Shale oil boom is not that rosy

Beholden to the surging US shale oil production, Brent crude oil price tumbled to below $73/barrel today. There is always a downside for this boom: for every 1 barrel of shale oil produced, 1.4 barrels of toxic brine is generated. Scores of inferno and serious oil spillage in North Dakota in the last two years. Shale oil production needs yet to be proved as a sustainable shot-in-the-arm for US economic development.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/23/us/north-dakota-oil-boom-downside.html?_r=0

ethnic diversification

Healthy ethnic diversification or victim under the justifiable race-conscious admission policy?

WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) school?

In the last 20 years, admission rate for Asian Americans has stayed flat, between 15% and 18%, though college-age population of Asian Americans has doubled. Affirmative action in favor of disadvantaged minorities stacks up against the dismissal of academic achievements in Asian students. However, it is also unapologetically and unfortunately true that there is no financial or institutional incentive for elite schools to admit Asian Americans who don't fall emphatically into the categories "wealthy, cultured and connected."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/opinion/is-harvard-unfair-to-asian-americans.html?_r=0

education and income inequality

最近法國經濟學家 Piketty 在台灣演講，引起教育和貧富不均關係的熱烈討論。實際上，Piketty 在他書中並没有太多對教育的著墨。倒是一個月前，廣受尊敬的美國聯準會主席(相當中央銀行總裁) Janet Yellen 在波士頓的演講, http://www.federalreserve.gov/newseve…/…/yellen20141017a.htm，對教育和貧富不均的關係，有較深的描述。她指出創造"經濟機會"有四大因素。前兩項是她稱之為最重要奠基石，也和教育有關。第一是兒童可以擁有的資源，二是可負擔的高等教育。其他兩項則較人驚呀，一是 business ownership，二是繼承。家庭經濟狀況，必然對兒童教育有些影響。至於高等教育的負擔，大學教育在台灣真的很便宜(見附圖). 美國窮人的小孩子，只要非常努力，資質夠好，仍有很大的翻身機會。世界排名第一第二的普林斯頓和哈佛大學，學生百分之六十有獎助金，平均每人每年的 grant 超過四萬美金。哈佛大學更是家庭年收入少於六萬美金的學生，學費全免。但是不幸地仍有很多用功但貧窮的小孩遭受挫折的報導 http://www.nytimes.com/…/poor-students-struggle-as-class-pl…&

Moore's law vs. Eroom's law

For semiconductor companies, it is Moore' law (transistor count doubles for every 2 years). For pharmaceutical companies, it is Eroom's law (drug approved decreases by half for every 9 years). One of the reasons for Eroom's law: Pharmaceutical companies depend on the newfangled target-based genomics rather than the old-fashioned and laborious trial-and-error method.   

Piketty in Taiwan to pitch for his proposal of global tax on capital

French economist, Piketty, arrived in Taiwan today to give a speech about his best-selling book, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" which was out of stock in Amazon.com for many weeks in April and May this year. The major reason for this book to make a splash this year is simply because income inequality is an ubiquitous global problem. I don't believe any economists have any elixir for this malaise of income inequality. Piketty's solution is "a global tax on capital" of which even himself admits may be Utopian. Probably to possess a competitive skill (or even multiple skills) is the only way to weather the storm of this increasingly capital-intensive society.  http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416105105&sr=1-1&keywords=capital+in+the+twenty-first+century

Trendy way to learn language

I am an obvious old guard since I have problems to appreciate the way youths learn either Chinese or English. Jessica Beinecke's videos to teach both English and Chinese have been going viral like gangbusters in the last 3 years. It is surely interesting, cool and trendy but how about its efficacy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5T2mpr-E34