Malaysia's Indian Summer

Hantu Laut

Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of US President Franklin Roosevelt once said "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people"

She was reflecting on people who indulged in trivialities, pettiness and useless gossips that would not bring any worthy benefits to mankind.

Pakatan Rakyat has plenty of such people who like to dwell on trivialities.

Their political agenda is to make as much noise as possible no matter how trivial and stupid the issue may be.Many Malaysians are caught in their histrionics and risible model of rectitude. The holier than thou types.

I will not pretend that the present regime is not at fault and as clean as a whistle, they are not, they have many bad habits and disagreeable traits.

Looking at Pakatan line up, particularly, with Anwar at the helm, I do not expect better days for Malaysia, should they be successful in capturing Putrajaya. A leopard will never change its spots. A lion always return to its den.

The "Arab Spring" which Anwar promised would be his last resort should they lose the coming general elections is not the template we should copy. Desperate needs call for desperate measures. Anwar's last desperate run to be prime minister.

It is now Malaysia's Indian Summer, the hottest days before the general elections, where anything goes, both sides running the gauntlet.

Here, the Geobbels of Pakatan Rakyat, having no better issues to pick, is making a mountain out of a molehill.........accusing Najib of hypocrisy of his announcement of 29,000 redundancies in the civil service after he attacked Pakatan for wanting to halve the civil service work force if they came to power.

Tony Pua, is not likely to be poor in Maths, the Chinese are very good in that subject, which is why they are better business people.There is a big difference between 50% and 0.02%.

It's simple arithmetic, Pakatan's promised a downsizing of 50%, Najib only announced 29,000 which is 0.02% of the total workforce.

Tony! so, what the big deal?

Frankly, I personally agree with Tony, the civil service should be halved.

Not only that, MAS, another sick institution is now experimenting with new business model, doing all the wrong things, should also halve its workforce (that would be another subject I'll write about).

Tony Fernandez is giving them the run around.

Shahrizat:Who Let The Cows Out?

Hantu Laut

Condominium and Mercedes for cows. Available in Malaysia only! Order now!

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These cash cows and the government have a lot of explaining to do. Firstly, how in hell can the government give grants and cheap loans to a family-run private enterprise, charging interest much lower than what the government paying for its short and long-term bonds.

Government bond's coupon rates:

Malaysian Government Securities (MGS) - Conventional
MGS Benchmarks			Trading Yields			Total Volume (RM million)	Daily change (bps)
Tenure	Maturity	Coupon (%)	Low (%)	High (%)	Close (%)
3-year	Aug-2014	3.434	3.03	3.08	3.05	98.27	0
5-year	Sep-2016	4.262	3.24	3.26	3.25	121.57	1
7-year	Sep-2018	3.580	3.54	3.55	3.55	170.00	1
10-year	Jul-2021	4.160	3.70	3.71	3.71	63.90	-3

The then Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi under whose watch this ignominious anomaly occurred should be hauled up to explain to the Malaysian taxpayers why he thinks the Shahrizat family deserved such special treatment. The government could have run the project under its own GLC to bring cheaper meat to the people as part of its social obligations.The interest rate of 2% charged to the private company is cheaper than prevailing FD rates and the government coupon's rates.

Dancing cows.

The big question is do you need MYR250 million to run a feedlot farm of the size run by the Shahrizat's family and how was it that the company was allowed to drawdown on the loan when the project was not even ready to start? Why was there no due diligence dictated to the borrower before he was allowed to draw down on the loans?

The Chairman of NFC (National Feedlot Corporation) Dr Mohamad Salleh's explanation that the purchase of 2 units luxury condominium was giving better return than leaving the money in the bank is an insult to the intelligence of level-headed Malaysians. In the first place, what was the business objective, cows or condominiums? Were the properties rented out and what was the return on investment or was the property occupied by Shahrizat's family and whether any rent paid to the company? These are questions left unanswered.

UMNO treating the matter lightly is going to come back and haunt them during the elections.

The aegis of former Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, UMNO Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin coming to the defence of Shahrizat and her family on this shameful affair of treating the people's money as their own is contemptuous and scandalous.

Shahrizat, cannot distance herself from the scandal as it involved her husband and children and she a minister in the cabinet and a big part of the government.

Shahrizat, should take a leaf out of the books of disgraced politicians in the West, should have resigned voluntarily and save Najib the embarrassment.

Keeping her in government would be untenanble and a poisoned chalice to UMNO.

Najib should drop her from re-election.

Mother India:Rocky's Bru's Indian Brew

Hantu Laut

Hahahah! When some Malays called the Chinese and Indians as "pendatangs" politicians on the other side of the political fence quickly politicised the issue accusing UMNO leaders of racism.When PM Najib introduced the 1 Malaysia concept to bring Malaysians of all creeds and cultures together they ridiculed him to no end.When Anwar Ibrahim sex tape was shown all over the Internet that showed a spitting image of him screwing a "China Doll" every Pakatan leaders including his own wife declared it was not him.

Now, two Pendatang MPs from DAP have gone to India to seek help from leaders of BJP political party to help Malaysian Indians discriminated and marginalised by the Malaysian government.

Maybe, DAP should declare that the 2 MPs that went to "Mother India" asking for help from the Indian government are impostors, they are not DAP parliamentarians.

Read Rocky's Bru post on this most appalling, stupid and unpatriotic action of two Malaysian Indian MPs from the political grouping called Pakatan Rakyat. The story was widely published in India. Read story full text here, here and here.

Now, I understand why the Ceylonese Tamils don't want to be called Indians, preferring themselves as Jaffnese or Elam Tamils.

The moral of the story is................if you don't want to be called "pendatang", don't behave like one.

Euro in danger, Europe races for debt solution

By GREG KELLER and PAN PYLAS and PAUL WISEMAN

PARIS (AP) - European leaders rushed Monday to stop a rampaging debt crisis that threatened to shatter their 12-year-old experiment in a common currency and devastate the world economy as a result.

One proposal gaining prominence would have countries cede some control over their budgets to a central European authority. In a measure of how rapidly the peril has grown, that idea would have been unthinkable even three months ago.

World stock markets, glimpsing hope that Europe might finally be shocked into stronger action, staged a big rally. The Dow Jones industrial average in New York rose almost 300 points. In France, stocks rose 5 percent, the most in a month.

More relevant to the crisis, borrowing costs for European nations stabilized. They had risen alarmingly in recent weeks - in Greece, then in Italy and Spain, then across the continent, including in Germany, the strongest economy in Europe.Read more.