Taps in the Economy

How do you make a layman understand what brings cash into the Malaysian economy?

A simple analogy is through the taps scenario.
So how many taps are there that flows in cash into the Malaysian economy?

Off my head, these are the ones.

Manufacturing
Construction/Housing
Tourism/Hotels
Plantation and Commodities
Tertiary Services
Others

What are the main elements of manufacturing? The bulk of it is Electrical and Electronics in the free trade zones in the form of semiconductors. The others could range from textiles to automobiles assembly, furniture to component manufacturing.

Construction and housing refers mainly to highway construction,civil works for the government and the private sectors and housing projects.

Tourism are for inbound, air transportation,hotel accommodation,restaurants, tourist destinations and theme parks.

Plantation and commodities refers to oil palm, rubber, timber, pepper, minerals and crude oil and gas.

Tertiary services include transportation, banking, shipping,and insurance.

Others will include health services, health tourism and education.

So how did Malaysia fare in the first quarter of 2009?

Every tap gave less cash except for construction which added 0.5% more. Manufacturing took a beating losing 17 sen to a ringgit. All the rest were negative in contribution.

The jury came in with a minus 6.6% contraction.

So what about Q2?

So say we will still be swimming in red ink but may be not as great a volume as in Q1.

So let us wait for late July or early August for the figures to show.

Give us Moola Direct!

So why is the Malaysian government not doing what Japan, Australia and Thailand has done?

To expedite economic growth, these three governments have decided to give outright cash to its citizens.

Why? So that they can spend,spend and spend to quickly bring back growth to the local economy.

The Malaysian way? Stimulus packages are implemented in a too round-about way and will not get to the people who really needs it.

Perhaps only to the contractors. Sad, sad,sad.

So, please consider giving outright cash gifts-it certainly works.

Give more to the senior citizens as they are badly affected by the gila inflation and the siow low interest rate.

We are waiting.....

Studying in Malaysia

I was posed this question.

How does one get a student visa to study English in Malaysia?

"Where is the student from?" I enquired.

"China," came the reply.

So I asked around.

Not a difficult process.

This is how it goes.

Call up any institute offering Adult English classes.

Ask them whether they take in foreign students from China.

If the answer is affirmative, the institute itself will do the processing with the Immigration Department for a student visa as well as obtain security clearance with the Ministry of Home Affairs.

I will get back to my friend on this.

Teaching Bahasa Malaysia

A friend asked me whether I could teach him Bahasa Malaysia as he needed it to converse with investing partners in Kelantan. However, he could not spend much time with me. So face-to-face contact is out.

So I suggested using cyberspace. What I would do is to teach him words thematically.

Take for example the word-makan. It means to eat.

Next, add prefixes and suffixes to it.

The common ones would do. The words generated could range from: makanan (food), dimakan(to be eaten), bermakan (to eat-depends on context), memakan(to eat-depends on context), pemakanan (nutrition,diet)and so forth.

Then these words will be shown its usage in the literal form. For example:

Mereka sedang bermakan dengan kawan-kawan sepejabat. (They are eating with their office mates.)

The usage in figurative sentences are also provided. For example:

Kita bukan orang kaya. Kita makan gaji.(We are not rich. We work for a salary)

I have yet to get a response from my friend on this mode of teaching.

Nordic Time-Warp

Just saw Outlander as my afternoon matinee.

Out of sheer greed,an intergalactic race seized upon a planet owned by ghastly giant bug-like creatures called the Moorwens. Unfortunately, they failed to kill all of them and one of these creatures stowed away on the protagonist's spaceship when it crashed into the Nordic Coast of Planet Earth.

How he came to be accepted by the Norse,fought alongside with them in their battles, married the King's daughter and finally became king is a short brief of the plot. Nothing really great about the movie except that it could have borrowed wholesale the monster in the Alien movie.

Quite predictable and lack thrills.

Stars: James Caviezel, Sophia Myles and Jack Huston. No great acting performances here.

A Day in DUMC with the Gans

And so we went to DUMC at the appointed hour.

After introducing the Gans to Senior Pastor Dr. Daniel Ho at the church doorway, we all sat in one of the front rows. The celebration then started with Stephanie Ong leading off with some new songs. Gan told me she has the look at a person who has just got up from bed. As usual, there was the dancing and the harmonious singing. Three professional singers, Patrick, Steven and Juwita Suwito then showed off their singing prowess.

The it was prayer time by Pastor Foo Yong Chan and all of us gave our tithes and offerings.

Pastor Daniel then spoke of the main issues currently facing the country. Leading these were the economic downturn from the US meltdown,the political tsunami that swept Malaysia and continued to have its reverberations and the power wielded in cyberspace. He then spoke of an opportunity-a confused and upset population that has now become more receptive of the gospel. Another observable trend was that the church as an institution has become more courageous and willing to speak as a moral bulwark on national issues such as reaching out to the community, and as an agent of love, compassion and justice to migrant workers and foreigners. He also mentioned on the necessity of churches to network with like-minded churches to meet common ends.

He informed the congregation of the growth of the Christian community; currently at 10% of the Malaysian population of 28 million, which is more than the total number of Hindus.

After the sermon, we brought Gan and Aileen to the Visitor's Lounge to register as guests and to have tea. We had cakes and biscuits.

Gan seems to be more aloof but I guess God will speak to him in his own time. Aileen seems more acceptable to the good news.

After that, we went to PJ new town and had Kon Loh Mein. Not too good.

We hope the Gans will go to DUMC on their own in the following weeks.

To Thrift is to Grieve!

Whatever happened to the time-honoured divine tenet of savings?

How about such saying like-A dollar save is a dollar earn?

In these troubled times, the evils unleashed from Pandora's Box have come back to roost on all of us!

The first evil is the crazy runaway inflation that smacks you in the face as you wake up daily. The price of food keeps going up. One day, economy noodles is RM1.80; the next day it has scaled a new height of RM2.00. Last month, iced tea without milk went for RM1.40. Today, it is RM1.60. Only god knows what is happening all around us in Malaysia. Go to any supermarkets and you can see the difference in January and June prices.

The second evil obviously is the low interest rate regime. Imagine to keep RM1 in the bank, you get less than a sen after 365 days. If you have a million ringgit stashed away in a fixed deposit account, you will get only below RM660 to spend per month. Definitely, not enough to keep body and soul together in the Klang Valley!

So as the ringgit shrinks in value and the low interest regime laughs you to the poor house, what can one do?

Take more risks-play good stocks on the Bursa when the market weakens and try to buy a property to maintain the value of your ringgit. Believe me, rentals are higher than interest returns if you buy property assets in choice locations that can easily be rented out.

To thrift is to grieve! How true!