Monday 22 September 2008

LOOSE ENDS

I am already back in KL for good and it is already for more than a week now. What a hectic life. It started with getting the children to school immediately a day after touched down while staying in a hotel for almost a week. Followed by searching for a house to rent in a few different locations. Fighting with traffics. Getting lost on the road (this is the worst part). Setting up phone and utilities accounts. Fasting month. All in all I have lost more than 5 kg. Not bad at all.

Now for the loose ends.

1. September 16 Just Passed By

The famous 'Black-Eyed September' ten years ago is not being remembered at all. September 16, 2008 just passed without being noticed. The so called new government is not happening. His credibility is tarnished. Has he got the froggy MPs? Yes, I believe he got the names. But just the names. Has he got the signed declaration by these MPs? The answer is of course no. Has he got the signed declarations, he would have paraded them and rally in a big way to the parliament and the King. Now he is in a face saving mode. Plan number one, request the PM to convene parliament emergency sitting, to put forward the motion of no confidence to the PM himself. What a joke. Can you imagine the PM is calling the parliament's emergency sitting to remove himself.

Plan number two to go to the King. This is the biggest face saving tactic. Of course we can expect the King to advise him not to go ahead with his plan for sake of national interest. He will play this to his advantage. He will heed to the King's advise and will not to go ahead with his plan in the name of full respect to the King. His face is saved, hoping that nobody would notice.

Just wait and see.

2. The World's Financial Crisis

The new Finance Minister declared that the re-pegging of the Ringgit is not necessary at the moment. He added that the Malaysian economy is resilient and has a little exposure to the US subprime financial crisis. This is quite true due to the fact that Malaysian banks unllike Singapore, do not practice selling and re-selling over and over again the mortgage papers, letters of guarantee, junk bonds and a lot more financial derivatives which became cancerous to the US financial system (imagine selling and re-selling the same papers for so many times, it is just like a 'Pak Man Telo' or 'Labu Peram' get rich schemes) . Although worried of the domino effect to the Malaysian economy, Tun Mahathir must be laughing to the US right now because he had predicted the scenario much earlier, but nobody bother to listen to him.

Successful US technologies like Microsoft, HP and many more are buying back their stock in a big way. Microsoft is spending US$40 billions for this buyback scheme. Good for them as they are buying back their stock at the low price at present. They are actually protecting their interest. Successful Malaysian companies should do the same as their counters are traded so cheap in the KLSE. For those who has cash, I think this is the time to buy these oversold shares in the KLSE. Most good counters are traded more than 50% below their actual value.