Hot winter

This is the greeting season time. Normally, as seen in previous years, the center must be decorated lavishly by now. But it is not at the moment. There are decorations, but for the new year event. Big hotels fire their Santa Claus and reindeers. The only Christmas-themed thing that still thrives well this year is Christmas tree which does not cost too much. What happens? Do people no longer enjoy Christmas?

Fortunately and sadly, the answer is no. People still love Christmas. The only problem is that they cannot afford it now.

It has been a tough year.

There was a lot of hope when this year began 11 months ago. It is the year of dragon.  After year 2011 with too much inflation that dragged down people’s lives, many hoped that the economy would fly again with the dragon. It has not. In contrast, things seem worse than the last year.

It is true that in the first months of this year, there were some positive signs. VN-Index recovered and spiked. Inflation halted. Trade deficit decreased. However, it was just a matter time till the problems appeared. Together with the decrease of inflation was the GDP growth reducing. Inventory increased to 30% as VN-Index stopped going up.  Credit became more and more inaccessible since interest rate was still too high. More than 200,000 enterprises went bankrupt. Foreign Direct Investment left us. For a moment, Vietnam paused.  People had no idea what happened and what to do next.

It is difficult to find out the root of all the problems. Was it because of the financial sector? Or the real estate market? In economics, nothing stands alone. They all have links and connections to others. Banks were the victims and also the culprit. They had given too much credit to the real estate market. The estate market, on the other hand, had been valuated too high. How can people with income of just $700/month afford a $70,000 apartment? The bubble formed. Anytime a bubble formed, bad things were going to happen soon. Things might get worse since it was the housing bubble, the most valued asset in the economy. The bubble busted when hardly anyone was able to buy a house, even speculator. Banks had fueled the bubble. Now they are the victims of that bubble. Debt was not repaid. Capital flow was stuck. Bad debt rate was over 8%. Only a few constructions still run as projected. Without the demand from construction sector, cement, brick and wood companies faced great difficulty. Banks, therefore, were afraid to lend more. Ironically, people, too, were afraid to borrow. The whole economy lost its good credit. And without credit, nothing can continue. After all, the answer for all the problems is simple, and sadly, familiar: the misallocation of capital. Business is not only about making money. It is the art of allocate and connect things.

When things are good, mistakes are often ignored. People can do whatever they want as long as they do not get caught and what they do still brings profit. But now things do not look bright. People turn against each other.

In the spring of 2012, one of the biggest banks of Vietnam had problems with its share owners. Months later, a leader of a famous bank was arrested. Then, that bank’s CEO resigned. Stock market crashed, losing $5 billion. Rumors helped spread the panic. People look more closely to the recent banks’ activities, their assets and equities to know what was really going on. Finally, it came out that there were too many problems and violations. Crossed-owning, gold business, interest rate, … There was one M&A between two banks which caused the former CEO of one bank to be a normal officer. However, she was still lucky because many bankers were fired. Financial sector is now a dead field.

Government policies were issued to improve the situation. Gold is now a monopoly business. It would be idiot to judge the effect of those policies now. All the policies have its lag. It needs time to blend into the market and effect the economy in long-term. However, monopoly is never a good idea.

Though things seem dark, there is some brightness recently. People are talking about reconstructing the whole system. In the next year, the housing market may hopefully get a little warmer. Bad debt will be paid due to the preservation fund.

If we ever have a chance to read newspaper or watch TV at this time of a year, we will see or hear some predicts about the next year. However, not this time. Things have never been so unstable and unpredictable. The storm has not been over. The dragon has failed to bring Vietnam fly with it.

May God help me and my friends.

Kz

in the last days of 2012. seven months before his graduation.

Hunters and Pickers

Have you ever wondered why women usually appear in joke about traffic accident while men are more frequent drivers? Normally, women are considered as traffic disaster. They are said to have a bad sense of space. But is it true? And from where did such concept origin?

Since the dawn of mankind of history, we had divided the labor force into two groups: hunters and pickers. Hunters were the ones going far, chasing and killing animals. In contrast, pickers stayed close to the tribe, picking fruit from trees and taking care of the younger generation. While picking fruit demanded little afford, running after a deer and throwing pikes required much energy. Therefore, in order to improve the productivity of the whole community, men were responsible for hunting and women took the job as a picker. Since then, this division has led to a biological gap between men and women.

To understand how the gap had appeared, it is necessary to look at the job of each sex.

As mentioned above, hunters’ task was to killing the animal and bringing it back to the tribe. Simple as it may sound, such task has been the main motivation for the evolution of all creatures since the appearance of the first cell. To hunt an animal required the hunter to patiently wait for his prey’s mistake, to run after and away from the animal for many miles, and to observe the target from a long distance. The closer the hunter got to the prey, the greater the chance that he would be recognized was. Recall the moment we want to see something clearer, what do we do? We squint. And so did the hunters. They had to squint to make the vision better. They might not see things around them, but they had to see the prey as far as possible. The longer their vision was, the better. Moreover, being a hunter does not only require a good vision, but also a good sense of space. Normally, hunters had to travel a long distance to find the food. Therefore, without a good sense of space which could help him to determine the direction, he would not have been able to find his way home. Women did not go that far from the tribe, they did not need to obtain such ability.

However, all the things above belong to the past. Do they still hold true in this modern day when we no longer have to hunt or pick? The answer is “yes”, such things still exist, at least for now. Here comes the evolution machine. Men with better visibility would have more food and therefore, stand a better chance to help him and his tribe to survive, and spread his advantage to the next generation. Though after years of civilization, hunting is no longer so necessary or popular, one’s ability is genetically coded and will not be gone easily. Moreover, other tasks have appeared and required the ability of a hunter. 4000 years ago, it was the need of throwing a spike precisely. 3900 years later, it was the standard for soldiers to use gun from a very far distance. Nowadays, in transport, it is the ability to see a burden approaching and determine the direction. Due to their ancestors’ reputation as hunters, men still hold responsibility for such task and therefore, the ability to sense the space and look as far as possible has never been unused or lost.

Women, as pickers, in the other hand, did not need a long vision. However, as they stayed at home protecting their child, they needed something else. The advantage in women’s eyes over men’ is its ability to have a wider vision. They had to notice every movement in their surroundings. The wild animals could jump out at any moment and from everywhere. That is why women often criticize her spouse for looking too directly at a different girl. We men have to do this, because we do not have such a wide vision as yours.

Kz

A hunter

Just and fair

Let me ask you a question.

What is your reaction when you know about someone being bullied?

Keep it in your mind.

Would your answer change when I give you more information about the bullied? What if the bullied is a real nerdy asshole who we all hate in high school? Would it change how you look into the situation?

Let me tell you one thing. The one who bullies does not care much about his target. He does not care whether the bullied-to-be is a nerd, a nice guy or a bad guy. The only common thing among the bullied is their physical and emotional weakness in relative with others.

The same thing happens when we read about women got raped. If she is a normal woman, we feel sorry. If she is a teen, wearing mini skirt, flirting with boys all around and acting slutty, we would think different. Some of us may think that she deserves that. Again, rapist hardly cares. He locks his victims at the moment he sees them.

Why do we keep thinking like that? Why do we feel less sorry if the victims are not good persons?

It is because we do not want to be like them.

We want to believe that because those people’s behaviors are not appropriate, they deserve all the bad things happening to them. Throughout the history of mankind, we have evolved to serve one purpose: to control our life. We learn about geography to predict the next earthquake, the next volcano bursting. We study animals to have to better way to deal with those wildlife creatures. However, there still remain things that are beyond the human’s reach. We cannot tell what will happen to us when we walk out of the door. Unless we have a time machine, there will never be a way to know whether we will be bullied, raped, or murdered. The best thing we can do so far is to calculate the probability of the events which may happen to us. Therefore, we have “invented” a concept that can help ease that pain. That concept is familiar to us. That concept is called “moral”.

We all have to agree that all the religions’ premise is to teach us to behave well and be moral. They all teach us that good men rest heaven, bad men go to hell. If you do good things, good things will happen to you. If you mess up, you deserve punishment. Except for some “special” beings, we all believe in that. We want to control our life by believing that if we do not do bad things, we will not end up in bad situations. By doing good things, we ensure that our life will be happy. It sounds logical. But logical is not enough. Life is not that simple and fair. It is more complicated. Believe it or not, some bad guys are still enjoying their life without any punishment for their sins. Vice versa, some good men who devote their life to the better society are now struggling, wondering whether they are doing the right thing. Logic, moral has their limits. After all, “moral is just a fiction used by the herd of inferior human beings to hold back superior men” [Friedrich Nietzsche]

However, I am not typing these words to discourage people from doing good things and be devil. Let’s continue doing charity, just because we want to see people happy, not because of a desire to be treated fair in the next incarnation. Instead, I want to provide a different perspective. No one deserves to be bullied, raped, robbed or murdered. The only reason for our feeling that some of the victims deserve what happens to them is because we want to control our life. Life is not that simple. To make the world more fair and just, we have to make it harder for evil thrive, not just by reducing the number of its potential targets.

Kz

[special thanks to "You are not so smart"]

The endless fight

Once every four years, people around the globe save their time and keep their eyes on an event whose consequences may shape the way the world function. I am not talking about the World Cup or Europe Football Cup. I am talking about the US presidential election. America is doubtlessly the dominant force in the modern world and its leader, the US president, is one of the most powerful men on Earth. Therefore, it is worth paying attention to see who will lead the world in the next 4 years. Though there are many parties in America, the presidential election is said to be the battle between the two mains parties: GOP and Democracy party.

There is a very common belief that the Republicans support the rich while the Democrats stand for the rest, the middle income. We usually hear of the GOD’s cutting-tax-for-the-rich policy, and also listen to the Democrat’s argument against it. Bear in mind that in any particular society, the rich only accounts for a very small part in the population (Recently, they are called the “1 percent”, while the rest is regarded as, of course, the “99 percent”). It makes us wonder why in such a democracy world like American, where every vote counts the same no matter where it comes from, the Republicans try to pursue a tax policy that goes against the majority of the society. Unless they are not so insane, there must be some reasons for that.

First, though the rich only make up for only 1% in the society’s population, they hold more than 80% of the total assets. It is needless to say that they are wealthy and powerful. They are the employer, the CEO, the celebrities, the one who has great influence on others. When a movie star states that he will vote for the Republican candidate, most of his fans will follow that action. When a company has its environment influenced by the boss who is a faithful Republican, the employees may change their political perspective. Besides, it is worth noticing that the poor do not vote as much as the rich do. When you have little to lose, you do not care about who will lead you. You do not have much faith in the system. In contrast, the rich consider voting right one of their basic human right, and they want to vote because the consequence may have an impact on their wealth. That helps explain why averagely the gap between the amounts of votes for both sides are not so much wide.

Second, Republicans pursue such policy because unlike their counterparts, they are conservative, which means they believe in the market mechanism. Their moto is “Capitalism makes everyone unequally rich. Socialism makes everyone equally poor.” One of the basic rules in economics is that we have to choose between efficiency and fairness. Put it simple, if you raise tax to make the world more equal and fairer, you will, as a consequence, demotivate people to work hard because a considerable amount of their income is now taken away. The whole society suffers from years of slow growth. Vice versa, cutting tax for the rich may drain the budget for social service which can help the whole society. Though we never know which option is more preferable, we are sure that the extreme extent of both ideas only leads to disaster. Hitler, Soviet in the late 1970s and 1980s are evidence against extreme equal society while the recent economic crises are the proof for the other side. Such different perspectives and beliefs have led to different targets between Republicans and Democrats for years.

Last but not least, the difference between Republicans and Democrats may be just an imagination. There are rich men who vote for Democratic Party as well as poor men who support Republicans. No candidates and no politicians will ever say that he will raise tax from the middle class and cut tax for the rich, or at least, not that obvious. However, if we look at their plans more carefully, we may find out what is truly behind those beautiful lines. For example, Mitt Romney this year has announced his tax plan is to reduce tax rate together with deduction. He also states that under no circumstances does he reduce the tax for the rich. But when analyze his tax rate reducing, we figure out that among many tax rates which are cut there is tax rate for capital gain. Normally, when we have our money in a bank, we are taxed from the capital gained from that. The same thing applies to bond, stocks and other investments. However, now when the tax rate for capital gained is cut down, you can earn more money from that source. Well, after all, the whole society benefits from that policy. The question is who has the most of the cake. In this situation, the rich win more than the poor. Most of the income of the middle class is spent on basic needs such as food, clothes, energy, house, but on investment on capital. Vice versa, the rich invest much money on stock, bank deposit and earns a lot. Therefore, such tax policy will have the whole society get richer but at difference paces.

Today is the election day in US. No matter who wins this time, he is going to enjoy a successful term. Not because he is good (maybe he is, hopefully), but because now it's time for a recovery. 

Vote wisely.

kz

We drink lots of beer, so what?

A recent research has showed that Vietnam is the top beer drinker in South East Asian. It illustrated that in the year 2011, Vietnam consumed nearly 2.6 billion liters of beer. Averagely, each of us drank nearly 30 liters.  Lots of people have complained we are drinking too much beer. They even blame our beer consumption for the recent economic downturn. But if beer is that bad, why don’t we ban it?

It is true that according to a research from A SINGLE company, Vietnamese last year consumed the total amount of nearly 2.6 billion liters of beer. And it is also true that Vietnam is the top drinker in the region. Even if we calculate the consumption per capita, Vietnamese is still the champion. However, if we look father than our small pot, we will find that Vietnam ranks 41th in the list of countries by beer consumption per capita of the world. Who ranks first? Czech Republic. Second? Germany. Austria is the third. Unless I am not so wrong, Germany is among the richest countries in the world and it also has the strongest economy in this difficult period. It looks like that now we have evidence for the good effect of beer. The fact is that beer has nothing to do with the ups and downs of an economy. The strongest country does not stand last in the list, and the weakest one does not top either. Therefore, it would be unwise to state that our difficult economic situation results from our drinking habit.

Imagine a scenario when everyone in the world starts to reduce drinking beer. The total consumption will be decreased. However there will always be a top consumer. No matter how much we try to be better and better, there always exist a champion and a loser. Therefore, in this case, it is not a good idea to view things from a relative perspective. Instead, we should consider the absolute number and reckon whether 2.594 billion liters of beer is too much. The population of Vietnam is around 87 million. Provided that only the population from 18 to 65 drinks beer, it would make approximately 60 million. And it is true that women drink less than men, thus, the total adjusted figure is about 50 million. Dividing the total amount of beer consumption with that number, we will have 52 liter per capita. It would make one liter a week, which means 3 bottles of beer. We have 3 meals a day, 21 meals a week. And we drink only 3 bottles a week.

Is 3 bottles of beer a week a little bit too much? It depends. But as a man in the age from 18 to 65, I myself find 3 bottles just fine. But one thing is sure and you can check it on Google: Doctors around the world recommend drinking a little beer every day because it does more good than harm.

Food for thought.

Kz

Across The Universe

For those who are not fond of stars.

Every night, look at the sky, what do we see?

We see the universe.

There are clusters of stars forming the Milky Way, planets and their satellites reflecting the light, comets and bolides scratching the darkness.

Big Bang was an explosion which created the universe. And that explosion has kept the universe expanding till now. Normally and logically, the explosion effect must wear out by time. It means after billions of years of expanding, at a particular moment, the universe must stand still. And if the gravity force does exist, it will pull everything back and therefore, create a Big Crunch.

However such scenario is not going to happen. In fact, the universe, for some reasons, will keep expanding forever. More crazily, the expanding rate has always been increasing. The universe is becoming bigger and bigger. The distance between galaxies is becoming larger and larger.  There will be no Big Crunch. The arrow of time will never stop. And, what does it mean to us?

We are able to see things because the light from that object reaches our eyes. We see a star because its light has traveled through a very long distance to the Earth. Sometimes the journey takes minutes, like our Sun. Sometimes it takes years or decades. And sometimes it will never complete its journey. The galaxies are moving away from each other, faster and faster. The light will have to travel a longer and longer distance. It will take more and more time for the light to reach us. And sooner or later, when the expanding rate peaks at the light speed, nothing will ever reach the Earth, even the fastest thing of the universe – the light.

It means one day in the very far future, when looking at the sky, humankind will see nothing. No stars. No Milky Way. No moons. Only darkness, infinite and silent darkness. That is our children’s vision of the universe. Nothing. And if they cannot observe anything, will they have enough imagination to believe in our knowledge, their ancestors, on the universe? Will they have enough inspiration to look beyond the empty space to know that long time ago, the sky is full of light from stars, lots of stars? Will they have enough motivation to explore the outer space which is mysterious and scary? Will they accept that sometimes our naked eyes fail to tell the truth? And will they believe that we are not alone in this universe?

Welcome to the most remarkable era in human’s history, when the stars are still reachable.

Tonight most people will stay at home, waiting for tomorrow to see their lover. The stars will wheel forth from the daytime hiding places. And one of those lights, slightly brighter than the rest, will be your wing tip passing over.

1631.2km

Across the universe.

K

Driving people mad

Traffic. Always a big concern.

Unless you are unplugged from the world, what is happening out there in the streets always bothers you. Even when you are staying at home, it still can drive you mad for your pizza delivery is late because of traffic jam. And if you are in a developing country, the situation may get worse due to the lack of public transport, according a popular belief. However, it may be not true. In developed countries such as USA, lines of car waiting in street is a very common scene. It has me wonder about the true solution for traffic jam? Why does public transportation help? Of course I am not able to give a practically ultimate solution, though I really want to. What I am trying to do is to provide an economic perspective for this problem.

What causes a traffic jam? Mostly personal transportation, from small vehicles such as motorbikes, bikes to big machine like cars, trucks, buses. Some people may not contain bikes in this list, just because it is environmentally-friendly. However, when it comes to traffic, bikes are even worse than motorbikes for it only carries one person while taking a similar amount of space as motors. Traffic jam has a “price”. It is the cost of energy and time lost when you get stuck. Therefore, reducing traffic jam is one of the most priorities of all governments in the world.

If we consider traffic as a product, there are 2 ways to reduce the “price” of traveling: to increase supply or to decrease demand.

To increase the supply for traffic sounds a little bit vague. Put simple, it is to make more space for traveling. And to achieve that goal, we often choose to improve the infrastructure, which means building more roads, more streets, more bridges, more tunnels… It only takes a little time for this solution to take effect. When the new road is completed, almost immediately traffic on that road will be better. Vehicles can move faster because there is more space available. The same effect happens when it comes to public transportation. If people change from driving a car to taking a bus, the street will be less crowded and therefore creates more space. That is why most of budget used to improve traffic is spent on building roads and buying buses. However, though the effect is obvious and instant, it does not last long. Sooner or later the street will be full of transports again, even when the population does not increase much. How can it be possible? It is because if the traffic is better, it will lead to a greater desire to use personal transportation. When facing the fact that they may get stuck in a street for 3 or 4 hours, people give up the idea of buying a car or go out at rush hour. But now the streets are bigger and many people are taking bus, why worry about the traffic jam? Let’s buy a new SUV and enjoy the streets. And 2 years since the new metro, everything is bad again. Since roads are public goods, everyone wants to take the most out of it. Therefore, no matter how big your road-to-be is or no matter how effective your city’s public transportation is, traffic jam will always come back.

For increasing supply does not help much, we need to turn to the second solution: kill the demand.  The number of transports should be decreased. One of the easiest ways is to use tax or fee. But as all economics books say, taxes will create a dead-weight-loss for the whole society. Therefore, taxing is not a good answer. However, we can easily notice that traffic jam is not an every time and everywhere phenomenon. Only at some specific moment and at a certain amount of places. It gives us a hint about how to solve the problem: redistribution. We need to rearrange the time people go out. We need to rearrange the routine people take. We cannot rush out at the same moment. Neither can we travel in the same streets. We need a better time table for everyone.

We can see that before the working time, everyone rushes to downtown. On the contrary, in the evening, the crowd moves back to the suburban areas. The traffic is, therefore, like a pendulum, swinging from one place to another with all of its weight. If we can make people work in their neighborhood, things will be improved. They do not have to travel a long distance to their office. Student will walk to school instead of jumping in a car. We will not NEED to travel in the street much. As a result, there will more space for those who really need to travel.

Of course, once again, all the solutions above are just pure theory. Building a road is easy. Reorganizing the whole city is much tougher. But given the current technology in transportation, it is the ultimate solution for this complicated problem.

Kz

Why Beckham is so rich and why the queen always wear a glove

In the fiscal year 2011, David Beckham earned 29.1 million euro from advertisement while Cristiano Ronaldo, another famous football player, earned 17.3 million euro from selling his image. However, those two players were just still behind many other athletes in the list of richest athletes. Not only in sport do we witness a huge amount of money used to hire the celebrities, but also in other areas such as showbiz, politics…  A pair of Nike shoe has the average price of nearly 200 euro. A contact with Rafael Radal costs more than 4 million euro. It means Nike has to sell more than 20,000 pairs of shoes to earn enough revenue just to cover the promotion cost of Nadal alone, not to mention other celebrities. Why nowadays are companies paying so much to have a famous person appear in their posters? Are we, as customers, moved by such promotion? And does George Clooney influence my decision when I go shopping?

What is a celebrity? How can we become a celebrity? What makes a celebrity different from us – the commoners? There are many ways of become a celebrity. In the old times, you’d better have a talent. You can sing, dance, write novels or swim across the Atlantic. Or you need to commit a heroic act and get a medal from the President. Or easier, you are born in a royal family. Make no mistake, Royal is the highest status of celebrity. You may not know the best athlete of your country, but you are taught and told about your king and his queen since you are a kid. The common point of all those kinds is that no matter what you do, you need to be famous if you are a celebrity. The more famous you are, the better it is. Why was Beckham paid more than Rooney? Because in the football world, he is far more well-known than Rooney. You have a bigger chance to encounter Beckham’s image than Rooney’s [That helps explain why Tiger Wood used to be the richest athlete on Earth]. Once Nike has Ronaldo appear in the posters and commercials, it has made sure that the customers are going to recall Nike’s image many more times since then. It does not matter whether you hate or like Ronaldo, after you see him wearing and holding Nike shoes, you are going to think about Nike whenever you see him, even at that time he is not doing any sport. Pay much for one time, and now the companies can rest assured that their brands will appear in our brain for a long time.

The second magic power of celebrity that marketers have taken advantage of is that we all want to be a celebrity, or at least, want to be like them. In our conception, celebrity is living their dreams. Yesterday I heard that Brad Pitt was about to buy a shooting field for Angelina Jolie as a wedding gift. 3 days ago, I saw a photo of Tom Cruise riding a naked bike, which is my favorite kind of motor. Today, I acknowledged that Messi had just bought a new super car. To us, the lives of celebrities of are far beyond ours. It is a wonderful life when you can buy whatever you want, dine in the finest restaurant, go the party the hottest girls, wear the most glamour clothes that are made only just for you. We want to be one of them and to have such a life. However, of course, we cannot. Some has succeeded in becoming a celebrity.  But the majority of us are not able to do that. Therefore, what about trying to be like them, at least, in appearance? Wear the same Rolex Roger Federer wears, and we can become as gentle and mainly as him. Use the sampoo Ronaldo uses and we are lady killers like him. Dressing like them, acting like them, using the same stuffs as theirs does not make us a celebrity, but it can somehow satisfy the strong secret desire that we can be them. So, why not turn off this tab now, go to an online shop and buy you a shirt which is designed based on Ryan Glossing’s shirt in the movie “Drive”?

The third benefit of using celebrity instead of me in the promotion strategy is that even a “small” celebrity has more fans than all of my friends’ combined. You like Adam Levine? Let’s watch The Voice and buy Victoria Secret because his girlfriend is a model there. I have to admit I watch nearly all George Clooney and Josept Gordon-Levit’s movies because I am their fan. Though some celebrities has anti-fans too, it is not a too big problem because those anti-fans can help them become more famous.

But one problem arises. There are not enough celebrities. And those existing celebrities do not know how to maintain their magic power? Marketers need more celebrities. We cannot expect to see a heroic act or an arrival of a royal baby every day. Then comes the last and largest source: those with talents. So, now you know why there are too many reality shows nowadays. Those shows are created to find, discover, build and create potential celebrities, which can be used to trick us into buying goods. And the more we watch, the more they become famous and of course, the better the effect is. Together with finding now celebrities, marketers have to make sure that the recent one is still useful. They have to maintain the magic power. One of the simple rules of being a celebrity: you cannot be too reachable. Contact and communication is needed to create a friendly image. But too much contact will make a celebrity become normal. That’s why their usual meeting with public only lasts 30 minutes. And only a few people know why royals wear long gloves. Not only for elegance, but also to create an intentional psychological distance from members of public.

And do you how to boost the popularity ratings of a royal family? Host a royal wedding and welcome a new child.

Anything can sell.

Kz and Inor.

How randomness rules our lives

There is a famous saying that has great inspiration: “Everything happens for a reason”. As a logical creature, we, human, always try to find the causes of everything that happens in our daily lives. We try to understand, explain the universe, and through doing this, we can control our lives. When a big event happens, we all think of its consequence-to-be. We try to connect event A to the event B. We blame stock market downturn on Saddam Hussein’s arrest though he had nothing to do with the prices of IBM or AIG’s securities. We try to define success, failure with our own explanation. What we fail to realize is that most of the events happening to us every day is just random.

In a gathering after seminar I attended last March, a friend asked me whether I knew Warren Buffet. “Yes. Of course I know him. What’s the matter?”. He said that Warren Buffet succeeded as a stock traded because when his stock went down, he kept holding it till it rose again. Then he concluded that stock investment should be a long-term game, and that we should not sell our stock too early. It was kind of making sense. “But what if his stock kept falling down, he decided to sell it and reinvest into another stock and made a big profit? Does your lesson still hold true?” We cannot deny that Warren Buffet was a genius in stock investment. And neither can we ignore the fact that luck played a big role in his success. Unless you have some asymmetric information, randomness controls your fate in stock trading. It is no different from gambling. In thousands of gamblers, there must be a big winner. However, that does not mean that big winner must be a master of gambling or he is going to win more next time. And it also does not mean that the losers are always losers. When the next wheel runs, the chance of success of everyone is once again equal.

If you ever watch football or any sport, you may realize a strange phenomenon that the results of your favorite team or athlete is not stable. Sometimes, they have a very big win. But the next game they bow to a weaker team. We try to explain that. When the team wins, we say that it results from the correct tactic and hard-working training. When the team loses, it must be a bad day or the referee does not do his job in an appropriate way. However, if we can look father than just one game or two, we may notice that the result of our favorite team does not fluctuate much throughout seasons. Last season we might many big wins and lose. This season witnesses many draws. But both seasons turns out to have a similar final result. And that result is called mean. It is the average ability of our team in a normal condition and without many big changes. Our result musts fluctuate around that mean. If this time we have a big win which means that the result goes far over the mean, do not be surprised that in the next time we have a high chance to be beaten hard, so that after all, the average result would be the mean. Such phenomenon is called regression to the mean.

Many psychologists agree that compliment has a better influence on employees than complain. But it is not widely accepted among employers due to their own experience. They noticed that when an employee worked well, they gave him a compliment and the next time he would have a worse result. Vice versa, after receiving a complain from the boss, the employee tends to have a better achievement than his previous one. It is indeed true. However, it has nothing to do with the compliment or complain. It is just, once again, regression to the mean of the employee’s work. It does not matter whether the employee gets a compliment or not, next time he tends to have a worse result which can be his average result or lower. The same phenomenon applies to giving complain as well. Therefore, the next time your teammate fail to do his job, remember that giving complain only makes the situation worse. And in most cases, compliment does more good than harm.

“To be king is tough, to stay king is tougher”. That saying may and have concluded one simple rule that we often forget in our lives: “most of the events happening to us every day is just random”.

Good night, and good luck.

Kz.

How lady night works and how we can shop at 3am

How lady night works and how we can shop at 3am

We are all familiar with the lady night, a promotion rooting from pub, club and bar. On the lady night, ladies are served drinks with no charge. We all love that promotion, not only because of the money we don’t have to pay, but also because of its meaning when it is only applied to women, not men. And it also raised a very interesting question: How can the club owners afford a lady night? If the ladies do not pay for their drink, how can the owners get the revenue? And finally, is lady night just a promotion, or a trick that can really earn profit?

The answer: the club owners can make money with the lady night. It is arguably that lady night is usually on weekdays, such as Wednesday or Tuesday. It is to understand, because weekend alone can attract people to the clubs without a very small promotion. However, due to the fixed cost of renting, the club owners cannot afford to open only at weekends. Therefore, a promotion on weekdays is necessary to help raise the revenue. But where does the revenue come from if the drinks are free of charge? It comes from my bill, a male who only goes to bar at the lady night. The trick here is the lady night attracts not only ladies but men also. Most of men go to bar because of the women there. Therefore, the lady night will be the night that can attract men the best. And it is arguably that the price of a specific drink is often set high enough to cover 3 or 4 times the real cost of it. It means when I buy a drink in bar, I am actually paying for other women who are enjoying free cocktails. But are there enough men to pay for the women? Simple math shows us that although the free drinks only apply to women, the ratio between men and women remains balanced. However, cost and revenue is not the only benefit of lady night.

It is widely proved and believed that as a customer, we tend to be loyal to a specific brand. We often want to choose between Pepsi and Coke, Nike and Adidas, … But what manipulates our choice? Why do you prefer Pepsi to Coke? There are many contributors to this: the recent market’s trend, service quality, or, say, which product we used first. The products we used in our childhood will have a strong influence on us. They manipulate what we buy and how we use our money. If a child drinks Pepsi before Coke, he will be likely to prefer Pepsi later in all his life. Most of people can name all the cinemas in the city, but ask them how many cinemas they have been to, the number will be surprisingly small. Why do they only choose to go to one place and use only one specific brand, though it is irrational to do that because the more brands we use, the better choice we have? The answer: changing may bring inconvenience. If we have to go to other cinema rather our familiar one, we have to look for the ticket shelter, the bar, the restroom, and in some cases, the way to that cinema. Though all of those inconveniences will disappear after one or two visits, it can destroy the very first thought and idea of giving a try. Therefore, given the same quality of every clubs in the city, the clubs you visit first will stand a better chance to attract you once again. That’s why the club owners want to carry the lady night, as a promotion, to make the people become familiar with their places, even though the revenue may not balance the cost of it.

That helps explain why convenience stores open 24/7. It is certain to say that the cost of opening during night exceeds the revenue. The wage of employees, the cost of delivery is higher when it comes to night shift, while there are less people buying things at 2am than at 2pm. So why do the stores still open 24/7? Imagine at first all the shops close at 10, which is the time when revenue balances cost. One day shop X decides to close at 12. Though it may get some more customers, the sale cannot balance the cost of opening till that time. However, those customers will tend to visit shop X again, because they are familiar with how the products are arranged and placed in the store. Later, the benefit of opening longer will make other stores behave the same. After a period, that will lead to a 24/7 convenience store. And at that moment, interestingly, no stores will benefit from opening all the time.

It is necessary to bear in mind that everything happens for a reason.

Kz

I am not moral as I think I am [part 2]

Sometimes we read news about a rich guy buying a luxury car. Most of us will read such news with disgust. “What the hell are those rich guys doing? They are burning money, Jesus!” It is a very normal and reasonable reaction. However, how many of us have never dreamed of walking out of a Limo in front of our friends? Whenever I and my friends waited for a belated member in a hanging out, we sometimes said to ourselves that it would be crazy if that member showed up in this car, or that car, or the car coming. When we trade in stock market, the first thing we try to do is to buy at the bottom and sell at the top, though it is a very difficult and risky thing to do [and traders know that too]. Here comes the question: we all know that most of us are risk-averse, why do they still try to do such a crazy thing? Because we want to show people that we are better and smarter than others. Deep down inside us is a desire to be different and more special than other ones. It is called natural selection. A normal male will stand low chance of getting a mate. But what should we do if we are not so special? If we have only a normal IQ, a normal personality, or a not so good sense of humor, why don’t we try some kind of materialism? I used to laugh at and criticize those rich people who, in my opinion, did not know how to spend money. Now, I want to be one of them. And if you have never dreamed of being rich, of having a car, of living in a very big house with swimming pool or eating delicious food, then congratulation, you are more moral than me. Because I want that someday the world will know my name, no matter good or bad reputation.

What is the difference between a guitarist and a banker? A man who only knows how to play the guitar and works 4 hours a day is called a “hero”, a “rock star”, for chasing and living his dream while a man who knows almost everything about the society [sometimes he is able to play the guitar too] and work 8 hours a day is called a “boring man”, sometimes a “nerd”. It is not because the banker’s work is boring that we have the right to think that he is not living his dream. Some wants to play guitar. Some wants to play football. And some wants to play with money. The difference between a guitarist and a banker is that the banker’s dream is not so obvious and not so acknowledged by people. People love the idea that a guitarist needs potential and has to practice very much. It is true. However, who does not? Who does not have to work hard to earn money? Who does not have to risk? I have to admit that I am going to be a banker [if I am lucky enough]. Ironically, the wallpaper in my cell phone is the picture of a famous girl band or sometimes a rock band, not an economist or a banker, though I know they both deserve respect equally.

People hate violence. There is no doubt about it. We hate people who cause war, make fight or murder. We hear about some guys fighting in the street and think that those guys both deserve a punishment. My father always told me to stay calm and avoid being involved in trouble, even if I knew I could win the fight [a very low chance, but existing]. But Daddy, sometimes somebody does not let me do that. I now feel sympathetic for those who fight and sometimes kill. In some occasions, I just had to think that if there had been a knife or a gun in my reach, the guy standing before me must have been wounded. And FYI, if I was imprisoned because of doing that, it was totally worth it. Somebody has the potential to drive people mad. I am stupid, and I do not give a damn about people like me out there because we are all stupid. But selfish people do deserve some kind of treatment, even though illegally. “Mama, I just killed a man”

And if a man kills my family, I will kill him for revenge. But the society must be better than one individual.


kz

I am not as moral as I think I am [part 1]

I am not as moral as I think I am.

I eat meat, but I do not kill. I believe in Darwin, but I love to think “someone” created us. Unfortunately, those things do not make me more moral than anyone else, or at least, than whom I think I am.

When I was young, I wondered why adults have such a bad memory. They could not remember a famous historical figure or the order of the first 20 elements of the periodic table. How lame they were! Now, I sometimes forget them too. How lame I am! My mind is, at the moment, filled with too many things. When I was 10, everything was much more simply. I had somewhat 20 friends. Now, that figure has multiplied 10 times, including acquaintances. I have no room in my brain to remember where Argon is on the table. The same thing happens to my right brain. I used to criticize people who chased after money and materialism. I thought I was better than them. I was, for sure. But I am not, now.

Do we like charity? Do we want to volunteer whenever we have a chance? We want to help people, don’t we? When I was young, I wanted to be Superman, not to have superpower, but to help people. Now, I do not even buy a lottery from an old man in the streets. I do not give to beggars. I do not donate voluntarily. And what if I had superpower? I will try to rule the world, or to be rich.

When I was a freshman, the first time I took a bus I told myself that I would always give seat to women and elders. Now, I still give seat to elders, but not always to girls. I am not turning gay. I am just sometimes too tired to stand and hold. When we finish a very hard day, we just want a rest. What is the difference between an exhausted young man and a lively woman? I do not know. I only know they both need some rest. Or sometimes, we hope that others will do instead of us. The presence of others reduces sense of personal responsibility. Why do I have to do while the man next to me does not? But it does not matter what I think or how I am, people judge others by results and actions, not by thoughts or intentions. There is no difference between deliberately and not deliberately doing bad things. No matter what you think or intend, when you do a bad thing, you become a devil.

kz

someday before 21

part 1

Kỉ niệm 5 năm VN-Index đạt đỉnh [và nhân thể đi học chứng khoán về]

Tháng 3/2007: thời kì VN-Index đạt đỉnh cao nhất

Tháng 3/2012: mới học 2 khóa cơ bản về chứng khoán

Đi học chứng khoán, gặp 2 ông thầy. Điều điều đầu tiên thấy được là khi người ta có tiền và biết cách kiếm tiền, người ta không quá quan tâm tới việc kiếm tiền. 2 ông thầy là researcher của công ty chứng khoán [lương vậy cũng cao rồi], lại là trader nữa, nên đôi khi đi dạy cho vui, không quan trọng tiền bạc. Đi học chứng khoán mà câu đầu tiên thầy nói: “Tôi không khuyến khích các anh chị chơi chứng khoán”. Làm nhớ lại hồi trước đi học toán, thầy cũng dặn: “ Học cho vui thôi, sau này máy nó làm hết”. Cũng là 1 ý nghĩa, nhưng nguyên nhân khác nhau.

Đôi khi ra đường không dám nói mình học về kinh tế. Học kinh tế mà bây giờ vẫn không biết tại sao lạm phát 10% thì gây hại. Học kinh tế không thể giải thích nổi thị trường, không hiểu tại sao quá nhiều thứ. Tại sao người ta lại nghĩ  ra cái sàn chứng khoán? Và tại sao người ta lại thích “chơi” trên cái sàn này? Okay là thị trường sơ cấp là cần thiết để doanh nghiệp huy động vốn, nhưng vẫn còn ngân hàng cơ mà. Thị trường thứ cấp giúp tăng tính hấp dẫn của chứng khoán, nhưng bây giờ nó biến tướng rồi. Bao nhiêu người lên cái sàn này mà quan tâm tới dài hạn? Lên sàn để “cá cược”, để lướt những con sóng ngắn 2,3 tuần, để vi vu theo suy đoán trên giấy trong 1,2 tháng. Thôi thì coi như là một nơi để những người không sợ về già đau tim có chỗ thể hiện. Nhưng mà nhìn qua nhìn lại, rút cuộc cả xã hội được cái gì từ cái sàn này? Hàng ngàn nhà đầu tư lên sàn, chỉ để lấy tiền người này bỏ qua người kia. Zero sum game. Xã hội mất đi hàng tá chi phí cơ hội khi những nhà đầu tư thay vì đi sản xuất thì lại đi chơi chứng khoán. Tất nhiên vẫn có những người được lợi. môi giới, các công ty IPO. Nhưng liệu điều đó có đáng không?

Nhưng đó chưa phải là điều ảo diệu nhất của thị trường này. Điều ghê gớm nhất là thị trường này cho người ta cái khả năng đầu tư mua bán chứng khoán mà không cần biết bản chất của cái chứng khoán đó là gì. Người ta mua hàng cần phải biêt món hàng đó tốt hay không. Tốt thì mua, xấu thì dẹp. Trên sàn, người ta không có khái niệm “tốt”, “xấu”. Chỉ có “mai lên hay xuống”. Không cần biết doanh nghiệp đó làm ăn thế nào, chỉ cần thấy giá đang “lên” [đúng từ phải là “có xu hướng tăng trong ngắn hạn”] thì mua, thấy giá đang “xuống” thì bán. Tất cả những gì được học trong trường thành vô nghĩa. Thông tin về doanh nghiệp không còn quá quan trọng trong cái thị trường này. Vậy thì tại sao lại phải đi phân tích báo cáo tài chính, đến thăm doanh nghiệp? Thôi kệ, cũng nhờ cái phương pháp chỉ phân tích biểu đồ giá này mà thị trường có thêm thông tin. Vì giá là phản ánh tất cả quyết định của người mua và người bán. Sẽ có người có nhiều thông tin hơn người khác [bất cân xứng]. Nhưng chỉ cần nhìn giá cổ phiếu của 1 công ty hôm nay lên xuống là người ta biết được những tin tức xung quanh công ty ấy xấu hay tốt. Đôi khi chả cần biết doanh nghiệp ấy cháy nhà, hay chuột ăn hết thực phẩm, thấy giá cổ phiếu xuống là biết doanh nghiệp này đang có vấn đề gì đó rồi.

Người ta hay trách nhà đầu cơ làm thổi giá này nọ. Điển hình nhất là vụ giá dầu. Mấy ông OPEC hay kêu là giá dầu đúng chỉ có $80/thùng, tại bọn đầu cơ tụi nó phá nên lên tới $100. Lúc đầu nghĩ cũng đúng, tại hồi trước cũng có ước mơ vào làm trong phi đội làm giá [giờ hết rồi ==]. Nhưng giờ nghĩ lại, hình như không đúng. Nhà đầu cơ chỉ đầu cơ trên thị trường tương lai, chứ không phải hiện tại. Họ đánh cược vào tương lai. Tại sao họ lại nghĩ giá trong 3 tháng nữa sẽ lên? Phải có lí do gì chứ. Vì họ tin vào lí do đó, cái lí do mà chúng ta ngồi đây không biết được. “Thầy” có dạy, “Đổ lỗi cho nhà đầu cơ về việc làm tăng giá dầu thì cũng không khác gì bắn đi người đưa tin [Blaming speculators rather than the underlying geopolitics is a perverse form of shooting the messenger]”. Nhờ nhà đầu cơ, chúng ta mới biết chuyện gì đang xảy ra ở thị trường. Còn bọn phi đội lái thì có khi cũng chơi ác thiệt.

Đi học xong về là muốn chơi ngay. Thấy dễ quá mà. Có hết đủ thứ “tools” trong tay rồi, nhấn nút là quất. Thế nhưng, nghĩ lại trong cuộc sống đôi khi có những thứ có thể liên tưởng đến chứng khoán, thấy tốt cũng chả dám mua. Dạo này lang thang thì gặp 1 “chứng khoán” rất “tốt”. Tại sao lại “tốt”? Vì “báo cáo tài chính” rất tốt, đẹp đến từng chi tiết. Có tin được báo cáo này không? Chắc là được, 70% thông tin trong báo cáo đã được “kiểm toán” báo lại là chính xác. 1 điều quan trọng khiến chứng khoán này “hấp dẫn” nữa là chưa có nhà đầu tư nào thành công với chứng khoán này. Với 1 báo cáo tốt như vậy, không khó hiểu khi có nhiều nhà đầu tư quyết tâm “giải ngân” với chứng khoán này. Nhưng vẫn chưa thấy chứng khoán này phản ứng giá. Khi áp dụng những công cụ chỉ số riêng thì tín hiệu mua [signal buy] nhảy liên tục. Điều mắc cười là khi đứng trước 1 cơ hội tốt như vậy mà vẫn còn chưa dám hết mình đầu tư hết nguồn lực, vậy thì làm quái thế nào có thể bước lên sàn thật mà chơi. “Chứng khoán này tốt quá, mình có liệu đủ sức theo đuổi không?”. Nỗi sợ, tin đồn, sự tự ti sẽ mãi mãi là những thứ giết chết những mong muốn thành công.

“Tôi nhắc lại, tôi không khuyến khích mọi người tham gia thị trường này". [Và nếu ai đang có ý định đầu tư vào chứng khoán tui đang theo đuổi vì biến ngay lập tức]”

Tôi - đang - đầu - tư

if you know what I mean

kz

When law corrupts the struggle for equality

Equality has always been the goal of all societies and systems. America suffered a very costly civil war to get rid of racism. From women to black people, most of the world is trying to get Thomas Jefferson’s saying fulfilled: “All men are created equal.” Equality has become an obsession, and that obsession is reflected most obviously in law. All law is made to ensure that there is no difference between white and black, between rich and poor, between men and women. That’s the reason for why we, human, have chosen to prefer democracy to meritocracy. However, law is in-deliberately creating a situation that could never be thought of just some decades ago: some men are now suing because of being sex discriminated. What has happened?

Many things. Among them is the ladies’ night. Why is there ladies’ night but no, say, men’s night? We always talk about equality, but now we are creating inequality: women are now treated better than men. They receive discount from anywhere they set a foot in. From clubs to car stores, whenever the customer is a woman, some kind of a discount that male customer never knows will happen. Is it the evidence of sex discrimination? Yeah, people have their own explanations. That women are weaker and more fragile than men, that they need more protection than men, that they have sacrificed too much in their life. Yeah, all the explanations may be relatively correct. But I am not sure whether ladies who can afford to go to a club are really in need of such protection. New Jersey banned ladies’ night in 2004. At this moment, we are unable to judge whether such ban is right or not. Time will tell. I myself still offer my seat on a bus to a woman, and I still hold the door for them, because I believe that not every distinction – even if based on race or sex - is invidious, at least now.

[It was lucky that the court turned down the law suit against Mother’s Day]

Celebrate the Women’s Day as bigly as you can before it is banned from some extremists.

[But think again, women today are really like that? Many of them are now ruling many nations in this world. Many have achieved greater success than men have. The world is becoming more equal for them than ever. However, as long as those explanations are still accepted, women will still be treated inequality.]

kz

Happy belated Valentine's day

I found this interesting piece on Grew Mankiw's blogspot yesterday, and though it's quite late to celebrate Valentine's day now, I hope you readers will like it.

Happy belated Valentine's Day [FYI, I'm single :p]








[the original post: http://fosslien.com/heart/]

for what you're supllying, my demand's inelastic

Cường đô-la

Cường dollar

Có lẽ cũng không cần phải giới thiệu thêm về nhân vật đặc biệt này. Tiếng tăm của Cường dollar đã nổi lên cách đây không phải 1,2 năm mà cũng phải được 5 năm rồi. Không ai biết chính xác số tài sản mà đại gia này nắm giữ, liệu có phải là người giàu nhất Việt Nam hay không, chỉ có điều, xét về mức độ ăn chơi và nổi bật trên truyền thông, Mr.Dollar chắc ít có đối thủ ở Việt Nam.

Người ta thường nhìn Cường dollar như một kẻ ăn chơi lêu lỏng, với hàng loạt những vụ việc gần như trở thành huyền thoại trong xã hội như sưu tập siêu xe, cặp kè những người mẫu nổi nhất, quăng vàng xuống song, bao quán, … Đó là những gì thuộc về quá khứ, và không thể chối cãi được. Điều duy nhất chúng ta có thể xem xét lại là ảnh hưởng của những hành động đó.

Liệu những hành vi ăn chơi đó thật sự vô nghĩa?

Rất nhiều người chúng ta chỉ biết 1 Cường dollar ăn chơi, mà ít ai nhớ đến rằng Cường cũng là 1 doanh nhân. Lĩnh vực kinh doanh là bất động sản, tập đoàn Quốc Cường Gia Lai. “Gia Lai”. Người ta nghĩ đến gì khi đọc đến chữ “Gia Lai”? Đa số chúng ta nghĩ đến “Hoàng Anh Gia Lai”, tập đoàn và đội banh của bầu Đức. Tiếp theo có thể là biển Hồ, rừng núi, cà phê, … Có điều, đó là câu chuyện của những năm về trước. Bây giờ, ngoài những cái tên trên, chúng ta còn nhớ đến “Quốc Cường Gia Lai”. Tập đoàn Quốc Cường Gia Lai đã có mặt từ nhiều năm về trước [từ 1994], nhưng hầu như chỉ có tiếng tăm đối với giới trong nghề, những người thường đa số không biết đến. Kinh doanh trong một lĩnh vực đầy cạnh tranh như bất động sản, danh tiếng đóng 1 vai trò cực kì quan trọng. Không có danh tiếng, chủ đầu tư rất khó bán được sản phẩm, vì bất động sản là một tài sản lớn, khách hàng sẽ rất cẩn trọng trong việc tìm hiểu sản phẩm. Không phải ngẫu nhiên mà bầu Đức đầu tư hàng chục tỷ mỗi năm cho đội banh Hoàng Anh Gia Lai, ngay cả khi đội bóng này bây giờ đã xuống sức rất nhiều. Có ai biết được tới những cái tên Hoàng Anh Gia Lai, Đồng Tâm Long An, Hòa Phát Hà Nội, .. trước khi họ tài trợ cho 1 đội banh. Nếu bầu Đức đầu tư hàng tỷ đồng cho đội banh nhằm nâng cao danh tiếng, thì Cường dollar lại có cách khác: tao scandal. Mục đích chung cũng là quảng bá thương hiệu. Còn về hiệu quả đầu tư? Chúng ta luôn biết thông thường chi phí đi kèm với hiệu quả. Nếu chúng ta bỏ 100 tỷ đồng mỗi năm để quảng bá thương hiệu thì sẽ có hiệu quả hơn với 50 tỷ đồng mỗi năm. Không nghi ngờ gì nữa, bầu Đức bỏ nhiều tiền hơn cho đội banh so với tiền của Cường dollar ăn chơi. Nhiều người sẽ bắt đầu phản đối khi đọc đến đây, cho rằng chỉ riêng bộ sưu tập xe của Cường dollar cũng đã nhiều tiền hơn tiền bỏ ra cho Hoàng Anh Gia Lai. Có thể điều đó là đúng, nhưng họ quên mất 1 điều là bộ sưu tập xe đó không đơn thuần chỉ là mua xong rồi đốt. Những chiếc xe đó sau này có thể được đem bán lại, bản thân xe cũng mang lại những lợi ích nhất định cho chủ sở hữu. Vì thế, chi phí cho những chiếc xe này đã được giảm bớt đi rất nhiều, so với việc đốt tiền trả lương hàng tháng cho cầu thủ và lợi  ích mang lại quá thấp. Điều đó giải thích một phần cho việc tại sao Hoàng Anh Gia Lai tiếng tăm lớn hơn Quốc Cường Gia Lai.

Bầu Đức gây xôn xao dư luận bằng hợp đồng tiền tỷ với cầu thủ xịn trên thị trường, Mr.Cường lên báo với việc cặp kè với người nổi tiếng. Tuy ảnh hưởng của hình ảnh tác động lên chúng ta là khác nhau [1 bên là tiêu cực, 1 bên là tích cực], nhưng tựu chung,  chúng đều làm chúng ta nhớ đến thương hiệu.

Nhưng đó chưa phải là tất cả. Dạo 1 năm gần đây, Cường dollar đổi tính, bớt tạo scandal kề từ khi cặp với HNH và có con. Người ta thấy Cường dollar xuất hiện ở ngoài nhiều hơn, tham gia các hoạt động bình dân và ít nghe chuyện ăn chơi nữa. “Đánh kẻ chạy đi, không ai đánh người chạy lại”. Hành động thay đổi đó đang phần nào tạo nên ấn tượng tốt về Cường dollar, một người cha đang cố gắng thay đổi vì gia đình.

Rất khó để biết được rằng liệu tập đoàn Quốc Cường Gia Lai hiện giờ do Cường dollar nắm giữ có đang làm ăn tốt hay không, nhưng trước mắt chúng ta biết được rằng, Cường dollar đã làm tốt công việc quảng bá thương hiệu cho tập đoàn.

Và có lẽ Mr.Dollar cũng sẽ rất biết ơn những tờ báo lá cải ở Việt Nam chuyên đăng tin scandal. Nếu muốn trách tại sao xã hội hiện tại lại có những chiêu quảng bá thương hiệu kì cục như vậy, hãy tự trách bản thân sao lại vào thăm những trang lá cải nhiều như vậy.


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