en-us http://www.keithwatanabe.net/index.php Keith Watanabe's Website http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/8/8/dfbf95f950108b5b2e6f0f0e31cf3662.html
If you answered yes for the final question, do yourself a massive favor and never work for a finance company. Only work for a finance company if the only thing that matters to you is money.

I'm not joking.

You have to be in complete love with money that you'll do anything to get ahead. You don't have to care about personal relationships, your family, your health, your coworkers, your skills, your dignity, or anything. All you have to care about is being materialistic.

You can be fake and shallow and it's well accepted. You can be selfish, self serving, and hurt other people. But as long as you earn money and show results, you can brag about it.

You can have pride and commit all the deadly sins and be considered a hero, an idol, a God. As long as you earn the highest buck, you can do this at any cost possible, except going below the amount you're receiving back.

But remember: when you change and you try to go back to your friends, unless your friends are also in the same industry, or unless your friends are digits in your bank account, forget who you were. You no longer are someone we want to associate with since the person that we cared about has transmorgrified into a numerical value.
]]> Wed, 08 Aug 2007 08:21:25 -0600 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/8/8/dfbf95f950108b5b2e6f0f0e31cf3662.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/9/13/1d69f9d2b3bb373e7444814625bfc943.html
I ran some scenarios in my head about what might happen. It's possible that many banks are going to undergo massive mergers and acquisitions as well as layoffs. The assets that banks want most, naturally, are the money that we have stored in them. We might be seeing something like what has gone on in Japan for the past two decades or so in the constant mergers, creating super banks like Tokyo Mitsubishi-UFJ, Mizuho and Sumitomo. We're seeing it already with things like JP Morgan buying out Bear Sterns' assets. Rumors has it that Bank of America might end up being the major buyer for Lehman Brothers. In the end, we might see fewer banks or perhaps even nationalized banking systems, as indicated by the Feds' recent move in pulling Freddie Mac under the government. Naturally, the larger overall concern in this situation is the lack of choice in the banking industry if something like this might occur.

Another somewhat frightening scenario is the possibility of a global depression. The 2001 dot com meltdown mostly eroded tech stocks, but other industries were still relatively good. However, now we're seeing a full meltdown of numerous industries, all chained together. The massive loss of jobs to 2002 levels will certainly affect holiday spending, the typical point in time, especially in America, where many retailers count on for determining the following year's economic situation. The problem this time is that prices for necessary goods like food and gas are at an all time high, so many people may be inclined to pinch pennies. As a result, the economy will suffer as more companies look to short term gains and layoff workers.

In the tech bust era, you had a concentrated area where things burned out. This time, you're looking at numerous industries. So one has to wonder if the overall economy can recover.

Of course, that depends on the leadership of the country. With Palin running her mouth on attacking Russia, I'm reminded of the Great Depression and WW2 (although these two events were separated by a decade, but many signs are starting to point to a new depression. With people losing their jobs, confidence growing low, banks blowing up, prices skyrocketing despite people not having money, population increasing, fears of global warming striking, indications of global warming via the recent hard hitting hurricanes, people in the world naturally are fearful and desperate.

The last time we saw the world get out of the depression partly was a result of industrialization. Of course, a good reason behind the consequence of industrialization was producing for the machines of war. So it's quite possible that a ferverent, impatient and nutty leader (like the ones the Republicans are propping up) will do something equally nutty and attempt to start a war to de-focus attention on the economic problems, rejuvenate the economy through concentrated spending in military (which honestly is America's chief economy), depopulating the earth through an expensive, drawn out war that will be extremely high tech (biowarfare, tech warfare, etc.), potentially getting rid of another of America's chief competitors (it could be Russia, China or some other large country that America can put up on TV as the face of the enemy).

Unfortunately, it seems partly that this may be the only way America can justify NOT paying off its debt. I've heard how a good deal of debt now is external where America owes other countries (like China). It would be immensely convenient for America to clear its debt through a well placed invasion or story to invoke blind patriotism in its citizens who will become restless over their state.

However, one has to ask whether America can win such a war. China is huge and America has made many inherent enemies over the years. People will never spit back in America's face directly, but come outside the country and you'll hear how people truly feel. That war potentially could expand everywhere. I can see places like the Middle East, South America, North Korea, and parts of Eastern Europe banding together against the US. And the US would be stupid to simultaneously piss off China and Russia. With those kinds of alliances and the subtle hatred most people outside of the US have for America, it's hard to see America stand up again. The only thing America really has left is the military.

I think some big victims in this are the people who arre living in more internationalized cities. The ones inland that have few if not no contact with the outside war are the ones easily provoked as they are already dumb and easily brainwashed (religion is a powerful tool to keep people stupid). So unfortunately, those inland states are going to be voting with their blind pride and lack of foresight.

Personally, I hope that none of this happen. It's not really a scenario(s) I want to live through. I'm hoping that America does the right thing in electing Obama rather than that old fart McCain and that mad stupid woman Palin. I doubt that the economic situation will improve anytime soon, but if the leadership of the country falls into the wrong hands, far worse consequences will occur.]]> Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:27:16 -0600 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/9/13/1d69f9d2b3bb373e7444814625bfc943.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/9/13/bc59e66825594464c034dab3bcd2b843.html Intelligent Investor". Based on Benjamin Graham's theory of investing, it seems that the only surefire method of understanding when or where to invest your money is to find companies with long histories. Well, when large legacy companies start biting the dust, that theory becomes nullified to a huge degree.

For myself, I can't imagine now feeling safe in putting my money in any company for long periods. Within the past few years, I've seen normally long, stable companies eat the dirt. Places like Circuit City, CompUSA, Levitz, Mervyn's all are dying or have died. Then you can even talk about Detroit and long standing companies like GM and Ford. Take another look around and you see the airlines industry, something people in fact need, getting decimated. Food, too, can't be trusted although it's needed.

If that's the case, how can we count on companies with long histories? In fact, how can we count on having an economy when you see everything get destroyed around you?

Ironically, it's the new industries that are taking over. Companies with short histories but are doing innovative things like Google, Amazon, Solar/Green, Tesla, etc. I think are the real places we need to put our money. Even Apple (actually Apple is a great bet, but you can nod your head at one person). Sure, some people are thinking energy like Exxon. But if the well is drying up, some day there might not be anything for Exxon to shell out. It might be Energy Innovations or eSolar that are the forerunners for energy because demand is driving the real supply.

Part of me believes that investment means putting money into a cause to let it grow. Of course, making money is key but how they use that money is equally important. The housing market demonstrated that they were completely incapable of handling money.

You get older companies that are trapped under a mound of bureaucracy, greed and complacency. Why did it take GM so long to react before pushing out their first hybrids or shrinking their production of SUVs? Will Exxon be the same in this sense, waiting until the last possible second to make the big switch from squeezing customers of their dollars before even bothering to think about future energy plans? Will M$ continue to just copy what other successful products and companies are doing rather than thinking about the future and innovating with all their talented engineers?

Maybe the next round of big hits will come to the food industry after they've squeezed the budget in creating low grade, cheap food that continuously poisons people. I think there's going to be a revolution there too.

I think the key is that investment should be also driven by innovation. We've lost that vision and only scramble to put money where we think we can make a quick buck. We forget that companies are built to improve lives, perform services and create products that are upgrades from older, less efficient models. But we aren't doing that and I think that's where we're missing the boat.

Even if a company misses their forecast on finances, we shouldn't short them if they're still doing a generally good job. That's just short sighted punishment. We can certainly do better and we ought to demand better for ourselves.]]> Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:50:47 -0600 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/9/13/bc59e66825594464c034dab3bcd2b843.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/9/15/a9e60c351425215c6712afd48970fa33.html
Later, it was announced that various banks would pull their money to create an emergency bail out fund to prevent their entire sector from being quickly wiped out by the immediate sell off of securities. This is like the old boys network going into a room and panicking as the old boys finally realize that they have to get off their asses.

But here's the real scary part: this all occurred in a matter of hours. We haven't even seen the light of day once the rest of Asia trades in 4-5 hours. Worse yet, we haven't even made it through this week nor month. In my estimate, this is only the beginning of the storm. It's not even close to the end.

My friend and I over email chatted on the idea that insurance will be hard hit next. AIG already showed its colors today. Naturally, all of the life insurance companies will be affected as annuities are composed heavily of stocks, bonds and other forms of securities.

The thing we're looking at is a complete possible meltdown of the finance market that we know.

But truthfully, this is probably a GREAT thing.

I will be the first one to come out and say that despite what's going on, this is probably one of the best things to happen to the world in a long time. Hopefully, as part of this situation, many of these white collar crooks will be driven out of Wallstreet and other financial markets and slither into jail where they belong. I say that the US government should punish all these financial institutions by penalizing everyone in there for killing the global economy. Put all these crooks in jail, rip their assets out and give it back to the common man as restitution. Then the economy will be back on track.

I honestly hope to see the entire finance markets as we know it blow up in the coming months and turn into something completely different. I've been saying for a while now that we need a new market, something that is better, more efficient, more impartial, something incorruptible for handling valuation of goods and services. The stock market is driven by people, people who are corruptible, irrational, greedy and a bane on society. If we don't do something to amend this soon, nothing will make sense.

I say hit the "restart" button on the whole finance thing and create a new system of valuation.
]]> Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:17:50 -0600 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/9/15/a9e60c351425215c6712afd48970fa33.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/9/28/232d2d17abf39f4f12c2199597e5dc04.html
On the surface, it might seem good since the money in truth needs to be for improving development of more economical cars, particularly gas efficient. However, if you ask me, in the light of the financial markets' bail outs, this is just more of the same. I don't know if this money will save auto workers' jobs, except for those in the research ends and, of course, the executives.

Personally, I'd love to see these companies go bankrupt. They make crap so the market should eat them up. They should've listened to innovation and reacted faster. Since they didn't and just looked at the bottom line of their high margin SUVs, that implies that they only cared about money, rather than overarching issues. They truthfully deserve to be shut down for bad business decisions and the executives again should be held accountable.

Why not simply put a pool of money for people who intend to innovate and allow those people to use it for creating a better company? Trying to save these ancient companies from natural causes is just ridiculous. The American government just has no credibility anymore with me as a democracy.]]> Sun, 28 Sep 2008 01:20:29 -0600 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/9/28/232d2d17abf39f4f12c2199597e5dc04.html