Sigghhh... Are men really stronger?

Pic 01: I may not be as pretty as before, but I am still alive... hee hee...

For a fact, men have more muscles, power and energy. Yes we can unscrew soy sauce bottles, carry heavy flower pots or hammering nails in. From that narrow perspective, men are indeed stronger.

But seen from longevity strength, we fall far behind. Lets compare the men and the fairer sex:


















Pic 02: Women is the cause or costs to men's shorter lifespan?

1. Chinese women live the longest in Malaysia, with an average life expectancy of 79.8 years, said the Department of Statistics based on its 2010 records.

2. Indian women are in second place with (76.2 years),

3. Malay women (75.3 years),

as compared to men:

4. Chinese men (74.4 years),

5. Malay men (70.5 years) and


6. Indian men (68 years).

According to the 2010 statistics, in general, women in the country had a higher life expectancy at 77 years compared with men at 71.9 years - an improvement from the 74.7 years for women and 70 for men in 2000.

Could the longevity of women be due to lower stress by having fewer babies?
The fertility rate among women, however, dropped from 3.0 in 2000 to 2.2 in 2010. There you go, fewer babies over the past 10 years. Less children means less stress. But what about men who also have smaller families? Their expectancy increased but didn't surpass the women counterparts.

"Malaysia is expected to reach a maximum population of 57 million by 2090. 475,816 births were registered in 2010, excluding still born babies, while there were 129,327 deaths, resulting in an addition of 346,489 people to the population.

Malaysia is among the youngest demographics country in the world because 67.5% of the population are in the 15-64 years bracket.

The statistics also revealed that 71% of the 28.3 million population in the country, lived in urban areas and only 29% remained in rural areas.

So let us get back to the issue, why women outlive men?
Some speculative reasons are:
1) Men shoulder the main responsibility to provide materially for families, thus they face more stress.
2) Men are less inclined to see doctors with minor health problems unless it deteriorated until its too late as it becomes serious illnesses.




















Pic 03: "Drink up and you will look as smart as me."




















Pic 04: What pollution? I am contributing to commercial activities.


3) Men are callous. They drink, wallop Nasi Lemak (Animal fats), sleep less and smoke their lives away. Note that Malay Men don't, or at least not suppose to take alcohol, have shorter lifespan than Chinese Men but longer than Indian Men. It appears that Chinese men would consume alcohol but less Nasi Lemak, Beriani (fatty rice), Sup Kambing (Cholesterol rich mutton) lived the longest. Whereas Indian Men consumed both alcohol and fatty food lived less. More correlation studies are needed here but it seemed that longevity has to do with our diet.

Some speculative reasons for women living longer are:
1. Science perspectives: the female hormone estrogen lowers harmful cholesterol and raises "good" cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein). Emerging evidence suggests estrogen treatment after menopause reduces the risk of dying from heart disease and stroke, as well as of dying in general.
2. Habit Perspective: Women smokes/drink less or not smoke/drink at all compared to men.
3. Diet Quantum Perspective: Women eats less and thus have less problems of high cholesterol and heart disease.
4. Social Perspective: Women are naturally more sociable, being more expressive. When stress, they 'talk their problems' out to their trusted girlfriends. You may note that women can go forever chatting on phones, facebook, cuppa of coffee, snacks. By letting go, their de-stress their emotional state and thus a more relaxed physique. Less risks of developing Heart-related diseases.
5. Society pressure: Women needs to look pretty, shaped pretty. As a result, they pay more attention to facial treatments, gyms, exercise and checking the weights more often than men. Naturally result in healthier bodies.

Contrast with society's perspective of men:



















Pic 05: Man thinking, "I am a successful businessman."


= if a man is bald? ohhh.... this is a boss or "Dai Si Tau" (big Boss)
= if a man is overweight? ohh... this is a successful businessman
= if a man is both? ohh... this is a Successful businessman + Boss.

Men can get away with poor health, strangely associating it with success.

Narrowing the gap
Perls and Fretts of Harvard University, point out that deaths from lung cancer have almost tripled in women in the past 20 years. One study concluded that, on average, middle-aged female smokers live no longer than male smokers.

"Smoking," Perls and Fretts conclude, "seems to be the 'great equalizer.'"

Conclusion
Let us live and enjoy life responsibly being moderate in habits and lifestyle.

Sources :

Laura Blue, 2011, Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men?, http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1827162,00.html#ixzz1hLW3pTqz, Date Visited:23rd December

Thestar, 2011, Malaysian Chinese women live the longest, http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/12/22/nation/20111222151838&sec=nation, Date Visited: 23rd December

DEC 2011 EXAMS & Olympus decaying "NIPPON" governance

-related to all ACCA candidates and P1 (GRE) candidates






























Pics Clockwise from top:
(1) Fired CEO- the whistle blower of Olympus Corp (Japan)
(2) New CEO installed by powerful Japanese keiretsu insider dominated elite shareholders.
(3) "Hi, Sushi Ma-sen, Arigato gozaimas." : Its pretty on the outside, but rotten on the inside. - Errrr... the product or person?


CURRENT SITUATION
Exams are round the corner. If only we can take that corner and not get cornered. Feeling stressed? All you ACCA candidates have done much and travelled far in doing mock exams, classes, tutorials and personal study. There are values in there. You are prepared in your own way for the exams. Don’t despair, if you feel stressed. All 185,000 ACCA affiliates and FCCA members have gone through what you are currently going through. All of us have done it and so can you!

EXAM TIME STRATEGY
Continue to practice questions and focused on exams techniques. There is very little time given ie 3 hours and 15 minutes for the written exams. Don’t squander that by over-writing or over-thinking. Write according to questions requirements.

And as Winston Churchill said, “NEVER GIVE UP!” The former British Prime Minister led Britain to victory in World War II against the Nazis forces.

WISHING THE VERY BEST OUTCOME TO ALL YOU ACCA CANDIDATES.

ANNOUNCEMENT
I will be resuming P3 (Business Analysts) lectures in PJ Kasturi College Campus for new semester January 2012. Time table should be out by mid-December, 2011. It will be posted on the www.ksacitycampus.com link. (Subject to change without prior notice)


P1 (GRE) PRACTICE & APPLICATION
A recent Corporate Governance failure relating to Olympus Japan Limited below for your reading pleasure and related to P1 (GRE) paper. See key governance structure in Japan as distinct from Anglo-Saxon governance.

Key features of Japanese structure and consequences are:
1. Multi-tiered function
2. Upper tiered are geared toward the elite business circle who are true controllers
3. Complex kaizen or cross shareholding style is a form of insider dominated firms which puts minority shareholders interests to secondary position.
4. Thus, the fired CEO Michael Woodford (Pic 01 above) has failed to appreciate that the truly powerful stakeholders are the elite business people. He can bring forward in EGM exposing accounting scandals, but this will fall on deaf ears. The fact that Non Executives Directors can fire him indicates the power behind the NEDs. The new CEO Yuriko Nakao (see long face in Pic 02) has pledged a turnaround strategy which are viewed as too late and too little resulting in billions of lost shares value.
5. External investors lost confidence in Japan’s governance
6. Highly geared Olympus indicates that government controlled banks are arguably more influential stakeholders than mere minority shareholders.
Enjoy the truly Board room drama below:

____________________________________________________________________________________


The recent disclosure of a longstanding accounting fraud at Olympus Corp. has drawn fresh attention to Japan’s corporate-governance practices, and raises important concerns for investors in companies there.

Based on what we know to date, Olympus sustained investment losses of at least $1.4 billion during the 1990s, and was able to cover up the shortfall until recently using various forms of “window dressing.” Although large accounting frauds occur periodically throughout the world, what is striking about Olympus is that the losses took so long to come to light. This raises troubling questions about Japan’s financial reporting and auditing practices, which are historically quite different from those in the U.S. and other Western countries.

Investors interested in Japanese equities -- for which valuations appear low using conventional metrics such as price- to-book -- are now left to wonder whether there are other companies with nasty surprises buried in their books, and more generally about the quality of corporate governance in Japan.

To address this, it’s necessary to understand some of the recent history of Japanese corporate governance. After the bursting of the bubble in equity and real-estate prices in the early 1990s, the Japanese economy went into a long slump. As its economic problems deepened, a consensus began to emerge that the country’s unusual financial system needed an overhaul.

‘Big Bang’
Beginning in the late 1990s, a series of reforms, collectively known as the “Big Bang,” were made to the financial system, including changes intended to move corporate- governance practices more into line with those in the major Western countries.

The big question raised by Olympus then is whether such reforms have had any effect, or are themselves a form of window dressing that disguises an underlying resistance to change in corporate Japan.

While there have been significant legal and institutional changes in Japan -- hostile takeovers now are allowed, for example -- there also has been much foot-dragging, most notably from the business establishment. Because of this opposition, those activist investors who have emerged over the past 10 years, both domestic and foreign, have had limited success in extracting value from companies.
Recent research I conducted with Kazuo Kato and Meng Li investigated whether corporate governance has improved in Japanese companies. We addressed this question by looking at firms’ cash holdings, which are often used by economists as a barometer of corporate-governance quality.

In most countries, the extent to which firms hold cash is one of the biggest sources of tension between management and outside investors. While managers generally like to hold as much cash as they can (it provides them with a buffer against unforeseen events), investors are concerned that large cash reserves provide executives with the opportunity to engage in value-destroying projects (such as “empire building” acquisitions) or otherwise simply to waste that money. Conversely, well-run companies tend to distribute excess cash to their stockholders through dividends and share buybacks.

Historically, Japanese companies have had cash holdings that are much larger than those of their counterparts in other countries. Many experts view this behavior as a symptom of poor governance.

We found evidence that Japanese enterprises still hold large amounts of cash, often in excess of 10 percent of assets, levels similar to those that prevailed in the early 1990s.

However, we also found that these firms are now much more likely to manage their cash in the same way as U.S. companies, in that these holdings are now more responsive to sensible economic determinants.

Cash Holdings
For example, Japanese firms tend to hold more cash when they are in industries with more volatile operating cash flows, a relation that wasn’t evident in the 1990s. So it seems that managers in Japan are now paying more attention to how they take care of their firms’ cash holdings.

Perhaps more importantly, we found an inverse relationship between changes in firms’ cash holdings and economic performance: Companies that lower their cash holdings experience improved performance; those that increase them did worse. This suggests that Japanese firms that strengthen governance practices -- by reducing cash holdings -- do better.

We also examined how investors value these holdings. The idea here is that for well-run companies with disciplined managers, $1 of cash should be valued at about $1 by investors. On the other hand, for poorly run concerns, investors will value $1 of cash at less than $1, given the risk it will be wasted.

We found that, investors in the 1990s heavily discounted the cash holdings of Japanese companies: at less than face value and at levels well below those of U.S. firms. Beginning in the late 1990s, however, the valuation of the cash holdings of Japanese companies improved steadily, consistent with better governance and management of cash.

We concluded that a substantial fraction of Japanese companies are doing a better job of governance today than was the case 15 to 20 years ago, and that there is a clear payoff to improved governance, in terms of both valuation and performance.
All of this means that Japan’s corporate governance might be improving, so cases like Olympus, while important, are increasingly rare.

(Douglas J. Skinner is professor of accounting at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a contributor to Business Class. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Source : Max Berley, David Henry, 2011, Japan’s ‘Window Dressing’ Hid Olympus Fraud, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-01/japan-s-window-dressing-hid-olympus-fraud-douglas-j-skinner.html, Visited : December 2nd

Spongebob Squarepants are bad for the brains

Pic: What?! No TV for me?!!


As has long a suspect, the television is indeed an idiot box. Research has shown in a new study in the Journal of Pediatrics says that cartoons like SpongeBob SquarePants have a detrimental effect on 4-year-old kids. Researchers divided kids into three groups: one group of children watched Caillou, a slower-themed show on public television, the second group was given crayons and paper to draw with, while the third watched SpongeBob. Afterward, the group who watched the yellow square guy wasn’t able to follow rules as well or to delay gratification as easily. (Interestingly, the group of kids who watched Caillou and the group who drew pictures performed at pretty much the same level.)

Does this shock any us who were were once young kids? No surprise that four year olds are affected by the amped-up pacing and crazy antics of the characters.

The reason for this? The researchers concluded that fast-paced programs over-stimulate young kids’ brains. Watching these cartoons makes it harder to employ executive function in the brain, the process used to complete tasks. In addition, children “may mimic” characters afterward. (I love the use of the word “may” here. Um, yes, they may do that…and they may do it for hours on end until you want to scream.)

This doesn't mean that SpongeBob is bad or that kids should never be allowed to watch it, by any means. But it all comes down to knowing your child and seeing how shows on TV affect him or her. Many parents didn’t allow our son to watch SpongeBob when he was younger — not because we were opposed to it, but because he acted like the characters from the show after watching it. A worried parent, Bob, says, "His 4 year old son's behavior was so crazy it made us crazy, and we knew that it wasn’t doing him any favors, either, so we set some firm limits around that cartoon and others like it. (We also didn’t let him drink coffee, eat cotton candy for breakfast, or stay up until 1 a.m. — all things he begged to be able to do — pretty much for the same reasons.)

Bob says now that he’s 8, it luckily doesn’t have quite the same effect, but I still think cartoons are best watched in small doses.

Verdict
Now its scientifically proven that TV addiction is bad for mental development and for that matter your pursuit of ACCA. So throw that idiot box away and focus on REAL mental development, your pursuit of your study course. Elevate your prowess and mental agility.




Sources:
http://technorati.com/lifestyle/family/article/is-spongebob-bad-for-kids/#ixzz1XzEQGeZl
TheStar, 2011, Spongebob is bad for kids, 13 Sept

USA 's Worsening Economy in Cartoon

- relevant to Working Students

Things are getting worse. American economy has gone from anaemic growth to comatose state. Depressing with cartoons that says it all. Asia cannot decouple itself from relying on USA Economy for its exports. Once China finish spending allocated US$300 billions, there is not much world demand left.

Expect unemployment and inflation to come - its called stagflation.

Enjoy the pictures, though.

Marcus
______________________________________________________________________________________

Record Unemployment
Employment in the U.S. unexpectedly stagnated in August, increasing pressure on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and President Barack Obama to spur an economy that’s barely growing two years into the recovery.
Payrolls were unchanged, the weakest reading since September 2010, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey called for a gain of 68,000. The figures included a 48,000 drop in the information industry, mostly reflecting a strike at Verizon Communications Inc. The jobless rate held at 9.1 percent.

“This is further evidence that the economy is very close to stalling if not having stalled,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS in Lexington, Massachusetts, who forecast a gain of 15,000. Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., called the report “grim and scary” in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop” with Betty Liu.
Stocks slumped and Treasuries rallied on bets the data raise the odds of another recession. Earnings and hours worked both declined, today’s report showed, reducing the purchasing power of consumers whose spending accounts for 70 percent of the world’s largest economy.
“We’re calling for a mild recession at this point,” said Julia Coronado, chief economist for North America at BNP Paribas in New York. “We’ll see QE3 definitely,” she said, referring to a third round of large-scale asset purchases by the Fed. “It helps put a floor under the economy and stabilize things.”

Stocks Slump - hurts middle class
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 2.5 percent to 1,173.97 at the 4 p.m. close in New York. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note dropped to 1.99 percent from 2.13 percent late yesterday.
The report raises the political stakes for Obama as he prepares to address a joint session of Congress next week. An unemployment rate stuck near 9 percent has helped push Obama’s disapproval rating to an all-time high, according to a Quinnipiac University Aug. 16-27 poll of 2,730 registered voters. Some 52 percent disapprove of Obama’s job performance, up from 46 percent in July.
Gene Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Obama will propose tax and spending initiatives that will have a “significant” impact.
“There’s no question we need stronger jobs growth, stronger growth overall,” Sperling said today in a Bloomberg Television interview.

Obama Proposal - stale solution

Among the steps Obama has been considering are more infrastructure spending, tax incentives to spur hiring, a reduction in the employer portion of the payroll tax and changes to unemployment insurance to subsidize worker retraining, according to people familiar with discussions.
Obama’s options will be limited by opposition to increased spending from Republicans in Congress.

“I’m not sure what the administration can do at this point,” said Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “I think any full-bore stimulus is dead in the water.”
The Office of Management and Budget said in an update of its economic forecasts through August that the jobless rate will average 9.1 percent in 2011 (more than 9.1 million Americans are jobless) and show little change next year with an average of 9 percent. It won’t fall below 6 percent until 2016, the OMB said.
Political squabbling over the budget and mounting fear of a default in Europe caused the S&P 500 to plummet 17 percent from July 22 to Aug. 8, prompting companies and consumers to cut back. The lack of hiring is one reason Bernanke last week said the central bank still has tools available to stimulate growth.

Bond Purchases - Government borrows to spend
The Fed ended a $600 billion bond-buying program in June and last month said it would keep its benchmark interest rate near zero at least through the middle of 2013, adding a specific time-frame to its low-rate pledge for the first time.
Further options for the Fed include extending the maturity of Treasury securities in its $1.65 trillion portfolio to push down long-term interest rates, purchasing more Treasuries, or expanding the range of securities it buys, El-Erian said.
Estimates of the 86 economists surveyed by Bloomberg for payrolls ranged from a decline of 20,000 to a 160,000 increase. The unemployment rate was projected to hold at 9.1 percent, according to the survey median. The July gain in payrolls was revised down to 85,000 from 117,000.
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PICTURE 09

Crisis: Women are marrying later or never

- relevant to all ACCA-Male candidates

Introduction : Men in Crisis with The flight from marriage

Asians are marrying later, and less, than in the past. This has profound implications for women, traditional family life and Asian politics
Conservatives in the West are fond of saying that the traditional family is the bedrock of society. That view is held even more widely in Asia. The family is the focus of Confucian ethics, which holds that a basic moral principle, xiushen (self-improvement), can be pursued only within the confines of the family. In an interview in 1994 Lee Kuan Yew, a former prime minister of Singapore, argued that after thousands of years of dynastic upheaval, the family is the only institution left to sustain Chinese culture. It embodies a set of virtues—“learning and scholarship and hard work and thrift and deferment of present enjoyment for future gain”—which, he said, underpins Asia’s economic success. He feared that the collapse of the family, if it ever happened, would be the main threat to Singapore’s success.

A. Women marrying later
The first change is that people are getting married later, often much later. In the richest parts—Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong—the mean age of wedlock is now 29-30 for women, 31-33 for men. That is past the point at which women were traditionally required to marry in many Asian societies. It is also older than in the West. In America, women marry at about 26, men at 28. If you take account of the cohabitation that routinely precedes Western marriage (but not Asian), the gap between East and West is even larger. The mean age of marriage has risen by five years in some East Asian countries in three decades, which is a lot.

B. Women choice of not marrying at all
The second change is that, among certain groups, people are not merely marrying later. They are not getting married at all. In 2010 a third of Japanese women entering their 30s were single. Perhaps half or more of those will never marry. In 2010 37% of all women in Taiwan aged 30-34 were single, as were 21% of 35-39-year-olds. This, too, is more than in Britain and America, where only 13-15% of those in their late 30s are single. If women are unmarried entering their 40s, they will almost certainly neither marry nor have a child.

C. Women makes an educated choice








Pic 01: Asian Women making own choices on choosing Husbands











Pic 02 : Asian Women postponing marriages




The main function of marriage in most traditional societies is to bring up children (romantic love rarely has much to do with it). Not surprisingly, changes in child-bearing have gone along with changes in marriage. The number of children the average East Asian woman can expect to have during her lifetime—the fertility rate—has fallen from 5.3 in the late 1960s to below 1.6 now, an enormous drop. But old-fashioned attitudes persist, and these require couples to start having children soon after marriage. In these circumstances, women choose to reduce child-bearing by delaying it—and that means delaying marriage, too.

D. Women empowered by Education
Two forces are giving women more autonomy: education and jobs. Women’s education in East Asia has improved dramatically over the past 30 years, and has almost erased the literacy gap with men. Girls stay at school for as many years as boys, and illiteracy rates for 15-24-year-olds are the same for the two sexes (this is not true of South Asia). In South Korea now, women earn half of all master’s degrees.

Education changes women’s expectations. Among Thai women who left school at 18, one-eighth were still single in their 40s; but among university graduates, the share was a fifth. A survey in Beijing in 2003 found that half of women with a monthly income of 5,000-15,000 yuan (roughly $600-1,800, an indicator of university education) were not married. Half said they did not need to be, because they were financially independent. South Koreans call such people “golden misses”. “Why should I have to settle down to a life of preparing tofu soup, like my mother?” asks one.

Rates of non-marriage rise at every stage of education. Women with less than secondary education are the most likely to marry, followed by those with secondary education, with university graduates least likely. This pattern is the opposite of the one in America and Europe, where marriage is more common among college graduates than among those with just a secondary education.

There are two reasons why education’s spread reduces women’s propensity to marry. First, non-marriage has always been more prevalent among women with more education. Now that there are more women in these higher-education groups, there are fewer marriages. Marriage rates are also lower in cities. Since education is likely to go on improving, and urbanisation to go on rising, more women will join the ranks of graduates or city folk who are least likely to marry.

E. Men: Insecurity by marrying down
Second, more education leaves the best-educated women with fewer potential partners. In most Asian countries, women have always been permitted—even encouraged—to “marry up”, ie, marry a man of higher income or education. Marrying up was necessary in the past when women could not get an education and female literacy was low. But now that many women are doing as well or better than men at school, those at the top—like the “golden misses”—find the marriage market unwelcoming. Either there are fewer men of higher education for them to marry, or lower-income men feel intimidated by their earning power (as well as their brain power). As Singapore’s Mr Lee once said: “The Asian man…preferred to have a wife with less education than himself.” In Singapore, non-marriage rates among female university graduates are stratospheric: a third of 30-34-year-old university graduates are single.

F. Men: 60 million will never find local brides
More important, the marriage systems of both giants risk being torn apart in future by their practice of sex-selective abortion. Tens of millions of female fetuses have been aborted over the past generation, as parents use pre-natal screening to identify the sex of the fetus and then rid themselves of daughters. In China in 2010 more than 118 boys were born for every 100 girls. In India the ratio was 109 to 100. By 2030, according to Avraham Ebenstein of Harvard University and Ethan Sharygin of the University of Pennsylvania, about 8% of Chinese men aged 25 and older will be unable to marry because of the country’s distorted sex ratio. By 2050 the unmarried share will be 10-15%. In 2030, in the two giants, there will be 660m men between the ages of 20 and 50, but only 597m women. Over 60m men therefore face the prospect of not finding a bride. That is almost as many men of 20-50 as will be living in America in that year. This alone will wreck Asia’s tradition of universal marriage.

Conclusion :
Women has never had it so good economically, socially and legislatively. Governments continue to rely on skilled and educated workforce regardless of sexes, races and nationalities. More and more ACCA graduates are dominated by women, which will eventually result in greater male lonely hearts unable to match to the intellectual level of women.











Pic 03:
Man : "Will you marry me?"
Woman: "Are you an ACCA-graduate? No? Can you cook? Do Laundry? Do dishes? Do foot massage?"

















Pic 04 : Modern, Liberated Woman. Who needs man, anyway?



Solutions for ACCA-Male candidates:
1. Attract superficially by going for facial or skin treatment to be modern metrosexual.
2. Attract by demonstrating you have real domestic skills – washing, cooking, parenting, laundrying, grocerying.
3. Study and pass ACCA to match women’s expectations
4. Do all of the above.

Source: Economist.com

FREE PREVIEW : ACCA-Oxford Brookes University Degree

Dear Candidates,

Thank you for the encouraging response and queries on the University Degree awarded by UK based Oxford Brookes.

I will be happy to answer your queries. Kindly register your name with the your choice location of either KL or PJ College Campus.

Best Regards.
Marcus

THE MOST EXPENSIVE SHIP

Pic 1a & 1b: The most expensive vessel on earth






















Pic 2: Malaysian Business bought Yatch for RM14.5billion?

In F8 (Audit & Assurance), we are taught to use Analytical Substantive Procedures. In simple definition means to compare 2 variables to arrive at a "PLAUSIBLE RELATIONSHIP".

To illustrate: recently there was allegation that a 29 year old Malaysian Businessman is so so rich that he could afford a RM$14.5 billion luxury yatch that was furnish interiorly with gold. That is simply difficult to phantom or understand. Simply impossible to be that expensive. (please see news on The Star papers below)

Most Expensive Vessel
The most expensive Ship ever built costs US$6.2 Billion or RM$18 billion. It is an American Warship cum Aircraft carrier which could take typically 75,000 tonnes extra load and has become the pinnacle of carrier development. It's powered by nuclear reactors and form the core of a fleet designed to operate far from home. Also has capabilities as "commando carriers" or "helicopter carriers". It's a moving military base at sea.

The ship is called USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77). Its named after World War II veteran and former President of the United States, George H. W. Bush. The USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) is the final Nimitz super-carrier to be produced for the US Navy. It was commissioned in 2001 and built by Northrop Grumman for a cost of $6.2 billion.

The carrier was completed in 2009, and is docked in Virginia. At almost 1,100 feet in length, it’s one of the longest warships in the world. Its top speed is over 30 knots, which it reaches with the help of two onboard nuclear reactors. This power source is capable of keeping the ship running for more than twenty years without once having to refuel.

Can USA Afford such a ship?
United States’s military expenditure in 2010 was about $687 billion or roughly 4.7% its 2009′s GDP. China, on the other hand spent about $114 billion or merely 2.2% its GDP for the same period. No other country on earth has a larger defense budget than the United States. A lot of this money is spent on tanks, aircraft and carrier.

Can single yatch be valued RM14.5billion? (Sourced from The Star news)
Italian yacht builder Baia has claimed that the RM14.5bil golden yacht purportedly bought by a leading Malaysian businessman was fake, and photographs of it were digitally manipulated.

Baia sales manager Mario Boselli said there was no golden boat and the story was made up by a British designer.

“We only have normal boats here, not golden boats. It is a stupid story and has nothing to do with us. They took photographs from our website without permission,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday.

British boating magazine Motorboat & Yachting published an article on its website in which Borselli said the yacht was fake.
The real deal: A picture of the Baia One Hundred taken from the builder’s website and (inset) the doctored photo of the yacht.

He said he would be writing to the British designer to remove the photographs from his website but would not be taking legal action.

Photographs of Baia's One Hundred model were purportedly used for the story published in British daily The Sun about a 31m yacht called the History Supreme.

The report claimed the yacht was coated with 100 tonnes of precious metals and gemstones, making waves in Malaysia with many speculating on who the owner could be.

In the story, British jeweller Stuart Hughes was named as the person who designed the yacht.

Attempts to contact Hughes by telephone were unsuccessful.


Conclusion
Auditors perform their work with professional scepticism which is not to take evidences at face value. The need for audit evidences which are "reliable" and "relevant" to support their audit opinion.

The next time you read news online, blogs or newspaper reports, do use Analytical Procedures to arrive at the reasonableness of audit judgments.

Sources:
The Star, 2011, Hoax, http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/7/28/nation/9188405&sec=nation, 28 July.

Local accountants attracted by foreign greener pastures

Relevant: F8 and ACCA Candidates































Clockwise:
Picture 1: Invest now in myself - Brains
Picture 2: No distractions - Focus
Picture 3: My Future/Unknown Stakeholders - own family to have a better future? The destiny is in my hands



Why we need NOT join the Top 4 Audit firms? The conventional wisdon of joining them is to have Career exposure and better CV is the obvious answer. But what if you are paid 70% discounted salaries? Yes, if your market value is RM100,000 but paid RM30,000? Malaysia is losing talents fast - to other countries.

As always highlighted in class, get trained & be an ACCA graduate, then overseas posting is very attractive and promising. Think about how useful that kind of earning power can be for yourself, family and future unknown stakeholders - future spouse. kids and extended family like in-laws.

Be motivated to work and invest heavily in yourself, work 7-11 style if you are holding a full time job or 8 hours as a full time student.

May the article below give you renewed spirit and vigour to pursue a better future.

Cheers.

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Source : LIZ LEE, 2011, The Star, Local Accountants, http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/7/25/business/9163119&sec=business, 25 July

KUALA LUMPUR: Despite unwavering interest in accountancy courses at universities and colleges, mid-tier accounting and auditing firms are finding it difficult to hire and retain their accountants.

The problem: the outflow of local talents to foreign “greener pastures”.

Baker Tilly International chief executive officer and president Geoff Barnes told StarBiz that something needs to be done about this, as “a strong audit profession underpins an economy with good corporate governance, a strong capital market and an economic environment that can cross borders.”

Barnes said the accounting profession has always demanded the brightest of people globally and that good firms have always had this “war for talent, because we are all looking for the best people”.
Barnes (left) and Heng stressing on the importance of retaining accounting talents.

Local member firm, Baker Tilly Monteiro Heng (BTMH) chief executive partner Heng Ji Keng said many Malaysian accounting graduates see better opportunities in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore and Australia.

Heng added that many graduates left mainly due to the salary disparity. To counter this, he said firms needed assistance from the Government as “a word from the Government is better than a thousand words from practitioners”.

“We need to slowly bridge the gap between the salary we pay here and that offered in the countries attracting our talents. We need assistance from the regulators to impress upon clients that low fees also affect the quality of an auditing job,” Heng said.

A fresh graduate can earn up to RM100,000 per annum in China, around RM85,000 per annum in Singapore while Australian firms pay about RM160,000 per annum. Locally, they would earn about RM30,000 only.

SJ Grant Thornton (SJGT) managing partner Datuk Narendra Jasani said an estimated 500 accounting graduates out of 1,500 from local universities leave the country every year.

Both firms, BTMH and SJGT, said the Government could further benefit the country's accounting profession by liberalising immigration policies.

Heng said the many foreign students studying here could be a good source of accountants for local firms, provided the Government revises the related immigration restrictions.

“We must acknowledge their potential and train them to become qualified professional accountants,” he said.

Both Heng and Jasani suggested that the Government could look into giving foreign students a work permit of three to four years after their studies.

“To avoid disheartening our Malaysian accountants, a quota could be set for firms to employ no more than 20% foreign accountants,” Jasani further suggested.

Heng pointed out that another turn-off for young accountants to begin their career here is the difficulty in getting a licence to practise.

“The accountants have to go through about a decade of university education and training, topped off with a scrutinising interview that tests them on the technicalities of the industry before the Finance Ministry issues a licence,” Heng said.

Specifically, Malaysian accountants need three years for a university degree, three years of working experience, another three years of post-Malaysian Institute of Accountants membership and an interview to determine whether they would qualify for a licence. The tedious process and no guarantee of getting a licence to practise has become a deterrent to young accountants when embarking on their careers.

“We also have to change work procedures. One aspect is to change the audit methodolgy no more ticking and checking all the time but more thought-processing, overviews and comparative analysis which is more suited to the younger generation,” SGJT's Jasani said.

Grant Thorton International chief executive officer Ed Nusbaum said the rapid economic growth and expansion in the entire Asia-Pacific region has caused the shortage of talent.

“The demand is greater than the number of students graduating from universities and qualified experienced talent within the region. Whether you are talking about Malaysia, China or India, we need to attract people to the accounting profession,” he said, adding that dynamic firms also contributed to attracting young accountants.

“Being part of a growing organisation makes (one's career) interesting and employee retention is better because people see opportunities,” Nusbaum concluded

P3 BA :Concepts & Case Studies Applications (C&C)

Dear ACCA Candidates,

I notice significant minority have P3 background knowledge but are somewhat frustrated that they are unable to articulate their answers in exams. C&C launched in Kasturi School of Accountancy (KSA) in PJ Campus is specifically designed to bridge that gap.

C&C are suitable for:

1. Re-sit students who are want to improve Exam Techniques
2. Existing P3 Students who want to practice on Q&A, in addition to PYQ.
3. Self-Study students benefits from the 2 Progress Tests marked by lecturer.
4. Full time students who want C&C to complement their existing P3 classes
5. Students with P3 knowledge background but unsure as to how to relate to case study applications.

Advantages of C&C:
1. Lecturer will use newly developed case studies questions in addition to PYQ
2. Highlight students weaknesses related to P3.
3. TWO progress tests are given and marked by lecturer personally.
4. Effective in focusing on exam techniques while economize on Lecture sessions.
5. Six Day Classes in 12 sessions.

Price:
1. RM180 only for ALL students
2. Price excludes Kaplan Revision Kit.


ON HOLIDAYS






















Pics above: I seriously doubt you guys can attain the perfect physique in 2 weeks. Well, they should inspire you. Look at the gym guy's abs, 8 solid pieces. This guy must have spent hours on end to get that BUT at the expense of brain development!


Use this 2 precious weeks to rejunevate health both mentally and physically. Go for outdoor activities - swimming, jogging or sweat out in gym (But avoid the Arnold Scwarzenegger muscle men who usually are lacking in Grey Matter)

Have a great super relaxing fun enjoyable holidays.

Best wishes.

F8AB : Answers for IRC May, 2011

Dear F8 AB Candidates,

I have received encouraging feedback that students were able to sharpen exam skills during the Intensive Revision Class in KL. Please scrutinise answers on "Purpose of Procedures" which is in your Revision Pack page 103.

Work HarDER
Marcus

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Audit procedures – books
SELLING PRICE
Normal Books sales can be determined by Selling price. OBTAIN the Selling price from 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after the year end based on INVOICES or RECEIPTS sent to customers

Purpose of Procedures
Valuation Assertions that if stocks are marketable at prevailing selling price that is higher or lower than costs.


SLOW Moving Books-stock selling price can be determined by COMPARING the discounts given for OTHER similar slow moving stocks.

Purpose of Procedures
Valuation Assertions that stocks are marketable
COST TO COMPLETE production

OBTAIN detailed direct costing like labour, unit costs per book and CALCULATE the total books in production.

Purpose of Procedures
Cut off and Classification assertions that at transactions on calculating costs, relevant direct costs are included only.

COMPARE the WIP books cost incurred so far and with the BUDGET to complete the books to finished products.


Purpose of Procedures
Valuation Assertions that no unusual slow sales arise due to non-salability of books.


COST TO MARKET product
Compare the Marketing Budget over total sales as a percentage to the Marketing Budget or promotion efforts to move slow moving stock.


Purpose of Procedures
Valuation & existence Assertions of slow moving stocks. If there is DEEP discount, indicative that stocks could be lower than costs.

Big 4: Touche Delloite Seminar

Pic (Left to right): Corporate Office in Damansara Uptown, Men (talented) in charge, World renown brand

- only relevant to all interested in Excellent Career Opportunities

Dear Kasturi ACCA Candidates,

A. INTENSIVE REVISION COURSES
Busy, busy you all should be. Revision is round the corner. Please take advantage of our 30 hours Intensive Revision Program commencing in May 2011:

Visit "http://www.ksacitycampus.com/acca_fees.htm"


B. BIG 4 Touche Deloitte Seminar
45,000 Professional Talents in America ALONE


Big 4 is usually sought after employment by fresh graduates. Kasturi is proud to bring them to you. Touche Deloitte is one of the premier and largest reputable firm in the world. See the excerpts below:


"In the United States, Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries have 45,000 professionals with a single focus: serving our clients and helping them solve their toughest problems. We work in four key business areas — audit, financial advisory, tax and consulting — but our real strength comes from combining the talents of those groups to address clients’ needs. Fortune and BusinessWeek consistently rank our organization among the best places to work, which is good news for our talent and our clients alike. When the best people tackle the most compelling challenges, everyone wins." (Excerpts Source: http://www.deloitte.com/us/about)

Kasturi School of Accountancy (KSA) invites all our students to attend the seminar :

VENUE: KL Main Campus, 11th floor
Time : 11.00am - 12.30pm

Don't miss this opportunity, for it will be financially detrimental to you.

Best regards
Marcus Ong

EXPRESS LEARNING CLASS

Move F.O.R.W.A.R.D






To all ACCA CANDIDATES,

EXPRESS LEARNING CLASSES have already commenced in Kasturi School of Accountancy. KSA has launched new product with 5 additional classes and 30 hours revision classes, subject to individual lecturers' time table. Please visit the KSA web link at top left corner of blog. Let's move on the battle and press forward to progress. What is in the past cannot be undone. If passed or otherwise, well that is history. Focus for coming June 2011 exams.

Another of many e-mails received, attached for your MOTIVATION.

Your FUTURE is in your hands,

Marcus - Dedicated Lecturer.

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Hi Mr. Marcus,

Thanks for the lecturing & revision class, i m able to pass in the 1st atttempt for F8 paper. And this allow me to come out from the shadow of failling in last 2 seating (4 paper failed).I will retake 3 papers that i failed in last 2 seating (F4, F6 & F7).

Thanks & regards,
Lam (former F8 part time)

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Dear Lam,

Congratulations! Thank you for your feedback.Motivates me to innovate and work harder to support more candidates like your goodself.

Best wishes on your future.

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ACCA Results : December 2010

NEVER SAY GIVE UP, I SAY, ONCE AGAIN, "NEVER GIVE UP!" (Winston Churchill, 1935, UK Prime Minister/LEADER during World War II)

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Dear ACCA Candidates,

This is time where students are celebrating or otherwise. But we need to remember that a marathon runner may stumble and fall, the important goal is to complete the race - graduate.

PREPARE FOR A BETTER TOMORROW BY WORKING HARD TODAY.

Students, ALL of you can succeed! The following are a sample of students who worked hard and passed. These served as an encouragement to you. Be MOTIVATED! Invest in your future! Make your future - BEAUTIFUL, MEANINGFUL and WONDERFUL!

Wishing all of you work your VERY BEST for coming June 2011 exams!

Warmest regards,
Marcus

CONTACT MAIL : Marcus_ong88@hotmail.com

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Dear Mr. Marcus,

Thank you for all your guidance and dedications. I've passed P7 in one sitting with 61 marks.
Well, not something to shout about, but should thank God for giving me a pass.

Thanks again, and keep it up the good work :) I trust that you'll continue to bless other with your good works.

Warm regards,

Jia Mun

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Hi sir, i'm here just to thanks for ur guidance, got 70% for your p3 (Business Analysis) paper.

Thanks for your effort.


Regards,
Hooi Hooi

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Anonymous said...

"Thanks for your support for F8 which helped me to pass in the exam of Dec.2010.Thank you very much."
February 21, 2011 2:31 PM

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Anonymous said...

# Guest "sir thanx i passed my p3 :)"
February 21, 2011 4:52 PM

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Anonymous said...

# Guest "tq very much for your help sir! I passed F8!!=)"
February 21, 2011 4:52 PM

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Anonymous said...

# Guest "Sir, i passed my f8 handsomely, u really put kiran on early retirement path, never doubted ur ability, cheers and regards..."


February 21, 2011 8:33 PM

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Anonymous said...

# Guest "Thanks, i killed the Pami Bahl and it was my 1st sitting. i liked TOD, TOC and etc..."
February 21, 2011 8:34 PM

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Anonymous said...

# ksa kl "this my 7th attempt, finally i pass my F8, thanks sir..."


February 22, 2011 10:04 AM

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Anonymous said...

# yaowen "sir thankss,i pass my p1 and p3!!! ^^"

February 22, 2011 10:06 AM
Anonymous said...

Lam "This is my 1st attempt, i tot i gonna fail. But i pass, thanks ver much"
February 22, 2011 5:03 PM

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Kenny W
February 22, 2011 at 10:05pm

Subject: Thank you Sir!

Mr Marcus, still remember me? The guy who sat in front in ur F8 PJ campus class?? I passed ur paper already!! Hooray...but Im really disappointed with the marks. I do not even know why I got such low marks, I followed all your exam and answering techniques. I really still do not know what I have done wrong but I am so grateful I passed! Miss attending ur class ^^ Thank you once again, you are the only lecturer that I find so amusing and make me so excited to go your class =D

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Power of Facebook

- relevant to P1 Governance, Risks & Ethics























Power of Internet - Facebook that challenged powerful leaders (From Left to right)
Pic 01 : Libya's Leader Gaddafi facing uprising social unrest
Pic 02 : Egypt's leader Mubarak forced to resign after military powers backed the people's protest
Pic 03 : Phillipines late-Leader Ferdinand forced to flee to USA after people's march to his palace.


Perfect flow of information promotes market efficiency. Empowers users, customers and society to choose, vote and purchase goods and services. By extension, it applies to choosing large entities such as government.

In Phillipines, more than 1 million citizens poured on the streets to demand the resignation of the then corrupt dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Networked through SMS amongst people. Ferdinand stole over US$20billion and stashed away in Swiss Bank account. Years after his death, only then did the Swiss bank reluctantly refunded the ill gotten gains to the poor country.

Today we are witnessing the uprising of Egypt and result in the overthrow of its dictator President Mubarak of 30 years. The political contagion is spreading to Tunisia, Libya and the oil-rich kingdom, Saudi Arabia. Threatening the stability of entire Middle East.

These events prove that Information Technology has changed modern history. More than ever before, helpless and powerless individuals can now vote, collude or (unfortunately) violently protest against establishments.

By the same extension, this applies to Corporate Governance. If Board of Directors allow CEO act as dictator, sooner or later institutional investors and "little" people-investors will revolt. Unfortunately, to set up EGM is costly affair with associated free rider problems.

Myners, 2004 (UK) Report has strongly advocated :

(a) Beneficial owners
Beneficial share owners should ensure that their agreements with investment managers and custodians who are accountable to them should include voting standards, establish a chain of responsibility and an information flow on voting and require reports by investment managers on how they have discharged their responsibilities. Investment managers should decide a voting policy and stick to it.
(b) Electronic voting
The report recommends the adoption of electronic voting to enhance the efficiency of the voting process and to reduce the loss of proxy votes.
(c) Stock lending
The report comes down against stock lending on the grounds that voting rights are effectively transferred, and lending sometimes takes place specifically to transfer voting rights. Myners recommends that stock should be recalled if there are votes on contentious issues.
(d) Investment managers
Investment managers should report to their clients how they have exercised their voting responsibilities.


Note Point (b) above on electronic voting. Yes, governance efficiency can be greatly promoted and corruption minimised with greater shareholders' activitism. Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat and BCCI scandals are a thing much avoidable. Shareholders can vote very cheaply at convenience overcoming geographic barriers and practical difficulties of attending AGM/EGM

Not fool proof, I am afraid! Such measures against much trickier albeit crookish governance structure like Adelphia Corp. and even Google Corp, mentioned in my Lectures. The same is said on Japanese Multi-tier Board Structure and 'keiretsu' cross-shareholding and poor governance structure.

But its a start of new revolution that will improve governance.

Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and contemporaries.


======================================================================================

WISHING ALL ACCA CANDIDATES THE BEST OUTCOME FOR THEIR EXAM RESULTS.

PREPARE FOR A BETTER TOMORROW BY WORKING HARD TODAY.









NEVER SAY GIVE UP, I SAY, ONCE AGAIN, "NEVER GIVE UP!" (Winston Churchill, 1935, UK Prime Minister/LEADER during World War II)

======================================================================================

Power of Facebook

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Sunday highlighted the need for the US government to use Twitter and other social media to connect with young people amid turbulent change in the Middle East and North Africa.

Following revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt fueled by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube exchanges, the US State Department set up Twitter accounts last week in Farsi, Arabic and other languages to get its message across.

"What we expect to do is to be communicating through the new social media with literally millions of people around the world because we want them to hear directly from us what our policies are," Clinton said.

"We want to use it to rebut some of the falsehoods and accusations that unfortunately are made against the United States," she said in an interview with ABC's "This Week" conducted Friday but broadcast Sunday.

"But mostly we want to be in the mix with this incredible young, energetic population that is seeking the same rights to express themselves as young people in the United States seek."

In its first Twitter feeds in the Iranian language Farsi on February 13, the State Department accused Iran of hypocrisy by supporting the revolt in Egypt but seeking to prevent anti-government demonstrations in Iran.

International and local Iranian media were banned from freely covering the massive wave of protest sparked by the disputed re-election in June 2009 of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But Iranians overcame the reporting ban by using social-networking and image-sharing websites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr despite efforts by local officials to cut off mobile phones and the Internet.

Clinton, making her second major speech on Internet freedom in the past year on Tuesday, announced that the State Department would also begin sending messages in Chinese, Russian and Hindi.

In her address, Clinton singled out China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, Syria and Vietnam as countries which practice censorship or restrict access to the Internet.

She noted that Syria had lifted a ban on Facebook and YouTube last week but convicted a teenage girl of espionage on Monday and sentenced her to five years in prison for political poetry she wrote on her blog.

Clinton described the Internet as "the public space of the 21st century -- the world's town square, classroom, marketplace, coffee house, and nightclub."

She said protests in Egypt and Iran fueled by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube reflected "the power of connection technologies as an accelerant of political, social, and economic change."

Source:

Clinton, 2011, Twitter helps US tap into youth unrest, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ieEkbcVZS19bthkKulCADv3xIRfA?docId=CNG.24d946fd7520b4d46888e004720be99f.9a1, 21 February

Adjusting to Powerful Stakeholder

- relevant to P1 (Governance, Risks & Ethics)



Pic: Motorola (USA) investment in Penang, Malaysia



As lecturer, I keep abreast with the ongoings in politics, governance and business. As I always reiterate, I am politically un-affliated or don't endorse any parties. Just plain boring independent evaluator.

From P1 (GRE) Perspective:
What caugth my attention is a former USA Ambassador gave scathing remarks about racism in Malaysia. Accusing the leaders of worsening tensions within a multi-racial community. But to balance them up, it was refuted by Deputy Prime Minister whose remarks are also posted below. One needs to ask:

(I) What ethical threats did the former USA Ambassodor have? Was he evicted for falling out with government? Self Interests threat for being paid by Wall St News or to gain political mileage focusing on contentious issues outside USA? A way of deflecting attention away from himself the way USA Senator Al Gore did by calling Malaysia leaders as recalcitrant?
(II) What ethical threats did the DPM has? Was he saying to appease the nation while trying to shore up support from his voters by saying this is 'nonsense'? A Self-Interests threat and Self review threat?
(III) Is there a correlation between business friendly environment promoting meritocracy and economic growth?
(IV) Should Malaysia consider the views and adjust to the expectations of World's Largest economy - USA ex-diplomat?










Pics: Does Malaysia need USA's business support? New York City - a threat or opportunity?



(Please read Comments Box below)




Some facts are in order:
1. USA is still the largest and richest economy in the world. Even if you combine China and India combined GNP (Gross National Product), it only accounts for less tan 40% of USA size. Thus Malaysia still needs USA for economic growth and trade.
2. USA is the 2nd largest foreign investor in Malaysia after Singapore.
3. Malaysia is a manufacturing hub for electronics, most of which are products destined for USA. Example, Penang is home to Local firms which caters to USA clients.

Note the ex-USA Diplomat's analogy are facts based. Not much twisting as the ex-diplomat simply say as it is. A rotten apple is rotten apple. Straigth talk.

Read the articles and learn the importance of governance, considering powerful stakeholders as way to enhance competitive advantage.

The Malaysian government admittedly is in very delicate and difficult position. CIt has to promote favourable investment climate while caring for the poor and disadvantaged. The caring part is a socialist stand while the business is free trade. Give due credit to Malaysia as the most modern Muslim nation in the world. Having said that, its still insufficient as competition for investments are blind to religiousity.

Best Regards
Marcus

PS: I wish all you candidates the very best for the upcoming results. The future is in your hands! Success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.

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Pic : John Malott's scathing remarks


WALL STREET JOURNAL
Slower growth and a drain of talented citizens are only the beginning.
By JOHN R. MALOTT

Malaysia's national tourism agency promotes the country as "a bubbling, bustling melting pot of races and religions where Malays, Indians, Chinese and many other ethnic groups live together in peace and harmony." Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak echoed this view when he announced his government's theme, One Malaysia. "What makes Malaysia unique," Mr. Najib said, "is the diversity of our peoples. One Malaysia's goal is to preserve and enhance this unity in diversity, which has always been our strength and remains our best hope for the future."

If Mr. Najib is serious about achieving that goal, a long look in the mirror might be in order first. Despite the government's new catchphrase, racial and religious tensions are higher today than when Mr. Najib took office in 2009. Indeed, they are worse than at any time since 1969, when at least 200 people died in racial clashes between the majority Malay and minority Chinese communities. The recent deterioration is due to the troubling fact that the country's leadership is tolerating, and in some cases provoking, ethnic factionalism through words and actions.

For instance, when the Catholic archbishop of Kuala Lumpur invited the prime minister for a Christmas Day open house last December, Hardev Kaur, an aide to Mr. Najib, said Christian crosses would have to be removed. There could be no carols or prayers, so as not to offend the prime minister, who is Muslim. Ms. Kaur later insisted that she "had made it clear that it was a request and not an instruction," as if any Malaysian could say no to a request from the prime minister's office.

Similar examples of insensitivity abound. In September 2009, Minister of Home Affairs Hishammuddin Onn met with protesters who had carried the decapitated head of a cow, a sacred animal in the Hindu religion, to an Indian temple. Mr. Hishammuddin then held a press conference defending their actions. Two months later, Defense Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told Parliament that one reason Malaysia's armed forces are overwhelmingly Malay is that other ethnic groups have a "low spirit of patriotism." Under public pressure, he later apologized.

The leading Malay language newspaper, Utusan Melayu, prints what opposition leader Lim Kit Siang calls a daily staple of falsehoods that stoke racial hatred. Utusan, which is owned by Mr. Najib's political party, has claimed that the opposition would make Malaysia a colony of China and abolish the Malay monarchy. It regularly attacks Chinese Malaysian politicians, and even suggested that one of them, parliamentarian Teresa Kok, should be killed.

This steady erosion of tolerance is more than a political challenge. It's an economic problem as well.

Once one of the developing world's stars, Malaysia's economy has underperformed for the past decade. To meet its much-vaunted goal of becoming a developed nation by 2020, Malaysia needs to grow by 8% per year during this decade. That level of growth will require major private investment from both domestic and foreign sources, upgraded human skills, and significant economic reform. Worsening racial and religious tensions stand in the way.

Almost 500,000 Malaysians left the country between 2007 and 2009, more than doubling the number of Malaysian professionals who live overseas. It appears that most were skilled ethnic Chinese and Indian Malaysians, tired of being treated as second-class citizens in their own country and denied the opportunity to compete on a level playing field, whether in education, business, or government. Many of these emigrants, as well as the many Malaysian students who study overseas and never return (again, most of whom are ethnic Chinese and Indian), have the business, engineering, and scientific skills that Malaysia needs for its future. They also have the cultural and linguistic savvy to enhance Malaysia's economic ties with Asia's two biggest growing markets, China and India.

Of course, one could argue that discrimination isn't new for these Chinese and Indians. Malaysia's affirmative action policies for its Malay majority—which give them preference in everything from stock allocation to housing discounts—have been in place for decades. So what is driving the ethnic minorities away now?

First, these minorities increasingly feel that they have lost a voice in their own government. The Chinese and Indian political parties in the ruling coalition are supposed to protect the interests of their communities, but over the past few years, they have been neutered. They stand largely silent in the face of the growing racial insults hurled by their Malay political partners. Today over 90% of the civil service, police, military, university lecturers, and overseas diplomatic staff are Malay. Even TalentCorp, the government agency created in 2010 that is supposed to encourage overseas Malaysians to return home, is headed by a Malay, with an all-Malay Board of Trustees.

Second, economic reform and adjustments to the government's affirmative action policies are on hold. Although Mr. Najib held out the hope of change a year ago with his New Economic Model, which promised an "inclusive" affirmative action policy that would be, in Mr. Najib's words, "market friendly, merit-based, transparent and needs-based," he has failed to follow through. This is because of opposition from right-wing militant Malay groups such as Perkasa, which believe that a move towards meritocracy and transparency threatens what they call "Malay rights."

But stalling reform will mean a further loss in competitiveness and slower growth. It also means that the cronyism and no-bid contracts that favor the well-connected will continue. All this sends a discouraging signal to many young Malaysians that no matter how hard they study or work, they will have a hard time getting ahead.

Mr. Najib may not actually believe much of the rhetoric emanating from his party and his government's officers, but he tolerates it because he needs to shore up his Malay base. It's politically convenient at a time when his party faces its most serious opposition challenge in recent memory—and especially when the opposition is challenging the government on ethnic policy and its economic consequences. One young opposition leader, parliamentarian Nurul Izzah Anwar, the daughter of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, has proposed a national debate on what she called the alternative visions of Malaysia's future—whether it should be a Malay nation or a Malaysian nation. For that, she earned the wrath of Perkasa; the government suggested her remark was "seditious."

Malaysia's government might find it politically expedient to stir the racial and religious pot, but its opportunism comes with an economic price tag. Its citizens will continue to vote with their feet and take their money and talents with them. And foreign investors, concerned about racial instability and the absence of meaningful economic reform, will continue to look elsewhere to do business.

Mr. Malott was the U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia, 1995-1998.

====================================================================================
Muhyiddin refutes talks govt pressured over NEM







Pic : Deputy Prime Minister's rebuttal

Posted on February 11, 2011, Friday

PUTRAJAYA: Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin yesterday dismissed allegations that the government caved in to right-wing pressure and watered down the second part of the New Economic Model (NEM).

“The question of being watered down or pressure from anyone does not arise. For us, in the government, it was the best measure to meet the demands of all levels to make the country a high-income nation by 2020,” he said.

Shaping the country into a high-income nation involved taking into account all components in the community, including Bumiputeras and the urban and rural communities and all sectors of the economy, he told reporters after delivering the 2011 special message to the Education Ministry, here.

The media had reported on Tuesday a claim by National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) member Datuk Dr Zainal Aznam Mohd Yusof that strong objections by right-wing groups led by Perkasa to the first part of the NEM had led to the watering down of the second part.

Muhyiddin: Needless to play up former envoy’s claim

Dr Zainal Aznam had said that Perkasa and other right-wing groups were totally against the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) proposal which dropped the 30 per cent bumiputera equity ownership.

On another matter, Muhyiddin said it was needless for the media to play up the views of former United States ambassador to Malaysia John R Malott because they were irrelevant.

“That’s his business. He does not have any status. He is a former envoy.

“We do not know where he lives now. Why must we play up his views? He is not a president or a former prime minister.

“He was here, but he has made up stories. Maybe he is a good friend of Pakatan Rakyat, of (Opposition Leader) Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. He is twisting facts,” he said.

In an article titled ‘The Price of Malaysia’s Racism’ in The Wall Street Journal, Malott had written, among other things, that racial and religious tensions were higher today than when Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak took office as the prime minister in 2009. — Bernama

References:
JOHN R. MALOTT, 2011, The Price of Malaysia's Racism, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704422204576129663620557634.html
February 11,

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, 2011, Needless to play up former envoy’s claim, http://www.theborneopost.com/?p=92644, February 11