是一個「性使者」(在出道歌曲《明愛暗戀補習社》已穿泳衣)。撇開阿嬌是個成年人，今次事件並容或令人發現「天使」也有性生活，但「天使」只是一個角色，扮演她的演員私下有覑正常人的生活，既然如此，她哪裏有錯，為何因此要向大眾道歉？抑或，大眾是想以要求阿嬌之名來上演一齣公審戲，又名《特區十大酷刑》？ B is for Blow Job (a.k.a. KJ) 口交是今次事件的第一主角。在陳冠希的陽具前，「淑女」也會變了大眾從未見過有此神態的另一個人。當陳為對手「口交」時，鏡頭下的「天使」與平日模樣又是大不一樣。兩者都鞏固了男性的優越感。但更觸動大眾神經的，應是前者——口交一直被認為是取悅男性的「手段」，因為它是「骯髒」的，加上鏡頭前「甘之如飴」的都是知名女藝人，大眾——不論男女——的心理難免會又愛又恨，又妒又羨。 陳冠希選擇紀錄口交而不是不同姿式的性行為，誰說不是出於追求心理滿足多於肉體滿足。 C is for Cecelia / Consumption / Conspiracy 張柏芝的羅曼史將來不難成為回憶錄、暢銷書、電影、電視劇。所以找她拍電視劇《周璇》是注定失敗——在命途多舛的金嗓子之前，張只有更larger than life。在這方面，她與謝霆鋒確是「地設一雙」，分別只在一個是後天培養，一個是生下來便要成為「名人／藝人」。張在照片風波中沒有「破壞(個人)形象」的問題，只有「(倫理)角色衝突」的矛盾——丈夫是圈內人，自己又是一個孩子的母親，「自由」已經不屬於她了。所以傳媒對張的消費，一直指向(搗碎) 她的「家庭」。 是「策略」，也是「陰謀」。 D is for Desperate / Desire Desperate Housewives一直沒有最佳中文譯名，因為desperate是種只能意會，不能直譯的狀態。不是完全沒有，廣東...

eborah Smith Science Editor February 18, 2008 IT WAS no easy task: to individually feed more than 1000 tiny fruit flies one of 28 different diets to see how long they lived. But the experiment by Sydney researchers, which doubled the lifespan of some flies, has revealed that what you eat, not just how little you eat, could be the key to a long life. The team leader, Stephen Simpson, of the University of Sydney, said consuming a very low calorie diet was known to delay death. "Dietary restriction extends life in yeast, fruit flies, worms, mice and monkeys, and it is widely held that the same effect should be true for humans," he said. But scientists had not been sure whether it was a reduction in energy intake, or in particular nutrients, which increased lifespan, Professor Simpson said. The study was the first to address this question, and showed restriction of protein, not calories, was vital to extending life. " Flies lived longest when the diet contained a low percent...

作者：情不轻动　回复日期：2008-2-13　13:51:11　 　　 　　 当我看到孩子眨着纯真但并无沮丧的眼神对同学说：“我有很多鞋子但都是破的，是爸爸拾荒捡来的，虽然这样我还是希望有一双新鞋子。”的时候，我的眼睛湿润了。（我相信社会有这样的事） 　　 　　 小狄：“ 爸爸说了只要有骨气，不吹牛，不打架，努力读书，就算穷，到哪里都会受到尊敬的 ”（周在工地打工，供孩子上好一点的学校。） 　　 　　 孩子在玩具店喜欢那个狗狗的玩具，但爸爸没钱买而动手打了他。——如果穷人家庭出来的孩子对这个是深有体会的。 　　 　　周星星—— 傲骨虚心真力量，热肠冷眼大慈悲 。大师们之所以在世人眼里不可理喻的饰演傻子、穷鬼，那只是人们不能宽容和理解大师们与生俱来至死不泯的童心、信念。信念就像是一颗过了冬的种子，寒冷没有夺去它的生命，就注定了它破土而出时，会更加的茁壮茂盛。周用他的电影诠释着这种信念 　　 　　当年周星驰还在跑龙套拍剧休息时，周星驰和郑裕玲闲谈，谈及自己的前途，周星驰曾问对方自己会否走红，结果郑裕玲说了一句：“你不会红”。——30年前罗维当年是大导演为了捧成龙，去同古龙谈买武侠片的版权，但与成龙一见面，这位武侠名家就十分不悦，因为他觉得成龙大鼻子，长得又不帅。之后一起喝酒，古龙醉意上涌，终于忍不住：“我小说的男主角是给狄龙、尔冬升拍的。”成龙被古龙如此看扁，却也只能忍气吞声，借故去洗手间大哭一场。 　　 　　 还有什么比周的黑色幽默更能打动人心的呢？—— 与其让人虚伪地崇高，何不让人真诚地世俗 ？他做到了。 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 作者：kobefu　回复日期：2008-2-13　11:36:52　 　　星爷的伟大在于他对广大星迷的精神影响，星爷并不是肤浅的人，看他的电影，在笑过之后，往往在内心会深深的思考他隐晦在无厘头之下的对于人生的剖白。 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 　　 　　《长江七号》：电影的良心值得尊敬 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　■文/慕容天涯 　　 ...