Remember The Time

If you ask me which is my favourite music video of all time, chronologically i would say:
1. Thriller - Michael Jackson
2. Smooth Criminal - Michael Jackson
3. Black Or White - Michael Jackson
4. November Rain - Guns N Roses
5. One - Metallica

Top 3 spot goes to the King of Pop, who died last week, and his memorial service was held 2 days ago, so touching and emotional...

Without him, we would have no Pop.. We won't be hearing any pop songs of the 90's like Backstreet Boys, Westife, Robbie Williams, Spice Girls, Alanis Morisette, Avril Lavigne etc...

Without him, we have no Hip Hop/Rap.. There's be no Justin Timberlake, Black Eyed Peas, Outkast, Akon, Lauryn Hill, Eminem etc..

Without him, we will not see any black people singing and performing their vulgar and explicit songs in front of MTV.

Without him, we wont witness any dedicated dances and choreography, story-like, high cost music videos which graced the MTV...

Without him, we have no Billie Jean, Thriller, Beat It, Bad, Black Or White, Heal The World, You Are Not Alone; no moon-walk, robot dance, anti gravity lean, crotch-holding moves, powerful screech....

I liked Michael Jackson all these while.. I grew up watching his videos, and recently get to know more deeply about his songs and liked most of them... Every time i watch his videos, i will still be utterly amazed by the dances and my limbs will start moving around imitating his moves in vain. My favorite song of him - Billy Jean, where different instruments each playing individual tones, came together in perfect harmony, and then added in a voice and chorus so simple yet special, the end result is just awesome and you'll never get tired listening to.. I wished music today were like that...

To those who dislike Michael Jackson, saying he is a pedophile or a freak, shame on you for not knowing anything about music.... A person who really appreciate music will overlook all these stupid rumors and concentrate on his music and dances, or simply himself as a person..
p/s: here is one very gruelsome and interesting link bout his monstrous downfall process:
http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Jackson.html

A black, born in a time where blacks are looked down and discriminated most, as a super talented prodigy who, along with his brothers Jackson 5, touring around Motown to perform relentlessly, and then created his personal special moves, shot to stardom, broke the barrier between blacks and whites, stood up against racism, presented as a children loving figure, sold the most number of albums, and took the world of music into a whole new level...

All those negative news, to me, are just conspiracy towards him, as "South Park" says, to "bring down a damn rich black guy, out of jealousy"... Even if the news are true, so what? His nose falls off, so what? Waved his child at the balcony, so what?? A pedophile, so what??? Took plenty of drugs, so what? It's not like anyone from the music industry is a saint-like perfectly-nice person... The reason behind all these is merely "living around the wrong person and environment" It's a pity in the end he could not prevent himself from the 'downfall' of his own personal life...

However, I do not feel extremely sad for him dying at the age of 50.. Compare to Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Kobain, Freddy Mercury, Bruce Lee, who all died in a much more tragical way at a much younger age, when they have so much more yet to offer up in their sleeve, Michael had lived a longer life, and no longer contributing anything to the world. I thank him from the deepest of my heart for how he'd graced the music industry and gave us so many good music to listen to and watch at. He will be remembered forever...

R.I.P. The King of Pop

Money For Nothing

All of us (i mean those who are constantly updated with world news and scenarios, not referring to book-worms or idle or self contained people), knows the world economic is under crisis, a very very big crisis.. However, the news are always full of financial terms and digital digits, making most of the Tom, Dick and Harry scratching their head and then turn away from reading and understand further. It's quite difficult to understand the whole situation in US economic, as i myself thought almost impossible to, but for the sake of my friends, i will make up a story very easy to digest and getting to know the whole picture.

Imagine, in 1998, Kelvin, in US, a newly graduate from college, just started to step into the working world, wants a personal car, a nice private apartments, many high tech gadgets and in a period of dating a girl. So he went to the housing departments and saw that the houses are very cheap, and it's rumored to rise in price in the future, so he went to a local bank A and also saw that the newly set loan deal is very loose, plus the interest rate is really low(due to faulty government policies), so he borrowed a large amount of money to buy a big bungalow, a sport car, and also applied a credit card to buy whatever gadgets he wants and spend all he wish with his girlfriend.

10 years down the line, in 2008, the interest rate which was very low in the first few years, started to became higher. Unable to clear his debt, he just kept dragging and do not pay back the money he borrowed, still owing the bank a large amount of money. Besides, the house prices which was rising all these while, suddenly dropped (due to too many sales of cheap houses in the past 10 years), making him impossible to alternatively to sell off his house to earn some money eventually pay off his debt. At the same time, oil prices had increased, making everything that were on his wish-list became too expensive to buy due to inflation. So, he was declared bankruptcy.

Imagine 5,000 Kelvins are there, 1 Kelvin borrowed 1 million, it will come up to 5 billion borrowed from the same local bank A. So bank A is in trouble, with all their lent money not coming back, so in order to continue their business and maintain liquidity, bank A borrowed from a bigger bank B. 10 banks similar to bank A borrowed from bank B, so bank B in trouble also, so B borrowed from Federal bank C, then C borrowed from D of another rich country, and this trait continues, and so, the whole world are in what we call a "credit crisis". The whole world is 'owing money' to one another in a big circle. We refer Kelvin as "subprime mortgage", a risky and lowly paid money borrower. So, as the credits of banks increases to a very large magnitude, some big companies are bankrupt (eg Lehman Brothers, one of the biggest investment bank in US); AIG (a super big insurance company) is in big crisis and have to sought loans from Federal Reserves; Meryll Lynch (another top 5 investment banks) have to be purchased by Bank of America; mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were placed into conservatorship. So, the stock of US plummeted like hell, and as US stock (which consist of 21% of world stock) is in a Bear Market, the whole world economy suffered greatly too and get pawned by the same bear's paw.

Oil price is tremendously high, making food prices increase as well, and inflation went on to record a new high. Currently, 63,000 US citizens had lost their job. A man without a job, his/her buying power will drop. As demand is low, and importation from other countries decreased, and so the economic of the other countries dropped together.

What are the US government planning now? A 700 billion bailout. Bailout means the government taking out their own national treasury money to buy up all the rubbish assets of big banks and big companies, helping them to lessen their credit burden so that they'll have more liquidity to resolve their financial issue. However, is it a sure success? Very unlikely. We shall see how it turns out. It might help to strengthen the economics, and at the same time might also lead to a recession. Recession means the output gross of a country is 0 or negative, means no productivity at all, the country doesn't grow but fall, and many more citizens, investors will die

Personally, my Public Mutual Fund in Malaysia became few cents left; my ICICI-Prudential Mutual Fund in India lost quite an amount already; Indian rupee's value dropped like hell (1 USD=47INR now); ICICI Bank (the biggest private bank in India) is under crisis still holding all of our JPA money inside.

So, how we, as timid consumers, can do to prevent ourselves from being sucked up by the crisis?

1. Do not invest on stock market or mutual fund or warrant or debt fund right now.
2. Save, save, save on everything. Do not buy unnecessary items.
3. Never ever use a credit card in your life, you'll regret later.
4. Buy things through eBay, save transportation, save money, save environment as well.
5. Do not withdraw your money from banks in crisis, so that the bank will be able to resolve their problem with the money.
6. Spend most money here in India while you're still here, because it would be stupid to bring such low Indian Rupee back to Malaysia and loss on currency exchange.
7. Read Rich Dad Poor Dad, learn more about how money works.
8. Manage your own money-- spend, save, record at your own will, do not let other people control your money, do not even simply leave the money in Saving Accounts to rot.

p/s: all these writings were totally unprofessional, and were all based on a lame man's shallow thoughts. Personal opinions and feedbacks are most welcomed..

Star Sprangled Banner

Last week was Malaysia's 51st National Independence Day.. Oh is it? Maybe many people do not realize or maybe there's nothing interesting to look forward for.. This year's Independence Celebration was marred by many negative issues occurring back in my own country -- the big loss of Barisan National in the election; the loss of 5 states to opposition parties; the rise of Anwar; the accusation of sodomy of Anwar; the further investigation of Najib on killing of a Mongolian lady; the loss of support towards present PM Abdullah; the blog of ex-PM Mahathir who always like to tocuh and flame up any sensitive issues; the conversion of ex-BN members to other opposition parties, the racial issues on chinese as immigrants started by Ahmad,... etc etc... Not to mention the Beijing Olympic that got everyone sticking in front of TV instead of preparing for Merdeka celebration, plus the still unresolved safety problems of the citizens such as raping, killing, snatching, stealing, robbing etc etc..

How can you expect the celebration to be good and full of spirit when everyone is affected by more majot negative issues? And that's why this year's Malaysia's Merdeka celebration was an utterly failure. After half a decade of independence, finally the cycle of curse had reached the so called land of harmonious and land full of honey and milk, a very fast developing country marching hard to reach it's 2020 target. The storm that struck left many political members unsettled, and most importantly, the citizens to become civilians, crying for help from God above. Is there any more hope for the future? Who might be the next Prime Minister? A killer, a sodomizer, or a senile??

51 years ago, all the 3 races were fighting had to hand against aliens that invade our country. Then, there was 51 years of harmony and peace and developement, but i would rather say it "superficial harmony and peace", or 51 years of lies that has been overclouding our mind and eyes, or only "apparent developement", of the outside that we can see, touch, taste but not inside that we can believe and have faith in. People from other countries (esp Indians) will definitely thought that we live in a super high class thrid world country, full of luxuries and fun, but we true Malaysians know what's actually happening deep inside our hearts. The racial issue for example, is like a flame covered with a thin veil, it will burn eventually, just like what's happening today. Are we going to reach "developed" status in 2020? Or is it going to be another recurrence of 513?? All these we'll have to see, nothing is for sure now.

*a change of scene, a beam of aurora flashed in front of your eyes, and 'blink', you're in India*

We, around 150 Malaysians, were celebrating our MSA Merdeka in a new hotel called Deepa Comforts, where people from all walks of life came together in their best dress and cloths to show off their fashion taste, and to try out the taste the buffet of this new hotel.. We invited all the deans from our colleges, the HODs, and some local friends, to witness the slide show and short films of our 'Malaysian culture' and see the dances and skeet performed by our grand grand juniors. A round of applause to them who organised this event and also those who shed sweats to perform. The dinner was a success, and we once again felt we were close to home. How often do we get a chance to meet and talk and eat with and take photos with all the Malaysians residing in this small city called Mangalore? Many bad issues are happening back home, but for us not in Malaysia are saved by grace not being affected much, are still enjoying the peace of mind and the joy of togetherness. Luckily, we students over here, either Malay, Chinese, Indians, or other ethnic groups, are still ONE in spirit and in person, and also in speech.
"Hey, mereka semua 'tempe' tak pernah tengok perempuan sexy ke? Asyik tengok perempuan kita saja? Tsk tsk, still kita Malaysians yang lebih 'high class', haha"
"Ai yer, benda kat hotel ni tak sedap la, tak de Malaysian style langsung!"

Petrol head

(The top glamours)

Petrol price is Malaysia rose again yesterday, from RM1.92 to RM2.70, by 79 cents.. It was a huge huge amount, almost by 40% increase.. so yesterday, every car packed to any petrol station just to pump in the last drop of "cheap petrol", resulting in severe petrol shortage.. Traffic transportation and river transportation are all suspended, resulting in havoc in almost every part of Malaysia.

The price of petrol in Malaysia is considered one of the cheapest in the world, due to subsidy by our petroleum company Petronas. Petronas is one of the leading oil company of in the world, with one of the world's tallest building in the world as office. Compared with the price in India of Rs60 per litre (RM4.60), Petronas had already subsidized a lot, in fact, most of the profit (about 30%) earned by the company are handed to Federal Government to subsidy the price. That is why we, Malaysians are still having the cheapest oil price in the world. Even with 2.70, it is still comparatively low.

However, for example, how much a Singaporean earn and how much a Malaysian earn in term of Capitol income? Msians earn only 1/3 of what a Singaporeans are earning. Petrol price in Singapore? $RM 5.20, so comparatively we're still at the losing side (they pay twice the amount of petrol but get back thrice in their income). The first impact will be on the citizens.. We're earning less but paying more on petrol. The standard of living will be a big hit. Food prices will go up, almost every items will be more expensive due to increased transportation fee; bus fare will increase, flight fare increase, less people traveling means less mobility in business and less tourism, so business continue to drop.. As income is less, employees suffer more in life, so they tend to earn it the "easy" way, causing increased crime rate. The inflation will be higher as everything become costlier, buying power of the people reduce, life quality will be less.. Already the people in Malaysia are earning hard, buying hard, and living in danger all the time due to super high crime rate here, our life quality will continue to be in jeopardy. Besides, as people do not live happily and safely, they'll start blaming the government, leading to political unrest and instability.

Is it a genuine business point of view to remove the oil subsidy in order to improve the overall economy? Will the reduction in road tax lessen our burden? Or everything is just another way of the federal government sucking up more money from the profit of their largest money making machine? The long term effect is yet to be seen. Hopefully, it'll turn out fine, though i seriously doubt it.. God bless Malaysia..

(The low suffers)