I.S.A.

Najib is Malaysia’s 6th Prime Minister.

And we have brought Malaysia’s reputation to a new low.

ISA now stands for I SUKA APA???!!

We have just proven that the 62 people caught under the Internal Security Act was detained without any justification. The only reason they are there is because our leaders don’t feel like releasing them. On the day we appointed our 6th PM, we announce that out of GOOD WILL, we will release 13 of the detainees…. We are trading “GOOD WILL” with “NATIONAL SECURITY”…. wow.. amazing. Tomorrow maybe when our PM celebrates his birthday and feel happy, maybe he will release a few more??

We should be asking ourselves why these people are in jail in the first place. Agong cannot release them, but PM can. Did they really threatened our National Security? How do we justify to release such persons? Instead of saying “I like what”…

“Berak” politics?

Perhaps the biggest talk for Malaysian right now is Perak politics. The sultan had every right to not call a dissolution of the house. However, one thing he failed to see is how can the 3 independants now serve the people if everyone/majority is so angry at them. Assemblymen are suppose to serve the people, and when the people feel that they can no longer serve them, they have a right to choose again. All this huu haa, suspending MB and EXCOs from the house, etc just adds to the joke of the Berak politics. If I were the Sultan, I’d come out and say something.

Lots of speculation that Gamuda shares will go up with the coming mini budget, because the royal family holds a significant number of shares of Gamuda.

TENAGA Share Price

Seems like TENAGA share price is weakening. Signs that the government maybe reducing electric tariffs soon.

Bad bad times for electronic sectors…

Truly bad times now, sales are not moving, inventories are high. Last week, Intel announced that it will close some of its manufacturing sites as part of cost control measures… today we found out that 2 of PG’s factories had been impacted. This is bad, rumours are saying more than 2 thousand PG jobs affected, thats 30% of Intel PG workforce.

Countdown to 4th Passenger Nightmare..

NEW YEAR DAY… that is the day if you don’t buckle up at the back, then the driver will be fined RM300. Well, I have 2 daughters, including a baby, who I don’t think like to buckle up, so how will I work around the problem? One method to solve this issue is to get extra passengers to fill up your car. I can get my mom and dad to sit in, so together with my wife, and elder daugther, that should fill up the entire car of 5 passengers… hence the making my baby the 4th passenger at the back free from traffic fines.

Does this increase the safety of my baby? NO for sure, but it sure save me 300 bucks or bribery money to the traffic police. This is what Malaysia is heading towards, why summon the driver in the first place if they don’t have enough passengers just because the infant does not like or the parent don’t have a baby seat. The issue of safety is not a concern because if there are more passengers, then the requirements are no longer needed.

At least it encourages car pooling for those with babies and no baby seats. Rediculous as it seems, WELCOME TO MALAYSIA! Fill up the car or get fined.

Oh, just make sure there are 3 people at the back who buckles up. Maybe you should just buckle up your dog to fill up the space and the kids at the back can roam FREELY. And when the police stop you, you show them your dog’s DOG license, my dog is Malaysian citizen too you know!!

No summons for fourth passenger in backseat…

“It is not silly because research has shown that the likelihood of a car having more than three passengers is only between 5% and 9%.” That was what the director general of the Road Safety Department say after announcing that the 4th passenger in backseat will not be fined. The Road Safety Department hoped that this would end the public debate on this matter once and for all.

Want to know what I think? This is typically another form of stupidity that the government is showing… that our country is being run by brainless people. Why do I say that? In my previous blog, I did say that either we implement the seatbelt rule for safety, or we don’t implement at all. Imagine that 4th passenger will not get fined as the Road Safety Department says its silly to do so as the likelihood of a car having more than 3 passengers is only 5 – 9%.

Then imagine this, 5th, 6th, 7th and even 8th passenger will also not be fined/summoned in this case. WHY? because it would be silly, definitely AS THE NUMBER OF PASSENGERS INCREASE, THE PERCENTAGE/”LIKELIHOOD” of this happening will be LESSER and LESSER, hence, based on the ROAD SAFETY DEPARTMENT, this would be SILLIERRRRRRRRR.

Historical Data

Here is a great table to show Malaysia’s fuel price based on historical data:

	RM/Litre	US$/每桶
01/10/00	1.20	35
20/10/01	1.30	20
01/05/02	1.32	26
31/10/02	1.33	28
01/03/03	1.35	31
01/05/04	1.37	38
01/10/04	1.42	47
05/05/05	1.52	48
30/07/05	1.62	57
26/02/06	1.92	63
05/06/08	2.70	120
17/11/08	2.00	55

Just thought its worth sharing with everyone.  Right now, fuel price is less than USD49.

Yo..10 cents?? No, its not our very own Malaysian Rapper.

This is what Badawi had to say for the recent price decrease: “As the world fuel price has had a sharp decrease lately, the Government has decided to once again reduce the retail price for the public’s benefit,”

Notice the word SHARP DECREASE, does it match with our 10cents? Public benefit?? or Government benefit? Anyway, if you don’t want to decrease the price to about RM1.60 per litre (which is what people in the US are paying), then why don’t you(the government) show us and be transparent, how much money is Malaysia making from this slow decrease in fuel price? I am not against Malaysia trying to make money, but I do want to challenge the government to tell us the profit figure and also show us in detail how the money is going to be spent. Don’t tell us that its suppose to cover for the RM625 that you have rebated to the people with lower cc cars, because the initial plan was to have that rebate in the first place and to subsidise 30cents per litre of fuel… that all has already been budgeted. Tell me what are you going to do with the money that you are making now with the sudden uninformed but assumed policy change.

Single school structure with an open mind…

Quote from the Star: Umno Youth chief aspirant Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir has called on the Government to abolish the vernacular school system to enhance unity among the people.

He said a single school system was the only way to check racial polarisation.

“The Government should consider introducing only a one school system with Bahasa Malaysia as the medium of instruction, except for the teaching of Science and Mathematics, which is already in English,” Mukhriz told reporters at Parliament House yesterday.

“Of course, pupils should then be given the option to study their mother tongue. Under this system, the Malays will also have the option of studying other languages like Chinese and Tamil, and this will further boost unity among the races,” the Umno Youth exco member added.

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This is my opinion:

1. Will single school system promote unity? YES … if you put everyone in one system, people tend to be groomed to have the same thinking and hence unity can be achieved. But this does not mean that the people will be smarter, they will not be able to think out of the box, hence Malaysia will be less competitive if we implement this system. Which is why in the corporate world, people don’t believe in “one structure” system. We should have open competition, no monopoly, otherwise Microsoft woudln’t have to spend so much money on lawsuites to fight their competitors.
2. Why would UMNO want to have a single school system? Answer is easy, if you can’t be as competitive as your competitors, you go to war with them, take over their country and force them to be like you and hopefully you will also be influenced to be more competitive like your competitors in the process.
3. Is Bahasa Malaysia the right medium of instruction? NO. We should look into the future, and when the world has already acknowledged that countries like China, India and Russia will overpower US in terms of economy, we should look into how to position our country the best way to cope with the change. One way is to learn the language of the strongest…. give parents the ability to choose which language they think is best for their children’s future… logically thinking, we should use medium of instruction such as English, Chinese, Tamil or even Russian depending and only use BM as “optional”. I will be a proud father if my daughter can master English, Chinese and Tamil. Like the Sultan of Selangor said ” Malaysia belongs to all races, not just the Malays. The country is what it is today because of the contributions of all races and that is something we must acknowledge.”
4. Then what is the best structure for our schooling system? OPEN system. I always believe that the most competitive environment will force the weak to surrender and the strong to strive… if we have an open schooling system, we will be able to create students who will be able to contribute to their country. The education ministry must realise that language is not everything, but it is the attitude towards education which is important. Hence they must concentrate more on determining the process to improve student discipline, to teach based on understanding rather than memorization. Not closing down variations of schools so that we can all be one narrow minded community.

No increments for spending next year??? Who said so?

If you are thinking about no increments next year, who said so? Asked Najib… he has already given you a choice, to have your own increment next year. Just choose not to submit your KWSP 17A form and you will automatically get 3% increment for your usage. Don’t think about the future as its too far away, hah! I know I am not going to submit the form, so I suppose I will get the 3% increment for myself, and the best thing is if you have already maxed out on EPF+lifeinsurance (>RM6000), you will get the 3% without additional tax… woohoo.

So, like people always say, life is short, so don’t take life too seriously…. maybe with this 3% you can buy some cheap shares and make more than EPF .

First time blogger

This is my first time blogging. Got the sudden spark to blog after reading my sister blog about tax bla bla bla…. read: http://taxystand.wordpress.com . Anyways, excuse my bad english, the purpose of this blog is just to have open gossip discussion and not to verify english language quality . Stay tuned for my first discussion post soon.

Legalize Prostitution

Most people will be saying, yeh sure no problem…. but coming from a country like Malaysia, I shit you not, majority will be thinking “Are you crazy?” . Well, I’m serious about this thought…. legalizing prostitution is definitely the right thing to do for any country. Lets take the Penang State as an example. Penang is generally a popular tourist destination and part of the reason is because of its beautiful beaches, old English architecture-based buildings and yes, its RED LIGHT districts. This has been on-going and known by everyone, even the PrimeMinister himself, but nobody is doing much about it. The only people benefiting from these illegally operated “health centers” are the “bapak ayams” (pimps) and the police who probably has a cut of the profit they make. Question: Out of the few times you see a prostitution center gets raided by cops, how many times do you see the news report out on how many customers they caught? The answer is normally NONE. This is because there are usually prearrangements between the “health center” operators and the police, eg. if you want to raid, let me know in advance and let my customers go….  Otherwise, all the health centers would have closed down if customers too are brought down. No one would dare go to these entertainment centers if their face is going to come out in the newspaper if they get caught.

Now, then what are the benefits of legalizing prostitution? Many I’d say:

1. Part of anti-corruption effort. The police will have no more side incomes from taking a cut from the profit of the operators of these centers.
2. Limited licenses issued with controlled health check. This reduces spreading of deadly diseases such as AIDS, HBV, STD, etc. We can make sure our “hookers” are healthy and clean.
3. People will benefit from increase of GDP through collection of income tax, service taxes, etc.

I guess you know what I mean right. If the politicians say prostitution is illegal in a Muslim based country, well my question to them is then whats Genting doing? Isn’t gambling illegal? But it is controlled… and most importantly, generating income to the country. We can have the same concept with prostitution. I rest my case.

English or No English for Math and Science

This is a joke…. the Malaysian education ministry is a joke. Next we would be saying, should we teach English subject in Malay? Err.. on the other hand, I guess thats already happening , well at least in primary one and two I guess.

The issue here is why is there a debate in our paria-ment on whether or not we should use english for math and science. Few things to think about:

1. How many percent of the people in the world knows English vs Bahasa Malaysia? Don’t forget that majority of Malaysian knows both English and Malay. So when we make any investment, it will make sense to invest in a place with most consumer.
2. What is the potential of Bahasa Malaysia overtaking English as the world’s most used language in both business and science world?? Err, unless we can build more nuclear bombs and take over the world, i don’t see this happening in the next 500 years at least.
3. Studies of historical data shows that most Malaysian local graduates struggle on public presentation and speaking. Why not act on in the student’s early years rather than later.

 So, why are we thinking about using BM again for Math and Science. It discourages competitiveness and it is precisely this reason that vision 2020 will not happen, not at least if the people in our paria-ment has this sort of mentality. Singapore does not have oil and palm oil and yet they strived…. its not like we are not going to know BM as we are living in Malaysia and BM is still taught as a subject and used in the streets. Wouldn’t it be great if someone selling Nasi Lemak in the market speaks in fluent English “Would you like some extra anchovies to go with your Nasi Lemak?”, we will hear some of the uneducated(or at least not English educated) paria-ment people say, “Err… apa itu?”, its all because of their fear, fear that the whole parliament will be speaking in English, and the few who speaks Malay all the time will be “ternganga” and voted out from their seats.

Extra Passengers?? Whats that?

“No sure decision yet on whether extra passenger needs to belt up or pay up”, that is one of the headlines that The Star news paper is printing on its paper. This was shocking to me…. and makes me wonder if our Federal Government is doing the right thing for the right reasons…. are they aware of what they are trying to do or achieve while setting policies and new laws.

Earlier in the year, the government passed a new set of regulations, requiring passengers sitting in the back seat to fasten their seat belt. I thought, wow, we are moving towards what all developed coutries have been doing.. countries such as Singapore, United States, Australia and many many more have had such rules for god knows how long and now, we are finally being more aware, aware about road safety and the importance of belting up at the back.

Then, today’s NOT SURE DECISION came up, talking about extra passengers… and I went like huh? Should we even be asking this question? The main reason why we want to belt up is for SAFETY .. unless someone else created this to make money from making seat belts, why should we be asking about extra passengers. The papers stated that JPJ approves that extra passengers are allowed to sit without seatbelt but the traffic police have yet to confirm on this, and this contradicts with what we are trying to achieve…. For me, if the reason for the requirements of seatbelt is to reduce death toll during accidents, then we shouldn’t even allow extra passengers. How can we have the mentality that “tak pa la, 7 orang duduk wira ok ma…. 2 orang tak da seatbelt tak pa”? Why do we even need seatbelts at the back then?

My conclusion is if we want to set something, then set it right… or don’t do anything at all. Of course, they will give excuses and say they have to take into consideration those who have like 5 children and cannot afford an Estima, but the story never ends….. If you are not prepared to do this for road safety but merely for profits through seatbelt making, then don’t do it. Have a good Monday… long week ahead.

Change needed to liberate minds of students…

That was what our DPM said. I quote the Star “There should be an intellectual renaissance to open up and liberate the minds of students, and this should start in the universities, said Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.”

I don’t know what he was thinking, but I think if you want to start liberating minds of our children through education, then we have to start from preschool onwards… and that means for the education ministry to start at the primary school level. What our DPM or soon to be PM is saying is to start liberation efforst in universities which is silly. How do you change 18 years of bad habits? It would be easier to encourage a 4-6year old to ask questions, to be more interactive in class rather than using current methods of teacher talk and you listen, remember the time when you were scolded by your teacher for talking in the class, for copying, etc???

Tony Buzan, expert in mind mapping said that we can only improve if we copy the best of people… and yet in school, we were discouraged from copying…imagine when a kid is born, and that kid said his or her first words,  ”Daddy” … and the parent go “Don’t copy, find your own words”.

Emphasis should not be only what you learn in school/uni, but how you learn. That is what everyone should be working towards and that is what our current Parliment should be thinking about, having members of parliment who are more educated rather than a person with completely no education and can’t keep up. I wonder if they can put all members of parliments’ education background on a website for public to view and scrutinize.

Oh yea and on a seperate issue of how our “misinformed” Minister justify to give 10.5M gratitude payment to 5 judges who were fired earlier, maybe we should take the money out from his pocket. Or perhaps this is the same issue, our Minister didn’t have the NEED TO KNOW attitude before making any decision, are they just puppets to put up a good show on RTM1 at 11.30pm everyday weekday?

How bad is Malaysian Economy?

I guess thats the question everyone is asking now, and I am no expert in economy and hence do not have answer to that. What I do know is its probably hitting our Malaysian government pretty badly now. How’s that?

Well, first, its already the 17th of the month, and still not a single sound from Najib to revise the petrol price. Delaying the announcement by a few days will save our Government’s coffers by tens of millions at least. Also, there are news that Crude Oil price will fall down to USD30 this coming February, which is bad news for Petronas and more bad news for our second main income Palm Oil exports. If that happens, the whole lot of palm oil plantation will be in the reds, which means no more income from palm oil to the government at least in terms of income tax.

Imagine, less money from petronas and palm oil producers…. what else have Malaysia got? Lets wait for end of year profit numbers after Christmas and see how the public respond to them. I predict the KLCI to drop to about 600 points by end of Q1 next year. But I hope I am wrong.

Thinking short term only?

The title today actually reflects how I think our current government makes their decisions. When they announced that we will stick to the 30cents subsidy for petrol, they were thinking very short term. Now, instead of subsidizing 30 cents, we end up subsidizing the goverment with our hard earn money. Now, why do I say the solution was short term thinking? They only thought of a solution for high fuel price, eg above USD80, but they never thought what will happen when the price of fuel drops.

What if fuel price drop up to the level that our fuel price is only 30cents per litre? Does this mean free petrol for us? Obviously not…. so now, Najib is trying to slow down the loss of income from the low fuel price… get the people to pay the government’s bills…. bring down the fuel price slowly, shouldn’t it be done based on biweekly average of fuel price. We the people don’t mind paying more when the fuel price increases so long as when it drops, they honour the drop and allow us to have cheap oil. Imagine, this is only on crude oil…. what about palm oil price (CPO), etc… when the price of CPO is high, they enforced windfall tax, but when the price of CPO has gone low, do you think they will subsidize the loss?

I’m really interested to see how Malaysia manages this e-crisis. If you observe properly our current share market, I think the government is pumping in money into the KLSE market to dampen people’s fear… when the world’s market crashes badly eg 5%, we only drop by 0.5%, and when the world market goes up by 5%, we drop by a small amount, eg. 0.01%. This just shows that when world market crashes, our government buys in to control the situation and when other stock exchange increases significantly, our government tries to sell what they bought earlier, as people will go buy into the market thinking that KLCI will go up. This can’t go on forever…. so its a matter of time before Malaysian market drops below 700 points… my prediction still stays, 600 points by end of Q1 next year . Why do I say this, right now in the US, the banks are only seeing lots of bad debts from home owners, individual persons, imagine when the corporate bad debts start to come in next year…. banks will close down.

Oh yea.. and nothing is impossible at this time, I remembered a time when I spoke to a friend, and he said that when CITIGROUP reduces to USD20, he is going to buy in … now its USD3.77.

KLCI sustained with who’s $$$ ?

As I have predicted on my previous blog, when the world market slumps, our market is only down by less than 1%, but when the world market soars, we still go to red (slightly)…. today’s market for example just shows that our government is pumping money into the market. The question is who’s money? EPF? ASN? ASM? Recently seems like there are a lot of Amanah Saham Schemes released, which my wife happily bought some. I suppose the Billions of Ringgit they get from the release of the “Amanah” schemes will be used to show that MALAYSIA MASIH BOLEH.

STI is down 2% now, NIKKEI down 4.53%, Seoul down 3%…. but KLCI is only down 0.72%. Its 9.49am.