Is Congress gridlocked and broken?

Article on CNN

"Two months into the new year, Congress is at a standstill, stuck in party-line votes, heated debates and electoral politics."

One joke to sum it all up:

Question: What's the difference between the government and the Mafia?

Answer: One of them is organized.

Five Element in YOU (Part 2 - Metal)

Metal Dominant Person

Visualize gold, jewelry, a sword, a shield.

Properties - Characteristic

• Stylish, have a good sense of fashion.
• Conscious about self appearance how others perceive you
• Catchy, get people attention easily, turn heads
• Cannot retain feelings, easily getting emotional. Not hard to know this person moods.
• Cannot hold secret. A bad liar. Honest person. (metal is very hard to fake)
• Pay attention to details, could be picky due to the details
• Good sense of smell. Pick up aroma quickly. Remember things by smell.
• Proper, classy, carry self elegantly.
• Either prefer or hate spicy food.
• Stick to what's prefer, not very adventurous. Not a risk taker.
• Metal person is require a bit more attention. High maintenance, require to be pampered as a metal need to be polished to shine.
• Act as a conductor bring changes and transformation with strong impulses and powers.

Behavior - Personality

• Prefer to be solo, not as much a social person, but could pretend.
• Hardheaded, stubborn, not very flexible or breakable. My way or the highway. Picky requires everything to be properly.
• Like to standout in a crowed, the center of attention.
• Just black or white are the color of choice.
• Competitive in every nature, could stress the person out.
• Determine, firm and persistence.
• Decisive person, know exactly what he/she wants.
• Prefer to take charge and be leader rather an follower.
• Great leadership qualities, forceful, controlling and rigidity.
• Self-reliant and prefer to handle their problems alone.
• A mental person is also materialistic, business oriented and good at organization and stability.

Weakness

• Tent to be more jealous, to make sure he/she is better than other, especially other metals.
• Could have low self esteem. Problem with confidence
• Constantly need reassurance and attention.
• A bit more self center, concern more on material side.
• Have few friends. Does not mix well with everyone.

Interaction

Destructive Cycle:

• Metal suffocates wood, controlling and restraining wood growth. Metal person often pushes wood person away over time. As wood can't growth, it tents to grow away from metal.

Controlling Cycle:

• Metal is defenseless against fire. Completely melted under fire. Becoming soft, unable to fight back. In a mother child relationship, with mother as fire, child as metal, the child often grow up with a lack of confidence, not having any form or shape, and very hot temper.

Generative Cycle:

• Metal is found in the earth's crust. A metal person is always supportive by earth, while metal help maintain earth balance by Overacting Cycle
• Metal produces water. Water condense on metal, carry by metal, contain and trapped by metal. Or metal can be melted into liquid.

Overacting Cycle:

• Metal mixed up earth, cause it to loosen up.
• Some water cause metal to shine. But dampness over time cause metal to lose it glamor. Water rust metal. Often metal and water person have a more distance relationship to remain healthy. Couple are more independence of each other. Friendship able to maintain long distance but remain close. Having too much of each other only bring negative energy.

Part 3 - Water - To be continue...

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing

Happy Lunar New Year

Happy year of the Tiger!

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới. An khang thịnh vượng. Vạn sự như ý. Sức khỏe dòi dào. Phát tài an lạc.

新年快乐。住大家万事如意。

Happy Valentine Day!

Vietnam devalued its currency

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/business/global/26devalue.html"The central bank on Wednesday re-set the mid-point of the band to around 17,961 per U.S. dollar, effectively devaluing the currency by 5.44 percent."" the black market, where the dong has been much weaker, trading at 19,700 per U.S. dollar."
http://truthingold.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-bs-in-press-about-gold.html" Viet Nam devalued its currency yesterday, and based on the premium of $54 over the spot price of gold being paid in Viet Nam, it would appear that the population there is scrambling to buy physical gold. Viet Nam is quietly one of the largest buyers of gold in the world."

Which element are YOU? (Part1 - Wood)

On my first post: Why Wu Xing, I talked about the Wu Xing Concept (The Five element theory). On the later post I talked about the Five element theory in our food. Now, I would like to extend my observation of this Five Element theory on how it can be applied to YOU.

As each person can be characterized by one dominant element and one recessive element, it is the properties of the dominant element that reflected upon your personality, your taste, your preferences and especially your interaction with other people, who are also characterized as another element.

By reflecting upon those attributes of a person and more importantly their specific interaction with other people, I can formula a classification for which element best fits them.

Once a person is being classified as an element, further personality traits and behavior can be interpolated and predicted. Using the element properties, I can use it to understand and reason certain behaviors of a person or predict a most likely response to a situation that person is facing.

Wood Dominant Person

Visualize a tree, cluster of tree, or a forest

Properties - Characteristics

• Enjoy the outdoor, active, more athletic.
• Like to try new things, exploratory. (Tree growth)
• Person is pretty in a natural way without much artificial material
• Either like sour food or hate it.
• Green or blue, or a mixture of those: purple, cyan, yellow are color of choice.
• Strong solid person, develop confident and becoming stronger overtime.
• Can store a large amount of information, secret and retain feelings. But absorb it over time (Tree sucks up nutrient, and water from earth)
• However, retaining too much feelings without proper way of channeling, can be poisoning to self. This could cause emotional instability and break down (Over watering plan, or too much sun/heat)
• Loyal and plan ahead. (Tree sticks to its solid and always plan ahead for where the next leaf will be at)
• Carefully weight each decision. Often try to use too many outside variables in calculating making decision. Perfectionist. (As a tree growth is driven by many environment variables)
• Stay firm to beliefs and sometimes could be stubborn.
• Sight is the strongest sense, quick with the eyes, able to recognize and identify things quickly.

Behavioral - Personality

• Like company, constantly seeking people and event. Hate to be alone, enjoy team work and group activities. (Tree often never grow alone)
• Like to be near other wood, water or earth person.
• Out going person, introvert by nature but extrovert around people.
• Sensitive person, who does more listening than talking. (Sensitive to the environment)
• Observant to everything going on around. Like a guard, sentry, observation post.
• Wood is sentimental person, always dig its root deep and hold on to memories.
• Remember things for a long time, including the details. (hold on to ground)
• Prefer to stay put, doesn't like to move around a lot.
• Family oriented, close niche of friends.
• High integrity, keep your word.

Weakness

• Lack of mobility, difficulty of maintaining relationship with many people at once but only keeping a selective close group.
• Prefer gradual change but not sudden.
• Seek growth from outside sources. Dependent stable environment to grow. Require a strong family and friendship foundation.

Interaction

Destructive Cycle:

• Wood is destroyed by metal. Chopped up, restraint from growth. Metal tents to have bent, and shape wood (Think of bonsai tree).
• A wood person is not compatible with metal, since a wood person will be constrained and shaped by metal. However, sometime these constrains can be beneficial as a guide for a tree to grow.
• Earth is parted by wood, broken up by roots. But also prevent corrosion.
• Wood digs into the earth, parting it apart. A wood person cause an earth person to loose it richness. Sucking away nutrient and cause earth's mood to be dampen. However wood help earth to maintain its integrity. Prevent corrosion and keep earth together. Keep earth person from being arrogant and boasting.

Insulting Cycle:

• Wood person often upset a metal person. Wood person always push the metal out of comfort zone. Not paying attention as much to metal, ticking metal off.
• Earth cause wood to feel unaccomplished. An earth person always a source of motivation for wood, a role model. Wood looks up to earth, but always feel like earth person is always ahead, achieve more and better than wood.

Generative Cycle:

• Wood feeds on and consumed by fire. Fire is generate only from wood. Fire person is inspired and motivated by wood.
• Water nurture and create wood. Wood person flourish with abundant of water friends.

Overacting Cycle:

• Too much wood, generate uncontrollable fire
• Too much water, rotten wood.

Part 2 - Metal - To be continue....

Nouriel Roubini on the 2010 Economy

Gold Price