December -The Month of the Year- Reflections

God’s word.
Trust and Obey.

December the month of the year…

Though the temperature has been dropping rapidly, the festive feeling keeps on soaring high.

2013 memories… lessons… reflections.

God’s blessing-
our Church wedding
two lives united in God’s love. 🙂

one happy couple
pre-nuptial shots
loved this one 🙂

God’s marvelous blessing
our new house
As for me and my house we will serve the Lord ! (Joshua 24:15)

Winter 2013 with my student Joanne 🙂

Being full of holiday spirit, how I miss home and for this year an amazing blessing has been answered by our good Lord, I’ll be home for Christmas, yehey! .

I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it! ( hahaha!)

I haven`t been active here on my blog for a while, soaked into the hustle and bustle of life .

A lot of amazing things I wish I’ve posted all of it in details, I’ve been doing some journaling, like an epistle of my personal journey with God in this life.

So many changes, blessings, celebrations as in A LOT for the year 2013.

One of these days, I’ll post mine soon.

How about you? Take some dedicated time before the  New Year,  sit down and think about the past year. Reflect and  ponder where you are and where you’ve been. Share a few things you learned, embrace the gift of life, inspire others. Nothing will better inform and shape how you embrace your new year than a good, honest  reflection.

Reflect upon what God did on your life, how you felt, what you learned.

Let’s welcome 2014 with a grateful heart,

a heart full of happiness filled with God’s abundant love.

Take Home the Bacon – Who will?

It’s 2011, Happy New Year!

First post for the year and it’s all about economy. Honestly,I had written some post for my birthday, about the Holiday season but it’s not yet done so I haven’t posted it yet. My background is not about business nor economy but I always have a general  interest about it however not it’s nitty-gritty.

First and foremost let me clarify my reasons for posting this issue, I’m not trying to imply who’s on top of the world’s economy is just that it’s been an eye-opener for me hearing a lot of here-say’s here and there from people around me , foreigners that I met along the way from all walks of life. Usually during a conversation sometimes I humorously called it exchange of intellectual thoughts, ideas. I observed people when they shared their views on wide array of topics, sometimes it would come to a point that I would research the authenticity of the stories that they’re sharing of course I do that after the talk. For some they may think it’s just a waste of time or somehow nonsense  but it’s been my past time to research on different things just like now. It’s been one of my hobbies to search for truth, for knowledge. I remembered way back my primary school days it’s my dream to be a scientist, lol. But you know I later realized that as we grow up we change our views in life.

It’s all over the news about the battle of worldwide currencies nowadays. And this has been an eye-opener for me after I have watched this video on yahoo news.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/politics-15749652/a-new-day-in-congress-23764704;_ylt=AoAfU34zc_Fu0pGckOskCfWz174F;_ylu=X3oDMTExdWM1aGl2BHBvcwMxNgRzZWMDY2xpcHMEc2xrA2FuZXdkYXlpbmNvbg–

So I still did some research with the help of the search engines…

according to Wikipedia;

Starting in late 2008, the U.S. federal government is guaranteeing large amounts of obligations relating to mutual funds, banks, and corporations under several new programs designed to deal with the problems initiated by the Financial crisis of 2007–2010. Guarantees are off-balance sheet and therefore excluded in the calculation of federal debt. The funding of direct investments made in response to the crisis, such as those made under the Troubled Assets Relief Program, are captured by the debt totals.

Foreign ownership

 

Map of countries by foreign currency reserves and gold minus external debt based on 2009 data from CIA Factbook

The US debt in the hands of foreign governments was 25% of the total in 2007,^[19] compared to 13% in 1988.^[20] Despite the declining willingness of foreign investors to continue investing in US dollar denominated instruments as the US dollar fell in 2007,^[21] the U.S. Treasury statistics indicate that, at the end of 2006, non-US citizens and institutions held 44% of federal debt held by the public.^[22] About 66% of that 44% was held by the central banks of other countries, in particular the central banks of Japan and China. In May 2009, the US owed China $772 billion.^[23]

In total, lenders from Japan and China held 44% of the foreign-owned debt.^[24] This exposure to potential financial or political risk should foreign banks stop buying Treasury securities or start selling them heavily was addressed in a recent report issued by the Bank of International Settlements, which stated, “‘Foreign investors in U.S. dollar assets have seen big losses measured in dollars, and still bigger ones measured in their own currency. While unlikely, indeed highly improbable for public sector investors, a sudden rush for the exits cannot be ruled out completely.”

On May 20, 2007, Kuwait discontinued pegging its currency exclusively to the dollar, preferring to use the dollar in a basket of currencies.Syria made a similar announcement on June 4, 2007.In September 2009 China, India and Russia said they were interested in buying IMF gold to diversify their dollar-denominated securities. However, in July 2010 China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange “ruled out the option of dumping its vast holdings of US Treasury securities” and said gold “cannot become a main channel for investing our foreign exchange reserves” because the market for gold is too small and prices are too volatile.

The following is a list of the Foreign Owners of U.S. Treasury Securities as listed by the U.S. Treasury:^[24]

Leading Foreign owners of US Treasury Securities (July 2010)
Nation/Territory	billions of dollars	percentage
People’s Republic of China (mainland)	846.7	20.8
Japan	821.0	20.2
United Kingdom	374.3	9.2
Oil exporters1	223.8	5.5
Caribbean Banking Centers2	150.7	3.7
Brazil	162.2	4.0
Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region)	135.2	3.3
Russia	130.9	3.2
Republic of China (Taiwan)	130.5	3.2
Grand Total	4065.8	100

¹Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya, Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Ecuador, Indonesia, Algeria, Gabon, and Nigeria

²Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles, British Virgin Islands and Panama

Why am I concerned about this? Simply because I’m one of those people who work overseas and we should be somehow in touch, aware on what’s happening around the world we live in. Like what they always say ” Change is the only permanent thing in this world.“.

I hope and pray that for the year 2011 , all nations no matter which country, all people no matter what’s your origin will unite for the betterment of the living standard of the people around the world. We all share one world, one planet at least we could even just try to do our own initiative to change our lives for better. Well, I may sound like a politician here but I won’t run for any position in the near future ( wide grin), lol. Definitely this is just one of those vicious thoughts of mine.

Battle of worldwide currencies, who will take home the bacon???

Let’s just wait and see …

A Blessed New Year to everyone! Cheers!

– xiexieni- RIZ