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Bear's no blog for a little longer

I told many friends I have visited in my trip to China that the trip is a desperate attempt to trying to enjoy the very last bit of my worry-free university time.

It appears to be true now, the work load of my last year's bachelor study is immense and has way exceeded my expectation, forcing me to partially give up on some extracurriculum activities like blogging here.

I have always said, no matter how busy I am, blogging would be the last thing to give up because its significance in helping me achieve a number of personal objectives. So I'm definitely not to give this blog up.

However, because of the work load I'm currently experiencing, there is little free time available for me to use in this blog. I'm currently considering several restructuring options that would reduce the amount of time needed to blog here while do not comprimise the quality. One possibility is to make this blog more work related so I can copy my assignment and other works straight to here :) But if there is no other option, I will then have to adapt a twitter-like style for this blog, short, but stll on the point, or face the possibility of concentrating my time on Chinese blog and close down this English blog.

More coming soon.

The GST hike

The biggest reverse culture shock I'm experiencing (by reverse I mean NZ is obverse side of my little world) is that this country suddenly seems so hopeless. Everything in China, at least in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai is booming, building projects are happening in a lightning speed. China is also a world's second biggest, or biggest? market for luxury goods. My friends there are speeding their money like burning toilet paper, while I'm still counting every cent of my earnings.

Making my feeling worse is the price hike on almost everything. I only left the country for 3 month but everything seemed to have its price increased for several rounds, and I'm hearing the GST is also on the price hike list.

It's very difficult to avoid paying GST, it exists everywhere in people's daily economic life, making it one of the most effective revenue gathering machines for the government. There are many ways to avoid paying too much personal income tax, and tax on specific goods is more likely to decrease demand rather than increase the taxation revenue.

But of course this isn't all about revenue gathering. This is because Mr Key wants to give people tax cut, more specifically, the high income earners. In his speech made to parliament,  Key states that low income earners will be compensated through a upfront increase on benefits and working for families programme, but the trouble is, there's still very little details to see whether the compensation is enough to offset the GST increase.

Another feature of GST is that it treats every one equally, people all pay for the same rate. Statistics New Zealand says GST increase to 15% is likely to affect the CPI by a 2%+ one off increase, theoretically at least. What would really happen after the increase is still subject of a debate. Many New Zealand businesses advertise goods price ends with .99 just to make the price more appealing.  Many businesses will be facing a not so tough choice - whether to absorb the 2.5% increase themselves, or add it to the current price.

Well one of the phrses or excuses businesses just love to use is " we have to make profits".  So my guess is that the actual increase is likely to be more than 2%. Low margin and low price goods are more likely to get a $1.99 to $2.99 type of price hike as businesses are already sturggling making profit on those goods. Statistically, the overall increase would not be that huge, but the fact that troubles me is that low priced goods are more likely to be daily necessities.

I can't really quite understand the ideology behind this tax structuring apart from making high income earners happy. Yes this does give people more choice, as they got more money in hand - whether by more it means another 50cents or $50 in hand, is another problem. However, there are some choices people just don't have the choice, we all need food survive regardless whether you are high or low income earners.  The idea of removing GST on foods and petrol has been floating around for quite some time, but the government seems to have very little interest in it.

Capital gain tax is another thing government isn't very keen on. Speculating on real estate did make a lot of people rich, but that's at the expense of putting even more people at miseray. And most importantly, a healthy economy needs real economic activities,  new money has to be made - in the form of goods or services.  Prosperous property market sounds good, and looks good on GDP, but that's not real economy. It's unsustainable and who knows if he or she isn't the unlucky one or the greatest fool?

Government's very little action on these area does suggest me something they didn't tell. In his election promise John Key said he wants oversea kiwis back to their country and keep the young ones here. However, as a young adult myself,  the outlook of  me to stay in this country looks fainter every day, stuffs this government is doing, or not doing is making a graduate student  more difficult to make a decent living out of average wage.

a week off from this blog

Well, I already took a  week off anyway. It's exam time and I think I still need a bit more time to go over my courses, so I'll be back after the exam, friday or weekend. But now, I'm in panic mode.

Best new year wishes to everyone

Tomorrow marks the start of another new year in Chinese lunar calendar, most people translate it as "the year of ox", but I prefer to say "the year of bull" for obvious reasons:)

There aren't many of celebrations happen in New Zealand and the weather isn't spring-like at all, but luckily, this year's new year's day coincides with Auckland anniversary, which means that I can spent the new year's day to do what ever people are suppose to do in new year ... I don't know really, my family tend to keep it very simple by just gather family friends and dine together on New Year's day.

What you do isn't that important anyway, the important thing is to maintain that cultural tie with your root.

I understand for many, last year was "a year of chaos", financial crisis, earthquake in China ... I think the best thing to have in new year is not necessarily a bank account with a substantial total, but a healthy body and peace for every family members and friends.  The earthquake in My home province, Sichuan taught me that I should cherish whatever I got at the moment and every moment I have with my family - you just don't know how lucky you really are.

My heart is with all the people who lost their loved ones in the earthquake, as I understand, most of them will spend this new year in temporary housing, with worries that aftershock that may strike anytime.

Sanlu tainted milk update

As you may know, top executives of Sanlu are currently before the court,  facing charges which the maximum punishable sentence of death.

The herald has a report on the reaction from Fonterra, New Zealand's biggest company which had 43% share of the Sanlu Company. The prosecutors of this case also disclosed more details on the case, here's my translation of  the summary, and the original is here (in Chinese).

• While sick babies appeared as early as in march last year, Chairwomen of Sanlu only learnt the problem with their product in May, and nobody knew the actual cause (melamine) . Sanlu product was sent away  for inspection on July 24. To keep the issue secret, the inspector was informed by Sanlu that the samples they received are "some raw materials".
• An emergency meeting was held on 1 August, hours after Sanlu received the report back the inspector.  Fonterra claims this is the first time that the issue has come under their attention. News from the Chinese side seems to confirm the claim, however, with one thing missing in the herald report: although Fonterra wanted a product recall, their directors "did not reject" the proposal of not to recall openly but to do it in secret.
• Chairwoman of Sanlu, Tian Wen Hua, made a report to local government a day after the emergency meeting, but had no clear response.
• First Chinese media report on the link between kidney stones and Sanlu products, published on September 9. As Herald reported earlier,   New Zealand Ambassador to China was instructed to act on the issue on September 8.

You know the rest.

I think it's becoming more and more clear that New Zealand government played a big part of making the scandal public, and NZ officials' should be praised for their effort.

However,  there's also more evidence pointing out that there was indeed a cover up at some level, possibly between Sanlu and Hebei Provincial government. And I have to say, if Fonterra really tried hard to make the recall happen as they claimed before,  there's no reason why the total public recall shouldn't happen in Augest. I'm still very suspicious of the Fonterra's involvement in the cover up.

holiday season

As the Christmas and New Year fast approaching, I'm planning to take a holiday away from this blog, and possibly away from Auckland as well:), so this will be my last post in 2008.

No doubt that 2008 was a tough year, people, especially my fellow countrymen back home, they had suffered a lot - nationwide snowstorm, earthquake in Sichuan ... but as what we always say, a new year means a new start.  You cannot go back in time and change what's already happened - they are set in concrete;  but the future is always in our hands and we can do whatever we want with it, the only thing you need to do is just don't let the chance go.

Bush Senior's vice president, Dan Quayle once quoted: " The future will be better tomorrow". Sounds funny, but in principle it's actually quite right. The force that drives most of us to work hard is indeed the belief that there will be a "better tomorrow". This is also the force that drives our world to progress.

But  that kind of thinking can sometime get you into a really unhealthy loop.  You always work for tomorrow but never stops for a while and enjoy what you achieved today and in the past. So don't push yourself too hard in a new year, achieve what you can, and let others go. Whenever you feel tired, rest for a while, look back and see what you have accomplished, then you will find the power to keep yourself going.

I'll be back sometime after the new year, until then, I wish every one here to have a very happy, and safe holiday.