So it happened--China blocked my blog. Yup...they did. And I suppose I should have expected it but it still came as a surprise.
In the interim and my time away I can tell you that I have signed a deal that is worth roughly a billion US dollars. So my company will finally make some money. Should I have been shocked by this--YES!!! Many people who have known me would say to my face that they figured I would be successful and very very profitable. But that didn't mean anything to me until the checks were cashed. Well...they have been cashed and I am on my way to doing something that few achieve but many dream of. I am the president of an alternative energy company and we are actually making money by cleaning up the environment and stopping China from polluting. It's amazing.
I am doing something that I always dream of. Maybe this is finally the beginning of the best years of my life. I'll definitely keep you all posted.
--A wise man in the East
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
A note on happiness...
America stands for, and is willing to defend by force if necessary, the Constitutional guarantee of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Never has a more Lockean creed of personal achievement and sheer self-actualization been thundered than in America--my home. What was it that we all were so sick and tired of being deprived of anyways? I mean we had it pretty good, right? Thousands of miles away from King George; fresh earth to till; forests teeming with game; and finally the chance to do whatever we wanted with the fruits of our labor. So what was the big deal?
Taxes. We all got upset that we had to pay taxes on stamps one day but hadn't had to the day before and were never given notice nor had any say. In short, there was no one to lay blame on for this and we had no recourse to kick the idiot out who had let this happen to us--meaning a politician who represented "our interests." Colonial Americans were so upset by this atrocity that they had to kick the whole group of those red-coated thieves out. America to this day still stands tall and proud of the fact that its overarching desire for freedom came from the fact that we were sick and tired of having money taken away from us without due process of law.
Two hundred thirty-some years later, and almost eleven trillions dollars in debt, the U.S. still proudly holds on to those ideals. So why am I writing a note about happiness? Because it was in our pursuit of each individual's happiness that got us into this mess. Consider defense spending projects. Whether you know this or not, most big ticket defense projects are built in as many different Congressional locations as possible. One part is built in one district, another is built in a different one. If you vote against a defense bill you are voting to cut jobs in your own district--which means you are in for trouble come re-election. So they just keep adding more and more dollars to the defense budget each year and the numbers keep rising. I am far from a believer in small military and I will say that now. However, it is important to understand that we need to modify our spending priorities on constant upgrades and new systems for EVERYTHING. We cannot predict which wars will happen and where they will take place that is true...but I find it hard to justify the astronomical costs of some defense projects that will likely never see the light of day. However, the defense contractors that are driving that agenda are simply pursuing their own happiness--getting contracts. More specifically the bonuses that come with getting the contracts. Is the politician to blame for wanting to keep jobs in their district by supporting the defense projects? Is the worker to blame for wanting to have a good paying job so their kids can have adequate dental care, money to take a modest vacation, braces, and afford to live in a decent house and put aside some money for retirement so they don't have to be a burden on their loved ones?
All of these people are pursuing the small happiness-es that come from our system that our government was founded on. And that way of life is currently under attack. Unless we wake up and realize that at some point enough is enough then we will all go down with this ship together. I don't think that it is the government's job to do this. I personally believe that you cannot, and should not legislate most behavior--I believe in small government. Society must at some point police itself with norms and morals. The government can pass laws all that it wants but those laws can change in a matter of short years. The type of change that I am calling for will take decades to come about.
Last night I read through the entire text of the house-passed version of the stimulus bill. I read all 647 pages (the pages don't have very much text, it's a shorter read than you think) and I came away from it thinking that I had just read the 2008 1/2 budget for the United States of America. I don't see how, short of the transportation and housing issues, that this bill was in any way related to job creation. Rather it was more about keeping more government and municipal workers employed--but in areas that did not make a great deal of sense to me. I didn't entirely understand the hundreds of millions of dollars that were going to the Arts. Funding for the Arts is important, I agree, but shouldn't that funding be in the actual BUDGET?
We take all of our hopes and dreams and put it on one bill, the stimulus package, and believe that it will be the beginning of a new day. Maybe it will. But from what I read I don't entirely see how this will create three million jobs. Government agencies throughout the Bush Administration had been complaining of cutbacks on federal spending. Also the cost of fully implementing all of the post 9/11 changes had been passed on to the states. So, if anything, the job creation would be simply creation of jobs that had been previously eliminated or not fully funded. On the other hand I will say that growth of any kind is better than none at all. Hopefully, we can get some happiness created in the short term. But remember that the national debt now is far too large and it is exceptionally difficult to believe that continual borrowing, especially in this climate, is likely to continue as before. The capital market environment simply won't allow it. Also, there are so many other countries that are borrowing right now. Why should the U.S. be guaranteed funds when others are just as worthy?
We all live in a capitalist system, and in that system we all are trying to get our own happiness. The spirit of free market enterprise that caused the colonials to rise up over taxes and representation is rooted ultimately in a question of fairness. And so now we are living in a world gripping tight to the question of what is fair? Would the continued U.S. dominance of the capitalist system be fair? Probably not anymore...we lost that privilege when we couldn't keep our eyes on balanced budgets or going to decent priced schools. No, it will be a larger group of countries that will be making the decisions in the future. To this idea I give credit to Paul Kennedy, who wrote The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Simply put, the world is too large for one country to have total control. The happiness of one pales in comparison to the happiness of the many. We can all thank Jeremy Bentham for that maxim.
Of course that is just one man's opinion. Be well dear reader
--A Wise Man in the East
Taxes. We all got upset that we had to pay taxes on stamps one day but hadn't had to the day before and were never given notice nor had any say. In short, there was no one to lay blame on for this and we had no recourse to kick the idiot out who had let this happen to us--meaning a politician who represented "our interests." Colonial Americans were so upset by this atrocity that they had to kick the whole group of those red-coated thieves out. America to this day still stands tall and proud of the fact that its overarching desire for freedom came from the fact that we were sick and tired of having money taken away from us without due process of law.
Two hundred thirty-some years later, and almost eleven trillions dollars in debt, the U.S. still proudly holds on to those ideals. So why am I writing a note about happiness? Because it was in our pursuit of each individual's happiness that got us into this mess. Consider defense spending projects. Whether you know this or not, most big ticket defense projects are built in as many different Congressional locations as possible. One part is built in one district, another is built in a different one. If you vote against a defense bill you are voting to cut jobs in your own district--which means you are in for trouble come re-election. So they just keep adding more and more dollars to the defense budget each year and the numbers keep rising. I am far from a believer in small military and I will say that now. However, it is important to understand that we need to modify our spending priorities on constant upgrades and new systems for EVERYTHING. We cannot predict which wars will happen and where they will take place that is true...but I find it hard to justify the astronomical costs of some defense projects that will likely never see the light of day. However, the defense contractors that are driving that agenda are simply pursuing their own happiness--getting contracts. More specifically the bonuses that come with getting the contracts. Is the politician to blame for wanting to keep jobs in their district by supporting the defense projects? Is the worker to blame for wanting to have a good paying job so their kids can have adequate dental care, money to take a modest vacation, braces, and afford to live in a decent house and put aside some money for retirement so they don't have to be a burden on their loved ones?
All of these people are pursuing the small happiness-es that come from our system that our government was founded on. And that way of life is currently under attack. Unless we wake up and realize that at some point enough is enough then we will all go down with this ship together. I don't think that it is the government's job to do this. I personally believe that you cannot, and should not legislate most behavior--I believe in small government. Society must at some point police itself with norms and morals. The government can pass laws all that it wants but those laws can change in a matter of short years. The type of change that I am calling for will take decades to come about.
Last night I read through the entire text of the house-passed version of the stimulus bill. I read all 647 pages (the pages don't have very much text, it's a shorter read than you think) and I came away from it thinking that I had just read the 2008 1/2 budget for the United States of America. I don't see how, short of the transportation and housing issues, that this bill was in any way related to job creation. Rather it was more about keeping more government and municipal workers employed--but in areas that did not make a great deal of sense to me. I didn't entirely understand the hundreds of millions of dollars that were going to the Arts. Funding for the Arts is important, I agree, but shouldn't that funding be in the actual BUDGET?
We take all of our hopes and dreams and put it on one bill, the stimulus package, and believe that it will be the beginning of a new day. Maybe it will. But from what I read I don't entirely see how this will create three million jobs. Government agencies throughout the Bush Administration had been complaining of cutbacks on federal spending. Also the cost of fully implementing all of the post 9/11 changes had been passed on to the states. So, if anything, the job creation would be simply creation of jobs that had been previously eliminated or not fully funded. On the other hand I will say that growth of any kind is better than none at all. Hopefully, we can get some happiness created in the short term. But remember that the national debt now is far too large and it is exceptionally difficult to believe that continual borrowing, especially in this climate, is likely to continue as before. The capital market environment simply won't allow it. Also, there are so many other countries that are borrowing right now. Why should the U.S. be guaranteed funds when others are just as worthy?
We all live in a capitalist system, and in that system we all are trying to get our own happiness. The spirit of free market enterprise that caused the colonials to rise up over taxes and representation is rooted ultimately in a question of fairness. And so now we are living in a world gripping tight to the question of what is fair? Would the continued U.S. dominance of the capitalist system be fair? Probably not anymore...we lost that privilege when we couldn't keep our eyes on balanced budgets or going to decent priced schools. No, it will be a larger group of countries that will be making the decisions in the future. To this idea I give credit to Paul Kennedy, who wrote The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Simply put, the world is too large for one country to have total control. The happiness of one pales in comparison to the happiness of the many. We can all thank Jeremy Bentham for that maxim.
Of course that is just one man's opinion. Be well dear reader
--A Wise Man in the East
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The end of the debt-cycle?
I was often criticized for having unfathomable ideas. One of the most interesting that comes to mind is my American Defense Policy professor in undergraduate once told me that there is no way the U.S. would build the Ballistic Missile Defense system because of the ABM treaty...which I thought we would pull out of. I wrote this in a paper and got seriously downgraded on it. He found that argument to be unreasonable. Why does this matter? Because, as Margaret Thatcher once said after the Falklands, "the unnexpected often happens and we should consider it as an option always." The US ended up pulling out of that treaty by the way, and I expanded the idea into another argument and was still downgraded; but more for formatting reasons. My point still stands--accept that everything around you is impermanent and can change when you least expect it. In short: Be prepared if at all possible.
And so we come to today's entry...debt. The U.S. has been buying debt from many nations for the last decade at a staggering pace. The National Debt of the United States is currently over 10 trillion dollars. That's right, 10 TRILLION. The day I left my job on Capitol Hill the debt was at 9.5 trillion; and this was six months ago. In the last two days two things of such monumental importance happened; but few people outside of Budgetary and economic circles will be able to come to grasp with the concept for years to come.
First, China has said that it is reluctant to keep buying U.S. debt. All those checks that were sent out last year to "stimulate the economy" were borrowed largely from Japan and China. Japan is in as bad a financial mess as we are right now so they do not have the capital reserves to lend and China is tired of buying U.S. bonds that have a near zero return on their investment. Also, China is worried about America's long-term ability to repay. And finally, China is worried that the Obama Administration is going to come through on its campaign promises and start what most people will soon be calling a "trade war" between the Democrat controlled House, Senate, and Administration and the Chinese government. We will all wait and see what happens next.
Second, President-elect Obama finally did what few Presidents before him had done and told the people what we are facing. Many Administrations, at least the Clinton and Bush ones were famous for this, would exaggerate the preliminary budgetary numbers to make it look like they had done more to help the economy at year end. So if we were looking at deficits they would make them look bigger initially and then show how they had done amazing things to "correct" the problem before the end of the year. If Mr. Obama is doing that fine--but if you look at the actual numbers they are that bad. We will be looking at trillion dollar deficits for a decade. Remember the U.S. just pumped 5 trillion dollars into the global financial economy that it didn't have. Where do you think that money is going to come from if Japan is broke and China, with the largest amount of reserve savings in the world, refuses to lend? Many people say it is unwise to just "print more money" but it would appear that is what we have been doing.
I will offer a position that is not my own but I have heard being said in some circles in the incoming Adminstration: If not now then when? Many people have been sitting back for years watching the debt climb and hoping we would do something about it before it was too late--we didn't. America kept spending; Congress kept borrowing; our credit ratings kept falling. And here we are. Times will be hard for a long time to come. I have to believe that we can make it. Many are saying this is the end of the American Empire. They said that in the early 1980's as well, by the way. I don't know if this is it. But remember we are an "accidental empire" as some British historians have called us. We got to be this strong because after WWII no one else had the industrial capacity to make goods on the scale that we could--all our competitors were ravaged by war. We had to know that the playing field would even out sometime. Capital flows to where the best and safest environment for it to grow is. Right now that place is East Asia. The sooner we come to accept that the better. Right now we have to worry about getting our own house in order. Thomas Friedman borrowed from Charles Kindleberger when he spoke about how "buying manias" drive people to do risky behavior in bubble times. We all got sucked into being lawyers, hedge fund managers, and financial advisors. We all thought that Ivy League educations that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in Law and Finance would get us all rich. But that was just the modern day "tulip bulbs." Now the Chinese are trying to get into the Ivy League (who on average have way better scores in Math and Logical reasoning than their American competitors) and are balking at the high price-tag. Why would they pay that much if they can't make the amount necessary to afford the monthly payments? Expensive educations that you cannot afford are irresponsible, in their opinion. We forgot that lesson somewhere...but with rising tuition costs how could we stop it? Not everyone could go overseas to cheaper colleges that offered an education that was just as good. America got duped, and the high-value Chinese talent are now going elsewhere. The news in the West will be picking up on that trend fairly soon.
America should have been pumping out useful technical degrees. I'm not saying that the other degrees aren't important. However if you have a society with a lawyer for every sixteen people you have issues of labor/skill imbalance. Years from now people will be looking back on today and wondering what were we thinking these last fifteen years? Why didn't we work on the more pressing issues like balancing the budget rather than procrastinating until the whole thing fell apart? And the answer is because we, like my former professor, couldn't fathom that change can happen. We as a country couldn't see that the "new economy" of services and finance could not support a country of our size and maintain such a high standard of living. America bet the wrong way, that's all; and by doing this ignored the budget problems we assumed would correct itself over time.
Be well dear reader. We have a long road ahead of us.
--A Wise Man in the East
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Saturday, December 27, 2008
My first 30 years...
As my 30th birthday is approaching I have decided to take this time to lay down a few lessons that I have had the good fortune to learn. So I am titling this after a ridiculously sappy country music song that I heard far too much one year. God I hated that song. I won't be talking about beer and lemonade, etc. so don't worry. What I did want to talk about was some lessons that I learned in the last thirty years of my life. I don't know dear reader if you care, or if you are looking for any answers in your own life, but I hope that you can take away something from this and possibly make your journey through life a little easier. Barring that, I hope you find a modicum of amusement.
Here goes.
1. Forgive yourself. I have made mistakes; God knows I have. But I learned only recently that I can't dwell on them. Hero worship is overrated. You will never live up to your heroes so don't even try. They may have lived up to theirs but I'm sure they wasted a good deal of time comparing themselves to people that they simply can't beat because they are either dead or they place them on so high of a high pedestal that it is unreachable. Screw it. Be the best that you yourself possibly can and move on. You will spend more productive time on yourself rather than wallowing in your own misery and self-doubt. Just get on with it. It's one thing to desire something but really most of life is about minimizing risk--failing that, it is about being as happy as you can with the day you are given.
2. If you are knocked down by life, get up and fight back. Life is hard, we cannot sugar-coat it. In times like these we are all starting to realize that we lived in a little bubble that was unsustainable. We were promised the world and told that we would have fantastic standards of living. But the party is over. Ivy League educated lawyers and hedge fund managers in New York, Los Angeles, and D.C. are now bridge-and-tunnel people looking for work at the GAP. Move on. Endure. We cannot sit down and let life just pass us by. When things look their darkest you have to stand up and fight. I have seen some pretty dark days myself (buried a brother, sister had cancer, layoffs, poor childhood, blah blah blah) but you can't make that define you. In life you have to get up and fight.
3. Act selfless but not stupid. For me this comes in the area of women. I suppose it all started with my first girlfriend who I let walk all over me. I thought I wasn't good enough for her or some such nonsense and it all culminated in me being with women that I felt like I could save because that is what "nice guys" do. Well I was in a very very bad relationship for four years and it taught me that there is no such thing as a sure thing. We need to fight for ourselves in this world. Hopefully someone will be there in the trenches with you and you can rely on them. But you can't really love someone else until you are happy with you. Just being a nice person without taking care of yourself is horrible for the other person because you become a burden on them. They feel obligated to take care of you and vice versa. Maybe you don't think this is a bad thing but ultimately is it not better for all involved if you go into something giving them your very best and continually trying to keep yourself in decent working order so you can help them when they need it? I mean look--if you are in a relationship with someone that says they need to seek help repeatedly and then keep putting it off you are in for some trouble. It doesn't matter if this person is someone who comes from a seemingly perfect family, well-to-do suburbia, religious leaders, innocent church-girls, any of it. You really are not helping them. If they know they need help and are putting it off to save face or something you just need to move on. Maybe they will get help in time and then you can be there for them, but you can't force someone to get help...you just can't. All you can do is help them through when they are getting the help if they ask. Like I said, be selfless but not stupid. Don't enable someone; you will only hurt yourself in the long run.
4. Take risks. I am writing this entry approximately 6,200 miles (10,000 km) from where I was born. I have lived in Minneapolis, Tokyo, Los Angeles, San Diego, Wales, Washington D.C., and now Beijing. I have few regrets other than I may have wasted some time with some women that I was speaking about in point 3. (But I suppose I couldn't have known that at the time.) Life is about experiences and going out and really living. Make a difference in something that you care about. Try. Find out what it is about your life that you may want to explore and just do it. This world does not wait for us; it only gives us the opportunity before we are called home to do something. So get on with it already. You never know where life will take you. You don't have to go far; you don't even have to go anywhere if you don't want to. The point is to find that one thing that you are afraid of doing (within reason) and just do it. You might surprise yourself. One of the greatest things for me was finding out that somewhere inside of me is an incredibly assertive person with the confidence to make the world meet me on my terms. But I am not special. I believe that inside all of us is the power to do what we most fear.
5. Be tolerant of others and learn to listen. Long ago I was a pretty judgemental person but over the years I have worked hard to change that. One of the greatest friends I have, in fact she is the moral compass in my world, is the exact opposite of me. But god we have so much fun together. I have learned more from her in ten years of friendship about myself and the rest of the world than a whole host of other acquaintances combined. That is what I am talking about I suppose. Find someone different than you and talk to them; try and understand them. Maybe you can't be friends but at least try and see why they see the world that way. Perhaps we as humanity cannot all get along and never will...but I have to believe that the trying is worth the effort. We should get something out of that at least.
And now dear reader I give these lessons to you. I hope you found something in them. If not, at least we shared a moment that hopefully wasn't a total loss.
Take care.
--A Wise Man in the East
Here goes.
1. Forgive yourself. I have made mistakes; God knows I have. But I learned only recently that I can't dwell on them. Hero worship is overrated. You will never live up to your heroes so don't even try. They may have lived up to theirs but I'm sure they wasted a good deal of time comparing themselves to people that they simply can't beat because they are either dead or they place them on so high of a high pedestal that it is unreachable. Screw it. Be the best that you yourself possibly can and move on. You will spend more productive time on yourself rather than wallowing in your own misery and self-doubt. Just get on with it. It's one thing to desire something but really most of life is about minimizing risk--failing that, it is about being as happy as you can with the day you are given.
2. If you are knocked down by life, get up and fight back. Life is hard, we cannot sugar-coat it. In times like these we are all starting to realize that we lived in a little bubble that was unsustainable. We were promised the world and told that we would have fantastic standards of living. But the party is over. Ivy League educated lawyers and hedge fund managers in New York, Los Angeles, and D.C. are now bridge-and-tunnel people looking for work at the GAP. Move on. Endure. We cannot sit down and let life just pass us by. When things look their darkest you have to stand up and fight. I have seen some pretty dark days myself (buried a brother, sister had cancer, layoffs, poor childhood, blah blah blah) but you can't make that define you. In life you have to get up and fight.
3. Act selfless but not stupid. For me this comes in the area of women. I suppose it all started with my first girlfriend who I let walk all over me. I thought I wasn't good enough for her or some such nonsense and it all culminated in me being with women that I felt like I could save because that is what "nice guys" do. Well I was in a very very bad relationship for four years and it taught me that there is no such thing as a sure thing. We need to fight for ourselves in this world. Hopefully someone will be there in the trenches with you and you can rely on them. But you can't really love someone else until you are happy with you. Just being a nice person without taking care of yourself is horrible for the other person because you become a burden on them. They feel obligated to take care of you and vice versa. Maybe you don't think this is a bad thing but ultimately is it not better for all involved if you go into something giving them your very best and continually trying to keep yourself in decent working order so you can help them when they need it? I mean look--if you are in a relationship with someone that says they need to seek help repeatedly and then keep putting it off you are in for some trouble. It doesn't matter if this person is someone who comes from a seemingly perfect family, well-to-do suburbia, religious leaders, innocent church-girls, any of it. You really are not helping them. If they know they need help and are putting it off to save face or something you just need to move on. Maybe they will get help in time and then you can be there for them, but you can't force someone to get help...you just can't. All you can do is help them through when they are getting the help if they ask. Like I said, be selfless but not stupid. Don't enable someone; you will only hurt yourself in the long run.
4. Take risks. I am writing this entry approximately 6,200 miles (10,000 km) from where I was born. I have lived in Minneapolis, Tokyo, Los Angeles, San Diego, Wales, Washington D.C., and now Beijing. I have few regrets other than I may have wasted some time with some women that I was speaking about in point 3. (But I suppose I couldn't have known that at the time.) Life is about experiences and going out and really living. Make a difference in something that you care about. Try. Find out what it is about your life that you may want to explore and just do it. This world does not wait for us; it only gives us the opportunity before we are called home to do something. So get on with it already. You never know where life will take you. You don't have to go far; you don't even have to go anywhere if you don't want to. The point is to find that one thing that you are afraid of doing (within reason) and just do it. You might surprise yourself. One of the greatest things for me was finding out that somewhere inside of me is an incredibly assertive person with the confidence to make the world meet me on my terms. But I am not special. I believe that inside all of us is the power to do what we most fear.
5. Be tolerant of others and learn to listen. Long ago I was a pretty judgemental person but over the years I have worked hard to change that. One of the greatest friends I have, in fact she is the moral compass in my world, is the exact opposite of me. But god we have so much fun together. I have learned more from her in ten years of friendship about myself and the rest of the world than a whole host of other acquaintances combined. That is what I am talking about I suppose. Find someone different than you and talk to them; try and understand them. Maybe you can't be friends but at least try and see why they see the world that way. Perhaps we as humanity cannot all get along and never will...but I have to believe that the trying is worth the effort. We should get something out of that at least.
And now dear reader I give these lessons to you. I hope you found something in them. If not, at least we shared a moment that hopefully wasn't a total loss.
Take care.
--A Wise Man in the East
Saturday, December 20, 2008
There was a dream...
I miss you today.
You were there and then you weren't. All that I had built, and had yet to build, you were a part of...and then you were gone. Like an evaporation of my dreams...why wasn't I enough? But that was never the problem, was it? The truth is that you were never strong enough to handle what you felt. You were always more concerned, and have ever been, worried about the expectations of those around you rather than listening to what you truly wanted. Your greatest fear was always the voice in your head that contradicted what you were told to believe. And I was just the person that wouldn't judge you for that...someone that would just listen. I feel so sorry for you; you were so unhappy so much of the time. I can't imagine that has changed or will change in the future until you make the decision yourself. I pity you.
You were there and then, inexplicably, you weren't. I miss you most in the hours when no one is stirring. And now, as fleeting as you were around, you are gone. Nowhere but in the back recesses of my mind.
I miss you today.
-N.C.
You were there and then you weren't. All that I had built, and had yet to build, you were a part of...and then you were gone. Like an evaporation of my dreams...why wasn't I enough? But that was never the problem, was it? The truth is that you were never strong enough to handle what you felt. You were always more concerned, and have ever been, worried about the expectations of those around you rather than listening to what you truly wanted. Your greatest fear was always the voice in your head that contradicted what you were told to believe. And I was just the person that wouldn't judge you for that...someone that would just listen. I feel so sorry for you; you were so unhappy so much of the time. I can't imagine that has changed or will change in the future until you make the decision yourself. I pity you.
You were there and then, inexplicably, you weren't. I miss you most in the hours when no one is stirring. And now, as fleeting as you were around, you are gone. Nowhere but in the back recesses of my mind.
I miss you today.
-N.C.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Sleep as a luxury
I never sleep. Those of you that know me, or have spent any serious time with me, know that I am constantly in a state of analyzing incoming data. This is my curse I suppose. When I was working in Washington I would spend countless hours going between news reports on Bloomberg while I read over transcripts from past hearings in the House Financial Services Committee and cross-referencing that with the text of laws that were past either years ago or were yet to be voted on. That was my life and I loved it. I was happy. Having a non-existent personal life; though I did have a girl who claimed to love me at some distant law school (a claim she later maintained but no longer desired the ring that I gave her prior to my moving to China; which of course any adult knows means "you're not the one for me"), did not seem to bother me that much. I was simply preparing myself for the future that I was destined to inherit. A future of building my company and changing the world on my terms. The girl, job, and Bloomberg turned out to be not that important. But the reading and the constant pouring over incessant amounts of information--like grad school never stopped for me--was.
As I slowly build a company, establish a network of contacts in China, and make myself useful to the world around me; these habits are turning out to be vital. But I honestly have thought for years that I am crazy. I just can't turn this damn thing off. I think about numbers and trade projections and debt to repayment ratios when there is the least amount of distraction for me: just prior to sleeping. So here I sit writing to no one...at half past three in the morning in Beijing. And there is no one around to talk to. All I am waiting for ultimately is a phone call from a bunch of rich people to tell a business partner of mine that they would love to give him a pile of money...which he will then split into smaller piles of money...of which one of them is mine. Sadly I don't get to spend the money on anything fun; but I do get to hopefully use it to help employ some people so that next Christmas they won't be as worried about money for presents for their families because they will be working in a factory that I helped get orders for goods and products from. See, to me that is the essence of giving. I will be working on Christmas day this year because I mistakenly believe all that crap that giving is better than recieving etc. Christmas day I will be having meetings with the Chinese because they call Christmas Day "Thursday." Next year it will correspond with the day of the week it falls on also. Hopefully I won't have to worry so much about other things next year and it won't be as bad. Only time will tell.
Right now I just want the phone to ring so I can have some peace of mind...not that it will be enough for me to fall asleep though. I can only think of a few times when it was easy for me to do something normal like fall asleep quickly. Oh well. Be well dear reader.
--A Wise Man in the East
As I slowly build a company, establish a network of contacts in China, and make myself useful to the world around me; these habits are turning out to be vital. But I honestly have thought for years that I am crazy. I just can't turn this damn thing off. I think about numbers and trade projections and debt to repayment ratios when there is the least amount of distraction for me: just prior to sleeping. So here I sit writing to no one...at half past three in the morning in Beijing. And there is no one around to talk to. All I am waiting for ultimately is a phone call from a bunch of rich people to tell a business partner of mine that they would love to give him a pile of money...which he will then split into smaller piles of money...of which one of them is mine. Sadly I don't get to spend the money on anything fun; but I do get to hopefully use it to help employ some people so that next Christmas they won't be as worried about money for presents for their families because they will be working in a factory that I helped get orders for goods and products from. See, to me that is the essence of giving. I will be working on Christmas day this year because I mistakenly believe all that crap that giving is better than recieving etc. Christmas day I will be having meetings with the Chinese because they call Christmas Day "Thursday." Next year it will correspond with the day of the week it falls on also. Hopefully I won't have to worry so much about other things next year and it won't be as bad. Only time will tell.
Right now I just want the phone to ring so I can have some peace of mind...not that it will be enough for me to fall asleep though. I can only think of a few times when it was easy for me to do something normal like fall asleep quickly. Oh well. Be well dear reader.
--A Wise Man in the East
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