JZ the dream chaser.

Some Sunday financial advice

2010-10-03T10:35:00.000+08:00

From Adrian Lim

Sound financial advice from the web. Don’t worry, I am not a financial advisor. Just getting bored at work, and i thought that these might be useful "food for thought".

What Fresh Graduates and Young Persons Should NOT Do
http://www.cpf.gov.sg/imsavvy/blog_post.asp?postid=352159281-25-4167581200

Adrian: The author is damn right. The stock market is just an alternative to a casino. If you are buying a stock and hoping that the stock will rise 3 days or even 3 weeks later, you are basically placing a bet. If you don’t have a view to invest (and when I say invest, it means not touching the counter/the money for at least the next 12 months), then you should just stay away. There is this saying “the stock market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent”. It basically means stock prices don’t necessarily reflect true value of these companies. And there are a lot of other stock market players out there who are able to make these companies overvalued or undervalued longer than your bank balances can hold out.

Sometimes, It's the Money You Didn’t Spend that Counts
http://www.cpf.gov.sg/imsavvy/blog_post.asp?postid=352159281-12-2845370173

Financial Tips to Grow Your Wealth and Fulfill Your Goals
http://www.cpf.gov.sg/imsavvy/blog_post.asp?postid=352159281-24-6156582831

Adrian: Quoting the author’s statement “No discipline? Get the professionals to help you!”. Please note that most professionals’ help comes at a fee. And as mentioned in the previous articles, these financial advisors’ personal interests aren’t aligned with yours. Just remind yourself, if your objective is to save money, why are you spending money (on professional help) to save money? The most obvious types of fees are commissions paid through the financial products that you buy. The not so obvious types are the Save As You Earn (“SAYE”) accounts. How are fees charged from SAYE accounts? By not paying you the full interest that is earned from your savings, the bank earns from helping you to safe.

You don’t have to be thrifty over every single dollar. A taxi ride back with your family once in a while for convenient is ok, but not taxi rides back from work every night. Most important, don’t be penny wise, pound foolish; save $1 every meal, only to spend it away on a $250,000 Audi S5. You could effectively go for 100 more short holidays, of have 10,000 more buffets if you didn’t spend it on the Audi S5.

10 Tips on What to Prepare Financially for Your Upcoming Marriage
http://www.cpf.gov.sg/imsavvy/blog_post.asp?postid=352159281-1-2779008149

Why it’s not Wise to Hurry to Pay Off Your Housing Loan
http://www.cpf.gov.sg/imsavvy/blog_post.asp?postid=352159281-16-7240346073

Adrian: Although it makes sense to leverage on the cheap housing loans to increase your cash holdings for emergencies like death, hospitalization, retrenchment, etc, the author failed to highlight that holding these excess cash from housing loans still comes at a cost, regardless of how low the interest rates are. Let’s take a $100,000 loan at 2.6%, the cost of delaying the repayment of the $100,000 loan for a year is $2,600 in interest; and it will cost you $110,510.35 for delaying it for 29 years on compounded interest! As such, please ensure that your excess cash are generating returns of more than 2.6%, if not you might be doing more harm to your financial health than good.

Quotes on charity.

2010-07-29T00:54:00.002+08:00

"Ask not your wallet nor pockets but your heart ; how much should you give?"

"Giving is irrational. Giving is emotional."

Is the YOG expenditure at the expense of our social programmes?

2010-07-14T00:40:00.001+08:00

click on picture to enlarge..

50 reasons why I will NOT vote for PAP

2010-07-06T22:59:00.002+08:00

(from http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/07/05/50-reasons-why-i-will-not-vote-for-pap/ )

1. I don’t want to buy a house with a Cash-Over-Value of $100,000

2. I don’t want to be accused of being fussy if I don’t want to live on the first floor or basement bomb shelter, or ulu ulu places like Kusu Island

3. I don’t want keep hearing that flats are “affordable” when I really cannot afford flats.

4. I don’t want to see foreigners flood our condos, HDB estates, MRT trains, buses, schools, EVERYWHERE

5. I don’t want to know about how ministers are getting lots of landed and prime property both local and overseas when I have trouble getting a 3-room flat.

6. I don’t want ministers who get multi-million dollar salaries when I do odd jobs and some months I don’t make more than $2,000.

Ministers in other countries may take bribes and embezzle. My ministers are smarter, they get more money claiming more MILLIONS in salary LEGALLY.

7. I don’t want to pay ERP just because foreigners’ cars are clogging my roads. Especially, when ERP do not solve congestion problems!!! We still have terrible traffic jams!

8. I don’t want to do NS and reservist to protect my country against foreign invaders when:
(A) I don’t have a house to protect
(B) I cannot afford to start a family to protect
(C) I have to protect foreigners and their property with my life when they run away during war.
(D) Foreigner PRs do not have to serve
(E) I get paid worse than a Bangala worker. To think that National Service needed people donation’s in 1967, after a year, it gathered S$ 3 million from Singaporeans when we were all so poor.

9. I do not want to see PRs and New citizens flashing their blue and pink ICs on their national days.

10. I do not want to see the shamelessness of importing foreign athletes and claims that Singapore won when a foreigner won. Oh yes, we pay these foreigners millions of dollars so that Singapore can claim that it won. WOW!

11. I do not want to hear jeering against the SG local soccer teams from foreigner spectators when we play against other countries IN OUR OWN COUNTRY!

12. I don’t want to pay 7% more for everything I buy in my whole life when the government gives my $200 in “compensation” handouts!

13. I want to see a local student being the top student. Not some China kid. Not hearing from ours kids that there is no point to work hard as some foreigner is going to squeeze them down inevitably.

14. When there is public curiosity, I expect my government (especially Law minister) to be transparent enough let us know about Temasek and HDB cost to build a flat, etc.

15. I want my country to be known as a COUNTRY. My country is NOT just a city like some idiot claims.

16. I don’t want LHL’s son to be the next succeeding prime minister.

17. I don’t like how China suckered us in the Suzhou park initiative and we still have to kiss their assess.

18. I cannot understand why local siblings cannot buy flats when foreigner PR siblings can buy flats.

19. Singles are not allowed to buy flats before 35? Are singles supposed to be forced into marriage just because of this? By the time singles reach 35, the flat prices will be higher by $100,000 to $300,000. These singles worked very hard to scrimp and save only to see savings ERODED away by inflation!

20. I do not want to read the paper when it is pro-PAP and there is major censorship and selective publishing and late publishing for what cannot be hidden.

21. I don’t want my life-savings to be belittled as the salt on the “peanuts”.

22. I don’t like it when my country’s reserves lost tens of billions of dollars and the PM’s wife can still head Temasek!

23. I want important national assets key to our security like power stations to BELONG to our country, not sold to foreigners.

24. I like to add hum to my mee siam by the way.

25. I want a president who actually DOES more. Not one which who I seek shakes hands, seldom speaks, does not even pardon and spare a 19-year-old kid his life. Not a president who kids confuse with Mas Selamat (Many kids who know Mas Selamat do not EVEN know Nathan)

26. I don’t want to have my next national day parade at the silly riverside place….AGAIN! How long does it take to make a stadium? We are a country but we don’t even have a national stadium?? How about loaning Malaysia’s Merdeka Stadium for Singapore’s National day?

27. I want job security. A contract for 1 or 2 years, Then look for work again. The cycle repeats. We have to worry for our jobs and livelihoods on a daily basis. When we are over 40 years old, who want us anymore? I might as well join the army as sign on. But wait, that is contract TOO!

28. I don’t want the next generation to suffer like me in university. I had to work part-time to support my uni fees in NUS, while foreign students get free uni education thanks to MOE PLUS $500 allowance every month. After that, NUS still has the cheek to call me up and ask me to donate to NUS. Why they need money? They lost hundreds of millions of endowment in the financial crisis. I can still remember working and saving for 3 months before I could afford a 2nd hand laptop.

29. I want to protest in the streets to voice my discontent without being put to jail by the ISA act or made bankrupt. For goodness sake, I don’t even dare to accept Singtel’s offer of giving me free 6 months internet if I switch from Starhub to Singtel, because I am scared that my IP address and my name will be blacklisted by the government. (considering Singtel’s afflictions with the govt)

30. I want an opposition party in power. Any opposition is welcome. As educated and smart as my current and soon-to-be-ex ministers may be, I want people who CARE and LISTEN. Even if it is a guy who had graduated from kindergarten would be welcomed if he cares.

31. Elites who have been born with a silver spoon, who never had trouble finding a job, who never had money difficulties, who never went hungry, who breezed through NS, do NOT deserve my respect nor should they be in the government. We need people who UNDERSTAND what it is like at the pits and bottom! Not some shortie who claims to understand hardship with a childhood living in 3-room flat but marries an angmoh and lives in a landed mansion.

32. I want a better electoral system! I don’t want WALK-OVERs again. Some of the seniors did not even get to vote ONCE in their whole lives. How is that democracy?

33. I want fairness. Is it a coincidence that certain estates under certain members of our government are especially well-cared for with upgrading etc incentives? Is this fair? Are residents of areas under the opposition similarly cared for? I quote a resident from Potong Pasir “the lifts here are so old and I can’t climb the flight of stairs to reach my place anymore.” I supposed the 60 year old aunty would be forced to vote for PAP to get new lifts.

34. I want a limit to the number of years the PM can hold office, so that as bad and as lousy as the PM is, we can at least have a chance to start afresh.

35. I want small quotas/ratios legislated for foreigners.

36. I want foreigners to be restricted to less than 20% of our population instead of 36%.

37. MBT actually said that foreigner PRs were under-represented in HDB flats. Pah! No more than 2 flats in a block should be sold to PRs! Otherwise, how can the many old uncles and aunties have pocket money for retirement by renting out flats?

38. I want their CPF contribution percent to be much higher and that their CPF to be forfeited if they leave SG.

39. I want higher income taxes and property taxes for foreigners.

40. I want NS for foreigners.

41. Foreigners who bought HDB flats cannot be allowed to rent their flat out EVER!

42. I want the SGD to be moderated downwards! A higher SGD may benefit those who can afford to holiday overseas, those who are rich enough to send kids to overseas for studies, or PRs and foreigners when they remit money home. BUT overly high SGD deters investments into Singapore.

43. I want curbs on inflation. To that effect, we need to install restrictions on property speculation, raise reserve ratios in banks, and have more stringent criteria before loans are issued. AND OF COURSE, GST lower back to 3%

44. When foreign talent enters my country. I want these people to be REALLY foreign talent. I don’t want my country’s pink IC and PR to be handed out like toilet paper.

45. I want more heavily subsidized birth-delivery, child-care, pediatric health and education care to boost local numbers. If S.Korea can do it, why not us? The practice of replacement diminishing local numbers with foreigner number MUST STOP.

46. Instead of always saying Singapore does not have enough talent, will the government spend more money and effort in education and grooming the young? Every time they say that there is not enough of certain type of people, the government will import these people in masses and hordes.

47. I expect government-affiliated institutions to not indulge themselves with luxuries when other citizens have bread-butter problems:

When NTUC income unilaterally announced major cuts in its bonus for insurance-policy-holders, the MAS allowed this to happen. NTUC income claimed financial woes, but took HUNDREDS of agents to Australia for an exorbitant expense-paid holiday as they made the announcement earlier this year!!! Do they think about the widows and orphans when they dine fine with wine???

At first I could not believe NTUC Income to be capable of this, then I checked on the web and saw the NTUC CEO hugging 2 BIKINI girls and drinking champagne in Australia too.
(1) http://ms-my.facebook.com/photo.php?…1001838&ref=mf
(2) http://ms-my.facebook.com/photo.php?…1001838&ref=mf

48. I expect the MAS to protect citizens financially too:

When thousands of investors lost their life savings in the mini-bond fiasco, where was the government?? Unlike the Hong Kong government which had exerted pressure on its local banks to compensate a minimum sum to its minibond holders, the Singapore authorities chose to stay out of the matter….. MM Lee Kuan Yew even chided Singapore investors for “walking in with their eyes open” and therefore did not deserve a compensation.

49. I have 1 more issue with the state Media Press. HOW can they publish photos of people suspected of crimes when they have not EVEN been convicted?? Imagine the tarnishing to the poor suspect’s reputation if he were innocent! It is not as if the guy can sue ST and get $400,000 in defamation compensation.

50. Anyone can give the 50th reason??????????????? Come on my fellow locals. If I can say so much, you can at least say something! Few thousand people viewing this article and so little comments???

Pyramid of Capitalist System

2010-06-08T09:59:00.001+08:00

double click to enlarge it.

the day i took a step forward.

2010-04-16T16:57:00.001+08:00

______________________________________________

From:

Sent: 16 April 2010 15:14

To: China SG Team

Subject: RE: JRM

Hi all,

*yay. Thanks. I was thinking of writing something simple, but that would be boring.

I have joined this team since Aug 08 and I always look forward to coming to work everyday, because work for me is fun and more importantly, my colleagues around me are great, you guys take care of me and teach me something new everyday.

I hope you can continue to give guidiance to me and don't be angry with me when I mess things up. Looking ahead, I sincerely hope to continue giving my best and help our team grow!

Thanks!

_____________________________________________

From:

Sent: 16 April 2010 15:02

To: China SG Team

Subject: JRM

Importance: High

Dear Team,

I am pleased to inform everyone that XXX has been officially appointed as a JRM with immediate effect. He will be assisting me in handling some of my clients. In addition, he will continue to be the ARM for XXXX only.

I hope you can give him your support and I look forward to his contribution to our team.

Thank you.
Best Regards

Diary of a reformed elitist

2010-04-08T23:31:00.000+08:00

taken from http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/OnlineStory/STIStory_511656.html

I AM as Rafflesian/Raffles Girls' School (RGS)/'elite' as they come. My father was a Raffles Institution boy; I went through Raffles Girls' Primary School (RGPS), RGS, then Raffles Junior College, then on to the National University of Singapore, boarding at Raffles Hall. My sisters went through much the same route. My little girls are in RGPS.

I recognise the syndrome Ms Sandra Leong talks about ('Scoring high in grades but not in values', last Saturday). I live it, breathe it. Most of my friends are like me, graduates. Most of us live in landed property, condominiums or minimally, executive condos or five-room flats. None of us talks about making ends meet, or how we must turn down medical treatment for our aged parents because we cannot find the money.

But I will add to her essay: that those traits, that aura is not unique to RGS girls. It resonates within a social group, and its aspirants, the well educated or well endowed. I hang out with so many, I have stories by the barrel.

- My doctor friend, non-RGS and one would even say anti-RGS, was shocked when she found out how many As I got in my A levels, since I opted to do an arts degree. In her words, 'I thought all arts people were dumb, that is why they go to arts'. Her own family boasts only doctors and lawyers - she said they would never contemplate any other profession - and by implication, all other professions are below those two.

- A church-mate who lived in a landed property in District 10 - definitely not an RGS girl, and I venture to guess, not even a graduate - once, in all sincerity and innocence, prayed for all those who had to take public transport and live in HDB flats, for God to give them strength to bear these trials.

- Another friend, also non-RGS and a non-graduate, shudders when she recounts the few months she lived in an HDB flat. And that was a five-room flat. Imagine the culture shock if she had lived in a three-room flat.

I continue to meet people who never visit hawker centres, who wonder why the poor people do not work harder to help themselves, who fret if their children do not get into the Gifted Education Programme (reserved for the top 1 per cent of nine-year-olds).

The pattern repeats itself in the next generation. When my 11-year-old had to go on a 'race' around Singapore, using only public transport, the teacher asked for a show of hands on how many had never taken public transport (bus and MRT) before. In a class of 30, five raised their hands. I think if the teacher had asked for those who had taken public transport fewer than 10 times in their young lives, the number would have more than doubled or tripled.

Many of us live in ivory towers. I know I did. I used to think Singapore was pretty much 'it' all - a fantastic meritocracy that allowed an 'HDB child' from a non-graduate family to make it. I boasted about our efficiency - 'you can emerge from your plane and be out in 10 minutes' - and so on.

It was not that I thought little of the rest of the world or other people; it was that I was so ensconced in my cocoon, I just thought little of anything outside my own zone. 'Snow? Yes, nice.' 'Starvation in Ethiopia? Donate $50.' The wonders of the world we lived in, the sufferings and joys of those who shared this earth were just academic knowledge to me, voraciously devoured for my essays or to hold intelligent conversations at dinner parties.

Then I lived in China for seven years. I looked on in amazement as the skinny tree trunk in front of my yard blossomed and bore pomegranates when spring thawed the ground. And marvelled at the lands that spread east, west, north and south of me as we drove and drove and drove, and never ended. I became friends and fans of colleagues and other Chinese nationals, whom so many Singapore friends had warned me to be wary of.

I realised it was not the world and other people who were limited in their intellect, in their determination, in their resourcefulness; it was me and my world views which were limited. I also know full well that if I had stayed in Singapore, in my cushy job, comfortable in my Bukit Timah home, I would have remained the same - self-sufficient. I had always believed that if I put my mind to it, I could achieve anything. For example, I used to look at sick people and root: 'Fight with all your willpower, and you will recover.' And when they did not, I'd think they had failed themselves. I, like Ms Leong, believed 'mental dexterity equated strength of character and virtue'.

But those years in China taught me terrible lessons on loneliness. I learnt that money (an expatriate pay package) and brains (suitcases of books) did not make me happier than my maid who cycled home to her family every night in minus 20 deg C on icy roads to a dinner of rice and vegetables. The past few years, I have known devastating loss and grief so deep I woke up in the morning and wondered how the sun could still shine and people could go on with their lives.

And so perhaps I have learnt the humility I lacked. Humility about how small I am in the whole schema of things. About how helpless I truly stand, with my intellect in my hands, with my million-dollar roof over my head. To remember, in the darkest valleys of my journey, it was not Ayn Rand or other Booker list authors who lifted me, but the phone calls, the kindness of strangers, that made each day a little less bleak.

And perhaps finally, to really see other people, and understand - not deflect, nor reflect their anger and viewpoints, but see their shyness, pain, struggles, joys. Just because I was 'fortunate enough' to have trawled the bottom levels. And perhaps that is the antidote to the oft unwitting elitism so many of us carry with us.

Sim Soek Tien (Ms)

Honesty is the best policy.

2010-03-26T14:29:00.003+08:00

I admit, I half-typed this entry trying to download into Nature in the septic CS toilet. But it was abruptly cut short by the sudden fatulence symphony of my neighbour that started off as a slow Kitaro build-up, before it erupted and spewed.

I didn't want to suffer any Blue Screen of Death during my download, so I held my breathe (can hold it quite long thank you) and quickly did the necessary clean-up. Note to self: will revert back to using the handicap toilets for future smooth, uninterrupted downloads.

anyway, anyway. i write today to further defend why i said you need SGD100k (USD70k) to get married in Singapore:

inflows = angpows
outflows = wedding dinner, honeymoon, dress, photography, etc
estimated nett position AFTER wedding = 10k outflow
cash for house = 50k
renovation + applicances = 40k

1. I can go without the elaborate wedding and go for a simple ROM + wedding lunch. Not exactly acceptable to all the stakeholders (read: parents + relatives) involved as I wish to have a nice AGM (read: chinese new year, christmas, etc) for the next 30yrs.

2. I can stay with my / her parents and save up for a while for a nice place, but really, i cannot imagine constant romantic copulation knowing that my / her parents are less than 10meters away from us. D and I are easy-going folks, we love kids and want a basketball team, but seriously?

3. Some might say, "Buy something affordable, save on renovation!" Tell me how you feel if you buy say Jurong West and take 1.5hrs EVERYDAY to work. I agree we should cut back on renovation though.

No money, no honey.

i don't want to grow up, i want to be a toysrus kid forever.

American politics for you.

2010-03-23T10:40:00.003+08:00

Fear Strikes Out

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 21, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/opinion/22krugman.html?src=me&ref=general

The day before Sunday’s health care vote, President Obama gave an unscripted talk to House Democrats. Near the end, he spoke about why his party should pass reform: “Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made ... And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”

And on the other side, here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation.

I’d argue that Mr. Gingrich is wrong about that: proposals to guarantee health insurance are often controversial before they go into effect — Ronald Reagan famously argued that Medicare would mean the end of American freedom — but always popular once enacted.

But that’s not the point I want to make today. Instead, I want you to consider the contrast: on one side, the closing argument was an appeal to our better angels, urging politicians to do what is right, even if it hurts their careers; on the other side, callous cynicism. Think about what it means to condemn health reform by comparing it to the Civil Rights Act. Who in modern America would say that L.B.J. did the wrong thing by pushing for racial equality? (Actually, we know who: the people at the Tea Party protest who hurled racial epithets at Democratic members of Congress on the eve of the vote.)

And that cynicism has been the hallmark of the whole campaign against reform.

Yes, a few conservative policy intellectuals, after making a show of thinking hard about the issues, claimed to be disturbed by reform’s fiscal implications (but were strangely unmoved by the clean bill of fiscal health from the Congressional Budget Office) or to want stronger action on costs (even though this reform does more to tackle health care costs than any previous legislation). For the most part, however, opponents of reform didn’t even pretend to engage with the reality either of the existing health care system or of the moderate, centrist plan — very close in outline to the reform Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts — that Democrats were proposing.

Instead, the emotional core of opposition to reform was blatant fear-mongering, unconstrained either by the facts or by any sense of decency.

It wasn’t just the death panel smear. It was racial hate-mongering, like a piece in Investor’s Business Daily declaring that health reform is “affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color.” It was wild claims about abortion funding. It was the insistence that there is something tyrannical about giving young working Americans the assurance that health care will be available when they need it, an assurance that older Americans have enjoyed ever since Lyndon Johnson — whom Mr. Gingrich considers a failed president — pushed Medicare through over the howls of conservatives.

And let’s be clear: the campaign of fear hasn’t been carried out by a radical fringe, unconnected to the Republican establishment. On the contrary, that establishment has been involved and approving all the way. Politicians like Sarah Palin — who was, let us remember, the G.O.P.’s vice-presidential candidate — eagerly spread the death panel lie, and supposedly reasonable, moderate politicians like Senator Chuck Grassley refused to say that it was untrue. On the eve of the big vote, Republican members of Congress warned that “freedom dies a little bit today” and accused Democrats of “totalitarian tactics,” which I believe means the process known as “voting.”

Without question, the campaign of fear was effective: health reform went from being highly popular to wide disapproval, although the numbers have been improving lately. But the question was, would it actually be enough to block reform?

And the answer is no. The Democrats have done it. The House has passed the Senate version of health reform, and an improved version will be achieved through reconciliation.

This is, of course, a political victory for President Obama, and a triumph for Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. But it is also a victory for America’s soul. In the end, a vicious, unprincipled fear offensive failed to block reform. This time, fear struck out.

We Are Different

2010-01-25T13:37:00.002+08:00

"Some SMU alumni are willing to sacrifice our time, careers and private lives to pursue difficult objectives with little or no personal benefit. That is why SMU is different. "

from Boon Leong's email, on why we serve the SMUAA exco.

2009 - The Year That Was

2010-01-25T13:30:00.002+08:00

The Year That Was
December 25th, 2009

From http://is-magazine.com/feature/year-was

A fond adieu or good riddance? We say so long to 2009 with a look back at the year’s headlines and newsmakers. By Ramesh William. Illustrations by Richard Lee.

First off, Merry Christmas. Now that you’re done tucking into your Christmas lunch, sit back, unbuckle your pants and work off the inevitable turkey-induced food coma by chewing on the memories of this past year.

And what a year it’s been! In between the almost-sputtering-to-life economy, the threat of swine flu, the Aware pandemonium, malfunctioning EZ-Link cards and bimbos getting more than their share of 15 minutes, it’s been yet another rambunctious 12 months.

Reexamination can be a cathartic process, so let’s look back, reflect, chuckle and even laugh out loud at life in Singapore circa 2009.

That Holland Village couple
A twenty-something couple adopted wholesale the local press’s (warped) application of the word “bohemian” when they stripped off and sauntered down—bits, bobs and boobs in full view—Holland Village’s Lorong Mambong.

Singaporean Eng Kai Er, 24, and her Swedish friend Jan Philip, 21, took a 15-minute strut along Holland V’s main thoroughfare to peals of cheering, whooping and photo-taking—and were considerate enough to stop and have a chinwag with patrons of Wala Wala. Whoever said the art of open conversation was dead, eh? And although they slinked off chop-chop into the dead of the night, the long-long arm of the law (tipped off by a man walking his dog) caught up with them soon after.

The Swede said he had checked whether public nudity was illegal in Singapore before heading to these shores, and, in defense, said he found nothing in Singapore’s Penal Code which prohibited prancing about in the buff. The judge, however, was not buying any of it and duly sentenced the pair to a fine of $2,000 each.

The tale of Two MPs and a Permanent Secretary
Members of Parliament (MPs) are often in the spotlight here—for all the right reasons, we hasten to add. But earlier this year, two MPs (and a Permanent Secretary) found themselves in a little bit of bother. First, Yio Chu Kang MP Seng Han Thong (he was also punched in the eye couple of years ago) was set on fire by a disgruntled constituent—a 70-year-old former cabby—who has since been consigned to the loony bin.

Perm Secs meanwhile, aren’t used to media glare or public scrutiny. But Tan Yong Soon from the Ministry of Environment felt the full fury of the public and blogosphere when he spent in excess of $45,000 to attend a five-week cooking course with his family at famed Parisian culinary institution Le Cordon Bleu—and then blogged about it.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister in charge of the Civil Service Teo Chee Hean remarked “It struck a discordant note during the current difficult economic circumstances when it is especially important to show solidarity and empathy for Singaporeans who are facing uncertainties and hardship.”

But another MP, Charles Chong, in adding to the above debate, put his foot in his mouth when he described a whole swathe of the electorate in less-than-mortal (err, glowing) terms. “Maybe it made lesser mortals envious and they thought maybe he was a little bit boastful. Would people have taken offense if his wife (a senior investment counselor at a bank) had paid for everything?” Yikes! No wonder we need “cooling-off” periods.

Hello dics
Not only was Robert Mugabe spotted in Singapore (actually, not just spotted; his bodyguards reportedly roughed up a Swedish diplomat at a bookshop here), another shady leader, Burmese Prime Minister General Thein Sein was honored at the Botanic Gardens when an orchid (Dendrobium Thein Sein) was named after him.

Although it’s a long-standing tradition of the Botanic Gardens to bestow such honors to visiting dignitaries, it roused much public ire. In fact, three Singaporeans who were present tried to give a bouquet of orchids to the general to pass on to Burmese freedom fighter Aung San Suu Kyi, calling for her release. “We feel it would be more fitting for the orchid flower to be honored in the name of Miss Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the rightful leader of Burma,” the protestors said in a statement.

Merlion boltzed
In a development that sent government economists rushing off to various feng shui masters for all sorts of reassurances, Singapore Tourism’s poster child experienced the full extent of Mother Nature’s rapture when it was struck by lightning—a near impossibility considering the height of the buildings nearby.

To say that it was at the wrong place at the wrong time would be missing the point; after all, where else can the poor fella trot off to? The bolt left the statute with a couple of craters on its head, seriously denting that I’m-so-worth-it regal mane—and it took several weeks for the damage to be repaired. Oh, and this isn’t the first time such a calamity has befallen the weird creature, nor we suspect will it be the last …

The SAF and Facebook
The Singapore Armed Forces pinned up notices at camps throughout the island against revealing too much information on social networking website Facebook. This came after servicemen were creating informal intra-unit groups on the website—openly sharing photographs and information on training activities. The notices warn of the threats of “Facebooking” and how sensitive information could fall into the hands of terrorists if people aren’t careful.

Scratch ya later grandpa
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan’s comments on packing the elderly off to nursing homes across the causeway drew fire from several quarters; not to mention going against the government’s oft-trumpeted views on filial piety.

In an interview with MediaCorp’s Channel 8 he said: “My personal view is, our land is expensive. But we have nearby neighbors in Johor, Batam and Bintan. The elderly want to reach their doctors within a half to one hour. So retirement villages in neighboring countries are possible, barring the cross-border hassle. It is best to find cheap land on short leases.”

After criticism from fellow MPs and a public outcry—people thought the minister was advocating parceling off the old fogeys to sh*tholes like JB instead of tackling the socioeconomic issues related to ageing in Singapore—Khaw later told Today that, “The decision to locate retirement villages outside of Singapore is up to the private developers and the market . . . no matter where the villages are, Singaporeans should not neglect the old.”

EZ-Link card goof-ups and misplaced zealousness on the MRT
Not only was the entire public transport-commuting population inconvenienced into changing perfectly working EZ-Link cards, the newer generation cards (in addition to some woowoo mathematical justifications for it running out of value when it hits $3 and GIRO woes) came pre-loaded with a host of issues. Commuters claimed the newer cards were not as “sensitive” as their older counterparts, having to physically remove them from purses and wallets to tap on the card reader.

Speaking of public transport, SMRT launched a gung-ho blitz to nix eating on the MRT trains for good—handing out on-the-spot fines for offending munchers. Of course, the same staff didn’t bat an eyelid when priority seats were hogged by inconsiderate users who cared nary an iota for the struggling expectant mom or the frail old aunty.

SMRT staff members were also negligent in letting a molester escape from under their noses after he was nabbed by a Good Samaritan passenger, who handed him over to station staff at Bugis MRT. Well, guess they only pay attention to sweet wrappers, huh?

Pink dot
Singapore’s growing openly gay community finally had a coming-out party of sorts when they staged Pink Dot at Hong Lim Park. Attended by over 2,000 people—both straight and downright queer—the event saw the forming of a giant pink dot for a unique photo-op moment and important milestone in the country’s socio-political history.

Yes, (almost) everyone wore pink—much to the dismay of the average punter, who thought he’d able to head on down and spot mustachioed flannel-sporting construction workers wearing hard hats, Ray Ban-wearing cops and that Red Indian guy with the feathers. Organizers of the seminal event went out of their way to make the party an inclusive one. One of them, Jack Yong, had this to say: “What was important for us was to show that the community can be inclusive, and recognize that Singaporeans are conservative.”

“It was also to highlight that LGBT individuals are pro-family; participants came from all walks of life—they were straight or gay, some came with families, there were even seniors and children. The event was basically for everyone, and hopefully managed to quash misconceptions that we are disconnected from the government.” Word.

Falling down—citizens and (apparently) living standards
Sticking with the testy issue of nationhood and citizenship, Singapore’s population saw a huge jump, reaching 4.99 million in June of this year. Of that number, 1.25 million are non-residents and 480,000 are permanent residents; meaning, only 63.3 percent of the population can claim to be natural-born citizens.

One netizen-cum-citizen even went into OTT-exaggeration mode when he said that one day Singapore citizens will be like the Australian Aborigines. Err…we don’t think so, buddy. But perhaps there is a correlation between rising population and a drop in living standards, because two prominent reports delivered damning data on Singapore.

UBS Bank’s Price and Earning survey ranked Singapore as one of the world’s most expensive, cities with its people earning only mediocre wages.

The Straits Times quoted political observer Eugene Tan saying the following: “If the situation of falling wage levels and declining purchasing power deteriorates rapidly, then it would undermine the performance legitimacy of the government.” Oh dear.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2009 Liveability survey meanwhile had Singapore in at 54 out of 140 cities that were ranked based on health care, education, infrastructure and culture and environment. Vancouver was No.1, Harare number 140 while five Australian cities were in the top 20.

Citizenship test and proud PRs
This was also the year when several MPs mooted the idea of having a citizenship test for foreigners wanting that all-important pink IC. Countries like the UK, Australia and the US all have similar tests, ensuring that newcomers understand, acknowledge and appreciate the society into which they’re migrating.

Of course, the moment this idea was floated, many “authentic citizens” chimed in with their two cents’ worth as to what questions are a must on such test papers. The ingredients in chicken rice; mall opening hours; favorite HDB cats they like to kick; and an essay-type question on why they should be exempt from National Service or reservist training featured heavily.

One person planning on failing such a test is likely to be Zhang Yuan Yuan. The China-born Singapore permanent resident returned to her homeland after spending several years studying and working here. The patriotic lass then decided her love for the Motherland was so overwhelming that she needed to sign up for the militia contingent during her country’s 60th National Day celebrations in October.

But then her decision to wave her Singapore blue IC when interviewed by China’s state TV rubbed a segment of Singaporeans the wrong way; most called her ungrateful, saying she was typical of foreigners who only made use of Singapore as a “stepping stone” to better things. Like … China?

The Aware (yawn) saga
This was by far the biggest thing to have happened on this little red dot this year—no sh*t yo, it was far bigger than the hoopla of Transformers 2 and New Moon combined. Even months later, after the whole brouhaha, we’re all still battling “Aware Saga” fatigue—we take it that you know the story, so we’re not going to waste any more ink here, especially when you consider how much our printer is charging us.

Food war
Speaking of food, it seems that our neighbors up north are extremely keen to stir the sh*t pot—laying claim on our local faves like bak kut teh among a host of other culinary numbers.

On what must have been a tediously slow working day in Putrajaya, the Malaysian Tourism Minister and wannabe fuss-pot, Ng Yen Yen, harrumphed (brow beating was also reported): “We cannot continue to let other countries hijack our food.” No countries were named but after announcing the line-up of dishes being held hostage—rojak, Hainanese chicken rice, chili crab, laksa and nasi lemak—she all but whipped out a map and stuck a thumb over our spot on the map.

Meanwhile, the ever-ready Singapore blogosphere lit up faster than a self-immolating protestor saying (behind the collective comfort of their laptop screens) that Singapore should go to war over this issue. You can keep your sand and water, but you take our chili crab at your peril, was the general online consensus.

The ever-cool Singapore government looked up for second and said, “You want us to waste time over this? Are you kidding us?” And true enough, like all Malaysian-created brouhahas, this one fizzled into anti-climax; that’s right, after a couple of weeks no one gave a toss. Maybe Malaysia’s well-known ad campaign should sing: Malaysia, Truly Fa-aar-nee.

The War for Talent
Speaking of wars, some countries have a war on drugs; some, a war on terror. Some others, like Singapore, are engaged in far greater battles than the trivial ones above.

The War for Talent, as the law minister eloquently waxed, is one that Singapore is currently waging. He said that, in general, Singapore’s openness to foreigners enabled the economy to grow—providing locals with more jobs from which to choose. Like all modern day wars, an exit strategy was nowhere in sight.

Killer rojak
Geylang Serai’s temporary wet market was embroiled in a nasty food poisoning episode in April this year. Two people died after consuming Indian rojak at the market’s hawker center, due to cross-contamination of rojak and bacteria-laden raw seafood ingredients.

A week after the saga, The Online Citizen posed the following pertinent question as one of their blog headlines: 154 casualties. 48 hospitalized. 2 deaths. 122 rats. All the rojak man’s fault?

After all, the market hadn’t undergone any spring-cleaning effort in the three years it had been at the location. A few days after the debacle, one was finally launched and 122 rats were netted. Now, that’s something to chew on.

Floods … yet again
Ahh cold November rain, as William Axel Rose once belted. Those familiar wretched monsoon drenchings left Bukit Timah waist-deep in floods last month. The authorities said that it was merely a “freak” event that occurs once every 50 years. Talk about extremely short memories.

Hands up if you remember the floods of 2006 when rainfall on one particular day was the third-highest recorded in 75 years, with resulting floods destroying all those nurseries on Thomson Road. The Straits Times even did a nice story about a lovely dog that went above and beyond the call of duty. Awww.

Singapore’s blogger du jour Mr. Brown came up with yet another brilliant suggestion while the rest stood bogged in the rain.

He said if the authorities don’t know how to fix the flooding in Singapore’s most upmarket residential area, they should turn Bukit Timah into the Venice of Singapore, full of gondolas and luxury boats. Or failing this, the navy could use the area for submarine drills; that way they needn’t have to go for overseas stints. Genius, that man.

But the authorities are in fact on the case, and will begin the task of widening the water run-off canals soon.

National Stadium still alive and kicking
Speaking about infrastructure projects, here’s one that’s a bit of an embarrassment. After hosting its “final” football match between Australia and Singapore in 2007, the grand old dame of Kallang is still around and kicking.

This is because the Sports Hub that was slated to replace it has been bogged down due to the poor economic climate—the banks aren’t lending, baby. Demolition work is scheduled to begin sometime next year, three years behind schedule.

The minister in charge of sports said that a spanking new facility would be up and running by 2014 with the view to hosting the 2015 SEA Games—this after giving up the hosting of the 2013 edition.

Writers to The Straits Times Forum have labeled the stadium an eyesore of a relic; some contributors even lapsed into the now all-too-familiar, all-too-convenient “what will the tourists think when they see it” spiel.

A little footnote: The foreign workers who will be working the stadium project can rest easy knowing that they’ll be bussed to and from work in relative safety. The Land Transport Authority enacted a whole shelf of stiffer laws earlier this year to protect workers from getting hurled out of the backs of trucks and pick-ups.

Cable football price war
Getting buggered. Although literally a crime in Singapore, metaphorically speaking at least, it’s absolutely legit. Just ask the average football punter wanting to watch a game on TV.

After steady increases in recent years, fans received a bitter dose of things to come when the Red Team snatched the Champions League rights from the Green Team. The Green Team were a little bruised, but not bloodied, and no by no means beaten, and said, “Whatever dudes, we still have the EPL.”

Then before they knew it, the Red Team launched a stinging counter attack that left the Green Team sucker punched and snatched away the EPL from next year onwards. This means new hardware, cables, sockets, jacks, yada yada yada. And although the customer wants nada to do about it, they’re really in one big bind, as how else (nudge-wink, nudge-wink those in the know, know) can they watch their favorite teams without having to switch sides?

The woeful dogfight over footie TV rights has descended to a remarkable low that Singaporeans are now unlikely to get any World Cup matches next year. Oh the horror. C’mon Singapore, get your act together—202 countries have already signed up. Why must we always be special? Economics teaches us that competition is always good for the customer. Well, forced competition like this here does absolutely jack sh*t for everybody. Period.

Swine flu blues
Singapore took its turn on the global stage dancing with the dreaded germ this year, with many deaths chalked up along the way. But, fingers crossed, the worst may be over—and more are getting vaccinated against the dreaded virus daily. However, it must be noted that unlike Hong Kong, flu mask chic didn’t really catch on here.

Beauty queens and need for speaking good English
Ok, any country that expects its beauty queens to be role models held to exacting standards is asking for a fall. And to and extent, that’s what Singaporeans got this year. Coming in quick succession were the curious cases of two lovelies, Rachel Kum and Ris Low.

Kum, last year’s Miss Singapore Universe found herself on the end of a (non) scandal when a clutch of hilarious photographs appeared—depicting the fine-looking, artificially buxomed lass in all manners of juvenile poses.

First there was a photo of her blowing out a birthday cake masquerading as a giant penis, then—also taken at her birthday party—there was this photo where she posed next to some dude decked out in a fashion best described as a walk-about penis. And then there was the, one where she made a blow-up doll’s head get comfortable between her legs. What was the problem again?

Meanwhile—and speaking of cunning linguists—Low was Singapore’s original representative for the recently concluded Miss World in South Africa. But then she gave an online interview where she butchered the English language with such impunity even George W would have cringed in toe-curling horror, peppering the soon-to-be hit viral video with also sorts of lingual inventions like “Boomz”, “Preenz” and “Bigini”.

As the clamor grew for her to step down after being widely labeled as a disgrace, Low soon found herself embroiled in another saga—one where she failed to inform pageant organizers that she had been convicted of credit card fraud in 2009. After being outed as a criminal, Low then (yawn) revealed that she had bipolar disorder and confessed to stealing Pokemon cards when she was seven, and she finally stood down.

Proper English, especially the spoken version, was at the source of many a debate here in Singapore this year.

Lots of folks weren’t happy that predominantly mainland Chinese service staff didn’t give two hoots about acquiring the tongue, and so wrote in en masse to newspapers and websites imploring the authorities to do something.

The authorities swung into action; the Ministry of Manpower announced that from the third quarter of next year, new foreign workers will have to pass an English proficiency test before they can get a work permit as a skilled worker.

Minister of State for Manpower and Trade and Industry Lee Yi Shyan said: “English is the working language in Singapore. This is particularly important in industries such as hotels, retail and F&B, where workers interact regularly with customers.” Right on, minister. Right on

Cooling off period
The government announced a cooling-off period the day before next Polling Day. It’s hoped that the electorate will use the day—no rallies or campaigning will be allowed—to reflect, ponder and mull over “stuff” before heading to the voting booth all blissed out, tanned and relaxed—ready to exercise their democratic rights and cast their votes.

Yeah, right!

Mas Selamat found
So he was in Johor all along. Who would have thought? You’d think if one were on the run from Singapore, the last place you’d want to shack up is in Johor f’n Bahru.

Anyways, after the Malaysian police picked him up, the rumor mill went into full gear—cranking out one bizarre tale after another; one story even had him working as a burger flipper (implausible, we know—what with that crocked leg of his; no way he’d be able to stand around over a hot pan hours on end, or even summon up the faux-cheery enthusiasm to ask, “Would you like fries with that?”).

Another tale—erm, actually it’s the official version from the authorities—was that he actually swam to Johor (fair enough; we too would do our “bestest” to beat them frightful Causeway jams), despite being a weak-ass swimmer. Maybe he used one of those cartoon-motif waist floats and drifted off to our version of Mexico.

But who knows? He might have been a fab swimmer all this while, but never quite got the opportunity to show his talents off at the Whitley Detention Centre. Anyhow, seeing how our male swimmers fared at the recent SEA Games, maybe we should have extradited him from the Malaysian authorities and sent him to Laos. He is after all a foreign-born Singapore citizen, making him more than a right fit in Team Singapore.

Bye bye TV Mobile
And finally, as we say goodbye to 2009, one more farewell is in order. Let’s all give a hearty good riddance to TV Mobile, which will take its bow this December 31.

Charitably labeled a “nuisance” by most commuters when it was first introduced back in 2002, this frivolous service will finally be put out to pasture by its parent company MediaCorp, who deemed it a financial liability.

Once responsible for swathes of passengers missing their bus stops when it screened World Cup games, the death of this service will be a welcome boon to hundreds of thousands of commuters who can finally get home safe and sound without having to gag down reel upon reel of Just For Laughs gags, blaring local dramas and the “news.”

That’s all for this year. See you in 2010.

banking secrecy!

2009-11-23T10:14:00.001+08:00

taken from mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com

It's important to go back to basics and remember why banking secrecy exists in the first place.

Banks hold a lot of information about their customers. If your company is planning an IPO, your bank knows about it. If your business is losing money, your bank knows about it. If you pay your suppliers through your bank account, the bank knows who they are.In fact, just by looking at your credit card statements and bank statements and GIRO arrangements, your bank knows where you shop; what you buy; where you've travelled to; what's your salary; how much you got for your bonus; whether you use Starhub or Singtel; and what's the name and address of that other woman who's not your wife but with whom you share a joint account. Etc etc. That's all private information. It's not anything illegal, but it's private.

Banking secrecy evolved as a legal regime, precisely because the law needs to stop banks from blabbering your private information to people who have no business knowing it. Now of course banking secrecy, as a legal regime, has its own built-in exceptions and qualifications. For example, a bank may legally disclose your information to the police, if you've become a suspect in a criminal case and the police need to know about your money matters. A bank may legally disclose your information to its own professional advisers (eg its own lawyers and auditors). And a bank may legally disclose your information to the tax authorities, if there's a tax-related investigation.

But to say that the world needs to "stamp out bank secrecy" and "fully end the secrecy regime" - that's ridiculous. Newspapers will have a fun time reporting Britney Spears' latest credit card purchases. Your nosey-parker kaypoh auntie might call up your bank to find out how much you really have in your savings account. Banks might sell your telephone number, email address and personal profile to telemarketers selling anything from insurance to club memberships to massage chairs - see how many nuisance calls you get then.

Husband and Wife

2009-11-12T11:21:00.002+08:00

“世界上没有怕老婆的男人,只有疼老婆的男人”.

Ip Man
A famous Chinese Kungfu Master

(translated: in this world there is no man who is scared of his wife, only those who absolutely love them)

Michael Jackson's Oxford Speech

2009-07-09T14:28:00.001+08:00

Heal The Kids - Oxford Speech

Oxford University, March 2001 by Michael Jackson

Thank you, thank you dear friends, from the bottom of my heart, for such a loving and spirited welcome, and thank you, Mr President, for your kind invitation to me which I am so honoured to accept. I also want to express a special thanks to you Shmuley, who for 11 years served as Rabbi here at Oxford. You and I have been working so hard to form Heal the Kids, as well as writing our book about childlike qualities, and in all of our efforts you have been such a supportive and loving friend. And I would also like to thank Toba Friedman, our director of operations at Heal the Kids, who is returning tonight to the alma mater where she served as a Marshall scholar, as well as Marilyn Piels, another central member of our Heal the Kids team.

I am humbled to be lecturing in a place that has previously been filled by such notable figures as Mother Theresa, Albert Einstein, Ronald Reagan, Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X. I've even heard that Kermit the Frog has made an appearance here, and I've always felt a kinship with Kermit's message that it's not easy being green. I'm sure he didn't find it any easier being up here than I do!

As I looked around Oxford today, I couldn't help but be aware of the majesty and grandeur of this great institution, not to mention the brilliance of the great and gifted minds that have roamed these streets for centuries. The walls of Oxford have not only housed the greatest philosophical and scientific geniuses - they have also ushered forth some of the most cherished creators of children's literature, from J.R.R. Tolkien to CS Lewis. Today I was allowed to hobble into the dining hall in Christ Church to see Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland immortalised in the stained glass windows. And even one of my own fellow Americans, the beloved Dr Seuss graced these halls and then went on to leave his mark on the imaginations of millions of children throughout the world.

I suppose I should start by listing my qualifications to speak before you this evening. Friends, I do not claim to have the academic expertise of other speakers who have addressed this hall, just as they could lay little claim at being adept at the moonwalk - and you know, Einstein in particular was really TERRIBLE at that.

But I do have a claim to having experienced more places and cultures than most people will ever see. Human knowledge consists not only of libraries of parchment and ink - it is also comprised of the volumes of knowledge that are written on the human heart, chiselled on the human soul, and engraved on the human psyche. And friends, I have encountered so much in this relatively short life of mine that I still cannot believe I am only 42. I often tell Shmuley that in soul years I'm sure that I'm at least 80 - and tonight I even walk like I'm 80! So please harken to my message, because what I have to tell you tonight can bring healing to humanity and healing to our planet.

Through the grace of God, I have been fortunate to have achieved many of my artistic and professional aspirations realised early in my lifetime. But these, friends are accomplishments, and accomplishments alone are not synonymous with who I am. Indeed, the cheery five-year-old who belted out Rockin' Robin and Ben to adoring crowds was not indicative of the boy behind the smile.

Tonight, I come before you less as an icon of pop (whatever that means anyway), and more as an icon of a generation, a generation that no longer knows what it means to be children.

All of us are products of our childhood. But I am the product of a lack of a childhood, an absence of that precious and wondrous age when we frolic playfully without a care in the world, basking in the adoration of parents and relatives, where our biggest concern is studying for that big spelling test come Monday morning.

Those of you who are familiar with the Jackson Five know that I began performing at the tender age of five and that ever since then, I haven't stopped dancing or singing. But while performing and making music undoubtedly remain as some of my greatest joys, when I was young I wanted more than anything else to be a typical little boy. I wanted to build tree houses, have water balloon fights, and play hide and seek with my friends. But fate had it otherwise and all I could do was envy the laughter and playtime that seemed to be going on all around me.

There was no respite from my professional life. But on Sundays I would go Pioneering, the term used for the missionary work that Jehovah's Witnesses do. And it was then that I was able to see the magic of other people's childhood.

Since I was already a celebrity, I would have to don a disguise of fat suit, wig, beard and glasses and we would spend the day in the suburbs of Southern California, going door-to-door or making the rounds of shopping malls, distributing our Watchtower magazine. I loved to set foot in all those regular suburban houses and catch sight of the shag rugs and La-Z-Boy armchairs with kids playing Monopoly and grandmas baby-sitting and all those wonderful, ordinary and starry scenes of everyday life. Many, I know, would argue that these things seem like no big deal. But to me they were mesmerising.

I used to think that I was unique in feeling that I was without a childhood. I believed that indeed there were only a handful with whom I could share those feelings. When I recently met with Shirley Temple Black, the great child star of the 1930s and 40s, we said nothing to each other at first, we simply cried together, for she could share a pain with me that only others like my close friends Elizabeth Taylor and McCauley Culkin know.

I do not tell you this to gain your sympathy but to impress upon you my first important point : It is not just Hollywood child stars that have suffered from a non-existent childhood. Today, it's a universal calamity, a global catastrophe. Childhood has become the great casualty of modern-day living. All around us we are producing scores of kids who have not had the joy, who have not been accorded the right, who have not been allowed the freedom, or knowing what it's like to be a kid.

Today children are constantly encouraged to grow up faster, as if this period known as childhood is a burdensome stage, to be endured and ushered through, as swiftly as possible. And on that subject, I am certainly one of the world's greatest experts.

Ours is a generation that has witnessed the abrogation of the parent-child covenant. Psychologists are publishing libraries of books detailing the destructive effects of denying one's children the unconditional love that is so necessary to the healthy development of their minds and character. And because of all the neglect, too many of our kids have, essentially, to raise themselves. They are growing more distant from their parents, grandparents and other family members, as all around us the indestructible bond that once glued together the generations, unravels.

This violation has bred a new generation, Generation O let us call it, that has now picked up the torch from Generation X. The O stands for a generation that has everything on the outside - wealth, success, fancy clothing and fancy cars, but an aching emptiness on the inside. That cavity in our chests, that barrenness at our core, that void in our centre is the place where the heart once beat and which love once occupied.

And it's not just the kids who are suffering. It's the parents as well. For the more we cultivate little-adults in kids'-bodies, the more removed we ourselves become from our own child-like qualities, and there is so much about being a child that is worth retaining in adult life.

Love, ladies and gentlemen, is the human family's most precious legacy, its richest bequest, its golden inheritance. And it is a treasure that is handed down from one generation to another. Previous ages may not have had the wealth we enjoy. Their houses may have lacked electricity, and they squeezed their many kids into small homes without central heating. But those homes had no darkness, nor were they cold. They were lit bright with the glow of love and they were warmed snugly by the very heat of the human heart. Parents, undistracted by the lust for luxury and status, accorded their children primacy in their lives.

As you all know, our two countries broke from each other over what Thomas Jefferson referred to as "certain inalienable rights". And while we Americans and British might dispute the justice of his claims, what has never been in dispute is that children have certain inalienable rights, and the gradual erosion of those rights has led to scores of children worldwide being denied the joys and security of childhood.

I would therefore like to propose tonight that we install in every home a Children's Universal Bill of Rights, the tenets of which are:

1. The right to be loved without having to earn it

2. The right to be protected, without having to deserve it

3. The right to feel valuable, even if you came into the world with nothing

4. The right to be listened to without having to be interesting

5. The right to be read a bedtime story, without having to compete with the evening news

6. The right to an education without having to dodge bullets at schools

7. The right to be thought of as adorable - (even if you have a face that only a mother could love).

Friends, the foundation of all human knowledge, the beginning of human consciousness, must be that each and every one of us is an object of love. Before you know if you have red hair or brown, before you know if you are black or white, before you know of what religion you are a part, you have to know that you are loved.

About twelve years ago, when I was just about to start my Bad tour, a little boy came with his parents to visit me at home in California. He was dying of cancer and he told me how much he loved my music and me. His parents told me that he wasn't going to live, that any day he could just go, and I said to him: "Look, I am going to be coming to your town in Kansas to open my tour in three months. I want you to come to the show. I am going to give you this jacket that I wore in one of my videos." His eyes lit up and he said: "You are gonna GIVE it to me?" I said "Yeah, but you have to promise that you will wear it to the show." I was trying to make him hold on. I said: "When you come to the show I want to see you in this jacket and in this glove" and I gave him one of my rhinestone gloves - and I never usually give the rhinestone gloves away. And he was just in heaven.

But maybe he was too close to heaven, because when I came to his town, he had already died, and they had buried him in the glove and jacket. He was just 10 years old. God knows, I know, that he tried his best to hold on. But at least when he died, he knew that he was loved, not only by his parents, but even by me, a near stranger, I also loved him. And with all of that love he knew that he didn't come into this world alone, and he certainly didn't leave it alone.

If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can he dealt with. A professor may degrade you, but you will not feel degraded, a boss may crush you, but you will not be crushed, a corporate gladiator might vanquish you, but you will still triumph. How could any of them truly prevail in pulling you down? For you know that you are an object worthy of love. The rest is just packaging.

But if you don't have that memory of being loved, you are condemned to search the world for something to fill you up. But no matter how much money you make or how famous you become, you will still fell empty. What you are really searching for is unconditional love, unqualified acceptance. And that was the one thing that was denied to you at birth.

Friends, let me paint a picture for you. Here is a typical day in America - six youths under the age of 20 will commit suicide, 12 children under the age of 20 will die from firearms - remember this is a DAY, not a year - 399 kids will be arrested for drug abuse, 1,352 babies will be born to teen mothers. This is happening in one of the richest, most developed countries in the history of the world.

Yes, in my country there is an epidemic of violence that parallels no other industrialised nation. These are the ways young people in America express their hurt and their anger. But don't think that there is not the same pain and anguish among their counterparts in the United Kingdom. Studies in this country show that every single hour, three teenagers in the UK inflict harm upon themselves, often by cutting or burning their bodies or taking an overdose. This is how they have chosen to cope with the pain of neglect and emotional agony.

In Britain, as many as 20% of families will only sit down and have dinner together once a year. Once a year! And what about the time-honoured tradition of reading your kid a bedtime story? Research from the 1980s showed that children who are read to, had far greater literacy and significantly outperformed their peers at school. And yet, less than 33% of British children ages two to eight have a regular bedtime story read to them. You may not think much of that until you take into account that 75% of their parents DID have that bedtime story when they were that age.

Clearly, we do not have to ask ourselves where all of this pain, anger and violent behaviour comes from. It is self-evident that children are thundering against the neglect, quaking against the indifference and crying out just to be noticed. The various child protection agencies in the US say that millions of children are victims of maltreatment in the form of neglect, in the average year. Yes, neglect. In rich homes, privileged homes, wired to the hilt with every electronic gadget. Homes where parents come home, but they're not really home, because their heads are still at the office. And their kids? Well, their kids just make do with whatever emotional crumbs they get. And you don't get much from endless TV, computer games and videos.

These hard, cold numbers which for me, wrench the soul and shake the spirit, should indicate to you why I have devoted so much of my time and resources into making our new Heal the Kids initiative a colossal success.

Our goal is simple - to recreate the parent/child bond, renew its promise and light the way forward for all the beautiful children who are destined one day to walk this earth.

But since this is my first public lecture, and you have so warmly welcomed me into your hearts, I feel that I want to tell you more. We each have our own story, and in that sense statistics can become personal.

They say that parenting is like dancing. You take one step, your child takes another. I have discovered that getting parents to re-dedicate themselves to their children is only half the story. The other half is preparing the children to re-accept their parents.

When I was very young I remember that we had this crazy mutt of a dog named "Black Girl," a mix of wolf and retriever. Not only wasn't she much of a guard dog, she was such a scared and nervous thing that it is a wonder she did not pass out every time a truck rumbled by, or a thunderstorm swept through Indiana. My sister Janet and I gave that dog so much love, but we never really won back the sense of trust that had been stolen from her by her previous owner. We knew he used to beat her. We didn't know with what. But whatever it was, it was enough to suck the spirit right out of that dog.

A lot of kids today are hurt puppies who have weaned themselves off the need for love. They couldn't care less about their parents. Left to their own devices, they cherish their independence. They have moved on and have left their parents behind.

Then there are the far worse cases of children who harbour animosity and resentment toward their parents, so that any overture that their parents might undertake would be thrown forcefully back in their face.

Tonight, I don't want any of us to make this mistake. That's why I'm calling upon all the world's children - beginning with all of us here tonight - to forgive our parents, if we felt neglected. Forgive them and teach them how to love again.

You probably weren't surprised to hear that I did not have an idyllic childhood. The strain and tension that exists in my relationship with my own father is well documented. My father is a tough man and he pushed my brothers and me hard, from the earliest age, to be the best performers we could be.

He had great difficulty showing affection. He never really told me he loved me. And he never really complimented me either. If I did a great show, he would tell me it was a good show. And if I did an OK show, he told me it was a lousy show.

He seemed intent, above all else, on making us a commercial success. And at that he was more than adept. My father was a managerial genius and my brothers and I owe our professional success, in no small measure, to the forceful way that he pushed us. He trained me as a showman and under his guidance I couldn't miss a step.

But what I really wanted was a Dad. I wanted a father who showed me love. And my father never did that. He never said I love you while looking me straight in the eye, he never played a game with me. He never gave me a piggyback ride, he never threw a pillow at me, or a water balloon.

But I remember once when I was about four years old, there was a little carnival and he picked me up and put me on a pony. It was a tiny gesture, probably something he forgot five minutes later. But because of that moment I have this special place in my heart for him. Because that's how kids are, the little things mean so much to them and for me, that one moment meant everything. I only experienced it that one time, but it made me feel really good, about him and the world.

But now I am a father myself, and one day I was thinking about my own children, Prince and Paris and how I wanted them to think of me when they grow up. To be sure, I would like them to remember how I always wanted them with me wherever I went, how I always tried to put them before everything else. But there are also challenges in their lives. Because my kids are stalked by paparazzi, they can't always go to a park or a movie with me.

So what if they grow older and resent me, and how my choices impacted their youth? Why weren't we given an average childhood like all the other kids, they might ask? And at that moment I pray that my children will give me the benefit of the doubt. That they will say to themselves: "Our daddy did the best he could, given the unique circumstances that he faced. He may not have been perfect, but he was a warm and decent man, who tried to give us all the love in the world."

I hope that they will always focus on the positive things, on the sacrifices I willingly made for them, and not criticise the things they had to give up, or the errors I've made, and will certainly continue to make, in raising them. For we have all been someone's child, and we know that despite the very best of plans and efforts, mistakes will always occur. That's just being human.

And when I think about this, of how I hope that my children will not judge me unkindly, and will forgive my shortcomings, I am forced to think of my own father and despite my earlier denials, I am forced to admit that me must have loved me. He did love me, and I know that.

There were little things that showed it. When I was a kid I had a real sweet tooth - we all did. My favourite food was glazed doughnuts and my father knew that. So every few weeks I would come downstairs in the morning and there on the kitchen counter was a bag of glazed doughnuts - no note, no explanation - just the doughnuts. It was like Santa Claus.

Sometimes I would think about staying up late at night, so I could see him leave them there, but just like with Santa Claus, I didn't want to ruin the magic for fear that he would never do it again. My father had to leave them secretly at night, so as no one might catch him with his guard down. He was scared of human emotion, he didn't understand it or know how to deal with it. But he did know doughnuts.

And when I allow the floodgates to open up, there are other memories that come rushing back, memories of other tiny gestures, however imperfect, that showed that he did what he could. So tonight, rather than focusing on what my father didn't do, I want to focus on all the things he did do and on his own personal challenges. I want to stop judging him.

I have started reflecting on the fact that my father grew up in the South, in a very poor family. He came of age during the Depression and his own father, who struggled to feed his children, showed little affection towards his family and raised my father and his siblings with an iron fist. Who could have imagined what it was like to grow up a poor black man in the South, robbed of dignity, bereft of hope, struggling to become a man in a world that saw my father as subordinate. I was the first black artist to be played on MTV and I remember how big a deal it was even then. And that was in the 80s!

My father moved to Indiana and had a large family of his own, working long hours in the steel mills, work that kills the lungs and humbles the spirit, all to support his family. Is it any wonder that he found it difficult to expose his feelings? Is it any mystery that he hardened his heart, that he raised the emotional ramparts? And most of all, is it any wonder why he pushed his sons so hard to succeed as performers, so that they could be saved from what he knew to be a life of indignity and poverty?

I have begun to see that even my father's harshness was a kind of love, an imperfect love, to be sure, but love nonetheless. He pushed me because he loved me. Because he wanted no man ever to look down at his offspring.

And now with time, rather than bitterness, I feel blessing. In the place of anger, I have found absolution. And in the place of revenge I have found reconciliation. And my initial fury has slowly given way to forgiveness.

Almost a decade ago, I founded a charity called Heal the World. The title was something I felt inside me. Little did I know, as Shmuley later pointed out, that those two words form the cornerstone of Old Testament prophecy. Do I really believe that we can heal this world, that is riddled with war and genocide, even today? And do I really think that we can heal our children, the same children who can enter their schools with guns and hatred and shoot down their classmates, like they did at Columbine? Or children who can beat a defenceless toddler to death, like the tragic story of Jamie Bulger? Of course I do, or I wouldn't be here tonight.

But it all begins with forgiveness, because to heal the world, we first have to heal ourselves. And to heal the kids, we first have to heal the child within, each and every one of us. As an adult, and as a parent, I realise that I cannot be a whole human being, nor a parent capable of unconditional love, until I put to rest the ghosts of my own childhood.

And that's what I'm asking all of us to do tonight. Live up to the fifth of the Ten Commandments. Honour your parents by not judging them. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

That is why I want to forgive my father and to stop judging him. I want to forgive my father, because I want a father, and this is the only one that I've got. I want the weight of my past lifted from my shoulders and I want to be free to step into a new relationship with my father, for the rest of my life, unhindered by the goblins of the past.

In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.

To all of you tonight who feel let down by your parents, I ask you to let down your disappointment. To all of you tonight who feel cheated by your fathers or mothers, I ask you not to cheat yourself further. And to all of you who wish to push your parents away, I ask you to extend you hand to them instead. I am asking you, I am asking myself, to give our parents the gift of unconditional love, so that they too may learn how to love from us, their children. So that love will finally be restored to a desolate and lonely world.

Shmuley once mentioned to me an ancient Biblical prophecy which says that a new world and a new time would come, when "the hearts of the parents would be restored through the hearts of their children". My friends, we are that world, we are those children.

Mahatma Gandhi said: "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." Tonight, be strong. Beyond being strong, rise to the greatest challenge of all - to restore that broken covenant. We must all overcome whatever crippling effects our childhoods may have had on our lives and in the words of Jesse Jackson, forgive each other, redeem each other and move on.

This call for forgiveness may not result in Oprah moments the world over, with thousands of children making up with their parents, but it will at least be a start, and we'll all be so much happier as a result.

And so ladies and gentlemen, I conclude my remarks tonight with faith, joy and excitement.

From this day forward, may a new song be heard.

Let that new song be the sound of children laughing.

Let that new song be the sound of children playing.

Let that new song be the sound of children singing.

And let that new song be the sound of parents listening.

Together, let us create a symphony of hearts, marvelling at the miracle of our children and basking in the beauty of love.

Let us heal the world and blight its pain.

And may we all make beautiful music together.

God bless you, and I love you.

A quick one on Leadership.

2009-05-13T12:30:00.002+08:00

"Of course, [Obama]'s oratory is today unmatched. But his courage — the courage to go first, to lead, where none have gone before — is doubly unmatched.

When he speaks, he gives those who hear him confidence: not in him but in themselves. It was said of Cicero that when people heard him, they turned to one another and said, "Great speech"; but when Demosthenes spoke, people turned to one another and said, "Let's march."

All around the world people are marching with Barack Obama."

Gordon Brown, in a Time Magazine article on Barack Obama

When we went flying kites.

2009-05-04T14:41:00.002+08:00

at lunch time i had a flashback.

when i was about 10 or 11 and my sister was about 4 or 5, i remember bringing her to the large empty field across our house and flew kites.

she was super cute back then and we had so much fun laughing and tumbling around in the broad, green lush.

sometimes, we just need to cherish moments like this.

note: the same field now has multi-HDB blocks, while the sister is now a blob. kite flying has become a rarity in Singapore.

everybody hurts.

2009-02-23T16:12:00.000+08:00

人有悲欢离合, 月有阴晴圆缺, 此事古难全。To part is inevitable.
Su Dong Bo (苏东坡).

天长地久有时尽, 此恨绵绵无绝期。The loss is an eternal pain
Bai Ju Yi (白居易),

The Humiliation of America

2009-02-04T16:24:00.000+08:00

The White House Moron Stumbles to the Finish

The Humiliation of America

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

"Early Friday morning the secretary of state was considering bringing the cease-fire resolution to a UNSC vote and we didn't want her to vote for it," Olmert said. "I said 'get President Bush on the phone.' They tried and told me he was in the middle of a lecture in Philadelphia. I said 'I'm not interested, I need to speak to him now.' He got down from the podium, went out and took the phone call."

"Let me see if I understand this," wrote a friend in response to news reports that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert ordered President Bush from the podium where he was giving a speech to receive Israel's instructions about how the United States had to vote on the UN resolution. "On September 11th, President Bush is interrupted while reading a story to school children and told the World Trade Center had been hit--and he went on reading. Now, Olmert calls about a UN resolution when Bush is giving a speech and Bush leaves the stage to take the call. There exists no greater example of a master-servant relationship."

Olmert gloated as he told Israelis how he had shamed US Secretary of State Condi Rice by preventing the American Secretary of State from supporting a resolution that she had helped to craft. Olmert proudly related how he had interrupted President Bush's speech in order to give Bush his marching orders on the UN vote.

Israeli politicians have been bragging for decades about the control they exercise over the US government. In his final press conference, President Bush, deluded to the very end, said that the whole world respects America. In fact, when the world looks at America, what it sees is an Israeli colony.

Responding to mounting reports from the Red Cross and human rights organizations of Israel's massive war crimes in Gaza, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted 33-1 on January 12 to condemn Israel for grave offenses against human rights.

On January 13, the London Times reported that Israelis have gathered on a hillside overlooking Gaza to enjoy the slaughter of Palestinians in what the Times calls "the ultimate spectator sport."

It is American supplied F-16 fighter jets, helicopter gunships, missiles, and bombs that are destroying the civilian infrastructure of Gaza and murdering the Palestinians who have been packed into the tiny strip of land. What is happening to the Palestinians herded into the Gaza Ghetto is happening because of American money and weapons. It is just as much an attack by the United States as an attack by Israel. The US government is complicit in the war crimes.

Yet in his farewell press conference on January 12, Bush said that the world respects America for its compassion.

The compassion of bombing a UN school for girls?

The compassion of herding 100 Palestinians into one house and then shelling it?

The compassion of bombing hospitals and mosques?

The compassion of depriving 1.5 million Palestinians of food, medicine, and energy?

The compassion of violently overthrowing the democratically elected Hamas government?

The compassion of blowing up the infrastructure of one of the poorest and most deprived people on earth?

The compassion of abstaining from a Security Council vote condemning these actions?

And this is a repeat of what the Israelis and Americans did to Lebanon in 2006, what the Americans did to Iraqis for six years and are continuing to do to Afghans after seven years. And still hope to do to the Iranians and Syrians.

In 2002 I designated George W. Bush "the White House Moron." If there ever was any doubt about this designation, Bush's final press conference dispelled it.

Bush talked about connecting the dots, but Bush has failed to connect any dots for eight solid years. "Our" president was a puppet for a cabal led by Dick Cheney and a handful of Jewish neoconservatives, who took control of the Pentagon, the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, and "Homeland Security." From these power positions, the neocon cabal used lies and deception to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, pointless wars that have cost Americans $3 trillion, while millions of Americans lose their jobs, their pensions, and their access to health care.

"These obviously very difficult economic times," Bush said in his press conference, "started before my presidency."

Bush has plenty of liberal company in failing to connect a $3 trillion dollar war with hard times. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities blames Bush's tax cut, not the wars, for "the fiscal deterioration."

Bush told the White House Press Corps, a useless collection of non-journalists, that the two mistakes of his invasion of Iraq were: (1) Putting up the "mission accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier, which, he said, "sent the wrong message," and (2) the absence of the alleged weapons of mass destruction that he used to justify the invasion.

Although Bush now admits that there were not any such weapons in Iraq, Bush said that the invasion was still the right thing to do.

The deaths of 1.25 million Iraqis, the displacement of 4 million Iraqis, and the destruction of a country's infrastructure and economy are merely the collateral damage associated with "bringing freedom and democracy" to the Middle East.

Unless George W. Bush is the best actor in human history, he truly believes what he told the White House Press Corps.

What Bush did not explain is how America is respected when its people put a moron in charge for eight years.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.

christmas is NOT about jesus.

2009-01-12T17:27:00.001+08:00

The holiday season comes from the winter solstice, the first day of winter, which is the shortest day of the year. Usually falling on December 21st, it has been celebrated in the northern hemisphere since prehistoric times. It was marked as the beginning of "the return of the sun" because, after that, the days start getting longer.

The ancient Hebrews referred to the winter solstice as the rebirth of light, calling it Nayrot, the festival of lights. When Judah Maccabee defeated the Greeks and captured Jerusalem in 164 BCE, he rededicated the temple shrine during Nayrot, renaming the holiday Hanukkah. But because the Jewish calculation of Hanukkah is based on a lunar rather than solar calendar, Hanukkah can begin almost any time in December.

The ancient Romans held their festival of Saturnalia, the feast of Saturn, at this time. It featured wild parties, gift giving, and halls decked with laurel. However, they miscalculated the solstice date, seeing it as falling variously on December 23rd to 25th.

When Roman Catholicism replaced ancient polytheism, the Church found it practical to adopt the old Roman holiday, renaming it Christ’s Mass. But this popular move, made in the third century, didn’t meet with complete approval. Christians in the Middle East viewed their European brethren as idolaters and sun worshippers for repackaging this pagan festival as the birthday of Jesus.

As Christianity spread across Europe, the various “barbarian” cultures added their own pre-Christian solstice practices to Christmas. Thus the evergreen tree was introduced by Germanic peoples; holly and mistletoe, sacred to the Druids, came from the Celts; and the Yule log and caroling were provided by the Anglo-Saxons.

But some Christians condemned these trappings, especially the Christmas tree, citing Jeremiah 10:1-5 in the Bible: “Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen . . . for one cutteth a tree out of the forest. . . . They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.”

In the early American colonies, most Protestants wouldn't celebrate Christmas, viewing it as a Catholic holiday. This was why George Washington's largely Protestant troops didn't object to crossing the Delaware on Christmas night to attack the Catholic Hessians the next morning. It was just another day to them.

Only in the 1800s did the holiday begin to gain wider acceptance. Northern European customs were introduced into the United States by the flow of immigrants. So numerous individuals set out deliberately to fashion a secular celebration of the season that would be acceptable to Protestants.

American cartoonist Thomas Nast created the secular Santa Claus out of the varied European "Old Man Winter" folk images (having their roots in the Norse god Odin). Some fabled attributes of the Catholic Saint Nicholas were added. As for the colors of Santa's suit, they were quite varied until codified in the twentieth century by Coca Cola through its advertising.

The song “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” featuring the line “so be good for goodness sake,” was written in 1934 by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie as a holiday children’s song. It became instantly popular when Eddie Cantor sang it on his radio show that November.

Deep thinking in mandarin..

2009-01-06T12:31:00.001+08:00

花开花谢，潮起潮落.
日生日落，人来人往.

----

and in total randomness... i feel like playing texas poker!

Worst 5 money predictions of '08

2008-12-22T14:20:00.001+08:00

Sun, Dec 21, 2008
The New Paper

Worst 5 money predictions of '08

1 Jan 2008

PREDICTION: ACCORDING to the Chief Executive magazine's annual poll, US CEOs expect the Dow Jones Industrial Average to sit at around 13,359, oil prices to be at US$96 a barrel and US Federal Reserve funds rate to remain at 4.25 per cent by the end of 2008.

REALITY: Fast forward to Wednesday, and the Dow is still largely directionless at 8,824, oil prices are at a four-year low of around US$40 a barrel and Fed rates are now at near zero per cent.

Oil, which peaked in July at about US$147 in July, could even decline to US$25 next year ' despite the OPEC production cuts.

2 Mar 2008

PREDICTION: Jim Cramer, the volatile host of CNBC's Mad Money programme, when responding to a viewer's e-mail, arrogantly asserted:

'Peter writes: "Should I be worried about Bear Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my money out of there?"

"No! No! No! Bear Stearns is fine! Do not take your money out! Bear Stearns is not in trouble."

"I mean, if anything they're more likely to be taken over. Don't move your money from Bear! That's just being silly! Don't be silly!"

REALITY: Hopefully, Peter (the viewer put down by loud-mouthed Cramer) had the cow-sense to seek a second opinion. Six days after the show's broadcast, Bear Stearns was sold for a pittance to JPMorgan Chase - after widespread speculation about the investment bank's massive exposure to subprime mortgage.

4 Sep 2008

PREDICTION: Donald Luskin, in his article 'Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line' (appearing in The Washington Post), boldly proclaimed:

"Anyone who says we're in a recession, or heading into one - especially the worst one since the Great Depression - is making up his own private definition of 'recession'."

REALITY: The day after Luskin's self-delusional forecast, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. And the rest is history.

5 Nov 2008

PREDICTION: Outgoing US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, on National Public Radio, prematurely bragged about the improved health of US banks:

"I believe the banking system has been stabilised. No one is asking themselves anymore, is there some major institution that might fail and that we would able to do anything about it."

REALITY: Paulson, who emerged in October with a US$700 billion 'bazooka' to blast away toxic assets in troubled US banks, ended up acquiring direct equity stakes instead (a move he himself had rejected earlier).

Unfortunately for Paulson, shortly later, Citigroup's stock price plunged 75 per cent in one week - closing below US$5 for the first time in 14 years.

June 2007

PREDICTION: Dennis Blair and Kenneth Lieberthal, in their Foreign Policy essay 'Smooth Sailing: The World's Shipping Lanes Are Safe', declared:

'In reality the risks to maritime flows of oil are far smaller than is commonly assumed. Tankers are much less vulnerable than conventional wisdom holds.

Limited regional conflicts would be unlikely to seriously upset traffic, and terrorist attacks against shipping would have even less of an economic effect.'

REALITY: On Wednesday, the United Nations said Somali pirates in inflatable rafts have made US$120 million ($175 million) in pirate attacks this year. In two months, they had hijacked 30 ships.

The UN on Wednesday approved air and sea attacks on Somali pirate bases.

Does it pay to be kind?

2008-11-28T12:11:00.003+08:00

D recounted this story that I thought I should blog about:

(for non-singaporeans reading this, usually we have folks trying to eke out a decent living by selling 3 packets of tissues for $1 on the streets or at cafes. it's also worthwhile to note usually 20 packets will cost $1)

D and K went out for dinner, then D saw a poor old lady (henceforth POL) squatting by an intersection selling tissue papers. After occassionally observing her for 20minutes, D realised no one was buying it from her, so D gave K $2 to go buy a few packets.

D had expected the POL to offer up like probably 6 packets or 3 packets with change. "K, just give her $2 and get like maybe 2 packets, one for you and one for me", so said D.

(at this point I must add that K is a handsome eurasian that looks more european-ish)

K walks up with the $2 and handed it to POL. Like D, K expected POL to give 6 packets or 3 packets with change. The POL looked up, determined K was white (non-asian, hence easy to cheat), smiled..

and proceeded to give K only 1 packet of tissue.

yup. $2 for 1 packet of tissue.

(at this point, i told D that the economy is bad these days, inflation and the credit crunch might have played a part.)

-----

Naturally K whined about the tissue packets for a while, but K subsequently related another story to D

K was in London at a bus stop and one of the folks waiting at the bus stop approached K and asked for some loose change to take the bus, saying that he had no money.

K, being the nice person that he is, shelled out about a few pennies but the person saw that K had a few gold coins (gold coins = 1 pound) and asked for it as well.

K, not knowing what are the actual costs of bus fares (he was using the tourist card), reluctantly agreed. Worthwhile to note he was doing a good deed here.

Just then, the bus came and the person got up the bus before K. Horrors, K saw that he person actually flashed a disabled pass and got into the bus for free!!

(In London, they give free bus-passes to the disabled, including the mentally disabled folks.)

"F**king hell he took my money NOT to take buses!!" K fumes.

-------

Footnote: JZ told D that he has an inherent heart of goodness and will continue to donate regularly to the "Buy-D-a-Diamond" fund.

so cute!!

2008-11-19T23:37:00.000+08:00

the useless metal.

2008-11-04T13:37:00.001+08:00

Quote of the Day

"[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head."

Warren Buffet

my fingers want to speak what the mouth cannot bear to say.

2008-10-14T11:47:00.002+08:00

the day my mum passed away, was truly the saddest day of my life.

Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

2008-08-12T17:05:00.002+08:00

Speech by Adrian Tan (writer of the Teenage Textbook) to the NTU graduating class of 2008

***

Life and How to Survive It

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It's a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You're done learning.

You've probably been told the big lie that "Learning is a lifelong process" and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to
be repeat customers.

The good news is that they're wrong.

The bad news is that you don't need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You're in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I'm here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and
restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.

I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term "Karoshi", which means death from overwork. That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are "making a living". No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn't do that, I would've been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction - probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don't imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I'll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don't, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I'm not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it's often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that
you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn't say "be loved". That requires too much compromise. If one changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance.
It is hard work - the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn't happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don't, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

You're going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there's no life expectancy

A question about the Bible.

2008-07-22T16:00:00.001+08:00

If there was no death in Eden, all animals must have been vegetarians, so why is the lion designed to eat meat?

The crazy idea of hate.

2008-07-22T15:23:00.002+08:00

1. The Japanese have apologised to China on numerous occassions for WWII. For example Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995, or PM Ryutaro Hashimoto in 1997, or Junichiro Koizumi in 2005.

2. China signed a joint communiqué in 1972 waiving all war reparations, and in 1978 signed a treat of peace and friendship with Japan.

3. When the war ended Japan left about US$100 billion of assets in China, which it agreed to leave as reparation.

4. Japan is China’s number one aid donor.

5. The oft-repeated claim that the Japanese killed 300,000 in the Nanjing Massacre is now widely agreed by scholars as not true. The actual figure stood closer to 40,000.

Getting life's priorities right

2008-07-21T14:30:00.000+08:00

A PATIENT once told me: "You know what, doctor, when I was told that I have cancer, suddenly all my shares, my properties and my brand-new car have no more meaning."

Yet, the attachment that some Singaporeans have to their cars never fails to amaze me.

When they notice scratches on their vehicles after shooing off a cat resting on them, for example, they would complain to their condominium management or the town council. These motorists get so angry with the destruction of their "happiness" that they will not rest their case until the cats in the carparks are removed.

In the Housing & Development Board carpark where I park my car, there is a cat which would occasionally rest on car bonnets, including mine. I have found its paw marks on my windscreen several times, but there are no scratches on my car, just a few small dents that are definitely not caused by a cat. Whenever I see the cat resting on other cars, I would shoo it off and brush its hair off the vehicles so that the motorists would not complain about the cat's presence.

To me, what is important about a car is that it is functioning well enough to be safe on the road. So what if it has scratches or dents? Cars are bound to get such marks.The car does not feel the scratches. Rather, it is our attachment to the car that makes us feel the pain.

The patient who spoke to me became depressed after he was diagnosed with cancer, but his condition improved after he took stock of what was truly important in his life. When he was near his life's end, I asked him if he was afraid. He said no. He had done no harm to others, he said, and he remembered the good things that he had done. He also relished the happiness he had brought to others.

He died peacefully.

Dr Tan Chek Wee

Wed, Jul 09, 2008, my paper

there's no point being the richest man in the cemetry.

2008-07-16T14:58:00.000+08:00

Five Lessons for Financial Panics

Baron Rothschild's adage was to "Buy when there's blood in the streets." Mine is "buy when CNBC starts telling you to short the market." Last Tuesday, CNBC exhorted its viewers to consider shorting stocks. Jim Cramer followed up a few days later by urging his followers to "sell everything" except commodities stocks. My gut says these are classic stock market "tells" that signal a contrarian buying opportunity, but I could be wrong. And that is the beauty of a financial panic and our first lesson.

Lesson #1: Nobody knows where the market bottom is.

It may be hard to believe, but your guess on the stock market bottom is as good as anyone's. That anyone includes Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Bill Gross, George Soros, Warren Buffett, Lloyd Blankfein and even Jim Cramer.

In six months, the media will dig up some lucky market analyst who made a "remarkably prescient" call and turn them into a hero, a la Elaine Garzarelli, the analyst credited with predicting the Crash of 1987.

Lesson #2: Do not sell into a panic.

Anyone who sold their stocks on Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987, came to almost immediately regret it. I know I did. I was a junior banker in London and watched the meltdown on our lone department Quotron.

My brain said, "Hang on, hang on." My wallet said, "Run for your life." With one phone call, I sold every Fidelity stock fund I had and promptly lost a quarter of my net worth.

The temptation to panic is primal. Be a man, not a monkey.

Lesson #3: Look forward, not backward.

Does anybody remember how negative sentiment was in October 2002? The S&P 500 was down almost 50% from its record of 2000. The Nasdaq Composite Index was off 75%. I had just returned from 10 years in Europe to run the UBS tech banking group.

What struck me when I first visited Silicon Valley was how negative everyone was. That was because my colleagues and clients saw the world through the distorted prism of the Internet boom. They couldn't see the tech market getting better in the future, because the tech market couldn't be any better than it had just been.

The market looks forward, but people like to look backward. A Cisco Systems shareholder that owned the stock at $77 has trouble forgetting that $77 price when the stock falls to $15. In time, it doubled to $30.

Is Citigroup at today's closing price of $16.76 so different? Wall Street in 2008 is Silicon Valley in 2002. It will get better in time.

Lesson #4: It's investing, not gambling.

Why do we obsess over our ability to pick the bottom or top of a stock price or the market? Statistically, it is a total crap shoot.

As Bernard Baruch said, "Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars."

Financial panics bring out the worst in these tendencies. All this weekend, I was chewing over whether or not it was the right time to buy the XLF, the financial sector ETF that is trading at nearly half its record high.

I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I know that picking a bottom is a mugs game. Admittedly, an awfully tempting one. Better to use common sense. Set price and allocation targets, space out investments over time.

Since the beginning of this year, I have made fund purchases on about 20 different dates with an average cost base equivalent to an S&P 500 level of 1346. On that money, I am down about 5%. There are mutual funds that charge that much for an up-front load. Investing like this won't make you rich, but you won't gamble yourself into the poorhouse either.

Lesson #5: It's only money.

There is no point in fighting the tape or your emotions as the market is gripped by panic. Next time the Dow industrials are down 300 and heading down further, do what you make your children do: take a time out. Turn off CNBC, your computer and BlackBerry and leave the office. (Wall Street professionals, unfortunately, this doesn't apply to you. You will get fired.)

I am a believer in the equity markets and have most of my net worth tied up in the stock market. So every panic over the past two decades has cost me, albeit temporarily, big chunks of my net worth.

Does it hurt? Of course.

Do I lose sleep over it? Occasionally.

But I always keep in mind that it is only money.

I think of my dad, who would inspect my weary face after my exhausting banker trips to Japan, India, and Hong Kong. As he put it: "There's no point in being the richest man in the cemetery."

the 100% perfect partner.

2008-06-25T17:53:00.000+08:00

"i am not perfect, and neither are you.

but we are perfect for each other."

often uttered by the monkey to the bunny.

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.

Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you're drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I'll catch myself staring at the girl at the next table to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can't recall the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It's weird.

"Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% girl," I tell someone.

"Yeah?" he says. "Good-looking?"

"Not really."

"Your favorite type, then?"

"I don't know. I can't seem to remember anything about her - the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts."

"Strange."

"Yeah. Strange."

"So anyhow," he says, already bored, "what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?"

"Nah. Just passed her on the street."

She's walking east to west, and I west to east. It's a really nice April morning.

Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and - what I'd really like to do - explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock build when peace filled the world.

After talking, we'd have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

How can I approach her? What should I say?

"Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?"

Ridiculous. I'd sound like an insurance salesman.

"Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?"

No, this is just as ridiculous. I'm not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who's going to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. "Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me."

No, she wouldn't believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you're not the 100% boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I'd probably go to pieces. I'd never recover from the shock. I'm thirty-two, and that's what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can't bring myself to speak to her. She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp. So: She's written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain every secret she's ever had.

I take a few more strides and turn: She's lost in the crowd.

Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.

Oh, well. It would have started "Once upon a time" and ended "A sad story, don't you think?"

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

"This is amazing," he said. "I've been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you're the 100% perfect girl for me."

"And you," she said to him, "are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I'd pictured you in every detail. It's like a dream."

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It's a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one's dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, "Let's test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other's 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we'll marry then and there. What do you think?"

"Yes," she said, "that is exactly what we should do."

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other's 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.

One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season's terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence's piggy bank.

They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fouteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don't you think?

Yes, that's it, that is what I should have said to her.

Emcee

2008-06-17T11:06:00.000+08:00

If you need an Emcee for any events, I can do it in fluent English and Mandarin.

Rates negotiable (just doing as a hobby! :p)

for close friends' weddings, FOC :)

a feat, never to be repeated.

2008-06-16T14:45:00.000+08:00

i did something amazing yesterday:

i farted away from debby with kind intentions to spare her agony, but failed to realise I was in front of the fan.. and that it was blowing towards her.

So she smelt it, turned wide eye and screeched.

i'm sorry. i shall never do it again (in front of the fan.)

If I were to write to the Prime Minister..

2008-06-11T10:42:00.000+08:00

**this spoof cracked me up so much this morning!

"Dear Prime Minister,

We citizens of Singapore urge you to PLEASE MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. We DO NOT NEED your help. Every time, you mention HELP, we have to run for cover!!!

Help the poor? Raise GST!

Help traffic flow? Up ERP!

Help passenger service? Up Bus fare/MRT fare!

Help us get taxi? Raise taxi fare!

Help us get good government? Raise Minister and Civil servants' salary!

Everytime YOU WANT TO HELP, we all PAY FOR IT!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU...TOLONG LAH, please, we will HELP OURSELVES, noneed your help liao. We DARE NOT ask for help any more!!!

Sir, most honoured sir, I urge you NOT TO HELP Singapore INVEST also! Everytime your wife invest, we all lose money! Kao liao, kum siah! Just let us have a dose of bad governance, like recently the Mat Selamat case, like dat....so far, it is ok, your incompetence, we ACCEPT!

PLEASE DO NOT help us have better security! Wait we all kena PAY FORIT!! I believe ALL SINGAPOREANS PREFER NOT TO HAVE CRUTCH MENTALITY! I think it is ok lah, please just take your salary and enjoy life ok?

Thank you thank you,I am very chin chai one, any how any how, no need to help oso can one."

what an advice.

2008-05-20T10:23:00.000+08:00

"give them nothing.. take from them EVERYTHING" - leonidas, 300.

early morning advice from WH on my Reuters messenger.

resign la WKS.

2008-05-02T11:39:00.000+08:00

The Commission of Inquiry was appointed by the government, with staff from the Home Ministry itself as one of its members. How can such a commission be truly independent?

With big salaries/titles, comes big responsibilities. If you jailed + remove the Chief of Commando for the accidental death of one soldier during training, I don't see why the Chief of ISD or the Minister himself (since ISD reports solely to the Minister) shouldn't go.

Don't think we'll forget this biased judgement in 2011.

oh, FYI. Wong Kan Seng's wife is the daughter of Lee Kuan Yew's brother.

china emotions.

2008-04-29T12:05:00.000+08:00

"When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet.

When we tried limiting our numbers, you said it is human rights abuse.

When we were poor, you thought we were dogs.

When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts.

When we build our industries, you called us polluters.

When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming."

- a silent, silent Chinese

Yo Mama.

2008-04-23T11:45:00.000+08:00

Kanye West on his mum's death..

"I don't do anything I don't love anymore. While people chase money I pursue happiness. So many people talk about their investments or how much money they have but there's so many rich people who spend a lot of that trying to buy a piece of happiness. If there's anything my mom taught me, it is to enjoy life."

I.Think.

2008-04-21T16:52:00.000+08:00

we are mortals, not gods. in this world, we stand as we are. in remembrance, we will forget the faults and preserve the good.

uphold the fair and social justice, at society, at work and at large. be pragmatic, not ideological, be steadfast in our approach to life goals. be nice to your family and friends.

respect values, respect point-of-views. visions and strength, charisma and true inner beauty, and with humility. these will carry us far and forward. win the fight against the machine with tripartism and surivival instincts, honed to the finest with independence.

be a thinker. be a leader.

have no ill feelings and be humble. welcome your enemies, welcome your detractors. learn from mistakes and move on in life.

this is true and good, as to night follows day, the sun from the east. from the inner, random rantings of yours truly.

jz.

Ao Tai Na summit

2008-04-21T15:48:00.000+08:00

I tried explaning to a friend the other day, the process of trekking is often tedious, tiring and terribly uncomfortable. But the satisfaction of accomplishment and that incredible liberating feeling of being at the pinnacle roof of the world is immeasurable.

The Island

2008-04-21T15:29:00.000+08:00

this picture was taken about 4 years ago at some event that 3 of my dearest friends took part in with me. i dug it up to send it to them for laughs and thought, what-the-heck let's just put it up on the blog and amuse ourselves a little as well.

the funnies of office-life.

2008-04-14T16:38:00.000+08:00

one of my friend's boss wrote the following email..

Subject: Is someone brewing beer in the pantry?
Hi,

It seems like someone has developed an innovative beer brewing technique... Place a plastic take away container on the pantry, leave some liquid inside it and maybe hope that it becomes some golden brew.

We can't condone bootleg liqour in the office, so please select one of the following actions:
1. Go drink up the liquid right now and throw the plastic container
2. Bring it home and put it under your bed
3. Bring it along for lunch today and have it with your roti prata

Cheers

the quote of the day.

2008-04-14T15:16:00.001+08:00

"if you know exactly what you are doing 3 years from now - you are lying, or just very boring."

from RH's blog.

financial randoms.

2008-03-26T15:10:00.000+08:00

Financial markets in the past fortnight were extremely volatile which culminated in the fall of Bear Stearns, the fifth largest broker in the US. Subsequent speculations abound whether the next shoe to drop could be Lehman (what do you think?).

In a demonstration of its resolve to avert a full-blown crisis, the Fed opened the discount window for the first time to primary dealers and accepts otherwise hard to valued illiquid securities such as ABS as collateral. However, almost immediately, news commentators suggest that financial institutions are confronted with a ‘solvency’ issue which the Fed does not directly address.

It is important to note that the liquidity issue is inextricably related with a bank’s solvency. Investment banks do not have the benefit of retail branches unlike commercial banks to source for funding, and depend extensively on the money market. Prior to the fateful $2 takeover, markets were rife with speculations about Bear’s difficulties.

The demise of Bear Stearns is a classic case of self-fulfilling prophecy where the pull-back of counterparty lines denied it the life blood for survival, which triggered its failure. Throughout financial history, bank failures tend to be caused by a run on liquidity than solvency. Solvency is addressed through recapitalization and there seems no shortage of strategic capital out there to own a piece of a valuable franchise as evidenced by JPM’s eventual counterbid. Moreover, the stabilization of markets and the gradual steepening of the yield curve would lead to a recovery of organic earnings.

The recession call is almost a consensus call now. That being said, quarter to quarter economic contraction in the US is likely to be limited to the first two quarters, with a gradual recovery thereafter. Full year forecast is now 1.1% in 2008 and a gradual recovery to 1.6% in 2009. I'd go for some kind of bottoming and recovery in the second half.

Uncle Bully.

2008-03-13T18:00:00.000+08:00

BEIJING : China on Thursday accused the United States of human rights hypocrisy, as it branded the US invasion of Iraq the "greatest humanitarian disaster" of the modern world.

In an annual response to Washington's criticism of China's human rights record, the Chinese government labelled the United States arrogant, and highlighted what it said were widespread US failures at home and abroad.

"(America's) arrogant critique on the human rights of other countries are always accompanied by a deliberate ignoring of serious human rights problems on its own territory," said the report, released by the state Xinhua news agency. "This was not only inconsistent with universally recognised norms of international relations, but also exposed the double standards and downright hypocrisy of the United States on the human rights issue, and inevitably impaired its international image."

The US-led war in Iraq that began in 2003 was one of the many issues of concern highlighted by China in the report, entitled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007." "The United States has a notorious record of trampling on the sovereignty of and violating human rights in other countries," it said. "The invasion of Iraq by American troops has produced the biggest human rights tragedy and the greatest humanitarian disaster in modern world." It also criticised civilian deaths in Afghanistan, secret prisons and torture of detainees. "'Secret prison' and 'torturing prisoners' have become synonymous with America," the report said.

The report added that US citizens' right to join unions had been restricted, prisoners' rights had been violated, and authorities attempted to manipulate the media. The report launched attacks on the United States' inability to tackle poverty, fight crime and even the exorbitant cost of running for president. China said it had released the report to give the world a clearer insight into US failings and address the imbalance of the State Department's annual report on human rights, released Tuesday.

The State Department report removed China from its list of the world's worst human rights violators, but said there were still widespread problems. The US report singled out tightened controls on religious freedom against Buddhists in Tibet and in Muslims in China's northwestern Xinjiang region as areas for concern. "The government also continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison activists, writers, journalists, and defence lawyers and their families, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under the law," it said.

Rights groups complained that China should not have been removed from the list of worst violators, saying it sent the wrong signal ahead of the Beijing Olympics. In response, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the report was still harsh on China. But she cited China's willingness to renew a dialogue on human rights with the United States as a reason for its improved status.

Speech by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen

2008-02-25T14:45:00.000+08:00

This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD.

"I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't Ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've received your test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger. Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived".

free will.

2008-02-25T01:54:00.000+08:00

"In the strife of the battle of life, it's easy to fight when you're winning. It's easy to slave, and starve and be brave. When the dawn of success is beginning. But the man who can meet despair and defeat with a cheer, there's the man of God's choosing. The man who can fight to Heaven's own height, is the man who can fight when he's losing."

a very-JZ video.

2008-02-10T12:11:00.001+08:00

dreams, listed.

2008-02-06T09:26:00.000+08:00

I half typed this entry on the train ride to work today but as with all flashes of brilliance, this entry came as i thought about conceptions of love, even though I had wanted to write about something else.

There was once i loved a girl whom was everything to me. And then she left me with my world shattered, but I picked myself up and moved on. Then i met this other girl who hung on to guy who worshipped her, even though she didn't love him anymore. It's strange the way we all hold our personal conceptions of love and how in a relationship, we often make decisions that consider the other party, to the point of self-sacrificing, even though some might argue that that's the whole point of love isn't it?

As I pondered about these two instances of relationships, it occurred RANDOMLY to me to be a little selfish and think about my personal short-term and long-term plans. And thus, we finally arrived at what I want to document in this post.

Short-Term achieveables/aims/goals:

1. get better stock returns.

2. foster closer ties with my friends

3. find a place to rent

4. register for CFA

Long-Term achievables/aims/goals:

1. do an MBA in Harvard. I hope to do this when I'm 28 or 29.

might update this list if i have more inspirations.

the banks and their subprime losses.

2008-01-18T15:43:00.000+08:00

covalent chemistry.

2008-01-05T15:12:00.000+08:00

My friend Z: do i sense any chemistry over here??

Her friend D: nah just friends, i'm the noble gas, non-reactive. you are free radical, i'm surprised you hafn't found someone to bond with yet.
Z: thanks!! what a way to describe me! but what does free radical do?
D: free radicals are molecules/atoms with unpaired electrons which means they are highly reactive and easily form bonds with other people
Z: nice! i like that description!
D: yup! anyway your blog sounds like you're seeing someone as well.
Z: me?! seeing someone? nah. nobody. tragic. like death valley.
D: hey death valley is full of life if you know where to look

hilarious chemical post :) taken from Z's blog post.

tis the season.

2008-01-04T11:17:00.000+08:00

In my many travels, I've always seen poverty and it never fails to humble me. In our little techno-sheltered, ruthlessly efficient Singapore, in many ways we're incredibly blessed. I am eternally glad for the endless opportunities to travel and see the world and with each backpacking/camping trip I'd always come back with a glowing satisfaction that this little day, I've gone and seen a little more.

Living out Christmas and New year's in sub-zero conditions was intentional but perhaps a little too cold for comfort, bringing on a new meaning to the term "bitter-cold". Even as I type this while charging my phone in the freaking cold basecamp, my fingers and toes are half frozen but thanks to heatpacks, remain un-forstbitten and attached. The porters and villagers have been incredulously hospitalable, the climbign experience has been unforgettable and ranks surely as one of the best things I've done in a long, long time.

It'd be 2008 when I go home (albeit 4 days late) the past year lumbered with lingering pains and baby-professional steps. I like what I'm doing and as always, still complaining that I'm not being paid enough to do what I'm doing. It's amazing isn't it, as we all look back each year end asking ourselves what have we done in the past year and what memories are we choosing to bring on to the new year.

I'll be 26, and it honestly scares me to know that I'm getting older and no longer the little kid that I always wanted to remain as. I think I lead a pretty smashing life by a Singapore standard and I am contended with what I have now and achieved, although I'm still clamouring for more. And as always, I reckon I'm always game for something crazy and exciting, so allow me my little space as I sit and ponder wicked schemes to spice things up and see how far it's gonna take me!

Have a smashing 2008 my dear readers :)

Grow Old With You.

2007-12-08T15:49:00.000+08:00

posted for the adorable D :)

A year for accountability

2007-12-05T04:09:00.000+08:00

Angelina Jolie, goodwill ambassador to the UNHCR, hopes for progress in bringing war criminals to justice

On a recent mission for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, I had the opportunity to visit a refugee camp in Chad just across the border with Sudan. Sitting with a group of refugees, I asked them what they needed. These were people who had seen family members killed, neighbours raped, their villages burned and looted, their entire communities driven from their land. So it was no surprise when people began listing the things that could improve their lives just a little bit. Better tents, said one; better access to medical facilities, said another. But then a teenage boy raised his hand and said, with powerful simplicity, “Nous voulons un procès.” We want a trial.

A trial might seem a distant and abstract notion to a young man for whom the inside of a courtroom is worlds away from the inside of a refugee camp. But his statement showed a recognition of something elemental: that accountability is perhaps the only force powerful enough to break the cycle of violence and retribution that marks so many conflicts.

I believe 2008 can be the year in which we begin seeking true accountability and demanding justice for the victims in Darfur and elsewhere. Through accountability we can begin the process of righting past wrongs, and even change the behaviour of some of the world’s worst criminals.

The international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda have shown the way in convicting heads of state and generals for genocide and crimes against humanity. The UN-backed special court for Sierra Leone has already sentenced three former leaders of a pro-government militia to jail for war crimes committed during the country’s civil war in the 1990s.

In Cambodia, the joint UN-Cambodian court to try top former Khmer Rouge leaders with war crimes and crimes against humanity has begun calling witnesses. It has taken a long time to get even this far, but a trial is likely in 2008. In The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has begun trials of two of the Congolese leaders charged with fomenting killings and rapes amid the violence that has raged there for over a decade.

Make no mistake, the existence of these trials alone changes behaviour. Seeing the indictment of Thomas Lubanga and the detention of Germain Katanga by the ICC brought to mind a trip I had taken to Congo five years ago. In the Ituri region, where Mr Katanga’s reign of terror had been most intense, our group attended a meeting of rebel leaders. They had gathered in a field to discuss the prospects for a peace agreement—which were not looking very good. The conversation turned hostile and the situation grew extremely tense. At that point, one of my colleagues asked for the name of one of the rebels, announcing, perhaps a bit recklessly, that he was going to pass it along to the ICC.

It was remarkable: this rebel leader’s whole posture changed from aggression to conciliation. The ICC had been around for only five months. It had tried no one. Yet its very existence was enough to intimidate a man who had been terrorising the population for years.

Ending the cycle of violence

This is not an isolated example. Accountability has the potential to change behaviour, to check aggression by those who are used to acting with impunity. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the ICC, has said that even genocide is not a crime of passion; it is a calculated decision. He is right. Common sense tells us that when risks are weighed, decisions are made differently. When crimes against humanity are punished consistently and severely, the killers’ calculus will change.

My hope is that these examples of justice in the name of accountability will be just a few of the many to come. I hope that the Sudanese government will hand over the government minister and the janjaweed militia leader who have been indicted for war crimes by the ICC, and that the teenager I met in Chad will get to see the trial he seeks. I hope that those responsible for the atrocities in Darfur will be held to account, not only for that young man’s sake, but for the world’s.

Only through justice will we achieve peace. And only when there is peace will the world’s nearly 39m displaced persons and refugees be able to return home.

The strong preying upon the weak and the weak, upon achieving strength, extracting retribution: this is the nature of so many of the world’s conflicts. The role of aggressor and victim may alternate over time, the tools of destruction may become more sophisticated, but little else changes.

Despite the horror I have seen in my travels, the hopeful lesson I take is that we can begin to put an end to the cycle of violence and retribution that gives rise to war criminals and sets forth floods of refugees. Let 2008 be the year in which we see the principle of accountability put into action.

Angelina Jolie: The World in 2008 [The Economist]

my last time running.

2007-12-02T16:55:00.000+08:00

"i was that little child's hand u held once. then u let it go and told me to hold my own destiny. but u never failed to catch me when i needed you, i love u as much as u had love me.

today's marathon, is totally dedicated to you.

for each time there was pain, i thought about your endless love.
for each time there was agony, i thought about your selfless warmth.

so when i finished, i imagined you cheering me at the end and giving me that cheeky smile u always had. i knelt down n prayed a little, and hope we'd be together again someday."

it could have been with you.

2007-11-29T05:41:00.000+08:00

As i danced around the living room and celebrated when Liverpool scored, and groaned accordingly when a good chance went to waste, I was starkly aware of a missing piece. Sinking back into the chair to watch the game, I drifted away and looked to my left, hoping to see her sitting in that seat and jumping in joy along with me.

but it was not to be.

but i thought i'll blog this, because i want to remind myself, that the unfulfilled promise must be done someday.

i'll keep my promise, I'll still take you to Anfield.

1 year later.

2007-11-18T19:26:00.000+08:00

A Mother's Love

A Mother's love is something that no one can explain,
It is made of deep devotion and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it or take that love away.

It is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters even though the heart is breaking.
It believes beyond believing when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty of the rarest, brightest gems.

Our bond was far beyond defining, it defies all explanation,
And it still remains a secret like the mysteries of creation.
I miss you mum, in many ways no one will ever understand
Everyday I still think about holding your tender loving hands.

why i love smu.

2007-11-14T10:53:00.000+08:00

apparently, some NTU kid got the following facts wrong:

1. Capital of Australia is Perth/Sydney (it's Canberra u idiot.)
2. Minister Mentor is Goh Chok Tong (it's the God of No Mercy Kuan Yew la!)
3. The world's largest continent is Europe (you need to travel more.)

then again, it's NTU. the same group of people who spells tomorrow with a single R. don't expect them to know anything else.

you had me at hello.

2007-10-29T23:49:00.000+08:00

Peter: To destiny.
Simone: Mmm.
Peter: May we recognize it when we see it.
Simone: To love. May we stay away from it when it's no good for us. You know earlier today, when you were telling me how you'd changed?
Peter: Yeah.
Simone: I noticed it. There's just something different. It's like a look in your eye. A confidence.
Peter: There's something I should tell you. Something, uh...I didn't think was right to say when I still worked for your father. Something I wouldn't have even said to you two days ago. I've been in love with you since the minute I first laid eyes on you.”

-Peter Petrelli

A, B, H and Red explained.

2007-10-29T13:06:00.000+08:00

"A Shares"
shares issued by companies incorporated in the PRC and listed on the PRC Stock Exchanges, traded in RMB and available for investment by domestic (Chinese) investors and holders of QFII licence;

"B Shares"
shares issued by companies incorporated in the PRC and listed on the PRC Stock Exchanges, traded in foreign currencies and available for investment by domestic (Chinese) investors and foreign investors;

"H Shares"
shares issued by companies incorporated in the PRC and listed on the HK Stock Exchange and traded in Hong Kong dollars;

"Red Chip Companies"
companies incorporated outside the PRC and listed on the HK Stock Exchange and controlled by PRC entities, by way of direct or indirect shareholding and/or representation on the board of directors;

fight or flight.

2007-10-24T12:22:00.000+08:00

I always like to think if there really is a God, he certainly has weird plans for me. For all the things he put me through, the trials and tribulations, all the fascinating places I've been to and all the chances I've been given. My God-loving hair-stylist (who's been cutting my hair since I was 14) once said, that God puts all these tests/incidents in front of you to let you learn some lessons.

Yesterday's amusing/thought-provoking incident could be one such.

I resumed back my post-Lasik, run-training (for the marathon end of this year) and as I was taking my cool-down walk back, I saw this bespectacled (drunk) Indian man (Christopher) sitting along the road holding a bottle of Coke (smelt heavily of alcohol i'm sure he mixed it) + petting his dog (Junior).

And then he looked at me and said, "can you take me home please? i'm drunk."
jz: "i just got back from a run. i've got no money or anything with me. but i'll walk you home."
drunkman: "why would u want to help me? i'm so sad, i lost everything. can i tell you my story?"

and so, yes I did. I sat next to Chris and he told me about his Catholic story (he goes to Christ the King), how he got a mini-stroke (left hand no control), how he hated himself for being drunk all the time (he's NTU engine-grad, but jobless.) and how he felt all alone in this world (his wife left him and stays alone now) He even sang me a full Bob Marley song while I held his arms and walked him home (not so far away)

After I plonked him onto his bed (after struggling to dig his pockets for his keys - damn gay i know.), i sat down on the couch and caught my breathe a bit. Junior hopped up and lay snug on my laps. "What a strange deviation from my usual runs. But who said Life had to be a constant?" i thought.

but it wasn't just that. As I went house-hunting with S, we went to a lot of old dingy estates. It was like the backwaters of Singapore, the part where we all conveniently forgot. And yesterday with Chris, I realized that maybe we just need more compassion and less caught up in our rat-race. -shrugs- I'm lost in the surge of thoughts now and it's just tough to verbalize them into words for this blog entry.

maybe darling, all you need is just some nice, sweet love.

but i know i won't be getting any from you.

It's almost coming to a year. I still don't think I can cope with it very well.

whatever!

2007-10-18T01:17:00.003+08:00

u so gotta watch this. Dee wanted to make babies after she saw it. bwahahhahaa!!

Who needs analysts in a bull market?

2007-10-16T18:10:00.000+08:00

Who needs analysts in a bull market?

Ben Kwok, South China Morning Post, 16 Oct 07

That was at the heart of the question raised by a mainland fund manager in a teleconference last week, the transcript of which was widely circulated in town and led to a heated online discussion yesterday.

At issue was the highly controversial buy call this month on a hotly traded large-cap, dual-listed stock. The top tier brokerage analyst, who shall remain anonymous upgraded his price target for the stock nearly three times, fuelling a strong one-day performance of its shares traded both in Hongkong and Shanghai.

Below is a snippet of the conference call, as translated from the purported transcript in simplified MAndarin that landed in our inbox.

Client: Your 12-month target price for Company S is HK$100, right?

Analyst: Yep.

C: Do you think its product price will rise two or three times in the next 12 months?

A: Yes, based on my analysis, because I haven't seen such a big macroeconomic cycle in my life - so strong, so unique...

C: First you said Company S deserved to be traded 75 times PE ratio because you think it should be traded higher than its counterparts in the A-share market. Then you worked it backwards and said the product price should be more than 1000yuan. And then you said the macro economy was unique..

This is a chicken-and-egg issue, what do you actually believe?

A: It's A-share is so expensive...

C: So you believe its A-share valuation is reasonable? You have now tripled your target price. But say, the A-share market dropped by half to 3,000 points by the month's end. Would you cut your share price target to HK$50?

A: Definitely.

C: You believe in momentum but not the fundamentals.

A: Are you in Hongkong? If so, can i take you to coffee and discuss? You analysis carries weight, although it looks a bit funny. I am also a man of humour (both laugh.)

C: Certainly. I want to learn more from you. In fact, I don't mean to say your thoughts and conclusions are wrong, but i'm sceptical about your logic. The share price follows fundamentals, not momentum. I don't think a sell-side reports should be written like that. I am very surprised that your firm would publish this report.

A: You don't need to say that. I have been in the industry for 12 years. My most important task, whatever the fundamentals, is to make money for clients. Now you guys are making money, you should be happy.

C: I think what you just said was not appropriate either. Even if you don't publish the report, we know the stock will go up. In a peak market with strong momentum, everything would fly. But you have a wrong logic and therefore a wrong conclusion.

A: You are right. Can we have time for other clients?

C: I think your firm has a serious problem.

A: Right, right! I think it only matters if we make money

C: I think your standard is no better than that of mainland retail investors.

I hope by now you have enough mainland exposure that you can forget everything you hear, especially from analysts. Otherwise, you may want to buy some China funds because some managers actually seem to make sense.

beat-box time!!

2007-10-12T05:12:00.000+08:00

u guys have to see this.

statistics don't lie.

2007-10-09T07:26:00.000+08:00

Reclassifying Singapore’s population
For some time now, official statistics have stopped classifying Singaporeans the way other countries do, i.e. between citizens and foreigners.
By Seah Chiang Nee
The Star, Malaysia
Oct 6, 2007

IN THE face of a foreigner influx, a question that government officials are not rushing to answer is: “Who is a Singaporean?”

Strictly speaking, the Singaporean doesn’t exist in many official references, and has been displaced by ''the Singaporean resident.''

The Singapore resident has become a special category that officials generally use when talking about population and manpower.

Lumped together in this category are Singaporeans born and naturalised and foreigners who have been offered permanent residence (PR) before they apply for or are granted citizenship.

For some time now, the Statistics Department – in line with Manpower and other Ministries – has stopped classifying population the way other countries do, i.e. between citizens and foreigners.

Instead they are either “Singaporean residents” or “foreigners” (those on work passes as professionals, workers and students plus family members).

The word ‘Singaporean’ to refer to true-blue citizens is rarely, if at all, used – especially when talking about jobs.

So when the government announces that that the majority of new jobs had gone to locals, it is referring to Singaporean residents, which, of course, include foreign-born PRs.

Many people have been surprised to learn that there is no longer any separate listing for Singaporean citizens.

It is not clear when the unannounced classification came into effect, but reference to it apparently became widespread in the 90s when immigration gathered steam.

The new distinction officially appeared for the first time in the 1980 Census, which listed Singapore’s population at 2.41mil and “Singaporean residents” at 2.28mil.

That Census Report said that only 9% of the total population was foreigners, 3.6% of them being Permanent Residents (PRs) and 5.5% foreign workers. Singaporean citizens totalled 2.19mil or 91%.

Since then, a historical demographic shift has taken place. Last week, the government announced that the population had topped 4.68 million, almost double that 27 years ago.

This is believed to be one of the fastest growth rates in the world.

---
Singapore’s population:
1980 2.413.9m
1990 3.047.1m (up 26% in 10 years)
1995 3.524.5m (up 15% in 5 years)
2000 4.027.9m (up 14% in 5 years)
2007 4.680.6m (up (16% in 7 years)
1990-2007 = up 53.5% in 17 years
---

More importantly, the number of citizens is believed to have dropped below three million, or roughly 63% of total population – a far cry from the 91% in 1980.

This was, of course, due to low birth rates and a high flow of locals abroad.

For the first time, the number of foreigners who are working or studying in Singapore has exceeded a million, evidence of a stronger economy.

The programme to attract foreign PRs has gone into high gear. During the last 10 years, a total of 360,000 PR were offered mostly to people from Malaysia, China, India and a dozen other countries.

In the past two years alone, there were more than 110,000. The total number has never been announced but is believed to number more than 700,000.

---
Population composition – 2007
Population = 4.68m.
Foreigners = 1.0m
Singaporean residents 3.68m, comprising:
* Citizens (est) = 2.98m
* PRs (est) = 700,000
---

More will be admitted. Over the next five years, Singapore hopes to add about 40,000 citizens and 200,000 PRs that could push the population towards the five million mark by 2011.

As the figures rose so did public emotions about it. Feelings are running high among Singaporeans who feel bitter about being eased out of jobs and other opportunities.

But it’s not entirely one sided. The increase has been good for businesses because it has fuelled a surge of consumerism, contributing to higher sales and job creation.

The large foreign influx has helped push up property prices, and the Sing dollar to a 10-year high, but has also propelled inflation to a 12-year record.

But above all, it has arrested a serious population decline and rejuvenated an ageing society.

But for a small city-state that is already one of the densest in the world, the downside, too, has been formidable for the masses.

It has helped to widen the wealth gap in Singapore and stirred a desperate sense of being crowded out of jobs and space.

The first complaint is that the government has been too aggressive in opening its doors to foreigners, a concept that is generally accepted as a necessity.

The feeling is that the numbers and the speed could be slower.

“The hot economy actually pushed up manpower needs,” said one economist, “but these could be met by having more foreign workers, not PRs.”

The second complaint is that in bending backward to attract foreigners, the government is giving too much to them at the expense of locals. For example, they are exempted from the two-year national service that Singaporeans have to undergo.

Eventually, as the city heads towards a six million or seven million population, tensions are likely to increase – not to mention pollution and over-crowdedness.

When the day arrives, the foreigners will outnumber Singaporeans. That could upset Singapore’s racial and community harmony which has been so carefully crafted for over 40 years.

A visit to online forums will sometimes reveal how bitter some Singaporeans feel about the foreign challenge. “No one can dismiss the danger of trouble breaking out one day,” a blogger warned.

ai swee mai mia.

2007-10-07T23:59:00.000+08:00

suiying said, "天时地利人合."

timing, geography, chemistry.

got none of that now baby. my astronaut gf is lost in Mars.

my ecological economy module project.

2007-10-07T16:58:00.000+08:00

UBS to book 4b Swiss franc loss, axe 1,500 jobs

2007-10-02T16:04:00.000+08:00

Business Times - 02 Oct 2007UBS to book 4b Swiss franc loss, axe 1,500 jobs

2 top execs shown the door as bank hits first quarterly loss in 9 years

(ZURICH) UBS AG, the world's largest wealth manager, unveiled US$3.4 billion in losses, swept out senior managers and slashed jobs in one of the biggest casualties yet from the worldwide credit crunch.

UBS said yesterday that it would write down a net four billion Swiss francs in its fixed-income portfolio and elsewhere, resulting in a third-quarter loss of 600 million to 800 million Swiss francs, its first quarterly loss in nine years.

UBS said that it would shed 1,500 jobs in its investment bank - a sharp reversal of its recent build-up.

'It's probably safe to say, UBS won't be the last bank to announce something like this in the months ahead, but it begs the question as to how long this turmoil will continue,' said Eamonn Hughes of Goodbody Stockbrokers.

The loss underscores the depth of the crisis - in which central banks have injected record amounts of liquidity into the markets to keep the financial system functioning - and highlights uncertainties at rival banks, which may also be forced to unveil losses ahead of scheduled results.

In a separate announcement, rival bank Credit Suisse said that it was also hit by the credit crunch but would remain profitable in the third quarter with income from continuing operations after tax of around 1.3 billion Swiss francs. The bank declined to provide further details.

UBS's fall from grace began earlier this year when heavy costs from its rapid US expansion, a wave of key defections and then surprise losses at hedge fund Dillon Read Capital Management led to the shock departure of its chief executive, Peter Wuffli.

But UBS's write-downs and management sweep may prove to be the inflection point for UBS, said analysts at Bear Stearns.

'This is clearly not good news and adds to the catalogue of bad news that UBS has disclosed in the last year or so.

'Similarly, the air of stability has gone as management changes have come thick and fast,' Bear Stearns said.

UBS shares dipped but later recovered to trade near flat - as did Credit Suisse - at 10.40 am GMT as investors breathed a sigh of relief that the bank had appeared to draw a line under the losses and had provided some clarity about its exposure. By contrast, Deutsche Bank shares eased 1.4 per cent as concerns persisted about its exposure.

UBS chief executive Marcel Rohner said that he was removing top managers to accelerate a transformation in the investment bank and downplayed speculation that UBS would seek to split the group into its two main units: investment banking and wealth management.

Investment bank head Huw Jenkins, who drove a rapid expansion in UBS's bid to join the top five investment banks worldwide, will leave along with group chief financial officer Clive Standish.

Mr Rohner - who was named chief executive in July to replace Mr Wuffli - will assume control of the investment bank and risk-management expert Marco Suter will become chief financial officer.

'The critical time will be over in the next six months,' Mr Rohner said.

The losses appears to exceed those reported so far by other investment banks.

'Today's announcement came quite as a shock. The magnitude of the writedowns by far exceeds our expectations. Still, we judge today's announcement as positive as it finally gives us more visibility,' said analyst Claudia Meier at bank Vontobel.

The fallout of the sub-prime crisis has varied in the United States, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc reporting a near 80 per cent jump in quarterly profit last month, and rival Bear Stearns posting a 61 per cent drop.

Investors are increasingly concerned that more banks might announce losses related to credit problems as they close their books on a tumultuous third quarter.Persistent worries about the health of the banking system have weighed on financial markets around the world.

The meltdown in the US sub-prime mortgage market has created a credit squeeze worldwide. Despite recent signs that the credit tightness may be easing, some banks said that they were still struggling to find cash in wholesale lending markets. -- Reuters

they still make Iron Ladies like that.

2007-10-02T14:16:00.000+08:00

XX says:
there is a nice boy staying on my level
jz™ - looking for people to travel with again! says:
then?
XX says:
i may woo him
jz™ - looking for people to travel with again! says:
LOL!!!!!! u r damn cute la!!
jz™ - looking for people to travel with again! says:
"i may woo him"
jz™ - looking for people to travel with again! says:
u think u shooting hk drama serial ah
jz™ - looking for people to travel with again! says:
u have alot of guts
jz™ - looking for people to travel with again! says:
"i may woo him."
jz™ - looking for people to travel with again! says:
LOL
XX says:
best if the guy reciprocates
XX says:
most prob i think he wud! haha!
jz™ - looking for people to travel with again! says:
-.-

Steve Job's speech - will take you a life-changing 14mins.

2007-10-01T00:38:00.000+08:00

wake me up, when september ends.

2007-09-30T11:22:00.000+08:00

J said today that I was missing family life from my restlessness. I sure do. When all your friends go home for their wonderfully home-cooked dinner, you can't help get that twinge of jealousy. And sunday mornings used to be at the wet market with her. And the many activities that used to fill up my other time. Those, and many more will only be etched away in memories.

So Dee just got attached. And so did Nic. Both came as big surprises. As I sat to listen to Dee's story, I couldn't stop smiling at the sweet, warm feeling of love. It was still beautiful.

Wish me luck on 25th oct :) n ohh.. Wanderlust is still very, very strong.

desiderata

2007-09-27T01:37:00.000+08:00

Desiderata
by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

machiavelli exposè

2007-09-26T13:19:00.000+08:00

"People are so ungrateful, fickle and false, that a ruler should comfortably abandon conventional morality in dealing with them. He should slay deposed rulers and their families, recognise that friendship 'yields nothing', and beneath a veneer of compassion and honesty, master treachery and deceit. In short, because Man is evil, leaders must know 'how to do evil'."

Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince"

jz: such cold hearted prescription from the grandmaster of brutal pragmatism. touchè.

Singapore Dreaming

2007-09-21T00:59:00.000+08:00

this remains my most favorite Singapore shows, superb story + great acting.

and, it was the last show i had watched with mymum. yup. enjoy the trailer :)

Forgive / Provide.

2007-09-18T01:46:00.000+08:00

overheard:

"when i was young, i was taught to pray hard to God and He will provide. So I prayed hard to get a toy car, but i never got it :(

now that I've grown up, in retrospect I should have just stolen a toy car and pray that God will forgive."

-----

things are not going well. maybe i should pray more to the Jurong Monkey God.

thoughts on a bus.

2007-09-08T20:41:00.000+08:00

I'm writing this entry on the cheap A21 bus enroute to the airport (gorgeous coastal views, 40mins @ hkd33 instead of 24mins train @ hkd100). Listening to my mp3s as I observe the ever-busy HK streets, there's endless thoughts streaming and racing through my mind. Music kinda invokes that kind of mtv-like feeling, especially when u travel alone :)

I covered just abt as much as I could for HK. And I couldn't deny the exhilarating thrill again, quite akin to feeling..alive. Another place covered, another pin placed on the world map.

I want to see the world, n I want to see it the local way. I reckon, backpacking IS my hobby ; the insatiable wanderlust is just incredible.

I tried to explain the concept of couchsurfing to S, but her disdain was.. surprising for me. I thought given our similar age group, she'd be more receptive. But she balked at the thought of trust-in-people, kept being pessimistic about the dangers. It made me wonder, was I being too trusting? Have I lost the Asian-ness in me? I don't know.

But what creamed the night was her refusal to listen when I tried to offer an alternative view about that Corinthian verse of being "unequally yolked". Best part? She didn't know which christian denomination she was in and had no clue about what anglican/methodist was. Really, blind faith frightens me. Isn't it akin to a cult? I guess that's why.. My spiritual search mode is still on.

And of course, I thought about issues that happened a year ago here in HK. some things, u just can never ever bury away.

Blogging at the train station.

2007-09-06T14:01:00.000+08:00

i still can't believe there's a free internet kiosk at the train station. woah. decided to write an impromptu blog entry just to write down some thoughts while waiting for my colleague to come.

this period of hiatus has been good. it's great to inch a step closer to my grand goal of seeing every single country in the world. and feelings that i had thought were dead buried away resurfaced, though this time it was easier to reconcile and be at peace.

the recent Time article on Mother Teresa has had a profound impact on the way i view religion now. how can a person have such infinite trust in something that she did not believe existed? what was it that drives her? (read it here)

my full spiritial-search mode is now on.

that's why i need to date an older woman.

2007-08-31T17:03:00.000+08:00

When it comes to love, age ain't nothing but a number for these men

Jocelyn Teo

HE IS 23 and has a junior post in a local bank. She has just turned 30 and is the senior vice-president at an offshore bank.

They have been dating for the past eight months.

Andy Lee, who graduated from the London School of Economics just a year ago, is among a growing number of young male executives who date women who are at least four years older than them.

Ask Andy why he is attracted to the much older and high-flying Susan, who leads a team of five senior managers and handles million-dollar deals — and he starts waxing lyrical: "She knows what she wants and how to get it. She's very smart with a wicked sense of humour; that is so sexy!"

But doesn't the seven-year age difference bother him, I ask again.

Andy's answer is a mere shrug.

"I never thought I would be interested in someone older," he said. "And boy, did my parents make their opinions known. There was so much discouragement from the family when I first declared our relationship to my parents that I never took her to our weekly family dinners until two months ago."

Andy added: "It was only after meeting her that they realised how well we complement each other, and grew to slowly accept her as THE girlfriend."

So, why this fascination with older women?

A quick check with my male friends in the 20-25 age group reveals the following preferences when it comes to the dating game.

The woman should be financially stable and not always expect the man to foot the bill.

They also appreciate a partner who is widely read so she is able to carry her own conversations and not expect to be "babied" at get-togethers and events.

Most importantly, the men don't want to be the ones to "wear the pants" all the time and be expected to always know what to do. Most appreciate making decisions together with their partners. The guesswork can be tiring, my male friends tell me.

So, how old is just right for them?

Most found their "older not elder" girlfriends within the 26-35 age group.

Doesn't age matter? Will the relationship last?

Timothy Thomson, a 26-year-old senior marketing executive of an international fast-food franchise, said: "Why should it matter and how would the length of the relationship be determined by how old they are? Is there an 'age index' for a long-lasting relationship?"

Timothy has been with his 32-year-old fiancée for more than three years. His previous relationship was with a woman two years his senior.

With marriage on the cards, Timothy is very sure she is the one for him.

"What is there not to love about a woman who knows exactly what she wants? It definitely takes the 'what does she really want?' game I used to play out of the equation.

"Understanding the types of pressure I face at work is something that I never expected of — but appreciate most — from Linda," Timothy added. "With the amount of time I spend travelling in a year for work, I'm glad she's not the 'hovering' type who expects me to babysit her all the time. I attribute that level of understanding to her being a working professional and a confident woman."

Having met both couples, I could hardly spot the age difference between them. The witty repartee, never-ending conversation and silent understanding clearly reflect the unspoken intimacy that cements their commitment.

Maybe it's age. Then again, maybe it's that thing called Love.

Age is only a number. As an "older not elder" woman, I would have no qualms about dating someone younger — as long as he is smart, armed with a wicked sense of humour and adores me.

The writer is "an almost-30" senior consultant in a public relations firm.

the lamest thing people write to ST Forum

2007-08-31T15:53:00.000+08:00

Don't burn so much hell money - how about fund transfers from the living to the dead?

I am concerned over the poor air quality during the Chinese seventh month.

I understand and respect the fact that a huge proportion of our citizens place importance in the burning of hell money as a form of respect to their ancestors and deities.

However, with the current global emphasis on saving the environment, I see a pressing need to make some suggestions.

In our mortal world, we now have credit cards, cheques and several forms of remittances (SWIFT and telegraphic transfers). I appeal to religious leaders, whose followers practise the burning of hell money, to study the implications of alternative hell fund transfers.

I see these alternatives as a win-win situation for the living and the deceased. The latter stand to receive an infinite amount of hell funds with the mere burning of say, one hell cheque or one hell credit card, thus saving a whole stack of paper from the bonfire, or the religious leaders could run a form of remittance facility. With the technological advances that we now have, I am confident that where there's a will, there's a way.

It is timely to set a good example to our younger generation to practise what we have been preaching to other nations struggling to curb the slash-and-burn method to clear jungles and forests and that is, to reduce, to reuse and to recycle.

Lai Ee Sa (Mdm)

10 days Vietnam + Cambodia

2007-08-19T21:46:00.000+08:00

i'm adapting most of what's written here from Mel's blog. will put it in a smaller font + add some pics so that it's easier to speed read.

friday 17th aug @ HCM:
woke up 2.5hrs before flight, packed only 2hrs before flying off. Landed here with no plans, took a USD10 cab to city centre, stupid cab driver wanted to drive off with my USD100 note. dammit. walked around, then we randomly selected a hostel to stay in. first day was to check out War Musuem + Reunification Palace.

decided to have dinner at Ben Tham market. phwah. reinforced my thought about how amazingly cheap this place is.

saturday 18th aug @ HCM:
signed up for an early morning tour out to Cu Chi Tunnels, it was about this amazing resilance of the viet folks against the US GIs. that took nearly the whole day, then we just headed back, rested + round 2 of fabulously good+cheap dinner.

sunday 19th Aug @ Mekong Delta (CanTho)
crazy day, we signed up for another 2D1N trip to mekong delta, they threw in a river tour + cycling tour. met a bunch of crazy travellers, but ended up having dinner with this mother+daughter pair from Netherlands. and nope, no dog meat (as promised to you) but oh we had snake meat instead :) not too shabby.

gonna sign off now.. time to go catch manure derby + liverpool vs chelsea!

Candles in the wind.

2007-08-11T17:42:00.000+08:00

my mum actually loved this song alot, so when i watched this beautiful rendition by Craig David i thought i'd put it up. have a brilliant weekend my readers :)

For all the lovers out there.

2007-08-06T23:09:00.000+08:00

"You're not perfect, neither is she. The real question is, whether you are perfect for each other. That's the whole deal, that's what intimacy and love is about."

Robin Williams, Good Will Hunting.

Carry Trades.

2007-08-06T11:22:00.001+08:00

Interest Rate Arbitrage
Many Hedge funds, institutional investors and proprietary trading operations engage in the foreign exchange markets to find additional yield. Countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, which have high interest rates, attract funds from lower interest rate countries, such as Japan and the United States. Sophisticated international investors move money between currencies, just as more conventional investors move money between different bond issues.

In interest rate arbitrage, a trader borrows (and pays interest on) a currency with a lower interest rate, and uses it to buy a currency with a higher interest rate (the "carry" currency) in order to capture the difference between the two interest rates.

The interest rate arbitrageur's strategy is to buy and hold the carry currency for an extended period of time, in order to profit from the difference in interest rates offered by the two currencies.

Let me walk you through a couple of different versions of a trade. One will be conservative; the other, risk-aggressive. In the process, we'll be looking at an example of the famous (but little understood) carry trade.

To start, let's consider which currencies we're going to trade. There are over a hundred currencies in the world-from the Brazilian real to the Thai baht. Yet, in the spot market, there are only eight major currencies.

These are the currencies that experience the most volume and therefore tend to have narrower spreads when paired with the dollar or each other. These are also the preferred currencies which almost every FX dealer trades. They are...

The US dollar
The Euro
The British pound
The Japanese yen
The Swiss franc (a.k.a. the "Swissie")
The Canadian dollar (a.k.a. the "loonie")
The Australian dollar (a.k.a. the "Aussie")
The New Zealand dollar (a.k.a. the "kiwi")

Most trades in the spot market involve the dollar in one way or another. You're either long the USD (bullish on it) or short the USD (bearish on it). You can bet your bias with any one of these currencies. The most prevalent pairing, by far, is the Euro-dollar.

In any case, whenever you trade currencies, you're always working in pairs. You're long one currency and short the other. When you trade two currencies other than the USD, that's called a "cross trade."

For instance, you might be long the Canadian dollar and short the Japanese yen. This trade would be referred to in writing as "CAD/JPY" because, by convention, that's how this currency pair is traded, with the Canadian dollar first and the Japanese yen second. To keep things simple, for this pairing, Canadian dollars are always quoted in terms of yen.

So, as I write, the CAD/JPY is at 101.8711. That means the Canadian dollar is worth about 102 yen. Now, logically, you could also say the yen is worth 0.98 Canadian cents. If you look at a table of cross rates, in fact, you'll se the CAD value in yen expressed as 101.8711 and the yen's value in CAD expressed as 0.0098.

But the convention is simpler. For this pair, the relationship between the currencies is expressed in terms of the Canadian dollar's worth in yen.

For all pairings, in fact, the convention is that the first currency mentioned is called the base currency while the second is called the counter currency. So, in writing, you might see someone mention they're "long the CAD/JPY" or "short the CAD/JPY." Verbally, you might hear these same positions referred to being "long the CAD-YEN" or "short the CAD-YEN."

In the first case, it simply means you expect the Canadian dollar to rise against the yen. In the second case, it means you expect the opposite: that the yen will rise against the Canadian dollar. But in both cases, the trade would be quoted in terms of CAD/JPY, the Canadian dollar's value in terms of yen. In fact, when looking at any pair the trade will always be expressed in terms of the counter currency, or to make even easier to remember the currency at the end of the pair.

So let's take a moment to walk through a CAD/JPY trade.
Two Ways to Profit: Net Interest and Appreciation

If you're long the CAD/JPY that means you'll receive interest directly into your account on a daily basis at the Canadian central bank rate. Currently, that's 4.25%. At the same time, however, you'll be charged interest on Japanese yen. Currently, that's very close to 0%.

So if you entered this position with 100% cash (that is with no "leverage" or borrowed money) you would net the interest rate difference. In this case, you'd be on track to make 4.25% a year from the spread... as long as the exchange rate between the currencies didn't change.

Now if the Canadian dollar went down 4.25% against the yen over the course of a year, your net gain would be zero. You gained 4.25% in net interest but lost 4.25% in depreciation.

And if the Canadian dollar went up 5% against the yen over a year, your total gain would be nearly 10%. Half of that profit would be from interest and half from appreciation in capital.

That example is with all cash. If we add leverage to the mix, your returns can be greatly magnified.
Leverage: a Double-Edged Sword in the Spot Market
In the spot market you can borrow money, just as you can in the stock market. However, you can borrow a lot more money against your capital in the spot market. And you can choose among various interest rates.

In the stock market, maximum leverage is typically 2-to-1. For each dollar of cash you have you can invest up to a total of $2, with one of those dollars loaned to you by your brokerage at a given interest rate.

In the spot market, however, you can use leverage of up to 100-to-1. So for every dollar you have in an account, you can control $100 worth of currency. And the interest rate you pay depends on which currency you're borrowing.

So let's get back to our CAD/JPY trade to see how this works.
Let's say you put $2,000 in your spot market account and went long CAD/JPY at leverage of 50-to-1. You're credited interest on a daily basis at a rate of 4.25% a year. Your cost of borrowing yen is basically zero. So your net credit is 4.25%. But it's 4.25% of $100,000, not 4.25% of $2,000.

At the same time, the Canadian dollar rose 5%, remember. But, because you used leverage, you're getting 5% of $100,000, not 5% of $2,000.

So now, your total gains are $10,000. And your total investment (and maximum risk on this trade) was just $2,000. You made 500% profits. And you pocketed five times your initial maximum risk.

But, of course, if the market went against you, you could have had your position closed out very quickly. Just a 1% move against you now equals a drawdown of $1,000 since 1% of $100,000 is $1,000. That $1,000 equals half your entire capital in the trade. So you're taken out. End of trade. You lost half of the capital you allocated here.

That's why you have to be careful with leverage. Most successful traders in the spot market don't employ leverage of more than 10 to 1. That gives you room for the market to fluctuate while keeping you in your trade.

For instance, at 10-to-1, your $1,000 controls $10,000 worth of Canadian dollars. If the market moves against you 5% initially, that's only a draw down of $500 since 5% of $10,000 is $500. You're still in the trade. If the market recovers and then goes your way, you can still double your initial investment on a 10% total gain (interest and appreciation).

The World-Famous Carry Trade, Now Available to Individual Investors
The example we just used is a carry trade. That's when you borrow in a low-yielding currency and invest in a high-yielding currency to collect the net difference in interest, plus (hopefully) currency appreciation.

The carry trade has been a major money maker for hedge funds over the last ten years. These funds have borrowed yen at near zero interest rates and invested them in higher-yielding currencies as well as in the bonds of higher-yielding currencies.

Now, this same strategy is available to individual investors. But you have to be careful. Remember it's not just the difference in interest rates that affects currencies - it's the direction in their difference.

Interest rates right now in the US are still much higher than in Japan. The Fed Funds rate is 5%, vs. a Japanese Central Bank of nearly 0%. So you could, theoretically, still do successful USD/JPY carry trades.

However, if the Fed stops raising rates soon while the Japanese central bank starts to raise rates (a real possibility), the carry trade could cease being profitable-even while U.S. rates remain higher than Japanese rates. That's because the net interest-rate-spread advantage you have could be lost to a depreciation of the dollar against the yen.

This report is educational purposes only and I present the material as I see it. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell anything.

R Nash

Know Thy Fear.

2007-08-02T17:21:00.000+08:00

"The spectator's chief enemies are always boring from within. It is inseparable from human nature to hope and to fear. In speculation when the market goes against you, you hope that every day will be the last day and you lose more than you should had you not listened to hope. And when the market goes your way you become fearful that the next day will take away your profit, and you get out too soon.

Fear keeps you from making as much money as you ought to. The successful trader has to fight these two deep-seated instincts. He has to reverse what you might call his natural impulses. Instead of hoping he must fear; instead of fearing he must hope. He must fear that his loss may develop into a much bigger loss, and hope that his profit may become a big profit."

Jesse Livermore

random.

2007-07-31T23:46:00.000+08:00

just want to randomly shout that i have:

1. signed up for SG Marathon '07 - my moment of madness. what am i thinking of?

2. finally decided to backpack to:
i. early to mid Aug - HK/Beijing/Shanghai
ii. 18 to 26 Aug - Vietnam + Cambodia!

if u wanna come along, just let me know :)

A Lesson about the Bulls and the Bears

2007-07-31T23:27:00.001+08:00

In the financial world, we're always using the words "bull" and "bear" to describe the current economic environment. But how many of us actually know the origins of those words?

While there is a lot of speculation on the origins of the term "bull market," most experts agree on the origin of its antonymous sibling, the "bear market." Back in the day when animal furs were hot commodities, the middlemen of the bearskin market would sell skins before the animals were harvested.

Essentially, these fur traders were some of the first short sellers. They sold the bearskins with the gamble that prices would fall before they actually had to buy and deliver the skins. That way, if they did, they could make even larger profits. As the trading tactic caught on, these middlemen were named "bearskin jobbers," which later shortened to "bears." The name has stuck over the last few centuries, and is now attached to anybody that believes the market is on the decline.

Like I said, the term "bull market" doesn't have such concrete origins. Most feel it evolved out of the "bear" term. Historically, bulls and bears have been pitted against each other in exciting battles. So it only makes sense that the opposite of a bear market would be a bull market.

Whether it's in the financial market or in an ancient arena, the two animals are great competitors and always make for an exciting show. The big question is how long the bull will last before it tires and the bear takes over.

by my colleague R.Nash (but not sure true or not :p)

S.A.T.C

2007-07-22T05:11:00.000+08:00

"relationships, no matter how good, are inevitable are a series of compromises. but how much of ourselves should we sacrifice to be with the other person before we stop being ourselves. in a relationship when does the art of compromising become compromised."

"it doesn't matter how much you have, if you don't have a guy/(girl) who cares about you, it doesn't mean a shit!

My Dean's speech.

2007-07-17T21:07:00.000+08:00

Speech by Pang Eng Fong, Dean, LKCSB,
Commencement Ceremony for BBM/MAF/MWM Graduates, Saturday, 14 July 2007
Suntec City, Singapore

RULES FOR LIVING WELL

Parents, trustees, faculty, friends, honoured guests and members of the graduating class of 2007

Thank you all for your patience and participation in today’s ceremony. Allow me first to say a few words to the proud parents here. You sent your son/daughter to SMU when it had produced only a handful of graduates and did not have much of a record or reputation. We are deeply grateful to you for your trust in us, without which SMU would not be where it is today -- an institution that has made a difference to the life of many people. Parents, you deserve special recognition today. Graduates, would you please rise and say thank you to your parents!

I congratulate, with particular pride, the graduating class of 2007. Most of you matriculated the year after I joined SMU and a few of you were in classes I taught. Your parents and everyone here share in your joy today.

Our ceremony today is a secular ritual, designed to create a collective, tribal memory of what we went through together. Commencement marks a new beginning for new graduates. It is also an occasion to remind graduates of the contributions they can make to their alma mater and to society. So expect to hear from our active Alumni and Advancement Office!

In the last 3-4 years, SMU has entrenched its position in Singapore as a leading provider of innovative business education in Singapore. The first three cohorts of BBM graduates found jobs before or within six months of their graduation. I am confident the present cohort will find rewarding jobs just as quickly. Singapore is poised to enter a “golden age” that offers a world of great possibilities. The job market in Singapore and the region has not looked this bright in many years. Barring unforeseen events, the economic outlook should remain sunny for at least a few more years.

In March 2006, Senior Minister Gok Chok Tong officially opened the Lee Kong Chian School of Business building in SMU’s downtown campus. The School has settled well into its permanent home. Now closer to the business and cultural heart of the city, it, like other maturing institutions, faces new challenges. It must continue to redesign courses and develop new programmes and majors in response to emerging market demands. Last August, we launched two new majors or tracks, one on Quantitative Finance and another on International Trading. This year we will offer two new tracks – wealth management and investment banking. We plan also to expand, on our own or with overseas partners, the number of master’s programmes by coursework and research. We will mount more business study missions to give our students more opportunities to learn about life and business in other countries. This year, our students have taken part or will take part in missions to Cambodia, China, India, Middle East, New York, Silicon Valley, California, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

It is customary at occasions like these for advice to be freely dispensed. You may find these 7-up rules for living of some use. One, show up, that is, show up for functions, weddings, birthdays, alumni reunions and other events you are invited to. They help you stay connected with the wider community. Two, stand up -- stand up for friends and what matters to you, your family and country. Three, speak up on issues you feel strongly about. You will be surprised how many other people share your views. Remember the tortoise moves forward when it sticks its neck out! Four, make up -- don’t let things simmer, forgiving is liberating and good for the heart. Five, look up and forward. It is far more rewarding to be an optimist. Optimists build a better world. Pessimists only have the dubious pleasure of being proven right. Six, live up to your own expectations; treat other people as you would like yourself to be treated. Finally, 7-up, do not give up. There will be dark nights ahead. Persevere and a new dawn will appear from behind the clouds.

Thank you again for your participation and patience today. To parents and relatives of graduates, our warm congratulations again. To the graduates, our best wishes for a fulfilling career and life. Have a wonderful, relaxing evening. Your amazing race resumes tomorrow.

two little words, one big concept.

2007-07-15T16:16:00.000+08:00

soulmate - two little words, one big concept. a belief that someone, somwhere is holding the key to your heart. all you have to do is to find her, so, where is this person? and if u love someone, and it didn't work out, does it mean they aren't yer soulmate? or are they just a runner up contestant in this gameshow called "happily ever after"?

small.

2007-07-15T16:10:00.000+08:00

like the threads on a tapestry, the stones that make up a mountain, your great importance to this world is difficult to comprehend.

standing up for what is right.

2007-07-13T07:42:00.001+08:00

recently SAF reprimanded a 2LT for "skipping the chain of command". now, go read this email that 2LT Li Hong Yi (yeah PM Lee's son) wrote and see if you would have approved his action.

personal view: i'd have told my CO, to CC the Minister and CDF and all that, wayyy too much. but, i like his style. haha :)

JZ

From: 2LT Li Hongyi, _____ PC, _____
Sent: Thursday, 28 June 2007 9:36 AM

To: ___ ____ ____, Minister, MHQ; MG ______ ____, CDF, CDF Office; BG -___ ____ ____, COA,
COAOFF; COL _______, CSO, _______; zz All in ____, _________

Cc: zz All in ________, _____; zz ALL IN ____, _____; zz All in _____, _____; zz All in ______, ______
Subject: A complaint about the quality control of SAF officers
Dear Sirs and alI,

I am about to disrupt my national service to pursue further studies, and this will likely be my last email sent out for the next half a decade. Unlike the common "ORD letters" that you read, this letter unfortunately cannot be as cheerful. I am using this last opportunity to issue a letter of complaint against the quality control of officers in the SAF, more specifically against LTA X. During my time as his subordinate, LTA X was AWOL on at least 2 counts, attempted bribery, and lied to his subordinates and his superior officer. The battalion HQ has effectively given no punishment, and has not even made these infractions known to the rest of the battalion.

Let me first give you some background. I am the ____ ____ platoon commander from __________. In order to maintain operational readiness my duties are performed at _____ camp where our ops bus and servers are instead of at stagmont camp where our battalion is. The company is structured like so

OC
|
Centre Head
|
PC

The duties are therefore shared between the PC's, PS', and the Centre Head. LTA X is the centre head of the __________.

LTA X, was originally supposed to be on duty at _____ Camp as the duty commander for the _______ on the 20th and 22nd of April, a Friday and Sunday respectively. I was on duty on the 21st of April that Saturday, to minimize the changing over, I contacted him and asked if he would like to swap duties for the Saturday and Sunday. To this he agreed, and thus he was to be on duty on the 20th and 21st of April.

On the Friday however, LTA X called to inform me that he was busy during the day, and if I could cover for him until the evening. To this I agreed to do so. At about 1600 hours, I received a call from LTA X, informing me that he was on the way and that I could leave first, thought this would result in a time where there would be no duty commander in camp, he informed me that this had already be cleared with our OC. I therefore left camp.

On Sunday the 22nd of April I arrived back in camp to take over duty from LTA X. After he had left camp the men informed me that he had not arrived in camp on Friday at all, and that he only arrived in camp at 1800 hours on Saturday the 21st of April. On Saturday they had tried to contact him to ask his whereabouts, to which he told them that he was in fact in _____ in ______ camp getting some work done. The men contacted their counterparts in ______ camp to verify this, however no one in______ camp had seen LTA X. 1 further confirmed with the ______ duty personnel on Saturday that none of them had seen LTA X, this was also with confirmed with that day's BDO.

This news obviously was very distressing, I confronted LTA X regarding this information to which he confirmed that he only arrived in camp on Saturday at 1800 hours, but that he was at _____ for a while then left later to run some errands. Upon learning that I was to bring this information to our OC, LTA X then made an offer to do some of my duties for me to which I declined, his words were "You know if you need me to help you do some of your duties.."

On Wednesday after I had completed my personal investigation and confirmed that these events had indeed transpired, I informed our OC of these offences. Our OC spoke to LTA X regarding these issues, and let him off with a warning.

I would like the story to end here, however LTA RX was again on duty at ____ Camp for _________ on the following Saturday the 28th of April. At 0030 hours on Sunday the 29th of April I received a message from the duty personnel. The duty personnel of the platoon had just spotted LTA X's car, a white Mitsubishi lancer driving out of camp. I responded by telling them to check all the car parks and look for LTA X in camp. I received a call at about 0115 hours, the duty personnel informed me that they had checked the whole camp, and that LTA X's car was no where to be found. They also informed me that LTA X was no where to be found, not in any of the bunks nor any of the offices.

On Monday the 20th of April when I arrived back in ______ Camp for work, I confirmed with both the guard commander and the duty officer for Saturday the 28th of April, that at white Mitsubishi lancer had indeed driven out of camp at about 0030 hours on the 29th of April. This latest information was told to our OC.

When confronted by our OC, LTA X told him that indeed it was his car driving out of camp, he claimed however, that it was not him driving the car but that he had lent it to friend to drive out of camp. After checking with the person in question this was established to be untrue. Finally, LTA X admitted that he had lied, and that is was he who had left camp.

I have been informed that LTA X was to be given 10 extra duties, though this may be considered an extremely light punishment there is a further problem. To date, which is to say, 2 months from the incidents, none of the duties have been published in the battalion RO, in addition, LTA X has not served any of the extra duties he was supposedly awarded. In addition, this system of leniency is not consistent throughout the battalion, or even the company. The following was published in the RO on 1 1th of June 2007:

SXXXXXXXX CPL _____ ________ Non-compliance with a lawful duty or order. stoppage of Leave for 7 days

This was the punishment for CPL ______ for leaving camp an hour before he was supposed to. This was published less than a week after his infringement. If you were to calculate the time AWOL alone, LTA X was missing for a minimum of over 20 hours. This does not take into the account the fact that he repeated the crime less than a week after being reprimanded the first time. This does not take into account the lying to his superior officer. This does not take into account the fact that he is an officer, and thus should be even more liable than corporal.

Absence without leave
22. -(1) Every person subject to military law who is absent without leave from service in the Singapore Armed Forces or from the place where he is lawfully required for the time being to be shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction by a subordinate military court to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years or any less punishment authorised by this Act.
(2) It shall be a defence for any person charged under this section to prove that his absence was a result of circumstances over which he had no control.

this is where the report ends and the editorial begins. LTA X's continued service in the SAF is an embarrassment the entire officer corps. In the SAF we are constantly being told that we have very high standards expected from our officers. As an officer cadet any one of these actions would have you put immediately out of course. Here you have a person who lied to his subordinates, went AWOL, attempted to bribe a civil servant, went AWOL again not even a week after being reprimanded, then lied to cover himself, and tried to implicate another person in these lies. He discarded his second chance just days after being given it because he thought he could get away with it. I how ask you what exactly are these high standard that we speak of? I am realistically asking you how much worse than this can an officer really go? Does a person have to commit armed robbery or murder before he fails these supposedly "high" standards of officers in the SAF? I simply fail to understand how someone who would undeniably fail the standards expected of a cadet or even a private can continue to be an officer.

The decisions of the battalion HQ are equally saddening. How can a lower standard of discipline be expected of officers than of men? In the our society, when a police officer commits a crime he is held to an even higher standard, and given even greater punishment than a normal citizen, this is because he has betrayed the very values it is his duty to uphold.

I was told that one of the reasons this was so was that they did not wish to ruin his career with a summary trial. However the SAF is not a charity organisation and does not owe anyone a career. I feel that as a regular his status as an officer and his career should be under even closer scrutiny than that of an NSF, to intentionally withhold such information is effectively tricking the SAF into continuing to pay someone whom if all is known, has no place in the organisation.

Another reason told to me for LTA X's lighter punishment was that it is in light of the work he has done for the battalion, I feel this is unacceptable for several reasons. Firstly in our country we do not mitigate punishments based on past achievements, Durai was not excused despite the amount of money he helped NKF raise, and a doctor would not be excused from molestation no matter how many lives he has helped save. Secondly such mitigation is nothing more than justified corruption and no different from a criminal paying off the police to escape arrest, the very thing we fight so hard to keep out of our society, Finally even if the previous two points are conceded, what LTA X did was not a mistake, mistakes are done by accident. What he has demonstrated is a systematic failure of character and unacceptable as an officer.

Even if you attribute the lack of punishment to extreme leniency, the decision to not inform the battalion is even more suspicious. Especially in a _____ unit such as _________ where the importance of being on duty cannot be over emphasized, to not even inform the battalion of the occurrence is to send a signal that there is nothing wrong with his actions. If it was unintentional it shows gross negligence for something which is clearly an important matter, and if intentional shows a level of corruption that I need not elaborate on.

While some might say this is just a small matter, a story of a single bad officer, the fact that it was not dealt with more severely is indicative of a bigger problem. It shows the lack of quality control being practiced for the leaders of the SAF. The following quote was taken from the army's own intranet homepage:

"In the 3rd Generation SAF, the quality and commitment of our people will continue to be the most important determinant for advancement" - Member of Parliament Ms Indranee Rajah

We can take criticism about having second hand equipment, outdated training methods, and even questionable relevance to modern day operations. But one thing that cannot be tolerated is a reputation for having bad leaders. Such a reputation would compromise Singapore's defence credibility far more than using refurbished tanks or old training manuals.

While I may only be a 2nd lieutenant, I am a citizen of this country. And as a citizen I have the right to demand high standards from the leaders of the SAF While it is true that high standards are hard to come by and even harder to enforce, for such events to come to light and yet nothing be done about it is to say the very least, unacceptable and disappointing.

Yours Sincerely,
2LT Li Hongyi -
___________ Commander

oh rowan atkinson is so good!

2007-07-09T23:59:00.001+08:00

speech impaired.

2007-07-06T01:29:00.000+08:00

for those who actually cared about me, they'd have known that for the past 3 days i had to take panadol to sleep cos my wisdom tooth was hurting like mad.

had to quickly go get it removed, so here's what happened. after HK market shut at 1230, i popped over to my dentist and without much ado he got me into a chair and did some simple explanation.

then he started gassing me. now that, is worth an experience to write about. the laughing guess smelt sweet and within 1 minute or so i felt so super sleepy and numb. then the doc supposedly put me on drip with some sleeping drug and i got knocked out immediately (for about 1.5hrs)

before i knew it, i woke up again and he simply said "it was done." spent half hour loitering and paying up (1.6k for 3 teeth), i decided i was pretty ok to , well, go back to office.

now let me put a disclaimer somewhere.. that i'm not a workoholic. but my job demands that.. i be around and my boss wasn't happy that i decided to do the op today.. so i had to appease and show my hardworking-ness to her and go back to settle some shit.

kiss my thurs-mon MC goodbye. i'm going back tomorrow late morning. f*cked up.

why la. why.

2007-07-06T01:04:00.000+08:00

you know that awful feeling you have when u missed an opportunity to do something that you wished you had done?

and that when a chance slips past you like that, u cannot help but feel.. WHAT IF.

i'm agnostic.. but God has a plan i think. my time isn't yet.. but please let it come soon.

1 shall live, 1 shall die.

2007-07-02T11:06:00.000+08:00

when the ball rolled into the goal for the 4th time, you couldn't miss the delighted/elated looks on all the players face. Yes, my Sunday soccer team finally won 4-2 coming back from 2-nil down. the Russian Rabbits are back. *woohoo*

so started off a grand Sunday. played 2 excellent games of DOTA followed by an awesome dinner, then it was so, so cool to have watched Transformers yesterday, albeit it being a sunday midnight movie and i've got work (aka now). good thing is HK markets are shut today, so i'm kinda just rotting at my desk after doing the daily routine stuff.

strange how the office blocks out everything from CouchSurf to Facebooks to Hotmails but not Blogger. hmmm.

and strange how.. i'm blogging about the absolutely mundane bullshits about my life.

bed-time reads: The World Is Flat.

wise words from a mum

2007-06-29T02:04:00.000+08:00

"you should hang out more with your school friends. they'll keep you happy, they'll remind you of school days.. then you'll always smile and always cheerful.

if you hang out too much with colleagues, you'll always talk about stressful work. that's not good. makes you become older faster."

so as rashid's mum advised.
(when i visited her in hospital today.)

argh.

2007-06-27T23:27:00.000+08:00

i love my job because.. (let me rant abit hor.)

1. i'm suppose to be on MC today, but i still went back to work.

2. it's 1136pm now.. i'm still working.

3. i don't get OT pay. nabei.

4. i've been having diarrhoea since monday :( can someone give me some loving?

ok la. ranting's over. but i really like me job. yup.

why get a receipt?

2007-06-24T11:03:00.003+08:00

Why do fast food places promise a free meal if you aren’t given a receipt at the time of purchase?

To deter theft, owners of restaurants and other retail establishments require cashiers to reconcile the total amount of cash collected during their shift with the total volume of sales rung up at their register … One way cashiers can circumvent this control is by neglecting to ring up a proportion of their transactions … Thus if a cashier failed to ring up a customer’s $20 meal, he or she could pocket the $20 without creating an accounting discrepancy … By offering a complimentary meal to anyone who fails to receive a receipt, owners provide an economic incentive for customers to monitor cashiers for free.

children see, children do.

2007-06-23T13:11:00.000+08:00

i'll blog about my birthday week later. for now, watch this video first.

annoucements

2007-06-16T16:29:00.001+08:00

got a few annoucements to say, so might as well do a blog post.

1. ING operations is hiring fulltime staff.

2. Ducktours is hiring interns.

3. this place looks nice! http://www.kranjicountryside.com/template/about.html

4. my birthday's coming up! 21st June. no plans yet.

5. ocs boys, monday is our sushi-kamikaze night!

6. rock climbing is on every Thursday, so if yer keen let me know. and oh, there's a level 1 course coming up too. so let me know about that as wel

7. and you. i've had enough of you treating me like shit. really.