Hazy rants

I've a bone to pick with the Indonesian government. Or rather, the lack of thereof. I'm talking about the haze which has become a yearly fixture for us here in south east asia and has worsened to become a serious health hazard. My father, a senior citizen of 75 years old, has been suffering from coughing fits for over a fortnight now. His doctor tells us that at least 4 other elderly patients have been admitted into the hospital Intensive Care Unit for haze-related acute respiratory problems. This isn't funny, if the Indonesian government continues to sit on its ass and do nothing while its peat land/jungles burn, then i propose that the matter be taken OUT of the Indonesian government's hands and into the international arena. They have had more than 10 years to deal with the fucking problem and they have utterly failed. They are making our lives miserable because they are too impotent or too corrupt to enforce the letter of the law and stop these burnings. Will Indonesia bear our medical bills? Fat chance. So screw them. If they're helpless to control what goes on in their land which has been causing us so much grief and anguish just because we are unfortunate enought to be their next door neighbours, then we, as victims of the Indonesian government's gross incompetence and mismanagement, have the right to take matters into our own hands. Sue their pants off in the International Court of Justice. Even if we get only a paper judgment, at least that's good enough, if only just to put on record that the Indonesian government is/can be held liable for its actions or omissions. I'm talking TORT their asses off. I'm fed-up and so is everyone else.

This Hari Raya

I just had a beautiful, satisfying dream. And it prompted me to wake up, log on and blog about something important that has been happening in the Arab world of late. Because what is happening in the Maghreb is of incalculable importance to the rest of the world, including us in Malaysia. If the events of the Arab Spring were to usher in a new era of fairness, justice, transparency and truly democratic, representative governments in a part of the world long mired in corruption, darkness and repression, then the Arabs who have succeeded where so many others have failed would now become as beacons of light to the rest of the world, including us in Malaysia. May God bless them and guide them in their hour of need.  

Say what you mean and mean what you say

Today I found a man who agrees with me on the meaning of this word: "stakeholder". Radzuan Halim, a former Merchant Banker who now teaches MBA and law students, puts it succinctly in the forum column of The Edge Malaysia weekly business paper for the week of August 15-21, 2011:

"Of late, we find people within a financial setting saying, 'We will ensure the rights of all stakeholders'. "Stakeholder" is actually a third party to whom parties taking a bet or making a purchase entrust their money or make a deposit.

Over time, the term has become wrongly associated with someone having an interest in a particular matter. Shareholders, employers, creditors, suppliers and taxman have "interests" in a company but should not be described as stakeholders in it.

The above diversion is intended to show, firstly, that inaccuracies often creep into word usage and, secondly, that meanings of words do change with time and given sufficient persistent usage, the "wrong" meaning can become accepted. I suspect "stakeholder", which had been wrongly applied to start with, is now accepted to mean an "interested party."

Thanks for setting the record straight, Radzuan. I have the same problem trying to reconcile what i know to be the definition of "stakeholder" with what has crept into common usage and popular understanding nowadays. I guess that if you repeat something often enough, what started off as a false premise could eventually be accepted to be the truth. That doesn't really gel too well with me but it does get down to that when push comes to shove. Adoi!

the Viet Cong picture

There is something strangely comforting about this photo which is supposed to shock and repulse ordinary folks but in my mind i've been in some situations when i feel like that viet cong and this photo captures the essence of such moments.

The protectionist threat

I've been getting a free ride lately as far as coming up with a reading list is concerned.

I read chartered accountant Andrew Sheng's column in the Star newspaper biz section every saturday and follow through on his recommended reads. His latest one is "The Next Convergence - the future of economic growth in a multispeed world" by nobel prize winner Michel Spence, professor of economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University. This excerpt which is taken from Part Four, Chapter 30, page 189 is noteworthy:

"The flow of knowledge, finance, and technology that underpins sustained high growth rates in emerging economies is closely linked to an open, rules-based, and globalized economy. Yet this global construct is coming under pressure in an environment in which advanced countries have stubbornly high unemployment and experience bouts of financial volatility. Growth  in the global economy comes to be seen as a zero-sum game, leading to suboptimal reactions.

As a result, the continued openess of industrial-country markets cannot be taken for granted. Political and policy narratives are becoming more domestic and narrow, while the international agenda and those voices advocating collective common global interests are having greater difficulty being heard."

In short, if the developed/industrialised nations decide to start slapping tariffs on imports and provoke a similar response from emerging market countries, this would be the start of a trade war and a lose-lose situation on all sides. What is truly scary is that the Doha round of trade talks which started in 2001 has been stalled for close to a decade now and the propects of WTO nations coming to a meeting of minds appear elusive. Unless Doha can somehow reach a conclusion and achieve a fresh consensus to strengthen the global free trade system, everyone's growth prospects will be jeopardised. So it's either Lose-lose or Win-win.

Aladdin

(Aladdin in the Magic Garden, an illustration by Max Liebert from Ludwig Fulda's Aladin und die Wunderlampe)

I didn't know until today that Aladdin was Chinese. I always thought that, well, Aladdin was Arab since you know, it's from an Arabian folktale, 1001 nights.



The World's coming second recession

The recent weak performance of equities and lack-lustre IPOs (other than crony companies that we all know of) have made me think twice about investing in the local bourse/equities. Consequently, i have put all my extra cash into boring old fixed deposits. What the hell, I figure that money in the bank/cash at hand is safer even though i would be suffering depreciation from negative real interest in light of the prevailing real inflation rate (the official inflation rate is a joke). The world economy looks very very shaky now and i fear that the shit will hit the fan not long now. China is slowing down, USA is going nowhere, Europe looks ripe for a big old shit-hits-the-fan scenario with the Euro's very existence under threat. I mean look, we never really got out of the Great Recession of 2008, we just printed money and drove up the prices of commodities and when growth didn't come, they (meaning the USA) printed more money. China continued chugging along, but by itself China won't hold up the rest of the world. It doesn't look pretty. So all i'm doing right now is watch as a by-stander and not invest in anything.