Thursday, December 20, 2007
Sensational headlines
Eco-boat powered by human fat attempts round the world speed record
It's not all powered by human fat, but so what? The thought itself is very provocative. If there is a way to make harvesting of human fat cost effective, cosmetically pleasing, and safe, this country would be the Saudi Arabia of biofuel. This is like hitting three birds with one stone.
On another note: my strategy backfired on me in the most fantastic way possible yesterday. Damn you, made of total fail! I need to build some common sense into this thing.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Semester courses in review
Bioinformatics - devilishly difficult while I was taking it, but looking back now, it wasn't that hard. If I ever had to take it again, it would be quite easy to make it through without dropping a point.
Financial time series - was fun as expected and useful - unexpected. The course blog was well done and informative.
Int'l financial markets - Easy as expected. IMO, it was definitely not a hardcore finance course despite all the math involved. The prof was a nice guy.
Management of Chinese firms - easy, lots of case work. The professor is incredible. I did some interesting "forensic" accounting work for the final project which revealed some interesting stories about the company we worked on. Kewl.
History of Late Imperial China - tedious, but easy. It's an unfair assessment given my background. History is tedious to study. Business writing is very different from writing for the social sciences.
Linguistics - A nice, simple introductory course. The professor is better than the course itself. Though I never got to ask him, I'd be surprised to find him anything less than a deist. Rock on!
Monday, December 17, 2007
Lingqiu Recollections Part 7
Lingqiu Recollections: Part 1, Part2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
The husband with a loan of about 10K from a friend went out of the village to learn the handicraft of frame making. This loan has been largely repaid. The frame making project is the primary project being supported by the Youth Enterprise Fund. The frames are made in-house from raw materials. They are then sent to a retail store in town with whom they have an agreement to share profits based on the number of frames sold. The problem with the channel of distribution is that it does not move a lot of inventory. Tang Jie has combined the frames which the man makes with paper cuttings. The paper cuttings which sell for about 6 for 1 RMB are placed in the frames. The frames which used to sell for about 20 RMB now can be sold for about 30 RMB. This move has also changed the frames which have been viewed as a commodity into a cultural object very suited to being given away as a gift. Tang Jie has placed an order for about 100 frames for a certain government department to be given away as gifts representing the town of
An interesting thing that came up which certainly made sense when you thought carefully about it but is not blatantly obvious during the course of our interview was the fact that they had to pay cash for all of the raw material which they use for the making of the frames. In many B2B transactions, an invisible form of credit is extended by the supplier and the buyer in the form of an accounts payable which allows them to hold on to the raw material on credit, manufacture and sell the finished product, and turn around to pay back the supplier with the sales proceeds. The lack of this kind of credit can really put a squeeze on the cash flow of the company. This is manifested in the increase in working capital needed to keep their operation running smoothly. A potential use for loan money would go directly into this working capital fund.
The frame making business receives the most attention; however, it seems that the cash needed for everyday living is not generated by this business. Rather it is from the delivery of water. During the day the husband and wife spend most of their time running their water delivery service. According to the wife, they are one of two water delivery services in the town. They delivery purified drinking water and the other specialize in mineral water.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Got away again!
Sure enough:
1. Write about some important event that taught you a lesson in your past.
2. (Your views about globalization)
~500 characters each
I usually don't write about things like midterms or finals, but this is just too much. When I read the two essay questions, I had to control myself from bursting out laughing. YES! I got away with it again! Good, smart guesswork which I can be as sure as I possible need be sure was not inspired by some divine intelligence.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Free Rice - Guesstimate Part 2
Using 29,000 grains of long grain rice/pound again, this yields: 294,863.15 lbs or 147.43 tons.
Using 62,000 lbs as the max net load on a shipping container (1 TEU), this would give us 4.76 containers. Considering how the amount donated wouldn't even fill up 1/3 of a container back when I calculated it at the end of October, this is a big gain!
Note: This is all done in weight. I suppose the answer would change given the information about the volume of 1 lb of rice. I'll look into this one when I get home.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
C.H.E.E.S.E.R.
In honor of the word "cheese" which is used in that class regularly to describe the excess return to market generated from a strategy, I bring you the acronym C.H.E.E.S.E.R.
C.H.E.E.S.E.R.
1. Credible Heuristic Employed to Exhaustively Seek Excess Returns - used when refering to a particular trading strategy with demonstrable excess return to market.
2. Clairvoyant Human Engineering Effective Strategies for Excess Returns - used to describe someone who has found demonstrable cheese.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Lingqiu Recollections Part 6
When asked about the repayment of the principal, Tan Jie talks about the need to develop close relationships with the borrowers. He speaks of two extremes. There are those who will refuse to repay their loans even though their businesses are successful and they have the ability to do so, and those who will do everything in their power to repay their loan despite floundering business even if it means they have to borrow money in order to do so. The Youth Enterprise Fund has experienced both types of borrowers. A troubling issue is that there are loans that are non-performing.
Itinerary:
We were going to visit three enterprises today. A diversified family business that focused on picture frames, a chicken ranch that focused on selling eggs, and a textile factory that
The first family we visited was introduced to us a primarily frame-making business. We later learned that they are involved in a lot of other small businesses such a water delivery service and a lantern making service.
They have recently built a new building in their yard for the cost of 30K~35K RMB. Construction began in the spring and the house was basically finished in the fall. The ceiling has yet to be finished and the building has not yet been completely wired. In this building there are three rooms. The rightmost room, coming in from the doorway is divided into what could be made into a kitchen or bathroom and a bedroom. The center room is the main workroom where the husband works to cut the frame material and piece them together. The leftmost room is currently used for storage of raw materials such as framing and lantern pieces.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Lecture in Linguistics today
(I knew it! I knew he is at least a sympathizer! Though, I don't think I'll ever be able to ask him, seeing how awkward that conversation may be.)
0 Comments:
Post a Comment