Tag: social-security

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All Ponzi’s disciples

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Madoff story continues to occupy the news these days (e.g., this one from NYTimes). Yesterday, Satyam, the No. 4 Indian IT outsourcer, broke the news with giant accounting scandal (BBC news, wiki: Satyam).

But the story does not end here. In my mind, there are many other ponzi schemes in our lives, and sometimes people just ignore it for various reasons (don’t want to face reality; irrational exuberance etc).

Big ones
Dot com technology bubble: new stock holder (trader) bail out previous stock holder (trader);

Housing bubble: new home owner (speculator) bought high from previous home owner (speculator).

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Vested in Amerca

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Yesterday was a quite amazing day for stock market. The US market (Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq) went up the most in 5 years, after the dear friend of Wall Street (Mr. Ben Bernanke) cut the interest rate by 0.75%. Here are details in the news (Dow 416 points gain, Fed rate cut sends market soaring). This means the interest rate lowered from 5.25% to 2.25% since last Sept. That’s 300 basis points in 6 months!. While I was happy to see my little portfolio went up 4.8% yesterday, I think the US dollar will worth less and less (vs. Yuan), considering the reckless US economy policy and the fundamental problems underlining the economy (high labor cost, addition to consumer spending, etc.).

Fed rate cut 031808
(Source: Kansas City Star)

Green Card
Incidently (remember March 17 is St. Patrick’s day, the green), yesterday I received an email from USCIS telling me that my permanent residency application has been approved (after almost 6 years). I don’t think too much of this green card thing, at least that’s what I felt when I went to work this morning (see I still got to work).

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