Infoman

Member since 2017-07-15T03:50:57Z. Last seen 2024-10-13T01:42:03Z.

2691 blog posts. 128 comments.

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Posts by Infoman

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  Infoman

  香港警察在中國熱烈慶祝建政70年的日子，用實彈射擊爭取民主的示威者，《華盛頓郵報》專欄文章形容，這事令人傷感，但正好讓人在這個日子看清共產黨掌權70年是怎麼的一回事，文章認為這個外界以為「遲早會改變」的政權，現正威脅到全球的自由，認為美國總統特朗普現在挑戰中國是對的，若然現在還不向中國施壓要求其政治自由化，未來西方或要向中國卑躬屈膝。

  華盛頓智庫道德與公共政策中心（Ethics and Public Policy Center）高級研究員奧爾森（Henry Olsen）在文章指出，香港示威之所以發生，是因為香港年輕人看得出中國越來越專制極權。香港雖然享有貿易自由，但從未享受到獲承諾給予的全面民主，中國更慢慢收緊對港控制，香港變得越來越像中國，把喜愛西方自由生活方式的香港人嚇怕，雖然對民主盲目樂觀的人，可能認為只要有耐心，隨着內地經濟發展民主終會來臨，但筆者卻並不樂觀。

  奧爾森指出，在1990年代末，共產政權陸續倒台，而共產主義的中國開放經濟，要求加入世界貿易組織，西方滿有自信以為自由民主的全球資本主義就是未來，以為提高收入是政治自由的先兆，甚至認為經濟發展會確保中國在2015年前半民主化，到2025年前實現完全自由的政體。但事與願違，中國去年的人均國內生產總值（GDP）逼近一萬美元（約7.8萬港元），超越民主化理應發生的水平，但現實是習近平廢除國家元首任期限制，建造不斷壯大的軍隊，進一步打壓少數民族和一般的中國人。

  2014年，有學者認為一旦達到了一定的經濟發展水平，獨裁者雖然可以減慢民主自由化來臨，但始終不能阻止它，估計異見會在獨裁者去世或下台時爆發，認為西方應該繼續建設中國經濟，等待習近平離任。但奧爾森指出，幾乎所有走向民主的國家，都是受到美國壓力下才有民主化。例如土耳其、南韓和台灣都依賴美國貿易和軍事保護，它們民主化的部份原因正是美國施壓。反觀美國沒有施壓的富裕國家，如新加坡和阿拉伯的油國，雖然經濟發展水平與其他民主化國家相稱，但仍然維持半自由或獨裁專制。

  奧爾森警告，若然西方仍然坐視不理，西方的思想、金錢和市場將會繼續推動一個科技極端主義國家崛起，讓它試圖控制先進技術，在本土和海外擴大勢力。經濟合作暨發展組織（OECD）估計，中國的GDP在2060年會達到62萬億美元（以2010年貨幣價值計算，約483.6萬億港元）比美國的GDP多50%，相當於美國、日本、德國、英國和法國的總和，給予中共在國際舞台龐大的影響力。

  文章在結語說，如果想要民主中國，就要逼使中國改革。過往西方國家讓中國進入全球巿場，期望以經濟誘因讓中國政治自由化，但此路明顯不通，如今應逼使中國政治自由化，才允許中國繼續留在全球巿場，若然中國不從，就唯有果斷「拿走誘因」，雖然此舉為全球經濟帶來短期陣痛，但比起讓未改革的中國繼續發展，可能逼使西方對其卑躬屈膝之苦，簡直是小巫見大巫。

  2019/10/02
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  Infoman

  I made $70,000 through this side hustle at 27—while working a full-time job. Here’s how I did it

  Bola Sokunbi, Contributor Published 4 hours agoUpdated an hour ago Eleven years ago, when I was 27, I reached one of my proudest financial milestones: I had amassed more than $100,000 in savings — and I did it in just three years.

  One of the biggest things that helped me accelerate my savings was taking on side hustles. I highly recommend everyone consider starting one at some point, even if it’s just for a short period of time.

  I’ve done just about every side hustle you can imagine, from selling Avon products to my mom’s friends to starting an online retail store for bridal accessories.

  But Onada Photography, the wedding photography business that I started in my early-20s, was my longest-running one. I did it for seven years, and it earned me the most amount of money of all my side hustles.

  In one particular year, I made more than $70,000 total. A chunk of that money went toward my savings.

  A natural interest

  Growing up, my dad was always taking photos of our family. As a result, I developed an interest in photography.

  But the idea to turn my hobby into a business came about during a trip to Jamaica for my friend’s wedding. I had just purchased an inexpensive entry-level DSLR camera, which I took with me.

  (From the author’s wedding portfolio | Credit: Bola Sokunbi)

  As luck would have it, the photographer was running late on the wedding day. My friend then turned to me and asked, “Would it be all right if you took a few photos while we wait for him to arrive?”

  I was more than happy to do it, and photos I took turned out better than I expected. More importantly, my friend loved them. It was then and there that I decided to make some money out of my photography skills.

  A self-taught photographer

  Getting started was the biggest hurdle. I was nervous to put myself out there, but I knew that if I didn’t try, I’d never know if it was something I could be successful doing.

  I created a simple website using the photos I took at my friend’s wedding, set up my first ad on Craigslist and asked everyone I knew to spread the word.

  I had so much to learn, and I really needed to expand my portfolio, so I decided to shoot the first wedding for free.

  (Pictured above: The author, Bola Sokunbi)

  To further build on my skills and knowledge, I read books, watched videos, took workshops and practiced taking photos of my friends and family.

  Once I had a solid portfolio, I felt confident in charging clients for my services. I charged $300 per wedding. But as I did more events, my client base grew and my services became increasingly in demand.

  So I finally upped my rates to between $2,000 and $5,000, which was — and still is — pretty standard. Some photographers charge up to $10,000, but it really depends on factors like shoot duration and location.

  Slow and steady

  If you’re starting a side hustle, it’s important to take things slowly so you don’t operate on a negative balance. It took me about two years to turn a decent profit.

  My goal was to build a business with zero debt, so I opened a business savings account. Once I paid my business taxes, I invested the rest of the money back into Onada Photography (e.g. purchasing high-quality equipment, better editing software, travel expenses). That way, I wasn’t operating on a negative balance.

  With better quality equipment and better skills, I had mastered the art of photography. My dedication earned me solid reviews and several awards.

  (Recognition and awards for Onada Photography)

  As my business grew more successful, I expanded my services and offered lifestyle photo sessions. (These are less time-consuming and capture day-to-day activities and normal life scenarios, such as family and engagement portraits). I charged between $300 and $450 for those.

  Hustling is hard work

  There is no substitute for hard work, and I worked tirelessly at my side hustle the year I made $70,000.

  That year, in addition to my full-time job (where I worked an average of 60 hours per week), I photographed more than 19 weddings and countless lifestyle sessions. I won’t try to downplay anything: there were times when I felt burned out, discouraged, frustrated and stressed.

  (Onada Photography’s business profile on WeddingWire.com)

  I remember incredibly crazy summer months, where I was doing back-to-back weddings on Friday night, and then all of Saturday and Sunday. In the evenings and early mornings before I went to work, I was sorting and editing photos on my computer.

  Running a side hustle takes patience, an open mind and a strong willingness to learn. But the rewards trump all of that! While I was exhausted, I was happy to be making all that extra money on the side. More importantly, I was proud of myself for not giving up when things got difficult.

  Ultimately, I had to say goodbye to my business. It wouldn’t have been possible for me to keep it running, especially after I became a mother.

  Now, at 38, I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do: I founded Clever Girl Finance, a financial education platform aimed at providing women with financial guidance through easy to digest courses.

  I sold most of my equipment for a nice sum, which I invested back into my retirement savings. I still kept the camera, though, along with a few nice lenses. I may be working on a ton of other stuff, but I’ll never be too busy to take photographs of my own family.

  2019/09/30
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  Infoman

  Amzn could rally another 40% before it gets overvalued, trader says

  Keris Lahiff Published 2 hours agoUpdated an hour ago One of the FANG stocks is not like the others this month.

  While Facebook, Amazon and Netflix have slumped, Google parent Alphabet has soared. The tech giant is also the only FANG stock that’s positive this quarter.

  Despite Alphabet’s outperformance, Mark Tepper, president of Strategic Wealth Partners, is sticking with another FANG stock above the rest.

  “By far my favorite of the bunch is Amazon,” Tepper said Friday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.”

  He said its three-pronged focus on e-commerce, cloud computing and advertising elevates it as a company and pushes it above the rest as a portfolio must-have.

  “From an e-commerce standpoint, nobody can match them when it comes to price and convenience. Yes, they’re spending some money right now on one-day shipping but that’s a short-term drag and that’s actually going to make them much, much stronger in the long run,” Tepper said.

  He adds that its high-margin businesses in the cloud and advertising spaces have helped it drive growth in recent years. Amazon Web Services, which includes its cloud computing business, reported a more than 45% annual increase in revenue for 2018.

  “It’s trading in the mid-$1,700s right now. We think fair value is somewhere between $2,000 and $2,400 so plenty of upside here,” said Tepper.

  A move to $2,400 implies 39% upside from current levels. It would also mark a new all-time high.

  The FANG stocks have struggled to break out to highs. This could continue to put the brakes on the broad market, said Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Jaffray.

  “You can see here that like the market, they’re not breaking out to all-time new highs. This has been leadership in the past. It’s not really leadership now. But if that’s not breaking out, it’s going to be a bit of a headwind for the market,” Johnson said during the same segment.

  Alphabet, however, looks like it can break away from the group and rally independently, he said.

  “This is a stock that has been consolidating in a range of about $1,300 at the upper end, $1,000 at the lower end,” Johnson said. “I suspect that you’re going to see Google continue to work its way up, and the FANG stocks are probably going to continue to move in opposite directions.”

  Alphabet is up 13% this quarter, and 17% this year. It remains more than 5% from all-time highs.

  Disclosure: Strategic Wealth Partners has a position in FB, AMZN, NFLX and GOOGL.

  Disclaimer

  2019/09/30
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  Infoman

  SpaceX has unveiled the rocket it hopes will one day carry humans to Mars

  Charlotte Jee1h The news: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave a presentation on the development of the company’s rocket, Starship, which is intended to fly passengers to the moon and Mars, on Saturday night. His talk took place at SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas, in front of a huge prototype of the rocket (pictured.) The timing of the event was no coincidence: it was the eleven-year anniversary of the company sending the first private liquid-fueled rocket into orbit.

  About Starship: It’s a beast. It’s over 165 feet (50 meters) tall, with three of SpaceX’s reusable Raptor engines attached to its base. It weighs about 1,400 tons when loaded with fuel. Combined with its Super Heavy booster, it will be the largest and most powerful rocket ever made, producing about double the thrust of the Saturn V which carried Apollo astronauts to the moon back in 1969. SpaceX is assembling two identical Starship rockets, with one in Texas and the other located at its facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where it does most of its launches.

  A bold promise: Elon Musk claims the rocket will be tested in “one to two months” and carry its first passengers at some point next year. The first test will see Starship fly up to 12 miles before returning to Earth, he said. His long-standing ambition is to take humans to Mars.

  Shade: Not everyone seemed so delighted at the big reveal. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine responded with an arch tweet taking aim at a lack of focus on NASA's Commercial Crew program.

  “I am looking forward to the SpaceX announcement tomorrow. In the meantime, Commercial Crew is years behind schedule. NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer. It’s time to deliver.”

  SpaceX is one of the two main contractors on the program, alongside Boeing, and it is developing its Crew Dragon module for NASA astronauts to travel to the International Space Station and beyond.

  Read next: Can SpaceX and Blue Origin best a decades-old Russian rocket engine design?

  Want to stay up to date with space tech news? Sign up for our newsletter, The Airlock.

  2019/09/30
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  Infoman

  How to determine if you’ve found a real blockchain use case

  

  Blockchains are overhyped. There, I said it. From Sibos to Money20/20 to cover stories of The Economist and Euromoney, everyone seems to be climbing aboard the blockchain wagon. And no doubt like others in the space, we’re seeing a rapidly increasing number of companies building proofs of concept on our platform and/or asking for our help.

  As a young startup, you’d think we’d be over the moon. Surely now is the time to raise a ton of money and build that high performance next generation blockchain platform we’ve already designed. What on earth are we waiting for?

  I’ll tell you what. We’re waiting to gain a clearer understanding of where blockchains genuinely add value in enterprise IT. You see, a large proportion of these incoming projects have nothing to do with blockchains at all. Here’s how it plays out. Big company hears that blockchains are the next big thing. Big company finds some people internally who are interested in the subject. Big company gives them a budget and tells them to go do something blockchainy. Soon enough they come knocking on our door, waving dollar bills, asking us to help them think up a use case. Say what now?

  As for those who do have a project in mind, what’s the problem? In many cases, the project can be implemented perfectly well using a regular relational database. You know, big iron behemoths like Oracle and SQL Server, or for the more open-minded, MySQL and Postgres. So let me start by setting things straight:

  If your requirements are fulfilled by today’s relational databases, you’d be insane to use a blockchain.

  Why? Because products like Oracle and MySQL have decades of development behind them. They’ve been deployed on millions of servers running trillions of queries. They contain some of the most thoroughly tested, debugged and optimized code on the planet, processing thousands of transactions per second without breaking a sweat.

  And what about blockchains? Well, our product was one of the first to market, and has been available for exactly 5 months, with a few thousand downloads. Actually it’s extremely stable, because we built it off Bitcoin Core, the software which powers bitcoin. But even so, this entire product category is still in its diapers.

  So am I saying that blockchains are useless? Absolutely not. But before you embark on that shiny blockchain project, you need to have a very clear idea of why you are using a blockchain. There are a bunch of conditions that need to be fulfilled. And if they’re not, you should go back to the drawing board. Maybe you can define the project better. Or maybe you can save everyone a load of time and money, because you don’t need a blockchain at all.

  1. The database

  Here’s the first rule. Blockchains are a technology for shared databases. So you need to start by knowing why you are using a database, by which I mean a structured repository of information. This can be a traditional relational database, which contains one or more spreadsheet-like tables. Or it can be the trendier NoSQL variety, which works more like a file system or dictionary. (On a theoretical level, NoSQL databases are just a subset of relational databases anyway.)

  A ledger for financial assets can be naturally expressed as a database table in which each row represents one asset type owned by one particular entity. Each row has three columns containing: (a) the owner’s identifier such as an account number, (b) an identifier for the asset type such as “USD” or “AAPL”, and (c) the quantity of that asset held by that owner.

  Databases are modified via “transactions” which represent a set of changes to the database which must be accepted or rejected as a whole. For example, in the case of an asset ledger, a payment from one user to another is represented by a transaction that deducts the appropriate quantity from one row, and adds it to another.

  1. Multiple writers

  This one’s easy. Blockchains are a technology for databases with multiple writers. In other words, there needs to be more than one entity which is generating the transactions that modify the database. Do you know who these writers are?

  In most cases the writers will also run “nodes” which hold a copy of the database and relay transactions to other nodes in a peer-to-peer fashion. However transactions might also be created by users who are not running a node themselves. Consider for example a payments system which is collectively maintained by a small group of banks but has millions of end users on mobile devices, communicating only with their own bank’s systems.

  1. Absence of trust

  And now for the third rule. If multiple entities are writing to the database, there also needs to be some degree of mistrust between those entities. In other words, blockchains are a technology for databases with multiple non-trusting writers.

  You might think that mistrust only arises between separate organizations, such as the banks trading in a marketplace or the companies involved in a supply chain. But it can also exist within a single large organization, for example between departments or the operations in different countries.

  What do I specifically mean by mistrust? I mean that one user is not willing to let another modify database entries which it “owns”. Similarly, when it comes to reading the database’s contents, one user will not accept as gospel the “truth” as reported by another user, because each has different economic or political incentives.

  1. Disintermediation

  So the problem, as defined so far, is enabling a database with multiple non-trusting writers. And there’s already a well-known solution to this problem: the trusted intermediary. That is, someone who all the writers trust, even if they don’t fully trust each other. Indeed, the world is filled with databases of this nature, such as the ledger of accounts in a bank. Your bank controls the database and ensures that every transaction is valid and authorized by the customer whose funds it moves. No matter how politely you ask, your bank will never let you modify their database directly.

  Blockchains remove the need for trusted intermediaries by enabling databases with multiple non-trusting writers to be modified directly. No central gatekeeper is required to verify transactions and authenticate their source. Instead, the definition of a transaction is extended to include a proof of authorization and a proof of validity. Transactions can therefore be independently verified and processed by every node which maintains a copy of the database.

  But the question you need to ask is: Do you want or need this disintermediation? Given your use case, is there anything wrong with having a central party who maintains an authoritative database and acts as the transaction gatekeeper? Good reasons to prefer a blockchain-based database over a trusted intermediary might include lower costs, faster transactions, automatic reconciliation, new regulation or a simple inability to find a suitable intermediary.

  1. Transaction interaction

  So blockchains make sense for databases that are shared by multiple writers who don’t entirely trust each other, and who modify that database directly. But that’s still not enough. Blockchains truly shine where there is some interaction between the transactions created by these writers.

  What do I mean by interaction? In the fullest sense, this means that transactions created by different writers often depend on one other. For example, let’s say Alice sends some funds to Bob and then Bob sends some on to Charlie. In this case, Bob’s transaction is dependent on Alice’s one, and there’s no way to verify Bob’s transaction without checking Alice’s first. Because of this dependency, the transactions naturally belong together in a single shared database.

  Taking this further, one nice feature of blockchains is that transactions can be created collaboratively by multiple writers, without either party exposing themselves to risk. This is what allows delivery versus payment settlement to be performed safely over a blockchain, without requiring a trusted intermediary.

  A good case can also be made for situations where transactions from different writers are cross-correlated with each other, even if they remain independent. One example might be a shared identity database in which multiple entities validate different aspects of consumers’ identities. Although each such certification stands alone, the blockchain provides a useful way to bring everything together in a unified way.

  1. Set the rules

  This isn’t really a condition, but rather an inevitable consequence of the previous points. If we have a database modified directly by multiple writers, and those writers don’t fully trust each other, then the database must contain embedded rules restricting the transactions performed.

  These rules are fundamentally different from the constraints that appear in traditional databases, because they relate to the legitimacy of transformations rather than the state of the database at a particular point in time. Every transaction is checked against these rules by every node in the network, and those that fail are rejected and not relayed on.

  Asset ledgers contain a simple example of this type of rule, to prevent transactions creating assets out of thin air. The rule states that the total quantity of each asset in the ledger must be the same before and after every transaction.

  1. Pick your validators

  So far we’ve described a distributed database in which transactions can originate in many places, propagate between nodes in a peer-to-peer fashion, and are verified by every node independently. So where does a “blockchain” come in? Well, a blockchain’s job is to be the authoritative final transaction log, on whose contents all nodes provably agree.

  Why do we need this log? First, it enables newly added nodes to calculate the database’s contents from scratch, without needing to trust another node. Second, it addresses the possibility that some nodes might miss some transactions, due to system downtime or a communications glitch. Without a transaction log, this would cause one node’s database to diverge from that of the others, undermining the goal of a shared database.

  Third, it’s possible for two transactions to be in conflict, so that only one can be accepted. A classic example is a double spend in which the same asset is sent to two different recipients. In a peer-to-peer database with no central authority, nodes might have different opinions regarding which transaction to accept, because there is no objective right answer. By requiring transactions to be “confirmed” in a blockchain, we ensure that all nodes converge on the same decision.

  Finally, in Ethereum-style blockchains, the precise ordering of transactions plays a crucial role, because every transaction can affect what happens in every subsequent one. In this case the blockchain acts to define the authoritative chronology, without which transactions cannot be processed at all.

  A blockchain is literally a chain of blocks, in which each block contains a set of transactions that are confirmed as a group. But who is responsible for choosing the transactions that go into each block? In the kind of “private blockchain” which is suitable for enterprise applications, the answer is a closed group of validators (“miners”) who digitally sign the blocks they create. This whitelisting is combined with some form of distributed consensus scheme to prevent a minority of validators from seizing control of the chain. For example, MultiChain uses a scheme called mining diversity, in which the permitted miners work in a round-robin fashion, with some degree of leniency to allow for non-functioning nodes.

  No matter which consensus scheme is used, the validating nodes have far less power than the owner of a traditional centralized database. Validators cannot fake transactions or modify the database in violation of its rules. In an asset ledger, that means they cannot spend other people’s money, nor change the total quantity of assets represented. Nonetheless there are still two ways in which validators can unduly influence a database’s contents:

  Transaction censorship. If enough of the validators collude maliciously, they can prevent a particular transaction from being confirmed in the blockchain, leaving it permanently in limbo. Biased conflict resolution. If two transactions conflict, the validator who creates the next block decides which transaction is confirmed on the blockchain, causing the other to be rejected. The fair choice would be the transaction that was seen first, but validators can choose based on other factors without revealing this. Because of these problems, when deploying a blockchain-based database, you need to have a clear idea of who your validators are and why you trust them, collectively if not alone. Depending on the use case, the validators might be chosen as: (a) one or more nodes controlled by a single organization, (b) a core group of organizations that maintain the chain, or (c) every node on the network.

  1. Back your assets

  If you’ve got this far, you may have noticed that I tend to refer to blockchains as shared databases, rather than the more common “shared ledgers”. Why? Because as a technology, blockchains can be applied to problems far beyond the tracking of asset ownership. Any database which has multiple non-trusting writers can be implemented over a blockchain, without requiring a central intermediary. Examples include shared calendars, wiki-style collaboration and discussion forums.

  Having said that, for now it seems that blockchains are mainly of interest to those who track the movement and exchange of financial assets. I can think of two reasons for this: (a) the finance sector is responding to the (in retrospect, minuscule) threat of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, and (b) an asset ledger is the most simple and natural example of a shared database with interdependent transactions created by multiple non-trusting entities.

  If you do want to use a blockchain as an asset ledger, you need to answer one additional crucial question: What is the nature of the assets being moved around? By this I don’t just mean cash or bonds or bills of lading, though of course that’s important as well. The question is rather: Who stands behind the assets represented on the blockchain? If the database says that I own 10 units of something, who will allow me to claim those 10 units in the real world? Who do I sue if I can’t convert what’s written in the blockchain into traditional physical assets? (See this asset agreement for an example.)

  The answer, of course, will vary by the use case. For monetary assets, one can imagine custodial banks accepting cash in traditional form, and then crediting the accounts of depositors in a blockchain-powered distributed ledger. In trade finance, letters of credit and bills of lading would be backed by the importer’s bank and the shipping company respectively. And further in the future, we can imagine a time when the primary issuance of corporate bonds takes place directly on a blockchain by the company seeking to raise funds.

  Conclusion

  As I mentioned in the introduction, if your project does not fulfill every single one of these conditions, you should not be using a blockchain. In the absence of any of the first five, you should consider one of: (a) regular file storage, (b) a centralized database, (c) master–slave database replication, or (d) multiple databases to which users can subscribe.

  And if you do fulfill the first five, there’s still work to do. You need to be able to express the rules of your application in terms of the transactions which a database allows. You need to be confident about who you can trust as validators and how you’ll define distributed consensus. And finally, if you’re looking at creating a shared ledger, you need to know who will be backing the assets which that ledger represents.

  Got all the answers? Congratulations, you have a real blockchain use case. And we’d love to hear from you.

  Please post any comments on LinkedIn. See also this follow up: Four genuine blockchain use cases.

  2019/09/28
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  Infoman

  White House is considering delisting Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges (bloomberg.com)

  The growing confrontation between the West and China seems to me to boil down to a philosophical problem: - Should free markets/societies/cultural entities allow participation by all actors, even those which (in their own spaces) obviously don't play by the rules of the entered market/society/culture? - Or, should entry into the entity be restricted to those that themselves (in their own space) follow the rules of the entered culture? It seems to me that there are definite advantages and disadvantages to both approaches and it's probably something that game theorists have addressed. To use a convoluted, over-simplified metaphor of a playground: - If we allow kids (that have different rules in their own playground) into our playground, we run the risk of their rules overcoming or having a negative effect on ours. We also enable them to play with us while having "bad" rules on their own playground - some of which might give them an (unfair) advantage over us on our own playground. However, we get the benefits of having more kids and toys to play with. And, maybe the kids will choose our rules (which we perceive as better) over their own. - If we don't allow them into our playground, we have less kids and toys to play with. We also have no real direct influence on them - they can't see that our rules are better in person, and we can't threaten to kick them out of our playground if they aren't in it to begin with. However, we avoid the risk of having their rules overwhelm ours and we worry less about them having unfair advantages over us on our own playground. reply

  xxxpupugo 58 minutes ago [-]

  The growing confrontation between the West and China seems to me to boil down to a philosophical problem It is not West VS China, it is mainly US VS China. EU and other Asian developed economies might disdain China ideologically, but I don't think they have the appetite to break the status quo this eagerly. And it is nothing philosophical about it. It is geopolitical, and it is human nature. What you are saying are just intellectual seasoning, it may be necessary to intrigue the audience, but not for action. China is a new world power that competes with US both militarily and economically. Post WWII, US had fought with Soviet/Japan on those fronts separately, but China looks like a combination of both, makes it even more threatening and hard to tolerate. reply

  factsaresacred 38 minutes ago [-]

  but I don't think they have the appetite to break the status quo this eagerly. Mainly they don't have the strength to break the status quo. Plus they don't want to jeopardise access to such a large market. It's a Faustian bargain they're beginning to regret. China is going to rise, this cannot and should not be prevented. But allowing them to rise at your own country's expense is folly. America gets this. reply

  xxxpupugo 30 minutes ago [-]

  Also US can weather itself the best if the status quo is broken, because it is currently on top. Other countries won't be so lucky. Trump's actions feel dramatic, but mainly on the magnitude and fast aggression. Something is due to happen and the world needs to adapt to that new normal. reply

  simion314 29 minutes ago [-]

  So you change the rules in the middle of the game so you don't lose, sounds right if you are the arbiter too reply

  leereeves 19 minutes ago [-]

  China never obeyed the rules, so the rest of the world has a choice: continue to play by the old rules at a disadvantage to a cheating China, accept the new rules China has been playing by, or isolate China until they start playing by the old rules. reply

  jacquesm 21 minutes ago [-]

  It's far simpler than that. In order to look good domestically Trump needs a foe, and China conveniently provides that foe. They're a credible threat, they are not his Russian buddies and the US is to a large extent dependent on them. On top of that I suspect that when the last stone is overturned we will find a bunch of ways in which the US president and his cronies profited from the wild gyrations of the stock market as a result of the trade war. reply

  mytailorisrich 1 hour ago [-]

  The West bulldozed its way through the whole world and imposed rules that benefit it. The issue here is much less cultural that you might think. China has been weak in the past couple of centuries and was thus on the receiving end. But as they grow stronger the rules will have to change to take them and their interests into account. This obviously does not mean that we should cave in to everything. It means that they should have an equal say in the rules. At the moment it's the US fighting China more than the West as a whole. It makes sense because it's US dominance that is under threat. The question is whether the US want to fight a losing battle or work constructively for the long term. reply

  OscarCunningham 2 minutes ago [-]

  Alternative hypothesis: Trump is bullying China to make himself appear strong to US voters. He has no objective other than that. reply

  RobertRoberts 1 hour ago [-]

  I think that you should play by the rules of the playground. If you think its ok to try and change other peoples rules to suit yourself instead of adampting to the rules of the area you enter then you are simply a bully. reply

  jakeogh 25 minutes ago [-]

  People catching a hint of the real power they have is an existential threat to traditional myth structures; not just China's. reply

  speedplane 1 hour ago [-]

  The growing confrontation between the West and China seems to me to boil down to a philosophical problem ... Should free markets/societies/cultural entities allow participation by all actors, even those which (in their own spaces) obviously don't play by the rules of the entered market/society culture? You're missing one of the major points: freedom. The issue is not just weighing the utilitarian pros/cons of allowing diversity of thought. In the U.S. (and generally the west), the ability to think and do what you want is valued as an important individual right that each person is entitled to, regardless of whether it's good or bad for society as whole. reply

  keiferski 1 hour ago [-]

  I'm specifically talking about the issue of allowing non-agreeable actors into your own space, or in the case of this article, stock exchanges. reply

  input_sh 42 minutes ago [-]

  What other country from the West has a beef with China? This is purely US vs China. Leave the rest of us out of your own mess please. reply

  ng12 37 minutes ago [-]

  So what's the message, the EU is only interested in combating oppression when there's no money on the table? reply

  efdee 32 minutes ago [-]

  Are we pretending that any of this has to do with combatting oppression? reply

  greatpatton 35 minutes ago [-]

  Yeah a little bit like the US, supporting Saudi Arabia whatever they do. reply

  input_sh 32 minutes ago [-]

  Counter-question: How exactly is the US combating oppression in China? Apart from ruining your own relationship with your 3rd biggest trade partner, that is. reply

  tanilama 1 hour ago [-]

  Emmmm, this is crazy. Capital will find its way just not through US exchange reply

  azurezyq 1 hour ago [-]

  Ok, now WH is exploring all creative (and unprecedented) ways to fight against China. I have to say this seems to have crossed a lot of boundaries, either clear or vague ones. And we've also seen WH is doing similar things (though at a different degree) to close partners like Mexico. So let's extrapolate, if there're some conflicts in interests between US and major NATO countries, will WH do the same thing? Make America great again even no one wants to talk to US? reply

  greatpatton 1 hour ago [-]

  Seems that the easy war with China is not that easy. So now the WH is resorting to other means to put pressure on China. This will backfire as the WH is trying really hard to make US less relevant. By actively using weapon that were previously seen as a huge deterrent, you make them a short term problem for China, but they will find a way around them and make them ineffective. The WH is fighting will almost all major economies (apart SA, Israel, and brexit Britain), and it's going to end pretty badly. I will be very surprised if we don't get a market crack before end of next year. reply

  Fjolsvith 27 minutes ago [-]

  What'll really surprise you is when the central banking system is shut down. reply

  nosuchthing 13 minutes ago [-]

  Isn’t bitmain ramping down production already though? reply

  nraynaud 1 hour ago [-]

  The Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882, it's not like anything is new here, it's just the return of an old wave. reply

  fouc 1 hour ago [-]

  I'm guessing that Chinese companies are somewhat similar to statutory companies. I've heard that large Chinese companies have strong CCP oversight, with a party member involved that the CEO/founder has to defer to. So the question is - does it make sense for not-actually-public-companies from other countries to be listed on the U.S. stock exchange? It could be potentially misleading otherwise. reply

  thephyber 48 minutes ago [-]

  The Alibaba listing in the US isn't even for stock in the Chinese company. It's "stock" in a Cayman Islands holding company that doesn't have any guarantee for stockholders to have any rights in the Chinese parent company.[1] When the US president uses the bully pulpit to insult and threaten American-based multinational companies to suit his political / personal needs at the threat of a DoJ / SEC investigation or FAA license threat, how is that much different than a CCP official doing the same? I would argue it's not nearly as far as my fellow Americans would like to think it is. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/beware-alibaba-ipo-isnt-re... reply

  hos234 16 minutes ago [-]

  True but American don't like being pushed around while the Chinese are used to it. Which means the Bully is usually tolerated for much shorter durations than Chinese Bullies are. Churchill's rise and fall is a good example. reply

  nraynaud 57 minutes ago [-]

  Boeing is listed in more or less the same conditions. Google is listed and they have strong links with political parties. edit: the more direct answer is that the shares that are listed are free and publicly tradable, there exist other shares that are not available on the marketplace, like Facebook. But those shares are owned by state entities. reply

  dragonwriter 57 minutes ago [-]

  All it means for a company to be a public company is that it has publicly traded equity. A company that is listed on a stock exchange is, ipso facto, a public company. reply

  ainiriand 44 minutes ago [-]

  Lockheed Martin is in a similar situation. reply

  longcat 2 minutes ago [-]

  sadly the CCP don't play by any rules reply

  iron0013 47 minutes ago [-]

  Thread title does not match link title or content. reply

  riffraff 42 minutes ago [-]

  while the title is a bit more inflammatory than the article, it does say that delisting is being considered amongst other options. reply

  tibbydudeza 50 minutes ago [-]

  Time to bring out the duck and cover PSA videos ... US/UK vs China-Eurasian hegemony ... sounds like 1984 all over again. reply

  Fjolsvith 30 minutes ago [-]

  Good. The CCP pretty much owns every Chinese big company. And, they don't let people examine their books. Who's to say that all that American investment money isn't going into grossly or even fraudulently overvalued stock? reply

  Traster 27 minutes ago [-]

  The SEC. If your concern is that companies listed on US stock exchanges aren't correctly reporting their financials thats an issue for the SEC. It's not an issue for a blanket ban on Chinese companies being listed. Preventing Americans from being able to trade their investments easily on a reputable exchange isn't going to help them. reply

  panpanna 1 hour ago [-]

  How would this affect foreign pension funds that invest in NYSE? Would they just sell their Chineses stocks or move some investment to another country?? reply

  wruza 1 hour ago [-]

  How would it change costs of chinese goods (esp. hardware) for a third world, if implemented? Edit: added chinese reply

  basementcat 1 hour ago [-]

  Would that just mean the securities will just trade on pink sheets? Or would it be more likely that trading would migrate to a stock exchange in another country? reply

  stefano 1 hour ago [-]

  The London stock exchange would be an obvious candidate. reply

  cyborgx7 42 minutes ago [-]

  I heard people were moving away from doing stocks in London with Brexit looming. Is this no longer the case? reply

  riffraff 36 minutes ago [-]

  I know blackrock will delist quite a few EUR denominated ETFs[0] from the LSE, but what stocks actually mentioned leaving the LSE? [0] https://www.etfstream.com/news/8949_blackrock-delists-43-etf... reply

  schuke 1 hour ago [-]

  The Hong Kong Stock Exchange offered to buy LSE recently. I wonder if these are connected. reply

  asdf333 49 minutes ago [-]

  i would recommend the documentary "the china hustle" i was skeptical of the documentary before watching, but it is very good reply

  ackbar03 1 hour ago [-]

  Im sorry but just reading this almost feels like an April Fools joke, except sadly its September reply

  kick 1 hour ago [-]

  This seems reasonable, though the administration is likely doing it for the wrong reasons. Genuine question: Is sentiment more important than correctness, or is the opposite true? reply

  AsyncAwait 1 hour ago [-]

  This seems reasonable Does it? The U.S went to wars, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians to force open markets to its products, it has been preaching the free market mantra for decades. Regardless of everything else about China, they're now starting to make some actually compelling products so the U.S is acting out. I know the argument is that Chinese companies are just an extension of the state, but you could say the same in reverse about the U.S. I just assumed it's going to be more subtle than this, as an EU citizen, this sends a clear signal to me that the EU is only an 'ally' as long as it keeps buying American products. reply

  tolqen 1 hour ago [-]

  I know the argument is that Chinese companies are just an extension of the state, but you could say the same in reverse about the U.S What reply

  simion314 38 minutes ago [-]

  Also US started wars , military actions or changed the governments around the world,spied(maybe assassinations - I would apreciate someone if knows of a good example of this) , pushed international law for the interest of the big companies(aka for money) ex the banana wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars Also the government will intervene on the internal market too with money,subsidies, regulations,exceptions to help the big companies, in t he end the state and big companies are in a long relationship and there is no way you can deny this just ways you can try to find arguments that is fair and honest. reply

  AstralStorm 1 hour ago [-]

  The US state being an extension of US companies, thanks to all the lobbying, collusion and some underhanded moves. reply

  chrischen 1 hour ago [-]

  The US and citizens, even without direct stock, are beneficial owners of US companies because they contribute to the economy and livelihood of the local economy... that and National Security Letters. reply

  pinkfoot 1 hour ago [-]

  I think a good argument can be made that Lockheed Martin and Boeing are extensions of the USG. reply

  DollarGuru 40 minutes ago [-]

  Since the US gained global dominance post WW2 with the Marshall plan I don't think the US has ever really been that subtle about maintaining capitalist free market dominance. As you say, now that China is producing compelling products the US is flexing a bit more because it sees a serious non ally threat to US interests. The biggest shame of it is that it is so unfortunate that China isn't more politically and legally upstanding and morally respectable like Europe is. reply

  _iyig 17 minutes ago [-]

  I think you have cause and effect mixed up. The U.S. became a postwar economic superpower not because of the Marshall Plan, but because its chief competitors in Europe and the Pacific had utterly ruined one another’s economies after years of total war. Meanwhile, the United States’ manufacturing capacity had continued to expand. The Marshall Plan certainly exposed Europeans to more American products, especially Hollywood and pop culture. However, the majority of Marshall Plan funds were given as grants, not loans - ultimately, even to Germany. American capital did not come to own and exploit Western Europe. On the contrary, one of the Marshall Plan’s main effects was to reduce intra-Europe trade barriers, setting the stage for the E.E.C. and later, the European Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan reply

  DollarGuru 1 minute ago [-]

  I misworded my comment, I meant that the Marshall Plan was the first obvious act in their own corporate self interest. You can't sell anything to people with no money.

  ekc 1 hour ago [-]

  They are running rival concentration camps, I can't imagine the competition is welcome. reply

  _iyig 36 minutes ago [-]

  The U.S went to wars, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians to force open markets to its products This is a standard Marxist explanation for U.S. overseas military intervention. It is also largely wrong. Let’s look at the data. After 16 years of obscenely expensive American intervention in Iraq, that country exports more to China than the U.S., and imports more from China and Turkey together than from all other trade partners combined [0]. Likewise, Afghanistan today imports almost nothing from the U.S., but relies heavily on exports from China and Iran - two major U.S. competitors [1]. This is, of course, geographical common sense. If anything, recent U.S. wars have opened new markets for China, their number one geopolitical competitor. Looking further back, Germany, Japan, and South Korea have all developed into financially independent trading partners. Far from U.S. capital dominating Japan, Americans were afraid for quite some time that Japanese cars, electronics, and industrial equipment would completely displace their American equivalents. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iraq [2] http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?La... reply

  AsyncAwait 11 minutes ago [-]

  After 16 years of obscenely expensive American intervention in Iraq, that country exports more to China than the U.S. and imports more from China and Turkey together than from all other trade partners combined [0]. Likewise, Afghanistan today imports almost nothing from the U.S. but relies heavily on exports from China and Iran U.S military contractors got handsomely rich off both Afghanistan and Iraq and both nations are almost exclusively importing American military equipment. As for civilian items, the average income of an Afghan/Iraqi civilian is not enough to afford American products, but just because not every U.S economic sector benefited does not mean it wasn't worth it for the likes of Raytheon. As for Iran being very close to Iraq now, that certainly wasn't the plan, is just that there are other players in the world making moves and reacting to U.S. ones and sometimes they come out on top, particularly if they happen to understand the local political dynamic better, because they're actually from the area. reply

  OscarCunningham 7 minutes ago [-]

  Why do you think it's reasonable? reply

  nabla9 1 hour ago [-]

  Normally the US government has extraordinary power over China in financial sector. But Trump has alienated all traditional allies. Threat to exclude China turns into opportunity for others to exploit the situation. Euronext, London, Toronto, Tokyo and Hong Kong are in the position to gain relative to NASDAQ and NYSE. ps. I think the change of delisting happening is less than 5%. reply

  ainiriand 42 minutes ago [-]

  I do not understand why this comment is being downvoted. The OP is absolutely right about this. reply

  aritmo 1 hour ago [-]

  Looks like a proper shakedown. reply

  RaceWon 59 minutes ago [-]

  More trade leverage and it will also destroy Biden. Brilliant. reply

  iscrewyou 1 hour ago [-]

  Oh boy, this thread needs to be locked down. All the conversation has turned into political short outbursts and I only see one comment actually remotely talking about the topic. Even the thread title is not what the article headline is. Maybe the title is at fault for off-topic conversations. reply

  2019/09/28
• 
  

  Infoman

  繼續關於消費卡龍頭Visa的分析。如上周所述，銀聯雖然在發卡量遙遙領先，惟國際化不足。從收入結構來看，Visa今年預期卡服務收入97.5億元（美元．下同），數據處理102.75億元，國際處理費13.6億元，總收入213.85億元。地域分布則國際較美國稍多，45%與55%之比。Visa海外收入較本土還要多，其數據處理中心遍布美國盟國，Visa依仗巿佔率領先，在美國美元總值（GDV）計巿場份額高達61.2%，遠高於Mastercard、American Express和Discover的25.4%、11.2%和2.2%（2018年數字）。

  吸引FinTech公司合作

  為了使支付流程順暢改善體驗，直接加強顧客忠誠度，Visa今年完成對信用卡退款（chargeback，因欺詐交易等從發卡銀行向客戶退款的流程）方案供應商Verifi的收購。

  在科技創新方面，VisaNet和Visa B2B Connect是Visa兩大主要的非實體卡網絡。VisaNet是全球最大電子支付網絡，產品包括可以用智能手機或手錶輕觸形式支付的Visa Paywave、遠端線上快速支付Visa Checkout、點對點國際滙款Visa Direct。

  至於Visa B2B Connect旨在克服跨境企業支付領域的障礙，告知投資巿場Visa Inc.對區塊鏈（blockchain）的看重，使Visa股價有了面向未來（future proof）的特色。運作區塊鏈可以使雙方毋須再透過銀行或結算所（clearing houses）進行結算，在應用區塊鏈後，交易一經網絡認證，金額直接落到商戶手中，費用由此從現時的3%（一般信用卡收費）降至0.3%，因此，已有近七成銀行或財務機構着手研究區塊鏈技術，卻少有如Visa般已落實它的初步應用。

  在B2B Connect項目上同時與IBM、FIS和Bottleline合作，可見Visa作為龍頭支付企業對眾FinTech公司的吸引力。B2B Connect運用了致力於促進、保護和推進Linux和協同開發，非盈利技術貿易協會Linux Foundation的開放源代碼分散式賬本（open source distributed ledger technology，DLT），當中部分技術涉及區塊鏈，使網絡用家能夠就每一次處理的支付附上更多資料。B2B Connect全球交易通道自2016年10月的30個，迅速發展至今年6月的62個，並向2020年目標100個進發。

  盈利表現勝預期

  滲透率高促成Visa易於向科技聯盟引入領先技術的保證。Visa已與全球訊息技術服務公司Infosys簽訂合同，在網絡內注入下一代數碼服務，讓環球財務機構都可以快捷、安全、便宜地作跨境支付，使Visa網絡的潛在交易量倍增。

  得到廣大的科技公司支援網絡（科技戰略還包括印度B2B支付公司Paymate的投資、印度的士召車公司Ola的合作和拉美送餐公司Rappi的結盟），近來與日本LINE Pay Corporation的結盟也與區塊鏈技術有關，在Visa在區塊鏈應用上可以看出其略有小成。隨着中產化、數碼化、無現金化的趨勢，以及虛擬貨幣始終苦無出路，Visa的長遠增長應無懸念。

  為了提高品牌認知度、增加用卡量、爭取商戶電子類別的導入交易（routing transaction），Visa與同業一樣，與發卡機構簽訂長期合約，統稱為客戶激勵（client incentives），作為最主要的經營開支，與Visa季績有直接關係，客戶激勵國際化有功、巿務推廣延後，令客戶激勵比重從佔總收入22%至23%，調低到21.5%至22%。第三季客戶激勵15.46億元（或收入20.9%），遠低於17億元的巿場預估，可見Visa在新興巿場的定價權及國際巿場組合獲得良好優化。

  受惠服務收入的費率上升，較低的客戶用卡獎勵和國際化的地區業務貢獻，在Visa與JPMorgan Chase和巴西伊塔烏聯合銀行Itau成功續約後，管理層提升了第四季每股盈利預測，核心每股盈利分別為5.38元和6.22元，以周四收巿價175.65元計，即2019年和2020年巿盈率32.65倍和28.24倍，已達估值上限。

  第三季收入58.4億元，超出巿場預期的57.02億元，每股盈利1.37元，也勝巿場所料1.32元。國際業務為Visa的增長宏圖注入強心針，CEMEA（中歐、中東、非洲）第三季增長22%，拉美16%，不包括中國的亞太區10%，不計及英國的歐洲也有12%。美國支付上升9%，較對上一季度再多1%，除了因為復活節假期因素外，較高的消費者信貸增長也有功勞。非卡基準跨境收入（non-card based cross-border income）雖然是新業務，但表現理想，已成為長期增長的重要支柱，繼第三季固定貨幣計（constant currency）增加7%後，7月首3個星期再按年升8%，長遠看大有可能成為主要收入來源。

  增長佳估值偏高

  Visa雖好，但股價升勢猛於同業，或許令人卻步。從年初起，Visa股價飆31.4%，高於美國運通21.8%，也較標普500指數佳，支付股熱炒，投資於它們已逐漸失去安全邊際。

  據分析師預期，至2021年美國支付量每年升8%，當中信用卡7%，而預付卡大於9%，處理交易收入增11%，撇除外滙因素的跨境交易量（FX-neutral cross-border volume）才增8%，為此以33倍巿盈率買年均15%增長更是不划算，計及經濟槓桿增長，依然不足。

  概而言之，Visa龍頭優勢明顯，在國際化加上規模擁明顯的優勢，因科技領先、數據技術改造和客服質素提升，強勢或得以維持，惟該板塊熱炒，該股現價明顯偏高。

  CFA、FCPA、財務總監

  專頁：facebook.com/yiuwinghim

  2019/09/27
• 
  

  Infoman

  過去三個多月，香港出現兩個極端，一是無比高尚，一是無比邪惡。兩者都大出我意料之外，是我居港70多年，基於對香港社會和香港人的了解，所不可想像的。

  高尚的是為自由民主法治而抗爭的年輕人。他們的智慧和勇敢，為香港未來而不惜犧牲的精神，決不像我過去所認識的不涉政治、非常現實甚而是懂得計算的一般香港人。

  墮落的是膜拜中國絕對權力的林鄭政權的奴才與鷹犬們。他們的兇殘、暴戾、虛偽、無恥，也決不是我過去所認識的、曾經接受過英國文明制度洗禮、即使惡行也仍然有底線的香港公職人員、從政者特別是專業警務人員。

  為反送中運動提供義務法律服務的資深律師黃國桐前兩天出席一個台北論壇時說，「當你真的去接觸這些年輕人，看到每一張被欺負的面孔，你們也會哭，他們沒有私利，請不要侮辱他們，這些年輕人在討論的是，可以承受犧牲多少、可以進去（監牢）多少年、需不需要養家，他們都寫了遺囑。我以香港人為榮，我從來沒有這麼愛香港，在香港年輕人身上看到人性的美德、勇敢。」

  高尚一端讓人看到：在人鏈活動中，即使稍有參與，都會見到前線的年輕人的俊美勇毅善良的面容；在多項抗爭活動中，無論是組織人鏈，以極短時間眾籌在西方各大報刊登政治廣告，各次民間記者會的優異、坦誠的語言，或在遇到防暴警進攻時，以肉身擋住警察讓其他示威者可以安全離去，其智仁勇都表露無遺。

  邪惡一端讓人看到：警黑勾結的7.21無差別毒打市民，三個月來無數次警察對示威者如禽獸般撲打，8.31封鎖太子地鐵站內不為人知的暴行，是一次又一次越來越過份的獸性發作。近日傳出新屋嶺的種種虐待、侮辱甚而強暴被捕者的行為，連續出現的警方稱為「無可疑」卻露出許多疑點的自殺、浮屍，讓人合理懷疑香港已進入無法無天的暴政時代，被捕者遭受到不僅是殺害，而且是虐殺。這些施暴者是香港人嗎？香港人怎麼會殘暴得如此沒有底線？

  傳言說，香港警隊已經滲入了大批中國的武警、公安，他們對原來的警隊作出了暴虐的示範；傳言說，靠近邊境的新屋嶺有秘密通道將人犯甚至屍體送往中國大陸；傳言說，香港警隊已經不是由政務司宰制而是由中聯辦指揮。這些傳言儘管沒有確實證據，但政權不肯公開地鐵站CCTV資訊，打死不肯接受獨立調查，使一切猜疑都變得合理了。

  從林鄭特首，到一眾站出來現世的高官，以至警方記者會的發言人，哪一個不是講話吞吞吐吐，獐頭鼠目，猥猥瑣瑣，不似人形？

  相由心生，抗爭者與掌權者在樣貌上也都是兩極。

  連番出現的「自殺者」有許多疑點，這些疑點很可能是當局的故意疏失，刻意給社會製造白色恐怖的氛圍，以嚇阻年輕的示威者。如港大學生所言，今日的香港已經不需要送中條例，因為香港已經淪為同中國一樣的警察城市，恐怖特區也。

  年輕人會害怕嗎？當然會。但會因此改變觀念，放棄抗爭，當馴服的順民嗎？絕不可能。抗爭仍然會以多種方式持續。兩極的香港人已經不是以前的香港人了，香港也因此回不到從前，香港的前景是：或者走向無比高尚的一端，或者屈服於無比墮落的罪惡一端，邁向一國一制。 http://www.facebook.com/mrleeyee

  李怡

  2019/09/22
• 
  

  Infoman

  你周圍的人為何年輕可以短暫的激情和理想，很快就變成赤色或藍營的思想化石？其中多個原因，豐富得可以寫三十篇博士論文。

  三千年文化基因，加「五四」之後再入魔道，二十世紀西方文明的新挑戰來了，同樣是東南亞國家，日本畧生了一點挫折，很快找到了康莊的出路，中國人則至今還在GDP、馬克思、毛澤東之間團團轉而鬼打牆。

  若一個古老的民族，連二十世紀那一課，補考多次，公認仍未合格，現在，世界進入AI和網絡的二十一世紀，中國利用西方高科技、自家的廉價工廠，加向全球派錢，企圖硬生生的跳級挑戰，由二十世紀的一個屢教不改、兼有學能遲緩症候的不合格的學生，想做二十一世紀的全球導師。

  這就是當今世界局勢緊張的源頭。

  中國文化基因出現什麼問題？千頭萬緒之中，首先看看文學。中國古典文學，主題不出文人之山水閒情、離友人別父母之孝恩友情。蘇東坡的赤壁賦、陶淵明的田園詩、杜甫流落江南逢李龜年。然後就是木蘭辭和紅樓夢。來來去去，主題思想就是這幾本。

  中國文學缺乏對人性邪惡的認識。西洋文學在這方面絕對高一籌。莎士比亞的「李察三世」、米爾頓的「失樂園」、奧威爾的「動物農莊」和「一九八四」、尤內斯庫的「犀牛」、卡夫卡的「審判」和「蛻變」。且不說杜斯妥也夫斯基和契訶夫，波特萊爾和拜倫，西洋文學經典，上接但丁的神曲和聖經，一部接一部，如電光、如雷殛，讀之如靈魂之洗滌，如煉獄之去來。

  讀中國文學，喟嘆與唏噓有之，傷情與悲哀有餘，包括紅樓夢至黛玉葬花和寶玉出家，據說已是佛道慧覺之極致，恕亦無此震撼。

  聽到「黃河協奏曲」而集體熱淚盈眶者，夏蟲不可與語冰，你無法、也不必，向這種生靈推介「唐璜」或「安魂曲」。正如在地產方面，香港的北角居民，不可能想過在紐約中央公園古根漢博物館和西九十街之間地段，坐擁秋色，有一座帶陽台的千呎小公寓。

  一切只是眼界。不同則話不投機。所謂的藍絲、廢老、大媽大叔，留在自己的那個圍牆牢固的圈子裏，自有其進食和唱K之樂趣。

  什麼黑警暴徒、示威遊行有人派錢。連文學和音樂之修養層次，幾十年前，面對上一代，我早已經學會省一口氣。今日如此低層次之中國式紛爭，又何須費唇舌爭論。

  要記住人生極短。此刻但只記得，十月到了，賞楓該去何處？京都嵐山，太多喧嘩之某國遊客，寧願俗一些，追尋李察基爾（我喜歡這個演員）在低成本電影「紐約深秋」裏一地橘燒紅燎脆烈的浮花。

  2019/09/22
• 
  

  Infoman

  The 10 hottest remote work opportunities—and the companies hiring for them right now

  Jennifer Liu Published Sun, Sep 22 2019 10:15 AM EDT Better work-life balance, improved productivity, eliminating a dreadful commute — there are plenty of reasons people are drawn to working from home on a flexible schedule. And the stats prove remote work is becoming the new normal: A 2016 Gallup report found that 43% of employees work away from their team members at least some of the time, and one in five employees works remotely full-time.

  The cohort of those who work from anywhere completely are taking on more responsibility and earning higher pay. Nearly a quarter of remote workers earn over $100,000 a year, according to a report from Owl Labs, compared to 7% of people who report into an office. More often than not, these are experienced workers in leadership positions.

  Employers across industries are also recognizing the need to offer more flexible work arrangements, with many Fortune 500 companies upping the ante with the work perk to attract talent.

  For desk-bound workers curious about what types of remote work opportunities are out there, FlexJobs analyzed its database of recent company and user profile information to identify what job categories appeared in their users’ profiles most.

  Some roles, like professional assistants or customer service representatives, might be more expected in the remote working world. But those with skills in IT, accounting and marketing could also be in good company landing a fully remote gig, the job listings site suggests.

  Here are their most popular flex-work jobs, plus the top companies searching for remote talent within the field.

  Common job titles: administrative assistant, executive assistant, scheduler

  2019/09/22
• 
  

  Infoman

  How a 34-year-old turned $200 into a company he sold for over $10 million in a matter of months

  Zack Guzman Published Mon, Apr 16 2018 11:41 AM EDTUpdated Mon, Apr 16 2018 12:46 PM EDT Thirteen years ago as a broke college student, Trevor Chapman took a job selling pest control door-to-door to make extra money. Eventually, he launched his own sales operation — a solar panel installation company that quickly expanded across three states. But two years in, something was missing — and it wasn’t a shortage of time spent in the office.

  “There came a point in time when I had to say, ‘I’m in my mid-thirties, am I willing to wait until some of my kids are out of the house ... [to enjoy] my life to the extent I imagined I would?’” Chapman recalls.

  His answer became the impetus to spend $200 launching LDSman.com, an online store offering a strange assortment of items sourced from China (Kevlar pants, charcoal toothpaste, inflatable lounge chairs, fidget spinners and more).

  Within three months, Chapman went from putting in 12-hour days at his solar company to spending just an hour and a half each week on his site by the time he hit his first $1 million in sales. Then, in 2018, he sold LDSman, along with his corresponding e-commerce logistics companies, to a holding company in a deal worth over $10 million.

  Trevor Chapman, now 34, founded his e-commerce site LDSman.com to be able to spend more time with his family.

  Trevor Chapman |

  The experience convinced Chapman e-commerce offers the best opportunity for anyone to take control of their time and make money, even for the inexperienced just looking to start something, like he was.

  How it all started

  Unhappy running his solar panel business and seeing no path to change there, Chapman came across a quote from Warren Buffett: “If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”

  If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.

  Warren Buffett

  CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

  Chapman figured the best way to earn passive income would be through e-commerce. It’s big business: Global online retail sales grew by 20 percent from $1.9 trillion to $2.3 trillion in 2015, according to a 2016 Ecommerce Foundation report.

  But before he gave any real thought to leaving his day job, he wanted to see for himself if it was possible to make a living selling things online. “It requires work like everything else, but you don’t have to risk your full-time job to do this,” the 34-year-old says.

  Chapman spent a few hours a night on the project, and start-up costs were minimal, about $200 he says. He bought a domain name for $2.99 a year and set up a Shopify account via a $14 trial. The most expensive thing was when he started spending $100 a day on a Facebook advertising budget. LDSman.com went live on Nov. 11, 2016.

  Day One, Chapman lost money.

  At first, he was selling the wrong product. “My initial thing was that I was going to sell Mormon artwork online. That was probably up for 10 hours,” he says. “I realized that what I was peddling online was not compelling enough to drive traffic.”

  To refocus, Chapman used a lesson from his solar panel operation: When selling door-to-door, the product has to be intriguing enough for people to invite you into their homes, Chapman says. “Same thing online — to pull someone away from their friend feed, you’ve got to be offering something interesting.”

  Out went Mormon art and in came inflatable lounge chairs, a popular staple among online stores selling viral products. Sourcing from Chinese manufacturers on Alibaba and Aliexpress, Chapman found other products for $4.99 that he could resell for $59.99. To avoid the cost and risk of taking on inventory, he would set up arrangements with suppliers (over the popular Chinese messaging service WeChat) to have his orders shipped directly from their warehouses in China to the customer in the U.S. — a practice known as drop shipping.

  “That’s the best way to test a product to see whether or not it’s actually going to sell,” he says.

  And drop shipping had other benefits: Through a program called ePacket, an arrangement between the United States Postal Service and foreign postal operators designed to encourage e-commerce, it was actually cheaper for LDSman to ship from China, albeit with a slight lag time. Shipping an external iPhone zoom lens from Shanghai, for example, cost $2.29 — more than $5 cheaper than the cost to ship the same package domestically.

  Making money while he slept

  As orders streamed in while Chapman slept, he realized he was on to something. “I made money my second day and every day after that,” he says. Just two weeks in, he had his first $10,000 day.

  The revenue allowed Chapman to hire out time-consuming customer service work to a team of freelancers in the Philippines. Chapman says he pays each team member $700 a month (low by U.S. standards but notably higher than the $400 monthly average a family in the Philippines earns). He also boosted his budget for Facebook advertisements, focusing more money on the ads that attracted the most purchases.

  Nearly two months in, the woes of drop shipping caught up with him. The vendor in China he paid $80,000 to supply and ship inflatable lounges swapped out the approved product for a cheaper alternative. When customers started complaining, LDSman replaced about 1,500 bags. Even so, Chapman says he’s bounced back from the experience to reach a 48 percent total pretax profit margin.

  Chapman’s warehouse now not only houses his own products, but also those he’s importing on behalf of others.

  Like any good businessperson, Chapman also turned the setback into an opportunity: He bought a 9,000-square-foot warehouse in Salt Lake City and hired a five-person fulfillment staff. It’s a move that enabled LDSman to take the business to the next level but something Chapman concedes isn’t for everyone, given the capital investment and commitment. Chapman quit the solar panel business, and with the warehouse and staff in place, was spending just over an hour a week working on the site and updating Facebook ads.

  Shortly after day 92, when the site brought in that first $1 million in sales, Utah-based VC firm Clarke Capital came calling, interested in adding Chapman’s e-commerce company to its portfolio. Chapman says he turned down a buyout offer in 2017 worth around $3 million to maintain independence and to have the income and time to pursue his own projects.

  Chapman, who once worked with the software company behind Israel’s defense system, says Facebook’s advertising data is alarmingly more robust.

  In early 2018, however, Chapman agreed to sell LDSman and his logistics company that specializes in importing good from countries around the world in a deal worth over $10 million with outside investors. The deal also included selling Academy of Arbitrage, the educational site Chapman founded to walk others through getting started in e-commerce.

  While a few of the people in his online courses have come close to replicating his initial success, the most common sales total at the one-month mark in one of his early classes was under $12,000. “As with anything,” Chapman says, “you get out of it what you put in.” His own mother, Chapman notes, was able to build up a site of her own after she followed his lessons despite not knowing anything about e-commerce.

  It’s a full-circle finish that Chapman sees as a sign of just how revolutionary the opportunities provided by a globalized and digital economy actually are.

  “The data on each individual is astounding,” he says about the information he can cull from advertising on Facebook. Before, this kind of consumer targeting would have cost hundreds of millions of dollars, says Chapman. ”[O]nly companies like Target could engage in this kind of marketing,” he says in reference to Target’s controversial marketing tactics which targeted expecting mothers with baby product ads based on their changing purchase habits, even before some were aware they were pregnant.

  Now, “In a month you can be more powerful than Target ... and you can do that online,” says Chapman. “That’s the power of e-commerce.”

  — Video by Zack Guzman.

  Want more side hustle inspiration? Watch all new episodes of Wednesdays at 10P ET/PT on CNBC.

  See also:

  How to start a business with less than $1,000, according to two certified hustlers

  This is an updated version of a previously published story.

  2019/09/22
• 
  

  Infoman

  10 low-cost franchises you can start with $15,000 or less and reap a six-figure salary

  Published Sat, Sep 21 2019 10:30 AM EDTUpdated an hour ago ONE TIME USE: Boss Baby movie still From the movie “Boss Baby.” Source: DreamWorks Animation According to the International Franchise Association, almost 4% of all small businesses in the U.S. are franchises. It’s an industry that generates more than $ 2.1 trillion and employs 18 million Americans.

  One of the most appealing reasons to buy a franchise is that you’re buying a proven concept rather than starting a business from scratch. The operating details, marketing plan and advertising campaigns all have been developed and tested by the franchisor, and often you can connect with numerous other franchisees to gauge what it takes to be successful.

  All that convenience, however, can come with a hefty price tag. To open a Taco Bell or McDonald’s franchise, for example, you have to have at least $750,000 in liquid assets. To open a KFC, your net worth has to be at least $1.5 million. The average initial franchise investment is $250,000, excluding real estate, says the IFA, and average royalty fees paid by franchisees range from 3% to 6% of monthly gross sales.

  Fortunately, there are other franchise choices that cost a lot less to start and still offer you the chance to be your own boss. The Franchise Business Review, a leading market research firm that sort of acts as the “Consumer Reports” for the franchise industry, recently identified 10 low-cost franchises that let you get started for $15,000 or less.

  “Many people think you need hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a franchise business, but the reality is that there are some great low-cost franchises that can provide a very high return on your investment in the long run,” said Eric Stites, CEO and managing director of the Franchise Business Review. He added that some of the greatest opportunities are in franchises most people have never heard of before.

  Among them is Image One, a janitorial cleaning service.

  After a 20-year career as a sales manager for an electric tool company, Bob Caramusa opened his Image One franchise in Chicago in 2010 as a way to own his own business and to make some extra money.

  “I have a wife and three kids, so the price was very important to me,” he said. For $15,000 Caramusa says he bought “a complete turnkey business.” The investment included equipment, training, ongoing support from the franchisor and two accounts to get started. “The financial risk was pretty minimal, so I knew I could make my money back even if I didn’t stay with the business,” he says.

  Caramusa did stay, quitting his corporate job in 2015 to work on Image One full-time. Today the business is on track to book revenues of $1 million by the end of this year. Said Caramusa: “I wish I would have done this the day I graduated from college.”

  According to the Franchise Business Review’s Franchising@WORK 2019 Employee Engagement & Compensation Report, 90% of corporate franchise employees rated their job as “rewarding & satisfying,” with 56% responding “strongly agree” and another 34% responding “agree.”

  That’s good news, especially with more Americans looking for alternative ways to make money, realizing they don’t have enough in the bank for retirement.

  “Franchising is about to experience a significant growth spurt over the next decade,” said Stites. “Investing in a franchise business could be a great way for many people to supplement their retirement, especially with some really great, low-cost opportunities available that can provide income, flexibility and long-term equity.”

  So if you aspire to be your own boss but don’t want to break the bank and build a business from scratch, these low-cost options may be for you.

  (Figures reported are from each company’s 2018 Financial Disclosure Document.)

  Dream Vacations

  If you love to travel and want to make a living at it, Dream Vacations might be the right franchise. Started in 1991, the home-based travel agency specializes in both land and cruise vacations and counts more than 1,200 franchisees today. Getting started costs $9,800 and includes six days of training at company headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, website design, invoice and booking software and ongoing support on how to build your business. Alex Greene started her Dream Vacations franchise in Fountain Hills, Arizona, in 2017 without any travel agency experience and is on track to book more than $1 million in sales by the end of this year.

  Complete Weddings + Events

  Premium: wedding couple Weddings are a $72-billion-a year industry, and this franchise lets you own a piece of that. For $10,000 franchisees get training and ongoing support to offer brides and grooms help with everything from photographers, DJs, videographers and lighting. Complete Weddings + Events teaches franchisees how to hire these professionals, what to charge and keeps them current on the price of weddings in their area. The company founder, Jerry Maas, was a DJ at the first wedding for Complete Weddings + Events in 1974 and began franchising in 1983.

  Showhomes Home Staging

  Reusable: Home staging - Stage for age Image source: Andie Day of SHIFT Legacy

  If you’ve ever watched HGTV and marveled at all those beautifully decorated homes, Showhomes Home Staging could be the franchise for you. The company takes vacant and other homes for sale and revamps them with temporary furnishings and accessories so that they look neat, clean, and stylish.

  A survey by Coldwell Banker Real Estate found that staged homes spent half the time on the market than ones that weren’t staged and sold for more than 6% above the asking price. Potential franchisees can get started for $10,000 which includes in-person training at the company’s Nashville headquarters, proprietary CRM software, website creation, hosting, and SEO, and a one-on-one business coach.

  TSS Photography

  School and sports team photos is the heart of TSS Photography. The company has been around since 1983 and began franchising the following year, so it has a solid history of helping people start and run their own businesses. The cost is $10,500, and for that franchisees get photography training, sales and business development and help with day-to-day operations. One of the extra advantages of this company besides its low cost is that TSS doesn’t charge franchisees a standard monthly royalty — rather, they make their money on the markup of products and printing — so the franchisee keeps more of what they make.

  Cruise Planners

  Blue World Voyages cruise ship Blue World Voyages cruise ship Blue World Voyages This vacation planning franchise is aimed at folks who want to work from home and have a passion for travel. Cruise Planners franchisees sell full-service vacation packages, including cruises, land-based vacations, trip insurance and car rentals. The Coral Gables, Florida-based company was started by veteran travel agent Michelle Fee in 1994 and began franchising in 1999. Getting started costs $10,995 and includes a six-day in-person training course in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, ongoing home office support and $1 million in insurance.

  Motto Mortgage

  Shopping for a mortgage is typically one of the less pleasant aspects of buying a home. Motto Mortgage aims to change that. Launched in 2016, the franchise connects loan originators and real estate agents to create a seamless, one-stop experience for homebuyers. Each office is independently owned, and potential franchisees can get started for $12,000. This includes a three-day broker-training program at company headquarters in Denver that covers various mortgage products and services. It also gives franchisees access to a design center where they can produce marketing materials.

  Help-U-Sell Real Estate

  Help-U-Sell real estate franchise Most real estate brokers charge a commission, ranging from 3% to 6% or more, to sell your home based on the sale price. Help-U-Sell Real Estate, established in 1976, has a different playbook. It was the first fee-for-service real estate franchise in the country, meaning that it charges a flat fee for its services to list, market and help close on the sale. Franchises cost $15,000 to get started and include training, front- and back-office support, marketing supplies and ongoing coaching.

  Image One

  h/o cleaning desk Who knew cleaning could be lucrative. Image One is a commercial cleaning service started in 2010. It started franchising the following year and now has 103 franchises across the country. For $15,000, franchisees get training in the proper commercial cleaning methods, equipment, cleaning supplies, billing and paperwork, money collecting, marketing, and on-going support. The company also offers help with obtaining insurance and discounts on additional supplies and equipment.

  Rhea Lana’s

  One time use: hand out Rhea Lana's This eponymous children’s clothing consignment franchise was started in 1997 and has now expanded to 22 states. For $15,000 it offers potential franchisees the chance to organize large consignment events in the territory they purchase. Rhea Lana’s provides franchisees training, its proprietary inventory management technology, bar-coding programs and website design. The company claims its franchisees work two to three months a year on a consignment event in a mid-sized market and make as much as they would at a full-time job.

  United Country Real Estate

  As one of the oldest real estate franchising organizations in the country, United Country Real Estate specializes in country, rural and lifestyle properties. Rather than focus solely on where a buyer wants to live, the United Country approach advertises a lifestyle, whether that’s small-town living, ranching, farming, waterfront or hunting and fishing. For $15,000, franchisees get a yearlong office onboarding training program, live webinar training sessions and an on-demand library of training tools.

  2019/09/22
• 
  

  Infoman

  社交媒體力量雷霆萬鈞，是真正能夠反映民意，可用於溝通的平台。在Facebook上收到親愛的幾位讀者反饋後，本欄決定連續兩周分析一下American Express的最大對手──支付巿場中最主流的公司Visa。

  Visa源自1958年美國銀行旗下一個信用卡計劃，當時的客服研究團隊領袖Joseph Williams構想出全功能、跨銀行的消費卡產品，在西岸迅速流行；由於它較同業對消費者更為友善（如Diners Club用戶必須每期繳清消費）和更有策略地達到規模效應（當時使用者達25萬名），使它迅速成長，並在1976年統一美國銀行旗下發行卡的名稱（如Carte Bleue、Sumitomo Card、BankAmericard）為Visa，海軍藍、白和金色是它的標誌。

  金融創新中長期挑戰有限

  Visa獲利模式簡單，它不做任何有關消費卡的融資、發行或行政（如設定費率），卻一味提供Visa品牌給各金融機構出卡，通過它位處全球不同角落（如英國、美國、新加坡）的加密數據中心，Visa有能力每秒進行千億次計的運算，同時處理3萬宗交易。

  金融創新是Visa的主要的長遠威脅。作為取代現金交易的最主要渠道，對它的最正面挑戰來自虛擬貨幣，而眾多貨幣中，財雄勢大而已有用戶基礎的非Facebook的Libra莫屬（也有人因其創辦人名字戲稱該幣為Zuckercoin），但從目前發展，以及金融管理機構的口徑來說，似乎不足為慮。

  首先是黑天鵝事件過多，令金融系統是否穩定引發爭論，不利於嶄新金融產品的誕生。本周財經新聞最重要的除了有美國聯儲局減息0.25厘以外，就是回購利率（repo rate）狂飆：正常情況下，回購利率介乎聯邦基金利率即2厘至2.25厘（減息前）的區間，但周一（16日）升至5厘後，周二更一度暴升至10厘，是金融海嘯以來從未見過的水平。聯邦基金利率是銀行之間無抵押的隔夜拆息，利率偏低而穩定，是確保運作順暢，回購利率波動的衝擊，確實令現今金融中人甚為震撼。

  沒有海嘯級的人為失誤卻錄得如此激烈的震盪，巿場在震驚之中檢討原因，主要是認為銀行存放在聯儲局的貨幣巿場備用金不足，其次就是美國財政部在聯儲局的現金結餘也偏低（只有4000億美元），銀行於聯儲局內的儲備金（reserve）是否足夠只是經驗之談，本年中1.3萬億美元的水平，相比行之有效的1萬億美元下限指引（據紐約聯儲銀行Market Operations and Market Analysis主管Lorie Logan於2017年資料），應算充足，但9月15日是美國企業的繳稅日，公司們為了在交稅日前夕取得流動性，令銀根大為收緊，缺錢情況的嚴重，甚至連早前美國國庫券售得540億美元回籠也於事無補。經此一役，各國對現有金融巿場穩定性更是存在懷疑，Libra等新金融產品處於傳統體制以外，更易被人置於不理。

  另一方面，缺乏公開、透明的清算角色，使虛擬貨幣難獲政界的支持。繼美國總統特朗普於7月時說Libra不可靠（based on thin air）、過於波動（難得出自他的口！）後，9月12日法國財長Bruno Le Maire則因消費者風險和政府的財政主權原因禁止Libra。

  Libra在歐洲和美國遭到連番打擊，卻想不到連一直歡迎金融創新的新加坡也請Libra吃閉門羹。新加坡金融管理局主席Ravi Menon對非官方發行的貨幣深表疑慮，指出人類貨幣的3000年歷史中，私人發鈔沒有好下場，雖表明沒有數據認定Facebook也將失敗，暗指它不會有好下場的意味卻極濃。在FANG之中，偏偏Facebook在近年又屢屢陷入私隱危機（最近智能電視傳送私密數據也與Facebook和Netflix有關），貨幣結算要麼要有政府的監管、要麼需要經歷數年風浪，以至百年基業所支撐（如銀行），Facebook或任何後來者兩者皆無，經驗更是全無，可見金融創新對Visa的中長期挑戰，十分有限。

  受經濟寒流衝擊較銀聯輕

  直至2017年底數據顯示，全球支付卡有150億張，巿場份額中以銀聯明顯領先（44%），Visa（21%）、Mastercard（16%）、還有各國當地網絡（13%）和其他（7%）。內地幅員廣闊，巿場規模世界第一，固然在數據累積、大數據科技創新上獨佔鰲頭，在AI、機械學習和人臉辨識、智能城巿方面享有優勢，甚至是領導世界（待遇不比美國矽谷差但機遇處處，令京滬深等大城巿坐擁世界一流的IT工程師）。

  然而，近來全球的投資熱情冷卻也以內地最為明顯（Dealogic顯示，中國對外投資從2016年的高峰2173.9億美元，急瀉至本年的353.5億美元），Visa業務較銀聯環球化得多，所受的寒流衝擊自然較輕微，加上發達國家與Visa建立多年關係，使其壟斷地位牢不可破。

  由此可見，巿場風險愈大，對Visa非但沒有損害，還為它破除了發展的障礙，得到強手加盟，並加強了人們對固有系統的支持，使Visa成為逆巿中的得益者。下周將講Visa的策略和巿場估值。

  CFA、FCPA、財務總監

  專頁：facebook.com/yiuwinghim

  2019/09/22
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  Infoman

  Quantum Mechanics - Philosophical implications

  Main article: Interpretations of quantum mechanics Since its inception, the many counter-intuitive aspects and results of quantum mechanics have provoked strong philosophical debates and many interpretations. Even fundamental issues, such as Max Born's basic rules concerning probability amplitudes and probability distributions, took decades to be appreciated by society and many leading scientists. Richard Feynman once said, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."[72] According to Steven Weinberg, "There is now in my opinion no entirely satisfactory interpretation of quantum mechanics."[73]

  The Copenhagen interpretation – due largely to Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg – remains most widely accepted amongst physicists, some 75 years after its enunciation. According to this interpretation, the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics is not a temporary feature which will eventually be replaced by a deterministic theory, but instead must be considered a final renunciation of the classical idea of "causality." It is also believed therein that any well-defined application of the quantum mechanical formalism must always make reference to the experimental arrangement, due to the conjugate nature of evidence obtained under different experimental situations.

  Albert Einstein, himself one of the founders of quantum theory, did not accept some of the more philosophical or metaphysical interpretations of quantum mechanics, such as rejection of determinism and of causality. He is famously quoted as saying, in response to this aspect, "God does not play with dice".[74] He rejected the concept that the state of a physical system depends on the experimental arrangement for its measurement. He held that a state of nature occurs in its own right, regardless of whether or how it might be observed. In that view, he is supported by the currently accepted definition of a quantum state, which remains invariant under arbitrary choice of configuration space for its representation, that is to say, manner of observation. He also held that underlying quantum mechanics there should be a theory that thoroughly and directly expresses the rule against action at a distance; in other words, he insisted on the principle of locality. He considered, but rejected on theoretical grounds, a particular proposal for hidden variables to obviate the indeterminism or acausality of quantum mechanical measurement. He considered that quantum mechanics was a currently valid but not a permanently definitive theory for quantum phenomena. He thought its future replacement would require profound conceptual advances, and would not come quickly or easily. The Bohr-Einstein debates provide a vibrant critique of the Copenhagen Interpretation from an epistemological point of view. In arguing for his views, he produced a series of objections, the most famous of which has become known as the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox.

  John Bell showed that this EPR paradox led to experimentally testable differences between quantum mechanics and theories that rely on added hidden variables. Experiments have been performed confirming the accuracy of quantum mechanics, thereby demonstrating that quantum mechanics cannot be improved upon by addition of hidden variables.[75] Alain Aspect's initial experiments in 1982, and many subsequent experiments since, have definitively verified quantum entanglement. By the early 1980s, experiments had shown that such inequalities were indeed violated in practice – so that there were in fact correlations of the kind suggested by quantum mechanics. At first these just seemed like isolated esoteric effects, but by the mid-1990s, they were being codified in the field of quantum information theory, and led to constructions with names like quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation.[76]

  Entanglement, as demonstrated in Bell-type experiments, does not, however, violate causality, since no transfer of information happens. Quantum entanglement forms the basis of quantum cryptography, which is proposed for use in high-security commercial applications in banking and government.

  The Everett many-worlds interpretation, formulated in 1956, holds that all the possibilities described by quantum theory simultaneously occur in a multiverse composed of mostly independent parallel universes.[77] This is not accomplished by introducing some "new axiom" to quantum mechanics, but on the contrary, by removing the axiom of the collapse of the wave packet. All of the possible consistent states of the measured system and the measuring apparatus (including the observer) are present in a real physical – not just formally mathematical, as in other interpretations – quantum superposition. Such a superposition of consistent state combinations of different systems is called an entangled state. While the multiverse is deterministic, we perceive non-deterministic behavior governed by probabilities, because we can only observe the universe (i.e., the consistent state contribution to the aforementioned superposition) that we, as observers, inhabit. Everett's interpretation is perfectly consistent with John Bell's experiments and makes them intuitively understandable. However, according to the theory of quantum decoherence, these "parallel universes" will never be accessible to us. The inaccessibility can be understood as follows: once a measurement is done, the measured system becomes entangled with both the physicist who measured it and a huge number of other particles, some of which are photons flying away at the speed of light towards the other end of the universe. In order to prove that the wave function did not collapse, one would have to bring all these particles back and measure them again, together with the system that was originally measured. Not only is this completely impractical, but even if one could theoretically do this, it would have to destroy any evidence that the original measurement took place (including the physicist's memory). In light of these Bell tests, Cramer (1986) formulated his transactional interpretation[78] which is unique in providing a physical explanation for the Born rule.[79] Relational quantum mechanics appeared in the late 1990s as the modern derivative of the Copenhagen Interpretation.

  2019/09/21
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  Infoman

  台灣總統選舉將於明年1月舉行，距今還不到4個月。這次選舉各方注目，尤其是太平洋區內中國和美國兩個大國，更是極為關切。因為，最後是民進黨蔡英文苦戰成功連任，抑或國民黨韓國瑜一舉翻身政權更替，任何一個結果，都足以影響中美在區內的戰略部署。

  特朗普入主白宮後，提出嶄新的印度洋──太平洋的「印太戰略」，說得清楚一些，印太戰略其實就是對付中國的戰略。印度洋西接波斯灣，東連南中國海，這是中國的海上生命線：石油從中東地區運往中國，先經印度洋，之後穿越馬六甲海峽進入南海，然後北上東海到華東沿岸地區。美國把以往的亞太戰略版圖擴大到印太，顯然準備一旦美中交惡，美國海軍可以提早在印度洋布防，截住中國從波斯灣過來的海路運輸，給予致命一擊。這也可以客觀說明，10年來中國傾力在南海建立軍事基地，又提出「九段線」之說，要把美國勢力趕出這一區域，以免南海航運被捏斷後，出現能源短缺孤立無援。

  台倘染紅 美圍堵斷纜

  雖然把戰略範疇擴大到印度洋，美國對中國的主要制衡戰略，仍以東海及南海為主體，這也是上世紀五十年代冷戰爆發後，美國60多年來在西太平洋的主要戰略。如今，美國在西太平洋沿用當年的「扇形戰略」，攤開地圖：美國在西太平洋的圍堵戰線，北起阿留申群島，經朝鮮半島的南韓，之後是日本，再往南走是沖繩、台灣，再南是菲律賓，之後進入東南亞一帶。另一條戰線，則是從美國西岸出發，往西經過太平洋艦隊總部夏威夷，之後到沖繩。這兩條線，一是從北而南，另一是由西而東，兩條線的接合線，便是沖繩以及附近的台灣一線。

  沖繩駐有大量美軍，嘉手納空軍基地是美國在遠東地區最大的空軍基地，有逾200架軍機；沖繩亦是美國海軍陸戰隊第三遠征軍駐地。戰機從沖繩起飛到台灣只要數十分鐘，所以美國精銳戰機F22及F35先後駐防沖繩，正正說明沖繩的戰略價值。至於台灣，位置掛在沖繩之南，地緣戰略價值寶貴，既是正面對着中國華東華南人口稠密的經濟發達地區，也是第一島鏈的核心成分，更是美國防守夏威夷的預警門戶，監視中國經東海進出的海空軍動向。

  美國二戰後佔領沖繩，六十年代末才交還日本，可是沖繩至今幾乎仍是等同美國殖民地，美國軍機呼嘯飛越民居之上無日無之。從戰略上來說，沖繩是美國軍事重地，不會輕易撤軍，而沖繩與台灣咫尺之遙，兩地在對付中國時，可以起到同氣連枝的呼應作用。反之，一旦台灣落入中國手上，倒過來牽制沖繩美軍，進而打斷美國由北至南的圍堵連線。因此，台灣早於五十年代已被美國稱為「不沉的航空母艦」，便是因為地緣位置重要，有如美國在中國東海正門外的一艘不會被擊沉的航空母艦。

  中共1949年建政後，美國一度有意放棄台灣，但是1950年韓戰爆發，美國驚呼台灣對中國的牽制作用如此巨大。之後，美國在台灣大量駐軍，對台灣政治影響更是深遠。六十年代中葉，中國內部政治動盪，蔣介石再生「反攻大陸」念頭，力阻蔣氏的是美國，不欲台灣破壞華盛頓的遠東戰略大計，無謂在越戰之外再生一事。最明目張膽之時，美國駐台軍官每星期清點台灣登陸艇數目；海軍演習，美國軍官登上台軍艦艇，以防出海後軍艦直駛大陸。就算八十年代美台已無邦交，美國人員強闖台灣中山科學院，對核實驗室灌入水泥，力阻台灣研製核武。時移世易，美國與中國由七十年代的蜜月期，變成現在的幾乎兵戎相見，美國調整戰略，重點也是放在台灣。

  港在戰場側 慎防橫禍

  台美關係是台灣的政治現實，蔡英文也好，韓國瑜也好，縱使對中國立場各異，始終沒有把美國踢走。台灣主流政客，俱以得到華盛頓祝福為目標。

  今次大選，美國仍未正式表態，但過去兩年美國國會及政府多次通過並簽署對台灣有利的多項法案，政府部門通過對台灣出售武器，協助台軍更換老舊軍備。中國多次提出抗議，並說要制裁涉及售武的美國企業，然而每當軍售內容公布，台灣朝野都發出一片歡呼聲，顯然美國對台灣防務支援，仍是台灣民眾感到可以力保寶島的重要因素。因此，美國因素在台灣選舉比中國因素重要，這是戰略需要使然，也是一種政治現實。

  美國緊控台灣在手，印太戰略在西太平洋這一塊便不虞出現缺口。不過，這也客觀上說明，今天的台灣對中美而言皆是必爭之地，台灣是美國印太戰略的重要成分，台灣也是中國打破美國圍堵的必需部件。明年的台灣大選雖只有藍綠對決，但民進黨國民黨誰勝誰負，關係到中美兩國的地區戰略。未來4個月，中美台三角互動勢將更為頻繁，而且可能愈趨激烈。香港在這場大國博弈之側，可以是旁觀者，但也可能隨時成為其中的落場一員，務必小心，必須留意。

  2019/09/20