Pearl Harbor - 7 decades ; plus APEC

7 decades ago, Japanese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor and other military sites in Hawaii.

Japan was an imperialist power that wanted large territories of colonies, just like many European countries like France and the U.K.

While the European powers that held Asian territories (ie. French owning Vietnam, Dutch owning Indonesia, British owning Malaysia and Hong Kong) were too distracted by their fight with Germany, Japan chose the wrong country to mess with when they attacked Pearl Harbor!

America had a strong industrial sector, and large amounts of people to draft into the military!  Even worse for Japan, the Americans were developing a nuclear bomb!

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One of my close friend had an interest in Pearl Harbor, and posted some interesting blog posts related to the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Here are the links!


http://wiileecoolstuff.blogspot.com/2011/01/trapped-at-pearl-harbor-escape-from.html

http://wiileecoolstuff.blogspot.com/2010/12/dec-7-1941.html

http://wiileecoolstuff.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-is-uss-utah-forgotten.html

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Back in 1991, which was the 50 year anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, then US President George Bush Sr came to Hawaii for the commemoration ceremony.

After the 9/11 attacks of 2001, I was really expecting the younger Bush to come to Hawaii for the 60th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor. It would've been the perfect time for him to do so, since the US had just experience a similar attack. Too bad he didn't come.

Now this is the 70th anniversary, Barack Obama should have come here again! I know he was just here for APEC last month, but even so, why not come here to commemorate a major historical event for his country and his home state?

People might complain about the traffic jams associated with the President and the Secret Service. Look, Washington DC face this all the time. We just deal with this for a few days! We have to make sacrifices sometimes.

People in Hawaii need to see the big picture! We are in the middle of the Pacific. We may be small in land and population, but that's no excuse for small-time thinking. 

Hawaii was the PERFECT place for APEC, being that APEC is Asia-PACIFIC Economic Cooperation! Notice the Pacific part of APEC? It was about time we had an APEC conference in the middle of the PACIFIC!

APEC showed the world that Hawaii is not just a place of fun & sun, but also a place for serious business!

The APEC forum went well. Unlike other places, we didn't have violent protests here!

The Iolani Palace was locked for the duration of the conference. That was disappointing, since APEC visitors had booked trips there! This was their Once In A Lifetime Opportunity for them.

Though I do think the real reason Iolani Palace was locked because some Native Hawaiian sovereignty activists have previously barged in there as an attempted takeover. The state government didn't want such publicity stunts happening during APEC when all the world's cameras were watching! It would've been humiliating for Hawaii if the Iolani Palace was barged in and taken over by activists when the whole world was watching!


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 I really wanted to see their group photo with all the participating nation's leaders in Aloha shirts!

In previous APEC photos, all the leaders were the native attire of the country the conference took place. For example, I still remember seeing ex-US president Bush and ex-Russian president wearing traditional Chinese attire for the group photo when APEC conference  was in China. 

Popular Aloha shirt company Tori Richards even made a special Aloha shirt for the APEC group photo!

However, Obama preferred that the leaders all wear business suits. He didn't want political opponents from the continental US to make a big fuss of "look at Obama wearing Aloha print as if everything's all fun &  games during hard economic times".  I would've just told them  "Screw off! This is Hawaii, Aloha shirts are part of our culture! Get over it!"

Here is the APEC group photo taken by Ko Olina resort



courtesy of http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-14/apec-leaders-pose-for-a-group-photo-in-honolulu---palm-trees-an/3665040

Very nice scenery, good advertisement for Hawaii!

Too bad they just didn't have their Aloha shirts on!

Steve Jobs, Occuppy Wall Street, and other related issues

So much to say, so little time to say them.

1) Steve Jobs

On October 5 of this year,  Steve Jobs, the founder & CEO of Apple Computers, has passed away.!
The younger generation know Jobs as the i-guy whose company gave us the iMac, iTunes, iPods, iPads and iPhones!

But his innovations go way back, before today's young adults were born!


Steve Jobs was known for his many innovative ideas for 4 decades.  He was never one who was just satisfied with his achievements. He was willing to create the next big thing, making things people never thought of using before that ended up being things people don't want to live without!

Back in the 1970's, computers were just things used in government agencies and in business. People laughed at the idea of a personal computer existing in middle class homes. However, Steve Jobs came up with computers that were small enough, inexpensive enough and simple enough for the average middle class home. Other existing computer companies (ie. IBM) took notice and made their own versions of the personal computer.

If Steve Jobs stopped there, he would've already been a business and technology legend! However, Steve Jobs wasn't done yet!

Back in the early 1990's, computer animation was just a fringe art form that only appeared in obscure short-film clips. Most animation was still hand drawn. However, Steve Jobs started Pixar, with the idea that computer-animated films can become box-office hits! The 1st major film from Pixar, Toy Story, was a big box-office hit, which paved the way for other hit films like Shrek and Ice Age!

If Steve Jobs stopped there, he would've already been a business and technology legend! However, Steve Jobs wasn't done yet!


Back in the late 1990's and early 2000's, there were fears within the music business that they would soon be out of business. Customers who were tired of paying $12 for a CD with 12 junk songs, just so they could hear 1 or 2 good songs,  started getting songs online for free. Artists like Metallica and Dr. Dre started filing lawsuits against file-sharing networks like Napster, while alienating music fans in the process!

Steve Jobs had a solution. He started  a website called iTunes where people can pay 99 cents for a song, which can transfer into different formats.  And Steve Jobs had a new format for playing music. It was the iPod portable music player that was more convenient to carry around than the boombox, walkman or the portable CD player. And to input songs into your iPod, you need to download them from iTunes! Smart business move from Steve Jobs!

And like the iPod and iTunes, Steve Jobs came up with more stuff with names starting with lower-case i! There was the iMac, which was a popular personal computer of the early 2000's. There was the iPad, which was a portable wireless computer. There was the iMovie, a program that amateurs can use make and edit their own independent films.  And there was the iPhone, which was a cell phone with internet access!

This was the work of staying ahead of everyone for 4 decades. That's not easy!

Just coming up with 1 popular idea is hard. But that popular idea can be outshined by your competitors, even ones you didn't see coming!

Sony was once a technology leader in music players. They came up with compact discs and Walkmans in the 1980s. But Apple outshined all that with the iPods!

Myspace was once the largest social network out there! It was so big that NewsCorp (owner of the Fox media programs) spent $100 million to buy it! But all that money and fame wasn't enough to save MySpace from being outshined by newer competitors like Facebook and Twitter.

2) Economic systems

While Steve Jobs was a technology innovator, his success doesn't just come out of nowhere! It doesn't just happen in any economic system! 

His ideas might never gotten far in a country where the government makes all the economic decisions!

His ideas and his success happened because he lived in a country that has an economic system that allows individuals to risk their own money to start their own business.

This economic system is called capitalism.

 Even if others laugh at their ideas, if they make a good product that people are willing to buy, they can become very wealthy.

This is not an economic system that guarantees success to everyone! Some business succeed, others fail!

Because of the idea that some might take risks and fail, capitalism has gotten a bad reputation, especially the last few years.

Because success isn't guaranteed, some will fail and suffer economically! Because success isn't guaranteed, those who start with disadvantages in life (ie. ghetto childhood, abusive parents, learning disabilities, physical impairments, etc) have a tougher time climbing the economic ladder than those who were born into a rich family!  Because success isn't guaranteed, those who don't make it sometimes give up and become very resentful!

The last few years have seen people getting laid off, homes being foreclosed, and people ruined by debt. Recent college graduates who once thought prosperity would be guaranteed by their degrees are not getting the opportunities that once existed! People are having a harder time finding jobs that match their skill set. The older laid-off workers are finding it hard to find a job that paid as well as the ones they once had!

And to add insult to injury, CEOs of many failed corporate got bailed out by taxpayer's money!

3) Occupy Wall Street


This had inspired the Occupy Wall Street movement, which intended to embarrass the corporate executives by camping out in front of their corporate headquarters!

Their grievances are real and heart-felt by millions.

However, many of their solutions are totally unrealistic!

I'll go over the most unrealistic solutions listed from the link below

http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage.
Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment

Raising the minimum wage will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to improve the lives of minimum wage earners!  OK, it will give them one week of euphoria! Yay, I'm making $8.75 instead of $7.25!

But euphoria wont last! In order to pay the higher wages, business will have to charge higher prices! So what was once $7.25 will now cost $8.75!

Just imagine if the minimum wage becomes $20! Everything that is now $7.25 will cost $20!

And the low-earners are still suffering from higher-prices! Even worse, many low-earners get laid off since businesses can no longer afford them!

With all the outsourcing going on, and layoffs occuring, we might as well re-legalize cheap labor! Sure, making $4 an hour isn't the grand life! But it's better than making 75 cents a week begging on the streets!

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system

YIKES! A government-run health care monopoly?

Meaning, if you don't like your government clinic, you have NO alternate routes! That is the reality in Canada and the UK, and that is what many people don't want to see in the U.S.


From Robert Tracinskihttp://jewishworldreview.com/0709/tracinski.php3

Anyone can have a family doctor who makes a wrong diagnosis — but in America, you're not stuck with him. I'm a fan of the TV show "Mystery Diagnosis," which tells the real stories of people with very rare medical conditions who spend years trying to get a proper diagnosis and treatment. One of the things these patients talk about is how you have to "be your own advocate," and most of the cases are solved when the patient himself searches for information on the Internet and finds a specialist who is an expert in his disease.

But how can you be your own advocate under socialized medicine? It is outlawed, because you are no longer in control of your own health care. You have no freedom to choose a physician, or to seek out a specialist on your own, or to decide what medical tests you will pay for.

(To those who buy the hype of "single-payer health care", READ THAT PARAGRAPH AGAIN!)

And also read this from John Stosell
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3580676&page=1  ( an written outline of Stossell's documentary on health care systems)

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Nothing is done "fast track" unless you're Usain Bolt!

But all kidding aside, changing energy sources requires techonological innovation! Government has been attempting this for decades with no results!

Instead of hating on big business, those occupiers could start their own business in making new sources of fuel!

If Steve Jobs could come up with personal computers and all his iStuff, someone who could make a more efficient energy source than what we got now could easily become rich!

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now!

I am paying back my college loans, and it would be nice if it all went away!

However, that money I borrowed for college didn't come for free!

It was a loan, which means the lending agencies lended me the money in hopes of getting the money back!

Let's put it this way - if you loaned your friend some $$$, but he/she didn't pay you back, would you lend it again?

HELL NO!

And that's how banks, credit unions and other lending agencies operate! If they didn't expect that money back, they wouldn't have EVER loaned the money! 

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies

Yeah, and do away with criminal background checks too yah!

I mean, if you got a history of not paying the money back, why should the banks loan you some more? The banks have to protect themselves!



4) Advantages of CapitalismAgain, we go back to capitalism. It is the system that produced many great things, but is resented by many! It is a flawed system, but in an imperfect world, it's the best one available.

Rich Lowry from the National Reviewhttp://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279453/jobs-rule-rich-lowry

In the form of the market, Jobs had a more exacting master than any government agency could ever devise. There was no guarantee that his genius would be rewarded. When he made missteps, he failed. The misbegotten Lisa desktop computer is a mere footnote in the obituaries. It didn’t live on in perpetuity, bailed out and propped up. When sales were disappointing in the 1980s, Jobs got ousted for a time from his own company.


Jobs wouldn’t be remembered if he hadn’t connected with customers, knowing what they’d want and caring about their needs. The difference between the private and public sectors couldn’t be captured more starkly than in the difference between Apple Stores and the post office — one sleek, up-to-date, and solicitous, the other charmless, antiquated, and sullen.

(skipped paragraphs)

The government can care for the needy; it can field a military and do much else besides. But it can’t dream. It can’t let its imagination run wild and pursue an individual vision with a ruthless determination. It can’t conjure new and profitable industries out of nothing. What we need to revive the economy over the long term is what the government can never create: Not just more jobs, but more people like Steve Jobs.

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Another tribute to Steve Jobs and capitalism


This one from Kevin D. Williamson http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/279321

I don’t know what Steve Jobs’s politics were, I don’t much care, and in any case they are beside the point. The late Mr. Jobs stood for something considerably better than politics. He stood for the model of the world that works.

(skipped over the images)

That old Motorola cinderblock would cost about $10,000 in 2011 dollars, and you couldn’t play Angry Birds on it or watch Fox News or trade a stock. Once you figure out why your cell phone gets better and cheaper every year but your public schools get more expensive and less effective, you can apply that model to answer a great many questions about public policy. Not all of them, but a great many.

my comments : Cell phones get smaller, cheaper, and more efficient because the business who make them want to continue being profitable!



Government bureacracies don't have any real incentives to be more efficient! Why should they? They're already paid for by taxpayers no matter what! And even if there's budget cuts, they'll just blame it on the "low taxes for the wealthiest 1%" instead of trying to be more cost-efficient



Anyways, back to Kevin D. Williamson's comments

Jobs was sometimes criticized for not being a philanthropist along the lines of Bill Gates.

(skipped paragraphs)

CNN, being CNN, misses the point. Mr. Jobs’s contribution to the world is Apple and its products, along with Pixar and his other enterprises, his 338 patented inventions — his work — not some Steve Jobs Memorial Foundation for Giving Stuff to Poor People in Exotic Lands and Making Me Feel Good About Myself. Because he already did that: He gave them better computers, better telephones, better music players, etc. In a lot of cases, he gave them better jobs, too. Did he do it because he was a nice guy, or because he was greedy, or because he was a maniacally single-minded competitor who got up every morning possessed by an unspeakable rage to strangle his rivals? The beauty of capitalism — the beauty of the iPhone world as opposed to the world of politics — is that that question does not matter one little bit.

My comments: It reminds me of this one time I was posting comments on a left-wing article that wanted higher taxes on oil. I pointed out higher taxes on oil will make it harder for families like mine. I mentioned that higher gas prices will make it harder for people like mother to drive my grandma around to buy neccessary supplies!

The other commenters said stuff like "so, the oil companies don't care about your grandma"

IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THE OIL COMPANIES CARE ABOUT MY FAMILY! 

THIS SO-CALLED CARING IS OVER-RATED ANYWAYS! If oil products makes it easier for people like my mother to take my grandma places, then that's good! EVEN IF THE OIL COMPANIES CARED MORE ABOUT PROFITS THAN HELPING FAMILIES!

This is not meant to defend everything oil companies do! 

It's meant to say that big businesses do contribute by making our lives convenient, even if they're doing so to make a quick buck!

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Back to Richardson:

Whatever drove Jobs, it drove him to create superior products, better stuff at better prices. Profits are not deductions from the sum of the public good, but the real measure of the social value a firm creates. Those who talk about the horror of putting profits over people make no sense at all. The phrase is without intellectual content. Perhaps you do not think that Apple, or Goldman Sachs, or a professional sports enterprise, or an Internet pornographer actually creates much social value; but markets are very democratic — everybody gets to decide for himself what he values. That is not the final answer to every question, because economic answers can satisfy only economic questions. But the range of questions requiring economic answers is very broad

My comments:

This is why I think's crazy for people to talk about "unaccountable corporations" and "we need a more democratic economic system".

Look, we have to wait 4 years to pick a president. Better than not having a choice!

But when it comes to choosing to buy products, you don't have to wait 4 years! You can make a choice now!

No one is forcing  you to buy an iPod! I still don't have one! But lot of people get great joy from iPods, so Steve Jobs make lot of money!

There's a Starbucks almost everywhere! I haven't been in one for YEARS! And the last time I did, I think I just bought a bottle of water! Coffee, expressos, cappuccinos, whatevers, DOESN'T appeal to me AT ALL!   I don't have to buy from Starbucks if I don't want to, even if they're on every corner!  And no, I don't buy from Starbuck's sister chain Jamba Juice either! I like Hawaiian Sun canned juices better!


So yes, it's EASY to avoid paying certain companies! Companies are accountable to their customers! If someone doesn't like McDonalds, they could easily switch to Burger King! No need to wait 4 years to do that!

Remember, it was only a few years ago when MySpace was the hottest thing! Sony was once the hottest thing in entertainment items! They got outshined! Their declining revenues are a way of being held accountable by the customers!

That is something the new CEO running Apple has to be aware of too! It's enough to have the hottest thing now! Someone can come up with something hotter! Only time will tell if Apple can continue strong in post-Jobs era!

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More Articles on Captialism and Steve Jobs
 
Capitalism has gotten a bad rep when it comes to health care! Rising insurance costs has gotten lower-income people worried!
 
But a more socialistic system does NOT live up to the hype!
 
There's tons of articles on that, but here's one relating to Steve Jobs
  http://townhall.com/columnists/johncgoodman/2011/10/08/thank_us_health_care_for_the_life_of_steve_jobs
 

On the very day that Steve Jobs died a new report suggests that the U.S. health care system is spending too much money on people near the end of their lives. The timing of the two events could not have been more ironic.



Had Jobs been under the care of the British National Health Service (NHS) or the Canadian Medicare system, he almost certainly would have died two years earlier. That would have been a major loss for the world, by anyone’s reckoning.


Here’s the back story. In 2004 Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He reportedly underwent successful surgery. Then, in 2009 he received a liver transplant. He died on Wednesday.


I haven’t seen Jobs’ medical records and I have made no real attempt to get the details about his medical condition. But for the point I want to make here, none of that really matters. Jobs’ case is interesting because of the issues it raises.


In most places in the world today a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer would be considered a death sentence. Aggressive treatment of the condition would be considered a poor use of medical resources — one involving considerable expense in return for only a few extra months of life. Perhaps Jobs’ cancer was of a rare variety that could be removed by surgery.


Even so, almost nowhere else in the world would a pancreatic cancer survivor be considered an appropriate candidate for a liver transplant. In Jobs’ case, the transplant apparently bought him only about two more years of life. In no other developed country would a patient get a liver transplant in order to live two more years.

(skipped paragraphs)

Plus, Jobs’ end-of-life care enabled him to keep pushing the envelope. Because of his never-ending devotion to innovation, we got the iPhone after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and the iPad after his liver transplant.

(in other words, in the supposedly "humane" systems of Canada and the UK, Steve Jobs would've been refused treatment, he would've died, we wouldn't have the iPad or iPhone)



----The policies that indirectly helped Steve Jobs (and many other entrepreneurs of his era)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203914304576628900383779840.html

The article mentioned captial gains tax cuts, changes in pension laws, and protections for intellectual property


-----On why economic freedom and capitalism is important for economic growth, written by John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204358004577032442153911170.html


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"Wealth isn't a Civil Right" by Larry Elder
http://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2011/11/24/hey,_occupy_wall_street_wealth_isnt_a_civil_right

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And this one is critical about Steve Jobs, about the way he mis-treated his employees. Just because he got away with it, doesn't mean you will. Learn more at
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/be-a-jerk-the-worst-business-lesson-from-the-steve-jobs-biography/249136/