WSJ Notes

Numbers — B4

Ke Han — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:18:30 +0000

Unique email users in August (thousand):

Facebook: 69,256, 348% change from a year earlier

Gmail: 82,921, 64%

MySpace: 105,716, 33%

Hotmail: 255,342, 9%

Yahoo Mail: 254,942, -1%

AOL email: 49,561, -9%

US game console sales in August:

Nintendo Wii: 404,000

Microsoft XBox 360: 277,000

Sony PlayStation 3: 131,000

China’s Stellar Aviation-Safety Record

Ke Han — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:54:36 +0000

“No Chinese jetliner has crashed since the 2004 Batou tragedy, even though China’s aviation is growing so fast that its airlines have flown more than 8.5 million hours since then. Statistically, that amounts to the best safety performance in the world in the past three years.”

China has its bad time in 90′s and earlier this decade. But with top-down mandates, aggressive enforcement, and expert advice from airplane manufactures like Boeing changed that.

Revenue and PROFITS from China

Ke Han — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 04:35:03 +0000

Western companies have long viewed China as a strategically important market. But “strategically important” often implies big things in the future, but profitless for now. They all believed the scale and depth of China’s market, but had no idea how and when they can generate profits from it. That was the popular view in late 90′s. In a 1998 survey, one third of multinationals were losing money in China, and another quarter of them were barely making even.

Now it’s a totally different story. The latest survey says 83% of the surveyed companies’ China operations were profitable in 2006. At the mean time, 58% of the companies enjoyed an increased profit from China.

Here’s an extreme example. The Yum Brands, which owns KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants would report an operating loss if not counting the $65 millions operating profits from China. People at KFC certainly know better how strategically important a market China is now.

Poor Lawyers?!

Ke Han — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 03:42:45 +0000

lawyers making $50000 a year? Complaining about their law education was a total waste? That might be true if the JD was coming from a second-tier law school with not so outstanding academic performance.

The First Parking Meter –B1

Ke Han — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:26:49 +0000

The first parking meter was installed in 1935 in Oklahoma City. Before that, parking on the street is free in cities. However, as more cars pouring in, it’s becoming chaotic. Finding a parking space on the street is often impossible. Some merchants deliberately parked their cars in front of competitors’ stores to stop costumers dropping by. Large cities began banning street parking at downtown areas. But the regulation brought severe damage to the business district. Shoppers wouldn’t even walk a few blocks from their cars to a store. In 1932, the Oklahoma City tried to figure a way out this chaos. A local newspaper editor, Carl Magee invented the park-o-meter. First meter was installed in July, 1935. People found it hard to believe that they had to pay to park on the street, after they had paid all kinds of taxes to the government. Probably for fun and to protest, two couples set up a folding table and four chairs in a parking space, deposited a nickel in the meter and played a rubber of bridge.

ORGANIC … Lawns –P1

Ke Han — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 22:57:07 +0000

Drink the organic milk, have the organic salad, and now wear your organic T-shirt and mow your organic lawn…

For lawns, “going organic” means getting grass and soil healthy enough to crowd out weeds and pests without pesticides (A herbicide is a pesticide targeting plants; an insecticide kills insects). Organic movement advocates believe pesticides are brought into houses and left in carpets via shoe soles and pet feet. Last year, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that individuals reporting exposure to pesticides had a 70% higher incidence of Parkinson’s disease than those not reporting exposure. Similar conclusion can be found in a Mayo Clinic report last year.

Can’t wait for dumping the pesticides? Make sure you want to pay for the higher price. The organic solutions are typically twice as expensive as the traditional lawn cares. And what’s even worse, you have to live with a few weeds on your lawn. Chemical pesticide is still the best to get rid of weeds. Natural corn-gluten herbicide are not as effective.

Bridge Loans — C1

Ke Han — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:57:08 +0000

How the deal get done in private equity buyouts?

Private equity firms make an offer to buy a company, taking it private
The company shareholders approve the deal and it closes.
Private equity firms use short-term bridge loans from banks to pay off shareholders.
Together private equity firms and their bankers make a plan to sell the bonds to investors to pay back the bridge loan.
Now, investors who buy these bonds are pushing back, refusing to buy bonds with features that make them riskier and benefit the private equity firm.

Your Mortgage, Their Business

Ke Han — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 23:41:40 +0000

You, the borrower, work with a broker or directly with a lender to get a home-purchase loan or a refinancing.
- Get: money needed for a house purchase or cash from refinancing.
- If the loan goes bad: house can be repossessed
Broker: Finds a lender who can close the loan. They usually have a working arrangement with multiple lenders.
- Get: Takes fees for doing the preliminary sales and paperwork.
- If the loan goes bad: May get cut from lender’s approved broker list.
Lender: Often funds loan via ‘warehouse’ line of credit from investment bank. Then sells loan to investment bank.
- Get: Take up-front fees for making the loan
- If the loan goes bad: Can be forced to take back loan if there’s an early default or documentation is questionable.
Investment Bank: Package the loans into a mortgage-backed bond deal, often known as a securitization. Sells the securitization sorted by risk to investors. Lower-rated slices take the first defaults when mortgages go bad, but offer higher returns.
- Get: Collects fees for packaging the loans into bond deal
- If the loan goes bad: May push back loan to lender, or be forced to eat any loss.
Investors: Choose what to buy based on their appetites for risk and reward.
- Get: Earn intesests on the bonds and absorb any gain or loss in price of the bond.
- If the loan goes bad: May have legal recourse against bank if they can show the quality of the loan or loan documentation was misrepresented.

Meet American Millionaires

Ke Han — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:21:17 +0000

They account for 2% US adult population

45% are women.

16% live in California, 9% in New York and 7% in Florida.

They’re most common in Connecticut, where they account for 3.2% of the adult population.

Castes in India –front page

Ke Han — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 00:03:10 +0000

Rooted in Hinduism, India’s complex caste system includes 3000 castes and 25000 sub-castes, all traditionally related to occupation. They fall under four basic “varnas” or categories:

BRAHMINS: priests, scholars and teachers. Famous members include: Jawaharlal Nehru, first president of independent India; Rahul Dravid, captain of India’s cricket team.
KSHATRIYAS: warriors and rules. Famous members include: Vasundhara Raje Scindia, chief minister of the India state of Rajasthan.
VAISHYAS: traders. Famous members include:Lakshmi Mittal, chief executive of Arcelor Mittal steel company; Mohandas Gandhi, Independence leader, the “father of the nation”.
SUDRAS: manual workers and servants
and the DALITS: formly known as ‘Untouchables,’ Dalits perform unpleasant jobs like cleaning or leather tanning. Famous members include: KR Narayanan, former president of India; BR Ambedkar, political leader and chief architect of the India constitution.