Middle Class Affordable Housing Scheme NOT Affordable

While having my morning cup of coffee and a cheese sandwich, the news below caught my eye.

PETALING JAYA: Middle class Malaysians who are aspiring to buy a home will soon be able to do so once a new Government-led initiative to build apartments costing less than RM300,000 in major cities is launched this year, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung said.

The affordable housing scheme, which is an addition to the My First Home Scheme for units costing between RM100,000 and RM220,000, will see stratified units priced between RM220,000 and RM300,000 being built for those with a household income of less than RM6,000 a month and who do not yet own a house.
~ source ~ The Star Online (click on link for full story)

My first reaction was, this will not work. If they are going to restrict purchase of properties priced RM300K and below for those with a household income of less than RM6K, those who earned RM6K and above will find themselves unable to purchase a home of their own while those who earned less would not be able to afford this so-called affordable housing. 

In today's rising costs, if you earn RM6K a month as an individual, you do not have much disposable income. What more if it's a household income of less than RM6K, which translates to less than RM3K as an individual. But this is another issue. I only want to find out if those with a household income of less than RM6K could afford a home of RM220K to RM300K.

I will use the ceiling of RM5,999 as the household income in my calculations. I am using an example of a husband and wife with no kids. What is the actual take home pay this household has? RM4,976...after deducting EPF and tax, with the allowance amount taken into consideration before calculating the tax amount. (I did not take Socso contributions into account as the amount is rather negligible and some employers opt not to deduct Socso from their employee's salary.)

Let's take a look at the disposable income this household has. Out of RM4,967, a portion has to go towards car installment, utilities, petrol, parking fees and toll. I'm not even going to take into account the cost of a car's maintenance! Let's assume this household owns only one car.

RM4,967 - RM800 (car installment) - RM200 (utilities) - RM500 (petrol, a conservative figure) - RM100 (parking fees and toll, another conservative figure) = RM3,367. 

RM3,367 is the remaining disposable income for this household. And what is the monthly installment payment for homes costing between RM220K and RM300K?

The monthly installment for a RM300K home would be RM1,467* if they are in their 20s or early 30s and could get a 30-year loan. For a RM220K home, the monthly installment for this young household would be RM1,076*. 

So, if this household is foolish enough to buy a RM300K home, they will be left with only RM1,900, a sum hardly able to sustain a household. If they were to buy a home at the bottom of the range, their monthly disposable income, after deducting the house installment would be RM2,291. Still not a healthy disposable income for a household, but at least slightly better than if they had bought a RM300K home. (Bear in mind this is not an individual income, but household income.) And I am not even looking at a household with kids!

*Note - the best quote I know from a foreign bank. 

Book Review: Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Snow, "kar" in Turkish, is a story about Ka, a Turkish poet who lived in exile in Germany and who has now returned to Istanbul for his mother's funeral. He took the opportunity to travel to Kars, a city northeast of Turkey on the pretext of covering the story of the numerous suicides there. In truth, he had heard that Ipek, a beautiful ex-classmate was now divorced and he hoped to make her his wife. 

When he arrived, there was a snowstorm which cut the city off from the rest of the world for three days. So, in a nutshell, the plot is about Ka stranded in kar in Kars. And that's all there was to it, really. 

Yes, I know, those who have read the book would tell me about the secular state's clashes with the Islamist fundamentalists, about how a group of Muslim girls would rather commit suicide than remove their head scarves, and how the army staged a theatre act but fired five rounds of live bullets into the audience, killing some while injuring others.

They would be right. We read the same book. However, my gripe is not with the plot itself. Snow had a rather unique plot, one that broke the monotony of the plethora of bestsellers by Western authors. I'd be the last person to argue that the story wasn't interesting.

I only wished it had been written better. The story was told by an omniscient presence (the author's) who came upon Ka's notes years later and pieced them together. The 'layers' removed the reader from the story and as a result, I did not feel involved in the events taking place, nor did I feel any empathy for Ka. As a matter of fact, I felt that Ka was a drip.

If this were a movie, I would have said the wrong actor was cast in the male lead. But this is a book, so I guess it was the way the story was narrated. Orhan Pamuk could still keep Ka as the main character, but approached it differently. 

Special diet, special diet, I need a special diet chef

First, it was hubby who needed a special diabetic diet. Now it is mum. Yesterday, her annual blood test results showed that her uric acid reading is high while her sodium, chloride and potassium are lower than normal. This is despite her potassium supplements prescribed by the doctors. 


The doctor did not prescribe any medication to lower her uric acid nor to increase her sodium. She said just increase the salt in our food and to avoid food high in uric acid (more than 100mg/100g, according to my research). 


Spinach tops the list at 57g per100g, followed by mushrooms (488mg/100g), sardines in oil (480mg/100g), fresh sardines (345mg/100g), anchovies (239mg/100g), all beans and peas products and by-products (190mg/100), salmon (170mg/100g), mackerel (145mg/100), crustacean seafood and red meat (including pork).  


Not only tofu is out of the menu, but practically all meat as the only meat mum could eat is chicken and hubby simply refuses to eat this poultry in any form.


What is good for hubby is bad for mummy and vice versa,e.g. I can't increase the salt in our food, as hubby is on a low-sodium diet.....I am so f****d.


More research, more research, today's dinner will be ready and served next week..... :P

The Mouse Loses

It is with much sadness that I report the mouse was caught at 11:31am on 23 June 2011 and destroyed. It never had a chance. Our home is now mouse-free......

Cat and Mouse Game

While ambling down the boulevards of downtown KL last Sunday, I spotted a Malay pak cik with two mice on strings. He was tugging and releasing the strings like one would with a yoyo and the mice were scampering around with tails swishing left and right. I stopped and watched.


The pak cik said he made the mice himself. On closer inspection, I could see that he spoke the truth. Nevertheless, I knew my kitties would enjoy a game of cat-and-mouse. A few minutes later, RM5 and a mouse changed hands. 

Yin picked up the mouse by its tail and ran off with it. I wish I had managed to capture it before she dropped it. She was too fast for me. Blackie was not interested in running off with the mouse. He only wanted to tug and chew on the tail. A toilet brush in a different form???

Toilet Brush For Dessert, Anyone?

Blackie is a rather strange cat. He likes to chew.....no, not bones or fingers, but on toilet brushes and hair. He used to go into our bathrooms and chew our toilet brushes. After he developed a bladder infection, all bathroom doors are closed off to him, although occasionally, the little rascal managed to slip in with my mum unnoticed. And when she leaves the bathroom and shuts the door with him inside, that's when he has a party.


So, what do I do when I see a scratch board with a toilet brush bristle arch? Buy it for the little tyke, naturally.

This product, at RM46, can be purchased from:
Home Pet Food & Care
No. 41, Jalan 1/149J
Bandar Baru Sri Petaling
57000 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03 - 9059 3191 / 3192


Home Pet Food & Care does not sell livestock and rescues abandoned and stray cats. If you'd like to adopt a cute and friendly kitty, do give them a call. They have more than 30 beautiful and adorable cats and kittens waiting to shower you with their love and affection.

Cats On Ecstasy

Help! My kitties have been drugged! Or not.

You know the world has come to an end when your cats got their own mail. Yes, you read that right. A mysterious brown package arrived in the post for Blackie and Yin this afternoon. 

After the Secret Service vetted the package safe from any explosives or harmful virus and bacteria, it was carefully opened to reveal...........

.......a pretty floral pouch with C.A.T.N.I.P.!! For those who do not have cats, this is the equivalent of kitty ecstasy drug. And to protect the scent from escaping, my friend Lupie has put it inside a plastic zip bag. 


Look at how potent this kitty drug has on my two masters............

They were both sleeping when I placed the pouch on the table. Blackie's nose started wriggling, then both kitties got up at the same time and started sniffing the pouch.

They were not interested in sitting still for photos. Both were trying to rub their heads on it.

Yin, the better catcher when it comes to playing games, snatched it from Blackie while he was still trying to pick it up. Poor Blackie. If he had to catch his own prey for food, he'll loose out to all the other cats and become a thin, hungry kitty.

Yin, gripping the pouch with one paw and wiping it on her face in the same manner a human would apply the roll-on deodorant on their armpits. She's making herself smell nice....for who, I wonder.

Blackie tried to snatch it back, but got a smack on the paw from Yin. My camera is one of those compact ones and wasn't fast enough to capture the motion.
Both kitties very high now. Yin has dropped the pouch from her paws and lolled on her back while Blackie kept rubbing the table (and edge of pouch) with his head.


Thank you very, very, very much, Lupie, for the wonderful gift. For those who'd like this catnip pouch, I believe it is available for purchase from Lupie's website at www.sillylupie.com or email her at sillylupie77 [at] gmail [dot] com. Please contact her if you'd like one or a few for your kitties.  :) 


Related post:
A "Cure" For Catty Black Moods

Polygamy, Prostitution and Homosexuality

For the first time since the creation of this blog in 2008, I am writing a third installment on the same social issue. Which is so not me, as I tend not to bother myself too much with this. There are more than enough serious blogs out there, and my blog was meant to be a light-hearted, perhaps frivolous ramblings. You know, a chance to talk to myself without being called a nut.


Anyway, this post is a look at polygamy and a follow-up to a previous post titled "More prostitutes please, we are Malaysians". 

"Men are by nature polygamous", said Dr Rohaya, Mohamad Ikram Ashaari's third wife. “We hear of many men having the ‘other woman,’ affairs and prostitution because for men, one woman is not enough. Polygamy is a way to overcome social ills such as this.”~~ source: The Muslim Observer

This is the woman who said "a good wife is a good sex worker to her husband" and "disobedient wives are the cause for upheaval in this world because men are not happy at home and their minds and souls are disturbed". Her husband, Mohamad Ikram Ashaari,  the man whom Al-Arqam insisted could forgive the sins of Muslims, established Ikwan Polygamy Club to promote polygamy in August last year. While polygamy is legal for Muslims in Malaysia, where a man is allowed to have four wives at a time, husbands who are polygamous have found it difficult to provide for all their wives and children.


But that is not what I'm going to write about. I'm more interested in their claim that polygamy will solve those social ills. I SAY and I say it with capital letters, that polygamy creates MORE social ills. 


Let's take a look at the entitlement of four wives to a man. The population in Malaysia is equally split between males and females. So if there are ten (10) men, then there are ten (10) women in Malaysia. Two men will get four wives each, while one man will get two wives only. The other SEVEN men will never have a wife.


What will those seven, wife-less men do? Turn to homosexuality? Share the other men's wives? Or indulge in incest with their sisters, daughters or mothers? Or turn to bestiality?? I see nothing but more social ills......

And for this Obedient Wife Club, Malaysia is on the map again! 

Malaysia Obedient Wives Club: Good sex is a duty in Yahoo News

Malaysia 'obedient wives' Club: Good sex is a duty in Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Malaysian club urges wives to be' whores in bed' in news.com.au

FB users counter Malaysian 'sexist' wives club with new group in Daily India

'Obedient Wife Club' urges women to be whores in bed in The Sydney Morning Herald

Malaysia Obedient Wife Club promotes marital sex in Forbes

Malaysian women launch 'The Obedient Wife Club' in AFP

Obedient Wife Club set up to curb divorce in The Telegraph

Malaysian Polygamy Club Draws Criticism in The Muslim Observer

Wives told to be whores in bed in Bangkok Post

Population index:
Gender ratio: 
at birth - 1.07 male :1 female
under 15 years - 1.06 male : 1 female
15 - 64 years - 1.01 male : 1 female
65 years and over - 0.79 male : 1 female
total population - 1.01 male : 1 female
~~ source: Malaysia Department of Statistics


Updated on 13/10/11:
OWC - Obedient Wives Club or Orgy Wives Club

More Prostitutes Please, We Are Malaysians!!!

I never thought I'd  need to follow up my post "More Sex Please, We Are Malaysians" with another post. But life in a circus is unpredictable and Malaysia is a circus.


Take these news articles in today's and yesterday's The Star, for instance.


'Wives can curb social ills like prostitution by being obedient and alluring'
Obedient Wives Club to offer sex lessons on how to pleasure husbands

When asked whether it was the wife's fault for being abused, she said: “Yes, most probably because she didn't listen to her husband.”

Sex lessons to help wives “serve their husbands better than a first-class prostitute” will be among the courses provided by the Obedient Wives Club (OWC) to help promote harmonious marriages and counter social ills.

Its vice-president Dr Rohaya Mohamad said it was time sexual prowess took a front seat in marriage beyond the traditional “good mother or good cook” roles.

So, let us see....
A good wife = a first class prostitute
A first class prostitue = a good wife
Therefore, all wives should be prostitutes. Or is it all men should aim to marry a first class prostitute??


The Obedient Wives Club is created by Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd, which also has an Ikhwan Polygamy Club. Perfect compatibility. After dinner, the husband leaves for his Polygamy Club while the wife proceeds to her Obedient Wives Club. 


Perhaps I should start an online business selling whips, hooker boots, leather thongs, pornography DVDs and graphic comics. I bet I will be a millionaire in no time, since a large population will be prostitutes and in need of those supplies! Any buyers here? :P


P/s: Prostitutes Wanted: Must be willing and grateful to be whipped, beaten up, thoroughly abused, raped and used in any manner the man, her master, wishes. If you think it is a priviledge to be treated thus, or that this is the pathway to heaven, please apply here.


P.P.S: Come join us to take a stand in the  We do not want Sexist Nonsense from Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd Facebook page.


Updates: FB group counters sexist wives club.
Related topics:
Polygamy, Prostitution and Homosexuality
OWC - Obedient Wives Club or Orgy Wives Club