Last week I read an article on CNN titled .  In this article, law professor Lauren Willis argues that financial education is a waste of time and money.  Here are my thoughts on this matter.

Her first argument that financial education doesn’t work because financial product companies “spend billions drowning out well-meaning messages to consumers from nonprofits or government agencies.”  This is certainly true. I am sure people are more likely to know lines from the  MasterCard “Priceless” commercials rather than their own credit card interest rate.  Also, she says that financial products change all the time so it is hard for educators to teach a subject that is constantly in flux.  That is also true, but some basics stay the same.

Next she argues that teaching the basics of finance is a waste of money because sending people to class gives them the illusion that they are educated in the ways of finances and they  don’t change their financial behavior.  I’m not sure if I agree with this because just listening to the basics of budgeting and getting out of debt can be really helpful.  It may be that people who are forced to take classes in personal finance do not change their behavior, but people who want to learn and change can certainly benefit.

Finally, she believes that the government should spend more money on regulating the financial industry rather than trying to educate consumers about the dangers of certain financial products.  I agree that there needs to be regulation on deceptive business practices, but an informed consumer is more able to use the wide variety of financial products to his or her advantage. People do not need to have the knowledge of a professional financial planner to understand some arithmetic  and figure out what is best for them.  Indeed, some financial companies make the math more complicated than it really is, but I think  the basics of budgeting and interest rates be understood by any  human being with average intelligence.

To close the interview the professor stated that parents should continue to teach their children about money and finances because families can educate their children better than the government could.  That may be true, but if the parents have no financial knowledge, then it would be the blind leading the blind.   Financial education has to start somewhere, and blankly stating that it is a waste of time and money does not help the fact that many people are clueless about how to manage their money.  I know a lot of people want to learn how to manage their money better, and those who seek the education voluntarily are more likely to benefit from it.

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In Hawaii, I was able to procure green onion, salt, vegetable oil, and I also got some Chinese cooking wine from Honolulu’s Chinatown.  Additionally, I added Morri’s favorite sauce from Hong Kong called the “Lee Kum Kee Panda Brand Oyster Flavored Sauce”.

After I prepared all the materials, I started making the authentic Yangzhou Chowfan.   After classes ended that day, I went to the cafeteria filled with excitement.  I saw that Craig was writing the day’s menu on a blackboard.  Morri saw me walk in and greeted me with a smile, “Today, you are the chef!  We will be your helpers.”

I said, “No way, you guys are still my bosses”.

As I talked to Morri, I saw what Craig wrote on the blackboard.  Hah!  He already wrote “Original Yangzhou Fried Rice”, and to emphasize the authenticity he added the line, “cooked by a chef from Yangzhou, China” on the bottom.

After I saw this advertisement I felt that I had a tremendous responsibility to create the best fried rice today to showcase  the culinary arts of my hometown and country.

I immediately jumped into the  hectic cooking process.  First, the main ingredient of rice must be prepared correctly.  Yangzhou Fried Rice isn’t exactly one single dish, but it is a dish mixed with the staple food of rice.  In China the best kind of rice to use for this is called Yangshan Rice.  It is a long grained rice that is not sticky after being cooked, and that is the best type of rice for frying.  Hawaii didn’t have this type of rice so I used Thai Jasmine Rice.  The Thai rice grains are rounder and smaller and gave off a pleasing scent after being cooked.   The most important thing about making the rice is putting in the correct amount of water.  If too much water was used then the rice would be soggy and not suitable for frying.  However, if there is too little water then the rice would be raw and uncooked.  At that time, we had a giant rice cooker and put in about ten pounds of rice.  Then, I put in water that rose about 5 to 6 centimeters above the rice, and started cooking.

While the rice was cooking, I started to prepare the other materials.  First I chopped the chicken leg meat and lean pork into tiny squares, and then I chopped up the shrimp.  Hawaii didn’t have the small river shrimps we usually used in China, but they had giant prawns from the ocean.  In order to make these ingredients tender in the rice, I added some cornstarch and a little bit of salt and cooking wine.  In China, we would also add some MSG, but in America MSG is considered bad for health.  Even though you could buy the best Japanese manufactured MSG for very little money, many restaurants in America would post a message in their menus that say, “No MSG”.  So I also followed the local customs and stopped using MSG in our cooking.  Now we haven’t purchased MSG for over ten years.

After all the materials were chopped and mixed, I asked Morri to light the kitchen’s large furnace.  The cafeteria has a gas furnace that made a loud ping when it was lighted.  I used a small frying pan first and put in some oil and fried the chicken,pork, prawns, and snow peas for about three minutes and then took them out.  Since these materials will go back in the pot with the rice later they do not need to be cooked completely.  If they are cooked completely and then cooked again they would not be as tender and would not taste as good.

Now the rice was cooked, so I told Morri to take all the rice out and put it in a large flat pan to cool a little bit.  Also, I asked her to break the large clumps into smaller pieces so the grains could dry a little bit and be better for frying.

Five minutes later, I put a very large wok on the  furnace and added vegetable oil.  Then I poured in the scrambled egg mix with some chopped green onion.  The eggs sizzled and jumped in the wok and many white and yellow bubbles started to pop with oil.  The sizzling paired with the howling of the fans and sounded like a kitchen orchestra.

The rice must be put into the pot not long after the eggs are in.  This is so that the eggs can be cooked and mixed evenly with the rice.  Then the other materials can be added with a little bit of oyster sauce and sesame oil.  It would be ready after a few more minutes of mixing.  This fried rice contains the yellow of the eggs, green of the onions, red of the various meats, and the white of the rice.  Additionally, the sweet smell of the jasmine rice and the flavor of the oyster sauce made it a perfect dish full of color, scent, and flavor.  Morri immediately ate two bowls and said that it was delicious.  She also bought some additional bowls for her family.

That day lines were forming before I even finished cooking my rice.  Since it was a student cafeteria, the price couldn’t be very high so they decided that they would sell my dish for $4.00 per bowl.  After I was done cooking, Morri and another student helper scooped the rice into plastic bowls and passed them to students to teachers as Jane and I collected the cash.  The ten pounds of rice were sold extremely quickly and by popular demand I cooked another batch, and similarly it was sold quickly.

Later, Jane did a bit of a cost/profit analysis and found that authentic Yangzhou Fried Rice may not be very profitable.  Even though the main ingredients are not very expensive, a lot of man hours were put into chopping up and preparing the dish.  Nevertheless, I brought the dish to the student cafeteria for one day, and Morri called me “chef” since then.

To be continued!

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Some of my friends have asked me things along the lines of, “aren’t Christian women supposed to be stay at home moms?” I have never really been taught this idea in the churches I have gone to, but I know some Christian groups do  support the idea that Christian women should not work for a living and the man of the house should be the one bring home the bacon. So is it wrong for Christian women to earn money outside of the home? Well, ultimately I think the Bible should answer everyone’s questions on this issue.

The book of Proverbs ends with an acrostic poem describing a virtuous wife. This is actually a very long section focused on one single topic, and that’s pretty different from the rest of the book where various short phrases of wisdom are written in sequence. It begins with, “An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels(rubies).” Prov 31:10. Then it goes on to describe the various things a good wife does, and interestingly enough a lot of things she does are related to business and finance. Here is what I read:

propecia canada- “She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard” Prov 31:16

propecia canada – First she produces: “She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands.” Prov 31:13 Also later in the passage she sells the goods: “She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night.” Prov 31:18 “She makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers sashes to the merchant.” Prov 31:24

propecia canada – “She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy.” Prov 31:20

propecia canada – “She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet.” Prov 31:21 “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.” Prov 31:25 I think both of these verses show that she is prepared for the things to come, and I think that being prepared for snow implies that the good wife is financially prepared for a non-fruitful season.

propecia canada – “She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. ” Prov 31:27 I think this verse conveys the message that a good wife is not lazy, and she is very aware of what’s going on in her family. Finances is a big part of family affairs, and a wife that knows what’s going on with a household’s money would be much better prepared for disasters.

propecia canada- “She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls.” Prov 31:14-15

propecia canada – This is the final point of the passage. “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Prov 31:30

So from this book, I think it is fairly clear that a Christian woman is never required to be a stay at home mom and in a way the Bible actually encourages a wife to earn income and provide for her family. In my church there are all types of families. There are dual income families, and there are stay at home moms, and there is a pretty cool stay at home dad, too. Everyone knows that the guy is a stay at home dad and he was given a rose for Mother’s day. I think all of these family structures are totally acceptable as long as both people in the marriage agree with it and they trust each other and God enough to make it work.

I hope this post clarified the position of the Bible on women and working for income. I think that all women should be independently enough so that their husbands would not have have to worry about them very much. Finally, I believe that Christianity is a religion that gives women a lot of freedom compared to many other religions. We can choose to be a stay at home wife, or work outside the home. We do not have to hide ourselves and we can honor God in our own way. That is liberating.

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Well, these couple weeks have been pretty crazy and I have been too busy to write any blog posts in the last few days. Some big changes are happening in my life, and I may write about them when all the dust is settled.  To say the least, there was one surprise after another in the last 10 days and I’m doing something I didn’t think that I would do so soon.  Right now I will just say that I believe that everything is going to work out well for all of us because God is good.

Since I didn’t have time to put together any new content, here are some links to the great blog carnivals I participated in the past week:

-  There are definitely a lot of weird articles here.  I really liked this one about John Edwards.  .

-  This carnival isn’t as awesome as it used to be.  So hmm, I submitted
   – This article by Frugal Zeitgeist reminded me of some of the .

Finally, Broke Grad Student did a .  My article about was included.  I thought the Olympics was fantastic this year and the following were my favorite moments:

- Jason Lezak anchoring the 4x100m relay for the USA men’s team.  That was amazing to watch.  He was the oldest guy and had the fastest split ever.

- Oksana Chusovitina winning a silver in vault as the oldest female gymnast EVER.  This woman’s story is just amazingly inspriring.

- India winning their first individual gold medal ever.  The winner is a young hardware engineer named Abhinav Bindra.  He just seems so nerdy, and that’s why it’s so cool.

- Chinese badminton player .  I was watching that game live on nbcolympics.  I actually fell over laughing when he ripped off his shirt, but later on I figured out what exactly the words on his back said.  That just made it funnier.

- China ending the games with 100 medals, including 51 gold, the most gold medals ever won by China.

That’s it for now.  I’ll write more when I find time!

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I am sort of a documentary junkie and I like watching them on Netflix’s instant play. Two documentaries I have reviewed on this blog include and . Today I heard about an interesting documentary called documenting the threat of America’s ever growing national debt. Yahoo has that talks about billionaires Warren Buffet and Pete Peterson endorsing this documentary and speaking out about how the government should work on borrowing less, and encourage the citizens to save more, but will anyone listen?

A few days ago I wrote an article called on Wise Bread and it was a comment on Knight Kiplinger’s article about how Americans themselves are the culprits for the nation’s economic problems. The American people like lower taxes, and more services. The politicians get elected by making expensive promises, and they fulfill their promises by borrowing money. This has been going on for quite a while. One of the commenters on my article wrote an extremely long comment that ended with,

“Fed a steady diet of corporate-controlled advertising which manipulates quirks of the human brain (read Jerry Mander’s ““) to increase consumer spending and pro-corporate news, is it any wonder the average American is a mess? Sure, they’re stupid for continuing to stare at the boob-tube and not noticing that they get the urge to order out a pizza after the TV ad, but hey, most people just don’t have as high IQ’s as the average tightwad (read ““), especially as many of today’s consumers are from the post-Reagan/cut-education-to-the-bone generation. It’s not that the more aware people aren’t writing to their Congressman demanding solutions, the problem is that those Congressmen aren’t listening because they’re beholden to their corporate sponsors.

STOP telling people they’re stupid and it’s all their own fault. A) it’s only 25%-30% their fault; B) the minute you tell someone it’s all their fault they stop listening to you; and C), the originator of this article is quoting a non-credible source. If you want to change things, take clueless consumers by the hand, gently explain the situation to them and what they can do to fix it in a non-blaming way, then unleash them on Congress to throw the bastards out of office. Educate people that they have been brainwashed and teach them there is another way to live.”

I think this commenter is pretty blunt and cuts to the heart of the problem. Most people don’t care or know enough to learn about the national debt. Most people keep on electing the officials that promise the most to them. How does a politician make “reduce the national debt” sound more sexy than “tax cuts for the middle class”? Sure, I.O.U.S.A may be a great documentary, but how many people will watch it? Now that billionaire endorsed it, I am sure that those in the government who love class warfare and spending all they can would dismiss it as another piece of propaganda from “the rich”.

Here is what I find absolutely fall-off-my-chair hilarious. China is one of the biggest creditors to the USA. Actually according to the Treasury, China . So basically the $40 billion extravaganza of an Olympics could be just funded by the interest payments America is sending to China. I am sure some of you Americans might be calling China evil now, but if China didn’t loan the money to the United States then your lives may be a lot worse. Treasuries carry a fairly low yield, and that’s what kept inflation low in the United States for decades. However, if China stops buying so many treasuries from the United States sometime in the future or demand higher rates then that would affect government funds in a significant manner.

I really don’t know how Americans can fix this because there doesn’t seem to be a politician that doesn’t love to spend and get more debt. I guess they’re not spending their own money so it doesn’t matter to them. Young sensible professionals are not the majority in America, and most people who vote are baby boomers and seniors who love the government sponsored freebies so politicians pander to them. One prime example is that Obama is proposing no taxes for seniors making $50,000 a year and below. It makes sense for the more elderly because the debts incurred by the government will be paid by generations to come, so they’re not spending their money either. I’m not saying that all elderly people are leeches, but selfishness tend to lead people to vote a certain way especially when the incentives are so large.

Finally, here is another funny and ironic fact. When people who work in the government apply for Top Secret or Secret clearance they will be screened for the amount of debt they have. If they have too much debt they may not get clearance because they are more likely to be blackmailed or accept bribes. Right now, the United States Government’s national debt is so large and owned by so many foreign nations that it may not pass for its own security clearance if it applied. I think the Department of Homeland Security should probably get involved as soon as possible because the United States Government’s finances is a valid security risk.

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