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| Monday, February 28th, 2011 | | 12:02 pm |
| | Saturday, November 13th, 2010 | | 3:22 pm |
| | Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 | | 3:20 pm |
Eulogy for my grandmother
This is the somewhat edited text of the eulogy that I gave on the 9th of May, 2010 at Wesley Methodist Church in Melaka, Malaysia. note: Mama is a Nyonya term for grandmother and Kong Kong is the Chinese way to say grandfather. Mama's primary spoken language was Malay.Good afternoon. My name is Alex and I am a grandson of Madam Lai Jit Eng, otherwise known as Mrs. Khung Thye Hiong to most and as Mama to myself and my cousins. On behalf of the family, I would like to thank Pastor Thomas, Wesley Methodist Church, Kang Casket, all mourners and well wishers. Mama lived from 1926 to 2010, living to the age of 83 years. She was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother and an exemplary homemaker. Mama and Kong Kong were married for more than 67 years. They met and got married during the Japanese Occupation in Malaya, during the most difficult economic, political and social situations times of recent history. Mama and Kong Kong loved each other tremendously and their dedication and support for each other was, as far as I aware, unsurpassed by any other couple that I know. Mama and Kong Kong always looked happier together than apart and they seemed to do whatever they could to stay together as much as possible. I had the privilege and honour of speaking at Kong Kong's funeral back in January this year and I mentioned how hard he worked for the family both at his workplace and at home. He managed to rise through the corporate ladder at Sime Darby and, later, at its subsidiary, Tractors Malaysia, from selling by the roadside all the way to becoming Area Sales Manager for all of Southern Malaysia for Tractors Malaysia. If not for an early retirement forced upon him by his worsening health, I have no doubt that he would have achieved much more still. I have no doubt at all that Kong Kong could not have achieved anywhere close to what he did without Mama's support. I perhaps should mention that I am glad that Mama and Kong Kong were able to do a significant amount of overseas travel to various places around the world though it is certainly noteworthy that the place they traveled to most often was London to see their two children who had moved there and their grandchildren there. It was good that they were able to travel to London a few times before Kong Kong became more disabled with his strokes and could not travel anymore. Mama's dedication to Kong Kong was perhaps no more evident than in her care of Kong Kong over many years, even as his physical condition continued to deteriorate. One of Mama's greatest regrets was that, some years ago, Mama had to admit that Kong Kong's increasing requirements for assistance and her own deteriorating health meant that she could no longer cope alone with his care and needed help in the form of a domestic maid. When Kong Kong eventually became bedbound, requiring assistance for all his activities, Mama quietly admitted to me once that she wished Kong Kong would die before her. The reason she gave was that if she died before him, there would be nobody who could or would supervise the maids as well as she did, so that Kong Kong would have the best level of care possible. She then ended by saying that if Kong Kong died before her, she would follow him not long afterward. In the last few months since Kong Kong's death, everyone who knew Mama well from her doctors to her family members noticed that her otherwise indomitable strong will to live had been dulled significantly. Mama became depressed without Kong Kong's presence, often calling out for him late at night, even though Kong Kong had been bed-bound and uncommunicative for several years beforehand. Mama clearly missed Kong Kong dearly and everyone realized she did not want to carry on much longer. However, Mama was not only a good wife but also a good mother and homemaker. She successfully raised six children, starting with my own mother who was born during the Japanese Occupation. Those were tough economic times. Mama and Kong Kong were not rich. Money was tight, things were tough. They had no maids, no domestic help, no washing machines. They did not even have a car or motorcycle. Mama prided herself on doing all the domestic duties herself from the washing to the cleaning to the cooking and taking care of all the needs of her husband and children. Despite having little formal education and little training in home-making, Mama rose to the occasion. For example, from starting with not much knowledge of cooking, over time, Mama learnt by example, listening to people and trial and error. She became, as far as I am concerned, the best Nyonya cook ever and I have never tasted any Nyonya food better than what Mama cooked for us. Perhaps the best example of Mama's dedication to her children is a story she once told me that I still find difficult to believe. When her children were in school, Mama prided herself on doing all the housework by herself, without any help from the children. The reason for this? She wanted them to have time to study and do their homework so that they would have a better life. Mama always wanted the best for her children and would not spare any expense or effort to do whatever she thought was best for them. Given how hard Kong Kong worked for the family's sake, he was clearly one of the pillars on which the household relied on. Having said that, I truly believe that Mama was not only the other pillar but was the very foundation on which the household stood on. I should come to how Mama was not only a good wife and good mother but also a good grandmother. Whilst I lived in Kluang and thus did not see Mama and Kong Kong that often, every single time my parents brought me up here, I felt welcomed and invited. There was never a time that I went hungry in Mama's house. If Mama knew any of her grandchildren were coming, her fridge would be filled to the brim with fresh produce, ready to cook into whatever dishes each individual grandchild preferred. If there was a problem with what Mama cooked for us it was that she would just about always cook too much food and the food was always so tasty that it was inevitable that we would put on weight on a trip back to Melaka. I can still remember the plates of Pong Teh, vegetables, soup, lemak, assam, kuih and so on, all of which Mama would have cooked herself from scratch. Even later on, when she was less able to, say, cook the labour-intensive kuih herself, she would, on hearing of any of her grandchildren's imminent arrival, go out and stock the house full of locally made kuih so we could enjoy it the moment we arrived. If there was any other shortcoming of Mama's treatment of her grandchildren, it was that she was perhaps often too concerned and overprotective. I think, however, that those are problems that are, on the whole, worth having. Lastly, Mama also left a solid impression on all those who came in touch with her. Her bubbly and cheerful personality and her generousness and thoughtfulness meant most people liked her very much. I was pleasantly surprised to see that a nurse who had seen Mama but once, during her stay in the ICU on a previous occasion, came to visit Mama several times during her admission during the final days. The next section is in Malay.Mama, sekarang saya pun ada dua anak kecil, baru saya tahu tidak senang jaga anak. Saya memang tak tahu macam mana Mama dapat jaga enam anak begitu baik sekali. Dulu Mama kerja kuat, Mama rajin jaga rumah, rajin jaga anak, Mama sangat pandai jaga rumah dan anak. Terima kasih, Mama, kerana Mama jaga Mummy gua begitu baik dahulu. Saya janji Mama saya akan jaga Mummy gua selama saya hidup and Mummy gua masih hidup. Terima kasih, Mama. Translation - Mama, now that I have two young children, I now know it is not easy taking care of children. I don't know how you managed to take care of six children so well. You worked so hard and were so good at taking care of the house and family. Thank you, Mama, for taking care of my mother before. I promise you I will take care of my mother as long as she and I both live. Thank you, Mama.Thank you. Current Mood:  contemplative | | Thursday, April 8th, 2010 | | 10:57 am |
| | Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 | | 1:49 pm |
| | Monday, January 25th, 2010 | | 2:09 am |
It's about time credit was rationed in Australia
* January 24, 2010 12:00AM
AUSTRALIA is facing a credit squeeze that will prevents tens of thousands of borrowers from buying a property because they do not have big enough deposits.
Last week Westpac cut its loan-to-value ratio (LVR) for new customers to just 87 per cent of the property's value - a new low for a big bank.
Although it may appear relatively small, such a cut has a disproportionate effect on how much people can borrow and can halve the value of the property they can afford to buy.
"If you have a $50,000 deposit and you can get a 95 per cent loan, you are able to bid on a property worth $1 million," said Steve Keen, associate professor of economics at the University of Western Sydney.
"But if the LVR is cut to 90 per cent, your $50,000 deposit is only equivalent to 10 per cent deposit on a $500,000 property, so the amount you can spend is halved."
Long overdue. Australia residential house price crash in 2010 unless hyperinflation sets in beforehand! | | Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 | | 10:01 pm |
Eulogy to a great man
This is the slightly edited text of the eulogy I gave at my grandfather's funeral yesterday. note: Kong Kong is chinese for grandfather, MaMa is a Nyonya term for grandmother. My name is Alex and I am the grandson of Khung Thye Hiong, whom I will hereafter refer to as Kong Kong. Kong Kong was born on the 25th of August 1925 and died on the 2nd of January 2010, aged 84 years old. He is survived by a wife, six children, ten grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. He was a good man, a man of good moral character, an honest man, a man of integrity whose word was his bond. If he promised anything, you could bet your bottom dollar that it would be done and done well. Most of all, he was a man who loved and was loved by his family. His early life was marked by living through the financially tumultuous periods of the 1920s and 1930s followed by the even more unstable period of World War II and the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, possibly the most difficult period in the history of this nation. Kong Kong played many roles in his life and I would like to share some of those with you. First and foremost, Kong Kong was a good husband. He was married for 67 years. He was married to MaMa during the Japanese Occupation. They had their first child, my own mother, during the Japanese Occupation. In all my conversations with MaMa over many years, there has not been a single time, *not a single time* that I can recall when MaMa had any bad things to say about Kong Kong. Every time MaMa spoke about Kong Kong, she could not finish without mentioning how much Kong Kong loved her or how much she loved him or how hard he worked for the family. Kong Kong and MaMa never looked happier than when they were together. There was nothing Kong Kong would not do for MaMa and, in return, there was nothing that MaMa would not do for Kong Kong. Kong Kong unfortunately suffered from increasing disability over the last 30 years or so of his life from multiple strokes. Eventually, Kong Kong was unable to take care of himself and MaMa stepped in with no hesitation. MaMa took pride in being able to take care of Kong Kong all by herself, a task she performed extremely well for many years until the point where Kong Kong's increasing disability and the combination of MaMa's increasing age and her own health problems meant that she finally had to admit that she needed help. I have not ever seen, in any other couple, any example of love as deep and strong as that of Kong Kong and MaMa for each other. Secondly, Kong Kong was a good father. Kong Kong successfully raised six children to independent adulthood with MaMa. This alone would be impressive in this day and age but things were not that simple. Kong Kong and MaMa were not well off - they did not come from rich families. They were married during the Japanese Occupation and had their first child during the Japanese Occupation. Times were tough. Money was short. Kong Kong not only worked hard in one job but often did a second or third job late into the evening to earn extra money for the family. Even then, Kong Kong's day would not be done after coming home from his second or third job because when he got home, he would not go to sleep until he had cradled and rocked whoever was the youngest child at that point to sleep, often falling asleep doing so and waking up when the baby woke up, staying awake until he rocked the baby back to sleep. There was nothing that Kong Kong would not do for the welfare of his children. For years he sacrificed his own luxuries for his children, wearing a tattered and torn shirt for years at home, telling his children that it was "more cooling". Even when his children were independent adults, there were times when they needed him. Whenever any of his children had a genuine need of his help, Kong Kong had no hesitation whatsoever pledging all his money, all his time or whatever else that the situation called for. I can assure you that all of his children gathered here today are very proud and grateful to have him as their father. If Kong Kong's achievements stopped there, he would already have been a great man in my book, perhaps greater than I ever will be but there is more to the story. Kong Kong was also active in the community and church. Before he became disabled with strokes, Kong Kong would regularly come to church, this very church. He was well known and well respected. Though his focus was clearly on his family, he assisted anyone who came to him for help. I have no doubt that, had Kong Kong not had a series of strokes but instead lived healthily and died last week of one big stroke, this church would be completely filled with well wishers and people paying him their last respects. Instead, because of his strokes, he has not been active in church for more than 20 years and is not as well known as he would have been. Kong Kong was also a hard-working, diligent and responsible employee. He held his main job, working for Sime Darby and later, its subsidiary, Tractors Malaysia, for more than 30 years. He worked his way up the corporate ladder, from the ultimate bottom rung, selling things on the street all the way to becoming in charge of sales of tractors for all of Southern Malaysia. Everyone at work knew him and he was well liked and well respected. If strokes had not cut Kong Kong's career short, he would almost certainly have been promoted further and become in charge of sales over all of Malaysia and possibly further still. Lastly but certainly not least, Kong Kong was a grandfather. Now, in my memory, Kong Kong was not a man of many words but he did give us snippets of advice now and then. What I remember most about him however is that whenever I visited MaMa and Kong Kong's house, he was always smiling and happy to see me. I always felt invited, welcome in his house. Sometimes he had presents for me and my cousins which he had brought back from his various trips. Kong Kong - I wish you had never had all those strokes so I could spend more time with you and you could share your wisdom with me. Thank you. | | Friday, November 27th, 2009 | | 12:41 pm |
| | Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 | | 9:32 pm |
| | Saturday, November 21st, 2009 | | 11:14 pm |
| | Friday, November 13th, 2009 | | 4:06 am |
| | Friday, October 16th, 2009 | | 7:04 am |
more bad news for the US dollar
20:5014/10/2009
BEIJING, October 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is ready to consider using the Russian and Chinese national currencies instead of the dollar in bilateral oil and gas dealings, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
The premier, currently on a visit to Beijing, said a final decision on the issue can only be made after a thorough expert analysis.
"Yesterday, energy companies, in particular Gazprom, raised the question of using the national currency. We are ready to examine the possibility of selling energy resources for rubles, but our Chinese partners need rubles for that. We are also ready to sell for yuans," Putin said.
The last time a major oil producer announced it was dealing in a currency other than the US dollar, the US attacked it not long afterward. That was Iraq in 2003. Somehow, I don't think the US is crazy enough to attack Russia and China. Another nail in the coffin of the US dollar. As it loses its reserve currency status, the relevance of the US will wane. On the part of Russia and China, they should skip using either rubles or yuan and go straight to settlement in gold. :-) Current Mood: indescribable | | Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | | 1:33 am |
speculative bubble in stocks
As part of their program of 'quantitative easing' which is another name for currency devaluation through extraordinary expansion of the monetary base, the Fed has very obviously created an inflationary bubble in the US equity market.
I particularly like the graphs of the blatant printing of money, the rise in the PE ratios of US stocks and the graph directly comparing the rise in the monetary base to the jump in PE ratios. The money being printed is moving directly to push stocks to bubble prices! This cannot end well. Got gold? Current Mood:  moody | | Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 | | 9:49 am |
update on the kids
James is now nearly 16 months old and is now walking everywhere since about a week ago. He is also talking a bit though his vocabulary is somewhat interesting - he says "door" to mean either "door" or "open", and he calls the telephone "kong kong". Speaking of interesting tidbits in child language development, Annika has this quirk where she mispronounces just about all "l"s as "h" sounds, despite all attempts to correct her so far. So if Annika says "I hike you", she means "I like you" and if she says "hater", she actually means "later". Current Mood:  happy | | Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 | | 3:23 am |
| | Thursday, July 30th, 2009 | | 11:35 am |
a chill through the US bond market
We have not yet reached the cliff where the waterfall occurs but I think I can hear some rapids. What if the US government went to the market to sell some bonds and nobody (or not enough people) turned up to buy them? Shock horror. Just think - the US Fed might be forced to print up some more electronic dollars to buy the bonds to avoid a bond market collapse. This will, however, be at the cost of the US dollar going downhill ... fast. Current Mood: amused | | Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | | 11:55 pm |
Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself
You can't expect a bank that is dumb enough to sue itself to know why it is suing itself.
Yet I could not resist asking Wells Fargo Bank NA why it filed a civil complaint against itself in a mortgage foreclosure case in Hillsborough County, Fla.
"Due to state foreclosure laws, lenders are obligated to name and notify subordinate lien holders," said Wells Fargo spokesman Kevin Waetke.
Being a taxpayer-subsidized, too-big-to-fail institution, it's possible that one of the few ways for Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) to know what it is doing is to notify itself with a court filing.
In this particular case, Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium, according to Sarasota, Fla., attorney Dan McKillop, who represents the condo owner.
As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.
"The primary reason is to clear title and ownership interest in a property to prepare it for sale," Waetke said in an email exchange. "So it really is not Wells Fargo vs. Wells Fargo."
Yet court documents clearly label "Wells Fargo Bank NA" as the plaintiff and "Wells Fargo Bank NA" as a defendant.
Wells Fargo hired Florida Default Law Group., P.L., of Tampa, Fla., to file the lawsuit against itself.
And then Wells Fargo hired another Tampa law firm -- Kass, Shuler, Solomon, Spector, Foyle & Singer P.A. -- to defend itself against its own lawsuit, according to court documents.
Wells Fargo's defense lawyers even filed an answer to their client's own complaint.
"Defendant admits that it is the owner and holder of a mortgage encumbering the subject real property," the answer reads. "All other allegations of the complaint are denied." ... continued ...
Worth reading in its entirety. Wells Fargo, is, of course, one of the banks that was bailed out by the US government in the recent financial crisis. And you wonder what's wrong with the banks there... Current Mood: amused | | Monday, June 15th, 2009 | | 2:05 am |
the future of sustainable healthcare
Quote: Costlier care is often worse care It's a long article but worth a read. It's not just a problem for America, it's a problem for Australia and many other countries. Healthcare costs keep escalating upwards and the system is going broke. I like the reference to the Mayo Clinic and how it manages to provide great quality healthcare in America at a much lower cost compared to most other places. I also like his analogy: Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coördination. Imagine that, instead of paying a contractor to pull a team together and keep them on track, you paid an electrician for every outlet he recommends, a plumber for every faucet, and a carpenter for every cabinet. Would you be surprised if you got a house with a thousand outlets, faucets, and cabinets, at three times the cost you expected, and the whole thing fell apart a couple of years later? Getting the country’s best electrician on the job (he trained at Harvard, somebody tells you) isn’t going to solve this problem. Nor will changing the person who writes him the check.
This last point is vital. Activists and policymakers spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about whether the solution to high medical costs is to have government or private insurance companies write the checks. Here’s how this whole debate goes. Advocates of a public option say government financing would save the most money by having leaner administrative costs and forcing doctors and hospitals to take lower payments than they get from private insurance. Opponents say doctors would skimp, quit, or game the system, and make us wait in line for our care; they maintain that private insurers are better at policing doctors. No, the skeptics say: all insurance companies do is reject applicants who need health care and stall on paying their bills. Then we have the economists who say that the people who should pay the doctors are the ones who use them. Have consumers pay with their own dollars, make sure that they have some “skin in the game,” and then they’ll get the care they deserve. These arguments miss the main issue. When it comes to making care better and cheaper, changing who pays the doctor will make no more difference than changing who pays the electrician. The lesson of the high-quality, low-cost communities is that someone has to be accountable for the totality of care. Otherwise, you get a system that has no brakes. You get McAllen.
As long as the players in the health system (hospitals and doctors) are more interested in making money than in keeping the patients healthy whilst keeping health costs low whilst maintaining a high quality of care, the system is screwed. Similarly, you could argue that, as long as politicians are more interested in political gain over healthcare results, the system is screwed and is not going to be fixed. Current Mood: contemplative | | Thursday, June 4th, 2009 | | 8:29 pm |
is the end near for the US dollar?
The Big Collapse Could Be Very Near
The Federal Reserve appears to be increasingly nervous about the long term bond market. This is serious. How panicked are they? After leaking a story on Friday, they are back at it on Sunday.
The Federal Reserve leaked to CNBC's Steve Liesman on Friday that they weren't targeting long rates. Why such a leak? Probably because the Fed did not want to appear impotent in controlling the long rate. So they put out the word through Liesman that they weren't targetting the long rate. Can you imagine what would happen to the markets if it sensed long rates were beyond the control of the Fed?
The Fed can of course print money to buy up every Treasury bond in existence, but the inflationary ramifications would be Zimbabwe like, and crush the dollar on international currency markets. Are we near the phase where all hell breaks loose? I have never even answered, maybe, to this question before. It's always been, "no." Now it's maybe.
... and, not forgetting the conclusion of the article:
And keep this in mind, we have never seen a collapse of a currency like the dollar. Even the hyperinflation during Germany's Wiemar Period can not serve as an example. Since the dollar is the reserve currency of most of the world, a panic out of the dollar means more dollars will return to the U.S. shores than any country has ever experienced.
Other countries have had collapsed currencies, but never in the history of world of finance has so much currency been held outside a country of issue that could come flying back, almost on a moments notice. If the panic out of the dollar starts, even if Bernanke stops printing money (unlikely), all the dollars flying back into the U.S. could cause a huge price inflation all on its own.
Emphases are mine. I agree with the conclusion. There is a significant, non-zero probability that a collapse in the US dollar could happen. If it does, it could go slowly or it could spiral quickly out of control. Your only real defense against this incoming tsunami is a healthy amount of gold in your portfolio. Current Mood: indescribable | | Saturday, May 30th, 2009 | | 1:06 am |
the real danger for swine flu
Many people have told me that the swine flu, or should I say, the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic so far has more bark than bite. Yes, it is true that the current infection has a mortality rate of less than 1% - possibly less than 0.5% - but the risk is that the virus mutates to something more serious. One possible nightmare scenario would be the mixing of genes of the avian flu and swine flu viruses. The avian flu has a higher mortality rate but is less infectious whereas the swine flu has a much high infectivity rate but is much less lethal. It is not out of the realm of possibility that the swine flu and the avian flu viruses can mix genes when someone currently affected with avian flu concomitantly gets infected with the swine flu. Influenza viruses are renown for their promiscuity in mixing genes and indeed for their high rate of mutation. A recent WHO article - quoted below - shows that avian flu is active in Egypt - with a mortality rate of 35% (27 out of 76). If a new virus - say, called the flying-pig virus - has almost the same infectivity as the current swine flu but a mortality rate of anything more than 1%, it would be a worldwide disaster. How long will it be before swine flu is rampant in Egypt? And therefore, how long before someone with an active avian flu infection gets infected with swine flu? Pigs might yet fly!
Avian influenza - situation in Egypt - update 17
28 May 2009 -- The Ministry of Health of Egypt has reported two new confirmed human cases of avian influenza on 26 May 2009. The two cases are from two separate districts of Sharkia Governorate.
The first case is a 4-year old male from Hehia City, Hehia District. His symptoms began with fever on 24 May 2009.
The second case is a 4-year old female from Abo Hammad District. Her symptoms began with fever on 23 May 2009.
Both cases were admitted to Zagazig Fever Hospital where they received oseltamivir and are in a stable condition.
Investigations into the source of infection indicated that the above two cases had close contact with dead and sick poultry. Both cases were confirmed by the Egyptian Central Public Health Laboratories on 26 May 2009.
Of the 76 cases confirmed to date in Egypt, 27 have been fatal.
Current Mood: contemplative |
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