Although many critics seems to say that Kpop is all full of the same bubble gum pop and plastic people, if you are willing to adopt an open mind and just enjoy the music, you might find quite a variety of different groups out there.  In this aspect, Secret has been very refreshing. 

Starlight Moonlight



Ji Eun quickly became my favorite in this group and how I first started noticing them was their sweet "Starlight Moonlight" song.  Prior to that, I never really found them interesting but I guess it was again the classic "smiling" formula in this song that made me took note. 

For this particular song, it is this performance above by them in Japan that I started to like this group. It is also easy for me to notice Ji Eun since she is the main vocalist and her smile, to me, is the most charming among the four. 

Love is Move

Then after that song, it was the very fast paced "Love is move" and it took some time for me to start to like it. I was initially disappointed that the sweet image of Ji Eun was no more but then, I realized another new thing about her from this new song, she is really "meaty" too haha.  One thing I remember noting in the past is how I never really like SNSD for their legs and even now, I still find them a bit too skinny for my tastes. 



So I was pleasantly surprise to find in "Love is Move" song, this group of 4 girls being so "meaty" and hence curvy haha.  I mean, you may call them "fat" for kpop but as far as I am concern, I love their figures!  What was even better was that they can really sing live and even with such a fast paced beat, they can still dance in their heels and have their voices sounding so real and nice.  Kpop has indeed came a long way since the lip-synching days of SES.

Conclusion

So if you prefer females that are not skinny and can sing well live, Secret is a good group to go for.  And as usual, once you get hooked on a particular new song, you always go back to their earlier songs and realized that they are quite good too.  While Madonna was decent, I found their Shy Boy very cute too!

And I realized that Secret really like this particular dance choreography of the "making circular motions with open palms", as this was seen in both Shy Boy as well as well as in Love is move.

ST Forum 18/10/11
Who will operate stalls at new hawker centres?( Read more... )

Introduction



Watching this video and reading about news on the Republican's Presidential candidate Romney made me think about the economic analysis of tax incidence.  As most of us know, US is having a serious fiscal deficit now and needs to take policies to either increase taxes on reduce government spending.  The macro aspect is clear in this dilemma, with US unemployment rate still about 9% for many years, any attempt to balance the budget may actually make the US economic situation worse off.

But this video made me think about the microeconomic aspect of raising taxes.  All of us, for the sake of equity, like progressive income tax systems, where the richer people pays a higher % of their income through taxes.  To people who are not trained in economics 101, it seems that the best way to do that is to tax those "rich and greedy corporations". 

Romney, who is obviously either economics trained or advised by an economist, made the response that "Corporation are people, my friend", to that suggestion and got heckled by some Iowans.  Their constant shouting certainly reminds me of the South Park "They took our jobs" rednecks.



But, seriously, let us examine some of the economic theory behind tax incidence and see how we can make sense of this question, "Who actually pays the corporate income tax?"  Some basic starting points to take note. 

Only people pay taxes

Romney is indeed correct in stating the obvious, "Corporations are people, my friend." Thus, from this perspective, a corporation represents three distinct groups of people.  They are the consumers who purchase goods and services from it, the workers who work in the corporation, and finally, the shareholders who invest in the corporation who either hope to earn through capital gains or dividends. 

So, instead of asking, "Does the corporation pay the corporate income tax", we need to be more precise and ask, "What will be the relative share of the taxes paid by each of these three groups of people?"  And how economist would answer this very good question will lead to my second point.

Elasticities tells you tax incidence

In plain English, who bears the tax burden ultimately boils down to relative responsiveness of each of the three groups of people.  Basic rule is, the more responsive you are, the less of the tax you will end up paying.  I like to use the story of the bear and the 2 runners to illustrate this point, where, upon encountering the bear, guy A shout "Run" and guy B replied, "But we can never outrun the bear!", to which guy A replied, "Yes, but I just need to run faster than you!"

Analysis

From the above 2 points, we can make the following 2 standard claims:

Claim 1
If the demand for the good from consumers is more price inelastic relative to the supply of good coming from the corporation, most of the corporate income tax will fall on the consumers.  For this, any JC student of econs should know how to draw the standard demand-supply diagram so it should be obvious.

Claim 2
As capital is more mobile internationally than labor, since it is much easier for a corporation to move her capital investment overseas in response to the increase in corporate income tax, any increase in corporate income tax will tend to fall more on the worker instead of the capitalist. 

This second claim may not be so obvious so let me try to give a longer economic explanation.  After the rise in corporate income tax, the net rate of return of capital will be lower than the gross rate of return. Firms will begin to move capital overseas, the capital stock domestically will thus fall until the marginal product of the remaining capital rises. This process of moving capital overseas will only stop when the net rate of return rises to match the original gross rate of return before the increase in corporate income tax.

As capital is moved overseas, workers in the country will have less capital to work with, leading to a fall in workers' marginal product, with a corresponding fall in wages, that accounts for them paying the tax.  I hope you are clear but since I cannot hear your protests, I shall assume it is clear haha.

Conclusion

There are a few other claims that are also standard in the economic literature, whether the country is large enough such that it can affect world prices and world return to capital and also the relative factor intensities of the sector being taxed, for example, if you tax a capital intensive sector, surprisingly, all of labor end up bearing the burden, this is one of those things I have learned from university when I read about Harberger, that still amazes me up until now. 

However, those claims are a bit more complicated to explain in this entry.  From the above 2 claims, you can already tell that Romney is correct, raising the corporate income tax does not necessarily means the rich guys are the one paying.  Consumers may not be rich, workers may not be rich. 

Even the shareholder may not be rich, he may just be a humble one trying to provide for his retirement.  If consumers end up paying higher prices, workers end up getting lower wages, the humble shareholder end up getting lower dividends or capital gains, then everyone will bear some of the burden of the increase corporate income tax.  That is the main conclusion to draw from this analysis.

After being somewhat confused by South Park's episode "You're getting old" when they made fun of dubstep, which sounded like "crap" in the entire episode. 



I then found out that Hyuna's Bubble Pop song, which to me sounds so catchy, also incorporated a short dubstep part from 2:18 onwards.  Oh, so that is what dubstep sounds like  You learn something new every day. 



It appears the conservative Koreans are now banning this particular song due to its sexy nature, well, they are supposed to be conservative hehe. I have never heard of the band 4 minute before this song so I thought it was another example of good marketing. By choosing the sexiest member in the group and have her release a solo song to show that aspect off, you get people knowing the real band and thus more willing to check out their other songs.