Hello Pezz, This Week’s Report: I have done well with MO, CD, IPG, HBC ( & hk.5) and other US flotsam and HK/China jetsam twirling in the vortex of crimson financial storm. I am readying to take advantage of gold’s drop, and buy paper gold once again for that slim 5-10% ride up to get closer to money nirvana.
I just finished my Sunday morning OJ with satisfied gusto, am looking forward to my weekly poached eggs (served in Japanese light soy sauce, and hinted with fragrant sesame oil) with excited anticipation, waiting for 12 parents to show up at 10:00am with alarm, and for their 7 children to be in toll with dread. The children are my sister-in-law’s violin students, and today my living room becomes a concert hall. The piano is tuned, drinks are ready, and easily breakable thinamajigs hidden away.
[EDIT: just got done with poach eggs]
Today is also wedding reception day of my internet-located and Hong Kong-based nephew, and many long lost and never before met relations will be at the reception at my club at 12:00 noon. They come from US, Canada, Venezuela, Britain and Singapore. Yesterday the younger folks all went to Big Wave Bay, about 1.5 hours away from Hong Kong, located within a country park. Contrary to image, 98% of Hong Kong is green and rural, and we have a few pristine white sand beaches with water better than that available in Thailand, and slightly worse than that on offer in the Philippines. These beaches are mostly empty, as they can only be accessed by a long car ride followed by a 3-hours hike, or by ocean-borne expedition. The swimming is good now, because the air-water temperature difference is small, and one can stay in the water for as long as one can paddle or stand on the sand bar. Never mind the now bid-less beaches in Indonesia. Yes, oh, as it turns out, I have many really gorgeous distant cousins (their grandmother is my grandfather’s half-sister). The world is wonderful, at times.
We did not use my usual Chinese wooden junk that belongs to my early-retired friend, but we took advantage of the JP Morgan Bank’s fiberglass motor yacht. The bank had two, each with two staterooms, and just unloaded one, along with a few dozen HK-based bankers, into a depressed toy and people market, and is keeping one in lieu of the same few dozen investment bankers. I would say the bank is most wise in its priorities;0)
[EDIT: just got done allocating precious parking space for all the guests, and now the concert is underway. I resume my hiding in the study]
I will spent all next week days in China, first at a Business Week CEO Forum, and then again in Yichang, the city of the Three Gorges Dam, signing a few pieces of paper and collecting some more capital, mullah, dough, scratch, chips, credit, and money. We take what we can get when we can get, and leave the bigger arrangements of passive income to allocation, methodology and luck.
So far, 2002 has not been a brilliant year for active income compared to past years. Thankfully it is nearly over. Now we can start planning for a surely more horrid 2003 that will most likely be another uneventful active income year. I like to set my expectations low to the ground, be pleasantly surprised on the upside and not be staggered on the downside …
[EDIT: concert over, peace returns, I am pleasantly surprised that nothing has been broken, and now I must decide which of many ancient gold coins I will part with as present to the newly-weds]
… here is a hint, be prepared to be absolutely stunned by what further and more damaging downside can do to our wealth in the coming 14 months. But first, the end of year Christmas to Chinese New Years to Japanese end-of-fiscal year ramporama party.
Chugs, Jay |
