thangdynasty

1. And the Top Scorer is…

Singapore. Again. Top of the charts for ease of doing business.

2. Big Brother, Singa the Lion & Teamy the Bee

Over a decade ago, her government started singing praises, in the name of the entrepreneurial spirit, about competition, creativity and… Teamy the productivity bee.

The result is sound infrastructure  that was to play the harvesting field for enterprising residents. Despite such relentless efforts by Big Brother however, Singapore is still one of the least entrepreneurial societies in the developed world.

Why?

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You’ve heard of trendy triathlons, ultra marathons and The Singapore Blogathon 2009.

Mark your calendars.

This Sunday, 17 Jan | 11.00 h – 01.00 h, get ready for the Art Marathon: SUPERINTENSE, at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road.

Featuring the challenge: (more…)

If you’re an avid golfer, you will be all too familiar with:

1. The golf ball’s natural affinity and love for water hazards

Yes, the scary pond in the middle of the fairway that wages psychological warfare on you everytime you hit the ball. The same one that is an excellent source of second hand quality golf balls <hint>. 

2. Unofficial guardians of the pond

Also know as the best and most efficient purveyors of second hand golf balls (mostly retired caddies), who miraculously manifest themselves just as you’re done hammering yourself with a 9 Iron, over those top-of-the-line Maxfli A10 balls with which you make regular and involuntary donations to the pond. (more…)

Wearable contemporary art just got more intimate with Tink-It’s limited edition temporary tattoos.

These temp tattoos which last 1 – 3 days, are intended to evoke an ephemeral experience of becoming “one” with a work of art that is impossible to possess.
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1. Who’s got the cleanest (balance) sheets?

Whoever controls the strings to the coin purse, wears the pants in the house. And it is a fact that women control 80% of household finances.

Which practically makes my kind, hermaphrodites; oscillating between the domestic roles of Sexy Short-skirt Susan and Hard hat Harry.

“More credits, less debits” in the household budget wins the approval of the credit bureau… ironically. Nations are not immune to this judgement either. The lesser the imbalances (deficits), the stronger the domestic demand. And between Europe, US and Asia (including Chindia), it is the latter who has the strongest sovereign balance sheets. (more…)

(image source: Jerry Holbert)

Remember the speculative proposition about Obama being part Chinese?

Well, I think that when he was doing sing-a-long’s with supporters during his campaign, chanting the famous  ”Change We Need” chorus, he was probably thinking of the Chinese remedy of using poison to combat poison or 以毒攻毒?

The poison being CREDIT, in this case.

1. Universal Languages

Math is a universal language. 

Fans of John Nash and the ubiquitous π = 3.14159265, will agree with nods to the power of +∞ (positive infinity).

And to those still suffering from the phenomenon intimately known as the Colonial Hangover, the English language articulates everything to the tune of their loyal supporter, that famous Bard. Nothing evades the lingua franca of the modern world.

I beg to differ. (more…)

In my world - a veritable jungle of bulls, bears, stags, butterflies and greedy pigs, charts are to traders as oxygen is to… all other living things.

I scan through an average of 20 charts per day: economic data, forex majors, stocks, bonds, gold, crude oil, indices, wata-wata. A simple example of my daily dose of eye candy:

Being an incidental connoisseur of charts, I must say Mark Ghuneim’s ”12 Graphs of Christmas“ on Mashable, are excellent examples of charts that say it all: 

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If there is any common link between the Singaporean and French ancenstry, it would lie in the greedy realm of Gastronomie or simply put, the glorious love of food.

Darwin {survival of the fittest} + Malthus {dismal economics} = Eat to Live

For our forefathers and not a small percentage of the current world population, this psuedo-mathematical axiom represents the moyen de vivre. (more…)

In my December 2 post, I wrote about how the crisis triggered by Dubai World, would lead to a strengthening greenback (USD).

A picture speaks 1000 words.

The 20-day intraday chart of my favourite trading pair, the USD/JPY (lead image), tells a 3-points story: (more…)