猜燈謎

前美聯儲局主席格林斯平在位期間說話愛轉彎活角，華爾街希望從他的言論中猜測未來的利率變動，格老往往帶銀行家遊花園，在其自傳The Age of Turbulence中，格老打破慣例，用簡單的筆法述事和評論，令人欣喜，唯獨有一句特別難明: "There is little we can do to avoid the easing of disinflation." 但茶怪認為這句才是全書的精髓所在，正是格林斯平最想帶出的訊息，中文可以直譯為「要避免舒緩反通脹，我們可以做的不多。」究竟這句點解?

淫照罪

有關淫照風波，今期東周刊的社論引用聖經，茶怪覺得真有意思，聖經原文是這樣的:

文士和法利賽人帶著一個行淫時被拿的婦人來，叫他站在當中，就對耶穌說：「夫子，這婦人是正行淫之時被拿的。摩西在律法上吩咐我們把這樣的婦人用石頭打死。你說該把他怎麼樣呢？」他們說這話，乃試探耶穌，要得著告他的把柄。耶穌卻彎著腰，用指頭在地上畫字。他們還是不住的問他，耶穌就直起腰來，對他們說：「你們中間誰是沒有罪的，誰就可以先拿石頭打他。」於是又彎著腰，用指頭在地上畫字。他們聽見這話，就從老到少，一個一個的都出去了，只剩下耶穌一人，還有那婦人仍然站在當中。耶穌就直起腰來，對他說：「婦人，那些人在哪裡呢？沒有人定你的罪嗎？」他說：「主啊，沒有。」耶穌說：「我也不定你的罪。去吧，從此不要再犯罪了！」

A Rat Tale

The coming of the Year of the Rat has reminded me about an old book "Who moved my cheese", which depicts a tale about rats. A pair of rats, A and B, one day found a slice of cheese big enough for them to eat for quite a long time. The next few days, they came back and took their bite. All went fine until one day, for no reason, the cheese just disappeared. Rats A and B reacted differently. Rat A broke down and cried, moaning about his misery. He kept coming back, hoping to see the cheese again, but in vain day after day. Rat B forgot about the moved cheese and go ahead to look for new food somewhere else. In the end, Rat B found another cheese while Rat A remained in his bad patch. Simple a story that it is, the book has sold millions of copies. It makes a worthy point -- don't trap yourself in the past, always look forward. Wish you have a wonderful new year.

New era, what new era

Every time a major boom of the stock market nears an end, commentators come up with a new theory that claims the arrival of a "new era", which reflects human being's desire to defeat recession for good. Just before the market crash in 1929, famous economist Irving Fisher did that, announcing that the then newly established Federal Reserve in the U.S. would do the job. By the market meltdown in 2000, it was the information technology that acted the one-time hero. The 2007 version was taken over by the theory of decoupling. With "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" being an economic principle, the market rule should be: "There ain't no such thing as a 'new era'". A good thing about Chinese calendar is that it reminds us of the cycling of the nature. The family of twelve animals takes turn. Now, it is rat that is coming back. Unfortunately, Western calendar adds cardinal numbers -- 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and so on, as if time mindlessly shuttles us toward unmanned space of the universe.