Can human civilization now do away with competition?

Haven’t we reached a stage where competition among humans is detrimental to our quality of life and even existence?
We, as in all humans in all countries of the world, should now cooperate on distributing our abundant wealth and resources, rather than having it end up mostly in the hands of a few.

6 Criteria for Selecting Stocks

Dr. Tan Chong Koay's investment philosophy: Be fully invested near the bottom and trimmed near the peak. But should never be fully invested at all times.

Dr. Tan is one of Malaysia's eminent value investor, having managed several award winning funds under his company Pheim Asset Management.

He select stocks based on the following criteria:
1. focused management
2. high earnings growth potential
3. attractive profit margins
4. strong balance sheet with low gearing
5. market leadership in growth industries
6. reasonable valuation

His book Rising Above Financial Storms can be bought from local bookstores.

The Triumph of Democracy!

A Question on Quora: Isn't the Brexit a proof that democracy may not produce the best decisions? Does the Brexit vote illustrate the failings of direct democracy?

The answer by Ozgur Zeren:

Best decision for whom?

For the lucky minority middle and upper middle classes in London, its a horrible decision.

Its a horrible decision for the multinational financial interests who were using London as a backdoor to do whatever they want in EU free market without having to obey many of its regulations.

But for the working class in counties? Whose jobs were indeed being taken over by immigrant labor from EU free market as immigrants are willing to work for lower wages until they set up a family or bring their own? No argument of ‘doing your job better’ can be used in that case to argue against it.

Neoliberal free markets do not enable free roaming of labor just to provide variety in workforce. It is done to lower labor costs by attracting immigration. EU free roaming of labor is no different.

This could have been tolerable for the working class in Britain’s rural areas, if the same neoliberal governments who were bestowing the benefits of a 500 million people free roaming labor pool to their corporate backers weren’t also crippling, cutting, killing and privatizing social services, benefits, healthcare and education. These are the only things which can cushion the impact of frequent job loss waves in a neoliberal free market - for locals and immigrant alike. But all of these had been going away, to provide for tax breaks and benefits to very corporations that enjoy a big and cheap labor market - mainly a clique concentrated around Westminster.

So?

Lose your job, lose your benefits, your children lose their free education, they are even trying to cut pensions?

What is there to show for the working class in regard to benefits of EU?

Going to Paris every few years for a short vacation easily? Except they can’t since they don’t have the money.

Going to work abroad in Poland, Italy or Greece? Except there aren’t jobs there - they are coming to Britain or Germany.

EU rules and regulations protecting Britain from total destruction by multinational corporations? It’s already there, since Britain pushed so many exceptions and exemptions for itself.

Thus, working classes voted properly in accordance with their interests per democracy. That their interests do not overlap with the interests of the luckier segments which favored remain, does not make exiters’ choice any less valid.

Incidentally, Scotland voted to remain as well - but thanks to a strong social democratic political spectrum (mainly SNP) protecting Scots from most of the neoliberal disaster that Tories brought upon England and Wales as SNP protected Scotland’s NHS, social programs, social services, Scottish working class is not feeling the pain as much as the English working class.

…………

Arguments can be made regarding how Britain’s export market will shrink, economy will get a hit, pound will fall, and many things.

However, if you think realistically, few of these have any relevance to working class in the shires. They are unemployed, they are losing their social services, free education, benefits,anyway.

And the ~100 billion something pounds which was lost in financial markets in London has little relevance to them - they did not have any stake in that money, and that extremely-financialized virtual economy had little to do with actual jobs in the shires anyway.

………

So its the ages old neoliberal conundrum - implement free trade zones, free roaming labor to make use of cheap labor, provide tax breaks to your corporations by cutting social services, financialize the economy and make fast trillions while cutting actual investment in physical goods and services, turn a country into scorched land…

…then complain about democracy when people do not agree with what you are doing.

French aristocracy who were out of touch with their own nation just before French Revolution comes to mind. They were unable to understand why those rowdy, uneducated, ignorant masses were restless. It was so inexplicable. That the luxury and comforts they were enjoying were not a reality outside their minority circle escaped them to great extent, and they couldnt get into touch with the reality outside their world either.

And no, the percentage of educated, multilingual young population which is able to leave their own land and work abroad in Europe somewhere, having voted to remain does not make an argument. They constitute the lower recesses of the privileged class, the free education system which enabled them with that education despite their parents’ meager means is going away. And the fact that they have to go abroad to be able to find jobs instead of finding one in Britain tells volumes about the situation for the ordinary man in Britain a lot by itself.

……..

First thing to understand about democracy is that your reality, your experience, your situation may not be shared by others. And no amount of reinforcing of any bias by corporate media or established institutions changes that.

Investment ideas

👉Silver
👉Driverless cars as a disruptor
- Dominic Frisby

👉Japan -Rising buybacks, the promise of more money printing, and a market that’s widely disliked
- John Stepek

👉Positive on European equities
- Amundi

Solution for a better world

How much money does one person need to live comfortably? Let's assume it's $10m.
Once a person's assets has reached that amount it should be capped.
Any additional income should be given to the company's shareholders or kept as its reserves.
The income to the person should be given just enough to maintain his net worth at the capped value.
By limiting eveybody's assets to $10m, wealth can be distributed more equally to society, thus benefiting everyone.
No one gets to hoard massive amounts of wealth. Improvement in productivity should benefit the whole society not just to make a few filthy rich.

A manifesto against all forms of war

War where lives are lost by physical aggression and armed conflict is denounced these days, so the world has generally been peaceful this century, except for acts of terrorism.
But doesn't everyone realize that there are other forms of war- trade war, currency war, cyber war. Even competition can be seen as a form of war. The casualties suffer from a loss of quality in life (e.g. end up poorer), and it is not undamaging either to the winners. When competition is stiff, what does it take to become the winner? Blood, sweat and tears. More time spent at work instead of with one's family. How can work life balance be achieved then?
Why don't more people denounce all these forms of war instead of just the physical kind?

Investment ideas

👉Gold. Central banks put money in everyone's bank account so prices go up.
👉You do not want to hold long-term bonds when inflation expectations start to ramp up.
👉The last time people hated the banks this much, they went up for four years straight
- Jared Dillian

👉Oil long term 5 year trade with BHP Billiton as proxy tracking WTIC - - Dominic Frisby

👉until inflation reaches the point where the Fed can’t just ignore it or shrug it off, it’ll be happy to keep rates at a level where they don’t rattle markets. 
👉Continue favour Europe and Japan
👉 bets on a weaker dollar this yearwhich suggests that emerging markets, commodities and gold trades remain good bets for 2016.
- John Stepek