2010-10-30

Britain's Forests for Sale

Britain's Forests for Sale
The Government is drawing up plans to sell off publicly owned forests in a move that could see private developers allowed to clear ancient trees to make way for holiday resorts, golf courses and adventure playgrounds.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-plans-huge-selloff-of-britains-forests-2115631.html

Robin Hood disappointed at Britain forest sale
Take the forests away, and you will look like everywhere else.
http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/robin-hood-disappointed-britain-forest-sale

2010-10-29

EPF has scheme for self-employed - PPF

Mon, 18 Oct 2010
PPF participants' freedom to invest

Interesting to note that "The insurance industry also seemed keen to muscle in on the scheme, with the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia saying the proposal was expected to spur the development of retirement schemes developed by insurance companies."

http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=53060

Wed, 20 Oct 2010
MTUC against PPF, says too risky to contributors

"The returns would depend on market forces, and this was very risky for the contributors because they might lose all their savings," said MTUC secretary-general G. Rajasegaran.

"Now, however, it appears that the insurance lobbyists have succeeded, based on the announcement by the finance ministry that the government had agreed to appoint insurance companies to handle the fund," he told Bernama today.

Rajasegaran was commenting on a statement by the ministry’s economic and international division under-secretary, Datuk Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah, that EPF dividends would be gradually scaled down to encourage contributors to bring their money to the PPF.

http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=53140

Fri, 22 Oct 2010
EPF has scheme for self-employed

THE proposed private pension fund (PPF) is a re-branding of the failed annuity scheme that the insurance industry was instrumental in bringing into its short-lived existence.

Once the workings of the scheme were seen, it became obvious that those withdrawing their savings in the EPF and putting them into the annuity scheme were getting a bad deal and the insurance companies were the real beneficiaries. There was a hue and cry and the scheme was scrapped but not before the insurance companies had reaped millions in a short time. Where did the promised benefits to the investors go?

The PPF is being touted as an investment scheme to benefit workers. In reality, it is a profit-making project designed to benefit the operators of the scheme.

Ravinder Singh
http://www.thesundaily.com/article.cfm?id=53191

Fri, 22 Oct 2010
PPF For Those Without EPF

"If you look at the EPF, in the EPF 10,000 contributors have a million and above in their savings lying idle there and they are comfortable with whatever returns the EPF is paying them. So one way to discourage them from keeping the money there and to bring it to the PPF, we are going to reduce the dividends gradually to encourage them to go to the PPF."

http://epaper.sun2surf.com/friday/pdf/theSun2010102202.pdf

Mon, 25 Oct 2010
Drop PPF idea

It is ridiculous therefore that to "encourage" this minuscule percentage of millionaires to take their money out of the EPF, a whopping 99.857% of the other contributors should suffer the consequences of the move.

Related:
401(k) for Dummies

法国人罢工、退休金与退休制度

The Biggest Scam Ever

"True education was to be restricted to the son and daughters of the elite. For the rest, it would be better to produce skilled workers with no particular aspirations other than to enjoy life."

G.Edward Griffin in The Creature from Jekyll Island, on Rockefeller's General Education Board, founded in 1903.

2010-10-18

法国人罢工、退休金与退休制度

请认真思考之间相关的联系...

1. 继美国 401(k) 退休金出问题后,其中一个欧洲国家的状况:

法國‧抗議改革退休制‧100萬人續示威

薩爾科齊政府計劃把法定退休年齡從60歲提高到62歲。

http://www.sinchew.com.my/node/179708?tid=2

章玲芳‧法國人罷工
根據法國法律規定,基本退休金是國家的社會保險制度,具有法律約束性,而這個養老保險基金的來源,是由雇主和僱員共同繳納。不過,隨著就業人口越來越少、人口老齡化、目前的退休金制度顯得難以為繼,已成為法國財庫的一個重擔。

... 為遏制國家日益龐大的財政赤字,堅決要推動退休金改革,將國民退休和領取全額養老金的起點推遲兩年,進而引發了持續幾個月的工人抗議行動。

http://opinions.sinchew-i.com/node/16710

2. 公積金局

林瑞源‧經濟轉型?

- 這些計劃只能取得刺激經濟的作用,可能三幾年經濟數據被托得很高;就好像大浪一樣,浪來船高,浪退就看到沙灘上的窟窿。

- 入不敷出最終就是借錢。中央政府目前已負債4千零82億令吉。

公積金局收購南北大道,解決了政府必須每3年允許提高收費的棘手問題,但治本之道是全盤檢討私營化計劃,該局能夠收拾多少的手尾?公積金局不應成為“提款機”,特別是高風險的投資計劃,應顧全人民的利益。




3. "Fictions" + Biggest Scams Ever

The Biggest Scam Ever

Taxes, debt, inflation, and not needing a retirement plan can make you richer if you use different rules of money.

http://howtze.blogspot.com/2010/02/biggest-scam-ever.html

全球帝国之北方和南方

数十年来,北方国家在兜售基于债务的发展模式。

http://howtze.blogspot.com/2010/05/blog-post.html

2010-10-15

The Crisis Worsens ...

The crisis worsens, even if economists say, “The recession is over.”

The problem is the US dollar, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the biggest banks like Goldman Sachs. They’re not changing. They don’t have to because they have the power — the power to control money — and as you know, money buys politics and politicians. Ultimately, a corrupt money system runs the show.

It’s smarter to study the worldly philosophers and take action you believe is best for you. Understanding economists and their changing philosophies allows me to see the future, make predictions, and take action.

I did these things because I studied history and saw the writing on the wall. Today, I’m seeing the benefits of studying history.

... tangible assets that go up in value as the value of the dollar drops.

... the big problem is that our governments are playing games with money, trying to pretend that we don’t have a problem.

the Japanese are buying US dollars, trying their best to push the value of the yen down. If the yen increases in value, Japanese exports become too expensive and unemployment increases in Japan. The more dollars Japan buys, the more the US will print, trying to make the dollar weaker so that the world will buy our exports. All this does is make life harder for the world’s workers because they work for a currency that the world is trying to make weaker, not stronger.

... seeing the price of commodities going up as the dollar goes down. The world’s financially uneducated workers will have to work harder, pay higher taxes, and pay higher food and fuel prices as the bankers and politicians of the world play games with their money.

As Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.”

I don’t believe the economists when they say the recession ended a year ago. How can the recession end when they use the same old obsolete economic philosophy that got us in the mess in the first place?

~ Robert Kiyosaki

2010-10-14

Is The Recession Over?

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a panel of academic economists based in Cambridge, Mass., says the recession lasted 18 months, from December 2007 to June of 2009. What are these guys snorting, smoking, and drinking?

The Worldly Philosophers is a book about the world’s most influential economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and John Maynard Keynes. The book tells how economists, while not rock stars or famous politicians, have tremendous impact on economies via their philosophies. The problem is that if their philosophy is wrong, it can positively and negatively affect peoples’ lives for decades.

For example, Malthus, who was not really an economist but a Protestant preacher, believed strongly in frugality. So, he came up with the philosophy that economics is the allocation of scarce resources. His ideas on scarcity, the idea that there was not enough for everyone, justified imperialism, the conquest of other people and land in order to take their resources. That is how the English, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish and others spread out over the world to claim scarce resources for their countries, murdering millions of people in the process.

Today, most economists subscribe to John Maynard Keynes’ philosophy of economics. Keynes believed the government should stimulate the economy when necessary. Today, Keynes is spinning in his grave because his economic philosophy has been extensively manipulated to benefit a few at the cost of many. Today, the US has a deficit and debt that cannot be paid back. We’re on the path to financial destruction, which is why gold is hitting all-time highs.

If you want to survive, it’s important to educate yourself and seek economists who understand the cause of this crisis and why the obsolete economic theories being used are making this crisis worse.

2010-10-13

Businesses Going Online

Business solutions going online is perhaps the biggest IT revolution you will see in the next few years. Each day, more and more companies are turning to Internet-based service providers to meet some or all of their business application and computing requirements.

1. In 2005, Zoho.com launched a cloud-based word-processing service and picked up users quickly. Today they offer word-processing, spreadsheet, presentation, note-taking, wikis, invoicing and CRM services and the profitable company now has three million users.

2. In February 2007, Google launched GoogleDocs in its effort to present an alternative to Microsoft Office. The once-dominant Microsoft Office’s monopoly suddenly has a serious contender and the bad news (for Microsoft) is: GoogleDocs is free.

3. Have you heard of netbooks? Those big laptop manufacturers in the States and Taiwan had earlier predicted that computers in the future will have less software locally, and will be connecting to the web to perform most of our daily tasks. Most of the processing power will rest on the central servers up in the "cloud" somewhere, together with the ever-growing stockpile of our work data.

4. Gartner, the world’s leading technology research company, predicted that by 2012 one-fifth of the world’s businesses will own no IT asset. Well, the demand for servers and storage will actually go up, but the ownership of those assets are going to shift to third-party solution providers.


History has shown us that when it comes to a huge change of patterns in Internet trends, we have always taken time to settle in.

When we first used emails in the 90s, we refrained from sending personal details like home address and phone numbers. Today we transact with credit cards online.

When we first interacted with people online more than a decade ago, we used nicknames. Today we are eager to tell the world who we really are and use our own identities in social media.

We’ll always have concerns and take precautionary steps when we enter some uncharted waters. Our reluctance to accept a new behaviour is simply human nature. Especially if this involves personal information and business intelligence.

How Big the Cloud Computing Industry and Why Cloud Computing is Sexy

by Jimmy Yeoh - http://www.thesundaily.com/article.cfm?id=52794

2010-10-12

How Big the Cloud Computing Industry and Why Cloud Computing is Sexy

Gartner’s projections of how big the cloud computing industry is going to be:

In 2008 it was US$47 billion;
In 2012 it will hit US$128 billion,
and the year after breaching the US$150 billion mark.

Why Cloud Computing is Sexy

1. Convenient.
With a username and a password, you can create, edit and share your work data anywhere you are, even without your laptop with you.

2. Takes up much less hardware.
As they are not full-scale applications installed locally in your hard drive, you free up your storage space. They also hog less of your valuable system memory.

3. Cost effective.
Proprietary productivity software like Microsoft Office may cost you a few hundred ringgit for each licence, while cloud applications usually start you off free-of-charge, and the fee increases only marginally as you decide to adopt more.

4. Becoming more reliable.
With advanced web software, data backup and security technologies, our data safety has been vastly enhanced.

5. Flexible.
A business can start off with a one-user account and upgrade later or vice-versa, and also pay for only the features it requires.

Businesses Going Online

by Jimmy Yeoh - http://www.thesundaily.com/article.cfm?id=52794

2010-10-10

Global Internet Seminar Malaysia 2010

The only reason why we are stopped by the unknown is the fear of ‘I don’t know how’. But once you discover the ‘secret’ of doing something - be it setting up a simple website or a webpage that generates thousands of high-quality, targeted leads, your perspective changes.

What if there is an avenue; an opportunity where literally thousands of ordinary people just like you are being taught a simple system to create their own cash machine that churns out hundreds to thousands of dollars every single day? What if you can learn that exact same system to make your own fortune in the shortest time possible? Would you like to learn how?

The bottom-line is, when you know the RIGHT way to do it, nothing can stop you.

Imagine an aeroplane flying on autopilot… Get the picture?

Imagine How Fantastic Life Would Be If You Could Earn a
Full-Time Income of $100k Per Year FROM HOME?

Would You:
- Clear off all your debts and enjoy a zero debt life?
- Spend more quality time with your family?
- Invest a sum of money on your children's education?
- Let your parents retire comfortably?
- Travel around the world with your loved ones?

you’ll be learning from actual people who have “been done and done that”, and not some wannabe who has read a load of theory from a book and think they have what it takes to help you make money. You will learn from REAL experts who are at the top of their game and are using a time-tested formula that cashes in millions of dollars online.

outsource the details of your business so you can spend more time GROWING it (and your income) instead of just RUNNING it

simple three-step plan to true entrepreneurial freedom

internet marketing is first and foremost about creating the lifestyle you want and giving you the power of choice and secondly about the money.

After working long hours and making his company bosses very rich, he decided to quit. “I believe in investing in education. Even to this day, I still spend a considerate amount of time educating myself. I never stop learning.” ~John Lee

"Internet is the most powerful media and the biggest market place human history has ever created... this gives each one of us on this planet the opportunity to share our ideas with the rest of the world so millions of people can benefit from those ideas... you are going to create tremendous value by doing so, and as the result, you will become wealthy beyond your wildest imagination...' ~ Tom Hua.

In life, there are always people who wait for opportunities to slip by … and by the time they know it, 10, 20 years are gone and they are still stuck at where they are and nothing has ever changed in their lives.

Don’t be one of those people who regret letting a good opportunity slip by, when they could have taken the right action for success.

Make A Choice!

2010-10-09

Savers are Losers

The primary reason why investors do better when there are lower interest rates is simply because investors use debt to finance assets. The income from those assets covers the debt payment and provides cash flow every month. A lower payment on debt simply means more money in cash flow.

At the same time, most people use debt to finance liabilities such as their homes, cars, and college educations. Those things take money out of their pockets.

interest rates will go back up. But that will happen only if the economy recovers. As it stands now, the stimulus payouts are fading and state and local governments are cutting back, which means the economy will sink rather than rise. This means debtors who use debt to invest in assets will be the winners for a while more. Financial education is more important than ever before. It’s vitally important to know the difference between assets and liabilities.

After 2007, when the subprime mortgage bubble began to burst, many people found out how big of a liability their homes really are…especially if they lose their jobs.

take some time to learn more about money. The money of my parents’ generation, the World War II generation, is not the same as the money of today’s generation.

Today, savers are the biggest losers, and they will continue to lose for years to come, simply because, after 1971, the rules of money changed.

2010-10-03

Learning is A Lifelong Process

to study a book about the world explorers like Columbus, Magellan, Cortez, Da Gama, and Pizarro.

exciting me about world commerce, gold, silver, and plundering.

I love this world we all live on.

Progress is being made, and action is being taken.

I write to inspire you to get educated about gold and silver then make up your own mind as to what you should do. The sooner you learn how the system works, the sooner you can become a player in one of the most intriguing games on the planet – the Fast Track.

What a person should do depends upon their financial education. If you have zero financial education, even if you are a highly educated doctor or lawyer, you should follow traditional financial advice, work hard, save money, buy a home, get out of debt, live below your means, and invest in the stock market. Although I do not follow this advice and personally think it is horrible advice, it is acceptable for financially uneducated people. The unfortunate thing is that the biggest losers today are those following this advice.

Most people do not want to invest time or money in financial education, so they pay the price for subprime financial advice. They pay dearly for this shortcut.

Please do not think that attending a course will change your life. Financial education is a life long process. If you think Rich Dad’s event in October will be a quick fix to save you, please do not attend. That is naive and unrealistic. If you know that financial education is a life long process and the event in October is simply a step along your process

2010-10-02

Good News or Bad News

there is no such thing as good or bad news.

take action accordingly.

The more the economy worsens, the more money I make. If the economy gets better, I will make even more money. This may sound confusing, but justifies the need for financial education. It doesn’t matter - bad news or good news – it’s all good news if you know what to do.

I made money simply because I understand the financial system. The worse the economy gets, the lower the interest rates on loans. As I have said many times in COR updates, savers are losers and debtors are winners…but I am a debtor for assets while most people are debtors for liabilities. On top of that, by understanding the tax laws, the government is giving me massive tax breaks while it raises taxes on the under financially educated.

Again, it is not cool to brag, and I do not state my success to brag. I want to inspire people to change and move forward.


if you were financially educated, you would know that bad news is very good news, but only if you know what to do.

There are few excuses for you to remain financially illiterate today. With all of the news about this global economic crisis, you must get your head out of the sand and get smarter with your money. There are many avenues of financial education available. Just for starters, you can read books, attend seminars, follow online blogs, and surround yourself with financially intelligent people. Every community offers local real estate and stock investing clubs that would welcome your participation. It won’t happen unless you make the effort.

The instructors are more than just teachers. They practice what they teach. As you know, this is rare in the world of education.

If you are not serious about your financial education, then all there will be for you and your family is more bad news.

I know bad financial news is not good news for most people, but for me, one of the benefits of my rich dad’s financial education is that I know how to turn bad news into good news.

Robert Kiyosaki