Jerry Springer!

So the Miss Universe thing is happening in Nha Trang in a few weeks.  There is a faint buzz in the country, as the contestants have been hopping from town to town for photo-ops.  They were in HCMC last weekend for a dinner at the Sheraton - apparently, my invite was lost in the mail.

Reading the paper this morning, I learned that Jerry Springer (!!!!) will be the co-host of the Miss Universe (along with Mel B of the Spice Girls).  Jerry freaking Springer - that's gold!

I would go to Nha Trang just to meet Jerry Springer.  

Seat Guru

Living as an expat means lots of airline travel.  

Picking a good seat on those long haul flights is essential for some rest and relaxation.  That and the free drinks.  

How to find those seats?  The wonderfully useful SeatGuru site is at your service.  How did I ever manage to live without the internet?  

Obama + Energy

As the political race in the States has now winnowed, the candidates are starting to spout off their ideas to energize (pun, ha!) the public behind their campaign.

One such recent tack is that taken by Obama under the CNN headline of "Obama Wants Energy Speculator Crackdown."

Reading the piece, it sounds like he wants more governmental intervention and oversight into energy commodities futures trading (but not other types of futures, let alone commodities futures, trading).  Hmm.. while regulation per se may be not all that bad, knee-jerk regulations surely are ripe for mistaken results (death of habeas, anyone?).

The Dems are smart to throw around the term 'closing the Enron loophole' in their petitioning.  I had no idea what this is, so I read up on it a bit.

First up was www.StopOilSpeculators.com - hmm, wonder where they stand:

Additionally, through the so-called "swaps loophole," financial investors can "game the markets" for pure profit by buying up positions in the energy markets,without any limitation on the size of the positions they can take.  One recent estimate suggested that they now control one third of the commodities markets, or $150 billion - a 1,000% increase in less than five years!

What exactly is wrong with taking large positions on bets that you think will go your way?  That's like saying you, as an individual investor, can buy as much Google stock as your wealth allows!  Oh, no!

Look at this May 2008 Baltimore Chron commentary, talking about the Enron Loophole:

In 2006, the "Enron loophole" allowed Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to shift its trades from the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) to the unregulated Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in Atlanta. 

 

That let Amaranth corner the natural gas market, betting that futures prices would rise. The hedge fund lost about $6 billion and imploded as natural gas prices fell to a two-year low in September 2006. 

Haha - that second 'graph is where all these Enron Loophole types are missing in their comprehension.  The spot price for oil is what people pay for it today - so higher prices hurt the buyers and help the sellers of oil.  Spot prices, for the most part, depend on demand characteristics.  

Futures trading is about bets on future price movements - you can use it to bet future prices will be up or down from today, and trade in and out of those positions before the maturity date to make money based on intra-contract price movements of the underlying asset (here, oil).  A futures trade is a contract - there are two sides of the transaction, and neither side is an actual consumer (nor producer) of oil.  It's just a bet between two people, and if you're on the wrong side of the bet, you have to pay up.  

Is this speculation?  Yes, but so is making any investment.  As from the example, just because you "corner" the futures market doesn't mean you'll make money.  It could mean you blow up spectacularly and be used as a whipping boy in hedge fund conferences.  

Complaining about things like 'energy speculation' makes Obama sound more and more like every other poltico and less about the "change" that we need.  After all, when I go out and buy a Prius, I'm an "energy speculator" too!    

Cantopop Movies

Unless you set up a Slingbox, or buy tons of bootlegged DVDs (I've done neither, unfortunately), living overseas means watching foreign TV.  

The English language channel selection that I get in Saigon is about twice what we had in Hanoi - here I'm getting Cinemax and HBO, as well as the usual culprits, Star, Discover, Nat Geo, ESPN and the African sports channel, Super Sport.

I've supplemented that English mix by watching korean shows on KBS, Chinese movies (mostly in Cantonese w/English subs), and once in a blue moon Vietnamese versions of British gameshows (1 v. 100, Who Wants To Be A Billionaire in VND, etc. etc.)

The fun KBS shows are all 'reality' type of shows. Not survivor style, but more like documentary/Oprah-style shows delving into common folks' daily lives.  There are a few recurring themes of the KBS shows: 

(1) daily economic struggle of the Korean working class - I saw a show about a family that had 6 y/o twins who made their money selling homemade kimbap (Korean style sushi rolls) to morning commuters.  Seemed like a tough life.  The kids had their birthday party on the show.. their parents got them each a pencil case for school.  The kids really liked it.  I remember when a pencil case was a nice gift, but I also remember my nephews getting things like a N64, Gamecube, PS2, Wii, PS3, etc. 

(2) how cross-cultural marriages, mostly between Korean men and foreign brides, function, from the wooing stage to years on.  One show was about how Korean men in various stages of their relationship with Vietnamese foreign brides - the guys were going to a language center to learn the language prior to going overseas, or a married guy was learning to speak better so he could speak to his father-in-law over the phone.  They filmed a phone conversation and typically, and hilariously, the entire limited discussion was about whether each side ate yet!  Another episode was about the foreign brides' families visiting their daughters in Korea.  Frankly, it was a bit amazing to see the diversity of the foreign brides - the Philippines, Mongolia, India, Nepal, Uzbekistan, etc.  Vietnam is a (relatively) large net exporter of brides to Korea - I met a caddy who's sister was happily married there, though her family hadn't physically seen her in about 5 years - but in the last 6 months the Government here temporarily stopped issuing visas for such travel because of shady bride purchasing promoters.  

(3) how young married Korean couples are doing - it would be interviews of newlyweds, to probe their emotions before and after marriage, with the overarching theme being "marriage is a good thing."  Are young kids in Korea putting off marriage that much that TV needs to encourage such couplings?          

But the best thing on the non-English channels has to be the cheese-a-rific Canto-pop movies.  Charlene Choi, Gaile Lok, oh my!  Some Cantonese speakers complain about these silly movies, with their simplistic plot lines and over the top acting, but when one is reading subtitles, simple story lines and exaggerated motions really help one along.  And the pre-Kung Fu Hustle work of Stephen Chow is laugh out loud enjoyable too.  But he's not cutesy enough to link to.  

So ditch the DVDs and check out the foreign language stuff on the tube.     

Business on 747

Flying domestic airlines kinda sucks after being relatively pampered
on Asia-based airlines.
Recently, on my trans-continental trip from LAX to the East Coast, I
was offered the option of buying some crap food for $5. Good thing I
was more interested in satisfying my sleep deprivation than my hunger.

Look at how full your airline tray gets on a simple sub-2 hour flight
on Vietnam Airlines - mains, salad, dessert, roll, drink, coffee/tea,
wine, full compliment of utensils (fork, spoon, knife, chopsticks,
napkin, and of course a toothpick and the mandatory wet nap), full
compliment of condiments (salt, pepper, butter, cream, and of course
hot sauce) - by the time you're thru, the plane is on its descent.

Once you switch over to the international segment on the domestic airlines, it does get better. The service is still not up to the standards of Vietnam Airlines, but it's tolerable.

I was on a United flight and got bumped up to business class - the upper cabin of a Boeing 747, too! - on the international segment. It's pretty neat to sit up there, with the limited number of seats, it feels like you're traveling in real style. Service was decent, but the accommodations felt old and outdated. I had the hardest time with adjusting the seat until I figured out that, unlike the seats on Vietnam Airlines' biz class, these things were manually adjusted. Bummer.

Rainy Afternoon, HCMC

Rainy season here means brief, brutal downpours at times.

This is looking down Dong Khoi street in District 1 of HCMC during one
such spurt. You would be hard pressed to find this street as empty at
any other time of the day or night when it isn't raining.

Vina Miata

Sweet, an M1 Miata. There are more Bentleys, or Ferraris, or Rollers
in the country than this most capable sports car.

Goat Hotpot

Had some goat the other day, in the pretty popular format of a hotpot
place. You find this all over the north and the south here - look for
signs that say "Lau De" (lau = hotpot, de = goat).

I came to learn that I really did not care for goat, at all. Notice
the cool goat themed cast iron plate though.