Rich Mindset Blogger

Chinese mistresses jump into the river for BMW

2011-01-25T19:47:00.000-08:00

Beijing (China Daily/ANN) - Two 25-year-old women who shared the affections of the same man in Jinan, Shandong province, China, jumped into the Yellow River in the hope of snagging a BMW.

The pair were both mistresses of a man surnamed Wang, who had separately promised to buy each of them a BMW car.

When the two women ran into each other on Jan 3, they began to quarrel about the car. One of them said she would do anything for Wang and jumped into the Yellow River to show she meant it. Not to be outdone, the second one followed suit.

A passer-by surnamed Mi saw the two women, one of whom had cut her leg on an icicle, and pulled them from the river before calling their lover.

Wang, a construction supplier from the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, arrived at the scene with his wife, who denounced the two women and told her husband to return the BMW to her.

An anonymous party reported the ensuing row to the police, who recorded the incident, and Wang paid Mi for rescuing the women from the river.

Paragliding at Kokol Hill, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

2011-01-25T19:26:00.001-08:00

Scuba Diving at Mabul Island Sabah

2011-01-25T18:25:00.000-08:00

Till cows come home

2011-01-16T06:11:00.001-08:00

Goldman 'values Facebook at $50 billion'

2011-01-12T16:59:00.001-08:00

NEW YORK (AFP) - – Facebook has raised $500 million from US investment bank Goldman Sachs and a Russian firm in a deal that values the social-networking website at $50 billion, The New York Times reported on Monday.

The investment makes Facebook worth more than fellow Internet companies eBay and Yahoo!, as well as media company Time Warner, the newspaper said, citing sources familiar with the deal.

"The stake by Goldman Sachs, considered one of Wall Streets savviest investors, signals the increasing might of Facebook, which has already been bearing down on giants like Google," the daily said.

Under the terms of the deal, Goldman has invested $450 million, and Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm that has already sunk about $500 million into Facebook, invested $50 million, people involved in the talks told the Times.

The new money provides the privately held social-networking giant founded by Mark Zuckerberg more firepower to develop new resources, make acquisitions and lure away top employees as it increasingly competes more directly with Internet search giant Google.

Goldman has the right to sell part of its stake, up to $75 million dollars, to the Russian firm, the Times said.

For Digital Sky Technologies, the new investment means its original investment in Facebook, at a valuation of $10 billion, has climbed fivefold, it noted.

"As part of the deal, Goldman is expected to raise as much as $1.5 billion from investors for Facebook at the $50 billion valuation, people involved in the discussions said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the transaction was not supposed to be made public until the fund-raising had been completed," the Times said.

Representatives for Facebook, Goldman and Digital Sky Technologies all declined to comment, it added.

Facebook surpassed Google, the world's Internet search leader, in 2010 as the most-visited website in the United States, Internet research firm Experian Hitwise said last week.

The social-networking giant has more than 500 million active users per month in the world, and according to comScore attracted 647.5 million unique visits in November, a jump of 48 percent from a year ago.

The new investment deal may double the personal fortune of Zuckerberg, the Times said. According to Forbes, Zuckerberg was worth $6.9 billion when Facebook was valued at $23 billion

Laos stock market opens to boost economy

2011-01-11T21:50:00.000-08:00

The Lao Securities Exchange opened for business on Tuesday with trading in just two companies.

The country, sandwiched between Vietnam and Thailand, is one of the world's poorest nations.

It is hoped that the stock exchange will help raise $8bn (£5.1bn) in equity and bond sales to fund investment in the country.

The Laos exchange is initially offering shares in two state-owned companies, Electricite du Laos Generation company and Banque Pour Le Commerce Exterieur Lao.

The volume of the first day's trading was thin, about 2.14bn kip ($265,000; £170,000).

Emulating China

The communist country is hoping to follow the example of neighbouring China which has taken great strides in opening up its economy, albeit in a controlled way, greatly enriching itself and its citizens.

Laos is aiming to join the World Trade Organization and become more integrated in the global economy.

The BBC's reporter in the region, Vaudine England, says that the stock exchange opening is aimed at foreign investors.

Our correspondent says the government in Laos has been trying to attract foreign investment since the 1990s.

The problem for the government, she adds, is that the majority of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture, so there is very little infrastructure in the country.

Despite the attractions for foreign investors in this resource-rich country, outside participation in the bourse will be limited at first.

The funding for the set-up of the exchange has come from South Korea, which has invested $9.8m, or 49% of the capital, for the venture. The Bank of Laos, the country's central bank, has invested the rest.

Tame the demon of credit card debt

2011-01-10T18:52:00.000-08:00

The rate of credit card defaults in Malaysia may not be anywhere near dangerous levels, but it would be sheer folly not to heed the signs of financial distress that it points to among a section of consumers.

As the latest Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) data on credit card spending shows, some RM70.1 million in credit card debt had not been paid for six months or more as of October 2010 (see table). The amount seems quite small in comparison with the total current outstanding balance due from cardholders, which stood at RM26.80 billion at the end of October 2010.

However, there is more to the situation than meets the eye. Firstly, the figure for October 2010 is RM8 million more than that for December 2009, indicating that a higher number of card users are unable to roll their finances over and have given up servicing their credit card debt. Secondly, the current outstanding balance in December 2009, which stood at RM24.28 billion, was RM2.52 billion less than the figure for October 2010.

Two things are significant about this growing credit card debt. The maths indicates firstly that more people are using their credit cards to finance their lifestyles, although the data does not show how much goes towards paying for essentials and how much is spent on luxuries. That would be important to know in order to understand what the debt pile says about the financial health of wage earners nationwide. For instance, over a quarter of consumers seeking help from BNM’s credit counseling service report that their debt burden became unsustainable when they had to seek medical treatment for themselves or their family members.

The second inference is more worrying. The higher amount of outstanding balances shows that the government’s attempt to rein in credit card spending has failed to produce the intended results. In Budget 2010, a RM50 annual service tax was imposed on principal credit cards and RM25 for supplementary cards to discourage the excessive use of credit cards, and so to prevent consumer debt from growing to unsustainable levels.

It is true that as a result of the tax, the number of cards in circulation registered a drop of 2.1 million between December 2009 and October 2010. The amount of credit extended also eased by RM2.06 billion from RM115.87 billion at the end of last year.

However, despite the lower number of cards in circulation and the concomitant reduction in credit extended, credit card spending has escalated in the past 10 months, and with it a growing number of card holders are unable to service their credit card debt.

In October 2010, the amount in overdue balances, from less than three months to more than six months in arrears, stood at RM2.55 billion, equivalent to a tenth of the total current outstanding balance. In December 2009, the figure for payment defaults was slightly lower, at RM2.42 billion.

Even if the service tax has not curbed credit card usage, however, it is not a total loss. At least, the tax revenue accrues to the government. The issue therefore appears to be a matter of fine-tuning the regulation of credit card usage. A long standing criticism of the regulatory regime is that the eligibility requirement for applicants of credit cards has been set too low. Currently, an annual income of RM30,000 is sufficient to qualify for a card. This, it has been argued, is an invitation to financial disaster.

A more effective strategy to curb credit card dependency, some analysts have pointed out, is to impose a surcharge on card usage, so that the more one spends the costlier it is for the card user.

For the low income earner with limited or perhaps no disposable income, the lifeline that a credit card appears to give him, turns out in fact to be a trap which eventually leaves him unable to service the financing charges that pile up when he pays just the minimum amount due per month. How the authorities can allow this situation to continue, where the poor end up putting their finances into jeopardy is a question that boggles the mind.

The inequities that result from credit card dependency among the middle and lower income group, stemming from usurious interest rates and late payment charges must rank among the most unconscionable forms of oppression that the modern economy has produced, along with the Third World debt burden and the undermining of traditional economies by neo-liberal trade rules.

Although the credit card debt situation in the country is in no apparent danger of turning sour in a hurry, it may be useful to draw some lessons from the consumer credit crisis that is threatening to come to a head in the US and elsewhere in the developed world.

In the US, particularly, where domestic spending accounts for some 70% of the GDP, the economic contraction that was brought on by the bursting of its property market has had a strong impact on credit card spending. For perspective, consider that in 2005, America’s 164 million credit card holders charged US$2 trillion to their credit cards, putting themselves into a highly unsustainable debt situation.

Not surprisingly, as US property prices began to peak around that period, the number of young Americans between the ages of 25 and 35 who were living with their parents shot up at the same time that home ownership figures plunged.

Today, as the promise of a recovery continues to elude much of middle class America, a whole range of commentators are giving their fellow citizens well meaning advice on how to survive the worst economic crisis in living memory. The tips range from hoarding gold to investing in arable land, and even to buying guns, in anticipation of civil unrest from millions of disgruntled citizens.

We have not gone too far down the path of a debt-driven economy to fear such a fate, but the welfare of our people requires an honest look at where we are heading

Awek Siam yang cun giler

2011-01-10T18:46:00.000-08:00

nama- ta
umur- 25thn
status - single n available
kerja - jual ayam goreng dan pulut
lokasi selatan thai

The US Dollar will rally again

2011-01-07T23:12:00.000-08:00

I own the US dollar at the moment because there have been many-many skeptics on the US dollar. I expect it to rally for a while. I do not know whether I would own it for a week or a month or a year. I just do not know. I do know that as long as there are many-many skeptics, there is a good chance that it will rally, there are some things going on in the US which may cause the rally to go even further.

I am not selling my dollars if it goes down, I might even buy more US dollars, but longer term the US dollars may be in terrible-terrible shape. It is a very flawed currency; I do not plan to own the US dollar 5-10 years from now.

The beginning of paragliding

2011-01-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

HDBSVR: KLCI to trade with upward bias

2011-01-06T20:29:00.000-08:00

KUALA LUMPUR: Hwang DBS Vickers Research (HDBSVR) said the benchmark index FBM KLCI is likely to trade on an upward bias on Tuesday, Dec 14 following the mere 2.5 index-point increase on Monday (versus a total of 14-index points lost last Friday).

“We expect FBM KLCI to stay above the psychological mark of 1,500 for now and likely to continue its uptrend to reach the immediate resistance level of 1,525 before the year end,” it said.

HDBSVR said over in the U.S. market, key equity indices on Wall Street ended fairly unchanged between -0.5% and +0.2% as focus was on the Senate which has started to vote on US President Barack Obama’s tax-cut agreement with the Republicans.

“In terms of individual stock’s share price action, there could be interest on: (a) Proton Holdings, which has disclosed that the total forecasted capital expenditure for Group Lotus plc’s business turnaround plan is about GBP480m (RM2.4b) over a five-year period as opposed to the GBP770m (RM3.8b) over 10 years; and (b) PLANTATION [] counters, as CPO price hit a 30-month high yesterday,” it said.

Paragliding in Chumpon & Phuket, Thailand

2011-01-06T19:04:00.000-08:00

Jim Rogers bets on farm, shuns Wall Street

2010-12-13T19:25:00.001-08:00

NEW YORK: Investor guru Jim Rogers says life on the farm will bring far more riches in coming years than the trenches of Wall Street.

Rogers, a commodities evangelist for more than a decade, has tweaked his pitch, saying the producers of the world whether individuals, companies or countries will become the new growth sector.

In short, Rogers told the Reuters 2011 Investment Outlook Summit in New York, being productive, saving the fruit of your labour and owning hard assets hold the keys to a bright future.

All these people who got MBAs made a mistake. The city of London and Wall Street are not going to be great places to be in the next two or three decades. It's going to be the people who produce real goods, he said

Jim Rogers Bets on China's Renminbi

2010-12-13T19:20:00.000-08:00

Global currencies have come into the spotlight this year as struggling economies like the European Union and the U.S. have issued massive stimulus to jump-start growth. The result is that emerging-market currencies have popped as investors turned to the higher-yielding currencies leading to accusations that some countries are artificially depressing their money.
China also has come under significant fire by not letting its local currency, the renminbi, appreciate fast enough in value, meaning its goods are cheaper to buy in other countries which helps its export business. On the flip side, other countries have a harder time breaking into the wallets of the Chinese consumer because of the high import price.
Currency battles ignited even more as the European sovereign debt crisis and contagion fears spread throughout the EU. The euro plunged to levels not seen since the Lehman Brothers crisis and had many investors calling for parity with the dollar. The CurrencyShares Euro Trust(FXE) fund has fallen 8.5% year to date.
The U.S. dollar has been on shaky ground as well. PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish(UUP) is up 1% for the year while PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bearish(UDN) has lost 4%.
Although the dollar has gained as the euro suffered, expectations are that the Federal Reserve's $600 bond-buying program will lead to money printing and devaluation.
With sentiment negative on the euro and mixed on the U.S. dollar, I recently sat down with Rogers, a legendary contrarian investor, to see what currencies he would be buying and which ones he would be avoiding.
I want to get your take on what the fate of the euro will be in the next year .
Rogers: Next year? I'm not smart enough to know that; you should watch TheStreet.com ... I'm not very good at short-term trading or market timing. I own the euro; whether I own it another day or another year or another five years I don't know. I don't think it will be around in 10 years so I doubt if I'll own it then but I have to watch to see what happens.
So if you don't think it's going to be there in 10 years, why are you owning it now?
Because last summer everybody got extremely pessimistic and everybody was dumping the euro as fast as they could and in my experience when everybody's on one side of the boat you should go to the other side of the boat and so I stepped in and bought it and it went up.
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If You Want To Make A Fortune, Don`t Get An MBA.

2010-12-13T19:17:00.000-08:00

“The power is shifting again from the financial centers to the producers of real goods. The place to be is in commodities, raw materials, natural resources.

Don’t go to Harvard Business School. If you want to make fortunes and come back and donate large sums of money to Balliol you’re not going to do it if you get an MBA.”

Jim Rogers

Everyday investors wonder if market is rigged

2010-12-02T05:44:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK — The Wall Street insider trading investigation may lead everyday investors — already rattled by a stock market meltdown, a one-day "flash crash" and the Madoff scandal — to finally conclude that the game is rigged.

"A large part of trading has to do with trust, and I don't have it," says Mark Swenson, a 43-year-old plumber from New Hampshire who refuses to buy individual stocks.

.."When a stock moves up 10 percent, you don't know why," he added. "We can pretend that everyone has access to the same information, but they don't."

Even before news broke that federal investigators were looking into whether hedge funds traded on inside information, small-time investors were pulling their money out of stocks — despite a remarkable run for the market since the spring of 2009.

Hedge funds are speculative funds which make large bets on market movements and are usually used by wealthy private investors or institutions.

Americans have pulled $60 billion out of U.S. stock funds this year, according to the Investment Company Institute, a trade group. Meanwhile, investors have piled money into Treasurys and bond funds that are considered safer investments. And at the same time, banks like Wells Fargo have reported that money is moving into checking and savings accounts.

To be sure, it's natural for people worried about their jobs or the falling value of their homes to sock cash into more conservative investments. But this has been no garden-variety recession.

It has coincided with turmoil in the stock market that goes back a decade, to the collapse of the Internet bubble and portfolio-draining scandals involving high-flying companies such as Enron and WorldCom.

More recently, investors have lived through the housing bubble, the collapse of Wall Street firms such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and stomach-churning days when it wasn't clear whether capitalism would survive. On top of that came news that financier Bernard Madoff had bilked investors out of billions.

"Virtually everyone on the Street believes there are significant improprieties, and I think there is an even more important point for the massive number of investors who are not Wall Street players," says former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, once known as the "sheriff of Wall Street" for aggressively prosecuting white-collar crime as state attorney general. "And that is for most of us, you can't beat these guys at their own game."

Some pros on Wall Street say hesitation by small investors is good news. It means that there's plenty of "dry powder" to propel the market higher in the next few months when and if the little guy finally relents and joins in the rally.

The insider-trading probe could test that theory.

The FBI this week searched the offices of three hedge funds, and some of Wall Street's most influential firms, including Janus Capital Group, have been subpoenaed in the probe.

On Wednesday, an employee of a firm that supplied market intelligence to hedge funds was arrested and charged, among other things, with conspiracy to commit securities fraud. It was not yet known whether the man dealt with the funds raided this week.

For Swenson, the allegations of insider trading are unnerving, particularly on top of the "flash crash" in May, when a computerized selling program set off a chain reaction that drove the Dow Jones industrials down nearly 1,000 points in mere minutes.

The sell-off was a reminder to some individual investors that hedge funds and other powerful traders use computer programs to make rapid-fire stock trades, giving them an advantage over the slower smaller investor.

"The hedge funds are resorting to more questionable tactics. It's mind-boggling," says Swenson, who invests largely in exchange-traded funds, which track market indexes and can be traded throughout the day, unlike mutual funds.

Spitzer says the new insider trading probes illustrate how the game is tilted against small investors.

"If you are sitting there in front of a screen, thinking your information is going to be good enough to make smart judgments that will permit you to outperform the hundreds of thousands of people on Wall Street who have access to better information and more timely information than you, you're mistaken," Spitzer says.

It's not the first time small investors have been scared out of stocks.

To combat such an impression, the Securities and Exchange Commission was established in 1934, and "circuit breakers" were instituted after the 1987 crash to stop massive selling. But all of the safeguards don't seem to be helping lately.

"If the stock markets had any reputation for integrity, they lost it in the past year," Geisst says.

Restoring small investors' confidence may depend on whether they see ample evidence that federal regulators are successfully cracking down on bad behavior, says Ross B. Intelisano, a securities fraud attorney with the firm Rich & Intelisano.

The market needs them back. Most of the stock in U.S. companies, both public and private, is held by individuals, not institutions, according to Federal Reserve data.

Small investors may be comforted to know that professional investors don't always fare better, even with the edge they have over the masses.

Numerous studies have shown that mutual funds overseen by professional stock pickers often are outperformed by computer-driven index funds.

The record for hedge funds hasn't been so impressive, either. Since 2008, when the number of those funds hit 10,000, nearly 3,000 have gone out of business, according to Hedge Fund Research in Chicago.

"The edge is hugely exaggerated," says Richard Ferri, founder of the investment advisory firm Portfolio Solutions and an advocate of low-cost index funds. "If the small investor does the right thing, he can do better than 99 percent of anyone else."

Malaysian tourists trapped in Hat Yai flood

2010-11-07T04:42:00.000-08:00

BANGKOK: Hundreds of tourists including Malaysians are still trapped in the Hat Yai district of Songkhla province as the district is still inundated between two and three metres while the death toll in the country due to floods rose to 104 today.

Floods hit the southern part of the country since yesterday and apart from Hat Yai, two other districts in the South – Pathalung and Nakhon Si Thammarat have been declared flood disaster zones while Pattani and Narathiwat provinces have also been hit by floods.

The affected tourists are stuck at hotels and railway stations in Hat Yai. However, their exact number has yet to be ascertained.

The Bank of Thailand today announced that 121 of its branches in the South have been closed temporarily due to the floods.

A total of 162 schools comprising 127 schools in Songkhla, 22 in Narathiwat and 13 schools in Patani have also been closed temporarily.

Thailand's Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department said the 104 dead were from the northern, northeastern, eastern and central provinces of Thailand.

Apart from the newly-hit southern Thailand, floods still remained in 21 provinces in the northern, northeastern, eastern and central parts of Thailand and close to one million people have been displaced.

However, the flood situation in 17 provinces including Chiang Mai, Sa Kaeo, Samut Prakan and Nakhon Pathom has eased.

Chairman of the Tourism Council of Thailand, Konkrit Hiranyakit, said about 500,000 tourists visit Hat Yai annually and half of them come from Malaysia.

He said the flood was expected to drive away at least 120,000 tourists in Hat Yai this year with tourism losses estimated at 1.2 billion Baht.

"It is going to take at least three weeks to restore the situation in Hat Yai. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva visited flood areas in Songkhla today," he added.

Satun_Langkawi_KL_JB_Singapore

2010-10-25T19:09:00.001-07:00

Satun_Hatyai_Pattani_Dannok

2010-10-17T05:27:00.000-07:00

Lagu Orang Pattani

2010-10-17T05:26:00.000-07:00

The Fed is dead, maybe by 2012

2010-10-10T02:57:00.000-07:00

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — OK, so Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the “Black Swan” author, actually said: “The Fed won’t exist in 25 years.” Warning: It’ll happen much sooner, fallout of the coming Second American Revolution.

It’s inevitable: Wall Street banks control the Federal Reserve system , it’s their personal piggy bank. They’ve already done so much damage, yet have more control than ever.

Tea-party activists in their own wordsTea-party activists talk to Russ Britt on what their movement represents.
Warning: That’s a set-up. They will eventually destroy capitalism, democracy, and the dollar’s global reserve-currency status. They will self-destruct before 2035 … maybe as early as 2012 … most likely by 2020.

Last week we cheered the Tea Party for starting the countdown to the Second American Revolution. Our timeline is crucial to understanding the historic implications of Taleb’s prediction that the Fed is dying, that it’s only a matter of time before a revolution triggers class warfare forcing America to dump capitalism, eliminate our corrupt system of lobbying, come up with a new workable form of government, and create a new economy without a banking system ruled by Wall Street.

Read 'America on the brink of a Second Revolution.'

Let’s reexamine the timeline closely:

Stage 1: The Democrats just put the nail in their coffin confirming they’re wimps when they refused to force the GOP to filibuster Bush tax cuts for billionaires.

Stage 2: In the elections the GOP takes over the House, expanding its strategic war to destroy Obama with its policy of “complete gridlock” and “shutting down government.”

Stage 3: Post-election Obama goes lame-duck, buried in subpoenas and vetoes.

Stage 4: In 2012, the GOP wins back the White House and Senate. Health care returns to insurers. Free-market financial deregulation returns. Lobbyists intensify their anarchy.

Stage 5: Before the end of the second term of the new GOP president, Washington is totally corrupted by unlimited, anonymous donations from billionaires and lobbyists. Wall Street’s Happy Conspiracy triggers the third catastrophic meltdown of the 21st century that Robert Shiller of “Irrational Exuberance” fame predicts, resulting in defaults of dollar-denominated debt and the dollar’s demise as the world’s reserve currency.

Stage 6: The Second American Revolution explodes into a brutal full-scale class war with the middle class leading a widespread rebellion against the out-of-touch, out-of-control Happy Conspiracy sabotaging America from within.

Stage 7: The domestic class warfare is exaggerated as the Pentagon’s global warnings play out: That by 2020 “an ancient pattern of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies would emerge” worldwide and “warfare is defining human life.”

In this rapidly unfolding scenario, the Fed cannot survive. Why? Not because the Fed is at the center of America’s economic problems, beyond repair, a dying institution. But because the Fed is a pawn of Wall Street’s Happy Conspiracy, which is incapable of seeing the train wreck that it set up.

This out-of-control, conspiracy of greedy Wall Street bankers, corporate CEOs, corrupt politicians and Forbes 400 billionaires will, in the near future, trigger the third catastrophic meltdown of the 21st century, a collapse that paradoxically can transform America into a new, stronger post-capitalist economy … but only after a revolution and brutal class warfare. But few will talk about what’s coming.

Warning: Never trust the American Treasury Secretary
So who can you trust to tell us the truth? Taleb says it’s very simple. His “simple metric” was made clear at a recent “Washington Ideas Forum” in a piece by Atlantic editor Nicole Allan: Unfortunately most fail Taleb’s test. Most get it wrong. Many lie, exaggerate, speak half-truths or, worse, say nothing.

Here’s Taleb’s “simple metric for judging whose economic opinions are worth his time: ‘Did someone predict the crisis before it happened” in the past? “If the answer is no, I don’t want to hear what the person says. If the person saw the crisis coming then I want to hear what they have to say” about future crises.

Taleb target No. 1: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who spoke just before Taleb at the forum. Of course, experience tells us you really can’t trust anyone in government. All politicians fudge the numbers, cherry-pick data to suit their personal goals, biases and political rhetoric.

Remember Hank Paulson, Wall Street’s Trojan Horse inside Washington? Earlier he had made over half a billion as Goldman’s CEO. Back in July 2007 before the meltdown he bragged to Fortune that this is “the strongest global economy I’ve seen in my business lifetime.” Never trust anything “leaders” like him say. Never.

Fed Needs to Pump Trillions More Into Economy

2010-10-09T05:05:00.000-07:00

The Federal Reserve needs to pump at least $6 trillion to $7 trillion more into the U.S. economy to have any meaningful impact on sluggish growth, former Bush economic adviser Marc Sumerlin told CNBC.

Sumerlin, co-founder of The Lindsey Group, a Washington DC-based economic advisory group, also said that the U.S. would fall back into a recession if the Bush tax cuts aren't extended beyond this year.

The Fed has hinted for weeks that it is ready to buy up more debt in the credit markets to help spur the economy, which is still recovering from the financial crisis of 2008. The U.S. central bank has already spent over $1 trillion since early 2009 to keep credit markets liquid in what has become known as quantitative easing, or QE. (For a fuller explanation, click here.)

Although the Fed hasn't indicated how much more money it might pump into the economy—which has been labeled QE-2—Sumerlin's recommendation goes well beyond what most other economists expect or even recommend.

"U.S. households have $70 trillion in assets," Sumerlin explained during a live interview. "And the Fed essentially needs to buy enough Treasurys and mortgages that you can get a bid on all those other assets. And when you have leakage in the international system it takes a pretty big amount to be successful. To me, it starts to get interesting at six to seven trillion dollars."

Sumerlin's comments, which came around midday, helped push stocks lower.

“To get someone who was part of the former economic council saying the Fed will need to step up big and do $6 trillion in (asset purchases), was a bit of a shock and created a bit of nervousness,” Marc Pado, market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald, told CNBC.com.

Few economists expect the Fed to commit that much new money to helping the economy, and many think any further quantitative easing wouldn't have that much impact anyway.

Pimco co-CEO Mohamed El-Erian, for instance, told CNBC earlier Thursday that further monetary easing by the Fed and other central banks probably won't work.

"The risk is that this may be ineffective again," he said. "In fact, the big story of the last year and a half is every time we have had a policy action, outcomes have fallen short of expectations."

Raoul Pal, global macro analyst for the Global Macro Investor, who appeared with Sumerlin on CNBC, also questioned the wisdom of further easing.

"There is no evidence that it's ever worked in the past, so there is no real evidence that it will work now," Pal said. "So I think it's a high risk thing for them to try and do. I also don't believe you can get the money in the system. Even if it's $6 trillion, I don't think it's going to get in the system because there is no velocity of money. So all you end up doing is buying the Treasurys off the banks who will keep the money at the Fed."

As for extending the Bush tax cuts—which Congress has put off voting on until after the November elections—Sumerlin said "we will have a recession" if they are allowed to expire.

"Because we're growing too slowly," he said. "If you look at the quarters when the tax cuts went in, there was very substantial growth. People forget that the third quarter of 2003, we grew at 7 percent when the tax cuts—the full marginal rates—took effect. Running that in reverse causes the opposite to happen."

Dollar crunched again

2010-10-09T05:04:00.000-07:00

The U.S. dollar dropped to its lowest level since January, even as a prominent Federal Reserve official cast doubt on the assumption that the Fed will move toward another round of asset purchases at next month's regularly scheduled meeting.

Trade trauma ahead?
The U.S. currency fell to 81.8 yen, its lowest since April 1995, and was trading at $1.39 against the euro. The dollar index tumbled to 77.2, matching a low last seen in January.

The latest declines came after Friday's weak jobs report seemingly boosted the case for a return to so-called quantitative easing, in which the Fed buys Treasury bonds to push down interest rates. Private nonfarm payrolls rose by 64,000 last month, showing a tepid recovery continues but falling short of expected 75,000-job gain.

The figures "are well clear of a 'double-dip' signal for the economy but they are consistent with continued disinflation which supports the case for an expansion of Fed QE at the November FOMC meeting," Tullett Prebon economist Lena Komileva wrote in a note to clients.

But James Bullard, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said in an interview on CNBC Friday that the push toward more easing isn't a "slam dunk" and stressed that members of the Federal Open Market Committee will decide only after reviewing more data on the economy.

Bullard also noted the potential drawbacks to another round of QE, reflecting comments made in recent weeks by other regional Fed presidents.

"This is unchartered waters... (inflation) may get away from us if we are not careful," Bullard said.

Among the chief risks of still looser Fed policy has become apparent in recent weeks with the outbreak of hostilities in currency markets. A weaker dollar pushes up the value of rival currencies, making it harder for growth-strapped countries to export their way out of their problems.

The great fear should the Fed commit to another round of QE, Komileva said, is that it will end up "exporting deflation to the rest of the world through weak domestic demand and global currency majors' strength against the dollar

French rogue trader Kerviel faces verdict

2010-10-04T23:44:00.000-07:00

PARIS (AFP) - – A French court will pass verdict Tuesday on rogue trader Jerome Kerviel who faces up to four years in prison for covert stock trades that Societe Generale bank says cost it almost five billion euros.

Kerviel's lawyer has called for the 33-year-old to be acquitted, blaming the bank for the 2008 rogue trading scandal that almost destroyed it, while prosecutors have demanded four years' jail plus one year suspended.

The verdict hearing at Paris's main courthouse starts at 10:00 am (0800 GMT) and is set to last about an hour.

Kerviel has admitted regularly exceeding trading limits and logging false transactions to cover his gambles, but said this was common practice among traders and that his bosses turned a blind eye as long as earnings were high.

At the last trial hearing in June, his lawyer Olivier Metzner asked how a "normal boy" like Kerviel could "end up here", facing years in jail on charges of breach of trust, forgery and entering false data into computers.

"How do you create (people like Kerviel) if not for financial gain?" he said, referring to the bank.

Kerviel's former employers and the state prosecutors bringing criminal charges have branded him a liar who knowingly misled his bosses and put Societe Generale and its employees in peril.

His defence has always been that his bosses knew of and approved his risky deals, which he says were visible to his colleagues and bosses on the trading desk.

On discovering the risky deals in January 2008, Societe Generale was forced to unwind positions worth 50 billion euros (69 billion dollars) -- equal to nearly all its shareholder capital at the time.

The bank has admitted failings in its controls, for which it was fined four million euros in July 2008, but insisted at the trial that managers could not have tracked all Kerviel's trades when he logged false data to cover them.

Societe Generale's lawyers said it wants 4.9 billion euros in compensation from Kerviel. He could also face a fine of 375,000 euros.

The trial heard from more than 30 witnesses but shed little light on what motivated Kerviel, who said simply that he "tried to do his job in the interests of the bank."

"Why did he do these things? Hoping for a bonus? To become a star?" state prosecutor Philippe Bourion asked in June.

"That's the only mystery the prosecution will not be able to solve."

PAS to pick 'non-smoking candidate'

2010-10-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysia's conservative Islamic party will field only a candidate who does not smoke in an upcoming by-election, reports said Sunday, as the party seeks to boost its Islamic image.

The Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS), which is a part of the opposition alliance, said the candidate it will pick for the poll in northern Kelantan state must display good Islamic character and the person must be a non-smoker.

"I will reject smokers from the start. They are not only ruining their health but also wasting money," PAS spiritual leader Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat was quoted as saying by the New Sunday Times paper.

He also told the Malay newspaper Berita Minggu that the candidate must also pray regularly and be a non-gambler. No date has been fixed for the by-election, but PAS has said it will field a candidate to contest the poll.

There are no clear religious edicts banning smoking, but Nik Abdul Aziz has said previously that some Muslim scholars consider smoking as forbidden.

In 2007, PAS said it was planning to field in national polls only non-smoking candidates or those who were willing to kick the habit.

The Islamic party has also asked its candidates to take on oath promising to divorce their wives if they to defect to other parties.

How to invest in gold and key price drivers

2010-10-04T06:42:00.000-07:00

Reuters - Gold surges to a record above $1,313 an ounce on Wednesday after a spate of lacklustre U.S. data fuelled expectations the Fed may move towards further quantitative easing to help the economy, undermining the dollar.

Following are key facts about the market and different ways to invest in the precious metal.

HOW DO I INVEST?

SPOT MARKET

Large buyers and institutional investors generally buy the metal from big banks.

London is the hub of the global spot gold market, with more than $20 billion in trades passing through London's clearing system each day. To avoid cost and security risks, bullion is not usually physically moved and deals are cleared through paper transfers.

Other significant markets for physical gold are India, China, the Middle East, Singapore, Turkey, Italy and the United States.

FUTURES MARKETS

Investors can also enter the market via futures exchanges, where people trade in contracts to buy or sell a particular commodity at a fixed price on a certain future date.

The COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange is the world's largest gold futures market in terms of trading volume. The Tokyo Commodity exchange, popularly known as TOCOM, is the most important futures market in Asia.

China launched its first gold futures contract on Jan. 9, 2008. Several other countries, including India, Dubai and Turkey, have also launched futures exchanges.

EXCHANGE-TRADED FUNDS

The wider media coverage of high gold prices has also attracted investments into exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which issue securities backed by physical metal and allow people to gain exposure to the underlying gold prices without taking delivery of the metal itself.

Gold held in New York's SPDR Gold Trust , the world's largest gold-backed ETF, rose to a record high of 1,320.436 tonnes in June. The ETF's holdings are equivalent to more than half global annual mine supply, and are worth some $54.9 billion at today's prices.

Other gold ETFs include iShares COMEX Gold Trust , ETF Securities' Gold Bullion Securities and ETFS Physical Gold, and Zurich Cantonal Bank's Physical Gold.

BARS AND COINS

Retail investors can buy gold from metals traders selling bars and coins in specialist shops or on the Internet. They pay a small premium for investment products, of between 5-20 percent above spot price depending on the size of the product and the weight of demand.

KEY PRICE DRIVERS:

INVESTORS

Rising interest in commodities, including gold, from investment funds in recent years has been a major factor behind bullion's rally to historic highs. Gold's strong performance in recent years has attracted more players and increased inflows of money into the overall market.

U.S. DOLLAR

Despite the recent drop in the usual strong correlation between gold and the euro-dollar exchange rate, the currency market still plays a major long-term role in setting the direction of gold.

Gold is a usually popular hedge against currency weakness. A weak U.S. currency also makes dollar-priced gold cheaper for holders of other currencies and vice versa.

This link sometimes breaks down in times of widespread financial market stress, however, as both gold and the dollar benefit from risk aversion. Their ratio turned positive in late 2008 and early 2009 after the Lehman Brothers crisis.

OIL PRICES

Gold has historically had a correlation with crude oil prices, as the metal can be used as a hedge against oil-led inflation. Strength in crude prices can also boost interest in commodities as an asset class. More recently this correlation has weakened, with gold prices continuing to rise in the last two years as oil prices retreated from record peaks.

FISCAL AND POLITICAL TENSIONS

The precious metal is widely considered a "safe haven", bought in a flight to quality during uncertain times.

Financial market shocks, as seen in the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and more recently in the case of burgeoning euro zone debt problems, tend to boost inflows to gold.

Major geopolitical events including bomb blasts, terror attacks and assassinations can also induce price rises.

CENTRAL BANK GOLD RESERVES

Central banks hold gold as part of their reserves. Buying or selling of the metal by the banks can influence prices.

On Aug. 7, 2009, a group of 19 European central banks agreed to renew a pact to limit gold sales, originally signed in 1999 and renewed for a further five years in 2004.

Annual sales under the pact are limited to 400 tonnes, down from 500 tonnes in the second agreement, which expired in late September . Sales under the new pact have been low, however.

HEDGING

At the beginning of the 21st century, when gold prices were languishing around $300 an ounce, gold producers sold a part of their expected output with a promise to deliver the metal at a future date.

But when prices started rising, they suffered losses and there was a move to buy back their hedging positions to fully gain from higher market prices, a practice known as de-hedging.

Significant producer de-hedging can boost market sentiment and support gold prices. However, the rate of de-hedging has slowed markedly in recent years as the outstanding global hedge book shrank.

The world's biggest gold miner, Barrick Gold, cut its gold hedges by about 3 million ounces to eliminate its entire hedgebook in the fourth quarter of last year.

SUPPLY/DEMAND

Supply and demand fundamentals generally do not play as big a role in determining gold prices as those of other commodities because of huge above-ground stocks, now estimated at around 160,000 tonnes -- more than 60 times annual mine production.

Gold is not "consumed" like copper or oil.

Peak buying seasons in major consuming countries such as India and China exert some influence on the market, but others factors such as the dollar and financial risk carry more weight

I'll work till I die

2010-10-03T04:23:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gone are the days of golf and gardening into the golden years. Many older workers are working well into retirement and it's not just because they have to, it's because they want to.

Bob Alper, who has supported himself as a full-time comedian since 1986, says even at 65, retirement never crossed his mind. "I live for the moment when I can get up on the stage and make people laugh," says Vermont-based rabbi-cum-comedian who performs 60-70 shows a year at colleges and synagogues across the country.

In 1998, 11.9% of workers 65+ remained in the labor force. In 2008, it was 16.8%. This year, 18% say they will continue working. And by 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 22% of older workers will continue to punch a clock.

Even the wealthy are reluctant to retire from the workforce, according to a report released on Sunday by Barclays Wealth. Half of the high net worth respondents over 65 surveyed said they will always be involved in commercial or professional work of some kind.

Dubbed "nevertirees," many wealthy individuals will never stop working, the report said, even if they have little financial need to do so. Like Alper, they want to keep doing what they are doing for as long as possible.

7 secrets to a richer retirement
"There was a general upward trend of labor force activity among older workers before the financial collapse," explained Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. "People were getting healthier and living longer."

Mark Miller, author of The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security, said boomers began viewing the retirement years differently well before the recession took hold. "Many were committed to staying engaged. ... The whole idea of working longer, even for a handful of years, can be tremendously beneficial to your mental well being."

25 Best Places to Retire
But the current dour economic climate has also forced many older workers to push back their retirement plans out of financial necessity.

In the recession's wake, home valuations, stock portfolios and retirement accounts have been depleted. Meanwhile, the cost of health insurance has increased dramatically, leaving many workers with no other alternative but to hold on to the jobs they have.

"The economy has now made working longer a real imperative," Miller said.

That's the case for Chuck McCabe, 65, who opened several tax preparation firms in Virginia nine years ago.

"I expected I would retire at a normal age but the business took a lot longer to get to a point where it would be marketable. Now I really can't retire until the business is valuable enough for me to sell it." McCabe, who has cashed in his 401(k) to make payroll, estimates that it will be least five years until he can consider retiring.

McCabe's wife, Marilyn, also 65, even passed up her own retirement after a career in human resources to work alongside her husband and help build his tax practice. "She'll be working with me until we sell the business," he said. "I think she would like to be retired now."

Like the McCabe's nearly half of those ages 65 and older report being behind in terms of retirement preparedness, according to a recent survey by TD Ameritrade.

"We are entering a stage, given the heightened longevity and our changing economic circumstances, that people will continue working," according to Marcia Wagner, managing partner of The Wagner Law Group, a Boston-based law firm specializing in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

Wagner admits she has no plans to ever retire either -- but, like Alper, by choice. "I will work till I die because I like what I do."

Bail Out by Ah Long

2010-10-02T05:09:00.000-07:00

KUALA LUMPUR: Illegal money-lenders have expanded their activities to the courts by offering bail to people charged with criminal offences.
Court officials claimed that they have received information on their activities. The moneylenders either acted as professional bailors or
loaned money to people who needed it to post bail.

Notices have been put up at court premises to advise the public not to be deceived by these moneylenders.

“All court directors in Peninsular Malaysia have received a directive dated Aug 25 from the registrar to put up the notices,” Kuala Lumpur Court director Azizah Mahamud said.

The notices reminded the public that unlicensed money-lending was illegal.
“The public is also reminded to be wary as the court has never appointed any agents or individuals to settle any cases on the court’s behalf.

“If there are any offers of such services from Ah Long or touts, a report can be lodged with either the court or the police,” she said. Sources highlighted a recent case where two “professional bailors” stood surety for a foreigner in a
criminal case in the Sessions Court at Jalan Duta, here. The court was later informed by the “bailors” that the accused had absconded and that they wanted their money back.

“The judge forfeited the bail money and also disallowed the two bailors from standing bail in a different case,” the source said. Acting Federal Commercial Crimes Investigation Department director Datuk Nooryah Md Anvar said she
had not received any reports on the matter.

“To my knowledge, no such reports have been lodged with the police on the loan sharks’ activities in the court premises,” she told the New Straits Times.
MCA Public Services and Complaints Bureau head Datuk Michael Chong also said he had not received any such reports from the public.

“However, when people are desperate, they will do anything including borrowing money from loan sharks,” he said.

Langgu_Trang_Koh Lanta_Hatyai

2010-09-26T05:30:00.000-07:00

Basic FKLI/FCPO Trading Rules

2010-09-26T05:20:00.000-07:00

Trade what u SEE not what u want to BELIEVE.
Identify POSITION, STOP LIMIT and PROFIT level you before trade
after enter the position, PLACE STOP LIMIT and PROFIT LEVEL
If stop limit is triggered, TAKE A BREAK and take it with pride.
REPEAT the trading rules once STOP LIMIT and PROFIT LEVEL are filled.
To be a successful trader, u must OBEY the trading plan and control the EMOTION.
Cut your LOSSES short
Lets your PROFIT run
Add only to WINNERS
Never add to LOSERS

this trading rules will be my guideline for my own FCPO pre - analysis and post - analysis.

no1: cut your losses short
no2. lets your profit run
no3. add only to winners
no4. never add to losers.(or avg down)

How to make your kid more money smart

2010-09-23T06:07:00.000-07:00

Help your kids make a list of money makers (bonds, mutual funds, etc.) and money losers (those really nifty sunglasses you never wear).
Teach your child to make a pros/cons list before spending money on an expensive item.
Ask your kid to think about something he recently bought that he really wanted. What were his feelings about the item before he bought it, and what his your feelings two weeks later? Was it worth the money?
Ask your kids what interests them about money? What bores them about handling, saving, or spending money?
Discuss an emergency fund of money and the reasons it's important. How could kids benefit from starting an emergency fund of money ?
Would you take out a loan for a pair of jeans? If you buy jeans with a credit card and don't pay off the balance each month, that's what you're doing.
Have your kids collect letters of recommendation from their babysitting, lawn mowing, pet sitting or other jobs. They'll come in handy when putting together college portfolios.
Have regular conversations about money skills and financial literacy – what is it, why do we need it, how do we get it, where do we keep it, how does it relate to the things that are important to us?
Ask your kids...does a free kitten come with hidden expenses? If so, what are they?
Make financial literacy fun by teaching money trivia along with money skills! For instance, the dollar bill lasts 21 months before it wears out. The five dollar bill has the shortest life, at 16 months.
As an incentive to save money, match your child's savings dollar for dollar...or fifty cents for each dollar saved.
What is your best money habit? Share it with your kids.
Discuss with your kids some things money can't buy.
Discuss with your kids which is more important...buying a video game or paying back lunch money borrowed from a friend.
Discuss with your kids the advantages and disadvantages of saving money.
Create a list of Above-and-Beyond Jobs your kids can do to earn extra money.
Kids LOVE to have their own savings account; it makes them feel "grown-up." If you child doesn't have one yet, take time to open one...and consider seeding it with a few dollars. This is a great way to get them in the healthy habit of saving and thinking about achieving financial goals.
Do your kids want fancy designer labels? Have them pay the difference between what you're willing to pay and the cost of the designer label.
Teach your tween/teen how to fill out a check by having them write the next one.
Give your 6-8 yr old $2 and your 9-13 yr old $5. If your 6-8 yr old still has it after a week and your 9-13 has it after two weeks, double their money. Great delayed gratification practice!
Discuss being rich in compassion, understanding, empathy, friends, knowledge... How can we use money to help us show these things we value?
Talk about a financial goal you set and the steps you took to achieve it. Then have your kids create their own money goals.
Discuss needs versus wants with your kids.

Bill Gates Top Forbes 400

2010-09-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corp., plays bridge as part of the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. annual shareholder meeting weekend in Omaha, Nebraska, May 3, 2009.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive officer of Facebook Inc. Photographer: Noah Berger/Bloomberg
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp., remains the richest American with estimated assets of $54 billion, according to Forbes magazine’s annual ranking of the 400 wealthiest Americans.

Warren Buffett, the chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., ranks second in the U.S. with $45 billion, according to the list published yesterday. Gates, 54, and Buffett, 80, were Nos. 1 and 2 last year.

The number of list members whose wealth declined this year is 85 compared with 314 in 2009, while wealth increased for 217 members. The total worth of the 400 rose by 8 percent to $1.37 trillion, still below the 2008 total of $1.57 trillion.

“They’ve recovered, but we’re still so far off from 2008,” Luisa Kroll, global wealth editor for Forbes, said in a telephone interview.

Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 26, who is tied for No. 35 on the list, saw his wealth jump 245 percent to $6.9 billion, the largest percentage increase of anyone on the list. “Very few are at an all-time high, with the exception of how phenomenally well Facebook is doing,” said Kroll, who is based in New York.

California has the most people on the list, with 83, followed by New York, with 64. Texas has 45 members and Florida has 26.

Sixteen new people joined the list this year, including Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook who left the social networking site in 2008. He has a net worth of $1.4 billion, tying him for No. 290. Moskovitz, 26, is the youngest person on the list.

The oldest is philanthropist David Rockefeller Sr., 95, who is tied for No. 153 with $2.4 billion.

Raj Rajaratnam, 53, founder of Galleon Group LLC, who is under indictment for insider trading and is due to go to trial next year, dropped off the list along with 33 others. Rajaratnam has denied the charges.

42 Women

There are 42 women on the list, led by Christy Walton, 55, and 60-year-old Alice Walton, of the family that controls Wal- Mart Stores Inc. They rank Nos. 4 and 8. Jim Walton ranks seventh with $20.1 billion and S. Robson Walton is No. 9 with $19.7 billion.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is ranked 10th with $18 billion. Bloomberg, 68, is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

The other members in the top 10 are Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison, 66, at No. 3 with $27 billion. Charles Koch, the 74- year-old chairman and CEO of Koch Industries Inc., tied for fifth with his brother David Koch, 70, with $21.5 billion.

The cutoff for the Forbes 400 list is back up to $1 billion after falling to $950 million last year. Forbes also released a separate list of the world’s richest people in March.

The New Poor

2010-09-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

Patricia Reid is not in her 70s, an age when many Americans continue to work. She is not even in her 60s. She is just 57.

But four years after losing her job she cannot, in her darkest moments, escape a nagging thought: she may never work again.

College educated, with a degree in business administration, she is experienced, having worked for two decades as an internal auditor and analyst at Boeing before losing that job.

But that does not seem to matter, not for her and not for a growing number of people in their 50s and 60s who desperately want or need to work to pay for retirement and who are starting to worry that they may be discarded from the work force — forever.

Since the economic collapse, there are not enough jobs being created for the population as a whole, much less for those in the twilight of their careers.

Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group — 7.3 percent — is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession.

After other recent downturns, older people who lost jobs fretted about how long it would take to return to the work force and worried that they might never recover their former incomes. But today, because it will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the economy's recent pace, many of these older people may simply age out of the labor force before their luck changes.

For Ms. Reid, it has been four years of hunting — without a single job offer. She buzzes energetically as she describes the countless applications she has lobbed through the Internet, as well as the online courses she is taking to burnish her software skills.

Still, when she is pressed, her can-do spirit falters.

"There are these fears in the background, and they are suppressed," said Ms. Reid, who is now selling some of her jewelry and clothes online and is late on some credit card payments. "I have had nightmares about becoming a bag lady," she said. "It could happen to anyone. So many people are so close to it, and they don't even realize it."

Being unemployed at any age can be crushing. But older workers suspect their resumes often get shoved aside in favor of those from younger workers. Others discover that their job-seeking skills — as well as some technical skills sought by employers — are rusty after years of working for the same company.

Many had in fact anticipated working past conventional retirement ages to gird themselves financially for longer life spans, expensive health care and reduced pension guarantees.

The most recent recession has increased the need to extend working life. Home values, often a family's most important asset, have been battered. Stock portfolios are only now starting to recover. According to a Gallup poll in April, more than a third of people not yet retired plan to work beyond age 65, compared with just 12 percent in 1995.

Older workers who lose their jobs could pose a policy problem if they lose their ability to be self-sufficient. "That's what we should be worrying about," said Carl E. Van Horn, professor of public policy and director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, "what it means to this class of the new unemployables, people who have been cast adrift at a very vulnerable part of their career and their life."

Forced early retirement imposes an intense financial strain, particularly for those at lower incomes. The recession and its aftermath have already pushed down some older workers. In figures released last week by the Census Bureau, the poverty rate among those 55 to 64 increased to 9.4 percent in 2009, from 8.6 percent in 2007.

But even middle-class people who might skate by on savings or a spouse's income are jarred by an abrupt end to working life and to a secure retirement.

"That's what I spent my whole life in pursuit of, was security," Ms. Reid said. "Until the last few years, I felt very secure in my job."

As an auditor, Ms. Reid loved figuring out the kinks in a manufacturing or parts delivery process. But after more than 20 years of commuting across Puget Sound to Boeing, Ms. Reid was exhausted when she was let go from her $80,000-a-year job.

Stunned and depressed, she sent out resumes, but figured she had a little time to recover. So she took vacations to Turkey and Thailand with her husband, who is a home repairman. She sought chiropractic treatments for a neck injury and helped nurse a priest dying of cancer.

Most of her days now are spent in front of a laptop, holed up in a lighthouse garret atop the house that her husband, Denny Mielock, built in the 1990s on a breathtaking piece of property overlooking the sound.

As she browses the job listings that clog her e-mail in-box, she refuses to give in to her fears. "If I let myself think like that all the time," she said, "I could not even bear getting out of bed in the morning."

With her husband's home repair business pummeled by the housing downturn, the bills are mounting. Although the couple do not have a mortgage on their 3,000-square-foot house, they pay close to $7,000 a year in property taxes. The roof is leaking. Their utility bills can be $300 a month in the winter, even though they often keep the thermostat turned down to 50 degrees.

They could try to sell their home, but given the depressed housing market, they are reluctant.

"We are circling the drain here, and I am bailing like hell," said Ms. Reid, emitting an incongruous cackle, as if laughter is the only response to her plight. "But the boat is still sinking."

It is not just the finances that have destabilized her life.

Her husband worries that she isolates herself and that she does not socialize enough. "We've both been hard workers our whole lives," said Mr. Mielock, 59. Ms. Reid sometimes rose just after 3 a.m. to make the hourlong commute to Boeing's data center in Bellevue and attended night school to earn a master's in management information systems.

"A job is more than a job, you know," Mr. Mielock said. "It's where you fit in society."

Here in the greater Seattle area, a fifth of those claiming extended unemployment benefits are 55 and older.

To help seniors polish their job-seeking skills, WorkSource, a local consortium of government and nonprofit groups, recently began offering seminars. On a recent morning, 14 people gathered in a windowless conference room at a local community college to get tips on how to age-proof their resumes and deflect questions about being overqualified.

Motivational posters hung on one wall, bearing slogans like "Failure is the path of least persistence."

Using PowerPoint slides, Liz Howland, the chipper but no-nonsense session leader, projected some common myths about older job-seekers on a screen: "Older workers are less capable of evaluating information, making decisions and problem-solving" or "Older workers are rigid and inflexible and have trouble adapting to change."

Ms. Howland, 61, ticked off the reasons those statements were inaccurate. But a clear undercurrent of anxiety ran through the room. "Is it really true that if you have the energy and the passion that they will overlook the age factor?" asked a 61-year-old man who had been laid off from a furniture maker last October.

Gallows humor reigned. As Ms. Howland — who suggested that applicants remove any dates older than 15 years from their resume — advised the group on how to finesse interview questions like "When did you have the job that helped you develop that skill?" one out-of-work journalist deadpanned: "How about 'during the 20th century?'"

During a break, Anne Richard, who declined to give her age, confessed she was afraid she would not be able to work again after losing her contract as a house director at a University of Washington sorority in June. Although she had 20 years of experience as an office clerk in Chattanooga, Tenn., she feared her technology skills had fallen behind.

"I don't feel like I can compete with kids who have been on computers all their lives," said Ms. Richard, who was sleeping on the couch of a couple she had met at church and contemplating imminent homelessness.

Older people who lose their jobs take longer to find work. In August, the average time unemployed for those 55 and older was slightly more than 39 weeks, according to the Labor Department, the longest of any age group. That is much worse than in August 1983, also after a deep recession, when someone unemployed in that age group spent an average of 27.5 weeks finding work.

At this year's pace of an average of 82,000 new jobs a month, it will take at least eight more years to create the 8 million positions lost during the recession. And that does not even allow for population growth.

Advocates for the elderly worry that younger people are more likely to fill the new jobs as well.

"I do think the longer someone is out of work, the more employers are going to question why it is that someone hasn't been able to find work," said Sara Rix, senior strategic policy adviser at AARP, the lobbying group for seniors. "Their skills have atrophied for one thing, and technology changes so rapidly that even if nothing happened to the skills that you have, they may become increasingly less relevant to the jobs that are becoming available."

In four years of job hunting, Ms. Reid has discovered that she is no longer technologically proficient. In one of a handful of interviews she has secured, for an auditing position at the Port of Seattle, she learned that the job required skills in PeopleSoft, financial software she had never used. She assumes that deficiency cost her the job.

Ms. Reid is still five years away from being eligible for Social Security. But even then, she would be drawing early, which reduces monthly payments. Taking Social Security at 62 means a retiree would receive a 25 percent lower monthly payout than if she worked until 66.

Ms. Reid is in some ways luckier than others. Boeing paid her a six-month severance, and she has health care benefits that cover her and her husband for $40 a month.

And she admits some regrets: she had a $180,000 balance in her 401(k) account, and paid $80,000 in penalties and taxes when she cashed it out early. She did not rein in her expenses right away. And now, her $500-a-week unemployment benefits have been exhausted.

She has since cut back, forgoing Nordstrom shopping sprees and theater subscriptions, but also cutting out red meat at home and putting off home repairs.

In order to qualify for accounting posts, she is taking an online training course in QuickBooks, a popular accounting software used by small businesses. She recently signed up for a tax course at an H&R Block tax preparation office in Seattle.

And she is plugging ahead with her current plan: to send out 600 applications to accounting firms in the area, offering her services for the next tax season. Eventually, she wants to open her own business.

With odd jobs and her husband's — albeit shriveled — earnings, she could stagger along. For now, she stitches together an income by gardening for neighbors, helping fellow church members with their computers, and participating in Internet surveys for as little as $5 apiece.

"You don't necessarily have to go through the door," Ms. Reid said. "You can go around it and go under it. I can be very creative. I think that I will eventually manage to pull this together."

RM2 firm creates land deal history

2010-09-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

Urusharta Cemerlang (KL) pays RM210 million, or RM7,209.80 per sq ft, to a company controlled by Singapore's property tycoon Kwek Leng Beng for a vacant land in Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur

A RM2 company is the buyer of the country's most expensive piece of land.

On Wednesday, Millennium & Copthorne Hotels plc (M&C), a company controlled by Singapore's property tycoon Kwek Leng Beng, sold 29,127 sq ft of vacant land in Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, to Urusharta Cemerlang (KL) Sdn Bhd for RM210 million, or RM7,209.80 per sq ft.

The previous record in a reported land sale was RM2,588 per sq ft for Wisma Angkasa Raya in Jalan Ampang in 2008.

A search at the Companies Commission of Malaysia revealed that Urusharta Cemerlang (KL) is owned by Tan Sri Zainol Mahmood and Shazni Sulaiman. The two have been its directors since 2006.

Zainol is the chairman of Urusharta Cemerlang Sdn Bhd and Pavilion Kuala Lumpur Sdn Bhd. Urusharta Cemerlang owns the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur shopping mall, which is also located in the Bukit Bintang area.

Urusharta Cemerlang is 51 per cent owned by Urusharta Cemerlang Development Sdn Bhd and 49 per cent by the Qatar Investment Authority(QIA).

Not much is known about Shazni.

In the financial year ended December 31 2009, Urusharta Cemerlang (KL), which is described as a dormant company, had current liabilities of RM5,010 and posted a net loss of RM1,305.

Real estate agents are describing the latest deal as "dizzying heights" and reckon that it could take many more years to surpass the figure.

But observers are wondering how and who will finance the acquisition given that the buyer is a RM2 company.

They also questioned whether QIA will later participate in the deal and what will be built on the land - an extended retail mall or luxury residences.

A mall would make sense given the land's proximity to Pavilion. However, at such a price, there is no doubt it could take more than the usual eight to 10 years to see a return on investment should a shopping complex be built.

It might recoup the investment faster if it built and sold high-end residences. After all, the land had been initially slated for the RM500 million Millennium Residences project.

In a statement issued in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, M&C said a 10 per cent deposit had been paid to its wholly-owned unit, CDL Hotels (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, which owns the land.

The deal confirms a Business Times report early last month that a land deal was being negotiated by CDL Hotels which could fetch a record price of over RM3,000 per sq ft.

The latest deal is nearly three times the price paid per acre in several private sales of nearby land, and the highest ever in the country's history.

"This transaction has obviously set a new benchmark in the local property market. I view the transaction as a special transaction as it is a special purchaser - an adjoining property owner who probably places more value on the asset than others," said a real estate agent, who declined to be named.

It is understood that the YTL group, which owns the nearby Starhill Gallery, Lot 10 Shopping Centre and JW Marriott Hotel, had also been eyeing the land.

The deal is expected to be completed no later than the second quarter of 2012.

M&C's carrying value of the land was RM42.8 million. Based on this, the sale is expected to result in a pre-tax profit of RM164.1 million after taking into account transaction costs.

60 tips dapat jodoh

2010-09-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

1. Semua orang ada jodoh atau pasangan yang menanti dan biasanya ia berada tidak jauh dari anda. Jarang orang bertemu dengan jodoh yang berada jauh darinya.

2. Jodoh itu ketentuan Allah dan kita wajib berusaha. Doa, usaha yang betul dan bersungguh-sungguh disertai dengan tawakkal, insyallah akan menemukan anda dengan pasangan anda.

3. Ramai orang masih belum bertemu jodoh kerana mudah patah semangat. Teruskan usaha sehingga anda bertemu jodoh.

4. Seimbangkan hidup anda dengan sempurna agar diri anda jadi seperti “magnet” yang menarik bakal pasangan anda kepada anda.

5. Daya tarikan yang sebenar berpusat di hati yang murni. Berusahalah untuk mencuci hati anda daripada semua perasaan yang negatif terhadap semua orang di dunia ini.

6. Agar mudah orang sayang, cuci hati dengan jaga ibadah, solat taubat, beristighfar, baca Al-Quran, maafkan orang lain, meminta maaf, bersedekah dan berfikiran positif.

7. Sayangi semua orang di sekitar anda dan anda akan menarik sayang terhadap anda. Jika anda membenci orang, ditakuti bakal pasangan anda akan membenci anda.

8. Orang yang sedang mencari pasangan harus sentiasa bersedia untuk bertemu dengan pasangannya pada bila-bila masa. Justeru, kita perlu sentiasa dalam keadaan yang paling menarik setiap masa. Tanggapan pertama adalah yang terpenting.

9. Untuk lelaki, tarikan pertama ialah pakaiannya. Untuk perempuan, wajah dan bentuk badan menjadi tarikan pertama. Sediakan diri untuk menawan bakal pasangan anda.

10. Buka hati dan minda anda untuk menerima cinta. Cinta boleh berputik pada bila-bila masa. Cinta mudah datang kepada mereka yang sentiasa bersedia untuk menerima cinta.

11. Cinta datang melalui mata lalu turun ke hati. Justeru, perhebatkan hubungan mata secara memandang bakal pasangan dengan penuh kasih sayang.

12. Kita boleh berkomunikasi melalui fikiran. Hantarlah kasih sayang dan hasrat murni anda terhadap pasangan dengan gelombang fikiran ini secara berterusan hingga berjaya.

13. Ramai yang terlepas peluang dan patah hati sebab lewat menyatakan hasrat kepada bakal pasangan. Perkara yang baik disegerakan (iaitu menyatakan perasaan anda kepada bakal pasangan).

14. Tidak salah untuk orang perempuan memulakan usaha untuk berkenalan. Orang lelaki akan sentiasa merasakan mereka yang memulakan perkenalan walaupun sebenarnya orang perempuan yang mulakan.

15. Berkomunikasi dengan mesra dan bersemangat menggunakan lidah, mata, hati dan bahasa badan. Elakkan bercakap sambil lewa atau kurang sopan terhadap bakal pasangan.

16. Berbual dengan pasangan mengenai apa yang dia suka. Beri tumpuan kepada minat dan perasaannya. Elakkan sibuk memberi tumpuan kepada diri sendiri.

17. Layan bakal pasangan dengan mesra seperti kawan lama walaupun baru berkenalan. Bentuk suasana keintiman dengan segera agar bakal pasangan rasa selesa.

18. Makin mudah kita menceritakan hal peribadi yang munasabah kepada bakal pasangan, semakin mudah dia menceritakan hal dirinya kepada kita.

19. Berdoa dan latih diri agar kita pandai mendampingi orang lain dan seronok untuk didampingi oleh orang lain. Buang perangai yang menyebabkan orang benci kepada kita.

20. Beri sayang untuk mendapat sayang. Orang yang masih ada perasaan benci terhadap sebarang orang boleh menyebabkan bakal pasangan benci atau tidak tertarik kepada kita. Justeru buang semua benci.

21. Untuk wanita, jangan jual mahal terhadap bakal pasangan. Tetapi, nyatakan dengan hikmah kepadanya yang anda amat sukar untuk berkenalan dengan lelaki lain.

22. Kebanyakan lelaki mudah tertarik kepada perempuan yang simple, tidak materialistik, mudah berterima kasih dan redha dengan setiap pemberian lelaki tersebut.

23. Orang perempuan mudah tertarik kepada lelaki yang memberi perhatian, penghargaan dan penghormatan kepada mereka. Justeru, orang lelaki janganlah terlalu jimat atau kedekut.

24. Orang lelaki perlu belajar mengenal kerenah orang perempuan. perasaan, pemikiran, kehendak, keperluan, kesukaan dan kebenciannya.

25. Elakkan memberi tumpuan kepada kelemahan dan kesilapan kecil yang ada pada bakal pasangan. Jangan sesekali mengutuk atau memalukan bakal pasangan.

26. Senyuman ikhlas, wajah yang menawan dan bahasa badan yang penuh kemesraan akan menambat lelaki terhadap wanita.

27. Orang mudah tertawan kepada bakal pasangan yang ada persamaan dan ada perbezaan sifat, tindakan dan minat. Terlalu banyak persamaan membosankan. Banyak sangat perbezaan menyesakkan.

28. Orang mudah tertarik kepada bakal pasangan yang ada sikap dan sifat yang saling mengimbangi dan melengkapkan sikap dan sifatnya.

29. Walaupun belum kenal rapat dengan bakal pasangan, nyatakan yang anda sering merasa atau berfikir seperti yang dia rasa atau fikir. Keserasian adalah tarikan.

30. Perempuan membentuk hubungan dengan berbual dan bercakap. Lelaki bentuk hubungan dengan melakukan sesuatu kegiatan secara bersama.

31. Orang mudah tertawan kepada bakal pasangan yang mempunyai persamaan daripada berbagai segi seperti kefahaman politik, aktiviti keagamaan, sikap terhadap harta, wang dan hobi.

32. Dua orang yang amat banyak perbezaan boleh serasi antara satu sama lain jika mempunyai satu atau dua persamaan yang mendalam seperti suka kepada kucing, suka melancong atau suka ramai anak.

33. Tindakan yang serentak akan menarik bakal pasangan terhadap anda. Contohnya, serentak berpaling, serentak angkat gelas, serentak berdiri, serentak nak ke tandas.

34. Tawan hati bakal pasangan dengan pamerkan emosi yang sama terhadap sesuatu kejadian atau peristiwa – sama-sama gembira, sedih, terperanjat, benci, simpati dan sebagainya.

35. Dua insan mudah serasi jika mempunyai pentafsiran yang sama mengenai hubungan – tahap keakraban, kebebasan, kebergantungan, pemberian, pengorbanan dan sebagainya.

36. Kenalpasti ciri-ciri yang disukai oleh bakal pasangan anda. Bentuk ciri-ciri yang disukai oleh bakal pasangan anda. Bentuk ciri-ciri ini dalam diri anda dan pamerkan kepadanya yang anda mempunyai ciri-ciri tersebut.

37. Semua orang mencari cinta sejati tanpa syarat. Bakal pasangan anda akan tertarik kepada anda jika anda mengasihinya bukan kerana wajah, harta, keturunan atau glamornya.

38. Bakal pasangan akan tertawan kepada anda jika anda dapat bantu mengukuhkan imej dirinya, rangsang semangatnya dan pupuk keyakinan dirinya.

39. Keikhlasan amat penting dalam memuji atau memotivasi bakal pasangan. Jika kita didapati bohong, dia akan terus menjauhkan diri daripada kita.

40. Pujian yang berhikmah dan ikhlas bertindak sebagai magnet yang menarik anda kepada bakal pasangan. Pujian daripada kawan baru lebih bermakna dan berkesan berbanding pujian daripada kawan lama.

41. Ulang sebut perkataan, ayat atau slogan yang digemari bakal pasangan anda. Ini menyebabkan dia rasa istimewa dan dihargai dan akan tertawan kepada anda.

42. Kenalpasti keistimewaan bakal pasangan anda yang orang lain tidak nampak. Sampaikan kehebatan ini dengan bersemangat dan dia akan mudah tertawan kepada anda.

43. Untuk bakal pasangan yang popular dan sering dipuji , cari pujian yang original untuk menambat hatinya. Untuk orang yang tidak popular, sebarang pujian amat dialukan dan dihargai.

44. Beri penghargaan serta merta kepada setiap pencapaian atau kejayaan bakal pasangan. Ini membelai dan melembutkan hatinya terhadap anda.

45. Jika bakal pasangan memuji anda, pamerkan keseronokan anda dengan senyuman dan ucapan terima kasih dan bersyukur. Dia akan rasa dihargai.

46. Cari keunikan, kelucuan atau ‘kegilaan’ bakal pasangan anda. Nyatakan yang anda suka kepadanya sebab keunikan tersebut. Ini buat dia rasa istimewa.

47. Ramai pasangan sengsara bila isteri terlalu cantik atau suami terlalu handsome. Justeru, cari bakal pasangan yang setara dan sepadan dengan kita.

48. Orang yang merasa dirinya hodoh sukar untuk mendapat pasangan. Carilah kecantikan yang ada pada anda dan bentuk keyakinan diri. Hati yang suci dan keyakinan yang tinggi menyerlahkan kecantikan anda.

49. Wanita mudah tertawan kepada lelaki yang gentleman – bersopan santun, suka membantu, menghormati wanita, berani dan yakin diri.

50. Untuk jadi lebih menawan, berterusan belajar, perbaiki perangai dan peribadi, baiki kemahiran komunikasi, murnikan hati, pemaaf dan sentiasa bersangka baik.

51. Lelaki harus mempamerkan sifat kelelakiannya di samping memasukkan sifat perempuan dalam dirinya seperti lebih prihatin, memahami emosi , timbang rasa, dan gunakan gerak batin.

52. Perempuan harus mempamerkan sifat kewanitaan disamping menghayati sifat lelaki seperti minat dalam politik, sukan, memancing, dan aktiviti macho yang lain. Bertindak bijak tapi, jangan terlalu bijak.

53. Untuk menambat hati wanita, kerap bertanya tentang perasaannya, aktiviti yang dijalankannya, kegemarannya, kebenciannya atau sebarang perkara yang berkaitan dengan emosi.

54. Sebelum benar-benar rapat, orang perempuan harus elakkan diri dari bertanya bakal pasangan mengenai perasaannya mengenai sesuatu perkara, peristiwa atau situasi.

55. Orang lelaki amat pantang bila bakal pasangan menempelak atau menunjukkan kesilapan atau kebodohan lelaki tersebut. Ini cara terbaik memutuskan hubungan.

56. Orang perempuan mudah tertawan kepada lelaki yang boleh mengaku salah, meminta maaf, meminta bantuan, bertolak ansur, pandai mendengar, bersabar dan lemah lembut terhadap wanita.

57. Bila bercakap dengan lelaki, orang perempuan harus fokus kepada fakta dan sampaikan secara ringkas. Penjelasan yang berjela-jela dan memasukkan unsur perasaan akan membunuh minat lelaki terhadapnya.

58. Jika orang perempuan marah, pujuklah dengan kasih sayang. Tanya kenapa dia marah, dengari dengan teliti dan jangan komen atau cuba beri nasihat. Orang perempuan mudah sayang pada lelaki yang pandai mendengar dan sensitif kepada perasaannya.

59. Jika lelaki marah, jangan sibuk nak tanya kenapa dia marah. Pamerkan kasih sayang dan bentuk suasana yang tenang. Doakan dia dan beri masa untuk dia merawat dirinya sendiri.

60. Fahami bahawa orang lelaki bercakap secara terus terang, ringkas dan objektif. Orang perempuan sering bercakap secara berlapik, terperinci dan banyak yang tersirat.

China millionaire says 100 others will donate riches

2010-09-16T05:58:00.000-07:00

BEIJING (AFP) - – A rich Chinese businessman said he has convinced more than 100 other industrialists to give away their personal wealth, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

Chen Guangbiao, who heads a resource recycling company, has said he will leave his entire fortune -- which state media has put at more than five billion yuan (735 million dollars) -- to charity after his death.

The pledge came ahead of a banquet for Chinese philanthropists to be hosted later this month by US billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who have called on their wealthy compatriots to give away at least half of their assets.

Chen has convinced other Chinese entrepreneurs to donate their assets as well, Xinhua reported.

"Although the pledge-makers do not want to be exposed to the media, I give my sincere respect to their charity spirit," Chen was quoted saying.

The report gave no other details.

State press reports earlier said Chen was one of only two of China's super-rich to confirm their attendance at the Gates-Buffet event in Beijing on September 29.

The invitees were worried they would be pressured to donate by Gates and Buffett, the two richest Americans, the reports said.

Gates and Buffet insisted this week in a letter quoted by Xinhua that they would exert no such pressure and merely wanted to share their philanthropy experiences with others.

China has the second-most billionaires after the United States.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2010

2010-09-09T06:33:00.001-07:00

Indonesian fashion scores Ramadan hit

2010-09-06T04:49:00.000-07:00

JAKARTA (AFP) - – This Eid al-Fitr Muslim holiday, Malaysian Sharifa Ahmad is determined to make heads turn in her "Made in Indonesia" outfit -- a black flowing chiffon robe with embroidered neckline and matching headscarf hand stitched with Swarovski crystals.

"The dress is perfect for the holy day -- modest yet elegant. I'm definitely going to rock my little black Islamic dress," the 35-year-old civil servant told AFP.

Ahmad is among a growing number of Muslim fashionistas across the region who visit Indonesia to splurge on new festive clothes to celebrate the end of the Ramadan fasting month, which falls on September 10.

The country's booming Islamic fashion industry reported a spike in sales of about 20 to 30 percent as early as June, thanks mainly to buyers like Ahmad from neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore, retailers said.

Busloads of women flock to textile markets in cities like Jakarta and Yogyakarta to buy fabric, ready-to-wear dresses and headscarves, textile seller Azizah said.

"They will come in tour buses, choose what they like and buy 10 to 20 pieces of fabric. When they return to their countries, some telephone us to place more orders," she said.

Ahmad flew on a budget airline from Kuala Lumpur in July, bought the fabric at a textile market in Jakarta and sent it to an Indonesian seamstress "to work her magic" before getting an friend to post it to her in Malaysia.

"I paid 600,000 rupiah (66 dollars) for it, half of what I would pay if I had it made in Malaysia. It's a bargain for designer quality," she said.

Chiffon, silk and crepe fabrics draping the silhouette in softer pastel colours, highlighted by delicate embellishments on the neck lines, are top fashion picks this year. Plainer headscarves strewn with Swarovski crystals replaced last year's heavily-embroidered beehive and turban craze.

"Some people shop for themselves. Others buy to resell. They would buy 10 yards of fabric of the same design in three colours, tailor the dresses here and sell them at a higher price in their boutiques back home," textile merchant Vishal Kumar said.

Hoping to cash in on one of the most important dates on the Islamic calendar, Islamic fashion designer Dian Pelangi flew to Cairo, Abu Dhabi, London, Australia and Malaysia several months ago to hawk her wares.

She said she sold "thousands" of pieces from her Eid collection at fashion exhibitions in those countries for around 2.5 million rupiah (277 dollars) each.

"Arab women are glamorous. They love their bling. My Islamic brown robes with hand-drawn batik detail at the bottom were sold out. Those with beadwork and rhinestones were also popular," she added.

"Middle-eastern customers don't bargain much and when they like something, they buy a lot. Some buy 20 to 30 pieces at one go. It's a very lucrative market," Pelangi said.

Sales of her Islamic dresses, priced from 20 to 300 dollars, tripled in July and jumped 10 times in August as local buyers joined in, she said.

Indonesia offers lower prices, quality workmanship, creativity in design and a variety of fabrics, from batik and ikat weaving to gold-threaded songket.

Hassan Marican, director of Singaporean clothing company Second Chance Properties Limited, said it imported 20 percent of its ready-made festive dresses from Indonesia and sold them at double the cost price.

"We buy from Indonesia because it's cheap. For us businessmen, it all boils down to the price. Also we want some embroidery and beadwork. Our suppliers in China and Malaysia can't provide that," he told AFP.

"For Islamic fashion, Malaysia and Singapore always look to Indonesia for pointers. They're very creative. Their headscarf designs are unmatchable."

Industry Minister MS Hidayat said export of textiles and textile products this year was projected to reach 10 billion dollars, up from 9.26 billion dollars last year, or about eight percent of total exports.

While fashion creations represented only a small fraction of those exports, there is great room for expansion, he said.

"Fashion products have great potential to be developed. We're rich in natural resources and cultural heritage which can be inspiring and spur creativity," the minister said.

Indonesian Fashion Designers Association chairman Taruna Kusmaryuda Kusmayadi agreed.

He hopes Indonesian designers can help change the world's perception that Islamic attire is dull, stuffy and unfashionable.

"Sometimes when you mention Muslim or Islam, people develop an allergy. They think it's a very scary religion," he said.

"But Islamic attire can be both modest and stylish. And also fun. They aren't worn only during special Islamic days by country folks who read the Koran day and night. Modern city women wear them too while filling up gas for their BMWs," he added with a laugh.

"Islamic fashion is borderless."

Russians urged to smoke, drink more

2010-09-02T05:03:00.000-07:00

MOSCOW, Sept 2 — Smoke and drink more, Russia’s finance minister Alexei Kudrin urged citizens yesterday, explaining that higher consumption would help lift tax revenues for spending on social services.

“If you smoke a pack of cigarettes, that means you are giving more to help solve social problems such as boosting demographics, developing other social services and upholding birth rates,” Kudrin said, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

“People should understand: Those who drink, those who smoke are doing more to help the state,” he said, offering unconventional advice as the Russian government announced plans to raise excise duty on alcohol and cigarettes.

Alcohol and cigarette consumption are already extremely high in Russia, where 65 per cent of men smoke and the average Russian consumes 18L of alcoholic beverages per year, mainly vodka, according to official statistics.

Russian duties on cigarettes are among the lowest in Europe, with most brands priced at around 40 rubles (approximately RM4) per pack and unfiltered cigarettes selling for much less.

The finance ministry in June announced plans to more than double excise duty on cigarettes over the next three years from 250 rubles per 1,000 filtered cigarettes to 590 rubles in 2013.

The move is likely to be unpopular in the nicotine-addicted nation where a cigarette shortage in the late 1980s and early 1990s incited protests and led then-president Mikhail Gorbachev to appeal for emergency outside shipments.

The state recently imposed a new minimum legal price for vodka, implemented a zero tolerance ban on drink-driving and banned night-time sales of alcohol to curb abuse blamed for the deaths of thousands of Russians every year.

Alcohol abuse kills around 500,000 Russians annually and greatly impacts male life expectancy, which is lower than in such developing countries as Bangladesh and Honduras, according to official figures. — AFP/Relaxnews

Sebenarnya Rakyat Malaysia Belum Merdeka

2010-08-31T06:46:00.000-07:00

Selamat menyambut hari kemerdekaan yang ke-53 buat seluruh warga Malaysia. Semoga pemberian nikmat ini akan berkekalan hendak-Nya. Negara kita telah 53 tahun merdeka namun bagaimana dengan keadaan rakyatnya? Sedar atau tidak masih banyak perkara yang kita masih belum merdeka atau lebih tepat sebenar-benar merdeka.

Tuan-tuan dan puan-puan sekalian, apakah erti kemerdekaan?

Secara ringkas, kemerdekaan bermaksud kebebasan ataupun berdikari. Apa yang saya nampak ada banyak perkara yang kita masih belum merdeka. Namun, saya simpulkan kepada 4 perkara yang kita masih belum merdeka.

1) Kita masih belum merdeka dari segi minda
Whatever the mind of a man can conceive and believe, he can achieve.

Majoriti rakyat Malaysia masih belum merdeka dari segi minda. Kebanyakkan masyarakat kita masih belum percaya dengan kemampuan diri sendiri. Sebagai contoh, masih ramai yang berfikiran bahawa mereka tidak mampu untuk membina empayar perniagaan sendiri dan memilih untuk terus bekerja makan gaji.

Sedangkan kebanyakkan mereka mempunyai kemahiran yang cukup untuk memulakan perniagaan sendiri. Memetik kata-kata Tun Dr Mahathir, kerajaan sekarang sepatutnya membantu rakyat Malaysia agar melahirkan lebih ramai usahawan supaya dapat mencipta peluang pekerjaan. Bukannya membuka ruang kepada pelabur asing untuk mencipta peluang pekerjaan yang tidak seberapa kepada masyarakat kita. Akhirnya kekayaan negara diangkut balik ke negara mereka.

Beliau berkata kita bukannya berada pada 20-30 tahun lepas dimana Malaysia masih belum bersedia dari segi teknologi dan kemahiran. Tun Dr. Mahathir melihat kemampuan kita semua, tetapi sayangnya minda segelintir pemimpin kita masih belum merdeka.

2) Kita masih belum merdeka dari segi kehidupan
Cuba kita buat ’spot-check’ terhadap kehidupan seharian kita. Adakah kita sudah merdeka? Sebenarnya kita masih belum merdeka. Ramai masyarakat kita hari ini hidup di atas buah fikiran orang lain. Perkara ini saya telah sebut berulang-ulang kali pada entri sebelum ini.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.

Sebagai contoh, majoriti masyarakat kita berpendapat kejayaan sesuatu perniagaan diukur melalui jenis kereta yang dinaiki. Kononnya. Maka kita pun berusaha sekuat hati untuk membeli kereta besar walaupun perniagaan masih belum kemana kerana nak buktikan kepada ahli keluarga, rakan-rakan dan orang sekeliling bahawa kita telah berjaya.

Hey, kamu hidup di atas dasar pemikiran orang lain! Bebanan expenses bulanan kamu yang perlu tanggung dan bukannya ahli keluarga, rakan-rakan dan orang sekeliling!

Beli kereta besar setelah benar-benar kita mampu dan bukannya kerana nak buktikan bahawa kita berjaya kepada orang lain, barulah merdeka. Kadang-kadang kita sendiri masih belum merdeka di dalam membuat keputusan untuk kehidupan kita.

3) Kita masih belum merdeka dari segi kewangan
Jika kita tidak menjadi Tuan kepada Duit, kita terpaksa menjadi HAMBA kepada hutang. – Tuan Shamsuddin Kadir

Mengikut statistik tahap kewangan rakyat Malaysia, sejujurnya kita sedar bahawa kita masih belum merdeka. Majoriti daripada masyarakat Malaysia masih belum bebas kewangan, malah terus menjadi hamba kepada kewangan.

Masih ramai yang berbelanja melebihi kemampuan dan seterusnya muflis di usia yang muda! Saya telah jumpa ramai individu yang hidup hanya untuk membayar hutang. Jika anda membaca buku Hidup Tenang Walaupun Berhutang nukilan Tuan Shamsuddin Kadir maka anda akan tahu mengenai status kemerdekaan kewangan masyarakat kita.

Kita akan merdeka kewangan apabila kita hidup bebas dari hutang. Malah lebih hebat apabila kita mencapai tahap dapat membeli sesuatu tanpa perlu melihat tanda harga dan dapat memberi tanpa perlu mengira.

4) Kita masih merdeka belum dari segi hati dan jiwa
Dari Abu Hurairah RA, Rasulullah SAW bersabda, “Allah SWT berfirman, “Hai Anak Adam, sibukkanlah waktumu untuk beribadah kepada-Ku, niscaya Aku akan memberikan kekayaan dihatimu dan Aku akan menghilangkan kemiskinan darimu. Jika tidak Aku akan memasukkan dalam dirimu kesibukan, sedangkan Aku tidak akan menghilangkan kemiskinanmu” (HR Ahmad, Ubnu Majah).

Kehidupan di dunia adalah sementara dan kehidupan di sana adalah yang kekal abadi. Namun, majoriti daripada rakyat Malaysia yang beragama Islam masih gagal untuk membebaskan hati mereka dari dunia. Jangan kerana mengejar dunia maka kita lupa tanggungjawab kita sebagai hamba-Nya.

Kita tidak perlu menunding jari kepada orang lain. Cuba nilai diri kita sendiri. Apakah kerja seharian yang kita lakukan ini adalah benar-benar ikhlas kerana Allah ataupun ikhlas kerana dunia? Sebagai penutup, renungi dan hayatilah sepotong hadis di bawah:

Anas R.A meriwayatkan sabda Rasulullah SAW, “Barangsiapa yang perhatiannya hanya tertuju pada dunia, dan tujuan hidupnya hanya untuk mencari dunia, ia berpergian untuk keperluan dunia dan senantiasa memikirkan dunia maka Allah SWT akan membentangkan dihadapan matanya perasaan takut kepada kemisikinan dan kelaparan. Dan ia akan menghabiskan waktunya untuk memikirkan dan mengkhawatirkan dunia, sedangkan ia hanya akan mendapatkan sekadar yang telah ditakdirkan untuknya.

Barangsiapa yang menumpahkan perhatiannya pada akhirat dan sentiasa memikirkan akhirat, maka Allah SWT akan menyelamatkannya dari kegelisahan dan kebimbangan mengenai dunia. Allah SWT akan mengurniakan kepadanya rasa puas dan tidak berhajat kepada benda dunia. Allah SWT akan mempermudah segala urusannya, dan dunia akan datang sendiri dalam keadaan hina.”

Alhamdulillah, pada tahun ini kita menyambut ulang tahun kemerdekaan negara kita yang tercinta di dalam bulan Ramadhan Al-Mubarak, bulan yang cukup mulia. Perkongsian 4 perkara yang kita masih belum merdeka di atas adalah bertujuan untuk menasihati dan memperbetulkan diri sendiri juga

Nikah Gantung Atasi Masalah Sosial Remaja

2010-08-29T05:43:00.000-07:00

Proses perkahwinan yang digalakkan oleh Islam sewajarnya dipermudahkan agar generasi muda tidak liar dan kemaruk nafsu, lalu
terjebak dalam kancah seks bebas, kata ketua Dewan Pemuda PAS pusat, Nasrudin Hassan.

Menurut, langkah memudahkan proses perkahwinan boleh dilakukan oleh pihak berwajib, antaranya dengan:

# Memberi peruntukan kepada pasangan muda yang ingin berkahwin.
# Memberi insentif sebagai galakan berkahwin.
# Mengurangkan karenah birokrasi yang menyulitkan.
# Kursus dan khidmat bimbingan perkahwinan secara percuma.
# Menganjurkan perkahwinan beramai - ramai yang menjimatkan.
# Mendidik masyarakat dengan budaya sederhana dalam majlis perkahwinan.
# Merendahkan hantaran perkahwinan.

"Antara kaedah mempermudahkan proses perkahwinan ialah Nikah Khitbah atau dalam bahasa mudah disebut oleh masyarakat kita sebagai nikah gantung," kata Nasrudin dalam satu kenyataan hari ini.

Cuma bezanya, tegas beliau, ialah pasangan pengantin tidak tinggal serumah dalam tempoh-tempoh tertentu kerana beberapa keadaan seperti:

# Masih menuntut di kolej atau univerisiti.
# idak mempunyai kemampuan menyewa rumah.
# Belum bersedia menanggung komitmen kehidupan berumahtangga.

Nasrudin berkata, kelebihan nikah gantung ialah mereka adalah pasangan suami isteri yang sah mengikut hukum agama dan undang-undang negara.

"Andainya dalam tempoh itu mereka bertemu, keluar makan, belajar bersama, bahkan kalau mereka terlanjur sekalipun mengadakan hubungan seks, mka apa yang mereka lakukan itu tidak salah atau tidak haram.

"Andai berlaku kehamilan, maka pasangan itu tidak perlu panik terutama pihak gadis yang hamil kerana ia menghamilkan anaknya yang sah nasab (keturunan).

"Bahkan nanti mereka tidak perlu malu dan menjauhkan diri dari keluarga kerana keluarga pula akan menyambut kedatangan bayi itu dengan bangga dan bermaruah," tambahnya .

Menurutnya lagi, kes buang bayi yang berleluasa hari ini rata-ratanya adalah ekoran rasa panik dan hilang pertimbangan akibat malu dan hilang maruah dari pasangan terbabit.

"Malah mereka juga takut untuk kembali ke pangkuan keluarga justeru mereka mengetahui bahawa hubungan mereka salah dan mereka hamil hasil hubungan terlarang. Ia memalukan keluarga dan mencemarkan maruah bangsa dan agama .

"Akhirnya, jalan pintas dan terdesak yang ada pada mereka ialah buang bayi tersebut dengan harapan selesai masaalah dan beban yang mereka hadapi tanpa mereka menyedari bahawa akan mencetus bencana yang lebih parah kepada sosial negara," tegasnya lagi.

Pattani Little Girl

2010-08-21T04:26:00.000-07:00

Cari Gewe

2010-08-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

China overtake Japan as world second biggest economy

2010-08-16T05:09:00.000-07:00

Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Takuji Okubo, chief Japan economist at Societe Generale SA in Tokyo talks about the nation's economy and central bank monetary policy. Japan’s economy grew at less than a fifth of the pace economists estimated last quarter, pushing it into third place behind the U.S. and China and adding to evidence the global recovery is faltering. Okubo also discusses the impact of a stronger yen on Japanese exports, and the outlook for the global economy. Okubo talks with Bloomberg's Mark Barton on "Global Connection." (Source: Bloomberg)

Japan’s nominal gross domestic product for the second quarter totaled $1.288 trillion, less than China’s $1.337 trillion. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

China overtook the U.S. last year as the biggest automotive market and Germany as the largest exporter. Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg
China surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy last quarter, capping the nation’s three- decade rise from Communist isolation to emerging superpower.

Japan’s nominal gross domestic product for the second quarter totaled $1.288 trillion, less than China’s $1.337 trillion, the Japanese Cabinet Office said today. Japan remained bigger in the first half of 2010, the government agency said.

China led the world out of last year’s global recession with an economy that’s more than 90-times bigger than when leader Deng Xiaoping ditched hard-line Communist policies in favor of free-market reforms in 1978. The country of 1.3 billion people will overtake the U.S., where annual GDP is about $14 trillion, as the world’s largest economy by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief economist Jim O’Neill.

China’s surpassing of Japan “is a marker of its increasingly dominant role in the global economy,” said Eswar Prasad, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former head of the China division at the International Monetary Fund. “The resilience of China’s growth during the crisis enabled a number of other countries, particularly commodity-exporting economies, to ride on its coattails.”

The benchmark Shanghai stock index rose 2.1 percent at the 3 p.m. close today, climbing the most this month.

Tricky Comparison

China overtook the U.S. last year as the biggest automobile market and Germany as the largest exporter. The nation is the world’s No. 1 buyer of iron ore and copper and the second- biggest importer of crude oil, and has underpinned demand for exports by its Asian neighbors.

While China’s output was also larger in the fourth quarter of 2009, Japan’s GDP rebounded to exceed China’s in the first quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. According to IMF data using purchasing-power-parity calculations to adjust for exchange-rate differences, China overtook Japan in 2001.

Quarterly comparisons between China and Japan are “a little tricky because they do not take account of different seasonal patterns between the two countries,” said David Cohen, head of Asian forecasting at Action Economics in Singapore.

China’s economy is cooling as the government trims credit growth from last year’s record $1.4 trillion and discourages multiple-home purchases to cool surging property prices. July industrial output rose the least in 11 months, retail sales growth eased and new loans climbed less than estimated. China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. said last month that its crude-oil processing increased at a slower pace in the second quarter as fuel demand faltered.

Property Collapse

The country’s property market is beginning a “collapse” that will hit the nation’s banking system, Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University professor and former chief economist of the IMF, said July 6.

Still, China is on course to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy around 2020, PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a January report.

With China’s growth surging 10.3 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier and Japan expanding 2 percent, the “gap is going to widen” in future, said Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong-based economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. “It is not likely that Japan will retake the No. 2 spot given the likely growth rates.”

Four of the world’s top 10 companies by market capitalization are from China, including PetroChina Co., Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., China Mobile Ltd. and China Construction Bank Corp.

Agricultural Bank

Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. boosted the size of its initial public offering to $22.1 billion this month after selling more stock in Shanghai, making it the world’s largest first-time share sale. The IPO made the nation home to four of the world’s 10 biggest banks by market value, half a decade after the country’s first major state-owned lender went public.

China may be the biggest IPO market in 2010 as companies are likely to raise 500 billion yuan ($74 billion) in Shanghai and Shenzhen, PricewaterhouseCoopers forecast last month.

Since introducing free-market policies, China has lifted 300 million citizens out of poverty, according to the United Nations. The country remains a developing nation, with its per capita gross national income ranked 127th in the world at $2,940 at the end of 2008, behind Angola and Azerbaijan, according to the World Bank.

Cultural Revolution

In the first three decades of Communist Party rule before Deng took power, China’s economy was hobbled by the chaos of the Great Leap Forward, a failed attempt to transform the agrarian nation into an industrial powerhouse, and the Cultural Revolution, a decade of political upheaval led by Mao Zedong’s Red Guards.

“China has a large population, a weak economic foundation, relatively few resources and a large poverty population, which remains our basic situation,” Ma Jiantang, head of China’s statistics bureau, said in January. “Therefore, while we take note of our expanding size of economy and enhancing economic strength, we should also have a sober understanding that China remains a developing nation.”

China’s future influence on the global economy will increase, said Shen at Mizuho. The country’s “double-digit” expansion will contribute a third of global growth this year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in March.

“Japan had a huge impact on the global commodities market and foreign direct investment flows in the 1980s” as China is doing now, Shen said. “The major difference is that China’s population is 10-times bigger than Japan’s, its economy is still growing at above 9 percent per year, and Chinese investors are just beginning to invest abroad. You can imagine that China’s impact will be so much bigger.”

Foreclosure Crisis Spread Across USA

2010-08-16T05:06:00.000-07:00

Nan Holmes, a senior escrow officer at a title insurer, says her insider’s view of the local market gave her the confidence three years ago to pay $370,000 for a new home in Boise, Idaho. She got a price she liked from the builder and 100 percent bank financing.

That was before the bottom fell out of the housing market in California, Nevada and Florida as borrowers with bad credit began defaulting in record numbers, setting off a recession. Holmes, who had earned $150,000 a year when real estate was booming, saw her compensation shrink by half when business cooled, forcing her to dip into savings and sell jewelry. She stopped paying the mortgage in April and has put the house on the market for $145,000 less than she owes the bank.

“How long will it take for the market to turn so I can just break even?” Holmes, 55, said as she sat in her house in Boise’s tree-lined Collister neighborhood, four miles (6.4 kilometers) from the state capitol.

Home foreclosures are climbing in the Northwest and Midwest, areas that had earlier dodged the worst of the mortgage crisis, according to real estate data firm RealtyTrac Inc. With 14.6 million Americans out of work and consumer spending declining, further weakness in housing could push the economy back into recession, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Aug. 1.

Foreclosure rates in Utah, Idaho, Illinois and Colorado rose in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, and rank among the 10 highest in the country. The number of homes seized by lenders at least doubled in 19 states and more than tripled in seven of them, according to Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac.

Later in Cycle

“The housing downturn started late in the Northwest and now it’s ending late,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Idaho, Oregon and Washington lagged behind the national cycle and will suffer declines after other areas stabilize, he said.

New defaults are declining and appear to have bottomed in states where the crisis began, falling 43 percent in California, 37 percent in Florida and 27 percent in Nevada in the second quarter from a year earlier, RealtyTrac’s data show.

“The worst is over, but it’s going to be a long road ahead,” said economist Steven Frable at IHS Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts.

July Data

Last month, 325,229 U.S. properties got a notice of default, auction or bank repossession, RealtyTrac said today in a report. While that’s an increase of 4 percent from June, the number was down almost 10 percent from a year earlier. One in 397 households received a filing. Lenders seized 92,858 properties in July, the second-highest monthly tally since RealtyTrac began records in January 2005.

“The numbers are exploding due to unemployment and economic displacement,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of marketing at RealtyTrac. “We will see them get a lot worse unless we see some job creation.”

Initial jobless claims rose last week by 2,000 to 484,000, the highest in six months, Labor Department figures showed today. Unemployment is near a 27-year high at 9.5 percent. More than 4.4 million people are collecting unemployment benefits and almost 5.3 million are getting emergency and extended payments. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told Congress on July 21 the outlook is “unusually uncertain.”

Chicago Jobs Disappear

Chicago lost 76,000 jobs in the year through June, the most in any metropolitan area tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Denver lost 18,900, Detroit 18,700. Employment dropped 4.1 percent in Grand Junction, Colorado, and 2.7 percent in Bend, Oregon, the data show.

Home seizures soared 822 percent in Idaho in the second quarter, and the state had the seventh-highest foreclosure rate, according to RealtyTrac. Boise’s median house price was $140,100 in the quarter, down 34 percent from the peak $212,800 in 2007, the National Association of Realtors said yesterday.

The metropolitan area, home to a third of Idaho’s 1.54 million residents, has been pummeled by housing-related construction and retail job losses, as well as layoffs at chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. and grocer Albertsons, said Michael Ferguson, the state’s chief economist.

Idaho’s jobless rate was 8.8 percent in July, up from 8.2 percent a year earlier and 2.9 percent in July 2007.

“This is an off-the-chart, extreme financial event,” Ferguson said. “I wasn’t around for the Depression, but in the last half century there has been nothing like this.”

Cows and Corn

In Charter Pointe, a development built on corn fields 11 miles from downtown, more than half of the homes listed for sale are bank-owned or “underwater,” meaning the property is worth less than the mortgage. Dairy cows wander in a nearby pen, and baling machines grind into the night.

“The neighbors aren’t used to living next to farming operations with manure and flies,” said Richard Murgoitio, who sold 70 acres to Hubble Homes Inc. in 2001 and would like to sell his remaining land to builders. “We’re hoping they take us all out, if the economy ever turns around.”

Micron, founded in Boise in 1978 with early investors including the late potato mogul J.R. Simplot, cut local production and 1,500 jobs last year as chip prices fell. The company has more than 5,000 full-time workers in the area, said Daniel Francisco, a Micron spokesman. It employed twice that number as recently as 2001, Ferguson said.

Budget Cuts

Albertsons cut its local payroll following a 2006 buyout by companies including Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Supervalu Inc. and private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP of New York. The acquisition ended seven decades of Boise ownership for the grocery chain and its plans for as many as 1,000 new hires, the state economist said.

Idaho lost 6.9 percent of its jobs from 2008 through 2009, compared with the 4.9 percent U.S. average, and its timber industry payrolls fell 38 percent, according to IHS Global.

Government workers and services haven’t been spared. The state budget, which peaked at $3 billion in 2008, dropped by a fifth to $2.38 billion in the fiscal 2011 year that began July 1. More than 200 positions were cut and furloughs imposed in agencies including health and welfare, tax collection and the attorney general’s office, Ferguson said.

The value of residential transactions in Ada County, which includes Boise, declined 62 percent in June from the peak four years earlier, multiple listings data show. Boise had the highest metro foreclosure rate outside California, Florida, Nevada or Arizona in the first six months of the year, RealtyTrac said.

Short Sale Sought

Holmes said her company, TitleOne Corp., is down to 80 employees from a high of 175 in 2007. Her lender, Bank of America Corp. of Charlotte, North Carolina, took the first step toward foreclosure in July.

Holmes, a divorced mother of two, put her house on the market in June and has applied for a federal program that offers incentives to loan servicers, investors and homeowners to complete short sales, in which the bank accepts less than what it is owed on the mortgage.

She’s asking $225,000 and hasn’t had an offer. A third of real estate listings in her area are distressed properties, with seven months of inventory on the market in Boise at her price.

“I was never raised to be in this position,” Holmes said, showing pictures of her 6-year-old granddaughter, as well as the oversize tub in her master bathroom. “I’ve tried everything I can think of.”

Fired for not fasting

2010-08-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

TEHRAN (AFP) - – Popular Iranian footballer Ali Karimi, sometimes described as "the Maradona of Asia," has been fired by his club for not fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the club said on Sunday.

Steel Azin FC said on its website www.steelazin.com that it was "forced to sack one of its players, Ali Karimi, for being disobedient and not fasting during Ramadan," when devout Muslims fast from dawn until dusk.

Karimi, who was the Asian Player of 2004, had even "insulted officials of the (Iranian) football federation and the Tehran team's supervisor who confronted him on the issue," Steel Azin said.

His sacking comes after he criticized in an interview on his website the management style of the club's managing director and former official of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Mostafa Ajorlou.

The Islamic republic's state news agency IRNA, meanwhile, reported that the club's chairman, Hossein Hedayati, was unaware of the decision and was against Karimi's sacking.

Karimi, 31, who has been dubbed by some Iranian commentators as Maradona of Asia, is the second most capped player and the third highest scorer for the Iranian national team.

He also had a two-year stint in the Bundesliga, scoring four goals in 50 appearances for Bayern Munich.

Ramadan started in Iran on Thursday and under Iranian laws, all Muslims are required to observe the holy month, while those who do not fast, including non-Muslims, are expected to abstain from eating or drinking in public.

Muslims observe Ramadan by abstaining from food, drink and sex from dawn until sunset. Pregnant and menstruating women, the sick, travellers and pre-pubescent children are exempt from the fast.

Kelantan Introduced Real Money

2010-08-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Malaysian state's attempt to revive use of gold and silver coins common in early Islamic societies has run afoul of the country's central bank, which said Friday that local governments have no authority to issue their own currency.

The gold dinar and silver dirham coins provide an alternative to Malaysia's currency, the ringgit, in the northeastern state Kelantan, which is governed by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, a conservative opposition group that promotes religious policies in its rule.

The gold dinar was the official currency of Muslim societies for centuries. The value of the coins used in Kelantan can fluctuate according to market prices, but officials say it remains a better alternative to currency affected by the U.S. dollar and other foreign currency.

Kelantan authorities also say the use of such coins is encouraged in the Quran.

State officials have produced coins worth about $630,000 for use at about 1,000 outlets in Kelantan's capital, said Nik Mahani Mohamad, executive director of Kelantan Golden Trade, which mints the coins.

"It's a great, great moment for Muslims," Nik Mahani said. "We are providing an alternative means for the people to trade with."

The coins came into circulation Thursday and can be purchased at various locations in Kelantan. Their worth is currently about $180 per dinar and $4 per dirham.

But the plan hit a snag when Malaysia's central bank said in a statement later Friday that the ringgit remained "the only currency that is the legal tender for payment of goods and services in Malaysia."

The bank said it "has the sole right under the law to issue currency in Malaysia." It was not immediately clear how the bank planned to block the use of the coins for transactions.

The state government also plans to give employees the option of receiving part of their salary in this currency, as well as introduce gold bars for large investments. Muslim alms can also be paid with the coins.

The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party has governed Kelantan since 1990. Some of its policies over the years include banning gambling, nightclubs and rock concerts, and requiring Muslim female state employees to wear headscarves at work.

Gecko Millionaire

2010-08-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

Amazing, this word came out from my mouth after read the headline in my local newspaper. There was a teenager found a giant gecko on the border of Nunukan (Kalimantan Island and Malaysia). His name Arbin. With weight around 64 kilograms. Maybe this was usual news, but there is something make me surprised. This giant gecko worth $19 millions. Tribun kaltim newspaper was covering this news. After that many entrepreneur or business owner make a phone call Tribun Kaltim to get information about this gecko. But unfortunately this giant gecko was sold by someone from Indonesia. Arbin said that this gecko brought to China.

Although this animal has sold but there are many people still want to buy this gecko with the higher price. They don’t get much information from Arbin. Another thing which makes me surprised was there’s a man who want to buy this gecko $2,7 millions per ounces. You can calculate how much money he will spend only for a gecko. His name Andi Makkuraga Hidayat. He is gecko entrepreneurs. Almost three years he ran this business. So far the largest gecko which he was bought around five kilograms. Please take a picture below, how big this gecko.

A Surprising Business

This was become great business for the people in my country . They have a new job as a gecko’s hunter. But not all the people interested with this animal. People who have passion to get a lot of money and use the good chance. They use their leisure time to hunt the gecko. Most of them who live in the village which there are many trees. And they also hunt this animal in the forest. There are a lot of information which said that this animal worth thousands until hundred thousands dollar. During this time, the voice of gecko is often used to predict the weather. but recently the demand for these reptiles are higher than before. I get some information about the list of the price of gecko:

* 2.5 ounce (250 gramme) worth $550
* 3 ounce – 3,6 ounce (300 gramme – 360 gramme) worth $5500
* 3.7 ounce – 3.9 ounce (370 gramme – 390 gramme) worth $8300
* above 4 ounce (400 gramme) worth $11000 per ounce

Many people hunt geckos because it has become one of Indonesia’s export goods. Each day about 3,000 geckos were exported. There is a farm which produce geckos. This farm located in Probolinggo, East Java.Beside as a farm, the owner of this place also as an exporter. To meets the demand from China, Japan and some countries in Southeast Asia. These geckos have dried in this farm. However, not all geckos can be exported. Gecko which weight above 3.5 ounces.

The owner of the farm is Didik. His father also has gecko breeding business. He always exported geckos in China, Taiwan, even Japan. He got $33000 every month, with 200 employees. He starts his business from 1990′s. Right now he became gecko entrepreneur.

Gecko’s for healing AIDS/HIV

AIDS/HIV is deadly disease.Because theres is no medicine to cure AIDS/HIV. I found an information that gecko can be cure AIDS/HIV. If it’s true, I think this is a wonders of medicine world. But unfortunately I can’t get good reference about that. Many people said that gecko as an alternative solution for AIDS/HIV. But the geckos has meet the limited weight about 4 ounce. the oldest of gecko and the largest one has much more enzyme. I also heard that gecko have booked by Japan and Taiwan people as a medium of AIDS drug research.

Many people believe that gecko also as an alternative for itching and asthma medication. It has believed for a long time ago. I hope it really can be cure an AIDS/HIV. I wish the best for good purpose, especially for mankind…amen

Ramadan Mubarak 2010

2010-08-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

Bahasa melayu di selatan Thailand

2010-08-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

Bahasa Melayu di kawasan selatan Thailand dikelompok di dalam rumpun Austronesia. Mejoriti pengguna bahasa tersebut adalah orang melayu di selatan Thailand dan bahasa ini juga boleh terbagi kepada dua dialek ialah Dialek Melayu Patani dan Dialek Melayu Satun. Dialek Melayu Patani diguna di tiga wilayah selatan Thailand iaitu Patani, Yala, Narathiwas dan meliputi beberapa daearah wilayah Songkhla. Bahasa demikian hampir sama dengan bahasa Melayu Dialek Kelantan. Manakala Dialek Satun pula ialah dialek yang diguna oleh Orang Melayu di wilayah Satun yang mana pada masa sekarang ini bahasa tersebut berada di dalam fenominar yang hamper keritikal. Oleh kerana jenerasi muda pada masa sekarang tidak beberapa mengetahui bahasa tersebut.

Bahasa Melayu di Selatan Thailand

Bahasa Melayu ialah bahasa ibunda bagi penduduk selatan Thailand oleh kerana bahasa ini sudah diamali oleh Orang Melayu semanjak pada zaman dahulu sehingga pada masa sekarang.

Amorn Thawisak (1987) menyatakan bahawa kawasan yang mengguna bahasa Melayu di Negara Thailand bermula daripada kawasan tengah sehingga di selatan Thailand dan juga di sempadan Malaysia. Penutur Bahasa ini mempunyai merata tempat dan di beberapa wilayah di Negara Thailand seperti berikut.

1. Wilayah Pattani, Yala dan Narathiwas. Bahasa tersebut diguna keseluruh tempat.
2. Wilayah Songkla Bahasa Melayu diguna di daerah Thepha, Sabayoi, Nathewi, Chena, Sadau dan Ranood
3. Wilayah Satun, penutur Bahasa Melayu didapati di kawasan bandar, Bankuan, Cekbilang, Tamalang, Koh Adang dan Koh Sarai.
4. Wilayah Nakhon Si Thammarat Bahasa Melayu diguna di daerah Muang dan keseluruhan mukim di Nakhon Si Thammarat, daerah Thasala, daerah Hua Thaphan dan Mokhlan, daerah Ron Phiboon
5. Wilayah Krabi, Bahasa Melayu diguna di daerah Muang, Koh Ca, Koh Poo dan Koh Pipi, daerah Koh Lanta di kawasan Koh Lanta Yai, daerag Khau Phanom Tampat 6 mukim Nakhau, daerah Aulek di Ban Klang dan Ban Chong Mai Dam di mukim Klang Hin
6. Wilayah Phuket, didapati penutur Bahasa Melayu di kawasan daerah Muang, Lam Tuk Kae, Koh Sire, Ban Sapha dan Had Ra Wai
7. Wilayah Phatlung, didapati penutur Bahasa Melayu di daerah Kong Ra, daerah Chelem dan mukim Jarad
8. Wilayah Trang, didapati penutur Bahasa Melayu di daerah Kan Tang di mukim Kantang Tai dan mukim Koh Li Bung
9. Wilayah Suratthani, didapati penutur Bahasa Melayu di mukim Koh Marid dan daerah Samui

Manakala di kawasan tengah Negara Thailand didapati penutur Bahasa Melayu di kawasan Nong Chok Bangkok, wilayah Samut Prakan, Nonthaburi dan Pathum Thani

Data yang dipapar di atas pada masa sekarng ini. Keadaan penutur Bahasa Melayu di Negara Thailand sudah di dalam keadaan yang berbeza. Oleh kerana data sedemikian sudah lama.Pada masa sekarang keadaan bahasa Melayu banyak dipengaruh oleh Bahasa Thailand bercampur dengan jenerasi baru yang tidak suka bertutur di dalam bahasa Melayu menyebabkan Bahasa Melayu pada masa kini dalam keadaan kritikal terlebih lagi di kawasan penduduknya mejoriti bercakap di dalam Bahasa Thai.

Kawasan yang mengguna Bahasa Melayu di atas, dapat bahagi jenis Bahasa yang diguna di kawasan berikut kepada tiga jenis bahasa iaitu Bahasa Urak Lawoi, Bahasa Melayu Dialek Patani dan juga Dialek Satun. Bahasa Urak Lawoi ialah bahasa yang didapati di pulau dan pantai di sebelah barat, selatan Thailand bermula dari wilayah Pang Nga, Ranong Krabi Satun sehingga Victoria Point Burma. (Hasnida Chekha, 2008:48) Bahasa Melayu Dialek Patani pula diguna di kawasan empat selatan Thailand iaitu wilayah dalam bentuk bahasa dialek dan bentuk standart. Dalam bentuk bahasa dialek pula dapat dibahaghi Pattani Yala Narathiwas dan sebahagian di daerah Songkla seperti daerah Cana, Sabayoi, Thapha, dan Nathawi (Worawit Baru ,1990) Manakala Dialek Melayu Satun pula secara khususnya terdapat di dua kawasan, iaitu kawasan persisiran dan kawasan luar bandar wilayah Satun. Kawasan persisiran merangkumi mukim Tammalang, Che Bilang dan Tanjung Gabus, sementara kawasan luar bandar meliputi mukim Bankhuan dan sebahagian mukim Ban Chalung (Kamaruddin Esayah, 1999).

Peranan Bahasa Melayu di selatan Thailand

Bagi penduduk selatan Thailand. Bahasa Melayu adalah bahasa yang berperanan penting di dalam kehidupan mereka tidak kurang daripada Bahasa Thai. Oleh kerana bahasa Melayu dapat melambangkan jari diri orang melayu di kawasan sedemian. Dengan hal ini bahasa Melayu di kawasan tersebut memain peranan penting di dalam pelbagai aspek semenjak zaman dahulu sehingga pada masa sekarang. Terutamanya dalam kehidupan harian, , politik tempatan, media semasa dan pendidikan agama lain-lain.

Bahasa Melayu dalam kehidupan harian

Di tiga wilayah selatan Thailand dan sebahagian daripada wilayah Songkla mejoriti 80 peratus penduduk beragama Islam keturunan Melayu. (Amra Pongsapich, 1999) bertutur Bahasa Melayu Dialek Patani. Jika melihat peranan Bahasa Melayu di kawasan ini. Bahasa tersebut berperanan penting dalam kehidupan harian mereka lebih daripada kawasan wilayah lain di selatan Thailand, seperti wilayah Suratthani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phuket, Trang, Krabi, Phatlung dan Satun. Oleh kerana kawasan lain daripada tiga wilayah. Penduduk Melayu di kawasan tersebut hanya sebagai penduduk menoriti sahaja jika berbanding dengan tiga wilayah selatan Thailand. Di kawasan tiga selatan wilayah, peranan Bahasa Melayu dapat dilihat dengan jelas di dalam pertuturan harian seperti bahasa yang mengguna semasa bertutur. Mereka akan mengguna bahasa Melayu Dialek Patani berkomunikasi sesama sendiri lebih daridapa mengguna Bahasa Thai. Oleh kerana bahasa ini sudah diamal semenjak pada zaman lampau hingga pada masa kini, lagipun bahasa ini memudahi dari segi kefahaman bagi orang tempat dalam menyampai maklumat apapun sahaja yang ingan disampaikan kepada orang ramai. Namun peranan Bahasa Melayu yang lain dari tiga wilayah tersebut. Peranan Bahasa Melayu dapat dilihat dalam sebutan nama tempat sahaja tetapi dalam segi komunikasi harian digunakan dalam Bahasa Thai (Dialek Thai Tai ).

Bahasa Melayu dalam politik tempatan

Politik tempat di selatan Thailand. Jika kita melihat peranan Orang Melayu dalam politik tempatan pada zaman dahulu tidak memberi kepenting daripada pihak pusat atau rakyat tempat sendiri .Numun pada kini keadaan tersebut sangat berbeza daripada dahulu. Oleh kerana sistem pentadbiran pihak kerajaan pusat yang memberi peluang kepada rakyat menjadi sebahagian dalam sistem pentadbiran tempatan sedemikian. Dengan hal ini pada masa sekarang mulculnya organisasi pentarbiran tempatan seperti oraganisasi pentadbiran wilayah( อบจ.) dan oraganisasi pentadbiran daerah (อบต). Dengan sebab ketubuhan organisasi ini, menyebabkan Orang Melayu ada peluang untuk melagunkan watak sebagai pemempin bagi Orang Melayu sendiri. Oleh kerana demikian peranan Bahasa Melayu mula diutamakan, cotohnya dalam medan pilihan raya tempatan. Bahasa Melayu akan digunakan dalam beberapa cara, tidak kira dengan cara verbal dan nonverbal. Bahasa Melayu dalam verbal yang kita sering mendengar seperti dalam cerahmahan mencari suara. Manakala nonverbal seperti papan iklan ahli politik tempatan.

Dengan hal ini, Bahasa Melayu bukan sahaja diberi kepentingan kepada Orang Melayu tempatan, bahkan pihak kerajaan sendiri pun mula mengambil berat dalam hal sedemikian, menyebabkan timbul buku panduan rakyat untuk kemudahan cara-cara pilihan raya tempatan dan lain-lain.

Bahasa Melayu dalam media semasa

Dengan sebab peristiwa di yang tidak tenteram di wilayah selatan Thailand. Menyebabkan pihak kerajaan mengambil berat penduduk di kawasan ini,secara memahami keunikan tempatan. Dengan hal ini kita dapat melihat kemunculan pelbagai media semasa yang berbahasa Melayu pada masa kini. Tujuan penyebaran itu untuk memberi maklumat kepada penduduk tempatan dan kepada penduduk wilayah yang berhampiran yang mana mempunyai penduduk yang bertutur Bahasa Melayu.

Bahasa Melayu yang mencul di dalam media semasa di selatan Thailand mempunyai pelbagai bentuk, tidak kira dalam bentuk kaca TV, media Radio, media cetakan, dan lain-lain.

Bahasa Melayu melalui kaca TV yang ada pada masa sekarang ini, mempunyai beberapa saluran seperti di cainal 5 cainal 9 dan cainal 11
Maklumat yang dipaparkan melaui kaca TV mengenai berita harian. tidak kira berita dalam negara dan juga luar negara tetepi masa yang dipapar akan berbeza. Masa mengeluar di udara berlain seperti di cainal 5 akan mengeluar di udara pada waktu 4.00 hingga waktu 5.00 pagi dengan mengguna masa 1 jam, cainal 11 dikeudarakan pada waktu petang setiap hari. Manakala satu cainal lagi ialah cainal 7 tetapi cara pembaca berita akan berbeza dengan dua cainal tadi iaitu cainal 7 pembaca berita akan membaca berita di dalam Bahasa Thai seperti dipaparkan maklumat terjemahan mengenai data sedemikian di dalam Bahasa Melayu telisan Jawi.

Radio adalah satu media tempatan yang memberi kesenangan kepada pendengar. Kerana media tersebut dapat mengikuti di mana tempat sahaja. Dengan hal ini media Radio mempunyai ramai peminat, lebih-lebih lagi, setesion yang menyampaikan maklumat di dalam Bahasa ibunda pendengar sendiri seperti beberapa rancagan yang berada di setesion di tiga wilayah selatan Thailand. Media ini mempunyai pelbagai rancangan seperti rancangan hiburan, berita tempatan harian, dan ceramah agama.

Rancangan hiburan termasuk juga lagu-lagu tempatan dan lagu-lagu tradisinal yang mengandungi isi menyampai di dalam Bahasa Melayu Dialek Patani. Bagi penyanyi yang menyanyi lagu tersebut adalah orang tempatan yang terkenal seperti Baruding, Dahdong Kampung Pisang dan sebagainya.

Rancangan berita tempatan harian di tiga wilayah selatan Thailand, sudah diadakan dengan masa yang lama. Terutamanya di wilayah Narathiwas. Rancangan yang termashur ialah Rancangan Berita Harian yang disampaikan berita harian oleh D.J Pak Cu yang mana menyampaikan maklumat dalam Bahasa Melayu Dialek Patani. Rancangan tersebut masih berlangsung sehingga hari ini.

Rancangan ceramah agama kebanyakan maklumat

Media cetakan adalah satu media yang terkenal pada masa lampau. Oleh kerana pada masa terdahu media tersebut menjadi satu saluran yang digunakan oleh ulamak-ulamak Melayu dalam menyampaikan ilmu pengetahuan agama kepada penduduk tempatan atau penduduk asing, Ulamak yang terkenal pada masa itu seperti Syed Dawud Alfatoni yang mana beliau menulis kitab-kitab Jawi pada masa itu, yang kitab beliau adalah kitab yang terkenal keseluruh tanah Melayu dan pada masa kini juga kitab-kitab tersebut masih lagi digunakan dibeberapa tempat terutama di ponduk-ponduk belajar agama. Dengan sistem cara menguna tersebut menyebabkan mengaruhan penggunaan Bahasa Melayu dalam bentukan tuliasan Jawi masih digunakan pada masa sekarang tidak kira dalam media cetakan yang diterbit oleh pihak kerajaan atau pihak am. Media cetakan ini seperti buku panduan oleh pihak kerajaan, buku belajar agama, kad undangan perkawinan, akhlan jualan, papan tanda, surat tabung, cacatan membaca khubah dan lain-lain.

Pendidikan di Selatan Thailand
Tiga wilayah selatan Thailand dan juga sebahagia wilayah Songkla yang mana penduduk di kawasan ini beragama Islam. Cara hidup penduduk di kawasan ini mempunyai cara hidup yang rapat dengan keagama Islam. Agama Islam adalah satu agama yang memberi kepentingan dalam mencari ilmu pengetahuan, bukan sahaja mengajar manusia untuk mencintai ilmu pemgetahuan tetapi Islam juga mengkalakan untuk mencari ilmu pengetahuan. Oleh kerana ilmu pengetahuan ibarat satu kunci kejayan kemajuan budaya dan tamadun .

Jika tersebut mengenai tiga wilayah selantan Thailand. Pada zaman dahulu kawasan ini terkenal dengan kemajuan tamadul Islam atau gedung pendidikan agama yang mempunyai jumlah pondok yang terbanyak sekali di ภูมิภาคเอเซียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้
Kalau kita meninjau pada awal sistem pendidikan dalam masyarakat Melayu selatan Thailand bermula daripada amalan harian yang diamal dengan cara turun menurun dari satu jenerasi ke satu jenerasi dengan mengguna Bahasa Melayu sebagai alat penyampaian terutamanya dari aspek cara hidupan harian keagamaan kepercayaan kebudayaan dan lain-lain lagi (Jiraphan Dema : 2008) Dengan hal ini menyebabkan kawasan tersebut menjadi keunikan dalam pendidikan berbeza dengan kawasan yang lain di negara Thailand. Pada zaman terdahulu sistem pendidikan Orang Melayu di selatan Thailand bermula diri rumah sendiri sehingga di masjid-masjid di dalam kampung yang mana institusi berikut bertugas sebagai institusi pendidikan keagamaan pada zaman itu. Pendidikan Orang Melayu pada zaman itu. Walaupuna ada cara mempelajari ilmu pengetahuan di rumah sendiri tetapi cara pembelajaran Orang Melayu tidak dapat disampaikan dengan cara yang sumperna dengan sebab itu mereka menghantar anak-anak untuk mempelari di masjid-masjid di dalam kampung atau di rumah-rumah orang yang berilmu seperti Tuan Guru (Babo), Tok imam atau orang yang berilmu di dalam kampung yang terkenal. Pada masa itu cara pendidikan seperti sedemikian menjadi terkenal kepada orang ramai , dari satu kampung ke satu kampung menyebabkan jumlah pelajar makin meningkat menyebabkan Tuan Guru (Babo) mesti membinakan bangunan untuk menyediakan tempat tersebut dan memperkembangkan tempat mempelajari di dalam kampung ( Community Educational Institution) membinakan asas pendidikan seperti bangunan, cara mengajar menggu kitab dan mempunyai cara pentadbiran yang bersistem dan menyediakan tempat untuk pelajar mengenab semasa belajar dengan membina pondok-pondok kecil menyediakan untuk sesiapa yang datang belajar dalam tempuh masa yang panjang untuk mendiami yang dikenali dengan nama Pondok.

Education without wisdom

2010-08-06T05:47:00.000-07:00

Still, this is not to say that everything about the system is bad. Perhaps, though, some things that are bad need not actually be.

Some say the system has just been plodding along with few meaningful modifications since it was inherited from the British.

Students are herded into barns masquerading as classrooms and are kept behind their desks for 10 to 15 years, learning what the authorities want them to learn. Little thought is given to dealing with individual needs and perhaps even less to encouraging individual creativity. Students are churned out like factory products to meet manpower needs in the demand and supply equation.

Everyone knows that education deserves all the attention it can get. That is probably why every new education minister wants new reforms and new approaches, as if students are guinea pigs.

The hard-hitting question should be: what good does the system do to our young? Is it enough that it should convert boys and girls into factory and office workers or, if they go through tertiary institutions, into bureaucrats, teachers, doctors, engineers, cyber troopers and other professionals?

Or should the system ensure that education, besides preparing citizens for gainful employment, also enables them to seek and recognise truth in all its manifestations?

Unfortunately that is a tall order.

Material world

Drug and chemical abuse, criminal misconduct and sexual irresponsibility have been increasing over the years.

Between 2000 and 2004, the number of juveniles in Malaysian prisons increased from 2,308 to 2,964. Statistics for 2005 showed that on average seven schoolchildren were arrested every day, three of them between the ages of 13 and 15.

According to the National Drug Agency’s statistics, 78.67% of drug abuse cases detected between January and December 2008 were users who had dropped out of school at age 15.

The situation has not improved.

Will Hutton, former editor-in-chief of the Observer, wrote in 2008:

“Families are mini-civilisations. Experience and research show they are the best means of rearing our young into fulfilled adulthood.”

He warned, however, that over-protective families could be like prisons that could deform young individuals for life.

In short, the debate continues over whether either or both the education and family systems have failed to guide children towards happy and fruitful lives.

“Money and material objects have become very important, often to the exclusion of social generosity and cooperation. Theoretical knowledge has become very important, often to the exclusion of adherence to religious beliefs.” This was the consensus of a 1997 forum audaciously advertised as the Future of Malaysia.

Cardinal virtue

When the family institution breaks down and moral values erode in a rapidly changing society, the first victims are naturally the young.

Unlike modern-day parents who disapprove of physical punishment of schoolchildren, our forefathers used to thank teachers for dispensing punishment for misbehaviour and indiscipline.

In ancient China, the purpose of sending children to school was to prepare them to be good human beings, if not to become saints and sages. It was not to pave for them the road to material fortune or vain fame.

Teaching them young was critical in ensuring that they grow into well-disciplined and virtuous citizens.

Many educationists and social workers today acknowledge that there is a fatal departure in modern society from the values that were held sacrosanct in the olden days.

“Yi dai bur u yi dai,” according to an old Chinese saying. Paraphrased, it means: each generation is worse than the one before it.

The fault in modern education can be summed up in another piece of folk wisdom: “shi nian shu mu, bai nian shu ren”— one can nurture a tree for 10 years, but it takes a hundred years to train a human being.

In ancient times, particularly during the heyday of Confucianism, Di Zi Gui was taught as part of the school curriculum. It was a guide to discipline and appropriate behaviour.

It was crucial to teach the young their role in the family and to guide them to be dutiful towards parents and teachers. Filial piety is a cardinal virtue in all traditional cultures.

According to the Di Zi Gui, “When my parents call me, I will answer them right away. When they ask me to do something, I will do it quickly.

“When my parents instruct me, I will listen respectfully. When they reproach me, I will accept their scolding and obey. I will try hard to change and improve myself, to start anew.”

What happens when the parents are wrong?

The forgotten guidance

The guide has an answer to this. “When my parents do wrong, I will ask them to change. I will do it with a kind expression and a warm gentle voice.

“If they do not accept my advice, I will wait until they are in a happier mood before I attempt to counsel them again, followed by crying, if necessary, to make them understand.

“If they end up whipping me, I will not hold a grudge against them.”

The guide also says: “When my parents are ill, I will taste the medicine first before giving it to them. I will take care of them night and day and stay by their bedside.”

The Confucian teachings also show the young the different ways of behaving towards younger siblings, towards older siblings, towards relatives, and towards friends.

Today’s debate on education overlooks the important objective of producing decent and upright human beings. It ignores what is common sense in Confucian thinking, “guo ren hen lan, guo hao ren ken lan,” which can be rendered as follows:

“If it is difficult to conduct oneself properly as a human being, imagine how difficult it is to be morally upright and virtuous.”

In truth, the role of education in modern times has lost sight of that glorious objective of providing a true guide to a happy life. When the family institution, as the smallest unit in a nation, gradually breaks down, society inevitably suffers.

What, then, is the price we are paying for this failure? The answer becomes obvious when we reflect upon the behaviour of the people who are supposed to be our leaders.

RPK the conscience of civil society

2010-08-06T05:34:00.000-07:00

The latest concerns a member of the prosecution team for the Sodomy II trial. When the piece about her first appeared in MT, it sounded too good to be true. But now even the AG cannot ignore it and has to respond, implicitly admitting the truth of the episode.

RPK, represented by his website, Malaysia Today, is a phenomenon not just for Malaysia, but also for the world. RPK started his website during the reformasi period just as Malaysiakini, and later Malaysian Insider, appeared on the media landscape to provide the public with a more balanced coverage of news and issues affecting them.

Unlike Malaysiakini and Malaysian Insider which adhere to journalistic norms, MT deviates from the norms; the way it reports courts controversy and often borders on sedition. For all these shortcomings on the part of MT, the readers seem just too willing to forgive RPK, and seem quite pleased to settle for the benefits of knowing about what others would not publish or print. In other words, in this unique case the end does justify the means!

Indeed the readers of MT, needless to say, increase in number by the day for the reason that MT has carved out for itself such an excellent track record (partly also due to the controversy surrounding the person and yet partly also due to RPK being a hunted fugitive). For that reason, the authority has become so afraid of RPK and his website.

They tried to imprison him (yes, imprison him they did) so that he would not be able to spread his 'lies'. But that turns out to be just impossible and even put the prosecuting party in the same league as the comical character of Sheriff Lobo.

Putting RPK behind bars will not stop his torrent of reporting and analyses and communicating issues critically relevant to the people. This is evident from the fact that while he spent his time in Kamunting, his postings kept coming! The authority would, of course, like to banish RPK.

That he is at the moment a fugitive is a consequence of the determination of the authority to prosecute him, in fact, he has been denied his rightful place in this country of his own.

It now seems ironic that it is while he is outside the country, seemingly out of touch with the reality, that is Malaysia, that he posted the said latest explosive piece. So it appears that to silence RPK is a futile effort. No matter what happens to RPK, Malaysia Today will live on.

Of course, some try to discredit his posting by saying they each contains '2% truth and the rest is just lies (read 'you cannot produce the evidence in a court of law)'. But then, it is that 2% which constitutes the fact of the matter that matters, and most people can just do away with 98% which may be just too elusive, being well-protected by the all-too-powerful machinery of the powers- that-be.

Together with Malaysiakini and Malaysian Insider, Malaysia Today may just represent the conscience of the civil society.

Don't Waste Your Money at University

2010-07-31T06:57:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Spending as much as $250,000 on a bachelors degree from world-renowned U.S. universities such as Harvard University and Yale is a waste of money, a new book asserts.

"Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money And Failing Our Kids - And What We Can Do About It," urges parents and students to consider colleges that spend on teaching instead of sports and which encourage faculty to interact with students instead of doing research, taking sabbaticals and sitting on campus committees.

"Undergraduates are being neglected," author Andrew Hacker, who co-wrote the book with Claudia Dreifus, told Reuters in an interview.

"Higher education has become the preserve of professors ... (who) really have lost contact with the main purpose of higher education, which is the education of students."

Hacker and Dreifus are critical of many U.S. universities, noting the cost of a 4-year degree has doubled in real dollars compared to a generation ago. But education, they say, has not become twice as good as many colleges lost their focus.

Many Ivy League professors don't teach undergraduates at all and at many colleges teaching is largely farmed out to low-cost adjunct teachers, Hacker said.

And, he said, many undergraduate degrees are vocational -- from resort management to fashion merchandising -- and vast sums of money have been spent on deluxe dining and dorm facilities and state-of-the-art sports centers. As the number of administrative staff has risen, he said, $1 million annual salaries for college presidents have become common place.

"Bachelor's level vocational education is, I don't want to say a fraud, but close to it," Hacker said.

"Undergraduate business classes ... are just a charade; 19-year-olds play as if they are chief executives of General Electric. It is a waste of time and money."

POULTRY AND CERAMICS

Among the examples of unnecessarily vocational degrees listed in the book -- due to be published on August 3 -- are ornamental horticulture, poultry science and ceramic engineering.

"All undergraduate education should be a liberal arts education where you think about the enduring ideas and issues of the human condition," Hacker said. "After that, go on to law school or study dentistry -- you have plenty of time."

Hacker said the high price of tuition often has little to do with teaching.

"Prices got to where they are because both universities and administrators spent like drunken sailors," Hacker said, noting Ivy League graduates often have average careers.

As well as drawing on their experience -- both teach in New York, Hacker at Queens College and Dreifus at Columbia University -- the pair, who are also domestic partners, traveled across America to find the best and worst colleges.

They list 10 colleges they like, where teaching is the priority and where students get value for money. No Ivy League college makes their list.

They recommend Arizona State University for its vibrancy and Kentucky's Berea College for its free tuition and 10-1 student-faculty ratio. They praise Notre Dame for promoting concern for the common good and Massachusetts Institute of Technology for treating part-time teaching staff well.

The book recommends colleges focus on education and strip away sports programs, trim bloated administrative budgets and spin off research and medical facilities. The authors say tenure should be abolished, that there should be fewer sabbaticals and that more attention should be paid to getting students intellectually engaged.

Hacker said the tragedy of U.S. universities is how many graduates now have six-figure loans, doled out with little regard to the students' ability to repay them.

"This is not only unique to the United States but it is new. Ten years ago students were not taking out loans this way," Hacker said, predicting a high rate of default among student loans in the coming years.

Hacker said that to keep costs down, many Americans should consider attending a college close to home to avoid paying as much as $30,000 annually for out-of-state living expenses

Umno controls the minds of the Malays

2010-07-30T05:48:00.000-07:00

PETALING JAYA: Umno, being the largest political party in the country which has ruled over the last 50 years, has poisoned the minds of the Malays, feeding them lies that their position is under threat from the non-Malays, former health minister and MCA vice-president Chua Jui Meng said.

"All these years Umno has brought about this propaganda that the Malays were under threat. They try to control the hearts and minds of the Malays, telling them that the advancement of other races would make them poor. This propaganda to poison the minds of the Malays has resulted in the Malays not being able to see the true picture.

"The problem is not the other races but Umno itself. This message is important for all Malays in Malaysia. They must be aware of the truth. We have to break their mindset,” he said in an exclusive interview with FMT recently.

He was quick to add that the Malays in urban areas were realising the truth of Umno's political game plan. However, he said, the Malays in the outskirts, such as in his home state of Johor, still had the orthodox mentality that Umno was Malay and Malay is Umno.

“This kind of propaganda poisons the minds of the Malays," said the 67-year-old lawyer-turned- politician.

He added that access to the new media as well as a paradign shift in the mindset of the urban Malays would enable them to break away from the Umno mentality.

He stressed that Pakatan Rakyat should aspire to bring about the change in the mindset of rural Malays in order to see a change in the country.

"I have told (Opposition leader) Anwar (Ibrahim) that I am a Chinese leader in Pakatan wanting to help poor Malays. My heart goes out to them... we need to help these Malays.

“In Johor, there is a huge information gap. We have to narrow this gap. After 50 years in power, Umno is still spreading lies to the people through the mainstream media which is under Umno control,” he said.

Chua, however, said that Pakatan should not be only concentrating on uplifting the Malay community's economic status.

"We tend to forget other races. Like the Indians, they too have problems. Even when they are citizens of this country, their rights are denied. This is the way of Umno," said Chua, who was in MCA for 35 years before deciding to join PKR late last year.

Plans for Johor

Asked on his plans for Johor as the new state PKR chief, he said he was not a novice in politics and knows the ways of the BN from a political perspective, which uses the mainstream media to win votes.

He said since joining the opposition front, he had become more open to the alternative media.

He said on the part of the Chinese, the community had repented and now had an open mindset knowing that they could live in this country without being dependent on Umno.

"The Chinese community works hard and are smart. Their priority is education... although they only receive minimal assistance from Umno, they don't give up. When they are educated, they can be critical and analytical in the way they think," said the veteran politician.

He also revealed that there was no racial issue in Malaysia, although Umno insists on racialising each and every issue that crops up.

Autonomy for Pattani

2010-07-29T07:27:00.001-07:00

I was recently in Pattani, one of three problematic provinces in the southern part of Thailand, when two bombs exploded and killed 10 military officials in Yala and Narathiwat, the other two restive provinces.

Just a few weeks ago another bomb exploded in a mosque in Pattani, killing two people. Bombings and shootings have become almost routine in the region.

As usual, no figure nor organization claimed the responsibility for the attack. Instead of demanding certain purposes, actors of those violence are just trying to terrorize people and to create anarchy.

The Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO) and Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) are illegitimate to voice insurgents’ aspirations as new groups have emerged and flourished rapidly. The last two bombs, for example, were masterminded by Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK), a new group led by Mana Samae.

In response to the increasing incidents, the government has seemed to exercise the same policy as previous attempts to quell the violence, a security approach. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has already ordered the National Security Council (NSC) to take action.

The story might not be different from previous incidents. Military will tighten security control, conduct the revenge attack, and arrest some suspects. Yet, the problem is that the government is less interested in thinking of policies beyond the security approach.

To understand this conflict perfectly, we should not think that rebellions are the only trouble makers that have been creating fear and worry. In contrast, we must put both rebellions and the government as the two actors that have to be responsible with all tragedies in the South.

The killing of hundreds of Malay Muslim for the sake of Thaksin Sinawatra’s drug war and the death of 32 people in historic Krue Zue mosque and 82 in Tak Bai incidents have never been investigated by the government. No military officers are charged if there are any cases of abuses.

Despite a door of hope when Abhisit re-activated the civil-led Southern Border Province Administrative Centre (SBPAC) that is responsible for socio economic development in the region, attempts to bring about peace are not gaining tremendous positive results because the government has not addressed the main issue in the South.

Security, economic, and social issues are indeed necessary. Nevertheless, I observed that people in those three provinces already enjoy robust economic and social life. The average income in the region is higher than in other provinces, such as the North and Northeast provinces.

Then, what do they want? Do they aim to create an independent Islamic kingdom? Some groups, yes. But most people do not care for this idea.

Although almost all women wear veil and men wear sarong, only small minority of them romanticize about an Islamic sultanate. Moreover, it is essential to say that based on my interviews with religious leaders in that conflict area, violence are brought by kaum tuo, Malay-chauvinists and traditionalist Muslims, whose beliefs lie in mysticism and holy readings that are not limited only to the Koran.

At the same time, kaum mudo, who are modernist, revivalist, and Wahhabist Muslims are passive and prefer to work on economic and social activities.

Thus, those who demand independence are dominated and driven more by “Malay factors” than “Islam factors”. Islam is only utilized to legitimize their action. That explains why Muslims in Bangkok and other provinces have less sympathy with the insurgency and enjoy the mutual and harmonic relations with the Thai state.

Unfortunately, current policy refuses to deal with the Malay factor as the main issue. According to a research by Dr. Srisompob Jitirompsri, 83.9 percent of ethnic Malay leaders are in favor of autonomy, rather than the current system.

Bangkok must lift its reluctance to discuss this issue. It has to transform some degrees of political and economic authorities to provinces. Let people set local governments that match their desires, but still under the Thai-state. To ethnic Malays in the South, political decentralization could not only preserve their dignity, but also drag them out of the cycle of violence.

Bangkok politicians need to consider to learn from Indonesia’s experience in delivering political and fiscal autonomy, which contributes tremendously to minimize any attempts to disintegrate.

Although there are still controversies in Aceh with regards to sharia law and in Papua on the widespread of “local corruption”, it is clear that incidents are decreasing and people begin to realize that democracy and autonomy already give them more chance to elect their own leaders, to increase political participation, and to enjoy larger portions of economy.

Autonomy for Pattani

2010-07-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

Perhentian_KB_TakBai_Narathiwat_Pattani

2010-07-29T06:45:00.000-07:00

The Break up of Thailand

2010-07-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

The month of May was a nightmare for Bangkok. But it was only for a month. For the restive South, where casualties have exceeded 4,000, the Muslim-dominated region remains trapped in a six-year-long nightmare with no end in sight.
Some southern Muslims may feel the capital deserves it. After all, Bangkokians are generally supportive of state violence in the deep South and unsympathetic to the plight of southern Muslims whose everyday life is a constant struggle with fear and danger in a war zone. It is time for Bangkokians to have a taste of that. Although many of his peers feel that way, Maroning Salae does not share that sentiment.
“There’s a rumour that Isan will declare independence this coming October. Is it true? If so, there will be more violence. Nothing good will come of it. I know what it’s like living in fear all the time. I don’t want this to spread to other places.”
Maroning used to be a fisherman in Ban Dato, Pattani province. Not anymore. The coastal seas have been destroyed by trawlers of the fishing industry which is supported by the government for export money.
When there are no more fish in the sea, the mothers and daughters leave to work in factories. The fathers kill time in tea shops, swallowing their hurt pride. The boys leave for work in Malaysia. But many more jobless youths hang out at home, turning to drugs and violence, as an escape from hopelessness.
With his wife now the family’s breadwinner as a food vendor, Maroning is busy restoring local history and documenting changes in the village.
“We have to know who we are and what are the roots of our problems,” he said.
He is one of the villagers supported by the Thailand Research Fund to become “researchers” of their own localities, believing that knowledge is power. Apart from empowering the village folk to stand tall with their set of experiential knowledge and solutions to their problems, the move is also to counter the prevailing prejudice against country folk as being ignorant — a view which sustains top-down authority and political centralisation.

This “empowerment” approach is scoffed by many academics. It is derided as the perpetuation of the romantic notion of the countryside, anti-politics and anti-change.
The criticism is quite similar to that in the 1970s when the left clashed with the right during the Cold War: to solve Thailand’s problems, the old power structure had to go down. Anything less than that was only a pain-killer.
According to this argument, Thai society has drastically changed from an agrarian to an urbanised society with a new underclass, new needs and political demands. The solutions that focus on the agricultural sector are bound to fail. The best people’s participation is through the voting system because politicians will eventually learn to respond to the voters’ demands. Sufficiency is also meaningless. Globalisation is the way to go.

What does Maroning say to that?

His answer came after a long pause. It is true that many youths do not want to follow in their fathers’ footsteps now, but many still do. “Yet they can’t.”

He blames it on top-down development which destroys the locals’ sources of livelihood, the central education system that erodes local cultures, and the political structure which has no room for the southern Muslims.

The ballot boxes are essential in a democracy, he said, but the question must be asked: why they have failed to answer the locals’ needs, and how to fix this system?

Dismissing the agricultural sector which depends on the health of the environment is also a mistake, he said. Food security after all, is the foundation of peace and growth. “If it is in decline, we must restore it, not continue to overlook it.”

For him, the crux of the problem is the belief that the villagers are simpletons incapable of thinking for themselves and choosing their way of life.

The leaders may change. The political system may change. “But as long as the villagers are looked down upon and the leaders far away keep thinking for us, our plight will continue.” — www.bangkokpost.com

Millionaire Blueprints: 3 Industries, 3 Fortunes, No Experience

2010-07-11T07:41:00.000-07:00

Tom Spinks was born in 1948. His father was a Methodist minister in the Louisiana Conference, so Tom lived in Jena, Alexandria and Shreveport while growing up. He attended Woodlawn High School in Shreveport and Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. Tom was Terry Bradshaw's primary pass receiver during those years, and he was honorably mentioned on several All-American teams while in college. He was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings. The next year, while playing with the Pittsburgh Steelers, he sustained a torn ACL knee injury, and his football career came to an end.

In 1978, at age 30, and with no prior knowledge of the publishing industry, Tom started a newspaper on the Steelers called The Pittsburgh Steelers Weekly with a college friend, Bennie Thornell. Within two years, they were also publishing The Denver Broncos Weekly, The New Orleans Saints Weekly, The University of Pittsburgh Panthers Weekly, The West Virginia Mountaineers Weekly and The University of Arkansas Razorbacks Weekly. All of these papers were eventually sold to one buyer.

In 1985, without any prior knowledge of the accounting industry, Tom started a company called National Business Accounting Associates. Within three years, he had over 2,000 accountants all over the country as clients, and he taught them how to secure new business. This business was also sold to a national firm in 1992.

In 1993, with only eight months of experience as a distributor in the multi-level marketing (MLM) industry, Tom started his own company. Within five years, he had more than 80,000 distributors in over 100 countries. That company was sold in 2002.

Following is an interview that Millionaire Blueprints did with Tom Spinks. We feel it will teach others how to do what he did in publishing, accounting and MLM.

Before 1978, between your career with the Steelers and your publishing of The Pittsburgh Steelers Weekly, how did you earn money?

In 1972, I taught Driver’s Education and History to high school students, and starved to death on a take-home salary of about $350 a month. That supported me, my wife and two kids. I worked at an iron and pipe supply house for two years. I sold insurance to small business owners for about a year, and I sold home fire alarms for about two months. It was about this time when we started publishing the The Pittsburgh Steelers Weekly.

Did you enjoy any of those jobs?

Teaching high school was fun, but I hated the other jobs. It all came down to money. I knew I needed to make more money, but my degree was in Education. So I felt stuck. But I also knew that if things were going to be different, I had to make it happen.

Why would you try to publish a newspaper without having any publishing experience?

I had nothing to lose. I had to do something and couldn’t imagine finding another job I hated just to get a paycheck. I had a wife and children to take care of, but it was mainly because it seemed like an idea that would work.

Just because it seemed like it would work, why did you think you could pull it off?
I’m not that smart, but I know I can copy anything that has already been done and adapt it to my situation.

What do you mean by copy anything?

If you want to start a magazine, a restaurant, a picture frame shop, a camera store, a photography studio, an MLM company, or anything else, find someone who is already doing it in a successful way. Go to them, and tell them you want to open up a business just like theirs, that you think they are the best you have seen, but that you know very little about it. Tell them you would like to ask a million questions about how they started and what got them to the point where they are. They will most likely give you a lot more information if they are in a different city. In that case, they won’t be afraid that they are creating competition for themselves.

Ask them how much money it took, where they got it, how they got it, who their suppliers are, etc., etc., etc. People love to talk about themselves and what they have accomplished. They are normally willing to help you if you approach them by saying, “I need your help.”

Walk us through, step by step, how the newspapers became a reality. Be as specific as possible, but use the least amount of words. Teach us how to do what you did.

Bennie Thornell came to my office one day with a copy of The Dallas Cowboys Weekly Magazine. It was newsprint, about the size of The National Enquirer that is on all the grocery store racks today. It was about 32 to 40 pages, and it contained articles and photos of the Cowboys games, articles on different Cowboys and their home and family lives, articles written by the players themselves, articles written by Coach Tom Landry, and things like this. These were articles that would never appear in the daily newspaper. It was quality printed in full color. This particular issue noted that The Dallas Cowboys Weekly Magazine had over 100,000 subscribers, and that the cost of a year’s subscription was $20.

Bond Market Bubble Developing

2010-07-07T18:30:00.000-07:00

Bond markets are a bubble waiting to burst because the world economy is facing even worse problems after central banks flooded markets with cash to try to get out of the crisis, famous investor Jim Rogers told CNBC Thursday.

On Wednesday, banks borrowed less money than markets expected from the European Central Bank, in what investors saw as a reassuring sign that Europe's banking system is not as weak as previously feared.

"I don't quite see that myself," Rogers said, adding that the problems are worse now than at the beginning of the crisis. "Markets are looking ahead to more difficulties."

And he said he does not see why investors look at bonds as safe havens.

"I'm watching the bond market, I have no longs and no shorts," Rogers said. "It is a bubble which is developing; it's one of the few bubbles in the world which is developing."

"I think it's going to be a disaster and I plan to be selling them short sometime in the foreseeable future," he added.

Some economists have been calling for more stimulus money to be poured into the economy, but Rogers said this would be bad as it would help only certain categories and will have to be paid for by others.

"The people who receive the money think things are better, and they are better for them, but the rest of us have to pay the price," he warned.

'We Have Inflation Now'

In the US, officials and pundits recently said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may end up costing taxpayers $1 trillion.

Prices are creeping up all over the world but some governments "lie" about inflation, according to Rogers.

"We have inflation now. Everybody who shops knows there is inflation… prices are going up," he said.

The US and the UK are among governments who "lie" about inflation, while Australia, China and Norway – countries that tightened monetary policy – are facing up to it, he added.

"My investment outlook is I am long commodities and short stocks. I don't own stocks in any place at all," Rogers said.

Rogers later clarified in an email to CNBC that he owns some shares.

"I do own some stocks that I have had for years, but I have been shorting and am short stocks," he wrote in the email.

Geographically, he said he prefers assets in the countries that have the cash, rather than in the ones that have the debt.

"The creditor nations are all in Asia now … I'd rather be invested with the creditors than the debtors," Rogers said.

Food Prices Rising

Printing money has been good for hard assets and food prices "are going through the roof," he added.

"You should all become farmers. Agriculture's been a disaster for 30 years. We have a shortage of farmers now," Rogers said.

He said he is long the US dollar, despite the fact that there are huge negative feelings in the markets about the greenback and currencies are "suspect" everywhere.

"We now know that Greece is bankrupt. We know now that many companies and states in the US have been lying about their finances," Rogers said.

"Governments have poured huge amounts of money in the system… that money has to come from somewhere. This is not over yet. The debts have gone higher," he added.

The recent data on China showed signs of economic cooling as the central bank tightened policy.

"The Chinese government realizes they have problems in real estate and they're trying to solve these problems," he said.

But even though China's economy is in better shape than the euro zone and the US economies, the country can not pull the world out of recession, he added.

Solo Ride : Satun to Pattalung to Songkla to Dannok

2010-07-07T06:28:00.000-07:00

Dow Could Hit 1,000: Elliot Wave's Prechter

2010-07-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

Longtime technical analyst Robert Prechter said Tuesday he expects that the US economy will sink into a deflationary depression and stocks will plunge. The Dow Jones industrial average could fall to 1,000 sometime in the next seven years

The Dow Jones industrial average stock index could fall to between about 1,000 and 3,000 points over the next five to seven years, he said in a telephone interview. The Dow unofficially closed at 9,744 Tuesday, up 0.59 percent.

"It is very clear there is substantial stock market risk," said Prechter, who urges investors to put their money in cash proxies such as safe-haven U.S. Treasury bills instead.

Prechter is known for his very bearish views on the economy, which many market strategists consider too pessimistic.

But he is also known for forecasting a big bull market in stocks in 1982 and for getting out before the 1987 market crash.

Critics say Prechter has made some forecasts too early.

In a 2002 book, he recommended investors move the bulk of their investment funds into the safest cash equivalents. But those who did so then would have missed out on five years of stock market gains.

However, those who shifted into cash just ahead of US stocks' October 2007 peak would have protected their investments from a big drop until March 2009.

Dollar Seen Under Near-Term Pressure

Over the near term, the dollar will remain under pressure against the euro and against the safe-haven Swiss franc, Prechter said.

In early June, he said the euro was about to embark on a near-term rebound of about 10 percent over two or three months because technical indicators showed that amid the euro zone sovereign debt crisis, investors had become overly bearish on the currency.

Prechter reiterated that forecast on Tuesday, saying the euro will continue firming for about another two months, until it has gained about 10 percent, which would put it at about $1.30.

In the past month, the euro has gained about 6 percent against the dollar. Late Tuesday, the euro [EUR=X 1.2588 -0.0037 (-0.29%) ] was trading around $1.2618

The 3rd Depression

2010-06-30T04:49:00.000-07:00

Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31.

Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

In 2008 and 2009, it seemed as if we might have learned from history. Unlike their predecessors, who raised interest rates in the face of financial crisis, the current leaders of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank slashed rates and moved to support credit markets. Unlike governments of the past, which tried to balance budgets in the face of a plunging economy, today’s governments allowed deficits to rise. And better policies helped the world avoid complete collapse: the recession brought on by the financial crisis arguably ended last summer.

But future historians will tell us that this wasn’t the end of the third depression, just as the business upturn that began in 1933 wasn’t the end of the Great Depression. After all, unemployment — especially long-term unemployment — remains at levels that would have been considered catastrophic not long ago, and shows no sign of coming down rapidly. And both the United States and Europe are well on their way toward Japan-style deflationary traps.

In the face of this grim picture, you might have expected policy makers to realize that they haven’t yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: over the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and balanced-budget orthodoxy.

As far as rhetoric is concerned, the revival of the old-time religion is most evident in Europe, where officials seem to be getting their talking points from the collected speeches of Herbert Hoover, up to and including the claim that raising taxes and cutting spending will actually expand the economy, by improving business confidence. As a practical matter, however, America isn’t doing much better. The Fed seems aware of the deflationary risks — but what it proposes to do about these risks is, well, nothing. The Obama administration understands the dangers of premature fiscal austerity — but because Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress won’t authorize additional aid to state governments, that austerity is coming anyway, in the form of budget cuts at the state and local levels.

Why the wrong turn in policy? The hard-liners often invoke the troubles facing Greece and other nations around the edges of Europe to justify their actions. And it’s true that bond investors have turned on governments with intractable deficits. But there is no evidence that short-run fiscal austerity in the face of a depressed economy reassures investors. On the contrary: Greece has agreed to harsh austerity, only to find its risk spreads growing ever wider; Ireland has imposed savage cuts in public spending, only to be treated by the markets as a worse risk than Spain, which has been far more reluctant to take the hard-liners’ medicine.

It’s almost as if the financial markets understand what policy makers seemingly don’t: that while long-term fiscal responsibility is important, slashing spending in the midst of a depression, which deepens that depression and paves the way for deflation, is actually self-defeating.

So I don’t think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs. It is, instead, the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times.

And who will pay the price for this triumph of orthodoxy? The answer is, tens of millions of unemployed workers, many of whom will go jobless for years, and some of whom will never work again.
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Greeks strike today

2010-06-29T06:07:00.000-07:00

ATHENS, June 29 — Greek workers stage a new 24-hour strike today that will gauge public discontent with government austerity measures, including a radical pension reform aimed at helping the country solve its huge debt crisis.

Transport will be disrupted while public offices, local media, schools and banks will close in the fifth joint walkout by major public and private sector unions this year. Hospitals will operate with emergency staff.

Thousands of civil servants and private sector workers are expected to march in Athens at about midday (1700 Malaysian time), as parliament starts to discuss the reform which raises the retirement age, cuts benefits and curtails early pensions.

"These measures won't help. They will only lead to deeper recession and poverty," said Despina Spanou, board member of public sector union ADEDY. "Workers will clearly answer the government and this reform which abolishes social security."

The government insists cuts are vital. "We deeply believe what we are doing is in the interests of the Greek people," government spokesman George Petalotis said.

Investors will be watching the size of the protest to get an indication of the opposition the ruling Socialists face as they struggle to implement austerity steps designed by the EU and the IMF in exchange for 110 billion euros (RM436 billion) in loans.

Participation in recent protests has waned, partly as Athenians escape to the islands for summer holidays. But unions representing about 2.5 million workers — half the Greek workforce — expect big public support on Tuesday.

Austerity bites

At a peak of public protests, about 50,000 people marched in Athens on May 5. That day, three people were killed in the fire-bombing of an Athens bank. About 25,000 people turned out for the last similar strike on May 20.

A temperature of 25 Celsius (77 Fahrenheit), fairly cool for Athens in late June, was forecast for midday on Tuesday.

Many Greeks have started feeling austerity biting since the government cut civil servants' holiday bonuses in May. A new rise in VAT takes effect on July 1, to 23 percent from 21.

Most people believe the pension reform will not save the deficit-stricken pension funds and say their sacrifices are futile, an ALCO poll showed on Saturday.

The government has a majority with 157 seats in the 300-seat parliament and should be able to pass the reforms despite some opposition within the socialist party.

Repeated strikes, protests that may turn violent and a rise in small bomb attacks since riots in 2008 have hurt tourism, a key sector for Greece's 240 billion euro economy. One senior official died last week from a booby-trapped bomb.

Aegean Airlines said it had cancelled 14 domestic round trips and Olympic Air called off 34 flights to Greek islands, including Mykonos and Santorini. International flights will not be affected by the strike. — Reuters

Medan_Bukit Lawang_ Binjai

2010-06-26T01:13:00.000-07:00

Grand Theft Malaysia

2010-06-25T07:01:00.000-07:00

The Port Klang Free Zone scandal may be big, but it is only the latest in a long line of Malaysian scandals going back to the early 1980s. Time Magazine quoted Daniel Lian, a Southeast Asia economist at Morgan Stanley in Singapore, saying that the country might have lost as much as U$100 billion since the early 1980s to corruption."

The scandals listed below are only a small sample of the looting of the country's coffers:

In July of 1983, what was then the biggest banking scandal in world history erupted in Hong Kong, when it was discovered that Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF), a unit of Bank Bumiputra Malaysia Bhd, had lost as much as US$1 billion which had been siphoned off by prominent public figures into private bank accounts. The story involved murder, suicide and the involvement of officials at the very top of the Malaysian government. Ultimately it involved a bailout by the Malaysian government amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mak Foon Tan, the murderer of Jalil Ibraim, a Bank Bumi assistant manager who was sent to Hong Kong to investigate the disappearance of the money, was given a death sentence, and Malaysian businessman George Tan who had participated in looting most of the funds, was jailed after his Carrian Group collapsed in what was then Hong Kong's biggest bankruptcy, and a handful of others were charged. No major politician was ever punished in Malaysia despite a white paper prepared by an independent commission that cited cabinet minutes of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad giving an okay to a request to throw more money into the scandal in an effort to contain it.

That was just the first Bank Bumi scandal. The government-owned bank had to be rescued twice more with additional losses of nearly US$600 million in today's dollars. Ultimately government officials gave up and the bank was absorbed into CIMB Group, currently headed by Nazir Razak, the prime minister's brother. That scandal, which stretched over several years before its denouement in 1985, set the tone for 24 years of similar scandals related to top Malaysian officials and was the first to prove that in Malaysia, you can not only get away with murder, you can get away with looting the treasury as well.

Perwaja Steel, for instance, lost US$800 million and its boss, Eric Chia, a crony of Mahathir's, was charged with looting the company. He stood trial, but was acquitted without having to put on a defense.

In the mid 1980s, the Co-operative Central Bank, a bank set up to aid the Indian smallholder community, had to be rescued by Bank Negara, the country's central bank, after hundreds of millions of ringgit in loans granted to a flock of United Malays National Organisation and Malaysian Indian Congress politicians became non-performing. Some had never been serviced at all. Although the chief executive and general manager were charged with criminal breach of trust, none of the politicians were ever charged.

Before that, the Malaysian government was believed to have lost US$500 million in an attempt at Mahathir's urging to corner the London tin market through a company called Maminco, driving the world price of tin from US$4.50 per tonne to US$7.50. It then sought to cover up the loss by establishing a US$2 company called Mukawasa from which allocations of new share issues to the government's Employees Provident Funds' were diverted. Mukawasa expected to sell the shares at a windfall profit to hide the tin speculation.

Mahathir also was behind an attempt by the then governor of Bank Negara, the central bank, to aggressively speculate in the global foreign exchange market. Bank Negara ended up losing an estimated RM20 billion. The governor, Jaffar Hussein, and the head of forex trading, Nor Mohamed Yakcop were forced to resign.

There have been many other political and financial scandals since. In 2005, Bank Islam Malaysia, the country's flagship Islamic bank, reported losses of RM457 million mainly due to provisioning totaling RM774 million as a result of bad loans and investments incurred by its Labuan branch. Cumulatively, Bank Islam ran up nonperforming loans of RM2.2 billion, partly from mismanagement and poor internal controls but also "years of regulatory indifference fueled by the misconceived notion of an untouchable Bank Islam because it was a favorite child of the Malaysian government, being the first and model Islamic bank in the country and region," according to a December 19, 2005 article in Arab News.

"Bank Islam had a reputation in the market for being the spoilt child of the Malaysian Ministry of Finance; and the perception of the bank was more of a Muslim financial fraternity or government development financial institution," the report said.

In 2007, in what was called Malaysia's Enron scandal, the publicly traded Transmile Group Bhd, whose chairman was former MCA President and Cabinet Minister Ling Liong Sik, was caught having overstated its revenue by RM530 million. A pretax profit from Rm207 million in 2006 was actually a loss of RM126 million, and a pretax profit of 120 million in 2005 was a loss of RM77 million, causing the government postal company Pos Malaysia & Services Holdings Bhd to warn that its earnings for the 2006 financial year might be affected by the reported overstatement, as the postal group owned 15.3 percent of Transmile.

Over the years 2001 to 2006, the government had to spend billions to rescue seven privatized projects including Kuala Lumpur's two public transport systems, the perennially ailing Malaysia Airlines, the national sewage system and a variety of others that, in the words of one study, "had been privatized prematurely." The government also repeatedly bailed out highway construction concessionaires, all of them closely connected to Umno, to the tune of another RM38.5 billion.

In 2008, it was revealed that Rafidah Aziz, who had served as trade and industry minister for 18 years, had been peddling approved permits for duty-free car sales and allegedly lining her pockets. Two companies which didn't even have showrooms – one of which belonged to the husband of Rafidah's niece – received scores of permits. Although Rafidah came in for heavy criticism from within Umno, she remained in office until she was defeated in party elections.

In the 1960s, federal prosecutors in the United States who were attempting to jail the late labor boss Jimmy Hoffa for looting the Teamsters Pension Fund of millions of dollars with his cronies were puzzled by the fact that their revelations appeared to have little effect on the union's rank and file. It was because no matter how much money Hoffa and his cronies stole, there was always money left because the fund was so rich. That appears to be the case with Malaysia.

Malaysia vs Singapore

2010-06-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

The Boston Consulting Group, one of the leading global management consulting firm has just last week released its Annual Wealth Report and found Singapore to be amongst the top 20 countries with the most millionaires households.

Singapore, (once a part of Malaysia) is a tiny nation of 5.1 million population is ranked at no. 18 with the most numbers of millionaires and rank the highest in terms of density with 11.4 percent of the total households being a millionaire in USD (US Dollar). That is about 3.3 million Malaysian Ringgit. And this is of liquid asset which does not include the value of property owned.

That means for every 10 Singaporeans you meet more than one will be a millionaire of USD.

Malaysia? of course is not in the list but i will try to check the most corrupt millionaire household list, maybe we are there.

As we remembered in the late 70s to early 80s before Mahathir became PM, Malaysia has one of the highest per capita income in Asia and was way ahead of countries like South Korea and Taiwan.

The Singapore dollar exchange rate was at parity with the Malaysian dollar back than at 1 for 1 and after Mahathir became PM we saw the other Asian countries race way ahead and today the Singapore exchange rate is at about RM2.33 for one Singapore Dollar.The Hong Kong dollar back than was about 3 for one Ringgit.

Singapore is today a fully developed country and an advanced nation of which Malaysia is only still aspiring to become. Singapore enjoys a per capita income of more than USD 37 thousand whereas Malaysia is at less than USD 7 thousand which is way way off the mark being a leader in the region some 30 years ago.

Singapore is the fourth leading financial centre of the world and the fourth richest nation in terms of GDP Purchasing Power Parity per capita.

Singapore is a fine example of a sound and efficient economic management and governance with one of the highest ratings by Transparency International for being clean and the least corrupt.

On the other hand Malaysia will show you how corruption can impoverished its people and after years of progressive corruption has now become terminal and rotted to the core. Malaysia is now a sad story although blessed with rich and abundant natural resources, has 57.8% of its total household of 5.7 million earning a meager income of below 3000 Ringgit a month with an average household size of 4,5 person per household. And more than two third of the Malaysian household earns less than RM4 thousand a month at 70.7%.

We could have been like Singapore and we would have been a prosperous nation only if than we had selected our leaders wisely and carefully but instead we had to pick the most wicked and corrupt that has plundered our resources and divided our spirits.