CNY: showing a soaring sign?

Picture provided by: Google Finance

Will the Cornell's tuition be affordable to me at the end of this semester, with the help of depreciation of U.S.Dollar?

A review of Microsoft Bob

Microsoft Bob (v1.00 and v1.00a) is an old and failed product produced by Microsoft in 1995. I guess most people havn't heard of it even some geeks. Even remaining few people who happened to see the big yellow smily face wearing nerdy glasses may wonder :"what the hell is that?" It is true that so few users know it. Why? Because it totally flopped even after Microsoft held a big advertising campaign and loaded up stores with copies of Bob expecting huge sales. So its version number, after only sold out xxx (Gates knows) sets, has been fixed on 1.00 forever. To download Microsoft Bob, click: http://www.winhistory.de/downloads/dateien/MSBOB.EXE (to be continued....)

Some anecdotes about faculty@ORFE.Princeton.edu

Some anecdotes about faculty at the Department of Operations Research, Financial Engineering at Princeton University:

• Chair and Professor Robert Vanderbei, an expert in optimization and probability, also studies astrophysics and works on the Terrestrial Planet Finder. A soaring enthusiast, he served as the Chief Flight Instructor for the Central Jersey Soaring Club for many years.
• Professor Alain Komhauser, an expert on transportation and decision making, ran the NYC marathon with a GPS device in his backpack in Fall 2004. Spectators monitored his progress throughout the race and even communicated with him via text messaging!
• Almost 25% of the graduate students in ORFE are women.
• Recent graduate alumni include assistant professors at Cornell, Stanford, Oxford, and the London School of Economics.
• Professor John Mulvey, and expert on decision making under uncertainty, gave up sailing in favor of golf. Less uncertainty on the links.

My correspondence to a Wharton professor, and his kind reply

More than one year ago (i.e. May 2006), http://www.knowledgeatwharton.com.cn/ ran an article entitled The Road to Privatization in China, in which Prof. Philip M. Nichols's opinion was quoted:

privatization occurs in all kinds of hybrids. The Chinese model is that you grow a private sector at the same time as you maintain the state-owned enterprises. If the state-owned enterprises can’t compete with the private sector, then they are allowed to wither away.

I wrote Prof. Nichols an email as following, expressing my questions toward his opinion:

Dear Prof. Nichols,

.....

While I totally agree with your first point, I think we think the second point on different perspectives. The process of privatization here is a maze far more complex than any one can imagine. The issue of privatization varies from time to time(things are different from now back to 1990's, and 1990's is again different from 1980's) , from place to place(even within China), from industry to industry.

First, do SOEs really allowed to "wither away"? A superficial observation could negate this. And both examples and underlying reasons abound. Many local governments support, financially or politically, agonal SOEs to maintain a good image--Just as in Shanghai Shuixian's case. A more reasonable explanation is that since governments are shareholders of these SOEs , how can they just let their fruits go away? If SOEs die, where is tax income, dividend, and workers' salary? To restructure dying SOEs ( e.g. introduction of foreign strategic investors) is a popular method to rescue them, but they cannot be referred just as wither away.

Far from smoothly moving toward free-market, Chinese governments often regress on the way of privatization. This holds true especially in sensitive industries such as telecommunication, energy, finance, etc. In these areas, private enterprises are redlined by strict regulations. Although VoIP represents an advanced elecommunication tool, Ministry of Information Industry explicitly strangle new-born private VoIP operations, only to secure profits of state-owned conglomerates: CNC and China Telecom. Even in those seemingly already privatized industry, cases also exist: In the recent Beijing Taxi Price Listening, the long-exist problem is exposed to public again: private taxi drivers' interest is in peril from time to time.

Then comes a more intricate question: what is the definition of so-called SOE? Is one state-owned-enterprise really owned by state? Lenovo asserts itself"without connection with China Government", but who provided the original 20,000 RMB in 1984? CCTV asserts itself as state-owned, but where does its tremendous annual revenue go?

I know it is obviously hasty that I draw conclusion from only two of your sentences. But the wide gap between your statement and what I have experienced prompt me to write this letter. Should you are interested in this topic we could discuss it in-depth.

In a couple of days, he replied me with this:

Thank you for your message and for your interest. And for your interesting comments.

I do not want to seem like I am evading your criticism, but I use the phrase "Chinese Model" as a term of art to describe one of the four basic models of privatisation (voucher, public offer, collective, and Chinese Model). These terms were used in a World Bank bulletin in the mid 1990s, and I heard economists using the term "Chinese model" even earlier than that. Personally I do not like the term because it singles out one country, and other countries (such as Uzbekistan) have attempted it, but it is the term that people use so I use it. Personally, I agree with you that the process in China has run into some difficulties. One of the problems that the Chinese model runs into around the world is that it takes so long that vested interests have plenty of time to oppose or reverse the process. I would never pretend to have more knowledge of what is going on in China than you do, but what you describe exposes a fundamental real world weakness of a model that is elegant in theory. I also agree that privatization occurs in hundreds of different forms: the four basic models merely descibe four points on a spectrum and occur in many different ways and can be combined in many different hybrids.

I find your question regarding "what is a state owned enterprise" to be really interesting. The question has been asked from a legal perspective for purposes of things like international trade regulations, but you ask it in a much more practical and direct way. That is a truly intriguing question that I had not thought about in that way. Thank you very much for making me think of that. This is a subject in which I am very interested, and I am grateful for your thoughts.

Thank you, Phil Nichols

Hello everyone!

This is the first airticle of my blog series. Please keep yourself tuned in. Attacks are also welcomed.