Global Wealth: Experts Not Worth Their Salt

Hantu Laut

Credit Suisse Global Wealth.........with such big name, nobody cares or dares to fault their reports. 

Rating agencies or whatever you want to call them are, sometimes,  more an abomination of indulgence rather than giving factual result.

I can understand evaluating the wealth of people who control large public listed companies, but how do you go about evaluating private wealth? 

While I do not doubt the Singapore figure of millionaires, I believe Malaysia has more than the 36,000 quoted by the agency. It is still a mystery to me what formula they used to measure the wealth of the 36,000 individuals in Malaysia. 

Many Malaysians are also tax evaders, cash rich and difficult to evaluate their true wealth. 

How do they do it? 

Do they send them questionnaires, check their tax returns, check their bank accounts, check their properties and so on, to arrive at a valuation? Because of bank Secrecy Act, no bank will divulge their customers particulars to anyone.

The report also say house prices have gone down by 40% in Malaysia. Ask any Malaysian if they agree with this ridiculous finding. 

I can't speak for other parts of Malaysia but Sabah property price has gone through the roof and heading for Cloud 9 for the developers and hell for young people to buy a home. The prices of land have also skyrocketed and profiteering by developers have made matters worse for home purchasers. 

A semi-detached house which used to cost around RM200,000 just ten years ago is now costing between RM800,000 to RM1.0 million. I presumed Peninsular Malaysia is no better than what's happening in Sabah. The prices of property in KL hasn't gone down that much either. So! where the figure came from ?

Comparing Singapore and Hongkong with Malaysia may be fair game but Indonesia is a completely different kettle of fish. Indonesia has a population of over 240 million, the 4th largest in the world, and have only 104,000 millionaires, that is horrendously worse than Malaysia.

The report also says "Malaysia was listed among “frontier” wealth countries along with Egypt, Indonesia, Tunisia and Vietnam."

That's probably the biggest gaffe or, maybe, a political fluff coming out of Credit Suisse. 

If you have visited all these countries and if you had opened your eyes wide enough, you would see, we certainly are not in the same league. Malaysia is way ahead of these countries in standard of living.

Tabled below is GDP per capita and GDP of the countries concerned:

Countries      Per capita GDP (2011)            GDP (2011) Bil

_____________________________________________

Malaysia          $15,800.-                               $453

Tunisia                9,600.-                                 102

Egypt                   6,600.-                                 303         

Indonesia             4,700.-                              1,139

Vietnam               3,400.-                                 304

On a productivity/population ratio,  Malaysia's productivity per unit economic output is still much higher than Indonesia and all the other countries with the exception of Tunisia, which has a smaller population than Malaysia.

Sometimes, the experts are not worth their salt, or is the survey correctly reported.

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 — Malaysia is projected to have 76,000 millionaires in five years time, but will still be ranked behind Singapore’s 249,000 and Indonesia’s 207,000 people who are expected to be on the rich list in 2017, according to a new global wealth report released this week.

The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report forecast total global household wealth would increase by an average of 8 per cent annually over the next five years, driven by emerging markets likeChina, Brazil, Malaysia, Russia or India.

Mean wealth per adult is projected to rise to US$67,000 (RM 203,645) by 2017 from US$48,500 this year.

The report said China is expected to surpass Japan as the second-wealthiest country in the world by 2017 while the United States should maintain its leading position.

Credit Suisse said that Singapore was in the list of top ten countries in the wealth-per adult league table, along with  Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, and Sweden – as well as Australia and G7 members, Japan, France, the USA and the UK.

The report added that notable cases of emerging wealth were found in Chile, Columbia, the Czech Republic, Lebanon, Slovenia and Uruguay.

Malaysia was listed among “frontier” wealth countries along with Egypt, Indonesia, Tunisia and Vietnam.

Credit Suisse said that for 2012, Malaysia has 36,000 millionaires, while Singapore has 156,000 and Indonesia 104,000 in the bracket.

Hong Kong, with 92,000 millionaires this year, will see membership in the rich club grow to 180,000 in 2017. Read more.

Phnom Penh

Waiting For The King

Hantu Laut

Ten of thousands thronged the roads from the airport leading to the palace wearing white shirt and black ribbon waiting for the motorcade that will pass along the highway to take the body of King Norodom Sihanouk to the palace. Some cried, carried flowers, lit candles, burned incense and prayed.

Whatever have been said of this man he is still very popular and highly respected by his people in life and in death.He served as prime minister and twice as king before abdicating the throne in 2004.

He has been known as hero of independence, communist collaborator, eccentric playboy, and a cunning monarch and prime minister. 

Though they killed five of his children he eventually made peace with the Kymer Rouge. Almost 2 million of his countrymen perished in an orgy of genocide by the Kymer Rouge. 

He spent the rest of his life in China.

His son and successor, King Norodom Sihamoni and Prime Minister Hun Sen accompanied the royal casket from Beijing to Phnom Penh.

His body will lay in state for next few months .

Phnom Penh

Dirty Polls: Ambiga's Lost Crusade

Hantu  Laut


Ambiga Sreenevasan  went to Australia to seek help from Australian parliamentarians and politicians to save this country from going to the dogs. My earlier posting on the same subject here.



Her febrile imagination of highly embellished unfair election practices and vote rigging by the government had taken her to Down Under hoping that the miserable snooping and intrusive Anwar's close friend Australian MP Nick Xenophon would help her secure Canberra's agreement to send elections watchdogs to Malaysia's next general elections . 

Your guess as good as mine who sent her ?

What did she gets ?

The Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr has given an answer in the Australian Parliament why Australia should not get involved in matters that are of doubtful nature. He went on on say that the Malaysian government lost its two-thirds majority in parliament in the March 2008 General Elections. However, he probably was not aware or forgot to also mention that the wicked government perceived by Ambiga also lost control of 5 state governments to the opposition and the opposition won 8 subsequent by-elections thereafter.

Anyone, NOT in a state of insanity, which I presumed Ambiga is not, would have asked her if the elections had been so badly rigged how come the long suffering Malaysian oppositions gained so much ground, almost a hair's breadth of toppling the ruling party in the 12th General Elections ?  

Here what she wrote  "Those in the international community may be forgiven for saying, “Is there a problem with the democratic process in Malaysia?” 

Read her growling and grovelling piece here

Obviously, her mission failed.

Let me quote what Lee Kuan Yew said soon after the Singapore 1996 General Elections. He said "Please do not assume that you can change governments.Young people do not understand this" 

Pakatan Rakyat and its agent Ambiga is exploiting the naivety of young voters with their snake-oil concoction to mislead them into voting for Pakatan Rakyat with stories of illegal immigrants  being given citizenship and voting rights to keep the corrupt BN in power.

This scary tale from the quagmire would certainly scare the shit out of young unsuspecting Malaysians.

Maybe, she should try her luck in UK and the US, where Anwar has many sympathetic and dedicated friends and she, a freedom fighter of human rights, decorated by the US government, given "International Women of Courage Award" by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in 2009.

One thing I can say, this lady has one very swollen head. 

Phnom Penh

If You Are Fundamentally Screwed Blame It On Mahathir

Hantu Laut

I am beginning to think Malaysians are not very smart lot, the very reason we are left behind countries like Singapore,Hong Kong,Taiwan and South Korea.

Malaysians are just too smart for their own good.

The government have provided more than basic infrastructures and opportunities for the people to grow with the time. 

As former Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi said "We have first world infrastructures but third world mentality" We are left behind the real tiger economies because of us, not because of the government.Government can only do so much. 

The greatness of a nation much depend on its citizens, the attitude and aptitude of the people.

Unfortunately, Malaysians are too slow or too lazy to change. 

They want the luxury and comfort of the Western's world standard of living but do not want to put in the effort and hard work, unlike the Taiwanese, South Koreans, Hongkees and Singaporeans, some working as long as 12 hours a day.

Today, these tiger economies of Asia are rewarded with higher wages and better standard of living. 

Malaysians, have become accustomed to the dependent mentality, the "teenage syndrome". Years of government subsidies have spoiled them as they yearn for more and more subsidy. It has the cheapest petrol price in the region yet they still complained to no end. 

Anwar Ibrahim has promised to reduce the price of petrol if Pakatan win the next general elections. Hanging the carrot, stupid Malaysians believe him. 

Pakatan have promised to reduce the prices of almost every conceivable consumables, it makes one wonder from where are they going to get the money. Unless, they increase the debt ceiling there is no way they can finance all that they have promised. Malaysia have set its debt ceiling at 55% of GDP and the present debt to GDP ratio is hovering around 52/53%.

If contradiction is the buzz word, it's surely in Pakatan, they have also promised to reduce the budget deficit. 

Malaysians have the habit of blaming their government for their failures and shortcomings.If they are civil servant stagnated in their positions they will blame the government instead of their own incompetence. 

It has become pivotal point to blame Mahathir for everything that have gone wrong with this country, but this beautiful country is far from being a beggar's state, we have yet to slide into the gutter. 

When it come to investing, the average Malaysians are just as clueless, either of poor judgment or insatiable greed.

Many of you  must have read the recent  debacle of some gold trading houses that have been caught operating without licences by Bank Negara. Some members of the opposition and the inimitibly stupid investors blamed Mahathir  for asking them to invest in gold ... accused Mahathir of saying it is better to invest in gold than keeping your money in the bank.

We all know Mahathir had never been an investment guru and would never be one, if stupid is as stupid can be, these investors should have known better,  politicising the issue will not bring their money back.

Some of the investors have set up Facebook account supporting the companies and demanding Bank Negara to stop its action against the companies.One such company called Genneva  has a Facebook set up by its subscribers and have the bloody cheek to blame Bank Negara for their dilemma out of their own stupidity. The Facebook here.

Every sensible investor should know the first mandatory requirement before you part with your money, if the companies are not accredited banks or investment institutions approved by Bank Negara, is to check on the background of the company.

What brings these people to such investment companies? It is greed,  because such companies offer high return that can tempt even those with a sliver of greed and most Ponzi schemes offer nonsensical guaranteed return that anyone who knows about money matters wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole. Any company that promised to pay monthly or quarterly dividends should be high on the suspect list of Ponzi scheme.

You can buy paper gold through most banks in Malaysia, why don't these people buy from these accredited banks? Simply because such banks don't guarantee return on your investment, be it gold, unit trusts or any other investment. The only guaranted return a bank can give you is time (fixed) deposit,  which currently pays miserable rate, hence, the attraction to Ponzi schemes.

Malaysians never seemed to learn their lessons from the past. There have been many cases of Ponzi schemes in the past that have defrauded investors of million of ringgits yet thousands still flocked to such schemes without second thought. 

The Swisscash Investment programme, an Internet based scam was one such bogus investment house that defrauded Malaysians of millions of ringgit. The investors learned a bitter lesson with this too-good-to-be-true scheme that promised 300 % return in 15 months. With SC and Bank Negara intervention investors managed to get back 20 cents to the ringgit of their money, which, otherwise, would have been naught.

These greedy Malaysians who think they have the midas touch again blamed the government for their bad judgement and rapacious desire to get rich quickly in a get-rich-quick schemes.

Phnom Penh