dinarpmkum

      Men Are Just Happier People -- What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours.  Wedding plans  take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack... You can be  President. You can never be pregnant.  You can wear a white T-shirt to a  water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell you  the truth. The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas  station restroom because this one is just too icky.  You don't have to stop  and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100. People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.  One mood all the time. Phone conversations are  over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks. A five-day vacation  requires only one suitcase. You c...

Guys can laugh at this, or think quietly to themselves "yeah, maybe in the first 3 months ..." But seriously, if you find one who complete you, these are a cinch ... if you are with someone who is not the love of your life, its a chore after a while ... Ladies, if you find a guy who keeps finding it harder and harder to "share/give" these things to you, he's not the right person for you ...

Europe's problems are simple: every country in Europe -- there are no exceptions, not even Germany -- borrows to pay for promises that their own economy hasn't got the resources to pay for. The same is true in the US, but it hasn't become front burner yet. It will. Ultimately, you run out of people willing to loan you the money to pay for things that you otherwise can't afford. It's not as if the US and Europe are borrowing to build bridges. That might represent a legitimate reason to borrow. Instead the indebtedness is a result of current funding needs that will only escalate over time. When does social security and medicare get less expensive? This is the heart of the European problem. They are not borrowing to fund long term investments, they are borrowing to fund the welfare state. Put another way, they are borrowing for current consumption. The consumption being funded is part and parcel of the way of life in Europe, as it is in the US. There is no real...

Proton is the price we pay for brainless patriotism  by Koon Yew Yin  The founding of Proton National Bhd in 1983 was a big expensive mistake to begin with. Billions of ringgit from taxpayers have been lost in the process.  The haemorrhage could not be stanched until only recently when Khazanah Nasional Berhad sold off its 43 percent stake in Proton to DRB-Hicom a few months ago. Malaysians have been wondering – is this finally an end to the unhappy saga of the government’s foray into the production of a so-called ‘national car’ or will the burden on taxpayers and car owners be continued in other new ways?  A revisit of this white elephant project is necessary to generate a larger public discourse especially amongst taxpayers who should be more concerned as to where all the tax money they’ve been paying has gone to.  One simplistic assumption which appears to have been made by the initiator of the national car project Dr Mahathir Mohamad is that an industry that...

I usually do not refer back to my previous postings even when its "right". Just look at the financials of their latest quarterly. Naturally, the contribution from Kian Joo served as a huge fillip to their bottom line. No matter how you cut it, its still 59 sen EPS per quarter. So technically, ONE TIME P.E.R.??? Of course you have too look at the liabilities jump from having to purchase, just over RM300m. Gawd, they made RM90m in one quarter, they probably can cover the entire liability in a year. Even if you take out Kian Joo, Can-One's own operations did spectacularly well too. They posted RM12m profit, last year same quarter was RM4.5m. Are we convinced? http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/2012/01/sure-can-one.html http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/2012/01/kian-joo-and-can-one.html http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/2012/01/can-one-from-wilderness-to-top-of-pack.html SUMMARY OF KEY FINANCIAL INFORMATION 31/03/2012   INDIVIDUAL PERIOD CUMULATIVE PERIOD   CURRENT YE...

Apparently, this commercial is very funny in Hokkien.

A special person shared with me last week about attending a talk by a 'wise person', and that it is important to "learn how to let go". To let go of our bad memories, failures, unproductive ways, etc... To which I replied that "we always hold onto people who don't love us or people who hate us or people who make us mad or people who take us for granted ... we also care too little for the people who love us unconditionally, the people who adore us, the ones who still stick around in spite of all your shortcomings" . Such wasted priorities. Live the life we want, don't resign to fate, don't waste it waiting for those who never intend to turn up, don't waste it on bad memories of those who wronged us, don't dwell on regrets and failures ... I think this might be an advertising thing, but magnificently crafted and very meaningful, and probably based on some 6 old foggies' true life story. Love the Chage Aska song in the background, On Yo...

Last week, EPF announced that it has published the revised list of Fund Management Institutions (FMI) and unit trust funds for 2012/2013 for EPF Members Investment Scheme (EPF-MIS).  For the period of 2012/2013, a total of 223 active unit trust funds from 24 FMIs are offered under EPF-MIS, details of which are as follows: "The list of funds under EPF-MIS is reviewed annually based on a set of evaluation criteria that focuses on the consistency of fund performance , as approved by the Ministry of Finance. The evaluation process is carried out together with the Federation of Investment Managers Malaysia (FIMM) which represents the unit trust industry," said EPF General Manager for Public Relations. When would it be effective? The revised list will be effective for the period of 1 June 2012 until 31 May 2013.  List of EPF approved funds from some of the popular Fund Management Institutions: How about Public Mutual ? Because of too many funds, please click here for the list of...

John Isner, the top seeded American in the French Open which begins play today in Paris, found himself trapped when I discovered him with his entourage of trainers and coaches in his hotel in Paris yesterday. Isner had agreed to a 9 PM phone interview and made the serious mistake of providing me with the name of his hotel. I wandered over to his hotel and found him in the hotel lobby conversing with his tennis buddies and he graciously granted me the exclusive interview that I sought. You can read the resulting article in Sunday's Daily Progress at Dailyprogress.com. I may not be a great sports writer, but I am doggedly persistent. I discovered, among other things, that tennis players at the top of the world rankings live much better than I do. Isner's hotel put my poor fleabag of a hotel to shame. His hotel was just off the Champs Elysee in a neighborood that I know I could never find a restaurant that I could afford. C'est la vie. Today, the French newspapers were d...

Since the global economy largely went off the Bretton Woods system where gold deposits was secured by issuance of currency, we have not encountered such a drastic debasement of major currencies. Basically when a country prints their own currency without "significant backing or financial reserves", you are assuming the rest of the world are idiots. If Malaysia tries to do that, nobody will accept the ringgit at 3.0 vs the USD, it becomes monopoly money. However, the USD is a reserve currency, closely followed by the Euro and the British pound. Its OK to print as long as the central bank also "withdraws" the money from circulation later on. Do you see that happening over the next 5 years? Supposed when you print (irresponsibly), the worth of that currency adjusts itself in the markets, but we all know that has not been the case.  First, if a country prints more currency to manage their affairs, this results in higher inflation. This is what most developed countries ar...

Greetings from Paris. It is another beautiful day in Paris where I find myself covering the French Open tennis tournament. This is my other job. The French Open starts tomorrow morning on the courts of Roland Garros. One of my favorite trivia questions is "who was Roland Garros?" You will be surprised. Guess before you google it and see how well you do.  I am staying at a small hotel a block from the Tuilierries and around the corner from the Place Vendome in the heart of Paris. Wandering around this morning I discovered a parka for sale in a storefront, the price of which is equivalent to my extending my stay in Paris for another three weeks. Wonder who buys things like that? For a clue, I stood outside the entrance to the Westin Hotel to watch how the other half lives. One thing for certain, the other half smokes a lot -- at least they do in Paris. For the convenience of the wealthy tourists and locals in the area, there are conveniently placed receptacles on t...

Barry Gibb has paid tribute to his brother and Bee Gees bandmate Robin by releasing a touching farewell video. The remembrance clip, set to the Bee Gees ballad  Heart Like Mine , features never-before-seen home video footage of the Gibb brothers as kids, as well as career highlights and live performances. The montage, which Barry posted on his YouTube page, is titled Bodding - Robin’s nickname.  The singer lost his battle with cancer at the age of 62 on Sunday and Barry, the sole surviving member of the trio, has yet to make a public comment on his sibling’s death. Robin’s twin Maurice died in 2003 of complications linked to a twisted intestine. Read more:  http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/barry-gibbs-touching-tribute-to-robin-20120524-1z7ax.html#ixzz1vn6Y7nWV

Jamie Dimon has made himself too visible.  He basked in the glow of a powerful Wall Street post and a left wing image.  Dimon was one of Obama's strongest supporters in 2008.  Like most of Wall Street, Dimon saw nothing wrong in loading up costs on employers, who had made the mistake of hiring workers.  After all, the workers that Dimon hires are high-end, highly skilled employees, who are largely unaffected by minimum wage laws, health care mandates, and a variety of worker protection schemes and union promotions (think "card check").  So Dimon, like Buffett, courted the media and made clear that he was a "caring" soul.  Now, Dimon is finding out, as Buffett will also, that this is not about "caring."  This is about a war on capitalism, waged from the White House. Dimon had harsh words for Paul Volcker when the so-called "Volcker Rule" became part of the regulatory landscape.  Ouch!  Now, Dimon is getting blasted from the left.  See Sim...

Call it modern art, modern dance, creative graphics ... you cannot deny the creative geniuses behind this two performers. Black Sun is a meticulously choreographed projection of motiongraphics onto dance,combining traditional and modern elements of Japanese culture and martial arts.  Artist Nobuyuki Hanabusa and dancer Katsumi Sakakura, together known as Kagemu, have since been widely imitated by others....

After months of buildup, Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis has finally wreaked havoc on the U.S. stock market, as a wave of anxiety has prompted a major sell-off on Wall Street. We’ve seen a dramatically “risk off” environment with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 3.52% — the biggest one-week decline since November — and the S&P 500 falling 4.3% . Among the hardest hit stocks were small caps and tech, with the Russell 2000 and the Nasdaq Composite falling 5.4% and 5.3%, respectively. To further underscore the risk-off environment, the yield on the 10-year Treasury still appears to be searching for a bottom, finishing at 1.702%, but falling below 1.700% intraday this week — a modern-era low. Spring Swoon? History may not be repeating itself, but it certainly is rhyming. Like the spring of 2010 and the spring of 2011, investors’ fears are coming to fruition and we are once again experiencing a “spring swoon.” Stocks a...

It is common to hear The Beatles as the best group ever in terms of musicality, composition and longevity. So what about The Bee Gees? Now that 3 out of the 4 brothers have left us, maybe its time to reassess the true worth and rightful standing of The Bee Gees. Why The Beatles is so famous? Their music was mind changing, innovative, and brought a whole new meaning to rock and roll. Their members' lives were esoteric and hogged the media. They proclaimed for world peace, engaged in Eastern philosophies, they were cool to the max ... they were anti establishment. They rooted for the hippies, the disenfranchised, the disenchanted ... They were more than musicians, they were more than performers. The media loved them. They Brits were proud. The Americans wanted to call them their own. The whole world wanted to love them because they were "cool". The Bee Gees were enormously successful in the early years, on par with The Beatles. Maybe because they did not do as much drugs a...