poor sleepy hollow

i promised myself sometime late last year that i'd refrain from commenting on local politics for health reasons - namely, my own! But events of the past week have proved too mind-bogglingly crazy to remain silent. And hence, it is with deep regret that i, dukuhead, blog as thus:

Rahim Tamby Chik, ex-chief minister of Malacca, was credited (still is credited) by most people as a chief minister of true ability who brought substantive progress and development to malacca state. Yes, he was a bright and able administrator, not without the usual flaws in malaysian politicians that we have grown so accustomed to now (especially so in recent years). His fall from grace and the subsequent events that followed need no repeating here. He was quoted to have said that after he was no longer chief minister, the traffic of people coming to see him dwindled, nay the flow disappeared even and he knew then who were his true friends and who were mere fair-weathered friends. It is remarkable and sad that in local culture and politics, a disgraced former VVIP becomes less than a commoner - he becomes invisible. You heard rare utterances from Rahim Tamby Chik in the occasional comments he makes during UMNO general assemblies and such but they were reported more as a matter of old curiosity than that any prominence is given to him. So it is rather sad that Rahim now has apparently been reduced yet even further from a political has-been to a messenger boy and the bearer of dirty laundry. This has nothing whatsoever to bear on the truth or the consequences of the sex video case. I am merely commenting on how terrible the descent has been on a man of talent who is still remembered by many Malaccans as the developer of the state during the 80s, on whom in his hey-day, lavish praises were heaped and the local press fawned upon appropriately. And now that his name is going to be dragged through the mud, along with the stereotypes people often associate Malaccans with (it's going to get even worse for us now I expect), we can but sit and weep silently.

trash collection blues

I just read a news article yesterday about a local man who dumped a whole bin-liner's worth of trash in front of the office of his municipal council in protest against irregular trash collection in his neighbourhood. I think that this man spoke for countless citizens across the country when he drove over 10km to deposit his waste in front of the powers-that-be to amply demonstrate his frustration with local councils' waste disposal services or the lack of thereof. In my own housing area the trashmen have been irregular on many a day. They are supposed to collect the trash thrice weekly in my neighbourhood. But sometimes they make it only twice a week, giving the excuse that the dumpster truck broke down or they are sick etc. Or they come as and when they feel like it. On the days when our rubbish remain uncollected, stray cats, dogs etc would chew through the binliners and the rubbish would be strewn all over the place and the resulting festering stench and mess is quite quite unbearable. Not to mention a danger to public health. I am with this citizen totally - I'd like our municipal councils to be more circumspect and discerning when giving out trash disposal contracts to companies that provide such services. If they can't tender contracts out to the best people to do the job but merely dole out contracts to whoever is paying them more kickbacks or whatever greases their palms, then we, the end-users of crappy services, have the right to collectively dump all our rubbish in front of the municipal council office just like what that man had done.

a perfect day

I'd seen it coming near the end of the holidays season, the looming black hole, the mood swing, the old familiar downwards spiral. But when it actually hit me that realisation earlier didn't numb the effects anyway.

As i was driving home today in a near-catatonic state, i came across a man who looked like a tramp or a model, which is it i don't know. the reason i say so is because he had on torn jeans and a scruffy dirty t-shirt, a goatee beard but had a surprisingly handsome, chiselled face much like a model's and he carried three bags full of plastic materials and other cast-away waste materials they pay cash for recycling. He was dirty and dishevelled but he looked sharp, nonetheless. Had i a camera on me then i'd have taken a shot of him (should i ask for his permission first? i don't know). At that moment i thought how lucky i was, how unlucky he was (but is this really true?). Yet there i was, sitting in my nice clean comfy air-conditioned car, feeling sorry for myself.

But anyway, here's something from Hunter S Thompson's letters in his autobiographical "The Proud Highway". Hunter received a letter from a 14-year old boy who expressed great admiration for the Hell's Angels, a motorcycle gang in California, America. Hunter promptly responded with this letter (excerpt taken from his letter dated July 6th, 1967 from Woody Creek, Colorado):

"When I was 14 I was a wild, half-wit punk who caused a lot of trouble and wanted to tear the world in half for no other reason than it didn't seem to fit me too well. Now, looking back on it, I didn't think I'd change much of what I did in those days...but I've also learned at least one crucially important thing since then. And that's the idea of making your own pattern, not falling into grooves that other people make. Remember that if you can do one thing better than anybody it'll make life a hell of a lot easier for you in this world - which is a pretty mean world, when you get to know it, and a lot of people in it can ride big Harleys...especially in California. The best of the Angels - the guys you might want to sit down and talk to - have almost all played that game for a while and then quit for something better. The ones who are left are almost all the kind who can't do anything else, and they're not much fun to talk to. They're not smart, or funny, or brave, or even original. They're just Old Punks, and that's a lot worse than being a Young Punk. They're not even happy; most of them hate the lives they lead, but they can't afford to admit it because they don't know where else to go, or what else to do. That's what makes them mean...and it also makes them useless, because there's already a big oversupply of mean bastards in this world."

Winds of Change

 

What a tumultuous first 2 months of 2011 it has been! First, on Jan 14th in Tunisia, strongman Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia with family in tow, but not before spiriting out 1.5 tonnes of gold. The Interpol is out looking for Ben Ali and family as we write this. Then, on Feb 11th was Egypt's Hosni Mubarak's turn to abdicate. Shortly after state media played out his pre-taped speech vowing that he, Mubarak, would NEVER step down, Mubarak deftly abandoned the seat of power in Cairo for a Red Sea resort, His ex-Pharaonic Majesty's current whereabouts unknown. Meanwhile, demonstrations across Jordan, Syria, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and a string of other Arab countries are almost a daily occurance.
Closer to home in Malaysia, a PAS-fronted opposition crowd bravely chanted solidarity with the Egyptians bringing a swift response from no less than the 1Prime Minister himself that demonstrations ala Egypt/Tunisia will not, I repeat, sternly, NOT be allowed here. haha, what genius. Of course they won't allow demos that lead to revolution now, would they? But anyway I don't see much danger of that happening in staid old Malaysia. People here are simply too well-fed, too contented, too afraid, too complacent and generally too lazy to risk having their skulls cracked instigating for regime change. And judging from the performance of the hapless opposition in the last couple of by-elections, evolutionary change will probably be slow to come too.

But of more pressing concern now is whether food prices are going to sky-rocket this year. Petrol is going up for sure (well, at least the price of Ron 97 petrol will be reviewed at the end of every month), as are property prices. How anyone earning RM3,000-00 a month in the Klang valley is going to make ends meet especially if he has a family, a house loan and a car loan to service, is beyond me. And a government minister had sanguinely observed that RM3,000-00 would henceforth be recognised as the new threshold for the high income group. Hahaha, Really Datuk. I had no idea.

Delving into the Malaysian Chinese psyche

I turned the bottle of french table rouge upside-down and shook it like the contents of a milo drink-to-go before realising what i'd done. Anyway, too late. i uncorked the vino and we finished it within the hour - me, mostly, doing the honours. I haven't had rouge vino in quite a while now, so the feeling of drunkenness felt good.

Earlier yesterday (it's past midnight now as far as i can tell) i had lunch with the boss and a client and some bankers. the client was a fellow-countryman and he spoke candidly (as was his style i have come to appreciate) about how he makes his pile. Stocks and properties, he opined, were what made a man rich. You bought property in prime locales where tenants line up for letting, and no matter how expensive it was, you'd got yourself a winner. Or dividends from stocks. Which was pretty decent and honest of the towkay to share with us, i thought. And to think that before this i had thought him rude. It appears now that i'd been too sensitive.

Malaysian Chinese businessmen/entrepreneurs have gone a notch up in my ladder of respect, offically, as of today.


And i ain't lying.

Malaysia's Nuclear Conundrum

By 2022 when my daughter will be about 13 years old, Malaysia, barring a change of government or a reversal in policy (which isn't altogether improbable given our government's track record), will have built two 1,000 Megawatt nuclear power stations. Which state/s will play host/s to these babies is anybody's guess for now but the decision has been taken. Wind, hydro, solar power are too expensive, it seems. And somebody has to make sure that our ever-growing energy needs are met in the future. I'm opposed to nuclear power in principal but more to the point i'm more worried about whether we have the ability to maintain nuclear power plants. We're a laid-back people and generally speaking aren't too technologically-inclined notwithstanding the government's heroic efforts to drag us kicking and screaming into the industrial age (well, now we're into the post-industrial age so you have an idea of where we stand globally). Nuke plants under the supervision of advanced countries, nay, superpowers such as the United States and the old Soviet Union have had unfortunate incidents - the three mile island and chernobyl fiascos, respectively. And these are BIG countries. You can put many many Malaysias into either superpower state. And there is the million megawatt question of where to ship nuclear wastes, the waste products of generating nuclear power, to. Unlike some countries with realms far and wide spread all over the globe, we aren't blessed with great geographic spread at least not of the kind big enough to keep civilians well out of the range of a nuclear fall-out/dump. Maybe i am sounding a little pessimistic here. We can do this, they say. I sure hope they're right and i'm wrong.

Tambun Indah Land Berhad IPO

HO Ho HO tis the season to be jolly and to apply for promising new IPOs. On cue for listing on 18th of January in the year of our Lord 2011 is Tambun Indah Land Berhad at offer price to public of 70 sen per unit (par value at 50 sen each). After some initial hand-wringing, Yours Truly checked out the figures on the prospectus and from industry sources in the pearl of the orient i hear tell that this here is a promising little company indeed. It's a Penang-based property developer pretty famous in Penang and it has a low gearing ratio of 0.17 times currently (its prospectus says that its gearing ratio will be reduced to 0.12 times after listing by utilising some of the proceeds of its listing). Their future projects will probably be more on the mainland in seberang perai where land is cheaper and more plentiful than on the isle. They are also scouting around for suitable land in the Klang valley but nothing concrete there has come up yet, for now at least. Its price earnings ratio for 2007 is 6.76, for 2008 it's 5.63, for 2009 it's 5.54 and for 2010 (estimate) it's 9.99 respectively. Which is fairly respectable, given the downturn in economy of the last couple of years. They have of course, a 3-year preceding profit track record (proft after tax for 2007 is at RM19.558 million, for 2008 RM23.476 million, for 2009 RM23.764 million respectively) for main board listing on Bursa. They're projecting proceeds of around RM22million+ from this IPO. A few things conspire in favour of Tambun Indah's listing: it's an all-Malaysian company; it's board of directors are loan-averse (they like internally-generated funds to drive their expansion such as this IPO); they're well-known and established in penang; the stock market is currently on an uptrend and hungry for promising new companies; Malaysia which falls under the emerging economies' sphere of economic influence is reaping the rewards of being in the right place at the right time as are promising new companies coming up for listing on the bursa. Soooo...fingers crossed and hope to get some of the goodies this time. The closing date for Tambun Indah's IPO application is at 5pm, 6th January. Balloting is on 10/01/2011 and allotment is on 17/01/2011.

Post Blog Note: But having said all the above, Tambun's debut price was less impressive than some others. Eventhough Tambun was oversubscribed by over 18 times, it commanded a premium of slightly over 10sen only on listing day. This as compared to Benalec Bhd, a land reclamation outfit which listed at around the same time but commanded a premium of over 35 sen over its offer price of RM1-00 (on 20/01/2011 its premium has gone up to 47 sen). Perhaps the smaller property developers aren't that attractive to the market. So far all companies coming up for a listing after the New Year have enjoyed a premium over their offer price. So for now, almost ANY tom dick or harry IPO is a winner it seems.

Post Post Blog Note: Woaaah, Tambun has fallen to 68.5 sen today, that's BELOW its IPO offer price. What's up with that?