Over the past six months, I’m not the only one who has seen the value of my investments plummet. After a 6 year bull run, the stock market was over-valued to begin with. On top of that, the housing bubble popped, poor sub-prime loan decisions have come back to haunt lenders, the national [...]

Juan Enriquez is the founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project, a widely published expert on topics from the technical (global nucleotide data flow) to the sociological (gene research and national competitiveness), a former member of Celera Genomics founder Craig Venter’s marine-based genetic data collection team, and former CEO of Mexico [...]

In all honesty one of the factors that has led me to invest so much in Chinese companies is the undervaluation of the RMB. The explosive growth of the middle class and the economy as a whole is the main reason, but currency concerns definitely factor in. Yesterday, I stumbled on the most [...]

The gloom in the air is almost palatable. For years now, most Taiwanese people I’ve known have not just been glum, but been down right pessimistic about the economy.
In one sense, it seems irrational. While Taiwan’s GDP growth since 2000 has been very poor, much of that can be attributed to currency fluxuations. [...]

Recently, Michael and Karl have expressed some surprise and doubt at the claim that the Taiwan dollar has fallen over the past several years. Here are some graphs that should show it quite clearly.
This first graph is based on the Euro, and the TWD is compared to the Korean Won, the US Dollar, the [...]

As a relatively long term resident of Taiwan, I have some interest in its economy. Especially now that I’m involved in business here, it isn’t wise to ignore what I read and hear. One thing I’ve heard again and again is anguish at how much we’re falling behind our closest rival, Korea.
I suppose [...]

Sometimes Mr. Market really is insane. That’s not hyperbole. I mean it.
Imagine that a company has two classes of stock, which are each worth an identical portion of a the company and its profits. The only difference is that the B shares carry more voting weight than the A shares. Now [...]

Milton Friedman, who passed away less than a year ago, was undoubtedly one of the greatest minds of our time.
Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American Nobel Laureate economist and public intellectual. An advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, Friedman made major contributions to the fields of macroeconomics, microeconomics, economic history and [...]