Najib made a rather blatant statement which shows political favoritism

Before you say i am making up stories or slandering people, *I AM ONLY REPEATING WHAT WAS PRINTED IN THE NEW STRAITS TIMES!!!*

And NST is directly quoting Najib himself. So, I am not accusing Najib of anything. I am just repeating what was said by Najib, Bernama, and NST.

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/National/2517798/Article/index_html
Or, for those who want a physical copy of this, New Sunday Times, March 29, 2009, Page 5 of News Section. (under the picture of 2 cranes)

Having telephoned NST, they pointed out that they are only quoting Bernama, so they take no responsibility either.

Najib disclosed that a website to keep tabs on spending of the stimulus packages would be launched within the next two weeks.
He said RM1.5 billion would be spent up to the end of next month and RM2.5 billion by end of May.
"They involve about 32,000 projects, which would involve class F contractors, who are also loyal supporters of Umno."

Rm4 billion in 3 months. 32,000 projects.

And ALL OF IT IS GOING TO these *loyal supporters of UMNO*.


AFAIK, some of those projects have not even been tendered yet. And nonetheless, we already know the result beforehand. All of it is only going to loyal supporters of UMNO!

...

You're not really allowed to do such things. If you are going to be conducting such gross favoritism for UMNO supporters, that leaves all non-UMNO supporters 3 choices: convert to UMNO supporters, try to survive in a political and economic environment which is grossly skewed against you, or just give up on the country and leave.

It has been pretty much an open secret that there is a lot of money politics and government projects given based on political favoritism, so this is hardly anything new. In fact, when I called up NST and Bernama to investigate, the editorial staff informed me that "corruption is quite normal, so why do you sound so surprised?". Not my opinion, merely repeating what was said to me.

What is a bit much is the fact that Najib proudly admitted to this fact to our local media.

I mean, consider if the Obama made a statement that the bailout package was being given exclusively to Democrats. There'd be public, possibly international outcry!

At the very least, he would be forced to retract or amend his statement, but in a civilized country, any minister who made this sort of statement might end up having to step down.

...

It gives a poor impression of the country's transparency issues. And makes economic growth look rather difficult.

In a country where State Governments can change hands without reelections, and where billions can be assigned to party loyalists, with the PM to be boasting about it... this is all rather unethical. Not very good stuff at all.

All in all, I wouldn't advise anyone to hold any long term investments in Malaysia... sell and cabut. In any case, the drop here was much less than in other countries, so when the economy does rebound, you can expect other countries to post much bigger percentage gains than Malaysia.

Retrenchment - Malaysia vs Overseas

As some of you might know, I am a regular follower of Dali at http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/
His recent piece compared how Malaysian local companies did not really bother to retrench, compared to MMCs and foreign companies.

My point of view?

I am SURE that the price of labour has a lot to do with the difference in policy... for local firms, salaries a a much lower percentage. Take Tenaga, Proton, MayBank... what % of the annual revenue/profit do salaries make up? Compare that with General Motors, AIG, Goldman... where even 10% layoffs translated to pretty HUGE savings.
In the UK, an accountant get's like RM240,000 a year. In Malaysia, they get like RM 48,000 a year. So, in order to make the same amount of savings, a malaysian company needs to fire of 5 times the number of workers.
Or take General Motors. According to various reports, the cost of employing a GM factory worker, including wages and fringes, would not be in excess of $72 per hour. A FACTORY WORKER. Our local factory workers are getting RM1000 - RM3000 a month, but these guys are getting RM40,000 a month. Yes, dear dog, no wonder GM is in trouble.


One more thing. A lot of hiring that was going on was due to "optimism". Due to the length of the training cycle, companies have to prepare early for future growth, if you expect business to grow 40% in 2 years, you need to finish hiring 30% extra staff in 1 year. In fact, it wouldn't take a big fall in business for layoffs... in recent overheated job market environment, all it would have required would have been for revenue levels to stagnate for 2-3 years. That would already have been enough to have plenty of idle workers.

The stupidity of Malaysia's FUPO adventure.

OMG.
I happened to go to my futures broker today, and I suddenly decided to dip my toes into FUPO.

But... Buy queues. for ALL months... ZERO
Sell queues, for all months... ZERO.

We had 5 trades on the first day, and it only got worse.


I tried to make some outlandish bids anyhow, on the hopes someone might decide to take me up on it.
...
My broker made some phone calls... he wasn't certain how the procedure went, since he had never done a FUPO contract before.
10 minutes later, told me it couldn't be done today.
I decided to forget it.


This is a chicken and egg scenario.
There a lot of shares that no one trades/ speculates on (long term investment only) because of low liquidity.
And because no one trades on them, there is no liquidity.
Vicious cycle, chicken and egg.
FUPO is like that now.


Furthermore, FUPO is CASH SETTLED not physically settled. So, it's ONLY useful as a speculative tool, an actual company which deals with palm oil products would not really be interested.
Overall, I was interested in doing a little speculation here, but I have lost interest in it too.


On top of everything else, the fact of the matter is that FUPO is redundant... the FUPO price will be solely determined by FCPO price and USD-MYR.
FUPO is effectively a derivative product, which has price controlled by two other products.
If I wanted to speculate on MYR-USD, I would do so directly. If I wanted to speculate on FCPO, I would do so directly.
Why would I waste my time doing FUPO contracts?

Another reason why foreclosures will rise in America

Well... not ALL parts of America... but certainly in states like Arizona and California.

"Some states have laws that may specifically prohibit lenders from pursuing borrowers for the balance of many mortgage loans after foreclosure, though the particulars vary. Arizona and California are among these states, according to Steven Bender, a professor at the University of Oregon School of Law. It’s best to talk to a lawyer to determine your state’s rules."

In other words, for those who bought a house and do not live in it, who are underwater, they can go through foreclosure and are DEBT FREE at the end of it. The only damage they take will be mental and also a hit to their credit rating. But overall, this will EASILY be their best choice from a financial standpoint.

And even the credit rating might not be strongly affected:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/your-money/mortgages/14money.html?_r=1

Turns out FICO has decided to discount the affect of foreclosures in 2008 and 2009 in their credit ratings... the logic is fair enough, in short: it's not that these guys are deadbeats, it was the bubble bursting that did it.

Some lenders aren’t waiting that long to initiate their own foreclosure destigmatization programs. The Golden 1, one of the nation’s largest credit unions, now has a mortgage repair loan for people who have lost a home to foreclosure but want to buy a new one.

That's massive. In other words, you can put your home into foreclosure, which you bought for $500,000 and is currently worth $300,000 market price, which you are paying say $3000 a month on mortage. You make no further loss on this, and immediately turn around get a mortage and buy a house JUST LIKE THE ONE YOU JUST FORECLOSED for $300,000. If you're really sneaky, you might even be able to buy back your newly foreclosed house, thus moving back into your own home! and... wow, your new mortage payments have dropped to $2000 a month, since your total mortage just dropped from $500,000 to $300,000.

In other words, the bank just ate almost the entire fall in value of your home (you still lose any payments you made to date). And in fact, this means that EVEN IF YOU WERE NOT IN TROUBLE IN THE FIRST PLACE, aka even if you didn't lose your job, even if you CAN STILL AFFORD TO MAKE PAYMENTS.... it is financially the best choice to foreclose your house.

In affect, If you bought a house at the top of the market in California, and you paid $500,000.... and it has now dropped in value to $300,000... you should REJOICE and CELEBRATE.

No, I'm serious.

In effect, this current situation means that those fellas who bought when the market was too high can in affect basically wipe their slate clean, and just buy a similiar house for the much cheaper current prices.

...

Now I'm thinking of Malaysia and Bukit Antarabangsa. Ha. In comparison, in Malaysia, those who lost their homes in the landslide were informed that they "would be given 3 months grace from housing instalments" by the banks.

If they were under california laws, they could just foreclose, and the banks would have to eat the ENTIRE LOSS, since after foreclosure in California and Arizona, the banks can't chase after you for any balance after foreclosure.

Under Malaysian law though, I think those poor fellas are having to still pay for a RM1 million housing loan despite the fact that the house is now non-existant aka worth ZERO.

Comments, please.

MMC Senai Airport purchase... CROOKED AUDITORS AND ACCOUNTANTS!!!!

This is the forecast from MMC corps regarding the SATS purchase.

Look at 2010.

... .... ... How can they deliver this sort of utter bullshit? How how how how how???

As I said, audtiors and accountants in Malaysia are paid peanuts, because they are useless piles of shit who don't understand the meaning of Accounting Standards, Intergrity, Transparency, or any other tenets of accounting.

What the bloody hell is this nonsense??? 6 years of average almost 15 million a year losses, and in 2010, they project 93.3 million profit? Where did they pull that figure from, huh???

Yeah, I know that they have to put in some large profit numbers to justify the buying price of Rm1.7billion, but this is just madness. (BTW, hearsay is that they pulled the number 93.3 million because they needed to arrive at over 5% return on equity.... 93.3 divided by 1700...)

And, as everyone knows, MMC is buying SATS from Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary. In CASH TERMS.

This... this is so fundamentally crooked, I know that other people also do RPTs, but at least they have the decency to at least TRY to make it look legit... this is really daylight robbery... geez....

I'm... I'm so disturbed by this, that I can't even muster the strength to be angry... good grief....

Malaysia's Foreign Reserve

We had some local morons talking about how Malaysia has a "strong" and "comfortable" foreign reserve of USD91billion, which would stop the Ringgit from sliding.

...

Er.

Complete and utter morons. And VERY LAZY to boot.

http://www.bnm.gov.my/index.php?ch=12&pg=293&sdate=2008-10-31&lang=en

A 1 minute google search brought me to the bank negara website. Let me summarise:

Month vs Foreign Reserves.

July 2008: 125b
Aug 2008: 122.5b
Sep 2008: 109.7b
Oct 2008: 100.2b
Nov 2008: 97.7b
Dec 2008: 91.5b
Jan 2009: 91.3b

Hmm... ok, they seem to have stopped the slide in January... is it temporary or will it last? ... based on current economic conditions: IT WON'T LAST. DUH.

Anyhow, the gist of it is: our foreign reserves fell 34b in 6 months. BEFORE the recession has even really hit Malaysia.

Does that 91b look so big now?

This sort of reporting shows either lack of transparency(honesty), or stupidity. Or both.

It's bad enough when the country is in the hands of stupid but honest people. It was actually doing ok in the hands of the dishonest genius (Mahatir). But now, being run by people who are both stupid AND liars... that's no good, is it?

Mahatir has gone senile. Or mad. Or both.

When we were hit by the 1997 crisis, Mahatir got us out of it.

He's not Prime Minister now though.

And apparently, THAT is a good thing. Cause he's gone absolutely bonkers in his old age!

http://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/
http://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/2009/01/boycott.html

"1. I would like to have the Malaysian Armed Forces attack the United States and Israel."

"4. We could blockade the United States and deny it food and medicine."

....

OH... MY... DOG!!!

WTF is wrong with our former PM???

Worse yet, it makes me really have to wonder if we have any other lunatics in our parliament thinking the same things!

If you read our newspapers, sadly, it shows that Mahatir is not alone in his views... A lot of other political leaders are getting very vocal about how they should make a stand against Israel and America... Scary. But not surprising. At the end of the day, even the international Muslim community regards Malaysia as being tending to extremist.

Malaysia??? Go to war with Israel, or worse, America???

...

If that even LOOKS like it might happen, I am going to short sell the KLCI for every ringgit I can leverage, and take the next flight to Australia. ... Watch as yet another "Muslim Terrorist" country gets smashed by the American army.

Islam might be a great religion and all, but for those who think Allah will grant victory to Malaysia against America, in an offensive attack on American soil... well, let me summarise: I disagree.

...

My investment advice? ... consider taking assets out of Malaysia and moving them overseas... make sure your passport is current... well, I guess it's unlikely to happen, but then again, it is starting to look more and more likely with each passing day, that Malaysia will start up something very VERY stupid concerning America and Israel...

Malaysia was downgraded for political instability.

Now it can get downgraded again for political STUPIDITY.

Coca Cola vs Malaysia... and Mahatir vs US dollar!!!

http://news.my.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=2022931

A boycott of US-made goods and firms including Coca-Cola and Starbucks has been called by Muslim groups who are planning a protest Friday at the National Mosque in the capital Kuala Lumpur.

Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad has also called for a global boycott of the US dollar and US products in protest over Washington's support of Israel.

...

OMFG... boycott of the US Dollar?

... Well... in theory... companies could write their contracts in EUROS or DINARS... but somehow I don't think it's gonna happen. lol.

Seriously though, I think that if our entire Muslim population boycotts American goods for 1 month, there will be 2 affects:

1) America barely notices or cares.
2) 1/4 of the shops in Malaysia close shop for 1 month.

...

Idiots.

Malaysian quick ability to forget bullshit.

Was looking up stuff related to theme parks in Johor and found this blast from the past.


http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=200643

Sat Nov 3, 2007 1:30am EDTKUALA LUMPUR, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co (DIS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) is looking to build a theme park on a 500-acre (202-hectare) site in southern Malaysia, a business weekly reported on Saturday.

Citing unnamed sources, the Edge said the theme park, to be located in Bardar Nusajaya in the Iskandar development zone, would be ready six years after a deal was signed, according to early proposals.The proposed Disneyland theme park and resort is slated to be bigger than Hong Kong Disneyland and about the size of Tokyo Disney Resort, it said.

The government unveiled a $105 billion blueprint late last year to transform the southern tip of Johor state, which neighbours Singapore, into a regional economic zone for industry, logistics, trade and leisure.

Although the talks with Disney are progressing fast, discussions with other theme park operators, including Warner Bros Entertainment and MGM (MGM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), have not ceased, the Edge said."However, a deal with Walt Disney looks most promising as it has expressed its seriousness and has come out with specifications on its requirements," it quoted a source as saying.

If the talks with Disney are successful, a deal is expected to be signed by the middle of next year, it added.Malaysia's state-controlled UEM World (UEMW.KL: Quote, Profile, Research) is developing Bandar Nusajaya, a township in southwest Johor.The 2,200 square km (850 sq miles) Iskandar zone has so far clinched at least $6 billion in investments, including a $4.7 billion maritime park proposed by Dubai World and Malaysia's infrastructure-to-energy group MMC Bhd (MMCB.KL: Quote, Profile, Research).


How did this turn out?

A PACK OF LIES!!! ... funny.

Yet another "UNNAMED SOURCE". What is it with Malaysia and it's unnamed sources? ... Blatant market manipulation. Freaking 3rd world country... Since when does a supposedly reputable business weekly rely on "unnamed sources"? In modern countries, even the TABLOIDS will reveal their sources most of the time.

Sad.

Talks progressing fast? hahahaha.... now we found out that there WERE NO TALKS. sad!

American Unemployment: the hidden figures.

Think 7.2% unemployment doesn't sound too bad? ... think it sounds really bad? Well, whatever, it get's WORSE. Facts and figures from:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

"In December, the number of persons who worked part time for economic reasons (some-times referred to as involuntary part-time workers) continued to increase, reaching 8.0 million. The number of such workers rose by 3.4 million over the past 12 months. This category includes persons who would like to work full time but were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-5.)"

In America, if you are employed part-time, you are not unemployed! BTW, 8 million is around 5%, and 3.4 million is about 2.2% of the labour force. So, from another perspective, this can be seen as a hidden 2% jump in unemployment.



"About 1.9 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached to thelabor force in December, 564,000 more than 12 months earlier. These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weekspreceding the survey. Among the marginally attached, there were 642,000 discouraged work-ers in December, up by 279,000 from a year earlier. Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work specifically because they believe no jobs are available for them. The other 1.3 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in December had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities. (See table A-13.)"

That's not too bad in a way: only another 0.2% unemployment jump there. On the other hand, it means that discouraged workers went from 363k +279k = 642k. That's a huge percentage change. Still, it's only to be expected...
In fact, what that means is, when Obama's stimulus comes in, you might see unemployment go UP temporarily... since a large number of these 642k people will probably try to secure some of these newly created jobs, they will on paper change from "not trying to find employment" to "unemployed" (temporarily) before becoming "employed"


"In December, average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 5 cents, or 0.3 percent, seasonally adjusted. This followed gains of 8 cents in November and 6 cents in October. For all of 2008, average hourly earnings increased by 3.7 percent and average weekly earnings rose by 2.2 percent. (See table B-3.)"

This, however, is a sudden positive, a huge light in the middle of darkness. It means that the average worker's pay was still going up! It might not seem like a lot, but it's better than being stagnant, trust me.
The gap between +3.7% per hour and +2.2% per week is because The index of aggregate weekly hours of production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls fell by 1.1 percent in December and 4.0 percent since peaking in December 2007.
That means people were working less but earning more. That's good! More free time, and more money!

Though of course, it's not so good for company cost:production ratio. Oh well. It's always workers vs company profits, I guess.

...


Now, let's jump to Malaysia and Singapore.

Well, in most Asian countries... we don't have unemployment benefits. However... Singapore appears to be trying to get around that, by telling companies to put workers on paid leave, and Singapore government will cover 75% of their salary. VERY interesting...

So, what does so much paid leave mean? ... IMHO, it means that you're going to get a number of people with money in their pockets and a lot of free time. ... very interesting. Personally, I think that gambling income will go up, and perhaps travelling will increase too... hmm. Hard to say how people will react. I suppose they will be happy in the short term, but start getting worried for job security in the long term.

Anyhow, paid leave is the current solution because Malaysia and Singapore are hoping for a V-shaped recovery. However, it looks like American firms are looking at an L-shaped recession, based on their hiring/firing policies.

Personally, I think that Malaysia is being overly optimistic. As usual.

BTW, to update on that Legoland Johor idea: ... I'm going to HK in March. And I noticed, after checking on Wiki: Disneyland HK has NEVER made a profit... it has eaten up government money, year after year after year. (because Disney is smart, they knew the enterprise was not a good idea, so they let HK government be the main shareholder)
HK, prosperous as it is, simply cannot sustain a theme park the size of Disneyland. It's annual visitors is far below projected levels.
Disneyland in Japan and America? They're doing GREAT.

How about Legoland in the rest of the world? ... doing BAD. All losing money.

What does that say about Legoland Malaysia? ... ... ... Er... Personally, I think that this is one of those "no way in hell will it work" sort of ideas. According to some figures we were discussing, Legoland in Johor would need over RM75million a year in revenue just to breakeven. Or about RM200k per day. Which would be... maybe they are hoping for 2k visitors a day, and charge them RM100 each?

...

Anyhow, I don't think it's going to work. Frankly, Lego DOES NOT SELL WELL in Malaysia. I don't think Lego itself generates annual sales of RM75 million in Malaysia, though I could be wrong there.

Malaysian Politicians always think they are damn "big".

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia has given the United Nations Security Council a one-day “deadline” to come up with a resolution on Israel’s aggression against Palestine before it would go “full steam ahead” to call for a special session of the General Assembly. He said the ultimatum was necessary because one had to exhaust all avenues first before petitioning for a special General Assembly sitting
PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia has given the United Nations Security Council an ultimatum to come up with a resolution to condemn Israel on its brutal aggression against Palestine.
KUALA LUMPUR: More than 2,000 Muslim restaurants in Malaysia will remove Coca-Cola from their menus as part of a boycott of American products in protest against Israel's bombardment of Gaza, officials said Wednesday.Some 2,600 restaurants under the Association of Muslim Restaurant Operators will stop selling Coca-Cola from Friday, he added.

...

Malaysian politicians think that Malaysia will have like 2% less growth than 2007. While other nations across the globe are looking at 6% falls in growth.

Malaysian politicians think that they can issue "ultimatums" and "one-day deadlines" to the UN.

Malaysians think that they can declare Boycotts on American goods.

...

Seriously, Malaysia boleh is one thing, but are Malaysian politicians smoking mushrooms or something stupid? Maybe they are taking ganja now that they can't be caught drinking alchohol. (and don't tell me nonsense about Muslim politicians not drinking alchohol, we all KNOW this is bullshit... Malaysian politicians and businessmen drink much more than I could ever do)

Malaysia boycott American and Israel goods? ... er... well, I think that Malaysians cannot really survive without American goods... But I think that Americans can easily survive without Malaysian goods. BTW, I think if America boycotts Malaysian goods, Malaysia can pretty much expect unemployment to double...

Malaysia's ultimatum is to... petition for a special assembly? ... haha. First of all, I doubt malaysia could carry it out. Secondly... it's not much of a threat is it? It's like... going up to my neighbour and telling him to stop playing loud music at 2am... or I will write him a letter telling him to stop. ... pathetic. WEAK.

And everyone notices that Malaysia did not join in operation desert storm... or any other wars. There are wars all over the world, ALL THE TIME. Obviously, the only reason why Malaysia is making noise is over the religious issue. Duh. How many countries does our Malaysian passport NOT allow access to? huh.
The only reason that the rest of Middle East isn't declaring it a Jihad is that they're in a really weak position now due to oil prices.

...

Anyhow, basically, waiting for malaysian politicians to realise the meaning of REALITY.

US Bond Market is FAILING. BADLY. $2 trillion fails to deliver???

Excerpts from:
http://www.euromoney.com/Article/2054070/The-US-treasury-market-reaches-breaking-point.html?LS=EMS224393


"There is an even more pressing concern for many participants in this increasingly swollen market: the settlement system has broken down. Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September, fails to deliver among the 17 primary dealers in the US treasury market have rocketed to more than $2 trillion over a period of weeks and still lie above $1.3 trillion. Broker/dealers have stopped delivering bonds. Holders of US treasuries are now scared to lend into the repo market in case their bonds are not returned, and potential buyers sit on the sidelines fearful of handing over their money to a counterparty that at best might not deliver a bond on time, and at worst might go under. "

"Fails to deliver in the treasury markets are not a new phenomenon. There is data for fails for treasuries, agencies and mortgage-backed securities as far back as 1990, says Susanne Trimbath, an economist, and former employee of the Depository Trust Co, a subsidiary of Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. "

"Back then, though, there would be $50 billion of fails in a whole year, she says. That figure has grown enormously. Failures in US treasuries were 8.6% of all treasuries outstanding in the first five months of this year, compared with 1.2% in the first five months of 2007. That has ballooned further over the past three months, hitting more than $2 trillion for almost the entire month of October – more than 20% of the daily treasuries trading volume"


...

Failure of the Bonds market?

I know that most Malaysian have never touched a bond in their life. So let me just sum it up: The bond market is more integral to the world financial system than the stock market. It ranks right up there with the much talked about credit market. (not surprising since they basically deal with the same thing: financing debt. And they are both rather ridiculously huge)

Fails among 17 primary dealers in US treasury market shot to 2 trillion... That brings up a very important question: how about the OTHER dealers? How many failures among the smaller dealers? ... possibly higher? I mean, considering that these 17 primary dealers are the big guys, the ones who presumably would be in better shape than the little guys... what sort of fails to deliver are occuring amongst the smaller dealers?

What sort of fails are occuring in the non-US Treasury bonds?

The worst case scenario here is that the entire bond market seizes up. No rollovers??? Heaven forbid! ... seriously, I cannot even imagine what damage would be caused by this sort of chaos.

Why do some people think that there is any possibility that the crisis has been solved?

Credit market is still not working properly whatsoever... interbank credit might be looser, but it's still even TIGHTER at the consumer level!

Bond market is at it's worst level ever, as seen above.

Global Trade is frozen. Look at the BDI, or visit the docks one day. Goods are not moving. Part of this is due to tight credit. Part of this is due to lower demand for goods.
Those Pirates are not helping either. Who wants to ship stuff if there's a higher chance that you'll make huge losses from paying ransoms?

Property is dropping. In fact it is only beginning to drop in the less developed nations, who think they might be spared... understand guys. Events unfold slower for underdeveloped nations, but they eventually do hit you too. I'm looking at you Malaysia!

Employment and consumer spending are going into a vicious circle spiralling downwards. For Malaysia, our local consumption is nowhere near enough to sustain our production, so our factories are going to get killed by UK and US unemployment figures.

To make matters worse, terrorists have proven themselves to be smart and are acting at the worst(for us) /best(for them) possible moment. I am unsure what their real objectives are, but what they have managed to accomplish is they've caused political tension between a number of nations.

The only good news? Well, fuel prices are dropping. Housing prices are falling too. That means: this is a good time to look at relocating. Tired of your current neighbourhood? This might not be a bad time for a total change in lifestyle.

3.5% Growth my butt.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/12812-nor-mohamed-confident-of-35pc-gdp-growth-next-year

"However, he said, Malaysia managed to gain an edge during the current global financial crisis by promoting Islamic finance as an alternative system."
The Anglo-Saxon financial system is crumbling because its architecture is unsuitable, incomplete and unfair. We warned the world about this in the financial crisis 10 years ago but we were ignored,” Nor Mohamed said.

Er. Has he even taken a look at what shape the Islamic Bank stocks are in right now? The Islamic model of economy seems to be: depend on oil. If oil sinks, you are all doomed.
... I could be wrong though. Still, watch the utter havoc in Middle East economies if oil stays at this level.

As for Malaysia, here is my forecast of the damage to our GDP:

First off, our GDP roughly consists of: agriculture: 8.6%, industry: 47.8%, services: 43.6% (2007 est.)

Palm Oil exports likely to remain stable, maybe even increase. But the fact that price per ton has dropped over 60% means that we will lose at least 3% GDP.
Oil... we don't really export that much, relative to our local consumption. Still, we can expect to take a hit of around 2% GDP from oil related exports.
As for local consumption, I would say it's a hit of another 3% GDP. (though in real terms, a fall in fuel prices locally means that real cost of living drops and thus GDP in purchasing power parities will go up to balance this)
Electronics: I have no idea what the drop in international sales here would be next year. I admit that I am only throwing a wild guess when I say 10% fall. Which would come to another 2% drop in GDP I guess? Really not sure here.

So far, I have not even talked about local consumption, effects of employment falls, and so forth, and we're already looking at a drop of 10% in 2009... I expect, in sum total, for the 2009 recession to be worse than 1998, and my own personal guess is a 12% contraction in GDP for 2009, and a further 6% contraction in 2010.

Well... we shall see what the results turn out to be... I could turn out to be wrong of course. But remember: during 1998, industrial demand was still high. This time around, industrial demand is falling really badly. Furthermore, it looks likely that China will undercut Malaysia in industrial supply. BADLY undercut Malaysia, in fact. So I expect this crash to be much much worse than 1998. Incomparably worse, in fact.

Still... the housing prices have not really moved yet. So, looks like I might be jumping to conclusions. My opinion is definitely to watch those property prices and employment figures.
BTW... the profit figures for companies are now beginning to turn sour. And remember that our country does not have unions which grant huge severance packages to laid-off employees, like America does. So it's not that difficult for a company to dump a huge number of workers in a short amount of time... they can always rehire them easily if the economy picks up again, after all.


Summary: Regardless of what our government claims, everyone knows that Malaysia is headed into a recession. The only question is the depth of it's severity. BTW, I seem to recall them projecting a 5% growth in 1998, which turned out to be a 7.5% contraction. Lunatics.

Vivid Videos vs YouPorn

Article from http://www.portfolio.com/culture-lifestyle/culture-inc/arts/2007/10/15/YouPorn-Vivid-Entertainment-Profile


Basically, Today, YouPorn is the No. 1 adult site in the world; Vivid.com, a pay site, is ranked 5,061. Vivid however has a LOT of income due to being one of the top Porn Companies in the world.
So this guy, the owner, Stephen Paul Jones , wants to sell youporn to vivid.

What's so interesting about this? Well for one, it's interesting to see how PAID porn deals with FREE PORN eating up it's market share. By buying it out? ... Is this going to be like the internet bubble? This is going to be the porn bubble?

Will this mean that Muslim countries like Malaysia will miss out?

Evidently, not completely:

"Jones told the men that he and one other executive, a young Malaysian man living in Australia, were the owners of YouPorn." His name is Zach Hong and he lives in Australia.


Oh yes. We Malaysians have something to be proud of. Malaysia Boleh! This guy should be in the Malaysian Book of Records... he might even be eligible for a Datukship!



FYI, Malaysia has decided to fight back by blocking streamyx access to youporn.com, so http://www.programming-is-fun.com/2008/09/accessing-yourpon-from-malaysia.html will teach those who want to see what a Malaysian guy managed to create.


Ok, actually, this all turned out to be old news, but I just found out about it and I think that it's interesting...