0802 To Mr. Buffett.

~rewritten~

Mr. Buffett, my name is Chou, Chung-Jen. We have met in the elevator at Photonic Building of Boston University on July 28. At that time, I mentioned I can improve you company's investment model so that you can increase the profits of your investments.

First of all, in order to increase profits, the investment model has to sell and buy financial products in the exact time. The investment model which I designed can detect the recession of economy. Before the prices of stock markets and commodities slide sharply, the investment model knows it according to latest economic data and sells these financial products. This model also shows when investors can buy the financial products which are worthy to own or have potential profits. My investment model made my customers successfully avoid losing their money in the recession in 2007.

In addition, my investment model has successful risk-control. The perfect allocation of investments makes perfect risk-control. Depending on the economic changes, my investment model adjusts the allocation of investments. For example, while economy goes down, the model will increase the part of bonds and decrease the part of stocks, and the model will do opposite actions while economy goes up.

Finally, I compared the return on investment of my model to the return on investment of your company in the same period. My investment model made higher profits than the profits your company made. Moreover, most my customers who used my investment model earned about 27.6% per year in the past 5 years. These evidences show my investment model can really increase your company’s profits.

0801 podcast: the economic recovery

The podcast chiefly describes the economic situation in this quarter. According to the latest economic data, it shows the worst economy will happen in the third quarter this year. Compared to 6.4 percent decline of the nation’s output earlier this year, 1 percent decline of the nation’s output in the second quarter this year represents that economic crisis is getting eased. The reporter, Jack Healy, also mentioned that even though most economists believe economy will start to recover before the end of this year, the unemployment rate will not drop down as soon as the economic recovery. People still save their money and not increase their expense, so the period of economic recovery will last longer than a half year. It is not the time to celebrate, the recession passed though.

Under the impact of the recession, many of my friends are laid off or cannot find a job. They have tried to get jobs, but companies still not want to hire people until the economy is stable. I think those unemployed friends need more time to pass the tough life. However, I believe the economy in the Asian area will recover sooner than other area in the world and probably becomes the most vigorous one. Following the recovery of economy, we have to worry about the price of commodities. The price of commodities will higher than the price in 2008, and the situation will cause another sharp inflation.

0730 what should you do when car accidents happen?

How should you do if you have a car accident when you drive? According to my friend’s description, a few days ago, my friend had a car accident while she was on the way to work. In the morning, she drove her car to hospital to work like normal days she did. While she switched her car from the inside lane to the outside lane, she almost cannot see the view in front of her car because of the glaring sunrise. Suddenly she heard a bump, so she stopped her car, and she realized she had a car accident. Another person who had accident with my friend is a 65-year-old bicyclist, and he was felt down on the sidewalk. Even though he was bleeding near his right ear, he still had consciousness. After about 10 minutes, one ambulance and one police car came, and the ambulance took the bicyclist to a hospital. The police officer asked my friend how this accident happened and took pictures. Finally, she got a simple accident sheet. The police told her to go home and fill out the online report.

When people have a car accident, the first thing is calm down. Calming down can help thoughts clear, and then you can deal with car accidents well. The second step is call 911. Telling to the responder of 911 the exact address where the accident happens and how many people get hurt is important. While the ambulance comes, you might ask ambulance men which the hospital the patient will be sent because you probably go to hospital to visit the injured people. When police officers come, they will take picture of the accident scene and want you to describe how the accident happens or answer some questions. Finally, you have to call your car insurance company you have a car accident, and ask them what you have to do next step. When the accident report comes out, police officers will tell you who have to take responsible for this accident. That’s all the processes of dealing with car accident.

0729 I will sublet my room in August

I will go back to Taiwan for summer vacation from August 9 to August 29, so I will not be in Boston twenty days. I think I still pay the house rental during my summer vacation, but I will not use it. Therefore, I decide to sublease my room to someone who needs a short-term furnished accommodation.

At first, I have to set my price which is not higher than hotel price but not lower than my per-day rental. I found most rates of two-adult rooms in Boston are more 80 dollars, but the rates of hostels are around 60 dollars for two adults. After knowing the room prices, I have to focus what kind of groups will be my customers. Only businessmen and travelers need short-term furnished accommodation, but businessmen prefer to live at hotels because they do not pay by themselves. Only travelers, especially backpackers or free individual travelers, can I focus on. I wrote down every detail and information about my room on the website through which travelers find cheap accommodation, I also emphasized the location of my house is really perfect, just in front of subway station.

It happened even I expected, a lot of travelers want to rent my room. In order to make maximum profit I can have, I choose some travelers who will live longer than the travelers who want to live two or three days. Today I check all the days I want to rent to travelers, and only 3 days are not occupied. I also counted the money I will receive. The amounts of the money I will receive just cover my monthly house rental.

0727 Reading: Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

After reading this poem several times in the morning and evening, I can gradually feel what this poem means to me. In order to understand it more deeply, I also wrote it down on my diary. A magic happened on me. The poem totally touch my heart while I finished writing it down. The poem seems tell me what my life is.

Before I decided to study finance, I was confused my career. I even did not know what job I could do in the future, but I knew I would figure it out. In the poem, the woods which are filled up with snow seem the process I tried to find what career I really wanted to do before. The woods are simple but difficult to go through, so I stopped going forward. At the time, I was struck by many defeats and frustrations, and it was the darkest period in my life.

The horse is like the people I sought to help. I discussed my career with my parents, friends, professors, and career consulters. Sometimes they reminded if I went forward on the right way. Sometimes I ignored their reminds because I thought I might knew what I want to do in my life, even though they told me the way I chose is tough. After I made a decision to come the US and started to major finance, I know I have no way to go back my pass, because I promise my parents finance will be my career. However, there will be a long way to keep going in my future.

0726 Unite the format of chargers.

~rewritten once~

Before I am interested in business, I was attracted by technological products. I was crazy to read a lot of magazines and news about computers, science and technology. When I started to use technological products, such as mobile phones, walkmans, and computers, I was glad to live in this high-tech generation because of the conveniences of these products. However, these high-tech products not only bring us convenient lives but also create a lot of disposals. The most easily abandoning devices are chargers. Every electronic product with battery needs a charger, but the chargers of different brands or types are not same. While people want to replace their electronic products, they have to change chargers. For example, most people purchase new mobile phones every two years. After they have new phones, they will throw away the chargers which are not for new phones but usable. This is a kind of waste. Therefore, some environmentalists suggested governments to regulate the united standard of chargers. This proposal has been promoted for several years. Finally, in the Europe Union, the union makes a regulation of united standard of chargers of mobile phones. The mobile phones’ companies will have to manufacture the same type chargers in 2010. For consumers, it is a good news, because the users of mobile phones will not be confused with the different types of chargers. For the environment protection, we will not dump a lot of chargers which can still use, so it can reduce the amount of trash. I hope the regulation will not only be practiced in Europe but also practiced in whole world.

0724 Green Energy VS Environment

Recently green energy has become the famous topic in the world. When people talk about green energy, they associate green energy with wind farms or solar panels. Compared to oil or nature gas, these two ways to generate electricity are clear and renewable, but wind farms or solar panels need more space to generate same electricity as oil or nature gas generate. Some experts propose to build wind farms or solar panels in coastal oceans or deserts. Before I read some reports which are opposite to these proposals, I thought the proposals of building wind farms or solar panels in coastal oceans or deserts are perfect and excellent. As I thought before, scientists use the sparsely populated area to product power by green energy equipments, they create the value of sparsely populated area. However, my thought was too simple to consider the complicated problems behind the proposals.

First of all, the areas of rare populations are often far from the areas which people demand a lot of power, so the cost of electricity delivery will become very high. Power companies also spend huge amount of money to build the power grids. According to the electricity, the longer the power transmits, the more the power loses. It is not a smart plan to build power station in the sparsely populated area.

In addition, Building wind farms in coastal oceans is another controversy. As everyone knows, the wind in oceans is stronger than the wind on the lands, so some energy experts suggest government or power companies to build wind farms in coastal oceans. They think that building wind farms in coastal oceans can lower down the cost of electricity delivery, and can have stable resources of winds. However, wind farms probably have negative effect on coastal ecology. For example, some of birds which have seasonal migrations inhabit in coasts, so they fly around near coasts in order to prey or move. Once these birds fly through wind farms, they will be a life threat for these birds. Not only birds but also marine life is affected by wind farms, especially during construction period. The disposal of constructions could be thrown into water and pollute coastal oceans. After the environments of coastal oceans are polluted, the oceanic fisheries will be deeply impacted.