How do you manage changes for better conditions in 2012?

I can’t believe that I have been off writing my own blog for almost a year for many personal reasons. I am still alive in this planet!

Writing this blog is to share some of my thoughts on various subjects without any intention to make anyone or anything right or wrong. The truth of the matter is really subject to the choice of viewpoint from the universe of the individual himself. 

A lot of changes happened to me last year.  I personally run into a lot of randomities that I have never experienced, especially in terms of magnitudes in the past.  Yet, I can finally learn how to come out of it and have achieved peace of mind because of my own personal belief, value and integrity with some changes of  my operating basic and personal policies.  So they’re all boiled down to what personal value one really believe and let them be part of one’s life; that they are powerful enough to handle any stops and even opposition to bring peace for oneself.

If we look around our financial and business world, the understanding and grasp of change of paradigm and rules of the games determine the fate of one’s success or failure.  

A person and even a business if failed and as long as they’re smart, they could evaluate the previous stable data they had upheld for the failure to cause confusion, and know how to search better and workable stable data, they can come out of their own confusion and help themselves move into higher and better conditions. However, one can easily get stuck in one’s own success without paying any attention to change of paradigm especially in a fast paced technological change economy; that slowly undermine one’s success model.  For example, we can’t believe that a 124 years old company “Kodak” to seek bankruptcy financing this year.  Part of the reasons for its failure was due to its underestimation of the growth of digital camera while they’re the pioneer and the leader in the film camera industry as well as the first inventor of digital camera.  The strength of one’s business model soon turned into the weakness to be out-competed by its competitors. In other words, the business failed to manage “change”, and if continued to fail to do so, it could be out of business soon.

Why are some people afraid of change?  Change may in a way invalidate what one has been doing, especially if it has been successful. Change will also shake the stable data that one has been depending for its success.  We don’t like confusion but stability.  Change if not managed well can put oneself into moments or longer periods of confusion.  Yet, let’s face the reality that if one don’t handle “change” properly, his competitors will soon bring confusion to his door.

If one can separate oneself from his own stable data without any fixation, one can easily change and adopt new and workable stable data that can allow defeating one’s earlier stable data if needed sometimes.  One simply manages change to a better and higher condition.  Then one doesn’t need to wait until someone hit it in his face by enforcing a better stable data than his to lock him out of his game.  Who are we really?   Aren't we more senior than anything around us?   Aren't we more important than our compulsion to prove ourselves right at all times?  Don't forget that you are a very valuable being! 

I wish you all the best and prosperity for the coming dragon year.  Play your game with spirits of play without too much seriousness and enjoy your life!!

How much are the government's intervention into the property market good enough for the benefits of all concerned?

Facing with the “hot money” in creating the inflated prices of properties in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong government has introduced a number of administrative measures recently to stop any short term speculators from speeding up to the unusual rate of property price increases.  Finally, the sudden addition of stamp duty up to 15% of the value of the property for any property transfer within six months after the purchase as introduced on Nov 12, 2010, had helped to cool down the property market with a sharp drop in the number of transaction, cancellation of the sales contracts with loss of deposits from the buyers, etc.   The government was happy to see the response of the market and felt that administrative measures being effective after a week.  But has it solved the problem of insufficient supply of affordable housing in Hong Kong? 

“Perfect competition” with the optimum equilibrium of demand and supply as learnt from the textbook of “economics” does not happen naturally in the market.  Most of the time, demand or supply is however manipulated by a number of small groups of people, but affecting the majority of us in the market.  High inflated prices are produced by making scarcity out of something including the control of the money supply.   Without releasing more supply of the property in the market, the demand will not simply be suppressed by the small curb of the property prices brought by administrative measures.

Money is a commodity back by confidence that goods and services can be exchanged with each other in a fair market condition.   Money will flow into areas which can attract interest and attention.   Money will not lose value only if without inflation or not flowing into unproductive areas that cannot be used for exchange with other people.  

To the majority of people who cannot control the demand and supply of the properties and commodities, we therefore need to face the problem to keep the value of money grow without losing value by inflation.  To the small group of people (sometimes including the government though it wants to play an impartial role), who have access to abundant money and resources to control the demand and supply of many commodities in the market, they may need to face the problem to keep the game going by including the majority of us without losing them in the games.

Life is a kind of game which poses problems with purposes, barriers and freedom.   It could be some kind of “games condition” whereby some parties playing “must have” versus others playing “can’t have”.   How well we play any game depend on whether we are at cause or the effect of the game.  No matter whether you‘re playing only either one side of the game: “must have” or “can’t have”, if you are not willing to play the opposite side at the same time, you are still probably the effect of your own game.  

To have a better field for our games, it’s time for both sides of the game players be willing to be the opposite side and play them,  then we may have better solutions to our problems.  

What could we miss in management when applying mechanical automation alone in our work place?

While we witness leaps of technological breakthrough to help automate many job processes, we also somehow build in a lot of automatic circuit or response that many psychologists today are trying to study and establish the organizational behavior to develop certain type of management skills. Yet, no further exploration and research are made towards the direction on what or who is exactly behind the establishment of such automation.

When we look into the history of the definitions of "psychology", one will know what exactly the subject of 'psychology" is actually dealing with.

Webster's international dictionary of the English language -1829 defines "Psychology: A discourse or treatise on the human soul; the doctrine of the nature and properties of the soul."

Webster's High School Dictionary -1892 "Psychology: The powers and function of the soul."

Merriam Webster's 3rd International Dictionary- 1962, " Psychology: The science of mind or phenomena or activiites; the study of the biological organism (as man) and the physical and social environment."

Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary- 2001, "Psychology: 1. Study of mind, the scientific study of the human mind and mental states, and of human and animal behavior; 2. Characteristic mental makeup; the characteristic temperament and associated behavior of an individual or group, or that exhibited by those engaged in a particular activity; 3. Subtle manipulative behavior, subtle clever actions and words used to influence a person or a group."

Somewhere along the line, man lost his soul!

Let’s look who really build the computer machine; and who really invent the spaceship so man can land on the moon. It should be something more than what we see with our eyes only. You know you have not lost your soul!

And that’s exactly what’s missing for many studies on organizational behavior by simply using the pattern of automation (as somehow we don’t have perfect automation with correct predictability at all times) to find out how to control the pattern better by adding more control circuits for mind control or alteration purposes; without realizing or ignoring the fact the one behind the automation is the soul who likes to have his own self-determinism, likes to create, likes to fix or unfix his attention units, like to cause something good to happen, etc; but not a machine or a piece of mud itself.

If we are who we are really that we have not lost our soul, is it stupid for us who have created the pattern of automation but to make it to have full control back on us that we finally have lost our soul?

The rebellion does not simply come from any possible defect of the automation system to cause any breakdown itself, but from the resistance of the reduction of the self-determinism of the soul himself against any other counter-effort in making him to be fully automated, like by absorbing all his attention units in the same direction and distance for a real long time. The automation machine could eventually breakdown to the point when the soul himself gives up and simply succumb.


If we really understand who we are, how our mind works, and have some concept of the ideal state of our beingness with decent method to attain so by utilizing our own rights of self-determinism, then we won’t easily miss the picture of understanding and managing people properly for the greatest good of the greatest number of people concerned.  Fortunately, there are some sensible management solutions you can learn to really improve morale and productivity by keeping our "spirits" up!

What has Foxconn missed in its management to cause unusual suicidal rate recently?

Between Jan 2010 to May 2010, thirteen Foxconn employees attempted suicide with ten deaths and three serious injuries. The rapid rate of suicides is unusual to draw a lot of attention and criticism around the world; and therefore causes headaches to the management how to fix the problems right away as the situation has been out of their control for many months.

What could the management do to put the situation under its control? If one could find the “right why” of the situation being “out of control” or “bad control”, then one could find the door to open for the workable solution to reverse the condition and put it under “good control”.

The recent response to stop the suicidal rate was to ask each worker to sign a letter, requested by the management on May 22 , 2010 that the workers needed to promise not to kill themselves and even agreed to be institutionalized if they appeared to be abnormal mental or physical state, for the protection of myself and others. The letter also stated that workers who killed themselves would not gain “any compensation beyond the provisions of law and administrative regulations.” However, the management needed to withdraw such a bizarre letter right after the plunge of another worker. In other words, the letter was a “bad control” solution. To prevent further suicides, a 1.5 million-square-meter safety net will be put up around Foxconn dormitories, and it’s equivalent to 1,200 standard swimming pools. It could be again a “bad control” solution.

What is “good control”? “Good control” is an ability for the management and workers who are willing to start, change and stop in one’s own field of responsibility and activity. But why today some companies still need to use “bad control”, which is enforced or inhibited force to get compliance at the expense of the willingness of the workers to start, change and stop on his own self-determinism. Probably some companies believe that it’s the only way the management can get the production but they have missed the most important element of management tool, which is the knowledge of human emotion and reaction.

One can employ many management tools to analyze the success or failure for any company. While they may be all true or valid, knowledge of management tools can be viewed as a pyramid with a common denominator at the top which evaluates all other data below it. If one is able to know and master the top level of the pyramid, one can easily understand how to apply the remaining management tools by correctly using the data.

At the top of the pyramid of the management tools, we can have a common denominator that is knowledge of human emotion and reaction. Regardless of the type, size and industry of any company, the only thing that can motivate or inhibit any productivity or performance within or outside the company is human emotion and reaction.

It’s too simple to classify people with positive or negative emotions. In fact, there is an emotional tone scale that one can be as high as enthusiastic or as low as apathy. There’re also various emotional tone positions even in the negative emotional band. People react and behave differently on various emotional tone positions, and therefore require different methods of communication and handling. Once you have mastered it, the rest of the management tools can be integrated easily to give you better understanding and competence to fully implement all other management tools for better success of your company.

When the emotions in the workplace are more close to the “apathy band” or “subapathy band” chronically which are simply little bit above the “death band”, one will not be surprised to witness suicide in the workplace. People on this band care less even including pain and suffering.

I recommend you watch this business film DVD, “Emotions in the workplace” and it will help you understand the subject better with a lot of illustration. The below is a video clip for a preview.

You can now buy your own DVD copy directly in Hong Kong, with a booklet of "The Emotional Tone scale" included. Free postage is offered if shipped to Hong Kong.

In order to prevent from any more suicide in the workplace, what first the management should do is to survey the existing workforce to find out their emotional tone and then introduce effective measures and messages with correct tone that can help to improve the emotional band of the workplace to higher tone position rather than dragging them further into lower emotional tone band. Once the emotion tone of workplace is up and improved, it will guarantee higher production, morale and efficiency.

Now, based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard, there are answers to these emotional tones. One can learn and master the answers for results. So know your people for the success of your company!

If you are interested in getting more information about emotions in the workplace or any in-house training or workshop on the subject, please email me.

"Better City-Better Life" 2010 Shanghai World Expo

2010 Shanghai World Expo is now being held in the city of Shanghai, from May 1 to October 31, 2010. The theme of this exposition is "Better City – Better Life" and signifies Shanghai's new status in the 21st century as the "next great world city". It is the most expensive Expo in the history of the world's fairs. It is also the largest World's Fair site ever at 5.28 square km. More than 190 countries and more than 50 international organizations have registered to participate in the Shanghai World Expo. China expects to receive almost 100 foreign leaders and millions of people from across the world to come and visit the World Expo. More than 70–100 million visitors are expected to visit the expo which is the largest in history.

I am very impressed with the idea and the scale of this largest ever World Expo and will definitely find time to visit to really experience myself.

While many countries promote the idea of " Better City- Better Life" through different theme pavilions in Shanghai, the most important part is how we can bring the ideas of bettering our city and life to be implemented right in our own city.

Let's look to our city, Hong Kong. What can we do to make sure we have better city for ourselves and next generation?

To understand how well a city is doing, one can instantly think of the living standard of the city. In other words, its abilities to survive. It's true that every city is trying its best to survive. Some cities can survive better than other cities. Some can barely survive and some survive abundantly.

While we can focus exclusively on the structural or mechanical aspect of it by bettering the money making machinery to raise our living standard, we're somehow aware of the fact that it does not guarantee that we can better our life in this manner alone. Stress, anxiety and depression are inevitable products for many people living in such a metropolitan city of Hong Kong. Raising children is getting more difficult to make them more able, happier and self-determined people; while the drug education and prevention programs are not enough to make a drug free Hong Kong that any threats of drug abuse can take away their life easily. Unfair access or disclosure of information by manipulation can create an unfair playing fields in certain sectors for the advantages of a few, like the marketing tactics employed by property developers, the complicated investment products packaged by investment bankers, etc. Probably you can name more of the areas that need our concern and effort to change the conditions for real quality of better living.

Yet, looking at a wide spectrum of life and people, with majority of faces in apathy, grief, pain, resentment, anger, boredom and relatively lesser faces of strong interest and enthusiasm in Hong Kong, one will not need to lose hope or confidence easily. Why is it so? When you look further, you will find behind all these unhappy masks of many people are basically good people! What one simply needs to do is to look, explore and apply better means and ways to enhance the quality of our city and our life.

One honestly cannot change much. Yet any change starts on an individual basic. When one person changes, he can influence another person in his vicinity, and then the effect can be multiplied.

Let's work for a better Hong Kong!

Are you celebrating your Valentine's Day with love and admiration to your soul mate?

Today, it's the first time that we have the Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year on the same date in the last 57 years and we will only have the same occurrence 38 years later. Valentine's Day is no longer restricted to be a western custom, but is getting more popular in Hong Kong too. Whom you will celebrate your valentine day is a very important person to your life.

No matter you are engaged in a relationship or in a marriage, it’s the aspect of life which can easily make or break your life. Many stories either prove them to be lighting one’s life or breaking one’s heart. Some could go so emotional that one’s universe could only contain the other person one loved, with everything else out of the sight of the two people. “Love” could be used either in the right or wrong direction depending on whether it could provide additional life force to lift up all dynamics of one’s life. Is “love” a trap or a channel for more happiness, joy and freedom?

In fact, when we deal with another person, especially in such a close loving relationship, we are not meeting with that person alone. A person has many dynamics of life, including himself, group, mankind, the world, the physical universe, spiritual beingness, etc. besides the loving and sexual relationship. So when two people meet, they are meeting with their dynamics of life. It is a fact no matter whether you realize it or not. What conditions and how well each is doing on various aspect of life can greatly influence the condition and quality of the relationship.

An individual as a unit of human being, has his or her own rights of rationality, self-determinism, and rights of own goals and purposes in various dynamics of life. Though the individual may not know how to exercise or use his or her own rights, we have no right to deprive the person of his or her inherent rights.

When two people meet for a relationship, it should be something to help each other in enhancing but not suppressing the rights of each other. They are no longer working on other determinism but able to maintain one’s self determinism by pan-determinism; which is able to see the viewpoint of each other to find the best viewpoint for the interest of both parties. In other words, there are two heads, not one head only in the relationship. However, most of the time, we will easily lose our rights to each other as “love” is supposed to be expressed in this manner by many bad examples of people around us or one simply cannot control one's emotion or behavior with some strange ideas of using bad control in the relationship. "Love" can be used as a weapon of control to the other person rather than a platform for exchange of life force in abundance. Sooner or later, one cannot find anything one can admire from the other person in such relationship. No wonder why so many people do not really enjoy their relationship though they could not separate from each other for whatever reasons, or continue to break up relationship one after one.

Of course, one gets what one sees; and one only gets what one thinks should be. If one only wanted to use relationship to trap another person, one not only trapped another person but also being trapped.

It’s time to reveal what you really want from a relationship, how you can contribute to make this relationship happen and how both of you can enhance the life force with each other. By giving or allowing the rights to each other, you will set yourself and your partner free . And only then you can have a true loving relationship with admiration. Such relationship can be so powerful to uplift all aspects of your life to such a high level that you may not envision could possibly happen to both of you!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Is life a struggle or a game for happiness?

Before we have any clue why we are on this planetary earth and whether it’s our choice or not, the fact we know is “we are here”. Immediately after being born, we have been provided with the care from our parent and our community. We have also inherited our cultural value and its way how we should live our life. It seems that a lot of things were pre-determined and decided for us no matter whether we like it or not.

Living within these barriers of life, do we have power of choice to decide our own purposes, achieve the freedom from overcoming the barriers, and have fun and happiness in life? Is it true that older generation has better games to play than our new generation, especially those born in 80's and after in Hong Kong?

Everyone is playing some kind of games depending whether it's known or not and whether it serves better goals and purposes. Any game of life consists of barriers, freedom and purposes. "Game" in fact has the same elements for any players regardless when and where you're born.

Without goals and purposes in life, we are dead. Freedom is a relatively term as one needs to identify the barriers to know what one seeks to be free from. Knowing everything without barriers has no games to play at all.

Life on the other hand can be a kind of struggle if living with a lot of “unknowns” on barriers, purposes and freedom, as one is playing the games "unknowingly". Life also does not always go all the way we desire to be and so one may simply flip to less count on one’s abilities but to empower other sources or authorities having better means and ways to determine our future. Some could assign “fate” or “destiny” or “ feng-shui” or “idol” as the cause of their lives or accuse others having used up all better opportunities to cause the difficulties of their current life. As such, we’ll have more “unknowns” to be out of our control. It’s really a struggle of life.

Starting a new decade with possibilities and impossibilities ahead of us, do you have some kind of games you really enjoy or life is still a kind of struggle?

To get out of the struggle of your life if any, no matter in the areas of work, relationship, family, community work, social life, and even politics, you may need to look, find or review your goals and purposes in different areas of your life. Ask yourself what kind of effect do you want to create in those areas? In other words, what are the desirable results you want to see? What kind of barriers are you aware of that you are willing to face? How can you make the barriers known and overcome them?

Instead of looking what can’t be done, something can be done about. Instead of saying that something is impossible to be known, something can be known about.

By making something possible to be done about, we can then do a lot more. By making something "unknown" to "known", we have acquired more control of our games. Life will be no more a struggle, but is more enjoyable.

Having a lot more people in our community to live better games is a better goal for our leaders to enhance the well being of all concerned.

How can you improve your learning rate in English?

Learning a new language is not always as easy as mastering your own mother language. When come to learning English, the most evident barriers for duplication and understanding are: grammar, vocabularies and small words.

In this era of demanding speed and efficiency, methods of speed reading and memory retention have been promoted through many channels to speed up the “inflow” of any information. But most of the time, it’s done at the expense of full conceptual duplication and understanding.

If you do not know every word you are reading, how could it be possibly that you really understand it? We can speculate, or guess the meaning in our reading that sometimes we may be right, but most of them we could be wrong.

If you do not know how to use dictionaries properly, you will not be able to understand any vocabulary you run into in your reading.

If you do not know the definition of “small words” (like, if, as, at, on, off, etc) used in the context of the material you’re reading, you will not get full conceptual understanding of the material.

If you do not know the English grammar, you also cannot fully duplicate the material in your reading.

With the decreasing learning rate of the workforce in Hong Kong, I would like to recommend some references that can help any executive to help themselves or their staff to speed up the learning rate by mastering the learning blocks.

Here is a short description of each and pictures of the inside book/illustrations:

THE NEW GRAMMAR BOOK

LRH researched the subject of grammar and isolated the exact basics to enable anyone to learn and effectively use this subject. Gone are the complexities and false data that have plagued grammar for many years.

With The New Grammar, it is possible to greatly improve one’s ability to communicate to others and understand others’ communications to him.

Illustrated Hardcover, 607 pages.

SMALL COMMON WORDS DEFINED

It is the small, common words that are most often
misunderstood and form a major barrier to understanding.

In this book, more than 3,000 illustrations clearly show each definition of the most common words in English. A unique method of providing a firm understanding of the basic building blocks of the language.

Illustrated Hardcover, 750 pages.

HOW TO USE A DICTIONARY PICTURE BOOK



Using a dictionary is something people often take for granted. But few have ever been shown exactly how to gain all the benefits a dictionary can provide or how to use it efficiently.

This illustrated and easy-to-understand text explains proper dictionary usage to both young students and adults, giving them this vitally needed skill.

Illustrated Hardcover, 263 pages.

The above books definitely help you to raise your level of duplication and understanding of English Language. Previously only available for key to life course at US$1,250, now you can get them all in a separate package for only US$345. Limited set is available for this special price.

You can now click the link at http://www.lrh-books.com/order_mult.php?item=dict,small_common,new_grammar&trackid=2275 to place the order online before this special offer has expired.

I hope the above recommendation may help especially if you are serious in improving your learning rate in English!

What is the common problem for most executives?

Life is livingness. There can be numerous problems that could put any executive in trouble. One of the common problems is that the executive cannot reach, or confront to get his communication across so he can get what he intends to have.

To get things done, one needs to communicate well what one intends to have. It’s also true in his any other activities besides his own career. Good communication can exercise good control with clear start, change and stop for any activity involved.

Facing with decreasing learning rate of the workforce, it could easily multiply the problems of communication that slow down the speed of the production and delivery of the products or services of the company. In other words, not only any executive needs to raise his confront and improve his communication skills, but also increase the learning rate of the staff of the company so his order can be duplicated, understood and executed.

To judge a person how good his communication is, you can use the time from when you ask the question and the time he could be able to answer your question. The more time the person needs to answer you back, the poorer shape the person is, and therefore the less efficient on his job duties.

At the same time, it is ironical to say that communication can give you what you have but also can give you trouble if you communicate wrongly or incorrectly. In fact, there are a lot to learn about communication. If one can master his communication, he will not be far way off from his own ideal scene.

If you want to improve your management skills as an executive, the first thing you may want to look at is to improve your communication, which is the foundation for any management skills including leadership.

If you want to know how to improve your communication skill, write me an email.

Can we trust our own observation and evaluation?

The world seems to grow into complexity as we grow up. Things in the environment no longer appear to be as simple as black and white. We start to learn more but get more complicated or even confused.

Information age indeed gives us instant access of information at our fingertips ( via our keyboard). It is getting harder to digest and differentiate which information is more valuable or close to the actual scene or reality.

We also get used to evaluate any subject by using positive and negative viewpoints. So whenever we study any subject, we use internet search and most of the time we get controversial information on some subjects especially in social forums. We easily heard both positive and negative voice from different opinions but our key question is: “Which is truer or more right than others?” We get “ridges” rather than flow of logic of information that can be useful or valuable to us; especially people tend to retain negative ideas or thoughts more than positive ideas or thoughts.

So it is important to be “three feet behind your head” to have an exterior viewpoint to really look, observe, and if possible it is better to go directly to the source of the information to find it out yourself rather than seeking any second opinions, and you know that sometimes what many people see and agree can still be far off from the real picture. As you are the only person who is responsible for all the observation in this physical universe, it is time not to simply bring the observation and conclusion from others into your universe without you first to “look”.

Unless one can establish his own ability of observation, evaluation and responsibility for one’s own conclusion, one can be true to what one observes without being the effect of any positive or negative voice on the subject. You probably will agree that such attributes are very much needed especially for any executive in any government and business organization; as any effective policies, decisions and implementions are based on true observation and evaluation.

I hope you enjoy your own universe of observation and evaluation which can bring more happiness, sanity and rationality to your life and people around you.

Life goes on....with “swine flu” around

Life goes on ... with “swine flu” around, “sudden acid attack from the sky”, “murder of an innocent 3 years old kid”, “export of US national debts to the world”, etc.

If we really look around, one can easily find tragedies, unfairness, sufferings, irrationalities, etc to tell us our reality or actual experience is far from ideal or perfect.

One can escape by having one's own fantasy in one's own world regardless whether it can come to the reality to be shared by others.

One can agree by getting himself down to the same or worse level of social irrationalities

One can also fight and change the reality to a better world with better civilization including fighting his own irrationalities though one may not know how.

One cannot go sane or rational by himself alone if everyone around him are insane or irrational. Honestly, it is a tough world to live even for an all-times perfect and sane person.

Even one day if someone could dream up perfect technologies to help all of us getting out of the traps, the way leading to the implementation of such perfect technologies would definitely hit lots of stops and barriers as put forward by our current mass of imperfect people; and therefore many of us would not even try to look and work this out. People tend to be "faults finding" as it is always easier than making things go right or towards the state of perfection.

What choice do we have?

If you somehow believe that there should be ideal state of man, ideal state of community, and ideal state of the world, stop complaining and do whatever you can do to improve or better it. By doing this, it may make you feel that you are a little bit off from the traps and slightly move yourself towards some kind of freedom.

Yet, we need some kind of better methods and technologies to help us to do so. We better look, learn, evaluate and do it right. Don't listen but look. Even if we have good technologies, it also depends on how good we can implement to achieve the desired results.

Can we count on others to do so? How about first asking yourself to count on "you"? Your future depends on “you”.

Rebound rally for real economic recovery?

In the midst of negative GDP, high unemployment and bankruptcy rates, the rally of stock market from the low of 11344 of HSI on March 9 to the highest of 18171 on May 29 this year gave us signals of possible economic recovery in the near future. The Dow Jones is also on the tear since March 9, 09. Is the rally an illusion or simply a delusion?

In our modern economies regardless of any political or social system, we constantly fight with the paradox of “inflation” versus “deflation”; “high interest rate” versus “low or even zero interest rate”; “taxation” versus “welfare” to maintain or achieve the economic prosperity for all concerned but in fact most of the time for the benefit of a small percentage of people only. Economic cycles of “up and down” are made to be inevitable so to have games of manipulation that the uninformed or misinformed could easily lose the games.

Presented with conflicting data about the future of our economy, it may be more real to ask ourselves,” How can I live better?”, “How can our economy do better?”

“Economics” is the social science that studies the production, distribution and the consumption (using) of commodities (things). The word originally meant “the science or art of managing a house or a household.” From this grew up a study of the whole community as a connected activity.

The recent rally is more due to the fact of the increase of money supply in a low or zero interest investment environment than playing with the idea of anticipated economic recovery by the investment communities; which is actually without much of the current supporting data of improvement or reversed downtrend in the production. Unless we have real increase in our production and productivity, then we have increased distribution and consumption. Otherwise, the one-sided increase in money supply may inevitably lead to inflation or any type of "bubble" eventually.

So what one really needs to ask, is “How can I raise my production?” Regardless of any field you are working, there should be some valuable products or services you are responsible in producing so to keep you posted. The real economic prosperity for any individual or any nation in fact depends on what the valuable products and services one can produce. Possibly the only protection one can have for any economic environment is to “produce” with valuable products and services.

Let’s roll our sleeves to make real production for real economic recovery.

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... Rank: wait... Traffic: wait... Price: wait... I: wait... L: wait... C: wait...

Do we have enough drug education that we have a “Drug Free Hong Kong”?

Recently we have two Hong Kong artists got arrested in Japan because of the illegal possession of street drugs with the subsequent verification of having taking such drug. It did arouse a lot of negative impact especially they could set a very bad example to their fans and young people in Hong Kong.

I wonder whether we have enough drug education in Hong Kong that why young people could think that it’s a fashion or whatever reasons to be on drug ; that is far more attempting than any harms they may have received. For those who said “no” to drug for many years could not understand why other people could be so stupid to harm themselves by taking such illegal drugs.

There could be many reasons why they chose on drug, possibly they may have some prior problems or upsets that they could not confront or solve so to use “drugs” as a means in not confronting, etc.. but probably they do not know “drugs” could bring more problems and upsets as a snowball that could destroy their lives eventually.

While the authorities should by all means make the illegal drugs out of the market that the "criminals" cannot have any channels to pass the drug to the public, it is also much more important to educate our young people on the subject extensively and continuously.

It should be included as part of the school curriculum for the subject of “drugs”. Any student who has finished a drug education course should attest that he or she will choose “no drugs” in his or her life. A thorough education with one's own recognition of the subject can bring a self-determined decision to say "no" to drug. Education is far more effective than any other preventive or legal means to build a “Drug Free Hong Kong”.

For the materials one can use in drug education either in school or any youth community, please check this out at http://www.drugfreeworld.org, where they can also provide booklet in traditional Chinese.

I know you will share with my mission to have a “Drug Free Hong Kong”, and so let’s do more in our drug education.

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What barriers leading us not to know something?

Before we know anything, there could be something we “not know” that we therefore search and study to know. It is simple, right?

However, we also run into many barriers on not allowing us to really know.

One obvious barrier is that you assume you know everything about the subject that you do not need to bother to look for any area you may not know; or no need to verify or evaluate the body of knowledge you have without any false, useless or conflicting data to see they really can apply in this universe; that help you really master the subjects you are proud of. You may easily find such attitudes especially from the so called “expert” or “authority”.

Another extreme of barrier could be some kind of attitudes, or false attitudes from someone or any authority, that the subject could not be known, and no one has ever attempted to know in the past that it is a total mystery. If you assume any area that can’t be known, you of course will not know something about it. Or it you may wreck your “talent” when you agreed with someone who told you that you did not have the talent to know about something.

So you see your attitudes of what you know, what you not know, what you can know and what you can’t know can determine how much you can really know about the subject.

You can also see from the above on how this is related with one’s education.

Hence, one’s education depends on the attitude that something can be known about, and know what you not know and then look to find out what you can know.

Such attitude is not restricted to any formal education system, but any aspect of life as one can do something on what one knows.

When you try to hat or train anyone on any post of your company, you may find the above helpful to identify what attitudes about knowing something from your staff. You may be surprised to discover those who can identify the areas of "not knowing" with the idea that that can be known, is easier to train than those who tell you how much they have already known about the subject.

I hope the above tip may help.

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Are all of our education so important that our students can’t feel relaxed?

On my last blog, I have briefly expressed my opinion on the subject of education which indeed is a big subject as the critical question is how our education system (including online education) can guarantee the ability to learn and apply. However, I have been very much occupied in the last few weeks that until now I could spend some time on my blog.

There has been a lot of pressure on study that we see some students going that far to commit suicide, or simply stop schooling, etc. Many of them are good students (in terms of good grades in school) prior to such dramatic behavior changes and made us wonder what had happened to them.

Where do all these unbearable pressure come from?

Each person is different for his or her response and solution handling toward his or her environment.

If we simply focus on education, let’s see what door can possibly open for a better solution.

There is one useful tip I have learnt from Mr. L. Ron Hubbard on his lecture about method of education that you can use it for your kids. For example, if he or she can’t feel relaxed on certain subject in school, or any particular topic of the subject concerned, you can ask , "Select something unimportant about the subject of ______”, he or she looks and gives you an answer, then you simply acknowledge it, and repeat the question again and again until he or she feels good about it. You can continue until he or she can select the unimportance and find what are important. If everything seemed important to him that nothing is unimportant, it could make him feel very tense like"killing" him. By doing this drill, he may find out that there is nothing important for this subject as you know some subjects or topics may be useless if they contained false or useless data ; or he can find out something valuable of the subject that he can be interested in studying it about. By doing this, you can help him to establish the proper importance of the subjects he is studying without studying unimportance or useless materials. Any data of importance can be valuable only after being evaluated by the person himself. The person can study well only on the subject he could find interest to study as it is based on his own self-determinism. It could even be better if the person masters the skills of study technology on the subject.

But before you help your kids feeling relaxed about study by the above suggested drill , you may ask yourself whether you have communicated everything around the study and education very important to him or her that you’re probably the source of putting all these “important” pressure on your kid. Then you may really need to look what the real importance of the education to your kid are.

I hope the above tip may help.

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