The Best Camera

What is the best camera?

This is probably one of the hardest questions to answer properly. The same goes for the hi-fi system but I am now on the camera.

I started with the M7 TTL and a 28mm f/2.5, a 50mm f/1.4 and a 75mm f/2.0 and lost all of them on transit back from Hawaii. Don't do bargain airfares that require transit in home airport anymore.

The digital age brought Pentax K7 and then K5 with its range of cute prime lenses (31, 43, 77 mm). Smaller than most, but not an everyday camera.

After all, the best camera in the world is the one in your pocket (my phone is not a camera).

Got a Leica 35mm f/25 (cheapest) and fixed it to a Ricoh GXR (cheap). Used them on my daughter's graduation. Good; used.

Fujifilm tries to be a digital Leica. Bought the X100 when the price fell with the launch of X-Pro. Nice pictures. Slightly bulky.

The Sony RX1 which is full frame (full circle for those using film) is too expensive. Bought Fujifilm X20 is still too big for the pocket but more carry-able. The Canon S110 or the Sony RX100 could be more pocketable, but the X20 plays better.

So much for trying to take some very ordinary pictures once in a while. Mostly black and white, spot meter. The Leica M Monochrom looks fantastic but it costs nearly as much as my car.

If You Should Vote

If you should vote, please vote as you please
That is your right
Fear not what others think, it's none of their business
It's supposed to be a secret ballot
Others may try to persuade you
But let you not be swayed beyond your conscience
The election is to take tally
What each of us think
And add all up and see what is the balance
It is crude, but it is crucial
Not one yet know the outcome
Some what to maintain the status quo
Others want change
Even if it is 51 to 49
The 51 will win
while the 49 may howl
If you are a party man, you lose
For your right is to change
And keeps everyone on their toes.

Turning Point & Disequilibrium

I suppose with global warming, everything is getting a bit heated up and emotions run high.

Or, is it simply boredom!

Change is in everybody's mind, and we all imagine that change will be for the better.

Some are so bored that change, any change, is better than the status quo.

When the status quo has existed for so long, it may take a sizeable amount of force to overcome the inertia. When that critical mass of change does occur, we will all be so surprised that it actually can happen that we may be numbed into not knowing what to expect.

In the face of uncertainty, we would all tend to over-provide and suddenly find ourselves over-burden by what we really do not need.

We will have to spend sometime to get ourselves out from under the load.

With change, we go from happy or unhappy equilibrium into disequilibrium and hopefully not further discontent.

We will have to exert a certain amount of force to stop the change. It is unlikely to be a one-step move and stop. Change could just roll on, like the waves.

The world today does look quite dramatic, when all the possible happenings in the world are concentrated into a small screen in a small window of waking time.

See what type of change we are going to get - the outer clothes or the inner wear.

Election & Economy

The election is a regular thing that modern societies try to emulate the old. In traditional societies, everybody sit around and each has a chance to speak their minds, in between drinks and food and smoke. The atmosphere is general genial, but once in a while, someone may have drunk too much, or ate too much or smoke too much, and goes into a trance state and start talking in strange language and making strange sounds. Otherwise, everyone would have emptied themselves and eventually everybody agreed and the meeting is over. Life goes on.

But in the modern day and age, attempts are made to influence others and to persuade or even coerce others to accept your views. When our views are not heard or are not the majority view, we become upset and throw tantrums. We demand that things should be done right, as if being right means that our views will prevail.

It is quite impossible to obtain consensus. Not everybody will agree with everybody every time. In a close society, social manner calls for us to be polite. In the modern social media work, we are not intimately known to each other although we try to connect. We may become less concern with politeness, when we then tend towards rudeness, as if rudeness is indicative of truth.

The world, alas, is not perfect. Although we wish for one that is, and even pray for it, we are unfortunately stuck with our feet in the mud. We live with life's imperfections.

The one thing we think we can fix is the economy. There are economic experts. They know theories and they run econometric models.

But the modern economy is an artificial construct. The modern economy is a matrix and we are all caught in the web. Being entangled is no fun. We can't extricate ourselves.

But we keep on trying. We try new things. We try new leaders. We do not want to be dictated by some persons or some groups who seem to be able to get away by entrapping us.

When Both Promise the Same

If, for example, both opposing parties make essentially the same promises, then, the interesting question is what is the difference?

The difference will be (1) whether all the promises can be fulfilled at the same time, and (2) the style by which the promises will be fulfilled.

In making similar pledges, whether achievable or not, the conclusion is that there is really no disagreement over the nature of policy anymore. Specifically, both have zeroed in on the voters are individuals - rather than as businessmen or investors or professionals or workers - and the promise is to make life easier for everybody, especially during such trying times.

As economists, we know that in trying to soften the blows on individuals, the brunt of the adjustment will be undertaken by government spending which means that, other things being equal, the government deficit will enlarge. An enlarging government deficit is a contentious issue now and this has got to do with how the central bank is trying to keep its monetary policy in balance - a topic that is very carefully left out by all policy discussions around the world which is being inundated with the quantitative easing (QE) ideology.

Note that it is interesting to observe in reality how, after the endless printing of money, the end of the printing of money - when its creditors refuse to lend any more for a small-country central bank - will result in the collapse of the banks and the evaporation of their customers' deposits in varying degrees.

Unless, of course, the government tries to raise its revenue by raising taxes, other things being equal. If income growth and job creation is an issue, then it is inevitable that income tax will be left alone or cut, and the burden of the government budgetary balance then befalls the consumers. For those who are badly brought up in economic theory, they will suggest an increase in the consumption tax.

If this really is the case, then we are going round one big circle or trying to help the consumers by pushing the  consumers. This circle points to the problem of income growth which I think both parties have not been very good at elaborating. Or, if I may think in nastily, that they think that growth can be induced by more government spending which is the last order of business in stimulating growth.

The crux of the matter when the general public raises issues concerning corruption, crime, education and language is really about building the human and social capital of the nation - after having piled up the financial capital with cheap easy credit and empty buildings on government spending. Solving traffic problems is not about commuters only but about the efficiency of logistics. There is a whole discussion on economic efficiency which has been overlooked especially we are talking about elevating ourselves from a middle income nation to a high income nation.

So, are we being stuck in the middle income trap? Are we suffering from mid-life crisis? If the nation is like an individual person, I would say that Malaysia, after 56 years of independence (after some foreign elite), is now suffering from a middle-age spread. Poverty is a thing of the past for most (those who reminisce their poor old days), whilst new forms of poverty are emerging, and those of us with a house or some of us with houses would now wonder what to do with the time on our hand (apart from thinking how clever we all are about solving the problems of our world except those of our own minds). We may even discourage our children from working "too" hard, for "it is not worth it." Our skills extend sideways - how to multiple the same old things we had done, but repeating them in new environments (like overseas). We simply refuse to invest, in putting our resources back into our own system so that we can do the same things better (with less drudgery) or to do new things. We have all become capitalists, putting our money and time into ventures that require other people (modern slaves) to put in the effort and pull in the cash. This is where the services industries are the worst, especially if we venture into casinos, tourism and all forms of services (except quality time with our own family members or friends). In these days of inflation (some would argue "Inflation, what inflation?"), the future of the younger generation is being forfeited so that the old and self-satisfied can rest on their laurels. Instead of building more buildings and more roads, it may be better if projects are being created to put the skills of the young and talented to work. If we create an environment of transitory wealth creation through trading of unproductive products such as bad houses in bad locations, it is no wonder that, after a prolonged period, the young gives up putting an effort and mentally switched off and merely staring at that blinking screen on their palms.

So, which style will prevail after the election results are out?

Hobson's Choice: Vote

I intend to be philosophical here rather than ideological.

I mean, what choice do we really have when, to use a bad phrase, when we are stuck between a rock and a hard place (I could use a different analogy, but it would still be incorrect.)

If we really believe in the mud that one side hurls at the other side, I would think that both sides are equally just as bad. They are using language in public at each other which my mum would not allow to hear herself if I had to say them had I joined the "party." I think we are at the bottom of the pit, from all the mud at had been hurled. I won't be surprised if many of us have already switched off from the rhetoric.

I would imagine that this country is quite difficult to manage. After all, good is bad and bad is good. Anybody can think out of the box and get completely off tangent. When there is no reliance on logic and reasonable, we can simply be a bigot and still feel that we have the god-given right to utter absolute nonsense.

All of us what to start from scratch - by throwing the baby out with the bath water. We have thrown away what we had since the colonial times, and start from a new slate (I won't say clean). Now, someone proposes to come in and start with another clean slate. This is rootless revolution. I do not imagine anyone of us to be so wise as to able to reside in every "now-ness" with "nothing-ness."


Both sides subscribe to the same model; the only difference apparently is method or approach or modus operandi. This gives me the reservation. I would rather that both sides declare that they shall not engage in nepotism and if they are sons of ministers or elected representatives, they should involuntary step down and let others who do have such privileged backgrounds to stand up and give their contributions. (I shall not go further, as there are ingenious ways their fathers had argued why their sperms are better than my father's.)

I do agree with the view that says that probably the best option is the third option - the independent candidates - although they may not be of sufficient numbers to form the next government, but then we says it should always be about forming the next government. I like the argument that the job of the opposition (as a profession) is to be, as Socrates argued in his last days, according to Plato, is to be a horse fly which so irritates the horse that it keeps the horse awake. (But, of course, we know what happened to Socrates.) If we have to die, this is not a bad way to go off.

Really, the current fight is a fight for power, an intense fight for absolute power. If that is the final outcome, then we are all dead. The best compromise in a Hobsonian dilemma is to reduce both sides to their absolute margins that one is in no position to allow the other to be a dictator or, a tyrant. We had one too many in our recent history.

Neither side, from what I have gathered so far, really cares about this sovereignty of our nation, an abstract entity which we should cherish because it is so endearing as a concept - that we have this dear country of ours to die for. Most of us do that even without having to go to the front-line. We die in poverty, if not physically then spiritually. I suppose the best thing to do then is to rely on no-one, and sometimes not even ourselves. How sad, but probably how true!

UK Economics vs US Economics

When I was working in the stockbroking industry a long long time ago, I could not help but be blown by the sharp contrast between a UK fund manager and an American fund manager.

When I started out, we were doing with good old British traditional macroeconomics. We asked questions like: Where does the GDP growth come from in real terms? Is it investment driven (quantity) or is it really from productivity growth? Are you sure that it is not money sloshing around playing havoc on values that we are mistaking nominal value for real value? Is the money supply growth too much? Is the money supply growth coming from the system itself such as by an increase in the speed of lending, and that it is not coming from central bank - worse still, the central bank buying the debts of banks!? The central bank was even furiously trying to stabilise the money supply by buying foreign money inflow - in a process called sterilisation. I think this phrase has not been used since. Are there product innovations and is the market strong? etc.

At some point, we felt that the economy was really doing well beyond its capacity to absorb the amount of cash that everyone was throwing into the stock market. So, we got our clients to bail out. British clients. What saved the stock market for the day were the new American clients.They were very fresh. They just had one simple rule of thumb to go by - the real interest rate. If the real interest is positive - if the nominal interest rate is higher than the inflation rate - then the situation is considered not inflationary. There was then much game being played with the concept of the core inflation rate - you'd got to take out the "insignificant" elements like food prices because they did not impact the production of goods and services, etc. Much capital was made out of these little mental games, so long as there was money pouring into the market. Of course, until some smart person shouted "Fire!" and everyone rushed to exit through that one small door and, of course, the devil was there waiting to shut the door. The devil was playing with fire; "if I get burnt, so should you too!"

So, it amazes me how on earth can the world live with the idea that it is okay to the real interest rate is now negative as the nominal interest rate is near zero (for the saver) and inflation is far higher than that thanks to China. Of course, there will always be the market operators who will happily tell you all kinds of stories everyday just to make you feel looked after because you have all this money and are bored. I worked with this colleague who was a senior (one of the bosses) and a dealer. I heard him said to his client: "The stock looks good. There is inflation everywhere and prices are going up and this will be very good for the P/E. Buy." I didn't think he was even an economist.

So, to all of you out there trying to earn a living selling stocks, or out of a job and punting stocks just to feed your family, I wish you all the best. You are doing what I have given up. You are brave. This blog not just this post, in fact, is just a little help I am trying to give to people like you who are caught in the deep end of things. This is a side view which I have the luxury to paddle, to alert you to other things which you may have overlooked in your haste. I think the limits to foolish is define by the extent of one's greed.