Staying up at night, just before going to sleep I have often wondered about this. Sometimes in frustration, sometimes in hope for a better tomorrow. How can a average guy like me excel in life? I like to think myself as a jack of a lot of things but a master of none. How do I become a standout, an achiever? I was a good student but never a topper, was good at sports but never good enough for the top grade, met my targets in my career but never surpassed them consistently. Many of us think about going to the next level. What should we do about it? The only good thing about all of our ordinariness is that is that there are so many of us. So I am not alone in my pedestrian journey. The other good thing is that all of have the power to change. We all can be supermen of our own lives. And we don’t have to be from Krypton. The power is within me and you.
Theodore Roosevelt said once: “The average man who is successful is not a genius. He is a man who has merely ordinary qualities, but who has developed those ordinary qualities to a more than ordinary degree.”
Fitting words. So, what are the qualities or attitudes we need to develop to push ourselves further.
Learn self discipline
Perhaps the most important virtue we should develop. It is the key which can unlock the doors of our potential. Life by its very nature is distracting. Self discipline is the big pot of glue which will make us stick to the all important task in front of us. It will cure our procrastination, another ally of our lack of success. Self discipline is about developing a laser focus, to do what is important right now. To postpone that nice movie playing on the TV, to say no to useless gossip on the phone, to sleep for one hour less, work or study for an hour more. Average people who want to excel have a ’stick-to-it’ attitude. They don’t expect quick fix results. They work on the particular task till the last period. They try to do the best they can. Many people on the other hand get frustrated with slow progress or lack of results. They give up and move on.
I know a few people who are just simple graduates but have worked hard to build their career step by step. That’s a very important lesson in sticking to it. We all can develop the ability to focus on what’s important.
Have a positive attitude
I have a poster in front of my desk that says - ‘Every time something bad happens, you can choose to be a Victim or a Victor’
The single line says it all about developing a good positive attitude. Success is slow, painful and full of more lows than highs. To have a positive attitude, we need to be self motivators. Work on positive affirmations. Say to ourselves that success is just around the corner. I realize that whether I think negatively or positively, both take the same amount of energy of thought. So why not think positively and visualize good outcomes for myself. Attitude after all is everything.
Manage expectations
Successful people especially average ones realize that the path forward is full of sweat and grind. Average people lack the special skills or the touch of genius to make an impossible task possible with a magic wand. Average people are the foot soldiers who have to take it step by step but have to stick to the path. Nothing is going to come easy to us. Everything we want in life has a price connected to it. There’s a price to pay if we want to make things better, a price to pay just for leaving things as they are, a price for everything. We have to realize that. Tiger Woods probably has hit thousands of balls before he putted to win his first trophy. We see the achievement but not the years of hard practice that went into the making of a Tiger Woods. Success is rarely overnight.
Learn from relationships
We can succeed or learn from the talents of others. We cannot progress in isolation. Each relationship we nurture teaches us something is we care to look. I learnt the value of ‘organization’ and ‘method’ from a former boss of mine and also from my elder brother. Today, I am much more systematic in the way I approach a particular task. Each individual has some quality which can rub off on us. For that we need to get closer and imbibe the best. I knew a person who had a spastic brother. She had to interact with doctors, volunteer helpers and educationists everyday. Through this she developed her unique skills of negotiation and people management. She brought these skills to her work and made a success out of it.
Keep Improving
The Japanese have a word for it - ‘Kaizen’. It is quite simply an incremental improvement method. You improve in small steps. More than a method, it is a philosophy and a way of life. We should be willing to change. Because every aspect of our life deserves to be constantly improved. We may be average, but we can target ourselves to learn new skills. For instance, I have decided to learn two new things every year. For this year it was learning graphic designing and blogging. For a five year period I will learn ten new things. With the advent of cheap internet resources to learn are available to us at the touch of a button. We would be foolish not to take advantage of it.
Bounce back from defeats
Their is nothing more powerful than an average person who holds his head high and goes about life with a surety and zest. Success and defeat come in equal measure. What we learn determines our growth. Sometimes, setbacks forces us to think creatively, to find new solutions and to adapt. When one door closes another opens somewhere. This is a very true maxim. Abraham Lincoln could have been destroyed by his seeming ordinariness. He came from a very poor background and was ungainly in appearance. He went on to greatness and gave a new definition to the word - ‘Average’.
As Lincoln once said - ” God must have loved the common people, because he made so many of them.”
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Sunday, May 26, 2013
马寅初 长寿秘诀
长寿秘诀
2、让大脑常运动
马老在大学读书时，就因勤于钻研、学业成绩优异被保送留学美国，获得了经济学博士学位。1915 年回国后，就任北京大学教授。他曾先后任国民党政府立法院经济和财政委员会委员长、上海交通大学教授、北京大学校长等职。虽然工作繁忙，但他仍坚持写作，发表文章。勤于用脑使他长寿。英国的神经生理科学家经过长期研究后认为，人脑紧张工作开始得越早，持续的时间越长，细胞的老化过程就发展得越慢。人的大脑受训练越少，衰老也越快。
4、冷水浴有助长寿
马老一生坚持冷水浴达70年。由于长年坚持冷水浴，以至他在76 岁时，到协和医院做全面检查，结果除了体重超重外，内脏各个器官的功能都很正常，和30岁的壮年人差不多。马老认为，这与他长年坚持冷水浴是分不开的。
5、体育锻炼不可缺
马老平时非常重视身体锻炼。1956 年，他的一条腿不幸瘫痪，他每天拄着拐杖，拖着瘫痪的腿坚持行走五六千步。后来病情严重，拄拐也无法迈步时，他就每天围着茶几转上几百圈，坚持锻炼了7年。1972年，两条腿都瘫痪后，他仍以惊人的毅力躺在床上或坐在轮椅上进行上肢的锻炼。
◆每天坚持热水泡冷水淋健身：先用热水擦热全身，然后用毛巾浸入冷水，拧干，再擦肢体，直到全身通红。有时他也只用冷水洗澡。
1、综述
马寅初是中国著名的人口学家、经济学家和教育学家，虽然一生坎坷，却享百岁高龄，这与他的养生之道有着密切的联系。
马寅初是中国著名的人口学家、经济学家和教育学家，虽然一生坎坷，却享百岁高龄，这与他的养生之道有着密切的联系。
2、让大脑常运动
马老在大学读书时，就因勤于钻研、学业成绩优异被保送留学美国，获得了经济学博士学位。1915 年回国后，就任北京大学教授。他曾先后任国民党政府立法院经济和财政委员会委员长、上海交通大学教授、北京大学校长等职。虽然工作繁忙，但他仍坚持写作，发表文章。勤于用脑使他长寿。英国的神经生理科学家经过长期研究后认为，人脑紧张工作开始得越早，持续的时间越长，细胞的老化过程就发展得越慢。人的大脑受训练越少，衰老也越快。
4、冷水浴有助长寿
马老一生坚持冷水浴达70年。由于长年坚持冷水浴，以至他在76 岁时，到协和医院做全面检查，结果除了体重超重外，内脏各个器官的功能都很正常，和30岁的壮年人差不多。马老认为，这与他长年坚持冷水浴是分不开的。
5、体育锻炼不可缺
马老平时非常重视身体锻炼。1956 年，他的一条腿不幸瘫痪，他每天拄着拐杖，拖着瘫痪的腿坚持行走五六千步。后来病情严重，拄拐也无法迈步时，他就每天围着茶几转上几百圈，坚持锻炼了7年。1972年，两条腿都瘫痪后，他仍以惊人的毅力躺在床上或坐在轮椅上进行上肢的锻炼。
◆每天坚持热水泡冷水淋健身：先用热水擦热全身，然后用毛巾浸入冷水，拧干，再擦肢体，直到全身通红。有时他也只用冷水洗澡。
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
In psychologist Daniel Kahneman's recent book, he reveals the dual systems of your brain, their pitfalls and their power
To survive physically or psychologically, we sometimes need to react automatically to a speeding taxi as we step off the curb or to the subtle facial cues of an angry boss. That automatic mode of thinking, not under voluntary control, contrasts with the need to slow down and deliberately fiddle with pencil and paper when working through an algebra problem. These two systems that the brain uses to process information are the focus of Nobelist Daniel Kahneman's new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC., 2011). The following excerpt is the first chapter, entitled "The Characters of the Story," which introduces readers to these systems. (Used with permission.)
Understanding fast and slow thinking could help us find more rational solutions to problems that we as a society face. For example, a commentary in the March issueof the journal Nature Climate Changeoutlined how carbon labeling that appeals to both systems could be more successful than previous efforts to change consumer habits. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) Understanding how we think can also guide more personal decisions. Last month, Kahneman highlighted in a lecture given at the National Academy of Sciences "The Science of Science Communication" conference how realizing the limitations of each system can help us catch our own mistakes.
To observe your mind in automatic mode, glance at the image below.
Your experience as you look at the woman’s face seamlessly combines what we normally call seeing and intuitive thinking. As surely and quickly as you saw that the young woman’s hair is dark, you knew she is angry. Furthermore, what you saw extended into the future. You sensed that this woman is about to say some very unkind words, probably in a loud and strident voice. A premonition of what she was going to do next came to mind automatically and effortlessly. You did not intend to assess her mood or to anticipate what she might do, and your reaction to the picture did not have the feel of something you did. It just happened to you. It was an instance of fast thinking.
Now look at the following problem:
17 × 24
You knew immediately that this is a multiplication problem, and probably knew that you could solve it, with paper and pencil, if not without. You also had some vague intuitive knowledge of the range of possible results. You would be quick to recognize that both 12,609 and 123 are implausible. Without spending some time on the problem, however, you would not be certain that the answer is not 568. A precise solution did not come to mind, and you felt that you could choose whether or not to engage in the computation. If you have not done so yet, you should attempt the multiplication problem now, completing at least part of it.
You experienced slow thinking as you proceeded through a sequence of steps. You first retrieved from memory the cognitive program for multiplication that you learned in school, then you implemented it. Carrying out the computation was a strain. You felt the burden of holding much material in memory, as you needed to keep track of where you were and of where you were going, while holding on to the intermediate result. The process was mental work: deliberate, effortful, and orderly—a prototype of slow thinking. The computation was not only an event in your mind; your body was also involved. Your muscles tensed up, your blood pressure rose, and your heart rate increased. Someone looking closely at your eyes while you tackled this problem would have seen your pupils dilate. Your pupils contracted back to normal size as soon as you ended your work—when you found the answer (which is 408, by the way) or when you gave up.
TWO SYSTEMS
Psychologists have been intensely interested for several decades in the two modes of thinking evoked by the picture of the angry woman and by the multiplication problem, and have offered many labels for them. I adopt terms originally proposed by the psychologists Keith Stanovich and Richard West, and will refer to two systems in the mind, System 1 and System 2.
• System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.
• System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.
The labels of System 1 and System 2 are widely used in psychology, but I go further than most in this book, which you can read as a psychodrama with two characters.
When we think of ourselves, we identify with System 2, the conscious, reasoning self that has beliefs, makes choices, and decides what to think about and what to do. Although System 2 believes itself to be where the action is, the automatic System 1 is the hero of the book. I describe System 1 as effortlessly originating impressions and feelings that are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2. The automatic operations of System 1 generate surprisingly complex patterns of ideas, but only the slower System 2 can construct thoughts in an orderly series of steps. I also describe circumstances in which System 2 takes over, overruling the freewheeling impulses and associations of System 1. You will be invited to think of the two systems as agents with their individual abilities, limitations, and functions.
In rough order of complexity, here are some examples of the automatic activities that are attributed to System 1:
• Detect that one object is more distant than another.
• Orient to the source of a sudden sound.
• Complete the phrase “bread and . . .”
• Make a “disgust face” when shown a horrible picture.
• Detect hostility in a voice.
• Answer to 2 + 2 = ?
• Read words on large billboards.
• Drive a car on an empty road.
• Find a strong move in chess (if you are a chess master).
• Understand simple sentences.
• Recognize that a “meek and tidy soul with a passion for detail” resembles an occupational stereotype.
All these mental events belong with the angry woman—they occur automatically and require little or no effort. The capabilities of System 1 include innate skills that we share with other animals. We are born prepared to perceive the world around us, recognize objects, orient attention, avoid losses, and fear spiders. Other mental activities become fast and automatic through prolonged practice. System 1 has learned associations between ideas (the capital of France?); it has also learned skills such as reading and under- standing nuances of social situations. Some skills, such as finding strong chess moves, are acquired only by specialized experts. Others are widely shared. Detecting the similarity of a personality sketch to an occupational stereotype requires broad knowledge of the language and the culture, which most of us possess. The knowledge is stored in memory and accessed with- out intention and without effort.
Several of the mental actions in the list are completely involuntary. You cannot refrain from understanding simple sentences in your own language or from orienting to a loud unexpected sound, nor can you prevent yourself from knowing that 2 + 2 = 4 or from thinking of Paris when the capital of France is mentioned. Other activities, such as chewing, are susceptible to voluntary control but normally run on automatic pilot. The control of attention is shared by the two systems. Orienting to a loud sound is normally an involuntary operation of System 1, which immediately mobilizes the voluntary attention of System 2. You may be able to resist turning toward the source of a loud and offensive comment at a crowded party, but even if your head does not move, your attention is initially directed to it, at least for a while. However, attention can be moved away from an unwanted focus, primarily by focusing intently on another target.
The highly diverse operations of System 2 have one feature in common: they require attention and are disrupted when attention is drawn away. Here are some examples:
• Brace for the starter gun in a race.
• Focus attention on the clowns in the circus.
• Focus on the voice of a particular person in a crowded and noisy room.
• Look for a woman with white hair.
• Search memory to identify a surprising sound.
• Maintain a faster walking speed than is natural for you.
• Monitor the appropriateness of your behavior in a social situation.
• Count the occurrences of the letter a in a page of text.
• Tell someone your phone number.
• Park in a narrow space (for most people except garage attendants).
• Compare two washing machines for overall value.
• Fill out a tax form.
• Check the validity of a complex logical argument.
In all these situations you must pay attention, and you will perform less well, or not at all, if you are not ready or if your attention is directed inappropriately. System 2 has some ability to change the way System 1 works, by programming the normally automatic functions of attention and memory. When waiting for a relative at a busy train station, for example, you can set yourself at will to look for a white-haired woman or a bearded man, and thereby increase the likelihood of detecting your relative from a distance. You can set your memory to search for capital cities that start with N or for French existentialist novels. And when you rent a car at London’s Heathrow Airport, the attendant will probably remind you that “we drive on the left side of the road over here.” In all these cases, you are asked to do something that does not come naturally, and you will find that the consistent maintenance of a set requires continuous exertion of at least some effort.
The often-used phrase “pay attention” is apt: you dispose of a limited budget of attention that you can allocate to activities, and if you try to go beyond your budget, you will fail. It is the mark of effortful activities that they interfere with each other, which is why it is difficult or impossible to conduct several at once. You could not compute the product of 17 × 24 while making a left turn into dense traffic, and you certainly should not try. You can do several things at once, but only if they are easy and undemanding. You are probably safe carrying on a conversation with a passenger while driving on an empty highway, and many parents have discovered, perhaps with some guilt, that they can read a story to a child while thinking of something else.
Everyone has some awareness of the limited capacity of attention, and our social behavior makes allowances for these limitations. When the driver of a car is overtaking a truck on a narrow road, for example, adult passengers quite sensibly stop talking. They know that distracting the driver is not a good idea, and they also suspect that he is temporarily deaf and will not hear what they say.
Intense focusing on a task can make people effectively blind, even to stimuli that normally attract attention. The most dramatic demonstration was offered by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in their book The Invisible Gorilla. They constructed a short film of two teams passing basketballs, one team wearing white shirts, the other wearing black. The viewers of the film are instructed to count the number of passes made by the white team, ignoring the black players. This task is difficult and completely absorbing. Halfway through the video, a woman wearing a gorilla suit appears, crosses the court, thumps her chest, and moves on. The gorilla is in view for 9 seconds. Many thousands of people have seen the video, and about half of them do not notice anything unusual. It is the counting task—and especially the instruction to ignore one of the teams—that causes the blindness. No one who watches the video without that task would miss the gorilla. Seeing and orienting are automatic functions of System 1, but they depend on the allocation of some attention to the relevant stimulus. The authors note that the most remarkable observation of their study is that people find its results very surprising. Indeed, the viewers who fail to see the gorilla are initially sure that it was not there—they cannot imagine missing such a striking event. The gorilla study illustrates two important facts about our minds: we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.
PLOT SYNOPSIS
The interaction of the two systems is a recurrent theme of the book, and a brief synopsis of the plot is in order. In the story I will tell, Systems 1 and 2 are both active whenever we are awake. System 1 runs automatically and System 2 is normally in a comfortable low-effort mode, in which only a fraction of its capacity is engaged. System 1 continuously generates suggestions for System 2: impressions, intuitions, intentions, and feelings. If endorsed by System 2, impressions and intuitions turn into beliefs, and impulses turn into voluntary actions. When all goes smoothly, which is most of the time, System 2 adopts the suggestions of System 1 with little or no modification. You generally believe your impressions and act on your desires, and that is fine—usually.
When System 1 runs into difficulty, it calls on System 2 to support more detailed and specific processing that may solve the problem of the moment. System 2 is mobilized when a question arises for which System 1 does not offer an answer, as probably happened to you when you encountered the multiplication problem 17 × 24. You can also feel a surge of conscious attention whenever you are surprised. System 2 is activated when an event is detected that violates the model of the world that System 1 maintains. In that world, lamps do not jump, cats do not bark, and gorillas do not cross basketball courts. The gorilla experiment demonstrates that some attention is needed for the surprising stimulus to be detected. Surprise then activates and orients your attention: you will stare, and you will search your memory for a story that makes sense of the surprising event. System 2 is also credited with the continuous monitoring of your own behavior—the control that keeps you polite when you are angry, and alert when you are driving at night. System 2 is mobilized to increased effort when it detects an error about to be made. Remember a time when you almost blurted out an offensive remark and note how hard you worked to restore control. In summary, most of what you (your System 2) think and do originates in your System 1, but System 2 takes over when things get difficult, and it normally has the last word.
The division of labor between System 1 and System 2 is highly efficient: it minimizes effort and optimizes performance. The arrangement works well most of the time because System 1 is generally very good at what it does: its models of familiar situations are accurate, its short-term predictions are usually accurate as well, and its initial reactions to challenges are swift and generally appropriate. System 1 has biases, however, systematic errors that it is prone to make in specified circumstances. As we shall see, it sometimes answers easier questions than the one it was asked, and it has little understanding of logic and statistics. One further limitation of System 1 is that it cannot be turned off. If you are shown a word on the screen in a language you know, you will read it—unless your attention is totally focused elsewhere.
CONFLICT
Figure 2 is a variant of a classic experiment that produces a conflict between the two systems. You should try the exercise before reading on.
You were almost certainly successful in saying the correct words in both tasks, and you surely discovered that some parts of each task were much easier than others. When you identified upper- and lowercase, the left-hand column was easy and the right-hand column caused you to slow down and perhaps to stammer or stumble. When you named the position of words, the left-hand column was difficult and the right-hand column was much easier.
These tasks engage System 2, because saying “upper/lower” or “right/ left” is not what you routinely do when looking down a column of words. One of the things you did to set yourself for the task was to program your memory so that the relevant words (upper and lower for the first task) were “on the tip of your tongue.” The prioritizing of the chosen words is effective and the mild temptation to read other words was fairly easy to resist when you went through the first column. But the second column was different, because it contained words for which you were set, and you could not ignore them. You were mostly able to respond correctly, but overcoming the competing response was a strain, and it slowed you down. You experienced a conflict between a task that you intended to carry out and an automatic response that interfered with it.
Conflict between an automatic reaction and an intention to control it is common in our lives. We are all familiar with the experience of trying not to stare at the oddly dressed couple at the neighboring table in a restaurant. We also know what it is like to force our attention on a boring book, when we constantly find ourselves returning to the point at which the reading lost its meaning. Where winters are hard, many drivers have memories of their car skidding out of control on the ice and of the struggle to follow well-rehearsed instructions that negate what they would naturally do: “Steer into the skid, and whatever you do, do not touch the brakes!” And every human being has had the experience of not telling someone to go to hell. One of the tasks of System 2 is to overcome the impulses of System 1. In other words, System 2 is in charge of self-control.
ILLUSIONS
To appreciate the autonomy of System 1, as well as the distinction between impressions and beliefs, take a good look at figure 3.
This picture is unremarkable: two horizontal lines of different lengths, with fins appended, pointing in different directions. The bottom line is obviously longer than the one above it. That is what we all see, and we naturally believe what we see. If you have already encountered this image, however, you recognize it as the famous Müller-Lyer illusion. As you can easily confirm by measuring them with a ruler, the horizontal lines are in fact identical in length.
Now that you have measured the lines, you—your System 2, the conscious being you call “I”—have a new belief: you know that the lines are equally long. If asked about their length, you will say what you know. But you still see the bottom line as longer. You have chosen to believe the measurement, but you cannot prevent System 1 from doing its thing; you cannot decide to see the lines as equal, although you know they are. To resist the illusion, there is only one thing you can do: you must learn to mistrust your impressions of the length of lines when fins are attached to them. To implement that rule, you must be able to recognize the illusory pattern and recall what you know about it. If you can do this, you will never again be fooled by the Müller-Lyer illusion. But you will still see one line as longer than the other.
Not all illusions are visual. There are illusions of thought, which we call cognitive illusions. As a graduate student, I attended some courses on the art and science of psychotherapy. During one of these lectures, our teacher imparted a morsel of clinical wisdom. This is what he told us: “You will from time to time meet a patient who shares a disturbing tale of multiple mistakes in his previous treatment. He has been seen by several clinicians, and all failed him. The patient can lucidly describe how his therapists misunderstood him, but he has quickly perceived that you are different. You share the same feeling, are convinced that you understand him, and will be able to help.” At this point my teacher raised his voice as he said, “Do not even think of taking on this patient! Throw him out of the office! He is most likely a psychopath and you will not be able to help him.”
Many years later I learned that the teacher had warned us against psychopathic charm,and the leading authority in the study of psychopathy confirmed that the teacher’s advice was sound. The analogy to the Müller-Lyer illusion is close. What we were being taught was not how to feel about that patient. Our teacher took it for granted that the sympathy we would feel for the patient would not be under our control; it would arise from System 1. Furthermore, we were not being taught to be generally suspicious of our feelings about patients. We were told that a strong attraction to a patient with a repeated history of failed treatment is a danger sign—like the fins on the parallel lines. It is an illusion—a cognitive illusion—and I (System 2) was taught how to recognize it and advised not to believe it or act on it.
The question that is most often asked about cognitive illusions is whether they can be overcome. The message of these examples is not encouraging. Because System 1 operates automatically and cannot be turned off at will, errors of intuitive thought are often difficult to prevent. Biases cannot always be avoided, because System 2 may have no clue to the error. Even when cues to likely errors are available, errors can be prevented only by the enhanced monitoring and effortful activity of System 2. As a way to live your life, however, continuous vigilance is not necessarily good, and it is certainly impractical. Constantly questioning our own thinking would be impossibly tedious, and System 2 is much too slow and inefficient to serve as a substitute for System 1 in making routine decisions. The best we can do is a compromise: learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high. The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people’s mistakes than our own.
USEFUL FICTIONS
You have been invited to think of the two systems as agents within the mind, with their individual personalities, abilities, and limitations. I will often use sentences in which the systems are the subjects, such as, “System 2 calculates products.”
The use of such language is considered a sin in the professional circles in which I travel, because it seems to explain the thoughts and actions of a person by the thoughts and actions of little people inside the person’s head. Grammatically the sentence about System 2 is similar to “The butler steals the petty cash.” My colleagues would point out that the butler’s action actually explains the disappearance of the cash, and they rightly question whether the sentence about System 2 explains how products are calculated. My answer is that the brief active sentence that attributes calculation to System 2 is intended as a description, not an explanation. It is meaningful only because of what you already know about System 2. It is shorthand for the following: “Mental arithmetic is a voluntary activity that requires effort, should not be performed while making a left turn, and is associated with dilated pupils and an accelerated heart rate.”
Similarly, the statement that “highway driving under routine conditions is left to System 1” means that steering the car around a bend is automatic and almost effortless. It also implies that an experienced driver can drive on an empty highway while conducting a conversation. Finally, “System 2 prevented James from reacting foolishly to the insult” means that James would have been more aggressive in his response if his capacity for effortful control had been disrupted (for example, if he had been drunk).
System 1 and System 2 are so central to the story I tell in this book that I must make it absolutely clear that they are fictitious characters. Systems 1 and 2 are not systems in the standard sense of entities with interacting aspects or parts. And there is no one part of the brain that either of the systems would call home. You may well ask: What is the point of introducing fictitious characters with ugly names into a serious book? The answer is that the characters are useful because of some quirks of our minds, yours and mine. A sentence is understood more easily if it describes what an agent (System 2) does than if it describes what something is, what properties it has. In other words, “System 2” is a better subject for a sentence than “mental arithmetic.” The mind—especially System 1—appears to have a special aptitude for the construction and interpretation of stories about active agents, who have personalities, habits, and abilities. You quickly formed a bad opinion of the thieving butler, you expect more bad behavior from him, and you will remember him for a while. This is also my hope for the language of systems.
Why call them System 1 and System 2 rather than the more descriptive “automatic system” and “effortful system”? The reason is simple: “Automatic system” takes longer to say than “System 1” and therefore takes more space in your working memory. This matters, because anything that occupies your working memory reduces your ability to think. You should treat “System 1” and “System 2” as nicknames, like Bob and Joe, identifying characters that you will get to know over the course of this book. The fictitious systems make it easier for me to think about judgment and choice, and will make it easier for you to understand what I say.
SPEAKING OF SYSTEM 1 AND SYSTEM 2
“He had an impression, but some of his impressions are illusions.”
“This was a pure System 1 response. She reacted to the threat before she recognized it.”
“This is your System 1 talking. Slow down and let your System 2 take control.”
To survive physically or psychologically, we sometimes need to react automatically to a speeding taxi as we step off the curb or to the subtle facial cues of an angry boss. That automatic mode of thinking, not under voluntary control, contrasts with the need to slow down and deliberately fiddle with pencil and paper when working through an algebra problem. These two systems that the brain uses to process information are the focus of Nobelist Daniel Kahneman's new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC., 2011). The following excerpt is the first chapter, entitled "The Characters of the Story," which introduces readers to these systems. (Used with permission.)
Understanding fast and slow thinking could help us find more rational solutions to problems that we as a society face. For example, a commentary in the March issueof the journal Nature Climate Changeoutlined how carbon labeling that appeals to both systems could be more successful than previous efforts to change consumer habits. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) Understanding how we think can also guide more personal decisions. Last month, Kahneman highlighted in a lecture given at the National Academy of Sciences "The Science of Science Communication" conference how realizing the limitations of each system can help us catch our own mistakes.
To observe your mind in automatic mode, glance at the image below.
Your experience as you look at the woman’s face seamlessly combines what we normally call seeing and intuitive thinking. As surely and quickly as you saw that the young woman’s hair is dark, you knew she is angry. Furthermore, what you saw extended into the future. You sensed that this woman is about to say some very unkind words, probably in a loud and strident voice. A premonition of what she was going to do next came to mind automatically and effortlessly. You did not intend to assess her mood or to anticipate what she might do, and your reaction to the picture did not have the feel of something you did. It just happened to you. It was an instance of fast thinking.
Now look at the following problem:
17 × 24
You knew immediately that this is a multiplication problem, and probably knew that you could solve it, with paper and pencil, if not without. You also had some vague intuitive knowledge of the range of possible results. You would be quick to recognize that both 12,609 and 123 are implausible. Without spending some time on the problem, however, you would not be certain that the answer is not 568. A precise solution did not come to mind, and you felt that you could choose whether or not to engage in the computation. If you have not done so yet, you should attempt the multiplication problem now, completing at least part of it.
You experienced slow thinking as you proceeded through a sequence of steps. You first retrieved from memory the cognitive program for multiplication that you learned in school, then you implemented it. Carrying out the computation was a strain. You felt the burden of holding much material in memory, as you needed to keep track of where you were and of where you were going, while holding on to the intermediate result. The process was mental work: deliberate, effortful, and orderly—a prototype of slow thinking. The computation was not only an event in your mind; your body was also involved. Your muscles tensed up, your blood pressure rose, and your heart rate increased. Someone looking closely at your eyes while you tackled this problem would have seen your pupils dilate. Your pupils contracted back to normal size as soon as you ended your work—when you found the answer (which is 408, by the way) or when you gave up.
TWO SYSTEMS
Psychologists have been intensely interested for several decades in the two modes of thinking evoked by the picture of the angry woman and by the multiplication problem, and have offered many labels for them. I adopt terms originally proposed by the psychologists Keith Stanovich and Richard West, and will refer to two systems in the mind, System 1 and System 2.
• System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.
• System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.
The labels of System 1 and System 2 are widely used in psychology, but I go further than most in this book, which you can read as a psychodrama with two characters.
When we think of ourselves, we identify with System 2, the conscious, reasoning self that has beliefs, makes choices, and decides what to think about and what to do. Although System 2 believes itself to be where the action is, the automatic System 1 is the hero of the book. I describe System 1 as effortlessly originating impressions and feelings that are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2. The automatic operations of System 1 generate surprisingly complex patterns of ideas, but only the slower System 2 can construct thoughts in an orderly series of steps. I also describe circumstances in which System 2 takes over, overruling the freewheeling impulses and associations of System 1. You will be invited to think of the two systems as agents with their individual abilities, limitations, and functions.
In rough order of complexity, here are some examples of the automatic activities that are attributed to System 1:
• Detect that one object is more distant than another.
• Orient to the source of a sudden sound.
• Complete the phrase “bread and . . .”
• Make a “disgust face” when shown a horrible picture.
• Detect hostility in a voice.
• Answer to 2 + 2 = ?
• Read words on large billboards.
• Drive a car on an empty road.
• Find a strong move in chess (if you are a chess master).
• Understand simple sentences.
• Recognize that a “meek and tidy soul with a passion for detail” resembles an occupational stereotype.
All these mental events belong with the angry woman—they occur automatically and require little or no effort. The capabilities of System 1 include innate skills that we share with other animals. We are born prepared to perceive the world around us, recognize objects, orient attention, avoid losses, and fear spiders. Other mental activities become fast and automatic through prolonged practice. System 1 has learned associations between ideas (the capital of France?); it has also learned skills such as reading and under- standing nuances of social situations. Some skills, such as finding strong chess moves, are acquired only by specialized experts. Others are widely shared. Detecting the similarity of a personality sketch to an occupational stereotype requires broad knowledge of the language and the culture, which most of us possess. The knowledge is stored in memory and accessed with- out intention and without effort.
Several of the mental actions in the list are completely involuntary. You cannot refrain from understanding simple sentences in your own language or from orienting to a loud unexpected sound, nor can you prevent yourself from knowing that 2 + 2 = 4 or from thinking of Paris when the capital of France is mentioned. Other activities, such as chewing, are susceptible to voluntary control but normally run on automatic pilot. The control of attention is shared by the two systems. Orienting to a loud sound is normally an involuntary operation of System 1, which immediately mobilizes the voluntary attention of System 2. You may be able to resist turning toward the source of a loud and offensive comment at a crowded party, but even if your head does not move, your attention is initially directed to it, at least for a while. However, attention can be moved away from an unwanted focus, primarily by focusing intently on another target.
The highly diverse operations of System 2 have one feature in common: they require attention and are disrupted when attention is drawn away. Here are some examples:
• Brace for the starter gun in a race.
• Focus attention on the clowns in the circus.
• Focus on the voice of a particular person in a crowded and noisy room.
• Look for a woman with white hair.
• Search memory to identify a surprising sound.
• Maintain a faster walking speed than is natural for you.
• Monitor the appropriateness of your behavior in a social situation.
• Count the occurrences of the letter a in a page of text.
• Tell someone your phone number.
• Park in a narrow space (for most people except garage attendants).
• Compare two washing machines for overall value.
• Fill out a tax form.
• Check the validity of a complex logical argument.
In all these situations you must pay attention, and you will perform less well, or not at all, if you are not ready or if your attention is directed inappropriately. System 2 has some ability to change the way System 1 works, by programming the normally automatic functions of attention and memory. When waiting for a relative at a busy train station, for example, you can set yourself at will to look for a white-haired woman or a bearded man, and thereby increase the likelihood of detecting your relative from a distance. You can set your memory to search for capital cities that start with N or for French existentialist novels. And when you rent a car at London’s Heathrow Airport, the attendant will probably remind you that “we drive on the left side of the road over here.” In all these cases, you are asked to do something that does not come naturally, and you will find that the consistent maintenance of a set requires continuous exertion of at least some effort.
The often-used phrase “pay attention” is apt: you dispose of a limited budget of attention that you can allocate to activities, and if you try to go beyond your budget, you will fail. It is the mark of effortful activities that they interfere with each other, which is why it is difficult or impossible to conduct several at once. You could not compute the product of 17 × 24 while making a left turn into dense traffic, and you certainly should not try. You can do several things at once, but only if they are easy and undemanding. You are probably safe carrying on a conversation with a passenger while driving on an empty highway, and many parents have discovered, perhaps with some guilt, that they can read a story to a child while thinking of something else.
Everyone has some awareness of the limited capacity of attention, and our social behavior makes allowances for these limitations. When the driver of a car is overtaking a truck on a narrow road, for example, adult passengers quite sensibly stop talking. They know that distracting the driver is not a good idea, and they also suspect that he is temporarily deaf and will not hear what they say.
Intense focusing on a task can make people effectively blind, even to stimuli that normally attract attention. The most dramatic demonstration was offered by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in their book The Invisible Gorilla. They constructed a short film of two teams passing basketballs, one team wearing white shirts, the other wearing black. The viewers of the film are instructed to count the number of passes made by the white team, ignoring the black players. This task is difficult and completely absorbing. Halfway through the video, a woman wearing a gorilla suit appears, crosses the court, thumps her chest, and moves on. The gorilla is in view for 9 seconds. Many thousands of people have seen the video, and about half of them do not notice anything unusual. It is the counting task—and especially the instruction to ignore one of the teams—that causes the blindness. No one who watches the video without that task would miss the gorilla. Seeing and orienting are automatic functions of System 1, but they depend on the allocation of some attention to the relevant stimulus. The authors note that the most remarkable observation of their study is that people find its results very surprising. Indeed, the viewers who fail to see the gorilla are initially sure that it was not there—they cannot imagine missing such a striking event. The gorilla study illustrates two important facts about our minds: we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.
PLOT SYNOPSIS
The interaction of the two systems is a recurrent theme of the book, and a brief synopsis of the plot is in order. In the story I will tell, Systems 1 and 2 are both active whenever we are awake. System 1 runs automatically and System 2 is normally in a comfortable low-effort mode, in which only a fraction of its capacity is engaged. System 1 continuously generates suggestions for System 2: impressions, intuitions, intentions, and feelings. If endorsed by System 2, impressions and intuitions turn into beliefs, and impulses turn into voluntary actions. When all goes smoothly, which is most of the time, System 2 adopts the suggestions of System 1 with little or no modification. You generally believe your impressions and act on your desires, and that is fine—usually.
When System 1 runs into difficulty, it calls on System 2 to support more detailed and specific processing that may solve the problem of the moment. System 2 is mobilized when a question arises for which System 1 does not offer an answer, as probably happened to you when you encountered the multiplication problem 17 × 24. You can also feel a surge of conscious attention whenever you are surprised. System 2 is activated when an event is detected that violates the model of the world that System 1 maintains. In that world, lamps do not jump, cats do not bark, and gorillas do not cross basketball courts. The gorilla experiment demonstrates that some attention is needed for the surprising stimulus to be detected. Surprise then activates and orients your attention: you will stare, and you will search your memory for a story that makes sense of the surprising event. System 2 is also credited with the continuous monitoring of your own behavior—the control that keeps you polite when you are angry, and alert when you are driving at night. System 2 is mobilized to increased effort when it detects an error about to be made. Remember a time when you almost blurted out an offensive remark and note how hard you worked to restore control. In summary, most of what you (your System 2) think and do originates in your System 1, but System 2 takes over when things get difficult, and it normally has the last word.
The division of labor between System 1 and System 2 is highly efficient: it minimizes effort and optimizes performance. The arrangement works well most of the time because System 1 is generally very good at what it does: its models of familiar situations are accurate, its short-term predictions are usually accurate as well, and its initial reactions to challenges are swift and generally appropriate. System 1 has biases, however, systematic errors that it is prone to make in specified circumstances. As we shall see, it sometimes answers easier questions than the one it was asked, and it has little understanding of logic and statistics. One further limitation of System 1 is that it cannot be turned off. If you are shown a word on the screen in a language you know, you will read it—unless your attention is totally focused elsewhere.
CONFLICT
Figure 2 is a variant of a classic experiment that produces a conflict between the two systems. You should try the exercise before reading on.
You were almost certainly successful in saying the correct words in both tasks, and you surely discovered that some parts of each task were much easier than others. When you identified upper- and lowercase, the left-hand column was easy and the right-hand column caused you to slow down and perhaps to stammer or stumble. When you named the position of words, the left-hand column was difficult and the right-hand column was much easier.
These tasks engage System 2, because saying “upper/lower” or “right/ left” is not what you routinely do when looking down a column of words. One of the things you did to set yourself for the task was to program your memory so that the relevant words (upper and lower for the first task) were “on the tip of your tongue.” The prioritizing of the chosen words is effective and the mild temptation to read other words was fairly easy to resist when you went through the first column. But the second column was different, because it contained words for which you were set, and you could not ignore them. You were mostly able to respond correctly, but overcoming the competing response was a strain, and it slowed you down. You experienced a conflict between a task that you intended to carry out and an automatic response that interfered with it.
Conflict between an automatic reaction and an intention to control it is common in our lives. We are all familiar with the experience of trying not to stare at the oddly dressed couple at the neighboring table in a restaurant. We also know what it is like to force our attention on a boring book, when we constantly find ourselves returning to the point at which the reading lost its meaning. Where winters are hard, many drivers have memories of their car skidding out of control on the ice and of the struggle to follow well-rehearsed instructions that negate what they would naturally do: “Steer into the skid, and whatever you do, do not touch the brakes!” And every human being has had the experience of not telling someone to go to hell. One of the tasks of System 2 is to overcome the impulses of System 1. In other words, System 2 is in charge of self-control.
ILLUSIONS
To appreciate the autonomy of System 1, as well as the distinction between impressions and beliefs, take a good look at figure 3.
This picture is unremarkable: two horizontal lines of different lengths, with fins appended, pointing in different directions. The bottom line is obviously longer than the one above it. That is what we all see, and we naturally believe what we see. If you have already encountered this image, however, you recognize it as the famous Müller-Lyer illusion. As you can easily confirm by measuring them with a ruler, the horizontal lines are in fact identical in length.
Now that you have measured the lines, you—your System 2, the conscious being you call “I”—have a new belief: you know that the lines are equally long. If asked about their length, you will say what you know. But you still see the bottom line as longer. You have chosen to believe the measurement, but you cannot prevent System 1 from doing its thing; you cannot decide to see the lines as equal, although you know they are. To resist the illusion, there is only one thing you can do: you must learn to mistrust your impressions of the length of lines when fins are attached to them. To implement that rule, you must be able to recognize the illusory pattern and recall what you know about it. If you can do this, you will never again be fooled by the Müller-Lyer illusion. But you will still see one line as longer than the other.
Not all illusions are visual. There are illusions of thought, which we call cognitive illusions. As a graduate student, I attended some courses on the art and science of psychotherapy. During one of these lectures, our teacher imparted a morsel of clinical wisdom. This is what he told us: “You will from time to time meet a patient who shares a disturbing tale of multiple mistakes in his previous treatment. He has been seen by several clinicians, and all failed him. The patient can lucidly describe how his therapists misunderstood him, but he has quickly perceived that you are different. You share the same feeling, are convinced that you understand him, and will be able to help.” At this point my teacher raised his voice as he said, “Do not even think of taking on this patient! Throw him out of the office! He is most likely a psychopath and you will not be able to help him.”
Many years later I learned that the teacher had warned us against psychopathic charm,and the leading authority in the study of psychopathy confirmed that the teacher’s advice was sound. The analogy to the Müller-Lyer illusion is close. What we were being taught was not how to feel about that patient. Our teacher took it for granted that the sympathy we would feel for the patient would not be under our control; it would arise from System 1. Furthermore, we were not being taught to be generally suspicious of our feelings about patients. We were told that a strong attraction to a patient with a repeated history of failed treatment is a danger sign—like the fins on the parallel lines. It is an illusion—a cognitive illusion—and I (System 2) was taught how to recognize it and advised not to believe it or act on it.
The question that is most often asked about cognitive illusions is whether they can be overcome. The message of these examples is not encouraging. Because System 1 operates automatically and cannot be turned off at will, errors of intuitive thought are often difficult to prevent. Biases cannot always be avoided, because System 2 may have no clue to the error. Even when cues to likely errors are available, errors can be prevented only by the enhanced monitoring and effortful activity of System 2. As a way to live your life, however, continuous vigilance is not necessarily good, and it is certainly impractical. Constantly questioning our own thinking would be impossibly tedious, and System 2 is much too slow and inefficient to serve as a substitute for System 1 in making routine decisions. The best we can do is a compromise: learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high. The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people’s mistakes than our own.
USEFUL FICTIONS
You have been invited to think of the two systems as agents within the mind, with their individual personalities, abilities, and limitations. I will often use sentences in which the systems are the subjects, such as, “System 2 calculates products.”
The use of such language is considered a sin in the professional circles in which I travel, because it seems to explain the thoughts and actions of a person by the thoughts and actions of little people inside the person’s head. Grammatically the sentence about System 2 is similar to “The butler steals the petty cash.” My colleagues would point out that the butler’s action actually explains the disappearance of the cash, and they rightly question whether the sentence about System 2 explains how products are calculated. My answer is that the brief active sentence that attributes calculation to System 2 is intended as a description, not an explanation. It is meaningful only because of what you already know about System 2. It is shorthand for the following: “Mental arithmetic is a voluntary activity that requires effort, should not be performed while making a left turn, and is associated with dilated pupils and an accelerated heart rate.”
Similarly, the statement that “highway driving under routine conditions is left to System 1” means that steering the car around a bend is automatic and almost effortless. It also implies that an experienced driver can drive on an empty highway while conducting a conversation. Finally, “System 2 prevented James from reacting foolishly to the insult” means that James would have been more aggressive in his response if his capacity for effortful control had been disrupted (for example, if he had been drunk).
System 1 and System 2 are so central to the story I tell in this book that I must make it absolutely clear that they are fictitious characters. Systems 1 and 2 are not systems in the standard sense of entities with interacting aspects or parts. And there is no one part of the brain that either of the systems would call home. You may well ask: What is the point of introducing fictitious characters with ugly names into a serious book? The answer is that the characters are useful because of some quirks of our minds, yours and mine. A sentence is understood more easily if it describes what an agent (System 2) does than if it describes what something is, what properties it has. In other words, “System 2” is a better subject for a sentence than “mental arithmetic.” The mind—especially System 1—appears to have a special aptitude for the construction and interpretation of stories about active agents, who have personalities, habits, and abilities. You quickly formed a bad opinion of the thieving butler, you expect more bad behavior from him, and you will remember him for a while. This is also my hope for the language of systems.
Why call them System 1 and System 2 rather than the more descriptive “automatic system” and “effortful system”? The reason is simple: “Automatic system” takes longer to say than “System 1” and therefore takes more space in your working memory. This matters, because anything that occupies your working memory reduces your ability to think. You should treat “System 1” and “System 2” as nicknames, like Bob and Joe, identifying characters that you will get to know over the course of this book. The fictitious systems make it easier for me to think about judgment and choice, and will make it easier for you to understand what I say.
SPEAKING OF SYSTEM 1 AND SYSTEM 2
“He had an impression, but some of his impressions are illusions.”
“This was a pure System 1 response. She reacted to the threat before she recognized it.”
“This is your System 1 talking. Slow down and let your System 2 take control.”
Sunday, April 21, 2013
王澤基：為甚麼老外橫行蘭桂坊？消失中的殘餘性資本
港女對「老外」情有獨鍾，可算是港英時代遺留下來的「核心價值」，傳統上，說英語歎紅酒的，不是政治精英，就是外資公司派駐香港的管理層，不單家底較厚，而且象徵着權力和西方品味。對「異族」通婚有保留的，會退而求其次，找那些ABC、BBC，甚至CBC（Central Born Chinese）。他們的共通點是中國人面孔，外國人味道，加上那種「唔鹹唔淡」的廣東話，讓他們追女仔時賺盡溢價，無往而不利。
中國人對舶來品的迷戀，自古有之，男士穿洋服、女士噴香水，按照才子陶傑的說法，這是中國人的崇洋媚外基因，中國人體現富有的方法，離不開買LV、開寶馬，然後嫁個老外，拿本護照，送子女放洋唸書。崇洋從經濟學的角度看，是源於訊息效應，一個老外沒有能力和人脈，絕難在以往的殖民社會落地生根，而能自小送子女到外國讀十幾年書的人，也窮不到哪裏，這跟西方社會酷愛古銅色肌膚一樣——有閒情把膚色長年累月曬黑的，很有可能是每年去4次東南亞旅行的上等人。
老外文化資本勝土炮
崇洋也不是殖民地獨有的情況，日本上智大學的社會學教授劉雅格（James Farrer）曾經撰文探討這個現象。他的理論基礎來自諾貝爾經濟學家貝克（Gary Becker）所提出的「人力資本」理論。貝克認為人在待人接物上有3種可用資產，分別為「經濟資本」，即金錢、有形資產等；「文化資本」，如藝術造詣、文學修養、思想觀念等；以及「社會資本」，如人脈、社會地位等，這些資本亦可互為影響和深化。
在劉雅格的研究過程中，曾對110名長居於上海的外國人以及45名中國女性進行訪問，歸納出幾個有趣的論點。外國人在上海泡妞的競爭優勢，是因為擁有一種「外來性資本」（Alien Sexual Capital），一般人認為，女性「攀附」老外多為向上流，所以男性的性資本主要來自經濟和社會資本，但他的研究結果顯示，文化資本更重要。在改革開放的八九十年代，西方思想中的浪漫主義、性解放以及個人自由等才是外國男人攻陷芳心的主要武器。
在他的訪問對象中，一名20歲在上海唸書的工程系女生，意外地結識了第一位外籍男友後，便再無法跟中國人拍拖。5年間她流連於充斥老外的酒吧，頻頻換畫，更願意嘗試3P甚至4P的性愛，她並無得到金錢利益，卻非常滿足於這種探險，她自豪地說︰「相比5年前，我想我已經脫胎換骨了！」
國產男難覓港女老婆
不少社會學和性學學者將這種國籍上的競爭優勢，描述為性階級（Sexual Hierarchy），如香港和英國的從屬關係，就把「性崇洋」植入本土文化中。香港大學社會工作及社會行政學系副教授何式凝博士和加拿大多倫多大學社會工作系副教授曾家達合著的一份研究指出，性階級對香港中外男同性戀者關係中，雙方的主次角色也有影響。更有趣的是，他們認為性階級會伴隨社會權力的變遷而改變，例如九七香港回歸後，理論上外國人的優越感會相應減低。
可是，從實際觀察所得，香港回歸15年，港女配老外依然普遍，而香港新的「宗主國」——中國大陸的男人，即使是高學歷高收入的投行精英，亦鮮有與港女配對的成功例子。相反，香港男性在內地女生中卻依然吃香，不少「中坑級」男演員，都娶了20出頭的大陸當紅小花。這是否意味香港人在內地女生眼中依然擁有「外來性資本」？為何內地精英的經濟和社會資本兼而有之，卻未能為他們搶到優勢？
我認為這是因為男女對配偶所帶來的效用標準不一，因而出現錯價。假設不論男女，都介意旁人對身邊伴侶的看法，但對男女的評審標準卻不同。女性希望別人覺得她的男人富有、有品味和學識，而男人則簡單得多，效用主要來自女伴外貌夠標緻，身材夠突出。
港男勝在擁品牌效應
假設國產男平均來說較平庸，但卻較參差和極端（有學貫中西的大學教授，也有很多隨地吐痰的老粗），港男平均來說較優秀，但算得上出色的可能反不及南下的內地精英。故此，整體而言，港女都情願讓人知道男友是香港人，這是一種品牌效應，正如盡管最好的精工錶，在質素上可能較平價的歐米茄要高，但我們還是會選擇後者。
相反，男性審美眼光則統一得多，女友不論來自香港、上海、北京抑或重慶，女友漂亮所帶來的虛榮感都是同等的，並不存在統計學上的偏見。港男和國產男，都對美女有所偏好。而願意退而求其次，選擇「下嫁」國產男的港女，反而自覺委屈，要求更多的補償（例如要求男友份外有錢和專一），但又有錢又專一又幽默的國產優才，何不去找個蘇杭美女？買賣雙方錯價已成，交易泡湯完全合情合理。
中國人對舶來品的迷戀，自古有之，男士穿洋服、女士噴香水，按照才子陶傑的說法，這是中國人的崇洋媚外基因，中國人體現富有的方法，離不開買LV、開寶馬，然後嫁個老外，拿本護照，送子女放洋唸書。崇洋從經濟學的角度看，是源於訊息效應，一個老外沒有能力和人脈，絕難在以往的殖民社會落地生根，而能自小送子女到外國讀十幾年書的人，也窮不到哪裏，這跟西方社會酷愛古銅色肌膚一樣——有閒情把膚色長年累月曬黑的，很有可能是每年去4次東南亞旅行的上等人。
老外文化資本勝土炮
崇洋也不是殖民地獨有的情況，日本上智大學的社會學教授劉雅格（James Farrer）曾經撰文探討這個現象。他的理論基礎來自諾貝爾經濟學家貝克（Gary Becker）所提出的「人力資本」理論。貝克認為人在待人接物上有3種可用資產，分別為「經濟資本」，即金錢、有形資產等；「文化資本」，如藝術造詣、文學修養、思想觀念等；以及「社會資本」，如人脈、社會地位等，這些資本亦可互為影響和深化。
在劉雅格的研究過程中，曾對110名長居於上海的外國人以及45名中國女性進行訪問，歸納出幾個有趣的論點。外國人在上海泡妞的競爭優勢，是因為擁有一種「外來性資本」（Alien Sexual Capital），一般人認為，女性「攀附」老外多為向上流，所以男性的性資本主要來自經濟和社會資本，但他的研究結果顯示，文化資本更重要。在改革開放的八九十年代，西方思想中的浪漫主義、性解放以及個人自由等才是外國男人攻陷芳心的主要武器。
在他的訪問對象中，一名20歲在上海唸書的工程系女生，意外地結識了第一位外籍男友後，便再無法跟中國人拍拖。5年間她流連於充斥老外的酒吧，頻頻換畫，更願意嘗試3P甚至4P的性愛，她並無得到金錢利益，卻非常滿足於這種探險，她自豪地說︰「相比5年前，我想我已經脫胎換骨了！」
國產男難覓港女老婆
不少社會學和性學學者將這種國籍上的競爭優勢，描述為性階級（Sexual Hierarchy），如香港和英國的從屬關係，就把「性崇洋」植入本土文化中。香港大學社會工作及社會行政學系副教授何式凝博士和加拿大多倫多大學社會工作系副教授曾家達合著的一份研究指出，性階級對香港中外男同性戀者關係中，雙方的主次角色也有影響。更有趣的是，他們認為性階級會伴隨社會權力的變遷而改變，例如九七香港回歸後，理論上外國人的優越感會相應減低。
可是，從實際觀察所得，香港回歸15年，港女配老外依然普遍，而香港新的「宗主國」——中國大陸的男人，即使是高學歷高收入的投行精英，亦鮮有與港女配對的成功例子。相反，香港男性在內地女生中卻依然吃香，不少「中坑級」男演員，都娶了20出頭的大陸當紅小花。這是否意味香港人在內地女生眼中依然擁有「外來性資本」？為何內地精英的經濟和社會資本兼而有之，卻未能為他們搶到優勢？
我認為這是因為男女對配偶所帶來的效用標準不一，因而出現錯價。假設不論男女，都介意旁人對身邊伴侶的看法，但對男女的評審標準卻不同。女性希望別人覺得她的男人富有、有品味和學識，而男人則簡單得多，效用主要來自女伴外貌夠標緻，身材夠突出。
港男勝在擁品牌效應
假設國產男平均來說較平庸，但卻較參差和極端（有學貫中西的大學教授，也有很多隨地吐痰的老粗），港男平均來說較優秀，但算得上出色的可能反不及南下的內地精英。故此，整體而言，港女都情願讓人知道男友是香港人，這是一種品牌效應，正如盡管最好的精工錶，在質素上可能較平價的歐米茄要高，但我們還是會選擇後者。
相反，男性審美眼光則統一得多，女友不論來自香港、上海、北京抑或重慶，女友漂亮所帶來的虛榮感都是同等的，並不存在統計學上的偏見。港男和國產男，都對美女有所偏好。而願意退而求其次，選擇「下嫁」國產男的港女，反而自覺委屈，要求更多的補償（例如要求男友份外有錢和專一），但又有錢又專一又幽默的國產優才，何不去找個蘇杭美女？買賣雙方錯價已成，交易泡湯完全合情合理。
王澤基教授的網站---強力推薦
之前看了版主對王澤基教授的介紹後，在香港的網路書局買了一本「反轉腦袋投資學」來看，裏面有些觀念很不錯，值得一看。
王教授說他自1973至2011年期間，只有八次買入，四次賣出的交易，在過去的38年裏只操作了12天，這個一般投資人很難做到！
書中也提到，「投資想要賺錢，不一定要每天賺錢，市場上並沒有這麼多讓人賺錢的機會，散戶不如花點時間好好工作，或多讀一點書，令自己事業有成；或多花點時間，跟家人孩子相處，讓家庭更幸福和諧。投資跟工作不一樣，不是幹得愈多愈好。」「投資不可以是正職，……媒體與公眾所的投資賺快錢，不過是夢一場而已。」
這些話實在發人深省。
王澤基教授, 自幼貧窮, 做事, 讀書十分認真, 值得學習
反轉腦袋投資學—序文也很好看http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~b120159/i-money/iBank_730.pdf
小弟非常認同您的理念，相信您之所以推薦王教授，不是因為他的方法最好，或者獲利最高，而是其風範與氣度；王教授也是出身基層，但經努力成為歐美頂尖金融界高職，管理數以億計的資產，但他成功後仍然回到學術界任教，向大多數的投資散戶提供建言。
王教授「反轉腦袋投資學」書中也提到投資六大心法，他說這六點要用恆心、毅力去控制：
一、不做如賭錢一樣的投機。
二、絕不做「輸了就無法翻身」的賭博。
三、只做合理的事，市場便宜的時候買；市場貴了的時候，寧可錯過，絕不做錯。
四、別人賺錢時，不眼紅；市場大跌時，不恐慌。
五、只預期長時間獲得合理的回報，不幻想不勞而獲；強求發財的人，很少可以發財。
六、要有一份好的工作，投資不可以是全職。整天想著投資發財，有害無益。
提供給認同版主的同好參考！好多人想把投資當正職，都想藉著投資賺大錢，看著別人成功的故事，認為自己也可以，但忘了個別的故事並不是通則。大家都來研究投資，經濟會因此而成長嗎？每個人都想把投資當正職，誰來為社會做事呢？
王教授說他自1973至2011年期間，只有八次買入，四次賣出的交易，在過去的38年裏只操作了12天，這個一般投資人很難做到！
書中也提到，「投資想要賺錢，不一定要每天賺錢，市場上並沒有這麼多讓人賺錢的機會，散戶不如花點時間好好工作，或多讀一點書，令自己事業有成；或多花點時間，跟家人孩子相處，讓家庭更幸福和諧。投資跟工作不一樣，不是幹得愈多愈好。」「投資不可以是正職，……媒體與公眾所的投資賺快錢，不過是夢一場而已。」
這些話實在發人深省。
王澤基教授, 自幼貧窮, 做事, 讀書十分認真, 值得學習
反轉腦袋投資學—序文也很好看http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~b120159/i-money/iBank_730.pdf
小弟非常認同您的理念，相信您之所以推薦王教授，不是因為他的方法最好，或者獲利最高，而是其風範與氣度；王教授也是出身基層，但經努力成為歐美頂尖金融界高職，管理數以億計的資產，但他成功後仍然回到學術界任教，向大多數的投資散戶提供建言。
王教授「反轉腦袋投資學」書中也提到投資六大心法，他說這六點要用恆心、毅力去控制：
一、不做如賭錢一樣的投機。
二、絕不做「輸了就無法翻身」的賭博。
三、只做合理的事，市場便宜的時候買；市場貴了的時候，寧可錯過，絕不做錯。
四、別人賺錢時，不眼紅；市場大跌時，不恐慌。
五、只預期長時間獲得合理的回報，不幻想不勞而獲；強求發財的人，很少可以發財。
六、要有一份好的工作，投資不可以是全職。整天想著投資發財，有害無益。
提供給認同版主的同好參考！好多人想把投資當正職，都想藉著投資賺大錢，看著別人成功的故事，認為自己也可以，但忘了個別的故事並不是通則。大家都來研究投資，經濟會因此而成長嗎？每個人都想把投資當正職，誰來為社會做事呢？
从穷小子到投行高手 --- 王泽基: 你觉得知识无用只因你学得不够深
37岁嘅佢系一间国际大投资银行董事，刚刚离开商界回到香港中文大学做教授，家住豪宅，四个人有三个厕所。佢嘅出生系好typical嘅奋斗故事：七岁由内地移民香港，不通语言比人白眼，家穷六口要住100呎天台屋，放假要做劳力工作帮补家计，会考攞7A入中大暂取生读电子工程。
当年的大学四年制，一般学生修读约120个学分毕业，王泽基佢读足230个，几乎是别人的两倍。他一脸认真地说：「我知现在很多大学生说读书无用，但我告诉你，你觉得知识无用只因你学得不够深。」
毕业後得到奖学金去MIT或Oxford读工程硕士MPhil.，当时女朋友正在法国读书，因为想接近多，所以拣左去英国牛津，去到牛津发觉电脑设备好差(牛津理工科系差d)，转軚读经济，由简单嘅Supply & Demand Curve唔明到四年後攞到经济学博士，毕业之後英国高盛请佢做Rocket Scientist (计量金融师), 负责写程式，年薪15万美元，06年返香港出任瑞银执行董事，短短9年便升至行政总裁。
节录一下王泽基对学习丶工作及管理的智慧：
「在社会工作，懂得学习最紧要。你有本事将一样知识从零学好，别人不愿做的你也肯做，便成功在望。」
他说现在的年轻人比他那一代有本事，但自视过高 ，工作时嫌这嫌那。他经常为其工作的投资银行进行招聘面试，一次，他问一个电脑系的毕业生是否懂得写某类程式，毕业生反问写程式这种皮毛工作不是有较低级的人做吗？面试尾声，毕业生问他一个MD的工作包括甚麽，他说：「我写程式。」结果，这名志向宏大的电脑系毕业生当然没有获聘。
… 一位公司高层丶领袖，要比任何人都刻苦耐劳。「领袖有3种： by Authority，by Inspiration, by Example。」佢信奉Leadership by Example。
王泽基不会因为放不下身段而拒绝做任何工作，因为他认为下属心悦诚服跟随你做事，「要令下属觉得I’m proud to be in your team, 领袖必须身先士卒。」
… 「要得到同事的尊重，比升职加薪难很多很多，只坐在大班房凉冷气的领袖最易发出不合情理的命令。」
同学们，只要你努力，干出好成绩，呢个世界有好多有心人会帮你架！
当年的大学四年制，一般学生修读约120个学分毕业，王泽基佢读足230个，几乎是别人的两倍。他一脸认真地说：「我知现在很多大学生说读书无用，但我告诉你，你觉得知识无用只因你学得不够深。」
毕业後得到奖学金去MIT或Oxford读工程硕士MPhil.，当时女朋友正在法国读书，因为想接近多，所以拣左去英国牛津，去到牛津发觉电脑设备好差(牛津理工科系差d)，转軚读经济，由简单嘅Supply & Demand Curve唔明到四年後攞到经济学博士，毕业之後英国高盛请佢做Rocket Scientist (计量金融师), 负责写程式，年薪15万美元，06年返香港出任瑞银执行董事，短短9年便升至行政总裁。
节录一下王泽基对学习丶工作及管理的智慧：
「在社会工作，懂得学习最紧要。你有本事将一样知识从零学好，别人不愿做的你也肯做，便成功在望。」
他说现在的年轻人比他那一代有本事，但自视过高 ，工作时嫌这嫌那。他经常为其工作的投资银行进行招聘面试，一次，他问一个电脑系的毕业生是否懂得写某类程式，毕业生反问写程式这种皮毛工作不是有较低级的人做吗？面试尾声，毕业生问他一个MD的工作包括甚麽，他说：「我写程式。」结果，这名志向宏大的电脑系毕业生当然没有获聘。
… 一位公司高层丶领袖，要比任何人都刻苦耐劳。「领袖有3种： by Authority，by Inspiration, by Example。」佢信奉Leadership by Example。
王泽基不会因为放不下身段而拒绝做任何工作，因为他认为下属心悦诚服跟随你做事，「要令下属觉得I’m proud to be in your team, 领袖必须身先士卒。」
… 「要得到同事的尊重，比升职加薪难很多很多，只坐在大班房凉冷气的领袖最易发出不合情理的命令。」
同学们，只要你努力，干出好成绩，呢个世界有好多有心人会帮你架！
「你是李嘉欣嗎？」
坊間流傳一個現象，男女失衡的情況下，在蘭桂坊蹓躂的女子，偶然碰上年薪過百萬的醫生或律師或銀行家，雙眼會發出異常光芒，搔首弄姿，誓要吞落肚據為己有。
「管他是甚麼職業，總之有錢，揸住架Benz MC，港女就鍾意㗎啦！」王澤基說得大口氣，皆因他也是銀行家出身，不乏女孩子自動獻身。「夾張紙仔畀我，話不如今晚十二點去她房飲咖啡。」在投資銀行打滾十幾年，做到執行董事，卻轉到中大財務學系做教授，紙仔來自面試的學生。才四十歲，比其他地中海、有肚腩的老師吸引得多，最厲害是可以把情色之事和經濟學混為一談，更出書講出殘酷的現實──港女貶值率高、男人鍾意大胸女，看得女士們牙癢癢。
「人最不肯面對現實，世上沒有完美的選擇，經濟學是分析問題的邏輯思維，要搞清楚假設、目標，從而得到結論，不要自己呃自己。」假設你期望情色世界如童話故事，目標是找上像吳彥祖的靚仔，或首富兒子般有錢的白馬王子，「情色邏輯王」王澤基會劈頭問你：王澤基的話，不騙自己更不騙人，三番四次在女記者和女攝影師面前，說女性貶值率甚高，「咁系事實呀嘛。」他一邊說，嘴角邊向上揚，雙手攤開，少一點自信和ＥＱ的女士會恨不得送他一巴掌。
「我講的東西是會被女生痛罵， 鬧到飛起那種。」但明顯，女生反應愈大，他愈說得起勁，「你試吓返公司，問問女同事覺得自己是否好過公司的平均值，我肯定九成半至九成八會覺得系。」這是他作為財務學教授的分析，也是把情愛與經濟學混為一談的第一步，「要為自己正確地定位，如你話自己後生時跟李嘉欣差不多，是否真的？這就是你的市場價值，決定你可得到甚麼。」他叫港女不要騙自己，自己先來個親身示範，「我望吓自己個樣，唔算靚仔，頭發光光哋，肥肥矮矮，科學宅男一名。」廿年前的他，雖未有脫發危機，但由於個子不算高，肯定不是吳彥祖那類。
市$值
當年他在中大念工程，眼見中大是拍拖的好地方，追女仔是必然之事，初戀女友就是今天的王太，「揀一次就結婚不一定錯，最緊要做足市場調查。」追老婆之前，他瞄過有錢女、靚女，都碰壁收場，「唔使追，對方眼尾都唔望你。」他以經濟理論解說，「這叫『荷蘭式拍賣』，由最高價開始向下降，好快知自己的位置。」絕色美女無行，他卻收到老婆發出的「訊號」，「通常不是男仔追女仔，是女仔畀訊息個男仔追自己。」王澤基在迎新營表演南拳武術，較他年輕一年的未來太太后來經常向他借ＣＤ，「借書借ＣＤ有好處，借見一次，還見一次，見吓見吓就醒目啦。」他廿七歲結婚，育有六歲女兒和三歲兒子，感情上曬岸，開始對現代情愛世界隔岸觀火，把「色、愛、情」套入經濟理論中，教書時學生不再瞌眼瞓，「經濟學是分析問題的技巧，邏輯思維的方式，關於口味、喜好等感性層面，我們不會討論，也沒有矛盾。」他擅于邏輯推論，說話時經常先作假設，甚麼事也說得很離身，「有人話聽我講嘢追得好攰，是嗎？」是的，他甚至連記者提問也分析一番，「作為高級管理人員，商業上要做很多決策的人，這是必須訓練。」
邏$輯
他由一0年起在中大任財務學系教授，兼財務碩士課程主任，在此之前，是高盛的執行董事。「算升得快，但交易員來說不算罕見，這一行好似明星，做到就做到，否則成世都做不到。」九五年，他獲國際知名的羅德獎學金，負笈英國牛津大學讀經濟學碩士及博士，之後加入摩根史丹利做數量分析，「計數寫程式，計算債券利息究竟是4.07或4.08，兩者只相差一個『基點』，好悶但需要精准度很高。」他曾念工程，邏輯運算對他來說無難度，後來轉做產品結構師及衍生品交易員，十幾年來在幾間投資銀行巴克萊、瑞銀等之間被輪流挖角，最後落腳點是高盛。
交易員要幫銀行賺錢，負責和客戶在市場做對沖，「交易員是一班很高學歷、有文化的爛仔，因為唔使求人，任何人都可以得罪。」他形容當時的工作環境，有兩個足球場咁大，放滿電腦，三字經滿天飛，交易都是理性和邏輯的成果，這點王澤基自小已有天份。
「細個住的地方很多道友叫小朋友帶粉，因為警察唔會捉。」原籍中山，他七歲隨父母來港，曾住土瓜灣天台僭建石屋，一家六口擠在九十呎房子里，六、七戶人共用一廚一廁，日日鬧交。他沒有答應道友提出的交易，皆因計過數，醫生看病人兩分鐘收六十元，一小時已掙得一千八百元。「幫道友帶粉，一口粉最多只得三十元，但起碼要用成個鐘。」數口精的王澤基，成績彪炳，是少數來自內地的高材生，「一、二年級考試滿分，見家長時老師卻說我出貓，因為我是大陸仔。」歧視在當年極普遍，他不當是一回事，「全班同學甚麼鄉下話都有，老師見我唔識講廣東話，問我係咪低能仔。」老師看不起他，他也看不起老師，「很快發現他們亂噏的時間都幾多，邏輯思維很弱。」例如老師說上帝五千年前創造世界，但他指中國夏朝已五千多年，北京周口店有四、五十萬年，還有甲骨文年代，「問老師他叫我唔准亂講，一個解釋都無。」他認為老師不濟，寧願上堂瞓覺，成為頑劣高材生，更把學校視作搵錢的地方，「幫同學出貓，不同分數不同價錢，想滿分要幾元，低分些就畀維他奶。」高材生通常被女同學圍住，但他寧願搵錢都不溝女。
「女仔通常鍾意師兄，而無論任何年齡的男仔都鍾意十八至廿五歲的女生，追師妹可能會『衰十一』的嘛！」說時笑得帶點古惑，「老實講，我對愛情興趣不大，年輕時女人的用途很簡單，就是『撲佢』，尤其是十四至廿八歲荷爾蒙偏高時。」十八歲入大學前，王澤基忙于做散工賺零用錢，一時忘了「男人天性」。遇上王太，才有機會把戀愛經濟學實踐出來，「追女仔送乜最有誠意？一定不可以是有二手價值的物件，因為即使她唔鍾意你都可以收，然後賣走。」想當年，他追女仔的撒手鐧是寫情詩，「誠意是一定要對自己來說很痛苦、很貴重，但是絕對無聊的事物，呢啲叫浪漫。」他原本想到美國麻省理工大學讀工程，但因為女友去了法國，才決定到英國升學，被迫轉讀經濟學。
浪漫是有代價的。沒有經濟學基礎，第一堂他問老師黑板上兩條分別向上和向下的斜線代表甚麼，「全班靜曬，老師說是供（supply）和求（demand），聽完才發現自己連最基本的都唔識，好瘀。」
主$動
情況如當年大陸仔來港由零開始一樣，聽唔明，惟有苦讀，「只要你肯坐低讀，肯學肯做，沒甚麼是學不懂的。」不只是將勤補拙的道理，「見過很多聰明的人都無乜出息，因為他忘了一件事，就是嘗試。」如他向女生「試水溫」一樣，沒有踏出第一步，就沒可能結成夫妻。「在現今盛女多的時代，女仔不妨主動一點啦。好多女仔忘了一個重點，是特殊的投資（specific investment）。」簡單而言，是投其所好。「鍾意一個人唔一定因為靚，可能是你對他好，有投入感、熟悉感。」如當年，他副修法文來追太太，「睇完法文戲識背番一兩句台詞出來， 掂曬。」所以王澤基叮囑港女， 做facial、搽指甲是無價值的。「花些時間去熟識心儀對象捧的球隊和球員，仲有意思。」他笑說。
樓紙惡過婚書
香港人十個有九個都想買樓，王澤基○六年舉家從英國回流香港，堅持只租不買。「妻子最想老公安安定定，甚麼也不要做，人有錢就身痕，身痕就去滾，最好是要他孭到一身債，供樓供到死都未供完，這是『結束』他生活的最佳辦法。」他現住九龍區大型屋苑複式單位，每年呎租是三百元，購買則要每呎一萬八千元，即租金的六十倍。「一紙婚約未必把你綁死，但一紙樓書可以把你綁得死一死！」
「管他是甚麼職業，總之有錢，揸住架Benz MC，港女就鍾意㗎啦！」王澤基說得大口氣，皆因他也是銀行家出身，不乏女孩子自動獻身。「夾張紙仔畀我，話不如今晚十二點去她房飲咖啡。」在投資銀行打滾十幾年，做到執行董事，卻轉到中大財務學系做教授，紙仔來自面試的學生。才四十歲，比其他地中海、有肚腩的老師吸引得多，最厲害是可以把情色之事和經濟學混為一談，更出書講出殘酷的現實──港女貶值率高、男人鍾意大胸女，看得女士們牙癢癢。
「人最不肯面對現實，世上沒有完美的選擇，經濟學是分析問題的邏輯思維，要搞清楚假設、目標，從而得到結論，不要自己呃自己。」假設你期望情色世界如童話故事，目標是找上像吳彥祖的靚仔，或首富兒子般有錢的白馬王子，「情色邏輯王」王澤基會劈頭問你：王澤基的話，不騙自己更不騙人，三番四次在女記者和女攝影師面前，說女性貶值率甚高，「咁系事實呀嘛。」他一邊說，嘴角邊向上揚，雙手攤開，少一點自信和ＥＱ的女士會恨不得送他一巴掌。
「我講的東西是會被女生痛罵， 鬧到飛起那種。」但明顯，女生反應愈大，他愈說得起勁，「你試吓返公司，問問女同事覺得自己是否好過公司的平均值，我肯定九成半至九成八會覺得系。」這是他作為財務學教授的分析，也是把情愛與經濟學混為一談的第一步，「要為自己正確地定位，如你話自己後生時跟李嘉欣差不多，是否真的？這就是你的市場價值，決定你可得到甚麼。」他叫港女不要騙自己，自己先來個親身示範，「我望吓自己個樣，唔算靚仔，頭發光光哋，肥肥矮矮，科學宅男一名。」廿年前的他，雖未有脫發危機，但由於個子不算高，肯定不是吳彥祖那類。
市$值
當年他在中大念工程，眼見中大是拍拖的好地方，追女仔是必然之事，初戀女友就是今天的王太，「揀一次就結婚不一定錯，最緊要做足市場調查。」追老婆之前，他瞄過有錢女、靚女，都碰壁收場，「唔使追，對方眼尾都唔望你。」他以經濟理論解說，「這叫『荷蘭式拍賣』，由最高價開始向下降，好快知自己的位置。」絕色美女無行，他卻收到老婆發出的「訊號」，「通常不是男仔追女仔，是女仔畀訊息個男仔追自己。」王澤基在迎新營表演南拳武術，較他年輕一年的未來太太后來經常向他借ＣＤ，「借書借ＣＤ有好處，借見一次，還見一次，見吓見吓就醒目啦。」他廿七歲結婚，育有六歲女兒和三歲兒子，感情上曬岸，開始對現代情愛世界隔岸觀火，把「色、愛、情」套入經濟理論中，教書時學生不再瞌眼瞓，「經濟學是分析問題的技巧，邏輯思維的方式，關於口味、喜好等感性層面，我們不會討論，也沒有矛盾。」他擅于邏輯推論，說話時經常先作假設，甚麼事也說得很離身，「有人話聽我講嘢追得好攰，是嗎？」是的，他甚至連記者提問也分析一番，「作為高級管理人員，商業上要做很多決策的人，這是必須訓練。」
邏$輯
他由一0年起在中大任財務學系教授，兼財務碩士課程主任，在此之前，是高盛的執行董事。「算升得快，但交易員來說不算罕見，這一行好似明星，做到就做到，否則成世都做不到。」九五年，他獲國際知名的羅德獎學金，負笈英國牛津大學讀經濟學碩士及博士，之後加入摩根史丹利做數量分析，「計數寫程式，計算債券利息究竟是4.07或4.08，兩者只相差一個『基點』，好悶但需要精准度很高。」他曾念工程，邏輯運算對他來說無難度，後來轉做產品結構師及衍生品交易員，十幾年來在幾間投資銀行巴克萊、瑞銀等之間被輪流挖角，最後落腳點是高盛。
交易員要幫銀行賺錢，負責和客戶在市場做對沖，「交易員是一班很高學歷、有文化的爛仔，因為唔使求人，任何人都可以得罪。」他形容當時的工作環境，有兩個足球場咁大，放滿電腦，三字經滿天飛，交易都是理性和邏輯的成果，這點王澤基自小已有天份。
「細個住的地方很多道友叫小朋友帶粉，因為警察唔會捉。」原籍中山，他七歲隨父母來港，曾住土瓜灣天台僭建石屋，一家六口擠在九十呎房子里，六、七戶人共用一廚一廁，日日鬧交。他沒有答應道友提出的交易，皆因計過數，醫生看病人兩分鐘收六十元，一小時已掙得一千八百元。「幫道友帶粉，一口粉最多只得三十元，但起碼要用成個鐘。」數口精的王澤基，成績彪炳，是少數來自內地的高材生，「一、二年級考試滿分，見家長時老師卻說我出貓，因為我是大陸仔。」歧視在當年極普遍，他不當是一回事，「全班同學甚麼鄉下話都有，老師見我唔識講廣東話，問我係咪低能仔。」老師看不起他，他也看不起老師，「很快發現他們亂噏的時間都幾多，邏輯思維很弱。」例如老師說上帝五千年前創造世界，但他指中國夏朝已五千多年，北京周口店有四、五十萬年，還有甲骨文年代，「問老師他叫我唔准亂講，一個解釋都無。」他認為老師不濟，寧願上堂瞓覺，成為頑劣高材生，更把學校視作搵錢的地方，「幫同學出貓，不同分數不同價錢，想滿分要幾元，低分些就畀維他奶。」高材生通常被女同學圍住，但他寧願搵錢都不溝女。
「女仔通常鍾意師兄，而無論任何年齡的男仔都鍾意十八至廿五歲的女生，追師妹可能會『衰十一』的嘛！」說時笑得帶點古惑，「老實講，我對愛情興趣不大，年輕時女人的用途很簡單，就是『撲佢』，尤其是十四至廿八歲荷爾蒙偏高時。」十八歲入大學前，王澤基忙于做散工賺零用錢，一時忘了「男人天性」。遇上王太，才有機會把戀愛經濟學實踐出來，「追女仔送乜最有誠意？一定不可以是有二手價值的物件，因為即使她唔鍾意你都可以收，然後賣走。」想當年，他追女仔的撒手鐧是寫情詩，「誠意是一定要對自己來說很痛苦、很貴重，但是絕對無聊的事物，呢啲叫浪漫。」他原本想到美國麻省理工大學讀工程，但因為女友去了法國，才決定到英國升學，被迫轉讀經濟學。
浪漫是有代價的。沒有經濟學基礎，第一堂他問老師黑板上兩條分別向上和向下的斜線代表甚麼，「全班靜曬，老師說是供（supply）和求（demand），聽完才發現自己連最基本的都唔識，好瘀。」
主$動
情況如當年大陸仔來港由零開始一樣，聽唔明，惟有苦讀，「只要你肯坐低讀，肯學肯做，沒甚麼是學不懂的。」不只是將勤補拙的道理，「見過很多聰明的人都無乜出息，因為他忘了一件事，就是嘗試。」如他向女生「試水溫」一樣，沒有踏出第一步，就沒可能結成夫妻。「在現今盛女多的時代，女仔不妨主動一點啦。好多女仔忘了一個重點，是特殊的投資（specific investment）。」簡單而言，是投其所好。「鍾意一個人唔一定因為靚，可能是你對他好，有投入感、熟悉感。」如當年，他副修法文來追太太，「睇完法文戲識背番一兩句台詞出來， 掂曬。」所以王澤基叮囑港女， 做facial、搽指甲是無價值的。「花些時間去熟識心儀對象捧的球隊和球員，仲有意思。」他笑說。
樓紙惡過婚書
香港人十個有九個都想買樓，王澤基○六年舉家從英國回流香港，堅持只租不買。「妻子最想老公安安定定，甚麼也不要做，人有錢就身痕，身痕就去滾，最好是要他孭到一身債，供樓供到死都未供完，這是『結束』他生活的最佳辦法。」他現住九龍區大型屋苑複式單位，每年呎租是三百元，購買則要每呎一萬八千元，即租金的六十倍。「一紙婚約未必把你綁死，但一紙樓書可以把你綁得死一死！」
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Car Loan Failed / Cancel Payment
- Hi Readers,
The purpose of this post is to gather as many people who got similar experience as me, be it your friends and relatives and hope to work something out.
Today, I read a news on NEWPAPER, 26 SEPT, PAGE11 about someone who signed for a loan to buy a car from PI. The loan was refused but the PI insisted that he should buy the car and sue this person when he tried to cancel the purchase. This poor man later approached the PI wanting to buy the car, but this time, the PI insisted that this man pay off the legal fees and STILL must buy the car.
I have a similar experience. I paid $500 deposit to a 2nd-hand dealer. The loan was not approved and I was asked to pay $300 as kopi money and a new loan at a higher interest rate, will be approved. I rejected the dealer and wanted to cancel the deal. The agent then called me back a few days later saying that no kopi money needed but he would need to try the loan with another in-house agent. Ended up the original in-house agent approved the loan, at the same interest rate!
Seeing their dishonesty, I insisted on cancelling the deal and negotiated to have part of the deposit refunded back to me. This way, they will earn $200-$300 for doing nothing. However, the agent refused again. Damn those blood suckers.
I have actually bought this up to CASE but sadly they are unable to help me from the way it look. So I will bring this case to small claims tribunal to see if they can help me. CASE told me my chances with Small Claim is 50-50. I am also currently in the midst of reading and UNDERSTANDING the contract law to see how to get the contract void.
If you are interested to discuss and know more, or even have similar experiece, your advice will be greatly appreciated to help normal people like you and me. I have also posted a similar post at hardwarezone.
Thank you very much.
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Basically, you should NEVER EVER PUT YOUR PEN DOWN TO SIGN or even deposit 1 CENT without LOAN APPROVAL!!!
And yes, there are black sheeps in PI market, so be careful.
And.......................... Don't be blinded or led to sign agreement with some nice words from SE or go gaga and with SE(female) showing boobs.
Be sober, thats the word!
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Originally posted by erayvne:showerayvne,
I understand that but what I have done is done. And for my case, I was signing on behalf of my brother and I am trying to find out from the contract law does this action lead to a void / discharge of contract. And also, the receipt (not even contract) that I signed was not from the company that I dealt with.
I learned my lesson, but i want my money back!!
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I'm a lil baffled about all the loan stuff. Care to explain further?
How were they dishonest? I didn't see u giving the kopi money and the original loan was approved at same interest rate.
A little blur there.
Did u sign any sales agreement and whats in the clauses and fine prints?
I dont quite think that u can get ur money back though..Edited by erayvne 26 Sep `07, 10:06PM
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Originally posted by erayvne:showerayvne,
I didn't give them kopi money. I thought why should I. Its either approve or disapproved.
2nd, I was signing the paper but the name appearing on the receipt is my brother's name. I asked the agent if that was ok, he said its ok.
3rd, the only clauses are the seller agrees to pay the buyer twice the amount if the seller are not able to sell to the buyer and deposit are not refundable.
I know the deposit are not refundable but if I can proof the contract to being void using my 2nd point, then maybe who knows...
any lawyers in the house??
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I presumed that since the name is your brother's, the purchase is thus invalid.
But u cant use it to your advantage as........
u might be in trouble yourself as you can be charged as forging ur brother's signature. Purchase will be voided but ur deposit wont be back and u will be in trouble with the law.
So my opinion, dont use the 2nd point, because if the dealers want to be bastardised, they can say that they are led to believe and they did not know u are not ur brother, pushing all the forgery blames to u.
The 3rd rule is kind of stupid in my opinion, I would never have signed if I saw that.
my only advice and a really not helpful one : "lose money, evade disaster", money can be earned.
and just another query, since the original loan can be secured, and at the same interest rate agreed, why wont u see thru the deal? That might be the best solution.
He wasn't being quite honest, but neither was he totally dishonest there. and since the original loan can be approved at same interest rate, why not see thru the deal?
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have u got this situation that the seller just dun look decent? i just got the feeling the somewhere along the deal might not go as smooth.
and they ENTICE me to sign even though I ask if its possible under the name of law.
another thing i forgot to say is that I went to company X but the name on the receipt is company Y. Something fishy...
After reading the newspaper report i thought the same people with same experience can 'power-up' to get to those bastards...
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Originally posted by kohteddy:showYes!!! I shop for cars before
even though I'm a SE myself.
I nearly went for a suzuki swift then I realised that the computation was weird, turn out their nice price was because of super high interest rate.
Dishonest bastards I would say.
The company X and company Y stuff is, some companies and most likely the one u went to is just an agent/subsidiary company to the main, meaning they are just a "false" shopfront, they are not their own company, but belongs to some other company, in this case company Y.
Its common I have to say.
There are really too many black sheeps in this whole market but next to nothing is done.
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I think u should understand one thing is tat deposit supposingly not refundable, it was to reserve or secure a deal for yourself. even if they not honest, they still able to provide the loan n interest mentioned to you earlier on, it just tat u not happy to continue the deal due to they r not honest… its your problem, not theirs… so i think u got to let go the deposit liao…
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How to Get a Home Loan on Bad Credit
Face it: If you were bankrupt before, or had a debt written off, your loan application is now entertainment (i.e. trashcan basketball in the bank office). Bad credit is a major pain; whatever your current status, the fact remains that you were once a financial risk. The bank remembers. In their eyes, you’ll always look like an unemployed, alcoholic hobo. Well, for three to seven years at least. But at MoneySmart, we know that people, like finances, change. And thanks to SmartLoans.sg, we’ve worked out some ways you can still get a home loan:
1. Approach Non-Banking Financial Institutes
Even if you pay your debts, the bank may not want to give you a home loan. Look at it from their angle:
The issue isn’t that you’ve paid up. The issue is how hard it was to get the money. If it was like pulling teeth with chopsticks, you can bet they’re not interested in round two. So when you ask “Do you offer home loans?” their answer will probably be “Yes, and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”
Fortunately, institutes like Hong Leong Finance are more forgiving. Most of them only require that you pay off existing debts. Beyond that, your track record of repayments, however spotty, is irrelevant. The downside to this is that you’re being charged for the risk: such institutes will implement a higher interest rate. If the current SIBOR rate is 1.5%, for example, expect maybe 1.8% from them.
2. Appeal to the Bank
When you get a credit report from the Credit Bureau of Singapore (CBS), it’s a quick and dirty summary. You get a single grade, like A or B, which supposedly describes everything worth knowing. As with the PSLE or O-Levels, it’s about as accurate as a blind machine-gunner on a pogo stick.
Since the summary doesn’t include fine detail, it’s up to you to elaborate. For example, explain you’re in a legal dispute about the balance on your credit card, and hence haven’t paid it. Alternatively, you might stress that you are financially responsible; it’s an unforeseeable emergency (medical or disaster related) that’s dented your credit.
Show the following to the banks:
Evidence of your finances before your situation, such as bank statements that show regular payments
Letters of endorsement, from business associates or clients
Legal statements, such as a small claims tribunal letter
A more comprehensive credit report, which is a service some accountancy firms offer
Remember that, on a personal basis, mortgage bankers want your loan to be approved. Their commission depends on it. Ask them to work with you, or they can eat yong tau foo for the rest of the month.
3. Secure the Loan with a Cash Deposit
Some banks let you secure the loan with a cash deposit. In addition to this deposit, there’ll be a lien on the house. UOB used to have a package like this, but it’s off the market now (what’s going on, UOB?)
Still, keep an eye out for this. You may even raise the possibility with the bank, if you have a lot of cash on hand. The amount of the deposit will vary based on the severity of your bad credit; the more money you owed, the higher the deposit and consequent interest will be. Note that missing or stalling even a single repayment can result in the loss of your deposit and the house.
Where this option is available, it’s the fastest and easiest way to secure a loan on bad credit. But it’s also the most expensive, so use it as a last resort.
4. Close Your Existing Credit Lines
If you have any unpaid credit cards, work on closing them before getting a home loan.
Yes, I know we’ve said using credit cards builds a credit score. But at this point, you can forget about that; you already have bad credit. It’s like trying to exercise a broken leg. Focus on closing credit lines for now, to show that your debt situation is under control. You can start applying for credit cards and rebuilding your score later, after your home loan is settled.
If you have a range of credit cards, start by paying off the cards that are closest to their limits. From there, move on to the cards with the highest interest.
5. Co-Signing a Loan
This method sometimes works, depending on the severity of your bad credit. It’s important to find a co-signatory whose credit score significantly outshines yours. Otherwise, your bad score will just pull down the other person’s. For example:
A husband and wife are co-signatories on a home loan. The wife has an average credit score, whereas the husband’s score is the finance industry’s joke of the year. In this situation, it would be better for the wife to get the loan herself, rather than co-sign with her deadbeat husband.
But in other cases, such as when the co-signatory is a friend trying to help, it could improve the odds. Again, that’s assuming the co-signatory has a better-than-average credit score. There’s no harm in trying; just don’t get your hopes up.
6. Contact SmartLoans.sg
Even if you have bad credit, drop by SmartLoans.sg. Our mortgage specialists are committed to finding you the best possible options, given your situation. Don’t let bad credit drive you to desperate measures; depending on your situation, you may not even have to accept high interest.
1. Approach Non-Banking Financial Institutes
Even if you pay your debts, the bank may not want to give you a home loan. Look at it from their angle:
The issue isn’t that you’ve paid up. The issue is how hard it was to get the money. If it was like pulling teeth with chopsticks, you can bet they’re not interested in round two. So when you ask “Do you offer home loans?” their answer will probably be “Yes, and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”
Fortunately, institutes like Hong Leong Finance are more forgiving. Most of them only require that you pay off existing debts. Beyond that, your track record of repayments, however spotty, is irrelevant. The downside to this is that you’re being charged for the risk: such institutes will implement a higher interest rate. If the current SIBOR rate is 1.5%, for example, expect maybe 1.8% from them.
2. Appeal to the Bank
When you get a credit report from the Credit Bureau of Singapore (CBS), it’s a quick and dirty summary. You get a single grade, like A or B, which supposedly describes everything worth knowing. As with the PSLE or O-Levels, it’s about as accurate as a blind machine-gunner on a pogo stick.
Since the summary doesn’t include fine detail, it’s up to you to elaborate. For example, explain you’re in a legal dispute about the balance on your credit card, and hence haven’t paid it. Alternatively, you might stress that you are financially responsible; it’s an unforeseeable emergency (medical or disaster related) that’s dented your credit.
Show the following to the banks:
Evidence of your finances before your situation, such as bank statements that show regular payments
Letters of endorsement, from business associates or clients
Legal statements, such as a small claims tribunal letter
A more comprehensive credit report, which is a service some accountancy firms offer
Remember that, on a personal basis, mortgage bankers want your loan to be approved. Their commission depends on it. Ask them to work with you, or they can eat yong tau foo for the rest of the month.
3. Secure the Loan with a Cash Deposit
Some banks let you secure the loan with a cash deposit. In addition to this deposit, there’ll be a lien on the house. UOB used to have a package like this, but it’s off the market now (what’s going on, UOB?)
Still, keep an eye out for this. You may even raise the possibility with the bank, if you have a lot of cash on hand. The amount of the deposit will vary based on the severity of your bad credit; the more money you owed, the higher the deposit and consequent interest will be. Note that missing or stalling even a single repayment can result in the loss of your deposit and the house.
Where this option is available, it’s the fastest and easiest way to secure a loan on bad credit. But it’s also the most expensive, so use it as a last resort.
4. Close Your Existing Credit Lines
If you have any unpaid credit cards, work on closing them before getting a home loan.
Yes, I know we’ve said using credit cards builds a credit score. But at this point, you can forget about that; you already have bad credit. It’s like trying to exercise a broken leg. Focus on closing credit lines for now, to show that your debt situation is under control. You can start applying for credit cards and rebuilding your score later, after your home loan is settled.
If you have a range of credit cards, start by paying off the cards that are closest to their limits. From there, move on to the cards with the highest interest.
5. Co-Signing a Loan
This method sometimes works, depending on the severity of your bad credit. It’s important to find a co-signatory whose credit score significantly outshines yours. Otherwise, your bad score will just pull down the other person’s. For example:
A husband and wife are co-signatories on a home loan. The wife has an average credit score, whereas the husband’s score is the finance industry’s joke of the year. In this situation, it would be better for the wife to get the loan herself, rather than co-sign with her deadbeat husband.
But in other cases, such as when the co-signatory is a friend trying to help, it could improve the odds. Again, that’s assuming the co-signatory has a better-than-average credit score. There’s no harm in trying; just don’t get your hopes up.
6. Contact SmartLoans.sg
Even if you have bad credit, drop by SmartLoans.sg. Our mortgage specialists are committed to finding you the best possible options, given your situation. Don’t let bad credit drive you to desperate measures; depending on your situation, you may not even have to accept high interest.
Car Loan with bad credit history
1st obstacle) Some banks based on credit record from Credit Bureau Singapore. Some banks required you for to be clear of bad records for 3 years or 1 years, also might be depend on the amount you loaning for what purpose - in this case for car loan. Some finance institute does a lousy jobs of checking and approve loan easily but mostly do not now as alot/most institutions have standardise their protocol
2nd obstacle) With the above clear, based on your income min 3 or 6 months from same employer and CPF statement - My dealer fren thought me a simple guideline for using ur monthly gross income to gauge your loan limit. Gross monthly/3.75 = max amount of monthly installement you can loan. eg. my gross is $3750 monthly which mean if divided by 3.75, I can get loan max up to $1000 per month installment. Almost definitely in same bank/institution, if got a loan of $700 installement and you want to buy another car at installment loan of $800. Sorry reject definitely. But if you try different bank or company, its may work or approve.
As above, most financial institute are following these protocol but different branding have different ways of handling it. Sometime you may get lucky and approve at same plc while other may not. It handle by account manager and its human. Human err! Some relaxed type and some digged like crazy or followed strictly by the book.
Some institution eg. DBS, UOB etc etc are using electronic computerised system which said to be 100% proof. But saying this, if you owned/bad debt a company but this company is all paper work. These records wont be as update as currently and who knows you may get ur loan approve in DBS?
2nd obstacle) With the above clear, based on your income min 3 or 6 months from same employer and CPF statement - My dealer fren thought me a simple guideline for using ur monthly gross income to gauge your loan limit. Gross monthly/3.75 = max amount of monthly installement you can loan. eg. my gross is $3750 monthly which mean if divided by 3.75, I can get loan max up to $1000 per month installment. Almost definitely in same bank/institution, if got a loan of $700 installement and you want to buy another car at installment loan of $800. Sorry reject definitely. But if you try different bank or company, its may work or approve.
As above, most financial institute are following these protocol but different branding have different ways of handling it. Sometime you may get lucky and approve at same plc while other may not. It handle by account manager and its human. Human err! Some relaxed type and some digged like crazy or followed strictly by the book.
Some institution eg. DBS, UOB etc etc are using electronic computerised system which said to be 100% proof. But saying this, if you owned/bad debt a company but this company is all paper work. These records wont be as update as currently and who knows you may get ur loan approve in DBS?
Balloon scheme (loan) is not what it sounds like
I came across a loan scheme called the “balloon scheme” recently. Some people say this loan scheme existed a long time ago, but I have not heard of it until recently so it’s new to me.
My first thought – wow, these financial tools will evolve in 101 ways just to get people to take a loan.
* Before I go on, please do take some time to understand the Singapore vehicle taxation structure. Without that knowledge, there’s no point trying to understand the financial implications that result.
Just to quickly summarize what it does:
The balloon scheme is a loan scheme whereby a higher interest rate is applied to the primary loan amount and then the minimum PARF rebate is deducted before dividing the loan into monthly installments.
The end result is lower monthly installment and makes it seem extremely favorable especially if you are buying an old car.
Many car buyers only look at the monthly installments because that’s the easiest to understand. And that’s when a lot of people make mistakes with their financial commitments and turn away from old cars because the installments remain pretty much the same. Why?
As a quick example, let’s compare:
$108K, 2 years old VW Scirocco:
Principal + Interest: $108K + ($108K x 1.88% x 8 yrs) = $124,243
Monthly repayment: $124,243 / 8 yrs / 12 mths = $1,294/mth$140K, brand new car:
Principal + Interest: $140K + ($140K x 1.88% x 10 yrs) = $166,320
Monthly repayment: $166,320 / 10 yrs / 12 mths = $1,386/mth
So what the heck – the new car is only about a hundred bucks more a month, why not get a new car with warranty, yada yada yada?
Here’s why the old car is more financially sound:
- You are paying less interests on the old car due to a smaller principal sum and shorter tenure
- You are taking on less depreciation because the minimum PARF rebate remains constant irregardless of car age
- You will breakeven on your loan earlier
Caveat: Because of the current COE prices, new cars are very expensive. Once COE prices stabilizes in the next 2-3 years, old cars should have higher monthly installments than new cars given a full loan is applied on both cases.
So, what’s a balloon loan scheme? Let’s compare using the same $108K, 2 year old VW Scirocco:
Normal loan scheme, 1.88%:
Principal + Interest: $108K + ($108K x 1.88% x 8 yrs) = $124,243
Monthly repayment: $124,243 / 8 yrs / 12 mths = $1,294/mth“Balloon” loan scheme, 2.68%:
Principal + Interest: $108K + ($108K x 2.68% x 8 yrs) = $131,155
Less minimum PARF: $131,155 – ($23,882 x 50%) = $119,214
Monthly repayment: $119,214 / 8 yrs / 12 mths = $1,242/mth
Now, this looks like a small difference but with an older car the difference is significant. Here’s another example with a coming 6 years old Nissan Latio, a typical uncle’s bread and butter car:
Normal loan scheme, 1.88%:
Principal + Interest: $37K + ($37K x 1.88% x 4 yrs) = $39,782
Monthly repayment: $39,782 / 4 yrs / 12 mths = $829/mth“Balloon” loan scheme, 2.68%:
Principal + Interest: $37K + ($37K x 2.68% x 4 yrs) = $40,966
Less minimum PARF: $40,966 – ($15,027 x 50%) = $33,453
Monthly repayment: $33,453 / 4 yrs / 12 mths = $697/mth
That’s a $112 (15%) reduction in installments! Yeah, let’s go and buy this ballooned Latio right NOW!
But wait…
In an earlier post, I mentioned that down paying the PARF value is a must. By down paying the minimum PARF, you effectively do two things:
- You lower your monthly installments and loan interests
- You lower your risks by taking a loan on the depreciation only
The “balloon scheme” may sound like the same thing, but it is NOT. The final catch here is that you’ll need to pay the minimum PARF amount at the end of the loan. If you drove it till the end of 10 years, that’s not a problem — you’ll get your minimum PARF from the government. But if you need to dispose the car in a bad financial situation and don’t have that extra cash then you are in trouble because you have a higher principal sum AND interest.
For those who need a comparison, here’s a table of the differences.
| Normal Scheme w/min. PARF downpayment | Balloon Scheme w/$0 downpayment | |
| Principal amount | Lower – downpaid the minimum PARF | Higher – took a full loan |
| Interests | Lower – 1.88%, smaller principal sum | Higher – 2.68%, larger principal sum |
| Repayment | Linear – paid everything by the end of the loan tenure | Deferred – must pay the minimum PARF at the end of the loan tenure |
| Early settlement | Pay less in penalties, break even early | Pay more in penalties, almost never break even! |
So if you are considering taking a “balloon scheme” loan, I would strongly advise against it. If you are unable to downpay the minimum PARF, chances are you are not financially sound for a vehicle right now.
Sorry to burst your balloon! Truth hurts but it’s for your own good.
P.S. I wonder why they called it the “balloon” scheme. If I were to be designing financial plans I would have called it something like pay less scheme or lao hong scheme to make it more tempting…
Thursday, April 11, 2013
when
Do the best that you can now, your dreams in the future are not a certainty.
全力以赴，未来的梦想才不会落空。
Business career
Schwarzenegger has had a highly successful business career. Following his move to the United States, Schwarzenegger became a "prolific goal setter" and would write his objectives at the start of the year on index cards, like starting a mail order business or buying a new car – and succeed in doing so. By the age of 30, Schwarzenegger was a millionaire, well before his career in Hollywood. His financial independence came from his success as a budding entrepreneur with a series of successful business ventures and investments.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Prevent and treat hyperthyroidism naturally
When the thyroid gland goes out of whack and begins secreting large amounts of thyroid hormones, this condition is called hyperthyroidism. This condition is classified by increased heart rate, loss of weight, excessive sweating, anxiety & agitation, weight loss, fatigue, tremor, & increased bowel movements. Fortunately, we are beginning to understand this condition better and how to treat it naturally to restore balance and harmony back to the body.
The most common causes for hyperthyroidism are a chronically inflamed thyroid (thyroiditis) and an autoimmune condition called Graves Disease. Both inflammatory and auto-immune disorders are caused by an over-active and under-coordinated immune system. Several key factors such as intestinal dysbiosis, common food & environmental allergens, nutritional habits, vitamin D levels, & heavy metal toxicity must be addressed with any inflammatory and auto-immune disorder.
Dysbiosis is an overpopulation of antagonistic organisms in the gut that damage the intestinal wall allowing food particles to easily pass over and end up in the bloodstream. When undigested food particles are recognized by the immune system and tagged as foreign invaders in the body, the immune system then unleashes an assault of inflammation causing a systemic allergic reaction.
The most common food allergens to avoid include gluten containing grains such as wheat, barley, rye, oats, kamut, & spelt. Soy products, different nuts, eggs, and heavy proteins are often not tolerated well. Obviously all processed and man-made foods need to be avoided at all costs. Other common allergens include those of the nightshade family such as eggplant, tomatoes, & onions. Anyone with auto-immune reactions or excessive inflammation should get tested for food allergies or try an elimination diet to see if the conditions improve.
An anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle are critical for full recovery from these conditions. Anti-inflammatory foods help to modulate the immune system giving it a more accurate pair of eyes so as to not over-inflame when stimulated. To effectively de-inflame, it is key to completely avoid man-made foods, sugars, and food allergens as listed above. The long chain omega 3 fatty acids EPA and DHA powerfully de-inflame the body by restoring natural balance to the lipid wall of the cell membrane.
Other great anti-inflammatory foods include coconut products, berries, and non-denatured, whey protein from grass-fed cows and goats. This protein source is also loaded with L-glutamine and enhances cellular glutathione stores which are both necessary for rebuilding the gut and de-inflaming the body. Anti-inflammatory herbs such as turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, rosemary, & oregano among others should be used as much as possible.
Certain foods such as cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, & kale among others contain goitrogens in their raw state. Goitrogens block thyroid hormone production and thus help to slow down the thyroid. Therefore anyone suffering from hyperthyroidism would benefit greatly from eating raw cruciferous veggies.
Vitamin D deficiencies are a common day epidemic. Vitamin D helps coordinate the immune response by allowing the body to recognize between foreign and self proteins. This reduces inflammation and auto-immune reactions. A healthy range for vitamin D3 (25-hydroxy cholcalciferol) is between 60-100 ng/ml which is much higher than the medically acceptable 32 ng/ml. Be sure to know your levels and get them over 60 ng/ml. Spend 20-30 minutes a day in the sun or supplement with 10,000-50,000 IU of high quality emulsified vitamin D3 for a period of time until you reach the desired levels.
Other factors that dramatically affect the immune system and thyroid gland include environmental toxicity. This could be in the form of heavy metals, overexposure to pesticides, herbicides, household molds, personal hygiene products, household cleaning agents, tap water, non-stick coated pans, and others.
The most common causes for hyperthyroidism are a chronically inflamed thyroid (thyroiditis) and an autoimmune condition called Graves Disease. Both inflammatory and auto-immune disorders are caused by an over-active and under-coordinated immune system. Several key factors such as intestinal dysbiosis, common food & environmental allergens, nutritional habits, vitamin D levels, & heavy metal toxicity must be addressed with any inflammatory and auto-immune disorder.
Dysbiosis is an overpopulation of antagonistic organisms in the gut that damage the intestinal wall allowing food particles to easily pass over and end up in the bloodstream. When undigested food particles are recognized by the immune system and tagged as foreign invaders in the body, the immune system then unleashes an assault of inflammation causing a systemic allergic reaction.
The most common food allergens to avoid include gluten containing grains such as wheat, barley, rye, oats, kamut, & spelt. Soy products, different nuts, eggs, and heavy proteins are often not tolerated well. Obviously all processed and man-made foods need to be avoided at all costs. Other common allergens include those of the nightshade family such as eggplant, tomatoes, & onions. Anyone with auto-immune reactions or excessive inflammation should get tested for food allergies or try an elimination diet to see if the conditions improve.
An anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle are critical for full recovery from these conditions. Anti-inflammatory foods help to modulate the immune system giving it a more accurate pair of eyes so as to not over-inflame when stimulated. To effectively de-inflame, it is key to completely avoid man-made foods, sugars, and food allergens as listed above. The long chain omega 3 fatty acids EPA and DHA powerfully de-inflame the body by restoring natural balance to the lipid wall of the cell membrane.
Other great anti-inflammatory foods include coconut products, berries, and non-denatured, whey protein from grass-fed cows and goats. This protein source is also loaded with L-glutamine and enhances cellular glutathione stores which are both necessary for rebuilding the gut and de-inflaming the body. Anti-inflammatory herbs such as turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, rosemary, & oregano among others should be used as much as possible.
Certain foods such as cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, & kale among others contain goitrogens in their raw state. Goitrogens block thyroid hormone production and thus help to slow down the thyroid. Therefore anyone suffering from hyperthyroidism would benefit greatly from eating raw cruciferous veggies.
Vitamin D deficiencies are a common day epidemic. Vitamin D helps coordinate the immune response by allowing the body to recognize between foreign and self proteins. This reduces inflammation and auto-immune reactions. A healthy range for vitamin D3 (25-hydroxy cholcalciferol) is between 60-100 ng/ml which is much higher than the medically acceptable 32 ng/ml. Be sure to know your levels and get them over 60 ng/ml. Spend 20-30 minutes a day in the sun or supplement with 10,000-50,000 IU of high quality emulsified vitamin D3 for a period of time until you reach the desired levels.
Other factors that dramatically affect the immune system and thyroid gland include environmental toxicity. This could be in the form of heavy metals, overexposure to pesticides, herbicides, household molds, personal hygiene products, household cleaning agents, tap water, non-stick coated pans, and others.
Naturally Combating Hyperthyroidism
Hyperthyroidism, which is also referred to as thyrotoxicosis, is a condition in which an overactive thyroid gland produces an excessive amount of thyroid hormones that circulate in your blood. The thyroid hormones circulating in your blood stimulate metabolism. People who have hyperthyroidism have over-stimulated metabolism, which can result in involuntary weight loss.
Symptoms of Hyperthyroidism
Other symptoms of hyperthyroidism include:
Diarrhea
Increased heart rate
Hand tremors
Hair loss
Nervousness
Insomnia
Restlessness
Women may also experience light or decreased menstruation.
Graves' Disease and Hyperthyroidism
Graves' disease, which is hereditary and more common in women than in men, is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism. Graves' disease is caused by over activity of the thyroid gland and is believed to be the cause of up to 85 percent of primary hyperthyroid cases.
Graves' disease can be triggered by excessive stress, smoking, medications, radiation to the neck and viruses. Graves' ophthalmopathy, which can cause protruding eyes and double vision, may also occur with hyperthyroidism.
To treat Grave's disease naturally, avoid smoking, stress and any medications you are taking that could cause Grave's disease and follow the Hyperthyroidism diet tips below.
Hyperthyroidism Treatment Options
While there are effective medical treatments for hyperthyroidism including drug therapy, radioactive iodine therapy and surgery, a healthy diet can also help treat hyperthyroidism naturally. Talk with your health care provider about the best treatment options for you, and if you can treat your hyperthyroidism naturally with a recommended diet.
Natural Hyperthyroidism Diet Tips
Some nutritious foods are known to inhibit thyroid overproduction and help treat hyperthyroidism. These foods include:
Cauliflower
Beans
Green leafy vegetables
Soy
Fish
It is also believed by nutritionists that a diet high in Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin C and calcium can help treat hyperthyroidism. Herbs such as mother wort and turmeric can also potentially stabilize the thyroid gland and resolve hyperthyroidism.
Make sure your diet includes healthy foods from the basic food groups: whole grains, vegetables and fruits, dairy products, lean meats, beans, and essential fats. Fish oils have been known to help treat hyperthyroidism, while refined table salt has been proven to make hyperthyroidism worse.
Naturally Treating Diabetes and Hyperthyroidism
If you have diabetes and hyperthyroidism, it can be much more difficult to manage your blood glucose levels with your diet alone. Your hyperthyroidism might need to be treated medically, as well as naturally with a proper diet in order to decrease your blood glucose to normal levels. Even if your body requires medicine, a healthy, natural diet will still help you combat your disease and make your medical treatment more effective. Your health care provider should recommend the right treatment plan for you.
If you have hyperthyroidism, ask your health care provider about treatment options and a healthy diet for you. You may need to increase your calorie intake to maintain a healthy body weight, until your thyroid gland is stabilized. Your health care practitioner can advise you about diet changes and hyperthyroid treatment options.
Symptoms of Hyperthyroidism
Other symptoms of hyperthyroidism include:
Diarrhea
Increased heart rate
Hand tremors
Hair loss
Nervousness
Insomnia
Restlessness
Women may also experience light or decreased menstruation.
Graves' Disease and Hyperthyroidism
Graves' disease, which is hereditary and more common in women than in men, is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism. Graves' disease is caused by over activity of the thyroid gland and is believed to be the cause of up to 85 percent of primary hyperthyroid cases.
Graves' disease can be triggered by excessive stress, smoking, medications, radiation to the neck and viruses. Graves' ophthalmopathy, which can cause protruding eyes and double vision, may also occur with hyperthyroidism.
To treat Grave's disease naturally, avoid smoking, stress and any medications you are taking that could cause Grave's disease and follow the Hyperthyroidism diet tips below.
Hyperthyroidism Treatment Options
While there are effective medical treatments for hyperthyroidism including drug therapy, radioactive iodine therapy and surgery, a healthy diet can also help treat hyperthyroidism naturally. Talk with your health care provider about the best treatment options for you, and if you can treat your hyperthyroidism naturally with a recommended diet.
Natural Hyperthyroidism Diet Tips
Some nutritious foods are known to inhibit thyroid overproduction and help treat hyperthyroidism. These foods include:
Cauliflower
Beans
Green leafy vegetables
Soy
Fish
It is also believed by nutritionists that a diet high in Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin C and calcium can help treat hyperthyroidism. Herbs such as mother wort and turmeric can also potentially stabilize the thyroid gland and resolve hyperthyroidism.
Make sure your diet includes healthy foods from the basic food groups: whole grains, vegetables and fruits, dairy products, lean meats, beans, and essential fats. Fish oils have been known to help treat hyperthyroidism, while refined table salt has been proven to make hyperthyroidism worse.
Naturally Treating Diabetes and Hyperthyroidism
If you have diabetes and hyperthyroidism, it can be much more difficult to manage your blood glucose levels with your diet alone. Your hyperthyroidism might need to be treated medically, as well as naturally with a proper diet in order to decrease your blood glucose to normal levels. Even if your body requires medicine, a healthy, natural diet will still help you combat your disease and make your medical treatment more effective. Your health care provider should recommend the right treatment plan for you.
If you have hyperthyroidism, ask your health care provider about treatment options and a healthy diet for you. You may need to increase your calorie intake to maintain a healthy body weight, until your thyroid gland is stabilized. Your health care practitioner can advise you about diet changes and hyperthyroid treatment options.
Which Foods Are Rich in Iodine?
Salt and Salty Foods
Today, most people get plenty of iodine in their diets because the mineral is added to salt. This is why most commercial table salt is labeled as "iodized." Before the practice of adding iodine to salt was adopted in the 1920s, however, people in parts of the United States developed goiters and thyroid problems due to lack of iodine in the diet. Since the late 20th century, however, sea salt has become more widely available as a culinary alternative to table salt. While sea salt has many advantages, it contains much lower concentrations of iodine than traditionally manufactured table salt.
Saltwater Fish
Saltwater fish tends to be high in iodine because its habitat contains this nutrient, and many fish concentrate iodine in their bodies' tissues. Seafood varieties that are particularly rich in iodine include sea bass, haddock, cod and perch. A three-ounce serving of cod has about 66 percent of the RDA for iodine.
Fruits and Vegetables Grown in Iodine-Rich Soil
Some parts of the country have very low concentrations of iodine in the soil, which could lead to iodine deficiency in the absences of nutritional supplements. This is particularly true of soil at high elevations or soil in parts of the country far from seacoasts. Other parts of the country, however, have iodine-rich soil, and fruits and vegetables grown in this soil will have higher concentrations of iodine. Strawberries, in particular, are a good source of iodine, containing about 7 or 8 percent of the RDA in each serving.
Other Sources
Other dietary sources of iodine include eggs, shrimp, navy beans and baked potatoes. (See Resources.) Bread can also be a good source of iodine, because some bakers add iodine to dough as a conditioner.
Today, most people get plenty of iodine in their diets because the mineral is added to salt. This is why most commercial table salt is labeled as "iodized." Before the practice of adding iodine to salt was adopted in the 1920s, however, people in parts of the United States developed goiters and thyroid problems due to lack of iodine in the diet. Since the late 20th century, however, sea salt has become more widely available as a culinary alternative to table salt. While sea salt has many advantages, it contains much lower concentrations of iodine than traditionally manufactured table salt.
Kelp
Kelp, a type of algae that grows in saltwater oceans, is high in iodine. A serving of kelp contains just nine calories but provides more than twice the recommended daily allowance, or RDA, of iodine. Kelp is used in some Asian cuisines and can be processed to produce thickeners used in packaged food.
Dairy Products
Dairy products, particularly yogurt, are rich in iodine. A serving of low-fat yogurt contains more than 50 percent of your RDA of iodine, while a serving of 2 percent milk contains almost 40 percent of your RDA of this mineral. Cheese can also be a significant source of the nutrient, providing 7 or 8 percent of the RDA.
Kelp, a type of algae that grows in saltwater oceans, is high in iodine. A serving of kelp contains just nine calories but provides more than twice the recommended daily allowance, or RDA, of iodine. Kelp is used in some Asian cuisines and can be processed to produce thickeners used in packaged food.
Dairy Products
Dairy products, particularly yogurt, are rich in iodine. A serving of low-fat yogurt contains more than 50 percent of your RDA of iodine, while a serving of 2 percent milk contains almost 40 percent of your RDA of this mineral. Cheese can also be a significant source of the nutrient, providing 7 or 8 percent of the RDA.
Saltwater Fish
Saltwater fish tends to be high in iodine because its habitat contains this nutrient, and many fish concentrate iodine in their bodies' tissues. Seafood varieties that are particularly rich in iodine include sea bass, haddock, cod and perch. A three-ounce serving of cod has about 66 percent of the RDA for iodine.
Fruits and Vegetables Grown in Iodine-Rich Soil
Some parts of the country have very low concentrations of iodine in the soil, which could lead to iodine deficiency in the absences of nutritional supplements. This is particularly true of soil at high elevations or soil in parts of the country far from seacoasts. Other parts of the country, however, have iodine-rich soil, and fruits and vegetables grown in this soil will have higher concentrations of iodine. Strawberries, in particular, are a good source of iodine, containing about 7 or 8 percent of the RDA in each serving.
Other Sources
Other dietary sources of iodine include eggs, shrimp, navy beans and baked potatoes. (See Resources.) Bread can also be a good source of iodine, because some bakers add iodine to dough as a conditioner.
LIST OF FOODS HIGH IN IODINE
Your body needs iodine to make thyroid hormones, which are vital to normal growth, development and metabolism. If you are iodine deficient, you may develop hypothyroidism and become sluggish, tired and gain weight, among other unpleasant symptoms. Iodine deficiency is rare in the U.S., but it is still the most common cause of preventable brain damage around the world, notes the Linus Pauling Institute.
Enriched Foods
Iodized salt is the largest source of iodine in the diet of the average American, according to University of Maryland Medical Center. A gram of iodized salt contains 77mcg of iodine. Not all salts are iodized, including some common table salts, kosher salt and sea salt. Check the label to be sure it contains iodine. Processed foods are often a good source of iodine because of the salt content and because certain additives also contain iodine, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. Check the product's ingredient list for additives like calcium iodate and potassium iodate. Bread can be a good source of iodine because iodine is often added to dough to stabilize it.
Seafood
Seawater is full of iodine and many marine plants and animals absorb and concentrate it, making seafood an excellent source of iodine, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. Certain seaweeds, such as wakame, kelp, dulce and nori, are particularly rich in iodine. A ¼ oz. of seaweed can contain as much as 4500mcg of iodine. Fish and shellfish are also good sources of iodine, though amounts vary quite a bit. A 3 oz. portion of cod contains 99mcg of iodine while the same amount of shrimp contains 35mcg. Other good choices include fish sticks, tuna, shellfish and other kinds of deepwater fish.
Iodized salt is the largest source of iodine in the diet of the average American, according to University of Maryland Medical Center. A gram of iodized salt contains 77mcg of iodine. Not all salts are iodized, including some common table salts, kosher salt and sea salt. Check the label to be sure it contains iodine. Processed foods are often a good source of iodine because of the salt content and because certain additives also contain iodine, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. Check the product's ingredient list for additives like calcium iodate and potassium iodate. Bread can be a good source of iodine because iodine is often added to dough to stabilize it.
Seafood
Seawater is full of iodine and many marine plants and animals absorb and concentrate it, making seafood an excellent source of iodine, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. Certain seaweeds, such as wakame, kelp, dulce and nori, are particularly rich in iodine. A ¼ oz. of seaweed can contain as much as 4500mcg of iodine. Fish and shellfish are also good sources of iodine, though amounts vary quite a bit. A 3 oz. portion of cod contains 99mcg of iodine while the same amount of shrimp contains 35mcg. Other good choices include fish sticks, tuna, shellfish and other kinds of deepwater fish.
Dairy Products
Dairy products are good sources of iodine in the U.S. because iodine is added to animal feed, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. In Europe, iodine levels drop in the summer, when dairy cattle graze in pastures with low iodine content in the soil. One cup of milk contains 56mcg of iodine. Other good choices include cheese, yogurt or frozen yogurt and ice cream.
Dairy products are good sources of iodine in the U.S. because iodine is added to animal feed, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. In Europe, iodine levels drop in the summer, when dairy cattle graze in pastures with low iodine content in the soil. One cup of milk contains 56mcg of iodine. Other good choices include cheese, yogurt or frozen yogurt and ice cream.
Other Foods
Some vegetables and other plant foods are good sources of iodine because they are grown in iodine-rich soil, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. But iodine levels vary considerably because the iodine content of soil can vary. Iodine is not included on nutritional labels in the U.S. so it's difficult to know how much you're getting. Good bets include soybeans and related products like soy milk and soy sauce, garlic, lima beans, sesame seeds, spinach, chard and squash. A medium baked potato can contain as much as 60mcg of iodine while a ½ cup of cooked navy beans can have 32mcg. Some poultry products also contain iodine. A large egg contains 12mcg of iodine while 3 oz. of turkey breast contains 34mcg.
Some vegetables and other plant foods are good sources of iodine because they are grown in iodine-rich soil, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. But iodine levels vary considerably because the iodine content of soil can vary. Iodine is not included on nutritional labels in the U.S. so it's difficult to know how much you're getting. Good bets include soybeans and related products like soy milk and soy sauce, garlic, lima beans, sesame seeds, spinach, chard and squash. A medium baked potato can contain as much as 60mcg of iodine while a ½ cup of cooked navy beans can have 32mcg. Some poultry products also contain iodine. A large egg contains 12mcg of iodine while 3 oz. of turkey breast contains 34mcg.
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