Daily Lessons from Life 15 - 19 September 2014 - Various Catching Up

Was in the Land of the Great Firewall from 15 September 2014. So, a bit of catching up to do on blogging.

1. Mr Lee Kuan Yew's 91st Birthday

A belated happy and healthy birthday to Mr Lee. He has done a lot. Let him has his days.

2. Scotland Votes

More Scots voted 'No' to Independence. This is settled for now. And hopefully will not be revisited for another 500 years! Nevertheless, the Scots have gained some new power and 'benefits' from the English and UK government. Will this reinforce the people who believed that if you keep quiet too much and for too long while working hard and contribute to the bigger whole, the majority might forget the values you are creating and take you for granted!

Will this be something some Singaporean voters will take away. If I put a few more opposition Member of Parliament into office, maybe the ruling PAP government will give me what I want, at least some if not all the way?

This is a scary thought. My ideal of a good democracy is that the voters are motivated not by individual desires but by whatever the government do, it must benefit the majority of the people without hurting too many of those in the minority!

3. Alibaba's record IPO opened at a 35% leap from its IPO price today in the USA

Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKex) refused to allow Alibaba's to have 'restricted voting shares' despite KNOWING what a BIG FISH Alibaba is to any stock exchange in the world. I salute them for their integrity though a bit surprise as Hong Kong has always been touted as the most capitalistic territory on Earth.

Yet, NYSE accepted and allowed Alibaba to list there, thus creating "A 228B valuation for a Cayman Islands shell company that doesn't actually own Alibaba, doesn't have voting rights and whose arrangement with Alibaba might not be legal under Chinese law!" as commented by one online contributor!!

Is this PURE capitalism? Or capitalism gone MAD?

It is clear that those who bought at USD68/share is making a huge killing at the opening price of USD90+. Of course, some of them can only sell after the 'moratorium'. Still, does it make any sense?

Whatever it is, anyone who did not get it will be called: sour grapes. So, you either go buy it or just stay out of it and watch the story unfolds. It will happen again and again but you got nothing to do with it if you stay out.


4. F1 is in Singapore again

And I continued to be disinterested in this 'bloody' noisy inconvenience while the 'fans' just could not wait for it to start. The business folks also could not wait for it to start as everyone looks forward to making some money out of it. Of course for the 'sponsors', they look at their returns on investment in different ways. Many are intangible and difficult to directly quantified. So they rely on: more tourists' money during this period, revenue generated from the F1 specific events (these give better numbers), etc. Forget about those whose businesses WERE affected had F1 not being in town!

As long as overall the country generates MORE revenue than lost revenue and the businesses make money overall, those 'victims of F1 and related events' in this period just have to endure it. It is only once a year. :-)