What’s up with Singapore? This is your closest neighbor speaking, and also your closest relative, and we do have a lot of relatives both sides of the causeway.

You don’t have to be super intelligent to know that Malaysia has not been governed well, in particular, the last 10 years. You don’t have to be a genius to know that we have underachieved and not maximize our potential considering the vast amount of natural resources we have.

You know very well “you” have been “relying on” and “siphoning” a lot of Malaysian talents to work for your country. 

Unless you wish to keep this neighbor in the doldrums,  unless you want this relative to remain weak for your benefit…  Why can’t you be a good friend?

Even the blind can see my country has turned a spectacular corner. In the current World Cup talk, it is like coming from 4-0 down in first half and to win 7-4 by the end of the match. Against all odds, most Malaysians have risen to fight for a better democracy, and to rid ourselves of evil people and evil ways. Why can’t you be a good friend? Be happy for us lah.


You are one of the richest countries on earth, and to some extent (as stated above), Malaysia kind of helped too.

Hence when we finally changed the government, you already know full well that certain contracts were not entered into in Malaysia’s best interest. How did you react? You have ministers thumping the table saying they will make us pay the severest penalties if we canceled certain contracts.

Take the water issue for example. This agreement was signed in 1962. This was a time when Singapore was about to join the Malaysian federation. Singapore, by all intents and purposes, was a part of Malaysia and hence the sweetheart water rates. Then in 1965, you left but water were still supplied at “domestic” prices in accordance to the 1962 contract. Sure, Malaysia had a right to review the supply contract in 1987,1988 but at that time, UMNO was having its own crisis so luckily for Singapore, that review was the last thing on TDM’s mind. 

Malaysia did not take the 87/88 period to review the contract. Call it a mistake or goodwill but Singapore benefited from that. Back in 2001, Singapore even agreed to raise the price from 3 sen to 45 sen till 2061 and 60 sen after 2061. Malaysia countered back with a price of 60 sen from 2002-2007 and RM3 from 2007 onwards. Naturally, there was no agreement but it was clear that 3 sen was a fuck-me-silly price for both parties.

Later on Malaysia even asked for RM6.25. Our rationale was that HK got its water from China at RM8. Singapore argued that that’s because HK need not build the infrastructure to treat the water. That’s pretty b.s. because all Singapore spent was just S$1b to build the infra – any accountant can tell you that amortize that over the course of supply, its pittance.

I do acknowledge that RM6.25 is a bit much since we are neighbors. Let’s be conciliatory as try to strike a price between 60 sen and RM3. Singapore, stop shoving the rule of contract law in our face when debating this matter cause the contract was struck when Singapore was still part of the Federation. Lest you forget.

Any good parent should know that when a misbehaving child is trying his/her hardest to change, you should help and encourage him/her.

If I was PAP, I will take the opportunity first hand to earn goodwill from all Malaysians. You are the rich uncle, come on already. What are a few hundred million dollars? You know full well we are grappling with a potentially fatalistic RM1 trillion debt, and trying our best to right the wrongs.

If I was PAP, I would say let’s talk. If Malaysia thinks it is not a fair contract or not the right time, be conciliatory. It does not mean you are weak or not enforcing the rule of law or rule of contract – it will mean that you wish us well and you recognize that the new government is not the old government.

Why can’t we progress and achieve success together instead of trying to repress and suppress our efforts to be a better nation. Are there fears in your closet?

Singapore – be a friend lah.

Inspired largely by my friend Ed Soo …

RM135 million collected from the Rakyat excluding Vincent Tan and few others who donated.
So how much is the actual figure?
The person who started the ball rolling was given RM25,000 to begin with.
WHY????????
Harapan fund is kept with Maybank.
In return about 6% interest is given.
Now hidden hands are using it to play the market.
What happens when one misjudge the market?
PNB is given to a shark.
This shark has been playing the market since her time in Bank Negara with approval from Mahathir, Daim, Yacob and Najib.
NOW IF I AM THE MOVER, WILL I ALLOW THE GAMBLERS TO MAKE MONEY OR DO I KILL THEM LIKE WHAT HAPPENED IN 1990?
WILL THE SUM LOST THIS TIME ROUND BE ADDED TO THE AMOUNT NAJIB AND ROSMAH HAD STOLEN?
A GAMBLER WILL ALWAYS BE A GAMBLER.
THAT IS WHY WE CANNOT GIVE EX THIEVES OUR CHEST BOX AND A MASTER KEY.

Najib says Zeti told him to put the money in the bank.
Zeti says she was not aware till Najib told her to cover up the lie.
Before everybody jump.
Do consider this – RM600 MILLION INTO AN INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNT.  IS THIS THE USUAL TRANSACTION IN MALAYSIA?
THERE ARE MORE THAN 100 ACCOUNTS WITH SUCH TRANSACTION.  THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON SINCE 1984.
CAN YOU NAME THE PRIME MINISTER AND FINANCE MINISTER IN 1984.
MAHATHIR RETIRED A MILLIONAIRE.
DAIM RETIRED A MILLIONAIRE.
DSAI RETIRED A MILLIONAIRE.
YACOB RETIRED A MILLIONAIRE.
ZETI RETIRED A MILLIONAIRE.
HANIFF OMAR RETIRED A MILLIONAIRE.
EUSOFF CHIN RETIRED A MILLIONAIRE
ABU KASSIM RETIRED A MILLIONAIRE.
GANI PATAIL RETIRED A MILLIONAIRE
MANY OTHERS RETIRED AS MILLIONAIRE EXCEPT ONE SMART ARSE BY THE NAME OF NAJIB TUN RAZAK WHO WAS FORCED TO RETIRED AS A BILLIONAIRE.
CREDIT SHOULD BE GIVEN TO MAHATHIR FOR NOT GIVING NAJIB A CHANCE TO BE A TRILLIONAIRE.

Important Quotations

In India, corruption is under the table. In China, it is over the table, while in Indonesia corruption includes the table.

I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones – Albert Einstein

A consultant is someone who takes the watch off your wrist and tells you the time.

I’m desperately trying to figure out why kamikaze pilots wore helmets – Dave Edison

I have a degree in liberal arts. Do you want fries with that? 

Heard in equity research departments everywhere – If we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be called research.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important – Bertrand Russell

If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay you to do it?

The main difference for the history of the world if I had been shot rather than Kennedy is that Onassis probably wouldn’t have married Mrs Khrushchev – Nikita Khrushchev

A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.

Not only is life a bitch, it has puppies – Adrienne Gusoff

China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese – Former French President Charles de Gaulle

Traditionally most of Australia’s imports come from overseas – Former Australian cabinet minister Keppel Enderbery

I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.

“I want a one-armed economist so that the guy could never make a statement and then say ‘on the other hand…’ ” – Harry Truman

We have had more than 30 days of straight net selling by foreign holders of local shares. Thankfully we started falling way before the “across the board selling over fears of contagion with respect to emerging markets”.

I would be the first to say that we should stomach some short-term pain on our shareholdings, just to have a change in government. It is easily worth the price. The rectification of past mismanagement will take some time. So where are we now?

What started off in Turkey, Argentina and to a lesser extent Italy… has somehow steamrolled to include Vietnam, Indonesia, the Phillippines and Hungary. To a much lesser extent, Malaysia and Thailand also were hit – thankfully it was muted at best.

Causes: a) fears of emerging markets debt contagion;  b) the developed countries kept interest rates low following 2008 to revive their battered economies, flight of capital went to developing nations seeking better returns – now that pendulum has shifted thanks to the “trade wars” and the US raising interest rates (an indication of a stronger domestic economy and inflationary pressures)

1998 Asian Financial Crisis Revisited:  The bulk of Asian emerging markets have much better debt levels now, and should not see a repeat of 1998, the ingredients are not there.

Real Issues:  The reality which will continue to hit hard will include Turkey, Argentina, Hungary, Brazil, Indonesia, India, and Italy (the last five will be less severe but still shaky). Weak governance and high dollar debt will be the undoing factors.

China:  China markets have also been rolled, thanks to the silly trade war started by the irresponsible and naive Trump. China also was grappling to slow credit growth and chomp down on “high flying big state link GLCs buying big overseas as if there were no tomorrow”.


MALAYSIA

Our case is quite different. The local bourse has fallen in sympathy with the emerging markets rationalization but is affected by quite a different set of factors.

The Problems:  We are in the midst of “house-cleaning”, while we are quite prepared to be patient, a few things are noteworthy. 

a) Removing of GLC CEOs and other BN appointees from important government positions – While I wholeheartedly support this, it also hampers all these affected GLCs to “move” or carry out projects. Nobody dares to negotiate contracts as the situation at the top is still fluid. This has to be managed FAST and QUICK. The longer we carry out this bloodletting, the longer the downtrend of the market will be. There is a very low-velocity number in the current velocity of money.

b) Tainted Companies – Those not in the GLCs bracket but ‘tainted’ listed companies are affected as well. Quite a number of these company owners are currently hiding in overseas waiting for the dust to settle. When the owners are not around and their fate so uncertain, these companies will do as little as possible.

c) Clean Listed Companies – They may not need to hide but since nothing is moving at the government level, it also meant the wheels of economic activity also grinds to a halt. 

Our PM and the Council of Elders must put in their strategy and action plan to work fast. More so when it comes to Malaysia because our country is highly dependent on the stock market as a major catalyst for domestic economic activity. Malaysia has one of the highest percentages of GDP that is listed on the stock market (over 75% by guesstimate) – that translates to a high correlation for market activity with the real economy.

#1 Catalyst – There is no doubt that the #1 potential catalyst for a revival in the local bourse has to be the “arrest of the top perpetrators responsible for the malaise, the demise, and mismanagement of government resources”.

Is the delay due to the need to review and repeal the decision by the Federal Court which decided that the PM, cabinet ministers, AG, Menter Besars, and such persons are not public servants … but that they come under the limb of “members of the administration”… and as such they are not liable for misfeasance, nonfeasance and malfeasance … and any other related offences during their term.

If so, let’s expedite the matter.

Investing is a lifelong experience and adventure, and sometimes a nightmare. Academic intelligence does not guarantee success. In fact, rote-learning and ivy league MBAs mostly lead to a decision by numbers or an aggregation of numbers and spreadsheets. 

By looking at how people make the most common decision-making mistakes in investing, we can know and understand better what makes good decision-making in investments. As I am still thinking through this, the list is not exhaustive:

1) The academic deduction does not equal right investing decision (the “trigger factor”) – When the information in front of you and the amount of research you did agrees with you, it still may not be the right investing decision. Many years ago Warren Buffet warned about US’ trade deficit and put his money where his mouth is by betting heavily against the US dollar over the past few years. He has lost heavily on that bet. 

All the economic and financial indicators point to an unsustainable trade deficit and consumption pattern. Where did Buffet go wrong? Timing. Timing is everything, they say. Although you may not be doing it perfectly, you try to get as close as possible, not a few years off, because even a year off the mark will ruin some careers. 

Arriving at the right academic solution is having the “right thing to do” lever at your disposal. That in itself is insufficient for making a correct financial investing decision. What Buffet lacked is knowing the “trigger factors”. 

There are many investing situations every day, every week, every month… we cannot make a decision on every issue. We can only bet according to what we know best. Even if we know Alphabet is overpriced, we may not short because we do not know what the “trigger factors” will be for its correction. 

Having the opinion that Alphabet is overvalued may be an academic conclusion, I might act on that if I have a few “trigger factors” appearing in the horizon… it could be: “valuation of Nasdaq tech sector has jumped 25% over the last 3 weeks”; or “there has been a sharp increase in insiders (senior execs) of tech stocks selling over the last 2 weeks”; etc… 

So, beware of what is written and said by experts, a buy may be a buy, and a sell may be a sell, but prices would not move in the “correct” direction if the trigger factors are not apparent. An undervalued stock will remain undervalued and not budge unless there are trigger factors…. jumps in liquidity, corporate exercise, insider share movements, jumps in coverage, jumps in volume, etc… Making a decision based on academic conclusions alone is a half-baked financial bet. Make sure you have the “trigger factors” covered.

2) Expert talk (Anchor & adjust mechanism) – Many experts will say the same BS over and over again. Analysts, strategists and especially economists will come up with figures to justify their conclusions and opinions. 

Mainly, the figures are based on “anchor & adjust” decision making and not really sound in most cases. If you ask an expert what Bank of America’s share price will be the end of the year – the expert will take current price and adjust upwards or downwards according to what he knows (banking outlook, company strategy, etc…). 

The problem with anchor & adjust mechanism is that you can only take in a finite number of variables. In any projection, we will take in 3 or 5 variables, sometimes even less. Whereas in reality, most actually require 20 or 30 variables, some experts may not even be able to note the 3 or 4 crucial variables in their estimation. 

A&A methodology automatically rules out “out of range volatility”, they are not able to cater to that. For example if the GDP growth of Country A was 3.5% in 2015, an expert cannot readily commit to projecting 9.5% for GDP growth in 2016 – the variables under his justification table is not there to support such a hypothesis. 

Plus you will stand out like a sore thumb. That is also why if 100 economists predict the growth of US economy – I would not care about the weighted average but I would be very interested to know the two extremes’ prediction and their arguments. The consensus is BS, only the ridiculed is worth noting.

3) Intellectual integrity and muscle – Many experts do not have the intellectual integrity or muscle to support their opinions or platforms. Shouting and volume alone (especially by American business commentators on TV) do not add to credibility. Good conclusions are always defensible, always persuasive and usually sheds some “new light” on the matter.

Nowadays everyone can be a chef, just follow the thousands of recipes on YouTube. What is a generic pasta recipe? Here are a few tips on how to do a good pasta. It is for home cooks who don’t want to make their own pasta or sauces. Just buy decent pasta and pasta sauces and cook them yourselves.

Decent and widely available pasta:  De Cecco is my pick


Good sauces:  Paul Newman’s sauces are pretty good, SACLA (my favourite), Mezzetta



Chillies: Try not to use fresh chillies, does not go that well with pasta. Use dried chillies, soak in water first before chopping them up, otherwise won’t be spicy in the pasta dish.

Mince Meats: Pork, beef or lamb minces (or even chicken mince… but my fav is still lamb) go well with basic pasta dishes with any off the shelf sauces.

Marination of mince meats: This is the critical part of what makes a really good pasta dish. While there are hundreds of combinations, my favoured marination is: Use 2 tbs shallot oil, 1 tbs ginger oil, a pinch of sea salt, a liberal sprinkling of white pepper and ground black pepper, 1 tbs of chili oil if you like it spicy. Mix and let it sit in fridge for at least 2 hours.

Start The Cooking: You can use olive oil but I prefer butter, a generous dollop on low heat with 1 tsp minced garlic. Then add minced meat and cook until well done. Then use cooking cream to bind the bloody thing together, not a lot, just 3-4 tbs. However cooking cream is optional. Taste, then add sea salt as to your preference.

Pasta: Use a liberal amount of salt into boiling water. Only put in pasta when water is boiling. Save some of water for later.


Fresh Herbs:  Can chop some basil, parsley or oregano if you are doing tomato based sauces. For white sauces, chop some rosemary, sage or thyme. Again, highly optional, but if you do, throw them in towards the last 1/3 of your cooking, not at the beginning.

(finish product without veggies)

Finish: Drop the cooked pasta into mix. Put in 2-3 tbs of pasta water and cook out till its got a good consistency. May use parmesan cheese to melt into the sauce (optional). I prefer to melt the parmesan in rather than sprinkle on top later. A key step is to add 1 tsp of sugar just to round off the taste.


Vegetables: Prefer squash, baby asparagus or snow peas (hard veggies). Cook together when boiling pasta. Scoop out first when half done as will be cooked alongside with mix later.

Texture: An important summary of a good pasta dish – there should be differing textures. Think of macaroni and cheese, there is basically only one texture, or porridge, boring. Thus the pasta, meat, sauce, veggies and condiments at the end should help you conjure a dish with 2-3 differing textures.

Sprinkle at the end: These are highly optional. Remember less is more when it comes to pasta dishes – do not attempt to put too many different flavours into one dish. May or may not go with the dishes, up to your own taste buds. Truffle oil; tobiko; parmesan; caviar…

CORNED BEEF HASH
http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/2015/08/cooking-with-dali-kick-ass-corned-beef.html

SWEET & SOUR LAMB
http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/2014/10/cooking-with-dali-very-spicy-sweet-sour.html

CURRY PORK RIBS
http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/2013/08/cooking-with-dali-curry-pork-ribs.html

DRUNKEN CHICKEN
http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/2012/09/cooking-with-dali-drunken-chicken.html

BRAISED SPICY GARLIC FISH HEAD
http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/2013/09/cooking-with-dali-braised-spicy-garlic.html

PIG TROTTERS VINEGAR GINGER BROTH
http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/2012/09/cooking-with-dali-pig-trotters-vinegar.html