Diary Entry

29 September 2016

Dear Diary,

My wife is not at home today and I am taking care of my two kids. My son has home based learning and my daughter refused to go to school in the morning. But we managed to convince her after 20 minutes.

Today will be a long day, I have to meet an analyst later and I have to fix the car as well. The car tire had punctured and had been in the car park for four days. In the evening I have to cook dinner as well.

I will do my best. I CAN DO IT!

JJsienceadventure

Portsnap Todo, Trade Sep 16

1. B DIS @ 92, 130 shr
2. B RB/ @ 7218, 100 shr
3. B DB1 @7218, 150 shr
4. S Fairwood @ 36.95, 2k shr
5. Top Up CPF 2k (5k more)
6. Paid 385,989,056 VND @ 22300 USD
(c.$23556 or US$17300)


Todo

1. top up cpf J,K,M
2. PS -> SCB 50
3. Saxo deploy 50
4. SRS J -> UOB, RFMD

6. Sale
a. XMBR 5k (Joint)
b. 1088 H
c. QAF
d. AMVIG
e. Genting
f. BATS
g. Release JCNC

h. 20 JPY @ 72
i. pay down 15m @ Citi @ 85

Myanmar Jade Trade

Much of the jadeite which delighted the 19th-century Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi and still pleases her modern compatriots comes from Myanmar, whose “imperial jade” is the world’s most valuable and is highly sought-after for its near-transparent emerald-green hues. (Jadeite, which is rare, comes from Myanmar; what is thought of as Chinese jade is in fact the more common nephrite.)

But the grandeur of China’s Imperial Palace is a far cry from the mining towns in northern Myanmar. Here the ye ma say (hand-pickers) scratch a living in difficult conditions, searching for jadeite through waste dumped by mining companies on the blackened hills of the world’s largest jadeite mining region, Hpakant, in Kachin state. Whatever they find, they sell back to traders and miners.

According to a 2015 report on Myanmar’s jade trade from campaigning organisation Global Witness, most of the jadeite extracted from Hpakant is smuggled to China to avoid tariffs. Global Witness’ investigations into the undeclared value of the trade in Myanmar have suggested it may be as high as $31bn annually — half of the country’s GDP, or 46 times government spending on healthcare. At the annual jade emporium in 2014, a single boulder of it was given a reserve price of €60m, according to an unpublished report.

In June, in a case that gained international attention, a group of jade traders alleged that senior officials in previous governments had colluded with powerful business interests to appropriate $96m from a levy on the annual jade auction. The government launched a probe, which quickly found that the officials, including a former Navy commander and minister, acted within the law.

Juman Kubba, a senior campaigner with Global Witness, says the industry remains a “black box” and that “simply saying there is ‘no corruption’ is not good enough”.

Kyaw Kyaw Oo, chairman of the KIC Group, which operates jade businesses and was one of those complaining to the government, says the evidence is there if officials bother to look. “Here in front of me I have a lot of receipts detailing how the money was spent. If you check the details of how this money was spent you will see how it was misused,” he says. The Financial Times has seen translations of these receipts, which suggest politicians and industrialists took the fund’s money.

Very little of the revenue from jadeite has made its way into the local economy. According to the World Bank, the biggest producers are Chinese-owned front companies (foreign ownership is illegal) and the majority of buyers fly in from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Until last year there were no customs duties on jade, and there are already methods for avoiding the 30 per cent levy on rough gemstone exports introduced last year. To avoid taxes, mines may register the stones, but at deflated prices, before selling the jade on to shell companies. A chaotic shadow economy, the jade business is permeated by corruption and ties to ethnic conflict and warlordism, Global Witness says. It estimates $6.2bn in mine site tax was lost in 2014.

The state regulator, the Myanmar Gems Enterprise, has announced that permits for more than 300 jade and gem blocks will expire this month and a moratorium on new permits was declared in July.

Also of concern to transparency groups is the use of so-called “other accounts” by the MGE to amass revenues with no public scrutiny. Myanmar’s first EITI report showed the MGE retained over half of the official gemstone revenues — more than $200m — in these accounts, which Mr Salomon called a “modest estimate”. The real figure amassed in its accounts, he says, is likely far in excess of $650m.

Mr Kyaw Kyaw of the KIC Group says that transparency measures have to be enforced while Chinese demand remains high. “There needs to be punishment for people who break the law. But without the army and police’s help, we cannot make this work. If they participate and support this action, then, perhaps, things will change.”

Australia gambling

“At first they were a bit of fun,” said Seselja, who sought help after almost joining the estimated 400 Australians with gambling-related problems who commit suicide every year. “It’s so normalized in Australia. There’s machines on just about every street corner.”

About one in six Australians who play regularly has a serious addiction and loses on average about A$21,000 a year, according to government data. The social cost of gambling to the community is estimated to be at least A$4.7 billion a year.

“Most customers are consenting adults happy to be entertained, and are educated enough to know what their odds are,” Hill said, adding his club’s machines are programmed to cost gamblers an average 8 cents of every dollar played.

The first spin elicits a release of dopamine in the same way as a drug affects an addict, said Charles Livingstone, a lecturer at the School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne. Then any wins trigger more surges of the hormone, he said.

“Getting onto the machine and starting to use it provides an anticipatory rush,” said Livingstone, who has studied gambling and its effects for 20 years. “The lack of notice for when a prize actually arrives is also part of the thrill. People find it extremely difficult to give up gambling and often turn to help only when they’ve exhausted all of their funds.’’

As many as 500,000 people in Australia either have a gambling problem or risk developing one and slot machines pose the biggest risk, the government estimates. Problem gamblers can lose around A$21,000 a year each, it says.

Pushing for more protective legislation, some lawmakers gathered in Sydney on Tuesday to urge gaming addicts and industry insiders to tell their stories. Pokies use “misleading strategies” to hook “vulnerable and stressed Australians,” Greens Senator Larissa Waters said.

The most successful slot machines condition humans to behave in a certain way, the 2010 inquiry by the government’s Productivity Commission found. The commission drew comparisons with work on animals by Harvard professor Skinner in the mid-20th century.

‘Pathological Gambler’

Skinner trained a pigeon in a box to peck a disc to receive food. He found that if food appeared intermittently, rather than after each peck, the pigeon would repeatedly tap the disc in anticipation. He argued this system of random rewards was at the heart of gambling and a pigeon could become a “pathological gambler” in the same way as a person.

Kate Seselja was once one of them. A recovering gambling addict from Murrambateman in rural New South Wales, Seselja says she felt hypnotized by pokies and spent more than A$500,000 on the machines.  

“You keep pressing the buttons whether you’re winning or losing,” she said. “It sounds laughable, but I fooled myself into believing there was skill in playing.”

Stay out of box

by seeing people as they are
show care and concern
see people as people not as objects
or tools
help them find their happiness

Portsnap Todo

Todo

1. top up cpf 50 J
2. PS -> SCB 50
3. Saxo deploy 50
4. EUR 30 -> DB1
5. GBP -> RB/ or WPP
6. SRS J -> UOB, RFMD

7. Sale
a. XMBR 5k (Joint)
b. 1088 H
c. QAF
d. AMVIG
e. Genting
f. BATS
g. Release JCNC

h. 20 JPY @ 72
i. pay down 15m @ Citi @ 85