What a gigantic change not seen in a century means

 1) Transition from export-driven economy to consumption-driven economy

• Impact on USA and rest of the world
• Japan, Taiwan and Singapore: How to go through transformation, learn from history 

•  Investment opportunities: real estate, stocks, bonds, commodity
•  Key factor in consumption economy is people, high earning and high contributing young people, whoever in large China can attract more people in this category will have a better time to transit to new model, and that is why Shanghai is relaxing its Hukou poliy

 

Book Review: What you are getting wrong about Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte

The book is a anti-thesis against Hillbillie Elegy by J.D.Vance. It offers a nuanced look at Appalachia, its racial composition, its history of poverty and uneven distribution of wealth within the region, the outside corporations exploitation of the region.

Reflection On Stock Investments Across Two Markets

Quick mid-term checks on recent stock investments in US and Chinese markets

1) Have a clear idea on your investment time horizon

    Is your investment horizon 1 year? 10 years? 

    For short termer, topics usually drives appreciation. For long termer, intrinsic value, management and moat should be what you look for

2)  Undertand market pecularity

    For US market   

• Market driven price movement
• Focus on growth
• Mid to long term thinking dominate
• Most of the time, asset is the king, you don't want to miss the boat
• Recently seems to dominate by fed money policy and deviate from market driven theme

   For Chinese market

• Government policy driven
• Focus on government policy and central bank monetary policy
• Short term thinking still dominate, but began to mature to mid term thinking
• Cash is king, once in red, always profit taking to keep some powder ready, when policy changes you have cash to jump in
• With new regulation, trying to transition to market driven, but result is still to be seen  

Book Review: The New Paradigm for Financial Market by George Soros

George Sors believed the equiliberium theory of market is not true and he proposed a reflexivity model, which states that market participants expectation affects markets fundementals, and the two sides are dependent on each other, making deviation from mean (equiliberium) more extreme (boom and bust pattern). In the past such situations triggers regulators intervention, but under Reagon's market driven philosophy, regulators now keep a blind eyes on market participants and rely on market's supposedly self correcting mechanism (rooted on the belief of equiliberium theory), which in turn leads to more extreme financial turmoil such as 2008 housing bubble, and he thinks there is a super-bubble superimposed on the housing bubble (credit expansion).

But his relexivity model can only explain the past but not able to predict what comes next.

This book came to my attention due to Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness: The hidden role of chance in life and in the markets

Book Review: The Hero with A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

The book was recommended by Ray Dalio and from the back cover the book has been released since 1949 and has been a huge influential one, but for some reasons it just didn't click with me. Maybe because it is a comparative mythology of western culture, the culture divide may just be too huge for me to overcome.
Similarly, all the books by Ann Rand don't click on me too.
Hopefully I will be able to come back later and be able to appreciate the value hidden in the pages

Book Review: The Grown-up's Guide to Teenage Humans by Josh Shipp

• Every kid is one caring adult away from being a success story.
• When it comes to your teen, you can have control or you can have growth. But you can't have both.
• Connection before correction. Dr. Jane Nelson

Nuggets of wisdom

• Too many among us die at thirty and are buried at eighty
• Living the same week a few thousand times and calling it a life

Book Review: Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan

New York Post reporter Susannah Cahalan suffered psychosis and hallucination and was hospitalized by a mystery disease for several weeks until Dr. Souhel Najjar of New York University Langone Medical Center diagnosed her of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, an autoimmune disease caused by antibody B-cell attack neurons in brain.

Susannah is lucky to have two parents who don't give up on her and keep pushing for answer and seeking medical treatment for their daughter.

Book Review: The lessons of History by Will Durant and Ariel Durant

The first biological lesson of history is that life is competition. Cooperation is a tool of competition. Cooperation is within a community so that the community can compete with other community. So to solicitate cooperation within a community, create a competition with another community will help.

Book Review: How to Change Your Mind What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan

Some keywords to ponder after hearing the audio book:

1. psychedelic
2. psyilocybin
3. Being rather than doing
4. LSD
5. 5-MeO-DMT
6. Default Mode Network (DMN)
7. Burning Man
8. Mushroom
9. Mediatation
10. Left brain vs Right brain
11. Ayahausca

The Glossary section of the book is the most valuable as it contains a lot of terms, organizations and concepts of the psychedelic movement, and best of all Amazon website for the book offers this gem of the book for free.

Book Review: My Stroke of Insight, A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor

First hand account of Jill Bolte Taylor's brain hemorrhage on her left hemisphere caused by Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM), and her insight of right hemisphere influence on mental health.
Two main takeaways from the book:
1) Brain anatomy and physiology of strokes: Ischemic and hemorrhagiv
2) The insight into analytical side (left hemisphere) and right now right here mentality (right hemisphere) and how to tap right hemisphere to gain inner peace.

The book was recommended by Ray Dalio and he is proponent for mediatation and this book although not specifically promote mediatation, it sure sounds like a endorsement for daily mediatation.

Book Review: River out of Eden A Darwinian View of Life by Richard Dawkins

The main theme is life (as author termed as replication bomb), how it began and where it is heading. Darwin's survival of fittest translated by author into survival of gene (the God's utility function). And the gene that survives will be the ones that are good at surviving in the average environment of species.
Still a little abstract for me to fully understand, and hope reading the author's other better known Selfish Gene will help

Book Review: Don't Call Me Crazy edited by Kelly Jensen and Same Time Next Week edited by Lee Gutkind

These two books are case studies and personal narrative on mental health, the former one from patient perspective and the latter from care giver perspective. I didn't finish reading them, maybe later can ref them for case studies.

Book Review: Mind Fixers, Psychiatry's troubled search for the biology of mental illness by Anne Harrington

The author is Harvard history professor, and the book documented psychiatry's repeatedly frustrated struggle to understand mental disorder in biomedical terms. The conundrum of psychiatry is that it tried to define itself as a branch of medical science but failed to find much biological explanation for most of ailment it tried to help: schizophrenia, depression and bipolar depression. And most of drugs psychiatrist relied on today are found decades earlier, and due to awareness of placebo effects and patient's awareness of severe side effect, drug companies seems to lost interest in developing new drugs for psychiatry.
The root cause for the stalling of psychiatry today is the lack of breakthrough in understanding in biomedical terms of mental illness.

Book Review: Treasury's War, The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare by Juan Zarate

• A better title for the book may be "How to bully other countries by leveraging dollar as international trade currency and New York as financial center"
• The book did provide some useful insights on financial weapons(main one is Provision 311 of US Patriot Act) US can leverage in a conflict with another country, but these information doesn't warrant 500+ pages book, a 2000 words piece will suffice
• All the weaponry author touts were derived from US dominant position in international trade (largest financial markets, New York as world financial center, dollar as currency of international trade), but overused these tools will greatly diminish US credibility and destroy US dominant position. Case in point: forcing SWIFT data already led to mistrust of US and attempt from Europe (INSTEX) and Asia countries (Russia has an inititiative supported by China, India, Iran and Turkey) in creating alternative to SWIFT system

Book Review: Darkness Visible, A Memoir of Madness by William Styron

A first hand account of severe depression by Pulitzer prize winning writer William Styron.

Book Review: The center cannot hold : my journey through madness by Elyn R. Saks.

Probably the only autobiography of a schizophrenic, The center cannot hold truthfully captured Elyn R. Saks (a MacArthur genius winner and USC professor)'s struggle with mental disease.
First hand, insightful and honest. Especially her truthful depiction of hallucination and affected thought process

Book Review: A kind of mirraculas paradise : a true story about schizophrenia by Sandra Allen.

Sandra Allen's uncle is a schizophrenic, who wrote a autobiography. Sandra mostly used his own words with her added research and background notes.
A good semi first hand description of a schizophrenic mind and how he viewed the world and people in a distorted mindset. And the writing was very good, showing a deep empathy and captured author's belief and understanding of her uncle

Book Review: Resilience : two sisters and a story of mental illness / Jessie Close with Pete Earley

A OK first hand recount of Jessie Close (who is sister of famous actress Glen Close). Jessie suffered from bipolar disease (which was only diagnosed later in her life). One contributing factor may be her parents belief in a cult organization and following the cult's way of life (living in a commune, kids separate from parents). Also there is family history: Jessie's maternal grandparents suffered mental disease.

Book Review: Mental : lithium, love, and losing my mind by Jaime Lowe

A first hand account of a woman struggling with bipolar disease. Jaime Lowe is a middle class Jewish girl grew up with caring parents (father a lawyer and mother is script writer for Hollywood, they divorced when Jaime was 18 months old) in LA. Her manic episode first happened at 16 when her older brother went to Berkeley for college and she attributed her episode to separation anxiety. And a relapse when she went to NYC working as a magazine writer after graduating from UCLA. The 2nd episode lasted for a year or two and she had to come back to LA living with her mother while she tried to recover from psychotic at home (per her psychiatrist recommendation). She took lithium for twenty plus years and later found that lithium caused her kidney damage and had to switch to Depakote.
A very engaging first hand depiction of her thought process and mental state.
One interesting anecdote is when Jaime switched to Depatoke, she noticed that she had lesser side effect when taking Depatoke ER(Extended Release) than Depatoke DR(Delayed Release), which her pharmacist failed to distinguish and don't know the difference