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It's amazing to see herd thinking when almost all online commenters say "Trump wants Venezuelan oil". I responded to someone the fallacy of Trump wanting Venezuelan oil with an economy of words by simply saying "Brent crude is US$60 a barrel and Venezuelan crude is about US$15". The retort was "What's wrong with buying cheap oil?" - a brush-off without reference to any context.  I have been told contrarian thinking signals intelligence if there is independent analysis, pattern recognition and predictive insight. Before jumping into the bandwagon, one ought to ask around about the economics of oil production. KEY CONCEPTS IN OIL PRODUCTION Liftimg cost (production or operating cost) This is the cash cost to extract 1 bbl of crude oil - these are direct cost such as wages, power, maintenance, chemicals etc. Full-cycle breakeven (All-in cost) Includes lifting cost + capex + taxes + royalties + debt service Fiscal breakeven This i...

A Facebook troller of mine simply threw this 'one chart that beats them all" on his page, apeing Michael Bury's conviction of China's massive power generation capacity alone determines the eventual winner. There is no doubt AI is an electricity guzzler, but this is a black-and-white world view manifested in this black-and-white chart. Much of the debate about the AI Race is confused because it assumes a single finish line. In reality, AI development spans multiple dimensions - intelligence depth and deployment scale - each with different constraints, costs and political requirements. What does winning even mean? The answer is not forthcoming unless you have defined the parameters of the race. 100M, 100M HURDLES, 100M RELAY RACES An analogy of track races will make the point of this article clear. We do not decide the winner by inventorying resources, but by deciding who crosses the finishing line first under the rules of the events. ...

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all my friends Tis being the season, I like to write something about the special day that 31% of the world's population bow to a little Jewish baby. How great is it, that the day of the birth of the baby splits history into half? Pre-Christ is BC and post-Christ is AD (I refuse to use BCE and CE). So supposedly, Christ birthday would be 25 Dec 0000. We all know he was not born on 25 Dec. It's just the day we chose to commemorate his birth. But we got both the day and year wrong. (More on this below) The nativity of birth of Christ: Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth but had to make the trip to Bethlehem due to a Roman tax consensus. Everyone had to go to their place of ancestral home to register. Joseph's lineage came from Bethlehem, that's why they journeyed there. Bethlehem is a spiritual place. Its old name was Ephrathah. Rachel (mother of Joseph - the one who went to Egypt) was buried there. David was born there. Joseph and Mary r...

Eighty-four years and nine days ago, my father watched the sky over "Tua-po" turned crimson red. "Tua-po" means 'big town' ie Chinatown; "sio-po" was "small town" -- city hall to Tek-ka (Selegie Road area). That was 8 Dec 1941 when Japanese bombers first rained bombs on Singapore and continued for the next 60 days. Frightened city dwellers fled to the countryside. We had quite a lot of "countrysides" back then. The tales my father told me of the war years -- I regret that growing up I never took the time to extract more details from him. All I can recall are vague places and non-time specifics I heard as a kid. My parents, together with my eldest sister who was 2 or 3 years old then, my uncle and family, and my maternal grandma, took flight out of the city on foot, like so many others. I think they resided in the "Goo Chia Chwee" (Maxwell Road) vicinity. Where they were headed I had no idea. Gran...

On the sidelines of the annual Treasury Market Conference in New York on 12 Nov 2025, Federal Reserves Bank NY (FRBNY) met with representatives of banks who are primary dealers. That triggered off media reports of a "secret emergency" meeting that suggests a liquidity crisis is brewing, the fear being a liquidity crunch often precedes a financial meltdown, such as the one in 2008 Managing the U.S. financial system is like operating the world’s most complex water system — one that has to self-correct in real time, respond to local and global shocks, and never run dry or overflow. The financial market is complex and dynamic where imbalance in one part can trigger stresses elsewhere. Just like the water system where various valves and faucets have to be tweaked constantly for correct pressure, reserve levels, meeting dynamic demands, etc., someone has to do plumbing constantly to keep the flow of money steady. That responsibility falls on FRBNY, one of 12 regional Feder...