Where is our direction (Malaysian) for our next generation?

For those who started work around 1973, a 1.3 litre Japaness car was RM 7000.

Today the equivalent is…… let's say RM 60000……8.5 times.

In 1973 a double storey house was about RM 45,000 or less.

Today it is about RM 300,000…… 6.6 times

In 1973 an Engineer's pay was RM 1000.
Today it is about RM 2000……2 times.

From 1973 to 2008…… 35 years…… what is the trend?
Bearish!

In a stock market when the trend is bearish, what do we do? Exit!

When a country's trend is bearish what do we do?
This Bearish trend is more difficult to turn around as compared to thestock market.

I have used these 3 items House, Car & Salary as a measurement of the country' s performance for the past 35 years. Foreigners also ask about these 3 items to gauge our standard of living.

There is a book I saw in MPH bookshop entitled:
Malaysia: The Failed Nation

Some of you may be interested to read it. I agreed with the writer.

This morning I was having Coffee at McDonald (100 %Arabica beans at RM 2.90, free refill). I asked how much per hour is their pay?

RM 3.00 x 8 hours = RM 24 per day x 25 days = RM 600 per month

My daughter works part-time during her University days. She worked atGloria Jeans Coffee……the pay? Australian $ 14.00 per hour ( @ 3.15 = RM 44 per hour.....x 8 = RM 352 per day !!! x 25 days = RM 8800.

13.3 times more! Price of houses in Perth is about the same in KL. Price of cars are about 23 % cheaper in Perth, Australia.

I think more and more people are becoming aware of this Bearish trend.

Developed country by 2020?...... means High income country.

Let's look at some as of year 2005 from Financial Times.

USA GNP per capita US$ 35400
UK GNP per capita US$ 25510
Australia GNP per capita US$ 19530
Singapore GNP per capita US $ 20690
These are developed countries by income measurement.

Malaysia GNP per capita US$ 3540

Year 2020…… developed country?Worrying trends, isn't it?
Ringgit Malaysia sliding further and further under BN.
-Gan Jul 8, 08 4:03pm

Recently, I interviewed some fresh graduates applying for jobs with myengineering company. I accepted two applicants on a starting salary ofRM 1,600. It struck me as odd that 15 years ago, I myself started workas a fresh graduate engineer for the same pay.

Indeed, if you compare the salaries of graduates now and 15 or even 20years ago, you'll find little difference but that their purchasingpower is vastly different. It's the same story when you comparesalaries of shop assistants, office staff, factory workers and others.

To compound the effect of inflation, the Ringgit has depreciatedgreatly against all major currencies. The real income of mostMalaysians has moved backwards.

This is why many Malaysians suffer under the petrol hike. The root ofthe problem is that our real incomes have shrunk in the face ofinflation and depreciated currency. Malaysians have not been spoiledby subsidy but are unable to move out of the time lock of stagnatedand depreciated incomes.

If you compare the per capita incomes of Singapore , Hong Kong , Taiwanand South Korea , they are a few multiples of ours although atindependence all these countries were the on the same economic level as Malaysia .

What has gone wrong? We were the rising star of East Asia, a countryrich in natural resources with the most promising potential.

The reason is massive corruption, plundering of resources, wastage offunds for huge non- economic projects, anti-public interest deals withpolitically-linked companies and passing-of-the-buck to the man inthe street.

Four decades of NEP where education, economic and employment policiesare defined by race ensured that meritocracy took a back seat.

Our university standard has declined and the today best and brightestof our youths emigrate to escape the racial inequality only tocontribute to the economies of foreign lands.

The reputation of our judiciary which was held in high esteemworldwide has sunk so low that foreign investors now insist onarbitration in Singapore in case of any dispute.

We also have a slew of oppressive laws such as the ISA, OSA, Uuca andPPPA which stifle free speech and are designed to keep the rulingparties in power.

We have become less attractive to foreign investors and now lag behindour neighbours in ASEAN for foreign direct investment. Even somecorporations who have established themselves here are moving out.

All the economic and social malaise cannot help but affect the valueof our currency. The strength of a country's currency is after all, areflection of its fundamentals.

Furthermore, Bank Negara has a policy of weak Ringgit to helpexporters, never mind the burden on the common folk. The government ispro-corporation, not pro-rakyat (citizens).

While the poor and middle-class are squeezed, an elite group getsbreathtakingly rich. We have the distinction of having the worseincome disparity in ASEAN. A re-distribution of wealth is under wayfrom the poor and middle-class to a select group ofpolitically-connected elite.

The end result of this re-distribution will be a small group ofsuper-rich while the majorities are pushed into poverty and themiddle-class shrinks. This is what happens when the rich gets richerand the poor get poorer.

There is much that is wrong with Malaysia. The responsibility forpulling the country backwards can be laid squarely at the door of theruling regime. It is BN's mis-governance, racial politics and cultureof patronage which has seen the country regress economically andsocially.

We seem to be sliding down a slippery slope, further down with eachpassing year of BN's rule. Another five years of BN rule and we'll beat Indonesia’s standard under Suharto. Another 10 years and we'll betouching the African standard. What a way to greet 2020.

Is there any hope for Malaysia?

Faced with the reality that BN will never change, many Malaysiansdesperate for change turn their lonely eyes to Anwar Ibrahim.

Pakatan Rakyat has promised to treat all races fairly, to plugwastage, fight corruption, reform the judiciary and make Malaysia morecompetitive.

But some have questioned whether we can trust Anwar and his loosecoalition of disparate parties.

The question is not whether we can trust Anwar and Pakatan Rakyat butwhether we can afford not to.

Can we afford another ten years of BN's misrule?

-Anonymous

Marco's comment:

There is nothing much that middle-class Malaysians can do, my suggestios are:

1. Save as much money as possible, transfer it to Singapore, Hong Kong, London or New York's banks.

2. Acquire foreign countries shares where your money parked (refer to no.1)

3. Send your children to oversea universities, let them have a choice to make a living at other countries.

They are more and more elite Malays that moving out from Malaysia even they can enjoy bumi priviledges in this country. Why they gave up? Simply because they see no future for their next generation.

Heroes (Dedicated to the hereos in Sichuan Earthquake, 2008)

An earthquake, magnitude 8.0, struck Sichuan province of China at 2:28PM, May 12, 2008. The epicenter of the earthquake, Wenchuan, is about 90 miles from Chengdu. The earthquake released more energy than 500 atomic bombs, 30 times more than the Kobe earthquake in Japan, 1995. By May 19, there are more than 32,000 lifeless victims, more than 20,000 still missing, and more than 4.7 million houses collapsed or heavily damaged.

Cities close to the epicenter are flattened; whole mountains collapsed.

Devastation.

Millions of people lost their beloved ones, their homes, their belongings. Yet there is no looting, no complaints, just people helping each other.

Within hours, people rushed to rescue. Blood donation lines run for 100 yards, and people waited hours to donate blood; within 24 hours, all major blood banks ran out storage space. The highway to the earthquake struck city Dujianyang (20 mile from Chengdu) was almost jammed one hour after the earthquake, not by people fleeing the aftershocks, but by volunteers, led by over 1,000 taxi drivers, came from Chengdu to rescue.

Chen Guangbiao(陈光标), owner of a big construction company 1,500 miles from the disaster area, just 2 hour 30 minutes after the earthquake, started transporting 60 construction machineries and led 120 volunteers to rescue. They arrived at the disaster area 24 hours later, almost the same time as Army Engineering Corp.

Medical workers provided care under extreme conditions; they even delivered many new born babies on the parking lot.

Wen Jiabao(温家宝), 66, Chinese Prime Minister, boarded on a plane 30 minutes after the earthquake, and arrived in disaster area in 2 hours. He has been the chief of the rescue operation since then, working almost around clock at the frontline with rescue workers.

1,1000 paratroopers started boarding airplanes 2 hours after earthquake. Despite heavy rain, high wind and thick cloud, they jumped from over 20,000 foot high to remote mountain areas where they did not even know if there would be a place for them to land. The first jumped off plane was Senior Colonel Li Zhenbo(李振波), 51.


With roads buried by landslide and bad weather hammering airborne operations, a group of 600 soldiers and medical teams, lead by Major General Xia Guofu(夏国富), 57, Commander in Chief of Sichuan Military District, walked 21 hours straight on foot in mountain area, carrying heavy relief supplies, risking landslide and falling rocks. They became the first group to arrive at the epicenter of the earthquake.

Soldiers and rescue workers working around clock to rescue people still buried. Unable to transport heavy machineries to the remote areas since roads are buried by landslides, they often have to use hands to move tons of concrete.

People are rushing to donate money. Many rich people donated in millions, but no one can match Xu Chao(徐超), 60, on the right. He is a homeless in Nanjing, 1000 miles from the disaster area. He saw the news and went to donate 5 Yuan in the morning. He said people in the disaster area were worse off than him because their lives were threatened. He came back in the afternoon, donated another 100 Yuan ($14). He explained that all he had were pennies and dimes, and he didn’t want to waste volunteer workers’ time to count them, so he went to the bank to change everything he had into one big bill. This is from a man who doesn’t have money to buy food for himself.



Song Xinying (宋馨懿), 3, pulled out from rubble after being buried for 2 days. She was in critical condition and lost a leg, but survived. Her parents hold each other’s hands and shoulders face to face to make an arch to shield her from the falling building. Her parents did not make it out.

A 5 year old boy was rescued after being buried under rubbles for 24 hours. His left hand was broken, but he smiled and saluted to his rescuers. His smile made everybody cry.

Zhang Jiwang(张吉万), 11, carrying his sister Zhang Han(张韩), 3，walked 12 hours straight to flee the rescue center.

Yuan Wentin(袁文婷), 26, first grade teacher. When the earthquake struck, she rushed to carry her stunned students from classroom on the 3rd floor to the ground. She managed to pull out most of her students, but the building collapsed when she was trying to pull out the last few. At the last moment of her life, she was trying to use her body to shield the students from falling concrete.

Many teachers did the same thing. They are 谭千秋、张米亚、苟晓超、吴忠洪、杜正香......

This high school student was rescued from the collapsed building. She lost both legs, and her both hands are broken. The rescue workers were all in tears when they saw this. She smiled to them: “Be Brave!”

This baby, after being buried over 24 hours, miraculously, was rescued unscratched. He is about 3-4 months old, and his mother kneeled down, pinned her head and hands on the ground to shielded him from the falling concrete, and milked him. His mother did not make it out. A rescue worker found his mom’s cell phone in his wrapper. It had a text message left by his mother: “Dear child, if you survive, please remember, Mom loves you forever…”

-Anonymous

September 2008 Adsense Performance

September 2008 was a good month for my Adsense performance. A new record earning was achieved, but the page impressions have slipped to slightly below 1500 page impressions mark.

Month to month performance review:
Page Impressions (Sep2008 vs. August2008): -26.42%
Earnings (Sep2008 vs. August2008): +94.10%

Quarter to quarter performance review:
Page Impressions (Q3_2008 vs. Q2_2008): +62.36%
Earnings (Q3_2008 vs. Q2_2008): +7.04%