LIFE’S UPS AND DOWNS 生活札記

EnglishWith all the stimulus ready to go into more broadband, bigger tax cuts and infrastructure, some of America’s most expensive societal investments are also on the decline and in need of a bailout — getting married.

Marriage in America is on the rocks. People skirt the issue, talking about how career women delay marriage until it’s too late, or about how men marry younger the second time around. But the truth is, except for the highest-income Americans among us, fewer and fewer of us are getting married at all.

Married couples with children now make up fewer than one in four U.S. households. That’s half the rate of 1960. Married households of any type have been in the minority since 2005.

It’s not that people are suddenly more promiscuous, or more celibate. Americans are pairing off and staying together just as much as ever, but now it’s without the rings, gowns and expensive photographers. They are America’s committed cohabiters, and theirs is the fastest-growing kind of U.S. household. According to the Census, there are 5.2 million such cohabiting couples, and they are raising 2.2 million children.

Committed cohabiters are more downscale than married parents — they have lower incomes, lower education levels and lower rates of home ownership. There is now a great and growing marital divide between the rich who can afford it and the downscale, who are living more and more without it.

But today it’s not just the young who are living in what just a generation ago was called living in sin — their parents have adapted and are living that way too. The fastest growth in cohabitation is among the over-50 set. Oftentimes, widows, widowers and divorced Americans over 50 — who now total 25 million people — don’t want to complicate inheritances (or burial plans) with a second marriage, but they are committing to each other with devotion just as tender as young people experience, and they are counting very much on the other’s being there at the end.

Society values marriage and monogamy, though, so why isn’t it doing anything about it? There are two options: make marriage economically and socially more attractive, or go with the flow and expand the privileges and obligations of “common law” couples. Right now we are letting the chips fall where they may — a tactic which is currently causing marriage to continue to wither away as an institution. The word “partner” is increasingly replacing the word “spouse.”

If we wanted to increase the number of marriages, we have a number of ideas readily at hand. Tax breaks, instead of tax penalties. Yes-fault divorce. A push for religious leaders to stop spending so much time decrying some marriages (e.g., gay ones, interracial ones), and instead focus on encouraging marriage in the first place. Maybe a national “Spouse Day,” to go along with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

How about revisiting those traditional anniversary gifts? Forget the paper in year one and the wood in year five — let’s upgrade the scale. Call 10 years the “silver” anniversary, to celebrate more lavishly those who make it there. Make 25 the “golden” one. And for those who make it to 50 years, hell, give them the Hope Diamond.

Alternatively, we could expand the rights and obligations of committed cohabiters. Every legal arrangement in society — from child custody to survivors’ benefits to next-of-kin decision-making — is affected by this new living arrangement. And so is every institution that gears its benefits around families. Can an unmarried significant other, even a longstanding one, skip the waiting list at the country club because his “friend” already belongs? Can a widowed life partner keep her beloved’s rent-controlled apartment? Can you still get the family rate at Disneyland if the adults in your group are unrelated by either blood or marriage?

Marketers, too, have yet to recognize committed cohabiters as a class and start offering products that acknowledge their unique status. Towels with his and her initials, but separately designed. Address labels that can actually handle two full names. How about a legal and will kit that allows cohabiters to choose just how separate-and-apart they want to be in death, as in life? And if Hallmark is missing out on all those wedding anniversary cards, maybe it’s time to celebrate when we moved in together.

In a sense, relationships at home are increasingly paralleling relationships at work with employers. Whereas 50 years ago, people expected to have one or two jobs for life, now some estimates say they expect six or seven. If marriage was meant to be “’til death do us part,” cohabitation is a little more like “’til life drives us apart.”

At home as at work, Americans are signing on, but without all the trappings that might make progression to the next stage too difficult. And social planners better catch up. They have fallen behind on what could be the most basic of trends — how to accommodate people navigating the middle ground between uncommitted hook-ups, and the “institution” of marriage. And with the financial crisis hitting the downscale the hardest, it may lead to even more cohabitation without marriage, accelerating this microtrend into something bigger.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

English Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily Izvestia published on Monday: “The dollar is not secured by anything. The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse.”

The paper said Panarin’s dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year’s events.

When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: “It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world’s financial regulator.”

When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: “Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia.”

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: “A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

He also cited the “vulnerable political setup”, “lack of unified national laws”, and “divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions.”

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

He even suggested that “we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all.”

On the fate of the U.S. dollar, he said: “In 2006 a secret agreement was reached between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. on a common Amero currency as a new monetary unit. This could signal preparations to replace the dollar. The one-hundred dollar bills that have flooded the world could be simply frozen. Under the pretext, let’s say, that terrorists are forging them and they need to be checked.”

When asked how Russia should react to his vision of the future, Panarin said: “Develop the ruble as a regional currency. Create a fully functioning oil exchange, trading in rubles… We must break the strings tying us to the financial Titanic, which in my view will soon sink.”

Source: Global Security

繁體中文金融市場深陷泥淖，全球經濟成長又面臨放緩，各大公司裁員的消息不斷傳出。金融界幾乎無一倖免，包括美國首屈一指的高盛以及在這一波受損算小的瑞士信貸。如我之前一篇No more Krispy Kreme in Hong Kong…寫到，這次的金融海嘯已開始滲入整個經濟體。昨天摩托羅拉宣布全球大量裁員，今天美國運通也決定全球裁減10%的員工 (約7,000人)。

看到這麼多的壞消息，大家最關注的是 “景氣的谷底會在什麼時候出現？” 因為股市是經濟的領先指標，通常會在前6個月就反應。所以如果股市如果能夠落底，那麼景氣的寒冬也就接近尾聲了。

想起當時的經濟大蕭條，股市花了超過25年的時間，才終於收復了由1929年至1933年跌掉的幅度。或許現在的體制優於過去，但有很多目前的問題卻是前所未見的。例如通貨膨脹與通貨緊縮同時存在的現象，在過去的歷史中少有，再加上適合通膨與通縮的投資策略完全相反，目前也沒多少專家能提出適當的對策。

當許多大型績優股都紛紛破底之際，投資人想從基本面來找底部，幾乎不可能。因為許多股票不但跌破淨值，連票面價值都不到。現在是恐懼情緒主導，基本面完全不管用。舉例來說，本益比的預估是以企業盈餘預測來換算，但在經濟情況不佳、股市波動大的情況下，單純估算一年本益比是沒有意義的，因為未來的企業盈餘一定會被大幅調低。

所以目前任何上漲都只能算是死貓反彈，而且甚至是個陷阱。利空籠罩連連暴跌後，突然出現強勁反彈，短暫拉高吸引買盤進場，又急殺繼續重挫，衝進去搶到反彈的投資人，慘遭套牢，欲哭無淚。所以目前任何低點能不能就此確底，恐怕還需要一段時間的驗證。

在真正底部訊號還未出現前，應該怎麼做呢？可參考以下的建議：

1. 目前所有投資只能搶反彈。如果自認手腳不快，寧可等到底部確認後再追股票，而不是一般所謂的 “現在買，賠錢的機率不高。” 因為首先，現在是經濟不景氣與對市場信心不足的非理性時點，投資標的幾乎很難判斷出真正的底部。其次，特別是在不景氣之下，投資人最重要的事是儘量避免資產的減損。而在市場價格一再探底之際，投資人的資產肯定會受到不同程度的損失
2. 越是當投資市場不景氣之際，就越是要回歸本業，固守好穩定賺錢的根本。不管是哪種職業，只要能固定收到現金的工作，都應該好好把握。特別是在這場比氣長的不景氣馬拉松中
3. 非常時代，要思考非常的應變策略。世界各國為了挽救金融業，紛紛投入大量的資金挹注，這顯示出未來全球將無可避免地陷入各國央行印鈔票還債的超級通貨膨脹。而伴隨著這一波金融大海嘯的，卻是油價與原物料價格的持續走跌。如剛剛提到，這是歷史上罕見的通貨膨脹與通貨緊縮同時並存的現象

最後希望大家不要氣餒，最低潮時，往往就是最高潮的開始。你無法控制外界的環境，但是你可以控制你自己對它的反應。與其怨天尤人，到不如利用這個機會充實和磨練自己！ 大家共勉之！