Friday, May 17, 2013
Why helmets do not help mountain bike riders
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Losing Weight
For the past couple of weeks I have been following the 5/2 diet.
I've lost over 10 pounds and plan on losing a lot more with this system.
As I've gotten older it just seems that I've really had a hard time not gaining weight and that bothers me. I don't mind the balding, the wrinkles or the gray in my beard but I hate looking like a Santa in training.
It isn't like I don't exercise, I do since I don't drive I walk or ride a bicycle everywhere I go.
What I like about the 5/2 diet is that unlike other other diets I feel that I control the diet and not that it is controlling me. I don't have to worry about counting calories, measuring or keeping track.
The diet works like this. I eat whatever I want for five days. I don't go all glutton or pig-out but just eat. Two, non-consecutive days a week I fast. Just water, tea maybe a diet soda. I start my fast after dinner of one day and go until dinner the next day without eating. Technically the guy promoting this says eat only 600 calories on the fast day but I can't do that. If I eat I eat more than that. So I just fast for two non-consecutive 24 hour periods each week. Unlike what nutritionist at least use to say, I don't spend 1/2 the day at a buffet the next day.
The fast are short enough that i don't get lethargic at work. Because I start after dinner the first 8 or 10 hours I am either not hungry yet or asleep. The only meal that is difficult to skip is lunch the next day.
If I stop will I gain the weight back? Probably but once I get to the weight I want i can just keep it at that level with a fast every other week or so.
Anyway, it is workign for me
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who wants to lose 50 more pounds
I've lost over 10 pounds and plan on losing a lot more with this system.
As I've gotten older it just seems that I've really had a hard time not gaining weight and that bothers me. I don't mind the balding, the wrinkles or the gray in my beard but I hate looking like a Santa in training.
It isn't like I don't exercise, I do since I don't drive I walk or ride a bicycle everywhere I go.
What I like about the 5/2 diet is that unlike other other diets I feel that I control the diet and not that it is controlling me. I don't have to worry about counting calories, measuring or keeping track.
The diet works like this. I eat whatever I want for five days. I don't go all glutton or pig-out but just eat. Two, non-consecutive days a week I fast. Just water, tea maybe a diet soda. I start my fast after dinner of one day and go until dinner the next day without eating. Technically the guy promoting this says eat only 600 calories on the fast day but I can't do that. If I eat I eat more than that. So I just fast for two non-consecutive 24 hour periods each week. Unlike what nutritionist at least use to say, I don't spend 1/2 the day at a buffet the next day.
The fast are short enough that i don't get lethargic at work. Because I start after dinner the first 8 or 10 hours I am either not hungry yet or asleep. The only meal that is difficult to skip is lunch the next day.
If I stop will I gain the weight back? Probably but once I get to the weight I want i can just keep it at that level with a fast every other week or so.
Anyway, it is workign for me
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who wants to lose 50 more pounds
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Why bicyclist despise motorcycle riders
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
The Gifts of Odysseus
There are many different ways to think about ancient
literature. It can be taken as a poetic form of history as Heinrich Schliemann[i]
did when looking for the city of Troy. Especially if it is very old, and comes
from before the invention of writing it can be seen as a form of mass
entertainment that was recited in a theatre. Ancient text can also be examined
linguistically[ii],
anthropologically[iii],
psychologically[iv],
theologically[v] or
from how the work is perceived historically[vi]
and probably any number of other ways to help us later day readers understand
how language developed and to provide clues to how ancient people lived and
what their cultures were like or just simply in understanding the work
involved. Sometimes, or so it appears
to me, all of these things are true. As could probably be expected one also finds
proponents of less esoteric readings of ancient text. These would see The
Odyssey as simply an adventure story that reflects the culture and mores of the
society that produced it; what might be called the “Hollywood” version of
ancient tales; just stories, just entertainment, nothing deep and nothing wrong
with that. Lastly modern scholars sometimes attempt to re-write or rework
classics to better fit modern sensibilities or themes whether that is Post
Modernism[vii],
feminism[viii],
or whatever “ism” is the scholar’s preferred soap-box issue or to make the
heroes of ancient literature progenitors of whatever political or philosophical
persuasion they are advocating. It seems that sometimes lost in scholarly
debate is the simply question; “What did the original hearers or readers take
away from this work?”
Perhaps the most obvious example of way in which modern
scholars can continually re-plow the fields of classic literature for new
intellectual crops is the odyssey of The Odyssey. Even its name has become a
euphemism for all sorts of things. Lost in the wealth of often very interesting
research into this work is the observation that it was probably not simply a
poem but a work of moral literature. It is not simply an adventure tale. The purpose
was not just to entertain but help the ancient Greeks know what being “Greek”
meant. But what are the moral lessons that Homer wants us to learn? To find the
answer to that question it is necessary to understand that the poem is not
merely account of the adventures and misfortune of Odysseus but what his son
Telemachus can learn morally from the trials and triumphs of his father. Indeed,
an argument can be made that main character of the Odyssey is not Odysseus but
his son Telemachus and his growth towards manhood.[ix]
This would explain the non-liner plot in the poem. We are given a clue to the
meaning of this poem by looking at the names “Odysseus” and “Telemachus” which
mean “Trouble” and “Fighting Man” respectively. Even a cursory reading of The
Odyssey reveals that Odysseus is a very different man emotionally and
intellectually when he returns to Ithaca than the man who left so many years
before. The gifts of Odysseus to his son are the lessons learned by the father
and passed along to the son with the mediation and help of Athena so that the
son does not become the man named “Trouble” like his father. When this theme is
understood the organization of the poem can be seen as intentional.
The Odyssey while longer and written to a different audience
bares some striking organizational similarities to the book of Job in the Bible.
Both are about powerful men who are brought low by supernatural forces in order
to teach them important lessons and who are then restored to their former
prosperity once the lesson is learned; importantly both Odysseus and Job need
to learn the same lesson that they should not trust solely in their own
cunning, power or wealth but should be grateful to God or gods for their
success. Where the works differ is in the use of time and secondary lessons.
Job suffers a single trial for which he has no explanation and turns to his
counselors for an explanation. Odysseus survives a series of calamitous
adventures that each should teach his son something. Unlike Job there is seldom
a counselor to explain it to Odysseus and he has to figure it out himself. Also
unlike Job the lessons Odysseus learn have much more to do with how he should
live than simply faith in the supernatural that while not as important in some
respects are vital to helping Telemachus avoid the mistakes made by his father.
When we first meet
Odysseus in the Odyssey he is on an island owned by the nymph Calypso where he
has been for seven long years. He is there involuntarily because Calypso is
keeping him as her love slave. While the terms and conditions of his
incarceration may be snickered at (How many men, at first thought wouldn’t jump
at the chance to be the lover of a beautiful nymph?) the predicament is more
universal. Calypso didn’t really love Odysseus; she was merely using him to
fulfill her own needs. I ask, how fulfilling would a sexual relationship be if
it was forced or coerced? How much fear would be in such a relationship of
retribution for not performing up to the desired standard? Indeed, reading the
account we find that Odysseus has consistently refused the offers of a more
than physical relationship with Calypso and provides her with just enough to
remain in her favor. Suppose the genders were reversed in this situation, If
Calypso was a male and Odysseus a female would this be a situation to be
snickered at? How many women would snicker at being held captive for sexual
favors for seven years>
On a less erotic but applicable note, how many men become
slaves to their job? How many men wake up one day and find that years have
passed and that the people who are important to them that they really loved
have been sacrificed upon the alter of occupation, trade or profession? How
much worse is it if the man does not actually love the profession? Often men
fall into this trap while trying to provide for their families as Odysseus was
simply trying to return home to his wife. Once in this trap they have a
difficult time extricating themselves. That this is the first place we meet
Odysseus is instructive.
We do not learn more of the story until Odysseus has
escaped, by the skin of teeth from Calypso and washed up on the shore where Phaeacians
live which is actually closer to the end of the story than the beginning. It is
here that we learn from Odysseus himself what had befallen him.
The story Odysseus tells the Phaeacians by now one of the
most familiar ever told and ranks with David and Goliath and Noah’s flood in
its universality and I will not deal with each episode in detail. But here are
the lessons learned by Odysseus.
The trap of sloth and laziness; it would have been easy to
simply stay on the Island of the Lotus Eaters.
The trap of imposing upon other is learned at the cave of
the Cyclops. At that point in the story Odysseus was traveling in a 12 ship
fleet so at least a couple of hundred men. When they find the Cyclops home open
they simply help themselves to the sheep and cheese that are there. When the
Cyclops returns he is, I think understandably, angry. Granted, he may have been
a cannibal anyway but there is a certain justice in saying you ate my sheep now
I will eat you. Would it have hurt Odysseus and his crew to ask before raiding
the larder? Humans unlike monsters can
think about the needs of others
There is another lesson to be learned from the adventure
with the Cyclops. The way you treat your enemies is as important as the way you
treat your friends. Think about the story. In order escape Odysseus blinds the Cyclops
and then he and his men run to their ship and sail away. The normal
interpretation of this event is that Odysseus. How can a shepherd keep track of
his sheep if he cannot see them? By blinding the Cyclops rather than just
escaping from him or even just killing him Odysseus doomed the one-eyed giant
to a life of poverty. Humans, unlike Cyclops exhibit mercy
I find the island of Circe to be perhaps the most
interesting place in the epic. Circe was turning the crew into pigs. Think
about that a minute. A pig is an unusual forest animal. They are smart. They travel
in groups and are big enough and mean enough to fend off most predators. But
they live by instinct. This is sort of the other side of the coin from the
island of the Lotus Eaters rather than forgetting who they were because of the
pleasant conditions the crew was in danger of becoming simply animals. When we
as humans put our physical needs we are no better than pigs. Being a pig is OK
for pigs humans were made for something better.
There is an important rather obvious lesson that has already
been alluded to. While never so clearly stated in the poem the 1997 made for TV
version of the Odyssey did an excellent job making this clear lesson clear. In
that version as Odysseus’ raft is sinking in a storm sent by Poseidon Odysseus
calls out “Poseidon! What do you want from me?” and receives the answer “With
gods man is nothing.” Notice how throughout the poem the Greeks make obligatory
offerings to the gods, the occasional prayer and then go about their business
as if it made no difference. Odysseus is apparently almost oblivious to the
help he receives from Hermes and Athena. As a Christian I can identify with the gist of
that in the normal way but the inverse is true. We may be nothing with divine
help but we are also not gods. There is a place for gratitude and humility even
in our success. Odysseus by his pride, lack of humility and failure to
acknowledge the help he’d received or to show remorse. To give thanks for
blessings from above is a uniquely human virtue as far as we know. The inverse
is also true. We may be nothing without God but neither are we gods. When we
act as though we are divine, the final arbiter of morality and ethics we become
not good and benevolent deities but petty, self-centered tyrants. When Odysseus
stood upon the prow of ship and shouted his name to the blinded, rock-throwing
Cyclops he was essentially saying “I am god, you can’t hurt me”
Even remembering our place in the universe is not the greatest
lesson Odysseus gave his son. Bigger still was the knowledge that greatness is
measured more by our response to failure as our response to success. We
remember Odysseus as much for his trials and mistakes on the journey home as we
do the Trojan War. The way we deal with adversity not victory defines us.
It is these lessons that allowed Odysseus to tell his son “Know
when to be angry” Notice at the end of the poem he allows Athena to disguise
him. He receives and is grateful for divine aide. He keeps his eyes on the goal
and is not distracted by either the pleasantness of his home and doesn’t revert
instinct and simply forward to attack like a wild-boar. Once he traps the
suitors he does not merely blind them so that they may exact revenge but kills
them which was justice in that day and time. These are the gifts of Odysseus to
his son.
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who still reads literature
Fai Mao
The Blogger who still reads literature
[i]
"Schliemann's
search for Troy." Calliope 9, no. 3 (November 1998): 32. MasterFILE
Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2013).
[ii] Floyd, Edwin D. "Linguistic, Mycenaean,
and Iliadic Traditions Behind Penelope's Recognition of Odysseus." College
Literature 38, no. 2 (Spring2011 2011): 131. MasterFILE Premier,
EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2013).
[iii]
Barbara,
Carey. "Notes for daily living." Toronto Star (Canada), n.d., Newspaper
Source, EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2013).
[iv]
Nwakanma,
Obi. "O, Polyphemus: On Poetry and Alienation." Ariel 39, no.
4 (October 2008): 139-146. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost
(accessed April 22, 2013).
[v]
Halkin,
Hillel. "Sailing to Ithaca." Commentary 120, no. 4 (November
2005): 69. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed April 22,
2013).
[vi]
Fleming,
Katie. "Odysseus and Enlightenment: Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialektik der
Aufklärung." International Journal Of The Classical Tradition 19,
no. 2 (June 2012): 107-128. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost
(accessed April 22, 2013).
[vii]
Shankar,
Avi, and Maurice Patterson. "Interpreting the Past, Writing the
Future." Journal Of Marketing Management 17, no. 5/6 (July 2001):
481-501. Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed April 22,
2013).
[viii]
Suzuki,
Mihoko. "Rewriting the "Odyssey" in the Twenty-First Century:
Mary Zimmerman's "Odyssey" and Margaret Atwood's
"Penelopiad.." College Literature 34, no. 2 (Spring2007 2007):
263-278. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed April 21,
2013).
[ix]
Murrin,
Michael. "Athena and Telemachus." International Journal Of The
Classical Tradition 13, no. 4 (Spring2007 2007): 499-515. Academic
Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2013).
Friday, April 19, 2013
Loneliness
About 18 months ago with the approval
of my beautiful, really smart, looks 25 years younger than she is, hard working and wise Chinese wife I
took a job at the University of Guam. I'd been at the International
school for 12 years and it was time to move on. My last year in Hong
Kong had been rather hard health wise. I caught an antibiotic
resistant bronchitis and missed weeks of work; I suspect that the air
pollution in Hong Kong had something to do with that. Since my wife's
job in Hong Kong pays very well and we have no children at home it
was decided that I would take the job and move to Guam by myself. The
idea was that it might be a good time to start transitioning away
from Hong Kong and we thought that Guam might fit the bill as a
relaxed place to retire.
There is a lot to like about Guam. The
West side of the island, where all the tourist go is beautiful. The
people are friendly, the pace of life is laid back and the lifestyle
is far less stressful than Hong Kong. As with any place there are things
we don't like. The government is not so much corrupt as it is
incompetent, it is very remote, things like food are very expensive
and there are limited options for things like doctors and health
care. But the purpose of my first post in 18 months isn't to
delineate the merits and flaws of Guam. I was here two weeks when we
decided that this was not the place for us but that is neither here
nor there.
So what is the purpose? There was an
editorial about 2 years ago, I forget who wrote it, that was talking
about autism and how despite what you often read there really isn't a
burgeoning epidemic of autistic children but a only a change in the way symptoms are catagorized. I have no idea if the
author was right or wrong but he used an interesting example. The
example was that by the expanded definition of autism used by many
diagnosticians today most academics could be considered autistic.
They prefer to work alone, are often socially awkward, and spend long
hours engaged in the study of minutiae. I laughed at the example but
it was a nervous laughter. Despite working in a K-12 setting I am
trained as an academic and the personality type hit a little too
close to the mark.
The move to Guam has showed me that the
illustration was flawed. Yes, the secondary symptoms of autism may be
shared with many academics but I think that one other symptom is
missing, an important one. When I was an undergraduate I worked in a
residential institution for adults with various mental disabilities.
I refuse to use the politically correct term of “Specially
Challenged” because I feel it demeans them by denying their
condition but that is another post for another time. The symptom of
autism, at least the severe cases I worked with in the residential
setting was that they had no emotional attachment to anyone. One man
spent all day staring at the corner of a door frame. He had to be
forced to stop to eat or even to go to the toilet.
I am a loner, I am uncomfortable in
many social settings, I read about the lives of Byzantine emperors
for pleasure and collect antique bicycle parts. I don't have a lot of
friends. But I miss my wife and the friends in Hong Kong. This has
been the season of loneliness for me. I cannot wait for this contract
to end.
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Lonely Blogger
Labels: Autism, Guam, Loneliness, relocating
Monday, May 30, 2011
Ark Royal to Casino Royal?
This is kind of a neat idea. I bet it would do really well especially if they could use the deck to land helicopter taxis for the show-offs
In my experience there are two kinds of Hong Kongers. Those who are British Running Dogs and those who think the British are dogs.
This has the rare potential to appeal to both of them
Until Next Time
Fai Moa
The Blogger who falls into the second type Hong Konger
In my experience there are two kinds of Hong Kongers. Those who are British Running Dogs and those who think the British are dogs.
This has the rare potential to appeal to both of them
Until Next Time
Fai Moa
The Blogger who falls into the second type Hong Konger
Labels: Ark Royal, Dim Sum, Fai Mao, Hong Kong
Friday, May 27, 2011
Harrowing indeed
I am sorry, the endless classism of parents in Honk Kong is simply disgusting.
This is a school for social parasites who try to make up for their lack of ability by throw ing money at it
This is a school for social parasites who try to make up for their lack of ability by throw ing money at it
Friday, April 29, 2011
Logic and Government
The minimum wage issue is an interesting one to me because it seems that none of the parties really have a clue about what it is, what it is supposed to do and how it will affect the average working person.
I guess that the Mandarins in Central are to busy contemplating their next self-congratulatory pay raise to research the effects of a minimum wage, or if they have they've not made any kind of cogent argument against it. The other far more insidious possibility is that they do know what they are doing.
First things first
1. The minimum wage is always ZERO. It cannot be raised above that level because if people are "paid" for not working it is not called a wage but a subsidy. While this is something of a theoretical statement it is true and it should be remembered because a minimum wage has a direct influence on the cost of other government social services.
2. The price of goods and services is set by supply and demand; any attempt to control this artificially always ends in disaster
3. A minimum wage is not the wage that can comfortably feed a family of four or five. It is the lowest legal level of compensation that an employer may offer to the least qualified employee. People expecting a minimum wage to help a family of 4 are simply deluded
4. If everyone has to pay a minimum wage then stores will not have to close because everyone's labor cost will go up by the same amount. Thus, unless the minimum wage is very high there will be very little direct immediate impact on jobs. So various groups that say "I'll have to lay off X-number of people to cover the additional labor cost" are not thinking clearly
What do these three things mean?
As wages rise the cost of goods and services will rise. In other words Hong Kong can expect some inflation as a result of this law. That is important to anyone who falls into the pool of people that do not or cannot, for whatever reason, work and are not independently wealthy. Those on fixed incomes or Comprehensive Social Security (Welfare) are going to see the value of their benefits decline and will be worse off as a result of the minimum wage law. If they are retired Civil Servants with their huge pensions and special health care then the effect will probably not be that big a deal.
For those not of Hong Kong’s faux-nobility the effect could be a generalized increase in hardship. The higher general cost of things will also mean that those working poor (to use a favorite term of the US Democratic Party) will see very little actual gain in income because they will make more but the money they make will buy less.
What this means is that in two years or so the same groups clamoring for a minimum wage today will be protesting to raise that wage without seeing that they exacerbate the problem they are trying to solve.
Observe the UK. The minimum wage there is set at something like 10 pounds an hour. Do they have significantly less problems with unemployment than Hong Kong? No it is worse. Indeed they have a huge, permanent underclass who never works because as the minimum wage rose the benefits provided by the government doles rose as well. After two generations being unemployed they no longer even try to get off the dole. This group creates an enormous drain on the economy and contributes to rising crime rates. However, certain sectors of the government like this because the underclass becomes a very reliable voting block for parties that promise to give them more benefits. Before a minimum wage I'd have dealt with other labor problems. But if there is going to be one it should be set low to allow new workers to be able to enter the job market.
So what would I have done instead if I were Donald Tsang, THBT?
If I were, THBT I'd have addressed the problem of excessively long work hours. For example security guards in building typically work 12 hour shifts. They are not alone in this as many businesses in Hong Kong require very long working hours. The excuse often given by the management is "We work that long every day why shouldn't they?" does not hold water.
The owner of a business is typically as busy as they want to be where as workers are as busy as they have to be. If the business owner wants to die of a heart attack at 50 from working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week go right ahead; just don't drag your employees into the grave with you.
More than that, I've seen how the management “Works" with their 1.5 hour lunch and 40 minute coffee and tea breaks. They don't actually work that long if we remove the goofing off time they have in the day out; time which their employees do not have. If a workday was limited to 8 hours for a normal shift wages would be driven up because employers would either have to pay overtime or hire more people and there is not an endless supply of people. So in order to attract workers they'd either have to pay or offer more perks for their employees. In the case of the Security Guards it would mean an entire extra shift per day.
Before a minimum wage I address the need for anti-collusion laws. Park-n-Shop and Wellcome should actually have to compete with each other rather than engaging in price fixing. The companies that own those stores should also not be allowed to build the building and control the rents in the building which keep other chains like Carrefour, Tesco or Safeway out of Hong Kong. Monopolistic behavior insures that Hong Kong people get the lowest quality goods for the highest possible price.
The same is true of the property developers. This would lower the cost because in order to stay in business the various companies would have to shave own their margins and become more efficient. I read several years ago that a property developer in Hong Kong has something like 7 to 11 subcontractors for any job while the world average is three. Most of the subcontractors here do nothing except take a cut of the profit and hire another subcontractor. How much would property prices fall if Sun-Hung-Kai actually hired workers directly rather than hiring a subcontractor who hires his brother-in-law, who hires his cousin, who hires his uncle, who hires his friends father, who hires his stepson, who hires his school buddy, who hires his mother's sister’s husband, who hires a relative from the mainland, who hires the husband of his mistress who hires his cousin, who hires the triad enforcer he owes gambling debts to, who hires himself under another name, who hires the guys that pour concrete who then skips out to China after not paying the workers? This kind gross inefficiency can only occur because the companies collude with each other rather than compete with each other. What is sad is that if they were run more efficiently they'd still make as much profit but the customers would get a lower price. Because all many of the intermediate subcontractors do is hire another subcontractor there would be very few jobs lost.
Before a minimum wage law I would take over control of the utility companies including the MTR, Hong Kong Electric and the cross harbor tunnels. The electric companies here do a pretty good job except that they have coal powered plants with no pollution control. Simply freezing the stock of the companies and demanding that they bring their pollution control standards up to international standards with no rate increases would help to improve the air-quality in Hong Kong. They have had decades to do this and have chosen not to because the could get away with poisoning us because the government didn't care since the Mandarins all had stock in the companies and wanted their 30% annual returns to further pad their overly generous retirement packages. They've made huge profits at the cost asthma and watery eyes for most of the kids here.
The MTR is the only transportation to and from work for millions of people everyday. It should not be a for profit company. I am not normally a supporter of government ownership but roads and public services are an exception. The MTR is for all intents and purposes a road in Hong Kong and most of the population uses it at least twice a day. It should not pay dividends to share holders or sell stock publicly. Run the MTR at cost. Run the cross harbor tunnels at cost. The owners of the Eastern and Western Tunnel are particularly heinous and should simply have the tunnels confiscated. If they want to make 20% profits at the expense of the poor they should get a high level job with HSBC.
Before a minimum wage Hong Kong needs to reform its Civil Service. The wages and benefits are simply unsustainable and the attitude of the workers that they are higher, mightier, and holier than the average peon is grating. The percentage of the GDP taken up by the HK government is huge. I'd hold out for mass executions of the government employees but that would be illegal. So simply fire their overpaid, underworked, arrogant arses and let them get honest jobs.
Hong Kong does not have an army, an Air Force or a Navy. Hong Kong has no diplomatic corps or consulates to support. There is no reason EXCEPT bad governance that the cost of government in Hong Kong should be at 25% of the GDP. That number needs to come down to less than 20%; 15% would be a good number.
Lastly, before a minimum wage I'd take 1/2 the currency reserves in Hong Kong and distribute them to the population I'd give a larger share to anyone who actually paid income tax but the amount would still give substantial immediate relieve to the poor here and make the rest of the population feel the government had actually heard them.
After these things Hong Kong might find out it doesn't need a minimum wage
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
I guess that the Mandarins in Central are to busy contemplating their next self-congratulatory pay raise to research the effects of a minimum wage, or if they have they've not made any kind of cogent argument against it. The other far more insidious possibility is that they do know what they are doing.
First things first
1. The minimum wage is always ZERO. It cannot be raised above that level because if people are "paid" for not working it is not called a wage but a subsidy. While this is something of a theoretical statement it is true and it should be remembered because a minimum wage has a direct influence on the cost of other government social services.
2. The price of goods and services is set by supply and demand; any attempt to control this artificially always ends in disaster
3. A minimum wage is not the wage that can comfortably feed a family of four or five. It is the lowest legal level of compensation that an employer may offer to the least qualified employee. People expecting a minimum wage to help a family of 4 are simply deluded
4. If everyone has to pay a minimum wage then stores will not have to close because everyone's labor cost will go up by the same amount. Thus, unless the minimum wage is very high there will be very little direct immediate impact on jobs. So various groups that say "I'll have to lay off X-number of people to cover the additional labor cost" are not thinking clearly
What do these three things mean?
As wages rise the cost of goods and services will rise. In other words Hong Kong can expect some inflation as a result of this law. That is important to anyone who falls into the pool of people that do not or cannot, for whatever reason, work and are not independently wealthy. Those on fixed incomes or Comprehensive Social Security (Welfare) are going to see the value of their benefits decline and will be worse off as a result of the minimum wage law. If they are retired Civil Servants with their huge pensions and special health care then the effect will probably not be that big a deal.
For those not of Hong Kong’s faux-nobility the effect could be a generalized increase in hardship. The higher general cost of things will also mean that those working poor (to use a favorite term of the US Democratic Party) will see very little actual gain in income because they will make more but the money they make will buy less.
What this means is that in two years or so the same groups clamoring for a minimum wage today will be protesting to raise that wage without seeing that they exacerbate the problem they are trying to solve.
Observe the UK. The minimum wage there is set at something like 10 pounds an hour. Do they have significantly less problems with unemployment than Hong Kong? No it is worse. Indeed they have a huge, permanent underclass who never works because as the minimum wage rose the benefits provided by the government doles rose as well. After two generations being unemployed they no longer even try to get off the dole. This group creates an enormous drain on the economy and contributes to rising crime rates. However, certain sectors of the government like this because the underclass becomes a very reliable voting block for parties that promise to give them more benefits. Before a minimum wage I'd have dealt with other labor problems. But if there is going to be one it should be set low to allow new workers to be able to enter the job market.
So what would I have done instead if I were Donald Tsang, THBT?
If I were, THBT I'd have addressed the problem of excessively long work hours. For example security guards in building typically work 12 hour shifts. They are not alone in this as many businesses in Hong Kong require very long working hours. The excuse often given by the management is "We work that long every day why shouldn't they?" does not hold water.
The owner of a business is typically as busy as they want to be where as workers are as busy as they have to be. If the business owner wants to die of a heart attack at 50 from working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week go right ahead; just don't drag your employees into the grave with you.
More than that, I've seen how the management “Works" with their 1.5 hour lunch and 40 minute coffee and tea breaks. They don't actually work that long if we remove the goofing off time they have in the day out; time which their employees do not have. If a workday was limited to 8 hours for a normal shift wages would be driven up because employers would either have to pay overtime or hire more people and there is not an endless supply of people. So in order to attract workers they'd either have to pay or offer more perks for their employees. In the case of the Security Guards it would mean an entire extra shift per day.
Before a minimum wage I address the need for anti-collusion laws. Park-n-Shop and Wellcome should actually have to compete with each other rather than engaging in price fixing. The companies that own those stores should also not be allowed to build the building and control the rents in the building which keep other chains like Carrefour, Tesco or Safeway out of Hong Kong. Monopolistic behavior insures that Hong Kong people get the lowest quality goods for the highest possible price.
The same is true of the property developers. This would lower the cost because in order to stay in business the various companies would have to shave own their margins and become more efficient. I read several years ago that a property developer in Hong Kong has something like 7 to 11 subcontractors for any job while the world average is three. Most of the subcontractors here do nothing except take a cut of the profit and hire another subcontractor. How much would property prices fall if Sun-Hung-Kai actually hired workers directly rather than hiring a subcontractor who hires his brother-in-law, who hires his cousin, who hires his uncle, who hires his friends father, who hires his stepson, who hires his school buddy, who hires his mother's sister’s husband, who hires a relative from the mainland, who hires the husband of his mistress who hires his cousin, who hires the triad enforcer he owes gambling debts to, who hires himself under another name, who hires the guys that pour concrete who then skips out to China after not paying the workers? This kind gross inefficiency can only occur because the companies collude with each other rather than compete with each other. What is sad is that if they were run more efficiently they'd still make as much profit but the customers would get a lower price. Because all many of the intermediate subcontractors do is hire another subcontractor there would be very few jobs lost.
Before a minimum wage law I would take over control of the utility companies including the MTR, Hong Kong Electric and the cross harbor tunnels. The electric companies here do a pretty good job except that they have coal powered plants with no pollution control. Simply freezing the stock of the companies and demanding that they bring their pollution control standards up to international standards with no rate increases would help to improve the air-quality in Hong Kong. They have had decades to do this and have chosen not to because the could get away with poisoning us because the government didn't care since the Mandarins all had stock in the companies and wanted their 30% annual returns to further pad their overly generous retirement packages. They've made huge profits at the cost asthma and watery eyes for most of the kids here.
The MTR is the only transportation to and from work for millions of people everyday. It should not be a for profit company. I am not normally a supporter of government ownership but roads and public services are an exception. The MTR is for all intents and purposes a road in Hong Kong and most of the population uses it at least twice a day. It should not pay dividends to share holders or sell stock publicly. Run the MTR at cost. Run the cross harbor tunnels at cost. The owners of the Eastern and Western Tunnel are particularly heinous and should simply have the tunnels confiscated. If they want to make 20% profits at the expense of the poor they should get a high level job with HSBC.
Before a minimum wage Hong Kong needs to reform its Civil Service. The wages and benefits are simply unsustainable and the attitude of the workers that they are higher, mightier, and holier than the average peon is grating. The percentage of the GDP taken up by the HK government is huge. I'd hold out for mass executions of the government employees but that would be illegal. So simply fire their overpaid, underworked, arrogant arses and let them get honest jobs.
Hong Kong does not have an army, an Air Force or a Navy. Hong Kong has no diplomatic corps or consulates to support. There is no reason EXCEPT bad governance that the cost of government in Hong Kong should be at 25% of the GDP. That number needs to come down to less than 20%; 15% would be a good number.
Lastly, before a minimum wage I'd take 1/2 the currency reserves in Hong Kong and distribute them to the population I'd give a larger share to anyone who actually paid income tax but the amount would still give substantial immediate relieve to the poor here and make the rest of the population feel the government had actually heard them.
After these things Hong Kong might find out it doesn't need a minimum wage
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
Labels: Fai Mao, Hong Kong, Minimum wage
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Returning to the land of the living
This has been a hard year. I have been sick since Christmas. I’ve missed weeks of work and just generally spent far too much time in bed recuperating from a never ending flu that turned into an antibiotic resistant bronchitis. The wife and I had moved from Causeway Bay to Tai Po and there were larger adjustments involved with that than I anticipated. I also resigned my job in September over some issues in the school. It had become a difficult year before that I have been fulfilling my contract but will not return next year. Needless to say it was not only this blog that was neglected in that time.
There were lots of things I'd not have minded writing about but I was simply to sick, tired and preoccupied over the past several months. There were things like the Nancy Kissell retrial that I found interesting but couldn’t do it. At last I feel I am well enough and caught up enough with life’s other issues to begin writing again. It is good to have the desire to do so again.
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Recuperating Blogger
There were lots of things I'd not have minded writing about but I was simply to sick, tired and preoccupied over the past several months. There were things like the Nancy Kissell retrial that I found interesting but couldn’t do it. At last I feel I am well enough and caught up enough with life’s other issues to begin writing again. It is good to have the desire to do so again.
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Recuperating Blogger
Labels: Fai Mao
Monday, January 24, 2011
Twas the Night before Christmas (Postmodern Version)
Bryan Stone, Boston University School of Theology
12/10/2010
Twas a Postmodern Christmas, when all through the regime
Not a concept was stirring, not even a meme.
Essentialist dogmas were nurtured with care,
And imperialist ambitions still hung in the air
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While grand narratives of progress danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just performed gender before taking a nap.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew in a craze,
And incarnated an internalized masculine gaze.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Hegemonically othered the objects below.
When, what to my binaried eyes should appear,
But a sleigh simulacrum, and virtual reindeer.
With a little old driver who had friends in Havana,
I knew right away it was postmodern Santa.
More rapid than eagles discourses they came,
As he named and destabilized each language game!
"Now Heidegger, Nietzsche! Now, Levinas and Lyotard!
On Derrida, Foucault! On Butler and Baudrillard!
To each modern foundation, to each stucturalist wall!
Now deconstruct! Deconstruct! Deconstruct all!"
His aesthetic was queer, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes juxtaposed with ashes and soot.
A bundle of kitsch he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pastiche of red, white, and black.
What some crassly call fat, he called “differently weighted,”
The politics of hate in one stroke out-narrated
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Intertextual clues I had nothing to dread.
He spoke less in words than ambiguous gestures,
And filled all the stockings with empty conjectures.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
with critical distance, up the chimney he rose!
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew heterotopically spatial
But I heard him exclaim, as I stood there half-dreaming,
"Liberation to all, and an excess of meaning!"
Bryan Stone, Boston University School of Theology
12/10/2010
Twas a Postmodern Christmas, when all through the regime
Not a concept was stirring, not even a meme.
Essentialist dogmas were nurtured with care,
And imperialist ambitions still hung in the air
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While grand narratives of progress danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just performed gender before taking a nap.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew in a craze,
And incarnated an internalized masculine gaze.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Hegemonically othered the objects below.
When, what to my binaried eyes should appear,
But a sleigh simulacrum, and virtual reindeer.
With a little old driver who had friends in Havana,
I knew right away it was postmodern Santa.
More rapid than eagles discourses they came,
As he named and destabilized each language game!
"Now Heidegger, Nietzsche! Now, Levinas and Lyotard!
On Derrida, Foucault! On Butler and Baudrillard!
To each modern foundation, to each stucturalist wall!
Now deconstruct! Deconstruct! Deconstruct all!"
His aesthetic was queer, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes juxtaposed with ashes and soot.
A bundle of kitsch he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pastiche of red, white, and black.
What some crassly call fat, he called “differently weighted,”
The politics of hate in one stroke out-narrated
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Intertextual clues I had nothing to dread.
He spoke less in words than ambiguous gestures,
And filled all the stockings with empty conjectures.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
with critical distance, up the chimney he rose!
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew heterotopically spatial
But I heard him exclaim, as I stood there half-dreaming,
"Liberation to all, and an excess of meaning!"
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
"Where the skies are blue"
Someone sent me the link above.
It induced one the rare bouts of homesickness I still get.
I am going to the UK to be with our daughter this Christmas. But my family is originally from the other Birmingham; the one in the US state of Alabama.
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who won't be home for Christmas
It induced one the rare bouts of homesickness I still get.
I am going to the UK to be with our daughter this Christmas. But my family is originally from the other Birmingham; the one in the US state of Alabama.
Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who won't be home for Christmas
Labels: Christmas, Fai Mao, Leningrad Cowboys
Monday, December 13, 2010
Civil servants fight for post-retirement rights
I guess if I were them I'd do this to. Well, no I wouldn't I'd be too ashamed of the amount of money I'd taken while orking for the government. These people are so over paid it isn't even funny. Why do they need a pension at all?
In related news there appears to be an epidemic of brain tumours in Hong Kong. I guess it would be too much to expect that they would all be found in (un)Civil-Servants?
Until Tomorrow
Fai Mao
In related news there appears to be an epidemic of brain tumours in Hong Kong. I guess it would be too much to expect that they would all be found in (un)Civil-Servants?
Until Tomorrow
Fai Mao
Labels: Civil Service, Fai Mao, Hong Kong
Monday, December 06, 2010
Told yah
If only the HK Government would read this
Labels: Fai Mao, Global Warming
The guy is a little strident for me but makes a good point
A lot of the "multiculturalism" preached today is based in nothing more than cowardice, envy and laziness. Notice, I said a lot, not all.
This is really true in Hong Kong where they don't even really understand the issue. As long as the primary driver of the government here is that Civil Servants are able to keep their jobs then there will never be good government in Hong Kong.
Until Tomorrow
Fai Mao
This is really true in Hong Kong where they don't even really understand the issue. As long as the primary driver of the government here is that Civil Servants are able to keep their jobs then there will never be good government in Hong Kong.
Until Tomorrow
Fai Mao
Labels: Fai Mao, Hong Kong, Multiculturalism
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Here Comes Kim Jung-Ill
My fake Christmas Carol this year is a bit greusome. It is sung to the tune of "Here comes Santa Clause"
Here come Kim Jung-ill, here comes Kim Jung-ill
Right through the DMZ
Tanks and army they’re a blitzin’
Right towards you and me
Bombs are falling, children screaming
It’s real scary tonight
Grab your gun and say your prays
Cause Kim Jung-ill comes tonight
Here come Kim Jung-ill, here comes Kim Jung-ill
Right through the DMZ
He’s got a bag that fill with missiles
Pointed at you and me
See the shells explode and bodies splatter
Oh what a horrible sight
So jump in the shelter and cover your head
Cause Kim Jung-ill comes tonight
Here come Kim Jung-ill, here comes Kim Jung-ill
Right through the DMZ
He doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor
He hates you just the same
Kim Jung-ill thinks we’re all Jimmy Carter
Cowards who will never fight
So lock and load and take good aim
‘Cause otherwise he is right
Until Tomorrow
Fai Mao
The Blogger who seems to like gallows humor
Here come Kim Jung-ill, here comes Kim Jung-ill
Right through the DMZ
Tanks and army they’re a blitzin’
Right towards you and me
Bombs are falling, children screaming
It’s real scary tonight
Grab your gun and say your prays
Cause Kim Jung-ill comes tonight
Here come Kim Jung-ill, here comes Kim Jung-ill
Right through the DMZ
He’s got a bag that fill with missiles
Pointed at you and me
See the shells explode and bodies splatter
Oh what a horrible sight
So jump in the shelter and cover your head
Cause Kim Jung-ill comes tonight
Here come Kim Jung-ill, here comes Kim Jung-ill
Right through the DMZ
He doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor
He hates you just the same
Kim Jung-ill thinks we’re all Jimmy Carter
Cowards who will never fight
So lock and load and take good aim
‘Cause otherwise he is right
Until Tomorrow
Fai Mao
The Blogger who seems to like gallows humor
Labels: Christmas Carrols, Fai Mao, Hong Kong, North Korea
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Mack the knife and North Korea
One of the problems with leftist is that they don't believe in the law of unintended consequenses. A prime example is the Wikileaks web site which released a massive amount of diplomatic documents over the week-end. These were embarrassing to lots of governments and lots of government officials. The publication of these documents was also in violation of any number of laws and the colaborators who funished the documents to the webpage are probably going to spend the rest of their lives in prison when found. The problem is that these dispatches reveal sensative material that could cause millions of people to die. The best example of this the memos that talk about changing attitudes concerning North Korea by the PRC government. How much did these documents add to the tension in Korea right now when we find from Wikileaks that the Chinese are possibly willing to sell out the North Koreans?
(Courtesy of Sister Toldjah)
The leaked North Korea dispatches detail how:
■South Korea’s vice-foreign minister said he was told by two named senior Chinese officials that they believed Korea should be reunified under Seoul’s control, and that this view was gaining ground with the leadership in Beijing.
■China’s vice-foreign minister told US officials that Pyongyang was behaving like a “spoiled child” to get Washington’s attention in April 2009 by carrying out missile tests.
■A Chinese ambassador warned that North Korean nuclear activity was “a threat to the whole world’s security”.
■Chinese officials assessed that it could cope with an influx of 300,000 North Koreans in the event of serious instability, according to a representative of an international agency, but might need to use the military to seal the border.
In highly sensitive discussions in February this year, the-then South Korean vice-foreign minister, Chun Yung-woo, told a US ambassador, Kathleen Stephens, that younger generation Chinese Communist party leaders no longer regarded North Korea as a useful or reliable ally and would not risk renewed armed conflict on the peninsula, according to a secret cable to Washington.
So if you are the "spoiled child," psychotic dictator of North Korea and you just found out from the international press that your only friend was getting ready to double cross you what would you do?
I think there is a very good possibilty that Kim Jung-Ill decides to take as many people down with him as he can.
Until Tomorrow
Fai Mao
The Blogger who is glad he does not live in Seoul
(Courtesy of Sister Toldjah)
The leaked North Korea dispatches detail how:
■South Korea’s vice-foreign minister said he was told by two named senior Chinese officials that they believed Korea should be reunified under Seoul’s control, and that this view was gaining ground with the leadership in Beijing.
■China’s vice-foreign minister told US officials that Pyongyang was behaving like a “spoiled child” to get Washington’s attention in April 2009 by carrying out missile tests.
■A Chinese ambassador warned that North Korean nuclear activity was “a threat to the whole world’s security”.
■Chinese officials assessed that it could cope with an influx of 300,000 North Koreans in the event of serious instability, according to a representative of an international agency, but might need to use the military to seal the border.
In highly sensitive discussions in February this year, the-then South Korean vice-foreign minister, Chun Yung-woo, told a US ambassador, Kathleen Stephens, that younger generation Chinese Communist party leaders no longer regarded North Korea as a useful or reliable ally and would not risk renewed armed conflict on the peninsula, according to a secret cable to Washington.
So if you are the "spoiled child," psychotic dictator of North Korea and you just found out from the international press that your only friend was getting ready to double cross you what would you do?
I think there is a very good possibilty that Kim Jung-Ill decides to take as many people down with him as he can.
Until Tomorrow
Fai Mao
The Blogger who is glad he does not live in Seoul
Labels: Fai Mao, Hong Kong, North Korea, PRC
