The Great Unraveling

Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Great Unraveling

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Op-Ed Columnist, NY Times Opinion
Published: December 16, 2008

Hong Kong

The stranger, a Western businessman, slipped into the chair next to me at an Asia Society lunch here in Hong Kong and asked me a question that I can honestly say I’ve never been asked before: “So, just how corrupt is America?”

His question was occasioned by the arrest of the Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff on charges of running a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of billions of dollars, but it wasn’t only that. It’s the whole bloody mess coming out of Wall Street — the financial center that Hong Kong moneymen had always looked up to. How could it be, they wonder, that such brand names as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and A.I.G. could turn out to have such feet of clay? Where, they wonder, was our Securities and Exchange Commission and the high standards that we had preached to them all these years? ......

Readers' Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
Read All Comments (355) »

No comments:

Post a Comment

WELCOME TO MY BLOG SITE - HAPPY NEW YEAR OF 2009!

STANDARD PUTONGHUA 标准普通话 . OFFICIAL HAN4 YU3 官方汉语 . AUTHENTIC CHINESE MANDARIN 正宗京话

- Tutoring from an experienced, reliable, professional, patient and fun to be instructor
and private tutor -

Class levels: beginning - intermediate - advanced

Programs: vary - relaxed or intensive

Student ages: no requirement

Schedules: flexible - days, evenings, weekends

Locations: NW of WDC, VA & MD metro area, at a mutually agreeable location, or your or my home

Rates: Vary - depends on the location, time, the length of the class, capacity of the class/student and how customized to fit the student's specific needs - group to one-on-one, $20 / $35 / $ 50 per hour

Class contents offered:

1) Languages:
- listening, speaking, writing, reading, debating, translating, interpreting ->
2) Culture/Language:
- universal daily dialogs; business Chinese; diplomatic Chinese; tourism Chinese; journalism Chinese; legal Chinese; tax/tax law/IRS Chinese and many others in subjects - you name it

Calligraphy (Chinese Brush Writing):

- 楷书 Kai3 Shu1 (level 1)
- 行书 Xing2 Shu1 (level 2)
- 隶书 Li4 Shu1
- 篆书 Zhuan4 Shu1

- (for details, please look at my post of "Chinese Calligraphy")

Han Ban's Mandarin Chinese Proficiency Certificates Preparation:

- for students passing the tests from Children level to Adult level in receipt of the authentic proficiency certificates on YCT, HSK and BCT from Beijing, China, recognized by the world.

_____________________________
My contact information: please click = : )))
__________________________

INCOME TAX RETURN PREPARATION - AFFORDABLE RATES / DETAILS-ORIENTED
Personal or Small Business (local tri-states or anywhere in the US, including international ones)

* I have been prerared income tax return proficiently in last eight (8) years for both personal or small business (solo or individual can be classified as small business too).

* Please contact me for affordable rates in this tax return season - mine is lower than those agencies. I normally offer 25% less than those popular agencies. But I certainly provide much better and reliable services.

* I am a very detailed person, I've read and researched many tax return laws, codes and rules, as well as books in the past, I will help you maximize your refund or minimize your tax liabilities. I've handled some very difficulty returns even those agencies or accountants or CPAs can't handle - either incapable or just don't want to handle: too difficult & too time-consuming, or too "little".

* Days, evenings, and weekends, flexible schedules to meet

* Make appointment by e-mail or by phone. Please feel free to tell me what do you need, and what's your situation and requirements. I'll certainly give you consultations or recommendations.

* Please refer to my post on Friday, December 28, 2007 for further details.

____________________________
My contact information: please click -> : )))
______________________________

* For more information, please visit my other links as Archives below to connect you to each post, or just visit the text (clicking "home" in the bottom of each post will take you to the entire posts) to your left to learn more about my programs and offers - I frequently replace pictures in this site to have visitors or potential students to share my joy of delivering Chinese culture and language to audience like you, and my deep appreciation to your enthusiasm of learning authentic foreign tones like Chinese from here.

*I am a very ethical, reliable and professional person in life - therefore you will expect from me as a Chinese tutor with top qualities.

* I have a pleasant voice - a "soothing tone", commented by others, I would modestly ommit other good comments here - for which I believe it will make you an enjoyment when you learn authentic Chinese Mandarin with me.

* I am a low-key, down to earth, and fun-to-be tutor, hence you will expect and experience a low pressured, relexed, and enjoyable learning environment from me to lead you graduately reach the next level. I will direct you to climb this "mountain" without you even feeling "too hard" - that's the secrets of my tutoring methodologies applied. I wouldn't release them to this site anywhere at all - my "trademark": you can patent your unique ideas for making profits. I would value the test of my student's learning: if someone follows me in a couple of months then obtained much higher returns than from anywhere else, then this is a success of my "patented" ideas.

* Finally, I would strongly encourage you to visit my links above for my credential, methodologies and result-oriented rules, and testimonials with facts sheet 1 & 2 and so on.

-----------------------------------

Advantages of taking class or tutorials from a private tutor:

1) no application or registration fee is applied - it can be a $50 or $75 or more burden added to the top of your hard earned money.

2) no middle man is involved to exploit teacher which will make private tutor/instructor more motivated.

3) private tutor will better understand each individual student's needs, and more flexible to adjust to student's schedules and unexpected personal urgencies.

4) private tutor can be elastic to student's programs and therefore, the rates.

5) private tutor/instructor is more willing to adopt the changes of location requested by students, but not agencies which normally require students come to their offices.

6) agency's teacher/tutor's turnover rate is very high which will make student's study inconstancy and inconsistency due to the reasons above given. It's easier for private tutor to keep the returned students, since tutor normally knows a specific student's life cycle of study pattern, habit, individual preference, progress, personal development and future plans.

7) regarding the agency's high turnover rate: no one can work one or two hours by being paid low (some agencies' given figures are even really low - you just can't image) at tutor's own traveling expenses and by suffering valuable time on the roads in this area's awful traffic jams during the businese workdays or/and hours, or sacrifying tutor's personal enjoyment in weekends or/and evenings.

_____________________________

My contact information: please click = : )))__________________________

Tutorial In Chinese Language - Culture - Calligraphy

---------------------------------------

- Washington Post August 2006 A report : People are finally beginning to pay attention to Mandarin Chinese as a major cultural and economic prospect for students. Parents want their children to have an edge, and they see Chinese as helping them get that. I’ve heard from people who say: “Forget the engineering. Learn the foreign language. If you want a job, the foreign language is going to sell your engineering”.

---------------------

- CNN Report: Expert: New 'must learn' language likely to be Mandarin

Share of people who are native English speakers declining Monday, March 1, 2004 Posted: 2:58 AM EST (0758 GMT)

A multi-lingual population is already the case in much of the world and is becoming more common in the United States. Indeed, the Census Bureau reported last year that nearly one American in five speaks a language other than English at home, with Spanish leading, and Chinese growing fast.

Graddol, of the British consulting and publishing business The English Company, anticipates a world where the share of people who are native English speakers slips from 9 percent in the mid-twentieth century to 5 percent in 2050. As of 1995, he reports, English was the second most-common native tongue in the world, trailing only Chinese.

By 2050, he says, Chinese will continue its predominance, with Hindi-Urdu of India and Arabic climbing past English among 15-to-24 year olds, and Spanish nearly equal to it. Graddol said he focused on the 15- to 24-year-old group in 2050 to give an indication of the future past that point.

---------------------

- Teacher Says: Foreign Language Hosted by Evelyn Vuko Washington Post Education Columnist Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2002; Noon ETJoin Post "Teacher Says" columnist Evelyn Vuko and her guest, Nancy Rhodes, Director of Foreign Language Education at the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, D.C., to talk about when and how to teach children foreign languages.

When, Where and How Young to Teach Foreign Language?

Nancy Rhodes: One of the reasons that school districts wait until middle school or high school to start teaching foreign language is because of the teacher shortage. But you're right. Some educators don't see the need to start teaching languages in the early grades. From my perspective, the earlier the better. Those who start early have a leg up on those who start later.

Madison WI: What method(s) would you recommend for adults who wish to learn a new language?

Nancy Rhodes: I would recommend as intensive a program as possible. Possibly start with weekly classes in town, and then, if possible, attend a summer intensive program (like those at Middlebury or Dartmouth) where you have to sign a pledge that you will only speak the foreign language the entire time you're there. Those intensive experiences really help a lot. Then, if you have the resources, travel abroad and sign up with a language study program where you can live with a local family, speak the foreign language with the family, and attend classes at a local language school.

_________________________
My contact information: please click here or the ad I listed above in the bottom of favorite links of this column

Email this ad to a friend Share this ad
_________________________

Chinese - Fever

Saturday, March 14, 2009