Roy Ho’s Blog

Some are quick to draw an parallel between Obama’s “A more Perfect Union” speech to other presidents’:

http://www.connpost.com/ci_8619497?source=rss

However, Obama probably emulates Gettysburg Address.  The transcripts of “A More Perfect Union”, Gettysburg’s Address and Kennedy’s Houston speech are listed here:

Obama’s is here:

Kennedy:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600

Gettysburg Address:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/gettysburgaddress.htm

Houston may have a good context to draw a parallel.  Gettysburg is a far better comparson in terms of context (we are facing a challenge, Obama says) than Houston (questions of Kennedy’s independence).  The structure is also a better comparson between Gettsburg than Houston.

A headless central bank is never a good thing.  Not good for the local equity and derivative trading, not good in terms of international politics.  Since most of these positions are decided by elected politicians, decisions are less of emotion and spontaneity.  So, in the case of Japan’s central bank, Bank of Japan, is the opposition reckless to harm Japan’s standing in the international finance world or is the Prime Minister manipulated by the all powerful Japanese public servants?   

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1723666,00.html 

I present the argument that Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda may have no suitable candidate outside of Ministry of Finance veterans, even prior to the second veto.  Japanese parliament system is the best argument to have the administration elected by voters rather than run by parliament, similar to UK, Canada, Australian and other monarchies.  In this case, the public servants grow so powerful (since there is never attrition) that they are able to manipulate elected officials, primary candidates, business decisions and regulatory issues.  And Japan has never prepared to cultivate its own public administrator outside of its public servants work force.  The pool for any central bank job is very small.  And after the second veto and the condition that there cannot be a public servant veteran, this Japanese political drama will have to require backroom deals not among the elected politicians of the same stripe, but opposing parties.   

Of course it will impact on the Yen’s exchange rate.  It has impact on the TSE as well.  Everyone should know it hours ago.  However, one may have to pay attention to Korean markets and stocks as well, since a lot of Korean economy is dependent on Japan.  This may have impact on HK’s market.  There are quite a few banks listed in LSX and NYSE with operations in various parts of US.   

Some suggest BOJ can offer a lot to US in regard to US’ housing meltdown.  Yes, that is true.  But the world has changed so much since Japan’s meltdown.  Japan did not have any exotic products back down.  And Japan always bail out conglomerates.  And they are still recovering their mess, 15 years already.  They may offer everything from their lessons learnt to things you do not want to do, but not solutions.

Time:

03.22.F.1730 - 1830  EST
03.23.A.1200 - 1330  EST

http://www.ccue.com/toronto/radio/

The suggestion that if Taiwan increases more FDI it may help expand its diplomatic space depends on the ability to attract FDI.  The very first thing for a FDI decision is political stability.  If Taiwan cannot be proven politically stable, then there is a high premium on the political risk with this investment.  Taiwan continues to have difficulties to participate in any international body due to Mainland China’s diplomatic pressure.  Taiwan also has fewer and fewer chips to conduct its affairs with any small country, which tool is suggested in the article.  They key point in the article is that Taiwan needs to manage its relationship well with Mainland.  And that is pretty much everything there is about Taiwan. 

Taiwan’s relationship with Mainland is dependent on its progress toward unification.  This progress will loosen up the leash from Mainland, but by no means independence.  The difference I point out is: attracting FDI, western relationship management, and Mainland relationship management are not three independent items on a to-do list.  There is just one item on the to-do list: Mainland relationship management.  The other two will be a consequence of the Mainland relationship management. 

The Taiwan separatists are a group of people much smaller than the core DPP supporters.  However, an outright unification would lose the appeal of any president, however corrupt free he appears to be, however great his platform is and however great an administrator he is.  Unfortunately, the politicians who are more adept to manage the separatist sentiments are not quite there on the stage.  And Chen is proven to be unfit in this category.  So, it will take more time to train a new generation of politicians. 

Given Ma had been stationed in Hong Kong and Hsieh has never been worked outside of Taiwan, Ma will be more able to manage its relationship with Mainland.  Ma could have employed his relationship while stationed in Hong Kong to expose any negativity that DPP members may have in China.  For that, Ma may be truly practicing positive politics, ahead of Obama.