Viewpoints – Page 5 – The Urban Nerd – The Official Site and Diary

January 31, 2011January 9, 2015

For My Parents – “A New World” (Written in 2001).

While fighting and kicking against a strong force that seemed to be pushing me into a new world, I suddenly felt a gust of wind and fresh air surrounding the atmosphere and giving me the chills. While my tiny hands were folded tightly against my chest, I kept my eyes shut and cried at the top of my lungs. I didn’t want to open my eyes for the fear that the gust of wind would sting my eyes as it had stung my bare body. I had cried and cried until I felt the warmth of my mother cuddling me up to her chest. I opened my eyes to see two loving faces and my cry had hushed to a gasp. They made all kinds of faces and made many comments, but I just gazed up at them in amazement.

After coming to Grow Taller For Idiots Cincinnati and being deceived by my father’s brother, we had no where to turn to but the sad, lonely streets. For many days my father worked double shifts while my mother took care of me. My parents made sure that I was fed properly while they did a whole day of work without any food to eat. At night, we had no place to sleep except on the dirty benches in the park. Soon, a nice Indian family let us move in with them until we found a place of our own. Every day, my parents would go to work, while this nice family took care of me. Despite coming from a wealthy family my parents worked day and night to save enough money to rent our own apartment. My mother worked in a sewing factory while my father worked in a restaurant, where for the first time he had to clean up after other people and wash their dishes. My parents always fell behind in getting a better job due to their lack of ability to speak English.

Finally my parents were able to save enough money to move into a little, uncomfortable apartment. My image of this apartment is still perfectly clear in my mind. As we walked into the apartment, the door would creak open and a very dim light would break into the darkness when the switch was turned on. The walls of the apartment, with its peeling paint, had large and small cracks here and there and the emptiness of the room made the apartment seem creepier. Leaking water would hit hard against the bathroom sink, causing an echoing sound to break the silence in the room. The windows were not properly ventilated and the heaters didn’t do anything but provide a shelter for the spiders. The worst winter arrived and my mother lost her job. I was only five years old at that time, but I still have a vivid image of those dreary nights when my parents would let me sleep on the only thin mattress we had. They would wrap me up in a few layers of blankets to keep me comfortable and warm. As their bodies shriveled and teeth chattered, they slept by my side with nothing to keep them warm but the love we felt for each other.

My parents wanted me to leave the conflict of being homeless and seeing my parents suffer to make a living. My parents did not want me to suffer along with them, so they saved enough money to send me back to India. I was five and a half years old when I went to live with my uncle and aunt in India. I lived away from my parents for three years, and each year the memories of my small childhood life with them would slide away. In my eyes my uncle and aunt had taken the place of my parents and by the end of those three years I did not carry a single memory of my parents. After my father found a good job and was settled properly, my mother came to take me back home. How much it must have hurt her to find out that I didn’t even recognize her. After all the suffering and pain they had gone through to provide a good life for me! I was a confused little boy at the age of 8, and I felt as though most of my childhood had gone by without my parents watching me grow up. Some of my most cherished memories and birthdays were left behind in India with my uncle and aunt instead of my own parents. I came back to Cincinnati to find out that now everything was going to be fine.

It is my parents who have encouraged me and influenced me to be the best in life. They want me to achieve the goals of getting a good education and earning a college degree, which they were unable to do. It is they who have taught me my religion, my culture, my language, my dignity, and respect for others. It is they who have provided me with a good education, food, clothing, and shelter despite all the problems they face each day. I am seventeen years old now and I take pride in my parents’ courage and sacrifice that they had made for me. They did not give up on me even though they didn’t have the necessary money to raise me. They made it through and that’s all I care about. My parents are still sometimes struggling to find the happiness they need, but they cannot get it because they have been too busy providing my sister and I with all the necessities in life. My affection and respect for my parents goes beyond what my life is worth. Everything I am today is only because of my parents. I want to do something for my parents. I want to love them and cherish them with all my heart. I want to be their ladder to success and happiness. I want to excel in school and life to show my parents that, because of them, I have achieved the goals they couldn’t achieve. This would be the greatest accomplishment in my life.

January 4, 2011January 19, 2011

Stock Market Question of the Week

Got a message from my good friend in regards to basic trading, and I felt like sharing it (hoping I answered his question correctly..=/).

His question was:
“hey my b for bothering ya…get back to me whenevr u get a chance…but im stumped at why a company would double their shares in the open market, and follow that action by a 60:1 reverse stock split
-_-“

My response to him was:
“To boost the market price without losing too much of the amount of shares available. To my understanding, the company probably didn’t want to lose that many shares available after the reverse stock split – and they’re looking for some wiggle room for price and shares available for a potential major buyer or buyout.”

For those who don’t know what the question was about – apparently, the company doubled their shares available in the market (which sometimes increase volume), and then did a 60:1 reverse stock split – meaning for example, if you had 600 shares of this company at $1 / share – now you have 10 shares of this company at $60/share after the reverse stock split. This boosts the companies market price per share, but reduces the volume of shares.

Most companies do this – if they have had an outstanding amount of shares that haven’t been bought. In my friend’s case – the company probably had a strategy to reduce the outstanding share and boost the market price of its shares – so you may ask why not just do a 30:1 reverse stock split instead of doubling the shares and then doing the 60:1 reverse stock split? Well, I’m predicting that they probably want a specific amount of outstanding shares available at a specific price that the 30:1 stock split wouldn’t be able to achieve it – and my prediction would be is that – they want that specificity if there’s a major transaction about to happen, meaning company is being bought out or a major amount will be bought by another company, and this would give them wiggle room to negotiate a price and amount of shares.

You learn something new everyday! =)

December 20, 2010August 1, 2011

Stories of the Forgotten: Mei Zheng

What’s the first thing you do right after work – especially if you live in a major city? Grab some food to go? Order some delivery? Grab a few drinks with some friends? How much spare time do you usually have in the evenings after work? 30 minutes? 1 hour? 2 hours or even more depending on the day of the week?

Here’s a completely random question – How often do you see homeless people on the street or in the subway stations, and you wonder if you should do something? Give something? You would love to give some food if you had any on you. You contemplate on if you should give the person money – where will it go? Will it go to drugs and/or alcohol? Then you think – “Naw, I’m not going to give that person money..” – and you justify yourself by thinking next time if you have leftovers or something and you’ll see a homeless person again – you’ll give it to them.

Having lived in New York City for just only a few months, I got used to seeing homeless people now. There are a little bit over 40,000 homeless people in New York, a city that has over 8.5 million people – and I always wondered what would happen if we all just took one small initiative.

Well – I tried something new last Thursday, and hopefully this form of action will catch on with other people.

I was having an “Eh” day after coming back to the city from my office in New Jersey, especially one particular conversation I had during my bus ride back to the city (see previous blog post..lol). So whenever I do go to my office in New Jersey, I usually take the bus from Port Authority on West 42nd Street, and that same bus drops me back off there from the office as well. Then I take the A train into Downtown Manhattan to get home. Well, so I was on my way catching the train in the subway – I see an elderly homeless Asian woman begging for money.

I stopped and thought: “Should I give this person money? I wish I had some food on me to give her…” Then it occurred to me – I looked at my watch, and figured I didn’t have anything important to do besides catching up on sleep. I went up to the lady and asked if she was hungry, and that I didn’t have any cash on me, but would like to buy her dinner.

At first, she looked confused. I’m not sure if it was due to some language barrier, but she understood after I repeated myself a couple of times. She kindly accepted my offer, and I took her to Au Bon Pain (Bread and Soup Place) inside the Port Authority Terminal.

I told her she can get whatever she wanted, but she refused, and wanted me to pick out whatever I wanted to get her. I haven’t had dinner either, so I figured I would join her as well. Luckily, Au Bon Pain was serving the Vegetarian Chili (my favorite) – so I got us both two large breadbowls with the large chili/soup, two yogurts, and two vitamin waters. I also bought some extra bread just in case she was extremely hungry.

We sat down quietly, and I was expecting her to basically “go to town” with the food, but she politely waited until I started. I was extremely amazed how polite and well-mannered she was – and that’s when my curious brain started taking a toll. I wanted to know her story, but wanted to be careful without probing too much.

I got my notebook ready. It was a freebie from a corporate presentation. It has a huge logo on it and I usually cover it up frequently since I use this notebook for presentations from other companies. One percent of the revenues of the company that gave me the notebook would be enough to buy 200,000 dinners or to give every homeless person in New York $30,000.

I politely asked her on how she got into the situation she’s in currently, and she shared me her story with her broken English.

Apparently, she arrived in California from China in 1999 when she was about 51 years old with her husband. They had children already settled in the US, so they decided to come here to be closer to them. Their kids took care of them until her husband passed away 3 years later. She then had a nervous breakdown 2 years after her husband passing away, and I believe she was telling me that she started “hearing and seeing things.” I tried my best to understand her broken English, and I guess with years of having parents speaking broken English, I became pretty decent at figuring out what she was trying to say.

She continued with her story, and told me how herself, her son and daughter-in-law came to visit NYC in 2005. They did the touristy stuff for a day, and next thing – they just left her alone at Penn Station.

I didn’t know what to say at that point. I became so upset and was so angry, when she told me that – I tried to remain calm and normal as possible because I wanted to hear the rest of her story, but I just kind of figured out the rest in my head.

She’s been alone on the streets ever since. She tried to get help from someone that was Chinese – she tried at Chinatown, and no one really helped her because she was on the verge of another mental breakdown.

I tried to ask about her son and daughter-in-law, but it seemed like she wanted to avoid that topic, so I didn’t push it. At about that time, we finished our dinner – and our time was up. I didn’t know what to say or do, so I just went to an ATM and took some cash out, and gave her a $20 bill – who knows how long that will help her survive. I know that these people make about $5-$6 max a day from panhandling – and I knew that if she survived this long – this should last her a few days hopefully.

Mei said she still sees things and hears voices. She seemed completely normal to me.

My time was up with her. I gave her the $20 bill. She said thank you. When I left, she placed the bill deep in her pockets of her rugged jacket. I wonder why Mei seemed so much at peace. Is it because she was crazy? She’s 62 years old with no real family, no money, panhandling in front of Port Authority, and yet she seemed to be perfectly happy. I wonder how much of her story Mei made up. I checked my notes for dates. She always gave me her age and the year. Everything added up.

About 20-25% of homeless adults suffer from a mental condition. Mei is just one from many thousands. I still wonder why she is on the streets. Why have we, as a society, failed to find a way to help people like Mei? Hell, her own son, her own blood threw her out on the streets! What the hell is wrong with people? Where did humanity go? Somewhere there is a place for her. It is not in front of Port Authority. We should have some sort of responsibility to the community we live in. Does that responsibility include doing something to help people like Mei? Is this a question of mis-allocated resources that no Cobb Douglas production function can solve? Given how much we already do in the community, is it our responsibility to do more?

We all pick our battles. We should decide if this is the battle we want to fight. There is something very noble about Mei. I think it is the fact that she counts her blessings, no matter how many curveballs life has thrown at her. Something they never taught at Ohio State nor Harvard.

Next time – if you have time, and you do see a homeless person panhandling – just take a chance to listen to their story – you may never know what you can gain from it.

September 28, 2010May 11, 2011

The Urban Nerd – Convey – Pakistan Flood Relief

Media Coverage are almost non-existant in regards to the Pakistan Flood that occurred this past summer. MILLIONS are in need of our help and support, and you can start by purchasing a Convey T-Shirt at

http://www.ConveyYourMessage.com/.

100% of the T-shirt sales are going towards help relief projects in Pakistan. Yo…u would be spreading the word, and also helping the flood victims at the same time.

Be the change in their Lives. How will you Convey your message?

April 11, 2010April 12, 2010

Health Care Legislation – Hate it or Love it?

On March 23rd, President Barack Obama signed into law, a major healthcare reform legislation, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (HR 3590), following the passage of the bill by the House of Representatives on March 21st by a vote of 219 to 212, which was the previously passed healthcare legislation by the US Senate. The House also passed a second bill on Mar. 21, the so-called “fixer bill,” Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HR 4872), which modifies certain provisions of the newly passed legislation and which has moved to the Senate for consideration.

While I was pleased that President Obama and the Democrats were finally able to deliver much needed reform to an ailing American healthcare system, the compromises that were made to pass the bill are troubling.

First, language allowing reimportation of lower cost drugs from Canada and other developed nations was eliminated from the bill.
Second, the provisions allowing the contentious 12 year data exclusivity provision for generic versions of biologic and biotechnology drugs remained in the final bill.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, any language alluding to or implying that the US government, may, in the future, be able to negotiate or regulate drug prices was obliterated.

In short, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries received all of the assurances and guarantees that were in the deal brokered by Billy Tauzin, the former head of the lobbying group PhRMA, between the White House and PhRMA over a year ago. Surprisingly, Tauzin was fired by PhRMA several weeks ago because its leadership mistakenly thought that Tauzin conceded “too much” to the Obama Administration when he brokered the original health reform package with the White House. (At the time that Tauzin was fired, health care reform legislation appeared to be on life support and all but dead).

In the final analysis, big pharma and biotech will give back $85 billion over ten years —largely by agreeing to give back some of the profits it was allowed to be collected from the egregiously flawed Medicare Part D legislation passed during the odious Bush Administration. While $85 billion may seem like a lot (to the average American citizen) to give back, it is important to note, that the size of the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology markets is over $600 billion per year. Although growth in these markets is beginning to slow in developed nations like the US and Japan (to high single digits), it is beginning to explode in heavily populated developing nations like China, India and Brazil where it is roughly 12-18%. But simply, despite assertions to the contrary, business in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical markets is booming and likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

In other words, the newly passed healthcare reform legislation is a “sweetheart deal” for the US life sciences industry (YIPPEEE FOR THE BIOTECH SIDE OF ME!).

Ironically, while the healthcare reform bill insures that almost all Americans will be entitled to healthcare coverage and that insurance companies cannot deny healthcare benefits to persons with pre-existing medical conditions, the legislation may actually limit the access of Americans to potentially life-saving biotechnology drugs. This is because the 12 year data exclusivity period for generic versions of branded, biotechnology drugs (otherwise know as follow-on biologics or biosimilars) remained in the final version of the healthcare reform bill.

This provision disallows approval of follow-on biologics for a period of 12 years from the data that the original biologic received US regulatory approval. For example, if a branded biologic or biotechnology product garners US regulatory approval in 2010, the earliest date that a generic version of this product would be able to appear on the US market would be 2022. Moreover, in some instances, the 12 year data exclusivity provision may extend the so-called patent life of a product. Using the example above, if the patents protecting the product happen to expire in 2019, the innovator company is guaranteed an additional three years of marketing exclusivity before generic versions of the product can appear on the US market. Finally, the 12 year data exclusivity provision effectively prevents foreign biosimilar manufacturers from competing in the US biotechnology market until about 2018; a strategy designed to allow the US to maintain its dominance of the global biotechnology market. Interestingly, despite the approval of six or more biosimilars in Europe, these products have failed to catch on and are not able to compete with their branded, innovator counterparts.

My thoughts if I were in the shoes of a physician:

“I should quit being a physician, and file for unemployment. This way I would earn more to take care of my expenses.” – Quote from my amazing, great sister.

There are tons of articles out there that cover the pain from the current medical practitioners out there, and there are countless quotes from physicians in regards to the new health care legislation. In all seriousness, their jobs definitely did get tougher.

Here’s a great recent article that sums it up.

The current public that are ignorantly saying that doctors are overpaid (frick – athletes and hollywood are overpaid, and there should be some new tax law that attacks the entertainment industry) – really need to put themselves in their shoes. The current reimbursement rates and endless red tape forces many primary care physicians to hire more staff and see more patients in order to cover their costs. Their costs continue to rise, driven by rising malpractice premiums and payroll and small business taxes and fees. Several physicians have held their own paychecks for several months in order to make payroll. Also, we’re not forgetting the several hundreds of thousands of medical student loans to pay back.

This bill is extremely penalizing the people who are out to save lives, and I completely understand their pain. I’ve spent countless amount of days working and shadowing doctors in clinic – and realistically, they already have an extreme patient load. There were days where we had one patient chart after another for 10 straight hours without having a proper break.

In conclusion, I laud President Obama’s persistence and give him props for his ability to deliver (as promised) health reform to the American public. I have no doubt that the legislation will help to improve the delivery of healthcare in the US and hopefully improve the overall health of Americans. However, while the new healthcare reform legislation is a first, positive step, the American healthcare system will never entirely be “fixed’ until healthcare practitioners are not penalized in all ends including malpractice insurance, and until US drug prices are regulated—like they are in the rest of the world.

My Urban Nerd readers – what are your thoughts?