Path of the point of vernal equinox along the ecliptic over a 6000 year period. The tradition of take the point of vernal equinox as defining the "sign of Aries" dates to Babylonian astrology, ca. 600 BC. It is apparent in this image that the main star of Aries, Hamal , was closest to the point of vernal equinox in ca. the 7th century BC. While in reality the Earth goes in an orbit around the Sun, it seems from the Earth that the Sun moves over the ecliptic (red) on the celestial dome. When the Sun seems to pass through the vernal equinox (longitude 0°), the longitude of the Earth itself is 180° longitude. 再放一个威尼斯的星座钟 Astrological clock at Venice
上周贴按揭合同的一些条款分析，看好些朋友留言说，基本没有仔细读自己按揭合同的条款就签约了。觉得还是有必要把这个仔细说一下，毕竟对大部分人来说，按揭支出都是日常开销中最大的一块，值得花些时间了解清楚来。 一般贷款买房做按揭，要走以下几个步骤： Qualification Qualification (or "pre-qualification" as it is often called) is an opinion that your income, assets and current debts qualify you for a loan of some specified amount. The opinion may come from a lender, a Realtor, or it may be your own based on your use of an affordability calculator. Whatever the source, the opinion does not take your credit into accoun t, and no one is committed by it. It used to be that Realtors did a lot of qualifications, often back-of-the-envelope affairs, so that they would not waste time looking for houses in a price range the buyer could not afford. Increasingly, they ask borrowers to become pre-approved by a lender because it is more reliable than a qualification, and lenders are willing to provide it free of charge as a way of stimulating business. Home sellers have also learned to ask potential buyers for a pre-approval. Pre-Approval Pre-approval is a conditional commitment by a lender to make a loan prior to the identification of a specific property . On a pre-approval, unlike a qualification, the lender verifies the information you provide and checks your credit . A pre-approval will stipulate a loan amount or monthly payment, but not necessarily the loan type or the price. The lender's commitment under a pre-approval is always conditional, but rarely are the conditions spelled out. Pre-approvals don’t have expiration dates, but some considerable time may elapse before the borrower receiving a pre-approval comes back to convert it into an approval. During that period, things can happen that cause the lender to back off. For example, the borrower’s credit deteriorates, or she loses her job. No one can reasonably expect a lender to approve a loan in those circumstances. 上面说的这两 步其实有时候就是一步， 我是几月前就在自己的开户行开了 份“贷款金额预 审函” 。手续非常简单， 去家分理处，说想买房要办这个pr e-appro val ， 然后银行指派一个工作人员负责，根据要求 提交身份证明、账号 名、工资单和上年税表 即可。 Approval Approval is a commitment by a lender to make a loan. Unlike a pre-approval, a specific property (along with its appraised value) is identified, and the loan details are spelled out. These include the type and purpose of loan, down payment, and type of documentation. It will also include an interest rate, even though a rate is not firmly established until it is locked. The presumption underlying an approval is that the probability of closure is high – much higher than with a pre-approval. It is not 100%, however, because borrowers sometimes drop out, and sometimes one or more of the conditions that accompany the approval are not met. Approval letters contain “Prior to Doc” and “Prior to Funding” conditions, which are checklists of nitty-gritty details that must be completed before the final documents are drawn, and before funds are disbursed. Sometimes, one of these details derails the train. 注 ： Prior-to-doc means the loan documents will not be issued until these conditions are received and signed off by the underwriter. Prior-to-funding means the underwriter will allow the loan documents to go through escrow without these conditions. Be that as it may, they will not fund the loan until they are met. The prior-to-doc conditions are usually the most important and the prior-to-funding are smaller conditions the underwriter believes should not be difficult to meet. To ensure timely funding, it’s very important to provide the requested items as soon as possible. Lock Lock is a commitment by the lender to a specified price – rate and points. Ordinarily, lenders lock at the borrower’s request, and view the borrower as being committed as well, though they don’t always communicate this very well, or at all. Since locking imposes a cost on lenders, some of them charge a nonrefundable fee which may be credited back to the borrower at closing. Some Recommendations fr om Mortgage Advisor I recommend that prospective home buyers qualify themselves, since they are much better positioned to know what they can afford than anyone else. I recommend that they get pre-approved as a way of establishing their bona fides to home sellers and Realtors. Only one pre-approval is needed, and it does not commit them to the issuing lender. It is only fair, however, to include that lender among the loan providers you shop when you have a contract to purchase and need a loan. But bear in mind that if you switch to B after being pre-approved by A, you must now be approved by B. I recommend that when your loan is approved, you lock the price the same day, because that is when you know the price. ----------------- lender 在考虑是否贷款给一个borrower 时，主要从以下两个角度： 1. ability to pay: 还贷的能力。取决于你的收入 和 存款。具体有三个标准： （1）一般 房屋价值不超过年收入的4 -5倍 ； （2） 每月按揭支出不超过月入的28% -30% ； （3） 手头现金是否足以支付首付 。 Down Payment Requirements : In 2011, FHA-insured loans required down payments of 3% on loans up to $217,050. On larger loans, which were available on an area by area basis up to $729,750, the legal down payment requirement remained at 3% but lenders generally required 10%. On conforming conventional loans, which are loans eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the down payment was 5% on loans up to $417,000, and 10% on the larger loans available on an area by area basis up to $729,750. On larger conventional loans, up to about $1.5 million, the down payment requirement was generally 20%. Down payment requirements will be higher whenever a transaction has characteristics that lenders view as risky. Very large loans have a high requirement, for example, because they are secured by expensive houses which may have unique features that appeal to a limited number of potential buyers, and are therefore subject to much greater price variability than less expensive houses. For similar reasons, lenders will usually require a larger down payment if the borrower has a poor credit record, is purchasing a house as an investment rather than for occupancy, wants to refinance for an amount significantly larger than the existing balance, and so on. Source of Funds For Down Payment: In general, lenders want borrowers to meet the down payment requirement with funds they have saved because this indicates that the borrower has the discipline to save, which bodes well for the repayment of the loan. For this reason, they may restrict the amount of the down payment that is provided by gifts from family and friends. (Borrowers looking to parents for a major chunk of the down payment should make sure the money is in their own account several months before they apply for a loan ). 2. willing ness to pay： 还贷的意愿 。主要 看你 以前的信用积分。 一般740分以上就是exce llent，足以获得最好的抵押利率。
关于信息披露，2010年，美国住房和城镇发展局启用了新的“诚信预估表格“，就是要求Lender向买房人提供一个按揭贷款达成、房屋交割时可能发生的各种费用及其预估金额的清单。 该表格链接在这里： http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/rmra/res/gfestimate.pdf 不长，就3页，值得抽时间看一下。 2010年的新表格和过去比，有很大的进步，这篇文章详细分析了新旧表格的异同： On January 1, 2010, a redesigned Good Faith Estimate (GFE) will become effective, making mortgage loan shopping a little easier for borrowers. The GFE is a disclosure of information about a mortgage transaction that lenders and mortgage brokers must provide within 3 business days of receiving an application. The existing GFE, which has been around for at least 30 years, is so bad that the bar for improvement is extremely low. The new GFE clears the bar by a comfortable margin, though it is far from perfect. Clearer Presentation of Critical Mortgage Features The existing GFE, along with the Truth in Lending (TIL) disclosure that the borrower receives at the same time, are so poorly designed that borrowers who are distracted and feel under pressure when they are exposed to disclosure documents often miss critically important information. This could be that the interest rate on their loan can increase, that the balance can increase, that their loan has a balloon payment, or that it has a prepayment penalty. With the new GFE, it will be very difficult for a borrower to miss these features because they are prominently displayed on page 1 in a nice summary table. Clearer Presentation of Lender Charges The existing GFE provides an open-ended listing of all settlement charges , without distinguishing charges of the lender and those of third parties. This format encourages lenders to invent new charges, and since all the figures are “estimates” subject to change, to escalate charges as loans move to closing. The format also encourages borrowers to question individual lender charges – what they mean and whether they are fairly priced – while neglecting the only number that matters, which is the total of all such charges. Trying to negotiate individual charges is a costly distraction for borrowers, but the existing GFE encourages it. In contrast, the new GFE does not even show the individual lender charges! The new GFE makes a clear distinction between lender charges and third party charges . Lender charges consist of just two items: Points that are paid to reduce the interest rate, and the total of all other charges, referred to as the Origination Charge. The Origination Charge cannot change at closing . The sum of the points and Origination Charge is the Adjusted Origination Charges. Clearer Presentation of Broker Charges On brokered loans, the Origination Charge includes any fee paid the broker by the lender, called the “ yield spread premium ” , or YSP. The YSP is shown as an upfront credit to the borrower (negative points) granted in exchange for a higher rate. (This is on the second line under item 2). This allows the borrower to see how much of the Origination Charge she is paying indirectly through a higher rate. Showing the borrower exactly how much the broker is earning in total on the transaction is useful to any borrower who has retained a mortgage broker and is not shopping alternatives. It can be misleading, however, if the borrower is comparing one GFE offered by a broker with another GFE offered by a lender because the lender is not obliged to show its YSP equivalent -- its profit on the sale of the loan. The comparison could falsely suggest that the broker is making more on the transaction than the lender. Borrowers making such comparisons should ignore any YSP and focus on the lowest price , which is the combination of the rate and the Adjusted Origination Charge. This provides an unbiased price comparison between direct and brokered loans. Obfuscation of the Distinction Between Broker and Lender An unfortunate consequence of the new GFE is that it obfuscates the distinction between brokers and lenders. In order to avoid disclosing YSP, brokers are flocking to join pseudo lender organizations that change their legal status from independent contractor to employee of a lender. They may keep their name and operate in the same way, but instead of delivering documents to a lender who funds the loan, the lender gives them a credit line that enables them to fund the loan themselves, delivering it to the lender 48 hours later. This creates a problem for the borrower who wants to retain a broker as her agent to shop for a loan, at a fee specified in advance. If the loan provider she retains is legally a broker, then the borrower can check the agreed-upon fee against what is shown on the GFE. But if the loan provider is in fact a pseudo lender who does not have to report YSP, the borrower has no way to confirm the fee. Borrowers who want an agency-type relationship with their broker should select a broker who belongs to the Upfront Mortgage Brokers Association (see www.upfrontmortgagebrokers.org .) If any of their members operate legally as lenders, they are nonetheless obliged to disclose their YSP equivalent to the borrower. Little Improvement in Clarifying the Lender’s Price Commitment While the new GFE does freeze the Origination Charge, it does not commit the lender to the rate and points shown on the GFE until they are locked by the lender. The new GFE is little better than the old one in helping borrowers understand how and when the lender is committed. The new GFE tries to convey this to the borrower by having the lender disclose on the GFE how long the rate and points in the GFE are good. If the loan has been locked when the borrower receives the GFE, the GFE will show the lock period, usually 30 to 60 days. But if the loan is not locked when the borrower receives the GFE, and if the GFE has been sent by overnight or slower mail, the terms in the GFE have lapsed when the borrower receives it because mortgage prices are reset every day. It is not clear how the lender will answer the question of how long the rate and points in the GFE are good if they have already expired. . It is possible that lenders will try to avoid this problem by delivering the GFE on the day the terms in the GFE are set. In such event, the GFE could read that the terms are good until the end of the same day. This would require an on-line or other method of rapid communication. Lenders may be encouraged to lock loans as soon as possible by recent changes in Truth in Lending regulations. If the APR at closing is more than .125% higher than the APR in the disclosure documents, the new regulations require lenders to issue a new set of documents. Disclosure of Third Party Settlement Costs Third party settlement charges are charges for services that lenders require borrowers to purchase. They have always been over-priced because the lender has usually selected the service provider and the borrower has paid the tab. This results in “reverse competition”, where service providers compete for the favor of lenders, which raises their costs and prices. The obvious, simple and direct remedy is to require that lenders themselves purchase all third party services they require borrowers to have. Lenders would pass the cost on to borrowers in the mortgage price, but it would be far smaller than it is now because lenders are informed buyers who would buy in bulk and drive down prices. It is the same reason why car buyers pay less for tires when the tires are purchased by the manufacturer and included in the price of the car. Instead of doing the obvious, Congress declared that fees paid by service providers for the referral of business were illegal, as if this would encourage service providers to reduce prices. It hasn’t. In the new GFE that became effective January 1, HUD tries another tack. It requires lenders to distinguish third party charges of service providers that the lender selects, and charges of providers selected by the borrower. Charges in the first group cannot be more than 10% higher at closing than the estimate shown on the GFE. There is no such limit applicable to the charges of service providers selected by the borrower. The 10% limit on price increases will eliminate the practice of “ low-balling ” these charges, which some lenders did as a way to entice borrowers who shopped total settlement costs. But it will not reduce these charges. The explicit recognition of the two categories of charges may induce more borrowers to shop, and more service providers to market directly to borrowers. Over the years, this could put some downward pressure on prices. This is about the best HUD could do, since it does not have the legal authority to require lenders to purchase all third party services themselves.
为了保护买房人的利益，美国通过了一部法案要求Lender对买房人进行必要的信息披露。该法案叫做the Truth In Lending Act。相关披露必须在收到买房人递交的按揭贷款申请后不迟于三日内寄出。根据这个法案制定的实施细则叫Regulation Z，这个Z规则是臭名昭著的复杂。这篇文章就涉及prepayment penalties的披露要求做了介绍： Many borrowers are surprised to find that they are subject to a prepayment penalty because the Truth In Lending disclosure is very poor. Borrowers should understand that if the TIL says that they "may" be subject to a penalty, it means that they will be subject to a penalty. Why Borrowers Are Often Surprised to Find That They Must Pay a Prepayment Penalty "I recently I went to refinance and was shocked to learn that I had to pay a prepayment penalty. I had never been told about this. How can they spring it on me now?" Before signing the note, you received a Truth in Lending Disclosure Statement (TIL) that said "If you pay off your loan early, you may have to pay a penalty". You signed the statement, acknowledging that you had read it. So how can you tell me now that you had never been told? Let me answer my own question. You may not have actually read the statement when you signed it. On the day you were given the TIL, you may have had a raft of other documents requiring your signature, so you felt overwhelmed and signed them all. Or, you may actually have read the TIL but the information about the prepayment penalty did not register in your mind. My answers are based on correspondence I have had with many other borrowers who told me essentially the same thing as you: they didn’t know they had a prepayment penalty until they went to refinance. The problem seems to be pervasive, and suggests that there may be something seriously amiss with the disclosure process. I believe this is indeed the case. The TIL Disclosure of Prepayment Penalties Is Horrendous "Prepayment" lies at the bottom of the TIL, the last piece of information on a long form. It reads as follows: PREPAYMENT: If you pay off your loan early, you may will not have to pay a penalty may will not be entitled to a refund of part of the finance charge This is a strange set of choices. The negative is definite, "you…will not have to pay a penalty", but the affirmative is qualified. The dictionary says that "may" refers to "a possibility"; "may" and "may not" thus mean exactly the same thing. Use of the word "may" suggests falsely that there may not be a penalty. It would not be surprising if this misleading phraseology put borrowers off their guard. Since a mortgage loan either has a prepayment penalty clause or it doesn’t, why was the first option not expressed as a "will" rather than a "may"? My guess is that lenders pointed out to the Federal Reserve (which administers TIL) that lenders need not enforce the prepayment penalty clause, and in cases where they didn’t there would be no penalty. But this is a hair-splitting point that loses sight of the purpose of disclosure, which is to put borrowers on their guard. Borrowers don’t have to be protected against the possibility that lenders won’t enforce the penalty clause. In any case, the point about enforcement would be irrelevant if the disclosure was rephrased as follows: PREPAYMENT: Your loan does does not have a prepayment penalty clause Compounding the Problem With a Garbage Disclosure The second line under "Prepayment" on the existing TIL form indicates whether or not, in the event of early payment, the lender will refund "part of the finance charge." There is no good reason for this being here. Lenders never refund fees to borrowers, and even if they did, borrowers need not be warned about the possibility of lender generosity. What this item does is cause confusion. "Finance charge" on the TIL consists of upfront fees plus cumulative interest payments over the entire term of the loan. The TIL describes it as "The dollar amount the credit will cost you." When borrowers see that they will not "be entitled to a refund of part of the finance charge", they wonder if that means that they must pay all the interest through term when they prepay the loan? I have had this question asked of me by dozens of borrowers. The answer is "no". Interest payments cease when the loan balance is paid off. The statement is meant to alert borrowers to the fact they will not get a refund of any fees paid upfront . Because this confusing and wholly unnecessary statement is placed immediately below the already weak notice of a prepayment penalty, it weakens the penalty notice further by diluting the borrower’s attention. The effectiveness of disclosure declines as the amount of other information with which it is packaged rises. The borrower trying to figure out what the refund option means is not concentrating on the penalty option. In sum, it is readily understandable why you and many other borrowers signed a TIL but were later surprised to find that you were subject to a prepayment penalty. The TIL does a wretched job of disclosing this critical piece of information. If they did it better, perhaps we would not see so many states and municipalities enacting laws restricting prepayment penalties altogether. Don’t expect improvements in the TIL anytime soon. Meanwhile, borrowers receiving a TIL for the first time should understand that a check mark against "may" on the first line under "Prepayment" means they have a penalty clause without any doubt whatever, and they should just ignore the second line. February 5, 2011 Postscript: The good news is that beginning in 2010, the Good Faith Estimate (GFE) administered by HUD has a clear statement on whether or not the mortgage has a prepayment penalty.
What Is a Mortgage Prepayment Penalty? A prepayment penalty is a provision of your contract with the lender that states that in the event you pay off the loan entirely, you will pay a penalty. Penalties are usually expressed as a percent of the outstanding balance at time of prepayment, or a specified number of months of interest. Usually, prepayment penalties decline or disappear with the passage of time. Seldom do they apply after the fifth year. Partial prepayments of up to 20% of the balance usually are allowed in any one year without a penalty. A penalty that applies to a home sale as well as a refinancing, is a "hard" penalty; if it applies only to a refinancing, it is a "soft" penalty. Questions about prepayment penalties come from several types of borrowers, as illustrated by the letters below. A Prepayment Penalty May Lower the Interest Rate on a Prime Loan "We are committing ourselves up to the limit of our capacity to buy the house we want. Our broker said we could reduce the rate from 7% to 6.75% if we accepted a prepayment penalty. This would reduce our payment by $35 a month, which would help a lot. Should we?" Probably. The rate quotes indicate you are a prime borrower -- meaning your credit is good and/or you are making a very large down payment. Prime borrowers can usually get a better interest rate if they accept a prepayment penalty. Lenders, and the investors who buy loans from lenders in the secondary market, are willing to accept a lower rate in exchange for a prepayment penalty. The benefit of a prepayment penalty to them is that it discourages refinancing if interest rates decline in the future. Most prime borrowers avoid prepayment penalties, either because they can or because they are never offered the option. Loan officers usually press to close as soon as possible, and offering options slows down the process. The upshot is that many prime borrowers who would elect a prepayment option if they understood it, never get the chance. You may be a good candidate because you attach a high value to the lower rate. The question you must consider is what you are giving up? How large is the penalty? How many years must elapse before it goes away? And does it apply only to refinancing -- you don’t want to be subject to penalty if you sell your house. A 2-3% penalty during the first 3-5 years, payable only on a refinancing, is a reasonable price to pay for a 1/4% reduction in rate. A Prepayment Penalty May Be Required on a Sub-Prime Loan "Because I have very bad credit, I agreed to pay 11% for a 30-year mortgage. Friends have warned me to avoid a prepayment penalty, but when I ask the loan officer about this, he says that the lender absolutely requires it. Do I have any options?" Probably not. Because of your bad credit, you are a sub-prime borrower. Lenders generally demand prepayment penalties on sub-prime loans because the risk of refinancing is higher than on prime loans. Sub-prime borrowers profit from refinancing if their credit rating improves, even when the general level of mortgage rates does not change. Prime borrowers can profit from refinancing only if market interest rates decline. If you make all your payments on time for the next two years, and assuming no change in the general market, you might be able to refinance your 11% loan at 7-8%. But your current lender wants to keep your 11% loan for more than 2 years. Because of high origination costs and high default costs, sub-prime lending is not profitable if the good loans walk out the door after only two years. But that doesn’t mean you have no negotiating power. While you may not be able to negotiate away the penalty entirely, you will probably be able to negotiate the specifics. Tell the loan officer: "No longer than 5 years; no higher than 3%; partial prepayments up to 20% of the balance allowed in any year without penalty; no penalty on sale of the property." Be forceful but sweet, keeping in mind that the lender wants your loan to close. Prepayment Penalties Are Rarely Waived "I’m one of those dupes who never read the note. I now find myself stuck with a 12% mortgage and a 5% prepayment penalty, which I can’t afford to pay. Is there any way to get out of it?" The only way to get out of a contractual obligation is to induce the other party to the contract to let you out. But lenders rarely have a reason to waive a prepayment penalty. Considering that you are terminating a relationship with them to start anew with another lender, why would they? The lender will surely say "no" if you ask. You might have a chance if the request comes from a more formidable source. Some sub-prime borrowers have found a community group willing to intercede on their behalf. If you convince the community group that the original terms were unreasonably onerous, they just might persuade the lender to rewrite the note. Contract Chicanery Often Involves Prepayment Penalties The letter above was from a borrower who had been victimized by contract chicanery: the practice of surreptitiously slipping a provision disadvantageous to the borrowers into the note. (Ordinarily, the borrower does not see the note until closing , and probably does not read it then. )Judging from my mail, prepayment penalties are the most common objective of contract chicanery. Don't Gift a Prepayment Penalty to the Lender “My lender has requested an addendum to my note that he calls a soft prepayment penalty. Basically it states that if I prepay more than 20% of the loan within 5 years I will need to pay a penalty equal to six months' interest. If the property is sold I can have this penalty waived. It is unlikely that I will want to refinance my 6% fixed-rate loan, so why would the lender request such a clause? Should I accept it?” No. This lender evidently priced your loan without a penalty clause, and now wants to insert it without any quid pro quo. Don’t let him. When the lender sells your loan in the secondary market, it might be worth 1% more with the prepayment penalty clause than without . That would, roughly, double his profit on the deal. But a prepayment penalty should carry a benefit to you – perhaps a 1/8% reduction in the interest rate. Your current intentions regarding refinance in the future are wholly irrelevant . If rates drop from 6% to 4%, you will probably refinance. Investors in the secondary market understand that, even if you don’t. It is why they are willing to pay a premium price for a penalty clause that discourages refinancing. Assuming you negotiate a penalty with the lender, make sure a provision to waive the penalty if the house is sold is incorporated in the note. The lender who ends up owning your loan won’t know anything about any oral promises. 首先，Prepaymetn penalties不是一个法律强制要求买房人支付的东西。纽约州在08经济危机之后，似乎还立法禁止借款人要求prepayment penalties；另外FHA贷款也不允许有这样的条款。但是德州还是允许的。 这个条款主要适用两个场合： 第一，按揭利率下降，买房人要求做refinance: 第二，买房人在按揭到期前，出售房屋。 一般的建议是：不接受这个条款，尤其在出售房屋的情况下，坚决不接受。 考虑到未来按揭利率低于目前的可能性很小，做refinance的可能性不会太大，也可以接受这样一个条款来换取按揭利率的降低。 因为这本质上是买卖双方对未来利率走向的一个赌注。 对该条款的谈判方案可以这样定： 1. 接受一定时间、比例内的prepayment penalties来换利率的降低； 2. 在此之外，必须免除该penalties; 3. 任何时候出售房屋，都免除该penalties.
Exxon Mobil ( NYSE: XOM ) is no longer the world’s largest corporate producer of oil. That distinction has gone to PetroChina( NYSE: PTR ). Reuters reports that “PetroChinaannounced Thursday that it pumped 2.4 million barrels a day last year, surpassing Exxon by 100,000.” The change was inevitable. China’s thirst for oil makes it the second-largest net importer in the world after the U.S. PetroChinaisalso aquasi-governmental operation. It has access to Chinese capital. The central government of the People’s Republic needs an ever-growingsupply of crude to fuel industry and consumer uses — particularly for the use of cars and light trucks. And China can afford only so much in terms of crude price increases.China may have a strong central government, but the power of that government can offset a huge rise in energy prices only for so long before it must pass some of it along to consumers.
华尔街日报关于中国（主要是三桶油）在美能源投资的文章。 结合自己的经验，总结我们在美能源投资的基本战略： 第一，不控股，不控制operation; 第二，寻找到合适的local partner，让这个partner成为中国企业在美国strongest ally; 第三，理解美国的政治和公关运作； 第四，美国，不应作为资源保障地来发展，而应作为技术获取地和市场规则学习地。进入美国能源市场的目的是介入WTI定价体系，增大我们在NYMEX的话语权。 Fu Chengyu's first attempt to buy a piece of the U.S. oil industry kicked up a storm of protest and ended in failure. Seven years later, the Chinese executive is pouring billions of dollars into the oil patch without even a whisper of trouble. His new recipe for success: Seek minority stakes, play a passive role and, in a nod to U.S. regulators, keep Chinese personnel at arm's length from advanced U.S. technology. Since 2010, Chinese companies have invested more than $17 billion into oil and gas deals in the U.S. and Canada, according to data provider Dealogic, giving their energy-thirsty nation a long-coveted foothold in a region known for innovative new drilling techniques. North America has become China's top region for oil and gas deals. Mr. Fu has been leading the push, first as chairman of China National Offshore Oil Corp., known as Cnooc, then as chairman of China Petrochemical Corp., called Sinopec, one of the largest oil companies in the world. The recent deals are nothing like Mr. Fu's audacious, unsuccessful bid for Unocal Corp. in 2005. They typically involve a Chinese firm paying upfront for a stake in an oil or gas field and agreeing to cover some drilling costs. Cnooc executives figured such joint ventures "might be a nonthreatening way to get back into America," says Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp., who struck a 2010 deal with Mr. Fu that marked the beginning of the Chinese investment surge. The deals address pressing needs for both sides. U.S. companies have developed revolutionary new ways to extract oil and gas, but they need lots of capital to make that happen. China's state-owned energy companies, for their part, have been scouring the globe for supplies of oil and gas to help power the nation's surging economy, and the knowledge to extract their own hard-to-tap reserves back home. The North American energy push is part of a wave of investment money from Chinese state-owned and private enterprises into the U.S. and other Western nations. A big chunk of the investment is oriented to energy, mining and other areas critical to China's fast-growing economy. The deals are giving Chinese buyers a foot in new markets, and in some cases, exposure to American technology and management techniques they can use in China. China surpassed the U.S. in 2009 as the world's largest consumer of energy in all forms. The International Energy Agency estimates that China also could become the world's largest consumer of oil, thanks to the affinity of its growing middle class for cars. Currently, imports fulfill more than half of its oil needs—much of them from such potential trouble spots as Iran and Sudan. Its natural gas consumption nearly doubled between 2006 and 2010, according to the BP Statistical Review. China's new approach to investing in U.S. energy companies suggests it has learned lessons about how to make the industry and American politicians more comfortable with Chinese money. "Buy a portion of that company, work together with that company, and that company is your strongest ally in the U.S.," says S. Ming Sung, a former executive at Royal Dutch Shell PLC who has advised Sinopec and is now an adviser to several organizations that promote clean energy. Sinopec's Mr. Fu, who declined to comment for this article, has been China's most visible proponent of the new approach. Born in China's remote northern Heilongjiang province, the 60-year-old executive earned a master's degree in petroleum engineering in 1986 from the University of Southern California, where he now serves on the board of trustees. Like other leaders of major state-run companies, he is a senior member of the Communist Party. Those who know him say his technical and operational knowledge of the oil industry is considerable. "He built his foundation in engineering," said Iraj Ershaghi, a professor of petroleum engineering at USC who taught Mr. Fu in the 1980s. Mr. Fu, by then Cnooc's chairman, began negotiating directly with Unocal's then Chief Executive Charles Williamson to buy the El Segundo, Calif.-based company for $18.5 billion. News of the offer brought criticism from U.S. lawmakers, who argued the deal would put crucial U.S. energy resources in Chinese hands. U.S. lawmakers passed a resolution asking the Bush administration to review any Unocal-Cnooc deal. Mr. Fu spoke out publicly in defense of the deal—an unusual move for the leader of a state-controlled company. In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled "Why is America Worried?", he argued that most of Unocal's reserves were outside the U.S. anyway, and that Cnooc would preserve American jobs and "will be an open and responsible participant in the process." Nevertheless, members of the Committee for Foreign Investment in the U.S., an interagency body chaired by the Treasury Department, indicated they would recommend that President George W. Bush block the deal, say people briefed by members. The Treasury Department declined to comment, saying it doesn't talk publicly about specific cases reviewed by the committee. In a 2006 interview with the Journal, Mr. Fu said that Cnooc "learned we need to be more prudent in terms of public relations and political lobbying when dealing with such a big deal. We now understand American politics better." In the wake of the busted deal, Chinese energy firms shied away from North America. State-owned oil companies began striking energy deals elsewhere in the world, such as in Nigeria and Yemen, which gave it access to significant reserves. Meanwhile, back in North America, new techniques were being developed to extract oil and natural gas from shale formations deep underground, from tar sands in Canada, and from deep water in the Gulf of Mexico. Chesapeake and its competitors were rushing to buy drilling rights to U.S. shale fields. Such projects require vastly more capital to drill than conventional reservoirs. A single shale well can cost more than $9 million, U.S. companies say. But the global financial crisis was constricting capital for these expensive projects, so energy companies began looking for new sources of funding. In 2009, China National Petroleum Corp., or PetroChina, bought 60% stakes in two oil-sands projects from a Canadian operator for about $1.9 billion. The following year, Sinopec committed $4.65 billion for a 9% stake in Alberta's Syncrude oil-sands project, one of Canada's biggest energy projects. Last summer, Cnooc agreed to pay $2.1 billion for OPTI Canada Inc., a producer that held a minority stake in a large oil-sands project. There was little political opposition in Canada. Cnooc tiptoed back into the U.S. in 2009 with a small deal to provide development funding and receive a minority stake in some of Statoil ASA's Gulf of Mexico leases. Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake began looking to Asia as a source of capital, says Mr. McClendon, the CEO. In 2010 it sold preferred shares to a unit of Singapore's Temasek Holdings Ltd. and Hopu Investment Management Co., a China-focused private-equity firm. Other investors with ties to the governments of South Korea and China followed with similar investments in Chesapeake. The deals gave Chesapeake " the Good Housekeeping stamp of approval in Asia ," says Mr. McClendon. Encouraged, Chesapeake approached Chinese oil companies, and Mr. McClendon developed a rapport with Mr. Fu, who he describes as "comfortable with Americans." Mr. McClendon says Cnooc executives were openly saying: "Since 2005, we haven't had a strategy to invest in the U.S., and we think now is the time to do it." In 2010, Cnooc agreed to pay Chesapeake $1.08 billion for a one-third stake in 600,000 acres in the oil-rich Eagle Ford Shale formation in south Texas, and to spend another $1.08 billion on drilling there. The two executives struck a similar deal, worth nearly $1.3 billion, for stakes in Wyoming and Colorado fields. Messrs. McClendon and Fu were intent on avoiding the kind of political opposition Cnooc faced five years earlier in its ill-fated bid for Unocal. The deals were structured so that Cnooc didn't get an ownership stake in Chesapeake itself and didn't control production. "They didn't come over here and try to buy Chesapeake," Mr. McClendon says. " They came over here to buy a minority, nonoperating interest in an asset and not take the oil and gas home." The Chesapeake deals also included an unusual provision regarding "secondment"—the temporary assignment of employees to another company, a common practice in the oil industry. On Chesapeake's Oklahoma City campus there are Norwegian and French oil workers, a result of the company's joint ventures with France's Total SA and Norway's Statoil. Mindful of the political backlash that might result if Cnooc employees had the run of Chesapeake's facilities, the two executives agreed that the Chinese deals wouldn't allow for any secondment, Mr. McClendon says. Nevertheless, the Chinese companies hope to gain insight into how their new partners decide things like where to drill wells and how to set up the infrastructure around them, people involved in the deals say. Last year, Mr. Fu left Cnooc to become chairman and Communist Party secretary of Sinopec—part of the occasional reshuffling of top executives that occurs at China's state-owned companies. Sinopec, one of China's largest state-controlled firms, is mostly a refiner, but that business is tough in China because the government keeps consumer fuel prices low, pressuring profit margins. With Mr. Fu at the helm, Sinopec agreed in January to pay $2.5 billion to Devon Energy Corp. of Oklahoma City for a one-third stake in about 1.3 million acres of drilling property in Ohio, Michigan and elsewhere. As in Chesapeake's deals with Cnooc, Devon's pact with Sinopec allows the American company to keep full operating control as well as control over sales of oil and gas from the wells. David Hager, who heads Devon Energy's exploration and production business, says he expects to work with Sinopec on other fronts. "The most likely outcome is that they would want us to participate with them in China," he says. Zhong Hua, chief financial officer of the publicly traded arm of China's Cnooc, said in an interview that the company's U.S. exposure will advance its technical know-how. "With the U.S. experience, the company is fully capable of developing and deploying its own technologies within a short period of time in the coming years," he said. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that China's shale formations hold 1,275 trillion cubic feet of gas that can be extracted using current drilling technology, or more than the recoverable reserves in the U.S. and Canada combined. China already is getting some help from U.S. companies in tapping shale energy. Houston-based Baker Hughes Inc. said recently that it participated in drilling China's first horizontal shale-oil well late last year. Chinese firms now are attempting to negotiate partnerships with FTS International, a Fort Worth, Texas, company that specializes in hydraulic fracturing, a process used to extract energy from shale, according to one person familiar with the matter. FTS, which is owned by Chesapeake and a consortium of Asian investors, would use proceeds from any deals to expand internationally, this person says. FTS Chief Executive Marc Rowland said in a statement that the company is "actively seeking international opportunities" but "has no announcements at this time." Mr. Fu, for his part, appears eager for Sinopec to step up shale-gas exploration in China. Mr. Ershaghi, the USC professor, visited Beijing last July at his former student's request to lecture Sinopec managers and engineers on shale-gas production. "He did mention to me his desire to raise the awareness of shale gas in China," says Mr. Ershaghi. "He thought that's going to be one of the major developments that's going to solve China's energy needs." In January, in a New Year's address to Sinopec employees, Mr. Fu signaled that he expected foreign deal-making to continue. "The slowdown of the global economy brings us new opportunity to go overseas, expand overseas MA and introduce advanced technology and talent," Mr. Fu said.
上周五，提出“破窗效应”理论的社会 / 政治学家 James Q Wilson 去世。纽约时报的专栏作者 David Brooks 今日为他撰文如下。但是我在纽约时报网站上读他文章时，觉得更有意思的是下面的读者评论，看看这个小伙子的话： “ In some segments of society, being a decent moral person with values can be a pretty lonely existance . You may value hard work and education,but if it is not met with opportunity, then a type of long term decay starts to set in." 想起夫子说的，吾道不孤。作为单个的个体，决定能否坚持下去的，可能就在“decay starts to set in"的那个moment吧。 ------------------------ The obituaries for James Q. Wilson, the eminent social scientist, generally emphasized his “broken windows” theory on how to reduce crime. That’s natural. This strategy, which contributed to the recent reduction in crime rates, was his most tangible legacy. But broken windows was only a small piece of what Wilson contributed, and he did not consider it the center of his work. The best way to understand the core Wilson is by borrowing the title of one of his essays: “The Rediscovery of Character.” When Wilson began looking at social policy, at the University of Redlands, the University of Chicago and Harvard, most people did not pay much attention to character . The Marxists looked at material forces. Darwinians at the time treated people as isolated products of competition. Policy makers of right and left thought about how to rearrange economic incentives. “It is as if it were a mark of sophistication for us to shun the language of morality in discussing the problems of mankind,” he once recalled. Wilson worked within this tradition. But during the 1960s and ’70s, he noticed that the nation’s problems could not be understood by looking at incentives. Schools were expanding, but James Coleman found that the key to education success was the relationships at home and in the neighborhood. Income transfers to the poor increased, but poor neighborhoods did not improve; instead families disintegrated. The economy boomed and factory jobs opened up, but crime rates skyrocketed. Every generation has an incentive to spend on itself, but none ran up huge deficits until the current one. Some sort of moral norms prevented them. “ At root,” Wilson wrote in 1985 in The Public Interest, “in almost every area of important concern, we are seeking to induce persons to act virtuously, whether as schoolchildren, applicants for public assistance, would-be lawbreakers or voters and public officials.” When Wilson wrote about character and virtue, he didn’t mean anything high flown or theocratic. It was just the basics, befitting a man who grew up in the middle-class suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1940s: Behave in a balanced way. Think about the long-term consequences of your actions. Cooperate. Be decent. He did not believe that virtue was inculcated by prayer in schools . It was habituated by practicing good manners, by being dependable, punctual and responsible day by day. Wilson lived in an individualistic age, but he emphasized that character was formed in groups. As he wrote in “The Moral Sense,” his 1993 masterpiece, “Order exists because a system of beliefs and sentiments held by members of a society sets limits to what those members can do.” Wilson set out to learn how groups created a good order, why that order sometimes frayed. He worked patiently and meticulously. The phrase “we don’t know” rings throughout his writing. He was quick to admit ignorance in the face of knotty social problems. When Wilson started talking about character, he was surprised that many in the academy regarded him as an archconservative. Why should character talk be conservative? But he accepted the label and responded gracefully. Some conservatives in the academy respond to their isolation by becoming combative and extreme. Wilson’s rule was that conservatives should respond by being twice as productive and four times as nice. In “The Moral Sense,” he brilliantly investigated the virtuous sentiments we are born with and how they are cultivated by habit. Wilson’s broken windows theory was promoted in an essay with George Kelling called “Character and Community.” Wilson and Kelling didn’t think of crime primarily as an individual choice. They saw it as something that emerged from the social psychology of a community. When neighborhoods feel disorganized and scary, crime increases. Over the years, Wilson argued that American communities responded to the stresses of industrialization by fortifying self-control. Thanks to the temperance movement, for example, adult per-capita alcohol consumption fell from 7.1 gallons a year to 1.8 gallons a year between 1830 and 1850. But America responded to the stresses of the information economy by reducing the communal buttresses to self-control, with unfortunate results. Occasionally, when there was sufficient evidence, Wilson recommended policies that might reverse this slide. In one 1998 Public Interest essay, he promoted ideas to strengthen the family: create publicly supported, privately operated group homes for teenage mothers; increase adoption; investigate ways to increase preschool programs; create a G.I. Bill for young mothers — if you take care of your kid now, the government will pay for training later; create a religious United Way fund to increase the role of religion in American society. Wilson was not a philosopher. He was a social scientist. He just understood that people are moral judgers and moral actors, and he reintegrated the vocabulary of character into discussions of everyday life.
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