What is iPad? To be honest, I am not sure what it is. When Apple released its first iPod in 2001, I thought it is just a Portable Music Player. How can it competes with low-cost players? Obviously, many of us are wrong. iPod changed the whole industry. So did the iPhone.
Now the expectation is that iPad will change the publish, broadcasting industries; change the way people read newspaper, magezines and books; change the way people watch TV, videos and movies; change the way people surfs internet and social networking. And maybe more importantly, iPad may change the way of learning.
Can iPad meets these high expectations? Or it is just a iPod Touch with a big screen, a MacBook without a keyboard. I believe only time can tell. Personally I will not bet anything on it. As a consumer, we all benefit from the innovations and competitions. For now, the iPad has ended Amazon’s monoploy position in eBook market (WSJ Article).
Since the release of myPlan application, many people have asked about the user guide. In fact, myPlan is not a complicated software to use. It may not have fancy and most user-friendly interface. But it certainly achieves one goal – making retirement planning easier and simpler to understand. Instead writing a user guide, I decided to write an article about retirement planning. As a disclaimer, I am not a Certified Financial Advisor (CFA). I am a Supply Chain Management consultant helping companies to optimize the supply chain and improve the bottom-line.
What is Retirement Planning?
According to Wiki definition:
Retirement planning, in a financial context, refers to the allocation of finances for retirement. This normally means the setting aside of money or other assets to obtain a steady income at retirement. The goal of retirement planning is to achieve financial independence, so that the need to be gainfully employed is optional rather than a necessity.
In layman’s term, you need to have enough money so you do not have to work. From time to time, someone may approach you – how you done your retirement planning? They may also offer free retirement planning service to you. In most cases, they are trying to sell you their products or services such as Annuanity, Insurance, Brokerage service, etc. Their products or services may be important as part of your retirement plan. However, their advices may not serve consumer’s best interest and are limited in scope. Therefore, we need to understand the retirement planning ourselves.
In summary, retirement planning is a process to achieve financial independence through saving and investing.
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myPlan is a Personal Financial Management software for Mac OS X. It is freeware can be download here. Please leave comments or contact me at myplan@voyagebc.com for any bugs or feature request.
China vs US - Is Win/Win possible?
Recently, US has increased its pressure on China to stop “manipulating” the value of the Chinese Yuan (RMB). The logic is simple: RMB is undervalued, it caused trade deficits and in turn caused the loss of US jobs. Therefore, in order to create US jobs, trade deficits with China has to be reduced and RMB has to be appreciated. Let us assume this logic is correct for a minute. If the RMB is appreciated, the price of China imports will have to increase. The purchasing power of US consumer will decrease. The recovery of US economy will be in question. The China exports will suffer and china recovery will be in jeopardy as well. It is clearly a loss/loss situation.
There are 3 elements in the above logic: Exchange Rate, Trade Deficits and Jobs: more