Dr Mahathir said Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim is innocent, finally.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Ceramah Tony Pua at SS2 Pasar Malam
WE WANT CHANGE! WE WANT CHANGE! WE WANT CHANGE! -- Already people are comparing Tony Pua with Barack Obama.
Part 2 of the Ceramah could be found at http://www.malaysiakini.tv
Part 2 of the Ceramah could be found at http://www.malaysiakini.tv
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
People of Taiping - Vote for Nga Kor Ming of DAP
2007十大杰出青年 -- 倪可敏 will speak up for you and for us in the parliament. Defending our basic rights as the citizen of Malaysia.
Vote for Tony Pua Kiam Wee (DAP PJ Utara Candidate)
（八打靈再也訊）有了未來50年的生活儲備金後，行動黨秘書長經濟顧問潘儉偉無後顧之憂地從政。他從政的理念很簡單也很踏實，即參與政策擬定，幫助更多人。
潘儉偉今年1月加入行動黨後，即成為該黨其中一顆耀眼新星。傳言他今屆大選將攻打八打靈再也北區國會議席，與周美芬一較高低。
傳攻靈北挑戰周美芬
詢及若是真的上陣八打靈再也北區，他的勝算如何時？他說，這是一場勢均力敵的戰役。
“她是市民尊敬的領袖，很多人說她是有做工的國會議員。這次她發生車禍，我們也關心她的情況。”
不過，他想強調的是，國會議員的職責最主要是處理政策事務，路燈、水溝、路面有洞是市議會的工作，不是國會議員的職責。
議員不只是處理路燈
“我們選一位國會議員，只為了要多一些路燈，或平坦的路面，這對我們國會議員的了解和要求太低了。當然，服務也是一定要的，但地方的服務工作是不足夠的。”
他認為，國會議員是把民生帶上國會，然後擬定保護國家的政策，如關注及處理回教化政策、新經濟政策、種族化的政治等所引發的問題。
提及周美芬車禍意外事件或為她帶來同情票，提高她個人優勢，他不否認有這樣的可能性，不過，這事件也為周美芬帶來不便。
自小受政治熏陶
潘儉偉希望自己可以在國會發出反對的聲音，這種理想，是他自小受到政治熏陶，近幾年來的政治發展是促成他加入行動黨的要素。
當年，潘儉偉還在讀上午班，每天陪著父親四處送雞蛋，而且常聽他聊起我國政治情況，尤其是85年的合作社風暴所造成的影響。
他說，他最常聽到林吉祥和卡巴星兩個名字及兩人為了一些事件被內安法令扣留的故事。
“當時就覺得他們非常偉大，除了名譽和民眾的致謝，他們所做的並沒為個人帶來任何利益。那時候，我感覺自己大了也要做些好事。”
曾對政府抱很大期望
“首相阿都拉上台時，我對他有很大的期望，我對凱里也有蠻大的信心，相信他會有新馬來人的新視野及國際觀。”
他說，若當時政府叫他加入有關政策的研究委員會，他會考慮加入，因為政府所發出的願景很可信，讓人很有信心及很大的期望。
“我對2006年初的內閣重組抱著很大的期望，但出來的名單只有一兩個人改變而已。我對政府失去信心，要加入國陣是沒有可能的。”
加入執政黨不如打高球
他續說，“我覺得你講得這麼多，給人家這麼大的希望，卻甚麼事都做不到，你的結構和制度都有問題。”
他說，他也瞭解民政和馬華黨內的政治文化，但他覺得自己在這些黨內的貢獻與付出是有限的。
“我覺得要我加入執政黨，不如我每天去打高爾夫球，不用去浪費這些時間。”
他說，有些事執政黨做得到反對黨做不到，但有些事是執政黨應該做的，卻沒有做到。
在乎聲音能否被聽見
加入公正黨或行動黨，潘儉偉考量的是他在黨內的聲音是否有人聽見，其付出是否有人珍惜；在黨外，其政治聲音也須能被聽到。
他說，他和反對黨領袖林吉祥和林冠英多次接觸後，讓他覺得舒服，而且覺得自己對該黨也會有所貢獻。
新經政策窮人未受惠
潘儉偉指出，新經濟政策強調的是幫助馬來人，而不是窮人；只有影響力或是聰明的馬來人才懂得使用這種政策幫助自己，而這些人屬於少數。
他指出，反對黨強調的是政府必須把新經濟政策改成‘幫助貧窮人’的政策，貧窮的馬來人才會受惠，貧窮的華人和印度人也能獲益。
“我們並沒有反對幫馬來人，我們反對的是幫助富有的馬來人，就如有能力購買25萬令吉屋子的土著，不應獲得5至7%的折扣。”
姓名：潘儉偉 (http://www.tonypua.com)
出生日期：1972年8月1日
出生地：峇株峇轄
籍貫：潮州
學歷：
Montfort 小學
新加坡萊佛士學院
牛津大學，哲學、政治及經濟系學士學位
從政資歷：
2007年1月加入民主行動黨
任行動黨秘書長經濟顧問
行動黨白沙羅支部主席
行動黨雪州州委 （星洲日報•2008.01.06）
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Jolin - 日不落
Lyrics
天空的雾来的漫不经心
河水像油画一样安静
和平鸽慵懒步伐咬着云
心偷偷的放晴
祈祷你像英勇的禁卫军
动也不动的守护爱情
你在回忆里留下的脚印
是我爱的风景
Chorus
我要送你日不落的想念
寄出代表爱的明信片
我要送你日不落的爱恋
心牵着心把世界走遍
你就是晴天你就是晴天
我的爱未眠
不落的想念飞在你身边
我的爱未眠
爱的巴士总是走了又停
微笑望着广场上人群
我要把爱全都装进心里
陪我一起旅行
我的爱未眠(我的爱未眠)
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Barack Obama - Iowa Caucus Victory Speech
Although i can't vote for Barack Obama. I still think he can win the race to the presidency. The time is now.
Anyway, he is a damn good public speaker. Haha...
Anyway, he is a damn good public speaker. Haha...
Barack Obama - The Great President of United States
Just look at his speech to the public. You are seeing a great President of United States of America in the making.
Tofu (Kung Fu) Song (周大侠)
Watched two movies last week. Stephen Chow's "CJ7" and Jay Chou's "Kung Fu Dunk". "Kung Fu Dunk" is undoubtedly the better of the two. Of course, that's my personal preference. This is the theme song for "Kung Fu Dunk" titled "Zhou Da Xia".
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
U.S. Recession - The Inevitable
Well, the Fed had cut the fed fund rate by 125 basis points to 3.00 in just two weeks. This could slow the decline of U.S. equity market for now. But, could the Fed save the U.S. economy from the inevitable? Personally, i don't think so.
Look at the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) -- the leading indicator of the economy, it has dropped from 11,000 points in Nov 2007 to just over 6,000 points in Feb 2008! Container rate has crashed! Furthermore, ISM services had contracted to 44.6, almost touching the level of recession. Last quarter GDP only grew at 0.6%, terribly close to zero. These are all signs of U.S. economy is heading towards recession, which many people have already believed it had. If this is the case, George Soros prophecy could become true -- the worst recession in 60 years!
So, what to do at this time of uncertainty? Of course, the defensive measure is to liquidate all your position in equity market and remain in the sideline. For aggressive investors or traders alike, continue to short U.S. stocks on strength, particularly financial related counters by using instruments like options and CFD. Because this could be the worst credit crunch in the making.
The Fed may cut the fed fund rate further in the next meeting, but the room to cut further may have to stop one day because of the continuing weakening of U.S. dollar which put pressure on the price level in the country, particularly many goods have to be imported from China and the rest of the world. If the fed make a wrong move, it could steer the world largest economy to stagflation instead of helping it prevent a recession.
Interestingly, every time the U.S. stock market plunges, the global stock markets plunge even more. Until now, there is only a 13% decline from the peak of around 14,000 points for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, whereas the other major stock markets had certainly plummeted more than that, some even more than 20%, a threshold for entering a bear market.
So my friends, the worst is yet to come for U.S. stock market. Not even a new president could prevent the inevitable. Just be prepared!
Look at the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) -- the leading indicator of the economy, it has dropped from 11,000 points in Nov 2007 to just over 6,000 points in Feb 2008! Container rate has crashed! Furthermore, ISM services had contracted to 44.6, almost touching the level of recession. Last quarter GDP only grew at 0.6%, terribly close to zero. These are all signs of U.S. economy is heading towards recession, which many people have already believed it had. If this is the case, George Soros prophecy could become true -- the worst recession in 60 years!
So, what to do at this time of uncertainty? Of course, the defensive measure is to liquidate all your position in equity market and remain in the sideline. For aggressive investors or traders alike, continue to short U.S. stocks on strength, particularly financial related counters by using instruments like options and CFD. Because this could be the worst credit crunch in the making.
The Fed may cut the fed fund rate further in the next meeting, but the room to cut further may have to stop one day because of the continuing weakening of U.S. dollar which put pressure on the price level in the country, particularly many goods have to be imported from China and the rest of the world. If the fed make a wrong move, it could steer the world largest economy to stagflation instead of helping it prevent a recession.
Interestingly, every time the U.S. stock market plunges, the global stock markets plunge even more. Until now, there is only a 13% decline from the peak of around 14,000 points for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, whereas the other major stock markets had certainly plummeted more than that, some even more than 20%, a threshold for entering a bear market.
So my friends, the worst is yet to come for U.S. stock market. Not even a new president could prevent the inevitable. Just be prepared!
Monday, February 4, 2008
The Worst Market Crisis in 60 Years
The current financial crisis was precipitated by a bubble in the US housing market. In some ways it resembles other crises that have occurred since the end of the second world war at intervals ranging from four to 10 years.
However, there is a profound difference: the current crisis marks the end of an era of credit expansion based on the dollar as the international reserve currency. The periodic crises were part of a larger boom-bust process. The current crisis is the culmination of a super-boom that has lasted for more than 60 years.
Boom-bust processes usually revolve around credit and always involve a bias or misconception. This is usually a failure to recognise a reflexive, circular connection between the willingness to lend and the value of the collateral. Ease of credit generates demand that pushes up the value of property, which in turn increases the amount of credit available. A bubble starts when people buy houses in the expectation that they can refinance their mortgages at a profit. The recent US housing boom is a case in point. The 60-year super-boom is a more complicated case.
Every time the credit expansion ran into trouble the financial authorities intervened, injecting liquidity and finding other ways to stimulate the economy. That created a system of asymmetric incentives also known as moral hazard, which encouraged ever greater credit expansion. The system was so successful that people came to believe in what former US president Ronald Reagan called the magic of the marketplace and I call market fundamentalism. Fundamentalists believe that markets tend towards equilibrium and the common interest is best served by allowing participants to pursue their self-interest. It is an obvious misconception, because it was the intervention of the authorities that prevented financial markets from breaking down, not the markets themselves. Nevertheless, market fundamentalism emerged as the dominant ideology in the 1980s, when financial markets started to become globalised and the US started to run a current account deficit.
Globalisation allowed the US to suck up the savings of the rest of the world and consume more than it produced. The US current account deficit reached 6.2 per cent of gross national product in 2006. The financial markets encouraged consumers to borrow by introducing ever more sophisticated instruments and more generous terms. The authorities aided and abetted the process by intervening whenever the global financial system was at risk. Since 1980, regulations have been progressively relaxed until they have practically disappeared.
The super-boom got out of hand when the new products became so complicated that the authorities could no longer calculate the risks and started relying on the risk management methods of the banks themselves. Similarly, the rating agencies relied on the information provided by the originators of synthetic products. It was a shocking abdication of responsibility.
Everything that could go wrong did. What started with subprime mortgages spread to all collateralised debt obligations, endangered municipal and mortgage insurance and reinsurance companies and threatened to unravel the multi-trillion-dollar credit default swap market. Investment banks' commitments to leveraged buyouts became liabilities. Market-neutral hedge funds turned out not to be market-neutral and had to be unwound. The asset-backed commercial paper market came to a standstill and the special investment vehicles set up by banks to get mortgages off their balance sheets could no longer get outside financing. The final blow came when interbank lending, which is at the heart of the financial system, was disrupted because banks had to husband their resources and could not trust their counterparties. The central banks had to inject an unprecedented amount of money and extend credit on an unprecedented range of securities to a broader range of institutions than ever before. That made the crisis more severe than any since the second world war.
Credit expansion must now be followed by a period of contraction, because some of the new credit instruments and practices are unsound and unsustainable. The ability of the financial authorities to stimulate the economy is constrained by the unwillingness of the rest of the world to accumulate additional dollar reserves. Until recently, investors were hoping that the US Federal Reserve would do whatever it takes to avoid a recession, because that is what it did on previous occasions. Now they will have to realise that the Fed may no longer be in a position to do so. With oil, food and other commodities firm, and the renminbi appreciating somewhat faster, the Fed also has to worry about inflation. If federal funds were lowered beyond a certain point, the dollar would come under renewed pressure and long-term bonds would actually go up in yield. Where that point is, is impossible to determine. When it is reached, the ability of the Fed to stimulate the economy comes to an end.
Although a recession in the developed world is now more or less inevitable, China, India and some of the oil-producing countries are in a very strong countertrend. So, the current financial crisis is less likely to cause a global recession than a radical realignment of the global economy, with a relative decline of the US and the rise of China and other countries in the developing world.
The danger is that the resulting political tensions, including US protectionism, may disrupt the global economy and plunge the world into recession or worse.
(Contributed by George Soros for Financial Times - 23rd Jan 2008)
However, there is a profound difference: the current crisis marks the end of an era of credit expansion based on the dollar as the international reserve currency. The periodic crises were part of a larger boom-bust process. The current crisis is the culmination of a super-boom that has lasted for more than 60 years.
Boom-bust processes usually revolve around credit and always involve a bias or misconception. This is usually a failure to recognise a reflexive, circular connection between the willingness to lend and the value of the collateral. Ease of credit generates demand that pushes up the value of property, which in turn increases the amount of credit available. A bubble starts when people buy houses in the expectation that they can refinance their mortgages at a profit. The recent US housing boom is a case in point. The 60-year super-boom is a more complicated case.
Every time the credit expansion ran into trouble the financial authorities intervened, injecting liquidity and finding other ways to stimulate the economy. That created a system of asymmetric incentives also known as moral hazard, which encouraged ever greater credit expansion. The system was so successful that people came to believe in what former US president Ronald Reagan called the magic of the marketplace and I call market fundamentalism. Fundamentalists believe that markets tend towards equilibrium and the common interest is best served by allowing participants to pursue their self-interest. It is an obvious misconception, because it was the intervention of the authorities that prevented financial markets from breaking down, not the markets themselves. Nevertheless, market fundamentalism emerged as the dominant ideology in the 1980s, when financial markets started to become globalised and the US started to run a current account deficit.
Globalisation allowed the US to suck up the savings of the rest of the world and consume more than it produced. The US current account deficit reached 6.2 per cent of gross national product in 2006. The financial markets encouraged consumers to borrow by introducing ever more sophisticated instruments and more generous terms. The authorities aided and abetted the process by intervening whenever the global financial system was at risk. Since 1980, regulations have been progressively relaxed until they have practically disappeared.
The super-boom got out of hand when the new products became so complicated that the authorities could no longer calculate the risks and started relying on the risk management methods of the banks themselves. Similarly, the rating agencies relied on the information provided by the originators of synthetic products. It was a shocking abdication of responsibility.
Everything that could go wrong did. What started with subprime mortgages spread to all collateralised debt obligations, endangered municipal and mortgage insurance and reinsurance companies and threatened to unravel the multi-trillion-dollar credit default swap market. Investment banks' commitments to leveraged buyouts became liabilities. Market-neutral hedge funds turned out not to be market-neutral and had to be unwound. The asset-backed commercial paper market came to a standstill and the special investment vehicles set up by banks to get mortgages off their balance sheets could no longer get outside financing. The final blow came when interbank lending, which is at the heart of the financial system, was disrupted because banks had to husband their resources and could not trust their counterparties. The central banks had to inject an unprecedented amount of money and extend credit on an unprecedented range of securities to a broader range of institutions than ever before. That made the crisis more severe than any since the second world war.
Credit expansion must now be followed by a period of contraction, because some of the new credit instruments and practices are unsound and unsustainable. The ability of the financial authorities to stimulate the economy is constrained by the unwillingness of the rest of the world to accumulate additional dollar reserves. Until recently, investors were hoping that the US Federal Reserve would do whatever it takes to avoid a recession, because that is what it did on previous occasions. Now they will have to realise that the Fed may no longer be in a position to do so. With oil, food and other commodities firm, and the renminbi appreciating somewhat faster, the Fed also has to worry about inflation. If federal funds were lowered beyond a certain point, the dollar would come under renewed pressure and long-term bonds would actually go up in yield. Where that point is, is impossible to determine. When it is reached, the ability of the Fed to stimulate the economy comes to an end.
Although a recession in the developed world is now more or less inevitable, China, India and some of the oil-producing countries are in a very strong countertrend. So, the current financial crisis is less likely to cause a global recession than a radical realignment of the global economy, with a relative decline of the US and the rise of China and other countries in the developing world.
The danger is that the resulting political tensions, including US protectionism, may disrupt the global economy and plunge the world into recession or worse.
(Contributed by George Soros for Financial Times - 23rd Jan 2008)
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