dinarpmkum

If the Supreme Court tosses out Obamacare, the United States may have a unique opportunity to think about a framework for a rational health care industry. The framework should begin with the free market. The guiding principle should be that individuals pay for their own health care. Without that guiding principle, health care provision will always be too expensive, inadequate for many, and absurdly inefficient. Check out the health care programs in Europe. None of them are any good because they all have too much government involvement. Let us all admit that the free market isn't perfect. No question about it. The free market provision of health care will inevitably end up with situations that none of us like. No denying that. But all policy decisions are a question of choosing among alternatives. No solution is perfect and government solutions almost always tend to be the worst available. Should the government really be delivering the mail? We now have a completely absurd...

Beyond the 'Dong Zong issue' by Azly Rahman in Malaysiakini I read with interest about ongoing governmental discrimination against Chinese schools, as highlighted by Dong Zong. Why are quality teachers and an abundance of resources still channeled only to Malay-dominated schools? Why are children in Chinese schools criminalised by the ‘sanction on teaching staff” which will ultimately deprive students of a good mother-tongue education? What actually is our illness with regard to denial of the students’ right to their own language? Do policy makers actually understand the relationship between culture, cognition, consciousness and citizenship? What does nationalism mean these days, and how do we understand it vis-a-viz use of language in schools? Whose brand of nationalism is being made dominant and what should an inclusive one look like? What is the real issue behind the age-old request for the Chinese schools to have more teachers? How are the children criminalised by all this?...

The mainstream political parties are losing their support in Greece, as one would expect, given the imposition of austerity. The communist party and neo-nazi parties are on the rise and threaten political chaos and civil unrest. Sound familiar? This was the Germany of 1922-23 as the German government faced a mountain of reparation payments from the aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles and an enforced austerity program. Now Germany is the enforcer and Greece may well become the new Germany. This is the predictable outcome of the Merkel-Sarcozy-IMF bailout scheme. There is no way that this solution will hold. It will come apart and Greece will become a different country, unrecognizable from the rest of Europe. Portugal, Spain, and Italy will eventually be on that path as well, unless the Merkel-Sarcozy-IMF plans are abandoned. Europe needs a reality test, not austerity. The sovereign debts in Europe are unsustainable and unpayable. This is a pretty harsh reality, but it is the ...

This is my favourite card game, and the only game I would play when I am at a casino, which meant that I do not frequent the casinos in Malaysia and Singapore. They do not have Texas Holdem for players only (the Carribean and other versions are stupid odds-favouring the casino bullshit games) because its a low yielding game. Money basically changes hands among the players themselves and the house just takes a cut after every hand. Too small for the casinos in Malaysia and Singapore apparently. I don't undrestand that because the biggest gaming place is Macau and Texas Holdem is very big there as in everywhere else.Most people like poker, but nothing can compare to Texas Holdem because of the various possibilities. Many people who play like to think they are good players, me included (lol), just like many people who invest in stockmarkets like to think they are better than the average (again, wrong). To make money in stockmarkets you NOT only have to be better than 50% of the player...

In general, banks define dormant account (sometimes referred as inactive) when an account does not have any transaction (deposit or withdrawal) for a continuous period of at least 12 months. When your account becomes dormant, the bank would send you a notice letter to the registered mailing address to remind you to activate your account. You may be required to withdrawal or deposit some money over the counter to re-activate your account. What are the charges? In addition, should your account balances be RM10 or less , the bank would also inform you of its intention to close the account. The bank will send you a 2nd reminder when it does not receive any response from you (i.e. for activation of account or objection to the closure) within 3 months after the 1st notice. If there is still no response after 2 notices, the bank may proceed to close the account and absorb the balances as service fee. For account with balances of more than RM10 , the account will usually be charged with a dor...

I still remembered the recent talk show section in BFM which focused on why women aren't climbing the corporate ladder more successfully. The world has never been treating women nowhere near fair since the beginning of time. Just pluck any cross section from historic times. We have made strides over the past 100 years or so but oh, we still are so far from being "fair". In the corporate world, much has been said about women being represented in the board rooms and top management. The US being a much touted place for equality, and even Australia, are still poorly represented in those areas. Do we dare to say women are not as capable? I don't think so. Look at the academic results for the past 20 years, given a fair go, women generally outperform men. Maybe success and a career in the corporate world requires more than just academic excellence, for sure actually. Leadership skills, charisma, interpersonal skills,  soft skills, high EQ, ambition, resilience of character,...

German bonds are beginning to sink. A national strike has been called in Portugal to shut down the economic life of the country to protest the government's austerity measures. Bond yields in Spain and Italy have resumed their upward march. There is a growing awareness that Greek reforms will never take place. No surprises here, unless your name is Merkel, Sarcozy, Bernanke or Geithner. The European debt explosion marches on to its inevitable conclusion. The forces that drive sovereign debt expansion in Europe, in Japan, in the US, are alive and well. Politicians can huff and puff all they want, but it won't matter. The unraveling process is well under way. Check out the trend in US bond yields. We're going the same route. In case you didn't see it, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner weighed in yesterday on how things are going in Europe. Bernanke (to a House Oversight Committee): "In the past few months, financial stresses in Europe have lessened, which has con...

The global economy grew at a more moderate pace in 2011 after the strong rebound in 2010. The growth momentum was weighed down by continued structural weaknesses and fiscal issues in the advanced economies, geopolitical developments in the Middle East and North Africa region and the disruptive impact of natural disasters on global manufacturing production. These developments reverberated onto international financial markets and contributed to heightened market volatility throughout the year. Despite the less favourable external environment, emerging economies continued to record firm domestic-driven economic growth. At the same time, emerging economies faced increasing challenges from volatile capital flows and rising inflationary pressures. Amidst this environment, the Malaysian economy continued to grow steadily underpinned by the expansion in domestic activity and firm regional demand. The Malaysian Economy in 2011 The Malaysian economy recorded a steady pace of growth of 5.1% in ...

Public Mutual today launched two new funds, namely Public Strategic SmallCap Fund (PSSCF) and Public Enterprises Bond Fund (PENTBF), and categorized as equity growth and bond fund respectively. Public Strategic SmallCap Fund seeks to achieve capital appreciation over the medium to long term period through investments primarily in companies with small market capitalization, by investing in stocks with market capitalization of up to RM1.25bn at the point of purchase. The fund may also invest in companies which at the point of purchase form the bottom 15% of the cumulative market capitalization of the market which the stock is listed on, although the fund will focus its investments in the domestic market. Funds' key data were shown at the end of this post... To achieve increased diversification, the fund may invest up to 30% of its NAV in selected foreign markets if the returns are assessed to be promising. The fund generally maintains equity exposures within a range of 70% to 98%...

I have always had the same chart, only instead of level of income, I had the level of development of each country. The less developed would see more corruption and so on.  The chart below says the same thing but on matters that speaks clearer to us. You want to know how to get higher income per capital (i.e. the average annual income per person for that country)... yes, less corruption. To be fair, there are a few discussion points to the above chart. Indonesia for example has an abnormally large number of islands and people living in secluded areas which may be difficult to reach or partake of the general business economic activity. They may be classified as self sustaining farmers at best, people really living off the land and sea. Hence when you average them out as well, Indonesia's real figure should be a lot higher. Same goes for China.  To be fair, corruption exists in every country, its the level of pervasiveness and the relative amount of leakages. We know that Taiwan ...

A good friend just got back from holidays with her kids and asked what happened to the Malaysian markets? She said that I wrote about the bull market being back and so on. I said, yes, everywhere else the bull is moving steadily... but in Malaysia there are two things which pulled it back.  One was the article saying EPF had sold so much shares. That article was true and factual but not complete. And by being incomplete, it gives off the wrong signal to a lot of retail investors. We all know how much retail investors' participation there was since the beginning of the year. Go to any broking gallery now and ask them what shares they are buying, they'd be saying how to buy shares when even EPF is selling. The article is incomplete in that to be a fair article, it has to note the times when EPF has been selling, how about every March for the past few years? I suspect it is portfolio rebalancing rather than an actual selling because, seriously, the article did not note the amount ...

Elections are coming up in Greece and guess what? Greeks don't care for the austerity plans and economic reforms foisted upon them by the terms of the recent bailout. Surprise, surprise! Merkel, Sarcozy, the ECB and the IMF are a ship of fools. There is no way the Greek population, or any population, would agree to these terms. It won't happen. So, why are the politicians putting us through this ruse? The same reason that American politicians are going through the charade that higher taxes on the rich can fund the American welfare state. This is all ridiculous. The Greeks will never abide by the agreements. All that has happened is that the debts of Greece have been assumed by Germany (and, to some extent the, US through the IMF backing). "Extend and pretend" continues to be the policy of the Eurozone, enthusiastically supported by the Obama-Geithner team. It won't work. Give it up. These sovereigns debts are unpayable and the sooner that this truth is ...

Excellent analysis piece from Bloomberg Markets, my fav biz mag, on global capital flows to developing and frontier markets. Some call it emerging markets, but we need to divide them to developing and frontier to be more precise. Following the sub prime crisis and the subsequent Euro-crisis, the trend towards more exposure for emerging markets should be increased.    How investors allocate their funds is what we call capital flows. Owing to the size of the  recipient  countries, such flows can make a huge difference to these markets. As much as investors can plough into MSCI markets, they can also take out funds. Last year, the MSCI valuations dropped some 20% on the view that the Europe's debt crisis would curb global growth. In January 2012, the figure was 30% off its historical average.  Realising a calmer settlement to the Greece-led debacle, it is fair to say that valuations and funds should start coming back to MSCI countries. However, not all will benefit...

The "Jobs Bill," currently under consideration by the United States Senate is a terrible piece of legislation. Nothing surprising about that. The fact that it is bi-partisan only adds to its odor. However, buried within the bill is a provision that limits some of the worst provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation of 2002 that has all but destroyed the US IPO market. Sarbanes-Oxley is the legislation that was passed in the heat of reaction to Enron and World Com and is one of the worst pieces of finance legislation that ever found its way through Congress (although Dodd-Frank is certainly even worse). Sarbanes-Oxley was a reaction to the fact that the US stock market, from 1981 until 2002, had increased 1200 percent. That, apparently, was an inadequate return, according to the political class...hence the adoption of Sarbanes-Oxley. Since Sarbanes, Oxley, the stock market has basically done nothing, which, I suppose, is more in keeping with what the political class de...

Winnie Ho has built up her repertoire well since winning the Astro singing competition many years back. Her resume include two quite brilliant albums under the guise of 2V1G, with master guitarist Roger Wang. I have been waiting for a long time for this to come out since Winnie did a few concerts dubbed as The Jazzy Sounds of Teresa Teng. Those who have been to those concerts know fully well what I am talking about. While Teresa Teng has a very special place in most Chinese music lovers, some of her tunes do sound dated, nothing much she can do about it really. The simply ingenious music arrangement by Tay Cher Siang basically shone a warm brilliant light on Teresa's songs. Coupled with Winnie's resonating yet layered vocals, we have a wonderful album indeed. You will hear and appreciate Teresa all over again, you will fall in love with both Teresa and Winnie, all over again. Its always dangerous to do full covers of just one artiste, and one such as Teresa's stature which ...

This is a smart fund raising by Khazanah, well advised by the investment bankers involved. This enabled Khazanah to lock in better than zero rates funding. It is also potentially giving up its stake (i.e. selling around current price) in Parkson Retail. Only when PR moves much higher will bond holders exchange into PR shares, technically at least 5%-7% upside from here before they consider switching. Its a good strategy if you think PR does not present much further upside (more than 20% over the next 2-3 years). Even so, locking in better than zero rates has to be worth something much more, Khazanah would be paying at least 2.5% I think, so thats a $7m savings a year at least.   The other consideration is the USD exposure. Make your own conclusions. Some listed Malaysian companies may want to consider such equity-exchangeable bonds as alternative fund raising - of course if its in the same listed vehicle, then its actually a convertible bond. Some companies hold lesser stakes in ot...