Archive for November, 2006
November 30, 2006 - Time for the casual Friday blog again. This past week was the late great Bruce Lee’s birthday so I’m paying tribute to Bruce this Friday. Last November, Bosnia unveiled a lifesize bronzed likeness of martial arts legend Bruce Lee. In a country that has witnessed some of the most brutal ethnic clashes in recent history between Muslims, Serbs and Croats, Bruce Lee was chosen to symbolize unification of the three groups. Read more …
November 30th, 2006
Q: Welcome New Readers From???
This is a continuation from a previous casual Friday blog in which I mentioned my goal was to attract readers from 100 different countries. In the past two weeks, readers from 21 new countries and 4 new territories have accessed the ZOI blog as follows:
Denmark, Ghana, Iceland, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Armenia, Oman, Slovenia, Romania, Macedonia, Costa Rica, Guinea, Tanzania, Ecuador, Czech Republic, Guatemala, Lebanon, Cote D’Ivoire, Togo, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Virgin Islands, Mauritius, and the Mariana Islands
The ZOI blog has now attracted readers from 75 separate countries, so I’m still 25 countries short. Below is the map that shows all the readers from just the previous day, with the largest centres of readership indicated by the larger circles.
The top 10 countries and territories that visited us this past week were as follows:
United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Thailand, India, Spain, Australia, Singapore, Japan, & Hong Kong
And the top 7 cities/regions from this past week were as follows:
Ontario, Canada; Alberta, Canada; Bangkok, Thailand; London, UK; Singapore; Cataluna, Spain (region) & Maharashtra, India
November 30th, 2006
November 30, 2006 - Here is the Wikipedia definition of the psychology phenomenon known as the recency effect: “A cognitive bias that results from disproportionate salience of recent stimuli or observations. For example, if a driver sees an equal total number of red cars as blue cars during a long journey, but there happens to be a glut of red cars at the end of the journey, he or she is likely to conclude that there were more red cars than blue cars throughout the drive.” Read more …
November 30th, 2006
November 29, 2006 - Many Latin American countries, for decades, exploited by imperialist nations, are now at a tipping point between the poor and moneyed elite. In Mexico, there is great unrest between the poor and upper classes. In Venezuela, divisions of opinion regarding incumbent Venezuelan President Chavez have created a nation on edge. “You’ll find siblings who no longer speak to each other because one supports [President Hugo] Chavez and the other doesn’t,” commented a man from the upscale neighborhood of Altamira. Read more …
November 29th, 2006
November 28, 2006- This month, the following article appeared in the Bangkok Post.
“Ten leading exporters of food, farm goods and garments called for monetary measures and assistance from state agencies to ease the baht’s rapid appreciation, which they say has threatened their competitiveness. The exporters want the government to cap the baht’s appreciation at 1% to 2% above the currencies of trading competitors, rather than the current levels of 3% to 6%. The baht has appreciated by 11.4% from 41.17 baht per US dollar at the end of 2005, to 36.48 yesterday. Read more …
November 28th, 2006
November 27, 2006 - Yes, an increase in the minimum wage laws in the U.S., as is likely to occur given the new Democratic Congress, will benefit retailers in the short term because the beneficiaries of such an increase will believe that they have extra cash in their pockets even if they don’t. What do I mean by this? The Federal Minimum Wage in the U.S. has remained static at $5.15 an hour for the past 10 years. Since that time, inflation has not remained static. Senator Edward Kennedy has stated that he would like to enact legislation that would increase the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over three years, a healthy 40% bump higher. In terms of inflation, an annual core rate of 3% that is often stated as a reasonable proxy for real inflation, is, as you know from reading my blog, nowhere near reality and is based on some fantasy-land projection.
To briefly discuss some of the more important factors that enables the government to produce a fantasy CPI every month, here are some of the more important changes to the calculation of the CPI that occurred in 1996. Read more …
November 27th, 2006
Q: Is There More to SmartKnowledgeU™ than Just the Zen of Investing (ZOI) Blog?
Just FYI, recently, many people have asked me whether there is more to SmartKnowledgeU™ than just this Zen of Investing blog. The answer is yes. We will be launching a full-fledged online education campus with 23 separate learning modules, exercises, and exams that will enable the individual investor to identify the best risk-reward asset classes as well as the best companies to invest in using a revolutionary investing system that I developed.
Also, I do read all comments in due time and appreciate all comments, including suggestions. In fact one reader suggested that I write a blog entry regarding my favorite asset classes for the next several years. I haven’t yet written a blog entry addressing this request because I address this question in great detail on our coming website. So stay tuned. Our official launch date is just a matter of weeks away.
November 27th, 2006
November 27, 2006 - I’m not sure how much press this incredible situation is receiving in the Western hemisphere, but here in Asia, it’s receiving almost none. The situation I speak of is the swearing in of unofficial President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in a parallel government this week in Mexico. For those unfamiliar with the situation, Obrador, who lost the recent Presidential election to Felipe Calderon by less than 1%, has repeatedly stated his belief that the official count was fraudulent and thus has proclaimed himself the legitimate winner of the election. This, despite international observers and courts which declared the results of the election as just and fair. Read more …
November 27th, 2006
November 26, 2006 - Every once in a while at the Underground Investor, we’ll revisit old blog posts just to remind our readers of particularly pertinent past posts. Most of the time, however, since they’re already posted, we’ll just leave it up to you the reader to search for them and read them. Back on October 30th, I mentioned that the oil services sector, due to the glut of capital that existed in big oil companies, would be a decent sector to consider investing in. I still believe that is true, particularly since oil prices are likely to rebound, further increasing the ability of big oil companies to significantly increase their CapEx spending in 2007. Read more …
November 26th, 2006
Q: What Blog Entry Needs No Question?
I guess that latest blog entry wasn’t so light hearted as is the norm with my casual Friday blog entries, so here’s a late addition that should make you smile. This blog entry has no question because the picture to the right says it all. Recently, at a global economic summit in Vietnam, U.S. President Bush, Russia President Putin, Chile President Bachelet and Canadian PM Harper all donned traditional Vietnamese garb for a photo-op. And they all look more ridiculous than Bruce Lee in a Cowboy hat with a lasso.
November 25th, 2006
November 24, 2006 - Lately there has been much buzz surrounding authors of political books that have predicted the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the Iraq War and other major political events. The books are controversial and make great water cooler discussion topics. However, I maintain that these predictions really aren’t as much a matter of foresight as much as they are a matter of understanding history.
Just as I’ve been able to call the exact bottom of gold (of course with a small amount of luck) back in June and am still holding out on gold’s bottom now, predicting things of this nature only requires three steps: Read more …
November 24th, 2006
November 22, 2006 - In Part I of this blog, you learned the first seven rules. Here, you will learn seven additional rules. For the curious, the photo to the right are SEALS undergoing an exercise in “drownproofing” where their hands are bound behind their backs and their ankles are bound together. Read more …
November 22nd, 2006
November 22, 2006- The rules of elite military special ops have a lot more in common with investing than you could ever imagine. Improve your Wealth Literacy with the following lessons. Read more …
November 22nd, 2006
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