Asia's Economic Lessons for the U.S.

The U.S. is mortgaging its future by outsourcing technological inventions in exchange for short-term cash. The current economic crisis should be a wake-up call that the U.S. needs to boost its productive capacity and win in global markets—something we've been neglecting for the last 40 years.

Outsourcing is necessary when the technological and manufacturing investment required of these businesses is too high for any nation, let alone an individual company, to handle on its own. The question is not whether or not to outsource, but are you outsourcing to advance your competitive position in the industry or are you really just on your way to exiting the business altogether?

In the case of the VCR, the TV industry, and most consumer electronics, U.S. companies chose to exit each business. Better profits were available elsewhere. But the price paid by the U.S. for this choice relative to its industrial competitiveness is enormous. For the last 40 years the U.S. has reduced its productive capacity and its ability to innovate, all for the sake of short-term profits and cash flow.

Without giving it a second thought, the U.S. has been willing to trade long-term national competitiveness for short-term cash. If this continues, the present may be ours, but the future will in the hands of someone else.

Life List?

After seeing the movie 'The Bucket List', my ex-coworker Bill Murrell told me that he put his life list to paper. His is currently 69 things long. And he also encouraged me to make my own 'life list' and work on it. Here is my reply:

There are things in life that we can never imagine ourselves doing, but we celebrate those who do. My list includes bungee jumping, jumping out of an airplane for "fun," running into a burning building and being a professional educator.

I understand the rush that you feel when bungee jumping or sky diving is awesome; I'll take your word for it. I am awestruck by the many men and women who risk their lives every day in service of our country, whether in the military, law enforcement or fire services. As a Buddhist, now I want to focus on the one and only goal, which is, 'To be enlightened before I hit the bucket'.

John Goddard was an exceptional to make 127 things at age 15. I only had one thing in mind at that age: 'To be a successful ballerina'. Nonetheless, dancing is still my favorite hobby. I just finished our annual Dance Performance last weekend and it was a blast for me.

Endeavor on your life list, my friend. I'll share your glory.

Mantis from my backyard

SCAL TFGH Annual Banquet, September 2008

Chaos Theory -- Part 2

Strange Attractor:

An attractor is informally described as strange if it has non-integer dimension or if the dynamics on it are chaotic. The term was coined by David Ruelle and Floris Takens to describe the attractor that resulted from a series of bifurcations of a system describing fluid flow. Strange attractors are often differentiable in a few directions, but some are like a Cantor dust, and therefore not differentiable.

The recognition of strange attractors fed the revolution in chaos by giving numerical explorers a clear program to carry out. They looked for strange attractors everywhere, wherever nature seemed to be behaving randomly. Many argued that the earth's weather might lie on a strange attractor. Others assembled millions of pieces of stock market data and began searching for a strange attractor there, peering at randomness through the adjustable lens of a computer.

For now, the excitement went beyond pure science. Ruelle, for example: "I have not spoken of the esthetic appeal of strange attractors. These systems of curves, these clouds of points suggest sometimes fireworks or galaxies, sometimes strange and disquieting vegetal proliferations. A realm lies there of forms to explore, and harmonies to discover."

....to be continued

Wedding Banquet Slideshow August 2008

Guru Yoga of Milarepa Retreat by Shangpa Rinpoche

We had a two-day retreat of Guru Yoga of Milarepa by Shangpa Rinpoche in August at M.B.A. The assistant sitting next to Rinpoche is Lama Jampa.