Saturday, January 31, 2009

Similarities Between Feng Shui Masters & Economists

One of my curious students had questioned me earlier with this posting, wondering if his Economics teacher has gone nuts during this festive season. Well, before any writing I would like to stress that this short article has nothing to do with belittling those feng shui master out there, just my random opinion

Here it goes:

(1) There is no consensus. If you put 2 different feng shui masters together, probably you will get 3 different answers! That’s how it goes. For instance, one may say that those born in the Rooster year will have a good year ahead & wealth is abundance. Another may agree partially & claim that second half of 2009 will be a financially challenging one! For economists, one may say that we will likely see recovery by the second half of the year. Another argued that since the negative multiplier effect has not ended, probably we will see the worst of all time by the end of year! So who do you believe?

(2) Both talks about fortune. There is no qualm that feng shui masters are excellent when it comes to fortune telling. Whether one will believe it or not, it’s entirely a different story. In fact I have even seen, Joey Yap our famous local fortune teller appeared on The Exchange, TV3 last year. Using his feng shui knowledge, he attempted to predict the direction of global stock market. The same goes for economists or financial analysts. They seem to be very good with their quantitative skills & using sophisticated software to analyse figures. During stock market boom, these people would love to give advice on which stocks to buy, hold or sell. In fact many had debated somewhere early 2007 that the stock market rally will likely continue up to 2009 given the strong credit boom, house prices that ‘seems to be rising forever’ & exponentially rising consumption across America & UK. But that has happened today?

(3) There are quantitative & qualitative analysts. Believe it or not, many feng shui masters have some sort of ‘formula’ to predict an event. Layman like me will never understand the mechanics behind it! Likewise, there are even some feng shui masters that do not rely on complicated formula to judge an event. Having one’s ba zi (date & time of birth) is sufficed for them to tell the journey of your life. The same goes for economists. We have both versions. Those sophisticated economists more often than not, use statistical tools like data mining, SAS, E-Views & SPSS to analyse an event. I’m sort of qualitative analyst. I judge an event based on present & past history, before coming out with my set of conclusions

2 comments:

Edward Soo said...

What makes a good economist and a good feng shui master? Can you say that they are similar in this matter?

I like this post Mr Lawrence. Its a good one. You put in such a simple way and I think you language has improved a lot. Keep it up.

Lawrence Low said...

Hi Edward, thanks