BRIC markets

(Article from: CNN Money/BRIC Markets Left in the Dust by Charles Riley

http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/04/investing/bric-markets/index.html?hpt=ibu_c2)

"In China, GDP growth could drop below 7.5% this year as the government seeks to implement structural reforms. Brazil, meanwhile, has been hit hard by political unrest, and the real has come under pressure. Russia's economy had a bad second quarter as investment slowed and export demand dried up." ------ BRIC Markets Left in the Dust          

Today I read an article from CNN about the economic situations of BRIC countries. It claimed that BRIC countries might not be the best market to invest now. Accordind to the negative indexes in the following picture, the BRIC countries are having a hard tome developing their economics. (Brazil's Bovespa index, Russia's Micex, Mumbai's Sensex of India, and Shanghai Composite of China)

Political unrest and slowing economies have sent investors fleeing the BRICS. (picture from CNN)

      The speaker (Sean Darby, chief global equity strategist at Jefferies) in the article mentioned that it is common to see a country to slow down after rapid development. Investors are scared of the outflow from the four countries recent months, some of them decided to give up and transfer their money to other markets. It will be another disaster for the four countries because they lose the hope they count on. At this moment, it seems like it is safer to invest money in the other developing countries.

Time to start working

      It was so hard for me to make up my mind and started to type my first blog article. I started this really late but I am planning to do one blog post each day in order to catch up the pace. Writing blog can be actually fun, it is just like writing diary but make it public so that everyone can know what is in my mind. At first, I couldn't come up with any topics to write about but after a week of observation, I realized there are so many things to write about and can wait to keep typing the next one.
      Today morning I was regretting about writing all the homework on the last day. I was so nervous that I could not finish it on time; my hands are sweating and my mind was spinning so fast that it might have exploded. Luckily I finished five of them on time. I could never imagine I can do so much work in one day. Seriously, it was a horrible experience and I will not try it again. Starting from next week, I will be finishing all my Wordly Wise books and the other homework. It is going to be a productive month.

Learning through hand-working

   I came to California about a week ago to participate the business Academy for Youth summer camp. The Bay area is such a nice place; there's sun that shines with not-pressing warmness and breeze with cool but not cold or dry touches. The weather is so nice that I am afraid I might cannot adapt to Taiwan's capricious climate when I go back.
   I really enjoyed this one class I took in this program; the one about leadership and entrepreneurship.
   The professor brought in 39 boxes with them and put them on the front floor without informing us what is inside the box. I was really curious about the boxes but I did not ask about them because I was too shy. The professor started the class with a card game. I should have be braver in participating the game. If I spoke up and took the podium to state my idea, I might have earned a recommendation from the professor, instead of frustrating about myself, I learnt the important concept "opportunities are for prepared people".
   After the card game, the professor started to demonstrating the second game --- the game that involved the 39 mystery boxes. In the boxes, there's Lagos with different shapes. From this game, I learnt there is always a gap between the boss and the labor, I did not quite get my boss's description of the shape through the manager so I did pretty badly, nevertheless, I learnt a lot about communication.
   I like to learn knowledge or concepts through games or pictures other than merely description. Often I found myself lost in the words and could not get the true meaning of the author and sometimes, even worse, got the opposite notion. Through games, I can easily understand the concepts because they became a lively performer in front of me, demonstrating themselves for me. Learning through hand working (games particularly) made me feel less stressed and feel more familiar just like I was in kindergarten.

The Conflict in Egypt

Articles from CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/04/world/meast/egypt-coup/index.html

                             http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/04/morsy-arrested-muslim-
                             brotherhood-spokesman-says/?iref=allsearch

Two days ago, a violent incident happened in Egypt. 
The first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsy, was ousted by Egypt's top persecutors. Morsy was first kept in house arrest and then moved to the Ministry of Defense, said the spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, the group against the top prosecutor's coup toward Morsy. The Brotherhood then decided to occupy the street on Friday to express their anger toward the military's action. However, on Thursday the Brotherhood's leader, Mohamed Badei was arrested and led to the violent incident; over 100 people (including 2 children) and 35 people was dead. 
According to the Military in Egypt, Morsy failed the expectation of people who voted him so their action was appropriate and was a "correction of the uprising of 2011". Morsy's approval ratings did plummeted after his election but arresting Brotherhood member to stop the demonstration seemed to be a bad idea. 
The coup divided millions of people in Egypt, there must be more details and conflicts between the democratic and military group in Egypt that I cannot understand. Nevertheless, I can tell from the news and Egypt's stance as a gas-producing country that the gas price will raise and many consequences will effect our life.

Protesters opposing Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi take part in a protest demanding that Mursi resign at Tahrir Square in Cairo July 1, 2013 (picture from International Business Times/ Jacay Fortin)

Bombing and Attacks in Iraq

Article from: BBC News/ Iraq crisis: Dozens killed in day of Iraq attacks (news on 10, June)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22838865

I was feeling so lucky to born in a safe society where people protests in peaceful ways. In Iraq, there are some people who express their hatred toward the government with severe methods such as suicide bombing that this article mentioned. It is hard for Iraqis to develop their economy wholeheartedly while their life is in danger and might be taken away in the next minutes. The local farmer who spoke to the news agency could be one of the casualties if he was at the bombing point. Innocent people were killed in this chaos; parents lost their children or children was orphaned because of the action. If the government were to find a better way to communicate with the civilians or the radicals could find a way that could grab more of the government's attention, there would be less casualty and could create a more stable society. However, this requires many years of efforts and there's not much for me as an outsider can do. At this moment, we can only provides aids for those innocent people who lost their home in these uprisings. 

Cities that were attacked (picture from BBC)