Cats Take To The Streets In Protest

Last night, an unprecedented incident in the history of mankind took place at Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. Cats came out in droves on the streets, wearing hats and carrying placards in protest of the 100-storey mega tower that would be built at the site near Stadium Merdeka and Stadium Negara.

"That's a sign that the End of the World is coming. Our cats normally reside in Kuching, a special city zoned for cats in Sarawak, a state in East Malaysia," a witness said. 


Seen running after her cats, trying to catch them and put them back into their carriers is FurLin, who told CNN (Cats News Network) that she doesn't know what came over her cats. She was having dinner at Healy Mac's, an Irish Restaurant in Bukit Bintang when her cats broke free from their carriers, donned their hats and ran off to join other cats that were similarly attired. 


"They just went nuts," she said, pointing to her cats in the pink straw hat and red cowboy hat. "Before they dashed off, they meowed that the RM5 billion ringgit would be better used to build a  Cat Village to house all the poor and homeless," chirped her husband, FurNut.


When approached, the cat in a pink straw hat said, "Look, the money could be used to help the poor and improve public hospitals and clinics". 


"Humans should improve their education system so that they are at least half as smart as we felines. The money could be used to improve the public transport system, and thus ease the massive traffic jams in the city. Instead, they are using the money to create even more traffic jam. This just proves what we knew all along --- humans are not fit to lead a country," the cat in a red cowboy hat added.


The protest is against the government's planned Warisan Merdeka project announced in the recent Budget 2011.


If you agree that RM5 billion could be better spent elsewhere, be it on education, hospitals and clinics, public transport, or to help out the poor, please join the protest in http://www.facebook.com/NoMegaTower. And please drop a line and say "hi" to the cats if you sympathise with them.  :P

Malaysia Excels At Giving Inaccurate Figures To Look Good

Last night, while watching American Idol - Idol Gives Back, a two-and-a-half episode with big names like Sir Elton John, Mary J. Bligh, Black Eyed Peas, Carrie Underwood, Alicia Keyes, Annie Lennox and a duet performance by Joss Stone and Jeff Black, I kept hearing this: "one in six people in America are living in poverty". 


This can't be true, I told myself. If it's true, it's a very high figure. The poverty rate in America surely can't be 16%. I decided to check for verification, and found that, YES, America's poverty rate is between 13% to 17%, at any given time. 


Curious, I compared it with Malaysia's official poverty rate of 5.1%.


And what I found is this:


1. The US poverty threshold - those considered living in poverty actually own a telephone, a car, a home (albeit a trailer home), a microwave oven, in other words, items considered basic necessities.


2. Malaysia poverty threshold - only those with a household income of less than RM500 in a family of four is considered to be living in poverty.


Hello!!!! This figure is unrealistic. A monthly rental of a small low-cost flat ranges from RM450 to RM650, depending on area. Near towns, it would be RM650. 


Anyone earning below RM1000 (I'm not even mentioning combined household income) would have difficulty making ends meet. Why do you think those who earned RM1000 from one job has another part-time job? Why do you think those with a household income of RM2000 need part-time jobs to supplement their income if they can make ends meet? 


Let's take a real good look at the raw data. 


There are 5.8 million households in 2007. Out of these:
1. 8.6% of the households had a monthly income below RM1,000
2. 29.4% had between RM1,000 and RM2,000
3. 19.8% earned between RM2,001 and RM3,000
4. 12.9% earned between RM3,001 and RM4,000
5. 8.6% had between RM4,001 and RM5,000
6. 15.8% had an income of between RM5,001 and RM10,000
7. 4.9% had an income of RM10,000 and above
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Malaysia)


What is a fact is that, with development & urbanization, any family of four with a household income of less than RM2,000 is not likely to make ends meet, and they are not going to be able to own a car or a home. And if you have a car and a home, RM3,000 is barely enough for a family of four. So, how could a household income of RM500 be the poverty threshold??!!


And RM5001 and RM10000 should not be lumped into one income range. There is a huge disparity of what a household income of RM5001 cannot afford which a household income of RM10000 can afford. Ask the man on the street and he'll tell you that surviving on a RM5001 household income is not easy.....why else do office executives with a combined household income of RM5,000 work part-time after office hours? 


So, what should the poverty rate in Malaysia be in order to reflect the actual state of affairs? On a very conservative level, I would say 38%, although 57.8% would be far more accurate. That brings us back to the time of independence in 1957 when half of the country’s households were living below the national poverty line, with very little changed up to 1970, at which time 49 per cent of households were poor. (source http://www.undp.org.my/malaysia-measuring-and-monitoring-poverty-and-inequality)


Conclusion: Nothing has changed till today. Half of Malaysia's households are still living in poverty, like it or not. Rather than spend time trying to window-dress and hide the brutal facts, the government should instead work on solutions to increase the income of Malaysians.

Light At The End of The Tunnel.....?

After having slept nearly the whole day and night....(err, not due to laziness but I was not well, had fever and bad flu plus sore throat)....I woke up this morning still feeling lousy and groggy as a result of those prescriptions the doctor gave me. 

But like any normal day, the first thing I did on waking up was to read the news.

And.....I felt much better right away. Instead of the usual political crap, the government is actually doing something to help ease the burden of the public. Petrol prices will be reduced by 15 cents, and hypermarket chains like Tesco, Carrefour, Giant and Mydin will reduce prices of canned and fresh food, including instant noodles by as early as next week.

This is good news indeed. I had braced myself for more price increases, but instead, prices are heading south. 

However, that said, looking at the percentage of the price reduction (15% - 30%), prices of those goods will just be back to what they were 6 months ago. We will not be seeing prices of last year. 

Oh well, at least it's better than prices continually sprillaling up through the roof. 

Yay! Now I can afford to buy more books at the MPH Warehouse Sale later today. But first, I have to go back to bed as the medicine I took just now is making me drowsy again. *nodding off*

We Are Optimistically Pessimistic...

Today I learned a new oxymoron phrase from MySinChew....."optimistically pessimistic". I love oxymoron words and phrases, by the way.  

The article is a rehash of what most of us already know....that our government is in denial, insisting that our economy is strong enough to weather the storm.

Since I've already spoken my mind in the previous post titled "Will the Global Financial Tsunami Hit Us", I won't touch on it anymore.

I only want to add that while the public is optimistically pessimistic, the government is rhetorically optimistic and taking a rather cavalier attitude towards the whole issue. Ok, enough said. I rest my case.

Will the Global Financial Tsunami Hit Us?

I was so glad to see in today's Star Online that someone, other than me, has noticed that our government has not made any mention of how it is going to handle this worldwide economic meltdown.

As Steve Oh from Kajang puts it succintly in his letter, there is no mention in any of our local newspapers of the steps our government is taking to address this issue. Oh yes, I forgot, a few days ago our Mr. Najib and one analyst said we won't be affected. 

Really? Let's look at some of the "facts" they used.

One, "our economy is domestically driven. Therefore, we're not exposed to world economy." While this is true, don't forget that MORE THAN 40% of our income is derived from exports. These exports are now affected, and there will be a ripple effect at best. 

And, if nothing is done to turn the world around, then the ripple effect might become a tsunami, too, affecting all other businesses which are domestically driven. 

Second, by our Mr. Najib, "our exports are diversified. We export mostly to China, not US, so we are not affected." Hello, Mr. Najib. China's biggest customer is US....and if you can't connect the dots, then I am extremly fearful for our country's financial future.

If our govenment does not stop distracting itself with who should be the next PM and DPM soon, and take an interest in our economy, we might one day wake up to find our country back to poverty status.

At least, Dr M took preemptive measures a decade ago and saved our economy from spiralling downwards.....did any of you remember that our economy recovered faster than our neighours, including Singapore's, due to Dr M's brilliance? I remember that Lee Kuan Yew and others laughed at Dr M's unorthodox measures, but at the end, we had the last laugh. 

Cintan Mee, Maggi Mee dan SODOM MEE

The Americans are facing an economic "stagflation", a term coined in the 1970s when recession happened at the same time as inflation, counter to what we learned in economics class (thanks, Sheryl, for this educational bit of news).

The Australians, a number of them, anyway, are facing the mortgage and credit card repayment woes. Some of them could not pay their monthly loans and are evicted from their homes.

In Malaysia, prices of goods are going through the roof, and many people are badly affected by the price hikes. Properties are being foreclosed and auctioned off, too. However, the difference lies in how we Malaysians face this setback.

Instead of being worried by day to day living, we are being entertained endlessly by a live soap opera. It is none other than the alleged sodomy case against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, our former deputy prime minister.

His story reads like a best-selling Harrold Robbins novel. Check out the latest update in The Star.