Even the Best Savings Strategy Can be Better

I have to admit, I am rather unusually disturbed today. It wasn’t due to my busily packed snuggly fitted schedules although it does, to a lesser proportion, invariantly (perhaps) contributed to this adversity in the mind. Ok, to a larger proportion, come to think of it…I hopped from meetings after meetings and, in four working days I only sat on my seat hardly long enough to warm it. Even video conference calls needed to be postponed until next week as I am never around. I forgotten to bring my blackberry, got myself the wrong phone (un-roaming version) and more importantly left my glasses (for presbyopia) in my other jacket!

No, that’s not all. The real culprit is the news that our great HSBC, cunningly and sneakily, decided to cut interest rate to 0.001 % for deposits of HK$5000 or above. It was set at 0.01 % last March, and every Hongkongers were seen complaining then. Yup, in mathematical terms, it is loosely translated as for every $1000 you have, the bank pays you 1 cent. I guess that’s too small a figure to visualize, so if you have $100,000 in the bank, you get $1 as interest per year. Theoretical, you need to wait 20 years for your cup of Starbucks, and that’s only plain old coffee, not the Latte or Mocha! That Kopi had better be worth waiting around for, mind you.

It is rather insulting that your local bank, as HSBC so proudly and affectionately proclaimed, has made this decision to slash its savings rate to practically zero. And the sobering thought is, they still can insist on best lending rate of 5%. Bankers!!!! What can you say about these people, eh? They rip you to pieces in the loans and they squeeze you dry for any ‘extra’ money in your pocket. No wonder they say bankers are the greatest thieves and lawyers the worst criminals.

I don’t want to sound as a critic for a trade I knew the least, but I do have a simple plausible rational explanation to all these. They, the bankers, are doing this to stimulate the economy. Here are some of my logical plausible scenarios:

a. In the wake of the financial tsunami, and well before the 2nd wave, the about to pension bankers wanted a bit more in their gratuity. They give you much much lesser than the amount you ‘loan’ them.
b. In giving you less, you have two choices. Take the money out and invest in their stock. Or, put the money in their bank and keep whatever miserable dollar you have in your pocket.
c. Take the money out, buy a property and make a loan through HSBC. And, guess what, they will charge you 5% as the best lending rate.

Folks, you can’t win. You know why? In front of the headquarters, two bronze lions, Stephen and Stitt, closely guard the World’s Local Bank!

I am going for my Starbucks; I have no intention of wasting 20 long years for my kopi. Trust me, it is when life laughs at you for taking best savings strategy. And I will not save for the rainy days because a penny a day doesnt keep poverty away!

Get Up, Stand Up

As humble citizen of Bolehland, we took our politics quite seriously........in whichever we can imagine and in a manner however trivial it may sound. We discussed on national issues, like why most Bolehians react indifferently towards the courts and the courtlessness ruling. It has come to a stage where you lost track of who is with who, and who is the real who or who has done it but conveniently dump the ball to another 2nd rated captain. The media, the people were all captivated by the many intangible twist and turns. I can only sum it up with one sentence, "dont care lah........let them sort it out themselves afterall they are paid to provide us the entertainment".

I had a rather short conversation with my brother over skype this evening. And this was what he has to say......... rather entertaining, I must admit.

Perak's fame has gone from the glory days of tin mining,

to Nga Choi Kai

and now power fiasco
not forgetting the frogs

If you ask me now, who is the current MB of Perak, I wouldn't know or tell for sure. I give you the immortal saying, "A man says he is lying: is what he says true or false?” Think about it. If it is true, it is false. But if it is false, it is true. That's my version of Perak politics today.

To the ordinary folks like us, we can always turn to Bob Marley's Get up, Stand Up.

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!

Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Yau Yat Wok!!!!! Hong Kong Hong Kong

Yau yat wok (another wok)?

Yup, Hong Kong is back to the health limelight YET again. After battling avian flu 1, SARS, avian flu 2, 3 and now the Swine Flu, the government should, theoretically, be well equipped for action. I don’t know about you but at the very first confirmed case, our Secretary for Health has invoked Chapter 599 of the Prevention and Control of Disease Ordinance. With all that experience in dealing with deadlier infectious disease, we should ‘try’ other alternatives but certainly not 599 which is to be invoked in the event of HK being badly hit! This to me, is not difference to taking draconian measures to contain the spread of the disease.

Are we over-reacting?

Have we thought more thoroughly?

Why only in Hong Kong?

After years of hospital blunders, mislabelling of medicine, misdiagnosis, mishandling of corpses, inter-departmental finger pointing, inefficient government bureaus......yeah, it is as if we are prepared for it!

Come day 1, everybody has their surgical mask on. I really wonder if we have over-reacted, or the government have declared emergency rather prematurely.

Postscript: Why is it always MetroPark Hotel? SARS = MetroPark Hotel Kowloon and now Swine Flu = Metropark Hotel Hong Kong. Can anyone tell me why?

Err....Say That Again

When you are in power, you can say the dumbest thing and still command absolute respect. Here is the silly quote by the US President over the news today on Chrysler’s rescue plan by the US government.

“I am satisfied with the future but I am not contented today.” What is this silly cow trying to convey? You are not contented today, but how sure are you on the future? Is he a fortune teller or a president?

Here is another stupid blunder. Pointing to President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon, Obama said: "I will set big goals for this country as president - some so large that the technology to reach them does not yet exist." Are you sure?

Nah, we may be a small nation and may be some of our leaders lied or have been lying but we are not fortune tellers. We don’t predict the future, we say the present!

We Don’t Talk Anymore

I don’t know if it has something to do with technology advances or a matter of generation gap. But I suspect it is the former, for I am as usual, a cool daddy. And cool daddy usually can do virtually everything that you may care to imagine in this world. I must have met my Waterloo when I ‘hit the wall’ and ran out of ideas. I have been trying since last night and I tried, exhaustively, all means to copy a song out of a CD. I am not in the habit of making pirate copy but to save the convenience of putting a CD every time I want to listen to the dreadful song, 别问我是谁.

Contented that I lacked the technology advances, or to put it bluntly, nearing techno illiteracy, I SOSed my daughter for help. Melody don’t talk to me the way she would when she was a toddler, we now ‘chat’ over SKYPE or MSN. In other words our relationship is distanced by the advancement of technologies. We don’t talk, we merely type. And after a few liners, she discovers her cool daddy is some 100 giga minutes behind advancements, she stopped the entire chat. “Wait, I will prepare a PowerPoint to show you the correct way”, she said. A PowerPoint? I don’t want to sound negative but is there any feeling in this fast lane of changing time anymore? Anyway, this is what she came up in just under 3 minutes.

Whilst I may think this is cool way to teach an “illiterate dad”, I believe the real danger is not that computers will begin to think like man, but that man will begin to think like computers. My daughter clearly not being an exception. I remember reading an article saying “I like my new telephone, my computer works just fine, my calculator is perfect, but Lord, I miss my mind!” Technology can be very seductive, and it is certainly changing the way things are designed, made and taught. The problem arises when technology has seduced you away from thinking about things as deeply as you should.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means from going backwards. That being the case, I rather junked my desk-top……now can we talk, Melody?