Hantu Laut
In my earlier article "Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned" I said I place my bet on Shahrizat winning the race against Rafidah.I still do and the ground swell is moving in favour of Shahrizat.
Rafidah has burned almost all her bridges to the top leadership in UMNO including former PM Tun Mahathir Mohammad and Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.She only respect those who wield power and have no qualms about running them down once they ceased to be of any use to her.The many years of being in one of the most important ministries has made her lost her balance and made her arrogant,abrasive and completely inconsiderate.She has no finesse and social grace in dealing with her colleagues and the public.She and Azalina both need to go to finishing school.You can be tough yet graceful but unfortunately both of them are not.
During his tenure as prime minister Mahathir ignored the many allegations of abuse of power and corruptions against her and closed his eyes and ears to such talk.When Mahathir announced his resignation she was one of the first on stage, cried and pleaded to him not to resign.Her recent tussle with Mahathir on the issue of AP(Approved Permit) is a lingering reminder of her imperious,ungrateful and opportunistic nature.
Her biggest undoing maybe her recent barbs at Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.She told him he was so unpopular that he wouldn't be able to get enough nominations to contest the presidency and asked him to cut short the transition plan .This is the man who defended her from Tun Mahathir attacks during the AP controversy.Gratitude is not in her lexicon.
Isn't she "The pot calling the kettle black" by asking Abdullah to cut short the transition period.What is she doing contesting the Wanita Chief post and hand it over three months later.Isn't there element of insincerity in that promise.Since she going to forgo the position why not just let Shahrizat contest it and be done with it.
I believe majority of members of Wanita UMNO had already decided who they want as their leader.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Will The US Dollar Crash And Be Gone ?
Hantu Laut
Will the US dollar crash and become an insignificant currency? Some pundits have predicted that the use of the dollar would decline and eventually be abandoned as an international currency.
At the moment the dollar is the most important international reserve currency.Many countries pegged their currency to the dollar and some even used it as their de facto currency.It is the currency used most in international trade transactions.Most countries kept their international reserves in dollars.
I believe the world is not yet ready to abandon the dollar or move to a multi-currency monetary system.The next most important currency after the dollar is the Euro which had taken over some of the dollar's role but were not big enough to displace the dollar significantly.Even Airbus, a consortium of European corporations still uses the dollar in its pricing.
Click to enlarge
The above chart shows the percentage of global currencies. The currency that has the potential to replace the dollar would be the Euro.A complete replacement is not envisaged in the near future.The Euro, successor of the German mark which used to be the second most important currency after the dollar had taken a bigger role in foreign exchange reserves.The dollar still maintained a leading role in being the most important currency.
About 64% of foreign reserves are still held in dollars.The importance of the dollar came about after the Bretton Wood Agreement to adopt a monetary policy that maintained an exchange rate of each country's currency within a fix value - plus or minus 1% - interm of gold.
In 1971 the Nixon administration abandoned the Bretton Woods system without consulting members of the international monetary system or even with his own State Department.This was later to be known as the 'Nixon Shock'
The US suspension of convertibility from dollars to gold created a situation whereby the US dollar became the reserve currency of all the nations that had signed the agreement.
You can't trust the US, can you, when its interest is at stake it will do anything including breaking international agreement.The Iraqi War is another example where it failed or refused to respect international law, going to war without UN Security Council approval.
With the current financial meltdown in the US which have affected other nations many people expect the dollar to lose some of its value.Strange as it is the dollar had appreciated against many major currencies.Against the Euro it has strenghtened to 1.26 as at 22 November.The rate before the meltdown was hovering around 1.57.
The US budget and trade deficit are worrying signs that it may not be able to meet its financial obligations and the dollar may take a heavy beating making it worthless.It has happened before under Nixon will it happen again? The US keep printing its currency to be sent overseas to finance its war and trades?
The ideal situation would be to have two major currencies.The Euro would be the only potential currency that can fulfill the need not to be fully dependent on the dollar.
A good start to bring other currency into international transactions is to switch some of the petrodollar to Euro and eventually introduce the Euro into other international trade transactions and currency reserves.
In the meantime, the dollar is still king.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Obama The Shoe Shiner And Hall Turner The Prophet Of Doom
Hantu Laut
This was sent by a friend.Thanks Roger, it's a nice picture.Not bad pair of legs too.Wonder if they are hers?
Click to enlarge
If there were anyone more delusion and as mad as a hatter it has to be Hall Turner, the ultimate prophet of doom who predicted the scrapping of the US Dollar and complete chaos and anarchy in the US by summer 2009, a story that would have a better chance of making it to Hollywood rather than the history book of political theory.Below is excerpt from his article.
"When this collapse happens because the government is totally broke, the welfare checks will stop. Almost immediately thereafter, civil unrest will erupt and we know who will be doing that. . . . don't we?
Now you know why Barak Obama is being pushed so hard for President. The powers-that-be know what's coming and they want a black man in the White House with the hope he can control "his" people. It won't work. They'll just call him an Uncle Tom or an OREO cookie and then go on their merry way to rape, rob, pillage, burn and kill.
In fact, to prove I'm right about the Obama situation, check out what VP candidate Senator Joe Biden said this past weekend. Biden 'guaranteed" that Barak Obama "will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions." Telling us all that we're going to lose 90% of the value of our life savings sure will be unpopular.
I wonder if the Secret Service agents who lose their life savings too, will bother protecting Obama from assassination; or might they kill him themselves? After all, the Zapruder film proves the secret service agent driving John F. Kennedy in Dallas, turned around and shot him in the head. That's why his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, tried climbing out of the back of the limo after it happened! She saw who shot her husband. It happened once, it can happen again!"
You can read the full story here.
This was sent by a friend.Thanks Roger, it's a nice picture.Not bad pair of legs too.Wonder if they are hers?
Click to enlarge
"When this collapse happens because the government is totally broke, the welfare checks will stop. Almost immediately thereafter, civil unrest will erupt and we know who will be doing that. . . . don't we?
Now you know why Barak Obama is being pushed so hard for President. The powers-that-be know what's coming and they want a black man in the White House with the hope he can control "his" people. It won't work. They'll just call him an Uncle Tom or an OREO cookie and then go on their merry way to rape, rob, pillage, burn and kill.
In fact, to prove I'm right about the Obama situation, check out what VP candidate Senator Joe Biden said this past weekend. Biden 'guaranteed" that Barak Obama "will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions." Telling us all that we're going to lose 90% of the value of our life savings sure will be unpopular.
I wonder if the Secret Service agents who lose their life savings too, will bother protecting Obama from assassination; or might they kill him themselves? After all, the Zapruder film proves the secret service agent driving John F. Kennedy in Dallas, turned around and shot him in the head. That's why his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, tried climbing out of the back of the limo after it happened! She saw who shot her husband. It happened once, it can happen again!"
You can read the full story here.
Friday, November 21, 2008
It's The Economists, Stupid !
Hantu Laut
Hooray! The price of crude had fallen below $50 a barrel.The price slid to as low as $48.64 today.Who was right those mumble-jumble sycophantic economists or .........? Than you have those who made foreccasts and predictions but didn't have the balls to put their names on it.
Employing academicians who spent more time trying to please their bosses to listen to what is pleasant to their bosses' ears rather than doing some serious research to predict short and long term economic trends is as good as not having any of those blighters on board.They are not worth their salt.
It is even more disheartening to hear that almost every leader in our government are sold on the idea of the nation's immunity to the global economic meltdown purportedly due to our strong banking/financial system and strong fundamentals whatever that might mean.
Strong finances and healthy foreign reserves are just some of the many components that make up the whole economic pie.There is an array of other things that influence the workings of the economy which eventually boils down to one single objective, the making of money.The more money a nation has the more prosperous the people are .There are only two things money can't buy in this world, the air we breathe and immortality, everything else costs money.
In economics, one must not forget the law of supply and demand, the very essence of market forces.Dearth of supply will increase prices, abundance of supply will depress prices.Than there is a new element, not found in the old economic theory, that have been added to the new scheme of things to influence market and market prices, it is called speculation.Speculation can be a powerful tool in setting market prices.These are the wonderful inventions of the economic gangsters.These are bands of white collar criminals loaded with other people's money to raid the world markets in search of anything they can get their hands on and steal your whole life saving away from you. Would you in your wildest dream ever imagined that the price of palm oil can touch RM4,500 per ton ? Do you honestly think that's the real value of the commodity? Do you think price of crude oil at US$147 a barrel is a reasonable level for optimum economic consumption? Just like a balloon if over inflated it would burst and burst it had.
Over the past two decades the world has been teetering on the verge of an economic disaster never seen before due to over-speculative indulgences in every aspect of its commercial activities.The bubble had burst and would take a while to recover.
If the Malaysian government think they have consummated defences against catching the bug that most other more developed countries are caught in and are presently in the throes of recession than there must be something wrong with the yardstick we used to measure our economic activities.The sooner we wake up to the reality that the honeymoon and the good time will be taking a break soon the better it would be, at least to have a contingency plan in case the situation turned bad.
In the United States (US) the three big car makers in Detroit have recently declared they are in serious financial trouble.General Motors(GM) the leading car makers have cash reserve of US$30 billion and have declared they would be running out of cash in 2 to 3 months time.With the dramatic decline in sales of its cars the company have to use its cash reserve to pay for its recurring expenditure at the rate of US$5 billion a month which means the total reserve would be completely exhausted in 6 months.So, even if you have money when things go bad, that money will be gone in no time.As at September 2008 Malaysia's foreign reserve stood at US$32.3 billion, not much bigger than the GM's reserve.
The three big car makers GM,Ford and Chrysler were not on the original list of patients for bail-outs when the US Congress approved the bail-out package.They are now seeking government bail-out which they probably will not get.Their troubles are of their own making, incompetent management and products quality problem.The same problem faced by Proton here.
I believe the US Government will not bail them out but would ask them to file for Chapter 11, a bankruptcy protection from creditors that allow the company to reorganise without threat of foreclosure from creditors.Some creditors may end up as shareholders of the company under a reorganised scheme.
I have said in my earlier posts there is usually a time lapse before we feel the effect of the global recession.At the moment everything seems fine but it may not be so by the end of the 1st quarter of next year when the recession bites in,unless something dramatically good happened along the way that changed the whole global economic scenario.
Precaution is better than cure.
Hooray! The price of crude had fallen below $50 a barrel.The price slid to as low as $48.64 today.Who was right those mumble-jumble sycophantic economists or .........? Than you have those who made foreccasts and predictions but didn't have the balls to put their names on it.
Employing academicians who spent more time trying to please their bosses to listen to what is pleasant to their bosses' ears rather than doing some serious research to predict short and long term economic trends is as good as not having any of those blighters on board.They are not worth their salt.
It is even more disheartening to hear that almost every leader in our government are sold on the idea of the nation's immunity to the global economic meltdown purportedly due to our strong banking/financial system and strong fundamentals whatever that might mean.
Strong finances and healthy foreign reserves are just some of the many components that make up the whole economic pie.There is an array of other things that influence the workings of the economy which eventually boils down to one single objective, the making of money.The more money a nation has the more prosperous the people are .There are only two things money can't buy in this world, the air we breathe and immortality, everything else costs money.
In economics, one must not forget the law of supply and demand, the very essence of market forces.Dearth of supply will increase prices, abundance of supply will depress prices.Than there is a new element, not found in the old economic theory, that have been added to the new scheme of things to influence market and market prices, it is called speculation.Speculation can be a powerful tool in setting market prices.These are the wonderful inventions of the economic gangsters.These are bands of white collar criminals loaded with other people's money to raid the world markets in search of anything they can get their hands on and steal your whole life saving away from you. Would you in your wildest dream ever imagined that the price of palm oil can touch RM4,500 per ton ? Do you honestly think that's the real value of the commodity? Do you think price of crude oil at US$147 a barrel is a reasonable level for optimum economic consumption? Just like a balloon if over inflated it would burst and burst it had.
Over the past two decades the world has been teetering on the verge of an economic disaster never seen before due to over-speculative indulgences in every aspect of its commercial activities.The bubble had burst and would take a while to recover.
If the Malaysian government think they have consummated defences against catching the bug that most other more developed countries are caught in and are presently in the throes of recession than there must be something wrong with the yardstick we used to measure our economic activities.The sooner we wake up to the reality that the honeymoon and the good time will be taking a break soon the better it would be, at least to have a contingency plan in case the situation turned bad.
In the United States (US) the three big car makers in Detroit have recently declared they are in serious financial trouble.General Motors(GM) the leading car makers have cash reserve of US$30 billion and have declared they would be running out of cash in 2 to 3 months time.With the dramatic decline in sales of its cars the company have to use its cash reserve to pay for its recurring expenditure at the rate of US$5 billion a month which means the total reserve would be completely exhausted in 6 months.So, even if you have money when things go bad, that money will be gone in no time.As at September 2008 Malaysia's foreign reserve stood at US$32.3 billion, not much bigger than the GM's reserve.
The three big car makers GM,Ford and Chrysler were not on the original list of patients for bail-outs when the US Congress approved the bail-out package.They are now seeking government bail-out which they probably will not get.Their troubles are of their own making, incompetent management and products quality problem.The same problem faced by Proton here.
I believe the US Government will not bail them out but would ask them to file for Chapter 11, a bankruptcy protection from creditors that allow the company to reorganise without threat of foreclosure from creditors.Some creditors may end up as shareholders of the company under a reorganised scheme.
I have said in my earlier posts there is usually a time lapse before we feel the effect of the global recession.At the moment everything seems fine but it may not be so by the end of the 1st quarter of next year when the recession bites in,unless something dramatically good happened along the way that changed the whole global economic scenario.
Precaution is better than cure.
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