It has been a long Chinese New Year Holiday. The long holiday away from the Kuala Lumpur metro city has given me the luxury to put some thought on the long overdue 2011 resolution and some global phenomenons such as inflation rallies around the emerging markets, property bubbles in Malaysia especially Klang Valley and Penang regions and etc.
I found that people nowadays are less happy than the past. We spent more times traveling on the roads, wasted our precious hours in the traffic jam, work longer hours, committed to more debts on unnecessary stuffs, and have less attention to the family members and relatives.
There are lesser housewives nowadays. It is a norm to have Indonesian maids in every family. Apart from the day time career, peoples are less competence in living skills as well as any topics which are not related to the day time profession.
What has caused this phenomenon?
I suppose it is caused by the unethical bankers, greedy corporates and the foolish citizens.
Let's take car industry in Malaysia for example.
Ask yourself, in 1960-1970s, what was the average life span for a saloon car? I think the owners will easily drove it for >7 years. The greedy car manufacturers which wanted to achieve high growth in revenue and expand market share are cultivating the public to change car in shorter period of time.
"It is wise to change your car in every 5 year as it will have frequent parts breakdown after the 5-year period."
The fact is the car manufacturers wanted to expand the market size by informing the false information.
The greedy bankers who wanted to suck all your hard earned money from your pockets come to you and offer low interest rate with extended repayment period up to 9 year.
"Nobody really owned a car now, what you need to do is trade-in your car in upon the 5 year mark, settle the loan and go for a new car, probably the balance will be able to serve as the deposit for your new car. Don't worry on the repayment, you can afford it as we offer you such a low interest rate."
"Reward yourself, you deserve it. The car reflects your status!"
Thus, the car owners nowadays will never be able to really owned up a car. With more and more people fooled by the bankers and car manufacturers, it becomes a norm for Malaysian to buy a car he or she cannot afford by extending the repayment period to 9-year.
In these 30 years time, the sales of the car has been stretched to the maximum, and the greedy bankers and car manufacturers are stretching further to meet the unreality goals. They continue to educate something wrong to the public. What happens to the staffs under these bankers and car manufacturers? They are paid to to achieve the miracle. To achieve something unreality, they need to work extra hard, work longer hour. The car manufacturers need to cut the manufacturing cost to maintain the miracle sales result, they control the inventory tightly, inventory control and logistic planning has become much complicated. This is a chain effect, the staffs under the auto industries are suffering. A part from the owners of the banks and car manufacturers, all the staffs under these corporates umbrella and the car buyers are suffering. They need to spend almost all their energy on their day time job, work life balance has become impossible and they have no time for others.
Similar scenario happens in other industry as well. To sustain the bubbles, everyone involved are stretched to the maximum. Resulted the phenomenon on what I have written at the first 3 paragraph and created the high stress society.
Be smart, let's do our part to rectify the economy system and create a better living environment together.
How? Get out of debts, be practical and prudent.
