Andy Yeh > Recent Status Updates

這本書是我今年花最久時間才讀完的一本書!

With over 60 million layoffs traceable to the state-owned enterprise reforms, job and income insecurity is rife among the Chinese workforce. The lack of a nationwide social safety net, especially social security, pension, medical care, and unemployment insurance, only compounds that problem. As such, Chinese households, motivated by fear of uncertain economic prospects, tend to save more for precautionary reasons.

Macro China has hit a critical sustainability impasse: the macroeconomy is far too reliant on fixed asset investments and exports. Yet Micro China continues to power ahead: the microeconomy is largely driven by autonomous development imperatives at the local level. In the end, fragmentation seriously complicates well-intended policy initiatives of macro control.

The politicization of the renminbi issue has been a hallmark of the recent U.S.-China debate. While the U.S. suffers from a severe trade deficit, the smoking gun comes in the form of a Chinese bilateral deficit that accounts for about 30 percent of America's multilateral trade gap. Washington views China as the culprit that ails the U.S. worker. So an adjustment of the undervalued renminbi may help assuage the pain.

As long as low-wage poor countries remain stuck in the export-led growth paradigm, such countries are asking for trouble in an era where the middle-class workers remain under severe pressure. In order to diffuse the macro tensions of the globalization debtate, the developing countries need to consume more. Then the developing countries can offer deep and broad markets to their trading partners in the devleoped world.

As long as low-wage poor countries remain stuck in the export-led growth paradigm, such countries are asking for trouble in an era where the middle-class workers remain under severe pressure. In order to diffuse the macro tensions of the globalization debtate, the developing countries need to consume more. Then the developing countries can offer deep and broad markets to their trading partners in the devleoped world.

The parallels between the crises in Japan and the U.S. are striking. Both economies suffered from the burst of a major asset bubble (property and equity in the case of Japan and property and credit in the case of the U.S.). Both had broken financial systems stemming from egregious risk management blunders. The coupe de grace was the lethal macroeconomic impact of the twin bubbles on the real side of both economies.

In an era of spread compression and search for yield, th rising tide of ample liquidity covered up a profusion of jagged and dangerous rocks. As the tide now goes out, the rocks get uncovered. The subprime crisis is the tip of a large iceberg that reflects the United States overdependence on its asset-led buying binge.

Nowadays we know the pricing everything and the value of nothing.

Even if common law's fiduciary duties were a sine qua non for many developed stock markets, such duties may not work for the developing countries. Simple rules can be easier to enforce (if there is no political interference) than complex fiduciary standards. Also, the property-protecting efficacy of common law depends on a sympathetic legislature. But if the legislature is not sympathetic, a clear code may do better.

Left open is whether the legal culture of a country reflects the general political culture of a country, including ideology and nationalism. For example, Mark Roe has emphasized social democratic politics as a determinant of legal rules. Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales have emphasized interest group politics in which incumbent financial companies resist financial development because it breeds competition for them.

Legal origin may determine the strength of financial markets and the structure of corporate ownership, depending on how investor protection and property rights connect to common or civil law. Although the supporting legal institutions are important, legal origin is not the core foundation. Modern politics can serve as an alternative explanation for divergent corporate ownership structures and governance schemes.

從宏觀的立場看來,世界上沒有一種全然相同的事物在歷史上發生兩次,每一事物都有它獨特的基點,所以再提出因果關係時,我們應當將歷史事蹟儘量前後連貫看去,而無需因為一時一事偶爾相似即下定論!

西方民間的自由源於封建體制裡額外頒發的城市特權。市民階級的資產力量仍無從構成社會的大改造，只有國際貿易增多，在全國經濟裡的比重提高，商業財富的力量伸展到農商財富，牽動全局，才構成實力，如此才能改造社會。

黃仁宇談到晚明大學士張居正在萬曆年間的改革運動，令人憧憬響往，可能由於我個人生來節儉摳門，很喜歡張居正發起的舉國儉約改革，希望現代政治人也可以建立廉能政府。我很想找時間讀一讀黃仁宇所寫的歷史小說《萬曆十五年》，一方面我很久沒有機會細讀歷史小說，另一方面我想多讀一些黃仁宇的文字，慢慢地涉獵一些中國學者的文學著作。